Bounty Hunted Read online

  Bounty Hunted

  A Space Rules Adventure Part 3

  Ian Cannon

  First published 2019

  By IanCannonBooks

  DFW, TX, U.S.A.

  All Rights Reserved

  © Copyright 2019

  www.IanCannonAuthor.com

  This book is sold subject to the condition that no part of it may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author or authors, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it was published and without a similar condition being imposed on the publisher or subsequent purchaser.

  Cover design by

  www.DerangedDoctorDesign.com

  Edited/Proofread by Barrie D. at [email protected]

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Contact Ian Cannon

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Thank you for reading!

  Read About the Battle of Malum

  What’s Next?

  Books in the Space Rules Adventure Series

  Contact Ian Cannon

  Become a subscriber

  to learn about events and future releases at:

  www.IanCannonAuthor.com

  Let’s chat at my email:

  [email protected]

  Join My FaceBook page

  for all kinds of fun sci-fi stuff.

  This one’s for my readers. We’re small … but we’re growing. Thank you for taking up the call and becoming a part of this adventure. Let’s make it a ride!

  One

  Prison. The hoosegow. The big house. The joint. Whatever.

  This was no place for small-time suckers. Everything here was hard—from the rubbery chow, to the rock-hard bedding in his cell. Every inch of this place was worse than the Molosian moggot pits, and Ben was stuck right in the middle of it.

  But nothing was harder than the inmates. It seemed that creatures from all across the solar twin system had found their way here. And they were hotter than Wi’ahr about it. It created a world of a thousand cliques. None of them were friendly.

  Ben patted the bruise on his lip. It was still sore. The aliens here liked taking their turns at him it seemed. It was all fist-a-cuffs and brawling. Golothans never fared well in interplanetary prisons. There were too many alien species that out-powered them. Nevertheless, Ben had so far handled himself well enough. He’d dished out his share of busted faces. But it was just a matter of time before they got the best of him.

  This particular bruise was dealt to him yesterday.

  No. Wait a minute.

  He thought a second, then patted the other side of his lip. Ah, right. Another bruise.

  This was yesterday’s. The other one was from two days ago. That guy from Malitus, right. He was starting to lose track of his bruises. He’d been here four months. Four months!

  And why?

  The thought of it infuriated him. Save a prophesied child from the evilest gangster wretch known to the solar twins, return her to her homeworld of Sarcon in accordance to some ancient religious text, offer her up as the savior to her planet … and get dumped in prison for it? What a shot to the narsicles.

  It wasn’t a very nice prison, either. It was more like a huge, five-hundred-foot-deep subterranean shaft. Dozens of orbicular levels wound up to the opening at the planet’s surface along the hive-like walls. Long stanchion cables coursed through the air from one side to the other.

  A long, heavy chain suspended by its huge, iron pulley at the planet’s surface lowered food and prisoner goods down to the prison floor way below.

  The place was constantly alive with commotion. No rules. No law. Ben avoided it all, more than happy to stay in his cell three hundred feet over the prison floor.

  But it didn’t avoid him. Every day, someone came poking for a fight.

  And why was it always one of the Noossians, big and snarling and overtly alien? Or one of the green-skins from Malybur? He’d faced them before and always got the arse poo kicked out of him. Or some thick-muscled, heavy-bodied, poor-tempered creature from the moon Gorba, or Tremus, or Heptin?

  Why—just once—couldn’t it be one of the slow-moving sloth people from the Jeraan moon? Or a Zyndo-Paxi twin planeteer, too handsome to mix it up in a holding prison? Or one of the frail, narrow-limbed people from …

  “Stathosian!” a voice yelled from behind.

  Stathos. Right.

  Ben exhaled, deflating completely. He turned around and said, “I. Am not. Stathosian!”

  And there it was staring back at him with a snout-faced bloodlust. A Deridian. The thing laughed at him with a mean countenance, its snout quivering comically, humored by Ben’s indignation. Ben had no love for the Deridians. They were a bunch of dirty jackwads—spider monkey marsupial bipeds from a swamp world where everything was jungle and two-thousand-foot-tall Hopea trees. Deridians’ limbs were twice the length of a Golothan’s and a dozen times stronger. Being a Golothan, Ben felt the sudden urge to run. But he couldn’t do that. Every creature in the prison would consider him a coward. It was prison-time protocol. Respect was thicker than blood, here.

  The Deridian pointed a long finger at the end of a long arm. Through a rancorous, vermilinguan face—like an oversized Molosian ant eater—it said, “Stathosian or no, you are a meek weakling.”

  Ben drew a big breath and faced his enemy, forcing a wily grin. “Yeah, and I’m sure you wanna come prove it, right buckethead?”

  The thing’s snout widened into a grin, and its ropelike tongue reached out licking its face in a wet, circular pattern, a show of defiant glee. Deridians were known for their humungous tongues. Disgusting creatures. It put its head down and charged. Ben’s eyes widened.

  To hells with pride and respect!

