'Peterson, where are you, you ruddy git? prepare to meet your doom!'
people looked up and saw it was Bellock, going ape again. They shrugged and focussed on their drinks once more. bellock looked around some more, then decided to ask Sullivan. He approached the bar and asked Sullivan: 'where is that foul git?'
'you must mean Peterson, he just left. You just missed him. Also Bellock, don't make me send the bouncers on you...' Sullivan looked at the giant monkey wrench Bellock was still wielding.
'Blast it!' Bellock yelled. 'Ill kill him later, when he emerges again. First, I need a drink'.
He put down the giant wrench against the bar and waitied for his beer.
The hallway outside the 'Lion' rang with the pitter-patter of Peter McCullen's gently flapping feet. The hallway's empty silence made for an eerie echo every time Peter's foot struck the metal walkway. The void of personnel outside the 'Lion' made for pleasant change in Peter's eyes; everywhere he had gone aboard Scarborough had been filled to capacity. All the neural net outlets had been occupied, the restaurants had been fully booked ,and even the loo had been so stuffed full of people that Peter hadn't even ventured near the door, for fear of being sucked into the crowd and trampled to death. That very incident had brought him to the Blue Lion, the only place that Peter could imagine having a working restroom that wasn't smeared with one form of excrement or another.
The doors hissed open, and Peter was careful not to smack into the rather rude sign near the entrance detailing fornication and the local botany, opting instead to head directly to the bar, and, in turn, the bartender.
'Good day, Father,' said the bartender, glancing at Peter's collar, 'what can I do ya for?'
'Oh, it's 'friar,' actually... I'm not yet a... wait, nevermind that! Do you have a WC I could use?' stammered Peter.
'Sorry, Friah,' remarked the bartender in a rather non-chalant tone, 'no public restrooms 'ere.'
'Well,' asked Peter, 'surely you can let me use the employee one, or something in back...'
'Nope, sah' said the bartender, staring down at the drink he was preparing.
'Well,' asked Peter again, 'Isn't there something...'
'Sorry, chap!' said the bartender, getting visibly annoyed, 'Like I said; No restrooms. Good day!'
Suddenly, somewhere deep down in Peter's psyche, something snapped.
'LISTEN HERE!' Shouted the angry Friar, 'I have been having a VERY BAD TIME! I've been kicked out of my own church, beaten by a pack of Corsair farmers, robbed, kidnapped, and had my face shoved into a horribly smelly rack of Canarian Lamb! I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I need to BLOODY PEE! I'm not even supposed to BE HERE, so could you PLEASE LET ME USE THE LOO!'
The bartender stood perfectly still, except for his left had, which he used to wipe Peter's spittle off of his cheek.
'Left door in the back,' squeaked the bartender.
Peter slowly turned and walked to the restroom. When he came out, feeling clear and relieved, he finally began to survey his surroundings.
*Now,* he thought to himself, *what exactly IS this place...*
It was long ago since he last visited this pub. It was filled to the brim with customers.
As he was drinking, lost in thought, about how he would kill / torture Peterson and random Zoners. He suddenly lost his train of thought as someone was yelling loudly beside him.
He looked to his left and saw a friar screaming at the bartender. Something about a loo. The friar then dashed past Bellock without even seeing him, to the loo.
Taking a long look around, Friar McCullen took the time to ease into his surroundings. He had been sitting at the bar for some time, drawing stares from patrons and the still-shivering bartender alike. The place was awash with all forms of personnel, from the grimy Service employees, chatting with each other about the correct way to lubricate an advanced splitter turret encampment, to ExSec members engaged in some form of drinking game with the local Bounty Hunters. All in all, it was not the place that one would ever imagine finding a man of the cloth. The view of human variety filled Peter's mind for a short while... He even thought he had possibly seen one of the Trade Combine pilots sitting at the central table before... However, his mind soon began to wander, and his sitting at the bar while refusing whatever alcohol the bartender attempted to get him to buy was starting to draw stares of the less-friendly nature.
