Bounty's Call

by Max Jager

  She sang no words, instead vocalizing some unknown tune that kept Jameson moving inexorably forward. He couldn't stop listening to it. Part of him wanted to hear her keep singing, even if his ears were starting to bleed out in his helmet.

  Axus unlocked the cell, Jameson on his heels as the two of them began undoing the mesh keeping Madeira bound.

  Near the last of the wires, the song suddenly died down. Jameson's head still felt foggy, blood sticky on the sides of his face. He thought he was going to pass out, his vision swimming with black patches. At length, he became aware of a voice calling out to him.

  "Jameson! Jameson, focus! WAKE UP!"

  Jameson blinked, realizing that he was still unconsciously fumbling with Madeira's restraints.

  It all came crashing down.

  Whipping out his gun, he spun around just as Axus dodging back out of the cell, rolling across the floor. Jameson cursed, firing several wild shots. His head still spun slightly, throwing off his aim.

  Axus had lost his firearm somewhere in the haze. He was having no trouble dodging Jameson's poor shots, making his way out of the room.

  Jameson spared a glance at Madeira. Although she was free from her bounds, with her tailfin still fully grown she wasn't moving anywhere. Her expression was fierce.

  "Well don't just let him get away!"

  Jameson didn't waste any more time. He burst out of the cell, slamming into the door before Axus could lock it again. The impact threw Axus backward, who had started to put his whole body weight into closing the door. Jameson shoved again, forcing the door open in time to see Axus stumble back towards his computer station.

  Jameson brought his pistol up again, firing several quick shots. In the end, Axus's off balance saved his life. He fell backwards roughly, Jameson's shots flying over his head and slamming into the computer equipment.

  Only now Jameson could see it wasn't just computer equipment. The shots sent bursts of explosive sparks and plasma, breaching some sort of generator encased inside. Warning klaxons sounded, and in the chaos Axus retreated back deeper into the room, out of Jameson's line of sight.

  Jameson's head still spun. Whatever the hell siren song Madeira had sung, it was doing a number on his reflexes. The good news was it probably had the same effect on Axus. But there was no time to go after him; Jameson could see now that whatever he had shot at was about to go critical.

  An entire panel from the wall gave way, revealing a large cylindrical device inside with translucent walls. Although heavily modified and pulsing with alien colors, Jameson recognized what he was seeing; a Lauritzen device. The heart of a starship. Having trained in the Fleet and working from time to time on the Crimson, Jameson recognized the basic design. But there was so much more to this; so many extra parts that were out of place.

  This was Axus's time machine.

  And to his horror, he could see how whatever illegal modifications Axus had made were beginning to burst apart. Several small plasma explosions tore apart the wall.

  The whole thing was a giant bomb now.

  Jameson turned back into the cell room behind him, rushing by Madeira's side. "We need to get out of here!"

  He roughly scooped up Madeira, placing one arm under where her hip and tailfin came together, wrapping the other around her back. Madeira wrapped both her arms around his neck, and the two stumbled back outside.

  "Over there!" Madeira yelled over the plasma explosions. "There's another exit!"

  Jameson dove into the maze of equipment, wincing as a blinding pulse of light threatened to envelop them. It cleared a moment later; clearly not the finale of whatever runaway reaction was about to demolish this place.

  Jameson tapped into his cybernetics, pulling reserves of energy to keep his strength holding Madeira and running for dear life. His head was still messed up from whatever the hell she had pulled on him and Axus, but at least he was still moving. If they survived, he would ask her about it later.

  Sure enough, he spotted another inlaid doorway on the opposite wall, this one large enough to be a freight door. Jameson lifted one foot, delivering a swift kick to the large release mechanism. It dented inward, but it was enough to get the doors moving, revealing a large elevator car on the other side.

  Jameson dove in, elbowing the control panel inside. The doors rushed closed as the plasma explosions in the room beyond hit their crescendo. Jameson felt his knees threaten to buckle, the elevator rising swiftly. Below, a large tremor shook the earthen walls around them, a loud roar building beneath their feet.

  The car jolted again, sending Jameson tumbling backwards against one of the walls. Keeping his grip on Madeira, he dampened their fall as he slid down onto the floor. The lights killed, but he felt momentum still carrying them upwards. Madeira pressed in against him, her arms squeezing him for dear life.

  After a minute or maybe an eternity of buffeting and groaning from the world beneath them, everything came to a sudden, quiet halt.

  In the silence, Jameson heard Madeira breathing rapidly. "It's okay," he stammered, his voice a little hoarse. "We're alive."

  "Are you sure?" Madeira replied, still trembling. "Isn't this the part where we see a bright light?"

  As if on cue, a sliver of blinding yellow sunlight cut down through the middle of the elevator doors. Metal groaned as the two halves parted, and dark silhouettes took shape overhead. One with very sharply, upstanding hair.

