The mare nickers, beer in hand, idly wondering whether the bartender’s head could withstand the full-breasted swing of a purewood baseball bat, or if it would crack under the pressure, severing spine, sending giblets of flatlander skull to coat the saloon floor.

You’re knackered. Boonslick is still. The moon’s boredom is poisonous.

The county of New Kankakee has a single bar. One that treats you to a smattering of traditional delicacies.

Toasted ravioli, piping hot, stuffed to bursting. Bread-cut grain spheres and pseudo-pork steaks that melt across your gums. The salty spread leaves behind a nicotine-laced aftertaste, an unintentional addition from the chef down the dusty road.

The distinct ker-chunk of the nearby slot machine, alone save for its elderly proprietor, spits out a string of losses. Its titillating holograms of dancing cowgirls are disabled on account of energy rationing, rendering it nearly analog. The gambler coughs and hocks a handful of gnarled tobacco into the corner once more, where the scrapmetal walls meet the plasticwood floor.

Ø’s fingers dance over her one-play gambling vouchers. All losses, too. You place your beer on the pile nearest you, using the recycled paper as a coaster. It melts the refuse into the table with a malicious combination of gravity and perspiration.

You’re drinking too slowly. For her, at least. She doesn’t need to say it out loud. Instead, she wiggles idly, impatiently contorting in her stained monobloc chair.

Her eyes dart out the bar’s window to the flat plains outside, beyond the scrap heap saloon in which you sit. Pre-fabricated farmhouses dot the landscape, at one point temporary, then resold and re-marketed, deployed in perpetuity. They’re lost at sea, surrounded on all sides by grains and cereals, modified and mutated for resiliency in the depleted soil. The shacks are rusted amber speckles that fill out the spackled horizon, ones that blend with Ø’s own sorrel coat.

If you don’t hurry up and drink, she’ll finish your beer for you.

“Order another round,” she says, jealous.

Her lips don’t move, her equine face perfectly still, her hooded eyes effortlessly shooting you the command. At two meters withers-to-hooves, ninety-nine centimeter circumference at the waist, a hundred-and-eight at the shoulders, perfect structural correctness for her cloned breed, she has no qualms staring down at you. Her flaring nostrils do little to cover her languid movements and burning cheeks, awash with cheap alcohol and clamoring for more.

“You’ve had enough,” you contend.

A bony hand pulls the slot machine lever. A honeysuckle voice announces another loser. The old man moves independently of your conversation, as he can’t hear you. You’re telepathically arguing through your orgones, as you do.

“I said order another round,” she demands, statuesque as always. Unmoving, placid. Like the flatlanders milling near the depot a stone’s throw away, their peyote-laced suzerainty of the fueling stockade putting the outpost of New Kankakee on the map.

The moon of Boonslick is deserted otherwise, as the farming colony’s single, unfinished space elevator in the distance indicates. The spire is the only thing rising from the flat, beige horizon, joined by the repurposed shells of multistage rockets, jettisoned from hundreds of years ago, crooked fingers reaching towards the cloudless sky.

Like a flatlander, Ø is still. Anything else, anything too quick a movement, too friendly beyond a silent nod, would be a faux pas.

“No,” you reply.

It’s been over half a year. You’ve dealt with her demands before. First on the spaceport of Xagaaga, at odds with her now deceased pirate crew. Then in New Port Moresby’s rain-filled gladiator pits, sinking, drawing you beneath the churning mud. Stuck together, conjoined at the hip, as always.

Another pull of the slot machine rattles the bar, its scrapyard construction a sorry shadow of the cylindrical shuttle capsule it once was. Its thin exterior is worn. A veteran of acidic rains, raised flat rather than tall to avoid accidental repurposing as a lightning rod. In the absence of pressure changes in the artificial atmosphere, a single five-bladed fan, no doubt a former engine, rotates above, succeeding in both sending the stuffy air into a circle, and every once in a while blowing a stack of losing vouchers onto the filthy floor, covered in peanut shells and stale beer.

The bony hand pulls the lever and another tortured croak emanates from the rusted speakers:

“Aw shucks! Try again, sugar?”

Doyle J. Lee is the man you’re hunting. A fugitive from the law, not dissimilar to you both. Several counts of violent crimes, including fratricide, arson, and inciting a riot. Defendant in multiple civil cases, none of them settled. One count of general tomfoolery which increases his total bounty threefold, as the authorities on his home planet of Washington-in-the-Shapley find themselves humiliated by his antics, and are willing to pay the extra dollar for his dispatching.

Ø tracked him here, with difficulty, to the backwaters of Echelon Consortium space. In the absence of a crew, she’s only found marginal success with her hunting. She was always a fighter, never a tracker.

It’s where she relies on you somewhat, with your knowledge of one-man escape routes, galactic foxholes where the destitute hide. Frontier paradises where exchange rates are low and the beer is cold.

But you know, honestly, this isn’t your work. Your talent, or lack thereof, lies elsewhere. Any successful hunt is the responsibility of your employer, whoever that is.

