“And these?”
Her hand rested on the three long scars streaked over his stomach.
“Dross. That one might have hurt the most.”
Her hand moved down his stomach and was lost under the sheet. He grinned at her and she laughed but continued moving her hand lower, passed his thigh until she rubbed the scar on his leg.
“I saw this one while I was down there earlier,” she said, mirroring his grin. “How did you get it?”
“Another gunshot. Many years ago.”
“During a contract?”
“Something like that. Geoff’s daughter was taken. I got shot twice bringing her back,” he said, looking off for a moment before he added: “but I brought her back.”
“Good. Well done,” she said. “You’ve mentioned Geoff before. What kind of work do you usually do for him?”
“This and that,” he answered. He shifted his arm out from under her and turned onto his side to face her. “Why so curious?”
“Just making conversation,” she said, raising her head in such a defiant way that it made him want to kiss her. He leaned his head closer to hers and she met him half way, kissing him deeply. She pulled her head back. “You should have asked me to your ship sooner.”
“I should have,” he said frankly.
“You have a whole month to make it up to me,” she said, stretching as she spoke. Her back arched up away from the bed and he eagerly watched how her chest and stomach curved and tensed. It wasn’t the first time they had slept together but it was the first in a long time.
“What about you?” Burke asked.
“What about me?”
He moved quickly on top of her, a leg on either side of her hips. She eyed him suspiciously as he cupped his hands over her breasts. He leaned down and kissed them, one at a time, and then kissed the scar below her collar bone.
“How did you get your scars?”
“Accidents. Mostly,” she said. Her eyes looked away from his for a moment. She squirmed beneath him and then looked back up at him.
“This one looks like a bullet,” he said, spiraling his fingers over the scar tissue on her stomach. “You were shot?”
“An explosion in ACU’s lab,” she said, shaking her head. “I work with a lot of weaponry and armor. You know that. Accidents happen. It was a piece of shrapnel.”
He found another scar above her left hip, looking similarly like a bullet wound. Before he could ask her about it, she shifted firmly beneath him and drew his eyes to hers. He was too busy admiring her body to realize her expression matched his own; she missed being intimate with him as much as he had with her. He leaned down to kiss her again.
The shower in the en suite bathroom of Burke’s quarters wasn’t large enough for the two of them. Natalie went first as he lay in bed alone, half dozing as he listened to the water running only a few meters away from him. He went in after she came out to dry herself. She was already dressed when he came out with a towel. She was looking over the display that covered the entire far wall of his room.
“There’s a lot of information here,” she said. “Did you leave anything out?”
“Some of it is in layers behind the files that are displayed, but no,” he explained. “That’s my entire history there if you want to see.”
“You trust me with that?” she looked back at him over her shoulder.
“I do.”
The smile crept slowly over her face. She turned away from him before he could see it fully form.
“Jack Porter,” she read from the screen. “It says he was a soldier that went missing and likely died on Earth, during the war against the dross. I didn’t know that. Is that why you picked him?”
“Geoff picked it, not me. Maybe he chose it for that reason.”
“And your pilot doesn’t know your real name?”
“That’s right.”
“Okay, Jack,” she said, turning to face him. She was grinning again. “I’ll keep your secret.”
* * *
Geoff’s bar was quiet. He didn’t mind. Each planet, space station, and ship, operated on its own frame of time. A ship might arrive with its crew in the middle of their awake cycle, while the space station, Foras, might be deep into its night. Despite how busy the station could be, most of the bar’s patrons were local people. He expected the bar to be nearly empty when he visited at night.
There were three humans and an alien—a vruan—all at different tables of the bar. Lucy, the bartender that usually worked the night shift, welcomed Geoff as he entered. He was pleased to see a vruan already taking advantage of the new additions he had made to the bar to accommodate the specific needs of the alien race. Although humans and vruans could inhabit the same atmosphere, their nutritional needs were different. There were scant few foods that both races could eat together, although rare exceptions did exist.
“How are you tonight?” Lucy asked Geoff as he stepped behind the bar.
“Tired. I need a drink.”
“Want me to make you one?”
“Don’t trouble yourself. I have some in my office.”
“Call me if you need some more,” she said as he stepped through the door at the back of the bar.
The stairs to Geoff’s office seemed to give him more trouble each time he climbed them. He knew he was getting old. He was nearly a hundred and had finally lost all of his hair. He knew if he had taken better care of himself he may have squeezed another hundred years out of his body. Now he would consider himself lucky to get another fifty.
In his office, he closed and locked the door behind him and stepped to the liquor cabinet next to his desk. He took out a bottle of brandy and poured himself a glass. He studied himself in the mirror as he held the drink up into the light. For years he had clung to the final tufts of gray hair around his head. Now that he had finally resorted to shaving it all off, he was pleasantly surprised to find that he looked younger each time he looked at himself in a mirror. He wondered if any man or woman would ever look twice at him again, and then shook his head. He drained the glass quickly, considered the bottle for a moment, and then decided to take it with him to his desk.
