The Mandalorian Armor

15

"What are we waiting for?" Bossk gnashed his fangs in impatient fury. "We should have been on our way by now!"

"Patience," counseled Boba Fett. "In this case, it is not so much a virtue as a necessity. That is, if you want to pull off this job and live to tell about it." He watched the Trandoshan resume cursing and muttering under his breath, pacing back and forth in one of the landing docks farthest from the Bounty Hunters Guild complex. It struck Fett that he wouldn't have to do anything at all in order to ensure Bossk's destruction; eventually, the reptilian would explode from the rage bottled up inside him. Or at the least, he thought, that much anger will cause a fatal mistake somewhere along the line. Boba Fett's own survival was predicated on both violence and the cold, emotionless precision of his strategies and actions. Without the former, all the plan ning and scheming in the galaxy would be impotent; that was something that the Empire, from Darth Va-der's underlings all the way up to Palpatine himself, understood completely. What a creature like Bossk didn't comprehend was that violence, however necessary, was a bomb nestled against one's own heart, in the absence of meticulous calculation. He'll find out, thought Fett. Soon enough.

The smaller bounty hunter, Zuckuss, glanced nervously from Boba Fett over to Bossk, then back again. "Maybe," he said, "an advance party could head out toward the Shell Hutts. Do some reconnaissance so that when the rest of our team shows up there, we'll be ready to go right in."

"Don't be stupid." Boba Fett shook his head. "The only thing that would accomplish would be to warn the Shell Hutts of our intentions. It's going to be hard enough keeping any element of surprise, without sending them a message like that."

"But the ships are ready to go!" Bossk whirled about on the clawed heel of his foot. "If we wait any longer, the other Guild members will put together teams for taking on this Dinnid job. They'll beat us to it!" Boba Fett didn't look up from the data readout in his hands; he continued checking the Slave I's armaments list. "It would be no great tragedy if anyone did that. Since they would have no chance off success, our merchandise would still be safely in the hands of the Shell Hutts, waiting for us. And it might actually facilitate our own plans, once we put them into motion. The Shell Hutts would see the difference between us and some crude pack trying to blast their way into the stronghold."

"You keep telling us about these great plans you've made." Bossk aimed a venomous stare at Fett. "When are you going to let us know exactly what they are?"

"As I said before." Unflinchingly, Boba Fett returned the other's hard gaze. "You need to cultivate patience." Bossk turned away again, his grumbling even louder than before.

The other team member was there with them in the landing dock. IG-88, a droid that had managed to become one of the Bounty Hunters Guild's more respected members-in fact, one of the few that Boba Fett would even consider to be a serious rival-brought his optical scanners around in Fett's direction. "There is patience," said IG-88 in a harshly synthesized voice, "and then there is hesitation. The latter comes from fear and indecision. We decided upon you as the leader of this team's operations because we assumed that such were not your qualities. Our disappointment would be great if we found out otherwise."

"If you think you can pull off this job without me"-Fett lowered the data readout in his hands-"then go ahead."

IG-88 regarded him for a moment longer, then gave a single nod of its head. "You remain our leader. But I warn you Don't exhaust what patience we do have."

"Mine's already gone." Bossk had obviously continued stewing; the look in his slitted eyes had gone from murderous to annihilating. One hand hovered dangerously close to the blaster slung at his hip. "I've changed my mind. This whole team notion was a stupid idea-"

"Um, Bossk…" Zuckuss raised his voice. "It was your idea."

"If I started it, then I can put an end to it as well." His gaze slowly moved across the three other bounty hunters. "You lot can do whatever you want. But I'm out of this. I'm going out after Oph Nar Dinnid by myself."

"I'm afraid you don't have that option." Boba Fett tucked the readout inside one of his armor's storage pouches. His voice seemed even more level and emotionless, compared with Bossk's boiling anger. "You know too much about this operation for you to be on the outside of it. When you come in with me on a job, you stay until it's over. There's really only one way for you to quit."

"Yeah?" Bossk sneered. "What's that?" IG-88 remained standing as before, his equally cold droid emotions-or the lack of them-observing the confrontation. Zuckuss drew back, ready to duck behind the fuselage of one of the ships in the landing dock as Boba Fett dropped his hand to the curved grip of his own blaster.

"Go ahead," said Boba Fett, "and try walking out on us. And you'll find out."

The atmosphere tensed, as though filling with subphotonic discharge from a battle cruiser's venting ports. In the taut silence, Boba Fett gave a silent com mand to the heavily armed figure standing in front of him. Go ahead, he thought. It'll save us all a lot of time ….

"There's someone coming!" Zuckuss's voice broke through the adrenaline-frozen moment. He pointed to the distant high arch that formed the entrance to the landing dock; beyond it, a streak of fiery light cut a crescent past the stars. "Another ship-"

Bossk held his gaze tight on Boba Fett's for a moment longer, then glanced over his shoulder. The approaching light had grown brighter, its docking jets flaring into a sudden corona. He looked back at Fett. "Is this who we've been waiting for?"

"It could be." Boba Fett didn't take his hand from the grip of his blaster.

"Lucky for you."

"That's right," said Fett. "If I had killed you, I would have needed to find another person for the team." His hand moved away from the smallest of his weapons. "I find personnel changes to be aggravating." Zuckuss peered past them at the approaching ship. "I don't recognize this one." It was close enough that its outlines could be seen a featureless ovoid, barely larger than a TIE fighter, trailing a metallic seine, a stiffly interlinked net, behind its flaring engines. "How did it get clearance-"

"I arranged for that." Boba Fett stepped past Zuckuss and the others, walking toward the pad that the approaching craft had locked upon. "But it wouldn't have made any difference if I had or not."

"What do you mean?" Zuckuss scurried after Fett.

