Tristan CH 19 (Patreon)

Miranda saw Tristan glance slightly to her left as she raised her rifle and he took a step back. She threw herself to the right on pure instinct. The explosion threw her in the shelves. She banged her head, and the world spun. The only thing that ran through her head was ‘how the hell had he known she was there?’

She’d sent feelers to all her contacts after Tristan’s boyfriend/partner was taken. They’d been silent for over a month. Long enough that she was afraid, he’d managed to get off the planet without her noticing. She had all the ports watched, and he didn’t have a ship, so he shouldn’t have been able to, but she was no longer certain there was anything he couldn’t do.

She did try to find herself a partner during that time, but none of the good ones were available on such short notice. All she got was a bunch of would-be mercenaries who wouldn’t survive their first job.

She’d been about to contact some people off planet to see if any of them had seen him when she learned he’d been sighted on the other side of the world. Cameras caught him leaving the house of someone named Emerill Karson.

A quick search on him revealed he was a financial manager. Not someone Tristan had any reason to go see, especially since he’d left the man alive. She dug deeper, and it became clear. The man had been the president of Luminex until he retired.

The only reason she could think for the two of them to meet was that Tristan needed information. It was something he hadn’t been able to get the last time he’d been inside the building, but it sent him right back here. She’d thought he’d come back for his partner, but he was held in the cells under the building. He wouldn’t need to come in this office for that.

The office.

She shook her head to stop her mind from wandering. She pointed her rifle to where Tristan had been, but he wasn’t there. How long had she been stunned? She stood and almost toppled over. Unable to afford any more time wasted, she forced herself to run out of the room. He hadn’t killed her, so what he was aiming to do was more important.

That couldn’t be good.

She jumped over the body parts littering the reception area and stopped in the hall. She saw him turn a corner and ran after him. Good, she hadn’t been out that long. As she moved, she felt better, so no severe damage from the explosion.

She realized it had to be the lock. She’d forced it open, and that had to have warned him someone was about to enter. Good, the explosion hadn’t been meant for her personally, just whoever went in. He might not know she was after him.

Well, yes, he knew that, but in her body armor, he probably thought she was one of the guards, one with her own style, instead of the bland corporate one.

Focus, Miranda. Focus.

She’d hit her head harder than she thought, that had to be it. Rand had told her often enough to wear a helmet. After this was going to get one.

In the distance, Tristan entered the stairwell.

This time she opened the door carefully, checking for traps. Nothing. Her auditory implant amplified the sounds, and she got his soft footsteps. He was going down, fast. She ran after him. This wasn’t one of the stairwells he’d taken up, so unless he had planned his escape route far in advance, she shouldn’t have to worry about traps.

He was fast. She cursed. She was going to lose him once he got out of the building. She pushed herself, she couldn’t lose him, not now. Miranda reached the ground floor to see six guards writhing in pain. Through the glass wall, she saw him pull someone out of a car and get in.

She didn’t run to him. By the time she’d get there, he’d have driven off. Instead, she went for her bike, parked just around the corner. She never bothered with cars in cities. Bikes were much more maneuverable, which meant faster on clogged streets.

She kept Tristan’s vehicle in sight. Although he was very good, he couldn’t know she was after him. Cooper’s list of contact died with him, and his telemetry only connected to the planetary Net. And while she had been connected to that, she’d hid her presence on the Network. She pulled up a map as she worked to close the distance. If she could figure out where he was going, she’d be able to get ahead of him.

This was why she needed a partner. She didn’t mind the chase, but she preferred being on the ship, doing the planning.

Tristan dodged the cars but clipped a truck, which sent it tumbling at her. If she’d been on a regular bike, she’d be dead. A flick of a switch, a push of the engine, and she was sent up and over the vehicle. She landed gently, the anti-gravity suspension absorbing the shock.

She got her sights back on him and zoomed out of the map. What could he be in such a hurry to reach? After going through Luminex like he had, the smart thing to do was lay low and wait until things calmed down. Tristan wasn’t stupid, so his running meant he was on a schedule. He couldn’t be trying to reach someone; the only person he had a connection with here was Alexander, and he’d abandoned him.

In all the information she’d gathered, she hadn’t found even a hint this had been a paid hit. Whatever it was about, his attack on Luminex had been personal. So where the hell was he going?

Could he be going for the port? Could he have gotten a flight without her finding out about it? That had to be it. She couldn’t check the flight registry as she was too far to connect to her ship’s system to do that kind of hack. Right now, the city network was the only thing her implant connected to.

