Under normal circumstances, he would have laughed at the mismatched angry expression she wore and her begging tone of voice. This woman had stolen people and given them a fate he considered worse than death. He had spoken with their families and heard about the children she had stolen along with the adults. She had shown no mercy and neither would he.
She opened her mouth to beg again but Burke was already swinging his fist. His armored hand was heavy and smashed into the center of her face. Her nose erupted in a spray of blood. He must have punctured something in her mouth—he hoped it was her tongue—because she spat out blood when she opened it.
“Just kill me.”
“I would, but they want you alive.”
“Idiots,” she spluttered.
Cass opened the compartment at his waist where a grapple line was usually stored. They had removed the hook for this bounty and Burke used it now to tie her hands and legs together. Pond struggled wildly when she realized what he was doing. It took two more blows to the back of the head before she was stunned enough to be properly restrained. He left the guards. He only had room for one prisoner.
On his ship, Burke threw Pond into the single holding cell without untying her. He left her to struggle on the floor but still locked the cell door as a final insult. He turned the lights off when he left the room. He was angry that he wasn’t allowed to kill her.
“She deserves worse than this,” Burke muttered as he removed the pieces of his battle armor.
Cass had already transferred herself from the suit and into the ship. She started the launch procedure and they were undocking from the space station.
“I know,” her voice came from the walls in Burke’s room. After he had removed the last pieces of the suit, he pulled on some clothes and walked out into the corridor that lead to the ship’s helm. It was at the front of the ship and Cass’s voice changed to emit from each room as he stepped into it.
“The people who hired us want justice,” she continued. “Just hearing about her being killed far away won’t bring them closure. Seeing her in prison will bring them more peace.”
“But they’re wrong. She’ll get out.”
“I know,” Cass said. Her voice was as clear and smooth as a human’s. She could convey emotions as well as Burke. She sounded sad.
He sat down at the controls to the ship. There were three chairs in the room but the other two were blocked with boxes of supplies: guns, ammunition, food, and water. The ship was smaller than he was used to even after living in it for more than a year. He had had a better ship once and a human partner, Adam, instead of an AI. He had lost both in the previous year. He missed his old ship but not his old partner. Cass had filled that void and became more than the interface for his aegis.
“Can you send a message to the families that wanted Pond? And call Geoff. I need to let him know we’ll be back sooner than we thought. A few more days to drop her off and then back to him.”
“I already did,” Cass replied. The command room’s display screen changed from showing what was in front of the ship to a bright, uniform blue. It was waiting for a connection. “He’ll be a few minutes.”
“Thanks.”
Burke set a hand on his right leg and absentmindedly rubbed at it, as though it were a sore muscle. He had lost that leg at the same time that he lost his ship. He had gotten used to the augmented limb but sometimes it gnawed at him. The skin where the flesh and circuitry connected sometimes itched or would swell. For most purposes it was as good as his previous leg and, for some, it was better. Still, it served as a reminder of what the mistakes of the last year had cost him.
The blue screen flickered for a moment and then Geoff was displayed on it. He was an older man and had been the only person, aside from Cass, that had helped Burke after Adam betrayed him. He had spent the year repaying that trust and they had settled back into a comfortable working friendship. He got most of his private contracts and equipment through Geoff.
“Jack, it’s good to see you,” Geoff said. Burke recognized the fake name as an indicator that he wasn’t alone. He would have to keep it brief.
“Just calling to say we’ll be back a week earlier than planned. If you’re still selling what we discussed before, I’ll have the money sooner.”
Geoff’s eyes narrowed as if he was angry but he also gave the smallest of nods. Burke knew the rest was an act. Geoff had to keep up the appearance of a mundane bar owner and not a middle man of the criminal underworld.
“Did you have to fucking call just for that?” he growled. Burke grinned. “It’s evening here. We’re busy. These people, man,” he said as the connection was cut.