"Believe me-this barve goes where he wants to." The ovoid could be seen more clearly now as it slid into the landing dock, thrust engines shut down and repulsors on. Its rounded surfaces were pitted and scored with the impact marks of high-intensity armaments, including one large scorch mark where the metal had actually melted and fused back together. As it hovered above the pad its trailing mesh shifted and drew forward, one part curling above like a scorpion's tail, the other forming a reticulated cradle beneath, onto which the craft slowly sank and was still.

"Look at this thing." Fascinated, Zuckuss had walked right up to the ovoid, his boots stepping onto the mesh. He laid a gloved hand on the battered and corrosionmarked surface. "It looks like it's been in every battle since the Clone Wars-"

"Watch out," said Boba Fett. But the warning was already too late.

A microscopic hairline fissure around the top of the ovoid widened, with a hiss of inrush ing air. An elliptical section separated from the rest, tilting up ward on previously hidden internal hinges. For a moment nothing further showed from inside the craft. ... As though released by a high-compression spring, the barrel of a close-range laser cannon rose up, with its power sources and recoil housing mounted directly behind. The gleaming surfaces of black metal shone like the coils of an aroused serpent, intricate and deadly. A faint, shrill electronic whir sounded as the massive weapon's range-sighting devices locked onto Zuckuss, swinging the point of the muzzle down within a meter of the bounty hunter's chest. Another series of sharp, concussive noises sounded within the machinery as the indicator lights' glow shifted from yellow to a hot red, charged and ready to fire. That was followed by silence; Zuckuss froze where he stood, as though hypnotized by the black hole almost within touching distance of his hand, and its lethal potential even closer than that. There would be only a haze of disconnected atoms floating above the scorched remains of his boots after one shot from the weapon.

"Back up," said Boba Fett quietly. "Do it slow, and you probably won't get hurt."

"Hurt?" Beside him, Bossk was gazing in wide-eyed fascination at the laser cannon's darkly gleaming barrel.

"He's going to be vaporized!"

Zuckuss was unable to take his own gaze away from the death-bestowing machinery locked upon him. But he did manage to take one cautious step backward, then another; all the while the weapon's tracking systems followed his every move, shifting angle slightly to remain targeted. A few more steps and Zuckuss was back with the other bounty hunters. "Stay here," Boba Fett told him.

"Don't worry." The stink of panic sweat seeped out of Zuckuss's gear. "I'm not going anywhere." Boba Fett had already stepped past him, leaving Bossk and IG-88 behind as well. He strode without visible apprehension across the landing dock toward the ovoid resting above its glittering mesh. The laser cannon swung and locked onto him as he approached.

"It's been a long time." He stopped and spoke to the weapon itself, as though its charge-primed muzzle were a face masked like his, with the tracking systems as its all-seeing eyes. "A very long time." The red indicator lights along the weapon's housing cooled from red, through a dull orange, down to a steadystate yellow. The optics and sensors of the tracking systems defocused slightly, as though the hand and mind behind the trigger had relaxed to a state of mere vigilance, rather than instantaneous aggression. Slowly, the laser cannon rose, as though being lifted on some mechanism inside the ovoid-shaped craft. A cloud of hissing steam surrounded it, obscuring for a moment the outlines of the weapon, as though it were an outcropping of black rock, on a mountain peak wreathed in a sudden, violent storm. The cannon parted the steam as a massive humanoid torso appeared below, its wide shoulders bearing the weapon's crushing weight. From the underside of the barrel, a quarter circle of gear-toothed metal curved down into an anchoring plate set in the creature's chest, with interlocking motors to adjust the muzzle's terminal elevation. Heavy cables, some glistening black, others made of silvery durasteel, looped beneath the arms and around the muscle-sheathed chest and ribs, connecting with the counterbalancing cylinders of power sources flanking the spine. The latter were revealed when the individual climbed out of the ovoid, black-gloved hands and thick-soled boots weighing upon the mesh's strands. From the intricate joins of the weapon's mounting, more steam lashed out, gathered, and dissipated in trailing wisps, indicating the presence of an old-style, liquidbased cooling system, primitive technology dating from the earliest days of the Republic. The laser cannon swung 180 degrees around on its mounting, as though the tracking system optics were actually the eyes in a head made of pure destructive capacity.

A tail section, like a primitive saurian's, but made of segmented black metal and mounted by articulated bolts to the creature's hips, was the last thing to be dragged out of the craft. With its top section hinged back and its pilot standing before it, the resemblance to a giant egg was complete, as though it had just now cracked open to disgorge a new combination of living matter and lethal machinery.

Behind the stranger, the tail curled across the edge of the stiffened mesh. With one hand, the creature undipped a small keyboard device from the band of metal running from the hip bolts and across his abdomen. His other hand punched in a rapid sequence of ideograms, then thumbed a larger button i in the device's corner. "long…time." The device's speaker crackled as the stranger held it up in front of himself. Underneath the synthesized words, the hissing of the steam from the laser cannon's housing could still be heard.

"YOU DO NOT…SEEM TO AGE…

BOBA FETT."

"Should I?" The statement amused him. "Time enough for that when I'm dead."

He could hear the other bounty hunters behind him. Bossk's voice was louder than the rest "I don't like the looks of this …."

The stranger was instantly transformed; Boba Fett knew that something had triggered a reaction sequence. On the housing of the laser cannon, the indicators flared red again; the tracking systems narrowed their focus, sighting in on a point behind Fett. Steam jetted farther from the housing's apertures as the segmented metal tail stiffened, bracing the stranger into a tripod rigid enough to take the force of the high-powered weapon's recoil.

Boba Fett glanced over his shoulder and saw that Bossk had instinctively dropped his hand to the butt of the blaster slung at his hip; the Trandoshan always did that when something aroused his suspicions.

"Not a good idea," said Fett. With a nod of his helmet, he indicated Bossk's hand, frozen in place by the laser cannon snapping into firing mode. "D'harhan tends to kill first and not bother investigating afterward." Bossk took his hand away from his blaster.

"Good." Boba Fett looked toward Zuckuss and IG-88 as well. "Now our team is all here."

