Tenchi Muyo Fan Fiction ❯ Ryakudatsu Muyo (No Need for Piracy) ❯ Soukoku Muyou (No Need for Rivals) ( Chapter 2 )

"We must love one another, yes, yes, thats all true enough, but nothing says we have

to like each other. It may be the very recognition of all men as our brothers that

accounts for the sibling rivalry, and even enmity, we have toward so many of them."

-- Narrator (Jim Tickler) in The Glory of the Hummingbird

by Peter De Vries (b. 1910), U.S. author.

"Ryoko!"

The legendary space pirate laughed giddily and continued moving slowly, one hand resting on Tenchi's bare chest.

"Mmm, you can beg for mercy louder than that, can't you, Tenchi?"

"Please, Ryoko! If you don't stop that, I'll... Ryoko! ...Ryoko!"

She sighed contentedly, feeling him tense under her, and opened her eyes again with a warm smile. "Ten-"

She stopped in the middle of speaking his name.

Tenchi wasn't there.

* * * * *

It took her a moment to wake up fully, to register that she had only been dreaming, and to realize just who was attached to the blond head which was repeating her name desperately. Doing all three, she snarled and rose up, lifting Mihoshi off the floor by her collar with both hands and glaring down fiercely into the Galaxy Police officer's eyes.

"D'you know what you just interrupted, Mihoshi?!"

Mihoshi was already bawling as she dangled helplessly by Ryoko's grip on her shirt, tears streaming from her eyes in saline arcs. "Uwaaah! I didn't mean to Ryokoooo!"

Ryoko growled ferally, twitching in aggravation, and dropped Mihoshi unceremoniously on the couch over which the pirate had been hovering in her sleep a moment earlier. She crossed her arms irritably and landed on the floor, tapping a foot impatiently while waiting for Mihoshi to stop crying. "What do you want, Mihoshi?"

"I... I don't remember," she sniffled.

"Why you..."

Mihoshi rubbed her eyes tearfully. "I'm sorry, Ryoko! You just scared me and I totally forgot what I had to say!"

Ryoko restrained herself from strangling Mihoshi-even in her dreams, it seemed, something would always get in the way! She did not, however, restrain herself from glaring down at the blonde. "You'd damn well better remember, Mihoshi, `cause if you woke me up without a good reason, you'll find out how I got to be number one most wanted pirate in the galaxy."

Mihoshi suddenly leapt up and grasped Ryoko's hand, smiling broadly and childlike, completely oblivious to the threat against her life and wellbeing in the sudden rush of recollection. "Ooh, ooh, I just remembered! I just remembered what it was, Ryoko!"

Ryoko sweatdropped at the sudden mood reversal and repressed the urge to snatch her hand away, lest the shock send Mihoshi into hysterics again. She braced herself for whatever stupid idea cooked up overnight by perhaps the single most incompetent officer of the law in galactic history. "Okay," she sighed, "okay! So what's the big deal?"

"Well, I just remembered it now, when you said you were the number one most wanted pirate in the galaxy! I was going to tell you last night, but I fell asleep, and I just woke up a little while ago, but I wanted to get myself some breakfast first, and I'd forgotten to reload the dispenser before I came here following Kagato, and-"

Ryoko growled as Mihoshi's mind wandered further and further from both the topic at hand and anything the pirate cared to hear about. "Mihoshi. You wanted to tell me something?" She crossed her arms again and heaved a weary sigh, wondering absently what that dream would have been like if it had gone on for another few hours. Even if it was a dream, she would have liked to have that memory to hang on to-perhaps as a vivid outline of what to make into reality over the next couple of weeks.

"Ooh, right!" piped the blond officer eagerly, putting on a very serious expression, although it failed to make her come across any less absurd. Ryoko absently wondered how someone so inept and cutesy got through the academy. Their standards must have really slipped in the last few centuries, she decided.

Mihoshi continued, with all the solemnity she could muster: "Before she left, Lady Aeka reminded me it was my sworn duty as an officer of the Galaxy Police to protect people from dangerous criminals-especially important people like Tenchi! So anyway, I figured I should go back to my ship and find out if anything new happened since I crashed here. Well, it took me awhile, but I got the radio turned on, and you'll never guess what I found out!" Her statement was delivered with such dramatic flare that soap opera actresses around the world were put to shame.

