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Kadet glides through the halls of the Rig towards the mess. It’s an off-hour and Kadet is eager to enjoy some protein and kick up her feet without someone scolding her for scuffing up the ceiling. Unfortunately, as Kadet pulls herself into the compartment she notices three figures situated around the seating area. Kadet quickly recognizes Bliss, Nia, and Luis, all who are focused on a handful of data slates and some other various items scattered between the three of them.
Kadet makes a few noises to announce her presence, but the group does not turn to her. Finally, tired of being ignored, she speaks up.
“What are you doing?”
Luis nearly jumps out of his jacket at the unexpected noise. Nia and Bliss turn towards Kadet.
“Kadet!” Nia’s voice is warm and welcoming. “Here, come on over.”
Kadet kicks off towards the group and clasps Nia’s shoulder to slow her trajectory as she approaches, glancing over at Luis as she comes to a stop. Kadet can feel a nervous energy from Luis as he mumbles out what Kadet can only assume is some sort of greeting before Luis buries his attention back into the scattered mess of binders and slates floating before him. Kadet frowns—this guy always seemed on edge around her. Kadet looks at Bliss, who glances up at Kadet and nods in acknowledgment before looking back down at their own slate.
Kadet keeps her grip on Nia as she looks over Nia's shoulder and down at the data slate Nia is holding. Nia angles the slate so Kadet can get a better look, but Kadet is still not sure what’s she’s looking at. Kadet’s brows furrow she skims what appears to be a dense spreadsheet.
“No, seriously, what are you doing?”
“We’re playing a game.” Nia points to the slate. “It’s—well, Luis can explain it better.”
Kadet turns her attention towards Luis at the mention of his name. He flashes a nervous smile, meeting Kadet's gaze before glancing towards somewhere else in the compartment.
“It’s, ah.” Luis hesitates.
Kadet opens her mouth to tell him to hurry it up, but out of the corner of her eye she spies Bliss staring at her. It’s enough for Kadet to instead purse her lips and impatiently wait for Luis to continue.
“… Nia mentioned she was bored and wanted something to do during the downtime between contracts and travel vectors.” It feels almost as if Luis is justifying the forthcoming explanation. “And I remembered I had this old game buried in my files.”
“I don’t see how this is a game,” Kadet says as she grabs the data slate from Nia’s hand, holding it just out of reach when Nia tries to swipe it back. “It looks more like a trade manifest of adjectives.”
“This is just a reference sheet for our characters,” Nia says, reaching across Kadet as she tries to grab the slate back. “Luis has a random number generator program, and all of this pulls into it, making calculations based on these numbers here depending on what’s going on.”
“So it’s math? You’re playing math?” Kadet smirks, happy to keep up her own game of keep away.
“Now you’re just being difficult!” Nia manages to swipe the data slate back from Kadet before she spins towards Luis. “Come on, explain it how you did before.” “Fine,” Luis sighs and reluctantly hands Kadet his data slate. “Everyone makes a character, and you can do things with that character depending on how you distribute points.” He tabs through and points down at part of the slate. “See, there’s a hexagonal grid here, and each of these tokens represent the players. There are some more spreadsheets that correlate to the other entities on the board, but each of those have different reference numbers to look up in the ancillary tables and—” Luis stops himself when he looks up and sees a bored expression on Kadet’s face. He purses his lips before gingerly grabbing the data slate out of Kadet’s hand—she releases the slate without protest.
“So why are you here?” Kadet gestures at Bliss without acknowledging anything Luis had said.
“They needed another player,” Bliss says. “It’s a good time killer.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve played this before.”
“Who can say.” Bliss shrugs, a slight smile on their face.
“Luis says it’s better with at least three characters,” Nia says while looking up at Kadet. “We tried to get Sleeper to play, but they just gave us that look—” Nia gives her best impression and somehow manages to exaggerate a blank stare. “—and wandered off.” Bliss lets out a small snicker.
“Alright.” Kadet spins towards Luis. “Deal me in.”
“It doesn’t work like that!” Luis’s tone is surprisingly snappy.
“What, you think I can’t do math?!” Kadet can feel herself getting riled up.
“No, I mean—you don’t even know the basic rules,” Luis sighs. Kadet scrunches up her face and postures as if she’s about to throw a punch. The edges of Luis’s mouth and brows twitch as he stares her down.
Nia playfully tuts, and somehow the gesture is enough to diffuse any tension in the mess. Nia grins and holds out her hand towards Luis, motioning towards his equipment bag. Luis rubs his eyes and lets out another sigh before acquiescing and grabbing another slate from his pack. Kadet is quick to swipe the data slate from his hand.
“I’ll help Kadet out,” Bliss says as they pull themselves towards Kadet.
“I won’t need any,” Kadet grumbles as she tabs through the data slate. She shoots her gaze up towards Luis. “Go on then, keep talking.”
Bliss positions themselves above Kadet, looking down with a small (if not slightly smug) smile as they watch Kadet try to make sense of what is on the data slate. Nia rearranges herself to where Bliss was previously. With the group now more evenly assembled around the mess table Bliss nods at Luis, silently urging him to continue.
“… Fine, fine,” Luis says before taking in a deep breath. He grumbles as he fiddles with his own slate. “I’ll send over a premade sheet, you can just… use that.” He seems more defeated than usual, but despite this, he continues. “We’re a few sessions in, so I’ll catch you up.”
Kadet looks as if she’s about to protest, but Bliss reaches down and puts their hand on Kadet’s shoulder. Kadet grumbles, but she seems placated enough by the gesture.
“... So, as the two of you know, your characters are on the planet Circe.” Luis glances up towards Kadet before continuing. Kadet rolls her eyes but stays quiet. “… The planet is so large it has a near impossible to reach escape velocity, so everything on Circe is planet bound.” Luis’s tone grows more confident as he continues to speak. “Thousands of years ago a human vessel crash landed here, and over time the inhabitants of this planet lost the knowledge of any worlds beyond this one. Circe is a hostile planet, and the three of you stand at the edge of one of its most dangerous forests…”
“You weren’t as bad at this as I thought you’d be.” Bliss smiles as they pack up their data slate.
“You had any doubts?” Kadet punches the air. “I told you, I wasn’t gonna need any help.” Kadet did, in fact, need a lot of help—the actual mechanics of play were near lost on her, but as soon as Kadet realized she could just say something her character did and someone else would run the numbers she quickly slotted into the game. The group had eventually gotten into a rhythm, all of them enjoying their time playing characters in a setting they themselves would never experience.
“I think the downward cave spelunking was my favorite part. You did a good job describing it all,” Nia says. Luis looks away and bashfully rubs the back of his head at the praise.
“Yeah, this wasn’t half bad,” Kadet says. She crosses her arms. “A real good time waster.”
“Ignore her,” Bliss says, turning towards Luis. “She had fun.” Kadet grumbles out something under her breath.
“Thanks for everything!” Nia laughs as she hands her borrowed slate back to Luis. “So, same time next vector?”
“Sure.” A stressed smile is on Luis’s face, but it’s a smile nonetheless. “Sounds like a plan.”