But Bossk had set the Hound's Tooth at maximum speed for the too-familiar planet of Tatooine, just to bask in the atmosphere that had been the last to fill his enemy's lungs.
He didn't get that far, though; Tatooine hung like a dusky smudge in the aft viewport screen. Before he'd had time to set landing coordinates for the Mos Eisley spaceport, Bossk had found something just as familiar-and even more intriguing-in auto-nomic orbit outside Tatooine's atmosphere. When he'd first spotted the Slave I in the cockpit's forward viewport, and recognized it as Boba Fett's ship, his hands had immediately darted to the targeting and firing controls of the Hound's blaster cannons. The only thing that had kept him from blowing Slave I into atoms floating in empty space was the realization that the other ship hadn't trained any of its weapons onto his own. That, and remembering Boba Fett was already dead. A simple hailing call had returned the information that Slave I was empty, but still under the protection of its internal guard circuitry.
This is too good, Bossk had decided. It was one thing to inherit-by default-the mantle of top bounty hunter in the galaxy. But to also stumble upon the late Boba Fett's personal ship, the repository of all his weaponry and databases, all the painstakingly acquired secrets and strategies that had put him at the top of this dangerous trade-Bossk couldn't resist an opportunity like that.
He was smart enough to avoid trying to crack Slave I's security measures himself. Other creatures had gotten killed trying to do just that. Boba Fett had wired the ship with enough traps and self-aiming firepower to wipe out a small army, if it had attempted to enter without the appropriate password authorization. But with Fett being dead, there was no time pressure about getting past the ship's circuits; Bossk had the credits and the leisure that allowed for calling in professional assistance.
That was one advantage to being this close to Tatooine; services of that kind were exactly the sort available in Mos Eisley. If one could afford to pay the price.
A harsh electronic buzz sounded from the Hound's comm unit. A message had been received; undoubtedly, the one for which Bossk had been waiting. He pulled himself closer to the cockpit's control panel and saw something that puzzled him for a moment.
There were two messages waiting for him.
The first was from Slave I, just as he had expected.
The other had arrived almost simultaneously a messenger pod, sent straight from the surface of Tatooine; the small, self-propelled device was now sitting in the receptor bay of the Hound's Tooth. Bossk prodded a few more buttons with his foreclaw and got a readout from it.
The coded message unit was from a Q'nithian message expediter down in Mos Eisley with whom Bossk had a long- standing working arrangement. A business relationship the Q'nithian had a general knowledge of the kinds of things that Bossk was interested in. Any message that the Q'nithian was hired to send across the galaxy, that fit those criteria, would get routed first to Bossk before continuing on the rest of its journey.
Bossk read the destination info off the unit. It was headed to the distant engineering center of Kuat, to the head of Kuat Drive Yards, Kuat of Kuat. Bossk nodded to himself as he read the address data. The Q'nithian had been correct in figuring that he would want to see this.
Anything, thought Bossk, that's being sent to someone as rich and powerful as Kuat is something that I'm interested in. A successful bounty hunter always had to have his info sources open wideband so he could filter through all the galaxy's secrets and rumors for the bits that might turn out profitable.
He had already decided, though, to read the encoded message unit later-after he had taken care of the other business, for which he had been waiting so long. The tip of his claw hit the next button on the cockpit's comm controls.
"I'm all finished over here." The recorded voice, dry and emotionless, was that of the lead technician for D/Crypt Information Services, one of the many semilegitimate businesses that abounded in Mos Eisley.
"The security codes have been sieved out, and you now have full access to the ship designated as Slave I. After you pay me, of course."
That detail was already taken care of. Bossk transmitted an account transfer order to Mos Eisley's black-market escrow exchange, then fired up the primary navigation engines. In the time it would take for him to maneuver the Hound's Tooth over to the other ship, the D/Crypt tech would already have received the payment confirmation.
"Good thing you didn't keep me waiting." The D/Crypt technician was a wizened little humanoid, the top of his bald head barely coming up to Bossk's chest. "I don't like to be kept waiting. If you had kept me waiting, I would have charged you triple overtime."
"Don't sweat it." Bossk let the transfer connection, between his own Hound and the Slave I, seal shut behind him. "I would've paid." He glanced around the bleakly functional confines of Slave I's cargo hold; the bars of the merchandise cages were uncomfortably familiar to him from the last time he had been aboard the ship. The hinges of the main cage's door had been repaired, but still showed signs of the laser bolt that D'harhan had unleashed upon them. That had been a long time ago, when Boba Fett had still been alive and busily engaged upon breaking up the old Bounty Hunters Guild. "Everything's clear?"
"As far as I can determine, it is." With his high- power trifocals slid up onto his pink, unsunned brow, the D/Crypt tech busily packed up his equipment cases.
"What's that mean?"
The tech blinked myopically at Bossk. "Nothing's perfect. Not in this galaxy, at least." He gave a shrug with his thin shoulders. "Ninety-nine percent, though; I can guarantee you that much. A less than one-percent chance that there's any security device aboard this ship that I wasn't able to locate and deactivate."
"Yeah?" Bossk looked back at him sourly. "And what's the payoff on the guarantee? Some booby trap takes my head off-you're going to refund my credits?"
"I'll put a flower on your grave." The D/Crypt tech clicked shut the last of the case latches and straightened up. "If there's enough of you left to put in one."
When the technician had boarded his minuscule shuttlecraft, then disconnected it from Slave I and headed back down to Tatooine, Bossk turned from the transfer port and drew his blaster from its holster. Even a one-percent chance of something going wrong was enough to make him nervous. Warily, he stepped forward into the ship's cargo hold. He doubted if there would be anything of value to be found here. Grasping one of the rungs with his free hand, he climbed up into the cockpit.
From the forward viewport, Bossk could see his own ship and the landing claw tethering it to Slave I. The urge to abandon his investigation and return to that known safety was almost overwhelming; every particle of this craft, including the recycled air seeping into his lungs, was imbued with its departed owner's invisible presence. Boba Fett might be dead, but the memory of him was still intimidating. The grip of the blaster sweated in Bossk's hand; he half expected to glance over his shoulder and see that narrow-visored gaze watching him from the hatchway.
He didn't sit down in the pilot's chair. Instead, he leaned over it and punched out a few quick commands on the ship's computer. Those were credits well spent, decided Bossk, when he saw the file directory appear on the screen in front of him. The D/Crypt technician had cracked and stripped out the password protection; all of Boba Fett's secrets lay there exposed, ready for his careful examination.
Some of the nervousness drained from Bossk's spine and muscles. If there had been a trap remaining, he would have instinctively expected it to be here, guarding all that was most precious to Fett, the essence of his devious mind and hard-won experience. Bossk reached out and blanked the computer screen; going through all those files would take a long time. He'd have to bring over a mem device from the Hound's Tooth so he could do a core dump and take everything back to his own ship, to be sorted out at his leisure. It might take years. But then-Bossk smiled to himself-I've got the time. And Boba Fett doesn't. Not anymore.