by Max Jager
"Girlfriend: Sub Commander Lizzy Sophen." Axus paused a beat. "Well, for now at least."
Jameson gritted his teeth. Now what was this bull about his girlfriend?
Without thinking, Jameson lunged forward, making to jab Axus hard in the shoulder. Axus seemed to know exactly where he would strike and slid right under the assault. Using his new position below Jameson's frame, he delivered a series of swift strikes along the side. Jameson dodged away, knowing he was too late.
A moment later a numbing sensation ran down his left leg and he fell flat on his face. Growling in pain, he used his good arm to push himself onto his back.
Axus towered overhead again, his head briefly blocking the ceiling light shining down on them.
"The Kraven Approach is crap, Jameson. A bloody screw up waiting to happen. And before this all over…"
He paused, hardening his gaze for effect. There was a haunting promise in those dark brown eyes of his.
"No one in Eighth Flotilla will become the next Fleet Commander."
Bounty Hunter
Chapter 2
Bounty Hunter
* * *
The Mediterranean Expanse
Paradise Star System, Planet Paradise
Planetside city Calabarzon
* * *
Present Day
It was a beautiful day along the beach cove.
Water lapped lazily at the sandy shores; high overhead, birds circled the jungle covered towering rock faces. In the distance, several openings in the pillaring canyons revealed a vast expanse of ocean beyond. They were overshadowed by the white-washed rock surfaces that reached skyward, interlaced with crags, vines, and glass sparkled resorts.
Jameson padded along casually across the sandy surface, impressed as he glanced upward at the particular resort standing over him. The architects of this backwash little Expanse world had managed to take the city and blend it with the natural landscape of the cove. Buildings hugged the cliff walls, sometimes sprouting up out of the rocky, vine encrusted surface over fifty meters up. He imagined this was quite an expensive place to vacation.
But he wasn't here on vacation or for the scenery.
By his side, Grade paused, closing his mouth as he zeroed in on something. Between his natural canine senses and a few cybernetic implants, Grade had a powerful, uncanny awareness of their targets.
Grade glanced up at Jameson, huffing once.
"I know boy," Jameson whispered, sighting in on a particular resort hotel less than a kilometer up the beach from them. "We're almost there."
To the rest of the beach goers, Jameson certainly looked out of place. While most of the folks—particularly the ladies—weren't wearing their kadvairs in the sunny weather, Jameson didn't even have a patch of exposed skin. His tactical armor, handcrafted from the last few years in the Expanse, had an internal heating and cooling regulator that kept him cut off from the surrounding environment. His faceplate and helmet completely obscured his head, hiding away the scars and disfigurement. A digital Heads-Up-Display on the inside provided realtime data streaming from his ship, the Crimson Night, docked in orbit.
"Mathison," Jameson muttered into his faceplate, "overlay my HUD with our recon data."
"You got it," a jovial male voice rang in his ear. "As far as I can tell from skimming planetside reports, he hasn't moved from his room. Logs show he was accompanied there by a pretty girl registered in the database as Nadia Loral. They shouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon."
Jameson's vision of the beach altered as three dimensional data overlays presented distance measurements and a reticle over their predicted target's location. Adjusted for height, Jameson could see that the target was probably on the seventy-fifth floor of this particular resort. It was a narrow structure, jutting out of the base of a rock face with bright azure colored glass and various wings off the sides for luxury suites.
Macormak was in one of those suites right now, waiting for him.
"Keep a watch on the security feeds," Jameson replied. "Let me know if the target even steps out onto the balcony."
"Roger, but I'm having a hard time with some of the counter-intrusive software on the planet's grid. I can't guarantee we'll have all assets covered."
Jameson didn't like the sound of that. It meant that Mathison was operating blindly from orbit. While they usually had no trouble hacking most planets' orbital grids, providing good eyes in the sky, Jameson preferred to have eyes on the ground, too. And right now they didn't have that entirely.
It was time to move.
"C'mon, Grade," he muttered to his German shepherd companion.
The two of them set off at a quick pace, covering the remainder of the beach. Jameson found a discrete service entrance around to the side of the rock face. He didn't want to be seen in the main lobby, especially by watchful hotel security. While bounty hunters were regarded as a form of lawkeepers out in the Mediterranean Expanse, that didn't stop companies from profiling them. It hurt business if they bagged targets on their premises.
Inside, Jameson found a service elevator and started the swift ride up to floor seventy-five. Along the way, he reviewed a few more bits of actionable Intel they had gathered before arriving at Paradise. Their target, former Captain Jiles Macormak, was going by an alias these days: Mo Hansen. The name was registered for one of the luxury suites, and the payable account traced back to a banking system in Draconia space. Mr. "Hansen" may have liked to vacation out in the Expanse, but it was clear where his true home was.
