Bounty Hunter 1: The Bounty Hunter's Revenge (9 page)

I settled down on my stomach and kept my
head low to the ground, alternating between looking through the scope and then
glancing behind me. I had no way of telling which direction they would return.
It wasn’t the first time since being stranded that I wished the rear view
camera in my helmet hadn’t broken in the fall.

Hours went by without any sign of them
and I was beginning to lose my patience. After so many years the ship next to
me was almost like a taunt, a tease, of returning to my old life. Cass had said
that there were no logs on the computer’s database but I could always visit
some of my old contacts to track down Adam.

We often used the same handlers for many
clients. The one we most commonly dealt with was an older man named Geoffrey.
He owned a bar on a space station between a number of heavily populated
systems. It served as a hub for trade and passengers looking to move between
worlds. It would be a good place to start.

After a few more hours I decided to
simply leave the two behind rather than waste any more time stuck on the
planet. When I rose to my feet the shot crackled at me like the sound of a
thunderbolt and ricocheted off the shoulder plate on my right arm. The bullet
had hit me with such a force that it erupted in a spray of hot sparks when it
collided with the metal, hitting it hard enough to knock me clean off my feet.

I landed on my back and immediately
rolled over and crawled to the nearest piece of cover I could find. There was a
large chunk of the building that had once been part of its wall nestled into
the sand nearby, and I put it between me and the direction of the shot.

I checked my shoulder where I had taken
the hit and saw that the metal plate had a fresh dent. If the bullet had been
capable of that, a lucky shot would be capable of piercing right through me.
Lucky. I recalled the captain’s gun that had went off when it hit the floor.

“One of them must be a sniper, Burke. I
didn’t see him when you stood up. Hold the rifle out.”

I extended one arm out with the rifle in
my hand, and kept my eyes on the visor window that displayed what the scope
saw. The two men were small shapes on the horizon. One had a very large rifle
while the other seemed to be unarmed from what I could see. They didn’t seem to
notice the rifle looking at them and, from that distance, they’d probably have
to know it was there in order to see it.

They began to move forward for roughly a
dozen paces and then stopped, crouching down to search for me again. They’d
repeat this every few minutes and moved slowly closer. Eventually they were
close enough that I could make out their faces and see their movements more
clearly. The unarmed one seemed to be having an argument with the sniper. He
kept waving his hands in dismissive, angry motions. It looked like he was tired
of their slow pace.

“Patience, Burke. Don’t make the same
mistake that he is.”

“With a gun like that they may think I’m
dead. I’m impressed he made that shot.”

“He’s even closer now, so be careful.”

I continued to wait them out. They were
getting near to the ship and into range of my smaller rifle. I wanted to make
sure they were as close as possible so I wouldn’t miss. I only needed one of
them alive, and I moved the rifle in as small motions as I could to minimize
the chance that they would notice it. I lined up the cross hairs on the unarmed
man first and then to the sniper.

The stopped and the sniper crouched down
to look for me. In the time it took him to bend his knees I shifted the rifle
and fired twice at his hands. The first shot missed, but the second slammed
above his forearm and into the broad side of the rifle’s stock. It whipped out
of his hands and I twisted out of my cover. Cass released the faceplate and I
brought the rifle up to my face as she did so.

“Don’t move!” I shouted.

Through the scope I saw the sniper
scrunch up his face in frustration. He put up his hands but the other man did
not. A look of panic washed over his face and he made an idiotic display of
indecision as he danced on the spot, deciding whether he should run.

“Moron! He’s got us!” The sniper yelled
at him.

The alarmed man seemed to ignore both of
us and bolted for the ship. I only needed one of them alive, I had just
reasoned, and this just made the decision easy for me. I tracked his head
smoothly through the scope and squeezed the trigger. A single bullet cratered
the back of his skull. He fell down dead onto the door of the ship, and his
face leaked blood all over it.

The sniper hadn’t moved and I realized I
had a grudging respect for this man. His skill as a marksman was impressive,
even if his common sense wasn’t great. He was intelligent enough to realize
when he was beaten and knew to take his chances with surrender. Even so, I
didn’t take the sights of my gun from him.

“Your name?” I called out as I walked
toward him.

“Edward.”

“Is that your real name?”

“No.”

“Not that it matters,” Cass said into my
ear.

I nodded. I had Cass unlock the
grappling hook’s latch on my belt and I pulled the length of the line as much
as I could before slicing through it with the blade in my left arm. The hook
hadn’t fared well over the years, and was a bloody mess from being used to drag
animal parts and carcasses. I severed the line below the hook itself and tossed
it away.

Despite how accommodating Edward was
being, I still refused to take any unnecessary risk when I was so close to
getting off the planet. When I was close enough to him, I smacked him across
the head with the back of the rifle. It wasn’t hard enough to knock him
unconscious, but he was dazed and reeling on the floor.

I pulled his arms up and wrapped the
hook’s line around his arms and fastened it tightly. This knot was repeated two
more times, and the remaining length of the line was threaded under his legs
and back around his arms again. I made one final knot and was satisfied that he
was unable to even get upright without my help, never mind get his arms free.

“Stay,” I said simply, and I carried his
sniper rifle with me as I walked into the ship. I kicked the corpse of the
other man from the door as I did so. His blood was leaving a stain on my new
home.

The ship’s bay was stacked with as many
containers as I could cram into it. The engine of the ship protruded even in
this area and took up a large portion of the ceiling. A lot of containers were
left behind—mostly food and less valuable items. I had no doubt that Adam had
found a way to strip away all of my possessions and funds that I had earned
over the years of our partnership. What I could take with me and sell would end
up being essential.