  He leapt over the security railing and out into deep, negative space. He caught a loping stanchion rope jigging it from its clevis joint and went into a gut-dropping plummet. His drop ended when the cord pulled taught and he went into a tremendous arc, swinging high over the prison floor.

  It worked! He escaped!

  Haha!

  The prison roared with sudden delight far below, the inmates pumping their arms and limbs or flappers. It made Ben smile. He was getting that prison respect, after all.

  He looked back over his shoulder grinning wildly only to find his escape was futile. The Deridian had grown up swinging from trees. Their entire civilization had been constructed in the air. Their very homes were beams and frameworks in the sky. Swinging from terrace to terrace in a five-hundred-foot vertical prison was its wheelhouse. The thing excitedly reached out, snatched its own stanchion rope and swung after him.

  Oh crappers!

  Ben smashed against the far railing clamping onto it. The Deridian was close behind. Desperation drew his blood cold. He kicked back out in a wide pattern, fleeing. The thing stabbed a hand at him at the end of its long reach as they passed in opposite directions. Ben swatted its hand away, but it hardly mattered.

  The Deridian kicked off its railing in hot pursuit, their paths loping broadly in the air. Way above, their cords came together braiding as they swung. They wound around like aerial dancers moving in unison as they moved clos
er with each circular swing. Ben started to lose momentum, started to slow down. The Deridian came nearer, still smiling at the end of its snout. It reached for him each time they passed. Distance closed. Time was getting short. He had to do something.

  So, he let go.

  Gravity took him. He fell screaming and wheeling his arms in empty air hoping—needing—something to grab. His hands found a lifeline, something steel and cold made of fat, chrome links. It clanked and clamored as he held tight and jolted to a stop.

  It was the long, heavy pulley chain suspended from the planet’s surface.

  Something snared the chain several feet below him wiggling it against his weight. The Deridian. It had followed him in his freefall, took hold of the chain. Now, they both spun around and around high over the prison floor.

  “Dead Stathosian!” the thing hissed and snarled, climbing hand over hand toward him.

  Ben had no shot at out-climbing the damn thing. He looked up. The iron pulley mechanism suspended three hundred feet overhead swayed and quivered with their weight. The chain’s catch lever was a single-action, weight activated apparatus. He needed more force to trigger it. He looked back down, an idea brewing. The Deridian approached.

  “Come on!” Ben roared. A challenge.

  The apish creature snarled angrily and quickened its climb toward him.

  “You’re slower than a moggot worm,” Ben yelled. “What kind of Deridian are—gah!”

  Driven by fury, the thing braced itself on the chain with its marsupial feet and launched into a vertical jump. It grabbed Ben’s ankles. They both tore away from the pulley chain and went into a backwards-spiraling freefall. Ben swung back around rasping for his hold again, drawing his clutch agonizingly across the chain. The Deridian followed suit, both latching onto the lifeline and jerking it hard.

  Above, the lever triggered. His ruse worked. The counter weight released and dropped. The chain reeled upward at breakneck speed. Ben heard himself scream as he went shooting skyward. The counter weight, a big iron anchor, slew by headed to the prison floor below in freefall. Ben could feel its rush of wind as it passed. The big pulley mechanism above approached at nearly the speed of terminal velocity. He and his pursuer were going to slam headlong into it.

  Ben let go of the chain. He spun around in midair, snatched one of the stanchion ropes and slid toward the uppermost level of the prison. He landed on the passageway hard, groaning in shock and pain. Just above, the steel chain slammed against the stopper like a gong. The echo fell through the vertical shaft of the prison growing further and further away toward the floor.

  Ben dusted himself off and looked up, smiling big. Dirt had been kicked from the overhead pulley machine and was drifting through the air. He expected to see the Deridian plummeting toward the cavern bottom, but nope. There was no Deridian to speak of.

  Ben squinted, confused.

  A voice came from behind. “Stathosian weenie—hahaha!”

  Ben spun around in horror. The creature had released the chain a second behind and landed on the catwalk with him. Now, five-hundred feet over the prison floor, the catcalling and jeering of the crowd was further away than ever.

  The Deridian stalked closer, its red spots glistening over green hide. Ben took a step back. The thing was ferociously angry. Ben gulped and forced a grin. “Look there, big fella. I was thinking, you know—maybe you and I could come to some a-gree-ment!” He jumped up, grabbed an overhead pipe and shot forward with a tremendous kick. His prison boots smacked the Deridian in the face, and though the creature’s snout jiggled back and forth, the thing hardly reacted. Ben clamored to the steel mesh catwalk with a defeated grunt.

  The creature stood over him, chuckling. It bent down and picked him up by the scruff, lifting him off his feet. It put Ben against the stone wall at the full extension of its arms. Ben reached for its face, but he simply didn’t have the length. The Deridian’s snout flexed into a snarl. “I like to eat Stathosian faces,” it said. Its snooty orifice puckered into a dark hole and out slithered its long, goopy tongue. It snaked across the distance and slathered itself in circles across Ben’s cheek. Ben’s eyes rolled with disgust as he made a guttural, appalled sound. It was one of the more abhorrent experiences he’d ever felt in his …

  Wait!

