The Hunger

by John Whitman

  Platt."

  The woman, Platt, looked at the motionless Imperial and answered

  Hoole's question. "He'll live. He's just stunned." Platt raised an eyebrow.

  "Two human kids, a Shi'ido, and a droid. I'm just making a guess here-you

  aren't the local stormtrooper patrol, are you?"

  "We are not Imperials," Hoole admitted. "You can put away your blaster.

  We are simply here to gather some information; then we will be on our way."

  "Us too," Platt said. She holstered her blaster, and her companions put

  theirs away as well. "You, droid," she said to Deevee. "You work here?"

  Deevee said, "I am a research assistant to the-"

  "Good. This is what we need," Platt interrupted. "I've heard you've got

  billions of data bits of information on unregistered planets. We need one.

  Now."

  Hoole raised an eyebrow. "Curious. We are here for a similar reason."

  By this time Platt had already moved to the computer terminal. She

  scanned the information on the screen and muttered, "Yeah . . . yeah . . .

  this'll do fine. This is perfect."

  "You can't have that planet," Zak said. "That one's ours!"

  Platt laughed. "Look, no offense, kid, but we're in kind of a hurry. We

  think someone spotted us breaking into this place, and if we don't get out

  fast, we'll-"

  "Freeze!" someone yelled.

  Every eye in the room turned toward the door, where a white-armored

  stormtrooper stood, a blaster rifle in his hands.

  Platt didn't freeze. She drew her blaster at lightspeed and fired from

  the hip. The bolt struck the trooper in the chest and sent him staggering

  backward.

  "They got here faster than I expected," Platt muttered.

  "What do we do, Platt?" the Twi'lek asked.

  "Guard the door while I download the information," she replied. Platt's

  companions went to the door, blasters at the ready.

  "I'm afraid you can't just barge in here like this," Deevee insisted.

  "There are regulations!"

  Platt shook her head. "Something tells me you four aren't too concerned

  about regulations." She connected a small handheld datapad to the computer

  and downloaded the information on the planet Deevee had found.

  "Stop that!" Zak insisted. "We don't want anyone to know about that

  planet!"

  "That makes two of us," Platt said. She finished downloading the

  information, then punched in a command on the computer. The information

  Deevee had found vanished, replaced by the words "File Deleted."

  The sound of heavy blaster fire filled the hallway outside. They could

  hear more stormtroopers calling for them to surrender.

  "Platt, we can't hold them off for long!" the Twi'lek shouted.

  Platt looked at Deevee. "Is there another way out of here?"

  Deevee pointed to a cargo door at the back of the room. "That leads to

  a freight turbolift used for heavy items. But I'm afraid I don't have the

  access code that-"

  "No problem," Platt snapped. Out came her blaster again, and she poured

  energy bolts into the door until it burst into pieces. The turbolift was

  visible on the other side.

  "Come on, Tru'eb!" the woman yelled to her Twi'lek friend. "We're

  taking the back door!"

  "Wait," Hoole said firmly. "You will have to take us with you."

  The woman paused. "Says who?"

  Hoole met her gaze evenly. "You've just stolen information we went to

  great trouble to get, and you have attracted Imperial attention that we do

  not want. If you leave, the stormtroopers will throw us into a detention

  block."

  Platt shrugged. "That's your problem."

  "And it would be most unfortunate," Hoole continued, "if we were forced

  to tell the Imperials where you were going."

  Platt scowled. She knew she was stuck. "Come on then. Just don't slow

  us down."

  Zak, Tash, and Hoole started for the turbolift, then realized that

  Deevee hadn't moved. "Deevee," Zak asked, "aren't you coming?"

  The droid shook his head. "I'm afraid not, Zak. My place is here now."

  "But the stormtroopers will turn you into scrap!" Tash said.

  "Why should they? I work here. I've done nothing wrong."

  "But-" Zak started to protest.

  "Zak," the droid broke in, "I am not programmed for philosophy, but

  I've seen enough to know that you and Tash are in for more excitement than

  my circuitry can handle. I belong here."

  "Very well, old friend," Hoole said. "Thank you for your help."

  "Come on, or get left behind!" Platt shouted from the turbolift. Her

  companions were still at the door, firing their blasters down the

  now-smoking hallway. One by one, they backed away from the door and broke

  for the turbolift.

  As the sound of blaster fire grew deafening, Hoole and the two Arrandas

  hurried into the lift with the last of the mysterious intruders. The

  turbolift rose out of sight just as the stormtroopers charged into the room.

