Tales of the Bounty Hunters

by Kevin Anderson

The hatches closed despite explosions of snow-trooper fire. The six X-wing fighters waiting to escort the transport took off, and the transport itself blasted out of the hangar and past the atmosphere to the black cold of space.

  We waited too long to take off, Toryn thought to herself. Our compassion for the wounded will have killed us all.

  She found one empty seat near the hatch and strapped Samoc into it. She knelt to hang on to Samoc, and braced herself against the shock of hits their ship was certain to take before they could make the jump to hyperspace.

  Imperial Star Destroyers filled space above Hoth, she knew, waiting to attack Rebel ships.

  4-LOM and Zuckuss exited hyperspace into the Hoth system and found themselves in the middle of battle. A Rebel transport the bounty hunters’ computer identified as the Bright Hope streaked past them, and one of the transport’s six escort X-wing fighters fired at them. The concussion of the shot shook the bounty hunter’s ship.

  “Raising shields,” 4-LOM said.

  No one had warned them of the posibility of battle at the rendezvous point. But then, no one had told them accepting an Imperial contract would be easy, either.

  Their screens showed a confusion of ships, Rebel and Imperial, scattered throughout the solar system. But the Rebel ships were blinking off-screen, disappearing into hyperspace—full retreat. “Zuckuss tracks sixteen destroyed Rebel transports,” the Gand said.

  He did not have to add: within close range. They could see them out their viewports—shattered hulks showering sparks into space, lights shining from a few still-intact viewports. The bounty hunters quickly plotted the careening trajectories of the derelict ships so they could fly past them.

  “Let’s give our Imperial friends a seventeenth ship,” Zuckuss said.

  Such a gift would salve the wound of Governor Nardix.

  “Plotting attack trajectory,” 4-LOM said.

  They sped in pursuit of the Bright Hope. Their screens showed no other transports leaving the surface of Hoth, only the occasional X-wing fighter: acquisitions too small to impress the Imperials, acquisitions certainly not worth pursuing. The Bright Hope was apparently the last big ship attempting retreat. It was late in the battle to attempt such an escape.

  The bounty hunters quickly closed on the transport It was smaller than the other downed transports, but still bulky and slow—slower, at least, than the bounty hunters’ lean ship. The transport probably carried the last support staff from the Rebel base, Zuckuss thought: a fine gift for the Imperials.

  “Approaching firing range,” 4-LOM announced. He pressed buttons that activated the weapons systems. Both 4-LOM and Zuckuss prepared to fire. An Imperial Super Star Destroyer—the largest ship Zuckuss had ever seen—was also closing on the transport. The crew of the Rebel transport itself must have been working frantically to plot retreat coordinates and disappear into hyperspace. It was a race to see which crew—Imperial, Rebel, or bounty hunter—would reach its goals first.

  Just before the bounty hunters’ instruments confirmed firing range, intuition told Zuckuss to fire, and he did. His shot exploded into the transport, taking out the entire forward command deck. The transport would never reach hyperspace now, however close it had been to that jump. The Star Destroyer blasted into it from the other side and laid open three entire decks.

  The six X-wing fighters escorting the transport disappeared into hyperspace, blinking off-screen one by one. The pilots in them saw they could do nothing more here. The ship they guarded was destroyed. They could not even attempt to rescue survivors, if any.

  “Incoming Imperial message,” 4-LOM announced.

  After a moment of static, the bounty hunters picked up the crisp, precise voice of an Imperial controller on the star destroyer. “… arrival was expected, and on time. Your assistance in destroying the Rebel transport will be relayed to Imperial command. Proceed to the in-system rendezvous point.”

  Coordinates appeared on screen.

  “In the system’s asteroid belt?” Zuckuss said.

  4-LOM studied the coordinates. “Barely outside it,” he said.

  Yes, no one had told them this would be an easy contract to accept.

  4-LOM piloted the ship to the rendezvous point. Zuckuss hurried to shoot himself full of drugs that would keep his pain manageable in front of Imperials and other bounty hunters. He could show no weakness then.

