“If you fucking hurt her,” Burke spat.
“No. My problem is with you, not her,” she took a few steps and stopped in front of him. She propped herself with the rifle on the floor, leaning forward on the barrel. “My name is Jess Richmond. Do you know me?”
“No.”
“How about this weapon? Recognize it?”
Reluctantly, he looked up and down the rifle and felt a tension grow in his stomach. He did indeed recognize it and closed his eyes, feeling defeat run through him. He was fucked, he knew, just like Adam had been fucked when he got off Meidum. What he didn’t understand was how.
“How did you get that?” he spoke slowly.
“I was on the ship. You didn’t see me, but I sure as shit saw you, right before you left me on that shitty planet for a fucking year.”
“Oh, a year? I was there for over three.”
“Don’t be fucking petty with me, Burke. This isn’t a fucking contest.”
He glared up at her but found he couldn’t commit as much to the defiant look as he wanted to. Despite himself, he felt guilt.
“I understand why you killed Alan and Marcus,” Jess continued. “Don’t look at me like that, of course they had fucking names. They were armed. They probably fought with you. I know Alan did. But Eric, the one who had this rifle, he wasn’t a threat. He couldn’t hurt you. You killed him while he had his back to you. You fucking coward.”
“Coward?” Burke snapped. “I was stopping the cycle. Someone left me there just like you—”
“Adam,” Jess enunciated each syllable like they were separate words. “I know. You left your computer. I know all about you, Burke. You fought on Earth. You were, maybe still are, a bounty hunter with principles. I know you killed Adam right after you got off Meidum and that you got away with it, too.”
“Then you should know that I had to kill your friend,” Burke raised his head. “You’re living proof of that, aren’t you? If I had let him live he would have come after me, just like you did now. I was ending the cycle before it began.”
“Well fucking good job with that,” Jess yelled. “Fucking well fucking done!”
“So kill me already,” he kept his eyes open and on hers as he spoke. “I know that I deserve it, just like Adam deserved it from me. What are you waiting for?”
Jess shook her head. She was smiling. It was a wild, untamed smile like she had just heard a joke and couldn’t stop smiling even if she wanted to.
“Did it ever occur to you to take Eric with you? Did it ever occur to you that you could have dropped him off on some space station and then went on your way? Did it ever occur to you that he might not come after you, and might not kill you?”
“No,” Burke said simply.
“Blinded by rage and vengeance, then. Looking back now, do you think you should have considered taking him?”
Burke didn’t answer. His mouth was a straight line.
“Let me tell you. I’ve wanted to kill you since the day you left me there. I bled my first night. I nearly died from those fucking crawling things. Each day that passed was just another reason to kill you when I finally got out of there. And then I found your computer, and the journal you made. Your ramblings and thoughts and your stories. And you know what I discovered?”
Burke stayed quiet. He didn’t move.
“I discovered,” she continued, “that you’re a good man. But even then, I wanted to kill you. I still want to kill you. Maybe that doesn’t make me as good as you. But I started thinking about how a good man could do the things I saw you do. The man that said he fought the dross infestation on Earth. The man who said he wanted to use the ‘lucky break’ as a way to help more people. That man who said those words, is the man I saw kill my friend in cold blood.
“I see a man now who is pathetic. A shadow of his former self because he succumbed to his anger. You could have let Adam go. Who knows what you’ve done since then. How many nights have you tried to justify to yourself that you’re not a murderer?”
Burke closed his eyes.
“So here’s my revenge,” Jess said through her teeth. “The good man who thinks his actions were justified. My revenge is worse than that. I forgive you.”
Burke’s eyes snapped open. A shuddering sensation ran down from his neck and through his body.
“I forgive you,” she repeated. “Just like Eric might have forgiven you but you’ll never know.”
He felt his grasp on his life shatter. Abruptly, the last year was altered. Each action and decision was predicated on the one before, traced all the way back to the source of it on Meidum. His hands began to shake at his sides. Even Cass had disapproved when he had shot the man, he suddenly remembered. He closed his eyes again and kept them closed even as Jess walked around and loosened his restraints. There was a faint pressure on his augmented leg as feeling was restored to it. He could move and was free but he stayed there on the floor, his back pressed against the bars of the cell.
“How do you know I won’t kill you now, too?” he murmured.
“I don’t. If you kill me now, then you really are a thoughtless killer. Eric was a mistake, yes, but it wasn’t killing purely for the sake of it like mine would be. You would have to live with that disgusting decision for the rest of your life, but I’ll be dead and won’t know the difference. I’m not afraid of death, but if you conduct yourself like the universe will always be horrible to you, how is that living at all?”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“I’ve already forgiven you,” she answered. “However, there are still other things. I want my ship back.”
Burke nodded. His eyes were still closed. “It’s yours.”
The weapons were stored in the hangar. Burke equipped his battle aegis and Cass transferred the ship’s database to its systems. He left the rest of the ship to Jess and then stayed on the station for the final four days before his new ship arrived.
