The atmosphere of Boundless reminded me of just about every Outlaw dive I’d been in before. Inviting. Jovial. Rowdy as hell.
Unlike a typical bar with tables scattered throughout for patrons to come in and keep to themselves, the Boundless boasted six long community tables. There were no waiters or very many employees, at all—just a couple busy-looking bartenders and a cook who probably didn’t see much action. Outlaws didn’t gather to eat.
They came to drink.
The bar’s patrons gathered at various points across the tables, conversing, drinking, swapping tales, drinking, playing music, and, of course, drinking. The noise level was somewhere between a typical bar and a night club, making it possible to hold a conversation but not easy.
I pushed my way through some folks near the bar and hailed the bartender closest to me.
“A 17 Scotch Spinner for me,” I said, then turned to look at Ryuuk who was taking in our boisterous surroundings with wide-eyed wonder. “Aaand, how about a Plasma Wrench, no ice, for my friend here.”
That got Ryuuk’s attention. “Oh, heck naw! Nothing with the word ‘wrench’ in it, or even anything that sounds like a power tool.”
“Don’t worry, Ry,” I said, laughing. He was remembering the first time we met and I mixed him the “lug wrench” he requested. I’d had a little fun, which had landed Ryuuk in the lavatory. “This is an actual drink. You’ll like it. It’s probably what you were trying to order that day, in the first place.”
In record time, the bartender slid our drinks to us, pointed at a payment pad on the bar top and moved on to the next customer with a smile and a nod. It was typical behavior in a bustling establishment like this one. As much as Outlaws liked to ruminate over their drinks, they didn’t really like to wait for them or trade meaningless pleasantries about them.
Instead, Outlaws showed their appreciation to the bartenders by...well...ordering more drinks, of course.
I directed Ryuuk to a spot at one of the community-style tables near a group that seemed to be chatting casually. I had to coax him to trust me and take a sip of the drink. When that didn’t work, I reminded him that I didn’t even make the drink, so why would it be bad?
He cautiously sniffed the drink, then took a tiny sip. If he’d had lips, I know they’d have puckered by the look on his face. The lemon sours and orange bitters in the drink packed a punch.
“Hey!” Ryuuk said, when he could finally make his mouth move. “That packs a wallop!”
I simply raised an eyebrow questioningly, not sure if that was a positive or negative in his mind.
“In a good way,” he said, enthusiastically, then took another sip of the drink. This time his eyes watered a little and he sucked in air as he squinted. Finally, he let out a big sigh. “Oooohh. That’s nice!”
“This your first time in a boozer, mate?” This came from a guy sitting with the nearby group of patrons. As intended, our spectacle with the drink had drawn his attention.
“You must be one of those ‘go big or go home’ types to pick a place like this for your maiden voyage into the laaaand of libations,” the man added, lifting his glass and knocking back half of it in salute.
“Nah,” Ryuuk replied. “Just my first time drinkin’ this, uhhh...what was it called, Skye?” He looked at the glass as if it might somehow have the answer. “Monkey Wrench?”
“Plasma Wrench,” I said, helpfully.
“Right! That’s the one!” He downed the rest of it in one shot and bent forward with an almost pained look on his face as he processed the tart taste. “Whooowee!” he said, finally breathing again and shaking his head like a bird shaking water from its feathers. “I’m gonna go get another one of these.”
With that, he pushed himself away from the table and toward the bar.
“There might be some Outlaw in him, after all,” I mused purposefully aloud.
“Ahhh...I knew it,” the man said in a lightly teasing tone. “I had you pegged for an Outlaw the moment you walked in the door.”
He had a friendly face, better than average attractiveness, and a vibe about him that indicated he frequented the place often. The question of whether he was an Outlaw was undeniable. His Outlaw Mark was emblazoned across his right forearm, on display for anyone to see with his shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows. In short, he was exactly the type of person I had hoped to meet.
“Since I came through the door huh?” I said, raising an eyebrow questioningly and turning on the signature Sagittarian charm.
A friendly snicker and a murmured jibe of “stalker” emerged from one of his drinking buddies.
“Ooof,” he said, throwing back his head with a laugh. “That came out a lot creepier than I meant it.”
“Is this the part where you ask if I'm new around these parts and need someone to show me a good time?” I replied, teasingly.
He grimaced. “Maybe I should start over with ‘Hi, my name is Kason’ and leave it at that?”
“Well, that’s too bad, Kason,” I said cheekily, leaning forward. “I was going to say, yes, and yes.”
