Hard Merchandise (star wars) Page 6

  "But then you'll never know."

  Neelah heard the voice, and for a moment thought it was her own, speaking inside her head. Then she realized that the hard, emotionless words had been Boba Fett's.

  He can tell, she realized. He can always tell. Exactly what she had been thinking—her hand, trembling close to the butt of the blaster pistol at her side, had given it away.

  "That's the price," continued Fett. "That's still the price."

  She nodded. But didn't pull her hand away from the blaster.

  "I'll make it easy for you." Boba Fett reached down and drew the blaster that had been holstered on the belt of his battle armor. Holding it by the barrel, he threw it into the farther corner of the cockpit space, where it clanged against one of the bare durasteel bulkheads. "Now you won't have to worry about whether it would cost you your life. The only one that's at stake is my own."

  He's playing with me. The lack of any perceptible emotion in his voice only made it clearer to her. The same thing she had known from the beginning: Boba Fett didn't win by sheer violence, or the brutal efficiency of his weapons. The force of his will, and his understanding of other creatures' thoughts, were just as annihilating. She was wrong, she knew that now. Whatever he did, it wasn't play; it was deadly serious. Even in this, in making it easy for her to kill him—if that was what she chose—there was something he wanted from her.

  Neelah pulled the blaster from her belt—the weapon seemed to rise of its own accord, as though directed by some intelligence wired into its intricate circuitry—and pointed it straight at Boba Fett's chest. Her finger made closer contact with the trigger, the small bit of metal sensed by and made one with the twitching filament at the end of her nervous system, that then ran directly into the churning storm of thoughts and desires caught inside her skull. With her arm held out, unmoving, she gazed over the blaster's sights at the cold, dark visage that mir-rored her own face ... And couldn't fire.

  She lowered the blaster, her finger loosening upon the trigger. "You win," she said.

  "Of course." No more emotion sounded in Boba Fett's voice now than before. "There was little doubt of that. You might not know who you really are—and I might not know, either. That's something you haven't de-termined. But I still know more about you; I know how your mind works." A gloved forefinger tapped the side of his helmet. "You have to win here—" Shifting for-ward in the pilot's chair, Fett reached out and set the same fingertip lightly on Neelah's brow. "And here, be-fore you have a chance of winning anywhere else. Or even surviving."

  "That's why the others lost, I suppose." As Boba Fett had drawn his hand away, Neelah gave a slow nod of her head. "Like Bossk. You were able to take his ship away from him, just because of what you were able to do in-side his head."

  "Exactly," said Fett. He reached out again, taking the blaster pistol from Neelah's hand. It rested on his palm, an inert object. "Something like this ..." The shoulders of his Mandalorian battle armor lifted in a shrug. "It just makes things final. Sometimes. But by then, the battle is already over."

  There was a certain wisdom in Boba Fett's words; Neelah knew that these were true as well, like the other things he had told her. "Why do you bother?" She peered toward the gaze hidden behind the dark visor. "Nobody ever said you were a creature of words; someone who would explain the reasons why he would do anything." Back in Jabba's palace, there had been henchmen of the Hutt who had claimed that Boba Fett was a creature of silence; they had never heard him speak even a single word. She didn't know if those thugs had been stupid or lucky. When somebody finally did hear Boba Fett speak, there was usually a reason for it, and one that was rarely to the listener's advantage. "So why are you telling me all this?"

  "You're a reasonable creature," said Fett. "There are few such in the galaxy. In this, you and I are more similar than different in nature. Most sentient creatures are only partly so; they think a little, but then are governed by their emotions. The emotions I seek to produce in them are fear and helplessness. Then they're easier to deal with. But you, on the other hand ..." He gave a slow nod, as though carefully weighing his words. "It's differ-ent with one of your kind. First there is emotion—anger, frustration, the desire for revenge—all those things that you have yet to learn to control. But then your reasoning ability, your capacity for logic kicks in. Cold and analyti-cal, even about the things that matter the most to you. Even about your own lost identity. To be cold about other creatures' fates—that comes easily to most worlds' denizens. But to be cold about one's own self ..." His nod this time was more approving. "That's something I recognize. And that I have to treat differently from the other creatures I encounter."

