Hard Merchandise

by K. W. Jeter

  Stunned and doubled over from the blow to his gut, Boba Fett lay on the cargo area's grated metal floor, one shoulder rolled beneath him. His own sudden flurry of motion revealed to his dazed and swimming vision what had previously been concealed by the thick smoke gath­ ered at the base of the cage: the laser-cannon bolts from the hidden enemy ship had buckled the hold's floor enough to spring loose a section of cage bars. The one with which Voss'on't had struck him had come com­pletely free, and had been held in place only by the stormtrooper's fist, giving the visual impression that he was still trapped inside the cage. In fact, and as Boba Fett had just painfully learned, he had been merely waiting for Fett to unlock the door and come within striking distance.

  "You should have ... listened ..." Voss'on't's words came from somewhere in the blurred, red-tinged distance above Boba Fett. "When you had... the opportunity..."

  As Fett tried to push himself up from the floor, an­ other blow from the metal cage bar to the base of his battle armor's helmet sent him sprawling again. The hel­ met's visor scraped across the cargo hold's grating. His mouth filled with the taste of smoke as he gulped for breath.

  "But you . . . didn't. . ." Voss'on't had planted his boots on either side of Boba Fett, the better to raise the cage bar high and aim a killing blow at the top of the bounty hunter's vertebrae. "You don't get... a second chance..."

  Boba Fett heard the bar come whistling down through the oxygen-thinned air. But the broken weld of its tip struck the hold's floor instead of his spine as his own arm grabbed hold of one of Voss'on't's legs and jerked him off balance. Voss'on't lost his grip on the metal bar as he fell backward, and it clattered across the floor and against the farthest bulkhead.

  The butt of the holstered blaster pistol was already clamped in Boba Fett's fist. Before he could draw it and fire, Voss'on't's close-combat training asserted itself: with his elbows braced against the floor, he brought the heel of his boot hard under Boba Fett's chin, snapping his helmeted head back. The blaster went flying from Fett's loosened grasp. Before Boba Fett could recover, the renegade stormtrooper dived for the weapon. Voss'on't landed with his chest scraping across the edges of the grate, outstretched hands clawing desperately for the blaster.

  Fett didn't wait to see if Voss'on't came up with it. He scrambled onto his knees and snatched up the cage bar that had fallen from the stormtrooper's grasp before. In one fluid motion, Fett twisted about, the bar poised javelinlike in one gloved hand; he saw Voss'on't also kneeling a couple of meters away, turning with the blaster pistol gripped in his doubled fists. Behind the weapon, and through the eye-stinging haze filling the cargo hold, the harsh angles of Voss'on't's triumphantly grinning face could be seen as he took aim and squeezed his finger upon the weapon's trigger.

  The cage bar flew from Boba Fett's hand as he whipped his arm straight before him. A bolt from the blaster pistol scorched an inch away from Fett's helmet as he dived to one side. Across the hold, a screeching intake of breath sounded from Voss'on't' as the jagged tip of the cage bar ripped through his sleeve and tore a red wound through the flesh underneath. The force of the thrown bar was enough to pull one hand away from the blaster—but the other hand tightened its grip.

  "Good . . . shot . . ." With his heart and lungs laboring

  in his chest, Voss'on't stood up, his wounded arm pressed tight against his side in a vain attempt to stanch the flow of blood. Dark red ribbons wound past the hip of his grease-stained uniform trousers and down his thigh. "But not... good enough..."

  Boba Fett made no reply, but watched as the blaster pistol in Voss'on't's shaking hand drew down upon an invisible line to the center of his helmet.

  "I might've ... put you in the cage ..." Voss'on't gri­ maced with the effort of pulling in enough breath to re­ main conscious. Beneath the smoke and ash streaking his narrow face, the scarred and chiseled flesh was as pallid white as a sheet of flimsiplast. "And kept you... alive..." He held the blaster, unwavering now, straight out in front of him. "But I've changed my mind."