The small group of locals gathered around him laughed boisterously; the guy next to him nudged him good-naturedly.
“Cut him a break,” one of his companions, a broad-shouldered woman of unknown race, said jovially. She had midnight black skin and bright silver eyes. Her hair, also silver, was pulled back in a tight ponytail. “He’s awful when it comes to talking to women.”
“Rinada’s not kiddin,” Kason said, smiling self-deprecatingly. “It’s a well-known fact I have absolutely zero game with beautiful women.”
He knocked back the rest of his drink before continuing. “Now, the ugly ones? Oh, I’m just great with them. But, ya know, what good does that do me?”
I smiled, warming up to him and his friends and no longer needing to feign charm.
“I’m Skye, by the way, and this,” I said, nodding toward my Avian companion who had chosen that moment to return, “is Ryuuk.”
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
I paused as I took in the half-dozen drinks he was struggling to carry. “What the hell, Ry? Did you buy a round for the table?”
“Uhhh...” Ryuuk said, looking around at all of us gathered around the table guiltily, “noooo. Sorry. Did y’all want me to get ya somethin’ too?”
“ALL that is for you?” I asked incredulously. “You planning to recreate a lug wrench in your gullet?”
“I asked the bartender for another one of those Plasma Thingys and anything like it. He gave me these.”
“Don’t worry, mate. We’ll pick you up off the floor so you don’t get trampled,” Kason half-joked.
Ryuuk looked dubiously over his shoulder down at the metal floor in question then back to the spread of drinks on the table in front of him. He gave a small shrug of acceptance, clearly deciding the consequence was worth the reward.
“I wouldn’t count him out too easily,” I said, suddenly realizing how I was going to achieve my goals here tonight. “Ryuuk’s a lot tougher than he looks.”
“Really?” Kason said, surprised.
“Really?” Ryuuk parroted, though his tone was much more skeptical.
Chuckles echoed around the table as the onyx and silver woman, Rinada, spoke next.
“He doesn’t seem too sure about it,” she said, amiably. “He looks like even more of a lightweight than Kason, here.”
“Hey!” Kason protested amid fits of laughter from his companions. “Hold yah tongue, mate. I just like to keep it classy, not like you bunch of lushes.”
“Ahhh,” I mimicked his tone from earlier. “See, I had you pegged for a cheap drunk from the moment I sat down here.”
Laughter erupted all around us as Kason tilted his head back with a good-natured smile, acknowledging my jibe. He leaned forward, and the flirty tone of his voice was not lost on me.
“Is that a challenge, Skye? Are you suggesting a throwback?”
He used a common term among Outlaws for a drinking game. The rules were simple, you threw back as many drinks as you could before throwing up or passing out. Each participant took turns naming the drink of choice for the round. The loser picked up the tab at the end.
“Oh, me? I don’t think so, tender gut,” I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms behind my head leisurely. “I guarantee you don’t want to take me on, but you might prove a challenge for Ryuuk. I’d put...ohhhh 50 credits on it that he can best you in a throwback.”
Kason looked unsure of the matchup, clearly doubting Ryuuk’s worthiness as an opponent. For his part, Ryuuk was a natural at being easy to underestimate. The idea of a throwback had piqued a few ears, and the table was filling up. They were clearly in favor of watching the local lightweight take on the newcomer who couldn’t even remember the names of the drinks he ordered.
In the end, Kason gave in to the enthusiastic prompting for a matchup as our audience started chanting “throwback, throwback, throwback.” Although, I think it was my own silent mouthing of the chant coupled with a “if you dare” tilt of my eyebrow that finally put him over.
“What’s a throwback?” Ryuuk asked in his very oblivious Ryuuk way as people started clearing the table. One of the locals was named a runner for the drinks. She’d take each round’s order and fetch it from the bar.
“Just think of it as tasting all of the drinks you ordered...but for money,” I said. “And if you win, you don’t have to pay for any of it.”
* * *
An hour later, I stood on the Boundless veranda and caught Ryuuk as he came flying backwards through the sliding door. With a sigh of exasperation and a roll of my eyes, I dumped him unceremoniously onto the metal decking of the exterior platform surrounding the bar.
“I told you to keep your fists in front of you,” I said, offering him a hand to stand. “Time to go.”
Ryuuk brushed himself off and straightened his clothes as he stood. He was completely sober. Over the past hour, he and Kason had pounded down nearly a dozen drinks a piece. The handsome Outlaw had actually lasted much longer than I imagined, but he was doomed from the outset.
