“You told me what happened,” Natalie replied. “They thought she was dead.”
Cass came back online shortly after they completed docking into the carrier. She appeared unsteady and distorted over the podium for a second until the holographic projectors settled. She looked around the room, resting her eyes on Burke at the end.
“How did it go?” he asked.
“I didn’t do much,” she answered. “It was more complicated than I thought. The neural link gives me access to how her brain stores information biologically. I’m amazed you can remember anything at all in that mess.”
Natalie laughed.
“I’m going to look deeper into Spectrum’s records on Lumen,” Cass continued. “If I can find more about her history, perhaps I can set up the same foundation she had before. It might help her become as close to her old self as she can be.”
“I’d advise against that,” Natalie said. “Better to go with something new if you can make that feel more real to her.”
“I’d like to at least try,” Cass said. “She isn’t going anywhere. We have time.”
Natalie opened her mouth and hesitated. She nodded a moment later, albeit reluctantly.
Burke looked through the main window of the ship. The interior of the jump carrier reminded him of a space station. There were extravagant facilities and amenities within the deeper levels of the carrier; it was not unlike a cruise ship, a popular vacation choice for planet dwellers that rarely went into space.
“If you head out, bring back the usual supplies. I’ll reimburse you,” Burke said to Rylan.
“I’m still allowed to leave the ship?” he asked, blinking.
Cass and Natalie both turned to give the two men their undivided attention. Burke could practically feel their eyes on the back of his head.
“Is there a reason I shouldn’t let you?” Burke asked.
“No,” Rylan said quickly. Then, slower: “no, Captain.”
The pilot climbed out of his chair and walked out of the room. He turned to the right at the first door in the corridor and walked into his quarters. Burke turned to watch him and saw Cass beaming at him from over the podium.
“Who are you and what have you done with my Burke?” Cass said teasingly.
“Very funny,” he muttered. “If this goes wrong it’s your fault.”
“I’ll take that deal,” she replied. “If it goes right then it’s my success, too.”
Burke and Natalie remained on the Brisbane. They enjoyed having the ship to themselves during the hours that Rylan was gone each day. They spent most of their time in Burke’s quarters. Cass focused on planning the next steps in reconstructing Lumen.
When Burke and Natalie ventured out of his room, they went into the armory or the kitchen. Burke prepared the most elaborate meals he had learned for Natalie, and the two ate together while they looked over the video feeds Cass had maintained on Frey. They spoke often about how to best contact Kristen when they reached the planet. At the end of each day, Burke called Geoff and tried to soothe the old man. He grew more restless and agitated with each call, his mood worsening as his wounds healed. By the time the jump carrier landed in the Tali system, he had removed the healing wrap from the right side of his face. His flesh was still swollen but he looked more like his usual self.
“Don’t let them take her Burke,” Geoff said at the end of every call.
Frey was a few hours away from where the jump gate was located in Tali. Burke became restless as they approached the planet. He either paced around the armory, fussed over his guns, or stared at the video feed on Natalie’s laptop. Nothing had happened to Kristen yet. She had entered and left her apartment multiple times while they were traveling in the jump carrier. He knew that whoever Paxton hired should have reached the planet before they did. He had to admit that Geoff must have been right. It was looking more likely that it was a trap intended to lure him out. It made him feel even worse that Kristen was the bait.
An hour away from Frey, Burke began putting on his aegis. Natalie helped him with the arm potions and then the helmet. She guided him through the new interface options on the interior side of the visor that displayed the status of the shield system. He twisted both of his forearms and triggered the right arm’s blade and the left arm’s shield. Something about the advanced versions of basic armaments appealed to him. He liked that they didn’t rely on bullets or ammunition. Even if he lost his gun, he would still be able to fight better than most.
“I installed the tracking launcher two nights ago,” Natalie explained. “Cass can control that. The shield is all yours, though. Do you like it?”
He raised his left arm and gave the shield a few swings through the air. Despite being weightless, the shield still caught the air in its path and he felt its resistance. The assisted strength of the armor would give the shield enough force to knock someone over but likely wouldn’t kill them. Tens of other uses quickly came to his mind and he grinned.
“I do. Thank you, Natalie.”
“Do you use everything else the armor has?” she asked.
“We use the jump often,” he said. “The blades, too. We don’t use the grapple line much. I use it to tie people up more than anything else.”
“Oh really?” Natalie’s eyes widened for a moment. Then she arched an eyebrow and smirked.
Burke laughed. He unsealed the helmet’s face plate. He twisted his arms and retracted the shield and blades. Then, carefully, he put his arms around Natalie and leaned down to kiss her—the armor made him significantly taller than he would have been otherwise. She looked at him strangely after the kiss.
“You’ve been fretting the past few days and now, when you’re about to go down and fight, you’re suddenly calm,” she said. “You don’t always make sense Mister Monrow.”
“This is the part I’m good at,” he said. “On the way here I’m helpless. On the planet, I can actually do something.”
When they reached Frey, Burke looked down at the planet at the helm of the ship. From orbit, the surface of the world was completely blue. It was his first time visiting the planet. It reminded him of Earth.
