Tales of the Bounty Hunters

by Kevin Anderson

  And Han Solo, and the end of the Hunt.

  Toryn had found the leaders of the Rebel insurrection. Its officers outranked her, took charge of her people, and ordered her on to the rendezvous point.

  With a sealed letter she was to hand-deliver to the Rebel command.

  4-LOM had arranged to meet Toryn at a certain small jewel shop he knew well, a place that bought, or sold on consignment, rare jewels—without asking about their provenance. He had business in that shop.

  An old woman dressed in rags rose to meet him. The shop was still as dark and dirty as it had been all those years before. “4-LOM!” the woman said. “Welcome.”

  She could not stand up straight She leaned over the few cases in front of her, bent with age. An old program 4-LOM had not used in a long time activated in his mind, and 4-LOM let it run. “How are you?” he asked the woman.

  “Old,” she said. “But I can still work. I still sell jewels.”

  “When I left here, you had three jewels of mine on consignment,” 4-LOM said. “Have you sold them?”

  “Two, yes. And I have credits to pay you with. How do you want to be paid—Imperial credits, other jewels? I will show you my stock.”

  “Which jewel is left?”

  “Ah, I will show you.”

  She gathered all the jewels on display and put them in pockets in her dress, then she rolled back a rug on the floor behind her cases and opened a trap door there. “Come,” she said. She lit a candle and started down steps into the blackness.

  4-LOM followed. Beneath the shop lay a room that glittered with jewels. She had never shown him this room before. He wondered why she did now. She knew he was a thief.

  “Can you see it?” she said, holding up her light.

  4-LOM looked around the room and saw his jewel, glinting blue in the woman’s light: the Ankarres Sapphire.

  “I had hoped you would still have that one,” he said. He picked it up. It glittered beautifully. She had kept it polished.

  “You wouldn’t let me cut it down, and no one could ever afford the whole stone,” she said. “I was glad of that, actually. I touch it to wherever I hurt, every day. It heals me.”

  “That is why I need it now,” 4-LOM said.

  “To heal you?” she said. “You are metal. Go to a foundry.”

  “The sapphire will not heal me,” he said. “I need it for a mortal friend.”

  He held the jewel out to the woman. “Touch it to where you hurt one last time before I take it,” he said. She touched it to her wrists and ankles, held it to her forehead for a time, then handed it back to 4-LOM.

  They climbed up to the shop, and Toryn walked in. She smiled at 4-LOM. It had been many years since anyone had smiled at him. Other old programs rose, unbidden, to his mind: programs for kindness, service, and selflessness. He wondered if the jewel were affecting him, after all.

  But that was illogical. It had had no effect on him when he had first touched the sapphire to his forehead years before. The old programs ran because he allowed them to run. He did not stop them. Maybe it was time to run those programs again. He could analyze them for their usefulness.

  “Are you ready to leave?” he asked Toryn.

  “I am,” she said. “The others are waiting outside.”

  4-LOM turned to the old woman. “I want you to keep the credits you owe me. Thank you for helping me years ago when I needed it.”

  She bowed to 4-LOM, and he and Toryn left for the ship. Rivers, Bindu, Rory, Darklighter, and Samoc went with them. “Samoc,” 4-LOM called when they got inside the ship. He held up the jewel in the shadows of the corridor there. “Do you know what this is?”

  She looked at it for a moment. “No,” she said. “But it is beautiful.”

  4-LOM explained it to her. “Touch it to your burns,” he said. “It might help you heal.” He held it out to her.

  She held it in her hands for a moment, then touched it to the bandages still on her face even after a month. After a moment, she had to sit down on the deck.

  “Did it help you?” 4-LOM asked.

  “I don’t know. I feel so different—in a good way. Rested, maybe?”

  “I must take it to Zuckuss,” 4-LOM said. He took the jewel and found Zuckuss in an acquisition’s cell. Zuckuss had filled the cell with ammonia and lay there out of his suit, coughing now and then. 4-LOM entered the airlock, waited while ammonia replaced the oxygen, then entered the cell. Zuckuss looked up at him and said nothing. 4-LOM laid the jewel on Zuckuss’s chest.

