Chapter 7
"What do you mean you can't contact Boba Fett?"
Kyjark's personal droid, B-10 explained again. "Sir, he simply will not answer the messages I send him. There is an automatic response on his ship that informed me he is currently on a job, and unavailable."
"Oh, he'll be available all right when he hears what Branober'll pay for those files!" Kyjark stormed, casting a dark look at the droid before allowing himself to fall into his chair.
"I have left messages referring to the large amount of credits he will recieve, but still he has not contacted me," babbled the droid.
Kjark waved a hand dismissively. He would deal with Fett later. "Beeten?" Kyjark leaned forward in his chair, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "I'd like to send a holo to Bossk. See that the proper equipment is attended. I want to make an impression."
"Of course, Sir," B-10 agreed, rolling smoothly away on his three wheels.
While the droid prepared an important-looking background for the holo, Kyjark raced to his private holoprojector. During the setup and holofilming process, any outgoing private holos would be masked by the much larger projector. He had only a few minutes, but that was all he needed.
Quickly, Kyjark keyed in the location to which he wished to send his message. Then he pressed the recording button and began.
"Eneera! I hope you and Ofen are all right. I'm fine; don't worry about me. I'm working for Branober again, but it'll be over soon, I promise. Thanks for the good work you're doing with the company. I'll be back, don't worry. Tell Ooler I love him, and that he'd better be working hard at school. Don't act like anything's changed. Pretend I'm sick or something. Whatever you do, don't get mixed up with the authorities; they'll only make it harder. I love you, and I think about you both all the time. Don't try to contact me here. Denburn Kyjark, out." He ended the message just before B-10 trundled back into the room.
"Sir? The holoprojector is almost ready. If you would just come with me-- "
"Just a moment, Beeten." Kyjark picked up his hat and affixed his uncomfortably heavy insignia onto his uniform. As the droid hurried him to the main holoprojector, he closed the clasps that held his cape at his shoulders. In all his military finery, he cut quite a commanding figure, and that was what he was counting on with Bossk. However lawless the Trandoshan bounty hunter was, he respected Kyjark's authority. Authority held the credits.
~~~~~~~
Annbri stood up and stretched, her muscles tense from hours of hunching over articles and datafiles. Though she had found a lot of information dealing with what they sought, the Nondiran files, everything seemed to say the same thing: The files were secret, valuable, and dangerous. Other than that, the sources were pretty vague. Annbri glanced over a Boba, or rather Ghenris, who, feeling her gaze, looked up from his datapad. "Any luck?" she asked hopefully.
"I don't believe in luck; I believe in success. But no, I haven't had any of that either." Boba pressed the eject button on his datapad, and the file slid out. He glanced at a small stack of other files on the table next to him. "I'm getting tired of this." He scooped up the unsifted files, checked them out of the library, and headed for the door, Annbri close behind him.
"Where are we going now?" Annbri wanted to know.
"We're going to stop by my ship and pick up some more equipment. I'd leave you at the hotel, but I'm going to need you to carry some of it." Boba again slighted the hoverbus. Seeing Annbri's confused expression, he explained quietly, "It's harder to track us if we're on foot."
Though Boba assured her that it wouldn't be a long walk, Annbri found it to be otherwise. The city of Shanwhir was like a miniature Coruscant, and the library had been built on one of the upper class top levels, as had their hotel. Slave I, on the other hand, was stored several levels down, in a storage shed belonging to an enterprising Twi'Lek who would keep his silence and ask no awkward questions. Annbri's head had always been fairly comfortable with heights, but she found the durasteel wire mesh sidewalks of the middle-class levels rather disconcerting, those thin wires the only barrier between her boots and the two-thousand-foot drop.
As they descended another ramp, Boba suddenly tensed beside her. His hand slipped almost unnoticeably to his hidden blaster, and he didn't slow his step. Suddenly, he pushed her to the ground and whirled around, firing two blaster shots. A groan greeted the first shot, and a blaster rifle clattered to the ground from the skywalk above them. The second shot must have missed, because it was returned by one of their invisible attackers, and Boba had to drop and roll out of the way to avoid being hit. He stopped rolling and came up into a kneeling position, where he sent out three more shots in quick succession. Another groan heralded the volley, but this time the blaster did not fall to the lower level.