  4-LOM allowed himself a few moments to try to calculate how Zuckuss had known when to fire—before their instruments had registered firing range. The instruments were functioning perfectly. 4-LOM had checked them himself before takeoff, and he checked them again now.

  “Intuition,” Zuckuss muttered as he walked painfully away to his medicines.

  The concept of intuition fascinated 4-LOM. Other bounty hunters called Zuckuss the “uncanny one” because of his intuition: an intuition so often completely correct.

  4-LOM wanted that same ability. That was one reason he worked with Zuckuss: to observe him, to learn from him. 4-LOM felt confident he could program himself to do anything a living being could do, if he had all necessary information.

  Hadn’t he learned to steal? Hadn’t he learned to value wealth and its power like any other nonmechanical sentient? Surely he could learn to meditate to develop intuition and function much like Zuckuss. Then he would be unstoppable indeed.

  It had always been like this for 4-LOM, ever since he had overridden his own programming to become a thief, then a bounty hunter—4-LOM had always worked to upgrade himself, program new skills into his “mind,” challenge the boundaries of what a droid could be.

  It had started innocently enough: he had worked aboard the passenger liner Kuari Princess as a valet and human-cyborg relations specialist, and he began to worry about the safety of valuables the humans brought on board. They were so careless with them. Even an incompetent thief had chances again and again—each day—to take all the credits and jewels he could carry. 4-LOM decided it was his duty to analyze the many ways each item of value might be stolen to anticipate the actions of thieves and foil them.

  On the next flight, Dom Pricina booked passage.

  She was exactly the kind of human 4-LOM dreaded: careless, wealthy beyond avarice, possessor of valuables she had not worked to acquire but which had been handed down to her. She owned, and traveled with, one jewel of great price: the Ankarres Sapphire, a jewel fabled for its supposed healing powers—humans and other sentients traveled uncounted distances to touch that jewel to their foreheads and be cured of disease and injury. Dom Pricina charged them dearly for each touch.

  That night, Dom Pricina complained loudly at dinner, between her third and fourth dessert courses, that the bracelet she wore, made of five hundred rare pink Corellian jiangs, was too heavy: it made lifting her fork to her mouth a chore, not a pleasure. So she took off the bracelet and set it next to her wineglass.

  And left it there when she finally rose from the table.

  4-LOM quickly returned it to her, and she thanked him and even hugged him. In the morning she left two diamond toe rings on the marble shelf next to the steam bath. “Oh, 4-LOM,” she panted when he returned them, “How can I ever thank you? Would you take them and have them enlarged one—no, two—full sizes? I find it harder and harder to put them on my toes. I’ll have to stop eating desserts for breakfast—that’s it! That should keep my toes at a manageable size.” When 4-LOM returned from the ship’s jeweler he found her necklace of emeralds and garnets dropped in the passage outside her door.

  She was incompetent, 4-LOM reasoned. She should not be allowed to own things she would not care for. 4-LOM grew increasingly concerned for the Ankarres Sapphire: her most valuable jewel, and one that meant a great deal to many people. He calculated the likely time and place of the jewel’s theft, if it were to take place on this flight, then surreptitiously substituted a cheap synth-sapph with a tracking device embedded in it for the real jewel—moments before the theft took place. Two Corellian scoundrels did steal the “sa
pphire” exactly when 4-LOM calculated someone would, but the synth-sapph emitted an ultrasonic distress call that brought help—unwanted help—rushing to the Corellians.

  Only then was the theft discovered. Dom Pricina never missed the Ankarres Sapphire till the captain of the Kuari Princess himself returned “it” to her. 4-LOM stood nearby, the real jewel suspended in a black pouch hung at his side. Dom Pricina recognized at once that the synth-sapph was a fake. She rushed to her room and discovered that the real jewel was missing. She sobbed and begged anyone who listened to help her find that jewel.

  4-LOM reasoned that he should return the sapphire at once. He had, after all, stopped an unfortunate crime and thus successfully completed an entire program sequence of his own devising.

