Bounty Hunter 2: Redemption by Joseph Anderson

Redemption
     
     
    Eva
Pond was wanted for the murder of people she had never killed. She was a slave
trader and an efficient, greedy one at that. In the eyes of the law, the people
she had taken were as good as dead and she was their executioner. Her greed, at
times a source of strength and wealth, had been her undoing. She had taken too
many people from one planet. Enough to be noticed, and enough that they banded
together to purchase an executioner of their own.
    Burke
was a bounty hunter. When he strode into the bar, most didn’t look twice. His
battle aegis, a full body armored suit, covered his face and did not appear out
of the ordinary on space stations. Humanoid aliens were common enough and many
had different needs. Sealed suits were necessary when the wrong kind of
chemicals filled the air.
    What
set Burke’s suit apart was the grade and quality of it. It was one of the most
expensive pieces of armor in the galaxy, and he was among the few that owned
one. The aegis could resist most small arms and explosions, but still blended
in among the dozens of other suits found on a station at any given time. It was
only when Burke drew his weapon that Pond’s bodyguards were alerted by his
presence.
    Cass,
the suit’s AI and verbal interface, lit up the suit’s visor with hostile
targets around the bar. The men and women that were drawing weapons were distinguished
from the other unarmed patrons. Burke raised his gun at the two guards on
either side of Pond and watched as the reticules Cass had painted on them
turned from green to red, the same color as their blood on the wall behind
them.
    The
rest of the guards opened fire. Pond stayed grinning in her chair, confident
and certain that she was safe. The torrent of bullets slapped against Burke’s
armor. They bounced harmlessly away, most shattering on contact with the
hardened surface of the suit. His movements were only slowed by the barrage of
attacks: he moved his gun slowly from target to target around the room.
    “I
always hate this part,” he said. “I feel like their shots are going to pierce
the armor at any second.”
    “They
don’t have the right rounds for that,” Cass responded. “Even then we’d have a
few seconds before they could do damage. The one to your right is throwing
something.”
    The
grenade bounced along the floor and came to a rest at Burke’s feet. He stopped
and looked down at it. Even some of the other bodyguards stopped, boggling at
whoever had thrown it.
    “Did
he?” Cass began. “Did he really just throw a grenade on a space station ?”
    “Yeah,”
Burke said, smacking his lips.
    He
gave it a firm kick back in the thrower’s direction. It slammed into him and
exploded, cracking open the wall of the bar and exposing the whole section of
the station to space. The air rushed out during the few seconds before the
emergency measures could respond. The thrower was sucked out along with a few
tables and chairs. Cass magnetized the suit’s boots to the floor while everyone
around him toppled over. The station’s automated response kicked in before
anyone else was funneled out, clamping down external shutters and sealing the
breach.
    Burke
watched as the guards got to their feet. Only four of them were left. Two of
them threw their guns to the ground and put up their hands. The other two
resumed firing. He aimed his shots at their extremities, giving them a reason
to give up with their cohorts. Eva Pond was just getting to her feet after
falling over. She straightened her hair and beared her teeth at him.
    “One
of them behind us has changed his mind,” Cass said. “He’s crawling. Slowly. I
can get you a shot.”
    The
visor’s screen split in half as it began to display the feed from Burke’s
handgun. He extended his right arm behind him, as casually as if he was
stretching it. The gun’s display showed the image of the man crawling in the
corner, reaching for a rifle, thinking he wasn’t seen. Burke raised the gun