Bounty Hunter 2: Redemption (4 page)

There
was no sign of movement when he reached the door. There was a jet bike propped
up against the side of the shack. He checked the map a final time before he
twisted a blade from his forearm and sliced through the bike’s control panel.
Copper was inside, trapped, and all Burke had to do was open the door.

He
was one step away from the door when it swung open. The gun came out of the
shadows of the house first, pushed up into Burke’s face and fired. The bullet
had a hollow-point and bounced harmlessly off his armor. The muzzle flash was
another matter and was close enough to temporarily blind him. He swore,
growled, and swatted at the gun, catching the man’s hand and roughly twisting
it around.

The
man struggled but Burke held him easily until his vision cleared. The man had
his back to him as he tried to squirm free.

“Are
you Frank Copper?”

“Fuck
you!”

Burke
reached over the man’s shoulder and grabbed his neck from the front. He
released his arm and then lifted him up, turning him as he was lifted so that
they could see face to face. Cass brought up the picture of Copper and put it
next to the man. He looked like he had lost some weight and gained bags under
his eyes, but it was the same person.

There
was a second gun at Copper’s hip and he stretched his hand down to get it. His
other hand was around Burke’s arm, trying to hold himself up so that he could
breathe easier.

“Who
sent you? The Admiral? Or Viscard?” Copper croaked.

“They
didn’t give a name. It doesn’t matter. Stop struggling, I have you.”

Copper
laughed. He stretched his arm down for the gun and his fingers brushed against
it. Burke shook his head.

“Small
arms won’t be able to hurt me in this. You should know that,” he said.

“Yeah,
but I’ve seen my posting. They want me alive. Yeah?”

Burke
narrowed his eyes and Copper plucked the gun out of its holster. He pulled the
gun up and put the barrel against his own head, not Burke’s.

“What?”
Cass and Burke both blurted out together.

“You
let me go or no one wins! No money for you.”

“They’ll
still pay for you dead. Are you fucking insane?” Burke said and reached for the
gun with his other hand.

“Stop!”
Copper screamed. “I’m not going back to Viscard! You don’t know what he’ll do
to me. I’d rather be dead. I mean it! Put me down or I’ll do it.”

Burke
stopped. He stared up, dumbfounded, at Copper’s face. He spoke lowly into his
helmet, directly to Cass.

“How
much less are they paying for him dead?”

“A
third. You should go along with it until you can get the gun out of his hand.”

He
grunted, loud enough that Copper heard him even through the armor. He released
his hand suddenly hoping that Copper would drop the gun when he fell, but he
landed on his feet. He dashed over to his bike and then kicked it when he saw
what Burke had done to it.

“You
don’t have anywhere to go,” Burke taunted. “You must have done something really
bad if you’re so scared of this Viscard guy.”

“No,
no,” Copper spoke frantically. His eyes were darting from place to place. “He’s
crazy.”

“If
the punishment is that bad then you must deserve it.”

“No!
Shut up!” Copper shouted and then finally made a decision as the words roared
out of him. He started running up the clearing to the trees. He was heading in
the direction that Burke had came from, into the forest and toward the river.

“We
can’t chase him,” Cass said. “He’ll just put the gun to his head again.”

Burke
made fists out of his hands and then released them, repeating the action again
and again as Copper shrank more and more in the distance. The forest was
dangerous, too dangerous for an unprotected person. Copper was acting under
desperation and was going to get himself killed.

“No,
we have to,” Burke said. “If something kills him in there we might not find
enough of what’s left to turn him in.”

“But
it’s only a third of the reward.”

“A
third of something is better than all of nothing,” Burke said and started
running after him.

Cass
displayed the map as Burke reached his top speed, sprinting into the trees and
closing the distance that Copper’s head start had gained. The man was halfway
to the river and Burke knew that he had to get to him before he reached it.
Burke was sure that Copper would fall and be swept away if he tried to swim
across the river.

