[Bounty Hunter Wars] - 03(32)

Quickly, Boba Fett punched a gloved forefinger at the manual override command pad, inputting the code that would allow the ship’s onboard computer to take over the navigational procedures. “Randomize all maneuvers,” he instructed. “Calculate and implement nonpredictive evasion pattern.” Even before he took his hand away from the pad, Slave 7’s docking-correction rockets burned on hard, twisting the ship out of its previous slow course and slamming Fett against the side of the cockpit; another burn, close to ninety degrees off the first one, would have sent him sprawling again if he hadn’t kept a tight hold on the back of the pilot’s chair.

The evasive maneuver was just in time: a second laser-cannon bolt shot cometlike past the curve of the forward viewport, coming close enough for Boba Fett to feel its heat through the clear transparisteel. Fading to a dull red, the bolt trailed away, leaving a bright afterimage in Fett’s vision, but without hitting the ship’s hull.

Another warning sound became audible as the stressed frame groaned from the transmitted force of the rockets. No electronic sensors were needed to register what was happening; Boba Fett could feel the chill of falling temperature through his battle armor, and hear the sibilant hiss of dwindling atmospheric pressure. The reserve oxygen tanks’ emitters kicked in, attempting futilely to overcome the loss from the ship’s main cabin areas. The evasive maneuver initiated by the onboard computer had wrenched some part of the hull loose, already weakened by the first laser-cannon hit. Slave I might be able to dodge most, and perhaps even all, of the coruscating bolts being aimed its way-Boba Fett had personally programmed in the randomizing algorithms-but it would be a process equally fatal, and rapidly so, as the quick, darting shifts in direction and acceleration tore at the ship’s damaged fabric.

Boba Fett leaned over the back of the pilot’s chair, scanning the forward viewport for any sign of the enemy that had opened fire on him. It didn’t matter who it might be-he figured that he had enough enemies, from his years in the bounty hunter trade, that at any given moment there would be someone yearning to take a shot at him. For all he knew, it might have been possible that Bossk had already found some way to catch up with him; what the Trandoshan lacked in smarts, he made up in tenacity and the ability to carry a grudge.

All that mattered right now was where the laser-cannon’s bolts had come from. Slave I had a deep arsenal of long-range weaponry itself; if Boba Fett could get a fix on the other ship, he would be able to bring his own laser cannons to bear on the target. That would be a calculated gamble on his part: setting up and holding position long enough to return fire would increase the enemy’s targeting ability, and the laser cannons’ drain upon Slave I’s rapidly dwindling power resources, as well as the structural shock from firing the weapons, could very likely destroy rather than save the ship and its occupants. Two shots, calculated Boba Fett as he looked out across the field of stars. Maybe three. His instinctive connection with the ship he mastered told him that that would be the limit of its endurance. If he wasn’t able to take out his enemy that quickly, any further action, including the resuming of evasive maneuvers, would leave him as

a lung-emptied corpse drifting amid his own ship’s debris.

The main engines came on again, a quick burst thrusting Slave I away from its previous location. A trail of churning, fading light at the corner of the viewport indicated the effectiveness of the onboard computer’s randomizing program; the enemy’s laser-cannon bolt had scorched past, only a few meters away from the ship’s hull. Boba Fett leaned closer to the cockpit’s forward viewport, balancing himself with one hand braced against the control panel’s flashing red lights, scanning with a hunter’s intent gaze for any sign of the opponent he faced. His enemy, whoever it might be, obviously was aware that its target would be doing exactly that, trying to locate the source of the bolts aimed toward him. That was the reason why the other ship wasn’t sending out a steady stream of rapid-fire laser-cannon bolts; their fiery passage would have been a dead giveaway, negating the advantage it had at the moment, of mounting its offensive from some undetermined hiding place.

Boba Fett’s strategizing had been encompassed in mere milliseconds. Without warning, the computer’s evasion program kicked in again, twisting Slave I into a full 360-degree looping spiral, the side-mounted rockets diverting the thrust of the main engines. It wasn’t enough: Boba Fett’s grip upon the back of the pilot’s chair was torn loose as another laser-cannon bolt scored a direct hit upon the curved center of the hull. The impact sent him flying backward, landing sprawled on his back halfway through the cockpit’s open hatchway. A torrent of sparks, blinding gnatlike miniatures of the laser fire that had filled the viewport, lashed against his chest and helmet visor as the control panel’s circuits overloaded and shorted out. The acrid smell of burning hard-wire insulation and frying silicon mixed with the hissing steam of the fire-extinguisher cylinders letting loose their contents beneath the panel’s gauges and buttons.