Hard Merchandise

4

"Where's Boba Fett?"

That was the most important question—and Prince Xizor, the head of the Black Sun criminal organiza-tion, expected an answer from his underlings. And soon, thought Xizor grimly. Under the present circumstances, he didn't feel like taking the time to kill a few of them just to motivate a quicker response time.

"We're tracking him, Your Lordship." The comm spe-cialist aboard the Vendetta bowed his head with a suffi-cient measure of cringing obsequiousness to avoid Xizor's wrath. Serving aboard the Falleen prince's personal flag-ship was an honor earned not only by excellence at one's job, but also by attention to all the little rituals that flat-tered his ego. "Our tracking sensors had detected his jump into hyperspace; his ship should be arriving in this sector of realspace momentarily."

Xizor stood brooding at the Vendetta's forward view-port; the curved transparisteel revealing the dark pan-orama of stars and vacuum extended far above his head. One hand rubbed the angles of his chin as the violet centers of his half-lidded eyes focused on the arc of his own thoughts. Without turning around, he spoke an other question: "Were we able to determine his final navigation coordinates? Before the jump."

"Data analysis was able to break out only the first broad-scale coordinates—"

Once again, he turned his hard glare onto the comm specialist standing on the platform walkway behind him. " 'Only'?" He slowly shook his head, eyes narrowing even farther. "I don't think 'only' is good enough. Make a note"—Xizor extended the tapered claw of his fore-finger toward the datapad clutched in the specialist's hands—"to the disciplinary unit. They need to have a lit-tle discussion with the data analysis section. They need to be ... motivated."

The change in the comm specialist's face, from merely pallid to dead white, was pleasing to Xizor. Motivation, in the lower ranks of Black Sun, was a synonym for ter-ror; he had put a lot of his own effort in designing and maintaining the appropriate measures for creating just that effect. Violence was an art; a balance had to be main-tained, somewhere short of the deaths of valuable and not easily replaced staff members. At the same time, it had to be made clear that no creature ever left Black Sun, at least not while alive. Such administrative duties would have been a chore to Prince Xizor, if the practice of the art involved had not been such an intrinsic pleasure.

"So noted, Your Excellency." As long as it was some-one else's neck on the chopping block, the comm special-ist was only too eager to comply with Xizor's request.

He had already dismissed the comm specialist from his mind. With only fragmentary information available about the trajectory of the bounty hunter Boba Fett's ship, Slave I, there was much for Xizor to mull over. He gazed out at the galaxy's bright skeins, not seeing the in-dividual stars and systems so much as the possibilities they represented. It had already been verified that Boba Fett had left the dull, virtually anonymous mining planet on which the former Imperial stormtrooper Trhin Voss'on't had taken refuge; a refuge that had proven ineffective when Fett and his temporary partner Bossk had tracked Voss'on't down for the bounty that Emperor Palpatine had placed on his head. Voss'on't was now Boba Fett's hard merchandise, to use the language of the bounty hunters; the bounty for the traitorous stormtrooper was due to Fett as soon as delivery was made to the arach-noid arranger and go-between known as Kud'ar Mub'at.

Turning his gaze to one side of the viewport, Xizor could see the unlovely fibrous mass of Kud'ar Mub'at's web, floating in otherwise empty space. The web had been woven, over a period of unknown decades, perhaps centuries, from the assembler's own extrudations. Mired in the weft of tough exterior strands were bits and pieces of various ships, poking out like metal scraps sunk in the corrugated mud of a dried swamp; those fragments were all that remained of debtors that Kud'ar Mub'at had foreclosed upon, or business partners whose dealings with the assembler had gone disastrously awry. Involve-ment with Kud'ar Mub'at might not lead to the same de-gree of violence as with Boba Fett, but annihilation was just as final.

