Star Wars - Tales Of The Bounty Hunters

by Tales of the Bounty Hunters (edited by Kevin J Anderson)

  Fett had not bothered to look at anything yet except the controls for the security system. As far as he could tell it was all passive security, nothing that would shoot at the Slave TVif he brought it down to a landing in the clearing a few kilometers back along his trail. Finally satisfied, he turned back to the bounty.

  "On your feet. We're going to walk a bit. I had to leave the callback outside range of your sensors."

  Malloc grimaced, showing sharp teeth. He was large for a Devaronian, which made him very large for a human. He spoke in Basic with less accent than Fett's own. "No. I don't think I will."

  Fett hefted the man's own assault rifle. He shrugged. "Devaronians are tough; I know that about you. You do not go into shock and you do not die easily. You'll walk-or I'll burn off your arms and your legs to make you lighter, and then I'll dragyou where we are going." Fett paused. "Your choice."

  The bounty said wearily, "Kill me. I'm not walking."

  "I'll do worse than kill you," said Fett patiently-his left knee was paining him, his entire right leg was on fire from the prosthesis upward, and he really didn't want to drag this very large Devaronian two kilometers, not even after lightening him.

  Malloc let his head fall back, to the wall behind him. "Do you know what you're doing, bounty hunter? Do you even know who I am?"

  Fett fired a quick burst into the wall near Malloc's head, to get his attention; it did no more than singe the damp wooden wallboards. "Listen. I am Boba Fett." It had been a generation since one of his bounties had failed to recognize the name; it brought this fellow's eyes alive. Fear, Fett assumed. "And you are Kardue'sai'Malloc, the Butcher of Montellian Serat, and you're worth five million credits. Alive. And nothing dead, so you will not annoy me into killing you."

  "Boba Fett," he whispered. He stared up into Fett's face. "You're an ugly piece of prey. I heard you were after me."

  Fett couldn't believe how much talking he was hav-ing to do to keep from dragging this fellow two klicks. "Yes. Now do I burn your-"

  "They say you're honest."

  That was an opening to a negotiation, if Fett had ever heard one. ' 'What do you have? Something worth trad-ing five million credits for?"

  Malloc stared at Fett, searching his features for-Fett could not imagine what. He took a breath, winced, and then nodded. "Yes. By the Cold, I do. Something worth five million credits easy. Maybe more. Something price-less, Fett-"

  Fett said impatiently, "What?"

  "Rang," Malloc whispered. "Maxa Jandovar, Janet Lalasha. Miracle Meriko-"

  The last name Fett recognized, and knew the idiot was lying to him. "Meriko died in Imperial custody twenty-five years ago, you lying fool, and the bounty on him was twenty thousand credits, not any five mil-''

  "Music! "Malloc yelled. He glared at Fett. "You unciv-ilized barbarian! Music! I have the music of Maxa Jandovar, and Orin Mersai. M'lar'Nkai'kambric," he took a deep breath, yelled again, "Lubrics, Aishara, Dyll-"

  Fett shook his head wearily. "No. No, I don't care about your music. Now willyou get up? Or must I carve you up and drag you?"

  The Butcher leaned his head back and stared up at the roof. The light caught his predator's eyes and glim-mered back out of them. "By the Cold," he whispered, "but you're ignorant. Even for a human you're igno-rant. There are people who will pay for that music, Fett. I have the only recordings left of half a dozen of the galaxy's finest musicians. The Empire killed the musi-cians, destroyed their music-"

  "Five million credits?" said Fett politely.

  The Butcher hesitated a second too long. "More than that-"

  Fett pointed the rifle at the Butcher's legs. "Negotia-tion is over. I will drag you if you make me," and he was not joking.

