Free The Bounty Hunter: Soldier's Wrath by Joseph Anderson

the water below them. The ocean seemed to stretch out forever in
every direction. It reminded him of his flights over the Atlantic and Indian
oceans on Earth. It was strange, he thought, that an alien world could look so
similar to his home world.
    They saw no signs of the natural land
formations that Natalie mentioned. Rylan flew them quickly toward Stheno and
made no detours to see anything else on the planet. The city was larger than
Burke expected for something that wasn’t constructed in space. From a distance,
it looked like a city that had been grown on a Petri dish on top of the water:
the white exterior of the city rose high around the rim of it, erecting a
barrier to stop water from flooding into the streets. Almost every building
stretched dozens of floors into the air—the highest of the lot clustered in the
middle of the city—but there was a tremendous amount of greenery and vegetation
that had been planted throughout every street. To Burke, the city had found a
unique balance between nature and industry, as if the settlement had been grown
on the water instead of built. He liked it.
    The faceplate of his aegis was
still open. He looked at the ship’s main screen as Cass highlighted the
building that Kristen lived in. It was one of the tallest buildings in the
center of the city, well over a hundred storeys. They circled it from a
distance.
    “We’ll go in from the roof,” Burke
said. “If all goes well, you can hover over the building while me and Cass go
down. We’ll bring Kristen back up with us. If things go badly, well,” the word
dragged out of him and ended in a sigh. “We’ll have to change things as we go.”
    Cass zoomed in part of the screen
on Kristen’s apartment, half of the way up the building. Burke turned to the
other screens around the room as the video feeds were transmitted to them,
leaving Rylan to still have the main window to focus on flying the ship. Burke
couldn’t see any mercenaries waiting for him and knew that was a bad sign. If
Paxton had put as much time into his plan as Natalie suspected, it meant the
mercenaries he hired were very good at their jobs.
    “Call Kristen,” Burke said. “Rylan,
get ready to fly us over the building as soon as she picks up. Remember, we’re
stepping into a trap.”
    Burke walked to the terminal on the
left side of the room, usually reserved for the ship’s weapon systems. The
central screen changed from blue to black, then to the prompt that an outgoing
call was currently being transferred. He felt at the rifle magnetized to the
back of his armor as he waited for Kristen to answer. He knew that if the
mercenaries were monitoring the building that he’d only have a few minutes to
get to her.
    Her face appeared on the screen.
She didn’t recognize him at first. When she did, her eyes widened happily. They
were as bright and blue as the ocean around the city. She smiled.
    “Burke!”
    Then, she frowned.
    “What’s happened?” she asked.
    “I’m going to be outside your door
in less than three minutes. I need you to be ready when I get there.”
    “Is it dad? Is he dead?”
    “No, he’s fine,” Burke said
quickly. “I’m here to make sure you are too.”
    She had more questions. He watched
as they played out over her features. She turned away from her computer instead
of voicing them, knowing that she had little time. She had always been
intelligent, he remembered. Smarter than Geoff and that was saying something.
    Burke turned to look through
Rylan’s screen. The ship was nearly over the building. He turned back when
Kristen returned. She had a loaded handgun in her hands.
    “Should I meet you somewhere?” she
asked.
    “No. I’ll come to you,” Burke said.
“Keep this channel open. Talk to me until I get down there.”
    “Okay.”
    “Burke,” Cass warned.
    He turned to the podium. Cass’s
expression said all he needed to know. Natalie looked equally serious next to
her. He reached up and closed the faceplate.