The
forest became a blur of vibrant green and the rich, brown tree trunks. He could
hear things rustling behind him as he raced through, spiders leaping out from
their hiding spots and missing as he ran passed them. He finally caught up
enough to Copper to see him when one of the spiders jumped out close enough to
hit him.

“Burke!
I’m sorry!” Cass screamed and he felt the world lurch around him. His stomach
churned as he was launched into the air. His leg felt numb. Cass had seen the
spider and triggered his leg before he was hit.

He
shot up through the air, high enough that his head neared the large, thick
leaves at the top of the trees before he started to fall. He looked down and
saw that the spider had smashed itself into a tree trunk when it dived through
where he had been standing. A second spider was waiting below as he hurtled
down toward it.

He
extended his right leg as he neared the bottom, landing on it and immediately
twisting his forearms as he turned to face the spider. It charged at him but
Burke was ready, twisting his body around and thrusting both of the arm’s
blades into the giant insect. He heard it shriek and he twisted his arms again,
digging the blades through the thing’s body until he retracted them back into
his arms with a sickening slosh of blood.

The
compartment at his hip opened as he turned to the spider that had dived at him.
The second one was stumbling along the ground, dying, but the first had
recovered from hitting the tree and was facing him. He pulled the gun from its
holster and fired at it twice, not caring what he hit as long as he scared it
away.

“Show
me the map,” he said and turned back in the direction of the river.

He
was already running when Copper’s position flashed in front of his eyes. He had
made it to the river but hadn’t crossed it yet. Burke pushed on faster, still
holding the gun, ready to use it if Copper was foolish enough to try to jump
into the water.

He
was running so fast that Copper heard him coming. The moment that Burke could
see him, Copper whipped around and put his back to the river. He put the gun
back to his own head and Burke came to a stop with a few meters between them.
He tightened his grip on the gun.

“I
can take a shot,” he said to Cass.

“You
might kill him.”

“He’ll
die anyway.”

“Don’t
come any closer!” Copper screamed. “Not another step!”

“Burke—”
Cass began but he was already raising the gun. He jerked the weapon quickly in Copper’s
direction, knowing that the shot had to be fast enough that he didn’t have time
to react. Burke squeezed the trigger and a bullet punched into the side of
Copper’s gun, smacking it out of his hand and sending it flying behind him.

Burke
started to run and Copper’s eyes widened. He took one step back, stretched out
his arms, and let himself fall. Burke surged over the edge of the river and
grabbed him, sliding down the river bank and toward the water. He pushed off
with his right leg again, gripped Copper tightly by his clothes, and catapulted
them both clear to the other side of the river.

“No!
Kill me! Please! Don’t take me to him!” Copper yelled as he thrashed below
Burke’s grip.

He
pulled out the cord from his belt and started wrapping it around the man’s arms
and legs. Copper struggled too much and it took two punches to the head until
he submitted to it, but Burke gave him three.

* * *

On
the ship, Burke threw Copper into the jail cell, untied both his arms and legs
not leaving him with the line that he could potentially use to hang himself. He
was silent as Burke untied him, staring vacantly off at the wall of the cell.

“They
wanted you alive. You’re not a deserter. They won’t kill you.”

Burke
closed the cell door and locked it. Cass had already transferred herself from
the aegis to the ship and was preparing to take off. He removed his helmet and
looked through the bars of the cell with his own eyes instead of the visor’s.
Copper was still staring intently at the wall, only now he was smiling.

“As
long as they don’t kill you, you can recover from it,” Burke said. “Keep that
in mind.”

Copper’s
smile grew wider but he still didn’t speak. Burke furrowed his brow at his
prisoner and then turned from him. He left the lights on and closed the door as
he left the room.

The
ship shuddered as it lifted off from the planet’s surface and he was happy to
leave it. He went into the armory and took off the pieces of his armor and
thoroughly cleaned them. There was mud and wet pieces of grass clinging to the
lower portions of the suit and his augmented leg. The blades in the arm
sections were coated in pale yellow spider’s blood.

