Bounty Hunter 2: Redemption

by Joseph Anderson

  “Copper picked the best planet to hide on. I want to leave already,” he grumbled.

  “The information I have didn’t mention they could do that. We better not go in the water. Focus now.”

  The river ran quickly and he couldn’t see the bottom of it. He went for his grapple hook and then remembered he only had the line to capture his target. He crouched at the river bank instead, and prepared to jump across it.

  The augmented leg wasn’t without its uses. It was stronger than his own, like a permanent limb that gained the assisted strength of the aegis. Given time it could be used to propel himself over obstacles. He readied it as he crouched. Cass could have done it for him, but she knew he liked to remain in control of his movements.

  He leaped forward and the leg launched him from the ground. He vaulted over the river and led with the augmented leg, landing with it and letting it absorb the force of his weight. He stood up and looked back at the water. He had cleared the other side by four meters. More than he intended.

  “You’re getting better at that,” Cass remarked.

  “It still feels weird. Like my leg is being wrung out.”

  He continued through the forest. Cass would display the map every few minutes and show how much distance was left between them and Copper. The trees they walked through were taller than most that Burke had seen. They had few branches, with all of them at the very top of each tree. Their trunks were thick with bark. He could see heaps of it at the base of the trees as he walked passed.

  He saw the first spider when he was near Copper. A small, furry animal raced through the trees and dashed in front of him. He thought it looked like a rabbit, but it had a tail longer than a rat’s. The spider burst from under one of the piles of bark, closed its jaws around the small animal, and snapped back into its nest.

  Burke stopped and looked at all of the potential nests at the base of each tree. The spider would have been taller than him if it stood upright on its back legs. It had moved faster than his eyes could process, showing as a blur. Cass displayed a stilled image of it that she had captured.

  “Twelve legs, not eight,” she said. “Not technically a spider. It definitely won’t be able to get through the armor but it could knock you over and drag you down. It might take us a while to get back out.”

  He started forward once more, giving each tree as much space as he could. He left the forest without being attacked and stepped into another clearing. The map showed on his visor that Copper was closer now. He could see a lake in the distance, and the thick grass that he now stood in stretched all the way down to it. There was a small, sturdy shack near the water that matched where Copper’s position pinged on his display.

  Burke walked to it quickly. He knew that if he got to Copper before he could get to a transport that he would have nowhere to go. Burke could run faster than a man in his aegis, and his mark didn’t have the option of running into the lethal forest without protection.

  There was no sign of movement when he reached the door. There was a jet bike propped up against the side of the shack. He checked the map a final time before he twisted a blade from his forearm and sliced through the bike’s control panel. Copper was inside, trapped, and all Burke had to do was open the door.

  He was one step away from the door when it swung open. The gun came out of the shadows of the house first, pushed up into Burke’s face and fired. The bullet had a hollow-point and bounced harmlessly off his armor. The muzzle flash was another matter and was close enough to temporarily blind him. He swore, growled, and swatted at the gun, catching the man’s hand and roughly twisting it around.

  The man struggled but Burke held him easily until his vision cleared. The man had his back to him as he tried to squirm free.

  “Are you Frank Copper?”

  “Fuck you!”

  Burke reached over the man’s shoulder and grabbed his neck from the front. He released his arm and then lifted him up, turning him as he was lifted so that they could see face to face. Cass brought up the picture of Copper and put it next to the man. He looked like he had lost some weight and gained bags under his eyes, but it was the same person.

  There was a second gun at Copper’s hip and he stretched his hand down to get it. His other hand was around Burke’s arm, trying to hold himself up so that he could breathe easier.

  “Who sent you? The Admiral? Or Viscard?” Copper croaked.

  “They didn’t give a name. It doesn’t matter. Stop struggling, I have you.”

  Copper laughed. He stretched his arm down for the gun and his fingers brushed against it. Burke shook his head.

  “Small arms won’t be able to hurt me in this. You should know that,” he said.

  “Yeah, but I’ve seen my posting. They want me alive. Yeah?”

  Burke narrowed his eyes and Copper plucked the gun out of its holster. He pulled the gun up and put the barrel against his own head, not Burke’s.

  “What?” Cass and Burke both blurted out together.

  “You let me go or no one wins! No money for you.”

  “They’ll still pay for you dead. Are you fucking insane?” Burke said and reached for the gun with his other hand.

  “Stop!” Copper screamed. “I’m not going back to Viscard! You don’t know what he’ll do to me. I’d rather be dead. I mean it! Put me down or I’ll do it.”

  Burke stopped. He stared up, dumbfounded, at Copper’s face. He spoke lowly into his helmet, directly to Cass.

  “How much less are they paying for him dead?”

  “A third. You should go along with it until you can get the gun out of his hand.”

  He grunted, loud enough that Copper heard him even through the armor. He released his hand suddenly hoping that Copper would drop the gun when he fell, but he landed on his feet. He dashed over to his bike and then kicked it when he saw what Burke had done to it.

