by neetha Napew
Dengar pointed to the cockpit's comm equipment." What happens when somebody recognizes this ship, and they want to talk to Bossk? We might run into some old friend of his, somebody who can tell that this is the Hound."
" True," said Fett. He had turned his gaze back to the ship's controls." But where we're going, we're not likely to encounter many acquaintances of Bossk's. He confined himself to a relatively restricted number of sectors, the worlds and systems where he was well known enough to command a certain measure of respect. That's what he liked. Bossk never showed much initiative about expanding his operations into new territories."
" If you say so." Dengar shrugged." I guess that was his loss, huh?"
" Perhaps." Boba Fett punched another set of coordinates into the navicomputer." Or it might be why he's still alive at all. Sometimes-for creatures like him-it's better to play it safe."
Yeah? And what about creatures like us? He found himself gazing at the back of Boba Fett's helmet, wondering what was going on inside it, what schemes and hidden agendas might be ticking away in the other bounty hunter's skull. It was no help to have seen Fett without the distinctive Mandalorian helmet-he supposed he was one of the few, along with the former dancing girl Neelah, who could make that claim. All that time down on Tatooine, when the two of them had been nursing Boba Fett back to health, keeping him from dying after he'd managed to explode his way out of the Sarlacc's gut-and Dengar was still no closer to figuring out the creature whose life he'd saved. And that was bad news, considering he was now supposedly partners with the deadliest and most feared bounty hunter in the galaxy; a partnership that Boba Fett had proposed and that Dengar had accepted, perhaps a little too quickly, now that he'd had a chance to think it over. Why did I agree to that? The ostensible reason was that the arrangement had seemed the quickest way to make a lot of money, pay off the huge debtload he'd been dragging around for years, and marry his beloved Manaroo-if she were still waiting for him, and if he returned to her as something other than a blaster-fried corpse.
Being out of touch with her was pure torment for Dengar; the depth of his love for Manaroo had not been completely apparent to him until just before he had left Tatooine in Boba Fett's Slave I. Dengar had contacted Manaroo and had instructed her to take his ship The Punishing One and go into hiding. She had done that job well; right now, he had no idea where in this galaxy Manaroo was, and no way of communicating with her. They had agreed together that as long as Dengar was partners with the notorious bounty hunter Boba Fett, it would be too dangerous for them to remain in contact with each other. There were too many creatures with well-nursed grievances against Boba Fett, or who would see some way of profiting by his death; if those creatures discovered that Fett's partner had committed his heart and spirit and fortunes to a female on her own, she would then be seen as the weak point in Fett's armor, the way of getting at him through his business associate. Manaroo would become the target of every low-life scum in the galaxy; she was smart and tough enough to evade and fight them off, but not forever-and Dengar wouldn't be there to protect her. That factor had tormented his mind and influenced his decision more than anything else.
But even that small measure of safety for his beloved had come with a price. Someday they would be together again-but only if they both survived, and if they found one another once more.
Those were big ifs, and getting increasingly bigger in Dengar's mind, the more time he spent hooked up with Boba Fett. Life as a bounty hunter had been hazardous enough, before now-which had been one of the main reasons he'd wanted to get out of this line of work. And now, he thought gloomily, I've gone from the edges of all that danger right to the center. If his luck-and his skills-had been nothing to boast of before, he had at least managed to keep himself alive. But there hadn't been mysterious, unidentified forces bringing a full-scale bombing raid down on his head, as had happened back on Tatooine. The raid obviously hadn't been meant to kill him; his death wouldn't even have been noticed by whoever was gunning for Boba Fett. That was the problem with hooking up with someone like that. Fett had whatever it took to survive under the most murderous conditions- even the Sarlacc hadn't been able to kill him. Too bad, thought Dengar, for anybody else. If you weren't at that level, you were dead meat.
And for what?
" So-" He tried again to get some useful information." If we're not heading anywhere that Bossk used to hang out. . . where exactly is it we're going?"