The screen faded back to displaying the outside of the ship. The distant stars stayed seemingly stationary as the space station, and the planet it was orbiting, shrunk out of view as the ship left it behind. Burke stayed at the helm until they reached the edge of the star system and the jump gate that was situated there.
The gates connected systems and occupied planets, shortening journeys to three days that would otherwise take months. Gates were built to link only select systems, noteworthy enough in population or resources to warrant frequent transportation. Jumps were done once every twenty hours. Massive carrier ships allowed smaller ones to either dock inside them, or latch onto the outside of their hull. The jumps were expensive for most people but bounties paid well enough to factor in those costs.
The next jump was scheduled in eight hours. The gate itself was massive, among the largest structures ever built by man: a blocky mass of components and arrays, producing whatever energy that it couldn’t absorb from the nearby star. A blue light constantly emanated from the gate’s center, constantly pulsing as it sent nonstop information to the network made by the other gates. It was how Burke had been able to talk to Geoff.
“Get ready, Cass,” Burke said as they neared the jump ship. There was always one of the gargantuan ships in a sluggish orbit around the gate, allowing ships easy access as it lumbered around for another jump. Each time a ship approached it would be checked for both payment and the identities of the occupants. Criminals were not permitted to use the gates, even if they were in a jail cell on a bounty hunter’s ship.
The ship’s display changed to a warning: a red screen and white letters. They were all in capitals:
SCANNING.
TWO HUMANOID LIFEFORMS DETECTED.
CONFIRMING.
“Should I turn us around?” Burke asked.
“Shush!” Cass hissed.
The words flashed on the screen once more before the “TWO” became a scrambled mess of jumbled letters. The words faded away and then came again, displaying Burke’s false identity:
SCANNING.
ONE HUMANOID LIFEFORM DETECTED.
CONFIRMED AS JACK PORTER.
PAYMENT WILL BE WITHDRAWN UPON DOCKING.
“Very good. You’re getting better at that,” Burke said and grinned.
“The hardware you bought could falsify the report on its own, but I want to learn in case we lose it. You never know what might happen after, well,” her voice trailed off.
She was talking about his old partner turning on him and he knew it. He gave a short nod and then got to his feet. They had a few days of down time and he wanted to get his prisoner set up before they were into the jump.
Pond was still on the floor and looked like she hadn’t tried to move. There was a small amount of blood that had congealed around her face but it had stopped flowing from her broken nose. Her eyes were open and snapped to his the moment he turned the lights on. She was smiling.
He opened the cell door and stepped inside. He untied her hands and left the knot around her feet for her to deal with herself. He locked the door again and went to leave the room. He only stopped when she started laughing behind him.
“Tough man thinks that he’s done something, huh? You haven’t done shit.”
“I know,” Burke said simply.
“Whoever hired you is fuckin
g stupid. First, for hiring an unknown amateur like you. Second, for wanting me alive. I’ll be out of prison in a matter of months. Weeks, even.”
“I know,” he repeated.
“How does that make you feel, asshole? What will you do then?”
“I’ll kill you,” he said, just as plainly.
“You can’t,” she grinned, showing her teeth. One of them was missing. He had hit her harder than he thought. “Your bounty says alive, not dead.”
“True,” he nodded. “But after you get out, my contract will have been expired for, months? Weeks, even.” He grinned then, showing his teeth. None of his were missing.
He didn’t wait for her reaction. He didn’t need to. He turned the lights off again when he left the room.
Also by Joseph Anderson:
[email protected]
Science Fiction
Interstellar Soldiers
Marines Against the Swarm
The Robot Impersonator
Bounty Hunter Series
The Bounty Hunter Series One, Complete
Revenge
Redemption
Vampire
Into The Swarm
Reckoning
Fantasy
The Wizard and the Dragon
Monster Slayer Series
Origins
Vampire Season
The Immortal Demon
Werewolf
Zombies
Bounty Hunter 1: The Bounty Hunter's Revenge Page 9