  “You don’t have anywhere to go,” Burke taunted. “You must have done something really bad if you’re so scared of this Viscard guy.”

  “No, no,” Copper spoke frantically. His eyes were darting from place to place. “He’s crazy.”

  “If the punishment is that bad then you must deserve it.”

  “No! Shut up!” Copper shouted and then finally made a decision as the words roared out of him. He started running up the clearing to the trees. He was heading in the direction that Burke had came from, into the forest and toward the river.

  “We can’t chase him,” Cass said. “He’ll just put the gun to his head again.”

  Burke made fists out of his hands and then released them, repeating the action again and again as Copper shrank more and more in the distance. The forest was dangerous, too dangerous for an unprotected person. Copper was acting under desperation and was going to get himself killed.

  “No, we have to,” Burke said. “If something kills him in there we might not find enough of what’s left to turn him in.”

  “But it’s only a third of the reward.”

  “A third of something is better than all of nothing,” Burke said and started running after him.

  Cass displayed the map as Burke reached his top speed, sprinting into the trees and closing the distance that Copper’s head start had gained. The man was halfway to the river and Burke knew that he had to get to him before he reached it. Burke was sure that Copper would fall and be swept away if he tried to swim across the river.

  The forest became a blur of vibrant green and the rich, brown tree trunks. He could hear things rustling behind him as he raced through, spiders leaping out from their hiding spots and missing as he ran passed them. He finally caught up enough to Copper to see him when one of the spiders jumped out close enough to hit him.

  “Burke! I’m sorry!” Cass screamed and he felt the world lurch around him. His stomach churned as he was launched into the air. His leg felt numb. Cass had seen the spider and triggered his leg before he was hit.

  He shot up through the air, high enough that his head neared the large, t
hick leaves at the top of the trees before he started to fall. He looked down and saw that the spider had smashed itself into a tree trunk when it dived through where he had been standing. A second spider was waiting below as he hurtled down toward it.

  He extended his right leg as he neared the bottom, landing on it and immediately twisting his forearms as he turned to face the spider. It charged at him but Burke was ready, twisting his body around and thrusting both of the arm’s blades into the giant insect. He heard it shriek and he twisted his arms again, digging the blades through the thing’s body until he retracted them back into his arms with a sickening slosh of blood.

  The compartment at his hip opened as he turned to the spider that had dived at him. The second one was stumbling along the ground, dying, but the first had recovered from hitting the tree and was facing him. He pulled the gun from its holster and fired at it twice, not caring what he hit as long as he scared it away.

  “Show me the map,” he said and turned back in the direction of the river.

  He was already running when Copper’s position flashed in front of his eyes. He had made it to the river but hadn’t crossed it yet. Burke pushed on faster, still holding the gun, ready to use it if Copper was foolish enough to try to jump into the water.

  He was running so fast that Copper heard him coming. The moment that Burke could see him, Copper whipped around and put his back to the river. He put the gun back to his own head and Burke came to a stop with a few meters between them. He tightened his grip on the gun.

  “I can take a shot,” he said to Cass.

  “You might kill him.”

  “He’ll die anyway.”

  “Don’t come any closer!” Copper screamed. “Not another step!”

  “Burke—” Cass began but he was already raising the gun. He jerked the weapon quickly in Copper’s direction, knowing that the shot had to be fast enough that he didn’t have time to react. Burke squeezed the trigger and a bullet punched into the side of Copper’s gun, smacking it out of his hand and sending it flying behind him.

  Burke started to run and Copper’s eyes widened. He took one step back, stretched out his arms, and let himself fall. Burke surged over the edge of the river and grabbed him, sliding down the river bank and toward the water. He pushed off with his right leg again, gripped Copper tightly by his clothes, and catapulted them both clear to the other side of the river.

  “No! Kill me! Please! Don’t take me to him!” Copper yelled as he thrashed below Burke’s grip.

  He pulled out the cord from his belt and started wrapping it around the man’s arms and legs. Copper struggled too much and it took two punches to the head until he submitted to it, but Burke gave him three.

  * * *

  On the ship, Burke threw Copper into the jail cell, untied both his arms and legs not leaving him with the line that he could potentially use to hang himself. He was silent as Burke untied him, staring vacantly off at the wall of the cell.

  “They wanted you alive. You’re not a deserter. They won’t kill you.”

  Burke closed the cell door and locked it. Cass had already transferred herself from the aegis to the ship and was preparing to take off. He removed his helmet and looked through the bars of the cell with his own eyes instead of the visor’s. Copper was still staring intently at the wall, only now he was smiling.

  “As long as they don’t kill you, you can recover from it,” Burke said. “Keep that in mind.”

  Copper’s smile grew wider but he still didn’t speak. Burke furrowed his brow at his prisoner and then turned from him. He left the lights on and closed the door as he left the room.

