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Hunters Ch. 01

By: The_Darkness



**Writing Science Fiction was my first love at the age of 9. If it's you're cup of tea, please read; if it's something you kind of enjoy, read on. If you hate it, let me know. Either way, don't forget to vote, and if you have time, leave a comment, I actually really do read them!**

The soft pulsating red glow of the low fuel light had passed from almost pleasant to down right annoying. The engine of the Mako started sputtering between Mars and the asteroid belt. For the last hour she'd been coasting along into the Consortium's territory, hauling Max and his bounty along with her. According to the computer in the mono-pod, he was still a good hour away from his destination; unless he had trouble along the way. Every blip on the radar was a mixture of hope and hopelessness; there was a chance that some of Lorien's men would come pick him up, and there was a chance that the Consortium would find him. Either way, he wasn't about to radio out to them and draw attention to himself.

It was the last blip that had appeared on the screen that was making him uncomfortable though. It had been right at the edge of the radar's range for the last 15 minutes, and it wasn't moving from directly behind the Mako. He was being followed, and whoever it was wanted him to know it; and that was making him the most nervous out of the entire situation. 

Max's hand flipped some toggle switches up and the pod's heads up came up, its amber flaring brightly in the absence of the pulsing fuel light. The ship's status display oscillated between weapons that the ship had on it and their ammunition. It flashed 2000 rounds for the machine gun and two magnetic missiles still left in the munitions banks. Not enough to fight on, especially with only fuel for the maneuvering thrusters, and barely enough for that. He flipped the switches and the display powered down. Another switch up and the cool blue "VOX" light turned on in the display panel.

"Hey. Whoever you are. Stop following me," Max said coolly, his harsh voice betraying his young age. He waited for a response, his fingers tapping the right control lever agitatedly. He was almost thankful he didn't have to wait long; almost, until he heard her voice.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Out of gas cowboy?" the husky, almost sultry voice poured out of the speakers.

"I should have known it would be you," Max said slapping his forehead lightly. "It could have only been you."

Her soft laughter bubbled through the speakers, but there was no warmth in it. It only clenched Max's teeth and made his left eye twitch uncontrollably.

"Oh Max, you were expecting me?" she giggled. A small alarm started going off in Max's pod and small red flashers started going off. The words "Radar Lock" began flashing over the top of the radar screen. Max sighed deeply.

"Gillian, are you going to come get me or are you going to stay back there and shoot me?" Max said in a bored voice. He didn't like this feeling of powerlessness. More laughter sounded over his speakers and a small amber light started rapidly flashing next to his radar. "Missile" started flashing over the top of the radar instead of "Radar Lock." Max shifted quickly in his seat and fastened his safety harness. 

"Just going to blow up 10 million woolong with a push of a button?" Max said, bracing himself for the incoming explosion.

"Maxy, you're not worth 10 million. You're not trying to buy your way out of this, are you?" Gillian's voice rang again, still sultry and taunting.

"Nope, just letting you know I have the Candyman in the hold," Max said

"Oh," Gillian's voice said, a touch of surprise in it. "I didn't know that. He's as good as cash, and he just bought your life. You'll have to thank him right before I shoot you myself then." Max was relieved that she wasn't just going to blow him up, but this presented a new challenge for him. 

"Missile" stopped flashing over the top of the radar screen, but Max didn't see the flash of an explosion. He turned to look, and he saw the missile streak past his pod and go not more than 60 feet past the Mako and explode in a flash of white light. The instrument panel of the Mako flared and the explosion rocked the Mako hard and to the right, throwing Max against his safety harness. The Mako began a slow spiral away from her original course and the blip on the radar closed slowly toward her.

"Just making sure you weren't playing. You really are out of fuel, aren't you. You'd be gone by now if you weren't," Gillian taunted again. "Don't go anywhere, Maxy, I'll be there to collect my money and that crate of yours soon enough."

Max unbuckled his harness and started feeling under his seat. He came back with a crumpled pack of cigarettes. He squeezed it open and saw but one paper-wrapped treat inside. A frown contorted Max's face. "Damnit," Max said softly and put the ruined pack back under his seat.

"What's wrong now Max? Something new troubling . . ." Gillian's voice came over the speakers.

"Nothing," Max said, cutting her off and flipped the VOX switch back off. "Bitch," he added quietly. He leaned back in his seat and waited for the Megalodon to pick him up. He didn't wait long. 

Gillian's ship maneuvered under the Mako's spiraling trajectory and maintained distance. Max ruefully punched a short code into the keypad and his landing gear came down. The Megalodon trusted up and caught Max and his ship on the foredeck and he felt the entire craft shift downward slightly as the deck's magnetic locks engaged. The main hanger door opened slowly, the door's shells collapsing down into the main foredeck and two men came out of the hanger with heavy cables in their hands. They were attached to the rear landing gear on the Mako and with a hard jerk; Max began to be pulled inside. Inside the hanger he saw three more of Gillian's men with their black jump suits and helmets on. 

The hanger door expanded upward again and the room sealed. A small light in the upper left corner of the Mako's pod came on and Max knew there was atmosphere in the hanger. Lights inside the hanger itself powered on and the soldiers around him took their helmets off. Max opened the side of the Mako's pod and climbed out onto the step, keeping his hands in plain view of everyone in the room. The main air lock spiraled open and a tall, redhead stepped out onto the hanger floor, one hand on her hip and the other supporting her as she leaned against the door.

"Oh Max, I wish you could see what you look like right now," she said her voice still husky. 

"And how's that?" Max asked defiantly.

"Pathetic," she said and pulled a gun from her back, pointing at Max. She giggled and her five men around the Mako gave a short but hearty chuckle. Max rolled his eyes. He shifted his gaze to Gillian. She straightened her aim on him a little. "Come on down, Maxy, we can't detain you while you're up there, at least not without hurting you." Grudgingly Max jumped down and three of Gillian's men were around him instantly. Two of them produced guns of their own while a third began patting Max down. The gunmen were positioned so that if they shot and missed, the bullets would sink into the Mako; a fact that was not lost on Max.

"Such well trained little lap dogs," Max mumbled just loud enough for his temptress to hear. The guard patting Max down stopped for a second and punched him in the face. Max took the blow, his head jerking violently to the side, but his body remained firmly standing. He straightened his head upon his shoulders to look into the eyes of the guard. "Do it again," he said, his eye twitching. The guard backed up a step.

"He's clean," he announced to Gillian. He backed up to a safe distance from Max, but took care not to turn his back the man before him.

"Good," Gillian said. "Lock him up," she said and turned to leave, tucking the gun back into the belt of her leather flight suit. She took a step through the door and turned her head as it was closing. "Oh, and get the Candyman out of that pile of shit," she said and the door irised completely shut behind her.

The two men not guarding Max went to the rear of the Mako and opened up the cargo hatch. The hatch itself wasn't even the size of a garbage can lid and the compartment inside wasn't much bigger than the can. Inside they saw a man, barely conscious, an oxygen mask tied to his face and a thermal blanket wrapped tightly around him. He was drug out of the hatch and dropped on the hanger floor and the hatch door was closed. The pressure seals sucked shut with a hiss and the two men carried the Candyman off through the door into the air lock into the ship. 

"So what are you going to do with me then?" Max asked the man in front of him. He smiled in response.

"Me? Nothing," he said. Max heard the clank of a boot on the metal mesh decking and knew what was coming. He felt the butt of a gun smash down onto the back of his head and then was embraced by the darkness.

