Carathis (Art)

Lovely piece of Carathis by the extremely talented Sweeney-Boo

Fear and Loathing on Vakkari Space Station.

It was longer than expected before we finally made it to Vakkari space station.

It came upon us suddenly with bright, gleaming lights and signs blaring images and advertisements across the galaxy. Intergalactic celebrities grinning shiny white teeth, or whatever they had there in place of, from screens a hundred feet high in every direction.
Noise began blaring through the ship receivers a full week before we arrived, coming in on the last bandwagon out of Alpha Centauri. Music, celebrities, news, in so many languages most of it was utter gibberish to Eugene and I.
We picked up the gist of it regardless. Fun, drink, girls, and all right this way! Only a few days away at our current click?
Well alright then. Station ahoy.

Of course we were headed there anyway.
The traffic aiming towards that chunk of the system was so dense no one would question two humans in an out-of-date clunker like ours. Just going for a few drinks and a night with someone with twice the limbs that we have.
Eugene had seen plenty of the beings of the universe, he'd been around.
Been all over, in fact, in his day. I glanced to the other seat in our tiny little cockpit and stared at him. He sat there now, in that squeaky nav seat, his old boots up on the controls, head back. Long gray hair hanging about him.
His eyes were open though, looking out into space like he owned it all and was ready to collect rent. He might have been old enough to be my father, but he still ran wild. Good spirit for a human, anyway.

We'd spread out all over the universe, Humans.
For what little remained, we still seemed to turn up everywhere. You bump into each other here and there, with not much to talk about except where you'd been in the universe and what you'd seen, maybe where you were when Earth died.
My own memories of the battle of Earth are vague at best, I was a tiny kid back then. I remember seeing the lights in the sky, the strange sounds, the rushing and the screaming and the children being told everything would be okay. I remember planet Earth out of the windows of the ship, leaving just as fast as it could scream out of orbit. I think I remember the blast, the big one, but maybe that was just how I pictured it in my head.
I'd travel with a new human here and there, drifting about as you do. I’d met Eugene only a month back, in some old station outside of Alpha. A place that collected all the residue from the known galaxy. Space crazy pilots, truckers, war heroes, losers and loners.
From the first look at him you’d know he was one of those old spacers who’d talk your ears off with stories of the old times and battles fought and forgotten. Eugene had all that, and a shitload of cash too. And means to make more, he’d assured me. But he was marooned, his ship nothing more than a sun blasted storage container.
All it would take would be a quick trip out to Vakkari, see a few sights, shake a few hands, and we’d be off. Spiraling across the galaxy with more money that we’d know what to do with.
I bought it, he seemed the honest type. At least for a man who boasted through his teeth about everything. Perhaps I’d made a mistake. The second time he told me he’d personally tangled with Queen Ecclesiastes of the Nyalak empire in the battle of Earth I began to wonder if I’d just picked up another deranged derelict. Human debris came in all sorts, far and wide.
Without a native planet to run back to for a taste of home, we’d all become transients of the intergalactic highways. Still, I’d done worse. I once traveled for two weeks with a woman in a beehive hairdo who claimed to be a famous artist, on her way to her next installation masterpiece.
It wasn’t until she was disintegrated by the law in a fast food joint in Alpha that I discovered she was wanted all over the system for decorating patrol cruisers with artistically designed car bombs.
Eugene didn’t look so bad though; yeah, I’d follow my gut. He was handsome enough for an older man, the lines that cut his dusky cheeks aged him just enough to look wise, but the shiny blue eyes that stared out from under his brow still made women go weak. He had on that old jacket, the sun blasted navy blue one that hung to his knees and always seemed to be concealing something devious. Suspicions aside, it was good to be traveling with another human.
This side of the galaxy we were still looked at a bit funny. As if it was surprising we'd made it this far without getting lost in space, or perhaps making another inter-species faux pas and nearly getting wiped off the face of the galaxy.
Other species looked at us like that one unpopular guy at the party, the one who no-one know who invited him but you had to tolerate all the same.

Eugene turned to look at me then, in that way he always does, eyes drilling into your head to pick out all the best bits, and asked me a question.
It was too sudden; I’d not managed to find my way out of my own thoughts in time.
“Say again?” I muttered. My words slurred a little. Eugene’s product was touchy on the old communication sometimes.
“You been to one of these before?” He asked. It came through clear this time.
“Space-stations? Of course, a hundred.”
“Vakkari is no space station. Not like the others.” Eugene pointed up ahead, through the cockpit windows at the glimmering red star in the blackness of space, far ahead.
Vakkari station gleamed.
“That there is a bonafide world of pleasures and decadence and pain, my friend. You stay on your guard.”
I nodded, paranoid and excited and raring for action. I reached for the bottle Eugene was shaking in my direction, and took a deep swig from it. Fire rolled down into my belly and lit my enthusiasm further.
“I’m ready. You give the word.”
“The word is relax, my young friend. As your navigator I advise a course of subtle tourism.” He snatched back the bottle. "Enjoy yourself, let me handle the hard work."
“I thought you said this was going to be a simple deal?” I asked, suddenly picturing a horde of slavering, maniacal alien gangsters chasing me with lasers and bondage equipment. Eugene spread his arms in agreement. Or possibly denial, I wasn’t sure. He took a sip.
“It will be. They can’t get enough of this stuff.”

It was true, they really couldn’t.
Eugene’s chief product was a nearly extinct species; Earth liquor.
Brandies, Bourbons, Wine and Whiskey. He had everything. Whether the man had scavenged the ruins for years after the war, or whether he had always made a habit of having a cargo hold full of the stuff for personal use, I never knew.
As well as all the booze he had the finest selection of exotic substances the universe had seen. Uppers, downers, even ones that made you go side to side, or feel like the world was turning blue. Something was fizzing in the back of my mouth now that I'd forgotten the name of, but was making everything sound like it was being yelled down a well at me by a man with a strange foreign accent. From whence all this strange and wild items came from truly didn’t matter though, as Eugene had loaded it all aboard and we were splitting it down the middle. My ship, his product.
The risk? Who would search another old clunker of a ship settling in for a drink and a game? Eugene smiled, I wondered if he was reading my thoughts, or just sharing in them.
He passed me the bottle again.
"Nerves are to be conquered, my friend. Now I'd advise you get some rest. We have a long night ahead of us," Eugene said, tipping his seat back even further, his hair falling about his face. The man could sleep through a war.
It was always a long night on Vakkari station. Said so in the advertisements.
I was staring down at one of them as I nodded off into an anxious doze, the screen blurring into a fuzzy red wash.

