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Description
The Wonderful Eye

~~~~~~~

    Zikki blinked as she looked out on her ship and, inside, she died a little. “The Wonderful Eye?” She blinked again, “Why is our ship called the Wonderful Eye?”
   “Because it’s Wonderful!” A rather youthful and joyful sounding voice came from beside her.
    “Because we ran out of paint,” Another less youthful and more sarcastic sounding voice came from her other side.
    Zikki put a hand to her head as she felt another headache come on, although, in her new line of business she really thought she’d gotten used to them by now, after all, it wasn’t a complete day unless she’d had a headache.
    “Aww, don’t you like the new name of our wonderful ship?” Zikki turned her head to look down upon her ship’s pilot.
    Uou-Jin was a vortian who was at least a head and a half shorter than Zikki and had very childish looks but was actually a young adult. His skin was a darkish foggy gray while his wide eyes were a corn yellow, masked over by a pair of bright pink goggles. He wore a deep blue body suit with a pair of baggy orange cargo shorts held up by a gray belt that carried no weapons and served almost no real purpose. His body was thin and almost girlish in its shape and his horns were uncurled and grew to the same level as his mouth which always seemed to be curved in some kind of smile.
    On the other side of Zikki, her apprentice-partner yawned loudly, “I need some kovvie.”
    “…Yea, me too,” Zikki slowly shook her head, “Feto, you should have mentioned you didn’t have enough paint.”
    Feto turned her head, flashing her ruby red eyes at Zikki, “I did, remember? You said we couldn’t afford any more paint.”
    Feto was a tall irken girl, almost as tall as Zikki and surely in a few years she’d be taller. She had short eyelashes which curled lightly which went with her antennae, which came down to her shoulders and also curled once before unusually, moving into single scythe-like shape. She had a slim, wiry frame and yet held herself in a smart, collected manner. She seemed to be entering her late teens and thus was still youthful looking, also, she wore little or no make up but it only let her natural beauty shine through.
    She wore a ¾ length sleeved shirt with an insignia on it of an irken military face with a magnifying glass over one of the blank eye sockets with faded jeans and underneath it, she wore a pair of steel toed boots.
    “Oh…yea…” Once again Zikki felt like life was secretly laughing at her, but, this was her life and she’d just have to make do for now, after all, it wasn’t like complaining or crying about it was going to help…she’d learned that lesson long ago.
    With a very exasperated sigh she began walking around the ship, towards it’s entrance with the other two in tow.
    She looked rather worn and tired from years in the agency that was not originally fated for her. Her wardrobe had even changed to one that consisted of a collared shirt with the sleeved rolled up and a tank top underneath it with her dog tags around her neck. She wore black pants tucked into knee high shiny boots and her long antennae were held back with a black band.
    As her eyes moved across the ship she’d now call home, she wondered how exactly she’d gotten to this point, with her own ship and freelance detective job and the daughter of her insane dead best friend as an apprentice while also having the happiest, most childish vortian in the universe as her pilot.
    It wasn’t like all her dreams had come true…quite the opposite in fact, she wondered where all her dreams had gone.
    The inside of the ship was small after all it wasn’t exactly like it’d been built to be a detective’s ship. It was actually just an old, heavily modified house-ship, it had everything they needed, all the usual bedroom and living space things and a pilots area, generators and all the usual ship stuff while also having an added mini-holding cell, a training room and a small lab-come-computer area.
    For what it was worth, despite the name on the outside, it was a very good deal and Zikki had been rather proud that she had managed to buy it before someone else had. Although, the reason perhaps why no one else had bought it was because the crew had been killed by a gangster, thus, the dropped price which had been dropped a little more with a few flickered eyes and sweet talk.
    As for her crew…Uou-jin was a sort of apprentice, although he really was past that stage having shown that beneath his impossibly cheerful and annoying exterior he could actually solve crimes, although they mostly tended of the lower paid ‘find my child’ jobs and even then he never really took them on, he preferred to just fly the ship around in exchange for food and a bed.
    Zikki had a love-hate relationship with Uou. He loved her, she hated him. He spent all his time going on about how wonderful life was and how everyone should be happy and cheerful, which went right against Zikki’s bitterness at life in general not to mention her now in-grained dislike of all pilots.
    Feto was more into the idea of chasing criminals across roofs while it rained heavily. Her idea of being a detective was being some kind of black and white gritty hardboiled character, but again, she rarely got to do that and even then it was with very low key, catch-and-hand in criminals, nothing too dangerous.
    Zikki was far closer to Feto, who was practically her daughter by now, after all, she’d raised her and took care of her when her poor mother, Kanna, could not and her father…well they tried not to talk about him, it was too much of a personal and hurtful thing for even Zikki to talk to Feto about.
    “So this is home now…” Feto commented slowly, looking around the inside of the ship as she stepped into the main bridge of the ship, “Looks…nice.”
    “It looks AWESOME!” Uou-jin commented as he bounced around his new piloting space, “So much bigger and better and more WONDERFUL than the last one!”
    Zikki shivered at the mention of her last ship. All three of them had been forced to stay in the tiny, tiny living space, Feto and Zikki sharing a room with Uou-jin often sleeping in his piloting chair. At least now they had a proper home built for more than just one person.