  "Hey! Dane, look! The bounty hunter made it…! And he found a mermaid?"

  A second head peeked in. "Whoa! That girl bounty hunter is a mermaid!"

  "If we're dead," Madeira added, "then I have no idea where this is supposed to be."

  Jameson grunted, pulling more reserve energy from his cybernetics. Oh, those would need to be overhauled back on the Crimson. But it was enough to get him to his feet, pushing past the two officers out into the sunlight.

  They were in some lot behind a warehouse. Ahead of them, a large section had caved in, revealing several dozen meters of mineshaft now open to the world. A large crater far below revealed what was left of Axus's hideout.

  The place was also crawling with other law enforcement, most wearing high tech gear and equipment Jameson didn't know anyone this far out in the Expanse actually owned. One in a medic's uniform rushed to join the two.

  "More survivors, sirs?" he said respectfully to Brend and Dane.

  "Oh yeah," said Dane. "These are the bounty hunters that helped us!"

  The medic stared at them, blinking. "You two helped these heroes on one of the single biggest crime busts in Kraven history?!"

  Jameson straightened up, looking between the medic and the two cops. He could see now from their grins that Madeira and he had missed a lot down below.

  "I guess someone is getting a promotion," Madeira grunted.

  "Oh you have no idea," Brend said happily. "You two basically got us the biggest jumpstart in our careers."

  Cannon

  C hapter 25

  Cannon

  * * *

  The Mediterranean Expanse

  Kraven Star System, Planet Kraven

  Planetside City Chino

  * * *

  Jameson kept Madeira cradled in his arms as the two walked away from the scene. Grade had melted out of the chaos, taking up place beside them. Law enforcement was crawling all over the local commercial district now, pouring into the blasted open mine shafts below. And at the center of it all, those two cops, Brend and Dane, were receiving a hero's welcome.

  "You know," Mathison began over their comms, "those two cops are getting all the credit."

  "Let them have it," Jameson grunted.

  "All because they were in the right place at the right time."

  Madeira grinned. "Hanging around Space Donuts being lazy." She sighed. "I'll take it. It got me out of that hellhole."

  Jameson felt himself unconsciously tense. He glanced down at Madeira, his faceplate long since retracted. "Are you okay? Did he…hurt you?"

  Sh
e shrugged nonchalantly. "I was out for most of it, honestly. I started to wake when he first brought me down—that's how I knew about the elevator. But if he did anything to me, I sure don't feel any worse for it."

  Jameson sighed, straightening his jacket on her. She was still only in her swimwear, not even a kadvair to protect her. He had taken off his jacket the moment they were checked out by medics on the scene. He wanted something to cover her up, even if she didn't seem shaken.

  More than anything, he still felt strange after the way she had sung. It left his mind in a bit of a haze he was trying to overcome. One he wasn't sure he wanted to overcome.

  "Bastard snuck in on me just as I was finishing up my tail," she growled. "As soon as we get back to the Crimson, I'm going to start loosening it. Would have sooner, but it's a process, and Axus kept me too drugged up."

  Jameson hesitated, not certain if he wanted to ask the question. But curiosity got the better of him. "Madeira, back down in the mines…what was that song?"

  Madeira got a knowing smile on her face. "Oh, that? Another one of the gifts of the Nereis. Something evolutionary we added in to our physiology. Kind of hypnotizing, yeah? Helps us settle conflicts among each other without all out war. Works well on humans, too."

  Jameson shook his head, grinning now, too. "I guess that makes sense. It was really…weird at first."

  "Of course it is! My people wanted it to be a lot like the siren's song of story. I was trying to use it to get Axus to set me free. But once I saw you were there, too, I knew it wasn't going to work. But it was enough to get him to open the door."

  Jameson laughed. "You have no idea what that did to my brain."

  Madeira laughed too. "Sorry, sorry. I promise not to hypnotize you in the future."

  At hearing Madeira say sorry, Jameson felt a stone drop into his stomach.

  "If anyone should be saying sorry, it's me."

  She cocked an eyebrow at that statement. They were to the skiff now, where Jameson had illegally parked it up the street from the diner. With all of law enforcement focused back down the street, no one had bothered it since.

  Inside, Jameson set her down on one of the benches in the main compartment. She didn't quite let go of her grasp around his neck.

  "Jameson?"

  He bowed his head, suddenly pulling her into a hug. "I shouldn't have been so stupid. I left us open for Axus to walk in and grab you like that. I'm…so sorry."

  For a long time, Jameson had used the pain of his fallen friends to fuel him against Axus. He had never imagined a time when he would have new friends that Axus could use to hurt him again. Jameson should have realized this; he should have calculated Axus's schemes and acted more responsibly. Instead, he had almost let the man destroy Madeira.

