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Captain's log. Stardate... Umm... April seventeenth. Point four. Yep, it's me again, the noble and fierce Space Pirate Hitachi. The most charming tiger that's ever plundered the cosmos. Or something. Good thing that I get to write my own biography, eh? And at this moment, there's one word that describes me quite perfectly - scared.

I pressed my back against the wall and breathed slowly. Whatever it was, I knew that it was onboard the ship somewhere. I clasped the gun tighter, inhaled, and turned the corner.

* * *

Thinking back to when this all began, I wish it was a bit more exciting. It was just a regular afternoon, and the dull moan of the ship was starting to grind on my nerves. Two days back, I'd been able to (for lack of a better term) procure enough frozen dinners to last for several months, and so I was spending some time resting. Okay, so maybe 'hiding' would be a better phrase.

The ship was placed discreetly on the dark side of Io, mostly because the low atmosphere creates some scanner interference, but also because I think that hiding on the dark side of moons tends to be kinda cool. I mean, think about it. Fine, never mind.

So I hit a small button embedded on the arm of the chair, and the monitor flickered onto an old show. I yawned. It was another re-run. I can't place the show. One of those cartoons they made a lot of back on Earth in the late 20th century. I reclined further back on the chair, letting my footpaws rest lazily against the console. It was a slow day, I thought. Rather like summers back home. Except for the large metal spaceship all around me, that is.

Just as my eyes were sliding shut, Steve crackled onto the monitor, shutting off the cartoon. "Eya, whutcha daein?" it screeched. I fell from the chair, hitting the floor with a loud, metallic clunk.

I scooped myself up off the floor, my head spinning. Stevie, as I'm sure you remember, is my computer. "I thought I asked you not to do that unless it was an emergency" I moaned, clambering back onto the chair. "And even then, not to actually speak."

"Tha's no gunna werk this time, ya nut" it blazed. "Why've ye no gone got rid o' thu intruder?"

I stared at the screen a bit. "Intruder?"

"Oh yar, I me'hnt ta tell ya earlier. There's an intruder onboard. Why've you not gone and got rid of it?"

I was rather glad that I wasn't sitting comfortably, because I'd have probably just fallen off the chair again. "There's an intruder on board the ship? Right now?" I asked, incredulously.

"Ahr" affirmed Steve.

"And you've only just remembered to tell me this just now?"

"Ahr."

My mind reeled. "And you want to know why I haven't already got rid of it" I murmured to myself. "No, don't answer that. Where is it?"

"Ee's on tha bloody ship!" whined the computer, and I had to stop myself from giving it a cranial lobotomy with a spanner.

Now, you have to understand that I'm not an especially excitable guy. To be fair, my capacity for excitement has two important factors - how much sleep I've had the day before, and how much coffee I've drank. Even though it had been a decent day, my caffine level was still on a rather low. Truth be told, we've been running low on coffee for quite a while. You see, as a noble and brave space pirate, we have a fairly meager source of income. Most of my actual money comes from bounty hunting, and that in itself has a tendency to cause some problems - mostly the fact that real bounty hunters tend to chase me. Idiots.

The last shipment of coffee had been provided courtesy of the generosity of a small supply vessel, which had been more than happy and willing to share the entirety of their stock with me. With a teeny, tiny bit of coercion, of course. That was several months ago, and at present, the supply bays were running out. This should have come as no real surprise, of course, when we...

"Are ya listenin' ta me 'ere?" Steve yelped. Yeah, I definitely wanted to kick the little bugger now. Butting into my heroic stories, bah!

I closed my eyes. This was idiotic. "It'll just be a blip on the scanner," I mumbled, "Some kind of mistake. If it moves, let me know." And with that, I switched the show back on.

On the screen, an oversized rabbit began to duck down a hallway. I half-shut my eyes, resting back in my chair. Tomorrow, I thought to myself, I'll start looking around for my next hit. Something easy. I wasn't in the mood for a challenge. Oh, what I wouldn't give for an easy life. Actually, this is pretty easy. The rabbit was shooting a gun now, and barking orders to his companions. Holes were pounding against the wall, as the rabbit jumped from his hiding place, shooting frantically, and....

