Dark Alpha's post notes-
Once more again, Capt'n Expo. (^_^) has encoutnered unfortunate problems in 
posting his fic to FFML, so once more again his trusty matey comes to his aid 
once more again. So here it goes! Cycle 3 of Dirty pair: Double Vision!
BTW, any replies, comments, or any C&Cs should be emailed to LN411@aol.com, 
though I'll galdly forward any replies I get to him if it comes to that. 
Enjoy!

Dark Alpha <AlphSailor@aol.com>
-------------------------------------

The Dirty Pair: Double Vision


Standard Disclaimer: I don't own the Dirty Pair. I don't claim to either, so 
don't sue me. Sakura Tenjo, Natsumi Ogawa, and Bloody Mary are original 
characters who may not be used without my approval. Thanks, and enjoy the 
show.

Cycle Three:

     BTR Regional Headquarters was a massive complex the size of a small 
city, an entire Eco-system contained behind high walls and a transparent 
domed roof. Not that many of the people inside ever saw much of it. The 
people who worked in the name of the development and classification of all 
"dangerous" technology were always busy.
     This was partly because the BTR had a hand in most of the workings of 
society, not just technology. It had put out feelers in politics, the 
entertainment industry, trade in most of known space, even the religious 
circuit. All this was done in the name of the preservation of human society. 
Some of the people who worked for the BTR even believed this. Most however 
were in their current job for reasons less honorable, to say the least. One 
such person was BTR troubleshooter Kevin J. Sleet.
     Sleet was, in the words of his more polite co-workers, not a nice man. 
In the words of his less polite co-workers, he was a slimy, cold-hearted 
bastard who would calmly turn his own mother over to BTR Security for 
"questioning" if it meant a chance at personal advancement. In his own words 
he was "a highly motivated upwardly-mobile person". By anyone's standards, 
even his own, he was not very pleasant. He was tall, but skinny. He had long 
black hair that fell to his shoulders, and always managed to look slightly 
greasy. Beneath chromed glasses there lurked a superior sneer that never 
seemed to go away. Not even Sleet was sure when the last time was that his 
face had held any other expression. But to such an "upwardly mobile" person, 
such minor issues were of little to no consequence.
     At the moment though, Sleet was anything but upwardly mobile. If 
anything, one could say he was distinctly downwardly mobile. In plainer 
words, he was aroused. To be accurate, one should say he was massively, 
thunderously, immensely aroused. There were three reasons for this.
     The first was that he was watching a very pretty, very sweaty girl work 
out. The second was that he knew her to be a distinct sadist on a number of 
levels. Sleet liked that. The third was that she was currently beating the 
living hell out of her unlucky sparring partner in the BTR facility's gym. 
Sleet really liked that.
     The girl in question was fellow troubleshooter Mary Latimer, commonly 
known to her few friends and numerous enemies as "Bloody Mary". Sleet had 
often wanted to ask her if the rumors that she had killed her first lover 
when he broke her hymen, one of the reasons for her nickname, was true, but 
he didn't care to be hurt in the process. Another rumor was that the last 
person who had asked her that had ended up shitting into a bag taped to his 
hip for the rest of his life.
     And that was the other source of her nickname, this one unquestionably 
true: she was, simply put, psychotic. There was always a slew of such bizarre 
and sordid rumors flying around her, the most common ones running along 
similar lines as the former. It was said that when the first man she was with 
sexually took her virginity, she reacted badly and killed him. It was rumored 
that she had previously worked for BTR Security as an interrogator, but had 
been fired for becoming emotionally involved with her work. This, Sleet 
doubted. He had also heard that she was attributed with personally 
slaughtering all 1,500 nuns in a convent, for accusing her of being 
demonically possessed while she was on a manhunt that took her to their 
doors. This rumor Sleet was slightly more inclined to believe. But despite it 
all, Sleet was massively attracted to her. Maybe it was because of her 
dangerous persona that he liked her so much. Sleet certainly didn't care. 
Whatever his reasons, he sat on the sparsely populated bleachers and watched 
her spar down on the mats with a considerably larger man.
     That was one of the other reasons Mary was regarded so fearfully. She 
looked like an over-sized Cupie Doll come to life. She barely scraped past 
five-foot-one, had fair skin, Goldilocks-blond mopsy curls, an adorable face, 
and the biggest sky-blue eyes most people she met had ever seen. The fact 
that she didn't look old enough to drive, let alone kill a man with her bare 
hands, lent to the illusion of harmlessness. And that was what it was, an 
illusion. Sleet imagined that the poor shmuck sparring with her was seeing 
the reality of the situation about that time.
     The man was a big, tough-looking agent Third Class, probably fresh out 
of the slow-time training modules and ready to do some harm. When he had 
gotten invited to spar with a cute little lady with an Agent Second Class 
badge, Sleet guessed, he probably jumped at the chance to overpower the sweet 
little thing. Sleet laughed under his breath and shook his head. Life, like 
certain blondes in the area, could be a real bitch sometimes.
     At the moment, Mary and her opponent were circling each other warily. 
She had already tagged the man several times in the few minutes they'd been 
sparring, but he hadn't gotten the hint yet. He wiped blood from a nick over 
his left eye and lunged for her unexpectedly. It was unexpected to all but 
Mary, who sidestepped to the left and slammed her right knee into his gut 
hard. The much bigger man wheezed and staggered. Mary grinned a him, 
revealing small white teeth that looked rather sharp. She stepped forward and 
calmly stuck one hand into his shorts. The onlookers stared. With a little 
grunt, she yanked and pulled the startled man's protective cup off. She 
tossed it off of the mat and said, "Sorry. That thing was bothering me."
     So saying, she kicked him between the legs, hard. He squeaked, a lovely 
high E. Mary stepped into his guard area and slammed a left hook into his 
ribs, muscles rippling under smooth white skin. The man choked and went down 
on one knee. Sleet was in raptures, practically laughing out loud and 
applauding. Mary twisted her hips and snapped to the left, delivering a 
powerful open-handed strike to his jaw. Her unfortunate sparring partner's 
head snapped back like it was on rockers. Twisting back the other direction, 
she clipped his jaw on the other side with a hammer-punch from her clasped 
hands, following through with the torque by moving into a reverse sweep, 
sending the man onto his back.
