Star Wars - Tales Of The Bounty Hunters

by Tales of the Bounty Hunters (edited by Kevin J Anderson)

  "No," Dengar said, and he wondered if he had re-vealed too much. He didn't feel much fear anymore, not since the operations. Still, he was trained to silence, and he found that he'd been speaking perhaps too openly. But he'd already told her half his secrets, and if she revealed the rest, well, he could always kill her.

  "Only the Rebellion knows where he is, and they're protecting him. So I had to find a way to join them, but I doubt they'll take me in too easily. I am an Imperial assassin. But Kritkeen has been one of the Rebellion's most vexing foes, and there are plenty more like him that I can take care of. Once the Empire puts a bounty on my head and the Rebellion decides that I'm the Empire's enemy, I suspect they'll offer me asylum. And once I'm in the Rebellion, I'll find Han Solo."

  "You're sowing the seeds of your own destruction," Manaroo said, and her bright black eyes looked fright-ened. "The Empire will hunt you down."

  Dengar laughed. "Well, I've got nothing to lose. Tell you what, why don't you lie down in that bunk, get some sleep." Dengar yawned. He'd become accus-tomed to Aruza's night cycles, and right now, his body said it was past his bedtime.

  A few days later he left Manaroo on some obscure back-water world, giving her a few hundred credits to buy passage wherever, and thought little more of her for the next few months. Though he flew the skies alone, for once he did not dwell upon his loneliness. He was consumed by his search for Han Solo. He cruised the rim of the galaxy looking for tough dives where smug-glers and assassins did business, but he never caught wind of Solo. Twice he sent messages back to Jabba the Hutt on Tatooine to report his progress.

  Five more COMPNOR Redesign officials met brutal ends. Four assassins tried to kill Dengar, and Dengar messed them up for it. Then things got quiet. No one would risk coming after him anymore.

  The name "Payback" was mentioned in hushed whispers when he entered a casino, and often, on strange dirty little worlds, he would look down a street to find some mother and child staring at him, their eyes gleaming with respect. Sometimes, someone would even call his name, cheering him, and he would look back at them blankly, in wonder.

  The planet Toola was little more than a collection of mining camps, a dark place, cold, distant from its sun. The locals, a species called Whiphids, were large crea-tures covered with white fur in the winter which changed to brown in the summer. The huge Whiphids, with their gleaming tusks, had only the barest technol-ogy. The wilder ones still hunted with stone-bladed spears, while warriors closer to the mines sought out metal war axes and even vibroblades smuggled in from off-world. The Whiphids did most of the work in the mines by hand. They were a tough, independent, bar-baric people. Dengar liked them.

  So it was that Dengar found himself in a card game with a clean woman (a rarity in the mining camp), dressed in a nice jumpsuit.

  They sat in a Whiphid hut made of leather sewn over the rib cage of some giant beast. The female Whiphids were singing around a roaring fire, while the smaller males were roasting snow demons, basting them with some sweet-smelling sauce made from lichen. The oily smoke hung overhead like clouds.

  Dengar's card partner, a sharp-faced woman with blond hair and searching eyes, leaned forward during the game and whispered, "I don't understand, Payback. You're an Imperially trained assassin, so why have you turned against the Empire, knowing that they'll kill you?"

  Dengar sighed, as he had a hundred times in the past few months. "It's the right thing to do. I have to stand against the Empire, even if I do it alone.

  "I think." Dengar said, embellishing his tale for the first time, "that I decided I had to quit when they asked me to kill the holy children at Asrat."

  "And they are. ?"

  "Orphans who live in a temple, their lives dedicated to good. They denounced the Emperor, and vowed to 'deny him love and sustenance,' as they put it. They were trying to formally withdraw from the Empire. And in the Empire, rebellion-even from children-is not tolerated.

  "So, I had to either kill the children or leave the Empire. I chose to leave."

  "And what of COMPNOR Redesign. Why do you fight it?" the woman asked.

