Star Wars - Ringers Read online

  The kid looked startled — and vaguely alarmed. “I don’t have one. I just met her today!”

  “How?”

  “Before the tournament. This guy I met last week introduced me to her.”

  “You know who she is, don’t you?” Tambell pressed.

  Sedeya hesitated, clearly uncomfortable. “Not really.”

  “Now, there you go again,” Tambell admonished. “Six wins, no losses, and you’ve been seen with one of the most notorious crime madames on Stassia. What does that look like to you?”

  Sedeya shrugged.

  “So if you don’t know her, what did Aalia want with you?”

  The kid smiled humorlessly. “The same as you,” he said. “She wanted to know why my luck was so good. How I pick winners. That sort of thing.”

  “Did you tell her?”

  “Sure,” he said. “It’s no secret. She offered me a job.”

  Tambell raised an eyebrow, and leaned forward to give the kid his best I’m-gonna-get-you glare. “You don’t want to get involved with her, if you’re not already,” he pointedly advised. “We’ll take her down one of these days, and we’ll take you right down with her.”

  Sedeya looked away without responding, and after a moment, Rizz took over the questioning. “So, how do you pick ’em?” he asked amiably.

  The kid looked at him, confused. “Huh?”

  “Which tosser’s going to win? How do you pick them?”

  “Oh,” Sedeya thought about it for a moment. “Well, I watch them warm up before the tournament. See how they’re tossing, and stuff. Usually there’s just something I like about them.”

  Rizz asked another question, and listening to his gentle voice and careful verbal probes, Tambell was reminded of the time they’d had Aalia Duu-Iang in that chair. That time, he’d played the nice guy while Rizz nipped at her heels.

  Perhaps that was why Sedeya’s innocent act rankled him so. He felt a dull burning at the memory. He’d been nice all right — way too nice.

  Four years ago, when Aalia was still an associate slithering around doing her crime lord’s bidding, they’d picked her up in connection with a credit counterfeiting scheme. He’d looked into those incredible eyes and dove into his role with relish, never noticing the serpent that swam just under her seemingly sweet surface. They hadn’t been able to make the charges stick, and she’d gone on to forge her own little corner on Stassia’s crime market. And they hadn’t been able to touch her since.

  But what really gnawed at him was the secret knowledge that he’d halfway believed her protestations of innocence. She’d played him — for a fool.

  That wasn’t going to happen this time.

  He focused back in on Rizz and Sedeya. The kid was telling Rizz how he’d always been good at picking winners. Color had returned to his thin face, and his voice was animated. “It got to be that they started betting on who would come in second, cause if I said one was going to win, it won,” he said.

  “Is that what it’s like with the ringers?” Rizz asked.

  Sedeya nodded. “Sort of, I just picture the winner making ringers, and the losers missing. And it happens. Luck.” He shrugged.

  Tambell rolled his eyes.

  “Oh yeah. Right, kid,” he cut in derisively. “You call it luck, I call it a flam. You don’t really expect us to believe that load of munk?”

  Sedeya just looked at him. “It’s true,” he said stubbornly.

  Tambell shook his head in disgust, sat back in his chair and took a sip of caffa, listening as Rizz led Sedeya on a roundabout query of his knowledge of electronics. The more ignorant the kid sounded, the more disgusted he got.

  Then it occurred to him: maybe Sedeya really did think it was luck. Maybe he was as wet behind the ears as he sounded, and Aalia’s associates were handling the mechanics of the fraud, rigging the equipment or bribing the tossers, while he was just the front they used to divert attention from themselves. Maybe the kid didn’t know he was already working for Aalia.

  Tambell sat considering all the angles that accompanied the theory. It was another avenue to explore, anyway. One that might end up giving them the goods on that aqua-eyed witch. He smiled.

  Finishing off the caffa, he absently crumpled the cup and glanced around for a place to get rid of it. Not three meters away, a waste bin with a wide, inviting rim rested against the wall. An easy shot.

  He missed.