  Neelah wondered if this was more of his mind-gaming, another attempt to control her from within. "What hap-pens if you don't? Treat it differently, I mean."

  "Then the possibility is raised of my losing the bat-tle." Boba Fett's hidden gaze stayed locked upon her face. "Though not the war, of course."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Simple," replied Fett. "You're valuable enough to me that I prefer to keep you alive. And . . . cooperative. It's easier to get that from you outside of a cage. But at the same time, I know the dangers of letting you keep a measure of freedom." He handed the blaster pistol back to her. "If those dangers were to become too great—then I'd have to eliminate you. As quickly, and as definitely, as possible."

  Neelah regarded the blaster pistol in her hand for a moment, then finally tucked it back in her belt. When she raised her eyes, she looked past Boba Fett, to the star-filled viewport of the cockpit. Somewhere out there was the world from which she had come, that was now lost to her along with so much else. Perhaps, she mused, per-haps they've forgotten my name was well...

  And if that was true . .. then she had nowhere else to go. The ship that surrounded her might be the only world she had left.

  She brought her gaze around again to Boba Fett. "You'll have to forgive me," said Neelah. She managed a thin smile. "For being a little concerned about this mys-terious destination of ours. But you were the one who told me about all the big events shaping up—out there." One hand pointed toward the viewport.

  "About the Im-perial forces gathering . . . some place named Endor." Even the name of the moon seemed fraught with dire portent. "You said it might be a decisive battle; maybe the one that ends the Rebel Alliance." She shook her head. "I came close enough to that struggle between the Empire and the Rebels, back on Tatooine." Bit by bit, Neelah had pieced out the significance of Luke Sky-walker and Princess Leia Organa having been on that remote backwater world. She had seen them both in Jabba's palace, along with their companion Han Solo— first frozen in a block of carbonite, then released and brought to life again. They had been responsible for the death of Jabba, she knew, which she also figured had been a stroke of good luck for herself; escaping from Jabba's clutches and staying free were two different things, at least as long as the Hutt had still been alive. She might owe them, and all the rest of the Rebels, her sur-vival—but that wasn't enough to get her involved with any of them again. "I don't," said Neelah decisively, "want to get near them. They've got their war; I've got mine."

  "Don't worry." Boba Fett glanced over his shoulder at the viewport, then back to her again. "That's something else we've got in common. Rebellions are for fools; I deal with the universe as it is. So we're not going anywhere near Endor." He slowly shook his head. "Let them battle it out. And whoever wins . .

  . it'll make no difference. Not to creatures like us."

  She found a measure of comfort in his words. Though not without sensing the irony of accepting the wisdom of someone who would kill her, or cash her in to the highest bidder, if it suited him. It's all business, thought Neelah. Nothing more than that.

  "Leave me," said Boba Fett. He swiveled the pilot's chair back toward the cockpit controls. "I have other things to take care of."

  Neelah realized she had nothing more to say. He had won again. Before she'd even had a chance to make
a move.

  She turned away, stepping through the hatch and then starting down the ladder to the ship's cargo hold.

  He smiled when she saw Neelah coming down the lad-der. "Sounds like we've got something in common also," said Dengar. "You didn't have any luck with him, either."

  The resulting scowl on the female's face amused him. "What do you know about it?"

  "Come on." From where he sat against one of the hold's bulkheads, Dengar pointed to the open panel and the same comm lines that Neelah had tapped into. "More than one can play that kind of game. I heard everything both you and Boba Fett said up there."

  "Good for you," Neelah said sourly. She sat down with her back against the opposite bulkhead.

  "Congratu-lations—now you know as much as I do. Which isn't much."

  "Actually... I do know a little more than you."

  Neelah's brow creased in puzzlement. "You found out something? About where we're going?"

