Pirate Bounty: A Military Sci-Fi Series (Space Hunter War Book 1) by Rick Partlow & Pacey Holden

Author:Rick Partlow & Pacey Holden [Partlow, Rick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aethon Books
Published: 2022-11-28T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

It was nearly noon when we reached the spaceport. I’d lost track of time since being held prisoner.

“Are you sure he’ll come?” the woman asked from the other side of the gun pressing into the small of my back. Mikhail Poretsky’s insurance policy came in a tall, dark, slender, and un-augmented form that I might have found attractive if she wasn’t a walking dead man’s switch for the Bashmaky.

“Of course I’m sure,” I said through gritted teeth. “Fairly sure.”

“Fairly?” she asked, her flat expression a mask of indifference. I didn’t offer a reply.

She was probably around my age, maybe a little younger, but with a hard edge to her countenance that mirrored my own. I couldn’t tell at a glance what it was, but this woman had been through something to make her this emotionally withdrawn.

I fumbled with my ‘link, double-checking the status of the messages I’d sent to Birdy. Supposedly he’d received the last one twenty-three minutes ago. That was more than enough time to reorient and come in for landing. I alternated between cursing the unpredictable pilot and praying that he would show up. My life now solely depended on the reliability of a drunkard.

Things have really taken a turn for the worse for me lately, I lamented.

“There.” I pointed at the sky. The sunlight glinted off the surface of an approaching craft, which may not have been remarkable considering we were standing at the outskirts of the spaceport, but I had a feeling it was Birdy. Something told me that, despite my desperate circumstances seeming to grow more desperate by the day, Birdy was going to come through for me. If for no reason than he needed a paycheck and I was the only one offering him anything resembling a livable wage.

The Anna lowered down to the pad in front of us. The reactor spooled down and the ramp lowered almost before the landing struts fully touched the ground.

“See?” I said, “I told you he’d show.”

The woman holstered her handgun and shrugged. “I think you got lucky. That’s the shitty thing about luck.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Luck runs out,” she said, taking a step toward the ramp.

“Don’t I know it,” I lamented.

Birdy appeared in the threshold of the ship, his face crinkled in confusion.

The woman pulled her pistol and pointed it at him.

His eyes opened up wide. He threw his hand up, fingers splayed.

“That’s not the warm welcome I was expecting. What did you do to Valerie to make her pissed off like that? And how did you change her looks? That disguise is impeccable, Jack!”

“Birdy, don’t be an idiot. This isn’t Val. This is Cassie Wahl. She’s just hitching a ride with us to make sure we follow through with our new job.”

“Now that introductions are over with and we understand each other,” Cassie said, holstering her pistol, “let’s get this shitshow on the move.”

She walked up the ramp, threw a shoulder into Birdy to get him out of her way, and disappeared inside. Birdy was frozen, off-kilter and with his hands still up.

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