Star Wars_ Tales of the Bounty Hunters - Kevin J. Anderson [11]
Droids could be swifter than anything, a sudden devastating death to those who stood in their way. But unlike biologicals, machines could also be incredibly patient. They would wait—and the time would come.
IV
After two standard months, the vigorous Imperial search had turned up no sign whatsoever of the missing assassin droids, and Supervisor Gurdun was not the least bit pleased.
When his assistant Minor Relsted came into his gloomy, dungeon-like office deep within an ancient government building in Imperial City, Gurdun demanded a progress report. “Tell me how the manhunt is going—er, droid hunt, or whatever it is,” he said. “I want my assassin droids.”
Young Minor Relsted twiddled his fingers and refused to meet the wide-set gaze over Gurdun’s monumental nose. “Would you like me to prepare a detailed report for you, Imperial Supervisor?” Relsted said. “Shall I submit it in triplicate?”
“No,” Gurdun said. “Just tell me. I want to know.”
“Oh,” Minor Relsted said. “Umm, let me think a moment.”
“You’re not on top of this?” the supervisor asked.
“Yes, yes of course. Just putting my thoughts into words,” Relsted said.
Gurdun gazed up at the flickering glowpanel in the ceiling that provided more headaches than illumination. The thick office walls were a dull battleship gray; large bolts held them in place with round heads the size of his fist. By now he had hoped to be recovering from the surgery he wanted so badly, but time after time the Imperial authorities had denied it to him.
“Well?” Gurdun said into the prolonged silence, rubbing his huge nose.
“I’m afraid to say this, sir,” Relsted stammered, “but all four droids seem to have vanished. A fifth one, IG-72, has made an appearance here and there, eliminating targets for unfathomable reasons—but the other four have given no hint of their presence. It would be simplest if we assumed they were destroyed … say, caught in a stray supernova or something. I wouldn’t expect assassin droids to lay low and slink around unseen.”
Imperial Supervisor Gurdun looked at the clutter on his desk, cleared a spot for his elbows and rested his chin in his hands. “Ah, but these machines are devilishly smart, Relsted. They were designed to my specifications—and you know how relentless I can be at times. I would not underestimate them.”
“Certainly not, sir,” Relsted said. “We have spies deployed in every nook and cranny—uh, to the best of our abilities. Our resources are limited, you know. There’s a rebellion going on.”
“Oh, I forgot about the war,” Gurdun said. “What a bother.” He fingered his enormous nose that blocked his view of the files on his desk. Gurdun knocked aside the stacked message cubes, the electronic forms waiting to be filled out, the requisition orders, transfer requests, and letters of condolence to be written to the families of those lost in unfortunate accidents during training with old, malfunctioning equipment.
Minor Relsted shuffled his feet as he hovered by the door.
“Is there anything else?” Gurdun snapped.
“A question, sir. Might I ask why it is so incredibly important to find these four droids? They’re just machines, after all, and the amount of resources we are putting behind this ‘dismantle on sight’ order seems out of all proportion to their intrinsic value. Why are these droids so desirable?”
Gurdun snorted and looked at the flickering glowpanel again. “Because, Minor Relsted, I know what they can do.”
On Mechis III the administrative droid Threedee-Fourex scuttled about, searching for the first IG-88 counterpart he could find. He needed to report his distressing news. He came upon IG-88C in one of the shipping areas, supervising the loading of a thousand program-modified transport droids to be shipped off to Coruscant.
“IG-88,” Fourex reported, gaining the assassin droid’s attention. In a rapid burst of binary, he sent a summary file to the IG’s computer core.
Through their