Microsoft Word - RecklessBounty (2 page)

“Why couldn’t you have just done it the easy way?” And she laughed at her wiseass remark and clenched her teeth together. Her shoulder pulsed with pain reminding her that she was a wounded woman. “You know, Clayton, you’re a great big pain in the ass.
Literally
. You really try my patience!”

She reached for her communicator and sighed with relief when she heard Johanna’s strained voice on the other end.

“Dear God! Samantha, where are you?” The whirring sound of traffic carried through the speaker.

“I have the targeted bounty and I am down on the ground in front of Landry’s Apartment Complex. Please come and get me. I have a 180,” Samantha explained, exhaustion seeping into her otherwise calm tone.

“Right away,” Johanna snapped off.

Johanna instantly interpreted the code they used. Since 180 meant that she was harmed in the line of duty, her sister would hasten to come and get her. She blinked her eyes, having a hard time warding off her dizziness. Everything swirled around her. She felt as if she’d been drugged. The pain and loss of blood was definitely getting to her. She just had to hold out and pray that Johanna would reach her in time.
Johanna would
. She’d never failed her before.

Johanna lowered the hover mobile down to the cement walkway outside of Landry’s, and released the hatch. She jumped out of the driver’s side and her eyes widened with concern when she noticed how pale her sister had become.

“Good lord, Sam. You look like death warmed over,” Johanna exclaimed, grabbing a hold of the two prisoners and hauling them over to shove them in the back of the hover mobile.

“I feel like death warmed over,” she muttered.

All of the fight had vanished from Clayton and his buddy thanks to the drugs rippling through their systems.

“Sam,” Johanna called out. “Can you manage to get yourself into
Aggie?
”

Aggie
was what they called their hover mobile and though they both knew it was foolish to name a vehicle they just couldn’t help themselves.

“Yep, you bet,” Samantha gasped. Wincing, she slumped into the passenger side.

Johanna shoved Clayton and his friend into
Aggie
, and then harnessed them in. She activated the force field that surrounded them and kept them out of sabotaging the rest of the hover car.

Slamming the door shut she locked it securely. Running back over to the driver’s side she slipped inside. She turned her head at the sound of two hovercrafts quickly approaching their RECKLESS BOUNTY Marly Mathews 7

position.

Turning to Samantha she gave her a jubilant smile, which quickly faded when she looked at the random blips on the computer screen. “That doesn’t look good. What do you think, Sam?”

“I think we’ve got trouble.
Aggie
, identify incoming vehicles,” Samantha ordered. She pressed a gauze pad onto her shoulder from the med kit.

“Third class Dyvanian hover speeders. Two humanoid individuals_ genders male occupies them each. The Dyvanian race is a cruel and calculating race known for their illegal drug trafficking on the Rim and for slave trading. I would suggest we lose them, posthaste.” The female computer system promptly answered in her monotone voice.

“Double

Damn!
” Samantha muttered, craning her neck around to look out the back window. “I need this like I need a hole in the head. Uh, Jo, I think that it would be very wise if you took us away from here as quickly as you can. It seems that Clayton has some friends that are really missing him.” Her eyes widened. It didn’t take her long to sum up the battle capabilities of the craft that were quickly overtaking them.

“He’s a bloody murderer. How many friends can he have? Oh, wait. Scratch that question. He’s probably got a freaking ship load of nasty assed cohorts waiting to rescue his fat ass,” Johanna shot back. She activated
Aggie
, and slowly brought her up into the air.

“It was all a misunderstanding.
Really
. I had to teach him a lesson. I never thought that it was gonna kill him. But did he listen?” Clayton whined from the back of the car.

“What did you think he was going to do when you threw him out of your hover car? Did you actually believe that he was going to sprout wings and fly? Plus, they were the wrong race to cross. They are the kind of people to send you home in pieces!” Samantha shouted.

Aggie
shook under the massive impact of the enemies mounted phase guns. Samantha reached for the weapons control. Leaning forward, she tried to program some defensive shooting patterns.

