Bossk clawed buttons until he'd called up the incom-plete human title, "Tinian." She hadn't given a second name. The computer hesitated several seconds before spewing two Wanted designations. One fit this human's description right down to extremities' body tempera-ture. Few other races noticed that detail. It was one of many factors that made Trandoshans the best Hunters.
A modest reward for her capture was offered by the Imperial governor of an industrial planet, Druck-enwell. Apprenticed to a licensed Hunter, she was temporarily invulnerable-this was one way minor criminals ducked justice-but once Chenlambec lay dead on his skinning table, she would be fair game. Her bounty was too low to make him fear her abilities, but high enough to cover fuel costs for his Hunt.
He needed only to get them aboard the Hound's Tooth.
But his primary target was Chewbacca. He wasn't for-getting that rich bounty. nor his humiliation at Gandolo IV. for a microsecond.
He made his way to Docking Bay Six, where the Hound's Tooth sat under bright lights, guarded by Impe-rial stormtroopers. Three of the other Hunt ships had already blasted off. The Hound glistened, too new to have collected a patina of scars, pits, and scorch marks. Aware of the staring stormtroopers, he marched stiff-legged to its ramp. "Bossk," he announced. "Board-ing." )
It took the Hound less than a second to check his voice pattern. "Confirmed," said a metallic baritone voice. Bossk liked a ship that could speak for itself. He'd paid extra for responsive programming. The Hound's Tooth dropped its port boarding ramp.
He hustled up into the cockpit. Hurriedly he checked his security systems, paying particular atten-tion to the port sleeping cabin.
Satisfied, he strode along a curving passage to one of his aft holds. His passengers would need enough space to store three hundred kilos. of what? Puzzling over the question, he flicked his tongue. Whatever they brought, the Hound soon would identify it, and Bossk soon would own it.
He took up a position inside the Hound's Tooth's main airlock and waited for his boarding party.
Tinian approached across the Executors mirror-bright deck. She steered a repulsor locker with her left hand, keeping her right hand near the blaster that hung from her slouch belt. A black duffel hung over her left shoulder.
"Welcome aboard the Hound's Tooth. You and your companion will share the port cabin," he told her. "I left its hatch open. Walk directly in and stow your gear. I'll join you later."
She steered into the ship's comfortable dimness.
He turned his attention to the far more interesting sight of Chenlambec leading two Imperial service droids. Each droid hauled a large storage locker, and the Wookiee hefted a weapons crate over his head.
"What's in there?" Bossk addressed a squatty draft droid on two tractor treads.
Chenlambec growled unintelligibly. Bossk suspected he'd just been cursed. He flicked his tongue in reply, then pushed away from the bulkhead. "Follow me."
He led aft out of the brilliant light, past the passen-ger cabin toward his smaller cargo bay, where he'd cleared a few meters of deck space. "Pile it here. Touch nothing else."
Chenlambec hooted at die service droids. They set down their burdens, swiveled on their treads, and squeaked back toward the passage, returning to the Executor's droid pool.
Bossk's huge, red-and-bronze X10-D service droid rolled forward. Chenlambec backed away from it, bar-ing his teeth.
"ExTen-Dee will secure your objects for flight-" Abruptly Bossk felt a presence behind him. He spun, automatically aiming his blast rifle.
"Easy, Bossk." Tinian stalked into the cargo bay with both hands raised. "What is that monster?"
"I told you to go to your cabin." Bossk let his rifle dangle again. The X10-D unit was no monster, but to humans and Wookiees, who needed excessive light to see clearly, the droid would look enormous. "That is my draft droid."
Tinian walked around the gleaming red unit. Roughly Trandoshan in shape, the X10-D had retract-able piston arms that could stretch out three meters, a massive conical torso, and self-propelling roller feet. "I suspected you two would need me to translate before everything was stowed where you wanted it," she said. Touching XlO-D's glimmering chest, she added, "Maybe you won't."
"I will tell your companion where to stack his lock-ers, and ExTen-Dee will secure them," Bossk answered. "On this ship, droids and Wookiees are ordered to lis-ten, not speak."
Chenlambec growl-barked.
"Some of this is delicate equipment," said Tinian. "Do you have lashing cables?"
"My draft droid will anchor your gear."
Chenlambec hooted.
"We want to watch," said Tinian.
"Watch if you want."
It took an hour to secure the pair's belongings. "Re-member our bargain," Tinian said as X10-D returned to his position along the rear bulkhead. "We don't search your ship, you don't touch our equipment."
"And you stay out of everything." Bossk pointed a long claw at her.
Chenlambec shook a hairy paw and roared.
She glowered up at the Wookiee. "Of course not, Ng'rhr. Not this time."
Bossk crossed his forearms and smiled. Evidently this pair was not perfectly cohesive.
He could easily promise not to touch their gear. The Hound's Tooth's security scanners and its onboard com-puter were matchless.
Other than the X10-D unit, he required no crew. The ship's intelligence also helped overcome a Trandoshan's one real handicap: other races' technol-ogy was not made for Trandoshan hands, and even the ship's special fittings were sometimes clumsy.
