Tales of the Bounty Hunters by Kevin J. Anderson

planet in over a hundred of their years. They had forgotten how, grown soft. Through technology, they had created neural jacks that allowed them to both send and receive thoughts and emotions to one another, becoming technological empaths, sharing something of a limited group consciousness.
    And so security here was lax. Kritkeen had some limited defense systems within his home—weapons, surveillance equipment, communicators that could call more guards. But he never had needed them here.None of the gentle people of Aruza had ever challenged him. And so Kritkeen felt safe even while unguarded, standing in the open on his stately grounds.
    Dengar jumped up and hurried down the mountain trail, watching in the dark, careful not to snap a branch or dislodge a rock. He ran with long strides, with incredible swiftness. The Empire had enhanced him physically, designed him for great deeds. Dengar was stronger than other men, faster. He saw better, heard much that was inaudible to men with lesser ears.
    And he felt … almost nothing. Little pain. Little fear. No guilt. No love.
    They’d sought to make him a perfect assassin, and so when he was a youth—nearly killed in a fateful accident on a swoop—the Empire’s surgeons had cut away his hypothalamus and put in its place the circuitry for his enhanced auditory and visual systems.
    Dengar knew well what the Imperial processors had in store for the hapless inhabitants of Aruza. Dengar had already been through the operation almost twenty years earlier.
    In but a few seconds, he rushed up behind Kritkeen, found the man still standing with hands folded. As he watched the moons, he breathed in the sweet night air.
    “It’s a nice night to die, isn’t it?” Dengar said softly, standing in the shadow thrown by one of the mansion’s pillars.
    Kritkeen startled, turned, looking for him in the dark.
    “Here I am,” Dengar said, taking a step into a shaft of light.
    “Who are you?” Kritkeen said, shaken, demanding. He reached down to his hip, to press a portable alarm that would call more stormtroopers.
    Before he could blink, Dengar crossed ten paces of ground, then reached down and snapped Kritkeen’s index finger. Dengar pulled the alarm from Kritkeen’s belt, placed it in his own pocket. Then Dengar pulledhis blaster with one hand and shoved the barrel into Kritkeen’s mouth until it clicked against the enamel of his teeth. All of these actions took him less than a second, and Kritkeen stood with his mouth open, dumbfounded by Dengar’s speed.
    “This is to be a routine assassination. By the book. You may already know the routine,” Dengar said, and he moved slowly now, a deliberate slowness that he’d acquired only after years of practice. He needed the rest, for it was easy to overtax his system if he moved too quickly. “Under Section 2127 of the Imperial Code, I am required to notify you that I have been hired to conduct a legal assassination in order to atone for crimes against humanity committed by you.”
    “Wha—?” Kritkeen began to cry out.
    “Don’t pretend that you don’t know what crimes. I have been recording your actions for the past twelve days. Now, the assassination will be carried out shortly. I have brought you a blaster, since you have the legal right to defend yourself. If I kill you, the injured parties will file documents with the Empire showing why they chose assassination as a recourse.
    “But, if you kill me, …” Dengar breathed threateningly, “well, that’s not going to happen.”
    Kritkeen backed up an inch, so that Dengar’s blaster wavered near his lips. “Wait a minute!”
    Dengar shoved a blaster into Kritkeen’s hand, stepped back a pace. “I’ll wait for three minutes,” Dengar said. “That’s the law. I must give you opportunity to escape. You have three minutes to run, any direction you want—as long as you don’t go back to your precious stormtroopers. Then the hunt begins.”
    Kritkeen stared at Dengar for