by K. W. Jeter
"Like I told you before. For your own good." Dengar
indicated the subchamber with a tilt of his head. "That
guy's one dangerous barve. If there's some kind of
connection between you and him, it might not be one
that's to your benefit. When he's got his strength back,
he might kill you just as easily as look at you. And you
won't be asking any more questions then, believe me."
The message seemed to sink in. "All right," said
Neelah. "Whatever you say."
There was more that he hadn't said. His precautions
weren't just for her sake. I don't want the two of them
conspiring against me, thought Dengar. Even before Boba
Fett got his full strength back, that razor-sharp mind of
his would be working and scheming away. Fett would be
fully capable of making his own deals with Neelah that
she wouldn't be able to resist falling in with. A bounty
hunter didn't get the drop on people just with weapons
that someone could see and feel burning through one's
gut; the history of what Boba Fett had pulled off with
the old Bounty Hunters Guild indicated that he was a
master at ensnaring sentient creatures in subtler traps.
Though you wind up just as dead, thought Dengar, either
way. And if Boba Fett had been lying and playing for
time, back when Dengar had found him out there in the
Dune Sea's wastes, the quickest way to dissolve any
partnership would be to use Neelah as his cat's-paw.
Now I've got two that I've got to watch out for. That
was another reason Dengar had wanted the female down
here, rather than wandering around on the surface. He had
his hands full as it was; he didn't need anyone else
hooking up with Neelah, for whatever agenda they might
have.
She might as well have read his thoughts. A thin
smile appeared as Neelah regarded him. "You trust me?"
"Of course not." On that point, Dengar could afford
to be honest with her. "I don't trust anyone." That was
almost true; there was always Manaroo. But that was
something different. "Nobody survives in this business by
going around trusting creatures. Let's just say that I've
got an idea of what to expect from you now. And if you're
smart enough to play along with me, maybe you'll get what
you want."
Neelah signaled her understanding with a quick nod.
"I still want to see him."
"That's easy enough," said Dengar. "But if you were
planning on having any kind of talk with Fett, I don't
think that's going to happen anytime real soon. He's
still unconscious."
"Just as well." The thin smile faded from Nee-lah's
face. "I changed my mind about that part. For now. I've
begun to see the wisdom of your cautious attitude. Maybe
it's better if he doesn't know about me. That I found him
out in the Dune Sea, and that I'm here, waiting. As you
pointed out . . . whatever our connection is, it might
not be exactly safe for me."
"Suit yourself." Dengar's caution went up a notch.
She's a fast learner, he thought. All the more reason to
be careful. "Come on." He pushed himself away from the
wall of the main chamber. "Let's go pay our guest of
honor a visit."
The tall medical droid's appendages raised in warning
as Dengar and Neelah entered the sub-chamber. "Please
observe the necessary hygienic protocols." The chart of
vital signs scrolled down the display on SHSl-B's
cylindrical torso. "The patient's condition remains very
critical-"
"Yeah, right." Dengar pushed the droid aside, away
from the pallet in the center of the space. "This barve's
survived worse things than your attentions. If you
haven't managed to kill him, then nothing will."
Neelah stepped close to the side of the pallet and
looked down at the unconscious form. "That's him?" She
sounded almost disappointed. "That's Boba Fett?"
"No-" From the pile of gear in the sub-chamber's
corner, Dengar picked up a battered helmet, etched with
the digestive fluids of the Sarlacc's gullet. He turned
the helmet's narrow-visored gaze toward Neelah. "This is
Boba Fett."
She shrank back from the empty helmet, a sudden fear
showing in her widened eyes. One hand tentatively reached
out to touch the pitted metal, then jerked back as though
scorched. She slowly nodded. "That's what I saw." Her
voice was a barely audible whisper. "And I knew ... I
knew it was him. ..."
"That's how everybody knows him." Dengar turned the
helmet's blank visage toward himself. He could guess how
the female felt; a little apprehensive chill ran down his
own spine. "All through the galaxy." He nodded toward the
figure on the pallet. "Not very many creatures have seen
him like that. Or if they have, they didn't live to tell
about it."
For a moment the only sound in the subchamber was the
clicking and sighing of the cardiopulmonary assists that
the medical droids had set in place. Then Neelah turned a
somber gaze toward Dengar. "I did," she said quietly.
Dengar was unable to make a reply. The dark spaces in
her eyes, and what might lie beyond them, unnerved him as
much as the empty helmet. He turned away, to set it back
down on the rest of Boba Fett's gear.
"Remember," said Neelah. "Don't tell him. Don't tell
him anything about me."
By the time Dengar turned back around, the female had
slipped out of the subchamber. He was alone with the
other bounty hunter. The presence of the medical droids
barely registered on Dengar's senses.
