"Bossk, please...have a seat..." Ktar said, as she stood in the doorway.

Bossk looked at Mando, who slightly shrugged his shoulders.

I should never have taken this job, he thought.

Bossk looked around the room as if weighing his options and then sat down in the chair nearest Mando. Ktar walked into the room and angled an empty chair towards the two bounty hunters.

"Gentlemen" she said, "today is your lucky day. I have decided not to kill you, but in exchange you need to perform a ... task... for me. Thrawn needs to receive a message. He needs to know he has to give up trying obtain the black crystal. I had hoped that the elimination of his last team would be enough, but seeing you two here now, I know that I need to be more...direct." Ktar paused as she took in the reactions of both men before she continued "ideally I want him dead...and I would pay either of you handsomely to do that, but I also understand that to do that, on his own ship...well that might problematic. Instead you need to simply deliver that message to Thrawn...make him understand he will never get his hands..."

Bossk spoke up, cutting her off mid sentence. "Listen here Ktar. We aren't messengers. You want Thrawn to know something, you tell him yourself..."

Ktar smiled "You don't seem to know what kind of trouble you are in do you ? You could easily never leave this room. I'm giving you a chance to get out of this, and live to fight another day. Your options are small. Either deliver the message, tell Thrawn to back off and then take your chances with his reaction, or die here."

"We could simply tell you we are going to deliver the message, and then fly away far from both of you when we leave...whats to stop us doing that ?" Bossk pointed at Ktar as he asked the question, apparently pleased with himself with finding an alternative.

Ktar immediately retorted "Well. You could do that, but I would make it known that you had stolen the gem. I would put a huge bounty on both of your heads to reinforce my story, and when Thrawn finds out then he will no doubt do the same. You would spend the rest of your lives looking over your shoulder...our Mandalorian friend here may be able to escape that way, as I know you chose to tell Thrawn you would only handle the job yourself, presumably to keep the credits for yourself, but you Bossk...you will be a marked man".

Din shifted slightly in his chair as he heard this final piece of information

Interesting development.

Bossk looked at Ktar and then Mando, "You lie. Thrawn knows all about Mando here. I would never try to keep all of money for myself..."

This time it was Ktar who cut him off "you think I don't have friends in my cousins upper ranks ? I know everything that goes on. That's how I knew you were coming here...so whats it be ?"

Bossk looked at Mando, and then back to Ktar. "Seems we don't have much of a choice do we ?"

Ktar stood up. "Of course not. Come on then. Let's get you back to your ship..."

The three were greeted by the waiting shock troopers standing to attention in the corridor. Ktar addressed the same leader trooper that she had spoken to earlier "Take these two back to their ship.". The trooper nodded once and motioned with his gun for Bossk and Din to follow them.

Mando turned to Ktar "When are we going to get our weapons back ?"

Ktar sneered "Those are mine now. Call it a peace offering for insulting me earlier..." she said no more as she turned away and headed down the bright clean corridor.

Once they were back on the Hounds Tooth Bossk wasted no time in going through his pre flight checks. Mando stared out through the window towards the cave entrance. The starship lifted off. Bossk busied himself looking at the navigation display. "We will need to head to the nearest port to refill before we leave this planet" he said "then we need to find somewhere to lay low for a while - there's no way I'm going back to Thawn empty handed. This job was credits on completion, so I figure that since he hasn't lost anything that all we need to do hide away until his anger lessens..."

Mando spoke for the first time since they had got back on board "You will drop me off at the port, I'm not going anywhere with you. This is where we part ways. Thawn doesn't even know about me - I believed Ktar when she said that "

Bossk stared at him "Come on Mando, I was going to share the credits with you, no need to hold a grunge eh ? We make a good team me and you"

Mando looked back at the reptilian bounty hunter "You misunderstand. This isn't about the credits. This isn't even about you lieing this whole time. Ktar has my rifle...I'm not leaving without it, so I'm going to go and get it back..."