Hard Merchandise (star wars)

by K. W. Jeter

  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 un-shielded, 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 up-raised hand and strain his bicep muscles against its ten-sion 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 stormtrooper 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 an-gles 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 good-bye. 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 b
roken 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 ..."

  Fett ignored him for a moment. With a few adjust-ments from the still-functioning navigational rockets, he had brought Slave I around to where he could at last see the other ship that had fired upon them. Even from this distance, where the visible details of his enemy were little more distinct than the stars behind it, he could recognize the vessel whose laser cannons had brought his own to the brink of destruction.

  He knew as well whose vessel it was, and who had given the orders to fire.

  It's Xizor. Another adjustment to the controls brought the viewport's optical magnification into the circuit. The outlines of the Falleen prince's flagship were unmistak-able—and intimidating. The ship was known to be one of the deadliest and most thoroughly armored in the galaxy, the equivalent of anything matching its gross tonnage in Emperor Palpatine's war fleet. If Slave I had gotten into a full-pitched battle with it, there wouldn't even have been this much of Boba Fett's ship left hanging together.

  The mystery of why the Vendetta hadn't moved in for the kill was easy enough to determine. He's holding back, decided Fett. Just waiting to see if there's any sign of life. Prince Xizor was known to be something of a tro-phy collector; it would be entirely consistent for him to want the hard physical evidence—the corpses—of those he had set out to kill rather than just blowing them into disconnected atoms drifting in space.

  The greater mystery was why Xizor had lain in wait and fired upon Slave I in the first place. Fett had been aware of no connection between Xizor and this high-stakes job of rounding up the renegade stormtrooper for which Palpatine had posted such an astronomical price.

  But there had to be some link—it was too much to be-lieve that it was mere coincidence or just random malice on Xizor's part. The Falleen prince's mind was too coldly rational—similar to Boba Fett's own in that manner— for anything like that to be the case.

  Boba Fett lowered his gaze from the viewport and be-gan punching in new commands on the control panel.

  "What..." Voss'on't's voice was a harsh croak. "Tell me..."

  There was neither time nor need to explain to the mer-chandise lying on the floor of the cockpit. "I'm doing," said Boba Fett, "the same thing I've been doing all along. Saving both our lives—whether you like it or not."

  With a final jab of his forefinger, he hit the button to fire up the one main engine that was still functioning. Slave I shuddered, its hull threatened to tear loose from the battered structural frame beneath, as the engine's convulsive thrust blurred the stars in the viewport.

  6

  "What's he doing?" The comm specialist leaned closer to the Vendetta's forward viewport, scanning the sector ahead. "It's amazing, Your Excellency—he must be still alive!"

  Prince Xizor wasn't amazed. Standing at the bridge's controls, with one hand still resting upon the laser can-nons' target acquisition module, he watched as, in the star-filled distance, the ship known as Slave I fired up its remaining thruster engine and started to move. Another screen, smaller and mounted to the side of the viewport, showed the damage-assessment scan that had been run on the target: a complete schematic showed in glowing red the operational systems that had already shut down. There were only a few—the one engine, basic naviga-tional equipment, life support in the cockpit area—that still appeared in the green that indicated ongoing func-tions. Crippled, but slowly gathering speed, Boba Fett's ship had some of its own life left in it yet.

  "He's hard to kill," said Xizor with a slow, admiring nod of his head. He liked that in a sentient creature; it made the final victory over one of them so much sweeter. Too many of the galaxy's denizens, on whatever remote systems they could be found or on the homeworlds in the Empire's center, gave up all too easily when they per-ceived the hand of the Black Sun about to set its grasp upon their throats. Deep within himself, Xizor possessed the characteristic Falleen disdain for those too weak to put up a struggle, even when facing certain death. For a Falleen, that was the moment when the struggle should be at its keenest, when there was no hope of extending one's life even by a single heartbeat. Xizor had suspected for a long time, from when he had first envisioned the scheme in which Boba Fett was now fatally enmeshed, that the bounty hunter would not disappoint him in this regard. "Hard to kill,"Xizor mused aloud once more. "A very worthy prey. But then ..." He turned his head and smiled at the comm specialist standing beside him.

  "A true hunter would be."

  The comm specialist appeared nervous, with a sheen of sweat upon his brow. As with the rest of the operations crew, arrayed at their posts in the Vendetta's bridge, he was understandably eager that his master's wishes, espe-cially in something as important as this, would not go unfulfilled. At the same time none of them had the same innate confidence in the outcome of the pursuit that Xi-zor himself did. Which is as it should be, thought Xizor with satisfaction. Keeps them on their toes.

