[Bounty Hunter Wars] - 03(26)

“I can see you thinking.” Trhin Voss’on’t’s sly voice insinuated itself into Boba Fett’s consciousness. “Even through that helmet of yours-I can hear the little gears meshing.”

“You hear nothing except your own delusions.” Boba Fett defocused his hard, cold gaze upon his captive.

“Think so?” The ugly, lopsided smile still curled one corner of Voss’on’t’s mouth. “Consider your situation from a … military point of view.” He gave another pitying shake of his head. “You’re outgunned, Fett. Deal with it.”

There was still time remaining before Slave I was scheduled to emerge from hyperspace and within sight of Kud’ar Mub’at’s space-drifting web. Time enough to play a little more of this mental game with the hard merchandise. Boba Fett didn’t need the amusement-nothing amused him except more credits stacking up in his accounts. But there was at least one good reason for letting Voss’on’t rattle on: it was common knowledge that highlevel stormtroopers, such as he had been before his defection, were trained in self-annihilatory techniques, in case of capture by enemy forces. A self-willed shutdown of his entire autonomic cardiovascular system would render Voss’on’t as unprofitable as any hot bolt from the blaster slung at Boba Fett’s hip would.

Standard bounty hunter procedure in a case like this, where the suicide of the merchandise was a possibility, would have been to render him safely unconscious with a steady-release transdermal anesthetic patch applied just above one of the main neck arteries. Boba Fett had done just that, many times before, with other pieces of hard merchandise-it was rare when any one of them looked forward to being handed over at the end of their journeys with anything but total dread. And if Trihn Voss’on’t was as intelligent and rational as he appeared, he had no reason to be optimistic about the welcome that he would receive from his former master, the Emperor Palpatine. Death would be at the end of that process as well, though it would be a long-and uncomfortable-time in coming. Palpatine had ways of making sure of that.

But Boba Fett’s own bounty hunter’s skills, his ability to see into the workings of his merchandise’s thoughts, had told him that Voss’on’t was not going to take his own life. Once the former Imperial stormtrooper had gotten over both the physical trauma of being captured-it hadn’t been easy on anyone; both Boba Fett and Bossk had nearly been killed in the process-plus the indignity of waking up caged, a measure of his fighting spirit had reappeared, even cockier than before. Boba Fett had caught a glint in Voss’on’t’s narrow gaze of the same will to survive-and even dominate-that burned like a cold fire under the jacket of his own Mandalorian battle armor.

He actually thinks he can win. The stormtrooper ceased being mere merchandise for a few seconds as Boba Fett regarded him in the holding cage. He hadn’t expected a combat-hardened veteran such as Trhin Voss’on’t to beg and grovel for his life, as so many previous tenants of the holding cage had done. What he had expected was a show of snarling, raging defiance, the kind of ugly temper to which the sadistically violent were given when the tables were turned on them.

“Outgunned-and outsmarted, Fett.” The voice of Trhin Voss’on’t was a centimeter away from sneering laughter. “It’s been real nice knowing you. I’m glad we had this little time together.”

A quick chiming note sounded from the comlink inside Boba Fett’s helmet. That was the signal from the monitoring computer in Slave I’s cockpit indicating that the final lockdown sequence had to be initiated before the ship could emerge from hyperspace. There wasn’t much more to be done before he collected the bounty, the mountain of credits that had been posted for Voss’on’t’s capture.

His favorite part of the job was getting paid-but Boba Fett decided to postpone it a moment longer. As much as he was aware that Voss’on’t was trying to warp his thinking, deflect it from its most logical course like the gravitational tug of a black hole, another part of him was intrigued by the stormtrooper’s mocking display of confidence.

He wants me to think he knows something, thought Boba Fett, that I don’t. Hardly likely-Boba Fett hadn’t survived this long as a top-rank bounty hunter except by having better information sources than his prey did.

Another thought itched at a dark corner of Boba Fett’s cortex. There’s always a first time. The problem was that in this business, the first time-outgunned, outsmarted, out-intelligenced-would also be the last time.

“All right,” said Boba Fett quietly. “So tell me.” He leaned closer to the holding cage’s bars, unconcerned about bringing himself within reach of his captive. It would be a real mistake for Voss’on’t to try reaching through the bars and grabbing him-his superior reflexes would have Voss’on’t down on the cage’s floor in less than a second. “You feel like talking so much-what do you mean, ‘outgunned’?”