[Bounty Hunter Wars] - 03(24)

It was going to find out soon enough, though. That thought lifted a corner of Xizor’s mouth into a cruel smile. He would enjoy even more the actual moment when the crafty arachnoid, squatting on its nest in the center of its self-created web, discovered that it had been outsmarted. At last, after having been the puller of so many invisible strings laced throughout the galaxy that had brought wealth to its dusty coffers and ruin to other sentient creatures. Not that Xizor felt pity for any of those; they had gotten what they deserved for letting themselves get entangled in Kud’ar Mub’at’s intricately woven schemes. But those schemes had become a little too extensive for Xizor’s taste; when they started interfering with his and Black Sun’s various enterprises, it was time to trim them back. What better way than uprooting them at the source? The unexpected discovery of Balancesheet’s own ambitions along those lines-the crafty subnode had made it clear that it no longer cared to remain a mere appendage of its creator-parent-made possible the removal of Kud’ar Mub’at, while still retaining all the valuable go-between services that the assembler performed for Black Sun.

Get rid of the old one-the notion had a definite appeal to Prince Xizor-and put a new one in its place. And by the time that Balancesheet, as inheritor of all its creator’s position and power, would get just as troublesome as Kud’ar Mub’at had become, perhaps a new generation of crafty arachnoids would be ready for patricidal rebellion. Or even more pleasing to contemplate: Xizor’s ambitions for Black Sun would have reached such a zenith of power, outstripping even that of Emperor Palpatine, so there would be no need for such a scuttling, secretive little creature. Now there was a particular “old one”- the image of Palpatine’s wizened visage appeared in Xizor’s thoughts, like a senile ghost-who had also enjoyed his day, his moment in power. And during that time, Xizor had had to bow his proud head and pretend to be the Emperor’s loyal servant more than once. The fact that the old man had been taken in by that little charade was proof enough that Palpatine’s time was soon to be over, and that the remnants of the Empire would then be ready to fall into the control of Black Sun. Prince Xizor and his followers had waited long enough in the shadows, biding their time, waiting for the lightless dawn that would be their moment of triumph …

Soon enough, Xizor promised himself. He and all the rest of Black Sun had only to wait, and craftily move into their final positions the pawns that were already arrayed on the great gameboard of the universe. The arachnoid arranger Kud’ar Mub’at’s web of plans and schemes was nothing compared to the one that Xizor had woven, a net cast across worlds and entire systems of worlds. Neither Emperor Palpatine nor his dark henchman Lord Vader had any comprehension of Black Sun’s reach, the things that were in its grasp already or the ones that its fist was about to close upon. For all of Palpatine’s vaunted claims of knowledge of the Force and its dark side, he was still blind to the machinations and maneuverings taking place virtually under his nose. That was due, Xizor figured, to the old fool’s own greed and ambition, and to his perpetual undervaluing of any other creature’s intelligence. The Imperial court of Palpatine, on the distant world of Coruscant, was stuffed with flunkeys and witless servants; their master had made the mistake of assuming that everyone else was either a dolt like them or a mysticism-addled thug like Vader.

The memory of the Dark Lord’s invisible grip upon Xizor’s throat, squeezing out the breath from his lungs, was still sharp and humiliating; he didn’t believe in that mysterious Force, not the same way that Vader and the Emperor did, but he had still been compelled to acknowledge something of its cruel power. Mind tricks, brooded Xizor, that was all it had amounted to. But that had been enough-more than enough-to reignite his hatred for Darth Vader. That hatred had been born in the deaths of Xizor’s family members, deaths for which he held Vader personally responsible. Behind all his other ambitions, the goals of conquest and domination toward

which

he’d mercilessly driven Black Sun, there lay a smaller, more personal one: to make sure that Lord Vader paid the ultimate price for his deeds against the blood of a Falleen prince.

That vengeance could not come soon enough to satisfy Prince Xizor.

And a small piece of the machinery that would bring that vengeance about was on its way here-or it should be, if he had correctly gauged his understanding of the bounty hunter Boba Fett. For one such as that, Xizor had decided, profit is everything. He had baited the trap with enough credits to ensure Boba Fett’s keen interest, first to bring about the destruction of the old Bounty Hunters Guild, and now to bring the renegade Imperial stormtrooper Trhin Voss’on’t back to Kud’ar Mub’at’s web, where the price that had been put on Voss’on’t’s head was supposedly waiting. The fool, thought Xizor contemptuously. Boba Fett had no idea of how he had been manipulated, a mere pawn in Xizor’s gambits. Perhaps he would never learn, or learn too late to save himself, now that his usefulness to Xizor had come to an end.