  A short time later, nothing remained in the basement computer room but

  a thin cloud of smoke from the earlier blaster fight, and the smell of metal

  burned by energy beams.

  Boba Fett slipped quietly into the room.

  He had already learned from the stormtroopers what had happened. He

  knew that a group of unknown intruders had broken into the Galactic Research

  Academy and accessed information from the computer. They had then slipped

  away from a squad of stormtroopers, reached a waiting ship, and blasted

  their way into space. That was all the stormtroopers knew.

  Boba Fett knew more. He knew that his targets had been here, too, and

  that they had left with the mysterious intruders. He knew that the droid had

  helped them, but he didn't tell that to the authorities. Let them do their

  own dirty work.

  All Fett cared about was the job.

  The bounty hunter went to the computer terminal and removed a small

  device from his belt. The device had cost him thousands of credits, but it

  helped him do his job, so it was worth the price. Once it was attached to a

  computer, the device began to search the files for anything that had been

  erased. If used quickly enough, the device could recover data that had been

  deleted.

  After a moment, the device beeped and began to collect information that

  had been erased.

  Fett had found what he was looking for. He studied the data for a

  moment and nodded in satisfaction. Now he knew where they were going. They

  were headed for a swamp planet called Dagobah.

  The hunt was on.

  CHAPTER 5

  Zak, Tash, and Hoole were on board Platt's starship, the Last Chance.

  Since the Imperial presence on Koaan was very small, they'd had no

  difficulty reaching her ship, and once they were in deep space, there was no

  way for the local authorities to follow them.

  It wasn't long before a few questions and a few guesses gave Zak and

  Tash a pretty good idea of who their new acquaintance was.

  Her name was Platt Okeefe and she was a smuggler. Zak always thought of

  smugglers as crude, unlikeable characters who worked for gangsters like

  Jabba the Hutt. But Platt seemed friendly enough. She laughed when she

  noticed Zak giving her a
suspicious glance.

  "You've got a problem with me, kid?" she asked.

  Zak shrugged. "You're a smuggler. What am I supposed to think?"

  Platt shrugged. "Think anything you want."

  Zak frowned. "Do you ever work for the Empire?"

  The smuggler laughed. "I might, if the price was right. But mostly I

  carry stuff the Empire says is illegal to people who want it anyway. So I

  guess you could say I work for the other side."

  Zak's eyes brightened. "Do you ever work for the Rebellion?"

  "Sometimes. I don't mind doing a job for them now and then, when they

  can pay. I consider it a bonus to be able to stick it to the Imps."

  "Imps?" he asked.

  "Imperials," Platt said. "I don't really take sides, but if I had my

  way, all the Imps could jump into hyperspace and never jump back."

  That was good enough for Zak.

  Platt, the Twi'lek called Tru'eb, and the rest of their gang were

  trying to set up a new base of operations. Because of all the Imperial

  activity in every corner of space, not to mention competition from other

  smugglers, they wanted to find someplace unknown to the rest of the galaxy.

  Platt had heard of the information stored at the Research Academy and

  decided to make use of it.

  Tash and Hoole had been reviewing information about Dagobah. They found

  Zak and Platt and brought them up to date on what they had learned.

  "Dagobah is covered by swamps," Tash said. "The research team that went

  to study it never returned. We found only a few of their recorded entries.

  It looks like they started having trouble after a couple of months on the

  planet. They sent out a distress signal, but no one answered it, at least

  not by the time they made their last entry.

  "It appears that the automatic distress signal was picked up years

  later by a passing freighter," Hoole said. "They recovered the team's

  research logs, but found no survivors."

  Zak's jaw dropped. "And this is where we're going? It sounds

  dangerous."

  Platt yawned. "Relax, kid. Those science teams are usually a bunch of

  pinheads who spend all their time looking at bugs and not watching where

  they're going. Besides, I want someplace no one else wants to go."

  "So do we," said Tash.

  "Yeah, well, I've been meaning to ask you," the smuggler said. "Why are

  you looking for a deserted planet? Are you in some kind of trouble?"

  Hoole answered her question. "We need to avoid the Imperials. Let's

  leave it at that."

  "So you're on the run," Platt said. "You're welcome to come with us to

  Dagobah for now. Once we've laid low for a while and checked the place out,

  we can think about what to do next."

  Zak knew Hoole would accept Platt's terms. What choice did they have?

  They didn't have a ship of their own anymore.

  "Very well," Hoole said.

  The trip to Dagobah took less than a standard day. The planet was

  fairly close to normal space routes-it was just that no one ever bothered to

  stop there.

