Manhunt on Tau Ceti 4 (Nick Walker, U.F. Marshal Book 6)

by John Bowers

  He looked away again, his eyes hard, his jaw set.

  “What happened wasn’t your fault.”

  He didn’t reply.

  “You’ll get Saracen. You can still make him pay.”

  “I know. I’ll get him, all right. I’ll kill him. I’ll bleed every last drop of his blood before he dies, and I’ll make him hurt. He’ll beg me to kill him before I’m done…” His eyes met hers again. “…and you know what?”

  “What?”

  “It won’t make any difference. Suzanne and Nathan will still be dead.”

  Victoria sat in silence for ten long seconds, staring at him.

  “Why the hostility, Nick? When did I become your enemy?”

  He avoided looking at her as he shook his head.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to be a dick. Guess it just comes naturally.”

  “I know you loved Suzanne. I know she was the love of your life, and I ache every time I think about what happened to her. If I could take her place, I would. I would give her back to you.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “I mean it. I would trade places in a heartbeat. But since I can’t do that, I will help you find Ken Saracen. I can at least do that much.”

  He shook his head. “You point me to him, then you walk away. You’re not trained for this.”

  Her eyes flashed. “Are you kidding? I may not have U.F. Marshal training, but I am a Star Marine! Don’t you ever forget that.”

  “Boot camp was a long time ago. You’re out of shape.”

  “And you’re not? From the look of you, I could kick your ass all the way to Terra and back. Just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean I don’t keep in shape.”

  He peered at her with a stir of interest, a little life returning to his eyes.

  “Vic…”

  “I’m a Star Marine forever, you hear me? Semper fi, do or die, hang ‘em high, gouge their eyes! Kill! Kill! Kill!”

  Nick glanced across the restaurant and slid a hand across his mouth to cover a grin. He was rescued by the waitress arriving with the food.

  They ate in silence. Victoria devoured her meal but Nick only picked at his. He drank one glass of wine but seemed to take no pleasure in it. Victoria picked up the tab and walked him back out of the restaurant.

  “Where to now?” he asked.

  “Now we go find our ship. Get ahead of the rush. I hope my old cabin is still available.”

  *

  Having a spaceport inside a domed city presented a challenge. Starships remained in orbit and passengers were transferred by shuttle to and from the surface. The terminal was situated near the top of Dome 2 and shuttles landed on a platform on the dome roof. Nick and Victoria rode an elevator to a pressurized structure just inside the outer dome; inside the structure, gates led to the various shuttles, each connected by an escalator that led directly into the ship.

  To load a starship required several trips by one or more shuttles to get everyone on board. Passenger transfers were made every couple of hours. Nick and Victoria were among the last to board for the current transfer. The shuttle, small and cramped with a seating capacity of barely fifty, was only half full. They settled into a pair of tight seats on the starboard side, strapped in, and waited for liftoff. Directly across the aisle from them, another couple was also belting in. The man was about forty, beefy and broad-shouldered; the woman looked ten years younger, trim and slender, but appeared shy. She said little as her husband helped her with the harness.

  “There ya go, sweetheart! Nothing to it. Like falling off a girder.”

  He looked around with a satisfied sigh and spotted Nick. Without hesitation he shoved out his hand.

  “Ted Lewis!” he boomed.

  “Nick Jones.”

  “You heading for Alpha Centauri?”

  Nick looked at his hand, then turned to Victoria.

  “Is that where we’re going?”

  Victoria nodded. “I think that’s what the ticket said.”

  Nick nodded at Ted Lewis. “I guess so.”

  Lewis pumped his hand with a salesman’s grin.

  “Excellent! You moving there or just visiting?”

  Nick turned to Victoria.

  “Are we moving there?”

  She played along.

  “We’ll decide after we get there.”

  Nick looked at Ted Lewis.

  “What she said.”

  Lewis grinned and thrust a business card into his hand. Nick looked at it, a holographic card rippling with color.