Once you departed for Meropide you received a message, just as the old man foretold. He was sloshed, too, nearly floating from the neck in guzzled Zosimosic potion, leaning on his bar-coded cottontail qiyan servant in lieu of cane. Mr. Lee is your third job this month, preceded by equally tedious tasks that keep you both awash in pre-laundered petty cash.

First was the stop-over at New Silloway, a delivery job aboard the zero-gravity financial installation. Hand-delivered, ironic to you. Courier work, ferrying some unopened letters back and forth. On behalf of finely dressed corporate stooges, sporting slicked-back hair and immaculate half-Windsors. Spezie fiends, bloodshot eyes working in some nearly-telepathic C-suite conglomeration, nervously taking antique letter openers to break the perfect seals before sweating, swearing in Down East accents.

Over the course of such “negotiations,” acting as floating ferryman for unknown contracts, you personally saw fifteen liters of gin consumed. Whatever the preferred outcome, it must have been reached. A portion of your payment came in the form of thick parchment, non-identifiable bearer bonds of The Faneuil Group, some shadowy holding company, its individual dividends sliced and contorted like sour fruit to be plucked with an Invisible Hand.

The second was for Ø, on Robichaux. Swarmed by mosquitos, you traversed the planet’s natural bayous, cross-crossed with battery-powered and mass-produced plastic bangka, shirtless helmsmen covered in black ink and a perpetual film of sweat that keep their salakot affixed on their bald heads.

Your target for intimidation smelled of chicory, a lagniappe lost on Ø as she beat him senseless. Her mission of violence came with an advanced payment of joie de vivre, addressed for her specifically, one she cherished as her knuckles battered the man. It was a thrashing executed per instructions, delivered originally in the thick Taino accent of the nameless cabaret dancer, tutti frutti hat of industrially molded paper-mâché, banana skirt—GMO grown—for decoration. Ø was careful, at first, to land her blows within the confines of the target’s alabaster suit jacket, bruising his lily-white skin beneath, leaving behind splotches of bloody purple and anemic gold.

The poor target’s suit was stained only with the hand-picked jasmine on his chest, within its center of silver a devious nova of red. But, as always, lost in her enjoyment, the victim lay on the plasticwood entryway of his own DuPont Saloon, his Kaintuck painted ladies gasping in horror. His skull bounced against the stained floor with every wound-up punch, nose broken in two places. He only frowned, effete annoyance graciously accepting the beating, not daring to fight back.

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As you restrained Ø from delivering a coup de grace, he neglected to ask who had sent you.

You almost wished he had.

Because later, as you sat at the DuPont, treated to complimentary, groveling drinks and scowls from the benefactor, his suit newly matching his jasmine flower’s red, you were handed the digi-gram. Text only. Faceless, nameless, save for “Doyle Jay Lee, Alive or Dead, By God”.

Ø’s skin crawled with anticipation. Fur pressed against filled pockets from jobs well done. She was happy to once again be a fast filly cracking skulls, her skepticism towards your employer evaporating with the steady stream of aged whiskey and greenbacks.

Which, in turn, evaporated as well, leaving you both here on Boonslick, Ø’s cheap chewing tobacco burning your tonsils with second-hand telepathy.

Transport arrives every five cycles, and you’ve been here for two. The scrap metal Quonset hut you call a temporary home is complete with a single stained mattress, pillows, and a door that closes. It’s only marginally better than the transport to the moon itself. Standing room only in the repurposed cattle craft. Stuffed between livestock and cargo, packages reinforced and shielded more than the hull of the vessel itself. Smelling of rotting, pulpy soybean.

Circumferentially, Boonslick is small. Only twelve-hundred kilometers around its waist, its atmosphere clouded with debris from dislodged rocketry and useless satellites. There’s only so much more you can take before the alcohol runs dry. So you continue to trust the advice of your employer, begrudgingly, that your stake-out will bear fruit.

It’s trust that, not dissimilar to your beer, you force down your gullet against your better judgement.

“I’m not at my limit,” she interjects.

“You’re schnookered,” you chastise back. “Find some other way to kill time.”

Her fist hits the wooden table between you both. It rattles the emptied beer cans, causing a stack of vouchers to slide and hit the ground with a puff. Her nostrils flare, upper lips contorting in an inebriated arrogance.

“There’s nothing else to do,” she shouts out loud.

It breaks the silence of the settlement. Her slurring reverberates through the thin metal walls and collides with the parked ships outside, rattling their occupants lounging in their cockpits, windows open and hats draped across their brows. The vessels’ paintjobs are chipped, discolored from atmospheric entry.

She hollers once more, growling three percent of all words said in the settlement on a given day, “I need another beer already!”

The barman nods. He’s scowling. Disappointed at the outburst, chiding the apparent impoliteness of outward discussion. He grabs another can of beer, slightly cooled, hidden in the crowded icebox.

It’ll be watery. Cheap-tasting and pulpy. A substitute for nourishment on a planet without a natural water table.

Slowly, languidly, he delivers the drink to your table, assuming that if you incomers are impolite enough to break the silence, you’re too impolite to grab it from the bar yourselves.

Returning behind his bar, the bartender wipes his hands with a filthy towel. It’s covered in grease and oil. The same one used when repairing the brittle vessels that occasionally crash-land in the nearby fields.

