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Jak's Wild

A story commission by DoggyStyle57, for Bigchris369 Written July 2014

CH 3 :

Elita guided her small cargo ship to one of several pre-determined Jump points for outbound interstellar flights that were not using the Jump Gate. Before taking off, she had purchased a commercially prepared jump course from the starport, and registered it as part of her flight plan. It indicated that she was going to a star system only one parsec away, in the general direction of the galactic core. There was an independent shipyard in that system, and a space dock for refueling. It was a very reasonable destination for her, given her cargo of ship repair parts. The specific coordinates of this Jump point were pre-set in the course's data, and it had taken her ship nearly two days to get to this place, far enough from any planetary or stellar gravity wells to make a safe Jump, and clear of any official incoming traffic.

A fast courier passed within 300 Meters of her shortly before she got to the Jump point, but its crew didn't bother to communicate with her. She slowed slightly and did a visual check of the other ship with her scanners, so she could watch as the faster vessel reached the jump point and immediately vanished in a blur of light. She admired the powerful look of the other ship - built for speed in-system, and for making relatively short Jumps to nearby stars, though sacrificing cargo space and streamlining for the ability to gain that speed. It had probably taken that other ship less than a day to get to the Jump point. Yet while it would be nice to be able to shave a couple of days off the total trip time as she went from one star to the next, Elita preferred being able to carry a larger cargo and to refuel for free at a gas giant.

She wondered idly which of the nearby stars the other ship might be headed to. It could be going to the star that her flight plan said she was heading for. But there was no way for her to know, and it didn't really matter to her anyway, since that other ship could never reach the star she really intended to arrive at. After the other ship jumped, and just a few minutes before she arrived at the Jump point herself, she erased the purchased Jump course from her nav computer and replaced it a new one that she had crafted herself, on the way here. Only then did she engage her Jump drives.

===

Elita's ship came out of Jump in a star system that was almost_three_ parsecs away, and in a rimward direction. The star was a dim red dwarf, with three gas giants orbiting it. She carefully checked her scanners and communication console and verified her position, and what, if anything, might be nearby.

A few minutes later, the tiger girl said to the other occupant of the ship's cockpit, "Let's see... No other ships on the scanners, and no hyperwave traffic at all, other than an automated navigation satellite in orbit around the largest of the three gas giants. So far, so good. Catch some sleep or go eat if you like, Jak, while I skim that gas giant to refuel, and then get the ship ready for our next Jump. There'll be nothing for you to do for the next several days."

"No other ships at all?" the blue scaled Komodo dragon/crocodile hybrid asked. "Where the heck are we?"

"This is an uninhabited system. The star doesn't even have a name - just a catalog number," Elita replied. "It has no resources of any value, except as a refueling stop for ships with fuel scoops, on a possible route to a couple of farther rimward Jump destinations. This route isn't used by very many ships, because it takes a J3 or better ship to get here, and fuel scoops to refuel and go on from here."

"Backside of nowhere. Sounds like a great place to get mugged," Jak said as he left. "Call me when the mercenaries show up and start shooting at us. I half expected a firefight as we left that world, or as soon as we came out of Jump. I just can't believe that we got away clean."

"I don't think that we have. They're probably still hunting for us," Elita said, taking on a more serious expression. "But following a ship through Jump isn't as easy as you might think, and I'm not making it easy for them to track us down, either. When a ship Jumps, there is no way that I know of for someone in another ship to determine how far it went, or in what direction. Let's assume the worst. Let's say that they somehow knew it was my ship that they were looking for, out of the hundred or more that probably left that planet within a day or so after we dumped their ship there. Even if they bribed the port authority and got our exact flight plan and jump course, they would start by looking for us in the wrong star system, because I changed my Jump course just before I Jumped."

"I guess that makes sense. So they would have to search each possible destination? How hard would that be?" Jak asked.

"Pretty hard," Elita replied. "From where we started, there were five other stars that a ship as small as mine probably could have charted a course for, without using the Jump Gate. Three of those stars have space docks or starports to refuel at, and most small cargo ships like mine ships don't have fuel scoops. So they would probably look first in those three star systems, and would need to waste time questioning and bribing people at the starport to find out if our ship had passed through there. Then they might send ships out to stars like this one, that are possible routes because the star has at least one gas giant where a ship could refuel if they _did_have fuel scoops, and a long enough jump range. But with each hop that we make to another star, the possible paths we could have taken multiply."

"But what's to prevent them from simply sending messages ahead of us via hyperwave to all their other bases, telling them to watch for us?" Jak asked.

"Oh, they probably will send messages, one way or another, but not by hyperwave, for the most part. As long as we keep moving away from them as fast as is practical and spend as little time as possible on the Jump Gate travel routes, we'll outrun any messages they can send," Elita explained. "You see, a hyperwave signal allows nearly instantaneous communications anywhere within about 15 to 20 light hours of a typical star. Much better than an old fashioned radio or laser signal, that can only travel at the speed of light. But unlike radio or laser light signals, a hyperwave signal stops cold where that star's heliosphere ends. To send it further requires tunneling through a Jump effect. While a Jump gate is held open, it connects the two star's heliospheres, and a hyperwave signal can be sent from one star to the next. Radio or laser signals can also go through an open gate, for that matter. But it's insanely expensive to keep a Jump gate held open for more than a minute or two at a time, since it requires an enormous amount of power. So it's usually only very important government messages and very important news that gets sent that way. A ship making a jump on its own power is no good for that, because its Jump effect only lasts about a quarter of a second."

"Oh? I didn't know that," Jak said. "So how do normal messages get sent from one star to another?"

