Star Wars: Tales of the Bounty Hunters (32 page)

Thirty-three people had survived on freight deck two. She brought them all to passenger level one except for two Rebels hurt too badly to be moved. Friends stayed with them, and Toryn sent the medical droids. Twenty others from freight deck one had climbed up to the pod bay. It was a crowded space.

Seito stepped up to her. “Imperial Star Destroyer is moving to a second transport.”

The Imperials would be busy for quite some time. Distracted. The pods could launch as soon as she got people aboard them.

She instructed the computer to show her the names of everyone hurt too badly to be moved or who the med droids felt could not survive on Hoth.

A sublist of fifty-two names appeared. Samoc was on that list.

She copied those names to a separate file named
SHIP STAY
. The main list reduced to fifty-six names.

Next, she listed everyone on the main list with broken legs.

Sixteen names appeared. She also copied those names to
SHIP STAY
.

She still had forty names to work through, and she could send eighteen. She decided everyone on the transport should help decide who should go. If everyone participated in that decision, those left behind would find it easier to accept.

Next, she worked with the comm system to hold a shipwide conference. It proved quite a challenge to track the voices of everyone speaking on this ship, no matter how many spoke at once, and to let the rest of the survivors hear the other decks. But she succeeded in setting up the conference and copied a complete list of survivors to each functioning screen. When she next spoke, everyone on the ship could hear her.

“This is Toryn Farr,” she said. The crowd around her grew quiet. Everyone on the other decks grew quiet. “I have just been informed that the Imperial Star Destroyer is moving toward its second Rebel transport. Our comrades there will keep them busy for a time. This gives us an excellent launch window, but we have to move quickly to make it. Eighteen of us will have a chance to try to reach Hoth and survive there till rescue. We need to send those whose knowledge and skills equip them to best help the Rebellion after rescue, but who can also make a team prepared to survive under the conditions Hoth presents. I am sending Seito and Crimmins, both with excellent combat skills; Sala Natu, cold-weather survival specialist, and Berec Tanaal, Hunter. I want you to nominate and vote on the other fourteen. Start now.”

Someone nominated her, but she said she would not go. She was staying with everyone left behind. They needed her here. There was so much work to do to strip the ship of information helpful to the Empire, and it was her duty to oversee that.

Besides, Toryn thought, Samoc would be left behind. She could not leave her.

The names came in quickly, and a list formed up that nearly matched one she would have drawn up herself. Some on the list tried to get others to go in their places, but Toryn was the only one who got away with that.

“To the pods, on the run!” Toryn ordered everyone on the list. “I want the rest of you to start combing every inch of what’s left of this ship for files and documents. Bring them to passenger level one, where we will manually erase them.”

The teams rushed to finish packing the pods. The eighteen people who had this chance climbed inside and strapped into their seats. There was little time for goodbyes.

“May the Force be with you,” Toryn said to them all as they closed the hatches.

“Viewport teams, look sharp,” Toryn said. “I want visual tracking of these pods.”

“Will do,” her observation teams called back.

“Launch!” Toryn ordered.

The pods blasted away from the ship and fell toward Hoth.

Everyone crowded to the viewports. The
Bright Hope
was suddenly very, very quiet. Everyone left on it thought how all their possible futures had shrunk now to two: death, or incarceration in an Imperial prison.

But we are happy for those eighteen, Toryn thought. We’re happy for them.

The pods fell in a tight line toward Hoth. The ship turned and all they saw for a time were the lights of the other wrecks and the star destroyer and stars. The star destroyer did not move to intercept the pods. If it launched TIE fighters to attack them, they could not tell.

When Hoth rolled back around, no one could see the pods for a time.

“Pods at three o’clock!” Rory shouted.

Everyone saw them then, three tiny lights, descending fast.

Soon they could not see them at all against the bright, white light of Hoth.

“I think they made it,” Toryn said. “Now, everyone to work! The Imperials took note of this transport when we launched the pods, you can bet on that. They’ll come for us next. We’ve got to be ready!”

