Before the boot came down, Voss'on't was thrown off balance by the tethered line going suddenly slack. Press-ing the miniature control studs at the base of his wrist, Boba Fett let the arrow-dart's line reel out, until it had lengthened by several meters. That was enough for him to cock his free arm back and snap it forward again. The tethered line looped lassolike and snagged around Voss'on't's neck. Fett hit the wrist-mounted control studs again, retracting the line once more, into a choking gar-rote around the other man's throat.
Voss'on't staggered backward, fingertips clawing at the line digging under his throat. The pull from the taut line enabled Boba Fett to climb up into the hatchway.
With his eyes squeezed shut in pain, Voss'on't didn't see the blow from Boba Fett's gloved fist that sent the stormtrooper sprawling onto his back, head slamming against the base of the pilot's chair. Boba Fett reached over with his other hand and snapped the arrow-dart line free from his own wrist, pushed the dazed Voss'on't over, and used the loose end of the line to bind Voss'on't's hands together with a hard knot. He pulled the rest of the line down to Voss'on't's ankles and bound them the same way. Then he picked Voss'on't up by the front of his jacket, hoisted the stormtrooper to eye level, and threw him into the far corner of the cockpit.
"Seal off the cockpit area," Boba Fett spoke aloud. He was already leaning over the control panel as Slave I's onboard computer executed the command; with a hiss, the hatchway door closed behind him. With a few quick jabs at the controls, he silenced the alarm signals once again.
The silence was broken by Fett's own deep, ragged breathing as his lungs refilled themselves from the cock-pit's reserves of oxygen. Those were enough to bring Voss'on't back to full consciousness as well.
"Now... now what..." Hands tied behind himself, Voss'on't lay on one shoulder and labored to speak.
"Are you ... going to do ..."
Fett ignored him for a moment. With a few adjust-ments from the still-functioning navigational rockets, he had brought Slave I around to where he could at last see the other ship that had fired upon them. Even from this distance, where the visible details of his enemy were little more distinct than the stars behind it, he could recognize the vessel whose laser cannons had brought his own to the brink of destruction.
He knew as well whose vessel it was, and who had given the orders to fire.
It's Xizor. Another adjustment to the controls brought the viewport's optical magnification into the circuit. The outlines of the Falleen prince's flagship were unmistak-able—and intimidating. The ship was known to be one of the deadliest and most thoroughly armored in the galaxy, the equivalent of anything matching its gross tonnage in Emperor Palpatine's war fleet. If Slave I had gotten into a full-pitched battle with it, there wouldn't even have been this much of Boba Fett's ship left hanging together.
The mystery of why the Vendetta hadn't moved in for the kill was easy enough to determine. He's holding back, decided Fett. Just waiting to see if there's any sign of life. Prince Xizor was known to be something of a tro-phy collector; it would be entirely consistent for him to want the hard physical evidence—the corpses—of those he had set out to kill rather than just blowing them into disconnected atoms drifting in space.
The greater mystery was why Xizor had lain in wait and fired upon Slave I in the first place. Fett had been aware of no connection between Xizor and this high-stakes job of rounding up the renegade stormtrooper for which Palpatine had posted such an astronomical price.
But there had to be some link—it was too much to be-lieve that it was mere coincidence or just random malice on Xizor's part. The Falleen prince's mind was too coldly rational—similar to Boba Fett's own in that manner— for anything like that to be the case.
Boba Fett lowered his gaze from the viewport and be-gan punching in new commands on the control panel.
"What..." Voss'on't's voice was a harsh croak. "Tell me..."
There was neither time nor need to explain to the mer-chandise lying on the floor of the cockpit. "I'm doing," said Boba Fett, "the same thing I've been doing all along. Saving both our lives—whether you like it or not."
With a final jab of his forefinger, he hit the button to fire up the one main engine that was still functioning. Slave I shuddered, its hull threatened to tear loose from the battered structural frame beneath, as the engine's convulsive thrust blurred the stars in the viewport.
6
"What's he doing?" The comm specialist leaned closer to the Vendetta's forward viewport, scanning the sector ahead. "It's amazing, Your Excellency—he must be still alive!"
Prince Xizor wasn't amazed. Standing at the bridge's controls, with one hand still resting upon the laser can-nons' target acquisition module, he watched as, in the star-filled distance, the ship known as Slave I fired up its remaining thruster engine and started to move. Another screen, smaller and mounted to the side of the viewport, showed the damage-assessment scan that had been run on the target: a complete schematic showed in glowing red the operational systems that had already shut down. There were only a few—the one engine, basic naviga-tional equipment, life support in the cockpit area—that still appeared in the green that indicated ongoing func-tions. Crippled, but slowly gathering speed, Boba Fett's ship had some of its own life left in it yet.
"He's hard to kill," said Xizor with a slow, admiring nod of his head. He liked that in a sentient creature; it made the final victory over one of them so much sweeter. Too many of the galaxy's denizens, on whatever remote systems they could be found or on the homeworlds in the Empire's center, gave up all too easily when they per-ceived the hand of the Black Sun about to set its grasp upon their throats. Deep within himself, Xizor possessed the characteristic Falleen disdain for those too weak to put up a struggle, even when facing certain death. For a Falleen, that was the moment when the struggle should be at its keenest, when there was no hope of extending one's life even by a single heartbeat. Xizor had suspected for a long time, from when he had first envisioned the scheme in which Boba Fett was now fatally enmeshed, that the bounty hunter would not disappoint him in this regard. "Hard to kill,"Xizor mused aloud once more. "A very worthy prey. But then ..." He turned his head and smiled at the comm specialist standing beside him.
"A true hunter would be."
The comm specialist appeared nervous, with a sheen of sweat upon his brow. As with the rest of the operations crew, arrayed at their posts in the Vendetta's bridge, he was understandably eager that his master's wishes, espe-cially in something as important as this, would not go unfulfilled. At the same time none of them had the same innate confidence in the outcome of the pursuit that Xi-zor himself did. Which is as it should be, thought Xizor with satisfaction. Keeps them on their toes.
"Excuse me, Your Excellency"—the comm specialist raised a hand and pointed toward the high, concave sur-face of the central viewport—"but Boba Fett's ship— Slave I—its velocity is increasing." He glanced over at the readout numbers on one of the tracking monitors. "Rather substantially, in fact. Perhaps it's time to finish him off. Otherwise ..." The tech's shoulders rose in a ticlike shrug. "He might actually get away."
"Calm yourself." The corner of Xizor's mouth twisted in a contemptuous sneer. "Your fears are groundless." That was one more emotional response that provoked scorn in a Falleen noble. "Where exactly do you think Boba Fett could run to? You can see for yourself that his ship no longer has the capability of making a jump into hyperspace." Xizor pointed to the damage-assessment screen. "Even if he could—were he foolish enough to try it—the stress would blow that poor wreck into atoms. No ..." Xizor gave another slow shake of his head. "There's nothing to worry about now. We may bring his futile struggle to an end at our leisure."