Hard Merchandise

19

A woman talked to a bounty hunter.

"You know," said Neelah, "you could be a hero. If that was what you wanted."

"Hardly." Boba Fett's voice was as flat and unemo-tional as it had always been. "Heroes don't get paid enough."

"Think about it, though." A thin smile raised a corner of Neelah's mouth. With one hand, she tugged higher upon her shoulder the strap of the bag she carried. "Or at least savor the irony. Your blasting your way out of the KDY construction docks did the Rebel Alliance more good than their own Scavenger Squadron was able to achieve."

She and the bounty hunter were standing in the bridge of the Star Destroyer that Fett had managed to extract from the docks' inferno. The massive ship was silent and empty, except for them.

"How do you figure that?"

"Simple," replied Neelah. "Kuat of Kuat had wired up enough sequentially linked explosives to blow up all of Kuat Drive Yards. If he couldn't have it under his con trol, he didn't want to leave anything but smoking rubble behind. But this Star Destroyer was one of the critical links in the chain; the detonator circuits ran right through its main thruster engine compartment. And when you pulled the ship out of the docks, the chain was broken. Kuat himself didn't live long enough to see what hap-pened, but the result is that over eighty percent of the KDY construction docks survived intact."

Fett shrugged. "That's not my concern."

"Perhaps not." Neelah regarded the bounty hunter. She'd had no expectation of what would come from this secret rendezvous with him. The comm message had come to her at the Scavenger Squadron's mobile com-mand post, giving the coordinates of where she was to meet up with an unnamed entity; she had known instinc-tively that the message was from Boba Fett. She hadn't told Commander Rozhdenst about that, though, but had convinced him to let her go alone and unescorted, as the comm message had directed. It was her own deci-sion to pilot the battered Hound's Tooth to the ren-dezvous. "But," she continued, "it might be my concern. If I want it to be."

"Of course." As always, Fett was way ahead of her. "Kuat of Kuat is dead. That means Kuat Drive Yards is going to need a new leader. The other ruling families can see how things stack up now—if the Rebel Alliance indi-cates that it wants you running KDY, they'll undoubt-edly fall into line."

"I'm not sure about that." Neelah shook her head in disgust. "I know the Kuatese ruling families better than you do, and a lot better than anybody in the Rebel Al-liance. I was born into those families, remember? My sis-ter Kodir isn't the only one of them for whom treachery and scheming come easily. There are plenty of ruling family members who would just as soon back the Em-pire, if they thought it would serve their purposes."

"And you don't want to do anything to oppose them?"

"I'm not sure I want to." Neelah could see her own re-flection in the dark visor of Boba Fett's helmet.

"Or that I even care what happens to Kuat Drive Yards. After all that's happened, I'm not exactly close to anyone on the planet Kuat. Kodir is the only direct blood relation I have, and she's already being shipped down to face a tri-bunal of elders from the ruling families. There's a lot of charges being made against her: conspiracy, murder, kid-napping . . ." Neelah slowly shook her head. "Loyalty doesn't seem to run thick in the Kuhlvult bloodline. I don't feel it, at least. And maybe Kuat of Kuat was right; maybe Kuat Drive Yards deserves something more than that."

"Suit yourself," said Fett. "But I have other business to take care of. That's why I told you to come here."

"All right. Let's hear it."

"I'll make you a trade." Fett gestured toward the bulkheads of the ship surrounding them. "Here's a new, completely operational Star Destroyer, fresh out of the KDY construction docks. It's yours. You can signal the Scavenger Squadron commander to come out here and pick it up. That should make you even more popular with the Rebel Alliance."

Neelah glanced around the ship's bridge. "Or maybe I could sell it to them. It's a nice piece of hardware." She looked again at Boba Fett. "So what do you want in exchange?"

"Two things. First, the Hound's Tooth—"

"The Hound's in pretty bad shape." Neelah shook her head. "Certainly not worth as much as a ship of the line like this."

"It'll get me where I need to go," said Fett. "And second—your silence."

