Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars.

A/N: So…GreatOne pointed out that their team would actually consist of four members. Now, I consider Chewie a vital member of any team, but my reasoning was that Jabba probably didn't even consider Han and Chewie to be separate entities. I mean, Jabba doesn't hire Chewie, he hires Han. But anyway…On to this chapter.

Chapter III: This is Not in my Job Description

After the throne room had emptied, leaving only a few stragglers, Boba Fett stood before the Hutt crimelord, standing at attention and poised. But his thoughts swirled with an uncharacteristic rage. A team?, he thought, infuriated. Irritation chittered at the back of his mind, and if he had been any less professional, it might have distracted him. But as it was, he sharpened his concentration, and he gripped his rifle more tautly.

"Jabba." Fett kept his voice tightly controlled, always professional.

The Hutt, who was now dozing, opened one bulbous eye and snorted rather ungracefully.

Hidden behind his helmet, the hunter's lip twisted in disgust. "I do not work with a team."

Jabba shifted, sitting up straighter – if such was even possible – and, nostrils flaring, he directed his gaze at Fett. He made an interrogative sound, which was very close to a human-like, "Oh?"

Fett remained silent.

(Well, bounty hunter?)

He made Jabba wait a moment longer, before saying, "I will not maintain employment in any job against my will."

The slug was silent, though he took his hookah pipe in his small, shriveled hand, taking a long, dragging breath from it. He exhaled a dingy puff of foul smoke and paused once more before saying, (Then you are rejecting this hunt?)

"I choose my hunts."

(Then you are going to allow Solo all of the glory of finding it?)

Fett stiffened. "I could find it myself."

(That is not your assignment.)

"I'm not one of your lackeys, Jabba. I make my own parameters when I hunt."

(I make the parameters for this job, bounty hunter!) Jabba's voice escalated, as though that would make the point that much clearer to the hunter. Fett maintained his straight-backed stance, gritting his teeth in annoyance. Though his attention was centered on the Hutt, he could see through his 360-view that those that were still in the throne room were perking up with interest in the altercation between the slug and his favorite hunter. As though making a scene will change my mind, he thought darkly.

(Then do not accept this job, hunter,) Jabba was rumbling in his arrogance. (I'm sure Solo will manage without you. I expect that he will win, anyway.)

And the dark thoughts that were consuming Fett's mind culminated in one black shadow, that same uncharacteristically strong sense of anger tightening around him.

(Of course, I would be much more pleased if you remained in his team.)

And suddenly, a cold professionalism straightening his posture, Fett finally choked past his anger. With that one statement the slug admitted that he was toying with him. Jabba wanted to see if his two most favorite – arguably, most notorious – pets would play well enough together to accomplish a job without killing each other. The inclusion of Rendar was just extraneous, a formality, a way to play along the prescribed rules of the game the Hutt had set in motion.

Although, the thought commanded his attention briefly, perhaps Jabba was doing more than forcing himself and Solo to work together. Perhaps the slug is testing me, he thought, almost amused. Pompous fool. "How much?"

The Hutt laughed, picking up his pipe once again. (That is why I like you, bounty hunter. No matter what, money will motivate you to do anything.)

Fett silently disagreed, but why bring it up? To argue with a being that is convinced that he is right is ineffective, a waste of one's time.

(You will have to ask your team's captain,) Jabba said, still laughing.

His grip on his rifle hardened, and he left the throne room.

& & & &

"Solo."

The smuggler looked up from his mug, caught between grinning and gaping. Rendar looked equally moronic. And Fett was not one for reading a Wookiee's facial expressions. Solo looked as though he still couldn't decide how to greet the hunter, nervousness tingeing his otherwise cocky smile. Fett logged away the instance as another example of Solo's stupidity. "What?" he finally answered.

"The parameters for the job."

"So you're actually going to go through with this?"

He studied Solo before answering, "It's a job."

