Inside the asteroid, everyone is out of the dropship, and they stare in awe at the ship. The ship is long and still unpainted, now a sort of greenish color, and it has four sublight engines. Hilda calls it the XGP15A-II, and she floats up inside (as there is little to no gravity). Gene calls after her, and Jim offers his hand ("Hey, little boy! You want me to hold your hand?"). Gene and Jim then follow, but Melfina hesitates, and repeats the ship's name. Hilda beckons her, and Melfina follows.
Inside the ship, Jim notes that the XGP has unusual controls. Hilda explains that the Space Forces and pirates came together to build the ship, as she "wakes" it up with a laptop. Jim says that he's impressed that Hilda managed to get on the bad side of both the Space Forces AND the pirates by taking the ship, and Hilda says that she had a score to settle.
The XGP turns on, and a strange voice is heard as well. Gene asks who he (the voice is a he, anyway) is, and he gives a long, drawn out explaination on how he isn't allowed to think about himself like that. Finally, Jim figures it out, and says he's the ship's computer, Gilliam II. Hilda makes Gilliam register everyone on board as the ship's crew, and then Gilliam says that he can't launch the ship without some help. Hilda says that Melfina will do it. Gilliam also says that the ship doesn't have a "designation" (Hilda: "No name, huh?"), and Hilda is about to name it when Horus cuts in.
Horus says that a ship is coming in, and that it's likely to be the pirates. Hilda leaves the XGP to fend off the pirates, and Melfina goes into a tube. Gene takes the pilot seat, and the tube rises.
It then cuts to Hilda in Horus, and the "mother" pirate ship launches smaller grapplers; Melfina connects to the XGP's computer, meanwhile. Melfina explains that they can't launch the ship until the seals are removed from the engines; Jim goes and takes care of the job, being led by a robot the size of a soda can running on a maintenance rail.
The Tao Old Man and a small group of nagias enter the asteroid, and Gilliam reports that there are intruders inside the dock.
Hilda, meanwhilst, rotates the asteroid to use it as a shield, and Gene fights the nagias through a door in the XGP. Gene tells Gilliam to open the dock gate, and the nagias (but not the Old Man) are sucked out the door. They then get the ship started, and they reopen the gate, come to find out that when Hilda rotated the asteroid, it made the gate facing the pirates. Hilda fights the grappler ship. Gene deploys the grappler arms, which hinders more than helps.
Just then, MacDougall shows up, and fires upon the pirates and asteroid. He explains to the pirates that he's under a different contract now (to take out the XGP), while Harry says "Die!" over and over again. Their efforts push the pirates and the asteroid towards the sun, and now they can't escape its gravity well.
Gene looks at the El Dorado (MacDougall's ship), and recognizes it as the one that attacked his dad in those flashbacks. Harry launches a halcyon missile, which pushes them further yet into Farfallas. Hilda tries to hail the XGP, to no avail. Gene breaks through the asteroid walls, has a grappler fight with the main pirate grappler, wins, and reaches to grab Horus' dropship (with Hilda inside). The "mother" pirate ship ruins his attempts, however, when it fires an achor at the XGP's grappler arm. Hilda leaves Horus in a space suit, uses a nifty little device to latch on to the anchor, and starts climbing the cable until the Tao girl starts climbing it, too. Hilda fires a couple of shots, the Tao girl breaks the anchor, and they start falling towards Farfallas... again. Hilda realizes there isn't any more Gene can do for her, and tells him that "Outlaws don't go down easy." She then sets off an explosion with her teeth (there was likely a detonator there), and she blows up both herself and the Tao girl.
On the XGP, Gene is sad and doesn't say anything when Gilliam asks where they should go, and Gene says that before they figure that out, he came up with a name for the ship...
The Outlaw Star.