"Recorded messages get carried as cargo by spaceships. Express boats specialize in that sort of data service, Jumping from one star system to another along established routes, and transmitting their data via hyperwave to the starport or other local recipient as soon as they arrive, or to another express boat that will relay the message further. They don't even have maneuver drives. They have to be picked up by a tender and refueled, so they can be ready to fly out again with the next batch of fresh high-priority data," she explained patiently. "Fast couriers, like the one that passed us just before we jumped, carry both messages and small, high value cargoes like medicines, and can go to more out of the way places. They aren't as fast as the express boats, but they are faster than anything else, and don't require a tender at each stop. Of course, almost any_ship will gladly take message data as cargo to wherever they _already are planning on going, for a much smaller fee, since it cost them nothing in lift mass or cargo space. If you're on a frequently traveled route, or can afford the x-boat or courier service where it's available, it might only take a few days or weeks to get a message from one world to another. But we've already left the major routes, so with any luck it could take months or even years for information about us to reach any of the worlds along my intended course."

"Okay. Let's just hope you're right. But if they do catch up with us, ummmm, your ship doesn't have any weapons, does it? I didn't see any turrets or missile racks on it. I wouldn't want to fight an armed ship with just me standing on the hull in a space suit, armed with an energy rifle," Jack said.

"My ship doesn't have any weapons, no, because most of the worlds that I go to don't take kindly to civilians with armed ships. But if we do get attacked by another ship, I can fire off chaff shells or flares to try to evade an attack," she replied. "On the plus side, most inhabited star systems also don't take kindly to anyone other than their own police or military ships firing ship to ship or ship to ground weapons in their jurisdictions, even on most of the frontier worlds. So as long as we steer clear of a declared war zone, or an interdicted red zone, or the farthest edges of the Frontier worlds, any attacks on us are more likely to be made by ground forces with hand-carried or ground vehicle mounted weapons, like those mercenaries had on the world where I found you."

"That's more my style. I'd prefer facing an attack on the ground. At least I'd have a chance to fight back," Jak said.

===

Despite Jak's worries, the next week and a half was uneventful, and no hostile ships appeared. Most of the star systems they went through were uninhabited. Each actual Jump from one star to the next took very little time at all - less than a minute, usually. But then they had to travel for two days or so to get to a gas giant or starport to refuel, and then for another couple of days to get back out to a safe place to Jump out of the system. It gave him a new perspective on the phrase, 'Hurry up and wait', and he found it very frustrating.

He slept or read in his room most of that time, since there was really nothing constructive that he could do while they were in space. It also kept him from indulging in too many 'personal' thoughts about Elita, who had resumed going about her tasks without any clothing, once they were safely in space. She was always a pleasure to look at, but it was getting very hard for Jak not to approach her for more intimate reasons. He wondered fairly often if she was intentionally testing him or teasing him, to see if he would make a pass at her. Jak did find the tiger girl attractive, even though she was a hermaphrodite with both gender's genitalia below the waist. But he needed her as a pilot right now a lot more than he needed her as a lover, and he didn't want to risk complicating their relationship by adding a sexual element to it all.

For several days he only saw her at mealtimes, or heard her voice over the intercom a few times as she warned him that she was refueling or about to do another Jump. He learned quickly that he disliked being in the cockpit while she was skimming a gas giant's atmosphere to refuel. The swirling, often flaming whorls of gas outside the windows made him nauseous, and even though the ship's gravity system prevented him from feeling the turbulence, the way the view outside shifted and shook left no doubt that their passage through the atmosphere of the giant worlds was a rough and bouncy ride.

After their third Jump and refueling session, Elita's voice came from the ship's intercom system.

"Get dressed and come to the bridge, Jak. Before we leave this star system, I'm going to try to sell my cargo. We'll be landing in less than twenty minutes, and I would appreciate your help," she said.

"All right. Be right there," he replied, as he set the data tablet aside and put on some fresh clothes before going to meet her.

===

When Jak entered the cockpit, he wasn't sure if he should be relieved or disappointed when he saw that Elita had put her bodysuit back on. He sat at the comm station and looked out the windows as they pierced the planet's cloud cover and touched down in a bleak brown desert landscape, with no buildings or roads in sight. Then he looked back at the girl questioningly and asked, "We'll find buyers for your cargo here? I don't see anything out there but sand and sun baked rocks."

"The buyer will meet us here, yes," she replied, checking the ship's scanners. "I contacted them via hyperwave on our way in, while you were getting dressed, and encrypted the sensitive data. I have a blip on the scanners, to our port side, about three kilometers out and heading this way. Transponder matches what I was told to expect, and I don't see any other ships or vehicles close enough to worry about. Still, while I make this deal, I'd appreciate you standing in the cargo bay with an energy rifle at the ready, just in case."

"That I can do easily enough. It will be nice to feel useful again," he replied. "But why bother to make the sale out here in the badlands, or to have me armed and looking threatening? Aren't you officially just carrying a legal cargo of ship repair parts?" Jak asked.

Elita grinned, and replied, "Oh, the ship repair parts aren't illegal at all. We're evading the starport's import tax, though. They probably won't try to stop us from making this unauthorized deal, but I want you there and armed, just in case. The main reason for doing the deed out here though is that eventually those mercenaries will probably come here looking for us, and the less we can show up in an official starport log in this sector, the better."

"All right. So... This buyer - it's someone you trust?" Jak asked.

"As much as I trust most people, yeah. He's bought from me twice before, and paid fairly for what I had to sell. He's mostly legitimate. He won't buy goods unless the cargo manifest at least seems to show it was legitimately purchased. But if he can save some money by skipping the port tax, he makes more profit, and can keep his prices lower."

===

Jak watched from the cargo bay door, leaning idly against it with an energy rifle at the ready while Elita did her business deal. He wore a black hoodie and a dust mask over his face, so no one would be likely to recognize him. Not that it mattered. The buyer was a fennec fox who didn't even give Jak a second look. He carefully looked over the manifests, inspected the seals on the cargo containers, and then offered Elita several dozen very large wooden crates that she did a visual inspection on, opening each crate and re-sealing it before agreeing to the deal. Then the fox loaded Elita's two shipping containers onto his grav truck, and Elita got Jak to help her with loading her new crates into her cargo bay.

"So... Make a good profit?" Jak asked, after the buyer left and as he and Elita brought in the last crate.