  The ship shuddered as it lifted off from the planet’s surface and he was happy to leave it. He went into the armory and took off the pieces of his armor and thoroughly cleaned them. There was mud and wet pieces of grass clinging to the lower portions of the suit and his augmented leg. The blades in the arm sections were coated in pale yellow spider’s blood.

  The ship had left orbit and was on its way to the Stratos gate when he had finished. He checked back in on Copper and found that he was still on the floor with a smile on his face. Burke went up to the helm and took his seat at the center of the ship’s display.

  “That could have gone better,” he said into the room.

  “It could have gone a lot worse,” Cass retorted.

  “Was there any sign of that Viscard guy he kept mentioning on the contract?”

  “No. No names. Just a standard prison location in Prime for collection. Do you want me to look around for any military officers with the name?”

  “Please,” he said. “And ask Geoff. You can never be sure what the tricky old man might know. I’ll send the confirmation in that we caught Copper. Can’t let you do everything.”

  “For once,” Cass said, again sounding like she was smiling.

  Burke replied to the contract with details of how Copper was apprehended, including that he was taken alive. He began a more thorough report to be handed in along with Copper himself, one that detailed where he was found and the measures that were taken in his capture. They reached the Stratos gate before the report was finished. Cass returned from information gathering to block Copper’s signal from the carrier’s scans.

  “I can’t find anything relevant on Viscard,” she said afterwards. “Or anything that matched him and Copper. No answer from Geoff yet.”

  “It’s probably not important. It’s just strange that he would have rather killed himself than be taken.”

  “Has that ever happened before?”

  “Rarely, and those times the targets were being either stubborn or on so many drugs that they couldn’t tell what they were doing. I’ve never seen it happen out of fear.”

  “Hm,” Cass said. “Oh, here’s something that will cheer you up. There are reports that Eva Pond went missing last night. The guards found her cell empty as if she just vanished.”

  “She wasn’t lying about her connections then. Good, I know what we’ll be doing once we get Copper off the ship.”

  Burke added the final details to the report while they docked with the jump ship. He made a small dinner for himself and then went to bed. It was the middle of his night when Cass woke him up with an alarm. She was yelling something at him but he was too tired to make it out. He jumped out of bed and raced down to the bottom floor, thinking that Copper was trying to escape.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, when he could finally register her words. “I was concentrating on capturing surveillance on Pond. When I checked on him, he was already,” her words trailed off.

  He stepped into the room and immediately saw the blood. It had pooled and then spilled through the bars of the cell, snaking over the floor. He knew that Copper was dead. There was too much blood. Burke stepped around it as best as he could and moved closer to the cell.

  Copper’s face was covered in his own blood. It was smeared from the corners of his mouth all the way to his cheeks. His right arm was limp and extended from his body. He had chewed his way through his own arteries at his wrists. Burke had heard of people doing it but had never seen it himself. He felt sick.

  “It’s not your fault,” he said. “How could you have guessed he’d do this? This, this is,” he filled his cheeks with air and let it out in a slow hiss.

  “Geoff got back to me. He said he’s heard only good things about this Viscard. He has a reputation for being reasonable.”

  Burke narrowed his eyes at the thick layer of blood on the cell floor.

  “There’s nothing reasonable about this,” he murmured. Then, more clearly: “There’s fear and then there’s this. Copper was terrified of the man. The man we just sent a message to that we found his target alive. We’ll have to change it now. Let’s hope he’s reasonable about some things, at least.”

  He used half of the ship’s water supply when cleaning the room, and even then he knew he would need to scrub it more thoroughly when he was next at a station. He worked at it until he could no lo
nger see where all of the blood had been.

  He bandaged Copper’s arm and left him on the bed in the cell. Burke reluctantly sent an updated confirmation and then edited his report to include the suicide. He was torn as he wrote it. Amateur bounty hunters were usually the ones that made mistakes like this: mistakes in completing a contract or not searching a prisoner thoroughly enough. He could not, however, bring himself to feel the full brunt of the blame.

  Even after dropping the body off at the prison in the Prime system, the thought stayed with him. Could there ever be anything so frightening to force him to do what Copper did? He didn’t think so, but the question nagged at him. He received payment for the bounty, a third of the total that he wanted, and heard nothing about the altered reports. Financially, it had still been worth it, even if it felt anything but successful for Burke.

  * * *

  The little boy was playing outside of his house. It was a new house for him, a new home on a new planet. He had been there with his parents for only a few weeks. Sometimes at night he felt too hot while he adjusted to the new climate. It hardly ever rained though, and he liked that. He could almost always go outside to play.

  The planet was newly colonized in a recently connected star system. Land was cheap to attract new settlers, an opportunity for some even in the face of unknown dangers and less civil protection. Most people knew that and were courteous to each other, especially in the early days of building on a new planet. Most people knew that they needed to stick together to succeed. Most people.

  The boy’s parents were away working and he should have been inside the house. He was old enough to look after himself but also old enough to think he knew better. The woman that approached him often took advantage of things like that. The fringe worlds were the places most ripe for her kind of harvest.