Bounty Hunter 1: The Bounty Hunter's Revenge
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Authors: Joseph Anderson
The Bounty Hunter’s Revenge
By Joseph Anderson
The Bounty
Hunter’s Revenge
All Rights Reserved
Copyright
©
2012 by Joseph
Anderson
Bounty Hunter Series
The
Bounty Hunter Series One, Complete
Contents
I was looking down the barrel of a gun.
My eyes traced along the length of the weapon to the hand that was holding it. Adam
was holding the gun and bearing down on me. Everything could change with just
the slightest movement of his trigger finger.
The anger inside of me thrashed around
like a starved animal. I reminded myself that Adam had reduced me to exactly
that, a starved animal, years ago when he had shot me in the stomach and left
me for dead. It took every piece of my willpower to suppress the rage I felt at
his betrayal, and the molten fury that I was experiencing at having him once
again pointing a gun at me.
A part of me, a not insignificant part,
was still hoping for a reason to appear that would explain what he did to me.
That Adam had been forced or tricked into deceiving me, and that now he saw the
error and we could go back to being partners. It was stupid and sentimental,
and it was exactly that sentiment that allowed him to have the gun pointed at
me instead of the other way around. It was also what allowed him to nearly kill
me so many years earlier.
* * *
The day that Adam tried to kill me was
supposed to be the most successful day of our careers. That turned out only to
hold true for him.
We met while serving in the military,
and went into business together after the war. We became mercenaries, bounty
hunters, and sold our services for the right price. It was a ruthless business
of criminals and murderers, and we sought to bring some standards to the
profession. We never took a contract that was proposed by the scum of the
galaxy, no matter how much money they offered.
This sense of dignity and honor made it
hard for us when we first started, but over the years we persevered and grew
quietly famous to the right sort of people. Most bounty hunters worked alone
and were seen as renegades that were only honest to the highest bidder. We
worked together and were able to flourish as a team. Having a partner you could
trust turned out to be quite lucrative.
The last year that we worked together
had been our busiest yet, with clients actively seeking us out for jobs that
required the best bounty hunters in the business. Our last contract was given
to us based on that reputation, and was by far our highest paying yet. It was
enough money to set us up
extravagantly for
decades, or comfortably for life.
The target was a freighter’s worth of
stolen cargo that a group of thieves were holding on a desert world.
“The two of us are going to go down,
neutralize the outer defenses and then eliminate all hostiles. We’re to retrieve
the cargo and then destroy the base. The client was adamant that all of the
thieves be killed as an example to those who might think about stealing from
him in the future. Blowing up the base,” Adam explained, “I requested for fun.”
He grinned.
Success had brought us more than just
more wealthy clients
.
It had given us the
financial capability to afford the most advanced combat hardware. Our ship was
stocked with hundreds of weapons, ranging from handguns to explosives. We
prepared and equipped ourselves while in orbit before each mission. That time,
as we drifted above the desert world, was no different.
My power armor was among our recent and
most expensive purchases. I had only been able to afford it at the beginning of
that year and it was the most advanced piece of equipment I had ever owned. Our
old military equipment was designed to give soldiers the bare minimum of
functions to get them through only a few kinds of encounters. My armor was
designed for anything.
The suit was known as a battle aegis,
and it covered my entire body with interlocking pieces of reinforced metal that
could protect me from an attack at any angle. The material was strong enough to
withstand most kind of bullets, blades, and small armaments. As a result, the
suit was incredibly heavy and required internal mechanisms, and assisted
computer control, for me to still be able to move with full range of motion and
speed.
Not all of our contracts were human
targets and some required long stretches of time on alien worlds where it
wasn’t feasible to constantly return to orbit. The suit was capable of
providing oxygen and sustenance during those periods, and could keep me alive
for days to weeks depending on the conditions of the planet. The suit could
also maintain its power supply by absorbing energy from multiple sources,
usually in the form of heat and light.
I had spent over three years worth of
savings on my armor, and it had been worth every credit.
The battle aegis included an artificial
intelligence, like many computers did, to handle processing combat data and
assisting my movement. It could handle communications and even offer feedback
and suggestions. There was an option to have the interface only announce
information formally and succinctly as possible, but I had grown fond of the
AI’s inserts, advice, and personality. She had a certain charm to her, even
from her initial insistence that “she” was not a “she” since an AI didn’t have
to conform to the idea of gender.
“Hello Burke,” the voice came from
inside the helmet as I walked out of my room and toward the ship’s bay. “We
have a mission?”
“Yes. Adam should have made the
contract’s information available to you on the ship’s network. How are you,
Cass?”
