McCade's Bounty (16 page)

Now Molly remembered 47,721's warning and took a step backward. "I thought I was alone."

The creature snorted softly. "Not very damned likely. This ship is too small. You were headed for the rocks. That's a bad place to go."

"Why?"

"You see the holes?"

"Sure, they look innocent enough."

"Throw something toward one."

Molly bent over, picked up a loose stone, and threw it toward the boulders. Something black flashed out, snatched the rock from midair, and disappeared back into its hole.

Molly swallowed hard and took a couple more steps backward. "What was that?"

"Something bad," the creature said noncommittally.

"You speak standard."

The creature took a few steps forward. It made a sign with its left hand. In the same way that 47,721 seemed evil, this alien felt nice. Molly stood her ground.

"Yes, we runners are good at languages, and I met one of your kind before . . . bigger though and even more frightened. I learned your type of sound talk from him."

Molly thought about that. A grown-up even more scared than she was. It seemed hard to believe. "Where is he now?"

The creature swayed back and forth. "Death came. The you-thing ran. Death found it."

"Death?" Molly looked around. If black things were hiding in the rocks, then what else was lurking around?

"Yes, that is what we call them."

"We?"

"Runners. Those that look as I do."

"So you don't like them?"

Jareth blinked. "Who?"

Molly forced herself to be patient. "Them. Death."

"Not very damned likely," the runner replied. "Would you?"

"Would I what?" Molly asked, grinning when she realized she was doing it too.

"Like death, if it ate you," the alien said.

Something cold and hard tumbled into Molly's stomach. "They eat you?"

Jareth swayed back and forth for a moment before cocking its head to one side. "Yes, that is what we are here for. That, and repairing the ship. We built it, you know."

Suddenly Molly understood or thought she did. The spacecraft was a true biosphere and contained its own ecosystem. An ecosystem in which the 56,827 fed on the runners and used them to maintain the ship as well. "That's horrible!"

"Yes," the alien said calmly, "it is."

There was silence for a moment. Molly broke it. "So death ate the one like me?"

"Yes," Jareth replied. "Only the hard-supporting things were left. Do you want them?"

Molly shuddered. "No, it wouldn't do any good."

"No," the runner echoed, "it wouldn't do any good."

"Molly!"

Molly turned and looked toward the trees. Pong was there, looking in her direction, hands cupped around his mouth. The thing called "death" stood beside him.

Molly turned back but the runner was gone.

McCade lit the latest in a long series of cigars and let his eyes drift along the line.

Phil stood three people back, talking with a down-at-the-heels roid rat, but McCade passed over him. It might or might not pay to have an open friendship. Time would tell.

The line stretched the length of the hall, wound its way down three flights of rickety wooden stairs, and out into the poorly lit street. The vid ads said, "All you can eat and a hundred credits a day." There were plenty of takers.

McCade shifted his weight from one foot to the other and stared at a graffiti-covered wall. Like most of the real estate bordering HiHo's spaceport, this building was waiting for a really heavy-duty lift-off to shake it down.

He was tired. Very tired. Things had moved along rather quickly after the interview with Nexus. The boys were freed and just as McCade feared, they knew nothing about the girls.

But the stories the boys told about life on a pirate ship made McCade's blood run cold. Had Molly been through the same sort of thing? Was she going through it now? Or was she dead? Some of the boys hadn't made it. Pitiful little bundles ejected out of a utility lock as if they were so much garbage.

Looking at the boys' emaciated and sometimes scarred bodies, McCade saw Molly in his mind's eye.

So as he hugged the boys, and did his best to answer their questions, McCade was close to tears. Pong had caused all this pain, all this misery, and Pong would pay.

But in order to punish the pirate he'd have to find him and that's where Captain Lorina Dep-Smith came in.

She was reluctant to talk at first, but after five minutes of private conversation with Phil, she became suddenly voluble.

In talking to Dep-Smith it became quickly apparent that she was little more than a hired hand, useful for running errands to places like Nexus, but not privy to Pong's long-range plans.