  Tambell stared as the crumpled ball skittered to a halt on the floor beyond. He couldn’t believe it. The bin was easily three times as large as Rizz’s water garden, and closer to boot. How could he miss?

  Feeling eyes upon him, he glanced across the table. Sedeya was looking at him stubbornly, while Rizz looked amused. “Looks like your winning streak’s come to an end,” he said.

  That dry observation bothered Tambell the rest of the interview.

  The next morning, he checked the sports scores and discovered that Sedeya’s winning streak had come to an end, as well.

  After her promising start, Tosser Five failed to maintain her lead and ended up finishing fourth. The kid was out the 10,000 credits he — or, more likely, Aalia — had wagered. Tambell wondered if she was annoyed.

  He also wondered if she’d engineered the loss simply to throw them off the scent. He wouldn’t put it past her, and the Hutts knew she could afford it.

  He’d brought Rizz one of those spindly little lilies he liked so much to make up for the one he’d squashed yesterday, and after Rizz added it to the water garden and pointedly covered the bowl with a plastsheet, they went over their impressions of the interview again.

  “The kid’s dumber than a space slug about electronics,” Rizz said. “He wouldn’t have a clue how to rig up something to tilt the tournament. You’re right; we should concentrate on his connection to Aalia.”

  “Franni’s already on it,” Tambell said. “Meanwhile, let’s take a look at what she’s been up to lately. This isn’t her usual style, but she’s probably looking for ways to expand business.”

  “Yeah, and let’s head back out to the stadium, too,” Rizz said. “Take another look at the equipment. She’s either got to be bribing the tossers, or rigging the rings. I want a closer look at — ”

  The comm scanner in the corner cut him off, and they listened as another accident was reported at the swoop track. Tambell grimaced. One more hotshot swoop jock who wouldn’t be starting in tomorrow’s big race. Yuck.

  He returned his attention to Rizz. “I want to put a surveil-cam on Sedeya, too,” he said. “The kid looks too green to notice he’s being followed, and if he meets with Aalia. I want to know about it.”

  “Good idea,” Rizz agreed. They discussed the plan of attack a while longer, then got to work. Then the lieutenant came in and gave Tambell grief about the case update he’d filed, and he had to waste time pawing around under his desk for the data cards that always seemed to pile up down there, and then waste more time looking up details on the kid that some bit-pusher upstairs just had to have. Then Franni gave them a list of Aalia’s recent financial transactions, and he and Rizz were following up on that when the surveil-cam reported that Sedeya had been seen with the crime madame that afternoon.

  The end result was that by the end of the day, they still hadn’t made it out to the stadium to take a closer look at the ringers’ equipment.

  But they had discovered that Aalia did indeed appear to be moving into the field of wager fraud, and that the main topic of conversation during her meeting with Sedeya had been who the kid thought would win tomorrow’s swoop sweepstakes.

  “I’ll have you know I’m giving up triple-time pay for this,” Rizz grumbled the next day as he and Tambell inspected the rings in Pavilion C. All 12 ringer tossers, clearly unsettled by the Imperial investigators’ summons, clustered together at the edge of the range, watching uneasily as the pair looked for evidence of ring tampering.

  “Isn’t bringing down Aalia Duu-lang worth it?” Tambell countered.


  “Yeah, if we can do it,” Rizz said sourly. “We’ve been over these twice already. There’s nothing here. I say we move on to Plan B.”

  Plan B was questioning the tossers. If they were going to nail Aalia, they needed to know whether to focus their attention on the swoop jocks, or their equipment, after she and Sedeya cleaned up at today’s big race.

  “There’s no way any of us would cheat,” Tosser Five declared, folding her arms and looking across the pavilion to where Rizz was interviewing Tosser Three. “It’s tough to make a ringer. We practice for it every day. You think after all that work we’d go out and deliberately try to miss?”

  “You might if there were enough credits in it for you,” Tambell said mildly.

  She glared at him. “No, Sergeant. I wouldn’t,” she said firmly.

  “Okay, so maybe you wouldn’t,” he agreed. “Would anybody else?”

