"Speech"

'Thought'

An idea spawned from another idea over at fukufics, the sister story to this is "Galaxy Police Cadet Scramble" by Gaming Ikari, the originator of the idea. (Story can be found in the Tenchi Muyo GXP crossover section) I'm purposely going to keep this story simpler than my other ones, especially No Need for Nerima. So if something is the same as canon, I'm purposely being lazy. This story is done just for fun, and as such can be put aside in favor of one of the others.

Ranma timeline is just after the start of the Hells Cradle arc, Book 21 or chapter 213 if you're reading online.

GXP timeline is at the very start.

Shampoo hovered over Cologne's shoulder. "What is it, Great-grandmother?"

"A bad omen, dear." She perused the letter carefully for the third time. "A very bad omen."

"Tell Shampoo. She tough amazon warrior, she can take it."

"No roles in this episode."

"Aiyah!"

X x x x x x

"Stupid old man." Ranma grumbled, pushing through a thick bush. Training for a duel with Genma was one thing, dealing with his old man stealing all his food, was another. So, Ranma had pulled a Ryoga, and headed cross country. Running across Japan had proven to be a grueling and difficult task, and he had actually lost track of time. So now he had to get back to town, and take a train all the way back to the Tendo Dojo in order to be there for the match.

His cross country trek didn't increase his skill, but then again, he was already better than his old man, and it was on the bald martial artist to get good enough to beat him. Glancing around the large clearing he had come into, it would have been a great place to train at. A lot of open space next to a lake, mountains all around, and the only thing stopping it from being perfect was the big house right on the lake.

Passing by the large house, on his direct path back to civilization, his eyes traced a bridge that cut across the lake at an angle from the attached deck of the home. Whoever lived here must have had a lot of cash to throw around, grimacing he wondered if they were as crazy as the other rich people that he knew.

Pausing, he heard the strangest noise, it was a incessent beeping that quickly grew in pitch and intesity. Being next to the lake, he saw small, then big waves start to crash against the shore. Cringing, he looked around, trying to find the source of the noise that had become a deafening buzz. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the sound vanished.

"That was－ weird."

Yelping in pain, a far louder, and more intense roaring noise ripped through the air. Overhead, the air distorted, and a steamline shape crashed into the lake like a meteor. "That's not fair at all." He complained, looking at the wall of water rapidly approaching him.

The next thing he knew, he was a she, and she was tumbling backwards end over end. With the energy from the wave spent, she slid to a stop on the wet grass, and laid looking up at the sky trying to stop the world from spinning. Struggling to right herself, feeling like a turtle with the big pack attached to her back, she got to her feet, and cringed. The lake had dropped a significant amount of water, which was now spread out on the grass around it. While the water was rapidly draining back into it's rightful place, it would be some time before it had returned to normal.

"I just know I'm going to get blamed for this." She groaned, pushing back her waterlogged bangs. "What's that?" She asked, looking at the strange depression in the water. There wasn't anything there, but the clear blue liquid was being displaced by something. Rubbing at her eyes, she wondered if that wave had knocked her loopy.

In the water, a woman with short blond hair burst through the surface, and took a gasping breath. A moment later, the head of a boy with short black hair was pulled above as well. "You alright?" She threw her pack on the less dock, and prepared to jump in and help.

"Here." The woman ducked under the water and lifted the boy up high enough for her to grab the back of his shirt, and pull him up on to the wood. Turning back to help the woman, she found that her help wasn't needed, as the blonde was able to jump from the water and land on the walkway. It wasn't like her to judge people based on their appearance, but blonde and blue eyes? 'Must be a foreigner.' She thought.

'A martial artist?' She thought, confused over the woman's mode of dress. The form fitting gray pants looked like they would move freely enough, and she knew that the blouse wouldn't limit her movement, since it looked painted on. It was made of transparent black material, covering all but her hands, the only thing keeping her modesty, were opaqe black rectangles over each breast. Gulping, she looked around, expecting Akane to show up at any moment.

Blinking several times, she watched as the woman quickly checked the boys vital signs, and then Ranma punched herself for not checking to see if the guy was breathing. "He alright?" She asked, trying to remember what you were supposed to do for CPR, and grimacing when she did.

The woman breathed out a sigh of relief, and replied. "Just a little waterlogged, say you weren't in that splash were you?" The blonde asked, looking Ranma up and down.

"Yea, what was that anyways?" Glancing around, she flicked her black pigtail from where it had fallen on her shoulder.

"And you weren't knocked out by the shockwave?"

"Nope." She shook her head.

"You don't live here do you?" The blond asked, eying her suspiciously.

"Just passing through." Stripping off her wet silk shirt, she wringed the excess water out of it. Picking at her white tanktop, she unstuck it from her skin.

"Hmm." The woman gave Ranma a very unnerving look, like she was analyzing him like a lab rat. "Do you know Tenchi-kun perhaps?"

"No, I'm just traveling." She answered, getting annoyed. 'Why is she so hung up on me living here?'

"You weren't injured at all, you must be pretty tough."

"I don't really have time for this kind of thing, do you know the people here?"

