The Bounty Hunter (Cade Korbin Chronicles Book 1)

by Jasper T. Scott

  One of the advantages to being a synthetic is that you don’t even need a biomask to change your face. You can have one built right in. Or get your body’s nanites to completely reconfigure your features.

  Maybe it’s time to find out who Aurora really is and who she used to be.

  The fastest way to do that would be with a neural probe. Or to knock her out with an EMP, and then pull out her power supply while she’s down.

  But she’s Syndicate, so if I lay a hand on her, I’ll lose my membership and incur the wrath of my guild. I’d also wind up compromising this partnership, and I still need Aurora’s help and her ship.

  All of that adds up to the same thing. I have to make it look like an accident.

  A credit transfer pops up on my holoband, interrupting my thoughts.

  Five hundred thousand credits from one Dreana Morgan.

  My jaw drops. Her husband must be even richer than I thought. I guess this is his way of making it up to her for not paying that ransom.

  “You look happy,” Aurora comments as she punches in a new destination. She sits back with folded hands while her ship autopilots us to the edge of Arkania’s inhibition field.

  “I guess I am,” I admit. “Dreana just sent me payment.”

  “Covered your costs?”

  “About fifteen times over.”

  Aurora snorts. “I thought you weren’t going to accept her credits?”

  “I wasn’t. But it’s obviously not Dreana’s money, so that makes me feel better about keeping it.”

  “She’s married to the guy. What’s his is hers.”

  “You’d think so, but in my experience it rarely works that way.”

  “Even in the Coalition? Isn’t it supposed to be some kind of Utopia?”

  “They just bury their shit better than people in the Alliance.” I nod to the nav display as it flashes up briefly in front of Aurora. “Where are we headed now?”

  “Back to the Neutral Zone. Tartarus, Hades in particular.”

  “Are you trying to get us killed? Even Margrave would be safer than that.”

  “Except we just blasted out of Margrave with Raiders on our tail, so Tartarus it is. And you need to gear up for the job. Where better to do that than an active war zone?”

  “Yeah... that’s one way of looking at it.” Hades is a hotly contested planet with a wealth of natural resources that both the Alliance and the Coalition are fighting over by funding corporations for their proxies.

  “ETA forty-seven hours and twenty-three minutes.”

  My thoughts drift away as the conversation dries up. At least now I have the credits to buy what I’m going to need. I can always give the money back later if it turns out that Dreana needs it. And she might. But for now, I need a way to finance this job. Not to mention the other one—

  Killing the bastard who took my ship and put a contract on my head.

  Chapter 39

  We lured Bry’s brood away from the cockpit with promises of food in the mess hall. There isn’t much food left that the furballs haven’t eaten, but it’s not that far to the Tartarus System.

  Now, I’m back in my room for the night. I’ve taken Bry with me to give her a break from her endlessly chittering hatchlings. And because I need her help.

  I’ve set the camera in my room to loop over the past hour of footage again, and now Bry and I are sitting across from each other on the two bottom bunks, playing a game with an EMP grenade.

  Picking it up, I show her how to activate the explosive. I flick open the protective cover over the activation switch. Then hit it with my thumb. The grenade lights up with blinking red lights and starts vibrating in my hand.

  “Your turn,” I tell her, and hit the button to deactivate the grenade. Folding the protective cover back down, I set the grenade between us on the deck.

  Chirr?

  “You can do it.”

  But she makes no move to touch the grenade.

  I show her again, and she watches me with those big blue eyes.

  “Go on.”

  She blinks at me.

  She’s going to need an incentive to figure this out. Okay, I can do that.

  Reaching into my pants pocket, I pull out the last of the coveted protein bars from the mess hall.

  She perks right up at the sight of her favorite food.

  Chirr-up! she says as she jumps down from her bed.

  “Not yet,” I say, shaking my head. Opening the bar’s wrapper, I grab the grenade, flick open the protective switch cover, and stuff a tiny piece of the bar inside—being careful not to activate the device in the process.