Stevie faded back onto the screen. I could have cried. "What it is now?" I pleaded. Why did the bloody machine love to toy with me like this? No, that's a serious question. Anyone? Answers on a postcard, please.

He almost seemed to grin when he said it. Of course, it couldn't grin, but I'd swear that if he could have, he would. "It's movin', buddy."

"It's been moving this whole time, hasn't it?" I asked.

"Yep" replied Stevie. Was I at all surprised? Nah, not a bit of it. I know, the bloody machine could have just told me the whole bunch of information beforehand. And you'd think that I'd be used to it by now.

* * *

When I managed to eventually find a pistol, the unknown beastie had slushed its way up from the cargo bays and into the habitat area. Which was just groovy. You know how, in the old films with aliens invading spaceships, the crew always spend a whole mass of oodles of time hunting around in the tunnels for the thing? They get picked off one by one, all the time having great fun jumping at puddles of water and screaming whenever a small cat walks past.

Well, I hate that part of the movies. It just bugs me. And by the time they get to the end of the damn thing, I'm usually half asleep. Additionally, I'm the only one on this ship. Well, me and the whatchacallit. So, if I went into the whole details as to what happened next, it'd involve a lot of sneaking around corridors, skulking down hallways, and training my pistol into the corner of the rooms. And by that point, nobody would be interested.

Oh sure, it'd be pretty tense, and the atmosphere would be sheer brilliance. But by that point, my ass would have fallen asleep. And let me tell you, it's a nice ass. It'd be a damn pity to let it get all numb. Erm, where was I?

Right, yes, the hunt. I leaned up against the wall and whispered into my wristband, "Where is it now, Steve?"

It crackled in reply, "Second door on the left, bub."

I slipped silently up to the doorframe. Leaning close against the cool metal-lined bulkhead, I inhaled sharply. On soft pawpads I sidled closer, my claws almost digging against the trigger of the pistol. My ears bristled, listening intently. All I heard was the dull whine of the gravity simulator. This was it. I slipped my paw down, finding the button for the door.

I held a breath. Here goes. All or nothing. I knew I only had one shot, two at most. If I missed, that was it. I was dead, and there would end the marvelous story of the most amazing Space Pirate Hitachi. It'd be on me before I could focus my gaze, I knew it.

One chance.

I hit the button.

Swinging into the doorway, I yanked the trigger, blazing two hot explosions of light flaring into the room. They struck against the floor, a wide shot, hitting nothing at all. I could have cried. I very nearly did. I winced, ready for whatever was to come next.

Nothing happened.

Stevie's voice crackled. "Sorry. Meant the right. Second on the right. Yeah." And I wanted to kick it again.

* * *

So I leaned up against the door on the other side of the hall, pistol ready, blah blah blah. We've been through it, so let's cut to the action, shall we?

The door on the right of the hall was a spare bedroom, the kind that I can only fit into the base ship like this. I tend to prefer base ships, to be honest. They're much more roomy, unlike the regular shuttles that I tend to fly around in. But they have their downsides, mostly that they're slower, have less weaponry, and you can't dock with other ships, making it literally quite impossible to even attempt to do some decent piracy with. As a result, I usually park my base ship somewhere comfy, and use the shuttle for the real action. So it's quite understandable that the beds on the base ships are a bit more comfortable. I get three spare bedrooms, because I'm special.

I jammed the button, and blasted a full round of ammo into my spare bedroom. This time, however, I wasn't going to just stand and wait to get eaten. I dove out of the doorway, hurtling down the hallway. Spinning around, I caught my breath and waited. I trained my pistol towards the doorway, ready.

Any moment now...

I don't know quite what I was expecting to come charging out of the doorway. Probably some kind of squidgy, pulsating bugger made out of bubbling soup and fangs. That's usually what space beasties look like. A slug would be nice. Slugs are easy. It wasn't very likely, as there wasn't any slime squelching along the hallway. But I was quite ready.

So... where is the bloody thing?

I waited. I realized that my paws were shaking. There wasn't a sound.

Y'know my friends, I think I got it.

