Bounty Hunter 1: The Bounty Hunter's Revenge (6 page)

“Now,” I continued. “Place a marker in
the same place you did before. The entrance that led to the underground portion
of the base.”

The largest building of the three was
highlighted and I made my way to it immediately. Once there, I stepped into the
ruins and took a closer look than I had before. The structure was small, and
only large when compared to the buildings on either side of it. It was probably
built mainly as an entrance to the basement section. There was hardly anything
left standing of the above ground section, and the ceiling had collapsed into
itself and filled in the stairs.

“You can barely make out where the floor
was with all of this debris. Where are the stairs under all of this?” I asked
Cass.

The map blinked out on the visor and was
replaced with a similar target reticule that was used for enemies during
combat. Several large pieces of rubble were marked in red, circling a larger
area that marked where the stairs would be.

“Burke, you’re not ready for this.
Another few weeks at least before you can start using your left arm for light
tasks.”

“Another few weeks and we’ll be out of
water, if we even survive the next night.”

Cass was silent. I couldn’t kneel down
with my broken leg and had to resort to gradually lowering myself down while
supporting myself against a wall. Once on the ground I was able to roll onto my
stomach and pull myself toward the blocked stairway. I was already pulling out
some of the smaller, looser chunks of concrete when she finally answered.

“Very well.”

I smiled to myself, but it was a crazy
smile. Cass had her own personality, thoughts, and feelings like any human
consciousness, but she was firmly grounded in the logic and reason that served
as a foundation to her programming. To hear her agree with me that the
situation required drastic measures, even though I already knew I was correct,
made my insides squirm.

I continued to excavate until I fell
asleep from exhaustion, and continued immediately when I woke up again. It was
slow, frustrating work, and I often hit sections of rock that I could have
easily moved if I had both of my hands to work with. Although the suit’s
assisted movement allowed me to grip and lift things with one hand that no man
would have been able to otherwise, I couldn’t help but bitterly reflect on how
much easier I could have worked with more standard tools.

There were times that I begged for Cass
to let me use both arms, injuries be damned, if only for a few minutes. To her
credit, she never wavered in her resolve to keep me healing and acted on my
best interests. She kept my left arm locked and mending.

I had about twenty-four hours of
sunlight left when I ran out of places that I could move with one hand. I had
dug out enough of the blockage to see a few of the steps but the weight and the
pressure of the falling concrete had pressed things more tightly together the
lower I went down. When I finally admitted that I could pull out no more with
my fingers, I turned myself around and began to slam my left foot into the pile
as hard as possible. Even with the strength of the power armor with me, it wasn’t
enough to shift anything.

I knew that I had done all I could and
painstakingly rose to my feet. I hobbled out of the building and through the
pieces of rubble that I had haphazardly tossed out. The building that we had
initially used as a shelter was still a horrible reminder of the crawler
attack. I had moved all of the food and water supplies out of there and never
gone back in, but there were things I needed now.

The blood of the aliens had transformed
after nearly a week of constant sunlight and heat. It resembled a black tar on
the ground, and I walked as gingerly as I could manage with my bad leg through
it all. I scooped up the ammunition and grenades and held them against my
chest. I walked out and back toward the stairs.

I set the grenades down outside the
entrance along with the vast collection of bullets I had gathered up. There
were only three grenades, and I knew that I would have to set them off
individually. The casings on the grenades were surprisingly sturdy, and
contained safety mechanisms that only allowed them to be set off if the pin was
released. It was unlikely they would blow up even if I landed a direct shot on
them.

After crawling back down into the
shallow hole I had created on the stairs, I set to work finding the lowest gap
that was big enough for me to slip a grenade into. Cass helped, and ran several
estimations on which placement would yield the highest result. I knew that each
explosion was a gamble, and that we had no idea how many layers of debris we
were dealing with. We might have gotten three excellent explosions and still been
faced with an impassible wall.

I set my good leg against one of the
steps and placed the grenade against the gap we both agreed on. I’d have less
than ten seconds to get away after pulling the pin and releasing the spoon, and
I had to make the most of that time with the lack of mobility in my body. Once
the grenade was set I pushed it firmly through the gap and pressed off with my
good leg before I heard it rattle against the concrete below. I pushed with my
leg and pulled with my hand, moving in an awkward crawl out of the building and
onto the sand.

The sand was not something I fully
considered and I found it extremely difficult to push myself along. I barely
made any distance in it when the explosion boomed out behind me and I heard the
crash and rush of tiny rocks and dust falling all around. When I was confident
that it was safe to get up, I saw that a large chunk of concrete had landed
only a few meters away from where I had been in the sand.

“We need to think things through better
next time. This might be too risky,” Cass said when we were back into the
building.

“I’d rather be crushed trying to live
than starve trying not to die.”

The blast had moved what I considered to
be a fair amount of the rubble, but there was still no sign of it giving way to
the basement level. I had a moment of dread when I thought that the entire
lower level may have caved in but I pushed it aside. There was no need to
consider myself doomed until I knew for certain.

I went back down the stairs on my
stomach and resumed clearing. The explosion had broken down many of the larger
pieces into ones that I could break loose and move. I worked until I could no
longer keep my eyes open.

It was dark when I woke up, and I was
quick to remind myself that the crawlers didn’t come out until near the end of
the night cycle. I wasn’t sure if that was due to the location of wherever they
came from or the temperature of the planet, but I intended to make the most of
the time. I took shorter breaks and had Cass increase the food rations for more
energy. I pushed myself to go longer periods without sleep, and I was ready to
use the second grenade in less time than I needed the first.