"D'harhan and I go back a long way." Across the controls of the Slave I, Boba Fett's hands moved swiftly, setting the coordinates for dropping back out of hyperspace. "Longer than you can imagine."

"How come I've never heard of him?" The ship's cockpit area was small enough that Zuckuss had to remain standing in the hatchway behind Fett just to exchange a few words with him. "He seems very…impressive." Zuckuss had had a choice of traveling with Bossk and IG-88 in the Hound's Tooth, but the Trandoshan's worsening temper had pushed him into the Slave I instead. Let the droid deal with him, Zuckuss had decided. Droids don't take all that snarling and muttering personally. But heading toward the Shell Hutts' home base, a ringshaped artificial planetoid called Circumtore, aboard the Slave I had proved even more unnerving. The stranger named D'harhan-or friend or mercenary companion, or whatever he might have been at one time to Boba Fett-had found the most secure corner of the ship's belowdecks holding area, and had sat down on the gridded flooring with his back to the angle of the bulkheads. D'harhan had wrapped his flex-shielded arms around his knees, partially resting the weight of the laser cannon mounted on his shoulders on them, the weapon's gleaming barrel thrust slightly forward. When Zuckuss had entered the area, moving as stealthily as possible, he'd suddenly heard a whisper of vented steam; the other's tracking systems had registered his presence, swinging the laser cannon in a horizontal arc toward him. Luckily, the firing indicators on the cannon's housing had remained in their yellow standby mode.

It had taken a few moments for Zuckuss to realize that this intimidating and unfamiliar entity was only partially conscious at that moment. The square, heavily armored box mounted beneath the laser cannon's curved forward support, resembling a thick breastplate with rows of input sockets and flickering LEDs, was the repository of all of D'harhan's cerebral functions, surgically encased and transferred there from the emptied skull, discarded like an empty combat-rations container when the massive weapon's base had been drilled into the collarbones and vertebral column. What Boba Fett had described of the operation had been enough to set Zuckuss's spine crawling. It was one thing to augment oneself with weapons and detection systems-Zuckuss frankly envied Fett's impressive array of sensor and destructive devices; the man was a walking armory-but to go beyond that, to have whole major sections of one's anatomy cut away and replaced with dura-steel and attacklevel charge batteries, to actually turn oneself into a weapon rather than just a bearer of weapons ... a sick feeling had moved inside Zuckuss's gut as he'd spied upon the sleeping D'harhan. That's where it ends up, he'd thought gloomily. If you go all the way. The segmented metal tail, the third leg of the laser cannon's tripod support, curled around D'harhan like a defensive barrier separating him from contact with the universe of living things ….

Zuckuss had taken a cautious step closer in the Slave I's hold. He'd known that D'harhan wasn't so much asleep as just partially shut down, conserving energy for the ever-alert weapon above his torso, its glowing lights a simple constellation in the darkness. A residual circuit was triggered by Zuckuss's approach; one of the blackgloved hands turned the illuminated screen of the keyboard voice box outward. do not disturb me, read the screen, its audio function switched off. leave me be. Like a sleeping dragon in a cave, the fiery destruction of its breath only smoldering ...

The silent warning had been enough; Zuckuss had been only too happy to retreat to the ladder leading back to the Slave Fs cockpit. The dark, somnolent, yet threatening form of the creature who had turned himself into a weapon aroused mingled dread and nausea inside Zuckuss. Once, before he'd decided to become a bounty hunter himself, he'd caught a fleeting glimpse of Darth Vader, the Dark Lord of the Sith, commanding a punitive sweep of Imperial stormtroopers across the capital city of a world that had been slow to pay obeisance to the distant Emperor Palpatine. The thought had struck him then, as it did again now, that there were some paths one could follow, where even if one wound up powerful beyond one's dreams, one also became somehow diminished, as though the essence hidden inside the armor were progressively stripped away and replaced with unfeeling metal and circuitry.

That was all too deep to think about, especially now, when he had allied himself with creatures like Boba Fett and D'harhan. Maybe later, Zuckuss had mused as he'd climbed the ladder to the cockpit. If there was a later.

"I don't get that voice-box device he carries around." Zuckuss nodded toward the ladder and the hold below. "Seems kind of awkward. I would've thought something that left his hands free would be more useful for communicating."

"D'harhan doesn't have a lot of need for com municating." Boba Fett's voice sounded dryly amused. "And before, when there were others like him, they coordinated their actions with their own internal comm network."

"There were others? Like him?" That seemed a dismaying prospect to Zuckuss. "What happened to them?" Fett made no reply.

Zuckuss tried another question. "What was he like before?" He didn't even feel like saying the other's name aloud. "Before he became…what he is now?"

"That's none of your business." Boba Fett didn't take his eyes away from the Slave I's controls. "He's been as he is for a long time. If you never knew of D'harhan before, it's because he minds his own business, in regions of the galaxy where such as you never travel." Fett glanced over his shoulder at Zuckuss. "For which you should be grateful."

The discussion of the final team member was concluded; Zuckuss knew better than to ask any more prying questions. I'll be glad when this fob is over, he thought ruefully. Things had been getting increasingly sticky back at the Bounty Hunters Guild, with its rapidly thickening air of conspiracy and stealth, the various backstabbing alliances forming and dissolving and recoalescing with new partners and enemies on a daily, even hourly basis. Going on this Oph Nar Dinnid job, dangerous as the Shell Hutts' defenses were reputed to be, seemed like a piece of baked confectionery by comparison. But even here, in the starless void of hyperspace, Zuckuss knew he was still in the uncomfortable midst of those dangerous spiderwebs; all it would take would be for Bossk or Boba Fett to find out that he was working from Cradossk's agenda, and he'd be pitched out into vacuum from either the Slave Fs or the Hound's waste chute, boots first. Agreeing to Cradossk's schemes was beginning to look like less of a good deal now that Zuckuss was out here, with nothing to count on but his own smarts and urge to survive.

