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The Barman, the Pirates and a good dose of Andromeda's Brandy
One night at the 'Metal'
o-o-o-o-o-o
Disclaimers: The Metal Bloody Saloon is owned by Bob, an Octodian and barman. The pirates, their captain, and their blonde navigator girl who came here to have a drink (more likely - several), are the property of Mr. Leiji Matsumoto. Tonight, the girl has swapped her usual skin-tight pink flight suit for a daring dress with tints of blue - an overdose of pink, probably.
And what do you mean, the pirates of the Arcadia are all alcoholics?
o-o-o-o-o-o
To Kiranagio, who inspired the plot.
To Andromede, who sells brandy at preferential rates to the pirates of the Arcadia.
To patnkatz, 'cause the translation should be easier to read than french (and thanks for the help ^^).
o-o-o-o-o-o
The Pirates had arrived in the early evening, even before the bar had begun to fill. Customers who were already there had suddenly remembered they had other things to do - anything, as long as it was elsewhere. Those who entered afterwards had sometimes dared to order a drink at the bar before running away, but most of them had turned around as soon as they'd come in the door - most with an expression of panic on their faces. After one hour of this activity (and the departure of twenty-five "non-customers" who might never set foot in his bar again in all of eternity), the barman had come from behind the bar counter with a sigh and had placed a little sign stating "Closed" on the front door he then locked. He told his least frightened cocktail waitress that she would receive a bonus for this evening and had dismissed the other two who had been in a hurry to escape by the back door.
He finally seized a chair and quietly approached the pirates, sat at the end of the table where the captain of this band of outlaws was sipping his glass casually.
"Give me some room, kid." The Bartender said.
The person concerned frowned, then seemed deeply annoyed. The barman smiled inwardly - Harlock hated being treated with the paternalistic condescension the barman systematically demonstrated every time they crossed paths.
"Don't call me" kid ", the pirate captain answered automatically. "Tell me, you're the owner of this sleazy bar, right? Aren't you supposed to serve us rather than sticking around?"
"Sleazy?" the barman shouted at Harlock, outraged. "If you don't like my bar, you can always go somewhere else ... if they would even accept or serve you there!"
His raised voice had attracted the attention of the whole table. The pirates stared at him with expressions ranging from curiosity - the barman was an Octodian, and to his knowledge, the only one in this quadrant - and open hostility as in "who the hell are you and how dare you attack our Captain? ".
"I think you've got nerve to challenge me in front of ninety percent of my crew. Or you're mentally challenged, if you want ..." Harlock favored him with a mocking smile.
"Challenge you? Hey, kid, who has taken over the place, has driven out all of my customers and then has the arrogance to criticize my business?"
Harlock raised his palms in a sign of conciliation. "Okay, point taken... You can stay," he added, shrugging his shoulders.
"I should hope so," grumbled the barman. "It's still my bar..."
The pirates lost interest in him and returned to their drinks and conversations. The barman served himself generously with whiskey before raising his glass to drink with Harlock.
"Cheers, Bob," Harlock replied. The captain took a sip of alcohol, seemed to hesitate, then leaned toward the barman. "And stop calling me "kid" in front of my crew," he added irritably.
The barman grinned without replying. The word "kid" was the leitmotif of their meetings. Harlock was still trying to convince him to stop using it, but Bob didn't see the advantage of giving up such a good way to drive the pirate crazy. Nevertheless, he knew when to stop the teasing - after all, according to the wanted notice plastered on the wall behind the bar counter, Captain Harlock was wanted, armed and dangerous - if the poster over the counter for all to see was correct.
So the barman didn't point out to Harlock that he was almost twice his age (at least if his estimates of the pirate's date of birth were correct), and that probably all the crewmembers of the Arcadia might be a handful of years older than their captain with the notable exception of the young lady at the table. No, he wanted to tease him, not upset him, nor to make him angry. And Harlock didn't look to be in a good mood today ...
"What are you celebrating?" the barman asked to change the subject. "Did you catch a big prize and you are spending the loot?"
Curiously, the pirate captain seemed to frown. "A birthday", he growled.
The barman swallowed the "and it doesn't make you happy?" that came spontaneously to mind when he identified the pirate who was a year older tonight.
More precisely, the pirate girl.
A pretty blonde, he had to admit it. The barman watched her for several minutes. She was radiant; sitting at center stage and clinking glasses with her colleagues - all of whom were male - giving them dazzling smiles, not to mention a plunging view down her cleavage. Nobody, despite the current alcoholic and relaxed mood, had displaced a single gesture or word toward the girl, while at the same time, the lone waitress had gotten pinched on her buttocks three times, had suffered two ribald remarks and was the target of a dozen lewd glances.
