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His ship was gone.

For a moment Boba's heart stopped. "What?" Could the Republic forces have found him so soon?

Suddenly he remembered. Jabba's interstitial shield! He laughed hoarsely. "Guess that proves the cloaking device works!"

Boba gazed to where his ship was hidden. I'll be back as soon as I can, he thought. With Wat Tambor - dead or alive!

He touched his helmet in farewell, turned and began to make his way through the forest. "Ugh!"

Boba swatted at a thick, slimy purple-green tendril that reached for him from an overhanging branch. The tendril recoiled like a cratsch preparing to strike. A cloud of green mist puffed out from it, and a smell like rotten meat.

Boba grimaced. "Funny, Jabba didn't

mention

moving,

stinking mushrooms!"

He activated his helmet's filtration system. As he stepped forward his boots sank into sticky ooze. "Ugh!" Boba groaned again.

From the air, Xagobah's fungus-covered surface had appeared solid.

But now that he stood on it, or in it, Boba saw it was about as solid as mugruebe mucus. He pulled his foot up. There was a loud belching sound, as the ground beneath sucked at his boot hungrily.

Maybe leaving the jet pack behind hadn't been such a good idea....

Before he could take another step, a deafening sound tore the air overhead, followed by a blinding burst of flame. Instinctively Boba flung himself back toward an umbrella-shaped fungus three times his height.

That was his first mistake.

"Hey!" Boba shouted.

The huge mushroom had a gash in its side, big enough to hold Boba.

He thought he could hide there from whoever was firing. Instead, great slimy folds of fungus suddenly extended from the mushroom, like huge mynock wings. They covered him until he was wrapped in a slimy cocoon, with only his head free. Then they yanked him backward to the base of the fungus- tree. A putrid scent filled his nostrils. Boba's hands lashed out, struggling to free himself.

That was his second mistake.

The instant his fingers touched the rippling fungus, they were stuck fast. And the more he struggled, the worse it got. Within minutes, he was entirely stuck. He could feel his blaster at his waist, but he couldn't move to retrieve it. His fingertips grazed the handle of his vibroshiv, but he couldn't free it. He could scarcely breathe.

And that, unfortunately, seemed to be the point.

Because Boba could still see. And what he saw was that he was slowly, inescapably, being pulled toward the gash in the side of the great mushroom-tree.

Only it wasn't just a gash. And it wasn't a hole. It was moving, opening wider and wider the closer he drew to it.

And suddenly Boba knew what it was - A mouth.

CHAPTER NINE

The fungus was like some horrible hybrid of mushroom and spider.

The folds enveloping Boba were like a web.

And the mouth - well, it was exactly like a mouth! Boba could smell it, the rotting scent of whatever its last meal had been. And he could see it, row upon row of crimson, razor-sharp teeth stretching deep inside the mushroom's trunk.

Now what?

He tried kicking again.

Nothing. He was completely immobilized. The fungal tree's mouth was only meters away now. Boba glared at it through his helmet. He couldn't move them, but still his hands clenched angrily.

Wait a minute...

Just beneath one hand he could feel the tip of something hard and smooth: his Stokhli spray stick. Boba had taken it from a Stokhli nomad who'd given him a hard time in Mos Eisley one day.

He'd stuck it on his weapons belt and, truth to tell, he'd almost forgotten about it, despite the fact that spray sticks cost a lot of credits. It was small and slender, with a stun pad at the very bottom and spray mist cartridges a few millimeters above.

Blllaaaerghhh...

A sound came from the fungal tree, a disgusting moan of pleasure that Boba interpreted as "dinnertime!"

"Not yet," he grunted. He clenched his hand again, his