Tabraile kept his face expressionless as Anayera glanced at him from the opposite end of the Parlak table. An inscrutable face was necessary for deception, but a partner with sharp instincts and quick reflexes was essential in winning any game of chance. Especially if it was rigged in favor of the house.  

Anayera raised her chin, took a deep breath, and rolled the dice. As she tossed them across the length of the table, he subtly ran his index finger across his lips. That was the tell. Before the clock ran out, she slammed her hand down on the timer to stop the dice in midair, allowing them to land on the number she had placed her bet on.

"Player wins," the dealer called. "Again."

A raucous cheer swept through the front room of the casino as Anayera added 15,000 credits to go with the 90,000 she had already won.

Adept at playing the table in his favor, Tabraile was certain their deception had gone undetected, but he was wondering how long the casino would let her get away with the Hutt's money. On cue, three Twi'lek guards approached from opposite sides to shut down the big winner. Clutching the warm Rishi honeystix to his chest, he quickly made his way around the table.

The crowd was thick, flocking about Anayera as she gathered her credit chits from the dealer. That made it even more difficult for Tabraile to signal the impending danger or move into a support position before the guards engaged her.

"Get your hands off me!" Anayera shouted at the blue Twi'lek who took her by the arm. Her hand dropped to her waist for the lightsaber on her belt.

"Not a good idea," Tabraile said, speaking to her rather than the Twi'lek in front of him. He pressed the muzzle of his heavy blaster against the henchman's head. Despite the thickness of the colorful headscarf that adorned his head, the Twi'lek's lekku twitched in agitation. Tabraile jammed the muzzle harder into his skull. "I saw that. It's not nice to talk about the lady that way. Pervert!"

"Ootmian?" the Twi'lek said, elaborating in Huttese.

"Tagwa," Tabraile replied.

"What did he say?" Anayera asked, leering at the wary guard. "What did you call me?"

"An outlander or interloper," Tabraile said. "We've been invited to Mol'jattu's private chambers for an audience."

Anayera straightened, dropping her hand away from the lightsaber. "Lead on."

Amid a roomful of weapons trained on him, Tabraile returned his blaster to its holster with a cool grin and took his place beside her. The Twi'lek trio guided them to a reserved lift decorated with strings of glowing orbs. They descended more than twenty meters into a subbasement of the casino. Although the air got noticeably damp and cooler, the level of noise grew louder. A raucous crowd of 100 were gathered around a pit in the center of the lavish room.

The discordant vibration rattled Tabraile's eardrums as the crowd abruptly reacted to activity within the pit. Anayera stayed close to him, while eyeing their escort and the crowd for signs of aggression. Tabraile pulled gently at her sleeve and nodded to a holo projection.

A bare-chested Gamorrean and a Devaronian with a crown of horns were pitted against each other in a bloody brawl. Covered in sweat and breathing hard, the combatants traded powerful blows. The Gamorrean's fist cut across the horned alien's chin. A spray of blood splattered across the duracrete walls of the 4-meter deep pit and onto the crowd.

Above the roar of the spectators, boorish laughter could be heard from the raised dais on the edge of the pit. Mol'jattu the Hutt's body quivered in rapture. Every ounce of his 900-kilogram frame undulated and shook as the Hutt clapped a hand against his heated sand bed in appreciation of the gory bloodsport. Bellowing in Huttese, he waved his other hand in the air and his audience imitated the spastic gesture.

"What's he saying?" Anayera asked.

"Finish him." Tabraile winced when the Gamorrean took the Hutt's command as a cue.

Blood pouring from his snout, the Gamorrean headbutted the dazed Devaronian and shattered his nose. Pressing his opponent over his head like a hollow log, he spun in a circle to show off his tremendous strength and the victim's fear, and then dropped to the ground, bringing the Devaronian down across his knee. The reverberation of the Devaronian's spine breaking was lost in the approving roar of the crowd, which reverberated through the subbasement and shook the foundations.

One of the Twi'lek henchmen approached the dais and bowed. Leaning over the sand bed, he whispered in the Hutt's ear. With a grin spreading across his bulbous face, Mol'jattu turned his gaze to Anayera and waved for her to come closer.

"You've more experience at this," Anayera whispered. "What should I say to him?"

"How's your Huttese?"

"Passable."

"Hutts have enormous egos," Tabraile said. "The size of small moons. Play to his arrogance."