Mmm. Not normal, all of that ... The barman automatically excluded the hypothesis that about thirty human males had suddenly become insensitive to the charms of a blonde in a slinky blue strapless gown with a neckline that made even a hardened Octodian sweat. He was therefore obliged to infer that all that pirates had been briefed before coming with an argument convincing enough that they were able to curb their enthusiasm.
The question was, who had a grip firm enough to restrain the sexual appetites of thirty outlaws; crewmembers of a spaceship returning from patrol / raid or whatever name Harlock gave his activities of piracy, and aboard which we should certainly not find a female in every corridor?
The barman smiled to himself and returned his attention to the only person who did not seem to be having any fun around the table. Harlock was staring at the bottom of his glass and had not said a word since his last exchange with the barman. Let's see ... Either he was showing his antisocial side, or he was jealous. Or, shy ... Okay, no, not shy. Let's say rather, frustrated. Yes, that was it - frustrated, and principled - a captain is not to be attached to a crewmember - 'must keep to strictly military relations and all due considerations of rank.
The barman stood up and smiled with all his teeth. "Your attention, please!" he cried to the whole table. The hubbub died away, heads turned toward him.
"I'm Bob, the owner of the Metal Bloody Saloon," he said. "An old friend of your captain. I want to take part in your birthday, Miss ..." He raised an eyebrow questioningly.
"Kei Yuki," the young woman replied.
"Miss Kei", the barman continued. "To celebrate this occasion, drinks are on the house, and I offer you my special cocktail!"
The pirates cheered him. Bob went back behind the counter and asked his waitress to bring him the bottles and glasses he needed to achieve the cocktail, then he began to work with all the dexterity of a professional with several pairs of hands. Those of the Arcadia followed the design of the beverage with a gleam of admiration in their eyes.
So, Bob thought, Andromeda brandy, the kid loves it. I add a dash of white rum and Xil's liquor, a little syrup to sweeten, lemon ... Mmm, not bad.
The Metal Bloody Saloon's "special cocktail" was well-known several parsecs around. Partly because the Metal had been set up in succession on most of the trading planets in the galaxy before ending up here in the Border Region, but also because Bob was well-known for his detonating mixtures - men told stories in spaceports about a guy one day who exploded after drinking a cocktail made by Bob. In actuality, the being was a cyborg who had tried to show off: his internal control system had simply overheated because of alcohol and had then self-destructed; furthermore, the guy had wounded eight other customers as his pieces scattered everywhere. The barman had to pick up bloody pieces of metal all over his bar. Another distinctive feature of the "special" was that it was different every time for Bob loved innovations. The current daily had iridescent glints in its mixture.
The pirates were thirty-nine in all. The barman nearly ran out of cocktail glasses. It was not far off from being the total complement of the Arcadia's crew - by his reckoning, Harlock would have left only four or five men on board his ship.
Bob prepared the drinks while his waitress brought them gradually to the table. He watched Harlock out of the corner of his eye: the captain took an interest in the development of the first set of glasses but he was now deep in thought, whatever those thoughts were, completely indifferent to the festive atmosphere surrounding him.
It was time to release his secret weapon. The barman didn't hesitate to add a little more alcohol in the cocktail he reserved for Harlock (he might as well push his luck ...) and then, as naturally as if he added a dash of syrup, poured a generous dose of a small bottle he had confiscated one day from an unscrupulous dealer.
"And that's the last! " he announced happily. He returned to the table and served the pirates still without a glass, then Harlock, and himself last.
"Cheers to the prettiest crewmember of the Arcadia!" he shouted, raising his glass. Kei Yuki blushed. The pirates cheered enthusiastically. Harlock cast a deadly glance at the barman but he finally drank with everyone.
After five minutes, the pirate captain looked at his glass suspiciously, in another five he mechanically massaged his temples, half a glass later, he grabbed one arm of the barman, who was detailing his recipe to his neighbors while trying not to be too obvious in his observation of the creations' effects on his victim.
"Well, this is good. What did you put in there?" Harlock asked in a voice he wanted to be self-possessed, but which was nevertheless a little uneasy on the edges.
"Oh, listen to what I say! That's what I am trying to explain ..."
Harlock frowned as he assimilated the information - the alcohol had a marked tendency to slow his cognitive abilities. "No, what I mean," he said, "is what did you put in my drink? "
"Well, the same as in all of the others: brandy, rum, Xil ... You cannot stand hard liquor, kid?"