  “No!” she repeated with a scowl.

  He eyed her indignant expression, decided she was probably telling the truth. He sighed. “Okay, so help me out a bit here,” he said. “If the tossers aren’t taking bribes, and the equipment isn’t rigged, is there any other way someone could cheat?”

  “No,” she said again, then amended, “Well, not really. It’s not like there’s any Jedi around anymore.”

  Tambell looked at her sharply. “What?”

  “Jedi,” she repeated, starting to look a little nervous. “I’ve heard stories they could move things with their minds. Something called the Force. That would be handy playing ringers.”

  “The Force is nothing more than a legend,” Tambell told her repressively. “And anyway, the Jedi are long gone. Extinct.”

  “Well, sure, like I said,” she hurried to agree. “Good thing, too. I bet we’d all like to just picture the competition missing a toss, and have it happen. But that’s impossible.”

  She went on, but Tambell was no longer listening. His mind replayed her words, hearing Sedeya’s voice instead. What was it the kid had said? I just picture the winners making ringers, and the losers missing. And it happens?

  He remembered his own missed toss the night of the interview, and Sedeya staring at him from across the table. He and Rizz hadn’t been able to uncover evidence of bribes or rigged equipment, either. Was it possible the kid could do something that he wasn’t consciously aware of?

  Something like causing a competitor’s performance to be off? Just enough to ensure a loss?

  He suddenly remembered what day it was, and a chill ran down his back.

  If such an unlikely thing were true, how might such a mysterious Force manifest itself in making sure that the right jock won a highspeed, close-quarters race, in which the slightest “off” performance could well prove fatal?

  The huge domed arena that housed Stassia’s swoop track was finally in sight. Glaring out at the sea of pedestrians clogging the street ahead of them, Tambell tried to strangle back his impatience and ended up thumping on the robohack’s roof Instead.

  “There’s no need to be abusive, sir,” the droid brain running the robohack admonished him in affronted tones.

  “Calm down, we’re moving,” Rizz added.

  “Not fast enough,” Tambell growled. Since Sedeya had lost his bet the other day when they’d pulled him away from the ringers tournament, he figured the kid had to be present for this Jedi thing to work He had to get him away from the swoop track before the kid could start “picturing” losers.

  Tambell’s mouth tightened. He’d worry about how to keep this ridiculous Force stuff out of the report, later. If the lieutenant thought he’d actually bought into any of that junk that passed for Jedi legend, his next assignment would be in the spice mines of Kessel.

  Fighting back frustration, he dug out his comlink instead. “Hey Franni,” he said when the droid answered. “Hook into the betting booths at the swoop track, will you? I want to know if Reye Sedeya or Aalia Duu-lang have placed any bets. How much, and on who. I want it as soon as possible,” he added.

  They’d edged a few blocks closer to the arena by the time Franni called back and reported that Sedeya had bet 10 credits on Bike Six to win.

  Tambell frowned at the news. Only 10 credits?

  But his scowl turned to a smile when he learned Aalia had more than made up for it.

  She’d gone for the exacta, wagering 50,000 credits on Six to win, and Nine to place. Exactas were dicier to predict, but paid bigger rewards, and he wondered whether Sedeya could not only make Six win, but ensure that Nine came in second. For Aalia to collect, the jocks had to finish in that order.

  And then it occurred to him — maybe, just maybe, she’d hedged her bets.

  All the swoop jocks wanted to win the big prize, of course, but the purses for third, fourth, fifth, and sixth places weren’t cheap change either. Especially if they came with a little bonus for not finishing on top.

  He got Franni checking on the right accounts, then took another look at the foot traffic flowing past outside. The entire city seemed out for a stroll. Tossing some change into the robohack’s credit tray, he opened the door and fought his way out to the crowded curb with Rizz trailing in his wake. The way they’d been crawling along, they’d get there faster on foot.

