Chapter III:

Larrallna Frrecóusé tried to sit very still as Merrellá slowly and carefully slid the delicate comb into her pale blue hair. It hurt, a lot, and Larrallna blinked her light purple eyes rapidly to keep from crying. She couldn't cry in front of Merrellá. The kind nanny would think her a coward, if just some uncomfortable hair made her cry. She was the daughter of a very important family. She had to be brave—she was special, a Frrecóusé. In fact, she had finally been allowed to go to one of daddy's business meetings. Not the whole thing, of course, just the dinner. Some deals, Larrallna knew, were furthered much more in the quiet, comfortable talk around dreeg' steaks and cooln platter than ever happened over bargaining tables.

And she was allowed to go to one! Daddy had made her promise to be on her very best behavior, and she would. If she wasn't, she'd get in really big trouble. Daddy was involved in really delicate negotiations now. This was the first time Larrallna was allowed to even be in the same room while they were talking about deals. She was so happy; she'd be especially careful not to embarrass daddy. Merrellá had said that daddy was talking with people about something to do with Black Sun. Larrallna didn't know much about Black Sun, but she knew that they were bad people, people that would want to hurt her daddy. Maybe daddy was talking with people that could get rid of Black Sun for him. After all, nasty people shouldn't be around to hurt nice people like her daddy.

"All right, child, you are ready. Go to you father now. See if he approves of you."

"Yes, Merrellá!" Larrallna answered and jumped down from the stool. She hurried off to find daddy. She hoped he liked how her new dress looked on her. It was one that daddy had gotten for her, after a business trip that she wasn't allowed to come on. Larrallna knocked on the door of her daddy's study and waited. She crossed her fingers behind her back, for luck. Daddy could be hard to please sometimes. She really hoped he thought she looked all right in her new dress.

The door swished open, not quite soundlessly. Daddy had taken precautions, he said, making sure that nobody could sneak up on anyone in his house and hurt them. He said Black Sun would, if they could, and Black Sun was bad people. Larrallna was glad that her daddy was so smart. She wasn't even startled anymore when the doors made noises like that.

Her daddy leaned out carefully, then, seeing Larrallna, smiled broadly.

"Hello, daddy," she spoke carefully, annunciating each word clearly, "I am ready if you are satisfied with me."

He made a show of scrutinizing her up and down, carefully. "Hmm. Well…It's not perfect," he winked at her, "but it'll do, I suppose. I don't know…maybe I should just send her back and get a new one…"

"Da-ddy!" she squealed and he laughed powerfully. The thin, immaculate man smiled broadly and bent down, scooping his daughter up into his arms.

"Alright, duchess, let's come in. I'll tell you all about the person coming for dinner…" He carried her in, rumpling her dress beyond repair short of a steaming press, talking happily all the while about the business associate Larrallna would soon meet, gaining squeals of delight every few minutes, alternated with irritated "da-ddy"s from his little girl.

* * *

Boba Fett's boots clanked on the metal treads as he climbed down the ladder. The merchandise cowered in its cage. Fett ignored it as he strode to the storage compartment in the Slave I. His gloved hand depressed the hidden catch—Fett didn't worry about his merchandise, it wouldn't notice—and the small drawers popped open enough that Fett could pull one of them out. He opened the secret compartment in the side and slipped out a small comm. The comm carried with it a promise of certain death if it were used. He turned on one booted heel and returned to the cockpit of his ship. He ignored the merchandise's pleas as he strode past it. This one would be no trouble. It was too weak to try anything like suicide.

Fett sat in the pilot's chair in the small, cramped cockpit. It was only large enough for one person, him—and he was the only one who would ever need to enter it. Anyone else on the ship would be staying in the holding cage. Once, it had been made for more people. Once, more than he had occupied it…but that was in the past. The past that did not have anything to do with the present. And so it was ignored.

Fett activated the comm unit he had…procured from Black Sun. They hadn't even noticed its vanishing act. Stupid of them, thought Fett disdainfully. But it was fine for Boba Fett. The comm had a long string of digits to get past the security measures, but he'd cracked them long ago. Fett entered the numbers from memory—on matters like this, his memory was infallible.

"Yes, my lord?" the comm buzzed with static, a fallback to the extensive scrambling.

