Incavi Baker lay on her back, staring up into infinity. There was a terrible pain in her side, and she knew she was dying.
She wished it weren't so dark. Bright lights flashed around her, blaster bolts that lit the world up briefly, but even the blaster bolts were fading now.
A figure loomed up out of the darkness, knelt beside her. A man in gray armor. Incavi opened her mouth- but nothing came, and the man reached for her.
Something sharp and cold touched her neck.
Gradually, the pain went away.
A ringing in his ears.
The four bodyguards were dead; Solo must have killed the one off to the side, Fett thought, curled up around whatever wound Solo had left in him-Fett knew he had only killed the three who were still stand-ing when he entered the warehouse, and that had been as much reflex as anything.
But-
He knelt beside the woman, holding her hand, until her thrashing stopped.
In all his years as a bounty hunter he had never killed the wrong target before, and there was a tightness in his throat he hadn't felt since the day of his exile from Concord Dawn. He felt an absurd desire to apologize to the woman, which was ridiculous, she was as guilty of sin as any human being had ever been in the history of time, Fett had known her in her earlier days and there was nothing worthwhile in her or in her life, and cer-tainly the galaxy would not miss her presence-
But he had not meant to kill her.
She shuddered slightly and her hand, holding his, went limp.
The macrobinoculars buried in his helmet didn't help much, not in this darkness; they showed the still-warm forms of four bodyguards, and the bulk of this dead old woman; they showed the heat still emanating from the lamp fixtures that were now without power.
Toward the back of the warehouse, a heat source moved.
Fett came to his feet, rifle in hand, and went Hunt-ing.
Mandalorian combat armor.
I didn't come prepared for this, Han thought. He had an assault rifle, taken from the bodyguard he'd kicked in the groin, but that wasn't going to help so much, unless he got in close to Fett, and that was going to be hard, with the macrobinoculars in Fett's helmet.
He had to get out of this darkened warehouse, out into the night, where there were places to run, and places to hide, and try to reach the speeder he'd come here in.
Han couldn't believe this was happening to him.
He gathered his legs up beneath him, checked the safety on the assault rifle-he heard movement, out toward the front of the warehouse. Careful and quick- he kept his head down and ran in a crouch toward the warehouse's rear entrance.
Lando would be jealous, if Han made it back to tell him about it, and Lando made it back to be told.
Leia was going to be furious.
Fett ducked down behind one of the growing tanks, unlimbered his flare gun and fired a shot toward the warehouse's roof.
Actinic orange light flared; it would give Solo some light to work with. The interior of the warehouse be-came bright as day, and huge wavering shadows struck away from the warehouse's supporting beams, as the flare hit the ceiling, crawled along it for several sec-onds, and started to descend.
Something rattled, off at the eastern end of the ware-house; Fett held his position, held his fire. Solo had thrown something-the sound came again. Patience, patience-
A single shot, the sound of broken glass, that was Solo making an exit for himself through one of the windows, before the flare faded, while he could still see to run, and Fett surged to his feet to shoot Solo down as he made for the broken window.
He had time to see Han Solo, standing fifty meters away, pointing one of the bodyguards' assault rifles at him. The shot took Fett in his breastplate and blew him off his feet.
Han Solo turned and ran, hit the shattered window and dove through it like a young man in his prime.
Boba Fett rolled over, staggered back to his feet only a second later, the breastplate of his combat armor so hot it burned everywhere it touched him, and in a murderous rage charged after Solo, as unaware of the pain that throbbed in his legs and chest as if it be-longed to someone else.
Han ran toward his speeder under the dim light from the planet's only moon. He was slightly disoriented; he couldn't remember whether the downlot where he'd left the speeder was south and west, or south and east; he ran south down one of the long alleyways between the warehouses, breath coming short, and came up to the last building, the last cover before the downlot, and hesitated before rounding the corner, the downlot was either immediately to his left or immediately to his right. He tried to envision the layout of the warehouse park in his mind-he thought he'd come the quick way around, but maybe not, and if he hadn't, then Fett might have reached the downlot before him.