"I should, once I sell what he traded for that stuff," she said. "He offered me some raw materials that they produce on this world - things that sell quite well on most other worlds. Metal alloys and ceramics, and some chemicals which are hard to get anywhere else in this quadrant. It's more bulky than the repair parts, but about the same lift mass. And raw materials aren't traceable, the way manufactured engine parts are."

"And I suppose you know just where to sell this new batch of stuff?" Jak asked.

"Yep. Now strap in, and we'll be on our way," Elita said.

===

Two Jumps and nearly eight days later, they arrived at a star in the Frontier worlds, and Elita set down in a clearing in a wooded area near a small city. They walked into the town at about sunset. Elita had chosen to wear a simple skirt and blouse and a loose hooded cloak, and Jak followed her lead, dressing in cargo shorts and a t-shirt, with a similar hooded cloak. They each had an energy pistol on their belt, at the small of their backs and hidden by their cloaks.

To Jak, the town looked like something from a historical docu-drama. Most of the native population here seemed to either walk or use animal-powered transportation. The lights by the doors of the buildings they passed all had actual flames in them - presumably oil lamps or candle lamps. And yet he also saw someone lounging outside a general store reading a modern datapad with a holographic display.

"Okay, this looks even less promising than the desert world, two Jumps back," he said. "It looks to me like most of these guys could only pay for your new cargo with livestock and vegetables."

"You'd be right about that, for most of them," she said. "Almost all of them live by growing food crops and animals, and selling the excess to other worlds, in exchange for the few technological things and medicines that they really need and can't make here. They do have some modern conveniences, like a limited amount of electricity to recharge a datapad or to power a computer, or to operate a central hyperwave transceiver in the town's main offices. But if there's a way to do something that they need that doesn't require the expensive technology that they have to import from other worlds, like using oil from local plants and animal products for their lighting or heating, most of them prefer to do things the old way."

"Okay, I guess that makes sense, but what can a bunch of farmers do for us?" Jak asked.

"I'll sell the new cargo elsewhere, unless the people we meet here happen to be interested in some of it as trade goods. We landed here to buy something, not to sell what we are hauling. Frontier worlds are also a good place for people to hole up if they don't want a lot of attention being paid to their past lives or current activities. The locals won't report any offworlders that don't make a nuisance of themselves. We could hide out here ourselves, but I think it's still too close to where we caused trouble for this to be a safe refuge for us in the long term. Doc told me that there is a guy here that could probably provide you with some new identity documents, no questions asked. He also gave me the name of a local informant who should be able to set up a meet with that forger," she replied, leading him down the main street of the town, and looking curiously at the signs on the storefronts as they passed. "Just stay close, and remember, these people aren't anywhere near as backwards or as harmless as they like to appear."

===

"We'll try this place next," Elita said almost an hour later, after getting blank looks and no helpful information from the people she talked to at several bars and somewhat seedy looking businesses. She led Jak into yet another bar and restaurant, and he wondered if she really knew what she was doing. There were about half a dozen others at the bar, and a similar number of people in booths or at tables. Two grey-furred wolf girls in revealing clothes were serving the food and drinks, while a large brown bear manned the bar.

Elita stepped up to the bar and asked, "May we have two mugs of ale, please?"

The bear looked them over and said, "Sure. Need anything else? Dinner special is steak with turnip hash."

Elita smiled at him and asked, "We'll think about dinner later. But first, maybe you could help us to find someone? Have you ever heard of a man named Felrasa?"

"Hummm. Doesn't sound familiar, no. But my memory isn't what it used to be. Let me think about that," the bear replied, as he stepped aside to pour their drinks.

"Pay your bill now, please," he said when he returned, setting the mugs on the bar and handing Elita a thoroughly modern datpad. It showed the amount needed for the drinks, but he was very deliberately tapping his finger beside the place to enter a tip.

Elita nodded and entered a tip that was more than twenty times what the drinks had cost, inserted her credstick in the appropriate slot on the pad, paid the bill and removed her credstick, and then handed the pad back. "Thank you. Does that help you to recall the name, and where we might find him?"

"Try talking to the dark-furred husky in the corner booth. He might know something useful to you," the barkeep said, after glancing at the bribe he had been given. "Just do me a favor, and keep it civil in here. We don't need any trouble in my place."

"But of course!" Elita said with a grin. "I don't want any trouble either. Bye."

She took her mug of ale in her left hand and then she walked over to the Siberian husky and asked, "May we join you for a moment, sir?"

Jak picked up his ale and followed her, but kept a wary eye on the bartender, who returned the favor by staring icily back at Jak.

The husky in his early twenties, and had mostly black fur, with grey paws and facial fur. He was wearing dark blue jeans, a white tank top, and a black hoodie with a leather jacket over it. Both the jacket and the hoodie had rather loose sleeves, and there was some sort of metal cuff around his right wrist. He looked over at the barkeep, who nodded and moved one hand below the bar. Then he looked back at Elita and Jak and said, "I'm quite sure we've never met. I couldn't forget such a... unique couple. What can I do for you?"

"We're looking for someone. His name is Felrasa. Can you help us?" Elita asked.

"And why would you want to meet that scoundrel? He's quite dangerous, you know," the husky said. "The last several people who tried to collect the bounty on him failed, and were never seen again. You two don't look like bounty hunters, though. Are you?"

"No. We're not here to fight him, or to collect anyone's bounty. Can you tell us where to find him, or not?" Elita replied, as she drummed her metal fingers on the table impatiently.

Felrasa gently reached out with his right hand, took Elita's hand in his, and looked closely at her metal hand and wrist. "May I? Interesting cybernetics, Miss. Do you work for the corporation that made them, perhaps?"

"No. I'm an independent cargo ship captain. I don't work for any corporation," Elita insisted. "I was badly injured in a war as a child, and a doctor found me and was kind enough to fix me up."

The husky looked over Elita's shoulder to a cloaked mixed-breed domestic feline girl in her early 20's who was quietly standing nearby. The girl's eyes were pale green, and her shoulder length hair was cream colored and in a layered shag cut, with rough bangs. "Well?" he asked the other girl.

