Gambling Between the Stars

Her stomach growled loudly, and I couldn't help but chuckle. I mean, usually girls who were model-thin looked like they needed a sandwich in the worst way. I'd never had a girl's stomach growl quite so insistently before. "Yeah, lets hit one of the bars, we can get some food there."

After a few more moments of walking on a moving walkway, we reached the main casino area, a huge room in the middle of the ship that was... well it was enormous. There were several levels, but they were all open in the center to the main floor, with promenade-like balconies overlooking the gaming tables. Of course, everything was plush and opulent, like a gold statue had thrown up inside the casino.

I led Tria past the first few banks of chance machines, and made my way to a bar. I ordered an ale, and let her have her pick of the menu. You could order just about anything you wanted from anywhere in Morning Star, so I didn't worry about her not being able to find something to eat. Leaning back on the bar with my elbows, I looked out over the floor and tried to see if I could catch sight of Moff Draik.

He should have been at the tables, which were in the center of the main floor, not far from where we were.

Her blush was still evident when he turned to her and told her they would get food in a bar. But then, for a moment, all was temporarily forgotten when she caught a glimpse of the world on the other side of the drab door.

It was a giant cave of a hall, all sparkling and glittering - and so, oh so loud! A great hubbub of noise and voices assaulted them as he walked her through the chaos of some odd-looking machines where the strangest beings aside from humans were clinging onto levers and buttons, their eyes fixed on spinning numbers and symbols on the machine in front of them. It was all very crazy.

She was glad when they reached a bar and she finally got to sit down. Her legs were still a little shaky, she realised as she sat down. Her stomach gave another rumble but this time the noise surrounding her swallowed it completely. Scanning the menu that Mr Olorin had thrust at her, she scanned it for something familiar and finally ordered an unfamiliar sounding dish that had at least a familiar ingredient in it - nerf.

Leaning back in her seat after this feat, she hoped the food would be here soon, and eyed the man opposite her who seemed to be trying to find someone in the crowd. He was really quite attractive.

"What now?" She finally ventured to ask.

"Now... we eat." A plate full of tuber fries was placed in front of me along with my beer, and we were informed it would just be a few more minutes on the pasta dish that Tri'ahna had ordered. I picked up a fry and ate it absently while I looked around.

Ah ha, target in sight. Moff Draik was at a roulette wheel, looking fairly excited. Good. If he was winning he was in a good mood, and more likely to take the bait. I pushed my fries towards Tria. "Here, have some while you wait."

Intrigued by the unfamiliar food on her opposite's plate, she'd been meaning to ask what it was when - to her surprise - he pushed the plate of orange sticks over to her side of the table and invited her to "have some".

So she took one and nibbled on it. It was crunchy on the outside but almost soggy on the inside, and smelled of wet tubing. It was also quite bland to taste.

She made a face and pushed the plate back at him. "No thanks. I think I'll wait."

But her food didn't come, so she tried to see who Mister Olorin was looking for. He quite obviously was looking for someone, and she was curious to see what manner of man this Moff of his would be. So she followed his eyes to a place in the crowd which was dominated by a large table-like contraption with a sort of spinning two-colored spikey wheel.

"What is that?" she asked him, her curiosity piqued.

"A roulette wheel..." I considered explaining to her the complicated rules, but thought better of it almost immediately. "Its a game. Anyway, here's the plan..."

Her food arrived, and she brightened up as she got some food in her stomach. She interrupted me with a few questions, but not too many. She was to approach the Moff, feign interest in him and get him to ask her back to his room. After he got her inside and the door closed, she was to stay the night.

But I gave her some quick dissolving tabs that she could slip into his drink once they got to the suite, so he would fall to sleep almost immediately. Once it was morning according to ships time, she could slip out and return to her room, looking mussed, hopefully. I needed the time stamp on the security holos to read accurately and not be tampered with.

Moff Draik looked like he was just about to give up on roulette by the time we finished eating. "Okay, times up. You're on." I grinned roguishly.

After wolfing down her food - which was good enough to remind her of home - she lay down her fork next to the empty plate, and stared at it vacantly.

Part of her felt horrified that she had just slipped drugs into her pocket, designed to knock someone out; the other part of her - the cold analytical part of her that she'd started getting used to now - shrugged it off without batting an eyelid. This was a job. She'd do this, and then she'd no longer owe anything to anyone. And the drugs were, after all, there to keep her safe from whatever this Moff might intend to do to her. So there was no point getting all squeamish about it now again.

