"This is quite the match. This pair of young zabraks, Crimson Horn and Scar, going up against a two fan favorites, the brothers Kai Tu and Kai Chi. We know the zabraks have savagery on their side, but do they have the skill and discipline to compete with professionals?
"And there's the horn! Kai Tu seems to be squaring up against Crimson Horn, while Kai Chi is going for Scar. They're trading jabs, testing the waters. Scar holds his ground while Crimson Horn is backing away."
"Yeah, we saw in their last fight, Scar is definitely the powerhouse fighter of the two. Kai Tu seems to be sensing the weak link and going for Crimson. Some light jabs, and Kai Tu gets in a solid body blow! Those electrogloves make each hit take that much more out of the combatants."
"Meanwhile Scar lands a hit on Kai Chi. It didn't look terribly strong, but enough to deliver a shock from his own gloves. Kai Chi blocks another strike and lands a body kick on Scar in response."
"And now Crimson Horn is giving up ground, quick. The two zabrak are forced back to back, not a position either of them want to be in! They've got no room to move, now. Sensing blood, Kai Tu is moving in. Crimson blocks one, two, three, then answers with a swift kick to the leg, followed by a right jab! The tide is turning, and Crimson Horn is beating his opponent back!
"But he doesn't pursue! No, instead he turns on Kai Tu... apologies, on Kai Chi! They've taken the opportunity to gang up on the older brother. Two on one, Kai Chi is defending heroically, but goes down under a battering of electroglove blows. Kai Tu moves in to try to help his brother, he's hammering on Scar's back. But it's too little, too late as the zabraks turn to face Kai Tu together."
"Scar took a beating there. He's moving sluggishly. But it's still two on one, and Crimson Horn seems fresh and eager to finish the fight. He's looking for an opening, they're trading blows. Kai Tu gets in a good jab. But, ooh! He takes a big hit from Scar and goes down."
"That's it! It's over! Major upset with a double knockout by the newcomers Scar and Crimson Horn!"
Jayce peeled off the electrogloves. His knuckles were bruised and hurt like hell, and the couple places he'd gotten hit felt sore and tingly. He didn't want to imagine what Zapal was feeling. Or, for that matter, what the two humans they'd just beaten into the sand were feeling.
He felt bad about that, at the jedi temple he'd been taught he should never cause unnecessary harm or pain. On the other electrogloved hand, they'd stepped into the arena knowing it could happen. For that, Jayce was just glad they hadn't had to fight more starved animals.
The door to Dr. Do'lona's infirmary opened, and the brothers Kai stepped out. They were on their feet and moving, if sluggishly. Jayce tensed, unsure what was going to happen now that they were in close proximity to their opponents.
Kai Chi smiled and held out a muscular hand, which Zapal took in a firm shake. "That was a hell of a fight," he said. "You two make a good team."
"Just be warned," Kai Tu put in, a slightly more reluctant smile than his brother's on his face, "next time it'll be different. Maybe we'll go at it with electrostaves, and you'll be in our playground."
The brothers walked on past, and Zapal and Jayce stepped into the infirmary.
"Well I don't see any blood," Dr. Do'lona said as Zapal flopped onto the closest table, "so I guess that's an improvement." She examined Zapal and gave him an injection that seemed to perk him right up, then moved on to Jayce.
"I'm fine," Jayce said.
"Let me see your hands," the doctor ordered. She tisked as she examined the knuckles he'd dislocated before, and were now hurting quite a lot. "They never let wounds heal properly."
"Well, if you can get Ogutta the Hutt to give us a few weeks off, that'd be great," Jayce said as she massaged bacta cream into his knuckles.
Do'lona smiled, showing white teeth, and turned slightly to look at Zapal. "Ah, but I'd hate to be deprived of such exciting fights."
Jayce sighed. He could see where that was going. "Can I ask something?" he said, trying to change the subject.
"What?"
"It's about that wookiee, Charr..."
"Charruua," Do'lona said.
"Yeah. I was just wondering, all the other regular fighters have quarters upstairs. And from what I've seen, Charruua is the most popular fighter here. Why is she in the cages?"
Do'lona's face darkened. "It's... complicated."
"Not really," Zapal interjected. He sat up on his bed and looked at the two of them. "Just a fact that some people don't see wookiees as fully sapient. Ogutta the Hutt probably thinks she's got more in common with a beast than with us."
"That's horrific!" Jayce said.
"You've noticed the gamorreans also have separate living spaces from the rest of us," he pointed out.
"Yeah, but that's..."
"The same thing," he finished. "I've seen how you look at them. You think they're stupid pigs. Well, guess what? That's pretty much how Hutts see all of us. And anything that can't even learn to speak Huttese is to them no different than a wild animal in need of a cage."
"Okay, I get it," Jayce said. He stood. "I'm going back to my room."
Once again, a gamorrean guard waited in the hall, ready to escort him back. Jayce looked at him, and had to consider that Zapal had a point. He didn't even know if this was the same guard that always watched him or if they traded off; he just never looked at them closely. This one had a chipped left horn, and a scar along the green skin of the same shoulder.
Jayce knew full well that wookiees were just as intelligent as humans or zabraks. Though he didn't know him well, he was aware that the wookiee youngling Gungi was near the top of his class. If he had known a gamorrean, would he have a different opinion of them?
