From behind the first bandit, Talbert appeared and clubbed him across the back of the head. Before they could raise their laser shotguns, Talbert cross drew his other pistol with his left hand and shot the second and third bandit dead. He twirled and stepped forward as the fourth bandit tried to run. A shot to the back of the skull ended his flight.
On his knees after the blow, the first bandit turned and looked up at Talbert with sheer malice and hatred on his grimy face.
“The war’s over, Devil Bill. You lost. We should have killed you back in Grandby, you miserable piece of…”
Talbert ended the conversation with a blast to the man’s forehead, painting the post a slovenly red behind him.
*
S.S. Pequod F-Class Passenger Bridge Jumper:
Roslyn
If someone looked at a map of the galaxy, they’d see that from Danaus it was another twelve light years to Shiva. Twenty-one light years separated Danaus and Lynceus, the two furthest former colonies from each other. But thanks to Sir Vincent’s bridges, distance didn’t effect travel time between planets.
Bridge technology cut the trips between the colonies down to months, sometimes weeks. The reason for the length still being measured in standard months was the fact that bridges couldn’t be created within solar systems. They would disrupt the orbits of the planets. So the length of the trip depended on how long it would take to leave a planet and reach the empty space beyond its system. Outside of each perspective system, four large bridges loomed in open space.
Warp drive technology then brought the large bridge jumpers in and out of solar systems to the bridges.
From Danaus to Shiva was by far the quickest trip between any two planets. Each planet’s system had a Super Jupiter class bodyguard cleaning up their outer systems. Past each of those stretched empty space. The journey from Danaus to beyond its system took a mere three weeks. In similar fashion, Shiva to its bridge passed in five weeks. In stark contrast, it took one-point-six years to reach Earth’s bridge. This was due to the Oort Cloud; the ever expansive realm of the comets and frozen protoplanets. A bridge inside the Oort Cloud would send those comets hurling toward the inner solar system. This was also why Earth backed away from the war and let the rebels have their lawless colonies.
The windowless cargo hold closed in around Roslyn, making her feel very claustrophobic. She couldn’t sleep. She considered having Hattie tap her on the head with her sword, but decided against it. Hattie couldn’t sleep as well and her incessant pacing made Roslyn want to scream.
But Roslyn was a professional and held her tongue.
“Wanna bet I was a samurai?” Hattie said, doing a slow, deliberate dance with her sword. She was very fluid with it, thought Roslyn. Bridge jumpers were built vertically, and resembled ten story buildings back on Earth. The mock thrust created 1G, making pacing back and forth and practicing sword techniques possible.
This bridge jumper was larger and more comfortable than the one they’d hopped from Earth to Danaus. Of this Roslyn was thankful. She’d listen to enough of Hattie’s sermons to at least try and appreciate the positives.
They took turns watching their prisoner and this was the changing of the guard. Hattie’s shift was finally ending.
“You think?” Roslyn said, absently. “I don’t want them to do a reading on me.”
“No?” Hattie asked, surprised. “I can’t wait for mine. I’m dying to know who I was before.”
“I think they only read senior agents,” Roslyn said, bursting her bubble. Though Hattie seemed to be more interested in her exercises to care.
“How much is this asshole worth, again?” Roslyn asked motioning toward the cage with her long skinny thumb. She had big hands. It was an area of insecurity with her ever since she’d gone through puberty and her digits elongated to hideous proportions. She had large feet as well and lied about her shoe size when asked.
“Alive?” asked Hattie, stopping at the cage to peer in. Her face filled with growing concern.
“Yeah?” answered Roslyn, picking up that something might be wrong, but just not ready to understand what that would be yet.
“It was twenty thousand bytes,” whispered Hattie.
“What the hells does that mean?” asked Roslyn jumping to her feet. “Was?”
The prisoner’s eyes stared off into nothing.
“Is he breathing?” asked Hattie.