She smiled and said, "She speaks truth. They are anxious, but not hostile. She doesn't work for them, and I think they both have reasons to hate that corporation."

"How the hell could you know that?" Jak asked, scowling. "Are you some sort of telepath?"

"No, I can't read minds. But I do know how to use a medical scanner," was the feline girl's reply, as she smiled and opened her cloak a little to show the compact device in her gloved left hand. She spoke rapidly, saying, "I've been scanning you both. If she was lying, her heart rate would increase, and there would be other changes in the scanner's readouts. It makes a reasonable lie detector, if you know how to read the results well enough."

"Oh," Jak said, though he wondered how the girl could have read the scanner's display with it hidden under her cloak like that.

"Thank you, Nekonya," the husky said, then he looked back at Elita and said, "I'm Felrasa, and that's my girlfriend who just vouched for you. So, would this be business, pleasure, or both?' he asked, as he smiled at Elita and looked questioningly at Jak.

"Business," Elita replied, glancing around to see who else might be able to hear them. "Ummmm, the doctor that patched me up said we should look for you, if we could get here. My friend here really needs a change in his life, and we were told you might know someone who could... make a new man out of him, so to speak. Can you assist us? We're willing to pay well for the right sort of information and services, and for a certain amount of discretion."

"A doctor sent you, you say? Yes, very interesting. I may be able to help you, yes. But not here. Too public. Would you both be so kind as to come with me to a more private room? Oh, Nekonya? Bring us a pitcher of wine, will you? Can't have our new friends drinking that awful bear piss that Alphonse passes off as ale on unsuspecting travelers," he said.

The husky gestured to a door at the back of the saloon. Then he grinned at Elita and said in a stage whisper that everyone including the barkeep could hear, "Believe me, you _really_don't want to drink that ale. Bad stuff. Just leave it here on the table."

Jak left his drink behind and looked inside the offered room, then nodded for Elita to follow the husky and himself in. The small room had no other doors and no windows. There was a table in the middle of the room and six chairs. "I'll stand by the door, if you don't mind," he said to the husky as Elita stepped past him and sat down. Nekonya soon joined them with the wine, closing the door behind her.

"As you wish," Felrasa replied, taking a seat and accepting a glass of wine that Nekonya poured from a glass pitcher. He took a sip as she poured two more glasses, and then said, "We will all drink from the same pitcher, so you know that there's nothing in the wine. Unlike Alphonse's ale, which he drugged when you asked about me. If it seemed to us that you were working for the corporation that made those pretty arms of yours, or were wishing us harm, I would have let you both drink your ale, and you might well have never awakened. But Nekonya and I also owe a favor or two to a certain Doctor, and he's one of the only people who knows where we are and who also does cybernetic work like you're wearing. Now, you may speak freely in front of my girlfriend. Did you need one set of identity credentials, or two? And how soon?"

"Two," Jak insisted, ignoring the offered wine. "She should get a set as well."

"I'm not that sure I need a new identity, but definitely one for him, and as soon as possible," Elita said, as she shrugged off her cloak, baring both of her arms. "Doc didn't tell me how he knew you. Just that if we could get here, you might be able to help us. How do you know him?"

"I was once an unwilling 'guest' of the corporation he works for. Nekonya worked in that lab, and didn't like what they were doing to us. Your Doctor friend helped her to cover our tracks, when she helped me to escape. I owe them both my freedom, and quite possibly my life," Felrasa replied.

Nekonya was hovering behind the husky, standing near him but fidgeting as if hyperactive. She stared at Elita's arms and asked, "Excuse me? How much of you is... not flesh? Did _they_make you too?"

"Make me?" Elita asked. "No. Why would you ask if anyone made me?"

"Oh. Sorry. I thought... I thought you were a... prototype. Or just... unfinished. That you were... like me," Nekonya said. She slowly took off her gloves and showed Elita her hands, which looked fairly real, and even had downy white fur covering them, but had obvious artificial joints. On the backs of each of her white furred hands was a red cross. "See? Your arms don't have fur, but they are artificial, like mine. But all of me is artificial. They... made me."

"Nekonya is an android," Felrasa explained. "But her mind started out as a copy of the mind of a very normal, naturally-born feline girl. They designed her to be a medical lab assistant, but also to, well, provide comfort and sexual pleasure to her patients and to the medical lab staff members. Her body is 'fully functional', in that she can mate just like any female can, and provide intense pleasure, and can fully enjoy the act herself, though she can't, of course, bear young. She has all the same mental and emotional responses as the real girl that they imaged her mind from. She knows she is an artificial intelligence, but she feels and acts as real as anyone else. As far as I am concerned, she _is_as real as anyone else. She's become my mate."

"Oh... No, just my arms and my eye are artificial," Elita replied. "Sorry. For what it's worth, I can accept you as being just as much a real person as Jak or myself. "

"How about you two? Why does he need a new identity? Did he also escape from one of their labs?" Felrasa asked.

"I have partial amnesia, and no identity that I can prove. Apparently I was in their labs for a while, but I don't know how long, or exactly what they did to me. The Doctor got me out but had to dump me on a very hostile world that the corp still controlled. He sent Elita there to get me away from them," Jak said. "We're not exactly sure why, but they want to kill me. And they probably won't be gentle with Elita if they catch her, because of what she's done so far to help me. If we can afford it, I still think a second new identity for her might be a good idea."

"Are you lovers too?" Nekonya asked innocently, smiling as Jak showed concern for the tiger girl.

"What? Ahhh, no... we... we haven't... I've never even had a lover yet," Elita replied, blushing.

"Been too busy running to get mushy," Jak said. "But, ummmm, I do owe her my life, and we're becoming friends, I hope."

"Don't mind her," Felrasa said, hugging Nekonya's waist and nuzzling one of her large breasts. "She's very romantic and thinks everyone should have a good mate."

