Tales of the Bounty Hunters

by Kevin Anderson

  “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.

  “What’s happening over there?” Toryn said.

  “The droid took us hostage and said he would kill us—and you—if the people he wanted did not come forward to board this ship.”

  But they heard no more shooting. Zuckuss was furious with 4-LOM. “What have you reduced our chances of success to?” he asked the droid. “Who will believe this is a rescue now?”

  No one would. The pod bay lay deserted before them, though Zuckuss and 4-LOM knew that if they left the connecting tunnel, blasters would be trained on them. How many, they did not know. They had not been able to make an adequate assessment of the Rebels’ arms. 4-LOM calculated that he and Zuckuss should be able to subdue the Rebels and take the people they wanted. But what Zuckuss implied in his second most recent question was important: who would think of this, then, as a rescue?

  “Let me try to talk to them,” Zuckuss said.

  He went alone into the pod bay. “Rebels!” he shouted. “4-LOM and Zuckuss are bounty hunters. Our ways are not your ways. But like you, we believe the Empire should fall and are willing to work to that end. We can save a few of you, and 4-LOM has marked your names. Come forward now! We must leave.”

  No one came.

  “We have one other option,” Zuckuss said to 4-LOM. He walked back into the ship. 4-LOM secured the locks and followed him. He calculated many options, not just one: he and Zuckuss could fight to capture the Rebels they wanted, or they could leave with the three Rebels they already had. 4-LOM calculated forty-nine additional viable options. He was curious to see which one Zuckuss proposed that they select.

  Zuckuss spoke through the cell door to the captured Rebels. “Commander Farr,” he said. “We truly meant this to be a rescue, but things have gone badly. What must we do to make it right? Please help us, and quickly. We have little time before Imperials will be upon us.”

  So it was that 4-LOM and Zuckuss prepared their ship to evacuate ninety Rebels, many of them wounded, to Darlyn Boda.

  4-LOM released Toryn to oversee the evacuation. Zuckuss stayed in his ammonia suit and, unobserved by the Rebels, contacted the Imperial star destroyer to call off the “escort” out of the system he had arranged for. The Mist Hunter had never carried so many people. It would not be able to maneuver well at all—they needed no staged TIE fighter attack now!

  “How many Rebels are you taking?” the Imperial controller asked.

  “Ninety,” Zuckuss said. “Plus two medical droids.”

  Zuckuss heard Imperials confer in the background for quite some time. Finally the controller came back on-line. “Acknowledged,” she said. “That information will be relayed to Imperial command.”

  Of course, Zuckuss thought. But the Imperials made no move to stop what he and 4-LOM were doing. Darth Vader had given them a free hand in this Hunt—they could do whatever they thought necessary.

  Zuckuss replaced the ammonia in his ship with oxygen. The ninety Rebels and two droids could then barely crowd aboard. They had to stand or lie as tightly compacted as 4-LOM and Zuckuss had planned to shove twenty-six of them into cells. But they did it gladly.

  It was a chance for life.

  Toryn was last to board.

  “Hurry!” 4-LOM called to her. “It is a wonder the Empire has not attacked us before now.”

  Toryn paused beside the helpful hacker droid at the hatch. “Droid,” she called back. “Thank you for all you have done. Erase yourself and the ship’s main computer.”

  It shut down all lights on the ship at once. It had few life-support systems to shut down. One by one it erased its programs and databases. The Mist Hunter disembarked. The computer would never know what became of the Rebels it had served.

  It erased its long-term memory and started to erase what was left of its short-term memory, but paused there.

  A set of subprocessors at work on that memory bank found, at that moment, the correct way to piece together observations of the attack that destroyed the Bright Hope.

  Now it knew the ship Mist Hunter.

  The surviving Rebels had just embarked on the very ship that first fired on them, trying to destroy them all.

  But the computer had reconstructed these memories too late.

  It could not warn the Rebels. It could not call them back.

