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  "Outgunned—and outsmarted, Fett." The voice of Trhin Voss'on't was a centimeter away from sneering laughter. "It's been real nice knowing you. I'm glad we had this little time together."

  A quick chiming note sounded from the comlink in­side Boba Fett's helmet. That was the signal from the monitoring computer in Slave I's cockpit indicating that the final lockdown sequence had to be initiated before the ship could emerge from hyperspace. There wasn't much more to be done before he collected the bounty, the

  mountain of credits that had been posted for Voss'on't's capture.

  His favorite part of the job was getting paid—but Boba Fett decided to postpone it a moment longer. As much as he was aware that Voss'on't was trying to warp his thinking, deflect it from its most logical course like the gravitational tug of a black hole, another part of him was intrigued by the stormtrooper's mocking display of confidence.

  He wants me to think he knows something, thought Boba Fett, that I don't. Hardly likely—Boba Fett hadn't survived this long as a top-rank bounty hunter except by having better information sources than his prey did.

  Another thought itched at a dark corner of Boba Fett's cortex. There's always a first time. The problem was that in this business, the first time—outgunned, outsmarted, out-intelligenced—would also be the last time.

  "All right," said Boba Fett quietly. "So tell me." He leaned closer to the holding cage's bars, unconcerned about bringing himself within reach of his captive. It would be a real mistake for Voss'on't to try reaching through the bars and grabbing him—his superior re­flexes would have Voss'on't down on the cage's floor in less than a second. "You feel like talking so much—what do you mean, 'outgunned'?"

  "What, you blind?" Voss'on't scoffed at him. "This ship's falling apart. Even if you hadn't told me about that bomb your former partner hit the hull with, I would've been able to make the damage assessment for myself, just from looking around here. The last time I heard so many structural integrity alarms going off, I was on an Impe­ rial battle cruiser being attacked by an entire wing of Rebel Alliance starfighters."

  "Tell me something," growled Boba Fett, "that I don't already know." That Slave I was in bad shape was a fact of which he was uncomfortably aware. Even before he had made the jump into hyperspace, away from the colo­ nial mining planet where Voss'on't had been hiding out, he had to make a hard assessment as to whether the ship

  was even capable of standing up to the journey. If he'd had any option, he would have laid over at the closest suitable planet for repairs. But with such a valuable cargo as the former stormtrooper aboard, and with every other bounty hunter in the galaxy eager to relieve him of this hard merchandise, the choice to make the jump had been forced on him. It was either that or wind up a sitting target in the crosshairs of too many laser cannons to even have a chance of surviving. "This ship will come out all right," Boba Fett told his captive. "It might be just barely holding together when we get there, but we'll make it."

  "Sure it will, pal—but then what?" Voss'on't tilted his head to one side, peering at Fett, an eyebrow raised.

  "Then I get paid. And there'll be plenty of time for re­ pairs." He was even looking forward to that. There were some modifications to Slave I—some advanced weaponry systems, proximity and evasion scan units—that he had been contemplating for some time.

  "Oh, you'll get paid, all right." Voss'on't's smile widened, showing more of his yellowed ivory and steel-capped teeth. "But maybe not in the way you're expecting."

  "I'll take my chances."

  "Of course—there's nothing else you can do. But if you're wrong about what's waiting for you ..." Voss'on't slowly nodded. "Then your options are even more limited than they are now."

  Boba Fett calmly regarded the other man. "How do you mean?"

  "Come on. Don't be naive. You have a reputation for smarts, Fett. Try earning it. You've got no maneuvering ability in this ship, not in the condition it's in now. All your weaponry won't do you any good if you can't bring it to bear on a target. And if that target is firing at you instead— if there's a lot of targets with you in their gunsights—then there isn't going to be anything you can do, except take it, for as long as you think you can hold out."

  "Hardly my only option," said Fett. "I can always jump back into hyperspace."

  "Sure—if that's your preferred method of dying. This broken-down tub barely made it through one jump with­ out disintegrating." Voss'on't's smile indicated how much he enjoyed the dismal prospects he was describing. "You might be able to slam this thing into hyperspace—but you won't be able to get it back out." An evil glint ap­ peared in one of the stormtrooper's eyes. "I've heard that's a real unpleasant way to go. Nobody even ever finds the pieces."

  Boba Fett had heard the same. A squadron of the an­cient Mandalorian warriors, a suit of whose battle armor he wore as his own, was reputed to have been destroyed in just that manner by the now-vanished Jedi Knights. "You sound as if you've been analyzing this for a while."

  Voss'on't shrugged. "It didn't take long. Just like it didn't take long to figure out your only other option. The one that leaves you alive afterward."

  "Which is?"

  "Surrender," said the smiling stormtrooper.

  Boba Fett shook his head in disgust. "That's some­thing I don't have a reputation for doing."

  "Too bad," replied Voss'on't. "Too bad for you and your chances of getting out of this mess alive. You can either be smart and survive, Fett, or carry on with what you're doing, and wind up as a toasted corpse. Your choice."

  Another chime signal sounded from Slave I's cockpit. He had already wasted too much time with this creature. Boba Fett made a mental note that in the future he should remember that all merchandise was the same, given to trying to talk its way out of a jam.

  He allowed himself one more question before he re­ turned to the cockpit and began the final preparations for emerging from hyperspace. "Just who do you think it is that I should surrender to?"

  "Why mess around any further?" Trhin Voss'on't gripped two of the durasteel bars and brought his hard- angled face closer to Fett's. "I'm the only one who can get you out of this. I know what's waiting for you on the

  other side. And believe me, Fett, they're not your friends." The stormtrooper's fingers tightened on the cage's bars as his voice dropped lower. "Let me out of here, Fett, and I'll cut you a deal."

  "I don't deal, Voss'on't."

  "You better start—because it's your life that's on the bargaining table, whether you like it or not. Let me out, and turn the ship over to me, and I might just be able to keep you from being blasted into atoms."

  "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—bel
ieve 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 navi­gation 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 in­sinuations 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 condi­tion 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 mean­ing 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 inside 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 hav­ing 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 ...