Bounty Hunted

by Ian Cannon

  Ben shrugged. Good question. “Blank space,” he guessed.

  There were no visible planets from this vantage point in the twin solar system, only the distant cutis of nebulonic gasses and cobalt bands.

  They could see their destination in the near distance. It looked like a gray smudge of reflected light from the asteroid boundary pasted against the cosmic backdrop, almost like the thumbprint of a greater creature compressed into a vague lumina. Ben tapped the viewer zooming in for a closer look. Asteroids. It was an ocean of ice and carbon, each ore body collected from the Zii Band and tugged across the system. They moved lazily together as if controlled by an artificial gravimetric current. They’d have to get through the debris field to get to Incarcerum which sat in the center of the mess perched on its moonlet. It was a wonderful defensive mechanism.

  “Can they detect us on sensory?” Tawny asked.

  Ben said, “I don’t think they need sensory. They have that.”

  Tawny cringed. “How do we get through?”

  “Maybe a solution will present itself. I guess we ping.”

  Tawny offered a restrained grimace and switched to the comm panel. She tapped one of the nodules and the sound of a comm ping thumped. They waited with bated breath before their receiver blipped—a return ping. Suddenly, the cruiser lurched forward. Ben brought his hands up off the control board and groaned, “Whoa.”

  “What?”

  “They’re bringing us in,” he said looking forward. The cruiser glided smoothly into the asteroid storm with its secondary guidance thrusters squirting short bursts. “They have control. The Krutt’s unique comm ping must have triggered an autodrive.” He looked up. “Looks like they’re bringing us through a preset course through the asteroid field.”

  “Convenient,” Tawny quipped.

  “Let’s hope. Now we just wait to find out.” The asteroids passed by through the viewport like looming gods sliding quietly by.

  Tawny checked the blaster holstered at her hip. It was charged. She also inspected the two-handed light-armor combat weapon she’d collected from the Krutt’s armory. Apparently, the bounty hunter had an appreciation for guns—a blaster for every job. She particularly appreciated her newest acquisition, a plasma repeater rifle of sorts but with a small firing arc and convenient, compact design. She strapped it across her back and turned to the moon bag at her feet. They had collected the Krutt’s transport spheres inside. There were nearly forty of them. They hoped it would be enough. A piece of her hoped there wouldn’t be any action. The other piece of her wanted retribution for Guilder’s Mix. She was ready to go regardless... except for one thing. Her husband.

  She spied him sitting at the cruiser’s big control panel. There was something different about him, something fitful and strange. It’d been there ever since Sarcon, and it had only become more apparent through their ordeal. She drew a courageous breath and moved toward him.

  Ben felt her come to his side and place a hand on the back of his seat. Her voice broke the silence, “Benji,” she said barely more than a whisper.

  He looked up at her.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  She squatted down next to him, a sure sign that she wanted to talk about something. She said, “Back at Raider’s Bay. I’ve never seen that before.”

  He didn’t have to pretend he didn’t know what she meant. The Krutt. The anger. It was borderline cruelty. “Yeah, sorry about that,” he said.

  “Benji …” she said not wanting to let him off the hook.

  “He’s a Krutt!” Ben blurted angrily making her flinch back. “He’s been a pester before. I did what I had to do. End of story.”

  “You sure that’s the end of the story?” she bit back.

  “Can we please just do this?” he said indicating the approaching mining facility and the job at hand. They were about to walk into danger, for the sake of the gods. They didn’t have time for a heart-to-heart.

  Her Raylon temper flared up. “Backing down isn’t my style, Benji.”

  He got to his feet and barked, “What do you want me to say, Tawny? I got angry, okay? I got very, very angry.”

  She got to her own feet and faced him, crying back, “Yeah, and you’re still angry!”

  He gave her a quiet, threatening look, and whispered, “Yeah, little bit.”

  There was a brief stare down after which she growled letting the subject go … for now … and rolled her eyes away.

