[Bounty Hunter Wars] - 01(21)

“Ah,

for

one

of your exceedingly multifarious talents, yes, I imagine it was.” Kud’ar Mub’at’s compound eyes focused on his visitor. One of its jointed, spike-haired

forelegs inscribed a graceful

acknowledging gesture in the chamber’s thick air. “No complications, I take it?”



“The usual.” He folded his arms across the front of his battle-gear. “There were a couple of other bounty hunters who were hoping to nab him before I did.”



“Ooh.” The eyes, like dark black cabochons, glittered with anticipation. “And you took care of them?”



“I didn’t have to.” Fett knew how much the assembler enjoyed war stories, the more violence-filled the better. He didn’t feel like indulging the arachnoid creature’s taste. “They were just the usual feckless types that the Bounty Hunters Guild sends out. It’s easier to walk around a pile of nerf dung than step right into it.”



“How very droll! You amuse me greatly!” Kud’ar Mub’at reached up to the chamber’s ceiling with several of its hind legs, lifting itself up from where it had been resting its pale abdomen. “It is a savory bonus of our relationship

that I am privileged

to

hear

your scintillating repartee.” The bed node wheezed as it reinflated its cushiony pneumatic bladders. Kud’ar Mub’at worked his way across the chamber’s ceiling, finally dangling its mandibled face directly in front of the bounty hunter. “Have we not more than a mere business relationship, my dear Fett? Please say yes. Say that we are friends, you and I.”



“Friends,” said Boba Fett coldly, “are a liability in my trade.” He drew the visor of his helmet back from the assembler’s glittering eyes and V-shaped smile. “I’m not here to amuse you. Pay me the bounty you’re holding in escrow, I’ll hand the merchandise over to you, and I’ll go.”



“Until the next time.” Kud’ar Mub’at turned its head, regarding him with another set of gemlike eyes. “Which cannot be anytime too soon, for my preference.”



Maybe it’s this part of the job, Boba Fett thought to himself,

that’s the worst. Tracking someone

down, pursuing

him the width of the galaxy,

capturing, transporting, killing anyone who had to be killed in order to get the job done-those things were all cold pleasures, to be savored as tests and confirmations of his own skills. Dealing with any of the clients, whether it was a matter of direct negotiation such as with the Empire’s Lord Vader or a sleaze mountain such as Jabba the Hutt, or a third-party negotiation with a middle entity such as Kud’ar Mub’at, was more repellent than satisfying. It always turned out to be the same thing, every time. They never want to pay up, brooded Fett. They always want the merchandise; they just never want to pan with their credits in exchange. With Hutts, it was always an emotional issue, at least at the start. Their megalo-maniacal rages at any perceived sign of disloyalty led them to post huge, eye-popping bounties; later, when they had simmered down a bit, the Hutts’ natural coldblooded greed kicked in and they tried to take the prices down. The members of the so-called Bounty Hunters Guild would accept a fraction of an original bounty, sometimes as low as ten percent. That was one of the reasons that Boba Fett despised them: he had never taken a credit less than the agreed-upon sum, and had no intention of starting.



“I have other business to take care of,” said Boba Fett. That was true. The galaxy was wide, with lots of dark nooks and crannies, remote worlds and even entire planetary systems that could serve as hiding places. And there were always those entities with reasons to hide, either to save their epidermis from Emperor Palpatine’s coruscating wrath or to clutch in their sweating hands the meager piles of credits they had managed to pry out of Jabba’s coffers. Even with as much “business” as Boba Fett handled, there were still plenty of scraps left for the Guild to dole out to its members, the small stuff that he couldn’t be bothered with. But the longer that Kud’ar Mub’at needlessly detained him here, cackling and wheezing at him inside the tangled corridors of its own expanded brain, the greater the chance that some hustling Guild member would be able to snatch some prize bounty away from him. That notion would have infuriated Fett, if any such word of passion could have been applied to the coldly unfeeling logic that dictated his actions. As it was, he let his masked gaze rest upon Kud’ar Mub’at’s insectile face like the sharp point of a bladed weapon. “Pay me, and I won’t detain you from your own … business.”