"Errrr, no offense taken," Elita said. "So... what do we do next?"

"I don't make the ID's myself, but I do know a guy I can set you up with. You two have someplace to stay?" Felrasa asked.

"Yes, we do," Elita replied.

"Good. It may take a day or two to make the arrangements, and a few more after that to get the identicards and supporting data made up and sent out. Good work takes time, and this guy is a true artist. Come back here for dinner the next two nights. I'll let you know when the meet's been set up."

===

Jak and Elita got their dinner there, and then returned to their ship to wait.

"Interesting couple," Jak said, as they got back to the ship. "I noticed that Felrasa didn't tell us much about himself, or why the Corporation had him in their labs. But maybe he's in the same situation I am, and can't really remember his past?"

"No, I think he just doesn't talk about himself much to strangers. You still don't remember anything?" Elita asked.

"Nothing I can say for sure was one of my own memories, no," Jak admitted. "It's as if they wiped my mind clean and re-wrote it. Or at least most of it."

"Maybe they did," Elita said. "The Doc mentioned that some of the lab subjects were not volunteers. But all the ones they 'finished with' were loyal, obedient soldiers - brutes with no conscience or remorse, who would follow any order, no matter what. I can't imagine how they could take a normal person and twist them like that, unless they started with sociopathic criminals, or wiped their minds out completely. You're not like that, though. I guess the doc prevented them from loading the brutal, obey every order bullcrap into your skull. I think you're still a decent guy."

"Maybe. But all that I seem to know is stuff a soldier should know. I have memories and physical skills for how to use or make all sorts of weapons. I can kill with a weapon or with just my claws and teeth. I know some survival skills. Stuff like that," Jak said. "You haven't really seen me fight yet. I'm not a nice person when I get into a fight."

"Neither am I. Good night," Elita said, as she closed her door.

===

After dinner the next night, Felrasa and Nekonya met them and took them through several back alleys to an unmarked door in the back of what looked like a laundry. The door led straight to a set of stairs down to the basement level. At the bottom of the stairs was a narrow doorway and beyond that, a small room with a desk that had three chairs on their side, and one chair on the far side. A black furred ferret sat behind the desk, looking at a computer screen. Mirrored sunglasses covered his eyes, and he wore a bandanna covering his muzzle like a mask. Two oil lamps on the desk had reflectors behind them, tilted toward the door to illuminate Jak, Elita and Felrassa quite well, while leaving the ferret in shadows, illuminated almost solely by the blue-tinted glow of his screen.

Felrasa went in first, and said, "This is Ace. He can get you what you need, if you can pay for it. Ace? These are the two I talked to you about."

Jak went in next, with Elita and Nekonya following. As soon as Elita passed through the doorway, the Ferret held up a hand and said, "I will warn you only once. There are at least five weapons aimed at you. If you power up or draw any weapon, they will fire first. You will not survive, regardless of what you do to me. Do we have an understanding?"

"Not here to fight, but if a weapon goes off from your side, I can bite you in half before you can hope to take me out," Jak said, grinning and baring his teeth as he sat casually in one of the chairs. "I think we understand each other well enough. All we want is new identity papers, particularly for me, and preferably for the tiger girl too. How much?"

"That depends on the identity you need to assume, of course," the Ferret said, completely unflustered by Jak's counter threat. "An identity that can be cross-checked and validated under the most careful scrutiny is much more expensive than one that would only pass a rudimentary check of the document presented to an individual. Do the new identities need to fit in somewhere in particular, or require a security clearance? You see? There is so much more to it than just a name and an identicard and a datachip, these days. What sort of identities do you require?"

"My friend is our main concern, because he has no identity documents at all. He could do all right with any ID that isn't going to make him a target in the Frontier worlds. If we get a set for me, then I should have a pilot's certification, class C2. Merchant captain, working in the frontier. No particular social standing or preference for planet of origin. Just a cargo hauler," Elita said. "I'm fairly certain that we don't need to change our appearances. As far as I know, no one has a visual description for us at this point. This is more of a precaution. We need to be able to show that we belong somewhere... neutral?"

"I see. Now, you don't have to answer if you prefer not to, but if there is someone or some faction in particular that you are hiding from, telling me who it is would_make it easier to make an identity that will work if that person or faction checks up on you," The ferret said. "It would be so _terribly embarrassing if I said you worked in the Quarnarian space navy, if that very fleet had a warrant out for your arrest."

"No government entanglements or warrants to worry about. It's a... private dispute, which may or may not come up," Elita said.

"I see. And how do you propose to pay, provided I can do this for you?" the ferret asked.

"Depends on how much you're charging. Dominion Credits, on an anonymous credstick? Energy weapons? Drugs? Or perhaps you'd like a cargo of untraceable raw materials for manufacturing?" Elita offered.

They haggled over the price for several minutes, with Elita checking a datapad and describing a list of goods that they could offer in trade, other than the Credits. They eventually settled on four energy rifles, eight power packs, most of their stolen drugs and medicines, and what seemed to Jak to be a preposterously large amount of Dominion Credits, in exchange for new identity documents for both of them.

"Payment in advance, within one day cycle, and at that time I need to take holographic images, retinal scans, and other identifying parametric data for both of you. I'll have the necessary items done within two days after that," Ace said. "The exact details of your new lives will depend on what I can find to connect you to, and how I can interleave the false documents and records with real ones, but the result should check clean in most cases."

"Done. We can be back here in less than an hour with the payment," Elita said.

"Very well, but not here. Felrasa? We will continue at location C7. Goodbye," Ace said. And then he simply seemed to cease to exist.

"What the fuck! Where's the bastard go?" Jak exclaimed.

"He was never here. You were negotiating with a hologram," Felrasa said with a chuckle. "Ace is a cautious bastard. Hasn't trusted anyone new for a face to face meeting since a new 'customer' blew his legs off with a fragmentation grenade. But he'll do what you need. Let's get your payment to the next meeting."

