Star Wars_ Tales of the Bounty Hunters - Kevin J. Anderson [122]
The escort shook his head. “I’ve never even heard of the planet it takes place on.”
It was like listening to someone else talk; the words simply flowed out of Fett. “They put four fighters together in a ring, usually of the same species. To make it fairer.” A quick smile touched Fett’s features, as he thought about those fights; it was the first time Boba Fett had smiled in years, and he did not notice it happening. “Fairer,” he repeated. “Usually three of them start by ganging up on the one they think weakest, which in this case would have been Solo. He was young, I told you that. They beat the weakest fighter into unconsciousness before turning on each other; and the last one standing is the victor.”
“They beat him unconscious? Han Solo?”
Fett stopped walking—and looked sideways at the man. A small motion, but—the Imperial found himself staring into the bounty hunter’s darkened visor.
Fett’s harsh voice sounded like an attack. “He won. It was one of the bravest things I ever saw.” He paused. “I’ll enjoy collecting him.”
The Imperial made a visible effort to collect himself. “Yes … I expect you will.”
Fett shook his head as though to clear it, turned and headed down the corridor once again, perhaps at a slightly quicker pace.
It was the longest conversation he’d had in years about anything except business.
The months passed in a rush; and when it was over Boba Fett found himself perhaps the best known bounty hunter in the galaxy.
It was a crowded time, and in Fett’s memory the events blurred into one another. Solo had hidden the Falcon among the Imperials’ garbage, released immediately before the jump into hyperspace, and so escaped from the Imperials at Hoth. A good trick, and one that might have worked against most Hunters; it had worked against Fett’s competition.
But Boba Fett had been fooled by that trick before, once. By now he had been in his line of work longer than most, and there were few enough ploys he hadn’t seen, once or twice or a dozen times. There was only one place they could be going, one place close enough for them to reach with their main hyperdrive disabled; Fett jumped for Cloud City, and there Lando Calrissian made the deal that delivered Solo to Fett.
With Han Solo as cargo, frozen in carbonite, Fett started for Tatooine. There, for the sculpture of Han Solo, and a few months of Fett’s time, not to mention a number of inconveniences on the way, Jabba the Hutt paid, not 100,000 credits, but a quarter of a million—
And not too long after that, the rescuers started arriving. Leia Organa, pretending to be a bounty hunter, arrived with Chewbacca in tow. She succeeded in releasing Solo from the carbonite. For the very death of him Fett could not imagine what she’d had in mind; whatever it was, it did not work. The Hutt put Solo down in the dungeon, with Chewbacca, and intended to execute them in the near future; and Leia Organa spent her days in chains at the foot of Jabba’s throne.
Fett lay on the bed in his darkened quarters deep inside Jabba’s Palace, wearing his armor, staring up into the darkness. His helmet was balanced on his stomach and cool air from the ventilators washed across him in rhythmic gusts.
A heavy pounding sounded at his door.
Fett sat up, donning his helmet and lifting his assault rifle; the movements were so automatic he did not even have to think about them. He threw the bolt on the door, took several steps backward and aimed the rifle. He did not turn on the room lights. “Come in.”
The door swung open with a reluctant creak. A pair of Gamorrean guards stood out in the passageway; Fett leveled his rifle at them. “What do you want?”
One of the guards stepped to the side, and a form—a human—was shoved into the room. Fett’s finger tightened reflexively on the trigger, but he held his fire.
“From Jabba,” the near guard grunted. “Enjoy her.”
Fett reached back with one hand and touched the control for the light