A Dark Horizon (Final Dawn, Book 3)

by T W M Ashford

  There was an almost imperceptible pause before it continued.

  “My duties also extend to tending the Hunter’s Lounge bar, apparently. Having files on all the guild members means I never forget anybody’s usual. Would you or your guest like a drink, sir? On the house, of course. It’s really the least we could do.”

  “Well, if it’s free…” Jack paused just as he was about to order. “Wait. What do you mean, the least you could do?”

  “For making it so easy to apprehend you, of course. Something to take the edge off. A Muldoggi fruit-wine, perhaps?”

  “Hold on a minute,” Jack spluttered as two looming shadows stretched out from behind his back. He dreaded to think which of the assorted assassins sitting in the lounge had been sent to deal with him. “You said to ask for Ichor. Well, I want to see Ichor!”

  Two arms like tree branches hooked under his own and dragged him backwards away from the bar. He couldn’t see Klik anywhere – he guessed she’d been subdued while he was ordering. The AI bartender extended a thin, mechanical arm and waved him off.

  “Who do you think you’re being taken to see?” it called after him, before descending back through its circular vent in the floor.

  The plan was working perfectly… and yet Jack suddenly thought he didn’t like his plan that much after all.

  13

  One Little Job

  The hired thugs, neither of whom Jack could see properly beyond their disconcertingly muscular (and in one case scaly) biceps, dragged Jack kicking and protesting through the Hunter’s Lounge. None of the other members so much as glanced up at him as they passed.

  At the back of the lounge was a spiral staircase. A third guard pulled aside a rope marking the staircase as private upon their approach. The two thugs continued to drag him up the brass steps without pause. It was hell on his ankles.

  They climbed up into the thirtieth floor, which – if Jack recalled the buttons on the elevator panel correctly – was the Penthouse Office, and the highest floor of the guild. He really hoped he wasn’t being led to an open window.

  The style of decor in the Penthouse Office matched that of the Lounge below, as if the two storeys were halves of the same whole. Dark wooden panels; brass fittings; comfortable red leather on the seats. Hanging on the tall and otherwise sparse walls were grand paintings in golden frames. Each portrait showed a Guild Master from years gone by looking smug and threatening. An elaborate chandelier appeared to hover a short way down from the incredibly high ceiling. Then, as he was dragged beneath it, Jack noticed an almost imperceptible shimmer and realised it was a hologram, though one of much greater fidelity than anything he’d seen back on the Adeona, or even in the chamber of the Ministerium. These bounty hunters really were made of money.

  His escorts threw him into an armchair, which was most definitely not a hologram. Jack winced despite its heavily cushioned seat and back. He took a moment to look upon his captors. He recognised the giant, leathery lump dressed in purple and yellow power armour from back in the Hunter’s Lounge. The other was new and, if Jack’s limited knowledge of galactic species didn’t let him down, a Krolak – a fairly intelligent reptilian race who walked on their hind legs and sort of resembled alligators, albeit ones who had grown an extra pair of hands. A small armoury hung from the belt around its waist.

  “What the hell do you want?”

  Jack snapped his attention back to the enormous oak desk in front of him. Besides the two armchairs – his, and the one directly opposite, both of which it dwarfed – it was the only item of furniture in the room. Behind the desk and occupying most of the front-facing wall was an enormous, circular stained-glass window designed to look like the guild’s insignia – the crimson crosshair, and the green eye squinting down the sights. Colossal red curtains like those found on a theatre stage draped down to either side of it. The blue-skinned alien sat working behind the desk paid Jack seemingly no attention.

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  The person sitting opposite him sighed and slammed down the data pad in which she had previously been so engrossed.

  “I asked, what the hell do you want? What are you doing in my office, for crying out loud?”

  The Crimson Crosshairs guild master rendered Jack speechless. She was beautiful, fierce, impatient. Instead of hair, a crop of thin, shoulder-length tendrils snaked down the back of her head. She wore a simple uniform of black, tight-fitting and sleeveless body armour. Her ultramarine blue skin summoned a sense of near-serenity unmatched by the furious blackness that flooded her eyes. A hairline scar ran from cheek to chin on the left side of her face.

