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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.