"Who's winning?"
"For the moment, the Xizor loyalists have the upper hand. But all that could change very quickly. Especially when I deliver the fabricated evidence into the hands of the usurper faction. They can use it to break the hold on power of the Xizor loyalists by showing the Black Sun ranks that the late Prince Xizor had been foolishly—and traitorously—involving the organization in the affairs of the Empire and the Rebel Alliance. Even though it wouldn't be true, it might be enough to tip the scales in the usurper faction's favor."
"I don't get it," said Neelah. "Why would you care who wins control of Black Sun?"
"It's all the same to me. But what I do care about," said Boba Fett, "is staying alive. And the usurper faction has made it clear to me that I stand a good chance of dying—in as painful a manner as possible—if I don't hand over the fabricated evidence to them. Through their own information sources, the usurpers had learned about the evidence and that I was in search of it. They figured—correctly—that I could find it before they would be able to. While you were listening to Dengar tell about my past, I was in the cockpit of the Hound's Tooth re-ceiving a comm unit transmission from the usurper fac-tion inside Black Sun, with the details of the offer they were making me. An offer that I was in no position to refuse."
"Wouldn't it have been simpler to have just offered you credits for the fabricated evidence? After all"—Neelah showed a thin smile—"aren't you willing to do anything, as long as you get paid?"
"That would have worked for me," replied Fett, "but not for these particular creatures. The problem with pay-ing me for the goods was that it would leave a trail that could be followed. Anytime credits change hands, there's a link that can be traced. And the usurper faction didn't want this matter being traced back to them. Killing me— or threatening to do so—is much simpler. If I got hold of the fabricated evidence and turned it over to them, there would be no exchange of credits to link us. And if I failed to do so, then I'd be dead, and there would be no way I could divulge the usurpers' scheming to the Xizor loyal-ists. All very neat and tidy. Especially since Black Sun— even just a small faction of the organization—is the only thing that could make a threat against me ... and pull it off. Anybody else I'd have a chance against. But not Black Sun. Killing is one of its specialities."
"I'm impressed," said Neelah. "I didn't think you were afraid of anything."
"This isn't fear. It's reality."
She nodded; it had all started to make sense, the last pieces of the puzzle fitting together. "So when you told us, when we were aboard Balancesheet's freighter, that getting hold of the fabricated evidence was just a matter of potential profits—you were lying to us." Neelah peered closer at the bounty hunter. "It wasn't credits you were after. It was survival."
"Credits are useless when you're dead."
"Then I take it that this is part of the deal as well." Neelah pulled the shoulder bag in front of herself and extracted the flat black parcel inside. She held the fab-ricated evidence, the other item that Boba Fett had told her to bring, in both hands. "The deal between you and me."
"This part isn't negotiable," said Fett. "I'm taking the fabricated evidence with me whether you hand it over or not."
"Since I don't have any use for it—" Neelah shrugged and held the parcel out. "Go ahead."
Boba Fett took the parcel with no word of thanks. She hadn't expected any, either.
"Wait a minute." Neelah spoke up as Fett turned away. The dark gaze of his visored helmet looked back at her. "You realize," she said quietly, "that you're being a complete fool about this. Don't you?"
A moment passed before Fett spoke. "How so?"
"Come on. Use your brains." Neelah pointed to the parcel in Boba Fett's gloved hands. "You're going to be carrying that stuff into a pretty dangerous place. Sure, this Black Sun usurper faction is going to be happy to get it, but that doesn't mean they're going to keep their end of the deal. They want to keep things quiet, about what they're up to? Then they're more likely to take the fabri-cated evidence from you, say thanks very much, and then drill a blaster bolt through your skull. There wouldn't be any trail linking them to you, after that."
"Of course not," replied Fett. "But I've already thought about that. And I've got a few tricks up my sleeve, in case they try anything."
"Tricks which might not work. Not on some Black Sun faction. As you said, killing is one of their specialities."
"True." Boba Fett gave a single nod. "But as it is, if I don't deliver the fabricated evidence to the usurpers, I have very little chance of surviving. If I do deliver it to them—then my chances will be up to me."
"Do it, then." Neelah stepped back and gestured toward the bridge's exit hatchway. "Good luck."
"It's not a matter of luck. Not for me." Fett turned and walked toward the hatchway. He stopped and looked back at her. "You can trust in your luck, if you care to. When you came here, did you stop to think what your chances would be if I had decided to tie up a few loose ends by eliminating you?"
"Sure." Neelah reached into the shoulder bag and pulled out a blaster pistol. She held it with both hands, aimed straight toward Fett. "That's why I came prepared."
Fett gazed at her and the weapon for a moment, then slowly nodded. "Good," he said. "I'm glad you learned a few things from me."
"Oh, I learned lots." Neelah kept the weapon pointed at him. "More than I wanted to."
She lowered the weapon only when she could hear the echo of his boot steps fading away in the corridor be-yond the hatchway.
A few moments later, Neelah glanced toward the bridge's main viewport. What was visible there was the fiery trace of the Hound's Tooth, battered but still capa-ble of traveling toward its hidden destination. But when Neelah closed her eyes, what she saw were the heat-shimmering expanses of the Dune Sea on Tatooine, and a nearly dead figure, skin and battle armor eroded, face-down in the sand.
She still couldn't decide whether it might have been better if she had just left him lying there.
A woman talked to a bounty hunter.
Though maybe, thought Dengar, I'm not one any-more. It didn't matter to him now; he was just glad to be alive.
"You came all that way, and found me." Both he and Manaroo sat in the cockpit of his ship, the Punishing One. "And just in time."
"It took some doing," said his betrothed. "You weren't easy to track down."
She couldn't have cut it any finer, either. Punishing One had shown up near the KDY construction docks just as Bossk's former ship Hound's Tooth was hit by the ragged chunk of metal that had come whirling toward it. Manaroo had witnessed the Hound shuddering from the impact; without a second thought, she had hit the Pun-ishing One's thruster controls to maximum, swooping into the debris and managing to grapple and lock on to the other ship's cargo hold before it lost its remaining atmospheric pressure. They had both been aboard the Punishing One when she slapped him back to full consciousness.
The relief at finding himself alive, and in the arms of the woman he loved, ebbed a little inside Dengar.
"I'm sorry," he said to her. "I failed you. I failed us both."
"What are you talking about?"
"We're right back where we started." He shook his head ruefully. "We needed credits, a lot—and I didn't get them. With everything I did, risking my life all that time being partners with Boba Fett, and we still can't pay off that debt load I'm carrying." He laid his head against Manaroo's shoulder. "We're no closer to the life we want than we were before."