Friendly Stakes

Posted on Wed Nov 8th, 2023 @ 3:33pm by Lieutenant Evelyn Stewart & Lieutenant Tollan Yara & Char & Lieutenant Commander Keishara Davaris & Lieutenant Dashku Zhevou & Lieutenant JG Koaruh Avestro & Senior Chief Petty Officer Rufio Dulay & Gunnery Sergeant Matewa Natana

0 words; about a 1 minute read

Mission: Year One: Whispers in the Wind
Location: USS Moore - DMZ
Timeline: MD: 011 2200 hrs

Stewart downed her second shot of whiskey before tossing a handful of chips into the pot. "I call." she proclaimed while doing so. She had a decent hand and managed to eliminate Matewa and Koaruh from the round by betting strong out the gate. Dulay looked to be following with his jittering. She turned her attention to the intelligence officer sitting to her left who seemed to be making a calculations in her head. "Come on, Safi. Are you in or not?" she teased the other woman with a smirk as she sipped her ale.

Safi had an amazing poker face. Some would almost think she was robotic at times how well she placed her 'cards close to her chest' (pun intended). "I am in." she said simply and placed her bet on the table by pushing it further into the middle.

"Out!" Rufio threw his cards on the table in exasperation. "I don't know why I do this to myself." he muttered as he folded his arms.

"For a smart guy he's pretty stupid." Matewa nudged Koaruh who laughed whilst taking a drink from his glass.

Evelyn smirked as Yara took a moment to consider. He glanced at the table and considered who was left. Safi was always detached, Stewart was a card shark, she didn’t cheat but she clearly knew the game and how to hustle. That just left the newest crew member. Glancing at the Orion, Tollan tried to get a read on her before deciding to fold. “Well, I’m not Rufio, that’s for sure.” He teased the auxiliary craft pilot.

With a smile, Stewart looked at Dashku. “Lieutenant?”, she prompted. Stewart had met a handful of Orions when she was young but her brother told her to ignore the stereotypes about them. She still didn’t trust that the woman at the table didn’t know how to play.

Dashku looked innocent enough, she kept looking at her cards and looking around the table. She eyed Stewart for a moment before she she glanced at her cards again. "Please call me Dashku or even Dash if you fancy," She tossed in a few chips followed by a couple of more. "I raise?"

Stewart sat back in her seat and eyed the Orion for a good minute, idly playing with the small stack of chips she would need to call as she thought. Evelyn had two pair of sevens and tens with a Jack high. It was a strong hand, but still beatable. Making a determination she shook her head. "I don't buy it. Orions may not have the best reputation, but I'm sure more than a few of you have played cards before. I call." She said with a cheerful smile as she tossed her pile of chips in.

Yara glanced over to where Kei was sitting off to the side but not at the table. "Why aren't you playing, Keishara?" He asked as he finished his drink.

Before Davaris could answer, Stewart spoke up. "Because she cheats." She said as she took a long sip of her ale.

"I do not cheat." Kei remarked in a raised voice. "It is not my fault everyone has to be so emotional when trying not to be. It's strange when you all try your hardest to hide your feelings you all scream the loudest." she shook her head and then took a drink from her glass.

Stewart laughed with everyone else before mouthing 'lies' to Dashku across the table. Kei had no feel for the game but managed to now and then win herself more than a few hands when she needed to, suspiciously when the pot was significantly large. Evelyn caught on to this after a few games and barred her from the table, leaving her to provide her usual colorful commentary from one of the couches nearby.

Glancing at Safi, who was still in thought, Stewart let out an exaggerated sigh. "Ugh...it's poker, Mpongo, not decrypting data files." She teased impatiently before turning to Dashku. "So how exactly did you join Starfleet, Dash?"

"Raise." Safi said steadily as she moved chips into the centre of the table. "And poker is exactly like decrypting data files. You are all data, cards are data." she added simply.

Kei started to pretend to snore on the couch as Safi finished speaking before waking up with a start. "Oh sorry. I need you to come and talk to me before bed. Works like a charm here..." she teased the intel woman.

Dashku took a second to look at her face down card again, face up she had two sixes and two jacks. The question was if she had the full house or was bluffing.

"Data doesn't always count for emotion, it can cause irrational behavior," The Orion shrugged one of her shoulders, before taking a drink from her glass. "Would you like to hear the truth or the rumor?"

Tollan looked up at the words Dashku said and smirked. “Rumors are always more fun than the truth.” He suggested as he finished his drink and looked towards the bar, hoping to catch Char.

Dashku just smirked, before swirling the brown liquid in her glass and taking a drink from it. "The rumors were never ending, I believe there were only a few other Orions in the academy at the time. Most of them were mundane, I joined to infiltrate Starfleet and that sort. The truth is I hate the syndicate. My favorite was that it was a cover and I was there to be an enforcer and assassin. I had at least six deaths attributed to me."

