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[Bounty Hunter Wars] - 01(56)





Something to think about. Feeling the weight of his age, Cradossk shambled into the memory-bone chamber connected to the sitting room. He lit one of the candles set in a niche filled with years of congealed wax; the guttering flame sent interlaced shadows wavering across the walls and their white treasures.



It had been a long time since he’d had occasion to add another memento to his collection. My killing days are over, thought Cradossk, not without regret. He wandered farther into the chamber’s ivory-lined recesses, letting memories of vanquished opponents and foolishly recalcitrant captives wash over him.



Until he came to the oldest and tiniest bones. They looked like something that might have been found in a bird’s nest, on some planet where all the life-forms had been extinct for centuries. Cradossk let a couple of them rest in his palm as he poked at them with a single claw. Tooth marks showed on the bones’ surfaces, from little teeth that had been as sharp and hard as a newborn’s. Teeth that hadn’t yet been dulled by the coarse flesh of enemies. Those teeth had been his, when he’d just barely been out of his mother’s egg sac. The bones were those of his spawn-brothers, hatched just a few seconds later. And too late for them.



Cradossk sighed, mulling over the wisdom he’d been created with, and that which had taken him so long to achieve. He carefully set his brothers’ bones back in the hollow of polished rock where he kept them.



This

was why lesser entities like that moronic Twi’lek would never understand. About family loyalty and honor …



He pitied creatures like that. They simply had no sense of tradition.



The Twi’lek pushed the door to the sitting room open a crack. Just enough to see what the old Trandoshan was up to.



Cradossk

had gone into his chamber

of

grisly souvenirs. A candle flame showed his silhouette among the stacked and interwoven bones. Good, thought the Twi’lek. His boss would usually stay in there for hours, fondling the bones and reminiscing, and sometimes falling asleep, wheezing and dreaming with a splintered femur in his claws.



Plenty of time, then. The Twi’lek slid the door shut without making a sound and strode quickly toward another section of the Bounty Hunters Guild compound. To Bossk’s quarters.



“Excellent,”

said the younger Trandoshan,

after listening to the Twi’lek’s report. “You’re sure of all this?”



“But of course.” The Twi’lek made no attempt to conceal the wickedness of his smile. “I have been in your father’s service for some time. Longer than any of his previous majordomos. I haven’t lasted this long by being blind to his thought processes. I can decipher the old fool like a data readout. And I can tell you this for a fact: He trusts you absolutely. As he told me, that was why he sent you to talk to Boba Fett.”



Sitting in a gold-hinged campaign chair, Bossk nodded in approval. “I suppose my father had all sorts of things to say. About loyalty and honor. And all the rest of that nerf dung.”



“The usual.”



“That must be the hardest part of your job,” said Bossk. “Listening to fools talk.”



You have no idea, thought the Twi’lek. “I’ve gotten used to it.”



Bossk gave another, slower nod. “The time is coming when you won’t have to listen to that particular fool any longer. When I’m running the Bounty Hunters Guild, things will be different.”



“I certainly expect so.” More of the same, the Twi’lek told himself. He was careful to keep his thoughts from showing on his face. “In the meantime …”



“In the meantime there will be a nice little transfer of

credits to your private account. For all your services.” Bossk dismissed him with a simple gesture of his upraised claws. “You can go now.”



That fool is right about one thing. The Twi’lek felt a warm glow of satisfaction as he headed back to his own quarters. He was doing a good job-



For himself.



Boba Fett heard the door creak open. He had to work against his own ingrained habits, which had kept him alive in a hard universe, to keep his back turned toward a door. More bounty hunters had lost their lives from a blaster burning into their spines than had ever taken an opponent’s shot face-to-face. Fett should know: he had taken out more than his share, just that way.



“Excuse me. …” A cautious voice sounded from the doorway.



That was why he’d kept his back toward it. So as to give anyone who came around to this dank chamber, to talk with him, a perceived psychological advantage. Some of the members of the Bounty Hunters Guild were a little short in the courage department. He found it hard to imagine why they might have thought they would have any aptitude for this business. If they had found themselves looking straight into the dark, narrow visor of his helmet, they might have fled before even opening their mouths.