They wanted him to smuggle Jandarra, to Shalam—Han had almost laughed aloud when the Mayor’s representative had approached him; Jandarra was one of Leia’s favorite treats. He expected that even she would be amused when he showed up on Shalam with a cargo hold full of it; and certainly the Shalamites wouldn’t dare prosecute him over it.
The Mayor smiled at Solo. She was a tall, obese woman with features that did not take to a smile very easily. Four bodyguards were present; two at the entrance to the warehouse, two a few steps behind the Mayor, all armed with assault rifles. “Gentleman Morgavi—Luke, isn’t it?”
Han smiled at her. “That’s right. Luke Morgavi. As I told your aide, ma’am, I’m an independent trader out of Boranda.”
She nodded. “A pleasure, Luke. Please, follow me.” She led him down through rows of hydroponics tanks, to a row toward the back where the growing lights were both brighter and of a different wavelength. Inside the tanks, small purple and green tubular vegetables grew. “Jandarra,” she said. “They’re native to Jubilar; they’re a great delicacy, and they usually only grow in the desert after relatively rare rainstorms. After almost two years of work we managed to cultivate them—”
Han nodded. “And the Shalamite slapped a 100% tariff on you.”
Anger touched her voice. “We have eighty thousand credits’ worth of Jandarra here that are only worth forty thousand after the Shalamite tariff.”
“Those Shalamite,” Han commiserated. “Can’t trust ’em. They cheat at cards, too—did you know that?”
She stopped and studied Han. “No … Gentleman Morgavi. I did not.” You cheat at cards, she thought, and kept the pleasant smile on her face—it was hard work. He really didn’t recognize her—well, thirty years was a long time, after all, and she’d put on sixty kilos; and her last name, back then, before her marriage to the unfortunate Miagi Baker, had been Incavi Larado.
He’d said he’d come back, and here he was, the New Republic’s infamous General Solo—and only thirty years late.
“Eighty thousand credits’ worth,” she said again. “Delivered to Shalamite. That’s a forty thousand upside, and we’d be willing to go—”
“Fifty percent,” said Han politely. “Which would be twenty thousand credits, and I’d be happy to make the run for that amount.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You think you can get past the Shalamite Navy?”
Han said, “Lady, I used to run the Imperial lines. I’m talking about the old Star Destroyers—let me tell you a story—”
Out in the darkness, Boba Fett lay on his stomach, carefully adjusting his aim—he had to shoot in through the main entrance to the hydroponics warehouse, which wouldn’t have been difficult except that some of the tanks were in his way—he was going to have to wait for Solo to come back out toward the warehouse’s entrance.
Fett waited patiently. He was surprised by his good fortune; who would have thought that a trap he had set three decades ago would come to fruition now?
Good fortune indeed—even today, with the Empire fallen, Han Solo had lots of enemies: Jabba’s relatives, loyal officers of the Empire who had managed to maintain small fiefdoms on a thousand planets across the galaxy; and the various bounties on Solo, Dead or Alive, were still impressive, even with Vader and Jabba and the Empire long gone; still worth making an effort for, even with four and half million credits in the bank.
Oddly enough, the sight of Solo—looking at him through the rifle scope—filled Fett with a nostalgia that surprised him. There was no question in Fett’s mind that Solo was a bad man, worse in every way that counted than the Butcher of Montellian Serat; and if that bounty had brought Fett no joy, he had handed the Butcher over to his executioners with little enough in the way of regret.
Solo, though—it came to Fett as a revelation that Solo’s presence, over the course of the decades, had in a way been oddly comforting. He had been a part, however peripherally, of Fett’s life for so long that Fett had difficulty picturing a world without him. The world had changed, and changed, and only Solo had remained a constant.
He’d Hunted Solo for various clients, various bounties. Fett had difficulty picturing a world without Solo—
—he leaned in and touched the scope’s focusing ring. Solo’s image, and that of the woman Fett assumed was Incavi Larado, though he did not recognize her, leapt into sharp relief; and Fett’s finger tightened on the trigger.
