Hired Gun - A Bounty Hunter Space Opera Adventure (Aeon 14: Machete System Bounty Hunter)

by M. D. Cooper

  “We could leave our stuff behind on Igaguti,” Reece said, though she didn’t like the idea. Chances were, she wouldn’t get her things back.

  “I have a station-to-station transport booked for you too. Assuming no delays, you can make it. Now go. Your taxi just arrived. But next time, don’t dally with monkeys.”

  Reece rushed forward and hugged Ed. “You’re the best. And I know, I’m going to owe you big for this.”

  Trey grabbed the food the assistant had delivered and stuffed it into his pockets. The monkey leaned forward, his eyes on those pockets.

  “You bet you do.” Ed smiled in smug satisfaction, then looked to Trey. “And you, too.”

  Reece didn’t even care about what future claim Ed might make. She’d deal with that when it happened. For now, she had a job to do.

  “Thanks for your help,” Trey said as they hurried to the taxi, with Ed trailing behind them.

  “Glad to help. Good luck. And good luck with that ghost monkey, too.”

  Reece’s impatience made the trip to the space elevator seem to take forever, though they were going at a decent clip. Trey passed the time feeding the monkey seeds and nuts out of his pockets.

  She couldn’t resist a small smile. This job got stranger and stranger all the time.

  * * * * *

  “I can’t believe they’re letting you sit here with a monkey on your shoulder.” Reece stared at Trey and his new sidekick.

  “I can’t believe they let you board with guns and a pulse pistol. I guess these people don’t think much of security.” Trey handed another peanut to the monkey, who took it and nibbled at it daintily.

  So far, he’d been a very well-mannered monkey.

  “I’m pretty sure we’re getting VIP treatment, thanks to Ed and whatever she paid for the tickets.”

  The price had to have been exorbitant considering she and Trey had a small cabin aboard the Splendid Night to themselves.

  “I guess she does okay at that club of hers.” He gave the critter a gentle scratch on the head. The little thing leaned in, looking happy.

  “Have you thought of a name for him yet?” she asked.

  “I was thinking about Sim.”

  “Short for simian?” she scoffed. “Lame. You can do better.”

  “I guess Monkey’s out, then.”

  “Are you even trying? Didn’t you say something before about liking whimsy?” She sent him a disgusted look that she didn’t really feel. It was just fun giving him a hard time.

  “How about Moonbeam?” he asked.

  Reece snorted. “Too much whimsy. You’ve gone too far the other way.”

  The monkey looked at her with his bright eyes when she spoke, as if he understood what she was saying.

  He was kind of cute, in a hairy vermin kind of way.

  She held out a slice of apple from the snack tray she’d been given. He reached out cautiously with his tiny, but oddly humanlike hand. “How about Dexter?”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a word that means lucky or fortunate. I think he got pretty lucky when you found him.” She watched him eat his apple slice carefully.

  “Really? I’ve never heard that word used to mean lucky. You must be super smart with word-knowing.”

  She squinted at him. He showed no hint of it, but she was certain he was joking. She’d play along. “Yes. All the word-knowing is mine to command. What do you think of the name?”

  “Dex could work. It’s short and simple. Do you like that, pal? Are you a Dex?” he asked the monkey.

  It watched Trey as he spoke, then made a soft squeak.

  “Well there you go,” Trey said. “Dex it is.”

  Dex reached over with his little hands, grasped Reece’s shoulder, and hopped over on his good back foot. He leaned against her neck and patted her shoulder.

  “I think he wants another apple,” Trey said.

  Bemused, Reece reached for one and handed it to Dex. “I’m surprised he didn’t just get one himself.”

  “He has manners,” Trey said approvingly. “He’s a good monkey.”

  “I’m just glad we know he doesn’t have fleas.” She frowned, but the little guy’s polite behavior and curious face were pretty endearing. “If I close my eyes and nap for a while, you’ll make sure he doesn’t gnaw my face off while I sleep, right?”

