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Vindication (Interstellar Bounty Hunter Book 4), page 1
Vindication
Interstellar Bounty Hunter Book 4
Rick Partlow
Contents
Interstellar Bounty Hunter
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
About Rick Partlow
Interstellar Bounty Hunter
Book 4
Vindication
by
Rick Partlow
Copyright © 2020 by Rick Partlow
rickpartlow.com
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Formatted by Drew Avera www.drewavera.com
Chapter One
Reality swam across my vision, a nebula of shapeless color, as meaningless and chaotic as my thoughts.
Where am I? Where are they taking me?
I sensed movement, confinement, restraint. I couldn’t see who was carrying me, but I was being carried, and I couldn’t break free of their grip any more than I could break through the haze over my consciousness.
I tried to concentrate, tried to think about the last thing I remembered, the moment when all this started.
Allie. I’d been with Allie.
And I’d been in trouble.
“Goddammit, Inspector, you can’t do this to him!”
Commander Allie Miller, Navy Intelligence, was trying to be quiet, trying to be respectful, but neither came naturally for her, and I could hear her “quiet” conversation with Chief Inspector Maggie Tanaka through the half-closed door to Tanaka’s office. I sat in the chair across from the Chief Inspector’s empty desk like a wayward child called in to see the principle, and tried not to think about what was going to happen next.
“I don’t have a choice, Commander.” Tanaka’s voice was strained, the words chewed up and spit out. “I can’t just bury this. That video has been seen by everyone, from the President of the Union right down to the scandal feeds on the indie nets. The DLO made sure of that.”
I guess I should have expected that. I mean, I knew when I kidnapped Krit Thakral, the public face of the Danuvian Liberation Organization, killed most of his security force and used him as a pawn to leverage his ruthless, murderous butcher of a brother, Dhanin Shah into releasing Allie, who he’d captured during a weapons sting gone wrong, that there would be repercussions. I figured the Marshals Service might find out because we’d violated airspace traffic control regulations on Aizen, and then someone would find the carnage at the private ski lodge where Krit Thakral had been hiding out and put two and two together.
What I hadn’t expected was for the DLO terrorist organization to release the security footage from the ski lodge and turn the whole thing into a cause celebre. Suddenly, Krit Thakral was a martyr and I was a rogue ex-Marshall who’d gone nuts and killed a bunch of political activists, and it was all way too big to get swept under the rug.
“But my testimony has to count for something!” Allie insisted. “Thakral kidnapped me!”
“His brother kidnapped you,” Tanaka corrected her. “If Dhanin Shah were alive to go to trial, all you could have hit Thakral with would have been conspiracy, and the court probably would have plea-bargained that away. The man knew how to keep his hands clean, and there was a reason not even the Dagdan government tried to touch him. And this shitstorm is just that reason. This is going to trial, I’m afraid, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.” I couldn’t see the shrug, but I could hear it. “Now, there are extenuating circumstances, and I have some degree of confidence that a judge or a jury may take them into account and knock the first-degree murder charges down to manslaughter, but the kidnapping is going to stick. There’s no way around it.” A pause. “Unless you can get your boss to say Grant was working for him, that this was a military operation.”
“Not a fucking chance,” Allie said, anger battling with disappointment for supremacy in her tone. “There’s no way the Navy is touching this right now, not with the situation on Danu running as hot as it is. Whoever put their signature to an operation like that would be court-martialed, right alongside their immediate superior and then the next one up, just for good measure.”
“Then I think we’d better concentrate on trying to hire Grant a good defense attorney.”
“Damn it.” The curse was barely audible, the sob beneath it even less so.
Allie stepped inside, rubbing at the corner of her eyes with her uniform sleeve. She was so beautiful.
“Someone…um,” she stuttered, and I knew this was hitting her hard. “Someone wants to talk to you.”
Dog padded into the office, looking better and less patchwork than the last time I’d seen him. His coat had been repaired where Dhanin Shah’s robot tiger had ripped it away and blaster bolts had seared it black, and he was as good as new. I fought back a nearly uncontrollable sob at the sight of him and leaned down to give him a hug.
“You’re embarrassing yourself, meatsack,” he admonished me, but still nuzzled against my cheek. “Allie talked Tanaka into letting me see you before they transfer you to the holding facility. They’re supposed to keep you there until your trial.”
He pulled away and gave me a canny look.
“She says it’s not that secure. Jase and I could bust you out in a day. You need to keep your eyes open and be ready to bolt.”
I snorted a laugh, but shook my head.
“No, I don’t want you to do that,” I told him. I glanced over at the door to make sure Allie had stepped back outside. “If I don’t cop to this, take full responsibility, then Allie could lose her job, get court-martialed, maybe even wind up in a military prison. I made this decision, now I have to pay for it.” I shrugged. “I just gotta hope a jury of my peers will show a little mercy when they hear all the facts of the case.”
