Star Wars: Tales of the Bounty Hunters (27 page)

By the time Flirt popped the
Hound’s
docking hatch, Chen and Tinian wore makeshift masks knotted from Tinian’s black shipsuit sleeves stuffed with Chen’s fur. Chen landed the
Pup
inside the
Hound’s
docking bay. Instantly, Tinian dove out. Her eyes streamed, but she could breathe. Chen pushed past her and sprinted up the corridor.

Blinking hard, she locked down and sealed the
Pup
, leaving the obah gas canister for later. Then she followed Chen at a mad dash.

Bossk struggled inside one meat locker, bouncing off the energy field and thrashing against interior walls with a Trandoshan’s tremendous strength. Chen stood outside the locker, one fist on his hip and the other hand holding his breath mask, laughing hysterically. The huge drone droid had stationed itself at a control board with one arm extended, anchoring the energy field’s activation switch “on.” The field was transparent,
except when Bossk’s touch turned it to glimmering sparks.

Chenlambec threw back his head. Tinian covered her ears and grinned as his victory cry rattled bulkheads.

“Nice work, Flirt,” Tinian said aloud.

A throaty feminine voice answered. “You’re welcome, Tinian.”

“Flirt?” Incredulous, she turned a circle in place. Who was this?

“What would you like next?” The voice sounded sultry enough to steam Bakuran butter newts.

“It doesn’t sound like you.”

The bulkhead laughed in a sexy contralto. “I’m using
Hound’s
voice simulator. Isn’t he wonderful?”

Chenlambec answered gruffly, but his blue eyes twinkled over his makeshift mask.

“Will do,” Flirt purred. “Next stop, Aida System and Governor Io Desnand. I hear there’s a nice reward offered for a certain scaly passenger of ours.”

Bossk thrashed. “I will destroy this ship! I will take all of you with me to the Scorekeeper!”

He couldn’t, from in there … could he?

“I have failsafes everywhere!” He reached overhead and hooked two claws into an overhead panel.

Tinian’s chest constricted. “Flirt,” she shouted, “be sure the
Hound
heard that! Bossk wants to blow it up!”

“Oh, he did,” crooned Flirt. “He just let me remove Bossk from all command circuits.”

The Trandoshan villain flung the overhead panel at the energy field. Instantly, he vanished behind an opaque shower of sparks.

“Don’t worry,” Flirt purred. “We shut down that destruct circuit.”

“We?” asked Tinian.

“
Hound
and I. Who else?”

“Chen,” Tinian murmured, rubbing her bare arms, “we have an acquisition to deliver.”

•   •   •

It took three of Governor Desnand’s stormtroopers wearing power gloves to wrestle Bossk out of the locker. An Imperial in khaki fatigues and a slouch cap handed Tinian a credit chit. “There you are, Madam Hellenika. Forty thousand credits, minus three thousand for our stormtroopers’ services.”

That sounded like a bargain to Tinian. They stood on a huge, crowded landing platform where Chenlambec had landed the
Hound
. This’d seemed the only way to transfer Bossk into custody. “Three thousand?” she protested for form’s sake. “That’s robbery! It’s—”

“I suggest you leave Aida immediately,” answered the Imperial, “before we run a background check on you and your partner. Only Peacekeeping regulations keep you low characters under control. I suspect—”

“Very good, sir.” Tinian backed away from the man. “Thank you, sir. Good day.” She spun on one heel and sprinted toward the
Hound’s
landing ramp.

Bossk crouched on a prison-cell bench. His claws twitched. He’d tried gouging stripes in these walls, but they were coated with transparisteel.

The stormtrooper outside snapped to attention. Imperial Governor Io Desnand, a tall, plump marsh mallow of a human who would not have dared challenge Bossk on equal footing, strode up and stopped outside the force-shielded opening.

An even plumper woman stood beside him. She hung on his arm like a growth, batting false eyelashes full of delicate veins (Bossk half expected them to flutter off and join some swarm of winged insects). “Ooh,” she exclaimed. “You were right, Io. He’s enormous.”

