Her Brother's Keeper: A Story of Alpha Centauri

The Last Bits of Training 2

Christiana was playing poker with three of her siblings. Haruhi-nee was ahead by forty-five credits. She, herself, had gained fifteen, while Amelia-neechan was down ten. Johnathan-nii was down the rest. She could tell by the look on his face that he was not happy to lose fifty creds' this early in the game.

Of course, they weren't playing for money. Instead, everyone began with the same number of chips, enough to total five hundred creds'. That meant that John-nii had lost one-tenth of his funds already. Since it was only the fifth hand, it was not looking too good for him at the moment.

All four of them were sitting on the floor of the room that she shared with her womb-mate. They were all in a circle with their chips in front of them and the pot in the middle. Unlike with most games, they played this one with actual physical cards.

This was a throwback to the days when spacers always kept a set of plastic playing cards on hand. This was just in case their ship had to go on auxiliary generators. It would become very boring sitting there in the partial darkness with nothing to pass the minutes. Sometimes it would take hours for the engineers to make the lights and computers function properly once again.

It also helped the crew to distract their minds from the possibility that they might never get main power back online. In those situations, they would have naught to do but sit and ponder the slow death that awaited them unless a rescue vessel somehow arrived on time. Cards allowed spacefarers to keep such dark musing at bay. Needless to say, they carried cards as essential disaster equipment on all ships in the Sol system.

"I'll see your bet and raise it twenty," Amelia-neechan said proudly after Haruhi-nee had just raised the bet by ten.

'She's probably bluffing, but my hand is too weak to risk it. Better to lose ten credits then jeopardized forty on a pair of sixes,' she thought as she studied at her sibling's faces one at a time. Haruhi-nee had her usual slight smirk plastered across her features, the very definition of a poker face, so that was no help. Johnathan-nii wore a slightly worried frown as if he wasn't sure if he should stay in the game. However, Amelia-neechan looked like she was doing her best to suppress a smile and failing. 'Yep, I need to quit and cut my losses.'

"I fold," she announced as she placed her cards face down in front of her. Amelia-neechan immediately tried to cover up a sigh and failed once more.

'That girl needs to learn how to hide her feelings if she wants to play with us!' she realized. The three siblings played cards about twice a month with poker being the game they took part in most often. Therefore, they had quickly understood the need to suppress their smiles while playing. Even John-nii controlled his expressions to a high degree. Unfortunately, the womb-mates had learned to read him like a book after years of gaming with him.

"We should have gone with rummy after all," he declared after throwing his cards down onto the carpet. "I fold."

"I call!" Haruhi-nee proudly announced. Then she displayed her cards one at a time by placing them face-up on the floor. At the beginning of this process, Amelia-neechan kept her grin. After all, the first two were a pair of jacks, which was followed by a seven. However, her smile faded when Haruhi-nee revealed another seven. Finally, it disappeared when she exposed a third seven. "Full house!" the dark-haired Sister proclaimed loudly.

"You're joking!" Amelia-neechan exclaimed as she threw down her cards, face up. The three aces held within explained her ill suppressed joy only a few moments beforehand. That was a pretty tough hand to beat, but it wasn't that hard either.

With that, the older womb-mate reached over and pulled the pot towards herself. She hurriedly added the newly won chips to her piles before giving her cards to Johnathan-nii. "Your deal!" she said with a grin.