"Stop fidgeting." Boba Fett spoke without looking around at Zuckuss. "Brace yourself; we're about to drop into sublight space."

Zuckuss was already familiar with the Slave I's abrupt navigational transitions; Fett's working vessel was stripped of any deceleration buffers that might have impaired its speed or fighting abilities. The ship consequently slammed from one transit mode to another with a gut-wrenching impact. Zuckuss grabbed either side of the hatchway and averted his lidless eyes so he wouldn't have to see the stars blur sicken-ingly into focus beyond the cockpit's main viewport.

"There's Bossk."

Opening his eyes, Zuckuss saw the Hound's Tooth floating before them, engines shut off. A signal light flashed, and Boba Fett reached over and pressed the comm button. "Fett here. Have you made contact with the Circumtore landing authorities?"

"Positive on that." IG-88's flat, expressionless voice sounded from the cockpit speaker. "Approach and landing permission has not-I repeat, not-been granted."

"I didn't expect it would be," said Boba Fett dryly.

"When people like us show up, hardly anyone puts out a welcome mat."

"At the conclusion of our last exchange, the Shell Hutts indicated they would be sending out a negotiator."

"What level?"

Bossk's voice broke into the discussion. "The fat slugs said it would be an Alpha Point Zero. What's that mean?"

Boba Fett kept his thumb on the comm button. "That's the Shell Hutts' top authority level. They don't go any higher than that. So it means two things One, we don't have to bother with any small-fry underlings, and two, they're taking our arrival very seriously."

"When this negotiator gets out here, what's our plan?" Bossk sounded hungry for action, as though the journey out from the Bounty Hunters Guild had been an eternity of chafing inaction. "Kill him?" Typical, thought Zuckuss, slowly shaking his head. He'd had enough experience with Bossk to know that that was always his Plan A. And there usually wasn't a B. Fett glanced over his shoulder at Zuckuss. "Don't worry." He turned and pressed the comm button again. "We can be a little more subtle than that. You and IG-88 should transfer over here to the Slave I before the Shell Hutts' negotiator arrives. But remember-I do the talking."

Bossk's ship, the heavily armed Hound's Tooth, was left in autostandby, its alarm systems set to refuse entry to anyone other than its returning master. Zuckuss was aware of the level of Bossk's paranoia, and the number of lethal booby traps he had installed throughout the Hound, all to prevent anyone from invading his base of operations. That was the main reason Zuckuss had gone instead with Boba Fett; his nerves had still been frayed from the last time he had been aboard the Hound's Tooth, when he'd constantly had to be on guard against setting off any of the security devices. Better to let the bountyhunter droid IG-88 take the risk, even if it meant losing track of Bossk-the main reason Zuckuss was on the team for this job-for the duration of the journey. He went down into the Slave J's holding area to open the transfer hatch between the two ships. The hunched shape of the partially shut-down D'harhan filled one corner of the area; he could feel the laser cannon's standby optics registering his presence, lifting the weapon's barrel slightly and turning it in his direction, as he stepped from the bottom rung of the ladder. From the small viewport beside the hatch, Zuck-uss could see the Hound's Tooth being maneuvered into docking position. When it had connected with the Slave I, Zuckuss hit the hatch release controls; a sharp hiss sounded as the two ships equalized their internal atmospheric pressures. The hatch irised open, and Bossk and IG-88 stepped aboard. Bossk pressed a button on the remote cockpit control at his waist, and the Hound disengaged and drew into a parallel orbit above the surface of Circumtore.

"Where's Fett?" Bossk scanned the Slave I's holding area. Though it was the largest open space aboard the ship, it was already cramped with the three bounty hunters in it. Boba Fett's ship was built for speed and destruction, not comfort.

Zuckuss pointed to the ladder leading to the cockpit.

"He's still up there. I think he's getting ready for the arrival of the Shell Hutts' negotiator." His guess was proved correct when Boba Fett's voice crackled from a speaker mounted on the bulkhead. "We'll need to make room," said Fett over the ship's internal comm system. "I've just been informed that the negotiator is one of the Shell Hutts; they didn't send one of their pet intermediaries. If we're going to get one of those tanks aboard here, we'll need all the space we can get."

"I don't see how…" Zuckuss turned, looking around the Slave I's holding area. "The only room down here is in the cages."

"So?" Boba Fett's voice spoke again. "What's the problem?"

Bossk glared at the cages where Boba Fett kept his captured pieces of merchandise, en route to collecting the bounty on them. "I'm not going in there," he growled.

"You're the biggest one here," Zuckuss pointed out helpfully. "Except, of course-" He pointed to D'harhan's massive bulk, the laser cannon's barrel protruding slightly above the drawn-up knees and encircled metal tail. "For him."

The three bounty hunters looked over at D'harhan.

"I don't know," said Bossk. Even he seemed in timidated by the presence of a fully charged laser cannon in their midst. "Maybe it's not a good idea to wake him up."

too late. One of D'harhan's hands tapped out another message on the silenced voice box and turned its glowing screen toward them, I hear…EVERYTHING YOU SAY. Zuckuss and the other two bounty hunters stepped back, spines against the bulkhead, as the roused D'harhan slowly stood up, the segmented metal tail drawing around behind him. The housing of the laser cannon mounted onto D'harhan's chest and shoulders reached above even Bossk's head. The massive weapon's tracking systems regarded the bounty hunters in silence for a moment.

"Watch out!" Zuckuss's cry was involuntary, triggered by the sight of the indicator lights on the laser cannon suddenly surging to red. He dived to the floor as Bossk and IG-88 scattered to either side of the cramped holding area.

On the gridded floor, with his arms pulled over his head, Zuckuss heard the quick, sharp sizzle of a laser bolt, then another; their glare lit up the space, stinging his eyes. In the quiet that followed, he could smell ozone and scorched metal.

