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

pointing at the floor but she knew he would have been aiming at Hastings.  Her bodyguard would not have hesitated in killing the Captain if he had tried anything.

“Take the Captain to an empty cell,” Biddy said, her voice only slightly shaking. “I’ll deal with him later.”

Hastings didn’t even react to this, just walked out with Phil’s hand firmly on his shoulder.

Biddy looked back towards the Augment who was leaning back against the wall, his face unreadable.

“You saved my life,” he said.  He looked kind of surprised.

“I saved Hastings’ life,” Biddy replied. “Yours was incidental.”

“Even so.  There’s something I should say to you.”

“Yes?”

“Go.  To.  Hell.”

Biddy stared at him for a second, then burst out laughing. “Perfect.  Just perfect.”

Her bodyguard appeared in the doorway. “Hastings is in cell three.”

“Thanks.  Phil, will you see that the prisoner is kept in his cell with no further visitors?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Good.  I’m off to have a cup of tea.”

She didn’t even glance at the Augment as she walked out of the cell.  Damnit, she had nearly lost the suspect and Hastings in one stupid moment.  As it was, she would have to hand the Captain over to Scotclan.  How the hell was she going to find a replacement?

Biddy made it inside the door of her office before her datapad started to buzz.

“Is it true about Hastings?” the Geek said.

“For the love of the Gods, how did you hear that fast?” She kicked the edge of her bed, but it didn’t make her feel any better. “It only just happened!”

“I heard you saved the God’s life.”

“Against my better judgement.  Damnit, I need that Augment off my ship!”

Biddy paced from one side of the room to the other.  The Geek tried to make a sympathetic face over the viewscreen, but given that interpersonal relations were not his strongpoint he just looked like he was having bowel issues.

“You could hand him over to Scotclan,” the Geek said.

“Ha!  They’d like that wouldn’t they.  I’ve already had to lock up Hastings in one of the cells.  It would suit Campbell just fine if I gave up and let him have everything he wants.”

“Ummn, why don’t you?”

Biddy screwed up her mouth. “Because they are still lying to me!  First of all, they sent me an Observer who turned out to be some sort of pyscho assassin.  Then they tried to take the case off me just as I was arresting the Augment.  So I’m not handing over the suspect until I’m damned well sure that he is guilty of the crimes they’ve accused him of.”

“You don’t think he did it?”

She stopped pacing. “I… haven’t entirely decided yet.  But if there’s even the slightest chance that he is innocent then I’m not going to let Campbell get his claws into him.  I’d quit Scotclan before then.”

“It might come to that.”

“I know.” Biddy rubbed her eyes. “What about you, Geek?  What would you do if Scotclan kicked me out?  I’d lose the ship for a start.”

The Geek looked down at the floor. “I would… Well, I guess I would go with you to another ship.  If you’d take me?”

Biddy could see that the tips of his ears had turned red.  Shit.  The Geek hated being forced to make personal comments.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked you that.”

“It’s okay.  No one else in this sector was willing to give a teenager a chance on an interstellar ship.  I owe you.”

“Well, thanks.  But I don’t think the rest of the crew will feel the same.  Even if they do, they still have bonds to fulfil to the Clan.  I don’t think we can crew a new ship, just the two of us.  We’ll probably end up bounty hunting for someone.  Hired contractors.  Not exactly my idea of a good time.”

“It could still work out okay.”

Biddy closed her eyes.  She wished she could share the Geek’s optimism.  But her Captain had just tried to shoot her main suspect.  If anyone else onboard started playing up she was going to run out of cells.

“Okay, let’s work with the problem at hand and not worry about the future for the moment.  We need to find out if the Augment was responsible for the Westward Ho!.   Can you find me any of the datalogs, personal recordings, distress signals… Anything at all from the ship that might give us some idea of what happened?”

“Will do.  What are you going to do?”

“The stupidest thing I can do right now.  Land on the planet.”

“On Eritree?  Where the woman from the Council hates you?”

“Yeah, and it’s where Campbell landed his ship too.  But if I don’t get Tibo to a proper hospital then he’ll be dead by tomorrow.  And I’m not going to let Macleod win that one.”

“Understood.  Just one problem. Who is going to Captain the ship?”

“I really wished you hadn’t asked me that.”

Chapter 28

Lu Tang felt his pulse by placing his fingers gently on his wrist.  Still elevated, more than two hours after the idiot human had tried to kill him.  Something was definitely awry with his augmented systems.  The interaction with the Captain who had waved the gun at him should have barely touched his nerves.  After all, no one had actually died.  And yet, here he was, sitting in the cell and trembling like a frightened human child.

It was unacceptable.  As soon as he was off this pathetic excuse for a spaceship, he would get in touch with some specialist Doctors.  No doubt there was a simple procedure that was needed to recalibrate his system.  He despised the feeling of being afraid.  It was almost enough to make him feel like a human.

How he hated them all.  Even the young detective who had saved his life.  In fact, he hated her more than any of