As the gang stepped off the moving strip, an octopus on a wheeled cart shot out of a mirrored alleyway and tried to pick Chisel's pocket. Unconcerned, the boy stabbed the offending tentacle with a stiletto, almost slicing the tip off and continued strolling, leaving the howling creature spurting blood. The gang member had not been the least bit bothered by the antisocial act. It sort of made him feel at home, like he was in Manhattan again.
“GRAVITY HERE IS LESS THAN EARTH STANDARD,” a tiny voice said from their jumpsuit collars. “YOUR COORDINATION WILL BE OFF, THUS YOUR MACHINE GUNS WILL SHOOT HIGH. PLEASE TAKE THAT INTO ACCOUNT."
“Thanks, mom,” Hammer muttered, wishing he could lower the volume on that pain in the ass permanently. The only thing he hated worse than a busybody, were people who talked during movies. Their blood always ruined the taste of his popcorn.
“So what's the plan, boss man?” Drill asked, in the rhyming cant of the deceased traitor Crowbar. “We split up, scout the territory and then meet back here later?"
The ganglord scowled. “Screw that. We stay together. I got a feeling this place is more dangerous than an honest cop."
“Yeah, I agree,” Drill grinned, then he noticed something amiss. “Hey! Where'd pinhead get to?"
Upon hearing his name, Chisel reappeared from the crowd. “I found it!” the boy shouted, excitedly pointing to the other side of a five way intersection.
Drill craned his neck over the milling throng to see, and Hammer pushed an old, blind, crippled dogoid into the gutter for a better view. On top of a quonset hut were two statues locked in mortal combat. The ganglord nodded. Yep, that was the place they wanted, The Twin Choron Inn.
Prior to boarding, Trell had told them the story about how a drunk pair of the stone giants had gotten into a wrestling match one night. Equally matched, they had stood motionless on the roof for three solar revolutions, before they finally got sober, then bored, and went home. But by then, so many patrons of the bar used them to identify the place the management was forced to erect a statue of the beings to replace the absentees. The sculptor had done a fine job with the photographs supplied to her, and in fact some of the less observant customers to this day did not know that it wasn't the siblings still up there.
Acting totally cool, the Bloody Deckers pushed their way through the milling crowd and strutted into the bar.
Oddly enough, aside from the customers, the place pretty much resembled an ordinary tavern. There were tables and chairs scattered about the hall, sawdust on the floor, dartboards and astronomical holographs adorned the walls. A ten meter counter spanned the rear of the hut and behind the plastic counter stood a fibrous, orange humanoid in a knit leather waistcoat. The bartender was chewing on a green stick and using a cloth rag to clean a glass decanter.
What caught the Decker's attention though, was the strange elaborate machine that filled the entire back section of the hut, reaching from floor to ceiling and wall-to-wall. The Rube Goldberg contraption was made of plastic struts, brass kettles, ceramic barrels, glass beakers, wooden vats and a hundred zillion metal pipes, some dripping with frost and others glowing red hot. The gang had no damn idea what the thing could be.
Surveying the room for seats, Hammer spotted two at the counter, but they were on opposite sides of an albino grizzly bear who was drinking with both clawed paws. The ganglord smiled and reviewed the opening scenes from a dozen Westerns, for just the right approach. Yep, got it.
After a hurried set of whispered instructions, Hammer approached the hulking monster from the left, with Drill and Chisel flanking him.
“Hey, whitey!” Hammer called in the most insulting tone he could muster.
Mildly curious, the bear paused in his drinking and rotated a monstrous head to see whom the creature was addressing. Surely the little brown thing was not talking to him!
“You're sitting in my favorite chair, dustbunny,” Hammer snarled, rapidly clarifying the situation. “Now move your moth eaten butt, or my den gets a new rug!"
With a ferocious roar, the huge grizzly turned and reached for the neutral disrupter pistol slung at its hip. But a hail of high velocity, steel jacketed, 9mm bullets from three machine pistols lifted the unsuspecting alien from the chair and slammed it against the plastic wall, the impact sending cracks as far as the front door. Laser beams then sliced off his treetrunk thick arms, and a knife thudded between his startled eyes. With a mighty groan, the hirsute goliath slumped to the floor, trembled and went still.