  LEX PROPERTIES

  Extraterrestrial Real Estate

  “If you folks decide to settle there, give me a call. I have property listings all over the planet. My office is in Lancalpha. Which city are you headed for?”

  “Where are we landing?” Nick asked Victoria.

  “Lucaston.”

  “I guess we’re going to Lucaston. Is that far from Lan…”

  “Lancalpha. It’s a continent away, but that’s no problem. Like I said, I got listings everywhere. You just call me and I’ll set you up. Low interest rates. The advantage of going with LEX is that I can finance you on any planet in the Federation, whichever has the best interest rates. And I never charge points, so you’ll save money right off the bat.”

  Nick nodded, looking impressed.

  “Cool.”

  Ted Lewis grinned at him.

  “‘Cool’? Did you just say ‘cool’?” He leaned forward and spoke to Victoria. “Where’d you find this guy? I love him!”

  Victoria smiled and shrugged.

  “What line of work are you in, Nick? Cattle?” Lewis guffawed as he looked at Nick’s western clothing.

  “Uh, no. I’m not really… She’s an attorney, so I just…”

  Ted Lewis smirked as he evaluated his potential mark. Nick saw the respect in his eyes take a nosedive.

  “Just along for the ride, eh? Good for you!”

  The inner airlock door sealed and a cabin attendant cautioned everyone to remain seated until the shuttle docked with the passenger liner; the trip would take about thirty minutes, she said.

  A moment later, they felt a bump as the shuttle disconnected from the platform and a gentle nudge of jets lifted them into the Martian atmosphere, followed a few seconds later by a jolt as the rear engines fired. Out the window, the dark red plain fell away, replaced by the black night sky as the shuttle rose. The acceleration was steady and even, but no more powerful than a jet aircraft. After three or four minutes those with clenched fists began to relax and enjoy the ride.

  “So, is that your wife?” Nick asked Ted Lewis.

  Lewis spun to face the woman next to him, then looked back at Nick.

  “I’m sorry, I should have introduced you. This is Linda, my fiancée. We’re getting married as soon as we reach Lancalpha. Ain’t she a sweetheart? Prettiest girl in four star systems. First time I laid eyes on her I said to myself, ‘I’ve got to marry that girl!’”

  “Congratulations.” Nick nodded at the young woman. “Nice to meet you.”

  She smiled but didn’t speak. Nick read the body language perfectly.

  Lewis launched into a monologue about real estate, the relative values of properties on different worlds. He droned on for twenty minutes.

  “Now, if you’re really loaded—I mean, if money is no object—the latest fad these days is getting your own asteroid. Can you imagine that? Your own goddamned asteroid!”

  Nick nodded, his eyes wide.

  “Wow!”

  “Yeah, I hear ya. ‘Wow’ indeed. Actually, I have listings for nine asteroids, but I sure as hell can’t afford one and I imagine your lady there, even if she is a lawyer, probably can’t afford one either.”

  Nick turned to Victoria. “Can we afford an asteroid?”

  “Not right now. Maybe in another few years.”

  Nick looked at Ted Lewis.

  “Man, I would love to have my own asteroid. I’d build a big house beside a lake…with a pine forest on the
other side, and mountains behind that—”

  “Whoa-whoa-whoa! A lake? A pine forest? On an asteroid?” Lewis shook his head with an amused grin. “We’re talking about asteroids, my friend. Tiny planets. Not much gravity. No atmosphere.”

  Nick’s brow wrinkled.

  “Asteroids don’t have lakes?”

  Lewis gazed at him with a combination of amusement and pity.

  “Nnnno. They don’t.”

  “Oh.”

  “Asteroids have to be hollowed out. That’s the beauty of it, Jones—you can create anything you want inside the asteroid. Build your own palace, if you want. Create any kind of landscape you want.”

  “How can you do that? Isn’t it like a cave?”

  “Sure, but with today’s technology you can turn it into anything you want. With holo-projection you can have that lake you want, and the mountains behind it. Looks absolutely real. You can even set up weather generators for rain and snow, or if you prefer desert, you can have that too.”

  “Sounds expensive.”

