Looking at the blond-haired boy, Han sighed. “I’m sorry, kid, but I’ve got some rough news. I’m afraid your father’s disappeared. No one’s heard from him for several days.”
Raynar’s normally rosy complexion paled. “My father is too important a man, a former noble of Alderaan. He can’t just disappear. There must be some mistake.”
Han gave Raynar a sympathetic look. “Afraid not, kid. Your father and I have been serving on the New Republic Trade Council together. We were supposed to meet at a major conference on Shumavar, but he never showed.”
Raynar swallowed hard as Han Solo continued quickly. “’Bout a week ago your father told me he was starting trade negotiations with a Twi’lek woman, Nolaa Tarkona, who’s heading some new political movement. He was supposed to finalize the details with her during the Shumavar conference. Wasn’t sure why, but I smelled something rotten in the deal. Tried to warn your father, but he wouldn’t listen to me.”
Raynar’s cheeks flushed deep red. “Bornan Thul always listens to sound advice.”
Han shrugged. “Well, I guess he wasn’t too impressed by the advice of a former smuggler who managed to marry well. At any rate, your father never arrived at the trade conference. Your mother contacted us on Coruscant a few days ago, said your father disappeared without a word. His brother hasn’t heard from him either. Has your dad tried to contact you at all?”
Raynar shook his head, then raised his chin. His eyes flashed. “Has a proper team been organized to look for him? We should begin a search immediately. I’ll lead it myself, if need be. I could—”
“Just a minute there, kid,” Han said, holding his palms out. “I got strict orders from your family to make sure you stay here with Luke. That’s the best protection I can imagine. If your father’s been kidnapped by some unsavory types, your mother and your uncle don’t want you out in the middle of things. We sure don’t want to have to track you down and rescue you, too. Best thing you can do for the moment is to lay low and let us do the looking.”
Feeling a rush of sympathy for Raynar, Jaina put a hand on the young man’s arm. “I’m sure it’ll be all right, Raynar,” she said.
Raynar threw back his shoulders and sent Jaina a frightened look that he tried to mask with disdain. “Of course it will be all right,” he said. “My father’s an important man.” He looked back at Han Solo.
“Very well then. I’ll stay on Yavin 4. Just see to it that you have competent searchers looking for my father.”
4
Space was vast, an infinite pool in all directions … whether up and out of the galactic plane, or deeper inward toward the Core Systems. The galaxy held countless hiding places: planets, asteroid fields, star clusters, gas clouds … even these empty wastelands without stars.
It would take the best of bounty hunters to find any quarry under such circumstances.
And Boba Fett was the best.
He cruised through the wilderness between star systems, all sensors alert, scanning for any sign of his prey. He had dropped out of hyperspace in his ship, the Slave IV, just long enough to take data. On this stop, his sensitive detectors picked up no energy readings, no sign of any ship’s passage within half a parsec. Nothing had crossed this empty no-man’s-land in the past decade.
Grim and persistent, Boba Fett studied readings through the narrow T-slit in his Mandalorian helmet. He nodded, but spoke no word into the flight recorder. Bornan Thul was not here. He would have to search elsewhere. The hunt might be long, but in the end no one could elude Boba Fett. No one.
He clutched the Slave IV’s modified controls—propulsion systems, navigational computers, and acceleration foils that were illegal in many systems. But Fett paid no attention to legalities. Mere laws did not apply to him. He obeyed his own code of ethics and morality: the Bounty Hunter’s Creed.
Launching his ship into hyperspace again, Fett replayed the holomessage Nolaa Tarkona had sent to him. His assignment for this hunt. Perhaps he might find other clues there. He already knew the message by heart, had listened to it eight times on his journey, but he studied it once more anyway.
Boba Fett carefully observed the female Twi’lek’s face: the folds around her pinkish eyes, the greenish cast of her skin, her pointed white teeth. Nolaa Tarkona’s one green-skinned head-tail dangled from the back of her skull and curled around her shoulders. Her voice was deep and melodious, not the dry, crisp hiss he might have expected from a surreptitious crime lord. Tarkona led a growing political movement known as the Diversity Alliance. Nothing overtly criminal … at least not yet.
Boba Fett did not care about his employer’s politics or her reasons. That was not a bounty hunter’s business. She had set the bounty, and Fett had a job to do.
The hologram spoke. “Boba Fett, your fame has spanned decades and crossed the galaxy—now I offer you the greatest assignment of your career.” The Twi’lek woman stroked her head-tail. Her eyes looked like disks of rose quartz glowing with internal fire.
“Find the man named Bornan Thul, an important trade commissioner from Coruscant. He was a member of the nobility on Alderaan before that planet was destroyed, and he has become a trade negotiator in the New Republic government. I sent him as my intermediary to procure a valuable cargo containing certain information crucial to the Diversity Alliance. He was to deliver that shipment to me at the Shumavar trade conference, where I was scheduled to give a speech. But his ship vanished en route—and my information disappeared with him. Find Bornan Thul. I must have that cargo.”
She leaned forward, her mouth opened in a smile that showed off her jagged teeth. “When Darth Vader hired you to find Han Solo, the bounty was quite substantial. I will pay you twice that if you find Bornan Thul and bring me my cargo. A few other bounty hunters will be searching as well—but you are the best, Boba Fett. I expect results from you.”
Inside his cramped cockpit, Boba Fett switched off the holoprojector and swept his gloved hands through the dissolving sparkles of color as the three-dimensional image faded. “You will have results,” he muttered, his voice loud and raspy in the oppressively silent ship….
Approaching another solar system in which there were no catalogued planets capable of supporting life, Fett dropped out of hyperspace to continue his search. His navicomputer had a map of all star systems in the sector where the trade negotiator had vanished. His data banks were crammed with unusual information and reports, any bit of which might give him a clue that would lead to the discovery of his prey.
Bornan Thul had flown alone in his ship, refusing the standard diplomatic escort to which he was entitled. Secretly checking through New Republic flight records, Fett saw that this was quite an unusual request for Thul. The former Alderaan noble, a fair pilot at best, preferred large escorts and excessive pomp and ceremony. Flying off alone in a supply cruiser seemed highly uncharacteristic for this man.
Fett wondered if Thul had discovered something unusual about the nature of his cargo, or its importance to the Twi’lek political leader’s movement. Boba Fett himself did not know what information the cargo contained. He had only to find it and return it to Nolaa Tarkona.
Fett approached the bleak, uninhabited system—a small double star with three frozen gas planets in distant orbits and two rocky inner planets. After a few moments of scanning, the Slave IV’s sophisticated sensors detected processed metal, faint lubricants, traces of stardrive fuel, and spin-sealed Tibanna gas—a strong enough reading to indicate a whole ship. The source seemed to be located inside the ragged strands of a rocky ring that surrounded the outermost gas planet.