Star Wars - The Bounty Hunter Wars - The Mandalorian Armor

by K. W. Jeter

  occupation."

  "Eternity," chimed in le-XE. The other droid had

  rolled up behind its companion. "Fatigue."

  "Concisely put." SHSl-B'shead unit gave a nod. "I

  expect we will be applying sterile bandages and

  administering anesthetics until the teeth of our gears

  are worn to nubs."

  "Deal with it," said Neelah. "As for our Boba

  Fett"-she tilted her head toward the bounty hunter, still

  working at cleaning the rocket launcher's innards-"I

  wouldn't worry about him. You took care of what was

  needed at the time. But now . . ." Her nod was one of

  reluctant but genuine admiration. "Now he's way beyond

  all your medicine."

  "That is a diagnosis to which it is difficult to give

  credence." The medical droid's tone turned huffy. "The

  individual being discussed is made of flesh and bone like

  other creatures-"

  "Is he?" Neelah knew that was true, even though, when

  she looked at Boba Fett, she couldn't help but wonder.

  "Of course he is," replied the nettled SHS1-B. "And

  as such, there are limits to his endurance and

  capabilities."

  "That's where you're wrong." Neelah leaned back

  against the stone of the cache's entrance. She hoped it

  wouldn't be too much longer before Dengar returned. For a

  lot of reasons. If the parties responsible for the

  bombing raid decided to come back and do a more thorough

  job on their targets, she was sure Boba Fett would

  survive, but her own chances would be considerably fewer.

  Fett had plans for getting her and Dengar, as well as

  himself, off Tatooine and out to interstellar space,

  where they would be safe for at least a little while. And

  long enough to set further plans into motion. The only

  obstacle lay in getting the comm equipment that Fett

  needed. He couldn't go into Mos Eisley to buy or steal

  it, not without raising a general alert that he was still

  alive; that was why Dengar had gone into the spaceport

  instead. But if he screws up, thought Neelah, then what?

  She and Fett would still be stuck out here, waiting not

  for Dengar, but for whatever the next attempt to elimi

  nate them would be.

  In the meantime the medical droid persisted in its

  arguments. "How could I be wrong? I have been extensively

  programmed in the nature of humanoid physiology-"

  "Then you're a slow learner." Neelah closed her eyes

  and tilted her head back against a pillow of rock. "When

  you're dealing with someone like Boba Fett, it's not the

  human parts that make the difference. It's the other

  parts."

  The droid fell mercifully silent. It either knew when

  it was defeated or when further discussion was pointless.

  He left the swoop bike in the dry, dusty hills

  outside Mos Eisley, then walked the rest of the way into

  the spaceport. Dengar figured he'd draw less attention to

  himself that way. And right now creatures noticing

  him-the wrong creatures, at least-was the last thing he

  wanted.

  Before heading in, along one of the old foot trails

  that led to Mos Eisley's back alleys, Dengar uprooted

  some dead scruff brush and hastily camouflaged the swoop

  with it. The stripped-down, one-person repulsorlift

  vehicle belonged to somebody else. Or used to-Big Gizz,

  the leader of one of Tatooine's toughest swoop gangs, had

  crashed and burned on this machine. Gizz had been hard

  and mean enough to have been one of Jabba the Hutt's most

  valuable employees, but that hadn't been enough to keep

  his leathery hide intact; creatures who worked for Jabba

  just naturally seemed to end up with short life expec

  tancies. If the work itself didn't wind up getting them

  killed, then their own violent natures brought about

  their fates. Dengar had never thought that the pay scale

  that Jabba offered was worth the risk. Big Gizz had been

  luckier than most; there had been enough of him left to

  scrape up and patch back together. Whatever he was up to

  these days, he had presumably gotten himself some new

  transportation to do it with.

  The squat, indifferently maintained shapes of Mos

  Eisley came slowly into view as Dengar worked his way

  down the last, loose-graveled hillside. His on-foot

  progress wasn't much slower than the swoop had been,

  crossing the Dune Sea from where he had left Neelah and

  Boba Fett. The swoop had been unusable wreckage when

  Dengar had first found it, the bent and scattered pieces

  testifying to the way in which Big Gizz had ended that

  particular run. Dengar had pieced the vehicle back

  together, even buying and grafting on the bits of the

  repulsor-engine circuitry that were too burned out to be

  made functional again, then stashed it away near his main

  hiding place in the desert. A bounty hunter's life was

  one in which a working form of transport, no matter how

  banged up and slow, could be the difference between

  cashing in on valuable merchandise or winding up as bones

  being pecked at by the Dune Sea's scavengers.