As the smoke cleared, the Deckers waited for reprisals, but everybody else in the tavern returned to their drinking and talking. What the Void, they each thought, the creep probably deserved it. He had.
* * * *
However onboard the Ramariez, the bridge crew was aghast.
“I've never seen anything to rival it,” Soukup gasped, even paler than usual.
Ensign Lilliuokalani could barely speak. “They killed a fellow sentient just to obtain the chair!"
“Good grouping, though,” Buckley noted professionally.
“It was murder,” Hamlisch declared in righteous outrage. “Cold blooded murder."
“No, it was perfect,” Prof. Rajavur corrected, walking from the closing elevator.
Pressing a button to swivel his chair, Captain Keller turned to greet the man. “I agree, Mr. Ambassador. They have properly established themselves as people not to be trifled with, and nobody will suspect them of ulterior motives."
The diplomat crossed the room. “Yes, and only the Deckers could have done it in so definite a manner,” the diplomat said, taking the guest chair located next to the Sanitation console. “I only wonder why they didn't toss a grenade into the place?"
“Didn't give them any, sir,” Lt. Jones said simply.
Rajavur nodded. “That explains it."
* * * *
As the humans claimed their seats, over in a corner of the hut a group of bullyboys stopped ascertaining the potential of the new humanoids and returned to their hand of VisPar; the toughest, deadliest gambling game in existence. It involved: cards, dice, a roulette wheel, random number generators, post-hypnotic suggestions and high explosives.
“Hey! Let's have some service here!” Drill yelled pounding on the counter top.
Since it was safe again, the bartender stuffed a fresh mint stick into its slit of a mouth and scurried into view. The lumpy orange creature reminded the gang somewhat of a kitchen sponge.
“Peace!” the Oolian cried, lifting four pewter mugs brimming with foam in each hand. “Will arrive soon. Only have eight arms."
A gelatinous blob laughed uproariously at the old joke, showing how truly drunk she was, and then emptied a beaker on top of her head to nosily suck the milky white liquid in through a group of tiny mouths that ringed the base of her throat.
In a practiced motion, the sponge mopped the excess liquid that landed on the counter top with his hands, absorbing the spilled beverage and metabolizing the alcohol. In an establishment as filled with sloppy drunks as The Twin Chorons, the bartender was starting to get fat from overeating.
“Yo,” Hammer said in a friendly greeting.
The sponge removed the breath stick from its mouth. “This is a respectable joint, creature,” it stated in a serious tone.
“Yeah?"
“Fact. You must pay us a fee for the damages and to remove the dead body."
“Fair enough,” Hammer laughed and he tossed a single gray coin on the counter.
That almost gave the bartender an air tube spasm. Keeping the coin in plain sight, he laid it on a glowing sensor pad embedded in the simulated wood counter top. The analysis took only seconds. By the Prime Builder, it was chemically pure metal. Top grade Thulium.
“I can not make change for this, honorable sir,” the creature said respectfully.
Hammer waved the matter off and told him to credit his account and keep a gold for himself. The Deckers were supposed to make a splash, and that sounded like a good way to do it. Nothing attracts
attention more than violence and money.
“What will you have, gentle being?” the happy sponge asked, a week's salary richer. He had always liked humanoids, especially hairless brown bipeds.
“Whiskey,” the ganglord replied.
He waited and the bartender did the same.
“Well?” Hammer barked.
“Place your hand on the sensor plate so the drink will match your biological profile,” the Oolian patiently explained. “What? Have you never been in a bar before?"
“Not as nice a place as this,” Hammer lied, playing it smooth. It never paid to annoy the bartender. He might spit in your drink, then you would have to kill him and the bouncer would throw you out of the bar. Like, seriously inconvenient.
Complying with the request, Hammer laid his hand on the glowing square. At his touch, the machine behind the bar began to make whirring noises and started to rebuild itself, pipes reconnecting into a new configuration. It ratted and whined a bit, then a lid flipped aside and out floated a shot glass full of amber liquid.
