Seventeen

Even the simple act of pulling chip-cards across a velvet tabletop sent needles of anguish shooting up Han’s arm. He told himself the pain was no big deal, that his thumb had not actually been crushed and he still had all of his fingernails. All he was feeling were inflamed nerves, the result of injections and shocks delivered by the Qrephs’ sophisticated torture droid, DSD-1. But his body wasn’t cooperating. His hands were shaking, his brow was wet with perspiration, his breath had grown quick and shallow—and that was a bigger problem than the pain itself.

Han had developed a tell.

The pain had started to wear on him, and he knew by the reactions of the new players—by Ohali Soroc’s averted gaze, and by Barduun’s hungry smile—that everyone saw it. They thought he was done, ready to give up. And maybe he should have been. He had been trying to cause trouble between the Qrephs ever since he arrived, and all he had accomplished was to bring out their sadistic side. A more cautious man might have taken the hint and stopped pushing.

Good thing Han had never been a cautious man.

Because Han wasn’t playing for himself right now. Leia and Luke would still be out there looking for him. They had to be … along with Lando and Omad and, by now, maybe even Jaina and a whole bunch of Jedi Masters. He couldn’t give up on himself without giving up on them. So he had to keep pushing, keep the Qrephs’ attention focused on him instead of his would-be rescuers, because that was the only way he had to protect Leia and the others.

Han pinched the cards between a throbbing thumb and two sore fingers, then tipped them up and looked down to find that his new chip-card gave him a score of exactly zero. There was nothing special about zero, except that it was nicknamed “absolute zero” because it was the worst score a sabacc player could have without bombing out. The safe play would have been to fold and let everyone think they were reading him right.

But you didn’t beat the Qrephs with safe plays.

Han nodded and said, “I’m in.”

The player to his left, Ohali Soroc, used the Force to pull her chip-cards up, then pinched them gingerly between her thumb and two fingers. The other two fingers on that hand remained stiff and extended, a sign of the lingering pain she felt from her earlier losses. Like Han, the Duros Jedi sat unrestrained in a modified examination chair, wearing a loose lab tunic over a mesh of electrodes and probe needles that recorded her brain waves and physiological reactions to the Qrephs’ bizarre, pain-wagering game.

The brothers wanted Han to believe she was the Quest Knight who had happened across Base Prime and been captured by their Mandalorians. And maybe she was. After all, she had passed his makeshift identitty test with flying colors, correcting Han when he said the last time they had seen each other was at Jaina’s wedding on Coruscant. The wedding, she reminded him, had occurred aboard the Dragon Queen II—and she had not been present because that was the day she and the other Quest Knights had departed to find Mortis.

Finally, Soroc tossed her chip-cards to Mirta Gev, who was still acting as the dealer. The splint had been removed from Gev’s nose, but the bridge was now crooked, and her eyes remained puffy and faintly bruised.

“I’m out,” Soroc said.

Gev nodded, almost in sympathy, then turned to the torture droid. “She still owes the ante.”

The torture droid—a dark orb adorned with syringes, claws, and electrical prods—quickly floated to her side and extended an innervation needle. Soroc shuddered but turned away and presented her left hand to the droid.

Knowing from previous procedures that the electro-injection would not be allowed to delay the game, Han let his gaze slide past Gev to the other Ohali Soroc, who seemed to be some sort of half-wit replica that the Qrephs were experimenting with.

“How about you, Ditto?”

Ditto’s bulbous red eyes brightened with irritation. “My name is not Ditto,” she said. “I am Ohali Two.”

“If you say so.” Han glanced at the first Ohali Soroc, who had tipped her head back and was staring at the ceiling as the torture droid used its tools to duplicate the pain of having a fingernail extracted. Then Han rolled his eyes and turned back to Ditto. “You in?”

Ditto flashed a smile that would have been a sneer on a human. On a Duros, it just looked out of place. “What do you think, Captain?”

“Of course you are,” he said. “Why do I even ask?”

Ditto was one of those players who didn’t seem to understand that sabacc was about more than taking risks. She played too many hands and lost most of them, then trumpeted even minor wins as if she’d won the Core Worlds Open.

Han let his gaze slide past Craitheus Qreph, who had already folded, to the next player—a heavy-jawed, dark-haired Mandalorian named Barduun.

Dressed in one of the padded bodysuits normally worn under beskar’gam armor, Barduun certainly looked ugly enough to be Mandalorian. But he wasn’t—at least not any longer. There was something off about him, a fiendish malevolence that seemed entirely too twisted to be human.

