A few rounds of cards would be nice. Goddess' Grace, specifically.

“I could go for a game or two.” You tell Marion.

“Had you ever heard of Goddess' Grace before now?” Marion smirks.

“Well, not as such, but...” You begin.

“Count me in. Thrashing you is going to be satisfying as fuck.” Marion remarks roughly.

We'll see about that, you thought. Smuggling as a profession involved as much waiting patiently as it did exhilarating ship chases and thrilling gunfights. Waiting for contacts, waiting for shipments, for customs officers to finish searching your ship. And what better way to pass the time than gambling. If this game was truly unfamiliar to you, you wagered (no pun intended) you'd be able to learn the rules fast enough to beat Marion.

Approaching a croupier, you and Marion buy in and begin a game played against each other.

Thankfully, Goddess' Grace has some similarities with Earth Poker. You bet money on your hand, try to bluff or trick your opponent. Where it differed was that, rather than the four suits of an Earth deck, the deck used in this game consisted of likenesses of each of the nine planets of New Arcadia, as well as several cards bearing a numbered moon.

The aim of the game was to assign moons to planets, each possible combination being worth a different score.

You lost the first hand to Marion, but before long, you'd won your chips back. Two hands later, you had Marion on the ropes. She didn't seem pleased at your supposed natural talent. Little did Captain Colombe know, you'd played cards for your life on more than one occasion, so you instinctively took any game seriously.

In the next hand, as Marion was **** to go all in just to stay in the game, you destroyed her by combining Demeter's Orchard with three moons, with Athena's Rest and two moons, for a combined score of 116.

“You've totally played this game before.” Marion huffed, as you raked in the last of her chips.

“It's just the luck of the cards.” You lied.

Not long after you had defeated the beautiful young captain, an older gentleman approached you, asking you to play.

He was decent, possibly better than Marion, but his thick beard wasn't thick enough to hide his tells.

In the middle of the game, possibly tired of seeing you win, Marion ventured out of the room for a drink and some air. You were too engrossed in your winning streak to say goodbye.

Before too long, you've taken the old man's chips.

“A fine game. The cards favour you tonight.” He said, graciously turning over his chips.

You were getting rather giddy now. You were just thinking of tracking Marion down, offering to let her win her money back in what, as far as you knew, could be the first ever game of Strip Goddess' Grace, when another woman approached.

“The cards favour him, or his victory came from up his sleeve.” She said in a cultured tone, setting a wine glass on the table and taking a seat.

“That's a bold accusation. And a little baseless.” You say, getting a little defensive. If there's one thing you hated more than being caught cheating, it was being accused of cheating wrongly.

“Oh, I wouldn't say it's baseless.” The woman smiles. “One should never trust a smuggler when it comes to cards.”

You can't help but return the woman's smile at her assessment of you. The smile only grows wider as you take a second to observe her.

The woman looks just under 40 years of age, though it's plain to see she takes care of herself and lives an easy life. Unlike the majority of women in attendance, she wears her dark brown hair in a neat pony-tail. She has on a green dress that's pleasingly low-cut. You feel like you could get lost staring into her big, pale blue eyes, and her pouty lips make her wish she was under the table sucking you off, not sitting across from it accusing you of cheating.

To see a woman of her beauty, and an Imperial who clearly feels no need to imitate her ruler, is breathtaking.

In fact, you're so smitten by the newly arrived woman, you almost forget to respond to her.

“And who told you I'm a smuggler, pray tell?” You say, mockingly imitating her refined tone.

“You did. The way you hold your cards. In such a way that no one could accuse you of cheating. And the way you sit, ready to jump out of the path of a weapon at any moment.” She observes.

“Okay, you got me.” You grin, adopting a more natural position in your seat.

“I would play you, smuggler.” The brunette says.

Playing cards with this specimen would indeed be a blast. And you're on a roll. You're not above taking a gorgeous woman for everything. That said, Marion's been left unattended for quite a while. Perhaps you should excuse yourself to look for her...