Hunter

by Sharon Partington

  Kenny laughed. “Don’t tell me you’re going to get all righteous and indignant on me. It doesn’t suit you, Gage. You’re not the righteous type. So. Here we are. You asked, I answered. The question now is what are you going to do about it? You can’t turn me over to the GSF without getting your own can tossed back into jail. The military prison at the Arcturon is a lot tougher to get out of than the Blackgate and I’m not much inclined to help you out this time. I’m not stupid and I’m way more security conscious than my sister. You’re not likely to take me by surprise. Besides, by the time you run back to recover your guns, I’ll be on my way out of the system. The universe is a big place, Hunter. Good luck trying to find me.” He grinned. “It looks like we’ve reached a stalemate.”

  The strobe cast flickering shadows across his face. The beam from the micro-laser wasn’t even noticed. It burned a small, neat hole right in middle of his chest, and deep, deep into his twisted, black heart.

  His eyes widened in stunned surprise, and he coughed once, a thin trickle of blood escaping the corner of his mouth.

  “How’s that for a surprise?” I said, reaching to finish my drink. I set the empty glass upside down on the table in front of him. “Checkmate, asshole.”

  He slumped forward, and I caught him before his head hit the table. I stood up, heading for the door. Looking back he appeared to be just one more drunk passed out in the corner.

  ◆◆◆

  The Personal Goods Depository sat in Jaraslad’s Main Administration wing nestled between the station manager’s office and the brig. The kid behind the counter looked up from his data- console as I walked in. “Can I help you, sir?”

  “I want to make a withdrawal.”

  “Of course. Do you have your claim tag?”

  I offered it to him, and he ran a hand scanner over it. “One moment, I’ll get that for you.” He disappeared down a short corridor, returning a few minutes later with a black metal box. “Would you like to examine the contents in private?”

  I nodded, and he showed me into a small, private room. I closed the door, turned the lock, and then sat for a long time staring at the box.

  It was all here.

  All the guilt. All the pain.

  All of it, in this box.

  I drew a deep breath and closed my eyes, my hands trembling as I opened the lid.

  A blood stained, blue and white banner.

  A tangle of silver chains.

  I placed the items carefully, reverently, in my bag. The Lady Kathy waited.

  There was one last thing I needed to do.

  ◆◆◆

  I hadn’t been back to the Androsian system since Kenny and I had escaped in his father’s ship. A lot had happened since then. I’d become a different man. Learned some hard lessons. Discovered things about myself I wasn’t very proud of.

  Still, I’d survived and that had to count for something.

  I kept the Lady Kathy to an altitude of less than five hundred meters, well beneath the radar of the Androsian Air Command. The ground skimmed past beneath me, the landscape flat and rocky, lit by the light of the moons. To my right, Orlakhan, the Androsian capital, slept beneath her shimmering blue protective shields. To my left, the distant peaks of the Ansaala Range stood etched against the silver tinted sky.

  I banked left heading toward the mountains. Three hours later, I set the shuttle down in a valley in the Androsian foothills.

  Seven years ago this valley had been the backdrop to a nightmare.

  Jungle ringed it on three sides and, on the fourth, the mountain range that gave the region its name loomed out of the darkness, a deeper shadow against the sky.

  I heard a distant, rumbling whine and looked up. An Androsian air patrol. Too high and too far west to notice the heat signature from the shuttle’s engine.

  I looked back to the valley. It had all started here.

  I left the cockpit, grabbed my bag from the main cabin, and opened the main hatch. The night air was cold and the moons hung low in the northern sky. Dry grass crackled beneath my boots, and somewhere a night hawk screamed. My stomach churned as I walked toward the shadowed spire in the center of the valley.

  I heard them whispering. My ghosts. They’d waited a long time for this.

  A small altar rested before the spire. When the monument was complete it would, no doubt, hold a torch or eternal flame. No names had been carved into the memorial yet, but I didn’t need them.

  I dropped my bag, kneeling to unzip it.

  I removed the banner, smoothing the folded fabric gently. Running my fingers over the old blood stains. Lorinda Michael’s face flitted through my memory as I set it on the makeshift altar.

  I drew out the tangle of chains, whispering the names before placing them, one at time, on top of the banner.

  Reynolds. Garcia. Jackson. Travis. Kimiko. Krueger. Donaldson. Ryan. Massey. Bryant. Allen. Majors. Carson. Marshall. Adams. Stevens. Davis. Watson. Blake.

  Briani.

  I felt a tightness in my throat as their faces passed through my memory and the old guilt resurfaced.

  I’d failed them. They’d trusted me to get them out alive and I’d let them down.

  “I’m sorry it’s taken so long,” I said softly. “I got…a little sidetracked.” I sighed. “It was Kenny,” I continued. “They were in it together, him and Corin Raas. She ran to save her own ass and you died to cover Kenny’s escape. He’s dead now, though. They both are. I made sure of it. I’m sorry. I know I should have tried harder. Done better.”

  I thought about all the choices I’d made since leaving this valley the first time. Trying to find the options my dad insisted were always there. I’d done what I believed to be right at the time, and hindsight was a luxury I never had much time to indulge in.

  Yeah, looking back, I probably could have done things differently. I could have passed on Kenny’s job offer and settled on some remote little planet somewhere, waiting for the GSF to forget about me.

  I could have. But I didn’t.

  I’d made a conscious decision to go from being Gage Brassan to The Hunter. That one choice, and all of the consequences arising from that choice, belonged to me.

  What was I going to do now?

  My dad. Joanna and Jak. They waited for me in the Altair system.

  My family.

  It felt very odd to say that and know that it was true. That it was real.

  Joanna and Jak were ready and willing to bet the rest of their lives on me, and as much as it terrified the crap out of me, I had to admit it felt good to know that there were at least two people out there that I could always count on to be there for me. They made me think about things I’d never dared dream I could ever have. Things like a normal, uncomplicated life. A future that wasn’t drowned in blood and death.

  The Hunter had been born in this valley, in an explosion of blood and rage that had swept me to places I never thought I would ever see.

  Maybe it’s time he died here.

  Author S.L. Partington lives in Edmonton, Canada.

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