The technician's voice was hardly recognizable as speaking Basic. Fett's would be equally unrecognizable. But precautions were always necessary. Boba Fett reached up and fiddled with the controls on his helmet's vox-synthesizer. His voice, when he spoke, sounded odd, high-pitched, and buzzing. "Change of plans. We've been discovered. Drop off the…baggage, and get back to your base immediately."

"Yes my lord…but, which base would you like us to return to?"

Obviously, Fett's venture was working out. The bounty hunter stayed silent a moment, pondering, then took a gamble. "The one in the Snnthros system."

"Yes, my lord." Fett clicked off the comm and looked sharply at it a moment. Good. It was not a single use comm. It probably didn't have much range thanks to all the scrambling, but it had sufficed this time. Boba Fett returned his vox speaker to its normal levels and returned to the holding area. He paused a moment before slipping the comm back into its drawer. It had served its purpose well enough, but it now posed a risk of detection. If Xixor realized what had happened, he might possibly think to trace all his private comms, or figure out who had the missing one. Xixor quite probably would, and that meant he might be able to find where Fett was. He shut the drawer and walked back towards the ladder. It was a large risk, but Fett had taken many. And this was Xixor. The man might be the head of Black Sun, but the Dark Prince was a fool. A dangerous fool, Boba Fett reminded himself. Underestimating ones enemy could be very dangerous. Which is why I won't underestimate him… The way Xixor was acting, that shouldn't be a problem for some time to come.

* * *

This was unheard of. But if it'll get me off this rock any sooner, splendid. Black Sun had pulled his team off Drusakk way ahead of time. And told them to drop off the "baggage" right away. Well, good, Grru thought, it was getting annoying anyway. Time to tell the rest of the team. "Quelrr, Frrían, Herrk, time to pull out." Grru's teammates stared at him in shocked surprise.

"What?" Frrían, the team's computer whiz, seemed even more incredulous. "Time to go? But we aren't done!"

Grru fixed her with a scathing glare. "Oh, sure, I'm gonna tell Prince Xixor that we can't leave yet, because we're 'not done' here. Come on! He knows that! He told us to leave, geniuses, so he thinks we're done, duh." Grru gave a ludicrous shake of his head; "His Highness obviously knows something we don't. If he didn't, we might as well be running the show!"

"P-prince Xixor himself called? B-by comm? But th-that's unheard of! Our mission is so-so unimportant! And it's not even done! How— "

Grru looked at Frrían as if she'd lost her mind. "Come on. Of course our mission's done! If His Highness's telling us that's it, then we did all we were really supposed to do."

"Ah. Ahumm." Quelrr seemed to have gotten it quicker than anyone else had. "Our mission perhaps was open not so much as thought we had. Something else done we did. Supposed to we were. Or elsewhere are we needed."

"Good point." Once he'd figured out Quelrr's odd talk out, he had to admit that she might be right. Grru hadn't even thought that maybe Prince Xixor would be sending in someone less talented to do the rest of the job while they were off doing something else.

"Or perhaps not enough good were we. Some one better sending they maybe."

Trust Quelrr to make a low point like that, just when Grru was thinking that maybe he'd done something really good. That was her all over.

"Point moot it is. Leave we quickly must what no matter." Quelrr had another point there.

It didn't pay to keep Black Sun waiting anytime—least of all when the Head Honcho himself had given the orders. "Pack it up people. We're moving out." Though of course, none of those ideas explained why they were dropping the "baggage" here and leaving it. But, as he himself had pointed out, if they knew as much as Prince Xixor did, they might as well be in charge of the organization. Anyway, as Quelrr had said, it didn't really matter. It was enough that they were getting off this mud-ball and back into the action.

It was time to go.

* * *

Fett checked his sources. Even though he knew they wouldn't be fool enough to disobey an order from Xixor, it always paid to check. They wouldn't want to make their Dark Prince angry—but by obeying their orders, that was exactly what they would do. Xixor would probably never know who it was that had betrayed him. But in this business, trusting a probably was as good as putting a blaster to your head and pulling the trigger. Most likely worse even. Death wasn't courted lightly by many, but there was a great deal of things worse than dying.

Which, if things went well, someone would be doing in half a timepart. Fett plotted his course trajectory into hyperspace, preparing to go make certain that one loose link was destroyed—turning the probably into an almost-certainty. Still, Fett thought, better not to count on that. Doing so would only make the game deadlier to play than it was already. But games like this…that's where the money is. Fett nodded slowly, alone in the silence of hyperspace. That was certainly true. The more dangerous the prey, the larger the payoff.

