The hunt saboteur hadn’t moved toward the transfer hatch that would have led both him and Boba Fett to his waiting Headhunter. Fett and the others aboard Balancesheet’s freighter gazed at him impatiently.
“Now what’s the problem?” Neelah set her hands on her slim hips. “I thought we already figured out, we don’t have time to waste.”
“Look, I’m just trying to help you out here. So you’ll be like a satisfied customer and all. I’ve got a reputation to maintain,” Suhlak said testily. “If all you wanted was for me to get this bounty hunter here to Tatooine, quick and quiet, I can take care of that for you. But you want a roundtrip; you want me to bring Fett back here as well. Now that’s going to be kind of hard for me to pull off if this whole freighter and everybody aboard it is gone by the time Fett and I return.”
“Why would we be gone?” Puzzled, Dengar stared at the hunt saboteur. “Where would we go?”
“You wouldn’t have gone anywhere, pal, except up in flames.” Suhlak shook his head in disgust. “None of you even knows what’s sitting out there, keeping a watch on your every move. But there’s a light cruiser, top of the line, from the Kuat Drive Yards, keeping surveillance on this tub right now. Matter of fact, it’s a KDY ship; I identified it when I snuck past it. It’s the Kuat Drive Yards’ main security enforcement vessel, and it’s armed and very dangerous.”
“It didn’t spot you?” Boba Fett gestured toward the hull of the freighter and the empty expanses of space outside it. “They don’t know you’re here?”
“Naw; I’ve got my ways of sliding past something like that-especially when their attention is fixed on something else, like this freighter here.”
Neelah looked over at Fett. “What do you think they want?”
“Given the fact that the last time any KDY ships got this close to me, they unloaded enough bombs to atomize a few square kilometers of the Dune Sea, I’d expect that this one isn’t going to be any friendlier.”
The arachnoid assembler Balancesheet had scurried over to its freighter home’s detect and tracking screens. “It would appear,” it announced, “that not only is our young friend correct about the presence of this other ship, but that we also have a limited time in which to determine what to do about it. It’s come within range of my ship’s scanners, and is continuing to head this way.”
“All right,” said Boba Fett with rapid authority, “here’s the deal. I can get away with Suhlak, just like we planned, but this freighter won’t be able to either outshoot or outrun that KDY ship. But the KDY security forces aboard it undoubtedly are bearing down this way, because they figure I’m aboard here.” He pointed to Dengar and Neelah. “You two-get back aboard the Hound’s Tooth and head out, full thrusters, to open space and prepare for a hyperspace jump to the Oranessan system. They’ll assume that it’s me aboard the Hound, and they’ll follow after you.”
“But then what?” Dengar pointed with his thumb toward the cruiser’s image on the screen. “If we go into hyperspace, that KDY ship won’t be able to follow us.”
“They will, if they know your destination. Before you make the jump, fire off a comm transmission with a minimum encryption level, giving the details of the rendezvous point. Suhlak and I will already be out of range, but the KDY ship will be able to pick it up. When you come out of hyperspace, it’ll be right behind you. Then all you’ll have to do is stay out of its reach until I’m finished with my business on Tatooine and can hook up with you again. Then we can lose them for good.”
Dengar shook his head. “I won’t be able to elude that KDY ship for very long, out there in the Oranessan system. Wouldn’t it be simpler to jump there, and then as soon as the KDY ship shows up, make another quick jump to some other point that we can use for a rendezvous? That way, we’d already have lost them.”
“Only for as long as it would take KDY security to tap their information sources and find out just where you were waiting for me. And if I were delayed getting back from Tatooine, you’d still have the same problem of eluding the KDY ship. In the Oranessan system, at least, there’d be a chance of pulling that off.” Boba Fett made a quick sharp gesture with the flat of his hand. “Maybe not forever-but then, all you have to do is elude them for long enough. And that way, Suhlak and I would have an even better chance of making it to Tatooine without getting intercepted.”