The Red Racoon Dog

[Tain]

Day Four

Pay dirt. Tain was making great success with his impromptu trading business, with a little smuggling on the side. After his very first cargo run, things began to have a snowball effect as his databank filled with various contacts and locations, as well as fairly up-to-date galactic stock market information. After a couple days, he had enough money to give the Dog a major upgrade from a Repair Ship to an Armored transport covered in the best turrets he could afford. But now what, he wondered?

This was as far as he had really planned to take the Dog. The philosophical implications of him reaching the goal he had set were staggering. Would he simply dissolve away now, never to be seen again? What lay in store for him? Would he finally meet his true love and settle down on some backwater planet, herding mutated sheep? The thought was mildly amusing.

"Screw that. Time to make more money." Tain reached across the console aboard the much more expansive bridge of the new Dog and flicked a sequence of switches, eliciting a slow whine from the ship's Pratt Whitney power plant as it peaked off into a low rumble. He then leaned on the console and hit a button with his elbow, resting his chin on his hand as the ship's power plant climbed into operational pressure ranges. The button had activated a neat new toy he had picked up in the border worlds, which would broadcast music a short distance away from his vessel. He loved it, even though it seemed to annoy people in the 'verse... he had a tendency to sing over broadwave frequencies even though nobody else could very well hear the music to what he was singing. He didn't have a future career in nightclubs either. It didn't matter though.

Classical music flooded into the bridge as he prepped for takeoff...

"I'm not doin' fine! I'm desecratin' lives!
I boned a phonebooth of a lady-- shaky heinous cri~mes!
Nailin' hands down to floor-boards! Angry side gone over-board!
And I'm bored, still bored.
I'm SO bored!

I've gotta funny lil' fee-lin'!
My arms are shakin' like a light-nin'-rod, jyeah.
I'll cannonball right through the cei-lin'!
And sink my teeth in 'til the fee-lin's gone, yeah."

---

Penguin.