"What about?" Neelah peered at the bounty hunter.

"Me. I take it that you didn't tell anyone from the Rebel Alliance that you've been traveling with me."

"I didn't think it was advisable. Creatures tend to judge you by the company you keep."

"Fine," said Fett. "So go on that way. And don't tell them about me."

"Why?"

"I have my reasons. Right now, it's more convenient for me if everyone goes on believing I'm dead. If any of the creatures who might've spotted me at the Mos Eisley cantina want to talk about what they saw—" Fett shrugged. "There aren't many who'll believe lowlifes like that. And if the Rebel commander back at the KDY con-struction docks has an idea about who it was that pulled out this Destroyer, I imagine that he'll keep it to himself. Why would he want to let the rest of the galaxy know that a bounty hunter was able to do what he and his squadron couldn't? So being dead—or being thought dead—is a real opportunity for me."

"As you told me—suit yourself." Neelah's gaze turned tighter and harder. "But this ship isn't enough to buy that kind of silence. I want something a little more."

Fett's spine visibly stiffened. "Like what?"

"Like some answers. I want to know why you really went down to have your little confrontation with Kuat of Kuat while the construction docks were blowing up all around you. I can't believe it was really out of any concern for me, and finding out the truth about whether there was some big conspiracy of which I was the target."

A second passed, then Boba Fett nodded. "You're right," he said. "None of that is of any consequence to me. Your life, your death—it means nothing. All that matters is my life and my business—and that's what I was taking care of when I confronted Kuat of Kuat."

"You wanted the truth from him," said Neelah. "Did you get it?"

Fett nodded. "Enough of it. Now that I'm certain that the conspiracy didn't extend any further than Kuat, I can go ahead and deliver the fabricated evidence—to those who want it."

His words puzzled Neelah. "Who would want it now? Prince Xizor is dead. Kuat fabricated the evidence against him—so what use would it be now?"

"As you say, Xizor is dead. But Black Sun isn't. And Black Sun is still a very powerful—and dangerous— organization. And since Xizor's death, the leadership of Black Sun has been a matter of some dispute. A power struggle between those who had been most loyal to Xi-zor and the others who had been plotting against him even while he was still alive."

"Who's winning?"

"For the moment, the Xizor loyalists have the upper hand. But all that could change very quickly. Especially when I deliver the fabricated evidence into the hands of the usurper faction. They can use it to break the hold on power of the Xizor loyalists by showing the Black Sun ranks that the late Prince Xizor had been foolishly—and traitorously—involving the organization in the affairs of the Empire and the Rebel Alliance. Even though it wouldn't be true, it might be enough to tip the scales in the usurper faction's favor."

"I don't get it," said Neelah. "Why would you care who wins control of Black Sun?"

"It's all the same to me. But what I do care about," said Boba Fett, "is staying alive. And the usurper faction has made it clear to me that I stand a good chance of dying—in as painful a manner as possible—if I don't hand over the fabricated evidence to them. Through their own information sources, the usurpers had learned about the evidence and that I was in search of it. They figured—correctly—that I could find it before they would be able to. While you were listening to Dengar tell about my past, I was in the cockpit of the Hound's Tooth re-ceiving a comm unit transmission from the usurper fac-tion inside Black Sun, with the details of the offer they were making me. An offer that I was in no position to refuse."

"Wouldn't it have been simpler to have just offered you credits for the fabricated evidence? After all"—Neelah showed a thin smile—"aren't you willing to do anything, as long as you get paid?"

"That would have worked for me," replied Fett, "but not for these particular creatures. The problem with pay-ing me for the goods was that it would leave a trail that could be followed. Anytime credits change hands, there's a link that can be traced. And the usurper faction didn't want this matter being traced back to them. Killing me— or threatening to do so—is much simpler. If I got hold of the fabricated evidence and turned it over to them, there would be no exchange of credits to link us. And if I failed to do so, then I'd be dead, and there would be no way I could divulge the usurpers' scheming to the Xizor loyal-ists. All very neat and tidy. Especially since Black Sun— even just a small faction of the organization—is the only thing that could make a threat against me ... and pull it off. Anybody else I'd have a chance against. But not Black Sun. Killing is one of its specialities."

