Coming August 29, 2006
from Del Rey Books

Atzerri system, ten standard years after the Yuuzhan Vong war: Slave I in pursuit of prisoner H’buk. Boba Fett’s private record.

“Whatever he’s paying you, Fett, I’ll double it,” says the voice on the comlink.

They say that a lot. They just don’t understand the nature of a contract. This time it’s an Atzerri glitterstim dealer called H’buk who’s overstepped the mark with the Traders’ Coalition to the tune of four hundred thousand credits. The coalition feels it’s worth paying me five hundred thousand credits to teach him—and everyone else—a lesson about honoring debts.

I agree with the Traders’ Coalition wholeheartedly.

“A contract’s a contract,” I tell him. Slave I is close enough on his trail for me to get a visual on him: I swear he’s flying an old Z-95 Headhunter. No hyperdrive, or he’d have jumped for it by now. And no wonder he’s surprised. An old, old Firespray like Slave I shouldn’t be able to catch him on sublight drive alone.

But I’ve fitted a few more…extras recently. The only completely original part of Slave I now is the seat I’m in.

“My laser cannon’s armed,” says H’buk, breathless.

“Good for you.” Why they always want a conversation, I’ll never know. Look, shoot or shut up; I know you’ll have to come about to target me with that cannon, and in that second or two I’ll take out your drives anyway. “The galaxy’s a dangerous place.”

The Headhunter executes a neat turn to port with its aft maneuvering jets and the Slave’s laser locks on to the Headhunter’s drive signature, matching its turns and loops with no need for guidance from me. His engine flares in a ball of white light. The fighter begins an uncontrolled roll and I have to gun it to get the tractor beam locked and haul H’buk in.

The grapple arms make a satisfying chunk-unkkkk against the Headhunter’s airframe as I secure the fighter against the casing above Slave’s torpedo launcher. The sound of that reverberating through your hull, I’m told, is just like a cell door closing behind you: the point at which prisoners lose all hope.

Funny; that would only make me fight harder.

H’buk is making the noises of panic and pleading that I hardly notice these days. Some prisoners are defiant, but most give in to fear. He makes me offers all the way back to Atzerri, promising anything to survive.

“I can pay you millions.”

The contract is to deliver him alive. It’s very specific.

“And my stock holdings in Kuat Drive Yards.”

I think it’s the silent routine that gets to them in the end.

“Fett, I have a beautiful daughter…”

He shouldn’t have said that. Now I’m angry, and I don’t often get angry. “Never use your kids, scumbag. Never.”

My father put me first. Any father should. Not that I ever felt pity—or anything—for H’buk, but I’m satisfied now that he deserves everything that the Traders’ Coalition is going to do to him. If I were the sympathetic kind, I’d kill him. I’m not. And the contract says alive.

“Want to negotiate a landing fee?” asks Atzerri Air Traffic Control.

“Want to negotiate an ion cannon?”

“Oh…apologies, Master Fett, sir…”

They always see my point.

Landing on Atzerri is a little tricky when you’re hauling a crippled fighter on your upperworks. I set Slave I down on the landing strip, lowering gently on the thrusters, feeling the aft section vibrating under the load. And I have an audience.

The coalition wants to show they can afford to hire the best to hunt down anyone who crosses them. I oblige. A bit of theater, a little public relations: like Mandalorian armor, it makes the point without a shot needing to be fired. I walk along Slave I’s casing to clamber up onto the Headhunter’s fuselage and crack open its canopy seal with the laser housed in my wrist gauntlet. So I hit H’buk harder than I need to, and haul him out of the cockpit to rappel down ten meters to the ground on the lanyard with him.

It hurts deep in my stomach. I don’t let anyone see that.

Then I deposit the prisoner on the landing strip in front of the men he owes four hundred thousand credits. It makes the point. I like making points. Presentation is half the battle.

“Want to keep the starfighter, too?” asks my customer.

“Not my taste.” The spaceport utility loader comes to remove it from Slave I. I hold out my palm: I want the rest of my fee.

He hands me the outstanding 250,000 creds on a verified chip. “Why do you still do this, Fett?”

“Because people still ask me.”

It’s a good question. I ponder it while I sit back in the cockpit and catch up with the financial headlines on the HoloNet news as Slave I heads for Kamino on autopilot. My doctor is meeting me there. He doesn’t like the long journey but I don’t pay him to be happy.

Now I find I’m thinking of a daughter—Ailyn—who I haven’t seen in fifty years, wondering if she’s still alive.

You see, I’m ill. I think I’m dying.

If I am, then there are things I’ve got to do. One of them is to find out what happened to Ailyn. Another is to decide who’s going to be Mandalore when I’m gone.

And the third, of course, is to cheat death.

I’ve had a lot of practice at that.