The Bounty Hunter: Resurrection Read Free Page B

on the floor of his ship
and the doors snapped together. The floor lurched beneath him as the ship
turned and flew away. The bullets smacking into the broad side of the ship were
lost in the rain.
     
     
    * * *
     
     
    The ship ascended smoothly into a
low orbit around the planet. Burke had spent days on the surface with Cass and
was happy to be back in his home. They had owned the ship for less than a year
but he already felt the most comfortable when he was within it.
    He had asked Cass to name the ship.
At first, she had been ecstatic to be the one to name the vessel and then spent
the next few days agonizing over the decision.
    “Brisbane,” she said, trying to
hide the fact that she was nervous. “I think we should call the ship Brisbane.”
    Burke had been taken aback by her
choice, so much so that he hadn’t noticed she was worried about offending him.
    “You’ve been reading my war
records?”
    “I read them a long time ago,” Cass
said. “Are you happy with the name?”
    In truth, he had been uncertain. Brisbane
had been the last city on Earth to fall to the animalistic aliens that now
infested the planet. He had been present on the surface the day that the planet
was abandoned, ready to defend the city while the last few inhabitants made
their escape. In the months after hearing her choice, however, he had grown to
appreciate it. He liked the name.
    The Brisbane reached orbit before
Burke could deposit Taggus into an empty jail cell on the upper level of the
ship. He untied the vruan and then pushed him into the cell. The alien had his
hands clutched around the bars the moment after Burke locked the barred door. Taggus
pressed his head between the bars and hissed out words in his native language.
Burke couldn’t understand it.
    “Your race helped construct the
universal language. That’s why we have so many clicking sounds to make when we
talk,” Burke said. “Use it.”
    Taggus continued to hiss.
    “He says you’re not worthy of the
effort,” Cass announced, translating quickly.
    The vruan continued to ramble.
    “I was worth the effort on the
planet,” Burke pointed out.
    Taggus’s skin shifted abruptly to a
scarlet purple. He hissed and clicked out more words.
    “He’s swearing at you now. A lot,”
Cass said slowly.
    “It’s nothing personal,” Burke said.
“You stole some things. You’ll be imprisoned for a while. They’ll let you out.
Hopefully I won’t have to find you again.”
    The alien let out a low roar. His
eyes widened as a sucking noise emitted from his throat. His cheeks puffed out
for a moment and then he spat on the floor between them. The blob of mucus at
Burke’s feet was thick and the same color as the vruan’s skin. Taggus hissed
again.
    “I don’t think I need to translate
that,” Cass said.
    “Yeah that part was pretty clear,”
Burke agreed.
    He turned and exited the room,
leaving the light on for Taggus. The jail cells were on the starboard side of
the ship and were the closest room to the engine at the rear of the vessel. The
port side was entirely made up of three bedrooms: the middle one for himself,
the closest one to the helm for Rylan, and an unoccupied one near the engine
room. The kitchen, meeting area, and armory took up what remained of the
starboard side.
    Burke walked into the armory and
put away his rifle and the holdout pistol he kept in a hidden compartment in
his armor’s hip. He removed the helmet of his aegis first, already aware that
Cass transferred herself back into Brisbane’s network and was synchronizing
herself with its systems. He frowned when he looked over the torso portion of
his armor. He had sustained enough hits to leave blackened streaks that he
would have to clean. He was happy to see that he had taken no damage—sometimes
it didn’t seem fair, he was virtually invincible against the standard firearms
that common criminals used. It took military grade firepower to break through
the protective layers of armor, and even