The Bounty Hunter: Soldier's Wrath (12 page)

“Can you get Geoff on the screen in
here? I’m sure he’ll want to talk to his daughter.”

He turned to face the girl. Her
wrists were bruised from when they were bound. He guessed her legs were in a
similar state.

“Your father was injured,” he
began. “He’s been in the hospital for the last few days. He’s mostly recovered.
I just wanted you to be prepared.”

She nodded once, her mouth a tight
line. The screen changed as an incoming call was received. Burke walked out of
the room before the call completed. He wanted to give the two of them some
privacy.

Natalie and Rylan were both in the
command room. He walked in and greeted them both. He stood behind the pilot’s
seat.

“You did well Rylan,” he said.
“Thank you.”

The pilot nodded. Burke turned to
Natalie.

“You as well,” he said. “This isn’t
exactly what you visited me for. I’m sorry about that.”

“No one got hurt,” Natalie smiled.
“It’s fine.”

“Where did you learn to shoot like
that?”

“I have to be familiar with many
types of weapon systems for research at ACU,” she said. “You never know when
parts of something might have other uses elsewhere. I’m good at my job.”

“Apparently so,” Burke smiled.

He walked closer to her. Cass materialized
above her podium. She looked around the room and then through the main screen.
Burke watched her and followed her virtual eyes. They were far off from the
slave ship and any planets in the system. He knew they would have to stay away
from major settlements for a while. No doubt their ship was the topic of
several reports from the firefight on Stheno.

“Are you okay to stay with us
still?” he asked, turning to Natalie.

“I said you had a month to make it
up to me. It’s barely been a week,” she said. “I haven’t had enough of you
yet.”

“We’ll see how you feel if
something else happens,” he said.

“I think it’ll be okay,” she said.
“You should take the time off with me.”

He nodded. Cass turned toward them.
She caught Burke’s attention.

“Geoff wants to talk to you,” she
said.

“Privately?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Put him through here,” Burke said.

The main screen changed to display
Geoff’s call. He looked far better than when Burke had seen him last. Natalie
got to her feet and stood next to him as they looked at the screen.

“Thank you,” Geoff said. His left
eye was still swollen shut. His right looked close to tearing.

“My pleasure,” Burke said simply.

Natalie leaned out in front of him,
making a bewildered face at his choice of words. Burke made a face back.

“He knows what I mean,” he
protested.

Natalie laughed.

“I’m sending a ship to you with an
identity scrubber. They’re expensive but consider it me returning the favor,”
Geoff explained.

“I can use it to alter the ship’s
signal,” Cass said behind them. “We won’t have to wait for them to stop looking
for us for being involved on Frey. We can use one of the gates right
afterward.”

“How will you send it from Prime?”
Burke asked.

“I have contacts in Tali,” Geoff said.
“Not any I trust with my daughter but enough for this. I want you to bring her
to me. She’s agreed to it, temporarily. I want to be sure no one else is after
her.”

“We can do that,” Burke answered.

“Thank you. My bar is open to all
of you when you get to Foras. I’ll be in touch, Burke.”

The screen went blank. He turned to
Natalie. She was shaking her head.

“My pleasure,” she repeated,
laughing.

They walked together out of the
room, Burke scowling as she teased him. They entered the armory and looked over
the damage the aegis had sustained. Natalie frowned at it, running her fingers
over the indents that the bullets had made. The damage the helmet had sustained
from the sniper was the worst of all, resembling a long scar.

“I can fix it,” she said. “At this
rate you’ll need to replace the outer layer of the armor next time you’re at
ACU.”

“They were prepared for me,” he
said. “They knew what they were up against.”

She followed him as he walked
across the corridor and into his quarters. He wanted desperately to take a
shower but he made a show of walking over to the far wall instead. The wall
display activated to his touch and he used both hands to move files around. He
flipped through the folders he had on Isaac Paxton, an open file he kept on the
main screen that had been bothering him for years. He closed it with a flourish
and took it off the primary level of the display. He didn’t fill the space
immediately. He let it sit there, vacant.

“Finally,” he said.

“You did well Burke,” Natalie said.
“I’m proud.”

“I couldn’t have done it without
help,” he said. “Although I don’t like to admit that.”

“Ah, typical,” Natalie grinned.
“You went up against a man and dozens of his hired thugs and you’re not happy
that you needed three people to help you.”

“I would have been dead without
Cass. Maybe she should count as more than one.”

“Then I’ll be sure to congratulate
her too,” Natalie said. “I’ll go do that while you get cleaned up. I’ll meet
you in the kitchen.”

Burke nodded. He stripped from his
clothes as she left and then went into the shower. The ship had even more
people now, he thought. At least while he was under the shower’s spray of hot
water, he didn’t let it bother him.

* * *

Over a week passed before they
received the delivery Geoff promised. Kristen had settled onto the ship. She
had mentioned several times that she was unhappy to not be returning to her
home on Frey, but she agreed with her father’s decision. She spoke with Rylan
more than the others, often talking with him in the meeting room next to the
kitchen.

Cass resumed work on Lumen. Natalie
assisted her, while Burke continued to try to understand what they were
attempting to do. He was happier when they worked on his aegis. Guided by
Natalie, he was able to administer the restoring paste that she had brought
with her from ACU. It had been developed specifically for his type of armor,
meshing into gaps wherever they formed in the aegis. If it was not applied
properly, gaps could form and weaken the armor, or rough patches could stick
out. She taught him how to smoothly apply the substance, which dried into a jet
black. In the parts of the aegis that were white, the repair spots looked like
speckles from a distance.

