The Doktor was an old man. When he was a kid, his Dad bought him a chemistry set. He never played with silly putty like the other kids. The first time he lost his eyebrows he was only five.

Meradinis! Turtle Island! It was a little corner of chaos!
This was the scene the speeding black ship had left behind three days ago, fleeing in humiliating shame, those three days a constant running battle. For three days the accursed Imperial ship Indomitable had followed, firing on them at every opportunity. Death or imprisonment now awaited those who called themselves Corsairs – and though this death was now more certain rather than just a possibility, Sona Kilroy, or “The Hammer” as he was called by his men, was not prepared to give up his freedom so easily. Piracy was his life and he’d known no other. He was tough and cruel, a despicable man, a case in point when academics quoted the barbarism by which the Corsairs had made themselves known and feared across the star systems of the peaceful Terran Empire.

Timaset didn’t need a ship – especially not a flying museum piece! And as far as he knew, a dodgy plasma injector could drop you smack into a wormhole ending somewhere on the other side of the universe with no way back. Well, he could always sell the damn thing. Couldn’t he? He could use the money. Damn, he could always use the money! Maybe the crew would want to buy it over from him?

Aside from all that, she was carrying about a million tons of titanium ore to the heavy industries on Gorda. All told, that would take care of their traveling arrangements for the next year or so, pretty much.

The weapon he held in his sweaty grip was one of a small consignment of prototypes received at the last port of call. The experts said it was the most powerful hand weapon in the known universe. He choked. That would soon be put to the test!

Anyways, that very same night there was a fight in the casino on B Deck. Some of the passengers got in a set-to that looked to be more about who was eyeballing whose boyfriend than who had the right to wear the same outfit that two of the ladies appeared to be wearing at the same time. Or possibly, what it was really about was who was wearing said outfit better.