[Bounty Hunter Wars] - 01(61)

“Don’t be.” Dengar gave a shrug. “I’ll be the first to admit that this isn’t the most pleasant neighborhood.” He got to his feet. “We might as well see what kind of shape we’re in.”



The two medical droids were stationed on either side of Boba Fett’s pallet.



“How’s the patient?”



SHS1-B glanced back at Dengar. “As well as can be expected,” the droid said irritably. “Given the dis turbance he’s been put through.”



“Hey-” Dengar poked himself in the chest. “Did I order a bombing raid to start up? Don’t blame everything on me.”



“That’s not a bad question.” Standing beside him, Neelah glanced over the unconscious form of the bounty hunter. “Who did order it?”



“Who knows?” Dengar set the lamp on a shoulder-high outcropping. “This guy’s got major enemies. It was probably one of them.”



“Then that would mean somebody knows that he’s alive. Somebody besides us.”



That realization snapped together in Dengar’s brain, like a pair of wires that had become disconnected during the tumult. She’s right-somehow the word must’ve gotten out, to somebody for whom it was an important piece of information, that Boba



Fett hadn’t died; that breath, however shallow, was still going in and out of his body. Someone wasn’t happy about

that. Someone who would send out sufficient explosive force to pulverize an army, just to make sure that there wouldn’t be enough left of Boba Fett to take a breath.



“Somebody was spying on us,” said Dengar. He had already eliminated himself as the source of the leak, and he had sworn Manaroo to secrecy. Neelah wasn’t a likely suspect; there had been no place for her to go, no one for her to talk to while she’d been out in the Dune Sea. And she hadn’t left the hiding place since Dengar had taken her in. Maybe somebody from Jabba’s palace, he thought. There had been plenty of scoundrels there, even after Jabba’s death, with the necessary skills for staying unseen while watching the comings and goings out in the wastelands. Especially after losing a lucrative gig with the Hutt, any one of them would be motivated to sell valuable info to the highest bidder. To some agent of the Empire or anybody else who had a big enough grudge against Boba Fett. “That must have been what happened.” Dengar nodded slowly. “Somebody saw me taking Fett down into my hiding place.”



“Don’t

be stupid.” Neelah shook her head.

“If somebody knew exactly where Fett had been taken, they wouldn’t bother blowing up everything within sight of the Great Pit of Carkoon. One missile, straight down the tunnel entrance, would’ve done the job. Simple and clean.” She pointed toward the silent form on the pallet. “If that’s all it took to kill him off, they would have done it the easy way. And the quiet way.”



She had a point, Dengar admitted to himself. Boba Fett wasn’t the only one who lived by secrets; the kind of clients he’d had, and enemies he’d made, were the same way. A surgical strike would have eliminated Fett without the risk of drawing attention that a bombing raid entailed. Dengar had heard nothing the last time he’d been talking to his own information sources in Mos Eisley about a contract being put out on Boba Fett. So if anybody

was actively gunning for him,

they

were definitely keeping it quiet.



“Unless,” said Dengar, “there’s some other reason for the raid… .”



Neelah gave him a withering look. “Do you think there’s some other reason?”



He didn’t bother to answer. Silence filled the tunnel as he looked upward, listening and waiting. “I think we’re all clear now.”



“We can go back up?”



“Are you kidding?” Dengar shook his head, then picked up the lantern and directed its light toward the tunnel they had come down. The light picked up the jumbled shapes of the rubble filling the passageway. “We’re blocked off. Even if there’s anything left of my hiding place-which is a big if, given the pounding that was going on up there-we couldn’t get to it now. We’ll have to push on, and see if there’s some other way of getting out to the surface.”



A shiver of disgust ran across Neelah’s shoulders. The smell of rot was noticeably stronger toward the tunnel’s unlit end.



“Can he travel?” Dengar pointed toward Boba Fett.



“It would be better,” said SHSl-B, “from a ther apeutic standpoint, if he were left undisturbed.”