He wouldn’t make the mistake of trying to take Solo alive, not again.
And he would learn to picture a world without him.
• • •
They headed toward the entrance together, Mayor Incavi Baker smiling patiently, and with a certain effort that Han did not miss. He stayed a half step behind her as she walked, keeping part of her bulk between him and the loading docks outside, where the lights had gone out not long after they had all entered the warehouse together. The loading docks outside were pitch black; they might have assembled an army for all Han knew—
“—so this kid,” said Han, “his name was—uh, Maris, and this old guy with delusions—Jocko, yeah, anyway this guy Jocko, he thinks he’s a Jedi Knight—and let me tell you, that old guy with his delusions, he was a pain in the butt—anyway they tell me they have to get past the Imperial lines—”
What did they have waiting for him out there?
What had he walked into?
He knows something is wrong, Fett thought. He’s—
The main power line entered the warehouse at the northeast, and split, one bundle running up to the ceiling and the overhead lights, and another bundle running back toward the hydroponics tanks.
Han cocked his wrist a certain way, and the holdout blaster in his left sleeve dropped down into his hand.
Boba Fett had the crosshairs hovering just to the left of Incavi Baker’s approaching form; the cross-hair found Solo’s breast, lost it, found it again.
Fett squeezed the trigger—
—the warehouse lights died—
The blaster bolt tore through the darkness like a flash of lightning.
Han hit the ground rolling, sparks still trailing away from the spot where his first shot had struck the power cable, rolled away firing left-handed at the locations where he remembered the two closer bodyguards standing, pulling his blaster free right-handed. Screams, the woman was screaming, and he got off four shots with the holdout before it malfunctioned, burning out, the power supply flashing hot and terribly bright as it went, lighting Han as a target to the world, and Han came up out of his roll and made it to his feet and ran backward through the darkness, through the rows of hydroponics tanks, spots dancing in his eyes, using his scalded left hand on the sides of the tanks, to guide himself, as blaster bolts rained around him.
In that single flash as the holdout blaster had arced out, he had seen a shape running toward the warehouse entrance, a shape out of Han Solo’s nightmares, a shape out of the galaxy’s darkest history—a man in Mandalorian combat armor.
Incavi Baker lay on her back, staring up into infinity. There was a terrible pain in her side, and she knew she was dying.
She wished it weren’t so dark. Bright lights flashed around her, blaster bolts that lit the world up briefly, but even the blaster bolts were fading now.
A figure loomed up out of the darkness, knelt beside her. A man in gray armor. Incavi opened her mouth—but nothing came, and the man reached for her.
Something sharp and cold touched her neck.
Gradually, the pain went away.
• • •
A ringing in his ears.
The four bodyguards were dead; Solo must have killed the one off to the side, Fett thought, curled up around whatever wound Solo had left in him—Fett knew he had only killed the three who were still standing when he entered the warehouse, and that had been as much reflex as anything.
But—
He knelt beside the woman, holding her hand, until her thrashing stopped.
In all his years as a bounty hun
ter he had never killed the wrong target before, and there was a tightness in his throat he hadn’t felt since the day of his exile from Concord Dawn. He felt an absurd desire to apologize to the woman, which was ridiculous, she was as guilty of sin as any human being had ever been in the history of time, Fett had known her in her earlier days and there was nothing worthwhile in her or in her life, and certainly the galaxy would not miss her presence—
But he had not meant to kill her.
She shuddered slightly and her hand, holding his, went limp.
The macrobinoculars buried in his helmet didn’t help much, not in this darkness; they showed the still-warm forms of four bodyguards, and the bulk of this dead old woman; they showed the heat still emanating from the lamp fixtures that were now without power.
Toward the back of the warehouse, a heat source moved.
Fett came to his feet, rifle in hand, and went Hunting.
Mandalorian combat armor.
