The doors open and we race down an access corridor, around a corner, and up a ramp to the next level. The cockpit is dead ahead, the doors already open. I spot four seats. Two in front for pilot and co-pilot. Two behind for passengers and/or gunners.
The interior layout of this ship is starting to look familiar. Glancing back I see the characteristic Y-shaped curve of two separate corridors leading to the main thrusters. This ship has the same shape as mine, but it’s newer and larger. It’s a Type-9 Corvette. About fifty years newer than my old Type-7.
But with a rank like Aurora’s, not even below one thousand, and with only eleven contracts executed, she must have come from money.
Aurora drops into the pilot’s seat. I careen into the co-pilot’s seat beside her and drop my bag beside my feet while I fumble for my restraints. Bry hops up onto my shoulder, and I hear Violet buckling in behind me.
The ship comes alive around us, holo displays flickering to life. Buttons and sliders glowing.
Aurora’s hands are flying over the controls, muscle memory guiding them while her attention is actually elsewhere, controlling the holo displays mentally. I notice that the task of manually forcing the hangar doors open tore up the synthetic flesh of her hands. I can see pristine gleaming silver underneath. But nanites are busy making repairs, and the broad gashes in her palms sew themselves together as I watch.
Aurora is multitasking like a pro. She might be a relatively novice hunter, but she’s an expert pilot. How old is she? No way to know, but being a resurrected human, she could have lived a long life as a biological before coming back as the deadly machine she is now.
Her ship hovers off the deck.
A telltale shimmer of activating shields momentarily blurs the view of a cavernous hangar outside the cockpit. Good thing Margrave Station has a sealed hangar, or else we might already be under fire from whatever interceptors the station has at its disposal.
“Better get those guns online,” Aurora says to me. “We’re going out hot.”
I hear mag clamps thunking as they disengage from the station’s airlock and deck. The corvette rises, listing sharply to one side as it pushes up and off the landing pad. An illuminated rectangular opening appears with two separate corridors marked by parallel sets of flashing lights—green on the right for traffic leaving the station. Red on the left for traffic coming in.
Aurora powers up the thrusters, and the comms immediately crackle with a message from Margrave Station coming in on an open channel.
“Seraph, disengage your thrusters and cede control of your vessel immediately. Article two seventeen of Independent Systems Authority states that all take-offs and landings are to be conducted by station controllers. Penalties are—”
Aurora stabs the mute button and pushes the throttle up. A meaty roar sends us rocketing toward the green exit side of the hangar. An instant later we’re bursting into the star-streaked void.
A sullen text message pops up on the comms display: Seraph, you have been fined four thousand credits for violation of station safety protocols. Pay your fine immediately, or face the consequences.
Aurora glances briefly at the message, and then another one appears below it:
Transfer of 4,000 CR to MRGVOTS Complete.
Followed by another one:
Thank you for your compliance. Have a nice day.
Threat indicators start chirping out warnings as whoever has been trying so hard to recover Violet starts sending ships after us.
“Jump calculating. Two minutes and thirty to reach the edge of the inhibition field,” Aurora says.
I nod absently while scanning the sensor display for the numbers and positions of the ships on our tail.
Just two aging, bat-winged IF-11 interceptors, hiding on the other side of Margrave Station. With the guns on a Type-9, we could turn them into space dust in seconds. I relax into my seat.
No point bringing the guns on-line. We won.
I mentally access my chair controls and spin it to face Violet.
Her eyes meet mine and blink once. Slowly.
“Where to?” I ask her.
Aurora glances at me. “This isn’t a cruise liner. I said I’d get you out. Picking a destination is going to cost you extra.”
I wave away her objections. “Add it to my bill.” My supply of credits is getting dangerously low after the supplies I bought on Adagio Station, and now Aurora’s fee.
And I wasn’t exactly flush with credits before that. I spent most of my half-up-front fee for the Mohinari job on the IDs and gear I needed.
