Star Wars: Tales of the Bounty Hunters (23 page)

It slid upward. “I’ve put a loop into his surveillance program,” Flirt explained. “He’ll see you try several bulkheads with your fingernails.”

Tinian kept her nails short, but that image would make sense to a clawed alien. “How are you progressing with the
Hound?
”

“Oh,” Flirt said evasively, “not as well as I’d like. He’s one of those true-blue incorruptible types. He was more vulnerable from the bridge. I had to concentrate on this cabin while I was there, or maybe I could’ve accomplished something.”

Chen had left Flirt with Tinian to protect her. Tinian had better make this trip aft worthwhile. “Thanks,” she said. “Just don’t let him see what I’m up to.”

“Not me!”

Tinian grasped the small cube and twisted slightly. Flirt popped off the bulkhead onto her palm. Tinian waited a few seconds in case an alarm rang.

“Don’t you trust me?” Flirt asked.

“I don’t trust anybody.” Tinian stuck Flirt into a belt pouch, then slipped into the corridor.

It was totally dark. Obviously the infrared-competent Bossk wanted to keep his passengers as blind as possible. Tinian pulled a tiny luma out of one belt pocket and held it overhead. Riveted bulkheads curved in both directions, with inverted pyramidal fixtures along the ceiling. They looked like heat lamps.

“Stop me if we approach anything dangerous,” she whispered.

She had barely reached the first side hatch when Flirt beeped. Tinian froze. Cautiously she pulled Flirt out of the pouch. She held the little droid up to her mouth. “What is it?” she whispered.

Flirt’s voice was almost imperceptible. “Motion sensor,” the droid answered. “One more step and you’ll walk into its range.”

“Can I go backward?”

“I think so.”

Tinian slid one foot backward, then the other.

“Stop,” said Flirt.

Tinian froze again. “Now what?”

“I think there’s a pressure trap in the deck just behind you. Don’t move either foot.”

Tinian held her position and swept Flirt in all directions. She sniffed the air cautiously. Her uncanny nose for explosives would be no help if the
Hound’s
security features were electronic.

“Okay,” murmured Flirt. “The sensor’s looking away.”

As Tinian scooted forward, she spotted a tiny swiveling eye high on one bulkhead, momentarily pointed in the other direction. She slid beneath as it made a back-swing up the corridor. Then she slunk aft, staying as close as possible to the port bulkhead. At last she reached two large hatches side by side. “These are secured,” she told Flirt. “How are you going to get me in?”

“There’s got to be a power point close by.”

Tinian held up her luma. The opposite bulkhead looked smooth, except for seams and rivets. “Where?”

“Take me across.”

She sprang over. The power point would have to be obvious, since Trandoshan fingers were clumsy.

Tinian spotted an access well hidden in shadow. She shoved Flirt into it. “Hurry,” she whispered. “I feel naked out here.”

Flirt didn’t answer. She beeped and tinkled like a miniature music box.

Behind Tinian, a hatch slid open.

She spun around, drawing her blaster out of habit. Nothing happened. Of course, nothing
also
would’ve happened if she’d tried to fire the drained weapon. Disgusted, she holstered it again.

“You’re in,” announced Flirt.

Tinian plucked Flirt off the bulkhead. “Next time, give me a little warning,” she grumbled.

She sneaked into the cargo bay, leaving the hatch open.

This wasn’t the bay where they’d stored their precious lockers. Stowed along one wall, locked down by straps and hold-mes but in plain sight, was an array of weapons: force pikes, nasty-looking disruptors, knives, blast rifles, and tangle guns. All for hunting Wookiees, who only wanted to be left in peace.

Turning in place, Tinian spotted a long, shining table. She walked closer, holding her luma aloft. The table’s surface threw reflections on the opposite bulkhead.
A narrow channel ran along the table’s edge, tilted toward a reservoir. At one narrow end of the table, a wicked-looking swivel hook hung retracted. A complex mechanism hovered above it, suspended from the upper bulkhead.

With those long, stiff, clawed forelimbs, Bossk was not dexterous enough to use a skinning knife. The automated machinery would lower into place over a Wookiee corpse.

Shuddering, Tinian tiptoed past a dip tank for curing fresh pelts.