There was a brief calm, during which Annbri rescued the blaster rifle and checked its power cell. All seemed to be in working order, so she held it at the ready, as she had seen Fett do, and waited for a target. She didn't have to wait long. Boba had stepped under the overhang of the higher skywalk now, making it harder for the attackers to shoot him. As a result, the attackers had descended the nearby short flight of stairs, and three aliens were running towards the bounty hunter and his charge. Annbri, with her vast experience with alien beings, decided the largest of the three was a wookiee. She was surprised to find one of these creatures, usually very honor-bound and decent, however fearsome in appearance, as a mugger in low- class Shanwhir. The other two attackers appeared to be some kind of frog- like creatures, possibly Greks. Annbri shrugged her eyebrows and brought the blaster rifle to her shoulder. Then Fett stepped in front of her sights. His blaster took out one of the frog creatures before the attackers were upon him. Annbri, a few meters back from Fett, and well out of the attackers' view, found herself armed but with nothing to shoot at. While Boba struggled with the enormous wookiee and his weak frog friend, she could not fire, for fear of hitting him. Her skill with a blaster had not yet been tested, and she did not trust herself to hit her mark.
The wookiee dealt Boba a tremendous blow on the side of the head with his paw, causing the bounty hunter to stumble sideways, drop his blaster, then steady himself against the railing of the skywalk. As the wookiee charged him, he managed to duck and catch a handful of his attacker's fur. He pushed hard, continuing the wookiee's forward motion, right over the edge of the railing. The enormous sentient being flailed, but it was too late. As the redish-furred creature disappeared with a final roar, Boba shook his head vigorously to clear his mind. He could feel sticky blood trickling by his right ear, and he had a terrible headache. He had endured far worse, however, and wasn't about to let this slow him down. He turned, still crouched on the durasteel mesh, to face the remaining frog creature. It was looking rather shaken, but still triumphantly held a blaster aimed at Boba. Before it could fire, Fett shot his feet out, catching the creature in the stomach. The shot went wild, and the frog-thing doubled up. Boba continued the motion and rolled to his feet, covering the distance to the crouching Annbri and snatching the blaster rifle from her grip. He fired two rapid shots, but one was all that was needed. The last attacker slumped, its own blaster rifle skittering across the durasteel mesh towards them.
Boba took a deep breath, leaning against the wall for support. "Don't suppose," he said irritatedly, "that Eiben Steller woulda tought you to use these things?" He indicated the blaster rifle in his hand with a jerk of his head.
Suddenly feeling ashamed, Annbri shook her head. As though to make up for her uselessness, she retrieved the blaster rifle and Boba's own blaster turning back around to find him waiting for her.
"Let's get going." He took the weapons from her and started down the skywalk again.
Annbri jogged to catch up, glancing over her shoulder at the bodies of their attackers. "What about that?"
"If it hadn't been them it would have been us." Boba turned his attention to the building numbers. They walked in silence for a few more time units, then he indicated a door. "In here."
Upon entering the Twi'Lek's small office, Annbri stepped instinctively closer to Boba. The owner of the warehouse where Slave I was stored led them to a small elevator, ushered them inside, then punched in their destination.
When the elevator doors opened up, the Twi'Lek remained in the elevator, allowing Boba and Annbri to board Slave I. Fett led the way, inwardly eager to get back in his most familiar territory. Annbri followed him cautiously, all too aware of how treacherous a bounty hunter could be. As they passed the cages, she hurried and stayed as far away as possible. She would not let him put her back inside one of them, she vowed.
After they had passed the cages, Boba pressed Annbri roughly into the wall near the ladder. "Stay there," he commanded brusquely. Fett proceeded to stride across the small cargo bay where they stood and find some hidden button the wall opposite Annbri. A door appeared, through which Boba continued, then the door vanished again.
After a few minutes, Annbri sat down the cold floor. Whatever Boba was doing, he was taking his time doing it. She pulled her knees up to her chest, regarding the cage that had been her prison. Never again, she promised herself, would she allow Boba to do that.
