I should let it go. I should let it eat that stupid Furball.
But this monster crashed my ship. Again.
Use the sensors in my holoband, I find my gun about twelve feet away, lying in a bed of the stalky black grass. Pushing off the ground, I scramble to reach the weapon, snatch it off the ground, and turn on the spot to aim at the monster’s back.
Two bright, fiery red laser bolts erupt from the barrel in quick succession as I pull the trigger. The monster roars as guttering flames appear below its shoulders. It swipes madly at its back, trying to put out the flames. They die on their own a second later and the monster whirls around, snorting and roaring, searching for its attacker.
“Over here!” I call to it.
Another roar, and it comes running with booming, ground-shaking strides.
I take a deep breath, grab my pistol in a two-handed grip and use my holoband to help me line up the shot, taking my time to aim. I’m only going to get one shot.
The cross hairs on the holoband turn red and flash. I pull the trigger. This time the laser bolt hits the mark, straight in the left eye.
The monster lets out a ragged scream and its stride falters. It trips and goes down like a mini ground quake. I jump out of the way before its head can crush me.
Then I’m staring at that giant eye, peering into the smoldering hole I burned through the monster’s head.
No tough hide on those eyeballs.
I glance over at my ship—
Still smoking.
Holstering the DX-22, I limp over to the cockpit and climb in. The landing skids are broken, so I don’t even need the ladder rungs to climb up.
Inside, the cockpit is dark. I hit the power button, the displays flicker, then die. A stream of damage reports pop up on the main holo display. I’m running on battery power now. The reactor is damaged, the fusion chamber cracked. No way to fuse atoms safely without a proper containment system.
Setting a new priority for the nanobots, I hold my breath and wait to see a progress bar appear next to the reactor.
But it’s another lazy eight instead.
Now I’m really fucked.
Chapter 23
On the bright side, my comms are working. But, even if the network is in range of this Deus-forsaken world, I won’t be able to connect to the hypernet from the surface.
Chirr-up!
The sound comes over my right shoulder. I turn to see Furball perched there, watching me.
Chirr-up!
You cheer up, I think at it bitterly. If I hadn’t tried to save this miserable creature, I wouldn’t be in this mess now. I could have taken off and been on my way up into orbit in a couple of hours when the thrusters came online. But now...
Now, I’m really stranded.
Chirr?
I glance away, ignoring the creature. My gaze lands on the glowing orange speck of my portable heater. The gleaming, inflatable canvas of the survival pod sits beside it. My pack next to that. And the fallen monster splayed out on the hillside in front of me.
I wonder if it’s edible. A grimace peels back my lips.
Maybe the meat is toxic and I’ll die in agony. That sounds in keeping with my luck.
No. Got to stay positive. When the sun comes up, I’ll remove the reactor housing manually and see if there is a way to repair it by hand. Nanobots don’t get to have the final word.
I do.
But a repair job like that is going to be hellishly hard work, and after fourteen hours and change on this world and a sleepless night on Terra Novus, I’m exhausted. The high gravity here definitely isn’t helping.
May as well get a few hours of sleep while I’m waiting for sunrise. I hit the switch to shut the cockpit canopy and hear it grinding shut. The nanobots fixed the glass, but after that last crash, the canopy doesn’t make a proper seal. Yet another thing to fix before I make orbit, but it’ll be good enough to protect me from the elements here, and hopefully from the native lifeforms. Last thing I need is one of those night gliders swooping down and picking me off while I sleep.
I set my ship’s sensors to scan the immediate area and warn me if anything big approaches. The Vera’s power cells have about eight hours of juice in them, depending how heavily I use the ship’s systems, but for now I’ll happily trade safety for some of that power.
I recline my chair, cross my arms over my chest, and start thinking sleepy thoughts. But the only thoughts that come are troubled ones of eternal isolation on a world that seems determined to keep me here.
Chirr-up.