  Fire and a blinding glare erupted through Slave I's cargo hold, overwhelming the single bolt that shot out from the muzzle of the blaster. Boba Fett felt himself be­ing thrown backward as the hold's grated flooring ripped into pieces from the explosion that pushed apart the ship's bulkheads as though they were mere fluttering sheets of metallic cloth. He knew what had happened, even as he fell again, with one forearm protectively shield­ ing his helmet's visor. From somewhere in the airless dis­ tance outside, the other ship, his unidentified enemy, had taken aim and fired its laser cannon, scoring a direct hit on his own ship's hull.

  Another explosion rumbled from deep in the bowels of Slave I, in the main engine compartments. Fire, laced with electrical sparks, white-hot wasps swirling in dense clouds of oily smoke, leapt up through the chasms that had been driven through the flooring and bulkheads. The blood that had already been spilled now hissed into red steam as the remaining atmospheric content shim­mered with the fierce heat from below.

  There he is —

  Boba Fett spotted the renegade stormtrooper behind

  a wall of flame and black, coiling smoke. Stunned by the impact of the laser-cannon bolt and the catastrophic sys­ tems failure it had triggered, Voss'on't had fallen to his knees and now-empty hands, his head lowered as though to preserve the last flickerings of consciousness inside his oxygen-starved brain.

  At the same time, the ship's alarm systems overrode the muting command that Boba Fett had given them. A chorded electronic wail sounded both inside his helmet and through the diminished air, as though the damage suffered by Slave I had given it a shrill, ululating voice, one with which it could keen its own death.

  Tendrils of smoke streamed past Boba Fett like elon­ gated ghosts as he strode through the flames; the ship's hull had been breached in enough places that the vacuum outside had begun sucking out the remaining oxygen in the cargo hold. The fire from the main engine compart­ments had begun to diminish, but still remained high enough that its bright tongues lapped past Fett's knees.

  "Let's go." Boba Fett reached down through a wash of smoke and grabbed Voss'on't underneath one arm. He lifted the stormtrooper up onto his wobbling legs.

  Voss'on't's head lolled back, as though the bones had been surgically extracted from his neck. The fire's heat had cauterized his wounded arm, stopping the flow of blood, but a thinner red line trickled from the corner of his mouth. The close impact of the laser-cannon bolt had taken him closer to death than any of Boba Fett's weap­ ons could have.

  "Go ahead ..." Voss'on't's eyelids were barely able to drag back above his unfocused sight. There was barely enough breath left in his lungs for his voice to be emitted as a dry, forceless whisper. "Finish ... me off..."

  "I told you before." The other man was taller than Fett; he had to lift Voss'on't higher and brace him against his chest, then step backward to pull him away from the flames and smoke. "You're too valuable to let die." Boba Fett took one hand away from where he had clutched the torn front of the stormtrooper's insignia-less uniform,

  and prodded his gloved fingertips up underneath the edge of his own armor's helmet. He took one last, lung-filling inhalation from the helmet's air supply, then tugged and ripped the breathing tube out beneath the helmet's lower edge. The tube extended only a few inches from the helmet; Boba Fett had to bring the stormtrooper's face up close to his own, foreheads separated only by the dark visor, in order the thrust the end of the tube into Voss'on't's mouth.

  The minute flow of oxygen from the helmet's air sup­ ply triggered an automatic response in Voss'on't. His back arched as his lungs filled reflexively, drawing deep from what little remained in the tiny canister inside the helmet. Voss'on't coughed, expelling the tube.

  Fett saw that the stormtrooper still had enough of his wits about him, despite the battering he had taken in the explosions that had ripped through the cargo hold, to clamp his mouth shut and hold in the life-restoring breath he had been given. Bearing Voss'on't
up, with one arm wrapped around him, Boba Fett dragged the unre­sisting figure through the smoke and toward the ladder leading up to the cockpit area.

  The ladder still stood upright, though it swayed when Boba Fett put a hand upon one of the metal treads. Looking past the threads of smoke sifting toward the hull's air leaks, he could see that one of the upper attach­ ment points had been ripped loose by the laser-cannon bolt's impact; the entire bulkhead behind the ladder had buckled nearly in two, as though crumpled in a giant fist.

