The Hunter: A Military Sci-Fi Series (Drop Trooper: Recon Book 2) by Rick Partlow

Author:Rick Partlow [Partlow, Rick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aethon Books
Published: 2023-03-20T16:00:00+00:00

I downed the tequila in one gulp, shuddering slightly as it burned in my chest and clenching my fingers against the grain of the wooden table, feeling the rough spots where it had been inexpertly sanded by whoever had made it.

“Go easy on that,” Gramps cautioned. “You’re still woozy from that flash-bang.” But he grabbed the bottle and refilled my drink anyway, topping off his own as well.

My head swam for a moment in support of his warning and I waited till the feeling passed before I took a second, more cautious sip.

“You’re the one that gave me my first drink of this shit,” I reminded him, saluting with the glass.

He laughed at that, a look of nostalgia passing across his harsh, craggy face.

“On that trip to Baja for your sixteenth birthday,” he recalled. “Your mother was not happy when she found out about that.”

I took another sip and glanced around the luxury suite to make sure we were alone. He’d dismissed his guards when he’d brought me in here, leaving the others recovering in our room, but I was feeling a bit paranoid and slightly guilty for not explaining things to them before he’d hustled me out.

“You know,” he went on, face clouding with memory, “when I was a boy, before the anti-aging treatments and the nanite injections, most people never lived to know their great-grandchildren. It’s still so new, the idea that there’s a generation that was born two hundred years ago that hasn’t died yet. I wonder if anyone has thought of the implications…”

“Gramps,” I interrupted him, “how the hell did you wind up here?”

He leaned back in his chair and took a breath as he directed his thoughts back to the present. I’d seen it before; it was something a lot of older people had to do. Their brains were crowded with memories, and sometimes it took them a while to sort through them.

“With Patrice and the weight of the Corporate Council after me,” he explained, “there weren’t too many places in the Commonwealth that would be safe for me. The night you killed Konrad and I dropped you in Vegas with the street surgeon who changed your face, I caught a private shuttle to McAuliffe Station and bought a spot on a transport to Belial.”

He smiled grimly, then swallowed a sip of his drink before he went on. “I had a good deal of money stashed away in case of emergency. It cost nearly every bit of it to buy passage on a freighter heading for the Pirate Worlds. I landed here with a few hundred in Tradenotes, a single suitcase and an utter lack of any plan.”

“You went to work for Crowley,” I presumed. I’d heard that much.

“Cesar Torres was dead,” he confirmed, “and I had no desire to spread that name around even out here. I gave Crowley a fake name, but he always called me ‘Abuelo,’ grandpa. So Abuelo I became.” Gramps looked down into the dregs of his drink. “I was desperate, out of options.

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