"I'm impressed," said Neelah. "I didn't think you were afraid of anything."

"This isn't fear. It's reality."

She nodded; it had all started to make sense, the last pieces of the puzzle fitting together. "So when you told us, when we were aboard Balancesheet's freighter, that getting hold of the fabricated evidence was just a matter of potential profits—you were lying to us." Neelah peered closer at the bounty hunter. "It wasn't credits you were after. It was survival."

"Credits are useless when you're dead."

"Then I take it that this is part of the deal as well." Neelah pulled the shoulder bag in front of herself and extracted the flat black parcel inside. She held the fab-ricated evidence, the other item that Boba Fett had told her to bring, in both hands. "The deal between you and me."

"This part isn't negotiable," said Fett. "I'm taking the fabricated evidence with me whether you hand it over or not."

"Since I don't have any use for it—" Neelah shrugged and held the parcel out. "Go ahead."

Boba Fett took the parcel with no word of thanks. She hadn't expected any, either.

"Wait a minute." Neelah spoke up as Fett turned away. The dark gaze of his visored helmet looked back at her. "You realize," she said quietly, "that you're being a complete fool about this. Don't you?"

A moment passed before Fett spoke. "How so?"

"Come on. Use your brains." Neelah pointed to the parcel in Boba Fett's gloved hands. "You're going to be carrying that stuff into a pretty dangerous place. Sure, this Black Sun usurper faction is going to be happy to get it, but that doesn't mean they're going to keep their end of the deal. They want to keep things quiet, about what they're up to? Then they're more likely to take the fabri-cated evidence from you, say thanks very much, and then drill a blaster bolt through your skull. There wouldn't be any trail linking them to you, after that."

"Of course not," replied Fett. "But I've already thought about that. And I've got a few tricks up my sleeve, in case they try anything."

"Tricks which might not work. Not on some Black Sun faction. As you said, killing is one of their specialities."

"True." Boba Fett gave a single nod. "But as it is, if I don't deliver the fabricated evidence to the usurpers, I have very little chance of surviving. If I do deliver it to them—then my chances will be up to me."

"Do it, then." Neelah stepped back and gestured toward the bridge's exit hatchway. "Good luck."

"It's not a matter of luck. Not for me." Fett turned and walked toward the hatchway. He stopped and looked back at her. "You can trust in your luck, if you care to. When you came here, did you stop to think what your chances would be if I had decided to tie up a few loose ends by eliminating you?"

"Sure." Neelah reached into the shoulder bag and pulled out a blaster pistol. She held it with both hands, aimed straight toward Fett. "That's why I came prepared."

Fett gazed at her and the weapon for a moment, then slowly nodded. "Good," he said. "I'm glad you learned a few things from me."

"Oh, I learned lots." Neelah kept the weapon pointed at him. "More than I wanted to."

She lowered the weapon only when she could hear the echo of his boot steps fading away in the corridor be-yond the hatchway.

A few moments later, Neelah glanced toward the bridge's main viewport. What was visible there was the fiery trace of the Hound's Tooth, battered but still capa-ble of traveling toward its hidden destination. But when Neelah closed her eyes, what she saw were the heat-shimmering expanses of the Dune Sea on Tatooine, and a nearly dead figure, skin and battle armor eroded, face-down in the sand.

She still couldn't decide whether it might have been better if she had just left him lying there.

A woman talked to a bounty hunter.

Though maybe, thought Dengar, I'm not one any-more. It didn't matter to him now; he was just glad to be alive.

"You came all that way, and found me." Both he and Manaroo sat in the cockpit of his ship, the Punishing One. "And just in time."

"It took some doing," said his betrothed. "You weren't easy to track down."