The navicom blazed an alarm some time later, rousing me from my reverie.
Where had I been?
Someplace warm. Space was never warm.
Sure, it got hot. On those luxury liners with the fake beaches and holographic skies and girls in digital bikinis, it was mediated to a perfect swelter. Space got plenty hot enough. But never just warm. Always too hot or too cold.
You ever been on a ship whose heating functions kick off on you? Suit up quick, because it's dropping below zero in minutes. When technology fails, vacuum sucks out your expensive heating so fast you'd think someone opened God's beer cooler.
Eugene gave a snort in his sleep and muttered something offensive at the noise intruding in on his rest.
I swatted the screen wildly, like I was waving away some blood drinking insect, and silence fell. Red light loomed before us, flooding the cabin with smooth, sultry light.
With a crackle of static and whatever pocket watch battery that keeps my monitors going, an evil face appeared on the screen before me, a young woman in a wide brimmed hat and blue lipstick, grinning as wide as she could.
Eugene awoke and screamed in shock at the face, before collecting himself and shuffling upright.
"Greetings travelers, welcome to Vakkari station. The most exciting place in the galaxy. May I take your ship codes please?"
I looked at Eugene, my finger stretching out to pound the mute button on the console before me.
"How can we trust that harpy? She'll transmit the codes to the police, blow us out the sky," I muttered, glancing sideways to see the woman's wide eyes staring at me, unblinking.
"Just security procedures, no military transport, no marked cars. You own this tub right? Legally?" Eugene asked, his eyebrow twitching at the last word.
"Of course. What do I look like? A malcontent?" I grabbed up the torn pack of smokes lingering on the console and jammed one in my mouth. The little blue tip flared to life when I bit down on the filter. Eugene declined to answer.
"Travelers are reminded there will be no smoking upon arrival in Vakkari station, please extinguish all effervescent chemicals or products until you have moved through the welcome bay.
"She's already barking orders at me goddammit! They'll stop us breathing next!" I rolled the cigarette back and forth in my mouth and wondered what the penalty was for disobeying the demand.
"Just answer her already, we'll start to look suspicious floating out here much longer," Eugene cautioned, searching his vast greatcoat for something.
I nodded. He was right. Orbit the station long enough they'd surely think we were aiming something at them.
I lifted my finger from the mute.
"No, ma'am. No fruits or vegetables aboard. Travelers from another world looking for a good time. What was the question again?"
The face continued to smile.
"Your transport codes sir," she repeated. I wondered how long it would take before the smile cracked her face in two and the top bit tipped off like a carnival coconut.
"Of course, why didn't you say so. Treble-D one-zero-two-six-nine. And that ticket is paid, before you ask. They're working on my account. You know how it is."
"Yes sir," the face disappeared to be replaced with an advertisement for a gentleman's lounge. Eugene perked up.
"Hmph, that's it. That's where we're headed," he said, gesturing at the screen. Lewd figures gyrated before our eyes. Hypnotic.
"You're taking me to this den of thieves? Dammit Eugene, we'll both be killed there."
"Relax. I know my way around these places. I'm familiar," he folded his arms behind his head and stared out at the immense station that loomed before us, a hundred stories high and a few miles long, emitting red light from diodes every few feet. The thing seemed to be baking in its own lighting scheme.
The advertisement continued, I started to panic. It was taking too long. Just a ship code check. They've rumbled me, I thought.
My cigarette flared bright blue as I took a breath. I owned the clanker alright, but I'd bought it from a shady man in a tweed suit and a fez who'd only asked a handful of cards for it. I had no idea where it was from.
The screen flared back to that face again, staring, smiling. Here it comes, I thought.
"Thank-you sir, please proceed to dock thirteen. Your welcoming party will take care of your vehicle. All travelers are reminded that there will be no smoking upon.."
I jammed the off button with the flat of my thumb and she disappeared.
"Unlucky for some. Good God that was close. These people are savages, Eugene," I mashed my cigarette out into the eye of the camera in the console, fearing they'd still be watching me sweat. Eugene had tapped up the necessary commands and we were slowly drifting into our designated docking bay.
The red haze from outside slowly being replaced with the dark shadows as we slipped into the wide, flat docking area. Darkness loomed. The bay yawned like some great beast swallowing us up. What would we find in there? I was starting to get the fear.

