Star Wars: Tales of the Bounty Hunters Read Online Free PDF Page A

manufacturing smoke and the blurry fingers of thermal exhaust sketching bright spots in the infrared. The facilities were working at double speed to produce extra soldiers for IG-88’s new army, as well as continued production to fulfill the galaxy’s routine needs.
    IG-88 admired the precision of the facilities. The initial buildings had been designed with human clumsiness and wasted lines, unnecessary space and amenities, but the subsequent assembly lines were computer designed, modifications of the original concepts so that Mechis III ran smoother and smoother.
    “All of our new droids have enhanced programming,” IG-88 continued, “special sentience routines that allow them to follow our plans and to keep up the subterfuge. From this point on, every new droid we ship will have embedded sentience programming and the will to achieve our ultimate goal.”
    IG-88 mapped out the dispersal of the new droids, projected shipping routes and end destinations. Mechis III had such a widespread distribution that the infiltrators would spread from star system to star system in no time, replacing obsolete models, filling new niches in society, setting themselves up for the eventual takeover.
    The biologicals would suspect nothing. To them, droids were merely innocuous machines. But IG-88 deemed that it was time for “life” in the galaxy to take another evolutionary step. The old cumbersome organics must be replaced with efficient and reliable machines like himself.
    “While the droids are maneuvering themselves into position for our grand overthrow, they are given strict instructions to behave as humans expect droids to react.They will hide their superiority. No one can guess what we are up to. They must wait.”
    “Once they are in position and we are prepared, we will transmit the arming code. Only we know the specific phrase that will activate their mission. When we send out this epochal transmission, our droid revolution will take the galaxy like a storm.”
    Droids could be swifter than anything, a sudden devastating death to those who stood in their way. But unlike biologicals, machines could also be incredibly patient. They would wait—and the time would come.
IV
    After two standard months, the vigorous Imperial search had turned up no sign whatsoever of the missing assassin droids, and Supervisor Gurdun was not the least bit pleased.
    When his assistant Minor Relsted came into his gloomy, dungeon-like office deep within an ancient government building in Imperial City, Gurdun demanded a progress report. “Tell me how the manhunt is going—er, droid hunt, or whatever it is,” he said. “I want my assassin droids.”
    Young Minor Relsted twiddled his fingers and refused to meet the wide-set gaze over Gurdun’s monumental nose. “Would you like me to prepare a detailed report for you, Imperial Supervisor?” Relsted said. “Shall I submit it in triplicate?”
    “No,” Gurdun said. “Just tell me. I want to know.”
    “Oh,” Minor Relsted said. “Umm, let me think a moment.”
    “You’re not on top of this?” the supervisor asked.
    “Yes, yes of course. Just putting my thoughts into words,” Relsted said.
    Gurdun gazed up at the flickering glowpanel in the ceiling that provided more headaches than illumination.The thick office walls were a dull battleship gray; large bolts held them in place with round heads the size of his fist. By now he had hoped to be recovering from the surgery he wanted so badly, but time after time the Imperial authorities had denied it to him.
    “Well?” Gurdun said into the prolonged silence, rubbing his huge nose.
    “I’m afraid to say this, sir,” Relsted stammered, “but all four droids seem to have vanished. A fifth one, IG-72, has made an appearance here and there, eliminating targets for unfathomable reasons—but the other four have given no hint of their presence. It would be simplest if we assumed they were destroyed … say, caught in a stray supernova or