Max awoke to the coppery tang of dried blood in his mouth and a headache that would drop a charging rhino. He was vaguely aware that his arms were hand cuffed to something over his head and that his feet were both asleep and not quite firmly under him. He opened his eyes and a rush of pain took him, but he forced his eyes to stay open. There was a dim overhead light in the small room he was in, and he immediately recognized it. This was one of Gillian's cells: a converted utility closet with a heavy copper airline running through it. The room had barely any space at all in it, but at least it was more than he had afforded the Candyman in the Mako's hold.

"Well, time to leave," Max said under his breath to himself. He stood the best he could with his sleeping feet and he began to wrench on the pipe he was cuffed to, twisting it in its fittings. Max hoped they hadn't fixed it since the last time Gillian had caught him. He suppressed a grunt and was rewarded with a quiet squeak as the pipe gave under his powerful hands. After a few turns, one end of the pipe was free. He slid his handcuffs off the end of the pipe and set to looking about the small room for something to pick the lock with. As he looked, he screwed the pipe end back into its fitting on the other side of the wall. A small pile of dust was in one corner and he managed to find a small screw and an Allen wrench entombed in dirt and dust bunnies. 

"Thank Franklin Delano Roosevelt for the minimum wage," he said to himself. He picked the lock on his right cuff but kept the left side locked on his wrist. The Allen wrench and screw went into his pocket and he draped his arms back over the pipe, his left hand toward the door and his right hand behind the pipe, holding the empty cuff. "Now for a little attention getter," he mumbled to himself again and started kicking at the door. It was only after three or for decent belts that the small sliding panel that had been installed was thrown open. Max only got a quick look through the slot, but he didn't see anyone else in the hallway beyond the guard.

'Might as well take the chance,' Max thought.

"Hey! Quiet down in there. I can't kill you, but you don't need both a'yer knees, savvy?" the guard shouted gruffly in a thick Earth accent. The panel slid shut and that was exactly what Max was waiting for. He kicked the door as hard as he could along where the lock was still hopefully attached. The door caved in easily under his heavy foot and he felt it slam into the guard, his foot still carrying the door. The follow through on the kick hit the guard and Max heard him slam head first into the bulkhead on the other side of the hall. Alarms and sirens started going off. Those were new, he hadn't counted on those. 

The guard started to stagger to his feet and he pawed at his hip for his gun. Max turned him around, grabbed his pistol, and threw him against the broken doorframe in one fluid motion. The guard slumped to the ground and began to breathe in raspy gurgling draws. Max looked up and down the hall with the bulkheads to his back; he knew that was the hull of the ship. There were two more doors in the hall, one to the left of his and one to the right. The hall was open to both ends and went around corners and out of sight. Max unlocked the door to the right of his, opened the slide so he could see out and jumped in. He barely got the door shut before he heard boots tromping down the decking of the ship.

"What's going on...oh Jesus Matt!" the guard yelled and moved past the view slit in Max's new door. He bent down in the hall and was out of sight. "Holy mother, he really worked you over, didn't he, buddy," he said, checking over the wounded man. Max opened the door a little and stuck the pistol out.

"I should radio in and tell Gillian that . . ." he started. He stopped when he felt the muzzle of a gun press into his jumpsuit over his kidney.

"That nothing happened and there's a glitch in the alarm system," Max finished for him quietly. The guard's hands went slowly out to his sides and Max leaned in and took his gun. "That's a good boy, you've played this game before, haven't you," Max taunted. "Why don't you stand up slowly and don't worry about your friend right now. He's just taking a little nap." The guard got to his feet slowly and carefully. He slowly turned to face Max, his face drained of color and his eyes full of panic.

"Alarms bother me. Shut it off," Max said quietly.

"I have to radio in," the guard stammered out.

"Do it."

"This is Alexanderson, false alarm, the door's malfunctioning," the guard said after touching the collar on his jump suit and speaking into it.

"Alexanderson? What the hell, you're not supposed to be . . ." a crackly voice echoed up from the neckline of Alexanderson's jump suit. The transmission was interrupted by Max's pistol firing. Max's arm moved down to point the gun at the man's hip and he squeezed off a round. Alexanderson's hip shattered, spraying little bits of bone, flesh and blood along the wall. The guard's screams filled and echoed through the hallway, and probably throughout the entire ship as he spun and slumped down. Max pistol-whipped him on the way by, his feet moving almost before the guard fell. His scream ended and he lay on the floor by Matt, unconscious and bleeding.

Max charged forward. He really wasn't sure whether he was on the port or starboard side of the ship, but he would find out soon enough. He really hoped he was heading for the bow and the hanger instead of the bridge and the engine room. He threw open the door and saw that he was wrong.

Inside, he glimpsed a man standing in front of the door, cocked back in a baseball swing with something in his hands. There were two other guards beyond him, both with guns drawn and pointed in his direction. He was on the bridge, but he didn't see any signs of Gillian anywhere. His luck, he'd be attacked from behind.

Max dropped. He ducked backwards and let himself fall, just barely fast enough to have the big man with the pipe miss his head. Max's shoulders hit the decking and he fired a shot into the big guard's boot, just under the armored kick plate. The steel toe under that wouldn't offer enough resistance to stop the bullet. The guard lost his balance from not connecting with Max and his momentum carried him around in a circle. With his freshly wounded foot, he spun almost completely around twice. Max kicked his legs back under him and kipped up off the floor. He grabbed the guard before he fell and kept him spinning until his back was to Max. Max pulled his other gun and held it to the wounded guard's chin as he was using him as a human shield, his other gun pointed at the other two guards in the room. 

"Drop it," Max said to the guards. The wounded guard he was now mostly supporting dropped his pipe. It clattered to the floor and rolled halfway to the other guards. They dropped their guns and put their hands out to their sides. Max started to back out of the bridge when he heard the undeniable double click of a hammer of an automatic pistol being drawn back and felt the cold steel barrel press against the base of his skull.

"Why don't you follow suit, Maxy," Gillian's voice said calmly. He sighed heavily and dropped the big guard to the floor. He hit with a thud and began cradling his destroyed foot and moaning softly. He turned slowly, both guns still in his hands, and faced Gillian. She kept the barrel pressed against his skin, and he turned until it was resting against his nose and digging into his cheek. He looked into her sparkling ice blue eyes and felt himself almost smile. Almost. His arms went limp, and the guns feel from his relaxing hands; one hitting the guard on the floor, and the other clattering against the metal decking of the bridge. He stood there, unmoving, unblinking, and nearly not breathing for what felt like an eternity, staring into those deep blue liquid pools. A smile lit up Gillian's face and her eyes seemed to go from sparkling to glowing and she stepped closer to Max. She pressed her chest to his and stood on her tiptoes and her lips went to his ear.

"Still not killing people?" she whispered sensuously, her hot breath making Max fight back a wash of goose bumps. Max felt her move the gun from her right hand to her left. He could feel the guard on the floor twitch and start to squirm more. Gillian's tongue flicked out against Max's ear and he was unable to suppress the shiver or the goosebumps this time. She gave his earlobe a soft bite as she pulled the trigger of her pistol. Max felt the guard on the floor twitch and then lay still. "Was it as good for you as it was for me, Max?" she breathed huskily into his ear. She giggled and backed up a step. She was flush with excitement, her eyes glazed part way over, and her heart was beating so hard Max could see her jumpsuit move with its quickened rhythm. Max just stood there, starting at her, his eyes meeting and not leaving hers.