  The Last Chance dropped out of hyperspace, and Platt made one orbit

  around the planet, scanning it with the ship's sensors. "I'm getting major

  life-form readings," she said. "There's something alive down there."

  "A lot of somethings," Zak said. Platt had allowed her passengers to

  sit in the cockpit during the landing. Zak stared through the viewscreen at

  the glowing green ball that was Dagobah.

  Tash, who had been studying the planet intently, suddenly whispered,

  "There's something weird there."

  "What was that, Tash?" Hoole asked.

  Tash blinked as though coming out of a trance. "I... I don't know. I

  just got a feeling."

  "Perhaps we should reconsider landing here," Hoole said to Platt.

  The smuggler laughed. "What, because your niece has a case of nerves?

  Happens to kids during space travel sometimes. Forget it."

  "We have learned to trust Tash's feelings," Hoole explained. "They have

  saved our lives several times."

  "Is it a bad feeling, Tash?" Zak asked, wishing he had her intuition.

  She always seemed to know what was going to happen before it did.

  Tash shrugged. "No, not a bad feeling. A good feeling. Well, no, not

  exactly good either . . ."

  "Well, no matter what you're feeling, we're landing now, so strap

  yourselves in," Platt said.

  The ride down into Dagobah's atmosphere rattled their bones. The ship's

  frame groaned and squealed. Platt and Tru'eb had to scramble to keep from

  crash-landing. As it was, their ship hit the ground a little too fast and

  plunged into the swampy surface of Dagobah.

  "Everyone all right?" Platt called out.

  "I feel like all my teeth got knocked loose," Zak said.

  Platt grinned. "First rule of piloting: If your passengers can answer

  the question, then the landing was good. Let's see the sights."

  She popped out of her crashwebbing and hurried to the hatch. Tru'eb and

  the rest of the smugglers followed. Zak, Tash, and Hoole brought up the rear

  of the small party.

  The moment Platt opened the hatch, a thick odor flooded into the ship

  from outside.

  "Ugh!" Zak almost gagged. "It smells like rotting leaves."

  "Rotting something, anyway," Platt said, wrinkling her nose. "Come on,

  let's go."

  Zak, Tash, Uncle Hoole, and the smugglers stepped out onto the world

  called Dagobah.

  The atmosphere was dark and wet. The ground was covered with pools of

  water, sometimes ankle-deep, sometimes much deeper. Even the higher ground

  was muddy and squished under their boots. Gigantic gnarled trees rose up all

  around them, reaching into a dark roof of branches and leaves so thick they

  blocked out the sun.

  "They're called gnarltrees," Tash said, pointing to the trees. "That's

  what the records say."

  Zak grimaced, irritated that, as usual, Tash knew more than he did.

  "Whatever they're called, they sure make it dark down here."

  "We've got glowrods," Platt said. She pulled a short tube from a pack

  on her shoulder and activated it. The other smugglers lit more glowrods,

  casting a circle of pale yellow light around them.

  Mist drifted through the trees. Unseen creatures skittered across

  branches or splashed in puddles. They could hear distant shrieks and calls,

  whistles, and long, spooky moans. Zak heard something flap its wings over

  his head, but by the time he looked up, it was gone.

  "I see something through those trees," Hoole said, pointing. "A small

  structure of some sort."

  "Good," Platt responded. "I landed as close to the explorers' camp as I

  could."

  The group trudged through knee-deep water until they reached what had

  once been the explorers' camp. Zak was impressed with Platt's piloting

  skills-she'd landed within fifty meters of her target.

  The camp was a collection of one-story buildings barely tall enough to

  stand in. Most of them had been overturned, and years of rain and floods had

  sunk them into the dismal swamp.

  "Just as I thought," Platt said. "They set up flimsy shelters, and I

  bet they didn't even use energy shields to protect the camp. They were more />
  interested in studying the planet than staying safe."

  "They were scientists," Hoole said. "They were very brave."

  "And stupid," Platt said. "Bravery doesn't count if you're dead."

  "Look at this," Tash called out. She had crossed to the other side of

  the camp. "I think I found some kind of path."

  The smugglers carried glowrods over to Tash for a better view. In the

  pale light, they could see a line of moss-covered stones leading away from

  the old camp.

  They were stepping-stones.

  Platt studied the stones for a moment. "The explorers must have built

  this path when they landed here."

  Hoole wasn't convinced. "That seems unlikely. The camp structures have

  all collapsed or been swallowed by the swamp. If this path were forty years

  old, it wouldn't have survived."

  "Then that means someone has been here more recently," Zak pointed out.