Harlock answered by a contemptuous "puff"; muttered a vague "don't call me kid" and took another sip of his cocktail. The barman allowed himself a small smile of triumph: the kid could never resist an alcoholic challenge - whatever the consequences.
His neighbor gave him a nudge. "Seriously," he whispered. "What did you put in his drink?"
"Hmm?"
"The Captain," the pirate said with an evocative shrug of the eyebrows. "His glass."
"Oh ... Dimis," the barman explained. Originally, DiMi-S was a drug designed to treat neurological disorders. One day a little rascal discovered that it increased the effects of alcohol to which it was mixed by a tenfold, without changing either the taste or color and while remaining almost undetectable from standard poisons detectors. All this had no practical use in medicine but immediately interested the Black Market network. Traffickers, pimps and recruiters of all kinds immediately saw the advantage of focusing a dozen glasses of alcohol into one - the consumer didn't suspect he was drunk until the Dimis acted - and by then he was usually ready to sign anything.
It was ideal for concluding negotiations in one's own favor, enlisting a crew quickly or extracting classified information. It also worked with captains of pirate ships, apparently.
"He won't be amused," the barman's neighbor said.
"Bah, about that, he would have to remember the evening ..." Bob replied.
Meanwhile, Harlock had finished his glass and had an unusually clumsy movement while trying to put it down again and hence began to attract the attention of his men. Harlock almost dropped it and Bob thought to himself that it didn't matter if it broke as he wanted new barware anyway.
"Damn, haven't seen him pissed this much since he decided to down the Arcadia's bar with Tochiro and Emeraldas" one of them commented.
"Yeah. Still, I think it's not very clever to get a guy like him drunk," another said.
"He needs to have fun," the barman replied firmly. "A little alcohol can help ..."
"C'mon. Usually, when he is less uptight, he becomes even more psychopathic. Personally, I'm nervous to see he can no longer catch his glass even though he carries enough to blow the entire block to oblivion. "
The Octodian cast a glance at Harlock's belt. "Ah, yes," he noted. "I hadn't noticed he lugged his mammoth-killer gun with him tonight."
"He always goes out with his ... Ouch, I hope Tochiro didn't hear the name you give his cosmodragoon - 'could take it badly ..."
The barman shrugged. The cosmodragoon was the most powerful handgun he had ever been able to observe, yet this information was almost useless, because while the laser's power could explode an armored vehicle at fifty yards, what normal being would have a confrontation with an armed tank with a single pistol? (Obviously you should not consider Harlock: the boy had always loved suicidal situations.) Besides, what if the generator of the weapon spiraled out? Then, whatever the genius of its builder, the owner would be not there to go back to complain to the returns department - nor would anyone else probably be around to complain!
"Well, then let's solve the problem right away, eh?" The barman hit Harlock's shoulder. "Can you give me your cosmodragoon, please?"
"Mmm ... Do not want ..." the pirate captain replied. He had a husky voice but his diction was still correct.
"I don't want an accident to happen, in fact," the barman insisted.
"Pff. 'can behave myself ..." Harlock punctuated his remarks by drawing.
The nearest pirates hunched up their shoulders. The barman's nose and the barrel of the cosmodragoon nearly collided and Bob immobilized Harlock's arm before the kid had the idea of twirling his weapon. Then Bob continued to try to remove the cosmodragoon from Harlock's grasp.
"Come, my boy. Be nice and give the pretty gun to Uncle Bob." The boy finally gave in - it might have been the alcohol, or perhaps Harlock had remembered that he was carrying other weapons he could use if needed. Bob quickly retracted the cosmodragon out of Harlock's sight and that was something, anyway.
"My glass is empty," Harlock remarked with a serious tone.
"Yeah, luckily it was empty when you knocked it over! You loved the cocktail, at least?"
Harlock took the time to think or at least to organize his sentence.
"'t was weird," he finally responded. "But I'd rather have something else to forget the taste."
"Whiskey or brandy, Captain?" a pirate cried. The Arcadia's crew appeared to have gotten on the bandwagon of "since he is getting plastered, let's give him a hand."
The center of attention for the evening logically moved from the center of the stage to the end of the table. The Captain entered into the game with all the enthusiasm of an alcoholic becoming thoroughly soaked; successively enjoying an Io's tequila shooter, the barman's whiskey without ice and a drop of beer from Heavy Melder before falling back on his favorite drink – Andromeda's brandy.
"Do not mix too much, you'll be sick", the barman signaled when Harlock tried to approach the vodka of his left neighbor.
"Mrf. 'dn't play with my glass ..."
"Hmm. Help yourself to a little more brandy, kid."
