Into the Black

Walking through Section 8 to get to the bar ‘Dent’ had mentioned caused a little bit of a stir. Oh, it wasn’t like people were recognizing the Princess or anything like that. But a guy walking with four armed and armored ladies definitely made an impression, even on a station like this one. Thankfully, I hadn’t run into anyone who thought trying to harass a guy for having a harem was a good idea yet. (Being heavily armed myself probably had something to do with that.)

Mindy Lou’s Brew was run by a former soldier who had tired of the day to day grind of Army life. The fact that she had ‘issues’ with authority didn’t help any, and probably explained why she had never made it as a merc or private security, after being discharged. Still, she’d managed to get the credits together to open this bar on the shadiest station in Sol system, so it wasn’t all bad.

Mindy Lou was what people commonly called an Amazon. Augmentations were a big thing, and they came in many forms. The Amazon package was a set of mods that basically turned the target female into a seven foot tall avatar of walking death and destruction. Some bone lacing, genetic boosts, enhanced muscles, increased aggression, and so on. Only women could safely get the full Amazon package. Oh sure, you could stick it in a male, but something in the combination of mods screwed their intelligence up, basically turning them into feral berserkers. The first time they got in a fight, even in training, it became a deathmatch, and they wouldn’t stop until they died, or there was literally no one else to fight. Sometimes not even then. Any men who got the package were called Draugr, because they were dead men walking. In war, a Draugr would sometimes be dropped into an enemy formation, wearing heavy armor and carrying the nastiest weapons available, and would massacre the enemy until they were killed. Amazons at least had a chance of living past their first real combat.

Mindy Lou set the tone for the Brew and its patrons. You kept your business polite, and took any trouble outside, then there was no problem. Pretty much anything that didn’t leave blood on the floor or cause property damage was fine with her. All types came to the Brew, and it was basically treated as ‘neutral ground’ by everyone on the station. If you started trouble, however… well, you would be lucky if one of the other patrons kicked you out. The last person Mindy Lou had to throw out couldn’t handle their liquor, and ‘slipped’ on their way out the door, breaking both legs and suffering damage to their spine before they ended up landing in heap on the promenade. By the time the station patrol got there, he the pain had made him so delusional that he had ‘gifted’ all his possessions to passersby, so he was arrested for indecent exposure.

No one caused trouble at the Brew. At least, no one did it twice.

The girls and I ordered some drinks, and took a booth towards the back. We still had some time until the meeting, so I started by checking the job boards, seeing if there were any jobs heading towards Alpha Centauri. After checking the size of the Raven’s hold, I accepted a couple of the jobs.