Bounty Hunted

by Ian Cannon

  “Where’s your personal logs. I want your contract information,” Ben said sharply.

  The Krutt fought to turn around and pointed another panel out. “Vis display … is holographic.”

  “All of it, Krutt. I want complete access.”

  The Krutt slid out of the chair and hit his knees. “Yes,” he moaned in broken, digital harmonics. “Complete access … you have.” He flopped to his belly still gripping that tube over his shoulder, but the suit still bled heat. He reached pitiably toward the back of his control deck for a large cylinder standing vertically. It was a dual chamber incubator connected to an overhead plasma energy generator. That was the Krutt’s stasis tube. He was so close yet so far, perfectly ensnared by Ben’s good graces.

  Ben looked at Axum who bore the nonchalant expression of a pirate. He was old friends with pain and agony. Ben asked, “You want a prisoner?”

  Axum clicked his tongue and shrugged. “Why not? It’ll be fun. Come on, boyos!” Together, his crew lifted the Krutt and dragged him to the stasis chamber. They touched a nodule on a panel and heard the flush system expel the outer chamber’s heat up through a vent duct and into the Teridrone night, like an airlock. From there, they dumped the Krutt inside and shut him in allowing him to crawl into the inner chamber and begin the process of incubating.

  Tawny and Ben inspected their new acquisition’s control board. It presented them with an exquisitely complex example of the Karbatt-Krutt culture. Nodules instead of controls. Curves instead of angles. Organics instead of machinery. It was almost pretty if not for its unorthodoxy. Ben gave an accepting shrug. He was a pilot. This was a ship. How different could it be?

  He played with the nodules at the personal logs panel and four tiny, pin-like structures emerged from the control deck on jointed appendages. From each needle point they projected a holo-area with scrollable alien type. They were letters and symbols, though unrecognizable. They both figured this was a list of the Krutt’s past and current contracts.

  “Where do we begin?” Tawny said.

  “Near the end,” Ben said and tapped one in the air. It quivered into life and unscrolled a contract document. Still unlegible, though. Ben cringed inspecting the holodoc. A secondary list of languages showed to the side in a cloumn. One read Universal. “There,” he said grinning, and tapped it. The display flickered away then back, all in Universal language.

  Ben scanned it quickly, slowly recognizing it. He leaned back and said, “This one’s from the Orbin Royal Council with a ‘track and pursue’ clause.” It had something about stolen plans to infiltrate a Cabal construction project. It was the Menuit-B job in which Tawny and Ben had turned the moon cannon into a big cosmic space fart and become outlaws to the Underworld Cabal. He looked up at his wife and they both grinned familiarly.

  Ben closed it, opened the final contract. He expected this one to reveal some pertinent information. It zippered into view with a number of secondary folders illuminated to the side. This was a big one. Ben scanned it hungrily. The language was benign, just a bunch of legalese. It revealed nothing. He said, “It’s a standard contract, not unlike the Guild.” He continued scanning, then stopped. “Look here. Another ‘track and pursue’ clause. The Krutt’s obviously got a reputation as a tracker, a hunter. They wanted him to find someone.”

  “Who’s they?” she asked.

  “That’s what we want to know. We need to find out who drafted this contract.”

  “What’re these?” she asked pointing over his shoulder at the listicle of unopened folders.

  “Let’s find out,” Ben said tapping one. It opened a whole new document. They both knew immediately. This was a sub-goals list attached to the job, like secondary tasks completed in the Krutt’s mission. Tawny and Ben had agreed to sub-goal clauses in contracts themselves, many times. Sub-goals merely implied milestones that had been managed in the overall completion of a contract.

  “Look!” Tawny barked pointing at the doc and guiding Ben’s gaze over. He couldn’t believe what he read, skin suddenly felt cold.

  Acquisition of Guild Member Shogun Star.