  Malloc closed his eyes, and spoke a bare moment before Fett had decided to start cutting. "I'll walk. But you have to make me three promises. You dig up my music chips, they're buried in a holding case under a few centimeters of dirt, out back. After you deliver me to Devaron, you take those chips to the person I tell you to take them to, and you sell them to her for whatever she can offer. And finally-" He nodded toward the bottles of golden liquor. "We take six of those with us. I'm going to need them." He saw Fett shaking his head, and said sharply, "This is not a negotiation, ignorant human. You start shooting if you think it is, but I warn you, I'll do my level best to die on you between here and Devaron. I have a mean streak in me, bounty hunter."

  Bounty hunting, thought Boba Fett wearily, is not what it used to be. He waved the rifle at Malloc. "Fine. Agreed. Get up. and show me where your blasted music is buried."

  "Welcome to Death, Gentleman Morgavi. What do you have to declare?"

  As was so frequently the case anymore, at least when dealing with other humans, the customs agent standing before Han Solo, in the bright Jubilar sunshine, seemed. well, he struck Han as younger than Luke Skywalker had seemed the first time Han had seen him.

  A grin touched Han; he couldn't help it. "No. Noth-ing to declare."

  The boy looked at the Falcon, and then back at Han. Suspicion worked its way across his face like a baby negotiating its first steps. "Nothing?" he asked finally.

  Despite his best instincts Han's grin grew larger. "Sorry, no. I just came to Jubilar for a visit." The kid thought he was a smuggler. "I'll just head on over to the port bar," he said. "I expect you want to search the ship right about now."

  The grin appeared to be offending the customs man. "Yes, sir. Why don't you just. wait in the bar. While we search. Of course, if you're in a hurry-" The man paused.

  Han Solo tried to remember the last time he had bribed a customs official, and couldn't.

  "I haven't smuggled anything since, well, practically before the Rebellion," Han told the fellow. He headed off toward the main terminal, turned back for a mo-ment. "There are cargo holds right underneath the main deck. I left them unlocked, though. Don't break anything trying to get into them, okay?"

  The customs agent stared after him.

  "I'll have a beer," said Han. "Corellian, if you've got it."

  The port bar was nearly empty; only a few elderly Gamorreans sat together in a booth in back, playing some game that involved throwing bones; a creature of some race Han had never seen before sat at the far end of the bartop, inhaling something that, even from here, reeked of ammonia.

  The bartender looked Han over, nodded, and turned toward the bar. A long mirror hung on the wall behind the bar; Han stared at himself in it. He thought that the gray in his hair gave him a distinguished look.

  "I thought this city was called 'Dying Slowly,' " Han said as a dark beer was laid down in front of him. "When did the name change?"

  The bartender shrugged. "It's always been called just 'Death,' far as I know."

  "How long you been on-planet?"

  "Eight years."

  "What for?"

  The bartender stared at him. "Take some advice- you don't ask that sort of question around here." He shook his head and turned away.

  Han nodded, and sat drinking his beer; he'd known that, once. A thought struck him. "Hey, buddy."

  The bartender looked over at him.

  "Just out of curiosity," said Han-

  He paused and looked around at the nearly empty mid-afternoon bar.

  He leaned back in toward the bartender. "Now that spice is legal. what sorts of things get smuggled around here, these days?"

  The trip to Devaron took long enough that Malloc's shoulder wound was nearly healed by the time they neared hyperspace breakout, though the leg was start-ing to fester, and none of the drugs Fett had seemed to be helping-Fett hoped sincerely that the injury wouldn't kill the fellow before they reached Devaron.

  Fett had sent a communication ahead to the Bounty Hunter's Guild. Normally he would not have bothered to involve the Guild; but normally he did not have a five million credit bounty. A Guild representative should be waiting at Devaron when they reached it.

  Fett kept the Butcher down in the Slave TV's holding room through mos
t of the trip.

