Hunter

by Sharon Partington

  Her throat convulsed, but Korsin’s venom had stolen her voice.

  “What’s that? It’s not what I think? You can explain? By all means, I’m not an unreasonable man. I’d love to hear why you screwed me over to save your cargo of—what? Guns? Crystal shit? What did the Doranis let you keep in exchange for me? Whatever it was, I hope it was worth your life.”

  She closed her eyes. A tear slid down her cheek, and I wiped it away with a gloved finger. “I trusted you, and you fucked me up.”

  Her gaze darted to the door, and I shook my head. “He can’t save you.”

  She looked back to me and I smiled at the question in her eyes. “No, he’s not dead.” I leaned forward, my lips brushing hers as I slid the blaster down her body. Stopping beneath her ribs. “But you are.”

  Her eyes grew very wide, and I pulled the trigger.

  There was no remorse as I killed her. No sadness. Just cold satisfaction and a twinge of disappointment that after all we’d shared it had come to this.

  Nobody does what she did to me and lives for long.

  I dragged the trooper back into her room and put his gun in his hand—the one I’d used to kill Gina—then I hit the internal alarm and hid in the head as he came around.

  He crawled to his knees, blinking at the weapon in confusion. The cabin door burst open and he turned toward it, the gun in his hand, as Gina’s crewmen thundered in.

  He uttered a single, desperate squawk before he died.

  An icy calm settled over me as I watched Gina’s crew call station security and the bodies were carried out on hoverboards.

  Bye-bye, baby. Payback is a bitch.

  ◆◆◆

  I met Kenny in the Orion. He slipped into the chair across from me as Kayla brought me my drink.

  “I’ll have what he’s having.” He watched her move away with an appreciative smile. “And one of these days, I’m gonna have me some of that.”

  I chuckled. “She’d eat you alive.”

  He sighed. “Yeah, but it’d be so worth it.” He looked at me and leaned back in his chair with a small smile. “Seems there was some trouble on the upper rings. A horny Dorani trooper forced his attentions on our Gina. Raped and killed her. Apparently her crew shot him when he turned his weapon on them. I’m told Bellissima will be mine in a couple of weeks.”

  I shrugged. “Jaraslad is a dangerous place, especially for women. Your Gina should have chosen her company more carefully.”

  He slid an envelope across the table. “Here. This is for you.”

  “What is it?” I asked as Kayla brought his drink.

  “Consider it payment for services rendered.”

  I slid the envelope back to him. “I told you, this one’s on me.”

  “Open it. It’s not what you think.”

  I reached for the envelope and tore off the end, pulling out a single photograph. An icy shiver ran through me and I went very still inside as I looked at it.

  “Where did you get this?” I asked softly.

  He shrugged. “I know a guy who knows a guy.”

  “Where was it taken?”

  “On the back.”

  I turned it over. Lunar City, Terran Sector - June 27. Three weeks ago.

  “He’s still there?”

  “He’s the newly appointed Director of Military Security and Intelligence.” Kenny chuckled. “He authorized your prisoner transfer.”

  Well. I guess if you’re gonna bullshit, you might as well bullshit huge.

  The photo had been taken from a distance, but there could be no mistake. I’d know the bastard anywhere. Brigadier General Andrew Lansing. Former Commanding General of the Galactic Security Force’s Elite Gold Band Strike Team.

  The man who made me what I am.

  Chapter 6

  The refugee camp sits in the jungle, at the foot of Mount Ansaala. There’s no way we can reach it by air—the bush is too thick. The transport sets us down in a small valley five kilometers to the south. Our orders are simple: Corin Raas, the leader of the Chakar Resistance, has reportedly been seen at the camp. We’re to verify her identity, place her under arrest, and return her to the main GSF base at Lachra where she’ll be detained until she can be transported to Orlakhan to stand trial on charges of sedition and treason.

