Hard Merchandise Page 34

  "I'm impressed." Kuat regarded the bounty hunter thoughtfully. "You're a creature of considerable intelli­ gence; a shame that you found no better use for it than being a bounty hunter."

  "It suits my personality."

  "Perhaps so. But that makes me wonder about some­ thing else." Kuat's gaze grew sharper. "You've gone to a lot of trouble, not to find out what you needed to know— because you already knew that. You've risked your life coming here to find out what someone else, this female named Neelah, desperately needs to know. That kind of tenderheartedness isn't exactly your style, Fett. Unless..."

  Kuat managed a thin smile. "Unless you've developed some other interest in her besides just business."

  "Guess again," said Boba Fett. "I owe her a favor. And I always pay my debts. But I've got better reasons than that for what I do."

  "Well, you're going to have a hard time letting this person know what you found out. Listen." Kuat raised a hand. Outside the Star Destroyer, the rumbling, percus­ sive sounds of the explosions advanced closer and closer. "I saw the ship, the one that brought you down here to the construction docks, take off; there must have been somebody aboard it with an even sharper sense of self- preservation than your own. So there's no way out of here now."

  "Yes, there is." Fett gestured with the blaster pistol. "Get away from the controls."

  "Don't be ridiculous. One man can't fly a ship this size; it takes a trained crew. The only way it would be possible is with the tug module, and you can't get to that with the atmospheric pressure shroud gone."

  "I said—get away from the controls. If you want to stay here in the docks, go ahead. But this ship is leaving."

  "As you wish," said Kuat. "Every man should pick his own way of dying. And I've already chosen mine." He turned and walked toward the bridge's hatchway and the corridor beyond that would lead to one of the ship's main exit ports.

  The explosions hadn't yet torn away the narrow con­ nector to the pressurized equipment shed next to the Star Destroyer. Kuat sealed its hatch behind himself, then sat down on a crate marked with the emblem of Kuat Drive Yards. He felt tired and glad at the same time; tired from his long work, glad that it would soon be over.

  His eyes closed for a moment, then snapped open when something soft and warm jumped into his lap. He looked down and saw the golden eyes of the felinx gaz­ing back at him.

  "So you're faithful, too." Kuat stroked the creature's silken fur. "In your own way." Somehow, it had gotten

  out of his private quarters and followed him this far, through all the chaos and noise of the corporation's fiery death. "Just as well," he murmured. "Just as well..."

  He picked up the felinx and held it to his chest, bend­ing his own head down low, so that the pulse of its heart drowned out everything that was to come.

  "How many did we get out?" Commander Rozhdenst stood at the mobile base's largest viewports, gazing at the conflagration sweeping across the distant construc­ tion docks.

  "Four of the Lancer-class frigates, sir." From the center of the room, Ott Klemp made his report. "Those were our top priority. The rest that we extracted were Zebulon-B frigates."

  "And how many men did we lose?" The commander glanced over his shoulder.

  "Only two. One in the frigate that got caught in the explosions, and another still in his Y-wing, going in." Klemp carried his helmet in the crook of his arm. Both he and Rozhdenst were still in their flight gear. "I think, sir, you'd have to consider this a successful operation."

  "Perhaps," said Rozhdenst. "But I only consider it worth losing good pilots if something worthwhile is ac­ complished. Until we hear what's happened out at En- dor, we don't know whether there's even going to be an Alliance that can make use of these ships."

  Klemp looked toward the control panels. "We're still under comm unit silence?"

  "You got it." The commander nodded. "Right now, there's no signals going in or coming out of that sector—"

  His words were interrupted by a sudden, brighter flare of light from the Kuat Drive Yards' facility. Both men turned toward the viewport.

  "What's going on?" Rozhdenst's brow furrowed. "Those aren't explosives."

  "It's the Star Destroyer," said Klemp, pointing out the flame-engulfed shape. "The big one at the end of the docks that we couldn't get any of our men into. Some­ body's giving its engines full power. It's moving!"

  Klemp and the commander watched as the Star De­ stroyer, larger than any of the rescued ships nearing the base, slowly began to rise from the dock in which it had been moored. The ship suddenly veered to one side, the flank of its hull crashing against the warped and broken towers of the cranes arching above it.

  "Whoever's aboard that thing—they've lost control of it." Rozhdenst shook his head. "They'll never get it out."

  The commander's assessment appeared to be true. The Star Destroyer's stern had slewed around horizon­ tally, barely meters above the dock. Metal collided with metal, as the rear thruster ports flared through the base of the crane. The impact was enough to send the already loosened tower crashing down upon the upper length of the ship's hull.

  "If he tries to pull out of there," said Rozhdenst, "he'll tear that ship to pieces."

  Klemp peered closer at the image in the viewport. "It looks like ... he's got another idea ..."

