Hard Merchandise (star wars) Read online

  "And what would be in it for you?"

  Voss'on't leaned back and shrugged. "Hey—I don't want to go up in smoke with you, pal. Your stupidity is endangering me as well. All things being equal, I'd just as soon stay alive. If I've got control of the ship and its comm units—in other words, let me do the talking—I'd have a chance of getting the ones who aren't so well dis-posed to you to stand down."

  The other's words provoked an instinctive response from Boba Fett. Inside the suit of Mandalorian battle ar-mor, he could feel his spine stiffen. "Nobody," he said, "commands this ship but me."

  "Have it your way." Voss'on't let go of the bars and took a step back into the center of the holding cage.

  "I've at least got a chance of making it through. You don't."

  The chime signal sounded again in Boba Fett's helmet, louder and more urgent. "I have to congratulate you," he said. "I thought I'd heard all the scams, all the wheed-ling and begging and bribery attempts, that creatures were capable of. But you came up with something new." He started to turn away from the holding cage and its oc-cupant. "I've never been threatened by my merchandise before."

  Voss'on't's taunting voice followed after Fett as he strode toward the metal ladder leading back up to the cockpit. "I'm not your usual run of merchandise, pal." A note of mocking triumph sounded in Voss'on't's words. "And if you don't think so now—believe me, you will. Real soon."

  All the way up to the cockpit, Boba Fett could hear the stormtrooper's laughter. Pulling the hatchway shut behind him only cut off the distant, irritating sound, not the memory of it.

  Boba Fett sat down in the pilot's chair, letting the work of his hands moving across and adjusting the navi-gation controls fill his consciousness. Victory in any combat, fought with weapons or words, depended upon a clear mind. The former stormtrooper Voss'on't had done his best to mire Boba Fett's thoughts with his sly in-sinuations of conspiracy and predictions of violence. Boba Fett was afraid of neither of those; he had proved himself a master of them on many occasions.

  At the same time, Voss'on't's lies and mental tricks had evoked a deeper sense of unease inside Boba Fett. His survival in the dangerous game of bounty hunting hadn't been based on coldly rational strategizing alone. There were elements of instinct that he depended upon as well. Danger had a scent all its own that required no trace molecules in the atmosphere to be detected by his senses.

  His gloved hand hesitated for a second above the con-trols. What if Voss'on't wasn't lying...

  Perhaps the stormtrooper hadn't been playing mind games with him. Perhaps the offer to save Boba Fett's life from whatever might be waiting for him in realspace had been genuine, even if motivated by Voss'on't's own self-interest.

  Or—Boba Fett's thoughts pried at the puzzle inside his skull—the game was even subtler than it first had ap-peared. Voss'on't might not have wanted him to surren-der control of the ship at all. What if, mused Fett, he knew I would refuse? And that was what he'd been banking on. In which case, Voss'on't also would have been angling for Boba Fett to disregard all doubts, suspi-cions, even his own instinctive caution, as having been planted in his head by Voss'on't. The game might not have been to change Boba Fett's course of action—but to make sure that he didn't abandon it.

  He needn't have bothered, thought Boba Fett. A fa-miliar calm settled over him, which he recognized and re-membered from other times, moments when he'd set his fate in the balance. Between the thought and the deed, between the action and its consequences, between the roll of the ancient bone dice and the coming up of the number that would indicate whether one lived or died...

  Lay infinity.

  Bounty hunters held no faith, religions, creeds—those were for other, deluded creatures. Emperor Palpatine could immerse himself in the shadows of some Force that the Jedi had believed in—but Boba Fett didn't need to. For him, that moment, expanding to the limits of the uni-verse both inside and outside him, was all the unspoken knowledge of the infinite, risk balanced against power, that he required. What more could there be? All else was illusion, as far as he was concerned.

  That simple truth had kept him alive so far. His prof-its, the counters in the game he played, meant more to him than his own life. You can't gamble, Fett reminded himself, what you're not prepared to lose...

  All other considerations fell away, like the dying sparks of dead suns. Only the holding cage below held the former Imperial stormtrooper now; Boba Fett had dismissed even the image of Trhin Voss'on't from his mind.

