The Last Bounty [RC:R3]

Had it really only been three days ago that I’d lain beside him in that canopied bed? He’d turned over and murmured “I have another job for you – the perfect prey for a perfect bounty hunter,” and with those words sent me halfway across the galaxy.

But now, the chase was over. Triumph was already building in my chest as I eased open the door to the abandoned warehouse. I knew my bounty hid in a bolt-hole underneath it, with nowhere to run. I slipped in cautiously, wary of guards or traps.

And then I saw him. Kirn, the one who had sent me on this far-flung mission. My lover. He stood in the middle of the room, with open hands and a welcoming smile. The tracker I held in my hand registered three life signs twenty meters below him. Those would belong to my prey – a man called Drav and his two children. Kirn was standing just feet above my victory.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded.

He recoiled in mock offense. “And here I thought you would be pleased to see me.”

He was immaculate, dressed in a well-cut white suit without a speck of dust on it. His bronze curls glinted in the dim light, as if a spotlight shone overhead. He didn’t belong here in this dusty warehouse, and yet here he was, beckoning me. His grin melted me.

“Of course I’m pleased,” I said, easing the door shut and joining him. He took me into his arms and I drowned in his scent – cinnamon and cloves. “But what are you doing here?” I murmured.

He pulled out of the hug and held me by the shoulders, beaming down at me. “It was a competition!” he declared.

I stared up at him. “You’re not making any sense.”

“Jan, hadn’t you ever wondered whether I might miss bounty hunting? It’s been almost ten years. I had to know if my skills were still sharp.”

“So you sent me on a hunt and tried to beat me to the kill?” I had to laugh. It was exactly the sort of thing he would do and not tell me.

“I just wanted to see if I was still better than one of the best young bounty hunters in the galaxy,” he told me, bending down to give me a kiss. I closed my eyes and let him sweep me away.

All too soon, Kirn pulled away from me. “I may have beaten you here, but this is still your job,” he told me. “I’ll just tag along, a voice in your ear. No different from when you have the earpiece.”

I nodded and put my hand on my blaster. The man below us had run a gambling place on Bontaf IV, owned by Kirn. Unfortunately for Drav, the place had gone bankrupt. He had taken his family and fled, but my lover did not easily forgive debtors. I had tracked him to this warehouse, and now I was ready to bring him in.

I sank to the floor and began searching for a trapdoor, running a finger along every crack in the floorboards. It was slow, it was tedious, and I could feel Kirn evaluating me. The best young bounty hunter in the galaxy? I’d prove to him I deserved the honor.

My nail caught on a too-straight crack. I followed it carefully, noting the absence of dust. I had found my trapdoor. A moment later I found the hidden catch. It swung open to reveal a dark square, a ladder bolted to one side.

“Coming down?” I asked. Kirn followed behind me, leaving the trapdoor open.

We didn’t speak as we descended into darkness. The metal ladder creaked under our weight. My heartbeat started to quicken – we were getting closer.

I reached the bottom and was about to drop to the ground when Kirn seized my arm and hissed, “Wait.”

His fingers were so nimble I hardly realized he’d taken my blaster out of its holster until he’d tossed it to the ground below. Three shots fired from the wall, echoing up the shaft. They hit my blaster and sent it spinning.

I blinked the spots from my vision and shouted at Kirn, “What the hell did you do that for?” I tried to ignore a creeping sense of shame. I had forgotten to check for traps.

He was rummaging through my pack now, pulling out my hacker. “Here, deactivate it.” He held it out to me.

Fuming, I began to set it up. “He knows we’re here now. He’ll bolt.”

“Nope,” Kirn said smoothly. “Your jammer would’ve blocked the transmission.”

One thing I’d remembered to do. I finished with the sensor and dropped to the floor, gingerly picking up my blaster. The white barrel was scorched around a dent in its side. By now, my anger had faded to hurt.

“You dented it,” I said.

“I needed something that wouldn’t get destroyed.”

“But why use mine?”

He took my hand and drew me to him. “I’ll buy you a new one if you want.”

My heart swelled with warmth. I knew how hard it was for him to apologize. He probably just hadn’t been thinking. “Let’s go,” I said, and we set off down the tunnel.

