Star Wars_ Tales of the Bounty Hunters - Kevin J. Anderson [21]
While IG-88B occupied himself with his more important mission of galactic conquest, the others could find Han Solo—and then IG-88 would usurp their captive. He would let Boba Fett, Dengar, Bossk, Zuckuss and 4-LOM scurry about in their frantic search, and IG-88 would reap the benefits. The plan showed the superiority of droid intelligence.
In an unoccupied corridor of the vast Super Star Destroyer, IG-88 finally got what he wanted. He found an unused terminal and jacked into the main computer core of the Executor. Normally the Star Destroyer’s programming defenses would have blocked any such intrusion, but IG-88 was faster and far superior to any sluggish starship computer. Besides, his infiltrated droids had already laid much of the electronic paths to provide access.
IG-88 stood like a monolith, the lasers in his fingertips powered up and ready to fire at anyone who might stumble upon his covert activity. It took IG-88B several minutes to upload and condense the entire database from the Executor’s computer core: a huge feast of information he would digest slowly in the privacy of the IG-2000.
Satisfied, his circuits crammed full of secret Imperial information, IG-88 clomped down the corridor, not seeing the bustling stormtroopers—humans attempting to look like droids—as their fleet prepared to enter hyperspace.
IG-88 heaved his bulk into the cockpit of his fast ship and left the Executor behind, simmering with new and unassimilated information.…
As the IG-2000 cruised on autopilot in a random course to baffle any tracking attempts, he sat back and mentally scrolled through the millions of files he had stolen from the Empire. Most were garbage and irrelevant, and he deleted them to free up more capacity in his brain.
But it was the secret files, the private code-locked entries of Darth Vader’s personal records, that provided the biggest surprise of all. Not only was Vader concerned with his flagship and the Imperial fleet under his iron command—he also knew of the Emperor’s pet project, a second, larger Death Star under construction in orbit around the sanctuary moon of Endor.
As IG-88 digested the information, he had another flash of intuition. Some might have called it a delusion of grandeur, but IG-88—who had already been copied into three identical counterparts, his personality moved into separate droid bodies—saw no reason why he could not upload himself into the huge computer core of the new Death Star!
If accomplished, IG-88 could be the ruling mind of an invincible battlestation instead of encased in a bipedal form—a despised biological-based form! He could become a juggernaut of unthinkable proportions. It strained the limits of his calculating power to run simulations of all he could accomplish if armed with a planet-destroying superlaser.
He could launch his droid rebellion much sooner. No one could stand against him. Entire military fleets could be wiped out with the brush of one of his weapons systems.
This was definitely worth pursuing.
IG-88B raced back to Mechis III to link brains with his counterparts and share his new plans.
IX
Inside a supercooled computer inspection chamber on Mechis III, the four identical copies of IG-88 stared at a large flatscreen computer monitor. White wisps of cold steam curled around their metal legs, rising toward the ceiling where a roar of coolant air was sucked through ventilation grates, carrying away the excess heat generated by the churning mainframes.
IG-88B had disgorged the data uploaded from the Executor’s main core, and the files were even now being assimilated, copied, distributed among IG-88’s identical counterparts.
With their optical sensors tuned to peak performance, the four IG-88s studied the shimmering classified plans of the second Death Star. The perfect curves of the armillary sphere indicated where reinforcement girders were to be installed, where the central superlaser