chapter 159
POV: Lola
“How much longer is it going to take them? I really need the captain back here,” Bob sent me a message.
“It’s going to take as long as it’s going to take.” He would not like that answer, but I also attached an image I took with my own eyes.
“I guess I shouldn’t be in such a hurry. Let them enjoy themselves.”
The picture was a simple one: Captain, Sam, and Dean were all sitting around the last table. Each of them had different amounts of chips in front of them, but this particular picture was taken during a break where everyone was talking to each other, with all my crew members having big smiles on their faces.
They had all made it to the finals. They were in the top 10, so even if all of them lost right now, the prize money would be enough to cover the last of our needs.
But I really didn’t care about that. What I cared about was how much they were enjoying themselves. Since they knew there was no pressure to place any higher, they were just having fun.
They had only been playing for a few hours, and none of the 10 last competitors had fallen out yet, but the one with the fewest chips would most likely fall out soon. It was a humanoid species without gender, with many tentacles and very reactive skin.
All of them who made it this far knew how to play Texas Hold’em. Their knowledge of the mechanics of the game was basically perfect, but everyone was capable of that if they put their mind to it when you had enough rank-ups.
They also knew the best way to win was to play the person, not the cards. All nine of them had basically perfect control of their bodily functions, so there was so much purposeful misdirection happening. It was quite exciting to watch, but the one with the tentacles wasn’t as perfect as the others.
It took an unlucky set of cards, and we had our final nine. From what FH was telling me, the entire station was tuned into this broadcast.
“And here we are, our first player is out. Please give them a great applause for having made it this far, they were incredible!”
“Don’t feel sad for them, they made it to the top 10, which means they are walking away with a small fortune!”
“Right you are, a couple of wealthy individuals truly made a lot of buy-ins, pushing the prize pool to truly ludicrous amounts!”
The commentators were wonderful, and I truly loved how passionate they seemed about the game. In fact, it really surprised me how passionate so many people seemed about it.
“And here we are, another heads-up between the two humans. We have received information that they are, in fact, from the same ship crew, but they’re not pulling any punches!”
“Exciting, and what’s more impressive is that they’re not working together. They are embodying the spirit of this game—and of course they would, as their species invented this most magnificent game of strategy and luck!”
It was strange to be tuned into the broadcast while only sitting a bit away from the table. There were a few others alongside me, beautiful examples of other species sitting on high chairs. I didn’t like being on display like this, but it allowed me to see the action up close. It was worth it, in my opinion.
Dean ended up folding, most likely not catching what he needed. The captain was all smiles as the chips were pushed in front of him.
It was a thrilling game, with stacks of chips growing and shrinking in front of everyone as time passed. Another one had fallen out not too long ago, but then the captain was beaten badly by an unlucky river card and now had the shortest stack.
As time went on, the players started to grow more confident with each other, which meant that they started to talk. Something that excited the commentators quite a lot, as they now had more topics to cover.
The captain went all in against Sam, who currently had the largest stack of chips, and another person who had just a bit more than the captain.
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“You know, back in the day before technology got too advanced, all the players used to flash their cards for cameras when they got them, so in the broadcast, they could show percentages of who was most likely to win.” The captain explained and soon continued as he let his words sink in.
“It was quite exciting to watch as someone had a 99% chance to win, but then that last card—oh, that last card—changed everything.”
And as the last card was now flipped over, the captain yelled out in victory. He hit the card he needed to hit, and although the percentages of him winning weren’t 1%, it was more like 8%, he still tripled his stack size, and another player busted out.
Hours continued to pass, and while small breaks happened, the Galaxy had also changed this game into a test of endurance, as it would only end when there was a victor. The mental strain of playing so many hours was going to start to affect everyone at one point or another.
Dean was the next to lose all his chips. He seemed more disappointed about not being able to play more than actually losing. The next one to lose got quite angry and almost brought things to violence.
“Stop that. It’s totally fine to rage at the game and the unfairness of that hand, but never turn violent. It’s not in the spirit of this game,” the captain said, which calmed the players down.
“I apologise, and I thank your ancestors for this wonderful yet sometimes vexing game.”
Sam made it to the top 4 before he lost to the captain once again, in another really unfortunate beat. A few hands later, the captain fell to the same fate Sam had, as he lost all his chips in a similar manner, finishing the tournament in third place.
“Oh boy, that really was fun,” the captain said to me as he approached.
“That stings, doesn’t it?” Sam said, obviously referencing the captain’s loss.
“It does, but that sting feels good. Bob’s been waiting long enough, let’s go back.”