"Of course I know of them." The blonde answered cryptically.

Sighing, she rubbed at her temples. 'I don't have time for this, I have to get back to fight the old man.' Hopping to her feet, she put her shirt back on. "Listen, can you handle this? I got places to be."

"I think I'll be able to." Reaching behind her back, the woman pulled out a thin transparent gray folder with a opaque green line going across the top framed with a gold border, Galaxy Police spelled out in English letters, in the center. "Seems like you're pretty tough for an Earthling, fill this out, the GP is always looking for fresh recruits."

"Eh? GP?" Taking the offered sheet of what she thought was plastic.

"The pamphlet has all the information you'll need." The blonde smiled.

Finding a seam on the right side, she opened it up and found that there was indeed information inside of it. "What the?" Repeating the act of opening it several times, she found that the information inside seemed to disappear when closed, but magically appeared when opened. 'Least I got something to mess with Akane out of the trip.'

Shoving the strange plastic into her pack, she hefted the heavy bag, and replaced it in it's proper position. "Well if you got everything covered, I need to get going." The blonde woman kneeling in front of her, nodded.

"Good luck, hope to see you soon." The blonde waved childishly.

"Uh, right." She took a second to get her bearings before heading off away from the house, the thin folder already forgotten, as she tried to think up what devious and insane technique her old man would have thought up for this duel.

Behind Ranma, Amane Kaunaq watched the short black haired girl leave, absently stroking the spiky hair of the boy she had crashed into. The fact that neither were dead after receiving a shockwave capable of liquifying the internals of most Earth sentients was interesting enough for her to give them Galaxy Police applications.

"And this one is just so cute!" She squealed girlishly to herself.

X x x x x x

The next morning

"Stupid old man." Ranma groaned, laying face first on his futon. Having been up all night fighting his father, he was in no mood, or condition to go to school. Hell, he wasn't even able to change out of his gi before he collapsed.

"Ranma." Akane said neutrally from the door, and he turned his head to see dressed in her school uniform, depositing a plate of food at his side. "Eat up before it gets cold."

Eying the food, he wasn't sure what it was. "Did you make it?" He asked, cause that would be just a perfect way to start the day, the rat poison she called food.

Akane's face turned an angry shade of red at his question. "For your information, Kasumi made it." Spinning on her heel, the youngest Tendo headed out of the room.

"Good, I feel sick enough as it is." Shivering in disgust, Genma had hugged him no less then seventeen times last night, the old man's entire training had been for one move, a simple hug, like a panda playing with a tire. Which in retrospect he should have figured out from when he saw Genma doing just that.

Slowly eating the food, his energy returning with the meal, he noticed his pack tipped over from where he had dropped it off earlier, spilling some of the contents. He had been too busy before to bother cleaning it up, but now he could clearly see the strange folder he had been given earlier in the day. Snaking over his free hand, he dragged it close to him, and flipped it open.

On the left page were some interesting three dimensional art for space ships and space stations. A shot of some strange island, and a cheaply drawn picture of a woman in some kind of blue and orange uniform. Printed on the other page was some kind of disclaimer over top a blue star logo, GP printed in big English letters over top of it.

"What is this, some kind of contest?" He asked himself, trying to find more pages, and seeing none. "Why would that lady give me this?" There was a place to write down his name, age, homeworld, and a fingerprint. "And where am I supposed to even turn it in? Did she expect me to go all the way back to Okayama?"

Giving up on those kinds of details, he decided to just read the actual thing. From the way the pamphlet described the Galaxy Police, they were literally that, some kind of galaxy wide police force. Which made absolutely no sense to him, as far as he knew, the only people in space were up in one or two space stations. Definitely not enough to warrant a police force. 'Guess it must be some sort of anime themed thing.

Tapping his finger repeatedly on the pamphlet he really wished that if they were going to do some strange contest, that they do it for a series more widespread. Freezing, he watched a pen rise up from the far right side of the plastic, into a vertical position. "That's kind of weird." Slowly picking it up, he figured what would be the harm in filling it out?

"Name, Saotome Ranma. Age, sixteen. Homeworld, Earth." Spinning the pen with his fingers, he wondered how he could put a finger print down. "Why do they even need a fingerprint for a contest?" Getting an idea, he hastily scribbled with the pen on his thumb, covering it with ink. "Ha!" The print wasn't perfect, but what did he care? Replacing the pen and closing up the folder, he threw it back on to his pack, and pulled the covers over himself, resolving to find out where to send it after he got some rest.

X x x x x x

Ranma squeezed his eyes shut tighter, trying to ignore the feminine snickering, and tv playing. Shifting, he pulled his blanket tighter around his body, attempting to ignore the annoyance to his sleep. Catching a strange scent, he took several more sniffs, identifying the smell as some softly feminine perfume. 'Okay that's different.' Slowly opening his eyes, he found himself face to face with the pink drape of a kotatsu. Behind him was the television, and in front of him was the female who was trying not to laugh.

'Weirder and weirder.' He thought, sitting up. The room he was in, had so many bright colors that he thought he was going to go blind. Everything was horribly messy, books, food, pillows, stuffed animals, all were thrown around haphazardly.

