Bounty Hunter Academy 4 by Hadwin Fuller

Author:Hadwin Fuller [Fuller, Hadwin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Independent
Published: 2024-11-25T00:00:00+00:00

20

Chapter 20

At first, I thought it was Morgath returning. Hoping against hope that the bounty hunter had experienced a sudden change of heart about the necessity of keeping academy cadets well and truly out of the way, I braced myself to accept her apology, or, in the case that there wasn’t an apology, merely accept the freedom of the ship with genuine, heartfelt gratitude. But when the brig door flew open, there was no sign of Morgath’s grotesque face, nor of her deadly AMIGO. Eckel wasn’t there either, and instead I found myself staring at empty space, wondering whether the brig doors on starships were sometimes prone to occasional malfunction.

“Hello?” I said into the muted, too-silent-to-be-good atmosphere as I stepped cautiously out of the brig, my arms still limp at my sides under the paralysing powers of the NIBs strapped around my wrists. My boots thudded on the steel grate deck, and the careless action caused a gentle clang to ring out through the corridor. Suddenly shot through with fear, my eyes darted up and down the corridor, and I waited for the bounty hunter’s attack - the sinister punchline to her little joke of letting me out of the brig. But instead my anticipation was met with only eerie silence.

“Morgath?” I called, now hoping merely that someone would reveal themselves soon, lest I go crazy from the suspense. “Eckel? Is anyone there?”

My thoughts swung to Madge, but when I glanced back into the brig, the droid was right where she had been a few moments ago, powered on but only useful in the event that we required a dealer for a few hands of white dwarf rummy. But if the brig door hadn’t been opened by Morgath or Eckel or Madge, then who in the name of Destron—

The scream left my lips before I could stifle it. Leaping back, I searched frantically for some kind of weapon - anything that might serve as a worthy instrument in a battle with what looked like a huge, overgrown, semi-cyborg space rat. Finding no blasters or laserblades or starblade launchers lying around within easy reach, I instead jumped into a ready stance (or, at least, as much of a ready stance as I could manage with two paralysed arms). If that furry grey mess came anywhere near me, it was going to wish it had never sucked on the Reclaimer’s power cables.

But the gigantic, half-robotic rodent didn’t make a move. Instead, it just hung there, clinging onto an overhead pipe like some kind of…

Some kind of…

I sighed like the wind generator on a climate control station. “You must be Lerren,” I said to the monkey with a super-intelligence chip who was hanging from the ceiling. “My name’s Tega. I’m your new crewmate.”

Lerren gave me a quick look-over, then his eyes returned to my face.

He didn’t look impressed.

“Look, Lerren. We’re in a bit of a situation here. The captain’s been taken prisoner by a bounty hunter. Madge has had her memory pulled. And if we don’t do something about it, they’re both going to be leaving the Reclaimer permanently.

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