Star Wars_ Tales of the Bounty Hunters - Kevin J. Anderson [76]
Turning in place, Tinian spotted a long, shining table. She walked closer, holding her luma aloft. The table’s surface threw reflections on the opposite bulkhead. A narrow channel ran along the table’s edge, tilted toward a reservoir. At one narrow end of the table, a wicked-looking swivel hook hung retracted. A complex mechanism hovered above it, suspended from the upper bulkhead.
With those long, stiff, clawed forelimbs, Bossk was not dexterous enough to use a skinning knife. The automated machinery would lower into place over a Wookiee corpse.
Shuddering, Tinian tiptoed past a dip tank for curing fresh pelts.
She did not find any of the acceleration chairs Bossk had claimed he had back here, but along the bulkhead farthest from the access hatch, she spotted five alcoves: meat lockers. Equipped with minimal survival gear, they were standard features on Hunt ships—the Wroshyr had two—for containing live acquisitions. These stretched from deck to bulkhead. Wookiee-size.
Bossk would fit into one nicely.
She knelt beside the nearest one, reached into her largest belt pouch, and pulled out a handful of tools. Her circuit meter identified a force-field generator at the bottom of the locker. It was probably triggered by motion sensors to trap struggling prey inside. She’d like to jimmy one or all of these lockers—
Abruptly she felt afraid. “Is something happening?” she asked Flirt.
“Bossk is busy on the bridge. You’re safe—”
“I don’t feel safe.” Tinian’s escape on Druckenwell still haunted her dreams. She had run, and run, and run, expecting to be spotted by her body heat and shot from behind by Imperials wearing infrared scanners. She didn’t doubt that Bossk would kill her just as quickly if he caught her manipulating his equipment, and he saw in the infrared without scanners.
She sprang up and shoved the tools back into her pouch. “We’ve got to get back.”
“You don’t need to do that. I’ll alert you if—”
“I’ve got to get into the other bay, too. We’re probably running out of time.” Tinian hurried out through the hatch and across the passage. She shoved flirt at the power point “Shut that hatch and open the other.”
Locks clicked behind her.
Tinian grabbed Flirt off the bulkhead and slipped across the passage again. She shone her luma against this bay’s inner bulkhead, found a hookup for Flirt, and plugged her in once more. Then she shone her luma toward the other bulkhead. There was the pile—
A shadow moved. Tinian’s blood turned to ice water.
Bossk’s huge crimson-and-bronze droid rolled forward, halted, spun around, and returned to its station.
“You’re all right.” Flirt’s chirp dropped a doleful minor interval. “He’s totally brainless.”
Tinian stared at the X10-D unit. “What?” she murmured.
“The poor creature’s only an extension of the Hound’s Tooth,” Flirt explained. “He has no interior programming. What a pity, in a body like that.”
“Flirt,” Tinian reprimanded the droid. “Chen needs a data chip out of Locker Two. Get me into it—fast.”
Ten minutes later, Flirt guided her back through the passageway. As they paused beneath one motion sensor, Flirt tweeted, “It’s terrible.”
Tinian froze. “What is?”
“That beautiful metal body, and no brain—”
“Flirt!” Tinian ordered through gritted teeth. Imaginary eyes crawled around on the back of her neck. “Get me back to the cabin. Now!”
The moment she reached sanctuary, she pushed Flirt at her spot on the bulkhead. “Erase any record that we left this cabin,” she directed.
“You shouldn’t worry so much,” Flirt whistled. “I had you perfectly safe.”
• • •
Bossk glanced aside. Had he seen an alarm? Maybe, but it had shut itself off, so it could have been false. There were still a few bugs in the Hound, like its lapses of idiot speech.
Chenlambec was obviously impressed by it, though, and Bossk had enjoyed showing it off.
He shut down the simulator circuit and put the controls back on line.