[Bounty Hunter Wars] - 03(19)

“You can’t blame me,” said Neelah, “for wanting to know. You’re the one who’s told me so many times about what a dangerous place the galaxy is. If we’re heading into some region that’s going to turn out to be trouble-big trouble-I’d like some warning about it.”

“Why?” The question, the way it was spoken by Fett, didn’t invite an answer. “There wouldn’t be anything you could do about it.”

That infuriated her even more. The feeling of helplessness, of events being out of her control-that rubbed against some part of her innermost nature as though it were a raw wound. But the blood that she wanted to spill wasn’t her own, but Fett’s.

“Don’t be too sure about that,” said Neelah. “There’s two other people on this ship-and only one of you.”

“If you think that you and Dengar could pull off a little mutiny, you’re welcome to try.” No emotion, not even scorn, sounded in Boba Fett’s voice. “I’ve some use for both of you at the moment, but that could change. Real fast.” He gestured with one gloved hand toward Neelah. “It’s up to you.”

She already knew that it was no good asking him what exactly that “use” was. Boba Fett was notorious for playing his cards close to his chest, revealing nothing, not even to those who were supposedly his partners.

“You don’t leave someone with very many options.” Neelah heard her own voice go as cold and hard as Fett’s. “Do you?”

“My business is to reduce other creatures’ options. That’s why I always kept a cage in the cargo hold of my own ship.” Boba Fett’s hand now pointed toward the decks below the cockpit. “The previous owner of this ship had the same facilities installed; all bounty hunters have them. If you’d rather make the rest of the journey in a rather less comfortable manner, believe me, it can be arranged. Don’t expect Dengar to join you, though. He’s at least smart enough not to go along with a plan like that.”

One more creature around here, thought Neelah, that I can’t trust. Boba Fett was infuriatingly correct about that as well; she knew that if Dengar was given the choice between throwing his lot in with her or maintaining whatever kind of partnership he had with Fett, he’d go on following the other bounty hunter’s orders in a flash. Why wouldn’t he? If Dengar stuck with Boba Fett, he had a chance of getting a piece of the action, a slice of the credits that Fett’s various schemes and enterprises generated. And that slice, however thin it was cut compared to Boba Fett’s own, was still better than risking a shot at getting killed for the sake of somebody without even her real name, let alone any other known friend or ally in the galaxy. Dengar couldn’t be blamed if he was smart enough to know the odds and to play them for his own benefit.

As for winding up in the cage herself-Neelah wasn’t sure whether she cared or not. What’s the difference? She could see her own face reflected in the dark visor of Boba Fett’s helmet; it was a face that bore the grim, fatalistic expression of someone who might have managed to save herself from the deadly confines of Jabba the Hutt’s palace, only to have wound up in another situation that was just like it in essence. I don’t make the decisions, she thought. Even whether I live or die.

“So we should all go along with your plan,” said Neelah, “whatever it is. Without complaining.”

Boba Fett shrugged. “Complain all you want. Just not to me. And”-he pointed to the blaster pistol tucked in her belt-“without thinking you could get a jump on me. It’s not going to happen.”

“Sure about that?”

“Let me put it another way,” said Fett. “It hasn’t happened yet. And all those who tried to make it happen-they’re no longer with us.”

She didn’t need to be reminded about that. Everything she had heard about Boba Fett, from her time back in Jabba’s palace to here onboard the stolen Hound’s Tooth, listening to Dengar’s tale of the disintegration of the old Bounty Hunters Guild and its ugly aftermath, had reinforced the impression she’d already had of him. A sentient creature put its own life up as the wager when it gambled in any dealings with Boba Fett.

Still-it was a thought she’d had more than once-there are times when you have to go ahead and place your bet. If she hadn’t done that, back when she had been the personal property of the late Jabba, she would have eventually wound up being fed to the Hurt’s pet rancor, just as poor Oola had been. It was better to die with a wager on the table than to just cringe and wait for any one of the many grisly deaths that this galaxy held for the timid.