Star Wars_ The Jedi Academy Trilogy 02_ Dark Apprentice - Kevin J. Anderson [77]
Han waited a second longer, then impatiently took the initiative. “I’m keeping three cards,” he said, and put two others facedown in the center of the randomizer field. He pressed the scan button to change the value and suit on his cards, then slid them back out of the field to look at what he had drawn.
Lando held out two cards and thought better of it, biting his lower lip, and pulled out a third. Han felt a wave of jubilation. Lando’s hand was even worse than his own.
Han’s heart pounded. He had a flush of Staves, a low flush with no face cards; but if he could beat Lando, this hand would give him enough points to pass the target score. Lando stared at his own cards, smiling a little bit, but Han thought it was forced.
“Go on,” Han said, and slipped his cards one at a time onto the platform.
“Do I get extra points for having a completely random hand?” Lando said, then sighed. He put his elbows on the table and frowned.
Han slapped a hand on his flush. “The Falcon’s mine again!”
Lando smirked, as if losing the ship were a mixed blessing. “At least you’re getting her back in better condition.”
Han clapped his friend on the back and with a light step danced back toward the cockpit. Slowly, with a sigh of satisfaction, he lowered himself back into the pilot’s seat.
Now, he thought, if he could just get to Leia in time, this would be a perfect day.
20
Kyp Durron trudged through the dense rain forest of Yavin 4, trying to find hidden paths where the jungle would allow him to pass. He knew exactly where to go. The dark spirit of Exar Kun had shown him.
With the stirring of the underbrush, reptilian predator birds burst squawking into flight, disturbed from the bloody carcass of a kill they had dragged into the canopy.
Kyp’s assigned companion Dorsk 81 stumbled beside him. The thin, smooth-skinned alien had a much more difficult time with the steamy air and the steep climbs.
A purple-furred woolamander clambered through the overhead network of Massassi trees. Dorsk 81 looked up, startled—but Kyp had sensed the beast minutes before, feeling its primal panic and indecision build until finally it had to flee.
Kyp wiped sweat out of his eyes and shook his head, sending droplets of perspiration flying. He squinted again and moved forward with greater speed, knowing they had almost reached their destination—though Dorsk 81 had no idea yet.
Insects and small biting creatures buzzed and scuttled around them, but none bothered Kyp. He consciously exuded a shadow of uneasiness around him so that lower creatures had no incentive to come nearer. Exar Kun had taught him that trick too.
Dorsk 81 opened his lipless mouth, panting as he tried to keep up with the vigorous pace. His yellow and olive-green skin was unblemished, his nose flattened and smooth, his ears tucked back against his head as if someone had designed his race in a wind tunnel. The alien looked miserable; his wide-set eyes blinked, and his face gleamed with a sheen of moisture. “I was not bred for this,” Dorsk 81 said.
Kyp slowed, but not enough to bring relief to his companion. He softened the tone of his instinctive retort. “You were not bred for anything but bureaucracy and a comfortable life. I don’t understand how the planet Khomm could have survived unchanged for a thousand years. Or why your people wanted it to.”
Dorsk 81 took no offense and followed Kyp. “Our society and our genetics reached their perfection a millennium ago, or at least that’s what we decided at the time. To prevent undesirable changes, we froze our culture at that level. We took our perfect race and cloned them rather than risking genetic anomalies.
“I am the eighty-first clone of Dorsk. Eighty generations before me have been identical, doing the same jobs with the same level of skill, maintaining our level of perfection and not slipping back.” Dorsk 81 frowned, and with a burst of surprising energy he pushed around Kyp. He