Path of Destruction Page 5

  Des opened with the Ace and two of sabers. He was at seventeen, a dangerous hand. Lots of potential to go too high on his next card and bomb out. He hesitated, knowing that the smart move was to fold.

  “Having second thoughts?” the ensign chided.

  Acting on an impulse he couldn’t even explain, Des moved his two into the interference field, then pushed his chips into the pot. He was letting his emotions guide him, but he no longer cared. And when the next card came up as a three, he knew what he had to do. He shoved his three into the interference field beside the two that was already there. Then he bet the maximum wager and waited for the switch.

  There were actually two ways to win the sabacc pot. One was to get a hand that totaled twenty-three exactly, a pure sabacc. But there was an even better hand: the idiot’s array. In modified Bespin rules, if you had a hand of two and three in the same suit and drew the face card known as the Idiot, which had no value at all, you had an idiot’s array … 23 in the literal sense. It was the rarest hand possible, and it was worth more than even a pure sabacc.

  Des was two-thirds of the way there. All he needed now was a switch to take his ten and replace it with the Idiot. Of course, that meant there had to be a switch. And even then he’d have to draw the Idiot off it … and there were only two Idiots in the entire seventy-six-card deck. It was a ridiculously long shot.

  The marker came up red; the cards shifted. Des didn’t even have to look at his hand: he knew.

  He stared right into the ensign’s eyes. “Coming up.”

  The ensign looked down at his own hand to see what the switch had given him and began to laugh so hard he could barely show his hand. He had the two of flasks, the three of flasks … and the Idiot!

  There were gasps of surprise and murmurs of disbelief from the crowd. “How do you like that one, boys?” he cackled. “Idiot’s array on the switch!” He stood up, reaching out for the stack of chips on the small pedestal that sat in the center of the table representing the sabacc pot.

  Des whipped his hand out and snagged the young man’s wrist in a grip as cold and hard as durasteel, then flipped over his own cards. The entire cantina became silent as a tomb; the ensign’s laughter died in his throat. A second later he pulled his hand free and sat back down, dumbfounded. From the far edge of the table somebody let out a long, low whistle of amazement. The rest of the crowd burst into noise.

  “… never in my life …”

  “… can’t believe …”

  “… statistically impossible …”

  “Two idiot’s arrays in the same hand?”

  The CardShark summarized the result in the purest analytical fashion. “We have two players with hands of equal value. The hand will be determined by a sudden demise.”

  The ensign didn’t react with the same kind of calm. “You stupid mudcrutch!” he spat out, his voice strangled with rage. “Now nobody’s going to get that sabacc pot!” His eyes bulged out wildly; a vein was pulsing on his forehead. One of his fellow soldiers had placed a hand on his shoulder, as if afraid his friend might leap across the table to try to choke the life out of the miner on the other side.

  The ensign was right: neither of them would be collecting the sabacc pot on this hand. In a sudden demise each player was dealt one more card, and the value of the hands was recalculated. If you had the better hand, you’d win … but you wouldn’t get the sabacc pot unless you scored twenty-three exactly. That, however, seemed impossible: there were no more Idiots to deal out to preserve an idiot’s array, and no single card had a value higher than the Ace’s fifteen.

  Not that Des cared. It was enough to have destroyed his opponent’s will; to have crushed his hopes and robbed him of his victory. He could feel the ensign’s hate, and he responded to it. It was like a living being … an entity he could draw strength from, fueling his own raging inferno. But Des didn’t put his emotions out on display for the rest of the crowd to see. The hate burning in him was his own private store, a power raging inside him so fierce he felt it could crack the world if he let it escape.

  The dealer flicked out two cards faceup for everyone to see. They were both nines. Before anyone even had time to react the droid had recalculated the hand, determined that the two players were still tied, and fired out another card to each of them. The ensign took an eight, but Des got another nine. Idiot, two, three, nine, nine … twenty-three!

  He reached out slowly and tapped his cards, whispering a single word to his opponent: “Sabacc.”