Across the table from him was a tall blonde woman, with her hair pulled up into a poofy ponytail, the bright color contrasting with her dark tan, and bright blue eyes. She was wearing tight blue pants like that one woman he had met the day before, along with a set of suspenders. Except her shirt was just a dark green, and thankfully wasn't see through.

"Oh hello, did I wake you?" She asked.

"Uh." Blinking several times, this was a first for him. "Where am I?" No wait, this was the second, that one tea ceremony jerk had kidnapped him before. Least I didn't wake up in a wedding kimono this time.

"Oh no!" The woman scrambled to put on what Ranma thought was the jacket to a military uniform, she continued to fall over herself in an attempt to get it on as quick as possible. Ending up looking like a three year old had done it. "Is it on straight?" She asked suddenly.

"Not really." He scratched the side of his head, causing her to fumble blindly with the buttons.

"Now?" She asked hopefully.

"The top three are off." He pointed out, trying to remember if he had ever seen a uniform like that before. It was one jacket, but colored like a there was a vest over top of a long sleeve shirt. The vest portion a baby blue color, the arms divided into black and gray on the top and underside. Across the left breast were two horizontal lines, the top one black and bottom white, with a small patch of gold close to the arm.

"Thanks." She finally fixed her jacket, and shoved her mass of hair underneath a tall round hat. Clicking her heels together, she saluted him. "I am Detective First Class Kuramitsu Mihoshi, congratulations on entering the GP Academy!"

"GP Academy?" He asked, taking another look around the room. 'Am I in hell?'

"Er." The woman rummaged through a stack of papers, spilling them all over the floor, and retrieving the pamphlet that he had filled out. "You filled out the application right?" She asked, flipping the folder open.

"I thought it was some anime contest."

"Then there's no problem, you enlisted!" Dropping to her knees, the woman pushed the folder towards him across the table. "See, even has your thumbprint."

"But." Gulping, he took several deep breaths. "What is the GP?"

"You don't know?" The girl leaned back, putting a finger to her lips and looking away absently. "But everything was explained in the pamphlet."

"Wait wait wait wait, you mean I joined up with some space police thing?" He laughed nervously. "That stuff was all true?"

"Uh huh." Mihoshi nodded quickly.

"Haha, yea right."

"But－ it's true." Mihoshi hopped around the table and pulled him over to a normal looking window and hit a button on the side, causing the view out of a window into a clearing, to change into a vast expanse of darkness broken up by stars. "See, it's the galaxy!" She said dramatically.

"Nice TV, but I'll be going." Leaving the room, he stopped in the hallway, finding it to be a metallic blue cooridor. "Weird building." He commented, rapping his knuckles against the metal wall.

"I know! Let's go see Yukinojo!" Mihoshi suddenly grabbed his arm in a vice like grip and dragged him down the hallway. Allowing himself to be lead, Ranma was starting to wonder about this whole thing. At the very end of the hallway, a door slid open with a soft woosh, allowing them to enter a half oval room. In the center was a tall blue chair with silver base, spread out in a half circle from the chair was a control panel.

"Yukinojo!" The blonde called, causing a domed robotic head to descend from the ceiling over top the control panel.

"Yes Mihoshi-dono?" The robot head asked, a pair of round eyes surveying the room, and landing on Ranma. The arm connected to the head extended, swiveling to let the face look at him as if it were a person. "Good day, I am Yukinojo, while aboard, if you need anything, please don't hesitate to ask."

"Yukinojo, can you tell her that the Galaxy Police exists, she doesn't believe me."

"Well of course the Galaxy Police exists, you are currently aboard the shuttle for the Galaxy Police vessel Yagami. Our flight path will intercept the transport ship 842-9 in two hours. Our mission is the transport of Galaxy Police recruit Saotome Ranma from Colonial Planet No. 0315, to the rendezvous point."

"Okay, so you got a neat robot. But they have those on Earth. Really if you're going to try and impress me, you should pick something better." He waved off the robot show, looking at a tv built into the wall, and all the stars that were flying by at high speed. 'This does look kind of high tech.' He admitted to himself. 'The three-d stuff is really good.'

"Oh and gravity! If we were in space we'd be floating since there aint no gravity in space." Feeling smug about deducing his way out of the woman's joke, his opinion reversed when she hit a button. "Ahh!" Screaming, he flailed his arms in a desperate attempt to menuever himself as he floated away from the floor. "I believe you I believe you!" He repeated, bouncing off the back wall and heading towards the front.

"Yay!" Mihoshi exclaimed happily, floated as well. "Oh." She mouthed, seeming to realize something.

"Gimme back gravity!" He yelled, trying to swim through the air.

"But I can't reach the button." She admitted, pointing towards the control panel.

"You－ can't reach－ the button?" He asked slowly.

"Yukinojo, can you fix it?" The blonde asked.

"Yes Mihoshi-dono." The exasperated robotic head sighed, and without warning gravity kicked in, plunging them both face first into the floor.

