The Ruins of Dantooine Read Online Free PDF Page A

credits are on the zucca.”
    Dusque didn’t even turn her head to acknowledge the speaker. “Then you’re about to become very poor.” She shook her head as he snorted in derision. He’d see soon enough.
    As their handlers turned them loose, the two competitors charged each other. And as Dusque had suspected, although the boar had more muscle behind his attack, he didn’t have the agility of the hopping womp rat. When the boar was nearly close enough to gore his opponent, the smaller native of Tatooine hopped to the side. The zucca wasn’t able to stop his rush in time to escape the wicked teeth of the womp rat. The boar’s hide was tough, but not tough enough to withstand the repeated attacks of the competition. Every time the boar attempted toregroup and charge, the womp rat sidestepped him with a nimble hop. It was only a matter of time before the boar expired. The womp rat’s handler emerged from the sidelines and called his creature to follow him. With only one backward glance, the womp rat fell in behind his handler and hopped out of the arena. A judge rushed out to check on the condition of the boar and, as the boar’s handler struggled with the carcass, the womp rat was declared the winner and advanced to the next round. Dusque noted everything.
    From behind her, she could hear the disgruntled gambler swear. He threw his handful of tickets to the ground and stomped off. Tendau leaned toward her once again.
    “I’m impressed,” he told her.
    “It was obvious,” Dusque replied, waving off the compliment. “That match was no contest.”
    “No,” he corrected her, “I meant I was impressed because you didn’t tell him
I told you so.
” She saw that he was smiling with the mouth that faced her. She smiled back.
    The next few rounds went much the same, and there was very little that Dusque learned about behavior that she hadn’t seen demonstrated on some other world before. Although she kept her facial expressions to a minimum, she was growing more nauseated as the evening wore on. She watched as one magnificent specimen after another was torn to shreds simply for the multitude’s amusement and a handful of credits. The only conclusion she wasdrawing was that there was no end to what the Empire allowed to propagate.
    Unable to stomach the slaughter, she found her eyes once again wandering from the staged events back toward the crowd. The more vicious the fights, the more frenzied the throng became. She saw that most were on their feet, tickets and chips clutched tightly in their hands. Many were shouting threats or words of encouragement to their favored choice, alternating indiscriminately between them. And, almost discreetly, a small garrison of Imperial stormtroopers patrolled the periphery of the arena, ostensibly to keep at bay anything that might be drawn from the swamps by the growing stench of blood. As always, the Empire was ever present. While Dusque continued to observe the mob, she discovered that same pair of obsidian eyes staring back at her again.
    As he lifted a hand, Dusque unconsciously raised her hand to her throat. For a moment, she thought he was going to somehow signal to her, and she wondered what she would do. But he simply brushed some of his unruly black hair from his eyes and continued to regard her steadily. She turned away again, feeling suddenly foolish and at a loss.
    “It’s almost over,” the Ithorian told her. “Only a few are still standing.”
    Dusque focused on her datapad, trying to busy herself with her notations. The last creatures left were a malkloc from Dathomir and a flit harasser from Lok. The malkloc had literally mowed overher competition. Larger than a tauntaun, malklocs had a heavy body and long neck. Dusque recalled from her studies that they were near the top of the food chain on Dathomir due to their sheer mass. Only an adult rancor bull had any hope of bringing down one of the giants. Luckily for the rest of the creature population, malklocs