I took another step closer to him. I could see him just fine through the visor’s display, and appreciated that Cass had changed his target reticule to a red one, but I wanted to peer through the crack of the visor at him. I tilted my head slightly to the side and lined his face up with the hole, staring right at him from the darkness of the helmet. He had gained weight. Not a lot, but enough to show that he had been living comfortably without doing any of our old work.
“Are you deaf? Marcus. You bring the body. You kill your crew. You keep what you want. You get paid. You leave. Why is this hard for you? Is your crew still alive, too? Did you mess every order up?”
“They’re dead,” I muttered, low enough that it barely carried through the helmet.
“What?”
“I said, they’re dead.”
Cass unlocked the visor and I snatched the handgun from the suit at the same time. Adam was too stunned as he saw my face reveal itself from the helmet that he hadn’t even processed the gun I had pointed at his head yet.
“Impossible. Fucking impossible. We were so high we were practically in orbit. Impossible!”
I walked toward him as he looked like he would dart to his desk, to whatever weapon he had hidden there. I surged forward with the gun, waving it in front of his face at the same time that I shook my head.
“Kill me then! You won’t get out alive. You think my guards are like that scum we used to hunt? With their little pathetic excuses for weapons? They all have armor piercing rounds. They’ll cut into you like you’re back in the war.”
“So it’ll be a fair fight, then,” I laughed. “But no. I’m not here for that. No fighting. The gun is to get your attention. I’m not here to kill you.”
Adam had an expression on his face like I just said the most ridiculous thing he ever heard. He was dumbstruck.
“Three years, Adam. Three years I sat down there and could only guess at what drove you to do this. Why? That question. Why? That more than anything nearly drove me insane. Every night. Why? We were partners. No. Brothers. We had bled together more times than I remember. Saved each other. Relied on each other. So I’m not here to kill you. I just want to know why.”
Adam’s entire face was tense, as if it took effort for his features not to fall apart. He looked at the gun, then back at me. I saw in his eyes that he was trying rapidly to think of something, thinking faster than he had to in years.
“Prove it,” he spat out, suddenly. “Prove it. Give me the gun and I’ll tell you. You have my word.”
I looked at him for what felt like an eternity. Our eyes were locked, as if we could read each others’ thoughts if we looked hard and intensely enough. I lowered the gun at first, slowly, then gave it a light toss into the air. I caught it by the barrel and extended it toward him. He snatched it from my hand hungrily and aimed it right at my head.
“Good, good,” he spewed his words out quickly. “I’ll tell you. Because of this. This right here. Giving me the gun. You held us back. From money. From fame. You wouldn’t take the dirty jobs. Always had to go after the criminals instead of working for them! You wouldn’t even consider the money in it. You acted like you were too good for it, and too good for me. Parading around in your fancy, overkill suit of armor like some god damn hero. We killed people for fucking money, Burke! How noble can you possibly fucking be!”
I closed my eyes. There it was. The reason I needed to hear. A wave of disappointment washed over me along with relief. I had been hoping for a different reason. A more complicated, conflicted reason, but there it was, what I suspected all along: money. Greed. I was letdown. There was only one thing left to happen. I opened my eyes.
“Thank you,” I said. “Now, will you kill me again, or let me go? You could have just left back then, you know. You didn’t have to shoot me. Would you do it again, now, or then, if you could go back and change it?”
Adam laughed. It was a long, angry laugh. He stamped a foot down into the floor as he laughed, all the while pointing the gun at my face.
“See! There it is again! That fucking too good for me fucking attitude! You know what, yeah, fuck you. I would. I wanted your body as a fucking keepsake. Of course I’d do it again. I was going to kill Marcus after the job was done, too. I guess I owe you a little something for that. This won’t hurt.”
He punched the gun forward at my face as he squeezed the trigger and gun clicked out its harmless sound of the hammer striking no bullet, no primer. Nothing. I brought in no live weapons.
I took two steps forward and propelled my right hand up into his face. The palm portion of my armored fist caved in his nose, and it broke with a sickly crunch as it was compressed into his face. The force of the blow knocked him off his feet, and I brought my knee up into his spine as he fell, knocking him again into the air before he could hit the ground.
Something snapped in his back, I guessed a rib or three, before he collapsed onto the floor. I drove my left foot down onto his arm, crushing it against the floor. I repeated it until I was satisfied that the bone was broken, or shattered, and rendered useless just like he had done to my arm.
I knelt down onto his chest, pushing the weight of my armor onto his torso. His eyes were closed and shook wildly in their sockets. I brought my left arm down and pointed my elbow into his left thigh. The blade sliced out and pierced into his muscle, connected with the bone and struck into it. I twisted and rolled the blade around until I was certain that at least part of his leg was as mangled as mine.
“Three! Fucking! Years!”
I grabbed him by the neck and pulled him upright. He could barely open his eyes but I didn’t care. I threw him against the wall and punched him before he could fall. With each punch I kept him upright. I was relentless, beating his face until I couldn’t recognize him anymore.
I beat him with the force of my anger and rage that I felt when I crushed the crawlers on my first night, when I had to tunnel non-stop for a week to survive, and when I had to shoot a man in the back after I had said I let him go. I pummeled him with the fury of when I had to hold an old friend to the brink of death, and every time my leg trembled with the memory of what was done to it.
Adam was dead long before I stopped hitting him. He slumped to the floor in a heap, limbs twisted in directions that only a dead man could tolerate. I was panting and shaking uncontrollably. I felt no relief or closure, but also no shame or guilt over what I had just done. I felt nothing. I was numb.
“Burke,” Cass’s voice seemed to come from somewhere far away. “We need to leave. Now.”
