Des collected the small stack of chips that were the hand pot, while the other man grudgingly paid his penalty into the sabacc pot. Des guessed it was closing in on five hundred credits by now.
One of the miners at the table stood up. 'Come on, we got to go,' he said. 'Last speeder leaves in twenty minutes.'
With grumbles and complaints, the other miners got up from their seats and trudged off to start their shift. The ensign watched them go, then turned curiously to Des.
'You ain't going with them, big fella? I thought you were complaining about never getting a day off earlier.'
'I work the day shift,' Des said shortly. 'Those guys are the night shift.'
'Where's the rest of your crew?' the lieutenant asked. Des clearly recognized her interest as an attempt to keep the ensign from saying something to further antagonize the big miner. 'The crowd's become awfully thin.' She waved her hand around at the cantina, now virtually empty except for the Republic naval soldiers. Seeing the open seats at the sabacc table, a few of them were wandering over to join their comrades in the game.
'They'll be along soon enough,' Des said. 'I just ended my shift a bit early today.'
'Really?' Her tone implied that she knew of only one reason a miner's shift might end early.
'Lieutenant,' one of the newly arrived soldiers said politely as they reached the table. 'Commander,' he added, addressing the other officer. 'Mind if we join in, sir?'
The commander looked over at Des. 'I don't want this young man to think the Republic is ganging up on him. If we take all the seats, where are his friends going to sit when they show up? He says they'll be along any minute.'
'They're not here now,' Des said. 'And they're not my friends. You might as well sit down.' He didn't add that most of the day-shift miners probably wouldn't play, anyway. When Des showed up at the table they tended to call it a night; he won too often for their liking.
The empty seats were quickly filled up.
'So how are the cards treating you, Ensign?' a young woman asked the man Des had bested in the last hand. She sat down beside him and placed a full mug of Corellian ale on the table in front of him.
'Not so good,' he admitted, flashing a grin and exchanging his empty mug for the full one. 'I might have to owe you for this drink. I can't seem to catch a break tonight.' He nodded his head in Des's direction. 'Watch out for this one. He's as good as the commander. Either that, or he cheats.'
He smiled quickly to show it was just another of his mildly offensive jokes. Des ignored him; it wasn't the first time he'd been called a cheat. He was aware that his precognition gave him an advantage over the other players. Maybe it was an unfair advantage, but he didn't consider it cheating. It wasn't as if he knew what was going to happen on every hand; he couldn't control it. He was just smart enough to make the most of it when it happened.
The CardShark began passing out chips to the newcomers, wishing each of them a perfunctory 'Good luck' as it did so.
'So it seems you don't really get on well with the other miners,' the lieutenant said, keying on Des's earlier comments. 'Have you ever thought about changing careers?'
Des groaned inwardly. By the time he had joined the table the officers had given up their recruiting spiel and stuck mostly to playing cards. Now he'd given her an opening to bring it up again.
'I'm not interested in becoming a soldier,' he said, anteing up for the next hand.
'Don't be so hasty,' she said, her voice slipping into a soothing, gentle patter. 'Being a soldier for the Republic has its rewards. I suspect it's better than working the mines, at least.'
'There's a whole galaxy out there, son,' the commander added. 'Worlds a lot more attractive than this one, if you don't mind me saying.'
Don't I know it, Des thought. Out loud he said, 'I don't plan to spend my whole life here. But when I do get off this rock, I don't want to spend my days dodging Sith blasters on the front lines.'
''We won't be fighting the Sith for much longer, son. We've got them on the run now.' The commander spoke with such calm assurance, Des was half tempted to believe him.
'That's not how I hear it,' Des said. 'Rumor is the Brotherhood of Darkness has been winning more than its share of the battles. I heard it's got more than a dozen regions under its control now.'
'That was before General Hoth,' one of the other soldiers chimed in.
Des had heard of Hoth on the HoloNet; he was a bona-fide hero of the Republic. Victorious in half a dozen major confrontations, he was a brilliant strategist who knew how to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Not surprising, given his background.
'Hoth?' he asked innocently, glancing down at his cards. Garbage. He folded his hand. 'Isn't he a Jedi?'
'He is,' the commander replied, peeking at his own cards. He pushed in a small wager. 'A Jedi Master, to be more accurate. And a fine soldier, too. You couldn't ask for a better man to lead the Republic war effort.'
'The Sith are more than just soldiers, you know,' the drunken ensign said earnestly, his voice even louder than before. 'Some of them can use the Force, just like the Jedi! You can't beat them with blasters alone.'
Des had heard plenty of wild tales of Jedi performing extraordinary feats through the mystical power of the Force, but he figured they were legends and myth. Or at least exaggerations. He knew there were powers that transcended the physical world: his own premonitions were evidence of that. But the stories of what the Jedi could do were just too impossible to believe. If the Force was really such a powerful weapon, why was this war taking so long?
'The idea of answering to a Jedi Master doesn't really appeal to met,' he said. 'I've heard some strange things about what they believe in: no passion, no emotion. Sounds like they want to turn us all into droids.'
