Chapter 10 #3
"Yeah, of course," Brick said. "It's not like you've given me a salary, Captain. So, I took a little and tried to make more for us all."
I scowled at his words but couldn't deny his statement. "Well, we can fix that later. It doesn't mean you get to use the ship's funds to go on a gambling spree."
"I was trying to make up the money we're so clearly missing. The longer we wait here on this world, the more likely we’re going to get screwed," he growled, though he wasn't being physical anymore. Whatever nonsense was going through his head was at least tempered by his fear of Lily.
I was momentarily grateful for that small mercy. I might be the captain of the ship, but Brick was three times my size. I had a feeling I really didn't want to tango with an angry grogax, at least not if I had any intention of being able to dance afterwards.
"Brick." Tiri held her head in her hands. "What are you going to do?”
”I'll just win the rest back. I'm only down a little." He crossed his arms as Lily put him down and stepped beside me.
Tiri looked at him, exasperated, then over to me for help. I shook my head at her, thinking this was going to be more trouble than I could easily solve.
"Brick, you stole money from the ship. Look, I understand I haven't given you or anyone here a salary. That's mostly because we barely have enough to keep the ship running," I told him.
"Well, then, consider it an advance," Brick said, crossing his arms.
This was very unlike him.
"It's the gambling," Melgara said, as if that explained everything.
"Is it this bad?" I said in disbelief.
"Grogax are famous for being able to gamble themselves and their entire families into indentured servitude," Tiri confirmed. “It’s worse than many hard drugs for most races.”
"All right. I have no intention of placing that burden on him, or on anyone on this ship. Brick, we can't have you gambling the ship's money. How bad is it? Do you have some in an account that we can pull out?" I held out hope.
Tiri was already going over the tablet and shook her head. Brick looked at her, and his shoulders slumped. "I made a big sum but had to make enough bets to be able to claim it, and there were just a few bad picks. I'll be more serious next time. It’s been a while since I paid attention to sports."
"Oh no. There is no next time," I said, scowling at him and then at everyone else in the room. "This rule goes for all of you. No gambling ship funds. I don't care if they offer you the fucking moon."
"The offer was likely never intended to pay out. Most likely their averages tell them they’d claim the initial offer and more from you over those first five bets," Melgara reasoned with Brick.
"Just because they didn't intend it to pay out doesn't mean that with the right choices I couldn't have forced it," he said, almost proudly.
"Okay, Brick, no more gambling." Lily confiscated his datapad and began tapping away at it.
"You can't!" Brick shouted.
I glared at him. "Oh, I can, and I fucking will. Until we figure this out, we’re locking down your access. You are not gambling, and someone is watching over you." I glanced at Tiri.
"What do you want me to do?" she asked. "I might be decent with this saber, but that only makes up for so much of the size disparity." She pointed between the two of them.
"Sorry, friend." I looked at Brick, then to Tiri. "He's got a giant crush on you. Use that to your advantage."
"I do not," Brick snapped, "and you cannot take my datapad. I will not let you." He pulled it away from Lily, which may have been his worst mistake to date.
The helivore caught him by the arm and twisted it to pin him to the floor. The smaller woman completely handling him would have been funny if the situation wasn't so serious.
Tiri was beside me, doing something on her own device. "They say that in the case of a grogax with a gambling addiction, two weeks of keeping them away from it should make them far more steady," she read off her tablet.
I groaned. Just what I needed. Two weeks of my chief engineer being out of commission. Honestly, a mechanic gig for a few weeks was probably one of our best options.
"I'll earn it back, Captain," Brick said quickly, pulling himself together and doing his best to appear serious.
"No." I rubbed my forehead again. Giving Brick any latitude was likely to backfire on us. "Just rest and get better."
It was frustrating, but at the same time, from what Melgara had told me, this was almost an expected reaction. Rather than being angry at Brick, I turned my anger toward the people who were so clearly targeting him.
They gave him money to play with when he was in need, dangling the carrot out for him.
Except that carrot was filled with insidious hooks.
Brick might be an adult, but the sharp change in him was enough to warn me how addictive gambling was to his people.
It was a dangerous and downright malicious use of the system around us.
If we ever came into contact with the people in charge of this operation, I might, for once, sick Lily on a problem and walk away with no compunction about what happened next.