  “Sure.” Trey’s tone was charitable. “Though I’d think the gnawing would wake you up pretty quickly on its own.”

  “I can be a heavy sleeper.” She adjusted her seat, making sure that the shift to a more horizontal position was gradual enough that Dex wasn’t thrown off-balance.

  She expected the monkey to hop back over to his savior Trey, but he curled up in the crook of her neck and shoulder.

  Reece wondered if she should send him back over to Trey, then decided it wouldn’t be much different than having Rio sleep next to her.

  Whatever. She closed her eyes.

  THE LAYOVER

  DATE: 03.25.8948 (Adjusted Gregorian)

  LOCATION: Kolanu Station, in orbit of Burden, Geha

  REGION: Machete System, PED 4B, Orion Freedom Alliance

  “Damn, this planet has a lot of moons—big ones too.” Trey peered out a window at the celestial display around Geha. He pointed to Burden, the moon around which Kolanu Station orbited. “This one’s almost terrestrial in size, has an atmosphere too. Why haven’t they terraformed it?”

  Reece moved out of the flow of people in the passenger terminal’s debarkation corridor to join Trey at the window.

  “I’m sure they will, eventually.” Reece looked out, counting as many of the planet’s one hundred and forty-three moons as she could see. From this vantage point, she could only see four of the nine large moons, and a handful of the smaller ones. “But first, the land has to be more valuable as a place to populate than it is for research. A system with a naturally habitable moon this far out is rare. I guess they want to know everything about it before they tinker with it.”

  “I thought it wasn’t habitable.” He frowned and moved the carrier that held Dex to his other hand as the monkey shifted within. “Let’s get to our rooms. I’m sure Dex wants to get out of there.”

  The monkey had been remarkably well-behaved during the four-day trip to Kolanu. But Reece could tell that the little furry menace was getting antsy from being cooped up so much, and she didn’t want to press their luck.

  As they resumed their walk through the passenger terminal, she picked up their conversation. “Geha doesn’t just have moons, it’s the Machete System’s garbage scow. I’ve heard that over a million asteroids are co-orbital with the planet. Every so often one or two get pulled in and smash into the moons. With its size and orbit, Burden is a prime candidate for the impacts, which trigger mass extinction events.

  “The moon’s always getting knocked back down to its lowest orders of life, and then rebuilding itself. It’s kind of fascinating. The scientists are still having a field day with looking at all the ways life has rebuilt itself down there.”

  Trey gestured out of a window at the construction going on over the moon. “So for that, they’ll build a space elevator, but not for your planet?”

  “Apparently. Don’t blame me—I don’t make the rules.” She checked their route via her overlays and pointed to their left. “This way. Maglev’s down there.”

  “People could still live there, though, right?”

  “Yeah, but the tidal forces are extreme. With Geha’s mass, and all the other large moons, pretty much every landmass is frequently swamped on an irregular schedule. With the watertight dwellings that would be necessary, you might as well be living on a station, or another moon with no atmosphere. Heck, considering that salt water is corrosive, its more expensive, and there’s no compelling reason for anyone to want to come here and live like that.”

  “Seems reasonable,” Trey said as the boarded the maglev.

  They didn’t speak further until they arrived at their lodgings. Reece sto
pped at the door to her room. She didn’t intend to use it for long, but having a base of operations was beneficial. Plus, Trey needed a place to stow Dex. “This one’s mine.”

  “Why? Why isn’t that one yours?” Trey pointed to the next door.

  “Because I’m already here. Get your varmint settled and come to my room as soon as you can.”

  “I’ll get right on that.” He disappeared into his room, carefully angling the carrier around the doorframe.

  She delivered a frown in his direction before entering her own room. His flat delivery of lines like that made it impossible to tell if he meant what he said or the exact opposite. Or maybe even something in between.

  It was like words meant nothing to him.

  She set her baggage on the bed, then went to the bathroom. After washing her hands, running her fingers through her hair, and straightening her jacket, she felt ready for action.