  Zuckuss looked at it. He knew what jewel it was. He had heard 4-LOM tell stories about it. After a moment he put his hands on it to hold it tighter to his chest.

  “I will fly the ship to the rendezvous point now,” 4-LOM said.

  4-LOM flew the Mist Hunter out of the galaxy at a point near the galactic equatorial plane, and he used the massive gravitational forces of the galaxy itself to propel the ship toward the rendezvous point.

  Which was almost exactly where Zuckuss had intuitively known it would be.

  The exact point was two degrees off. Soon, from their pilots’ chairs, 4-LOM and Toryn saw the scattering of lights that was the Rebel fleet.

  Or what was left of it.

  Seeing it lifted Toryn’s spirits. She looked from the fleet to the galaxy below, and thought how her future was bright again. The Rebellion was not ended. It still had an army, reduced though it might be.

  Toryn handled the communications and brought them in to a hero’s welcome. Friends and family crowded around Toryn and the others, and many wept to see them. Toryn and everyone on her ship had been listed as missing, and everyone believed them to be dead, or worse. General Rieekan himself came to welcome them back, and to get news of the eighty-four once given up for lost now on Darlyn Boda, and the eighteen others presumed still alive on Hoth. “I had feared the worst for you,” he told Toryn.

  Two-Onebee and Effour-Seven rushed Zuckuss to sickbay. The Rebels made way for them. 4-LOM started to follow—Zuckuss was so vulnerable now, and the Rebels provided no security for him—but Toryn stood in front of him.

  “4-LOM,” she said, “I want you to meet General Rieekan. General, this is 4-LOM, one of the two who rescued us.”

  The general extended his hand to the droid, and 4-LOM shook it. “You must excuse me, sir,” 4-LOM said. “My partner has been taken to sick bay without me and without any guards.”

  4-LOM started off at once. Zuckuss had been out of his sight for 1.27 Standard minutes. He did not know how to calculate the odds for assassination amongst these Rebels, but in other places that 4-LOM knew well, Zuckuss would be dead already. Two-Onebee and Effour-Seven could not protect him.

  “4-LOM!” the general called after him. 4-LOM did not stop. The general actually ran to catch up to him. “4-LOM,” he said. “You are safe here. Your partner is safe. I give you my word on that. Murder is not our way.”

  4-LOM slowed down a little, but he did not stop walking. “Thank you for your reassurance, General,” he said.

  The general walked with 4-LOM. “We are forever in your debt,” he said. “I understand you and your partner want to join us. We need fighters with your skills. Once your partner is healed, let’s talk about your first assignments.”

  They were at the doors to the sickbay. “Thank you again, sir,” 4-LOM said. He paused and looked down at the general. “I remember once living the way you describe life here: in safety and trusting others. But that was a long time ago.”

  “I understand,” the general said. “I won’t keep you from your partner’s side.”

  4-LOM entered the sickbay. The light was subdued there, and it was quiet. Even in his rush to get there, processors in his mind had recorded the faces and voices of the people he passed, matching them to the Imperial Most Wanted List and his guild’s list of posted bounties. 4-LOM analyzed those recordings now and calculated the wealth represented by the Rebels he had passed.

  Their combined wealth staggered him. So many had posted boun
ties. The bounty on General Rieekan alone could have bought a moon in the galactic core. It could have bought worlds on the rim.

  But there were other acquisitions, worth much more, somewhere in this fleet.

  Zuckuss was not the only patient in the sickbay. As he walked along, 4-LOM heard others talking there.

  And what he heard from one room made him stop.

  A bounty hunter was lucky if a bounty included a recent hologram. It was the rare bounty that carried not only a hologram, but a recording of the acquisition’s voice. The patterns of two of the voices he heard speaking matched the voices of two of the Empire’s most wanted Rebels: Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia Organa. Each of their bounties nearly matched that offered for Han Solo.

  And they were talking about Han Solo. 4-LOM’s enhanced auditory sensors easily picked up their voices.

  Boba Fett had already captured him. The details were unclear, but apparently Fett was taking Solo to Jabba to collect that crime lord’s additional bounty.

  The Hunt was finished. He and Zuckuss had failed. Darth Vader had likely placed bounties on their heads already. But other possibilities occurred to him.