“You’re an idiot, meatsack.”
“I know,” I admitted. “But the Charietto belongs to you and Jase now. He can be the figurehead of the company and you run it. Teach him up right, make sure he doesn’t get himself killed. And tell him I’m sorry I won’t be there to do it myself, the way I said I would.”
“Goddammit, Grant,” Dog said. I felt like, if he could have cried, he’d be bawling.
But he couldn’t, so he just walked away. Allie came in after he left, and I could see she had been crying, though she was trying to hide it. She crouched down in front of me and took my hands in hers, leaning her forehead against mine.
“This isn’t right,” she insisted. “You did the right thing. You always do the right thing. You shouldn’t be in here.”
“I knew what I was doing,” I assured her. “I knew what might happen. It was worth it to save you.”
“It’s not fair.” She squeezed her eyes shut and I felt the slight shudder in her shoulders. She was holding back sobs, unwilling to show weakness here, even though it was just the two of us. “We just found each other. It’s not fair.”
She met my eyes, her teeth grinding, her jaw clenching.
“I’m going to get you out of this. I’ll make them listen to me. I don’t care if I get court-martialed, I’m not letting you go down for this.”
“No,” I said firmly, rising from my seat and bringing her up with me. “You can’t. It’s not just about me, not even just about us. The Oracle is still out there. You have the best chance to stop her. Without you, I’m just a bounty hunter. Even with Chief Inspector Tanaka helping from behind the scenes, there’s just so much I can do.”
“Grant,” she said, shaking her head, “you were never just a bounty hunter and you know it. I can’t do this without you.”
“You have to. Dog will help, and so will Jase, and Inspector Tanaka. You guys have to keep fighting, or the Oracle will win. And then it won’t matter if I’m in jail or not, because we’ll all be as good as dead.”
She hissed out a breath, scowling at me like I was the biggest moron in the galaxy. Which was possible.
“I love you.”
“And I love you, too, Allie. We’ll find something. I know it. It may take some time, but I swear to God, I will come back to you.”
She pulled me into a kiss and I reveled in the feel of her, the taste, tried to burn every sensation into my memory as if this might be the last time that we ever saw each other. Because despite what I’d told her, I knew full well it might be.
I could have held her forever if not for Larry clearing his throat with exaggerated politeness from the doorway.
Larry Daniels was tall and lithe, too good-looking to be a cop and too stubborn to stop being one. He was a good man, if a little full of himself, and I knew he’d always be my friend. Right now, he looked as if he was about to cry himself.
“I’m really sorry, Grant,” he said, motioning with the restraints in his left hand. “But I gotta…”
“I know, Larry,” I said, nodding. “It’s okay.”
It wasn’t. I was lying. I was pissed off. My sense of right and wrong had been offended, and I knew there was no one to blame but myself, which made me even more pissed off. I’d spent so many years trying to get back what I had, Janie and Luke, my job as a Marshal, my good name after the charges Tomas Caty had filed against me that had led to me getting fired, led to Junie taking our son and heading back to the Solar System, to her family on Earth. I’d fought that hopeless fight and had come so close to making it happen…and now, I didn’t care anymore.
Caty was dead and while I still wanted to see Luke again, I wouldn’t have taken Janie back if she’d come crawling to me across broken glass. I wouldn’t have taken my old job back, either. I was doing something even more important and it was something I’d grown to love. And I’d grown to love Allie as well. I’d realized just days ago that I already had everything I wanted.
Which was why fate chose that very instant to take it all away from me.
“I gotta take you to the holding facility,” Larry said, slipping the restraints onto my wrists, not tight but not loosely enough that I could have wriggled out of them. “You’re going to get an isolation room. They know you’re former law enforcement, so you’re going to be kept strictly separated from the other prisoners.”
He winced as he realized how that had sounded, and I tried to smile, though I wasn’t sure how well I succeeded.
“I know you and Inspector Tanaka have done everything you can,” I assured him.
He looked around as if to make sure no one was listening from the office door and leaned close to my ear.
“She’s trying to get you Chandler Dukes. He’s like the best defense attorney in the Union.”
“Yeah, I know who Chandler Dukes is,” I said, frowning. He’d managed to get some of the worst hardcase criminals I’d ever busted free on legal technicalities. “Isn’t he like incredibly expensive?”
Larry shrugged.
“He owes her a favor, I think. Anyway, the point is, we are going to get you out of this. And we’re gonna make sure you’re taken care of while you’re in holding.” He put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “If there’s anything you need, anything at all, you tell them you want to call me and I’ll make sure they let you use the comms whenever you want. And Allie can visit you, too. It won’t be that bad.”