A flash of anger and my growing frustration meet, creating a toxic mix that’s just about to explode. But before I can curse the little guy into a shivering puddle, he crawls into my lap and curls up.
Then he starts chirring softly and rhythmically like some demented kitten.
* * *
The Vera’s sensors chirp sharply at me, and my eyes snap open. The 2D displays are all cracked and flickering, so I bring the sensor grid up on my holoband. Three medium-sized contacts just appeared, sailing down into atmosphere about a hundred klicks from my position.
My heart gives a kick as my pulse races up to speed from sleep. I sit up straight and rub the sleep from my eyes. The Clouds are pinkish peach with the sunrise. The curving arcs of the ancient orbital ring that once circled this world are agleam with the rising sun. I activate my comms to hail the nearest ship. Just as I’m doing that, I see them coasting down through the clouds, riding pale blue ion trails.
Two freighters and one navy destroyer. They look like Coalition ships.
The Coalition. Here. All this time I’ve been assuming that this world was uninhabited because it’s not on any registered star charts.
Guess I was wrong about that. Maybe my luck is turning. Furball shifts his position in my lap. My legs feel like ice everywhere except for where he’s sitting. A nice little leg warmer.
Activating the comms, I take a breath and then compose my message:
“Mayday, mayday. Coalition vessels, this is Lee Corvus of the Vera. I’ve crashed and require emergency rescue.”
The speakers in my holoband hiss and buzz with static as I wait for a reply. Then comes a gritty female voice. “Mr. Corvus, this is a restricted world. Explain your presence here.”
Restricted. That’s interesting. Even more interesting is the fact that the speaker didn’t even bother to identify themselves. The Coalition must be here searching for artifacts from the Priors. With both the Alliance and the Coalition locked in a century-long cold war, both sides are highly interested in finding and studying the advanced alien technology that the Priors left behind.
Taking another breath, I say, “I blind-jumped through a rift, and it brought me here.”
“Blind jumps are illegal, Mr. Corvus. Are you admitting to illicit activities?”
“Blind jumps are not illegal in Alliance space. I came here from Terra Novus in the Eden System.”
I sit listening to a long crackling pause. Furball is studying me with one blue eye cracked open, blinking sleepily.
The woman sends another message. “Terra Novus is over a hundred light-years away, Mr. Corvus.”
A hundred light years in ten seconds? That has to be a new record for a rift-jump. Unless it only felt like ten seconds and was actually a decade for everyone else.
“Good to know, ma’am. May I ask what year it is?”
Another pause. Maybe she’s also switched to wondering what year I’m from.
“The year is 716 AA.”
AA. Anno Astrum. Latin for, In the Year of the Stars. The Coalition starts their calendar from when they colonized the first Earth-like planet: Terra Novus—back then, Trappist-1E. But The Alliance starts their calendar, the Universal Galactic Calendar, one hundred and fifty-nine years later when they gained independence from the Coalition.
The two sides have managed to write the history of their conflict into the fabric of time itself.
It takes me a second to do the math. Still 55
7 UGC. A sigh whistles out through my air filter mask.
Another message from the unidentified speaker comes over my comms. “What year were you expecting it to be, Mr. Corvus?”
“That’s the one. All good. If you could send a salvage crew or a repair crew to my location, I’d really appreciate it. I can pay whatever it costs. Within reason.”
“You’re in an IF-17 Interceptor. That won’t get you back to Terra Novus, not even to the neutral zone. And you’re in the Coalition illegally. We’ll have to pick you up and process you accordingly.”
“Fine by me.”
“Stand by. We’ll send a team down for you at our earliest convenience.”
“Copy that. Thanks...”
“Captain,” the unidentified speaker supplies, still not giving me a name.
And I thought the Paladins were a secretive outfit. Who the hell are these people?
None of my business, I suppose. So long as they’re not planning to kill me to keep my nose out of theirs.
Chirrrr?
Another blue eye winks open.
“I don’t have any answers for you, buddy.”
