Outlaw Star Fan Fiction ❯ Outlaw Star: Growing Pains ❯ Quest for Life ( Chapter 6 )

"It really isn't that difficult to understand. We go in, get a chunk of the stuff for you two, and get out. Even if we are spotted-which we won't be-that ship is faster than anything in the C'tarl-C'tarl fleet, so we can be in warp before they're even warmed up!" Aisha said with her usual perk in place, still pinning a far from struggling Jim to the bed.

"What makes you so sure they haven't come up with anything speedier since you were last there?" he asked in a moment of foresight. "Things do change over the course of eight or so years."

"I don't know. It could be the fact all of our vessels are built purely for power rather than speed. Or it could be the fact that's the same way ships have been made on C'tarl-C'tarl for the past thousand years," Aisha said, putting a thoughtful finger to her head in sarcastic thought.

"Sarcasm noted," Jim said with a smirk.

Aisha replied, "Good." There were two more things he had to ask before his mind could return to that sedate gelatin that she kept it in, and they were as followed: "Why are you going to do this and what happens to you if we get caught?" Visibly shaken by this, Aisha's first reaction seemed more saddened but soon this was put on the back burner in place of a more serene, if not brutally realistic, line of thinking.

"I'm doing this so we can be together and so you don't become some depressed windbag when Gene dies." She didn't seem to give a second thought to those words, he'd noticed. "As for me being caught: Seeing as they can't kill me, I'll more than likely be tortured for a few years," she said calmly while taking a brief moment to stretch completely out on top of him. "But don't worry-that isn't going to happen." There were no more words uttered between the two for quite some time, only Jim's hand rubbing across her back and Aisha's shallow breathing. Inside of his brain, though, swirls of thoughts were running around-mainly how to insure she wouldn't be caught-but he decided to ice them once Aisha started fidgeting in his arms.

"Jim, what are you doing?" she asked, not bothering to look up at him.

Jim was so lost in thought until he had to sit partially up to see what she was talking about and when he did, he laughed. "I guess if I'll be nineteen forever, we'll have to get used to this sort of thing." Jim held an impish smile, making no effort to stop the hand that had slipped into her shorts and groped her butt for who knew how long.

After a brief fit of giggles, she said, "You know, I'm technically still seventeen. So, you know what that means …" Jim feigned confusion, so she had to make him see or more accurately, feel her meaning. "I won't have to adjust too much," Aisha said playfully, sitting up and taking hold of the erection that was taking shape below.

"Oh, so we'll be forever young … and horny?" Aisha simply nodded, as Jim's hand began to play with her pussy and ass in sensual tandem. From where her cheeks naturally parted due to her straddling of his waist, Jim's fingers began to focus and rub slowly against the tightly shut orifice that was her anus.

"Mmmm," she moaned delightedly, as he angled the finger inside and began a slow probing. He soon added his other hand into her shorts, this one probing her pussy in a way that was making both it and her mouth water.

"Oh, God …" Aisha gasped slowly, rocking back and forth on his contorted fingers as now both holes were being steadily fucked into a blissful oblivion. Jim, meanwhile, watched her face as she gripped her insides fiercely onto his fingers every time they neared complete removal. "Yeeesss!" she hissed, feeling a second finger move into each hole. Full on panting, the C'tarl-C'tarl woman could only sit there and take what was being done to her. Momentarily slowing his action, Jim sat up a little further to better position his fingers inside of her. Just as her first orgasm began, he stopped. Not one of his pauses, but he actually removed his hands. "Okay, why did you stop?" Aisha said, desperately trying to keep calm and keep the now regrettably short orgasm at half mass.

"For starters, I think you just broke my dick," Jim said with a light grimace, but nevertheless turning a deep shade of red as she squeezed his dick like a bottle of ketchup. Aisha's ears wilted, then a rather carnal smiled lined her face.

"Let me fix it then," she said, which almost sent Jim into a rant about her not being medically qualified to handle such things, until he thought about it through perverse means.

"By all means, fix me, Doc," Jim replied, twisting his hips in time to help her slide his pajama pants and boxers off to be thrown somewhere. Say what you would about him-neurotic, uptight, compulsive, etc.-but the man kept his head up regardless. Jim soon found his "broken part" inserted into Aisha's mouth, which sent a spike of pain and intense pleasure through his system. She used her tongue well, stroking the discolored markings that had been left upon his shaft gingerly while simultaneously coating the man's tool in her saliva. "Aisha …" he moaned just as her tongue drug ridiculously slow against the under side of his dick-experience teaching her that this was an erogenous zone for him.