Lifting his head, Zuckuss saw the lights on the side of the animate laser cannon dwindling back down to yellow and safety. Flanking the holding area, Bossk and IG-88 looked first toward D'harhan, then toward the target of his ramped-down laser bolts. The impacts had been precisely calculated and aimed, shattering the hinges of the main merchandise cage; fragments of molten durasteel, scattered across the floor, glowed a dull red. Wisps of acrid smoke rose from the edge of the cage door as it fell with a resounding clang. "there," spoke D'harhan's voice box aloud.

"NOW YOU SHOULD HAVE ... NO OBJECTIONS."

"Your point is valid." IG-88's circuitry had re covered completely from the sudden burst of laser fire. The droid stepped over the bars of the fallen door and into what was left of the cage, then turned around. Bossk regarded D'harhan for a moment longer, his slitted eyes looking up at the cooling laser cannon with something like envy, then followed the other bounty hunter into the area's adjoining space, now incapable of being shut and locked.

That'll take some fixing, thought Zuckuss. Con sidering the proprietary attitude that Boba Fett natu rally took toward the Slave I and its fittings, he was more than relieved that D'harhan had blown the holding cage hinges and not him.

At that moment Boba Fett appeared on the ladder coming down from the cockpit. The bounty hunters watched as Fett's visored gaze turned toward the cage in which he transported his merchandise, then down to the barred door lying in front of it.

"That's coming out of your share," Fett told D'harhan.

The black-gloved hand moved across the voice box's keyboard. "no, it's not."

For a moment longer they stood facing each other-one masked behind the visored helmet, the other faceless except for the muzzle of the laser cannon-before Boba Fett finally gave a slow nod. "We'll talk."

"There's a ship approaching." Zuckuss pointed to the viewport. "It must be the Shell Hutts' negotiator." In the viewport, a spherical craft moved closer to the Slave I; a simple off-planet shuttle, it displayed tortoise insignia of the Shell Hutts and a diplomatic emblazon showing its unarmed status. The shuttle's forward hatch had already deployed its docking arms, ready to hook up with the Slave I's transfer hatch. A few moments later, as Zuckuss manned the hatch's controls, a broad face with a slit gash of a mouth appeared floating before the bounty hunters. The elongated, tapering cylinder of the Shell Hutt negotiator moved with ponderous grace into the holding area, its underside repulsor beams pushing invisibly against the floor grids. As the end of the tanklike casing made it through the transfer hatch, Zuckuss hit the button and irised the hatch closed again.

"Ah, Boba Fett!" The casing, studded with rivets and various maintenance ports, swung about in the holding area, past the other bounty hunters and toward the figure standing near the metal ladder. A leering smile formed on the Shell Hutt's face. Tiny mechanical hands dangled beneath a gleaming chromium collar, sealed tight around the wattled gray flesh of its neck; the claws, delicate as a scuttling sea crab's, clicked happily against each other. "How pleasant to see you again." Fett's response was dry and emotionless. "My feelings, Gheeta, are the same as the last time we met." Bossk spoke from the holding cage. "You know this creature?"

"We've had…business dealings." Fett didn't look back at the Trandoshan. "A couple times before."

"And very profitable they were, too." The cylinder with the Shell Hutt inside bobbed slightly as it turned toward Bossk. "At least…for some people." The smile on Gheeta's face soured. "I hope," he said to Boba Fett, "that you're not expecting the same degree of trust that you found previously on Circumtore." The little crablike hands snapped their metal claws together, hard enough to produce sparks. "After that last affair of yours, Fett, you're not going to be greeted with open arms."

"I don't need to be." Boba Fett stood face-to-face with the Shell Hutt. "You're a business creature, Gheeta, and so am I. Warm sentiments have nothing to do with it. If you're ready to do business, then we have something to talk about. If you're not ready, then we don't."

"The same old Boba Fett." The Shell Hutt's head, its jowly neck bound by the floating cylinder's collar, managed an appreciative nod. "It's good to know that some things in this universe never cliange. Just what business is it you've come to Circumtore to discuss?"

"I think you've got a pretty good idea of that." Gheeta's expression turned sly, the lids over his large eyes drawing halfway down. "It wouldn't be something to do with a certain Oph Nar Dinnid, would it?"

"Stop wasting time!" Bossk's angry shout broke in.

"You know damn well that's what we're here for!" An amused glance from the corner of one eye, then Gheeta looked back at Fett. "Your associate has a charming directness about him."

Fett nodded. "Among other virtues."

"The others must be well concealed," said Gheeta dryly. One of the metal hands reached up to scratch between the wattles at the side of his neck. "You realize, of course, that the party under discussion-this Dinnid person-is a guest on Circumtore. You know how all Hutts are about hospitality. The happiness of a guest is a sacred obligation with our species."

Spare me, thought Zuckuss, watching the exchange between Boba Fett and the Shell Hutt. Throughout the galaxy, the treachery and outright malice that Hutts showed toward any who found themselves in one of their windowless palaces was proverbial. Zuckuss had heard things about how the infamous Jabba, the preeminent Huttese crime lord, went through so-called guests and the more disposable type of servants that made his flesh crawl. That was the difference, Zuckuss supposed, between Boba Fett and a creature like this Gheeta. Fett didn't go out of his way to hurt or even kill anyone-if it hap pened, it happened-whereas Hutts in general took an active delight in other creatures' suffering.

"There are some," said Boba Fett, "who would take an interest in Dinnid's happiness equal to your own."

"Ah, yes." The massive head at the forward end of the repulsor-borne cylinder nodded. "Dinnid's former employers. I take it that you're here on their behalf?"

"I'm here on no one's behalf but my own."

"But of course." Gheeta's smile expanded enough to reveal his wet, flickering tongue. "I really expected nothing else. Altruism is in short supply among the practitioners of your trade. I imagine it's the same for your friends here." One of the little crablike hands raised and gestured at the others in the Slave J's holding area. "Rather an intimidating crew, don't you think, Fett? It makes the heart inside my casing tremble just to look at them." Gheeta peered more closely at Bossk. "Let's see ... you're Cradossk's son, aren't you?" Bossk's eyes were two razor slits, his voke a low snarl. "What's that matter to you?"

