Star Wars - The Bounty Hunter Wars - The Mandalorian Armor

by K. W. Jeter

you?"

  SHS1-B appeared to mull over her statement for only a

  few seconds. "That certainly overrides the truthfulness

  programming."

  "Silence," interjected le-XE hastily. "Completeness."

  "Good." She glanced around the chamber to see if

  she'd left any telltale sign of her visit. Against the

  base of the rough-surfaced wall was something she hadn't

  spotted before. She stepped closer to it and saw that it

  was a pile of rags, the tattered shreds that she'd found

  still clinging, wet with the Sarlacc's digestive fluids,

  to the injured man's torso. On top of the pile was

  another object, not rags but metal, etched by its time in

  the beast's gut, but still recognizable. Neelah leaned

  down and picked up the helmet with its unmistakably

  narrow, T-shaped visor.

  That was what she had seen before. In Jabba's

  palace-the helmet's mask was a cruel, implacable face in

  itself, the gaze hidden inside as sharp as any cutting

  blade. Neelah grasped the helmet in both hands, holding

  it before her, like a skull or part of a dead machine.

  Even empty, it looked back at her in silence-and she was

  afraid.

  Boba Fett . . .

  The name sounded in her thoughts, though not spoken

  by her. That was what he'd been called. She knew that

  much; she'd heard the name whispered, by those who'd both

  hated and dreaded him.

  "You'd better go now." The medical droid's voice

  broke into her thoughts. "It won't be long before Dengar

  returns."

  Her hands trembled as she set the helmet back down on

  the pile of rags. At the chamber's entrance, she stopped

  and looked back at the figure on the bed. A thread of

  something almost like pity crept into the knot of fear

  inside her.

  She turned and hurried away, toward the slanting

  tunnel that would lead her to the more comforting

  darkness outside.

  There had been voices. He'd heard them, from some

  where on the other side of a blind sea.

  He supposed, in a still-functioning area of his

  brain, that that was part of dying. In a cortical nexus

  lying under the weight of pain and blurry not-pain, the

  remains of his mind and spirit picked over the few scraps

  of sensory data that impinged upon the living corpse that

  his body had become. They were like messages from another

  world, frustratingly incomplete and mysterious.

  Of all the voices he'd heard, only one had been a

  woman's. Not the same one as before, which he could

  remember being addressed as Manaroo; he had still been

  lying out on the desert, vomited up by the Sarlacc, when

  he had heard that one.

  But that had been the past; now he heard another

  woman's voice. That was the one that tormented him, that

  made the sleep of his dying a place where memories rose

  out of the darkness.

  His eyelids had fluttered open, or had tried to; they

  were mired in some pliable substance clinging tightly to

  his face. As weak as he was, the stuff bound him as

  tightly as Han Solo had been in the block of carbonite

  he'd delivered to Jabba the Hutt. But he'd managed to

  raise his eyelids just enough, a fraction of a

  centimeter, that he'd been able to catch an unfocused

  glimpse of the female. She had been there in Jabba's

  palace, a simple dancing girl-but he knew she was

  something more than that. Much more. Jabba had called her

  . . . Neelah. That w as it; he could remember that much.

  But that wasn't her real name. Her real name . . .

  Fragments of memory touched, then drifted apart, as

  the effort of vision took him back beneath the lightless

  weight pressing upon him.

  There, he dreamed without sleeping, died yet still

  lived.

  And remembered.

  4

  . . . AND THEN

  JUST AFTER THE EVENTS OF

  star wars A new hope

  "Stick with me," Bossk told the new Guild member.

  "And I'll show you how it's done."

  He could feel the other's rising anger, like the

  radiation from a reactor-core meltdown. That was exactly

  the response he wanted, that his comments were designed

  to evoke. There wasn't the tiniest segment of a standard

  time cycle that Bossk wasn't angry to some degree. He

  even slept angry, the way all Trandoshans did, dreaming

  of their razor fangs locked on the throats of their

  reptilian species' ancient enemies. Rage and blood lust

  were good things in the Trandoshan galaxy-view. That was

  how things got done.

  "You needn't act wise and superior with me." The

  close-range audio unit built into Zuckuss's breathing

  apparatus had enough bandwidth to let his irritation

  sound through. "I've collected nearly as many bounties as

  you have. Your family connections are the only reason for

  your rank in the Guild."

  Bossk displayed an ugly, lipless smile toward the

  partner he'd been assigned. The urge to reach over and

  pull the other's head off, air hoses and comlink wires

  dangling like the tendrils of swamp weed surrounding the

  birth pits back on Trandosha, was almost irresistible.

  Maybe later, Bossk told himself, when this job's over.

