[Bounty Hunter Wars] - 01(112)

Fett

had examined and judged it beyond repair. He had already salvaged most of the personal armaments with which Neelah had seen him equipped back at Jabba’s palace; a small blaster pistol had been reduced in the Sarlacc’s gut to a fused lump of metal, and the propulsive charges for some of the larger ammunition had leaked away, rendering the shells useless. Those were replaced with exact duplicates from the sealed containers that Fett had dragged out from the cache’s deep interior.



Like watching a droid, thought Neelah, not for the first time. Or some piece of Imperial battle machinery, capable of making repairs to itself. She had wrapped her arms around her knees and continued to watch as the human elements of Boba Fett had been progressively submerged and hidden beneath the layers of armor and weaponry, the hard mechanicals seemingly replacing the soft, wounded tissue beneath. The narrow visor of his restored helmet took away the last vestiges of humanity, the gaze of eyes like any other man’s, caught in acid-ravaged flesh, its fevered blood seeping through the pores. …



“He’s pushing himself past all therapeutic limits.” SHS1-B’s high-pitched voice fussed from a place just outside Neelah’s awareness. “Both le-XE and I have tried communicating with him, in an effort to make him aware of the necessity for rest. Otherwise, the potential for a serious physiological relapse will escalate to a life-threatening status.”



Neelah glanced over at the medical droid that had trundled up next to her. “Really?” The ends of the droid’s jointed appendages clicked against each other, as though imitating a nervous reaction of living creatures. “That’s what you’re all in a stew about?”



“Of course.” SHSl-B turned the lenses of its di agnostician optics toward her. “That is our programmed function. If there was some way to initiate a change in our basic design, even by means of a complete memory wipe,

you can be assured that le-XE and I would immediately submit to it, no matter now disorienting it might be. Patching up and mending supposedly sentient creatures, who continually insist upon placing themselves in dangerous situations, is a tiresome and never-ending occupation.”



“Eternity,” chimed in le-XE. The other droid had rolled up behind its companion. “Fatigue.”



“Concisely put.” SHSl-B’shead unit gave a nod. “I expect

we

will be applying sterile bandages

and administering anesthetics until the teeth of our gears are worn to nubs.”



“Deal with it,” said Neelah. “As for our

Boba Fett”-she tilted her head toward the bounty hunter, still working at cleaning the rocket launcher’s innards-“I wouldn’t worry about him. You took care of what was needed at the time. But now …” Her nod was one of reluctant but genuine admiration. “Now he’s way beyond all your medicine.”



“That is a diagnosis to which it is difficult to give credence.” The medical droid’s tone turned huffy. “The individual being discussed is made of flesh and bone like other creatures-“



“Is he?” Neelah knew that was true, even though, when she looked at Boba Fett, she couldn’t help but wonder.



“Of course he is,” replied the nettled SHS1-B. “And as

such,

there are limits to his endurance

and capabilities.”



“That’s where you’re wrong.” Neelah leaned

back against the stone of the cache’s entrance. She hoped it wouldn’t be too much longer before Dengar returned. For a lot of reasons. If the parties responsible for the bombing raid decided to come back and do a more thorough job on their targets, she was sure Boba Fett would survive, but her own chances would be considerably fewer. Fett had plans for getting her and Dengar, as well as himself, off Tatooine and out to interstellar space, where they would be safe for at least a little while. And long enough to set further plans into motion. The only obstacle lay in getting the comm equipment that Fett needed. He couldn’t go into Mos Eisley to buy or steal it, not without raising a general alert that he was still alive; that was why Dengar had gone into the spaceport instead. But if he screws up, thought Neelah, then what? She and Fett would still be stuck out here, waiting not for Dengar, but for whatever the next attempt to elimi nate them would be.



In the meantime the medical droid persisted in its arguments. “How could I be wrong? I have been extensively programmed in the nature of humanoid physiology-“



“Then you’re a slow learner.” Neelah closed her eyes and tilted her head back against a pillow of rock. “When you’re dealing with someone like Boba Fett, it’s not the human parts that make the difference. It’s the other parts.”