And this payoff will be big indeed.

* * *

Guri, the human replica droid, looked at her terminal with something approaching annoyance. The reports were not favorable. Her master would not be pleased when he heard this. Frrecóusé Inc. wasn't responding in the way she had planned. True, she had not managed to kill the head of their corporation, but still with such high-level members gone, they should at least be worried. And they should be paying more attention to Black Sun's displeasure. It was almost as if they didn't care. Prince Xixor would be even more upset at the bounty hunter Boba Fett's refusal now.

Had she been a living creature, she might have sensed fear at going back to report such an unfavorable circumstance. As it was, she was not looking forward to it. Her master would be most displeased with her performance. Guri rolled her "eyes"—optical sensors designed to look like real human eyes—with exasperation. Here was another piece of bad news.

The team they had stationed on Drusakk had disappeared. That was interesting. From these data sketches, they all appeared to be loyal, unimaginative, simple workers for Black Sun. Not at all the sort one would expect to disobey orders from their superiors. This could bear some further investigating. Something wasn't right here…

As a droid, Guri didn't suffer from things such as hunches or intuition, but something in her cerebral processor was telling her that something was definitely up with this. Hmm. That could merit some introspection. Guri had never heard of anything of this sort happening to a fellow droid, but she was unique among droids. The only HRD ever made, thanks to the untimely death of her creator, courtesy Black Sun's "repayment" forces. A very secretive group, especially about certain items. But this…this was an odd computation indeed. But now was not the time for such introspection and self-analysis. Now she had a job to do.

Guri shut down her terminal and turned to the comm station. "Master." She waited for an answer before continuing, "things have developed that may harm your plans. I must say nothing more now; the channel I am using is insecure. I will inform you of it once I land."

"Of course, Guri. I look forward to your report."

The tone of Xixor's voice made it clear that he did no such thing. "Yes, my lord." Guri signed off and prepared for landing. Things could shortly get very interesting. Her master had never matched her against an opponent of Fett's caliber. The droid hoped that her Prince would soon become irritated enough with Fett to allow Guri to clash with the bounty hunter who had cheated death so many times that he was though by some to be immortal. Depending on how things went, she might get the chance to prove them wrong. Guri was, as much as a droid can, looking forward to this very much. Very much indeed.

* * *

Xixor irritaitedly drummed his fingers on his desk chair. Guri had told him nothing new, but it annoyed him nonetheless. His plans had been given such careful fine-tuning, gone over so thoroughly, and now they could be "harmed" by something. And while Guri never exaggerated, so very often she would understate the facts. And now was not a good time for that. How annoying, thought Xixor, just when I had finally gotten things back under my control. He was not pleased with the news. But that was nothing new. Xixor had not been pleased with how things were progressing for some time.

The Dark Prince decided that the best thing for now would be to wait for Guri's report. A faint smile played across the Falleen's lips. Patience was a virtue, after all, and Xixor was indeed virtuous.

* * *

Darth Vader sat, debating. He was not a creature given to debate. When he decided to do something, he did it, and let the Empire keep up with him. He was not a troubled creature; his conscience did not plague him, or at least what was left of a conscience, after so many years of simply following the Dark Side, following the true Force. But this was a situation…different from his normal circumstance. The Dark Prince, Xixor, merited different resolution. Vader fiddled with the trigger for the comm unit. The Imperial Officer glanced over at him, went pale and looked away. When Vader…"fiddled" it was usually a sign that someone was going to be asphyxiated.

Painfully. And soon.

The Imperial Officer swallowed audibly.

Vader made a decision. He opened the comm, using the Force to rapidly dial the set of numbers his agents had found for him. Not one of the Imperials sitting around the area dared to make a noise, hardly even dared to breathe. They all carefully made certain that they were looking pointedly elsewhere. The menacing gasp of his respirator was harshly audible in the near silence on the bridge of the Devastator.

The entity on the other end didn't answer. The silence became even quieter. Vader's breathing—while time-regulated so that it couldn't change—somehow seemed to slow…portentously…

On the flat-screen comm vies in front of the Dark Lord, another helmeted figure appeared.

"What?" came the harshly accented question from the vox-synthesizer on the ancient, battered but still functional helmet.

Vader was ominously silent for a moment.

"My Lord," the other creature added emotionlessly. The Imperial Officers searched their brains frantically for some reason to leave and go somewhere else—quickly and quietly. While they didn't know who the Sith was talking to, they really didn't want to find out.

