If the bar on Terra-9 had a real name, it certainly wasn’t the name posted on the sign outside. About once a month—or whenever the proprietor got twitchy—the whole establishment picked up and moved, taking all of its clandestine wares for the ‘discerning patron’ with it. With each new move came a new name, a new logo, a new décor. Because of this, Athenais and all the other shifty-eyed spacers who patronized the place simply called it ‘The Shop.’

Due to the nature of its business, The Shop couldn’t afford to own an A.I.—which could be hacked by government spies—so it had a live bartender serving drinks behind a barrier of dirty, energy-resistant glass. Patrons lovingly called the stiff, perpetually-scowling man Giggles because he couldn’t crack a smile without breaking bones.

Athenais frequented The Shop whenever she could find it. Her crew loved the cheap entertainment offered in the back rooms, but Athenais loved the squalor and the ancient, rough-hewn tables that stank of years of malt and whiskey. She loved the dirty glasses, the weapons on every hip. She loved the battered, crusty-eyed spacers that looked ready to cough up an un-immunized lung or draw steel for an accidental bump.

She also loved to fight. Her appetite for violence was probably some form of ancient, misplaced rage, but frankly, Athenais didn’t care. She’d told her last shrink to get stuffed and put a pretty little laser hole through his couch for his input.

…Or had it been his head? She’d shot at him so many times it had become fuzzy.

Athenais rubbed her head, trying to remember the particulars of her last day with that annoying, no-chin, flat-foreheaded, nasal, bookwormy moron and his ‘clinical experience.’ All she could remember, for sure, was the hole in the couch. She had
wanted
to put it through his face, but the bastard had ducked.

Sighing, Athenais wondered where the stuffy prick was buried. While he had been a constant nagging pain in her ass for almost a quarter of a millennia—her self-proclaimed conscience, once he realized just what kind of deviant he had on his hands—the little twit had been more or less a friend, when he wasn’t shrinking her and getting shot at. Their last ‘session’ had been almost four centuries ago, and as much as the prick had annoyed her, she missed him. Things got lonely, over the years.

Athenais glanced again at the seat Rabbit had recently vacated, wishing she’d taken him up on his offer to tag along that night. Thuggery wasn’t exactly Athenais’s style—she’d rather negotiate with military-grade cannons that could blow a space station apart than her handgun and a set of brass knuckles—but she would have made an exception, in Rabbit’s case. He was always up to something interesting.

Wistful, Athenais swept a quick look at Rabbit’s establishment. Giggles was over in his glass-enclosed corner, cleaning his pistol. A few void-weary patrons were drinking off the boredom of space with long-unseen friends. Most everyone with any serious business at The Shop, however, had gone once Rabbit had hopped out for the day. She figured he’d probably slip back in that night, after he finished whatever clandestine dealings he had with tonight’s corrupt government official. Tomorrow, he’d probably be bribing the local Port Patrol. Or blackmailing the planetary judicial triumvirate. Or watching the opera.

Athenais took another drink, wishing someone would start a fight.

The fights at The Shop were not the civilized tea-time spectacles found elsewhere in the universe. They were ruthless, barbaric, sand-flinging, ball-crunching, knee-breaking, eye-gouging brawls with the very scum of the human race, and Athenais thrived on them. It reminded her of simpler days, before her father’s ‘genius.’

Athenais made a disgusted sound.
Genius. Right.
She twisted the stein in her hands, wishing it were Marceau Tempest’s neck.
He experimented on children…
Shaking her head, she looked away before she busted another one of Rabbit’s mugs.

Not for the first time, she longed for some company. Rabbit was gone. Ragnar was watching the ship. Her drinking partners had slumped under the table long before, and she’d let Giggles drag them off with only cursory complaints. Now she was wishing she’d put up more of a fight. Rabbit would have found someone else to keep her entertained, or maybe even taken a moment out of his busy schedule to sit down and reminisce with her about the old days. She needed a good reminiscing. Too many fresh-eyed young ‘brewers’ filling up the spacelines nowadays, living their borrowed time out with yet another shot of her father’s Potion. As far as she had heard, it was getting cheaper every year. Pretty soon, everyone would be living as long as she did.

Athenais lowered her head, staring down at her beer.

She didn’t want to leave. She’d just spent the last four months in space, and it was good to feel the bone-tugging pull of natural gravity again. As much as Utopian engineering companies tried to claim differently, human beings just weren’t meant to hurtle through the void at speeds that would rip a photon apart. They needed some slow time, just to think.