    Suddenly, Feto paused with wide eyes before bolting out the room and into the ship like her antennae were on fire, “I’M CLAIMING MY ROOM!”
    Zikki bolted after her as her inner teen woke up, “NOT BEFORE ME!”
    Uou-jin looked up from where he was getting snuggly into his chair and shook his head, “They’re so childish.” He then took out some little stickers of hearts and stars from his pocket and began to place them in-between the controls in front of him.

~~~~~~~

    “Well!” Zikki announced as they all sat around their new dining table with their food placed out in front of them, “How does everyone like the new ship, hum?”
    “It has a really OLD computer!” Uou-jin instantly proclaimed in his usual joyous voice, “It’s like, RETRO!”
    “Erm…” Feto blinked at her vortain companion before turning back to Zikki, “I like the training room, I can practice so much more now, which is good because I really need to get in shape again.”
    Zikki blinked at her, “Feto, sweetie, there’s nothing to you.”
    Feto threw up her arms, “Exactly! How am I ever going to catch anyone if I’m not strong enough?”
    Zikki shook her head, “We’re not really those kinds of freelance detectives…”
    Uou-jin grinned, “Chasing people is fun! Catching them and getting rewards is even better! Knowing you’ve helped someone is the best of all!”
    Feto nodded and pointed her little fork at Uou-jin without taking her gaze from Zikki, “Yes, see? You shouldn’t just go all ‘Oh I’ll catch your cheating wife’ on us. Catching the big criminal guys is where all the money is at.”
    “Well I happen to have the most experience in finding out if husbands or wives are cheating on each other,” Zikki replied hotly, “And it’s doing that kind of work which has bought us this ship!”
    “But we always, always got the biggest pay offs from catching real criminals,” Feto pushed, “Besides, we’ve got the ship now! We can start putting our sights a little higher at least.”
    “Feto,” Zikki scolded in a tone she only used to use on Yuki, “You’re still my apprentice and as my apprentice you’ll be doing none of this criminal chasing unless I say its ok, understand?”
    “… fine.” Feto growled out and looked down to her dinner, poking it viciously, “But the moment I pass my final tests I’m going after the big rewards.”
    “When you pass your final tests you can do whatever you want,” Zikki commented slyly back, “Go tearing around the universe hunting down all those killers you want to catch so badly.”
    Feto suddenly muttered something which no one quiet managed to hear, but Zikki was sure by the tone of Feto’s voice that it wasn’t anything pleasant.  “What was that?”
    “I said,” Feto replied in a much lower tone of voice and without any eye contact, “That you don’t chase criminals because you can’t catch them.”
    There was a very short silence where Zikki seemed like she was about to explode, but suddenly, she blinked and her entire body seemed calm, “Like I said, when you pass your tests, you can go chasing them.”
    Uou-jin could sense that people were not happy, thus, he needed to make them happy. “I got the all the computer controls set, so now we can leave this port and fly through all the pretty stars! Isn’t that just awesome?”
    “Yea, it is,” Feto replied without looking to him. “Can it go through jump points?”
    “Ohhh yes!” Uou-jin grinned even wider, “So we can do that wooosh thing with all the stars turning into lines! Isn’t it pretty?”
    “Look, everyone,” Zikki looked up from her small musing, “It’s our first night on this ship so let’s calibrate it properly.” She grinned, “Let’s drink!”
    Feto instantly smiled at the older irken, “Really? You’re going to let us drink as well?”
    “Yes!” Zikki stood up dramatically, “Where are the glasses? Where is the wine?”
    “Packed away in boxes!” Feto stood up in an identically dramatic fashion, “But we shall dig them out!”
    “Yes!” Uou-jin copied the two girls mainly because he wanted to fit in, and it looked fun, “We shall drink and be merry!”
    “TO THE BOXES!” Zikki pointed to the ceiling momentarily before rushing off to go find her wine, and being challenged by Feto in a silent race to get to them first. And in their wake, Uou-Jin followed, humming happily and skipping along, glad he could help change the mood of his crew members back to happy.

~~~~~~

    ’Why did I let him go anyway?’ Zikki thought to herself as she gazed out of the window into the sparkling abyss of space.
    It had been an awful long time since she had last thought of him, and it had been a painful reminder from Feto that he was still there in the innermost depths of her mind, and he always would be, no matter how much she tried to push him out or keep him hidden. She could never quite figure out why she had let him escape. Catching him would have been the highlight of her career, she would have been famous, she would have had it all…
    Instead though, she had sacrificed it all, just to let him go, and why? Because he bought her a drink? No. It was a tad more complex than that. If he had simply left it at buying her a drink, she wouldn’t be where she was now. She had owed him her happiness, her life, her salvation. Without him, she would have never left Sleek, and without him, she never could have allowed herself to be her.
    He should have just let her be after he had first spoken to her…but no. Life had to be cruel and make him come back.
    She swung around in her chair and closed her eyes, trying to efface the memory of him a little bit better without much avail. As she held the bottle tightly in her hands, she thought about all the ways that he was horrible for her to think about.
    If she could, she would have jumped out of her body and presented it to everyone she cared about: ’Here is the imaginative irken child forced into a world of rules and regulations and things that she’d never be ready for. She had it all once, though it wasn’t perfect, she lived in a huge house with a General, she was protected, she was doted on, and she gave it all up. Here is this defective irken child, thinking, “Why oh why did I EVER let Sideos go?”’
