Star Wars - The Bounty Hunter Wars - The Mandalorian Armor

by K. W. Jeter

  impatient fury. "We should have been on our way by now!"

  "Patience," counseled Boba Fett. "In this case, it is

  not so much a virtue as a necessity. That is, if you want

  to pull off this job and live to tell about it."

  He watched the Trandoshan resume cursing and

  muttering under his breath, pacing back and forth in one

  of the landing docks farthest from the Bounty Hunters

  Guild complex. It struck Fett that he wouldn't have to do

  anything at all in order to ensure Bossk's destruction;

  eventually, the reptilian would explode from the rage

  bottled up inside him. Or at the least, he thought, that

  much anger will cause a fatal mistake somewhere along the

  line. Boba Fett's own survival was predicated on both

  violence and the cold, emotionless precision of his

  strategies and actions. Without the former, all the plan

  ning and scheming in the galaxy would be impotent; that

  was something that the Empire, from Darth Va-der's

  underlings all the way up to Palpatine himself,

  understood completely. What a creature like Bossk didn't

  comprehend was that violence, however necessary, was a

  bomb nestled against one's own heart, in the absence of

  meticulous calculation. He'll find out, thought Fett.

  Soon enough.

  The smaller bounty hunter, Zuckuss, glanced nervously

  from Boba Fett over to Bossk, then back again. "Maybe,"

  he said, "an advance party could head out toward the

  Shell Hutts. Do some reconnaissance so that when the rest

  of our team shows up there, we'll be ready to go right

  in."

  "Don't be stupid." Boba Fett shook his head. "The

  only thing that would accomplish would be to warn the

  Shell Hutts of our intentions. It's going to be hard

  enough keeping any element of surprise, without sending

  them a message like that."

  "But the ships are ready to go!" Bossk whirled about

  on the clawed heel of his foot. "If we wait any longer,

  the other Guild members will put together teams for

  taking on this Dinnid job. They'll beat us to it!"

  Boba Fett didn't look up from the data readout in his

  hands; he continued checking the Slave I's armaments

  list. "It would be no great tragedy if anyone did that.

  Since they would have no chance off success, our

  merchandise would still be safely in the hands of the

  Shell Hutts, waiting for us. And it might actually

  facilitate our own plans, once we put them into motion.

  The Shell Hutts would see the difference between us and

  some crude pack trying to blast their way into the

  stronghold."

  "You keep telling us about these great plans you've

  made." Bossk aimed a venomous stare at Fett. "When are

  you going to let us know exactly what they are?"

  "As I said before." Unflinchingly, Boba Fett returned

  the other's hard gaze. "You need to cultivate patience."

  Bossk turned away again, his grumbling even louder

  than before.

  The other team member was there with them in the

  landing dock. IG-88, a droid that had managed to become

  one of the Bounty Hunters Guild's more respected

  members-in fact, one of the few that Boba Fett would even

  consider to be a serious rival- brought his optical

  scanners around in Fett's direction. "There is patience,"

  said IG-88 in a harshly synthesized voice, "and then

  there is hesitation. The latter comes from fear and

  indecision. We decided upon you as the leader of this

  team's operations because we assumed that such were not

  your qualities. Our disappointment would be great if we

  found out otherwise."

  "If you think you can pull off this job without

  me"-Fett lowered the data readout in his hands- "then go

  ahead."

  IG-88 regarded him for a moment longer, then gave a

  single nod of its head. "You remain our leader. But I

  warn you Don't exhaust what patience we do have."

  "Mine's already gone." Bossk had obviously continued

  stewing; the look in his slitted eyes had gone from

  murderous to annihilating. One hand hovered dangerously

  close to the blaster slung at his hip. "I've changed my

  mind. This whole team notion was a stupid idea-"

  "Um, Bossk . . ." Zuckuss raised his voice. "It was

  your idea."

  "If I started it, then I can put an end to it as

  well." His gaze slowly moved across the three other

  bounty hunters. "You lot can do whatever you want. But

  I'm out of this. I'm going out after Oph Nar Dinnid by

  myself."

  "I'm afraid you don't have that option." Boba

  Fett tucked the readout inside one of his armor's

  storage pouches. His voice seemed even more level and

  emotionless, compared with Bossk's boiling anger. "You

  know too much about this operation for you to be on the

  outside of it. When you come in with me on a job, you

  stay until it's over. There's really only one way for you

  to quit."

  "Yeah?" Bossk sneered. "What's that?"

  IG-88 remained standing as before, his equally cold

  droid emotions-or the lack of them-observing the

  confrontation. Zuckuss drew back, ready to duck behind

  the fuselage of one of the ships in the landing dock as

  Boba Fett dropped his hand to the curved grip of his own

  blaster.

  "Go ahead," said Boba Fett, "and try walking out on

  us. And you'll find out."

