SSSSS t TTTTTTTTTT kk SSSSSSS tt TTTTTTTTTT kk SS SSS tt TT kk SS SS ttttt aaaaa rr rr TT rr rr aaaaa kk kk sssss :: SSSS ttttt aaaaaaa rrrrr TT rrrrr aaaaaaa kk kk sssssss :: SSSSSS tt aa aa rrr TT rrr aa aa kk kk ss ss SSSSS tt aaaa rr TT rr aaaa kkkkk ssss SSS tt aaaaaa rr TT rr aaaaaa kkkkk sssss SS SS tt aaa aa rr TT rr aaa aa kkk kk ssss SSS SSS tt aa aa rr TT rr aa aa kk kk ss ss SSSSSSS tttt aaaaaaa rr TT rr aaaaaaa kk kk sssssss :: SSSSS ttt aaaa aa rr TT rr aaaa aa kk kk sssss :: MMM MMM ll t ii MMM MMM ll tt ii MMMM MMMM ll tt MMMM MMMM eee ll ttttt ii nn nnnn ggg gg MM M M MM eeeee ll ttttt ii nnnnnnnn ggggggg MM MM MM MM ee ee ll tt ii nnn nn ggg ggg MM MM MM MM eeeeeee ll tt ii nn nn gg gg MM MM MM MM eeeeeee ll tt ii nn nn gg gg MM MMM MM ee ll tt ii nn nn gg gg MM MMM MM eee ee ll tt ii nn nn ggg ggg MM MMM MM eeeee ll tttt ii nn nn ggggggg MM M MM eee ll ttt ii nn nn ggg gg gg gg gggggggg gggggg PPPPPPP t PPPPPPPP tt PP PPP tt PP PP oooo ttttt PP PPP oooooo ttttt PPPPPPPP ooo ooo tt PPPPPPP oo oo tt PP oo oo tt PP oo oo tt PP ooo ooo tt PP oooooo tttt PP oooo ttt Star Traks: Melting Pot is based on Alan Decker's Star Traks, which in turn is based on Star Trek, created by Gene Roddenberry, may he rest in peace. Welcome to the Second Season of Melting Pot - who'da thunkit? Copyright 2005. "Pushing your Luck" by Paul Cloutier Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember it didn't work for the rabbit. R. E. Shay Dil Mantron woke up tied to a chair in deep shadow 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 Sushian 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 & 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 aid 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 send 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 development of the planet has reached a level just about equivalent 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 bewildered 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 momentary superiority to her 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 agreement from around the 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. Gisech had already shared this story with the crew, and none of them were in any great hurry to hear it again. "So, the Federation wants me to go in, infiltrate the criminals and then destroy them from within?" Banjo asked, describing a tactic that the Founders had been using for centuries. "Actually, no," Seetamyn responded, surprising his First Officer. "They believe that such an action would take far too long and would have too great a chance of simply promoting another crime lord to power. Cultural Analysis has discovered that there is an ancient legend on Sushi IV about something called 'The ShadowWalker.' 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 'ShadowWalker.' 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 Reflective 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 Invisible 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 light years away from the Sushi system, ostensibly 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 in place, with the runabout's 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 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 believe 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 and snuck in 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 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 definitely 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 incredulously. Picking one of his lackeys, seemingly at random he snarled, "Tell the snoop who I am!" "He, he, he, he's Boss Song Sung Blu!" "Sounds like a lounge singer's act!" Dil laughed. "Where do you get off, laughing like that? Don't you understand the trouble you're in?" "Oh, I understand," Dil answered. "But I'm plucky!" "You're what?" the confused gang leader hoped that he had heard that wrong. "Plucky! P-L-U-C-K-Y! I took a course in 'Pluck' at the Academy!" "Pluck?" the relieved Boss shot back. "What the Hell are you talking about?" "I'd explain, but I'd have to use big words," Dil continued his taunting. "Oh, I'm gonna enjoy this!" Boss Song Sung Blu 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 Blu screamed. "Its the newest prototype that the military is working on. Its a fire-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 equivalent 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 Sushi IV and Dil had actually purchased one to bring back to Ustrano.) "Bad answer!" Song Sung Blu screamed as he sent a jet of flame at Dil's head! As the searing fire stretched out across the space between Dil and Boss Blu, 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. Stagnant, rusty and extremely smelly water suddenly spewed out of municipal-code regulation nozzles and, quite literally, threw a damper on the party. The long-unused pipes groaned 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 fire-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 Blu, 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 their 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! Several kilometers away, that ex-captive was enjoying a hot shower and trying to remove at least some of the stench from his body. Dil and his mysterious rescuer had somehow been instantaneously transported to this comfortable home in one of the better suburbs of Foo Young. His rescuer/host had simply pointed him to the shower and then removed himself from the bathroom. Dil had tried to contact Linnea, but somehow the water had gotten into his commbadge, and all it would do was gurgle at him. Dropping his ruined clothes into a heavy duty trash bag (that his mystery host had provided) Dil gratefully stepped under the nearly scalding water of the shower. After over thirty minutes of scrubbing, Dil felt nearly normal, again. Quickly toweling off, he wrapped the towel around himself (not having anything else to wear) and stepped from the bathroom. He found his host sitting in the comfortable living room. The stranger quickly got to his feet and tossed Dil a bathrobe, which the Helmsman quickly tied around