“Is there anything I should know before we go down there?” he asked.
Rylan shrugged. Cass hovered above the podium in the room, prepared to recite anything she could find about the planet in the encyclopedias she had access to. Natalie spoke first.
“Frey is an ocean world. There are only rare, narrow strips of land above sea level where the planet’s tectonic plates have pressed up against each other for long enough. On another planet they might have been mountain ranges. Here, they’re the only land significant enough to colonize.”
“Geoff mentioned three floating cities. Are they stations in orbit?”
“No,” Natalie said. “They’re on the water. Frey is one of the largest centres of scientific research outside of ACU. The cities are highly advanced and are capable of moving slowly over the ocean. There used to be a fourth city but it has since been submerged.”
“Submerged?” Burke asked.
“They lowered it to the ocean floor. I think it anchors one of the other cities now. They’re linked and the people travel between them. The cities aren’t very big.”
“Anything else?”
“Nothing I can think of. Cass?” Natalie turned to the podium.
“The planet’s atmosphere is denser than most others of its size. Less storms than you would think but those that do form are very violent. Average temperature of thirty degrees Celsius in the populated areas. There’s more moisture in the air but that’s to be expected. It’s close to Earth’s gravity. We should be fine, Burke.”
He nodded.
“Take us down to Stheno, Rylan. We’ll circle around the city once and then I’ll contact Kristen to tell her we’re coming.”
“Still no movement around her apartment,” Cass said. “I can’t tell if anyone else is watching it.”
“They are,” Burke said grimly. “I guarantee i
t.”
Rylan brought the Brisbane slowly into Frey’s atmosphere. He took more direct control of the vessel when they were closer to the planet, compensating for the moment when the planet’s gravity overpowered the ship’s artificial generators. Burke watched with interest at the water below them. The ocean seemed to stretch out forever in every direction. It reminded him of his flights over the Atlantic and Indian oceans on Earth. It was strange, he thought, that an alien world could look so similar to his home world.
They saw no signs of the natural land formations that Natalie mentioned. Rylan flew them quickly toward Stheno and made no detours to see anything else on the planet. The city was larger than Burke expected for something that wasn’t constructed in space. From a distance, it looked like a city that had been grown on a Petri dish on top of the water: the white exterior of the city rose high around the rim of it, erecting a barrier to stop water from flooding into the streets. Almost every building stretched dozens of floors into the air—the highest of the lot clustered in the middle of the city—but there was a tremendous amount of greenery and vegetation that had been planted throughout every street. To Burke, the city had found a unique balance between nature and industry, as if the settlement had been grown on the water instead of built. He liked it.
The faceplate of his aegis was still open. He looked at the ship’s main screen as Cass highlighted the building that Kristen lived in. It was one of the tallest buildings in the center of the city, well over a hundred storeys. They circled it from a distance.
“We’ll go in from the roof,” Burke said. “If all goes well, you can hover over the building while me and Cass go down. We’ll bring Kristen back up with us. If things go badly, well,” the word dragged out of him and ended in a sigh. “We’ll have to change things as we go.”
Cass zoomed in part of the screen on Kristen’s apartment, half of the way up the building. Burke turned to the other screens around the room as the video feeds were transmitted to them, leaving Rylan to still have the main window to focus on flying the ship. Burke couldn’t see any mercenaries waiting for him and knew that was a bad sign. If Paxton had put as much time into his plan as Natalie suspected, it meant the mercenaries he hired were very good at their jobs.
“Call Kristen,” Burke said. “Rylan, get ready to fly us over the building as soon as she picks up. Remember, we’re stepping into a trap.”
Burke walked to the terminal on the left side of the room, usually reserved for the ship’s weapon systems. The central screen changed from blue to black, then to the prompt that an outgoing call was currently being transferred. He felt at the rifle magnetized to the back of his armor as he waited for Kristen to answer. He knew that if the mercenaries were monitoring the building that he’d only have a few minutes to get to her.
Her face appeared on the screen. She didn’t recognize him at first. When she did, her eyes widened happily. They were as bright and blue as the ocean around the city. She smiled.
“Burke!”
Then, she frowned.
“What’s happened?” she asked.
“I’m going to be outside your door in less than three minutes. I need you to be ready when I get there.”
“Is it dad? Is he dead?”
“No, he’s fine,” Burke said quickly. “I’m here to make sure you are too.”
She had more questions. He watched as they played out over her features. She turned away from her computer instead of voicing them, knowing that she had little time. She had always been intelligent, he remembered. Smarter than Geoff and that was saying something.
Burke turned to look through Rylan’s screen. The ship was nearly over the building. He turned back when Kristen returned. She had a loaded handgun in her hands.
“Should I meet you somewhere?” she asked.
“No. I’ll come to you,” Burke said. “Keep this channel open. Talk to me until I get down there.”
“Okay.”
“Burke,” Cass warned.
He turned to the podium. Cass’s expression said all he needed to know. Natalie looked equally serious next to her. He reached up and closed the faceplate. Cass transferred the call with Kristen into a corner of the visor while she displayed the other video feeds. There was a group of men and women, all armed, that had just entered the main foyer of the building. Burke stepped quickly out of the room and to the back of the ship.