The gamorrean snarled, and Jayce hurried on down the hall. As he expected, Captain Takka was waiting for him outside his door. Otherwise, the hall was empty.
"I'm in," Jayce said before the rodian got a chance to speak. "On one condition."
The rodian's eyes narrowed. "And what would that be?"
"You bring the wookiee Charruua on board as well. She'll be a powerful ally. And when it's over, she goes free too."
Captain Takka tilted his head, then his mouth broadened in a smile. "I think I have the perfect way to make that happen."
A few hours later, Jayce sat on the floor of his room and took deep, calming breaths.
Focus not on the past, or the future, his master always told him, but on the task at hand. Let your awareness open. Ask the question, but do not assume the answer. You must be open to what the Force has to show you.
The question now was how to get out of this place of deceit and backstabbing? How to claw free of this nest of lies? Slowly, he sensed the lifeforms around him, the fighters in the other rooms, almost all of them asleep. There was no guard in the hallway. No need when the doors were all securely locked.
Bits of the holoprojector in Jayce's room lay scattered about the table. He'd dissected the thing days ago, hoping to find a way to send a message. But no luck. It was just a short-range transceiver incapable of sending signals across the system, much less halfway across the galaxy.
With just a little hacking, though, he'd used the transceiver to rig up a record and rebroadcast function for the signal from his collar. The collar lay open on the table, and the hacked holoprojector sent out a signal in its place, assuring his captors that the collar was still around his neck, and that he was in bed asleep.
Jayce smiled and focussed his attention on the door. He felt his way through the circuitry, and with a practiced touch he guided the Force to trigger just the right wire with just a touch of electricity. His door slid open.
Before entering the hall, Jayce carefully peaked his head out and double-checked that he had been right about the guards. There were none. His bare feet made no noise against the carpeted floor. The right passage led to the casino floor. He'd scouted that out on a previous night, and it was heavily guarded at all times. The back entrances, too, were under tight guard. If there was a convenient escape route that wasn't being watched, he'd failed to find it.
Tonight wasn't about looking for a way to escape, though, it was about preparing. With his senses on full alert, he stealthily made his way downstairs to a supply closet just off the row of massage rooms. Inside was anything he could have ever wanted for keeping a floor polished and mirrors gleaming, but he was more interested in the communicators. Just like the holotable, they were too weak for anything beyond local signals. They were still of immeasurable worth to Jayce.
He stepped out of the closet and froze. The togruta slave stood staring at him in the hall, a bowl of scented water and a spunge in her hands. They stared at each other for a moment, neither daring to move. Then Jayce slowly put a finger to his lips.
"I was never here," he said softly.
The togruta woman nodded fervently, and Jayce backed away and hurried back up the stairs. He had to be quick, there was no way of knowing if the togruta would turn him in as soon as he was gone. The wise thing would be to go back to his room for tonight and try again later. But there was no time. It was now or never.
His next goal was deep in the bowels of the casino, the power control room. It took a lot of time and patience to get there, past the occasional patrolling gamorrean or casino employee hurrying along the corridors. At last, and without raising any alarms, he stood at the opening to the long hallway with his goal on the far end.
This was the part he had been dreading. There was no sneaking past the maintenance droid inside. It was always on, always vigilant. It all came down to whether or not he could make something he'd never tried before actually work. It should work, he couldn't see any reason why it wouldn't, even if many jedi back at the temple would have dismissed the idea as ridiculous.
Jayce took a deep breath, and opened the door. The room beyond held a series of panels to control the large feeds of electricity, air, and water that fed through this station and out to the rest of the casino. A multi-armed droid sat in the center of the consols. Its beady-eyed head swiveled round on a thin stalk the moment he stepped inside.
"Authorization code," it squawked in its synthetic voice.
"I am authorized," Jayce said confidently, and he reached out to the droid's circuitry with the Force.
"Identification," the droid insisted.
"You don't need to see my identification." A little more pressure. He could feel the little sparks of power running through the droid's circuits. But this was far more complicated than tricking a security door into opening.
"Provide valid authorization now, or I will log a security breach."
Maybe this had been a mistake. He'd never gotten this to work on people, and here he was trying it on a droid, something even his master would have not thought possible.
But Jayce knew electronics. As good as Master Sorro Tem was, he couldn't have walked easily through all those security doors. His master couldn't have rewired a holotable to mimic the signal from a slave collar. And most of all, his master wasn't here, so it didn't really matter what he would have thought impossible.
"I am authorized to be here!" Jayce said with as much authority as he could muster. He doubted the tone of his voice helped, but it made him feel better. And there it was at last, it was like flicking a switch inside the droid's processor, flipping a "no" to a "yes."
Of course he was authorized, the droid decided. Its internal query said so. It turned its head back to the consoles. "You are authorized."
Jayce let out a sigh of relief, and a very unjedi-like swell of pride rushed through him.
"Ha! Do that, Skywalker!"
The outburst echoed down the hall, a lot louder than he'd intended. Feeling suddenly foolish, he shut his mouth and got to work. The droid paid him no mind as he studied the power conduits and controls, looking for the right places to wire in the comm units.
A short while later, he was back in his room, the collar around his neck once more, having accomplished everything he'd set out to do. He just hoped it was enough.