  “Oh, it costs billions! But like I said, it’s not for you and me, right?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I guess that’s right.”

  SS Nakamura – Orbit of Mars

  The starliner was a small one, with a capacity of only five hundred passengers. The run from Mars to Alpha Centauri was not heavily traveled, so a larger ship wasn’t needed. To Victoria’s delight, the cabin she had occupied on the way to Mars was still available and she claimed it immediately. Nick’s cabin was right next to hers, with a connecting door between them. Their luggage was delivered within an hour of boarding and they were soon squared away.

  Victoria climbed into the shower and scrubbed herself thoroughly. She hadn’t been on the surface long enough to really get dirty, but the fine red grit had penetrated her clothing and she just felt dirty. When she finished, she slipped into a pair of baggy pants and a pullover shirt and tapped on Nick’s connecting door. When he didn’t answer she tapped again, but he still didn’t answer. She glanced at her watch. He must have left his cabin to wander around and explore the ship. She had done the same thing when she first boarded at Alpha Centauri.

  Oh, well.

  The ship wouldn’t leave orbit for another twelve hours and there wasn’t a lot to do. She and Nick had eaten barely two hours ago and, although she was tired, she wasn’t in the mood to sleep. She unpacked what she needed for the voyage and stowed the rest of her luggage in a storage compartment. She checked her watch again. It had been ten minutes since she tapped on his door…he might have been in the shower, so she tried again. Still no answer.

  She tried the door. It wasn’t locked. She slid it open and peeked inside.

  “Nick? Are you in here?”

  No answer. His space bag was still sitting on his bed. Nothing in the room looked disturbed.

  Victoria closed the connecting door and headed out of her cabin to look for him. It wasn’t like she needed to keep tabs on him, but it had taken a year to find him and she didn’t want to lose him now. If he got cold feet, he still had time to take a shuttle back to the surface, but the next one wouldn’t dock for a couple of hours at least. In any case, he probably wouldn’t leave without his space bag.

  She found him in the forward lounge sitting at a table by a viewport. Not surprisingly, he had a drink in his hand and was gazing out toward the Asteroid Belt. She slipped into the chair next to his and rested her elbows on the table. He didn’t even look at her.

  “You see that satellite?” He nodded out the viewport. Victoria squinted and barely made out a rather flat object a few dozen miles away.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “It’s for sick people. Intensive-care satellite. If their condition is severe enough, some heart patients can’t handle the gravity anymore, so they live on one of those.”

  “I’ve heard of them. Terra has several, though I’ve never seen one.”

  Nick sipped his drink and set it down, as if they had completed a long and important discussion.

  “So you’ve taken up drinking.”

  He nodded. “It helps.”

  “Are you dependent on it?”

  “Not yet.”

  A cocktail waitress approached the table and Victoria pointed to Nick’s glass.

  “What he’s having.”

  The waitress smiled and walked away. Victoria looked around the lounge. It was tight and compact, only a dozen tables. Small bar, no stage, no room for dancing. Just a quiet place to relax and gaze out at the stars. The light was dim to allow for the view.

  Victoria sighed.

  “How are you doing, Nick? What have the last two years been like for you?”

  “Kind of a jumble.” He still didn’t look at her. “I don’t remember too many details.”

  She nodded. She understood. The last two years had been no picnic for her, either. She’d been with him when the girl terrorist shot his fiancée down right before his eyes. Four rounds to the heart, and Suzanne Norgaard was dead in less than a minute. Nick, a United Federation Marshal at the time, had caught the girl who did it, but the man who ordered the killing was still at large. His name was Kenneth Saracen, and Victoria knew that Nick wanted him more than he had ever wanted anything in his life.

  She laid her hand over his.

  “I am so sorry, Nick. I know I’ve said it before, but—”

  “You were my first love,” he said. “Did you know that?”

  “What?”

  “Back in boot camp. You were my first love.”

  She felt heat in her cheeks.

  “I’m sorry about that, too.”

