"Very well." The slits in Bossk's eyes narrowed into apertures a honed razor might have cut. "As you wish.
Maybe there is something I can learn from an ... old one like you." He smiled the ugly smile characteristic of his species. "After all-you murdered your way to control of the Guild. I have but to wait, and it's mine."
"Is not patience a virtue, even among the assassins?"
Bossk pushed the other council member aside, knocking him against the smaller figure of Zuckuss. The Trandoshan stepped up to the crescent-shaped table, directly in front of Boba Fett. One clawed hand grasped the goblet by its stem. "To your health." Bossk drained the contents, then threw the goblet against the wall behind; it clanged like a bell, then rolled clattering across the hard stone tiles of the floor. "However long it lasts."
"I suppose"-Fett returned the other's gaze- "it'll last long enough."
Dark wine seeped around Bossk's fangs as he leaned toward Fett. "You might fool the others," he whispered,
"but you're not fooling me. I don't know what your game is-but I don't worry about you knowing mine." His voice dropped lower and more guttural as he brought his snout almost against the visor of Fett's helmet. "I'll be a brother to you, all right. And I know how, believe me. I had brothers when I was spawned. And you know what?"
Bossk's breath smelled of wine and blood. "I ate them."
He turned and strode away, toward the council chamber's doors. One of Bossk's clawed feet connected with the empty goblet he had thrown, sending it skittering against the wall like a tiny droid whose circuits had been scooped out. The other bounty hunter, Zuckuss, glanced around at the watching faces, then ran after Bossk.
Sitting next to Boba Fett, Cradossk heaved a sigh.
"Don't judge us too harshly, my friend." Cradossk took the flagon from the tray being held near him and refilled his own goblet. He knocked that back and filled it again.
"Sometimes our get-togethers go a little better than this... ." to gain both some manners and some knowledge of how the galaxy works-that's why I'm not asking you to be brothers with Boba Fett. I'm telling you to do it."
"Very well." The slits in Bossk's eyes narrowed into apertures a honed razor might have cut. "As you wish.
Maybe there is something I can learn from an ... old one like you." He smiled the ugly smile characteristic of his species. "After all-you murdered your way to control of the Guild. I have but to wait, and it's mine."
"Is not patience a virtue, even among the assassins?"
Bossk pushed the other council member aside, knocking him against the smaller figure of Zuckuss. The Trandoshan stepped up to the crescent-shaped table, directly in front of Boba Fett. One clawed hand grasped the goblet by its stem. "To your health." Bossk drained the contents, then threw the goblet against the wall behind; it clanged like a bell, then rolled clattering across the hard stone tiles of the floor. "However long it lasts."
"I suppose"-Fett returned the other's gaze- "it'll last long enough."
Dark wine seeped around Bossk's fangs as he leaned toward Fett. "You might fool the others," he whispered,
"but you're not fooling me. I don't know what your game is-but I don't worry about you knowing mine." His voice dropped lower and more guttural as he brought his snout almost against the visor of Fett's helmet. "I'll be a brother to you, all right. And I know how, believe me. I had brothers when I was spawned. And you know what?"
Bossk's breath smelled of wine and blood. "I ate them."
He turned and strode away, toward the council chamber's doors. One of Bossk's clawed feet connected with the empty goblet he had thrown, sending it skittering against the wall like a tiny droid whose circuits had been scooped out. The other bounty hunter, Zuckuss, glanced around at the watching faces, then ran after Bossk.
Sitting next to Boba Fett, Cradossk heaved a sigh.
"Don't judge us too harshly, my friend." Cradossk took the flagon from the tray being held near him and refilled his own goblet. He knocked that back and filled it again.
"Sometimes our get-togethers go a little better than this... ."
"And to the glory of the Empire."
"Well spoken, as always." Emperor Palpatine swiveled his throne toward another section of the immense room.
"Whatever else might be said of him, you must agree that the prince has a way with words. Don't you think so, Vader?"
Xizor turned toward the hologram of the dark-caped figure-an intimidatingly life-sized image, transmitted from the Devastator, Lord Vader's personal flagship.
Don't try it on this one, Xizor warned himself. He had witnessed too many examples of what happened to those whose words caused the Dark Lord of the Sith to lose patience. The Emperor might be keeping him on a short leash. But one long enough, thought Xizor, to reach my throat.
"Your judgment, my lord, exceeds mine." Vader kept his own words as diplomatically inscrutable as the mask that concealed his face. "You know best where to place your trust."
"Sometimes, Vader, I think you'd prefer it if I trusted no one but you." The Emperor put his fingertips together. Behind him, framed in the towering windows of the throne room, the curved arms of the galaxy extended, like shoals of gems in an ink-black sea. Below the stars, the towers and massive shapes of Imperial City rolled like the crests of a frozen sea across the hidden surface of Coruscant, a monument in durasteel to both the ambition and the grasp of Palpatine. "I see into so many creatures' hearts, and all I find there is fear. Which is as it should be." The deep-set eyes contemplated the empty cage formed by his hands, as though envisioning the worlds bound by the Empire's power. "But when I look into yours, Vader, I see ... something else." Like a hooded mendicant rather than the ruler of worlds, Emperor Palpatine peered through the angles of his fingers.
"Something almost like ... desire."
Prince Xizor managed to keep his own smile from showing. Desire among the Falleen, his species, meant only one thing. His cruel beauty, the sharply chiseled planes of his face, and his regal bearing, combined with a pheromone-rich musk that evaded all conscious senses, were what put a female of any world under his command.
Humanoid female, of a type pleasing to his own sense of aesthetics; if the members of the more repulsive of the galaxy's species were similarly affected, that was not something he had yet felt the need to put to the test.
"It is only the desire to serve you," said Lord Vader. "And the Empire."
"Of course; what else could it be?" Palpatine smiled indulgently, an effect no less intimidating than any other expression that moved across his age-creased face. "But I am surrounded by those who wish to serve me.
Xizor, for one-" The Emperor's hand gestured toward him.
"He says all the same things as you do. If you are closer to what's left of my heart, Vader, if for the moment I place more trust in you than I do in others, it's because of something beyond words."
"Actions," said Xizor with cold hauteur, "indicate more than words. Judge my loyalty by what I achieve for the Empire."
"And what is that?" Vader's image turned the force of his penetrating gaze upon Xizor. "You scurry about on your mysterious, self-appointed errands, your rounds of those whose devotion to our cause is somewhat less than ideal. Fear motivates many creatures, but there are still those who believe their meager cunning can line their pockets. Criminals, conspirators, thieves, and builders of their own little empires-you know too many of those types, Xizor. I sometimes wonder what their attraction is for you."
Standing against Vader-even in this insubstantial form-was like facing radiation hard enough to strip flesh from bone. Not for the first time Xizor felt an invisible hand settle around his throat. His own willpower kept the breath sliding in and out of his lungs. But if Vader were to unleash his complete wrath, the force of will might not be enough. Xizor had seen others, the highest-ranking officers in the Empire's forces, clutching their throats and gasping for air, writhing like a Dantooinian garfish caught on a barbed trawling line. Perhaps wisely, Vader tended to avoid such displays in front of the Emperor; why tempt the old man into showing how much greater was his own mastery of the Force that penetrated and bound the galaxy together?