He stood looking down at Boba Fett for a while
longer. The little trace of fear hadn't gone away; it was
still there, inching along his spine. Even unconscious,
this man was enough to spook ordinary creatures.
There's too much past, thought Dengar. Inside Boba
Fett's skull; a whole galaxy full of it. Who could tell
what was going on in there as he slept and dreamed his
dark dreams?
8
THEN
He couldn't believe his good luck.
"I've got him this time," said Bossk. He had upgraded
both the firepower and the tracking abilities of the
Hound's Tooth since his last unfortunate encounter with
Boba Fett. The other bounty hunter snatching the
accountant Nil Posondum away from him had been the final
irritant underneath his scales; he had sworn to himself
that if he ever got the chance, he would put his rival
out of commission for good. And nothing will do that,
thought Bossk, savoring the words, like blowing Fett to
atoms. "When I get done, there won't be enough of him
left to find without an electron microscope."
Beside him, Zuckuss leaned the hoses of his face mask
toward the cockpit's target-acquisition screen. "I don't
know. ..."
"What, you can't tell that it's Boba Fett ap
proaching? Are you blind?" Bossk rapped a claw against
&
nbsp; the screen, hard enough to leave a permanent mark amid
the glowing vector lines. "Of course it's him! There's
all the identification data on the Slave I." A tiny
column of numbers scrolled down from the triangular icon
swiftly moving across the screen. "That's his ship, so
he's aboard it."
"Oh, it's Boba Fett, all right." Zuckuss nodded
slowly. "There's no doubt about that. I'm just not sure
if you should-what's the phrase you always use?-'blow him
away' right now."
Bossk angrily glared at the shorter bounty hunter.
"When's there going to be a better time?"
"Well, maybe when he's not traveling under an
assurance of safe passage from your father." Zuckuss
sounded even more doubtful and nervous. The breath in his
air tubes rasped quicker and louder. "Boba Fett already
contacted the Guild council-you know that-and Cradossk
and the others gave him their word that he could dock at
the perimeter station without anyone taking a shot at
him."
"They gave him their word." The slits in Bossk's eyes
narrowed. "They didn't give him mine."
"Still . . ."
You little insect, thought Bossk. When he inherited
the leadership of the Bounty Hunters Guild-he had already
killed, as was Trandoshan custom, all of his father
Cradossk's younger spawn-he intended to review the
requirements for membership. A certain amount of guts, he
figured, should be a prerequisite. Which meant that this
sniveling partner that had been foisted on him would be
out the air lock like the gnawed bones of yesterday's
lunch.
"Maybe," whined Zuckuss, "you should think about-this
a little more. . . ."
"Thinking takes too long." Bossk's claws moved across
the control of the Hound's weapons systems. "Action gets
things done."
"Your father isn't going to like this."
"That remains to be seen." The same blood ran in his
and the old reptilian's veins; he had the comfort of
knowing that his spawn-father was just as mean and
vicious as himself. "For all you know, this is exactly
what he and the rest of the Guild council are expecting
me to do."
"Destroy another bounty hunter without warning?"
Incredulity pitched Zuckuss's voice higher. "That's
hardly in line with the Hunter's Creed!"
Bossk always felt a simmering impatience when someone
mentioned the Creed to him. "Boba Fett has violated the
Creed enough times," he growled, "that he deserves no
protection from it."
"But he's never been bound by the Creed! He's never
been a member of the Guild!"
"Spare me your tedious legal analysis." Bossk had
locked the concentric rings of the tracker sight onto the
distant craft. "If Boba Fett wants to lodge a complaint
against me, he'll have to do it from the other side of
the grave. If enough of him can be scraped up to put into
one."
He ignored the rest of Zuckuss's tiresome fretting.
His index claw hit the main fire button, and a quick
rumble rolled through the Hound's frame. On the screen, a
brilliant white tracer shot toward the icon representing
Boba Fett's ship.
"Got him!" The shot must have caught Fett completely
by surprise; he'd taken no evasive action at all. What a
fool, thought Bossk with contempt. That's what you get
for trusting other bounty hunters. The advantage of being
considered lowlife scum by most of the galaxy's
inhabitants was that maintaining one's reputation was
never an issue. "You know," said Bossk, "I'm almost
disappointed. . . ."
"Why?" Zuckuss turned his large-lensed gaze away from
the screen. "Because he didn't put up more of a fight?"