himself. Handing his wet towel over with one hand, he extended the other in the nearly universal greeting of camaraderie. Somewhat reluctantly, it seemed, the stranger took the pro-offered hand and then hurried out, presumably to put the towel in the laundry (or, perhaps, the garbage, there was definitely a distinct aroma clinging to it.) When he returned there was a determined set to his jaw, and a gun in his hand! "Alright," he said, in what Dil supposed the stranger thought was a commanding voice, "who are you and what were you doing in that warehouse?" "My name is Dil (it was a common enough name on Sushi IV that it wouldn't attract attention, so Dil had decided to dispense with an alias) and, like I told those thugs, I was looking for my pet terful." "And that is about as convincing to me as it was to them. Look - they were trying to kill you so that should, by all rights, make us allies. But I can't take the chance that this was all some sort of elaborate setup designed to trap me." "Trap YOU?" Dil asked astonished, taking a long second look at his host. What he saw wasn't any different from the first look he had taken. The man was pretty short, just a centimeter or two over 1.5 meters. His pale orange-colored skin showed signs that the man had fought a battle with acne when he had been young - a battle that, it appeared that he had lost! His hair was dank and limp, his teeth crooked and he stood hunched over. He was the Sushian equivalent of a Terrestrial nerd. Dil felt a great deal of kinship with the poor guy. He had been such an outcast when he had been younger, too. But that didn't explain the man's paranoia. Why would the Moo Goo Gai Pan Gang be trying to trap a geek like him? "Yes! Trap me!" the young man seemed a bit annoyed by Dil's derision. "You see - I'm the ShadowWalker!" Dil was trying to wrap his mind around the fact that this scrawny geek was a legendary hero when a faint whine and a flurry of sparkles announced the arrival of Linnea. Seeing a man holding a weapon on her beloved, she acted immediately and stunned the, well, stunned, young man into unconsciousness before he could even move. "Hi hon!" Dil hugged the Orion woman. "How did you find me?" "Well, your comm signal faded out when you entered that warehouse. I gave you an hour to investigate then sent down a remote camera probe. It took its photographs and then returned to the ship. When I viewed the pictures, they showed that the warehouse was empty except for a whole lot of water. I was beginning to get a little worried when your signal suddenly re-appeared here. So I beamed down and here I am! "So who's the skinny guy?" she asked as she moved closer to kiss Dil, then quickly backed away as she caught a whiff of the warehouse water which still seemed to perfume him. "Would you believe that HE'S the ShadowWalker?" "You're kidding! And I just shot him... brilliant! I hope he's OK!" Linnea and Dil moved over to check on the fallen Sushian, Dil's odor seemed to work like smelling salts on the man and he began stirring. Dil quickly removed the gun from his host's hand and tossed it away, under the couch. Dil and Linnea moved the ShadowWalker into an easy chair and then took up positions on the couch, opposite him. Soon he was groggily shaking his head as he regained full consciousness. "Ohhhhhh!" the ShadowWalker moaned. "What hit me?" "Sorry about that," Linnea apologized. The ShadowWalker looked over at Linnea and his eyes bugged out as his jaw gaped open. Even dyed orange the Orion was a stunning sight. "Who, who, who are you?" the dumbfounded young Sushian managed to stammer out. "She's The Invisible Brain. I'm The Luck Eater. We have come looking for you, ShadowWalker." "Invis... but I can see her? What is going on?" "Can you see her brain?" Dil asked, hoping to capitalize on the poor man's confusion. "Well, no," admitted the ShadowWalker. "There you go 'Invisible Brain'." "But..." "Look we're here to help you. Do you want our help or not?" "Yes, of course. But where are you from?" Linnea, who had been fighting back giggles while Dil badgered the poor Sushian, shared a glance with the Betazoid. Between the two of them passed an instant of under- standing. As Dil was saying, "That's going to take a little explaining...", she stood and tapped her commbadge, "Computer, three to beam up!" Dil had retired to the sonic shower, hoping that its powerful sound waves could remove the last, lingering traces of his warehouse adventure. He had left the ShadowWalker alone with Linnea. The young man seemed completely oblivious to the fact that he was now in orbit above his home world (perhaps because of his shock at having a beautiful woman speak to him), and he had opened up considerably, babbling on in a mostly nonsensical torrent. Linnea had let the boy ramble, hoping that this would help him to gather his thoughts into some sort of order so that they could all compare notes. Finally, Dil returned smelling much like his old self. Linnea wasted no time in giving him a big kiss. The three then gathered around the main table in the runabout's main cabin to compare notes. "First of all. You must understand a couple of things," Dil began. "First, the stars that you see in the sky at night? Those are suns, many of them just like the Sushian sun and many of them have planets with intelligent life. Second, we are from two of those planets and we are part of an organization with beings from nearly 200 such worlds. We keep law and order, explore new worlds and generally make the galaxy safe for people. Third, we are not supposed to make our presence known to planets below a certain technological and cultural level. Sushi IV doesn't meet those levels but we are revealing ourselves to you because, as a hero, you should be used to keeping secrets." "Oh yeah. So I'm going to go out and tell everyone that a spaceman and his beautiful companion kidnapped me and brought me to their spaceship and revealed all of their secrets to me? Being believed will be the least of my worries," the ShadowWalker laughed. "So, really. Who are you guys? Is this some sort of trick by the Gang? Everyone knows there is no