Rocketbilly - serial space opera - Episode 2b: Rocketbilly Luau
A Serial Saga Of Those Maverick Spacers Known As Rocketbillies And Their Moonshine-Powered Rockets
What "Rocketbilly" is about: This space opera is inspired by a dream I had where I was blasting into space on a moonshine powered rocket. Going planet to planet, living free - - as a moonshine powered Rocketbilly. Cause when you're a Rocketbilly, whether you're drinking up or blasting off, you're always powered by that same ole moonshine.
As traders, explorers, and prospectors, the Rocketbilly exists within a highly decentralize star-spanning economy where the primary consumable - moonshine - can be produced almost anywhere that you can grow fruit or sugarcane to ferment. Where there is life, there is moonshine, as the Rocketbillies say.
I am proud to debut this serial space opera, as it is written, here on our own decentralized frontier - that "space" we call Steemit! I hope you enjoy and I welcome any requests, suggestions or feedback. Steemit rocks!!
Bill
Last Week On Rocketbilly:
Jake Argo's spaceship ran out of fuel and he made a forced landing on a primitive planet. Steering onto a volcanic island near the beach, he hoped to do some surfing and distill enough moonshine to refuel his ship...
Rocketbilly - Episode 2b - Rocketbilly Luau
I knew there were some rockin natives who would be ready for a party later so I decided to set up camp and summon some of my Rocketbilly compadres to enjoy what looked like increasingly excellent surf. The bay below me was breaking perfectly. Crystalline lines stretched like corduroy to the horizon. I placed the call.
What a wonderful thing it was to have tachyon communication networks in place throughout the cosmos. I was able to communicate instantly across galactic distances and get someone trillions of light years away on the phone. Or in this case, a whole group of them spread across a half dozen different worlds:
Taq: A heavy weapons and bodybuilding afficionado, mercenary for hire
Rolando: A hotshot/hothead young aircar racer and pilot
Sarah “JJ” Shrike: Gorgeous but deadly martial arts expert and leader
Bombora: Surfing, Beach Life and Party Engineering expert (triple doctorate)
Treena and Katreena: Rocketbilly liquid fuels and aerospace engineering experts, twins who are local royalty on Ophelia 27.
Saraq: Friend With Benefits From Earth, Empyreal Ranger
And me:
Jake Argo: Ship Captain
I told them I was declaring a Luau later and they would be expected to attend. They were ready for the old team to get back together. I told them I had an important announcement that I wanted to make! A new gig that they would all want to be part of.
It sounded like several hundred Rocketbillies would most likely show up for what promised to be a high octane throw-down.
Myriad Rocketbillies of every type and description inhabited our world on a daily basis. Instantaneous communications throughout the cosmos and vehicles able to traverse hundreds of light years per day made for a lot of social action. And I could feel it cranking up already. Feel the ground thumping below my feet as this epic and well known crater beach became the scene for yet another epic, all night surf and distilling party.
But first, a peaceful solo surf scene in the waves that I had been first to discover this day. No one else was out. This spot had been forgotten about in the past week as fashions evolved and Galaxy 60 came back into the spotlight. With millions of surf cams transmitting in realtime throughout the cosmos, no one had caught onto this one. The recent Federal restrictions on artificial intelligence had forced the surf cam networks to temporarily remove their filtering algorithms. There was a mint to be made in recoding stuff like that.
Even during the day, the stars and glow of the dense Formax Cluster shone overhead, daylight jewels in the sky despite the blue sky and sun. Ah, to have a surf by myself with only nature as my companion! A grand communion with the cosmic yin/yang spirit of dynamic interplay which fuels all waves!!
But wait, what was that - someone else paddling out ahead of me? Where had they come from. And another. Then dozens, hundreds. The bay was awash with surfers of all types and descriptions, but especially the ones who looked wave-starved. Bored on some other world, they had heard over the infamous “Coconut Tachyon Telegraph” that the surf was up. Jumped in their vehicles or stepped in a matter transporter and here they were. Another flash crowd. I was glad to be popular, practically a Duke in the informal hierarchy of Rocketbilly society. But popularity could have its downside. I should have spoofed them all with a spurious report that the Argonic sector was ridiculously, mindblowingly epic with time-travel tubes and reports of heavy gold dust concentration in the sea sands!
A surf insta-crowd it was, so I made the most of it. I caught up with surfer friends young and old, male and female, from hundreds of different star systems. They all wanted to know the same thing: What was the new gig I was offering? What was the big secret that I would reveal at the height of this evenings Luau!?!
I kept my secret and just smiled. Assured them that there could be a place for all who wished to join in on this amazing new opportunity that I would be launching. A mission and a journey that would fabulously enrich all who joined in the cause.
And a rocking party it was, even by the bawdiest of Rocketbilly standards! Treena and Katreena had helped me set up the robo-stills and optimize all the parameters for local planetary conditions. An army of utility bots streamed back and forth into the jungle bringing fruits and roots to ferment. The Chrono-Fermenter tanks would have alcohol-rich mash available for distilling within the hour.
