Outside this pod, he could hear muffled clanking and creaking sounds, as the Hound's machinery rotated the pod into eject position." Come on . . ." Bossk's voice grated in his throat. The devices clicked through their programming with a sickening lack of haste. The noises changed to grinding and scraping, the pod shuddering as though it were about to come to a halt without even leaving the Hound's Tooth behind. He had never used this escape pod before, and had even considered yanking it out of the ship as useless deadweight; his basic Trandoshan nature had always made it an instinctual response, to stand and fight rather than turn and run. Factoring Boba Fett into the equation, though, yielded a different result.
This pod at least had a viewport. Through the tiny aperture, barely the size of his hand, Bossk suddenly saw an expanse of stars; the launchport on the exterior of the Hound's hull must have finally irised open. His guess was confirmed when his spine was suddenly jammed back against the hatch behind him as an intense burst of thruster fire shot the pod out into space and away from the ship.
The stars shifted disorientingly in the viewport as the pod rolled to one side. Bossk wrapped his bare arms around the pressure duffel and ground his fangs together, fighting off the nausea evoked by the combination of random movements and the knot of fear at the base of his gut. Squeezing his eyes shut, he wondered what number the bomb's countdown had reached. Depending upon the amount and kind of explosives that Boba Fett had brought aboard the Hound's Tooth, and how fast this escape pod was hurtling through space, he still might not be in the clear; the bomb's explosion might wash over the pod like a planetary tidal wave, only of fire, not seawater. Bossk's claws curled into fists as he pictured himself being cooked inside the escape pod, like an unhatched egg being poached.
Wait a second. Another thought came to him. Boba Fett wasn't self-destructive; the other bounty hunter had undoubtedly gotten off the Hound's Tooth as soon as he had set the bomb ticking down to detonation. So his ship Slave I-the real Slave I, not the decoy that had given off the same ID profile-must still be in this immediate sector. And in range of an overlarge explosion. Bossk relaxed, letting his chest ease against the pressure duffel that he had wrapped himself around. That simple calculation dissipated some of the fear that had coiled around his spine. He wouldn't set off something, thought Bossk, that would kill him as well.
Another voice spoke aloud, in the confines of the escape pod." Five. . ."
Bossk's eyes snapped open. His grip on the duffel tightened as his gaze darted from one side of the escape pod to the other.
"Four," said the calm, familiar voice of the bomb.
Terror made the voice inside Bossk's head nearly as expressionless. It's in here. Boba Fett had planted the bomb inside the escape pod.
"Three. . ."
A surge of adrenaline coursed through the Trandoshan's body. He shoved the pressure duffel away from himself, cramming it against the concave side of the sphere. His claws raked across the pod's interior, scrabbling to find the explosive device. Something smaller than his own fist would be enough to reduce him and the surrounding metal to dissociated atoms. It's got to be here, he thought furiously, somewhere. . .
Hot sparks stung his face as he yanked handfuls of circuitry loose from the escape pod's minimal control banks. An air hose, jerked free from one of its sockets,
hissed and wavered in front of Bossk like an expiring snake. The stubby cylinders and curved module panels of the pod's auxiliary equipment battered against his forearms and chest as he swore and pulled at everything he could get his claws upon.
"Two. . ."
The unhurried voice came from a small blue cube that Bossk held between his hands. He knew that it was the bomb; it had been stuck to an atmosphere-scrubber grid with a spot of utility adhesive, not yet dry. Frantically, he looked about for some way to eject the box from the escape pod.
There wasn't any.
"One."
Inside the pod, the space was so tight that Bossk couldn't stretch his arms to full length. He shoved himself back against the ripped-apart junk, turned his face away-for all the good that would do-and thrust the bomb against the opposite side of the pod, near the tiny viewport.
Nothing happened.
He was still alive. Slowly, Bossk brought his gaze back around to the blue cube, held by his hands against the pod's curved wall. The device was silent, as though the last of its words had been drained from it. Clutching it in one hand, he drew it closer to himself and examined it.
One corner of the cube had popped open. Bossk cautiously inserted the point of one claw and pried it open.
Nothing inside-at least nothing that looked like an explosive charge. He peered into the empty space. The only contents were a miniaturized speaker and a few preprogrammed vocal circuits.
Bossk tossed the cube away from himself in disgust. It hadn't been a bomb at all. And he hadn't felt
the impact of a bomb, in the distance outside the escape pod, so there probably hadn't been one placed aboard the Hound's Tooth either, of any size or destructive capability. If he hadn't given in to panic and hadn't abandoned the Hound-if he had stayed there and had gone toe-to-toe with Boba Fett, he might have settled his accounts with his enemy once and for all, and still have been in possession of his own ship. Now where was he? Bossk's elbows rubbed uncomfortably against the cramped confines of the escape pod, made even more so by the bits and pieces jumbled around him now. At least he hadn't damaged anything essential, as far as he could tell; there was still air to breathe, and the pod's navigational circuits appeared to be in operative condition. They had already locked on to Tatooine, the nearest habitable destination; the planet's familiar image now filled the viewport. It wouldn't be too long before the pod would descend through the atmosphere and land somewhere on the surface. Probably, brooded Bossk, in some wasteland. That was how his luck seemed to be going. Then again, there wasn't much besides wasteland on Tatooine, so the chances of anything else weren't good.
As he shifted position inside the pod, the contents of the pressure duffel poked him in the ribs. At least he had managed to get some things off the Hound's Tooth; valuable things. It was comforting to know that fear hadn't wiped out every other instinct inside his head. His natural Trandoshan greed had remained functioning. Whether he would be able to profit from what he'd salvaged-that remained to be seen.
He reached over and picked up the blue cube, the fake bomb that was mercifully silent now. Other emotions welled up inside Bossk as he gazed at the object resting in the palm of his clawed hand. A perpetual anger, which he always felt when he thought about Boba Fett, was once again renewed in the dark reaches of his heart.
It had been one thing to scare Bossk off his own ship; that was a strategic gambit, worthy of the master that all the rest of the universe conceded Fett to be. But to stick this prankster module, this talking dud, inside the escape pod, just to rattle an opponent's head . . .
That was just plain sadistic.
Bossk crushed the empty blue cube into the center of his fist, then tossed it aside again. He wrapped his scaly arms around his legs and rested his chin against his knees. As the surface details of Tatooine grew larger in the viewport, Bossk's thought turned ever darker and more murderous.
Next time, he vowed. And there will be one. . .
On the great list of grievances that he kept next to his heart, every one with Boba Fett's name attached, another entry had been made.
2
"You let him get away."
Neelah turned from the viewport of Slave I's cockpit. In the distance beyond, the escape pod with the bounty hunter Bossk aboard had been a point of light dwindling among the stars, then lost beyond the curve of the planet to which it was headed.