other intelligent life in the galaxy!" "What! We really are from outer space!" Dil argued. "Phhhhfft!" the ShadowWalker laughed, again. "Look these are pretty good sets and that space painting outside the "window" is pretty slick, but c'mon!" "What can we do to convince you?" Linnea asked. "Yeah right! Convince me! Tell ya what - make a big bowl of jelly beans appear out of thin air and maybe I'll believe you!" the ShadowWalker challenged. Nodding, Linnea made her way to the replicator alcove. "Computer - one large bowl of jelly beans - assorted flavors." With a swirling sparkle of materializing matter, the requested delicacy appeared. Linnea picked up the bowl and carried it over to the suddenly silent ShadowWalker. Cautiously, he selected a bean. After examining it, sniffing it and even touching it with the tip of his tongue, he popped the bean into his mouth. He let it sit on his tongue for several seconds before taking a quick, exploratory chew. After that, he chomped down the rest of the bean and popped another in his mouth. This one was consumed immediately and soon the Sushian was shoving handfuls of the candy into his mouth. Linnea and Dil looked on with barely contained looks of distaste on their faces. The bowl was quickly consumed and the contented ShadowWalker pushed it away from himself. Patting his noticeably bulging belly, he sighed and then said, "OK - the odds of you having that ready, beforehand are astronomical. I'm willing to entertain the idea that you two are extrasushiarials. But that doesn't explain why you are here or why you say you want to help me." "We'll get to that. First tell us about yourself and about the ShadowWalkers." "Well, as for myself, my name is Dario Bava. I'm 24 years old and I work for the largest newspaper in Foo Young, the Fortune Cookie." "Let me guess - you're the ace reporter," Dil ventured. "Ace reporter!" Dario laughed. "That's a good one! No, I deliver the inter- office mail and fill in for the "Technology Today" writer when he goes on assignment." Dil and Linnea shared a glance - this was the great hero, the ShadowWalker? "I know what you're thinking, but being around the newspaper lets me keep up with what's going on in the city. I can find out where the trouble is and that sort of thing." "We understand," Linnea said, calming the young hero as she laid her hand on his arm - which immediately 'uncalmed' him again. It was pretty obvious that Dario hadn't had much experience with the ladies. "Exactly how long have been doing this whole 'ShadowWalker' thing," Dil asked. "Well, I've doing what I can to disrupt the Moo Goos for about two months, now," came the proud reply. Dil and Linnea shared another look - Two months! There was no way this kid was going to be able to stop the Moo Goo Gang! "Ummm, how many other ShadowWalkers are there," Dil asked, fearing the answer. "I'm the only ShadowWalker left, since my dad died last year," Dario spoke up, confirming Dil's fears. "Why don't you tell us about the ShadowWalkers," Linnea asked. So he did. And this is what he told them; Centuries ago, the first ShadowWalker helped to foil the assassination of Good King Black Gloves. He was given a seat of honor at the side of the King. Years passed and both the King and his trusted ShadowWalker grew older and had children. The King's eldest son, Randagle and the ShadowWalker's eldest son, Tralelis became fast friends and, in time, took their places as the new King and ShadowWalker. Things went on like this for decades until the time of evil King Salandiss. The ShadowWalker at that time, a man named Yundron, opposed Salandiss' evil thirst for power and stood against him. Salandiss banished Yundron for his 'treachery' and that was when the ShadowWalkers became secret phantoms moving through society. From that time on they never allied themselves with one man, but always worked to serve the public good. The ShadowWalking gift was passed down from father to son in my family. For generations, now, we have remained, hidden amongst the population, only appearing to fight great evil. My father worked as a secret agent during the last war. I was his only child. He trained me to ShadowWalk since the time I could, well, walk walk. Last year, he and my mother were killed in a car crash. I'm sure he'd know what to do against the Moo Goos, but I'm way out of my depth, here. I don't mind admitting that. "How does it work?" Dil asked, curious. "I don't have a clue," admitted Dario. "You just 'merge' with the shadow, move through 'shadowland' and then pop back out from another shadow." "What's 'shadowland'," Linnea wanted to know. "It's the name of the dimension we pass through between 'here' and 'there'," explained Dario. "At least that's the theory that crazy old grandpa Turkis came up, but, then again, he was crazy!" "Actually, that sounds quite possible," Dil mused. "Somehow your family has the ability to enter some sort of subspace pocket and move about, normally. How do you get from place to place?" "Well, when you're in 'shadowland' if you think about where you want to go, and if there are any shadows there, you will be able to see a 'portal' to that place. Then you just step out of it and you're there!" "What's the limit to the distance you can move?" Linnea wanted to know. "I really don't know," admitted the neophyte ShadowWalker. Looking around, quickly, he noticed that the cabin's overhead lights cast a shadow under the table. "Let's find out," he announced as he dove into the shadow. Dil and Linnea shared yet another look. Was this a good thing or a bad thing? Before they could answer that unspoken question, Dario popped back out of the shadow he had disappeared into only moments before. "Went home and back," he announced. "That's pretty good," Dil said, impressed despite himself. "That means that you should be able to jump to anywhere on Sushi IV!" "Cool!" agreed Dario. "So what do we do now?" "Now you boys just relax and let me plan out our course of action," Linnea said. Boss Song Sung Blu was not happy. Ever since that snoop had escaped, three days before, things had gone decidedly sour for the Gang. Whispers that