A scraping sound, metal on stone-
Before he even realized what he was doing Han found himself rounding the corner, rifle up and finger tightening on the trigger as Boba Fett was turning toward him, bringing up his own rifle-
They stood there in the middle of nowhere, on a planet the rest of the galaxy had more than half forgot-ten, pointing assault rifles at one another, from a dis-tance of less than a meter.
Han didn't fire.
Fett didn't fire.
Bizarre details piled in on Han. The aperture of Fett's assault rifle was huge, as big as the Death Star had seemed at first sight. The barrel wasn't perfectly steady, it wavered slightly, moving around in almost invisibly tiny circles. The moonlight glinted off Fett's scarred armor; Han could see the moon, reflected darkly on the black visor.
He was still out of breath from the running. His voice caught when he spoke. "I guess we're going to. die together."
Fett's voice-as harsh and raw as ever. "Evidently."
Han stared over the sight at him. "Your armor won't save you. Not at this range."
"No."
"I doubt you can kill me quick enough to keep me from firing."
Fett's helmet moved, slightly-a nod. "I doubt it too."
Han did not dare take his eye away from his rifle's sight, aiming at the base of Fett's throat. "You killed those people back there. The woman."
Han could have sworn he saw a shiver run up the bounty hunter's frame. "I'm sorry about that. They- she-was not the target."
Han almost pulled the trigger on him. He could hear the rage in his own voice. "You're going to die and I'm going to die and maybe we both of us deserve it. That woman didn't do any-"
"She's the one who called me!"
Han took a step forward and screamed, "Idon't care!" He found to his amazement that he was standing with the barrel of his rifle jammed up against Fett's armor, that the barrel of Fett's rifle was digging into his own breastbone. "I don't know what made you like you are, you think you get to decide who lives and dies, I don't care, come on, pull the trigger and we'll die together!" He stared into the black visor. "Last decision you'll ever get to make."
Boba Fett said in a voice so soft Han would have sworn it could not have been Fett's, "You first." His voice got even softer, amazingly. "You're married, aren't you? You have children who need you. What were you doing out here, Solo, pretending to be young? This is no place for a man like you."
The fury that touched Han was bone deep. "Don't you talk about my children, I'll kill you so fast-"
"Do you want to die?"
Han took a deep breath. "Do you?"
Fett shook his head, the tiniest possible movement of the visor. "No. But I do not see a way out."
The faintest breath of hope touched Han. "All right. You put down your rifle. I won't kill you if you put down your rifle."
Fett whispered it. "No. You put down yours. I won't kill you if you put down yours. I'll let you go back to your family, unharmed. Put down your weapons-"
"I don't trust you."
"Nor I," said Fett, "you."
A cool wind blew across the downlot; Han felt it dry-ing his sweat, chilling him. "We take five steps back," Han said final
ly. ' 'You drop your rifle and you run like a gundark on fire. Even if I do shoot at you that armor would protect you."
"I have bad legs. I don't think I can outrun you."
Han could not stop thinking of his children, of Leia. "Just walk away, put the rifle down and walk away. I'm an honest man. I won't kill you."
"You're a liar," said Fett, "by all the evidence. I think you would." Fett paused. "When I was a young man," he said finally, "I think I would have pulled the trigger by now. But I find that I do not hate you, and I am not ready to die to remove you from the world."
"I made a mistake, coming here to Jubilar. I do hate you, I hate everything you've done-but my wife and children need me."
"I don't see a way out of this," said Fett, "that does not involve trying to trust one another."
"This rifle is getting heavy," said Han, which it was; he watched Fett over the sight. "What are we going to do?"
"Everyone dies," said Fett.
"Yeah. Eventually. But it doesn't have to be today, not for either of us."
Fett shook his head; the helmet barely moved, and Han did not imagine that Fett's attention had shifted even slightly. "I do not know," Fett said softly. "Trust is hard, among enemies. Perhaps we should return to the battle; perhaps, Han Solo, we should let fly, and once more let fate decide who will survive, as we did when we were young."
The End
Star Wars - Tales Of The Bounty Hunters Page 34