  The Star Destroyer's thruster engines had throttled back down. There was a moment of stillness at the end of the construction docks, lit by the encroaching flames, then the ship was lit suddenly brighter by the simultane­ ous flash of its arsenal of high-powered laser cannons going off. The bolts weren't aimed, but achieved an im­pressive amount of damage despite that, ripping through the weakened structure of the docks and the twisted metal of the fallen crane. Another volley of flaring white bolts followed the first.

  Now the two men at the viewport could see the crane and the surrounding docks slowly disintegrate, the girder beams and great, torn masses of durasteel collapsing across one another and into a loose tangle over the Dreadnaught. Once more, thruster engines lit up; this time, the awkward forward course of the ship sent the metal fragments scattering like straws.

  Rozhdenst nodded in appreciation as he watched the Star Destroyer move away from the burning wreckage of Kuat Drive Yards and into open space. "Too bad ..."

  "Too bad that's not one of our guys."

  19

  A woman talked to a bounty hunter.

  "You know," said Neelah, "you could be a hero. If that was what you wanted."

  "Hardly." Boba Fett's voice was as flat and unemo­ tional as it had always been. "Heroes don't get paid enough."

  "Think about it, though." A thin smile raised a corner of Neelah's mouth. With one hand, she tugged higher upon her shoulder the strap of the bag she carried. "Or at least savor the irony. Your blasting your way out of the KDY construction docks did the Rebel Alliance more good than their own Scavenger Squadron was able to achieve."

  She and the bounty hunter were standing in the bridge of the Star Destroyer that Fett had managed to extract from the docks' inferno. The massive ship was silent and empty, except for them.

  "How do you figure that?"

  "Simple," replied Neelah. "Kuat of Kuat had wired up enough sequentially linked explosives to blow up all of Kuat Drive Yards. If he couldn't have it under his con-

  trol, he didn't want to leave anything but smoking rubble behind. But this Star Destroyer was one of the critical links in the chain; the detonator circuits ran right through its main thruster engine compartment. And when you pulled the ship out of the docks, the chain was broken. Kuat himself didn't live long enough to see what hap­ pened, but the result is that over eighty percent of the KDY construction docks survived intact."

  Fett shrugged. "That's not my concern."

  "Perhaps not." Neelah regarded the bounty hunter. She'd had no expectation of what would come from this secret rendezvous with him. The comm message had come to her at the Scavenger Squadron's mobile com­ mand post, giving the coo
rdinates of where she was to meet up with an unnamed entity; she had known instinc­ tively that the message was from Boba Fett. She hadn't told Commander Rozhdenst about that, though, but had convinced him to let her go alone and unescorted, as the comm message had directed. It was her own deci­ sion to pilot the battered Hound's Tooth to the ren­ dezvous. "But," she continued, "it might be my concern. If I want it to be."

  "Of course." As always, Fett was way ahead of her. "Kuat of Kuat is dead. That means Kuat Drive Yards is going to need a new leader. The other ruling families can see how things stack up now—if the Rebel Alliance indi­ cates that it wants you running KDY, they'll undoubt­ edly fall into line."

  "I'm not sure about that." Neelah shook her head in disgust. "I know the Kuatese ruling families better than you do, and a lot better than anybody in the Rebel Al­ liance. I was born into those families, remember? My sis­ ter Kodir isn't the only one of them for whom treachery and scheming come easily. There are plenty of ruling family members who would just as soon back the Em­pire, if they thought it would serve their purposes."

  "And you don't want to do anything to oppose them?"

  "I'm not sure I want to." Neelah could see her own re­ flection in the dark visor of Boba Fett's helmet. "Or that I even care what happens to Kuat Drive Yards. After all that's happened, I'm not exactly close to anyone on the planet Kuat. Kodir is the only direct blood relation I have, and she's already being shipped down to face a tri­ bunal of elders from the ruling families. There's a lot of charges being made against her: conspiracy, murder, kid­ napping . . ." Neelah slowly shook her head. "Loyalty doesn't seem to run thick in the Kuhlvult bloodline. I don't feel it, at least. And maybe Kuat of Kuat was right; maybe Kuat Drive Yards deserves something more than that."

  "Suit yourself," said Fett. "But I have other business to take care of. That's why I told you to come here."

  "All right. Let's hear it."

  "I'll make you a trade." Fett gestured toward the bulkheads of the ship surrounding them. "Here's a new, completely operational Star Destroyer, fresh out of the KDY construction docks. It's yours. You can signal the Scavenger Squadron commander to come out here and pick it up. That should make you even more popular with the Rebel Alliance."

  Neelah glanced around the ship's bridge. "Or maybe I could sell it to them. It's a nice piece of hardware." She looked again at Boba Fett. "So what do you want in exchange?"

  "Two things. First, the Hound's Tooth—"

  "The Hound's in pretty bad shape." Neelah shook her head. "Certainly not worth as much as a ship of the line like this."

  "It'll get me where I need to go," said Fett. "And second—your silence."

  "What about?" Neelah peered at the bounty hunter.