  "Because they are the most thoroughly evil branch of the Empire. Few men deserve a brutal end at an assas-sin's hands, but many such deserving individuals can be found in Redesign."

  The woman studied his face. She had been careful all evening, maintaining a friendly demeanor, yet never had she identified herself. "But as an Imperial assassin, it is rumored that part of your brain has been removed. You have no emotions, no conscience. How do you measure good and evil?"

  Dengar licked his lips. There were no 'rumors' about his lack of conscience. His surgeries had been per-formed secretly. This woman could only have heard such reports if she'd read his military files-and those would have been painfully hard to come by. Only an agent of the Rebel Alliance might have such informa-tion-or, of course, the original Imperial surgeons who'd operated on him. Dengar wondered what her gifts might be. He had planted enough seeds so that the Rebel Alliance should have contacted him long ago, but he believed that they might fear deception. They would have brought in a special interrogator, per-haps even someone with empathic or telepathic abili-ties. "I have memories," Dengar said truthfully, knowing that his interrogator would feel the truth be-hind his words even if she weren't telepathic. "I re-member the difference between good and evil, even if I no longer see the difference very well."

  "You must be very frightened, very lonely," she said, "fighting the Empire this way."

  "I no longer feel fear," Dengar said. "Such capacity has been stripped away from me." He dared not deny his loneliness.

  "What of the Rebellion? Have you tried to join?"

  "I do not believe they would have me," Dengar laughed hollowly. "I've done enough evil, I think that they will see my death as just recompense."

  "Perhaps," the woman said, as if turning the subject, and she resumed her card game.

  At dawn when Dengar went to his ship, planning to leave Toola, he found that someone had programmed his navicomputer, charting a course for an unnamed star on the farthest rim of the galaxy. A message written in the dust accumulated on one of his monitors said, "Friends."

  He fired up the engines and took off, found that the coordinates led him to a small Rebel outpost where a motley team of military intelligence officials examined him for three days. Apparently he passed their tests and accepted an assignment.

  Like many Rebels he would be expected to be com-petent in several fields. The Rebel Alliance objected to the use of assassins on moral grounds, but he was al-lowed to help plan future raids, upgrade attack swoops, begin training teams of saboteurs how to knock out Imperial starship repair facilities.

  The newly formed outpost that he was assigned to lay in a star system called Hoth.

  Two: The Hope

  When Dengar exited hyperspace in the Hoth system, the Punishing One's proximity indicators immediately blared in warning. The heads-up holo display showed an Imperial Super Star Destroyer directly ahead, with half a dozen other Star Destroyers acting as outriders. Attack frigates, TIE fighters, and personnel carriers filled the sky.

  Below them, against a background of stars, lay an icy white planet, like a pearl, whose surface was obscured by clouds and blowing snow.

  Dengar instantly changed transponder frequencies so that his little Corellian JumpMaster showed up as an Imperial Scout. It was an older frequency, one that he'd used legally months before, but Dengar couldn't risk trying to shy away from the Imperial fleet. If he changed course and tried to skirt around them, he would look suspicious, so he headed straight into the fleet, hoping that no one would get a close enough view of his ship to notice that it wasn't painted in Imperial colors.

  A fray was already in progress. Dengar watched as Rebel transports and fighters blasted off from the sur-face of Hoth under the cover of heavy ion cannons, while Star Destroyers scrambled to intercept the Rebels and shoot them down.

  Dengar whipped between two Star Destroyers, drew in
behind a squadron of TIE fighters that was diving toward the planet's surface.

  Dengar had come a long way to find Han Solo. If he was on Hoth, Dengar planned to get him this time.

  "Imperial Scout," a voice called over Dengar's re-ceiver, "why are you tailing us?" It was from one of the TIE fighters.

  "I've been asked to do some on-site investigation of apparent power fluctuations outside the Rebel base," Dengar lied easily. "Thought I might tag along behind you partway down, if you don't mind."

