Bounty Hunter 2: Redemption

by Joseph Anderson

  The Bounty Hunter – Redemption

  By Joseph Anderson

  The Bounty Hunter – Redemption

  All Rights Reserved

  Copyright © 2012 by Joseph Anderson

  Also by Joseph Anderson:

  Interstellar Soldiers

  The Wizard and the Dragon

  Bounty Hunter Series

  The Bounty Hunter Series One, Complete

  Revenge

  Redemption

  Vampire

  Into The Swarm

  Reckoning

  Author’s Note:

  The Bounty Hunter stories are a series of novellas. Each story is intended to be self-contained, like an episode of a television series. Although some names and references are made to prior events, each story can be enjoyed on its own.

  If, however, you prefer to read things in order, the series begins with The Bounty Hunter’s Revenge.

  Thank you for your time and I hope you enjoy the story.

  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 w
ere 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.”

  “I know,” Burke said simply.

  “Whoever hired you is fucking stupid. First, for hiring an unknown amateur like you. Second, for wanting me alive. I’ll be out of prison in a matter of months. Weeks, even.”

  “I know,” he repeated.

  “How does that make you feel, asshole? What will you do then?”

  “I’ll kill you,” he said, just as plainly.

  “You can’t,” she grinned, showing her teeth. One of them was missing. He had hit her harder than he thought. “Your bounty says alive, not dead.”

  “True,” he nodded. “But after you get out, my contract will have been expired for, months? Weeks, even.” He grinned then, showing his teeth. None of his were missing.

  He didn’t wait for her reaction. He didn’t need to. He turned the lights off again when he left the room.

  * * *

  Geoff’s bar was quiet when Burke arrived. It was located on one of the many space stations in the most populated system in human territory: Prime. Prime had an abundance of resources on many habitable planets. Each one of them had at least one space station, with several others on the outskirts of the system. Foras was a station among the latter group, and it was there that Geoff ran his bar.

  The local time was early morning as Burke sat and waited. Everything in the station was always open and staffed. You could never be sure what time people might be on when they visited. Burke ordered some fresh food—a rarity when he was out on a contract. Despite the luxury of the meal he had barely touched it. He was out of his aegis and not on his ship, two things that made him uncomfortable.

  “He’s taking his time,” Cass’s voice came as if she had spoken directly into his ear, stimulated by a tiny implant in his left cheek. His hand instinctively went to his augmented leg when he thought of it. The implant had been necessary to properly bridge the gap between his brain and the artificial nerves of the leg. Cass had taken the liberty of requesting ability to communicate through it, one that Burke found acceptable.

  “He likes his sleep,” Burke muttered. “And his drink.”

  “We’ll be here for a few days anyway.”

  He grunted. “Are you still tracking Pond? Keep me updated.”

  “For the third time today, yes,” Cass said sweetly. “Why such an interest?”

  “She’s a mark I would have killed for free before we were stranded. Recovering stolen goods is something I can charge for. Retrieving a thief, sure. A slaver should just be put down. We
’re so close to being back to the old days that it kills me to still be desperate for the money.”

  Cass started to speak but Burke’s eyes shot up when Geoff walked into the bar.

  “Just keep an eye on her,” he muttered before he got up and met the old man half way.

  They sat down at the table and Geoff waved over one his servers. He was brought a bottle of vodka and drank a shot of it straight. Burke watched his frazzled eyes pop after he grimaced, then settle back into a blurry haze.

  “A little early, isn’t it?”

  “Best cure for a hangover. One shot and you’re good,” Geoff explained.

  “That’s a load of shit.”

  “Of course it is,” he said and laughed. It came out of him in a wheeze, like it was squeezed out with the air in his lungs.

  “How’s your daughter?”

  “Still not talking to me. How is your wife?”

  Cass burst out laughing in Burke’s ear. He shook his head and smiled.

  “Well, right now she’s laughing. So, happy I guess because of you.”

  Geoff nodded and set the bottle of vodka aside. The server came over with a plate of hot food without being asked. It was the usual breakfast of eggs and ham that he always had. He ate quickly while Burke picked at his steak.

  “How was the job?” Geoff asked with his mouth full.

  “It was fine.”

  “Ask him already,” Cass said.

  “Anything I can do for you?” Geoff asked.

  “There’s your opening,” she said.

  “No.”

  “Just the tracer, then?” Geoff said.

  “Yes.”

  “How’s the ship?”

  “Acceptable,” Burke said. “For now, at least. With the tracer we’ll be bringing in a lot more money. It won’t be long until we can get a better ship. Can you send it straight to me when it gets here?”

  Geoff nodded as he chewed his food. Eating was sobering him far better than the vodka had.