Star Wars - Tales Of The Bounty Hunters

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

  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 en-courage 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 con-tact 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 with 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 cough-ing. 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 possibili-ties 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 pos-sibilities. 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, at-tended 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.

  And Han Solo, and the end of the Hunt.

  Toryn had found the leaders of the Rebel insurrec-tion. Its officers outranked her, took charge of her peo-ple, 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 jew-els."

  "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 Sap-phire.

  "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 affect-ing 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 Sam
oc went with them. "Samoc," 4-LOM called when they got in-side 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. Zuck-uss 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 intu-itively 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 wel-come 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 Ef-four-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 walk-ing. "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 part-ner 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 de-scribe 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 bounties. 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 diere.

  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 acquisi-tion'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 en-hanced 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 activ-ity 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 Zuck-uss's present condition kept him from active participa-tion 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 calcu-lated-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 observa-tions 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 Zuck-uss'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. Zuck
uss 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 kid-napping on his own to simply taking the Mist Hunter and leaving. But one fact loomed before him. He him-self had calculated only a 48.67 percent chance of suc-cessfully 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.