Ahead, a door lay fitted into the metal. I could feel myself becoming more alert, moving into battle mode with every step. So close to the prize.

A hand landed on my shoulder. I flinched, but it was Kirn. He was barely a shadow in the dark, but his grip was firm.

“This is always the most exciting part, isn’t it?” he breathed into my ear. “The moment before the trap is sprung.” He stood so near I could feel the warmth of his skin. It strung every nerve in my body taunt. I gave a tiny nod. How had he known?

“Everything is about to fall into place or fall apart,” he continued, “and who can say which it will be?” His finger traced my jawline, and suddenly I was kissing him again. In the dark, on a mission, with only our wit and skill and each other. He’d never come with me before, but suddenly I knew I must convince him to, because what could be more perfect than this?

Kirn broke away first and gestured towards the door. “Shall we?”

I took a deep breath and wiped his taste from my lips. Moving to the door, I began to work the lock with my hacker. Kirn hung back, and I knew he would not interfere from here. The lock clicked. I readied my spider wraps, pushed the door open, and lunged inside.

I saw grey walls, Drav bent over a datapad, the bright toys of children playing at my feet. I threw a spider wrap, but Drav had already seen me. He scrambled out of the way and drew his blaster.

The children tried to run, but I grabbed the younger one and pulled her up roughly. Kirn’s gaze pierced me from behind. I put the blaster to the girl’s head. “Stand down. Or she dies.”

It was a bluff. There was no way in hell I could kill this girl, but I needed to throw him off guard. She stood stiff and silent. Her heart beat frantically against her chest in time with mine.

“You kill her, I shoot,” Drav warned. “First you and then your master behind you.”

He was glaring at Kirn now. “You should have known you couldn’t run from me, Drav,” Kirn said mildly.

I tried to force my hands to stop trembling. It was a stalemate, at least until Drav realized it was an empty bluff. If I could just distract —

A weight slammed into my legs and I staggered. Drav’s other girl had lunged at me in a wild fury, heedless of my blaster. I knew Drav would shoot me if he got a clear sighting. I pulled my hostage closer and palmed a spider wrap. Disguised in the confusion, I threw it underhand and prayed.

As I shoved the older girl away, I kept my eye on Drav and was rewarded by a look of shock as the wrap hit him in the leg and began to grow around him. His finger reflexively pulled the trigger.

“Down!” I shouted, seizing whatever part of the children I could reach and dropping flat to the floor. Several shots ricocheted around the room. A child cried out in pain and I felt as if I myself had been shot.

Then it was over, and the only sound was Drav’s struggling. A moment later, that fell silent too, as the sedative in the wrap took effect.

When I stood up, the younger girl was clasping her leg and whimpering. But when I approached her to see how bad it was, she shied away, and her sister stepped firmly between us.

Fine. I turned to Kirn, who leaned casually against the doorway. His approval filled the room with a warm glow. “One debtor delivered,” I told him with a smile.

“You were amazing,” he said, and the tension flowed out of me. It was over. I had proven myself.

Then his dark eyes became deadly serious. “Now, my beloved, finish the job.”

He was larger than life, a shadow cast over the small room. “What do you mean?” I said, my chest tightening. “He’s right there, take him. We’ll go back together.”

Now Kirn was laughing, an awful, cruel laugh. “Darling, he can’t pay me a single credit. What did you think I would do with him? Imprison him? No.”

“You want me to kill him?” My voice was childish and weak. “Right here, right now?” I turned to look at the man, wrapped neatly on the floor.

Kirn gathered me in his arms from behind and whispered into my hair. “It’s okay to be afraid. I know this is your first time. But you have the gun. You have the power. Press the trigger, and it’s all over.”

“But you can’t kill a man for failing to keep a business going.” I heard my words but barely attached meaning to them. It was like struggling to see through a haze. What had happened to my Kirn?

He squeezed my shoulders. “Darling, of course there’s more to it than that. Drav’s been stealing from me since that casino opened. And he thought I’d never know!”

His fury was building now. “A lowly criminal scammed me, Jan. As he’s done at least a dozen others. He’d have a life sentence on twelve systems if they knew the whole of it. You’ll be doing the universe a favor. And me.”