     She stepped away from him and wiped the sweat from her face. On the 
floor, the man groaned and writhed a bit. She paused and looked down at him. 
She smiled cutely, the smile of a benign fairy, and said in a voice like 
little silver bells, or something equally insipid in Sleet's opinion, "Oh, 
are you still moving?"
     Still dimpling cutely, she stomped once on his solar plexus region. He 
moaned again, prompting her to kick him rather viciously in the side. 
Finally, he had the good sense to lie still and shut up. Mary made a cute 
satisfied sound and left the mat. Sleet moaned deep in his throat. Watching 
that had him as hot and bothered as he had been in a long time, if not more 
so. He was still squirming in vicarious pleasure when his phone trilled in 
his pocket. He pulled it out, pressed the Communicate button, and snapped, 
"What?"
     He listened for a moment, then nodded and spoke into the small black 
phone. "Yeah, I'm looking at her now�No, I think she'll be fine. Yeah, I know 
we don't have the jurisdiction, but when has that bothered you before? No, 
fuck the 3WA. Those intellectual midgets are wearing my patience thin. What? 
I ask you, who, honestly, gives a fuck about the books? Not me. Frankly, the 
only reason we were trying to get them in the first place is because the Fish 
is an antiquities freak, and I think you and I both know that."
     A louder response came, and Sleet glared at the phone in his hand. 
"Yeah? Well if the Fish has a complaint, he can hand it to me. I've been 
carrying this project for you R&D turds so long that I'm starting to feel 
like fuckin' Atlas. The Fish knows it too, so don't try and hand me that 
'hindering the project' crap."
    Sleet nodded as the person on the other end shouted angrily at him. "I am 
well aware of the Fish's displeasure with the fact that the Dirty Pair have 
his books. I am also aware that the act of capturing and looting a 3WA 
transport of any sort, even if it does belong to the Dirty fucking Pair, is 
an intergalactic capital offense, for which even diplomatic status is no 
protection. And as I don't even have that, I don't plan to go in and get 
them. Personally, I want to call the whole deal with the books a wash and 
move on. What I am primarily concerned with is having the Dirty Pair snooping 
around Project Eden�yeah, my point exactly�" Sleet listened for a moment and 
began shaking his head. "No. No. Fuck you, I can't move against them 
directly, and you know it. The Fish wouldn't back me on that, even for his 
precious books. The best I can hope for is to scare them off. Oh, is that so? 
Well, though it isn't exactly my job, I can put the scare into any bitch 
under the sun, and that definitely includes the Dirty Pair. Okay? Good. Now 
get the fuck off my phone, toadstool. I'm busy."
     This resolved, Sleet snapped his phone shut, slid it into the pocket of 
his rather rumpled jacket, adjusted his Agent, First Class badge so it was 
plainly visible, and headed down to talk to the woman of his dreams. He 
glanced down at her and saw her running a towel over the smooth white skin of 
her leg in a way that made her gym shorts ride up rather high. Sleet whined 
at the apparently unintended display of skin and walked slightly hunched over 
to hide the source of his discomfort. Were he not sure that she would snap 
his neck if he was anything but officious and polite, he would simply have 
gone up to her and carried her off to an empty room to get to know her better.
     He stopped at a safe distance from her and cleared his throat quietly. 
When she didn't look up, he waited for her to notice him, even though it 
galled him to have to be so deferential to a tiny little chit of thing like 
her. Even as this thought crossed his mind, he chided himself. That was the 
sort of thinking that would get him in a situation like the poor bastard she 
had just beaten on. Finally, she looked up at him and smiled. "Can I help 
you?" She asked politely.
     He made sure she could see his badge and said, "Mary Latimer? I'm Kevin 
Sleet, Troubleshooter First Class."
      She made a surprised sound and looked him up and down. He raised an 
eyebrow at her inspection of him, but didn't protest. Finally, she sighed and 
shook her head. As she began to dress in plain brown slacks and a white 
blouse, she said, "It's just my luck. I hear a First Class hotshot has the 
blueballs for me, and it ends up being�well, you."
     Sleet had a sudden urge to empty at least a mag of ammo into the little 
bitch. But he forced himself to smile politely and ask, "Where did you hear 
that?"
     She chuckled and replied, "Oh, here and there." She cast another amused 
glance at him, predominately the area just below his belt, and went on, 
"Besides, you're giving me a pretty good show right now."
     Sleet flushed as he became aware of the miniature tent in his slacks. 
Mary laughed and shook her head as she walked away. Sleet cursed and ran 
after her. Once he caught up with her, he strode alongside her and said, "I 
need to talk to you. You're going to be working for me for a little while."
     Mary stopped and looked up at the considerably taller man with an amused 
expression. "You mean you didn't come here just so you could point your gun 
at me? Kevin, I'm hurt."
     Sleet smirked and answered, "It's going to have to be Mr. Sleet for a 
while, I'm afraid. You've been assigned as my primary subordinate for the 
next two weeks."
     The short blond troubleshooter stared at him for a moment before her big 
blue eyes filled with a light that Sleet really didn't like. He unconsciously 
took a step back before he could regain control. She glared at him and spat, 
"Fuck you."
     She spun on her heel and started striding off. Sleet called after her, 
"This is a direct order from the Fish." She stopped. Sleet started walking 
toward her, continuing, "Besides, I felt that you were�uniquely suited for 
this job."
     Mary's rigid posture relaxed. Sleet smiled as he came up behind her and 
put a hand on her shoulder. "I knew you'd come around."
     He turned Mary slowly to face him. Halfway there she shook him off of 
her and drove her right fist into his gut hard enough to drive him to his 
knees. Sleet wheezed and shot out a hand to stop him from falling on his 
face. He had never been good at physical activities. Mary leaned over and 
took his chin in her hand. She was smiling once more as she said, "Kevin�one 
thing you have to understand is that I don't like being ordered around." She 
made a cute face and said in a little girl voice, "But if you ask nicely, 
I'll be your best friend."
     Sleet gasped out a request. Mary patted his cheek and stepped back. 
"Much better. Now�who am I killing?"
     Sleet grunted audibly as he climbed to his feet. Several people passing 
them in the hall watched with interest, but didn't slow down, for fear of 
irritating either of them. He waved a finger in mock reprimand and said, "No 
killing."