She had her instructions. So once she got the go ahead from him - "time's up - you're on!" - she stepped down from her chair, and on still a little wobbly legs sashayed over to the roulette wheel where the Moff was arguing heatedly with a casino host. Putting on a smile as wobbly and unconvincing as her gait, she tried her best to play the cool femme as she'd observed them from afar sometimes, at home, but failed lousily: on the last meter, she tripped over something on the floor, and stumbled forward with a horribly gargled outcry.

Straight into the unsuspecting Moff.

"My dear!" Moff Draik caught the falling woman, helping her to her feet while she apologized, her face red. "Are you all right?"

His hand lingered a little on her arm while he fussed over her. A few plain clothes bodyguards looked more alert, but subsided as there seemed to be no danger from the petite girl.

Flushed and severely embarrassed, and with an annoying throbbing pain in her ankle, she held on for whatever it was worth to the chubby man's coat even after he'd let go of her arm.

"S-ssorry! I'm an aw---" - in mid-word she realised two things: that this kind of behavior she'd often heard of as being used purposely for gaining access to someone, and that it was probably what the Moff was thinking, too. Well then - why not use it? She tried her best to turn her embarrassment into some kind of flippant remark - "---fully clumsy goose, today. Soooo glad you were there to catch me! Wasn't that just frightfully lucky for me? Ha!"

She affected the most emptyheaded giggle she could think of, whilst the very core of her being groaned at this behavior.

He smiled, his face creasing with a pleasant smile. For an older man Draik was good looking despite his weight, and of course power lent him a little more sway with the ladies. Usually. He put his arm around the girl, steadying her.

"Lucky for me, I think," he said smoothly, keeping a hand on her arm even after she was finally upright.



I looked over my drink at the pair of them at the roulette table, as Tria burbled nervously and the Moff showed her how the game worked. She was hanging onto him almost for dear life, but he was drinking in the attention, and buying her a drink. I nursed my whiskey, keeping an eye on the situation.

"So I just put my chips on a number in black or red and then the ball decides?" She gave off an emptyheaded giggle. The rules of the game had been apparent to her the moment he explained them to her, and she'd realised that this was a game that would either make or break a man. Most likely, Moff Draik belonged to the latter category - it appeared to her that he sounded a bit desperate, like someone who'd lost a lot and was desperately trying to go for that last lucky win.

"That sounds crazy," she said, and opened her eyes wide to look at him with a doe-eyed dazed look that she hoped he would interpret as admiration. "You're so brave..." she added, drawling out the last word.

"Are you very rich?" she asked, as innocently and slavishly as she could manage.

"Oh," he smiled, "I don't know about that..." He winked at someone over her head. The dealer tossed the ball into the wheel, and the Moff nudged Tria and the pair of them cheered and held their breath and sighed as he lost.

He put his arm around her, drawing her away from the table. "Well, perhaps I shall have better luck elsewhere." He smiled down at her, and then looked concerned, "I'm not keeping you away from your friends or...?"

So she had read him correctly then, she thought to herself as he was pulling her away from the roulette wheel. He really was down on his luck.

Poor man.

She let him pull her along. When he asked her if he was keeping her from anyone, she felt something like relief that at least this time she didn't have to tell a lie, so her answer ended up sounding a little more pathetic than she'd wished.

"...N-no, I-I'm not w-with anyone."

He smiled down at her, looking too much like a kindly grandpa for me to take him seriously as a ladies man. I sipped at my whiskey, watching closely. Knowing that the security cameras were watching just as closely.

And recording. Finally.

"I find that hard to believe, dear, a woman of your... beauty." He touched her face briefly, and she blushed convincingly. Oh man, she wasn't buying this, was she? He supplied her with a fruity alcoholic beverage, which would probably go right to her head.

Still, she was working out fine. The Moff would probably spot a working girl right away and wise up, but Tria was so naive and blushy that he was sure he had the upper hand.

For a moment she panicked as he touched her face. What was she to do now?!? She could feel the insincerity behind this entire situation. Surely he wasn't going to fall for this?

The blush that crept on her was pure embarrassment. She smiled up at him unconvincingly, fearing that he was seeing through her ruse. Instead of responding to him, she just grabbed her glass nervously, swirled it between her fingers for a moment, then took a large sip.

The sticky, sweet liquid sloshed into her mouth and there developed an unexpected tartness, that made her swallow the entire mouthfull in one horrible gulp that went half down the right and half down the wrong pipe. She started coughing immediately, turning red in the face once more, all the while a very weird and warm sensation was spreading from her stomach outwards through her entire body.

"Careful there," the Moff grinned, "Those drinks can sneak up on you if you drink them too fast." He patted her on the back gently as she coughed, and then left his hand there after she recovered. "Perhaps we should go sit down somewhere."

