Pew! Pew! - Bite My Shiny Metal Pew!

by M. D. Cooper

  “Why don’t we make it interesting with a wildcard?” Ash asked.

  Buck’s lips puckered as he nodded eagerly. “That sounds like a great idea for the last hand of the game. Chip, let’s make the deuces wild.”

  “Yes, Mr. Rodgers, deuces wild,” Chip said, repeating the order.

  This better farking work, Ben thought as Ash placed her last two chips in the center of the table. Buck did the same, but pulling chips from one of a half-dozen healthy stacks. Then Chip dealt the cards.

  Buck shifted uncomfortably in his seat. The five men seated next to him looked grim, and Ben noticed a twitch on the man’s cheek. No whistling, no beard tugging, and no shit talking, Ben thought as a felt a smile trying to invade his face. Don’t tell me we finally have this bastard pinned down.

  Buck took a deep breath, releasing the air slowly from his lips without looking up at his opponents. “It’s not every day that I feel like my world is falling apart,” he said. “You see, I’m a man who always gets what he wants. Kind of like your girlfriend over there, trying to use sex as a weapon, which is a form of cheating I can’t say I condone.”

  “What do you mean?” Ash asked, leaning back in her seat. Her voice was dry and flat, sullen to Ben’s ear and almost threatening.

  “You, popping the buttons on your blouse isn’t a very modest tactic in a game like this,” he replied. “It’s a scheme for toying with your opponent. That flirtatious nature isn’t genuine, and it says a lot about your integrity.”

  “All’s fair in love and war,” she replied.

  “And which do we have?” Buck asked, void of expression on his face.

  In his mind, Ben was having a hard time figuring out what was going on. For several moments, silence filled the room, no hushed words whispered from solemn lips into listening ears. There was just the sound of his heartbeat climbing rapidly and filling his ears. “Ash, what’s up?” Ben asked, concerned He hated his insecurities, but he hated not knowing what was happening even more. This lull in the game was proving more stressful by the second.

  “I think Mr. Rodgers is trying to play me,” she answered. “He wants to look like a defeated little puppy, whimpering as if he was being scolded. But I see through your bullshit, Mr. Rodgers, and I’m not playing your game.” Ash placed her hands on the table, and glared at the old man with a defiant look that appeared to harbor as much hatred for Buck as Ben felt.

  A shit-eating grin curled Buck’s lips as he lifted his eyes and looked Ash in the face. “I imagine if you were going to use sex as your weapon of choice, then I can at least use a different psychology for mine,” he replied. Grinning with a twinkle in his eye. “I’ll call it,” Buck said as he set the cards on the table, fanning them out as he released them. Three Queens and a pair of Jacks sat face up on the green tabletop, further igniting the fear coursing through Ben’s body.

  Fark.

  Ash scratched her cheek before pulling a tuft of hair behind her ear. “How confident are you in your hand, Mr. Rodgers?”

  “I have nothing but royalty on the table, sweetheart. It’s hard to be more confident than that,” he replied.

  Leaning forward, crossing her arms together, she glared at the old man across the table, she said, “How would you like to raise the stakes a little bit?”

  Buck smiled as Ben grew more nervous. From where he had been sitting, he didn’t have the best look at her hand. He knew she had a King of hearts, but the other four cards were a mystery to him. What is she doing?

  “What do you have in mind?” Buck asked, leaning back in his seat and once again tugging at his beard. Across from Buck, his brother Lon did the same, their expressions almost identical as Lon imitated his older brother.

  “Beyond playing for Chip, if I win, I want the Shistain and one-million-dollars,” Ash said flatly.

  Ben’s stomach groaned as he thought about everything that was at stake, and how unlikely it was that she had a winning hand. “Ash, what the fark do you think you’re doing?” The worry in his voice caused it to crack.

  She looked him in the eye for a moment, but she didn’t answer.

