The Bounty Hunter: Reckoning Read online

  The Bounty Hunter – Reckoning

  By Joseph Anderson

  The Bounty Hunter – Reckoning

  All Rights Reserved

  Copyright © 2012 by Joseph Anderson

  Also by Joseph Anderson:

  Interstellar Soldiers

  The Wizard and the Dragon

  Bounty Hunter Series

  The Bounty Hunter Series Two, Complete Set

  Resurrection

  Soldier’s Wrath

  AI’s Rage

  Smuggler’s Peril

  The Swarm Unleashed

  Suicide Mission

  The Bounty Hunter Series One, Complete Set

  Revenge

  Redemption

  Vampire

  Into The Swarm

  Reckoning

  Author’s Note:

  The Bounty Hunter stories are a series of novellas. Each story is intended to be self-contained, like an episode of a television series. Although some names and references are made to prior events, each story can be enjoyed on its own.

  If, however, you prefer to read things in order, the series begins with The Bounty Hunter Series One.

  Thank you for your time and I hope you enjoy the story.

  Reckoning

  Burke Monrow was unaware of the intruder on his ship. He and Cass, his AI partner, had been docked inside a space station for over a month. They were waiting on the delivery of their new ship, one they had spent the last year saving for, and Burke was becoming impatient. He paced back and forth at the helm and spoke with Cass.

  “How long until it gets here?”

  “Three days,” she answered tersely, her voice emitting from the ship’s walls as fluidly as any person’s. “That’s one less day than when you asked me yesterday.”

  “I’m annoying you,” he stated.

  “Only a little.”

  He sat at the main computer console and brought up the purchase invoice for the new ship. Over ten million credits, nearly all of the money they had, was ready to be transferred once the ship arrived. It would leave them with a meager amount left in savings but they had managed to keep the current ship they used as a backup. They had disagreed about that. They had disagreed about a lot of things when picking out the new ship.

  “We should still sell this one,” Cass argued.

  “And what if we crash? We should always have a spare.”

  “It will cost us a lot every month to keep a second ship at port. We should save the money instead, and only buy another ship if we ever need it.”

  He shook his head. Cass huffed.

  “Fine,” she conceded. “I still say we should have included extra bedrooms in the ship’s layout. You don’t know what we’ll need in the future.”

  “We’ll never need those,” he said firmly. “It’ll be just the two of us. No one else will ever step onto this ship unless I have them in chains for a bounty.”

  The intruder shifted silently in the lower level of the ship, in the engine room. Burke didn’t hear a thing, and Cass’s focus was solely on him. She had checked the ship’s doors when they last re-entered the ship and had seen no record of unauthorized access. She felt as secure as Burke did in their home.

  The main screen at the helm abruptly changed to display an incoming message. Burke sat up and straightened his back before he accepted the connection. Havard’s face appeared on the screen and he nodded a greeting to Burke. They had worked together many times in the past but only twice in the last year; still, they had been the most lucrative jobs of that time. Over a third of the cost of the new ship had come from Havard and ACU, the branch of the human government that he ran.

  “Another job already?” Burke asked as he looked up at the screen.

  “Actually, no. Something else.”

  Burke tilted his head. Havard had never been social and only ever contacted him about business. The abnormality of it bothered him.

  “I have a gift for you,” Havard explained. “You recently ordered a new ship.” He immediately raised his hand as if to halt Burke. “Please, don’t insult me by asking how I found out. The delivery will be delayed by two days from now. I had something sent to the shipyard and installed for you.”

  “What is it?”

  “A present,” Havard smiled. “You’ll have to wait and see for yourself. Think of it as a token to commemorate us once again working with each other toward common goals. Speaking of that, I have a request. Do try to keep what I’ve said in mind.”

  Burke braced himself. Nothing was ever given freely from ACU. They were always equal in their transactions. He had purchased both his power armor and Cass from their facilities, both at a fair price. The fact that Havard had decided to break that trend set him on edge.

  “Last time we spoke,” Havard began, “I offered to purchase back the AI we sold you.”

  “The answer is still no,” Cass said loudly.

  “I have a new proposal,” Havard continued, as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “I offered you six hundred million credits and a replacement AI unit. Instead, one hundred million credits just for a copy. A full copy of your ship’s systems to be sure we save every file of the AI.”

  Burke scrunched his eyes. He knew how much Cass would be annoyed that Havard refused to use her name when he addressed her. He tried to put himself into her position and didn’t envy her decision. For all intents and purposes, the money being offered was free. A copy would mean nothing was lost or taken for the payment. The only question was how the copy would be treated and used, and if Cass could accept those consequences.

  “No,” she answered, and Burke knew instantly that he agreed.

  “Two hundred million,” Havard offered. “Burke, see reason here.”

  “It’s not my decision,” Burke said and shook his head. “She’s her own person, Havard. The sooner you realize that the sooner she might warm up to helping you.”

  “No deal,” Cass repeated.