The bodies of all of the men had been
piled together outside of the base, not far from where Edward was still tied
up. I was holding his sniper rifle again as I walked toward him. The weapon was
in pristine condition, and he obviously took a lot of pride in keeping it that
way. I held it as a constant reminder that I had beaten him, and hoped it would
remind him to cooperate.

“I need to know who sent you here, and
where I can find him,” I said.

He looked up at me with defiance. The
area around his right eye looked painfully swollen, and his skin had reddened
from his temple down to his cheek. I’m not sure if he was more angry about the
blow I had dealt him, or that I had ignored him for the hours that it had taken
for me to load up the ship.

He said nothing.

“I’ve been on this planet for three
years, two months, and sixteen days. I never want to see another grain of sand
for the rest of my life. Every minute I stand here is another minute I spend in
my own personal hell.” I jabbed the barrel of his own sniper rifle directly
into his scalp. “I’m going to give you one more chance to answer my question
before I get on your ship and you never see me again. The only thing you can
change is whether or not I leave with one less bullet in this fine weapon of
yours.”

The man glared up at me and for a moment
I thought he was going to be stubborn enough to make me kill him.

“I don’t know. He was some hotshot,
retired merc. Marcus acted like he was some sort of celebrity, and he only ever
spoke to the boss.” He tilted his head to the side, looking over to the pile of
bodies I had made from his dead crew. “Who I see is in your pretty heap of
assholes over there. Good job.”

I gritted my teeth. Inside the helmet,
Cass whispered to me, “keep it together. There’s no need to kill this one.”

“Look,” Edward said after letting his
lungs deflate in a defeated hiss. “Whoever hired us is the reason I’m fucked
here. If I knew who he was I’d tell you. If that’s not good enough, then just
fucking shoot me.”

I lowered the rifle and stared down at
him for what felt like a long time. He was silent and stared right back at me.
I tossed the weapon in the direction of the ship and knelt down. I cut through
the line around his legs and pulled him upright. He turned around and held his
tied up arms to me expectantly. I shook me head.

“Go down the stairs there. Follow the
blood to the right. There’s a few blades you can use. You might cut yourself.
You might have to do it for hours. Trust me that it’s still a damn side better
than the welcome that I got on this shit hole. There’s food and water. You’ll
have to hunt at night. You’ll learn.”

“So you’re really going to fucking leave
me.”

“Yes.”

His face furled up in anger and I
thought for a moment he would lunge at me, arms tied or not. He turned instead,
and walked in a dejected slump to the stairs. He took his time, dragging his
feet through the sand, as if he didn’t even see the point of it.

“Let’s go, Burke,” Cass said to me.

I picked up the sniper rifle on my way
to the ship. It was obviously Edward’s most treasured possession. When the
cargo door was beneath my feet, I turned around and took a final look at his
back. I was doing to him what Adam did to me, I suddenly realized. It wasn’t as
bad, I tried to convince myself, since I was leaving him with his body whole
and the means to survive. Still, his spirit looked as battered as mine had felt
the day I found myself stuck down here.

He probably wouldn’t survive, I argued
internally. He would probably die on his first night from the crawlers swarming
down the stairs that he didn’t know needed to be blocked when it got dark. I
wondered if Adam had the same thought about me probably not surviving the fall.
The odds were even more stacked against me than they were on Edward, but here I
was, on my way to go back and kill the man who did this to me.

I raised the scope to my face and kept
Edward’s head steady in the cross hairs. He was walking so slowly that it took
next to no effort. I squeezed the trigger and closed my eyes. The sound of the
blast echoed into the ship behind me and was followed by silence. I threw the
rifle into the sand before I turned around and walked into the ship.

“That wasn’t necessary,” Cass said in a
tight, small voice.

“I disagree.”

The ship’s door raised behind me and my
right leg felt sore as I moved to the cockpit. With each step it felt like I
limped a little more.

* * *

The space station was a bustling hive of
people. After so many years of being alone I found it extremely disorientating.
I had to stop often before I adapted and relearned to walk with a crowd, and
move with the flow of people to where I wanted to go. Geoffrey’s bar was still
open, and I planned to be waiting there for him when he showed up.

The station was like a city and space
port rolled into one, with arrivals and departures coming at all hours. It was
placed between solar systems, and as such relied solely on artificial light.
Different sections were adjusted to different day and night cycles, and the
effect could be mesmerizing as you walked inside it. I was wearing a large coat
over my armor to lessen the attention I may attract. My helmet wasn’t so odd.
Many people liked to be in constant contact with the artificial intelligence
that helped run their lives.

“I still think you’re making a grave
error,” Cass said to me.

“I know, and you’re probably correct.”

“Then why won’t you listen to logic and
reason!”

“Because,” I repeated, for what must
have been the third time. “Reason has nothing to do it. It wasn’t logical to
hold out and live on that world for years on the small chance that I would make
it off. The only thing that kept me going was the thought of doing to Adam what
he tried to do to me.”

“I still don’t understand. Take some
time to fix your leg! Repair me!”

“That thought consumed me,” I continued,
as if I hadn’t heard her. “Through the nights when you conserved power it’s all
I would think about. I can’t just push it aside now that it’s not needed
anymore. It’s still there. It’s keeping me walking on this leg right now.”

Cass didn’t respond and I kept on
walking. The trip to the station had taken a few days and I had gotten an
opportunity to rest. My leg ached but it was tolerable.