It was hard to tell where to turn one’s attention or what to participate in at any one time to maximize the all-critical Fun Quotient. Bombora seemed to be winning the Limbo contest. Swaying sensuously beneath the ever-lowering bamboo, she applied her triple-doctorate powers of surf party engineering. What a bounce she had.
Aircar and aircycle stunts and racing were taking place. Ownership digi-slips being raced for. Skydivers barreling down through the atmosphere, then getting a lift back on an aircar or the back of an aircycle. Some of them didn’t even have antigrav safety belts. They preferred the thrill of consequences. Skysurfers swooped, raced and zoomed. Banking around clouds and performing seemingly impossible spins.
The beach, in addition to being a visual fiesta of every form of bikini, trikini and just straight up Kini known to man, had become a sports scene. Football, beach basketball, volleyball, sand bowling, and shuffleboard were in full effect! Hundreds of holo-projectors displayed the top professional teams’ games as they happened throughout space. Cheers errupted as popular teams dominated their hated rivals. Service bots cruised around using antigravity, delivering wings, beer, onion rings and roasted land-starfish to the hungry masses.
Many groups and sub-groups clustered around the stills, anxiously awaiting the arrival of The Rocketbilly God - - that chemical elixir that fueled our spaceships, aircars, groundcars, generators, and robots - - as well as our own all-critical Cosmic Spirit. It is said that the soul of a Rocketbilly is born of flame from a moonshine burner. Many Rocketbilly souls were born or renewed that night!
After the stills had produced a few thousand gallons of XXX fuel grade moonshine, we ceremonially pronounced it to be Genuine Rocketbilly Unbrand and we filtered it through tritanium and began heartilly consuming.
Pit-roasted Bison-Beast Bar-B-Q filled our bellies and we praised the technology that enabled our creative lifestyle. We praised robotics, nanotechnology, gravitics, nuclear physics and aerospace engineering. But mostly we praised the ancient and enlightened art of fermentation. There were toasts.
Finally I could put them off no longer and I had to reveal my big secret. The reason I had brought them together and the amazing new mission that I hoped they would sign onboard for. I swallowed another powerful gulp of the blessed moonshine and began my sales pitch:
My Fellow Rocketbillies! Today I announce a new mission I intend to undertake, which I invite you all to join!
I gestured and a large holo-projector illustrated my words for all to see.
In a forgotten sector of a seldom-visited side galaxy, I have discovered a stargate which allows access to interdimensional space/time! I have sent probes through the portal and using the data from them, identified a dimension parallel to our own, yet several days in the past. By travelling through this portal we will be able to place bets using our knowledge of the future, win most of those bets, and return bearing great riches in gold and galactic credits!
A great cheer went up. I further revealed that the stargate could be opened using a palm size jeweled alien tech device that I had discovered during my own initial forays into the alternate dimensions. I opened the stargate and most of them followed me through. A few stragglers couldn’t be bothered, satisfied with the freshly distilled moonshine or tinkering with their aircycles.
I had not counted on the resistance we would encounter from what amounted to alien boss creatures, huge in size and with powerful tech, who engaged us in battle. I was glad once again for the Rocketbilly custom of carrying powerful weapons with us everywhere we went. All those machine pistols, gravity cannons, drone missiles, fusion rifles, energy spears, and plasmatic swords sure came in handy. I busted out my energy nunchakus and defeated tons of these pernicious aliens. Praise be to Rocketbilly technology and spirit! We wiped out the opposition and returned with mega credits and shining bars of gold.
Back on the beach, everyone was rich once again. Not just in gold and cyber-credits, but in memories! Also, rich in all the amazing collectibles they had already ordered and that were arriving by swarms of delivery drones that popped into and out of micro-portals in the air above the beach! Bringing their deliveries from a thousand worlds.
Vintage issues of digital magazines! Collectible figurines of video-skinned Vertrubian dancer girls! New engine mods and exhausts for the aircars and aircycles! Atomic powered tiki torches! Autographed footballs, baseballs, basketballs, volleyballs, and frisbees. All these different kinds of purses from alien worlds that the girls were suddenly into, each purse more colorful and alien looking than the last! A bunch of typical various aliens started showing up. Bug eyed, reptilian and insectoid. They had something to do with the purses. They had alien robots with them, helping with all the purses. It was a rage for alien purses, nearly as I could tell.
I slipped away from the crowd with Treena and Katreena on my arms and we went down to a secret little area in the jungle to the side of the beach where we could be totally alone. In the light of all those bright, weird colored moons that orbit Ophelia 27, we got frisky. The Cosmic Spirit ignited within us and we felt the sense of freedom and energy that animates all Rocketbillies. The fine white, chalk-like sand coated parts of our bodies like powdered sugar as we were unified in our passions.
© 2017 by Bill Surf. All rights reserved
