Bounty Hunter 1: The Bounty Hunter's Revenge (12 page)

“Yes. And Cass, we work alone from now
on. Be sure to take that under consideration.”

“I will, Burke.”

I closed my eyes and settled into the
bed with the helmet still on. I was more comfortable with it on than off, and I
trusted that Cass would keep watch. I went back to sleep.

The following is the
first scene from the next in the Bounty Hunter series: Redemption.

Eva Pond was wanted for the murder of people she had never killed.
She was a slave trader and an efficient, greedy one at that. In the eyes of the
law, the people she had taken were as good as dead and she was their
executioner. Her greed, at times a source of strength and wealth, had been her
undoing. She had taken too many people from one planet. Enough to be noticed,
and enough that they banded together to purchase an executioner of their own.

Burke was a bounty hunter. When he strode into the bar, most didn’t
look twice. His battle aegis, a full body armored suit, covered his face and
did not appear out of the ordinary on space stations. Humanoid aliens were
common enough and many had different needs. Sealed suits were necessary when
the wrong kind of chemicals filled the air.

What set Burke’s suit apart was the grade and quality of it. It was
one of the most expensive pieces of armor in the galaxy, and he was among the
few that owned one. The aegis could resist most small arms and explosions, but
still blended in among the dozens of other suits found on a station at any
given time. It was only when Burke drew his weapon that Pond’s bodyguards were
alerted by his presence.

Cass, the suit’s AI and verbal interface, lit up the suit’s visor
with hostile targets around the bar. The men and women that were drawing weapons
were distinguished from the other unarmed patrons. Burke raised his gun at the
two guards on either side of Pond and watched as the reticules Cass had painted
on them turned from green to red, the same color as their blood on the wall
behind them.

The rest of the guards opened fire. Pond stayed grinning in her
chair, confident and certain that she was safe. The torrent of bullets slapped
against Burke’s armor. They bounced harmlessly away, most shattering on contact
with the hardened surface of the suit. His movements were only slowed by the
barrage of attacks: he moved his gun slowly from target to target around the
room.

“I always hate this part,” he said. “I feel like their shots are
going to pierce the armor at any second.”

“They don’t have the right rounds for that,” Cass responded. “Even
then we’d have a few seconds before they could do damage. The one to your right
is throwing something.”

The grenade bounced along the floor and came to a rest at Burke’s
feet. He stopped and looked down at it. Even some of the other bodyguards
stopped, boggling at whoever had thrown it.

“Did he?” Cass began. “Did he really just throw a grenade on a
space
station
?”

“Yeah,” Burke said, smacking his lips.

He gave it a firm kick back in the thrower’s direction. It slammed
into him and exploded, cracking open the wall of the bar and exposing the whole
section of the station to space. The air rushed out during the few seconds
before the emergency measures could respond. The thrower was sucked out along
with a few tables and chairs. Cass magnetized the suit’s boots to the floor
while everyone around him toppled over. The station’s automated response kicked
in before anyone else was funneled out, clamping down external shutters and
sealing the breach.

Burke watched as the guards got to their feet. Only four of them
were left. Two of them threw their guns to the ground and put up their hands.
The other two resumed firing. He aimed his shots at their extremities, giving
them a reason to give up with their cohorts. Eva Pond was just getting to her
feet after falling over. She straightened her hair and beared her teeth at him.

“One of them behind us has changed his mind,” Cass said. “He’s
crawling. Slowly. I can get you a shot.”

The visor’s screen split in half as it began to display the feed
from Burke’s handgun. He extended his right arm behind him, as casually as if
he was stretching it. The gun’s display showed the image of the man crawling in
the corner, reaching for a rifle, thinking he wasn’t seen. Burke raised the gun
and the cross hairs lined up on the man’s head. No second chances. He squeezed
the trigger.

“Got him. Hopefully that’s the last one,” Cass said. She sounded
calm and neutral about it.

The faceplate of Burke’s helmet released with a hiss. It extended
forward and raised above his forehead, revealing his face as he walked toward
Pond. She backed up away from him until she hit the wall behind her. She
pressed her back against and glared defiantly at him. He marched toward her
unperturbed.

“Whatever they’re paying you, I’ll double it,” she growled.

Under normal circumstances, he would have laughed at the mismatched
angry expression she wore and her begging tone of voice. This woman had stolen
people and given them a fate he considered worse than death. He had spoken with
their families and heard about the children she had stolen along with the
adults. She had shown no mercy and neither would he.

She opened her mouth to beg again but Burke was already swinging his
fist. His armored hand was heavy and smashed into the center of her face. Her
nose erupted in a spray of blood. He must have punctured something in her
mouth—he hoped it was her tongue—because she spat out blood when she opened it.

“Just kill me.”

“I would, but they want you alive.”

“Idiots,” she spluttered.

Cass opened the compartment at his waist where a grapple line was
usually stored. They had removed the hook for this bounty and Burke used it now
to tie her hands and legs together. Pond struggled wildly when she realized
what he was doing. It took two more blows to the back of the head before she
was stunned enough to be properly restrained. He left the guards. He only had
room for one prisoner.

On his ship, Burke threw Pond into the single holding cell without
untying her. He left her to struggle on the floor but still locked the cell
door as a final insult. He turned the lights off when he left the room. He was
angry that he wasn’t allowed to kill her.

“She deserves worse than this,” Burke muttered as he removed the
pieces of his battle armor.

Cass had already transferred herself from the suit and into the
ship. She started the launch procedure and they were undocking from the space
station.

