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.