Athenais scanned The Shop tiredly. Three spacers with laser pistols on their belts sat together at a table in the back, talking loudly over their drinks. Near the center, a bored-looking patron flipped a ceramic credit coin in the air in front of him. He didn’t look worried that somebody would take it from him, so the coin was probably fake. Two tables over, a vacant-eyed spacer was smoking tanga-weed, filling the entire room with its hallucinogenic brown smoke. Like the alcohol, Athenais was immune to the stuff, but it still made her eyes water.

Behind his glass shield, Giggles was yawning and checking his watch. No one had asked for a drink in over an hour.

Athenais had hoped Rabbit would return before she got bored, but the way he’d run out with half a dozen goons in tow, it almost looked as if he was off to put out a fire…

…or start a war.

Either way, Athenais doubted he’d be slinking back anytime soon. She sighed and started to stand, leaving her ineffectual beer on the table behind her.

As she moved, three large men threw open the door and stepped inside.

Athenais’s hand slid toward her gun. Upon a second look, however, she relaxed back into her chair. The three men had an aura of danger about them, but it was an unmistakable pang of ‘feral’ that filled the bar ahead of them that no Utopian officer could ever fake. With their scruffy haircuts, their heavy workman’s boots that screamed of ‘rough money,’ and their pinched, unfriendly faces, Athenais wouldn’t have been surprised to see prison barcodes under the collars of their heavy black spacers’ jackets. Behind the glass, Giggles had dropped his rag and his hand was hovering closer to his gun.

Despite the slow muscular atrophy that was common with so many of today’s spacers, all three of the men were big and powerfully built—to expensively-modded proportions. Further, there was something familiar about the three that nagged at Athenais. While she was trying to place it, she realized that the leader’s windburned face had startling, unnatural yellow eyes. Another expensive mod.

The yellow-eyed thug led the other two over to the bar, where Athenais was able to get a better look at him. Pockmarks riddled his sun-darkened skin. His hair was black, cropped close to his skull in total disrespect of the current style. He was wearing a black spacer outfit with deep pockets and EverWarm lining. As he pulled out a stool and sat at the bar, she realized that he was missing the smallest finger of his left hand.

That
surprised her. Athenais had seen a few Utopis who, like herself, saw their scars as badges of honor. A missing digit, however, wasn’t worth the inconvenience. Athenais had lost the biggest three toes on her right foot when she got them stuck in the air-lock of her ship during a high-speed retreat, but she’d grown them back. Enduring a disfigurement as awkward as a missing finger took a lot of dedication.

Or it was something else entirely.

Athenais squinted at the three men and the realization hit her like a fist to the gut. They were
colonists
.

Giggles seemed to recognize that fact, too, because he refused to serve them the three beers that they ordered. “Sorry, mates,” the young man said, “Brewers only.” Selling illegal booze to hardened criminals was a fineable offense. Selling it to non-brewers was asking to be sent to an Erriatian death-camp.

The leader scowled at the barkeep through the inch-thick glass. “We can pay,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a scratched and age-worn credit coin. He slid the coin under the glass.

“Sorry,” Giggles repeated, sliding the coin back to the colonist. “Citizens only. Owner’s rules.”

“What the hell you care about the rules?” the yellow-eye demanded. Giggles shrugged and went back to wiping glasses. After giving Giggles a long, dark look, the yellow-eye turned away from the bar and once again scanned the room with a scowl that suggested he was probably looking for someone to pummel for Giggles’ slight.

The other patrons of The Shop all tactfully ignored the three colonists, with the exception of Athenais and the tanga-weeder. The latter was staring at them with wide, glazed eyes, smiling. He was probably hallucinating.

The leader caught Athenais’s eye again and gave her a considering look. Then, seemingly making a reluctant decision, he just shook his head and headed for the door. Athenais felt a pang of regret. She’d been looking forward to a fight. Four months of cramped ship quarters and she wasn’t even going to get bloody. She felt robbed.

Before the trio of colonists could reach the door, she bellowed, “Giggles, I want three more beers.” Her voice was naturally loud from commanding a shipful of selectively deaf space pirates, and it cut through the silence like a knife.

The three colonists stopped and eyed her. She got up and walked over to the bar. With a flourish, she presented her credit coin.

Giggles frowned at her, then over her shoulder at the three colonists, who were still standing near the door. He made no move to take her coin. “Whatcha want ‘em for, Attie?”

“Why, that’s an odd question,” Athenais said. “What do you do with beer, Giggles?”

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