That, and he was a Force-user.

At the moment, Barduun was using the Force to hold his chip-cards up where he could see them. He continued to study the cards for a moment, probably for no reason except to make the other players wait. Then, finally, he lowered the cards to the table and caught Han’s eye.

“Jhonus Raam raises,” Barduun said, calling himself by the brand name stenciled across the chest of his bodysuit. “Jhonus Raam raises to a … burned eye.”

Han had to force himself not to look away or draw his throbbing hands back toward his lap, and even then the sweat began to roll down his brow more freely. Barduun liked to intimidate and frighten his fellow players by raising the stakes to some new kind of torture that no one had experienced.

Unfortunately, the strategy was proving successful. It had been Barduun who had forced Han to suffer the pain of a crushed thumb on a clever reverse bluff. Then, twice afterward, Han had folded a great score, only to discover that Barduun’s bet had been nothing but bluster. But with an absolute zero in his hand, Han had no choice. When the bet came to him, he would need to fold again.

Marvid Qreph, seated between Han and Barduun, said, “I raise.”

Han’s jaw dropped. Marvid had not been playing quite as timidly as his brother, but after losing two pain-inflicting bets to Barduun, he had been even less eager than Han to challenge the … well, whatever Barduun was. If Marvid was raising a bet of a burned eye, he had to have at least a pure sabacc—maybe even an idiot’s array.

Marvid turned to Han. “I raise with this question: who blasted Mama?”

Barduun scowled. “A question is not a raise.” He turned to Gev, who, as the dealer, was supposed to be the ultimate judge of rules questions. “It is not even a bet. We are playing for pain, not answers.”

The challenge made Marvid’s eyes narrow to angry ovals. “There are many kinds of pain, Barduun.” As he spoke, he kept his eyes fixed on Han. “Some answers cause a great deal of pain.”

Gev nodded. “I’ll accept that,” she said. “The bet stands.”

“Fine by me,” Han said, thinking maybe the time had come to bluff. He had finally figured out that the Qrephs were the offspring of a Columi information broker he had once consulted on Ord Mantell. Apparently, he had been her last customer before someone put a blaster bolt through her head. Naturally, the Qrephs had grown up blaming Han. “But are you sure you want to make that bet, Marvid? Maybe you ought to ask Craitheus first. I already told you, I didn’t blast your mother.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Marvid said. His face had gone tight with resentment, which Han took to mean that his strategy of building animosity between the brothers was still working. “I asked who did. Is there some reason you are reluctant to tell me what you know?”

“Yeah,” Han said, deciding to offer a little bait. “I can’t be sure.”

“Come now, Captain Solo. Our rules require only a good-faith effort.” Marvid glanced across the table toward their dealer. “Isn’t that correct, Commander Gev?”

Gev nodded. “Those are the rules,” she said. “As long as an answer doesn’t trigger the lie-detection routine, best guesses count.”

Han paused to think. Marvid probably had Barduun beat, but these kinds of stakes were going to scare him—and that meant it wouldn’t take much to make the Columi fold. Han shot a conspiratorial smirk across the table toward Craitheus, then looked back to Marvid.

“In that case,” Han said. “I re-raise.”

A flicker of hesitation came to Marvid’s face, and Han knew Marvid had nothing better than a pure sabacc, perhaps even a negative sabacc. Either score beat Han’s absolute zero, but Han wasn’t playing his hand anymore. Now he was playing Marvid—and he was pretty sure he was winning. Han peeked at his chip-cards again, then locked the value of his hand at zero by pushing all three cards into the stasis field.

“I want to ask Jedi Soroc—the real one—a question.” Han turned to glance out the viewport, which opened onto a dusty black plain so perfectly flat and unblemished by impact craters that it had to have been created by an advanced species of sentients. “I want to know if this place is sitting on the Mortis Monolith.”

Craitheus’s powerbody hissed and tilted forward. “Do we look like the Ones to you, Captain Solo?”

“Not really,” Han said, looking away to think.

The Qrephs had clearly had plenty of time to interrogate Ohali about her mission as a Quest Knight, so it came as no surprise to hear Craitheus refer to the Ones. What Han did find surprising was that the Qrephs didn’t seem to care that they might have built Base Prime on the Mortis Monolith. Han was no expert on Force nexuses, but he knew enough to realize that locating a lab on top of such a place of power would be like erecting a house on top of a live volcano to take advantage of the free heat.

