After trying to pour a few drinks with shaking hands, Kamak had given up and settled for just passing around the bottle. Current events called for something a little stronger than just a few shiivs and basic beers. Current events also called for literally any conversation topic other than current events.

“Any of you guys ever go to a planet called Shevik?”

“You know literally every planet I’ve ever been to,” Corey said, before passing the bottle in Farsus’ direction.

“Well then keep your mouth shut and let other people answer,” Kamak snapped.

“I haven’t fucking been there either,” Tooley said. There was plenty of room on the couch next to Corey, but she had very deliberately chosen to sit across the room from him.

“Nor have I,” Farsus said. Doprel also shook his head.

“Fine then, I’ll just rant on my own,” Kamak said. “Shevik’s the closest thing to a paradise I know of. Whole planet’s got a temperate climate, and I’d swear the place is fifty percent beach. Far off, too.”

“Is that where you intend to retire?”

“Maybe. If I was dumb enough to think I’m going to get to retire,” Kamak said. “Nah. I’m just thinking about it. I visited decades ago, blowing all the money I made on a big score, sitting on the sand drinking and eating my money away. I think that was the last fucking time I ever actually relaxed.”

Every day since then it had been one job to another, one problem to another. Even in the moments when he was flush with cash and had nothing to do, Kamak’s mind raced, whether with complex plans for the future or even more complex thoughts about the past. At some point in his life he’d crossed a threshold of having too many unfixable mistakes to ever really be at peace, and he wasn’t sure when or where he’d crossed that line, but he knew beyond any shadow of a doubt it was too late to go back.

“I know the feeling,” Corey said. “I went to a beach once in my entire life before...something bad happened.”

He kept the details to himself, but in those few short years between them escaping from the cult and his mother’s cancer diagnosis, she had taken him down to Florida, to sit on white sand beaches and watch the waves roll in. The weekend trip had been one of the best times of Corey’s young life.

“Take it from me. It’s never as good going back.”

He’d tried, after she was gone. The sand was as good as ash.

“I’ve never been fond of the water,” Farsus said. “I fail to see the appeal in beaches either. Just a great deal of sand to make a mess of clothing, and cold water you struggle to move in.”

“I think for most of us it’s just a good excuse to be half-naked,” Tooley said.

“I don’t like the water much either,” To Vo said. She was allowed to sit in the common room with the rest of them, though she had abstained from alcohol. She sat at Doprel’s side and tried to blend herself into the conversation when she could. As time went on, To Vo La Su was slowly realizing that her old life was probably over, and that it might be a good idea to ingratiate herself with the people who’d saved her life.

“Oh yeah, what’s that about?” Tooley asked. “Is it just the fur?”

“Oh no, nothing like that,” To Vo said. She idly scratched one of the leopard-like spots on her face. “It’s actually quite hydrodynamic.”

“What’s up with you, then?”

“I nearly drowned once when I was young,” To Vo said.

“Christ. What happened?”

“Oh, nothing in particular,” To Vo said. “Just struggled a little to pass one of my exams.”

“Your exams were almost fatal?”

Corey had struggled through some finals in college, but he’d never come close to death.

“Well, that’s the point, sort of,” To Vo said, all too casually.

“The point is that you might die?”

“Well, yes,” To Vo said. “My home planet wasn’t very resource-rich, but my species breeds fast. You had to be capable of earning your keep if you wanted to survive.”

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“So they just threw you in the water to see if you drowned or not?”

To Vo Nodded. Nobody in the room had had a particularly good childhood, but that was fucked up even by their warped standards. To Vo knew it was out of line with most cultures, but for her it had just been a fact of life. She still tried to act as upset as everyone else in the room, just to fit in.

“My generation should be the last to go through it, at least,” To Vo said. “The Uplifting gave us enough resources and technology to take care of ourselves better.”

“I sure hope so, or what else is that Uplifting shit even about,” Kamak said. “Glad all that nonsense at least did one good thing.”

“You know, I used to think Earth was kind of a shithole, but the more I learn, the more I think we might be closer to average,” Corey said.

“Probably,” Kamak said. “The default state of the universe is bastard.”

“Careful captain, that is dangerously close to philosophy,” Farsus said.

“Fuck off and give that bottle back,” Kamak said. “You sound drunker than me and I will not allow that. As captain, I set the threshold for drunkenness.”

“Then you better slam that shit, because too many of my brain cells are working for my comfort,” Tooley said.