Gillian's remaining two men were standing, their mouths open and their eyes wide. They slowly looked at each other and then back to the body on the floor. After another quick glance at each other, they retrieved their weapons and resumed their positions on the bridge.

"See how easy they are to train? Besides, drones like these are so much easier and cheaper to find new than to give medical attention to. You didn't make the others have to die, did you?" Gillian asked, her eyes still glazed. She stuck the tip of her tongue out between her lips and licked them seductively.

"One will be fine in a few days. I shot the other one. I imagine you'll let him bleed to death," Max said coolly. He was beginning to flush, too, but with anger instead of excitement. Gillian giggled a little.

"Well, whatever works best for me. The Consortium will pay better than the police for you, however, and that's where we're going now. I'd worry about that rather than the guard bleeding out and dying because you shot him. Now, be a dear and put this back on," she said and tapped the empty cuff dangling from his left wrist with her pistol. Max instead twisted forward, the empty cuff flying to the end of the slide on the gun and down into the space between the hammer and the slide. He jerked forward and she pulled the trigger, clamping the cuff in place, not firing the bullet in the chamber as it should have. Another quick flip of the wrist and the gun slid to the end of the handcuff catch and off into his ready right hand. He pulled the hammer back again and spun her around into him with the gun to her liver before she even realized fully what had happened. 

"Tell your men to drop their guns," Max whispered into Gillian's ear. He felt her try to twitch and Max dug the gun in, the front sight grinding against the base of her rib cage. "I can't stop until you let me," he whispered again. Gillian let out a little whimper.


Hunters Ch. 01



Author's note:

It had to happen. After wrestling to find a concept that didn't feel old and boringly familiar, I end up with elements that have all been done before. In my defence, I would like to point out that there are still only 7 original plots.

===============

I saw her on one side of the dance floor, laughing, chatting and flirting with a couple who radiated a sexuality so confident that I could see more than a few other patrons either frightened or jealously angry at them, although Rachel, I knew, would have been attracted like a cat to a catnip mouse.

He was wearing skin-tight, gleaming black pants and a black shirt, silk-shiny. She, I saw from the back at first, had a legs-hugging skirt over knee-high boots with 4" heels, and a high-collared blouse, skin-tight across her back.

Rachel glanced around in the middle of a sentence, flirting with her whole body in her dress which made it so easy, and caught sight of me across the club, raising a shapely arm to beckon me over.

So things had been going well, then.

The night before, we had planned this with our usual care as we settled into the hotel and unpacked.

"I like the sound of this Faith," she said as she peeled her maroon blouse over her head, leaving her in a simple satin bra as I was trying to work out if we had been given enough coat hangars.

"Huh?" I asked, my brain trying to switch tracks and process what she had just said.

She stretched, popping half her vertebrae and thrusting her breasts forwards so that I lost all track of where I was and whether she had just asked me a question or not.

She rolled her head to look at me, saw me appreciating her chest and, smiling sweetly, bent down until her face, in my line of sight, was just above the down-swelling curves of her breasts. That didn't really help.

"I said," she continued as she reached behind herself to undo the zip on her skirt, "I like the sound of this Faith."

"Definitely promising," I agreed, without taking my eyes off the creamy flesh of her cleavage until she straightened up and pushed her skirt down her legs, showing me mesh, see-through panties that she doesn't normally wear with business clothes.

This was the fifth trip that we had taken like this, as I packed up my laptop and took my freelance writing on the road while her new job as an industrial relations troubleshooter took her around the country from corporate hotel suite to corporate hotel suite.

"Why are you still fully dressed?" she asked as her skirt pooled around her bare feet.

I abandoned my attempts at unpacking, and peeled my regulation black T-shirt over my head and threw it into the corner.

We have a routine now. The first night, we christen the bed. The second night, if possible, we go out to a decent alternative club and try to find someone to invite into it.

So far, the most difficult bit has been finding the right club. Finding someone delicious, adventurous and available had, so far, been comparatively easy.

Rachel had her bra off by the time I was stepping out of my jeans, and got sufficiently distracted by the extremely flattering, second-skin shorts I was wearing that I had time to close the distance between us, wrap her in my arms and throw her back onto the bed.

She laughed, spontaneously, and the sound morphed into a gasp and then happy moans as I wrapped my lips around one cool nipple and sucked, at first gently and then with increasing pressure, feeling it stretch up between my teeth until she hissed and clutched at my head.

I changed to her other nipple, my fingertips trailing gently over and around the breast my mouth had just vacated, as her arms fell back over her head in surrender, until the pressure once more grew too much and she gasped, lifting her torso off the bed as her hands clutched at the sheets.

I moved my head to the side, tracing my lips down the curve of her breast to meet her ribcage, then following the line where the two joined, back onto her front, then down, over her bellybutton and onto the lace edging of her panties.

Her sighs of pleasure gained in depth and feeling as my lips brushed over the mesh fabric and over the rise of her mound beneath it. I traced the outline of her shaven lips, from end to end, and blew softly through the mesh, making her arch off the bed towards my mouth.

Years ago, she challenged me to make her cum without taking her panties off. I succeeded, by being gentle and unrelenting until she was sobbing for release. Ever since, we've done that as warm-up in a new bed.

I pressed my nose against her clit and licked over her lips, letting her feel the pressure and the moistness but not actual contact with my tongue. She shuddered underneath me, and her hands writhed over her breasts, seeking out her nipples.

I opened my mouth wide and pressed down, letting her feel the tips of my teeth before I closed, scraping my teeth over the length of her lips, as she shuddered and groaned deep in her throat.

I closed my lips around the top of her slit, squeezing the flesh around her clit and sucking hard.

She had been day-dreaming of this all day - we both had - and she came with a slow build that climaxed not loudly but long.

Her panties were wet as I pulled them off her limp legs, and as her eyes fluttered open I sucked them into my mouth with visible relish.

Her face twisted into a half stoned, half sultry and all hungry expression as I peeled my shorts off my already hard cock and stepped out of them.

I walked onto the bed and knelt over her chest, bending my cock down until she grabbed it at the base and swallowed it, craning her neck upwards so she could take it to the back of her throat.

I had to grab her head and pull back before I came, ignoring her pout as I slid down her body, lifting her knees and folding them back, holding her legs spread wide with my hips as I slid into her in one quick, wet thrust.

I fucked her steadily and hard, my mouth moving from hers to her neck, her breasts, her nipples, to the edges of her breasts and back to her mouth until we came together, her screaming at the hotel room ceiling and pinching my nipples as hard as she could, me biting the muscle on her shoulder.

As we lay recovering, before I released her legs or pulled out, she said "So, Faith?"

#

The next night, when she returned from wherever her office was that day, I had takeaway waiting and had already showered and shaved everything south of my chin.

She ate ravenously, unwinding with a stream-of-consciousness dump about the incompetence she had to face from the locals as, the good partner who had been lounging about with only a deadline for company, I offered sympathy until she was relaxed enough to chew before swallowing, taste before gulping and have her own shower.

She came out naked and still damp, and sorted through her clothes with a faintly tuneful whistle as I lay on the bed with a raging erection and struggled with our self-imposed pre-club abstinence.