Ryoko's already scant patience was wearing thin. "You're right, Mihoshi, I'll never guess," she answered with a growl kept just below her breath. "That's because you're going to get to the point and tell me."

Mihoshi sulked. "Oh, okay. Well, I'll tell you what I found!"

She paused, trying to build suspense.

Ryoko stared at her, waiting resignedly to hear about the brave rescue of an old woman's cat from a tree.

"There's a new number one most wanted pirate!"

Mihoshi had restored her attempt at a serious expression, but Ryoko was no longer thinking about Mihoshi's clownish demeanor.

"Well, that's not really surprising, is it? It's been a long time, now. The statute of limitations on everything I did must have come and gone, by now. So what's so special about the new kid on the block?" She crossed her arms, listening, but growing genuinely curious. She doubted even Mihoshi would get so worked up over something neither important nor as dramatic as the valiant rescue of a kitty in distress.

"Umm... I guess it's mostly that the Wanted notice says he might be just a few dozen lightyears from Earth." She scratched her head, trying to remember the details of the Wanted notice, but it was all a bit hazy-other than that the picture they had of him was really cute, in a dashing, dangerous sort of way. "I've got the rest on here... just let me see..." She picked up her dimensional cube and fiddled with it for a minute, her tongue sticking out the corner of her mouth in deep concentration, before she managed to bring up her portable personal computer display.

"Lemme see that," Ryoko interrupted, snatching the display from the surprised Mihoshi's hands the moment she produced it. The infamous pirate peered at the holoprojection screen, reading through the details. She's right about him working near Earth. And it looks like he doesn't even have a record until just a little over two months ago, by the standard Earth calendar. ...two months?! NOBODY gets "number one most wanted" in just two months! Ryoko caught herself staring at the readout and scowled. Charges of grand larceny, assaulting a noble, murder, export violations, sector restriction violations...

And worse still, the young man in the picture looked damnably familiar. She had the nagging feeling that she'd seen this guy, somewhere. From the looks of him, he could be in his early 20s, but she knew as well as anybody that appearances could be deceiving; she looked about the same age, herself, and was thousands of Earth years old; and Washuu claimed, at least, to have been around for ten times as long as Ryoko, despite the eccentric scientist's childlike appearance.

"I never thought I'd say this, Mihoshi," said Ryoko after a moment's pause, "but you're right." And I wish I'd never seen this, she finished, silently. I was looking forward to all this time without Aeka getting in the way; but at least I don't have to worry about her dragging Tenchi off to Jurai while I'm not looking.

She froze for a moment, considering the possibility Mihoshi could have rigged this, somehow, with images out of the Galaxy Police archives to make sure Ryoko's interest would be piqued. But near instantly, she remembered it was Mihoshi, who likely couldn't rig anything more sophisticated than a TV dinner.

Ryoko grinned slowly, fanglike teeth glimmering in the morning light. "All right, Mihoshi. Don't worry about a thing. You stay here and keep your eyes peeled and your hands off Tenchi, and I'll take care of this uppity brat."

Nobody but nobody shows up the legendary space pirate Ryoko!

Now I just need to find enough carrots to convince Ryo-Ouki to fly to Tortuga Station.

* * * * *

The spaceport was a large, well-armed station nestled amid the thick, icy rings of a planet not entirely unlike Saturn but larger and much farther from Sol; it orbited a reddish star several dozen lightyears from the system in which Earth followed its annual orbit. The path along which this planet traveled, as decreed by the spacetime geometry force called gravity, kept it far enough from its star's nuclear fire that the gas ices composing the splendid rings were in no danger of melting or sublimating and disappearing; the gas giant's powerful magnetic field generated by the metallic hydrogen dynamo in its core held back the ruddy star's Beta-radiation wind of liberated electrons and hot ions.

The spaceport known locally as Tortuga Station had a reason to reside in the shelter of the planetary ring system; if it wished to avoid the attention of the Galaxy Police, it was difficult to locate the station with shipboard scanners when its electronic stealth systems were active; a full visual search was hugely impractical amid the millions of scattered microplanetoids. Better still, an attack on the base would be complicated by the rings around it-any ship flying through them had to moderate its speed, thereby making an approaching vessel a sitting duck, or else plow through the field of massive gas ice crystals at cruising velocities.