Despite what Cass had said, I repeated
the same plan as before. Getting out and onto the sand was still more distance
than any other direction, even if I couldn’t crawl along it. I was on my belly
in the sand when the second explosion went off, and a wave of exhaustion hit me
at the same time as the vibrations from the blast, as if my body had made an
unspoken agreement to only keep working until that explosion. I slept.

Nearly three days of the night cycle had
passed when I woke up again. Only four more until sunrise, and approximately
three before I had to worry about being attacked. I crawled back into the
building and my heart sank. I couldn’t tell if the explosion had been effective
or not because the blast had knocked another section of the ruin down and
covered some of the steps that I had revealed already. The pieces of concrete
weren’t large and I could move them, but it had undoubtedly set me back.

“I’m going to fucking kill him for
this.”

“I know, Burke.”

I attacked the rocks as viciously as I
would have any other enemy. To this day I’m not sure if it was a mistake or
not. The speed at which I worked surely tired me out faster than a slower pace
would have, but I made remarkable progress being that angrily motivated. I had
to sleep only once before I gained back what the explosion had lost me, and I saw
once I had that the grenade had at least done some damage to the lower
blockage.

“Two days until sunrise. One day until
spiders,” I said as I prepared the final grenade.

“It will work, Burke.”

“You ran more calculations? You’ve
projected the explosion?”

Cass hesitated for a moment and then
repeated, “it will work.”

I couldn’t help but laugh and was
surprised when she joined me. The grenade bounced against the hard surfaces
after I pounded it into the gap we had chosen and I clambered up the stairs.
The hole was much deeper now, and I barely touched the sand before the grenade
went off.

There were no large projectiles this
time and I was worried about the lack of scattered rocks. I was tired but too
curious to sleep this time and crawled back into the hole. There was gap now in
the rubble that was a deep black, reaching far down. Excitement gripped me and
I suddenly wished I could leap down the stairs. I slid my way down and bore
myself up to face down the gap.

My faceplate was already sealed during
the explosion and Cass switched on the low-light vision without my having to
ask. It still only worked for half of the display and I closed my right eye to
peer through the gap with the low-light filter. There was nothing else in the
way through there. There was maybe an hour’s worth of work, maybe two, before I
could get through.

I decided to sleep so I could resume
refreshed and not be tired when I explored the inside of the base. I crawled
back up to settle down on a flat service and about to sleep when I heard the
too-human screech of a group of crawlers in the distance.

“Shit.”

“They’re early. Attracted by the sound
of the blast, maybe?” Cass proposed.

“Shit.”

I dove back down the stairs and started
to dig. The original plan was to clear everything out to make sure nothing
collapsed after being moved so I wouldn’t be trapped inside, but there wasn’t
time for that. I couldn’t risk them infesting the basement level. I shoved my
arm into the large gap and pulled out whatever I could.

The sounds of the crawlers were getting
closer. I thought I heard the noise of another animal, something they may have
been hunting, but I didn’t dare stop to confirm it. When the gap looked large
enough for my chest to get through I propped myself up through it and pushed
with my good leg.

I stretched out my arms in front of me
and nearly screamed with the effort of moving my left arm all the way upright.
Cass said nothing, knowing that it was necessary, and I didn’t have time to
worry about what permanent damage I may have done. I gripped the inside of the
gap with my right hand and pulled myself through.

The lower part of my torso caught
between the rocks and I was stuck. A shriek sounded from behind me, so close
that I swear I felt the sound of it vibrate through my bones. I thrashed my
left leg about trying to find anything to catch onto and push myself. I twisted
as much as I could and my chest felt like it was on fire from the effort. All
those weeks of careful movements from Cass were being undone.

I screamed in agony in the last moment
before I knocked myself free and fell through the hole. There were more stairs
left than I realized and it was a longer fall than I expected. I must have
turned from the effort of twisting out of the gap, and I landed directly on my
right leg as a result. The pain was so intense that I couldn’t even make a
noise. I couldn’t even think. I don’t know how long I lay there in the dark or
when the pain subsided enough for me to realize where I was again.

“Burke! Are you back now? You need to
block the hole!”

My eyes were rolling in my head and I
couldn’t tell if the black spots I was seeing were from my eyes or the broken
display showing errors. I crawled up the stairs for what felt like an eternity,
involuntarily whimpering as I did so. I leaned against the rubble at the top
and felt around for any loose stones on the stairs around me. I placed them
into the gap, slotting them together, trying to block the moonlight from
getting in at first and then packing them tightly so none of the crawlers could
get in.

The screams still came from outside but
nothing breached inside. My leg throbbed, like a shock of pain that pulsed out
in tune with every beat of my heart. My arm was numb. My head was pounding. I
still don’t know if I fell asleep or passed out.

I woke to a sliver of light creeping
into the hole in my visor. I tried to move and found that the suit was powered
down. Alarm gripped me as I suddenly feared that I may have been unconscious for
days, trapped under the ruins of the base. It was late in the planet’s night
cycle when we had escaped down into the darkness, and the suit’s power was
already low from the lack of sunlight for many day’s worth of time. I was
scared that I may have sentenced myself to a slow death trapped in the same thing
that had allowed me to survive this long.