Meandering his way over to one of the neural-net outputs, Peter began to fool around, trying to look busy. He did a quick search at the terminal for any information regarding outward bound passenger transport, and the search came up a depressing 'None Available.' As he was about to leave the bar entirely, possibly to look for some sort of janitor's closet in which to set up a miniature monastery, where he could spend the rest of his days on this strange, bustling station, something caught his eye; A large, red button on the interface, flashing 'Join Border Worlds Exports!'
Again, that dark and strange area of his personality found itself swirling up again, and, as if on instinct, he pressed the button.
*Hmm,* Peter though to himself, *I guess... When the heavens send you a signal, one does best to heed it. Only god knows where this will lead...*
Peter McCullen wandered into the Blue Lion. I had been a long time since he first had come here. Back then, he'd been a simple priest, lost in a strange station. Now he was a full-time employee of Bowex, and a much happier man than he had been back then.
He had come here to congradulate Mr. Clark on his promotion, but the place was so packed he couldn't see if the new Provisional Supervisor was even around. No matter, he thought. He was happy with the comany's new promotions; These men deserved it.
He took a seat on the bar, and glanced up at Sullivan.
"One cup of juice, good sir," he said.
Sullivan looked at him as if he couldn't beleive the words he was hearing.
"Juice?" he asked.
"Juice," remarked Peter, with a sense of perminacy.
"Juice it is.." sighed Sullivan. He mumbled under his breath "I'll never get over this friar..."
Scarborough station. Of all the places to end up, she was lucky to be in Bretonia.
The woman who trudged into the Blue Lion hardly looked to be in a good way. Seeming a little shot up, she wandered in in her usual garb- black, short sleeved top, black jeans and thigh-high work boots that she could take your knees out with. Her purple goggles rested firmly on her forehead, sweeping back her almost flourescent blue hair, in two tones of light and dark. Her goggles were marred only by the slightest sign of ash on its surface, the faint blue tinge of the glimmering black mark making it likely to be based of an energy-based fire. In fact, anyone who were to stick a geiger counter near her might've picked up the faint tick-tick-tickety of radiation. Her belt was adorned with a single musical note, a beamed note, and she was most definately bretonian.
Removing her goggles at the strange looks given to the new arrival, she headed straight for the bar, planting herself firmly on a barstool as the bartender walked up to her. "A glass of your most alcoholic beverage, good sir!" She said with a little too much gusto, as if she was already drunk, but her motor functions seemed in perfect capability. She paid the credits out-of-pocket, taking the glass and downing a very unladylike dreg of the beverage before releasing a sigh and letting the mug drop back to the bar. You really shouldn't be drinking at this time of day. She rolled her eyes and looked around the bar, muttering a small 'shut up, brain' to herself.
A million dollars isn't cool. You know what is cool? A basilisk.
The BX-135-B-4830 convoy of Bowex hadn't arrived yet to Scarborough Shipyard because it took another route after reports of Gallic activity on its pre-planned route. It wasn't something unusual at 822 A.S.
"So it will take two more hours till it gets here" Miranda whispered to herself.
The Blue Lion wasn't exactly the place that she preffered to spend her time, it was too formal and exemplary to her. But she didn't have many options while waiting at Scarborough. So she was sitting in one of the bar stools drinking whiskey and boringly browsing the neural net with her phone.
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James Sullivan was still on shift, pushing some dirt around the bar top with a grimy rag. He clocked the ExSec insignia stitched onto the seated woman's shoulder badge.
"Off-duty, or waiting on hold-over?" he queried with a crooked grin. Sullivan's dental work was infamous. He could eat an apple through a tennis racket. "Good to have you lads and lasses looking out for us either way." With a nod he reached under the counter and poured out another measure of whisky from a different bottle.
"I won't say it's the good stuff, but it's better than what you've got there." He pushed the second glass across the counter.
Walking into the bar still wearing her flight suit and helmet in hand, smelling of hydrogen fuel, Sian heads straight for the bar with a grim look on her face.
"Whiskey. Graves. 21. Straight." She downs the drink, and asks for another. Whiskey in hand, she finds a booth in a secluded corner of the bar.
Looking up, she waves at Miranda. "Hey, Miranda! Heard you're new to the team, welcome. Fancy another?", she says gesturing towards her empty glass and pointing to the bar.