“I am well, thank you. I see that you
are in good health.” A few small windows displaying my heart rate and other
vitals popped up on the visor as she said that. “I hope to keep you that way.”
I smiled to myself and walked us to the
rear end of the ship. Adam had already fed the required coordinates to the
ship’s navigation computer and was waiting for us. He had also strapped on his
power armor that was similar to my own. He hadn’t spent nearly as much money as
I had, but he didn’t need as many features that I did. He relied more on me to
do the majority of the fighting, and I relied on him to provide direction and
deal with clients. Back then we still appreciated the strengths of each other.
The back end of the ship had a massive
door that lowered out as a ramp to allow easy access to delivered supplies, or
the gigantic trophies of alien monsters that we required as proof to collect
some of our more exotic bounties. It wasn’t uncommon to see multiple heads of
aliens of varying sizes hooked and hanging from the ceiling in that room. On
that day, however, there was nothing particular noteworthy when I walked in
except for Adam aiming a rifle at me.
“Whoa. Hey, easy,” I said with a laugh
in my voice.
“Shit, sorry,” I could hear a similar
laugh in Adam’s voice.
He lowered the rifle and the faceplate
on his helmet popped forward and slid upwards to reveal his face. He nodded at
me and then threw the rifle in my direction. I caught it without stopping my
approach toward him. Out of habit, I snapped the magazine out of the rifle and
checked the bullet count. I had done this so many times that I barely noticed
what I was doing and relied on my subconscious to remember what was necessary.
Cass was already processing and
displaying information about the surrounding area. The temperature inside the ship—along
with humidity, pressure, and other information—displayed at my peripherals,
ready to be brought into clear view if I required the information. When I
looked through the windows on the ship’s main door, the estimated speed and
altitude of the ship popped at the corner of my eyes. When I looked at Adam, a
faint rotating green circle appeared around his face that let me know he was a
friendly target and not to shoot at him.
“We should be on the surface in a few
minutes. The client told me that they tracked the stolen cargo to this planet.
It’s mostly desert, more sand than rock, with a few scattered water sources.
The atmosphere is breathable but, with the heat and how far away the system is
from the major worlds, its far down on the colonization list and currently
uninhabited.
“The targets have a small base of
clustered buildings that are barely defended. Seems like they don’t expect to
be found this far out and hide amongst the sand on a planet like this. I don’t
think we need to waste any time going in carefully. I programmed the ship to land
next to them and we should be done in no time.”
“Got it,” I nodded at him.
“Kind of anticlimactic that this will be
our big payoff mission. Easy assignment. I guess that cargo must be something
special to be paying this much.”
Adam brought his left arm up to his
chest and looked down at it. With his right hand he began to press buttons on
the forearm display. The lights in the room began to glow brighter, matching
what the light level would be on the surface of the planet. When he was
satisfied with the lights he brought his hand up and pressed the faceplate back
into his helmet. I knew that his visor would be adjusting to the light just
like mine was, making sure we wouldn’t be blinded for a few seconds after the
ship’s door opened up and let the light flood in.
“Can you see, Burke?” Cass asked.
“Yes, perfectly. Thank you.”
“What was that?” Adam asked.
“Was just responding to Cass.”
“Oh,” Adam snorted. “I still can’t
believe you didn’t turn the AI off. It’s useless.”
“Permission to overload his transmission
receiver, Burke?” Cass asked.
I laughed and shook my head. A tremor
ran through the floor of the ship and up my legs. I looked out the window and
could see only the pale blue of the planet’s atmosphere. It wouldn’t be long
now until we ran out into the middle of a firefight. I took a few steps closer
to the door and switched the safety off my rifle. Responding to the safety
being disabled, Cass connected the suit’s network with the weapon and a quarter
of my visor’s display was now whatever I would have seen if I looked directly
down the rifle’s scope.
“Should be just over a dozen of them,
Burke. Try to see if you can’t get your armor shot this time,” Adam’s voice
came through my helmet.
A rattling came from outside the ship
when we were close to the surface. It almost sounded like rain, but I was
familiar with the noise. The ship must have been spotted and they were firing
at it as it came closer. I almost felt sorry for them, with what was about to
be unleashed upon them, before I remembered that they were criminals.
The cargo bay door dropped open after
the ship shuddered to a halt on the sandy surface. Without my visor I would
have been blinded for a moment by the bright light that came in from the planet.
Instead I had a clear view of the base in front of me. There were three
buildings in a line, the largest of them in between two smaller ones, and a few
barricades scattered out in front of them as if they had been placed as an
afterthought.
Three red circles flashed on my visor
and hovered in a flourish over each of the multiple thieves dotted around the
base. Each circle displayed “Hostile” in small letters.