January 13, 2213 Maybe more than just a round or two....

Brannigan sat down at the table. He balanced his pulse rifle against the wall. Both Derek and A-Ron looked at it the gawdy piece of firepower nervously. I looked at Brannigan. His red hair was rarity, even on Neptune. There were less than a thousand people in the entire solar system that still had it – and half of them were employed as “specialty” escorts at a high-end Gentleperson’s place on Saturn. Between that, the ostentatious gun, and the eyepatch, Brannigan was easily the attention grabber of my gang.

Which made him perfect for what I had planned.

Sydney came over, and put a pitcher of beer between Derek and Brannigan. She filled my glass with bonafide Jack Daniels, all the way from Earth. Out here, in New Boston, Neptune, she could get 500 credits a glass for it. All she charged me was a smile and a nod, which I gave in spades.

“You always could charm me with those baby blues, Mickey,” and she walked away.

After a moment of awkward silence, Derek spoke first.

“So what’s the job, Mickey?”

Brannigan didn’t let me answer. “Probably some bullshit favor for a water-farmer. I probably won’t even get to use Tara again.” Tara was the name he gave to his pulse rifle, by the way. Pretty sure he took care of Tara more than he did himself.

I glared at Brannigan, and he could tell by the look I gave him that his assumption was incorrect; far from it in fact. He smiled. “Or maybe I will…” His right hand subconsciously moved towards the gun.

“We’re gonna be bodyguards, gentlemen and A-Ron,” I said. Derek and Brannigan gave me a ‘wha?’ look. Spiders don’t have facial expressions, so A-Ron just clicked six times in succession. The three of them exchanged a look, and then burst out laughing. I smiled, because I knew why they were laughing.

In case you’re not really familiar and you haven’t already gleaned, Neptune isn’t exactly the nicest of places to live. The sixteen cities here are suspended in the upper atmosphere by quantum stabilizers, and are contained within geodesic domes. The only reason why anyone’s even out here comes from Neptune’s water supply, which is harvested by the aforementioned water-farmers. They’re all hardened, slightly psychotic, danger freaks who go out of the domes and pull good ol’ H2O into their Harvesters. Problem is, the environment outside the domes is best summarized by insane blue tornadoes that make storms on any other planet look like warm breezes.

So, the kind of people that live on Neptune, whether it be water-farmer, societal outcast, or what have you are generally not the type that require “bodyguards” or “protection”.

Hence, Derek, Brannigan, and A-Ron’s laughter.

Derek stopped for a moment. “Who the hell needs our protection…out here?”

“Imperiatrix Bella One-Five and Prince Napoleon Putin.”

The laughter ceased immediately. A-Ron chugged a wine cooler. Derek and Brannigan took big heaping gulps of beer.

“They are important. Why us?” A-Ron’s speech might have been simplistic, but it cut right to the core.

I drank my Jack. “That’s an excellent question, pal. And that’s what we’re gonna find out first.”