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“Why bother?” snapped Tinian. “We’re practically unarmed.”

Chen ordered her to take the Pup down out of range, then pointed to one of his ears and over his shoulder toward the Hound’s Tooth: Bossk was undoubtedly monitoring.

She nodded and reached for the steering rods. The console wrapped around their crew chairs so neatly that either could fly the Pup comfortably.

Tinian stroked a control rod. “I like this little scout.”

Homesick for the Wroshyr, Chen barked.

“I didn’t ask to be born rich,” she argued. “I just wish this were mine.”

Chenlambec kept digging in his tool pouch. He had left Flirt under the Hound’s navicomputer and brought a remote relay. Now, he wired the remote—which was bigger than Flirt herself—into the Pup’s main communication line. Then he tapped out a code message to Flirt: POWER DOWN Hound’s AUDIO RECEIVERS FOR TWO MINUTES, THEN HIS TRANSLATOR FOR TEN MINUTES. His remote beeped twice, for “message received.” A minute later, it beeped twice, then repeated, indicating that she’d succeeded.

“I heard that,” said Tinian. “Bossk’ll be deaf to us for two minutes?”

Howling assent, Chen closed his hands around the throttle rods. Lomabu III loomed closer on the visual screen. They were approaching the daylight side at high noon, out of the orange sun. The Imperials must not see them.

Tinian talked rapidly into her headphone. “This message is for Governor Desnand, repeat, Governor Io Desnand of the Aida System. We wish to report that the bounty hunter Bossk of Trandosha, repeat bounty hunter, repeat Bossk, is encroaching on your prison world Lomabu III. He is engaged in unauthorized pelt-baiting and means to abduct many of your laborers. This is another bounty hunter speaking. I have Bossk under observation, but he is also observing me. Can you make it worth my while to intercept him for you? Please reply on this frequency so that I may receive at … 1435 Standard hours.”

That transmission was headed for Aida, not Lomabu. There’d be some subspace delay. Chen pointed at the chrono to warn Tinian that her two minutes were up. His ten were about to begin. She switched off the transmitter. He let go of the throttle rods, and she took them.

With the Imperial Governor alerted, now he must close the other side of their net: He must make a contact below. Even if Flirt failed him, the Wookiee prisoners must be alerted and freed. Chen switched the transmitter to a local frequency.

Eerie howling noises filled the cabin. Single sideband was excellent for transmitting Wookiee speech, but difficult to tune for in Basic. Bossk could listen to this all day and not understand a word. Maybe his translator would choke on it too.

He called groundside.

At first, nothing happened. There was always the chance that no illicit transmitter had been set up inside the prison camp, but Chenlambec was willing to bet otherwise.

“Try again,” Tinian suggested. “We just dropped under the ionized atmospheric layer.”

Chen howled at the transceiver again. As Tinian brought the Pup toward the target archipelago, the answering howl from his transceiver abruptly modulated.

Chen grinned aside at Tinian, then answered. His mission took considerable explaining, particularly the part about landing and staging a firefight. The target island grew on the fore screen.

“Explain about getting Bossk’s confidence,” Tinian hissed, steering out to sea on the island’s west side. The prison compound was on the east shore.

Chenlambec tried again. Evidently his contact was an elderly male using amateur equipment, desperately afraid that guards would return soon.

Chen didn’t ask what threat the Imperials used to control his people. The Pup’s scanners had shown him heavy artillery: two turbolaser emplacements plus plenty of unidentified metal technology.

He needed to get those weapons into his people’s hands.

Tinian came in low over a dense green jungle, sweeping overland toward the island’s east coast. Abruptly, Bossk’s voice echoed in the cabin. “What’s that? What are you