"What's the matter, Jim?" Aisha asked, upping his frustration tenfold by removing him completely from her mouth. "Can't take the abuse?" She smirked, before swallowing his dick to the base.

"Oooh, shit!" Jim cried out in a husky whisper, just as she began to suck harder, making him fight that much stronger against his orgasm.

"Mmm!" Aisha shouted into his dick, which reverberated through his shaft, as Jim began to clutch her head more securely and thrust into her mouth. It was a sign he was almost there and, in her sick way, a lunch break of sorts.

"AISHA!" Jim screamed, as he rolled over with Aisha still attached to his dick, straddling her chest. The C'tarl woman just held steadfast to his ass cheeks, allowing him to grind his dick into her prone mouth. "Uh! Uuuuh!" he grunted, just as he pressed his penis to its limit inside of her mouth, bending the shape with her throat while rifling off his massive load. She felt his balls twitch against her chin, churning out more of the thick fluid that splashed recklessly against her throat.

"Mmphf! Mmphf!" Aisha moaned as Jim slowly humped his spurting phallus into her mouth, easing the tip out of her throat only to let her taste his liquid offering. She purred against his now over sensitized flesh, using her tongue to prolong his orgasmic high by flicking it just under the tip of the head. It did, as was evident by the slow drizzle of sperm that he continued to ooze. For moment, Jim could only gasp for breath, and hold onto his headboard, oddly fascinated by Aisha's ruefully smiling-not to mention consistently swallowing-face staring back at him.

"Guess I should pull out now, huh?" His stupid questioned garnered a brief flick of her tongue across the eye of his dick, making him question the action and not to mention shudder another few droplets of his seed onto her tongue. Finding his resolve, and balls temporarily drained, Jim unsaddled himself from her breasts and fell back against the bed.

She laughed languidly, thoroughly pleased that she'd pleased him. "You seem to come harder and harder every time we do that," Aisha said, playfully pouncing on top of him.

"Oh, and I assume you keep going like that for only my benefit?" Jim asked jokingly, gaining staff mass by the second.

"Like I keep telling you," she said in a seductive whisper, "you taste great."

Aisha's heart rate began to intensify, as she felt Jim's hard-on return and arch ever so subtly up and back against her sensitive pussy. Her shorts were officially soaked now.

"D-D-Don't tease me," she panted, as he began to rub it in a stop-and-go manner, using his flesh and the material in a sickeningly intense torture against her. Taking little more than a grunt, Jim rolled them so he was on top, which allowed him to strip her of everything but a smile. Things escalated even further as she felt one of his hands ease in between her legs, playing bloody hell against her labia. Using his ring and index fingers, Jim pried her apart and set about using his middle finger to maul her pussy. "Aaaah, fuck! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Jim!" she screamed as his middle finger began a slow piston fucking of her insides. The teasing ended as he eased his fore and ring fingers into her amidst a delicious squishing sound. Three fingers deep inside of her, and Aisha didn't even notice that Jim had wormed his way down to be face to pussy with her.

"Mmm," Aisha moaned into her bottom lip, as she felt his tongue graze against her clitoris. She could feel his breath against it, making it swell even more, and even as she whimpered he still wouldn't give it any attention. "Jim… please!" Her voice cracked, as she feebly reached for his head, while being slowly tortured by his fingers.

"Now, what were you saying about abuse?" Jim said slyly, again using his tongue to fork at her clit while speeding his fingers up every so often.

"Nothing! Aaaaah!" she screamed, as her body found itself being contorted to his desired form. "Jim!" And like that, Aisha came hard and fast, feeling Jim give in and arduously lick her clitoris. He thought for a second she was going to crush his fingers, her insides squeezed them that hard… yet he still didn't stop suckling. "Mmmm, hmmm… god… I love you." Aisha panted, convulsing in wake of her first good orgasm. For a minute, Jim's only response was his tongue's continued presence within her.

"I love you, too," he sincerely said, kissing her intermittently on the way up her body. Aisha's arms immediately embraced him, shuddering violently as his lips sought out her neck. Jim's dick automatically aligned itself with her slit as though it was a compass and her insides were magnetic north. And when his mouth closed around the spot under her neck, Jim slid into her with a practiced grace …

Back in reality, Jim smiled pleasantly upon this flashback. All too soon, though, he grimaced at the events that followed. First off, Fred's dad began to sink in his import/export business, so Fred Jr. stepped in to lend the old man a helping hand. This, of course, meant that Fred couldn't cough up the few million wong it would cost to restock the ship for a trip to the C'tarl-C'tarl home world. Instead, the "eccentric" man said he'd supply them if they hauled whatever he asked. This was for immortality, so a few errand runs would be child's play.

