After nearly 9 billion kilometers of cypherjammed skitting between asteroids and shade-side moon bases, nothing to eat but Neptunian Rathbazrr, and more than a few close calls with the Sector Z659G Kowalian Space Pirates, my ship, the Wayfarer, set down in a dusky Seattle, at the intersection of 6th & Jackson. Kordar, the Wayfarer's navigation system, chose the location due to its scrumptiousness quotient and high alcohol content, and I must say that, for once, Kordar was operating in top form.
Upon landing, the Wayfarer was cloaked by the scope of the city and the neon lights of so many run down bars flickering on as the sun slipped beneath the planet's slim horizon. Upon disembarkation, I admit that the length of my journey inside the Wayfarer hadn't prepared me for the jarring experience of this planet. Standing atop the cracked asphalt of the I District in which I now found myself, I must have looked exhausted: its been so long since I've worked a long-haul reconnaissance mission, much less in such a lamentable region of the galaxy as this. And I was in need of sustenance.
After a few skewers and Ochawaris, I found myself in risen spirits. Outside, I stood with collar hitched up against the breeze in those neon lights, smoke slipping between my fingers. As I inhaled and the wind picked up, contemplating the astral circumstances that brought me to such a backwater solar system, you appeared and the walk lit up with the radiance of 10,000 Betelgeuses.
In your Sarcantuonian horned dress, a rarity even in the casinos of the eponymous belt, immediately shocked me with its sub-dermal proboscii. Your waist-long hair, colored a deep Asthraxian teal, eclipsed the harsh contrast between neon and creeping death. And your eyes, carbon-healed and duplicitous but for the carefully applied diamond ash, sought mine out and, for a brief moment, I felt as if our digital souls had accessed the same galactic network. And then, just as soon as you materialized, you jast.
And here I sit, planning my next skit under the cover of celestial darkness, with a question relentlessly gnawing at me: who was this mysterious alien priestess?