by Timothy Zahn
BY TIMOTHY ZAHN
STAR WARS
STAR WARS: Scoundrels
STAR WARS: Choices of One
STAR WARS: Allegiance
STAR WARS: Outbound Flight
STAR WARS: Survivor’s Quest
STAR WARS: Vision of the Future
STAR WARS: Specter of the Past
STAR WARS: The Last Command
STAR WARS: Dark Force Rising
STAR WARS: Heir to the Empire
Cobra Alliance
The Judas Solution
Conquerors’ Legacy
Conquerors’ Heritage
Conquerors’ Pride
Cobra Bargain
Cobra Strike
The Backlash Mission
Cobra
The Blackcollar
Star Wars: Winner Lose All is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
2012 Del Rey eBook Original
Copyright © 2012 by Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or ™ where indicated. All Rights Reserved. Used Under Authorization.
Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
DEL REY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Cover design: Scott Biel
Cover art: Paul Youll
eISBN: 978-0-345-54491-9
www.starwars.com
www.delreybooks.com
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v3.1
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
First Page
Every sabacc tournament, Lando Calrissian had learned over the years, had its own special flavor and texture. Games on the upper levels of Imperial Center and other Core worlds were elegant and refined. Games run by other gamblers were more intense, populated by players acutely aware that the winners would go home rich while the losers might not eat for a few days. Games run by Hutts or Hutt clients usually involved blasters at least once before the final hand.
But it wasn’t until he walked through the doors of the High Card Casino in Danteel City that Lando had felt an atmosphere he could truly label as electric.
Small wonder. Veilred Jydor, master gambler, financier, and the High Card’s owner, was giving away his Tchine.
Lando actually hadn’t even heard of the Tchines when the tournament was announced two standard weeks earlier. But it hadn’t taken long to get up to speed. The Tchines were a set of sculptures sometimes called the Seven Sisters: slender, thirty-centimeter-tall figurines, delicately humanoid, created from a unique and incredibly tough gray stone by an unknown and certainly ancient artisan. Even more mysterious was the fact that all seven figurines were identical.
Lando hadn’t believed that part at first. But as he sifted through the HoloNet and read the reports, he was forced to the same conclusion that all the rest of the researchers over the years had been forced to. However impossibly it had been done, the sculptures were indeed perfectly and precisely identical.
There were many strange things throughout the galaxy, and Lando had learned to take them in philosophical stride. What raised the Tchines above the level of mere academic interest was the fact that each one was valued at between forty and fifty million credits. And Jydor was offering his as the tournament’s prize. Winner take all.
A pair of Rodians shoved their way past Lando, nearly knocking him over. He caught his balance and forced back his reflexive annoyance. He’d never seen those particular Rodians before, but with an incredibly valuable art object up for grabs he expected to see a lot of unfamiliar faces before this was over. Speculation was rampant as to the reason Jydor had suddenly decided to part with one of his collectible treasures, the most popular theory being that he’d made some bad investments and needed to raise a stack of credits fast.
If so, he’d found the perfect way to do it. There were eight seats at the tournament table, with six of them going for ten million credits each. All six had been instantly snatched up, which meant that before the game even started Jydor was up ten to twenty million over where he’d have been if he’d simply sold or auctioned off the statuette. And that didn’t take into account the extra visitors the game was drawing to his casino and the attached hotel.
Just to add to the excitement—and to swell the ranks of the crowd—he’d announced that the final two places at the table would be going to the winners of a preliminary wild-card tournament.
Lando meant to win one of those seats.
Ahead, in the direction the crowd flow was taking him, he could see a floating holo marking the sign-up table. Keeping an eye out for familiar faces, especially familiar faces who might be carrying grudges, Lando headed toward it.
“Well, well,” Tavia Kitik murmured from across the dining table in the tapcaf overlooking the High Card’s grand entryway.
Bink Kitik looked up from the delectable shrimpi cup she was currently eating her way around to find her twin sister gazing out at the crowd of hopefuls headed toward the registration table. “Well, well, what?” she asked.
“Another familiar face,” Tavia said with a microscopic nod. “Lando Calrissian.”
At the third corner of the table, Zerba Cher’dak stirred. “I’ve heard that name before,” he murmured.
“Probably,” Bink agreed. “Possibly from us.”
“We’ve run into Lando on and off over the years,” Tavia added. “A pleasant, relatively cultured sort.”
“Only because we’re cute,” Bink said drily. Casually turning her head, she followed Tavia’s eye line into the crowd of players, would-be players, and soon-to-be spectators.
It was Lando, all right. He was weaving his way upstream through the crowd, a blue data card in his hand and an intent but satisfied expression on his face. “Looks like he’s got a spot on the blue track,” she added. “Roving eye or not, the man does aim high.”
“So he’s here to play,” Zerba muttered. “Wonderful.”
“Relax,” Bink said. “He’s on the blue track; you’re on the red. Who knows? Maybe you’ll both win seats at the big table.”