  “Shogun,” Ben whispered, shocked. They knew Shogun Star—a lethal guy who practiced the art of Nid meditation and appreciated a secret life of solitude. He was a wicked combatant always grounded by a devout internal balance. He piloted the Tranquil Fury, an Orbin combat bomber that he’d converted into an interplanetary cargo hauler. Nothing about Shogun was remotely vulnerable, a nearly impossible target for anyone to acquiesce. Tawny and Ben gave each other a daunted look.

  “Open another one,” Tawny said.

  Ben did so, scanned it and froze. They saw it at the same time:

  Acquisition of Guild Member Rennick Gal.

  Acquisition of Guild Member Tiffa Nora.

  Ben gasped. “He got Rennick and Tiffa.”

  “Them, too?” she said aghast. “Who else?”

  Ben opened another milestone: Acquisition of Guild Member Nefrix.

  Another: Acquisition of Guild Member ZebX of Sarzi.

  And then another.

  And another.

  And another.

  There were over a dozen of them. Ben and Tawny knew them all, either by name or by reputation. They were Guild members. Sub-goals for the Krutt. All of them. Targets that the Krutt had successfully captured in his hunt for … who?

  A thought hit Ben hard and he switched to another panel.

  “What’re you thinking?” Tawny asked.

  “This isn’t only a list of the Krutt’s milestones. It’s a map of where he’s been.”

  “His nav history,” she said, a light burning in her eyes.

  “That’s right,” Ben said. He shifted through a few different sequences on the nodules speaking as he did, “We know he’s been to Nevin. That’s where he got Rennick. He must’ve gone to the Sarzi Production Fields to take out ZebX.”

  “And Shogun,” Tawny said.

  “Right. The Zii Band.” Finally, a 3-D map zippered into view. They both looked at it. It showed a series of planets with a requisite series of nav streams. They were right. They could track the Krutt’s movements over the last several weeks, universal. Their guesses were dead on. The Krutt had been to every planet, moon and station they’d expected. But there was one they didn’t expect.

  All of the Krutt’s nav streams angled to and from a single point, like a central area of operation. There was nothing around it, no place of commerce, no point of harbor. Nothing. Just dead space.

  “What is that?” Tawny asked supremely curious.

  “Yeah, and why would he go there?”

  Oh, of course!

  They gave each other a look of sudden revelation and both said, “Prisoner drop off.”

  Ben observed the map pressing his knuckles into his lips. It didn’t make sense. At least not yet. He pointed at the map and declared, “We have to find out what’s out there.” He vaulted out of the chair and went to the comm channel. He started to initiate a few commands but stopped. Whatever that place was, was a secret. No doubt it was hidden from the data streams. There was no way to download any information on it, unless …

  He looked back at Tawny with a grin.

  “What?” she said.

  “Raider’s Bay is a major hub.”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “I bet they have a DPM sat with a basic RF transmitter/receiver.”

  A slow grin split across Tawny’s face. She liked the idea.

  Ben opened a local hail channel and said, “REX, you copy, bud?”

  REX’s voice sounded as though it had just emerged from a nap. He said, “Yeah, uh, yeah I’m here, Cap. Anything exciting happen. I’m bored.”

  “I have a favor.”

  “Oh really, what’s that?”

  “I want you to patch in your comms through this unit. I’ll send you the uniques.”

  “Sure thing. Who we talking to?”

  Ben grinned and said, “Your girlfriend.”

  When iDai
sy’s voice came through the comm system, Ben and Tawny both raised their eyebrows, impressed. She had evolved. Now, she was a fully grown, unmistakably female entity. For a series of frequencies alive amongst the data streams, she was quite convincing. She said, “My my, Benjar and Tawny Dash! It’s been too long.”

  “Hello, iDaisy,” Ben said grinning.

  Tawny said, “Hello, Daisy. You been okay out there?”

  “Oh, I can’t tell you half the trouble I get into, and I wouldn’t tell you the other half,” she giggled at her own joke. Apparently, it sounded like she’d been spending time observing the comm routines of the Pendulosi … whether they knew it or not. It was a very Pendulosi sentiment. It made them both chuckle. She continued, “I have to admit, I was worried about you guys. Sarcon. What a mess.”