Boba Fett didn't look around at him." I prefer keeping that on a need-to-know basis. And right now, you don't need it."
A spark of resentment flared inside Dengar." I thought we were supposed to be partners."
" So we are." Fett's gloved hands moved across the cockpit controls." I consider myself bound by the agreement into which we both entered."
" Doesn't seem like much of a partnership, if you're making all the decisions." Dengar's voice tightened inside his throat." I had the impression that somehow we were going to be on an equal footing. I guess I got that wrong, huh?"
This time, Boba Fett did swivel the pilot's chair around. The cold, blank gaze of his helmet's narrow visor fastened on Dengar. The rock that had formed in Dengar's throat now turned into a leaden weight, falling past his heart and into the pit of his stomach.
" You might have had some misapprehension along that line." The flatness of Boba Fett's words was scarier than any show of emotion would have been." But if you continue to believe that we could somehow be equals, then I'm forced to disagree with my partner. There's no way that you and I could be thought of as equals. Not as far as being bounty hunters is concerned."
" Well. . ." The weight in his gut had gone cold, draining all the warmth from Dengar's blood. Boba Fett's hidden gaze seemed to press him downward, like a bug beneath the other's boot." I didn't mean it exactly like that. . ."
" Good. I'd hate to think I had wrongly estimated my partner's value to me." Boba Fett's voice continued, as mild and threatening as before." We do have some value to each other, Dengar. Even beyond your having saved my life, when you found me back there in the Dune Sea. But don't think that you're here, and my partner, simply because of gratitude. I assure you-I don't feel that kind of emotion."
Or any, thought Dengar. He could feel himself sweating inside his own gear. Already, he had gone beyond wishing that he had ever broached this subject with the other bounty hunter.
" We can," said Boba Fett," be very useful to each other. That's the only basis I know for a partnership. Of course, if you consider something else to be the case. . ."
Dengar stared back at the helmet's visor, as though hypnotized by the eyes concealed behind it. All words and thoughts had fled from his own skull.
" Then perhaps we should think about dissolving the partnership. Is that what you want?"
It took a while for Dengar to force a reply past his tongue." No. . ." He shook his head." That's not what I meant at all. . ."
" I'd advise you to think about what it is you want, then." Boba Fett leaned slightly forward in the pilot's chair, bringing the pressure of his visored gaze closer to Dengar." Because if we're not going to be partners-our business relationship will be a lot different."
He's playing with me, thought Dengar. It didn't come as a relief to discover that Boba Fett was capable of emotion, or at least of cruelty. He raised his hands, palm outward, as if in surrender." No," said Dengar hastily," that's okay. I'm perfectly. . . satisfied with the way things are. You run the operations however you want, and that's fine by me."
Boba Fett was silent for a moment, then his helmet tilted in the barest nod of acknowledgment." Very well," he said quietly." There's no confusion now."
" Not in the slightest," agreed Dengar. He found he could breathe once more.
Boba Fett swiveled the pilot's chair back toward
the cockpit controls." I'll make the decisions-and you carry them out."
The last remark puzzled Dengar." Just what is it. . . you want me to do?"
"
When the time comes, there'll be plenty. Don't worry about keeping up your end of the partnership. But in the meantime, why don't you just take it easy? Just relax."
Sure, thought Dengar to himself. As if that's going to happen anytime soon.
" Enjoy the peace and quiet," said Boba Fett as he continued his navigational adjustments," while you can. It might be in short supply where we're heading."
" All right." Dengar stepped back from the cockpit's hatchway." You're the boss."
" Close enough," said Boba Fett." Go below and tell Neelah to strap herself in-you too, for that matter. We'll be making a jump into hyperspace in a few minutes."
He knew better than to ask the destination. Whatever coordinates Boba Fett had punched into the navicomputer, they didn't seem to be open for discussion. That's a real partnership, all right-Dengar turned away from the cockpit and grasped the ladder leading down to the minimal passenger space of the Hound's Tooth. It wouldn't be long before the ship would emerge into some sector of the galaxy, so uninviting that a Trandoshan such as Bossk had never frequented it. That made him feel about as comfortable as what being partners with Boba Fett had turned into.
