Star Wars_ Death Star - Michael Reaves [31]
He nodded. “I’ll be back before the evening crush,” he said. He headed for the mouth of the alley, and she went back inside.
Rodo’s worry aside, a missed delivery was probably nothing to be concerned about, Memah told herself. There was, after all, a war on, and little glitches were to be expected, even if the war never actually came close to this planet, save for a few incidences of sabotage. And what Rebel with half a brain was going to come down to the Southern Underground to blow something up—here, where there was a good chance somebody would waylay him and steal everything he had on him, including his bomb? Unless you knew your way around these parts, it was risky being a tourist without a couple of armed guards. Plus, there weren’t any targets down here that would make much of a headline in the holocasts—who cared about the slums below the streets anyhow?
She thought then of those Eyes who’d been in the other night. Yeah, okay, that had been unusual, but whatever their reasons, it wasn’t as if there was anything covert going on …
Was it?
Memah snorted. Probably some computer had burped somewhere and lost a couple of routing files. As long as it was a onetime glitch, she could live with that. After all, where local government was concerned, it wasn’t as if she had a lot of choice these days.
NCO CANTINA, ISD STEEL TALON
The NCO cantina was half full, the air blowers working hard to get rid of the smoke and body odors, and almost succeeding. MCPO Tenn Graneet sat across the four-person table from Olzal Erne, the second-watch chief from the starboard array. Both humans had their elbows on the table, right hands clasped in arm-wrestling position. Their left hands were linked on the tabletop.
Erne was bigger—twelve, maybe fifteen kilos heavier—ten years younger, and he liked to pump iron, so he had the muscles of a weight lifter. To look at them, it should be no contest—Erne clearly had the advantage.
“You about ready, old man?” Erne said.
“Just a second.” Tenn freed his left hand, grabbed his frosted mug, and took a long swallow of ferment. He put the mug down, grinned, and relinked with Erne’s left hand. “Good when you are, Olzal.”
A dozen members of both gunnery crews and a couple of deck polishers stood around the table, watching as both men settled in, the muscles on their arms beginning to bunch slightly. Other than that, the clasped hands could have been molded in durasteel.
“Five on Chief Erne, thirty seconds max,” one of Erne’s gunners said.
“I got that,” somebody on Tenn’s crew said.
“Ten on CPO Graneet,” one of the proton railers, also of Tenn’s crew, chimed in.
“Time on that?” a woman asked.
“As long as it takes.”
“I’ll take that bet.”
“Hey, Numbers, how much does our side win?” Tenn asked.
Numbers was a Givin, a species of beings who were, on the whole, obsessed with mathematics. Only a few dozen Givins had been conscripted, but their ability to survive for short periods, unsuited, in hard vacuum, even more than their aptitude for juggling integers, had resulted in more favored treatment than most other nonhumanoids got from the Empire.
Numbers had an uncanny ability to do all manner of arithmetic in his head, almost as fast as a droid. Now was no exception. Tenn had no sooner posed the question than the gaunt creature replied, “Eighty-five credits among us. Twenty in your pocket.”
“Counting your money, Tenn? You gotta beat me first, don’t you?”
“Oh, that.” With a quick snap of his wrist and flexion of his chest and shoulders, Tenn slammed Erne’s hand to the tabletop. It took maybe an entire second.
He let go of the other man’s hand to a smattering of applause and cheers. Erne looked stunned. He rubbed his biceps. “Milking son of a tairn!” he said. “How the kark did you do that?”
Tenn grinned. “Clean living, Chief.”
The truth was otherwise, but only he knew it. Back in a dustup during