I didn’t come prepared for this, Han thought. He had an assault rifle, taken from the bodyguard he’d kicked in the groin, but that wasn’t going to help so much, unless he got in close to Fett, and that was going to be hard, with the macrobinoculars in Fett’s helmet.
He had to get out of this darkened warehouse, out into the night, where there were places to run, and places to hide, and try to reach the speeder he’d come here in.
Han couldn’t believe this was happening to him.
He gathered his legs up beneath him, checked the safety on the assault rifle—he heard movement, out toward the front of the warehouse. Careful and quick—he kept his head down and ran in a crouch toward the warehouse’s rear entrance.
Lando would be jealous, if Han made it back to tell him about it, and Lando made it back to be told.
Leia was going to be furious.
Fett ducked down behind one of the growing tanks, unlimbered his flare gun and fired a shot toward the warehouse’s roof.
Actinic orange light flared; it would give Solo some light to work with. The interior of the warehouse became bright as day, and huge wavering shadows struck away from the warehouse’s supporting beams, as the flare hit the ceiling, crawled along it for several seconds, and started to descend.
Something rattled, off at the eastern end of the warehouse; Fett held his position, held his fire. Solo had thrown something—the sound came again. Patience, patience—
A single shot, the sound of broken glass, that was Solo making an exit for himself through one of the windows, before the flare faded, while he could still see to run, and Fett surged to his feet to shoot Solo down as he made for the broken window.
He had time to see Han Solo, standing fifty meters away, pointing one of the bodyguards’ assault rifles at him. The shot took Fett in his breastplate and blew him off his feet.
Han Solo turned and ran, hit the shattered window and dove through it like a young man in his prime.
Boba Fett rolled over, staggered back to his feet only a second later, the breastplate of his combat armor so hot it burned everywhere it touched him, and in a murderous rage charged after Solo, as unaware of the pain that throbbed in his legs and chest as if it belonged to someone else.
Han ran toward his speeder under the dim light from the planet’s only moon. He was slightly disoriented; he couldn’t remember whether the downlot where he’d left the speeder was south and west, or south and east; he ran south down one of the long alleyways between the warehouses, breath coming short, and came up to the last building, the last cover before the downlot, and hesitated before rounding the corner, the downlot was either immediately to his left or immediately to his right. He tried to envision the layout of the warehouse park in his mind—he thought he’d come the quick way around, but maybe not, and if he hadn’t, then Fett might have reached the downlot before him.
A scraping sound, metal on stone—
Before he even realized what he was doing Han found himself rounding the corner, rifle up and finger tightening on the trigger as Boba Fett was turning toward him, bringing up his own rifle—
They stood there in the middle of nowhere, on a planet the rest of the galaxy had more than half forgotten, pointing assault rifles at one another, from a distance of less than a meter.
Han didn’t fire.
Fett didn’t fire.
Bizarre details piled in on Han. The aperture of Fett’s assault rifle was huge, as big as the Death Star had seemed at first sight. The barrel wasn’t perfectly steady, it wavered slightly, moving around in almost invisibly tiny circles. The moonlight glinted off Fett’s scarred armor; Han could see the moon, reflected darkly on the black visor.
He was still out of breath from the running. His voice caught when he spoke. “I guess we’re going to … die together.”
Fett’s voice—as harsh and raw as ever. “Evidently.”
Han stared over the sight at him. “Your armor won’t save you. Not at this range.”
“No.”
“I doubt you can kill me quick enough to keep me from firing.”
Fett’s helmet moved, slightly—a nod. “I doubt it too.”
Han did not dare take his eye away from his rifle’s sight, aiming at the base of Fett’s throat. “You killed those people back there. The woman.”
Han could have sworn he saw a shiver run up the bounty hunter’s frame. “I’m sorry about that. They—she—was not the target.”
Han almost pulled the trigger on him. He could hear the rage in his own voice. “You’re going to die and I’m going to die and maybe we both of us deserve it. That woman didn’t do any—”
“She’s the one who called me!”
