The Bounty Hunter: Reckoning Read Free Page A

and the ventilation losing efficiency.
    “Have you found anything yet?” Alan
asked.
    “Nothing so far,” Marcus’s voice
was riddled with crackling as it came through the helm’s speakers. “ The
new guy won’t keep his mouth shut. Might want to toss him out when we get off
this shitty planet. Did the others find anything yet?”
    “They haven’t called in,” Alan
answered. “We should just leave him behind, Captain. Close the doors and wave
through the windows while we take off.”
    “Right. That’d be good. We could
see the look on his face.”
    Jess let out an audible rumble in
her throat and leaned over the main terminal.
    “Sorry to interrupt your murder
plan,” she said, “but I need to know if I can shut the engine off. We won’t be
able to able to tell the difference between the ship and the planet soon.”
    “Yeah, power it down. We’ll be here
longer than I thought. From what I was told this dead guy could be miles from
here. Just wanted to try here first in case we got lucky. Like we ever do.
Message me if the others find anything.”
    “Will do,” Alan responded and then
cut the transmission.
    “I won’t let you leave him,” Jess
said simply.
    “We were joking.”
    “That’s getting harder and harder
to tell lately.”
    She shut down the engine and then
leaned back in her chair. She opened her right hand so her metallic palm was
facing upward and displayed a three dimensional image of the engine she had
downloaded from the terminal. It hovered above her hand in a pale blue light.
The image rotated slowly, showing her where sand had already started to build
up. Then, suddenly, the sound of a single gunshot rocketed through the air and
she clamped her hand closed, dispersing the image in an instant.
    “What the fuck?” Alan instinctively
grabbed for the shotgun under his terminal.
    “No,” Jess spoke quickly. “I told
you Burke might have survived but there’s no fighting if it’s him. Your shots
won’t pierce through his armor.”
    “Fuck that, I’m not a coward.”
    “Yes you are! And it’s not cowardice,
it’s reality. Don’t give him a reason to kill you.”
    He dived out of the room and she
watched him nearly fall down the stairs and onto the cargo bay floor. He danced
in place for a moment and seemed to realize his mistake of giving up the high
ground on the stairs. She heard something coming from outside. Alan must have
heard it too and he sprinted into the back of the ship and out of her sight.
    Jess put her back to the wall and
away from the door. She both heard and felt the heavy footsteps of someone
climbing onto the ship. The door was moving next, raising up and closing them
inside. She would have done the same thing; it was a smart decision and she
cursed that he was being careful as well as having the advantage of his armor.
    She turned and faced the wall just
as the light from the planet was sealed off completely. The artificial light of
the ship seemed cold and inadequate in comparison. She ignored it and held her
right fist to her left hand. She entered a command through the prosthetic arm and
felt her eye shift in its socket, whirling to respond to her commands. She
cycled through the different vision filters quickly until she stopped on the
x-ray lens.
    The innards contained in the ship’s
walls obstructed some of her view but she could see Burke through the mess of
it all. She could see pieces of his skeleton through thinner parts of the
armor. Parts of it showed fractures. He was missing one of the arms of the
aegis and he kept that exposed limb behind him as he walked forward. His other hand
was blocking his face. Jess looked directly down and saw Alan through the
floor. He whipped around the wall and sent several blasts of the shotgun at
Burke. He stopped and braced himself against the shots, staying firmly on his
feet.
    Alan turned back behind cover and
Jess watched Burke rush forward. He led with his naked arm now, firing the
handgun she hadn’t