“Deevee is still doing work at the Galactic Research Academy,” Hoole said. “I am sure he will have access to the-“
An alarm bleeped softly on the control board. Hoole studied the scanners and frowned.
“What is it?” Zak asked.
“There is a ship behind us,” Hoole said. “It left Nar Shaddaa just as we did, and it seems to be following us.”
“An Imperial ship?” Tash asked tensely.
Zak looked at the scanner, which gave a general outline of the ship behind them. “Doesn’t look like it. It’s too
small.
And-this
is weird-according to the scanners, there are no life-forms aboard.”
“Then how can it be following us?” Tash wondered.
“I do not know,” the Shi’ido said. “However, it makes
little difference. We are ready to make the jump to hyperspace. No one will be able to follow us then.”
With a few quick motions, Hoole entered the proper commands, and the Shroud lurched forward. The stars turned into white streaks as the ship thundered into hyperspace.
“There,” Hoole said, getting out of the pilot’s seat. “We are safe. The coordinates are set and Koaan is not far from here. Let’s go to the lounge and get something to eat.”
Zak and Tash followed their uncle into the central room of the Shroud. It was a small common room with several seats where they ate their meals and where Tash and Zak played hologames.
As they entered the room, the door to a small storage closet slid open and an armored figure stepped out. Tash, Zak, and Hoole recognized him instantly. They’d met him before.
It was Boba Fett.
CHAPTER 2
The bounty hunter moved smoothly and efficiently, with incredible speed. Before they could blink, a thick cable lashed out from a device on Fett’s wrist and wrapped itself around Hoole, pinning his arms to his sides.
In the same motion, Fett brought his other hand up. A flash of light blinded Zak and Tash, and Zak felt his arms and legs go limp. As he hit the floor, Zak thought he was dying. Then he realized that he could still see-he just couldn’t move.
Boba Fett had hit him with some kind of stun bolt.
The bolt must have missed Tash, because she was still on her feet. She jumped behind a lounge chair as Fett fired again. The stun bolt sputtered against the seat and vanished.
By that time Hoole had recovered from his initial shock. The Shi’ido started to quiver, and shapeshifted into a creature that looked like a serpent with a collar of bright feathers. The serpent slithered away, and Fett’s capture cable fell limply to the floor. Fett swung his blaster around to shoot Hoole, but the feathered serpent had slipped down the corridor that led to the sleeping cabins.
Fett took one step down the corridor, and something small and hard ricocheted off the back of his helmet. Fett whirled and fired as the small object was still bouncing away in midair.
A drinking cup, struck by Fett’s blaster bolt, shattered into a thousand pieces.
Another drinking cup leaped off a shelf and flew toward the bounty hunter. This time, Fett simply swatted it aside with the back of his hand.
Tash was using the Force again. Zak knew she couldn’t do much against a killer like Boba Fett. She wasn’t strong enough in the Force to throw anything really heavy at him. But at least she was doing something. He, on the other hand, felt totally useless.
Fett’s helmeted head swiveled from the corridor where Hoole had disappeared, to the chair that Tash was hiding behind. The bounty hunter was trying to decide which prey to capture first. He never bothered to look at Zak, who had already been taken out of action.
Finally, Fett spoke. “Surrender now and I won’t kill you,” his hard, cold voice rasped. “You’re worth more to me alive. Fight, and you’ll die.”
“Leave us alone!” Tash yelled from behind her chair.
Fett ignored her. “Surrender. You are unarmed.”
As if to prove him wrong, a blaster bolt sizzled out of the hallway and glanced off the bounty hunter’s armored shoulder. The force of the blow spun Fett around, and immediately the bounty hunter dove for cover. He pressed himself against one wall, out of sight of the corridor.
“Armed,” Fett muttered to himself. “Not in the profile.”
Zak would have smiled if his muscles hadn’t been frozen by the stun bolt. Hoole was using the blaster he’d taken from the other bounty hunter.
“Last chance,” Fett shouted down the corridor. “Surrender or die.”
“Leave the ship!” Hoole ordered back from his hiding place.
“You’ve made your choice,” Fett replied.
Still holding his blaster in one hand, the killer pointed his other arm down the hallway. There was a wrist rocket attached to his glove. The rocket flared and then shrieked as it hurtled down the corridor.