Hunter

by S. J. Bryant

  "There are more vapour bombs set up around the area. One sign of trouble and I'll set them off. Personally, I don't think you'd survive another dose."

  More silence. That was good; it meant the lecheons were listening.

  "There is a shipping container near the back row. It's black with seven-seven-four-alpha written on the side. Go there now. One of my people will be waiting to let you inside. The air is filtered and you will be able to breathe."

  Nova's heart pounded in her chest. She was taking a gamble with the lives of every human in the shipping yard. The lecheons could easily take hostages of their own and then she'd be in a stalemate. She was counting on their loyalty to Corvus and hoping that the threat of his death, as well as their own, would stop them thinking straight.

  She lifted her finger from the intercom and strained her ears. At first there was only more silence, but gradually she heard footsteps. There were lots of them. The lecheons mumbled to one another between coughs. They were approaching her and the container.

  Nova's muscles tensed. This was it. Either the lecheons would follow her instructions and this mess could be done with without further bloodshed, or they would try to free Corvus and hurt Briggles. In that case, she would set off the bombs, the lecheons would die, and it would become a political mess. Not to mention the human casualties of those caught in the blast.

  "Looks like they're all here," Briggles said through her radio.

  "Okay," Nova replied, relieved.

  She pressed the intercom once more. "Thank you for your cooperation." Her voice was as sweet as sugar, like a hostess on one of the fancy intergalactic traveller ships.

  She ran from the intercom back to the container. She was getting used to navigating in the dark. It was made easy by the containers. They were all the same size and set the same distance apart. She kept a steady pace all the way to Briggles's side even though her heart was racing. She held the detonator aloft.

  "Attack me and this will go," she said. "There are officers with crossbows hidden all around you. One wrong move and you'll be filled with wooden stakes."

  A female lecheon near the front hissed at Nova between coughs, the leach in her mouth jutting out and baring its teeth. Nova flicked her left hand and a crossbow bolt hissed through the air from the darkness, passing inches from the woman's face.

  The lecheons growled and pulled together, forming a tight circle. Nova nodded.

  They leant against one another for support. Some of them looked close to passing out and all of them were gasping for air. They stared at Nova with hatred, but their wide eyes and the way they kept looking at the container screamed fear as well.

  Briggles pointed his torch down at the ground. It was a consideration for the lecheons that Nova wouldn't have afforded them. Still, in the dim glow she could make out their faces. Their eyes glowed in the darkness. But they didn't move on Briggles or herself or try to attack.

  Nova nodded once and Briggles went to the door. He grabbed hold of the big lock and slid it open before pulling the door wide.

  "In," Nova ordered as soon as the gap was wide enough.

  The lecheons surged forward like obedient sheep and disappeared into the bowels of the container.

  As soon as the last one had pushed through, Briggles slammed the door and slid the lock home. Nova breathed a sigh of relief and turned the detonator over. She pulled out a wire and lifted her thumb from the button. Nothing happened.

  "One coven of lecheons; that'll be one-thousand credits," Nova said to Briggles with an exhausted grin.

  He glanced up at her and shook his head. The corner of his mouth twitched but the rest of his face was grave. Scratches ran up his arm, only just visible in the dim light of his torch.

  "You okay?" Nova asked as she pushed herself away from the container.

  "Yeah, I'll make it, just a few scratches. But I'll be glad to see the last of these," he thrust his thumb over his shoulder.

  "That makes two of us," Nova agreed.

  More officers gathered around them. A few had torches which cast a welcome light in the darkness. Injured officers leant on their fellows and they looked at Nova and Briggles with relief.

  "How many?" Briggles asked his second in command.

  "Twenty-four at last count, sir. There may be more."

  Briggles nodded and his face fell a little more.

  Nova looked away. She'd done her bit and now her time here was finished. She'd been on Boullion Five for too long now anyway.

  "So what are you going to do with it?" Nova asked, nodding to the crate.

  "Maximum security prison," Briggles said.

  "What if they escape?"

  "Trust me, where they're going, there won't be any room for escape."

  Nova nodded.

  "One of my men found this around the back," Briggles said, holding out Nova's gun.

  A flood of relief washed over her as she thrust it into her holster. "Thank you. I think that's me finished; I believe I have a damaged ship to fix," she said. "Will you be able to handle clean-up?"

  "Yes, we're fine. Get on your way then," Briggles said, waving his hand.

  There was commotion going on inside the crate. Fists banged against the walls alongside screams of frustration, but there was no way the lecheons would be able to get out.

  Nova nodded once to Briggles and then to the rest of the officers before turning on her heel and marching towards the shipping yard exit.

  "I'll wire you the credits," Briggles called after her.

  Nova lifted a hand in acknowledgement but didn't bother turning around.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  "What's the point in having shields if they don't work?" Nova demanded. She had a spanner in hand and was putting her full weight behind tightening a bolt.

  "They did work, for the first few shots. But at twenty percent we would have been destroyed with one more shot," Cal said.

  He hovered a small distance from Nova and was patching up pieces of the ship's hull which had been damaged by the plasma blasts. He was none the worse for the attack, but Nova didn't want to risk Crusader to the stress of travel when she was only one shot away from annihilation.

