“Hey, uh… Lieutenant Commander? Sedai, right?”
Katriel glanced over from her perch at the window seat. She held a PADD absently in her hand, but had long stopped reading its contents, finding the underwater view outside to be far more compelling. Even if it was also… the only view.
“Yes?” She asked in reply, looking at the speaker, the human male scientist from the survey team. Pecher was his name, she thought she remembered.
“You want to join us?” His smile was one part uncertain, one part hopeful, and one part encouraging.
“… for… cards?” Katriel blinked at the unexpected invitation.
“You may as well say yes,” rumbled the Bolian at the table. Hig Umvor, chief scientist on the survey team and significantly recovered from his skirmish with the mercenaries, was shuffling the deck as he looked in her direction. “He’s not going to stop nagging you until you do.”
Pecher grinned abruptly in tacit agreement, while Katriel looked skeptical. “I’m Betazoid, I’ll be able to tell what all your cards are.”
The human was completely undeterred. In fact, he seemed even more excited somehow. “Even better! I’ve always wanted to play against a Betazoid. Really test my poker face, you know?”
Reluctantly, Katriel set her PADD down and climbed to her feet, crossing the small space to take the fourth seat at the table. Her eyes caught on the pile of glinting circular tokens that Tuziar, the engineering Benzite, passed to her. “What are these?”
“Your chips!” he responded.
“Did you replicate these?” Katriel picked up one of the ‘chips’ in curiosity. Roughly circular and slightly concaved, the item was no bigger than a few centimeters in diameter and fit easily in the center of her palm. Likely a shell of some sort, she guessed, with the rough external side while the curved internal surface was polished smooth and vividly multihued. On top of that, Katriel could make out the skeletal imprint of a six-limbed star shape.
“Nah. That’s Kelterre specimen number eight. Or, at least, the remains of it,” Pecher noted aloud when he saw Katriel tracing out the star shape in the shell. He snickered as Katriel fumbled the shell in surprise. “Well, they all are.” He gestured to all their little piles of shells. “Not sure how familiar you are with Earth animalia, but they’re kind of like a cross between sand dollars and starfish. Though with way shorter lifespans.”
“You should have seen us,” Tuziar chimed in, as he obligingly cut the deck when Umvor offered it to him. “Collecting them one by one, methodically organizing and categorizing them, thought they were special and unique. Then we come in one morning after the tide goes out and they are literally everywhere. Couldn’t take a step in any direction without crunching down on the lot of them.” His tone was self-deprecating. “Stopped treating them like glass after that. Always more where that came from.”
Katriel shook her head, bemused. She picked up the pair of cards that were dealt to her, taking a brief look at the numbers and suits, before laying them flat again. She kept a straight face as a ripple of nervousness passed through her. Naturally she was familiar with the rules and how to play, but admittedly it wasn’t a pastime she indulged in often. Who wants to play poker with a Betazoid, after all?
“So Sedai,” Tuziar started speaking again as the rest of them checked their cards. “Did I hear the ah… Captain Perim, was it? She was calling you counselor over the comm, is that right?”
“Yes, you heard right,” Katriel confirmed, watching as Umvor laid down the first three community cards.
“Is that the legislative kind of councilor or the psychology kind?” Umvor inquired.
The question made Katriel smile for some reason. “The psychology kind. I’m a counselor on Deep Space 13, as part of the station staff.”
“Tough gig,” Pecher commented. “I’d never want that job.”
“Yes, people keep telling me that,” was Katriel’s slightly dry and amused rejoinder. “And yet the apparent unpopularity of my work has not convinced Captain Perim to give me a raise.”
“If you’re starbase staff, how did you end up on the Asimov with the investigation team?” Tuziar wanted to know after they placed their initial bets.
“We’re encouraged to occasionally volunteer for available away missions,” the Betazoid responded, eyeing the new community card as it came down and trying her best to ignore the inevitable emotional tells she could feel from the others in reaction. “It’s a good way to get out of our usual environment and pick up some new experience, without transferring out of our positions. I have a medical degree in internal medicine, so I can fill that role when necessary, since emergency field therapy is not really a thing.”
Pecher made a rude noise. “Bet you’re sorry you volunteered for this particular mission now, though, yeah? Almost drowned and then got stuck down here with us.”
“I admit it wasn’t what I expected,” Katriel temporized, before smiling faintly. “But I’m mostly relieved that we’re safe and currently in no danger. When the tide recedes, the Asimov team will be back to get us free, I’m sure. I’ve been through worse situations.”
“Hope so,” Pecher grumped.
Umvor placed the last community card face up and Katriel schooled her expression as best she could. Her best was a two pair with three of the community cards and an eight of hearts in hand. Not exceptionally strong, but better than Pecher who she was (literally) willing to bet had nothing and Tuziar had folded in the previous round. That left Umvor, who was a great deal harder to read than his younger teammates. The three of them placed their final bets as Tuziar watched on with interest.
“All right, show hands,” Umvor directed.
Pecher turned his hand up first, already looking abashed as he did so. “I missed the flush by one card!”
That set Tuziar cackling with glee. “Really testing out that poker face, huh?”
Katriel turned her hand over. “Queens and eights.”
“I also have queens and eights,” Umvor noted, turning his own pair of cards over. Katriel started at the unlikely reveal. “But I also have the higher kicker, ten to your four.” Pecher sat back in his seat, sighing explosively, as Umvor pulled the pot of chips into his own pile.
“Umvor won again?” asked a voice from the doorway of the main compartment. Jacaalo Shyrid stepped in, an older Bajoran woman and research scientist. “Even against the Betazoid?”
“Apparently empathy isn’t everything,” Katriel noted, her tone bemused. “Is it my shift now?”
“Yes, I’m sorry,” Jacaalo smiled in response as she came over to the table, to inspect the recent card game.
“Not at all, you can take my place in cards. Hopefully I’m a better comms operator than I am card player,” Katriel deadpanned as she vacated the seat. “Thank you for the game, gentlemen. It was educational.”
The others replied with polite ‘welcomes’ as she headed out to the main compartment for her watch.