But at this point, there was only one way to be sure. I leaned on up to the doorway, and slipped a peek. My eyes ran around the corners of the room, searching desperately. You can guess what was inside. Yep, nothing.

I whispered into my wristband, "Steve, the room's empty." Yeah, I was about two or three inches from kicking the damn computer out of the nearest airlock.

The voice crackled, "Nay, 'ee's in there somewhere."

I blinked. I leaned in through the doorway. Oh yeah, there it was. Missed it.

* * *

Now, someone once told me that I should never judge things by appearances. What this really means is that things are usually nice, unless it has twelve-inch fangs and razor sharp claws, ravenous bloodthirsty desire to eat mortal flesh and salivate unspeakably acidic slobber.

What it also means is that things that usually look like good news are, unfortunately, not. For example, when I was on Venus once, I ran into a charming lady with a sweetly seductive smile, a wry grin to her eyes. She had a sultry vixen tail, tender thighs, and as it turned out later that night, the most fascinating tendency to eat brains.

Although to be fair, a better example here would be that incident on the 'Dark Star', with the rabbits. Now, don't judge me harshly for saying this, but in my experience I've found that pretty much all the rumors about rabbits tend to be true. The poor ship started off hiring two rabbit mercenaries for a deep space mission. As a rule, you only take one rabbit per ship, otherwise... well, let's just say that the 'Dark Star' had to make a lot of stops on the way, so that they could unload new 'cargo'. Five months later, the ship ran out of food and everybody died. Nowadays, there are still reports of the 'Dark Star' here and there, seen usually by drunken pilots, and only whispered about in the backwater bars of planetary docks. They say that it's cursed, piloted entirely by a crew consisting of only rabbits...

The thing in front of me looked a bit like a rabbit, except that it was much shorter. And pink.

In fact, it looked cute. Now, when someone says that something looks 'cute', usually it's just an approximation. We all know it. If you go into a café and order a Millanese squid, and they serve it with a tiny umbrella, that's 'cute'. This thing went several steps beyond that. It was too cute. If you had put a bow on it, the universe would have imploded due to excessive cuteness. Don't question that physics, it works. I promise you, it works.

On close inspection, I just couldn't guess what it was. It was a cute... thing. Soft and round and fluffy, and pink, with large wet eyes that sparkled, and twinkling little toes under its fur. It made me want to throw up. I wanted to shoot it, just so that it would stop being so ridiculously adorable.

Then it mewed like a kitten, and I hurled. That was it. It was too much. I wanted this damn thing off my ship, now.

Now, don't think me harsh for what I did next. Sometimes, when something's that adorable, you have to get rid of it. For your own sanity, you understand. My poor brain could only take so much. It was then that I realized that the damn thing was omnivorous. It could obviously eat next to anything - it had chewed through all the bed sheets already. "Stevie", I asked, "Can we chuck this little git out the airlock?"

Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.

* * *

Or at least, that's how I'd have liked it to end.

The cold, hard facts of space travel aren't always that simple. And the whole idea of throwing a poor, defenseless fuzzball into space to explode... it's not very heroic. Certainly not for my raw magnificence. That, and the little bugger seemed to be able to survive quite happily in the vacuum of space.

No, it's never quite that easy for me. About half an hour later, I'd received yet another signal telling me that it was onboard. I still don't know how it had managed that. To be honest, it I thought about it too much, it'd give me a headache.

So, I hear you ask, what dark fate lay ahead of it? Well, my faithful legion of fans, the creature's sitting beside me. After much consideration, I named it 'Useless'.

I changed that name a week later, when the creature exhibited a peculiar use. To be precise, during one of my heroic escapes from a vicious horde of misinformed bounty hunters, it managed to eat one of my pursuers' whole.

And yeah, I was as surprised about that as you are. I still haven't figured out what it is, though. It sleeps for about half of the entire day, after which it will eat, hunt for food, or make bizarre purring noises. Steve suggested that we name it 'Ya stupid tosser', but it never quite sat well with it.

Remember those twelve inch fangs that I mentioned earlier? You don't want to insult a big, fluffy pink thing which has a set of twelve inch fangs. Ever.