* * *
The front doors of the Brisbane opened before the vessel came to a complete stop. Burke ran the final few meters and jumped onto the roof of the building below them. He looked back and saw Rylan carefully adjusting the ship to be as close to the roof as possible for when they returned. Burke looked at the video feeds on the inside on the visor and saw that the group of mercenaries had split: Cass displayed half of them in one of the elevators and the other half rushing up the stairs of the building.
He stepped forward and felt the bullet strike into his head before he heard it. The sound of the explosion came later, barreling from one of the nearby buildings and where the sniper was hiding. The bullet collided into the side of his helmet and streaked through the outer layer of armor. The visor changed to a scarlet red, hissing a warning of damage that he had sustained. He dived quickly forward as another shot narrowly missed him. He didn’t waste time checking to see if the door on the roof was unlocked or not. He jumped, put all of his weight into the door, and broke through it as if it had been made of a paper.
“Are we hurt?” Burke asked. Cass displayed an overview of the armor. She had softened the blow with a kinetic barrier but not enough to prevent all damage.
“Burke?” Kristen answered. The call was still active. He wanted to kick himself.
“I’m on my way. As fast as I can,” he said.
He jumped down each flight of stairs, not bothering to take individual steps. Kristen looked worried for a moment and then composed herself. She checked the handgun she held and then turned to face the door.
“These are the same people that took me last time, aren’t they?” she asked.
“They are,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
He expected her to look afraid, or to at least be angry with him. Instead, she looked suddenly wild and fierce at the door. He admired her determination; it made him feel even worse for lying to her. He hoped he would have been as brave if he was in her place.
Cass displayed another warning when they were half way to Kristen’s floor. Two other groups had entered the building. One stayed in the foyer while another was already in a second elevator. The squad in the first elevator had ascended passed Kristen’s floor. The group in the stairwell were closer to the girl than he was.
The elevator stopped on the floor below Burke’s position. Cass changed his view to the camera in the corridor below them as they rushed to the stairs. He reached back for his rifle in one smooth, quick motion and wasted no time in waiting for them. He charged through the door and ambushed the ambushers, firing indiscriminately at first to put the group on the defensive. He aimed more carefully after they scrambled out of his fire. There were only five of them and he killed four of them before his first magazine ran out of bullets. He refused to waste any time reloading for only one target. He marched forward, stomping over the bodies and triggered the blade in his right arm. He took the bullets the last man standing fired at him, ignoring the minor damage that he sustained as he kept on advancing. He stabbed the man in the chest, twisted the blade to both ensure the kill and retract the weapon.
“Six mercs about to get to Kristen’s level,” Cass said.
Burke turned back to the stairwell and broke into a run. He instructed Kristen before he tried to reload his rifle.
“They’re going to get to you before I can,” he said. “I need you to hold them from getting through your front door until I can get there. Do you understand?”
Kristen nodded. Her face tensed afterwards. She tightened her grip on the gun.
“Fire quickly at the door. Leave only a second betwe
en each shot. Aim for the chest, not the head.”
“My dad taught me how to shoot.”
“I only need another minute to get to you,” he said.
He dived down another flight of stairs. He decided he was moving too fast to risk reloading his weapon. Cass magnetized it to his chest plate and he moved faster down the stairs instead. She displayed the other group in the elevator. They came to a stop more than ten floors below Kristen’s level. Burke wondered at that as something like an explosion came through the call in her apartment. He heard three shots before the video feed abruptly cut off. A second later, Cass lost connection with the rest of the cameras and the lights in the stairwell went dark.
“They cut power to the building,” Cass said.
Burke stayed calm. He was less than twenty seconds away from reaching the apartment. Cass changed the visor to accommodate for the low level of light in the stairwell. He moved just as quickly in the darkness. When he burst through the door onto Kristen’s level, the light from the scattered corridor windows made it easier to see.
He hadn’t heard anyone come into the stairwell below him. He knew that meant they were either still in her apartment or had taken her to the other stairway on the other side of the building. He saw three bodies in a heap on the floor outside Kristen’s apartment. He stepped over them quickly and saw a fourth corpse in the living room. She had managed to take four down before they got to her but she was gone. Her gun was on the floor.
“Cass, we need eyes on the outside of the building,” Burke rambled.
“I’m on it.”
He leaped over the other corpses and raced to the other stairwell. He shouldered his way through the door and heard footsteps far below him. Kristen wasn’t calling out; either she was gagged or unconscious, he was confident they wouldn’t kill her. Not yet at least, he thought, and gritted his teeth.
He dived down each set of stairs. He placed a hand on the nearest wall after each fall, pressing himself off of it with enough force that he left cracks in the concrete after he moved on. He was gaining ground on the group below him and could hear the sounds of their footsteps more clearly after he descended nine levels. At the next exit, however, the door suddenly opened and the other group flooded into the stairwell. They opened fire immediately and the barrage of bullets forced him to stop and back away.
The Bounty Hunter: Soldier's Wrath Page 6