“I know,” her voice came from the walls in Burke’s room. After he
had removed the last pieces of the suit, he pulled on some clothes and walked
out into the corridor that lead to the ship’s helm. It was at the front of the
ship and Cass’s voice changed to emit from each room as he stepped into it.

“The people who hired us want justice,” she continued. “Just hearing
about her being killed far away won’t bring them closure. Seeing her in prison
will bring them more peace.”

“But they’re wrong. She’ll get out.”

“I know,” Cass said. Her voice was as clear and smooth as a human’s.
She could convey emotions as well as Burke. She sounded sad.

He sat down at the controls to the ship. There were three chairs in
the room but the other two were blocked with boxes of supplies: guns,
ammunition, food, and water. The ship was smaller than he was used to even
after living in it for more than a year. He had had a better ship once and a
human partner, Adam, instead of an AI. He had lost both in the previous year.
He missed his old ship but not his old partner. Cass had filled that void and
became more than the interface for his aegis.

“Can you send a message to the families that wanted Pond? And call
Geoff. I need to let him know we’ll be back sooner than we thought. A few more
days to drop her off and then back to him.”

“I already did,” Cass replied. The command room’s display screen
changed from showing what was in front of the ship to a bright, uniform blue.
It was waiting for a connection. “He’ll be a few minutes.”

“Thanks.”

Burke set a hand on his right leg and absentmindedly rubbed at it,
as though it were a sore muscle. He had lost that leg at the same time that he
lost his ship. He had gotten used to the augmented limb but sometimes it gnawed
at him. The skin where the flesh and circuitry connected sometimes itched or
would swell. For most purposes it was as good as his previous leg and, for
some, it was better. Still, it served as a reminder of what the mistakes of the
last year had cost him.

The blue screen flickered for a moment and then Geoff was displayed
on it. He was an older man and had been the only person, aside from Cass, that
had helped Burke after Adam betrayed him. He had spent the year repaying that
trust and they had settled back into a comfortable working friendship. He got
most of his private contracts and equipment through Geoff.

“Jack, it’s good to see you,” Geoff said. Burke recognized the fake
name as an indicator that he wasn’t alone. He would have to keep it brief.

“Just calling to say we’ll be back a week earlier than planned. If
you’re still selling what we discussed before, I’ll have the money sooner.”

Geoff’s eyes narrowed as if he was angry but he also gave the
smallest of nods. Burke knew the rest was an act. Geoff had to keep up the
appearance of a mundane bar owner and not a middle man of the criminal
underworld.

“Did you have to fucking call just for that?” he growled. Burke
grinned. “It’s evening here. We’re busy. These people, man,” he said as the
connection was cut.

The screen faded back to displaying the outside of the ship. The
distant stars stayed seemingly stationary as the space station, and the planet
it was orbiting, shrunk out of view as the ship left it behind. Burke stayed at
the helm until they reached the edge of the star system and the jump gate that
was situated there.

The gates connected systems and occupied planets, shortening journeys
to three days that would otherwise take months. Gates were built to link only
select systems, noteworthy enough in population or resources to warrant
frequent transportation. Jumps were done once every twenty hours. Massive
carrier ships allowed smaller ones to either dock inside them, or latch onto
the outside of their hull. The jumps were expensive for most people but
bounties paid well enough to factor in those costs.

The next jump was scheduled in eight hours. The gate itself was
massive, among the largest structures ever built by man: a blocky mass of
components and arrays, producing whatever energy that it couldn’t absorb from
the nearby star. A blue light constantly emanated from the gate’s center,
constantly pulsing as it sent nonstop information to the network made by the
other gates. It was how Burke had been able to talk to Geoff.

“Get ready, Cass,” Burke said as they neared the jump ship. There
was always one of the gargantuan ships in a sluggish orbit around the gate,
allowing ships easy access as it lumbered around for another jump. Each time a
ship approached it would be checked for both payment and the identities of the
occupants. Criminals were not permitted to use the gates, even if they were in
a jail cell on a bounty hunter’s ship.

The ship’s display changed to a warning: a red screen and white
letters. They were all in capitals:

SCANNING.

TWO HUMANOID LIFEFORMS DETECTED.

CONFIRMING.

“Should I turn us around?” Burke asked.

“Shush!” Cass hissed.

The words flashed on the screen once more before the “TWO” became a
scrambled mess of jumbled letters. The words faded away and then came again,
displaying Burke’s false identity:

SCANNING.

ONE HUMANOID LIFEFORM DETECTED.

CONFIRMED AS JACK PORTER.

PAYMENT WILL BE WITHDRAWN UPON DOCKING.

“Very good. You’re getting better at that,” Burke said and grinned.

“The hardware you bought could falsify the report on its own, but I
want to learn in case we lose it. You never know what might happen after, well,”
her voice trailed off.

She was talking about his old partner turning on him and he knew it.
He gave a short nod and then got to his feet. They had a few days of down time
and he wanted to get his prisoner set up before they were into the jump.

Pond was still on the floor and looked like she hadn’t tried to
move. There was a small amount of blood that had congealed around her face but
it had stopped flowing from her broken nose. Her eyes were open and snapped to
his the moment he turned the lights on. She was smiling.

He opened the cell door and stepped inside. He untied her hands and
left the knot around her feet for her to deal with herself. He locked the door
again and went to leave the room. He only stopped when she started laughing
behind him.

“Tough man thinks that he’s done something, huh? You haven’t done
shit.”