“How is ACU lately?” Burke asked.

“Bad,” Natalie answered. “Havard is
keeping many secrets. You have to be careful when you go there from now on.
He’s restricted any future sales of weapons and armor to outside sources. He’s
only honoring current customers like you and a handful of others. He was
adamant about that.”

“Why?” Cass asked.

“I don’t know,” Natalie replied. “He’ll
rarely meet with me anymore. There’s talk that he might be close to perfecting
a way to detect Species 1260.”

“Vampires,” Burke said dramatically.

“Not vampires,” Natalie sighed.
“Don’t call them that. I’m not happy with how the facility feels lately. He’s
planning something.”

“You should quit,” Burke suggested.

“I wish it was that simple,”
Natalie said with a small smile. “Dross experiments have increased but I don’t
have access to that. I only hear rumors, and those are rare. People who spread
gossip have a way of being transferred.”

“What is your department currently
working on?” Cass asked.

“We’re focused on new
miniaturization techniques at the moment. Specifically parts like the shield
generator I installed for you. If we can make them smaller we can power more
things. We’re focusing on a propulsion system at the moment.”

“Meaning?” Burke asked.

“Something like a jetpack. It’s
tricky, though,” Natalie sighed. “Too much fuel will make the aegis have a weak
point. Not enough and it won’t even be worth installing it.”

“You’ll get it working. You always
do,” Cass said happily.

When they approached the jump gate,
Burke waited at the helm. The list of their names, including Kristen, appeared
on the screen. Their ship was accepted without any incident. Natalie had
suggested multiple times that they spend a night on the carrier while they were
in transit. Cass had agreed to watch over the ship and Rylan was almost too
happy to remain alone with Kristen while they were gone. Natalie looked through
the plethora of hotels and other establishments on the carrier and planned an
elaborate night out for them. When the Brisbane was fully docked, Burke
disembarked with her.

“We’re going for dinner first,”
Natalie began as they walked through the carrier.

She had one of her arms locked with
his. He looked up as they walked, seeing the sprawling interior of the carrier
stretch up and away from them. Parts of the vessel were a complex maze of
alternating gravity, a newly developed gimmick to attract more people out of
their ships. Far off in the distance, he could see what looked like people walking
on the walls instead of the same floor they were standing on. He hoped they
would stay on one even level.

“Then I thought we could go see a
show,” Natalie said. “Afterwards, we should pick up some supplies. There’s a
few things I want to buy to take home with me. You could use some new clothes
as well.”

Burke nodded. He knew that part was
true.

“I booked us a room at one of the
nicer hotels,” she said finally. “We can spend the night there and not have to
worry about anyone in the room next to us.”

He came slowly to a stop next to
her. She looked worried for a moment, as though she expected him to disapprove.
He kissed her instead. She thought he wanted to say something but he closed his
mouth and smiled.

The night went well and passed
quickly for the two of them. The show had been a live performance, one of the many
novelties that the jump carrier provided at extravagant cost. They passed
several groups of aliens as they went shopping, most of them enclosed in
environmental suits but still enjoying the amenities of the vessel. She helped
him pick out some clothes, knowing well the simple style that he liked to wear.

At the hotel, they put their bags
away and quickly fell onto the bed. She began to unbutton his shirt as he put
his hands on her waist. She kissed him hungrily as they removed each other’s
clothing. The night ended with them laying naked next to each other in the bed.
She curled up, satisfied, against him and watched as he fell asleep. Then, she
shifted slowly out of the bed, stopping often to see if he stirred. She
prepared to walk toward the bathroom if he opened his eyes but he remained
asleep. She grabbed for her shirt, pants, and bag, and slipped quickly out of
the room.

She had made sure the room next to
them was vacant for more than one reason. She pulled a device from her bag and
extended out a connecting wire to interface with the door. It opened in seconds
and she quickly moved inside. She didn’t bother turning the lights on, using
the glow of the two tablet phones she pulled from the bag. She opened her
personal phone and reviewed the data she had collected from Burke’s room: his
entire history, as he had said, downloaded onto the device. She transferred it
to the second phone with a similar connection that she used to unlock the door.
When the transfer was complete, she put the phone back into her bag.

The second phone was new. She had
purchased it when they had walked around the carrier, complaining to Burke that
she always needed a spare. She connected the device to the network that the
hotel provided to each floor, using the current room as the access point rather
than the one they had rented. She began another transfer of the data and then
entered a contact code from memory.

The call went through and she
promptly hung up. She waited then, knowing precisely how much time to let pass
before she called again. A man answered. His face appeared on the small screen
of the phone. She looked down at him, knowing he could see her through the
phone’s camera.

“Ambrose,” the man said slowly.

“The data is being sent to you now.
I got everything that was relevant,” she said.

“Without being caught?”

She nodded.

“Good. Well done, agent.”

The man looked suddenly weary as he
looked at her. It had been many months since she last saw him. She wondered if
she had woken him up or that the weight of their work was showing on him more.
She pushed the thought aside: this was Admiral Viscard, one of the surviving
commanders that oversaw the war on Earth. If he had managed to deal with that,
he could handle whatever came next.

“Anything new on ACU?” he asked.