Chapter 5
Evers followed Ferus and Demen out to the landing area of the island. Since the bounty hunter base had a disguise shield over it, the invisible field which could only be seen from above gave their island the appearance of the rest of the oceans around it. There was also a security field which prevented almost anything from entering or exiting, and permission had to be obtained for any ship to go through that field.
On missions where it had just been him and Ferus, Evers had flown one of the ultrafast fighter jets, two-seater planes that were built for speed and for small-time Air-to-Air combat than for passengers or for battle against giant battle cruisers. But on missions where all six Destroyers were required, they flew in a small twenty-person shuttle built more for transporting than for AA combat or speed.
As Evans stepped out into the landing area, he couldn’t understand why the Destroyers’ reputations didn’t work here. They were one of the greatest bounty hunter teams—or so Damidh Kash had said—but somehow they had ended up with the lousiest ship available: the Cookycutter. Ferus had named it after he’d ended up slashing their cook in half with an energy sword before their first mission in the shuttle. Cookycutter was a thirty-year-old cut-down freighter with upgraded engines and shields, a booster system that was on the verge of failure, a defense turret that was as much a hood ornament as it was defensive, and stabilizers that worked about as well as their retro-rocket system.
The young bounty hunter sighed as their battered old ship came in view ahead. “Same old piece of junk,” he whispered. “Same old malfunctions all over again…”
He glanced sideways at another ship, a sleek, streamlined craft built for just one bounty hunter. Evers looked wistfully at the curved lines and sharp bow of the vessel, the twin set of plasma cannons built into the sides. Evers knew the ship was the famous Flamethrower, the personal vessel of the great bounty hunter Bondik Sarkin.
Evers pointed toward the fine aircraft. “Why couldn’t we end up with something like that?”
Demen grinned. “Maybe ‘cause Angor would crash it, and then Kash would have to spend a million dollars on another one. He can trust the great Bondik Sarkin to fly straight.”
“Maybe I could tell Angor you said that,” Ferus suggested cheerfully. “And he’d knock you out.”
“I’d like to see him try,” Demen sneered.
“Good,” Evers volunteered. “If you’re so eager for the confrontation, I can tell him as soon as the journey starts.”
“You do that,” the irritating bounty hunter growled, “and I’ll paste you as soon as I deal with him.”
“Deal with Angor?” Ferus snorted. “You really are crazy, Demen. I’m guessing, then, you didn’t see that part of the sewer mission where he threw a fit and split those two guys’ skulls by slamming their heads together? Oh, it must have been when you were looking for your pocket hologame in that big sewage tank.”
Demen slapped him in the side, hissing “Will you just shut up about that hologame?!”
“Not if I can still get vengeance on you for all the times you’ve bugged me,” the big man returned equally.
Evers stood still and watched the short man’s face twist with a mixture of emotions—so many emotions, in fact, that his face was getting pulled four or five different directions—which, combined, made Demen funny for once, even if it wasn’t on purpose. Evers turned away so the small man wouldn’t see him smiling.
And as he turned away, he caught the glint of something metal. Metal in a landing area would normally not be so conspicuous, but when it moved across that landing deck on two legs, that meant it had to be another hunter, in combat armor. Many bounty hunters wore combat armor, since it provided good protection from laser blasts and kept other people from punching, but it also stood out. Sometimes that was a good thing, and sometimes—like this mission—it wasn’t.
Evers looked in that direction, and he blinked. He blinked again, for it wasn’t every day that he saw someone walking toward the sleep shape of the Flamethrower with intent to fly it. He nudged Ferus in the arm, and the big man turned.
“Bondik Sarkin,” Ferus whispered, and again his awed tones reminded Evers of some ritual.
The bounty hunter was practically a legend for his everything. He had the finest set of combat armor available—a suit of battered red, faded to pink, with a thin black visor for his HUD system was his trademarked appearance, and it was in that famous suit he walked across the platform now. His gun was nothing fancy, just a medium-capacity carbine, or so it appeared on the outside. Evers had heard tales of how it also contained a small cable launcher and a tiny flamethrower. Bondik’s shooting skills were supposed to be the best in the world, and his piloting skills were enviable. Altogether, he was a model of what Evers hoped to be.
“I hope he’s not going to Metropolita for our mission,” Demen said, as they watched Bondik climb the ladder to the cockpit of Flamethrower. “He’s in combat armor…and I really, really wouldn’t like to be the one to tell him no combat armor.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ferus grunted. “Kash wouldn’t send Bondik on our mission…unless he wanted us dead.”
“Maybe he does.”
“Why would he want to get rid of the greatest team of bounty hunters he’s got?” Ferus snorted. “Kash sees potential in us. He’s kept Venin and Grav on hand nine years. I’ve been here six years. Learned a lot in my time. Angor’s been on four years.”
“And how many has Bondik been here?” Demen demanded. “Fourteen years! Longer than any of us. He’s done more bounties, all by his lonesome, he’s got the ship, the armor, the weapons…”
Evers shrugged. “Well, apparently we’ve got to wait our turn for fame. C’mon, if we’re going to go to Metropolita, we need to get on the shuttle, or they’ll leave us behind.”
“And then they’d get our pay!” Demen said with mock indignation, as he jogged across the landing deck toward the battered old Cookycutter. “And we must protect our money!”
Venin and Grav were already standing at the foot of the boarding ramp. Apparently they had been there a while, because Venin had his arms folded and was tapping his foot; Grav, as usual, showed no emotion at all. Both of them had worked together as a team for years, before Ferus and Angor were added to their group. Later Demen and Evers had joined up, at separate times of course.
“You certainly took your time,” Venin remarked coldly. “I thought I’d said Today, not tomorrow.”
“You did,” Ferus replied. “Demen told us that…then he went on to be a pain with his verbal abuse.”