She ordered the computer to erase itself on her command, and she sent a team to uncover the subprocessing units on each deck and prepare to smash them after the data had been erased as a failsafe backup. She ordered the droids to erase their minds on her command—which would come at the last possible moment: they needed medical help till then. The droids’ minds held records of all the Rebel patients they had ever treated. The Empire could not be allowed to get such information: it would tell them who had been alive at a point not far in the past, who had died, what they had said, what conditions they had been treated for—revealing possible weaknesses that could turn some into double agents. The droids would have to destroy themselves.

She thought for a moment about everything else they had to do: destroy documents, tend to the wounded, stockpile weapons, prepare to fight when the Imperials pulled in their ship. She was glad they had a lot to do. Everyone needed work to keep from thinking about the destiny they were rushing to meet.

“Rivers, Bindu,” Toryn said. “Form up a detail to study the pod bay and freight deck entrances. I want recommendations for defensive measures ASAP.”

“Ma’am!” Rory shouted. “Approaching ship.”

Toryn rushed to Rory’s viewport. It was an odd ship coming toward them. It did not look Imperial at all. “Can you read its name?” she asked.

“
Mist Hunter
,” Rory said.

She queried the computer for information on the
Mist Hunter
, but the Ships’ Registry database was offline.

Bounty hunters
, Toryn thought. It had to be.

“
Mist Hunter
heading for pod dock two,” Rory said.

“I want anybody who can fight up here now!” Toryn ordered. “We’re getting company.”

Someone handed her a blaster, and she checked its powerpack. Full power. That bounty hunter ship doesn’t have the right docking mechanism, she thought, but the
Mist Hunter
was prepared for that: its computers analyzed the dock ahead and constructed a match on its side. The docks would fit together perfectly.

Toryn had wounded Rebels on her deck. “Six of you get the wounded down to rooms on deck two in the dark, and bar a door in front of them. Everyone else build barricades!”

People rushed to move the wounded and to pull bunks out of rooms and overturn them in a makeshift barricade in front of the pod bay. They heard the docks click together and the hiss of air pulled from their ship into the tunnel connecting them and the
Mist Hunter
. The locks would open shortly.

“If we overpower them and take that ship, we might have a way to get the rest of us out of here. Darklighter, Bindu—get into the crawlspace and come up behind them. Move!”

People rushed to pull up the deck plating, then cover up Darklighter and Bindu.

“Stay down there till I give the all clear,” Toryn said, “or till you hear fighting move past you.”

This bounty hunter ship shone to Toryn with unexpected hope.

Through all the activity, the computer could not connect with its Ships’ Registry database and its detailed information on ships of the galaxy, though it kept trying alternate routes. It had hints of the name
Mist Hunter
in what was left of its short-term memory databanks: the letters
MIS NTER
from one exterior scan
taken just before or during the attack; from another,
T HUNTER
.

But it could not connect the remaining fragments of those scans with coherent memories.

Yet.

Piece by piece, it was reconstructing its short-term memory. The computer was programmed to believe Toryn Farr would find such information important.

Zuckuss did not take time to track the escape pods as they fell toward Hoth. They were the Imperials’ problems. Besides—he hoped the pods and whoever was in them would make it. It could mean a job Hunting Rebels among the crevasses of an ice world. He would relish such a Hunt.

If he healed
, he suddenly thought to himself. He could conduct such a Hunt only if he healed.

Zuckuss docked their ship and forced open the locks. 4-LOM entered the wreck first. “We are here to rescue you,” he announced to the Rebels arrayed in front of him, and he explained their “plan.” While he spoke, 4-LOM activated subprocessors in his mind that analyzed the actions of the Rebels in front of him. They showed little fear. They did not back up. They did not look away from him. Seven maintained a tight, protective band around the woman 4-LOM calculated must be in command, a resourceful woman named Toryn Farr.

A woman with a bounty on her head. 4-LOM had quickly matched her face with a bounty registered in the Imperial Most Wanted List database.

“Controller Farr,” 4-LOM said. “I must study a list of survivors on this ship. Allow me to access its database.”

