The Hard Truth

The thought of my ex-lover stealing another bounty from me sent a surge of rage through my system. Yet what could I do? He had control of my navcom, had shifted my shuttle while I healed and without navigation, this far from civilisation…

My fingers worked the control panel. How had he managed it? How had he known I was here, let alone on the planet? And how had he known I required medical treatment?

Answer: he bugged my ship and kept watch from a distance. He’d known I was in trouble and done nothing. Oh, yes. If Peero’s clan found and… eaten me, the tissue and blood samples were his. Shame I’d escaped.

“I’ll tell you what.” His voice dropped to a seductive tone. My lip curled with disdain. He might have bugged my ship, but he hadn’t managed a camera. “You give me the proof, and I’ll release the navcom. Does that sound fair?”

“This is piracy, Rah.” My mind worked at the problems. I had to wrestle back control of my ship or he’d do it again, and again.

“Piracy? You disappoint me, Rhianna. This is negotiation. You have what I want, and I have what you want. Come now, bargain with me.”

“You’re a thief, Rahman, and you’re not going to win this time.”

He sighed with false regret.

“Then I let you sit here for a month and when you’re dead and nicely preserved, collect the sample anyway.”

“Why do you do this to me?”

“Because I can and because you make me wealthy. You’re the best around, sweetheart, now give it up.”

I rotated my neck, hunched my shoulders and stared at the diagnostic screen. All systems, apparently, worked just fine. The bastard had me just where it would make him the wealthiest.

Seven million credits.

Seven million credits in my hot little hands and he’d fernangled it all away from me.

“Rhianna, you know there’s nothing you can do, so just be gracious about it. I’ve won; you’ve lost. Maybe next time, you’ll best me for a change.” I heard the humour in his voice, the doubt I’d ever beat him at his own game.

Every vein pulsed with rage, with frustration. “You understand I’m going to take my revenge, don’t you?” I asked, my voice shaking with emotion.

“Oh, you’ll try, sweetheart, I know that. But hey, there’s always another bounty.”

I rose from the pilot’s chair, slowly. My back ached and twinged, my ankles simply hurt. Dropping from a hundred metres with a faulty grav-unit and sixty kilos of Ullarian did not a happy landing make.

“How do you want to do this?” I asked belligerently.

“Just pop the samples into the air lock. I’ll take it from there.”

The smugness in his tone made me want to…

“And if I destroy them?”

The silence made me hope this game wasn’t over.

“Rah? If I destroy the samples? What then?”

His voice hardened. “Then I leave you out here; alone and without the navcom. And for an added bonus, I shut down all your life support systems.”

“Figured.” I muttered and made my way back to the medical room. “What guarantee do I have that you won’t do that anyway?”

“You… don’t remember what I said to you back on Earth Prime?”

“Before or after I kicked your butt at 3-D Battle Chess?”

Rahman chuckled. I don’t know why, I really did destroy him. But I also remembered his words.

“You said, you’d never met a woman who challenged you so much; and when that challenge was met, our relationship would be over.” I grabbed the samples from the cryonic storage and made my way to the airlock.

“Oh, so you do remember. Well, you’re still as much as a challenge as ever.”

“And yet, you still left me.” I silently cursed myself for letting those words escape. They hurt only me and gave power to him.

“I had my reasons, Rhi.” He said quietly and I thought it the most genuine emotion I’d heard from him yet.

“Samples are in the airlock.”

“Thank you, Rhianna. Now, if you’ll return to the pilot’s station, I’ll release the navcom for you.”

The hell he would. Rahman would take the samples and check they were real, first. But I obliged and slowly walked back.

I sighed with relief as the pilot’s chair conformed and supported my body. I really needed the full medical of the Blue Dragon.

“You really took a beating, didn’t you?” Rahman murmured distractedly.

“Yeah.” I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. “Such a wasted effort.”

“Not so, my pretty.” His voice was more robust, filled with satisfaction. “Now the universe is rid of its most wanted. A shame only you and I will know who really put paid to him.”

“Are you satisfied now?”

“Not nearly, Rhi, but that can wait for another time. Ciao, babe.”

My eyes popped open and stared out the star field as I heard a distinct clang. From the left came a white ship with the name Star Mistress in black. The ship grew in my vision then swerved away and as I watched, made for the hyper-limit. The bastard had parasited my shuttle to his ship!

The systems of my shuttle went down, console, lights, life support and I gasped. He wouldn’t… then the system rebooted and I had control of my ship once more.

I bared my teeth at the departing Star Mistress. “Payback, Rahman, is going to be hell.”

The shuttle moved under my guidance. Rahman had parked not far from the Blue Dragon, much to my relief, and I manoeuvred the Dragon’s Egg into the hold of the pointy-nosed mothership.

While I wanted to find that damned bug now, it would have to wait until I’d set course for the World Council and fixed myself properly.

* * *

I’m not much of a fan of over-populated planets, but visiting the teeming megatropolis world of Columbus – named after some ancient mariner, I believe – actually soothed my feelings of isolation.

When you’re in space for a long time on your own, it’s good therapy to get with the masses every now and then, to reconnect with your species and others.