"A few months worth of errands," Jim muttered, rolling over on the uncomfortable cot, "yeah, right."

They did the jobs, and after it was all said and done, they got the cash from Fred. Now, this was supposed to be the easy part-they were going to fly to an asteroid and steal the metallic fountain of youth-only it wasn't. Everything looked good: No scanners had detected them, all the patrol ships had passed right by them thanks to a new form of cloaking technology that Jim had hacked the plans for off a pirate ship that attacked them on one of Fred's "easy" jobs. Aisha reassured them that no base of operations was on the asteroid, thus she would go down and do the gopher-work.

"How about I go with you?" he'd suggested eagerly, which, after a moment of hesitation, Aisha relented to.

Things went downhill from there. They were docked a few hundred feet off the asteroid's surface, and while Aisha and he were checking their suits for air and such, a missile hit the Outlaw Star, which flung them both out of the opened airlock. End over end, the couple flipped toward the hunk of orange and green rock, until they finally managed to trigger their thrusters to slow the descent. "Gene, what the hell did you do?" Aisha yelled into her earpiece. By then, though, the ship was visible and the gaudy gold of their attacker's ship was, too.

"I told you this wasn't over, Starwind," a voice crackled through both of their receivers. "I had baby brother put a little tracking bug in your system back at the Leyline for just such an occasion. Oh, and I took the time off to have a few modifications made to the El Dorado. Now, let's finish what we started!"

Ron McDougal, no one had seen hide or hair from him since the Leyline, and yet there he was, like some kind of bad nightmare. The ensuing battle was devastating. While the Outlaw Star had been advanced for its time, in the present day-seven, almost eight years later-things had obviously changed. The El Dorado had grappler arms before, but these were pummeling the Outlaw Star into oblivion, and if that C'tarl ship hadn't shown up when it did, Jim had a feeling that Gene and the rest would've been done for. Of course, since all three ships went into sub-ether warps seconds later, Jim still wouldn't know the results. He wouldn't know because they never came back. By the etchings on his cell wall, Jim had scratched away approximately a year and six months since that March night.

"Eighteen months," he muttered, still disbelieving it no matter how concrete the evidence was.

He and Aisha only had an hour's worth of air at the time, and unless something was done, he would've suffocated. Unfortunately, the only thing left to do was summon the C'tarl-C'tarl Empire. This meant being arrested by the military for trespassing. And that ran a sentence anywhere from ten years to death on pick up, Aisha had informed him. Jim fought the urge to blame himself for her being captured by clouding his thoughts with Aisha performing a one-woman wrecking crew act and stealing whatever ship came to get them. He'd be wrong, though. The reality was that their homing beacons took thirty or so minutes to be picked up by C'tarl surveillance, in addition to the twenty-plus minutes it took them to finally break down and summon them, at which time he was almost out of air and holding his breath intermittently to conserve. The reality was a military drop ship being sent to retrieve them with only two-small in Jim's estimation-guards. And most importantly of all, the reality was that Aisha Clan-Clan simply raised her hands in surrender instead of fighting them off.

"Maybe she has some favors she can work to get us out of here scot-free without violence," his jaded mind rambled at the time. To his chagrin, there wasn't a single string that was to be pulled. Jim got twenty-to-life imprisonment in a military installation for attempted robbery and trespassing, upon where he was to serve out whichever sentence killed him. He never got to see exactly what Aisha was sentenced to or her again, for that matter. The whole situation put him in a form of shock, only seeing the world around him as a spectator rather than a participant. However, when it wore off about a day later, things were in a crystal clarity and harsh detail.

For starters, the C'tarl attitude and pride that saw him as second rate to themselves carried over to their prisoners. So, he was put in a dank cell in the prison's laundry room. According to one guard, Jim was so weak until they didn't even need to waste one of the good, reinforced cells. A few scrap iron bars would hold his "puny" human form. They'd granted him enough decency to leave him with his street clothes, and they were a tank top, an old leather jacket, jeans, and black boots. Coincidentally, none of them were filled with his usual myriad of computer gadgetry. Well, he still had the earring communicator, but no one was ever on the other end and it didn't do deep space communicating.

Even with all of this stacked against him, the remembrance of Aisha and the positive attitude she instilled in him kept him going for the first few months. Then, little by little, it all began to get to him. He wasn't allowed to socialize with any person on the grounds. This meant Jim slept alone, ate alone, worked out alone, and bathed alone. He didn't mind the last one, but the idea that he was seen as being too inferior to socialize with other criminals annoyed him … greatly. The only time he was allowed other "human" interaction was when a guard would stop by to tell the latest human joke or when his "puny" muscles were needed to unload supplies. Other than that, he was almost always alone. This was basically a lesson in how much isolation could he take before he went insane, as his journeys to the library, cafeteria, and workshops were also done with no other living interaction. The guards who accompanied him to the aforementioned places only made fun of him, and that really wasn't the interaction he was looking for. It was just Jim and his brain, and they were growing more disgruntled by the day.

