Reckless Bounty (Intergalactic Justice Book 1)

by Marly Mathews

  “Nice Nessie,” she murmured cajolingly, wringing out her soggy ponytail.

  She activated her jet pack and let out a bellow of delight, as she arced through the air. The suns were slowly setting. She was going to go back to The Excalibur, take a breather, get some sleep and decide what to do next.

  As of now, she had no possible leads on the identity of the murderer. Though she did know a few things. Firstly, they wanted her and her whole family dead. Secondly, they wanted Tyler to take the rap for what they did. Thirdly, they had a lot of cash at their disposal because they had a freelancer like Fred Crenshaw willing to work for them. And last, but not least, they believed they were going to get off Scot-free.

  Well, Samantha Cassidy was on the job, and they were going down, even if she had to boot them in the ass herself.

  It was rush hour and she had to maneuver through a lot of traffic to get back to The Excalibur. She was certainly glad she’d spent a good deal of time with Devlin on New Monaco. Because with her direction problem, she would’ve never been able to make it back to The Excalibur.

  She had also studied the route that Devlin had taken and since Crenshaw hadn’t managed to get her very far away from the Caterra Casino, it didn’t take a brain scientist to find her way back.

  She glanced at some of the flashing bulletins and slowed down her progress to hover in front of a very entertaining news flash.

  Some brilliant cameraman or woman had captured part of her fight at the Caterra Casino, and she or he had gotten her at the prime of her ass-kicking. She smiled, admiring her finesse and skill.

  Damn she was good!

  Then the camera footage faded and the news flash, switched quickly to an outside view of the Gyniss Harbour. The announcer was saying they had taken the footage exactly ten minutes after Devlin and she had gone underwater.

  Her mouth went dry and her hands nearly shook as she recognized a pristinely white yacht a few feet off in the distance. It wasn’t the same one that she’d known on Notting Prime though it had been designed and built in its likeness. That yacht was definitely no fairy tale, it was her worst nightmare resurrected.

  “Ah, freaking wonderful! Why couldn’t you have just stayed dead, you stupid asshole?” she muttered, shutting off her hovering capability. She began zigzagging through the thick traffic.

  Now she knew who had been behind her kidnapping and who was trying to implicate Tyler. It was none other than the biggest son of a bitch that she had ever had the displeasure of knowing.

  Jarrod Rodgers.

  When she killed him this time, she was going to make sure she checked for a pulse. She wasn’t going to leave anything to the imagination.

  Nothing at all!

  She could see the spacecraft docks in the distance and her heart became full as she imagined spending a semi-quiet evening mulling over the best way to find and take down Rodgers.

  Her heart jumped up into her throat. She approached the docking area. This couldn’t be! She was dreaming or hallucinating, or quite possibly she was trapped in her own worst nightmare.

  She lowered herself gingerly to the ground and shut her jet pack off, as despair welled inside of her.

  “Why can’t you just cut me some slack?” she yelled up to the heavens shaking her fist all of the while. “Why do I always have to be tested? This isn’t fair. Give me my bloody ship back!!!” she raged, flinging her hands up in the air.

  Her family was gone.

  The Excalibur was nowhere to be found. It had quite simply vanished. And now she was royally screwed.

  *****

  Samantha plunked her butt down on the cement and tried to come up with an alternative plan. She knew that The Excalibur had to be around somewhere, but her communication device had been taken by Crenshaw. He’d managed to miss her jetpack but the bastard had somehow managed to detect her miniscule communication piece.

  “Shit!” Samantha groused, allowing her exhaustion to overwhelm her.

  She was tired, hungry and wet, and she felt extremely bitchy. Her eyes brightened as she thought of her sister’s opinion of her bitchiness. Johanna was convinced it was the one thing that got Samantha’s back up, and that a bitchy Samantha was definitely a force to be reckoned with.

  Heartened by her memories, she stood up and glanced up at the sky. The Excalibur could be up in space with The Emerald Star, or they could be out searching for her at this moment.

  She prayed Johanna hadn’t run into Rodgers, or that Rodgers’s men hadn’t sought out Johanna because if they did, The Excalibur would definitely be the worse for wear. The Excalibur certainly wasn’t in tip-top shape after the numerous battles they’d encountered over the last few days.

