The rows of tables in the mess hall are covered now with an assortment of colourful items, plates of snack foods, and pitchers filled to the brim with all assortment of beverages, ranging from water to alcohol. Degar, Yudae, and Usui are setting the stations up with all manner of games for what the crew have affectionately referred to as Game Night following what was truly one of the rougher missions. They’d almost lost the youngest member of their crew, Faro, and failure in capturing the orb had been a real possibility.
No better time for game night than now, right?
Some of the crew had first pitched Game Night after a mission not quite unlike this one, earlier in the crew’s tenure on the Ximilia. It had been a way to distract themselves and to get to know each other a little better through healthy competition. They had started with one game picked out by the volunteer for that night, until eventually they’d amassed a collection of games (board, card, token, and puzzle) from all parts of the universe, each one with enough similarities to classify them as a game, and enough differences in the rules and the play to keep things interesting. Twenty games were added to the rotation.
Tonight they would be trying a game from Faro’s homeworld, an imitation of a typical life with all of the delightful, boring mundanities. It was the perfect way to end a night of high stress and great mission-related intensity.
Crew members begin to trickle into the room, finding seats and murmuring softly amongst each other: quick check-ins, a couple of jokes, a brief shoulder-squeeze.
Months later and no one would even argue that the twenty crew members of the Ximilia were not a family of sorts. They had grown into an easy and comfortable demeanor with each other, where even the simplest motion of joining someone at a table and speaking about nothing in particular seemed to be done with ease.
Degar claps his hands and Yudae sweeps hers towards Faro’s board-game already set up at a table in the middle of the room.
The Commander, Emerton Haughtfod, reaches for one of the drinks – cracks it open and takes a sip.
“As Commander,” he says, “I think I’ve earned the right to go first.”
Some of the crew chuckle; Emerton, despite dedicating much of his time to making sure everything runs well on the station and cooperating with their AI, never fails to make time for the team, participating in all their spirit-lifting activities.
In response, Degar shrugs, amused.
“Well, I don’t know about going first, but if you’re willing to roll for it…”
As the memory fades, so does the shard of the orb; it will reappear in the North Wing, joining the other shards there, and touching it there will trigger no new memories.
no subject
No better time for game night than now, right?
Some of the crew had first pitched Game Night after a mission not quite unlike this one, earlier in the crew’s tenure on the Ximilia. It had been a way to distract themselves and to get to know each other a little better through healthy competition. They had started with one game picked out by the volunteer for that night, until eventually they’d amassed a collection of games (board, card, token, and puzzle) from all parts of the universe, each one with enough similarities to classify them as a game, and enough differences in the rules and the play to keep things interesting. Twenty games were added to the rotation.
Tonight they would be trying a game from Faro’s homeworld, an imitation of a typical life with all of the delightful, boring mundanities. It was the perfect way to end a night of high stress and great mission-related intensity.
Crew members begin to trickle into the room, finding seats and murmuring softly amongst each other: quick check-ins, a couple of jokes, a brief shoulder-squeeze.
Months later and no one would even argue that the twenty crew members of the Ximilia were not a family of sorts. They had grown into an easy and comfortable demeanor with each other, where even the simplest motion of joining someone at a table and speaking about nothing in particular seemed to be done with ease.
Degar claps his hands and Yudae sweeps hers towards Faro’s board-game already set up at a table in the middle of the room.
The Commander, Emerton Haughtfod, reaches for one of the drinks – cracks it open and takes a sip.
“As Commander,” he says, “I think I’ve earned the right to go first.”
Some of the crew chuckle; Emerton, despite dedicating much of his time to making sure everything runs well on the station and cooperating with their AI, never fails to make time for the team, participating in all their spirit-lifting activities.
In response, Degar shrugs, amused.
“Well, I don’t know about going first, but if you’re willing to roll for it…”
As the memory fades, so does the shard of the orb; it will reappear in the North Wing, joining the other shards there, and touching it there will trigger no new memories.