  He pointed a talon down the corridor in front of

  them. Both he and Zuckuss had their spines flat against

  the wall of a side passage; from behind sealed doors some

  twenty meters away, the brittle music of a jizz-wailer

  band sounded, mixed with the high-pitched babble of the

  casino's customers blowing their credits on rows of

  rigged jubilee wheels. Gambling held no attraction for

  Bossk; he preferred surer things. Another sentient

  creature's death was the best, especially if there was

  profit involved. Sometimes, though-as with this job-the

  quarry had to be taken alive, if there was going to be

  any payoff. That complicated things.

  "The thermal charges are already in place." The point

  of Bossk's claw indicated a pair of tiny bumps on the

  doors of the casino's main accounting office. A

  chameleonoid visual sheath on the charges' casings

  prevented the security optics from detecting them. "When

  I blow them, I want you straight through those doors.

  Don't bother scanning for guards, just dive in-"

  "Why me?" Zuckuss turned his large-eyed gaze toward

  him. "Why don't you do that bit?"

  "Because," said Bossk, grating out an unconvincing

  show of patience, "I'll be covering you from behind." He

  held up his blaster rifle, its stock and grip controls

  modified for his talons, large even by Trandoshan

  standards. "I'll draw off any fire while you're securing

  the counting room. It's a standard two-prong attack,

  straight out of the Guild manual for this kind of

  situation."

  "Oh." Leaning his head out from the passage, Zuckuss

  studied the doors. "That makes sense . . . I suppose. . .

  ."

  Idiot, thought Bossk. The actual reason was that the
r />   first one into the room was more likely to get sliced

  into bleeding pieces by the guards' tight-focus lasers.

  Better you than me-especially since his partner's death

  would mean he'd get to keep all of the bounty for

  himself, or at least the part that was left after the

  Guild took its share.

  "Let's go." He shoved Zuckuss out ahead of himself,

  at the same time as he hit the trigger device mounted on

  the sleeve of his stalking gear. The faint sounds of

  music and frenetic pleasure were drowned out by the bass-

  heavy rumble of the thermal charges ripping open the

  sealed doors.

  Bossk planted himself in the middle of the corridor,

  clawed feet spread wide, blaster rifle raised to his slit-

  pupiled eye. One talon squeezed onto the rifle's trigger

  stud in anticipation; the cold heart in his chest sped up

  with excitement as he peered through the coiling smoke. .

  . .

  No fire came from beyond the ripped, heat-distorted

  metal.

  "Zuckuss!" He shouted into the comlink mike mounted

  near the leathery scales of his throat. "What's going

  on?"

  A moment passed before the other bounty hunter's

  reply came. "Well," said Zuckuss's voice, "the good news

  is that we don't have to worry about the guards. . . ."

  Bossk charged down the corridor, rifle clutched in

  both sets of talons, and into the casino's accounting

  room. Or what was left of it the smoke from the thermal

  charges' explosion had lifted enough that the scattered

  taliputer and vidlink terminals could be seen. Along with

  the bodies of a half-dozen casino guards-each one had had

  a laser hole drilled through the chest plate of his

  uniform with impressive accuracy. And speed, Bossk

  managed to note. None of the guards had even managed to

  get his weapon unslung and up into firing position;

  whoever had taken them out had done so in a matter of sec

  onds.

  "Look," said Zuckuss. He bent down and touched the

  hole in one guard's chest plate. "I'm getting a thermal

  reading here. The plastoid hasn't cooled-they were all

  lasered while we were still standing out in the

  corridor!" The bounty hunter stood and pointed to the

  room's far wall. A jagged hole, big enough for Bossk

  himself to have walked through without stooping, revealed

  the stacked cylinders of the power converters behind the

  main casino building. "Somebody beat us to it-"

  "That's impossible," snapped Bossk. "That wall's

  monocrystal-chained; we'd have heard any blast powerful

  enough to get through it. Unless ..." A sudden suspicion

  hit him; he glanced over his shoulder to the opposite

  wall. A sonic dis-sipator, the dials on its silvery ovoid

  surface trembling at the overload point, hung overhead by

  its automatically extruded gripfeet. The indicators

  slowly backed away from their red zones as the impact of

  the wall-breaching explosion was converted into a

  harmless sibilant whisper.

  The rage inside Bossk leaped up, as though it could

  blow out another hole, even bigger and hotter. That

  crossbred spawn of a . . . The curse died between his

  gritting fangs. There was only one bounty hunter who used

  that kind of sophisticated-and expensive-equipment.

  Either it had been smuggled into the counting room

  somehow, or-more likely- an access hole just big enough

  for the device had been drilled through the wall,

  followed by the explosive charge itself when the

  dissipator had been activated to soak up the noise.

  There was no point in looking around for the quarry

  for whom he and Zuckuss had come here. Bossk gripped the

  edge of the hole torn in the casino's exterior and

  scanned the planet's pockmarked horizon. In the distance,

  the infuriatingly familiar shape of a high-speed

  interstellar craft lifted into the deepening violet of

  the sky. The ship's engines trailed fire as it headed off-

  world.