The traitor wasn't coming home from this vacation.
"Hmm," Mathison suddenly chimed in, "I've got an unaccounted private ship at dock not far from where we set in. And someone is powering it up."
"Is this important?" Jameson grunted, checking his non-lethal settings on all of his weaponry. He needed Macormak alive. Dead would be utterly useless for his purposes.
"Maybe, maybe not. But I don't like ships that are unaccounted for. Especially ones that look like they're getting ready to make a quick exit."
Mathison was always giving off-the-wall musings whenever Jameson was in the middle of grabbing a target. In the beginning, it had been painfully annoying. He didn't need a constant voice in his ear guessing at random events in their surroundings. Of course, Mathison was very intuitive at his guesses. And by now Jameson had learned to rely on that intuition when things weren't as they seemed.
"Let me know if you see anything suspicious about it," Jameson finally replied.
The service elevator ground to a halt. Grade growled warningly suddenly. The doors parted with a whoosh of air, revealing a cleaning maid on the other side. Her eyes bulged with fright at the sight of Grade and Jameson, both heavily armed, standing in her elevator. Without hesitating, Jameson leveled his sidearm, delivering a single tranq dart. He then rushed forward, catching the maid and gently lowering her to the ground as the sedative worked through her bloodstream. She would be all right; and she would be one less variable for Jameson to deal with when it came time to grab Macormak.
The seventy-fifth floor wasn't very big. This high up, the resort narrowed to just a few dozen meters of cross section, hosting three or four private suites. It didn't take long to navigate the rounded hallways to the corner luxury suite registered to Mo Hansen.
Grade approached the door first, his one cybernetic eye wandering over the features of the door. He sniffed at it, then poised ready to spring as soon as Jameson busted it open. The two had worked together long enough to bang out a routine. It helped that in a former life Grade had been a military operations assistant animal. He had the perfect training, and with his cybernetic upgrades, the mettle needed for these kinds of bounty hunter missions.
Jameson figured Macormak was too enthralled by his pretty lady friend right now to offer much resistance. So without further ado, he tapped into the door's security and force commanded it open. Grade sprung in, Jameson right behind with his detainment gear armed and ready. Grade led him true to the only living
things in the suite, near the back at the bedroom.
A half-naked woman lying on the bed screamed as Grade came charging in, barking fiercely. Jameson froze in the doorway, scanning around quickly. Aside from the now cowering woman, they were alone.
"Mo!" the woman called out in an accent Jameson didn't recognize. "Mo! Please! Help!"
Jameson quickly backed out of the room, calling up the suite's blueprints in his HUD overlay. There weren't any panic rooms or secret entrances. Mathison had scanned for those, too. Jameson half anticipated Macormak to pick lodgings with those amenities, on the off chance something like this happened. But even without extra security, he had either slipped by them or had just gotten very lucky today.
"Mathison!" Jameson roared. "Tell me this guy is using the toilet or in the pool!"
"No, and double no," Mathison responded, sounding distracted. "But a private shuttle on the east side of the resort powered up."
Jameson put two and two together. They were on the west side of the hotel; the side jutting out from the cliff facing in towards the cove. West side would be on the other side of the building, the landing pad probably several stories down. He would need to be quick.
He took off running out of the suite. It took only a split second to hack the security for a suite across the hall. In that time, Jameson reprioritized his HUD, now adding in a three-dimensional overlay that showed the building's structure in wire-frame relation. Looking down at the ground, he could see where—if the floor were transparent—there would be a shuttle pad.
Aiming for the correct window, Jameson sped up and sent a command to his armor to go to maximum strength. He switched his sidearm to energy bolt setting and blasted away the reinforced glass in front of him.
Then he jumped.
He fell about two stories before landing on the roof of the shuttle. The impact sent a dull reverberation through Jameson's body, but his cybernetics adjusted for the pain. Right now he could focus, but later he would pay a price for it. He was just glad the shuttle hadn't risen faster than anticipated; otherwise he would be falling the rest of the way right about now.
Using powered grips in his armored gloves, his fingers clamped down on the shuttle's exterior hull, digging into the metal. Macormak must have felt Jameson' impact, because then it started swerving.
Jameson zeroed in on an access hatch. He just need to claw his way there and he could be inside. Unfortunately, the moment he lifted one hand from his grip on the hull, Macormak did a side roll.
Jameson felt the world turn over. Suddenly his belly wasn't resting against the top of the shuttle. His feet dangled out below him, his one good hand still clamped down as tight as possible on the hull.
Macormak took the small craft higher, doing a few more rolls that finally lost Jameson's grip. He tumbled a few meters before hitting rough ground. By some miracle he had managed to fall in a space right over the roof of the resort.
