[Bounty Hunter Wars] - 03(92)

“Indeed.” Kuat nodded to himself. That was the type of work, both methodical and insightful, that he had expected from Kodir. “So where is it?”

“It’s out by where the arachnoid assembler Kud’ar Mub’at used to have its web, before it was destroyed by Prince Xizor. And the fragments of the web had drifted a bit since then, so Boba Fett apparently had to do some searching of his own to find them. But he did; by the time my ship got close enough to do some surreptitious monitoring of his activities, he and his companions had reconstructed most of the web.”

“Interesting.” Rubbing his chin, Kuat wondered what that piece of information meant. The death of the assembler Kud’ar Mub’at at the hands of Prince Xizor’s Black Sun cleanup crew had previously been something of a relief to him. Kud’ar Mub’at had had too much knowledge of Kuat’s own dealings with the assembler; those kinds of secrets were better kept by the dead than by any living creature, no matter how well paid for silence. If Xizor hadn’t taken care of Kud’ar Mub’at, then the chances would have been good that Kuat of Kuat would have been forced to, eventually. “Were you able to discern exactly what they were up to?”

“Negative on that,” came Kodir’s reply. “I ordered our ship to pull back from the sector when another vessel was detected, approaching from directly opposite us. We did manage to ID that ship; it’s the freighter that Kud’ar Mub’at’s successor Balancesheet is now using as its base of operations.”

“Do you think there was some kind of arranged rendezvous between Balancesheet and Boba Fett?”

“I’m pretty sure there wasn’t.” Kodir’s voice sounded grimly amused. “Balancesheet has had that clunky old freighter of his outfitted with some decent armaments; it opened fire on both the reconstructed web and the Hound’s Tooth alongside. Things got a little confused after that, but right now it seems as if Balancesheet and Boba Fett have sorted it out; Fett and his associates are currently aboard Balancesheet’s freighter.”

“Any way of finding out what they’re discussing?”

“Negative again,” replied Kodir. “Balancesheet values its privacy as much as Kud’ar Mub’at did. That freighter is shielded against every distance-operational spy apparatus we’ve got. Short of cracking open the hull with one of our own laser cannons, that meeting is completely secured.”

“Too bad.” For both myself-and Boba Fett, thought Kuat. If there had been some way of determining exactly what the bounty hunter was discussing and scheming with the arachnoid assembler, Kuat would have been able to more accurately assess what kind of threat Boba Fett’s continued existence represented to him and to Kuat Drive Yards. But as it was, he’d have to err on the side of caution…

And eliminate Fett.

“That’s the situation at this point.” Kodir’s voice broke into his thoughts. “I await your decision about what to do next.”

“Have you got this freighter of Balancesheet’s in your weapon-sights?”

“Not yet,” said Kodir. “We’re out of range for that. But that problem can be corrected very shortly.”

“Then do so.” Kuat had already made his determination about the bounty hunter’s fate. “And when you’ve locked on to the target, proceed with its destruction. I want complete annihilation of the freighter and all living creatures aboard it.”

“We could be a little more surgical in our approach. It wouldn’t be too difficult to disable the freighter, then board it and extract Boba Fett without harming the others. We could eliminate him alone-that is, of course, if there were some value to be placed on the lives of the others with him.” Kodir expanded on the option she had presented. “Balancesheet, for instance; the assembler has its uses for us.”

“Not enough of them.” Kuat shook his head, though there was no way that Kodir could see him. “Not enough to outweigh the disadvantages of having it remain as a witness to our actions against Boba Fett. I don’t want any of this traced back to Kuat Drive Yards. So proceed as I indicated.”

“Very well. I’ll report back when the operation is concluded.” From the faraway ship, Kodir broke off the comm unit connection.

In the resulting silence, Kuat of Kuat could hear the felinx asking for attention, its voice a mere guttural whine. He reached down and scratched behind its ears.

“Believe me,” said Kuat. “It’ll be for the best…”

“Not so fast,” said Suhlak. “There’s a couple of other things that have to be taken care of before we go anywhere.”