He regretted sitting down instantly. He had forgotten to open the hidden safe in the floor next to the cabinet. The terminal at his desk was used solely for running the bar and its business on the station. His other work—his real job—was kept primarily in the hidden safe in the floor. He forced himself to get back up and then kneeled down to open the hatch. He retrieved a stack of computer tablets and a small stash of paper. Although the tablets had all network functionality stripped out of them, for complete prevention of being accessed remotely, he had many secrets he didn’t trust to any electronic device.
The papers contained a chronological record of every job he had ever done. In his youth, he had been a smuggler. Not every job had been something he was proud of now that he was older, but he was able to find peace in the things he hadn’t lowered himself to do. He had never transported people or catered to any of the more dangerous criminal cartels. He had hauled drugs between systems and made a substantial profit. Those memories gave him the most pause and always ended in some sort of justification that he wasn’t so bad, since he hadn’t distributed the drugs himself. Brandy always helped to soothe that guilt.
He read the papers quickly. His body might be in the first stages of failing him, but his mind and senses were as sharp as ever. There was little that he had forgotten as he read his old list of contacts and the network he had built and established over the major star systems in human space. The pages contained less information as he flipped through them, showing how he withdrew from many dealings as time went on. By the time he opened his bar on Foras, he was operating covertly enough that he had never once been visited by the station’s authorities. Most of the work he had done in the past decade might be considered almost legal, if he had bothered to apply for the right permits and paid importation taxes.
Geoff set the papers back in the safe. He carried the table
ts back to his desk and poured himself another glass of brandy. He looked at the screen on top of the desk and saw the bar below him. Another customer had walked in, another vruan who seemed to be flirting with Lucy. Not for the first time, he acknowledged that the bar was profitable enough that he didn’t need his other work anymore. For a moment, he looked at the tablets spread out in front of him and wondered why he kept at it. Then, the moment passed, and he picked up the first one and was back to work.
He pulled another tablet from his coat pocket. It was a cheap device, one that he used to pull data from public internet access points on the station. He set wide download parameters, in addition to the dozens of drop boxes he had established for his contacts in the galaxy. He physically interfaced the tablet with one on the desk and, when the data transfer was complete, set the cheap tablet aside for shredding. He went through a few every month—a cost he was willing to spend for the sake of being untraceable.
The data was sent through the features of the more robust tablets he kept in his safe. While the computer’s programs sorted through the data, automatically discarding junk information, Geoff looked over the schedules of the multiple smuggling ships he had moving between systems. Most ships used jump carriers and their jump gates to travel between systems in days rather than the months it would take otherwise. The jump carriers had extensive hardware for scanning the cargo and occupants of any ship that used them. Smuggling ships traveled the long way, brimming with as much cargo as possible, and going dark for months as they were out of range of any system’s network. He monitored the estimated progress of each ship on the tablet in his hands.
Some ships smuggled food or even livestock. Medical supplies and augmentation hardware were a common commodity that traveled on the ships Geoff employed. The more precious the goods, the more the jump carriers taxed it as it transferred between systems.
He was eager to hear from the newest captain he had given work to: Jess Richmond. Her ship had left the nearest network point two weeks earlier and she was due to make contact in three months. Burke’s AI, Cass, had recommended her for the job seemingly out of nowhere. She had asked not to be mentioned when Geoff reached out to Jess with the job offer. He had found it strange, at first, to be taking suggestions from a computer program, but then he had never encountered another AI like Cass. Burke trusted her, and that was enough for Geoff.
The tablet finished its scan of the data. A long list of hundreds of entries displayed for him to manually look through, each ranked by an estimated priority based on the job, the payout, and how long until the contract expired. Many were shipping orders, while some were mercenary contracts that he would look through for Burke. Geoff had had trouble finding work for the bounty hunter since his return, as he wasn’t allowed to use Burke’s name and infamy to draw jobs, but he was slowly building back up again. There were more possible contracts than the last time he had checked.
There were nearly a hundred postings for Burke alone. The thought came back to Geoff and he once again considered retirement. He knew it would be a decision that would require much planning. The void he would leave behind would need to be safely replaced. He had once asked his daughter if she would be interested and she had said no. His son had been his second choice but he had died in the war on Earth. The thought that Cass might take over for him struck him as an insane idea and then an inspired one. Nearly all of his work was done electronically and remotely. He gave a small laugh, took a sip of his drink, and considered asking his daughter again.
Something caught his attention on the computer screen. He looked to see Lucy turn toward the entrance to the bar. Then, she abruptly turned in the direction of the camera, something she knew to do if there was any sign of trouble. Geoff sighed and readied himself to go downstairs and deal with a drunk that had been ejected from another bar, only to wander across the station and into his. He pressed himself off the chair just as a flash of light streaked over the bar’s camera. He heard the gunshot through the floor and looked at the screen to see that the vruan had been shot in the head. He fell to the floor in a heap and a scream from one of the other customers roared out a moment later.
Geoff moved quickly across the room. He stuffed the computer tablets back into the floor safe and locked it. He went back to his desk, intending to get the gun from the bottom drawer and go down into the bar. He had the drawer open when someone tried to open the door to the office. He had the gun in his hand when the door burst from its hinges and slammed to the floor. Geoff fired only one shot before a bullet punched into his shoulder and sent him down.