    This had been a mystery that Zikki had been unable to solve ever since the event happened. She could still remember it like it was just yesterday, although it’d been many years now since that terrible stormy night.
    The rain that’d pelted down so hard it’d almost stung… the wind that’d almost blown her from the rooftops… Rhytt’s ruthless plan of capturing Sideos, which had almost worked had it not been for the killers’ own primal survival instincts saving him.
    They’d chased him, the four of them, across the drenched rooftops of the broken down city, each almost falling to their deaths every time they had to leap across to keep up with the agile irken murderer.
    Rhytt had shot and hit him, through the shoulder, and his cry echoed through the darkness and rain like a wounded animal.
    He’d dived into a building, vanishing into the night’s gloom and the small team had followed directly after him, Rhytt commanding them all to split up and search for him.
    Zikki remembered finding him. He’d been trying to hide in the darkest room behind some rubble of a collapsed wall, but his dripping blood had led her to him. She’d pointed the gun at him, shaking with fear and nervousness, and he’d smiled right at her with that terrifying viciousness and strange charm which only he could pull off.
    He’d told her he found her familiar, but not a threat, and he knew he had let her live for some reason which he couldn’t recall. She’d told him he’d bought her a drink after she told him she hated Kaiser and Sirra and that she was Seventeen. She told him that he’d casually advised her to walk away from her ex-husband and start again with her own path without her oppressive husband, he’d told her to be free. He’d said he couldn’t remember, but it sounded like something he’d say.
    Again he’d smiled at her, why couldn’t she pull the trigger? Why did he have this hold over her? She felt like she owed him for changing her life, and yet, he’d done nothing. She wanted to believe that he wasn’t a bad person, but she knew he was a demon wearing an irken’s skin.
    He asked her if she was going to kill him, after all, she could have all that money and fame, she could have an absolute victory over her ex, she could get everything she ever wanted. All she had to do was close her eyes and squeeze…
    He was manipulating her, using her fear, her nervousness against her. She shouldn’t have told him about their previous meeting, she should have just shot him and dragged his body back to the nearest police station.
    Then he’d said those words, those words which she’d never forget, “Just be as ruthless as others have been to you.”
    Her gun dropped to the floor and she’d collapsed to her knee’s, tears welling up in her eyes. She couldn’t do it, she couldn’t shoot him, he’d called her bluff so expertly and she’d lost. She wasn’t a tough detective, she wasn’t a clever first lieutenant who’d worked so hard in Intelligence Corps…she was just a girl who’d never grown up and who still couldn’t bring herself to be as mean as the universe needed her to be.
    Sideos had slowly picked himself up from the rubble he’d been leaning against and he’d walked towards her, slowly and silently. He’d raised his claws and swiped at her arm, cutting into it and causing her to cry out in pain.
    She’d looked to him with wide, scared eyes, but he’d only winked back at her and said it’d make it look more realistic when she told the others she’d been attacked before he’d escaped.
    Before he’d vanished into the night, leaving Zikki to get shouted at by Rhytt and the rest of her group, before Rhytt and his two followers quit being detectives and became an edge-of-the-law bounty hunters, before Zikki had to go out on her own and fight and claw and save and starve and assemble her own team to train and solve cases, before all of that he’d told her not to worry, because it was better to stay true to your own nature than hate yourself for being someone you’re not.
    How could someone as insane, as scary, as deadly and as vicious as Sideos say things like that to her? Why did he have to make her feel glad she’d let him go while letting her curse herself for not pulling the trigger?
    Zikki shook her head, maybe she’d never know why; maybe she should just accept it happened and carry on. He was incurably insane and even the best psychiatrists in the irken empire had been unable to understand him, so she doubted that she’d ever be able to even start understanding his motives.
    Maybe she was just drunk and tired on wine and life.
    Her hand moved to her arm where the light scars of his claws still remained. It was his mark he’d left on her and it’d never fade. But, in her own way, she didn’t want it to. Whether it was because it was proof she’d met the most terrible killer in the empire and lived, or because he’d changed her life in ways he probably didn’t know, or maybe even just because she wanted something to remember him by, Zikki would always have those three thin, long marks on her arm.
    She sighed and looked out of her window, which showed a rather unpleasant view of the vast spaceport they were currently docked at. All she could see were ships, big and small of all colours and designs blocking her view of the infinite void.
    Zikki looked on for a moment, trying to find a little dot of space somewhere out there, before deciding she’d check up on ‘the kids’ as she silently referred to them as. She knew as a teacher she should stay distant from them, be a friend at most, but she couldn’t help mothering over them, it was just in her instincts… and even a killer had told her it’s bad to refuse your instincts.
    All the lights on the ship had dimmed and the windows had also automatically put blinds over themselves. It was all to make sure the occupants never got confused with day-night cycles, which was currently set to standard irk time. Zikki wasn’t sure what time it’d be, but she guessed around one thirty-ish.
    Uou-jin was in his room which was at the end of the small row of four room, fast asleep, completely curled up in his bedcovers which had very…imaginative flowery, sunshine and odd vortian mythical creatures patterns all over it.
