A cooling breeze blew delicately down the chasm near the entrance to the passageway that led to the Impaler cavern. High above, the sky was turning blue. Morning had broken.

Panman finished strapping the giant needle to the back of his Blenheim Bike. He turned to Peter the Ace. “All done!”

“Excellent!” Peter the Ace replied.

Tiy’rd, the Impaler leader, stepped forwards from the farewell crowd that had gathered. “Once again, I must protest!” he said sternly. “That needle is a valuable Impaler research tool. It is wrong for you to just take it like this!”

Peter the Ace spoke with dominant authority. “You kidnapped a high class bounty hunter and cloned him without permission, and you’re telling me what is right and wrong?!”

“I admit we were wrong to do what we did, but you should not punish one crime with another!”

“You used that needle to extract DNA from the spine of Ross Mental and I am therefore well within my rights to confiscate it. After all the help we provided you, you should show more gratitude.”

“We are grateful, but we need that needle for…”

“Cloning?” Peter the Ace said in anticipation. “No my friend, your cloning days are over. I am hereby making it a galactic offence for you and your community to ever clone anything else ever again.”

“But we are scientists, and cloning is one of our most important areas of research. We must have that needle back in order…”

“Remember that I took pity on you and absolved you from your initial violation on the grounds of desperation. If I hadn’t, you and those directly involved would have been arrested, hog-tied, gagged, and blindfolded. Then you would have been taken back to the Palace of Amino, publicly insulted, and then sentenced to work for thirty years in one of the pizza delivery companies of the under-class domain. Hideous females would have been your companions. That will happen if you insist on cloning things.”

“If you absolved us, then why the need to confiscate…”

“Enough! Do you want me to reconsider my original decision?”

Tiyr’d stared at the bounty hunter, and then shook his head.

“Good! Then we’ll leave it at that.”

Ross Mental approached. “I don’t trust the ugly fucker.” he said, placing his fuming face within inches of Tiyr’d’s. “Just reconsider Ace, and then fuck him to fuckin’ hell!”

The Impaler leader shuddered.

Peter the Ace smiled. “Remember, Tiyr’d, that Ross Mental will be staying with you for a while. I won’t be here to calm him so you’d better behave.”

“Yeah, you fuckers!”

Tiyr’d said nothing and stepped back into the crowd. His chances of re-election next month didn’t look good.

Sind’a walked up to the bounty hunters. She was carrying a box of snacks and was wearing a tight-fitting black body suit, just as Peter the Ace and Panman had demanded. “I am ready.” she said.

“Great!” Peter the Ace said. “Hop on!” He motioned towards his bike.

Sind’a giggled with delight. She’d never seen a vehicle this cool before. She handed the box of snacks to Panman then lifted one of her well-toned legs over the luxury saddle and seated herself on the bike’s rear seat. She moaned in ecstasy at the quality of the leather beneath her buttocks.

Peter the Ace mounted the saddle just in front of her. “You’d better hold my waist, just to be on the safe side.”

Sind’a put her arms round his waist as ordered. Once again, she moaned in ecstasy.

Panman stored the box of snacks on his bike then mounted. He started the engine and revved it hard, letting the powerful motors roar deeply and menacingly. “This is so cool!” he said, admiring the power below him. “Let’s burn, Ace!”

The two bikes roared off up the deep chasm.

The two bounty hunters shouted a farewell. “Bye forever, ugly dudes!”

Sind’a shouted too. “Goodbye master Tiyr’d.” she waved. “I will honour you and the Impaler by serving the bounty hunters well.”

Ross Mental watched the two fantastic vehicles disappear into the distance. He turned to the crowd of Impalers. “Right.” he said, a malevolent smile spreading across his battle-scarred face. “It’s time to sort you fuckers out!”

With a mighty shove of potent strength, the needle clicked into place. Panman closed the maintenance hatch on the Blenheim’s sub-space drive power transfer unit and stepped back. The red light above the hatch flickered momentarily, and then turned green. “Cool! I think it’ll work.”

Peter the Ace nodded. He walked over to a console at the back of the engine room. “I’ll get the Blenheim to power up the engines.” He began entering commands.

“It’s really tedious that the voice recognition system is off-line.” Panman said with annoyance.

“You’re right as always.” Peter the Ace said as he typed. “When we get back to the palace, I’ll order Eric Brillo to install a more reliable…”

“AUTO-REPAIR OF VOICE-RECOGNITION AND VOICE-SYNTHESIS SYSTEMS COMPLETE. SYSTEM ON-LINE.”

Panman back-flipped for joy. “Cool beyond the visions of my deepest fantasy!”

Peter the Ace laughed. “It’s great to have you back, Blenheim. How are you feeling?”

“I AM FUNCTIONING IN A SATISFACTORY MANNER.”

“Great. Power up the sub-space engines and atmospheric thrusters. Prepare to get us out of here.”

“I WILL.”

The whole engine room began to shudder as the engines burst back to life. Peter the Ace studied a data screen. “We only have fifty percent of normal power flow.” he said. “The needle isn’t very efficient at transferring energy.”

“It’ll still get us home though.” Panman stated.

“Indeed it will.”

“We are completely ingenuous!”

“We are!”

“We should get up to the bridge.”

“Good thinking Panman.”

The two bounty hunters headed towards the upper decks.

Panman activated his communicator. “Jemima?”

Jemima Murma, the Blenheim’s on-board assistant, answered. “Hi! What can I do for you?”

“We’re heading for the bridge now. Could you prepare some pancakes with maple syrup, several bowls of Katsu chicken, ten custard pies, and some grape juice and bring it up to us please?”

“No problem.”

“How’s Sind’a doing?”

“Fine. She’s taken to her duties effortlessly. She’s scrubbing the ovens with expert precision.”

“Excellent!”

Panman turned to Peter the Ace. “It was an inspired idea of yours to bring her with us.”

“It was.” Peter the Ace replied modestly. “I think I might make this my new hobby.”

“What? Collecting well-toned female assistants?”

“Indeed.”

“It’s original, I’ll grant you that!”

Peter the Ace entered a thoughtful phase. “I have a feeling I’ll be starting a trend. Soon, all of the best bounty hunters will be collecting assistants. Eventually, the Palace of Amino will be over-run with the most highly-toned female assistants in the galaxy.”

Panman laughed with delight at the thought.

Peter the Ace laughed louder.

Panman laughed even louder than that.

By the time they both reached the bridge they were laughing like demented Hyenas.

Laughing was cool!