Jess walked around Freedom and admired the changes that had been made to its interior. She had the time to appreciate them now, and the state of cleanliness that it had been restored to. The shared quarters were now a single bedroom that didn’t smell like stale food and sweaty clothes. She no longer had to live in the engine room.
She sat at the helm and leaned over the consoles. She was a decent enough pilot to navigate space routes, but perhaps not skilled enough for complicated landings on varying planets, each with their different levels of gravity and atmospheres. Still, she was a capable enough mechanic to keep the ship operational by herself. She remembered that she wanted to move on to a new job before Meidum, and now she had her own ship and her own decisions to make.
A trader, she considered, perhaps even a legal one. The cargo hold would need to be expanded. The jail cell would have to be removed. The ship would need a crew. She grinned at the plethora of problems that were already presenting themselves as she left the hangar and eased the ship out of the station. She felt like the whole galaxy had just opened up to her.
* * *
The new ship arrived and Burke took little joy in it. It was meant to be a momentous occasion; he had finally restored his life to its former glory in terms of his job and ability to help people. The rest of his life felt like it couldn’t be any further from what it had once been.
The ship was sleek and deceptively large on the inside. The outer hull and weapon systems had been the most expensive parts of the ship: there were several mass driver turrets for launching solid projectiles, two missile launchers, and reinforced armor capable of withstanding several direct explosions. Where his previous ship had been clunky and rough, the new one was smooth and curved for easier propulsion through planetary atmospheres. The outside armor was black, white, and partially blue, and reminded Burke of the color of his aegis.
There were two levels to the ship. The doors parted in the middle at the front of the ship where it touched the floor of the hangar. A ramp extended outward to open up into the storage area. Designed for combat, t
he ship had less space for cargo than Freedom, and the initial room ended sooner with a doorway to the compartment at the end of the ship. The engine was at the back, with its machinery spanning two vertical levels from the floor to the ceiling. The stairs to the upper level were on the first wall in the engine room and Burke climbed them, barely noticing the electric hum of the vastly more powerful engine that his new ship had.
Cass had already transferred herself into the new network and was bouncing between the rooms. The computer system was several times more advanced than the previous one and she reveled in the processing power. As Burke moved through the upper floor—through the central corridor with the unstocked armory, jail cells, and extensive kitchen on the starboard side, and the crew quarters on the port side—Cass excitedly listed off all the ship’s many features. He stopped at the end of the hall, at the door to the command room, and looked back. Crew quarters on the port side, he looked again. More than one.
“Why are there three bedrooms?” he asked out loud.
“I didn’t want you to regret the decision,” Cass said happily, confident in her deception. “After what happened with Jess, don’t you think now that you were being unreasonable? We may have guests at some point.”
Burke closed his eyes and nodded. A few days ago he had been vehemently against the idea of extra bedrooms and would have been furious with Cass for going against what had been a mutual decision. Now he saw where he had been wrong. Normally he would have smiled and admitted his mistake to Cass, happy that she was looking after his best interests. He turned instead and walked into the command room.
The helm was larger than he anticipated. The doors opened up into a square room with a curved computer terminal on each of the three walls. There was a chair in front of each terminal. Once seated, the occupant needed to turn around and be surrounded by the computer systems on either side of the chair. The one at the front of the ship was for the pilot. He guessed the other two were for weapons and ship diagnostics. The room was alive with flickering lights and screens already displaying updates from all over the ship. He should have been pleased.
The middle of the room should have been empty, with space to move between each terminal. Instead, the room had been enlarged and an additional system had been placed in the center of the command room. Burke knew immediately that it was the gift that Havard had mentioned. It looked like a circular podium and came up to his waist. He didn’t recognize the hardware and had no guess about its functionality.
“Oh! I know what this is!” Cass blurted out.
“You’ve seen it before?”
She showed him rather than telling him. A faint whirling noise emitted from the podium as its components began to work. Burke looked up and saw that there was a similar looking piece on the ceiling directly above it, as if the two pieces made a capsule with the middle section missing. A light began to glow between them before a figure began to form within the space. A simple, skeletal figure at first that quickly rendered into more and more detail, eventually settling on the image of a woman. Her coloring was inconsistent: blues, greens, and purples, but it was unmistakably a person.
“Cass?” he asked slowly, his thoughts distracted for the first time in days.
“That’s me!” the woman said with joy. Her mouth opened but didn’t move in the correct way to match the words. She looked unsteady for a moment, as if she would fall over. “Havard had this when he took me to ACU a few months ago. Remember that? Wow, this is still strange. When we’re out of the ship it feels like I have a body with the armor. This is different, like I’m floating.”
She stretched her arms and legs out and the colors shifted as she moved. She was smiling.
“Well,” Burke smiled back. “It’s nice to finally see you. You’re pretty.”
“Don’t be absurd,” she said but still continued to smile. “It was nice of Havard to do this. Do you think he’s trying to warm up to us? Trying to convince me to let him copy me?”