     Mary made a show of pouting, but he smirked rather nastily and went on, 
"Instead�I have something you may enjoy even more."
     This caught her attention. With great gusto, Sleet explained his plan. 
By the time he had finished it, Mary was visibly flushed, and breathing 
heavily as well. He suspected it was from more than her recent workout. She 
asked him, "So I can't kill her, but I can do anything else I want?"
     Sleet nodded. "Sure. Bloodier is better. For that matter, pain is good 
too. Make it clear that their presence is not wanted. And if you have to 
break a few bones, then�do what you have to."
     He was vaguely alarmed when she moaned audibly and rubbed her hands over 
her thighs in a way that created a sizable lump in Sleet's throat. She 
continued this display for a few moments longer. Finally, Sleet cleared his 
throat politely. No response. He cleared his throat again, louder. This time, 
she opened her eyes. In between ragged breaths she asked, "Where can I find 
them?"
     Gingerly, Sleet handed her a micro-disk. "This is their ship's signature 
and current patrol area. I have a feeling they won't be there, but look 
around. They were last on Mochica, so they're still in the Charoc System, as 
near as I can tell. Find them somewhere that won't be too suspect, if 
possible somewhere that has or does harbor anti-Dirty Pair sentiments. God 
knows, that shouldn't be hard to find�"
     Mary cleared her throat and pulled herself together. She gave Sleet a 
seductive smile and purred, "Thanks Kevin. This is the nicest thing anyone's 
ever given me." She made a little-girl pleading face and asked, "Will this 
reflect well on my status report if I really hurt her?" 
     Trying very hard not to make another tent in his slacks, Sleet nodded. 
Mary purred louder and rubbed up against the taller man's chest. She ran one 
hand down his shirt slowly. He shuddered slightly at the feeling of her 
close-trimmed nails tickling his skin. They felt like claws�
     Eyes half-closed, she stood on tiptoes and breathed into his ear, "I'll 
be sure to give you a complete�in-depth report when I get back. You can 
review me if you want�" 
     This said, she turned to go, letting one hand trail lightly over the 
rather alarming bulge in Sleet's pants as she did. She winked at him and 
said, "See you when I get back�Kevin."
     As she waltzed off down the hall, Sleet stared after her and thought, 
There is a God after all�Then he glanced down at his slacks and spotted a 
rather embarrassing detail. "Ahh, shit!"
     While Sleet stomped off to find a paper towel, a few friendly fellow 
Agents Third Class hauled Mary's victim off of the mats. One of them peered 
into his eyes worriedly. "Freddy? You okay?"
     Frederick Dalton, newly inducted Agent Third Class, sobbed from pain, 
but laughed all the same. He pulled away from the people holding him up and 
wiped blood and tears from his face. He laughed again, a sound that the 
others didn't like much. He wiped at his nose and said, "Oh, I'm just fine." 
He stared after the retreating forms of Mary Latimer and Kevin Sleet and 
laughed again, a low braying sound. His eyes shined with a hateful, brittle 
light. "I'm fine now�"
*****
     The next day�
     Kei moved through the belly of the Lovely Angel towards the hold where 
the books they had been asked to guard rested. When she entered the storage 
room, she found Yuri waist-deep in books, all out of their protective cases. 
She was currently reading through a large tome, the one Kei had identified as 
being covered in human skin. At the sound of her approach, Yuri looked up, 
face solemn. She held up the book and said, "This is pretty scary stuff, Kei."
     Kei looked over her shoulder at the page the book was held open to. On 
one side were lines in the scrawling, fluid language they had identified as 
Old Arabic. The facing page was a large ink drawing of a partially flayed man 
superimposed over a complex eight-pointed star. The star was surrounded by 
strange symbols and figures. Kei asked idly, "Are you sure it's a good idea 
to be taking these out of their cases?"
     Yuri closed the book and set it aside. "It's fine. These books are in 
perfect condition." She looked at the book she had been reading. "I used a 
heads-up translator unit on this." She looked at Kei worriedly. "Kei, this is 
a copy of the Necronomicon."
     Kei blinked and picked up the book. Yuri passed her a small device that 
looked like a red-tinted magnifying glass. Kei plugged the datajack into the 
head-jack at the base of her neck and began perusing the legendary book of 
damned knowledge. As she read, she infodumped absently. "Written 
approximately in the year 600-700 BC by Abdul Al'Hazrad, known as the Mad 
Arab. He claimed to have come upon ancient alien beings of god-like power in 
the desert and was given their knowledge. The original copy made it's way to 
the hands of one Yusen Bin'Yusef by the year 550 BC, and has since then been 
reprinted millions of times, though it is believed that pages and whole 
chapters have been expurgated over the years."
     While Kei concluded her infodump, Yuri picked up another book, this one 
bearing the words "Domini Di Morta" on the front cover. She tapped the edge 
of the book's cover against her chin as she said, "Well, that copy isn't a 
day under two-thousand years if it's a day�Want to hear something 
interesting?" Kei nodded, and Yuri went on, holding up the book she had been 
toying with. "Every book I've looked at here deals in one way or another with 
the animation of the dead or with giving inanimate objects life. This one 
here," She nodded towards the book in her hand, "Is all about ways to 
resurrect the dead�I think. The translator didn't make it very clear. I think 
we'll need to get a special historical program to get a clear idea of what 
they're about."
     Kei nodded and opened her mouth to answer, but was pre-empted by the 
ship shuddering violently and rocking to the left. Kei shrieked and was 
hurled bodily into the pile of books around Yuri, who was pitched face-first 
onto the floor. The ship began to accelerate rapidly. Yuri pulled herself to 
her feet and activated her internal comlink, speaking directly to the ship's 
computer. <Lovely Angel! What the hell is going on? Nobody ordered you to 
speed up!>
     While she listened to the response, Kei groaned and climbed to her feet, 
only to be hurled back down when the ship rocked sharply to the right. Yuri 
staggered but kept her feet. She stared in disbelief at what the computer 
"said". <What do you mean you've been taken off of autopilot? By whom?>
     Yuri began to swear violently at the computer's response to this 
question. <How the hell did Agent Ogawa take manual control? She doesn't have 
the authorization codes!>
     Before the computer could answer, Yuri turned her comlink off and pulled 
Kei to her feet. Still swearing intermittently, she said, "Come on Kei! That 
little idiot got manual control of the ship!" 