    As Zikki looked down at the sleeping pilot through a small peep in the door, she wondered if Uou-jin even realized how screamingly gay he was, but than again, he’d never even mentioned relationships or anything like that before…in fact, he never spoke of his life before he’d joined her crew…but than again, Zikki had never asked. She supposed he was just a really happy person and even if he annoyed the hell out her she was glad there was at least someone who was always willing to cheer her up.
    She shrugged and closed the door, letting the little guy enjoy his probably amazingly happy and joyful dreams. She was sure he’d talk about his past one day, after all, he lived with them now, he couldn’t keep his past locked away forever…
    Zikki frowned, it seemed like everyone on this ship had pasts they didn’t like revealing. Especially Feto…as Zikki approached the girl’s door, the one next to her own bedroom, she paused for a moment. She could hear someone…sobbing.
    Her mothering instincts kicked in and Zikki knocked lightly, “Feto? Feto, are you alright?”
    There was a sudden shocked quiet and then a small, “…no.”
    Zikki smiled comfortingly a little at the tiny voice, “May I come in?”
    There was another pause, then, “…yes.”
    Zikki pushed open the door and looked in to see a slightly untypical teenage bedroom. Everything was very neatly put away and organized while a little flat screen note board was put up on one wall and only two posters of some very old bands.
    There were two books, actual paper books, neatly placed on a shelf, which was incredibly surprising considering the rareness of books in the age they lived in.
    Feto herself was sat up on her bed, her eyes more red than usual and puffy from her tears and Zikki spotted an empty glass on the girl’s dresser. It didn’t take all that much to figure out what was going on, the girl just had a little too much to drink and it must have sparked some emotions.
    Zikki quietly sat down next to the sobbing teenager and put an arm around her, “Hey, it’s alright,” She soothed, “What’s the matter, hum?”
    “I-I was thinking…” Feto wiped away some tears using her bed cover, “About mother and father…”
    Zikki hugged Feto again, “Oh, dear…I’m sorry.”
    “I miss them…” The teen’s eyes were locked down at the floor, “I miss mother and I want to go and see dad…”
    “Well, now we own this ship we can go and see him,” Zikki soothed, “It’ll be ok…”
    “But what about Yuki?” Feto suddenly looked up and asked with wide eyes, “Don’t you want to see him as well?”
    Zikki giggled softly, “You know there’s more than just one day in a week.”
    “But…” Feto looked down and, in a croaky, sorrow filled voice, whispered, “But I know I shouldn’t visit my father…”
    “Its fine if we do,” The older irken again insisted, “It’s not like you get to see him as often as I see Yuki… I’ll take you to him as soon we can, ok?”
    “…alright,” The ruby eyed irken nodded to the deal and hugged Zikki, “Thank you for…being you. I feel like I’m sure a burden to you…and I’m sorry I got so upset.”
    Zikki smiled down at the girl, “You’re not a burden, I like having you around and you know I care about you, so don’t worry about a thing. And it’s fine, we all get upset, heh, I should apologize for the number of times you’ve had to comfort me.”
    Feto giggled and finally smiled, “We could always ask Uou to cheer us up.”
    Zikki let go of the teen and mock-frowned at her, “Don’t even suggest it, he’d have us dancing around throwing flowers about.”
    Feto giggled again and again she wiped her eyes clean of tears with her bed cover, “I’m so tried… I need sleep.”
    “I think we all do, it’s been a very long day.” Zikki even yawned and stretched as she stood up, “We’ve got to get away from this trash-hole of a station tomorrow and find someplace new to settle down…” She grinned, “And whole new places to shop!”
    “Yes!” Feto matched her teacher-carer’s grin, “And new boys to flirt with!”
    “And new alcoholic drinks to…drink!” Zikki announced dramatically before putting her hands to her hips and raising an antennae at Feto, “But first, some sleep young lady!”
    “Gladly,” Feto reached into her bedside draw and pulled out a bottle of pills, taking out two before pausing and frowning before putting them back in the bottle and placing the bottle back in the drawer. She groaned loudly and flung herself onto her pillows. “I’m going to have such a hangover in the morning!”
    Everyone on the ship took some kind of medication. Feto had sleeping pills and tranquilizers for when she felt her inherited anger rising up in her. Zikki also took sleeping pills and she had an almost empty, rarely used bottle of anti-depressants. Even Uou-jin had some medication for when he got just a little too out of control and hyper.
    Of course, like all irkens neither Zikki nor Feto even needed to sleep, but with their stress and the way their lives had treated them, they both gladly dived into their covers and shut out the world to all but dreams when it got late enough.
    The action of Feto taking her sleeping med’s reminded Zikki of the last task she needed to do before bed, which pushed her to turn and walk out the room, leaving Feto to undress into her PJ’s and sleep properly.
    “Night Fe’,” Zikki called from the door.
    “Night Zik,” Feto yawned back.
    The moment the door closed Zikki sighed out of pure tiredness, it really had been a long day and some rest would be truly welcomed. But she still had to do something before she slept or it’d bother her all night.
    She disappeared into her room for a moment before coming out with a small picture. She then quickly moved past the dining table, which was in the middle of the room, and to the opposing wall of which she put the picture against. It stuck into place using magnets or some such science, and a set of words appeared upon it in very elegant, curly letters.
    Zikki smiled to herself as she read the words, “We’re all a little crazy here.” And at that, she turned and marched herself off to bed.