Which was not to say that the Qrephs hadn’t done exactly that, of course. They were just arrogant enough to think they could exploit something like the Mortis Monolith and manage dangers they could not even perceive. Or maybe Han was misreading the situation entirely. Maybe Craitheus wasn’t concerned because he already knew this wasn’t Mortis.

There was only one way to find out.

Han turned back to Marvid. “But that’s my raise. If you want to know who blasted Mama, you have to let me ask Ohali if this is Mortis.”

Marvid’s only response was to turn his gaze to the next player in the betting rotation: Ditto. She used the Force to raise her chip-cards so she could peek at their values, then let her gaze drift to her trembling hands. She closed one eye, as though trying to imagine what she would be able to see if the other became disabled by pain, then checked her cards again. Han could tell that she had, at best, a mediocre hand. But Ditto didn’t fold easy—not until the last chip-card had been dealt, when there was no longer any chance of being saved by a last-minute shift.

Finally, Ditto looked up. “I … I call the bet.”

“Of course you do,” Marvid sneered. He directed his attention to Barduun. “I believe the bet is to you.”

A veil of dusky anger passed over Barduun’s face—the same tell Han had seen half a dozen times before—and Han knew Barduun’s hand was not a good one. But that didn’t mean he would fold easily. Han put a confident smirk on his face, then looked away as though he were trying to hide his expression.

He had no idea what Barduun actually was. So far, the fellow seemed to care less about winning sabacc hands than creating fear in the hearts of other players, as if maybe he was some kind of dark-side fiend who used fear to feed his Force powers. Han could see why the Qrephs might want to create a few Ohali Sorocs—what baron of industry wouldn’t want an army of Force-using lackeys—but he couldn’t see why the two Columi had turned a perfectly good Mandalorian into something like Barduun. Maybe he was a lab accident or something.

After a moment, Barduun hissed in frustration … then said, “Jhonus Raam raises.”

Good. The stakes would force Marvid to fold. Han glanced over and caught Ohali Soroc watching the two Nargon guards at the door. Clearly, she was thinking the same thing he was—it was about time to make a move.

Barduun remained silent, letting the fear build as his fellow players contemplated what he intended to bet.

The fear was still building when the lounge door slid open and a gravelly Mandalorian voice spoke behind Han.

“Sorry to interrupt, but Lady Raine wants a word with the chiefs.”

Marvid cocked his head, half-turning toward the door. “Savara is here already? Excellent.”

Craitheus—who could see the door from his seat on the opposite side of the table—nodded to the guard. “Send her in.”

“She said to tell you it needs to be in private,” the guard said. “And she said it’s urgent.”

Marvid let out a melodramatic sigh, then used a servogrip to gather his chip-cards. “It appears you will have to continue without me.” He tossed the cards to Gev and turned to Han. “As much fun as it would be to see you suffer, Captain Solo, I must withdraw.”

His powerbody started to pivot away from the table—until Han clamped a hand on to one of its vanalloy pincer arms.

“Not so fast,” Han said. “You owe us a session with the torture droid.”

Marvid shot a glance toward his brother, who was just floating around the far end of the table toward the door.

“What are you looking at Craitheus for?” Han demanded. “He can’t get you out of this.”

Marvid turned back to Han, his temples throbbing. “I am sure you think yourself quite clever, Captain Solo.” He tipped his powerbody forward. “You have manipulated me into a position where I must either suffer an unimaginable torment or admit I never intended to honor the bet. Would that be a fair assessment?”

“Look, pal, all I want is what you owe the pot,” Han said, growing uneasy. “No one likes a shirker.”

“Likes, Captain Solo?” A thin smile came to Marvid’s puckered mouth. “What do you think this has been? A social event?”

“I think it’s a sabacc game,” Han said. “And when you play sabacc, you make good on your markers.”

Craitheus surprised Han by whirling his powerbody around and stopping next to his brother. “Why?”

Han scowled. “Why what?”

“Why should we honor our marker?” Craitheus asked. “So you will tell us who blasted our mother?”

“The thought had crossed my mind, yeah.” Han didn’t like how the Qrephs seemed to be in sync all of a sudden—as if maybe they had been playing him all along. “I thought you wanted to know. Marvid kept asking about it, anyway.”

“Only to make certain you understand the reason you are here,” Marvid said.