"Well, I heard that you were complaining about this teamwork thing, and I just thought that you were…uhm –"

Fett allowed himself a smile. It appeared that Solo was wimping out, too afraid to say what he was thinking. Idiot. "That I was what?" he asked quietly.

Solo acted as though he hadn't heard him. "What did you come over here for again?"

"The parameters for the job."

"What about them?"

"Do you ever speak in complete sentences?"

The hunter slowly turned to face Rendar. The idiot cringed. A smirk formed on Fett's lips as he noted that he did not even have to say anything to threaten him. It was a typical reaction – but that did not stop him from finding the pleasure in it. He waited for a moment, and then answered Solo, "I do require them if we are to work together."

"Uhh…right." Solo fumbled around, shoving his hand into his vest pockets until he found the folded sheet of flimsiplast. "Here," he said, handing the sheet to Fett.

Fett felt the sneer forming on his lips. "You were not given a data disk of information?"

The smuggler looked up at him, his face a blank. After a moment, his eyes widened with realization, and after once again fumbling with his damned vest pockets, he revealed a small diskette. "I'll need that back."

Fett rolled his eyes. What a moron. "Of course." Sliding the disk into a datapad of his own, he perused the document, quickly scanning it.

And quickly determining that the slug was as moronic as those he hired into his employ.

But Fett was always up for a challenge.

"So what do you think?"

Although, typically that challenge was one that he surmounted on his own.

Through gritted teeth, he responded to Solo's question, "I think that this will be a most interesting hunt."

A most interesting hunt, indeed, because Jabba was expecting the retrieval of a prized piece of the Emperor's art collection. Well, if that wasn't thinking of oneself highly…

"So…" Rendar began, "where do we start?"

Fett wanted to knock the smuggler upside the head, but restrained himself. "We have to start accumulating information, of course."

"Okay, so…"

"And that is already done," Fett interrupted, heading off what was likely to be a meandering question that would showcase Solo's ineptitude. After having uploaded the disk's data to Slave I's onboard computer, Holonet searches instantly began for his selected keywords in the document. Data available to his helmet was, of course, updated in a most efficient manner. Operation of his business was conducted with almost no lag time, and with .009 chance of error.

"What?" both Solo and Rendar asked in surprised unison.

The Wookiee growled something unintelligible.

Solo nodded. Perhaps the Wookiee's comment wasn't completely inarticulate. "Yeah, what a show-off," he affirmed the alien's observation. "Then now what, Fett?"

"As I said, a most interesting hunt." Their quarry was a piece of the fabled, hand-blown glass formed by a master craftsman and seer of a small clan of Voors that had populated a little known moon orbiting the planet Vortex. That same clan of Voors had long since been rendered extinct due to one of the Emperor's many "sanctifying" genocides. While being an antique, the piece has also functioned as –

"A what?" Solo sounded incredulous.

"You heard the man," Rendar said flatly. "It's a vase."

"Actually, I said that it is a carafe."

The Wookiee was making noise that Fett could only assume was laughter.

"So…Jabba wants us to steal the Emperor's juice pitcher?" Solo shook his head and crossed his arms obstinately. "Are you sure that's what this is about?"

"Are you doubting my information?"

The smuggler seemed to be taken aback by that, but he plowed ahead in what seemed to be typically Solo behavior. "Well, what makes you so sure that you're right?"

"It is my information."

"Not stuck up at all, is he?" Rendar muttered.

Fett ignored him, saying, "Now I'm going to reach my contacts and find out where the item is currently being held."

"Whoa, wait a parsec here," Solo spoke up. Standing from his seat, he said in his trademark and most obnoxious tone, "I believe I am the team captain here. I'll decide what's to be done next."

Fett smirked. "And finding out where the item is being held isn't the next job to be completed on your agenda?"

"Wow," Rendar said, his voice a mixture of awe and admiration. "You actually got him to emphasize some of his words."

