Bounty's Call

by Max Jager

  "Well, what do you want?" The man behind the counter grunted. Charming.

  "Just water," Jameson replied. "I've had a long trip."

  The server shoved a plastic cup across the counter.

  "I'm also curious about other new faces you've had pass through recently."

  "You mean more bounty hunters?"

  So the server was definitely one of the few that recognized Jameson for what he was. But he didn't seem too happy about it.

  "You've had a few?"

  "Too many. I don't care what that miner offered. It was a load of crap."

  Jameson was surprised. He knew from Mathison that at least three professionals were in-system. Apparently there were a few amateurs down here as well. That wasn't good. Jameson made a mental note to add that to his personal star system data-log back aboard the Crimson. Aspansiz was amateur hour central for bounty hunters; avoid if at all possible.

  Someone sat down next to Jameson. He took a slow breath, bracing himself for a shakedown by some local. He suspected they would be hostile to an outsider, but apparently this town had had enough.

  He was surprised, instead, when he glanced over to find a pretty face leaning against the counter, staring at him.

  "You're different from the others," she remarked, amusement in her voice.

  Jameson shrugged. "Am I supposed to be impressed?"

  "Perhaps. If you had seen the other four that brushed through here this week."

  Four? Jameson was surprised. Did Giger know he had so many competitors out for him right now? He probably would have gone to ground quickly, then; hiding himself away somewhere until the excitement had died down. Jameson would have to ask Mathison for a report on all known settlements, abandoned or otherwise in the surrounding area. There were more than a few places someone could hide on a lightly colonized Expanse world.

  "I think you have a chance against this Keshon fellow."

  Jameson met the woman's gaze again. Part of him was curious for her spontaneous evaluation, but another part of him just wanted her to cut to the chase. "Well, you wouldn't happen to know where he is, now would you?"

  "Not specifically, but you should know that there is a canyon complex east of Peoria. It's not very well mapped, and filled with more than enough places to hide out. If I needed to disappear, that's where I'd go…"

  Jameson nodded, making to leave. That was enough for him. He would have Mathison look into some satellite imagery to confirm it, but it sounded like the perfect place to go to ground while the current buzz faded. If there was running water through the canyon, Jameson would consider it his best place to look.

  "There was another one just like you," the woman added. "A dainty gal that stopped in here, but had the same look about her."

  Jameson froze, surprised by the comment.

  "You were in the Fleet once, weren't you? I thought I recognized it in you the moment you walked in. You were a Commander, weren't you?"

  Jameson didn't bother answering her. He wasn't sure if this small town woman had spent enough time on the net becoming enamored with programs about military spacemen. But she seemed to have a few interesting ideas.

  "Well, this other gal was from the Fleet, too," the woman continued. "I could tell. And she was looking for Keshon. But she was so delicate. There's no way she could take on such a beastly man like Keshon."

  Something clicked for Jameson. "You're the witness that reported his location, aren't you?

  The woman held a shushing finger up to her mouth, smiling as she did so. Jameson nodded, making his way out of the bar. Grade perked up at his approach. At least one person in this town had the decency to point out criminals when they passed through.

  Setting out eastward, Jameson wondered what the woman had meant about another like him. She obviously had some perception skills if she both picked out Giger as a fugitive and Jameson as a former Flotilla Commander. And while it wasn't uncommon for disbanded Fleet personnel to retire to the Expanse—even to engage in bounty hunter work—Jameson had a hard time picturing the person the woman had described.

  Maybe it was a warning; in case Jameson came across a pile of bodies out in the canyons. He would have to be careful with this Giger fellow.

  "Mathison," Jameson spoke aloud, "I assume you got all of that."

  "Affirmative and so on and so forth," the AI replied jokingly. "Satellite imagery and scans confirm the canyon network your new friend described. And I even caught some CO2 emissions that suggest someone was building a campfire recently. Someone is definitely hiding out there and I've got a fairly narrowed down location uploaded to your HUD."

  Jameson watched as a new overlay appeared in his field of vision, directing him on a straight course fifteen kilometers due east. By late tonight he could be back at the spaceport and on his way.

  "You heard the part about the dainty woman," Jameson added.

  "Yes, actually," Mathison replied. "But that's not the weird part. I can't find any evidence of her arrival in the whole Aspansiz Star System database."

  Jameson frowned. "She going ghost?" It was a slang term for bounty hunters who operated in-system invisible, disengaging themselves from star system registry and filing. It was a sketchy tactic to get the jump on targets and very illegal both in Gibraltar and Draconia space.

  "I don't think so. Even if she did, there would still be a finger print of it in the database, not to mention an unaccounted for ship. Unless she covered her tracks really well and stowed away aboard a ship, I can't find any evidence of her existence."