  Then I hide the protein bar and place the grenade between us once more.

  Bry waddles up to it. Chirr? She walks in a circle around the grenade.

  Maybe this is a dumb idea. I can’t train a random xeno to—

  She picks up the grenade and uses one of her hands to open the cover. Then her tongue darts out and snaps up the morsel of food. The movement does exactly what I’m hoping it will.

  The grenade comes alive with a blinking red warning light.

  A grin springs to my lips. “Good job, Bry. Now let’s try that again.”

  Chirr-up!

  Snatching the grenade from Bry, I deactivate it again, and then stuff another piece of the bar inside the switch cover.

  She does it again. And again the action of stealing the food activates the grenade.

  Maybe this will work after all, I think as I reset the switch and load it with another morsel.

  Now all I need is to buy a bot jacker when we stop for supplies, and I’ll have my chance to get a look inside Aurora’s head.

  Hopefully when I do, I won’t find any reasons to distrust her.

  * * *

  Two Days Later...

  Hades, The Neutral Zone

  Rivers of glowing, steaming lava snake between the mobile mining rigs and habitats that clutter the rocky surface of Hades. Aurora and I are walking down an elevated street on one of the massive mobile habitats that endlessly rove Hades’ night side. Overhead, the dark sky blushes red with the first hints of sunrise. The ground is a darker shade of crimson.

  Thermal shields keep the temperatures here within reasonable limits. They also keep the toxic atmosphere out, and breathable air in. I’m wearing a pressure suit from Aurora’s ship, just in case a Coalition sneak attack makes the shields fail while we’re down here. At the moment, my helmet is off, giving me a proper field of view. It’s one of those emergency collars that deploys automatically when hazardous conditions are detected.

  As we walk down the street, I can both feel and hear the constant rumble of the habitat’s treads rolling to get us as far from the sunrise as possible.

  Everything down here is built with treads or legs so that it can move away from the blazing red eye of Tartarus. This planet isn’t tidally locked, but the days and nights are almost a standard month long, and after that much time spent baking in the sun, the resource-rich surface of the planet turns to liquid metal, which then flows around freely in rivers.

  But so long as the inhabitants and their structures stay far enough from daylight—and keep their shields up—they can survive the infernal heat.

  Mercenaries in full suits of shielded black body armor crowd the streets, guarding machine shops, gun stores, general stores, bars, strip clubs, and even a few of the more luxurious residences. Not that any of these apartments could ever be considered luxurious. It doesn’t matter how big they are; the owners can’t get away from the old adage: location, location, location.

  Aurora ducks down an alleyway, heading for a glowing sign. As I focus on it, the sign leaps into the sticky center position of my holoband.

  Core’s Kit & Caboodle

  We walk in past a pair of heavily armed security bots. A matching pair stand inside the doors. Aurora heads straight for a vacant reception desk with a wall of cracked palladium glass stretching from the desktop to the ceiling. A telltale blue glow of shields behind
the glass adds an extra layer of security. Whoever owns this place is making extra sure that no one can steal his guns.

  Or her guns, I amend to myself as an armored door slides open behind the desk and a female cyborg with peach fuzz-short black hair comes whirring out. Half of her face is scuffed and dented metal rather than skin, and one green eye is glowing with built-in holo displays, while the other one is dark.

  “What can I do for you?” the woman asks in a rasping voice that’s relayed to us through a speaker on our side of the barrier.

  I check my holoband for details about the vendor, trying to get a read on her reputation. The only thing she’s broadcasting is an alias: Miss Core. And there are no public records of clients reviewing her establishment. That makes me slightly uneasy, but this is the Neutral Zone, and it’s Hades to boot, so I probably shouldn’t be surprised.

  Aurora glances at me, waiting for me to tell Core why we’re here.

  “We need gear. Weapons. A little bit of everything.”

  “You got the credits? We’re in a war zone here. Kit doesn’t come cheap.”

  “We’ve got the credits,” I confirm.

