Sci-Fi Shorts

The Morning After

A/N: Another tale from the Baristaverse. A (sort of) origin story for a couple of the characters from The Four Baristas of the Apocalypse. Just over 4000 words.

Chek Wandoo peeled his body off the crumbling tarmac, spat a cocktail umbrella out of his mouth, licked his lips with a tongue that felt and tasted like a rat that had been lightly sautéed in engine grease, and after struggling to what a quick visual inspection confirmed were his feet, made a mental note that the next time a six-limbed Tau Cetian freighter pilot called Thirsty Gulpgulp challenged him to a drinking contest, he probably shouldn't wear teal pants.

Squinting in the bright red sunlight, he took in his surroundings. Despite the complete absence of any people or activity, he'd been in enough starports to realise that's what his current location was—or at least, had been. Judging by the scorch-marks and craters scattered across the landing area and the wrecked spacecraft dotted around its perimeter, this particular port was no longer exactly a high-traffic zone.

How the hell did I get here? It was a moment before his sobering brain realised there was perhaps a more pressing question. Where the hell is here? Reaching into a pocket of his jacket, he was relieved to find his communicator still present—less so when he consulted the screen.

No signal.

Location unknown.

Manicure at 15.00.

He swore under his breath. He was alone. He was hungover. He was lost. And if he missed that appointment his manicurist had a two week waiting list.

For lack of any better alternatives, he made for the nearest building—an impressive but windowless structure, which he assumed was the terminal—as his brain tried to reassemble a coherent recollection of the previous evening. It was no good. After the ninth shot things became decidedly hazy and after the twelfth they became decidedly absent. His last clear memory (well, clearish) was when he'd decided to bail on the contest on account of the not-being-entirely-sure-where-the-floor-was thing but been talked out of it by his latest posse of good friends—what's-his-face, the tall dude and, um...the one with the hot sister.

Oh, yeah—and Burk. He groaned, as understanding dawned. Dumping someone on a forsaken, backwater hellhole of a planet was just the kind of 'prank' his no-good, hanger-on, pain-in-the-arse cousin would think was the most hilarious thing ever. The stupid tosser. Chek made a second mental note that the next time he drank himself into a stupor he'd do it in better company.

The concept of making a mental note to perhaps not drink himself into a stupor did not cross his mind.

The terminal was a bust as far as people or communications or open bars were concerned, so clutching the vending-machine light beer which was the best he'd been able to find—and would only be seen drinking dead or in what appeared to be an abandoned starport—he made his way out onto the street and wandered towards the city proper. The odds of a taxi-rank seemed pretty slim, but he was hopeful he might at least find somewhere with hypersat access. The sooner he got off this dump and found himself a shower, a peer group and party—not necessarily in that order (or even separately)—the better.

However, as he entered the outskirts of the ravaged city, with hypersat coverage still non-existent, he realised he may be in deeper trouble than he had first thought. The empty buildings and overgrown streets had the distinct look of long abandonment and there was still not a soul in sight. Whatever had happened here had clearly been big and bad—and a long time ago. Draining the last of his beer, he was just weighing up the relative merits of pushing on in the fading expectation of finding help vs lying down in a ditch in the hope he might be lucky enough to die before the real hangover set in, when a third option presented itself.