  It carried out Toryn Farr’s final order and erased itself.

  • • •

  The Mist Hunter stank of recycled air and, faintly, of ammonia. The air was breathable, but the ammonia in it would give them all headaches. Toryn could feel one starting already, but she did not let it slow her down. The most seriously wounded Rebels lay two to a bunk in the cells. Toryn made her way to each of them, slowly, through the press of people, to talk to them, to encourage them to hang on.

  It was then that she noticed and read graffiti on the cell walls. When 4-LOM had first brought her there, she had not noticed it. But some of the condemned held there had written their names. A few had written lines of poetry. One had written his name and the address of his parents and asked that someone contact them for him. Two-Onebee stood next to her. “Record this name and address,” she told the droid. “I want to contact this person’s parents after we get back.”

  She found Samoc standing in a back corner of the ship, her face and hands wrapped in white bandages. They hugged.

  “You found a way to save us all,” Samoc said.

  “We’re not out of this yet,” Toryn said.

  She would be responsible for ninety Rebels at Darlyn Boda, fifty-two of them seriously wounded. There was a strong Rebel underground there—but the Empire still claimed Darlyn Boda. It controlled its government.

  She looked at Samoc. Toryn doubted her ability to do all she had to do. Twice she had put her personal interest in Samoc’s well-being above the interests of the many she was responsible for: the first time, when she sent Samoc the medical droid; the second, when she tried to get 4-LOM to put Samoc on his list of twenty-six Rebels. She knew, standing there with her sister, that she would do it again. It was not fair to the others. She had to give up her command as quickly as possible. She hoped to find Rebels on Darlyn Boda who outranked her.

  She returned to Zuckuss and 4-LOM.

  “Estimated arrival at Darlyn Boda. 2.6 Standard hours,” 4-LOM told her.

  This ship is fast, Toryn thought, even wit
h a heavy load.

  Zuckuss suddenly began coughing in his suit. He could not stop. Soon he doubled over in his pilot’s seat, coughing uncontrollably.

  Toryn saw blood spatter the faceplate of his helmet.

  She knelt and put her arms around him. “What’s wrong?” she said. “What can we do?”

  4-LOM stood and began examining the seals on Zuckuss’s suit. “Is there an oxygen leak?” he asked Zuckuss.

  “No,” Zuckuss said between coughs.

  Toryn patched into the ship’s comm system. “Two-Onebee,” she said. “I need you on the flight deck, now.”

  Little by little, Zuckuss gained control of his coughing. By the time the medical droid got to him, he had nearly stopped. He ended up telling the Rebel medical droid all about the injuries to his lungs.

  “With the proper medical facilities, I could treat you,” Two-Onebee said. “However, those facilities are, at present, unavailable. Rebel military researchers have discovered ways to genetically trigger the regrowth of damaged tissues.”

  “Clone them?” Zuckuss asked.

  “No. That is illegal. Regrow them inside you. If our medical facilities survived the evacuation, I will be able to treat you at the rendezvous point when we get there. You will have new lungs in only a few days.”

  Zuckuss leaned back in his pilot’s chair and thought about that. He began to meditate, but soon went to sleep. In his dreams he thought he was still meditating. The mists around all his possible futures lifted for a moment.

  There were so many again, so many bright possibilities branching out ahead of him.

  Darlyn Boda was much as 4-LOM remembered it: steamy, muddy, shadowy. It was the perfect place to have begun a life devoted to crime. He walked alone down the streets of a city with the same name as the planet, remembering the day he had jumped ship to start his new life. It had seemed to him then that he had the power inside him to pursue numberless possibilities. He had made decisions that had contracted those possibilities, but he regretted few of them.

  Zuckuss was too sick to leave the ship. The Rebel medical droids, Two-Onebee and Effour-Seven, attended him. The Rebels had all disappeared, though soon he was to meet Toryn Farr and five of her hand-picked fighters. Together, they would fly to the Rebel rendezvous point.