The Alienbutt Saga, Book 1. War of the Coffee Bean. Part 24.

Piestoff walked into the bar munching on a fresh kebab. The bar was dark and scruffy in the true tradition of a frontier gathering place of dangerous people who wanted not to be overly noticed. Walking over to the bar he ordered a bottle of whiskey. Placing the half-eaten kebab on the bar, he picked up the bottle placed before him by the barman, a tall skinny, blue skinned humanoid with large eyes.
“Is this the best you got?” asked Piestoff. The barman shrugged his shoulders and walked off, wiping a dirty glass on an even dirtier cloth. Piestoff took a drink and thanked whichever god that might be around for the chilli sauce blanking out his taste buds. Picking up his kebab and the bottle, he wandered over to an empty booth by the wall, where he sat down. After a few moments a shabby looking figure walked over and sat across from Piestoff. He recognised Ruck from the vid-screen picture Thrumbar had shown him. Ruck belonged to one of the more humanoid species of the universe and if cleaned up could possibly pass as human, if you ignored the purplish tint to his skin and the extra finger on each hand.
“Help yourself to the drink but I’m keeping the kebab for covering the taste of what the barman calls whiskey,” said Alienbutt through a mouth full of food.
“You’re the Alienbutt, then.” Ruck took a long drink from the bottle. “Your arse is as big as they said.” He reached over and took a small bit of meat from the kebab and ate it. After a second of chewing with his eyes watering he nodded. “Nice sauce on that, clears your sinuses a treat.”
Piestoff grinned at the lack of displeasure shown at his chilli sauce, which was rare. “Clears a lot more than your sinuses mate. You have one of these and you’re in for a ring of fire in a few hours. Now who’s been saying I’ve a fat arse?” Raising his voice he shouted to the barman. “Another couple of bottles over here.” Piestoff had been told to build a reputation as a cocky and brash bounty hunter, and enjoyed acting out the role whenever he could.
In the bars he was frequenting this would often lead to the odd fight, but as he was usually half drunk anyway he didn’t mind the odd black eye and it was very rare for any drunken brawl to end in serious injury or death, as that would lead to the local marshal posting a bounty, and the best outcome of that would be twenty years’ hard labour.
“This ain’t waitress service lardarse, you come to the bar,” said the barman, not moving from his place at the end of the bar.
“Good job you’re not a waitress in a pinny, cause you’re that ugly you'd sour the drink. Last time I saw a waitress that ugly was on the planet SlappedArse. Now two bottles of that slop you’ve bottled as whiskey, and get them over here now!” Piestoff made sure he spoke loud enough for all to hear and then sat forward. The bar went silent as he knew it would, everyone waiting to see what would happen.
Only about a dozen people were in the bar, but Piestoff quickly noted three who definitely acted as muscle for the barman. Ruck rolled his shoulders as he sat with his back still to the rest of the bar, the silence holding. “You got plenty of drink on your ship, Alienbutt?”
“Always have a couple of dozen cases, plus my emergency supplies.”
“I think I’m gonna enjoy working with you. At the least it will be entertaining,” Ruck grinned, and then in one fluid motion stood up, picked up the stool he had been sitting on and chucked it at the barman. barman. As one of the muscle dove towards Ruck, Alienbutt swept up the whiskey bottle and threw it so it smashed into his face. The bar exploded into violence as Ruck, laughing maniacally, jumped at another of the thugs. Alienbutt ducked as a bottle flew at him. A veteran of bar fights on Hardstool he quickly dropped the last of the three muscle with a swift kick between the legs, then turned straight into a stool swung by the barman.

Piestoff sat in the cell holding a cloth to his head; the blood had just about stopped flowing now. On the bunk next to him lay Ruck. The local sheriff had used a stun gun and had hit him four times before they could subdue him and drag him off to the cells. Faced with armed men, Piestoff had dropped the barman onto a table head first, just hard enough to ensure he wouldn’t get up for a while, and had given himself up. He had experienced enough bar fights to know when they were being finished by the authorities. Like most sheriffs out here, this one was an ex space marine of some sort and went about his job in a no-nonsense way. He knew that Piestoff had a spaceship that could wipe their little settlement from the face of the rock it perched on. He didn’t keep order, though, by letting any passing idiot with a big gun get their own way. Thrumbar had been to try and bail out Alienbutt and Ruck and been told to return in the morning when they had sobered up.
The sheriff walked over with two bowls of stew that he passed through the bars. Alienbutt thanked him and placed one down for when Ruck finally woke up.
“I heard of you, Alienbutt, a new bounty hunter on the scene.” The sheriff dragged a chair over, reversed it and sat just out of reach of the bars, sipping at a mug of coffee.
“It’s a job and the pay’s better than driving a taxi,” replied Piestoff as he began to eat his stew, which was surprisingly good.
The sheriff nodded thoughtfully at that.
“Your friend there was a bounty hunter as well once, until the coffee bean took him over. Tried to cure himself mind, but it left him unbalanced and he tends to walk into trouble for the sake of it, and still uses the bean.” He sat studying Alienbutt. “You don’t have the look of a killer yet, boy; trust me, I know that sort, but you’ve got a darkness growing in you that could make you the worst ever if you let it grow. It will devour everything that’s you and just leave a dark shell that your friends won’t know.” He stood back up, and went to walk off back to his desk. “I thought you should know, once an addict always a junkie. If you let it take over, then you can never put it back in its box.” He sat back behind his desk and picked up a vid-screen. “Bounty hunters don’t have a long shelf life, they wind up dead or crazy. There was one that passed through here a few years back, off to see what was over the next hill, he said. Hydro-something or other, made your mate there look sane.” The sheriff returned to reading his vid-screen. “Doors are open. When your friend wakes up you're free to go. I hope things go well for you boy, you seem a good sort.”

To be continued.
Thanks for reading and all images are mine.