As we reached our berth, the captain and Bob finalised the purchase, causing a huge stir within the station. Officials showed up and everything, wanting to convince us not to buy everything up.
They were quite angry and basically unwilling to let the purchase go through, but the captain knew how to handle these people. All it took was a couple of bribes. After that, the officials were happy enough to let the trade go through, even though they knew it was going to bring a lot of headaches for them.
Not too long after that, the factory set up outside the ship started processing all the materials brought in and the ones we already had on board. The captain actually had to figure out a way to reduce the pollution; otherwise we would have been kicked out.
After that, everything started to settle into a new routine. Bob and the captain were constantly working on making all the turrets needed.
Sam and Dean were honing their combat skills and occasionally going out to gamble. Those two, over the months we’ve been here, have become small celebrities in the gambling circle.
Every once in a while, I took a break and just watched as the captain worked. He seemed to be able to go on continuously working, while I needed breaks for my own projects.
“How’s it been going, FH?” I asked, continuing to look at the captain and Bob working while slowly drinking a hot coffee. We had recently gotten the first harvest of coffee beans. Now I wish we had more room to expand our agricultural projects.
“It’s been strange to be cooped up so long once again. It feels like I want to move about. Other than that, it has been nice. My database has expanded quite a lot.”
“The isolated nets are quite strange, as back on Earth everything was connected, and that was all that there was. Have you already gone through everything here?”
“Oh no, there’s way too much history, so the network is quite layered. But there is no need to delve deeper, there’s nothing important left. Currently, I’ve been most focused on the quantum net, gathering as much data on our Galaxy as possible and the current situations inside of it.”
“Anything interesting?”
“Anything truly important will be in the news feed, but it would be nice to just talk about stuff.”
“I’m on a break, so go ahead.”
“From what it looks like, the dwarves are in a cold war. While there are some direct skirmishes, they are small in scale. But all three sides seem to be exerting control and funding other nations, with proxy wars already sparking.” FH said in a sad tone.
“That’s quite unfortunate. I hoped that they would figure out their differences.”
“That’s just how it goes. The Galaxy really isn’t as peaceful as many think, so many wars going on, so many disasters. The elven Duke who declared war on his pirate-lord brother. That conflict is also escalating with more and more elves getting involved.”
“Wait, why is that?”
“That pirate lord isn’t stupid. Turns out that the elves have kind of fractured into two different races, the ones that follow the Dominion’s mandates and the ones who don’t. They are referred to as dark elves, as most of them operate on the wrong side of the law, so to say.”
“Is that just propaganda?”
“Kind of both. It’s hard to see what’s actually true and not on the quantum net, but I’m getting better at discerning what’s real and what’s not.” She sounded a bit proud about that, and she really should be.
“That’s really good, FH. The quantum net can be a really powerful source of knowledge.”
“Speaking of knowledge, I haven’t really found anything to help you with your own project. Technology like that isn’t really talked about on the quantum net or any other high-end technology.”
“I understand. While it would have been nice to get some more perspective, it was to be expected. I’m also starting to figure things out faster, so if we can’t find anything, we’ll just make it ourselves.”
“Embodying the captain, I see.”
That made me chuckle a bit. I finished off the coffee and stood up. “Well, time to get back to work.”
“Before you go, Lola, I did want to ask you something.”
“Go ahead.”
“Well, nothing is confirmed yet, but I’m pretty sure that quite a lot of established powers around Earth have started to target humans. As you can imagine, quite a lot of them have been making a lot of waves.”
“I would expect nothing less from them. Anything truly big?”
“Quite a lot actually. One managed to somehow be elected as an emperor of an entire planet, and now he’s turning that place into a true industrial powerhouse.”
I winced at that. “Yeah, that’s going to be bad… probably.”
“There’s already a human pirate lord. Plenty of famous mercenaries, and a couple of powerful adventurers who are making a name for themselves. Plenty of colonies established in places no one thought anyone would want to establish them, and yet somehow they’re still thriving.”
“So, humans being human?”
“Yes, but too much in too short of a time. And the Galaxy remembers how species like that can change everything. The elves and the dwarves are on that list, by the way, and a few other species, all of whom have significant influence in this Galaxy.”
“That means that the established powers do not want to see another rise to their level. This could be troublesome. Have you told the captain about it?”
“He knows about what the humans have done, but I’ve not been able to confirm that there is coordinated action planned against them, only rumours.”
“Tell him anyway. Sometimes when you wait for the facts, it’s already too late to act.”
“Do you really think the captain would do something? What could he even do?”
“He’ll probably do nothing, but who knows?” And with that, it was time to get back and continue refining the seed technology.