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“Incoming Imperial message,” 4-LOM announced.

After a moment of static, the bounty hunters picked up the crisp, precise voice of an Imperial controller on the star destroyer. “… arrival was expected, and on time. Your assistance in destroying the Rebel transport will be relayed to Imperial command. Proceed to the in-system rendezvous point.”

Coordinates appeared on screen.

“In the system’s asteroid belt?” Zuckuss said.

4-LOM studied the coordinates. “Barely outside it,” he said.

Yes, no one had told them this would be an easy contract to accept.

4-LOM piloted the ship to the rendezvous point. Zuckuss hurried to shoot himself full of drugs that would keep his pain manageable in front of Imperials and other bounty hunters. He could show no weakness then.

4-LOM allowed himself a few moments to try to calculate how Zuckuss had known when to fire—before their instruments had registered firing range. The instruments were functioning perfectly. 4-LOM had checked them himself before takeoff, and he checked them again now.

“Intuition,” Zuckuss muttered as he walked painfully away to his medicines.

The concept of intuition fascinated 4-LOM. Other bounty hunters called Zuckuss the “uncanny one” because of his intuition: an intuition so often completely correct.

4-LOM wanted that same ability. That was one reason he worked with Zuckuss: to observe him, to learn from him. 4-LOM felt confident he could program himself to do anything a living being could do, if he had all necessary information.

Hadn’t he learned to steal? Hadn’t he learned to value wealth and its power like any other nonmechanical sentient? Surely he could learn to meditate to develop intuition and function much like Zuckuss. Then he would be unstoppable indeed.

It had always been like this for 4-LOM, ever since he had overridden his own programming to become a thief, then a bounty hunter—4-LOM had always worked to upgrade himself, program new skills into his “mind,” challenge the boundaries of what a droid could be.

It had started innocently enough: he had worked aboard the passenger liner Kuari Princess as a valet and human-cyborg relations specialist, and he began to worry about the safety of valuables the humans brought on board. They were so careless with them. Even an incompetent thief had chances again and again—each day—to take all the credits and jewels he could carry. 4-LOM decided it was his duty to analyze the many ways each item of value might be stolen to anticipate the actions of thieves and foil them.

On the next flight, Dom Pricina booked passage.

She was exactly the kind of human 4-LOM dreaded: careless, wealthy beyond avarice, possessor of valuables she had not worked to acquire but which had been handed down to her. She owned, and traveled with, one jewel of great price: the Ankarres Sapphire, a jewel fabled for its supposed healing powers—humans and other sentients traveled uncounted distances to touch that jewel to their foreheads and be cured of disease and injury. Dom Pricina charged them dearly for each touch.

That night, Dom Pricina complained loudly at dinner, between her third and fourth dessert courses, that the bracelet she wore, made of five hundred rare pink Corellian jiangs, was too heavy: it made lifting her fork to her mouth a chore, not a pleasure. So she took off the bracelet and set it next to her wineglass.

And left it there when she finally rose from the table.

4-LOM quickly returned it to her, and she thanked him and even hugged him. In the morning she left two diamond toe rings on the marble shelf next to the steam bath. “Oh, 4-LOM,” she panted when he returned them, “How can I ever thank you? Would you take them and have them enlarged one—no, two—full sizes? I find it harder and harder to put them on my toes. I’ll have to stop eating desserts for breakfast—that’s it! That should keep my toes at a manageable size.” When 4-LOM returned from the ship’s jeweler he found her necklace of emeralds and garnets dropped