  “Fine,” Havard said through his teeth. “Fine. I’ll have to think of something else. Until next time, Burke. And,” he hesitated, as if he loathed what he was about to say, “Cass.”

  The connection abruptly ended and Burke laughed.

  “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen him flustered,” he said.

  “I don’t understand why he has trouble using my name now,” Cass said quietly. “He used it before. Why the change?”

  “The name means something different now. Before, it was just a label. Now, for him, it’s admitting that you’re a person instead of a computer program. I don’t think he understands that.”

  “Then I pity him.”

  The connection to ACU was still open even after Havard cut off the conversation. Burke stopped himself from immediately severing it, wondering if he should use it to talk to Natalie. She had been the technician that had taught him how to use the power armor he purchased, and they had kept in contact for a time afterward. He had cut off that contact since he decided to work alone with Cass, only dealing with others when it was necessary. Cass had been pressuring him to talk to Natalie for weeks.

  He stretched out his hand and killed the connection. The screen went blank and then went dark. The lights around him followed suit and a loud noise shuddered from the ship below. The monitors in the command room abruptly shut off as all power was lost. A dim light came through the ship’s windows from inside the station, causing the metallic surfaces to gleam in the dark. The ever-present sound of the ship’s engine whirling power throughout the ship slowed and then stopped.

  “Cass?”

  Silence.

  He grabbed the gun he kept hidden under the command console and sprang to his feet. He turned to face the consuming darkne
ss of the ship and stepped toward it, leading with the barrel of the gun. He felt naked and exposed without the protective layers of the armor he wore outside of the ship. It had been years since he had been in a fight without it and he was shocked by how vulnerable he felt. He pushed it aside, concentrating on what he could hear as he stepped blindly forward.

  The creaks of the ship were magnified when there were no other sounds to mask them. The low humming of the lights were gone. The ventilation systems, with their gentle roaring of air, were dead. He felt hot without the air moving around him, as if his skin was irritated. He heard someone’s footsteps in the darkness and whipped around, firing two shots in their direction. He saw a person in the muzzle flashes of the gun, with sprawling shadows behind them. He fired again in the direction they had been running and saw nothing, only an empty corner of the ship.

  He took another step and then heard something again. He shot in its direction only to see one of his guns clattering over the floor. It had been thrown across the room and he knew immediately that he had been tricked. He spun around on his heels a moment too late, turning to meet the fist that slammed across his face. He fired instinctively, but he was too close to properly aim. He saw a flash of his attacker’s face, their features lost in the shadows, before another punch struck him.

  He dropped the gun and lunged forward, swinging his fists wildly into the dark. His attacks met only air and he stumbled forward with the force he had committed into the swings. His assailant seemed to suffer no loss of sight in the dark, dancing out of his reach and grappling him from behind. He felt two more hits jolt into his back, rattling against his kidneys and dropping him to his knees. He felt something puncture his back then, two sharp prongs between his shoulder blades before a stab of hot lightning surged through his body. His muscles spasmed uncontrollably as the shock ran through him three more times. He felt paralyzed but was conscious as he felt the hands around his legs, dragging him down toward the jail cell of his own ship.

  * * *

  One Year Earlier.

  Jess Richmond was the mechanic on the smuggler ship Freedom, where she was worked like a slave. The captain kept the ship in a sordid state, from the crumbling outer hull to the cramped, interior quarters. The rest of the crew, a pilot and three other men, kept the place in an almost broken mess and the engine was treated no differently. Jess lived in the engine room, keeping the ship from falling to pieces more than she did anything else. The captain refused nearly all of her requests for spare parts since he learned she was talented enough to jury rig the ship together from scrap they found during jobs. It was a mistake she had learned to regret during the six months she had been living on the ship.

  “We’ll be landing soon,” Captain Marcus said after stepping into the engine room. “Make sure everything is ready.”

  He never knocked or gave any warning when he came into the room. There were two doors into the engine room and Jess kept both of them closed. She didn’t care if he ever caught her changing or sleeping but she knew he didn’t know that, and it was the inconsideration of it that bothered her.

  “Am I coming with you?” she asked curtly.

  “No. We’re landing on a desert planet. Named Meidum. I want you focused on the ship so we don’t get stuck down there. I want to know about any damage we take while landing.”

  Jess nodded once. The ship was kept maintained at minimal standards and that meant entering any atmosphere was risky. An arid planet would make for an easy landing but a treacherous lift off. Sand had a bad habit of getting stuck everywhere if it was trudged in with the crew, and she knew it would be.

  “This is my last job Marc,” she said before he turned to leave. “I thought you should know before we start heading back to port. You can start to find a replacement while we travel.”

  “Yeah, okay. That’s fine.”

  “I expect to be paid my share for all the jobs we’ve done. You’ve been behind on a few of those payments lately.”

  “Yeah. Like I said, that’s fine.”

