"What are you doing?"

The General looked up to give Emmy a curious look. "I am checking my schedule for the day."

Emmy sighed and placed her hands on her hips. "I repeat. What are you doing?"

The General removed his wire rim glasses and leaned his elbows on the desk. "I don't quite follow."

"Hello, McGeneral," Emmy said. "Your Triumph is a pile of melted scrap metal. Does this kind of scenario ring any bells for you?"

The General sighed and rubbed his forehead. "I know. The other grrls were hurt that they were left behind again, but--"

"We have a winner," Emmy said sarcastically. "So do something. They're all moping around. I don't like people moping around," she grumbled with a pout on her face.

"I thought they might need some space to--"

"They blew up your Triumph! Get off you tukkus and make it all better!"

"Right," the General said, standing from his chair. "I'll get on it immediately." He walked past Emmy and to his office door.

"Where the hell are you going?" Emmy asked, sounding very put out.

"I...uh." The General looked to the door and then back at Emmy. "The other grrls...I was going to--"

"Well, not right this instant. You think I came here for charity's sake?" Emmy said, grabbing his shirt and pulling him to her.

~*~

"So help me God, I'll have you installed permanently at Wal Mart! And I'll make sure they fill you with Britney Spears stickers!"

"It wasn't me! It wasn't me!" Tom Servo protested. "It was Crow's idea!"

Emmy grabbed the animated gumball machine by the neck. "You mortgaged my diamond mine to that Greyside hoodlum!"

"He did WHAT?"

Emmy turned her head. "Brenda!" Servo landed with a thud as Emmy tossed him to the floor.

Brenda gulped. No doubt by now that everyone knew about the General's bike.

"I'm *so* proud of you!" Emmy suddenly gushed. "I mean, drowning it was one thing, but outright blowing it up was just pure genius."

"Thanks!" Brenda said.

"So when is the new one arriving?"

Brenda's face turned serious all of a sudden. "The....uh....new one?"

Emmy arched an eyebrow. "You *did* order him a new one."

"Uh...well...." Brenda chewed on her thumbnail. "I guess I sorta forgot that part."

"Well, talk to Shana. She knows a guy."

Brenda nodded. "Yeah, I'll do that." She paused for a moment. "But shouldn't I wait until he apologizes first?"

"If you order it now, it will be here very close to the apology. You get the apology....and then you get the gratitude." Emmy leered. "Timing is everything."

~*~

Dorotea emerged from the library and ran toward the Clinic.

"Closed??"

"Well, duh," Laure said as she walked past with a bottle of Merlot and headed straight for her office.

Dorotea banged on the door. "Darry! Open up!"

"Yeah, right," Shana said, hurrying by with a fresh jar of Nutella and disappearing inside her office.

"Darry! LP has a paper cut! I need bandaids!"

"Where's the fire, lover?"

Dorotea spun around to find Xani grinning.

"Anything I can help with?" Xani leaned forward and purred, "Anything?" His shoulder brushed against Dorotea's.

And then the muffled sound of an EA alarm could be heard from behind the Clinic door.

Followed by a muffled curse and a crash against the Clinic door, the alarm slowing and warping and then dying out completely.

Dorotea turned back to face the door. "Bandaids!"

"Don't worry, I'll heal him," Xani said, slinking toward the library.

"Wait!"

~*~

"Where's Darry?" the General asked, glancing around the board room.

"Medical emergency," Caeryn, Shana, Diebin, Emmy, Laure, and Dorotea all answered simultaneously.

"Oh?" the General asked, his eyebrows quirking up. "Is someone injured?"

"Yeah, sure," Emmy said. "Anyway, let's talk. Who do we have to kill to get our mine back?"

"Well, I've examined the paperwork," Shana said, "and it's all legit. Unless we have the funds to pay off these debts, there's really nothing we can do."

"Besides turn Crow into a shop project at Wanker," Caeryn said.

"Working on it," Shana said.

"There must be something we can do," the General said. "I am most uncomfortable with Offworld owning any interest in our mine. After all, Xanatos was employed by them several years ago."

"Oh?" Laure said.

"Who's Xanatos?" Dorotea asked, jumping as Emmy kicked her under the table.

"Qui-Gon's first apprentice," the General said. "He turned to the Dark Side."

"Oooh, scary," Laure said.

Emmy rolled her eyes. "Interesting. So you don't think Offworld is a reliable company because of this Xanatos person?" She glared at Dorotea.

"I am sure they have legitimized themselves since Xanatos' demise," the General paused as every Ho choked on her scone, "but I am still leery of the association."