===

Felrasa and Nekonya waited for them at the edge of town while Elita and Jak went back to their ship and got a duffle bag loaded with their payment for the forger. When they returned, the couple led them to the back of an animal barn, where they dropped the duffle in the back of a wagon that was ready to go and already loaded with a variety of household supplies. The old fox that drove the wagon didn't look back when the duffel was added to his wagon. He just got his two feral horses moving as soon as Felrasa slapped the side of the primitive vehicle.

"Ace will have that stuff in a few minutes. Come on in here and we'll get set up so he can get the data he needs to make your new identities," Felrasa said.

Nekonya stayed by the door of the barn as a lookout, while the husky led Elita and Jak to a storage room in the back of the barn, opened a battered footlocker trunk that was in the middle of the room, and set up a remotely controllable holographic camera on a tripod and a background screen, as well as a retinal scanner and several other devices. Just as he finished setting the equipment up, a projector came to life and Ace seemed to appear behind a desk that was near one wall. He was examining one of the energy rifles, and seemed satisfied as he set it aside.

"Good quality gear. Should fetch a good price on the black market. We will do the male first. Felrasa knows where to position you. I will run the equipment from here," Ace said.

It took him nearly an hour to collect the images and data that he needed. When he was done, he said, "It will take two days to create what you need, and of course it will take some time for the data to propagate off-world. So if you leave the area too fast, you may outrun the presence of your new names and credentials. But within a month, even the records on the Dominion home world will agree that your new identities are legitimate. I take great pride in my work, and I am quite sure you will be satisfied." His image winked out again.

Felrasa packed the gear back into the trunk and said, "After we leave, someone will pick this stuff up and move it somewhere else. There won't be any trace here that we did this. Same goes for where you met him the first time. If you went back there now, it would just be an empty room."

"Works for me," Jak said. "So, we see you again in two days? Where?"

"Look for us at the far edge of town from where I met you this last time. The main street runs east to west. I met you on the east end just now, so just keep going to the other end of town, and you'll find me at the west end. About sunset should be right," the husky said.

===

For the next two days, Jak and Elita remained in her ship, with Elita nervously watching the ship's scanners and listening to the communications console.

"Can't tell as well from here on the ground as I could from orbit, but I don't _think_any other ships have landed here since we arrived. That's normal for a backwater like this world, and it's a good sign for us, I hope. Should mean that no one has come here looking for us yet," Elita said.

"Unless they got here first," Jak said. "What are the odds of that?"

"I honestly don't know," Elita admitted. "There_are_ ships that could get here faster than we did. But they would have to have a pretty solid idea of what route we were taking, for them to be able to complete the same trip with longer Jumps and fewer stops."

"So we're safe, so far?" Jak asked.

"I hope so," Elita replied. "I just want to get off this rock and moving again. The longer we stay here, the more likely it is that they could catch up with us."

===

As sunset of the second day approached, Elita raised her ship to treetop level and moved it to the other side of the city. If things went sour, she didn't want to come all the way back through the town. Once the ship was secure in a different clearing, she pre-set a departure course, and then they left to meet Felrasa and Nekonya.

The husky and his girlfriend were waiting by the side of the road, and Felrasa was casually throwing knives into the trunk of a tree. His aim was remarkably good. Each of the six small, black knives landed within a finger's width from the one before, and embedded rather deeply into the wood.

"Your order is ready. Follow me," Felrasa said, retrieving his blades, turning, and quickly heading down a trail that branched off from the road. The trail skirted the edge of the town, and led to a small shanty cabin on the south edge. "This is where we should get your package," he said, as he let them in through an unlocked back door.

"Why didn't Ace just give you the package to give to me?" Elita asked, as they followed him inside. The two room shack was empty, as far as she could tell, but there were lots of signs that the place had recently been occupied, such as a tea kettle on the wood stove that was still gently steaming, and the fact that the fire in the stove was carefully banked. "And where are the people that live here?"

"They couple that lives here were paid to go get dinner in town and remain there for a while. And we do it this way because Ace doesn't trust me quite that much," Felrasa said with a shrug. "Ace will have a lock box somewhere in here, and he'll tell us exactly where to look and he'll unlock it remotely when he sees you're both there with me. My fee as go-between will be in the box too. See, I get paid only _after_you've made sure you got what you paid for. There should be a projector box in the bedroom."

They found the box in the bedroom, which was the only other room in the shack, as well as a locked metal box beside it on the bed. Felrasa tapped a code into the pad on top of the projector, and Ace's image appeared. He seemed to be seated just on the far side of the bed.

The ferret pressed several buttons on a handheld keypad, and the box on the bed unlatched, though the lid remained closed. "There you are," was all that he said.

The husky's ears twitched as he heard Ace speak. He had never known him to be so sparse with his words. "Is everything all right Ace?" Felrasa asked.

"No," was all that the ferret managed to say, before half his head vanished in the blast of a powerful energy weapon beam. His lifeless body slumped over sideways just before the projector shut off and a cloud of noxious yellow gas exploded from the lock box on the bed.

"CRAP!" Felrasa shouted, as he dove for the door. "GAS! GET OUT, QUICK!"

Jak tried to run, but his legs wouldn't obey him. He blacked out as he stumbled from the room, tripping over Elita and Felrasa, who were already unconscious, and collapsing in a heap on the floor.

Nekonya could hear shouting outside, and saw several armed men approaching the shanty. She quickly checked her medical scanner and verified that the gas was merely a non-toxic anesthetic, and then collapsed on the floor beside the others, pretending to also have fallen victim to the trap. She knew she was no fighter, and hoped that if whoever had set this trap used a knock-out gas, they must want them alive, and that they would be kept alive long enough for her to help them to escape.

===

"So, we followed them through five Jumps for this lot? What a waste! That ferret was just a has-been forger. Claimed he knew nothing about the tiger girl and the lizard guy, and very little about the husky guy and the other feline girl, even though those two both worked for him," grumbled one gruff male voice, as Nekonya felt her arms and legs being tied, and a heavy collar snapped shut around her neck.