Undaunted by his size, Lady Anayera stood before the dias and looked up at the Hutt. She bowed respectfully. "Achuta, Mol'jattu," she said in broken Huttese. "I am Anayera Vannre, and I come on behalf of Lord Jyaard." She gestured to Tabraile, who stepped forward and set the honeystix on the lip of the sand bed. "It is my greatest wish to extend an invitation of friendship and hope from the Empire that will richly benefit your eminent corpulence."

The silence was broken by a collective gasp. Thumping against the divan, the Hutt's tail quivered in agitation.

"Did I say something wrong?" Anayera asked in a whisper.

"Not quite sure how corpulence translates into Huttese," Tabraile said, "but I think you just called him fat."

As if orating on the floor of the senate, the Hutt drew his ponderous torso upright and spoke slowly, bowing his head and extending his arms to accentuate his words.

"I welcome the Empire's continued attempts to appeal to my generosity," Tabraile translated, "and celebrate a partnership with Lord Jyaard. This time he may have won my decision by offering a prize worthy of my appetites. A prize to indulge my ..."

"What's he saying?" Anayera asked insistently.

Tabraile flushed at the sexually explicit details of the Hutt's intentions. "I don't think I want to repeat it. Not while you're carrying a lightsaber."

"This is what my uncle meant by charm?" Recognition of the vulgar insinuation spread like a shadow across her face. "I am an Imperial envoy, not a token gift, you disgusting slug!"

Tabraile cringed at the profanity-laced tirade that followed. He was thankful that most of it was lost in the roar of the crowd, who cheered for the insulting crimelord.

Anayera glared at the Hutt. "What's he saying now?"

"He says if you're not willing to pleasure him ... " Tabraile carefully chose his words. " ... he'll take his pleasure in another way. A contest." He glanced over his shoulder into the pit. "If your champion can survive one round with his champion—no weapons, just bare fists—he will consider your request."

"My champion? Does he mean you?" Anayera stared down at the bloody Gamorrean. A clean-up crew of Jawas dragged the corpse of the Devaronian out of the ring. "One round?" She turned back to Tabraile. "Can you do it?"

"Against a Gamorrean? I like my face the way it is, but maybe." Tabraile rolled his eyes, hurt by her lack of concern for his welfare. "I've done worse."

"Like what?"

"Played pin-the-tail on a rancor once as a kid."

Anayera's eyes widened. "How are you still alive?"

"Stupid luck. She'd recently lost a calf and thought I was her baby. Even tried to breastfeed me." He shook his head with the memory. "Couldn't get that taste out of my mouth for a week." Tabraile unbuckled his gunbelt and wrapped it around the holster. Handing the blaster to her, he unfastened the clasps on his uniform tunic and pulled the fabric over his head.

The Hutt's laughter stopped, and the crowd went silent when they saw the raised lines of scar tissue across his back from a flogging that had lacerated the skin and then healed naturally over time. Feeling self-conscious, Tabraile bit his lip.

"Shag?" Mol'jattu grunted, using the Huttese word for slave.

"We're all slaves to something, even you, Mol'jattu." Folding his uniform over Anayera's arm, Tabraile took off the black cap and placed it on her head. "Something tells me this is going to hurt worse than a few flower pots cracked over my head." Using a knotted rope at the edge of the pit, he crawled down into the ring with the Gamorrean.

The bloody alien wiped the snot and blood dripping from its tusked snot and lumbered away. He left the arena through an iron gate. Pressing himself against the wall in the narrow threshold, he sidestepped the nightmarish creature that came through the portal. Mol'jattu laughed loudly, heralding the new arrival, and bowed to the spectators.

"What's happening?" Anayera asked.

"The Gamorrean isn't his champion." Tabraile's mouth went dry. "The Krak'Craw is."

The Krak'Craw were an amphibious species, indigenous to the planet Issor, a water world. A primitive race renowned for their great strength and violent tempers, the pink-skinned hunters lived for centuries in the shadow of their industrious cousins the Issori, who used them for hard labor.

Well over 2-meters tall, the Hutt's champion was bigger than the Gamorrean, but not nearly as wide. A hooked beak jutted from the center of his face below two narrow eye slits that blinked vertically instead of on the horizontal. Four of the alien's face tentacles had been cut off and burned at the stump. The fifth appendage was still intact and dangled behind his bulbous head with a single stinger at the tip.