  Tatooine's twin suns were smearing the sky dusky

  orange as Dengar approached the spaceport's ragged

  perimeter. Digging the swoop out from the bombing raid's

  aftermath, the tumbled rocks and displaced sand dunes,

  had taken a little while longer than he'd expected it to;

  the swoop had been buried nearly two meters deep, and he

  found it only because he'd had the foresight to tag it

  with a short-distance location beacon. Just my luck, he

  had thought sourly, when he'd finally managed to drag the

  swoop to the surface and start it up. The forward

  stabilizer blades had been bent almost double by the

  largest boulder that had crashed onto the minimal

  vehicle; any movement speedier than a relative crawl sent

  a spine-jarring shudder through the frame, quickly es

  calating to a rolling spin that would have crashed him to

  the ground if he hadn't backed off the throttle. The

  swoop's damaged condition had necessitated a more

  circuitous route across the Dune Sea wastes than he would

  have taken otherwise; he might have been able to outrun a

  Tusken Raider's bantha mount, but not a shot from one of

  their ancient but effective rifles.

  "Looking for anything . . . special?" A hood-shrouded

  figure, with a distinctive crescent-shaped proboscis,

  sidled up to Dengar as soon as he'd made his way between

  the first of the low, featureless buildings. "There are

  creatures in this district . . . who can accommodate . .

  . all interests."

  "Yeah, I bet." Dengar brushed past the meddlesome

  creature. "Look, just take a hike, why don't you? I know

  my way around."

  "My apologies." The hem of the creature's rough-

  cloth robe swept across the alley dust as it made a small

  bow. "I mistakenly thought . . . that you were a ...

  newcomer here."

  Dengar kept walking, quickening his strides. That had

&nb
sp; been an unfortunate encounter; he had been hoping to make

  it to the cantina at the center of Mos Eisley without

  being noticed. The spaceport abounded with snitches and

  informers, creatures who made a living selling out others

  either to the Empire's security forces or to whichever

  criminals and assorted marginal dealers might have a

  financial interest in someone else's comings and goings.

  That was what had always made Mos Eisley, an otherwise

  dilapidated port on a backwater planet, one of the

  galaxy's prime hangouts for those practicing the bounty-

  hunter trade. If you stuck around long enough, you

  eventually heard something that could be turned to

  profit. The downside, as Dengar was well aware, was that

  it was hard to keep one's business a secret around here.

  A couple of whispers in the right ear holes, and you

  wound up becoming someone else's merchandise.

  Right now he wasn't aware of anyone looking for him;

  he wasn't that important. Though that might change all

  too rapidly, when word got out of his being hooked up

  with Boba Fett. An alliance with the galaxy's top bounty

  hunter brought a lot of less-than-desirable baggage with

  it other creatures' schemes and grudges, all of which

  they might figure could be advanced by either going

  through or eliminating anyone as close to Fett as Dengar

  had become. The bombing raid had proved that Boba Fett

  had some determined enemies. If those parties found out

  that a minor-rank bounty hunter had made himself useful

  to the object of their furious wrath, they might

  eliminate the individual in question just on general

  principle.

  Those and other disquieting speculations scurried

  around inside Dengar's skull as he made his way through

  Mos Eisley's less pleasant-and less frequented-byways. A

  pack of sleek, glittering-eyed garbage rats scurried at

  his approach, diving into their warrens among the alley's

  noisome strata of decaying rubbish, then chattering

  shrill abuse and brandishing their primitive, sharp-edged

  digging tools at his back. The rats, at least, wouldn't

  report his presence in the spaceport to anyone; they kept

  to themselves for the most part, with a supercilious atti

  tude toward larger creatures' affairs.

  Dengar halted his steps, in order to peer around a

  corner. From this point, he had a clear view of Mos

  Eisley's central open space. He saw nothing more ominous

  than a couple of Imperial stormtroopers on low-level

  security patrol, prodding the muzzles of their blaster

  rifles through an incensed Jawa's merchandise bales. Bits

  of salvaged droids-disconnected limbs and head units with

  optical sensors still blinking and vocal units moaning

  from the shock of disconnected circuits-bounced out of

  the cart and clattered on the ground as the Jawa shook

  its fist, hidden in the bulky sleeve of its robe, and

  yammered its grievances against the white-helmeted

  figures.

  No one crossing or idling in the plaza regarded the

  confrontation with more than mild curiosity, except for a

  pair of empty-saddled dewbacks tethered nearby; they

  grizzled and snarled, drawing away from the noisy Jawa

  with instinctive aversion. The stormtroopers caused no

  concern for Dengar, either. He was more worried about

  those who might be on the other side of the law, the

  various scoundrels and sharpies who would be more likely

  to have heard the latest scuttlebutt and be looking to

  profit from it.

  Dengar drew his head back from the building's corner.

  There was a fine line between being too paranoid and

  being just paranoid enough. Too paranoid slowed you down,

  but not enough got you killed. He'd already decided to

  err, if necessary, on the side of caution.

  Keeping close to the building's crumbling white

  walls, Dengar found the rear entrance to the cantina.