Description
The Wonderful Eye

~~~~~~~

    Zikki blinked as she looked out on her ship and, inside, she died a little. “The Wonderful Eye?” She blinked again, “Why is our ship called the Wonderful Eye?”
   “Because it’s Wonderful!” A rather youthful and joyful sounding voice came from beside her.
    “Because we ran out of paint,” Another less youthful and more sarcastic sounding voice came from her other side.
    Zikki put a hand to her head as she felt another headache come on, although, in her new line of business she really thought she’d gotten used to them by now, after all, it wasn’t a complete day unless she’d had a headache.
    “Aww, don’t you like the new name of our wonderful ship?” Zikki turned her head to look down upon her ship’s pilot.
    Uou-Jin was a vortian who was at least a head and a half shorter than Zikki and had very childish looks but was actually a young adult. His skin was a darkish foggy gray while his wide eyes were a corn yellow, masked over by a pair of bright pink goggles. He wore a deep blue body suit with a pair of baggy orange cargo shorts held up by a gray belt that carried no weapons and served almost no real purpose. His body was thin and almost girlish in its shape and his horns were uncurled and grew to the same level as his mouth which always seemed to be curved in some kind of smile.
    On the other side of Zikki, her apprentice-partner yawned loudly, “I need some kovvie.”
    “…Yea, me too,” Zikki slowly shook her head, “Feto, you should have mentioned you didn’t have enough paint.”
    Feto turned her head, flashing her ruby red eyes at Zikki, “I did, remember? You said we couldn’t afford any more paint.”
    Feto was a tall irken girl, almost as tall as Zikki and surely in a few years she’d be taller. She had short eyelashes which curled lightly which went with her antennae, which came down to her shoulders and also curled once before unusually, moving into single scythe-like shape. She had a slim, wiry frame and yet held herself in a smart, collected manner. She seemed to be entering her late teens and thus was still youthful looking, also, she wore little or no make up but it only let her natural beauty shine through.
    She wore a ¾ length sleeved shirt with an insignia on it of an irken military face with a magnifying glass over one of the blank eye sockets with faded jeans and underneath it, she wore a pair of steel toed boots.
    “Oh…yea…” Once again Zikki felt like life was secretly laughing at her, but, this was her life and she’d just have to make do for now, after all, it wasn’t like complaining or crying about it was going to help…she’d learned that lesson long ago.
    With a very exasperated sigh she began walking around the ship, towards it’s entrance with the other two in tow.
    She looked rather worn and tired from years in the agency that was not originally fated for her. Her wardrobe had even changed to one that consisted of a collared shirt with the sleeved rolled up and a tank top underneath it with her dog tags around her neck. She wore black pants tucked into knee high shiny boots and her long antennae were held back with a black band.
    As her eyes moved across the ship she’d now call home, she wondered how exactly she’d gotten to this point, with her own ship and freelance detective job and the daughter of her insane dead best friend as an apprentice while also having the happiest, most childish vortian in the universe as her pilot.
    It wasn’t like all her dreams had come true…quite the opposite in fact, she wondered where all her dreams had gone.
    The inside of the ship was small after all it wasn’t exactly like it’d been built to be a detective’s ship. It was actually just an old, heavily modified house-ship, it had everything they needed, all the usual bedroom and living space things and a pilots area, generators and all the usual ship stuff while also having an added mini-holding cell, a training room and a small lab-come-computer area.
    For what it was worth, despite the name on the outside, it was a very good deal and Zikki had been rather proud that she had managed to buy it before someone else had. Although, the reason perhaps why no one else had bought it was because the crew had been killed by a gangster, thus, the dropped price which had been dropped a little more with a few flickered eyes and sweet talk.
    As for her crew…Uou-jin was a sort of apprentice, although he really was past that stage having shown that beneath his impossibly cheerful and annoying exterior he could actually solve crimes, although they mostly tended of the lower paid ‘find my child’ jobs and even then he never really took them on, he preferred to just fly the ship around in exchange for food and a bed.
    Zikki had a love-hate relationship with Uou. He loved her, she hated him. He spent all his time going on about how wonderful life was and how everyone should be happy and cheerful, which went right against Zikki’s bitterness at life in general not to mention her now in-grained dislike of all pilots.
    Feto was more into the idea of chasing criminals across roofs while it rained heavily. Her idea of being a detective was being some kind of black and white gritty hardboiled character, but again, she rarely got to do that and even then it was with very low key, catch-and-hand in criminals, nothing too dangerous.
    Zikki was far closer to Feto, who was practically her daughter by now, after all, she’d raised her and took care of her when her poor mother, Kanna, could not and her father…well they tried not to talk about him, it was too much of a personal and hurtful thing for even Zikki to talk to Feto about.
    “So this is home now…” Feto commented slowly, looking around the inside of the ship as she stepped into the main bridge of the ship, “Looks…nice.”
    “It looks AWESOME!” Uou-jin commented as he bounced around his new piloting space, “So much bigger and better and more WONDERFUL than the last one!”
    Zikki shivered at the mention of her last ship. All three of them had been forced to stay in the tiny, tiny living space, Feto and Zikki sharing a room with Uou-jin often sleeping in his piloting chair. At least now they had a proper home built for more than just one person.
