Diversity Alliance

16

On the plague-ridden colony world of Gammalin, Boba Fett strode from the doorway, extending his blaster as he approached his captive.

Zekk could read no expression on the helmet-encased face, but he sensed a tension and a wariness in the bounty hunter’s movements. Fett stalked forward, as dangerous as a tightly coiled spring.

“I recognized your ship as it flew over,” Boba Fett said. “You are the one who fired on me in the Alderaan rubble field.” He paused. “Few have shot at me and lived.”

Zekk knew his own expression must be murky and inscrutable behind the faceplate of his environment suit. “You were trying to kill my friends. I only defended them.”

Boba Fett stood straight, as if taken aback. He raised his blaster pistol a little, slightly off target from Zekk. “Then you fired upon me with honor,” he said. “Understandable.”

Zekk couldn’t believe what he was hearing, but through his Force senses he could tell that Fett was sincere. He took a gamble.

“I wasn’t trying to steal your bounty, you know. I’m a bounty hunter, too,” he said boldly. “I’m still in training … but I have my first assignment.”

“And is your assignment the same as mine?” he said. “To find Bornan Thul? If so, we are rivals.”

Zekk chose the safest response, while still answering truthfully. “No, I got my assignment from a three-armed bartender on Borgo Prime. Droq’l told me to find one of his scavengers, Fonterrat, who supposedly came to this colony. Unfortunately, it looks like my lead was a dead end that is, it looks as if everyone is dead.”

Fett snapped up his blaster pistol, then holstered it. “Your mission does not conflict with mine. No bounty hunter may kill another on a hunt unless they are direct rivals Bounty Hunters’ Creed. I will not harm you.”

“Then why did you shoot at me?” Zekk asked. Gradually he lowered his hands from his gesture of surrender.

“Had I truly intended to hit you, I would have succeeded,” Boba Fett said.

Zekk shuffled his booted feet, uncomfortable to be surrounded by one deadly bounty hunter and hundreds of unburied colonists killed by some unknown disease. “So … do we go our separate ways then? I need to find information about my bounty.”

Fett marched up to Zekk. “No. We stay together. There is little enough to search in this town, and either of us might find valuable information.”

“Aren’t you afraid of catching the plague through your helmet?” Zekk said.

“My sensors indicate that the plague organism has died out,” Fett answered. “I deduce that the strain was fast-burning and short-lived.”

Zekk didn’t question the statement. “In any case, my helmet is airtight.”

They sought out the spaceport’s traffic control tower on the assumption that travel records might help them to unravel the mystery of the last days of Gammalin.

Since the turbolifts were inoperable, they climbed the clanging metal steps to the peak of the tower.

Giant windows cut into the walls of the circular chamber alternated with dead gray computer screens that had once displayed flight paths. Three bodies clad in rough uniforms sat slumped on chairs, gray-skinned and covered with the green and blue plague blotches. Imagining the stench of death inside that hot, enclosed chamber, Zekk was glad he had kept his suit helmet on.

Boba Fett nonchalantly yanked a body out of one chair as if it were no more than dirty laundry, then seated himself in front of a terminal. Zekk took his position at another screen, happy to see that the backup systems and the power grid remained functional. After a rapid search, he began to download the last few files in the logbooks.

Silently, Fett searched for details known only to him, while Zekk scanned the arrival records for any indication of a visitor named Fonterrat. In the oppressive silence, he turned to the other bounty hunter. “What led you here to this planet?”

“A rumor … a hunch … a partially restored bit of data from a damaged file.”

Given that half the bounty hunters in the galaxy were out searching for Thul now, Zekk figured it was the best answer he could expect. “Well, it looks like I found the record of my target,” he said, spotting an arrival document naming Fonterrat.

He played the record, which showed the docking of the scavenger’s ship as well as a manifest of its cargo. Zekk was pleased to note that the bartender’s ronik shells were still on the list.

Within hours of Fonterrat’s arrival, though, the plague had begun to spread through the human colonists on Gammalin.

“This last entry,” Zekk said, scrolling ahead, “was made just one day later.” He punched up the record, and the image of a diseased, disfigured man lurched in front of the recorder. His hands trembled; his skin had a slack and blotchy appearance.

Zekk thought he recognized the dead controller Boba Fett had tossed out of a chair only moments before.

“This plague has hit all of us,” the man croaked. “Must’ve come in aboard the ship of that alien trader. He brought the plague here.”

The dying man sucked in a deep, shuddery breath. “He’s not affected by it. He seems to know something about it, though he is without symptoms. We have imprisoned him in our small brig to give…” He coughed. “To give us time to investigate.

“Crime was rare here on Gammalin. We all worked hard together to make this our home. Now nothing is left to us but death. Everyone is dead. Man, woman, child. I fear … I fear there is no one left alive even to feed our plague carrier. Fonterrat…” He collapsed onto one elbow, trembling. “Ah. No matter … he deserves no less for bringing this total devastation upon us.”