“So?” I prompt Violet. “Earth, right?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “My family’s in Alpha Centauri.”
I nod, then turn to look at Aurora.
“Thirty-five grand,” she says.
Another ten for the trip. Aurora is charging more than double what a private charter should, but it’s not as though we have any other options.
“Done.”
“In advance,” she adds.
I glance at her, frown, but give in with a nod. “Fine.” Making the requisite transfer, I see my credit balance drop to just twenty-three thousand. That won’t even cover the rest of the gear I’ll need if I’m going to be any use as Aurora’s partner.
“I’ll pay you back,” Violet says.
“Not necessary. I didn’t get you out of there for the credits.”
“That’s why it’s necessary,” Violet argues. “What’s your name?”
“Erin,” I supply.
She nods, and the gratitude is back in her blue eyes.
Bry looks to me. Chitters softly. Then his skinny black tongue darts out and smears my cheek with a sticky trail of foul-smelling saliva.
My jaw drops an inch and I glare out the corner of my eyes at him.
Aurora grimaces and covers her extra-sensitive synthetic nose with one hand. “Gah! That’s foul! The head is in the back. Go wash that off or I’m locking you out of the cockpit.”
Violet tucks her nose into the trench coat that I loaned her and regards me with laughing eyes.
I unbuckle, grab my go-bag from the deck at Violet’s feet, then pry Bry off my shoulder, and set him on my seat.
He chirps sharply at me, and puffs up briefly, as if indignant that I removed him from his perch.
While I’m in the bathroom, scrubbing my biomasked cheek with soap, Bry comes waddling in and hops up on the toilet.
I glare briefly at him, then go back to scrubbing my face clean. Moments later, a telltale jolt come through the deck, and the persistent roaring of thrusters dies away into silence as the Seraph’s FTL drive takes over.
A knot in my shoulders loosens, and I decide to take some extra time for a shower and to change into a fresh set of clothes.
Getting to Alpha Centauri from here will take a few days, depending how fast the Seraph is.
At least I’ll have the time to do my due diligence for the job I’m working with Aurora. For a start, I need to know who this twenty-one-year-old former syndicate bounty hunter is, and maybe even more importantly—who Aurora is. So far, she’s had plenty of chances to betray me to Mohinari for the price on my head—not directly, of course—but there are more subtle methods that won’t provoke the wrath of the Syndicate.
Maybe Aurora won’t do that because she needs me to help her get a much bigger fish. Fair enough. So what happens after the job is done?
I need to know that I can trust her not to stick a nanoblade in my back as soon as we have the target in custody. And to that end, there is no substitute for good research.
Chapter 32
“H, what’s the time?” I ask my holoband, as I step out of the steam shower and grab what looks like a fresh towel from a locker opposite the toilet.
“The time is zero four thirty-seven IST,” my holoband says from where I left it next to the sink. The tech is waterproof, but I figured I’d give my forehead a break by taking it off for a while.
It’s four thirty in the mornin
g IST—interstellar standard time. That’s the time zone I’m usually running on, but I’m not even slightly tired yet. The crazy four-hour days that I got used to on Bry’s planet totally messed up my rhythms, and I didn’t bother to reset them in Margrave, because it’s best to sleep as little as possible in the Neutral Zone—especially with half a million reasons for someone to sneak into my room and shoot me in the head. I suppose this time spent waiting to get Violet home will do to reset my body clock. To that end, I’d better ask Aurora where I’m supposed to be bunking.
I finish toweling off on the grated floor outside the shower. The fruity citrus fragrance of the soap and shampoo from the dispensers fills my nostrils.
Brighten is sitting on the toilet, peering up at me curiously.
He chirps something at me. I wonder if his species even takes baths. Maybe they just lick themselves clean like cats.
As if to confirm my theory, Bry’s tongue darts out toward me. This time I manage to block it with the towel before he can smear me with more of his foul-smelling saliva.