  He found Zuckuss in a special ammonia chamber, attended by droids he did not recognize. They were clearly just medical droids. He detected no hostile activity in the sickbay at all. Zuckuss did appear to be safe here. The droids admitted 4-LOM to the chamber. “Leave us,” he told them.

  “Not now. Our procedures must be monitored.”

  “Leave us now!” 4-LOM shouted. Zuckuss nodded to the droids and they left quickly.

  “Zuckuss already knows,” Zuckuss said before 4-LOM could speak. “Two-Onebee was called to attach a new hand to an old patient of his: Luke Skywalker. Before Two-Onebee left, he told me how Skywalker came here.”

  “I calculate Darth Vader and the Empire might yet forgive us—and pay a handsome bounty,” 4-LOM said, “if we take them this Luke Skywalker and one other I heard speaking with him: Leia Organa.”

  “But what of Zuckuss’s lungs?” Zuckuss said. “In only a few days, if Zuckuss is monitored here, they will have regrown and Zuckuss will have his health again.”

  “Days!” 4-LOM scoffed. “Our odds diminish with each minute.”

  Zuckuss said nothing. 4-LOM calculated that Zuckuss’s present condition kept him from active participation in probably any Hunt amongst these Rebels—even if Solo had been here. It was up to 4-LOM. His chances of success alone were low—48.67 percent, he calculated—but worth taking.

  If they did not try, if they waited with the Rebels while Zuckuss healed, there would be no going back. Their motivations would always be suspect.

  “If you can get yourself to the ship, I will bring the acquisitions,” 4-LOM said.

  “Zuckuss can do that,” Zuckuss said.

  “Tonight then,” 4-LOM said. “I will make observations and determine a time.”

  “Now!” 4-LOM said. It was late evening. The droid stood, blaster drawn, in shadows. “The acquisitions are standing in the sick-bay solarium, watching friends leave to rescue Solo. Those friends will need more than luck to accomplish that goal—and soon others they know will need rescue.”

  Zuckuss sat up slowly. “There is another way, 4-LOM,” he said.

  “Tell me quickly, then.”

  “Zuckuss has meditated since you left him, and he has had intuition about what will happen to us. We will not capture Skywalker and Organa. We will end up with a golden, bumbling droid and the two medical droids we brought here, and their bounties will not buy Zuckuss’s lungs, nor will turning them over to the Empire clear our names. Both Rebels and Imperials—and the other bounty hunters—will Hunt us. Zuckuss is sick, and will not survive long without treatment. He has decided to stay here.”

  4-LOM did not know what to say. He calculated ten quick responses that ranged from attempting the kidnapping on his own to simply taking the Mist Hunter and leaving. But one fact loomed before him. He himself had calculated only a 48.67 percent chance of successfully kidnapping Skywalker and Organa. He preferred working with better odds.

  Before 4-LOM could complete his calculations and decide on a course of action, someone entered their part of sick bay.

  It was Toryn Farr. She walked up to the ammonia chamber and spoke to Zuckuss through an intercom in the glass wall. “How are you?” she asked.

  Before Zuckuss could answer, she saw 4-LOM standing in the shadows, blaster drawn. “What are you doing, 4-LOM?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

  How quickly humans give their trust. 4-LOM thought. She had come to them unarmed. He put down his blaster. “I am doing nothing, now,” he said.

  But there were many things wrong, many things he could not explain to her. All the choices he and Zuckuss had made had brought them to this point. They had known there were risks in Hunting Governor Nardix, and now they had to accept the consequences of that Hunt.

  But a set of subprocessors in 4-LOM’s mind finished one set of calculations he had begun. He calculated a 72.668 percent chance that the New Republic would license bounty hunters to help enforce its laws and protect its citizens from criminals. He calculated that he and Zuckuss had an astonishing 98.992 percent chance of founding the New Republic’s first bounty hunting guild. It could be an opportunity worth pursuing. He would have to study it further.

  “Zuckuss really is safe here,” she told 4-LOM. “But if you are this concerned, I will come help guard him on my time off. I know you need to attend to your ship, and you can do that while I watch Zuckuss.”