She did not find any of the acceleration chairs Bossk had claimed he had back here, but along the bulkhead farthest from the access hatch, she spotted five alcoves: meat lockers. Equipped with minimal survival gear, they were standard features on Hunt ships—the
Wroshyr
had two—for containing live acquisitions. These stretched from deck to bulkhead. Wookiee-size.

Bossk would fit into one nicely.

She knelt beside the nearest one, reached into her largest belt pouch, and pulled out a handful of tools. Her circuit meter identified a force-field generator at the bottom of the locker. It was probably triggered by motion sensors to trap struggling prey inside. She’d like to jimmy one or all of these lockers—

Abruptly she felt afraid. “Is something happening?” she asked Flirt.

“Bossk is busy on the bridge. You’re safe—”

“I don’t
feel
safe.” Tinian’s escape on Druckenwell still haunted her dreams. She had run, and run, and run, expecting to be spotted by her body heat and shot from behind by Imperials wearing infrared scanners. She didn’t doubt that Bossk would kill her just as quickly if he caught her manipulating his equipment, and he saw in the infrared without scanners.

She sprang up and shoved the tools back into her pouch. “We’ve got to get back.”

“You don’t need to do that. I’ll alert you if—”

“I’ve got to get into the other bay, too. We’re probably running out of time.” Tinian hurried out through the hatch and across the passage. She shoved flirt at the power point “Shut that hatch and open the other.”

Locks clicked behind her.

Tinian grabbed Flirt off the bulkhead and slipped across the passage again. She shone her luma against this bay’s inner bulkhead, found a hookup for Flirt, and plugged her in once more. Then she shone her luma toward the other bulkhead. There was the pile—

A shadow moved. Tinian’s blood turned to ice water.

Bossk’s huge crimson-and-bronze droid rolled forward, halted, spun around, and returned to its station.

“You’re all right.” Flirt’s chirp dropped a doleful minor interval. “He’s totally brainless.”

Tinian stared at the X10-D unit. “What?” she murmured.

“The poor creature’s only an extension of the
Hound’s Tooth
,” Flirt explained. “He has no interior programming. What a pity, in a body like that.”

“Flirt,” Tinian reprimanded the droid. “Chen needs a data chip out of Locker Two. Get me into it—fast.”

Ten minutes later, Flirt guided her back through the passageway. As they paused beneath one motion sensor, Flirt tweeted, “It’s terrible.”

Tinian froze. “What is?”

“That beautiful metal body, and no brain—”

“Flirt!” Tinian ordered through gritted teeth. Imaginary eyes crawled around on the back of her neck. “Get me back to the cabin. Now!”

The moment she reached sanctuary, she pushed Flirt at her spot on the bulkhead. “Erase any record that we left this cabin,” she directed.

“You shouldn’t worry so much,” Flirt whistled. “I had you perfectly safe.”

•   •   •

Bossk glanced aside. Had he seen an alarm? Maybe, but it had shut itself off, so it could have been false. There were still a few bugs in the
Hound
, like its lapses of idiot speech.

Chenlambec was obviously impressed by it, though, and Bossk had enjoyed showing it off.

He shut down the simulator circuit and put the controls back on line. “Back to your cabin,” he growled. When the Wookiee didn’t obey instantly, he touched a control that extended two fur-penetrating electrodes on the copilot’s seat.

Chenlambec sprang up, hooting. “Hurts,” insisted the
Hound’s
translator. “Hurts.”

“To the cabin.” Bossk brandished the blast rifle he’d slung over his lap.

The Wookiee shambled up the corridor, obviously stalling. But when Bossk peered into the port cabin, the human sat on the edge of her bunk. She fiddled with her thin, inadequate claws.

“Where have you been?” he growled.
Prying off bulkheads?

She stared up at him, looking stupidly blank. “Here,” she answered. “Where else?”

He thought he caught the scent of the skinning bay on her clothing. Backing out the hatch, he secured it.
What could she have been doing back there?
He walked a circuit of the main corridor, including both bays. No alarms had been tripped. Returning to his bridge, he ran an extra security check. It too came up clean.

Maybe he’d been mistaken.

What if he hadn’t?

He keyed for more details from the security program. Immediately after leaving the
Executor
, the
Hound’s Tooth
had scanned his passengers’ lockers. That scan revealed no metal except in the weapons crate. He’d told it to try the lockers again. Whatever they’d brought along, if it wasn’t weaponry, it needed to be analyzed.