    Suddenly, Feto paused with wide eyes before bolting out the room and into the ship like her antennae were on fire, “I’M CLAIMING MY ROOM!”
    Zikki bolted after her as her inner teen woke up, “NOT BEFORE ME!”
    Uou-jin looked up from where he was getting snuggly into his chair and shook his head, “They’re so childish.” He then took out some little stickers of hearts and stars from his pocket and began to place them in-between the controls in front of him.

~~~~~~~

    “Well!” Zikki announced as they all sat around their new dining table with their food placed out in front of them, “How does everyone like the new ship, hum?”
    “It has a really OLD computer!” Uou-jin instantly proclaimed in his usual joyous voice, “It’s like, RETRO!”
    “Erm…” Feto blinked at her vortain companion before turning back to Zikki, “I like the training room, I can practice so much more now, which is good because I really need to get in shape again.”
    Zikki blinked at her, “Feto, sweetie, there’s nothing to you.”
    Feto threw up her arms, “Exactly! How am I ever going to catch anyone if I’m not strong enough?”
    Zikki shook her head, “We’re not really those kinds of freelance detectives…”
    Uou-jin grinned, “Chasing people is fun! Catching them and getting rewards is even better! Knowing you’ve helped someone is the best of all!”
    Feto nodded and pointed her little fork at Uou-jin without taking her gaze from Zikki, “Yes, see? You shouldn’t just go all ‘Oh I’ll catch your cheating wife’ on us. Catching the big criminal guys is where all the money is at.”
    “Well I happen to have the most experience in finding out if husbands or wives are cheating on each other,” Zikki replied hotly, “And it’s doing that kind of work which has bought us this ship!”
    “But we always, always got the biggest pay offs from catching real criminals,” Feto pushed, “Besides, we’ve got the ship now! We can start putting our sights a little higher at least.”
    “Feto,” Zikki scolded in a tone she only used to use on Yuki, “You’re still my apprentice and as my apprentice you’ll be doing none of this criminal chasing unless I say its ok, understand?”
    “… fine.” Feto growled out and looked down to her dinner, poking it viciously, “But the moment I pass my final tests I’m going after the big rewards.”
    “When you pass your final tests you can do whatever you want,” Zikki commented slyly back, “Go tearing around the universe hunting down all those killers you want to catch so badly.”
    Feto suddenly muttered something which no one quiet managed to hear, but Zikki was sure by the tone of Feto’s voice that it wasn’t anything pleasant.  “What was that?”
    “I said,” Feto replied in a much lower tone of voice and without any eye contact, “That you don’t chase criminals because you can’t catch them.”
    There was a very short silence where Zikki seemed like she was about to explode, but suddenly, she blinked and her entire body seemed calm, “Like I said, when you pass your tests, you can go chasing them.”
    Uou-jin could sense that people were not happy, thus, he needed to make them happy. “I got the all the computer controls set, so now we can leave this port and fly through all the pretty stars! Isn’t that just awesome?”
    “Yea, it is,” Feto replied without looking to him. “Can it go through jump points?”
    “Ohhh yes!” Uou-jin grinned even wider, “So we can do that wooosh thing with all the stars turning into lines! Isn’t it pretty?”
    “Look, everyone,” Zikki looked up from her small musing, “It’s our first night on this ship so let’s calibrate it properly.” She grinned, “Let’s drink!”
    Feto instantly smiled at the older irken, “Really? You’re going to let us drink as well?”
    “Yes!” Zikki stood up dramatically, “Where are the glasses? Where is the wine?”
    “Packed away in boxes!” Feto stood up in an identically dramatic fashion, “But we shall dig them out!”
    “Yes!” Uou-jin copied the two girls mainly because he wanted to fit in, and it looked fun, “We shall drink and be merry!”
    “TO THE BOXES!” Zikki pointed to the ceiling momentarily before rushing off to go find her wine, and being challenged by Feto in a silent race to get to them first. And in their wake, Uou-Jin followed, humming happily and skipping along, glad he could help change the mood of his crew members back to happy.

~~~~~~

    ’Why did I let him go anyway?’ Zikki thought to herself as she gazed out of the window into the sparkling abyss of space.
    It had been an awful long time since she had last thought of him, and it had been a painful reminder from Feto that he was still there in the innermost depths of her mind, and he always would be, no matter how much she tried to push him out or keep him hidden. She could never quite figure out why she had let him escape. Catching him would have been the highlight of her career, she would have been famous, she would have had it all…
    Instead though, she had sacrificed it all, just to let him go, and why? Because he bought her a drink? No. It was a tad more complex than that. If he had simply left it at buying her a drink, she wouldn’t be where she was now. She had owed him her happiness, her life, her salvation. Without him, she would have never left Sleek, and without him, she never could have allowed herself to be her.
    He should have just let her be after he had first spoken to her…but no. Life had to be cruel and make him come back.
    She swung around in her chair and closed her eyes, trying to efface the memory of him a little bit better without much avail. As she held the bottle tightly in her hands, she thought about all the ways that he was horrible for her to think about.
    If she could, she would have jumped out of her body and presented it to everyone she cared about: ’Here is the imaginative irken child forced into a world of rules and regulations and things that she’d never be ready for. She had it all once, though it wasn’t perfect, she lived in a huge house with a General, she was protected, she was doted on, and she gave it all up. Here is this defective irken child, thinking, “Why oh why did I EVER let Sideos go?”’