He noted the momentary surprise on Toryn Farr’s face when he called her by name and rank. It was good to surprise one’s prey with familiar knowledge: it could inspire trust where none should be given. He moved
toward the computer, but Toryn stepped in front of it first. Her guards followed.

“Answer a few questions first,” Toryn said. “Who sent you?”

Trust from this one might take more time than they had, 4-LOM calculated. “If I told you a story, Toryn Farr, about Rebel connections in one of the largest Imperial bounty hunter guilds, would you trust me then—or would you think I imparted such information too easily? The truth is, I cannot calculate a circumstance under which I would answer your question. None of you have the proper security clearances to receive that knowledge. Suffice it to say that the answer would surprise you. For now, our presence here to rescue you must be answer enough.”

He studied the faces of all the Rebels arrayed in front of him, and matched most of them with bounties. He soon had twenty-six worth taking. Their combined bounties—the riches they represented—could not buy worlds. These Rebels were not valued like Han Solo and his companions.

But their bounties could buy Zuckuss lungs.

For a moment, 4-LOM regretted the necessity of returning these Rebels to their comrades. But he and Zuckuss Hunted more valuable prey. These Rebels were expensive bait for the trap.

“Send your droids and the twenty-six of you whose names I will call out,” 4-LOM said. “By now, my partner has pumped oxygen into the passage that leads to holding cells on
Mist Hunter
. Move quickly! The Empire will not forever fail to detect us.”

He called out the names, but no one moved. Toryn’s was the first name he called. She realized the other names were the names of Rebels who had fought with the Rebellion for some time.

Long enough to have had bounties placed on their heads.

The droid was clearly trying to take Rebels who could
bring it the most credits. Toryn did not believe its claims that it and its partner were Rebels who had come to rescue those who could most help the Rebellion.

“I have an alternate plan,” she said to 4-LOM. “Put your ammonia-breathing partner in a suit, replace the ammonia on your ship with oxygen to make room for more people, and fly all of us to Darlyn Boda. It would take half a day to get there. We have contacts on Darlyn Boda who will treat our wounded and hide us till we can rejoin the Rebel army.”

“We must go to the rendezvous point!” 4-LOM said. “Our ship is needed there. We will take the twenty-six of you I have indicated and waste no more time.”

“I will not leave people I am responsible for,” Toryn said.

4-LOM reacted so quickly no Rebel could have responded first. In a flash of movement he beat aside Toryn’s guards, grabbed her, and held her in front of him, between the Rebel barricades and pod bay 2.

“We do not have time to argue,” he said. “And Zuckuss and I do not have time to take wounded conscripts to Darlyn Boda. I have chosen twenty-six of you. You will board the ship now.”

Deckplates clattered behind him. There were two Rebels there, hidden under the deck! These were resourceful foes, indeed. He could have used the blasters implanted in his back to kill them both, but chose not to.

He would not kill people he was pretending to save, at least not yet.

“Let her go,” one of the Rebels behind him said.

But Zuckuss came up behind
them
, out of the tunnel between the ships. “No, both of you move aside,” he said to the two Rebels. “Your devotion to your commander is admirable. She will go on to serve the Rebellion well once we deliver her to the rendezvous point. You have that satisfaction.”

In a flash of movement, 4-LOM dragged Toryn Farr
through the tunnel to a holding cell. He clamped her wrists and ankles into restraints on the wall there. She was not strong enough to fight him off.

“This is no rescue!” Toryn said.

“But it is,” 4-LOM said. “Shortly you will be at the rendezvous point. I regret the necessity of using force with you, but saving you is logical and saving time a necessity.” He started to walk out of the cell.

“Your logic is flawed,” Toryn called after him.

The droid looked back at her.

“You left one of our best pilots off your list of people to save—Samoc Farr. You think the Rebellion doesn’t need good pilots?”

The droid said nothing to her and left. She heard shooting on the
Bright Hope
. It was a commander’s worst nightmare: to be away from her troops when they were in battle. Soon the droid returned with Rivers and Bindu. He shoved them in her cell.