"Well, he might have told us more if you hadn't blown his fucking head off!" said a second voice. "The Commander wants us to wait until he can join us, so he can question them personally. He needs them alive until he's done interrogating them. After that, you can kill them."

Strong hands lifted Nekonya from the floor, carried her a short distance, and dumped her roughly on the floor again. Several minutes later she heard a door latch click, risked a quick peek, and saw that Jak, Elita and Felrasa were also bound, and that she and her three companions had been locked in a nearly empty closet that was barely big enough to contain them. The other three were all out cold, though Jak seemed to be twitching a little, as if his body was trying to fight off the effects of the gas.

===

"Where the fuck is the Commander?" the first voice said, muted only slightly by the door.

"Off in the woods, looking for their ship. He and Bruno went to recover the 'flea flicker' that our boys attached to its hull, just before their first jump," the second voice said. "Clever gizmo, that, but expensive. That's what made it so easy to follow these saps. It hacked their nav system almost as soon as it attached to their hull. Then, just before each time that they went into Jump, it left behind a 'flea' - a data recorder the size of your finger, with their jump course data on it. All we had to do was pick up the 'fleas' along the way, and follow their jump course."

"Yeah, whatever. I gotta go piss. You watch the prisoners," the first voice said.

===

"Wake up! Oh, please, please wake up!" a female voice whispered into Jak's ear. "Please! Before it's too late!"

He opened his eyes and saw Nekonya to his right, laying on her belly and tied with rope with her wrists behind her back, and her knees and ankles tied together, and with a thick leather and metal collar around her neck. Elita and Felrasa were in front of him, on their sides and unconscious, and both of them as well as Jak were bound and collared in a similar way, although for some reason Felrasa's wrists were tied to his neck, so the back of his right wrist was wedged against the underside of his jaw. They were in a very small room, probably a closet. Light filtered into the small room through louvered slats in the metal door, but gave them no way to see into the room beyond the door.

"What happened?" Jak asked, still feeling sleepy and confused.

"Keep your voice down. I think there is at least one guard in the next room," Nekonya replied. "There was an anesthetic gas grenade in the lock box. Knocked you three out, almost immediately. Didn't affect me. But I'm not much good in a fight, so I pretended to fall asleep too, so I could try to help. But they tied us up, and I can't get loose! I listened to them while they put us here. The collars are shock collars. If they come back, they can use them to incapacitate or torture us."

"Wonderful... What else did you learn? Anything useful?" Jak asked.

"They sound like mercenaries or soldiers - probably the people you've been running from. They attached some sort of tracking device that they called a 'flea flicker' onto the hull of your friend's ship, five jumps ago. Apparently, every time your ship Jumps, it leaves behind a tiny data recorder that tells them your Jump course to the next star, once they retrieve it," Nekonya said. "They killed Ace. They are waiting for someone to come before they interrogate and kill us all. You look strong. Can you get loose?"

"I think I can snap these ropes, yeah. Any idea what happens if I try to take the shock collar off?" Jak asked, as he tested the ropes binding his wrists, and felt them give a little.

"I saw similar collars in the labs. If you tug too hard on it or try to tamper with it, the collar will give you a very painful shock - strong enough to stun a Berserker. Keep getting shocked for too long and it could kill any of us - even me. The only safe way to remove it is to get the control box that our captors have, and disarm and unlock the collars first," Nekonya said sadly.

"I'll risk trying to remove mine, since it looks like they plan to kill us anyway, if I do nothing. I'm pretty hard to kill," Jak said. He flexed the muscles of his arms and with a certain amount of effort managed to snap the rope binding his wrists. Once his hands were free, he untied everyone else, but found he couldn't awaken Felrasa or Elita.

"Damn. They're both still out like a light. Well, I guess it's up to me. Here goes..." Jak said. He grabbed his collar with both hands, and tried to tear it apart. His effort immediately resulted in a shock that was painful enough to temporarily blind him, but he screamed and pushed past the pain until the collar's latch snapped and came free, still sparking and arcing across six pairs of contacts on the inner surface, like a ring of six tasers that had been pointed at his neck.

The closet door almost immediately opened, and a bear in a mercenary's uniform looked in, holding a small remote control box in his left hand and an energy pistol in his right. When he saw Jak was loose, he pushed the button on the remote, and Elita, Felrasa and Nekonya all screamed and twitched in pain.

Jak lunged forward and slapped his torn off collar straight up into the bear's crotch, and knocked the gun from his opponent's hand as the guy screamed in pain from being electro shocked in the balls. The remote fell from his other hand as Jak broke the guy's neck with an uppercut, and kicked him out into the next room.

A second mercenary came into the next room, still zipping up his pants, and tried to shoot Jak with an energy pistol. But the wolf wasn't fast enough.

Jak knocked the wolf's gun hand aside, grabbed his wrist and twisted the arm, then broke the arm with a vicious blow from his other hand. He grabbed the wolf in a bear hug, cracking several ribs, and then tore his throat out with his teeth. Jak cast the corpse aside and spun in place looking for more attackers, but there were none in sight.

He realized he was still in the bedroom of the shanty cabin, and that their cloaks, pistols, and Felrasa's throwing knives were on the bed. Jak gathered them up and went back to his companions.

Elita and Felrasa were awake now, though shaking with pain from the shocks they had received. Nekonya mewled in fear, backed herself into the farthest corner, and hid her face as Jak came in, covered in blood.

"What? They were going to kill us!" Jak said. "Help me with our friends."

Jak and Nekonya told Felrasa and Elita what they had learned, as the other pair struggled to regain control of their bodies. Jak found the remote for the collars and released everyone else, before crushing the control box in his fist.

"W-what do we do now? They know where your ship is, and who Felrasa and I are. It isn't safe to stay here, but we've nowhere to go," Nekonya said, sitting on the floor and clutching her knees to her chest.

"Maybe not. I moved the ship just before we came here. So they may be looking for it on the wrong side of town," Elita said. "If we move fast, we can use my ship to get away."

