They won’t reach effective laser range before we can jump out.
We made it.
I activate an automated evasive pattern to keep lasers from tagging the Seraph from extreme range, then sit back with a sigh, and run shaking hands through my sweaty hair.
We made it.
Nadine Zabelle is still out there, but Rama and I escaped with our lives, as did Omar and his family.
And Brighten.
My gaze slips sideways to the shivering furball beside me.
“It’s okay, girl. We made it.”
Bry peeks out of a forest of fur with one eye, then appears to think better of it and that eye vanishes once more.
An encrypted message drags my attention back to the controls. It’s from Rama. She beamed it to me over point-to-point comms for added security. I open it up to find a flight plan with rendezvous coordinates. The coordinates are out in deep space, in the Neutral Zone. I told Rama to meet me on Earth, but she obviously didn’t like that idea.
I wonder why. I guess I’ll find out soon enough.
Chapter 59
A thunk sounds through the open cockpit door as the Seraph docks with Rama’s fighter. I head down with Bry perched on my shoulder to see what this is about.
She’s docked up with the cargo airlock. I stand outside the doors, listening to air pressure equalize and decon jets spray the people inside.
Then the doors part, and I see Rama standing there with Omar and his family. All four of them come through.
Rama stops in front of me.
“This is as far as I go,” she says. “But it was nice to meet you.”
I can feel a frown creasing my brow.
“Why?”
“Because I’m wanted in the Coalition, and because Nadine is still out there, gunning for us. And...” She shrugs. “Bounty hunting is a one-woman job.”
I’m scrambling for an excuse to refute all of those reasons. “We could work together.”
“We just did that,” Rama points out.
“And saved each other’s lives,” I argue back.
She heaves a sigh and glance back at the airlock. “Look, Cade...”
“Not Dad anymore?”
Omar is looking uncomfortable with this discussion. I jerk my chin to him. “Go make yourselves comfortable.”
He nods back and hurries off.
Rama fixes me with a bland look and crosses her arms over her chest.
“We’re both out a lot of credits. This operation was a bust. And you’ll have a lot of explaining to do if you want to keep the Syndicate off your six. You took down Aurora. They’re going to want answers. If you’re smart, you’ll stay on Earth. At least make it hard for them to get to you. But I’m not cut out for that Utopian bullshit.”
“I’ll have plenty of answers to give when the Syndicate comes. The data’s all up here.” I tap the side of my head. “They can probe me if they want to get the truth. And besides, I have a copy of her neural data, so I can still bring her back. No harm, no foul.”
Rama snorts. “You’ll have to give her ship back then.”
“All the more reason for us to work together. I could use a ride.”
Rama bursts out laughing. “Pity? Really, Cade? You want me to partner up with you out of pity?”
I shake my head. “No. I can always buy another ship. But I can’t buy a daughter.”
That blasts away her armor. Rama uncrosses her arms and blows out a breath.
“All right, say I agree to stick around for a while. Where would we go? What would we do?”
“You said it yourself, we need credits, and we need to lie low for a while with Nadine gunning for us.”
“More like lie low for a lifetime, but go on.”
“I was checking the job boards while we flew here. Someone posted a rescue op on an uncharted world. The pay is just over two million credits to recover a group of researchers and the alien artifacts they went looking for.”
“Two million for a rescue?” Rama blinks in shock.
“It’s an uncharted world, and it’s a Class Five on the hazard scale.”
“So it’s teeming with things that will want to kill us.”
I nod. “Exactly.”
Rama looks torn. For a moment, I’m afraid she’s still going to turn me down.
“What do you say? We already have the gear we’ll need. I have enough weapons on board.”
“So do I.”
“Then we just have to fly there, find the researchers, and get out.”
“And what if they’re not alive?”
“Still pays the same as long as we recover their research.”
“All right. Fine. Let’s do it.”
Rama looks like she’s just swallowed a fly, but I can’t stop smiling. I might have lost Vera all those years ago, lost the interceptor that I named after her, lost untold thousands of credits, and lost the Hammer, but in the process I found something much more valuable than any of that—
Rama Korbin.
My daughter.
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The Cade Korbin Chronicles
The Bounty Hunter | Alien Artifacts (Coming February 2021)
Final Days
Final Days | Colony | Escape
Ascension Wars
First Encounter | Occupied Earth | Fractured Earth | Second Encounter
Scott Standalones (No Sequels, No Cliffhangers)
Under Darkness | Into the Unknown | In Time for Revenge
Rogue Star
Rogue Star: Frozen Earth | Rogue Star: New Worlds
Broken Worlds
The Awakening | The Revenants | Civil War
New Frontiers Series (Standalone Prequels to Dark Space)
Excelsior | Mindscape | Exodus
Dark Space Series
Dark Space | The Invisible War | Origin | Revenge | Avilon | Armageddon
Dark Space Universe
Dark Space Universe | The Enemy Within | The Last Stand
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jasper Scott is a USA Today bestselling author of more than twenty sci-fi novels. With over a million copies sold, Jasper's work has been translated into various languages and published around the world.
Jasper writes fast-paced books with unexpected twists and flawed characters. He was born and raised in Canada by South African parents, with a British heritage on his mother's side and German on his father's. He now lives in an exotic locale with his wife, their two kids, and two Chihuahuas.
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The Bounty Hunter (Cade Korbin Chronicles Book 1) Page 28