No Aisha. No Gene. No Aisha. No Suzuka. No Aisha. No Melfina. And how could he forget-no Aisha! No Aisha was a figurative thing, as his cell was apparently below one of the guard stations and she was often times the topic of discussion in the beginning of his sentence. Listening to the water pipe that ran down the wall behind his bed, he'd eavesdropped on some of the most painful conversations he'd ever heard: Stories of her successes and how he and the others had been her downfall.

"Can you believe General Clan-Clan's daughter and the human? Look at this record …" the guard then began to run down a list of every single accolade and award Aisha had seemingly ever won. It was a long list-a very, very long list. While he never thought of her as altogether stupid, Jim never realized how smart she was. Her scholastic prowess even put his genius to shame in some respects, not to mention her record setting military career was perfect up until the incident with Hilda and the Outlaw Star crew. And she simply gave all of this up to live in a busted building with an egomaniac, his cyborg girlfriend, an assassin, and him? "She was still just a kid when she did most of this! I'll tell you what, if my boy does half this when he's forty, I'll be proud. And to think she threw it all away for a stupid human! Ugh, I'd kill you all- No, as a matter of fact, I'd kill my wife, my boy, his girlfriend, and my own mother to have this type of record!"

Jim had quit listening then, but the words stayed with him every single day since. She didn't just lose face when she got banished from home; she lost EVERYTHING, and that made him vomit. He never did handle guilt that well and hugging the toilet that June night made him realize it again. Hope died then. Three months of hoping to be rescued by Gene, dead. Plotting his escape-ha, they'd probably be on him in seconds. Then there was the thought of Aisha telling him she'd be tortured if they were caught, his isolated and undistracted mind latched on to that and kept him up for days. All because of him, her life was unadulterated shit. Sure, she claimed it sucked before, but, in hindsight, that seemed like the kinda thing a runner-up would say after losing a million wong in a contest.

"Yeah, I thought I wanted the money, but it would've sucked thinking of a way to spend it all," he mocked, turning over to stare at his darkened ceiling. This was how it was going to be for the rest of his life, huh? Made fun of by guards, laughed at by inmates when he couldn't lift a 300 pound crate of gun barrels, and beating himself up for ruining Aisha's life-this was going to be the final chapter in the life of James Hawking? Yep, well, until about November of the following year … this year … this very November. It was another cold, dark, lonely night a couple of weeks ago, until he heard an explosion. Immediately, he was to the window of his cell staring between the three bars out at the flames in the distance. The prison was comprised of nothing but miles of reinforced concrete, yet something had blown a hole in one of the far walls about a mile from his cell.

"A prison break," one of the guards shouted as he ran by Jim's window.

He knew the prisoners responsible weren't going to come for him though, so he shrugged and fell back onto his bed and listened to the various alarms going off. A smile crossed his face remembering the spaceport that he and Aisha landed at just beyond the very walls that were blown apart. All the escapees had to do was make it there and hijack a ship and they were free, more or less, considering the legions of patrol ships in the space above. An idea-one of the few he'd been blessed with since his descent into depression-began to form. Realizations of how relaxed they were on his incarceration, guards who didn't patrol him like they should, and all sorts of variable loopholes began to make themselves known to the outlaw. Almost on a whim he got up and pushed his cell door to see if they even locked it. "At least they do that much," he thought.

Still, a streak of pity pushed the idea of making a run for his freedom down. It was a C'tarl-C'tarl military spaceport, which meant bigger, stronger C'tarl were guarding it. Heh, he was always complaining about being the back up man in all of the plans, yet here was his golden opportunity to prove he could pull off a daring escape without Gene and he just laid on it. Gilliam saved him in space. Suzuka saved him from ninjas. Aisha saved him from monsters. And of all the goddamned things, even MELFINA had saved him from a telepathic cactus. Now, here he sat, unable to save himself, waiting like a helpless peon to be saved from his plight.

"Clan-Clan and her kid are getting away!" It was the defining statement of that night made him bolt out of the bed, only to see a ship taking off from port. She'd got away, though marginally. She was in a ship heading off the planet and that was as good as Dragonite in his book. For a while, the rest of the statement wouldn't sink in, as he was too busy cheering for her. Guards were yelling for him to shut up and be quiet, but it only made him laugh that much harder at them. Of course, mocking C'tarl-C'tarl pride wasn't taken lightly, as Jim found himself beaten by two guards until he was unconscious.