“Don’t,” I warn him. “I just got clean.”
Chirr.
The towel now has a sticky greenish smear on it that smells even more potent than it did on my cheek. The warm humid air trapped inside the bathroom probably isn’t helping.
Casting about quickly, I find the laundry chute and drop the dirty towel inside. Hopefully the ship has an automatic washer/dryer. If not, Bry’s stink is going to infest the lower decks and whatever clothes Aurora has waiting below for a wash.
Heading for my go-bag by the sink, I rummage around inside of it. Pulling out clean underwear, socks, and a pair of black pants and a matching t-shirt, I hurry and get dressed. Next go my mag boots, personal shield, and gunbelt. Finally, I slide on my holoband.
Almost as an afterthought, I collect my dirty clothes from the floor, open the laundry chute, and drop them inside.
Now it’s time to go find Aurora.
Bry jumps off the toilet as if to follow me.
Chirr!
That sounded urgent.
I turn from the door to see that he’s stopped in front of the toilet.
He looks to the facilities, then back to me.
There is no way he knows what that’s for, is there?
Then again, I didn’t see him leave any puddles or droppings in Margrave. Nor did I notice him squatting down in the bristly black grass on his planet. How often does his species need to expel waste? It’s been days, so either he’s a bathroom ninja, or he’s about to explode.
“You need to... relieve yourself?” I suggest.
Chirr!
“Okay, okay, let’s try this...”
Stepping back over to him, I lift the lid of the vacuum toilet. He hops up, bends at the waist and knees, and then his fur flattens and parts in the middle where his stomach ought to be. I’m too disgusted to look away.
And then Bry barrages the toilet bowl with a stream of glossy white balls of solid waste. I stumble away with my sleeve already pressed against my nose as I expect a horrendous stench to follow.
But it doesn’t smell at all. The waste is perfectly encapsulated by some type of membrane. Interesting. Probably a defense mechanism, evolved to protect them from predators.
The barrage stops. I reach for the button to flush the toilet, but Bry puffs up and chitters angrily at me.
“Hey, we can’t just leave it there.” Maybe it doesn’t stink now, but I’m not going to take my chances.
I try for the flusher again, but before I can touch the button, I notice the way Bry is peering into the toilet and making soft cooing sounds.
Something inside of those little white circles is moving, straining against the membranes.
My stomach does a queasy flip as I realize what’s going on. Bry was pregnant, and those are some kind of eggs. Bry’s a she, and she just laid her eggs in the toilet. Fantastic.
“I guess you’re a girl.”
Chirr...
But she’s not looking at me. She’s preoccupied with her offspring. Why here? I wonder. Maybe it was just the right time. Or maybe the warmth and humidity from the shower triggered some nesting instinct from whatever biome her species prefers to lay their eggs in. “I’ll see if I can get you some food.”
Chirr-up!
With that, I’m striding out the door and shutting it behind me, sealing Bry in. I really hope Aurora has another working latrine on board. A Type-9 should have at least three. But she’s a bot, and a lone hunter, so she might have ripped out the redundant facilities to rather use them for storage.
If so, being a bot, Aurora might not run into any trouble, but Violet and I are going to need to come up with a plan to move those eggs.
Of course, that might be the least of our worries.
What exactly happens when they hatch? What do they eat? Will they chirp relentlessly like crickets at all hours of the day and night? There have to be at least fifty eggs in there.
Aurora is going to lose her shit when she sees fifty furballs the size of marbles rolling around on her ship, all going Chirr-up!
That image puts a smile on my face. Ombay, I’m glad this isn’t the Hammer...
That reminds me who has my ship.
My smile slides into a sneer and my thoughts take a dark turn.
Chapter 33
Back in the cockpit, I find Aurora all by herself, watching the mesmerizing swirl of FTL space. Streaks of starlight and nebula spin endlessly around a central point of light. Violet is nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s Violet?” I ask her.
