James has taken him to a bar Wil has never seen before. “Guess I shouldn’t be surprised—this place used to be, what? A steakhouse?” He looks around. It sort of reminds him of a bar on Fury.
“Seafood place, I can’t remember which one, but it turned over about two years ago. Seems to be doing better as a bar than a white tablecloth joint.” James raises his glass, and Wil clinks his against it.
“God, I miss beer,” Wil sighs, putting the glass down.
“No beer in space? Screw that!” James exclaims. “I’m retiring tomorrow, no way, I’m out.”
Wil laughs. “Well, there is, sorta. ‘Grum,’ they call it. I’ve still haven’t figured out if that’s the brand or the type of drink, or what. Everyone just says, ‘grum’ and they get handed this lager-like drink. Nothing amazing, but it’s wet and does the job.” He takes a sip of something quite a bit darker than a lager, and sighs again.
“Does the job of…” James asks.
Without thinking about his answer, Wil says, “Dulling the pain.”
“Is it that bad? I mean you’re here now, you could stay. Just leave an anonymous tip about where you parked your ship. I’m sure we can figure out a way to get you a clean ID, or something.” James takes a long sip of his own beer, never taking his eyes off Wil. “I mean, how hard can it be, people fake their own deaths all the time.”
“In the movies,” Wil says. “No, I can’t stay. I wasn’t sure I should come but figured it might be easier if I had stuff from home. I mean, at least then I could watch Star Trek when I’m bored.” He grabs a handful of peanuts. “Plus, even if I did try to start over as someone else, I’m an astronaut, man. That’s not something I can just go do somewhere else. Everything I’ve seen and done, both here and…” he gestures over his head, “out there. You think I could sit still, after all that?”
“Yeah, that’s fair. But still, you’re not really making it sound that great. So why go back?”
Wil nods slowly. “I think seeing the city again, and you, is making me more melancholy than I would be otherwise. I mean dude, before I came here, I had some aliens dump a ton of super-knowledge right into my brain. I can field strip weapons, make basic repairs to my ship.” He smiles. “Some seriously Matrix level shit.”
“Do you—” James starts.
“Know Kung-Fu?” He smiles at the shared joke, making a karate-chop motion. “No, I asked, but it doesn’t really translate.”
James sets his beer down, almost empty. “Think we’ll ever be ready?”
Wil takes a last sip of his own beer, setting the empty glass on the edge of the table. “Someday, yeah. I mean the GC isn’t all that different from, say, I dunno, Earth as a whole. Some planets are absolute third-world shitholes, others are like New York City, but on a planetary scale: One. Big. City—bureaucracy for days. If I understand correctly, the GC, the Galactic Commonwealth, won’t even talk to Earth until two things happen. One, we leave our solar system, preferably via Faster Than Light travel. And two, the entire planet is unified under one government.” Wil makes a motion, pulling his hands apart like an explosion. “Apparently it hasn’t ended well when an un-unified world tries to deal with the GC.”
James whistles and Wil continues, “It’ll be rough. The GC is the government, dysfunctional and all, but really they just keep the peace, and collect taxes. They’re actually why no one has come to Earth.”
James raises his eyebrows, as the server drops off two fresh beers.
“There’s a rule. Primitive worlds like ours are protected. I guess a few hundred years ago, or more, it was pretty common for pirates to find primitive worlds and sell the population into slavery. Pick a world clean, sell it all off.” He takes a sip of the new beer, sighing again with pleasure. “So good! Anyway, some couple hundred or whatever years ago, the GC established really—and I mean really—strict punishments for any ship found in protected systems.”
James looks at his friend. “Then how’d you survive out there?”
“Like anything, there are rule-breakers. I got picked up by some freelancers who were laying low out by the orbits of the outer planets. If the pod had malfunctioned but stayed on course, I’d be dead for sure. It was complete luck that they were out by Neptune’s orbit. They picked me up, gave me a choice: cabin boy, or airlock.”
“Princess Bride style,” James laughs.
Wil laughs with him. “Yeah, actually. Though Lanksham didn’t do the daily reminder that he’d kill me.” He looks down at the table. “But he did give me his ship.” He pauses, then says, “Man, I should have named the Ghost whatever the ship was called in the Princess Bride. What was that?”
James reaches over and pats his friend’s arm, shaking his head. “The Revenge.”