“He’s breathing but…” Roslyn said, opening the cage. She slapped him across the face. The body fell over onto the floor. His mouth and eyes stood open.
Roslyn slapped him again, more out of frustration and guilt, than as an attempt to revive.
“What the hells happened?” asked Hattie covering her mouth.
“Well,” said Roslyn, putting her head in her hands, trying not to weep again. This job sucked so far. She was a flaming failure. “I guess there’s a limit to the amount of times you can put somebody out with that toxin of yours.”
“How much is he worth dead?” asked Hattie.
“Technically, he’s not dead. He’s in a coma. But, I have to check, that was never part of the plan,” Roslyn said after a moment to gather her wits. Roslyn fished for her cheap, plastic transponder device and clicked it. A glitchy holographic Wanted Poster projected above it: Wanted, Klitty Bangers. Alive 20K Bytes. Dead 5K Bytes.
“Well shit,” said Roslyn, feeling like someone just kicked her in the chest. She slumped down on her seat and fought the tears. Screwing up her mouth, she stared at the wall, wanting to kick it. The initial thought was of going back to Earth. There had been mischief and a misunderstanding back in New York. She couldn’t go back there. Besides, she didn’t want to waste another year and a half flying through that damn Oort Cloud. Plus Father would be waiting for her when they arrived on Shiva. But how the hells could she face him now?
She thought about the last time she’d seen her father. The look of anger and anguish mingled and swirled on his face. What had she done? Mother cried all the way back to Earth. At least until she met Dean Wellington in the captain’s lounge somewhere in the Oort Cloud. He was a billionaire from Boston, traveling with his two idiot sons.
Roslyn tried to practice what she would say to him. The plan to show up with a fresh, fully conscious bounty to present along with her resume, which included a Masters in Criminal Justice, had turned to shit.
“The Avians aren’t going to be happy with this,” Hattie said.
“No, the Birds are going to be pissed,” Roslyn said, heading through the door toward their cabin. “Just in addition to the other thing that happened…”
CHAPTER TWO
Planet Shiva (Northern Hemisphere):
Chindown
Shiva maintained only one spaceport town on the entire pristine planet. Humans of the unchosen variety were only allowed to come and go from this singular city. Located in the far northwest corner of the largest continent, Chindown served as a solemn entity, a foreign object, isolated to its own high steel walls. The walls were not designed to keep the citizens of Chindown safe from what lurked in the forests, but quite the opposite.
Near the city center, stood a building three stories tall. On the hologram out front it read: INTERSTELLAR PEACE KEEPERS AND DETECTIVE AGENCY. The eye of Horus blinked below it, with the words: “We Never Sleep”, to follow. As with most days, it rained. While the rest of the planet was a tropical paradise, the far northwest was gloomy and damp almost all three hundred and forty-seven days of the year.
Roslyn looked up at the building underwhelmed. Father had made it sound so grandiose in his emails. The back of her pants and the bottom of her shirt were wet. The first place she’d sweat would be the top of her butt.
It had all been so perfect in her mind. She’d show up with the bounty, drop him in Father’s lap and he’d forget all about the past. She’d take it from there. All her training and knowledge would save the company and he would love her again. But he’d been the one who had done it. It was crazy why she fel
t the guilt. She pushed the comatose bounty strapped to a hover truck toward the building. Hattie slightly trailer her.
“When do we get to meet one of them?” Hattie asked, scanning the sky for a giant blue bird to pass over. There were nothing but shuttles traversing the skies.
“Too soon,” Roslyn said under her breath.
As they stepped toward the lobby, the doors swished open and out stepped Allan Fink, her father. Twelve years had been hard on the old man. Maybe it was the war that had been so hard. His hair was all white, longer than she’d imagined he ever let it grow. No more military crew cuts for her wild and wholly, bounty hunter father.
