Free Beacon 23: Part 3: Bounty (Kindle Single) by Hugh Howey Page A

my dark secret, and not something I’m going to tell you. I don’t even whisper that to my rock.
    Three bad things. They come like this, in little clusters for the counting. They’re coming for me now.
    Ding-Dong.
    The first of them arrives with the sound of a door chime.
    •••
    Okay, it’s not quite a door chime; it’s actually a hull proximity alert. But if you ask me, the old alert sounded too much like an air raid siren. Which ain’t so bad when it’s occasional, but with all the traffic after the cargo crash, it started jangling my nerves. It’s the waiting for it to go off that kills me. It’s the silent anticipation. Your whole body is tense, lying awake in your sleep sack, eyes wide open, seeing a buddy yell INCOMING! before a cloud of red mist blooms where a human once stood. Yeah, it’s not the sound of the siren that gets you. It’s the lying there, waiting. Listening to the silence. Counting.
    I did some digging, figured out where the sound file for the alert was stored, and replaced it with a door chime. Of course, I couldn’t find a door chime in the archives, so I had to record my own. And yeah, I could’ve made a decent chiming sound with a wrench and some sheet steel, but I got lazy and just said Ding-Dong into the mic. Now, when I get a visitor, that’s what I hear. Gives me a chuckle. Sometimes, you’ve just gotta laugh. You just gotta hug your shins, rock back and forth, and laugh.
    I wiggle my way out of the crawlspace, scooting along on my shoulder blades, rolling from one to the other, and pushing with my good foot.
    Ding-Dong.
    That’s me.
    Ding-Dong.
    I’m coming.
    I pull myself out of the crawlspace and limp my way through the scattered debris. The climb up the ladder is slow with one hand and a sprained ankle. In the living quarters, I silence the alert using the switch by my sleep sack, then go up another flight into the command module. There’s a blast of static from the high frequency radio before a voice cuts in with a transmission.
    “ —con 23, this is Sanity’s Edge, over.”
    I lift the mic with my free hand and wince as a stab of pain shoots across my ribs. Glancing out the nearest porthole, I see a ship hovering three or four klicks away, red and green lights blinking on each wingtip. Long pods with glimmering gold tips hang beneath the wings. Lasers. Pointing at me.
    “Beacon 23,” I say. “Go ahead, Sanity .”
    Checking the scanners, I see she’s registered to a Delphi corporation. The Delphi system is a tax-free zone; a lot of privately owned vessels hail from there, even if they’ve never touched atmo in Delphi. They just do the bill of sale in orbit and scoot.
    “Permission to dock,” the pilot radios. “ Official US marshal business.”
    I glance back out the porthole. That ain’t no marshal boat out there. If she’s privately owned, and she’s really on marshal business, and she’s legally armed, then it can only be one thing: a bounty hunter. Looks like a whiff of excitement has drifted into old sector eight. I squeeze the mic.
    “Beacons are NASA-oversight neutral territory,” I remind the captain. “By colregs, no arms are allowed on any beacon, nor are military or private security craft allowed to dock without warrant or express permission.”
    Which is true and all, but what I’m really thinking is that the beacon’s a wreck, as am I, and I really don’t want visitors. I’m in my white NASA boxer briefs, and putting on a shirt with a bad shoulder is a pain in the ass. Well, not the ass, exactly, but you know what I mean.
    “Beaming the warrant to you now ,” the radio hisses.
    I check my comm screen as the transmission comes through. After a brief scan, my systems tell me the document’s legit. There’s a twinge in my ribs as I take a deep breath.
    “Docking collar Charlie,” I say. I reach over and flip on the homing light and energize the locking collar. Then I think of a little white lie. “Uh . . . Captain, I’m under