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The probe droid already knew its priority instructions from IG-88. Yes, it was to report to Darth Vader—but it was also to send another detailed message to Mechis III. Thousands of probots would be IG-88’s eyes and ears, spying on the galaxy as a whole, uncovering weaknesses for the droids to exploit in their plans for overall conquest.

These probots also had the sentience programming, the spark of intellect that IG-88 had shared with his mechanical brothers. The probe droids would be the scouts in the great droid revolution.

The Arakyd Viper reached out with one powerful metal claw, and IG-88 grasped it with his own hand, not quite comprehending what the probot intended. The black droid squeezed with a pincer grip that would have sliced off any trivial organic appendage. IG-88 applied equal pressure in response.

He wasn’t certain of the probot’s intent, but these droids were notoriously unstable—made even more so by their additional programming. They were suicide scouts, and they knew it. They must never be dismantled or inspected. The probe droids carried the full details within them for IG-88’s bloody plans of conquest, waiting to be activated by his secret coded transmission—and the probots must not be analyzed too closely. Very touchy internal triggers would self-destruct at the slightest chance of capture. The probots were expendable, and they knew it in their very core.

The Arakyd Viper strained against IG-88 in an eerie power struggle, as if attempting to determine whether the assassin droid was worthy of such devotion.

IG-88 was.

The last probe droid relaxed and raised up on its repulsor jets, floating, scanning, getting its bearings. It sent a short, stabbing farewell, acknowledgment of devotion to its mission. IG-88 looked up as the black probot drifted toward the cargo pod where it would be launched into orbit, eventually delivered to Vader’s starfleet.

“Go and report,” IG-88 said. “You have much to see. Burn brightly.”

VIII

Months later, IG-88 saw his chance both to study Darth Vader more thoroughly—and to get aboard the magnificent Executor.

Multiprocessing, IG-88C monitored transmissions from the thousands of scattered probe droids, receiving updates on the progress of his specially programmed droid infiltration across galactic civilizations. The moment he witnessed the self-destruct of an Arakyd Viper probot on the distant ice world of Hoth, IG-88 instantly snapped his full attention to the situation there.

Vader’s Super Star Destroyer had been cruising the space lanes, waiting for a signal that would announce the discovery of the Rebel base. Vader was certain to react immediately. The probot had delivered its reconnaissance information—as Vader expected. And at the first threat of possible capture and discovery of its droid reprogramming, the probot had destroyed itself—as IG-88 expected.

IG-88B, with his direct bounty hunting experience, took the sleek ship IG-2000 and remained in the locality of the Imperial fleet, ready for spontaneous action so that he might earn singular notice from Darth Vader, the black synthesis of man and machine.…

IG-88B didn’t participate in the battle of Hoth. He did not wish to become involved with this petty political struggle among biological vermin. He watched the escaping Rebel ships in flight, some damaged, some overloaded with equipment and refugees.

He considered tracking them, because the location of new Rebel hideouts was certain to be of value to the Empire. But he ran a probability analysis and ultimately decided that none of these targets would be of sufficient overriding interest to Lord Vader. In the Hoth system IG-88 waited and watched, his ship a tiny blip at the fringes of sensor range, too small to be noticed in the flurry.

He lurked behind the Imperial fleet on its pursuit of another small insignificant ship into the asteroid belt. Thus, IG-88 was waiting when Darth Vader put out his call for bounty hunters to find Han Solo.

IG-88 stood quietly on the bridge deck of the Super Star Destroyer Executor. He observed