He licks his lips, loudly, preparing his malnourished body for the difficult task of speaking. It’s the first time you’ve heard him speak unprovoked in two cycles, and while Ø is content to lose herself in her booze, you sit on edge. Ears straining, all to enjoy the spectacle of conversation. The bartender contorts his neck, firing a glance at the old gambler, who is lost in his automated betting movements.

“Forgot to mention. Digi-gram came for you, Lee,” he whispers.

Ø pauses in the middle of her drink, her lack of slurping driving home an uncomfortable silence, announcing her familiarity. Your plastic chair creaks as you lean backwards, craning your neck towards the gambler. His right hand rests on the handle’s wooden ball, interrupted.

Until now, he’s been a wall fixture. An ornament used for decoration. His faded overalls are tarnished with black splotches almost as dark as his boots, alkyl-treated, roughout, covered in clay like the rest of his body. A canvas shirt, similarly stained, hangs at his thin shoulders. Chore gloves are at his waist, next to a holster and revolver at his right side.

Unlike before, he’s unmoving, unwilling to pull the lever again. On one of the three reels, a full-figured Jenny tilts her cowboy hat and winks, her jackpot twin sisters nowhere to be seen, lost in the cabinet’s rusted guts.

You wonder if he’s willing to gamble further.

Ø’s thoughts are garbled. They’re an alcoholic bean machine, pinballing against immovable quincunxes of habit. It’s a rapid-fire game of chance for her, another situation as dangerous as this. The can’s grimy aluminum mouth still rests on her lower lip, her dominant left arm frozen in place.

The bartender, mouth-breathing, recessed eyebrows untrimmed, licks his lips again. The wrinkles at his mouth’s edges are unnatural, brought on by sunlight and diet. His poly-leather boot squeaks against the repurposed wood floor as he takes a cautious step backward, into the bar’s lean-to safety, protected on all sides by half-empty liquor bottles, their labels faded. His unconscious, nervous swallow splits loud like dynamite through the still air.

You continue to lean backwards, putting stress on the plastic chair. It creaks, too, the stress too much for its brittle shape. You’re frozen, unsure of a next move before.

Finally, it cracks. Loudly, startling both the gambler and the mare as you plummet towards the bar’s filthy floor.

It’s less than a second before you hit the ground. Before your dehydrated cheeks can collide with spat tobacco and peanut shells. The two gunslingers, however, are faster.

Within that time, the county of New Kankakee erupts in violence.

The gambler takes his right hand off the handle, reaching below his pseudo-leather belt, jerking a hundred and eighty degrees in his spin stool promontory. He rips the revolver from his holster. Its hand-sewn, threaded with miniature vertical blue beads in serpentine patterns.

Ø crosses her chest. Her right hand, the non-dominant appendage, covered in scars that proliferate her otherwise clean pelt, reaches for one of her guns. Not the one at her waist, a polished Ponca semi-auto pistol with shredder rounds. Nor the one at her breast, the shotshell derringer good for one use only, magnetically sticking to the inside of her bodysuit’s musty décolletage. She goes lower, snapping at her elbow, snatching the Narragansett revolver at her thigh.

Gunpowder explodes, the sound ripping through your eardrums.

The gambler fires three shots, his free hand fanning back his revolver’s hammer. One shoots through the wall behind your mare, the other two into the recycled wood table, along the trajectory of where your seat once stood.

Ø fires twice, accurately. The Narragansett’s explosive round vaporizes a five-centimeter-diameter hole in his pelvis with a blinding flash of light. Its second shot ruptures his left lung, turning it to pulp and shredding it beyond repair.

She keeps firing, lost in murderous delight.

A third shot collides with patella, separating his tibia from femur. The fourth misses, blasting a crater in the wall the size of a dinner plate. Her fifth his center mass, the round entering and exiting beneath the diaphragm, missing his spine. Too clean. It finds its resting place in one of the reel’s pictographs; smack-dab in the Jenny’s coquettish smile.

The mechanism bursts, its chrome electroplating crumpling like a beer can in the resulting explosion, one that peels the wall right off its supports. Momentum tears at the stripped screws and rusted nails, tearing at floor and ceiling like an apple being skinned. Only moments after you hit the ground does the peel finally complete, one of the saloon’s four walls hitting the dusty earth surrounding the ramshackle building. The jagged molting produces a screech that travels through the pseudo-grain fields nearby, scattering vermin and flatlander alike, echoing across the moon in all directions.

Ø leans back, can still in hand, lips caressing its rim. Every drop is savored as her tilt grows, downing the drink. She grins, blushing with pride.

You stand, shaking off the sawdust, admiring her handiwork. The impromptu renovations spark low chittering as cicadas from beneath the wall’s supports wake for the first time in their brief lives, crying like the newborns they are. Ø’s can implodes in her grip, splitting hair and skin in a raucous display of self-satisfaction. She pitches it towards the sparsely stocked bar, missing the disheveled proprietor, the can landing in a tuft of overgrown sagebrush a few meters from where the wall once stood.

“I told you I was fine,” she hiccups. “Bartender! One more, for the road!”