Snagging the glass in mid-air, Hammer took a sip, and then downed the rest in a gulp.
“Goddamn, that's the best damn whiskey I ever had,” Hammer sighed. “Gimme another."
More than ready to comply, the bartender did as requested. With an entire thul in his account, this humanoid could drink vintage Zish for the whole night and not dent his credit.
“Got anything pink?” Drill asked, a faint tingle stirring within him at the mere mention of the word.
The sponge gave his race's equivalent of a wink, and from under the counter produced a plastic atomizer. Experimentally, the locksmith depressed the bulb and out came a fine spray of reddish fluid. The next two squeezes were directed towards his face. Ah, that was more like it!
Chisel pressed his hand hard against the sensor plate. “I wanna a Coney Island Special."
With those words, the always reliable, never defeated, alpha class, Drink Master Supreme, underwent the usual alteration, paused, and then did it again, and then again. Pipes connected and disconnected at an alarming rate, some bent themselves into condenser coils, others retracted, while yet others crackled with static electricity and tried to twist themselves into the fourth dimension. Kettles began to spin. Multicolored flames spurted at irregular intervals. Ice formed on support beams, melted and reformed. The alien device shook, groaned, whined, burped and trembled. A crowd had gathered by then, and bets flew as to whether or not the Drink Master had finally met its match.
Deep inside the machine, a laser battle seemed to take place. A steel pipe shattered, the broken bits sprinkling to the floor. Steam erupted from the top coil, blasting tiles off the ceiling. Then in a hushed silence, the door flipped open and out floated a frosted steel mug, filled with an extra thick, chocolate milk shake. No straw.
As the crowd watched, Chisel took a sip and nodded in approval. No whip cream, but not bad.
With a sad ratcheting sound, the Drink Master spat out a gob of whip cream and a maraschino cherry onto the counter. The Oolian stared at it in horror and ran to get a rag.
While chuckling at the antics, Drill noticed three doors in the background marked EMITTERS, OOZERS and SQUIRTERS. Sagely, he deduced those must be the bathrooms and decided that no matter how much he drank tonight he could hold it until they returned to the shuttle.
At the other end of the bar, inspired by the toothy humanoid, a spider in a spacesuit requested a dead fly with a straw in its head. At a table across the room, a fly in chainmail ordered a spider with a straw in its head. Hatefully, the two beings stared at each other and sipped with a vengeance. Chisel snorted contemptuously at both of the creatures, and took a healthy gulp of his milk shake. Only wimps used straws.
“When do we move, boss?” Drill asked.
Hammer drained the glass and licked his lips. “Enjoy your drink, dude. Act sociable, then if we don't get what we want, we kill some customers and set fire to the place."
“Natch."
Strolling among the drinkers and gamblers of the tavern, plying her centuries old trade, was a semi-transparent, vaguely humanoid shaped creature. Her name was Einda, and she was a Datian prostitute. A truly universal whore, the empathic amoebae had the ability to mold herself into a sexpartner for almost any race. At least one representative of her highly flexible species was considered an absolute necessity at every decent bar throughout the known galaxy. And she had just found her next customer.
After the incident with the Drink Master, the adaptive female decided to try for the toughest member of the group, who would almost certainly be the leader; the short toothy male she had heard called Chisel. No doubt, a title of great authority.
As Einda casually wandered towards the bar, she passed by a hairy blue male sitting alone at a four person table, playing with a piece of string and a small fruit, which explained why he was sitting alone in a crowded bar. Nobody smart bothered an assassin.
By the time she reached the boy's side, the anthropomorphic tart had metamorphosed into a reasonable facsimile of the well endowed Laura; who had stolen the lad's heart even as the special federal agent had broken his nose during the fight on Leader Idow's ship.
“Greetings, attractive being,” Einda murmured seductively, her simple words promising everything and the knowledge to deliver it. “Do you desire my company?"