the Shadow- Walker had returned were disrupting business. Not that business wasn't already being disrupted! First had come the raid on their automobile part redistribution center (Chop Suey Shop), then the numbers racket that they had been running out of the Foo Young Sewage Treatment plant had been taken out (Pu Pu Platter Racket), and now this! He held up the latest edition of the Fortune Cookie and poked his finger angrily at the headline - "Corrupt Cops Fingered!". Somehow the paper had gotten a hold of a list of every cop that the Gang had bribed for the past three years and printed the entire list! (Egg (on your face) Roll Call). The Gang was beginning to get nervous about who would be set up next! But the ShadowWalker? The last time anyone had heard of that had been during the war - thirty years ago! Blu knew he need to give them something concrete to do to keep their minds off of what was happening. What he really wanted to do was to track down that snoop. Blu had a feeling that he was somehow tied in to all of this. Song Sung Blu was interrupted in his musings by the sudden appearance of one of his brightest lieutenants. In fact, Everybody Nose Won was so smart that Blu was always a bit concerned about Won taking over. So far, Blu's superior strength had kept him in control, but the crime lord was smart enough to realize that his strength wouldn't last forever. Putting thoughts of his own mortality out of his head, Blu turned his attention to the grubby bundle in Won's hand. The SMELLY grubby bundle! "Hey that stinks just as bad as that water the other night! Get it the Hell out of here!" Blu yelled. "Don't ya see, Boss? This smells the same! It must be the clothes that snoop was wearing!" Blu realized that Won was right. Excitedly he asked his lieutenant, "Where did you get this, Won?" "I gots me a man who works on a garbage truck out in the 'burbs. He generally just lets us know when someone's out a town so's that we can rob the joint. I figgered that the snoop would wanna get rid of those clothes pretty quick, so I had my buddy keep an eye open for 'em!" "That was pretty good thinking. But so what? How's it help us find him?" "Well, my buddy knows the general neighborhood that these came from. So I figured I could call up me brudder. He's got a hunting terful. We should be able to use it to track that snoop back to the house these came from!" "What if he just dumped them into the nearest convenient trash can?" "Nah - trash wasn't picked up that night in that neighborhood. There wouldn't 'av been any trash cans out on the street. Besides, ya hear any reports of a naked man running around that night?" "You're right! Someone would have seen him! Or, at least smelled him!" That's some good thinkin', Won. Get your brother-in-law and his terful in here, fast as ya can!" "He's already on his way - by this afternoon we should have 'em!" "Great! All of the raids seem to be occurring at night, so maybe we can grab him while he's nappin'!" He thought for a few moments more and then added, "get ahold of all a the lights you can find. If this is the ShadowWalker, lets light 'im up!" Napping' was exactly what Dario Bava was doing, later that afternoon. He had worked his shift from 6 to 2 at the newspaper and come home to catch 40 winks before meeting with Linnea and Dil for that evening's activities. Despite their invitation to rest aboard their spaceship, Dario had decided to spend at least some time each day at his own house. That way, he had reasoned, his neighbors wouldn't get suspicious about his absence. Now, Dario was a pretty light sleeper (as had been all of the ShadowWalkers - survival instinct and all that), and if he had been on Earth, it was for certain that the baying of excited dogs following a scent would have woken him. However, since a terful could, at best, only produce a sound that most closely resembled extremely moist flatulence, those hunting him were able to approach without the hero being any the wiser. In fact, the first he knew about it was when his front door, back door and all of his windows were kicked in and a dozen men, all holding spotlights on him surrounded him in his living room (he had been napping on the couch). He was quickly tied up, gagged and carted back to the big warehouse, all the time kept in glaringly bright lights. He was placed in nearly the same spot that Dil had been. This time, however, he was surrounded by thousands of candlepower worth of lighting. There was nary a shadow in sight! Boss Song Sung Blu came to view the prisoner. He walked around the outside perimeter of the lights, careful to make sure that no shadow got cast anywhere near the captive. It wasn't long before he noticed something, "Hey! Dis ain't the same guy as we had last time!" "Nope," agreed Won, "but it was his house dat de clothes was found at. Dey must be partners!" "Ya see!" Blu roared at his Gang. "There's no ShadowWalker! Its just another gang makin' a move on us! You bunch a cowards! Only one worth a damn is Won!" Blu knew he had just focused all of the Gang's anger at his lieutenant, but figured with that much animosity to deal with, Won wouldn't have much time to try and take over. Won, for his part, just rolled his eyes at Blu's latest machinations. Didn't Blu realize yet that Won had no interest in being the Boss? Everyone targeted the Boss - who needed that much stress? Won was, very much, a New Age gangster! Out loud he asked, "So, what do we do wit 'im?" "Just leave him where he is. Let's see if his partners try and rescue him. I want twenty guys around here with dem new gas guns we got from our guy in da Mil'try R&D group. Any o' ya see so much as a flicker in the lights, fill the whole warehouse with dat knockout gas. Anyone we find what don't belong, we'll take 'em for a little ride!" The Gang laughed at this reference to their newest form of disposing of unwanted attention and took their places to wait for their prey. Linnea and Dil were beginning to get concerned. Dario had been supposed to meet them on board the Maurice Sendak nearly thirty minutes ago. It wasn't as though he were actually late, he may have