TITLE: New Year Bash

//DISCLAIMER: Foul language and drunken behaviour are featured in this presentation. Please know we do not endorse this behaviour in real life and to always drink responsibly. //

Aleck's Local Cantina, Eos City, Elos Vrai, Arx
Arx System, Wild Space

"3... 2... 1... HAPPY NEW YEAR!"

Everyone watched the holonet show the epic firework displaying throughout Eos City. Colonel Aleck Winters cheered with everyone else in the cantina, a mixture of loyalists and mercenaries out celebrating in the new year. The drinks had been flowing all night long and sadly for him it was time to stop, as had stupidly agreed to stop drinking as a new years resolution. "Happy New Year Mike," he turned to the man bartending, "I'm going to have to switch to the synthetics, bloody new years resolution starts now, so bring out what you got." He watched as the Mike the Bartender went to a dusty section of the shelves behind him and pulled out several dust-covered bottles. "Of for Force sake," Aleck muttered as the containers now before him, "I must be the only stupidest person to drink this stuff." Mike blew the dust off one of the bottles and opened it up and poured some of the substance in the glass before Aleck. Hesitantly, he picked up the glass, brought it to his lips and tried it. It was totally, and utterly, completely, shit! It tasted like absolute shit. "You have got to be messing with me, I can see why nobody drinks this crap, yeah it almost feels like whiskey, but there is no kick it." He then down the rest of the amber liquid in one go and turned to Mike, then pointed to the following bottle. "I might as well try the others." Aleck then spent the next twenty minutes trying the rest of the synthetic liquor, did wasn't anyone please with them as he was with the first one he had. "Kriff it!" Defeated, Aleck leaned over the bar's counter and placed his head flat on the surface, after a moment he looked up Mike. "I'll just have a cola."
Aleck was in drinking his second cola when several drunk officers stumbled up to the bar to order more drinks. One of them, a tall, lean man named Jed, looked at Aleck. "S-So what ye drinking Frosty? WAC?". Jed was a nice enough bloke when sober, but he was a lousy drunk. "It's just cola, no whisky in it," Aleck replied. "Frosty! Did you lose your dick or something? No longer got the balls to handle the hard stuff? You pussy." The insults flowed from Jed's mouth like water over a waterfall. Mike was used to drunk soldiers running their mouths but also knew the Colonel's temper if he got rilled up. Sure, Aleck could handle his alcohol better than most, but he had been drinking for hours before the new year rolled in. He was slowly getting angry, at first, he ignored the insults knowing that Jed was drunk, but as they kept coming and growing more vulgar, his patience was breaking. The moment Jed started laughing at him, Aleck bolted from his chair and punched the man in the face, breaking his nose as blood burst out. Jed tumbled to the floor groaning and holding his face, everyone who had been watching turned and looked at the Colonel who was standing over the other man. "Mike, I'll take a whiskey, to hell with this, now I know why no one drinks that synthetic crap."
Twenty minutes later, Jed and Aleck were finishing off a whiskey each when the local security officers walk in, the two men looked at the new arrivals, and both sighed. The standard protocol had all disturbances reported, and the individuals brought in, even on New Years that did not change. Both men knew this and accepted it, and it was the price of being a career military man. You were allowed to play hard as tomorrow you may die. So spending one night in lockup was not the end of the world, if they were lucky, then they would get a scolding and be sent home. Aleck was more disappointed that he had broken his New Year's resolution so soon, of course, he wasn't going to stop drinking, Aleck justed wanted to see how long he could have gone if Jed hadn't run off his mouth. Perhaps next year would be different? He chuckled to himself as that was not likely.