“Skye...” Ryuuk asked as we walked casually down the road. Red Night had fallen, adding a cozy glow to our evening stroll.
“Yeah?” I asked, tucking my hands leisurely into my pockets.
“Why am I not drunk?”
I just smiled, avoiding an answer.
“I mean,” Ryuuk continued, “we both know there’s no way I should be feeling this sober after 11 rounds in an Outlaw dive.”
Again, I just kept walking in jovial silence. Sensing his intense stare on my face, I cast a sideways glance at Ryuuk. His eyes narrowed, and I smiled.
“You cheated, didn’t you? Skye!!! I’m no cheater!”
“Relax,” I soothed. “I left our winnings in Kason’s pocket. So, no harm done.”
“But how...?” Ryuuk mused, puzzled.
“A girl’s gotta have her secrets,” I said, making it clear I wasn’t going to tell him how I’d rigged the throwback for him to win.
During our commute between Kalo-Mahoi and Rodan, I’d discovered, quite by accident, a seemingly innocuous use for my new healing/cleansing incantation. With just the smallest channeling of energy, I could cleanse the effects of mild maladies, such as drunkenness.
Every few drinks into the game, I’d wander over to Ryuuk and drop a casual hand on his shoulder, activating the ability. I disguised the action and the resulting effect by pretending to give Ryuuk a pep talk encouraging him to suck it up.
In between bouts of keeping Ryuuk from drinking himself into a stupor, I went to work on fulfilling my purpose for being there—information. The most pressing matter on my mind was to gauge how the Outlaws in this part of the galaxy felt about and dealt with Reavers. I couldn’t get the image of that destroyed ship with the Outlaw Mark on its hull out of my head. Not knowing which side of the conflict that vessel had been a part of, I chose to tread carefully before trusting any of them.
To my relief, they were just as repulsed by the Reavers as the Outlaws in the Pact Worlds, maybe even more so. Rodan was a unique planet built on the idea of autonomy and freedom, and many of the Outlaws considered the planet a type of home base. A lot of the recent Reaver attacks had been close to Rodan and affected the delicate balance of power and commerce on the planet in heavily negative ways.
During a long conversation with Rinada, I also discovered that the Outlaw ship I had seen was likely part of a security job they had taken for Great Haven. The city, fearing the recent Reaver activity, had hired several teams to protect the settlement’s interests. I was also hoping the relationships I had started tonight would prove useful in our endeavors to travel back to the Pact Worlds.
“Ok, well if you won’t tell me how you cheated, at least tell me why,” Ryuuk said, breaking me out of my silent reverie. “I thought we were having a good time with those guys...even after the fight broke out.”
As inevitably happens in just about every Outlaw dive, a fight broke out over the bets being placed on Ryuuk and Kason. We weren’t really in the center of that conflict, but it wasn’t like Outlaws to sit back and miss the fun of a good brawl.
“I went to that bar tonight to get information,” I told Ryuuk. “And check out the local Outlaw mentality on Reavers, not to mention make a few friends.”
“You can’t make friends by cheating people, Skye!”
“Stop being an old maid,” I chided. “Kason’s an Outlaw. And what Outlaw wouldn’t appreciate being so cleverly outwitted by a beautiful opponent?”
“Awww, thanks,” Ryuuk said, preening. “That’s nice of you to say.”
I just squinted at him in consternation.
“So,” Ryuuk continued, seemingly oblivious to the fact that I hadn’t been complimenting him or even referring to him at all, “you think he’ll be cool when he finds out that you cheated and made him look like a fool in front of everyone he knows?”
I paused briefly in my stride. Looking at Ryuuk sideways.
“No,” I said, contrarily. “He’d definitely be pissed. So, let’s not tell him when we see him again.”
“Wha?! But you said...” Ryuuk sputtered. “Ugh! Never mind. And how do you know we’re going to see him again?”
“I also left him my contact info in his pocket.”
“Oh, real smart,” Ryuuk said, sarcastically. “Cheat the man, humiliate him, and then tell him exactly how to find you. Are you sure, you’re not drunk?”
“I went there to gather information,” I pointed out. “Part of that is finding out how much I can trust these Outlaws, to see what kind of people they are.”
“And how is pissing them off going to achieve that?”
“If he comes after me for revenge over a harmless little drinking game, then I know what kind of person he is,” I said.
“And if he hits you up for a good time, instead?” Ryuuk prodded.
I threw a sly smile Ryuuk’s way.
“Well, then that tells me what kind of person he is, too.”