  "Come on!" Bossk grabbed Zuckuss by one arm and

  pulled him toward the gap in the wall. Shrieking alarms

  sounded from the corridor, triggered by the charges that

  had taken out the doors; it would only be a few seconds

  more before guards from other sections of the casino got

  here. He slung his rifle behind his shoulder and prepared

  to jump.

  "But-" Zuckuss drew back. "But we must be ten meters

  up! At least!"

  "So?" He growled at his partner. "Can you think of a

  quicker way out of here?"

  A few seconds later he and Zuckuss were scrambling to

  their feet. The urge to murder filled Bossk again as

  Zuckuss groaned in pain.

  "I think I broke something. . . ."

  'As laser shots from the casino guards above sizzled

  the ground, melting the planet's silicate-heavy ground

  into patches of glass, he started running, aware that

  Zuckuss was right behind him.

  They caught up with their adversary out beyond the

  planet's atmosphere.

  Bossk jammed the point of his talon down on the comm

  button as Zuckuss, beside him in the navigator's seat of

  the Hound's Tooth, fussed with a broken connector to one

  of his air hoses. "Shut off your engines," he barked into

  the link. There was no need for formalities; in this

  remote zone of the starways, no other ship was within

  hailing range. "You have merchandise onboard that belongs

  to us. Specifically, one sentient individual by the

  designation of Nil Posondum, formerly employed by the

  Trans-Galactic Gaming Enterprises Corporation-"

  "Your property?" A cold, uninflected voice sounded

  from the speaker mounted above the Hound's controls. "And

  why would this said individual-if he were aboard my

  ship-why would he belong to you?"

  "Maybe," whispered Zuckuss, "we shouldn't get this

  barve angry. He can be a tough customer."

  "Shut up." Bossk pressed the comm button again. "By

  authority of the Bounty Hunters Guild. That's what makes

  him ours. Hand him over now, and you won't get into

  trouble."

  "That's very amusing." No emotion, amused or

  otherwise, was discernible in the other's words. "But you

  seem to be laboring under a severe misapprehension."

  "Yeah?" Bossk glared at the Hound's forward viewport.

  The other ship showed no sign of cutting its speed. "What

  am I mistaken about?"

  "I'm not restricted by the authority of your so-

  called Bounty Hunters Guild. I answer to a higher law."

  "Which is?"

  "Mine." The temperature of the scattered atoms

  between the ships couldn't have been closer to absolute

  zero. "Specifically, what's mine I keep. Until I get paid

  for it."

  Bossk's words grated through his fangs. "Look, you

  conniving, diseased gnathgrg-"

  The comm indicator blinked off, the connection broken

  by the other ship.

  "There he goes." Zuckuss gazed up at the viewport.

  The flaring trail
s from the engines of the Slave I,

  the transport of the galaxy's most ruthlessly efficient

  bounty hunter, blurred and disappeared into hyper-space.

  Cold and mocking stars filled the sector where it had

  been.

  Bossk's slit pupils narrowed as he glared at empty

  space. The other ship, and its pilot and his captured

  prize, might be gone-but the seething fury in Bossk's

  scaled breast wasn't.

  The figure in the cage cowered back from the bars as

  Boba Fett approached.

  "There's no need for that." The Slave I's minimal

  galley had ejected a tray of some nondescript edible

  substance, a lumpish gray gel that was unappetizing but

  adequate for a standard humanoid life-form. Fett placed

  the tray on the metal-grated flooring and pushed it

  through an opening in the cage with the toe of his boot.

  "I'm not being paid to hurt you. Therefore you won't be

  hurt."

  "And if you were being paid to do that?" The former

  head accountant for the Trans-Galactic Gaming Enterprises

  Corporation gazed sulkily from the holding pen, the only

  one presently occupied aboard the Slave I. "What then?"

  "You'd be in a world of pain." Boba Fett pointed to

  the tray; a little of its glistening contents had slopped

  onto the pen's floor. "As merchandise, you are more

  valuable alive than dead. In fact, you would be worthless

  to me as a corpse. To deliver you unharmed-relatively

  so-is the primary requirement for collecting the bounty

  that was posted on you. If you try starving yourself, you

  will be force-fed. I'm not known for being gentle about

  that sort of thing. If you were to be so foolish as to

  try to injure yourself in any other manner, you'll find

  yourself in restraints considerably less comfortable than

  your present situation."

  The accountant named Nil Posondum looked around the

  bare cage. A thin pale hand gripped one of the bars. "I'd

  hardly call this comfortable."

  "It can get worse." The shoulders of Boba Fett's

  armored combat gear lifted in a shrug. "My ship is built

  for speed, not luxury accommodations." He'd left the

  Slave I's controls set on autopilot; a small datapad

  clipped to his forearm monitored the craft's

  uninterrupted course through hyperspace. "You should take

  what pleasure you can from your time here. Things won't

  be any better for you where you're going."

  In fact, Boba Fett knew they would be much worse for