"I must say, you disappoint me."

The other figure made no reply to the insult, just sat and awaited the Dark Lord's pleasure…rather impatiently, Vader thought. If he were given to games, he might make the other wait longer just to anger him. But Vader's games were more…useful than mere exercises in pointless cruelty. His "games" were always for a reason, no matter how cruel other creatures might find them.

Vader continued, "I would have thought…that you would know better than to work for creatures such as Prince Xixor…and, perhaps, a certain criminal company…?" He let his voice trial off, half-questioningly, half a statement of fact.

The figure over the comm shrugged dispassionately. "Whatever pays," the harsh voice replied.

"Indeed," the deep hissing voice of the Dark Lord of the Sith replied, "then let us speak of your…business."

"Who do you want?"

"And how much?" Vader added to the other's statement. He shook his helmeted head, "not anything like what you're used to." He looked to see if the figure on the other end of the comm had any reaction to his words, but the other helmeted figure sat as emotionlessly as before. Vader then quoted a sum. It was only through the Force that he noticed any reaction to the enormous amount of credits. He thought, although it was possibly just a trick of the light, that he sensed the other blink behind his well-know visor. Behind his own helmet, Vader smiled maliciously.

However, when it came, the other's voice was a level and stripped of emotion as before. "For who?" he asked almost casually…well, as casually as anything can sound when that certain creature spoke about his one and only passion—if any such emotional word could be applied to the cold logic that governed not only his actions but his thoughts.

"Not your usual range of expertise. But that is why I name such a large sum. That is to be paid you if you agree to take the job. You will receive that again if you complete it successfully," the Dark Lord replied nonchalantly.

"Again. Who is it?"

"As I said, not in your usual range of expertise. I require…information. About a certain Dark Prince. I believe you completed a job for him recently for him…"

"If you mean Xixor, then I know who you're talking about. If not, cut to the chase. My lord." The other figure, in his battered armor, spoke as directly as usual. It was a trait of his that Vader admired…most of the time. When he got disrespectful with it, however, that was a different matter.

"I do." Vader glared at the creature on the other end of the comm. "I assume that, with your network of scum and other informers, you are aware of…certain situations in the Imperial Court, regarding that same individual."

"I am."

"Then I can safely assume that you could also find certain…proof of that individual's…shall we say…duplicity, much more inconspicuously than my own agents. Considering the…corporation that that individual works for, you may indeed have sources placed higher than my own." It wasn't and insult to Vader's agents; rather, to the other's. Considering the certain corporation that Xixor worked for, and the unsavory types who worked there, the lower you got in the "corporation" the higher your morals and decency was.

Beneath the ominous, familiar T-shaped visor, the other's gaze seemed to narrow, narrowing to a point sharper even than Vader's lightsaber. "I am a hunter. I am not a spy." The other's normally emotionless voice sounded harsher than Vader had heard it, anger thickly lacing every syllable. Through the Dark Side of the Force, Vader could almost taste the delicious feeling of the other's anger.

"The credits will not change. The amount is already preposterous. You cannot negotiate a higher sum—"

The other cut him off: "I am not a spy. Get someone else to do your dirty work for you."

The bounty hunter ended the connection.

If Vader hadn't been so mad, he probably would have been impressed with the bounty hunter's reaction. Sticking to your guns, staying with something you were sure of, was a trait he admired. However, he did not like such a trait when it was opposed to his own agenda. It was a setback, yes, but really not one to get overly upset about. After all, he should have his uses for the hunter in the future…

* * *

Fett listened to Brrak's latest report with interest. So, Xixor had just sent messages to his subordinate Virgos that any of them was not to have any more dealings with Fett, but on sight could destroy him. Capture, of course, would be more "welcome" an alternative. With Xixor, that meant, "kill him if you have to, but if he's dead I won't be happy". Boba Fett wondered for a moment whether or not Durga would bother to listen to Xixor's orders when he was already under contract to Fett. No, he'll collect the bounty and me. After that, of course, Fett had better leave as fast as possible if he expected to ever get out. And yet, this could facilitate his plans. Yes, better to let Xixor think he has the upper hand in this. Then, Fett might show his hand. It wouldn't do to hide the cards for too long, but showing them too early could be just as deadly. Boba Fett would have to play it carefully to stay alive, but in this game, losing was an impossibility. And it would be one. Always.