"But they'll follow us! They have that tracker thing on your ship!" Nekonya objected.

"I think I know what to do about that, too. Do you two want to come with us, or not?" Elita asked.

"We'll go with you," Felrasa said, as he lifted the android girl to her feet and held her close, brushing a hand through her hair. "I'm sorry, Nekonya, but we'll have to abandon everything and go with these two, now. If they found Ace, they probably also have someone watching our home. We can replace our things, but I can't risk losing you."

"As long as we're together, nothing else matters. Let's go," Nekonya replied, returning his hug and putting on her cloak.

===

They ran down the forest trail, encountering only one more mercenary on the way. Felrasa saw that one before he saw them, and had everyone wait as he faded into the underbrush. A moment later the mercenary died almost silently, as Felrasa punched him from behind in the back, and severed his spine with a seven inch long blade that extended from his wrist cuff.

When they got to Elita's ship, she looked it over carefully, and found a dinner plate sized disc attached magnetically to the underside of her ship's hull. "Ah hah! Here's their tracker. They must have fired it at us as they passed us near the jump point. I see six launch tubes here, so it looks like it only has one more data recorder left. That must be why they decided to show their hand and catch us here."

She pried the device off the hull with some help from Jak, and slipped the remaining data recorder out of the launch tube, before blasting the main unit to bits with her energy pistol. She looked the finger sized data recorder over and smiled. "Clever. Just a standard data stick, with a very simple passive hyperwave homing beacon attached to it. Looks like the tracker just used compressed gas to kick it away from the ship before a Jump, so this tiny, nearly inert gadget would be harder to detect. After we made each jump, all they would need to do is send the right signal from anywhere in the same star system that we had just left, and this gadget would start making a homing signal, so they could collect it, read the data, and follow us. Well, now we can make this traitor work for us! Let's go!"

===

Elita's ship took off from the planet at the ship's maximum acceleration, heading away directly to the closest standard jump point. As soon as they were out of the atmosphere, Elita set the controls on auto pilot and told Jak, "Watch the scanners, and let me know when they start chasing us, and especially if they seem to be faster than we are and catching up with us. I need to reprogram this gadget," she said, plugging the data recorder from the 'flea flicker' into her ship's auxiliary computer console.

Several tense minutes later, Jak said, "I see a ship lifting off. Just a little bigger than we are. They don't seem to be any faster, but they are definitely heading our way, though."

"Good. The next jump in any direction from here would have to be to an uninhabited system, where they could attack us with impunity. They may not think they need to rush, if they believe their tracker is still on our ship. So I'm going to make it look like it's still operating for them. Let's just hope they don't take the time to cross-check the data I'm loading onto it," the tiger girl said. She popped the device out of the data jack and left, returning just a minute or two later.

"So what now?" Jak asked, "No signal from them, but they're starting to close the distance. If I read this right, they will be almost caught up with us when we get to the jump point. Can't we jump sooner?"

"I already have our course laid in. Not worth the risk of jumping from the wrong starting point and possibly getting lost in the void between the stars, if they aren't shooting at us," Elita said. "But we will make it look like we're worried that they might be about to shoot at us. Just wait, and trust me." She boosted her ship's own speed just a little, and remained on alert, watching the other ship on the scanners.

===

"Commander? They have increased their speed to prevent us from gaining on them. Should I hail them?" a tiger at one of the bridge stations on the mercenary ship asked.

"And tell them what? Kindly stop so we can torture and kill you?" The lion asked sarcastically. "No, we'll destroy them after they jump. I weary of this game, but I would rather kill them where there are no witnesses."

"They are almost to the jump point, and they just fired off a chaff canister, sir," the tiger said. "There they go. They've jumped."

"Send the signal and recover the flea," the Commander replied.

"Yes sir. Homing signal sent. It's a bit hard to pinpoint it in all that chaff, but we should have the jump course in less than an hour," the tiger said.

===

Elita's ship came out of jump, but there was no starlight coming into the cockpit from any nearby stars.

"Oh Hell! Did we misjump? Shouldn't we see a star somewhere close to us?" Jak asked.

"Relax," Elita said. "We're right where I planned to be, in the open void, only half a parcec from the world we just left. I have more than enough fuel to retrace our course and go right back from here, without any delays. I figure it should take them about an hour to find that data recorder and use what's on it. We'll give them time for that, and then we can go back."

"Won't they come back after us, once they see we aren't in the system that you sent them on a wild goose chase to, with that fake jump course you left on their data recorder?" Jak asked.

Elita gave Jak an almost feral grin, and replied, "Not likely, if they use that jump course. You see, I intentionally left out one important step in the calculations..."

===

"Data retrieved, initiating Jump, Commander!" the tiger said.

"Good. As soon as we come out of jump, locate them and fire at will," the Commander ordered.

The pilot of the mercenary ship engaged the jump drives.

The cockpit flooded with an intense light, and the mercenaries' ship imploded.

===

"What did you leave out?" Jak asked.

"I entered zeros for the coordinate offsets from the destination star to the jump point. So if they use that data for a jump, they just jumped into the heart of a very big star," Elita replied.

"Oh... Well, that would do it, all right. So, we're safe?" Jak asked.

"From this group of them, at least, I hope. And if they didn't fall for it and are still there, I have enough fuel to immediately jump again, to a star two parsecs from there, where we can refuel and keep running, but this time, without leaving a trail for them to follow."

"So... Can we go back to our home and get our things?" Nekonya asked, from the door of the cockpit. "I would like to get a few keepsakes of ours, if it's safe now."

"We can try. They may have left some people on the planet, but I'm hoping that they all came after us together, rather than stranding any of their crew back there," Elita said.

Felrasa hugged Nekonya from behind, and said, "Let's try then. Maybe I can also recover some of Ace's gear. He probably did make those ID's that you paid him to produce, and they may still be with his stuff. And after that, we all need to find a new home. Thank you for getting us out of there. That was a clever trick, if it worked."

"Thanks, and welcome to our crew," Elita replied. "Let's get out of here."