DISCLAIMER: I don't own Cowboy Bebop; Sunrise does. I do, however, own this original story.

Life in the Fast Lane

By the Lady Razorsharp

Prologue: The End

"Asimov, NO!  That stuff is going to kill you!"

He was too amped to know his own strength, and the vial shattered in his fingers, spraying his face with glass and drugs. "NO!" Katarina shrilled as Asimov uttered a strangled curse.

Katarina watched in mute horror as Asimov's eyes bulged. She'd seen too many just like him not to know the effects of a BloodyEye OD. The added adrenaline from the chase had turned his handsome features into those of a sweat-drenched monster.

As she glanced out the windscreen toward the multitude of flashing ruby lights in the distance, a cold realization swept over her.  I'll never see Mars, she thought, barely aware she spoke the words aloud.

Beyond Asimov's heaving shoulders, Katarina could see the green-haired cowboy in his faded-red fighter.  The bounty hunter was keeping pace with them, though Katarina guessed he had seen the ISSP ahead, too.  She almost smiled; the cowboy wouldn't get his bounty today.

The cowboy's reddish eyes searched her face, the question Why? written in them as plain as day. His mouth was set in a grim line; an expression Katarina didn't think suited his face at all. She had liked it better when he smiled. In another lifetime, she would have loved to kiss that mouth, kiss away the frown that seemed so out of place on him. She wished he would smile at her just one more time, so she could take its sweetness with her into whatever lay beyond this world.

The girl who might have kissed him was long gone, now.  That young girl had been lost in the life she had chosen, a life that was supposed to have been full of excitement and glamour, and would now end in a cockpit of a stolen ship that reeked of sweat, drugs and fear.

It had all seemed so wonderful at the beginning…