"Well, you all heard him," Emmy said. "I say we clear out *all* Offworld employees immediately."

"But we can't do that legally," Laure said. "They hold the lein on us."

"But this means that Offworld and *all its employees* own *us*," Emmy said slowly.

"Yes, I know," Laure answered just as slowly.

"So what are we going to do?" Emmy asked slowly through gritted teeth.

"I don't know," Laure answered slowly through gritted teeth.

"We haven't needed the mine in the past to fund the university," the General offered. "So we should use the cash reserves that we haven't had to spend since the discovery of the mine."

"Cash. Reserves?" Shana said.

The General nodded. "Yes. I am assuming we have a greater cash reserve with the tuition payments in addition to the mining revenue."

"Tuition?" Caeryn said.

The General chuckled. It was rather cute how space travel always affected his grrls. "Yes, tuition. The funds we used before the mine to pay for the University."

The Ho's all exchanged looks, each of them inwardly cursing Darry for being both absent and neglectful of her Senator.

"So let's schedule a meeting to sit down and look at all the numbers," the General said.

"Um... Have you done the makeup boinking thing with the other girls yet?" Emmy asked. "You really need to get on that."

The General gave Emmy a look, but not The Look. Then he turned to Caeryn. "I believe we should attend to these financial issues as soon as possible."

"Yes, we'll do that," Caeryn said.

All Ho's glared at Caeryn.

"Right after we finish the fall class schedule and get through orientation, registration, and mid-terms," Caeryn added.

"Perhaps we should do this before classes begin," the General said.

Caeryn turned and gave him The Face. "Do you have *any* idea how much time it takes to update the student *database*?"

The General gulped. Not the database again. Then he smiled. "You're right. I will leave it to your discretion."

~*~

Kendra sighed as she floated in the pool, looking up at starry night sky. She stood up, and squeezed her hair out, preparing to step out of the pool and spend another sullen night alone.

And then something very warm and very solid pressed against her back.

Kendra gasped and turned around to find a very wet and mostly nekkid General giving her The Look.

She would not crumble. She would be strong. She would really let him have it.

This had all seemed so simple in the abstract. But now that he was standing this close, the heat of his bare skin brushing against her own.....

"Kendra," the General purred in that way of his.

Kendra gulped.

~*~

"Hello, princess."

Emmy turned on her heel and flung her tiara at Xani, lodging it in the wall next to his head.

"Mmmmm....you're so....excited," Xani leered.

"This is my room and you have a millisecond to leave it before I castrate you," Emmy growled.

"Technically," Xani said, strolling forward, "it's *my* room now." And as Emmy grabbed a pen to lodge into his temple, Xani laughed and sauntered toward the door to the secret passageway. "Have a nice day, princess."

"Oh, that's IT!" Emmy yelled. She marched over the wall and pulled out the tiara. Then she went to her nightstand and opened the drawer, pulling out her spare. "No one owns this Ho. Not even Kenobi," Emmy groused as she flew out of her room with tiaras in hand.

~*~

"I ordered the Triumph this morning," Brenda said as Emmy stomped past her. "The General should have it in a couple of days."

"Well, zippity doo dah for him," Emmy snapped, tossing the artwork off the wall and quickly opening the safe behind it.

"Looks like somebody got up on the wrong side of the OOWWW!!" Servo rubbed his plastic head, screeching as Brenda pointed out the crack that the flying stapler had left.

Emmy grabbed her two other spare tiaras out of the safe. "Brenda, I need my spare."

Brenda eyed the agitated Diva as she held four deadly tiaras in her hands. "Sure thing," Brenda said, digging in her backpack and pulling out the fourth and final spare.

"Thank you," Emmy said curtly, shoving the tiaras into her Chanel briefcase.

"Ummm.... What are you doing with those?" Brenda asked.

"I'm going into town and hocking them," Emmy said.

Brenda and Servo gasped as Emmy darted past them.

"She's not really going to town dressed like *that*," Servo said, his voice full of shock.

"Guess so," Brenda said, looking out the window at the Diva, dressed only in a black cashmere sweater, slim black pants, and imported Italian leather ankle boots.

"No velvet? No silk?" Servo inquired in disbelief.

"Not unless you count the scrunchie in her hair," Brenda said.

"She has a SCRUNCHIE in her hair?" Servo slid off his chair and moved as quickly to the window as he could.

"Yup."

Servo peeked out the window, verifying that the Diva did indeed have a common scrunchie in her hair. "Wow."

"Yup."

TBC