  The atmosphere tensed, as though filling with

  subphotonic discharge from a battle cruiser's venting

  ports. In the taut silence, Boba Fett gave a silent com

  mand to the heavily armed figure standing in front of

  him. Go ahead, he thought. It'll save us all a lot of

  time. . . .

  "There's someone coming!" Zuckuss's voice broke

  through the adrenaline-frozen moment. He pointed to the

  distant high arch that formed the entrance to the landing

  dock; beyond it, a streak of fiery light cut a crescent

  past the stars. "Another ship-"

  Bossk held his gaze tight on Boba Fett's for a moment

  longer, then glanced over his shoulder. The approaching

  light had grown brighter, its docking jets flaring into a

  sudden corona. He looked back at Fett. "Is this who we've

  been waiting for?"

  "It could be." Boba Fett didn't take his hand from

  the grip of his blaster.

  "Lucky for you."

  "That's right," said Fett. "If I had killed you, I

  would have needed to find another person for the team."

  His hand moved away from the smallest of his weapons. "I

  find personnel changes to be aggravating."

  Zuckuss peered past them at the approaching ship. "I

  don't recognize this one." It was close enough that its

  outlines could be seen a featureless ovoid, barely

  larger than a TIE fighter, trailing a metallic seine, a

  stiffly interlinked net, behind its flaring engines. "How

  did it get clearance-"

  "I arranged for that." Boba Fett stepped past Zuckuss

  and the others, walking toward the pad that the

  appro
aching craft had locked upon. "But it wouldn't have

  made any difference if I had or not."

  "What do you mean?" Zuckuss scurried after Fett.

  "Believe me-this barve goes where he wants to."

  The ovoid could be seen more clearly now as it slid

  into the landing dock, thrust engines shut down and

  repulsors on. Its rounded surfaces were pitted and scored

  with the impact marks of high-intensity armaments,

  including one large scorch mark where the metal had

  actually melted and fused back together. As it hovered

  above the pad its trailing mesh shifted and drew forward,

  one part curling above like a scorpion's tail, the other

  forming a reticulated cradle beneath, onto which the

  craft slowly sank and was still.

  "Look at this thing." Fascinated, Zuckuss had walked

  right up to the ovoid, his boots stepping onto the mesh.

  He laid a gloved hand on the battered and corrosion-

  marked surface. "It looks like it's been in every battle

  since the Clone Wars-"

  "Watch out," said Boba Fett. But the warning was

  already too late.

  A microscopic hairline fissure around the top of the

  ovoid widened, with a hiss of inrush ing air. An

  elliptical section separated from the rest, tilting up

  ward on previously hidden internal hinges. For a moment

  nothing further showed from inside the craft. ...

  As though released by a high-compression spring, the

  barrel of a close-range laser cannon rose up, with its

  power sources and recoil housing mounted directly behind.

  The gleaming surfaces of black metal shone like the coils

  of an aroused serpent, intricate and deadly. A faint,

  shrill electronic whir sounded as the massive weapon's

  range-sighting devices locked onto Zuckuss, swinging the

  point of the muzzle down within a meter of the bounty

  hunter's chest. Another series of sharp, concussive

  noises sounded within the machinery as the indicator

  lights' glow shifted from yellow to a hot red, charged

  and ready to fire. That was followed by silence; Zuckuss

  froze where he stood, as though hypnotized by the black

  hole almost within touching distance of his hand, and its

  lethal potential even closer than that. There would be

  only a haze of disconnected atoms floating above the

  scorched remains of his boots after one shot from the

  weapon.

  "Back up," said Boba Fett quietly. "Do it slow, and

  you probably won't get hurt."

  "Hurt?" Beside him, Bossk was gazing in wide-eyed

  fascination at the laser cannon's darkly gleaming barrel.

  "He's going to be vaporized!"

  Zuckuss was unable to take his own gaze away from the

  death-bestowing machinery locked upon him. But he did

  manage to take one cautious step backward, then another;

  all the while the weapon's tracking systems followed his

  every move, shifting angle slightly to remain targeted.

  A few more steps and Zuckuss was back with the other

  bounty hunters. "Stay here," Boba Fett told him.

  "Don't worry." The stink of panic sweat seeped out of

  Zuckuss's gear. "I'm not going anywhere."

  Boba Fett had already stepped past him, leaving Bossk

  and IG-88 behind as well. He strode without visible

  apprehension across the landing dock toward the ovoid

  resting above its glittering mesh. The laser cannon swung

  and locked onto him as he approached.

  "It's been a long time." He stopped and spoke to the

  weapon itself, as though its charge-primed muzzle were a

  face masked like his, with the tracking systems as its

  all-seeing eyes. "A very long time."

  The red indicator lights along the weapon's housing

  cooled from red, through a dull orange, down to a steady-

  state yellow. The optics and sensors of the tracking

  systems defocused slightly, as though the hand and mind

  behind the trigger had relaxed to a state of mere

  vigilance, rather than instantaneous aggression.

