The close confines of the place and its stale, sweat-smelling air didn't seem to bother Voss'on't. With his elbows planted on the small table at which he sat, the ex-stormtrooper nursed along a mug filled with the same near-lethal concoction that Bossk had tasted. Boba Fett's intelligence reports had described Voss'on't as spending the bulk of his time here. From what Bossk could tell, it didn't seem to be for the purpose of getting drunk. Voss'on't carefully paced his intake so that the drink had no apparent impact on him; either that, or he'd had his liver biochemically enhanced to neutralize the intoxicants in the thick, heavy liquid. His sharply angled face, as hard and expressionless as the masklike full helmet he'd worn when he'd been in the Emperor's service, contained eyes narrowed into a permanent squint, surrounded by skin wrinkled and creased as old, flayed leather. White scars showed through the graying buzz-cut that clung to Voss'on't's skull; some of them undoubtedly dated all the way back to his basic training days.
Becoming an Imperial stormtrooper was no easy process; few had a chance of enduring the violent hammering-in of the military skills that went with the deathly white armor. Those who didn't make it all the way to the end, whose bodies or minds broke under their drill sergeants' sadistic regimens, washed out of the program as corpses. An unquestioning loyalty and obedience to superior officers went with the training; any resistance to commands, however destructive or fatal they might be, was rooted out like diseased nerve tissue.
For someone like Voss'on't, who had gone through all that and had then served with distinction in one of the stormtroopers' elite units, to have kept hidden deep inside himself a vestige of another nature, one that could even contemplate treason-that spoke of a dark core that was harder and more determined than all the ranks of the other stormtroopers combined. Voss'on't might have been waiting for years, not divulging his plans to anyone around him, as he watched for the perfect opportunity. And then when it had come at last, he had swung into action without hesitation or remorse, applying all his hard-won storm-trooper skills to the task. And if others had to die in the process, for him to make his escape with the codes that would buy his safety, he wouldn't be likely to even give a second thought about it.
Not bad. Bossk gave a tiny nod of appreciation as he contemplated the narrow-eyed figure sitting at the distant table in the watering hole's gloom. Trhin Voss'on't was exactly the sort of tough, murderous scum that he could admire. If circumstances had been different, he could have imagined teaming up with the ex-stormtrooper rather than with Boba Fett. Voss'on't would have made a worthwhile addition to the ranks of the Bounty Hunters Guild, once Bossk had succeeded in putting the organization back together again. He supposed it was just one of the ironies of life in this galaxy that the price of re-forming the Guild was going to be paid out of Voss'on't's hide. Once Emperor Palpatine got through with him, after the renegade had been captured and cashed in, there wouldn't be enough left to even make a decent trophy out of him-by all reports, the Emperor wasn't given to the same sentiments about keepsakes as Trandoshans were.
Boba Fett had broken the comm connection; the cochlear implant in the side of Bossk's head had gone silent. The other bounty hunter, wherever he was at the moment, was presumably busy, setting up the rest of the plans for snaring Voss'on't. He'd better be, thought Bossk grumpily. There wasn't so much traffic in and out of this dump that Bossk's presence here wouldn't be eventually noticed and commented upon. Trhin Voss'on't had given him a suspicious glance when he had come into the gloomy confines of the watering hole, then had looked away, as though satisfied that the newcomer presented no threat to him. Voss'on't might change his mind about that assessment if Bossk hung around much longer, without some other creature joining up with him. The only credible reason for hanging out in a place like this was for the purposes of conducting business, usually far enough on the shady side of the law that any illumination at all would be unwelcome. There wasn't a species in the galaxy so depraved or devolved as to come here for the atmosphere or the quality of the drinks. Bossk was beginning to regret having drank as little of the foul-tasting fluid as he had.
He also figured that it would be a dead giveaway if he spent too much time keeping watch on Trhin Voss'on't. Creatures in a place like this demanded some measure of privacy, even when they were sitting at a table right out in the open. Minding anyone's business other than your own was a sure route to a blaster bolt through one's gut. And somebody on the run from Emperor Palpatine would likely be even jumpier about being snooped around.
Voss'on't wasn't even facing in Bossk's direction, but the preternatural awareness he was likely to possess would be the equivalent of having eyes in the back of his head. There were plenty of species in the galaxy like that, with a 360-degree field of view around themselves-but it took a deep level of suspicion for a humanoid to achieve the same effect.
Holding the stone mug in both his clawed hands, Bossk shifted his gaze over to the other patrons of the watering hole. Most of them seemed to be personnel left over from the planet's brief period as an Imperial mining colony. Stupid barves, thought Bossk dismissively. They had gotten what they deserved, for being either stupid or unlucky enough to have been conscripted for a tour of duty like this. When the colony's mines had been abandoned as unprofitable, they had been left behind like so much discarded machinery, not worth the cost of freighting to any other location. Now they sat hunched over their brain-numbing potions, slowly trickling out the last of their wages for a few moments of thought-dead oblivion. Even if any of them could afford to get off-planet, there was no place for them to go, no world with a need for their marginal skills. Most of the former miners had let themselves be surgically altered, just for the privilege of rooting beneath the planet's rocky crust for whatever the Empire had once deemed valuable. Their skulls were thickened with massive layers of hormonally induced bone growth, as a form of subdermal safety helmet suitable for mining work, extending nearly to the width of their shoulders; their faces were masked with intricate folds of spongy air-filtration ciliae, dangling like pink and white moss over their throats-that was the Imperial bio-modification clinics' idea of protection against silicosis and other lung-fouling diseases. Even their hands had been altered, the fingers replaced with curved sections of durasteel, that meshed with another to form sharp, scooplike appendages, the better for scrabbling in the rocks and loose gravel of the quarry tailings. But not much good for any other use; the former miners had to clumsily grasp the stone mugs in front of them between the edges of their surgically transformed hands, in order to lift the drinks to their hidden mouths. With their labor-hunched spines and dull, sodden eyes, they looked like some enlarged subspecies of Venedlian sandmole, with just enough brains buried in the recesses of their gargantuan crania to be aware of their own degradation. Even as he gazed at the poor creatures, Bossk dismissed them as being of no more importance than the daubs of faded decorative paint on the watering hole's walls. The Empire left victims wherever its reach extended; these were just more of them.
"You looking for someone?"
A harsh, flat voice broke into Bossk's thoughts. He turned and looked up. And found himself gazing straight into the face of Trhin Voss'on't.
The former Imperial stormtrooper stood at the edge of the table bearing Bossk's drink. Voss'on't placed both his hands against the table's surface and brought his face down close to the Trandoshan's. Bossk could see even more clearly the old scars that straggled through the close-cropped hair on Voss'on't's skull.