  A screech of tormented metal sounded, barely audible through the dinning layers of system alarms, as Boba Fett mounted the ladder and began the laborious process of carrying the barely conscious stormtrooper toward the cockpit. With Voss'on't's weight balanced precari­ ously against himself, each higher tread he stepped upon threatened to break the ladder's single remaining weld with the bulkhead above. If the ladder was to come crashing down, once he and his awkward burden were at the halfway point, the fall would be enough to send both

  of them plummeting through the broken grating below and into the smoldering pit of the main engine compart­ ments. Boba Fett knew he wouldn't be climbing out from there. With that much lethal hard radiation going un­shielded, no one could.

  The weld point broke just as Boba Fett reached for the top rung.

  For a split second, the ladder swayed clear of the bulk­ head, overbalanced by the combined weight of Fett and his hard merchandise. With Voss'on't's chest pressed against one shoulder, Boba Fett bent his knees into a tense crouch. The edge of the hatchway to the cockpit area drew farther away from his upraised hand. Lungs burning, fingers straining clawlike, he pushed his legs straight, leaping for the metal ridge above him.

  His fingertips caught hold of the hatchway's curved lower rim. The stormtrooper's weight slipped in the grasp of Boba Fett's other arm; dangling alongside the crumpled bulkhead, he squeezed his hold tighter around Voss'on't's chest, his own fist locked under the edge of the other's shoulder blade, tight enough that he could feel the ends of the stormtrooper's broken ribs grind against one another.

  The only device that Boba Fett had left that would be of any use was the wrist-mounted arrow-dart with its trailing, tethered line coiled along his forearm. Right now, that arm was the one holding up Voss'on't; he couldn't do that, and aim and fire the dart. Even with his own carefully trained resources of strength and will, Boba Fett's grip with his other hand upon the open cock­ pit hatchway above was beginning to fail, the sharp metal edge scraping slowly, centimeter by centimeter, across the fingertips of his battle armor's glove.

  There was no time for further calculation. Boba Fett loosened his grip upon the renegade stormtrooper. Voss'on't's weight slid lower against him as Fett brought his arm vertical and fired the arrow-dart toward the cockpit.

  The breath that Voss'on't had managed to hold now

  escaped in an involuntary gasp of pain as the tip of the dart scored a red line across his shoulder blade and neck. His torso was jerked higher as the trailing line, penetrat­ ing the back of his uniform jacket, gathered up the heavy oil- and bloodstained fabric like a sling beneath Voss'on't's arms, dragging him almost a full meter upward. The torn front of his uniform jacket slid across the visor of Fett's helmet.

  Boba Fett felt the trailing line of the dart grow taut, indicating that the barbed metal had snagged onto some anchoring point inside the cockpit. The dart's built-in circuitry was programmed to both spread its barbs wider upon target contact and alter its final trajectory into a tight loop, giving the head section of the trailing line the chance to magnetically seize and fasten upon itself.

  Using the control studs at the base of his battle ar­ mor's glove, Boba Fett hit the arrow-dart's retract func­ tion. The line reaching up into the cockpit went even tighter, as though strung from the ends of a primitive bow weapon. Boba Fett had to grip the line with his up­raised hand and strain his bicep muscles against its ten­sion to keep his own weight and that of Voss'on't's body from pulling his arm out of its socket.

  The miniaturized traction engine embedded in the sleeve of Fett's armor had been designed only to handle one humanoid-sized burden, not two; he could sense a warning glow of heat against the flesh of his forearm as the dart's trailing line reeled back, drawing him and Voss'on't slowly up toward the open hatchway. The lad­ der fell away from his boot soles, its length clattering against two angles of bulkhead, then falling to the grated floor of the cargo hold. A swirl of red sparks burst up as the ladder slipped through one of the jagged openings and tumbled farther into the ship's bowels.

