The Best Damn Drunkards in the Galaxy (open)

[Bette Davis]

She tried to focus on the shot glasses in front of her, but couldn't tell if she was seeing double or if she'd actually done fourteen already. Bette sucked on a lime wedge and sat back in her chair.

Except she was sitting on a bar stool in the newly re-opened Cloud 9 Bar & Grill, and there was nothing to lean back against. She was taking a week of leave, kindly suggested by Capt. Kellison as Bette was obviously overworking herself, and had decided to spend her week off at Cloud City.

It was beautiful all right, but she couldn't afford to stay at the nicest hotel and was somewhere between topside and Port Town in a place that at least had no bugs. Come to think of it, she hadn't seen any bugs in Cloud City at all. Must have been the climate controls or something. No bugs. Huh.

Bette fell over, off her stool and into the people standing behind her.

[Mu Satach]

Mu was walking the establishment, smiling at customers, encouraging people to spend more money and watching out for potential brawlers when a commotion near the bar caught her attention.

Quickly she moved to the area and picked up the fallen barstool and helped the other patrons place the woman back on it.

"Well now..." Mu straightened the lady's jacket, "somebodies having fun."

[Bette Davis]

"The best kind," Bette replied, rubbing her sore butt. There were fourteen shotglasses, but they weren't all hers. Couldn't have been. She didn't feel that drunk.

Her vision swam, and she added, "I prolly should settle up my tab." Before I go puke all over the 'fresher. Bette patted her hair, making sure her ponytail wasn't too messy.

[Mirko Spendrim]

"The barkeep warned her off a while back" Mirko volunteered to Mu from his place at the bar, "but" he gave a little laugh, "she's a hard person to say no to"

[Mu Satach]

Mu arched an eyebrow in amusement. "I'm going to have to brush up on what my legal liabiliities are when it comes to persuasive customers."

Mu went behind the bar and fixed Betty a thick stimulant drink. "Here, drink this it will help your head."

[Bette Davis]

"No, no. I'm done." Bette finished counting out her credits, remembering to leave a good tip for the bartender. She found herself leaning against a curly-haired man who was sitting at the bar, and righted herself. Bette was normally a heavy drinker, but it seemed she'd had a little much even for her. "Don' want to cause any trouble."

She turned around, her hand on Mirko's shoulder for balance. "The 'fresher? This way?" She pointed toward the back of the bar.

[Mirko Spendrim]

"Yeah" Mirko said as he clambered off the stool under Bette's relaxed weight, though he really didnt have a clue. Like most things in his unpredictable existance, he bravadoed his way through it. Mu gave him an assuring nod. "Yep, just this way" he said then with more conviction.

He shuffled along, maneuvering himself to give Bette the best support he could as she leaned on him. She was a solid little thing, lean but muscley sortof, for a female.

"You're not gonna be sick or anything are ya? You'll tell me if you think your gonna, you know, do anything messy right? You'll warn me right?"

Mirko only had the one shirt and jacket, after all.

[Sergeant Michael Brand]

BAM!

The nearest of the three fresher doors -- marked male, female, and other -- crashed open, and a thickset bull of a man came stumbling out in front of Mirko and Bette. He had a rugged, weathered sort of face that was none the better for the drink he'd obviously consumed, a shaved head, and a beaten-looking jacket. He straightened up at the sight of the other two patrons, spent a moment trying to focus his vision, and grunted, "Oh... 'scuse me."

He lumbered by them, then paused. The lady looked awful familiar... something about... fourteen shotglasses, that was it. Was that today or yesterday? The last two hours were a filmy haze -- he'd come here to forget, and, boy, he'd done some forgettin'.

But if he had some association with the lady, he sure as frell wanted to remember it. On a hunch, he turned, somewhat wider than necessary, and said, "Hey, miss... wouldn't say no to a rematch."

[Bette Davis]

"A rematch!" Bette clapped him on the shoulder, even while wondering what exactly he was talking about. "You might even beat me next time. I think." She swayed precariously, releasing Mirko, rebounding off Brand and fumbling her way into the refresher in the middle. "But give me a... moment."

The door closed, then creaked open almost immediately as she tried to close it. Finally the door snapped shut and the pilot made her way to a stall. After what seemed like just a few minutes, but was more like a quarter of an hour, she was washing up and peering at her reflection in the mirror. A blonde humanoid walked into the 'fresher as Bette was straightening her hair, and the newcomer went to a mirror and started freshening her makeup. Bette snorted, and exited the refresher.

Making her way back to the bar, she was using chairs to keep her steady, though she thought herself remarkablely stable. Bette looked around for the man from the refresher, but couldn't seem to recall what he looked like.

[Sergeant Michael Brand]

Brand was already at the bar, and he was looking for the fourteen shotglasses. He'd done a bit of math, a bit of chemistry, and fourteen shots didn't seem quite enough for a drinking contest, not for him and a reasonably matched opponent. Sure, she may have given up sixty or seventy pounds to him -- but he couldn't imagine taking on a mismatch, not unless he'd had a head start already.

The mental cogs were running slowly. Obviously they needed more lubrication.

He slapped the bartop with a force that startled even him. Hm, a smack like that ought to hurt his hand, but he'd barely felt it.

