Star Wars_ Young Jedi Knights 07_ Shards of Alderaan - Kevin J. Anderson [8]
His brother hasn't heard from him either. Has your dad tried to contact you at all?"
Raynar shook his head, then raised his chin. His eyes flashed. "Has a proper team been organized to look for him? We should begin a search immediately. I'll lead it myself, if need be. I could-"
"Just a minute there, kid," Han said, holding his palms out. "I got strict orders from your family to make sure you stay here with Luke.
That's the best protection I can imagine. If your father's been kidnapped by some unsavory types, your mother and your uncle don't want you out in the middle of things. We sure don't want to have to track you down and rescue you, too. Best thing you can do for the moment is to lay low and let us do the looking."
Feeling a rush of sympathy for Raynar, Jaina put a hand on the young man's arm.
"I'm sure it'll be all right, Raynar," she said.
Raynar threw back his shoulders and sent Jaina a frightened look that he tried to mask with disdain. "Of course it will be all right," he said.
"My father's an important man." He looked back at Han Solo.
"Very well then. I'll stay on Yavin 4. Just see to it that you have competent searchers looking for my father."
SPACE WAS VAST, an infinite pool in all directions..
. whether up and out of the galactic plane, or deeper inward toward the Core Systems. The galaxy held countless hiding places: planets, asteroid fields, star clusters, gas clouds... even these empty wastelands without stars.
It would take the best of bounty hunters to find any quarry under such circumstances.
And Boba Fett was the best.
He cruised through the wilderness between star systems, all sensors alert, scanning for any sign of his prey. He had dropped out of hyperspace in his ship, the Slave IV, just long enough to take data. On this stop, his sensitive detectors picked up no energy readings, no sign of any ship's passage within half a parsec. Nothing had crossed this empty no-man's-land in the past decade.
Grim and persistent, Boba Fett studied readings through the narrow T-slit in his Mandalorian helmet. He nodded, but spoke no word into the flight recorder. Boman Thul was not here. He would have to search elsewhere. The hunt might be long, but in the end no one could elude Boba Fett. No one.
He clutched the Slave IV's modified controls-propulsion systems, navigational computers, and acceleration foils that were illegal in many systems. But Fett paid no attention to legalities. Mere laws did not apply to him. He obeyed his own code of ethics and morality: the Bounty Hunter's Creed.
Launching his ship into hyperspace again, Fett replayed the holomessage Nolaa Tarkona had sent to him. His assignment for this hunt. Perhaps he might find other clues there. He already knew the message by heart, had listened to it eight times on his journey, but he studied it once more anyway.
Boba Fett carefully observed the female Twi'leks face: the folds around her pinkish eyes, the greenish cast of her skin, her pointed white teeth.
Nolaa Tarkona's one green-skinned head-tail dangled from the back of her skull and curled around her shoulders. Her voice was deep and melodious, not the dry, crisp hiss he might have expected from a surreptitious crime lord.
Tarkona led a growing political movement known as the Diversity Alliance.
Nothing overtly criminal... at least not yet.
Boba Fett did not care about his employer's politics or her reasons.
That was not a bounty hunter's business. She had set the bounty, and Fett had a job to do.
The hologram spoke. "Boba Fett, your fame has spanned decades and crossed the galaxy-now I offer you the greatest assignment of your career." The Twi'lek woman stroked her head-tail. Her eyes looked like disks of rose quartz glowing with internal fire.
"Find the man named Bornan Thul, an important trade commissioner from Coruscant. He was a member of the nobility