Tortuga Station needed this protection because it was not a military outpost. Nor was it a civilian spaceport. Rather, it was a Port of Haven: a neutral ground for outlaws and pirates to stop at in relative safety, and a place where they could relax, as much as anyone in outlaw society ever could, and not worry about local authorities. There were certain rules to follow for the safety of the spaceport itself (enforced in much the same manner as those maintained by yakuza), but aside from these, there was no law at all. If one wanted to find something illegal, Tortuga Station would have either what you wanted or someone who could get it. It also had more than its fair share of run down, dirty, seedy bars and brothels; the most honest businesses on the station were the casinos. Tortuga Station was like Las Vegas wrapped up and packed into a giant can with windows and more firepower than most of the nations of Earth.

Ryoko scowled to herself as she looked over the spaceport, one hand on her hip. It was dirtier than she had remembered it being, but the last time she'd passed through was several centuries ago by Earthly reckoning. The sense of dilapidation-tinged nostalgia did nothing for her, and the time she had spent relaxing in the countryside with Tenchi made some of her old-time haunts seem more stark than she expected. She shook the thoughts from her head and whistled to Ryo-Ouki, who changed from the form of a large, spiny, crystalline starship into her small, harmless cabbit form, perching on her mistress's shoulder. At least I won't have to pay for docking space, thought Ryoko.

She knew from her old days of dealing with pirates that you don't find a hotshot by searching through all the bars and strip clubs and casinos. Police sometimes look for pirates that way, because they have a lot of manpower and most of them don't understand the privateer psychology. Bounty hunters know better, though; searching around and hoping you get the right rabbit hole is a good way to spend a month getting nowhere, only to find out that your quarry already left.

You track down a pirate by calling him out. A pirate may value his skin highly, but without a tough reputation, other pirates become far more dangerous than you could dream of being. Outlaw culture is defined strongly by status awarded for how dangerous one is. Passing up a sensible challenge without a good reason is one of the best ways to make yourself look weak, and as in any predatory society, the weak are either shoved aside or ripped apart. If you mean to stay alive as a pirate, you have to keep everyone else scared enough that they won't pick a fight with you, given the choice.

And if they do, then you have to make an example of them.

Now, how to call him out? Ryoko was paused in thought when she heard loud, mocking laughter nearby. She looked over, prepared to beat the hell out of whoever was trying to start something with her, but found that the laughter was directed toward someone else. There were two men not far away. One was unfamiliar, although he was obviously some manner of outlaw, judging by his sense of style, his scars, and the illegal, high-power vibroblade he held. He was huge, and looked angry and stupid. A few past encounters with this type of character passed through her mind-they were vague as with all distant memories, but she smirked at the recollection of beating them into the ground.

Her expression became instantly serious when she got a clear view of the other man, the one who was laughing at his giant opponent. He was just shy of six feet tall, but he seemed diminutive near the near nine-foot behemoth with the illicit weapon. His hair was black and long, and he was definitely handsome, in an almost regal sort of way, although his expression was altogether rakish in both senses of the word. The flamboyance of the huge white feather rising from his big leather hat stood proudly like a banner declaring the degree of his audacity. If his laughter, hat and arrogant grin didn't spell out his cocky attitude clearly enough, the half-finished bottle of hard liquor he had brought out of the bar with him left no doubt: it was an obvious display of contempt, and a statement that he was sure he would not need both hands to finish the fight easilly. He looked damnably familiar from somewhere, other than the Galaxy Police file on him-this was the one Ryoko had come here to deal with, the new rising star of piracy in the galaxy. Circumstance had saved her the trouble of getting him away from his drink, and gave her an opportunity to see just how good he was.

"Stop laughing!" thundered the giant, brandishing his weapon threateningly.

The young man laughed in response and shrugged casually. "I can't help it if clowns're funny, Sparky. Now, since you're interrupting my relaxing with a stiff drink and a sexy young woman-"

"MY WOMAN!" interrupted the brute in a roaring bass, practically foaming at the mouth. "And don't call me `Sparky!' The name's Colossus!"

