Star Wars: Tales of the Bounty Hunters (31 page)

To an uncertain future.

If the pods made it to Hoth, the people in them would have to find ways to survive on an ice world without adequate supplies, fight off the wampa ice creatures that would Hunt them, evade capture by Imperial forces who would surely Hunt them.

If they got to Hoth.

The Empire could shoot down the pods first.

“Is the battle still going on out there?” Toryn asked.

No one knew.

“Let’s split up,” she said. “Find different viewports and conduct a visual reconnaissance. Report back here in ten Standard minutes.”

Ten minutes would let the ship roll around twice. They could get a good look at space around them.

Everyone rushed down passages and into rooms, looking for viewports. Toryn found herself back at the viewport in the attack door. She grabbed the comlink at her waist and contacted a dedicated hacker droid mounted to the console in the wall. “Droid,” she said. “This is Toryn Farr. Have you calculated answers to my last questions?”

“Information on possible further attacks on this ship, the total number of survivors, the estimated duration of air supplies, and the ship’s course remain unavailable.”

“Are you connected to any functioning exterior sensors feeding you any kind of information whatsoever?”

“No.”

“Do you have access to any data on air supplies whatsoever?”

“No.”

Toryn had heard no air being pumped through the ship. “If we estimate one-hundred survivors, how long could they live on just the air present on the intact decks?”

“4.38 Standard hours.”

“How much time has passed since the attack?”

“1.29 Standard hours.”

They had maybe three hours of air.

“I have a count of sixty-seven survivors on freight deck one. There are eight of us on this deck, an indeterminate number on freight deck two. Factor those numbers into future calculations.”

She saw no sign of battle in the sector of space she hurried to observe: no pinpoints of light that would be explosions, no Imperial ships moving against the backdrop of stars or Hoth itself. It was almost as if the battle had never taken place. The system seemed utterly quiet.

But wait. She gripped handles on the attack door and squinted at the space just coming into view as the ship turned.

Lights. There were lights there, moving in space. Three clusters of them—

Ships. Wrecked Rebel ships. The clusters of lights were viewports glowing in them. They were careening along together in a ragged line.

Surely there were survivors on those ships, too. She ached for them. She wondered what they were doing to try to save themselves.

Just as the wrecked ships dropped out of sight, Toryn caught sight of a brighter light
moving
toward the wrecked ships.

Self propelled. Functioning.

An Imperial Star Destroyer.

They were starting the mop-up. She was seeing them pull in the first wreck for its survivors, droids, information.

In a short time they would be at what was left of this ship.

Toryn hurried back to the pods and met the others just returning. Some had seen wrecked ships, too. The count varied between Toryn’s three and fourteen, maybe more. Others had seen the Star Destroyer heading toward the wrecks.

“If we hurry, we can fire the pods before the Imperials get here,” Toryn said. “If we fire while the Star Destroyer is occupied with a wreck, the pods have half a chance of making Hoth.”

“We should send those in best shape,” someone
said. “They need to be in good shape to survive down there.”

“Some need to be in good shape, certainly,” Toryn said, “but we should assume eventual rescue of anyone who reaches Hoth and consider sending those who can help the Rebellion most—even if they are hurt now. We’ve got to find out who’s left on this ship, and we’ve got to find out fast.” She turned and spoke to the hacker droid. “I encountered two medical droids on freight deck one. Contact them and have them download all information on survivors into your databanks. I want as complete a list of survivors—including droids—as you can give me when I check back in five minutes.”

“At once,” the droid said.

“I want everyone here to speak your names. Droid, add these names to the list you are compiling. Rory,” she said to a man she knew, “you start.”

Rory, Seito, Bindu, Darklighter, Crimmins, Sala Natu, Meghan Rivers.

“Rory,” Toryn said when everyone finished, “get to a viewport and watch that Star Destroyer. See how long it takes it to strip down one of the wrecks and move on to the next. The rest of us will climb down to freight deck 2 to see who we can find there. All of you keep your eyes open for cold weather gear and bring it back here.”

Toryn led the way—on a run—to the ladder to the deck below. As she passed the viewport in the containment shield, she saw Hoth rolling by again.

That planet had never looked so beautiful to her.

It shined with hope.