  Trey didn’t arrive for another ten minutes.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Dex needed food.”

  “I requested a litter box for your room. Think he’ll use it?” She didn’t like to think of that possible complication of having a monkey around.

  “I don’t know. I showed it to him, but he’s not a cat. I don’t think a monkey’s going to look at some sandy rocks and think, yeah, that makes me want to take a—”

  Concerned about how graphic he was about to get, she cut him off. “Maybe you can train him to use the evac system, like humans.”

  “Maybe there’s some animal trainer I can pay to handle that for me.” Trey grimaced.

  “I doubt it. Not around here, anyway. Do some research. Maybe you need to, you know, demonstrate for him.”

  Trey gave her a stony stare, and she decided she’d said enough on the subject. It wasn’t her room that was at risk of being befouled.

  She changed the subject. “Right. I have the arrival schedule in my left side view, so I have a constant eye on that. As soon as Fitzmiller comes through the gate, we need to grab him and, with as little fuss as possible, bring him back to the third room. I asked that it be prepared for young children—no sharp edges, no toxic agents, and full parental monitoring.”

  He inclined his head. “Sounds reasonable. What are you thinking about for the grab? Do we need to be subtle?”

  “As far as station security goes, no. They’re aware of my presence here, and that I’m on official business with Rexcare. They’ll stay out of my way.” She’d only been on Konalu a couple times, but it wasn’t much different than most Machete stations.

  “There’s a but, isn’t there? I feel a big but coming on.”

  She stared at him. “You’re joking, right?”

  He remained the picture of innocence. “What do you mean? We’re talking business.”

  “The big but thing. And lots of other things you’ve said. You have a real passion for ambiguous funnies, don’t you?”

  “Aha, you noticed.”

  “It’s hard to miss,” she countered.

  “You’d be surprised. People see someone big like me and assume I’m too dumb to be funny. I can insult the hell out of them and they don’t even know.”

  She shook her head, then laughed. “You’re not what I expected.”

  “That’s kind of the point,” he drawled. “But for the record, you’re not like I expected either.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you were a first-rate ass to me when we met. Didn’t give me a chance at all. Then later, after you’d agreed to work with me, you ditched me at that bar. Total jerk move.”

  She sighed and sat on the arm of the couch. “So you’re calling me out. That’s fair. Yes, I was a jerk when we first met. I’d never met anyone like you, and I let my preconceptions guide my opinions. My mistake. But the ditching you at the bar, I won’t apologize for. If you’re going to do what I do, you need to learn how to keep up with someone who’s trying to lose you. That was your first lesson in the biz, that’s all.”

  “Is it? Is that all it was?”

  “Well,” she admitted, “it was fun, too.”

  He pursed his lips and nodded slowly. “All right, then. Glad we cleared that up. Now we can proceed on more equal footing. Because I’ve let you lead up until now because we’re on your home turf, doing what you specialize in. But once we get out of Machete, I’m going to have a lot more opinions about what we do.”

  She hadn’t expected him to forgive her so easily. “Are you sure you’re not still mad about me calling you a meat machine? You got over it awfully easy. I didn’t even actually tell you I’m sorry.”

  He shrugged. “But you are. I can tell.”

  “How?”

  “You listened. You learned. And then you changed. It’s the hardest thing for anyone to do, to change how they think, and you did it just like that.”

  “Oh.” She folded her hands. “That’s a hell of a wisdom bomb.”

  “I’m a hell of a smart guy,” he noted. “And now that you know it, I’ll expect you to weigh my opinion equally with yours.”

  Wow. Dude is deep. What other surprises does he have in store?

  “I’ll do my best. And for the record, I’m sorry about calling you an offensive name and prejudging you.”

  He smiled. “I’m sorry, too.”

  “For what?”

  “For thinking you were too big of an asshat to ever actually apologize.”

  Reece started to object, then realized he was joking again, and burst out laughing.

