The Hunger Read online

  Fett's capture cable fell limply to the floor. Fett swung his blaster around

  to shoot Hoole, but the feathered serpent had slipped down the corridor that

  led to the sleeping cabins.

  Fett took one step down the corridor, and something small and hard

  ricocheted off the back of his helmet. Fett whirled and fired as the small

  object was still bouncing away in midair.

  A drinking cup, struck by Fett's blaster bolt, shattered into a

  thousand pieces.

  Another drinking cup leaped off a shelf and flew toward the bounty

  hunter. This time, Fett simply swatted it aside with the back of his hand.

  Tash was using the Force again. Zak knew she couldn't do much against a

  killer like Boba Fett. She wasn't strong enough in the Force to throw

  anything really heavy at him. But at least she was doing something. He, on

  the other hand, felt totally useless.

  Fett's helmeted head swiveled from the corridor where Hoole had

  disappeared, to the chair that Tash was hiding behind. The bounty hunter was

  trying to decide which prey to capture first. He never bothered to look at

  Zak, who had already been taken out of action.

  Finally, Fett spoke. "Surrender now and I won't kill you," his hard,

  cold voice rasped. "You're worth more to me alive. Fight, and you'll die."

  "Leave us alone!" Tash yelled from behind her chair.

  Fett ignored her. "Surrender. You are unarmed."

  As if to prove him wrong, a blaster bolt sizzled out of the hallway and

  glanced off the bounty hunter's armored shoulder. The force of the blow spun

  Fett around, and immediately the bounty hunter dove for cover. He pressed

  himself against one wall, out of sight of the corridor.

  "Armed," Fett muttered to himself. "Not in the profile."

  Zak would have smiled if his muscles hadn't been frozen by the stun

  bolt. Hoole was using the blaster he'd taken from the other bounty hunter.

  "Last chance," Fett shouted down the corridor. "Surrender or die."

  "Leave the ship!" Hoole ordered back from his hiding place.

  "You've made your choice," Fett replied.

  Still holding his blaster in one hand, the killer pointed his other arm

  down the hallway. There was a wrist rocket attached to his glove. The rocket

  flared and then shrieked as it hurtled down the corridor.

  "Uncle Hoole!" Tash shouted.

  The small rocket hit the back of the ship and exploded. Flames and

  smoke blasted down the corridor and continued to pour out of the hallway.

  Cautiously, the bounty hunter started down the blasted hall.

  Zak's arms and legs tingled as feeling began to return to them.

  "Zak," Tash whispered, appearing beside him. "Are you okay?"

  "Shhtunnd," he slurred out of his half-frozen mouth. Tash helped him

  sit up.

  "Where did he come from?" Tash whispered.

  "He must have spotted us on Nar Shaddaa and sneaked on board the ship,"

  Zak guessed. "I'll bet a Hutt's treasure that's his ship following us, on

  autopilot."

  "What do we do now?" Tash asked. They both stared down the hallway.

  Zak felt his jaw start to work better as the stun bolt's effects wore

  off. "Escape pod. We've got to get off the ship."

  "But where will we go?" Tash whispered back. "We're in the middle of

  hyperspace!"

  Tash had barely spoken when the ship lurched and slowed. The soft hum

  of the hyperdrive engines died, replaced by the sudden churning of the

  sublight drive. The Shroud had dropped out of hyperspace.

  Tash and Zak heard someone shout from the back of the Shroud, and

  another explosion rocked the ship. A cloud of smoke rolled toward them from

  the engine room-and something rushed toward them out of the cloud.

  It was Uncle Hoole.

  The shoulder of his robe had been torn away and blood trickled down his

  sleeve.

  "Uncle Hoole, you're hurt!" Tash cried.

  "We have to get off this ship before Boba Fett kills us all," the

  Shi'ido said grimly.

  "The escape pod!" Zak said.

  "Yes," Hoole agreed. "We just left hyperspace. We should be over the

  planet Koaan."

  A blaster bolt ripped through the wall above their heads. "Come!" Hoole

  ordered.

  Together, they staggered toward the escape pod and jumped inside. Zak

  strapped himself into a seat, sparing a quick glance out into the hall.

  Boba Fett was stalking toward them, blaster in hand.

  Hoole slapped the controls, closing the emergency blast doors just as

  the bounty hunter fired. They heard the energy bolt slam into the heavy

  crash door. The Shi'ido glanced around to make sure Zak and Tash had both

  safely strapped themselves into their crash webbing; then he pulled a large

  red handle. Safety bolts exploded, and the escape pod hurled itself away

  from the ship.

  "Look at the damage," Zak whispered, staring at the Shroud through a

  viewport.

