Crossfire

by Terry Bisson

  gleaming, as though it hadn't yet been used.

  And under it all was a low hum, a constant buzz of activity. Boba

  heard two Nemoidians talking about "the dig" and "the harvester," but they

  turned a corner and were gone before he could hear more.

  Boba made his way down the halls and around the corners, trying to

  remain as inconspicuous as possible. He had learned that it was easy for a

  ten year-old to be invisible, as long as he stayed out of the way.

  The droids and workers were all intent on their tasks. And none of

  them knew or cared who Boba was, except for Prax. All Boba had to do was

  avoid him.

  The air in the corridor was growing colder. The toxic smell was

  stronger. Ahead, Boba saw a large opening to the outside. Droids and

  workers streamed in and out, some carrying strange-looking tools, others

  riding on square all-terrain vehicles.

  He was trying to get a better look when he heard a familiar voice:

  "Give us results!"

  That harsh, booming sound was familiar. Cydon Prax? Boba wasn't taking

  any chances. He ducked into a nearby room and flattened himself against the

  wall.

  To his surprise, he was facing a window. The view was just like the

  ones he had seen earlier. The window overlooked a lake surrounded by woods,

  with a clear blue sky overhead.

  Again, Boba wondered how such a view could exist on Raxus Prime. And

  why was the view exactly the same every time he saw it? How could three

  rooms in different places have the same view?

  He approached the window and reached out to touch it. It was soft,

  like a plastic curtain. As soon as he touched it, the scene changed. Now he

  saw bright blue-green water lapping against silvery sands.

  He touched the window again.

  Snow-covered peaks watching over an icy planet.

  Now I get it! Boba thought. It was all a display, a virtual window

  showing a virtual scene. A series of illusions installed by the Count.

  Boba touched the viewscreen one last time and saw toxic steam belching

  from piles of trash and slag, under a reddish, smoke-stained sky. This was

  the real world - Raxus Prime. The beautiful views were just fabrications.

  In the distance was a tower with huge arms, moving up and down. It

  looked like a giant robot. Was it real, or an illusion? Boba couldn't tell.

  Here in the Count's lair, it was impossible to tell the truth from a lie.

  Suddenly, Boba heard a distinctive set of footsteps in the hallway -

  the heavy tread of Prax patrolling. In the blank room, there was nowhere to

  hide. Boba held himself close to the wall, next to the doorway. If Prax

  peered in, Boba would be fine. If Prax walked inside, he'd be caught.

  The footsteps came closer. Then stopped. Right outside the room. Boba

  held his breath. The door opened. Prax stuck his head into the room.

  The window is wrong, Boba realized. Too late. There was no way to hide

  the scene of Raxus Prime.

  Prax was no more than a meter away from Boba. If he turned his head,

  it would all be over.

  For a long second, everything remained still. Then Prax grunted and

  pulled his head out of the room.

  Boba waited a few minutes, until he was sure Prax was gone again. Then

  he slipped back out into the hall and headed toward the other creatures

  near the exit.

  Boba stood to one side and looked out the giant doorway. Through the

  swirling mists he saw the tower he had seen through the "window." The tower

  was definitely real. It was the focus of all the activity; a crude dirt

  road from the door to the tower's base was crowded with vehicles, droids,

  and workers carrying equipment, some coming and others going out.

  Boba was fascinated. This must be the Count's "dig."

  What was he digging for? The Count had made it sound like something

  very powerful... which would make it something a bounty hunter should know

  about.

  There was one way to find out the truth.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Whew! What a stink! The sky was dark, with swirling smoke; the ground

  was heaped with the trash, and garbage from thousand planets. The twisted

  wreckage of hundreds of crashed ships stretched into the distance. The air

  was almost too foul to breathe.

  Luckily, Boba had brought his father's battle helmet. He put it over

  his head as he started out on the road, toward the tower, The helmet was

  surprisingly light, and it made breathing easier; though it had no

  independent air supply, its filters removed the worst of Raxus Prime's

  poisons.

  Self-sufficiency, thought Boba, begins with the right equipment.

  The road angled up a ridge of oozing slag. Boba slogged along, his

  boots slipping in the soft terrain. At the top, where the road crested the

  ridge, he stopped to rest.

  From here he could see the tower much better. It was a crane. The arms

  were equipped with drills and vats, which dipped deep into the muck of

  Raxus Prime. Lights from the top of the tower illuminated a great pit,

  where droids and workers toiled in and out of the vapors and the darkness.

  All around were ruined walls and arches, like the remains of a great

  city that had been buried and forgotten, and was being dug up again.