  A computerized voice, as clear of emotion as Boba Fett's thoughts, spoke aloud, breaking the cockpit's deep si-lence. "Hyperspace preemergence lockdown completed." The logic circuits built into Slave I were as thorough as those of their master. "Current options are to activate fi-nal emergence procedures or lower operational condi-tion to standby and minimal power drain."

  Without any further prompting from the ship's com-puter, Boba Fett knew that the latter was not much of an option at all. To remain much longer in hyperspace was merely a delayed—but certain—death. In the ship's pres-ent damaged condition, structural maintenance and life-support systems would begin to fail in a matter of a few minutes. Slave I had to enter realspace soon—or never.

  Boba Fett didn't bother making a verbal reply to the onboard computer. In a single, unhesitating motion, he reached out across the cockpit's controls and pushed the final activation trigger.

  Even before he drew his gloved hand away from the controls, the cockpit's forward viewport filled with streaks of light that had been the cold points of stars a millisecond before. On the black gameboard behind them, the die had been cast.

  "There he is." The comm specialist placed a hand against the side of his head, listening intently to the cochlear im-plant inside his skull. "Forward scout modules have spotted Slave I, registered emergence from hyperspace as of point-zero-three minutes ago."

  Prince Xizor nodded, well pleased with the alacrity shown by the crew of his flagship Vendetta. The discipli-nary measures he had initiated a little while ago had ob-viously had a salutary effect on the lower Black Sun ranks manning the strategic operation posts. Fear, noted Xizor, is the best motivator.

  "I trust that we have a fix on his projected trajectory." Prince Xizor stood before the Vendetta's forward view-port, its transparisteel scan of stars arching high above him. With boots spread apart and hands clasped at the small of his back, he gazed out at the galaxy's distant worlds. He brought that same cold, calculating gaze over his shoulder for a moment. "In other words, do we know where Boba Fett is headed?"

  "Yes, Your Excellency. Of course we do." The comm specialist's words rushed out, almost tripping over each other in their speaker's anxiety. He tilted the side of his head closer to his fingertips, listening to the words being relayed from outside the Vendetta. "Plotted trajectory matches previous strategic analysis coordinates, Your Excellency."

  The forward scouts' report brought a glow of pleased satisfaction beneath Xizor's breastbone. The analysis had been his alone, calculated by no computer other than the flesh-and-blood one behind his slit-pupiled, violet eyes. Boba Fett has no choice, thought Xizor, but to come this way. A smile twisted a corner of Xizor's mouth. And to his death.

  Gazing upon the bright, cold stars in the viewport, Xi-zor gave a slow nod without turning toward the comm specialist. "And the estimated time of arrival at Kud'ar Mub'at's web is...?"

  "That's ... a little more difficult to project, Your Excellency."

  Xizor's brow creased as he glanced back at the comm specialist. He didn't need to speak aloud to get his mean-ing across, as well as the degree of his dissatisfaction.

  The comm specialist hurried to explain. "It's because of the degree of damage, Your Excellency, that the vessel being tracked has sustained. Boba Fett's ship is in consid-erably worse shape than we had originally anticipated. The hyperspace transit has weakened the ship's struc-tural integrity, almost to the point of collapse."

  A tinge of disappointment made itself felt ins
ide Xi-zor. If Slave I actually did break apart in the vacuum of space, a great opportunity would be lost thereby. To be that creature known as the one who had eliminated Boba Fett from the galaxy, to have arranged the death of the bounty hunter who had profited from so many other crea-tures' misfortunes—that would add considerable glory to Prince Xizor's dark prestige.

  And to have brought about Boba Fett's death, not through dumb luck or accident, or by a snarling, flesh-rending, Trandoshan-like show of violence, but by hav-ing ensnared Fett in a web of intrigue and double and triple crosses—the exact same type of subtle machinations and conspiracies that the galaxy's most-feared bounty hunter had always excelled in—that would only make the final victory sweeter and more rewarding.

