"Ann Crispin "Han Solo. Rebel Dawn"" - читать интересную книгу автора

Lando's teeth flashed beneath his mustache. "Hardly. And Hah . . . my mother was nothing like Drea. Trust me."
"So why'd you break up?" Han wanted to know.
"Life aboard a pirate vessel is... interesting," Lando said. "But a little too... coarse... for my taste."
Han, eyeing his friend's dandified clothes, nodded.
"I'll bet."
Lando sobered. "But, hey . . . Drea and I parted friends," he added. "These last few months I needed... I was..." he shrugged, obviously uncomfortable. "Well, Drea came along at a good time. I was... Well, it was nice having the company."
Han eyed his friend. "You mean you missed Vuffi Raa?"
"Well . . . how can you miss a droid? But . . . you know, Hah, he was really a companion. There were times I didn't even think of him as mechanical. I'd gotten used to having the little guy around, you know? So when the little vacuum cleaner went off with his kinfolk, I did find myself actually... missing him."
Han thought about what it would be like to lose Chewie, and could only nod in silent agreement.
The two sat quietly for a moment, sipping their drinks, enjoying the companionship. Finally Hah fought back a yawn, and stood up. "Gotta get some sleep," he said. "Tomorrow's going to be a big day."
"See you at the tables," Lando said, and they parted.
Sabacc is an ancient game, dating back to the early days of the Old Republic. Of all the games of chance, sabacc is the most complex, the most unpredictable, the most thrilling-and the most heartbreaking.
The game is played with a deck of seventy-six card-chips. The value of any card-chip can alter throughout the game at random intervals, via electronic impulses transmitted by the "randomizer." In less than a second, a winning hand can change to a "bomb out."
There are four suits in the deck: sabers, staves, flasks and coins. Numbered cards range from positive one to positive eleven, and there are four cards of "rank:" the Commander, the Mistress, the Master and the Ace, with numerical values of positive twelve to fifteen.
Sixteen face cards complete the deck, two of each type, with assorted zero or negative values: the Idiot, the Queen of Air and Darkness, Endurance, Balance, Demise, Moderation, the Evil One and the Star.
There are two different pots. The first, the hand pot, is awarded to the winner of each hand. In order to win the hand pot, a player must have the highest card total that is less than or equal to twenty-three-either positive or negative. In case of a tie, positive card value beat negative card value.
The other pot, the sabacc pot, is the "game" pot, and can only be won in two ways-with a pure sabacc-that is, card-chips totaling exactly twenty-three, or an idiot's array, consisting of one of the Idiot face cards, plus a two, and a three-literally, 23--of any suit.
In the center of the table is an interference field. As the rounds of bluffing and betting proceed, sabace play-ers can "freeze" the value of a card by placing it into the interference field.
The Cloud City Sabacc Tournament had attracted over one hundred high-rollers from worlds ‘all over the galaxy. Rodians, Twi'leks, Sullustans, Bothans, Devaro-nians, humans... all these and more were represented at the gaming tables. The tournament would last for four intensive days of play. Each day, roughly half of the players would be eliminated. The number of tables would dwindle, until only one table remained, where the best of the best would compete during that last hand.
Stakes were high. Winners stood a good chance of walking away with two or three times the ten-thousand-credit buy-in-or even more.
Sabacc was not traditionally a spectator sport the way mag-ball or null-gee polo was, but, since only players were ‘allowed in the tournament hall, the hotel had arranged a huge holo-projection lounge for those who wished to watch the tournament. Companions of play-ers, hangers-on, eliminated players and other interested sentients wandered in and out of the lounge, keeping an eye on the tournament, silently rooting for his, her or its favorite to win.
There was a ranking list displayed beside the holo, IDing the players, and showing the progress of the play. On this, the second day of the tournament, about fifty players clustered around ten tables. The ranking beside their names showed that Han Solo had made it through the first day of play on luck and by the skin of his teeth. He'd lost the sabacc pot, but had won enough hand pots so that he was still a contender.
One of the onlookers in the lounge was rooting for Hah to win, though the Corellian had no idea She was anywhere within parsecs of Bespin-and, if Bria Tharen had anything to say about it, he wouldn't find out. In her years of working with the Corellian resis-tance, Bria had become an expert at disguise. Now her long, red-gold hair was hidden beneath a short black wig, her blue-green eyes covered by bio-lenses that turned them as dark as her hair. Carefully inserted padding in her elegant business outfit made her look voluptuous and muscled instead of slender and wiry. The only thing she couldn't disguise was her height- and there were many tall human women.
She stood at the back of the lounge, watching the holo intently, hoping for another close-up of Han. Silently, she rejoiced that he'd made it this far. If only he'd win, she thought. Han deserves a big break. If he had a lot of credits, he wouldn't have to risk his life as a smuggler. . . .
For a moment, the holo showed a close-up of Han's table. Bria saw that his opponents today were a Sullus-tan, a Twi'lek, a Bothan and two humans, one male and one female. The woman was evidently from a heavy-gee planet, judging from the thick, corded muscles in her neck, and her short, stocky build.
Bria knew little about sabacc, but she knew Han Solo-even after being separated from him for seven years now, she knew him. She knew every line of his face, the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled, or narrowed when he was angry or suspicious. The shaggy tufts of his hair, perennially overdue for a haircut. She could still recall the shape of his hands, the fine hairs on the backs of them ....
