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 built-in 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 force 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