  “No, I’m not trying to dump a load of guilt on you. It’s just…I think a lot these days. About Suzanne, about you, about a lot of things.”

  She nodded, but didn’t reply.

  He turned to look at her.

  “I really loved you, Vic.”

  “I really loved you, too.” I still do.

  “You were my very first. Emotionally and physically.”

  Her lips parted in surprise. “Really? You didn’t—not even in high school?”

  He shook his head and gazed out the window again.

  “I was always a little scared of girls back then.”

  “Oh, come on! The bullshit you fed me? You had a line a mile long.”

  “All talk. Like you said—bullshit. I was still a virgin when you dragged me into that storage shed.”

  Victoria felt her heart flutter. She couldn’t repress a little smile.

  “So was I…”

  He glanced at her sharply.

  “No shit?”

  She squeezed his hand and felt her face flush.

  “No shit.”

  He smiled briefly, then pulled his hand free and gazed out the window again. Victoria’s drink came and she took a hefty gulp.

  “What are you going to do when you find Saracen?”

  Nick didn’t answer for several long seconds. She saw his left hand clench into a fist, watched the knuckles fade to white.

  “I’m going to commit murder.”

  Chapter 5

  Sunday, September 2, 0447 (CC)

  SS Nakamura – In Hyperspace

  The trip from Mars to Alpha Centauri took a little over six days. Sub-light maneuvering to get clear of the Martian orbit took about ten hours before warp could be initiated, with the same requirement in reverse upon arrival. The actual trip in hyperspace was about five days. After exploring the ship, which took all of thirty minutes, passengers had little to do.

  SS Nakamura only carried five hundred passengers, barely enough to cover the expense of a short interstellar trip at standard ticket rates, but did boast a few entertainment spots which included a gymnasium, a pool, a dining room, a small holovision theater, and six lounges. The dining room offered twenty-four hour service, but the ticket price only covered two meals a day; the gym and theater were free, but drinks in the various lounges were not. By the third day in hyperspace, the average
passenger could easily get bored.

  Fortunately, each cabin was equipped with streaming access to an extensive holo-vid library—but even that got tiring after a while.

  If Victoria had hoped to spend quality time with Nick, she was disappointed. He was restless and roamed the ship, looking into things, generally avoiding people but talking to them when he had to; he and Victoria were together only about two hours each day.

  Twice Victoria encountered Ted Lewis and his fiancée. Each occasion was memorable in that Lewis was a complete boor. The first time she saw him, he had cornered two couples and was trying to sell them real estate; on the second occasion, he was browbeating his fiancée over some minor, probably imaginary, infraction. Linda was crying as he bellowed in her face; when he spotted Victoria, he broke out in smiles.

  Victoria kept going.

  The final day in hyperspace, Nick and Victoria had dinner together. The dining room was almost full, the air filled with music and conversation. People were looking forward to arrival at Alpha 2 and the general atmosphere was upbeat.

  Victoria noticed that Nick’s appetite had improved, and realized she hadn’t seen a drink in his hand for two or three days. Maybe he was beginning to snap out of it, or just realized he needed his wits about him. Whatever the case, she found it encouraging.

  About halfway through the meal, she became aware of loud voices several tables away. The music was still playing but conversation had waned as people turned to look at the offender. Ted Lewis was reaming his girlfriend out again.

  “You left it on Mars? Are you shitting me? I specifically told you to pack it! Didn’t I? DIDN’T I!!”

  Linda, whose last name Victoria still didn’t know, sat rigid as stone as she stared at the bullish man in the cheap, sky-blue suit across the table from her. Ted Lewis’s face had turned purple with rage, his fists were clenched, and for a moment it looked as if he might reach across the table and snap the petite woman’s neck.

  He apparently noticed that people were staring and lowered his voice, but continued to rage at the very edge of his control. Victoria picked up the words “stupid” and “cunt”, but couldn’t make out much else. It was a disturbing scene that marred the moment for everyone within earshot. A crewman in a white uniform, clearly a ship’s officer, approached the table and spoke in quiet tones; the diners began to relax and conversation picked up again.