"You really are his son." Gheeta widened his eyes in mock fright. "Give the old reptile my best regards the next time you see him. "Which shouldn't be too long from now." The Shell Hutt rotated himself back toward Boba Fett. "Because if you think I'm going to let an obviously vicious bunch like this come sailing down to Circumtore, then you've got a few circuits blown inside that helmet of yours, Fett."

The remark produced no reaction in its target. "We can hardly discuss the matter out here," said Boba Fett.

"I make it a rule to talk business only when the merchandise is on the table, so to speak."

"I have to warn you." The claws of the little mechanical hands clicked against each other again. "This is very expensive merchandise we're talking about."

"That makes it all the more profitable, then." Fett indicated the other bounty hunters. "And that's. why we've come here."

"I can believe that, well enough." Gheeta used one of the claws to scratch the almost boneless flesh of his chin. "I just don't know if you've really changed your ways, my dear Fett, regarding just how you acquire your profitable merchandise. I had heard, naturally, about your having joined the Bounty Hunters Guild-and I must admit that all of my clan on Circumtore were surprised by the news. Getting old and tired, are we, Fett?"

"Not tired." Boba Fett gave a slow shake of his head.

"Just smart."

"Smart for you, no doubt." The Shell Hutt broadcast his sly, insinuating smile around at the others. "I wonder, though…just what your new-found friends here get out of the deal."

Zuckuss found himself gazing straight into the Shell Hutt's eyes as the floating cylinder turned his way. The same sensation came over him as when he had felt the tracking systems of D'harhan's laser cannon locking onto him, calculating the precise angle and force necessary for his destruction. The pupils of Gheeta's eyes were like narrow windows into a realm of avarice, the slow and certain calculus of insatiable appetites. Getting blown away-literally, into disconnected atoms-by a laser bolt would be mercifully quick by comparison.

Another feeling, even more disquieting, moved inside Zuckuss that the dark pupils regarding him with such amused contempt were not windows, but mirrors into his own heart. Little creature, he could hear Gheeta speaking inside his head, I am what you would like to be. All mouth and gut and hunger. In this cold galaxy, the commandment of Eat or Be Eaten prevailed, from the throne of Emperor Palpatine all the way down to the smallest carnivore, a Tatooinian womp rat, scuttling across an empty desert.

His heart dwindled within himself, from that moment of recognition in the Shell Hutt's eyes. There had been others who had lived and fought, their struggles guided by a different code; there had been a time when even he had listened to tales of the Jedi Knights defending the old Republic. But those are fust stories now, Zuckuss told himself. Those days, and the brave creatures that had lived in them, were never coming back. And without them, the Rebels fighting against the Empire were poor, pathetic fools, doomed to failure. Their bones would be picked clean and discarded on the battlefields of worlds without names. The hungry ones, with their greed and lust for dominion, would always win ….

Bleak, wordless meditation ended as the Shell Hutt's knowing, judging smile moved away from him. Pull yourself together, Zuckuss told himself. He had made his pact with the universe he'd found himself in; he was a bounty hunter now, and had been so long enough to be traveling in league with some of the toughest ones in the galaxy. If he showed any signs of weakness at this point, he knew, he wouldn't have to worry about Emperor Palpatine or any of the Shell Hutts; his own colleagues would tear him apart. A carnivore like Bossk would very likely con sume him, in the exact and literal sense of the word. That thought made Zuckuss feel at least a little better about having become part of old Cradossk's intricate scheming. Better you than me, he thought, glancing over at Bossk.

"Don't worry about us." That was Bossk's voice, giving a snarling reply to Gheeta. "We can take care of ourselves."

"I'm sure you can." The Shell Hutt didn't stop smiling. "After all ... you're learning from the master, aren't you? Boba Fett has always done very well for himself."

"I would be doing even better," said Fett, "if we could limit our discussion to that which we came here for. Specifically, that merchandise known as Oph Nar Dinnid."

"But that merchandise isn't on the table right now, is it?" Gheeta's large eyes emitted a spark of anger.

"And it's not going to be. Not out here, at least. You want to discuss the fate of our guest, you will indeed have to come down to Circumtore to do it-just as you wish. I'm only here to explain how things are in that regard. I'm giving you the conditions, not cutting the deal."

"Why not?" Zuckuss spoke up. "I don't get it. The other members of your clan wouldn't have sent you out here if you didn't have some kind of authority to speak for them. If they'd just wanted to send us some message, they could've comm'd it out here or sent some flunky of a different species, like a Twi'lek or something. So why mess around? If you're willing to talk about Dinnid at all, why not do it here?"

The smile on the broad, jowly face turned into a sneer. "Your colleague Boba Fett wouldn't ask such a stupid question. A question which has an equally simple answer. We're all aboard the Slave I right now, aren't we? The Slave I is Boba Fett's ship; he controls it. So as long as we're here, he controls the discussion as well. There have been times when discussions with Boba Fett have gotten ... a little ugly. Things start out nice and friendly, and then they just…change somehow." Gheeta feigned mulling over that statement. "Probably because the parties involved couldn't come to an agreement about the value and price of the merchandise being discussed." He glanced over at Fett. "You always like to get things as cheaply as possible, don't you?" Boba Fett made no reply.

"Cheaply," continued Gheeta, "as far as credits are concerned. When it comes to violence…well, that's another story, isn't it?" The floating cylinder turned, bringing the Shell Hutt's face back toward Zuckuss.