Han took a step forward and screamed, “I don’t care!” He found to his amazement that he was standing with the barrel of his rifle jammed up against Fett’s armor, that the barrel of Fett’s rifle was digging into his own breastbone. “I don’t know what made you like you are, you think you get to decide who lives and dies, I don’t care, come on, pull the trigger and we’ll die together!” He stared into the black visor. “Last decision you’ll ever get to make.”
Boba Fett said in a voice so soft Han would have sworn it could not have been Fett’s, “You first.” His voice got even softer, amazingly. “You’re married, aren’t you? You have children who need you. What were you doing out here, Solo, pretending to be young? This is no place for a man like you.”
The fury that touched Han was bone deep. “Don’t you talk about my children, I’ll kill you so fast—”
“Do you want to die?”
Han took a deep breath. “Do you?”
Fett shook his head, the tiniest possible movement of the visor. “No. But I do not see a way out.”
The faintest breath of hope touched Han. “All right. You put down your rifle. I won’t kill you if you put down your rifle.”
Fett whispered it. “No. You put down yours. I won’t kill you if you put down yours. I’ll let you go back to your family, unharmed. Put down your weapons—”
“I don’t trust you.”
“Nor I,” said Fett, “you.”
A cool wind blew across the downlot; Han felt it drying his sweat, chilling him. “We take five steps back,” Han said finally. “You drop your rifle and you run like a gundark on fire. Even if I do shoot at you that armor would protect you.”
“I have bad legs. I don’t think I can outrun you.”
Han could not stop thinking of his children, of Leia. “Just walk away, put the rifle down and walk away. I’m an honest man. I won’t kill you.”
“You’re a liar,” said Fett, “by all the evidence. I think you would.” Fett paused. “When I was a young man,” he said finally, “I think I would have pulled the trigger by now. But I find that I do not hate you, and I am not ready to die to remove you from the world.”
“I made a mistake, coming here to Jubilar. I do hate you, I hate everything you’ve done—but my wife and children need me.”
“I don’t see a way out of this,” said Fett,
“that does not involve trying to trust one another.”
“This rifle is getting heavy,” said Han, which it was; he watched Fett over the sight. “What are we going to do?”
“Everyone dies,” said Fett.
“Yeah. Eventually. But it doesn’t have to be today, not for either of us.”
Fett shook his head; the helmet barely moved, and Han did not imagine that Fett’s attention had shifted even slightly. “I do not know,” Fett said softly. “Trust is hard, among enemies. Perhaps we should return to the battle; perhaps, Han Solo, we should let fly, and once more let fate decide who will survive, as we did when we were young.”
About the Author
Kevin J. Anderson is the author of nearly 100 novels, 48 of which have appeared on national or international bestseller lists; he has over 22 million books in print in thirty languages. He has won or been nominated for the Nebula Award, Bram Stoker Award, the SFX Reader’s Choice Award, and New York Times Notable Book.
Anderson has coauthored eleven books in the Dune saga with Brian Herbert, as well as the new original novel, Hellhole. Anderson’s popular epic SF series, The Saga of Seven Suns, is his most ambitious work, and he has completed a sweeping fantasy trilogy, Terra Incognita, about sailing ships, sea monsters, and the crusades. As an innovative companion project to Terra Incognita, Anderson cowrote (with wife Rebecca Moesta) the lyrics for two ambitious rock CDs based on the novels. Performed by the supergroup Roswell Six for ProgRock Records, the two CDs feature performances by rock legends from Kansas, Dream Theater, Asia, Saga, Rocket Scientists, Shadow Gallery, and others.
His novel Enemies & Allies chronicles the first meeting of Batman and Superman in the 1950s; Anderson also wrote The Last Days of Krypton. He has written numerous Star Wars projects, including the Jedi Academy trilogy, the Young Jedi Knights series (with Moesta), and Tales of the Jedi comics from Dark Horse. Fans might also know him from his X-Files novels or Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein: Prodigal Son.
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