Star Wars_ Legacy of the Force 01_ Betrayal - Aaron Allston [206]
“I can pay you millions.”
The contract is to deliver him alive. It’s very specific.
“And my stock holdings in Kuat Drive Yards.”
I think it’s the silent routine that gets to them in the end.
“Fett, I have a beautiful daughter…”
He shouldn’t have said that. Now I’m angry, and I don’t often get angry. “Never use your kids, scumbag. Never.”
My father put me first. Any father should. Not that I ever felt pity—or anything—for H’buk, but I’m satisfied now that he deserves everything that the Traders’ Coalition is going to do to him. If I were the sympathetic kind, I’d kill him. I’m not. And the contract says alive.
“Want to negotiate a landing fee?” asks Atzerri Air Traffic Control.
“Want to negotiate an ion cannon?”
“Oh…apologies, Master Fett, sir…”
They always see my point.
Landing on Atzerri is a little tricky when you’re hauling a crippled fighter on your upperworks. I set Slave I down on the landing strip, lowering gently on the thrusters, feeling the aft section vibrating under the load. And I have an audience.
The coalition wants to show they can afford to hire the best to hunt down anyone who crosses them. I oblige. A bit of theater, a little public relations: like Mandalorian armor, it makes the point without a shot needing to be fired. I walk along Slave I’s casing to clamber up onto the Headhunter’s fuselage and crack open its canopy seal with the laser housed in my wrist gauntlet. So I hit H’buk harder than I need to, and haul him out of the cockpit to rappel down ten meters to the ground on the lanyard with him.
It hurts deep in my stomach. I don’t let anyone see that.
Then I deposit the prisoner on the landing strip in front of the men he owes four hundred thousand credits. It makes the point. I like making points. Presentation is half the battle.
“Want to keep the starfighter, too?” asks my customer.
“Not my taste.” The spaceport utility loader comes to remove it from Slave I. I hold out my palm: I want the rest of my fee.
He hands me the outstanding 250,000 creds on a verified chip. “Why do you still do this, Fett?”
“Because people still ask me.”
It’s a good question. I ponder it while I sit back in the cockpit and catch up with the financial headlines on the HoloNet news as Slave I heads for Kamino on autopilot. My doctor is meeting me there. He doesn’t like the long journey but I don’t pay him to be happy.
Now I find I’m thinking of a daughter—Ailyn—who I haven’t seen in fifty years, wondering if she’s still alive.
You see, I’m ill. I think I’m dying.
If I am, then there are things I’ve got to do. One of them is to find out what happened to Ailyn. Another is to decide who’s going to be Mandalore when I’m gone.
And the third, of course, is to cheat death.
I’ve had a lot of practice at that.
BY AARON ALLSTON
Galatea in 2-D
BARD’S TALE Series (with Holly Lisle)
Thunder of the Captains
Wrath of the Princes
CAR WARRIORS Series
Double Jeopardy
DOC SIDHE Series
Doc Sidhe
Sidhe-Devil
Star Wars: X-WING Series
Wraith Squadron
Iron Fist
Solo Command
Starfighters of Adumar
Star Wars: NEW JEDI ORDER Series
Enemy Lines I: Rebel Dream
Enemy Lines II: Rebel Stand
Star Wars: LEGACY OF THE FORCE Series
Betrayal
Exile
TERMINATOR 3 Series
Terminator Dream
Terminator Hunt
Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Betrayal is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
2007 Del Rey Books Mass Market Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or ™ where indicated.
All Rights Reserved. Used Under Authorization.
Excerpt from Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Bloodlines copyright © 2006 by Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or ™ where indicated. All Rights Reserved. Used Under Authorization.
“In His Image” copyright © 2005 by Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or ™ where indicated. All Rights Reserved. Used Under Authorization. “In His Image” by Karen