She did possess one piece of useful information however, something Pong could hardly deny her, and that was her next destination.

After leaving Nexus, Dep-Smith was headed for a planet called HiHo, where she'd load elements of a mercenary army and receive further instructions. She didn't know where the army was headed, or why, but she knew Pong would be in command.

So after giving the matter some thought and discussing it with his crew, McCade came up with what he hoped was a workable plan. Since they didn't have enough money left to send the boys home on a chartered ship, they'd cram them aboard the
Void Runner.
Rico was still recovering from his wound, but was healthy enough to act as pilot, and Maggie would handle everything else.

Meanwhile, McCade and Phil would sign aboard Dep-Smith's ship as replacements for the crew that Rico and Maggie had killed, and work their way to HiHo. Once dirtside the pair would join Pong's newly formed army and look for an opportunity to snatch him. Their plan had a lot of potential flaws, but it was better than nothing.

One of the potential flaws surfaced right away. Though appropriately threatened, and simultaneously bribed, they couldn't trust Dep-Smith further than they could throw an Envo Beast.

Once aboard her ship, and en route to HiHo, they were almost entirely at her mercy. The ship carried a crew of twelve, which meant they were outnumbered six to one if it came to blows, and given Dep-Smith's smoldering resentment, the battle could come at any time.

So, between Dep-Smith's efforts to make sure that they got all the ship's most unpleasant jobs, and the fact that they were cooped up with ten sociopaths, the two of them got very little sleep. Regardless of the shifts they were assigned, one was awake at all times, blaster in hand, waiting for the attack that never came.

McCade yawned. A wooden door slammed open and a burly man with the look of a professional noncom stepped outside. There were no badges of rank on his brand-new camos and he didn't need any. The man had "sergeant" written all over him. In spite of the fact that they were only five feet away from each other, the noncom yelled "Next!" as if McCade were at the other end of the hall.

Having spent hours waiting to hear that word, McCade wasted little time stepping inside. The door slammed closed behind him. McCade found himself standing in front of a large med scanner. It came close to filling the room.

The sergeant appeared at McCade's elbow. He wore his hair high and tight, had bushy eyebrows, and the beadiest eyes McCade had ever seen.

"Lose the stogie, and listen up. You will take five steps forward, enter the med scanner, and follow its directions. Having done so, you will take six additional steps forward and assume a brace. Major Mike Davison will ask you some questions. You will answer them honestly, completely, and with the respect due an officer. Do you understand?"

McCade dropped the cigar into a spittoon and heard a hiss as it hit the water. "Yeah, Sarge, I understand. Five plus six, and a brace. Major Davison. Straight scoop and no bull."

The sergeant gave a slight nod, as if acknowledging someone he knew, and jerked a thumb toward the scanner. "Good. Hit it."

McCade took five steps forward. The med scanner came to life and closed in around him. It was like standing in a small closet. It was completely dark outside of the single red light located directly over his head.

"Stand completely still."

McCade obeyed the machine's orders and felt a number of artificially warmed pads make contact with his body. The bounty hunter was completely immobilized once they were in place.

A minute passed. Waves of white light rippled up and down as the machine scanned his body in layers, starting with McCade's skin and working its way through all of his internal organs.

There was a whirring sound as the pads were withdrawn.

"Place your hands in the lighted receptacles."

McCade saw a pair of lighted slots appear in front of him. He did as he was told. His hands slid into a warm jellylike substance that held them firmly in place.

McCade flinched as needles drew blood from both of his index fingers.

"You will feel a pinprick in each index finger," the machine said belatedly, "stand by."

McCade swore softly and withdrew his hands.

The red light went out and the machine parted in front of him. There was a doorway ahead and a rickety old desk just beyond that. A porta comp sat on top of the desk and a man in crisp camos lounged behind it. He looked up at McCade's approach.

Major Davison had black hair, even features, and a neatly trimmed beard. The latter marked him as a merc since anything more than a neatly trimmed stash was forbidden to Imperial officers. Like his noncom, Davison wore brand-new camos.

