"So there I was, engines smashed to heck by the beast and drifting lower into the atmosphere of the gas giant, just waiting to be crushed by the pressure. I couldn't use the phasers because they would just ignite the hydrogen, and the autocannon was a lump of scrap metal on the upper hull. I looked out the front viewport, straining my eyes to spot the beast, but it had gone deep and was out of sight, but I knew it would be back to finish me off."
West
paused for effect. The ruggedly good-looking man had set himself up near the
saloon's bar and was seated precariously on the back of a chair with his feet
on the seat. He was surrounded by rapt listeners who appreciated a good fish
tale when they heard one. All had tankards in their fists, which they used to
good effect banging them on the tabletops in applause, demanding more stories
from the bard.
West lubricated his voice with a long pull from his own flagon and continued his tale. "I was just about to decide that the beast had given up on me when what should appear out of the roiling mist of an ammonia bank but the devil himself -- Dicky Moe! He was huge! As huge as legends claim, nay, huger! Half a kilometer of razor-edged wings and rending hooks shooting straight towards my poor Pequod, sickly white body and ghostly gray wings, and rising from the fiery depths like Fek'lhr himself! I had only the autocannon left so I knew I had only one shot to kill him or else he'd drag me down into the depths and finish me--"
"I thought you said the autocannon was smashed!" shouted a rough voice from the rear of the crowd.
"Well sure," replied West smoothly. "I meant that one of the barrels was smashed; the other was still good." He hopped off his chair now and struck a theatrical pose, gambling that none of these ruffians knew any Herman Melville. "So I piled upon the white razor-wings of Dicky Moe the sum of all my rage, and had my chest been a cannon, I would have shot out my heart at it!"
"I thought your ship was named the Rocinanté!" called another heckler from somewhere in the crowd.
West paused his tale. With a wry grin on his face and a mischievously cocked eyebrow, he raised his tankard in admission of defeat and said, "Yeah, that's where the story kinda falls apart..."
Amid raucous laughter and a few thrown bits of food, the crowd broke up and wandered away to other drinking-related pursuits, leaving West suddenly alone at the bar. The fat bartender was fully absorbed in wiping dirty glasses with his greasy dishrag, but the tri-vee hanging from the ceiling above the his head was showing a pretty young blonde reporting the news, something about delegates coming to Serenity, so West pricked up his ears. New visitors to the planet meant new opportunities.
West picked up the story in mid-sentence. "--a historic peace treaty. The G'kra government applied for full Federation membership two years ago, but only since the defeat of the Mulluran Empire by Starfleet and Ferengi forces two months ago have the trans-Briar Patch sectors become stable enough. Both the Federation president and the G'kra Supreme Commissar will travel to Serenity to sign the treaty, and are expected to arrive in approximately two weeks.
In related news, local law enforcement officials and Starfleet personnel are on heightened alert after several terrorist threats were made by radical activist groups both on Serenity and from nearby systems, but authorities say--"
The young blonde reporter continued her broadcast, but West had turned away from the tri-vee, having heard enough. G'kra coming here! Though their space territory was close by, the reptilian G'kra were rarely seen on Serenity for some reason. But now with the treaty being signed right here in the city, there'd be G'kra all over the place. And G'kra needed to eat and drink. At least West assumed that they did. But what did G'kra eat? He didn't know, but whatever it was he doubted there was a large supply of it anywhere on Serenity. If he could procure some genuine G'kra food and drink, he could make a fortune!
He flipped a slip of latinum to the bartender in payment for his drinks and hurried out of the Salty Spittoon, heading for the spaceport. The computer aboard the Rocinanté would be able to tie in with the Starfleet planetary mainframe, and he'd be able to find out everything he needed to know. Of course, anyone else could do the same, in which case it'd be a race to see who got the goods to market first.
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