  "We haven't been notified of your mission."

  "I'm with Intelligence," Dengar joked. "You know how it is: If anyone there notified you of my mission, I'd have to sew his lips shut when I got back."

  His response apparently satisfied the squadron com-mander. They headed down steadily until a Rebel trans-port suddenly appeared racing toward them-a gleaming metal blimp. The TIE fighter squadron dove to intercept, and too late Dengar saw his mistake.

  A glowing ball of red energy burst up from the planet and Dengar accelerated the Punishing One and tried to turn away. The ion cloud washed over his ship with a noise like crackling gravel. Dengar could feel its elec-tric charge raising the hair on his head, and suddenly every indicator light and monitor went dead. The cabin went cold and black. Even whirring fans cycling in oxy-gen from the life-support system droned to a stop.

  He began calling out "Distress," over his comm, even though it was a useless gesture. With all shields down and his equipment polarized, he was floating dead in space. Fortunately, he'd pulled up enough so that his current trajectory was headed away from the planet.

  The TIE fighters below him had been accelerating toward the planet. Within moments they would flame and burn.

  Dengar's ship sped upward, hurtling toward a Star Destroyer, and nearly hit it. He sat, unable to do any-thing but watch as he whirled past it toward the distant stars.

  Some alert Imperial officer must have seen his pre-dicament, for he suddenly felt the Punishing One lurch and slow as the Star Destroyer grasped his vessel in its tractor beams.

  Dengar wondered what this would mean-capture by the Empire. He was a wanted man, and would get the death sentence.

  Dengar was watching the sleek gray lines of the Star Destroyer, trying to guess which docking bay he would be dragged into, when a Corellian light freighter screamed over the horizon, firing at the Star De-stroyer's gun emplacements, dodging laser blasts, three TIE fighters close on its tail.

  "Solo!" Dengar shouted as the Millennium Falcon drew into sight. Almost by reflex, Dengar fired his pro-ton torpedoes, but his firing control was still out.

  The Millennium Falcon gyrated and spun past him, and Dengar ran to the rear viewport, hoping to see Solo's ship.

  The Falcon and its attackers were just distant lights, blurring out among a field of stars. But the Empire had modified Dengar's eyes. He magnified the image, watched the Falcon accelerate toward a trio of Star De-stroyers, and head deeper into space beyond, until even his eyes could no longer track the receding grains of sand.

  Then the Punishing One was pulled into the Imperial Star Destroyer where it landed with a soft clank.

  A moment later, a few dozen stormtroopers blew open the door to his ship. Dengar grabbed a blaster in each hand and rushed toward the main access corri-dor, hoping to make them pay in advance for his death, just as a gas grenade landed a few meters in front of him.

  He tried to hold his breath, but he was too late. He staggered forward three steps, and suddenly it seemed as if his feet were pulled out from under him.

  Dengar landed with a thump in the corridor, lay looking groggily at the ground. He could see, hear. He just couldn't move.

  In a few minutes, the stormtroopers dragged him to an interrogation cell.

  The Empire did not kill him immediately. They in-jected him with pain-enhancing drugs, fitted his head with a scrambler to reduce his resistance to their ques-tions. They knew his name and much of his history. They were able to break into the logs on his ship, find out where he'd traveled. They read his credit chips, found out where his money came from, what he'd pur-chased.

  They questioned him about his work with the Rebel-lion, his motives for assassinating Imperial agents. They gave him the death sentence, and let him sit in his cell for a day, where he plotted his escape. Dengar vowed that they would not take him to the execution cham-bers easily. More than one of his captors would die in the attempt.

  And that night, as Dengar lay sleeping, he suddenly became aware of the sound of labored breathing through a respirator, a disturbing noise.

  He rolled over on his cot. A giant of a man stood wearing black robes and a black helmet that covered his face. Dengar had never met him before, but he knew the Dark Lord of the Sith by reputation.

  Darth Vader.