To enter into the web—Xizor had done it many times—was to step inside Kud'ar Mub'at's brain, both metaphorically and literally. The thinner, palely glisten-ing fibers were spun-out extensions of Kud'ar Mub'at's own cerebro-neural tissue; tethered to the strands and scuttling along them were the numerous subnodes that the assembler had created, little replicas and variations of itself, taking care of appointed duties ranging from the simple to the complex. They were all linked to and under the control of their master and parentOr so Kud'ar Mub'at thinks, Prince Xizor reminded himself. The very last time he had been inside the assem-bler's web, just before coming back here aboard the Vendetta, Xizor had had a most interesting—and poten-tially profitable—conversation. Not with Kud'ar Mub'at itself, but one of the assembler's creations, the accoun-tant subnode called Balancesheet. It had shown Xizor that it had managed to detach itself from the web's linked and intertwining neurofibers, without Kud'ar Mub'at being aware of what had happened. Balancesheet had also mas-tered the assembler's knack of creating subnodes, one of which it had spliced into the web in order to deceive Kud'ar Mub'at that all was well. The net result was as if part of Kud'ar Mub'at's brain had begun its own mutiny against its creator, laying out plans and schemes, of which Kud'ar Mub'at was as yet unaware.

It was going to find out soon enough, though. That thought lifted a corner of Xizor's mouth into a cruel smile. He would enjoy even more the actual moment when the crafty arachnoid, squatting on its nest in the center of its self-created web, discovered that it had been outsmarted. At last, after having been the puller of so many invisible strings laced throughout the galaxy that had brought wealth to its dusty coffers and ruin to other sentient creatures. Not that Xizor felt pity for any of those; they had gotten what they deserved for letting themselves get entangled in Kud'ar Mub'at's intricately woven schemes. But those schemes had become a little too extensive for Xizor's taste; when they started inter-fering with his and Black Sun's various enterprises, it was time to trim them back. What better way than uprooting them at the source? The unexpected discovery of Balance-sheet's own ambitions along those lines—the crafty sub-node had made it clear that it no longer cared to remain a mere appendage of its creator-parent—made possible the removal of Kud'ar Mub'at, while still retaining all the valuable go-between services that the assembler performed for Black Sun.

Get rid of the old one —the notion had a definite ap-peal to Prince Xizor—and put a new one in its place. And by the time that Balancesheet, as inheritor of all its cre-ator's position and power, would get just as troublesome as Kud'ar Mub'at had become, perhaps a new genera-tion of crafty arachnoids would be ready for patricidal rebellion. Or even more pleasing to contemplate: Xizor's ambitions for Black Sun would have reached such a zenith of power, outstripping even that of Emperor Palpatine, so there would be no need for such a scuttling, secretive little creature. Now there was a particular "old one"— the image of Palpatine's wizened visage appeared in Xi-zor's thoughts, like a senile ghost—who had also enjoyed his day, his moment in power. And during that time, Xi-zor had had to bow his proud head and pretend to be the Emperor's loyal servant more than once. The fact that the old man had been taken in by that little charade was proof enough that Palpatine's time was soon to be over, and that the remnants of the Empire would then be ready to fall into the control of Black Sun. Prince Xizor and his followers had waited long enough in the shadows, bid-ing their time, waiting for the lightless dawn that would be their moment of triumph ...

Soon enough, Xizor promised himself. He and all the rest of Black Sun had only to wait, and craftily move into their final positions the pawns that were already arrayed on the great gameboard of the universe. The arachnoid arranger Kud'ar Mub'at's web of plans and schemes was nothing compared to the one that Xizor had woven, a net cast across worlds and entire systems of worlds. Nei-ther Emperor Palpatine nor his dark henchman Lord Vader had any comprehension of Black Sun's reach, the things that were in its grasp already or the ones that its fist was about to close upon. For all of Palpatine's vaunted claims of knowledge of the Force and its dark side, he was still blind to the machinations and maneu-verings taking place virtually under his nose. That was due, Xizor figured, to the old fool's own greed and ambi-tion, and to his perpetual undervaluing of any other creature's intelligence. The Imperial court of Palpatine, on the distant world of Coruscant, was stuffed with flunkeys and witless servants; their master had made the mistake of assuming that everyone else was either a dolt like them or a mysticism-addled thug like Vader.

The memory of the Dark Lord's invisible grip upon Xizor's throat, squeezing out the breath from his lungs, was still sharp and humiliating; he didn't believe in that mysterious Force, not the same way that Vader and the Emperor did, but he had still been compelled to ac-knowledge something of its cruel power. Mind tricks, brooded Xizor, that was all it had amounted to. But that had been enough—more than enough—to reignite his hatred for Darth Vader. That hatred had been born in the deaths of Xizor's family members, deaths for which he held Vader personally responsible. Behind all his other ambitions, the goals of conquest and domination toward which he'd mercilessly driven Black Sun, there lay a smaller, more personal one: to make sure that Lord Vader paid the ultimate price for his deeds against the blood of a Falleen prince.