His hand slid down her bare back until, I couldn't be sure from this distance, his thick fingers dipped under the cloth of her slinky dress. Touching... just barely touching near the forbidden skin of her rear end. I raised an eyebrow, wondering how that virgin flesh felt, and realized I was feeling... jealous?

By the way she jumped, the flesh felt surprised at the daring touch. But then she giggled, melted against his suit, and let him escort her from the casino floor. I finished off my drink and followed at a distance.

By the time she'd finished coughing, she was feeling flushed from more than just that one reason. She barely had a moment to think about a reply to his suggestion to sit down when she felt his fingers touching her somewhere really private.

For a moment she was shocked, and visibly startled at the bold move, then the odd flush made her forget about the shock. She was actually beginning to enjoy herself. Maybe she should have another drink - whatever it had been, it had been really good. She giggled and leaned against him, mumbling at him if she could have another but he was already pulling her away from the bar, saying in a low purring sort of voice that he'd make her one just like that in his suite.

'Fine,' she thought. 'This is goin' well. Mister Olorin should be well pleased with me.' She giggled again, and followed the Moff whose hand felt like it was inside the back of her dress by now. Maybe it was.

It felt funny. It was giving her interesting shivers.

She really wanted another drink. Her mouth felt dry. She hoped they would be there soon so he could make her something to drink.

They disappeared into his suite, and I pulled a datapad out of my jacket pocket, making sure we had the footage I needed. Yup. I duplicated the frelling vid and saved it in two separate, password protected locations on my personal node.

It took a while. The door remained closed, and I checked my wrist chrono. Draik should be sleeping peacefully by now, if Tria followed the plan. Not that I cared. She ran into my drokking liner, after all.

Well, Sassy's liner.

I pushed into an alcove in the hallway, pretending to be on the comm.

****

"Here you go, m'dear," the Moff said, helping her over the threshold and into the opulent suite. One of the best the Morning Star had to offer. "Another drink?"

She nodded, her eyes too bright, "Yes please." He smiled, helped her find a place to sit, and moved to the sideboard where he poured some colored liquids into tumblers.

As ice clinked into the glasses, she leaned back a little and belatedly realized he'd sat her on the edge of a large bed.

The realisation brought her back into the world around her. Wasn't there something she'd been supposed to do for Mister Olorin?

She tried to clear her mind of the odd blur she'd been feeling, all the while a blissful smile sitting on her lips. For some reason she felt unable to do anything but feel good.

What had it been again?

In a daze she took the drink offered to her, and tried not to look too comfortable on the bed. The Moff sat down beside her. Close beside her.

Too close beside her.

Finally the alarm bells started ringing in her head. This wasn't how it was supposed to go!

She stuck her free hand into the little purse she carried. How was she going to get the pills into the Moff without him noticing? His glass was sitting on the other side of the bed from her. Hers was still in her hand, though.

Although her mind still refused to clear from the odd fog, some ideas penetrated. Smiling at the Moff in the most dazed way, she dropped one of the pills into her own drink while he was busy looking at her eyes and leaning closer and closer to her. Then, before he could get in close enough to kiss her, she took up the glass, set her lips to the rim and appeared to take a sip - making sure to leave her lips closed.

She made a face, wincing, and shook her head. "Uugh - what did you put in this? It tastes awful!" And before he could say anything, she put the glass at his lips, saying, "Try!"

"Ah, oh..." The Moff tried to fend off what was a very strong and extremely fruity cocktail, but gave in and took a small sip. "No, no, it tastes delicious." He smiled, but took it from her hand as she refused to take it back and drink it.

"I can make you a different one if you like? Do you have a favorite drink?" He trailed a warm hand down her arm as he got up again, walking over to toss the drink out and re-pour.

Ohhhh... that hadn't worked so well! She'd rather hoped he'd take more of a bigger sip.

For a moment she watched him to see if he was showing any signs of dropping asleep, but the seconds ticked by without him doing anything of the sort. The touch of his hand against her skin was giving her very very freaky shivers, however. It was making her lose trakc of her thoughts again.

So she watched him walk off, tossing the drink off and busying himself with the bottles in the bar again. What to say....? Something outlandish... "Ehhh... whatever y-you thiink. Some.. something pl-pu-purple!"

She had to laugh at her own idea. Something purple!!!

But the laughing made her refocus again, and there it was: the golden opportunity. His back was turned to her. His drink was in her reach, just on the other side of the bed now, with nothing in the way since he'd got up.

With a loud giggle, she threw herself sideways along the width of the bed, landing in easy reach of his abandoned but not yet empty glass. She met his amused smirk with a wild grin of her own, and as he turned back to finish off whatever he was making for her, she quickly took the remaining pills out of her purse and threw them all in there.

There! That should do it!