His body was already suffering from the aches and pains of his manual workload in the shipment yard, so when he awoke the next morning on the cold concrete, he wasn't surprised those aches were intensified ten times over, complete with fresh cuts and bruises. Everything felt broken or injured gravely to some degree when he pulled himself up onto the bed. However, the first thing out of Jim's mouth was laughter. He giggled when upset or nervous, but he downright maniacally cackled when he was happy.

"Clan-Clan and her kid are getting … away …." The mocking of the soldier in command's voice slowed to a stop, for he was clear to examine the statement now. Was it even possible for humans and C'tarl-C'tarl to reproduce? Flashing back to the March night they'd been captured, Jim started putting the puzzle pieces together. Two small soldiers telling Aisha Clan-Clan she better not make a move and her complying? No, even armed with blasters she would've attacked them ordinarily. And, to be honest, why wouldn't she? They couldn't kill her, and she knew he was capable of making himself scarce for one of her battles. So the question was: if they couldn't kill her, and they couldn't hurt him before she got them, what was so important to Aisha Clan-Clan to make giving up a reasonable decision?

"A child," a female voice said in an even tone. Unaware of it at the time, Jim had been talking to himself, so when he looked up to see the voice's owner he was shocked to see they knew what he was thinking. Out of the shadows, a C'tarl woman-about six feet tall with white fur, etched with black, tiger-like stripes, crystal blue eyes, and a body on par with Aisha's-emerged, unlocking his cell. For a second, Jim thought it was Aisha in disguise, but all too quickly fell back to reality amidst her condescending attitude. "Yes, the bearer of a human-C'tarl hybrid, Aisha has brought your mutt into this world." Blindly, Jim rushed her in response to the insult. He was almost too surprised by the strength she possessed when she backhanded him across the medium sized cell into the wall.

"Oh, so she picked a feisty one," the unnamed woman said, revealing her true appearance under the lone light bulb in the cell. While Aisha was cat-like, this woman seemed to be the embodiment of a cat person. Her eyes were in Asian sets, fangs, fur, and a tail that easily managed four feet in length. Okay, so maybe her looks didn't differentiate from Aisha's that much, but to a guy who hadn't seen her in eighteen months, it was a big difference. As a matter of fact, he hadn't seen a female since being there and staring at her body was starting to make him realize just how long it had truly been.

"Answer my questions and I may let you live," she told him, drawing his attention from her body onto her face.

"She hangs around different planets, so I don't know where she'd go," he'd reply, wiping a trail of blood off his lips and shakily getting to his feet. In his mind, she seemed a little too surprised he'd known that was to be the question she was going to ask. Then again, she was more than likely as arrogant as the rest of them, so she was probably amazed he could articulate sound that she understood. He flopped onto his bed, watching her with the same contemptible look she gave him, as isolation had made his personality grow more hostile and cold. Responses to his harsh treatment and environment, sure, but a part of him wondered would he be able to look at Aisha again without channeling the hate he felt for the rest of her people.

"My name is Lilith Tam-Tam. I'm sure Aisha has told you all about me," she'd said as if her name beckoned great respect. Lilith was just another C'tarl with ego problems in his book.

"Actually, she never mentioned you. You two friends or something?" he asked trying to sate her appetite for conversation. Unfortunately, his answer seemed to piss her off enormously. Lilith picked him up by his now prison shirt collar, and pinned him to a wall. She looked rather cute angry, he noticed, despite the mental commands not to.

"The bitch never once mentioned me?" Jim shook his head no and Lilith snapped again. "Figures, you know how many boyfriends that little shit stole from me? Or how many teachers she slept with to always manage to get that perfect score to best me? Even in the military entrance exams, she stepped on my tail to keep me from winning that race, and …"

"And why do you think she'd tell me all of these negative things about herself? If you cheated to gain your status, would you go around bragging about it? No, so if she was cunning enough to cheat you so, I doubt her intelligence would dip far enough to tell anyone about her underhanded dealings," Jim answered rather matter-of-factly.

Lilith's mouth hung slack, realizing she'd been made a fool of by such simple reasoning. It didn't help her pride any by the fact Jim poorly tried to hide his smile. She'd sit him back on his feet then and try to throw on her stoic game face, which also had lost an intimidating factor by her overt hate of her nemesis. Casually, almost snidely, Jim went to his little sink and began to doctor the cuts on his face from the beating from the day before. "So, are you gonna kill me now, or rant about how Aisha screwed you over some more?"

"Maybe it's a good thing I'm not on the frontline," he thought in the present day, remembering how she almost drowned him in the sink for that remark.