“Dylan wasn’t able to finish that,” Johanna murmured. “He’s been a little preoccupied what with Tyler gallivanting all over the galaxy....” Swerving, they narrowly missed colliding with an oncoming car.

“Freaking wonderful. Remind me to smack him upside the head the next time I see him.

If we live through this that is.” Samantha slammed against her door and was then hurled forward when another blast connected with
Aggie
.

“They aren’t trying to blow us up. They are simply trying to get me to land. And I’m not landing until we reach
The Excalibur
. Then we can get off of this godforsaken planet!” Johanna made a sharp turn and headed for the entranceway to a land formed tunnel. Swerving low, Johanna barely missed scraping the top of the car. She struggled to control
Aggie
, as they flew into the shallow tunnel.

“
Oh, shit!
I really don’t think this is a good idea, Jo,” Samantha warned, pressing back against her seat, and briefly closing her eyes.

They entered the tight passageway and her belly flip-flopped. It was eerily dark inside of the tunnel and Johanna lit it up as she turned the new specially designed headlight on that Dylan had installed only days before. The blinding light blasted through the tunnel. It took a moment for Samantha’s eyes to adjust. She looked back and swallowed the lump in her throat when she saw what their enemies had just shot at them.

“You know your theory about how they weren’t going to blow us up? Well, Dearest Jo, I think that’s just been shot to hell. I don’t think Clayton has as many friends as we originally thought. Either that or we have
more
enemies than we thought. That’s a mat grenade. And it’s RECKLESS BOUNTY Marly Mathews 8

stuck to our roof!”

“
Oh, God!
Just what we need,” Johanna gasped lifting them out of the tunnel. “What do you plan to do?” And then Johanna’s eyes widened to grand proportions. She looked out of the corner of her eye and caught the determined expression that had crossed her sister’s features.

“Oh, no, no, no! You
can’t
be serious, Sam. Even
I
think what you have in mind is too big of a risk. Samantha, don’t you dare! Oh, Lord, how do we get ourselves into these horrendous situations? There must be another way.” She whistled. “I’ve got it! We could always bail out.”

“
Bail out?
On our one and only
Aggie?
I don’t think so. If we do, we’ll be without
Aggie
, and we’ll be sitting ducks,” Samantha answered. “I don’t fancy being sold to the highest bidder, how about you?” When her sister remained silent, she gritted her teeth and opened her window. “Keep the communication channel open. I might need your help. Get ready to do some fancy flying!”

“Aren’t I always ready? Just get your butt back in here in one piece!” Johanna screamed, the frustration seeping through her soft voice.

“Love you, too,” Samantha whispered. “Don’t worry about me, I’m charmed…I’ll just tap into the power inside of me.” She winked at her sister and climbed cautiously out the window.

Pulling herself up onto the roof she thought about her sister’s touching concern. On a whim, she fastened herself to the top of the car.

Samantha edged her way over to the grenade and fought her way through the strong current of air. She fell onto her ass when a particularly strong gust assaulted her. Reacting instantly, she rolled onto her stomach when she heard Johanna’s half-screamed warning.

A long thin line of green laser bolts flashed past her and the car shook as it hit the side of Johanna’s door.

“Jo!” she whispered frantically. Fear leapt through her.

“I’m fine,” her sister automatically replied. Then Samantha heard her mutter under her breath, “But there goes another few years of my life!”

She crawled over to the grenade and rolled her eyes when she saw the time display.

“This night just keeps getting better and better,” she growled, pursing her lips. She quickly pulled out her laser pen and tried to unfasten the grenade from the roof of the car.

Samantha had three minutes to get the grenade off and away from
Aggie
or they’d all be walking through the pearly gates before their time.

“Jo, I need you to ease up on our speed when I say
GO
. I have a little gift for our generous friends. I think that they’re going to get an early Christmas present this year.”

“You’re just a regular Santa Claus,” Johanna replied. “I always knew that your initials stood for something.”

Samantha yanked the grenade off and felt it thrumming beneath her fingertips.

“
GO!!!
” she yelled. The vehicle slowed to almost a standstill. “Now get me close and then burn like lightning.”

