Hunter's Oath, page 1
HUNTER’S OATH
Richard Tongue
HUNTER’S OATH
Colonial War: Book Eight
Copyright © 2023 by Richard Tongue, All Rights Reserved
First Kindle Edition: February 2023
All characters and events portrayed within this eBook are fictitious; any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Prologue
Victoria Ortiz felt the bullet fly past her shoulder, heard it hammer into the wall on her left. On instinct, she dived for the nearest cover, a pile of crates left outside an abandoned warehouse, reaching for her concealed pistol, her thumb working the power control, ready to take a shot as soon as she found a suitable target.
All was silent, all was still.
That was the problem.
Cutter’s Rock had been a desolate wasteland before the evacuation of most of the settlers, only a corporal’s guard remaining to oversee the research projects that continued to operate, to ensure that the colony didn’t become any more of a den of depravity than it already was.
More than ever, it was a perfect place for a quiet meeting. So she had been told, anyway, though her recent experience would seem to suggest that was not necessarily the case. She looked around again, trying to spot any sign of movement, but there was nothing. Her would-be assassin was well-hidden, was leaving no trace.
She had to move. She’d been down on the surface for two long weeks, waiting in a flea-pit hotel, the last still operating, waiting for a message from her contact. It had finally arrived an hour ago, barely in time. Somewhere up in orbit, a ship was waiting to take her back to Hyperborea, back to the Cartel, her employers of the hour.
Reaching around, she found a piece of blackened masonry, her eyes trying to track the trajectory of the bullet from its impact site. A theoretically primitive weapon, just the sort of hardware that a low-tech colony would be able to put together, but some of the outer worlds had managed to come up with some interesting designs over the years.
And twenty years of constant war had left plenty of mil-spec weaponry on the black market, some of it designed for precisely this sort of operation. She couldn’t take anything for granted. She peered into the shadows above, and for an instant, thought she saw one of them move, almost imperceptibly, up in the rungs of the colonial dome.
A perfect place for a sniper to hide. With the fragile structure above, nobody would dare to fire back, not without risking the destruction of the colony below. Not unless they were certain of their skills. Ortiz worked the power level of her laser pistol down to minimum, lined up a shot with one hand, and prepared to throw the rock with the other.
She took a series of calm, deep breaths, steadying herself for the shot, just as she had been taught during her brief spell in the military. She hadn’t been destined to wear a uniform, had ultimately failed to see the appeal in spending her life participating in an endless stalemate, but now the skills she had gained might allow her to complete her mission. And more importantly, see that she lived to tell the tale.
Hurling the rock at the wall, she heard another crack, and the gunman moved slightly out of position, exposing himself for a split second, just enough for her to take her shot, a pulse of laser light briefly connecting the two of them. With a loud scream, the sniper fell from the sky, crashing into one of the buildings on the far side of the street.
Now she had to move, and quickly. Ortiz holstered her weapon, then raced down the alley, keeping close to the crumbling walls of the buildings of the outer perimeter. disrepair. There was a bitter tang in the air, the sign that the life support equipment hadn’t been properly maintained for some time, another indication of the future of this world.
There was talk of expansion again, bringing in new settlers, but all of that was merely the final hopes of a few people who couldn’t bear to leave their home. In a few years, perhaps less, there would be a final malfunction, a systems failure, followed by a mandatory evacuation if luck was with the last of the settlers. Death, more than likely.
It happened out here, far too often. With the collapse of both of the warring powers, the Federation and the Republic, there were few potential patrons to support luckless worlds like this, and both the Cartel and the Free Worlds had far more promising planets to develop.
Perhaps, a thousand, a million years from now, some archaeologist would visit this world, sifting through the ruins of man’s achievements, trying to discover what had brought them to this lifeless, empty wasteland in the first place. Having been on the surface for three weeks, Clayton certainly couldn’t answer that question.
For a moment, she paused to glance at graffiti smeared on a wall. On the surface, it was gibberish, but she recognized the telltale sign of a criminal gang, a group of scavengers, salvagers, ready to strip out any remaining value from this world. The vultures were here, waiting to pick the flesh from the bones of Cutter’s Rock.
She stopped outside of an empty warehouse, the far wall blackened from some recent fire, a single light flashing in the uppermost window. The sign that her contact was finally ready to meet with her, at long, long last. She pulled out a grapple gun, firing the line to the roof, tugging it twice with all her strength to ensure that the molecular integrator had hit home, meshing itself temporarily to the roof, and started to climb, trying to ignore the creaking of the structure.
The line would hold. It was cutting-edge Terran technology. On the other hand, the building looked as though it should have been demolished a few decades ago, black residue coming off in the palm of her hand as she worked her way to the top. She rolled out onto the roof in relief, easily able to avoid the gaping, jagged-edged hole on the side, and secured her cable again, tucking the gun back into her belt.
Below, all was dark, all was quiet. She looked down into the hole, the floor only a dozen feet below, and dropped herself through it, swinging from the edge with her hands, careful to avoid the sharper edges as she fell, knees bending to absorb the impact.
“Don’t move,” a voice from the shadows said. “What time is it?”
