"Time can be a precious commodity." Kuat smoothed his hands out against the seat arms." You buy as much of it as you can, whenever possible."
"Very wise, Kuat of Kuat. I'll try to remember that." The sympathetic look appeared again in Kodir's eyes." It seems a shame, then, that all those clever plans didn't work out. And that you and Kuat Drive Yards would have been better off if they hadn't even been attempted."
"True. It shows that one cannot guard against every contingency. I had thought that Xizor was the one whose machinations I had most to fear. And then it turned out that Xizor had been his own worst enemy; his cleverness and ruthlessness only succeeded in getting himself killed. Too bad he couldn't have done that before I manufactured the false evidence against him."
With one hand, Kodir touched him lightly on the shoulder." Now it's your life that's in danger, Kuat of Kuat; your life and everything you value. Your cleverness is turned against you, like a dagger against your breast. If Emperor Palpatine were to come into possession of that manufactured evidence, he would know immediately that it was false; he already knows that the late Prince Xizor had nothing to do with that raid on the moisture farm on Tatooine. So he would hunt for whoever had falsified the evidence-and it would inevitably be traced back to you, Kuat." She slowly shook her head." It's not likely that the Emperor would look with forgiveness upon those kinds of schemes taking place under his very nose. He will extract a high price from the perpetrator. And get two things thereby: vengeance. . . and Kuat Drive Yards for himself."
The latter was the only thing that mattered to Kuat; he cared nothing for his own life. Machines break and rust, he mused, and beings die. Only those greater entities that built machines and that beings served and died for had a chance of surviving in this universe. The thought that his own hands and mind would be the instruments that brought about the destruction of his beloved Kuat Drive Yards-that set a raging spirit loose inside him. Kuat of Kuat had already vowed that, one way or another, he would make sure that Emperor Palpatine never held this corporation in his foul clutches.
"You have a most excellent understanding of my situation," said Kuat aloud." I congratulate you,
Kodir of Kuhlvult. Your information sources-and your clever brain-have served you well." Carefully, so that his movements would not be discerned, Kuat reached one hand down into a small storage pocket at the side of the personal transport's passenger seat." You do indeed have much to bargain with, to insure my assistance in tracking down this sister of yours who has strayed so mysteriously from her home-world." The puzzle of how a daughter of one of the planet Kuat's ruling households could have wound up a dancing girl in Jabba the Hutt's palace was one that intrigued him. Kuat imagined he might look into it someday. But he had other business to take care of right now; his hand closed around a grip of cold metal." But as you say, I need to eliminate any evidence that would damn me in the eyes of Emperor Palpatine; even evidence that I was responsible for creating." He pulled the blaster pistol from the seat's storage pocket, brought it up, and aimed it straight between the eyes of the female sitting next to him." Consider yourself honored that you'll be the first evidence that I'll have taken care of. Really-you know too much for me to let you go on living."
She moved faster than Kuat could ever have expected. Faster, and smarter. Kodir didn't try to make a grab for the weapon, or duck out of the way of its lethal beam; caught in the confines of her passenger seat, she would have had no chance of accomplishing either before a laser bolt had scorched its path through her skull. Instead, she slammed the butt of one hand against the thin structural panel just ahead of the seats that divided the passenger area from the transport's cockpit. That motion was just enough to instinctively draw Kuat's sight for a microsecond, and away from her. Before he could snap his gaze back to
Kodir, her other hand had grabbed the front of the torn, bloodstained formal robes that he was still wearing. She didn't try to thrust him away or knock the blaster out of his hand; she pulled Kuat toward herself. The press of their bodies together forced his pinioned arm upward; the hand holding the blaster jerked toward the ceiling of the passenger area. He managed to get off one shot before her other forearm clubbed him across the neck and the side of his jaw. The blow was strong enough to lift him partway out of the seat; dazed, Kuat barely managed to keep himself from toppling into the passenger area's narrow aisle.
The personal transport's alarm sirens wailed as Kuat shook his eyesight back into focus. When his vision cleared, he saw Kodir holding the blaster pistol and a charred, ragged-edged hole drilled through the ceiling panel.
"What's going on?" The pilot's urgent voice came over the transport's internal communications system." Technician, are you all right? Answer and confirm-"
"I'm fine," Kuat responded. He pulled himself back the rest of the way into his passenger seat and flopped down into its padding." We just had a little accident. Nothing to worry about." The bolt from the blaster, though lethal, hadn't been powerful enough to pierce the transport's hull. With one hand, Kuat tentatively rubbed his bruised jaw." Carry on."
"We're just approaching the docking area. We'll be down and secured in a minute." The pilot's voice clicked off.
From where she sat, Kodir didn't bother holding the blaster on Kuat. The weapon sat loosely in her palm as she regarded him.
"I think," said Kodir," we understand each other better now."
"Yes. . ." Kuat slowly nodded. The whole side of his jaw ached." We certainly do. . ."
The personal transport docked. Summoned by Kuat, a pair of administrators from the corporation's security division accompanied their new head of operations to her offices. Kodir's duties were to begin immediately.
Even before he had returned to his private quarters and was alone again, his thoughts had returned to the same track as before. In the diminished light of the stars beyond Kuat Drive Yards, Kuat of Kuat returned the heavy formal robes to their stand and thought of the bounty hunter Boba Fett.
The key, mused Kuat of Kuat. He is still the key. . .
To the present and the future-if there was going to be one-of Kuat Drive Yards. And to that past that now seemed more mysterious than it had before.
Kuat sat down in the chair by his lab bench. The felinx jumped into his lap, and he stroked its silken fur, his musings distant in both space and time.
In darkness, he thought about the bounty hunter and the past.
15
"So how do you think the job went?"
The Trandoshan bounty hunter Bossk stood at the rear of Slave I's cockpit, watching its owner and pilot make adjustments to its course and waiting for an answer. The cockpit's space was so cramped that the upper curve of its bulkheads pressed against Bossk's scale-covered shoulders.
Boba Fett's visored gaze turned round from the ship's controls." I see no need," he said evenly," for any kind of postmortem analysis on this operation. And 'postmortem' is an inaccurate figure of speech. We got the hard merchandise we came for, and" - even hidden by the helmet of the Mandalorian battle armor, Fett's glance seemed to sharpen-" nobody died in the process."
That's a judgment call, thought Bossk grumpily. If neither he nor Boba Fett had been killed while capturing the renegade Imperial stormtrooper Trhin Voss'on't, they had come as close to it as possible without actually winding up as blank-eyed corpses on that crummy mining planet they had just left. After Voss'on't's unconscious body had been dumped in one of the hold