  Xizor could see his own reflection, ghostlike and faint, in the glossy inner curve of the viewport. Beyond the image of his own violet eyes, narrowed with contem-plation, the stars seemed close enough to grasp. For a moment, the passing of a second, Xizor felt a twinge of sympathetic feeling for Emperor Palpatine, as though his heart had synchronized its slow, unhurried pulse with that of the distant old man on Coruscant. Old, but infi-nitely crafty—and greedy beyond even that measure. I've come to understand him, mused Prince Xizor. He clasped his strong-sinewed hands behind his back, in the folds of the cape whose lower edge brushed against the heels of his boots. They were planted even farther apart, as though the Falleen noble was already bestriding worlds under Black Sun's dominion.

  That was the lure, and the danger, of letting one's deepest meditations dwell upon the stars. Such a view as the one afforded from the Vendetta, and the expanse of dark sky and wheeling constellations that could be seen from the Emperor's palace, would only unlock the desire for power inside a sentient being's heart. Power both ab-solute and abstract, for he who possessed it, and hard and crushing as a boot sole ground into a bloodied face, for those beneath. But the purity of the stars, the icy coldness of their vacuum-garbed light—that was a splen-dor to be enjoyed, and endured, by only those great enough to translate their desires into action. And if those desires, and that action, were translated into fatal conse-quences for those foolish enough to have let themselves become enmeshed in Xizor's intricate schemes ...

  So be it, thought the Falleen noble. He gave a single, meditative nod as he gazed at the waiting field of stars. All had gone according to plan—his plan, and no other creature's. As his breast swelled with both satisfaction and anticipation, one fist tightened inside Xizor's other hand, as though it held and drew the cords binding all the far-flung worlds into a single woven net.

  Another entity, smaller and nearer, also stood by and waited. Behind Xizor, the comm specialist emitted a discreet but clearly audible cough. "Excuse me, Your Excellency—" The comm specialist had obviously sum-moned all his remaining store of courage. He knew the risk involved in disturbing the meditations of Black Sun's leader. "Your crew," he reminded his commander as diplo-matically as possible, "awaits their orders."

  "As well they should." Xizor knew that the crack of the whip, the slight but necessary touch of discipline he had administered, would have every station aboard the Vendetta primed and ready for action, with every crew member eager to demonstrate his worth. A shame, mused Xizor, to waste all that energy on so small a target. The Vendetta and its crew deserved more pyrotechnics— and the satisfaction that came with both violence and victory—than would be provided by one broken-down bounty-hunting hulk.

  "Your Excellency?" The comm specialist's words gen-tly prodded him again.

  Xizor answered him without turning around from the Vendetta's great viewport. "The crew," said Xizor, "will have to wait a while longer."

  "But. . . Boba Fett's ship ..." The comm specialist sounded genuinely puzzled.

  There was no need to be reminded of Slave I's ap-proach, the vector of its entry into this sector of space. Xizor could feel it in the tautening nerves of his own body, an ancient predatory instinct responding to the nearness of its prey. Even without that subtle, almost mystical sense, Xizor knew that the Vendetta's sensors would have hard confirmation of Slave I's presence, well before Boba Fett suspected that anything was amiss. A barrier of drifting structural debris, left over from the various ships and other artifacts that the arachnoid as-sembler Kud'ar Mub'at had incorporated into its web, served to effectively screen the Vendetta from long-range detection.

  "Notify the bridge," instructed Prince Xizor. "I'll be there directly. Have them bring all weapons systems to full operational capacity—immediately." He didn't want to take any chances on not having enough firepower for Boba Fett. "Have all target-accessing controls keyed to my command." Xizor glanced over his shoulder, display-ing a thin, cold smile to the comm specialist. "This is one that I wish to take care of personally."

  5

  The first hit was nearly the last one.

  Boba Fett didn't even see it coming. The first indica-tion that Slave I had come under attack was the sudden burst of light that flared across the cockpit's viewport, as though the ship had struck the heart of some hidden sun. He would have been permanently blinded if the optical filters in his helmet's visor hadn't flashed opaque, pro-tecting his eyes. Fett's own quick instincts had snapped him away from the searing glare, raising a forearm across the front of the helmet as he had twisted about in the pi-lot's chair, away from the navigation controls and the obliterated view of stars he had seen only a fraction of a second before.

