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She scrambled to her feet and backed up into a corner of the room, breathing heavily. Fett imagined she had fought with the guards as they brought her down to him. “You touch me—” Her voice failed her, and she stood there, shivering, and finally said, “Touch me and one of us is going to die.”

He lowered the rifle slowly, and looked around the room. He had few enough possessions here with him in the palace; everything he owned, which was little enough, was aboard the Slave I. Finally he pointed at the thin sheet that covered the bed. “Cover yourself. I’m not going to touch you.”

Organa moved slightly to the side, leaned over and grabbed the sheet and wrapped it around herself and the brief costume Jabba had allowed her, and backed up again into the corner of the room that left her farthest away from Fett. “You’re not?”

Fett shook his head. He sat down in the corner facing hers, moving carefully, and propped his rifle across his knees. He had to move carefully; his knees had been getting worse in recent years. “Sex between those not married,” said Fett, “is immoral.”

“Yeah,” said Organa. “So’s rape.”

Fett nodded. “So is rape.” He sat in what was, for him, a comfortable silence, watching her. She settled down in the opposite corner, being careful of her covering; Fett approved of her modesty, but it did not prevent him from continuing to look at her. He had never so much as held a woman in his arms, Boba Fett, and the desire for a woman came to him less frequently, with the passage of the years; but in Fett’s mind his chastity made him no less a man, and she was worth looking at, still flushed from her struggles, with her dark hair cascading down over the pale sheet.

She adjusted the sheet around herself, pushing herself back into the corner for warmth. “You’re not going to call the guards to take me back to Jabba?”

“And insult Jabba? I don’t think so. He’d feed you to the Rancor, and hold a grudge against me. You can go back in the morning.”

Her breathing was quieting. “So we just sit here. All night.”

“The stones are cold. If you want to use the bed, you’re welcome to it.”

Organa’s skepticism was obvious. “And you’ll just sit there. All night.”

“I won’t hurt you. I won’t touch you. Sleep if you will. Or not; I do not care.”

Silence descended. Fett watched the woman as she leaned back against the stone wall; watched her as she collected herself; watched her as she watched him.

Time passed. Both of his eyes were open, but he was only half awake when she burst out, “Why are you doing this? Why are you fighting for them?”

Fett stirred, stretching slightly. The rifle across his knees was steady as a rock. “Over half a million credits,” he informed her. “That’s what Vader and the Hutt have paid for my work.”

“Is it just money? We’ll pay you. Help us get out of here and we’ll pay you—”

“How much?”

“More than you can imagine.”

Fett was amused by the audacity she showed, trying to bribe him, here deep inside the Hutt’s castle. “I can imagine an awful lot.”

“You’ll get it.”

It was cruel to let the woman hope. “No. What you’re doing is morally wrong. The Rebels are in the wrong, and the Rebellion will fail—and it should.”

Leia Organa could not keep the outrage out of her voice. “Morally wrong? Us? We’re fighting for homes and our families and our loved ones, the ones who are still alive and the ones we’ve lost. The Empire destroyed my entire world, virtually everyone I ever knew as a child—”

Fett actually leaned forward slightly. “Those worlds rose in rebellion against the authority legally in place over them. The Emperor was within his rights to destroy them; they threatened the system of social justice that permits civilization to exist.” He paused. “I am sorry for the deaths of the innocent. But that happens in war, Leia Organa. The innocent die in wars, and your side should not have started this one.”

He shut up abruptly; all the talking was making his throat sore.

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