The man slumped forward, coughing and wheezing, without turning off the recorder.

Zekk fast-forwarded through several minutes of the man’s gasping convulsions, and then the log recorder’s timer shut it off automatically.

“Fonterrat may still be alive,” Zekk said. “I’ve got to find the town brig,” He turned back toward the metal stairs, and was surprised when Boba Fett followed close behind him, his armored boots clanging on the floor.

After searching through several likely buildings on the silent streets, Zekk finally threw open a door to a small secured facility with bars on its windows. Once inside, he pulled a glowrod from his suit pocket and shone it on the row of makeshift cells, most of them empty. He crept forward, peering from one into another.

Small creatures skittered about, tunneling into the ever-present dust that had gathered in the corners.

One human prisoner sprawled out on his bunk, showing the now-familiar symptoms of the plague. “Justice comes in its own time,” Boba Fett observed. “No matter what this man’s crime was.”

Zekk found Fonterrat, dead, in the fourth cell.

Though the alien scavenger had been immune to the strange plague that wiped out the entire human colony, he had not been immune to starvation and neglect.

Judging from the information on the log tapes, Fonterrat had been trapped in his cell, without food or water, for more than two weeks.

Zekk worked the controls outside the cell door. They were simple enough, but he used the Force to nudge the code and unlock the security systems. As the door swung open, Zekk stepped in, uneasy with anticipation. His breath echoed in his helmet.

He recognized the small rodentlike alien from the holo the bartender had shown him—big eyes and ears, pointed snout, and fine gray-brown fur across much of his body. In his delicate, stiff hands Fonterrat clutched a message cube. The light blinked on the top. He had left some sort of final recording.

Boba Fett was there first, grabbing the message cube. “Hey!” Zekk said. “Fonterrat is my bounty. You’re interfering with my hunt. Bounty Hunters’ Creed, remember?”

“Your hunt is concluded,” Fett said. “We will both view this message.” With a gauntleted finger he punched a button, and a holographic projection appeared in the air above it.

In his cell, the little alien looked miserable and distraught.

Fonterrat held the holocube as if he found it difficult to speak, though Zekk imagined he had rehearsed his words over and over again before punching the RECORD button.

“They gave me this message cube to speak any last words to my loved ones.” A sniveling little laugh escaped Fonterrat. “Loved ones! If I had any loved ones, I wouldn’t have spent my life hopping from one assignment to another for so little pay and so much risk.” He moaned softly. “I did not mean to bring this epidemic upon the human colonists of Gammalin—but Nolaa Tarkona did. I see that now. I did not even know my ship carried the plague.

“I gave her two samples of the terrible organism, but I never dreamed she would repay me by planting one on my own ship, in the code-locked chest that held my payment, so that I would spread it to the first human colony I visited. The humans were helpless against the plague. In their efforts to stop it, the colonists incinerated my cargo and burned out the inside of my ship. But it did no good. If Nolaa Tarkona has her way, I fear that annihilating Gammalin will have been merely an exercise. A test case.

“However, I believe she has been foiled, at least for now. I told Bornan Thul, our middleman, the secret of what her cargo held when we made the exchange. I gave him the navicomputer, and he gave me the code to unlock the chest holding the payment the Twi’lek woman gave me in advance.”

The image of Fonterrat made a rasping sound that must have been meant as a laugh. “She betrayed me. Now he has disappeared, much to Nolaa’s outrage. I hope she never finds him.”

Fonterrat swallowed several times, as if looking for more words, then switched off the recording.

“What does that mean?” Zekk said.

“It means Fonterrat could have led me to Bornan Thul, my quarry. But now he is dead and useless to me.” The bounty hunter did not seem to care about the implications of the message, though he did hesitate, perhaps pondering what Nolaa Tarkona’s involvement with the deaths on Gammalin might mean.

Without asking, Zekk took the message cube from Fett’s gloved hand. “Mine,” he said. “I can use it to prove that I found my bounty, to demonstrate that Fonterrat is dead. The message cube is of no use to you.”

Boba Fett stared coldly at him through the visor of his Mandalorian helmet. “The information is of use to me, but I have already heard it. Take the message cube. I hope our paths do not cross again as competitors.”

Fett spun about and began to march out of the brig. At the door, he paused, turning his sinister helmet toward Zekk. “It is against my principles to offer information at no charge, but remember this: Never cross Boba Fett.” He checked the blaster pistol at his side. “Follow that advice, and you may survive to become a great bounty hunter.”

Zekk stood and watched Boba Fett until he was out of sight. Just to be sure he had left no stone unturned in performing his assignment, Zekk located the burned-out husk of Fonterrat’s ship and verified that the cargo had indeed been destroyed. Then he slowly returned to the Lightning Rod.