X x x x x x

Checking to make sure his uniform was properly in place, Captain Kenichi waited for the airlock door to open, allowing their second passanger from Earth onboard. They had waited before going into hyperspace jump so that the shuttle could catch up. But once their passanger was on board, they could make it to the immigration station within two hours.

When the air lock door slid open, he was prepared to make a nice orderly transfer, and continue on with his mission. Unfortunately, the short black haired girl in damp white clothing, that shot through the door and ducked behind him, worried him greatly.

"Quickclosethedoordon'tletheronwhateveryoudodon'tlethertouchanything!" She screamed rapidly, her speech shifting into manic jibberish.

"Ranma-chan! I got hot water for you!" The GP officer in charge of bringing the new recruit to his ship stepped through the door with a thermos in her hands, her happy smile turning to confusion, and finally back to smile. "Oh, hello, Detective First Class Kuramitsu Mihoshi, transporting recruit Saotome Ranma." She dropped the thermos, spilling water all over the floor, and saluted him.

"Ahhh! You let her on!" The girl behind him cried out hopelessly.

Ignoring the child, he returned the salute. "Captain Mitsutoshi, accepting recruit Saotome." Glancing back at the girl who was now curled up in a fetal position against the wall, he grimaced. "Did anything happen that I should be informed of?"

"No, I don't think so." Mihoshi answered, looking away absently.

"Right." He grimaced again, Mihoshi's eccentricies were well known, he was just sad that such a treatment was this poor girl's first introduction to the Galaxy Police.

"Oh! I should get going, Tenchi-san said that he was going to cook nabe tonight!" Skipping through the door, Mihoshi froze mid step, and spun back and saluted him. Saluting back, the air lock door closed.

"Are you alright, Miss?" He asked, checking to see that the girl had visibly relaxed.

"She's gone right? Not going to come back?" The Earthlings eyes darted quickly between the door and him. Nodding, he considered briefly asking what had happened, but then he remembered the key thing to do whenever Mihoshi was involved. 'Don't ask questions.'

"I'm very sorry, Mihoshi-san can be－ difficult." Extending a hand, he set about undoing the damage that the granddaughter of the Grand Marshal had done. "Welcome to the GP."

X x x x x x

Ranma stood up without the help of the black skinned man, and cast a weary look at the door. There were only a small amount of people that she was, wary of, and Mihoshi now sat firmly on top of that list. Significantly calmed down now that the crazy blonde was safely gone, she took stock of her new location.

"Would you like to dry off?" The guy asked.

"Nah I'm fine, I'm kind of used to being wet." Ranma fixed her gi, the top having become twisted in her mad dash to keep herself away from Mihoshi.

"I see, well if you'll come this way, we can go to the bridge. Now that you're aboard, we can hyperspace jump." The Captain pointed down the hall with a hand.

"Hyper-space jump?" She asked, walking with the man down the hall. This whole thing was a bit overwhelming, and she would have appreciated a little bit of a lead up to this. Seriously, going to sleep and waking up on a psychopath's space ship on the way to join some galaxy police force? Just didn't expect that.

"Uh, well without going into the technical details, it's currently the fastest way to travel in space. If you know the speed of light, then this is many times faster than that. It's the technology that made space travel possible."

"Okay." She said slowly. 'How fast is light again?'

Through a doorway, they entered into a half circle room, the curved wall was fully transparent, showing the vast expanse of space outside. In the front of the cockpit where three chairs, manned by a trio of boys not much older than her. The one on the far left was tall and skinny, middle was short, and the right was heavy set. In the back of the cabin were three more chairs, a center one that she figured must be for the captain, since it was raised up and had an ornate design. The actual chairs themselves weren't that futuristic, looking more like office chairs.

Sitting in the chair in the back right, was a boy about her age, in a pink tshirt and blue jeans. Hearing them enter, the occupants of the room turned to look backwards. Ranma could almost see hearts appear in the eyes of the trio manning the forward chairs.

"Not now." The Captain coughed into his hands, and the trio hastily spun back around to the front.

"Saotome Ranma, please meet Yamada Seina, the other recruit."

Standing up in a quick motion, the boy now identified as Seina bowed deeply to her. "It's nice to meet you."

"Yea nice to meet you." She gave the boy a polite bow.

"If you would please take the other seat." The Captain indicated the seat in the back left.

"Sure." She nodded, dropping herself in the chair, and finding it more comfortable than it appeared.

Watching the three in front work, she was a little shellshocked over the expeirence so far. Here she was in space, aboard a ship on the way to another planet. That pretty much topped everything she had done in her life, Jusenkyo included. 'I guess I'm farther away from Earth than any other human. Ha ha! Isn't everyone back in Nerima going to be surprised when I tell them.'

"Coordinates set, point G26, 380, N171." The heavy set guy in front explained, his fingers rapidly typing on a half circle control panel wrapped around him. "Commencing hyperspace jump in ten seconds." As the boy counted down to zero, Ranma was confused over what was going to happen. The boy in the pink shirt looked overly excited, while everyone else looked bored with the event.

"Hmm, such soft hair." A sweet feminine voice spoke from behind Ranma. Blinking several times, she felt someone gently running their hands through her hair.

