Timothy Zahn - The Bounty Hunter Wars 1 The Mandalorian Armor

There were tunnels underneath the hiding place, curving and smooth-sided, that ran deep into the planet's bedrock. Dengar had investigated them far enough to know that they connected with the Great Pit of Carkoon; with the Sarlacc beast dead now, they would make a safe refuge from the bombing. But only if they were reached in time, before the next destructive wave collapsed what remained of these spaces.

He hesitated only a moment, before cursing himself as a fool and laying both his hands on the rock, just above Neelah's hands. The stone surface was already slick with her blood; Dengar dug his own fingertips into it and pulled, straining with his weight against the rock's resistance. From far off and above, he could hear the bombing of the surface come to a halt, like a storm that has spent its thunderous fury. That's only temporary, he knew. They'd be returning in this direction soon enough.

Dengar put his shoulder against the rock, his hands clawing for a better grip. It struck him, between one gasp for breath and the next, that he didn't even know who it could be that was pounding the Dune Sea above his head into scorched powder. Forces of the Empire, maybe, or the Rebel Alliance, or the Hutts, or the Black Sun organization-at this point it wasn't as important as just surviving the hard, murderous rain. The only thing he knew for certain, down in his gut, was that it had something to do with Boba Fett. Getting involved with this barve was a sure ticket to disaster.

The large rock suddenly shifted, spilling Neelah forward onto the main chamber's rubble-strewn floor.

Dengar managed to keep his balance, shifting his hold and thrusting with his bent legs, keeping the stone rolling.

Neelah scrambled out of its way as the debris of the subchamber's shattered doorway came tumbling after it.

"You are wasting time," announced SHSl-B from within the suddenly revealed space beyond the rocks and settling dust. The medical droid had busied itself by disconnecting the various tubes and monitoring wires that had been hooked up to Boba Fett. "Therapeutic protocols render it imperative that the patient be removed from these unsafe premises at once."

Lying on the pallet, Boba Fett had lapsed back into unconsciousness, either from the crashing impact of the bombing raid or from an anesthetic dose administered by the medical droid. Dengar and Neelah scrambled over the rocks; each took one end of the pallet and lifted, hoisting Fett high enough to carry out into the hiding place's main chamber.

"Wait a second." After they were clear, Neelah set down her end of the pallet and climbed back into what remained of the subchamber space. Cracks spidered across its ceiling, showering down more dust and loose stones as the sharp, percussive hammer strokes from above grew louder. Neelah emerged a second later with Boba Fett's scoured and dented helmet and combat gear; she piled it on top of the unconscious bounty hunter, then grabbed hold of the pallet again. "Okay, let's go."

They both collapsed in exhaustion when they had reached the safety of the lower, Sarlacc-dug tunnels. The two medical droids fretted over their patient as Dengar and Neelah sprawled back against the fused-smooth walls curving around them. From here, the bombing raid sounded as though it were happening on some other, unluckier world.

"What's that smell?" Neelah wrinkled her nose as she turned her gaze toward the darkness and the stench of the tunnel's lower reaches.

Dengar lifted the lantern he had managed to scavenge hastily from the hiding place's equipment. Its feeble glow extended a few meters into the dark before being swallowed up. "Probably the Sarlacc," he said. "Or what's left of it. The part that could be seen in the Great Pit of Carkoon was just its head and mouth; it had tentacles extending all through the rock. Some say as far as the edges of the Dune Sea. When our friend here blew out the Sarlacc's gut"- Dengar pointed with his thumb to Boba Fett on the pallet-"there was a lot of dead beast left rotting down here. You can't expect something like that to smell too good, you know."

The stench of decay grew worse, as though the vibration of the surface bombing had shaken open a buried pustule. Neelah's face paled, then she quickly scrambled to her knees and hurried to a farther bend of the tunnel.

The sounds of gagging and retching traveled back to Dengar.

She's not used to this sort of thing, mused Dengar.

Or some part of her wasn't; something held in the darkness and hidden memory inside her. That intrigued him. A mere dancing girl, a pretty servant in the court of Jabba the Hutt, would have gotten accustomed to the smell of death quickly enough; it had pervaded the walls of Jabba's palace, seeping up from the rancor pit beneath the throne room. Hutts in general liked that smell; it was one of the more loathsome characteristics of their species to revel in a constant olfactory reminder that they were alive and their enemies, and the objects of their lethal amusements, were dead and rotting beneath them. That, among other things, was why Dengar had considered employment with the late Jabba or any of the other members of his clan as a choice of last resort.

Especially so after Dengar had found Manaroo-and his love for her. How could one return to that being who represented one's essence, an almost forgotten purity and grace, with the stink of dead, defeated flesh wrapped around oneself? It was impossible.

It seemed impossible for this Neelah to endure as well. She had the temperament of one born to the galaxy's nobility, a bloodline accustomed to command and the obedience of others. Dengar had noted that, just from the way she had faced him down in their first encounter.

Anyone else who had gone through the unsavory rigors of Jabba's court, followed by unprotected exposure to the Dune Sea, would have quailed before the obvious superiority of Dengar's strength and weaponry. But some spark of courage inside Neelah had burned even brighter under those conditions, fierce enough to have burned his outstretched hand, if he had dared to touch her.

That aristocratic strain was apparent in the female's face as well, even darkened and toughened as it was by the lash of the double suns and the scouring of the Dune Sea's hot, razorlike winds. She'll be trouble, Dengar already knew. He'd had enough on his hands before she had come along, but with her presence added to the equation, the result was increased exponentially.

Neelah returned, face even paler in the glow from the single lantern. "I'm sorry," she said.

"Don't be." Dengar gave a shrug. "I'll be the first to admit that this isn't the most pleasant neighborhood."

He got to his feet. "We might as well see what kind of shape we're in."

The two medical droids were stationed on either side of Boba Fett's pallet.

"How's the patient?"

SHS1-B glanced back at Dengar. "As well as can be expected," the droid said irritably. "Given the dis turbance he's been put through."

"Hey-" Dengar poked himself in the chest. "Did I order a bombing raid to start up? Don't blame everything on me."

"That's not a bad question." Standing beside him, Neelah glanced over the unconscious form of the bounty hunter. "Who did order it?"

"Who knows?" Dengar set the lamp on a shoulder-high outcropping. "This guy's got major enemies. It was probably one of them."

"Then that would mean somebody knows that he's alive.

Somebody besides us."

That realization snapped together in Dengar's brain, like a pair of wires that had become disconnected during the tumult. She's right-somehow the word must've gotten out, to somebody for whom it was an important piece of information, that Boba Fett hadn't died; that breath, however shallow, was still going in and out of his body. Someone wasn't happy about that. Someone who would send out sufficient explosive force to pulverize an army, just to make sure that there wouldn't be enough left of Boba Fett to take a breath.