Gaige, Ahsoka, and Katara with the Lower Deckers

“Wait, you seriously cut your own arm off?” Mariner exclaimed, waving her glass of andorian whiskey around.

“Yeah, I was working on the bestest, most amazing, science project eva! My most amazing friend DeathTrap,” Gaige cheered as she summoned DeathTrap and struck a pose. The Starfleet members and tourists around them in the bar jumped back in surprise at the large robot appearing amongst them. Gaige had already been getting looks for her cybernetic arm and her story; DeathTrap immediately sparked shouts of surprise and fear.

“How did you get him transported? Risa has anti-transportation measures everywhere,” Boimler asked nervously as he crawled back in fear.

“Transported? DeathTrap has been here the whole time,” Gaige said, tapping her arm. “See when I cut my arm making him after like a bunch of days of working, I had an explosion of inspiration. I finished chopping it off and then while only losing like a gallon of blood, I built an arm with an easy control scheme and a digistructing module. From then on, DeathTrap has been always by my side, in storage but always watching.”

“I have so many questions but you keep making more,” Tendi said in awe as she stared at the young redhead. She was very impressed that Gaige managed to survive. “Were you okay after?”

“I mean I passed out after plugging my arm in but I was fine after the health boosters kicked in,” Gaige shrugged.

“That’s horrifying and clever,” Rutherford exclaimed while taking scans of DeathTrap as it curiously started tapping a nearby replicator. The replicator started spamming plates of pizza as DeathTrap looked around in a panic. One of the listening in StarFleet personnel simply tapped a button and the replicator stopped making pizza and even reclaimed the slices that it had already made. Gaige soon dismissed DeathTrap and snapped up a green drink.

Mariner clinked shot glasses Gaige and threw it back, drinking it in a single gulp. Once Gaige had drunk her own shot, Mariner refilled the shots before asking the redheaded cyborg a question. “So how did you meet James and Star?”

“Oh that’s easy,” Gaige chuckled with a lopsided smile. “He won me in a poker game.” Mariner spit out her drink in surprise while the others around stared at her. Across the bar, Katara and Ahsoka facepalmed.

“What do you mean?” Boimler asked in concern.

“My previous employer, an asshole with a gambling problem, bet my employment contract at a casino to cover his bet and lost. Worked there for a while maintaining the games and occasionally serving tables before James showed up to play. He was partially there on vacation but he was also looking into some stuff. We hit it off and James figured out how the casino had been rigging the games with my ‘subtle’ help and won my contract. I’ve been his mechanic and engineer ever since,” Gaige explained leaning against the bar counter. “I get to tinker with whatever I want, great food, a place to sleep and the other benefits ain’t bad either.” She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

“Isn’t he married?” Tendi asked, understanding the innuendo. Which considering her former life as an Orion Pirate was not a big surprise. Tendi was covered in sand after spending a few hours of her shore leave playing on the beach and engineering the perfectly stable sand castle with Rutherford.

“Well he wasn’t married then,” Gaige defended herself. She reached for another shot and drank it down. “Plus, Aelita and Starfire invite me all the time.”

“The Prime Worlders are extremely polygamous, his sister Polly has like thirty boyfriends and girlfriends that she regularly has fun with at the same time,” Katara said as walked over to replace Gaige’s shot with a much weaker cocktail. “You probably remember how James is like, Mariner, Star told us about the time the two were in a brig and—“

“Nope, never happened, shut up!” Mariner hurriedly said, standing defensively.

“Fine, fine, though maybe if you want to stop by…” Katara flirted, the years around Prime Worlders had made Katara very open and up for all sorts of things. Mariner looked around a bit awkwardly.

“I mean, I would but I’m kinda in a relationship right now,” Mariner said while looking at Jennifer, her Andorian girlfriend. Jennifer was laughing and drinking with her own friend group.

“How did you meet James Gardner, Katara?” Rutherford asked in curiosity , unintentionally helping Mariner.

“Kinda funny story,” Katara says, adjusting her hair ties nervously. “Ahsoka and I got into a situation where some of the crazy elites decided to play the most dangerous game.”

“What’s the most dangerous game?” Tendi asked, causing Katara to frown.

“I thought that book was a bit more famous,” Katara commented to herself before elaborating to the Orion medical officer. “They hunted people; James found out about it and saved me and a bunch of others. After that, one thing led to another, he needed a midwife and caretaker for Aelita. We were hired the next day.”

“I think I’m going to need a few more details than that,” Mariner asked as she moved to let Katara have a seat by her.

“Nothing much more, he saved us from the sleemos that were hunting us and then we saved him from the guys that were sent to ‘retrieve’ us. We’ve been with him ever since,” Ahsoka explained after munching on some bar food. “Though honestly, what’s more interesting is how he met Aelita.”

As Ahsoka spun the tale of two lovebirds surviving a mist-covered town, yet another group were getting their day’s activity underway.