I put down the three massive bucket-like drinks that Musc had suggested I order in the middle of the table. Musc had flown us directly to the Commerce port as opposed to bringing us back to collect our boat. I usually would have argued against his insistence that one of the other pilots was going to return it for us, but I was more eager to get off Mythellion than I was worried about the nominal automated recall fee.

Of course, no matter how much I wanted to get off Mythellion, we still had to wait until the Dageral two doors over and finished erasing the video recordings my PA had taken and replacing them with something innocuous.

It was all part of the beautiful game of plausible deniability that governments played with one another. If you went onto a planet armed, you needed to submit your video recording to ensure that you didn't discharge your weapon on the planet, but two steps away from the submission point, there was a shop willing to remove any compromising footage for you.

Blowing up an antiquated research station and igniting enough ammunition that it registered on the Richter scale counted as compromising.

Musc took a break from fiddling with Yinde's old PA and grabbed one of the drinks I'd brought over, dragging it to himself and taking a deep, hearty breath as he did. "Now, Friend Kingston and Friend Victoria, this," he picked it up off the table and brought the bucket to his lips, "this is a drink."

He was right about one thing, the black substance was technically a liquid. After bringing it over, I hovered my PA over my bucket for a moment. In theory, they wouldn't have served me the drink if it weren't safe for human consumption, but I doubted the Anteraxi drone behind the bar had memorized the human toxicology charts.

Victoria did the same.

Musc finished their opening gulps before either of us had taken a sip, letting the bucket clang onto the table, "During Mortigam, we serve this cold," he explained, pointing a flipper-like finger toward my drink, "but I-"

"Is it Mortigam now?" Victoria asked before I did, after all, both of our PAs would have shown that the drink was hovering just a hair above 0.

"No no no, Friend Victoria, Mortigam was months ago; the closest Holiday celebration is Ovatana, but that won't be for a few weeks. When you will be long gone."

"We do have places to go, sorry," Victoria answered. She'd lost the edge on her voice ever since the explosion at Yinde's, which meant that Musc had barely heard her sound anything but uncharacteristically meek.

"No, I was not expecting you to stay, friends," Musc turned to address Victoria despite speaking to both of us. My PA chimed, letting me know the drink was safe. Was that good news? "Respectfully, Friend Victoria, please get the hell off my planet."

"'Pardon?" she asked, leaning back from Musc and pulling her wrist off the drink as it told her that she, too, was OK to drink.

"You two are very nice but," Musc stopped for a second, "but, you also blew up an entire Arctic Research base within your first afternoon of being here so-"

"Hm," I said, half as a response to that and half directly at the drink in front of me. The black liquid was too still, an oily film keeping everything steady. "That was mostly Yinde."

"And Yinde was a bad man," Musc confirmed, "bad Ottinio, who, from what you say, was making deals with bad people."

"I think technically we did a lot to keep guns off Mythellion," Victoria pointed out.

"With a big explosion," Musc said before motioning to each of our drinks. "I am not saying that I don't like you. I like you very much, friends. I am just saying you seem dangerous to have on the same planet as my family."

That was a fair point.

"From my understanding, Myhtellion is a small planet, so you would be too close to them," Musc continued, "but enough about the bad," he grabbed his bucket in both flippers and looked at us expectantly, "Fuck Yinde!"

"Fuck Yinde," I toasted back before bringing the bucket to my lips without a tenth of the enthusiasm as Musc. It took a second after the liquid touched my lips for the oily barrier to break, and let the drink pour into my mouth. Way more sloshed in than I was expected. I winced, then stopped.

The drink was somehow sweet and bitter simultaneously, but on the scale of alien drinks, it was legitimately good. You had to choke down a lot of technically alcoholic bullshit in my work.

Musc looked at me with an expectant grin, so I took another sip. An oil film was forming over my tongue, and I scraped it on my teeth to try and clean it off.

"No," Victoria dropped her bucket onto the table and pushed it away from herself. She took a deep breath and then pushed it even further away.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"You don't like it, friend Victoria?"

For half a second, I watched Victoria consider something, likely cutting her words and being kind about the drink. "Hate it," she picked up a cloth off the table and wiped her mouth with it, half spitting, "there's sugar, isn't there?"

"Of course! It makes good, strong bones," Musc stated like that was a fact for every species at the table.

"That explains it," Victoria hissed toward the bucket and pushed it even further away from herself, all the way into the middle of the table. I was going to have to ask Dvall about what Fotuans thought about sugar; she'd know.

Musc looked to me. "We don't use sugar in our bones, but it's a good drink," I explained before taking another sip. The film on my tongue was starting to feel like it was permanent and I didn't appreciate that idea.

