Star Wars_ The Adventures of Lando Calrissia - L. Neil Smith [88]
They’d take their chances. He wasn’t a gambler for nothing, and he had a friend’s concern for the continued health of his mechanical sidekick.
He realized suddenly that he hadn’t replied to the intercom.
“All right, old can-opener, I’ll be up in a moment.”
This was to be Lando’s first planetary landing under the tutelage of the talented robot. His previous attempts, before he’d acquired Vuffi Raa, had been fiascoes. Perhaps setting down on the surface (“next to the surface” might be a more accurate description) of an asteroid wasn’t a very spectacular exercise, but he needed the practice.
This time he’d made it to the cockpit before the explosion occurred.
Afterward, they spent some time untangling arms and legs from tentacles. Lando hadn’t had the time to strap in, and Vuffi Raa had momentarily unstrapped himself to check a gauge at the rear of the control deck. They both wound up between the pilot’s seats, stuffed under the control panels.
The Millennium Falcon turned lazily, end over end.
“Master, I hate to point this out, but that explosion was on the outside of the ship, in the outboard phaseshift adaptor.”
Lando studied the boards, while rubbing several bruises. “Yes, but I think it may have been spontaneous. Look at the readings on the phase-shift controls—they aren’t very far away from where that bomb went off the other day, are they?”
It was the droid’s turn to ponder. “I believe you are right. Nonetheless, had we been making a genuine planetary reentry, into a full atmosphere and full gravity, this accident would have destroyed us, Master. Observe the remote cameras; the cowling’s been torn and lifted. It would have ablated away, leaving us with—”
“Uh, I think that will do, my friend. I can well imagine us tumbling and burning out of control. How long to fix it?”
“Not more than a few hours, nor will it interfere with our landing now.”
Lando dealt the cards again, not quite as honestly as before. Of course it had turned out to be a second bomb. Whoever had planted it apparently hadn’t known their ultimate destination was to be an airless worldlet too small to suck them in and burn them up. Vuffi Raa had found part of the control module, like that in the first bomb, a device built to detect a change in their velocity relative to the speed of light. This one had been set to go off when they dropped below lightspeed.
Somebody really meant to kill him.
He tried to remember all the really big coups he had made at the gaming table. Had he unknowingly pushed someone with enough resources and anger to carry out a vendetta? Well, it appeared that caution might be in order, now. And a little sleight of hand.
He dealt the trunk-creature a Two of Staves, Lob Doluff a Ten of Staves, Bassi Vobah the Queen of Air and Darkness, valued at a minus two. Cycer got a Master of Coins; the young gambler dealt himself a Commander of Coins.
Going around a second time, he handed the alien the Star, a negative card worth seventeen; Doluff took a Nine of Sabres; Bassi Vobah got a second negative, the Evil One, which brought her count to minus-seventeen. He dealt to Cycer and had scarcely given himself the Nine of Coins for a respectable but unspectacular twenty-one, when the tall, thin retiree shouted “Sabacc!” excitedly and slapped his original Master on the table, along with the Nine of Staves.
Lando breathed a secret sigh of relief and passed the deck over to Cycer for the deal. Sometimes winning included knowing when to lose.
Cycer had the deal for exactly one hand, which Doluff, barely able to contain himself, won. Then the deal passed to the trunk-thing (Lando was beginning to feel a little guilty about not remembering the creature’s name—which