[Bounty Hunter Wars] - 03(82)

That guess didn’t make sense, though; Boba Fett had expressly told her that the power and data line would have to run continuously, right up until he came back here to the Hound’s Tooth and switched it off himself. Her part of the entire process had been to watch and make sure that the improvised device had kept inside the operational parameters programmed by Fett. So if it stopped on its own-the realization slowly crowded out the thoughts about her own rediscovered name-then something must have happened to them …

Neelah looked up to the forward viewport,

and

saw

the

web disintegrating into chaos and flame.

Barely a second passed before she was able to spot the source of the destruction. In the distance, another ship had appeared, firing its laser cannon. Another coruscating bolt tore through the web, even as she watched.

Instinctively, she grabbed for the navigational controls on the panel in front of her. Piloting the ship, even a cumbersomely fitted-out one such as the Hound’s Tooth, was within her abilities; manning its weaponry and firing back at the attacking ship were impossible, though.

She shoved forward the main thruster engine control; its responding force shoved her back into the pilot’s chair. Another few quick adjustments brought the Hound about, away from the web and the unknown ship, still firing its laser cannon as it rocketed closer. Through the ship’s frame, Neelah had heard the conducted noise of the transfer hatch ripping away from where it had been sealed to the web.

Another push on the thruster control would send the Hound’s Tooth on a full-power, blazing arc away from this sector of space. An emergency escape vector was already programmed into the hyperspace navicomputer; she would only have to punch a couple of buttons to reach safety.

And then what? Neelah sat frozen at the ship’s controls, mind racing. Maybe I’ve found out enough, she told herself. Her name, her true name; there had been many times, all the way back to the palace of Jabba the Hurt, that she had despaired of ever discovering even that much. She should be satisfied with that…

More words escaped her lips that came from the past and the memories she had found within herself. They were a string of expletives in one of the planet Kuat’s ancient, pre-Basic tongues.

She slammed on the Hound’s side jets, and was immediately swiveled about in the pilot’s chair as the ship swung back toward the web and its attacker.

This is just like the story I told, thought Dengar. About all those things that happened back then…

He struggled to remain conscious, knowing that death was on the other side of the blackness threatening to engulf him. The swirling dark spots that signaled terminal oxygen starvation had coalesced into one annihilating wave, roaring down the length of the web’s central tunnel. Any further drop in atmospheric pressure would be enough to kill both him and Boba Fett; the murderous vacuum of space would boil the blood right out of their ruptured flesh and viscera. Dragging in as much fiery breath as he could, Dengar saw the web clear and partly come into focus; once more, he saw the image from the story he had related to Neelah, of the Black Sun cleanup crew tearing apart the living web of Kud’ar Mub’at. Only this time, there weren’t any henchmen of Prince Xizor going about their destructive business; the web seemed almost to be ripping itself apart before his red-misted eyes.

Then the image changed. Now that, he thought deliriously, wasn’t in the story. The prow of a bounty hunter ship, the one called Hound’s Tooth, tore through the exterior of the web. Great tangles of structural fibers rolled across the curve of the cockpit’s forward viewport; through the mired transparisteel, Dengar just barely recognized Neelah at the control panel. Braking jets spat flame, slowing the ship down before it could barrel over him and crush his form to the web’s tangled floor.

It’s too late. That was his last thought as the blackness exploded from inside his skull. I’ll never—

Something grabbed him around his bursting chest, picking him up bodily and diving with him toward the hull of the Hound’s Tooth. But he didn’t strike the ship’s exterior; instead, he felt himself land skidding across the level flooring of the ship’s open airlock.

A rush of oxygen filled his aching lungs, and he was able to see a blurred vision of Boba Fett standing just inside the airlock door, smashing his gloved fist upon the small control pad at its edge. The door sealed shut and the enclosed space repressurized itself.

Dengar pushed himself up onto his knees and collapsed against the curved metal behind him. He wiped a trembling hand across his face, then looked at his palm and saw it reddened with the blood leaking from his nose and mouth.