"Piece of JUNK!!" Seraph punched the computer console.  She slumped 
forward in her seat and sighed.  "I'm never gonna get into the academy at 
this rate."
    "The jump error appears to have been caused by a lack of recent starmap 
data."
    "What does that mean?"  Seraph sat up slightly, propping up her head with 
her hand.
    "All starmap information on this sector was speculated by the Hunter's 
guild using astronomical extrapolation.  However it appears that whoever ran 
the calculations forgot to compensate for light delay between the two 
systems."
    Seraph gritted her teeth, "So just how far are we off course?"
    "Fifteen point two light years."
    Seraph picked up her rifle and stood up, "Excuse me Danvall." She turned 
and walked towards the back of the ship, into the cargo area.  For a short 
moment the bridge was drowned in silence.  Which rapidly dissolved to the 
sound of gunfire and cursing.  A few moments later Seraph wandered back onto 
the bridge and again took her seat in front of the console.
    "So... do we have fuel to jump to or destination?"
    The computer clicked for a second and then responded, "No we do not, we 
will require at least seventy-five more blocks of  Trivylyptite fuel."
    "WHAT!?" Seraph darted to her feet and slammed her fists into the console.
    "What? What do you--"
    "How the hell did we burn off so much TVT?" 
    The command room fell silent for a few moments.   Seraph slumped back 
into her seat and rose her hand to her forehead.
    "It appears that the TVT was burned off by an engine leak.  The infusion 
coils must've backfired.  That would've punched a hole in the exhaust port 
and blown plasma exhaust directly into the fuel chamber.  Sounds like a case 
of poor design to me."
    Seraph glanced up at the viewport and examined her reflection.  Her light 
blue complexion, narrow flare red eyes and silver hair were as they had 
always been.  She stood up slowly. 
    "Do we have enough fuel to reach a refuel point?"
    Danvall clicked for a second, the shutter on his camera eye shut most of 
the way,  "No we do not, but my sensors show a pre-warp planet in this 
system, we can reach it with a minor jump."
    Seraph rose her finger, "And send a distress call to the guild you dolt." 
 She once again took her seat.  "How the hell am I gonna handle this, it 
would cost more than I've ever had over my entire life to buy seventy-five 
blocks of TVT."
    Danvall clicked again for a few seconds.   "I think you might find it of 
interest that I'm picking up a resonance trail near the third planet... the 
inhabited one.  The trail matches that of the Khaza."
    The young hunter's eyes immediately lit up.  "You mean--"
    "That's right, Betamu's ship.  You realize if you were to catch her you 
could buy a small planet, and enough slaves to populate the entire planet."  
    Seraph's eyes opened wide exposing her flare coloring.  "Hold off on that 
distress signal.  Say, aren't we carrying some old Leer Hunting Gear?"
    "A hell of a coincidence Seraph,  we are carrying two Nullifier Rifles 
and a Nullification Jumpsuit... which will sort of fit you."
    "Danvall, refresh our neural connection and plot a landing course for the 
third planet."

(And now we cut to Betamu)

    *BETAMU..... I thought you might like to know that I just detected a jump 
signature, guild type.*
    Betamu stoop up slowly, *Eve, why must you always tell me these things.*  
As she stood she briefly stepped back bumping into the wall of the dojo.
    *I thought you might also like to know that I recently received minor 
interference from an unknown computer source.  I back traced the signature 
and managed to download about a third of the informational data contained in 
it's matrix.*
    "I feel a lot better now... the temperature seems to have increased."  As 
Betamu's vision adjusted to the visible light spectrum prominant on Earth 
once again she glanced up and noticed a couple of people staring at her.  
*Tell me more about this interference, Eve*
    *Well the data is fragmented, the computer stopped interfering during my 
download and I couldn't quite piece everything together.  I'm running an 
extrapolation algorithim now to reconstruct everything.*
    *And...*
    *Seems that the interference was caused by a computer called, NOC, or NUC 
or something like that.  The middle letter is corrupt.  Seems the computer 
has a relationship with it's owner "Akusami," or "Akesamo," or something like 
that, similar to our relationship, but this "NUC" is a good bit less advanced 
than the IGF standard neural link computer.  Apparently this "NUC" scanned 
you.*
    Betamu's attention turned from Eve's rantings to a young woman standing 
by her.  "Yes?"
    The young girl met Betamu's eyes with a kind of fire.  "Well you're just 
standing out here, can I help you with something."
    "I'm hungry, but I don't have any money or anything."
    *Eve,  do you know where this Akusambi and his NUC went?  They can't be 
bounty hunters, not with such a low grade computer and there's no way they 
wouldn't have recognized me.*
    *I have a residual trace,  I mean that is... if you really want to find 
him I can track him pretty easily.  My reconstruction should be complete 
within a few hours, maybe one if you could find out this fellow's name, It 
would provide an index for deciphering the corruption.*
    The young girl looked back into the dojo "You work for what you eat here, 
and if you like, I'll help you solve that 'no money' problem... I'm good at 
that."
    "I can handle the work." Betamu replied.   The girl turned her attention 
away for a moment.  "Oh, one more thing."
    "Yes?" the girl replied.
    "This is a dojo right?  You train soldiers here?"
    The young girl smiled fighting back laughter, "Well... not really 
'soldiers', more like fools.  But they are strong."
    "Good cause I think someone might come after me."
    *Betamu, don't you find it odd that this girl seems totally averse to 
your appearance?*
    "Yeah," the words escaped Betamu's mouth much to her surprise.
    "What?" the young girl retorted.
    "Doesn't my appearance bother you?"
    "I've seen stranger..." the girl started off towards the dojo "Follow 
me."  Betamu started to follow when the young black-haired girl wheeled 
around. "And by the way, what's your name?"
    "My name?"
    *Betamu stupid, your name is Betamu*
    *I know that, it's just I really need food.*
    "I'm Betamu"
    The girl turned back around "That's a wierd name.  I'm Nabiki."
    Betamu started to follow, taking particular note of the large panda 
sitting inside.  "This planet just gets wierder and wierder" she thought to 
herself.