  It was the day after the lecheon battle and a large transporter ship had picked up the black shipping container just that morning. Nova watched with a grin on her face as the container was lifted up into the ship's transport bay, before the ship shot off into the air. The rest of the day had been spent on repairs.

  "How are you looking now?" Nova called out.

  Crusader's voice echoed out of a small speaker set into the outside of the ship. "Looking good. Once Cal has finished with that panel the only damage will be cosmetic."

  "Good," Nova said, sliding out from under Crusader's engine.

  Cal soldered the last of the metal in place and then the two of them walked back inside and the door shut behind them. Nova sauntered to the command pod and looked over the ship's readouts. They were all normal. She breathed a sigh of relief and slumped down into the command chair.

  "Let's get back to The Jagged Maw," Nova said. "And put Tanguin on the line."

  Crusader's engines roared to life and the front screen flicked on to reveal Tanguin.

  "Hey," Nova said.

  "Hey," Tanguin replied. "You look like crap."

  "Gee thanks," Nova said, wiping a hand down her face. "I haven't slept in a while. It was a big night."

  "Can we assume the lecheon problem on Boullion Five has been fixed?" Tanguin said.

  "Yep, let's just say I sent them packing," Nova chuckled.

  "Hilarious. So you're going to make it back in time for the race?"

  "Heading over now. Meet you there?"

  "You bet."

  Tanguin's face disappeared and Nova pressed the ignition buttons on Crusader's dashboard, turning the ship over to manual control. Many newer ships wouldn't allow manual, people were too likely to make mistakes. But Nova liked to be in control sometimes. It had taken a lot of time but even
tually she had managed to modify Crusader's circuits so that she could quite literally 'take the wheel'.

  "Engines engage," Nova said. Crusader's engines burst into life and the ship began to vibrate.

  "Take off in three, two, one."

  Crusader lifted from Boullion Five and shot into the air. It blasted through the atmosphere and into the space beyond. The lift-off was flawless, barely the tiniest shudder as they left the atmosphere.

  Nova flicked the ship into automatic and rested back in her chair. She watched the panorama of space fly by as they got faster.

  "You know where we're going?" Nova asked.

  "Coordinates set," confirmed Crusader.

  "Okay, time for me to check on the racer one last time."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Nova's heart pounded so hard in her chest that she was sure it was going to come flying out of her mouth at any moment. Her stomach clenched tight and she had goose-bumps running up and down her body.

  She sat in her space-racer with a helmet and air-suit on. In the unlikely event that she did crash and her ship lost its integrity, she was not going to die by vacuum. That was assuming she survived the impact and subsequent explosion. She looked over the dials again. They were all green, everything was fine.

  Out of her window to her right was Kero. He was driving a shining silver space-racer, the latest model. His shield was still down and he stood on the seat waving to the crowds gathered around the starting line.

  A group of girls swarmed around, fawning over him and his shiny space-racer, including Vicki. After Kero, she was Nova's most hated person in The Jagged Maw. She seemed to spend every second batting her eyelids and flaunting her body to get what she wanted, or sending spiteful remarks towards Nova and Tanguin. The fact that she'd been allowed into The Jagged Maw at all made Nova's stomach churn. She had thought they had higher standards than that.

  Nova shook her head. Kero had more money than sense, and Vicki was twice as bad.

  Spread out around Nova and Kero were the other racers. There were a few others from The Jagged Maw and the rest were from other bounty hunter organizations. There were quite a few bounty hunter factions spread across the galaxies, but everyone knew there were only three that really mattered.

  The Gunner's Guild was considered the 'upper-crust' of the bounty hunter world. They were the rich hunters who had either got lucky or who had entered the business already rich. They drove the latest ships, had the latest techs, and took only the cleanest jobs, which were usually government contracts for the Confederacy. Nova often thought that both Kero and Vicki should have applied to the Gunner's rather than subjecting the members of The Jagged Maw to their personalities.

  The Happy Hunters was another group entirely. They were the 'soft-hunters', mostly retired or not brave enough for the real work. Their specialties were snitching and info-mining. It was common knowledge that if you didn't want people to know something, don't tell the Happy Hunters. It always amazed Nova that the Happy Hunters had so many members. She couldn't imagine doing that kind of work; she'd almost rather subject herself to the snootiness of the Gunner's. But obviously information paid, because the Happy Hunters were the richest guild after the Gunner's. Their ships were just as good and their technology even better.

  The rest of the bounty hunter groups were too small to warrant any real attention. Some of them were family owned businesses that went back generations, but never extended beyond the same gene pool. Others were privately funded; more like mercenary gangs than real bounty hunter collectives.

  The Jagged Maw was something else. It was one of the newest hunter guilds, without the centuries of rich history. Their numbers weren't anywhere near as big as the Gunner's Guild or the Happy Hunters. They didn't have near as much money either; but there was a certain prestige which came from belonging to The Jagged Maw. It was a self-perpetuating selectivity. As soon as hunters were told they couldn't come in, they did everything they could to get there.

