The Mandalorian Armor (star wars)

by K. W. Jeter

  Boba Fett wasn't listening to the old Shell Hutt. With Zuckuss and IG-88 watching him, the weapons in their hands lowered, he laid D'harhan's body down upon the floor. The laser-cannon barrel turned and slowly came to rest, its muzzle scraping through the charred debris. D'harhan's black-gloved hands fumbled for the voice box clipped to his waist. The rise and fall of his chest, pinned by the cannon's curved mount, was quick and labored as a single fingertip punched out a message. Kneeling beside him, Boba Fett looked at the words glowing on the box's screen.

  I SHOULD NOT HAVE TRUSTED YOU.

  "That's right," said Fett, with a single nod. "That was your mistake."

  you're wrong. The fingertip moved with agonizing slowness. it was ... my decision ….

  Fett said nothing. He waited for the rest of D'harhan's silent words. i can stop now…but you . .. The black-gloved fingertip moved from letter to letter on the voice box's keypad. you still must go on. ...

  The hand fell away from the box. D'harhan's forearm struck the ground beside his body. There was no more breath or pulse lifting his chest; after a moment Boba Fett reached over and switched off the last of the laser cannon's red-lit controls.

  He stood up and turned toward the other bounty hunters. "We're done here," said Fett. "Now we can go."

  17

  Zuckuss looked up into the old Trandoshan's eyes, into the black slits of that hard reptilian gaze. And said, "Everything happened the way you wanted it to."

  "Good." Cradossk slowly nodded as he turned away. "I expected that."

  I bet you did, thought Zuckuss. Being back here in the private quarters of the Bounty Hunters Guild's leader gave him the creeps. This was where Cradossk had sucked him into the distasteful little conspiracy that would result in Bossk's death. It struck Zuckuss, not for the first time, that these Trandoshans were indeed coldblooded, right down to the marrow of their fenestrated bones. The only thing that could account for their hot tempers was the strength of their carnivorous appetites. That cold blood had never been more in evidence than just now, when he had told Cradossk the details of what had happened on Circumtore.

  "You saw it?" Cradossk had demanded an eyewitness verification of his son's death. "You saw him take the shot?"

  "Right in the chest," Zuckuss had answered. "He didn't get up after that." His own blood had chilled when he spotted the little smile on Cradossk's face.

  "You came straight here?" Cradossk didn't turn around to look at him again, but continued idly fiddling with a couple of pieces from the bone chamber at the far end of the spacious suite. "As soon as you la nded?" The pieces were yellowy white, slender and curved; Zuckuss's own ribs twinged in painful sympathy as he recognized what they were. "You didn't talk to anyone else?" The tubes of his face mask's breathing apparatus swung back and forth as he shook his head. "No one. Those were your orders. When…you know…when you gave me the job."

  He was still sorry he'd agreed to it. Even though he'd come back from Circumtore with his own skin relatively intact, if somewhat bruised and battered from the action in the Shell Hutts' great reception hall. Going along with someone who'd been making arrangements to get his own son killed-which was what the whole futile journey to acquire an already dead piece of merchandise had been about-still turned him somewhat queasy. Maybe Boba Fett's right, he mused bleakly. Maybe I'm not really cut out for the bounty-hunter trade.

  "I'm glad to see that you can follow orders." Cradossk held the rib bone up close to his aging eyes. The name of the vanquished foe to which it had once belonged was incised along its length, the marks scratched there by one of his own foreclaws. "I'm impressed with your…loyalty. And your intelligence. Both of those attributes will stand you in good stead in the difficult times before us." He sighed, lowering the memento of past glories, his gaze focusing on some faroff horizon. "How I wish that my son had possessed similar qualities. Or to put it another way-" He turned his head just enough to cast a sidelong glance at the younger bounty hunter. "If only someone such as yourself had been my offspring."

  Sure, thought Zuckuss. He kept himself from showing any other reaction. And wind up dead, the first time you started feeling paranoid? No thanks.