The ship came to a neat rest in the loading bay, decorated nicely enough for a den of thieves.
I shook my space terrors off as we staggered to our feet to head out. Eugene tugged on his tattered gray cowboy hat, pulling his face into shadow, his heavy old coat trailing around him as he headed off to the loading platform.
I decided I'd dress up for the experience, looking my best would settle my nerves, so I pulled on my sharpest pair of pressed pants and a good shirt, a red sharkskin jacket over the top.
My special glasses, the little round ones, rested on my forehead. Walking down the platform towards our greeting party we must have looked pretty sharp.
Two pretty girls were there to greet us. Human even, which was nice.
In the costume it seemed that all female employees wore aboard Vakkari station: not an awful lot, a skintight top with a little jacket and a wide skirt that flared out in all directions. Naked thigh was showing over the rims of knee high boots. The heels on those things looked sharp enough to kill a man with.
Maybe that was their plan, I wondered, lure us in with smiles and bare flesh and then stab us in the gut with spiked heels.
I thought that until I saw the third member of the greeting party, which left no room for half assed intimidation tactics. He stood a full foot higher than even Eugene, at least seven and a half feet, and almost that across. Arms like a gorilla folded over his tank-like chest, and a face like a slab of salt-beef staring back at us. He was smiling, I think.
I flicked down the rims of my glasses over my eyes and rubbed the top thoughtfully. Not entirely thoughtfully of course, but a quick rub was all that was needed to activate them.
In shades of ghostly green I glanced over the landing parties clothing layers. The big lug at the back had a gun the size of a puppy under his coat, even both the girls had tiny little pistols nestled in shoulder holsters beneath their jackets. I nodded appreciatively at the polite greetings and tipped the glasses back. Everyone was armed on these things, surely, nothing to be worried about.
Maybe Eugene was right, maybe I was paranoid.
"Welcome to Vakkari Space station gentleman!" the first of the girls beamed at us, thrusting something out as us. I jerked my arms back defensively, what was she thrusting my way uninvited? Eugene snapped it up with deft fingers, squinting his eyes at it. A flier.
I thought we were safe for a moment before the second woman produced a mechanical device and pointed it at the two of us. A little light dotted out and shone in mine and Eugene's eyes for a moment. It felt like staring into the lights for too long at a good gig. Stars swam in my vision for a moment.
Eugene coughed politely.
"Welcome," the huge figure behind them rumbled. Then silence for a moment.
"Names sir? How long will you be staying aboard?" one of the girls asked, perkily. I looked down to make sure I wasn't wearing a name tag or anything.
"Jan Killigrew," which is not my name, how clever of me, I thought to myself. Then immediately looked at Eugene to be sure I hadn't added that out loud. No stare came back at me, I probably hadn't. I fiddled with the setting on my glasses.
"Eugene Torquemada. And just for the night, thank you," he smiled, she visibly melted.
"Welcome," The brute muttered, nodding his head. Probably the only English he'd been taught on the job. I nodded thoughtfully at him as if he'd just quoted Nietzsche.
"You too," I blurted out at the girl whose shiny white teeth gleamed up at me, "I mean of course. We're here to..."
Eugene nudged me in the ribs before my hesitance rumbled us. What had I been about to say? 'Hello, we've come to sell illegal merchandise all over the galaxy, and my glasses can see you're not wearing panties. How's the steak on Vakkari?'
"We're here to drink till we puke, and visa versa," Eugene said, nodding up at the big bastard who kept on smiling, even as he reached down to scratch his ankle without needing to bend over. Directions and accompanying hand gestures were hurtled at us, faster than I could pick anything up, and then swiftly ushered through into a long circular corridor lined with so many lights I had to check my hands to be sure I wasn't seeing double.
I checked Eugene's hands to make sure he wasn't seeing double either.
He had the flier in one of his hands, and tossed it to me as we began our stroll down the long corridor of certain doom.

"Creeping hell, not one of these places again," I muttered, the flier was blaring a gentleman's club at me. Intergalactic style. I was scared already.
"It's where we're meeting our boys actually," Eugene said, rubbing his eyes with the back of his cuff. The lighting in this place was weird, ethereal, came from everywhere at once and lingered long after you closed your eyes. You never see a shaky light bulb hanging from a spaceship ceiling would you? Course not. I tripped over my own shoes keeping my eyes closed for too long. Eugene dragged me up to my feet by the collar.
"Easy there son... Nothing to worry about." He nodded.
No one ever said nothing to worry about in a safe situation. I'm alone on a pleasure yacht in deep space. Monsters around every corner.
I screamed as a door shuttered up and open to my side. All of sudden we were surrounded. People on all sides, we'd stumbled into some god forsaken slaughter house, headed for the grinder in a sea of crazed smiling faces.
Eugene grabbed my arm and tugged me forward through the surge of people, races from all over the universe trod with vast heavy steps or tiny patters of feet, hooves, shoes or whatever they happened to be born with.
My sunglasses went haywire with motion, I found myself assaulted by all manner of secrets concealed beneath the clothing of the school. Every other crazy bastard on here was armed, what had I walked into? My heart was pounding in my chest like a rabid dog fighting to break its chains.
I've had it; I thought to myself. We've wandered into hell itself, hidden away in the middle of deep space all this time waiting to lure mankind here with the promise of booze and naked alien girls.
I'd almost lost my remaining sanity when I was tugged up a side street all of a sudden by Eugene's grip.
Practically sprinting the last few feet, I found myself leaning forward over a waist high counter peering into the huge white eyes of a blue woman in a dress suit. She stared at me expectantly. What did I have to say to her? Preferred method of execution?
"Intoxication, of course," I confessed. Eugene pushed me aside and held me by the collar so I wouldn't keep on going.
He slapped down some papers on the desk before the girl.
"Just a quick room for the duration of our stay, my love." He said, suave as ever.
The girl batted two sets of eyelids, one horizontal, one vertical, and her seven fingers darted across her computer pad.
"All set sir!" She chirped, somehow she sounded like she was from southern California, "Floor seventeen, room 402. Enjoy your stay!"
Eugene had gotten us a room, the genius! A safe haven from the carnival of horrors inflicted upon us moment after hellish moment.
In short order we were hustled down another long, noisy corridor full of tourists and punters until we were crammed into a square room the size of a large car.
The doors closed mechanically in front of us and I shifted awkwardly. Wherever you go in the universe, the elevators are the same. Like some gigantic conspiracy against the claustrophobic.
I looked up at Eugene who was staring forward, eyeing the doors with his unconcerned eyes.
How did he get so calm?
I glanced behind us, the room had an assortment of guests all heading to their rooms, squashed shoulder to shoulder. The room hummed ever so briefly, and the doors opened.
"Was that it?" I glanced around me, Eugene stepped forward, "Thing barely hiccuped."
"New technology, the elevator stays still and the whole ship moves around it lightening fast," Eugene said as he headed off down the checkered corridor with translucent floors looking down onto colourful neon revelry in rooms below.
"Gods, what has science done? Are you sure man?" I asked.
"Of course not you gullible mug. Zero G. No friction in the shaft is there?" he barked over his shoulder. I nodded.
"Hmm. Use space against itself. Steal its secrets. Smart thinking. Now where's our room? We need to see if it's defensible."
I would turn that place into a bomb shelter if I had to to get a good nights sleep.
Was it even night? I had no idea.
Vakkari space station seemed like ten-thirty all the time. Perfect time, locked in perpetual revelry. Never too early to drink and gamble, never to late to enjoy yourself without fear of the feel the regret for your actions creeping up on you and curling you into a ball on the floor of your suite.

