[Bounty Hunter Wars] - 03(102)

A shadow fell across the table. The cantina’s bartender had pushed his way through the crowd, right up to the side of the rear booth. “Hold on, you two-” The man’s lumpish face was shiny with sweat. “We don’t want any trouble here-“

“It’s a little late for that.” Boba Fett swung the muzzle of the blaster around toward the bartender. “Isn’t it?”

“Now … wait a minute …” The bartender held up his hands, palms outward, as though they were capable of stopping a blaster bolt. “I was just… trying to help you work things out. That’s all…”

“And so you can.” With his free hand, Boba Fett reached into one of the pouches in his battle armor and drew out a data-transfer chip. “Does this establishment have a verify-and-transmit connection with the local banking exchange?”

“Sure-” The bartender nodded and pointed toward the opposite side of the cantina. “Back in the office. We use it for our own accounts. We get a lot of credits, from a lot of different systems, moving through here.”

“Fine.” With his thumb, Fett punched in a few quick commands on the chip’s miniaturized input module. “Take this and have the balance in my local cache account deposited in the name and identity scan of this individual here.” He indicated Bossk with a nod of his helmet. “Keep the five-percent service fee for yourself. Got that?”

The bartender nodded again.

“Then do it.”

Bearing the transfer chip in his hands like a precious relic, the bartender turned and hurried toward the cantina office. The crowd parted before him, to let him pass. Then their wondering faces all turned back toward the scene in the booth.

“All right,” said Boba Fett. He tucked the blaster back into its holster. “There. You’ve won.”

Bossk stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment before he could speak. “What did you say?”

“You’ve won.” A note of impatience tinged Fett’s words. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

A tiny bell note sounded from a pouch on one of the straps crossing Bossk’s scale-covered chest. He fumbled out the small readout card with his own account balance encoded on it. A few minutes ago, the numbers had been pitifully small. But now the transfer of funds had gone through, as Fett had instructed the cantina’s bartender. The resulting change in the readout figure widened Bossk’s eyes into almost perfect circles.

The crowd in the cantina had heard what Boba Fett had said. The volume and buzzing urgency of their comments to each other went up several notches.

“I won?” Bossk lifted his gaze from the readout to his own reflection in the dark visor of Fett’s helmet.

“Look,” said Boba Fett. “I don’t have time to either kill you or argue with you any further. I’ve paid you-” He pointed to the readout in Bossk’s claws. “And that’s more than you would’ve gotten from Kuat. So that’s my half of the business we’re doing here. So work with me on this, all right? Your turn. Where’s the stuff you took from my ship?”

Bossk still felt slightly stunned. “It’s… not here …”

“You told me that already. So where is it?”

“Back at the hovel-stack… where I’ve been staying…” Bossk gave him the directions, the exact route down Mos Eisley’s twisting alleys. “Move the pallet… and there’s a hole underneath, covered with a board …”

“That’s your hiding place?” Boba Fett shook his head in disgust. “I could have saved my credits.” He slid out from the booth. “Make it last,” he said, pointing to the readout in Bossk’s hand. “Might be all you’ll see for a while.” Fett turned and strode away, the crowd quickly shifting to either side of the cantina.

Bossk sat staring at the display for a few moments longer, then tucked it away again. He stood up from the booth and immediately halted in place.

The cantina crowd was massed solid in front of him, eyes of the galaxy’s various shapes and colors regarding him, with none of the creatures saying a word. Then-slowly-the silence was broken, as first a few individuals, then the entire crowd, began applauding and raucously cheering.

A drunken harf, with shining red, gogglelike eyes and an elongated snout, put a massive arm around Bossk’s shoulders. “We don’t like you any more than we ever did,” said the creature. “We just never saw anything like that before. Not with Boba Fett, that is …”

“Sure …” Bossk nodded in appreciation of the other’s words. “It means a lot to me, too.” Back in the game, he thought dizzily. He didn’t need the Hound’s Tooth anymore; with the credits he had now, he could buy a whole new ship. And a better one …