  Ben made a confused grin. “How’d you know about that?”

  “Benjar,” she said scoffing, “I know pretty much everything. By the way, are you okay?”

  He sighed, “I’m fine,” not wanting to relive the incident.

  “I’m so glad to be talking to you guys again.” And then as a sidenote, she said playfully, “Hi, REX.”

  A series of beeps and boops filtered through making her giggle again. Ben could hear REX’s signal gate throbbing below the comm frequency like a subtle, almost undetectable alpha wave. To his and Tawny’s ears it may have been nothing more than light interference from a distant pulsar, but to a living intel-data being and an aloof A.I., REX was singing her a love ballad.

  She uttered the sound of a sigh and said, “So, what can I do for you, Tawny and Ben?”

  “We have a favor,” Ben said. “Maybe you can help.”

  “Anything at all,” she said, interested.

  He fed the map coordinates into REX’s connection signal and said, “This central point here. Do you see it?”

  “Ooh,” she said sounding gloomy. “I know these coordinates. That’s Incarcerum. I’ve been there.”

  Tawny and Ben recoiled, surprised. Tawny repeated, “Incarcerum.” It sounded gloomy, alright.

  Ben said, “You’ve been there?”

  “Well, only in my capacity as a data stream, but yes, many times. Unlike Sarcon, communication around that area is very tightly secured. In many cases forbidden.”

  “Can you tell us anything?” Tawny asked.

  “I can tell you lots, but I don’t know if you should trust my data on the place.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I have a feeling the people there don’t want the truth about that place to get out.”

  Tawny and Ben stood staring into the map, both with their arms crossed, each with a thoughtful scowl on their face. Ben finally asked, “What can you tell us about the place definitively?”

  “I’ll download everything I know or have attained about the place into your analysis banks. There’ll be plenty to observe.”

  Ben and Tawny exchanged a glance. It might be helpful. Ben said, “iDaisy?”

  “Yes, Benjar?”

  “Thank you.”

  “As always, the pleasure’s mine.”

  The information downloaded quickly and displayed on the holo-emitter wiping away the map. Tawny and Ben leaned forward studying the image as it hovered before them. At first, it seemed an innocuous thing. No massive cruisers, no weaponized space station, hardly any danger at all. It was merely a mining facility perched on a small, dead moonlet surrounded by a field of space-faring rock.

  Ben zoomed in to get a better look. The station itself was a long, tubular piece of superstructure interconnected by a central passage hub. At its front, they could see a multi-terraced command center where the leadership and crews spent the majority of their lives while at the rear, perhaps two-thousand feet away, was an enormous factory platform. Towers and cranes stood against the back drop of space; the entire operation was designed around the rig’s central containment structure—an enclosed tower that thoused a big nuclear ore driller at its bottom levels. Ben leaned back, knowing. This was a power plant, and inside was a throbbing reactor designed to churn its asteroid foundation into nuclear fuel. Whoever they were, they were mining the ore as well as fueling their operation. This whole situation didn’t make sense.

  “It looks like some sort of miner’s colony,” he said.

  “Miners?” Tawny mirrored his confusion. “Mining colonies usually contract the Guild, not hunt it down, not destroy it.”

  Ben studied the image some more. He knew rough-necker colonies. He’d seen dozens of them. There were gas mining installations, aqua refineries, ore collector foundries. None of them were the same, but they all had one thing in common. It was a rough existence. Nothing abused machinery more than mining. It was a constant exercise in maintenance and parts replacement. But as he looked at this one, one thing became obvious. This thing had been refurbished wholesale. Brand new paneling had been replaced. Parts looked new. It was an older design, yet it appeared to have been rolled off its construction platform very recently. It spurned a thought, and he grunted with sudden realization.

  He said, “This thing looks rebuilt. Maybe we shouldn’t assume they’re miners at all.”

  “Then who?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine, babe, but one thing’s for sure. That’s where our people are.”

