[Bounty Hunter Wars] - 03(124)

“Guess again,” said Boba Fett. “I owe her a favor. And I always pay my debts. But I’ve got better reasons than that for what I do.”

“Well, you’re going to have a hard time letting this person know what you found out. Listen.” Kuat raised a hand. Outside the Star Destroyer, the rumbling, percussive sounds of the explosions advanced closer and closer. “I saw the ship, the one that brought you down here to the construction docks, take off; there must have been somebody aboard it with an even sharper sense of self-preservation than your own. So there’s no way out of here now.”

“Yes, there is.” Fett gestured with the blaster pistol. “Get away from the controls.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. One man can’t fly a ship this size; it takes a trained crew. The only way it would be possible is with the tug module, and you can’t get to that with the atmospheric pressure shroud gone.”

“I said-get away from the controls. If you want to stay here in the docks, go ahead. But this ship is leaving.”

“As you wish,” said Kuat. “Every man should pick his own way of dying. And I’ve already chosen mine.” He turned and walked toward the bridge’s hatchway and the corridor beyond that would lead to one of the ship’s main exit ports.

The explosions hadn’t yet torn away the narrow connector to the pressurized equipment shed next to the Star Destroyer. Kuat sealed its hatch behind himself, then sat down on a crate marked with the emblem of Kuat Drive Yards. He felt tired and glad at the same time; tired from his long work, glad that it would soon be over.

His eyes closed for a moment, then snapped open when something soft and warm jumped into his lap. He looked down and saw the golden eyes of the felinx gazing back at him.

“So you’re faithful, too.” Kuat stroked the creature’s silken fur. “In your own way.” Somehow, it had gotten out of his private quarters and followed him this far, through all the chaos and noise of the corporation’s fiery death. “Just as well,” he murmured. “Just as well…”

He picked up the felinx and held it to his chest, bending his own head down low, so that the pulse of its heart drowned out everything that was to come.

“How many did we get out?” Commander Rozhdenst stood at the mobile base’s largest viewports, gazing at the conflagration sweeping across the distant construction docks.

“Four of the Lancer-class frigates, sir.” From the center of the room, Ott Klemp made his report. “Those were our top priority. The rest that we extracted were Zebulon-B frigates.”

“And how many men did we lose?” The commander glanced over his shoulder.

“Only two. One in the frigate that got caught in the explosions, and another still in his Y-wing, going in.” Klemp carried his helmet in the crook of his arm. Both he and Rozhdenst were still in their flight gear. “I think, sir, you’d have to consider this a successful operation.”

“Perhaps,” said Rozhdenst. “But I only consider it worth losing good pilots if something worthwhile is accomplished. Until we hear what’s happened out at En-dor, we don’t know whether there’s even going to be an Alliance that can make use of these ships.”

Klemp looked toward the control panels. “We’re still under comm unit silence?”

“You got it.” The commander nodded. “Right now, there’s no signals going in or coming out of that sector-“

His words were interrupted by a sudden, brighter flare of light from the Kuat Drive Yards’ facility. Both men turned toward the viewport.

“What’s going on?”

Rozhdenst’s

brow

furrowed.

“Those

aren’t explosives.”

“It’s the Star Destroyer,” said Klemp, pointing out the flame-engulfed shape. “The big one at the end of the docks that we couldn’t get any of our men into. Somebody’s giving its engines full power. It’s moving!”

Klemp and the commander watched as the Star Destroyer, larger than any of the rescued ships nearing the base, slowly began to rise from the dock in which it had been moored. The ship suddenly veered to one side, the flank of its hull crashing against the warped and broken towers of the cranes arching above it.

“Whoever’s aboard that thing-they’ve lost control of it.” Rozhdenst shook his head. “They’ll never get it out.”

The commander’s assessment appeared to be true. The Star Destroyer’s stern had slewed around horizontally, barely meters above the dock. Metal collided with metal, as the rear thruster ports flared through the base of the crane. The impact was enough to send the already loosened tower crashing down upon the upper length of the ship’s hull.