Manhunt on Tau Ceti 4 (Nick Walker, U.F. Marshal Book 6)

by John Bowers

  “Are you talking about marriage? I’m not sure I—”

  “I’m not talking about anything. I’m just talking about being together, spending time together. Let nature take its course, and see what happens. I need to climb out of the hole I’ve been living in, maybe take my job back, maybe…hell, I don’t know. All I know for sure is that I can’t go back to where I was when you came looking for me. That was Purgatory. I can’t do that anymore.”

  Her lips parted, her chest rose and fell.

  “Can you accept me under those conditions?” he asked.

  She hesitated, then her eyes narrowed.

  “Do I get to have sex with you?”

  He looked startled. In spite of everything, he couldn’t fight back a grin.

  “Well, you know how I hate sex, but—if you insist…“

  “Then I accept.”

  Nick leaned over and kissed her.

  “That’s a down payment,” he told her.

  “A down payment for what?”

  “For what you were talking about.”

  She smiled. “Okay, but as soon as I get you alone, I want payment in full.”

  “I can probably arrange that.”

  They turned to look as someone tapped on the door. Mijo peered into the room, his eyes wide with curiosity. Nick waved him inside.

  “Victoria, this is my new partner. His name is Mijo. He showed me how to get into the castle.”

  Victoria stretched out her hand.

  “Hello, Mijo. I’m very glad to meet you.”

  Mijo took her hand, staring at her for a long moment. He turned to Nick.

  “¡Que rubia caliente!”

  “You said it.”

  Victoria looked puzzled. “What did he say?”

  “He called you a hot blonde.”

  Victoria smiled.

  Mijo was still staring at her.

  “This is your abogada?”

  Nick winked at Victoria, then turned back to Mijo.

  “No. This is mi novia.”

  Orosi – Tau Ceti 4

  In a cheap, one-room flat a block from the late Bert Carter’s office, Kiko Okinaba covered her mouth with both hands as she stared at the 3DV on her dresser. She was watching the midday news, and the report on the screen filled her with despair. Cameras had arrived late at the Chairman’s castle, but in time to see the bodies coming out on stretchers, the still-smoking wreck of the locomotive, and lawmen swarming over the scene. According to the narrator, the Chairman was dead, killed by an off-world lawman named Nick Walker, United Federation Marshal.

  Tears slid down Kiko’s cheeks and she started to sob, but couldn’t pull her eyes off the screen. Not until the report ended did she sit down, lower her head into her hands, and weep.

  The Chairman was dead! She had known him for years, ever since she was sixteen. One of his recruiters had rescued her from the streets of Nagoya; the Chairman had offered her a new life, a new purpose. She had adopted his cause, internalized it, and believed it with all her heart. She knew without a doubt that the Chairman’s vision of communism was the only hope for the human race, and the Chairman was the only man alive who could implement it.

  Now he was dead, and the dream would die with him. All hope was lost. She had nothing left to live for.

  She lifted her head and wiped her eyes, found a rag and blew her nose.

  That wasn’t quite true. The dream might be dead, and her life might no longer have purpose, but there was one thing she could still do. Nick Walker had been a thorn in the side of the Movement for over two years; he had killed or captured most of the true believers on Alpha Centauri, and now had come here and killed the Chairman as well. She stared at the 3DV screen again and clenched her fists, rage burning deep in her soul.

  Yes, there was one thing she could still do.

  She had to kill Nick Walker.

  END

  Don’t miss the exciting Fighter Queen saga by John Bowers. Five unforgettable novels of war, romance, heartbreak, and triumph all combined in the epic tale of interstellar struggle between the United Solar Federation and the Sirian Confederacy.

  You’ve never read anything like it.

  Available now at Amazon.com

  The Fighter King

  It was approaching noon. Vega was high in the sky, the air had warmed some, but the day remained pleasantly cool. The men broke out rations and ate a cold lunch of processed meat, hard cheese, and crackers. Wulf and Krug alternated at the tripod. Almost an hour after they finished eating, as Oliver was just starting to relax, Krug stiffened.

  "SE hovercraft!" he said tersely.