"Ya mind not－" She trailed off, turning to face the person petting her. "AHH!" She screamed, and shot across the cockpit to slam into the front window, pressing herself flat against it. "Mi-Mi-Mihoshi!" She stammered.

Standing next to her former chair, was a woman who, now that she got a good look, was not Mihoshi. She was wearing a blue and white uniform, the white portion mimicing an apron. That said, there was a strong resemblance to the insane Detective Ranma had been forced to deal with for the past two hours.

"Hello." The woman greeted. "I'm Kuramitsu Mitoto, it's nice to meet you." Mitoto finished, smiling sweetly.

Seeing the strange looks directed at her, Ranma laughed nervously, and hopped down from the controls. "Sorry." She apologized.

"I'm Barry." The tall red haired guy at the front controls held out a hand to shake. "Doing anything later?"

"Alan." The short one extended his hand.

"Cohen." The fat one did the same as the other two.

Ranma's left eyebrow twitched violently, noticing that all three of the boy's eyes were firmly locked on to her bust. "Not interested." She got out thorugh gritted teeth.

"Ah!" The boy in the pink shirt yelled. "What about warp?"

"We already started." The Captain answered.

"But－." Seina protested.

"You heard the countdown didn't you?" The Captain seemed somewhat amused by the questioning.

"Shouldn't there be a big shock wave or something?" Seina waved his hands around tring to emphasize his point, to which Ranma tuned out the other Earthling, in order to brush away Mitoto's hand.

"Could you not do that?" She grumbled, unsure on who this Mitoto was, and until she figured out how things worked, she wasn't about to start a big fight with the only people she knew could get her back home.

"Hmm hm." The woman nodded, and went right back to playing with Ranma's hair.

"Fine." Ranma bowed her head. 'Better than Nabiki feeling me up I guess.' Glancing at the smiling woman, she couldn't help but see Mihoshi overlaid on top. "You're not related to Mihoshi are you?"

"Of course, I'm her mother."

Ranma slumped down in her chair like the puppet who's strings had been cut. 'What did I do to deserve this?' She lamented. 'Was it beating up my old man? Making fun of Akane all the time? Ryoga and Kuno being right about me? Nooo, now I'm just being stupid.'

The ship suddenly lurched forward, causing Ranma to slide from her chair and land on her butt. Seina who had gotten out of his seat was thrown backwards, hitting something on the Captains control panel on the way, and Mitoto nearly fell on Ranma, but recovered in time. Over a speaker system an alarm sound started to blare loudly.

"Status, what's going on?" The Captain ordered.

"Energy signature detected in the same space!" Alan answered.

"Judging from the energy output, it apears to be a large warship." Barry added.

"Emergency retreat!" The Captain ordered again, and the ship did a small lurch again after being brought out of it's jump. Ranma quickly got back up into her seat, and scanned the space in front of the ship for any sign of this warship.

"There's nothing to worry about." Mitoto instructed calmly. "This kind of thing happens all the time."

"But Mitoto-san, the probability of a near miss out here is less than a trillion to one!" The Captain brought up.

"Then we hit the jackpot!" Mitoto dismissed the concern over the rarity of the situation.

"What is our current position and damage status?" The Captain questioned.

"We're far off course, the cell section has been slightly damage, but we can still get back on course." Cohen answered, reading a flat computer screen that had popped up in front of him.

"I see, in that case, why don't you two go to the crew cabin." The Captain indicated Ranma and Seina, sitting back calmly in his chair. "It will take some time for repairs to be done, but there's nothing to worry about. Get some rest or contact your families if you wish."

"You can do that from here?" Ranma asked, taking a moment to rub her backside.

"Mitoto-san, would you mind showing her?" The Captain asked.

"Of course, this way." The blonde smiled innocently and Ranma followed the tall woman back down the hallway, Seina following obediently.

"Is this really a space ship?" Ranma wondered to herself, entering into a room that vaguely reminded her of an average Japanese room. Then again, there was that room on Mihoshi's shuttle that looked like it belonged on a planet too. Nothing was really matching up with whatever ideas she had formed in her head before on what a space ship would look like.

"Crews serving on ships regularly spend weeks or months in space, the ship designs usually reflect a terrestrial design so that they feel more at home." Mitoto explained. "You can contact the Earth with this." She pointed towards a black rotary phone with a GP logo at the center of the rotary.

"That can phone the Earth?" She asked dubiously.

"Hmm hm, you can even see the person on the other end. Though there aren't any viewscreens on Earth, so they won't be able to see you." Mitoto explained like she was talking to a child. "Oh and you have to dial the planet number before the phone number. Earth's is 4989."

"Like an area code." Seina noted as Ranma plopped down on the floor in front of the phone.

"Aw crap, I forgot the number." Ranma groaned, she had never had a reason to actually call the Tendo house before.

"We have a number on file for you." Mitoto used her index finger to push a button on her wrist, causing a small viewscreen to pop up next to the botton. "81-3-3933-3250."

