“All right,” he said, putting the regal weight of forty years of politics into his voice. “I know you’re in here. Show yourself.”
The chair spun slowly on its axis, and in it sat a ghost, or, at least, what should have been a ghost.
“Hello, Governor,” Jesse Forster said, his voice cheerful. “How are you on this lovely afternoon?”
A sudden wave of nausea struck Mahlcobb. Forster should not be here. He should be dead by now. Rahk had failed his mission.
Still, the Governor mustered all the haughtiness that his office afforded him, saying, “You’ve made a grave error by coming here, Forster. A grave error.” He was interrupted by a fit of spasmodic coughing so severe that it threatened to bring him to his knees. After the coughing stopped, he straightened once more, but not as fully as he would have liked. “Breaking into the office of a territorial governor is not the kind of mistake you want to make.”
He stepped forward to his desk and pressed the call button linked directly to his personal escort. “My men will be here any moment to arrest you, and this time, I will see you get what you deserve for the humiliation you have caused me.”
His tone was meant to intimidate his young intruder. Forster’s response was a bored yawn. Leaning back in the high-backed chair, he propped both feet up on the desk.
“I wouldn’t worry about your elite guards, Gov,” Forster replied, “You see, in a few minutes, the local police will be coming here to arrest you, not me.”
“Don’t be absurd!” Mahlcobb spat. “Arrest me for what?”
“Aiding and abetting a group of convicted criminals, for one. Also because you had a hand in the deaths of at least a hundred and thirty people.” Forster replied. “Namely, the colonists on Piraxis Three, the workers at the fuel station on Melarii Two, and the crew of the prison transport that was carrying the Nexus Gang to the Stenax prison asteroid. Their blood is on your hands.”
Mahlcobb snorted at the accusations, but inside, his bowels were turning to jelly. “Nice try, Forster,” he hissed. “but you have no proof.”
“Oh, I have proof,” Forster answered, swinging his legs down and leaning forward on the desk, hands folded neatly in front of him. “And I have people who will listen.”
Now Mahlcobb laughed, but it was a hollow, rattling sound, and the effort exhausted him. “You really think that there are people out there who are going to take the word of some bounty-hunting space trash over that of a territorial governor? Who might that be, pray tell?”
“How about the galaxy at large, for starters?” Jesse pressed a button on the desk and the vid screen on the opposite wall came to life. An attractive Urusian female reporter was standing outside the very building that held Mahlcobb’s offices. For his benefit, Jesse increased the volume.
“. . . the dreaded Nexus Gang has indeed been confirmed captured or terminated. A bounty hunter group, led by one Captain Jesse Forster, has been credited as the group responsible for the gang’s downfall.”
“In a more shocking development, this reporter has received and confirmed evidence linking Stenax Sector Governor Rans Mahlcobb, whose offices are in the building just behind me, with the escape of the Nexus Gang. It seems that Governor Mahlcobb allegedly supplied the Nexus with arms, passcodes, and even a retired Vengeance-class warship with which to make good their escape. These allegations come after computer files from the warship itself show that Governor Mahlcobb was personally involved with the rerouting of said equipment. Further charges will be announced after an emergency session of the Confederation Senate . . .”
Jesse muted the volume on the monitor, turning to look at Mahlcobb, whose flesh had gone so pale that it was practically translucent. Jesse favored the man with a humorless smile.
“You see, Governor, next time you transfer materiel from one point to another, make sure all your tracks are covered. When you send transfer orders to the central ship impound station at Habara, those orders are –and this is standard procedure I might add– downloaded into the mainframe of the ship being transferred.”
Jesse smiled at hearing Mahlcobb’s audible gulp as the man swallowed.
“When you erased all transfer orders from both your computer and the Habaran central computer, you missed the duplicates sent to the Malcontent. It’s a failsafe of the Habaran computer system that protects against acts such as yours. Once a command is uploaded to a ship in question, you need a special slicer code to destroy those records. So sending an order to erase such records would erase only those in the Habaran mainframe and not in the ship’s computer. And since that ship you requisitioned was old Harkonian surplus, the request was also logged with the Harkonian embassy on Habara.”
Mahlcobb stammered, wanting to refute the allegations Forster made, but his throat had suddenly constricted so that he could not speak. He worked two fingers under the collar of his jacket to loosen it, but it did not help. He began to cough again, more violently this time.
Forster rose and started for the door to the outer office. “By now there should be a few officers waiting outside to bring you in for some questions. I hope you regain your voice by then. You’ll have a lot of explaining to do.” He threw Mahlcobb a salute. “Good day, Governor.”