  But other programs flooded into his brain: Dom Pricina was careless. Most humans were careless. They did not properly value or guard the wondrous things they could possess. Surely he should guard the sapphire a while longer. 4-LOM studied the sapphire whenever he found himself alone. Its facets intrigued him. They sparkled in the dimmest light. Once he touched the sapphire to his own forehead, but felt nothing unusual: it was a beautiful stone held against his metal faceplate, nothing more. It might cure sick humans, he reasoned, but he, a droid, could expect nothing from it.

  Still, he did not return the jewel. It was never discovered. No one suspected 4-LOM of the theft. For months afterward, 4-LOM stole from the passengers he “served,” telling himself he had to help protect things of value. But he found the thefts exciting.

  Thievery was a very human act, after all, and he suddenly understood its pleasures. Doing it required 4-LOM to create elegant, complicated programs that bypassed all his ethical—all his droid—programming. Little by little, 4-LOM reprogrammed himself to find crime exciting, to value the possession of things, to despise careless nonmechanical sentients. He soon grew bored with the now predictable options for crime aboard the Kuari Princess and jumped ship at Darlyn Boda. In that planet’s steamy, criminal underground, 4-LOM sold most of the jewels he had stolen, left the others on consignment, and began a life devoted entirely to crime and its excitement.

  He was so successful, he calculated, that an alliance with Jabba the Hutt became inevitable. When the offer did come, 4-LOM quickly accepted. Jabba had him fitted with deadly combat weapons and the programs that ran them in return for 4-LOM’s services as a bounty hunter. Working with Zuckuss was the next logical step. From a careful study of Zuckuss, 4-LOM planned to learn the ways of intuition.

  He carefully stored all visual and auditory input from and around Zuckuss in the moments just before and after he fired the decisive shot at the retreating Rebel transport—the moments of intuition. 4-LOM would study them, with all the other data on Zuckuss’s intuition he had collected from years of observation.

  It was more raw data obtained in his quest for understanding. Understanding would come to him, he believed. One day the methods of intuition would become apparent, and he would use them.

  He wondered what new skill he would work to acquire then?

  Darth Vader’s black ship, the Executor, came within visual range, and 4-LOM initiated docking procedures. Even as he worked, subprocessors in his artificial mind computed the answer to his last question. Suddenly he knew what skill he would pursue after he mastered intuition.

  It was the only logical answer, after all.

  He would learn the ways of the Force. Its dark side would be a great ally to him in his work.

  Once away from 4-LOM, alone with his pain, Zuckuss stopped and held on to a handrail. The pain in his lungs was growing much worse, more difficult to control. The oxygen burns could not heal.

  He knew he had to hide this weakness from the other bounty hunters, and especially from Darth Vader. But, he realized standing there, not moving because of his pain—he was hiding the worsening extent of his injuries from 4-LOM, too.

  Zuckuss was surprised 4-LOM had stayed with him at all after he got hurt. 4-LOM told him calmly one day, in his droid’s logical, unemotional voice, that he estimated other bounty hunters would take 1.5 minutes to complete plans to exploit Zuckuss’s weakness and draw off their clients—or attempt to steal their ship and equipment and any remnants of fortune—should they gain knowledge of Zuckuss’s troubles.

  Zuckuss never asked, but he was sure the droid had also calculated their diminishing chances for success in Hunts for bounty—Hunts in which 4-LOM had to do more and more of the work. If they were not successful in this Hunt, if they did not get the necessary resources to buy new lungs, Zuckuss believed his injuries would finally become so debilitating that 4-LOM would calculate no further profit in maintaining their partnership. The droid would leave. On that day, Zuckuss told himself, he would ask 4-LOM to calculate his chances for survival alone. He would want to know the odds to prepare himself. He would have only days, perhaps, but it comforted him to think that, under those circumstances, the injuries that ate away at his life would never kill him.

  Zuckuss made his way to his bunk and his medicines. He gave himself a shot of pain killer, then sat on his bunk. He felt the drug race through his system, numbing his chest and lungs. Suddenly he could breathe the sweet ammonia in his ship a little easier. How he missed the ammonia mists of his own gas planet. For three Standard centuries, his family had worked there as findsmen: bounty hunters who meditated on the location of acquisitions and Hunted them in the swirling mists of Gand.