Another term her New York friends invented: the mole. It was that thing that happens to someone when they loose all their confidence and turn plastic and awkward. The mole had tunneled inside them and they didn’t know how to act any more. Seeing her father allowed the mole to crawl inside of her. She knew she needed to hug him and greet him warmly, but she didn’t know how to do that. So she stood there, staring at him. He returned the expression. Perhaps the mole had gotten to him as well.
Long before the war, when they’d all lived together as one happy, regular family, she’d loved her father desperately. Not that she didn’t still love him, but it wasn’t any thing near what it had been when she was daddy’s little girl. Then the war took him away. There were two times he came home during the war. Then the one time Mother and Roslyn came to Danaus’ southern orbiting base to visit him for the holidays. That had been the last time she’d seen him. Now he looked tired.
“Welcome to Shiva, Ros,” Allan said with a smile.
“I’m amazed at this place,” Roslyn said, looking around, avoiding looking at him.
“Yeah, well, they let us live here on pretty strict conditions, there, sweetie.” There was sorrow behind his voice; a kind of sad compassion. Like he felt sorry for her. Why did he feel sorry for her?
“He’s not dead, then, is what your email said,” he said, examining the bounty. She’d sent the email as soon as they exited the bridge and came within range. It had most likely arrived that morning, just ahead of them, only because the ship had to dock with the station and then she had to take a shuttle down to the planet.
“How are the Avians on bounties in comas?” asked Roslyn, biting a fingernail. She spit it into a plant analogue that looked like a giant red vegetable with limbs and yellow leaves. Its flowers were green and shiny.
“I read your report,” he said showing her into the building. “It’s not easy to kill, kid. Never is. But your first is…” Allan shook his head and stared off into nothing. “Can I hug ya?”
She shrugged then nodded. Almost reluctantly, as if she might change her mind and gallop away, he approached her. He put his arms around her and pulled her in. He was thinner than she’d remembered; not nearly as big and strong. His vigor was gone. It broke her heart. Ah, Dad, what happened to everything? How’d it all go to shit?
“Well,” she said to pull away. “Are you going to give me a tour or what?”
“Of course,” he said, and an invisible coat fell from his shoulders. He grinned and nodded his head, pleased with the suggestion.
He came alive, showing her his kingdom. The building was his castle.
“You need to understand what we’re trying to do out here,” he explained as they climbed the stairs to the second floor. There were glimpses of her old father there, in his excitement and pride.
“These Birds, now, they have rules,” he said, shaking his head. “This place is paradise for a reason, you know.”
Roslyn looked out the window at the rain.
“Well not this place, this place is shit, but the rest of Shiva.” He showed her the armament. She was impressed with the range of the arsenal. She couldn’t help but wonder if this was one of the strains on the budget. Did he even have spreadsheets? Formulas? Highly doubt it.
Finally he showed her his office. He straightened his desk, quickly, blew dust off of a picture and pulled a chair for her.
Allan Fink sat behind his desk, with the bay window behind him. Rain streamed down the glass. He fidgeted and rearranged a paperweight while he searched for words. She noticed the room had a sweet, mildew stench about it.
“So yeah, that’s my operation. We have several agents in the field right now. So its a bit quiet around here today,” Allan said, finally.
“Cool,” she said. The room fell to silence. The mole scratched and burrowed.
“So, I had a chance to look things over on my way out here,” said Roslyn. “Tell Sage thank you for sending me all of that stuff.”
“Good,” he said, pursing his lips. “I’m so glad you’re taking an interest in my…” he trailed off, unsure of the word to use.
“All I’m thinking the whole time, reading case file after case file of the petty chumps that bring in a couple K here and there,” she leaned forward in her chair and cocked her head. “I think it’s time we went after a bounty with a lot more juice on them.”
His only response was a polite grin.
Roslyn shrugged and leaned back, sniffing her yellow ponytail briefly. She needed to wash it. But it still smelled better than that damned office. “You know? We need a big payday, here, to build our brand.”
She’d rehearsed that speech thousands of times on her way from Earth. It came out now a bit too heavy-handed and she knew it.
