God's Bounty Hunter (Biddy Mackay Space Detective Book 1) by T Olivant (reading in the dark .txt) 📕

Biddy rubbed her knuckles into her eye sockets. “Make sure someone’s guarding her cell at all times.  I’m going to get to the bottom of all this before I get in touch with Scotclan.  For that matter, put the whole ship on communications lock down.  No one hears about this mess before we want them to, understood?”

“Understood.”

Chapter 20

The air in the plastic life-raft was stale and Lu Tang was painfully aware of the reek of his own sweat.  It was getting uncomfortably hot.  The life-raft was only meant to be used for a few hours before some kind rescuer arrived to save whoever was onboard.  It was never meant to be luxurious.

The intimate size of the life-raft was not Lu Tang’s most pressing problem, however.  The main issue with the tiny craft was that there was no way it could leave the orbit of Eritree.  He had two choices: firstly, stick around in the gravity pull of the planet for a while until he could organize a rescue, and just hope that no one found him first or secondly, attempt to land on the planet below.

He had half hoped that the voice he had spoken to earlier might have come to his aid.  But that was foolish.  The voice knew that he was a God, and that he should be able to get out of these sorts of situations without seeking the assistance of anyone else.  Such desperation was beneath him.

And yet… Lu Tang swallowed, his throat parched.  And yet he was feeling a fog of self-pity just waiting to wash over him.  His augmented hormones should have compensated for this, but they were behaving erratically.  His bleak thoughts were threatening to envelop him.

Oxygen warning. A tinny computer-generated voice came from a speaker behind him.  Oxygen warning.  Less than twenty percent remaining.

All right, Lu Tang thought, that answers one question.  He didn’t have time to hang around.

“Set a course to land on Eritree,” he said out loud, before realizing that the life-raft was not sophisticated enough to follow voice commands.  He reached for the control console and tapped in some instructions.

He watched the stars spin in the blackness as the life-raft changed course.  It was all very tranquil and silent in space.  That would change soon enough.  A craft like this could not really land on a planet.  It just didn’t have the engines.  It would have to crash.

Lu Tang checked his trajectory.  Still a little off course.  He made an adjustment.  His aim was to land somewhere to the south of the mines.  He might just manage to avoid the notice of any of his pursuers then.  It was a long shot, but he knew he had to try.

Entering atmosphere.  No shit, Lu Tang thought as the temperature readings went off the scale.  The tiny craft began to vibrate, a small shudder at first that grew to a frenetic fit that jarred his every muscle.  Sweat was streaming down his face.  He clutched onto the arm rests in his seat and gritted his teeth.  Nothing to do but endure.

Lu Tang closed his eyes.  He tried to focus on the turmoil around him in an abstract way, considering vectors of travel and the mass involved.  But for some reason he could only think about the fragility of his own body.  The danger that he might not make it out of the life-raft.  Despite what some of the humans believed, Augments were not immortal.  His bones could shatter into pieces just like theirs.  What would it feel like, after all these centuries, to finally die?

Thump!  There was an almighty hit of pressure and Lu Tang nearly passed out.

The pod might have been rubbish in terms of maneuverability, but there was one thing it had been designed to do.  Crash.  Just before the tiny vessel hit the ground it blew up into a massive spherical balloon filled with cushioning foam.  This meant that the crash landing on the planet felt like light kiss on the surface.  Lu Tang grinned.  Alive once more.  He opened his eyes and hissed a ‘Yesss!’ into the air.  He was elated, born along on his success like a surfer on a water planet riding atop an eternal wave.

That was until he tried to get out.

It turned out there was another problem with the life-raft.  A crash landing was designed to be the last resort, an action only taken when there was no alternative.  It had therefor been planned with only one objective in mind: to protect life.  The people who made the life-raft knew that in that scenario the safest extraction from the crashed pod would be done by those on the outside, preferably those with the appropriate tools to dismantle a five-foot-thick mass of foam.

It was not designed to be opened from the inside.  Lu Tang pressed more and more buttons, but eventually came to realize that he was trapped.  Totally stuck, encased in foam that had set as hard as cement.

A laugh filled the life-raft and it took Lu Tang a second to realize that it came from his own throat.

“I’m bloody gift wrapped!” He snorted and laughed again.  Eventually he got control of himself and readjusted his hormones to a more suitable level for the occasion.

He waited.

There was a beeping sound and the shielding cracked open like an egg.  Lu Tang didn’t even have a chance to grab a weapon before the doors opened.

“You’re under arrest!”

Chapter 21

The Geek had found the life-raft before it even hit the ground.  It didn’t take Biddy long to jump into one of the landing craft that were kept in the cargo hold for just this reason.

The life-raft’s descent had been erratic, like there was no one at the helm.  Or it could have been that the flimsy ship was so poorly designed it couldn’t maneuver