  “You asked to speak to Ichor, yes?” The head of the bounty hunters abruptly gestured to the two hitmen who’d brought Jack into her office. “Well, that was your chance. Get rid of him.”

  “No, wait!” Jack gripped the arms of his chair. “One of your bounty hunters came after me. I want to know who ordered the hit.”

  Ichor leaned forwards with her hands steepled against the desk.

  “Let me get this straight,” she said. “You’re marked for death, and you came here? To ask me for a favour?”

  She burst out laughing. Her two bodyguards did the same, once they were certain it was safe to do so.

  “Ah, go on.” Still smiling, she waved Jack onwards. “Tell me what happened, then. I guess things didn’t go well for the would-be assassin?”

  “No, they didn’t. It tried to kill me inside the Ministry headquarters after the emergency council meeting. But—”

  “Ministry headquarters?” Ichor leaned back in her seat, crossed her arms and shook her head brusquely. “No, that wasn’t us. Our members know that Ministry grounds are off-limits. We’d lose our license.”

  Jack reached into his pocket. The two thugs instantly drew their firearms, but Ichor dismissed them.

  He pulled out the bounty chip and dropped it onto her desk.

  “Is that proof enough for you? Or should I take it back to the Grand Ministers and show them instead?”

  Ichor snatched up the bounty chip and placed it inside a small reader device, all the while eyeing Jack suspiciously. The device projected a holographic bounty file large enough for them both to read. Jack recognised both of the photographs in the file. One was of the late bounty hunter and the other was of himself. It looked as if it had been taken during his last trip to Kapamentis.

  “Goddammit, Borrit.” Ichor turned to Jack. “She is deceased, yes?”

  “Afraid so. Erm, her body was still in the Ministry when we left, but I expect they’ve moved her now.”

  “Borrit always was an idiot,” grumbled the creature in the power armour. “Sorry, ma’am,” he added. “Don’t mean to speak ill of the dead.”

  “No, you’re right. She was a Grade-A moron. Nai?”

  The same robotic model that welcomed Jack in both the lobby and bar shot up from yet another circular vent in the floor a few metres away from the desk. Jack almost jumped out of his chair.

  “Yes, Guild Master?”

  “Scrub Borrit’s files from the records, will you? If anyone from the Ministry comes round asking questions, we let the sorry ape go years ago.”

  “Right away, Guild Master.”

  “Nai?” asked Jack.

  “Network Artificial Intelligence,” replied Ichor, dismissively. “It came with the name. So what do you want to know who put a hit on you for? Seems to me like you’d be better off staying out of their way, lest you plan to kill them before they get another chance. You don’t exactly seem like the type, though. Of course, you can always pay us to do it for you.”

  “Thanks, but I’m all right. I don’t want anyone to get killed, I just need to prove who it was that hired you to kill me.”

  “Well, I truly admire your pacifism,” Ichor sighed sarcastically, turning the hologram so Jack couldn’t see it anymore, “but that’s not going to happen. Client confidentiality and all that. I’m sure you understand. Tell you what, though. Given how you’ve
saved us an enormous headache regarding that whole Ministry business, consider the bounty against you cleared. We’ll refund the client and nobody else will be assigned to take poor Borrit’s place. Now, don’t tell me that’s not a whole lot better than a plasma-hole in the head, right?”

  Jack sighed.

  “It’s a start, I guess. But I…” He suddenly sat up straight. “Hold on a second. Where’s Klik? What have you done with her?”

  “What, the Krettelian?” Ichor laughed as Jack’s face fell. “Oh, don’t worry. There’s no bounty on her head, and if there’s ever an organisation that understands the need for discretion… No, she’s downstairs having a drink with one of my men. She’s your slave, yes? You’ve had her declawed, so to speak?”

  Jack shook his head warily.

  “Lligma, mind what you do with your hands,” she said, hurriedly pressing her finger to her ear. “If you try something, you’re apt to lose them. Her companion will be back down in just a moment.”

