"All right." She barely managed to control her anger." You have my apologies." Neelah would have liked to have given him more than that, and hard enough to hurt." I don't doubt a single thing you tell me." For the time being, she promised herself. But before the Hound's Tooth reached wherever Boba Fett was taking them, she needed to have more hard information. She wasn't sure she'd find out what she needed from this complicated history of the war among the bounty hunters, but right now it was her only lead." So why don't you go ahead and tell me the rest of what happened?"
"Maybe later." Dengar stretched out on the floor, tucking the wadded-up duffel behind his head." I'm exhausted." His eyes closed." Besides-I don't feel like wearing my throat out, telling old stories to unappreciative brats. Especially sarcastic ones."
The urge to violence nearly overwhelmed her. Her eyes narrowed as she gazed at Dengar, either already asleep or pretending to be. A swift kick to the head would either wake him up or put him out for good. It's tempting, thought Neelah.
With the last vestige of self-control, she decided on another course of action. With a final withering glance at the recumbent figure of Dengar, Neelah turned and started up the ladder to the ship's cockpit.
He heard someone coming up, from the ship's main hold below. There was no need for Boba Fett to turn away from the navigation controls of the Hound's Tooth; the mere sound of the steps upon the ladder's treads, lighter than they would have been for the other bounty hunter Dengar, indicated which of the ship's passengers it was.
"So where are we?" Just as he had figured: the female Neelah's voice spoke from behind him." Still out in the middle of nowhere? Or are we getting close to this mysterious destination we're supposed to be heading toward?"
There was an obvious level of irritation in her voice. Boba Fett turned his visored gaze away from the cockpit's viewport and glanced over his shoulder at her." It's a good thing," he said with deliberate mildness," that you're not planning on going into the bounty hunter trade anytime soon. For us, patience isn't just a virtue-it's a necessity. If you rush your shot, you can wind up in a galaxy of trouble."
"I'll try to remember that." Neelah stood in the cockpit's hatchway; a simmering anger, barely controlled, showed in her dark eyes." I'll tuck it away with all the other free advice everyone's been giving me. Since that seems to be all that I get around here." Her expression darkened." Or anywhere else, for that matter."
The female's bad mood reminded Boba Fett that there were definite advantages to transporting hard merchandise, the kind of sentient creatures that bounties had been posted on. Those, thought Fett, you can always throw into a holding cage. There was never any question of who was in charge, not just in the big things but right down to the smallest details. The situation was a little more confused with Neelah; at some point, he was likely to need her cooperation. Even when she had been a dancing girl in Jabba the Hurt's palace, she had still retained some of the haughty personality traits that had been part of her former highborn social position. Those ran so deep that not even the most thorough memory wipe could root them out. So now, if she were to develop a grudge against him, getting her back on his side might take some considerable doing. Rules out the cage, decided Fett.
There were other considerations as well that he had to take into account. Neelah was already starting to piece together the tantalizing, infuriating fragments of memory that had been left to her. Dengar had told him all that she had talked about, back in the cavern hiding place on Tatooine; things that Dengar himself did not know the significance of-but Fett did.
Nil Posondum, thought Boba Fett. She had remembered that name. Fett wasn't surprised. That former accountant, who had then become hard merchandise in Slave I's holding cage, was the key to all that had happened to Neelah. If she were to connect that memory fragment with the enigmatic message that Posondum had scratched into the metal floor of the holding cage, a great many mysteries would be resolved for her.
Boba Fett wasn't ready for that to happen; not yet, at least. The scratched message no longer existed, except as an image that had been inside Slave I's onboard databanks, that had now been transferred here on the Hound's Tooth. The image, and the information in the scratched message, was still safely locked up. And that was how it was going to remain.
In the meantime, though, he had one seriously annoyed female standing in front of him.
"It's too bad," said Boba Fett," that you've had your fill of good advice. Because I was just about to give you some more."
"Yeah?" Leaning against the side of the hatchway, Neelah raised a skeptical eyebrow." What is it?"
"Simple. Take it easy. We've got a long way to go yet, and there's a lot that can happen at the other end. So you should relax while you can."
"Oh." Neelah gave a slow nod, as though thinking it over." Really? That's what you do? 'Relax'?" The next sound she made was a short, scornful laugh." The only time I ever saw you relax was when you were unconscious, right after you got vomited up by that Sarlacc beast. If that's what you mean by relaxing, it doesn't seem like such a good idea."
If he had been capable of amusement, the female's comment might have done the job." That wasn't relaxing," said Boba Fett." That was dying." And it would have ended with his death, lying there half-digested on the hot sands of Tatooine's Dune Sea, if it hadn't been for both her and Dengar. Owing anything, let alone one's life, to another creature was a new experience for him. How to pay off debts such as those was a problem he was still thinking about. Without that consideration, he would undoubtedly have been harsher toward the other passengers aboard the Hound's Tooth.
"Maybe," mused Neelah," I just don't know what a creature like you considers 'relaxing. ' I guess killing other creatures is something that suits you."
"Not as much as getting paid for it."
Neelah fell silent for a few moments. Turning away from her and back toward the cockpit's control panel, Boba Fett made a few more navigational calculations. As he had anticipated, Bossk's former ship was neither as technologically advanced nor as well maintained as his own ship Slave I. That sloppiness had taken him a while to get used to, and it still irritated him. He found it little wonder that Bossk had never been able to reach the top of the bounty hunter trade; the Trandoshan had tried to substitute sheer ruthlessness and violence for careful planning and investment in equipment. That never works, Boba Fett told himself. Ruthlessness and violence were necessary, all right; they just weren't enough.
The female's voice broke into his thoughts." Maybe I'd be able to relax, if I could break open your head."
Boba Fett didn't look around at her." What's that supposed to mean?"
"You heard me. I wish I could crack that helmet of yours as though it were an egg." Neelah's words turned vehement." I'm sorry I didn't take my chance when you were lying there on your deathbed. Then I could have cracked open your skull as well, and I could've found out what I need to know. About myself."
"That may not be what you want at all. Especially when you do find out." Fett lifted his shoulders in a minimal shrug." It might not be to your liking."
"Those chances," said Neelah," I'd rather take. Instead of not finding out."
"Don't worry about it. You'll find out soon enough."
Neelah's voice turned ominously quiet." I'd rather not wait."
She managed to take him by surprise. Boba Fett had reached out across the controls, to access the navicomputer display positioned awkwardly high on the cockpit panel. He felt a slight, almost imperceptible tug at the equipment belt of his Mandalorian battle armor. That alone was enough of a signal to trigger his turning sharply about in the pilot's chair to face Neelah.