Bossk glowered.

“You ruined my chances for promotion, Bounty Hunter,” Desnand said darkly. “Any last requests?”

“Promotion?” Bossk shouted. “What are you talking about? Those Wookiees—”

“Were bait in a trap, Bounty Hunter. Instead of the Rebel fleet, I caught one miserable lizard. At least now I can make good on a promise I made Feebee two years ago.” He encircled the woman’s shoulders with one arm.

Her bloodthirsty smile chilled Bossk; it made him picture the Scorekeeper wearing a human mask. “I’ve always wanted a lizard-skin gown,” she cooed. “Full length, and only seamless will do, or it’s not authentic. Yes, Io.” She tilted her head and pressed one fleshy cheek against his hand. “This will be lovely.”

Bossk charged the force field. It blew him toes-over-topside against the back wall. “I’m innocent,” he cried, springing up to stagger forward. “I had nothing to do with your plan, Desnand! I knew nothing about it. I still know nothing!”

Arm in arm, the pair strolled out of sight.

Bossk stared after them, disbelieving. He was to be … skinned? Zeroed? To grace that creature’s wardrobe, instead of the Scorekeeper’s altar?

He plunged to his knees and started digging. He’d find a way out, retrieve his ship, and continue the Hunt … Somehow.…

Tinian stretched out in the
Hound’s
port sleeping cabin. The
Hound
was temporarily grounded back on Lomabu III, inside the prison compound. Chen had claimed the starboard cabin, formerly Bossk’s. Its bunk was longer and broader than either port bunk. Flirt had transferred command capability to both sleeping cabins. To Chen’s surprise (but not Tinian’s), Flirt had wailed every time they tried disengaging her from the
Hound
. Finally Chen plugged her in on X10-D’s power point and left her there.

She was one happy droid now, with a large, strong
body. All it needed, she claimed, was a soft blue detail job.…

Flirt had spent most of the jump back to Lomabu inside the
Hound’s
programming, emerging occasionally to announce that she’d found some amazing new capability: “This ship can change course in the middle of a hyperspace jump!
Hound
, you’re magnificent.” “
Hound
has an armament circuit with built-in function echoes. I’m not sure how they work, but you could fire both quad guns on full power … simultaneously!” “Listen, Tinian.
Hound
knows how to hover suborbital, with full shields to the ventral surface.…”

And that was how they had finished off the compound’s Imperial overseers. The
Hound
had dropped, hovering, fully shielded, as Chen and Tinian doubled up as gunners. They’d landed inside the new crater, ready to take on prisoners.

But the Wookiees hadn’t left any Imperials whole. The sands feasted that day.

This evening, Chenlambec was celebrating offship with his liberated kinfolk. Tinian had solemnly sprinkled a ritual handful of dirt over the pelts Chen buried, then she’d danced three rounds of the circle, gripping his enormous hand on one side and a friendly stranger’s on the other; but after that, she simply hadn’t been able to keep up with reveling Wookiees.

Tomorrow—or maybe the next day, Tinian guessed from the noise outside—they would squeeze everyone on board and hit hyperspace before Io Desnand could send troops. The
Hound
could only manage a short jump carrying 593 Wookiees, which would be a tremendous burden on life support, but Flirt insisted
Hound
could reach Aida. From there, Chen’s Alliance contacts could shuttle passengers to other systems.

He had taken her aside and laid both hands on her head, declaring her apprenticeship fulfilled, asking her to stay on as his partner and friend. She had half a ship
now, eighteen thousand credits, and full Hunt status. For the first time in two years, she felt wealthy.

Chenlambec gave away most of his acquisition money. Maybe she should, too.…

On the other hand, that Imperial stuffed shirt had called her a low character. She sniffed her second-best black shipsuit, the best one that still had sleeves. Maybe she ought to think about buying some new clothes.

She yawned luxuriously.

She’d decide later.

Winded, Chenlambec dropped out of the circle dance and sat down on an empty stormtrooper helmet. The
Hound
filled the prison yard’s center, shining like a smooth, brilliant ice floe under white prison lights. He felt vaguely disloyal about admiring it so keenly. He would miss the
Wroshyr
.

