[color=FFB435]”Stop waving your cards around, dimwit. Beating you ain't fun when you make it too easy.”[/color] She berated the pilot, taking care to speak slowly so she wouldn’t trip over her tongue. Astrid had success in the game early on, but as the night dragged on and her vow to stay sober broke, the ability to count cards left her. Perhaps it was her resigned stoicism that made her harder to read and therefore allowed her to retain at least some clothing. That, or it could’ve been dumb luck.

[color=FFB435]”And for real? Blasting a song about how... ‘nothing in the world is free’, or however it goes... while we’re sitting pretty in a ship most can only dream of? While drinking this dis- dis-gust-ing stuff?”[/color] she pointed a finger at the nearest bottle as if she was accusing it of committing some horrible crime. [color=FFB435]“Some of us even got a false conviction in that gift basket, all for free. Hy-po-cri-sy, much?”[/color]

The doctor’s state had Astrid laughing under the table, figuratively speaking. [color=FFB435]”Awww, that’s so nice of you. I [i]knew[/i] there was a reason I was going out of my way not to piss you off. But… wouldn’t we only be free for the day with no rules? Why dangle hope in front of us like that, only for the pricks in charge to snatch it away? Again. I’d have a sol- solution for that. I’d build a ship. A little one. Just a remass tank, really. A bit of fuel, a gyro and a remote control package. Wait, am I forgetting something. Ah, it hardly matters. The point is, it’d all be strapped to a big engine. One of the old chemical rockets, because [i][b]fuck your regulations[/b][/i], those things were fun, that’s why!”[/color] she paused for a moment, looking like a dog that got its bone taken away before her brain recovered from the booze-induced stall and picked up where her rambling left off. [color=FFB435]“And I’d let it slingshot around a nearby star or two and slam into the Spire at relativistic speed. That’d solve quite a few problems.”[/color]