[Bounty Hunter Wars] - 03(34)
That was one more thing he didn’t have time for: one more argument from Voss’on’t. The stormtrooper had never yet seemed to realize that Boba Fett wasn’t interested in his opinions on what to do next.
“What you get,” said Boba Fett as he pulled open the holding cage’s door, “is a chance to go on living a little while longer. If that’s not important to you-too bad. You don’t get a vote on it.”
“I’ll tell you… what’s important to me …” Voss’on’t straightened up, pushing himself back from the vertical bars. “Giving you … a little surprise …” His voice was suddenly louder and more forceful, as though he were now expending a carefully husbanded store of vital energy. Taking one step backward to brace himself, he swung the single bar that had somehow come loose from its mounting at both the top and bottom welded frames of the cage. The length of glistening metal moved through a flat horizontal arc, its end striking Boba Fett directly in his abdomen. The blow had all of Trhin Voss’on’t’s weight and strength behind it, hitting Fett with enough velocity to lift him for a moment off his feet and slam his spine back against the edge of the open cage doorway.
Stunned and doubled over from the blow to his gut, Boba Fett lay on the cargo area’s grated metal floor, one shoulder rolled beneath him. His own sudden flurry of motion revealed to his dazed and swimming vision what had previously been concealed by the thick smoke gathered at the base of the cage: the laser-cannon bolts from the hidden enemy ship had buckled the hold’s floor enough to spring loose a section of cage bars. The one with which Voss’on’t had struck him had come completely free, and had been held in place only by the stormtrooper’s fist, giving the visual impression that he was still trapped inside the cage. In fact, and as Boba Fett had just painfully learned, he had been merely waiting for Fett to unlock the door and come within striking distance.
“You should have … listened …” Voss’on’t’s words came from somewhere in the blurred, red-tinged distance above Boba Fett. “When you had… the opportunity…”
As Fett tried to push himself up from the floor, another blow from the metal cage bar to the base of his battle armor’s helmet sent him sprawling again. The helmet’s visor scraped across the cargo hold’s grating. His mouth filled with the taste of smoke as he gulped for breath.
“But you … didn’t…” Voss’on’t had planted his boots on either side of Boba Fett, the better to raise the cage bar high and aim a killing blow at the top of the bounty hunter’s vertebrae. “You don’t get… a second chance…”
Boba Fett heard the bar come whistling down through the oxygen-thinned air. But the broken weld of its tip struck the hold’s floor instead of his spine as his own arm grabbed hold of one of Voss’on’t’s legs and jerked him off balance. Voss’on’t lost his grip on the metal bar as he fell backward, and it clattered across the floor and against the farthest bulkhead.
The butt of the holstered blaster pistol was already clamped in Boba Fett’s fist. Before he could draw it and fire, Voss’on’t’s close-combat training asserted itself: with his elbows braced against the floor, he brought the heel of his boot hard under Boba Fett’s chin, snapping his helmeted head back. The blaster went flying from Fett’s loosened grasp. Before Boba Fett could recover, the renegade stormtrooper dived for the weapon. Voss’on’t landed with his chest scraping across the edges of the grate, outstretched hands clawing desperately for the blaster.
Fett didn’t wait to see if Voss’on’t came up with it. He scrambled onto his knees and snatched up the cage bar that had fallen from
the stormtrooper’s grasp before. In one fluid motion, Fett twisted about, the bar poised javelinlike in one gloved hand; he saw Voss’on’t also kneeling a couple of meters away, turning with the blaster pistol gripped in his doubled fists. Behind the weapon, and through the eye-stinging haze filling the cargo hold, the harsh angles of Voss’on’t’s triumphantly grinning face could be seen as he took aim and squeezed his finger upon the weapon’s trigger.
The cage bar flew from Boba Fett’s hand as he whipped his arm straight before him. A bolt from the blaster pistol scorched an inch away from Fett’s helmet as he dived to one side. Across the hold, a screeching intake of breath sounded from Voss’on’t’ as the jagged tip of the cage bar ripped through his sleeve and tore a red wound through the flesh underneath. The force of the thrown bar was enough to pull one hand away from the blaster-but the other hand tightened its grip.