She found a maroon G-string to go under a Chinese-style maroon dress that had a large, circular opening over her breasts, fitted her not quite like a second skin but definitely like latex, and which made it quite obvious that she both wasn't wearing a bra, and didn't need to either. High heels left the best pair of legs I have every seen exposed to view high enough to invite hopeful double-takes.

"Well?" she asked, pivoting for my inspection.

"I refuse to answer, on the grounds that I am unable to string a coherent sentence together," I replied, every instinct in my body screaming at me to rip the dress off her with my teeth.

She laughed, and headed back to the bathroom to do her make-up. "Get dressed, don Juan!"

I had tight black boots over my calves and over black latex pants. The pants had a silver-buckled belt, and a white shirt with ruffles at the wrists and down the half-open front tucked into them.

We had matching spiked collars, and she added studded bracelets on her wrists, the rest of her arms bare. She put her hair up in chopsticks, I let mine down around my shoulders.

When we got to the club, she headed straight in while I paid the taxi driver and then, the door not being too busy, struck up a conversation with the bouncer, finding out a little about the regular clientele, a little about the music, a little about the neighbourhood and the safest way to head back to our hotel.

I managed to delay my entry long enough that by the time I was down the stairs, she had found us some friends.

This was our fifth time hunting, and always so far it had been singles - three girls and one defiantly confident boy it had been a pleasure to teach about himself.

But, ever since our first success, we had dreamed of finding the right couple. When I saw her as the centre of three figures, all almost simmering with sexuality, I dared to feel that tonight was going to be torrid.

Then the woman turned around, with the casual confidence of the supremely self-aware, and my breath was almost driven from my body.

Her blouse, which had risen to cover her neck in the back, opened wide around her shoulders in the front, dropping down over the outside edges of an incredible pair of breasts, the fabric curving inwards only barely high enough to cover her nipples. I knew then that, more than anything, I wanted to taste those breasts tonight.

Rachel met me with a full-body, throat-clearing kiss, before whispering into my ear "Aren't her tits fantastic!"

She introduced me to Christopher, who shook my hand and hugged me with his other arm, closely enough to give a hint of a promise of later, more intimate contact.

Mirka wrapped her arms around me, her groin pressing firmly into my legs, and gave me a kiss nearly as deep as Rachel's before whispering in my ear "Your girlfriend's tits are fantastic!" She left me with a painfully throbbing erection, a warm glow of satisfaction and a tingling imprint of her hand, deep in the muscles of my arse.

Christopher left to get us all drinks - we were all on red wine - and both women draped themselves over me, flowing against my body with the boneless flexibility that all sexy women have and which I can never quite emulate.

"Christopher and I," Mirka said, her fingers nearly raising sparks through my shirt as they played around the outline of my nipple, "would like to invite the pair of you back to our place. Rachel has offered your hotel room, but we have so much better, I think. And you must stay for breakfast."

My head was spinning with the high, clear sensation of being so aroused that life was mine to play with. Rachel leaned over my chest, her breasts burning into my arm, and captured Mirka's hand, pressing it hard onto my chest. "please say you've got a dungeon," she asked, voice husky with excitement.

I was very close to spontaneously cumming when Christopher returned with drinks, and Rachel peeled herself off me and draped herself onto him.

I could quite easily have fucked any of them right there, but the night was demanding a more subtle game.

Nobody lingered over their wine. 

The taxi ride a short way to where Christopher and Mirka had renovated a century-old house was a beautiful torture of relaxed conversation with multiple layers of hidden subtext and flirting.

Inside, we all took off our shoes in the hallway before Christopher headed for the kitchen, Rachel attached to his hip, while Mirka saw to the stereo, grabbing old Bauhaus seemingly at random. I ached to touch her, but I held off until she had pressed play and turned around, when I was right in front of her.

She grabbed me hungrily, turned me around and pushed me up against the wall for a deep, probing kiss while her hands deftly undid my shirt the rest of the way down, pulling it out of my pants and then undoing those, as well.

When she slid down my body, mouth almost trying to eat my flesh, I looked up and locked eyes, through the kitchen door, with Christopher. He was leaning back against the kitchen bench, shirt and trousers open, as Rachel slid down his body.

The two women swallowed our cocks simultaneously, as Christopher and I continued to lock eyes. He was beautiful, his chest lean and pale, his face expressive but expression steady. I had the almost giddy thought that he was how I wished I could look, as his wife's attentions made me increasingly light-headed, and actual thought became difficult along with it.

Mirka worked my pants down my legs as she worked on my cock, and I could dimly see Rachel doing the same to Christopher.

The focus between Christopher and I added to add to the eroticism of the moment as his wife swallowed me, a charge seeming to build up in the air between us.

I felt as hard in her mouth as if I were wearing a cock-ring, my head past tumescent and into the throbbing, near pain of swollen.

My balls were tight, and sensations crawled across their surface as she cupped and squeezed them in her long, cool fingers. I knew that Rachel would be doing something similar to Christopher, with more activity.

I was throbbing almost as soon as she pulled me through her barely parted lips, and I was rushing towards climax with dizzying speed. 

When I came, I saw Christopher's eyes droop closed as he tensed and shot into Rachel's mouth, and the connection between us was lost.

I was so hard in Mirka's throat that cumming hurt, and I only barely remained standing as I emptied myself into her mouth.

When I opened my eyes and looked down, not a drop had escaped Mirka's lips. She opened her mouth to show me my cum coating her tongue, then closed it and swallowed very deliberately.

As she stood up, I stepped out of my pants and let my shirt fall off my shoulders, then pulled her blouse over her head as she gracefully raised her arms, leaving her naked above the waist, a well-designed shelf bra the only support her incredible breasts had needed.

She stood quietly while I unzipped her skirt and pushed it down her legs - she was wearing no panties - and when I stood up, Christopher walked out of the kitchen followed by Rachel, both naked and carrying, between them, an open bottle of red wine and four glasses.

Nobody actually spoke as wine was poured, thirsts slaked and throats rinsed, and nobody actually led as we all moved next door, where a long table filled most of the dining room.

The women moved to opposite ends of the table, stood with feet wide apart and bent forwards, grabbing each other by the wrists to brace themselves and beginning to kiss as Christopher and I moved behind them.

I didn't even think of a condom as, still rock hard, I gripped Mirka by the hips and thrust hard into her cunt.

She felt incredibly, almost unnaturally, good as I buried myself inside her body and she gripped me so hard that pulling back took an effort.

Rachel, never able to lie still, was twisting on Christopher's cock and moaning into Mirka's mouth as they hungrily sucked on each other's tongues.

Neither Christopher nor Mirka were making any sound beyond wet slapping and sucking noises, and I had the sudden, giddy thought that Rachel and I were experiencing everything, and our hosts, nothing.

I looked up at Christopher and caught his intense, pale grey eyes and once more felt trapped by his gaze, pumping hard into his wife as he slammed into mine. I saw his eyes widen slightly and it was almost as though, without moving, he had reached across the metres between us, grabbed my nipples and twisted sharply.

I cried out and came, squirting just as hard into Mirka as if I hadn't already cum that night. I was faintly conscious of Christopher's body tensing and of Rachel twisting and shouting into Mirka's mouth as she orgasmed.

I sagged, staggering, and pulled out of Mirka with a wet pop more by accident than design.

As I fell to my knees, Mirka twisted on the table, rolling onto her back and moving up the wood to rest her arse on the edge. Christopher had to help Rachel do the same, and somehow the two women didn't once break their kiss, still locked together, now with necks twisted to the side.

