"I'll take what I can get," said Hamame. "Especially since you don't have any choice about talking right now." He smiled as he kept the blaster rifle trained toward Dengar and Boba Fett. "Amazing how persuasive something as simple as this can be when you're looking down its barrel. There's a bunch of questions I'd like some answers to. Profitable answers."
"Don't be an idiot." Dengar spoke up. "If you want credits, there are easier ways of getting them than this. And less dangerous. Just let us go, and we'll make it worth your while."
"Oh, sure; I'll trust you to send the credits. You can send it care of the Mos Eisley cantina." Hamame shook his head with a grimace of disgust. "Get real. Whatever you two could pay for your hides isn't anything compared to what some others would be willing to." He looked straight toward the other bounty hunter. "There are some big players interested in Boba Fett's welfare, and I mean to make sure that they're gonna have to make me happy before they get to do whatever it is they want with you." Neelah lay on the ground where she had landed, keeping still as she listened to the exchange going on above. The man's choice of words tipped her off. Whatever you two could pay for your hides. He was exactly the sort who'd forget all about a female's presence, whenever he didn't have any specific use for her. Just as if she didn't exist ... or couldn't do something about the situation.
"You forgot something."
Her voice actually surprised him, as though it had suddenly come from nowhere. The man's startled gaze swung around and then down to her; that 1 slight movement was echoed in his torso, turning it f toward her. That opened up just enough of an angle for Neelah to dig the points of her elbows into the ground, plant one boot sole flat with her leg bent, and straighten the other leg into a kick straight to the man's crotch. The look in his eyes showed that he was fully aware of her now.
The man went down, falling heavily on his side, but managing to keep some semblance of control. He jammed the butt of the blaster rifle hard against his ribs as his knees drew up in an instinctive fetal position. His fist squeezed tight on the trigger, getting off a line of fire that coursed within inches of Neelah's head as she scrambled to her feet and ran toward the others. She had to take another dive to get out of the way as Boba Fett snatched up his own blaster from the pile of equipment he had stacked up while working on the comm unit. Without taking time to aim, Fett laid down a quick series of shots that stitched the ground close to the other figure, now rolling shoulder-first into a sandy hollow. His return fire, desperate and inaccurate, was still enough to drive Fett back toward the rocky hillside.
"In here!" Dengar grabbed Neelah's forearm and pulled her into the safety of the shallow cave. He pushed her behind himself, then grabbed the blaster rifle that had been propped against the side of the opening. He braced the weapon against himself and started firing. The covering barrage lit up the night, sending hard-edged shadows jittering across the rocks and sand dunes. The shots forced the other man's head below the lip of his shelter, giving Boba Fett enough time to break off his own fire and sprint, back hunched low, to his companions. From inside the cave, Neelah and the two bounty hunters heard the raised voice of the man outside.
"Phedroi!" He wasn't shouting to them, but to some other figure, unseen in the surrounding darkness. "Get in on this! Now!"
The command was hardly necessary; his partner, who must have been watching everything all along, now directed a hot fusillade their way from an angle that gave him a clear shot into the cave's mouth. Boba Fett fired back as all three of them retreated farther inside.
"Now what?" Neelah looked around the rough-hewn rock as the barrage of blaster fire lit up the space. All the other weapons in Boba Fett's carefully hidden stash had already been dragged outside with the other gear. Both Fett and Dengar had their spines planted against opposite walls of the cave, leaning forward just enough to get off a few quick shots before snapping their heads back from the bolts that sizzled past them. "We're stuck here-this hole doesn't go anywhere!"
"It wasn't meant to." Boba Fett didn't look back around at her. "You don't get anywhere by running away from creatures like these."
"Good theory." Across the cave, Dengar held his blaster rifle close against his chest, watching the shifting shadows in the darkness outside, waiting for another chance at a well-aimed shot. "Gets a little tight when you try to put it into practice."
Boba Fett gave a small shrug, his shoulders scraping against the rock behind him. "Don't worry about it." His voice remained as calm and drained of apparent emotion as before. "Everything's under control."
"What are you talking about?" From the back of the cave, Neelah stared at the bounty hunter in dismay. She had already come to the limit of the space, no more than a few meters from the opening in the hillside's rocky slope. "There's no way out of here! They've got us pinned down-they can either wait us out, till your blasters are exhausted, or they can call in more of their friends." A couple more shots blazed through the middle of the cave, striking the roof above her and showering down a rain of scorched rock shards. "Either way, they've got us!"
"As I said, don't worry."
The bounty hunter's calm response infuriated Neelah. The thought of dying in this hole-or worse, being dragged out of it after the pair outside had finished off Boba Fett and Dengar-infuriated her. I didn't escape from Jabba's palace to wind up like this. There were still too many things she didn't know, too many questions without answers-her real name, where she had come from, how she had gotten here-to let bleed away into the sand. If there had been any chance of pulling it off, she would have grabbed one of the blasters out of the others' hands and made a break, firing and charging headlong at the two-man siege force outside. Anything would be better than waiting here for the inevitable.
Dengar turned his face away from the cave opening.
"If you've got some kind of plan-" The blaster rifle's muzzle touched his chin as he held the weapon in a diagonal line across his chest. "I'd appreciate being let in on it, too."
"If there was anything you could do about it, one way or the other, I might tell you." Boba Fett fired a quick couple of bursts outside, before glancing over at Dengar.
"But there isn't. All you have to do is wait. And you'll see."
"That's great," said Neelah sourly. She had to raise her voice over the noise of another fusillade streaking through the dark and carving the back of the cave out in sparks. Her disgust had reached the point where nothing, not even laser bolts, could make her flinch. "All this time I thought you were recovering from what happened to you-only it turns out that your brains are still fried." Boba Fett made no reply. "Hold your fire," he instructed Dengar.
"But they've come in closer." Dengar used the rifle muzzle to point outside. "The one that was out in the dunes-he's moved up. He's got an even better angle now."
"That's all right. I want the two of them together. Or close enough."
"Why?" Dengar looked puzzled. "You think you can take both of them out? I can cover you if you want to take a shot at it."
"That won't be necessary."
The flashes from the weapons outside were enough for Neelah to tell that Dengar was correct; the two besiegers were now within a couple of meters of each other, crouching down behind a shallow lip of rock. From there, they would be able to fire straight into the cave.
"Don't bother trying to talk to him." Neelah nodded toward Boba Fett. "He's so far gone he can't tell when there's no way-"
A sudden noise interrupted her. From above, as though the night itself had split open; the sound grew from a distant shriek to a roar that spanned the audible frequencies. The cave itself-vibrated, as had the one containing the Sarlacc's still-living segment; dust sifted from cracks spidering overhead, then pebbles and finally broken rocks large enough to cut Nee-lah's arm as she shielded her brow. From underneath her forearm, she could see Dengar leaning forward, blaster rifle lowered, gazing outside in wonderment.