  Jack, resigned to the idea that the Crimson Crosshairs would never give up the name of the person (or Empire) who had ordered his assassination, got up from his chair to leave. Ichor, swiping through her holographic databank, idly gestured for him to sit back down.

  “Not so fast, Jack Bishop. I thought I knew you from somewhere.”

  Smirking, she spun the projected screen around.

  “See anyone you recognise?”

  Jack tried to swallow but a lump had formed in his throat. The picture in front of him was not of the trollish Borrit or himself, but of a completely different bounty hunter… one whom Jack had shot in a clumsy, painful and yet not entirely unsuccessful duel on Haldeir-B a few months prior.

  Ode Vadasz.

  The two thugs drew their rifles again. Suddenly Jack’s chances of leaving the building alive appeared very, very slim indeed.

  “I liked Ode,” growled the Krolak, the muzzle of his gun hovering only inches from Jack’s temple. “He was smart. Always happy to get the next round in, too.”

  “I’m sorry!” Jack shut his eyes and shrank into the armchair. “I didn’t want to do it! But he…”

  Jack stopped talking when he realised everybody else in the room was laughing. He opened his eyes to discover everybody’s guns back in their holsters.

  “You should have seen your face!” Even Ichor had tears streaming from her eyes. “Oh please, oh please! Don’t look so terrified. You’ve killed two of our members, for crying out loud. You ought to have a bit more guts than that!”

  Jack didn’t know what to say. He just hoped he hadn’t wet himself inside his spacesuit.

  “These things happen,” Ichor continued. “Occupational hazard. Sometimes the bounty shoots back. Besides, it wasn’t a CC job. Always risky, getting work from outside the guild. No records, no protection. I told Ode those illicit gigs were gonna catch up with him sooner or later.”

  She uttered one last chuckle as she wiped away a tear.

  “He was a lovely guy, though. Tell you what. You do a little job for me, and maybe I’ll let slip who ordered that hit on you. I’ll accidentally leave it up on the screen or something.”

  “Depends what the job is. I’m not killing anyone.”

  “Ha! As if we’d outsource to you. Besides, assassination without a bounty is just plain old murder. And we’d never get mixed up in anything as unpleasant as that.”

  “Okay then. I’m listening.”

  “That ship of his, the Black Arrow? Pretty neat. Took a few days before anyone stumbled across it after your little altercation on Haldeir-B. Unfortunately, that ‘anyone’ happened to be a smuggler making illicit trade runs between Kapamentis and the Drygg settlement. Word is they towed it back and sold it to a garage not far from here.”

  “So you want me to steal it back for you, is that it?”

  “Not quite. The garage is run by a pack of Scrap Rats – they’ve probably already broken the Black Arrow down for parts by now. What I want you to go and get for me is the little black box Ode kept in the secret compartment under his seat.”

  “If that’s all you want, why haven’t you already sent one of your guild members to get it? What’s the catch?”

  “No catch, unless you count the very high probability that they’ll refuse to hand it over. It’s always finders keepers with them. If one of my members tries to steal it off them and things turn ugly, that reflects poorly on the guild. That’s why I need somebody ‘off-the-books’ to go do it for me. Plus it’s hardly top of my list of priorities right now. But I do want it…”

  “Fine, I’ll steal this box thing for you.” Jack sighed. If this was what it took to prove that the Mansa Empire tried to have him killed and therefore convince the Ministry to put a stop to Everett’s disastrous plan, so be it. “Where’s this garage?”

  “Not far.” Ichor jabbed a blue thumb over her shoulder, out past the stained-glass window. “You got a data pad?”

  Jack shook his head. Yet another thing he’d accidentally forgotten to grab from the Adeona before leaving.

  “Right.” She rolled her eyes. “Well, keep following the streets north from here and you can’t miss it. It doesn’t have a name so just keep an eye out for a hellscape of neon junk.”

  Ichor looked at Jack blankly.