"Doesn't really sound right." Shrugging, she picked up the headset, a viewscreen about sixty five centimeters in diamter popped up in front of her. Taking a moment to marvel at the strange technology, she entered in the numbers, wasn't like she had much else to go off of.

"This cabin has two rooms, feel free to make yourself at home while here, I'll be on the bridge if you need anything." Mitoto exited the room through the doorway, the white door sliding to the side, allowing her to pass.

"I'll give you some privacy." Seina wandered off, ducking into a room on the opposite side from the phone.

The screen that had been previously displaying a blank green image, suddenly shifted to that of a dark haired woman in a kimono as she answered a phone. "Hello, Saotome residence." The woman greeted.

"Saotome?" Ranma asked.

"Yes, this is Nodoka, is there something I could do for you?"

"Er, I was trying to reach Saotome Genma, I must have the wrong number."

"My husband?" Nodoka asked hopefully. "Does that mean you know Ranma?"

"I am Ranma." She scratched at her head. This woman was married to her old man? No way, she was way too pretty to bother with an ugly glutton like Genma.

"Ranma it's so nice to hear you're voice after all these years, though it does sound a little high, but that hardly matters, how is the Galaxy Police treating you? That nice Mihoshi girl stopped by early this morning to ask for permision if you could join."

"Eh?" Ranma asked dumbly.

"Oh yes, she was most explicit that since you were a minor you couldn't enlist without parental permission. I'm sure you're being very manly out there in space." Nodoka boasted.

'Oh man that monster went to the wrong house, and got some crazy ladies permission to abduct me.' Ranma stared at the screen, trying to come up with a way to get into contact with Genma. "You don't happen to have the number for the Tendo Dojo in Nerima do you?" She would call there, and hopefully get the information from her old man.

"Is that where your father is? Mihoshi-chan said she tried to track him down but only found a panda." Nodoka dragged out a thick phone book from under the table her phone was on. "Just a moment, ah here it is, 3-3933-1352."

"Thanks." Ranma committed the number to memory. "Well bye then." She went to put down the receiver.

"Wait, Ranma, there's so many things I want to ask." Nodoka's message was cut off, the ship vibrating from some unknown impact, and the same alarm from earlier playing over unseen speakers.

"Level 1 emergency alert is in effect." A male voice said over the alarm. "As a result, this call has been disconnected. Note that no calls will be allowed until the emergency alert is over." The message then repeated itself.

"What's happening?" Ranma happened to glance out a window to her left, a lance of purple light shooting by and hitting the side of the ship, making the room lurch. "That can't be good."

X x x x x x

"Enemy vessel approaching, they're pursuing."

Kenichi quickly looked at the readouts that were displayed in front of him. He wasn't trained for this, transporting cargo was all he did, dealing with pirates was beyond him, and the abilities of his ship. They hadn't even completed repairs for the damage that they had incurred by exiting a jump early.

"Shall we surrender?" Mitoto asked casually.

"No, things would get complicated if the pirates found out that you were on board." He replied, thinking of how the pirates would likely hold them all for ransom, rather than simply taking their cargo.

"Distance to enemy vessel at 6800 kilometers." Alan warned.

"Reroute all auxiliary power to the main systems." Mitoto took charge in her own quiet way. He allowed it because she outranked him, and frankly would likely have a better grip on how to handle the situation.

"If we do that we'll be without our weapons system." He pointed out.

"Even with the weapons, we wouldn't stand a chance in a fight. Our only option is to run away." Mitoto smiled happily.

He started to form a protest, this was one of the finest and newest Galaxy Police ships, but it was primarily a transport vessel. The only weapons they had were purely defensive, and wouldn't stand up to anything pas a small fighter ship. "Right."

"Rerouting power to the forward shields in preparation for the energy net." Cohen announced.

"Hey what's going on?" Ranma questioned, coming through the door with Seina following with far less confidence.

"Pirates are firing warning shots at us." He answered.

"Pirates? Pirates in space?" Seina asked worriedly.

"They're the very reason that the Galaxy Police exists." He started, trying to impress upon his young charges how great the GP was.

"But we can only run away for now." Mitoto broke in sweetly.

"Conduction circuits 303 and 448 are damaged, auxiliary engine power is－ Ah! Our communication system's are on!" Barry turned and called back to him.

"Oh my! They've been listening to us this whole time? I hope I didn't say anything silly, did I Pirate-san?" Mitoto observed, and he looked down at his control panel, seeing that Seina in his fall earlier had activated their communications. 'How did I miss that?' Deactivating them, he would have to omitt than from his action report.

"You two should sit down." He advised the recruits, hitting several keys to form another chair directly in front of him.

"Energy detected directly ahead!" Barry drew his attention, and in their path spreading out from a central point, was a net made up of hexagonal rings. "Energy net has opened directly in front of us."

"Steer around it." He ordered, bringing up a display that showed the nets location, and his ship's.

"We've successfully cleared the net!" Unfortunately as soon as that was announced, three more energy nets opened up, two closer on either side, forcing them towards the last one further back. "More energy nets have appeared, decreasing speed." Narrowing his eyes, he knew what they were doing. The pirates were trying to force him to use up his fuel menuevering in real space.

