Star Wars: Crucible by Troy Denning

Author:Troy Denning
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, Space Opera, Action & Adventure, Fiction
ISBN: 0345511425
Publisher: LucasBooks
Published: 2013-07-09T04:00:00+00:00

Twenty

The way Han saw the game now, the problem was Ditto’s eye. She was afraid the pain of having it burned—even if it was only a simulated burn—would leave it blind. So, after Gev refused to allow Han’s string bet, Ditto had called Barduun’s bet of a broken nose and hoped the next chip-card would save her.

It hadn’t, and now she was sitting on a twelve-card hand, facing a very painful session with the torture droid. If Ditto’s score wasn’t a bomb-out already, it soon would be. Meanwhile, Barduun was sitting next to her, drinking in all that fear she was pouring into the Force.

“The bet’s to you, Solo,” Gev reminded him. Her finger was poised over the zapper button, ready to give him another brain jolt if he tried to cheat again. “We checking it around?”

“Not this time.”

As Han spoke, he was watching Barduun, looking for the dusky tell that would suggest the fiend was worried. It wasn’t there.

So Barduun had a pretty decent score, and Han had absolute zero. The smart play would be to bet small and keep the hand going, hoping Barduun would make a mistake or suffer a bad card shift.

But the Qrephs were out of the game, which meant they were thinking about something other than Han Solo. And that had to change. Han needed to do something to set them off, to keep their minds on him instead of on the Jedi coming for them.

Han turned toward Gev. “Now I bet death, and I call the—” He stopped when Gev’s finger started to descend toward the button, then smiled and said, “Oh … that’s right. I can’t do that yet.”

“Cute, Solo,” Gev said. “I should scramble your brains for trying to call the hand out of sequence.”

Han shrugged. “As long as the death bet stands.” He paused, trying to think of a way to scare Ditto into folding, then finally decided he had no choice but to cheat by announcing his intention to end the hand. “I can always call the hand after—”

Gev’s finger came down, and the probe needles in his head unleashed a blast of crackling pain. He slumped in his chair, shuddering and half paralyzed, until Ohali Soroc’s red Duros eyes grew even larger and rounder than usual.

“Stop!” Ohali said. “It is no fault of Captain Solo’s if you have fallen for the Qrephs’ false promises.”

Good, Han thought. Ohali understood his plan.

Gev glared at Ohali, then released the button. “This has nothing to do with the Qrephs,” she said. “Solo was cheating again.”

“You punish Captain Solo for speaking out of turn,” Ohali said. “Yet you work for the Qrephs when you know they will renege on their promises.”

“They’ve paid me so far,” Gev said.

“Sure, while th-th-they … still need you,” Han said, beginning to recover from the jolt. If he could make Gev really angry, she might forget about Ohali long enough for the Duros to disable the brain-zapper button. “But you’re a karking fool if you actually believe they can get rid of that nanokiller.

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