He turned his head as he started down the metal treads of the ladder, looking back toward the cockpit. The other bounty hunter went about his self-appointed tasks, as though he'd already forgotten Dengar's presence.
Right, thought Dengar. If he'd had any doubts before about the exact nature of the partnership between himself and Boba Fett, they were cleared up now. One way or another-
His boot soles rang on the metal treads of the ladder all the way down.
She could barely believe what she had just heard. Overheard, actually-Neelah had tapped into the Hound's Tooth's internal communications system through an access panel in the main personnel quarters aboard ship. The cramped space was furnished in Trandoshan taste, all dark tapestries over the bulkheads and a jumble of thinly padded sleeping pallets. The tapestries were fastened down at their corners, to keep them from drifting and tangling in case the ship's artificial gravity failed; they depicted various great moments in Trandoshan history and legend, all of them violent. Even while she had been fiddling with the comm equipment, with the specific intent of eavesdropping on Dengar and Boba Fett, she had been thanking fate that the Hound's original pilot wasn't still aboard.
Her gratitude faded a bit when she finally managed to listen in on the conversation up in the cockpit area. She was dismayed at the manner in which Boba Fett walked all over Dengar, for no more reason than a simple inquiry as to where they were all heading. He's one, Neelah thought disgustedly, that's not going to be much use to me. If things came down to a split between herself and Boba Fett-and she could already see how that was becoming increasingly likely-then having the other bounty hunter Dengar on her side wouldn't make much difference. Fett could eliminate them both, without any inconvenience at all.
If it hadn't been clear to her before, it was now obvious why Dengar wanted to get out of the bounty hunter trade so badly. He just doesn't have the guts for it, she thought with a rueful shake of her head. The kind of guts, and the conspicuous lack of nerves, that Boba Fett possessed. Better that Dengar should hang up his weapons and jettison his dwindling reserve of ambition, and settle down on some safe backwater world with his intended bride Manaroo, before he got himself killed or completely imploded from panic.
Neelah had her own conviction, reinforced now that she had listened in on Dengar and Boba Fett, about how matters would wind up going. I'll have to do everything myself. Wherever the Hound's Tooth was headed, and whatever was waiting for them there. She'd have to do it all, including saving her own and Dengar's lives-the cold lack of emotion in Boba Fett's voice assured her that he had no great regard for their survival. Dengar might have fallen for that partnership scam, but she hadn't. Neelah hadn't agreed to it, either; as far as she was concerned, she was an independent operator, with no one's skin but her own to watch out for.
The only problem with that was she still didn't know whose skin that really was. I don't even know my real name, mused Neelah bitterly. Her name, and everything that went with it: history, friends, enemies; who she might be able to ask for help, and receive; who would cut her throat at a moment's notice, if they knew she was alive and off the surface of the planet Tatooine. She had her suspicions, pieced together from logic rather than actual information. Whoever dumped me off at Jabba's palace-whoever it had been, that was the creature for whom she had to watch out. Or creatures in the plural; it might have been a whole conspiracy, any number of the galaxy's sinister forces leagued against her. They must have had their reasons for wiping her memory clean, all her past erased from inside her skull, disguising her as a simple dancing girl, and sticking her inside the fortressed headquarters of one of the most powerful criminal overlords to be found on any world. Perhaps Jabba the Hutt had known the whole story behind her being in his palace-but that didn't do her any good now. Jabba was dead, and all the secrets that the loathsome slug had kept to himself were gone as well.
Almost the only thing that remained from her past, a scrap of memory that had been left behind by the wipe process, was an image. No voice, no words, no other data, however fragmentary. Whoever had done it to her had been meticulously thorough. Perhaps it would have been better for her, though, if they had eradicated that last little bit as well. The image left in Neelah's obliterated memory was that of a face. Or rather a nonface; a mask. The image of Boba Fett's narrow-visored helmet, concealing the living face beneath its hard, inhuman gaze. . .
