"I raise five hundred."
The words hung in the air above the sabacc table like a bad cologne, sharp enough to cut through the haze of death-stick smoke clouding the room. The gambler across from me—a Rodian with one antenna shorter than the other and breath that could strip paint—stared at his cards like they'd personally insulted his mother.
The Den was exactly the kind of place you'd expect to find spice labs and kidnapped princesses: dingy, overpriced, and packed with people who'd sell their own grandmother for a decent hand of cards. Neon tubes lined the walls in sickly green and purple, casting everyone in unflattering shadows that made even the most attractive patrons look like they were decomposing in real-time. The bar stretched along the back wall, staffed by a Twi'lek bartender whose lekku twitched every time a glass shattered, which happened often enough that I suspected she had a nervous condition by this point.
The public gaming floor occupied the front half of the establishment, sabacc tables and holo-chess boards scattered among booths where deals were made and backs were stabbed, sometimes literally. The real money changed hands in the back rooms, where the spice flowed and the security got serious. Armed guards in mismatched armor stood at strategic points, trying to look intimidating and mostly succeeding because they were holding very large blaster rifles.
I'd been playing for about twenty minutes, losing consistently and politely, playing the role of the over-eager mark with too much money and not enough sense.
The Rodian finally folded with a disgusted click of his mandibles.
I collected the pot, trying to look pleased but not too pleased, like someone who'd gotten lucky rather than someone who'd been counting cards and reading micro-expressions for the last three hands.
My helmet's internal display flickered with Arachnae's camera feed, a split-screen nightmare of ventilation shafts and thermal signatures that I was processing while maintaining the facial expression of a slightly tipsy gambler. The little droid had crawled into the ductwork about fifteen minutes ago, and she was currently mapping the back rooms with the methodical efficiency of a very judgmental cartographer.
Two heat signatures in the room three doors down from the main corridor. One significantly smaller than the other.
Bingo.
"F1 calling in," I subvocalized, the words barely a whisper caught by the comm bead nestled in my ear canal. "Got eyes on the package. Two guards in back, human and Zabrak based on the profiles, three in front."
"Can you handle that?" Obi-Wan's voice crackled back, filtered through enough encryption that it sounded like he was speaking from the bottom of a well.
"If I can't handle a bunch of street thugs, what use is my training even?" I kept my expression neutral as the dealer started shuffling for the next hand. "Besides, I'm about to make this significantly easier."
I'd been watching the table across from mine for the last ten minutes, cataloging faces and body language. Three players currently occupied it, but only one of them mattered.
Vect Nokru sat with the posture of a man who thought he was much more important than he actually was, which on Daiyu meant he was probably middle-management in someone else's criminal empire. Human, late thirties, scar running from his left eye to his jawline that he'd probably gotten in a speeder accident but told people came from a knife fight. He wore his blaster openly on his hip, the holster positioned for a quick draw that his gut would make awkward.
Two companions flanked him. The human across the table was lean and twitchy, the kind of guy who looked like he'd been using his own product. His hands shook slightly as he arranged his cards, and his eyes kept darting toward the corridor leading to the back rooms.
The third member of their little crew stood rather than sat, a Kaleesh with green skin and a face that looked like someone had tried to sculpt a person out of dried clay and given up halfway through. He wasn't playing, just watching the game with the bored expression of hired muscle who'd rather be breaking bones than babysitting his boss's gambling habit.
I watched Vect lose three hands in a row, his frustration building with each defeat. The emotional resonance was practically radiating off him, little spikes of anger and wounded pride that pinged against my dampened senses like sonar returns.
Perfect.
I collected my chips from the Rodian's table with a theatrical sigh of satisfaction and stood, making a show of stretching like I'd been sitting too long.
"Gentlemen," I announced to no one in particular, loud enough to carry to the neighboring table. "This table's gone cold. Anyone mind if I find warmer waters?"
The dealer at Vect's table glanced up, a Dug whose expression suggested he'd stopped caring about anything years ago and was just going through the motions until death claimed him.
"Open seat," he said, gesturing with one of his lower arms.
I grabbed my chips, making my way over with the confident stride of someone who'd had just enough to drink to make bad decisions but not enough to fall over. I dropped into the empty chair directly across from Vect.
"Hope you boys don't mind new blood," I said, arranging my chips in neat stacks. "Last table was full of cowards. No one wanted to actually play."
Vect glanced up, his eyes tracking over my armor before settling on my helmet's visor.