come up with a good tip from his newspaper friends and spent some time tracking it down. He had explained to his friends that he wanted to be a real reporter, so they weren't suspicious about him always looking for tips. They, for the most part, good naturedly humored him, everyone had to start somewhere, after all. It was also possible that the young Sushian had overslept, too. They had been keeping up pretty late disrupting the Moo Goo Gai Pan Gang's operations. Deciding that this was most likely the case, Dil tapped his commbadge to contact Dario. Dil had given the ShadowWalker a commbadge so that he could get in touch with his friends in the event of an emergency. Dil first felt the first pangs of true worry when the computer informed them that the intended recipient was out of range. Dil rushed to the runabout's cockpit and quickly brought up a sensor sweep of the city of Foo Young. No comm signal. Pulling up the sensor records he quickly rewound the logs until he saw Dario come home from work at about 2:30 that afternoon. Switching to fast forward, Dil watched in horror as the Gang surrounded Dario's house! He then watched his friend being carted off to the same warehouse where he, himself had been imprisoned. Dil quickly whirled back to the main cabin and made his way to an equipment locker. Deciding that a phaser rifle would be too conspicuous, he only pulled out a data crystal with the pattern buffer for Starfleet's Nighttime Stealth Uniform and popped it into the runabout's replicator. A Nightsuit soon appeared in his size. Dil grabbed his polyiridichromnium pistol from his carryon and turned to the transporter pad - only to find Linnea there before him. "Oh no! You're staying up here!" Dil decided. "Oh no! Dario's my friend too and you're my lover! I'm going to help!" "Linnea! You're supposed to be the INVISIBLE Brain - remember?" "The operative word is "Brain"! Can you pick those locks? Last time you got lucky and found an open door. Do you want to bet that they'll be that sloppy this time?" As much as he hated to admit it, Dil knew that Linnea was right. She could go through any locked door and bypass any security system that might be in place on Sushi IV. Compared to modern systems, these didn't even slow her down. Knowing he was defeated in this argument, Dil nodded and set the transporter to put them down just a block away from the warehouse. They would approach through the darkness and check for lookouts. Their tricorders would be worthless inside the warehouse, its unique steel scrambling their electronics. They would have to hope that their skills at reconnaissance were up to the challenge. As has been mentioned, Everybody Nose Won was probably the most intelligent member of the Moo Goo Gai Pan Gang. He took pains to hide this from his co-workers, and, thus far, only Boss Blu had guessed at his intelligence. Won's speech patterns, dress and demeanor were all carefully designed to allow him to blend in. He was smart enough to know that it is the nail that sticks up that gets hammered. This evening, however, he was pulling out all of the stops. Reasoning that another gang would certainly be able to bypass the security systems that were in place in the warehouse, he had come up with an incredibly clever, low-tech security system. Just in front of each door, he had stood a lighted candle. With the warehouse plunged into complete darkness, with the exception of the extremely well-lit circle containing the bait, the candles were easily visible to him and the other hidden Gang members. He had instructed everyone to keep an eye on a candle. If it went out, count to 100 and give a shout, and then let loose a gas barrage. If anyone heard a shout, they should let loose their gas, too. The "100" part had caused him some concern since he wasn't sure that all of the other guys actually COULD count that high, but he didn't want to risk having someone let the gas loose too soon, allowing their quarry to escape through the nearby door. The Gang members were all wearing gas masks, since many of them had positioned themselves in the support girders along the walls and near the ceiling, where falling unconscious would have more than one meaning (and, likely, painful consequences). An overabundance of gas would not harm them, but anyone else who showed up would wind up with one Hell of a headache when they awoke. Linnea and Dil were, of course, blissfully unaware of Won's preparations as they squatted by one of the warehouse's doors. Linnea deftly manipulated the tumblers inside of what was, to her at least, an incredibly primitive lock. In fact, her biggest concern was that she didn't break her lockpick moving the mammoth mechanisms. After nearly two seconds of work she was done. She then took an incredibly thin piece of very special metal and passed it between the door and the frame, all along the outside of the door. She found no wires or magnetic switches. For at least the tenth time she wished she could have just used a tricorder to do this, but of course, if she'd been able to do that, they could have just beamed into the place! She hadn't had to use these old-fashioned tools since she had been in training, fifteen years ago! Finally she was satisfied with her handiwork, and she carefully eased the door open. It wasn't careful enough. The thin taper that Won had hidden, fell over and was extinguished without Linnea being any the wiser. Thus it came as quite a surprise when, just about two minutes later, a sudden shout disturbed the still darkness and a sudden barrage of gas grenades filled the warehouse with a very potent knockout gas. Linnea, Dil and Dario awoke to the sound of thrumming engines. Well, more to the FEEL of those engines. The three were securely tied to rings set into a metal floor. The floor pitched and vibrated and Dil suddenly realized that they were aboard some kind of primitive aircraft! The three friends were tied several feet apart and were each bathed in brilliant, bright lights. Blu might have scoffed at the notion that the ShadowWalker had returned, but he wasn't taking any chances. The headache that Won had gleefully