Dip Reinegger and the Beach Party at Xylar-7

The triple suns of Xylar-7 were doing wonders for my tan. I was kicked back in a levitating lounge chair with a glass of fermented star-fruit juice in one hand and a trashy holo-novel in the other. For once, the Andromeda galaxy felt peaceful.

That lasted exactly until the sky turned purple and four armored drop-pods slammed into the shoreline.

The Uninvited Guests

The pods hissed open to reveal a squad of Krallite Raiders. They were six-foot-tall insectoids with clicking mandibles and two antennae a piece. Each held a Krall pulse-rifle. Their leader, a scarred brute with a cybernetic antenna, stepped onto the VIP boardwalk, firing a blast into the air as he stopped.

"Hi," the Krallite buzzed over the loudspeaker. "My name is eeeeeekackodeeeepakalooeees. Please call me Lewis. We’ve come to harvest your plarkchars and greebles. Please hand them over calmy and my men and I will be on our way."

The alien tourists from around the galaxy looked to one another and at once dropped all their valuables to the floor.

The Krallite leader looked confused before understanding came to him. “I see I may have miscommunicated my intent.” Lewis looked to his nearby henchman who briskly walked over to quietly converse.

The leader addressed the hostage crowd once again, “What I meant to say is ‘we’ve come to harvest your intestines and buttholes. Please hand them over calmly.’”

The tourists gasped. A group of gelatinous Blobs from the Sirius system began to quiver, their translucent bodies turning a shade of terrified yellow that looked suspiciously like wee.

Dip Swaps the Juice for Juice

I didn't even stand up at first. I just lowered my sunglasses and looked at the lead terrorist.

"You guys picked the wrong cabana. I’m on the clock for rest and relaxation, so I don’t got time for no bug-people terrorists." I said. "Besides, I’ve been eating Plarby’s Fly-Thru on the daily for 4 years so don’t think I don’t know what it’s like to have my guts yanked out of my exhaust shaft."

The leader clicked his mandibles in a laugh and leveled a rifle at my chest. Before the bug could pull the trigger, I kicked the lever on my lounge chair. The chair shot backward like a rocket. I rolled behind a stack of titanium coolers and came up swinging fists.

The Sand Firefight

I grabbed the nearest bug and used him as a shield against the oncoming fire. The two bugs on either side of me shot each other by mistake.

I took a pulse rifle from the ground and moved like a laser across the shifting sands toward the next terrorist, striking him down with awesome purple rifle fire. The beach erupted in total chaos as the tourists ran to escape and the bugs all came at me.

Time for some sunscreen. i reached into my jumpsuit to pull out a thermal hand grenade disguised as a bottle of sun tan lotion, tossed it into an oncoming group of terrorists. “Don’t forget your sunscreen,” I quipped as I hit the deck just before the explosion.

All that remained was the leader, Lewis, who spotted me from up on the boardwalk and practically dove down on top of me, wielding an ugly-looking vibro-blade. I blocked the first thrust with a metal serving tray.

His blade stuck into the tray, inches from my nose. We played tug-of-war a moment before I finally wrested the tray and stuck knife from his grip and tossed both aside. We wrestled like Titans for what seemed like eons before I finally managed to strangle him to death with the tie string of a grass skirt.

The remaining terrorists saw their boss wearing his new necklace and decided it wasn't worth the trouble. They scrambled back into their pods and broke orbit at top speed.

The Celebration

As the smoke cleared, the tension evaporated. The Blobs from Sirius turned a vibrant, party-ready pink. The local Xylarian natives, beautiful humanoids with glowing skin and bioluminescent hair, emerged from the surf with drums and synthesizers.

"The threat is gone," the Xylarian priestess cheered, draping a lei of shimmering sea-flowers around my neck. "Now, we celebrate the hero!"

The music kicked in. It was a heavy, hypnotic beat that pulsed through the very ground. I didn't need a second invitation.I grabbed the hands of two stunning Xylarian dancers and led the way to the center of the sand.

The beach party was back in full swing. Tourists and natives alike moved together in a sea of glowing limbs and rhythmic heat. Under the rising moons of Xylar-7, I proved that I’m just as dangerous on the dance floor as I am in the cockpit.

Dip Reinegger and the Beach Party at Xylar-7