Zuckuss received intuitive knowledge 2.11 Standard hours into his latest meditation.

He knew the rough coordinates of where Han Solo would go, if he could: he would go to the Rebel’s rendezvous
point. He knew why. It was not to regroup with them after the retreat. He carried passengers—a woman and a droid—vital to the Rebellion’s success. Solo wanted to deliver them safely there.

And Zuckuss knew where the Rebellion had gone—where they had been forced to flee.

The thought staggered him. He stayed in his meditation for some time after the intuition came, trying to verify it—and what he had learned seemed more and more correct.

The Rebels had left the galaxy.

They had gone to a point above the galactic plane, far from any stars—from all places where the Empire might track them. The Empire had left them nowhere else to run as an army. He guessed how truly desperate the Rebellion was, then. Ascending up out of the galaxy’s gravity well was no easy task. Many ships could not make such a trip. There would be losses in addition to those suffered here. The Empire must have been close to Hunting the Rebels into extinction. That they took this chance spoke of their desperation—but also of their courage and determination to regroup and keep fighting.

These were worthy foes, indeed.

After he and 4-LOM captured Han Solo and his companions, Zuckuss thought, he would honor them. He would still deliver them to the Imperials, but until that moment he would accord them every honor. They deserved honor in their defeat.

Zuckuss slowly brought himself back to awareness of the ship around him: his pilot’s chair, the instrument panel in front of him, the hiss of ammonia through the recirculation system. He opened his eyes and stretched—and coughed and coughed. He could not stop coughing for a time. Blood came up. He injected himself with medicine to control the cough, and he wiped his mouth.

All he could do was mask the symptoms of injury. He had no hope of healing on his own.

He looked around for 4-LOM. The droid had gone off somewhere. Zuckuss wondered if something were wrong with the ship. “Computer,” he said. “Where is 4-LOM?”

“In acquisition cell one.”

Odd, Zuckuss thought. What was the droid doing in there? Zuckuss scanned the solar system and detected little activity. Most Imperial ships had gone. They had three ships orbiting out near Hoth, probably a fair amount of troops still on the ground. One Star Destroyer had just pulled in a downed Rebel transport. It would strip down the other sixteen, one by one, Zuckuss knew. There was no sign of any other bounty hunter’s ship. He and 4-LOM were the last of them to leave the system.

“Computer,” Zuckuss said. They had installed one of the intermittently unreliable voice-activated computers from Mechis III. “Lay in a course to point 2.427 by 3.886 by 673.52 above the galactic plane. Can this ship make that journey?”

The computer did not respond at once. It
was
an odd request. Finally it spoke. “This ship, at its present mass, can reach the specified point in two Standard days.”

Excellent, Zuckuss thought. “Save those course coordinates,” he told the computer, and he set off to look for 4-LOM.

He found the droid sitting on an acquisition’s bunk, legs crossed, hands in his lap, metallic forefingers turned under metallic thumbs, staring straight ahead at the opposite wall.

It looked as if he were meditating.

“4-LOM,” Zuckuss said. “What are you doing?”

“Attempting meditation,” the droid said matter-of-factly, as if meditation were a normal droid activity. He did not look at Zuckuss. He kept looking straight ahead.

Zuckuss stood there dumbfounded. Suddenly he understood many things—why 4-LOM had not left him before this, why the droid constantly asked questions about his meditations, why the droid usually never left his side when he meditated.

4-LOM had been observing him. He was trying to learn how to get intuitive knowledge.

Zuckuss began to cough again. He walked in and sat on the bunk with 4-LOM. “Have you received intuitive knowledge?” he asked when he stopped coughing.

“No,” 4-LOM said. He put down his legs and stood up quickly. Zuckuss looked up at him. “I have the beginnings of an equation on the function of intuition,” the droid said, “but I cannot yet take it to its conclusion. I will need to observe you further.”

Zuckuss stood up, too. “You glittery, tardy-gaited foot-licker!” he said. “You worked with Zuckuss all this time to try to steal his skills!”

“Not steal them,” 4-LOM said. “I cannot take your intuition. I hope only to learn to be intuitive myself.”

Zuckuss had no doubt that 4-LOM would learn intuition. He had never seen a droid so determined to equip himself with every skill necessary to succeed.

