Khatami Al had been a croupier at the Sylvanus Prime casino ever since he was old enough not to try and eat the chips. He knew the regulars, the punters that needed an eye kept on them and the tricks that made the business profitable if not always as purely random as some interfering government regulators might like. Therefore, coming on shift in the early evening cool and adjusting the starched neckline of his uniform, he wasn't surprised to find old engineer Mattingly playing poker in a private room with some mid-ranking local businessmen.
As usual, Mattingly was keeping up a flow of verbiage. No one knew whether this was meant to distract others trying to examine their hands or whether the old man was simply incapable of silence. His discourse this evening was on his favourite theme, his younger days as captain of the Nebular explorer-class Frigate he had named 'the Honest Endeavour'.
Khatami Al had done some digging soon after he had met the old man, brought in from humanity's distant home world by the governor to look after the complicated drainage equipment and automated logging machines needed to keep back the encroaching rainforest. Mattingly might look withered and pedantic in the scruffy overalls, purple monocle and tarnished gold watch chain that he affected when gambling in the casino. However, his story was broadly true even if the details were naturally embellished to impress the more jaded space travellers that he might meet.
Mattingly winked at Khatami with his uncovered eye and resumed his stream-of-consciousness narration. “Never start off with the risky missions”, he was saying, “I travelled to thirteen different planets and fled from three enemy fleets before my 'Endeavour' fired its first shots in anger. You'd think that would have cut into my profit rates but I had the good luck to find an unemployed Zorg helmsman with an unpronounceable name on a forested world. Sort of like this one actually. After that I could travel between worlds in a tenth of the time that flying straight would have taken.”
He took a sip from his whisky cocktail and gathered a small pile of chips that he had bluffed away from the adjacent player. “Shame about him really. Made it most of the way around the solar system and then those officious Muktians blew his saucer up as we sweated and fought in the light of a super-hot star. We got the bastards that did it though. Me and O'Reilly swung behind their last corvette and hit them with chain gun and particle cannon until they were nothing but smoke.”
Khatami knew that Ripcord O'Reilly was a fighter ace who had taken up with Mattingly during his travels. He was less of a gambler than the talkative engineer but could occasionally be seen spending his pay checks at the casino bar or in a jet overhead flying out of the city on sleepy patrol missions to ensure that no unauthorized building was going on in the green belt. Khatami tuned back into the old man's ramblings just as the game came to a climax, with a big pot sitting alluringly in the middle of the yellow baize of the table.
“Always pay the Klakar well.” Mattingly was pontificating now, “Those avian traders were always on hand to help me wipe out hostile Tau Ru drones and Silikite fighters in exchange for a fair cut of my loot. You don't want to go up against that sort of fire power without assistance.”
His until now silent audience around the table groaned and slapped the table with their fists as he laid down his cards and won the hand. He flicked a brace of small chips to the bulky security man overseeing the table and bagged his winnings.
Rising from the table with a grin he patted Khatami on the back as he passed. “Next time I might just tell them the story of the Zelulig monocle I bought on Aurora”, he whispered, mouth close to the croupier's ear and smelling strongly of whisky, “Word is previous users made use of its x-ray functions to trick gambling fools out of their hard earned money. Disgraceful behaviour in my opinion.”
Khatami grinned as he made his way toward the Skyjack table to take over from another frazzled looking casino employee. He'd have to remember to remind security again that they weren't to allow the oh-so-innocent-looking engineer near any tables where he could bet against the house.
(This is a game report taking a certain level of artistic license from the free game 'Strange Adventures in Infinite Space', to which I have added the mod 'Even Stranger Adventures in Infinite Space'. Great game if you like space combat and complexity and don't mind basic graphics. For this mission I was flying a Nebular explorer on the Medium enemy difficulty but with high nebular density. I explored every planet in the solar system thanks to the Zorg helmsman and scored a respectable 7794 getting a place on the lower half of my high score table.)
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