  Boba descended the ridge until he was at the edge of the enormous pit

  and looked down. Remote diggers and salvage droids rattled and bumped

  through the muck, far below. Well-armed "spider" droids stood watch at the

  perimeter of the pit, and Boba saw AAT tanks idling nearby, hovering off

  the ground. But none of them seemed interested in him.

  A lot of firepower for a hole in the ground, especially on the

  galaxy's garbage planet. Boba wondered again what could be so valuable,

  buried in the mire and muck of Raxus Prime?

  As if in answer to his unspoken question, a gruff voice said, "Getting

  close to it, huh?"

  Boba jumped. He hadn't seen the Givin driver, who had stepped out of

  his drilling vehicle and walked up to stand beside him.

  "Guess so," Boba asked. He didn't want to admit that he didn't know

  what "it" was.

  "About time." The driver bit off a piece of radni root, and offered it

  to Boba. "Have a chaw?" Boba realized that in his helmet, he was being

  taken for an adult. Another advantage of his father's legacy.

  "No, thanks, I don't chew," he said. Then he ventured: "So that's it -

  the treasure?"

  "Treasure?" The Geonosian laughed and spat into the pit. "Not unless

  you call death a treasure. No one's supposed to know, but the Count is

  after something called a Force Harvester."

  Boba had heard about the Force. The Jedi used it, his father had told

  him. But the Count wasn't a Jedi.

  "But don't mind me," he said, heading back to his mud-laden craft. "I

  just work here."

  "Security check!" said a gruff, familiar voice in the near distance.

  Boba ducked behind a rock just as Cydon Prax strode into view.

  "All systems secure?" Prax asked. "No intruders?"

  "Who'd intrude on this planet?" asked the driver, swinging up into his

  seat. "Not exactly a resort."

  "Keep an eye open," growled Prax. "The Count does not wa
nt anyone

  nosing about his digs. Got it?"

  "Got it, got it," said the driver.

  I'd better get out of here, fast! Boba thought. Prax might recognize

  him, even in his helmet, because of his size. He waited until Prax was out

  of sight, then started back down the road.

  The problem was, the road was too exposed, too narrow. Prax could come

  along at any moment. Boba decided to take what he hoped was a shortcut. A

  path veered off through the wreckage, but Boba thought he saw it emerge

  back by the Count's base.

  After getting off the road and rounding a few bends, Boba realized

  he'd already gone far. Like most shortcuts, it turned out to be the long

  way.

  CHAPTER SIX

  It was hard going. Up one stinking slag heap, and down another.

  Boba tried to keep the big tower straight behind him, and the distant

  light of the door ahead, That would be the shortest, fastest route back to

  Dooku's underground lair.

  The stinking ground sucked at his boots where it was wet, and crumbled

  into toxic dust where it was dry.

  Raxus Prime was all ruins and debris. Boba passed through forests of

  broken machinery and shredded wire. He climbed cliffs of soggy, discarded

  fabric and slid down steep mountainsides of muck. Brown steam spewed from

  the steep piles, while foul smelling liquids oozed down their sides.

  The helmet helped him breathe but it couldn't mask the smell of the

  noxious atmosphere. Still, Boba pushed on. He had no choice; he had to beat

  Prax back to the Count's lair., Otherwise, the Count might find out he had

  broken his rules and gone outside. Even though Boba wasn't sure what he had

  discovered. The Force Harvester? What was that?

  "Ugh!" Boba slipped on a particularly foul-smelling piece of refuse

  and slid to a stop. He was at the edge of a wide pond of bubbling,

  greenish-brown liquid. It looked very nasty. A mist rose from the surface

  that smelled like rotten rikknit eggs.

  Unless Boba turned around, the only way through was by way of the

  pond. He walked straight into the liquid - first one step, then another.

  The nasty goop sloshed over the tops of his boots, but what did he care?

  Boba was not going to let anything get in his way. A bounty hunter was not

  delayed by revulsion.

  Boba shook the slime off his boots and trudged up another steep ridge

  of dripping slag. Even through his helmet, the smell was terrible. But from

  the top, he could see that the brightly lighted doorway of the Count's lair

  was only a few hundred meters away. He was almost there!

  There was only another pond to cross, and this one was long and narrow

  - just a few meters across. Boba slid down another slope slick with oozing

  slime, to the edge.

  The pond was ringed with foul-smelling ferns. It was a brighter green

  than the last one, and it looked deeper. A lot deeper.

  Boba summoned up his courage and stepped off the edge, into the ferns.

  His boots sank into the ground. He took another step and sank up to his

  boot tops. Boba tried to pull his left leg free; it sank even deeper.