The corridors seemed to go on forever, stretched out at the far edges into infinity, turning corner by corner, following Eugene's lead.
Eventually we came to our door and Eugene's presence blinked it open in a flash.
Immediately I vaulted over the couch and to the window. God. It was a perfect view of the emerald blue seas of Thailand.
Ships glinting in the distance, horizon sparkling with golden sunlight.
My face jammed itself against the window frame trying to see around the illusion. This close I could hear the waves crashing.
"Incredible. They have the Earth in a box on the wall," I said to myself. Eugene was busying himself already at the bar to one side of the wide room.
"Gets picked by your species, have it all fixed up that way. Take your pick," Eugene quipped, he tossed me a small device shaped like an egg.
I rolled it in my hand and squeezed it experimentally.
The shores of Thailand melted away to a dense rain-forest, fog on the ground, vines and creepers everywhere, green trees looming. Here and there some exotic bird of paradise shot by like cars crossing the street in flashes of red and blue.
"Hell, I wonder if they have the sports channel," I said, my eyes lit with glee. I missed Earth.
My hand squeezed and my face in turn was subjected to European coastlines, Arctic tundras and city vistas populated by thousands of travelers.
"So this is where the human race went."
My hand squeezed one final time and left us looking out on a sun drenched Caribbean beach as if it was right out a ground floor window, complete with a dozen or so stunning young women sunning themselves close by. Eugene pointed with one hand clutched around a highball glass.
"Turn it counter-clockwise, I like those ones," he asked. I complied. The girls bikinis all dissolved away.
"Good God. That one's even a natural redhead. They know my weakness Eugene, they're in my head!" I fled from the window to hide behind the bar. Eugene shifted a glass my way and I hungrily jammed it to my lips.
"Careful son, don't make a scene. They'll send hotel security up.”
I looked around the room suddenly, seeking the telltale black marks in the walls suggesting nasty little devices used to see me through.
Those rat bastards, spying on me before I'd even settled in. I made my way immediately to the restroom to take a glorious shit and hope someone was watching. Let them choke.
I locked the door behind me and checked for traps.
You could never be too sure, but I was confident I could protect myself with my wits should lasers shoot from the walls.
As I sat there on the blinding white human style toilet, glass in hand, I had time to think about life.

I do all my best thinking in that room actually. It's peaceful there. I stared at the advertisements on the back of the door and wondered how I was going to get myself off this station alive.
Where had I been going before I'd met Eugene? I can barely remember.
Transient ways, shooting all over the known galaxy, leaving behind wrecked hotel rooms and mysterious little messages written on food packaging in my wake. Who was that masked man? Would we ever know?
My thinking was interrupted by a hammering on the door.
“Good God man give me some peace! I have paperwork to do in here!” I screamed at him.
“Catch up my friend. As your navigator I advise at least one good drink before any attempt at business is conducted,” came Eugene's voice as he stepped down the corridor.
By the time I emerged from the room Eugene had another glass he thrust into my hand and clinked his own into each of mine. It smelled like anger and ambition and I knocked it back in one go.
“Good man. Now get ready, we've got girls to look at.”

Have you been to one of these intergalactic strip clubs yet? They have warnings on the doors for a reason.
My personal advice? Don't touch anyone dancing on a stage, you have no idea what you're touching on half of these things.
That might look like a hand, but you never know for sure until some huge alien bouncer with a face like a gorilla grabs you and tosses you out the front door while you try to explain to him you were only shaking hands. Also, don't go near the drinks bar unless the bartender is human.
What goes down smooth for some quadruped insect banker from the farthest stars will go through a human digestive tract like nuclear weedkiller, and aliens just love their pranks.
Eugene strolled in like he owned the place. Brushing out his hair with a practiced wave of his hand and winking at the closest dancer, who was the colour of good salmon and had eyes large as my fist. Some sort of fin organ breathed rhythmically down the back of her neck, and I wasn't sure whether she wore some sort of outfit or just had vibrant skin markings. That's the problem with alien girls, you never know what part to stare at.
"C'sorren," Eugene said through the side of his mouth, noticing my gaze, "Amphibian. Kinda wet to the touch, make an awful mess of the place. Wouldn't recommend it."
"Good to know," I nodded, adding the information to my vastly inadequate mental library of alien knowledge.
I'd not seen that many in my time jaunting about the universe, in all honesty. Sure I'd seen the commonplace races, the intergalactic power players with an embassy in every system. You start to learn who's who by the shape of the front doors and how many bathrooms they needed to accommodate all the varieties.
“Right, I'll leave you here for a moment, I have business to attend to,” Eugene turned on me. At his back was a shady looking table, a few wild eyes among those in the booth peering out at the club around them, the rest directed inward at the table.
“You're leaving me here with these people? What're you doing to me man? I'll lose my mind here. Jackals in G-strings, all of them.”
“They're fine, make a friend. I need you looking relaxed. I have to arrange the meeting with our man. Secretive sort, from what I hear. But they say he also has the most beautiful big silver ship in the galaxy, so he must be loaded.”
“Mysterious rich people freak me out Genie. I prefer talkative losers.”
Before I had any more time to explain my case, Eugene shoved something into my hand, small but heavy.
“Why are you handing me this burp gun?” I whispered. The little pistol was black and looked like the sort of deviant sex toy they sell on Mars.
“As your navigator I advise observation and careful judgment. I'm dealing with scumbags here and you are my backup. You can shoot straight.”

