A Quiet Drink - Day One Afternoon

“Are you seeing this?” she asked. The mule idled at a busy intersection. Marisol watched the Alliance soldier who’d been assigned to direct the holiday traffic. His rifle was slung over one shoulder, and a whistle clenched in his teeth as he carelessly waved the cross traffic through a building throng of humanity. He was doing a poor job of it, but she totally understood his distraction.

The entire Skyplex was a gaudy display of patriotism. Purple bunting hung thick from every hitching rail and second floor balcony. While the windows of the established merchants screamed animated claims of SALE!, the street vendors and carnies were getting into the action as well. They stuffed themselves into alleyways and vacant storefronts.

“Dunk a Browncoat! Win a prize!”

“Helmets fer the kiddies! Just five credits!”

“Guns! Guns! Guns!”

“Ah’m seein’ it,” Dorian spoke from behind her. His eye had landed upon a miniature shooting gallery. Children were paying a credit to point weapons at a large capture screen. Evil caricatures in brown coats would appear, only to be dispatched into bloody pixels by the gleeful youngsters. Every now and again, one would hoot with delight at destroying places labelled “enemy lair.” He watched in silence as a farmhouse erupted into a ball of animated flame. Above the scene flashed a sign…SERENITY VALLEY…Kill the cowards…Win the war. “Ah wouldn’t mind a drink.”

“Later.” The kid signaled, and Marisol gave it the gas. The mule pushed through the intersection. More than once she was forced to lay on the horn, or the brakes, as early arrivals and merrymakers lurched off the walk into her path. All the while, Marisol and Dorian kept their eyes peeled, alert for any sign of an ambush. Her pistol was tucked inside the waist of her jeans. Though she’d have preferred the show of force that was her sawed off shotgun, such a display upon her thigh would gather unwelcome attention.

Dorian tapped her shoulder. “Mah stop,” he announced. The mule ground to a halt before Comanche Apothecary. The pharmacy’s front window was nearly obscured by street vendors and barkers, but she could make out the crisp white smocks of the staff within. “Should take about thirty minutes,” he offered. “Meet yah right here.”

“Shiny.” The mule rattled to life again as Marisol goosed it into the street. After a turn and a run of several blocks, she’d escaped the carnival atmosphere of the Skyplex’s primary retail space to find a more run down vicinity. Here, among the plain storefronts and offices of service contractors and warehouses, she found CACK’S, a fulltime salvage, part time chop shop for spacers, smugglers, and boatbreakers alike.

The owner whose name graced this establishment was every bit of what one might expect. Cack was a tall, grizzled man whose greying hair was close cropped. He hunched over a crutch that served as his right leg, driven by the remnant of his right arm. “What kin I do ye fer?” he asked in an accent thick with Beaumonde.

Though her feminine sense told her that she was being looked up and down, Marisol couldn’t read the craggy face. “Firefly, class 4,” she replied. “Here’s my list.”

Cack gave it a passing glance. “Don’t fuck with windings,” he said. “I’ll cut you a break on the complete valve assemblies. “Zhao! Got a pick list fer ye. Move yer ass!”

In short order, she was looking at a dozen new air pressure valves, a package of gaskets, and two sheets of gasket material for any custom cuts. To this haul, Marisol added a gently worn pair of coveralls and work boots.

“That gon’ be it?” Cack asked.

She glanced about the dingy space. “Bottom coat,” she replied. “Two five gallon buckets.”

“One fiddy.”

She balked. “You gonna buy me dinner before you screw me?”

Cack smiled, raising the nub of his right arm. “Ain’t even had a proper wank since the war.”

“Eighty,” she countered. “How’d it happen?”

“Now who’s fuckin’ who?” he demanded. “New Kasmir. Apple…landed beside me in the trench…”

Marisol shook her head. “Griswold.” At his silent nod, she growled. “Gorram shitty way to run a war. Hundred. What unit?”

“Lucky thirteen,” Cack’s chin lifted with a long held pride. “I take it you ain’t here fer the celebration.”

“No,” she replied. “Fuel and repairs.” To the one readable question in his eyes, Marisol answered. “Fifty-second.”

The grizzled chin dropped. “You’uns was in the shit,” he muttered. “How any of ye came out that valley in one piece I can’t conjure.”

“Thirteen had it no better,” she countered. “Besieged as you were…cut off with either freezing or starving to death as your choices. Just glad we’re both standing here now to argue a price.”

“No argument,” old Cack loosed a feral grin. “Hunnerd fifteen…halfway. I’ll even throw in a couple tar brushes. But you gotta have a drink with me.”

“Deal.”

“Zhao!” Cack barked. “Load the lady’s order and keep watch over it while we write up the paperwork. C’mon.” She followed the old soldier into the windowless room that passed for his office. Therein sat a tiny, overloaded desk, two threadbare chairs, and a rusted file cabinet. A door hung open on failing hinges, revealing a closet stuffed with boxes and odd bits of a dozen boats. As her eyes adjusted, Marisol could also make out the brown knee length coat whose right sleeve was pinned up.

She turned to see his eye upon her. A shot glass passed between them. “If yer askin’,” Cack said with a wolfish grin, “I’d do it all over again.”

“Damn right.”