  The Jagged Maw was run by Tim and Tom. They had been lone bounty hunters in their youth and didn't really fit into any of the guilds, so they had started their own. In a stroke of genius they'd made the entry process extremely selective. Unlike the Gunner's Guild where selection was based on wealth, The Jagged Maw's selection was based on talent and pure courage. This resulted in The Jagged Maw having some of the best bounty hunters in the business, including Nova, despite being one of the smaller and poorer-paid guilds,

  The annual bounty hunter space-race was one of the only occasions where all the bounty hunter guilds got together, but it wasn't a friendly sport. Every year there was at least one death, usually more, and old grudges were brought flaming to the surface.

  This year it was being held near a particularly unpredictable man-made asteroid field outside of the Steel System. As well as the asteroids, the course included a very small moon which was in a shaky orbit around a nearby planet. There was a lot of speculation that if a ship went too close to it, the moon would fall out of orbit and probably collide with them.

  The starting line was held within a large dome which usually served as the Gunner's Guild training arena. Every year they generously donated it for the race. Nova had to shake her head. The way the Gunner's waved their money around, it was a wonder they didn't get robbed blind.

  The dome was packed with onlookers. Somewhere in the stadium would be Tanguin and Cal, ready to cheer her on. A very small party compared to some of the competitors who had entire sections of the stadium reserved in their name.

  The dome was protected from the vacuum of space by a very precise force-field which held the air in but which would let the ships pass through when they got to it. Stray rock fragments floated in from outside and slammed to the metal floor with the sudden gravity, making nearby people jump.

  As always, there were some spectators floating in space-suits around the course or in ships. In Nova's opinion they had some kind of death wish, because the space-racers never stayed within the boundaries of the course; not with all the foul play and unlicensed weaponry. It was completely normal for spectators to die, but that didn't seem to stop them coming out in droves to stand in harm's way.

  Nova hoped one of the spectators didn't get in her way; she certainly wouldn't brake for them. They knew the risks. She couldn't despise them too much; as dangerous as their positions were, it wasn't half as bad as actually competing in the race.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the one hundred and fifty-third bounty hunter space-race," the commentator's voice boomed around the stadium. The crowd erupted into cheers.

  "Racers, if you can take your seats and get ready, it won't be long now."

  Only then did Kero sit down in his ship and let the shield slide closed over him. Nova snorted as Vicki blew a kiss through the window. He was going to need a bit of luck, that was for sure.

  The other racers were still prepping their engines and checking fuel levels. Nova had already done both a hundred times, but she did it again just to be sure; pre-race sabotage was almost guaranteed.

  "It looks like we've got a spectacular race lined up for us today. I'm Cambran and I'm excited to be your host for today," the commentator announced. Cambran, or rather the robot that had been programmed to commentate, had the crowd in a frenzy.

  "We've got a few favourites on the field today. I'll run over the odds, so don't forget to have your betting sheets ready."

  Ah yes, Nova thought, the other major aspect of the race: the betting. Millions of credits would change hands over this race. Deals would already have been made with some of the drivers; no doubt they'd experience engine trouble early on.

  "We have our favourite for three years running, Demolition Dean."

  The crowd went crazy. The roar was so loud that Nova could hear it even with the sound block turned on in her space-racer. Demolition Dean was from the Gunner's Guild and he had won the space-race two years running. If he won again this year he'd enter the hall of fame. There was no way Nova could
let that happen. She'd had the misfortune of speaking to him once and she certainly wouldn't want to do it again. Rude and pigheaded was putting it mildly.

  "Second favourite, and paying two to one is Speedy FX," Cambran continued.

  Speedy FX was a young woman also from the Gunner's Guild with the latest in space-racing technology. There was a rumour that she had upgraded herself for faster reflexes, a neurological surgery which was illegal in almost all of the human colonies because it was so risky.

  Cambran went down his list calling out the name of each competitor and the odds currently on their winning. As he went further down the list and reached the unknowns and the nobodies the cheers died out.

  Nova was pleased to hear that she was rated at mid-list with odds of ten-to-one. That would make her a tidy profit when she crossed the finish line. She'd placed a hundred credits on herself to win.

  "Start your engines," Cambran boomed.

  All around Nova, engines roared into life. She pressed the green button next to the steering stick and her ship rumbled. She felt the engine vibrating behind her back and clasped her hands around the steering stick.

  Her heart beat even faster and adrenalin surged through her veins. Aside from the money, there was something far more important at stake. Glory.

  Her ears tuned into the sound of her racer. It was running smoothly. There were no rattles or sputters to alert her of a fault. The lights on her dashboard were all green.

  "Get set," Cambran called.

  Nova flexed her hand and gripped the wheel tighter.

  "Go!"

  Nova shoved the throttle forward and her ship shot across the dome. She focused solely on the path in front of her. The cheering crowd who were on their feet as the racers went past were just an insignificant blur.

  The other ships were tiny dots in her awareness. Some were in front of her, the rest trailed behind. A small part of her mind wasn't surprised to see that the ones in front of her included Dean, FX, and Kero.