  The soldier went ballistic. He leapt up, grabbed the underside of the table with both hands, and gave a mighty heave. Only the weight of the table and the builtin stabilizers kept it from flipping over, though it rocked and slammed back into the ground with a deafening crash. All the drinks on it spilled over; ale and lum washed across the electronic cards, causing them to spark and short out.

  “Sir, please don’t touch the table,” the CardShark implored in a pitiful voice.

  “Shut up, you hunk of rusted scrap metal!” The ensign grabbed one of the overturned mugs from the table and hurled it at the droid. It connected with a ringing thud. The droid stumbled back and fell over.

  The ensign thrust a finger at Des. “You cheated! Nobody gets sabacc on a sudden demise! Not unless he cheats!”

  Des didn’t say anything; he didn’t even stand up. But his muscles were braced in case the soldier made a move.

  The ensign turned back to the droid as it rose shakily to its feet. “You’re in on it!” He threw another mug at it, connecting again and dropping the droid a second time. Two of the other soldiers tried to restrain him, but he shook free of their grip. He spun around, waving his arms at the crowd. “You’re all in on it! Dirty, Sith-loving scum! You hate the Republic! You hate us. We know you do. We know!”

  The miners pushed in closer, grumbling angrily. The ensign’s insults weren’t far off the mark; there were a lot of bad feelings toward the Republic on Apatros. And if he didn’t watch his mouth, somebody was going to show him just how strong those feelings were.

  “We give our lives to protect you, but you don’t give a wobber! Any chance to humiliate us, you take it!”

  His friends had grabbed him again, trying to wrestle him out the door. But there was no way they could get through the crowd now. From the looks on their faces, the soldiers were terrified. With good reason, Des thought. None of them was armed; their blasters were back on their ship. Now they were trapped in the center of a hostile crush of heavily muscled miners who’d been drinking all night. And their friend wouldn’t shut up.

  “You should get down on your knees and thank us each and every time we land on this ball of bantha sweat you call a planet! But you’re too stupid to know how lucky you are to have us on your side! You’re nothing but a bunch of filthy, illiterate—”

  A lum bottle hurled anonymously from the crowd struck him hard in the side of his head, cutting his words short. He dropped to the floor, dragging his friends down with him. Des stood motionless as a mass of angry miners surged.

  The sound of a blaster caused everyone to freeze. Groshik had climbed up onto the top of the bar, his stunner already charging up to fire again. But everybody knew the next shot wouldn’t be aimed at the ceiling.

  “We’re closed,” he croaked as loud as his raspy voice could manage. “Everybody get out of my cantina!”

  The miners began to back off, and the soldiers stood up warily. The ensign swayed, the cut on his forehead bleeding into his eye.

  “You three first,” the Neimoidian said to the ensign and the soldiers who supported him. He waved the barrel of his weapon menacingly around the room. “Clear a path. Get them out of here.”

  Everyone but the soldiers remained frozen. This wasn’t the first time Groshik had whipped out the stunner. The BlasTech CS-33 Firespray stun rifle was one of the finest nonlethal crowd-control devices on the market, capable of incapacitating multiple targets with a single shot. More than a few of the miners had felt the brutal forc
e of its wide-beam blast rendering them unconscious. From personal experience Des could attest to the fact that it wasn’t a pain anyone was likely to forget.

  Once the Republic crew vanished into the night, the rest of the crowd began to move slowly toward the door. Des fell into step with the masses, but as he passed the bar Groshik pointed the blaster right at him.

  “Not you. You stay put.”

  Des didn’t move a millimeter until all the others were gone. He wasn’t scared; he didn’t think Groshik would really fire. Still, he saw no advantage in giving him a reason to.

  Only after the last patron had left and closed the door did Groshik lower his arm. He clambered down awkwardly from the bar and set the rifle on the table, then turned to Des.

  “I figured it was safer to keep you here with me for a bit,” he explained. “Those soldiers were pretty mad. They might be waiting for you on the walk home.”

  Des smiled. “I didn’t figure you were mad at me,” he said.

