Bounty Hunted Read online

  Milak cut in from the top of his dais as gently as he could, “That is shadow of doubt, Allenon. And we must not bind legal action to religious ideals. That is our constitution.”

  Allenon got to his feet, shaken to his center. “Yes, of course,” he responded.

  “Are you gonna keep ‘em?” Sireela asked.

  He looked down at her truly inspired by humility, and admitted, “I defer to the voice of N’halo.”

  The little girl smiled big and said, “I want them to be free.”

  Allenon bowed his head. “Then it will be done.”

  Tawny felt her fist clench inside her cuffs.

  Two down.

  Sireela’s childlike gaze shifted fully around to face the embassy overlord of Omicron, Ambassador Tien. The man stared at her from his place at the front bench, hands on the rail, brow down, shadows attached darkly on his face. His cabinet flanked him, each looking as powerful as he. Sireela smiled at him and asked, “And you want deliverer?”

  Tien responded coolly, “She is a war criminal, deserter and trader to the Cabal state. She will be returned. You have no jurisdiction, little one.”

  She cringed, confused. “Juris—what?”

  “Juris. Diction.”

  “Is that like authority?”

  His head tilted. “Somewhat.”

  Her face scrunched up. “Nope, I don’t have any of that stuff, either.”

  Tien’s narrow lips pulled into a long, triumphant grin.

  “But Kindu’s nuppies do.” Her voice was edged with a giggle.

  Tien’s face melted as he said, “What?”

  She said, “Kindu. He was a soldier who became a …” she looked up at her man.

  He leaned over and said, “General, my N’halo.”

  She said, “General. He’s in Nu’mata. You don’t know Nu’mata?”

  Tien gave her a sour face and said, “We do not know this … Kindu.”

  “Or his nuppies?”

  His lips rolled impatiently. He said with a sigh, “Or his … nuppies.”

  Sireela itched her scalp choosing her next words. She finally said, “Kindu had some nuppies. He had four. Every day he let his nuppies play. One of the nuppies liked to run and play more than the others. He liked to be free and go and run and play. And then one day the nuppy went away, and Kindu was very sad.”

  Tien groaned from his seat, his face growing tight.

  Sireela continued her story, “He never saw his nuppy again for four years. And then one day he saw his nuppy again. He was big now, and real fast. And Kindu asked him why he went away. And the nuppy said he wanted to be free so he could go run and play. And Kindu knew, keeping his nuppy would make the nuppy sad.”

  Out of patience, Tien threw up a hand, halting her. He said, “The accused was once a soldier of the Confederation, not a nuppy. She deserted her post. She did not merely run away.”

  Sireela rebutted cutely, “Yes, she did.”

  Tien shut up, unable to refute her logic. An insulted grimace crossed him.

  She continued, “The story doesn’t just mean about nuppies and soldiers. It’s about being free.”

  “That is irrelevant, little one.”

  “It’s also about the conse—conse …”

  Her man leaned over and said, “Conse—quences, my N’halo.”

  “Conse—quences,” she said, “of taking people’s freedomses.”

  Tien just looked at her, his insult growing.

  She asked, “Are you going to keep ‘em?”

  “Yes,” he said with cutting assurance, “we are.”

  “Kindu kept his nuppy, too. He kept him anyway. And when the other nuppies—and they were all grown up to big noggies—saw that their brother was very sad, you know what they did?” She waited for an answer, but none came. The ambassador merely stared daggers through her. She said sharply, “They ate their own master.”

  Tien flinched, and looked up at the dais. “Your Highest Honor,” he boomed, “these useless proverbs—are they not a waste of the court’s time?”

  Milak inhaled, thinking. “The court’s perhaps. But yours? I’m not certain, Ambassador Tien.”

  “Meaning?”

  “The girl is simple. But she is right.”

  Allenon stepped forward framing his tiny N’halo at his knees, his hands resting on her bitty shoulders. “Ambassador, you must consider. It would be unsavory for the Confederation to hold the accused amongst such theological imbalance. The upheaval that would ensue would only begin with the N’hana of Sarcon. But it would spread to others.”

