• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

He looked up and noted that the weapons themselves had been jury-rigged, sensors wired in with automatic targeting systems, linked to motion detectors. He hurried over to help Callista to her feet, wondering why someone would go to all that trouble on this empty world.

“Good work,” she said as they brushed each other off. “We’re a team even without my Jedi powers.”

With a reluctant grinding thud, the shield door split in the middle and began to spread apart. Icicles flaked off, and chunks of snow crashed to the ground. Figures appeared, shadowy forms standing in the crack of the partially opened door.

Luke tensed and turned around, the lightsaber gripped in his hand. Callista held her weapon, but did not ignite it. Luke waited to see what their mysterious enemies would do.

“Don’t just stand there,” a gruff human voice shouted. “Get inside quick, before those creatures come back!”

A dark-eyed man wearing the shadowy stains of beard stubble and remnants of white plasteel armor stepped outside, holding a blaster rifle. Beside him came a hairy feline alien with tufts of fur sprouting from his chin and fangs protruding below narrow black lips. A Cathar, Luke recognized. The feline alien also carried a blaster rifle and sniffed the cold air, tense and ready to fight. They did not point their blasters toward Luke or Callista, though. Instead, they seemed to watch for some invisible threat from the snows.

Another human man, tall and broad shouldered, stood within the main tunnel, gesturing for them to hurry. Luke looked around at the bleak, seemingly lifeless surface of Hoth; then he felt a sudden uneasiness. He grabbed Callista’s arm and rushed with her into the shelter.

Only five of them had survived.

“Seemed an easy way to make a few credits, since I was looking for a new occupation,” said Burrk, a former stormtrooper who had deserted the Empire in the turmoil following the battle of Endor. Ever since that time, he had been on his own, surviving through shady dealings and illegal activities.

“I hooked up with these two Cathar, Nodon and Nonak.” The two feline aliens growled and flashed their teeth, glaring through slitted eyes at Luke and Callista. They appeared identical except for slight variations in fur color.

“They’re both from the same litter,” Burrk continued, “and they were great hunters—at least they said they were.” The two Cathar snarled, extending hooked claws from their hands. Burrk didn’t even seem to notice. He rubbed the stubble on his chin. His eyes were sunken, haunted by unrelenting tension, as if someone had beaten him repeatedly and might return at any moment. Together, his group had managed to get only a dozen or so glowpanels functioning again, and none of the heater units.

“There’s a huge black-market price on wampa pelts, you know,” he said, and finally a spark of pride and daring appeared in his eyes. Although Luke sensed the brooding terror surrounding them in the unheated meeting room, the gaunt former stormtrooper grew more animated as he spoke.

“So, the Cathar brothers and I decided to set up big-game expeditions. For a fee, we’d take hunters here to track down and kill the ‘biggest game in the galaxy’—a bit of an exaggeration, perhaps, but that didn’t matter to rich Baron-Administrators, like him.” Burrk gestured to the tall muscular man with chiseled features, a white smile, and hardened eyes.

“Drom Guldi,” the muscular man said, introducing himself, “Baron-Administrator of the Kelrodo-Ai gelatin mines.” He swelled with pride, confident that everyone had heard of him. “We’re famous for our water sculptures,” he said. “And this is my aide.” He indicated a nervous-looking man with gray-blond hair and faint wrinkles across his skin, as if his surface layer had crumpled with a thousand pressure cracks. “Sinidic.”

Burrk the stormtrooper continued with his story, giving the rich hunter a nod of grudging admiration. “We had four customers on this run, and Drom Guldi