"No, my rant is finished. However, my quest to figure out what's so special about you isn't," she told him bluntly, tossing him into the wall above his bed. "Why? Why? What? Why would she give up so much for so little? Why would she cheat me out of so much, only to throw it away for your miserable hide? Lastly, what is so special about you? There has to be something. You must own a planet or battalion or something; I refuse to believe she's thrown all she's taken from me away for some piece of shit outlaw!"

"Look, if you've come to crush my self-esteem, ego, or pride, you're about twelve months too late. A couple of guards and a few inmates already beat you to the punch," he'd said flippantly. "I'll assume Aisha and the kid got out of C'tarl space or you wouldn't be here conducting such a weak interrogation. That's good enough for me. So keep your little deals or whatever else you want in return for her, because I don't want it." The six stripes that surrounded her face seemed to grow darker in the early morning sun, as she growled for the first time, falling silent.

As the silence washed over them, Jim said, "If you don't mind me asking, how exactly was she allowed to keep a baby in prison?"

Lilith snorted, which was involuntary by her break in glaring. "Her father had her placed in the maternity ward. Even though it wasn't full C'tarl, he didn't want it brought up in a prison, so she was excused from her sentence to be with it." The fact this little snob kept calling his child an "it" really grated his already fragile nerves, but Jim was able to keep it in check knowing his kid was safe.

"Hmm, so let's say she was about three months pregnant when we were first captured in March. Six months later makes it September, and that was in 0165. Now it's 0166, so I've missed a solid year and two months of my kid's life." He tabulated using the Toward Star calendar (in his mind) in the present, remembering how sad he felt a few weeks ago when he first realized it. And Lilith didn't help matters; she refused to tell him anything about his first child other than "it" was healthy. Powerless even in the quest to gain knowledge about a child he didn't even know he'd fathered, let alone one that he even knew was possible to father, he fell back to his bed in defeat.

"This is not over human!" Lilith had snarled, realizing she'd broken him beyond repair when he stopped even jabbing back with insults or sound at all for that matter. "You could've saved them a world of pain, but now, now I have to find them on my own. When I do find them, I promise you she'll spend forever in pain you can't even imagine. And as for the mutt, I think I'll let a few of the privates eat it." She slammed the cell's door just as Jim's patience snapped, causing him to try and attack her again.

"Touch either one of them and I'll kill you!" he yelled, trying to grab her and smash her skull against the bars.

"Really," she began, and then flipped her braid into the bars of his cell to a loud clanging of metal … a silver ring like Aisha's gold one, which caused him to pause and realize he potentially couldn't kill her. "You can try, though." That sealed the deal right there. He was going to get out of there and find Aisha before that psycho did, because he'd be damned if his first child was actually eaten.

She hadn't been back since. It was now three weeks later, and that had him worried. Jim had decided against escaping immediately to work out a more worthwhile plan, and ,not to mention, let some of his internal injuries heal from his various beatings. November 23rd, today's date, and his twenty-first birthday. He'd spent his twentieth and twenty-first birthdays in prison and he'd be damned if he spent the twenty-second in here as well. He'd been setting things up from the day Lilith left: On Fridays, the guards played some C'tarl game that sounded like Poker, got drunk off their asses, and really slacked off on checking up on the "puny" human in the laundry room. Today was Friday.

The security bot that they let patrol was equipped with a heat detector, and was sent in ten-minute intervals in place of a guard to check on him. The robot's alarm went off when it didn't detect his precise body temperature in the cell when it passed. This fact was discovered by soaking his clothes in water, hanging them in the frigid night air, and then putting them on. The guard's took about seven minutes to show up or 420 seconds, seeing as he had to do his calculations by counting manually. When they showed up and saw him lying in the bed, they whacked the bot, and then left figuring the bot malfunctioned, yet they didn't get a new one.

"Using the T-7 model in this day and age, did they not see the bug reports on that thing?" Jim mumbled, almost laughing at the hideous security flaws in the machine. The T-7s, faulty units they were, could be avoided by masking at least sixty percent of a body's heat, an old tech show he used to watch had revealed. And the biggest flaw of all was that the T-7's kill switch was on its back-and the poor bastard's sensor eye only had a viewing range of ninety degrees. Sneak up on it and whammo! Turn it off like a light switch. So, all he had to do was let the bot come by and verify his body temperature was in the cell. From there, he'd have to get out of the cell and hide his body temperature, reach and disable the bot before his temperature was detectable, and then make a break for the outside-all within a ten minute window.

