He stood looking down at Boba Fett for a while longer. The little trace of fear hadn't gone away; it was still there, inching along his spine. Even unconscious, this man was enough to spook ordinary creatures.
There's too much past, thought Dengar. Inside Boba Fett's skull; a whole galaxy full of it. Who could tell what was going on in there as he slept and dreamed his dark dreams?
He couldn't believe his good luck.
"I've got him this time," said Bossk. He had upgraded both the firepower and the tracking abilities of the Hound's Tooth since his last unfortunate encounter with Boba Fett. The other bounty hunter snatching the accountant Nil Posondum away from him had been the final irritant underneath his scales; he had sworn to himself that if he ever got the chance, he would put his rival out of commission for good. And nothing will do that, thought Bossk, savoring the words, like blowing Fett to atoms. "When I get done, there won't be enough of him left to find without an electron microscope."
Beside him, Zuckuss leaned the hoses of his face mask toward the cockpit's target-acquisition screen. "I don't know. ..."
"What, you can't tell that it's Boba Fett ap proaching? Are you blind?" Bossk rapped a claw against the screen, hard enough to leave a permanent mark amid the glowing vector lines. "Of course it's him! There's all the identification data on the Slave I." A tiny column of numbers scrolled down from the triangular icon swiftly moving across the screen. "That's his ship, so he's aboard it."
"Oh, it's Boba Fett, all right." Zuckuss nodded slowly. "There's no doubt about that. I'm just not sure if you should-what's the phrase you always use?-'blow him away' right now."
Bossk angrily glared at the shorter bounty hunter.
"When's there going to be a better time?"
"Well, maybe when he's not traveling under an assurance of safe passage from your father." Zuckuss sounded even more doubtful and nervous. The breath in his air tubes rasped quicker and louder. "Boba Fett already contacted the Guild council-you know that-and Cradossk and the others gave him their word that he could dock at the perimeter station without anyone taking a shot at him."
"They gave him their word." The slits in Bossk's eyes narrowed. "They didn't give him mine."
"Still ..."
You little insect, thought Bossk. When he inherited the leadership of the Bounty Hunters Guild-he had already killed, as was Trandoshan custom, all of his father Cradossk's younger spawn-he intended to review the requirements for membership. A certain amount of guts, he figured, should be a prerequisite. Which meant that this sniveling partner that had been foisted on him would be out the air lock like the gnawed bones of yesterday's lunch.
"Maybe," whined Zuckuss, "you should think about-this a little more... ."
"Thinking takes too long." Bossk's claws moved across the control of the Hound's weapons systems. "Action gets things done."
"Your father isn't going to like this."
"That remains to be seen." The same blood ran in his and the old reptilian's veins; he had the comfort of knowing that his spawn-father was just as mean and vicious as himself. "For all you know, this is exactly what he and the rest of the Guild council are expecting me to do."
"Destroy another bounty hunter without warning?"
Incredulity pitched Zuckuss's voice higher. "That's hardly in line with the Hunter's Creed!"
Bossk always felt a simmering impatience when someone mentioned the Creed to him. "Boba Fett has violated the Creed enough times," he growled, "that he deserves no protection from it."
"But he's never been bound by the Creed! He's never been a member of the Guild!"
"Spare me your tedious legal analysis." Bossk had locked the concentric rings of the tracker sight onto the distant craft. "If Boba Fett wants to lodge a complaint against me, he'll have to do it from the other side of the grave. If enough of him can be scraped up to put into one."
He ignored the rest of Zuckuss's tiresome fretting.
His index claw hit the main fire button, and a quick rumble rolled through the Hound's frame. On the screen, a brilliant white tracer shot toward the icon representing Boba Fett's ship.
"Got him!" The shot must have caught Fett completely by surprise; he'd taken no evasive action at all. What a fool, thought Bossk with contempt. That's what you get for trusting other bounty hunters. The advantage of being considered lowlife scum by most of the galaxy's inhabitants was that maintaining one's reputation was never an issue. "You know," said Bossk, "I'm almost disappointed... ."
"Why?" Zuckuss turned his large-lensed gaze away from the screen. "Because he didn't put up more of a fight?"
"No." Bossk peered at the red numbers that had flashed on. "Because there's anything left of him." He clawed in the command for a damage assessment on the laser cannon's most recent target, then studied the result. "That ship of Fett's had some serious armor on it. It's still holding together." The glowing triangle had stopped in the middle of the screen, but hadn't disappeared. To have taken that kind of a hit, enough to punch a hole through the main deck of an Imperial battle cruiser, and still be in one piece, however badly damaged, was amazing. It didn't correspond with the velocities that the Slave I's engines- high-thrust but low-mass-capable units from Mandal Motors-could attain.
Like most bounty hunters, Boba Fett had always prized speed and maneuverability over protection. Right now, though, Bossk didn't have time to puzzle over the discrepancy. "Let's go finish him off."
The distinctive half-rounded shape of the Slave I filled the viewports as Bossk piloted his own craft toward it. He kept his claws on the controls for the emergency reverse thrusters in case Boba Fett, like the devious scoundrel he was known to be, was lying low inside the other ship, waiting for his own chance to take a shot at his attacker.
"Looks like a clean kill to me." Zuckuss pointed to the cockpit's forward viewport. "Right through the center and out the other side. There couldn't be anyone left alive on that ship."
"I'll believe that," said Bossk, "when I see Boba Fett's .charred corpse." He started moving the Hound's Tooth in toward the drifting wreckage. "I'm going inside."
"Well, if you need that kind of proof ..." Zuckuss gave a shrug. "I suppose you'll have to." He didn't even glance over at Zuckuss. "You're going, too."
"Oh."
They managed to establish a transfer connection between the Hound's Tooth and what was left of the Slave I. No atmosphere support was needed; enough of the Slave I's systems were still operating to have sealed off the central interior sections.
"Something's wrong," said Zuckuss as he looked about the Slave I's empty hold.
"Something's always wrong, as far as you're con cerned." This time, though, Bossk wondered whether his partner might be right. A sense of unease crawled across his scales; he drew his blaster and slowly scanned across the open hatchways.
Zuckuss reached over and poked a gloved finger at one of the bulkheads. The thin material wobbled back and forth; another poke, and Zuckuss's finger went right through it.
"It's a decoy." Zuckuss gave a few more exploratory proddings to the hold's confines, with similar results.
"That's why there's nothing here-it's just a shell!" He turned toward Bossk. "No wonder your shot went right through. There's no real mass to have taken the hit. It's like shooting through flimsiplast."
Rage boiled up inside Bossk, nearly blinding him.
"That slimy ..." Words failed him. He stomped toward the dummy ship's aft section, shoulders smashing apart the sides of the flimsy hatches.