     Kei gasped at the implications of this. Without a word, both girls raced 
for the bridge.
     Natsumi cheered as the ship lurched forward. She slipped the headphones 
to her micro-disk music player back over her ears and bounced in her seat in 
tune with her favorite song. The ship moved into orbiting speed, and Natsumi 
began to sing along, rocking the steering shafts back and forth to the beat. 
"Yum yum, Bumblebee Bumblebee tuna, I love Bumblebee Bumblebee tuna. Yum yum, 
Bumblebee Bumblebee tuna, I love a sandwich made with Bumblebee!" 
     After a few minutes of rocketing through space though, the ship 
shuddered again. The steering shafts jerked out of Natsumi's hands and began 
moving of their own accord. She cursed and typed a command into the slaved 
console she had kludged into the innards of the ship's flight computer. When 
no response came from the ship, Natsumi ground her teeth and typed another 
command. Still no response. She glanced up out of the viewing windows and 
cursed really loudly. They were currently approaching the planet she had read 
on the heads-up display as their destination. This, in of itself, was fine. 
The fact that they were still moving at three times the landing speed was 
not. She cursed again and began hammering at the controls in panic. 
"Ohh�crap!" She shouted. She yanked at the steering shafts, which refused to 
budge. Glancing up again, she noted that the planet's face looked really, 
really big. Now in a blind panic, she made the sign of the cross and babbled, 
"The spirit of Christ compels you! The spirit of Christ compels you! Shit!"
     Yuri and Kei staggered onto the bridge. At their approach, Natsumi 
whirled around and called, "Am I glad you guys got here! Quick, are either of 
you ordained priests? I think the ship is possessed!"
     The Dirty Pair lunged forward and knocked the alarmed girl aside. Yuri 
plopped into the seat Natsumi had so recently occupied and tried to get a 
response from the ship's computer. No response came. Kei picked up the 
palm-sized slaved console attached to the I/O ports on the underside of the 
control panel. "She hacked it!" Kei stared incredulously at Natsumi. "You 
hacked our ship?!"
     Before Natsumi could answer, Yuri let out a stream of curses that would 
have made an Imperial Marine blush. Kei looked up and came face-to-face with 
the planet's stratosphere, which they were rapidly approaching. She made an 
attempt to voice her concerns over their proximity to the planet, as well as 
her curiosity as to why it looked remarkably like they were going to crash, 
but settled for cursing in much the same manner as Yuri.
     The dark-haired Angel gritted her teeth and said, "The ship's computer 
regained control and put us back on course to where we wanted to land, but 
her hack screwed with the computer. It can't reduce the speed!"
     The Lovely Angel screamed down through the planet's stratosphere and 
towards an unassuming landing strip. Natsumi could already see tiny buildings 
and ships moving around below them. She marveled at how blue the water of the 
lake outside of the town they were aimed at was. She began to admire how 
quickly they were approaching the ground when she realized exactly what that 
implied. As reality returned to the scene, she screamed and dove to the 
floor, covering her head with her arms.
     Yuri was a bit faster thinking. Without slowing her stream of curses she 
took the ship off autopilot and dragged at the steering shafts. The ship 
began to nose towards the large lake outside of the city. Kei saw what she 
was doing and grabbed a hold of her seat. This was bound to be messy. Over 
warnings from the ship that a high-speed landing was imminent, Yuri plowed 
the Lovely Angel into the crystal waters of the lake. The 3WA cruiser sent 
ninety-foot plumes of water into the air, demolishing a number of small 
lakeside businesses and homes in the process.
      In the end though, immediate property damage was minimal. But all 
unwittingly, the crash of the Lovely Angel eradicated the lake-bottom 
population of a unique form of algae whose job it was to kill off a large 
percentage of the tadpole community of that lake. With the death of the 
algae, the frogs bred unchecked, slowly consuming the insect population of 
the lake area. Once the insects were all consumed, which would over the next 
three centuries cause the death of the flower population of the entire region 
due to lack of pollination, the frogs slowly spread outwards, multiplying at 
horrific rates. Within a millennium, the planet would be barren of all 
pollinating flowers and will have driven all human life from its surface by 
the frog plague. These frogs would, over hundreds of thousands of years, 
evolve slowly into a new sentient race of semi-amphibious creatures. Leaving 
their barren planet for the opportunities of space travel, the frog-men would 
eventually use their hellishly predatory instincts, advanced intelligence, 
and obscenely unpleasant appearances to form an intergalactic trade 
federation that would threaten all of occupied space with their rapacious 
business instincts. This would continue until a young warrior and his aging 
mentor would come to mediate a dispute between�well, that's a different story 
altogether, and a far less interesting one as well.
     In any case, once the massive ship settled into the now defunct lake, 
Yuri and Kei looked up from their crash positions. Natsumi slowly peeked up 
from behind the flight chair she'd been hiding behind. She peered over Yuri's 
shoulder. "We're alive? We're alive!"
     Yuri growled and grabbed Natsumi by the ear and pulled her head down to 
her own level. "You little twit! What were you thinking? No, don't answer 
that. You weren't thinking! You could've gotten us, and any number of 
civilians killed! You�you moron!"
      Natsumi wailed an unintelligible apology and struggled to get loose of 
the older girl's vise-like grip. Kei staggered to her feet and said 
thoughtfully. "Y'know Yuri�we've crashed a fair number of ships ourselves�"
     When Yuri didn't answer, Kei went on, "Go easy on her, huh? Hacking the 
Angel isn't exactly a milk run, and she did it without even triggering the 
auto-guards on the system. That takes skill. I say we let her off with a 
warning."
     Yuri considered this for a few seconds, still holding onto Natsumi's 
ear. Finally, she sighed and let go. "I can't argue with that�" She paused 
and looked around. "Hey, where's your partner? Where's Sakura?"
      Kei flipped on the screens connected to the security cameras in the 
ship. Calling up the one to Sakura and Natsumi's room, they all crowded in to 
see. The screen showed a pile of bedclothes and bags piled in one corner. 