Bria knew Han Solo so well that she realized she could still tell when he was bluffing... as he was at the moment.
Smiling confidently, Han leaned across the table to push another heap of chips into the center. Seeing the size of his bet, the Sullustan hesitated, then threw in her hand. The two humans also folded, but the Bothan was made of sterner stuff. He met Han's bet, and then, ostentatiously, raised it by a goodly amount.
Bria's expression didn't change, but her hands curled into fists at her sides. Will he fold, or play the hand through and hope his bluff will work?
The Twi'lek pushed another card-chip into the inter-ference field, and matched the bet. All eyes turned to Hah.
The Corellian grinned as though he hadn't a care in the world. Bria could see his lips move as he issued some verbal challenge or wisecrack, then he pushed forward another stack of credit-chips . . . such a huge bet that Bria bit her lip. If he lost his hand, he'd bomb out. There was no way he could cover it!
The Bothan glanced from side to side, for the first time seeming uncertain. Finally, he tossed in his hand. The Twi'lek's head-tails twitched with frustration and nerves.
Finally, slowly, the Twi'lek laid his hand down. Han's grin broadened, and he reached forward to scoop up yet another hand pot. Did he genuinely have a winning hand, Bria wondered, or was I right? Was it all a bluff?
The Sullustan, her droopy jowls working, made a sudden grab for Han's card-chips, but the dealer spoke up, clearly warning her against such an action. By now the dealer would have signaled for a change in the card-chip values, anyway.
Bria nodded emphatically at the holo. Great! Keep it up, Han! Beat them! Win!
Beside her, someone snarled, then spoke in raspy, hissing tones, "May all the Blights of Barabel curse that villain Solo! He wins again! He must be cheating!"
Bria glanced out of the corner of her eye and saw a huge Barabel female, obviously a very irritated Barabel. The corners of her mouth twitched. Han has such a way with people . . . what do you suppose he did to make her so mad?
Something rustled on Bria's other side, and she turned to find her aide, a Corellian named Jace Paol, beside her. The man lowered his voice until even Bria could barely hear him, though his mouth was barely a handspan from her ear. "Commander, the representa-tives from Alderaan have arrived. They are on their way to the meeting site."
Bria nodded. "I'll be right up, Jace."
As her aide left the lounge, Bria checked her expen-sive datapad (a dummy, she committed as little as pos-sible of her real business to any readable form), smiled vaguely at the Barabel, and left the lounge. Time to get on with her mission here in Cloud City.
When she'd discovered that Cloud City would be hosting the big sabacc tournament, Bria had realized that this was the ideal location for a top-secret meeting between representatives of several of the rebellions. Resistance groups were growing by leaps and bounds on many Imperial worlds, and it was essential to estab-lish links between them. But such meetings had to be kept clandestine. The Imps had spies everywhere.
Any intelligence operative knew that the easiest place to hide was in a crowd. And Cloud City was pretty far from the Imperial Core, so the Imps didn't pay it much attention. A big tournament provided perfect cover. With so many ships coming and going, both alien and human, a few humans, a Sullustan and a Duros meeting in a hotel conference room on Cloud City would arouse little interest from anyone.
Bria wouldn't admit even to herself that part of her reason for selecting Cloud City during the tournament was that she'd hoped to catch a glimpse of Han Solo. She couldn't be sure he'd attend, of course, but know-ing Han, when there was the chance of winning big, he was there, ready and eager.
As she rode the glidewalk to the nearest turbolift, Bria imagined removing her disguise, then going to Han's room late that night. He would still have vivid memories of the last time he'd seen her, when she'd been posing as Moff Sam Shild's mistress, but surely he'd believe her when she explained-that she'd been spying for the Corellian resistance, and that there had been nothing between her and Shild.
So after she'd told him the truth about their last en-counter, they would talk. Perhaps they'd sip some wine. After a while, they'd hold hands. And then...
The Rebel operative closed her eyes as the turbolift swept her upward amid the crystalline and pastel splen-dor of the Yarith Bespin's fifty-story atrium. Perhaps, when she'd explained everything, Hah would want to join the resistance, help his fellow Corellians as they plotted to free their planet from that tyrant Emperor who held so many worlds in a death-grip.
Perhaps .... Bria envisioned the two of them, doing battle shoulder to shoulder on land or in space, fighting bravely, covering each other's backs during the battles, i winning victories over the Imperial forces... then hold- i ing each other close when the day's fighting was over. Bria couldn't imagine anything better than that. Feeling the turbolift decelerate, she sighed and opened her eyes. Fantasies were all very well... some-times they were all that kept her going. But she couldn't allow them to interfere with her mission.
As the turbolift doors slid open, she was ready. Mov-ing with confident strides, she exited the lift and headed down the carpeted corridor.
When she reached the meeting room, she tapped out her coded signal, and was admitted. She glanced at Jace, and his nod confirmed that he'd checked the room for surveillance devices and found it safe. Only then did Bria turn to greet the other members of the conference.
The first representative to step forward was a typi-cally mournful-faced, blue-skinned Duros, Jennsar So-Billes. He had come alone, as had Sian Tevv from Sullust. Bria greeted the two aliens warmly, thanking them and their respective groups for allowing them to make the dangerous journey-and it was dangerous. just last month one of the high-ranking Rebel leaders from ‘Fibrin had been captured while on his way to such a conference. The Ishi Tib was forced to suicide in or-der to avoid the Imp mind-probes.