“I don’t plan on hanging around long enough to find out,” Zerba countered. “I’m more wondering if he’ll spot one of you and give the whole game away.”
“Don’t worry, Lando’s smarter than that,” Tavia assured him. “He’s seen us work, and he knows better than to address us by name in public.”
“At least not until he knows what our current names are,” Bink added. “He’s heard half a dozen of them over the years.”
“Wait a minute,” Zerba said. He leaned forward, as if better proximity to the two women would give the antenepalps concealed in his lacquered hair better access to their thoughts or emotions, or whatever it was Balosars were currently claiming their antenepalps could do. “He’s seen you work? He knows you’re a ghost thief?”
“Yes, and yes,” Bink said. “And Tavia’s right. He’s not going to turn us in.”
Zerba gave a little snort. “Anyone can be bought, Bink,” he said. “It’s just a question of price. Maybe I should switch to the blue track and made sure he gets bounced before he sees you.”
“No,” Tavia said firmly. “Lando hasn’t done anything to deserve that.” She looked at Bink. “Besides, he looks hungry. I’m guessing he needs a score.”
“When hasn’t he?” Bink agreed. “Not likely to happen here, though, not with the big names Jydor’s already got at the table. Relax, Zerb
a. Whatever happens, he’s not going to be a problem.”
“Whatever you say,” Zerba said, still not looking convinced. “Just remember, if you get caught I have no idea where you got that fancy dress and keycard.” With that, he returned his attention to his plate.
Bink looked across the table at Tavia. Her sister had also resumed eating her dinner, but there was a stiffness in her shoulders that hadn’t been there earlier.
Probably she was just ramping up her concern level as the timer ticked down toward the job. Tavia hated the whole ghost-thief business and would be worried from the moment Bink headed up to Jydor’s hundredth-floor penthouse until the moment she returned with whatever loot she was able to grab from his art display room.
Or maybe she was worried about Lando, and Zerba’s all-too-true reminder that anyone could indeed be bought.
The moment had arrived, and Jydor was playing it like a true showman.
Not that it was easy to see from the table against the far wall where Lando had been seated for his first game. The double line of guards crossing the High Card’s grand ballroom was little more than a stately procession of big, heavily armed men. Jydor was just another figure in the middle of the bunch, though he was far more elegantly dressed, in a mid-length layered tunic with a blue plume-feather upswept collar that contrasted nicely with his red-frosted white hair. The Tchine statue, which he carried in front of him in a protective transparisteel pyramid as if it were the royal Alderaanian crown or something, was visible only as a small, slender, gray lump.
Still, Lando counted himself lucky that he was in the ballroom at all. A lot of the players who’d made the cut had landed in various outlying rooms, where they would be refereed by the casino’s game judges and watched over via unobtrusive cam droids hovering close to the high ceilings.
The procession ended at the round sabacc table that had been set up on the top level of a two-tier platform in the center of the ballroom. As the guards formed themselves into protective circles on the floor and the lower tier, Jydor climbed to the upper tier and carefully set the pyramid and figurine in the center of the table. “Herewith is the prize,” he intoned, his voice booming through the ballroom’s speakers. “Winner take all.”
He stepped back, seated himself in the chair usually reserved for the game judge, and raised a dramatic hand. “Let the games begin.”
With a deep breath, Lando turned his attention back to his table. The player who’d been chosen by lot to deal this first hand, a smooth man with a permanent half smile plastered across his face, was already shuffling the cards.
I can do this, Lando thought firmly. Flexing his fingers in anticipation, watching closely to make sure the dealer wasn’t playing fast and loose with the cards, he prepared his mind for the game.
“Well?” Bink asked quietly.
“I count twenty guards.” Tavia’s equally quiet voice came from the comlink clip on Bink’s shoulder. “Four appear to be newcomers, probably brought in from one of Jydor’s other properties. The others are all from his penthouse rotation.”
Which meant the art display room three hundred meters above their heads was effectively deserted. With a forty-million-credit art object on public display, Jydor’s security setup had been rearranged exactly as she’d anticipated. “Keep an eye on them,” she said. “I’m going in.”
The hotel’s main turbolifts were arranged in three banks just outside the ballroom. An open car was waiting as she arrived, with half a dozen people filing in. Bink slipped in among them and punched for the ninety-ninth floor, the one directly beneath Jydor’s penthouse. It would have been more convenient to ride all the way to the top, but none of the public turbolifts went to that floor, and Jydor hadn’t been careless enough to pull the guards off his private turbolifts to add to the ballroom contingent.
Fingering her small, clutch-type handbag, she watched the indicator and waited for the car to clear out.
The last person finally exited on the eightieth floor. As the car doors closed again, Bink slipped a small egg-shaped device from a fold of her dress and cupped it in the palm of her right hand, then turned her handbag on its side and balanced it on her left palm. The turbolift passed the ninety-eighth floor, and as it slowed to a halt, she activated the egg’s hidden trigger.