  "Of course not." Dengar shook his head. "If Boba Fett wants to keep quiet about his intentions, at least I'm not stupid enough to pry into them. But that's the future; that's what is going to happen, and right now we don't have any say about that. I guess that's just how things are when you accept a partnership with Boba Fett." Leaning back against the bulkhead behind him, Dengar spread his hands apart. "The past, though—that's another thing. Now that, I do know something about."

  "Great." The scowl deepened on Neelah's face. "You mean this story you've been telling me ... this history of how Boba Fett broke up the old Bounty Hunters Guild and everything that happened after that."

  "Precisely," said Dengar. "You've already learned a lot from me. More than you're probably willing to ad-mit. You've got a lot better notion now of how Boba Fett operates—and how far you can trust him—than you did when we left Tatooine."

  "For all the good it's done me—" Neelah crossed her arms across her breast. "You might as well have stayed quiet."

  "So?" Still smiling, Dengar raised an eyebrow. "You don't want to hear the end of it, then? Not too long ago, you were pretty interested in the story. Enough to hold that blaster pistol on me, to get me to keep on telling it."

  "I've changed my mind," said Neelah. "What's the point? He won, he survived, other creatures didn'tpretty much business as usual for Boba Fett. Big deal."

  "Very well." Dengar was interested in seeing how long this mood of hers would last. "Of course, there's al-ways the chance that the end of the story would have something you need in it, the one clue that would unlock a whole lot of other puzzles. But if you don't want to take that chance—it's up to you."

  "That's right." Neelah closed her eyes and tilted her head back. "So don't bother me with it."

  The mood, and the feigned sleep, lasted all of five min-utes. Then one of her eyes opened, then both. She glared at Dengar with them.

  "All right," Neelah said finally. "So finish it, already."

  It was a small triumph, but still worthwhile. And it would pass the time until they reached whatever destina-tion they were headed for. "You're not going to bother pointing the blaster at me?"

  Neelah shook her head. "I'm right at the point where that's probably not such a good idea. The impulse to blow you away might be a little too irresistible. So let's skip it. Just start talking, okay?"

  "Fine," said Dengar. "Whatever you want..."

  4

  AND THEN...

  (Just after the events of “Star Wars: A New Hope”)

  "Where's Boba Fett?"

  That was the most important question—and Prince Xizor, the head of the Black Sun criminal organiza-tion, expected an answer from his underlings. And soon, thought Xizor grimly. Under the present circumstances, he didn't feel like taking the time to kill a few of them just to motivate a quicker response time.

  "We're tracking him, Your Lordship." The comm spe-cialist aboard the Vendetta bowed his head with a suffi-cient measure of cringing obsequiousness to avoid Xizor's wrath. Serving aboard the Falleen prince's personal flag-ship was an honor earned not only by excellence at one's job, but also by attention to all the little rituals that flat-tered his ego. "Our tracking sensors had detected his jump into hyperspace; his ship should be arriving in this sector of realspace momentarily."

  Xizor stood brooding at the Vendetta's forward view-port; the curved transparisteel revealing the dark pan-orama of stars and vacuum extended far above his head. One hand rubbed the angles of his chin as the violet centers of his half-lidded eyes focused on the arc of his own thoughts. Without turning around, he spoke an other question: "Were we able to determine his final navigation coordinates? Before the jump."

  "Data analysis was able to break out only the first broad-scale coordinates—"

  Once again, he turned his hard glare onto the comm specialist standing on the platform walkway behind him. " 'Only'?" He slowly shook his head, eyes narrowing even farther. "I don't think 'only' is good enough. Make a note"—Xizor extended the tapered claw of his fore-finger toward the datapad clutched in the specialist's hands—"to the disciplinary unit. They need to have a lit-tle discussion with the data analysis section. They need to be ... motivated."

  The change in the comm specialist's face, from merely pallid to dead white, was pleasing to Xizor. Motivation, in the lower ranks of Black Sun, was a synonym for ter-ror; he had put a lot of his own effort in designing and maintaining the appropriate measures for creating just that effect. Violence was an art; a balance had to be main-tained, somewhere short of the deaths of valuable and not easily replaced staff members. At the same time, it had to be made clear that no creature ever left Black Sun, at least not while alive. Such administrative duties would have been a chore to Prince Xizor, if the practice of the art involved had not been such an intrinsic pleasure.