She couldn't have cut it any finer, either. Punishing One had shown up near the KDY construction docks just as Bossk's former ship Hound's Tooth was hit by the ragged chunk of metal that had come whirling toward it. Manaroo had witnessed the Hound shuddering from the impact; without a second thought, she had hit the Pun-ishing One's thruster controls to maximum, swooping into the debris and managing to grapple and lock on to the other ship's cargo hold before it lost its remaining atmospheric pressure. They had both been aboard the Punishing One when she slapped him back to full consciousness.

The relief at finding himself alive, and in the arms of the woman he loved, ebbed a little inside Dengar.

"I'm sorry," he said to her. "I failed you. I failed us both."

"What are you talking about?"

"We're right back where we started." He shook his head ruefully. "We needed credits, a lot—and I didn't get them. With everything I did, risking my life all that time being partners with Boba Fett, and we still can't pay off that debt load I'm carrying." He laid his head against Manaroo's shoulder. "We're no closer to the life we want than we were before."

"You are an idiot." She laughed and pushed him back to where she could look at him full in the face.

"None of that matters as long as you're alive."

"That's sweet of you to say so."

"No, really; I mean it." Manaroo's expression turned earnest. "You don't realize what you've done just by re-maining alive. You've won; we've won."

He looked at her in puzzlement. "What do you mean?"

"Before I came to find you," said Manaroo, "I wa-gered on you. Every credit I could scrape up, every one I could borrow—I took us even deeper into debt in order to get the stake together. Then I went to the gambler Drawmas Sma'Da; he agreed to cover the wager I pro-posed. A wager on the survival of a bounty hunter. Your survival." Her smile brightened her face. "Believe me, I got great odds on you. Nobody expected you to be able to live through being partners with Boba Fett. But you did!"

"But that would mean ... you and I..."

"Yes!" Manaroo grabbed him by both shoulders. "I've already contacted Drawmas Sma'Da and claimed my winnings—our winnings. I only made the bet; you won it for us. The credits have been transferred into our holding account. It's more than enough to pay off your debt load. Pay it off, and start us in whatever business we want." She leaned forward and kissed him, long and happily, then looked into his eyes again. "It's our new life together. It's come at last."

"Yes . . ." Dengar nodded slowly. "You're right.. ." An unbidden chill touched his heart as a shadow fell across the joy he knew he should feel. "If only ... every-thing else works out..." He could hear the echoes of the dire warnings that Boba Fett had given him. "There's still the Empire to worry about. How can anyone in the galaxy be happy with that looming over us?"

Manaroo kissed him on the brow this time, then leaned back and shook her head, still smiling. "You don't know," she said, "what I heard. Just a few minutes ago. I intercepted a comm unit transmission from the Rebel Alliance headquarters out at Sullust to the Scav-enger Squadron's commander here. The battle's over." Her voice dropped almost to a whisper. "And the Rebels won. It's the Empire that was crushed ... to a billion pieces ..." She wrapped her arms around him and laid her head on his chest.

"Everything will be different now."

He could hardly believe it, yet he knew it was true. Everything, thought Dengar. All their plans and hopes— those could come true now. And he wouldn't be a bounty hunter anymore ...

In the midst of his happiness, there was a thread of re-gret. It seemed a shame, after having survived and even profited from a partnership with Boba Fett—how many other creatures could say the same?—for him to turn his back on all that. Plus, there had been a certain excite-ment to all that had happened, from the moment when he first stumbled upon an almost lifeless Boba Fett, lying on the hot sands of Tatooine's Dune Sea.

Maybe, thought Dengar, I could still keep my hand in. Just a little. His business enterprise with Manaroo might not be immediately successful; it might require a fresh in-fusion of credit now and then. Right at the beginning...

He'd have to think about that some more. But for the moment, Dengar wrapped his arms around his betrothed. He turned his face away from hers and looked out the cockpit's viewport at all the stars cascading in stately progression to the galaxy's edge.

Everything ...

The stars were so bright, even as he closed his eyes and held his betrothed closer to himself.