  Joining the swarm heading for the arena entrance, they flashed their badges at the ticket droid and were waved inside. They squeezed onto the first available lift plate carrying spectators up to the grandstand and, once on top, Rizz dug out a locater and flipped it on, keying in a code. A green dot winked in the grid’s center, and after the device sent out its invisible feelers, a blinking red dot appeared at the edge of the grid.

  Tambell looked at it, then glanced down at the several thousand packed seats surrounding the oval track. “Figures,” he said sourly.

  The surveil-cam tracking Sedeya wasn’t that faraway — but it was straight across the track, indicating that the kid and Aalia were seated somewhere on the far side. He and Rizz would have to go all the way around.

  And they didn’t have time.

  The traditional call to the post pealed out of the grandstand’s comm speakers and was promptly drowned out by the crowd’s anticipatory roar. Tambell caught a glimpse of the jocks cruising out of the pits and onto the track, their swoops’ lethal-looking steering vanes glittering like bayonets under the dome’s bright lights. They looked well-protected in their colorful body armor and helmets, but he knew just how useless the stuff really was in a crash.

  Tiers of seats marched down to where a six-meter high duracrete wall marked the drop-off to the track below. If a jock lost control of his swoop, the wall theoretically stopped him from plunging into the grandstand. In reality, since swoops crash up as well as down, the wall wasn’t much comfort to the spectators in the lower tiers.

  Not that it mattered. The seats were the most expensive, and they always sold out.

  The jocks finished their post parade and zipped down the track, engines whining as they accelerated over the warm-up obstacle, a metal gate that could easily accommodate most of the field as they raced abreast. Later, several laps into the race, the obstacles would get narrower, the jocks vying to get over, under, or through in the dwindling space. Tambell had always thought that for supposedly intelligent beings, swoop jocks had precious little common sense. Or else a death wish.

  He and Rizz started down the steps. It was a long way to the track below, and by the time they were halfway down the swoops had lined up. The buzz of the crowd disappeared under a deafening chorus of mechanical screams as the jocks revved their thrusters, but even at full throttle, the swoops were stymied by the repulsor web holding them at the post.

  The countdown blinked down on the displays covering the duracrete wall, and the crowd picked up the chant, stamping their feet with each number. At zero, the displays went green, the swoops plunged forward, the spectators went wild, and Tambell groaned.

  “We’ll never get there in time,” he shouted over his shoulder to Rizz, who nodded agreement. They reached th
e bottom tier just as the field whined past on its ninth lap, the swoops bobbing like boats on a storm-tossed sea as they dipped to avoid one of the obstacles hovering over the track.

  Rizz held up the locator. “They’re practically straight across,” he shouted, pointing out over the infield where mechanics and maintenance droids clogged the pits. Tambell looked around for some way to get to the other side before reluctantly concluding the long drop below was it.

  “So, let’s go across,” he shouted back.

  Rizz stared at him — Are you nuts? — but didn’t protest as Tambell edged between the wall and the first tier of seats. A laser-link security fence glowed in front of them: criss-crossed thin red lines which discouraged over-enthusiastic onlookers from jumping onto the track. They stepped on toes and otherwise annoyed the spectators before Tambell finally found what he was looking for. He slid his security ID into a slot, and a 10-meter section of the laser-link fence winked out.

  He looked at the drop below and sighed, but swung a leg over the rim of the duracrete wall anyway. Boot bumping against the tote board display, now flashing with the numbers of the leading swoops, he swung his other leg over, took a deep breath, and let go.

  About a third of the way down, he realized the six-meter drop was way beyond his capacity to comfortably land, and scrambled madly at the tote board as it flashed past. Catching an edge helped slow his descent, but gave his arms an awful yank, and his whole body felt the impact when his feet finally hit the ground.

  Gritting his teeth, he tilted his head to look up at Rizz. The younger man didn’t look enthusiastic, but tucked the locater away, carefully poised himself on top of the rim. and then surprised Tambell by making a sudden lunge for the nearest obstacle, hovering over the track a little less than two meters from the wall. It dipped under his weight as he caught the closest edge, and before its repulsors could compensate. Rizz had dropped lightly to the ground.