She had to cut him off before he got there. She pulled a traffic history for the city, one year’s worth. She used that to run a predictive algorithm, building her own traffic pattern map.

She cut through a small road, grabbing one running parallel. She gave herself ten blocks, then cut back to the road Tristan was driving on to get eyes on him again. She couldn’t afford to lose him. In this way, she managed to gain on him by taking roads that flowed better.

She was about to cut back to a smaller street when Tristan made a sudden right. Why had he gotten off the main road? It led to the spaceport.

Could she have been wrong about his destination?

She brought up the current roadmap. The road ahead was blocked. She called for information on it; Luminex had set it up, or rather, gotten the city to do it for them. Tristan had hurt them badly enough they were asking for help.

Miranda couldn’t help smiling. She, like everyone else, had to submit to the corporation’s will, in one form or another, so it felt good to see them hurting a little.

She made the right, and he made a left. He was trying to get around the road block. Good, he was still aiming for the port. She had been right.

It became apparent he wasn’t familiar with the city and didn’t have access to the traffic information. He kept having to make sudden turns that took him away from where he wanted to go, then having to backtrack.

It also meant she couldn’t afford to lose track of him. There was more than one way to reach the port. If she lost him, he might make it there from a route she couldn’t cover, and get away.

She was stuck following him and trying to catch up to him, something his driving style wasn’t making easy. He didn’t care about the other cars; he’d knock them out of his way, which would end up blocking hers. Even jumping over them required that she slow a little and let him increase the distance separating them.

She made the next turn to find that his luck had run out. His car was overturned, another one in the side of a building. She stopped next to the car and looked in, rifle pointed. It was empty. A light on the dash flashed, indicating the inertial harness had engaged.

“He ran that way!” someone yelled. She looked up, and the other driver was pointing to an alley. She didn’t offer to help him. She turned her bike into the alley and drove.

They were about a ten-minute drive from the port. If Tristan had to make a particular flight, he had to be pushing himself.

She drove by a space between two buildings and realized someone was running down it. She spun the bike around and went back to it. The Alley narrowed, so she had to ditch her bike and run. She was catching up to him. He had to be hurt from the crash and getting tired from all the killing he’d done. Good. She was getting fed up with chasing him.

“Stop!” she yelled when the end of the alley came into view. He kept running, so she fired at his feet. He stumbled and stopped, turning to look at her. “Stop moving!”

A look of terror filled his face. He raised his hands but kept walking backward as she got closer. He was wearing a black suit, which looked ridiculous on him. He had to be hoping that would allow him to blend into the crowd at the port.

“I said stop! You have nowhere left to run, Tristan! Don’t make me shoot you!” He said something she couldn’t hear. “What did you say?”

“My-my name is Justin!” He’d raised his voice, but it was shaking, uncertain.

“Sure, whatever. Stop backing up!”

“Please, stop pointing that thing at me, please,” he pleaded. “I haven’t done anything.”

She raised her gun higher, giving her a shot at his center of mass. “If you don’t stop moving, I am going to shoot you.”

He looked around, searching for a way out, and noticed the wall a few steps behind him. He stopped moving but kept looking around, eyes wide. She didn’t pay attention to his act. Tristan was a master actor, and he could convincingly mimic any behavior.

“Good. Now get down on your knees and put your hands on your head.”

He went down to his knees and raised his hands to his head.

That’s when Miranda saw the detonator in his hand. She threw herself back as everything around them exploded.

Her ears rang. Her implant hadn’t shut down audio input fast enough. She coughed, wheezed, and pushed the rubble off. She hurt, but nothing felt broken. She needed to add a medical diagnostic suite to her implant. She couldn’t keep going by how she felt. No, what she really needed to do was find herself a good partner who would stick by her and take care of this side of the job. Let them get hurt, and she could patch them up.

She cursed. There was no way, no fucking way, Tristan had maneuvered her in this trap. He had driven randomly. He couldn’t have planned the accident that overturned his car.

Up, Miranda, get the fuck up.

She got to a knee. Fuck she was sore. Her rifle was gone, and so was Tristan. The back wall, the dead end, was rubble.

No, there was no fucking way he could have planned all of this. She grabbed the wall and pulled herself up. He wasn’t getting away. She was going to catch him if only because of the aggravation he was putting her through. The paycheck? That was just going to be a nice bonus.

She took a step, then another, and another one. From walking, she was running. She pushed herself as hard as her body would let her. She had no idea how long she’d been out. Her implant was offline, the explosion had destroyed the local node.