  Smoke and flames poured out of the ship's engines.

  "Yes," Hook explained. "I tried to trap Boba Fett in the engine rooms,

  but he was too careful to be tricked. He fired his wrist rocket into the

  engines to flush me out. If I had not shapeshifted into a fire-resistant

  Gregonian salamander, I would have been killed."

  Tash checked the escape pod's small control panel. "According to these

  readings, we're dropping into Koaan's gravity field. We should be able to

  land with no trouble. Will we find help there?"

  "I do not know," Hoole replied. "But I will try to land us as close to

  the research center as possible."

  "And as far away from Fett as we can get," Tash added.

  "I wouldn't worry about him," Zak said. "It looks like the Shroud is

  headed for an explosion or a crash landing. Maybe it'll take Fett with it."

  The escape pod wasn't designed for long flights. It was programmed to

  find the closest planet and land there as softly as possible-which proved to

  be not very softly at all.

  Koaan's gravity grabbed hold of them, pulling the small pod faster and

  faster toward the surface. Entering the planet's atmosphere, the pod began

  to heat up until the outside flamed like a meteor. The inside grew hotter,

  too. Hoole fired the landing rockets, trying to slow their descent, and the

  pod rattled and bumped through the air. Just when Zak thought he couldn't

  take the heat or the rattling any longer, the pod hit the ground with an

  enormous thud! that jolted him from his feet to the top of his head.

  They had landed on Koaan.

  Hoole opened the hatch and all three of them crawled from the smoking

  escape pod onto sandy ground. They had landed on the edge of a lake. Zak got

  the impression of green hills in the distance, warm sun, and a brilliant

  blue sky. But like Hoole and Tash, he was exhausted and quickly collapsed

  facedown on the ground. He closed his eyes with a sigh.

  The sound of a footstep made him look up.

  Lying there, he could see a long shadow creeping along the ground. It

  was the shadow of a being covered in hard, smooth armor.

  The shadow fell across him.

  CHAPTER 3

  "Look out!" Zak shouted, scrambling away from the helmeted figure. He

  expected to feel another of Boba Fetes stun bolts
.

  Instead, a mechanical-sounding voice spoke: "There is no need to panic,

  Zak."

  Zak blinked. The figure standing before him wasn't Boba Fett. In fact,

  it wasn't a living creature at all. It was a droid. "Deevee!" Zak shouted.

  The silver droid took another step forward. He was built to look as

  much like a human as possible, but the movements of his mechanical arms and

  legs were stiff and jerky.

  "Deevee!" Tash shouted after Zak. She threw her arms around the droid.

  "It's good to see you both again," Deevee said to the two Arrandas;

  then he turned to their uncle. "And Master Hoole. Welcome back to Koaan."

  Hoole, who rarely smiled, almost grinned to see his old companion.

  "Thank you, D-V9. I am glad you received my transmission."

  "Indeed," the droid said. "Although I expected you to arrive by ship,

  not by lifepod."

  "So did we," Zak said. "But Boba Fett had other plans."

  "Boba Fett!" squawked the droid. Deevee had been with them on their

  first encounter with the bounty hunter months earlier. "What does that

  killer want?"

  "Us," Tash answered. "The Empire has put a price on our heads."

  "Which brings us to our visit," Hoole added. "Deevee, do you have

  access to the research center's unprocessed data files?"

  Deevee nodded. "Of course, Master Hoole. I'm now the assistant to the

  chief anthropologist. I have access to the entire facility."

  "Good," Hoole said. "Because here is what we need . . ."

  On the way to the research facility, Hoole-interrupted often by Zak and

  Tash-told Deevee everything that had happened to them over the last few

  months. After they had helped the Rebel Alliance destroy a terrible

  scientific experiment created for the Empire, Zak, Tash, and Hoole had

  searched for a safe place to hide. But trouble and terror seemed drawn to

  them the way light was drawn down a black hole in space.

  "It sounds terrible," Deevee said as they came near the research

  center. "Your situation has become worse since we last parted company."

  "That's why we need a really safe place to hide," Tash said. "Not just

  a distant planet. We need a planet no one has ever heard of."

  "I'm sure you'll find it in the old catalogs," Deevee said. "That

  information isn't classified, so no one will question your presence as long

  as you are with me. However, Master Hoole, your face is very well known here

  from your days as an anthropologist. You will surely be recognized."

  "That is not a problem," the Shi'ido replied. He closed his eyes. His

  gray skin seemed to wriggle across his bones for a moment-and then Hoole was

  gone, replaced by a very average-looking human with brown hair and brown

  eyes.

  "Excellent," Deevee said. "I wouldn't want anyone to recognize you with

  all the stormtroopers about."