  A curiosity to be sure, but not one that really mattered. Unless this unnamed bounty hunter got to Giger before Jameson, he didn't have time to worry about ghosts.

  And yet…for reasons Jameson couldn't explain, there was something haunting about this woman that wouldn't leave him alone. He remembered feeling it back in the bar when the local first mentioned her. And now that he thought about, he felt something about her drawing his attention out east towards the canyons.

  He hoped it was simple curiosity, but it was scary all the same.

  Slowing the jetbike, Jameson watched as the ground cracked open ahead of him, forming several forked, jagged lines that flowed out into the distance. A large one to the north was fed by a small river, disappearing as the ground sank down beneath it.

  "Got him!" Mathison exclaimed. "I have Sat data confirming two targets, one of which is clearly Giger."

  "And the other one?"

  Mathison paused for a full five seconds. "Well that's weird, I can't get you any data on that. There's some sort of interference. But— Oh! Shit. Giger's on the move!"

  Jameson kicked his jetbike into high gear, zipping off down one of the canyon openings. Following a smart-map on his HUD, he followed series of colored directions that led him through a short maze of canyon forks. A minute later he shot out into a wide gully, where he spotted the wanted man on a bike of his own, jetting off down a separate canyon entrance.

  "I've got a visual! Tell me he's headed down a dead end."

  "More or less. There's a natural bridge up ahead over a deep gorge. I don't think his bike can make it across."

  Jameson urged his jetbike forward faster and faster, coming awfully close several times to the canyon wall. Cooling his nerves, he steadied his hands and guided the bike carefully through the winding canyon way. Giger was never more than a dozen meters head of him now.

  Then the canyon walls disappeared around them again, exposing a massive gash in the earth. It was probably only a hundred meters across, the canyon network resuming across on the other side. But it was easily twice as deep. A few worn out sandstone structures arched across the opening, but they were all either eroded away or on the verge of crumbling.

  And Giger was headed across one of them.

  "Hold on, Grade," Jameson muttered to his companion.

  Gunning his bike to full speed, the two were only five meters behind Giger when Jameson realized they weren't going to make it.

  Easing o
ff the speed, Jameson slowed to a stop near the edge of the gorge. Giger made it across the natural bridge just as it caved in, sending a torrent of broken rocks down far below. His repuslors, pushing off the ground to give the bike lift, and been too punishing on the crumbling rock structure.

  "Mathison," Jameson called out. "Get me some fresh Sat imagery. What's the fastest way around?"

  Mathison tried replying, but his response was garbled in static and interference. Eventually it dried out all together, an icon flashing on Jameson's HUD alerting him that he had lost contact with the Crimson.

  Cursing loudly, Jameson focused on his own maps stored on internal armor memory. He was so focused that he didn't notice the figure step up beside him. Grade started whimpering, and Jameson jumped in surprise as a tender hand rested on his shoulder.

  Leaping off the jetbike, he sprung into a defensive position, whipping out his sidearm. He nearly dropped it when he saw who was standing on the other side of the bike, grinning at him.

  "Hello, Jameson. It's been awhile."

  Jameson slowly holstered his weapon. "Strange…?"

  Strange

  Chapter 6

  Strange

  * * *

  Gibraltar space

  Columbia Star System, Planet Warwick

  Orbital Peacemaker Fleet Station

  * * *

  Five Years Ago

  The medical officers worked hard and efficiently.

  Jameson watched with pride as two-man surgeon teams operated at each table, moving fast and with precision through each of their holo-simulations. In truth, Jameson had forgotten about the scheduled training session today at eighteen-hundred hours. The timing couldn't have been any better, with him getting out of a meeting with the others, now cutting through the CY-CORPs medical bay on his way out with Chris.

  By his side, Commander Chris Albren nodded, grinning as he watched the officers work. "Your boys are doing pretty damn well."

  Jameson nodded, pride welling up with fervor inside. "We don't mess around up here."

  Although he couldn't have picked any of them out by name, Jameson had worked hard to shape the CY-CORPs since arriving at the Station. During his academy days, he had trained specifically as a cybernetic technician. It was an essential field of medicine in the Fleet, treating wounded soldiers with implants when limbs went down. While a lot of planetsiders could accept a cloned organ or new limb, these were expensive luxuries unavailable on the space battlefield.

  Jameson had always figured he would end up as a cybernetics surgeon aboard a warship. Somewhere along the way the Fleet had different plans and he was on the path with his friends to becoming Fleet Commander.

  "I've never actually seen a cybernetic surgery," Chris admitted, watching the tables attentively as they walked by.

  Jameson surveyed his taller friend. Commander Chris Albren was a big man, having an easy ten centimeters of height on Jameson and probably weighing in at twenty kilos heavier. While Jameson had met most of his friends in the Eighth Flotilla in classroom settings during their academy days, Chris had always been his competitor in the gyms. And even though the two had trained hard together, Jameson beating him out on their martial arts, Chris had always bulked up better.