  “Well? Off you go!” She shooed him away; Jack hastily climbed up from his chair again. “Come back with that box and we’ll talk. If not…”

  “Don’t bother to come back at all?” suggested Jack, as the two thugs escorted him away towards the spiral staircase.

  “Couldn’t have said it better myself,” said Ichor, already nose-deep in her data pad again.

  14

  Black Arrow, Black Box

  Gargantuan chimneys belched fire into the permanight sky like upturned flamethrowers. Thick, black exhaust fumes clouded the surrounding airspace; the air tasted like copper, smelled like petroleum, and was full with the screeching of axel grinders and the spluttering of derelict engines.

  “Do you think this is the place?” asked Klik.

  “Well, I’d hate to think there’s more than one,” replied Jack, wincing at the smell and noise. “Let’s get this over with.”

  They left the street and strolled through the garage’s outer gates. The large, wire-fenced compound was flanked on all but one side by enormous yet dilapidated residential towers that rose into the sky like great black bricks – abandoned if not by their tenants then at least their landlords. Jack watched the smoke billow around their walls and hoped the residents kept their windows closed. He glanced over at Klik and wished he had a mask or bandana of his own to keep out the smog and smell.

  Rain from the relentless storm ran down the mountains of rusty junk in little streams and waterfalls. Jack could make out all sorts amongst the trash. Burnt-out carburettors; pilot seats with their stuffing spilling out; empty rocket casings – even what looked like a battered, old skip drive, though he supposed it could just as easily have been a decommissioned sea mine for all he knew. In the wrong hands, both were about as dangerous as the other.

  Klik hiked barefoot through the mud and grimy puddles seemingly without a care. Jack guessed growing up in a disused sewer made everything else seem like a rose petalled carpet in comparison.

  Note to self: get Klik a pair of boots, pronto.

  They got a better view of the garage itself as they reached the end of the junk-valley. Besides its quintet of industrial super-chimneys, it was a wide but comparatively squat two-storey building fronted by a large, singular entrance, the corrugated shutter of which had been semi-permanently rolled back on itself. There were no windows save for a couple of dirty skylights barely visible above the lip of the rooftop. About half a dozen old neon signs were installed on said rooftop at various angles – some were missing letters, others were only half finished. They looked as if they’d been pilfered along with the rest of the garage’s hoard. Perhaps the owners simply liked the colours they made – their jumbled words certainly didn’t spell
out a name of any kind.

  Jack and Klik ducked as a vintage crane swung over their heads. Its rusty, yellow maw took a chomp out of a nearby junk-mountain, then swung back across – spilling a few loose bolts over them in the process – and dropped its load onto a groaning, rattling conveyor belt that fed into the far side of the garage. As the trash disappeared inside, one of the chimneys roared in gratitude.

  Between the conveyor belt and the vast open doorway stood a short, scraggly creature in a pair of badly-singed engineering overalls. It was in the middle of a heated discussion with a Drygg hell-bent on selling it a busted up hoverbike for parts or scrap. There seemed to be a misunderstanding over payment.

  “So that’s a Scrap Rat, I guess.” Jack marched across the muddy forecourt towards it. “Let’s hope it’s the foreman.”

  “I thought that Ichor lady said there was no point asking them for the box,” said Klik, hurrying after him. “They’re hoarders.”

  “There might be no point, but I don’t see the harm either. Maybe there’s a price they want for it.”

  “We don’t have any money.”

  “That… is a fair point.”

  They arrived just as the Drygg grunted in confirmation. It barged past the two of them, a stormy expression etched across its carapace face… but the archaic hoverbike stayed put. The Scrap Rat tittered greedily, then turned its ratty face towards the garage’s new visitors.

  “What?” it snapped.

  Jack looked down at the overgrown rodent. At no more than three feet tall – and that was when standing on its hind legs – it was a hard sight to take all that seriously, especially with such a crotchety look on its little face.

  “We’ve been told you have a ship here called the Black Arrow,” he said, trying his best to stifle a laugh. “There’s a small black box inside that we need to collect. It would be—”