For Forty Weeks the Sunbird Flew: An Airman's Tale

Chapter 14: Three-Streams and Three Salvoes

Three-Streams. The jewel of the continent. A city of glamour and slums, of fineries and scum. It was one of the greatest airports in the world, according to both the records he'd read in the Skyflight archives and the stories that the other officers would tell him. There was so much to see, so much to do, so many new and exciting things for him to explore! It really was as though he'd stepped into a whole new world of opportunities!

And yet somehow it had taken less than four hours for him to be sat in a pub with his friends playing card games. How very typical of them all.

"Three of a kind, twos."

"Well I've managed a full house with three two's and two aces. Anyone got a better hand than that?"

A series of grumbles met Cooke's cheerful proclamation. The man wasn't exactly good at cards, and seemed to win more through luck than anything else, but that didn't mean it was rare to see him rake in large amounts of chips. There was a great deal to be said for luck in games such as this. Some people actually called them games of chance, but Archer knew better. Chance had its place in such card games, for sure, but chance was far from the most important factor. There were a great many ways that one could throw off an opponent, hone one's own concentration, keep track of the cards played. It was not a game of chance, but of concentration.

And as luck, or his lack thereof, would have it he was finding it very hard to concentrate right now. Three bottles of fine red had found their way down his throat, and twice now he'd had to rather blushingly turn down offers of 'company' from some of the ladies of the night in the bar. Given how they seemed to be talking with one of their male colleagues and glancing over at him, he had no doubt that they would be trying another angle to try and get some sterling off of him soon enough. Archer didn't want that, though. He just wanted to enjoy his night with his friends, his first night in a foreign port.

Not that the aforementioned friends had been of any help in either of the previous situations. Lawrence had drank one and a half bottles of fine red, and given his low tolerance for alcohol that had resulted in him basically pressing his head against the table and groaning while Talon gently rubbed his back. Neither of them were much use helping him communicate to these fine women that, no, whilst their offer was very kind he wasn't looking for any company of that sort at the moment please and thank you, as a result. The two Rickards were deep in their cups and had done little other than laugh the whole time, and as for Talwynn? She'd simply marched over to where the courtesans were gathered, paid for a man and two women, and buggered off into a private room. He was fairly certain that she was intending to 'make the most of her time ashore' in a rather different way than the rest of them, but he couldn't blame her; she'd not exactly hidden her intentions when they'd left the ship, and had at the very least had the courtesy to spend a few hours walking around the city and getting drunk with the rest of them first.

"Archer?"

"Hm?"

"Your hand, Archer."

"Oh, right. Nothing good, I can tell you that much. I've got a pair of sixes."

He chucked his cards into the middle and forced down another gulp of wine.
"How'd you talk me into this again?"

The younger of the two Rickards shrugged while smiling.
"Getting pissed on expensive booze is sort of how navy personnel unwind. I mean, we've all got months of pay that we haven't been able to spend on anything, so we may as well splash out a bit when we go portside. It just so happens that you never noticed how fast you were drinking those first few hours. Don't worry, it happens to the best of us; we've all reached for a bottle before now that was supposed to last an hour and found it empty after ten minutes."