"Bring me a Sullustan gin," he growled at the bartender. "Hey, better make it two. I'm expectin' company."

[Bette Davis]

Bette pulled herself up onto a barstool, all five feet four inches of her, and looked at the rough looking man next to her. She didn't remember seeing him before, but she had been doing a bit of drinking. Usually she liked her men a little more polished looking, but every once in a while a sexy ugly man would catch her eye.

She sniffed the drink that was put in front of her after only a moments hesitation on the part of the bartender. "Sullustian gin?"

The man nodded, taking a healthy swallow from his. She copied him, and the glasses hit the bartop at the same time. "We didn't really have a drinking contest, did we?"

[Sergeant Michael Brand]

Brand relished the sharp sweetness of the gin as it slid down like a mouthful of apple butter. Somehow aliens just knew how to give mass to a drink.

He shrugged expansively at his companion. "I was kinda hopin' you could tell me," he said with what would have been a sheepish grin if he knew enough to be sheepish. "All I counted were fourteen..."

Somehow that seemed to be getting off on the wrong foot. He thrust a meaty hand in Bette's direction. It wavered significantly in mid-air. "Don't know if we introduced ourselves, either. I'm Mike."

[Bette Davis]

"Bette," she replied, shaking his hand firmly. She prided herself on her firm handshake. "And I -" Memory stirred. "Didn't you..."

Her memory failed again, and she shrugged, finally releasing his hand. "We could always start over, but the bartender has started givin' me dirty looks. And not in a good way," she winked, finishing off the gin in a few more long swallows.

[Mirko Spendrim]

A knobbly little hand came down between their shoulders parting Bette and Brand in introduction. "Mirko Spendrim, nice to meet you" His hand was hanging in between them as he repeated himself, "Name's Mirko -- how's it going?" He added an eager smile, hopeful to worm his way into a friendship. Or acquaintance. Or atleast some human company of some description for a little while. Again with the hanging..He curled his hand away and rubbed it down his shirtfront for want of anything more productive to do with it.
"Mirko Spendrim, nice to meet ya's" He gave them both a toothy smile, first one then the other again.

[Sergeant Michael Brand]

Hmm... he couldn't feel the bartop when he smacked it, but he could feel Bette's grip. That, Brand thought, was a good thing. A woman with a good grip was a woman you could trust. He'd heard that somewhere, he thought. Or maybe he'd coined it on the spot. That's right. When you got underneath his tough exterior, he was a regular philoffiser. Phisseloffer. Fossilfisser. Frell it.

He felt something crawling on his shoulder and interrupting this very important train of thought. Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be attached to an arm, which was, in turn, attached to a small, curly-haired man in a drab suit.

"Unh..."

His instincts said Scram. His tact said Do I know you? His suspicion said I don't want no watches, curly. The drink said How in the flyin frell do they keep these floors so clean?

Brand turned to Bette. "Whaddaya think? Noonian fixer?"

She lifted her eyebrows. That was confirmation enough for him.

He slapped the bar again -- heh, this time it hurt. "Barkeep. Noonian fixer for my buddy Mirko."

[Mirko Spendrim]

The grin broadened into a beaming smile of stellar proportions.

"Thanks!" he said, pulling up a stool from behind him and sitting like the point of a triangle to Bette and Brand's two sides. Which was a bit awkward because he had to balance as he reached forward between them to lift his glass from the bar. "My friends call me Spenny" he offered, although he really only had the one friend, Aurelias Kazaar, and he wasnt quite certain if Kazaar meant it as an edearing term, or not. Still, Mirko wasnt one to linger on imponderables. "So, you guys not from around here huh?"

[Bette Davis]

Bette clapped Mirko on the shoulder, nearly upsetting his drink all over his clothes. "Spenny, you are one observant... sunufahutt." With her other hand she snagged the bartender's sleeve before he could get away. "Another gin," she requested, before turning back to the little man on the stool and her new friend Mike.

"I'm on leave for a week - Imperial Navy."

[Sergeant Michael Brand]

Funny how two little words could penetrate a warm, drunken haze with the force of a bunker-buster. He stared at Bette in a few moments of unguarded shock.

Then the fifteen brain cells still in operation all moved at once and smacked him upside the forehead with a hammer.

"Oh, really?" he said, animated again. "Well, I'm the President of the Rebellion."

The look on her face was good enough that he didn't even have to fake the laugh.

[Mirko Spendrim]

"Ha ha ha ha"

Mirko laughed along, but his stomach tightened into a barb-wire ball.
Great, my new friends are Imps.

Not that he was really on anyone's side, persay, but he felt sure the Imperials might not see it that way given favors done for the Rebel spy Aurelias Kazaar.

"Ha ha ha ha"

Mirko realised the other two had stopped laughing and were looking at him oddly.
"Um, this drink is great, really great."

He started looking around for an exit.

[Bette Davis]

"Excellent!" Bette grabbed her drink, and slid awkardly off her barstool. "How 'bout a game of pocketballs?" The pilot jerkily gestured between the shoulders of the two men at the stairs leading to the second level of the bar.

"If memory serves me right, there are some tables... up there." She refused to take Mirko's mumblings as a no, and held onto him for support. "Loser buys the next round."