  In the remaining minutes left before their exit from hyperspace, Fett dressed himself. The Mandalorian combat armor he dressed in was not the armor he had worn in years past; that armor, burned and cracked, was still somewhere deep inside the Great Pit of Carkoon, back on Tatooine. But Mandalorian combat armor, though rare, could still be acquired if you went about it right. For years Fett had been hearing about another bounty hunter who wore Mandalorian combat armor, a fellow named Jodo Kast. It had annoyed him terribly. With some frequency, during those years, Fett had found himself being blamed for, and credited with, things Kast had done.

  Less than a year after his escape from the Sarlacc, Fett had hunted Jodo Kast down, via the Bounty Hunter's Guild; he'd pretended to be a client, dis-guised in bandages; his own Guild had not known him. He'd requested the services of Kast, and Kast had come; by that time Fett had changed into his own spare armor, taken away the impostor's armor, and also his life.

  Before the ship left hyperspace Fett brought the Butcher up to the control room and put him in the chair nearest the airlock. Malloc was sweating heavily, fighting with his fear. He'd drunk his first five bottles early in the trip; Fett had held back the sixth botde for this moment. Fett restrained Malloc at the ankles, and by his right hand; he left the Devorian's left hand un-chained, so that Malloc might drink. Once he was satis-fied with Malloc's bonds Fett unsealed and handed Malloc the last bottle of Merenzane Gold. It wasn't a matter of kindness on Fett's part; if it kept Malloc from struggling during the transfer to the Devaronian au-thorities, better to let him drink.

  They'd barely spoken to one another the entire trip. Malloc lifted the bottle to his lips and swallowed three, four times, before speaking. "How much longer?"

  Fett glanced at his controls. "Six minutes until break-out. At least twenty before we dock with the shuttle that'll take you downside." He paused. "Time enough for you to finish the bottle, if you work at it."

  "Do you know what they're going to do to me?"

  "They will feed you, still alive, to a pack of starved quarra." Fett paused. "Domesticated hunting ani-mals-this practice is one of the things that's kept Devaron out of the New Republic, I've heard."

  Malloc nodded a little convulsively and took another drink. "It's a bad way to die. I saw it done once, when I was a boy. You were right, Fett, we Devaronians don't die easy. The quarra go at the belly first, the soft flesh. But the condemned doesn't die of that. They may nib-ble on your ears, or your eyes or horns, but that won't kill you, either. If you're lucky the quarra tear your throat out quickly. You arch your head back and expose your throat, and if you're lucky-"

  "The time you saw it done," said Fett curiously, "What had the condemned done?"

  Malloc stared at the golden liquid in his free hand, and took another quick drink. "I don't think there's a word for it, exactly, in Basic. He went hunting, during famine, and caught his prey-and fed himself, and his quarra. He didn't bring it back to the tribe." He looked up at Fett. "Do you know what I did?"

  Fett glanced over at his instruments. Several minutes left until breakout; best let him talk. He looked back at Malloc. "Yes."

  "I was a good servant to the Empire," the Butcher said. "My own people rose in rebellion. They sent my command out to Hunt them down. And I did it, Fett. I Hunted them across the northlands, and I caught them in the city of Montellian Serat. We shelled them until they surrendered-"

  Fett nodded. "And after taking their surrender, you executed them. Seven hundred of them."

  "The Empire ordered us to move on. To reinforce loyal troops, fighting just south of us. We were not to leave any troops behind as guards for the prisoners. and certainly we were not to leave any of them living."

  "They didn't tell you to execute the prisoners."

  "They didn't have to." Malloc drank again, a huge belt, lowering the level of the bottle noticeably. "It took almost five minutes, Fett. We put them in a holding pen and started shooting at them. They screamed and screamed and screamed. We just kept shooting until the screaming had stopped." He said almost plead-ingly, "I was following orders."

  "I know."

  "They say you were Darth Vader's favorite bounty hunter."

  "Yes."

  "Don't you have any loyalty to what you were?" A touch of real anger glittered through Malloc's despair. "I did the Empire's work, man! Doesn't that count for anything?"

  Fett thought about it. "I wish," he said finally, "that the Empire had not fallen." He nodded, remembering, and then said softly, "Yes. I used to enjoy my work more."