  Positive identification could be a problem; she’s like a deadly ghost, and no one seems to be able to agree on what she looks like. I’m given a grainy photograph of a slender woman dressed in Androsian mountain garb carrying a pulse rifle. Half the women in the district look like that photograph. The informant at the camp is certain it’s Raas. Apparently he’ll point her out to us when we arrive.

  Kenny is my second in command. When I brief him about our mission, he suggests we include his unit of Androsian militia. As their GSF Squad Leader, he thinks it will be good experience for them. The mission is an easy one and I can’t think of a good reason to refuse so, along with Delta Six, our party consists of twenty Androsian militiamen—forty-two of us in all.

  A rutted dirt track leads from the landing site into the bush, probably used by camp personnel to haul in supplies. We follow it for almost an hour. The trees are thick and the ground is spongy and wet. The air carries the smell of moldy vegetation and the faint scent of wood smoke. The only sounds we hear are the shrill squawk of avians in the thick canopy above us, the buzz and chirp of insects, and the squelch of our boots in the muck.

  The camp has been carved right out of the jungle. It sits in a manmade clearing and is surrounded by a high wooden stockade, apparently designed more to keep the jungle critters out than to keep the refugees in. The sun is rising and the gate is closed and barred when we arrive. A crude doorbell has been fashioned from a tin can and a wooden stick tied to a rope. I give it a few good whacks, the clang echoing through the predawn jungle. Avians screech in response, taking to the air in a thunderous flutter of wings.

  A peephole in the gate opens and a male face appears, his eyes wary. “Yes?”

  “I’m Captain Gage Brassan, commander, Delta Six. The camp administrator is expecting us.”

  The man frowns. “Wait.”

  He slams the peephole closed and I swallow my impatience. I’ve come a long way through tangled bush. I’m hot. I’m hungry. I’m cranky, bordering on seriously pissed. I don’t have time for this bullshit.

  I pace outside the gate, listening to the murmured voices of my men. Kenny watches me with barely concealed amusement. I wait for him to say something, to offer some snide little comment so I can unleash some of my growing frustration, but he’s smarter than that and keeps his mouth wisely shut. Several long minutes later the gate swings open, its hinges creaking.

  The camp is just coming awake and the main compound is still pretty much deserted. The banner of the Galactic Federation’s Refugee Authority, a blue cross on a white field, flies from a pole next to a tent with a sign in front identifying it as the main administration building.

  “In there,” says the man from the peephole, nodding towards the tent. The gate swings shut with a bang.

  I order my men to stand down, at ease but alert, then I cross the compound to the tent and go inside.

  A Terran woman sits behind a battered metal desk; she’s dressed in loose black pants and a gray shirt, her dark hair sleep tousled. She’s obviously just been rousted out of bed, and the reason for our untimely delay becomes clearer.

  She looks up and smiles. “I’m Lorinda Michaels, assistant administrator. Welcome to Ansaala, we were told to expect you.”

  “If you’ll take me to the man who can point me to my prisoner, we’ll be on our way.”

  Her smile falters. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

  “Why not?” I ask, knowing I won’t like the answer.

  She looks at me, fear and apology in her dark eyes. “The man in question is dead. He was discovered just after midnight, stabbed to death in his bed. We’ve requested assistance from the GSF military police, of course, but...well, they have yet to
respond.”

  Fuck.

  “You may have a long wait; I doubt they’ll make it a priority. What about the woman, Corin Raas?”

  “No one else remembers seeing her. The man who made the identification must have been mistaken.”

  “I seriously doubt it. I don’t imagine he stabbed himself to death.”

  She lowers her eyes. “No. I...suppose not.”

  “Our dead informant was certain it was her. Don’t you keep records?”

  She looks up, her eyes flashing. “Of course we do, but refugees can give false names the same as anyone else, and we can’t detain someone on the word of one man. We’re a refuge, Captain, not a prison. We don’t have a brig or a stockade, or whatever you call it, and we can’t keep someone from leaving here if that’s what they choose to do. This is not our fault.”