Mirka spread her legs wide and, with open mouth, I fell onto her cunt, somehow only tasting her sharp and musky juices with no trace of mine. Somehow, too, I knew that Christopher was doing the same to Rachel, and yet with his eyes locked still on mine, even through the women lying between us.

I licked along her lips, lingered over her clit, probed her entrance with my tongue, slipped two fingers inside her, as I was used to doing with Rachel, then felt a sudden urge to add a third and, when I did, felt unaccountably happy.

I knew that Rachel couldn't last long - not just after having a cock inside her, not just after cumming already and not while having her mouth taken so hard by another girl's, but Mirka didn't hold out either, and as I felt her contract hard enough around my fingers to cause me pain, and lifted her hips off the table, I heard Rachel's muffled screams again.

Mirka didn't spurt, but she definitely gushed and I was suddenly, desperately hungry for it all, sealing my mouth over her lips and sucking as she came, then sticking my fingers in my mouth and sucking on them as my head spun down into a black hole of unconsciousness.

I didn't pass out completely, and I vaguely felt myself being lifted and placed on the table, then my head turned and my lips placed against Rachel's, a ribald chuckle somewhere in the background.

In dreamlike moments of semi-lucidity, I became aware of other, newer, voices, of Rachel weakly, automatically, trying to kiss me, and then of a sudden, muted, sharp pain at the base of my cock, and a mouth pressed to the wound.

A similar pain under my right nipple, and a velvety pair of lips pressed to my chest, woke me up enough to see a narrow-faced woman with short hair and scarlet lipstick sucking upon my flesh. Not feeling any reality in the moment, I rolled my head to the side and back to see an older man with his mouth over Rachel's nipple, and a thin trickle of blood escaping his lips and running down the curve of her breast.

My movement caught the attention of the woman sucking on my chest, who caught my chin in her hand and twisted my head back towards her, her face suddenly springing into sharp focus, all sharp plains and vivid green eyes.

"He's still awake," she said, an amused note in her voice.

I felt the mouth next to my cock leave, and then heard Mirka's voice saying "He's drunk less of me."

The face above me laughed. "You do so choreograph things, don't you, Mirka? You should put more thought into practicalities, and less into aesthetics."

I began to move weakly, and heard Christopher say, from far above my head, "She'll do. Deal with him."

The woman above me opened her eyes wide, I felt myself falling into them, and this time I fell into unconsciousness completely. 



Hunters Ch. 01



"Schmitt, Krunor, drop your guns," she said softly.

"I don't think they heard you," Max said softly, twisting her right wrist harshly with his meaty hand. "Tell them again. As a matter of fact, tell everyone." Max felt Gillian's body soften a little against his and she reached up and touched what Max now saw was a small silver disk on the inside of the flight suit's collar.

"All hands to the bridge. We've been taken over by our prisoner," she said. Max heard her voice over the speakers in the bridge and the two men running the ship tossed their guns to the back of the room, one skittering to a stop against the dead man, the other sliding against the metal grating until it hit Max's boot.

"Good girl. Let's go for a little walk," Max said and pushed her forward with his leg and body. He forced her to the front of the bridge, where he was surrounded by glass windows and partially hidden by the front of the helm system. Gillian was still positioned in front of her as a shield as her remaining 5 men came in, looking confused. The three that came in from the port side hall had their guns drawn. All five of them saw their Captain simultaneously. Some of them vaguely seemed to register that there were 4 guns on the floor before they drew their guns and pointed them in the direction of Max.

"No!" Gillian yelled. "Don't shoot! You'll break the glass and we'll all die!" she said in a panic. Two of the five men looked confused and the other kept their aim in the direction of Max. "Put your guns down, and that's an order," she said sternly. They all dropped their weapons and added to the growing collection on the deck. "All right cowboy, you have a military ship with a crew of 7 unarmed men and their Captain who all work for the Consortium. How do you plan on getting out of this one?" Gillian growled at him.

"Set a course change," Max said, looking at the helmsman. "We're going to Robinson's." A very concerned look crossed the helmsman's face as he laid in the coordinates. Concern was showing on the faces of the rest of the crew as well.

"Sir, Robinson's Asteroid is approximately 30 minutes away," the helmsmen said nervously.

"That means we'll be within weapon reach in five," Max said, watching the stars shift position as the ship made a graceful arc to starboard. The helmsmen swallowed hard. Max stared at the seven men before him. Three of them in the back had begun to relax, and this was making Max nervous. One hero would knock the whole plan out of control and he couldn't have that; mostly because if things got out of hand in a hurry, they would all die. The type of loyalty that Gillian demanded didn't exactly need intelligence as a pre-requisite and that would actually be a hindrance under her command.

"You there, in the middle," Max said nodding to the man in the center of the back of the room. "Go get five pair of handcuffs so all of you can be a little less comfortable," Max said. The man scowled and nodded and disappeared. "The rest of you, come forward and keep your and hands in the air. To the sides, boys, no body touches anybody. Keep 'em there until he gets back with your new jewelry."

The men all moved forward and did as they were told. It was another minute before the guard returned with the cuffs.

"Hand cuff yourselves to that bar a head of you. Both hands get a bracelet, gentlemen," Max said. "Hey, open a channel, to frequency 822 point 7891."

"Channel open, sir," the navigator said, his voice cracking nervously.

"Tom, you there?" Max said in a slightly louder than normal voice.

"Tom's down in the hanger, this is Jen. Identify yourself," a voice said over the speakers in the bridge, accompanied be a lot of feed back. All of the crew cringed and Max could feel Gillian tighten up.

"Turn your VOX off," he said softly. Her hand went to her collar and pressed the small silver disk again.

"Jen, this is Morgan, I'm coming in on the ship you have on your radar screen. Do not shoot," Max said very clearly. They all heard a chuckling come over the speakers.

"Morgan, we've been expecting you. We heard about you getting away from Europa. We were wondering how long it would take you to coast out here after getting through the gate," Jen said and started laughing softly. Max could hear an alarm buzzer coming softly through the speakers and Jen stopped laughing. "Morgan, you're sure this is you coming in? I have something a lot bigger than the Mako on my screen here," Jen's voice quivered nervously.

"I know, I'm not in the Mako. That's why I was very clear when I said to not shoot," Max said again calmly. "Why don't you send an escort out to meet us and have an ambassador ready when we land," Max added. He could hear a door open and slam in the background,

"What the hell!" said a gruff deep voice. "Who the . . ." it started to shout.

"Tom! Listen, its Max. I was on my way back and I got a little side tracked," Max said into the room.

"Well, you don't say," Tom's voice echoed through the bridge of the Megalodon.

"No, I do say. Listen, I'm gonna need an ambassador when we land, and preferably an escort to the third tier just in case the Consortium decides to come get their ship.

"Done. Anything else?" Tom's voice came back, sounding serious, but with a twinkle of laughter trying to peek through.

"Yeah. I got the Candyman," Max said matter of factly. Laughter poured over the speakers.

"You got a 375 million woolong ship, plus weapons. Who the hell cares about a 3 and a half million dollar bounty head!" Tom said, still laughing.

"I also have Gillian Vallemara," Max said. Tom stopped laughing.

"You have who?"

"Yup. You know anyone else that has a vendetta against me that works for the Consortium?"

"No one that's the captain of a 'Don. Ambassadors are waiting. Should be here in about 20 minutes. Just don't let them do anything stupid; I'd hate to blow that thing up on the pad," Tom said coolly. A rustling sound followed by the undeniable opening of a lighter and the striking of a flint was heard quietly over the speakers.