“Aye,

Aye,

mon capitan
.”

Johanna skillfully guided
Aggie
as close as she could to the pursuing vehicles.

Samantha threw the grenade onto one of their cars and then saluted them with thirty seconds to spare. She bolted into action. Jumping back down into the passenger seat, she released her security rope.

Johanna checked to make sure she was back inside safe and sound. Then she floored the engines. They went to maximum speed. And the night sky lit up as if a thousand firecrackers RECKLESS BOUNTY Marly Mathews 9

had detonated.

“I’m beat. Take me home.” Samantha slumped back in her seat.

“My pleasure,” Johanna said, smiling brilliantly.

RECKLESS BOUNTY Marly Mathews 10

“Are they both locked up and settled for the night?” Samantha asked, pulling the white sheet up to rest beneath her arms.

Johanna entered the sickbay and walked over to stand beside her sister’s med bed.

“Everything is fine. Close your eyes and get some rest,” Johanna assured her.

She leaned over and inspected Samantha’s wound. “You know, maybe mother was right.

Perhaps I should have done my internship at
Jupiter Medical
instead of going into the family business. That’s a great job done on your arm if I do say so myself,” Johanna bragged, patting herself on her back.

“Thanks, Johanna. I don’t know what we would do without our resident Doctor. It certainly saves us the hassle of finding an
Earth Authorized Hospital
. You never know what kind of nutty doctors you’re going to find out on
The Rim
.”

“With the way that you beat up that beautiful body of yours. You need a doctor at your disposal twenty-four, seven. That’s where I come in. You’re
so
lucky to have me. Oh, incidentally, it seems that Clayton’s little friend is a hardened criminal and he’s wanted in four systems. I was chatting to one of our contacts online and he told me that his bounty would be even heftier than Clayton’s. So, that’s really good news. It should give us enough money to take some time off. Right now, we’re just
barely
scraping by. It’s a good thing you did have Clayton’s buddy fall in your lap. Because if he hadn’t, we would have had to take on cargo or passengers to make enough money to keep us going,” Johanna muttered.

“Take on passengers? Over my dead body! There’s no way that’s going to happen.

What do we tell them when the shit hits the fan? Offer them insurance?”

“Samantha, get serious. This life on the edge thing really doesn’t make us that much money. I could have made more as a doctor.”

“Well, maybe you should have stayed back on
Jupiter Prime
.”

Dead silence fell between them.

“I’m going to ignore that comment. You’re in pain. You don’t know what you’re saying.

Anyway, I think that once we deliver Clayton and Gus that we should return to
Earth
and visit Mom, Charlotte and Jessica. I need a vacation and so do you. Dylan wants to take me to Hawaii and since we can’t fly Excalibur within Earth’s atmosphere, we’ll have to pay to get there. I don’t know how to tell him that we’re almost broke. You know Dylan and money. He sort of thinks it’s a renewable source.”

“That’s because he’s not used to doing without it. His family always has had loads of money. They are like new age Royalty. If Tyler hadn’t had a falling out with them, then they both wouldn’t be here. But you know Dylan, wherever Tyler goes, he follows.” Samantha rolled her eyes. Suffocating pain wound its way around her heart.
Tyler
. God, how she missed him! If he were still here, he would have been waiting for her when she came back with Clayton.

“Oh, sweetie. Are you thinking about Tyler again? We could ask Dylan where Tyler is, you know. I’m sure he knows. He must. I know he’s always getting messages from him, even though he tries to be secretive about them.”

“It’s okay. Don’t get him mixed up in this. That isn’t fair.”

RECKLESS BOUNTY Marly Mathews 11

“Fine. Why don’t you just try to put Tyler out of your head for a bit? That shoulder is still tender. Since I’ve given you a sleeping tonic, you’ll be getting drowsy soon. So, I’m going to leave you. We’ll be at
Notting Prime
by early morning at the latest, and that’s where we’ll collect the bounties on Gus and Clayton. Believe me, you earned every bit of it. By the way, I saved the bullet that was lodged in your shoulder. I thought maybe you’d want it for a memento.”