Leaving the spaceport behind was a rebirth of sorts for Rachel. She relished this six-hour layover between landing and liftoff, and she promised herself she would make good use of it. Soon she was absorbed in Desmonda's shopping district, buying herself new clothes for her birthday, supplies for the ship. The Caprice was in the tech shop, being put through its annual engine check. All seemed well and, along with the natural lift shopping gave every woman, Rachel accepted the relief of her tension.

      Considering her thirst, Rachel compiled her purchases into one bag, as not to be an attractive victim, and she targeted a drinking business ahead advertised in flashing neon as the Star Burner Lounge.

      The pilot slid into the watering hole, moving stealthily and hopefully unnoticed through the bar. Rachel unloaded her bag and took a seat in the very back of the establishment, a place that at first reminded her of a dark bear cave until her eyes adjusted to the room’s anonymous lighting. A gouged table hugged her against an unlit wall. The place stunk of sweat and burnt hops.

      Squinting her eyes to make out details of the establishment, Rachel spotted some notorious space jockeys, seedy-looking characters who each oozed their own cutthroat presence. A few women of ill fashion and questionable career choices clamored around potential customers. Rachel realized too late she hadn’t considered the respectability of this place like she should have done. A few souls sat in another corner of the room, doing what she was doing, trying not to stand out. Rachel wished she'd brought Jet for protection but she told herself she wasn't so shaken. She'd been to places like this before and knew to remain invisible.

      A very dark-skinned Thuban approached her table with a writing pad so, in refusal of her jellied spine, Rachel ordered a stein of the local brew. The soprano of her voice seemed to awaken sleepy bears. Men of rough and rowdy venture turned their eyes on her and she quickly dropped her chin to examine the zipper of her techsuit. Soon, their attention was drawn elsewhere and Rachel released a sigh of relief.

      Halfway into her refreshment, she spied a large, half- dressed man emerging from a door labeled for privacy. Jack Luminous's unique eyes glowed from his face, absolutely unmistakable. The ratty brown hair of Three's wig could not detract from his bright eyes, but then nothing could reduce those heaven-sent sky-blues. Rachel almost choked on her brew at the sight of her passenger-terrorist in disguise, nearly choked again when her eyes slid to the band of his trousers to find the top button gaping open.

      Too far away to catch any conversation, Rachel watched as he escorted a scantily-clad redhead from the back room to the bar, laughing as they went. Close together they stood, arms linked around each other, and Three wasn't the slightest bit shy about where he touched this woman. Rachel gasped when his roving hand finally settled on the scarlet woman's bottom.

      In a flash Rachel recognized what she was seeing. Three was here to do what any man would do after being trapped on Null for an extended time. Rachel herself had, after all, turned down his advances.

      Though Rachel Waters consigned herself to finishing her beer and making a quiet getaway, she still saw that Three’s hand seldom moved from the floozy's derriere. The giddy couple drank and toasted like a black hole sucked on their toes. Three kissed this woman right on the lips tonguey, lusty affairs that made Rachel fear they'd rip off what little clothes they wore and resume their intimacy for the entire bar to watch. This red woman had Luminous in snares, or was it vice-versa? That was it, Rachel knew. Three was just playing someone else for a fool to get what he required.

      Rachel thought it an answer to prayer when Three broke away from the woman and Jack Luminous’s face disappeared behind the back door. Was it only Rachel’s perception that the room lost something of its light when Jack Luminous’s face left? It was the Gemini mask which glowed ever so slightly in its operation. Rachel lost her thirst and pushed her stein away, wishing she could disown the part of her mind that Three had somehow lured. Luckily she would never lay eyes on the pretender again. Commandeering her bag, Rachel abandoned the place before she went mad with ever more sickening speculation.

      Two hours later, her arms overloaded with ship’s supplies, Rachel wandered down the hallway in search of a spaceport directory or a lane name in the maze of poorly-marked trafficways. She quickly came to the conclusion that she should not have consumed the local swampwater. No telling what the quasi-alcohol content had been in only one stein, nor how it would react in a body unused to the chemical assault. Electing to suffer the embarrassment, Rachel targeted a green-overalled port employee she saw ahead, and hoped the guy had a hover-haul she could rent.

      As Rachel opened her mouth to make known her dilemma, she heard her name, “Rachel! Run!” being yelled from far behind her, along with the wails of blasters warping flectsteel walls enough to make them gong an alarm. At the reknown sound, every person near Rachel took flight around her into connecting hallways, crashing into her load and knocking her to the ground. Stunned, Rachel still thought she heard her name being shrieked way above the shrill gasps of the rushing crowd, so she crawled to the closest wall, swift to avoid stampeding legs, and she squinted toward the direction of the shout.

      Coming toward her in a full run was Jack Luminous’s face sans the wig. The impostor was racing down the long corridor, yelling her name again, his exotic weapon in hand and firing at his pursuers.

      "Run, Rachel, run!" Three, her impostor passenger, earlier discarded by the pilot as past history, shouted to her, was within only a few seconds of reaching her. Armed men far behind the Gemini man fired indiscriminately, striking without care for human life, and heading straight for her.

      Shocked at the sight, Rachel dismissed her spilled packages just in time for Three to catch her arm and scoop her into his dash.