A frown creases my lips as the destroyer peels away from those two freighters. The bow of the warship lines up directly with me. My breath catches in my chest. If they’re planning to kill me, they’ve got a clear shot. One round from their railguns and bits and pieces of me will be scattered all over this hillside.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up straight, and my gut tickles with a warning.
Now might be a good time to get the hell out of my ship.
Chapter 24
I’m hiding outside my ship, peeking around the dead carcass of the tree monster as that Coalition destroyer cruises in low overhead. Furball elected to stay in the cockpit. Maybe he was the smart one, I think, as hangar doors open up in the bottom of the destroyer, and a giant mag clamp comes reeling down. That’s my cue.
I step casually out of cover, waving to the destroyer as I go around collecting my valuables. The survival pack—some forty pounds of gear turned to seventy from the gravity on this world. The portable heater, another fifteen. My canteen, two. Then comes the survival pod. I use my neuralink to vent the air from the inflatable pod. It collapses in a heap. I fold it up and stuff it in the bag. The mag clamp attaches to the topside of my interceptor with a resounding thunk.
And I go running over to dump my gear into the cargo box behind the cockpit. The destroyer waits for me, hovering patiently overhead, but I can imagine that captain I spoke to grinding her teeth as she wonders why I didn’t do this earlier.
Because I didn’t know if you were going to vaporize me, I think at her figurative presence.
They still could, of course, but then why fly all the way over here? They could have blasted me from where they were and then gone on with their day.
It wouldn’t be very utopian of them, but I know first-hand how flexible morality can be for the various branches of the Coalition’s military. Guarding utopia is a dirty business.
Furball chirrs at me as I climb back into my cockpit. Before I’m even properly seated, the destroyer starts reeling that mag clamp back in. I pull the lever to shut the canopy. Just in case. I really don’t want to fall out again. There won’t be any tree monsters to catch me this time.
My alien pet hops on my shoulder and peers curiously up at the yawning hangar bay we’re being reeled into. His little black mouth pops open in an O. I wonder what captain anonymous will think of taking a xeno aboard her ship.
“I guess we’re about to find out, huh Furball?”
We sail up past the open doors of the hangar and they slide shut behind us with an ominous thump.
The mag clamp stops reeling and my ship clangs as it touches down on top of the loading doors.
Various ships are parked around the deck. Troop transports mostly. A few interceptors. Cargo crates are stacked neatly along the walls.
And a welcome party is marching out to greet me: a squad of thirteen Coalition Marines in full body armor, dull gray, their helmets on and visors up. Rifles at hand. Their armor has adaptive camouflage, but they’re set to the default gray, designed to blend in nicely with the no-frills color of the corridors on a spacefleet ship like this one.
Standing in front of them in a trim white pressure suit with hands clasped behind her back is captain anonymous herself. Her helmet is the unarmored, emergency collar used by officers and enlisted of the Coalition Fleet. Right now is not an emergency, so that collar lies in a wrinkled black ruffle around her neck. Her jet-black hair is pulled into a tight bun at the back of her head. She looks to be maybe thirty, but her chronological age is unknowable from her appearance. She’s pretty, but severe. Short and petite, but impressive nonetheless.
I must have seen a hundred women like her during my years with the Paladins. In fact, it’s a wonder that I haven’t met this woman already.
I wonder why she’s waiting for me here, in the hangar, rather than in one of the airlocks where they can decontaminate me and Furball. Maybe this planet doesn’t have any pathogens or allergens to worry about.
I guess my filter mask wasn’t necessary.
Pulling it off my head, I hit the lever to open the cockpit. It shudders as it starts to open up, groans pitifully, then gets stuck halfway.
I hesitate before climbing out. The captain is standing here in clear line of fire. I’m armed, and by now she must know that. But so is she, and she has thirteen Marines behind her who will vaporize me if I even try to draw my weapon.