"I'd hate for you to have to, Robinson," Max said. He nodded to the navigator and he turned the radio off.

"You like this, don't you. You like the power, the control," Gillian hissed after a moment of silence. Max shrugged and dug the gun in a little deeper, twisted her wrist a little harder.

"There's no power here and no control. There is only people who are willing to act and those that are unwilling. I'm holding the gun because you made a mistake. The fortune could switch in an instant," Max said loud enough for the entire bridge to hear him.

"But it won't, will it Max," Gillian said and her body went even more limp. Max tapped the pistol against her rib cage.

"I think you need to be a little less relaxed," Max said softly. "The situation favors me because I made sure nothing could go wrong that I couldn't handle," he said a little louder. "It has become impossible for you to get out of it now. If you change course, you will be destroyed. If you do anything suspicious, you will be destroyed. If your men even try anything screwy in here, your Captain dies, your helmsman dies, and your navigator dies. The ship won't land right and you will be destroyed. But I am not in control. I have no power here," Max finished. He let go of Gillian, pushing her from him and backing off. "But I'm still not taking chances. Give me the keys to this," Max said, holding up his hand and shaking the handcuff. Gillian unhooked the key ring from her belt and tossed the keys at Max. He caught them and found the handcuff key, his eyes never leaving Gillian, the gun continuously pointed at her body. The restraint came off with a click and Max tossed them to Gillian. "Join your crew," he said. 

Gillian, beaten, walked up to her crew and handcuffed herself to the same bar that they were chained to. Max sat against the handrail in front of the bridge's windows and waited patiently for the next 19 minutes to get over with. They were some of the longest minutes of his life.

The Megalodon landed, the helmsman responded perfectly to the commands given to him by the control tower. As they landed they could see 25 men in full combat armor, each carrying brand new military issue A-7 sub-machine guns. The doors to the Megalodon opened and the ambassadors poured into the ship, heading directly for the bridge. 

"Maxwell Morgan," said one of the ambassadors as he stepped forward. It wasn't a question, it was a statement. Max noted that this was one of the few people in Robinson's command that had had extensive military training.

"Yeah," Max said, still leaning on the railing.

"I am to escort you to the hanger immediately. A pilot will bring your ship to the hanger for refitting and refuel," he said harshly. Max nodded and stood up. He walked to toward the ambassador, tossing the gun to the helmsman. He gave a wry smile as he passed Gillian.

"Catch me later," he said and gave her a slap on the ass. She bared her teeth and gave a little growl at him as he walked off the bridge. The ambassador escorting Max was silent the entire way to the main hanger. Max figured he must have been a new recruit, that or he was still gung-ho from the military. As they entered the building he could hear the engine on the Mako fire up and he heard the thrusters kick in. The door in front of him was opened just as he heard the slight scraping of metal on metal from the landing gear of the Mako rubbing on the decking of the Megalodon.

Inside the hanger, there were a small assortment of mono-racers, and then a bright red one in the very back that looked like it had been through hell and back. A huge black man in tan mechanic's coveralls sauntered up to Max and the ambassador that had escorted him left through the door they had just entered.

"Mr. Robinson," Max said respectfully and bowed his head a little bit.

"Mr. Morgan," Robinson said with the same tone and gesture. A moment of pause was shared between the two and Robinson was the first to break it. "So, you have a bounty to turn in to me then."

"Yeah, he's somewhere on the 'Don. I don't know where they stashed him. I was too busy getting here before the Consortium picked us up," Max said plainly. He was looking around the hanger and one mono-racer caught his eye; a big red racer. "Is that the Swordfish back there?" he asked, some excitement showing in his voice.

"What? Oh, yeah. We intercepted it on a Consortium freighter. Old man Doohan put out a bounty for it. He said 'If Spiegel ain't usin' her no more, ain't nobody gonna use her.' It's only 5 mil, and I told the old man we'd trade him for some parts if he picked up hazard pay for the shipping. It's working out better for both of us this way," Robinson said matter of factly. Max started wandering across the enormous hanger to go over and see her.

"I never thought I'd see this thing up close. She still the fastest in the Sol system?" Max asked. He had suddenly become almost giddy with excitement.

"She's supposed to be. She's pretty banged up right now though. What was left of the Syndicate didn't do her any favors. Consortium stole her from them and banged her up some more. We took it from the Consortium and she took some flak from that attack. Engine still kicks over just fine, and she's gotta be the most responsive mono-racer I've ever seen."

"Wow," Max mumbled and looked at his fingers after running them along the hull. "Must have been something when she was new."

"She will be again. Doohan can't help but tinker and he'll get her back to her prime condition in no time, whether she just sits on his floor or whether she gets used." Max only nodded in response and came around the rear of the craft, meeting back up with Robinson.

"Well, about my pay then," he said, the excitement gone from his voice, but not from his eyes.

"We should negotiate that. It seems the Consortium is rather concerned about the welfare of one Captain Vallemara. They were informed that I'm both concerned about the welfare of my crew and our operations out here. They agreed that it is wise for a business man to be concerned about his property and workers and that perhaps an agreement could be made to the benefit of both parties," Robinson said, a small smile creeping onto his face.

"I bet they did. What did you say to that?" Max asked. Just then the ambassadors walked back in with their 9 captives bound and at gunpoint. The door had no more than closed before an explosion rocked the building and a fine layer of dust settled down on everything and everyone in the hanger. Maintenance crews working on the ships inside looked around nervously. The Ambassadors marched the prisoners through the hanger to another steel security door and inside.

Both Max and Robinson watched them disappear and the door close behind them.

"I'll have to say 'we recovered your Captain with her space craft, but the damn thing had a bomb set in it and blew up on our launch pad. Aside from a pact of non-hostility toward each other, we will need about 10 million woolong for repairs and for the family of one of our dock workers that were slain in the incident.' How's that sound?"

"Sounds damn fine to me," Max said. He knew the Megalodon wasn't destroyed out on the pad, but its transponder was. "One thing though, I want her." 

"See, that's the funny thing about finding a derelict ship that's been gutted by a bomb. If you found her, she's yours," Robinson said as he patted himself down. His hands stopped and he reached inside his coveralls and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He offered one to Max who accepted.

"So what then, about a month for re-fitting?" Max asked, the unlit cigarette dangling from between his lips. He struck the lighter and passed it back.

"Yeah," Robinson said and put his cigarette in his mouth and lit it. He exhaled a cloud of gray blue smoke and put the pack back in his coveralls. The hanger door opened and the Mako flew in low to the ground, it's gun arms up and thrusters firing as one of Robinson's workers piloted her to a clear work area. She touched down gently and her engines shut off as the main hanger door closed again. "Yeah, about a month."

"How long for a refit and refuel on the Mako?" Max asked after taking a long drag on his cigarette. Men started swarming around her, each of them working on something different. One opened up the ammunition magazines and yelled numbers to other men waiting beside the work area. Others checked the mono-pod itself out, and still others started looking at the engine.

"As soon as you wake up," Robinson said gravely. Max looked a little confused. Robinson nodded and took a pull of his cigarette. "I like having you here Max, but it's just too dangerous, even with this non-aggression pact. You need to not be here until you can come pick up the 'Don. I'll let you get some sleep, but only because I know you need it and you look like death warmed over. Candyman is okay and the credits have been added to your account. The Mako will be ready in a few hours. Hell, I'll even have her repainted for you."