I went to Adam’s desk. I tore out drawers one at a time until I found the gun. I flicked the safety off and pointed it to the ceiling. I let out a shot to make sure it was loaded. The guards must have already heard something and were on their way. No need to be quiet. A bullet ripped out of the gun with a loud bang. It was all I needed.
I kicked through the door and it smashed into the first two guards that were waiting outside. I pressed forward as they were knocked back, twisting myself around on my right foot while I triggered the blade from my left arm. I sliced the blade in an arc across their throats, severing their jugular arteries in one swift movement.
I snapped the blade back into the armor and grabbed the closest dying guard with the same arm. With the suit’s assistance, I held him up easily and used him as a shield as I barreled down the hall. My right hand was free to extend under the guard’s arm and fire ahead. Cass gave me estimates on the visor’s display with red targets. I was moving too fast and didn’t have enough vision to aim carefully, but I was close enough to maim my targets into submission.
One of the doors opened up to my left when I was nearing the elevator. They were too close for me to turn and fire and I threw the guard’s body at them instead. It crashed into them, knocking the first two over who, in turn, stumbled backward into the reinforcements behind them.
There were too many to shoot and the gun was nearly out of ammunition anyway. I was putting so much strain on
my right leg that it was screaming at me in agony but I couldn’t afford to care. The guards would recover soon and would be firing at me from behind.
I hit the button to open the elevator door at the same time that a torrent of bullets came from behind me. Not all of them had switched to the correct piercing rounds and I felt a barrage of them bounce off the armor of my back. Others pierced through, not cleanly, but enough to embed themselves in the metal and bite into the top layer of my flesh.
I slammed the elevator door closed when I was inside. My back felt like it was on fire, and I had no idea how bad my injuries were. Cass had my vitals on the visor immediately, searching for any critical injuries or ruptures. It felt like there were hundreds of little trickles of blood running down my back.
“You need to get to a medical centre immediately. There was no major organ damage but I can’t keep track of your blood loss.”
“No. We need to leave.”
“Burke, this isn’t up for debate.”
The elevator stopped on the floor that our ship was docked on and I rushed off, ignoring Cass’s warnings. I needed to get back to the ship and get off the station. Nothing else mattered. Adam was dead and nothing else mattered.
I don’t remember reaching the ship, but I do remember waking up in the cockpit. My head was pounding and I could hear people talking around me. I wasn’t conscious for long, and slumped back over the ship’s control console. I felt like I was spinning, and any attempt to balance myself only made it worse. Everything went black.
* * *
I woke up in a bed and knew that something was wrong. Something felt wrong. The room was white, the bed was soft, and I was alone. My helmet and armor were gone. But that wasn’t it. Something was very wrong.
I was in a room in a hospital, I reasoned. I shifted in the bed and felt what was wrong more clearly. I braced myself and then moved my hands down my chest and to my right leg. And I felt nothing. My leg was gone. I closed my eyes and swallowed hard. I moved my hands back up onto my chest and convinced myself that I didn’t need to look under the blanket.
I must have fallen back to sleep. When I woke up Geoffrey was sitting next to the bed. He had my helmet in his lap and he was hunched forward, resting on it as he looked at me.
I studied his face for a long time as I thought my way through what must have happened. Cass had contacted Geoffrey after I was shot and refused to find help. Despite what I had threatened to do to him and his daughter, he had helped me. I knew the man had built up many connections over the years, but not so many that he could shelter a murderer and get him treated at the same time.
I had underestimated him, in more ways than one. I looked down at my leg and realized that I had ruined more than one thing in my search for vengeance.
“Burke,” he said. “She’ll want to talk to you.”
He extended the helmet out in his hands and I took it from him. I barely moved by reaching out to it but was enough that pain erupted all over my back. I was careful as I lowered the helmet over my head.
“I’m sorry,” Cass spoke in an explosion of frantic words. “You were dying and I didn’t know what else to do. He was the only one I could contact and he came and helped and brought you here and your leg, Burke, I’m sorry, your leg. The doctors marveled at how you were walking on it at all. There was nothing they could do.”
“How am I still on the station without being hunted?”
Geoffrey answered that before Cass could. He sat forward and spoke, “You weren’t the only one who hated Adam, and you weren’t the only enemy he made over the years. You’ll still have to hide for a while. A change of identity after that. We’ll work it out.”
“Geoff, I’m sorry. I didn’t—” he held a hand up to stop me. He nodded slowly.
“Don’t say more things now that you may claim you didn’t mean later. We’ll let our actions do the talking for a while,” he stated. It was a rebuke, if a gentle one, but I deserved it.
He got up and walked toward the door. I called for him before he could leave. He stopped and turned to me.
“The ship. Sell off what’s in the cargo bay. Take whatever money it earns for yourself. I’ll only need enough for an augmented leg and a gun. I’ll earn the rest of it back from you.”
“I already started, old friend,” he said with a sad smile, and left the room.
I ran my hand down and felt at the bandages around where my leg used to be. I felt even more damaged than I had when I first woke up after the fall from the ship, but was surprised to discover I was more relaxed. For the first time in years I had no driving force pushing me along. I felt like I had been released from something horrible and menacing. It was exciting and daunting at the same time.
“Cass,” I said. “I’ll leave it to you to pick out the robotic leg. Whatever you think will work best with the rest of your aegis.”
“My aegis?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do,” she replied. “Will we have a lot of work to do in the future? Will it have to be a combat grade augment?”
“Yes. And Cass, we work alone from now on. Be sure to take that under consideration.”
“I will, Burke.”
I closed my eyes and settled into the bed with the helmet still on. I was more comfortable with it on than off, and I trusted that Cass would keep watch. I went back to sleep.
The following is the first scene from the next in the Bounty Hunter series: 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.
Bounty Hunter 1: The Bounty Hunter's Revenge Page 8