For all I know they have the hangar’s guns trained on me, too. Two giant triple-barreled turrets sit on the ceiling, laser cannons and railguns pointing down at my head.
They’d blow a hole in their doors if they tried to shoot me with those.
“Come on out, Mr. Corvus,” Captain whats-her-name calls to me.
I’m halfway out of my seat when she adds, “Or should I say, Mr. Korbin?”
I freeze and look up sharply. My eyes lock with the captain’s. A knowing smile lifts her lips. I notice a fading glow from ARCs vanishing from her honey-brown eyes. She’s not a bot. Her fingers just twitched. Bots don’t twitch. Cyborgs do, sometimes, but I don’t think she is one. She probably just prefers contacts to holobands. Less obtrusive. Or maybe the Coalition finally perfected a version of Augmented Reality Contacts that can be worn comfortably for long periods of time.
I finish climbing out. My mag boots touch the deck with a telltale clang.
“Surprised that I can see through your biomask?” the captain asks. One eyebrow arches up in question.
I am surprised, but I don’t say so.
Chirrr...
The Marines shuffle their feet. A few of them appear to notice the creature hiding in my cockpit.
“I know who you are, because your cover was blown. Your face and all of its known versions and aliases are all over the net. The SID codes for your ships were published as well. There is a warrant out for your arrest in the Alliance and a hefty private contract out for you as well.”
This is bad. Really bad. Mohinari didn’t just connect Roman Arovitch to Lee Corvus. He connected Lee Corvus to Cade Korbin. And then he shared all of that info with the corrupt authorities on Terra Novus, authorities who are keen to catch the man who killed several their own at Rikard Spaceport.
I don’t even know how it’s possible that Mohinari figured out who I really am. I haven’t used my real name or my real face in public or anywhere that a holocam could see for years. Not since leaving ARCmax and Coalition Space and starting my career as a bounty hunter in the Alliance.
“Am I under arrest?” I ask the captain blandly.
Chapter 25
“No, you’re not under arrest, but I am going to need that weapon.” The captain nods to the DX-22 holstered on my hip.
I reach for it, and the rifles from all thirteen Marines snap up.
“Don’t be stupid,” the captain says. “We’ll do the honors for you.”
<
br /> My hand drifts away from the weapon, and two Marines come striding toward me. They grab the weapon, then step back to keep me covered from behind.
“Move.” One of them orders.
I start toward the captain. Stop in front of her.
She regards me steadily.
I choose to speak first. “You said there is a warrant for my arrest.”
“There is, but as you know, the Alliance and the Coalition do not have an extradition treaty.”
“There is still a private contract on my head.”
“Bounty hunting is illegal in the Alliance.”
“Fair enough. So what are you going to do with me?”
“That’s the tricky part,” the captain says.
While I’m waiting for her to figure out the answer, I try checking her name and public details on my holoband. Unsurprisingly, no name appears above her head. And no public dossier pops up in the focal area of my holoband. Instead I get a single line of text:
Error. No matches found.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. If she hasn’t given me her name, she’s definitely not going to broadcast it over the net.
“Take me and my ship to the nearest port and I’ll be on my way,” I suggest. “I can pay you for your trouble.”
The captain waves my suggestion away, as if credits are meaningless to her. Maybe they are. Not everyone is motivated by money. Especially in the Coalition. But I feel like there is a caveat coming.
“This is an uncharted world, and you’re not supposed to be here,” the captain says.
“All the more reason to take me somewhere else.”
“Perhaps.”
The captain gestures to the two Marines who came over to confiscate my weapon.
“Bind his hands and take him to the brig.”
I frown and glare daggers at the captain. I feel tricked. “I thought you said I wasn’t under arrest.”
“You’re not, but this isn’t a pleasure cruise. It’s a warship with plenty of sensitive data and equipment. I’m surprised that I have to explain that to a former Paladin.”
The Bounty Hunter (Cade Korbin Chronicles Book 1) Page 10