  Full of worry and concern, Ben leaned closer to Ash, trying to get her attention, but she refused to look back in his direction. The room was dead silent with Buck’s cards on the table and Ash’s ability to have the winning hand in doubt. Why would she up the stakes at a time like this, Ben wondered. It doesn’t make any farking sense. The seconds felt like hours as he held his breath and the urge to say something he might regret. As the tension built, something inside him reached a breaking point.

  As he stood, turning his body towards Ash as she sat silently next to him, he demanded, “What are you doing?”

  She looked up at him, her eyes wide. For a moment, he felt a connection with her, and in that split-second, he thought it was her way to let him know it was over. Whatever cards were under the King she held were nothing compared to the hand Buck had.

  “It will be okay, Ben,” she whispered.

  But he didn’t believe her, every moment of every hand up until now had been the same. Even with Chip dealing the cards, they could not come out on top. It was as if Buck was God of the Game and everyone else was nothing but pawns. It can’t be over, Ben thought with dread.

  “Sit back down, son, and let the little lady continue the game,” Buck said sardonically.

  Hearing the bastard’s voice speaking to him condescendingly filled Ben’s heart with rage. As he turned to look scornfully at the man, Gli+chy acted out. Sparks flew from her servos as she began flailing about, spinning and slamming into the table, splitting the old poker table in two as she slammed down onto the center of it. Cards and poker chips flew everywhere as the table collapsed. Everyone but Chip and Ben backed away from the carnage, their eyes wide at the vulgar display of power unhinged. The devastating destruction of Ben’s ultimate reminder of failure sat at their feet.

  “I —”

  “What the fark have you done?” Buck seethed. He stood over the splintered wood from the antique poker table where he had amassed his wealth. The man trembled as his face reddened. To Ben, he had a look indistinguishable from whether he wanted to scream or cry. Either would be appropriate, Ben thought.

  “I —”

  “All is not lost, Mr. Rodgers,” Chip said. “If that was indeed the last hand, then all that is necessary is for her to reveal the cards in her hand and the game would be complete.”

  With everyone standing in the room, the tension grew as dust fluttered under the yellow lights overhead. Beneath her feet lay a wasteland of the past, and now all that was left was for five cards to be revealed to determine Chip’s fate.

  “Very well, what do you have?” Buck asked as he adjusted his belt before thumbing his belt loops.

  “You never answered the question. Do you want to up the stakes?” she asked.

  Buck nodded impatiently. “Yeah, whatever—the robot, the ship, and a million dollars. What’s your hand?”

  Ash looked over to Ben, a solemn grin barely forming on her lips as she handed her cards over to Chip. “You did say deuces wild, didn’t you, Mr. Rodgers?” She asked.

  “I did,” he answered confidently.

  “All right, you can make the check out to Ashley Brown,” she said as Chip turned over the cards to reveal two aces, two deuces, and the King of Hearts.

  “What the fark?” Buck and Ben said simultaneously.

  “You heard the lady, you rat bastard. Get your checkbook out and start writing!” Lon yelled as he rose from his seat, a look of elation on his face. His laugh was long and loud as Ash stood next to him, smiling. Ben exchanged a long look with Buck as the older man’s entourage chirped in the background with high-pitched voices full of concern.

  Lon’s hearty laugh preceded the slap on Ben’s back that drove his attention to the younger of the brothers. “What the hell just happened?” Ben asked, his voice cracking.

  Lon smiled. “That old son-of-a-bitch got what he had coming is what
happened. And it’s all because of you,” he said, turning his back on Ben and hugging Ash. She yelped as the old man lifted her from the ground and turned in a tight circle n celebration.

  “It looks like you’re the captain of the Shistain again,” Chip said, leaning to whisper into Ben’s ear.

  Ben looked in his friend’s direction, and it finally hit him. “We won?”

  “You did,” Chip answered.

  “Holy shit,” Ben said.

  “Congratulations, Ms. Brown,” Buck said, extending his hand to her.

  She took it and nodded, but said nothing.