  The door to Dengar's cell opened of its own accord, and Darth Vader stood alone in the entrance, breath-ing raspily. He seemed to be watching Dengar. More precisely, he seemed to be absorbing Dengar.

  Dengar studied the Dark Lord. He suspected that his executioner had come. It was time for desperate mea-sures. With one lucky blow he might disable Lord Va-der. If he was lucky, and quiet, he might be able to kill Vader, then run for it.

  Darth Vader raised a hand, and Dengar felt his throat constricting, tightening down as if it had been clamped. "Don't even think about it," Vader said.

  Dengar raised his hands in surrender, leaned back to the wall of his cell. The constriction released. "If you're going to kill me, get it over with! I've got nothing to lose!" Dengar shouted. "But I won't make it fun for you!"

  "I'm not the Emperor," Vader said ominously. "I don't kill for amusement-only when it serves my pur-poses."

  Dengar smiled. "Well, then we have something in common."

  "It appears that we have more than one thing in common-" Vader said, "we both want Han Solo.

  "Unfortunately," he continued, "I have an Imperial Death warrant against you. I cannot revoke that war-rant, but I am willing to consider a reprieve."

  "Under what conditions?" Dengar asked.

  "I will let you live, to hunt for Han Solo. Once you find him, you bring him and his friends back to me, alive. After that, if I am well pleased, I may spare you. But if I am not pleased by your performance, I will give you time to run. Then my hunt begins."

  Darth Vader threw Dengar a blaster, just as Dengar had given one to Kritkeen. Vader's meaning was clear. If Dengar failed in this hunt, Darth Vader would be-come the hunter. The monster who had destroyed the Jedi Knights would be on Dengar's tail. Dengar licked his lips, thinking that if Vader hunted him, Dengar would at least show a good accounting of himself.

  "Solo was here, you know," Dengar said. "You lost him."

  "We haven't lost him yet," Vader said. "At this very moment, he has taken refuge in an asteroid field, and our ships are searching for him. You will go into the asteroid field and hunt him. And if you fail me in this." Vader made a crushing gesture with his fist.

  "Yes. sir," Dengar said, not sure whether he should use the proper form of military address.

  "Yes, my lord, "Vader corrected.

  Dengar took a deep breath. "Yes, my lord."

  Vader strode forward, clapped him on the shoulder and stared in his face threateningly. "Do not fail me."

  Vader turned, and the prison door came open. A lieutenant stood just outside the door in his crisp Impe-rial uniform. Vader left, and as the door closed, Dengar heard him speaking to the lieutenant. "This chance encounter has given me an idea. We will assemble a team of bounty hunters to assist in our opera-tion."

  "Bounty hunters! We don't need that scum!" one of the deck officers grumbled to his companions. Dengar stood on a platform while Darth Vader paced back and forth, inspecting the mercenaries who had gathered, giving them their final orders.

  The bounty hunters were a motley array, and despite their small number, they were also very dangerous. Cer-tainly the IG-88 assassin droid bothered Dengar a great deal, but Lord Vader had
also brought on Boba Fett, who not moments before had complained loudly to Vader about the other bounty hunters-loudly enough so that it appeared that Fett's rage came from an un-derlying paranoia rather than about any concerns that he had over competition.

  "I want them alive," Vader was saying of Solo. "No disintegrations!''

  "As you wish," Boba Fett grumbled.

  There was some scurrying at the communications console as the watch commander called to Vader, "Lord Vader, we have them now!"

  Dengar's heart sank. If Han Solo were captured by the Imperials, then Vader would renege on his offer of leniency. He'd carry out the death warrant.

  For a few moments, several bounty hunters stood on deck, listening breathlessly to Captain Needa shout or-ders as his Star Destroyer pursued the Millennium Fal-con. Boba Fett spun away at a run, and Dengar listened for fifteen seconds before he realized that Boba Fett was scrambling to his own ship, hoping to join the chase.