anticipated for his victims, seemed to have skipped Dil and Linnea, but was definitely in full effect in Dario. The thrumming of the aircraft's engines certainly didn't seem to be helping him any, either. "Snoop! Welcome back!" Boss Blu exclaimed, seeing that his 'guests' were awake. "I'd like to welcome you to our state-of-the-art unwanted guest disposal unit!" "Well, go ahead!" Dil replied. "Go ahead and do what?" Blu answered, confused. "'Welcome us to your state-of-the-art unwanted guest disposal unit'," Dil answered. "I thought I just did?" Blu answered back, even more confused. "No - you said you'd LIKE too," Dil reminded the big man. "Now I remember!" Blu suddenly exclaimed. "You're the one with the smart mouth!" and so saying, backhanded Dil across that mouth. The blow caused a thin trickle of blood to flow from Dil's split lip, but fortunately Sushians had red blood, just like Betazoids. Seeing the blood, Boss Blu laughed long and hard, "So you ShadowWalkers do bleed after all!" Blu was certain that there was no such thing as a ShadowWalker, but if he had to find someone to play that part so that he could kill them in front of his Gang, then so be it. Dil could see the panic rising in Dario's eyes. The young ShadowWalker was completely unprepared for this turn of events. Dil decided that he had better keep the gang leader occupied so that his attention was off of Dario and Linnea. "No wonder you're just a puny gang leader instead of someone important," Dil taunted Song Sung Blu. "All this waste of time and effort just to bring us someplace for questioning!" Blu turned to the other gang members who were scattered around the captives. With one voice they started to laugh Dil got another of those bad feelings in the pit of his stomach. "We don't take youse scum anyplace to question yew!" Blu yelled, reaching up to some sort of locking lever on the side of the plane. "We toss one of ya out and then bring the others back to the warehouse. Its amazing how much they tell us after watching one of their friends take the shortcut back to the ground!" Blu threw over the lever and the plane's door popped open. Blu and several of his men grabbed Dil and cut him free from the ring in the plane's floor. Blu and his men were secured to the interior by heavy snap-end chains which had been clicked into place at various points. Two men grabbed each of Dil's arms as his bindings were removed and the Helmsman felt a surge of relief. If they threw him out untied, he could just activate his commbadge and call for an emergency beamout. It seemed his luck was still holding! Wanting to put on a good show Dil struggled against his captors, who laughed among themselves as he was dragged to the open door. "'Member that one guy who tried to flap his arms?" one of the men asked, prompting a new bout of laughter. Dil was eventually wrestled to the doorway where Song Sung Blu walked up to offer a fond farewell. Reaching out the gang leader snatched the commbadge from Dil's shirt, "I always keep a memento of those who've gone out this way! And here's a little something to remember me by!" Blu slammed his fist into Dil's stomach, knocking the wind out of him just as he was tossed out the door! "Bye bye, snoop!" Blu called out as Dil fell away from the plane and Blu slammed the door shut again. Dario and Linnea stared on in shock as the Luck Eater spiraled away. Dil, for his part, spent the first few precious seconds of his plummet, trying to regain his breath. Speeding downward wasn't helping, as his velocity worked to remove the air from his mouth, even as he tried to inhale. Finally catching his breath, he took stock of his situation. Things looked a trifle ominous. Well, OK, things looked seriously bad. It was at this point that the mysterious 'Luck Eater switch' in Dil's head snapped open and told the laws of probability to go get stuffed. It needn't have bothered. Probability had taken one look at the rapidly approaching ground and booked the first trip to 'somewhere the heck away from here'! Dil caught a glimpse of something sparkling, off to his right. Twisting his body so that the wind resistance pushed him in that direction, he soon spied a long, narrow lake, nestled in the midst of the dense woodland that the gang had dropped him over. Knowing that an impact onto water would be just as deadly as an impact onto any other surface at the speed at which he was falling, Dil started looking around for some other possibility. There was nothing. Suddenly an idea popped into his head. It was, quite likely, the most deranged and desperate idea that the Betazoid had ever had, but it was, hopefully, better than nothing. Twisting his body so that he fell towards one end of the long lake, Dil dipped so that he was now falling even faster. Like a speeding missile, the Helmsman approached the surface of the lake. Tilting his body back towards a more horizontal orientation, Dil sped forward as some of his downward momentum was transferred to horizontal velocity. Dil hit the surface of the lake, moving more in a forward direction than a downward one, and... skipped! Across the lake, the skipping Starfleeter sped, his momentum being slowly bled off by the contact with the lake's surface until he hit the water for one, last time and sank. Fighting his way to the surface, he started swimming for the shore. Fortunately his skipping had left him relatively close to one end of the lake. Even better, there was a beach on that end and dozens of people there, swimming. The fully-dressed man emerging from the water caused a little bit of a stir, but Dil was oblivious to the stares. Dil made his way off the beach to a parking lot. Luck was still with him as he found a taxi driver willing to make the two hour trip to Foo Young. Of course the cab driver's decision might have been influenced by the wad of replicated Sushian currency that Dil extracted from his, luckily, waterproof wallet. Linnea was angry. More angry than she had ever been in her life. She had finally found a decent, kind, good-hearted man. The man even liked her in spite of her past. She had brought him home to meet her family