Dil Mantron woke up tied to a chair in complete darkness and with a splitting headache. He wasn't very happy about it, either. As he tested his bindings to see whether or not he could wiggle free, he tried to remember exactly what had happened. He had been sneaking around what appeared to be the main warehouse of the Moo Goo Gai Pan Gang, the criminal group that he had come to Sushi IV to investigate when... That was all he remembered! Moving his head around a bit, he could tell that he had a large bump, just above his neck. Someone must have clobbered him from behind. He'd never live this down. Linnea would be... Wait a minute! Linnea! He still had his commbadge on! Ignoring his throbbing head, he bent down as far as he could and tapped his commbadge with his chin. Static. Stupid warehouse walls were made of the low-grade steel that Sushi IV was famous for. Because of the unique combination of trace elements in Sushi steel, Federation sensors and comm signals couldn't penetrate it. That was one of the reasons that the Federation was interested in the planet to begin with, Dil remembered. <> Dil, along with Banjo, Gisech, M'Dral, B1 and B2, Ustrano, Hirthnole, Jantoo, Zamtra, Linnea and Captain Seetamyn had gathered in Briefing Room One to discuss a proposal that had come in from Admiral Sontak. The Federation Council was deeply concerned about activities on a certain planet and they were looking for some way to provide aide without violating the Prime Directive. Knowing the unique abilities of the crew of the Menagerie, they had decided to assign the task to Project 'Open Arms.' (or, as was more likely the case, they would sent the Menagerie out on a hopeless mission, knowing that if they screwed it up the Council could simply blame it on "Alien Incompetence.") "This is the planet, Sushi IV," Seetamyn indicated an average looking Class M planet on the viewscreen. "It was discovered about twenty years ago by a Federation Anthropology survey. The cultural developement of the planet has reached a level just about equivelant to Earth in the 1950's, old calendar. The planet has been under observation by Starfleet Cultural Analysis since it was discovered, and it was assumed that in a century or so, it would have advanced enough to be contacted as an admission candidate. Unfortunately, things have gone downhill on the planet, lately. Some sort of criminal element seems to be taking over more and more control and Starfleet is afraid that the planet will degenerate into chaos and be lost." "Umm, I'm not sure I understand. That sort of cycle may be natural for that planet. Why would Starfleet be concerned?" Ustrano rumbled. "Probably because of what Starfleet is calling 'blind steel'," Seetamyn reported, to bewhildered looks from around the table - except for from one person. "I thought the name of that planet sounded familiar," Linnea broke into the confusion. "You've heard of it?" Dil, asked, surprised. "Of course," Linnea replied with a twinkle in her eye, enjoying her mometary superiority to the Starfleeter friends. "Blind steel is used by smugglers and other 'materials transporters' to conceal what they are carrying. You see, 'blind steel' is completely impervious to scanners. Put something illegal in a box made of 'blind steel' and you can walk right through any customs scanner with it completely undetected." "Now I understand why Starfleet is worried about that planet," Banjo said. "Imagine a ship made from that stuff, it could carry anything!" Murmurs of aggreement from around teh table were cut off by Linnea, "You couldn't make a ship out of it," she explained. "For one thing, it disrupts communications and for another, the steel is, quite bluntly, crap. One shot from a weapon and the entire ship would crumble.' "So all you can do is conceal relatively small things with it?" Gisech asked. "Well, you could hide a good sized bomb in it!" Linnea shot back. "That's one reason that most of the Syndicate is also concerned about Sushi IV." "Why would that be?" asked Ustrano. "I would have thought that they'd love this stuff." "The Orions don't need any cheap tricks to outsmart the Federation," Linnea replied, smugly. "What they worry about is some shipping company hiding a bomb in a case of 'blind steel' then hiding that in the middle of some nice juicy cargo. The Orions swoop in, steal the cargo fair and square and then get destroyed by an undetectable bomb! Most of the Clans have gone so far as to declare a bounty on the metal. Anyone destroying any of it gets a reward!" "Ah yes, the old "Trojan Horse" gambit," Gisech offered wisely. Considering the Graaken was much more informed about Earth history than any of the rest of the crew, no one argued with him. "So, the Federation wants me to go in, infiltrate the criminals and then destroy them from within?" Banjo asked, describing a tactic thatthe Founders had been using for centuries. "Actually, no," Seetamyn responded, surprising his First Officer. "They belive that such an action would take far too long and would have too great a chance of simply promoting another crimelord to power. Cultural Analysis has discovered that there is an ancient legend on Sushi IV about something called 'The Shadow Walker.' It seems that, according to the legend, in dark times this magical creature scours the land of evil and preserves order. What Starfleet wants is a small, two-man team to go in there and pretend to be this 'Shadow Walker.' Admiral Sontak believes that the best pair to take on this job is Lieutenant Mantron and Linnea." "What? Why? Them?" the briefing room was a confused babble of arguments. Seetamyn allowed the discussion to continue for a bit before explaining, "Linnea will stay on board the Runabout Maurice Sendak, which is being outfitted with Sensor Refective Shielding. Her extensive knowledge of organized crime will be utilized to guide Dil who will be down on the surface. His Luck Eater ability should keep him out of trouble while pushing the odds in his favor for a successful conclusion." "Linnea isn't even /in/ Starfleet!" Dil argued. "Admiral Sontak can't just go volunteering her for a dangerous mission like this!" "Hon, if you're going, I'm going, too," Linnea returned. "I'm not leaving you to fend for yourself with crappy Starfleet intel! Besides, no one else will even know that I'm there! I'll be completely invisible, safe in the runabout." "The Luck Eater and the Invisble