“I left my watch at home.”
“That was pretty damned careless.”
“What business is it of yours?”
“That’s my decision. Not yours.” He stepped forward, then held up a sensor node, adding, “You don’t mind if I do a personal verification, I hope?”
“By my guest,” she replied, hands wide. “I’m armed. Laser pistol at my belt, knife in my boot. And I’m keeping them both.”
Nodding, the man said, “Given that the weapons at my disposal are somewhat superior, I have no objection to that. Just as long as you make sure to keep your hands well clear of them at all times.”
“I trust that the reverse will be true.”
“That very much depends on our conversation. Did you bring…”
“I have your documents right here. Safe passage to Antares.”
“And I’m to take your word for that?”
Slowly, she reached into her pocket, and pulled out a plastic card with two fingers, holding it high enough for him to see the face on its surface, the coding that would give him a new identity, a new life.
“I’m keeping my end of the bargain. Your turn.”
He paused, then said, “Very well. I…”
There was a loud crack, and the informant collapsed, clutching at his chest, looking at Clayton with bitter, betrayed eyes, as the last breath of life ebbed from his body. She raced forward, dropping and rolling on the floor as a second crack hit home, hammering into the plasticrete by her side. Reaching into the dead man’s pocket, she pulled out a pair of shattered data crystals, destroyed beyond any hope of recovery.
She heard footsteps moving towards her, realized that the murderer of her contact thought he had shot her as well, and reached for her pistol, ready to avenge the death of the man she had come twenty light-years to meet, a man who would die without a name, without mourners.
The room was briefly lit by a pulse of crimson light, searing into the chest of her attacker, who fell back to the floor, dead before he reached it. Ortiz pulled a testing kit from her pocket, slamming it into the dead man’s neck to get a genetic sample, then raced for the stairs, keeping her pistol in her hand, sprinting for the theoretical safety of the street.
Only a few dozen people remained on this world. None of them would be willing to risk their life for her, of that she was sure. Nor would she really expect them to, not without anything to gain. As she reached the street, she slapped a hidden button on her jacket, triggering a signal that would alert the ship in orbit to send down a shuttle to retrieve her.
She couldn’t complete her mission, but she might be able to find out just who had managed to stop her. Pausing for a second at the threshold, she looked left and right, trying to see if there was anyone waiting for her, but she dared not linger for long, in case she allowed someone to move in and ambush her. At this moment, her truest safety lay in speed.
Running down the abandoned street, she weaved from side to side, heedless of stealth, no longer interested in concealing her presence on this world. The enemy, whomever it was, knew all about her already. That was all that mattered. She turned down a side street, then another, trying to throw off any potential pursuit, only to hear another crack slamming down into the street beside her, kicking up a fountain of dust into the air.
A second sniper, somewhere above. One who likewise didn’t seem to care in the slightest about the risk of detection. That made the situation even more dangerous, but through the grimy, ancient dome, she saw a flare falling from the sky, a burst of light that brought a smile to her face. Her shuttle had arrived, her ticket off this planet and back to some sort of safety.
All she had to do was reach the airlock.
She kept on running, trying to stay close to the walls to give her at least some cover, periodically switching from one side of the street to the other. A second crack hit home, almost at her feet, then a third, then a fourth, the sniper’s aim growing better with every shot. Unless he was simply toying with her, a cat playing with a mouse.
This mouse had claws. At the fifth crack, she stopped, dropped, and rolled, her pistol sliding into her hand with a single quick movement. She wasn’t aiming for the sniper, had no opportunity to track him, but could do some damage to the superstructure under the dome, the tangled maze of service platforms and ladders that the sniper had to be using as a base.
Two quick shots sent metal raining from the sky, safety sirens finally starting to wail as the base systems began to register reason for concern. The airlock was only a short run away, less than a hundred meters, but over open ground. Any of the remaining local residents had sensibly gone into hiding. The only one at risk now was her.
Taking a last deep breath, she sprinted across the concourse, racing for the airlock, watching as the system started to cycle as she approached, the shuttle crew obviously aware of what was happening, what she was facing. She raced over the ground as the hatch slid open, taking it in a series of long strides, hoping against hope that she’d distracted the sniper for long enough to let her reach her goal.
She was half-right.
The bullet hammered into her back as she reached the hatch, sending her tumbling forward, into the waiting arms of a pair of brown-uniformed technicians, a grim-faced woman behind them.
“Help,” she said, as the world turned grey. “The ship. I…”
“Don’t worry,” the woman said. “You’re safe now.”
“No,” Ortiz replied, gasping with pain as her consciousness fled. “None of us is safe. None of us.”
Chapter 1
“All hands, man your battle stations,” Nykolai Kozak ordered, leaning to speak into the microphone on his chair. “This is no drill. I repeat, this is no drill. Report status to the bridge on the double. That is all.” Shaking his head, he said, “Never thought I’d be giving that order so soon.”
“Brought back a lot of memories, skipper,” Pat Flynn, his nominal exec, replied, working the External Operations console. “I have a positive track on the shuttle, heading through the atmosphere now, but that unknown ship is still locked on an intercept course, and she’s not answering any of our hails.”