  Oliver and Bjorn Hoffmann sat up abruptly. Wulf took over the tripod and motioned them forward. Oliver settled against the side of the nest and rested his rifle on the edge. He checked the position of Vega to make sure there would be no reflection off his scope, then sighted through it and began adjusting the magnification.

  He saw a single hovervan settle into the center of the village street. Six men emerged and stood for a moment, all wearing the ebony uniform of the SE. Another Sirian, an officer in standard grey, emerged from a building to talk to them. Documents were produced—a shipping manifest?—and examined. The officer talked while the SE man nodded.

  "Stand by," Wulf said.

  Oliver checked the range—1766 yards—and adjusted for it. The breeze was in his face, almost dead-on, not more than one or two knots. He twisted the strap around his left wrist to remove the slack, took two deep breaths and released them, pulled the butt plate against his shoulder, and began willing himself to relax.

  He could see their faces clearly. These weren't holo targets or anonymous game animals. These were men, human beings, and had he known them he could have recognized them easily. The SE man had a mole on his chin, the grey-clad officer a tattoo on his neck.

  Oliver chambered the first round; the rest would feed automatically.

  "Pick your targets," Wulf said quietly. "Lincoln, take the SE officer. Hoffmann, get the prick next to him."

  Bjorn Hoffmann was also ready, breathing heavily. Oliver planted his crosshairs on the SE officer's face, then lowered them gently until they rested in the center of his chest. He closed his left eye and began taking shallow breaths. His tongue curled upward to touch his top lip.

  "Fire when ready," Wulf said.

  Bjorn's rifle roared at once, almost dislodging Oliver's concentration. But he waited another half second, then squeezed the trigger.

  "A miss!" Wulf called.

  Oliver saw the spark from the ricochet, and for an instant couldn't believe he'd missed. Then his target jerked—shock spread over the man's face, and blood spurted from his chest. He began to sway, and the SE man next to him lunged forward to catch him. Oliver fired again, then swung his rifle slightly left and fired a third time. He swung back in time to see his second target spin wildly around, his head flopping like an axed chicken. Hoffmann fired again, and this time scored a hit.

  Oliver traversed the scene with his scope and saw four SE men on the ground—three of his, one of Bjorn's. The rest had scattered for cover, leaving the army officer standing alone. Spattered with blood, he seemed stunned and indecisive. Before he could decide to run, Oliver fired his fourth round, waited to see the result, and then cleared his rifle. No more targets were in sight.

  He turned away and sat down against the side of the nest, breathing deeply against the indescribable emotions coursing through him. Six feet away, Wulf was calling the score.

  "Sophia scorn, that's five down! Goddess! I guess that showed the fuckers, eh?"

  Oliver closed his eyes and began to tremble.

  A Vow to Sophia

  A full squadron of enemy fighters was headed toward them, now invisible because the Ladar was shut down, but no less deadly a threat. Section 3 turned toward the Sirian convoy and applied power.

  "We've got to get past those fighters without engaging them," Onja said.

  "I know."

  "I've got a full
load of deceptors. If I fire them all at once, we might slip through."

  Deceptors were a new tool introduced with the QF—tiny rocket projectiles that, when fired, echoed a Ladar image exactly like a Lincoln fighter. Neither Johnny nor Onja had ever used them in combat.

  Onja keyed in codes and several small pods opened along the fighter's outer skin. Each pod contained six deceptors.

  "Ready to deploy," she reported.

  "Stand by."

  They closed the gap rapidly. Enemy fighters began painting them with active Ladar, allowing them to judge the range as the sweeps hit them. The bigger ships were still invisible on the holos.

  A trickle of sweat tickled insanely near Johnny's ear; Onja watched calmly with optics, her eyes steady and cold. The range to the fighters dropped under ten thousand miles.

  "Attent: enemy warheads inbound, ETA nineteen seconds!"

  "Fire deceptors," Johnny said.

  Onja punched the firing button. Seventy-two small rockets fired at once, spreading out, each moving generally toward the convoy. It was enough to terrify the Sirian pilots.