That vengeance could not come soon enough to sat-isfy Prince Xizor.

And a small piece of the machinery that would bring that vengeance about was on its way here—or it should be, if he had correctly gauged his understanding of the bounty hunter Boba Fett. For one such as that, Xizor had decided, profit is everything. He had baited the trap with enough credits to ensure Boba Fett's keen interest, first to bring about the destruction of the old Bounty Hunters Guild, and now to bring the renegade Imperial storm-trooper Trhin Voss'on't back to Kud'ar Mub'at's web, where the price that had been put on Voss'on't's head was supposedly waiting. The fool, thought Xizor con-temptuously. Boba Fett had no idea of how he had been manipulated, a mere pawn in Xizor's gambits. Perhaps he would never learn, or learn too late to save himself, now that his usefulness to Xizor had come to an end.

The Falleen prince's eyelids drew partway down upon the violet color of his gaze as the deep intertwinings of his meditations continued. Beyond the curved trans-paristeel of the Vendetta's great viewport, the waiting stars, ripe for the plucking, lay scattered in silence. So also with the pieces, both visible and invisible, his own and the other players', upon the squares of that game-board to which the galaxy had been reduced. If one pawn was about to be swept from the board, what did it matter?

There were plenty left with which the game could be played to its conclusion.

Prince Xizor folded his arms across his chest, the mo-tion bringing the edge of his cape around his boots. He felt sure now that Slave I would soon emerge from hy-perspace ... and into the trap that had been so carefully prepared.

After all—a thin smile lifted one corner of Xizor's mouth as he contemplated the stars—where else was it to go?

"You don't know what you're getting yourself into." On the other side of the holding cage's durasteel bars, the Imperial stormtrooper—former Imperial stormtrooper— slowly shook his head. And smiled. "I wouldn't want to be in your boots right now."

"Don't worry about that," replied Boba Fett. He had come down from the cockpit and into Slave I's cargo hold to see how this particular piece of hard merchandise was enduring the rigors of the journey. The bounty placed on Trhin Voss'on't's head by Emperor Palpatine had stipulated live delivery—a corpse was therefore use-less and, worse, unprofitable to Boba Fett.

If Voss'on't's death had been all that was required to collect that veritable mountain of credits, the job would have been much easier. I wouldn't have needed that fool Bossk along, thought Fett. Partners—even temporary ones—were always an irksome expedient, to be disposed of as quickly as possible.

"Your position here," continued Boba Fett aloud, "is quite secure. As is mine. I'm the winner, and you're the loser. I'll get paid, and you'll get whatever Palpatine has in store for you." Which wasn't likely to be pleasant, Fett knew. Though that hardly concerned him—once a bounty hunter collected his fee, interest in the merchandise's fate ceased.

"Think so?" The smile on Voss'on't's scarred, hatchet-like face turned into an ugly smirk. "This galaxy is full of surprises, pal. There might just be one in store for you."

Boba Fett ignored the stormtrooper's warning. Mind tricks, he figured. Voss'on't was part of the usual run of thugs and laser-cannon fodder that got recruited into the Empire's fighting ranks. If not of the same intellectual caliber of the Imperial Navy's admirals, he was still smart enough to have risen to those ranks trained in ba-sic psychological warfare techniques. And sowing doubt in the mind of an opponent was the first, and most effec-tive, of such subtle weapons—one didn't have to be a Jedi Knight to use it.

Still—he had to recognize that Voss'on't had a point. Treachery was an infinite substance in the galaxy, as widely distributed as hydrogen atoms in space. And in getting involved in the Voss'on't job, he had become un-avoidably entangled with some of the most treacherous sentient creatures on or off any of the galaxy's worlds. Not just Palpatine, but the arachnoid assembler Kud'ar Mub'at as well.