Jutting from the pile were a pair of feebly wiggling legs. Over the intercom 
came a stream of curses to rival either of the Lovely Angels'. Kei and Yuri 
looked at each other for a moment, then grinned wickedly. They pushed a 
somewhat startled Natsumi toward the passageway that led to the bunks. "Go on 
now," Kei said, "As the first part of your punishment, you get to go and 
explain to your friend what happened and whose fault it is."
     Natsumi whined and said, "No fair! You guys�no fair!" But Kei and Yuri 
merely grinned and waved. Seeing that no relief was in sight, Natsumi groaned 
and dragged down the hall towards what she felt was certain doom.
*****
      "Why do I have to stay here? I wanna go into town too!"
      Yuri, dressed in civilian clothes, shorts, a T-shirt and a backpack, 
rolled her eyes and replied to Natsumi's whined query. "We've been over this. 
You crashed our ship, so you stay here and stand guard. Next time don't try 
and take our ship for a joyride."
      Natsumi whined again and looked to Sakura, who wore jeans and a T-shirt 
and a large Band-Aid on her forehead, for support. Her pink-haired friend 
stuck her tongue out at her and said, "Don't look at me. I'm going to have a 
headache for hours thanks to you."
       Kei, also dressed casually, cleared her throat noisily. Once she had 
the others' attention, she said, "Let's move out. Natsumi, we'll be back in a 
few hours. Don't leave the ship, or the next wreck will be you."
     As they walked off, Natsumi muttered under her breath, "You're a 
wreck�meanies." 
     With nothing else to do, the young agent walked out onto the wing of the 
Lovely Angel and sat down. Still grumbling a bit she slipped on the 
headphones to her micro-disk player and turned it on. In a few minutes, she 
was laying back, eyes closed, singing along to the music.
*****
     As they walked into the moderate-sized town alongside the lake, ignoring 
the staring crowds gawking at what was recently their lake, Sakura looked at 
her surroundings. The town was small and idyllic, made up of individual homes 
and small businesses. Not a single building over three stories high�She 
mused. She glanced at Kei and Yuri, who were talking quietly and giggling. 
"So tell me again exactly why we're here?"
     Kei smiled and answered cheerfully, "To see the Hamburger Man!"
     At Sakura's bemused expression, Yuri supplied, "The Hamburger Man is an 
old friend of Kei's from back before we joined the 3WA. He used to be a 
troubleshooter himself about thirty years ago. But he had a really bad 
accident in the field, so he was honorably discharged with a big stipend."
      Here Kei interjected, "A faulty mini-grenade went off in his face while 
he was trying to prime it for loading. Really nasty, that. He was lucky to 
survive�"
     Yuri poked her in the side for interrupting and went on over Kei's 
yelled protest. "Anyway, he's always been a big history buff, occult stuff 
too. He and Kei have known each other for a long time, and we've gotten his 
help before. We're hoping he has a translation program we can use on these 
books, and we want to see if he knows anything about the guy who the books 
belonged to before. He keeps pretty good track of that sort of thing."
      Sakura nodded her understanding. Kei shouted excitedly, "Hey, there's 
his shop! C'mon, let's hurry!"
      They entered the dim one-story building, blinking to adjust their eyes 
to the low light. The room they were in was virtually bursting with books. 
Every wall was lined with shelves, all of them filled. The only furniture in 
the room was a suite of chairs with low bookshelves for tables. And where 
there weren't books there were even more curious objects. Sakura smiled at a 
ship in a bottle, ogled a small statue of a muscular man flexing 
impressively, and wrinkled her nose at a creature of indeterminate origins 
preserved in a jar of cloudy fluid. A single dark doorway led to unseen 
reaches of the building. From somewhere in the back a raspy voice said, "Be 
right with ya!"
     Kei called, "Hey Ham! Get your ugly ass out here and say hello!"
     A large figure, hunched over slightly due to the low ceiling lurched out 
of a back room. The man growled, "Li'l Kei? What the hell are you doing here?"
     Sakura could see why this individual was called the Hamburger Man. His 
face looked remarkably like ground beef, all ridges and lumps of shiny scar 
tissue, interspersed with the puckered white seams of surgical scars, all of 
this topped by whispy white hair. From out of this gruesome mess shined a 
pair of intelligent eyes that reminded her of a large bird's, sharp and 
constantly moving. The remains of his lips pulled back into a fearsome grin, 
showing off large, surprisingly white teeth. He came forward and picked Kei 
up in a huge bear hug, eliciting a shriek of surprise and glee from her. "Was 
that noise I heard you?" The ugly man growled, "I should have guessed. The 
Kei I know wouldn't visit me unless she knew she had a big entrance to amaze 
me with! How are ya, you little minx? Still healthy?"
     As he said this, he rather brazenly gave her rear a firm squeeze, 
eliciting another shriek. Kei grinned and smacked him on the side of his 
head, not to any noticeable effect, and said, "Get your paws off me, you 
horny goon, and say hello to Yuri!"
     The Hamburger Man put Kei down and took Yuri's hand in his own rather 
larger one, pumping it violently. "How are ya, Yuri? Still playing conscience 
for this troublemaker?"
     Kei grinned at Yuri and said, "Hey, don't knock it Ham. Without her 
goody-two-shoes act, this team would be one big party! We'd never get 
anything done! I've been working on her, but she's still pretty set on being 
boring."
     Yuri rolled her eyes and said, "That's me, all right. I like to see 
myself as a dampening effect on Kei's Bimbo Field."
     The Hamburger Man chuckled and gave her a swat on the behind, causing 
her to squeak surprisedly. He turned his ruined face to Sakura and asked, 
"And who is this pretty little thing?"
     Kei smiled and said, "Ham, this is one of our two new partners, Sakura 
Tenjo. Her counterpart, Natsumi Ogawa, is guarding the ship."
     He advanced on her and stuck his grizzled hand out. "Pleased to 
meet'cha."
     Sakura shook his hand, keeping one of her own protectively over the seat 
of her pants, and said, "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr., uh, 
Man�er, Mr. Hamburger�"
     The large man threw back his head and laughed. "My name's Leonard," He 
said, "But call me Ham. Everyone does."
      As Sakura nodded, he turned back to Kei and asked, "So what's up? I'll 
bet you didn't come all the way out here to let a horny old man grope you."