  Dylan was out of it and probably hadn’t made any of the necessary repairs yet.

  But here she was stranded on a crime-infested planet with no weapons except for a dinky pistol, a laser pen and her sometimes volatile powers. Well, she still had her dagger but it wouldn’t be any help against a whole lot of people gunning for her ass.

  Yep, she was in a freaking pickle this time.

  She had no idea of how to contact Johanna since there were no public communication channels available to the public on New Monaco though even if there were, she’d still be screwed. Along with her weapons missing, all of her cash was gone as well.

  The greedy buggers had taken all of her money. But had STILL managed to miss her jet pack.

  Unless...no.

  She wouldn’t think of that alternative. Believing that someone had deliberately left her with a jet pack just to see if she could get away unscathed was something she wasn’t willing to consider. She knew Rodgers was sick, but she hadn’t known that even he could be that demented.

  She turned her head as she heard an eerily familiar voice screeching out at her.

  “You crazy broad. I knew that you’d still be alive!” Samantha whirled around ready to chew out Veronica, but when she noticed a very relieved Ross sticking his head out Aggies’s window she didn’t have the heart. She hadn’t known the big lug for very long, but she’d taken a liking to him, and she didn’t want to ruin his moment. Her heart soared, as Eleanor came into view.

  Samantha stared between the two hover vehicles and nearly jumped a meter off of the ground when she heard Eleanor’s relieved greeting.

  “Samantha! I thought you’d been toasted in the explosion, and my sensors couldn’t detect you, but Veronica kept insisting you were still alive, she said that....” Eleanor was cut off by Veronica’s furious voice. “Lord Devlin has worried himself almost to the point of being sick!”

  “Stuff a sock in it you stupid computer,” Veronica muttered, “if you don’t, I’m going to have Ross erase your memory. He can do those sorts of things, he even worked on your design schematics, so I’d shut it if you knew what was good for you.”

  Devlin jumped out of his car and raced toward her, stopping short, he extended his hand for her to shake. “Are you kidding me?”

  “There are eyes everywhere,” he muttered.

  “Yeah, and I’ve already been called your whore on more than one occasion so I think the gig is up.”

  At her words, he pulled her in for a very unromantic side hug. She sighed heavily as he turned his attention to Ross and Veronica.

  “You worked on the Faerie Cruiser design schematics?” Devlin asked, while Veronica proudly nodded her head.

  “Yep. My Ross is very intelligent despite what he allows to slip out of his mouth.”

  “Ah, so he isn’t as dumb as he looks,” Devlin said, nodding his head in understanding.

  “Look. You stupid bastard!” Veronica said, drawing her pistol, as Devlin reached for his own weapon.

  Ross was about to speak and intervene, when Samantha stepped in front of Devlin. He might not want their relationship to go public but she wasn’t about to let Veronica kill him.

  “You know what, Veronica, I can understand why you hate Devlin. Devlin, I can understand why Big V, sometimes pisses you off. Bu
t if you ever refer to Ross in such a demeaning and cruel way again, Veronica won’t have to defend her man, cause I’ll have already beaten the crap out of you. Treat people with respect, and maybe they’ll decide to reciprocate. And put that freaky weapon away, I don’t need a shrunken Veronica. She’d probably crawl up by pant leg and bite me on the ass! It doesn’t matter what size that woman is, she’d still be lethal. And besides, isn’t there a law against owning such a ludicrous weapon?” She crossed her arms.

  “It isn’t permanent,” Devlin answered, sticking the shrink ray back inside of Eleanor. “The effects only last for forty-eight hours and then your body returns to its normal size. Only your body,” he emphasized, his dark eyes twinkling mischievously.

  “That means that you’d lose…” Samantha trailed off, as she stared up at him in disgust.

  “And yes, Samantha, it is quite delightful to get an eyeful of any of the women that I shrink. I can reverse the problem right away just by changing a setting on the rifle. Perhaps, I should try it with you,” he murmured. Her cheeks flamed, and she narrowed her eyes to mere slits.