  The cruiser came to the station’s docking port, pivoted into a landing position and lowered with a thud. Gasses exchanged and they locked on. Ben checked his B-7 blasters, first one, then the other, and said, “We’re on.”

  Holding one of the spheres, Tawny said, “Ready?”

  He took her hand—like it or not—and nodded in the affirmative.

  VWAP—they were gone.

  They looked around shaking their heads to clear the disorientation. Being quicker than a single thought, matter transporting took the mind a moment to orient to their new surroundings. One instant they were in the Karbatt cruiser, the very next they were somewhere else. But where?

  A chamber. Steel piping ran along the ceiling. Bulkheads ribbed the space. The sound of a distant foundry throbbed through the station adding an eerie feeling. Everything seemed far away but too close for comfort. Fortunately, there was no one around. Unfortunately however …

  “This isn’t the prison bay. This was supposed to be the prison bay,” Tawny said whipping her rifle from her back and scanning it toward the room’s entrance.

  Ben agreed with a crooked frown. “It was a best guess,” he said and pulled his blasters. He went to the entrance and peeked out. There was no one to the left, no one to the right. Just a hallway with more overhead piping and uneven rock walls. And it was long, almost endless. The floor was all steel grating. There was a power source for the mining facility somewhere close. It thrummed and pulsed distantly. The whole place was jungle hot and sweat started popping up across their foreheads immediately.

  Operators carried on with their tasks in the station’s command center. It was separated into work areas spanning across the forward perimeter. Foundry control was stationed to the far port side, its small team of operators coordinating its energy collection and maintenance. The drive systems, external ship functions and navigations were sectioned toward the fore. A long vieport showed the endless maw of space with the encompassing asteroid boundary sweeping lengthwise off the bow. Section leads hovered over their subordinates.

  To the rear of the command center, the navigations techs were beginning to baffle. The Krutt cruiser had pinged its unique comm signature and, in turn, received the passage codes for navigating the asteroids. It even accepted its docking instructions and settled into the starboard landing platform. Yet, the Krutt had not signaled his return-to-base. Nor had he responded to any hails.

  Lead Comm called into his communications device, “Sir, a situation.”

  GuardKing’s snakey voice returned, “Yes?”

  “The Krutt vessel has returned, but he has not hailed. Nor has he responded. The hatch is secure, sir, but he is not completing the coupling sequence on his end.”

  GuardKing said, “Deploy a security inspection party. Ensure all protocols. Prepare the incineration teams.”

  “Yes, GuardKing.”

  “I want immediate updates.”

  Comm Lead swallowed hard feeling a shiver go up his back and complied with, “Of course, sir.”

  Ben didn’t like this. They had no schematics of the place, no map. Where was the prisoner bay? He looked way down at the end of the corridor. It tee’d into another and beyond that was a flight of stairs that led up into what looked like a control center. Control centers meant operators. He jerked back as two people stepped into view way down there wearing uniforms and murmuring to each other. Ben ducked down, watching as they moved on by. He didn’t recognize the unifroms. They were too far away. But where there were two,
there would be more.

  Nope, not going that way. He looked the other way down the hall. This direction looked like it opened up into a larger area, but from his position he couldn’t tell. That distant sound of a foundry was coming from way down there—thumping and whirring, the sounds of automation and function. Machines were doing whatever machines do down that way. Perfect. He looked back at Tawny and said, “This way. Cover our six. Move quick.”

  “I’m right behind,” she said, and they were on the move, fast.

  Padding as lightly as possible, they approached the end of the hallway slowing down. They both peered into the room at the opening. It was a large ore-mining control bay with work stations mounted on steel platforms. An enormous viewport was at the fore. They could see the nuclear driller suspended over the deep ore pits. It thrummed in a slow, deep rythym. There were no operators. No workers. How odd.