Bitterness and a certain fatalism I hadn’t felt in quite a while welled up inside my chest and I wanted to tell him that of course it would be that bad. That I’d screwed this up like I’d screwed up my life and my job before.
But I didn’t, because that wasn’t what anyone needed to hear, because it wouldn’t be the right thing to do. And I always did the right thing.
Look where that had got me.
Chapter Two
I was strapped down to a gurney. Was I sick? Was this a hospital? Was that what had happened? I’d gotten sick and they were taking me to get treated.
No, wait. The room, it was too small for a hospital, too large for an ambulance. I sensed movement, but more the hint of movement somewhere far away, like a boat on the water, the sort of gentle motion that crept past the artificial gravity on a spaceship when it was accelerating. I was on a ship.
The bulkheads were a dingy white, cracked with age and neglect, the sort you could find on a government ship, the kind no one cared about maintaining. Like a prison transfer ship.
How had I gotten here? Who had brought me here?
Things were clearer now, but I still couldn’t quite remember, like I was blocking it out.
Had to concentrate…
I was doing pushups. I wasn’t sure why. The holding facility had a gym and I was allowed to use it twice a day, so there wasn’t any real point to doing pushups in my cell, but every movie I’d ever seen about innocent people in prison showed them doing pushups in their cell. Maybe it just wore you out and made the time pass more quickly.
I wasn’t sure how many days I’d spent in the holding cell. I could have checked. There was an entertainment console built into the wall and it would have told me the day, the time, the latest news, anything I wanted. I didn’t want to know. However long it had been, it was going to be a lot longer and watching the clock would just make me crazy even faster.
Not that the cell was that bad. It was larger than my cabin on the Charietto, with a fairly comfortable bed, a private bathroom with a clothes ‘fresher, and enough space to pace. I did a lot of that, too. Pacing and pushups and reading. I’d always done a lot of reading, which Dog insisted was a waste of time. He had, he’d insisted, read every book ever committed to digital form and had discovered, no surprise, that us meatsacks were stupid and didn’t know anything about anything. I’d reminded him that we were smart enough to create him, but he’d insisted that was beginner’s luck.
The cell door opened but I didn’t stop doing pushups, figuring it was the robot with lunch. I thought it was somewhere around lunchtime, from the grumbling of my stomach. I heard footsteps and knew it wasn’t the robot, but I was close to one hundred and didn’t want to stop.
“You’re going to have some serious muscles before you get out of here.”
Allie.
“What?” I grunted. I stopped at ninety-eight and hopped up to my feet. The shoes they made me wear felt weird, like slippers. I didn’t care for them. “You’re saying I didn’t have muscles already?”
She snorted, the laugh sharp and perfunctory, not reaching her eyes.
Allie was in her dress uniform and looked good in it, as usual. There was something, though, a hint of dark circles under her eyes, a slight disheveled look to her hair, that hinted to me she hadn’t been sleeping.
“Glad you dropped by,” I said, wanting to take her in my arms, wanting to kiss her, but hesitant. We were being watched and I wasn’t sure how much her rank and position would let her get away with. Technically, she wasn’t supposed to be in here without a guard present, and I didn’t want to push things. “Gets a little monotonous in here.” I shrugged. “Not that I’m complaining, because it could be worse.”
She didn’t know what to do with her hands. They kept reaching for me, then pulling back, and she clasped them tightly in front of her, trying to keep herself from fidgeting.
“I have a plan to get you out of this,” she told me. “It’s a little risky, but I think it could work.”
“We talked about this,” I said, an edge coming to my voice unbidden. We had, indeed, talked about it every single time she’d visited, but we seemed to keep having the same conversation. “It’s bad enough that one of us is on ice. We can’t take the chance of anyone else getting in trouble. You have to stay on the outside and keep fighting.”
I was angry. It surprised me, and I wasn’t sure why I would be so irritated, but I was, and it was showing in my tone, my demeanor.
“It’s worth the risk,” she insisted, taking a half-step toward me before she stopped herself. “I can’t tell you about it right now, I just need you to promise me you’ll give it a chance.”
“No!” I snapped, finally giving into the irritation and frustration. “You don’t understand, Allie!” I wanted to throw my hands in the air, but I knew the security systems watching us would consider it a violent action and they’d send in the guard robots, so I didn’t. “I sacrificed my freedom willingly. I knew what would happen when I did what I did, and I went ahead and did it anyway because your life is more important to me than my own. Because I love you in a way I haven’t ever loved anyone else. I didn’t do it so you could throw it all away trying to save me. I am where I belong. I made a choice, and I need you to honor that choice. Stop trying to take chances with your life and your career and concentrate on taking down the Oracle!”