     Kei chuckled while Yuri reached into her backpack. Yuri handed the bag's 
contents, the copy of the Necronomicon they had found, to her. Kei in turn 
handed it to Ham, who perused it carefully. Squinting as he read the cover, 
he finally looked up at Kei seriously and said, "Why you wanna read this? 
This is bad shit, darling, take my word for it. Nothing for pretty girls to 
read. Hell, this ain't fit for ugly hard-cases like me to read. Here, take 
that thing back."
      He thrust the book back into her hands and rubbed his own on his pants 
leg, seemingly unconsciously. Yuri slipped it back into the bag as Kei 
replied, suddenly serious, "It has a bit of a back-story that goes with it�"
*****
     Already extremely bored, Natsumi laid on her belly on the warm wing with 
a sheaf of paper and some pens. At the moment she was amusing herself with a 
drawing of Yuri and Kei. She giggled as she added some more flies buzzing 
around the red-haired Angel's head. She gave Yuri horns and a handlebar 
mustache, humming a cheery tune. Looking at the result, she giggled again. 
She glanced out at the shore. The crowds of people that had been shouting 
things like "Dirty Pair go home!" and "Leave us in peace, you homicidal 
bitches!" had dispersed after she threatened to practice her target shooting 
on them with the Angel's light auto cannons.
     Natsumi rolled over onto her back and looked up at the clear sky for a 
moment. She came to a sudden decision. Nodding to herself, she gathered up 
her drawings and went inside the ship to change.
*****
     Ham nodded thoughtfully as Kei concluded the story of how they had come 
into possession of the books. He grunted and dragged himself out of the chair 
he had been sitting in. As he stumped into the rooms behind the front room 
full of books, he called, "Let me check a few things out on the old Datanet. 
Feel free to root around for something to read, but don't break anything!"
     Kei scowled and said, "Break something? Who does he think we are?"
     Sakura was tempted to answer but thought better of it at the last 
second. Yuri quickly settled down with a book, but Kei stalked around the 
room slowly, fiddling with things. Sakura, no big reader herself, went over 
to examine the ship in the bottle for a while longer while they waited for 
Ham's return.
*****
     Natsumi came back out onto the wing of the Lovely Angel dressed in a 
dark blue bikini with silver highlights. The two cups of the top were 
connected by a silver ring, as were the front and back of the bottom by two 
identical ones at her hips. She hadn't worn this swimsuit yet, as she felt it 
was a bit too naughty for normal beaches. But as she was now on the same team 
as the Lovely Angels, who wore less into war zones than she had on now, such 
excessive modesty seemed a bit silly. Blinking in the bright sunlight, 
Natsumi tugged gently at the bikini top. It seemed a bit tight, but then most 
of her newest clothing seemed so. This can't be a coincidence, she thought, I 
measured my breasts the last time I went shopping with Sakura. Maybe I 
measured them wrong�She thought about this for a few moments, then stopped as 
an idea came to her. I see what happened! The guy running the counter, what 
was his name..? Mackie something-or-other. That pervert gave me the wrong 
size bra on purpose! He just wanted to see girls in clothing that was too 
tight! Ooh, I'm gonna get that little punk!
      She was interrupted from her vindictive musings by a series of wolf 
whistles and calls from the beach. She blinked and looked up. A small group 
of boys about her own age or a few years younger were standing in the bushes 
waving at her and grinning. She yelled at them, "Beat it, you jerks!"
     The boys opted to holler some more general catcalls. Her first impulse 
was to just load riot bullets into one of Kei's assault rifles and take a few 
potshots at them, but then she got an even better idea. After a quick trip 
back inside to her duffel bag she returned to the wing, where the boys still 
waited, apparently having forgone higher brain functions in favor of 
lust-crazed idiocy.
     Natsumi smiled and waved back to the boys, who cheered and waved even 
more at getting a response. The dark-haired girl grinned and walked towards 
the edge of the wing, affecting an almost ludicrously swaying walk, but kept 
her right hand hidden behind her back. Once she reached the edge of the wing, 
she sat down, dangling her legs over the side. She struck a coy pose and 
crooked a finger at the boys, unwittingly mimicking Kei in a much direr 
situation from far before they had met the Lovely Angels. She called to the 
boys, "Hey guys�I'm kind of bored. Wanna come up and play?"
      The boys froze and looked at each other. Natsumi winked and said, "Come 
on, don't be shy."
      With the speed that only a horny young person can maintain, the boys 
gave a cry and charged the ship as one. But as they reached the edge of the 
depression that had once been the edge of the lake, a series of loud reports 
sounded, in tune with a line of neat holes that appeared in the dirt at the 
boys' feet. They froze and looked up at the wing of the ship. Natsumi smiled 
sweetly as she set her service pistol aside, barrel still smoking, and tapped 
her lower lip in mock surprise. "Did I mention that I scored really high on 
my sharp-shooting field test too? Well, come on. Don't you guys want to play 
any more?"
      Natsumi smiled and laid down on the hot wing, listening to the frantic 
escape of the terrified boys. "Come back soon," She called, and giggled.
*****
     When The Hamburger Man came back from his data search, his mutilated 
face showed puzzlement. "I don't know what to tell you girls," He said, "but 
there isn't any record of a collection by a Nakamura Shuichi, now or as far 
back as five-hundred years ago. I'm sorry, but your Mr. Nakamura is a ghost."
     Sakura was mightily confused, and so were Kei and Yuri, judging by their 
expressions. Ham waved a sheet of computer paper and said, "I looked into the 
archival records of every major collection of antique books recorded in the 
tax statements, shipping invoices, and planetary duty tax lists in the 3WA 
Datanet. The only one that comes close is a collection of books on ancient 
weaving practices that belongs to, and is still located among the personal 
effects of some millionaire's estate on an O'Neil station near Molybdenus. 
The only thing I can think of is that this Nakamura wasn't declaring, or that 
the name is a front. Either way, someone went to pretty great lengths to make 
sure that these books didn't show up anywhere."
     Yuri pursed her lips and said after a moment's thought, "Ham, you should 
know that technically, we're hiding these books from the BTR. They want them 
for some reason or another, and we'd kind of like to know why."
     Ham nodded and sat in an overstuffed armchair. After several minutes of 
silent thought, he looked up at Yuri and asked, "Do you have a list of all 
the books that were in the collection?"
