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"Chances are pretty good, I'd say, that Fett's already slipped by us. We're wasting our time here." Zuckuss peered at another device, a cylinder of black metal studded with biosensors. "Now, this is interesting. I wouldn't have expected something like this aboard a simple decoy vessel." Bossk knew his partner had more of an interest in technological matters; right now all that moved inside his own head were grim fantasies of cracking bone and spurting blood. He didn't even bother to look around, but kept on brooding at the mocking stars visible through the port. "What is it?" "Offhand... I'd say it's a bomb. ..." "You fool!" Bossk whirled on his clawed heel, in time to see a row of lights flash into fiery life along the cylinder's casing. The device emitted a faint hum, already gaining in pitch and volume. "We've triggered it! The thing's going to blow!" He dived for the false cockpit's hatchway; a fraction of a second later Zuckuss landed on top of him. Both bounty hunters scrambled to their feet. Through the hatch, Bossk could see the bomb detach itself from its mountings on the flimsy bulkhead; with slow, ominous grace, the bomb's miniaturized antigrav repulsors swiveled it about, bringing the scrutiny of its blind gaze toward them. "Get out of my way!" Bossk shoved his partner aside and sprinted for the transfer port fastened to the decoy ship's central hold.

He could hear Zuckuss right behind him as he furiously grappled his way through the tube's flexing pleats and back aboard the Hound's Tooth. The first explosion ripped the transfer away from both ships, sending ragged strips of plastex spiraling across the Hound's midsection viewports. With his stomach across the back of the pilot's chair, Bossk slapped at the hull integrity controls, sealing off his own ship before any significant amount of air could escape. "We... we should be okay now. . . ." Panting, Zuckuss supported himself against the cockpit's naviputer displays. "That wasn't. . . much of a bomb...." There wasn't even time for Bossk to tell the other bounty hunter not to be an idiot. The second explosion, larger than the first, struck the Hound's Tooth. Roiling thermic fire filled the viewports as the impact of Bossk's spine with the bulkhead above stunned him into barely conscious silence.

Blood swirled across the scales of his face as the ship's artificial-gravity generators struggled to catch up with its end-over-end tumbling. Bossk smashed his fist against as many of the thruster controls as he could reach; the resulting force had him digging a hold into the pilot's chair to keep from being flung through the open hatchway behind him. A stern-mounted scanner showed the bomb, smaller now but even deadlier, trailing in the erratic wake of the Hound's Tooth. "It's... it's locked onto us!" Zuckuss clawed his way up beside Bossk. He pointed to the screen above the controls. "Here it comes. . . ."  Bossk knew how incremental-sequence bombs functioned. The first two charges work you over, he told himself. The third one kills you. His voice grated in his throat: "Not... this time..." He hit the rest of the thrusters, at the same time throwing the Hound into a suicide arc. Stars blurred across the viewport as the angle of the ship's deepened. A deep basso groan sounded as increasing vectors tore in different directions across the hull. Sharper cracking noises signaled the navigation modules ripping away from the exterior. The third and final explosion completed the partial disassembly of the Hound's Tooth.

Bossk's desperate maneuver had put enough distance between the ship and the bomb; the hull shook with the impact but remained intact. Zuckuss was knocked onto his face mask by the bulkhead deforming behind him, the blast's force warping the section from concave to convex. The pilot's chair broke in two, sending Bossk sprawling across the cockpit's floor, claws holding the padded back of the seat tight against his chest. A rain of sparks, bursting out of the access ports, sizzled across both bounty hunters. A few seconds later silence filled the Hound's Tooth. The smell of burning circuitry hung acrid in the air, mixed with the steam of the ship's automatic fire-dousing units. A few last sparks stung Zuckuss, and he slapped at them with his heavily gloved hands. "We'll be here awhile." Bossk didn't need to do a preliminary damage assessment on the Hound to know that. Until the navigation modules were rigged back into some kind of operating order, he and Zuckuss were stuck
in this remote sector of space.-Chpt.8 pg.78-79-80

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