‘G’day! Me name’s Bodacious Barry but me mates call me Bazza. You’re not one a’me mates, though, so you gotta call me Bodacious Barry, aight?’

Neckbrace groaned. Not only had she been kidnapped once again, but this time she had been kidnapped by this… person. Bodacious Barry looked exactly as you would expect him to look. And smelled just as bad. Neckbrace sat up in her cramped prison cell, feeling the weight of the future-alloy collar around her neck. She had been so close to Venus. If only she hadn’t flown into that space-whaling net, everything would have been fine. Barry stood beyond the cell bars, a beer in his hand. ‘You’re one of them vampire buggers, yeah?’

Neckbrace nodded. She was indescribably hungry.

Barry scratched his neck. ‘You wouldn’t happen to know of this Heartburn bloke would ya?’ he asked.

‘Never heard of him,’ Neckbrace rasped.

‘Ah, shame. I nicked one of his chips when I was last on Earth and I think he’s still pissed. I would be, too, if I’m being totally honest.’

‘What are you gonna do with me?’ Neckbrace asked.

‘I dunno, eat ya?’ Barry said.

Neckbrace stared at him, and Bodacious Barry exploded into laughter.

‘Damo!’ he called out. ‘You gotta see this, mate!’

Damo, who looked exactly as you would expect him to, sauntered over. ‘What’s goin’ on, Bazza?’ he asked.

Barry was almost choking with laughter. ‘Told the vampire chick I would eat ‘er, and she made this… Do the face again!’

Neckbrace stared at him.

Barry and Damo were virtually rolling on the floor. Barry wiped a tear from his eye. ‘Don’t worry, though, we aren’t actually gonna eat ya. We’ll just sell ya somewhere.’

Neckbrace stared at him.

‘Classic,’ said Barry. He elbowed Damo. ‘Hey, go get Jim. He’s gotta see the face.’

Neckbrace didn’t know what it was about her face that was so funny.

Barry started ruffling around in his jean pockets. ‘Hey, ya know what?’

‘What?’ asked Neckbrace.

‘You’re part of the crew now!’ Barry unlocked the cell’s door and let it swing open. ‘Welcome to the Ice Bag Gang!’

Neckbrace was still very confused as she sat in the canteen of Bodacious Barry’s ship (which she had learned was called The BB Gun). Did Barry just recruit all prisoners he captured, or was it because of Neckbrace’s allegedly funny face? Or maybe it was as simple as the fact that she was a vampire. Neckbrace couldn’t tell whether Barry was deceptively incompetent, or just incompetent. She chowed down on her massively expired fish and chips, lost in thought.

‘I get how you’re feeling,’ said a familiar voice.

Neckbrace turned to her right to see the flaming form of Waterman Monoxide sitting next to her. She spat out her spacemaggot-infested calamari and stared at him.

‘YOU AGAIN?’ she cried.

‘Oh, it’s Neckbrace!’ said Waterman. ‘Hi, Neckbrace! Didn’t recognize you.’

Neckbrace stammered, ‘What… how are you here?’

Waterman made some kind of hissing noise that sounded a bit like laughter. ‘Funny story! So your friends Armgirl and Legboy were talking with those government guys, and I was spying on them, cause I’m a creep, but then one of the government guys said he was going to blow up the Sun! Now, it’s not like I was born on the Sun or anything, because I’m a totally normal human born on Earth, but I do, coincidentally, have a lot of friends who were born on the Sun, so it’s in my best interest if the Sun were to not be blown up.’

Neckbrace took another bite of her food. ‘Uh huh.’

Waterman continued. ‘So, I thought to myself Ah, gotta stop this, right? So then I went touring around the Solar System for a while, looking for other people with a generally positive opinion of the Sun, then I met Bazza and he was like Oi mate wanna help me rob some people? and I was like Sure, but can you help me save the sun from being blown up while we’re at it? and he was like Why? We got centralized heating here, mate. Won’t bother us if the Sun goes boom and I was like That’s a pretty defeatist attitude and he was like You’ve got a good point, mate and I was like That’s very open-minded of you to say so and he was like If you help us rob this ship called The Rainbow, we’ll help ya save the Sun and I was like What’s on this Rainbow ship that you want so bad? and he was like There’s some cool tech we can sell for a heap of cash and I was like That seems reasonable and he was like Yeah and I was like Cool, I’ll help you and he was like Cheers, mate and but then I was really hungry from all that talking so I went to the canteen and then I saw this confused looking girl so I sat beside her and then I saw it was you and then I started telling you this story and that’s the end of the story.’

‘…Uh huh,’ said Neckbrace.

‘So, whaddaya say?’ asked Waterman.

‘…About what?’

‘You gonna help Bazza rob The Rainbow?’

Neckbrace growled. ‘I’d rather just go back to Venus, like I’ve been trying to do for FIFTEEN FREAKIN’ CHAPTERS!’

‘Then I guess we got ourselves a mutually beneficially transaction, eh?’ said Barry, taking a seat across from Neckbrace with a tray of slightly less spoiled fish and chips in his hands.

‘What are you suggesting?’ asked Neckbrace.

‘I’m sayin’ you should help us rob The Rainbow, and then we’ll take that collar off ya and you’ll be free to go back to Mars or whatever, yeah?’

Neckbrace groaned. She really, really just wanted to go home. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘How long till we rob this place?’

Barry checked his watch. ‘About thirty seconds, I reckon.’

The flickering lights of the canteen began flashing red and a klaxon alarm rang over the speaker system.

‘Looks like I was thirty seconds off,’ said Barry.