and even gotten her father to approve of him. AND NOW THESE BACKWARDS GANGSTERS HAD THROWN HIM OUT OF AN AIRPLANE! Linnea wasn't sure what the ultimate capabilities of Dil's Luck Eater talent were, but she couldn't see any way that he could have survived a fall out of a plane. Linnea knew that she could be free of her bonds in seconds, but, without a weapon, she didn't see anyway to take out all of the gang before they got to her. She was currently trying to decide if taking out SOME of the gang would be vengeance enough to satisfy her. She and Dario had been brought back to the big warehouse in Foo Young. For whatever perverse reason he had, the big boss had kept the lights trained on them the whole time. Considering the fact that he must have believed that he had already killed the ShadowWalker, he was either really. really cautious or really, really paranoid. Either way, Dario couldn't bring his power to bear, the two had been separated and ringed with lights. Not that it appeared that Dario would have been able to do much in any event. The poor boy looked nearly catatonic. The combination of being captured, then gassed, then having his new friend tossed out of an airplane before his eyes, must have been too much for the young hero. He simply sat, staring off into nothing, unresponsive and unmoving. Sweating under the intense barrage of lights, Linnea turned her mind away from Dario and back to her calculations. Feeling a welcome, cool breeze, suddenly, she looked up to see the stars twinkling in the night sky. <> She then made out the outline of the Maurice Sendak, its phaser emitters still glowing from the energy they had channeled to vaporize the warehouse's roof. Then she was engulfed by the welcome tingling of a transporter beam and found herself on board the runabout, staring in shock at Dil Mantron! Quickly slipping free of her ropes, she jumped into his arms, smothering him with a kiss and then wrapping her arms around him as she held him close to her. "I thought for sure that I had lost you that time," she whispered, close to tears as she hugged him. "Me too," Dil admitted as the pair lost themselves in another kiss. A quiet 'hmmmmph' from the transporter alcove brought their attention back to the here-and-now. Still bound, and not too happy about it, was Dario. Dil and Linnea rushed over to the Sushian and freed him. "I thought you were in shock or something," Linnea admitted. "I was just concentrating," Dario explained. "Concentrating on what," Dil wanted to know. "Well," Dario sheepishly began, "according to the ShadowWalker legend, certain ShadowWalkers could bring shadowsuff back from shadowland and create weapons and tools with it. I was trying to pull some over." "Wouldn't you need a shadow to do that," Linnea asked. "Well, I had made a small one between my hands, but I couldn't get anything through it." "That's OK," Dil said as encouragingly as he could. "Let's just do this OUR way!" and he tossed Dario a phaser rifle. Dario looked at the weapon in amazement, "What's this?" "We call it a 'phaser'," Dil explained. "Right now, I've set it to heavy stun. Just point it at the Moo Goos, trigger it and they'll be asleep for an hour or so. That should be plenty of time for us to escape and for you to summon the police." "Can it shoot out those lights?" "Sure. The current setting should be enough to blow out any of the lights down there. Why?" "Cool!" Dario enthused. "If we can take out some of the lights, we should be able to create LOTS of shadows!" "Gotcha!" Dil agreed. "Lin, monitor us from up, here, we're going down." "Dil, honey, wouldn't it be safer and easier to just hit that warehouse with the runabout's phasers? Now that the roof is gone we should be able to a clean shot without the 'blind steel' getting in the way." "Yep, but right now Foo Young is just in range of the Starfleet Cultural Analysis satellites. What's left of the building should shield the rifles, but a runabout's weaponry would show up clearly! I cut it too close, when I blew off the roof," Dil admitted. "If we want to get them before they scatter, Dario and I have to go back down, now!" Dario found a shadow and took Dil's arm, fading the pair into shadowland. The two were whisked back to the planet's surface. Linnea's "Be careless" and Dil's "Worry" were lost amidst the darkness. Boss Song Sung Blu was not even the slightest bit happy. Somehow his prisoners had been rescued, even though nobody had seen any sign of the other gang. Even worse, amidst all the confusion, somehow the warehouse roof had gotten lost. "How the Hell do you lose a roof?" he demanded of the assembled Moo Goo Gai Pan Gang. Everybody Nose Won was thinking, harder than he had ever thought before. Oh, he wasn't worried about the roof. At least, not directly. He was worrying about going up against people who could DO that to a roof. Sure, with explosives or heavy machinery, it would be a simple matter to rip a roof off of a building. But you'd still HAVE a roof! It wouldn't disappear with a 'ZAP'! Won, started to unobtrusively sidle away from the Gang meeting. He had made up his mind - this wasn't HIS fight anymore. So it was that he missed the big finale! Dil and Dario rematerialized in the shadows near the wall of the warehouse. Dario seemed, all of a sudden, to become completely relaxed as he merged with the shadow and disappeared. Dil grinned as he saw the gang gathered together in the middle of the warehouse. Changing the setting on his phaser rifle he hit the gathering with a wide-beam blast. He was gratified to see nearly everyone drop. Dario then started sniping from the darkness, dropping several of the remaining Moo Goos before they even realized that anything was wrong. Dil, reset his rifle to narrow-beam and moved to a new location. He hadn't spotted Boss Blu, yet. Dario, dropped six of the gang before hopping into a shadow and popping out in a new location. Quickly calculating the angles of the lights that had been left set up in the middle of the warehouse, he started blowing out individual lights. Soon, he had patterns of darkness and light throughout the warehouse. Slinging the