It's a lot of credits, thought Boba Fett as he gazed at the captive in the holding cage. He no longer saw Voss'on't as a living thing, but simply as merchandise to be delivered for a profit. It was the largest bounty that Fett could remember hearing of in his entire career. The lengths to which Emperor Palpatine would go to sat-isfy his lust for vengeance made a lesser entity like the crimelord Jabba the Hurt look like a piker. But it was one thing for Palpatine to offer that kind of bounty for the renegade stormtrooper; it was another thing for him to actually pay it out. Not that Palpatine couldn't af-ford to—he had the wealth of uncounted systems at his command—but because his greed was even greater than that wealth.

And as far as Kud'ar Mub'at was concerned—Boba Fett held zero illusions about that immense, scuttling spi-der, with its wobbling, pallid abdomen and obsequious, conniving words. Kud'ar Mub'at was presumably hold-ing the bounty for Voss'on't, awaiting whichever of the galaxy's bounty hunters returned to its web with the merchandise. Boba Fett knew that the assembler would love to have both the merchandise and the bounty wind up in its sole possession—and the best way to do that would be to arrange for the sudden demise of whoever had actually done the work of capturing the stormtrooper.

"I can see you thinking." Trhin Voss'on't's sly voice insinuated itself into Boba Fett's consciousness.

"Even through that helmet of yours—I can hear the little gears meshing."

"You hear nothing except your own delusions." Boba Fett defocused his hard, cold gaze upon his captive.

"Think so?" The ugly, lopsided smile still curled one corner of Voss'on't's mouth. "Consider your situation from a ... military point of view." He gave another pity-ing shake of his head. "You're outgunned, Fett. Deal with it."

There was still time remaining before Slave I was scheduled to emerge from hyperspace and within sight of Kud'ar Mub'at's space-drifting web. Time enough to play a little more of this mental game with the hard mer-chandise. Boba Fett didn't need the amusement—nothing amused him except more credits stacking up in his ac-counts. But there was at least one good reason for letting Voss'on't rattle on: it was common knowledge that high-level stormtroopers, such as he had been before his de-fection, were trained in self-annihilatory techniques, in case of capture by enemy forces. A self-willed shutdown of his entire autonomic cardiovascular system would render Voss'on't as unprofitable as any hot bolt from the blaster slung at Boba Fett's hip would.

Standard bounty hunter procedure in a case like this, where the suicide of the merchandise was a possibility, would have been to render him safely unconscious with a steady-release transdermal anesthetic patch applied just above one of the main neck arteries. Boba Fett had done just that, many times before, with other pieces of hard merchandise—it was rare when any one of them looked forward to being handed over at the end of their journeys with anything but total dread. And if Trihn Voss'on't was as intelligent and rational as he appeared, he had no reason to be optimistic about the welcome that he would receive from his former master, the Emperor Palpatine. Death would be at the end of that process as well, though it would be a long—and uncomfortable—time in com-ing. Palpatine had ways of making sure of that.

But Boba Fett's own bounty hunter's skills, his ability to see into the workings of his merchandise's thoughts, had told him that Voss'on't was not going to take his own life. Once the former Imperial stormtrooper had gotten over both the physical trauma of being captured— it hadn't been easy on anyone; both Boba Fett and Bossk had nearly been killed in the process—plus the indignity of waking up caged, a measure of his fighting spirit had reappeared, even cockier than before. Boba Fett had caught a glint in Voss'on't's narrow gaze of the same will to survive—and even dominate—that burned like a cold fire under the jacket of his own Mandalorian battle armor.

He actually thinks he can win. The stormtrooper ceased being mere merchandise for a few seconds as Boba Fett regarded him in the holding cage. He hadn't expected a combat-hardened veteran such as Trhin Voss'on't to beg and grovel for his life, as so many previ-ous tenants of the holding cage had done. What he had expected was a show of snarling, raging defiance, the kind of ugly temper to which the sadistically violent were given when the tables were turned on them.

"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 in-side 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 re-flexes 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 an-cient 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 some-thing 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 hardangled 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—believe me, you will. Real soon."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lay infinity.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A tinge of disappointment made itself felt 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 hav-ing ensnared Fett in a web of intrigue and double and triple crosses—the exact same type of subtle machinations and conspiracies that the galaxy's most-feared bounty hunter had always excelled in—that would only make the final victory sweeter and more rewarding.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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