“I don’t have the time to hear about it,” Venin snapped. He waved one hand to the ramp. “In with you. All of you.”
Evers didn’t stop to argue with their squad leader. He knew he had to be partially responsible for the delay in their arrival, since he had felt a need to argue with Demen, and arguing with Demen was usually a lost cause. The short fellow could always think of some witty or just some stupid reply at all times, even when shooting.
So, as Demen stopped to bandy words with the impassive Grav, Evers boarded the Cookycutter. For all its faults—and there were a lot of them—the old shuttle had managed to keep itself together on all of their teamworked missions, despite the threat of enemy fire and desperate maneuvers. It was as if he had just walked inside an old acquaintance…an acquaintance he would like to exchange.
The room just inside the boarding ramp was arranged just like a normal passenger bus, with the customary rows of seats for the nonexistent travelers. Through a small aft doorway was the cargo compartment, just in case they’d been assigned to haul some illegal weaponry or the like. Through the door on the other side of the room was the cockpit, the head of the Cookycutter. The bounty hunter moved immediately toward the cockpit, as the others followed up the ramp.
The cockpit was a complicated two-seater; their pilot, Angor, already sat in the seat on the left. The co-pilot, Grav, followed him into the spacious cockpit area and plunked himself down in the seat on the right.
Angor was even bigger than Ferus, both in height and weight, and those huge muscles could knock somebody’s brains out with ease. Combined with Angor’s ferocious temper, more skulls had been knocked in than would seem probable. Their pilot was an excellent pilot, probably better than the mighty Bondik himself, but flying the shuttle made his skills obsolete. Angor was an important piece to the puzzle that was the Destroyer band, but he had no one as a friend except himself.
“What do you want?” Angor snapped.
“I wanted to watch,” Evers replied. “Plus, I need to brush up on my piloting skills.”
“You can’t fly.”
Evers smiled. “That’s exactly why.”
“This isn’t a pleasure trip,” the huge bounty hunter growled. “You’re a nuisance to the piloting crew.”
Grav raised a hand. “Seconded.”
Angor grinned wolfishly. “The motion is carried unanimously. Evers, stay here…but you aren’t going to fly. Watch the master at work, and keep shut up.”
The youngest of the group didn’t argue. Arguing with Angor was just as pointless as a debate with Demen, because while Demen could use wit for his advantage, Angor’s tendency to hit people on the head was not a pleasant one to experience. And because he knew it was true: now was not the best day to learn to fly.
So he simply stood back and watched, as Angor ran the finishing tests. “Engine capacity?”
Grav said, “Ninety-eight percent.”
“Weapons systems?” Angor asked.
“Twenty-eight percent.”
“Hmm…stabilizers?”
“Thirty-nine percent.”
Angor raised a pair of scruffy eyebrows. “Wow—up a full thirteen percent from last time. Retros?”
“Negative.”
“I’m not surprised, what with that last full stop I pulled off fighting that security guard,” the pilot chuckled. “Shields?”
“One hundred percent.”
“Good. How about the boosters?”
Grav turned both thumbs down. “Let’s just say…they’re not prepared for any distance over a kilometer.”
Angor grinned. “Great—the old Cookycutter’s as flight-ready as we’ve ever ridden her!”
Evers winced. He’d always thought their ship, for all its faults, had its systems at higher capacity than that. Flying straight to Metropolita from their secret island base, without promise they might be recognized, with no retro-rockets or boosters and a very outdated and failing turret, was not his idea of classy transport for the best bounty hunter team in the world. Maybe Damidh Kash really did want to kill them.
Angor twisted the Communications Frequency dial to the island tower, and leaned forward toward the mouthpiece. “Shuttle Cookycutter, occupants the Destroyers band, demanding permission to launch.”
For a moment, nothing but static came over the transmitter, but Evers was patient for the response. He wasn’t too eager to go to Metropolita to kill his own family anyway; he could wait a few days, even weeks. He needed to impress Damidh Kash…but he didn’t want to mow down the people he knew and used to love.
The grating voice of the tower operator replied, “Acknowledged…hold on a second, pilot. Gotta let Bondik go first.”
That made Evers move over to the window and look up. Yes, the huge overspreading shield above the island was parting in a certain place, leaving a hole large enough for a small ship to exit. Through that gap flew the familiar shape of the Flamethrower.
I wonder where the great Bondik Sarkin’s off to today, Evers thought. Probably going to kill another twenty people in as many seconds, but I bet he isn’t going to do something as important as we are. We’re going to touch off a war.
The Flamethrower suddenly accelerated and disappeared from sight, and the hole in the island shield filled back up again with its electrical energy. Evers returned his attention to the communicator, and the tower operator said “You’re all clear to go.”
The massive pilot rubbed his hands with childlike glee. “Time to take her up!”
Angor reached forward and flicked a switch. The upgraded aft engines roared to life with power that shook the whole shuttle, making Evers stumble for an instant before regaining his balance. The pilot pressed a button, and a translucent blue field appeared just outside the hull, surrounding the shuttle in its protective shield.
Evers glanced at the LAUNCH button. He’d seen the takeoff once before now, but since he needed to be able to fly to be a decent bounty hunter alone, he found a new sense of interest in how the two flew the Cookycutter. All of the fighters and shuttles and freighters and cruisers were different, but most of the controls stayed the same.
Grav reached out and slapped the LAUNCH button, and the engines built into the underside of the shuttle activated. The initial vibrations were not so powerful as the aft engines had been, but they were still enough to indicate a strong sense of life.
Evers glanced out the window. Their shuttle slowly lifted off the pad,
“Time to fly,” Angor said quietly, and pulled back on a lever.
The rear engines blazed out full-power, and the Cookycutter shot into the skies.
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