"That's when your colleague has rather a free hand. Especially when other creatures' skins are involved. And the blood-that can also get a little thick to wade through, when Boba Fett's around." Another shift in angle brought Gheeta's face toward the bounty hunters in general. "So if you think I'm going to remain here, in the heart of Fett's traveling circus of destruction, surrounded by his friends-or if not his friends, then creatures with whom he's come to a certain business arrangement-and talk about the merchandise in question, let alone actually bring that merchandise here…" Gheeta's jowls wobbled against the cylinder's gleaming collar as he shook his head. "Then it's not just Boba Fett who's gone a little insane. You're all not in sync with reality if you think that's going to happen." A low growl came from the doorless holding cage.

"You've said your piece?" Bossk folded his arms across his chest.

Gheeta looked over at the Trandoshan. "Yes, I have."

"And now you're going to be on your way?"

"As charming as your company is, I see no reason for wasting any more of your time or mine."

"What makes you think we're going to let you leave?" A weary sigh escaped from the Shell Hutt as he rolled his eyes toward the top of the holding area, "I really expected better from any companions of yours, Fett. Do you want to tell him or should I?"

"He leaves when he wants to," said Boba Fett. He turned the hard gaze of his visored helmet toward the holding cage. "First of all, the merchandise we came here for is still down on Circumtore. Anything unpleasant we do to the negotiator that the Shell Hutts sent out will just make it harder to accomplish anything later, when we actually go on-planet."

Bossk laid his hand on the grip of his blaster.

"Maybe we should just worry about that when we get down there. I don't see any big difference between taking care of one canned Hutt and a whole world full of them."

"There's more inside that can than one Hutt. I've dealt with their negotiators before. They never send one out that isn't packed with high-thermal explosives."

"You see?" One of the mechanical hands beneath Gheeta's floating cylinder gestured theatrically toward Boba Fett. "That's why he's at the top of the bountyhunter profession. It's why he's lasted so long, while others have met tragically untimely deaths. Because he's learned that other creatures can be just as clever…and violent, if need be." The thin metal arm telescoped outward so that the crab-like hand could reach up to an access hatch at the midpoint of the cylinder's tapered length. One claw pried open the hatch, revealing a ticking mechanism wired into several flat bricks of a dull gray substance.

From where he stood, Zuckuss could see the emblem and coding symbols of one of the Imperial Navy's main armaments dumps. The explosive charges had obviously been stolen, or smuggled out by some enterprising accomplice-but they were still more than lethal. Just looking at that much destructive force made Zuckuss's breath catch in the tubes dangling from his face mask. IG-88 had also scanned the explosives, from where it stood next to Bossk. "It would be advisable," announced the droid, "if no one made an attempt to forcibly defuse the triggering mechanism. It has obviously been wired with a detect-and-destruct subsystem to prevent just such an occurrence."

"Of course." Gheeta looked pleased with himself. "As Fett indicated to you, Shell Hutt negotiators don't come into this kind of situation unprepared. If any of you were so foolish as to lay a finger on me, or this little present I came with, then the consequences would be of astronomical significance." His lipless smile broadened.

"A glowing cloud of radioactive dust…perhaps they'd even be able to see it back at the Bounty Hunters Guild. So at least your friends would know what had become of you."

"I think ... we can all be reasonable about this." Zuckuss hastened to spe ak; on the other side of the holding area, Bossk looked furious enough to fling himself at the Shell Hutt and start pulling wires on the explosives, no matter what the consequences might be.

"Nobody's going to prevent you from leaving whenever you want."

"Good." Gheeta gave an appreciative nod to Zuckuss.

"You, at least, show some intelligence. Keep it up, and someday you might reach the same lofty pinnacle in your trade that Boba Fett has." The crablike hand folded the little hatch back down and sealed it in place. "This thing itches abominably. I'll be glad to be rid of it." The hand scratched at the metal door. "I'll take my departure now. Though I imagine it won't be very long until we all see each other again-down on Circumtore, of course."

The Shell Hutt's tapered casing rotated 180 degrees so that it was facing the transfer hatchway. Without being bidden, Zuckuss hurried to the controls at the side.

As the hatch irised open, Gheeta turned the floating cylinder just enough", that he could look back at Boba Fett and the other bounty hunters. "Of course," he said blandly, "that's up to you. About whether we do business or not. Because I have to tell you-we take a very dim view of creatures coming to visit us if they bring along the kind of firepower that you like to carry around." The cylinder moved through the fully open hatchway. It sealed shut with a hiss; a few seconds later the mechanical noises of the negotiator's ship disengaging were audible. In the small viewport, the craft could be seen as it began traveling back down to Circumtore. Bossk, looking as angry as before, stepped out of the doorless holding cage. "What was that last bit supposed to mean?"

"It's simple." Boba Fett grasped one of the ladder's rungs. "Like everything with the Shell Hutts." He started up toward the Slave Fs cockpit. "We're going to go down and talk business, and we'll do it unarmed. They'll send a shuttle for us to go on-world, and we'll leave all our weapons right here."

"You're joking!" Bossk stared after him in amazement.

"I'm not going down there defenseless!"

"That's up to you." At the cockpit hatchway, Boba Fett halted and looked back down at the Trandoshan.

"There's an alternative, of course. We can eliminate you from the team right now." He drew his blaster from his hip and aimed it at Bossk. "You decide." A few seconds passed before Bossk finally gave a slow nod. "All right," he said. "You win. That's how we'll play it." An ugly sneer formed on his face. "But there's a slight problem. What about him?"

Zuckuss and the others turned in the direction to which Bossk's gesture pointed. At the side of the Slave I's holding area, silent and waiting, stood the massive shape of D'harhan. The tracking systems of the laser cannon, bonded inseparably to his torso, looked toward Fett.

"Even him," Fett said quietly. "He's going with us as well."

D'harhan punched a string of words into his voice box and turned the device away from himself. "you would have to kill me," it spoke aloud. "to render me weaponless." The voice had sounded like thunder beneath the roiling clouds of steam. The laser cannon's tracking systems gazed hard at Boba Fett as the next words were displayed. "there is no DIFFERENCE…BETWEEN ME AND MY WEAPONS."