“If you can still talk, it’s too many for my comfort too,” Kamak said. He threw the bottle of liqour back and took an especially long swig before handing it off to Tooley. “Fucking hell. Enough with the life stories. Farsus, you must know a good drinking game, right?”

“There is an old favorite of mine,” Farsus said. “We take turns throwing a knife at one another. Catching it means no drinks, failing to catch it means one drink, and cutting yourself as you catch it is three drinks.”

“Sometimes I wonder how you still have all your fingers,” Kamak said.

“Some of them have been severed, but only briefly.”

“Fantastic! Does literally anyone else have a game,” Kamak pleaded.

“Why are we even trying to game it?” Tooley asked. “Drinking is already fun. It’s drinking. We should do as much of it as possible.”

“Fuck!”

Kamak jumped to his feet, immediately fell down, and then punched the floor where he landed.

“Kamak?”

“Everyone wants to kill us!” Kamak shouted from the floor. “We can’t go shopping! We can’t buy more booze!”

Silence fell. Kamak pried himself off the floor, and four inebriated eyes locked on the bottle that was held in Corey’s hand. They were in no danger of an immediate shortage, and in fact they had a surplus by the standards of most sapient beings, but every drop brought them one step closer to the end of their supply of booze. Also fuel, basic supplies, food, and water, but the booze was their primary concern at the moment.

“Fuck.”

“We could go underground,” Farsus suggested. ‘There has to be some group of criminals not caught up in this absurd conspiracy.”

“We could smuggle! Smuggling is sexy and victimless,” Tooley said. “We could go to the...place. Planet. That had the old things. Steal more Kentath relics and sell them. Morrakesh loves Kentath bullshit, he’d buy it.”

Corey was contemplating whether to ration the bottle or chug the rest of it, a state of relatively high brain activity given his current state. Tooley’s brief aside sparked a wire in his brain that crossed paths with his contemplation of their current alcohol-based predicament and surged through the frayed wires into the repressed part of his brain that dealt with their larger problems. Corey dropped the bottle.

“Hey! That could’ve broken!”

“It’s him.”

The bottle clattered to a halt by Corey’s feet, creating a temporary lull in conversation.

“It’s fucking him, it’s Morrakesh, in the purple ship,” Corey said. “I was supposed to be his slave, he came after me. He didn’t kill us that first time we saw him because we had Kentath relics on our ship.”

The puzzle pieces kept falling into place in Corey’s slightly inebriated mind.

“He only realized we’d make a good distraction later, after he learned more about us.”

Kamak rolled over onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. The Worm on Paga For had let them know the manhunt for them hadn’t begun in earnest until after their first encounter with the purple ship. The logic tracked, as did the means by which the hunt was carried out.

“He’s got the coin to pull all this off,” Kamak mumbled. There weren’t many groups in the galaxy with the power to go up against the Galactic Council and commit so many acts of subterfuge unnoticed.

“And the positioning to benefit from the reshaped universal trade,” Farsus said. The Morrakesh Collective was only a few galaxies away from Turitha. Not in prime position to be a hub of trade, but close enough to benefit greatly from the nearby hub.

“We have means and motive,” Kamak said. He peeled himself off the floor to sit upright. “I’ve started manhunts with less.”

“No no no no no no,” Tooley said. “Even if this is right, and that’s only a maybe, the fuck are we going to do? He’s like an emperor slash crime lord slash slave buyer guy. We going to waltz up and put a bullet in him?”

“Fuck that,” Kamak said. He wasn’t dumb enough to try and take down a massive criminal empire. “But if we can find some fucking evidence or something, we can at least clear our name and maybe get him off ours asses.”

“Still got to know it’s actually him or not first,” Tooley said. “Otherwise we’re just swinging at a whole new hornet’s nest before the last swarm’s even off our ass.”

“So let’s do what we came here to do and get more information,” Kamak said. “The Doccan blew up a whole fucking Bang Gate, there’s got to be a lot going on here.”

“None of it good.”

“Nothing’s ever good,” Kamak said. “Alright, no more of this shit.”

Kamak stood and snatched the bottle off the floor, returning it to its shelf where it belonged, much to Tooley’s chagrin.

“Alright, get to your rooms and start sleeping this off, champs, soon as I turn the lights back on we’re going to see if we’ve pissed off the worst person in the galaxy.”

With a loud groan, Corey rolled out of his seat and headed back to his room. Tooley glared at his back for a moment, and contemplated following him. Then she glanced at the bottle on the shelf, and her thoughts drifted to the bottles she had stashed in her own room. She went after those instead.