"Energy signal coming from the ship behind us. There are three level 2 energy signatures. The pirates are closing in." Cohen warned.

"Brace for impact." Barry said, just as three impacts struck the back of the ships. "Hits confirmed! We have rats onboard!"

"On screen." He commanded, and a viewscreen loaded up in front, showing the tiny ball like rats as they began to move through the ship. "Traps on!"

Pulling from the walls were the traps, transparent cube devices that would capture the rats and destroy them. Oh how he hated when rats got on the ship, the small devices would disable systems, leaving a ship helpless.

"Rats have penetrated Block 5. They're too fast for the traps, must be a new model." Alan commented, the ship dodging the last energy net by going vertically over top of it's position.

"Block 2 and 3 have been taken, they're heading for the bridge." Cohen rapidly hit several controls trying to stop the rats.

"That's fine, we have the new program, it should be capturing them soon enough." He was getting nervous over the speed that the rats had moved, but he wasn't about to let it show.

"Oh? Do we have Movement Predictor Program Version 9.2?" Mitoto asked.

"That's three versions old." He answered.

"But it executes more quickly, please try it." Mitoto advised.

"Right." Loading up the program, there was a noticable difference, as the number of rats quickly decreased.

"They've gotten conduction circuits 3 and 5! But the rat exterimation has completed." Barry called back to him.

"Engine power decreasing!" Alan warned. "120, 100 and dropping! The enemy ship is closing!"

Sighing, there was only one option left for him. "This could be a dangerous meneuver." He informed Mitoto, the last thing he wanted to do was to get the Grand Marshall after him, if his daughter was hurt in anyway.

"We don't have any choice do we?" Mitoto replied, knowing his intent.

"Huh? What are you going to do?" Ranma asked.

"Prepare for random jump!" He ordered, causing all three of his crew to turn around, and look at him. Random jumps could lead them anywhere, including through and into objects, they were incredibly dangerous without a random generator algorithm to check the possible variables.

"Fill Corridor 3 with crystal gel, we can use it as an energy bypass." Mitoto explained before he could. The rats had crippled the connections between systems, not the systems themselves. Pirates wanted an intact and easily repairable ship.

"Understood." Alan confirmed, quickly completing the command. "Engine power rising, we can go at any time."

"Enemy ship is still closing." Barry warned. "Cannon fire detected."

"Alright, initiate random jump." With his command, the stars in the viewing window blurred towards his ship, indicating that they had entered warp.

Several seconds later, the stars returned to normal. "Random jump complete." Alan reported.

"Determine present position of pirates." He ordered.

"Wait! Energy signature detected!" Cohen stopped his order from being completed. "The pirate ship has exited a hyperspace jump!" A viewscreen showing the pirate ship popped up.

"Jump again!" He commanded. The result was the same, as soon as they had returned to normal flight, the pirates appeared behind them. "I haven't been trained to make these kinds of menuevers." He groaned. "It's too easy for them to predict our course." The pirates likely had a random jump predictor, which would take in the different possible safe jumps, and predict the one his ship would take.

"Setting random courses does require specialized training." Mitoto noted.

"What do we do then?" Seina asked.

"Fight hand to hand?" Ranma added, looking more excited than she should be at the prospect.

"That's it, why don't we let one of them set our course?" Mitoto suggested.

"Good thinking! They're novices, and from a planet without hyperspace drives. Anything they enter will be random because they don't know any better!"

X x x x x x

"Uh." Ranma gave the transparent black keyboard that appeared just over top her thighs a confused glance. Funnily enough, aside from the floating and see through nature of the keyboard, it looked just like every other one she had seen on Earth. "Do what with the what now?"

"Just pick four random numbers." Mitoto answered.

"You should do it." Seina glanced around nervously. "If I did it, things would only get worse. My luck is terrible."

"I guess." Tentatively touching the keyboard, she found that while it was see through, it was firm to the touch. Rapidly hitting in some numbers, she hit enter, and the ship entered another hyperspace jump. 'Heh this is kind of fun.' Unfortunately when they came out the other side, they were heading directly for the teal side of a large ships hull.

"Evasive menuevers!" The Captain shouted, and their nose tipped upwards sharply, allowing them to avoid collission with the larger vessel.

"Energy signature detected, it's the first pirate ship!" The short boy at the front exclaimed.

"Enter in more numbers." The Captain begged.

"Alright alright." Running her hand through her bangs once, she typed in some more random numbers, the ship entering into another jump as soon as she hit enter.

"Second jump complete." Barry reported.

"It happened again!" The Captain held his face in his hands. Ahead of them were now two more ships.

"I think you should do it." Ranma pointed at Seina, the two ships in front of their own turning towards them. The apparently pirate ships didn't look all that dangerous, having two long arm like protrusions from a single submarine like body holding them together. Lacking visible guns, Ranma failed to see how they could cause them harm past colliding together. When the two arm like shapes extended out, segmenting into joins, the front turning into giant claws, Ranma resigned herself to not assume things again.

"I guess." Seina hit several numbers, the ship making another jump. The result was less than desirable, since they appeard in front of a dozen space ships. "Are those more pirate ships?" Seina asked.

