Slave Ship (star wars)

by K. W. Jeter

  "You told me something before, about the Bounty Hunters Guild. Just a little while ago, right after Fett got rid of Bossk." Neelah searched her recent memory; it had been only a passing reference to the Guild, something hardly worth the effort to remember-at least, until now." You said. . . something about Bossk. And the Guild. That the trouble between him and Fett went back a long way."

  "Sure," said Dengar, leaning back against the bulkhead. He seemed amused by her efforts at assembling the past." But it's no big secret. Everybody knows about it-or at least everybody who has any reason to be interested in the welfare of bounty hunters." Dengar's smile widened." Not everybody is, you know. Bounty hunters aren't the most popular creatures in the galaxy. That's just another good reason for getting out of the business. Makes it hard to build up a lot of goodwill, when everybody else has this fervent wish that your whole category was lasered out of existence."

  You don't have to tell me, thought Neelah. She had been hanging out with bounty hunters for only a little while now, and she already had serious grievances with them.

  "So there is some kind of history-between Boba Fett and Bossk." Neelah intently regarded Dengar sitting next to her, as though she could read some additional clues from his face." Something personal."

  Dengar laughed." You could say that. You could say a lot about the two of them, and it would all be true. At least, the more violent parts would be. Bossk has got a grudge against Boba Fett a parsec wide-and this latest embarrassment, getting booted out of his own ship, isn't going to make it any better. If Bossk hated Fett before, he's really going to be gunning for him now." Dengar shook his head." Just goes to show what a tough hunter Boba Fett is. That's a dangerous game to play, letting an enemy as hard and determined as Bossk get away. You have to have some real confidence in your own abilities not to get a little nervous about a killer like that still floating around the galaxy, with your name at the top of his to-do list."

  "Well, that's his problem, not ours." Neelah's brow furrowed as she tried to link up one tantalizing fragment of information with another. It was impossible; there were still too many pieces missing. Pieces that her own plans-and her life-might depend upon." Look, you've got to tell me-"

  One of Dengar's eyebrows raised as he looked back at her." Tell you what?"

  "Tell me everything." Neelah couldn't keep a pleading tone from her voice." Everything that I don't know."

  "That could take a while."

  "All right; just about Bossk and Boba Fett, then." She was desperately clutching at anything, any key to the past. If her own life, all that had happened to her before Jabba's palace, was a mystery, she could at least dig out the true histories of those surrounding her. A key that would unlock all the dark secrets, or even a few, that Boba Fett kept behind the cold, hard gaze of his helmet-that could be worth a lot to her. Maybe everything, thought Neelah.

  "Some of it you know already." Dengar made a one-handed gesture, vague enough to indicate a point in time rather than space." Back when we were still on Tatooine."

  That was true. There had been empty hours enough, while they had waited for Boba Fett's resurrection, for some of the blanks to have been filled in. Or at least those that pertained to the history of Boba Fett and the Bounty Hunters Guild. Boba Fett was still the same, as though he were some deathless, immutable construct, but the Guild had gone through changes. What existed now was only that which remained after the various interlocking conspiracies and schemes had finished with it. Conspiracies, all of which had had Boba Fett at their center. An entire war had broken out among the bounty hunters, and not all of them had survived. And if any could be said to have won that war, it would be Boba Fett himself.

  Dengar had enjoyed telling those war stories; she had sensed the admiration in his voice. Admiration for Boba Fett, for the sheer ruthless efficiency of his plans and actions. An efficiency and a ruthlessness that Dengar certainly knew he could never achieve; he could only partake of it vicariously. No wonder, thought Neelah, he fell for that partnership gambit. Even close to death, lying half-digested by the Sarlacc on the barren rocks of Tatooine's Dune Sea, Boba Fett had been able to size up his target's basic psychology. Size it up, and then use it all to his own advantage.

  That was a little tougher for her. At least, so far. But Neelah knew that whatever Dengar told her about Fett, about the past maneuvers in that war among and between the bounty hunters, the details would tell her as much about Dengar as anyone else. Which would suit her just fine. That way, she thought, I'll find out about both of them. Somewhere in there, she'd find something she could use. . .