Recovering from the impact painfully, Jameson watched as the shuttle righted itself and began to disappear into the deep blue sky.
"Jameson! Are you all right?"
Jameson coughed, tasting blood in his mouth. He would need to spend a fair amount of time in the medical bay aboard the Crimson. Again.
"Just my pride," he managed to reply, watching a few flakes of blood spatter on the inside of his faceplate. "He got wind of us, didn't he?"
"Not just us," Mathison replied. "Apparently there's a hefty bounty out for him across this whole sector. I doubt he even knew it was you coming for him. Just someone wanting to collect a handsome fee."
A door banged open nearby. Jameson managed to sit up, glancing over in time to see Grade approaching him fast. He crouched down by his master, whimpering.
"It's okay, boy," Jameson said, petting him once on the head. "Nothing we can't fix later."
"Yep," Mathison chimed. "Just as I thought. His shuttle docked with the unregistered ship. It's definitely his. I don't know what software the Draconians gave him, but it definitely slipped past me."
"Never mind that now," Jameson replied, getting to his feet shakily. Using his two front power-assisted cybernetic legs, Grade helped push him up. "Fire a tracking beacon and get the Crimson ready for cast off. I'll get back to the skiff and meet you starside in twenty."
"Better make it forty. And I'll power up the med bay while you limp back up here. We have a long flight ahead of us, so plan on getting some rest."
"Acknowledged," Jameson replied, following Grade towards the roof access.
One thing was for certain at this point. Macormak would go crawling back to Draconia, figuring he could find some political refuge hiding out there. That meant a good week's worth of space flight playing catch up. But Jameson was all right with that.
He would sleep through most of that flight recouping.
Rival
Chapter 3
Rival
* * *
Gibraltar space
Columbia Star System, Planet Warwick
Orbital Peacemaker Fleet Station
* * *
Six Years Ago
They had a waiting room.
Jameson didn't figure that the Intelligence Commanders got many visitors. They kept to themselves and anyone wanted was summoned at will. But Jameson supposed that if someone like himself had to make an unscheduled appearance, they would need somewhere for them to wait.
Jester had come along with him. Besides him and Torik, no one else in their Flotilla believed Axus could be bought off. That bothered Jameson a little. He still remembered what Sal had told him beforehand.
"He's merciless. He'll beat you down and then step up to take the Fleet Commander title."
"He's like the rest of the officers on this Station," Jameson had countered. "He has an agenda that we can take advantage of. He has a price that can be bought."
Sal had shaken her head, looking upset. "You don't know Axus. He will destroy you before this is over."
Torik and Jester still believed negotiating a price was their best option. But if Sal and the others were right, then there wasn't a whole lot they could do with Axus. He would fight them until Command made a decision. Maybe that's why the others were so busy tweaking details and perfecting their battle strategies. If Command liked them enough, they couldn't take Axus too seriously.
"How long are they going to make us wait out here, ya think?" Jester said, shifting with boredom in his seat.
Jameson shrugged. "Maybe they just want to watch us squirm."
The thought of Axus sitting behind a holo-screen right now watching them gave him a slight shiver. It still unnerved Jameson how much the guy seemed to know about him. Sure, a lot of it was easy information to obtain. But it was the fact that he had gone to the trouble to get it. Maybe it was along the lines of the "know thy enemy" doctrine, but Axus had seemed passionate about it. As if they were already mortal enemies.
Maybe Sal was right. Maybe Axus was ruthless enough to bulldoze over anyone in his way of Command.
"Have you ever met this guy before?" Jameson asked absently.
"Axus Uniz? No. But I've heard about him. A lot more now that he's taken an interest in us."
"So you think it's all a power play then? We're just the next obstacle in his path to Fleet Commander?"
"Absolutely," Jester replied, sitting up animatedly. "Intelligence has always been the driving force in Gibraltar's military. They think they run the show. They're the ones who discovered Draconia's Strategic Cannons armed and targeted at Gibraltar planets. Anyone in their ranks probably feels a divine right to lead up the response to that situation."
Part of it made sense to Jameson. Intelligence felt a responsibility to take action when they were the only ones who knew the stakes. And it all stemmed from this damn cold war between the Republic of Gibraltar and the United Draconious Front.
The history of it had stuck well with Jameson from his earliest years of schooling. It seemed in the long centuries after humanity began colonizing the galaxy,
war and strife had come to an end under the banner of peaceful space exploration. A single, Unified Republic of Humanity governed the many new star systems spread out over hundreds of lightyears of space. The sheer size of bureaucracy grew enormous as worlds were settled all across the Milky Way Galaxy's Orion Arm, inevitably reaching out across the largely empty Mediterranean Expanse to abundant new planets in the Perseus Arm. It was during this wave of colonization into new star systems that a civil war ignited within the now corrupt Republic.