"There we go, Friend Kingston has some taste," Musc almost bellowed. Ottinio's default volume was loud, so anything above it would grab attention anywhere other than Mythellion. After a second of quiet in response to his accurate announcement, Musc spoke up again, "Where do you two plan to go once you're off Mythellion."

"Classified," Victoria answered a little too fast.

Before Musc could ask her a follow-up question I swung in with a lie to cover for her, "We're not quite allowed to talk about everything we do down here yet."

"Ah, so you can blow up my home, but you cannot tell me what's going on," Musc pointed out; a second later, he continued, "of course I understand, friends, we are in the Commerce Port, you cannot talk about everything you want to."

I nodded along; of course, Musc understood; after all, he was making a living helping people like us break the rules and get to parts of Mythellion we weren't supposed to be allowed on.

Just as I went to take another sip of my drink and commit to having an oily tongue for a lifetime, my PA chimed, letting me know that the Dageral editor was ready to see me. I excused myself and pushed away from the table.

It might have been the middle of the night on Mythellion, but the Commerce Port and Mythellion III station above us never took time to sleep. Flying from planet to planet disconnected your sleep cycle from suns, and no matter what hour it was, there was always someone who'd just gotten up for the morning and someone who'd just hit happy hour.

Plus, I only knew it was night because we'd been on the edge of the twilight line with Yinde earlier today; at the Commerce Port, the sky through the windows was hardly a different shade of purple gold.

The Dageral, a spindly insectoid fellow with a pair of carefully dulled-bladed forearms, didn't look up from their equipment when I walked into the store, instead, their antennae read the air around me, practically waving hello. "That was prompt," they greeted.

"Just next door," I explained as I approached the counter, striding past all of the video storage store's merchandise on 'display.' This was a standard racket on new planets. Stores would offer stunning footage of the planet as their business model and make thousands on the side harvesting and erasing footage people didn't want to be held accountable for.

Of course, the footage they sold didn't stop at stunning vistas; they also made money reselling footage and experiences from the wildest things people could find on a new planet.

It was a good business model and made them good money as long as the Commerce Ports allowed them to run, which they did because, like I'd almost told Musc, it was all about plausible deniability.

Once I was at the desk, the Dageral looked up to me, three of its five eyes finding one of mine, its mandibles clicked, and two of its four dextrous smaller arms reached under the counter as two continued working on the device in front of it.

"Thank you," I said just a second before it placed the false chip down on the counter in front of me.

"It's fishing," the Dageral explained, "I made it so that you two took the boat out and met an Ottinio to show you about the species on the planet," the Dageral clicked its mandibles again, "it's a very popular cover."

"Sounds great," I answered, waiting for them to ring up the price we'd agreed on.

"Very popular."

"I imagine so."

"Have you been fishing on Ottinio yet?" it asked.

"Just work."

"You should."

"You checked out the footage on the card before you erased it, right?" By the written agreement, they weren't supposed to do anything other than skim the footage that people provided, but everyone understood it wasn't the case. It was the collective understanding that if someone in charge of wiping footage leaked, they would be shot and replaced by angry people with something to hide within a week.

"Maybe I took a look at a few of the flashy parts," the Dageral answered to maintain an ounce of deniability.

"I don't think my Ottinian friend in the bar wants me back on the planet any time soon. He's not gonna take me fishing."

The Dageral turned all five eyes to me for the first time in our conversation and stopped typing on their console. They clicked their right-bladed forearm twice. "Understandable."

"Yeah, I thought so."

The Dageral still hadn't rung up the total and spoke up a second later, "How would you feel about a discount?"

"Pardon?"

"I watched some of the flashy parts of your… escapades, and I'm currently running out of unique firefights from Ottinio to provide some of my core clients."

"Okay."

"If you would be so kind as to allow me to release that footage to them as opposed to deleting it, I can get you, let's say," they typed several numbers into the console they were working on, "a 50% discount on my services today."

That was one hell of an offer, but you didn't come out to the Commerce Port to accept the first deal, "That seems low considering the size of the explosions," I lied.

The Dageral clicked its mandibles multiple times, "Fine, then you can just-" it paused, "OK. 65%, That Fotuan-Human thing will be popular, so I can do something special for you."

"Can you take her out of the footage?" I asked.

"No. That would require too much doctoring, might as well sell a synth at that point."

I sighed on behalf of my bank account and shook my head. I didn't want to bring more attention to Victoria right now, "then delete it."

"You sure? I can do 70%"

It took everything in me not to wince as I confirmed, "Full price, delete the footage."

"As you say, boss," the Dageral said, keying in the final commands before turning the console to me to pay.

I sighed again, it was the right choice. As it was right now, the only thing standing between Victoria, myself, and an easy job was getting off Mythellion III. Once we were out in the black, there'd be no tracking us and we could take any route to get Victoria back to Fotul.

At least, that was the idea.