Her thin silk dress vanished instantly, ripped along its tear-away seams, the pieces pulled into the egg by the nearly invisible attaching threads to reveal the demure white-trimmed black uniform that had been hidden beneath it. Opening her handbag, she pulled out the pair of compressed hand towels that had been squeezed inside, quickly fluffed and refolded them, then slipped the handbag and egg into concealment between them.
When the turbolift doors opened, it wasn’t an elegantly dressed guest who stepped out into the corridor, merely one of the casino’s maids on her way to deliver some towels.
She headed down the corridor, taking on the quiet, unassuming posture and expression she’d noted on all of the casino’s service staff. On any other floor this masquerade wouldn’t have been necessary—after all, few overnight visitors knew who else was sharing a floor with them, or whose room was whose. And even a rookie ghost thief would know that hotel staff were normally forbidden to use the guest turbolifts.
But there was a subtle trap in play here on the ninety-ninth floor, one that same rookie ghost thief might have walked straight into. Fortunately for Bink, Tavia had done her homework. The rooms up here were a special group, a mixture of VIP guests, the casino’s upper managers, and off-duty bodyguards. On this floor, and really on this floor alone, there was a good chance that everyone had at least a passing acquaintance with everyone else. A total stranger, no matter how elegantly dressed, would likely raise enough suspicion for a closer look.
But not even managers noticed the service staff. As long as Bink made it off the turbolift without anyone witnessing that policy violation, she should be fine.
She had a chance to prove that theory twice on the way down the hallway as well-dressed visitors strode past her without even breaking stride. Reaching her target room, she knocked discreetly on the door and then pulled out her keycard and slid it into the slot. The keycard, unlike the uniform, was genuine casino-issue, lifted two hours earlier from a maid who was heading off-duty. The card Zerba had left in its place was an exact copy, though of course without any of the access coding. Since even the best keycards occasionally suffered scratch degradation, the maid would most likely never even realize it had been switched. The first time she tried to use it, which probably wouldn’t be until tomorrow, she would almost certainly simply go to the housekeeping supervisor and get it reprogrammed.
The room was deserted, as Bink had known it would be, given that its occupant was one of the men currently guarding Jydor’s Tchine. Going to the refresher, she tucked her towel bundle into a corner and added her maid outfit to the stack, leaving herself dressed in her usual working catsuit. Tavia’s research had shown a narrow access crawl space between the ninety-ninth and hundredth floors that contained some of the emergency systems, and access panels into such spaces were often hidden in refresher linen closets.
There was no such panel in this one. But three minutes’ work with her mono-edge wheel cutter and she’d made one of her own. Pushing the disconnected slab of ceiling ceramic out of the way into the crawl space, she pulled herself up.
If her calculations were correct, she was now directly beneath Jydor’s art display room.
The next step was to see what kind of internal security the room had. Pulling out her microdrill, she got to work.
The penthouse flooring was considerably tougher than the closet ceiling had been. But the drill was heavy-duty, and within another five minutes she had a pinhole punched through. Swapping out the drill for her optic line viewer, she worked it through the opening and adjusted the eyepiece over her eye.
Now to figure out how hard it would be to get through the display room’s heavy, vault-class door. Turning the optic line in that directio
n, she keyed for light and full magnification.
She’d expected Jydor to be the type to trade extra security for convenience, and she was right. The door was an open-back design, where the mechanism was visible through a protective layer of transparisteel. That sort of setup made it easier for the owner to change the combination; it also made it easier for someone other than the owner to see straight into the coding bars and figure out the sequence. A couple of minutes’ study, and she had it.
Of course, getting into the suite and to the door presented its own set of challenges. But it should be easy enough. An exit from the window of the room below her, a quick climb up the wall using her syntherope dispenser and some rock putty anchors, a popped catch on the ventilation aperture at the top of the window—after disabling the alarms, of course—a twitched noose through the aperture to trip the catch on the main window, and she would be in. Nothing to it.
And now came the fun part: figuring out what would be worth stealing.
Turning the optic line again, she began a slow sweep of the room. It was every bit as lovely a sight as she’d hoped it would be. The Tchine might be Jydor’s priciest art object, but there were plenty of lesser artifacts in the display room that should keep her and Tavia in food and shelter for a couple of months. There was a Vomfrey sculpture on one of the nearest display pillars that would probably bring a few thousand credits. The antique Bocohn medtext hardbook would be trickier to fence, but would be worth a lot more if she could find someone who would take it. On another pillar on the far side of the Bocohn, hidden from the room’s entrance by a half-draped black cloth, was a square transparisteel case.
Bink felt her whole body stiffen. Inside the case was a Tchine figurine.
For a long moment she just gazed at it. Then, reaching to her collar, she keyed her comlink clip. “Tav?”
“Yes?” her sister’s voice came instantly.
“Is Jydor’s Tchine still in the ballroom?”
There was a short pause. “Yes, of course.”