  "Mark my words." Cradossk's gnarled claws gripped the bone as though it were a club suitable for thrashing miscreants. His voice rumbled lower, matching the heavy scowl on his scaly face. "If the other bounty hunters of your generation were as smart as you-and respectful of their elders' wisdom-then a great deal of trouble could be avoided. But they have…ideas of their own." He spoke the word with loathing. "Just as my son did. That's why it was so important that he be eliminated, and in a way that would not appear to have been from my conniving at that result. This way ... to have it happen on a world far from here, and among clever, greedy creatures such as the Shell Hutts ... it makes his death seem the inevitable consequence of his own stupidity and incompetence. So much for his new ideas." Cradossk sneered. "The old ways are the best ways. Especially when it comes to killing other creatures."

  "You'd know," muttered Zuckuss under his breath.

  "Did you say something?" Cradossk glanced over at him.

  Zuckuss shook his head. "It was a bubble." He pointed to the dangling air tubes. "In my gear."

  "Ah." Cradossk resumed his contemplation of his longdead enemy's rib, letting it evoke deep, musing thoughts.

  "It's good to remember these things. To be wise. More than wise; cunning. Because"-he nodded slowly-"there's going to be a lot more killing before everything's straightened out around here."

  "What do you mean?" He already knew what the old Trandoshan meant, but asked anyway. The creaky old carnivore wants to talk, Zuckuss told himself, / should let him talk. It was only polite, and it didn't cost him anything. Besides-other things were going to happen that Cradossk probably didn't know about. And those things took time to get ready.

  He heard a slight noise from the doorway. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Cradossk's majordomo, the Twi'lek that was always sneaking around the place, on his own and others' shadowy errands. Ob Fortuna held one of his elongated forefingers to his lips, signaling Zuckuss to remain silent himself. From the corner of one large eye, Zuckuss looked over at the leader of the Bounty Hunters Guild; the old reptilian was still sunk deep in his brooding meditations. Zuckuss and the Twi'lek ex changed a quick nod, and the Twi'lek scurried away, down the Guild's dark corridors.

  "Now's not the time to start playing stupid." The ancient rib cracked in two, with a splintered fragment in each of Cradossk's tightly squeezed fists. He looked in angry surprise at what he'd just done, then tossed the relic's pieces away. He shot a hard-eyed gaze over his shoulder at Zuckuss. "Don't try telling me you're not smart enough to know what's going on around here."

  "Well…"

  "Bossk was only the first one. The first that had to be eliminated." A bone shard had been left on the back of Cradossk's hand, caught underneath one of his rough-edged scales. He extracted it and used it to pick his fangs, nodding in grim thought all the while. "There will be others; I've got a list."

  I bet you do, thought Zuckuss.

  "Not all of them young and foolish, either." Cradossk examined a still-wriggling fragment of food on the end of the improvised toothpick, then resumed his meditative work with it. "Some of my oldest and most trusted advisers…bounty hunters that I've known and supped blood with for decades ... so to speak…" He ruefully shook his head. "I should've anticipated it-but then again, how could I? I loved these killers."

  "Anticipated what?" Zuckuss knew that as well, but figured the question would keep Cradossk going awhile longer. By his calculations, the Twi'lek major-domo would need a little while longer to finish up his conspiratorial rounds.

  "Traitors…backstabbers ..." Cradossk's voice was a low, muttering growl. "That's what you get in this galaxy for being nice to creatures. Taking them in when they were runny-nosed little scavengers who wouldn't have known how to get their claws on a piece of merchandise if it'd been given to them with
a ribbon tied around it. I taught most of these Guild members everything there is to know about this business."

  "I imagine that's quite a lot."

  "You better believe it," Cradossk said fiercely.

  "There's parts of the bounty-hunter trade that I in vented. And if these scum think they can get it all away from me…" He chomped down on the bone toothpick, grinding it between his back fangs. "They'd better think again."