  Groshik snorted. “Oh, I’m mad at you. That’s why you’re going to help me clean up this mess.”

  Des sighed and shook his head in mock exasperation. “You saw what happened, Groshik. I was just an innocent bystander.”

  Groshik wasn’t in any mood to hear it. “Just start picking up the chairs,” he muttered.

  With the help of the CardShark—at least it was good for something besides dealing, Des thought—they finished cleaning up in just over an hour. When they were done the droid waddled out on shaky legs, heading toward the maintenance facilities for repairs. Before it left, Des made sure his sabacc winnings had been credited to his account.

  Now that it was just the two of them, Groshik motioned Des over to the bar, grabbed a couple of glasses, and took a bottle down from the shelf.

  “Cortyg brandy,” he said, pouring them each half a glass. “Direct from Kashyyyk. Not the hard stuff the Wookiees drink, though. Milder. Smoother. More tame.”

  Des took a sip and nearly choked as the fiery liquid burned its way down his throat. “This is tame? I’d hate to see what the Wookiees drink!”

  Groshik shrugged. “What do you expect? They’re Wookiees.”

  With his second sip, Des was more careful. He let it roll across his tongue, savoring the rich flavor. “This is good, Groshik. And expensive, I bet. What’s the occasion?”

  “You had quite a day. I thought you could use it.”

  Des drained his glass. Groshik filled him up halfway, then corked the bottle and set it back on the shelf.

  “I’m worried about you,” the Neimoidian rasped. “Worried about what happened in the fight with Gerd.”

  “He didn’t give me much choice.”

  The Neimodian nodded. “I know, I know. Still … you bit off his thumb. And tonight you nearly started a riot in my bar.”

  “Hey, I just wanted to play cards,” Des protested. “It’s not my fault things got out of hand.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. I saw you tonight. You were goading that soldier, playing him like you play everyone who sits down against you. You push them, twist them, make them dance like puppets on a string. But this time you never let up. Even when you had the advantage, you kept pushing. You wanted him to go off like that.”

  “Are you saying I planned this whole thing?” Des laughed. “Come on, Groshik. It was the cards that set him off. You know I wasn’t cheating—it’s just not possible. How could I control what cards were dealt?”

  “It was more than the cards, Des,” Groshik said, his gravelly voice dropping so low that Des had to lean in close to hear. “You were angry, Des. More angry than I’ve ever seen you before. I could feel it from all the way across the room, like something in the air. We could all feel it.

  “The crowd turned ugly in a hurry, Des. It was like they were feeding off your rage and your hate. You were projecting waves of emotion, a storm of anger and fury. Everyone else just kind of got swept up in it: the crowd, that soldier … everybody. Even me. It was all I could do to aim that first shot from my blaster at the ceiling. Every instinct in my body was telling me to fire it into the crowd. I wanted to take them all down and leave them writhing in pain.”

  Des couldn’t believe his ears. “Listen to what you’re saying, Groshik. It’s crazy. You know I wouldn’t do that. I couldn’t do that. Nobody could.”

  Groshik reached up a long, thin hand and patted Des on the shoulder. “I know you’d never do it on purpose, Des. And I know how crazy it sounds. But there was something different about you tonight. You gave in to your emotions, and it unleashed something … strange. Something dangerous.”

  Groshik tossed his head back and drained the last of his cortyg, shuddering as it went down. “Just watch yourself, Des. Please. I’ve got a bad feeling.”

  “Be careful, Groshik,” Des replied with another laugh. “Neimoidians aren’t known for relying on their feelings. It’s not good for business.”

  Groshik studied him carefully for a moment, then nodded wearily. “True. Maybe I’m just tired. I should get some sleep. And so should you.”

  They shook hands, and Des left the cantina.

  5

  The streets of Apatros were dark. ORO charged such high rates for power that everyone turned off all their lights when they went to bed, and tonight the moon was only the barest sliver in the sky. There wasn’t even the cantina’s glow to guide him: Groshik had shut off the lights on its walls and dome until he opened the next day. Des stayed in the middle of the street, trying to avoid breaking his shins on the debris hidden in the darker shadows along the edges.