"Maybe..." With growing unease, Zuckuss let his gaze move up the enormous figure. The yellow lights on the side of the laser-cannon housing were darkening, as though they were about to shift to the red of imminent destruction. "Maybe we don't really need to take him with us. I mean ... if we're just going down to Circumtore to talk…that's not really his specialty, is it?"

"No one is being left behind," Fett stated with cold finality. "The whole team is going. That's the plan."

"Whose plan?" demanded Bossk.

"Mine." Another simple, flat statement. "That's the only one that matters." Boba Fett turned back toward D'harhan. "I know better than anyone that to remove your weapon would be the same as killing you; I haven't forgotten about these things. I was there when you became as you are now. So I also know other things that your weapon can be rendered nonfunctional, incapable of firing, by a relatively simple procedure. The removal of the light-mass core alone will do it. And then the Shell Hutts will have no basis for refusing you permission to enter their world."

Zuckuss flattened himself against the holding area's bulkhead as he watched D'harhan rising to his full height, the top of the laser-cannon housing scraping the durasteel ceiling. The light inside the space seemed to dim, as though the creature's expanding form were swallowing it up. D'harhan's chest, the remaining fleshand-blood part of it, swelled outward, thrusting forward the curved gearing of the weapon mount welded to his breastbone; his shoulders pulled back, arms tensing at his sides, one hand clenching into a fist, the other still holding the muted voice box. Through clouds of hissing steam, the oiled metal of the pistons gleamed like naked sword blades; the indicator lights along the laser cannon's barrel burned a fiery, nebulous red. Now it's going to happen-fear twisted sicken-ingly in Zuckuss's gut. We're all going to die. Mesmerized, he watched as Boba Fett stepped up in front of D'harhan, the red light blurring through the steam and silhouetting him as though by fire seen through ominous storm clouds. "you're wrong." D'harhan raised the voice box toward Fett. "IT won't be easy at all."

"I am aware of his meaning." A trace of fear sounded in even the droid IG-88's voice. "The light-mass core is shielded behind a grid of protective interlocks-that is standard for weapons of the class he bears, to prevent just such tampering. Removal is ill-advised, even for a skilled armory technician. You could trigger an overload destruct sequence that would destroy this ship even more thoroughly than the Shell Hutt's explosive charges would have."

"Listen to it," pleaded Bossk. "You're going to kill us all-"

"I know what I'm doing." Boba Fett spoke with an unnervingly icy calm. "Do not interfere-if you value your lives."

"do you know?" Another cloud of steam hissed from the laser cannon's mounting as the tracking systems narrowed their focus on the man standing in front of them. "the weapon is my spirit. when you take THAT BY WHICH I KILL OTHERS…THEN YOU KILL ME."

"It will only seem that way," said Boba Fett.

"There's a difference between this death and true death." Slowly, he reached up toward the glistening machinery whose coils were buried deep in D'harhan's chest. "Trust me."

"Fett…don't…"

Whether it was his own voice or one of the others, Zuckuss could no longer tell. Flinching from certain doom, he averted his face; the last thing he saw was Boba Fett shrouded in steam, one hand sinking into the coils and wires nested beneath the laser cannon's mounting, as though the bounty hunter were a battlefield surgeon performing a crude, septic heart transplant. With a screech of grinding metal from the geared wheel, the weapon's barrel convulsively angled upward, the tracking systems blindly defocusing, as though a pain voltage beyond the reach of mortal anesthesia had coursed through D'harhan's embedded circuitry. The indicator lights pulsed and flared even brighter than before; Zuckuss could hear someone, probably Bossk, diving to the gridded floor of the holding area, as though there were any chance of hiding from the firepower that would rip the Slave I apart.

With all muscles involuntarily tensed, crouching against the bulkhead, Zuckuss awaited the harsh, deafening noise that he knew would be the last thing he would ever hear.

Instead, there was silence, ended by a sighing emission of steam, as though from a dying machine, the source of its energy shut off by a single valve. He looked up, bringing his eyes away from his own lowered forearm. The red lights that had burned through the steam mist were gone now; as Zuckuss watched, the inert metal of the laser cannon shifted angle, its dark barrel slowly inching down from its ceiling-high trajectory. The blank voice box swung on a cord from D'harhan's waist as his black-gloved hands trembled open, palms outward. His knees buckled, diminishing the massive form that had reared up inside the ship's holding area, turning him into something weaker and more human than ma chine. D'harhan collapsed onto the floor, rolling heavily onto one broad shoulder, the muzzle of the laser cannon scraping an arc across the floor, ending at the tip of Boba Fett's boot.

Zuckuss's gaze broke from the silenced weapon and turned toward the other bounty hunter. Boba Fett hadn't moved from where he had been standing, as though the fall of the laser cannon was an ocean tide that he knew would break harmlessly upon the shore, millimeters away from him. In Fett's hand, the one that had reached into the intricate lock and coil of D'harhan's chest, was a dull metal rod, less than half a meter long, thick enough to fill the grip fastened upon it. When Fett dropped it with a leaden clang, the residual heat from the weapon's reactor core brought a final sizzling puff of steam from the water vapor that had collected on the grid's surface. The barrel of the laser cannon lifted, moving with crippled d ifficulty. D'harhan's tracking systems focused upon Boba Fett standing above him; one hand grasped the voice box and slowly thumbed in a few words. you owe me. D'harhan raised the silent communication device. big time.

Boba Fett said nothing, but turned away and strode toward the ladder leading to the cockpit. He halted with one boot on the bottom rung and looked over at the others watching him. "They're already waiting for us," he said quietly. "Down on Circum-tore."

Then he was gone. Zuckuss looked over at Bossk, just now getting to his feet in the doorless holding cage.

"We're lucky," said Zuckuss, "to be alive." Bossk glanced up, toward the empty hatchway of the cockpit, then back down. The thin smile he gave Zuckuss contained at least a small particle of admiration.

"I suppose we'll find out"-Bossk slowly nodded, his gaze narrowing-"just how lucky we are …."