Bounty Hunt
Attempt At Spooky
This was a bit of a surprise to write. I knew I wanted to write something kind of suspenseful and scary, but I didn’t quite know what form it would take. This was the result. It’s something of an experiment. I have an idea for a much more disturbing ending but that felt gratuitous, I wanted to focus on the suspense and terror. I hope it’s effective. Would really appreciate your thoughts and feedback!
Edits were made to this story, a revised version can be found here:
Please enjoy!
“Whiskey, double, neat.” I took a seat at the bar.
The barkeep slid the glass expertly in front of me. “Tab?”
“Jones.” I said.
“Your droid want anything?”
I looked over at PR206, he shook his head. “Peter say’s he’s fine, thank you.”
I held the spirit up to my nose and inhaled the toxic fumes. The first sip was like lightning—it warmed by body from the inside out, and cooled my nerves which were frayed and exhausted.
I felt the door open behind me and a chill crawled up my spine. I saw his reflection in the glass—the shadow whose silhouette I recognized even when blinded by the light from outside.
I reflexively dove across the bar and pulled Peter over as the bounty hunter started firing without any discussion.
Panic. I was hyperventilating. I couldn’t see straight. Peter put a hand on my shoulder, I looked at his eye-lights. “Didn’t we lose this guy?” I sputtered shakily.
I caught a glimpse of his gun as he peered over the edge of the bar and I pushed Peter forward and shouted “GO!”
Shots rang out and we ran down the bar and jumped back over. We ran past some tables and Peter jumped through the window. I followed, rolled over the broken glass and we ran towards the spaceport.
I could barely breathe, but I managed to shout “Run ahead and get to the ship!”
Peter nodded and surged forward. I looked behind me—the dark figure was walking calmly towards me. I started zigging and zagging across the road, trying not to make an easy target—laser bolts fly past me, I can feel their heat on my skin as they go by. Too close.
I see the engines of my ship flare to life. 100 yards… I tell myself. I turn around and I see the bounty hunter begin to run. Oh god oh god.
Peter had already started taking off and was an inch off the ground when I jumped onto the ramp.
“CLOSE THE DOOR PETER!”
The bounty hunter pauses and takes out a long rifle.
“CLOSE THE DOOR!” My voice cracking in terror.
The ramp slowly eases shut. I hear a heavy impact on the other side of the door.
I lie there on the ground and I hyperventilate. I am so tired of running.
I was quiet a long while. I let Peter fly wherever he decided to take us.
When I finally picked myself up off the ground and limped to the bridge, Peter had brought us to subluminal cruising speed in the vast, empty, darkness of space.
“What’s our status, Peter?” I asked, slumping into the co-pilots seat.
Peter’s electronic voice crackled to life. “We are cruising in interstellar space right now. Destination: Unspecified. Sublight fuel: 75%. Superluminal fuel: 2 Jumps. Food Storage: Empty. Rymund, we need a plan.”
I held my head in my hands and let out a big sigh. “I know. I know. With that bounty hunter on our tail we have to react. And if it’s not him it could be someone else.”
“But it IS him.”
“I know…”
“We need a place to go and have two jumps to get there.”
“Well we know he was on Shastan with us last. We don’t know his range and he doesn’t know ours. There’s only so many systems 2 jumps from Shastan.”
Peter paused. “There are Six systems 2 jumps or less from our present location. The farthest is Dismaan.”
“Dismaan is no good, too civilized. If he doesn’t find us, others would and quickly. I’m looking for a low-development system, maybe a remote outpost, a mining colony, anything.”
“The Gaaban system has a workers colony. Gaaban IV.”
“Let’s try it. We will stay there long enough to refuel and get supplies and then we’ll make our way to the Angel Nebula and sell our ship and try to disappear.”
“He’s already followed us when there is no way he should have been able to.”
“How do we shake him?”
“Let’s just get to Gaaban IV and see if we can get a good rest and good resupply.”
“Smart. That’s why I pay you the big bucks, Peter.”
“You don’t pay me any—”
“It’s a joke.”
“Oh.”
Gaaban IV was an asteroid-based facility. The space station jutted out from the rock and the spaceport counterrotated against the asteroids rotation. It was dark—the star Gaaban was red, dim, and distant. It was perfect, just the kind of uncivilized haunt that we could disappear into.
We set our ship down and the docking bay dilated closed and pressurized around it. Then we exit the ship and were met by a customs officer.
“We have no shipments scheduled for today, what’s your business here?”
“We are low on fuel and supplies, if we can impose on your hospitality we would like to rest and resupply and we will be on our way. We know your time and resources are precious, we don’t want to cause any inconvenience.”
“Can you pay?”
“Yes.”
The officer scoffed. “Fine. You’ve got one day.”
“Thank you, officer.”
The officer made me sign some forms and then lumbered away, leaving us to make our plan. “Quartermaster first, then rest?” I asked Peter.
Peter nodded.
“Let’s go.”
The halls of the space station were quiet and dark. There were windows—the sun (and the spaceport) rose and set every 45 minutes, giving an eerie red glow and surprisingly quickly moving shadows. Their footsteps echoed, and few individuals they passed looked up to acknowledge them. It was a hard living on an outpost like this. I found myself counting how much time we had left before we could leave. But there was some safety in the misanthropy of this place. No one asked questions. No one cared who we were.
We had already found the Quartermaster and fueled up so it was time for our R&R. I let Peter charge first and I was restless so decided to walk the halls.
