Bossk glanced over his shoulder, glaring at the other bounty hunter." What?"
"I didn't say I wouldn't go in with you on this one." The razor-edged shade cut diagonally across Boba Fett. He stood unmoving among the dead and hollowed-out shells of the vanished ocean's inhabitants." I was just giving you the facts about the arrangement."
A cold wind had started to roll down the length of the trench, cutting through the scales of Bossk's flesh and into the bones beneath.
The other bounty hunter's words evoked a slow nod from Bossk." We better settle the rest of it, then." He nodded toward the Hound's Tooth." Might as well talk about it aboard my ship."
Boba Fett shook his head." That's not a good idea."
"What's the matter?" The refusal of his invitation offended Bossk." I'm not trying to set a trap for you. I just want to talk business."
"Oh, I trust you all right." Boba Fett had already started walking back toward his own ship." Just not enough. Besides" -he stopped and turned the visored gaze of his helmet over his shoulder-" I've got something to show you. That you'll find interesting."
Whatever, thought Bossk. He followed after Boba Fett. Dealing with him was a continual, unneeded education in hostility.
The interior of Slave I was exactly as Bossk remembered it from the team operation on Circumtore. He glanced around the bulkheads and holding cages with visceral distaste; Boba Fett kept his ship in a state of maintenance that Bossk personally found offensive. It was like paying a visit to the surgical ward of an Imperial Navy medical crew, with every surface stripped to bare metal and sterilized. As far as Bossk was concerned, a bounty hunter's ship should be an extension of his personality, with every aspect of his spirit having seeped into the structure, right down to the engine ports and the cockpit controls. He was proud that walking around inside the Hound's Tooth was like walking inside the bone limits of his own skull.
Then again, thought Bossk with a sneer, maybe this is Boba Fett's personality. All business-credits and merchandise-and no passion, no actual enjoyment of the violence and terror that came with the bounty hunter trade. What a waste. . .
"Have a seat." Boba Fett pointed to a bench near one of the holding cages. He sat down on one at the opposite side of the space." So you want to go after this renegade stormtrooper. Right?"
At least with an all-business type like Boba Fett, there was no wasting time." That's right," said Bossk." It's the job of a lifetime."
That was an understatement. When the bounty had been posted, in an official wide-band relay from the Emperor's palace on Coruscant, the amount of credits offered had been thought to be some kind of transmission error, too many zeroes added on to whatever the real sum was. Bossk remembered thinking, I could buy a small, unindustrialized planet for that many credits-if the Empire was putting any up for sale. Both of the factions from the old Bounty Hunters Guild, the Reform Committee and those senile creatures that called themselves the True Guild, had contacted the Emperor's communications center and had asked for a clarification as to the actual amount of the bounty being offered.
And they had been told that there had been no transmission error. The amount given in the original message was for real.
The effect on bounty hunters throughout the galaxy, in every seedy spaceport dive and in the headquarters of the two Guild factions, had been electrifying. Greed worked miracles when it came to getting sentient creatures' attention. For Bossk, it had been like laying his bared claws straight upon an unshielded power generator, one big enough to drive an Imperial battleship through hyperspace; every scale on his body had seemed charged.
This would settle everything-that was the dominant thought that had sprung up inside Bossk's head.
To capture the renegade Imperial stormtrooper for which Emperor Palpatine had posted such a colossal bounty would determine once and for all, in Bossk's eyes and those of every other sentient creature in the galaxy, just who was the number-one bounty hunter. The Emperor wasn't putting up that kind of credits because it was going to be an easy job. This particular stormtrooper wasn't one of the trigger-happy rank-and-file, good for little more than simple terrorism and carrying out the orders of his commanders. Trhin Voss'on't was one of the commanders, right at the top level of the Imperial stormtrooper hierarchy, a strike-force leader in one of the elite Strategic Insertion battalions-or he had been right up until he had dumped the personnel of an Imperial Star Destroyer at blaster point, commandeering the vessel with a hand-picked skeleton crew of accomplices.
Initial speculation about what the motives of Voss'on't might have been centered around the possibility of his having defected to the Rebel Alliance, taking the Destroyer and its complement of weapons, code databases, and crypto-secured Imperial technology as an addition to the Alliance's growing arsenal. That theory had been largely abandoned when the destroyer had turned up drifting in an uninhabited navigational sector between star systems, with the corpses of Voss'on't's accomplices aboard. They had been efficiently executed in standard Imperial stormtrooper disciplinary fashion, a single laser hole at the back of each one's skull. The Destroyer had been stripped of whatever pieces were most easily and profitably salvaged; thruster engine parts with the appropriate molecular-level code numbers started turning up almost immediately in various black-market salvage operations, having filtered through an untraceable chain of scavengers and intersystem scrap dealers. Whatever credits had been paid out had enabled Voss'on't to pull off a complete disappearing act.
"What I think" -Bossk leaned forward from where he sat in Slave I's main hold-" is that this Voss'on't had been planning this move for a long time. And then when he had everything lined up just right, he jumped on it."
"That's obvious," replied Boba Fett." Nobody gets away with an entire Imperial Destroyer without making preparations."
"You gotta wonder, though, about why he did it." Bossk scratched his muzzle with one of his claws." Whatever credits he made from scrapping the ship, he's probably had to pour right into making his escape. There's a lotta bribes to be paid out, and a lot of creatures you gotta arrange to get killed, before you can just vanish like that. And Voss'on't had to get rid of the Destroyer at a rate of ten decicredits to the credit, actual value-it's not like he's making a profit on the whole deal and setting himself up in style for the rest of his life."
Boba Fett gave a dismissive shrug." What does it matter why he did it? Maybe he got tired of being under Palpatine's thumb. A lot of other creatures in this galaxy feel the same way. There wouldn't be a Rebellion going on, otherwise. The only thing that matters is that he did it-and that the Emperor will pay to get him back."
"Yeah, but you gotta get inside this trooper's head if you're going to have any chance of tracking him down." Bossk put the full force of his intellectual powers on the problem. He could feel his scale-covered brow corrugating with the effort." I mean, his motive has got to be an important factor."
"For you, maybe." Fett remained unimpressed." But not for me. The only thing that's important with hard merchandise is the price that's paid. Everything else, all the other factors-those always remain the same. The whole point is to track the merchandise down, then turn it over and collect the bounty. You start worrying about what the merchandise is thinking, then you're just handicapping yourself." The dark gaze of the other bounty hunter, the helmet visor that was such an unmistakable part of the Mandalorian armor, fell unwavering on Bossk." That's why you're at a certain level in the bounty hunter trade. . . and I'm at a different level."
Given Bossk's hair-trigger temper, it seemed odd even to him that Boba Fett's slighting remark didn't evoke an angry reaction. Maybe, he mused, I can learn something from this hunter. Maybe Fett was right; maybe he did think too much. All that ratiocination got in the way of being an effective hunter. That's my problem, thought Bossk. I'm too much of an intellectual.