I gave myself three days before I lost my temper with their idiocy.

The World Council sat in a low, square building the size of a small city. It had its own transport system of monorails to ferry the workers and visitors around.

I slung the backpack over my shoulder, hopped a transit headed towards the Judiciary and sat next to an executive, nervously tapping his knees. It’s this kind of irritating behaviour that drives my tolerance for humanity down to zero.

Half an hour later and the man got off. Of course, my stop was the next one.

Two burly guards dressed in the crimson of the Council Guard checked everybody who entered the double doors of the Judiciary.

“Pass.” The one on the left demanded and held out his hand.

I showed him my bounty hunter’s licence and he dropped his hand, ran the micro-detector over me and stepped back. The scanner detected any weapon and the smallest level of accelerant or toxin.

I walked up to the information bay, input the word 'Peero' into the system and the screen showed me where the Warrant Hearing was taking place. The World Council didn’t just assume you’d captured somebody, they wanted to know everything about the capture as well as present proof – hence the samples. Sometimes, they even demanded witnesses. On execution warrants, a sample and a story would do just fine as long as the condemned was dead. And that’s what Rahman counted on. He’d seen me kill Peero, could create his own scenario, unless I stopped him.

And there was no better motive than seven million credits. Rahman should have set a timer for the release of the navcom. Silly him.

I reached the double doors and pushed them open. Peero warranted a full bench. Seven crimson robed judges sat at the bench, glared down at flashily dressed Rahman.

Personally, I thought starship captains who invented their own uniforms showed a certain contempt for the World Council; that Rahman’s was in a deep red only made it worse, as if mocking the judges. He, of course, didn’t see it that way.

“And you believe you got to Peero before he could completely contaminate Helios?” An elderly Human judge with a grey comb over asked.

Rahman crossed his arms. “Yes, My Lord, I followed him down into the desert, landed not far from his ship. I crossed the grassland and into the foothills. I then had to climb a cliff and…”

“Yes, yes, we don’t need a rehash.”

I cleared my throat. “Actually, if it pleases the court, I think we do need a rehash.”

“Madam,” the judge turned his icy gaze on me, “we do not need witnesses in this instance. It’s a simple execution of warrant and Captain Chezerain has biological samples to confirm the kill.”

Rahman turned around, the shock in his eyes turned to warning. I grinned at him.

“Yes, My Lord, but Captain Chezerain left a few important facts out.”

“Indeed?” The Irati judge hummed in a monotone. Long in the face, with three eye stalks set in a triangle, his… her… the pale yellow tentacles that grew out of the back of the head like hair waved in agitation. The mouth was small, drawn in tightly, like a prim schoolmistress.

“Yes, Your Honours.” I took the backpack off and rummaged around. When I pulled out the oblong square I looked up at the bench. “May I approach?”

The Irati waved a pale green appendage.

Rahman stopped me at the gate with a tight hand around my upper arm. “Don’t do this, Rhi, you don’t want me as an enemy.”

“Then you shouldn’t have made a false claim, Rha, and you shouldn’t have stolen from me… again. Now let me go before those nice guards come over and make you.”

His wonderful sea blue eyes narrowed with promised retribution, but he released me.

“You have new evidence?” The human judge asked.

“Yes, Your Honour.” I moved around Rahman and placed the oblong on the bench. “I’m Rhianna Sagan. I took Peero down and here’s the proof.”

The judges looked at it, then at each other.

“As per the most recent instructions of the World Council, I present to you the mission brief.”

Those who had eyebrows, lifted them. Rahman cursed quietly behind me. And so he should. Very few bounty hunters adhered to Council edicts and the Council had learned to work around it in the interests of expediting cases.

I, on the other hand, didn’t want to give anyone any reason to deny me a bounty through lack of evidence or some legal technicality. Rahman, the putz, relied on natural charm to ease his path; he expected people to believe him because he could appear so genuine. And I’d fallen for it on a number of occasions, much to my regret.

“Mission brief?” The Irati intoned and flicked an appendage.

“Yes, Your Honour. From beginning…” I turned around and smiled at Rahman as two guards blocked the door and another two approached him. “…to arriving on Columbus. Full visual and audio.”

“You bitch.” Rahman gaze was venomous.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing, Rah.” I turned back to the judges.

“We will take it under advisement.” The Irati said.

“It’s a genuine World Council recorder, Your Honours, all sealed and…”

“We will take it under advisement.” The human judge repeated.

“All rise!” The master of the court announced, though there wasn’t anyone else to stand.

The judges filed out. It could take an hour, or it could take a week before they reached a verdict.

I turned back to Rahman. Uh, oh. The guards had returned to their stations, cleared the doors.

He took a step towards me. “The next time I see you, Rhianna, I will kill you.”

I didn’t doubt him, the lethal fire in his eyes saw to that.

“You won’t know when, or where, but you’re a dead woman. On planet or in space. Or even as you step outside this building…” Then he leaned down and settled his mouth on mine, lifted his head. “No woman is worth seven million.” He murmured. “And you were never really that good in bed anyway.”

He walked away before I could reply.

He meant to kill me. I meant to kill him. Let the games begin.

© Copyright 2008 Jaye Patrick