  The impact of the laser-cannon bolt struck the ship's frame and his contorted spine simultaneously, throwing him from the pilot's seat and sprawling him out across the bare durasteel floor of the cockpit, his arms barely able to brace himself and catch the rush of the bulkhead near the hatchway. Past the roar of the explosion shud-dering through Slave I's hull and into the core beams run-ning from forward sensor antennae to the shielded engine compartments, Boba Fett could hear the high-therm welds of the bulkhead panels ripping free from one an-other. A metal edge as viciously sharp as a vibroblade's business end peeled upward from the cockpit's floor, com-ing within a centimeter of slashing through the heavy collar of his Mandalorian battle armor and across his throat. All that prevented a slashed jugular vein and sub-sequent death was a tight ducking of his head against one shoulder, so that the ripped durasteel panel caught one side of his helmet instead. The left side of the helmet blunted the cutting strike, adding another mark of vio-lence to the other dents and scrapes gathered in combat.

  Rumbling downward in pitch, the sound of the laser-cannon bolt and its concussive hammer-blow against the ship faded enough that the wails and shrieks of the ship's alarm systems became audible to Boba Fett. He may have escaped death—for the moment—but Slave I had been mortally wounded; the ear-shredding, electronic screech was its death cry.

  "Mute alarms." Fett spoke the command into the microphone of his helmet. "Switch to optical status report." As the high-pitched notes fell to ominous silence, a row of minuscule lights appeared at the limit of Boba Fett's peripheral vision. He knew what each glowing dot meant, which of the ship's systems was represented by vertical rank order, and what conditions were indicated by the lights' colors. Right now, they were all red, with a few of them pulsing at various speeds. That wasn't good; the only thing that could have been worse would be if one or more had gone to black and out, the indicator of a complete systemic failure. The topmost dot of light in the row was for Slave I's structure-envelope integrity, mea-sured in atmospheric-maintenance capability. If that one blinked out—and at the moment it was flickering faster than Boba Fett's own pulse rate—it would mean that the ship was breaking into fragments, the hull's durasteel sheath delaminating away from the broken internal frame and scattering into empty space like the silvery ashes from an extinguished groundfire. It would also be a sight that Boba Fett wouldn't live to see; the loss of the ship's air when the hull was breached would be an event with a survival rate of zero for any living creatures aboard.

  Fett rolled onto his side, away from the sharp edge of the bulkhead t
hat would have at least given him a quick death, and pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. He shook away the last bit of dazing fog from the blow to the battle armor's helmet. The now-silent alarms hadn't informed him of anything that he couldn't discern by other means. With the fragile condition that the ship had already been in, a direct hit by a Destroyer-grade laser cannon was bound to have a significant—and close to catastrophic—effect. After the stresses of jumping in and out of hyperspace, Slave I had barely been holding to-gether; that the vessel could have taken another blow on top of that without disintegrating was a tribute to the ex-tra armor and structural reinforcements that Boba Fett had ordered installed by Kuat Drive Yards. But there was a limit to how much damage those protective measures could soak up before collapsing along with the rest of the ship. When they went, his life span would be measurable in seconds; there was no emergency escape pod in which he could bail out.

  Getting to his feet, the bounty hunter grabbed the back of the empty pilot's chair and pulled himself toward the cockpit controls. The panel's indicator signals and gauges were awash with pulsing red lights, telling him the same story he'd already surmised from the dots at the side of his helmet, bright as the ends of severed arteries.

  Quickly, Boba Fett punched a gloved forefinger at the manual override command pad, inputting the code that would allow the ship's onboard computer to take over the navigational procedures.

  "Randomize all maneuvers," he instructed. "Calculate and implement nonpredictive evasion pattern." Even before he took his hand away from the pad, Slave 7's docking-correction rockets burned on hard, twisting the ship out of its previous slow course and slamming Fett against the side of the cockpit; another burn, close to ninety degrees off the first one, would have sent him sprawling again if he hadn't kept a tight hold on the back of the pilot's chair.