He extended his claws and ran them through feathery fur that dangled from his left forearm.

He didn’t think of himself as vain, but he liked his pelt. Right where it was.

“D
oes Darth Vader know?” the droid 4-LOM asked Zuckuss, his Gand bounty hunter partner. 4-LOM had asked that same question every 8.37 Standard minutes from the start of Zuckuss’s meditation. In two hours they would dock at Darth Vader’s flagship to accept an Imperial contract, and they had to know if they were heading into a trap.

Zuckuss did not answer. Evidently he had not yet received intuitive knowledge about Vader and the contract
Zuckuss breathed through the respirator and held his breath in. Then he breathed out, and held his breath out for a moment 4-LOM noted that it was the 1,057th breath of this meditation. The Gand did not need to breathe often, but deep thinking seemed to require regular respiration.

He had observed that Zuckuss usually received intuitive knowledge between the 1,323rd breath and the 4,369th. Once it had come on the fifty-third: 8.37 minutes into the meditation, but 4-LOM calculated that that was a statistical anomaly. Still, unlike most Gands, Zuckuss maintained a 91.33725 percent chance of being correct in whatever knowledge he gained through meditation: knowledge about where an acquisition might hide, the exact numbers of a group, the intentions of others toward them.

They needed to know, now, Darth Vader’s intentions toward them.

If Vader had somehow learned that it was 4-LOM and Zuckuss who had hunted Sector Governor Nardix for the Rebellion, Vader would want revenge. The Rebellion had tried Nardix for crimes against sentients, and the trial had been a great embarrassment to the Empire. The Rebels, for their part, paid a princely sum for Nardix—and that was what 4-LOM and Zuckuss needed more of: credits.

To buy medical care for Zuckuss.

Illegal medical care. Zuckuss was not an old Gand, but he moved like one if he went off the drugs that controlled his pain, and during his respiration cycle he breathed like one: short, fitful breaths that drew air into lungs and esophogeal tissue burned by contact with oxygen after a female human acquisition, stupidly struggling after Zuckuss had hunted her into a dark alley with no exit, pulled off his helmet. 4-LOM secured the acquisition, then tried to help Zuckuss put his helmet back on, but before they could Zuckuss had taken three reflexive breaths of poisonous oxygen.

This was cause for significant embarrassment to Zuckuss, because had he retained sufficient presence of mind, he could have ceased his respiration until a more convenient time.

Parts of his lungs had burned away that day, and what was left functioned poorly. Zuckuss needed new lungs. New lungs could be grown only in illegal—hence, expensive—cloning vats.

So the Empire’s credits tempted 4-LOM and Zuckuss with the hope of new lungs.

Another 8.37 minutes passed.

“Does Darth Vader know?” 4-LOM asked.

Again, Zuckuss did not answer.

Zuckuss, deep in meditation, found it difficult to sense Darth Vader’s intentions. A swirl of possible galactic futures masked them. Zuckuss always sensed galactic futures when he meditated in hyperspace. It was the ideal place to meditate on the probable course of events in the galaxy. Meditate in a city, and you sense where the actions of its millions of citizens lead it. Meditate in orbit above a planet, and you sense where the cultures of an entire world are heading. But meditate in hyperspace and, no matter what knowledge you meditate for, you first sense the underlying feelings that motivate the majority of sentients and through them glimpse the destiny of the galaxy.

Those feelings, and the futures they could create, had changed. The fabric of the galaxy felt different to Zuckuss.

There was less hope in it, now.

Zuckuss had felt hope ebbing away for many years, but in this meditation Zuckuss sensed, on all the worlds in all the systems he passed, an overwhelming sense of hopelessness. From one world rose the realization of having no place to run; from another, the ache of endless
separation; from many worlds the intense pain victims of Imperial torturers felt moments before death.

Yet with this growing lack of hope rose another feeling, constant now in the galaxy. It quickened the Gand’s pulse.

He felt the movement of wealth.