  "Me. I take it that you didn't tell anyone from the Rebel Alliance that you've been traveling with me."

  "I didn't think it was advisable. Creatures tend to judge you by the company you keep."

  "Fine," said Fett. "So go on that way. And don't tell them about me."

  "Why?"

  "I have my reasons. Right now, it's more convenient for me if everyone goes on believing I'm dead. If any of the creatures who might've spotted me at the Mos Eisley cantina want to talk about what they saw—" Fett shrugged. "There aren't many who'll believe lowlifes like that. And if the Rebel commander back at the KDY con­ struction docks has an idea about who it was that pulled out this Destroyer, I imagine that he'll keep it to himself. Why would he want to let the rest of the galaxy know that a bounty hunter was able to do what he and his squadron couldn't? So being dead—or being thought dead—is a real opportunity for me."

  "As you told me—suit yourself." Neelah's gaze turned tighter and harder. "But this ship isn't enough to buy that kind of silence. I want something a little more."

  Fett's spine visibly stiffened. "Like what?"

  "Like some answers. I want to know why you really went down to have your little confrontation with Kuat of Kuat while the construction docks were blowing up all around you. I can't believe it was really out of any concern for me, and finding out the truth about whether there was some big conspiracy of which I was the target."

  A second passed, then Boba Fett nodded. "You're right," he said. "None of that is of any consequence to me. Your life, your death—it means nothing. All that matters is my life and my business—and that's what I was taking care of when I confronted Kuat of Kuat."

  "You wanted the truth from him," said Neelah. "Did you get it?"

  Fett nodded. "Enough of it. Now that I'm certain that the conspiracy didn't extend any further than Kuat, I can go ahead and deliver the fabricated evidence—to those who want it."

  His words puzzled Neelah. "Who would want it

  now? Prince Xizor is dead. Kuat fabricated the evidence against him—so what use would it be now?"

  "As you say, Xizor is dead. But Black Sun isn't. And Black Sun is still a very powerful—and dangerous— organization. And since Xizor's death, the leadership of Black Sun has been a matter of some dispute. A power struggle between those who had been most loyal to Xi­ zor and the others who had been plotting against him even while he was still alive."

  "Who's winning?"

  "For the moment, the Xizor loyalists have the upper hand. But all that could change very quickly. Especially when I deliver the fabricated evidence into the hands of the usurper faction. They can use it to break the hold on power of the Xizor loyalists by showing the Black Sun ranks that the late Prince Xizor had been foolishly—and traitorously—involving the organization in the affairs of the Empire and the Rebel Alliance. Even though it wouldn't be true, it might be enough to tip the scales in the usurper faction's favor."

  "I don't get it," said Neelah. "Why would you care who wins control of Black Sun?"

  "It's all the same to me. But what I do care about," said Boba Fett, "is staying alive. And the usurper faction has made it clear to me that I stand a good chance of dying—in as painful a manner as possible—if I don't hand over the fabricated evidence to them. Through their own information sources, the usurpers had learned about the evidence and that I was in search of it. They figured—correctly—that I could find it before they would be able to. While you were listening to Dengar tell about my past, I was in the cockpit of the Hound's Tooth re­ceiving a comm unit transmission from the usurper fac­tion inside Black Sun, with the details of the offer they were making me. An offer that I was in no position to refuse."

  "Wouldn't it have been simpler to have just offered you credits for the fabricated evidence? After all"—Neelah

  showed a thin smile—"aren't you willing to do anything, as long as you get paid?"

  "That would have worked for me," replied Fett, "but not for these particular creatures. The problem with pay­ ing me for the goods was that it would leave a trail that could be followed. Anytime credits change hands, there's a link that can be traced. And the usurper faction didn't want this matter being traced back to them. Killing me— or threatening to do so—is much simpler. If I got hold of the fabricated evidence and turned it over to them, there would be no exchange of credits to link us. And if I failed to do so, then I'd be dead, and there would be no way I could divulge the usurpers' scheming to the Xizor loyal­ ists. All very neat and tidy. Especially since Black Sun— even just a small faction of the organization—is the only thing that could make a threat against me ... and pull it off. Anybody else I'd have a chance against. But not Black Sun. Killing is one of its specialities."

  "I'm impressed," said Neelah. "I didn't think you were afraid of anything."

  "This isn't fear. It's reality."

  She nodded; it had all started to make sense, the last pieces of the puzzle fitting together. "So when you told us, when we were aboard Balancesheet's freighter, that getting hold of the fabricated evidence was just a matter of potential profits—you were lying to us." Neelah peered closer at the bounty hunter. "It wasn't credits you were after. It was survival."

  "Credits are useless when you're d
ead."

  "Then I take it that this is part of the deal as well." Neelah pulled the shoulder bag in front of herself and extracted the flat black parcel inside. She held the fab­ricated evidence, the other item that Boba Fett had told her to bring, in both hands. "The deal between you and me."