“Sorry,” Han said. “I’m still a little unclear on that.”

Craitheus glared at him. “Retribution, Captain Solo,” he said, “for the poverty we endured after our mother’s cerebrums were destroyed and she could no longer earn a living.”

“In that case, you have some work to do,” Han said. “I already told you I wasn’t the one who blasted your mother.”

“And you expect us to accept that?” Marvid asked. “The word of a smuggler and a rebel, when there is twelve-point-two percent chance that you’re lying?”

Han frowned in confusion. “Twelve percent makes the odds better than seven to one that I’m telling the truth.”

“So it does,” Craitheus said. “But we always prefer to minimize our chance of error—and now we have reduced it to zero.”

“Zero? How can you …” The answer to Han’s question came to him before he had finished asking it. “Wait—you’ve already killed the other possibilities?”

Craitheus tipped his powerbody back and looked at the ceiling. “Is that so difficult to believe, Captain Solo?” he asked. “Yes, we have destroyed the other suspects: Hondo Bador, Cabot Lom, Nevid d’Hon, Berille Ada—anyone Mama might have angered by helping you.”

“We even destroyed the bartender,” Marvid added. “He had been with Mama for twenty standard years, but she had just refused a salary request, so he did have a reason to be resentful.”

Han could only shake his head in disbelief. “You two are insane,” he said. “Killing, what, five innocent beings just to be sure you got the right one?”

“Fifteen innocent beings, actually,” Marvid said. “There were quite a few minor suspects.”

“And did I say we killed them?” Craitheus asked. “I hope we haven’t led you to believe we are that merciful, Captain Solo. We destroyed them. We took their treasure, their friends, their family—”

“Stop there.” Han was growing angrier by the moment. “You two must have a death wish if you think you’re going to make threats against my friends and my family.”

“Those are not threats, Captain Solo.” Again, a tight smile came to Marvid’s withered mouth. “After you survived the assassination attempt at Sarnus, we decided to try a more … careful approach.”

“Assassination attempt?” Han echoed, reeling from the implications. “You dropped that asteroid on Sarnus … to get at me?”

A lipless sneer came to Marvid’s mouth. “Does that make you feel guilty, Captain Solo?”

“What it makes me is mad,” Han said, coming out of his chair. “You kill almost thirty thousand people for a twelve percent shot at aarrrrggh!”

Han’s outburst came as a blast of electricity tore through his head. When it finally subsided, he dropped back into his chair, quivering and half paralyzed.

Craitheus moved his powerbody so close that the air grew stale with the smell of actuator oil and Columi sweat. “A good plan works on many levels, Captain Solo,” he said. “Your arrival merely added a new dimension to our plan to handle Calrissian—one that persuaded us to act sooner rather than later.”

Han glared at the Columi. “You’re … d-d-done,” he said, speaking through teeth that were still half clenched. “You know th-that, right?”

“Because Luke Skywalker is coming?” Marvid’s tone was mocking. “I doubt that very much. He’s already dead, as is your wife. Savara Raine ambushed them both at the Ormni.”

“And we used you to bait the trap,” Craitheus added.

“Sure you did.” Han’s retort was more hope than conviction, since his greatest fear all along had been that Leia and Luke would get themselves killed trying to rescue him. “That’s why you ran out here to hole up.”

“You are quite mistaken,” Marvid said. “Mind mapping requires the proper equipment. That is why we have been here so long.”

Han snorted. “Give me a break. You’re hiding from Luke and Leia, and your problems are only getting worse.” He cast a look toward the still-open door, where two Nargons continued to stand guard. “By now half the Jedi Order is on its way here—with a fleet of Hapan Battle Dragons to back them up. If you had any sense, you’d surrender to me. Maybe I can convince them to lock you away someplace nice for the rest of your lives.”

Marvid’s eyes twinkled with amusement. “A skeptic, I see,” he said. “Well, you shall have proof of your wife’s death soon enough.”

Han waved a dismissive hand. “It’s easy to make promises you don’t mean to keep.” He turned away. “They’re kind of like bets that way.”

Marvid fell silent to consider his reply, and Han knew he had struck a nerve. He fixed his attention on Barduun, intending to ask how his fellow players felt about shirkers, but was cut short when Marvid finally replied.

“You can be quite persuasive when you wish to be, Captain Solo.” Marvid turned to the torture droid. “Our guest is right, I do owe the pot the pain of a burned eye. If he fails to win the hand, inflict it on him.”