  A tendril of grey smoke, lighter than the dark, oily clouds from the fire in the main engine compartments, leaked from a tear in Boba Fett's sleeve. The heat against his skin increased to a white-hot burn as the retracting line brought him inches away from the metal ridge above

  him. With nothing to push against from below, Fett had to wait until the line had dragged him high enough to throw one elbow across the rim of the hatchway, then lever himself into position for pushing Voss'on't up onto the floor of the cockpit area.

  Voss'on't came to, at least enough to realize what Boba Fett was trying to accomplish. The stormtrooper's fingertips reached out and scrabbled a hold on to the cockpit flooring; with a kicking thrust, he managed to drag himself up and out of Fett's supporting grasp.

  With both arms free now, Boba Fett threw his other elbow across the hatchway's lower rim and tensed to pull himself the rest of the way up.

  "Hey ... thanks ..."

  Fett heard the grating, smoke-harshened voice and looked up into Voss'on't's grinning face. The storm- trooper had rolled over and gotten himself into a sitting position, his one good arm braced behind himself, knees drawn up toward his chest. The narrowed eyes and an­gles features wore a black mask of sweat-streaked ash and oil; his leering smile broke through as though cut with a diagonal swipe of a vibroblade.

  "Thanks," repeated Voss'on't. The cockpit's air filters had cleared away enough smoke for the ex-stormtrooper to draw in a full breath. "I appreciate it. Now you can go die."

  One boot shot out, its sole catching Boba Fett directly in the visor of his helmet. The kick had enough force to knock him back from where he had clambered onto the lower rim of the hatchway; only the line tethered from his wrist into the cockpit behind Voss'on't kept Fett from falling back down toward the cargo hold.

  Boba Fett managed to grab the rim of the hatchway with one hand. He looked up and saw that Voss'on't had gotten to his feet, and now stood gazing down at him. In one hand, Voss'on't held a sharp fragment of metal, part of the debris that the laser-cannon bolts had scattered through the cargo hold. His ugly smile growing wider, Voss'on't held the edge of the shard against the line run-

  ning past him, from Fett's wrist to its anchor inside the cockpit.

  "This time," said Voss'on't, sneering, "it's really good­bye. For you, at least." As he pressed the cutting edge of the metal fragment harder against the line, he raised one booted foot and prepared to smash it down upon Boba Fett's hand.

  Before the boot came down, Voss'on't was thrown off balance by the tethered line going suddenly slack. Press­ ing the miniature control studs at the base of his wrist, Boba Fett let the arrow-dart's line reel out, until it had lengthened by several meters. That was enough for him to cock his free arm back and snap it forward again. The tethered line looped lassolike and snagged around Voss'on't's neck. Fett hit the wrist-mounted control studs again, retracting the line once more, into a choking gar- rote around the other man's throat.

  Voss'on't staggered backward, fingertips clawing at the line digging under his throat. The pull from the taut line enabled Boba Fett to climb up into the hatchway.

  With his eyes squeezed shut in pain, Voss'on't didn't see the blow from Boba Fett's gloved fist that sent the stormtrooper sprawling onto his back, head slamming against the base of the pilot's chair. Boba Fett reached over with his other hand and snapped the arrow-dart line free from his own wrist, pushed the dazed Voss'on'
t over, and used the loose end of the line to bind Voss'on't's hands together with a hard knot. He pulled the rest of the line down to Voss'on't's ankles and bound them the same way. Then he picked Voss'on't up by the front of his jacket, hoisted the stormtrooper to eye level, and threw him into the far corner of the cockpit.

  "Seal off the cockpit area," Boba Fett spoke aloud. He was already leaning over the control panel as Slave I's onboard computer executed the command; with a hiss, the hatchway door closed behind him. With a few quick jabs at the controls, he silenced the alarm signals once again.

  The silence was broken by Fett's own deep, ragged

  breathing as his lungs refilled themselves from the cock­ pit's reserves of oxygen. Those were enough to bring Voss'on't back to full consciousness as well.

  "Now... now what..." Hands tied behind himself, Voss'on't lay on one shoulder and labored to speak. "Are you ... going to do ..."