  Monk Montral added pragmatically, “It’s true. This would no longer be about Group Zero of Raylon. It would take on a struggle of theological proportions. It would spread to our sister planet, Raylon, our most loyal ally, showing the Cabal’s irreverent disregard for the N’hana—Dark or Light—and dividing believers of the Wi’ahr gods system.”

  Allenon and his dark brother of N’hana shared a rare, mutual look. He said, “We would no longer be bound by the same code.”

  Montral nodded to him, respectfully.

  Allenon continued, “Then others in the Confederation would be sure to follow—Lexim, Solaptra, others. The whole of our Cabal might find itself in upheaval … being eaten by its own pets, so to speak.”

  Montral took up the argument, saying, “And for what reason, Ambassador? So that you might exact your justice over a single soldier who did her part, and left at her own behest? Are you certain you want this single mote today to become the boulder you must face tomorrow?”

  “Law is law!” Tien yelled.

  Allenon and Montral called back in perfect unison, unified by the presence of the one called N’halo, unifier of her people, “Only when it is just!”

  Tien threw a glance back at his cabinet. They suddenly appeared less powerful than before, eyes dancing back and forth, faces distraught. They had been defeated. His gaze shifted toward Tawny one final time, and he muttered, “As lord ambassador to the Confederation … we relinquish all charges.”

  Tawny laughed audibly, the sound reverberating off the stone floor, echoing through the chamber before she silenced herself, quick. Her little friend, N’halo, was truly a miracle. She’d done in ten minutes what Sarcon’s highest court couldn’t achieve in four months. And how had she done this? Using simple, fundamental truth. Such innocence. Such purity.

  Three down.

  Sireela turned to Prime Arbiter Milak and called up to him, “And that leaves only the high court of Sarcon, sir.”

  Milak looked down at her like a vacuum leach in headlights.

  “You have said nothing,” she said.

  He cleared his throat. “Yes, and we—”

  “That makes you wise,” she said cutting him off. Milak closed his mouth immediately. She continued, “Are you gonna keep ‘em?”

  “Oh, uh, well …” He looked to his people left, then to his people right. No answer came to him. He finally said, “They can go. They don’t have to be here. No, no—we don’t want them,” flicking them away with his hand. “They may be removed.”

  A hatch opened under Ben’s feet and in a single act of regurgitation, he slid from his mold slime down onto the floor with a thick, viscous splat. He inhaled taking in a large breath of air—his first in several hours. He tried to stand and slipped back down before getting to his feet dripping the goo in long reaming ropes.

  Tawny hugged him anyway. As husband and wife, they shared everything. She wasn’t going to let a little stasis goo stand in her way now—or a lot of stasis goo. They were reunited. And they were free. Thanks to Sireela.

  Thanks to N’halo.

  Milak said, “Benjar and Tawny Dash, you are hereby free to go. Would you like a royal escort back to your—”

  Tawny cut him off, “No, we absolutely would not!”

  Ben said, “Yeah—it’s a real nice planet you got here, but we’ll see ourselves off it, thank you.” He flapped his arms whipping ropes of the gelatinous muck off h
im.

  Tawny called into her mol comm, “REX?”

  REX’s voice came back, “I’ve got your location, Boss. Are we running again?”

  She said, “No, REX. This time … we’re walking out of here.”

  “Oh,” he said, then paused as if computing. “I don’t understand.”

  N’halo’s column was already on its way out of the court building, passing Tawny and Ben as they watched. It was an impressive show. They both looked up at the girl, whoever she really was—Sireela, N’halo, prophecy, orphan—as she hovered by on the shoulders of her contingent. Her face beamed a powerful, innocent youth showering them both with humility. She smiled at them, offering a tiny wave with her fingers as the column moved away. And just like that, she was gone, leaving a typhoon’s vacuum in her majestic, hyper-corporeal wake.

  Seven

  All Ben could do was groan out loud as he plopped down next to Tawny. He was fully extinguished. There was nothing left in him to give. He’d given it all and sweat glistened off his chest for it.