  Johnny kicked harder thrust as soon as the deceptors were away, taking full advantage of their confusing images to cover as much distance as possible. Onja suffered the acceleration, never taking her eyes off her optics. Confused by the deceptors, the inbound warheads lost their lock and began erupting prematurely. Enemy fighters began vectoring toward false targets.

  Johnny and Onja plunged through the enemy line undetected. Nothing but empty space now lay between them and the convoy.

  Johnny switched on his active Ladar long enough to pinpoint the transports. Two were located at each end of the convoy, each covered by a destroyer. He shut down the Ladar again.

  "Here we go, Onja. Two enemy transports dead ahead. Are you ready for this?"

  "Get me in close. If we don't come back, at least we'll take a couple of Sirian divisions with us." She was already keying in codes that told the AI to isolate the transports.

  "Shit! They know we're coming," Johnny said. "Those destroyers are moving out to intercept."

  "Don't let them get too close. We don't stand a chance against them."

  The massive lasers used by capital ships could slice the shields to hash.

  "I know. But maybe we can mess with their heads a little."

  Onja frowned. "What do you mean?"

  "They know we've spotted the transports; they won't expect us to go after the destroyer instead."

  "Johnny, don't screw around! You're going to get us killed! I want those transports!"

  "Are your tubes loaded?"

  "Yes, but—"

  "Then hang on!"

  Killing his thrusters, Johnny rotated the fighter thirty degrees, aiming at the nearest destroyer. He fired the ion drive again and the QF surged straight at the looming warship. Onja's eyes widened in alarm as the distance fell away at fifty miles a second. In her optics the destroyer looked like a star going nova.

  "Jesus, Johnny! They're scanning us! They've got target lock! They've got target—"

  Johnny fired his rockets and steering jets at the same instant, jerking the QF six degrees to the left—just as the first massive laser shot flashed out from the destroyer. Two seconds later a second bolt fired, and then a third—but each one missed by yards as Johnny jinked the QF with rockets and steering jets. Onja watched in horror, certain they'd be fried at any second.

  "Hit 'im with a Yin-Yang!" Johnny shouted. "He won't miss forever."

  "Johnny, it'll just bounce off his—"

  "Hit 'im, goddammit!"

  "Input:" she said quickly, "tubes 3 and 4, fire!"

  As the torpedoes sprang out of the tubes, Onja raised the shields again. Half a second later they took their first hit, the QF staggering under the blow. The shields sagged to forty percent.

  "Another hit and we're finished!" she yelled.

  But now the Sirian gunners had to divide their attention; the Yin-Yang streaked toward the destroyer like a pair of hyenas, looking for an opening. For ten eternal seconds nothing happened as the range closed, and then everything happened at once. The Yin darted straight for the destroyer, the enemy gunners fired at the QF, and Johnny Lincoln made his move.

  "Input: active Ladar, execute!"

  The laser shot missed, but only because Johnny had abruptly changed course; the QF raced under the destroyer's belly and streaked straight for the nearest transport. Onja's vision blurred under the crushing G forces, but she now understood his strategy. Even as her lungs labored to supply her brain with oxygen, she kept one hand on her firing key and her eyes fixed to her holos, now blazing with target information.

  The Sirians were taken by surprise. As desperate laser fire reached for the fighter from another destroyer six thousand miles away, the speeding QF darted the last few hundred miles toward its target.

  "Okay, Onja," Johnny shouted. "He's all yours!"

  "Input: Shields down! Tubes one and six, fire! Reload standard warhead!"

  Two Yins leapt out of the tubes, one streaking for each transport. Onja waited breathlessly, counting down the seconds. The targets were so close she wondered if the EMP would affect the QF. Johnny continued to jink, though the laser fire had stopped—the nearest destroyer had been holed and was spewing debris into space.

  During those final seconds Onja Kvoorik lived the most intense moments of her life. With her own survival hanging by a thread, her heart raced with excitement as she held thirty-five thousand enemy troops in her sights.

  Two brilliant nuclear flares erupted ahead.

  "That's it!" Johnny shouted. "Their shields are down!"

  The Fighter Queen

  "Joanne, can you pick out the Major's fighter?" Johnny asked as he skimmed the tops of the clouds at forty-three thousand. "We need to form up on them."