"Whatever, Sport. First of all, you're not cool enough to be named after an X-Men character. Second, a girl with a body like that deserves hours of incomparable ecstasy-not a giant unwashed wookie's nut sack like you. And finally, if you interrupt me one more time or say something retarded, I'll kill you where you stand and hang you off your own ship by your back hair."

The self-styled Colossus snarled inarticulately and started forward at the young man. "PREPARE TO D-"

Before he could finish, there was a deafening BANG like a bolt of lightning, and the huge man's right shoulder practically exploded in a spray of blood; the arm wielding his vibroblade crashed to the floor several feet away. The giant let out a strangled roar, stumbled back, and fell with a BOOM and amazed shouts from a few similarly dressed men standing nearby.

"Didn't I just tell you not to say anything retarded?"

The young man stood, aiming a large pistol at the wounded giant, and took a casual pull from the bottle in his hand. The pistol was dark grey with red lettering on it which read Havermeyer 15mm, and resembled the bastard offspring of a 17th century Earth flintlock and a ray gun from a black and white era science fiction film. "You're lucky you didn't get blood on me. Now go find something better to do than wasting my bullets and distracting me from pretty girls."

The giant lay bleeding and groaning incoherently where he had stood. A few members of his crew rushed over to drag him away, another dragging away his arm, which must have weighed near two-hundred pounds in muscle and still clutched the weapon. A girl in form-fitting black leather hesitated momentarily, gave the young man with the gun an apologetic look, and hurried after the losing team.

The young man scowled a moment, then smirked and shook his head, laughing casually. "Shit. Another five minutes, and she would've been all over me."

Ryoko stood by, watching the display. A kid with a nice gun, she thought. And he's really not afraid to use it. But it's nothing I can't work around. He's probably a total marshmallow, behind it. She grinned to herself with a generous display of fanged teeth, and stepped out of the crowd, resting a hand on her hip. "I hope I'm not destroying your ego, kid, but I've gotta say I've seen way bigger guns than yours."

The young man chuckled as he turned to face her. "Hah! You haven't-" He stopped in mid sentence and stared for a split second, as if surprised to see her there, then smirked and spun the pistol, putting it away; he had returned almost instantly to his casual, impudent demeanor. "Shit. I didn't think you'd be here to waste my time this quickly, old lady."

Ryoko bristled at the insult. "Who're you calling an old lady, runt?!"

"Gyahaha... I'm calling you an old lady, old lady. You're what, two thousand years old, more or less? I recognize the famous Ryoko, all right." His smirk widened a moment before he tilted back the bottle, finishing it off, and tossed it to someone in the crowd. "Don't worry, old lady, I'm not gonna shoot a legendary fossil like you. Wouldn't want to make you break a hip, or something."

"Why you little punk... who the hell are you, anyway?" She glared and snarled, crackling with the bright red plasma currents that gathered and arced around her. Most of the crowd from the previous engagement were still gathered around to see where this one was going. More than a few were making bets, keeping to hushed tones. Risking money was one thing, but none of the bystanders wanted to risk having to explain why they had bet against the victor, if they should lose the bet.

"I'm guessing you're here because you know who I am: the most wanted pirate in this galaxy. But you can call me Captain Takeo Kobayashi."

She scowled at the unfamiliarity of the name. Maybe I'm looking at this from the wrong angle; not everyone lives much longer than Earth-humans. This could easilly be the thirty-times great grandson of somebody I used to know, and his last name could've changed as many times as that.

"'Takeo Kobayashi,' huh?" Ryoko mulled over the name while watching him, trying to put together the memory that was nagging at the back of her mind.

"Captain. Captain Takeo Kobayashi. Now, there something I can do for you, or did you just show up to congratulate me on being the new most wanted pirate-and, I might add, pirate captain-in this galaxy?" He was still smirking, the look on his face just begging her to punch it in; worse still, some of the crowd was laughing. Humiliation isn't something you can let slide, in outlaw society.

Ryoko growled irately, but smirked back. "Hah! Actually, I'm here to teach all of you a lesson; and you've made yourself the example, prettyboy."

