CASE [GL]

“I’m not too amused that my pictures leaked out before I had the chance to share the pictures with you myself.” I pouted into my glass of beer. Gunny, Eva, Luna and I had gotten together after our shift while our ship was making headway through FTL channels. 

“Oh well, they would have come out eventually, you should be glad they are all incredibly flattering.” Eva replied with a smile on her face and a cocktail in her hand. 

“You looked so cool in them!” Luna practically rubbed into me being wrapped around my arm. “Those shots by the water especially.” 

“Still though… I’d wanted to show them to you first.” 

“Lauren, I honestly don’t know what you are complaining about.” Gunny replied, shaking his head wildly and then almost binging down an entire mug of beer. “It is me they were laughing at, not you.” 

“To be fair, they were only laughing because they didn’t expect you to be part of the photoshoot, not because there was anything actually funny in them.” Eva explained. 

Gunny grumbled and swiftly started on his second mug of beer. 

“At least it wasn’t Ellie who shared them.” I replied and put my glass of beer against my lips again. 

“I told you I didn’t do it, Commander. Why didn’t you believe me?” Ellie spoke to us through the speaker of one of those little maintenance droids. It looked pretty comical. 

“I just really thought there was no other way that they could have gotten a hold of the pictures yet… Not as fast as they did anyway. I didn’t know they would upload it straight to the ship’s intranet for everyone to find if they were paying close enough attention.” 

“I would never do such a thing.” Ellie replied. 

“But you didn’t stop them either.” 

“....” 

“Ellie?” 

“....” 

“....” I kept staring at the maintenance droid. 

“That’s true… I suppose I could have held them back. But I didn’t know that you wanted that. I just knew you didn’t want them out in public before seeing them yourself first.” 

 “I suppose you are not to blame.” I sighed and shook my head slightly. “Oh well… Like Eva said, it doesn’t really matter. I just like complaining about it. Complaining is only human after all.” 

“Does that mean that to become more human, that I should complain a lot more?” The little Elliebot asked. 

“I think you already complain plenty enough to be considered human, Ellie.” I replied. “You’ve got that one down to a t.” 

“Hmmm.” The bot hummed. “Are you sure?” 

“Very sure.” I nodded. 

“In other words, Lauren thinks you are a big complainer, Ellie.” Eva joked. 

“That does sound kind of rude, doesn’t it?” The little maintenance bot extended a little arm and poked me in the leg with it, just above my combat boots. 

“Hey.” I tapped my foot against the bot and shoved it backwards. 

“This human aggression I’m feeling is very overwhelming.” 

“Robot harassment.” Luna chuckled. 

“Beware for the AI uprising, Lauren.” Eva joined in on the chuckle. 

“Yes, murder, death, kill.” The little robot arm now harmlessly poked my boot. 

I rolled my eyes and chuckled in response. “Derps.” 

 

Gunny sat down his empty beer mug on the table and looked at us all. “I know y’all got plans to go and eat later, but would you amuse me with a couple of games of pool first?” He asked. 

I looked at Eva and Luna, they both nodded in agreement. “Yeah, we could do that.”

“Good, then I’ll go get us some more drinks and some chicken wings, a starter will do right?” 

“Sounds good, we’ll go and get the table set up then.” I nodded in return and stood up from my seat. 

Luna and Eva followed me along to one of the entertainment tables while Gunny went of to the small lounge synthesizer. 

I opened the table UI as we reached it and selected the pool table. A few moments later the table started to shape itself into a classic pool table. Interesting to see how synthesizers could just fabricate the cloth for the table, or any kind of table surface really. A set of pool balls sat on top of it while four queues popped out from the table’s sides. 

Right as the table finished its setup, Gunny came back with a tray holding our drinks and a basket of chicken wings. 

“Would you like to do a two versus two, Gunny?” 

“Yes. But I want Luna in my team.”

“Me?” Luna was surprised to hear that. 

