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.