Ha, and they said his boring tech shows were a waste of time. He'd mentally mapped the laundry room's layout from his commutes to the upper levels for exercise and the like, so he knew where the exits were. This left only three things that needed to be taken care of before he could attempt his escape: a way to pick the cell's lock, a change of dry clothes to escape into the winter night, and a way to break through that wall to reach the spaceport.

His first problem was solved quite simply. Jim had taken a couple pieces of scrap metal from metal workshop, which, coincidentally, he'd been allowed to craft into what the guard called "pieces of human garbage." When scanned by the metal detector, though, they found his metal picks, but with a little goading, he used their pride against them. "What's wrong? Scared the little human's gonna kill you with his metal toothpicks?" It caused him a beating, but he got the desired result and his homemade lock picks.

Next, there was the issue of clothing. It snowed insanely on C'tarl-C'tarl in winter, so if he were to avoid the bot and make it outside, he definitely would need dry clothes. Hypothermia would get him before too long in that cold otherwise. So, with a little ingenuity, he managed to lose the street clothes he'd been allowed to keep. They were wrapped in a stolen sheet of plastic, which earned him a "minor" beating, just outside of his cell window, where guards rarely patrolled during the winter. Besides, they'd be under a foot of snow by now anyway. Lastly, there was getting past the wall, and making a successful go at one of the ships.

"I knew that slop was toxic, but this is ridiculous," he thought with a smile.

A trip to the prison library revealed a book on explosives. Not just on explosives, but how to make them. The only problem with that was that the book was written in C'tarl script, which he barely read. From what he gathered, though, one of the beginner-level explosives was made from common kitchen items, and it only needed to be lit to work. That had been a disheartening discovery because his last kitchen duty was over a year ago. However, one of the words translated into "delicacy," and the only thing served like that around there was this abomination of a stew Aisha had made when she first arrived and it was only for the C'tarl guards. Luck, of all things, was on his side because, in a drunken haze, one of the guards earlier that night gave him the remainder of his bowl as his birthday present. He accepted it on the grounds of being the first human to be allowed to taste the marvelous C'tarl five-star meal.

Usually, his food consisted of meat and more meat, mixed with chicken here and there. Yet tonight, he was thankful for the poisonous C'tarl stew. He'd shattered his light bulb and flung a few drops of the broth at the exposed wires in hopes that this was the delicacy from the book. It was instant flames. There was no way to accurately gauge how hot the fire was, but it was pretty safe to say purplish-black flames would be hot enough. The liquid was then dumped into a makeshift plastic pouch and tied off with a broken piece of his bootlace, making it into a simple grenade. If lit, he figured it would make an explosion big enough to possibly break through the wall that was still under construction. Everything was perfect-minus the fact that he lacked an igniter for the grenade-yet he still understood the overwhelming possibility that he could be captured and killed. It didn't matter. He had a kid, a girlfriend that he was now dying, no, living to see, and the thought of rotting away while Aisha worked some dead end job to support the kid and herself while he curled into a nice little ball and died didn't sit well.

"Three … two … one …" he counted to himself.

*Beep* *Beep* *Beep*

The robot's ruby red eye scanned the room, settling on Jim's bed and his bright yellow heat index. Four seconds later, it started up and puttered off down the dark corridor. When the bot's engine noise was out of earshot Jim sprang from under his rather thin blanket and went to work on the lock. He was only clad in prison white boxers and socks, so his hands were shaking from the cold air that relentlessly blew in on him. Three minutes passed and finally, the lock clicked, and turned over. Immediately, Jim turned and ran to his window and pulled in his now semi-frozen wardrobe and began to slide them over his body, grimacing openly from the frigid pain. Time was of the essence, though, so he hurriedly tucked his ragtag bomb into his armpit, lest the concoction would freeze in the bitter cold. With his boots on, escape weaponry in armpit, and the first escape route clear for the time being, Jim crept into the hallway and halfway to freedom.

An hour later …

Calculations: the steps necessary in order to create a successful plan. All of Jim's were dead on, except for the factors he forgot: Number one, why didn't he bundle his dry clothes, and put them inside his room? Guards did random checks, but he knew that tonight of all nights that they wouldn't. Number two, the weather was a factor he couldn't have foresaw even if wanted to. Brutally cold with a light downpour of snow was how it had started, yet now it was a full on blizzard. He persevered through, after disabling the robot and seizing its battery pack, complete with the gun some halfwit had half-ass modified onto the bot, despite the frozen wardrobe that was taking his body heat down to dangerously low levels.