“You mean the hooker that you almost got us killed for?”
I regard Aurora with a frown. Some hard feelings there obviously. “You were well paid for your trouble,” I point out.
“Sure.” Aurora shrugs. “But what about you?”
“Don’t worry about me.”
“Oh, I’m not. I’m just trying to figure out if this is a pattern of yours. She told me what happened. You killed her shitbag client and then decided to get her out of there when you realized that she might not be in Margrave of her own volition. Is that what you do between jobs? Flit around the galaxy saving all the damsels in distress?”
Aurora bats her glowing orange eyes at me. I frown, but say nothing. There is a charging cable snaking from her hip to an electrical socket on her left.
“Or maybe you don’t do it out of some fucked-up sense of chivalry. Maybe you’re just buying her services in a more subtle way. Bet you have a whole harem of girls back in whatever rathole you crawled out of.”
I could tell her that Violet offered, and I declined, but Aurora’s inquiries are starting to piss me off. She’s too cynical. Too aggressive. She can’t imagine a guy like me would ever stick my neck out for free. And to be fair, any other hunter wouldn’t. She probably doesn’t. Maybe that’s what’s setting her off. She’s realized that I’m not like her, and that makes her suspicious. Classic human psychology. If you’re not like the rest of us, then you’re bad. Even when normal people are complete misanthropes.
“You don’t talk much, do you?” Aurora asks.
My turn to shrug.
She blows out a breath. “Well, this is going to be a long fucking trip.”
“Probably.”
She snorts.
“Tell me about the job.”
“Back to business. Maybe you’re not so bad after all. All right, I’ll bite. Her name is Rama Drakos, just twenty-one chronological, and utterly deadly.”
“Is she a bio or a bot?” I ask.
“Bio.”
“Rare. Especially for a hunter with her rank.”
“You’re a bio and your rank is better than hers.”
“I’m almost fifty,” I point out.
“Don’t be an ageist. Some people are born killers.”
“Like you?” I suggest. It’s not exactly fishing, and I’m being subtle, so I hope she’ll let some valuable personal details slip.
Aurora tucks fiery re
d hair behind one ear, leans back and turns her chair to face me more fully. She crosses her arms over her chest.
“You want to know about me or the target?”
Maybe I wasn’t being that subtle.
“Both,” I admit.
“Fine. I’m a resurrected human.”
“I figured. Died on a job?”
She nods. “First one. I took a laser bolt to the brain, and about fifty more to the rest of me. I’m told there wasn’t much left. Fortunately, I had enough credits to come back as this.” She uncrosses her arms to gesture to her chest with both hands as if she’s the newest model off the production line. Maybe she is. I’ve seen much deadlier versions of her working for the guilds, but few as life-like. She obviously wanted to get as close to her biological roots as possible.
“You had a recent neuroscan?” I ask.
Aurora nods. “In this job it pays to take backups nightly.”
I do, too—when I’m in range of the hypernet—but so far, I haven’t needed to use any of my scans. And thank Deus for that. I’ve always been cynical about the process. How do you know it brings you back? Technically you died, and that doesn’t change just because a convincing copy comes back to take your place.
The smart ones make the transition to digital consciousness slowly, replacing one neuron at a time. But there still aren’t any guarantees.
“How old are you?” I ask.
“This body? Ten standard years.”
My eyes narrow. “Your cumulative age.”
A slow smile graces Aurora’s lips. “Bad boy. Don’t you know it’s impolite to ask a woman her age?”
She’s evasive. She doesn’t like talking about herself. That’s understandable considering our line of work. I’ll look it up on the net later.
“Back to the target. Rama. What’s Mohinari want with her? Six million is a hell of a lot of creds. Her rank isn’t that far off of mine, but he decided that her head is worth twelve times as much as mine. So either she’s twelve times as deadly, or he’s twelve times as pissed off at her.”
The Bounty Hunter (Cade Korbin Chronicles Book 1) Page 14