He was right, I was a damn good shot.
The clunker I rode in always had a small arsenal, it had gone untouched until I'd rode through the honeycomb cities of Inner Europa and met a girl with green metal hair and a bionic arm who had taken it upon herself to teach me the joys of gun play.
We would sit out on the moons surface naked, shooting at passing tourist vehicles and drinking wine squeezed from the small bugs lurking in the ground. Old fashioned romance.
After we parted ways I'd kept up my shooting practice every time I was involved in a situation of absolutely unavoidable violence, like being cut off on the road or someone spilling my pint in the bar. I slipped the little gun into my belt subconsciously.
“Alright, I've got your back. As long as you've got mine. These women are more dangerous than they look. Think of them as colour coded. Red means stop,” I whispered, looking around. A woman in metal and rubber body armour with eyes glowing like gleaming white torches turned her gaze upon me, dazzling me for a moment. She batted her eyelashes and bathed the area in front of her with strobe.
“Just act natural,” came the next advice from my navigator, before he was gone into the darkness of the booth.
The worst advice anyone can ever receive. Nature is terrifying.
Did he expect me to leap upon the nearest woman and mount her whilst ripping the flesh from the thigh of a freshly killed rival? That would be the most natural thing to do.
I'll play it off light, I decided. The blazing light from the dancer's eyes was affecting my brain, so I headed in the other direction, elbowing my way through a jungle of light and sound and bodies. When I finally came to a clearing, all the inertia went out of me and I was tossed like a rag doll forward until the bar hit me in the gut. Folding myself over it as best I could, I summoned the bartender.
“Nurse! I require assistance!” I yelled as loud as I could over the noise. I could barely hear myself. Had I spoken at all? No way to be sure. I opened my mouth to yell again before the bartender materialized in front of me, a frown on her feral looking face.
Even the bartenders were naked In this place. The one that appeared before me was the professional among them apparently, her chest and crotch obscured by the trademarked glitchy moving mosaic of a digital bikini.
“Stop yelling. I can hear you, you noisy fucker,” She growled.
She wasn't lying, her ears were triangular and rose higher than her haircut.
“Listen to me, Blurry Fennec Fox woman, I require a drink suitable for human consumption. Nothing sinister. I'm watching you.”
She was deft, I'll give her that. Her hands moved so quickly among the hundreds of coloured bottles behind her I had no idea what went into that drink. She gave it a swirl with a little blue stick that dissolved shortly afterward and placed it in front of me with a bang.
“Money.”
“Parasites, each and every one of you,” I muttered on reflex, as I offered a card of credits up. It disappeared quick as a flash into the hands of the fox woman-thing and then she was gone, with barely a shake of her tail to mark her passing.
Women mystified me. Better to forget all about her.
I took a deep drink of the concoction placed before me and tasted marzipan and hardwood varnish. Not cheap varnish though, the stuff you'd hit teak with. Went down smooth with an aftertaste of aniseed that clung to the back of my throat like a drifter wanting pennies.
It was good stuff.
The throng around me shifted. They'd spotted the weakness, I had been served, and my time had come. I was lurched backwards from the bar, leaving room for the next soul searching to quench his thirst. Elbows found my gut and I dodged backwards, attempting to protect my precious beverage in its tall glass.
I stepped back, watching the breach in the crowd fill behind me like the red sea, and turned a moment too late to save myself. A subtle change in the surface underfoot gave me the warning that made my gut sink into my knees. I’d done the worst thing possible, and stepped onto the dance floor. Immediately I was beset by gyrating forms, limbs and hair and tentacles all over, moving to the music with military precision.
The dance floor was more dangerous than any battlefield. It would draw you in with promises of glory and social success, and leave you broken and embarrassed at the end of the night with nothing to show for it but an empty credit chip and bullet-holes all over you. One moment of weakness in your practiced movement and they’re on you like wolves.
Can’t afford to make a mistake. Don’t act too showy. Take it slow, no unnecessary risks.
I moved my arms a little side to side, just enough to fit in, but not enough to stand out. Catch too much attention and you’re a goner.
You can move your head or your hips, but never both at the same time, or you're a dead man. I settled for a swinging of my arms as I stared down at my feet and wondered how those boots had got there.
I realized I was looking at someone else's feet, and when I followed the appropriate limbs up I found a man dancing so close to me I lurched back in shock.
He was smiling like some twisted Tibetan demon, and leaned forward to say something to me in a casual, friendly manner.
Regardless of his friendly demeanor, his over exertion on the dance floor gave me the urge to kick him in the balls like a rabid donkey and escape into the night.
“Have you been to the beach?” was what he had said, and I let it process for a moment.
“The beach? I haven't been to the beach since I was a kid. Unless you count one of those Godless fake things on the pleasure-crafts, is there one here?”
“It's great man, you got to go! Take a load off, meet some girls!”
“God man, the last thing I need it to take a load off. Someone'll make off with it. I've none to give.”
“You got to see the one they have here. The sky opens straight out onto deep space, no shields, it's so clear, like staring out into dreams man.”
“Two places I never stare, out into space, and in the mirror. You never know what's staring back at you,” I replied, trying to gyrate my body away from the limpet-like man and towards my own space.
It was then I realized that I was trapped, suddenly blocked in on all sides by twisting, shaking forms. All either possessed or in the throes of grand mal seizures, it was impossible to tell which, the forms had become legion.
I went for the only gap I could, squeezing between the gut of a great biped with skin like moss and navels everywhere and over the shoulders of a woman with three elbows and eyes that glittered like a disco ball.