  With a quick glance over his shoulder, he slid into the

  familiar darkness and threaded his way among the

  establishment's patrons. A few eyes and other sensory

  organs turned in his direction, then swung back to

  discreetly murmured business conversations.

  He rested both elbows on the bar. "I'm looking for

  Codeq Santhananan. He been in lately?"

  The same ugly bartender, familiar from all of

  Dengar's previous visits, shook his head. "That barve got

  drilled a coupla months ago. Right outside the door. I

  had a pair of rehab droids scrubbing the burn mark for

  two whole standard time periods, and it still didn't come

  out." The bartender remembered Dengar's usual, a tall

  water-and-isothane, heavy on the water, and set it down

  in front of him. The scars on the bartender's face

  shifted formation as one eye narrowed, peering at Dengar.

  "He owe you credits?"

  Dengar let himself take a sip; he had gotten seri

  ously dehydrated, riding the damaged swoop across the

  Dune Sea. "He might."

  "Well, he owed me," growled the bartender. "I don't

  appreciate it when my customers get themselves killed and

  I'm the one that gets stiffed." He furiously swabbed out

  a glass with a stained towel. "Creatures in these parts

  oughta think of somebody besides themselves for a

  change."

  Listening to the bartender's complaints wasn't

  accomplishing anything. Dengar drained half the glass and

  pushed it away. "Put it on my tab."

  He worked his way into the shadow-filled center of

  the cantina's space, gazing around as best he could

  without making direct eye contact with anyone. Some of

  the more hot-tempered cantina habitues were known to take

  violent offense over such indiscretions; even if he

  didn't wind up being the one laid out on the damp floor,

  Dengar didn't want to draw that kind of attention to

  himself.

  "Excuse the lamentable discourtesy"-a hand with

  bifurcate talons tugged at Dengar's sleeve- "but I

  couldn't help overhearing. . . ."

  Glancing to his side, Dengar found himself looking

  into the black bead eyes, no more than a couple of

  centimeters in diameter, of a Q'nithian aer-opteryx. One

  of the beads swelled larger as the creature's other set

  of claws held a magnifying lens on a jeweled handle in

  front of it. Dengar had been expecting something like

  this; one's business didn't stay secret for very long in

  the cantina, if spoken in anything louder than a whisper.

  "Let's go over to one of the booths," said Dengar.

  Those were far enough away from the cantina's crowded

  main area for a measure of privacy. "Come on."

  The Q'nithian flopped after him on the flattened tips

  of its shabby gray wings, useless for any kind of flight.

  It struggled into the seat on the booth's opposite side,

  then settled down as though wrapped in a feathered cloak.

  "I heard you mention poor Santhananan's name." The

  taloned hand protruded from under the wings so that the

>   Q'nithian could scratch itself with the magnifying-lens

  handle. "He met a sad demise, I'm afraid."

  "Yeah, I'm sure it was tragic." Dengar set his arms

  on the table and leaned forward. He wanted to wrap up his

  errand here before the bartender had a chance to pressure

  him into settling his account. "What I want to know is,

  did anybody pick up on his business?"

  The lens shifted to the other beady eye. "The late

  Santhananan had various enterprises." The Q'nithian's

  voice was a grating squawk. "A creature of many

  interests, some of them even legal. To which of them do

  you refer?"

  "Keep it down. You know what I'm talking about."

  Dengar glanced across t he cantina, then turned back to

  the Q'nithian. "The message service he used to run.

  That's what I'm interested in."

  "Ah." The Q'nithian made a few thoughtful clacking

  noises with its rudimentary beak. "What great good

  fortune for you. It just so happens that that is an

  enterprise . . . over which I now exercise control."

  Great good fortune-that was one way of putting it.

  Dengar wondered for a moment just how the late

  Santhananan had met his end, and how much this Q'nithian

  had had to do with it. But that was none of his business.

  "Whatever communication you require," continued the

  Q'nithian, words and voice all mild bland-ness, "I think

  I can assist you with it."

  "I bet you can." Dengar looked hard into the

  magnifiying lens and the mercenary intelligence behind

  it. "Here's the deal. I need to send a hyperspace

  messenger pod-"

  "Really?" The feathers above one beady eye rose in

  apparent surprise. "That's an expensive proposition. I'm

  not saying it can't be done. Just that-since I haven't

  done business with you before-it would have to be done on

  a strictly credits-up-front basis."

  Dengar reached inside his jacket and pulled out a

  small pouch. He loosened its drawstring and poured the

  contents out on the table. "Will that do?"

  Even without the magnifying lens, the Q'nithian's

  eyes grew larger. "I think"-the bifurcate talons reached

  out for the little hoard of hard credits-"we may be in

  business here. ..."

  "Not so fast," Dengar grabbed the other creature's

  thin, light-boned wrist and pinned it to the tabletop.

  "You get half now, half when I hear that the message

  reached its destination."

  "Very well." The Q'nithian watched as Dengar divided