Bounty's Call

by Max Jager

  But that was too much irony for Jameson right now.

  With things squared away with Lucan authorities, Jameson moved the Crimson to a more public docking station; then he took the skiff down to the planet. Grade rode shotgun with him in the cramped little shuttle.

  "I've got an in with the planet's citizenry database," Mathison chimed in. Although his core system was installed aboard the Crimson, he could communicate with Jameson so long as the skiff or his body armor had a link back to the ship. He also made for a great tech specialist when it came to hacking different systems on the various worlds they visited. But there were even some things Mathison couldn't do. Thankfully logging into a public citizen database wasn't one of them.

  "Let me guess," Jameson began, "he's not registered under Macormak or Hansen."

  "Right and right. He's simply not registered. My guess is the Draconians have him under some sort of 'witness protection program.' The only problem is that it leaves a nice empty slot where someone is living the database says they shouldn't be living."

  Jameson smiled, shaking his head. "How far is he from the spaceport in Namur?"

  "That's the best part!" Mathison replied, a laugh in his voice. "Not far at all. Just down the main avenue, actually."

  Maybe Macormak thought it would make for a convenient escape route if need be. Unfortunately for him, it made for a quick bag and grab for Jameson.

  "Start the clocks, Mathison," said Jameson. "Let's have this son of a bitch bagged before eighteen-hundred hours local time."

  Jameson found a private landing pad for the skiff once they were at the spaceport. From there, he and Grade set out on foot through the terminal and into the streets of Namur. It was a well established city, most of the skyline dominated by vast high-rises and various skyways for mass transit and public walking. Less than half a kilometer up the main promenade from the spaceport they found the residence Mathison had pegged as Macormak's hiding place.

  It was at the base of a tall residential tower. While the sleek skyscraper wound narrowly into the sky, its foundation consisted of a wide set of plazas and underground residences for the ultra rich. Jameson and Grade took a tree lined staircase down to the first subfloor, coming out into a private hallway that wound between the massive apartments spaced out below.

  "We've got a problem," Mathison suddenly added, his signal faded and scratchy. "Either the building's security or something Macormak rigged is messing with your armor's signal. I'm not going to be able to keep tabs on you when you go inside."

  Jameson shrugged, aware that Mathison could detect it through the sensor input from his cybernetic implants and sensors in his dense armor material. The AI would understand his indifference.

  "We'll be fine," he added aloud.

  Following the overlay graphic on his HUD, Jameson paused at the edge of a hall that ended at a solitary front door. He couldn't see it, but knew there was a camera and security sensor down close by, probably watching for his approach. His HUD revealed that the blueprints Mathison had hacked were also certain of one thing:

  It was the only way in.

  Jameson glanced down at Grade, who stared at him patiently. The intelligence in the German shepherd always astounded him. He seemed to know by simple expressions exactly what Jameson was thinking. And right now they were synced for attack.

  The two approached quickly, Jameson slamming his security hacking fob against the front door. A moment later it had cracked the code and they were in.

  Jameson froze on the threshold, taking in the scenery around him. The apartment immediately inside was at least twenty meters across, most of the living space and amenities scattered around the edges of the massive box like room. The center of the room extended upwards a good three or four stories, disappearing down a series of steps at least one more story below the rest of the room.

  And it was packed full of an indoor forest.

  "Stay here," Jameson commanded to Grade.

  Macormak had only one chance of escape now. Which meant they would have to fight it out in his little indoor greenhouse project. Jameson inched down the sloped stairs onto soft soil. The trees scattered about the space were thick redwoods, though only so mature as to not fully reach the vaulted ceiling high above. Still, there was enough shrubbery and plant life to obscure his vision. If Macormak was hiding in here, then he would be dangerous.

  Jameson's HUD wailed a warning as it detected weapon energy. Jameson ducked behind a tree trunk as a bright orange burst of weapons fire discharged past him.

  "Commander Gray," Macormak called from somewhere in the miniature forest. "Of all the people who finally tracked me down, I never thought it would be you."

  Jameson wound his way around the other side of the trunk, crouch walking past a thick bush towards the sound of his voice. Another weapons discharge screamed somewhere overhead. He could smell faint smoke as it impacted with one of the trees, singeing the bark.

  "I can't even begin to guess how you slipped into Draconia space. You were going to be the Commander of the whole Fleet. Don't they have your picture in every garrison here? Aren't you public enemy number one?"

  Jameson could feel the fear in Macormak's voice. He had never been this chatty back during their days in the Fleet. And when he did talk, it had been nothing but rude or flippant remarks. He was afraid; he knew the power Jameson held, even if he didn't know the training Jameson had earned over the last four years.

  He didn't know, yet he was still afraid.

  Macormak fired off several more wild shots, but it was clear now that he had no idea where Jameson was.

