Star Wars_ Tales of the Bounty Hunters - Kevin J. Anderson [130]
He needed to keep this one alive, and Fett had shot too many individuals, of all species, to shoot anyone before he, she, or it, had emptied itself. Someone always had to clean up after it, and usually that was the person who wasn’t in chains.
Fett let the fellow stand up from his toilet, turning away from Fett, and shot Malloc high in the back. He was on his feet and running, in a half stagger himself, running on legs that shrieked with pain, as Malloc stumbled forward, giving voice to something that managed to mix a scream and roar. Fett closed on Malloc and Fett rolled to get down low, and with the knife slashed Malloc across the hamstring of his right leg. Malloc fell forward, to his knees, still reaching up to try to pull the arrow free from his shoulder.
Fett pushed him forward, up against the hut’s wall, grabbed Malloc by one of his horns and pulled his head back, and got the knife against his throat. “Move and you die,” he whispered harshly.
The hut reeked.
The Butcher of Montellian Serat, Kardue’sai’Malloc, sat propped up against the wall, the arrow pulled from his back, but the wound still bleeding, and strained against the bonds that kept his hands pulled behind his back.
The hut was spacious; the hut’s size was one of the things that had given Fett pause. He’d wondered what the Butcher was hiding inside it—mostly, wondered what weapons might be tucked away inside there, waiting for the wrong person.
There were no weapons, though, except for the rifle the Butcher had carried with him.
Fett had known the Devaronians were carnivores; had he not known it, the contents of the hut would have confirmed it. The slaughtered carcasses of half a dozen animals hung along the far wall. A corner of the room had a pile of bones and shells in it, stripped almost clean of flesh. Dozens of empty bottles were scattered among them.
In the opposite corner was the pit where Malloc had slept; and another several dozen bottles, still full of Merenzane Gold, lined up along the floorboards next to the pit.
Fett had not bothered to look at anything yet except the controls for the security system. As far as he could tell it was all passive security, nothing that would shoot at the Slave IV if he brought it down to a landing in the clearing a few kilometers back along his trail. Finally satisfied, he turned back to the bounty.
“On your feet. We’re going to walk a bit I had to leave the callback outside range of your sensors.”
Malloc grimaced, showing sharp teeth. He was large for a Devaronian, which made him very large for a human. He spoke in Basic with less accent than Fett’s own. “No. I don’t think I will.”
Fett hefted the man’s own assault rifle. He shrugged. “Devaronians are tough; I know that about you. You do not go into shock and you do not die easily. You’ll walk—or I’ll burn off your arms and your legs to make you lighter, and then I’ll drag you where we are going.” Fett paused. “Your choice.”
The bounty said wearily, “Kill me. I’m not walking.”
“I’ll do worse than kill you,” said Fett patiently—his left knee was paining him, his entire right leg was on fire from the prosthesis upward, and he really didn’t want to drag this very large Devaronian two kilometers, not even after lightening him.
Malloc let his head fall back, to the wall behind him. “Do you know what you’re doing, bounty hunter? Do you even know who I am?”
Fett fired a quick burst into the wall near Malloc’s head, to get his attention; it did no more than singe the damp wooden wallboards. “Listen. I am Boba Fett.” It had been a generation since one of his bounties had failed to recognize the name; it brought this fellow’s eyes alive. Fear, Fett assumed. “And you are Kardue’sai’Malloc, the Butcher of Montellian Serat, and you’re worth five million credits. Alive. And nothing dead, so you will not annoy me into killing you.”
“Boba Fett,” he whispered. He stared up into Fett’s face. “You’re an ugly piece of prey … I heard