I gravitated toward bars—places I could be invisible, I guess. But there were no bars on this station, parasitically attached to an asteroid. Nevertheless, there were places for congregation. There was a view room where one could watch the sun set and rise and set again. I found an empty seat in a quiet corner and I pulled my hood over my head and I sat down.
The scene was unquestionably beautiful—even if it was periodically occluded by the spaceport which jutted out like a pier to a rounded platform where small ships could land and larger ones could dock. It was serene—it didn’t move fast enough to be distracting, and was almost mesmerizing in it’s gradual dance across the field of view. The dark red sun gave a red hue to everything, even, I told myself, the shadows were red.
And when the sun set again, it was instant darkness—stars. Even on different worlds lightyears apart, I liked to find my favorites. There was Sol, I think—the Motherstar. And there was the twins, Betelgeuse and Rigel.
A newcomer arrived in the gaggle of miners. He groaned loudly that the sun was down.
“Doc says I’m to get some sun and where is it? I made my appointment, where’s my ruby star?” he complained.
“Shut yer gob, mate, nothing new under the sun.”
“There’s no sun to be under!”
“Why gripe about it just wait a few minutes it’ll be up again soon.”
“Not soon enough. I could use some good news.”
“What’s ailing you, Fred?”
“Bad omens, man. Bad omens. Had bad dreams yesterday, got kicked off the Driller this afternoon, suns not up, and I heard tell of two strange ships coming without invitation.”
I sat up straight before I could play it cool.
“Just passers by more likely. It happens from time to time,” the conversation continued.
“One yes, but two ships on the same day?”
Two ships. I stood up quietly and walked away. My heart was racing. I had to go tell Peter. Two ships. Maybe we were the second and the first had already left. Maybe. Maybe the second had come after on unrelated business.
I rushed down the halls, my feet echoing on the metal plating. Suddenly every shadowy figure I encountered was the bounty hunter—my heart stopped until I got closer and could see their mining uniforms. The sun came back up right as I arrived at our quarters for the night.
I opened the door and Peter was dismantled—strewn about the room, like he was torn apart. Oh no. Oh no please god. I just want some rest. My heart was pounding, pounding, pounding in my chest. I didn’t even stop to get my things. I turned and I ran. I ran towards the elevator tram that would take me to the spaceport.
I waited agonizingly for the tram to arrive. I entered and waited agonizingly for the tram to get to the spaceport. God just please let me get to the ship. Let me get out of here. Please not today.
I got to the spaceport and I could see the ship. I opened the back hatch and—
“Been looking for you, boy.”
He grabbed me by the collar and pulled me into the ship, and closed the hatch behind me. I struggled against him but he injected me with something in my neck. My hands and feet went numb, eventually my arms and legs, and my whole body went limp. My heart pounded in my ears. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t run. I could only lie helplessly on the floor while the bounty hunter stood over me.
I could see my reflection in his highly polished helmet—I looked scared, my limbs were arranged awkwardly around me on the floor but I couldn’t feel them.
“You’ve caused me a lot of trouble.” He said.
My blood pumped desperately into my head, the only thing I could feel anymore.
He leaned close to my face and pulled out a knife. I could see beads of sweat on my face.
“So what’s it going to be, Rymund Jones? Dead or alive?”
I couldn’t move my lips, my mouth hung open. I could see my eyes darting frantically.
He leaned his head closer, and turned to the side, as if to listen for a sound.
“Tell me boy, or I’ll decide for you.”
Please no. Please God no. Please anything but this. I thought. I moved my eyes side to side as if to say No. It was the only way I could communicate.
“Guess you’ll leave it up to me.”
I wish I could have screamed.
Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed!
Wow. WOW. Okay. Yes, I really like this. It's unsettling, it's got an undercurrent of inevitable tragedy to it...a very good piece of dark scifi. I found the description of the mining facility particularly creepy, the unusual day-structure and the red shadows...oof. I also thought your dialogue was very well rendered, and I liked Peter a lot. I'm not the biggest scifi reader, but the droids are always my favorite part of any scifi story, so... lol
Since you asked for feedback on the suspense, I felt that there were a few things missing for me to truly feel suspense in a traditional sense as I read. Personally, I didn't have a clear idea of the stakes, something difficult in a scifi story because only the author knows the rules of this universe. But without those rules established, suspense is a bit tricky (it's Hitchcock's "bomb under the table"...a cliche, but a good one). Basically, while I know what a bounty hunter does, based on TV and movies, I don't know what Rymund is afraid that THIS bounty hunter is going to do, and in this universe the sky is the limit. So when he's running away, panicked, I'm not sure what exactly I'm really supposed to be scared of happening to him. And that would be okay, maybe, if we understood Rymund a bit better. But since we don't know what Rymund did to get himself into this kind of trouble (and his reasons for doing it), I also feel a distance between his pain and our worry for him.
But please don't take that as "bad" or "negative" feedback, because overall, this is a very, VERY effective story. It's well-written, it's got good pacing, and the inevitability (and disturbing nature) of the ending is earned. Seriously great, moody piece, and could set the scene for a larger story (coughcough).
Great read, this. I’d pay to watch a Netflix adaptation of this, in one of their anthologies. Looks like it fits in Love, Death and Robots perfectly :D
Only thing is I wish I knew why Jones was running—I’m imagining everything from a simple B&E to eating babies alive, heh. Just to understand what makes this bounty hunter chase him so relentlessly.