    This had been a mystery that Zikki had been unable to solve ever since the event happened. She could still remember it like it was just yesterday, although it’d been many years now since that terrible stormy night.
    The rain that’d pelted down so hard it’d almost stung… the wind that’d almost blown her from the rooftops… Rhytt’s ruthless plan of capturing Sideos, which had almost worked had it not been for the killers’ own primal survival instincts saving him.
    They’d chased him, the four of them, across the drenched rooftops of the broken down city, each almost falling to their deaths every time they had to leap across to keep up with the agile irken murderer.
    Rhytt had shot and hit him, through the shoulder, and his cry echoed through the darkness and rain like a wounded animal.
    He’d dived into a building, vanishing into the night’s gloom and the small team had followed directly after him, Rhytt commanding them all to split up and search for him.
    Zikki remembered finding him. He’d been trying to hide in the darkest room behind some rubble of a collapsed wall, but his dripping blood had led her to him. She’d pointed the gun at him, shaking with fear and nervousness, and he’d smiled right at her with that terrifying viciousness and strange charm which only he could pull off.
    He’d told her he found her familiar, but not a threat, and he knew he had let her live for some reason which he couldn’t recall. She’d told him he’d bought her a drink after she told him she hated Kaiser and Sirra and that she was Seventeen. She told him that he’d casually advised her to walk away from her ex-husband and start again with her own path without her oppressive husband, he’d told her to be free. He’d said he couldn’t remember, but it sounded like something he’d say.
    Again he’d smiled at her, why couldn’t she pull the trigger? Why did he have this hold over her? She felt like she owed him for changing her life, and yet, he’d done nothing. She wanted to believe that he wasn’t a bad person, but she knew he was a demon wearing an irken’s skin.
    He asked her if she was going to kill him, after all, she could have all that money and fame, she could have an absolute victory over her ex, she could get everything she ever wanted. All she had to do was close her eyes and squeeze…
    He was manipulating her, using her fear, her nervousness against her. She shouldn’t have told him about their previous meeting, she should have just shot him and dragged his body back to the nearest police station.
    Then he’d said those words, those words which she’d never forget, “Just be as ruthless as others have been to you.”
    Her gun dropped to the floor and she’d collapsed to her knee’s, tears welling up in her eyes. She couldn’t do it, she couldn’t shoot him, he’d called her bluff so expertly and she’d lost. She wasn’t a tough detective, she wasn’t a clever first lieutenant who’d worked so hard in Intelligence Corps…she was just a girl who’d never grown up and who still couldn’t bring herself to be as mean as the universe needed her to be.
    Sideos had slowly picked himself up from the rubble he’d been leaning against and he’d walked towards her, slowly and silently. He’d raised his claws and swiped at her arm, cutting into it and causing her to cry out in pain.
    She’d looked to him with wide, scared eyes, but he’d only winked back at her and said it’d make it look more realistic when she told the others she’d been attacked before he’d escaped.
    Before he’d vanished into the night, leaving Zikki to get shouted at by Rhytt and the rest of her group, before Rhytt and his two followers quit being detectives and became an edge-of-the-law bounty hunters, before Zikki had to go out on her own and fight and claw and save and starve and assemble her own team to train and solve cases, before all of that he’d told her not to worry, because it was better to stay true to your own nature than hate yourself for being someone you’re not.
    How could someone as insane, as scary, as deadly and as vicious as Sideos say things like that to her? Why did he have to make her feel glad she’d let him go while letting her curse herself for not pulling the trigger?
    Zikki shook her head, maybe she’d never know why; maybe she should just accept it happened and carry on. He was incurably insane and even the best psychiatrists in the irken empire had been unable to understand him, so she doubted that she’d ever be able to even start understanding his motives.
    Maybe she was just drunk and tired on wine and life.
    Her hand moved to her arm where the light scars of his claws still remained. It was his mark he’d left on her and it’d never fade. But, in her own way, she didn’t want it to. Whether it was because it was proof she’d met the most terrible killer in the empire and lived, or because he’d changed her life in ways he probably didn’t know, or maybe even just because she wanted something to remember him by, Zikki would always have those three thin, long marks on her arm.
    She sighed and looked out of her window, which showed a rather unpleasant view of the vast spaceport they were currently docked at. All she could see were ships, big and small of all colours and designs blocking her view of the infinite void.
    Zikki looked on for a moment, trying to find a little dot of space somewhere out there, before deciding she’d check up on ‘the kids’ as she silently referred to them as. She knew as a teacher she should stay distant from them, be a friend at most, but she couldn’t help mothering over them, it was just in her instincts… and even a killer had told her it’s bad to refuse your instincts.
    All the lights on the ship had dimmed and the windows had also automatically put blinds over themselves. It was all to make sure the occupants never got confused with day-night cycles, which was currently set to standard irk time. Zikki wasn’t sure what time it’d be, but she guessed around one thirty-ish.
    Uou-jin was in his room which was at the end of the small row of four room, fast asleep, completely curled up in his bedcovers which had very…imaginative flowery, sunshine and odd vortian mythical creatures patterns all over it.