The hunter spitted the man, who he was contemplating on referring to as "Idiot #2", with a most vicious glare. The helmet was never a hindrance in this area, as it commonly further stressed the action. Fett even felt a bit of mild surprise when he saw that Solo was also glaring at the moron.

"Well," Idiot #2 was now back-pedaling, "I mean, he wasn't all uhh and monotone-like."

"Of course we need to find out where the thing is," Solo said, turning back to Fett. "But we're going to do it my way."

Fett was almost amused. "Which is?" he asked.

He watched as Solo squirmed under his scrutiny. No answer was offered. "I thought as much," he said. "I'm going back to Slave I, where I will be establishing contact with my informants –"

Solo's mouth opened in protest.

"And where I will conduct business that lies in my area of expertise in my way." Fett, feeling that the conversation had been effectively concluded, turned away and began the long walk to where his swoop was waiting. His ship was, of course, docked in Mos Eisley. Jabba hardly had the resources to keep his ship under steady maintenance.

"Like hell!" Solo snarled, his hand flying to his blaster sheathed at his thigh.

Fett merely stopped walking, knowing that the action – or lack thereof – would be enough to intimidate even the likes of the smuggler.

Which it did. The hunter was impressed that Solo didn't falter more than he did. A trace of what may have been fear passed over his features, and the path of his weapon as he drew his blaster stumbled only slightly before he finished bringing the piece to bear. But the smuggler quickly recovered, his expression tightening as he said, "If we're hunting this thing together, we're doing it on my ship. There is no way in hell you're going to get me on yours."

Fett choked on a dry laugh. "Your ship hardly has the resources to conclude this hunt successfully."

Solo stepped closer, the gun still in hand.

"You're both wrong. We should totally take my ride."

Both turned to face a very pallid Rendar, whose hand was hovering above his own blaster. Fett knew that his expression must have held a least some amusement, but he noticed that Solo's was a study in bewilderment.

"Yeah frickin' right," he finally said. Lowering his blaster, Solo continued warningly, "Fett, there's no room for negotiation here. We're taking my ship."

"We don't have to do anything," Fett reasoned. "I'll go about the hunt my way, you do so in yours." He was especially warming to the idea when he added, "When I retrieve the item, we can turn it in as a group."

"I don't think that's how Jabba intended this to go."

"His intentions are childish at best," the hunter returned, disgusted. "Besides, his rules did not specify that the teams could not be further broken down into groups."

"Actually they do," Idiot #2 said, pointing at the discarded piece of flimsiplast. Reading from it, he said, "'The teams shall not be further broken down into groups.' The same wording and everything."

"Does it say anything about the number of ships we can use?" Solo asked suspiciously.

"Huh…Yeah, it does. 'One ship is to be used by one team in this hunt, and the number of ships to be used by one team is one.'"

"You are so messing with me, right?" Solo sounded desperate.

"Nope."

Fett sighed, though it was not audible beyond his helmet's filters. Jabba was such a child, such a spoiled, immature…and dumb-ass…child.

"In the spirit of teamwork, then," Fett said, just wanting to get on with this hunt and, more importantly, the impending reward, "I will eke out the duration of this hunt on what passes as your ship." He held up a hand in warning, though, adding, "On the condition that I can upload data from my ship's onboard computers to your own…under password, of course."

Solo nodded mocking, "Oh, of course."

"By saying 'In the spirit of teamwork'," Rendar began slowly. "You mean, 'In order to get the reward', right?"

Fett was silent for a moment before answering with a simple affirmative: "Yes."

The other sighed with relief. "Good. I was beginning to wonder if all of my pre-conceived opinions of you were wrong."

The hunter turned away, wondering vaguely if his intelligence might suffer from this stint of teamwork.

"My whole world was crashing in on me."

Yes…indeed, it might.

A/N: (laugh) So…I noticed that Fett is a little more verbose than he usually tends to be…but hey, writing from his point-of-view without the dialogue would have been boring! Fett-purists, don't hate me! I love him as much as you do!