The nearest pirates hoisted sarcastic smiles. "Be certain that we will denounce you tomorrow, when he will ask us why he has to bear a blinding hangover ..."
"Ah, but I didn't put the bottle of brandy in his hand, eh?"
"Sure. But you do not have to endure him every day," the neighbor of the barman quipped ... "And you cannot deny you adulterated his glass," he added lowering his voice.
"Exactly! I completely assume responsibility... And 'til the end, by the way ... " The barman passed a pair of hands under his chin and took a look of feigned innocence. "Tell me, my boy - the girl having her birthday - what job does she do aboard the Arcadia?"
Harlock bore a rather suspicious expression while at the same time he also tried to concentrate his gaze on his interlocutor without wavering, while the barman ignored the glare.
"I suppose her colleagues gave her a gift ..." continued the Octodian.
"She is a navigator," interrupted the pirate at the opposite side of the table. "She works on the bridge."
"... 's my radar officer," Harlock said after two unsuccessful attempts.
"What I guessed", thought the barman. "So, you have given her something?" he said with a hint of treachery.
"What for?"
"Well, generally, well-educated and cultured people do act like that ..."
Harlock shrugged an eyebrow. "What 're you insinuating, right now?"
"That you have manners as good as an android from Rametal," Bob said quietly, knowing full well what would be the reaction of the pirate - compare him to his enemies, it might not please him. Indeed, the boy stood up and looked daggers at him - fortunately, he didn't have his cosmodragon any more.
"I have nothing to do with those damned mechanical tin cans," he said in an icy tone that would have been effective had he not stumbled on "nothing", "damned" and "mechanical" .
"Certainly. But you could at least wish her a happy birthday, couldn't you?"
Harlock breathed in deeply - either to keep from strangling the barman, to give himself courage or else to succeed in walking without becoming entangled in his own feet.
"If that's the only way to please you ..." he muttered.
The barman gave a half smile. "'It's not me it's going to please, my boy," he murmured.
All the pirates were wide-eyed when their captain made his way toward his navigator with a little zigzagging step. "There, that's for sure, he will blame you," the neighbor of the barman noticed. "You know he can be very vindictive?"
"I count on you to take off tomorrow morning before he wakes up," Bob said.
"Yeah ... In short, we let you manage him."
"If it bothers you, you'd just have to stop him ..."
The pirate exchanged knowing glances with his colleagues. "Don't be crazy! Now it gets interesting!"
Harlock arrived at his destination and rested his hands on the back of Kei Yuki's chair. The young woman was turning as red as a peony. "'parently I should offer you something for your birthday," Harlock said.
"Oh, it doesn't matter, Captain," Kei smiled, wondering in vain why her dress didn't have the "camouflage" option that she so desperately needed at this moment.
"Well, yes it's true, I should have ..." The pirate captain bit his lip as if he had just remembered an important detail, then shrugged his shoulders. "Note, in retrospect, I feel they made me drunk for this very purpose ..." He shook his head. "Anyway, having gotten this far ... Happy birthday, then ..."
Harlock favored Kei with a nice charming smile, which made her blush even more - if indeed that was still possible. Then, without warning and to everyone's surprise, he leaned down towards her and kissed her long and full.
"Well! I didn't think he would go THERE up until now ..." the neighbor of the barman commented who, like all the others at the table, didn't lose the smallest detail of the show playing out in front of them.
"Neither did I," the Octodian said in speechless wonder. Bob then allowed a significant hole to occur in his stock of alcohol – financially this night would be difficult to recover from but not impossible - and sang a song with a beautiful tenor voice.
Kei sat on the captain's lap and stayed there, except when he danced a waltz with her. A pirate tried to demonstrate his talents as a juggler with glasses, which further reduced the Metal Bloody Saloon's cocktail set. The waitress realized through the night's activities that all these outlaws were not nearly as frightening as they had at first appeared to be and flirted shamelessly with half of the pirates.
The evening later ended with everyone in relaxed and alcoholic mood. Those of the Arcadia left the bar shortly before dawn. The green ship took off a few minutes later.
o-o-o-o-o-o
The barman later learned that Harlock had been in a foul mood all that week, Kei had blushed every time she came across him during the same period, and that both had blurred memories of the famous evening. Which was not the case for the rest of the crew: the night in question was the subject of discussion for well over a week, however not in front of those concerned.
Harlock was highly suspicious, of course, even if he didn't outwardly let anything show. The hectic pace he imposed on the watch teams was a good clue. Nobody complained though. After all, it was not that bad a consequence when one considered the pay off they had gained ...