[Bounty Hunter Wars] - 01(80)

Zuckuss had taken a cautious step closer in the Slave I’s hold. He’d known that D’harhan wasn’t so much asleep as just partially shut down, conserving energy for the ever-alert weapon above his torso, its glowing lights a simple constellation in the darkness. A residual circuit was triggered by Zuckuss’s approach; one of the black-gloved hands turned the illuminated screen of

the keyboard voice box outward. do not disturb me, read the screen, its audio function switched off. leave me be. Like a sleeping dragon in a cave, the fiery destruction of its breath only smoldering …



The silent warning had been enough; Zuckuss had been only too happy to retreat to the ladder leading back to the

Slave

Fs

cockpit. The dark, somnolent,

yet threatening form of the creature who had turned himself into a weapon aroused mingled dread and nausea inside Zuckuss. Once, before he’d decided to become a bounty hunter himself, he’d caught a fleeting glimpse of Darth Vader, the Dark Lord of the Sith, commanding a punitive sweep of Imperial stormtroopers across the capital city of a world that had been slow to pay obeisance to the distant Emperor Palpatine. The thought had struck him then, as it did again now, that there were some paths one could follow, where even if one wound up powerful beyond one’s dreams, one also became somehow diminished, as though

the

essence hidden inside the armor

were progressively stripped away and replaced with unfeeling metal and circuitry.



That was all too deep to think about, especially now, when he had allied himself with creatures like Boba Fett and D’harhan. Maybe later, Zuckuss had mused as he’d climbed the ladder to the cockpit. If there was a later.



“I

don’t get that voice-box device he

carries around.” Zuckuss nodded toward the ladder and the hold below.

“Seems kind of awkward. I would’ve thought something that left his hands free would be more useful for communicating.”



“D’harhan doesn’t have a lot of need

for

com municating.” Boba Fett’s voice sounded dryly amused. “And before, when there were others like him, they coordinated their actions with their own internal comm network.”



“There

were others? Like him?” That

seemed

a dismaying prospect to Zuckuss. “What happened to them?”



Fett made no reply.



Zuckuss tried another question. “What was he like before?” He didn’t even feel like saying the other’s name aloud. “Before he became … what he is now?”



“That’s none of your business.” Boba Fett didn’t take his eyes away from the Slave I’s controls. “He’s been as he is for a long time. If you never knew of D’harhan before, it’s because he minds his own business, in regions of the galaxy where such as you never travel.” Fett glanced over his shoulder at Zuckuss. “For which you should be grateful.”



The

discussion

of the final team

member

was concluded; Zuckuss knew better than to ask any more prying questions. I’ll be glad when this fob is over, he thought ruefully. Things had been getting increasingly sticky back at the Bounty Hunters Guild, with its rapidly thickening air of conspiracy and stealth, the various backstabbing

alliances forming and

dissolving

and recoalescing with new partners and enemies on a daily, even hourly basis. Going on this Oph Nar Dinnid job, dangerous as the Shell Hutts’ defenses were reputed to be, seemed like a piece of baked confectionery by comparison. But even here, in the starless void of hyperspace,

Zuckuss

knew he

was

still

in

the uncomfortable midst of those dangerous spiderwebs; all it would take would be for Bossk or Boba Fett to find out that he was working from Cradossk’s agenda, and he’d be pitched out into vacuum from either the Slave Fs or the Hound’s waste chute, boots first. Agreeing to Cradossk’s schemes was beginning to look like less of a good deal now that Zuckuss was out here, with nothing to count on but his own smarts and urge to survive.



“Stop fidgeting.” Boba Fett spoke without looking around at Zuckuss. “Brace yourself; we’re about to drop into sublight space.”



Zuckuss was already familiar with the Slave I’s abrupt navigational transitions; Fett’s working vessel was stripped of any deceleration buffers that might have impaired its speed or fighting abilities. The ship consequently slammed from one transit mode to another with a gut-wrenching impact. Zuckuss grabbed either side of the hatchway and averted his lidless eyes so he wouldn’t have to see the stars blur sicken-ingly into focus beyond the cockpit’s main viewport.