  There was a brief hesitation, then his gunner's voice came back, fraught with tension.

  "They're about ninety miles dead ahead, Johnny! God, it looks like they've got one after them, too! They're evading, but it's gonna get them!"

  Johnny's heart froze, and he increased thrust on his rockets. Five seconds later he saw them burst out of the clouds thirty miles ahead, a single plume of rocket exhaust gleaming in the sunlight. He frowned; why weren't there two rocket exhausts? He began to climb after them, closing the range to twenty miles.

  Johnny saw Tommy climb to sixty thousand, staggering to the left in a steady slow turn, depending on a single rocket engine. He also saw smoke trailing from the port side. The jet engine was billowing black smoke, and then he knew they'd taken some kind of damage on their attack run.

  "Look out, Johnny! The missile…"

  He saw it through the cockpit window on the left, a pencil line of white exhaust as it leaped out of the clouds and continued to pursue his flight leader. Johnny saw the weapon's incredible speed and intuitively realized that Tommy Royal wasn't climbing nearly fast enough. He didn't have a prayer of outrunning that thing. In fifteen seconds, maybe twenty…

  Johnny made no conscious decision. Without warning he veered hard left, into the path of the rising GAM. He passed across its trajectory, within five thousand feet, then jammed jets and rockets to maximum thrust, driving everything past the red line, ignoring his AI's squawks of protest. Joanne's gasp over his headset told him she realized what he was doing, but there was no time to worry about her. Right or wrong, he'd done it, and there was no taking it back.

  Now he had to fly.

  Star Marine!

  Rico slammed against the side of his berth as the lander took a hit. His eyes jerked open and sweat poured into them, his mouth leaching dry as he waited to see if they were going down. The lander shuddered violently, seemed to skew sideways, but kept flying, though the ride was ten times rougher than before. He trembled with blind fear and prayed faster, too scared even to cross himself.

  He heard the deafening shriek of giant lasers for a brief instant, then felt the craft dive steeply, and realized they'd passed
through the saddle. They should reach the runway any second now. Deceleration shoved him forward; he heard men moaning and muttering curses.

  "Fifteen seconds, Delta!" Captain Connor shouted in his headset. "We have an engine fire, so the minute we touch down, get moving. Remember the drill—everyone deploy to starboard. Ten seconds! Get ready!"

  The second wave descended into an inferno of burning landers and ASC fire; shredded Star Marines decorated the pavement. The lead ship, carrying Delta Company, touched down heavily and began to skid as ground fire churned the pilot into hamburger. The co-pilot managed to fire reverse thrust, then he was killed, too. Converging streams of steel chewed into the lander from three directions as it swept sideways off the runway, the wing and nose jets competing for control. Hundreds of holes suddenly appeared in the fuselage and dozens of Star Marines were hit. Rico saw daylight and heard the popcorn sounds of slugs ripping through metal. Men shouted, others screamed–Rico rolled off his berth to the deck and strangled in his own saliva as centrifugal force pinned him against a lower berth.

  The skid stopped only when ground fire blew off the landing gear. The Lincoln lander collapsed onto its belly and sat shuddering under conflicting thrust from its jets.

  "That's it! Everybody get the fuck out! Go! Go! Go!"

  Deafened by the volume of fire outside, Rico scrambled to his feet. The deck was awash with blood from dozens of casualties, but the survivors somehow made their way to the rear exits. The starboard ramp had buckled and was jammed; Star Marines in full combat gear slammed into each other in the narrow passage, blocking all movement. Men continued to fall as bullets ripped through the fuselage. Rico felt a rising panic as the smell of blood and sweat overwhelmed him; the little ship was shaking like a wet dog, the screaming jets pushing it forward and back.

  “Get to the other side!” Capt. Connor bellowed. “Back up, goddammit! Use the portside ramp! Move it! Move it!”

  Somehow, over the shouts and the panic, Connor’s voice pierced the consciousness of the trapped men, and they began to separate. Men fell back, looking for the access hatch to the port side, but the lights had gone out and few found it.