     Yuri nodded and gave him a pocket electronic clipboard. Ham turned it on 
and scanned the screen as names scrolled across it at high speed. Once he had 
read the names, he nodded and said, "Good. I'll look up each individual book. 
Hey, this may take a while, so why don't you go get some food in town?"
     Kei cheered at the suggestion of food. Sakura glanced out the door in 
the direction of the ship. "I wonder how Natsumi is doing."
     Kei snorted and answered, "She's fine, trust me."
     Sakura opened her mouth to retort somewhat angrily but Yuri cut her off 
by saying. "She's right Sakura. Natsumi can stand guard for the rest of the 
day just fine. It'll teach her a good lesson."
*****
     The object of their discussion sneezed twice in rapid succession, 
sitting up to rub her nose. "Damned allergies�" She muttered.
     Natsumi had been enjoying the feeling of the warm sun on her skin, 
which, coupled with the warm metal surface of the wing had her practically 
purring. When she sat up, the bikini top pinched at her tender skin, making 
her curse and fiddle with it. But as she adjusted the tight cloth, a 
distinctly naughty idea came to her. She quickly looked around the clearing 
to see if anyone was around. The lakeside was quiet and still. She grinned 
and thought, I spit on tan lines! With this thought in mind, she reached 
behind her and undid the tie to her bikini top.
     Laying the dark blue cloth to one side, Natsumi sighed luxuriously as 
she stretched out on the wing again. When the warm light began to caress 
areas of her that usually did not see this much direct sunlight, she smiled 
and stretched, arching her back like a cat. "Feels good�" She mumbled.
     Eyes closed, Natsumi ran her hand from her neck down over her breasts to 
her stomach, enjoying the contrast of her cool palms to her warm skin. Her 
fingertips brushed the hem of her bikini's bottom half. AN even naughtier 
idea came to her. She opened her eyes and looked around, like a child about 
to make a raid on the proverbial cookie jar. Still nobody. Thinking, No sense 
in losing the tan lines on only one half. She began fiddling with the knots 
on the bottom half. One came undone, then the other. The cloth slithered off 
and-"Hello hello? Anyone here?"
     Natsumi shrieked and frantically covered herself as best she could, 
almost rolling off the wing in the process. Red from head to toe, and not 
from the sun, she peered over the side of the wing, covering her chest with 
one arm. A cute little girl, about fifteen or sixteen, stood below, peering 
up. She was wearing a "Kei n' Yuri-Con '41" T-shirt and shorts, and sported 
blond springy curls and big, innocent blue eyes. Natsumi flushed even more 
and called down, "Umm, just a second, okay?"
     Without waiting for a reply, she crawled back over to her bikini and 
pulled it on at super-speed. Once she was sure she wouldn't bare anything she 
didn't want to, she climbed down the side of the wing and dropped to the 
ground in front of the girl. Trying to look as cool as possible in the face 
of her recent exposure, Natsumi smiled politely and asked, "Can I help you 
with something?"
     The girl made a face so cute Natsumi felt her teeth start to ache. "Are 
you really from the 3WA?" The girl asked sweetly.
     Wary of against anti-3WA sentiments, Natsumi nodded guardedly. The girl 
squealed and actually jumped up and down. "That's so cool!"
     Natsumi smiled. The girl clasped her hands at her chest and asked 
breathlessly, "Is it a good job? Do you get to carry a gun? Do you really 
know the Dirty Pair?"
     More than a little amused, and rather flattered, Natsumi answered, "Yes, 
yes, and yes."
     The girl squealed again and asked, "Is this really the Dirty Pair's 
ship?!"
     Natsumi flushed slightly and answered, "Umm, yes, but it's the Lovely 
Angels, not 'Dirty Pair'. What's your name, anyway?"
     The girl smiled and answered, "It's, ummm, Ann. Can I see the inside of 
the ship?"
     Natsumi smiled indulgently. "I suppose so. But don't touch anything you 
aren't supposed to, okay?"
     As she turned to lead her into the ship, Natsumi did not see "Ann" smile 
in a particularly nasty fashion. "Oh, I won't�"
*****
     Ham returned from his second data search to find the three girls busily 
throwing balled up food wrappers and the like at each other. "I see that 
you've already corrupted this poor girl."
     As if to prove his point, Sakura used the moment of distraction to 
bounce a crumpled paper bag off of the back of Kei's head. When the redheaded 
girl spun to glare at her, she took on an excessively innocent expression, 
virtually to the point of conjuring a halo above her head. Ham laughed aloud, 
"I take it back. She may well end up corrupting you."
     He grew more serious as he said, "I have some bad news and really bad 
news for you ladies. Which would you like first?"
     Yuri rolled her eyes and answered, "Take your pick."
     Ham said, "The bad news is that it is now official. Mr. Nakamura is a 
phantom. Now the really bad news. His collection is a phantom too. A copy of 
each of the books on that list you gave me has been either bought or stolen. 
In fact, nine of the books in that latter collection were taken in a 
"house-breaking" on Verian 7. The thieves happened to have guided 
micro-missiles, remote gun pods, and Chance IV Rapid-Reload Assault Rifles, 
which, if you recall, have been black-list to everyone but us and the BTR 
since they were first released. A bit conspicuous, isn't it?"
     Kei cursed loudly. "I knew it! I knew this was pure BTR! It stinks of 
it! God dammit!" 
     Yuri sighed. "This isn't good at all. Ham, I'm sorry, but we have to get 
back to the ship and make a report to Foley."
     Ham grinned and said, "Don't sweat it. Tell the little elf I said hello."
     As Yuri and Sakura readied to leave, Kei gave Ham a hug. "I'll come back 
and visit again soon, I promise."
     Sakura shook Ham's hand as the other's dashed out the door. "Nice to 
meet you sir."
     He grinned and said, "Likewise." As she turned to go, he gave her a pat 
to the rear that lifted her off the ground. She spun, just as the door shut. 
"Quit that!" She could hear his chuckle through the door.
*****
     "And this is the bridge. This is where I, er, we control the ship from. 
See, this is the steerage seat."
