Star Bounty: Vindication: (A Military Sci-Fi Series) by Rick Partlow

Author:Rick Partlow [Partlow, Rick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aethon Books
Published: 2022-09-05T16:00:00+00:00

“And you were bare-ass naked?” Allie asked, barely able to suppress the laugh trying to work its way free of her quirking lips. “Was little Mr. Johnson hanging out?”

“I was not naked,” Jase insisted, leaning back in the galley chair, arms folded over his chest. “I still had my shorts on.”

“And your socks, I recall,” I said, helpful as always.

“I didn’t hear you complaining about my socks when I tackled those two big assholes.”

“If you hadn’t decided to go get yourself a joy girl,” Larry told him, “there wouldn’t have been any goons for you to have to tackle.”

“That ain’t strictly fair to the young fella, Larry,” I told him. “Perry intended to crawfish on the deal, and it was best we found out as soon as possible, even if things had to get a little embarrassing for our Mr. Corso here. As things stand, no one got hurt and we were able to get what we wanted with a little bit of extra work. And now we all have a funny little story to tell our kids when we get older.”

Allie smacked me on the arm.

“You assuming I’m gonna want to have kids with your backwoods ass, Masterson?”

“This is all very heart-warming and convivial,” Dog said, then cast a baleful eye toward Jase. “That means cheerful and friendly, junior.” The kid shot him a bird and Dog grinned. “But aren’t we ignoring the elephant in the room? Not to mention the robot AI dog in the room?”

“What am I missing?” Larry asked, shaking his head.

“Oh, that list is long but distinguished, Deputy Marshal Daniels.” Now it was Larry’s turn to shoot Dog a bird and I wondered if he was trying to hit for the cycle. “But, in this case, you’re missing the very significant problems that our Mr. Wilhelm Perry knew about me, knew what I was, and that I’d be with Masterson.”

“I thought you were gonna talk about something really significant,” I said with a skeptical snort. “Like the fact there’s a hundred-thousand-credit price on my head, which is going to bring every bounty hunter and wannabe between here and the edge of human space out looking to kill me and deliver my head to the Union government.”

“I’d like to know how the hell that got authorized,” Larry said, shaking his head. “We had no evidence you escaped and as far as I knew, Chief Inspector Tanaka had no intention of allowing a fugitive bounty to be put on your head until someone presented evidence.”

“The answer to both questions is the same,” Dog said, regarding us like we were all idiots. And compared to him, perhaps we were. “The Oracle.”

I frowned, considering the possibility.

“I could see her maybe passing the word on about you through her contacts,” I said, chewing the words slowly, “especially since you were the one who took her down when she tried to duplicate herself as Pythia. But why would she put a bounty on my head when she already had me locked

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