Hunter's Wrath by Richard Tongue

Author:Richard Tongue [Tongue, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-04-13T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Hunter, camouflaged in a jacket borrowed from one of the janitors at the Imperial, walked into the Café Sputnik, his ears assaulted by a cacophony of discordant music as he entered the bar, dodging around a drunken, green-tinged spaceman heading out into the street, settling on a vacant stool as he looked around the room, trying to get the measure of the place.

The occupants were a collection of rogues and renegades, the dregs of a dozen worlds deposited out in the dark. Forty years ago, the Cartel had set up Cutter’s Rock, named for the first man to set foot on the planet, with hopes of finding a fortune in alien relics on this forgotten world. Those hopes had faded fast, the research teams finding nothing more than twisted monoliths and burned-out ruins, no valuable artwork or miraculous technology. Nothing that warranted continued investment.

He looked around the bar, looking at the patrons, exiles from worlds all across known space. Most of them were from Terra or the Core Systems, from Proxima or Procyon, but there was a cluster wearing the garish garbs that were favored on Arcadia, others with the close-cut jumpsuits manufactured by the Colonial Federation.

Not unexpected, not in the slightest. Even after decades, there was still plenty of trade between Earth and Sirius Prime, though it had to work its way through the network of semi-abandoned stations and outposts neglected since the onset of the war. Everyone turned a blind eye, as long as it was kept under control. Too many people were making too much money from the illicit trade. Far too much for it to ever be properly patrolled.

He gestured for the bartender to bring him a drink, settling for one of the locally brewed beers, a tinge of orange from the compounds used to concoct it, the odor one that had to be acquired from long resignation; it was, at least, a cheap way to get drunk. He looked up at the monitor on the wall, displaying the latest news from the front, from the Six Systems, one more meaningless report from the battlespace, stalemated for twenty years.

A retired Admiral was on the screen, talking about the latest plan to end the war, another crazy idea that would likely lead to a lot of unnecessary deaths. Assuming it ever managed to make its way off the drawing boards. That it was being discussed on the news suggested a last-ditch attempt to gain political support for a crazy idea, one that had already been mercifully discounted by the Combined Chiefs. He sighed, taking another drink of his beer, draining a quarter of the glass and replacing it on the bar.

The bartender walked over to him, looked him in the eye, then said, “There’s someone waiting for you upstairs. Room Three.” He paused, shook his head, then said, “I don’t know anything about what you’re doing up there. Got that? I don’t know a damn thing.”

Nodding, Hunter abandoned his half-finished drink at the bar, then made

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