Star Wars_ Millennium Falcon - James Luceno [47]
The insurgents, on the other hand, were making do with Z-95 Headhunters retrofitted with better weaponry and hyperdrive units. If lightly armored and difficult to maneuver, the Headhunter was dependable and easy to fly. More important, the majority of insurgent pilots had spent time in the Imperial Academies or the navy itself before jumping ship, and the rest were said to have heart, whereas a lot of the Imp fliers had been drafted into service and saw no way out.
Notwithstanding the rumors of victories in the Maw, Cix took the fact that the Empire kept spitting out ships as a sign that the militia groups were being taken seriously. And at Yag'Dhul the insurgents had the equivalent of a home-field advantage. Finally, the insurgents knew an attack was forthcoming.
As word of the wager spread, Cix learned that Coruscant's notorious Baath Brothers had opted to take a stand on the outcome of the contest. Convinced that the Imperials would win, they were offering a spread of ten fighters, regardless of the Hutts' combined total of forty-five. Cix's inclination was to give the points and bet on the favorite. By doing so he was essentially counting on the fact that the tally of destroyed insurgent fighters minus ten would be greater than the number of destroyed Imperial fighters. Still he wanted to be sure.
With enough facts and stats to fill a data card, he hired an outlaw slicer to load everything into a protocol droid that had been programmed to serve as a handicapper and had a good record of predicting the outcome of swoop races.
“There are many variables you have neglected to include,” the droid told Cix in an officious way.
“Such as?”
“The commander of the Imperial Star Destroyer.”
“I tried.”
“The commander of the insurgent forces at Yag'Dhul.”
“No luck there, either.”
“It helps that you saw fit to provide me with a date for the engagement, as I was then able to calculate the possible effects of tidal forces from Yag'Dhul's trio of moons. But you failed to provide data on the hyperspace origin coordinates of the Star Destroyer.”
“You can't expect me to have contacts in Imperial central command.”
“And you can't expect me to return an assured prediction.”
“Then I'll settle for your best estimate.”
“Be forewarned that I refuse to be held accountable.”
“All right, I'm forewarned. Now just tell me the odds!”
The droid did.
His own hunches reinforced, Cix next went about the business of borrowing credits enough to lay down a wager that would leave him sitting pretty—even after paying the juri juice commissions the Baath Brothers would add to the bet and the lenders had added to the loans. He never even considered that he might lose.
Yag'Dhul was the homeworld of an exoskeletoned species of humanoids known as Givin, who had contributed their mathematical skills to the Confederacy of Independent Systems during the Clone Wars. Located near the intersection of the Rimma Trade Route and Corellian Trade Spine, the planet was a major reversion point and the site of skirmishes going back millennia. At certain times of the year especially, the same three moons that wreaked havoc with Yag'Dhul's seas and atmosphere conspired to extend the time required for ships to revert from hyperspace and navigate to new coordinates before returning to lightspeed. The perilous tidal conditions left the ships vulnerable to attacks from pirates that operated from a base on the outermost of Yag'Dhul's moons. Shortly after the conclusion of the Clone Wars, the pirates had been killed or driven away, but the base had become a way station for travelers,