  “I have never played an opponent with such skill. My ego is bruised, but I think it’s about time I experienced defeat. Winning becomes boring after a while,” he bragged, but Ben could hear something in the man’s voice that suggested the loss meant more to him than he wanted to let on.

  “I’m just glad we were able to save Chip. He means a lot to Ben,” Ash replied.

  Buck glared in Ben and Chip’s direction. “I can see that,” he said with a tone on the verge of judgmental. “I’ll have the money wired to your account. Please give your information to my secretary. I…” Buck stopped talking, and his voice trailed off as he walked away, his shoulders slouched.

  “Poor guy,” Ash said.

  “Fark him,” Lon, Ben, and Chip said before erupting in laughter.

  “Let’s get out of here and celebrate,” Lon said. “You three have a lot to be thankful for.”

  “What about you?” Ash asked.

  Lon smiled. “Yeah, me too.”

  Chap+er Eleven

  “I still can’t believe you did that,” Ben said, dropping the last box of personal items taken from his apartment onto the deck of the cargo hold of the Shistain. “Having a winning hand tucked in your sleeve to pull out a win was amazing. I mean, where the fark did you learn to do that?”

  Ash readjusted her ponytail, smiling as she bit down on the scrunchy while she used her hands to brush her sweaty hair back. “My uncle was the master of cheating at all kinds of games,” she muttered, her voice muffled as she spoke through her teeth. She pulled the scrunchy from her lips and fixed it to her ponytail before continuing. “He taught me how to swindle at a few card games, but I think poker was my favorite.”

  “I have to say, Ash,” Chip said, walking off the cargo bay ramp while Lon followed behind him. “Your willingness to game the system, despite the good fortune it had for me, is a little unsettling. How are we to know that you would not cheat us in the future?”

  “Chip!” Ben shouted, blood rushing to his face at Chip’s audacity to say such a thing about his girlfriend.

  “I mean no offense,” Chip added, “it’s just that what I witnessed was a ruthless display and a trait not conducive to trust. I suppose I should be honored that you had me in on your plan to induce stress in Ben so that an appropriate distraction could be made for you to switch the card, but dishonesty is not the best policy, except maybe in this case.” Chip stood with a wry smile on his face as he placed his hands on his hips, exuding as much sass as the situation permitted.

  “There you go, talking with your robot intellect,” Lon said as he slapped him on the shoulder. “You might want to be human, but you think about everything in black and white. It’s the gray area where everything in the world happens. So what if her hands are dirty? She saved your metallic ass, didn’t she?”

  “Oh yes, she did,” Chip said as he slapped his shiny derrière, causing Ash to laugh and Ben to shake his head.

  “I’m not worried,” Ben said. “If anything, your willingness to go above and beyond for someone other than yourself is a trait I’d rather admire.”

  “What about the million dollars?” Ash asked. “Was my cut of the winning not me looking out for myself?”

  Ben shrugged, not knowing how to respond to her comment. “I guess, but still not something I’m worried about.”

  “Good,” she replied, pulling herself towards him and kissing him.

  “Oh my,” Chip said flirtatiously. “With the amount of heat in this room, I might need a hand to clean myself off. What do you think, Lon?”

  “I don’t think so,” Lon replied as he stepped off the cargo bay and into the main compartment that Ash had used a portion of the winnings to have re-furnished. “Are you going to get your ass in gear and come see the surprise, Ben?” Lon shouted from the other side of the bulkhead.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Ben said as Ash pulled her lips away from his. “The old man’s about to have an aneurysm if we don’t go in there,” he said with a smile.

  “Aneurysms are bad. That’s one kind of an explosion from one type of head that I would not like to experience,” Chip said, the obvious attempt at a joke causing Ben to shake his head with disappointment.

  “Nice try, Chip, but you really need to work on that,” Lon said as he rounded the corner and stepped into the lavish cabin of the Shistain. At the top of the bulkhead was the same sign hung months before proclaiming the “World Famous Shistain,” but this time it was illuminated, backlit. Where the old, crumpled couch used to sit was now a plush sectional sofa large enough to seat half a dozen people while still not taking up too much of the small space. “This is farking amazing,” Ben said gleefully.