  "Stormtroopers!" Hoole said through his new shape. "There have never

  been stormtroopers on Koaan."

  "There are now," the droid said with a hint of sadness in his

  mechanical voice. "Ever since the Rebellion, the Empire has sent military

  forces to control every scientific facility it owns, no matter how small.

  But they shouldn't trouble us."

  Deevee was right. The Galactic Research Academy was a place of learning

  and a storehouse of information gathered by scientists and scholars from

  across the galaxy. Because it contained no military secrets and stayed out

  of politics, it wasn't considered very important by the Empire or the

  Rebellion. As long as the Academy didn't break any Imperial rules, it didn't

  get much attention. The few Imperials on the planet were there to make sure

  no one spread any information that would show the Empire in a bad light.

  Although Hoole's familiar face might have caused a stir, the sight of a

  droid escorting one human adult and two human children made no impression at

  all.

  Deevee led them through a courtyard where a few scholars, mostly human,

  hurried here and there on Academy business. They then followed Deevee into a

  large building several stories tall.

  "All the floors above us contain the main library," the droid explained

  as they reached a bank of turbolifts. "It's one of the most complete records

  of galactic knowledge anywhere. But we are going down."

  A turbolift arrived and they entered. The lift descended with a gentle

  hum. A moment later the door opened and they found themselves facing a

  sour-looking man in an Imperial uniform. His skin was pale and sickly from

  sitting in a dingy office belowground every day.

  Zak tensed on seeing the Imperial uniform, but Deevee merely shuffled

  out of the turbolift, leaned forward, and spoke so that his voice would be

  picked up by a microphone on the Imperial's desk. "Greetings, Deputy Strey.

  D-V9 requesting access to raw data files. I have three researchers from

  offplanet with me."

  The Imperial, Deputy Strey, glanced at a screen. "Voice authorization

  confirmed. Go ahead," the Imperial said.

  Deputy Strey didn't even look at them again as they continued down a

  dimly lit hallway, past several unmarked doors. To Zak, all the doors looked

  alike. But Deevee knew where he was going. He opened one of the doors and

  stepped inside.

  They were in a large room lined with rows of shelves. Each shelf was

  piled high with containers, and each container held hundreds of datadisks.

  In the corner was a computer terminal.

  "This place is some thrill," Zak said sarcastically.

  "It may look boring to you, Zak," said Hoole. "But every one of those

  disks contains the records of a team that discovered and explored an

  uncharted planet. Who knows what dangers they faced, or what treasures they

  discovered?"

  "Well, no one knows," Deevee answered. "These records have been sitting

  here for years."

  "Why?" Tash asked, staring wide-eyed at the galaxy of information

  around her. Tash was a reader, and the thought of all that knowledge made

  her head spin.

  "Everything we record has to be approved by the Empire first," the

  droid explained. "All these disks are just copies. The originals are on

  Coruscant, the Imperial capital. Once a file is approved, we can send it

  upstairs to the main library. Luckily for us, with nothing else to do, the

  Academy scholars have been copying and cross-referencing the files into this

  computer. Thus, we don't need to search through the disks themselves."

  Zak looked at the stacks of datadisks that reached the ceiling. "Good.

  There are enough disks here to smother a bantha."

  As Deevee activated the computer terminal, Hoole, who had shifted back

  into his own shape, said, "Go back years, Deevee. Look for something that

  was discovered before the Empire took over."

  "Why?" Tash asked her uncle.

  "If a planet was discovered under the Empire, it was probably

  discovered by Imperials. We do not want to go anywhere they have been. We

  want a place that was discovered a long time ago, and then forgotten."

  "I think I've found just the planet," Deevee said, after a short

  search. "This planet was discovered by an exploration team almost forty

  years ago.
It-"

  The door hissed open behind them. Startled by the intrusion, they all

  whirled around to see Deputy Strey standing in the doorway. His pale face

  had gone even whiter. He looked like death itself.

  Deputy Strey gagged, as if trying to speak. Then he fell face first

  into the room and did not move again.

  CHAPTER 4

  While Zak and the others were staring down at Strey, eight beings

  charged into the room, stepping over the Imperial's body. The first was a

  woman with long, thick hair, a blaster in her hand. Behind her came a

  Twi'lek with two thick tentacles growing out of the back of his head. They

  were wrapped around his shoulders like a scarf. Four men followed, all

  dressed in sloppy flight uniforms, all heavily armed.

  The woman glared at Hoole, Zak, and Tash. Then she pointed her blaster

  at them. "Who are you?" she demanded.

  Hoole returned her gaze calmly. "We could ask you the same question.

  What have you done to that man?"

  The Twi'lek looked at the woman and said, "We don't have time for this,