"Fresh meat's always welcome," Vect said, his voice carrying the rough edge of too many years breathing recycled air and bad life choices. "Long as your money's good."
"Money's fantastic," I replied. "Just got paid for a job on Ord Mantell. Figured I'd see how far it stretches before reality catches up."
The lie rolled off my tongue with practiced ease. Ord Mantell was far enough away that no one here would have firsthand knowledge, and recent enough that it explained the disposable income.
The first hand was garbage, and I folded early with appropriate reluctance. The second hand I had a pure sabacc—twenty-three on the nose—and I played it aggressively enough to take a decent pot off a Quarren who'd been riding a lucky streak.
Vect folded early, his jaw tightening as he watched me collect the chips.
Third hand was where things got interesting.
I had a weak opening, nothing worth playing straight. But Vect's hand was worse—I could see it in the way his thumb kept rubbing against the edge of his cards, a nervous tell that screamed insecurity.
I let a small thread of Force energy slip out, nothing obvious, just a gentle pressure against the ambient emotions at the table. I found Vect's frustration, that simmering anger from his earlier losses, and gave it the gentlest nudge.
Not enough to be detected. Not even enough to be felt consciously. Just a tiny amplification of what was already there, turning his annoyance into irritation.
The betting escalated quickly. By the time we showed cards, he was practically vibrating with the need to win.
I had eighteen. Respectable, but nothing spectacular.
Vect had sixteen.
"Rough luck," I said, pulling the chips toward me. "But hey, that's sabacc for you. Random and cruel, like most things worth doing."
The muscle standing behind Vect shifted slightly, his hand drifting closer to the blaster on his hip.
Over the next twenty minutes, I systematically cleaned Vect out of roughly five thousand credits. Each hand followed the same pattern—decent cards for me, careful baiting, and subtle Force manipulation to amplify his emotional state just enough to cloud his judgment. His frustration transformed into genuine anger, the kind that made people stop thinking strategically and start acting on wounded pride.
In my peripheral vision, Arachnae's feed showed her moving through another vent shaft, her sensors painting a thermal map of the corridor below. Three more signatures, all adults, all armed based on the heat distribution that suggested weapons.
She was getting close to the target room.
"Another hand," Vect said, and now his voice had gone flat and dangerous.
"You sure?" I raised my hand in a casual gesture. "Because I'd hate to take any more of your hard-earned credits. Feels almost unethical at this point."
"Deal the cards."
The Dug dealer glanced between us, his expression suggesting he'd seen this dance before and knew how it usually ended.
This hand I actually had garbage. A bomb-out that would have made folding the smart play.
I stayed in anyway, because the point wasn't winning anymore. The point was making Vect feel like he was being deliberately humiliated.
When we finally showed cards, I had negative fifteen. Vect had negative twenty-three.
"Well would you look at that," I said, genuine surprise coloring my voice through the helmet's speakers. "Guess luck really is a fickle mistress. You almost had me there."
I pulled the pot toward me, noting the way Vect's hands had curled into fists on the table.
The Kaleesh behind him had definitely moved his hand to his blaster now, and the human across the table was looking anywhere except at me.
Arachnae's feed showed her positioning above the target room now, her sensors confirming two signatures inside, one small and seated, one larger and standing near the door.
Almost time.
I stood up and gathered my chips with deliberate slowness. "Thanks for the game, boys. Really made my day. Enjoy the rest of your evening, and maybe consider taking up a hobby that doesn't require you to understand probability. Knitting, perhaps. Or interpretive dance."
I turned and walked toward the exit with the confident stride of someone who absolutely knew there was a target on their back and didn't particularly care.
Behind me, I heard Vect's say something to his men.
I kept walking, pushing through the door and out into the neon-soaked streets of Daiyu.
"Only two," I muttered, just loud enough for the comm to catch. "At least they had the decency to not leave the place totally unguarded."
"Ezra," Obi-Wan's voice crackled through the comm, heavy with the tone of someone who'd watched their student deliberately provoke armed criminals for no tactical reason. "What exactly are you doing?"
"Social engineering, Master. Combined with applied psychology and a touch of aggressive asset redistribution." I turned down a side street, heading toward the alley I'd scouted earlier. "Sometimes the best way to separate targets from their defensive position is to make them so angry they voluntarily abandon it."
The footsteps behind me were getting closer, two sets, just as I'd predicted.
I smiled beneath my helmet.
"Besides," I added, "I really dislike people not respecting the spirit of the game"
Barring myself of course.
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