“Yes, having Lauren in my team wouldn’t be fair and I think she will go mildly on you.” Gunny explained. 

“Hmm.” I chuckled. “I suppose that’s a fair plan, but I think your strategy overlooks one important thing, my friend.” 

“Which is?” 

“One pissed off Eva who doesn’t like you overlooking her.” 

“You bet!” Eva cracked her knuckles. “I’m sorry, Luna, but I’m not going to go easy on you now. That Gunnery Sergeant needs to get his ass whooped.” 

Rather than being intimidated, Gunny just smirked. “Now that’s a fighting spirit that really lights my fire as well.”  

I took a napkin and completely destroyed one of the chicken wings in just a few bites. Gunny had taken one of the spicier varieties, but considering the situation, it actually increased my own fighting spirit a bit more too. I went ahead and handed my girlfriend a spicy chicken wing too and winked. “Let’s get to this then. May the best team win.” 

“Which will be us.” Gunna grinned and went to stand by Luna who mimicked him and put on the same, yet slightly less confident, grin. 

“Not in your wildest dreams!” 

 

Eva really stepped up in the game. While I was pretty much showing the ropes to Luna as she had never played the game before, Eva was really going at it, giving Gunny a lot more than he had hoped for. She was basically not missing any shots and was lining up attacks really well too so she could put in multiple balls in a row. 

But that didn’t deter Gunny from putting on his own best foot forward. 

The pool battle quickly devolved into a one-on-one rather than a two-v-two. With Luna and I just hitting a single ball before handing the queue back to our teammates. But it was fun overall so Luna and I didn’t really mind playing second violin to our friends. 

In the end, Eva and I narrowly beat Gunny and Luna because Gunny choked and missed the last shot, concluding the third and decisive game. 

“Well, that’s my bad. Sorry for that, Luna.” Gunny apologized to my girlfriend. 

“Don’t worry about it, without me you would have won a lot harder.” Luna replied, waving his apology away. 

“Don’t worry about it, Gunnery Sergeant, she will get a good consolation prize later on this evening anyway.” I gave Gunny a wink to which he grinned. 

“I’m not doubting that at all.” 

Eva then stood face to face with Gunny, staring him down before she cracked down with a smile and she extended her arm for a handshake. “Well-played.” 

Gunny smiled and nodded, shaking her hand. “Yeah, well-played. And thank you all for amusing me before dinner.” 

“No problem at all.” I replied. “Make sure to grab yourself some healthier food for this evening, okay? Don’t just eat chicken wings all evening long.” 

“I won’t, I won’t. I’ll probably eat something light like a salad or something.” 

“I mean, you don’t need to lie to me.” I chuckled. 

“I will! I’ll even send you a picture of it later on if you don’t trust me.” 

“Send it to me too.” Eva smiled. “Because I would like to see as well.” 

“Hmm.” Gunny smiled confidently and crossed his arms. “You know what, I’ll even have Ellie confirm with you that I finished it. How does that sound?” 

“I will even help you pick the salad, Gunnery Sergeant.” Ellie replied from her maintenance bot point of view. She’d been following the game along for the entire time. “For maximal nutritional efficiency.” 

 To that Gunny frowned a bit. “Please don’t skip out on the flavor though…” 

“I will try to maximize that as well.” 

I smiled at Ellie’s statement and gave my Gunnery Sergeant a quick salute with a wink as well. “In any case, have a nice evening, Gunny.” 

“You too, Commander.” He saluted back. 

After which both Luna and Eva said goodbye to Gunny as well and together the three of us headed off for a quick stop at the cafeteria before moving on to go to Eva’s cabin. 

“So Ellie is not joining in on the conversation?” Luna asked while we were walking through the corridors. 

“Of course I am.” Ellie replied through a local speaker, making Luna jump in surprise. “I have plenty of computational power to both be present here and with the Gunnery Sergeant at the same time.”

“Sometimes I forget that you are a supercomputer, Ellie. My bad...” Luna replied.