  Hopelessness settled on the Butcher-he sagged, looking as though someone had just doubled the artifi-cial gravity in the Slave IV. They always thought they could bargain, or plead, right up to the last moment. Malloc hadn't had a chance to ask the next question; he asked it now. Virtually all of Fett's bounties, given the chance, did-

  "How did you catch me?"

  A minute left to breakout. Fett nodded toward the bottle Malloc held. "I traced sales of Merenzane Gold across the entire sector Tatooine is in. They said, at the bar you frequented on Tatooine, that it was your favor-ite drink."

  Malloc stared at him. "That crap I drank on Tatooine? That wasn't Merenzane Gold, you idiot, they don't serve Merenzane Gold in bars like that, they just pour it out of bottles that once, eons ago, were looked at hard by a man who heard of Merenzane! Don't you know anything about liquor?" he asked in despair. "Haven't you a single civilized vice?"

  Fett shook his head. "No. I do not drink, nor indulge in other drugs. They are an insult to the flesh."

  "So you Hunted me down because you thought I was drinking Merenzane Gold, all those years on Tatooine. Fett, I had one glass of real Gold the entire time I was on that miserable excuse for a world." Malloc shook his head in disbelief, took another swig from the bottle. "By the Cold. I can't believe I got caught by a nerf herder like you."

  The hyperspace tunnel fragmented around them; Fett turned away from Malloc, to his controls.

  "Reality," said Fett, "doesn't care if you believe it."

  Malloc threw the bottle, of course. The security sys-tem shot it out of the air with a single blaster bolt. The bottle blew apart into shards that rattled against the back of Fett's helmet; the liquid splashed against Fett's armor.

  "You should have drunk it," Fett said. He did not have to look at Malloc to know the gray despair that crossed his features. He'd seen it before, a thousand times.

  Fett docked with the shuttle, in orbit about Devaron.

  The Guild representative came across first. Fett stood in the main entryway, rifle in hand, pointing it at the representative as he entered.

  The representative was Bilman Dowd, a human, tall and thin and elderly, with a severe bearing and no discernible sense of humor; he had been in the Guild even longer than Fett, which was a remarkable accom-plishment in this day and age. "Hunter Fett," he said, courteously enough.

  "Dowd."

  Dowd looked the Butcher over. Kardue'sai'Malloc sat motionlessly, staring straight ahead. He did not seem to be aware of Dowd's presence. "This is the Butcher, is it?"

  "I believe so."

  Dowd nodded. He carried with him a small slate, with various controls on it; he touched one now, and spoke. "Come across."

  The Slave IV's lock cycled again; four Devaronians entered, two of them in military dress, bearing rifles that they carried pointed at the Slave TV's deck. The third was a female Devaronian, young, in gold robes and a gold headdress; the fourth, wearing robes of a cut similar to the woman's, except in black, was an older Devaronian, perhaps the Butcher's age.

  All four hesitated at the sight of Fett, aiming his rifle at them-

  Dowd gestured to the woman and said something in Devaronian. Fett had never actually heard the language spoken before; it was low and guttural and full of snarling consonants. It sounded like an invitation to a fight. '

  The woman's expression did not change. She crossed to the spot where Malloc sat-Fett had re-strained his
left hand prior to allowing anyone else on board. She kneeled in front of Malloc, looking the shivering prisoner over as though she were inspecting a carcass in the marketplace. Malloc's skin had acquired a blue tinge; Fett supposed it was something that hap-pened to Devaronians when they were deathly afraid.

  The woman stood up and nodded abruptly. She spoke in Devaronian-

  Dowd said, "She says it's her father."

  Fett nodded; it was the reason the bounty had been "Alive," rather than "Dead or Alive." It had only changed a few years back; the Devaronians had no longer been certain that the Butcher would be recog-nizable, dead.

  The older Devaronian said grimly, in rather poor Basic, "We pay him now."