  "I'm a dangerous person, Madeira. Axus fights by finding the best way to hurt his enemies, and that means hurting the people close to me. I saw him do it too many times with all of my old friends. So many of them are dead now because of me. And now he almost did the same thing to you…"

  Jameson broke away from her, expecting to see betrayal in her eyes. He knew that no matter how much he had tried preparing her for tagging along with him, there was nothing he could have said to prepare her for whatever Axus would do. Surely she would understand now just how dangerous it was being around him.

  Instead, she had this mischievously little grin on her face. She shook her head. "Oh, Jameson…"

  Then quite suddenly she leaned in and pecked him on the lips. Electricity seemed to flow from the touch of her lips on Jameson's.

  "Worry about me if you want," she said, backing up. "I kind of like this new side to you. But it's my job to keep from letting that creep get his hands on me again. It's your job to finish him."

  Jameson was breathless for a moment, but nodded resolutely to himself. The moment was interrupted of course by Mathison.

  "Hate to break things up, but I don't have good news."

  "Now what?" Jameson stammered.

  "Axus is already off planet. He had his ship hidden somewhere over one of the poles. I still can't believe I missed the damned thing. Anyway, it just fired up its Lauritzen drive and I plotted its exit trajectory."

  Jameson already knew where he was headed. "Draconian space."

  0.0.0

  * * *

  The Mediterranean Expanse

  En Route to Draconian Space

  * * *

  Jameson glanced briefly at the monitor on the galley wall. Mathison had been kind enough to wire in the Crimson's navigation data to one of the screens, displaying their quick jaunt from Kraven in pursuit of Axus. His ship was also superimposed on the display, a few scant lightyears ahead of them.

  The galley had seemed like a more comfortable choice for this meeting. It wasn't as confined or official as the bridge, and, more than anything, gave Madeira a chance to relax after being kidnapped by Axus. She was reclined in one of the full body chairs near the table, changed back into one of her white civilian kadvairs that looked more like an elaborate swimsuit. The comfortable lighting from the galley sent shimmering sparkles off her turquoise seed scales scattered across her bare legs.

  "It's all about Kraven," Jameson began. "It always has been. After meeting with Strange, I thought he was a revolutionary trying to prevent a terrible war. He was really just trying to protect one world ravaged by a terrible war; his home world."

  "But he came back in time," said Madeira. "He knows that he can't get those years back."

  "No, but he knows that some part of him can. That copy—that younger version, Kote—he can live out and lead a happy life that Axus blames me for stealing. And since he holds Gibraltar responsible, he's helping Draconia—the only other entity capable of ending this war before it begins."

  Mathison chimed in. "It doesn't help what we learned about Helios-One."

  Madeira bowed her head, remembering what Jameson had explained about their discovery.

  "There's a part of me that feels Axus is right to want vengeance," Jameson began wearily. "But the devastation he's still planning for Gibraltar is far worse. This is not about vengeance anymore."

  Silence fell over the galley. Madeira finally broke it, still reclining, stretching her legs.

  "How is he going to do it? Where can we stop him?"

  "So glad you asked!" Mathison replied cheerfully. "It wasn't easy, but I managed to follow Jameson's comms down into Axus's little bunker deep in the mines. Between some data harvested there and my current parry with the corrupt MATHISON in the Gibraltar mainframe, I've been learning some interesting things. For instance, that MATHISON on Andorra? Axus brought it back in time with him. That's how it knows all the codes and correctly guesses all future revisions. It knows exactly how to play nice with the other MATHISONs. And it's pissed that I'm onto it."

  "So weird imagining a pissed MATHISON," said Jameson.

  "It happens. But continuing: it looks like Axus's plan is to have it sneak behind secure firewalls and probe the spatial location of all Gibraltar Strategic Cannons. Once it transmits that information to Axus, Draconia will be open for a perfect, one hundred percent perfect first strike. They can take every last cannon out in a single shot, completely avoiding a second strike and nullifying the status quo MAD situation."

  Jameson nodded grimly, the pieces falling into place.

  "Freakin' ball sack," Madeira cursed. "How much time do we have?"

  "It gets worse," Mathison continued. "I picked up a communiqué from Jaxx among the harvested data: Draconia High Command green-lit the plan weeks ago. Back when we were still chasing Axus to Kraven. He probably got the same Intel we found on Andorra and shoved it in their faces: fully weaponized Helios-One and three auxiliary Fleets nearing completion. All Axus had to do was tie up whatever loose ends he had on Kraven and then jaunt off to Draconia space to get the party started."

  "So Draconia still needs him?" Jameson asked, perking up. "That's why the first shots haven't been fired?"

  "Damn straig
ht. Otherwise we'd be hearing about the first strike before getting to Madeira. It's Axus's MATHISON; and he's still having it root around the Gibraltar mainframe. But my guess he's on a timer, and once he gets the last coords, he's ready to fire. That's where he's headed now."

  Madeira sat up. "Now? Headed where?"

  "A Command Strategic Cannon platform," Jameson replied grimly. "Hidden at a secret location near the border of Draconian space."