  Slowly, the laser cannon rose, as though being lifted

  on some mechanism inside the ovoid-shaped craft. A cloud

  of hissing steam surrounded it, obscuring for a moment

  the outlines of the weapon, as though it were an

  outcropping of black rock, on a mountain peak wreathed in

  a sudden, violent storm. The cannon parted the steam as a

  massive humanoid torso appeared below, its wide shoulders

  bearing the weapon's crushing weight. From the underside

  of the barrel, a quarter circle of gear-toothed metal

  curved down into an anchoring plate set in the creature's

  chest, with interlocking motors to adjust the muzzle's

  terminal elevation. Heavy cables, some glistening black,

  others made of silvery durasteel, looped beneath the arms

  and around the muscle-sheathed chest and ribs, connecting

  with the counterbalancing cylinders of power sources

  flanking the spine. The latter were revealed when the

  individual climbed out of the ovoid, black-gloved hands

  and thick-soled boots weighing upon the mesh's strands.

  From the intricate joins of the weapon's mounting, more

  steam lashed out, gathered, and dissipated in trailing

  wisps, indicating the presence of an old-style, liquid-

  based cooling system, primitive technology dating from

  the earliest days of the Republic. The laser cannon swung

  180 degrees around on its mounting, as though the

  tracking system optics were actually the eyes in a head

  made of pure destructive capacity.

  A tail section, like a primitive saurian's, but made

  of segmented black metal and mounted by articulated bolts

  to the creature's hips, was the last thing to be dragged

  out of the craft. With its top section hinged back and

  its pilot standing before it, the resemblance to a giant

  egg was complete, as though it had just now cracked open

  to disgorge a new combination of living matter and lethal

  machinery.

  Behind the stranger, the tail curled across the edge

  of the stiffened mesh. With one hand, the creature

  undipped a small keyboard device from the band of metal

  running from the hip bolts and across his abdomen. His

  other hand punched in a rapid sequence of ideograms, then

  thumbed a larger button i in the device's corner.

  "long . . . time." The device's speaker crackled as

  the stranger held it up in front of himself. Underneath

  the synthesized words, the hissing of the steam from the

  laser cannon's housing could still be heard.

  "YOU DO NOT . . . SEEM TO AGE . . .

  BOBA FETT."

  "Should I?" The statement amused him. "Time enough

  for that when I'm dead."

  He could hear the other bounty hunters behind him.

  Bossk's voice was louder than the rest "I don't like the

  looks of this. . . ."

  The stranger was instantly transformed; Boba Fett

  knew that something had triggered a reaction sequence. On

  the housing of the laser cannon, the indicators flared

  red again; the tracking systems narrowed their focus,

  sighting in on a point behind Fett
. Steam jetted farther

  from the housing's apertures as the segmented metal tail

  stiffened, bracing the stranger into a tripod rigid

  enough to take the force of the high-powered weapon's

  recoil.

  Boba Fett glanced over his shoulder and saw that

  Bossk had instinctively dropped his hand to the butt of

  the blaster slung at his hip; the Trandoshan always did

  that when something aroused his suspicions.

  "Not a good idea," said Fett. With a nod of his

  helmet, he indicated Bossk's hand, frozen in place by the

  laser cannon snapping into firing mode. "D'harhan tends

  to kill first and not bother investigating afterward."

  Bossk took his hand away from his blaster.

  "Good." Boba Fett looked toward Zuckuss and IG-88 as

  well. "Now our team is all here."

  "D'harhan and I go back a long way." Across the

  controls of the Slave I, Boba Fett's hands moved swiftly,

  setting the coordinates for dropping back out of

  hyperspace. "Longer than you can imagine."

  "How come I've never heard of him?" The ship's

  cockpit area was small enough that Zuckuss had to remain

  standing in the hatchway behind Fett just to exchange a

  few words with him. "He seems very . . . impressive."

  Zuckuss had had a choice of traveling with Bossk and

  IG-88 in the Hound's Tooth, but the Trandoshan's

  worsening temper had pushed him into the Slave I instead.

  Let the droid deal with him, Zuckuss had decided. Droids

  don't take all that snarling and muttering personally.

  But heading toward the Shell Hutts' home base, a ring-

  shaped artificial planetoid called Circumtore, aboard the

  Slave I had proved even more unnerving. The stranger

  named D'harhan-or friend or mercenary companion, or

  whatever he might have been at one time to Boba Fett-had

  found the most secure corner of the ship's belowdecks

  holding area, and had sat down on the gridded flooring

  with his back to the angle of the bulkheads. D'harhan had

  wrapped his flex-shielded arms around his knees,

  partially resting the weight of the laser cannon mounted

  on his shoulders on them, the weapon's gleaming barrel

  thrust slightly forward. When Zuckuss had entered the

  area, moving as stealthily as possible, he'd suddenly

  heard a whisper of vented steam; the other's tracking

  systems had registered his presence, swinging the laser

  cannon in a horizontal arc toward him. Luckily, the

  firing indicators on the cannon's housing had remained in