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

the others.  There was nothing a God liked less than someone he owed a favor.  If the girl thought he would help her just because she had stopped that idiot from killing him, she was sorely mistaken.

Biddy Mackay.  That was her name.  If he’d still had access to his datapad he would have done some snooping about her.  There was more to the girl than he had first assumed.  Who was she working for?  Scotclan had to be a front for someone, but who?

Thump.

There was someone at the door.  Lu Tang waited for it to open, but nothing happened.

Thump.

He walked over to the door of the cell.  There was a crack underneath and he scooted down to see if he could see a pair of boots, but there was nothing there.

Thump.

It wasn’t coming from the door, it was coming from the wall.  The right-hand wall, to be exact.  He pressed his hands against it.

Thump.

He could feel the vibration.  Then he heard something.  It was so subtle he would have missed it, if it hadn’t been for the fact that his ears had long since been augmented.  He closed his eyes and focused on tuning in his augmented hearing.

“ – you bastard, you better answer me.  Just one more time.  If you can hear this through your super Godly hearing thump back.  And if you can hear me and you’re not replying then so help me I will torture you for the next hundred years.”

The voice was not familiar, but he didn’t have much choice.  He thumped back.

“You took your time.  Now, listen up because we’ll need to be quick.  I’m sure they’ve got someone keeping an eye on the video feeds so if they see us against the walls it’s going to be pretty obvious what’s going on.  I can’t hear you, by the way, seeing as my ears are one hundred percent human, so you’ll just have to thump once for yes, twice for no.  Clear?”

Thump.

“Good.  My name is Macleod.  I’m a member of Scotclan.  We should be in charge of this ship, but we seem to have got ourselves a rogue ‘tec.  You’ve met Mackay?”

Thump.

“Little witch.  Well, like I said, I was brought on board to take over from Mackay.  She’s been behaving erratically for a while, but the Clan needed proof.  Well, I certainly got that.  You heard that she shot your friend Tibo?”

Pause.  Thump.

“That’s right.  I saw her do it.  Shot him, then stunned me and put the gun in my hand.  Well, her little fairytale won’t stand up in court, but it’s got me stuck in these cells for the moment.  Just like you.  And it seems to me we could help each other out.”

Long pause.  Thump.

“Now, I just need out of this cell and I can take control of the ship.  But I don’t have any weapons on me.  I know that Augments are pretty good at fighting their way out of things.  Super strength and all that.  So my suggestion is that next time someone comes to get you out of your cell you grab the weapon, knock them out and come and get me.  Got it?”

Pause.  Thump thump.

“Let me guess: you don’t trust me?  Well, what if I told you something.  I know that you had nothing to do with the Westward Ho!.  If you come with me then I’ll make sure that the murder charges are dropped and you can go on with your miserable little life.  Sound good?”

Loud thump.

“There we are then.  I look forward to working with you.”

Lu Tang took his hands away from the wall.  He shuffled over to his bench and sat down on the hard, plastic surface.  Well, that had been interesting.  Macleod.  Had he heard that name before?  It seemed familiar, but then those Celtic Alliance names were always ‘Mac’ something.  And she seemed to genuinely want to help him, at least if it meant saving her own ass.  No doubt she would turn against him in the end, but at least it would get him out of his cell.  Yes, a very interesting proposition.

He closed his eyes and waited for the door to open.

Chapter 29

Biddy wished she could wipe the smug grin from Elvis’s face. “It’s only acting Captain,” she said for the third time. “And it’s not official or anything, given that we’re not exactly acting on Scotclan’s orders.”

“Still,” Elvis said, straightening his shoulders. “I’ll be in command, right?”

“Of the ship.  I’m still the ‘tec.”

“Of course.”

Biddy watched him smooth down his hair and bit back a sigh.  There was no one else qualified to be the Captain, but she knew she was asking for trouble putting Elvis in charge.  He was a reliable guy, if a little too handsome for his own good, but power always went to his head.

“I’ll need you to land us at the secondary space port on Eritree.  I don’t want to go to Moscov, but we need a hospital for Tibo.  There’s a medical facility at Retrusk a hundred miles to the West.  That’s where I want you to take the ship.”

“No problem.  Just one thing though, there’s something I need to talk to you about first.”

“What?”

“You know the box that the Augment was holding when we found him?”

Biddy had forgotten all about it. “Yes?”

Elvis shuffled his feet.  It was weird seeing someone normally so cocky look so nervous. “There was something inside it.  Something really strange.”

“All right, can you explain?”

“It’s part of an engine.  At least, I think it is.  But it’s something totally different from anything I’ve ever seen.”

Biddy realized she was grinding her teeth in frustration. “Listen Elvis, I know you think you know everything, but there must be engines that you’ve never seen before.”

“That’s not it.  This thing shouldn’t even exist.”

“Okay.”