The Mercury Bar // January 14th, 086 G.C.

The Mercury Bar was a seedy establishment occupied with the most belligerent patrons this side of Titan. Notorious for nightly bar fights and watered down drinks, the Mercury Bar still turned over fair profit. The small hole-in-the-wall gave the impression that it was falling apart a little more each day but, regardless of the dilapidated interior, grime covered glasses, and reeking stench, the ‘regulars’ never complained, and the new clientele didn’t seem to mind either.

The overhead bowl-shaped lights gave off only the faintest glow, keeping much of the bar in shadows. It helped to conceal the building’s structural damage, most of which had been incurred by rambunctious drunks before they were kicked out.

Nova and Legart sat at a rusted metal table at the far corner of the bar, removed from the loud, vulgar crowd that permeated near the barkeep’s counter. A collection of empty shot glasses and whisky bottles covered Legart’s side of the table. He downed another shot and slammed the glass hard onto the table.

“What a dump,” Nova remarked, making no effort to hide the boredom in her voice. Her distant gaze shifted across the bar, the hopeless rabble of miserable drunks and cantankerous vagrants made for a sickening sight. This was not the place Nova wanted to be. Remaining aboard the Galaxy Runner alone had been her first choice, but Legart insisted that she should get some fresh air. Unfortunately, she would come to find that fresh air was not something so easily found on the mildew-smelling, urine-reeking streets of Titan.

Legart laughed, “Everywhere on Titan’s a dump.” He filled up another shot glass. Despite having already finished off a bottle and a half of cheap low-grade whisky, Legart hadn’t felt the side-effects of the alcohol yet, aside from a minor buzz, whereas the average person would have been sprawled out by now. Legart was an expert at holding his alcohol, a fine-tuned skill developed from years of drinking, although not a talent that he bragged about. After all, as impressive as Legart’s drinking ability was, he knew that most of the drunks on Titan could put him to shame.

Nova had been surprised by Legart’s relaxed disposition under the influence of alcohol. She had never seen him without his signature scowl, save for a few select moments here and there. Regardless of Legart’s apparent ornery nature, he always reminded Nova of a fatherly figure. She felt that there was more to be seen beneath his tough exterior. Even a blind person could see that together with Orion and Ace, the three seemed more like a family than shipmates, albeit a dysfunctional family. But it was a better one than what she ever had.

“How long have you been with Orion?” Nova asked, hoping that any clues to solving the mystery of Orion Darkstarr would take her mind off their less than agreeable surroundings.

“Too long,” Legart answered flatly, tilting his shot glass and causing the alcohol to swirl around. “I’ve been on the Galaxy Runner now for fifteen years.”

Nova watched as Legart became silent, staring at the miniature whirlpool of whisky he had created inside his glass.

Legart gulped the shot. “Without any regrets, I can say they were the best years of my life.” He seized the whisky bottle and refilled his glass, then reached across the table and grabbed Nova’s empty shot glass, pouring whisky up to the rim. “You can’t go sitting in a bar and looking miserable without at least one drink.” Legart slid the shot glass towards Nova.

Nova smiled, taking the glass. “Well, here’s to fifteen more years.” With a clinking of glasses, Nova downed the whisky.

Before the shot glass reached Legart’s mouth, he froze. After a moment, he lowered it back onto the table and looked on, despondent.

“Reached your limit?”

Legart sighed. “Nah, just thinking. Thinking about time, and how it sure as hell does fly. Sometimes I don’t think I have another fifteen years left in me.”

“This your retirement speech, then?”

“Eh, you’re too young to understand,” Legart responded in a somber tone. “But once you get to be my age, you start thinking about things. Don’t get me wrong, that ship’s been a home to me, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. But one day you just wake up and look at your life, and you judge everything; every mistake, every success, and every failure, you look at it all.”

“You seem to have survived just fine,” said Nova.

Legart shrugged. “It looks that way. But I’ve survived because I’ve been following someone else’s dream. I was too scared to follow my own. So, I went out one day, found someone, a fearless man with a strong dream, and stuck with him. Fifteen years later I woke up and realized I gave up on my own.”

“By any chance, this man you followed, his name didn’t happen to be Darkstarr?”

Legart offered a faint smile. “That’s the son of a bitch.”

“There are a lot of people in this galaxy who would give a lot to be shipmates with Orion Darkstarr,” Nova said. “Some would call that a dream.”

“That it is,” Legart raised the shot glass, downing the contents. “That it is.”

The shattering of glass could be heard near the barkeep’s counter as two disheveled men were engaging in an all out brawl. Eager spectators surrounded the two men, some placing bets on who would walk away victorious.

“Tell me,” Nova began, ignoring the sudden commotion, “why is it that Orion’s always in such a rush to get back into space.”

Taking a deep breath, Legart leaned forward across the table. “Orion doesn’t like to talk much about his past. You’re new to the ship, but after a while you find that there are a lot of things about him that may seem…odd. He’s a very quiet person. The kind that keeps to themselves, buries everything deep inside, I think he just wants to forget.”

Nova was intent on Legart’s every word. “Not like the notorious space pirate I’ve heard so much about.”

“Nothing about the rumors are true. Orion’s not like any other pirate. He only steals to survive; he’s never killed a man in his life.” Legart paused, noticing that there was less than a shot glass worth left in the whisky bottle. He motioned for Nova to take it but she waved off the offer.

“Every time we come here,” Legart continued, “to Titan, I think it eats a little of him away. It’s a long story and not mine to tell. All you got to know is that Orion hates Titan, or any planet for that matter. I guess he feels safer in space where the gravity’s there to hold him up.”

Legart drank the last of the whisky straight from the bottle.