I was working on fleshing out the Coalition and my explorer more. I came up with this:

[Quote="Queen Raidne]The Coalition was made up of society's rats. Vermin, swarming around from bar to bar, each looking for their next hit, one alien trying to scam the big one off of another. Rejects and losers fluttered from one haphazard, junked-together station or government to the next, all regulated by a planet-sized bureaucracy. I thumbed away 50 credits to my dealer - a shabby Kazzlehorf who'd never once given credence to the thought that his product [i]might[/i] be subpar. A drone hovered at the Kazzlehorf's shoulder, wires sagging from its housing.

The rezstick was a refreshing contrast to the blasted up life support vents that spewed an acrid haze. My implants were humming with ice from the rezstick. It wouldn't be long now; I just had to get to the right bar. 

Ragnorak Station was my city, and I don't mean that figuratively. When your father is the King of a solar system, you get space stations for your sixteenth birthday. What a waste. I didn't know how to run the station then, and still don't have anything to do with it now.

A Xim shoved its way past me toward the bar. The damned bug had to have been new around here; it hadn't caught the virulent cynicism and apathy that came with the Coalition. It was glaring at me, like I was personally responsible for the blasted-up war between our species. I followed its wake into Mitchell's.

Johnny - or rather, JN.E - was working the bar. It nodded its servoes at me as I took up my usual roost, handing me an Atomic Fizzler. I sipped the high-octane fruit concotion as I scanned the room for my next victim. My veins were buzzing; the rezstick was starting to do its thing.

When I first saw him, I knew we were meant to be. He wore the open vest of an ice miner, just enough for me to see his chiseled abs and grizzly face. I circled the rim of my drink with my finger, not breaking eye contact. He strutted up to the bar, leaning next to me, his hot breath on my face.

"What's an angel like you doing in a place like this?" he asked.
"I own it," I replied.
"Pleased to finally meet you, Mitchell," he said.
"It's Helena." That's when the rezstick finally tore open my mind. Drops of bliss slipped off my forehead into the void of space beneath our feet. I was leading him back to my room - a room - at some hourly motel. I was ordering us champagne, he was laughing, laughing, laughing. The barman came to ask for my drink, Johnny was a real boy now, and we were in a room with a sagging bed and peeling wallpaper. Yellowed vidscreens shouted at me to buy more Yamatchi products as a laughing Kazzlehorf proudly proclaimed that Kazzlehorf had the best deathsticks....[/quote]