  "What particular scum are you talking about?" Cradossk's mention of a list still had Zuckuss worried. The old Trandoshan might have gone senile, perhaps forgetting just who he was talking to. Just my luck, thought Zuckuss glumly, to find my own name on there.

  "They know who they are. The same as I know. Though maybe…" Cradossk gave another slow nod. "Maybe I shouldn't take any chances. Maybe I should just have everyone killed. Wipe clean the whole roster of the Bounty Hunters Guild. Start fresh ..."

  Great, thought Zuckuss. He had been warned about this, by Boba Fett on the way back from Circumtore. Up in the Slave I's cockpit area, Fett had given him another insight into the way Cradossk's mind worked. The Trandoshan had always been paranoid, long before he had clawed to the top of the Bounty Hunters Guild. Arguably, a personality trait like that was what had enabled him to do it, or had at least helped. Hard on his associates, though, figured Zuckuss.

  "But first," said Cradossk, "we'll get rid of the obvious targets. The ones who have already announced their intentions, to either take over the Guild or split from it and set up a new bounty-hunters organization of their own. As if I'd ever let that happen." Zuckuss and the others returning from Circum-tore had already heard about these developments over the Slave I's comm unit. The breakaway faction was eager to get as many Guild members onto its side as possible-especially the great Boba Fett and anyone associated with him. Just having been on the team Fett had assembled for the Oph Nar Dinnid job meant that Zuckuss and IG-88 were now being heavily courted by the bounty hunters who wanted to go out on their own, with an organization that wasn't controlled by the elders such as Cradossk. Always pleasant to be wanted, he supposed-as long as Cradossk and his loyalists didn't get the notion that he had switched allegiances.

  "All of them?" It would be better, Zuckuss figured, if he kept the old Trandoshan brooding about creatures who weren't here in his chamber with him. "I mean-like you said-some of them have been with the Bounty Hunters Guild for a long time. Since the beginning; or at least, since you took over."

  "Those are the ones I'm going to enjoy getting rid of." An ugly smile showed on Cradossk's face, as though he were already relishing the details of that process.

  "The younger bounty hunters could almost be excused for being stupid. They haven't been around long enough to know any better. But the others, the veteran bounty hunters, who've thrown in their lot with them-they could have predicted how I'd react to their treachery, their assault upon the sanctity of our brotherhood." Zuckuss rolled his eyes upward; it was just as well that Cradossk couldn't see that reaction. He'd found out that brotherhood with carnivores, at least of the Trandoshan variety, was a negotiable concept.

  "There's big changes coming," said Cradossk.

  "Everybody who's said that has been right-and will continue to be so. The Bounty Hunters Gui ld will be different from what it was before; this galaxy belongs to Emperor Palpatine now, and we'll just have to deal with that. If this breakaway faction had just bided" their time and remained loyal to the Guild, they very likely would have gotten everything they want."

  "Except," Zuckuss pointed out, "for getting rid of you."

  Cradossk shot him a glance of venomous fury, enough to push him back a step with its intangible force.

  "That's right," he growled. "That's the one thing that's not going to happen. Count on it. The Bounty Hunters Guild is going to be a lot smaller than it was before-a lot of dead wood is going to be cleared away. I admit I should've seen it sooner, myself; that some of the elders in the organization have lost their edge. Well, they'll be gone before very much longer, whether they made the mistake of going with the breakaway faction or whether they're still sucking up to me. There's going to be a lot of blank spaces in the organizational chart; that means room for advancement. Room for someone…like you." He reached over and tapped a claw against Zuckuss's chest, right below the dangling tubes of the breathing apparatus. "A smart, young bounty hunter such as yourself could do pretty well. If you play your cards right."

  "I'll ... try to do my best."

  "Ah, don't worry about it." Cradossk pulled the claw back and scratched his scaly chin. "The main thing you have to do is-be careful who you choose to follow, and who you choose as your associates. You've made a good start by letting yourself become a tool of my intentions. Don't screw it all up by thinking you can also be friends with…certain other parties."

  "Like who?"