  It was a little strange to see the tough guy sometimes wincing at the surgeries simulated around him.

  Jameson laughed. "Looks like someone is a little squeamish."

  Chris shook his head, turning away from a particular table where the holo-patient was having his legs lasered off. "It's a bit grizzly to watch."

  "Yeah, try to imagine that day in and out back at the academy. Especially when the laser drill is in your hands."

  Chris chuckled, running a hand through his curly brown hair. It was a little longer than regulation permitted, but Chris was as high-ranking Flotilla Commander as everyone else in the Eighth Flotilla. Who was going to stand up to him?

  "There were some days you came back from class with so much blood on your hands." Chris's eyes got distant, remembering some ancient scene from the last three years. "Man…hard to believe we've come so far."

  Jameson nodded, watching with even eyes as his medical officers continued to work. It was grizzly to watch, but after all this time he had grown desensitized to it. Operating on people, replacing organic body parts with machines; sometimes rebuilding the whole human body. There came a point where nothing was so shocking or new.

  "I can certainly say I know where the nick-name choppin'-block-docs came from."

  Jameson grimaced, letting out a low sigh. "Please don't use that phrase. You have no idea how annoying it is to hear it."

  Chris nodded, patting him once on the shoulder. "Sorry, man. A lot of people just say that because they don't know any better. You guys must seem like mad scientists, coming in and carving people up. But we know better. Especially with the H1 scare."

  Jameson nodded wordlessly, quickly forgetting the slang Chris had dropped early. Now he had H1 on the brain…

  "I don't know how you guys deal with it," Chris continued.

  "Mostly sims," Jameson replied. "We don't have many samples to work with, and the only live human we ever had to treat was one of our scouts back from Draconia space."

  "I heard that story. You saved him didn't you?"

  "Barely," Jameson grunted. "I think we broke a record with the poor man; the most machinery replacing organic tissue successfully achieved."

  Chris shrugged. "Well…that's why we're going to need you guys on the frontlines."

  Jameson nodded again wordlessly. He had no doubt of Chris's words. The scary part was that no one really knew what H1 was; where it came from or how to defend against it. It was a radiation source of some type; they knew that much. It burned away at the human body with mind numbingly fast speeds, like a flesh eating bacterium. And Intelligence reports suggested that there were vast concentrations of it hidden across the Perseus Arm of the Galaxy. If the Fleet ever went to war against Draconia, they had to plan on encountering it…and dealing with it.

  They were almost halfway out of the medical bay when Jameson was jarred from his thoughts and worries. Standing outside the wide arched entrance, a tall, lankly Intelligence Officer with short raven hair was dancing on the balls of her feet. She smiled, wiggling her eyebrows for effect as they drew near.

  Chris chuckled, shaking his head as he glanced at Jameson. "Is this that new lady friend of yours that everyone in Eighth keeps talking about?"

  Jameson smiled, feeling himself loosen up as they grew closer. "Yes she is, good sir. And if you'll excuse me, I have some rec time to take advantage of."

  "All right, see you later, Jameson."

  Jameson jogged the rest of the way, Strange greeting him with a big hug as he crossed out. She broke away for a moment to give a tender kiss.

  "You didn't have to wait out here," Jameson replied softly.

  She shrugged, her eyes wandering off. "I wanted to surprise you."

  Jameson chuckled. "Consider me surprised. C'mon, let's get out of here."

  The two of them broke away from the CY-CORPs corridors, heading out into the lower promenade of the Station below Mike Section. It offered a fantastic panoramic view of Warwick far below, including the massive mining operations digging deep into the planet's crust for ore. Various ships darted to and from the planet, carrying processed metals ready for construction use on the warships at the Station.

  Strange kept a gentle hand in Jameson's, but always wandered close to the windows, admiring the view. That was something Jameson liked most about Strange; her sense of wonderment towards space. She never seemed to tire of the view.

  It was a wonder Intelligence hadn't squashed it out of her yet. He still remembered how they had met during the early days battling Axus Uniz. The asshole made good on his vote of opposition, and Jameson had spent too much time hanging around their Flotilla trying to talk him out of it. Strange was usually around in clerical, and so they found time to bump shoulders often and chat. To sa
y they had really hit it off was an understatement. Strange seemed so carefree and cheerful; much too cheerful to be around the dreary and dark walls of Intel.

  Jameson had invited her out to act as a liaison with the Eighth Flotilla while they sorted through Axus's obstructions. It got her out of Intel, spending time essentially as a glorified messenger girl, and eventually into a few dates during their recreation time. Honestly, she was so enthusiastic about doing anything fun. It was hard to be around her and not have a good time.