Rechs didn’t want to believe that anybody would fall for that act. People needed to be smarter than simple children being told a fairy tale at story time. But they weren’t. He remembered a thousand moments in his long life when he’d seen the collective mass of the galaxy choose to fall for some sweet seduction from that year’s shining star soon to become next year’s tyrant rounding up the bad thinkers and taking away the blasters. Always for the greater good.
Savage thinking. Every time.
Several people in the bar started to laugh as the politician blathered on and on about the much-needed change she demanded take place. But the laughter from the locals was bitter, and Rechs perceived she was not well-liked here on the Docks. And that made the last of his hot dog taste better. Especially with the cold draft beer.
The bartender, an old guy with a red face, moved down the counter wiping up spilled beer and freshly popped popcorn. A classic of the once-stellar chain. Putting glasses in the sink. Filling baskets with more of the hot buttery popcorn that exploded out of the machine down the way every few minutes.
The old bartender moved in front of Rechs and turned to watch what the politician was saying. Then he too snorted at another of her increasingly ludicrous statements.
“Fifty to one odds she only makes things worse here,” the bartender said—to himself mainly, but also to Rechs. “But then again, that’s all the government really does when you think about it. Tells you they’re helping you out while they’re ruining it all, one new law at a time. They never decrease. Always increase. My whole life. How does it last? How long can it go on? I’m always wondering that.”
Rechs nodded and finished his beer. Not because he was thirsty but because he wanted the old guy to refill it and keep talking. Intel on the ground was valuable. Once it was time to make his move and collect the captured legionnaires, there wouldn’t be time for it. He’d need to know as much as he could before then.
But Rechs had never been an interrogator.
He didn’t deal in talk.
He dealt in hot lead served cold, as someone had once told him. Whether that had been an overheated play on words or a deadly serious observation, he’d never been able to tell. He wasn’t the poetic sort. But upon reflection, he’d found it to be true.
He was a listener. Always had been. You stayed alive in the galaxy by listening more than you talked. That was a maxim he’d lived by and not told anyone.
The tall draft with just the right amount of foam drooling over the rim was set down as the politician girl on the screen continued to talk about the reforms needed on Detron that would allow the situation to improve immediately. And galaxy-wide as well, of course. The galaxy was always just one more budget-busting program away from utopia. They’d even named the capital after that ideal.
If he was being honest with himself, Rechs knew that sort of thinking had begun to creep back into the Republic as soon as the Savage Wars had ended. And maybe even before that. Casper had tried to warn him about it. Had said something drastic needed to be done. Hinted about things they’d agreed must never be done. Things they didn’t even speak about.
Then Casper disappeared. Faked his own death. Rechs was sure the man wasn’t dead. And ever since, Rechs had been hanging out near the edge. Waiting, really hoping, for something not to happen that he had a pretty good idea was going to happen.
But that was another story. And it had nothing to do with the legionnaires he was here to rescue. And the marine.
“That bad?” said Rechs to the old bartender, who leaned against the bar with one hand on a bad hip, the bar rag casually wiping something down as he listened to the pretty little liar on the screen telling all the stories the media wanted everyone to hear.
“That bad, pal?” repeated the bartender as though he were some character actor summoned to give a soliloquy he’d given a thousand times before. Each time made to seem as though it were as fresh as the first.
“Lemme tell ya’, flyboy, how great Detron used to be. When I got outta the navy and got back to Detron, the streets might as well have been paved with gold the economy was so good back then. Banging on all guns as we used to say. Manufactured at least three battleships a year. Beeeauuutiful things. Not like these destroyers they make today over at Tarrago. Them big old ships was really something to behold. And they were fighters too. Designed to go toe to toe with Savage hulks and cruisers so big they blotted out the starfield. But hey, you kids have no reference point.”
Though Rechs looked far younger than the man, he’d been at Telos. He’d seen up close what those ships did. He’d led troops off those battleships that were now little more than drifting space debris. And he remembered when the House of Reason declared that the need for such imposing, expensive ships was over. Because the Savage Wars were over.
He nodded politely at the bartender.
“But to be here in those days was to really be part of the future,” continued the old bartender. “Them battleships, it was like lookin’ at the future. And the future was all bright and shiny. You couldn’t wait to be a part of it!”
The man gave a melancholy smile and began to polish the old wood-grain bar once more for the thousandth uncountable time.
“Everybody was a doer… know what I mean, kid?”
Rechs nodded.
“Everybody had skin in the game. The whole city was bent on improving their own lives. Nobody was lookin’ to the