When the port came into view, her implant came back up. With access to the city net came the ability to make calls. Now she had him. He wasn’t getting away, not after this.

“Jaranson,” the woman on the other end said, sounding bored.

“You want to make a quick million?”

“I’m listening.” Her tone sharpened.

“There’s a Samalian in the port. He’s wearing a black suit. You tell me where he is before I get there, and the million is yours.”

“What do Samalians look like?”

“Humanoid, furred. It’s dark brown, with some speckling in it. He’s in the six-and-a-half-foot range.”

There was silence as she ran. The entrance was now in view.

“Got him. He’s on concourse eight, second level. There’s a crowd around him. What do you want me to do about port security?”

“Nothing. That bastard’s mine. Tell me if he moves.”

“It doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere right now. He’s talking with a guy, looks like they are cozy.”

It would look that way. He’d probably cleaned his suit as best as he could. No, he had a spare stashed somewhere. That bastard had planned all of this. She had no idea how he had managed it, but he hadn’t left anything to chance. She was going to strangle him as soon as she got paid.

She pushed her way through the crowd. People cursed, but she didn’t care. She made it to the second level of concourse eight. He was easy to find among the other businessmen. He looked serious, even somber, but he acted like this was normal. She didn’t bother announcing herself. She ran right at him.

The man to Tristan’s right saw her and pulled out a gun. She wrenched it out of his hand and used it to clock him. A second one pulled his out, and she shot him. Tristan looked at her, then at them. Anger flared in his eyes.

“What’s the meaning of this?” he asked, the perfect angry businessman.

She used the butt of the gun to strike him across the face, sending him to the floor. He looked up at her, wiping the blood off his muzzle.

That had felt magnificent.

“I’m going to make you pay for this. Do you have any idea who I am? I’m the president of Luminex. When I’m through with you, all that’s going to be left is your tanned hide hanging on the wall of my living room.”

Miranda made sure the gun was set to stun. As much as she wanted to kill him right now, she only got paid if he was alive. “Yeah? Well, I just don’t give a fuck.” She shot him.

He shuddered and tried to stand.

She shot him again, and then a third time. Just to be sure, she told herself. She rolled him on his stomach, restraining him. Boots were running at her when she was done. She looked up and had four rifles pointed at her.

“Don’t move!” some of them yelled.

She kept a knee on Tristan’s back but raised her hands. “My name is Miranda Sunstar. I’m a bounty hunter. This is Tristan, a wanted criminal. In the inside left pocket of my jacket is a data-chip showing I’ve been appointed by the Sayatoga prison ship to capture him.”

One of the port guards lowered his rifle and reached in the pocket.

* * * * *

Tristan smiled as he watched the commotion. He was two levels up, in the concourse, facing them. He was out of that uncomfortable suit and enjoying a drink. Miranda had let out a lot of frustration with that strike. His brother was going to feel it for some time, once he woke up. The guard helped her up. They grabbed Justin’s unconscious body and followed her.

Tristan raised his glass to them. “Have a safe trip, little brother. Hopefully, if you get yourself out of this, you’ll finally leave me alone.”

He pulled out his pad and told it to finalize the transaction, then made a call.

“Jaranson, please confirm you’ve received the money.”

“I have,” she replied. “It was a pleasure doing business with you.”

“Your help was much appreciated. Can you recommend a flight to Elanon Two?”

“Yes, sir. The Elanon system isn’t a common destination, but there’s always a few ships going there. How do you prefer to travel?”

“Under cryosleep. After this last year, I don’t want to have to deal with people.”

“Very well, there’s a cargo transport leaving in two hours with a few berth available. Do you want me to book you on it?”

“Yes, please.”

“Under what name?”

Tristan smiled. “Justin.” He looked at his brother’s ID. The pickpocket had been worth every credit. This felt right. He’d leave this forsaken place as his brother, while he left as him.

Tristan finished his drink and found his hand reaching for the metal diamond at his collar bone. He stroked it for a moment before frowning. He detached it and looked at it; he’d forgotten it was there. The last reminder of his time here.

He looked around for a trash disposal unit and almost threw it in. He looked at it again. In his mind, he could see the human’s face, smiling at him, love in his eyes. He pushed the image away, angry at himself. The anger should have made him throw it away. The disposal, or just as far as he could, it shouldn’t have mattered. Instead, he gritted his teeth and put it back to his collar bone. He stood and headed for the ship that would take him away from this miserable place.