~~~~~~~
"What do you mean you can't contact Boba Fett?"
Kyjark's personal droid, B-10 explained again. "Sir, he simply will not answer the messages I send him. There is an automatic response on his ship that informed me he is currently on a job, and unavailable."
"Oh, he'll be available all right when he hears what Branober'll pay for those files!" Kyjark stormed, casting a dark look at the droid before allowing himself to fall into his chair.
"I have left messages referring to the large amount of credits he will recieve, but still he has not contacted me," babbled the droid.
Kjark waved a hand dismissively. He would deal with Fett later. "Beeten?" Kyjark leaned forward in his chair, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "I'd like to send a holo to Bossk. See that the proper equipment is attended. I want to make an impression."
"Of course, Sir," B-10 agreed, rolling smoothly away on his three wheels.
While the droid prepared an important-looking background for the holo, Kyjark raced to his private holoprojector. During the setup and holofilming process, any outgoing private holos would be masked by the much larger projector. He had only a few minutes, but that was all he needed.
Quickly, Kyjark keyed in the location to which he wished to send his message. Then he pressed the recording button and began.
"Eneera! I hope you and Ofen are all right. I'm fine; don't worry about me. I'm working for Branober again, but it'll be over soon, I promise. Thanks for the good work you're doing with the company. I'll be back, don't worry. Tell Ooler I love him, and that he'd better be working hard at school. Don't act like anything's changed. Pretend I'm sick or something. Whatever you do, don't get mixed up with the authorities; they'll only make it harder. I love you, and I think about you both all the time. Don't try to contact me here. Denburn Kyjark, out." He ended the message just before B-10 trundled back into the room.
"Sir? The holoprojector is almost ready. If you would just come with me-- "
"Just a moment, Beeten." Kyjark picked up his hat and affixed his uncomfortably heavy insignia onto his uniform. As the droid hurried him to the main holoprojector, he closed the clasps that held his cape at his shoulders. In all his military finery, he cut quite a commanding figure, and that was what he was counting on with Bossk. However lawless the Trandoshan bounty hunter was, he respected Kyjark's authority. Authority held the credits.
~~~~~~~
Annbri stood up and stretched, her muscles tense from hours of hunching over articles and datafiles. Though she had found a lot of information dealing with what they sought, the Nondiran files, everything seemed to say the same thing: The files were secret, valuable, and dangerous. Other than that, the sources were pretty vague. Annbri glanced over a Boba, or rather Ghenris, who, feeling her gaze, looked up from his datapad. "Any luck?" she asked hopefully.
"I don't believe in luck; I believe in success. But no, I haven't had any of that either." Boba pressed the eject button on his datapad, and the file slid out. He glanced at a small stack of other files on the table next to him. "I'm getting tired of this." He scooped up the unsifted files, checked them out of the library, and headed for the door, Annbri close behind him.
"Where are we going now?" Annbri wanted to know.
"We're going to stop by my ship and pick up some more equipment. I'd leave you at the hotel, but I'm going to need you to carry some of it." Boba again slighted the hoverbus. Seeing Annbri's confused expression, he explained quietly, "It's harder to track us if we're on foot."
Though Boba assured her that it wouldn't be a long walk, Annbri found it to be otherwise. The city of Shanwhir was like a miniature Coruscant, and the library had been built on one of the upper class top levels, as had their hotel. Slave I, on the other hand, was stored several levels down, in a storage shed belonging to an enterprising Twi'Lek who would keep his silence and ask no awkward questions. Annbri's head had always been fairly comfortable with heights, but she found the durasteel wire mesh sidewalks of the middle-class levels rather disconcerting, those thin wires the only barrier between her boots and the two-thousand-foot drop.
As they descended another ramp, Boba suddenly tensed beside her. His hand slipped almost unnoticeably to his hidden blaster, and he didn't slow his step. Suddenly, he pushed her to the ground and whirled around, firing two blaster shots. A groan greeted the first shot, and a blaster rifle clattered to the ground from the skywalk above them. The second shot must have missed, because it was returned by one of their invisible attackers, and Boba had to drop and roll out of the way to avoid being hit. He stopped rolling and came up into a kneeling position, where he sent out three more shots in quick succession. Another groan heralded the volley, but this time the blaster did not fall to the lower level.