"Keep moving," he whispered in the dim lights of the laundry room, and he did. Running without fear of being spotted by cameras-because there weren't any down there-Jim reached an exit that should lead him outside of the prison, not just that, but to the outside closest to his cell window where he could retrieve his dry clothes. Unfortunately, they locked the exits at night, and the drunken bastards even added numerical keypads. The wet clothes were beginning to thaw by then, leaving him in a layer of ice water essentially, as there was really no heat down there. Hypothermia would claim him at this point unless he disrobed and made for the dry clothes in his underwear. Time was running out and since thinking all day wasn't going to help, Jim panicked and shot the keypad. He paused. No C'tarl-C'tarl guards came, so he fired again. The process repeated twice more, at which time the lock finally gave way.

His legs felt like two-ton engine blocks, but Jim made a line through the shin-deep snow for his cell window, and began to dig in the snow like a deranged dog looking for a bone. If he was in ice water before reaching the outside, now he'd literally been frozen in a sheet of ice, because he had to randomly stop digging because of the pain. Eventually he heard the sound …*Crumple* … and knew it was his clothes. Placing the plastic bundle between his chattering teeth, Jim started removing his wet clothes, and groaning feverishly as the cold bit him in places he didn't even know he had. The tank top fit him like a rubber glove he found, but that could be attributed to the muscle he'd gained from the work. Next were his pants, also fitting tightly, but they were dry so it didn't matter. Once that was done he put on the old leather jacket and laced his boots again… even though he couldn't feel his fingers or toes by this point.

He was far from warm, but he was also very far from wet, and he was starting to thank whoever made the rule that said inmates couldn't shave, because his beard was sparing his face a world of frostbite. Of course, this gain of dry apparel came at the expense of his grenade somewhere in the deep snow and his hands were all but numb claws, yet the young outlaw stumbled off in search of freedom. This had all been roughly thirty minutes ago by his calculations, yet no guards were shouting after him, nor were there any alarms going off. And why should there be? After all, a blizzard-like volley of snow started shortly after his march for the wall began. So, even if they knew he was gone, they'd probably thought better to let the snow do him in. They'd be right, he figured, because if he didn't reach that wall or find a way to get beyond that wall and someplace warm soon, life was over.

The winds knocked him over, he couldn't see more than six inches beyond his face, and it almost felt like his heartbeat was slowing down and giving in to the weather. Pain, pain, and more pain, this wasn't even supposed to happen. He was supposed to steal the secret of C'tarl immortality-which he never even had a chance to look at let alone attempt to steal-not up and die in the snow. But maybe this was how it should be-payback for trying to steal what wasn't yours. The crew of the Outlaw Star weren't pirates, but they'd steal if an opportunity presented itself, and now it seemed they would all die in some form or another. Well, Aisha would hopefully stay alive, he thought just as a strong wind knocked him back into the snow. Jim gritted his teeth, and pushed back to his feet from his knees. Heh, it was almost amusing. Instead of escaping the C'tarl-C'tarl, he'd only die in their custody outside of his cell rather than in it.

"Some freed …" *Clank* "Ow!" He fell down again after colliding with something metal. Crawling back up again, Jim reached out and felt something, though barely. He recognized it as scaffolding. "The wall? Ha … ha … Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

His body actually held up, and that little bit of good news seemed to inspire him. It made him feel like he could go on, so he did. Jim could only hope the scaffolding reached the top of the wall or that they hadn't repaired it to the top so he could potentially leap through to the ground on the other side. Anyhow, with his not-so-numb hands that had gotten a break by being kept in his armpits, Jim began to climb. Rung by rung, plank by withered plank, Jim moved up the structure with reckless abandon. The robot's blaster felt like a giant ice cube against his back, but it didn't slow him down. Reaching the top, the exertion he found gave him back a small dose of body warmth. That wasn't important, though, because the snow took a convenient fluctuation, which allowed him to see about ten feet in front of himself … and the wall was within two of those feet.

However, the winter snow must've slowed construction because it was still damaged. Not only damaged, but it was about fifteen feet shorter than it would need to be complete. So, like a squirrel, Jim moved back down the scaffolding to the area adjacent to the top of the incomplete area of wall. The snow began to pick up again, but by now, Jim was in mid-flight and hanging on to the wall with pained fingers. His body felt like lead, but adrenaline and hope wouldn't let him let go. Inch by nerve splitting inch, Jim hoisted himself up with his arms. No Gene or Aisha helping him, simply the desire to be rid of the place fueled him to the top.

"Ha!" he shouted, getting to his feet on the narrow bit of concrete walling. "I'm out of heeeeere!" Jim screamed, being thrown off the wall by a particularly strong gust of wind.

His body hit the ground beyond the prison walls considerably light, thanks to the snow. Ignoring the pain his frozen body was giving him, Jim stood and marveled at the sight of the spaceport's red beacon lights.