Remembering the sergeant's instructions McCade took six steps forward, popped to attention, and rapped out his name. Or in this case the name he chose to be known by. "Sir, Blake, Roland, reporting as ordered, sir."

Davison was silent for a moment, looking McCade over, tapping his lips with a silver stylus.

The whole thing took McCade back to his days at the Terran Naval Academy, and his frequent visits to the cadet captain's office. Like then he was careful to keep his eyes focused on a spot one foot over Davison's head.

"So," Major Davison said softly, "a vet. Good. We need experienced people. We've got enough plow boys out there to start an award-winning farm. But experienced at what? Give me your last outfit, slot in the TO, and rank at separation."

"Yes, sir. Imperial navy, sir, special ops, lieutenant commander."

That was false of course, but McCade had known a Roland Blake in his navy days, and he might be a lieutenant commander by now.

Davison's eyebrows shot upward. "Special ops? Lieutenant commander? Explain."

McCade kept his eyes on the dirty green wall. He had a story prepared for this situation, a story that was partly his, and partly that of an officer he'd heard about. "I refused a direct order and was court-martialed, sir."

The officer leaned backward in his chair. "And the order was?"

"We were retrieving a recon team, sir. I was in command. If the indigs spotted the team and engaged, I had orders to lift without them."

"And you ignored those orders." Yes, sir.

"And the recon team?"

"Killed in action, sir."

"And the consequences of your decision?"

"Substantial damage to my ship, sir."

"So you were wrong?"

"No, sir."

Davison smiled. "You'd do the same stupid thing all over again?"

"Yes, sir."

Davison nodded thoughtfully. "You interest me, Blake. I like officers who are loyal to their people, but I won't stand for disobedience."

Davison's hand jerked forward and the silver stylus flashed by McCade's head to stick quivering in the wall beyond. The bounty hunter remained motionless.

The merc smiled. "Sorry about that . . . but you'd be surprised how many of the vets who come through that door have lost their nerve." Davison leaned forward slightly.

"I'm going to ask you three questions. If you are what you claim to be, you'll know the answers."

McCade felt his heart beat a little faster. Davison was no dummy. It was clear that he'd been an Imperial officer himself. Would McCade know the answers?

Davison looked thoughtful. "Who commands Naval Intelligence?"

McCade came close to laughing. Finally, his old enemy and sometimes friend would do him some good! "Admiral Walter Swanson-Pierce."

The merc smiled. "Good. The second question. What is the motto inscribed on the plaque in front of headquarters on Terra?"

McCade's throat felt dry. "Headquarters," meant headquarters for Naval Intelligence, and the fact that he knew the answer was pure luck.

"The first to see, The first to hear, The first to know, The first to die
."

Davison nodded. "Excellent. Here's the last one. Everyone who works special ops is given a life-long code name . . . what is yours?"

McCade swallowed hard. A life-long code name? He'd never heard of that, but NI had lots of secrets, and code names were the sort of nonsense they loved. Still . . . McCade took a chance.

"Sir, I have no life-long code name."

"I'm glad to hear it," Davison said cheerfully, "because as far as I know, no one else in NI does either. At ease, Blake, and welcome to the brigade." Davison got up from behind the desk.

"Sorry I can't give you something equivalent to your last rank, but I do have a slot for a captain, and who knows? If a sufficient number of people die you might move up!"

McCade shook Davison's hand, replied that captain was just fine, and started toward the back door. He stopped and turned around. "One question, sir . . . is there a chance that you'll assign me to something like special ops?"

Davison pulled the stylus from the wall and wiped plaster off the needle-sharp tip. "It's too early to say for sure, but the idea had crossed my mind."

McCade gave mental thanks. The plan was working. An assignment to special ops would keep him out of the trenches, give him more freedom of movement, and a better chance to get at Pong.

"Yes, sir, I'd like that, sir. There was a variant in line behind me. He's big and looks like a Terran bear. Ex-recon if I'm not mistaken, sir. If you decide to create a special ops team, he'd make a good officer or senior noncom."