The
ship had left orbit and was on its way to the Stratos gate when he had
finished. He checked back in on Copper and found that he was still on the floor
with a smile on his face. Burke went up to the helm and took his seat at the
center of the ship’s display.

“That
could have gone better,” he said into the room.

“It
could have gone a lot worse,” Cass retorted.

“Was
there any sign of that Viscard guy he kept mentioning on the contract?”

“No.
No names. Just a standard prison location in Prime for collection. Do you want
me to look around for any military officers with the name?”

“Please,”
he said. “And ask Geoff. You can never be sure what the tricky old man might
know. I’ll send the confirmation in that we caught Copper. Can’t let you do everything.”

“For
once,” Cass said, again sounding like she was smiling.

Burke
replied to the contract with details of how Copper was apprehended, including
that he was taken alive. He began a more thorough report to be handed in along
with Copper himself, one that detailed where he was found and the measures that
were taken in his capture. They reached the Stratos gate before the report was
finished. Cass returned from information gathering to block Copper’s signal
from the carrier’s scans.

“I
can’t find anything relevant on Viscard,” she said afterwards. “Or anything
that matched him and Copper. No answer from Geoff yet.”

“It’s
probably not important. It’s just strange that he would have rather killed
himself than be taken.”

“Has
that ever happened before?”

“Rarely,
and those times the targets were being either stubborn or on so many drugs that
they couldn’t tell what they were doing. I’ve never seen it happen out of
fear.”

“Hm,”
Cass said. “Oh, here’s something that will cheer you up. There are reports that
Eva Pond went missing last night. The guards found her cell empty as if she
just vanished.”

“She
wasn’t lying about her connections then. Good, I know what we’ll be doing once
we get Copper off the ship.”

Burke
added the final details to the report while they docked with the jump ship. He
made a small dinner for himself and then went to bed. It was the middle of his
night when Cass woke him up with an alarm. She was yelling something at him but
he was too tired to make it out. He jumped out of bed and raced down to the
bottom floor, thinking that Copper was trying to escape.

“I’m
sorry,” she said, when he could finally register her words. “I was
concentrating on capturing surveillance on Pond. When I checked on him, he was
already,” her words trailed off.

He
stepped into the room and immediately saw the blood. It had pooled and then
spilled through the bars of the cell, snaking over the floor. He knew that
Copper was dead. There was too much blood. Burke stepped around it as best as
he could and moved closer to the cell.

Copper’s
face was covered in his own blood. It was smeared from the corners of his mouth
all the way to his cheeks. His right arm was limp and extended from his body.
He had chewed his way through
his own
arteries at his wrists. Burke had heard of people doing it but had never seen
it himself. He felt sick.

“It’s
not your fault,” he said. “How could you have guessed he’d do this? This, this
is,” he filled his cheeks with air and let it out in a slow hiss.

“Geoff
got back to me. He said he’s heard only good things about this Viscard. He has
a reputation for being reasonable.”

Burke
narrowed his eyes at the thick layer of blood on the cell floor.

“There’s
nothing reasonable about this,” he murmured. Then, more clearly: “There’s fear
and then there’s this. Copper was terrified of the man. The man we just sent a
message to that we found his target alive. We’ll have to change it now. Let’s
hope he’s reasonable about some things, at least.”

He
used half of the ship’s water supply when cleaning the room, and even then he
knew he would need to scrub it more thoroughly when he was next at a station.
He worked at it until he could no longer see where all of the blood had been.

He
bandaged Copper’s arm and left him on the bed in the cell. Burke reluctantly sent
an updated confirmation and then edited his report to include the suicide. He
was torn as he wrote it. Amateur bounty hunters were usually the ones that made
mistakes like this: mistakes in completing a contract or not searching a
prisoner thoroughly enough. He could not, however, bring himself to feel the
full brunt of the blame.