  "You're right," Neelah said aloud." I know some of it. Thanks to you. Now how about the rest?"

  Dengar regarded her in silence for a moment, then slowly nodded." Okay." He leaned back against the bulkhead." I guess we've got time. Though that all depends on where we're going, doesn't it?"

  "Boba Fett didn't tell either one of us that." Neelah settled back, arms crossed over her breast." So you might as well start, and we'll see how far we get."

  A half smile formed on Dengar's face." Maybe we'll just get to the good parts."

  They're all good, thought Neelah. As long as I get what I want.

  She listened as the figure beside her started talking. . .

  5

  AND THEN. . .

  (JUST AFTER THE EVENTS OF STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE)

  "I've never been here before," said the emissary from the Bounty Hunters Guild." Though, of course, it's been described to me many times."

  "How flattering it is to me to be the auditory recipient of such notice." Kud'ar Mub'at folded another pair of his chitinous, spike-haired legs around himself." To be spoken of in the corridors and nooks of the galaxy's intrigues and powers-such a pleasure! Always!"

  The compound lenses of the arachnoid assembler's eyes watched in amusement as the Guild's emissary tried to keep from actually touching any of the web's fibrous-and living-structure. Silly creature, thought Kud'ar Mub'at; the amusement it felt was easily concealed behind its own narrow, triangular face. That was one of the advantages the assembler had over the members of nearly all the galaxy's sentient species: it could read them as easily as a primitive ink-and-paper datasheet, while its own emotions and calculations remained a masked enigma to them.

  Kud'ar Mub'at supposed that was why he'd al

  ways enjoyed dealing with the bounty hunter Boba Fett. With that visored mask on, the helmet of the Mandalorian armor he bore, Fett was a constant challenge to decipher and manipulate. A worthy opponent, mused the assembler. Even if he was already fated to lose, enmeshed in a larger, invisible, and inescapable web. . .

  "You'll have to excuse me, if I seem a little. . . uncomfortable." The emissary's name was Gleed Otondon; his host couldn't tell from what miserably harsh outlying world he had originated, but it was obviously one that produced impressively bulky and well-equipped residents at the top of its food chain-the emissary was all leather-encased muscles with a horn-spiked skull and proboscis atop. His clawed hands twitched against his knees as he overwhelmed the guest's chair near Kud'ar Mub'at's thronelike nest. He glanced again at the densely intertwined fibers arching over his head." Are you sure this place is airtight?"

  "My dear and most precious Gleed-allay your fears." If outright laughter had been in the repertoire of the assembler's emotional responses, Kud'ar Mub'at might not have been able to restrain itself." Reasonable as those apprehensions might be, I assure you that they are most unnecessary." Perhaps even a little insulting, though the assembler kept that reaction to itself. It signaled to one of its corporeal-maintenance subnodes, a miniature version of its own spidery form. The wave of an upraised leg-tip was actually unnecessary; the little node was tethered to the assembler's own central nervous system-as were all the living bits and pieces of the web, the partially differentiated inhabitants that Kud'ar Mub'at had spun from his own inmost being." But I'll check, just to be sure for my most esteemed visitor."

  Gleed Otondon
shrank back, as though trying to hide inside his own body armor, as the summoned node scuttled past his shoulders, trailing a whitely glistening filament of neural connector tissue behind itself. The node perched alertly on the angle of Kud'ar Mub'at's outstretched leg.

  "Yes yes?" The node was all eagerness; it had been one of the assembler's favorite creations, though the bouncy mannerisms were starting to wear thin now." What can I do do do for you you?" And the echoing whole-word stutter in its vocal circuits was definitely annoying. Kud'ar Mub'at made a personal mental note, in the unshared segment of its own cerebral cortex, to eliminate that flaw with the subnode's successor, after this one had been reingested." Anything at all all?"

  The curved walls of the web's central chamber seemed to move and shift, all of the gathered subnodes turning the varying levels of their communal consciousness toward the discussion taking place in their midst. A general alert had gone out over the web's neural fibers as to just how important these meetings were. Underneath a few dangling nodes, Gleed Otondon cringed at the sight of the bustling, enveloping activity.

