Call me Bad. The Black Lady save me Inez thought. Next thing we will be Viper or Iceman or some other damn fool thing. Well, given that his parents were probably to blame, she resolved to try and cut him some slack. Inez sipped her beer and found it no better for her attempt to savor it. She wondered if the Sunbeala served food and if that food was anything other than the kind of warmed over rations which she might get on the Arxregnum. She gave it up as a bad bet as her eyes scanned the contract. So much for kicking back while the maintaince crew handled the refit she thought. Contracting her out was a better use of her time, at least from the credit pinching perspective of her League masters.
 
One thousand three hundred and twenty four Sols and a wake up she told herself.
 
Endeavoring to look on the bright side she considered the job at hand. She hadn’t known that there was any manufacturing on Lionel but she could see the logic of the enterprise. Processing trace elements into electronic precursors would allow the fabrication of electronics for the repair yard and, eventually, for export to the surrounding fringe worlds. Custom electronics were often more cost effective to manufacture close to where they would be needed, rather than sending all the way back to Sol. The enterprise would also encourage asteroid prospectors whose unfailingly run down ore barges would provide steady business for the expanding repair yard. Native laborers would be needed to work the forges, to construct rail or road connections to the port. This would require modernizing agriculture with tools to make up for the resulting shortfall of peasants. Wages would be paid, wages that could be spent on trade goods and off planet luxuries, and so on and so on.  Thus the business of the League grew, interconnected rings of industry and trade, expanding forever towards the ends of the universe. Inez wondered if Aldrik was invested in the scheme personally or if it was a Solar Winds Trading venture. The two things need not be separate of course; all captains were given a certain amount of capital to invest in on the spot ventures and spur of the moment opportunities but she would have wagered that Maynard was up to his eyeballs in the scheme.
 
“Well, I’ve never worked with a Privateer before, whatever that is I suppose…” before she could suppose any further the ambient buzz of conversation died away and she craned her neck to look towards the door. A trio of natives were entering the bar. They were bipedal and man sized With thick torsos and three sets of powerful limbs, the middle set seemed to function as arms, with three opposable thumbs set against a serrated gripping surface. The upper limbs seemed closer to claws, heavy and muscular. Their entire bodies were covered with glossy carapace, a red so dark that it seemed black in anything but full sun. They had large eyes that seemed to glimmer with the suggestion of internal illumination, though Inez remembered that this was an artifact of the receptors that allowed the natives to see further into the UV than humans. All three wore nothing save leg wraps of some kind of pale local leather and access lanyards which indicated they did menial work in the starport. The largest of the three seemed agitated, and the lower half of his face seemed covered with a fine coating of something golden and powdery. The creature let out a roar, battle cry or curse Inez wasn’t sure, and charged at the two humans, emitting a continual string of clacking ululations. Inez and Bad sprang to their feet, Inez going for a pistol that was in her arms locker back on the ship. She snatched up the lightweight stool instead and swung it in an arc that intersected with the creature’s right claw arm. It caught the cheap extruded plastic and tore it free, pivoting and driving a powerful kick punch combination into Inez, sending her sprawling across a table at which two xenos were playing cards. Credits and chips flew in all directions as the bar descended into chaos. All was screaming and confusion, one of the card players hauled Inez to her feet and drove a fist at her. She twisted aside and snapped an elbow into his face, sending the alien stumbling back. The two natives who had accompanied the original attacker began to ululate the same weird war cry as the first and then charged into the fray. Inez kicked the table into the way of the nearest native sending him down in a tangle of limbs and clacking pincers, the latter quickly reducing the table to splinters. The porcine bar tender ducked down and reappeared with a riot gun, he wracked the slide and fired with a chemical crunch. Where he had been aiming Inez never knew, probably for one of the natives, but the swirling melee threw the creature who had arm wrestled Bad into his line of fire. The bean bag round drove the air from his lungs with a whumph and a spray of vomit. A bottle of liquor flew from the downed gamblers' companions to smash across the bartenders face. The piggish xeno screamed and dropped the gun which bounced of the bar and went off, spraying the back wall with the remains of a dozen shattered liquor bottles. The whole building rang with curses, cheers, and grunts of pain and the air was heavy with spilled booze and hormones.


There were no police in a place like this, but there were bound to be a few star port security types who would show up if this went on long enough. Inez dived across the melee, screaming in pain as medical appliqués tore free and snatched up the fallen riot gun. She turned to survey the melee. One of the natives was drawing back a claw to cold cock Bad. Two bean bags smacked into the alien, the first spinning him ninety degrees just in time for the second to smash into his face, pitching him over into the crowd. The melee closed in around Bad as Inez racked the slide only to feel a limp empty chamber. Screaming in frustration she reversed the weapon and charged into the fray wielding it like a club. 

One thousand three hundred and twenty four Sols and a wake up. Some fucking days. 

[@POOHEAD189]