     Natsumi turned to look at her charge, who quickly hid her expression of 
bored irritation and replaced it with one of vapid interest. She smiled and 
nodded, all the while gritting her teeth. I have to find out what they did 
with the books�I have to find out what they're planning�ah, fuck it.
     Mary grinned viciously as she kicked Natsumi in the back, knocking her 
to the ground. Natsumi gasped as the blow hit, and exclaimed, "What the 
hell?!"
     Her teeth bared in something between a snarl and a grin, Mary pounced on 
Natsumi and sat on her back, pinning her arms with her knees. Natsumi writhed 
in her grasp and yelled, "What the fuck are you doing?!"
     Mary giggled and grabbed Natsumi's hair and yanked back hard, making her 
grunt in pain. She leaned forward and kissed Natsumi gently on the cheek. The 
larger girl growled and tried to twist away. Mary smiled and ran her tongue 
up the side of Natsumi's face, eliciting a groan of revulsion from the 
captive girl. She whispered seductively in Natsumi's ear, "I'm going to make 
you cry�"
     Natsumi tried to turn her head and shot back, "Fuck you!"
     Mary's retort was to slam Natsumi's face into the floor hard. Pulling 
her head back up, she said, "That wasn't nice."
     She repeated the attack twice more and pulled her head up again. Blood 
dripped from Natsumi's lip as she gasped from the pain. Mary smiled gently 
and cooed, "You were saying?"
     Though Mary had pinned her arms, Natsumi's legs were free. She bucked 
under her considerably smaller attacker and lashed out with her right leg. 
When her foot hit Mary in the back, she rocked back hard and drove the back 
of her head into Mary's face as hard as she could. "I said�fuck YOU!"
     The small blond staggered back with one hand to her face. Natsumi got to 
her feet and wiped one palm over her cheek where Mary had licked her, then 
wiped the blood from her split lip. She advanced on the staggering blond with 
intent to do serious harm. But as she closed with her, Mary whipped her hand 
from her face and kicked Natsumi in the gut, hard. The smaller girl's face 
was a mask of insane fury. "That hurt!"
     Twisting, Mary unloaded three lightning-fast side-kicks into Natsumi's 
stomach and chest. When Natsumi staggered, Mary torqued her hips hard, 
twisting and lifting her foot for a heel kick. The foot came whistling down 
at Natsumi's head, only to be caught in the intended target's hand. She 
twisted Mary's foot hard and tumbled her to the ground. She followed the 
throw with a stomp aimed at Mary's neck, but the small blond rolled away, her 
legs snapping around Natsumi's. She rolled to one side, pulling the other 
girl to the floor. Once she was down, Mary rolled onto her back and sat up, 
her legs locking one of Natsumi's painfully bent up behind her.
     Mary smiled and lovingly caressed Natsumi's thigh and hip while her 
victim struggled weakly, still woozy from the kicks she had received. Without 
her smile ever changing, Mary yanked up hard on Natsumi's leg, earning a 
scream of pain. But before the leg broke, Mary relaxed the tension, then 
jerked hard again. Another scream. Mary sighed and trailed her hand up 
Natsumi's back as she weakly tried to push her tormentor off of her. "You 
know," Said Mary in a dreamy voice, "I could go on like this forever."
     So saying, she rabbit punched Natsumi in the back. The tormented girl 
arched back in pain. Mary stood and dragged the other girl up as well, before 
charging and slamming Natsumi face-first into the wall. She turned her 
battered opponent around and smiled in anticipation. But when Natsumi turned, 
she spit blood at Mary and drove her knee up into the startled girl's gut. 
Mary gasped for air. Natsumi spoke, interspersing her words with blows. 
"You�" A right jab to the jaw, "sick�" A left elbow to the opposite side of 
the jaw, "little�" A right hook to the side, that made Mary stagger, "bitch!" 
     She finished by slamming her abused forehead into Mary's nose. There was 
a sound like a watermelon being hit with a mallet. Mary screamed and 
staggered back, blood jetting from between her hands. Natsumi smiled 
triumphantly. "And don't ever even think of licking me again, pervert!"
     But Mary's scream of pain became one of rage. "You broke my nose! I'LL 
KILL YOU!"
     Natsumi was caught off guard as Mary slammed her fist into her throat, 
followed it with three swift punches to the gut, two left hooks to the ribs, 
and an open-palm strike to the chin. Natsumi fell to her knees, vision 
swimming. Something cannon-balled into her side, flipping her through the air 
and onto her back.
     The entire world was stained red, as it always was to Mary when she 
became angry. She kicked the bitch who ruined her perfect, cute nose a second 
time. There was a muted snapping sound as a rib broke. The girl screamed 
shrilly, and this soothed Mary. She was already feeling better.
     Her medical training told Natsumi that something, most likely a rib, had 
just broken. She tried to right herself and crawl away, in a blind haze of 
pain. Something, a foot she believed, slammed down on her outstretched hand. 
More brittle snapping sounds, and pain, unbelievable pain. Through her own 
scream and the roar of blood in her ears, she heard her assailant's voice. 
"Oops�that's right. I can't kill her. Okay�ummm�where are the books?"
     Natsumi gasped for air. The foot came down on he other hand, just as 
hard. She screamed again. She managed to gasp, "Fuh�fuck you! Crazy b-bitch�"
     Mary smiled and daintily kicked Natsumi in the jaw. She stood over the 
prone girl and sighed happily, despite the river of blood staining her shirt. 
She closed her eyes and undid her belt. At the jingling sound that came next, 
she bit down on her lower lip and moaned in ecstasy. She opened her eye. In 
her hand was a three-foot length of steel chain, one-inch links, with a 
heavier steel ring at each end. She walked towards Natsumi, who had managed 
to roll over onto her stomach and was crawling into the next room, weakly 
calling out for someone named "Sakura". Mary stepped through the doorway 
after her and said, "I guess we get to do this the fun way. Promise me 
something: scream." She shut the door.
*****
     Some time later, Mary stepped through the silent hatch and out into the 
light. Her face, shirt, and arms up to the elbows were spattered with blood. 
She inhaled through her mouth, smiled up at the sky, and said, "What a 
beautiful day�oh! A butterfly! Pretty!"
     She chased after the insect, which had good enough sense to avoid her. 
And behind her, in the wreckage of the lake, the Lovely Angel lay, silent.

Continued in Cycle 4