Tales of the Bounty Hunters

by Kevin Anderson

  “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 allegedl
y 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.

  An irregular shape dropped toward the Lomabu “colony.”

  “Corellian YT-1300 freighter,” announced the Hound’s baritone. “Modified. Heavily modified. Illegally modified. Crew and passengers: one Wookiee, two humans.”

  Bossk snapped off the board with a left foreclaw. “We have them!” he exulted.

  Tinian thought she heard something. She touched her headphones. “Listen!”

  Bossk amplified the transmission over a bridge speaker. “Very funny,” drawled a male human. “But what we want is landing clearance. You going to give it, or shall I take this stuff and sell it back to Nada Synnt?”

  “Solo,” Bossk hissed. “Shut down all power.”

  The bridge went dark.

  Tinian raised her tiny luma inside one hand. Red light welled through her fingers. Plan Three, then. She’d hoped not to run Plan Three. Chen, I hope you’re ready. She pressed to her feet. “Let’s go get them.” Trying to sound cocky, she slapped her blaster. “It’s time for a recharge, Bossk. And Chen needs his bowcaster.”

  Bossk drew his forearms out of the troughs and rubbed them against each other. “Tinian, I want you and your Wookiee to determine Solo’s likely avenues of escape. Count his allies and resources. This will be excellent experience to round out your apprenticeship.”

  “We don’t want to use those scanners again,” she objected.

  Bossk flicked his tongue. “You’re right I’m sending you out in my scout craft, the Nashtah Pup.”

  The Pup was as sweet a scout ship as Chenlambec had ever crewed, despite its unfamiliar controls … and it had broadband transceivers, including Chen’s personal favorite, single sideband. Its console curved around two black leather crew seats, with scanners mounted to create the illusion of looking out two trapezoidal windows, just as on the Hound’s Tooth’s bridge.

  Chen steered it back toward the Hound to get the feel of maneuvering. The bigger ship had popped a dorsal hatch to launch the Pup; slowly it dropped shut behind them. Now it was easy to see that the oval Hound’s primary engines lay under its main deck, with exhaust ports across its aft quarter.

  “Watch it,” said Bossk’s voice in his headphones. “I’m tracking you with a quad gun.”

  “Why bother?” snapped Tinian. “We’re practically unarmed.”

  Chen ordered her to take the Pup down out of range, then pointed to one of his ears and over his shoulder toward the Hound’s Tooth: Bossk was undoubtedly monitoring.

  She nodded and reached for the steering rods. The console wrapped around their crew chairs so neatly that either could fly the Pup comfortably.

  Tinian stroked a control rod. “I like this little scout.”

  Homesick for the Wroshyr, Chen barked.

  “I didn’t ask to be born rich,” she argued. “I just wish this were mine.”

  Chenlambec kept digging in his tool pouch. He had left Flirt under the Hound’s navicomputer and brought a remote relay. Now, he wired the remote—which was bigger than Flirt herself—into the Pup’s main communication line. Then he tapped out a code message to Flirt: POWER DOWN Hound’s AUDIO RECEIVERS FOR TWO MINUTES, THEN HIS TRANSLATOR FOR TEN MINUTES. His remote beeped twice, for “message received.” A minute later, it beeped twice, then repeated, indicating that she’d succeeded.

  “I heard that,” said Tinian. “Bossk’ll be deaf to us for two minutes?”

  Howling assent, Chen closed his hands around the throttle rods. Lomabu III loomed closer on the visual screen. They were approaching the daylight side at high noon, out of the orange sun. The Imperials must not see them.

  Tinian talked rapidly into her headphone. “This message is for Governor Desnand, repeat, Governor Io Desnand of the Aida System. We wish to report that the bounty hunter Bossk of Trandosha, repeat bounty hunter, repeat Bossk, is encroaching on your prison world Lomabu III. He is engaged in unauthorized pelt-baiting and means to abduct many of your laborers. This is another bounty hunter speaking. I have Bossk under observation, but he is also observing me. Can you make it worth my while to intercept him for you? Please reply on this frequency so that I may receive at … 1435 Standard hours.”

  That transmission was headed for Aida, not Lomabu. There’d be some subspace delay. Chen pointed at the chrono to warn Tinian that her two minutes were up. His ten were about to begin. She switched off the transmitter. He let go of the throttle rods, and she took them.

  With the Imperial Governor alerted, now he must close the other side of their net: He must make a contact below. Even if Flirt failed him, the Wookiee prisoners must be alerted and freed. Chen
switched the transmitter to a local frequency.

  Eerie howling noises filled the cabin. Single sideband was excellent for transmitting Wookiee speech, but difficult to tune for in Basic. Bossk could listen to this all day and not understand a word. Maybe his translator would choke on it too.

  He called groundside.

  At first, nothing happened. There was always the chance that no illicit transmitter had been set up inside the prison camp, but Chenlambec was willing to bet otherwise.

  “Try again,” Tinian suggested. “We just dropped under the ionized atmospheric layer.”

  Chen howled at the transceiver again. As Tinian brought the Pup toward the target archipelago, the answering howl from his transceiver abruptly modulated.

  Chen grinned aside at Tinian, then answered. His mission took considerable explaining, particularly the part about landing and staging a firefight. The target island grew on the fore screen.

  “Explain about getting Bossk’s confidence,” Tinian hissed, steering out to sea on the island’s west side. The prison compound was on the east shore.

  Chenlambec tried again. Evidently his contact was an elderly male using amateur equipment, desperately afraid that guards would return soon.

  Chen didn’t ask what threat the Imperials used to control his people. The Pup’s scanners had shown him heavy artillery: two turbolaser emplacements plus plenty of unidentified metal technology.

  He needed to get those weapons into his people’s hands.

  Tinian came in low over a dense green jungle, sweeping overland toward the island’s east coast. Abruptly, Bossk’s voice echoed in the cabin. “What’s that? What are you doing?”

  His time was up. If Flirt silenced the Pup any longer, Bossk might suspect her existence.

  Tinian leaned toward the pickup. “We’re going to singe a little fur,” she answered. “Shall we bring some back?”

  “If you know how,” said Bossk. It sounded like a challenge.

  “Brace yourself, Chen,” Tinian muttered. “We’ll land in about one minute.”

  She wasn’t confident of her landing skills, and this was an unfamiliar ship, even though she liked it. Chen flipped her small hands off the controls and grasped the rods. He feathered the main engine and set down the Pup near a cliff along the waterside. The compound would lie on a peninsula just north of that rocky promontory.