  "Excuse me, Your Excellency"—the comm specialist raised a hand and pointed toward the high, concave sur-face of the central viewport—"but Boba Fett's ship— Slave I—its velocity is increasing." He glanced over at the readout numbers on one of the tracking monitors. "Rather substantially, in fact. Perhaps it's time to finish him off. Otherwise ..." The tech's shoulders rose in a ticlike shrug. "He might actually get away."

  "Calm yourself." The corner of Xizor's mouth twisted in a contemptuous sneer. "Your fears are groundless." That was one more emotional response that provoked scorn in a Falleen noble. "Where exactly do you think Boba Fett could run to? You can see for yourself that his ship no longer has the capability of making a jump into hyperspace." Xizor pointed to the damage-assessment screen. "Even if he could—were he foolish enough to try it—the stress would blow that poor wreck into atoms. No ..." Xizor gave another slow shake of his head. "There's nothing to worry about now. We may bring his futile struggle to an end at our leisure."

  He could tell that the comm specialist was uncon-vinced, as well as the others surrounding him on the bridge. They did not possess the greatness of spirit to sa-vor a moment such as this. A legend dies, mused Xizor, and it means nothing to them.

  For Boba Fett was precisely that, a dark legend. One whose exploits had been for so long a source of fear and envy—and all the other spirit-lessening emotions that sentient creatures could inflict upon themselves—in every shadowed corner of the galaxy. Even though Boba Fett's death had not been the primary aim of all of Xi-zor's plotting and scheming, it was still an undeniable benefit to become the author of his demise. In the unspo-ken rules of the great, deadly game played among hunters, no prize was more desirable than the blood of an oppo-nent upon one's hands.

  Xizor looked past the image of Boba Fett's ship to the stars beyond. And someday—the thought burned within his breast—that blood will be from other opponents, even greater and more deadly than Boba Fett. The time would come when he would place his boot sole upon the neck of another helmeted figure, one who had long been the target of his hatred. If the web that Xizor spun had resulted in Boba Fett's destruction, that was only a by-product of the scheme meant to crush Lord Darth Vader. And when that vengeful goal had been accomplished ...

  After vengeance came ambition. Which for Prince Xi-zor was just as limitless. It was something that withered old fool Emperor Palpatine would discover too late to save himself. The mystical Force, which Xizor had felt more than once squeeze the breath from his throat, would not be enough to forestall that day of triumph for Black Sun and its commander.

  Some things, thought Xizor with a thin smile, are more powerful than any Force. And over those things— fear, vengeance, greed, and so much else—his command extended as well.

  Even the most pleasant meditations had to end even-tual
ly. Xizor brought his thoughts back from that future, glittering like light from a honed vibroblade, and re-turned it to those concerns over which his underlings fretted. "Let us proceed," said Xizor. He gestured to one of the weapons techs standing behind him. "Reaccess previous target and prepare to fire."

  "Your Excellency ..." The comm specialist sounded even more nervous than before. "That... that might not be such a good idea ..."

  Fearful insubordination angered Prince Xizor as thor-oughly as any other kind. His heavy cape swung out-ward from his shoulders as he whirled about to face the other man, already cringing before the onslaught of his wrath. The violet tinge of his eyes darkened to a color closer to that of spilled blood as he pinned the comm spe-cialist with his fiercely heated gaze. "You dare," said Xi-zor, the lowered tone of his voice more intimidating than any increase in volume could have been, "to question my orders?"

  "No! Of course not, Your Excellency—" The comm specialist actually took a step backward, hands raised as though to fend off a blow. A look of controlled panic swept around the faces of the other staff on the bridge. "It's just thuh-that—" Stammering, the technician pointed with one hand to the viewport behind Xizor. "The situa-tion has changed somewhat... suh-since you last looked at it..."

  Brow creased, Xizor turned back to the viewport. He saw immediately what the comm specialist was refer-ring to, even before the other man could manage an explanation.

  "You see, Your Excellency . .. Boba Fett has maneu-vered his ship so that it's directly between ourselves and the web of Kud'ar Mub'at..."

  The situation would have been obvious to any eye, let alone one as skilled in strategic matters as Prince Xizor's. Beyond the image of the ship Slave I in the viewport, the larger mass of the arachnoid assembler's drifting, self-constructed home and place of business could be seen, like a shabby, elongated artificial asteroid.