  They gave each other a look before Tawny scooted in with her rifle bore against her shoulder and scoping left to right. Ben followed, exiting the control bay. They found themselves on a catwalk that encircled a majestically large area full of negative space. Levels to the foundary spanned below. This place was a large operation full of industrial struts and steel mesh levels encircling the floor way below. The residual thrumming of the machinery echoed in big, sleepy pulses through the whole place, and over it all they heard the sound of voices far below. They both looked over the railing toward the floor.

  There were soldiers down there. A full platoon. Some of them lined up in column formation carrying out gunnery drills while others staged themselves across sparring mats. They went through rounds of training to hone their hand-to-hand combatskills, tumbling across the mats and sequencing through strike and counter-strike postures.

  Along the edges of the training floor big manotaur bots stood in shadows as still as statues the size of a small tank, each fixed in their halcyon gazes. The sight of them made Ben and Tawny sink down for cover. They exchanged a weary look. These weren’t ore miners. This was something very different.

  “That’s worrisome,” Ben suggested quietly.

  Tawny pointed overhead and said, “What’s that?”

  Overlooking the entire operation was a big cantilevered structure suspended over the steel fjord by big flying buttresses. Ben squinted at it. It looked like some kind of command center with a viewport at the end. It was a control room built over the factory. There was another one two hundred feet across the sky, both facing each other and constructed to oversee the world below.

  “Don’t think that’s the prison bay,” Ben said.

  “Nope,” she agreed.

  “We need to stay out of sight,” Ben said. “Go that way.” He pointed.

  The security inspection leader with six members of his team approached the airlock, armed to the teeth. A manotaur bot followed behind grumping and thumping as it followed. They came to the exterior hatch and he called into a wrist comm, “Command, initiating overrides now.”

  He entered the proper code into the panel and his bleeping returned only the honk of a failed entry. He attempted again. Another failed entry. He looked back at his men and said, “Protocol breach readiness, men.”

  They snapped to, readying weapons.

  The leader called into his comm device, “Command, vessel side dock sequencing is not completing.”

  The message was referenced through the proper channels and filtered very quickly down to GuardKing. He stood at the foundry floor hawking over his trainees. They were a well-oiled machine, each member a perfect lever, a serene warrior. This was his Kruual.

  His inner-station comms tablet notified him of an incoming hail. He scanned it dawning an angrily curious look, the scar across his cheek and chin wringing with tightening skin. There was a ship sitting outside his topside docking platform, but there was no sign of a pilot or crew. He rolled his eyes in frustration—Krutt bounty hunters.

  He ordered, “All security units, maintain readiness,” and switched to his personal comm bracelet. Taking a breath, he said, “GuardKing to Specter.”

  Tawny and Ben made their way across the steel and stone grotto to a passage mined through rock. They paused at a stairway that offered access to multiple landings and glanced around for oncoming trouble. There were noises approaching that backed them both against the wall. These weren’t voices. More like big, mechanical footsteps.

  Below them in the adjoining corridor a pair of station security guards strolled by, both armed. A manotaur bot paced rhythmically behind. The steel beastie carried a platform in front of it, not much more than a gurney. A person was strapped to it with energy cuffs glowing in the dim as they moved by. The person wore the distinctly female armor of a rogue, battle worn breast plating over a black body suit. A half-helm covered her head and eyes while black hair splayed out over her imprisonment platform.

  Tawny whispered, “I know that armor. Benji, that’s Tantra Ness.”

  Benji looked sharp as they passed below. She was right. That was Tantra from the Solaptran moon Daelus—pointed ears and a wiley attitude. Tantra was a fighter, like most Guilders. And now she was here … like most Guilders.

  Benji motioned for Tawny to follow. “Come on, we’ll follow from above.”

  They took the corridor directly above shooting glances through the floor grating. They could see the manotaur continue down the passage just beneath them with its big mechanized feet thumping along. The team came to the end of the tunnel where a communal stairwell joined them below with Tawny and Ben above. The security guards manipulated a large, standing hatchway and the thing swung open on big, automated hinges. They carried Tantra inside and disappeared.