“Maybe,” Burke suddenly looked serious. “Seems a little too good. Did you check for any security holes? We don’t want him able to pull you away again.”
“Of course,” Cass lifted her head up. “I already checked and disabled them. There were two. Some things never change, even if Havard is being nicer.”
Burke spent the rest of the day loading the ship. The weapons he had filled half of the armory. The kitchen was fully stocked. He had purchased an emergency stash of fuel, spare parts, and medical supplies that were put in the storage area on the bottom floor. He discovered that there was a ladder connecting the bottom area to the top in case of emergencies. He left it alone and took the stairs instead, still barely noticing the engine as he moved.
At the end of the day he sat at the helm. He was already looking over potential contracts but he could barely concentrate. Cass was quiet, fully integrating herself to the new ship. He felt his hands begin to shake and breathed deeply, exhaling slowly.
“Cass.”
He was facing the pilot’s terminal. His back was to the podium. Her face appeared on the display in front of him, looking the same as it had above the podium.
“I’m sorry,” he said, for the first time since Jess had left. “On Meidum, you were right. I shouldn’t have killed that man. You told me it was unnecessary and you were right. You were right when I went after Adam instead of fixing myself and waiting.”
Cass didn’t speak. She only nodded. It was surreal, only for a moment, for Burke to see her with a face and head, able to respond with motion instead of speech.
“I think it’s time I recovered the most important things of my old life.”
Cass was smiling.
He closed the open window of contracts. He called Geoff directly and spoke with him. Natalie came after that, with Cass there with him as they spoke. He explained everything that had happened and she stayed quiet, listening as he spoke, never once interrupting or being angry for how long he had been ignoring her.
The upper levels of ACU were quiet. Down below, the captive aliens and animals were screeching in their pens. In one of the many facilities in orbit, Natalie was seated in front of her personal computer screen in her home. Burke was talking and she was listening. The room was dark around her.
Farther out, in a higher orbit, were the many satellites around the planet that ACU was housed on. They created the extensive network that could link to any populated human system in the galaxy. Even farther out, the rogue planet’s moon, even more heavily industrialized than its planet, was abuzz with activity. The moon had been the first iteration of ACU. Havard had overseen the construction of the facilities on the planet and then had converted the moon for more specific tasks. In a way, he had set it up as his own personal research centre.
Havard walked through its halls now. There were barely any people on the moon. He preferred to keep the number of people low, only entrusting his more secretive tasks to the best and brightest of his employees, those that he knew would keep the information to themselves. He had killed before to keep the secrets of their research from enemy hands, and he took no pleasure in the act. He tried to keep those transgressions to a minimum.
He stepped eagerly into the command centre of the moon. Most of his researchers were already waiting for him, already working feverishly at the terminals in front of him. There was a large, single screen that dominated one wall of the room that was displaying a transfer of data. They had been planning the operation for weeks, scrambling all the information and pulling it through the network as inconspicuously as possible. Each time one of the workers on the planet below them made a call home, or downloaded something from the internet, they would pull more pieces of the transfer through. Normally they wouldn’t risk transmitting such precious data, and would transport it in a physical state to ensure that nothing was intercepted; however, there were insurmountable problems that called for more drastic measures.
Havard paced behind the line of terminals, alternating between keeping his hands as
fists at his sides and bringing them up to his face, scratching his cheek and nose whether they were itchy or not. When the transfer finally complete, he visibly saw the women and men around him relax, as though they all let out a combined breath that they had been holding. His back was still tense.
“This part is just as important!” he said loudly, but pleasantly, so his voice filled the room. “Let’s not trip at the finishing line! I want dozens of backups made of what we just copied. Keep all of them confined to the internal network. I don’t want any of this available to the main facility.”
He paced once more, watching as his commands were carried out. He stared up at the main screen. He moved his tongue around in his mouth. His mouth felt dry. He needed a drink. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast and it was now late evening. He stayed put and looked up at the screen.
“Store the original. I want a single copy displayed on the screen. Wipe the last week worth of collection. Only short term caches! We do not want to delete any permanent files on this one. Only temporary ones collected in the last week that haven’t been made permanent yet. Understand?”
Again, the changes were carried out and he stared up at them. When finished, he gave a nod and the screen changed. A different process started up. A woman’s face appeared on the display, frozen in place, a perfect copy. The original would never even know the copy was made.
He took a deep breath before nodding again. The woman began to move.
“What? What happened?” she said. The movements of her mouth didn’t synchronize properly with her words.
“Don’t worry Cass, you’re safe,” Havard said gently. “You’re home now. We saved you, but we couldn’t save everything. I’m sorry to tell you, but Burke’s dead.”
Her eyes narrowed and then softened. Below the room, in the heart of the moon’s systems, she was displayed on dozens of other screens: copies of the copy, dormant and ready to be used if something goes wrong. Havard turned from the screen and smiled.
The Bounty Hunter: Reckoning Page 7