Max only nodded and slowly walked toward the door he knew led to the barracks and to his own room. Robinson kept it for him because he never knew when Max would be coming back. That, and there wasn't a cowboy out there as reliable as Maxwell Morgan.



Hunters Ch. 02



**This is a direct continuation of Chapter 1, please read it first so you have some idea of what's going on. 

Thanks for reading and don't forget to vote!**

Max came back to reality, but he fought it the entire way. He was at home on Io and everything was neat and perfect. He had never joined the military, but instead chose to stay on Io and go to school for ship diagnostic and repair. He married his high school sweet heart and they had three kids together. It was a beautiful afternoon and they were all outside playing in the sunshine. The dream had started to distort; everything sounded distant. The image began to shift, as if someone had thrown a rock into a still pond that contained the dream. Max didn't want this to be a dream; he didn't want this to be not right. He was comfortable and it's where he wanted to stay. 

"I don't want to be," Max said in his dream-stupor. His eyes opened and he saw the end table with its cool blue digital display showing that it was 5:30 in the morning. "Here," he said a little louder, a look of hopeless disgust crossed his face and faded away. He sat up in bed and a soft light came on in the ceiling and slowly brought itself up to full illumination. Max wiped the sleep from his eyes and swung his legs over the side of his bunk. He looked around and his clothes had been washed and folded, put on a chair on the other side of the small room. A towel was just barely seen peeking out from under them. Max grabbed it and headed off for the showers in the barracks.

The barracks were empty already. Robinson no doubt had them hard at work on something. The shower was hot and good, but it left him feeling lonely as he stepped out from the hot water into the coolness of the dorm. He put his clothes back on, laced up his boots and secured the armor plates on them. He got a look at himself in the mirror on the back of the door, as he was ready to leave his room.

A road-weary but awake face stared back at him. Two green eyes shone over the rest of the picture; clear, sharp, and alert. The neatly combed short brown hair wouldn't stay that way for long if there was trouble, but it was in place for now. His cheeks had been shaved smooth in the shower, and his tan skin was clean and free of nicks and cuts. The powerful jaw muscles clenched once and the power under his skin shone through the smooth exterior. Max's eyes traveled up to his hair again and his brow knitted slightly together.

"Get a hair cut, hippie," he said quietly to himself. He laughed a little bit and pulled the door open, walking again out into the empty barracks, his thick combat boots echoing solidly in the virtually empty room. The hanger lay directly across the barracks, separated only by a steel door set into the concrete wall. It wasn't more than 50 feet, but it seemed to take 5 minutes to cross. Max's hand hit the handle and he pushed down. "Gonna be one of those days," he said quietly and pushed the door open.

The hanger was not quiet, and it was obvious in a heartbeat where all Robinson's men were. They had moved the Megalodon inside and they were working on it. The ship was large enough that the roof trusses barely cleared the hull of the ship. Her gear weren't even down because it would have made her too tall for the hanger; she was wheeled in and the treads used to do it were still under her.

The men working on the ship had stripped off most of the outside armor and were working on removing some of the weapon systems. Massive power cables went inside the underbelly of the ship and were sprawling around the hanger like an explosion of instant noodles. Max spotted Tom and walked over to him.

"Morning," Max said.

"Last time I checked," grunted Robinson. "Some of us haven't been to bed yet," he added gruffly. He took a sip of the coffee he had in his hand and fished his cigarettes out of his coveralls. The pack was shaken and a cigarette danced half way out of the opening. "Breakfast?" Robinson offered.

"Don't mind if I do," Max said and took the cigarette. He produced his own lighter and struck the flame, drawing the nicotine deep into his lungs and exhaling slowly, savoring the taste.

"The Mako is ready to fly. You've got 50 thousand rounds of machine gun ammo, we patched your armor, cleaned the cockpit, reloaded you with 20 missiles, and she's got a fresh coat of paint. Like normal, we deducted the costs from your credit," Robinson said as he got himself a cigarette from his pack. He seemed to make a point of not looking at Max while saying this, instead focusing on the tear down of the Megalodon.

"How much was all that?" Max asked. He took a draw on his cigarette as Robinson lit his.

"Hundred and seventeen five," Robinson said, the cigarette bouncing with his lip. Max coughed the smoke out of his lungs and tried to catch his breath. Robinson continued to survey his crews working.

"Jesus! Was she that beat up?" he asked after regaining some composure. 

"Expensive paint," Robinson said matter of factly, stealing his glance from the work before them to look at Max just for the instant it took to speak. Max shook his head. He wasn't quite sure what to make of Robinson some days. "Anyway, key's in the ignition, she's got enough fuel to get to Neptune if you absolutely had to," Robinson added.

"Good deal, I don't plan on going to Neptune," Max said and started walking to the Mako. It had been parked at the very front of the shop, a good 50 yards from where everyone was working on the 'Don. His cigarette hit the shop floor as he got near the Mako and it burned itself out on the cold concrete. He climbed in, his pants sliding on the conditioned leather of the seat and making that creaking and sliding noise that only new, clean leather does. He looked around the pod and saw that it was probably cleaner now than when Max stole her, and it hadn't been this clean since. He shut the door and turned the key in the ignition. The system checks ran, lights flashing rhythmically on the instrument panel. The display screen went through the regular start up procedures and Max felt the Mako come alive. He kicked the gas and she lifted up off the ground. He spun her around quickly and Max saw the door was still down.

"Wanna open this thing up for me?" Max said after turning the VOX on. 

"Open Sesame," Robinson's voice came over the speakers without emotion and the door started opening. "Oh, one more thing," he added, some of the spark entering his voice again.

"Yeah?" Max asked as he waited for the door to open enough that he could leave.

"I stole your last cigarette."

"Bastard," sighed Max and kicked the thrusters down, blasting out of the hanger with just enough room to clear the door. Laughter came over the speakers in the Mako and Max switched the VOX off.

The trip out of Robinson's protected space was fairly fast, and Max was pleased to see that the radar was clear. He needed some time to cool off, and he was hoping to get it at Robinson's, but that just wasn't going to happen. He wasn't feeling like Venus, and Mars was out of the question. The next closest place this time of the cycle was Earth.

"What a shithole," Max said to himself. He still had to get to Mars to go through the gates, but he didn't think the government would find him in the time it took to get through. Max leaned down and one-fingered the keypad and a small rectangle of static popped up in his head's up display. He pulled the trigger on his right control stick and the channel changed. He stopped when he got to 99. The static changed to the end of a commercial and then the familiar cheesy western music cropped up.

"AMIGO!" shouted an all too familiar man. "How are all 450,000 bounty hunters in the Sol System doing!" Max actually cringed down in his seat, producing another squeak from the leather.

"It's been a long six months off the air, but we're back to give you all the news on the desperate desperados and the vile villains in the system!" the blonde bimbo squealed. They were replaced by the "Today's Menu" screen and Max was almost pleasant to see that he was the first one shown.

"Maxwell Morgan is wanted for destruction of private property, destruction of military property, theft of military property, and forcing his way out of a Martian Military compound! He was last seen in the Mars vicinity and should be considered very dangerous!" the man said again, with some extremely too close close-ups on his face and eyes. 