  Four months.

  Gods, it felt like a hundred years. Longer. An eternity.

  Tawny curled into him, cooing. Her hand drew up his chest and rested there with her little fingers plying gently against the hairs. He stroked a finger up and down the length of her arm feeling the skin pucker and prickle.

  She said, “I bet it stunk.”

  His hand stopped stroking, frozen by the remark. Good lords, they’d been apart for so long and the first thing she observes—after their lovemaking, of course—was how bad it must’ve stunk? He cracked a grin, then a chuckle.

  That’s Tawny for you.

  He said, “like a pit full of dino pucky.”

  She huffed humorously, said, “What was it like in there?”

  “Mmm—a pit full of dino pucky,” he repeated. He paused, just staring up at the ceiling of their ship’s master domicile. It was a shopworn little world, but it was his and he was overjoyed to be back. He continued thoughtfully, “It was hectic. Every buckethead, narse wad and jack hole in the system was there, all stuck together. Too many mouths to feed. Too many egos. Lots of fighting.” He grunted in reflection, said, “Deridians are the worst.”

  She questioned, “Worse than those Malybrian greenies?”

  He started stroking her arm again. “Malybrians are big, strong. Got a mean streak. But they’re quiet. They just sit in the corner and brood all day. Deridians—they’re the trouble makers. Fast suckers, too.”

  He felt her face form a grin against his chest as she said, “Is it true about their tongues?”

  Ben grimaced. “Why?”

  She gave a punitive pat on the chest and said, “Gross.”

  They chuckled together.

  Ben sighed and said, “Yeah, it’s true. But only when they lick you.”

  “Oh, that sounds wonderful.”

  “Mmm.”

  She asked, “Were there other Golothans there?”

  He said, “Yeah. Me and three others. We stayed the hells out of everybody’s way. Nobody’s afraid of a Golothan. Not enough brawn, I guess.” He lifted his opposite arm and gave her a good power-flex on the bicep. He was thickly built, most Golothans were, but a mere speck compared to a dozen other species—Malybrians, Tremusians, especially the Prax-Noossians… a few others.

  “Too much brains,” she quipped.

  It made him huff. “Ha—yeah, well, brains don’t do you much good in a Sarcon prison, as it turns out.”

  She raised her head to look into his eyes. “So it stunk, and it was hectic, and brains don’t do any good, huh?”

  He puckered his lips and nodded in the affirmative.

  She laid her head back down. “So basically, it was a run-of-the-mill Pendulosi saloon.”

  “Yeah—without the beer. It was … educational, though.”

  She lifted her head again. “How so?”

  He fingered a strand of hair away from her cheek, tucked it behind an ear. “Every planet was there. Every species in the solar system. And it was all up close. Ae’ahm. Wi’ahr. All stuck together. I had a front row seat to the whole solar system. Don’t get the opportunity to see that much.”

  She plopped her cheek back down on his chest and grunted, “Ugh! Politics …”

  He scrunched his face in rebuttal, said, “Funny thing is, there was no politics. No one talked about the war. No one cared. They didn’t hate each other. Well, er, I mean—they all hated each other, don’t get me wrong—but it wasn’t the war. It was just … being mad and hungry all the time.”

  “And stuck in a pit,” she assumed, finishing his thought.

  “Yep, that too.”

  A moment of silence fell over them and she began to claw his chest gently with her finger tips. She finally asked, “Benji?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Were you scared?”

  He smiled, content with his answer. “No.”

  “You weren’t?”

  “No. Only one thing ever scared me.”

  She stopped clawing and asked, “What?”

  He aligned his words momentarily and whispered, “Never seeing you again. Never being here, like this. That scared me.”

  She raised her head and looked into him with glistening eyes. “Babe …” she cooed.

  He put a hand on her cheek, felt her nuzzle into his palm lightly. “But I knew you were coming for me. I knew you’d come. I knew it the whole time.”

  She drew a big breath and lowered her head back onto him, said, “I couldn’t stand thinking of you stuck in that place, not knowing what you were doing, whether you were okay. I had to get you out. We made a deal, remember? You and me.”