“I appreciate the, you know, the enthusiasm and all of that, I do,” Allan said, grinning. “But, honey, if it were that simple, we’d have maybe done it by now, don’t you think?”
The little demon crawled deep inside and kept digging. She felt wobbly. But she had a Masters in this shit. Maybe he should at least try to listen. His out dated ways plain and simply were not working. So she smashed the mole with that and straightened.
“What have you tried?” asked Roslyn, crossing her legs.
“Honey. You need to take it down several notches. Okay? Firstly, we can’t just let our agents be killed. There are people out there who are deadlier than you can imagine, kid,” Allan said, a tinge of regret in his voice. “That’s why the price is so high. It’s so high because, who ever wants them gone, really wants them gone. Usually because they are afraid of them. But now we have the Avians to deal with and now it’s about justice and harmony and all that shit.”
The door flinging open interrupted her next thought. Sage waved her hand as Devil Bill Talbert sauntered into the office unannounced. He paused upon seeing Roslyn seated across from her father.
Even though he was a tall man, he was shorter than she’d remembered. She’d met him once, when she was just barely a teenager. He was at the tail end of being a teenager himself. It had been that holiday on the base. She’d had such a nasty crush. He was making a name for himself at the time. They said he was a hero to the good guys and a war criminal to the bad. Though they mostly said he was dangerous. But he was kind to her. Friendly even. She was pretty sure he was her first crush. It was following him to the barracks, which was totally off-limits to her, but she wanted to talk to him again, when she’d seen her father and that woman together.
“I want to see you too, Bill. Come on in,” Allan said. “It’s all right, Sage. I want to see Bill too. Close the door.”
Talbert nodded awkwardly at Roslyn and took the seat next to her. His long legs caused his knees to jut upward. He placed his hat on one of the bony knees. The idea of Devil Bill sitting right next to her sent shivers. She tried to act as casual as possible.
“Bill, you remember Roslyn, my daughter?” asked Allan with a proud grin. Talbert cocked his head to the side and took her in with a fresh perspective.
“Is that right?” he finally asked. “You’re all grown up, now.”
“She’s joined up. Been trained proper back on Earth. Masters Degree. Wants to be like her daddy and restore some justice to these heathens.”
Talbert grunted and turned his head back to Allan. If her father had changed, then so had Devil Bill.
Years drenched in blood had made him something more akin to a wild animal, than a civilized man. This she gathered from the case files. Devil Bill killed, a lot. A hard shell had formed around him. This wasn’t the kind boy she’d met and fallen for all those years before. This was something else, entirely.
Roslyn tried not to turn to look at him, but it proved an impossible challenge. Her eyes found things to explore across the room. Happening to glance his way then back to mundane objects.
“The thing is, now we got this treaty with the bloody Eagles,” said Allan, scratching his beard. “This is a damn good place to call home, Ros.”
Talbert grunted and leaned back in his chair. A snake slithered up Roslyn’s spine; or was it the mole, on his way to tunnel.
“Remember those smaller fish that latch onto sharks or whatever and eat the parasites off of them?” asked Allan.
“Nope,” Talbert said, frowning harder. “I ain’t from Earth, remember?”
“But that’s what it’s like with us and the Avians,” he turned to Roslyn. “They need us, but they can’t condone us acting like savages, especially in their name. And of all the habitable planets out here, even in shitty Chindown, this is by far the best and safest one.”
The Avians had created a sphere of protection around their planet. It would take some powerfully dark energy to break through. But they only defended. They were enlightened; save the rare ones born with exceptions.
“You know, Billy, maybe it’s time to put the guns away and come help me run this joint, until I can retire,” said Allan to both of their surprises. “You’ve seen enough blood for one lifetime by now.”
“I don’t think I’m the right image for this firm, Allan,” Talbert said and glanced at Roslyn, who quickly looked out the window.
Killer Be Killed (The Frontier Book 1) Page 2
