"We ... we should be okay now... ." Panting, Zuckuss supported himself against the cockpit's naviputer displays. "That wasn't ... much of a bomb... ."
There wasn't even time for Bossk to tell the other bounty hunter not to be an idiot. The second explosion, larger than the first, struck the Hound's Tooth. Roiling thermic fire filled the viewports as the impact of Bossk's spine with the bulkhead above stunned him into barely conscious silence. Blood swirled across the scales of his face as the ship's artificial-gravity generators struggled to catch up with its end-over-end tumbling.
Bossk smashed his fist against as many of the thruster controls as he could reach; the resulting force had him digging a hold into the pilot's chair to keep from being flung through the open hatchway behind him.
A stern-mounted scanner showed the bomb, smaller now but even deadlier, trailing in the erratic wake of the Hound's Tooth. "It's ... it's locked onto us... ."
Zuckuss clawed his way up beside Bossk. He pointed to the screen above the controls. "Here it comes... ."
Bossk knew how incremental-sequence bombs functioned.
The first two charges work you over, he told himself. The third one kills you. His voice grated in his throat "Not ... this time ..."
He hit the rest of the thrusters, at the same time throwing the Hound into a suicide arc. Stars blurred across the viewport as the angle of the ship's turn deepened. A deep basso groan sounded as increasing vectors tore in different directions across the hull.
Sharper cracking noises signaled the navigation modules ripping away from the exterior.
The third and final explosion completed the partial disassembly of the Hound's Tooth. Bossk's desperate maneuver had put enough distance between the ship and the bomb; the hull shook with the impact but remained intact.
Zuckuss was knocked onto his face mask by the bulkhead deforming behind him, the blast's force warping the section from concave to convex. The pilot's chair broke in two, sending Bossk sprawling across the cockpit's floor, claws holding the padded back of the seat tight against his chest. A rain of sparks, bursting out of the access ports, sizzled across both bounty hunters.
A few seconds later silence filled the Hound's Tooth.
The smell of burning circuitry hung acrid in the air, mixed with the steam of the ship's automatic fire-dousing units. A few last sparks stung Zuckuss, and he slapped at them with his heavily gloved hands.
"We'll be here awhile." Bossk didn't need to do a preliminary damage assessment on the Hound to know that.
Until the navigation modules were rigged back into some kind of operating order, he and Zuckuss were stuck in this remote sector of space. If Trandoshans had any capacity for the emotion of gratitude, he would have been glad that the sequential bomb hadn't torn the Hound's Tooth into bits. He and Zuckuss would have been dead instead of merely adrift. As it was, he just felt a deep irritation over how much work it was going to take to put his ship back together again, with the tools and probes that were now undoubtedly scattered all over the en gineering lockers.
"Look there-" Zuckuss pointed to the one viewport still functioning, set at an angle from the Hound's midsection.
Sitting in the middle of the cockpit floor, Bossk looked over his shoulder at the screen. A fiery course of light, with a too-familiar shape at its head, shot across the field of stars.
"That's the Slave I," said Zuckuss. Unnecessarily-any fool would have known that much. "The real ship."
"Of course it is, you idiot." If Bossk had had a wrench in his claws, he would have been torn between throwing it at his partner or at the screen, as though he could somehow hit Boba Fett's ship with it. "That was the whole point, with the decoy and the bomb." The Slave I was already dwindling away, heading for the perimeter station of the Bounty Hunters Guild. "Fett knew somebody would be waiting for him."
"Apparently so." Zuckuss gave a slow nod of his head.
"Somebody like him ... he's got a lot of enemies."
"He doesn't have any fewer now." Bossk glared at the empty screen. You made one mistake, he told the vanished Boba Fett. You should've used a bigger bomb. One that would have killed instead of merely humiliated. Bossk-and his hunger for revenge-was still alive.
Another quick burst of sparks shot from behind the screen. A knot of tangled circuits, welded together and emitting smoke, dangled bobbing from one of the overhead panels. The image of the stars blanked out and was gone.
"Come on," said Bossk. He stood up, then reached down to pull Zuckuss to his feet. "We've got work to do." fool would have known that much. "The real ship."
"Of course it is, you idiot." If Bossk had had a wrench in his claws, he would have been torn between throwing it at his partner or at the screen, as though he could somehow hit Boba Fett's ship with it. "That was the whole point, with the decoy and the bomb." The Slave I was already dwindling away, heading for the perimeter station of the Bounty Hunters Guild. "Fett knew somebody would be waiting for him."
"Apparently so." Zuckuss gave a slow nod of his head.
"Somebody like him ... he's got a lot of enemies."
"He doesn't have any fewer now." Bossk glared at the empty screen. You made one mistake, he told the vanished Boba Fett. You should've used a bigger bomb. One that would have killed instead of merely humiliated. Bossk-and his hunger for revenge-was still alive.
Another quick burst of sparks shot from behind the screen. A knot of tangled circuits, welded together and emitting smoke, dangled bobbing from one of the overhead panels. The image of the stars blanked out and was gone.
"Come on," said Bossk. He stood up, then reached down to pull Zuckuss to his feet. "We've got work to do."
He watched as the tall, arched doors of the council chamber were shoved open, the gilded and gem-encrusted panels flying to either side as Bossk stormed in.
Servants bearing flagons and laden platters scattered in all directions; anger-ridden Trandoshans were notoriously rough on the hired help.
"Ah, my son and heir!" Cradossk was already well on the way to inebriation. His age-blu nted fangs were mottled with wine stains, and his yellow-slitted eyes gazed with blurry affection at his spawn. "I was hoping you'd be here for the festivities." More wine slopped down Cradossk's scaled arm and from his elbow as he lifted his own goblet high. "We'll tell the musicians to strike up the old songs, the ones our spawn-fathers knew, and we'll do the lizard dance all around the courtyard-"
The goblet went clattering across the chamber's terrazzo floor, the wine a ragged pennant on the inlaid tiles, as Bossk knocked it from his sire's hand with one swing of his clawed hand. Across the high-ceilinged space of the chamber, hung with the empty combat gear and other trophies taken off the Guild's long-ago enemies, silence fell. The collective gaze of the council members turned toward their chief and his enraged offspring.
"Your manners," said Cradossk softly, "are severely lacking. As usual."
Boba Fett had had enough experience with Trandoshans over the years to know what a bad sign it was when their voices went low and ominous like that. When they shouted and snarled, they were ready to kill. When they whispered, they were ready to kill everything. He carefully shifted away from Cradossk's side so as not to be in the way if the old reptilian decided to leap over the table and tear out his only son's throat.
"As is your understanding." Bossk spoke with a cold control, through which his anger still managed to appear.
"What kind of brain-withered old fool shares wine with his enemy?" He flung a gesture toward Boba Fett. "Have you forgotten so much, has every day faded from your memory, that the Guild's history is a blank slate to you?
This man has made fools of us more times than we can count." Bossk turned to either side, making sure that everyone in the chamber could hear his words. "You all know who it is that sits with you now. He's taken the credits out of our pockets and the food out of our mouths." He looked back at his sire. "If you weren't drunk"-Bossk's voice sounded like dry gravel scraping across rusted metal-"you'd take what's fallen into your grasp and sink your teeth into Boba Fett's heart."