  "A status report, please." Kud'ar Mub'at made a show of giving orders to the subnode clinging to its extended leg. That was all for their visitor's benefit as well; there was no real need for courtesies being extended to things that were as much a part of the assembler as its own segmented abdomen and thorax." Regarding our dear little home's atmospheric pressure-is all as it should be, pray tell?"

  The subnode was silent for a few seconds as it shifted its minimal nervous system into communication with the rest of the web's bioengineering and homeostasis-maintenance nodes. Their wordless back-and-forth conference evoked a tingling sensation inside the tactile processors of Kud'ar Mub'at's central cortex. For a moment, it could feel the interlaced network of the web's outer sheath, as though its soft-abdomened body had expanded to the limits of its sensory perceptions.

  Drifting amid the stars' cold points of light, the web's ropelike strands were studded with functioning scraps of various machines and spacecraft. Those bits and pieces were the only ones that the assembler hadn't spun itself but had incorporated into its extended being, usually as the final payments due from one extortionate scheme or another. The foreclosed-upon debtors were usually expelled through one of the web's annular exit ports, to deal with the vacuum as best they could. Kud'ar Mub'at's interest in them ceased at that point; the assembler thought it morbidly uncouth to collect scraps of corpses as trophies, the way those reptilian Trandoshans did.

  "Normal pressure loss experienced-" At Kud'ar Mub'at's direction, one of the skittering voice-box subnodes took over from its exterior-maintenance web-cousin, still sitting on their parents' spider-jointed leg. The stutterless voice box dangled within inches of Gleed Otondon's head; the emissary regarded it with evident dismay." During reception of visitors and transfer from docking vessels, atmospheric generation stepped up two levels over subsequent time period, per standing orders for perimeter breach procedures." The voice-box node fell silent for a few seconds as it received more data from the exterior sensors. The voice-box nodes were little more than articulating mouths and imbedded vocal cords; they didn't possess enough separate memory to hold more than a few sentences at a time." Internal web pressure currently at ninety-five percent of optimum volume; one hundred percent optimum within next hour."

  "There. You see?" Kud'ar Mub'at gestured with its extended leg. The assembler spoke rapidly, to keep its visitor from thinking about and commenting upon the one word-" vessels," in the plural-that the voice-box node had let slip. That's the problem, thought Kud'ar Mub'at, when you don't give your underlings enough brains to think with." Nothing at all to worry about."

  "If you say so." The emissary from the Bounty Hunters Guild looked only slightly reassured.

  The real worries, as always, belonged to Kud'ar Mub'at. Life itself, mused the assembler, is a burden. It was a constant temptation to design and create the web's subnodes with enough cortical matter to render them capable of independent thought and action; that would have taken a great deal of the load off the assembler's multiple shoulders. It might also, Kud'ar Mub'at reminded himself, take my head off those shoulders. The web had come to Kud'ar Mub'at as its inheritance, upon the death-murder, actually-of the arachnoid assembler that had spawned it. That might have been right and proper-Kud'ar Mub'at had never felt any guilt over the matter-but at the same time, it had no intention of making the same mistake itself, as its creator had.

  "Ah, but I do say so." Kud'ar Mub'at enacted a semblance of a gracious humanoid bow, spreading wide two of its jointed legs and bending forward, eye-studded head lowered. The shifting of the assembler's weight momentarily lifted its pallid, wobbling abdomen from the living nest beneath; the concave subnode sighed and put its minimal intelligence to the task of reinflating its cushionlike bladder parts. " I make every effort for the comfort of my so highly esteemed guests. Such as yourself. Even if it did not facilitate the flowing conduct of business, I would still feel it incumbent upon me to do so, honored as I am by your presence."

  "Don't bother." The emissary's unease shifted to annoyance. With a visible display of will, Gleed Otondon regained control of himself." I've been informed about all your flattering language." His eyes narrowed into a focus of distrust." It won't work on me."

  Ah, thought Kud'ar Mub'at to himself, keeping his satisfaction hidden. But it already has. One way or another. . .