There was a brief calm, during which Annbri rescued the blaster rifle and checked its power cell. All seemed to be in working order, so she held it at the ready, as she had seen Fett do, and waited for a target. She didn't have to wait long. Boba had stepped under the overhang of the higher skywalk now, making it harder for the attackers to shoot him. As a result, the attackers had descended the nearby short flight of stairs, and three aliens were running towards the bounty hunter and his charge. Annbri, with her vast experience with alien beings, decided the largest of the three was a wookiee. She was surprised to find one of these creatures, usually very honor-bound and decent, however fearsome in appearance, as a mugger in low- class Shanwhir. The other two attackers appeared to be some kind of frog- like creatures, possibly Greks. Annbri shrugged her eyebrows and brought the blaster rifle to her shoulder. Then Fett stepped in front of her sights. His blaster took out one of the frog creatures before the attackers were upon him. Annbri, a few meters back from Fett, and well out of the attackers' view, found herself armed but with nothing to shoot at. While Boba struggled with the enormous wookiee and his weak frog friend, she could not fire, for fear of hitting him. Her skill with a blaster had not yet been tested, and she did not trust herself to hit her mark.
The wookiee dealt Boba a tremendous blow on the side of the head with his paw, causing the bounty hunter to stumble sideways, drop his blaster, then steady himself against the railing of the skywalk. As the wookiee charged him, he managed to duck and catch a handful of his attacker's fur. He pushed hard, continuing the wookiee's forward motion, right over the edge of the railing. The enormous sentient being flailed, but it was too late. As the redish-furred creature disappeared with a final roar, Boba shook his head vigorously to clear his mind. He could feel sticky blood trickling by his right ear, and he had a terrible headache. He had endured far worse, however, and wasn't about to let this slow him down. He turned, still crouched on the durasteel mesh, to face the remaining frog creature. It was looking rather shaken, but still triumphantly held a blaster aimed at Boba. Before it could fire, Fett shot his feet out, catching the creature in the stomach. The shot went wild, and the frog-thing doubled up. Boba continued the motion and rolled to his feet, covering the distance to the crouching Annbri and snatching the blaster rifle from her grip. He fired two rapid shots, but one was all that was needed. The last attacker slumped, its own blaster rifle skittering across the durasteel mesh towards them.
Boba took a deep breath, leaning against the wall for support. "Don't suppose," he said irritatedly, "that Eiben Steller woulda tought you to use these things?" He indicated the blaster rifle in his hand with a jerk of his head.
Suddenly feeling ashamed, Annbri shook her head. As though to make up for her uselessness, she retrieved the blaster rifle and Boba's own blaster turning back around to find him waiting for her.
"Let's get going." He took the weapons from her and started down the skywalk again.
Annbri jogged to catch up, glancing over her shoulder at the bodies of their attackers. "What about that?"
"If it hadn't been them it would have been us." Boba turned his attention to the building numbers. They walked in silence for a few more time units, then he indicated a door. "In here."
Upon entering the Twi'Lek's small office, Annbri stepped instinctively closer to Boba. The owner of the warehouse where Slave I was stored led them to a small elevator, ushered them inside, then punched in their destination.
When the elevator doors opened up, the Twi'Lek remained in the elevator, allowing Boba and Annbri to board Slave I. Fett led the way, inwardly eager to get back in his most familiar territory. Annbri followed him cautiously, all too aware of how treacherous a bounty hunter could be. As they passed the cages, she hurried and stayed as far away as possible. She would not let him put her back inside one of them, she vowed.
After they had passed the cages, Boba pressed Annbri roughly into the wall near the ladder. "Stay there," he commanded brusquely. Fett proceeded to stride across the small cargo bay where they stood and find some hidden button the wall opposite Annbri. A door appeared, through which Boba continued, then the door vanished again.
After a few minutes, Annbri sat down the cold floor. Whatever Boba was doing, he was taking his time doing it. She pulled her knees up to her chest, regarding the cage that had been her prison. Never again, she promised herself, would she allow Boba to do that.
~~~~~~~