  “Try it!” She stepped forward so she could get in his face. “When you returned me to my normal size, I’d wrestle that thing out of your hands and then I’d shove it up your arse.”

  Eleanor hooted, and started playing big band music.

  “Is that physically possible?” Eleanor asked.

  Devlin raised his boot to kick his car and then it seemed as if he suddenly remembered how much Eleanor had cost him.

  “I thought that I was your owner and master,” he grumbled at Eleanor.

  “When I feel like it, I do what you want me to do,” Eleanor responded. The music faded away, as a holographic form of a woman materialized in front of Samantha.

  “Bloody hell! I didn’t know you could do that!” Devlin stammered out, taking a step back, staring stupidly at the holographic projection of the big-busted woman.

  Eleanor was wearing a skin-tight bright yellow jumpsuit and everything showed. She resembled Veronica, except for the fact that she had blue hair.

  “You didn’t read the manual,” Eleanor retorted primly, “And I didn’t feel like telling you.”

  “Ross, if I didn’t love you so damn much, you’d be dead right now,” Veronica muttered beneath her breath.

  Samantha snorted, and then fell into a fit of laughter.

  “Shut your trap, Samantha. You know, now I wish that you’d died in that explosion. At least then, I wouldn’t have to listen to you,” Veronica scowled.

  “That wasn’t what you said at the time,” Eleanor piped in, as Samantha quieted.

  Samantha was finally beginning to forget her worries. Unbelievably, Veronica and Eleanor, who was a freaking barrel of bolts, were both relieving her stress.

  “What did you say?” Samantha asked between hiccups.

  “Nothing,” Veronica muttered, kicking at a pebble on the ground.

  “She said that you were a crazy broad and that people like you never died. She said that you’d always managed to pull your big booty out of problems before. She said you were the fastest runner she knew because you ran like your ass was on fire. Then she said that only the good die young,” Eleanor finished, grinning widely.

  “Thank you so much, Big V,” Samantha said, walking toward her.

  She didn’t know whether she should take it as a compliment or insult. As she approached Veronica, the silly woman began backing up. “Oh, and just let me clarify one thing I don’t have a big booty. In fact, Devlin thinks that my booty is bootylicious, and I’d have to agree,” she said, shaking her ass in Veronica’s direction.

  “Now I think I’m blind!” Veronica said, staring away. “I don’t get this thing you have with Devlin, you’re married to Tyler but you act like you’re Devlin’s wife. What gives?”

  “I don’t care to answer that question, Veronica. Why didn’t the three of you follow me? I mean it’s not like I needed you to save me or anything but it would have been nice to hitch a ride before I met Nessie,” she muttered, moving to lean against Eleanor.

  “We were going to follow you actually,” Devlin began, staring pointedly at the AI of Eleanor. “But she had other ideas.”

  “I followed Samantha’s assailants, so I could save her. But then when I realized there was a distinct possibility I might lose them, I shot a tracking device onto the submarine. Then I went back and picked you guys up,” Eleanor explained defensively.

  “Well, thanks, Eleanor. It’s not your fault that you had to work with two boobies,” Samantha said chuckling. She stopped laughing just as she heard a loud whining noise that sounded like weapons being charged and readied to fire.

  “Not again!” she bitched, staring up at the sky.

  In the not so far off distance, three A-class hover cars approached them and they had their phase cannons, loaded and out in clear view.

  “Hit the deck!!!” she screamed, pulling Devlin down to the ground.

  She body slammed him onto the cement and his cry was broken off, by the sound of an enormous explosion.

  “Must you always be on top?” Devlin asked, as Samantha scrambled off of him.

  “Aw…you know you like it,” she quipped, staring over in concern toward Ross.

  Veronica was nowhere to be seen and she assumed she was beneath her husband.

  “Ross, I’m dying underneath here, you big idiot,” Veronica mumbled.

  Samantha stood in shocked horror, staring dumbly at the remnants of what had once been her beloved hover car.

  “Oh, Aggie!” Samantha cried mournfully, taking a step toward the hover car. Before she could move any further, Devlin pulled her back.