Why hadn't I quit this business when I'd had the chance? I should never have stepped onto a dance floor again, It was suicide.
Tumbling and turning through the crowd, I found myself suddenly airborne.
I wasn't sure if it was the surge of the crowd or the effects of the drink the strange girl had poured me, but my ascent was short lived.
Soon enough I returned to earth, miraculously delivered into the arms of a chair on the far side of the dance floor. Like emerging from the heart of darkness, relief flooded over me.
I sank back in the deep, comfy chair I'd been thrust into and tried to relax.
It wasn't easy. I'd never been comfortable around women when they were clothed, let alone in what these girls were wearing. I busied myself looking at my drink as if it were in deep conversation with me.
Legs appeared before me, long and sleek and tinted the deep blue of a tropical ocean. I glanced up, prepared to defend my chair to the death.
The completely nude Nyalak girl who stared down at me didn't smile back, but she leaned forward and licked me from chin to forehead all the same. I reeled in shock, about to claw my way through the back of the chair in terror.
I'd never seen one in person before. Earth Eaters.
I tried to sink further into my seat as she started to sway, wondering if I'd melt through the material if I tried hard enough.
She was six feet tall, slender as a willow and bore the piercings and claws that all human kids get told horror stories about. Naked though, I was disgusted to realize they looked very good.
I tried to remember just what the silver piercings in her collarbones meant, but cohesive thought failed me. The rest of her body almost looked soft enough to touch, not that much different from the configuration of a human woman this close up. I took a good swig of my drink and felt the cold run right through me, wishing it would douse the heat swelling further down.
Eugene strolled past at that point, glanced the girl once over, and gestured to me that it was time to up and away.
I was beginning to rise to follow him, but she was quick.
Her claws came out and shoved me back down, and a long leg kicked out to hold me down with just enough pressure on the crotch.
She bent over me, black dreadlocks trailing along my legs, her breasts dangling pendulous before my eyes.
Each dark nipple was pierced with a curvy little silver coil that dangled down and swung with movement.
The bitch was hypnotizing me with her tits! Could they do that?
She barked a command to me in her language. She may have had the breasts and lips of some wild blue calendar goddess, but the Nyalak language was straight out of nightmare.
I fumbled in my pockets and tugged out everything I'd been given earlier.
Her long clawed fingers coiled around the cards, and she smiled so wide that fangs were showing at the corners of her black lips.
Her foot moved expertly from a threatening pressure to a caressing suggestion. I muttered my best excuses and forced my way to shaky feet.
She called after me as I staggered off, and it took me a moment to realize she'd spoken in English that time. The voice felt like a fingernail dragged down the back of my spine as I trailed after Eugene.
"Run," she had said.

Eugene claimed to have had run ins with the Nyalak in the past, but I was skeptical.
The last time the human race got into a minor misunderstanding with them they turned up on our doorstep to express their distaste.
Humans lucky enough to be off-world at the time were left flying about the solar system like an old man wondering how they'd forgotten where they'd parked the planet.
I fumbled awkwardly with the crotch of my trousers as I walked, the woman-things caresses having elicited a definite response.
Of course, A few years in space without a woman, I should have expected nothing less.
I glanced back.
She stood facing me. Clawed hands upon bony hips framed her exposed vulva. I quickened my pace to escape before I did something foolish and utterly unavoidable.

I rushed to catch up with Eugene, he was a man driven, strolling with a confident swagger.
I tried to match it but ended up looking like a penguin pimp and decided that hiding in plain sight would work better. I grabbed a menu from an eatery we passed and began to read aloud the dishes as we went.
I was making myself hungry by the time our journey ended, and Eugene halted me with a hand to the chest in the middle of describing dessert.
I looked up and coughed week old smoke out of my lungs.
“You bring me to this place you madman?”
The sign indicating the beach glared down at me, lit red like Hell's own restroom sign.
This is it, this is where the world ends. I knew it right then.
“We're meeting them here, just a quick deal and it'll all be sorted. If I signal, you raise hell, alright?”
“Raise it? God man, we're already there. Abandon all hope all ye who go to the beach.”
“Take another sip, man, and get crafty. I need you in there.”
Right. I steeled myself with the last of my drink and placed it and the menu in my shoes as I stepped out of them.
As we passed over the threshold into the beach-room, the sand between my toes gave me a wash of dysphoria that almost pitched me over. I made the mistake of looking up and space yawned down at me from a dome a million miles across.
Eugene flashed a smile at the huge guards that were frisking people down at they entered.
“It's a humdinger in here Eugene. I don't know how you handle it.”
Eugene looked back at me as he swaggered out past the guards, gestured over the sparkling synthetic sand.
“Force of personality, as your navigator I'd advice taking up a post close by. There's our boys.”
He was gesturing to a table out on the sands, where sat an arrangement of severely shady looking sons of bitches.
This was it, the big deal. The men who would make us either incredibly rich or incredibly dead right here on the beach under the unforgiving eyes of space.
The bar at the side of the room stretched from the door right on into infinity, as if to serve the masses all at once, and it truly was the mightiest bar I had ever seen. It made me long to have met it under better times. I sighed, and tried to get settled.
I couldn't help myself but look up again into the black. The infinite loomed beyond the false sun lighting. I sneered back and produced my cigarettes.
In less time than it took me to regret my life choices one of them was on me, this one in a bikini designed to expose as much green flesh as possible whilst still maintaining a legible Vakkari Space Station logo on the chest.
“No smoking on the beach deck sir!” she chirped through a mouth that bisected in the middle with four fangs that quivered as she spoke, “Please relocate yourself to one of our many designated smoking areas to enjoy your stay in the maximum possible comfort!”
I found myself ushered towards a quarter of the beach full of heavily smoking nihilists. I suddenly lost the buzz of smoking where I wasn't meant to be and started taking in my surroundings.
There were dozens of beautiful and alien serving girls tottering around providing drinks, and all variety of monstrous clientele filling the synthetic nightmare that was the deep-space beach resort. Up on the wall a hundred feet above us there was what looked like a giant bath plug, with metal clasps all around it, inevitably to keep the space out. Or the freaks in.

