Upon Defiant: Chapter One

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Meetup place for all sorts of families! Also a good therapist is here.

He numbly nodded yes as they returned.

Tala convinced some poor drunk fool to try and compete against her after her fifth drink. The bartender rolled his eyes and let them turn on some music, and the two drunk fools started a very noisy dance-off while the customers watched.

Rigel chuckled as he watched though he wasn't fool enough to go against Tala

Vicky would order a bottle of top shelf whiskey with no glasses and causally chugged it like it was a beer. Not as if she could actually get drunk anyway.

Esk watched the dance off with faint amusement, he was onto his third or fourth drink, Tala kept buying him one every time she got another and he was lagging behind but not quite stupid enough to try to match her drink for drink.

"How long before she starts a brawl you think?" He asked Rigel.

"Probably not too long" Rigel said, glancing to Esk then back to the show

Tala was a surprisingly good dancer, in that she had an excellent sense of rhythm, and knew some good moves. Her dancing was anything but graceful because she was just too big and bovine, though.
She managed to get another fool to try to outdance her, and won a few free drinks, then came over to drink with her friends again. "I am amazing," she said.

Esk snorted. "Well you're better than the other drunks at least." He remarked.

"Dancing is fun, but I would never do a competition" Rigel said, looking to the other drunk dancers.

"You are too kind," Tala said to Esk, twitching her ears and downing another beer in a few gulps. "Perhaps the others hated you too quickly, friend."

~~
----From SD----

James pranced off the ship and casually strode down the hall, looking for his friends. Well, maybe 'friends' was the wrong word. Whatever they were.
He spotted an android and waved in greeting. "Hey, seen any minotaurs or cute guys in gloves lately?"

"At the bar," the android said. She must have been new; she had nothing resembling a personality yet.

"Thanks, I owe you," James said cheerfully, hurrying away and following the directions from the map he had looked at.

Esk shot Tala a weird look.
"I'm not your friend." He grumbled and went back to his drink.

The small bird thing that was part of swarm settled on the bar and watched the goings on curiously.

"Do you think the tanaari child can get drunk?" "Wonder if he'd be less miserable drunk... " "Might start a fight." "Or cry." "Who knows. Curious."[/size]

"We are all friends when we drink," Tala said grandly. "Hush, Swarm, do not speculate about our friend."

James would walk in, not at all worried about being a robot in a bar. "I'm with them," he said, pointing at his crewmates, when someone gave him a look of distaste. He sat next to Rigel.

"Hey James, come to watch us get drunk and dance?" Rigel said with a laugh when he came to sit with them.

"Great, the robot's here." Esk grumbled. "Isn't it cheating to come onto drunk people?"

Swarm bobbed up and down happily as James walked in.

"you're not curious?" they asked Tala.

Esk glared at the bird.. bug.. thing.

James laughed. "Nah, Esk, I'm just here to watch the fireworks, like Rigel said."

"I'm very curious," Tala said to Swarm, "But I've always prided myself on my tact."

"There are going to be fireworks?" "well it is nearly Solstice... terrans like fireworks on solstice, particularly indoors." "would that be safe on a space station?" "i'm sure their fire suppression systems are excellent" "i think they were being metaphorical" "so no fireworks?" "no, not real ones." "that's a shame."

Rigel laughed again and nodded "True, no real fireworks on a space station, you need a planet for that" He said to Swarm then looked back to James again "I take it the captain is alright now?"

"Captain's okay, I think. Really exhausted, but he didn't try any icicles when I gave him water," James said. "So that was nice."

"I am relieved that there will be no fireworks," Tala said. "That was tried once on my ship. It was less satisfactory than anticipated."

"What's the deal with the exploding planets anyway?" Esk asked as he finished his drink. "There was one a few months ago, now this one. "

"What happened?" Swarm asked Tala.

"Terrorists, maybe? Definitely people with way too much power," James said with a sigh.

"The exercise equipment caught on fire since we were in the gym, and we had to return to Haakon for replacements," Tala said. "Thankfully we had the sense to wear our helmets, and the fire suppression system turned on before our fur could catch fire."

"That's really stupid," James told Tala.

"From what I heard it was a cult that wanted to destroy that planet. Be hard for anyone to stop a group like that" Rigel said with a shake of his head before finishing off his cup

"News mentioned the Family, but no clear reason for attack other than just crazy." Swarm helpfully added. "They think they're gods apparently." "lots of wannabe gods in the universe." "Most don't go blowing up planets though."

"Sounds like revenge to me, or some sort of flexing of muscle. Look how much power we have, we can blow up whole planets if you piss us off. " Esk shook his head. "The Terrans will want to try to stop them, the Imperium won't do jack till one of their colonies is hit. Whatever happens, things are going to get messy. I vote we get as far away as possible."

"Yes, these matters are best left to militaries and demigods," agreed Tala, "Which we most certainly are not."

Esk snorted. "Demigods? No such thing. Just overpowered aliens with superiority complexes and nobody to keep them sufficiently in check. Everything has a weakness." He shrugged. "But it's not our problem. The more distance we put between ourselves and the Gallus system the better."

"That is why I did not call them gods," Tala said with a shrug. "There is only one true god, and It sleeps within my homeworld."

"The Imperium don't have gods" Swarm told Tala. "They're an athiestic culture."

Esk nodded. "One of the few aspects of my homeworld i've ever been able to agree with. " He shrugged. "They're still superstitious and still believe in demons though, so they're a bunch of hypocrites really. No gods but demons? How does that make sense?"

Swarm bobbed, a sort of weird bird shrug. "Easier to believe in malevolent forces than cosmic creators?"

"It's stupid." Esk remarked.