He led them back to the Hound's airlock. As it hissed shut and he sealed the pair on board, he murmured worshipful thanks to the Scorekeeper. He would use these passengers until he no longer needed them.
Then he would start skinning.
"We'll cut cables as soon as you're ready," he in-formed them. "I have acceleration chairs in the larger cargo hold."
"I don't think I trust your acceleration chairs," an-swered Tinian.
Bossk laughed deeply. "If I want your scalp and his pelt, I'll take them. but not before Lomabu III. We all want Chewbacca and Solo. We'll capture them to-gether."
Tinian peered up the narrow passageway. She couldn't make out much detail. She knew Trandoshans saw in the infrared, but she didn't have IR goggles. She'd never owned a pair.
"Where is this waypost?" Bossk clomped up behind her. "I need coordinates now."
Chen hooted a series of numbers. Tinian repeated them. She added, "It's programmed to destroy any non-Wookiee that approaches. From the time we drop out of hyperspace, the Hound's Tooth must maintain scanner and sensor silence and total shielding, unless Chen is the only one outside your shielded area."
"I understand." Bossk flicked his tongue. "Shall I show you to the acceleration chairs now?"
"We'll ride in our bunks." She adjusted her duffel.
Bossk shrugged. "Suit yourself. Don't blame me if you get thrown around."
Tinian ducked back into the sleeping cabin. Roughly three meters by four, it was so dark that everything inside looked gray. Chen squeezed in after her, looking like a massive black shadow. Bossk's scaly back re-treated up the main passage.
She pulled out a luma and shone it around. Bunks, storage compartments. also a small washcabin, comfortably sized for her but cramped for a Trandoshan or a Wookiee.
Tinian swept her luma up and down a bulkhead, looking for a power point. "Here," she said. It was at her shoulder level, an easy height for Bossk or Chen-lambec to access. Chenlambec stowed his duffel inside a compartment.
"Goody," Flirt chirped from her bandolier perch. "Did you get a look at that big droid? What a speci-men!"
A smooth, low thrum began. Tinian looked up at Chen and added ruefully, "Nicely tuned engines."
Chen answered shortly. She knew he loved his little saucer-shaped Wroshyr, even though it was growing seedy. He must hate leaving it in the Executor's storage bay, paying Imperials by the day while they remained on board Bossk's ship.
"If this goes well, we'll be able to pay parking for fifty years. If not, we won't care. Don't worry, Ng'rhr." She gathered a handful of fur in one hand and tugged hard. Wookiee fur felt softer than it looked.
Chen pulled Flirt off his bandolier. He held her in one massive hand while he ordered her to concentrate on securing their cabin.
"Right," added Tinian. "Bossk wants to get to that waypost, but he's not going to leave us up and around."
"So plug me in," Flirt exclaimed. She emitted a happy squeak as Chen pushed her connector into the power point. Then she hummed tunelessly, her version of electronic contentment.
Chen had inherited Flirt from a slain hunting com-panion. The other Wookiee-Chen had never named him to Tinian-had invented the illegal droid and pro-grammed her to seduce an intelligent computer. Flirt could open data streams, shut down security, and sub-stitute her owners' commands for the operator's. all without needing to plug into an information outlet. Any power point would do. Inside her titanium shell, the first centimeter was packed with sensor and an-tenna windings.
But she wasn't dependable. Some jobs that sounded easy to Tinian took Flirt hours to accomplish. That was why they'd prepared three contingency plans.
"She sounds happy." Tinian climbed onto the top bunk and strapped in, using heavy webbing that looked black in the dim light. If her eyes hadn't adjusted by now, they probably wouldn't. This light was too faint for humans. "I hope she hurries."
Chen stood beside the two narrow bunks and braced himself against the deck and the upper bulkhead, where he would block Tinian's fall if she rolled. He wondered aloud if Bossk were operating the Hound's Tooth alone.
"If he is, the onboard computer's got to be more powerful than any we've ever seen." Tinian rolled onto her side and eyed Flirt.
Chen muttered.
"And our scaly friend has probably got connections in shipbuilding circles." He was probably listening, too. She added, "It's a good-looking ship."
Chen grinned, showing teeth. He grunted several in-sults.
Tinian grinned back. "He's probably got a transla-tion program activated."
Chen told Bossk what he could do with his transla-tion program. Flirt sat glued like a mynock to her bulk-head, introducing herself to the most powerful onboard computer she had ever encountered. Tinian guessed that the Hound was too intelligent a ship to be easily dazzled.
But Flirt had better succeed before they reached the waypost. All of their plans required being conscious after that jump.
The ship lurched. Tinian's feet hit the bulkhead. She'd learned to growl-bark a few words in Shyr�wook, which translated literally as "Tongue of Tree People." It was a wonderful language for expressing disgust. She howled, then added in Basic, "He doesn't mess around."
Chen snorted.
Tinian braced one arm against the bunk's inner bulkhead and the other against Chen's broad back. He had taken the place of the father she had only known in her imagination, strong and fearless. She'd first saved Chen's life back at Silver Station, where venge-ful-but stupid-Ranats tried to blow out a bulkhead and send everyone aboard on the Final Jump. Tinian had tracked down the Ranats by the smell of their JL-
12-F, an explosive manufactured by one of I'att Arma-ments' competitors.
