Star Wars_ Millennium Falcon - James Luceno [46]
“What's the game?” he finally got around to asking the Rodian.
“The contest,” the Rodian had emphasized. “Between Imperial forces and a band of would-be insurgents. At Yag'Dhul, a standard month from now.”
Just how the Hutts had gotten wind of the imminent showdown, Cix would never learn. But according to the Rodian and other gamblers in the know, the Empire had learned that the insurgents were constructing a space station at Yag'Dhul, and had decided to make the installation the first target of a newly inaugurated Star Destroyer called the Desolator. The insurgents, however, had learned of the Empire's plans and were hoping to add the Desolator to their short list of victories.
The Battle of Yavin wouldn't be fought for another five years, and the Empire thought of the insurgents as more of a nuisance than a real threat. Most actions by disaffected militia groups had been limited to harassment and runs against supply convoys and Imperial installations. If the Rebels had scored any significant victories, the news had been suppressed by the Empire-controlled HoloNet, though word on Nar Shaddaa was that a nascent insurgent alliance was growing in numbers and in strength. The underground was rife with rumors of impending action at Ylesia, and of successful militia raids raids in a cluster of black holes known as the Maw, where the Empire was thought to be completing work on a massive warship fifteen years in the making.
The terms of the wager couldn't have been more straightforward.
Clearly the Hutts had no faith in the insurgents' ability to destroy the Desolator; but neither would they allow themselves to be drawn into murky definitions of victory. They were offering action based solely on the number of Imperial and insurgent fighters that would be destroyed during the engagement.
Impartial but intent on taking a percentage from both winners and losers, the Hutts had fixed the line at forty-five fighters. How that cumulative number was reached—whether mostly at the cost of Imperial fighters or insurgent fighters, or the outcome of a close-to-even split— was unimportant. At identical odds bettors had the option of wagering whether the combined total would exceed forty-five or come in at fewer. Ideally, the Hutts would get an equal number of bets on both sides. If not, they were likely to adjust the line up or down to be certain of clearing a profit.
Cix wrestled with the ethics of betting on a battle, but that didn't stop him from doing his research. In the process he hoped he would discover a way to rationalize getting in on the action. He went to ground, talking to as many contacts as possible. Smugglers, arms dealers, information brokers. Beings he suspected were militia members or sympathizers. Bartenders, musicians, and waitresses in sleazy cantinas and tapcafs, and Imperial officers who had had one too many drinks in those same places. If the Yag'Dhul wager was going to be the score of his lifetime, he wanted to go into it with as much solid information as possible, because the Hutts wouldn't have set the odds as they did unless they had already done their homework.
The Desolator was typical of the new ships of the line: a sixteen-hundred-meter-long Dreadnaught bristling with laser cannons and carrying a complement of ground assault troops, war