Star Wars_ Tales of the Bounty Hunters - Kevin J. Anderson [100]
But fear was not a good quality to note in one’s allies. It meant they had weaknesses anyone without fear could exploit.
4-LOM questioned the wisdom of alliances with the fearful, and he questioned his alliance with these Imperials now. They were unimpressive allies, at best.
But, of course, they had credits.
Zuckuss stumbled only once on the way to Vader. 4-LOM helped Zuckuss stand.
“You fawning, motley-minded Imperials—can’t you even keep deckplates nailed down!” 4-LOM yelled at the soldiers making way for them.
None of the other bounty hunters broke stride. None seemed to notice Zuckuss stumble. His and Zuckuss’s secret remained a secret, 4-LOM calculated. The walk soon ended. They arrived at the flight deck, and Darth Vader strode at once to meet them.
Imperial officers standing nearby whispered together about the bounty hunters before Vader reached them. “Bounty hunters—we don’t need that scum!” 4-LOM heard one officer say to another.
4-LOM calculated contempt in that comment, but he calculated that fear motivated contempt 62.337 percent of the time. Contempt and fear are closely allied. So fear was probably present even here—even on the flight deck of Darth Vader’s flagship. It disgusted 4-LOM. He began to calculate weaknesses he could exploit in these Imperials.
Vader started speaking before he even reached the bounty hunters. He had no fear. “There will be a substantial reward for the one who finds the Millennium Falcon. You are free to use any methods necessary—but I want them alive! No disintegrations.”
Vader turned back at once to his business at hand. The bounty hunters scattered to their ships.
It was Han Solo—they were being sent after Han Solo!
4-LOM could calculate reasons, now, for Darth Vader to have called each of the bounty hunters assembled here. He programmed a set of microprocessors in his mind to calculate each bounty hunter’s chance of capturing Solo and his companions, whoever they were.
Zuckuss stopped in the doorway and turned around. 4-LOM did not know why. It was illogical to dawdle in front of Imperials. 4-LOM turned around to see what had caused this odd behavior in his partner and saw Darth Vader looking at them.
Zuckuss bowed. Vader turned away. Zuckuss and 4-LOM started back down the corridor.
4-LOM did not have to ask Zuckuss how he had known Vader was looking at them. Intuition had told him. And he knew why Vader had looked at them: acknowledgment that he knew about their involvement with Governor Nardix, a subtle warning to succeed in this venture or face Vader again under different circumstances.
4-LOM knew these things without calculating them. The knowledge was suddenly present in his mind.
In that moment, intuition began to assemble itself into a process in 4-LOM’s circuitry. All the variables were not in place. He did not understand it completely, but he began to sense the beginnings of a grand equation inside him: the equation of intuition.
Once he had that, he would have intuition itself.
4-LOM felt himself on the verge of accomplishment—the way he felt just before he laid hands on an acquisition he had Hunted, or the way he felt the exact moment he reached out for a jewel he had long worked to steal.
Imperials ran after them, asking what they needed. Could they provide fuel? Weapons? Anything at all that might help them succeed in the mission Darth Vader had sent them on. Credits? Do you need credits?
Yes, they required vast sums of them.
And 4-LOM did not hesitate to ask for it, in the form of portable items of value stored on their ship, not in electronic credits that could be seized. In their fear, the Imperials rushed to give them what they wanted.
4-LOM’s calculations on the bounty hunters’ probable success ended.
He knew who had the best chance of capturing Han Solo.
He and Zuckuss did.
His calculations indicated that. The other bounty hunters had various skills and abilities, but