  * * * * *

  Reece felt great as she strode down the corridor. She loved the thrill of a capture. There was something about the game of trapping and apprehending another human. Especially if they’d done something wrong.

  And especially if she got to punch them a few times.

  She didn’t expect to hit the doctor though, not unless he inexplicably went ninja on her. The chances of that seemed about as likely as taking a moonwalk without a pressure suit.

  Still, she felt great, with adrenaline zinging through her body, enlivening her senses. She glanced to her right to see if Trey felt it too.

  If he did, he didn’t show it. She decided to assume that he did simply because she preferred it that way.

  “Remember,” she said to him on the way to Fitzmiller’s departure gate, “we want to overpower him and get him under wraps with as little notice as possible.”

  As much as she’d prefer a big flashy fight, sometimes subtlety was everything.

  “Sure thing, Mugsy. I’ll make sure not to whack ‘im unless you say so.”

  “What?” She looked at Trey in bewilderment.

  “Never mind. I guess you don’t know that one.” Trey shrugged.

  She glanced at him again. “You’re weird.”

  “Yeah. Sorry about that.”

  “Don’t be,” she countered. “I can work with weird.”

  “Oh, good news, then.”

  She smirked.

  Once they reached the passenger terminal and the correct gate, Reece stood to one side of the exit while Trey stood on the other. As they waited, she tried to view Trey as if she didn’t know him. Did he completely pass as someone without genmods? He was unusually large, but was his size a tip-off for what they were hiding?

  No one was staring at him anyway. That had to be a good sign. As she scanned the terminal, she looked for anyone suspicious. No one moved around excessively, or fiddled anxiously with something in their hands. Nor did she see anyone paying her or Trey any particular attention.

  A man wearing a dark suit paused in front of the gate and stood there long enough to raise suspicion, but then he continued on his way. He’d probably stopped to access his overlays. Some people couldn’t do complex functions while walking.

  People began to filter through the gate, most of them with baggage. Single men and woman, people in pairs, and even a few parents looking tired while their children bounced around them with boundless energy.

  Then she saw Fitzmiller, pulling a lar
ge rolling case and carrying a bag over his shoulder. He looked exactly like his photo—other than the large hat. A fairly nondescript middle-aged man with graying hair and lightly tanned skin.

  She guessed his coloring was natural. Odds were low that he saw much of the outdoors.

  Fitzmiller tried to keep his gaze on the floor to lower the brim of the hat enough to conceal his face. That trick might thwart the cameras, but not her.

  Quickly, she stepped in. “Uncle Herb! You made it!”

  She clamped her arm around his shoulders, smiling. “Play along, or my friend to the left there will knock you out cold and drag you to where we’re going. I’m with Rexcare, so no one here will interfere.”

  Trey moved in front of them, blocking them from view as much as he could. They hustled him to the room she’d arranged for him. Corridor after corridor, lift to lift, she nudged the doctor along. He wasn't in great physical shape, so the further they went, the slower he became. Finally, they arrived at their destination

  Once in, she released him.

  “I guess I don’t have to ask what you want.” Fitzmiller finally spoke as he wiped his hands on his pants.

  Reece pointed to the couch and he sat down obediently. “No. I want your research on the herbs and your genetic manipulation of them. And I want the identity of whoever you’re taking everything to.”

  “And if I don’t answer?” Fitzmiller tried to say it convincingly, but his fingers were biting into his thighs. He was far from cool and composed.

  She shrugged. “We’ll just haul you back to Akon and let you answer to Rexcare. They’re a biotech company. I’m sure you know better than I do how they can make someone share his secrets.”

  Fitzmiller licked his lips. “It’s not what you think.”

  “Of course not,” she agreed. “You have a sick daughter and need the money, or you want the research to benefit all of humanity, rather than be profited on by Rexcare. Either of those sound familiar?”

  He shook his head. “No, nothing like that. Can I…can I use the bathroom?”

  Trey spoke for the first time. “I’ll double-check that it’s safe for you.”