  They’d be together forever. Nothing would ever tear them apart. Nothing. Not ever.His grin broadened and he said, “Gods damn right.”

  A moment of silence went by as they swam in the moment. Tawny finally murmured,

  “I got news, Benji.”

  “What?”

  She shifted her gaze to him. This was serious. She said, “It took every strip of yield we had—er, most of it.”

  He nodded, absorbing the news. “What did you have to do?”

  “I had to get your case through the courts. I bribed. Bought. Lied. Paid. Whatever I had to. I didn’t have a choice.”

  Ben twisted his lips accepting her account, flushed with a guilty feeling. “I’m sorry, baby.”

  “Well,” she said, “I could have left you.”

  He nudged his shoulder bumping her gently. “Ha ha.”

  “So, what are we going to do?”

  He had to think for a minute. After four months of incarceration, it felt like they’d been out of the game long enough to now face a decision. He finally said, “There’s always the Guild.”

  “That means Sympto,” Tawny retorted. She was none too happy to admit that.

  “It does,” he agreed before taking a large, thoughtful breath. “But I’m going to follow your lead on this one, Tawny.”

  She shifted to look at him. “Why?”

  “Right now, I trust you more than I trust myself. Especially where Sympto’s concerned.”

  “That’s a first,” she chided.

  “Maybe so. That scruff’s been trouble for us on more than one occasion.” He shrugged. “I’m thinking we should have stayed away from him in the first place.”

  “Okay,” she said, “but if you follow my lead, we’ll just end up blaster dusting him.”

  Ben laughed at that but settled quickly. Maybe it wasn’t so funny. Maybe Tawny wasn’t joking. He had to admit, “Fine with me. Like I said, I’m following your lead on this one.”

  Tawny let his words linger momentarily before shifting her body weight up, sliding herself into a sitting position. She finally muttered, “We’re going to have to do something, aren’t we?”

  He looked up at her. “You want an alternative to blaster dusting him?”

  “No … but what?”

  “We don’t blaster dust him. Instead, we use
him, pick up a drop, do the deal, just like always.”

  She clicked her tongue disappointedly. “Always ruining my fun.”

  “I don’t like it anymore than you do, but …”

  “What choice do we have?” she finished his sentence.

  Ben swung his legs out from the bed, sat up, leaned over and pulled his spacer’s dungarees up to his waist. She watched as he went to a chair and sat down facing her. “Well,” he said. “There is one thing.”

  Tawny sat up straighter, said, “What?”

  “You won’t like it.”

  She scrunched her face, thinking, then gave him a severe look as realization dawned. “Don’t say it.”

  He looked at her, gave her a knowing smirk. They both said together, “Raider’s Bay.”

  She threw her head back and groaned, “I knew it. Pirates and scum …”

  “They don’t much like the Guild,” he countered.

  “We can’t trust them.”

  “Can we trust the Guild?” he countered again.

  She capitulated.

  Ben leaned forward introducing a new point and said, “Of course, if you don’t like that option either, there is … one other thing.”

  Tawny squinted at him, waiting, then invited him to continue.

  He said, “We go freelance. Get our own contracts, pick up our own work. Forget the Guild and the affiliations and all the frat unions. We go it alone.”

  She gave him a look like she was thinking about it, like this was something she hadn’t previously considered. She seemed to be entertaining the thought, then she made a disappointed face and said, “I really like that idea. But like I said, babe, we’re out of yield.”

  He nodded his agreement. It was a long shot, besides... “Plus, there’s our Space Rules. That’s going to limit us even more. We might have to—”

  “Oh no, no way, Benji,” she blurted, reading his next words. “We’ve broken our Space Rules enough, babe, and all it’s gotten us is trouble.”

  He nodded in capitulation. She was right—way too right. He said, “Well, I can’t argue with that.”

  She sighed, still unsettled. “Still, even if we did find a job, we’d have to bet every single thing we have on it.”

  “One bad drop, one wrong turn—”