God I was overdressed. I glanced around to see if there was a good clothing store around where I could pick out something dazzling, but was called back to reality by the hacking of a gnome-like little person nearby who couldn't handle his cigar.
I could see Eugene take his seat at the booth a few dozen yards away, in conversation with the ape who was buying all our illegal goodies.
The buyer looked the type you come to expect.
When they come in the normal flavours: sleazy, twitchy, ugly and weird, you can relax, you can usually get the measure of them soon enough.
It's when you get the variant criminals that you need to worry. The ones that are sophisticated, smooth talking, silver tongued. You'd be in the middle of selling a crate of smuggled wolpertingers or a bag of banned books from the old world, and with your regular sleazy criminal you'd know where you stand. If it was one of those silver tongued bastards though, suddenly you'd have the horrible realization that might be talking to a politician instead of criminal, and all bets are off. A standard criminal will pop off a few gunshots at you as he steals your car, when dealing with politicians whatever happens he'll manage to screw you over, piss on your kids and fuck your wife.
Eugene was in my face when I came back around, and then the world turned over when he barged into me.
Apparently it was the common garden criminal variety we were dealing with after all. I hit the floor with a grunt and lost my cigarette, and fumbled instead for the gun Eugene had forced upon me earlier.
People were running in all directions. I hadn't ever seen people scatter at a synthetic beach. It was like a good old shark attack again. This was the true Earth experience, they should charge extra for this.
“They'll never pay extra for this! What did you do man? I told you bringing us here would get us killed!” I yelled.
Eugene was sat with his back to the table that was shielding us, as we were being shot at, of all the things to do at the beach.
“Turns out I know the guy. He must have a good eye for faces. I think I ripped him off back in the good old days,” Eugene said, as he went about the complex business of loading the gun that he produced from his coat. The thing looked like a throwback to wars before I was born. With a multitude of clicks and a flick of his wrist, the thorax of the thing spun shut and locked into place, and Eugene nodded at me.
“Could've happened to anyone, really. You ready?”
In my head I said something that was no doubt inspired or courageous, but I was staring at his shirt. There was sauce on it. He went to eat without me, the bastard.
I decided to get him back for that later, as we both aimed to return fire on Eugene's old friend and his troop of goons.

I got to wondering who they might be as my little pistol blasted away in gleaming flares. Did they sign up for this? Did they always come to the beach to start gunfights?
A shot took off my hat and parted my hair on the wrong side. I returned at the ugly one, the one of the left, and blew a hole in him the size of a dinner plate.
“Where did you get this thing, man?” I asked conversationally, starting to enjoy myself. I'd forgotten what a good shot I was. A showgirl bounded for cover behind the table beneath us and was clutching onto Eugene's legs, eyes wide with panic.
The one Eugene had been dealing with, who I realized now was on the tubby side and certainly looked like he needed a drink, was yelling. I took aim down the barrel of my weapon, but he ducked just before I could make him regret ever coming to the damn beach.
Coming up behind him were what looked like an army of security guards.
“They here for us or them, Genie?” I mumbled, wanting a cigarette badly.
Eugene sucked in air through his teeth and shrugged.
“Yeah, they might have run me through the system. Might be us.”
“Damnit Eugene, how many systems are you wanted in?” I fished for a cigarette and found to my delight I could light it with the barrel of my little gun.
“I'm known in a lot of places, I'm a memorable guy. Fix this.”
“Fix this? This is your problem. By all means I could up and leave.”
“As your navigator, I know you're a better man than that,” Eugene said, looking me in the eyes with an eyebrow slightly raised.
“You do know me well, and I am a good man. Right. When I say run like you're being chased by Hell's own horde as close to the wall as you can, you do so, got it?” I shuffled to the edge of the table and braced myself to move.
“Where are you going?” Eugene asked he let off a few more rounds at the approaching army.
“There's a weak spot In the beer cooler.”

I ran for it, cigarette clamped in my teeth, across the empty gap to the bar.
The oncoming security bastards numbered in the few dozens, and apparently decided I was a worthy target, and opened up. Bullets hits the walls around me as I tossed myself over the bar and came crashing down into a wall of drinks on the other side. I peered over, angry at myself for forgetting my hat, and waited for the army to come for me.
Apparently I wasn't high on the radar, as most of them just kept going straight for my navigator anyway.
“Well, now or never then,” I said to myself, before spitting my cigarette out and yelling at the top of my voice.
“Eugene! Leg it!”
I saw the swoop of his hair and his coat as he began to move, and I saw the opposition raise their weapons.
I pointed my own weapon straight up, and sent one off into the big stupid plughole.
That thing was not reinforced for weapons of this magnitude.
It popped out like a cork and promptly started taking the beach with it. Cracks began shuddering through the skies above, and I watched helplessly as my hat was the first thing to fly off into the depths of space.
Time had come to make myself scarce, and I threw myself down the bar towards the entrance, following its gleaming sides all the way back. Bottles had started flying, and I could feel the incredible force of the big outside beginning to pull at me.
The poor mooks from the invading security army had no such luck, being halfway over the sands when I'd popped the cork, they were grabbing onto tables, handfuls of sand, and each other in an attempt to drag themselves back to something welded down.
Upon reaching the door, I looked for the security seal that would complete my plan and seal off this room from the rest of the station.
How befuddled was I when there was none. They must seal these things from elsewhere these days. I stuffed my gun into my belt, and ran.

