Prologue
As the rickety old vessel blasted through hyperspace, Sergeant Rainbow Dash of Wonderbolt squad reclined in her chair and watched the stars streak by. They enveloped the entire viewport, forming a mesmerizing tunnel of blue lines. It was hard to believe that it had only been three days since she'd arrived on Ord Mantell, but Rainbow Dash was well on her way to Cowlick Station and then on to Coruscant.
With her legs crossed on the dashboard and her hooves behind her head, the Sergeant was all but asleep. Her eyes fluttered constantly, fighting the rest that she so desperately wanted. They were going to arrive soon, and she wanted to be awake when they did. But every time she checked the navicomputer to see the ship's approximate arrival time, it didn't seem to change from the last time.
Her eyes darted to the navicomputer anyway, for the fifth time in the last minute. There was still four hours left in the trip.
“Agh!” she cried, sitting upright in her chair. “Go faster, you stupid hunk of metal!”
The cockpit door slid open and Lemon Drop, the yellow earth pony stallion friend of Pinkie Pie's, entered inside. He looked over at Dash and snickered.
“Bored, Sergeant?” he prodded.
“I'm not playing that stupid game with you and Pinkie,” Dash fired back. “I don't need to lose any more credits than I already have playing Sabacc with smugglers.”
“We could play a friendly game, then. Anything to pass the time.”
“I'll wait here. The view's cool.”
Lemon Drop sighed. “Sergeant, come play. You're all alone in here.”
“Why do you care so much, dude?” She twisted her chair around to look him in the eye. His gaze was pleading, almost apologetic. “No offense.”
“None taken. I'm just concerned, for Pinkie's sake.”
“What's the deal with you and her, by the way?” Dash asked.
Lemon's face twisted into a look of confusion. “What?”
“You care a lot about her, so much so that you'd come in here to see if I'm okay just because I'm her friend. There's gotta be a story behind that.”
“There is. I'd rather you hear it from her, though.” He motioned out the door, toward the cargo hold down the hallway. “She really wanted to tell you, if I recall correctly.”
Rainbow Dash gritted her teeth, twisted her head and glared down at the navicomputer one last time. Three hours, fifty-eight minutes, forty-three seconds.
“Fine. No gambling though.”
“Scout's honor,” Lemon replied, giving a mock salute before turning around and leading Dash to the cargo hold.
Inside, Pinkie Pie sat at a makeshift table consisting of a metal crate slammed atop another. Across from her was Twilight, who was holding five cards in her hooves and staring at them intently. The bland yellow walls of the cargo hold were partially frosted over in some spots and had burn marks in others. The room was temperate in the moment, however, no longer needing to be kept cool for bomb storage, which had been its previous use before being repurposed from the Ord Mantell Separatists.
Twilight looked up from her hand as Lemon and Dash walked into the room and grinned. Then she played four of her cards onto the table. “Negative 23.”
Pinkie blinked, flipped three of her own off the table, and smiled back. “Positive 23. I win again, Lieutenant!”
Furious, Twilight slammed her remaining card onto the table and gritted her teeth. “There’s no way. You must be cheating! Fourteen hands in a row, and you’ve beaten me every time!”
“Oh Twilight, I never lose at Sabacc!” Pinkie looked up at Lemon. “Isn’t that right, Lemony?”
“I’ve never witnessed her lose,” Lemon assured. He sat down at the table by pulling a smaller crate up next to it and picked up a hand of cards. “The Sergeant is here, by the way.”
“Oh! Dashie! Hi!” Pinkie smiled even wider than before, if that was even possible. “Sit, play a game! The Lieutenant has no credits left, so it’ll be for funsies!”
“Yeah, alright,” Rainbow Dash said with a sigh. She likewise pulled up a chair and sat down, picking up the cards off the table. “So, Pinkie, I actually came in here to hear that story.”
“What story?”
“About how you and Lemon met.”
Pinkie’s eyes darted to Lemon, then back to Dash. She had a crooked smile on her lips. “Fine. I’ll tell you. But you gotta beat me in Sabacc.”
“What?” Dash glanced at Twilight, who shook her head at her. “Why?”
“Because I wanna play for stakes! Sabacc is a gambling game, silly. It’s fine to play for fun every now and again, but stakes make it even more fun!”
“And what if I lose?” Dash asked warily.
“Then I don’t tell you until you win.” Pinkie picked up her hand, nodded, then placed them face down on the table. “I’m locked and standing. Lemon?”
“Hold on, I’m gonna take a discard.” He threw the card farthest on the right into the pile and drew another from the deck. His face skewed as he discarded another card, then another, before finally smiling. “Keep.”
Twilight nodded to Pinkie, signalling she was keeping. Dash looked down at her hand and did her best not to react. “Keep also.”
Pinkie led. She played two of her cards onto the table, a six and an eight. “Positive fourteen. Can ya’ beat it?”
Lemon laid three down, two tens and a one. “Negative twenty-one.”
Pinkie looked back at her hand, then to Twilight. “Anything, Lieutenant?”
Twilight placed her whole hand onto the table, her gaze locked onto Pinkie Pie. “Negative twenty-three.”
“I fold,” Lemon said quietly, placing his cards gently back on the table. Pinkie looked back at her hand and sighed.
“Positive twenty-three.” She placed an eleven on the table and smiled back at Twilight, who threw her hooves up in exasperation. “Sorry, ladies. I guess I’m too good-”
“Wait!” Dash interjected. She confidently placed three cards on the table, a two of coins, a three of coins, and a face card called The Idiot, which represented zero. “Idiot’s Array.”