  4-LOM attempted to calculate the best reply, but for a moment he could not. Her words made additional old programs activate in his mind, and it took him a moment to quiet them. It had been many Standard years since he had allowed himself to attribute a positive meaning to another’s actions, the way Toryn had understood his drawn blaster to mean that he was guarding Zuckuss.

  “Thank you, Toryn,” Zuckuss said. “But you can sit here with Zuckuss unarmed. Zuckuss would find it a pleasure to talk with you when you have time.”

  “Then we will talk,” she said. “But I’m here now to extend an invitation to both of you. I’m a little embarrassed to say this, but the letter I brought to General Rieekan was actually a letter commending my actions aboard the Bright Hope. The Rebel command is promoting me to the rank of commander tonight. I would like you both to attend the ceremony, since I would not be here without each of you.”

  Zuckuss tried to speak, but he started coughing. 4-LOM helped him lie back down. “I cannot go anywhere tonight, Toryn,” Zuckuss said. “But I congratulate you.”

  “I asked General Rieekan to hold the ceremony here, so you could attend—if that is all right?” Toryn said. She had tried to explain to the general that she was not qualified for a promotion. She told him what she had done for Samoc. “But of course you helped Samoc,” the general had said. “She is one of our best pilots. We cannot afford to lose her. I thank you for everything you did on her behalf.”

  Toryn wondered if the general were just being kind, yet her promotion demonstrated confidence in her and her judgment. So she had accepted the promotion and her new work.

  Zuckuss looked at Toryn. “I will be honored to witness the ceremony here,” he said.

  4-LOM looked at Toryn. “I also congratulate you. What will you command?”

  “A unit of Special Forces,” she said. “I want to talk to both of you about that later.”

  Samoc, Rory, Darklighter, Rivers, the medical droids Two-Onebee and Effour-Seven, and many other important supporters of the Rebellion attended the ceremony. General Rieekan announced the promotion and Toryn’s new assignment.

  “She and I have discussed how best to rescue our friends who took the Bright Hope’s escape pods back to Hoth,” he said. “We are still working to come up with a viable plan, and Toryn has asked to lead the rescue mission, whatever it eventually entails.”

  Everyone applauded, but the ceremony was not over. General Rieekan walked forward. �
�For your resourcefulness and courage in the line of duty, Toryn Farr, the Rebellion is pleased to grant you this award of merit.”

  The general draped the medal around Toryn’s neck and shook her hand. Amidst the applause that followed, a golden protocol droid popped open a bottle in the back of the room and an R2 unit carried drinks to all the oxygen breathers. Ammonia breathers among the Rebels brought glasses and a fine bottle—from Gand itself—to Zuckuss. Perhaps one day, perhaps soon, other Gands would join the Rebel Alliance. The med droids analyzed a small sample of liquid from the bottle, conferred amongst themselves, and decided that if Zuckuss imbibed one congratulatory drink it would not hurt him. They let two ammonia breathers enter his chamber to present him with the drink. They took off their helmets, introduced themselves, and poured for Zuckuss. He held his drink for a moment and looked at 4-LOM.

  He and 4-LOM had never been treated like this, not even by their own guild. The Empire certainly never invited them to witness its ceremonies. It had rushed to give them many things after they accepted the contract from Vader, but it had not given them as gifts. It had not included them as members of a team fighting for an important cause, like these Rebels did.

  The other ammonia breathers poured themselves full glasses. Zuckuss held his glass up. “To Toryn,” he said. They all drank. Zuckuss then held his glass up to 4-LOM. “To our new lives here,” he said. 4-LOM bowed to Zuckuss while Zuckuss took a drink. Zuckuss coughed a little. 4-LOM helped steady him on the edge of the bed. He quickly calculated the importance of ceremony. He and Zuckuss would incorporate it in their new guild. Ceremony, and the bonding it promoted, would give them a small statistical edge over other guilds that might form in the New Republic.

  In the days that followed, while Zuckuss healed, 4-LOM received programming for his new work in Special Forces, and he oversaw the camouflaging and refitting of the Mist Hunter. Rebel technology would make her a remarkable ship indeed. General Rieekan had talked with him about how he and Zuckuss might attempt a possible rescue of Han Solo, since they would probably have access to Jabba’s Palace. Perhaps they could even intercept Boba Fett.