Evelyn swirled her ale before taking another drink. "And the truth?" She asked evenly of Dashku, intrigued by the story as she waited on the Orion's move.

"As much as that sounds like an interesting life, it is more of a holonovel plot than my actual life. I wanted to escape the syndicate," Dashku had a slight smirk, but there was a sadness in her voice. "Starfleet was my way to escape. They would never admit it, but it's one of the few organizations that can truly challenge them if it came down to a fight. I figured I'd be safer here than on the run. What about the rest of you? What drew you to join Starfleet?"

"I'd lived a life 'on the road' for a few hundred years and when my ship decided to give up a Starfleet ship picked me up. Got to talking with some of the officers, lower decks crew and decided maybe I'd throw in with this lot for a while. It's stuck, I'm going on my twenty second year now." Kei spoke loud enough from the sofa for everyone to hear her. She didn't often speak of her life before her courier days for reasons only really obvious to herself.

"I only did two years on the road," Dashku volunteered the information, but it wasn't something she kept hidden. "And I've only been here for ten, but it's the longest I've been committed to anything. Not sure what I'll do when I finally decide to hang up my uniform."

Yara just pointed at himself as he counted his chips. "Symbiont's influence." He said matter of factly, as if it was such a simple explanation. There was more to it but the core reason was the life experiences of the Yara symbiont led him to pursue medicine within Starfleet instead of a private practice.

Stewart finished her ale as she nodded at the others. "When I finally left Vulcan I flew my brother's courier ship around for about seven years. He wasn't a fan of the people I associated with." She commented. "And with the increasing tensions due to the Dominion, he felt that flying all over the quadrant wasn't exactly the safest place for his teenage sister so he pressured me to join." Evelyn didn't like talking about Desmond, especially given her beliefs that if she was still doing runs with him he wouldn't have gotten messed up with the business he had with D'Ghor and he probably be still alive. With a sigh she looked at Dashku. "Your call."

"I joined the academy after the war had already ended," Dashku tossed in the amount to call, not wanting to raise it any more than it already was.

"I was still safely tucked away on an Orion world," She mused, although she'd seen her share of things she didn't necessarily want to remember. Her mother did have plans for her after all. "With a hell of an overbearing mother."

Stewart nodded and glanced over at the bar for Char to bring another round for the group. "The small benefits of being an orphan I suppose." She mused out loud. "Ready?" She asked of Safi and Dashku regarding the showing of their hands.

"I am." Safi responded. "Are you?" she looked around the table.

"I believe the human idiom is born ready," Dashku flipped her card up to show another six, so three sixes and two jacks in total and shrugged. "If I remember my hands correctly, this is a full house and it's pretty good, yes?"

Safi placed her cards down with a smirk as she spread them out. What was displayed was a king of the club suit and four cards displaying 3 of all the others. "Four of a kind." she announced. However she didn't know what Evelyn had yet.

Stewart just swore loudly in Bajorian before tossing her hand on the table. She didn’t acknowledge it but with the cards landing however they felt like it, her two pair were evident. With a frustrated sigh, she folded her arms before gesturing at the pot. “Go ahead, Safi.” She said, dissatisfied before taking a healthy gulp of her ale. “Well played, both of you.” She intoned, doing her best to be a good sport despite the substantial loss.

Dash narrowed her eyes at Safi, while it wasn't impossible for her to have what she had, it was unlikely. "Maybe we'll have to play a drinking game next time," She smirked slightly. "If you're daring enough to play an Orion drinking game that is."

Safi nodded and accepted her winnings.

"I would say I am already winning having been sitting drinking most of the night watching you all flick little cards around." Kei replied as she finished her glass. "None for Rufio though... he's had his two." she smirked at him.

Rufio just waved her away with a laugh.

"I should probably call it a night," Dashku admitted, before she finished her drink and tossed her cards into the middle of the table. "I don't want to owe any more than I do and I'm still trying to make a good impression."

Stewart finished her pint and smirked at the Orion as she began collecting the cards and organizing the chips to take back to her quarters. "Oh you are making an impression alright." She said wryly but with a playful smirk as she worked. "Maybe next time we can try a round of Tongo, Lieutenant." She offered, already starting to like Dashku.

"Oh?" Dashku questioned before she pursed her lips for a moment and watched Stewart. She was curious about what her impression might be so far. "And I don't think you'd like me much after playing Tongo with me."

"Tongo... funny name that." Kei mused over the word." Is there not a place on Earth called Tongo?"

Stewart just rolled her eyes at the security chief's comment as she finished cleaning up the cards. "Why is that, Lieutenant?" She asked Dashku curiously as she finished cleaning up and signaling another shot from Char before she retired for the night.

"And ruin the mystery of why you wouldn't like me?" Daskhu made a clicking sound, before she shook her head. "That doesn't seem like any fun at all. Until next time."

Stewart gave Char an appreciative smile and thanked him quietly before downing her shot and smirking at Dashku. “Until then.”

 

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