  She looks like she’s ready to cry and I allow common sense to prevail before I’m required to explain to my superiors at Lachra why I bullied a senior RA bureaucrat to the point of tears. I close my eyes for a moment as I swallow a little more frustration and dial my attitude down several notches.

  “I apologize, Ms. Michaels. I never meant to imply that it was.”

  She nods, apparently satisfied with my apology. “What do we do now?”

  “Well, we didn’t run into her on the way in, she must have slipped out another way. Is there a back gate to this place?”

  “Yes, behind the infirmary. It’s more of an emergency exit, no one uses it much.”

  “Locked?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many keys?”

  “The camp administrator has one. I have one. Doraan has one—”

  “Doraan?”

  “Our gatekeeper. He let you in.”

  “Let’s go have a little chat with him, shall we?”

  We leave the tent and she hurries across the compound. As she talks to the man from the peephole, I try to contain my impatience.

  They both come back to me. “Doraan tells me he let a woman out the back gate not more than two hours ago.”

  I look at the gate keeper. “I don’t suppose you happened to notice what direction she was headed in when she left?”

  “West,” he said. “Toward the foothills.”

  Well, at least that’s something. With only an hour or two head start we should be able to catch up with her and salvage this mission.

  The logistics involved in dragging all forty-two of us through the bush isn’t something I’m looking forward to—this was supposed to be a simple mission. In and out. Now it’s become annoyingly more complicated.

  Kenny volunteers to stay behind with his militia while I take Delta Six into the jungle. Fewer of us means we can make better time. With luck we’ll recover our prisoner and be on our way back to Lachra before nightfall.

  West, toward the foothills, turns out to be through some of the thickest jungle I’ve ever seen. Sunlight filters through the canopy above us, but it’s pale and dim and doesn’t reach all the way to the ground. We move slowly, stepping around the larger pools of standing water, treading carefully through the smaller ones. The air is humid and hot, and our passing disturbs clouds of insects that hover around us like a hungry gray mist. It takes all of my concentration to find a stable path through the swamp, and after three or four hours of slogging through tangled vegetation, I call a halt.

  There’s no way we’re going to find her trail in this. Assuming she came this way at all, which I’m seriously beginning to doubt. When we get back to the camp I’ll just have to contact Lachra and let them know she’s fled. They’ll be thrilled, I’m sure.

  We notice the smoke an hour out, thick and black, it hangs like a pall in the afternoon sky. Acrid tendrils drift through the trees and dread settles like a rock in my gut as we approach the camp’s main gate.

  One of the doors lies like a broken, splintered pile of kindling, the other swings precariously on one damaged hinge.

  I lead Delta Six through what remains of the camp. My men fan out, checking the few intact tents and buildings, looking for survivors. We step over bloody, broken bodies. There is no sound except for the muted crackle of flames and the crash of charred timbers disintegrating to ash.

  Kenny’s dead militia lie alongside women and children. Old people. Teenage boys, too young to fight.

  This is wrong.

  Please, God, let it be wrong....

  The administration tent has been reduced to a smoldering pile of blackened metal struts and heat-twisted beams, the canvas all but burned away. Lorinda Michaels lies outside. She’s been shot with a high-powered pulse rifle. No blood, just a big, fucking hole in her chest.

  She didn’t deserve this. None of them deserved this.

  I kneel to pick up the tattered, blue and white banner ground into the mud.

  Where’s Kenny?

  “Cap?” an uncertain voice asks.

  Danny Travis stands over me. He looks lost and bewildered, as though he can’t believe that what he sees is real.

  I know the feeling.

  I get slowly to my feet.

  “Survivors?” I ask around the lump in my throat.

  “None so far. It looks like they killed everyone. Women. Children. Civilians. Jesus....”

  I retreat behind my rank, thrusting the fury and disgust deep beneath the soldier in me. I hold tight to that. It’s all that keeps me from heaving my guts into the dirt.