She'd saved him again at Kline Colony, where a Rebel "acquisition" had resisted Chen's unique style of rescue. They'd saved each other in Ookbat's dank war-rens, on a mission that failed.
Acceleration became hard and steady. The aft bulk-head started to look and feel almost like a deck. Tinian rolled toward the bulkhead. It'd been days since she'd slept well. Maybe a nap would-
Something pricked her skin through the thin mat-tress.
Bossk flicked his tongue: Success! They were both unconscious. "Hound," he called, "disarm all cabin locks."
"Confirmed," answered the Hound's baritone.
He stalked up the corridor and touched out a code on his own cabin's hatch, disarming several more secu-rity circuits. When he'd modified the Hound for Wookiee hunting, he'd installed features to protect him in case of onboard escapes by enraged Wookiees, including the ability to fly the Hound from inside his starboard cabin.
Still, he preferred the broad sweep of space visible on the bridge monitors. They included near and far infra-red.
Next he checked on his passengers. Inside the port cabin, the Wookiee lay on the deck, breathing shal-lowly. The human did not react when he shook her shoulder.
Pharmaceuticals made excellent equalizers.
He drained the charges from their blasters and then rummaged through their cargo compartments. He hes-itated over Chen's bowcaster, wanting to keep it, set-tling for removing its loading spring, then left the pair as they lay. "Record any activity in the passages," he instructed the Hound's Tooth.
"Confirmed," it answered.
According to the Hound, they were headed for the outskirts of the Aida system. It seemed a logical place for a Wookiee waypost. Aida was solidly Imperial but sparsely settled.
When Tinian awoke, she felt ravenous. Chen bent over her, crooning, sounding concerned.
"I'm awake," she groaned. "I must've slept awfully hard-"
He growled.
"Drugged?" Tinian exclaimed. She sat up straight, glad to be alive. "Is Flirt having trouble?"
Flirt squeaked softly, "You're safe now."
Tinian slipped off her bunk. Her limbs bent stiffly. "What happened?" she asked the miniature droid.
"Sub-q injectors in the mattress and deck. The Hound's been programmed with both of your body weights. You were down for three and a half days."
No wonder Tinian had lost all sense of time.
Chen asked Flirt if she'd gotten inside the Hound's security.
"Not exactly inside," Flirt admitted sofdy. "He has accepted my presence, but he hasn't let me do much. Still," she chirped, "I've secured your cabin and brought up your lights. That's something."
Instead of gray, the bulkheads glimmered steel-blue, and Chen's silvery pelt shone. Now Tinian could see that the Hound had high overheads and long, narrow bunks. "Where's Bossk?"
"In the cargo bay, trying to scan your weapons crate."
Chen growled an elaborate threat.
"It's safe for the moment. So are you."
That crate was a decoy anyway. Tinian rubbed her face and slipped into the washcabin. She hoped Chen's boxy little siren hadn't met her match this time. If Flirt could insinuate herself inside the Hound's main secu-rity circuits before they jumped again, she and Chen ought to be able to overpower Bossk, restrain him, and deliver him wherever they could get the best price.
Plan One counted entirely on Flirt, though. Tinian had yet to run a bounty mission that turned out simply.
Bossk's gruff voice spoke from the bulkhead. "Chen-lambec, Tinian. I'm on my way to speak with you."
"How about dinner?" Tinian called back.
No reply. Chen wurfled concern. "I won't faint," she answered, "but you must be starved."
Flirt spoke up. "Bossk just programmed the galley to deliver a big meal."
"You'd better dim our lights," Tinian suggested. "He'll get suspicious if you don't."
The bulkheads faded to gray again.
"Do we dare eat?" Tinian asked Flirt. "And where are we?"
"Just a few degrees out from the waypost," Flirt an-swered. "He hasn't doped your food."
Tinian checked the charge on her blaster. "Uh, oh," she said. It had been drained. "Is yours zeroed, too?"
Chen fingered his blaster, then examined his bow-caster. He yipped and pointed. Its loading spring had been removed.
The hatch slid open. "Come out and eat," said Bossk's voice, but Bossk didn't appear. The passageway was even darker than their cabin.
She marched up the murky corridor, following her nose toward the galley. Bossk sat at a table, bending over a bowl full of wriggling red worms. He no longer wore his blast rifle. By this dim light, he looked drab brown. "Eat." He waved a forelimb at two plate
s set far from his own. "Your food disgusts me."
"It's mutual," Tinian muttered, but whatever Bossk had prepared for her, it smelled splendid.
On the other hand, raw plasboard with groundcar-fuel sauce would have been difficult to push away. She shoved in a mouthful before Chen sat down. Bossk flicked his tongue at his bowl. A worm vanished into his mouth with his tongue. She decided not to watch him any more.
Several minutes and half a plateful later, she asked, "Where are we?"
Star Wars - Tales Of The Bounty Hunters Page 17