  "C'mon, Jameson! Come out! You never were any good at the cloak and dagger shit. Why are you trying to be so sneaky now? That was my job!"

  Jameson crouched around another tree, finally spotting the traitor Captain. He was hunched down by another redwood about five meters from Jameson, his back turned to him. He had a standard phase pistol in one hand; nothing too dangerous unless he had good aim. But judging by the way his hand trembled, he hadn't prepared well for this encounter.

  Macormak had never expected anyone to come this far to capture him after all this time.

  "Come out, choppin'-block-doc!"

  Jameson gritted his teeth, blitzing from his position. Whipping out the syringe edge of his rifle, he jabbed it hard into the back of Macormak's neck. The man wrenched in pain, arching his back before collapsing on the ground. It was a simple paralyzing agent that kept him subdued long enough for Jameson's purposes. Besides, he wanted him awake for what was to come.

  "Don't call me that," Jameson growled, unzipping his pack.

  After producing a carrying bag that adjusted for Macormak's height, he zipped up the traitor inside. There was enough air intake to keep him from suffocating, but Jameson wanted him to feel a little discomfort. Tapping into strength from a few of his implants, Jameson slung the heavy man over his back and made his way back to the door. Grade was waiting patiently for him.

  They hailed a cab outside and rode the rest of the way to the spaceport. Jameson flashed his bounty hunter credentials and no one asked any questions about his suspicious bag. It took less than an hour to be back aboard the skiff and out of Lucan's atmosphere.

  "He didn't put up much of a fight," Mathison added as Jameson unzipped Macormak back aboard the Crimson.

  "Only a few of them ever did," Jameson replied, opening the compartment to cryo.

  The door parted, revealing a line of cryo tubes, five of which were already occupied. Five traitors already bagged and ready for justice.

  Jameson hauled Macormak's body down to tube number six, taking some time to position him upright and safely within the harness. He could see some recognition in the man's eyes, the paralysis agent in his system still keeping him limp.

  Jameson paused before pulling the hatch down.

  "Sleep well, Macormak. When you wake up, the interrogators will come to have fun with you."

  He pulled the hatch closed, the cryo tube activating.
Frost washed over the translucent tube casing as the man inside went down for indefinite sleep.

  At some point Jameson would make his way back to Gibraltar space to drop off the six people he had spent four years hunting. He wasn't in any particular hurry; not while there were fresh trails to pursue and other bounties offering him small fortunes in payment.

  In the meantime, he had the sweet solace knowing one more of the traitorous bastards that destroyed everything he cared about was on ice in his cargo hold.

  Ghosts

  Chapter 5

  Ghosts

  * * *

  The Mediterranean Expanse

  Aspansiz Star System, Planet Aspansiz

  Orbital Freighter Dock Seven

  * * *

  Present Day

  "Remind me again why we're here."

  Jameson ignored the question briefly, watching the alignment on his holo-screen as the Crimson Night eased in between the two docking clamps. A few seconds later the display chirped happily and Jameson let the spatial thrusters bring the ship to a halt. A low rumble echoed through the bridge as the clamps attached, locking the Crimson into a stable hold among the Orbital Freight Dock. It was mostly for industrial loads, but considering the Crimson's registration, they were inconspicuous enough.

  Now it was time to get down to the planet.

  "Because," Jameson began, pushing himself out of the Captain's seat, "I'm a bounty hunter. That always comes first, regardless of whether or not we've still got to return to Gibraltar space with our prizes."

  He made his way from the bridge back to the locker staging room where he kept his gear. Grade was waiting for him there, having felt the ship dock. Jameson rarely spent more time than absolutely necessary docked somewhere. Whenever they were, be it for a bounty or supply run, he always brought Grade with him. Grade had since grown to know that any time they stopped it meant he would get a chance to go for another adventure. He was understandably excited when Jameson strolled in.

  "It feels like a waste of time," Mathison countered. "There's already three other bounty hunters in system that are negotiating for a lower price with the client in the mining belt."

  "We can always use the money," Jameson replied coolly, scratching Grade behind his ears. He then reached into the first locker, pulling out his long range rifle.

  "Money or not, this feels like your personal way of playing judge, jury and executioner."

  Jameson ignored the AI, reaching into another locker for the custom hardware for his armor. Meanwhile, he brought up the current case files on his faceplate's HUD. The target in question was one Keshon Giger. He was a well-known man in the Aspansiz Star System for multiple felonies, though most of them related to local organized crime. He wasn't anyone important, contracting out work where he was wanted as a strong man. Most of it was limited to the mining belt in a series of asteroids.

  Apparently rape and murder were now on his list of crimes. The bounty had been put out by a business leader of a small mining operation. His daughter was the victim of Giger and he had forked over a decent sum of money to see the criminal brought to justice. It was a simple mission; purely based on revenge.

