Operating without that proof was like building a machine with a critical component left untested. A machine, he thought, that could kill its master if it broke down.

Someone like Boba Fett had a disquieting habit of survival; Kuat of Kuat would have to see the bounty hunter's death before he would believe it.

He looked at the pieces of the messenger pod and its curved, reflective casing scattered on the workbench. The next pod to drop out of hyperspace and penetrate the planet Kuat's atmosphere would very likely carry the necessary information inside it. All the units had been designed to carry only partial segments of what had been recorded at Jabba's palace and aboard the Hutt's sail barge. There was less likelihood that way of any of KDY's powerful enemies intercepting the units and, if they managed to get past the security procedures, figuring out Kuat of Kuat's own concerns.

One last thing to do with this message He reached into the device and extracted the micro-probe. The breaking of the circuit initiated the self-destruct program; the metal grew white-hot, twisting in upon itself as it was consumed. From underneath the bench, the felinx fled in terror, streaking toward the office suite's farthest recesses. A few more seconds passed, then the holoprojector and its contents had been reduced to blackened slag on the workbench's surface, cooling into a single indecipherable hieroglyph.

The contents of the message, that had come so far to reach him, was safely locked away in Kuat of Kuat's memory. When proof of Boba Fett's death came, he might allow himself to forget the smallest particle of information. When it's safe, Kuat of Kuat had already decided. Not until then.

And if that proof didn't come ... he would have to make other plans. Plans that would include more than one death as part of their internal workings. Meshing gears often had cruelly sharp teeth.

He turned away from the workbench and walked slowly through the empty spaces of the office suite, looking for the felinx. So that he could pick it up and cradle it in his arms, and soothe it of the fright it had received.

Carkoon in Tatooine's Dune Sea, and had mentioned Boba Fett being there at the struggle.

More than that, the reports had also described Boba Fett's death. What Kuat of Kuat wanted was proof of that.

Operating without that proof was like building a machine with a critical component left untested. A machine, he thought, that could kill its master if it broke down.

Someone like Boba Fett had a disquieting habit of survival; Kuat of Kuat would have to see the bounty hunter's death before he would believe it.

He looked at the pieces of the messenger pod and its curved, reflective casing scattered on the workbench. The next pod to drop out of hyperspace and penetrate the planet Kuat's atmosphere would very likely carry the necessary information inside it. All the units had been designed to carry only partial segments of what had been recorded at Jabba's palace and aboard the Hutt's sail barge. There was less likelihood that way of any of KDY's powerful enemies intercepting the units and, if they managed to get past the security procedures, figuring out Kuat of Kuat's own concerns.

One last thing to do with this message He reached into the device and extracted the micro-probe. The breaking of the circuit initiated the self-destruct program; the metal grew white-hot, twisting in upon itself as it was consumed. From underneath the bench, the felinx fled in terror, streaking toward the office suite's farthest recesses. A few more seconds passed, then the holoprojector and its contents had been reduced to blackened slag on the workbench's surface, cooling into a single indecipherable hieroglyph.

The contents of the message, that had come so far to reach him, was safely locked away in Kuat of Kuat's memory. When proof of Boba Fett's death came, he might allow himself to forget the smallest particle of information. When it's safe, Kuat of Kuat had already decided. Not until then.

And if that proof didn't come ... he would have to make other plans. Plans that would include more than one death as part of their internal workings. Meshing gears often had cruelly sharp teeth.

He turned away from the workbench and walked slowly through the empty spaces of the office suite, looking for the felinx. So that he could pick it up and cradle it in his arms, and soothe it of the fright it had received.

outcroppings as she watched the barely noticeable hole dug into the barren ground below. The twin suns bled into the horizon, the chill Tatooine night already unfolding across the sands. Around her bare shoulders, she pulled tighter a salvaged scrap of sail-barge canopy-blackened by fire and explosion along one ragged edge, stiff with dried blood along another. The delicate fabrics with which her body had been adorned in Jabba's palace were little protection against the cold. A shiver touched her flesh as she continued to watch and wait.

She'd known that the bounty hunter, the one called Dengar, would have some hiding place away from Jabba the Hutt's palace. What used to be his palace, she corrected herself. The monstrous slug was dead now, that had held the end of her chain and the chains of the other dancers.

But when Jabba had been alive, most of the thugs and bodyguards in his employ had had little warrens out in the rocky wastes, where they could seal themselves in for a few hours' sleep, safe from being murdered by each other-or by their boss. Jabba's court hadn't been easy to survive in; she knew that better than anyone. But it's not me who died, she thought with a bitter satisfaction.

Jabba got what he deserved.

In the dimming light, she put away her brooding, the little vengeful spark that kept her warm inside. She'd spotted, down below, the approaching figures for which she'd been waiting.

Two medic droids trundled across the sand; their parallel tracks headed toward the warren hole in the rocky wasteland. They were probably refugees from Jabba's palace, just as she was; all of the medic droids there had been modified with wheels in place of the original stumpy legs so they could get around in the desert terrain. Neelah watched them for a few seconds more, then eased out of her hiding place and carefully worked her way down the farther side of the dune, where the droids wouldn't be able to see her.

"Hold it right there." She caught the droids just as they were transmitting the security code that would unseal the subsurface warren; a row of numbers, softly glowing red, showed on the panel embedded in the magnetically reinforced durasteel. "Don't move. I promise I won't hurt you-but do n't move."

"Are you frightened?" The taller of the two medical droids, a basic MD5 general-practitioner model, scanned her against the hole's rough circle of evening sky. "Your pulse is quite elevated for a standard hu-manoid form.

Plus"-a tiny grid irised open on the droid's dark- enameled head, drawing in an air sample-"your perspiration contains significant levels of hormones indicating an emotionally agitated state." "Shut up. I also want you to do that." Rocks slid loose beneath her as she scrambled down toward the droids. "Just shut up."

"Did you hear that?" The taller droid swiveled its multilensed gaze toward its companion, a white-banded MD3 pharmaceutical model. "She's telling us to be quiet."

"Rudeness." Dust sifted from the shorter one as it tucked its syringes and dispensing appendages closer to itself. "Foresight of difficulties."

"Great-" Anger spurred her heart even faster. "Then you can't say you didn't know this was coming." She grabbed a vital-signs monitor sticking out antennalike from the taller one's head and slammed the droid against the dirt wall of the warren entrance, hard enough to send the lights dancing across its front display panel.