Mesmerized by the stark naked, translucent female, whom he seemed to know from somewhere, Chisel could only nod. Without hesitation, the gang member pushed the reptilian creature next to him off its chair and offered the seat to his new friend. Showing extreme wisdom, the scaly alien took no offense at this ejection and strolled away, searching for something less dangerous than the pink humanoid to bully.
“I am called Einda,” she told him taking the stool, her luscious lips curled at the tips in a faint smile, half in training, half from the courteous action.
“Chisel,” the human managed to say, his voice husky with unaccustomed desire. “Ah, would, ah, you like a drink?"
She slipped an arm about his waist and snuggled in warm and close. “Please."
The boy stiffened, but when he realized she wasn't going for his wallet, he felt his face burn red in embarrassment, then lust, and he began to stiffen.
“Care for a sip of mine?” he asked, politely offering the lady his milkshake.
Einda was thrilled. Everybody knew that to her race such an act, the sacred mingling of juices was a proposal of marriage. This humanoid with the big teeth may not be much to look at, but the manling was the first to ever ask and offer her a ticket to respectability. She'd be damned if he would get away.
A true hermaphrodite, her race could breed with any other species by accepting a sample of germ plasma, using their super adaptive flesh to feed the living cells and then act as an incubator for the infant. She would not be able to contribute anything to the offspring, aside from motherly love, but that would be enough. Einda sighed. Yes, it would be enough.
“Gladly,” the female throated, and pressed her lips to the steel mug accepting the offering in the spirit it was given.
Chisel was pleased by the beautiful woman's reaction and wondered if he dared to pat her shapely knee under the counter. Nyah, probably just get his face slapped.
Then Drill nudged him in the ribs and Einda was temporarily forgotten. Time for business.
“Hey, barkeep, maybe you can help us,” Hammer said laying down his empty shot glass alongside the other four and resisting the temptation to lick the container clean.
Drill pinked himself. “Yeah, we're looking for somebody."
“Ain't nobody here,” the bartender answered in a tired voice that had heard this question a thousand times before. It almost always led to trouble.
Exercising patience, Hammer showed a few teeth in his smile. “You don't understand. We want the boss, the guy, ah, the thing that owns this place."
“I own it,” the sponge lied, hitting the alarm button on the floor with his main proto-foot.
Drill snorted in contempt. Hammer agreed with the assessment and took a more direct approach of persuasion by drawing his Uzi, reaching across the bar and stuffing the warm barrel of the weapon into the sponge's fibrous belly.
“How many fingers you got on a hand, chum?” the ganglord asked in a deceptively sweet voice.
Frightened to the very core of his being, the creature chewed its breath stick to a nub before answering, “Eight."
“Seven,” Hammer continued, working the bolt on his Uzi machine pistol and squeezing the safety. “Six, five, four, three..."
“WHO IS IT THAT WISHES TO TALK WITH ME?"
The atonal voice seemed to come from everywhere, so the ex-con eased his grip, resetting the safety on his weapon. “The new owner of the All That Glitters,” Hammer bragged. “You can see it in orbit about this rock."
That statement stopped conversation dead in the tavern, and several of the more sapient sentients left unobtrusively through the windows, without bothering to open the portals first.
“INTERESTING,” the voice rumbled. “WHAT HAPPENED TO MY GOOD FRIEND, LEADER IDOW?"
In the manner of a 1950s gangster film, Hammer picked his teeth with a not very clean thumbnail and replied, “We ate him."
The voice laughed in disbelief. “OF COURSE YOU DID. PERHAPS WE SHOULD DO BUSINESS TOGETHER."
At this, a section of the wall near the bathrooms broke apart revealing a stainless steel cubicle. The invitation was obvious, but the Deckers only exchanged annoyed glances. Geez, what was this, amateur night? Aiming in unison, laser beams and bullets sprayed the cubicle, igniting the shaped charges of explosives lining the walls and quickly reducing the chamber into a twisted metal wreck.
“Sorry, but no can do,” Hammer drawled, dropping the exhausted magazine and slamming a fresh clip into his weapon. “Your elevator seems to be like broken."
The laughter sounded again and alongside the ruined elevator, a panel slid open in the wall exposing a gray stone passageway.
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