The second scan came up just as blank: clothing or foodstuffs might have matched the scan’s biochemical readings.

He hadn’t been presented with such an entertaining puzzle in several Standard years.

An hour’s nap would refresh him, and the
Hound
would wake him in time to drop back into realspace. Reactivating his alarms, he headed for his bunk.

The moment Flirt declared that Bossk had locked himself into his cabin, Chenlambec set off on his own reconnoiter. To his delight, when he breached the central area he’d assumed was the
Hound’s
main engine, he found a sleek scout ship.

He paused, eyeing its lines. With or without subduing Bossk first, the time would soon come to run groundside surveillance.

He’d better be prepared for Plan Three, and for that, he would need to unload those lockers into this scout ship. But where would he conceal something so large?

Rounding the hull, he found two enormous empty holes on its exterior. Bossk had removed its guns. That made Chen certain that Bossk would send him and Tinian out in it. He peered into one hole.

There was room inside to hide a Wookiee.

Not him, but …

He smiled bitterly. Inside his storage lockers were two of his carbon-frozen kinsmen, executed by the Empire. Their bodies had been dropped at a Wookiee outpost. Chenlambec had vowed to avenge their deaths by making use of those bodies. Bossk’s droid, X10-D, was allegedly brainless, so Flirt could order X10-D to transfer the carbon freeze units into these gunnery sockets. He must also tell Flirt to make sure that the
Hound’s
scanners still showed those lockers fully loaded.

With Flirt’s help, he sneaked next onto the bridge,
carrying the data chip Tinian had retrieved. Before sitting down, he slipped Flirt into position under the navicomputer. Several long seconds later, she chirped, “You’re secure … sort of.”

He demanded an explanation.

“You’ll be checked every two minutes. Whatever you want to do, move quickly.”

Almost instantly, she beeped a warning. He slouched over the controls, motionless, until she chirped, “Okay. I overrode without trouble.”

He growled a question.

“No, don’t pull any wires,” she answered. “I’ll hold off the
Hound.
”

Chen snatched a set of miniature tools out of his bandolier pouch. He pulled the main computer’s cover, dropped it aside, then eyed internal circuitry. He almost had it figured out when Flirt beeped again. Hastily he replaced the cover.

It took five intervals before he located the spot to slide in that chip full of doctored data. Then he locked it in place and installed a parallel circuit around it.

Just in time, too. They would reach Lomabu within half an hour.

He growled a last question at Flirt.

“Not yet,” she chirruped. “Sorry.”

Then it was Plan Three. Leaving Flirt in position under the navicomputer in case she was close to a breakthrough, he retreated to the port cabin.

Tinian crouched alongside the communication console, steadying herself against the starboard bulkhead, wearing a lightweight headset. So far, she heard only static.

Bossk took the main chair with Chen as his copilot. Chen had told her that he thought Bossk was amused to let a Wookiee sit on his bridge. Bossk had brought
up the bridge lights. His greenish scales showed orange undertones where the lights caught them.

Bossk killed the hyperdrive. The
Hound
cut in its sublights, and a star system appeared. According to the navicomputer readout, it had six planets in erratic orbits. They looked more like electrons’ orbitals than a flat planetary ecliptic, as if the Lomabu system had been stirred by a passing stellar giant. Bossk had oriented the
Hound’s Tooth
to the third planet’s orbital plane. From this distance, it looked like a small blue disk with one moon: According to scanners, its surface was almost entirely covered by ocean, with long archipelagoes marking arcs where tectonic plates collided.

“Excellent,” Bossk hissed. “
Hound
, establish a momentum course and cut engines.”

“Confirmed.” The ship fell silent. To casual scanners it would look like an eccentric asteroid passing the planet.

Tinian watched Bossk flick a control alongside one of his forearm troughs. He’d have to utilize shipboard scanners sparingly now. Stray transmissions would be picked up by Imperial sentries … though
he
thought he was hiding from Wookiee sentinels.

Chenlambec hooted. “Could the
Falcon
be in scanner range?” Tinian translated.

Bossk eyed the boards. “If the
Falcon
is here at all,” he said. “If you two have led me astray, I will sell you both to the highest bidder.”

The image of a colonial installation appeared on the
Hound’s
main scanner. Chen had told Tinian it would correspond closely to the layout of Gandolo IV. Bossk flicked the scan once more, narrowing its search band.