“Zuckuss has our answers already,” Zuckuss said. “Han Solo will try to join the Rebels at their rendezvous point, and that is a most interesting point, indeed. You and Zuckuss have work to do before we can go there—let’s get to it!”

4-LOM and Zuckuss hurried to their pilots’ chairs. Zuckuss quickly explained the knowledge he had received. He and the droid agreed that they had to infiltrate the Rebellion. They could not just show up at a point outside the galaxy where the Rebels happened to be—they would have to pretend to want to join them. Their past history with Governor Nardix would make that request somewhat more credible.

“There is a mere 13.3445 percent chance that the Rebels will accept our request to enlist,” 4-LOM said.

Zuckuss thought about that. He looked out the viewport at a row of wrecked Rebel transports and suddenly had an idea that, if it worked, could up that percentage significantly.

“What if we rescued survivors of this battle and delivered them to the Rebels—what would our chances be then?”

“87.669,” 4-LOM answered without hesitation. “Plotting course to the nearest transport.”

It had lights. It had intact decks. It probably had survivors.

It was the transport they had helped bring down, the one named
Bright Hope
.

Zuckuss communicated with the Star Destroyer and arranged for a staged TIE-fighter attack when they left the system: it would make the “rescue” more credible.

The Imperials quickly agreed to every request—though they must have wanted to interrogate all living Rebels themselves. Being forced to use some to bait a bounty hunter trap must not have pleased them.

But obeying Darth Vader’s orders pleased them. Zuckuss and 4-LOM did not need intuitive knowledge to be certain of that.

Zuckuss completed calculations on the spin of the Rebel transport and entered them into the computer. They had to match its spin to dock with it.

“Communication with the Rebel Transport is impossible,” 4-LOM announced. “We will have to dock and force entry into the ship.”

“They will welcome Zuckuss and 4-LOM. We are coming to
save
them,” Zuckuss said.

He was glad they would not have to fight. The Rebel transport would have oxygen on it. He did not want to risk exposure to it. “Computer,” Zuckuss said, “calculate this ship’s oxygen supplies.”

Numbers flashed onto a screen in front of 4-LOM and Zuckuss.

“How many adult oxygen breathers can survive on that oxygen for two days?” Zuckuss asked.

“Fourteen,” the computer answered.

The
Mist Hunter
had three holding cells, built for one person each. They would soon be much more crowded.

“Zuckuss wishes to take fourteen, then,” Zuckuss told 4-LOM, “the ones worth the most bounty—and all droids. Oxy-breathers can crowd into the cells, and the droids can stay out here.”

It was good to have a backup plan. The bounty from the Rebels they rescued might be worth a considerable sum.

“We can force more than fourteen into the cells,” 4-LOM said. “If we draw off all remaining air on the transport, we might accommodate another ten or twelve.”

An excellent plan, Zuckuss thought. Depending on the oxygen supplies available, he and 4-LOM could take as many as twenty-six people, shoved side by side into the cells.

But Zuckuss was suddenly afraid of sucking additional oxygen into his own ship. He would have to carefully monitor that procedure himself. He was still dressed in his ammonia suit. He put on the helmet and gloves, to prepare for boarding, and double-checked all seals.

4-LOM completed his course calculations and began flying the ship toward the Rebel transport. Subprocessors in his mind then began a complete analysis of his first attempt at meditation and intuition.

He realized he had not been completely truthful with Zuckuss.

He had told Zuckuss he had not achieved intuition. But the thought
had
occurred to him in his meditation that the Rebels had left the galaxy. His logic programs quickly discounted that idea—but the idea had been there, if only for the briefest of moments.

Under normal conditions, his logic programs never
allowed an illogical idea to enter his conscious mind at all.

That it had was something new.

It had not occurred to 4-LOM that to achieve intuition he would have to override logic.

He said nothing of his discovery to Zuckuss.

Toryn stood in front of the computer console in the pod bay. She had her list of survivors: one hundred and eight of them. She began scrolling through the list a second time, reading names, reading their qualifications. She had eight pilots, thirty-two soldiers newly inducted into the Rebellion, support staff from the command center, hangar crew, others with specialized skills: cold weather, Hunting, one cook. She had teams of people stocking the pods with all the food and cold-weather gear they could find.