  Its tongue. A lifeline!

  Ben jerked his head over and clamped full-mouthed around the thing’s slimy protuberance. He felt the tongue suddenly contract between his teeth, try to pull away. But he wouldn’t let it, clamped harder—clamped down until his face hurt. The Deridian’s beady black eyes turned to moons of panic and it ingurgitated through its snout, trying to expel its rather unsavory snack. Ben shot to the railing and dolphin dove overboard with the Deridian’s tongue cinched in his jaw. The tongue yanked to its fullest extension jerking the Deridian against the rail as Ben grabbed a stanchion cable and swung away. The creature screamed in a mouth-muffled bleat and followed its tongue over the rails. The thing pulled away from Ben’s teeth all slimy and slick, shedding a layer of muck in his mouth. Ben swung away on his rope, and the Deridian fell, bouncing off railings and protrusions in opposing, pin wheeling spirals toward the prison floor below, its long tongue flapping behind.

  Ben swung across the sky and traded the stanchion cord for the pulley chain, spitting and wiping his mouth on his shoulder. He paused to look way down toward the prison floor grinning wildly. He bellowed loud and triumphantly, “I. Am not. Stathosian!”

  Far below at the end of the Deridian’s fall, the creature slammed into a table spraying items into a fountain—baccy pouches, exotic food items, footwear and clothing. It was the gambling table. The creatures below had begun taking bets on the struggle. Immediate gambling pools opened and the howling punters had watched with extreme interest, laying their bets on the table. Ben was sure he’d been the severe underdog. Now, the whole operation was in shambles. He won the fight. Somebody down there was owed a whole bunch of prison yield … and they weren’t going to get paid.

  The brawl that ensued was immediate and widespread. The prison floor became a pit of snarling, sneering, punch-throwing pandemonium. It was a full-on interplanetary riot. Sarcon prison guards spilled out in panicked columns from the perimeter waving their shock sticks and stun wands.

  Ben laughed, still spitting.

  Far below, the prison’s resources were distracted.

  Just above, was freedom.

  He looked up. It would be a thirty-foot climb to the planet’s surface. Piece of cake.

  Beyond that was open ground. Then it would be …

  1. find Tawny

  2. get REX

  3. beat a path to anywhere but here. What luck!

  He started squirreling like mad up the chain. Each draw pulled him closer to freedom. He could feel his need to reach the top grow inside him. The sounds of rioting below became a chant that carried up and up through the cavernous space:

  “Stath. O. Sian! Stath. O. Sian!”

  He looked back down. Five hundred feet below, the guards were being overtaken. Ben’s earlier outburst had become a rallying cry. A call to freedom. The prison below pumped its fist in unison, its voice becoming one.

  “Stath. O. Sian! Stath. O. Sian!”

  Ben whispered, “I’m not Stathosian …” looking back up, “but I’ll take what I can get.” And continued his climb.

  In moments he was at the overhanging pulley machine. Clawing onto its surface, he monkeyed his way across the iron support beams and dropped to solid ground in a puff of dirt. He lay there on the ground laughing for a moment. His turn of fate had been a fortunate one, and he could still hear the calling of the prisoners way down below praising him. He shook his head, sat up. The Sarcon sky was blue and magnificent. There was no telling where he was, but knowing the planet’s abundant, technological civilization, a city was nearby in any direction. There’d at least be a dwelling. A day in the rocky desert was a small price to pay.

  He got up dusting himself off, breathing in
clean air before the sound of whirring grew from the distance. He looked up, aghast. A dozen hovering gun spheres zipped toward him, seemingly from out of nowhere, each with a howitzer style spinner barrel pointed at him. A voice called, “Criminal, you will halt and await direction. Or you will be annihilated.”

  He stood surrounded, giving them a decidedly inconvenienced look, and muttered, “Oh, balls.”

  Yeah, of course. It was too good to be true.

  Two

  The city was built on Monz Sarcona, the single tallest mountain peak on a planet known for its mountain peaks. It was an impressive congestion of city spires and geometrical terraces all reaching in gleaming glass and chrome spikes toward the sky. The massive showing of civilization had spread to the surrounding mountains, all of them representing expanded growth, changing the world’s majestic landscape into visual algorithms of technology. Each crest, each valley had become its own autonomous sub-system, all vying for the wealth and economy of a flourishing planet state. Amongst the complex of Sarconan kind, classes mingled. Titans of industry dealt richly across lines of demarcation. Politics ruled the day.

  This was Onadon, the capitol city of Sarcon.

  The structure of rule ascended Monz Sarcona going from the local area adjudication at its base, to the wealthier statesman of the central core, to the supreme senate class of the peak. And at the very zenith, they’d constructed the supreme court complex of Sarcona Ultima—the place of final judgment in all planetorial proceedings. Tawny found herself there, perched above the debate floor at her seat of scrutiny, spying the activity below as her husband’s fate was hotly debated.