“What?!” All three of the other players leaned in to see Dash’s unbeatable draw, eliciting a low whistle from Lemon Drop.
“I guess Pinkie has just had her first loss,” he chuckled, nudging Pinkie with his hoof playfully. “A deal’s a deal, Pink.”
Pinkie Pie blinked, then smiled up at Dash. “Good job! Well played, Dashie! Very lucky!”
“Alright, I won fair and square,” she said. “I want to hear this story.”
“Yeah, yeah, keep your helmet on. Lemme reshuffle and redeal. We can keep playing while I tell the story, right?”
-~-~-~-~-~
Down in the depths of the undercity, Coruscant’s nightlife bustled and boomed, even moreso than the daytime traffic father up. The Dealer’s Den was unusually crowded that evening, however, on account of the unofficial championship Sabacc game. Smugglers, bounty hunters, criminals, gang members, and leisure gamblers alike all gathered together in the spirit of cards and credits to witness the reigning champion of twenty years go up against a complete novice that had clawed her way to the top through luck, skill and determination. It was the match of the century; the renowned smuggler Pinkie Pie versus the incorrigible Lucky Draw.
Both ponies sat down at a glowing holotable in the middle of a vast cantina, with neon lights and holodancers every few meters and a ceiling higher than the buildings outside, or so it seemed. The bars were closing for the duration of the match and instead opened up for bets to be placed. Not that the championship pot wasn’t huge enough already. Ten million credits had already been accumulated and the bets only added to it.
This was a really big deal.
The first five cards were dealt. It was a best out of five, and Lucky Draw had never lost a championship match. Pinkie Pie, unshaken by her odds, giggled and picked her cards up.
“Good luck!” she chanted from across the table.
“To you as well, madam,” replied Lucky Draw as he picked up his hand. The cards were like little television monitors that changed their face values during the course of the betting phase. It was much more random than playing with physical cards. Both ponies surveyed their hands for a moment, then he led the first bid. “Ten thousand says I win this.”
“Twenty says you’re wrong,” Pinkie sang.
Perplexed, Lucky looked down at his hand again. The values of his cards changed before his eyes, just as he predicted they had. His hand value went from twenty to twenty three.
“Thirty.”
“Forty.”
Surely she doesn’t have an Array. “Fifty!”
“Fifty-fiii-ive.”
The crowd gasped. She was outbetting him over and over. Appalled, Lucky called her bluff. “Seventy five!”
“One hundred thousand credits, Lucky-ma’h-boy!” Pinkie stood up in her chair and pirouetted gracefully before sliding back into her seat again, holding her cards as calmly as she had been before. “Are you positive your hand is keepable?”
He looked once again to see his numbers were changing again. Thirteen became his new total. “I fold.”
“Yay!” Pinkie threw her cards onto the table to reveal her total to be negative seven and began spinning in her chair. The crowd went bananas, some patrons throwing money at the bartenders in an attempt to place last-minute bets. “Round two!”
Shocked but mostly calm, Lucky Draw picked up his new hand and read the cards. Twenty one. “I bet ten.”
“Ooooooooone hundreeeeeeeeeed!” Pinkie sang. She had not stopped spinning in her chair since she’d won the last round. Everypony in the crowd was screaming by this point.
“A hundred fifty!” Lucky countered.
“I match! What’s your hand?”
He played his twenty one and was mortified to see her literally sling negative twenty two onto the table midspin. Patrons from across the room roared with excitement as the cards were randomized for the third round.
Lucky regained his composure after nearly slamming his hoof on the table and checked his hand. “Twenty.”
“I fold.”
The crowd went dead.
Pinkie looked around at the silent ponies and blinked. Even Lucky, who had been doing well at maintaining a Sabacc face, had his mouth agape. The next hand was dealt, and Pinkie instantly declared another fold. What might have been an easy three-win steal became a five-game showdown. A sudden death match. Lucky Draw picked up his last hand and felt a lump form in his throat. The fifth match was always the most stressful. He almost felt better losing the third game than the fifth.
That was, of course, Pinkie’s strategy. And, of course, longer games were more fun.
“I bet ten thousand,” Lucky stated, nervously holding his hand.
“Twenty five!” Pinkie countered.
“Thirty-” His declaration was cut short by the randomizing of his hand. Suddenly, his value jumped to twenty three. “Thirty-five thousand.”
“Forty thousand!” came the inevitable call-back. The crowd was on the edge of their seats.
“Sixty.”
“Eighty.”
“A hundred thousand credits.” Lucky smirked. He wasn’t losing this.
“A million!”
A glass shattered on the ground. Lucky’s smirk grew to a full smile. “I match.”
He calmly placed his cards on the table, and Pinkie did the same. His total was still twenty three. Her hand consisted of a twelve, a three of sabres, a two of coins, a three of coins, and The Idiot.
Just when the silence couldn’t get any more overwhelming, the entire cantina erupted into a mixture of shouts, cheers and applause. Lucky Draw’s smile faded into a dismayed frown, until the realization that he’d just thrown a million credits out the window on a bad call hit him like a grand piano; then he slumped to the floor in a mess of tears. Pinkie Pie was lifted into the air by the nearby patrons that had just struck rich on bets, thanks to her, and was carried to the nearest bartender, where she was placed in a chair and encircled.
She looked around and smiled. It was obvious what they wanted.
“Party time, everypony!” she shouted. “Drinks on me!”
More chaos erupted.