  “Are you crazy? It’s just a bloody car! You can get another—hell, I will buy you another. Eleanor, get yourself ready,” Devlin instructed, keeping a firm hold on Samantha.

  “I’m already ready, but they’re circling, and getting ready to take another pot shot at us. You all better get into me. I can’t protect you guys if you’re all out in the open.”

  Samantha shook her head as if she snapped herself out of a daze.

  “Rodgers, I’m going to fry your big fat ass,” she muttered, as Devlin helped her to her feet. She dove into Eleanor, and the others quickly followed her.

  “Do your worst, Eleanor,” Devlin instructed, as they all belted themselves in.

  “Yes, Master,” Eleanor quipped off sarcastically. Her engines hummed. In a matter of seconds, she raised them high up into the air.

  “Uh, guys,” Samantha said, looking at Eleanor’s sensor pad, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but please tell me there isn’t about a dozen bogeys, quickly coming toward us.”

  Veronica and Ross sat in the back, and they quickly looked out the window as Veronica let loose with her colourful language.

  “Sons of bitches!” she gasped.

  Samantha leaned back and caught Ross patting Veronica on the arm.

  “We’ll be okay,” he murmured, as Veronica stared incredulously over at him.

  “I love you Ross, but sometimes I wish that you came with an off switch. I’m not worried about myself, but they should be worried because they’re the ones that will be going down. Right, Samantha?” Veronica asked, seeking Samantha’s support.

  “Whatever you say, Big V,” Samantha said, as her belly flip-flopped. From the way she saw it they were in big trouble.

  If she thought she was in a pickle before, then she was really in for it now. The odds weren’t good, but Samantha was ready to fight until the bitter end.

  “Think you can handle the situation, Eleanor?” Samantha asked, still mourning the loss of Aggie.

  “You betcha,” Eleanor answered, shooting down two attack vehicles. “Where to, boss?” Eleanor asked, while Samantha took a deep breath.

  “Where’s The Excalibur?” Samantha asked, finally needing to know where her family had gotten off to.

  “Why Lord Devlin told Johanna to skedaddle, as soon as we left for the City o
f Atlantis, I thought you knew,” Eleanor said, confusion filling her voice.

  “No. But I do now. Thank you so much, honey,” Samantha said sarcastically.

  “You’re welcome, sweetheart,” Devlin answered in the same sarcastic tone.

  Eleanor’s shields took another volley of mini torpedoes.

  “Take that butt head!” Eleanor shouted, just as another vehicle blew up.

  “Where is Johanna?” Samantha asked, looking directly at Lord Devlin.

  “She’s with Danny. Where she’ll be safe. If you hadn’t noticed New Monaco isn’t the safest place to be, at the moment. A rival has openly declared war on me, and I’m determined to finish it.”

  “Yeah, and that person would be Jarrod Rodgers, and you’re not going to finish it I am,” Samantha corrected, staring up at the two setting suns. “Eleanor, take us to The Emerald Star then,” she ordered, as Devlin gave her a dirty look.

  “Who the hell is the one giving the orders around here?” he asked dumbstruck, by Samantha’s audacity.

  “Me, Dev. Because when I show you how stupid you were for thinking that Tyler was guilty, you’re going to have to compensate us. So, not only will I be collecting on the bounty when I find the real murderer, which I believe is Rodgers, but I will also be taking Eleanor. I need a new car and I think this pretty baby will do. It will make my whole family really happy!”

  “Actually,” Eleanor began, “I think he aims to please you, Samantha. He was quite worried when we thought you were dead! He was right beside himself!”

  “Shut up, Eleanor,” Devlin ordered.

  They were all thrown forward in their seats when a much larger torpedo hit them.

  “One of those hover cars, has some pretty heavy duty weaponry loaded on it,” Eleanor said, her voice at a pitch. “And not to worry anyone or anything, but there are more beginning to follow us.”

  “Eleanor, can you open a channel to The Emerald Star?” Samantha asked, hating it that she was so helpless and that she had to rely on a freaking car.

  “Yes. But I don’t know what you’d want to tell them,” Eleanor answered confused and slightly distracted.

  “Well. Open it already!” Samantha ordered completely frazzled.