“What?” Han demanded, starting to rise again. “You can’t bet someone else’s paiagggrrh!”

Again, Han’s objection ended in a debilitating shock as one of the Qrephs sent a jolt of electricity through his head. He dropped back into his chair, shaking and weak.

“Apparently, I can,” Marvid said, leading his brother toward the door. “Enjoy your game.”

Han heard the door hiss shut behind him, then looked over to find Barduun watching him with a hungry grin.

“A nose,” Barduun said. “Jhonus Raam raises to a broken nose.”

Han rolled his eyes. “Fine.” When Barduun reacted to his call with an involuntary nose twitch, he quickly added, “And I raise you to … death.”

“Death?” Barduun asked. “You cannot bet death.”

“But I can bet any kind of pain I want to,” Han said. “And that’s what I’m betting—what it feels like to drown to death.” He turned to the torture droid. “You can do that, right?”

“Of course.” The droid floated a little higher and hovered over the edge of the sabacc table. “But there is a seventy-six percent probability the subject will fall into a temporary coma. He will certainly become unconscious.”

A dusky veil passed over Barduun’s face again, and Han knew his opponent wouldn’t call. Whatever Barduun was, he was feeding on other people’s fear—and comatose players didn’t fear anything. He held Han’s gaze for a moment, then shot him a sneer of grudging respect and turned to the only other player still in the hand: Ditto.

“It seems Captain Solo is going all-in,” he said. “Do you call?”

Ditto’s eyes grew even rounder than normal, and she turned to the dealer. “He can really do that?”

“Sure I can,” Han said, keeping his gaze fixed on Barduun. “I just did.”

“Actually, you can’t,” Gev said. “That was a string bet you made.”

“String bet? No way!” Despite Han’s objection, Gev was right. After seeing Barduun’s reaction to his call—when he said the word fine—Han had quickly added a raise. That was a string bet, it was cheating, and, under the circumstances, he didn’t care. “You’re just sore because I gave you a bent beak.”

Gev’s eyes narrowed. “My nose has nothing to do with it. I’m enforcing the—”

“Then what’s the deal?” Han asked, cutting her off. With the Qrephs out of the room, the time had come for the inmates to take over the asylum. “What do the Qrephs have on you, anyway?”

“They pay,” Gev said. “They pay very well.”

“Yeah … right,” Han snorted. He pointed at the torture droid. “Not even a Mandalorian would do that for money. If those two bigheads didn’t have something on you, you wouldn’t be here. What is it?”

“Nothing.”

Gev made a point of holding Han’s gaze across the table, which was how he saw her eyes light when he mentioned the Qrephs. They didn’t frighten her. There was something about them that she actually liked—and Han knew of only one thing that could be.

“Come on, you don’t believe they can really clean the nanokillers out of Mandalore’s atmosphere, do you?” Han asked. Gev’s expression clouded with anger, and he knew he was on the right track. “Not even Columi are that smart.”

Barduun’s gaze snapped toward Gev so fast his neck popped. “That is why you took this contract?”

The fact that Barduun did not ask for details suggested that he knew exactly what Han was talking about. During the Second Civil War, a group of Imperial Moffs had released a genetically targeted nanokiller on Mandalore. It was designed to kill Gev and her famous grandfather, Boba Fett, if they ever again breathed Mandalorian air. The pair had been trying for years to find a way to disable the nanokiller so they could go home, and now it appeared that Gev had turned to the Qreph brothers.

“I asked, is that why you brought us here?” Barduun demanded. “So you and the Mandalore can return home?”

Gev finally turned to meet Barduun’s gaze. “What, the money isn’t good enough?”

“For that?” Han scoffed, gesturing at Barduun. “Even I know Mandalorians well enough to realize your crew didn’t sign on to be lab rats for a couple of crossed circuits like the Qrephs.”

Barduun’s expression flashed from deranged to hurt, prompting Gev to turn back to Han.

“That’s enough, Solo,” Gev said. Her finger hovered over a control button on the table. “Leave my people out of this.”

“Sure, if you say so—but you need to ask yourself how hard the Qrephs are really trying to deliver.” He glanced over at Barduun and gave him a conspiratorial wink. “After all, we just saw how they feel about honoring their bets.”

“I said”—Gev’s finger stabbed down on the button, and the probe needles in Han’s head unleashed a torrent of white, debilitating pain—“enough!”