"Come on- let’s look this place over.”

They entered the stream of humanity walking along the main walkway. Dallas kept looking at everything he could, his eyes drawn to all things around him- the merchandise in store windows, the clothing [or near lack thereof] on the people around them. Every minute or two someone walked by with an odd kind of pet on a leash- a doglike creature with the head of a cat, a lizard that kept jumping from the ground onto the leg of its owner, slithering to the top of their head and jumping back to the floor to begin it again. Dallas blinked the hardest when he saw a middle-aged woman with pasty-white skin and blood-red lips who had her hair piled high in apparent globs with tiny birdcages nestled in the hair, with several small birds cheeping and warbling as she walked, several identical-looking young men carrying carefully wrapped packages behind her.

“What- where…?”

“Proxima four, Dallas. The ladies on the largest continent there have some ideas about fashion that are truly bizarre to the rest of us, though they see us as hopelessly bland. Ah, this looks like where we need to be.”

Dallas looked up. The door was nondescript, and there were no windows in the place they saw. But there was a sign showing a mug with foam at the top and steaming food-cubes of different colors beside it. On the far side of the sign were four words written in multiple different fonts and languages, the words ‘THE AFTERBURNER- BAR AND FOOD’ written and nestled in the middle of all the other writing and titles.

“What’s in here?” Dallas said. “Besides what’s on the sign, I mean?”

“Hopefully? A new crew to replace the ones who’re not going return to the ship when it’s time to go.”

----

Inside the bar, a different story was unfolding.

The man stood and looked with twinkling blue eyes at the pretty little barkeep-bot, whose female upper-half kept whisking back and forth along the track behind the bar.

“Those drinks ready, hon?” he said, his voice deep and rich with the sound of a man who’d had a recent success.

She looked at him, her red-irised pupils scanning his own. “Oh, yes, Mister… Joker…sir. Four bottom-feeders for you, right here!” her head bobbed and the twin black ponytails waved as she reached under the bar, her arms barely whirring as she plunked four dark-liquid drinks in long-necked glasses on top of the bar in front of him.

“Thank you much, m’dear,” he said with a smile, collecting two in each hand, his dark-skinned fingers lacing around the thin bottoms of the glasses with the ease and style that came with experience. “By the way, what time do you get off work?”

The bot blinked, then her mechanical mouth smiled as her metal digits pointed to the Bouncer-bot at the door. “I’m sorry, MIster…Joker, but my boyfriend there might get upset.”

“Not a problem, hon,” Joker said as he turned to leave, the dim light reflecting off the dark skin on his bald head. He’d spoken a little louder as we went, trying to hear himself over the group of loud, jubilant sailors who’d come in a few minutes before and begun ordering drinks almost faster than the bar-bot could scan their eyes.

He walked through the dim light of the bar, carefully moving, bobbing and weaving between a fighting couple, a despondent man holding the hand of his lovebot while weeping and a three-player card game that had all the earmarks of a fight about to break out. Finally, but without slowing down, he saw his destination table and the three sitting at it, all quiet and looking up at him expectantly.

“And here we go,” he said, placing drinks down with the ease of an experienced waiter, “One for me, One for the Red Queen,” he said, placing a drink in front of a woman with long red hair, “one for the Full House,” the drink landed with a barely discernible thud on the green felt table in front of a caucasian man with a green mohawk haircut, one whose chest was so broad and his arms so thick with muscle he seemed ready to burst out of his brown, pocketed vest and green t-shirt, “and almost last for our One-Eyed Jaquiline,” he said, putting the drink down in front of a small, slender Asian girl. She looked at the drink for a moment, her dark bowl-cut locks remaining perfectly still as her eyes blinked, one of them a dark-irised brown, the other a pure, porcelain, pupiless white.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“And, last of all, for me, he said, dropping a drink at the spot in front of the empty chair, which he plunked his bottom into and then looked at his three comrades, smiling.

The three of them stared back at him with straight faces.

“What?” he said. “I said the first round’s on me! Why the faces?”

“Where’s the new boss, Joker?” the big man said. His voice was straight and even as a school nun’s ruler.

“He’ll be here, my man. He’ll be here. Just relax! I’ve got it all under control.”

“Da, but you sait that about Fibulee,” the red-haired woman answered, her accent clipping the words more than usual.”

“Dang, woman! You Red-Star gals all get this way when you’re about to start a new adventure?”

“I think ve all git this way, Choker, ven ve are unemployed!”

“Girl, Fibluee was a lousy captain, I’ll give you that.”

“Your heart rate,” said the smaller girl, “has increased by ten beats per second.”

“Jaqueline, that don’t mean…”

“That you are lying?” said the large man, pronouncing every syllable.

“Yeah, ‘zactly! Thank you, House, for saying exactly what I was thinking! Now, Fibluee came highly recommended, but he turned out to be bad. A bad captain, agreed?”

“He put us in positions,” said House “where we could have died, and he did not have to do that.”

“Look, that’s somethin’ you shoulda taken up with hi-”

“Becauss of him, I nearly ended up decorating a bunch of scrap metal with my blood!”

“Look, Queen, I get you’re upset…”

“He owed us money from the last two jobs as well.”

“Jaqueline, I get it, I said! Look, I-”

“You said that you had another captain lined up for us, and that he’d be here. Where is he, Joker?”

Joker sighed, and looked at each of their faces. “Look, folks, I’m sorry about Fibulee. His rating said he was the real deal. Turned out he was a con man…”

“Agdanvo, poyay-novodah” said Queen.

“...who took advantage of us, and I hadda get him to fire us to get us out of our contracts. So we’ve got a black mark on our records; he’s got ‘em too! And your new captain’s gonna be here, in just…wait, did my comm just go off?”

“That’s the newsfeed, Joker,” said House.

“It sure is and…” he looked at the screen, and his eyes widened.

“Vass iss wrong, Yoker?”

“It’s just…the captain is…” he swallowed, looked at the screen, and then at the people at the table who still hadn’t touched their drinks. “Okay, time for me to confess, all. The guy I thought was gonna hire us is…”

A movement caught his eye.

“...is…”

“Your heart rate has increased another nine beats per-”

“Right over there! Hang on!” Joker ran, dodging and weaving again towards the bar.

The three remaining unemployed shipmates sat staring at each other.

House grabbed his drink and tossed it down his throat.

“Are you sure you want zat?”

“Drink’s paid for, probably. If he’s lyin’ again, the booze’ll keep my foot offa the brake while I break ‘im in half over my knee.”

----

TO BE CONTINUED....