    As Zikki looked down at the sleeping pilot through a small peep in the door, she wondered if Uou-jin even realized how screamingly gay he was, but than again, he’d never even mentioned relationships or anything like that before…in fact, he never spoke of his life before he’d joined her crew…but than again, Zikki had never asked. She supposed he was just a really happy person and even if he annoyed the hell out her she was glad there was at least someone who was always willing to cheer her up.
    She shrugged and closed the door, letting the little guy enjoy his probably amazingly happy and joyful dreams. She was sure he’d talk about his past one day, after all, he lived with them now, he couldn’t keep his past locked away forever…
    Zikki frowned, it seemed like everyone on this ship had pasts they didn’t like revealing. Especially Feto…as Zikki approached the girl’s door, the one next to her own bedroom, she paused for a moment. She could hear someone…sobbing.
    Her mothering instincts kicked in and Zikki knocked lightly, “Feto? Feto, are you alright?”
    There was a sudden shocked quiet and then a small, “…no.”
    Zikki smiled comfortingly a little at the tiny voice, “May I come in?”
    There was another pause, then, “…yes.”
    Zikki pushed open the door and looked in to see a slightly untypical teenage bedroom. Everything was very neatly put away and organized while a little flat screen note board was put up on one wall and only two posters of some very old bands.
    There were two books, actual paper books, neatly placed on a shelf, which was incredibly surprising considering the rareness of books in the age they lived in.
    Feto herself was sat up on her bed, her eyes more red than usual and puffy from her tears and Zikki spotted an empty glass on the girl’s dresser. It didn’t take all that much to figure out what was going on, the girl just had a little too much to drink and it must have sparked some emotions.
    Zikki quietly sat down next to the sobbing teenager and put an arm around her, “Hey, it’s alright,” She soothed, “What’s the matter, hum?”
    “I-I was thinking…” Feto wiped away some tears using her bed cover, “About mother and father…”
    Zikki hugged Feto again, “Oh, dear…I’m sorry.”
    “I miss them…” The teen’s eyes were locked down at the floor, “I miss mother and I want to go and see dad…”
    “Well, now we own this ship we can go and see him,” Zikki soothed, “It’ll be ok…”
    “But what about Yuki?” Feto suddenly looked up and asked with wide eyes, “Don’t you want to see him as well?”
    Zikki giggled softly, “You know there’s more than just one day in a week.”
    “But…” Feto looked down and, in a croaky, sorrow filled voice, whispered, “But I know I shouldn’t visit my father…”
    “Its fine if we do,” The older irken again insisted, “It’s not like you get to see him as often as I see Yuki… I’ll take you to him as soon we can, ok?”
    “…alright,” The ruby eyed irken nodded to the deal and hugged Zikki, “Thank you for…being you. I feel like I’m sure a burden to you…and I’m sorry I got so upset.”
    Zikki smiled down at the girl, “You’re not a burden, I like having you around and you know I care about you, so don’t worry about a thing. And it’s fine, we all get upset, heh, I should apologize for the number of times you’ve had to comfort me.”
    Feto giggled and finally smiled, “We could always ask Uou to cheer us up.”
    Zikki let go of the teen and mock-frowned at her, “Don’t even suggest it, he’d have us dancing around throwing flowers about.”
    Feto giggled again and again she wiped her eyes clean of tears with her bed cover, “I’m so tried… I need sleep.”
    “I think we all do, it’s been a very long day.” Zikki even yawned and stretched as she stood up, “We’ve got to get away from this trash-hole of a station tomorrow and find someplace new to settle down…” She grinned, “And whole new places to shop!”
    “Yes!” Feto matched her teacher-carer’s grin, “And new boys to flirt with!”
    “And new alcoholic drinks to…drink!” Zikki announced dramatically before putting her hands to her hips and raising an antennae at Feto, “But first, some sleep young lady!”
    “Gladly,” Feto reached into her bedside draw and pulled out a bottle of pills, taking out two before pausing and frowning before putting them back in the bottle and placing the bottle back in the drawer. She groaned loudly and flung herself onto her pillows. “I’m going to have such a hangover in the morning!”
    Everyone on the ship took some kind of medication. Feto had sleeping pills and tranquilizers for when she felt her inherited anger rising up in her. Zikki also took sleeping pills and she had an almost empty, rarely used bottle of anti-depressants. Even Uou-jin had some medication for when he got just a little too out of control and hyper.
    Of course, like all irkens neither Zikki nor Feto even needed to sleep, but with their stress and the way their lives had treated them, they both gladly dived into their covers and shut out the world to all but dreams when it got late enough.
    The action of Feto taking her sleeping med’s reminded Zikki of the last task she needed to do before bed, which pushed her to turn and walk out the room, leaving Feto to undress into her PJ’s and sleep properly.
    “Night Fe’,” Zikki called from the door.
    “Night Zik,” Feto yawned back.
    The moment the door closed Zikki sighed out of pure tiredness, it really had been a long day and some rest would be truly welcomed. But she still had to do something before she slept or it’d bother her all night.
    She disappeared into her room for a moment before coming out with a small picture. She then quickly moved past the dining table, which was in the middle of the room, and to the opposing wall of which she put the picture against. It stuck into place using magnets or some such science, and a set of words appeared upon it in very elegant, curly letters.
    Zikki smiled to herself as she read the words, “We’re all a little crazy here.” And at that, she turned and marched herself off to bed.