Takeo laughed, remaining frustratingly relaxed; worse than simply being relaxed, he was plainly enjoying the encounter. "A lesson? You mean about old fossils trying to get back in the game after their time's passed?" He didn't even try to conceal his amusement at the fury in her blazing eyes. "Come on and make an example of me, old lady. Just don't try and sue me for damages when you fall down."

"Shut up, already!" Ryoko snarled and dashed forward as Ryo-Ouki left her shoulder, her right hand clenched into a fist. She closed quickly, her flight propelling her faster than any human, and swung hard to strike the young man across the jaw and break it. That'll shut him up! she thought, as her fist connected, relishing the impact.

She was stunned when he only stumbled a step back-she knew she could lay out an ox with a punch like that-and spat blood on the floor. He flashed a grin, and before she could react, pivoted forward, driving his own fist up into her gut with the weight and strength of his body, which amazed her: it was hard enough to double her over and force the air from her lungs. She wheezed, eyes thrown wide from the impact and her body stunned for a moment in which his other hand came across her jaw, sending her backward several meters to land on her back and skid to a stop.

Takeo brushed the back of his right hand across mouth to wipe away the blood, shaking his left hand which had struck her jaw. "Heh... if you're gonna start something with me, granny, don't screw around. I know I'll kick your ass, but you can at least put up a decent fight."

Ryoko lay there a moment in shock. When was the last time I got laid out like this? she wondered at the ceiling as her vision settled from the jarring blow, the crowd about them cheering raucously like the audience at a match-of-the-century. In a way, it was. Against Kagato. He would've been no special challenge to me, if he'd fought fair, but I know he wasn't any kind of slouch among pirates; maybe I underestimated this clown... time to get serious!

She growled under her breath as she leapt to her feet, clenching her fist again and channeling the angry red plasma-lightning over which she exercised control, forming a blade of searing crimson light. "Hah! You want me to fight you seriously, punk?! Your funeral!" With a snarl, Ryoko leapt forward, propelling herself at her quarry, teeth bared ferally in a grin of aggression.

Ryoko closed again with all the velocity she could muster, bringing her arm up and across to slash forcefully with the weightless blade in her right hand, a strike capable of cleaving through a car. However, even as her arm came upward, Takeo moved in to meet her; his left hand grasped her fist, keeping the blade of coherent energy harmlessly away from his body, and he spun fluidly, letting his body's angular momentum transfer out to his extended elbow, arcing it around toward her as she passed. Ryoko didn't register the progression until his elbow connected squarely with the back of her head. She flew forward with the momentum, uncontrolled, and crashed full on into a wall of artificial brick with the strength of steel. The impact cracked the wall around her, and her energy blade flickered and extinguished as her control slipped.

She heard him laughing through the flashes of light dancing behind her eyes and snarled furiously, pulling herself from the wall, followed by a shower of broken material around her feet. She whirled, channeling red plasma in her hand and pitched it toward her adversary. The sphere of compressed energy blazed through the air, blasting a hole in the floor of the promenade where Takeo had been standing before he rolled to the side. Ryoko knew Tortuga Station's enforcers would be showing up to make their presence known, but she didn't care; she was only here to deal with this problem, and Tortuga's enforcers didn't worry her-the demoness-pirate who had laid waste to the capital planet of the Jurai Empire-in the least.

But neither should this bastard, she thought, as she hurled another blast in his direction. Takeo slipped around it and dashed forward at her, flashing an arrogant grin. Ryoko was already gathering plasma in her hand again as he closed in, and grinned in reply while trying to ignore the building disorientation; it wouldn't matter, after he fell into her trap. She let him get good and close, before she vanished suddenly. When she appeared again a fraction of a second later, now behind him, she laughed and swung her blade of energy, meaning to take his head. The laughter, however, died in her throat when she saw half of a white feather floating free in the air.

How did he know-

The last thought which passed through her mind was incomplete when she felt the impact of his open palm rising into her jaw with the full strength of his frame. Abstract thought failed at once, followed swiftly by her vision, and she only dimly registered the sensation of dropping roughly to the ground from the several meters' height she had attained after the strike.

Her last perception was of Takeo's voice, rich with amusement.

"That was for ruining my feather."