Not My Strong Suit by Robert J. Mendenhall

So, I drop my last cred on my third fluid of the night, because what the hell else is there to do at the only bar, in the only outpost, on the biggest fucking asteroid in the belt? The bartender, a roly-poly ball of a man with rubbery cheeks and the soft flesh of someone who’s spent his entire life in low grav, wiggles his scanner over my wrist implant. My carpal bones vibrate as the transaction consummates, and then I get a sharp zap to let me know my bank account is now empty.

Shit.

I probably should have just gone back to my ship, ate a vacu-pak meal, and saved the creds, but exercising common sense has never been my strong suit. Besides, the ore containers were still being loaded aboard and all that banging around and shouting gets on my nerves. Not that this place is doing my nerves any good. I don’t know what the hell is coming out of that juke box, but it sure as shit isn’t music. More like sunspot static.

I watch the human beach ball hobble to the back counter, pull back a tapper the size of a rocket fin, and fill a dirty mug with what looks like recycled lubricating oil. He sets the glass in front of me and bobs over to the next customer. I sip the liquid, wincing at the piss-like stank. It stings my tongue for a second, and then the inside of my mouth goes numb.

It’ll do.

I wipe the froth off my face with the sleeve of my flight suit and spin on my stool. Smoke hugs the ceiling like a writhing blanket, too thick for the air scrubbers to handle. The air reeks of tobacco and body odor and the flatulent residue of processed food.

The bar is hopping with the after-shift crowd. The regulars. The same sorry-ass folk, day-after-dreary-day. Like I said, what else is there to do? The mine runs three full shifts and never shuts down. Not for anything. Not for holidays. Not to conduct maintenance. Not even when a rock rat is killed. They just dig around his or her dead ass until the body can be extracted without hampering output.

All the booths are filled. High-boy tables, too. There’s a dart game going on in one corner, but it looks like they’re throwing pick axes. And some sort of dice game in the other corner. I think the dice are alive. Servers hustle foul-smelling plates from the kitchen, dodging the prosties roaming up and down the floor looking for paying patrons.

The rock rats all look the same. Big. Burly. Loud and smelly. Perpetually dirty and continuously horny. And always ready to brawl. Like those two rats over by the pool table. Nose-to-nose, spittle splashing each other’s grimy faces. Tomorrow, back in the mine, they’ll be best buds again.

And tomorrow I’ll be blasting off with my cargo holds full of raw metals. Seven months from now, I’ll be off-loading all that ore at the company refinery in high Earth orbit and my wrist bones will once again enjoy the soothing warmth that comes from a bank account full of creds.

I take another pull of whatever this is and spin back to face the bar.

Shit. My elbow clips the rock rat next to me and his fluid spills all over his coveralls. He says something guttural, which I’m thinking isn’t an acceptance of my apology. Of course, I don’t have any more creds, so I can’t offer to buy him a new fluid.

He’s big. Bigger than most of the other rats. And he stinks of things that might nauseate a feral goat. I should take the high road, forgive him for the ungentlemanly things he’s calling me, and just ease out of the place. After all, I won’t be back here for another year-and-a-half and by then he’ll probably be dead.

Yep. That’s what I should do. Just walk away.

I set my glass on the bar, ease off my stool like I’m going to back off, and throw a meteor-cracking sucker-punch into his face. My fist bounces off as if I had tapped him with a feather. The rock rat gabs a handful of my flight suit and lifts me off the deck with a toothy grin.

Like I said. Exercising common sense has never been my strong suit.

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Robert J. Mendenhall is a retired police officer, retired Air National Guardsman, and former Broadcast Journalist for the American Forces Network, Europe. A member of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and Mystery Writers of America, he writes in multiple genres including science fiction, crime and suspense, horror, and pulp adventure. His short fiction has appeared in three Star Trek: Strange New Worlds anthologies published by Pocket Books, and anthologies by Kayelle Press, Dark Quest Books, Chaosium Publishing, Zimbell House Press, Nomadic Delirium Press, Rogue Star Press, and Airship 27 Productions. Visit his web site: www.robertjmendenhall.com or follow him on Twitter: @robtjmendenhall.