The main engines came on again, a quick burst thrust-ing Slave I away from its previous location. A trail of churning, fading light at the corner of the viewport indi-cated the effectiveness of the onboard computer's ran-domizing program; the enemy's laser-cannon bolt had scorched past, only a few meters away from the ship's hull. Boba Fett leaned closer to the cockpit's forward viewport, balancing himself with one hand braced against the control panel's flashing red lights, scanning with a hunter's intent gaze for any sign of the opponent he faced. His enemy, whoever it might be, obviously was aware that its target would be doing exactly that, trying to lo-cate the source of the bolts aimed toward him. That was the reason why the other ship wasn't sending out a steady stream of rapid-fire laser-cannon bolts; their fiery pas-sage would have been a dead giveaway, negating the ad-vantage it had at the moment, of mounting its offensive from some undetermined hiding place.
Boba Fett's strategizing had been encompassed in mere milliseconds. Without warning, the computer's evasion program kicked in again, twisting Slave I into a full 360-degree looping spiral, the side-mounted rockets diverting the thrust of the main engines. It wasn't enough: Boba Fett's grip upon the back of the pilot's chair was torn loose as another laser-cannon bolt scored a direct hit upon the curved center of the hull. The impact sent him flying backward, landing sprawled on his back halfway through the cockpit's open hatchway. A torrent of sparks, blind-ing gnatlike miniatures of the laser fire that had filled the viewport, lashed against his chest and helmet visor as the control panel's circuits overloaded and shorted out. The acrid smell of burning hard-wire insulation and frying silicon mixed with the hissing steam of the fire-extinguisher cylinders letting loose their contents beneath the panel's gauges and buttons.
As the cockpit filled with smoke, Boba Fett grabbed the side of the hatchway and pulled himself upright. The louder hiss in his ears was the sound of oxygen venting from the ship's hull; the last laser-cannon bolt had done even more damage than the first that had hit Slave I.
His helmet comlink had gone dead, as well as the red warning lights arrayed at the side of the visor. Fett pushed past the toppled pilot's chair, its pedestal stan-chion ripped loose from the buckling floor. The panel was slick with combustion-retardant foam and wet ash as he punched the computer's input microphone control. "Prepare to seal off cockpit area," he commanded. The only way to obtain a few precious minutes more of breathing time—and the chance, however slim, to sur-vive beyond that—was to reduce the stress on Slave I's life-support systems to as close to zero as possible. Letting every other section of the ship go to complete vacuum would turn the cockpit into a temporary bubble of safety. Once it was set up, Boba Fett could override the com-puter's evasion program and turn the underside of the craft toward the source of the laser-cannon bolts, so the inert metal would act as a shield for the cockpit's curve of transparisteel.
The rest of the plan formulated itself in Fett's mind. He had limited options at this point, but there was still always the chance of outwitting his foe. Play dead, he told himself. That could work. The damage that Slave I had suffered would be obviously visible from the out-side; with the engines shut down and all signs of onboard power switched off, his ship would look like a lifeless hulk drifting in space. That might be enough to get this unknown enemy to come close enough, imprudently within range of a sudden, unexpected volley from Boba Fett's own laser cannons. At that kind of distance, he could cripple or even destroy the other ship; either way, he'd then have the time to head for the safety of Kud'ar Mub'at's web, before the remaining store of oxygen aboard Slave I ran out.
"Atmospheric lockdown procedures concluded," an-nounced the onboard computer's voice, still emotionless though coarsened now with burring static. "Cockpit area ready to be sealed on your order."
"Maintain status," said Fett. There were things he had to do before the cockpit's life-support systems were secured. "Standby until I return to this area." He pushed himself away from the control panel.
From the cockpit area, Boba Fett quickly descended the metal treads of the ladder leading down to the main cargo hold. He still had hard merchandise aboard the ship that he intended to deliver and be paid for. The rene-gade stormtrooper Trhin Voss'on't had to be alive in or-der for that to be accomplished.
The air pressure in the cargo hold had dropped to a dizzying, heart-accelerating level. As he stepped from the last tread of the ladder, Boba Fett could see a swimming cluster of black dots form in his vision, a telltale sign of oxygen starvation. The spots quickly vanished as his bat-tle armor's reserve oxygen supply kicked in. As useful as those reserves were in emergencies such as this, they were still limited; Fett knew that he would have to ac-complish his mission here fast, and get back up to the cockpit with Voss'on't before they ran out. All his strate-gizing would do him little good if he was lying on the cargo hold's floor unconscious when the enemy ship approached.
"I was . . . wondering . . . when you'd show up." Gasping for breath, eyes reddened from the smoke that filled the cargo area, Trhin Voss'on't held himself upright with both fists tightly clenched upon the holding cage's bars. "Figured ... maybe you were dead already ..."
"Lucky for you that I'm not." The miniaturized secu-rity key was implanted in the fingertip of Boba Fett's gloved hand; the mere act of grabbing the pull-bar on the cage's door would unlock it and allow him to yank Voss'on't out. He could feel the renegade stormtrooper's hard gaze bearing down on him like two laser trackers as he stepped close and reached for the door. "Let's get going."
Fett had already calculated that he didn't have time to render Voss'on't unconscious, or the strength, given the depleted level of oxygen in the cargo hold, to drag the stormtrooper's limp body up the ladder to the cockpit. It would be better just to get him up there, with whatever degree of threats or personal violence was necessary, then knock him out so he wouldn't interfere with the rest of the operation.
"Why should I?" Voss'on't hunched over, his head at a level with his hands gripping the bars, chest laboring to draw in enough breath to support life functions. "What... do I get.. .out of it?"
That was one more thing he didn't have time for: one more argument from Voss'on't. The stormtrooper had never yet seemed to realize that Boba Fett wasn't inter-ested in his opinions on what to do next.
"What you get," said Boba Fett as he pulled open the holding cage's door, "is a chance to go on living a little while longer. If that's not important to you—too bad. You don't get a vote on it."
"I'll tell you... what's important to me ..." Voss'on't straightened up, pushing himself back from the vertical bars. "Giving you ... a little surprise ..." His voice was suddenly louder and more forceful, as though he were now expending a carefully husbanded store of vital en ergy. Taking one step backward to brace himself, he swung the single bar that had somehow come loose from its mounting at both the top and bottom welded frames of the cage. The length of glistening metal moved through a flat horizontal arc, its end striking Boba Fett directly in his abdomen. The blow had all of Trhin Voss'on't's weight and strength behind it, hitting Fett with enough velocity to lift him for a moment off his feet and slam his spine back against the edge of the open cage doorway.