Two women and a man surged into the room. The man was clutching the side of his stomach. The women moved quickly around the room, searching every piece of furniture and opening every cabinet. The man stumbled forward and slumped down on the chair opposite Geoff’s desk.
“The fucker shot me!” the man cried.
“Shut up,” the two women said in unison.
Geoff lay still on the floor. It had been a long time since he had last been shot. The bullet had fragmented and multiple pieces had tunneled their way through his chest. The memories of his previous gunshot wounds did nothing to dull the pain. If anything, they made it worse. He knew what lay ahead of him since the bullet had not cleanly pierced through his body.
“The room is clear,” one of the women said.
The other woman walked behind the desk and threaded her arms under Geoff’s shoulders. He had a fleeting thought of resisting her until a fresh wrenching pain shrieked out from his shoulder and chest. He was lifted to his chair and he slumped down on it eagerly. The woman stepped away while the man hunched forward, showing Geoff his teeth. His face was pale. His right hand was still pressed at his side.
“I should fucking kill you,” the man spat.
“Enough!” another man’s voice filled the room. The woman that hadn’t lifted Geoff stepped forward and placed a device on the desk. It initially looked like one of the tablet computers he had been using but it quickly expanded, filling out vertically and horizontally until it resembled a laptop. The screen faced Geoff. A man’s face was on it. Geoff didn’t recognize him.
“You weren’t meant to be shot. I apologize,” the man said.
Geoff stared at him. He was mentally flipping through every possible enemy that would want him dead. He almost laughed; he had just been congratulating himself on laying low the past few years.
“Do you know who I am?” the man asked.
Geoff shook his head.
“My name is Isaac Paxton and—ah, there we go. You know who I am now.”
Geoff had erupted in a furious roar at the man’s name. He tensed awkwardly as he shook with rage, enough that his shoulder hurt but not enough to stop him from screaming at the screen. Isaac had continued talking calmly throughout the outburst, although his mouth quivered as he did so. When Geoff finally stopped yelling, Isaac shakily nodded his head.
“Finished? Good. Let’s get this over with quickly. Then you can get your shoulder looked at.”
One of the women laughed. Geoff kept his eyes on the screen.
“I have questions regarding Burke Monrow,” Isaac said. “Is he alive?”
“He’s been dead for years,” Geoff growled.
“Really? Years? I need to know for certain. I thought he was gone once before, you see, and then his old partner turned up dead. There’s that pesky price on Burke’s head that seems to counter your claim. Dead for years?”
“That wasn’t Burke. It was someone else in his armor,” Geoff lied smoothly, even through the throbbing pain in his chest. “Burke is dead.”
“Huh,” Isaac said, his mouth open for a moment. He moved his tongue between his teeth as he thought. “It’s that simple, is it? Did you find anything in his office?”
“Nothing,” one of the women said. “A lot of booze and data on the bar.”
“I’m retired,” Geoff said with a wide smile. A trickle of sweat ran down his cheek.
“Well, if Burke r
eally is dead then there’s nothing stopping me from coming back. One of you go through his things. Find out where his daughter is staying.”
Geoff erupted again. The man across the desk hunched forward and raised a bloodied hand to the office’s computer terminal. The women stepped behind the desk.
“I don’t want to hear this,” Isaac said, waving his hand at the screen. “Shut him up, one of you, please.”
“Why you fucking asshole! Why do you want her you fucking motherfucker! She’s done nothing to you!”
“To see if Burke really is dead, or just to rectify an embarrassing mistake I made,” Isaac shrugged. He blinked too many times as he spoke. “Whichever you like more. Shut him up now, please. Remember what I warned earlier.”
The screen went blank. The women took turns punching Geoff, his head being sent reeling from side to side from the force of each hit. The pain from his face became the focus of his attention. His shoulder became a distant sensation, far away and numb.
“I’ve got it,” the man said, and then groaned as he rose from the chair. “This fucking hurts. Let’s go.”
“He’s not dead,” one of the women said.
“Boss said not to kill him. Fuck, you two never listen,” the man retorted. He took a step to the door and groaned again.
The women shrugged. They smacked Geoff once more each. One of the women turned back around to face him as the others left the room. She put her boot on his chair and pushed it away, toppling the chair over and sending him onto the floor next to the room’s only window. He heard their footsteps descend the stairs and were then lost. His face felt like it was on fire. He tried to open his eyes and he couldn’t see. Panic was boiling through him, urging him to get up and warn his daughter. Even as Lucy came into the room sobbing, he barely had enough strength to move his arms.
* * *
Burke stood in the rear room of the ship and was unable to follow the conversation between Natalie and Cass. The body of a heavily augmented woman lay on a makeshift bed in the small room. She had been experimented on: her arms, legs, and the majority of her skin had been replaced with synthetic materials. Her mind had also been linked to her partner, a man that Burke had unintentionally driven to suicide. Since his death, the neural link had malfunctioned and the woman had been in a coma. Her name had been Lumen.
The Bounty Hunter: Soldier's Wrath Page 2