"No." Bossk peered at the red numbers that had
flashed on. "Because there's anything left of him." He
clawed in the command for a damage assessment on the
laser cannon's most recent target, then studied the
result. "That ship of Fett's had some serious armor on
it. It's still holding together." The glowing triangle
had stopped in the middle of the screen, but hadn't
disappeared. To have taken that kind of a hit, enough to
punch a hole through the main deck of an Imperial battle
cruiser, and still be in one piece, however badly
damaged, was amazing. It didn't correspond with the
velocities that the Slave I's engines- high-thrust but
low-mass-capable units from Mandal Motors-could attain.
Like most bounty hunters, Boba Fett had always prized
speed and maneuverability over protection. Right now,
though, Bossk didn't have time to puzzle over the
discrepancy. "Let's go finish him off."
The distinctive half-rounded shape of the Slave I
filled the viewports as Bossk piloted his own craft
toward it. He kept his claws on the controls for the
emergency reverse thrusters in case Boba Fett, like the
devious scoundrel he was known to be, was lying low
inside the other ship, waiting for his own chance to take
a shot at his attacker.
"Looks like a clean kill to me." Zuckuss pointed to
the cockpit's forward viewport. "Right through the center
and out the other side. There couldn't be anyone left
alive on that ship."
"I'll believe that," said Bossk, "when I see Boba
Fett's .charred corpse." He started moving the Hound's
Tooth in toward the drifting wreckage. "I'm going
inside."
"Well, if you need that kind of proof . . ." Zuckuss
gave a shrug. "I suppose you'll have to."
He didn't even glance over at Zuckuss. "You're going,
too."
"Oh."
They managed to establish a transfer connection
between the Hound's Tooth and what was left of the Slave
I. No atmosphere support was needed; enough of the Slave
I's systems were still operating to have sealed off the
central interior sections.
"Something's wrong," said Zuckuss as he looked about
the Slave I's empty hold.
"Something's always wrong, as far as you're con
cerned." This time, though, Bossk wondered whether his
partner might be right. A sense of unease crawled across
his scales; he drew his blaster and slowly scanned across
the open hatchways.
Zuckuss reached over and poked a gloved finger at one
of the bulkheads. The thin material wobbled back and
forth; another poke, and Zuckuss's finger went right
through it.
"It's a decoy." Zuckuss gave a few more exploratory
proddings to the hold's confines, with similar results.
"That's why there's nothing here-it's just a shell!" He
turned toward Bossk. "No wonder your shot went right
through. There's no real mass to have taken the hit. It's
like shooting through flimsiplast."
Rage boiled up inside Bossk, nearly blinding him.
"That slimy ..." Words failed him. He stomped toward the
dummy ship's aft section, shoulders smashing apart the
&nb
sp; sides of the flimsy hatches.
"This is why we got a positive identification."
Zuckuss had followed behind, into what would have been
the cockpit if they had been aboard a real ship. He
pointed to a beacon transmitter mounted to one of the
space's curved walls. "Look-you can see that it's been
programmed with the Slave I's ID profile." Zuckuss nodded
in admiration. "Setting up something like this takes a
lot of work; you have to force through overrides almost
down to the subatomic level. And then to build it back up
with the false data . . ." He stepped back from the unit.
"Fett must have had this decoy already prepared, just
keeping it for sometime when he'd need it." Even behind
Zuckuss's face mask, there was a hint of amusement as he
glanced over at Bossk. "Like when he might be heading
into some territory where creatures might have a grudge
against him."
"I'll kill him." The words seethed out through
Bossk's clenched fangs. "I swear it. I'll find him and
I'll kill him so hard . . ."
"Chances are pretty good, I'd say, that Fett's al
ready slipped by us. We're wasting our time here."
Zuckuss peered at another device, a cylinder of black
metal studded with biosensors. "Now, this is interesting.
I wouldn't have expected something like this aboard a
simple decoy vessel."
Bossk knew his partner had more of an interest in
technological matters; right now all that moved inside
his own head were grim fantasies of cracking bone and
spurting blood. He didn't even bother to look around, but
kept on brooding at the mocking stars visible through the
port. "What is it?"
"Offhand ... I'd say it's a bomb. . . ."
"You fool!" Bossk whirled on his clawed heel, in time
to see a row of lights flash into fiery life along the
cylinder's casing. The device emitted a faint hum,
already gaining in pitch and volume. "We've triggered'it!
The thing's going to blow!"
He dived for the false cockpit's hatchway; a fraction
of a second later Zuckuss landed on top of him. Both
bounty hunters scrambled to their feet. Through the
hatch, Bossk could see the bomb detach itself from its
mountings on the flimsy bulkhead; with slow, ominous
grace, the bomb's miniaturized antigrav repulsors
swiveled it about, bringing the scrutiny of its blind
gaze toward them.
"Get out of my way!" Bossk shoved his partner aside
and sprinted for the transfer port fastened to the decoy