  "So noted, Your Excellency." As long as it was some-one else's neck on the chopping block, the comm special-ist was only too eager to comply with Xizor's request.

  He had already dismissed the comm specialist from his mind. With only fragmentary information available about the trajectory of the bounty hunter Boba Fett's ship, Slave I, there was much for Xizor to mull over. He gazed out at the galaxy's bright skeins, not seeing the in-dividual stars and systems so much as the possibilities they represented. It had already been verified that Boba Fett had left the dull, virtually anonymous mining planet on which the former Imperial stormtrooper Trhin Voss'on't had taken refuge; a refuge that had proven ineffective when Fett and his temporary partner Bossk had tracked Voss'on't down for the bounty that Emperor Palpatine had placed on his head. Voss'on't was now Boba Fett's hard merchandise, to use the language of the bounty hunters; the bounty for the traitorous stormtrooper was due to Fett as soon as delivery was made to the arach-noid arranger and go-between known as Kud'ar Mub'at.

  Turning his gaze to one side of the viewport, Xizor could see the unlovely fibrous mass of Kud'ar Mub'at's web, floating in otherwise empty space. The web had been woven, over a period of unknown decades, perhaps centuries, from the assembler's own extrudations. Mired in the weft of tough exterior strands were bits and pieces of various ships, poking out like metal scraps sunk in the corrugated mud of a dried swamp; those fragments were all that remained of debtors that Kud'ar Mub'at had foreclosed upon, or business partners whose dealings with the assembler had gone disastrously awry. Involve-ment with Kud'ar Mub'at might not lead to the same de-gree of violence as with Boba Fett, but annihilation was just as final.

  To enter into the web—Xizor had done it many times—was to step inside Kud'ar Mub'at's brain, both metaphorically and literally. The thinner, palely glisten-ing fibers were spun-out extensions of Kud'ar Mub'at's own cerebro-neural tissue; tethered to the strands and scuttling along them were the numerous subnodes that the assembler had created, little replicas and variations of itself, taking care of appointed duties ranging from the simple to the complex. They were all linked to and under the control of their master and parentOr so Kud'ar Mub'at thinks, Prince Xizor reminded himself. The very last
time he had been inside the assem-bler's web, just before coming back here aboard the Vendetta, Xizor had had a most interesting—and poten-tially profitable—conversation. Not with Kud'ar Mub'at itself, but one of the assembler's creations, the accoun-tant subnode called Balancesheet. It had shown Xizor that it had managed to detach itself from the web's linked and intertwining neurofibers, without Kud'ar Mub'at being aware of what had happened. Balancesheet had also mas-tered the assembler's knack of creating subnodes, one of which it had spliced into the web in order to deceive Kud'ar Mub'at that all was well. The net result was as if part of Kud'ar Mub'at's brain had begun its own mutiny against its creator, laying out plans and schemes, of which Kud'ar Mub'at was as yet unaware.

  It was going to find out soon enough, though. That thought lifted a corner of Xizor's mouth into a cruel smile. He would enjoy even more the actual moment when the crafty arachnoid, squatting on its nest in the center of its self-created web, discovered that it had been outsmarted. At last, after having been the puller of so many invisible strings laced throughout the galaxy that had brought wealth to its dusty coffers and ruin to other sentient creatures. Not that Xizor felt pity for any of those; they had gotten what they deserved for letting themselves get entangled in Kud'ar Mub'at's intricately woven schemes. But those schemes had become a little too extensive for Xizor's taste; when they started inter-fering with his and Black Sun's various enterprises, it was time to trim them back. What better way than uprooting them at the source? The unexpected discovery of Balance-sheet's own ambitions along those lines—the crafty sub-node had made it clear that it no longer cared to remain a mere appendage of its creator-parent—made possible the removal of Kud'ar Mub'at, while still retaining all the valuable go-between services that the assembler performed for Black Sun.