  She narrowed her eyes and he shifted under her stare; it was a miniscule movement, one that most people would have missed. One of her eyes had been removed when she earned her qualifications to repair starships. It was a necessary augmentation to identify the hundreds of thousands of parts that could vary or be modified on different ships, or when repairing the outer hull while drifting in space. A light wasn’t always guaranteed when moving between systems and the artificial eye solved that problem for good. She studied him with both her natural eye and augment combined and saw him twitch.

  “Are you sure?” she asked. “When I said the same thing two months ago you begged me to stay on for a while longer.”

  “I’m sure,” he nodded his head quickly, one too many times. “Did you add the new guy to the ship’s records yet?”

  “No. It’s just the five of us on there still. Tell him to do it himself.”

  “Ha!” Marcus laughed. “You’re still angry at him? You almost took his head off with that arm of yours.”

  She placed her left hand on the cold surface of her right arm. It was the only other augmentation she had, from her right shoulder down to her fingertips. It helped with her work but that wasn’t the reason she had it. The new guy had been calling her “blondie” even after she told him her name. After the third time, she had swung her right fist into his face hard enough to knock him unconscious. It was the only time she had ever seen someone knocked out in a fight, and she had seen a lot of fights.

  “He wouldn’t have deserved that,” Jess said. “The punch was punishment enough. He remembers my name now.”

  “I can never remember his. Not that it matters. Don’t bother adding him to the system.”

  “You’re not keeping him on?”

  “Something like that. So this is your last job. Anything about the engine I should tell the new mechanic?”

  “I’ll leave you a list,” she smiled. “A very long list.”

  Jess lingered in the engine room for a few minutes before heading up to the helm. The ship’s hardware had never been updated and had already been obsolete when it had been purchased. Despite many requests for a diagnostic terminal for the engine room, she still had to trek up to the command room to use its consoles to see the ship’s status. It was one of the many reasons she had decided to leave when they docked at the next station. Marcus’s recent decisions about work bothered her even more. The crew was engaged in increasingly questionable jobs. She had no qualms about smuggling illicit goods but she would have no part in dealing with slave traders. She hoped that the current job wasn’t involved in that. She didn’t want to have to fight before leaving the ship.

  She passed through the cargo hold on her way up. The captain was gearing up with the others and she walked between the group of them. The new man flinched when he turned and saw her, causing an uproar of laughter from the others. Eric smiled at her while he braced his long barrel rifle on his shoulder. He was the only one that Jess knew she would miss; he would visit her in the engine room sometimes. He was also the only other crew member who was augmented like she was, with a bridging implant in his skull to connect with the prosthetic leg. She barely thought of the difference they both shared anymore. She simply smiled back at him as she climbed the stairs and turned into the command room.

  They were in orbit above the planet. She saw it through the helm’s front window. There were sporadic stretches of water and green land around the shores of it. The rest of the planet was the pale yellow of its vast deserts. The planet gleamed up at them in the nearby star’s light. It initially stung her human eye. The augmented one was unaffected.

  Alan, the ship’s pilot, sat in the center chair and was hunched over the main terminal. She never knew what kind of attitude to expect from him, but he was his most obnoxious when Marcus was in the same room. She felt more relaxed knowing that the captain would be off the ship while they worked in the same room together.

  “Did he tell you what we�
��re here to get?” Alan burst out as she sat down. She was taken aback; it was unlike him to be excited.

  “No?”

  “We’re here for Burke Monrow! The Burke Monrow!”

  “Who?”

  “Really? You’ve never heard of him?” Alan asked with his eyes wide. “He and Adam Bancroft were the fastest rising bounty hunters in the galaxy. Some say they might have toppled the Thorne Twins or even Asher.”

  “You’re idolizing hired killers?” Jess said and cocked an eyebrow.

  “They don’t always kill. Especially Adam and Burke. Well, used to. Burke’s dead.”

  “So we’re here to retrieve a body? I can’t see Marcus searching for a corpse out of the goodness of his heart.”

  “The Captain,” Alan spat, “is here for Burke’s armor. Not the corpse. He was wearing a Phalanx Ti Battle Aegis when he—“

  “Wait. He had a Phalanx Ti?” Jess perked up. It was her eyes that were wide now.

  “Typical of you to be more interested in the hardware than the man underneath it.”

  “Did he really have a Phalanx? There are less than ten of those in circulation,” Jess explained rapidly. “No one really knows where they come from. They’re amazing. You can’t get any better of a personal arsenal. How the fuck did he die wearing one of those?”

  “I don’t know. Who cares?”

  “If the armor was left, that means he was killed without time to retrieve it,” Jess said to herself more than to Alan. “Maybe not even time to confirm the kill. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was still alive.”

  “No, no way. The guy who hired Marcus—er, the Captain—was certain he was dead.”

  “And who was that?”

  “I don’t know,” Alan muttered.

  “Brilliant.”

  Jess turned away and looked at the terminal. She placed her augmented hand on the console and interfaced with it, making sure to keep contact with it. The system was much older than her arm and had terrible bandwidth unless she had a physical bridge. She let her thoughts race as the connection was established. She was excited about seeing the battle aegis in person and was suddenly pleased that her final job was turning out to be a pleasant one.