  “Form a detail to burn the dead,” I say, my voice tight. “Briani is here somewhere. Search until you find him.”

  Danny nods. As his stunned mind processes my commands the confusion in his eyes fades, replaced by grim resolve as he offers a salute. “Aye, sir.”

  I watch him walk away, hear him relay my orders. I close my eyes, gripping the muddy, blood stained flag so tightly my hands hurt.

  We should have stayed.

  If we hadn’t been chasing Corin Raas through the jungle like idiots we would have been here to prevent this.

  It’s my fault.

  I close my eyes as bile rises in my throat.

  My fault....

  ◆◆◆

  I clawed my way out of the darkness, struggling against the tide of panic threatening to drown me. The room came slowly into focus, and my desperate mind sought refuge in familiar shadows. The table. The vid-link flickering in the corner. I shivered, trying to still my thundering heart.

  A dream. Not real....

  I sat up, swinging my legs off the bed. Drawing a deep, shuddering breath, I ran a trembling hand across my eyes, felt tears on my face.

  Shit, Jesus....

  Kenny’s envelope rested next to the lamp and I stared at it for a moment before pulling the photograph out again. Andrew Lansing owed me more in blood than he could ever hope to repay, and every job I took, every hit I made, was practice for what I planned to do to that bastard if ever I found him again.

  And now I knew where to look.

  Lunar City.

  I wasn’t brave enough to attempt sleep again, not with the images of the refugee camp hovering on the edge of my unconscious. They were there whenever I closed my eyes. I felt a sudden overwhelming surge of claustrophobia. My rooms were too small to contain the memory of that night.

  I felt oddly detached and wandered the outer circle for almost an hour, the babble of voices and jostling of the crowd barely registering. Eventually the crowds became as claustrophobic as my rooms and I made my way toward the observation platform overlooking the lower docking rings.

  It was quiet there, on the upper deck. Nothing but space and stars and the flashing blue light of the outer marker buoy. It was a soothing place; one I came to more often than I cared to admit. Whenever the chaos of my life threatened to overwhelm me, I could always find a small measure of peace as I stared out across that infinity.

  But not this time. This time I found myself trapped in the past. How many times had I skirted those memories? Why wouldn’t they leave me alone? They swirled through me, whispering. Forcin
g me to remember.

  My mother’s death had driven me into the arms of the Galactic Security Force—I can still see the poster in the recruiting office window: A smiling cadet striding across a backdrop of stars, the flag of the Galactic Federation waving proudly in the background. The words “Adventure Unlimited!” emblazoned across the bottom. How could I resist an invitation like that? Especially when I’d felt so lost. So cast adrift. The GSF had given my disconnected life purpose. Focus. The structure and discipline offered me the security I’d been missing.

  A year at the Academy, learning how to be a soldier.

  Another year of infantry training before being officially inducted into the Battle Corps and undergoing transfer to the Altair Battle Group.

  Three more years spent earning combat experience in some of the darkest, shittiest, deadliest skirmishes in the galaxy. Making a name for myself as one of the toughest, most bad-ass troop commanders in the GSF.

  I was all business. I had no time for friendships.

  Except for Dan Travis. Somehow he managed to sneak in under my radar. He showed me there was more to life in the GSF than regulations and duty. Being an only child, I never understood the whole sibling bond thing, but Danny had been the nearest thing to a brother that I knew.

  A Sorrellian freighter pulled out of docking bay twenty-one. I watched it pass beyond the outer marker buoy and make the jump to hyperspace.

  Danny had almost been more excited than me when I’d been promoted to command Delta Six: one of only a dozen elite units in the GSF. He’d even somehow finagled a transfer so we’d be in the same unit. I never did find out how he managed to pull that off.

  Delta Six.

  I gripped the rail. Closed my eyes, trying to shut the memories off, but I’d buried them so deeply, for so long, it was like a floodgate had opened, and they swept me away. I sank onto the stairs, watching the insanity of that night unreel in my mind....