“Any idea what she is?” Kozak asked.
“Looks a little like an old Epsilon-class tanker, but that’s about as far as I can work it out with the database.” The grey-haired veteran frowned, then added, “Frankly, the computer and I are both baffled this time, boss. She just doesn’t seem to match anything we’ve seen before.”
“Epsilon-class?” replied Kozak. “That’s got to be decades old.”
“Fifty years and change,” Kim Rogers, his helmsman, volunteered. “I’ve flown one, back at the Academy, a training ship, and I’ve got to say, if you think they have anything in common with an Epsilon, you might want to schedule a trip to the optician.”
“Outside, no way,” Flynn countered, “it’s the superstructure, the guts of the ship. Could be a complete rebuild, could be modelled on the design.” He turned to Kozak, and said, “Doesn’t matter, anyway. I can’t give you anything more than an educated guess about their combat specs.”
“By all means, guess.” He looked across at the status display, and asked, “What sort of armament do they have?”
“Looks like conventional railguns,” Flynn said. “They’ll hurt like hell if they get a chance to fire on us, but to me, it looks like something that someone converted, rather than anything custom-made. Though I guess it could be a Q-ship of some kind, but at this range, I’d have expected to pick up some sort of reading of that. Power curve looks pretty normal.”
“We can take her,” the young woman at the turret controls, Zhou Xiu, once a veteran of the Ithacan Orbital Guard, now wearing the same casual jumpsuit as the rest of them, a disguise that covered a multitude of sins. “Our new maser cannons will rip through that hull as though it wasn’t there.”
“Which leads me to wonder why they’re risking an engagement,” said Kozak. “Helm, how long before we’re within firing range?”
“Four minutes and change,” Rogers replied.
“That assumes we’re still going to link up with the shuttle,” Flynn said. “It might be wise for them to head back to the surface, not necessarily to the colony, but just wait it out until we can deal with, well, whoever these new friends of ours turn out to be.”
“Not an option,” Kozak replied. “The woman we picked up needs to get into a medical unit on the double, and given that she seems to have a lot of enemies in the settlement, the only one that seems even remotely safe is here aboard this ship.”
Pat Flanagan, his engineer, said, “Unless the facilities down there have got better since the last time I took shore leave, she’d be better off with a first aid kit. I’m not sure they’ve even got a medical doctor now.”
“She’s got to get to this ship, and fast,” Kozak pressed. “Which doesn’t mean we’re going to play fair.” He looked at the trajectory plot, then said, “If I’m reading that right, we’re both going to get close at about the same time, both within firing range. If they decide that they’re on a kamikaze run, then there’s a chance they could take out the shuttle before contact.”
“I’m pretty sure I can give them suitable defensive fire, sir,” Zhou said.
“Maybe, but the surest way for them to avoid contact is for them to never get into firing range in the first place.” He smiled, then said, “Kim, how do you feel about some recklessly risky flying?”
“Born ready, boss,” she replied, matching his smile.
“About what I thought. Take us down, into the atmosphere. We’ll gain speed that way, and we ought to be able to link up before contact. Pat, get in touch with Sandy on the shuttle, let her know that we’ll be arriving a little ahead of schedule. That won’t do our potential patient any harm at all.”
“Will do,” Flynn said, as Rogers moved to alter course.
“You realize,” Flanagan replied, “that whatever that ship is, it’ll be in a perfect position to ambush us as we rise back out of the atmosphere again.”
“Now what makes you think I intend us to do anything of the kind?”
“We’re going to do a slingshot in-atmosphere?” the engineer said.
“Hell, I’m the one that’s going to have to do it,” Rogers replied. “You guys all get to go along for the ride.” She turned back to Kozak, then said, “Give the word, skipper, and I’ll make the magic happen.”
With a sigh, Flanagan said, “I’ll check the hull sensors again, watch out for any stress points. Try to take the bulk of the thermal load on the starboard section if you can. And boss, if you could find your way to hiring some more engineers some time, it’d be appreciated. Sandy’s pirates are good technicians, but they’re still soldiers first.”
“I’ll add it to the list,” Kozak replied, a smile on his face. Crewing his ship had been an entertaining task, one made somewhat easier by the glut of experienced crewmen that the abrupt end of the war had created, but made far harder by the scrutiny the theoretically temporary Advisory Council had insisted upon. Quite a few of his people had emerged from the murky depths of covert operations, their records still a matter of the highest security.
Even after the six months since the end of the war, it still felt strange to be sitting in Samarkand’s command chair, the chair that the late Jack Hunter had made his own for some of the toughest battles of that last violent year. He’d inherited the ship, fought to upgrade her armament, and was heading out to work at Hunter’s old job, as a trouble-shooter on the Rim, trying to manage the chaotic post-war environment.
This operation had come as something of a surprise. He’d meant to be heading back to Hyperborea for resupply, when the word had come in that a special operative of the Cartel required emergency pickup from a world he was far too familiar with, Cutter’s Rock. That an unknown ship was waiting for them in orbit had been another, rather more unpleasant surprise.
