SLRC-BCV>Devil's_Due and The Parrot's Prophecy

[Stoner_Steve]

Sean jolted awake, a startle jolting through him. The insistent squawking of Polly, his feathered first mate, was the culprit. "What now, bird brain?" he grumbled, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

Polly, perched on the headboard, pointed a beady eye at the ceiling. A rhythmic dripping sound echoed through the cabin. Sean sat up, his heart pounding. A leak? Not again. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and He rushed to the viewport, yanking open the curtains. The cold, vacuum of space greeted him, but something was amiss. A large, crystalline mass, glinting in the starlight, was floating outside the viewport. As he zoomed in, he realized it was a frozen block of liquid, its shape vaguely reminiscent of a bottle.

A wave of realization washed over him. The gin. The infamous gin shipment, the subject of countless jokes and whispered conspiracies. A shipment so large, it could supply Freeport 11 for a year, maybe two, if he could resist the temptation of the bar.

A wry smile crept across Sean's face. "Well, this is a fine mess," he muttered. He'd heard the jokes about the ship being a floating distillery, but he hadn't expected them to come true in such a literal sense.