[Bounty Hunter Wars] - 01(93)

“We’re not hungry,” said Boba Fett. “Not for anything that you’re likely to serve.”



“Ah-I think otherwise, my dear Fett. This meal is one that I’ve been preparing for a long time; a very long time. Since the last time you were here on Circumtore, and things went less than graciously… for some of us.”



“More complaints.” The immense Shell Hutt-his name, Fett remembered, was Nullada-rolled his yellow eyes beneath his brow’s folded and sagging pouches. “Nothing but complaints,” he rumbled oleaginously. “You’ve been obsessed for too long a time, Gheeta. Perhaps you should be relieved of even those duties that you’ve retained this far so that you could take a long rest to clear your mind.”



A flash of anger showed in Gheeta’s face, like a lightning stroke in storm-heavy clouds. The crablike mechanical hands locked their claws together, as though preventing themselves from slashing a set of parallel bloodied furrows down the older and larger Shell Hutt’s face.



“I’ve had time enough.” Gheeta’s voice was a snarling whine. “But let’s not waste any more of it. Come along, then.”

Even

with just his own jowl-wrapped

face protruding from the collar of his floating cylinder, the effort required to regain control was visible. The cylinder turned slightly, angling toward the center of the great reception hall, where more of the Shell Hutts’ encased

forms

jostled around a rectangular

dais, surrounded on all sides by low, concentric

steps. “Everything has been placed in readiness for you.” The claws unclasped, allowing one of them to make a sweeping gesture toward the dais. “Shall we?”



Boba

Fett didn’t feel like making any

further conversation with their host. He led the way toward the dais, letting the other members of the bounty-hunter team fall in behind. There were enough reflective surfaces scattered

throughout the space, beams of

polished durasteel supporting the domed roof above, that he could see Bossk and the droid IG-88 following his quick stride, with the Trandoshan glaring with suspicion and enmity at every one of the bobbing and floating Shell Hutts. Behind that pair, the massive shape of D’harhan trod heavily, the inert laser cannon still impressive in its glistening darkness, like an emblem of latent destruction wrapped in trails of hissing steam.



At Fett’s elbow, Zuckuss trotted to keep up with him. “I don’t like the looks of this,” panted the shorter bounty hunter. “I don’t like the looks of this one bit-“



He knew just what Zuckuss was talking about. Around the sides of the great reception hall, from alcoves and corridors branching off the central space, other figures had



appeared,

ones

that

weren’t

Shell

Hutts. “Mercenaries,”

said Boba Fett quietly.

In

black, insignialess uniforms, armed and watching; if he’d wanted to, he could very likely have identified more than a few of them from past encounters. There was always a loose assemblage of thugs and venal murderers, varying in number and quality, depending mainly upon who had been killed recently and to a lesser degree upon who was rotting away in the galaxy’s various penal institutions, shifting back and forth among the less civilized worlds, finding employment as enforcers and private hit men. The Shell Hutts’ distant species relation, the notorious Jabba on backwater Tatooine, usually paid the highest wages and got the pick of the lot, the quickest with their chosen weapons and the least encumbered by scruples about what kind of jobs they took care of for their employer. “What else,” Fett asked Zuckuss, “did you expect?”



“This many?” Still at Boba Fett’s side, Zuckuss quickly scanned the perimeter of the great reception hall. “There must be a couple dozen of them. At least.” He took another count, looking past the raised dais in the middle of the space. “Maybe fifty of ‘em-“



“Gheeta told us that he’d been preparing for this for a long time.” Without turning his visored helmet, Boba Fett had taken his own estimate of the forces arrayed along the hall’s perimeter. “He’s obviously called in a lot of favors.” This much firepower didn’t come cheap; most of the mercenaries cradled late-model blaster rifles against their chests; Gheeta must have provided the weapons, as they were obviously more expensive than the usual cheap and nasty-if lethally efficient-gear with which mercenaries usually kitted themselves. These types disgusted Fett; they took no real pride in

their equipment, the tools of their trade; if they did, they wouldn’t spend so much of their ill-gotten pay on their own bad habits. “He couldn’t pay for all this himself,” continued Boba Fett aloud. “Gheeta must’ve gone into major hock with his other clan members.”