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Description
Connaught’s mum had always warned him about hanging out in low dives. There was nowhere lower than this stool in this jagged-out old bar stuck out in the boonies at the arse end of the galaxy. A prefab shack stuck on the barren dusty surface of the lamest planet in the universe.

Correction, the floor was lower. And sticky. Also suddenly closer than he remembered.

He re-ascended the stool with some difficulty. He was on his seventh screwdriver.

Well, they’d started as screwdrivers, but this one had what looked suspiciously like a decorative slice of eggplant wedged on the rim instead of, say, a bit of orange or a cherry or something.

Connaught looked around him. He’d been in the bar since the freighter he was supposed to be navigating docked. It hadn’t taken the captain too long into the 3 week flight to figure out that while Connaught was in many ways overqualified for the job, especially in terms of creativity, marketing flair and sheer capacity for bullshit, there were certain gaps in his resume when it came to, say, astral navigation and math which Connaught had undertaken to fill utilising those skills previously mentioned.

So Connaught had been let off here with his flight bag full of dirty washing and 3 weeks’ pay (the captain was not a cruel man). He’d checked into the cheapest motel with air and, knowing that he’d struggle to get a flight to anywhere from out here and his money would have to last, he’d found the nearest bar and started an attempt to drink through it as quickly as he could.

Some duded-out old meteorite miners (this shithole was probably the big city to them) were sitting at the next table drinking scotch and playing dominos. The bastard clack clack was getting on Connaught’s wick.

The fucken’ NASA boys were in town at the next dock to the one Connaught had been ditched from, with their fucken breather suits on like the recycled air wasn’t good enough for them. There were some of them in this bar. This one! Surely them flyboys had their own shiny expensive bars to drink in.

“Here, what do you do when you see a spaceman?” Connaught called over to the nearest cleancut NASA honours graduate asshole. The NASA asshole ignored him.

“Park in it, man!” Connaught fell off his stool again. It was the fifth time he’d told this joke, and it just kept getting funnier.

The NASA guys didn’t seem to think so. Fuckem.

Connaught tried to remount his stool, missed, and spilled dominos everywhere.

So then the barman was asking him to leave and he was out back trying not to clog his rebreather with puked up screwdriver and the shitty salmon tubefood he’d eaten ten hours ago.

And then he was stealing the freighter - the captain should have changed the keycode after he got fired - and he was using the grabber arm to push that little spacebar over into the ground and all the fucken flyboys with it.

“Hitting the spacebar, see?” He told the cops as they picked him up.

They didn’t see the funny side. That was the problem with these places in the middle of nowhere.

Description
Connaught’s mum had always warned him about hanging out in low dives. There was nowhere lower than this stool in this jagged-out old bar stuck out in the boonies at the arse end of the galaxy. A prefab shack stuck on the barren dusty surface of the lamest planet in the universe.

Correction, the floor was lower. And sticky. Also suddenly closer than he remembered.

He re-ascended the stool with some difficulty. He was on his seventh screwdriver.

Well, they’d started as screwdrivers, but this one had what looked suspiciously like a decorative slice of eggplant wedged on the rim instead of, say, a bit of orange or a cherry or something.

Connaught looked around him. He’d been in the bar since the freighter he was supposed to be navigating docked. It hadn’t taken the captain too long into the 3 week flight to figure out that while Connaught was in many ways overqualified for the job, especially in terms of creativity, marketing flair and sheer capacity for bullshit, there were certain gaps in his resume when it came to, say, astral navigation and math which Connaught had undertaken to fill utilising those skills previously mentioned.

So Connaught had been let off here with his flight bag full of dirty washing and 3 weeks’ pay (the captain was not a cruel man). He’d checked into the cheapest motel with air and, knowing that he’d struggle to get a flight to anywhere from out here and his money would have to last, he’d found the nearest bar and started an attempt to drink through it as quickly as he could.

Some duded-out old meteorite miners (this shithole was probably the big city to them) were sitting at the next table drinking scotch and playing dominos. The bastard clack clack was getting on Connaught’s wick.

The fucken’ NASA boys were in town at the next dock to the one Connaught had been ditched from, with their fucken breather suits on like the recycled air wasn’t good enough for them. There were some of them in this bar. This one! Surely them flyboys had their own shiny expensive bars to drink in.

“Here, what do you do when you see a spaceman?” Connaught called over to the nearest cleancut NASA honours graduate asshole. The NASA asshole ignored him.

“Park in it, man!” Connaught fell off his stool again. It was the fifth time he’d told this joke, and it just kept getting funnier.

The NASA guys didn’t seem to think so. Fuckem.

Connaught tried to remount his stool, missed, and spilled dominos everywhere.

So then the barman was asking him to leave and he was out back trying not to clog his rebreather with puked up screwdriver and the shitty salmon tubefood he’d eaten ten hours ago.

And then he was stealing the freighter - the captain should have changed the keycode after he got fired - and he was using the grabber arm to push that little spacebar over into the ground and all the fucken flyboys with it.

“Hitting the spacebar, see?” He told the cops as they picked him up.

They didn’t see the funny side. That was the problem with these places in the middle of nowhere.