  Tawny and Ben looked at each other secretively, both whispering, “Prisoner bay.”

  After a moment the manotaur emerged empty-handed and continued thudding down the corridor and back the opposite direction. Tawny and Ben waited for the thing to leave with held breath. The two security guards emerged swinging the door shut on its auto-function before exchanging a few words lowly. Tawny and Ben continued watching through the mesh floor with their interest spiking. One of the guards nodded with a final word and walked off. They watched him carry on until he was out of sight. Tawny and Ben gave each other a hopeful look. One guard. This was good.

  Tawny put a finger to her lips—shhh. She moved to the stairwell and descended down to the lower flight staying out of sight. Ben watched nervously as she approached the guard startling him. He said, “What’re you … where’d you …”

  “Gotta light, buddy?” she said.

  He looked her up and down mystified. She had no cigarette. No hookah. Not even a cheap, stinking roll-your-own from the Deridia baccy fields. He started to say something but Tawny whipped her rifle around catching him in the teeth with the butt and dropping him like a meteor. She shot Ben a look up through the grated flooring. They were on the move.

  “Whatever works,” he muttered, and met her downstairs.

  Specter strode into the command center. GuardKing followed. The duo stood at the command center’s internal security control station overseeing the situation with the Krutt ship.

  “Why is he not hailing?” Specter demanded.

  The controller swallowed nervously and admitted, “We don’t know.”

  GuardKing said, “He has not declared any intentions.”

  Specter spun around and stepped toward the viewport, the single glowing sensor on his mask flaring with growing luminosity. “This is not what it seems,” he whispered through that robitron mask.

  But why?

  His computer enhanced brain slammed through a number of possible scenarios with the speed of microchip processing coming irrevocably to a conclusion that spiked his organic element’s nerves.

  This is not the Krutt. It’s someone else. They’ve come for only one reason. Free the prisoners. The Krutt cruiser has made no attempt to leave. The masterminds of this crime would be the last to board. That means they’re still here.

  With wh
at facial powers he had left, he grinned under that mask and sneered, “I know where they’ll be.” He turned to internal security control powerfully and demanded, “Hold that ship at bay and do not allow it to leave. Ready all security crews to blow the airlock. Board the Krutt cruiser on my command and prepare all station rail guns in the event.” He turned to GuardKing and said, “Come with me.”

  Tawny ripped the access chip from the guard’s belt and held it up to the hatchway. They heard a big thump and the thing unlocked. It swung open to a darkened chamber releasing a waft of dirty bodies and dank, hot air. They cringed and stepped inside cautiously. The chamber was twenty feet wide, perhaps eighty feet long, and blue lights lined the wall to the left and right. They were energy cuffs glowing in the dim.

  Ben blinked adjusting his sight to the dimness of these new confines. Bodies hung like shadows along the walls with arms drawn overhead attached to the cuffs. Slowly, he began recognizing them. Toggin and Sindra Klaire over here. Shogun and Rennick across the way. Further down was Tiffa Nora and ZebX. There was Oonta Goomba, the big one grunting in the dark. Hard to miss that one. There were others he didn’t know who probably hailed from one of the other liaison hubs. But they were all Guilders. These were his people. It put a knot in his gut, made his skin begin to crawl with dread.

  One by one, the prisoners took sight of him and Tawny and began to perk up, some struggling to stand to full height. The light of sudden hope flashed in their faces.

  “Benjar?” someone said lowly.

  “Is that Tawny and Ben?” someone else croaked.

  “Benji?” someone screamed way-too-loud at the end of the line. It was unmistakably Rogan.

  “Shhh!”

  “Seriously, Rogan?” Tawny yelled in a whisper from across the dungeon.

  Rogan blathered, “Oh, thank gods,” under his breath, fighting to control himself. He continued blubbering on about nonsensical gibberish, his words compelled by a mindless quality.