rifle over his shoulder, he picked up a short length of wood from the warehouse floor. Apparently it had once been part of a crate. Now, it would make a fine club. Smiling, Dario faded into the shadows - literally! Slip - back into light - WHACK! - slip away. Dario's hit and run tactics soon had rendered all of the unstunned gang members unconscious. Considering the zeal with which he wielded his club, those that he had hit would wake up wishing that they had been stunned, instead. Boss Song Sung Blu was afraid. It was a new sensation for him and he wasn't real sure that he liked it, much. Someone had targeted his Gang (and, from the looks of it, targeted them, real good!). Where they had gotten the ordinance that they were using, he had no idea. His contacts in the military had never even mentioned anything like this! Rayguns that could zap twenty people at once! Maybe that was what had happened to his roof! Blu was in deep trouble and he knew it. Well, he had talked the talk, now it was time to walk the walk! With a snarl he turned to face his pursuer and found... Dil Mantron! "You! But you're dead!" "Dead? Did you really think that you could kill a ShadowWalker? We are not flesh and blood like you mortals! We are made of the stuff of darkness - the stuff of nightmares! We will haunt criminals like you for all time!" Dil was having fun, scaring the gang leader. He was also following his orders to scare the criminal element into line with the legend of the mysterious ShadowWalker. It was nice when business and pleasure coincided so harmoniously! Dil noticed Dario pop out of a shadow, behind Blu. Playing his part to the hilt, Dil took a menacing pose and intoned, "Feel my power, feel my wrath!" And Dario whacked Blu over the head with his club, ending the audience participation portion of the program. Dil and Linnea were enjoying listening to the primitive radio broadcasts from Sushi IV. It had been a busy day for the law enforcement divisions down in Foo Young. First, early that morning, 26 members of the Moo Goo Gai Pan Gang had been found, bound and gagged and tied up outside the main precinct house for the city. The early edition of the Fortune Cookie, reported that the only clue as to how the gang had been captured was a pure black business card that had been stapled to the gang leader's shirt (actually, to his chest, Dario was still letting off a little steam). A card that had an S and a W embossed on it - the calling card of the ShadowWalker! Throughout the day, sweeps had pulled in all of the corrupt cops, judges, gang informants and military contacts that had long been associated with the gang. Apparently, the gang leader had been so terrified by his encounter with the ShadowWalker that he was turning state's evidence. Within hours, what had once been the planet's most crime- ridden city was cleaned up. Connections to gangs in other cities were soon uncovered and a planet-wide clean-up of the criminal element ensued. Overcrowding in the planet's prisons might have been a problem, but the Sushians believed in capital punishment. A series of newspaper articles, published by new crime reporter Dario Bava, inflamed the population and swift, final justice became the byword of the day. Trials were quick. Executions were quicker. The planet's politicians, sensing which way the wind was blowing, were quick to support legislation cracking down on organized crime. Within a week, the honest, hardworking people of Foo Young had their city back, and the rest of the planet was working hard to emulate that golden city's success. Dil and Linnea made ready to leave, their mission a resounding success. They invited Dario up to the runabout for a going away dinner. Much to their surprise, he countered by inviting them to have dinner with him and his new girlfriend, in a fancy restaurant in Foo Young! Asia Fulci, Dario's girlfriend, turned out to be a charming young lady, who Dario had known for some time. She worked at the newspaper stand that he passed each day on his way to work. The escapade with the Moo Goos had given him enough confidence, to finally ask her out and, to his delight, she had accepted. From the way that the two looked at each other, when they thought that no one was watching them, it was clear that the youngsters were in love. After dinner, Dil and Linnea wished the youngsters well and returned to the Maurice Sendak. Slipping out of orbit, the pair settled in for the quick trip back to the Menagerie, happily satisfied at a job well done. Back on Sushi IV, in a dingy pool hall, Everybody Nose Won was sullenly sipping a beer. Something stank about this entire situation. He had done some research into the ShadowWalkers. What he had found had convinced him that something fishy was going on. ShadowWalkers popped up every thirty years or so, almost as if there were a single family of the things. Father to son, for generations. That made a lot more sense than some sort of immortal spirit of justice. Justice - pah! he spat on the floor. There was a lot more going on here than some guy who could move from one place to another, via shadows. That was what his research had turned up - that seemed to be the extent of a ShadowWalker's talents! And another thing - this reporter, Dario Bava. His name started popping up right in the middle of the whole thing. That had to be more than coincidence, didn't it? Won knew his fellow Sushians, they would forget all about this, soon. They would slip back into complacency. Then he would make his move. Blu had let his superstitions be his undoing. Won wouldn't make that mistake. No, when things cooled off a little he would get to the bottom of all of this. And he knew just where to start. He would start with a certain reporter, a certain Dario Bava! Next Time: The Byzantine politics of Cerulean's Homeworld offer the crew a glimpse into life on a planet where no one can touch anything! No pots of gold here, just "The Rainbow Connection" Available January 16th! I welcome Reader Feedback! Please let me know what you've thought of Melting Pot so far, and, in particular this story! Contact me at: meltingpot@khobrah.net