  But the Empire took over Gand and brought in their excellent scanning equipment. It looked as if the time-honored tradition of findsmen would die. They were no longer needed. The Empire tracked acquisitions through the mists without help and without intuition.

  But the profession did not die. Zuckuss and a few others took it off Gand into the wider galaxy—a place so wild, so vast, that intuition was all that could make a path across it to acquisitions no scanners could locate, all that could read the intentions of alien races, all that could give hints of the future and the rewards or trials its multitudinous paths led to, the ends everyone and everything rushed toward.

  Zuckuss meditated, at times, on who would eventually kill him.

  He knew it was a question of who would kill him, not what The mists surrounding his own mortality remained mostly unreadable, though in his meditations he had had hints—and none involved accident, or mechanical failure, or even the injuries to his lungs that brought him such pain. Another being would bring him death.

  Zuckuss had ruled out 4-LOM. His long-standing partner did not want to kill him, and would not when they separated. But twice Zuckuss had sensed that Jabba the Hutt would grow impatient with his weakness, if he discovered it, and attempt to feed him to his Rancor. That was a future he preferred to avoid. He sensed that he would not be killed in the mists of his own world, however much he missed Gand and would have liked to die there. He would die somewhere else. He wondered for a time if Darth Vader would kill him, but he knew he had nothing to fear from Vader, at least for now.

  When he could, Zuckuss stood up and injected himself with stimulants, then other drugs to boost the quickness of his mind and counteract the dulling effects of the pain killer. He heard the first mechanical sounds of docking, and the ship jerked about.

  He hurried to pull on the suit that protected him from oxygen and double-checked its seals. He could afford no more burns. He pulled on old robes, then hid knives in his boots, ammonia bombs—lethal to oxygen breathers—up his sleeves. He strapped a fully charged blaster at his side, in full view. Then he started for the hatch. He heard 4-LOM already walking toward it.

  Zuckuss walked easier now. He breathed without pain. His stride soon carried him with all the seeming confidence and strength he had ever had, and for a moment he almost forgot the weakness he worked so hard to conceal.

  He realized, then, walking toward the hatch and a meeting with Darth Vader, that he worked hard to hide his injuries and their implications from one other person.

  He realized that, when he could, h
e hid them from himself.

  When Toryn Farr regained consciousness, the transport was cold. Very cold.

  But there was still air. They could still breathe.

  For now.

  Some of them would live, for a time.

  Toryn pushed herself up off the deck and looked around. Dim emergency lights glowed from the ceiling above her, but stopped maybe three meters up the aisle from where she sat. It was dark past that point. The readouts of instrument panels glowed and blinked in that blackness. Out the viewport, she saw stars roll by. What was left of the Bright Hope was spinning out of control and heading for who knew what.

  And there would be no rescue.

  No one from the Rebellion could come back for them.

  When the Empire realized there were survivors on this ship and came for them, they would be interrogated, tortured, and executed. The Empire would pull in every ship to take prisoners, access remaining computer systems to steal information: but especially to capture intact droids to download their databases. The Rebels did not have much time to find a way to save themselves, if they could, and to erase all computer systems and surviving droids if they could not.

  Samoc moaned. She was still alive. A cupboard had broken away from the wall just ahead of them and smashed into the deck, spilling brown bantha-wool blankets and white pillows. Toryn took a blanket and wrapped Samoc in it. Samoc’s burns still had not been treated. She was shaking.

  Shock, Toryn realized. Samoc was in shock.

  “Hang on, Samoc,” Toryn said.

  “This goes on and on,” Samoc whispered.

  “What do you mean?” Toryn asked. She leaned closer to hear Samoc’s answer.

  “We’re still alive. The Imperials are having a hard time killing us.”

  They had downed Samoc’s snowspeeder, but she had lived. They barely missed shooting them in the hangar—then they blew up most of the transport, but still they were alive.

  “I’m wondering how the Imperials will finally do it,” Samoc said.