  "I'm sure," soothed Kud'ar Mub'at," that you don't mean that in a hostile way. But of course, if you wanted to, that would be fine with me as well. I try to be accommodating, as I hope you've seen." The assembler settled himself back down into the nest sub-node's soft embrace." May I prevail upon you for a very small, inconsequential kindness? If you'll excuse me for a moment, I must confer with a few of my tiny minions. Trifles, mere details; such an annoyance."

  None of Kud'ar Mub'at's multiple eyes had lids, but a slight opacity filmed over their bright beadlike surfaces as the assembler relaxed their focus. It tucked its legs around itself as a further indication of having withdrawn its attention. One of its tiniest creations, an optical subnode barely bigger than a humanoid thumb, peered out from behind a tangle of the web's structural fibers. An unsheathed neural strand, white as spidersilk, conveyed a sharp image of the Guild emissary to the parent assembler's cortex. Gleed Otondon looked grumpy and uncomfortable, obviously irritated by even the slightest delay in taking care of business.

  Let him stew awhile, decided Kud'ar Mub'at. The assembler's full consciousness had already siphoned along the connecting neural fibers to another part of the web.

  And to another visitor.

  "You look different," said the Trandoshan bounty hunter." From the last time I was here at the web."

  "Ah, my dear and most esteemed Bossk." The web's owner and creator, the arachnoid assembler Kud'ar Mub'at, traced a gesture with one upraised leg, signifying a galaxy's worth of hard-won wisdom and regret." You are still in the prime of a vigorous youthfulness. Is that not so? Whereas I myself. . ." The points of the tiny claws at the end of the leg tapped against a chitinous segment of exoskeletal carapace, just beneath the assembler's triangular face, and where a heart would have been if its anatomy were closer to humanoid or reptilian." I grow old and tired. Just as your beloved father Cradossk did, may his memory be enshrined among the stars."

  "Yeah, well, the old lizard isn't going to get any older now. That's for sure." A glow of satisfaction kindled in Bossk's own scale-covered breast. His father's bones, gnawed and picked clean, rested in Bossk's trophy chamber, where he could gloat and meditate over them, anytime he wished. Served him right, thought Bossk, grinding his fangs together as though retasting the memories of his predecessor. With Trandoshans, death was the penalty, not just for getting old and tired, but for getting in the way of the next generation-Bossk, specifically. If his father Cradossk hadn't tried to hold on so tightly to the leadership of the Bounty Hunters Guild, things might not have gone so gruesomely for him. Or pe
rhaps they might have; recycling the protein and other constituents of one's elders was such a time-honored tradition among their species, it would have seemed a shame not to have carried it on, even if Cradossk had graciously surrendered the Guild's leadership to his heir Bossk." He was a tough old lizard," mused Bossk aloud. His tongue traced the broken point of one of his own fangs." In a lot of ways. . ."

  "Deep is the measure of my own reminiscing," said the assembler," when I recall your father Cradossk. Many were the dealings I had with him; much business did we do together. And most of it was highly and mutually profitable, I assure you."

  "Believe me-I know all about that." Bossk folded his arms across his chest; his elbow nudged one of his holstered blaster pistols." I was in on a lot of that business. The profitable stuff-and the unprofitable."

  "Ah. What can I say?" Two of Kud'ar Mub'at's legs lifted in an approximation of a shrug." It's a dangerous galaxy in which we live. Poor, struggling creatures that we are. Not everything works out as planned, does it?"

  That's the truth, brooded Bossk. He had long harbored the notion-more than that, a cherished dream-that when he took over the Bounty Hunters Guild from his father's faltering claws, he would inherit a powerful and united organization, one that he would be able to rebuild into the dominant semilegal force among all the inhabited worlds. It could have been bigger than the great criminal syndicate Black Sun, inasmuch as the Guild had the ability to operate on both sides of the Empire's laws. Criminal overlords such as Jabba the Hutt hired bounty hunters, as did Emperor Palpatine, by way of his various underlings. In that sense, bounty hunters had always operated as sanctioned lawbreakers, to the degree that their clients either didn't care about or turned a blind eye to whatever methods were used to bring in the merchandise. Just as long as the job gets done, thought Bossk. It was a sweet arrangement. . . or had been.