Chapter 7
Evers wandered back into the passenger area of the shuttle. Flying was one of the most complicated processes he had ever witnessed, but he still needed to learn how to do it himself. Someday, he knew he would, if he was ever to be anything like the great Bondik Sarkin. The legendary bounty hunter had made himself great because he could do it all: set explosives, fly aircraft, hot-wire computers, draw fast and shoot accurate, keep calm in the face of failure and even tear people apart with wrestling moves.
Demen and Ferus were speaking quietly to each other, and Venin sat in chilling silence with his eyes focused on Evers as the young member entered the passenger area. The slicer waved cheerfully and then moved to the seat beside Ferus, making sure Venin and Demen were on the other side from his companion.
Apparently, Demen was telling a story about a past bounty. “And then the one guard says, ‘Hey! I think there’s somebody over there!’ Then I paste him with a rock to the head, and he falls off the ledge and drops two hundred feet, and he—”
“I really wouldn’t care to hear the end of that sentence,” Ferus cut him off. “I’d probably laugh, and I need to learn not to laugh. Bondik Sarkin has never laughed.”
“Laughing is good for the soul,” Demen replied. “And we all need to find some fun in our job.”
“I can already find life fun - silently.”
Demen snorted. “What kind of fun is it, if you can keep quiet about it? The best kind of fun is the sort you can shout to the world, that makes you want to invite everybody to come and be shot at!”
“No one would come,” Ferus pointed out.
“Yeah…but it’s still fun,” the gunner said. “If your job isn’t fun, you don’t do as well in it. People like Grav and even Bondik Sarkin need to learn to laugh sometimes.”
“Bondik Sarkin doesn’t need to know anything,” Evers said. “If he had something lacking, he wouldn’t be the greatest bounty hunter in history. He knows everything.”
Demen sneered. “You talk about Bondik like he’s some kind of demi-god. But he’s not. He’s just a man.”
“So are you,” Ferus said.
“But nobody should think that just because Bondik is powerful, he’s to be worshipped!” Demen snapped. “He’s a bounty hunter, a BEEP good one at that, but he’s capable of failure.”
Evers lifted his pointer. “He hasn’t failed yet.”
“But he will. Someday.” The gunner settled back into his seat. “Who knows, he could be dying right now.”
A concussion blast shook the whole shuttle, tossing Demen out of his seat and onto the floor. Ferus and Evers staggered up against the wall, trying to keep from following the gunner, and Venin managed to clamp his fingers around his armrest.
Angor’s voice crackled in over the transmitter: “You may have noticed, but we’re under attack!”
Demen muttered from the floor, “Yeah, we noticed.”
Ferus managed to direct his staggering toward one of the transparenium windows lining the passenger area, and he whistled quietly. “Somehow, I get the feeling Bondik’s not dead.”
Evers and Demen ran up beside him, intent upon finding what he meant by that. Evers felt a sharp chill run down his spine as he spotted the source of that concussion blast: the gaping openings of the plasma turrets built into the sides of the Flamethrower, the personal craft of the famous bounty hunter, of course, Bondik Sarkin.
“Oh, wonderful,” Demen muttered. “First we say he’s awesome, then he’s dead, now he’s shooting at us!”
“Oh, will you shut up?” Ferus snapped.
The Cookycutter suddenly accelerated, diving sideways out of the main traffic lanes, and Evers stumbled against the wall once again. Angor did not care at all for the common travelers riding the skyway, but being in the open would give him much more room to maneuver than among so many aircraft. Plus, they had been ordered by Damidh Kash to avoid attention, and none of them wanted to go against specific orders from their boss, and Bondik Sarkin wasn’t a man they wanted to fight.
As the Cookycutter lurched upward, Evers was granted a good view of the Flamethrower’s vertical cockpit. The dark shape of the famous man was seated behind his transparenium canopy, and though Evers couldn’t see that face behind the mask, he somehow knew their pursuer was grinning with an evil pleasure.
More blasts of plasma came flying from those turrets, exploding in the air all around the Cookycutter. One such blast struck the top, but it dissipated when it met their upgraded shield system. The shuttle rocked tremendously from the blow, which reminded Evers of their bad stabilizer system. One hit in the right place, and they would completely lose control of their ship, which would plummet to the ocean below.
Venin staggered his way toward the cockpit of the shuttle, and Evers followed behind him. Angor and Grav were desperately working the controls like madmen—Angor had the main set of handlebars, twisting them forward and up, while Grav tried to reroute some of the power from their shields to their boosters.
“Try to call him,” Venin ordered.
Grav snarled, “I’m a little busy right now—do it yourself!”
Venin laughed, somehow icily calm. “A squad leader doesn’t get to be that by being helpless.”
The man crouched down between Angor and Grav, with barely enough room for the pilots to move their arms. Venin hit the transmitter and flipped it to Bondik’s frequency. Bondik was one of the few bounty hunters who made no secret of his comm frequency, because he wanted people to send him bounties directly.
“This is Venin,” the squad leader said fearlessly. “Back down or we’ll see it as appropriate measures to destroy you.”
Evers gaped at his leader. “Destroy him? With our busted turret? You can’t be serious!”
Venin shoved him away. “We have no choice, Evers. You want to fly around providing him with target practice?”
“But we don’t even know why he’s shooting at us!”
“That’s why I’m telling him to back down,” Venin replied. “If I knew why he was shooting at us, I’d already have that turret firing back. Listen to learn, Evers, not to argue.”
Bondik’s flat voice said, “Back down, to you? I don’t think so. Venin, it’s no secret your ship is ready to fall apart on you. If you shoot at me, you might actually make me laugh.”
Venin chuckled darkly. “I warn you, Bondik…we’re not going to show any mercy on you.”
“I don’t blame you. Goodbye, Venin.”
Venin stared in cold silence at the transmitter for a moment, and then he stood up again.
More plasma bursts filled the air around the shuttle with deadly flames, and Angor wrenched the controls left, right, and then finally down, knocking Venin and Evers back and forth across the cockpit. The shields rebounded a shot, and the shuttle reeled at the blow, sliding left and down before the pilot could keep it on course.
The squad leader stared out the cockpit for a moment. “Grav, can you take some of the power from the stabilizers and add it to the turret?”
The sniper shook his head. “No. They’re already almost shot, and if we took any more juice from them, they’d explode.”
“Then take it from the shields.”
Grav frowned. “Are you sure we can risk it?”
“We have to,” Venin said. “There’s no other option.”
“Got it.”
Evers put his feet against one side of the door frame and his back to the other side, bracing himself. Grav flipped some switches and twisted a dial, and immediately a thrumming vibration ran through the ship, as half of their shield power was converted to turret power. Venin moved to the left side of the cockpit, where their turret control panel was located, and activated their defense mechanism.
“Here we go,” Angor muttered. “Time to fight back.”
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