I still held my blaster, limp at my side. Kirn’s hand crept down my arm and curled around my fingers. Together, we lifted the blaster, his warm hand steadying mine. But he didn’t pull the trigger. It was my choice.

My choice. I began to pull. It was what he wanted.

A muffled sob reached my ears and scythed through my thoughts. The children. The older one had pulled her injured sister to the corner of the room and curled protectively around her. She tried in vain to soothe her cries, even as her own shoulders shook and her wide eyes accused me. She was young, but she knew what was happening

Shame crept through me, then horror. I gasped in a breath and saw clearly again. Bile rose in my throat.

I wrenched myself out of Kirn’s grip. “You think yourself judge and jury,” I spat, “but I won’t be your executioner. Damn you, he’s got children! You want me to leave them here to die? After killing their father?”

His face hardened into fury. “You think this is the first time? Are you so naïve, darling? What did you think I did with the others? Nirak, Hidiah, Miak – you think I scolded them and sent them off?”

He gave a derisive laugh. “They’re dead, all of them, and you killed them. You didn’t ask questions. You took my money and set off, bringing them easily to their fates. You’ve truly never stopped to think what would happen to any of your bounties? You’ve always been an executioner, Jan. This time, I’m just letting you pull the trigger.”

I looked at him again, and it was as if a façade broke and ugliness seeped through the cracks. My dashing Kirn, the head of a network that spanned the galaxy, twining each thread together in an expert weave, I at his side. Now I saw that web, saw how I had lain with him and let him wrap me in it. How many died to build his mansion on Ilana? How many quiet accidents, how many loaded negotiations? He’d always assured me his business was on the side of the law, with a laugh and a wink to say “mostly.” I hadn’t cared.

“No,” I said. “Never again.”

He bristled. “Think about what you just said.”

I couldn’t miss the threat in his voice, but I was utterly calm. “I’ll say it again. No. Never.”

“If you’re too weak to do it, then I will,” he snarled. His hand twitched and I reacted. I’d brought my blaster up and shot him before his hand had closed on his.

He took the bolt with a strangled cry and crumpled limply to the floor, his hair fanning around his head. I knelt next to him. His eyes searched mine as he died, and the outrage they held shattered my last illusions.

“It looks like you’ve won… darling,” he spat. Then his chest fell, and he was gone.

“I was never your darling,” I whispered. His dark eyes were empty of any charm they once held.

Numbly, I holstered my blaster and went over to the children. The older one tried to stop me, but I pushed her aside. “I’m trying to help.” My voice was too flat to be reassuring.

The younger girl had fallen unconscious, probably from the stress and shock. I inspected the wound, forcing myself to confront what I had done. At least it had missed the major arteries. As I began applying a healing pack, some of my pain left me. I would cause no lasting damage to this little girl.

I worked on autopilot. Would hurting this girl have bothered Kirn? No. I knew he’d been right — my other employers were as ruthless as he. I’d been lying to myself. Rashly, perhaps, I formed a new creed. I had prided myself on discretion, on doing my job with no questions asked. No more. I would not serve petty revenge or coercion. I would aid justice, not atrocity. Maybe one day I would walk with a clear conscience.

After tending her, I dissolved the wrap and revived Drav. “Get out of here,” I growled at him once he had wakened. “Kirn’s dead. Nobody will follow you.”

I knew he was confused, but I still held the weapons, so he asked no questions and ushered the children away.

I was alone with what was left of my lover and my life. I bent over Kirn’s body and wept for the death of the man I’d thought him to be.

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Questions:

1. So pretty much all I did with this was wordsmith and hopefully make the action more snappy and the blaster thing clearer. As a whole, I don’t really think the piece is better because I feel like a lot of the wordsmithing just made it choppy. What do you think?

2. I tried taking out the blaster conflict to get word count down, but when I had someone who’d never read the story before read it without that scene, they said Kirn’s change was way too abrupt. Currently, the blaster conflict hints that Kirn is basically using Jan by the way he just takes her blaster without even asking and doesn’t really apologize, and Jan's acceptance of this shows that she's used to making excuses for him. Does this work? How could I do it better? Should I change that part completely, and if so, what to?

Thank you!