[Bounty Hunter Wars] - 03(28)
“Why mess around any further?” Trhin Voss’on’t gripped two of the durasteel bars and brought his hardangled face closer to Fett’s. “I’m the only one who can get you out of this. I know what’s waiting for you on the other side. And believe me, Fett, they’re not your
friends.”
The stormtrooper’s fingers tightened on the cage’s bars as his voice dropped lower. “Let me out of here, Fett, and I’ll cut you a deal.”
“I don’t deal, Voss’on’t.”
“You better start-because it’s your life that’s on the bargaining table, whether you like it or not. Let me out, and turn the ship over to me, and I might just be able to keep you from being blasted into atoms.”
“And what would be in it for you?”
Voss’on’t leaned back and shrugged. “Hey-I don’t want to go up in smoke with you, pal. Your stupidity is endangering me as well. All things being equal, I’d just as soon stay alive. If I’ve got control of the ship and its comm units-in other words, let me do the talking-I’d have a chance of getting the ones who aren’t so well disposed to you to stand down.”
The other’s words provoked an instinctive response from Boba Fett. Inside the suit of Mandalorian battle armor, he could feel his spine stiffen. “Nobody,” he said, “commands this ship but me.”
“Have it your way.” Voss’on’t let go of the bars and took a step back into the center of the holding cage. “I’ve at least got a chance of making it through. You don’t.”
The chime signal sounded again in Boba Fett’s helmet, louder and more urgent. “I have to congratulate you,” he said. “I thought I’d heard all the scams, all the wheedling and begging and bribery attempts, that creatures were capable of. But you came up with something new.” He started to turn away from the holding cage and its occupant. “I’ve never been threatened by my merchandise before.”
Voss’on’t’s taunting voice followed after Fett as he strode toward the metal ladder leading back up to the cockpit. “I’m not your usual run of merchandise, pal.” A note of mocking triumph sounded in Voss’on’t’s words. “And if you don’t think so now-believe me, you will. Real soon.”
All the way up to the cockpit, Boba Fett could hear the stormtrooper’s laughter. Pulling the hatchway shut behind him only cut off the distant, irritating sound, not the memory of it.
Boba Fett sat down in the pilot’s chair, letting the work of his hands moving across and adjusting the navigation controls fill his consciousness. Victory in any combat, fought with weapons or words, depended upon a clear mind. The former stormtrooper Voss’on’t had done his best to mire Boba Fett’s thoughts with his sly insinuations of conspiracy and predictions of violence. Boba Fett was afraid of neither of those; he had proved himself a master of them on many occasions.
At the same time, Voss’on’t’s lies and mental tricks had evoked a deeper sense of unease inside Boba Fett. His survival in the dangerous game of bounty hunting hadn’t been based on coldly rational strategizing alone. There were elements of instinct that he depended upon as well. Danger had a scent all its own that required no trace molecules in the atmosphere to be detected by his senses.
His gloved hand hesitated for a second above the controls. What if Voss’on’t wasn’t lying…
Perhaps the stormtrooper hadn’t been playing mind games with him. Perhaps the offer to save Boba Fett’s life from whatever might be waiting for him in realspace had been genuine, even if motivated by Voss’on’t’s own self-interest.
Or-Boba Fett’s thoughts pried at the puzzle inside his skull-the game was even subtler than it first had appeared. Voss’on’t might not have wanted him to surrender control of the ship at all. What if, mused Fett, he knew I would refuse? And that was what he’d been banking on. In which case, Voss’on’t also would have been angling for Boba Fett to disregard all doubts, suspicions, even his own instinctive caution, as having been planted in his head by Voss’on’t. The game might not have been to change Boba Fett’s course of action-but to make sure that he didn’t abandon it.
He needn’t have bothered, thought Boba Fett. A familiar calm settled over him, which he recognized and remembered from other times, moments when he’d set his fate in the balance. Between the thought and the deed, between the action and its consequences, between the roll of the ancient bone dice and the coming up of the number that would indicate whether one lived or died…