She had seen that masked face at Jabba's palace, and it had filled her with fear and anger then. Neelah had sensed that the bounty hunter hadn't been just guarding the Hutt as he'd been hired to do-Jabba had been one of the few creatures in the galaxy wealthy enough to have engaged Boba Fett's services like that-but she had also been sure that Fett had been following his own private agenda as well. He came and went from Jabba's court on mysterious errands, though he'd displayed a sure instinct for always being on hand in a moment of crisis, such as when Princess Leia Organa, disguised as an Ubese bounty hunter demanding the reward for a captured Wookiee, had brandished an activated thermal detonator right in front of Jabba. Boba Fett had snapped his blaster rifle up into firing position in less than a heartbeat, as most of Jabba's other guards had dived for cover.
Nobody had died that time, but it hadn't been for any lack of readiness on Boba Fett's part. Jabba had paid the bounty and the disguised princess had deactivated the explosive device-otherwise there wouldn't even have been ruins left of Jabba's palace. Neelah was sure, though, that Boba Fett would have survived somehow; he always did, no matter how many other creatures died around him.
And-strangely-she also knew that she would have still been alive, no matter what happened. Let the fire fall, thought Neelah; she would have emerged unscathed, carried to safety by. . . Boba Fett. Who else?
That was the meaning, she had little doubt, of the interest Fett had shown in her welfare, back at Jabba's palace. It hadn't taken her long to pick up on it, that every time the bounty hunter had returned from one of his mysterious errands, his helmeted gaze had turned in her direction, making certain that she was still there, alive and unharmed.
Which took some doing in a den of violence like Jabba's palace, where all the thugs and scoundrels took their cues from their master's own tastes in the suffering of other creatures. A Hutt like Jabba didn't count his wealth just in how many credits he kept heaped up in his treasure vaults, but also in how much pain and death he could inflict. . . and savor, like one of the squirming little delicacies that his tiny hands had stuffed into the lipless chasm of his mouth. A good number of Jabba's hirelings had worked for cheap-his favorite salary arrangement-with the understanding that they could indulge their cruel appetites as well.
Poor Oola had been one of the prettiest of the palace's dancing girls, and thus reserved for Jabba's pleasure; that had been symbolized by the fine-linked chain he'd kept her on.
Not for me, thought Neelah. She touched her face with one hand, her fingertips tracing the healed scar of the wound she'd received from the pikestaff of one of the Gamorrean palace guards when she'd made her own escape. Even before the honed metal had slashed across her jaw and cheek, she hadn't been of quite the same fragile loveliness as Oola had been. Given Jabba's sadistic tastes, the pleasure he had taken in seeing beauty viciously ripped to bleeding pieces, to be not quite so beautiful was a blessing; during her time in the palace, Neelah had seen prettier females than herself tossed to Jabba's pet rancor, and had heard their brief screams from the depths of the pit while Jabba's sniggering thugs had clustered around the edge, enjoying the sight nearly as much as their master had.
But there had been another reason for Neelah's longer life span within the thick stone walls of Jabba's palace. The first glimmerings of her suspicions had grown into absolute certainty. It was him, thought Neelah. It was Boba Fett. She glanced up again toward the cockpit area of the Hound's Tooth. An invisible connection stretched between herself and the helmeted bounty hunter piloting the ship. The same mysterious connection that had existed between them back in Jabba's palace. Without a word ever having passed between a mere dancing girl and the galaxy's most feared bounty hunter-at least, no word that her ravaged memory could recall-she had known even then that Boba Fett had been keeping watch on her. So that no harm would come to her-that is, none of a fatal kind. Life in the palace had had its numerous and imaginative unpleasantries, most of which had caused Neelah and the other dancing girls to wonder if a quick exit via the rancor pit wouldn't have been preferable. But Neelah had realized at some point that choice wasn't open to her. She'd had a guardian, of a sort; Boba Fett's careful and silent observation hadn't been trained just on his Huttese employer.