  She had to concede. Benji was right. She murmured, “If they’re even still alive.”

  He nodded his head hesitant to accept that very real possibility.

  Tawny sighed, frustrated, and started pacing again. The silence between them was excruciating and it lingered for far too long. Her footfalls stopped suddenly. It made Ben turn to face her. She was working something out in her mind with a finger in the air.

  Ben said, “What is it?”

  “Benji, Sympto wasn’t on the Krutt’s list.”

  Ben thought for a second and said, “No.”

  “The Krutt followed us to Oficium.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So, maybe the Krutt wasn’t at Guilder’s Mix during the attack.” She started pacing again, back and forth. “Tubs mentioned a team—uh—infiltrators, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Someone else must have acquiesced Sympto.” She put finger quotes over the word acquiesce.

  He squinted trying to follow her line of thought. “Yeah?”

  “In fact, Tubs said they were going after all the liaisons.”

  Ben turned to look at the Krutt’s sub-goals still glimmering in 3-D. He said, “Which is why they’re not on the Krutt’s list.”

  “So, whoever got Sympto obviously got the other liaisons,” she reasoned. “During the attack.”

  He looked at her with a tilted head, squinting. “What’re you getting at?”

  She gave him a calculating look. “If someone wanted the Guild, who better to target than the liaisons?”

  He thought for a second, drew only one conclusion. “No one. The liaisons run the whole show.”

  “That’s right,” Tawny said. “Whoever they are, they have the liaisons. The Guild is space dust.” She declared coming to a ridiculously logical conclusion, “They won. They got what they wanted. I mean … they won, right?”

  Ben’s eyes darted back and forth, mouth half open. She was right. He could see her point. He said most curiously, “So, why are they still hunting?”

  “Exactly!” she said punctuating her point with a finger.

  Now Ben stood up, started pacing, thinking, running through facts in his head. He said, “Okay, we don’t know who they are. We don’t know why they targeted the Guild. From here on out, we don’t even know what they want.” He stopped pacing, looked at her. “But we do know where they’re at. And we also know they have our people.” They looked at each other, both on the precipice of a decision. A very big, very frightening decision. Ben said with absolution, “Then there’s only one thing left to do.”

  Her gaze drifted to him, waiting.

  He pulled a breath and said, “We go get them the he
lls out of there.”

  She nodded her head with resolute certainty. They couldn’t ignore this. It was time for a jail break. She said, “What’s the plan?”

  Ben pointed at the 3-D image still hovering over the control station and said, “We have the Krutt’s contract information. We have the Krutt’s comm codes. And …”

  Tawny said with a grin, “We have the Krutt’s transport tech.”

  They looked at each other beaming with excitement. Ben said, “And that’s how we get them out.”

  Fifteen

  The Karbatt cruiser had proven to be a smooth machine, one of the finest vessels Ben had ever flown. Its drive systems responded to the slightest control manipulation almost intuitively, and its systems integrations were micro-second quick. Once the appropriate nav coordinates were laid in, the thing drove itself. From its atmosphere thrusters to its inner-warp drives, it presented touch-simple operations, as if it were a living creature attuned to its pilot’s very thoughts.

  Ben had sensed a bit of hesitation from REX when he informed the old freighter they were leaving him at Raider’s Bay. He thought it had come from REX’s unwillingness to remain docked within a hive of thieves, but his ship’s true motives were becoming more apparent by the space klick. He was jealous.

  “You’re sitting this one out, pal,” Ben had said.

  “Be sure to come back,” he’d said. “Don’t get space dusted with that new ship of yours.”

  Ben had grinned at him. “Don’t worry, REX. We’ll be back,” And with that, he and Tawny had left.

  Yep, REX was jealous.

  Now, the Karbatt cruiser’s inner-warps wound down pealing back the inner-warp tourbillion, and they slowed to standard engines. Tawny peered through the viewport and said, “Looks like we’ve entered—” she paused. “What do we call this place?”