"Hurry and jump again!" The Captain panicked.

Three more jumps later, Ranma joined the Captain in holding her face in her hands. Trailing them now were dozens, if not hundreds of pirate ships. 'Maybe I was better off with Mihoshi.' An explosion from the back of the ship, made Ranma have to grab the arms of her chair to stop from being thrown out.

"We've lost all power to the engines!" Alan yelled from the front. "We can't make anymore random jumps."

"Gravity waves detected, it's the previous ships!" Barry shouted.

"What is wrong with you?" Ranma screamed at Seina, the mass of ships appearing in space around them.

"I said I was unlucky!" Seina cringed.

"Oh my, this is bad." Mitoto summed up the situation.

"Enemy ships are approaching." Cohen informed, three viewscreens popping up, displaying three pirate ships, as they grabbled onto their own with various arms. "It's no use, we've been caught."

"What do we do now?" Ranma asked, feeling even more helpless than when she had been under the weakness moxibustion. "I thought you guys were some police force, can't you call someone to help?"

"Communications were disabled earlier, but don't worry, it will work out." Mitoto answered calmly, the ship they were in suddenly shaking. "See, they're fighting amongst themselves."

"Full speed ahead." The Captain ordered.

"But sir! The engines have been too badly damaged." Barry shouted back, their ship having only moved by bouncing off one of the ships that had grabbed them.

In the front of the cockpit, a tall skinny viewscreen appeared from the floor to the sealing, showing a gradient bar with all the colors. "Massive energy field detected!" Cohen yelled. "It's a Jurai ship!"

"Get me a visual." The Captain called over Ranma's head to the front.

Ranma gaped at the viewscreen the popped up, filling the entire width of the cabin, and showing off a line of bright green light. Spreading out across the wall of pirate ships, the light wavered as the vacuum itself was buffeted and warped by the power splitting space. Rising up from the light was a strangely shaped tan ship, made of a large horizontal ring, and a second smaller ring angled forward inside of it. In the front center of the large ring, was another structure shaped like the head of a whale, underneath the front structure was a downward facing fin shape, made up of four flat fingers..

"Oh, isn't that the Mikagami?" Mitoto noted.

"Water reflection?" Ranma asked herself, the space inside of the off kilter ring suddenly rippled as if sensing her question. "Does that mean we're saved from him." Ranma pointed to Seina, earning a nod from Mitoto, and a sweat drop from Seina.

"The Mikagami is hailing all ships in the vicinity." Cohen reported.

"Attention all ships. I, Kamiki Seto Jurai, hereby declare you all under arrest for acts of piracy." A woman's voice played over a speaker, and Seina repeated the name, just as much in awe as her by the power being displayed, even if they didn't know what was going on.

"It's the Devil princess of Jurai." The Captain wasn't in awe, instead he sounded just as nervous as if it was another pirate ship.

"Devil Princess?" Ranma asked curiously. "What'd she do to earn that nickname?"

"Uh, um, please pretend you didn't hear that." The Captain answered nervously.

"Is she really scary?" Seina pressed.

"Er, you don't know anything about Jurai ,do you?" The nervousness of the Captain went up a notch, and Ranma frowned. 'What kind of man is this guy, and why do they let him run a space ship?'

"Ya think?" She asked.

Laughing nervously several times the dark skinned man continued. "She's a powerful political figure, who belongs to the nation with the greatest military power in the galaxy, perhaps even the universe."

"She's a very delightful person!" Mitoto contrasted the Captain.

"You're the only one able to say that Mitoto-sama." The man sad down heavily in his chair.

"Sir, the Mikagami is hailing us." Cohen stopped their talk, another viewscreen popping up a moment later.

In the viewscreen was a woman in her early twenties with bright green hair, wearing a off white kimono with a navy smock over top of it. Across the horizontal part of the frock, was an oval band of purple with two yellow buttons on each end. Hanging from the right button was a small vertical piece of blue fabric, ending in a band of orange on the bottom. She adjusted her small rectangular glasses before addressing them. (1)

"Galaxy Police transport 842-9, Seto-sama wishes for you to remain in position while the area is secured by the 7th Juraian Armada. Once done, we'll have repairs done to your ship."

"Thank you, both our engines and long range communications have been damaged, would you be so kind as to inform Aira-sama that we'll arrive late? We are transporting two recruits and they are expected." Mitoto explained.

"Yes of course, we'll relay your message right away, a crew will be over shortly to begin repairs." Bowing her head politely, the viewscreen blipped out of existence.

X x x x x x

Author Notes :

Credit for the little back and forth banter between Shampoo and Cologne goes to Philip Weigel aka Nanya.

(1) – The same kind of smock that Nodoka regularly wears to protect her clothing, although they are usually modified to have short arms, and only cover to about mid thigh in the Jurai variant. The other change is that they open up in front, rather than the back.

kotatsu – low table with a heater underneath and a curtain around the edge.

I prefer to use Japanese honorifics, simply for their versatility, and social connotations. If you don't know go do a web search for just that, the wiki article is decent enough.