  Jameson understood those kinds of jobs. It was easy to relate to and with few complications. How could he say no? It was all he really had left.

  "That may be true," Jameson replied finally to Mathison. "Isn't that what we're doing rounding up the traitors of the Peacemaker Fleet?"

  "Not really," said Mathison. "Sure, you go out to catch them, making your little speeches to see the horror in their eyes before icing them. But we're supposed to haul them off to Gibraltar for them to do the executions."

  "Fair enough."

  So maybe Jameson wasn't judge, jury, and executioner. At least he had a hand in bringing these monsters in. Maybe that made him their personal angels of death. But even that seemed little too over the top for Jameson's taste.

  He pushed the analogy out of his mind as he took the skiff down planetside to a smaller spaceport in the southern hemisphere. The city, a small rundown placed with a name he couldn't remember, didn't even dot its skyline with high rises. It was a fairly quiet community that sat on the edge of a vast wilderness.

  The jetbike was waiting for him at a warehouse near the edge of the city. After taking a taxi from the spaceport, he checked to make sure the specifications he had ordered were in place. The compact vehicle was really only rated for single riders, but he had made room for two side carriages. One for Grade, and one for Giger.

  It was easy enough to order. During the last four years of rummaging across the Mediterranean Expanse, Jameson had picked up on all sorts of businesses and industries that catered to bounty hunters. Some of it was fairly sketchy, but no one was in the business of supplying terrorists or small totalitarian regimes. The Expanse had unwritten rules about bounty hunters that made them keepers of the law. If a business owner wanted to take advantage of that fact, he made certain amenities available on his world whenever a bounty hunter passed through.

  After locking up the warehouse, Jameson coaxed Grade into the side carriage and then set out across the wilderness. All the while, he had Mathison feed him whatever information they could scrounge up on Giger.

  "The guy seems like a thug," Mathison explained at one point. A recent criminal report was open on Jameson's HUD, revealing a psychoanalysis of Giger after an arrest earlier on Aspansiz. "He just contracts himself out to whatever crime lord needs heads cracked and then goes schoolyard bully on his prey. For awhile he went quiet out in the mining belt, just doing some simple side jobs in a few of the sketchier rocks where crime is rampant. Then he bumped into our client's daughter at an eatery in a nicer part of the belt. He got frisky, she resisted, and now here we are."

  Jameson subconsciously gritted his teeth. The guy sounded like an all around class-A bastard.

  Mathison must have detected the spike in his adrenaline. "Jameson…you can't take this personal."

  "I'm a bounty hunter, Mathison. I take everything personally."

  "This is a job. I know what the Fleet traitors did to you is personal and you have every right to seek vengeance each time we bag another one of them. But you don't know these people. We don't even really know Keshon Giger."

  "We know what he did. We know he decided to kill that miner's daughter."

  Mathison sighed. It sounded strange coming from an AI. Sometimes Jameson forgot how well he had gotten to know Mathison during the four years they had worked together. Sometimes it was hard to reconcile that he had emotional responses. Even responsible emotional responses.

  "You know what you're doing," Mathison finally replied. "Just don't get yourself almost killed again like onMokuzai."

  Jameson smirked. He knew Mathison had detected it. "You still seem to think that it was a royal disaster."

  "That's because it was! The bounty led you right over the side of a building!"

  "That was all part of the plan…"

  The banter gave something for Jameson to focus on as he and Grade jetted off across the vast wilderness of Aspansiz.

  By mid afternoon they had crossed over into a wide prairie. It was only a half an hour longer before they arrived at a small outskirts community called Peoria. The little town rose out of the empty landscape like a pile of rocks. If the spaceport had seemed like a small settlement, that was nothing compared to Peoria. Jameson hadn't realized there were colonists living this far out away from the main population centers.

  He slowed his jetbike down to a crawl, earning more than a few suspicious looks as he wound down the main street. He soon found what he was looking for; a local bar where Mathison had last pinged a result on Giger's known locations. Someone in town had spotted the price out on Giger's head and sent out a general message to bounty hunters in-system.

  It was time to see if Jameson could get any more information out of the witnesses.

  Jameson parked the jetbike out by the front of the establishment, giving Grade a stern look. He
would have to wait out here. Grade moaned in protest, but dropped his head against the side of the carriage submissively.

  Inside, Jameson was unsurprised to find more disparaging looks from the locals. A few he could tell recognized him for what he was and were more annoyed than suspicious. Others were just anxious about any unfamiliar faces this far out.

  He found a stack of crates at the main counter to sit on. Apparently they didn't have much of a foundry in this community to make decent chairs. That or the place was so rundown nobody bothered to replace the original ones. Or maybe the owner was trying to get across a certain décor. Jameson didn't know.