   The hallway blared with noise and sirens and the cries of the angels themselves as I struggled down it, still pulled by the rush of air as automatic doors tried to close and found their guts struggling with the forces of the universe.
Step after step I could do nothing but pull myself down the hallway.
Was Eugene alive? Did he make it out, or had he fallen to the depths of the big black like the gun toting gorillas I had seen spiraling off, no doubt belching obscenities at me as they went.
I couldn't care less about those evil bastards.
If I found out any of the serving girls had bitten the big one it would weigh on the old conscience though.
The hanger bay came into sight ahead, the corridors converging with panicking people, crazed tourists, looters grabbing anything that wasn't nailed down or flying down the corridor like a projectile.
My sunglasses flew off my head faster than I could snatch at them, blasting off on their own little journey into the unknown. Goddamn, I'd have to get a new pair. My whole outfit was falling apart on this trip.
As I gripped onto the last corridor edge before the portal to the hangar bay, movement caught my eye. Three humans, males all, were hunched over a figure on the floor, hurling abuse, legs pumping with kicks and fists raised in threat at the prone figure.
I almost pulled myself past the grisly scene but stopped to take a better look. I don't know why I did what I did next. Perhaps I'm a hero at heart? A true paragon of the stars, holding no grudges but that against true evil? Maybe I'd gone batshit insane and the suction had pulled all my brains out my ears like a nacho cheese dispenser.
I pulled the weapon Eugene had thrust upon me from the loop of my belt and blasted half the head off the nearest man. The others had time to look up in shock as I gritted my teeth and yelled,
"Here's to Earth!"
The other two fell, brains splattering the hallway in two quick blasts. I stuffed the gun back into my pants and locked eyes with the girl.
The fierce, wicked eyes of the Nyalak didn't look right with tears in them. The savage, terrifying stare that looked down on so many dead humans were watery and red.
She was wearing a lot more than last time I'd seen her, a clingy top and a black skirt that was trailing behind her towards the nearest breach, as if slowly pulling her from me.
Who knew what she'd done in the past. Earth-eater.
Her eyes stared up at me, at the gun. I could leave her here, soon enough she'd be sucked out into space to burst unceremoniously like an overripe grape.
She continued to look at me, a query creasing the space between sharp black eyebrows.
"I'm out of here. You want on, I have a spare seat. Reclines and everything," was just what came out of my mouth.
I extended my hand to her, and she took it.
We stole away down the corridor, the Earth-eater and I, until the hangar came into view and we thundered past the greeting girls.
They raised hands in either greeting or threat of destruction. The blood drained from their faces when they saw my companion, who stormed past me, scattering the greeters like roaches before her. Blood was trickling down her chin from the beating she'd taken and she looked like death incarnate. Her black fingernails clattered on the keyboard the greeters had been guarding.
She turned to me and smiled.
Together we hurled ourselves up the ramp to my clanker of a ship, grinning like some kind of crazed devils. The alien was getting more terrifyingly beautiful every time I looked at her.
She found her place in Eugene's old seat quick as a flash, and like a true space soldier I was at the controls and finding my cigarettes with poised alacrity.
The ship outside us gave an alarming creak of protest.
"Right then, off we go," I muttered.
I would spend the rest of the night thinking of more dramatic things I could have said as we spiraled out the hanger bay doors, into the chill depths of space.
The girl looked over at me as we cleared airspace around Vakkari space station.
A Nyalak smile is a strange thing. Was she planning on dragging me to my sleeping quarters and raping me out of all sensibility and love for my home planet? Or was she going to kill and eat me and fly my ship to the depths of dark-space? Only time would tell.

Vakkari station was imploding in on itself. I looked down at the vast shape beginning to coil inwards from the edges like a potato crisp. Had I done that? Surely not. The brute with the cannon, he'd started all this, all I'd done was cracked a window for fresh air. Tiny ships rocketed out from the hub of the station from all angles, little jets illuminating each one for a fraction of a second before they were clear of the station and heading off into space. There were so many my little clunker was immediately lost in the rush. We were off with it. Hell, I hadn't seen that coming. I looked over at my companion. She too was looking down at the ruins of the station. What was going through her head? Was this her only home? Was she mourning lovers or family lost? Or merely the loss of all her expensive dancing clothing? She looked over at me and smiled. Course not. Nyalak didn't have family, only ancestors, and she danced naked, what did she have to lose?
My comm screen buzzed and scared the hell out of me, I jabbed the arming button for my cannons and remembered I'd had the tubes stripped out an age ago to replace with stash compartments and a stereo system. If they launched at all my target would be blasted with a barrage of beer cans and cheap pawn shop speakers. Who the hell was calling me at this hour anyway? I tapped the comm screen and bared my teeth.
"What do you animals want? I'm just passing by. Your station is a mess, I won't land here!"
"You talk too much son." Eugene replied. He started back at me from the comm screen, blood still running from a nasty cut across his brow.
"Eugene! God you made it out of that hellhole after all!" He simply smiled back and nodded.
"Told you I knew what I was doing. Watch your starboard."
A gleaming silver ship blasted across my side, slowing to a crawl just beyond me. Blue lights lit her hull as she swam through space like some gigantic manta ray.
"Helped myself on the way out. You'd like the seating in here." Eugene smiled at me. I could only shake my head.
"I appreciate the offer, but I have a universe to see on my own before slipping away on a pleasure boat old friend."
Eugene nodded, "I thought you'd say something like that. As your navigator I'd advise you to head far away as soon as possible. Get yourself somewhere quiet. Find a nice girl."
The Nyalak looked over at me, I shrugged.
"Will do. What about you, spaceman? Where are you headed?"
Eugene rubbed blood from his brow.
"Way out there. Got some old things to attend to, but tell you what. You ever find yourself on the far reaches.. you look me up. There's a place called Penn an Wlas, you can sit on the edge of the universe and look off into the darkness. We'll get a beer there."
"Godspeed you beautiful bastard." I said. I gave him a salute. Eugene nodded, and was gone from my screen. The silver ship gave a burst of blue flame from her shapely behind, and then that too was gone in a dazzling display of stolen technology.
Would I ever see Eugene Torquemada again? I didn't know. I had been lucky to sit beside that crazy old space pirate for as long as I did. He had sat in my navigation seat and pretended to do just that, bending our destinies around his calloused old fingers. One of those heroes who slipped through the cracks of the universal depression and kept on going into dark-space. Perhaps one day I'd run into him in the place beyond. Who knew?
"Where do we go?" The girl suddenly asked. Her voice was quiet. The voice of a little girl lost in some giant supermarket after looking at the cereal for too long. I looked at her. She sat back, reclining in Eugene's old navigator's seat. Her long arms were stretched up above her head, her breasts pulled tight against her chest.
"You're the navigator, you tell me." I gestured at the console in front of her. She looked at it quizzically.
We were in the last two seats on the last train in the station. Looking out into space, Ships were disappearing in flashes of light until none remained in the blackness. The girl began to tap in coordinates. I didn't care where we went. I had seen worse, I was sure. Surely this was what we were here for? The human race had dreamed of the stars since the first time someone looked up and noticed them there. He probably climbed up a mountain to try to reach them. In the same basic fashion we kept reaching for a long time. Now we were among them, what remained of the last overcrowded sightseeing bus to leave Earth. They're just as sparkly up here. Sometimes you forget to look at them.
"That one." I pointed to a bright star, just one. The Nyalak turned to me, the light in her eyes a dark intelligence flaming a challenge at me.
The journey into the weird had just begun.