  “All right. Leave your weapons with Jack and Jill.” Core waves a gleaming silver arm, indicating the bots standing inside the entrance.

  They come clunking over and scan us, stripping away our weapons. I only have two: my DX-12 sidearm, and a nanoblade tucked into my left boot.

  I watch Aurora as the bots strip our gear to get an idea about where she hides hers—and what type.

  But Aurora is only carrying two weapons as well. The one in the holster on her hip. And a smaller, concealed-carry stun pistol from the inside pocket of her black synth-leather jacket.

  “All right, follow me,” Core says.

  A buzzing sound issues through the speaker and a palladium glass door pops open at the far end of the reception desk. I lead the way there, pull the door open, and follow Core through the armored door she emerged from a minute ago. Aurora is right behind me as we emerge in a vast storeroom with racks and shelves full of guns, knives, bullets, grenades, rockets, personal shields, combat drones, jacker tech, and cybernetic parts.

  I walk down an aisle with kinetic bolter weapons on my right and energy weapons on my left. Where to begin...

  To take down a hunter like Rama, and then somehow take down Mohinari afterward I’m going to need plenty of options.

  “See anything you like?”

  “Plenty,” I say, stopping in front of a guided rocket launcher. I pick it up to test the weight, then aim experimentally down the sights. The weapon’s holo display is blinking with the words:

  Smart-locked

  Of course it is. It would be pointless to remove our weapons and then let us in here with free access to an entire arsenal. These guns are all smart-locked, which means we can’t fire any of them.

  “Careful,” Core warns me, stepping into view. “That’s an antimatter warhead.”

  I set the rocket launcher back down carefully and turn to her with a frown.

  “Where do you keep the good stuff?”

  At first, Core looks affronted, but then a sly half-smile lifts the human side of her mouth. “Follow me.”

  Core leads me to yet another armored door. This one opens into a much smaller room, but the weapons on these racks are the kind I can get on board with: super-charged laser rifles, rail guns, plasma cannons, seeker drones with tracking beacons to paint targets for fire and forget guided rounds and missiles...

  I also notice a rack full of enforcement-class stun weapons with interference fields on the darts to get them through personal shields. Nearby is another rack for bolter rifles that fire guided explosive rounds.

  There are also wearable, shoulder-mounted point defense cannons to defend against those shield-piercing weapons, and even a few suits of advanced ADX armor from the Alliance Marines Corps. I know those suits well: integrated exo-skeletons, adaptive camo, dual-weave shielding to stop both lasers and projectiles, grav boots, braking thrusters, climbing pads with nano-velcro that will stick to anything, and integrated point defenses.

  “I’ll take one of the suits,” I say after checking the price tag on my holoband. Core is selling it for two hundred and forty-nine thousand credits. The one I had on the Hammer only cost me a little over a hundred thousand, but it was last year’s model. This is the latest and greatest being used by Alliance Marines.

  “A good choice,” Core says. “Anything else?”

  I nod. “Plenty.” And then I start rattling off a list of other items. It’s a long list. Aurora is perusing the gear in the main store room, probably listening with half an ear to my order. She doesn’t even bat an eye when I ask for half a dozen bot jackers.

  And why should she? It’s not strange for hunters to go around corrupting enemy tech. What she doesn’t know is that I’m planning to use one of the jackers on her. Bry’s training worked out stunningly well. Now whenever she sees an EMP grenade, she automatically tries to activate it, thinking she’ll get a taste of her favorite treat.

  Now all I have to do is get Bry, Aurora, and EMP grenade all together in the same spot.

  When I’m done placing my order, Aurora and I follow Core back to the reception desk to arrange for delivery.

  “Half up front. Half on delivery,” Core says as the bill pops up on my holoband—

  $402,500

  “Done,” I say as I send half of the payment to her.

  She grins wolfishly at us, and her eyes dart to Aurora. “You sure you don’t want anything, sweetheart?”

  “I’m good,” she says.

