Star Wars_ MedStar 02_ Jedi Healer - Michael Reaves [78]
He had, in one of his fat human disguises, obtained from one of the entertainment group’s members a copy of the most recent recording of Galactic Sports Update. Upon this GSU recording was a recent Strag Sector Match Championship. If you were not a skilled player, watching a game of Strag was less interesting than watching mold grow; if you were ranked, however, such matches were fascinating. Neither the Twi’lek Vorra, nor the human pilot Bogan, would have seen this particular match; it hadn’t been holocast this far out yet. The corpulent human, whom Kaird had named Mont Shomu, would arrange soon to be heard talking about this match, which he happened to have a recording of, within Vorra’s hearing. She would fall all over herself to obtain it from him. The fat man would be loath to part with it, however, being a fan of the game himself. Of course, he would be willing to share a viewing of the match with her. And, naturally, she could bring a friend…
Kaird smiled as he exited the ’fresher and returned to his table amid the noise and heat of the busy cantina. There was a real joy in watching a carefully made plan unfold.
“Let me get this straight,” Jos said. “I-Five is drunk?”
“I’ve been watching him for hours,” Den said, “and believe me, he’s soused. If that’s the proper term for a droid.”
“From a program.”
“Yeah.”
“Which he wrote.”
“Right.”
Jos looked over at the game table, where the various transparent holocreatures that were the pieces of the game shifted and scratched restlessly on their squares. I-Five didn’t look any different from here, save for a slightly increased luminosity in his photoreceptors and more exaggerated movement. Jos shook his head. “It just keeps getting weirder.” He turned back to the bar and hoisted his drink.
“Ha!” I-Five said loudly. “My molator takes your houjix! I win!”
The Wookiee roared with rage. Jos looked back at the game just in time to see the Wookiee stand, grab I-Five’s right arm, and wrench it from the droid’s shoulder. Circuitry and servomotor couplings broke free in a shower of sparks and sprays of lubricating fluid.
My, my.
“Bad loser,” Den said.
“Looks like,” Jos agreed.
They both leapt forward, grabbed the droid, and pulled him away from the game board as the furious Wookiee harned and moaned in his own language and waved the mechanical arm over his head. Jos glimpsed several of the showfolk, including a burly Trandoshan, moving in quickly to calm down their colleague.
I-Five felt no pain, of course. He seemed more confused than anything else.
“I seem to be missing an arm,” he said to Jos. “I’m sure I had it when I came in.”
Jos pushed I-Five into an empty booth. “Your gamer friend borrowed it.”
“I-Five,” Den said, “I think maybe it’s time to sober up now.”
I-Five shrugged. Jos wouldn’t have thought the gesture possible for a drunken droid with only one arm. “If you say so.” His photoreceptors flickered for a moment, then resumed what Jos thought of as their normal glow.
The droid looked about him in mild surprise. “Interesting.”
“Wish sobering up was that easy for me,” Jos said.
A human female brought the arm over to them, handing it to Jos. “Here,” she said. “You might want to program your droid to avoid games with Wookiees in the future. They’re, uh, very competitive.”
I-Five looked at the arm. “So I have determined.”
Jos examined the arm’s exposed end. “I’m no cybertech,” he said, “but it looks like this can be reattached fairly easily.” He looked at the droid. “You’re lucky he didn’t pull your head off.”
“True,” I-Five agreed. “That would have been considerably harder to fix.”
“What were you thinking, challenging a Wookiee