  “And the couch is a pullout bed, big enough for two of us,” ash said as she ran her hand along Ben’s back.

  He looked at her, his heart beating faster as he thought about their potential future. “For the two of us?”

  “Hey, I want to be on board this vessel too,” Chip said.

  “They know that, Robo-knob,” Lon said sardonically. “This is going to be their space.”

  “Then where will we be?” Chip asked as he turned a small circle looking around the space.

  “We’ll take half of the cargo hold and make a secondary living space out of it,” Lon replied. “The construction crew’s coming tomorrow.”

  “So, you’re serious about becoming a member of the crew?” Ben asked. It was hard for him to fight the smile forming on his face at the thought of having a real crew that looked at him as the captain of the ship.

  “If you three will have me, I’ve got nothing better to do.”

  Ben looked at Ash; her eyes were wide and boring into his. “What do you think, is this ship big enough for the four of us?”

  Ash smiled, “the ship is, but this bed is just big enough for you and me.” She pulled Ben’s face towards her, their mouths open as they kissed, causing a groan from Lon and Chip.

  “Yeah, yeah, you two like each other’s parts,” Lon said. “It doesn’t mean you have to flaunt it in front of Chip and me.”

  Ben and Ash stopped kissing, but they continued to gaze into each other’s eyes before either of them spoke. “I really think you two should get to know each other,” Ben said, looking over at Lon and Chip as they stood over them. “I mean, the two of you are going to be roommates after all.”

  Lon looked at Chip and shrugged his shoulders as he put his hands in his pockets. “I don’t have a problem with that so long as he knows to keep his hands to himself,” Lon replied.

  “I can put my hands wherever you want,” Chip said, raising his eyebrows as he smirked. But his joke did not affect Lon’s expression.

  “Let’s go; we’ll spend the next few nights in Ben’s old apartment until our space is rehabbed. That way we can leave the two lovebirds alone,” Lon said.

  The two of them stepped out of the cabin, disappearing behind the steel bulkhead with the sound of the cargo bay door closing. Alone, and his heart racing as he felt Ash’s hands rub the inside of his leg, Ben felt like every hardship in his life have led to this one magnificent moment. “You know, I think I love you,” he said.

  “I know,” Ash replied. “But the real question is, what are you gonna do about it?”

  Ben smiled as he ran his hand along the side of her face, her eyes piercing into his. This is the most amazing woman I’ve ever known, he thought as they sat beside on
e another, holding each other. After a few moments of silence, he shrugged, “fark it.”

  THE END

  — — —

  Want to read more by Drew Avera?

  The Alorian Wars

  Dead planets litter the Alorian Galaxy in the wake of interstellar war...

  Ensign Brendle Quinn has spent five years loyally serving the Greshian Empire in their relentless quest to dominate the Alorian Galaxy. But, as his ship decimates planet after planet, he finds his sympathies swinging toward their defeated enemies.

  Sergeant Anki Paro, a Luthian Marine, has been anxiously awaiting the call to deploy. As the last line of defense against the crushing Greshian forces, she hopes the time has finally come for her world to stand against tyranny. However, as her society prepares for imminent destruction, questions of misplaced loyalties lead Anki to wonder if the world she is trying to save has any real intentions of surviving.

  As Brendle’s and Anki’s worlds collide, they find themselves in an unlikely alliance to try to stop the full might of the Greshian Empire before there’s nothing left to fight for.

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  About the Author

  Drew Avera is an active duty Navy veteran and science fiction author of the bestselling series, The Alorian Wars. Growing up in Mississippi, Drew often dreamed of visiting faraway places. In the Navy, he has visited a dozen foreign countries and has traveled thousands of miles on the open sea. Drew enjoys his free time by reading, writing, and playing guitar.