  “All right. You’ll get your merchandise within the hour. If you’re planning to stick around for some R&R, I have a friend down at the Magma Palace who’ll hook you up with whatever kind of entertainment or company you prefer... a guy like you would probably get a nice discount. Hell, I’d do you for free.”

  I wave off the offer with a frown. “We’re just passing through, thanks.”

  “Suit yourself. Don’t forget to get your weapons back from Jack and Jill on your way out.”

  We stop to get our guns, and then Aurora and I go striding into the dry heat, heading for the landing pads.

  “You bought enough weapons to start a war,” Aurora says as we cut a path down the narrow streets.

  “That’s right,” I say.

  I’m studiously avoiding the expressionless stares of helmeted mercs while watching them on my peripheral cameras. Erin Thul doesn’t have a contract on his head, but Mohinari managed to connect the dots to my other aliases, so I can’t afford to make assumptions.

  “You don’t think you got too much? It’s not like you can carry it all at once.”

  I glance at Aurora and stare briefly into her glowing orange eyes. They match the lightening rust color of the sky. “And here I was wondering if I got enough.”

  Aurora snorts and shakes her head. “You’re crazy, Cade.”

  A jolt of ice shoots through me as she uses my real name. Aurora seems to recognize her mistake, and her posture goes rigid in the same instant as mine. My hand is on my gun as my eyes dart between camera feeds, checking for signs of movement.

  Mercs are all around us, watching, listening. Sensors primed and guns bristling.

  Did one of them overhear Aurora and notice that my public ID, Erin Thul, doesn’t match the name she just used?

  So far, it doesn’t look like it.

  “Sorry,” Aurora whispers, and bumps my shoulder with hers.

  I shake my head in irritation, but say nothing.

  Maybe she is trying to get me killed.

  She can tell the Syndicate that mercs did it, then she kills the mercs in retribution, drags my corpse out of here, and takes it to Mohinari.

  All in a day’s work.

  Maybe that’s why she didn’t buy any kit of her own to go up against Rama. She’s waiting for a payday to finance it.

  I lengthen my strides as much as I dare, hurrying to get back to Aur
ora’s ship.

  The sooner I can get a look inside her head, the better.

  Chapter 40

  Core’s cargo bots are taking my supplies from the grav sled outside, loading everything into mag-locked crates in Aurora’s cargo hold. I take the opportunity to excuse myself and check on Bry. She’s in the mess hall, being literally attacked by her kids. Skinny black tongues are snapping out and hitting her all over, taking out chunks of her fur.

  “Hey!” I draw my sidearm and dial the intensity all the way down to a welt-drawing zap. Then I let them have it.

  Bry flees to safety behind my legs. The horde of little monsters goes hopping toward us, even as I give them hell with a steady stream of lasers. Those furballs are dropping to the deck as fast as I can shoot—charred-black and smoking, but still alive.

  But they don’t stop coming. Probably figure they have the numbers to take me on. Their tongues dart at me like tiny black spears, but they can’t get through my suit of borrowed armor.

  Before one of them can get close enough to take a chunk out of my face, I scoop Bry off the deck and make a run for it. As soon as I clear the door, I mentally shut and lock the mess hall behind me.

  I lean on the bulkhead outside, breathing hard from that absurd battle.

  Bry is oozing black blood from bald spots all over her round body.

  “What the hell, Brighten?”

  I holster my smoking sidearm and stare at her where she lies cradled between my chest and my left arm. “Were they trying to eat you?”

  Chirr...

  She sounds weak. Damn it, I hope those little fuckers haven’t ruined my plan.

  Hurrying back to the cargo bay, I find Aurora still there, overseeing the cargo bots unloading my recent purchases.

  “What happened to her?” Aurora asks. I’m angling to get past her for a closer look inside the crates.

  “We ran out of food, and her kids confused matricide with dinner,” I reply, shaking my head.

  “Damn. Not as cute as they look, huh?”

  Finding the crate I’m looking for, I pull out a high-yield EMP grenade and pretend to study it.

  Bry is tucked into a ball and purring. I give her a pinch. Her eyes pop open.