He was halfway through the door when he stopped and turned back around. Mahlcobb sank into a chair, clutching at his chest, his breath coming in slow, ragged gasps.
“By the way,” Forster said. “Your daughter and son-in-law asked that I convey their warmest regards.”
Smiling at the wail of frustration that followed him out of the office, Jesse found the secretary gawking at him, mouth agape. K’Tran was entering from the corridor outside the reception area, followed by two security officers.
Jesse stepped to the side as the two officers proceeded into Mahlcobb’s office, past the stunned secretary. Moving to K’Tran’s side, he said, “Our work here is finished, my friend.”
K’Tran gave him an appraising look as they moved into the corridor, heading for the elevators. “Feeling better?”
Jesse smiled, an almost giddy chuckle escaping his lips before he could contain it. “Oh, hell, yes,” he answered. “Haven’t felt this good in a long time.”
*
Returning to the Starhawk, Jesse and K’Tran found the crew making ready for their departure, but he was dismayed to find one person missing from the bridge. “Where’s Karson?”
Podo, Kym and Morogo all shared uncomfortable glances. Podo approached his brother slowly, as though he were afraid that Jesse would strike him. “She left. Not long after you did. She didn’t say anything to us.” He held out a message chip. “We found this in her cabin.”
Jesse took the chip from his brother, staring at it with disbelief. He turned it over in his fingers, as if waiting for it to talk to him. After a moment, he tossed it back to Podo. “Let’s see what she has to say.”
Podo plugged the chip into his communications board and the holo-comm came to life. The image was a two-dimensional representation, and Karson appeared only from the shoulders up. The image resolution was not the best, and judging from the traffic in the background, she must have recorded it at the public comm terminal in the spaceport central, then somehow snuck it back on board without anyone noticing.
“Hi everyone,” she said, smiling into the recorder. In Jesse’s mind, there was something forced about her cheerfulness. “I’m sorry for leaving you in this way, but I’ve never been very good at goodbyes, so I thought this was best.”
“I know what you’re all thinking; that I’d stay on with you after the hunt was over. To be honest, I was real conflicted about that myself. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like this crew,” She paused, a mischievous grin crossing her lips. “Even your captain is okay, when he’s not being a pompous jerk.”
Jesse felt the eyes of his crew all around him; ignored them.
“The fact is,” she continued, “I like being an independent. I need to work on my own for awhile. But our lives are intertwine
d now. You couldn’t get rid of me totally if you wanted to. When I feel the need to be part of a team again, I’ll look you up.”
“I’ll miss you all more than you can know. Don’t worry about me. You know I can handle myself. Just keep watching over your shoulders, because one day I’ll be standing there. Take care.” The transmission ended.
“And I’ll be watching,” Jesse said quietly.
Not quietly enough, judging by the bemused smiles that K’Tran and Podo were giving him as he looked their way. Inwardly chiding himself, he cleared his throat and glared back at his crew. “All right,” he growled. “Let’s get this tub in the air. We’ve got other jobs waiting for us, and, a rather sizable bounty to collect.”
As they turned back to their workstations, Jesse settled into his command chair. “We’re go for departure, Captain.” K’Tran said.
“Take us home,” Jesse replied.
With effortless grace, the Starhawk rose into the blue sky over Urusi, heading for the stars.
*
The departure of starships from a major port city like Kanai was nothing to turn the heads of the locals, who witnessed hundreds of ships coming and going every day. So it was as the Starhawk lifted from its docking bay and headed across the cityscape that no one bothered to watch its departure.
Or almost no one.
One being paused in her journey across a skybridge between two buildings as the hunter ship passed overhead. Oblivious to the grumblings of other pedestrians as they had to traverse around her, she watched the ship until it became little more than a glimmering speck in the darkening Urusi sky.
See you around the galaxy, Captain Kid, Kayla Karson thought to herself. She smiled, thinking back on the events of the last few days. She had meant what she had said. They would meet again, if she had any say in the matter. Besides, they still owed her a share of the bounty.
That was the future. This was the present, and she needed to find a new ship. With a final glance skyward, she continued on her trek through the city, losing herself in the crowds.
About the Author
Born and raised in Queens, N.Y., Joseph J. Madden now lives with his wife and three daughters in Sheboygan, WI. In addition to writing, he enjoys movies, attending science fiction conventions, and is also trying his hand at urban chicken farming—seriously.
His next project will be The Starhawk Chronicles, Book II: Rest and Wreck-reation.
E-mail the author @ [email protected]
The Starhawk Chronicles Page 25