  Yet somehow, despite the near-absolute darkness, he saw them coming.

  It was a split second before it happened, a sense that danger was coming … and where it was coming from. Three silhouettes leapt at him, two coming head-on and another attacking from behind. He ducked forward just in time, feeling the metal pipe that would have cracked his skull and knocked him cold swiping through the air a hairbreadth above him. He popped back up as it passed and lashed out with a fist, driving into the featureless head of the nearest figure. He was rewarded with the sick crunch of cartilage and bone.

  He ducked again, this time to the side, and the pipe that would have brained him square between the eyes thumped down hard across his left shoulder. He staggered to the side, driven by the force of the blow. But in the darkness it took a moment for his opponents to locate him, and by then he had regained his balance.

  Through the gloom he could just make out the vague outlines of his attackers. The one he’d punched was slowly standing up; the other two stood wary and ready. He didn’t have to see their faces to know who they were: the ensign and the two soldiers who’d half carried the man from the cantina. Des could smell the reek of Corellian ale wafting up at him, confirming their identities. They must have waited outside the cantina and followed him until they thought they could get the jump on him. That was good: it meant they hadn’t gone back to their ship to get their blasters.

  They came at him again, rushing him all at once. They had the numbers and months of military hand-to-hand combat training on their side; Des had strength, size, and years of bare-knuckle brawling on his. But in the darkness, none of that really mattered.

  Des met their charge head-on, and all four combatants tumbled to the ground. Punches and kicks landed without any thought given to target or strategy: the blind fighting the blind. Each blow he landed brought a satisfying grunt or groan from his opponents, but his enjoyment was limited by the pummeling his own body was enduring.

  It didn’t matter if his eyes were open or closed, he couldn’t see a thing. He reacted on instinct; aches and pains were washed away in the darkness by the adrenaline pumping through his veins.

  And then suddenly he saw something. Someone had drawn a vibroblade. It was still black as the heart of the mines during a cave-in, yet Des could see the blade clearly, as if it glowed with an inner fire. It stabbed toward him and he grabbed the wrist of the wielder, twisting it back and driving it
toward the dark mass from which it had appeared. There was a sharp cry and then a choking gurgle, and suddenly the burning blade in his vision winked out, the threat extinguished.

  The mass of bodies entwined with his quickly untangled, two of them scampering clear. The third was motionless. A second later he heard the click of a luma switching on, and he was momentarily blinded by its beam of light. Eyes squeezed shut, he heard a gasp.

  “He’s dead!” one of the soldiers exclaimed. “You killed him!”

  Shading his eyes against the illumination, Des glanced down to see exactly what he’d expected: the ensign lying on his back, the vibroblade plunged deep into his chest.

  The luma flicked off, and Des braced himself for another assault. Instead he heard the sounds of footsteps fleeing in the night, heading toward the docking pads.

  Des looked down at the body, planning to grab the glowing blade and use its light to guide him through the darkness. But the blade wasn’t glowing now. In fact, he realized, it had never really glowed at all. It couldn’t have: vibroblades weren’t energy weapons. Their blades were simple metal.

  There were more pressing concerns than how he had seen the vibroblade in the darkness, however. As soon as they reached their ship, the soldiers would report to their commander, who would report the incident to the ORO authorities. ORO would turn the planet upside down looking for him. Des didn’t like his chances. It would be the word of a miner—one with a history of brawls and violence, at that—against two Republic naval soldiers. No one would believe it had been an act of self-defense.

  And had it been, really? He had seen the blade coming. Could he have disarmed his opponent without killing him? Des shook his head. He didn’t have time for guilt or regrets. Not now. He had to find somewhere safe to hide out.

  He couldn’t go back to his barracks: that was the first place they’d look. He’d never reach the mines on foot before daybreak, and there was nowhere on the open wastes he could hide once the sun came up. There was only one option, one hope. Eventually they’d go looking for him there, too. But he had nowhere else to go.