  Another step, and it was up to his knees. Boba was more than halfway

  across, but he was stuck. The ooze felt like hands, pulling him down deeper

  and deeper.

  Boba tried to take a step back, but he couldn't. Instead, he slipped

  farther into the greenish muck. Now it was up to his waist.

  He tried again to pull his legs free, but thrashing around only sank

  him deeper into the stinking, glue like mud.

  He quickly sank in up to his neck.

  The mist was rising into his mask, and he could hardly breathe. He

  could feel a burning sensation in his knees and feet. It felt as if he were

  being dissolved by the acid gunk.

  I am being digested!

  Only the helmet allowed him to breathe, to survive. It seemed to have

  stopped the sinking and the digesting for some reason. But for how long?

  His chin sank into the muck. In a moment his mouth and nose would be

  covered, too. The mask was clearly being rejected by the horrible mass...

  but how long would that last?

  Boba searched frantically for a means of escape. He saw a coil of wire

  sticking out of a slag heap on the other side of the pond, but it was too

  far away. A stick lay closer, on the bank below the wire, but still out of

  reach. The reeds were all around, but they were too thin and frail to hold

  his weight.

  Then Boba remembered: self-sufficiency. It meant using whatever was

  available.

  He managed to get one arm out of the muck and grabbed the longest reed

  he could find, pulling it up by the roots. It felt slimy, even through his

  gloves. He used it like a long flexible hook to snag the wire, inching it

  across the mud until it was within the reach of his hand.

  Yes! The wire felt plenty strong. Boba wrapped it around his hand and

  began to pull.

  It was almost too late. His eyes were burning and he could hardly

  breathe. His arms were weak. He gathered all his strength and pulled...

  The wire was coming loose from the slag pile. It dislodged a tiny

  clod, starting a small landslide down the slippery slope of slag and

  garbage. Then it jerked tight again. It had snagged on something.

  Boba pulled again, but more carefully this time. The wire was barely

  caught on the edge of an old piece of machinery. If it slipped off, he was

  a goner.

  This was his last chance. Hardly daring to breathe, he pulled himself

  toward the shore of the pond. One leg was free... then the other...

  Boba grabbed a handful of reeds and pulled himself out of the stinking

  liquid, onto the slimy shore. "Whew!" Plain old slime had never felt so

  good before.

  He was free.

  Boba blended in with the crowd of droids, warriors, and workers

  streaming in the wide, brightly lighted doorway. No one noticed him, and

  Prax was nowhere to be seen.

  Even the filth that covered him didn't give him away. Many of the

  others were filthy as well, from the dig.

  Boba took off his helmet and wiped it clean. It had saved his life,

  that was for sure. He now realized why it was so important to his father...

  and why it would be important to him.

  Boba joined the "dig" workers in the shower that steamed the worst of

  the slime off his clothes and his boots, and then dried them instantly. Now

  all he had to do was make it back to his room and no one would know he had

  been outside.

  He stepped out of the shower, his clothes already dry - and grimaced

  in pain as a rough, strong hand gripped his shoulder.

  "Come!" The voice was unmistakable. Boba opened his mouth to explain

  that he hadn't meant to break the rules, that it was all a mistake. But

  what was the point?

  Cydon Prax wasn't listening as he dragged Boba down the corridor,

  toward the Count's inner sanctuary.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Count wrinkled his finely arched nose.

  "We shall have to clean you up," he said dismissively.

  Boba tried to keep from shaking. He knew it was best never to show

  fear. He gripped his father's helmet in his hands.<
br />
  "Your father didn't teach you very well," said the Count. "You have

  been sticking your nose where it does not belong."

  "I didn't see anything," Boba said. He could feel the Count's power

  turning steadily into wrath.

  "Oh, really?" The Count was scornful; He stood behind his desk, in

  front of the "window" that showed a blue lake under a blue sky: Anything

  but the real filth of Raxus Prime.

  "Really," said Boba. "I just stepped outside the door. I didn't go

  far."

  "Perhaps I should take on your training, after all," said the Count:

  Boba felt a moment's hope. But the hope was dashed by the Count's next

  words: "If I did, the first thing I would teach you is how to lie. You are

  not very good at it."

  "I am sorry I broke your rules," said Boba. And especially sorry that

  I got caught.

  "Sorry?" said the Count with a smooth, cold grin. "You have broken my

  rules. And that is not all..."

  Not all? Wasn't that enough?

  "I've decided that you know too much at a time when information is a

  valuable commodity." He turned to Cydon Prax, who stood by the doorway.