  Cradossk didn't answer him for a moment. The old Trandoshan's gaze drifted again to some inner point of contemplation. "You know," he said finally, "as inevitable as I suppose this all is, it had to be brought to this crisis by one individual. If it hadn't been for him-the Bounty Hunters Guild might have continued as it was for quite a while, Emperor or no Emperor." Zuckuss knew the individual to whom he referred. "You mean Boba Fett?"

  "Who else?" Cradossk gave a slow nod, as though in admiration of that absent other. "It's all because of him. Everything that has happened, and that is going to happen; all the changes, and all the deaths. Well…most of them, at any rate. He is the unaccountable factor that has been entered into the equation. It makes you wonder…what were his real reasons for journeying here."

  "But he told us," said Zuckuss. "When he first arrived. Because of all the changes, with the Empire and everything else-"

  "And you believed him?" Cradossk shook his head.

  "Time for another lesson, child. There is no one you can trust-least of all someone who trades in the deaths and defeats of others. You can trust Boba Fett now, if you wish, but I promise you The day will come when you'll regret it."

  A chill ran through Zuckuss's spirit, or whatever was left of it after having become a bounty hunter. Part of him knew that the old Trandoshan had spoken truly; another part hoped that the day he had foretold was still a long way off.

  "Well ... I better be going." Zuckuss gestured toward the door of the private quarters. "There's still a lot I have to take care of." He was pretty sure that the Twi'lek majordomo would have had enough time by now to contact everyone that needed to be. "You know…since coming back from the job…"

  "Of course." Cradossk bent down and picked up the pieces of the shattered rib bone. "I've got to learn to control my temper." Clutching the white splinters in one clawed hand, he smiled at Zuckuss. "Or do you think it's just too late for that?"

  Zuckuss had stepped back toward the door. "To be truthful ..." He reached behind himself and grasped the door's edge. "It's too late."

  "I suppose you're right." Cradossk looked suddenly older, as though weighed down with the burdens of leadership. Carrying the broken trophy from his younger days, he shuffled toward the entrance of the bone chamber, the repository of all his precious memories.

  "It's always too late …."

  The door to the private quarters creaked as Zuckuss pulled it farther open, but he didn't step out to the corridor beyond. He stayed where he was so he could watch what he knew was about to happen.

  Which took place within seconds Cradossk found his way blocked by his offspring Bossk. The younger Traridoshan stood with his arms folded across his chest; a wide smile split his face as he gazed down into his father's startled eyes.

  "But…" Cradossk gaped at his son. "You…you're supposed to be dead. ..."

  "I know that was the plan," said Bossk, with feigned mildness. "But I made some changes to it." Cradossk whirled about, looking back toward the private-quarters door and Zuckuss. "You lied!"

  "Not entirely." Zuckuss gave a small shrug. "Just the bit about him not getting up again after he was sh
ot." With a single foreclaw, Bossk pointed to the sterile bandage running diagonally across his chest, from one shoulder and under the opposite arm. "It really hurt," he said, still smiling. "But it didn't kill me. You should know how hard our species is to get rid of. And also-whatever doesn't destroy one of us just makes us that much more pissed off."

  A look of panic appeared in Cradossk's yellowed eyes; he took a step backward from the figure looming in front of him. "Now wait a minute …." The bone shards fell on the floor as he raised his scaly hands, palms outward.

  "I think you might be making some…rash assumptions here …."

  One of Bossk's hands shot out, grabbing his father by the throat. "No, I'm not." The smile was gone from his face. On the other side of the private quarters, Zuckuss could see the red anger tingeing the younger Trandoshan's eyes. "I'm making the same assumption I made a long time ago, before I ever left for Circumtore. And you know what that is? It's that there isn't room in the Bounty Hunters Guild for both you and me."

  "I ... I don't know what you're talking about …." Cradossk grabbed the other's wrist, in a futile attempt to ease his hold and get another breath into his own lungs. "The Guild... the Guild is for all of us. ..."