Chapter 1

Harry Mudd liked to think of himself as a swashbuckling pirate. He didn’t exactly fit the pirate image though. While he was tall, he carried a good sized belly, and he was thinning on top. That didn’t stop him from dressing the swashbuckling part though. Tall black boots, a thick purple belt, and a blue tunic topped off with braided epaulets. He was most proud of his mustache, thick and long enough for him to twirl the ends.

It being the 23rd century, with medical science being what it was, weight wasn’t a medical issue anymore. If someone wanted to be slender, like the stiff-necked bunch in Star Fleet, they could do it fairly easily. On the other hand, if someone loved to eat and hated to exercise, they of course put on weight, but modern medicine kept them healthy. So, it wouldn’t be hard for Harry to keep the weight off. All he had to do was stick to a medically prescribed diet and do a little exercise. But Harry was fundamentally lazy and he couldn’t stay away from rich tasty food, so he had a roll of fat around his middle. Truth be told, he had always carried some extra weight even as a kid. When he met Stella, he was about forty or so pounds overweight, but so was she. Their shared love of good food led to them dating and Harry loved her plush body, especially during sex. Before long, they got engaged and then got married. Which was fine until Stella decided to lose weight. She changed her diet, wouldn’t touch anything fattening and went on a rigid exercise program. Harry watched sadly as the pounds fell off her. She went from chubby to slender to downright skinny. During sex, which became less and less frequent, Harry had to fantasize about the old, plump Stella. All that was bad enough, but since she had reformed herself, she decided that Harry should reform too. Meals at home became disappointingly healthy, and Stella insisted on Harry joining her exercise sessions. He cheated on his diet, of course. There were plenty of kiosks near their home and he was a frequent patron. Stella grew more and more frustrated with him, constantly nagging him about his diet. After one night of particularly brutal nagging, Harry had enough. The next day he took out all of their savings and made a down payment on a small used shuttlecraft. He took off, headed for the Rigel colonies with no intention of coming back.

Harry drifted from colony to colony, making a living on the ragged edge of the law, but often on the wrong side. Officially he was a trader of rare goods, but most of his income was from smuggling prohibited goods. All was well until on Rigel 12 he ran into a strait-laced customs agent. The agent was thoroughly searching his shuttlecraft and made a disgusted face when Harry hinted at a bribe. The agent was getting close to finding his secret hiding place for smuggled goods and Harry knew that if he didn’t get out of there quickly he would find himself in a penal colony. And penal colonies had a reputation for bad food. In the berth next to his there was another shuttlecraft that had just been fueled and was unlocked. Harry jumped into it, closed the doors and immediately took off. He knew that Federation authorities would soon be searching for him, so he headed for an unexplored part of the galaxy.

Harry burned through his fuel recklessly to try to outdistance the authorities. That left him in uncharted territory running out of fuel. He had to find a place to land, and soon. He had a stroke of luck, finding a Class M planet, oxygen nitrogen atmosphere, with gravity similar to earth. His sensors showed what appeared to be a settlement of some kind and he put down there. He was out of fuel, and he had no money, which meant that he would have to con someone. Well, he was good at that.

That’s when he discovered the androids.