"Tabraile," Anayera whispered from the edge of the pit. "How long is a round?"

"Three minutes." He heard the concern in her voice and the doubt. "Don't have to win, Lady Anayera, just survive. I happen to be pretty good at that."

"Three minutes," she hissed, "and then I handle this my way."

Running, as an evasion tactic, was not an undesirable strategy against a superior opponent, but it certainly was not a crowd pleaser. Tabraile was determined to take whatever blows came at him, minimize the damage by rolling with it, and strike whenever opportunity presented itself. Taking a beating came with a good brawl. There were few exceptions.

Feinting left with a punch, Tabraile kicked the Krak'Craw in the sternum and was rewarded with a gasp, but the brawny alien grabbed his foot before he could retreat. Tabraile swung his arms like a windmill, twisting his body in midair, and used his other foot to kick the alien in the face. Black blood spilled from the Krak'Craw's beak. The raucous cheering in the room died away as the underdog drew first blood.

With an ear-splitting hiss, the Krak'Craw lunged at Tabraile and threw a wild punch. Anticipating the blow, Tabraile was in the process of dodging, but the creature was faster and clipped him. The partial hit sent him reeling backwards into the duracrete wall.

Yelping in pain as his hands when numb from an electrical shock, Tabraile blinked rapidly to clear his vision. He stared at the three-centimeter spikes now jutting from holes in the wall. Each one crackled with energy. His discovery brought a roar from the gathered spectators, who mocked him. He swore under his breath and shook the numbness from his fingers.

Wiggling a loose molar into place with his tongue, Tabraile massaged his bruised jaw and wiped his bloody fingertips on his chest. He shrugged his shoulders, squared up his fists, and gestured for the Krak'Craw to come at him.

The alien rushed him in a frenzy of reckless fists. Tabraile evaded the first and second punch, but took the third in the face. Blinking back stars, he ducked under the fourth and delivered a series of quick, hard punches to the soft tissues of his opponent's throat.

Unable to breathe, the alien backed away. The gill-slits on the side of his neck expanded erratically as he gasped to catch his breath.

Recognizing the key to winning this fight, Tabraile ran at the Krak'Craw and slid between his legs. He leaped up behind him and scrambled onto the alien's back. Before his rival could prevent it, Tabraile wrestled his arm around his throat. He locked his upper arm over the right gill slit and his forearm over the left, then jammed his wrist into the crook of his elbow to secure the chokehold.

The Krak'Craw reacted violently, twisting and bucking to shake him loose. He lunged backward with a savage elbow and repeatedly struck Tabraile in the ribs. Ignoring the intense pain, the Socorran held tight and wrapped his legs around the alien's torso. Even when the Krak'Craw succumbed to lack of air, Tabraile tightened the chokehold. If he could not maintain it, the alien would never let him get that close again.

The Krak'Craw dropped to a knee, and Tabraile twisted a leg around his thigh to add further leverage. Both of them were glistening with sweat, their skin slicked with blood, but Tabraile gritted his teeth and dug in to keep his hold. He felt a peculiar tickling on the left side of his chest, but ignored it, surmising it was the Krak'Craw's desperate fingers trying to dislodge him.

The strange tickle ceased when the Krak'Craw's remaining tentacle escaped Tabraile's chokehold. It reared up and drove the stinger deep into his chest.

"You said no weapons!" Anayera shouted. "Your champion is cheating!"

Tabraile desperately fought the surge of fury rising within him. It was a madness that he had fought to suppress for over a decade. He feared losing himself in it, but the darkness swelled and strengthened; so did his resolve.

He pushed back the roaring in his ears and suffered the wave of cold that washed over him as he resisted. The darkness retreated, but it was too late. As the roar subsided, Tabraile heard the cracking of bones in the Krak'Craw's neck. The alien went limp in his arms. Falling to the ground, he dragged Tabraile with him.

Tabraile rolled onto his back. His chest burned as if he'd been shot by a blaster bolt. Limbs heavy, he removed the protruding stinger. With a spray of blood and oily venom, it ripped free, and he laid there panting and bleeding beside the Krak'Craw's corpse. He felt like he was drowning and swallowed convulsively.

"Remember the mission," Tabraile gasped as Anayera reached for her lightsaber. "We won." He fell back to the dirt floor and passed out. "We actually won."