Brain!" Ustrano laughed, applying labels which would stick to the pair for quite some time to come. Two days later, Dil and Linnea had embarked on their mission. The Menagerie would stay several lightyears away from the Sushi system, obstensibly mapping a small nebula. That way, Starfleet could have plausible deniability in case anything went seriously awry. The two had studied the Sushians carefully. For the most part they were completely average humanoids. They /were/ bright orange, which had made it necessary for the pair to have their skin dyed. Other than that, the only oddity about the planet was a strange correlation between Sushian words and Terran Chinese food. No one had yet determined why this should be so, and it had simply been chalked up to one of those 'truth is stranger than fiction' thingies. Dil had carefully inserted the runabout into a polar orbit, keeping the ship away from any visual scanners that Starfleet Cultural Analysis might have active with the SR Shielding active. The reports from Starfleet intel had pinpointed that the most active criminal gangs operated out of the planet's largest city, Foo Young. Linnea's had confirmed this with several old contacts in the Syndicate. Lusiphen, Linnea's father had gotten approval from the Syndicate for this mission so there was plenty of information available for the Luck Eater and the Invisible Brain. Dil had found it odd that the Orions were helping to stabilize a world so that it could eventually join the Federation, but Linnea had just laughed. "We know how to deal with the Federation," she had explained. "What business is there on some backwards planet, anyway?" Dil had to agree that that made some amount of sense. He was much readier to belive that the Syndicate was helping out of self-interest rather than out of any sort altruistic motives. Linnea had studied communication patterns and the movements of certain individuals and products for several days before pinpointing the warehouse as the headquarters of the Moo Goo Gai Pan Gang. Dil had beamed down to get an idea of what was inside, since the runabout's scanners couldn't penetrate the warehouse's 'blind steel' construction. <> The darkness was suddenly dispelled as the overhead lights flickered on. Dil saw six Sushians coming towards him, the largest one was wearing some sort of ominous tank and hose contraption that Dil got a decidedly bad feeling about. The six took up positions in a semi-circle around the helpless helmsman, with the large man standing about 20 feet away, directly in front of him. "So, our little snoop is finally awake, huh?" the large man laughed as though he had just said something inordinately funny, and the other five men joined in. "Umm, excuse me," Dil said, "but what was funny about that?" The laughter immediately ceased as the five men suddenly cringed. "I say its funny, so its funny," the large man said. He was definately the leader, Dil decided. Oh well, time to provoke him, "And just who are you?" the Betazoid sneered. The five men were now visibly terrified. Who was this idiot who would provoke the Boss? "Me? You don't know who I am?" the large man thundered increduously. Picking one of his lackeys, seemingly at random he snarled, "Tell the snoop who I am!" "He, he, he, he's Boss Song Sung Lo!" "Sounds like a lounge singer's act!" Dil laughed. "Oh, I'm gonna enjoy this!" Boss Song Sung Lo announced. Indicating the gadget he wore, he asked Dil, "Ya know what this is, smart guy?" "An industrial-sized mouthwash dispenser to counteract your bad breath?" Dil guessed. "No!" Song Sung Lo screamed. "Its the newest prototype that the military is working on. Its a flame-gun!" Now that it was named, Dil could see the resemblance to a primitive flame thrower. His bad feeling about the device had been right! "Now, I'm gonna ask yew some questions! If I don't like your answers, you're gonna get the cripsy-critter treatment! How's that sound?" "Not real good," Dil admitted. "So where's your smart mouth now, snoop?" "Right where its always been. Its not like it moves around. And was that one of the questions?" "NO! screamed the apoplectic gang leader. "Here's the first one - What were you doing snooping around this place?" "I had lost my pet terful and I was looking for it." (A terful was the Sushian equivalant of a Terran cat, only instead of being a fluffy feline, a terful was more like a bright blue, basketball-shaped snail. They were quite popular on Shushi IV and Dil had actually purchased one to bring back to Ustrano.) "Bad answer!" Song Sung Lo screamed as he sent a jet of flame at Dil's head! As the searing fire strecthed out across the space between Dil and Boss Lo, a mental 'switch' was thrown, somewhere inside the Helmsman's head. Whether the switch was physical, psychic or a combination of both, the results were that, for a brief time, in a very limited physical space, causality and probability suddenly decided to take a quick vacation while wild chance and good luck came in as their replacements. In short, Dil Mantron became, for the briefest instant, the luckiest man in the galaxy! However, there ARE varying degrees of luck! Over the heads of the Moo Goo Gai Pan Gang and their helpless captive, an ancient, forgotten sprinkler system suddenly sprang to life. Stagant, rusty and extremely smelly water suddenly spewed out of municipal-code regulation nozzles and, quite lietrally, threw a damper on the party. The long-unused pipes groned under the strain and suddenly demonstrated why it was a bad idea to give out building contracts to the lowest bidder! Pipes burst and a deluge of disgusting water extinguished the flame-gun. The sudden flood also caused numerous lightbulbs to 'pop' plunging the cavernous room into a mottled tapestry of light and shadow. As Dil tried to hold his breath to keep from breathing in any of the noxious water, a hand suddenly darted out from one of the shadows and pulled him into the blackness. One of the gang, acting on shouted orders from Boss Song Sung Lo, located the warehouse's main water supply cut-off valve and quickly shut off the flow to the ruined sprinkler system. The gang then whipped out flashlights to illuminate their surroundings. Training the lights across the floor, they soon intersected the spot where their captive had been tied. There, they saw an empty chair and some cut ropes, but no sign of the intruder. Somehow their quarry had escaped!