"He's worth a 7 and a half million! His bounty was raised by an anonymous source right before the broadcast! Keep your eyes on this one!" the dizzy blonde squealed. The picture they flashed up of him was in his Martian Special Forces uniform, his dress blacks. His hair was closely cropped to his head and he was a year younger, but the eyes were unmistakable. They were the calm, cool eyes of a predator simply waiting for his opportunity to strike.

"Next up is this city slicker from Io, Lelund Kromwell. He's wanted for armed robbery across the system and for massive damage to public property. We don't have any leads at all on his whereabouts but if you see an explosion, he's probably not too far behind! It seems that . . ." the dude in the cowboy getup started saying but was cut off by Max shutting off the TV.

"Why couldn't they have just stayed cancelled?" Max groaned to himself. At least the gate trip would only be a couple hours; he was bored already. Max's mind started drifting to his dream and how much better things could have been. He went again to the children he could have had, the family he should have had, and the place to where he belonged. That picture slowly changed in his mind to Robinson's and the Martian Military and the small cockpit he's currently in being his home for the last year or so.

"You chose it buddy, you did it to yourself," he said softly into the silence. He looked down with a deep sigh and saw a blip ahead of him, just on the edge of his radar. His eyes seemed to light up a little and he leaned back and fastened his harness. He switched on the VOX and set the radio to scan. It cycled quickly through the channels, but it picked up nothing but static. The blip was getting closer in a hurry, and apparently it wasn't moving. He slowed the Mako down and swung wide of the object in question so he would miss it or turn around to get a better look at it if he chose. 

As he was just passing it, sunlight hit the object; it looked to be a torn up two-seater fighter. Max looked down to the display and grunted.

"You weren't here yesterday," he said to himself. He slowed even more and circled around again with his maneuvering thrusters. He got a better look at it on the slower approach and saw that the entire craft was riddled with small craters in the metal and there was a halo of slivers of armor around the craft, looking like a never-falling metallic snow. The glass of the cockpit was completely smashed out, and only jagged shards along the edge of the frame were still part of the craft. Inside, there was what looked like remains of two people, though it was hard to tell what killed them first; the bullets that shredded the cockpit or the explosive decompression of exposure. Either way, everything on the inside of the cockpit was covered in red chunky carnage. "Probably the bullets," Max said to himself and kept looking through the craft from his pod. 

He stopped the ship and put it into a holding position with the other craft. Max unbuckled his safety harness and stood up as best he could in the pod while trying to dig around in the compartment under the seat. He found his space suit, and it too had been cleaned and was neatly folded under his helmet. He put it on quickly, over the tops of his clothes and locked his helmet into place. The small computer in the suit registered that the suit was locked and that he had 45 minutes of breathable air. Max punched the keypad and the lights in the pod began to flash red. The small display screen read, "Depressurization in Progress" and flashed it in time with the lights. After 5 seconds the lights stopped flashing and Max opened the pod to go outside.

Using what he could for handholds along the hull, he made it to the storage compartment under the pod and unlocked it. He dug around for his tether and hooked one end onto his ship and the other end to a clip in waist of the suit. Max pointed himself at the destroyed ship and kicked off the Mako. He drifted slowly toward the other ship and turned around so he could absorb the impact with his legs and not simply push the other ship out of his way or worry about cutting himself on broken glass. He connected with the ship and carefully worked his way inside. 

The blood had been there a while; all the water had flash boiled out of it in the heat of the sun. All that was left was a thick, hard deep crimson residue with the occasional spur of bone and other formerly pulpy organ that added some color to the whole scene. It was nothing Max hadn't seen, or done for that matter, before. He looked and saw the same deep craters in the cockpit as he had in the outside hull.

"40 mm penetrators from the looks of it," Max said to himself and turned to where the pilot's head would have been. "I don't know what you did to whom, but they were pissed," he said to the empty space in front of where chunks of hair and skull were embedded into the leather around bullet hole that two of Max's fingers could fit into. He kept looking through the cockpit and started moving around bits and chunks of its former inhabitants. He got the seat compartments opened and found an envelope made of a large sheet of rice paper and sealed with black wax and a signet impression. Max didn't even need to look at it to know that they were Black Dragon couriers. He kept looking through the compartment and found a black metal briefcase with gold dial locks. He picked them up very carefully and looked through the other seat compartment. He didn't see much of interest; it looks as if their lunch had been in there before the decompression got it. Little bits of fruit and chunks of God only knew what were all over the inside.

"Easy come, easy go, fellas. Hope the next world treats you better than this one did," Max said and kicked off their ship. He turned around and connected softly with the Mako and put his tether back in its compartment along with the briefcase and the rice paper envelope. Once they were safely sealed inside, he made his way back to his pod and closed the door. He got in, punched the keypad and the cabin lights started flashing green while "Stabilizing Atmosphere" flashed on his display. Once the cabin lights returned to normal, Max took his helmet off and unzipped his flight suit. He pulled his arms out of it and rolled it down to his waist and then sat back in his own seat. The Mako's engine powered up and he was off.

"Could be a bomb," Max thought out loud. "Only one place to take a possible bomb in a suitcase," Max added to himself and started to nod. "I just hope the old bastard doesn't shoot me before I can talk."

The trip to Earth went much faster than Max was thinking it would before he found the Black Dragons' ship. Much faster.

After his ship was scanned and the credits deducted for the gate toll, he blasted into Earth's atmosphere and headed for Tijuana. It was the armpit of Earth, but you could get anything there; and best of all there were almost no cops. He made for a parking that would take mono-racers and fighters and landed there. It was expensive, but they took good care of your ship while it was there. He parked the Mako on a spot inside the multi-storied hanger, as close to the center as he could to keep as many people from just noticing the military fighter as he could. He'd never had any problems before, but Max was never casual about parking just anywhere, either.

Max got out of the pod and got a good lungful of the air and started coughing. He took a deeper breath and smelled the rank on the air and sighed deeply. "Ah, TJ, my hell away from home," he muttered and made his way to the street. At street level, the city really came alive.

Everything could be bought and sold in Tijuana. Top flight drugs, government secrets, government agents, sex slaves; you name it, they sold it. More importantly, if you had it, they could tell you what it was. Max wanted to get that case to Bernie as quickly as possible, but he didn't want to get caught with it in broad daylight, either. He'd take care of getting a satchel to carry it in first, and then he'd worry about the rest later. Most importantly he wanted some food, real food. Not that crap they grew on Mars. Nothing beat a range fed beef cow, but outside of the cities on Mars there wasn't any range, so no range fed beef. That was the first order of business. Take care of that, and then get a bag to get the case to Bernie's.

Food stands were everywhere. It didn't take him long to find one that sounded interesting, if not just down right good. "Beef and Bell Peppers" was a small cart that Max could have smelled from the hanger if he was paying attention. He walked up to the cart and nodded to the old man running the stand.

"What do you have?" Max asked. The old man gave him an incredulous look.

"Caintcha read th' sign?" he half yelled at Max. Max raised an eyebrow and dug a neat fold of bills out of his pocket. He gave the man 20 woolong and he got a pint container full of rice and beef and bell peppers smothered in that brown sauce that all Chinese food is drowned in. It was the best tasting food he had eaten in weeks. While eating and wondering, he found an army surplus store and bought a drab green duffle bag that would work well enough. With his goals accomplished, he wandered back to the Mako and got the briefcase and the envelope out. With them in the duffle bag he hiked the two miles to Bernie's permanent booth, deep in the market district of Tijuana. 

The lights were on when he got there, and he was pleased to see that a make shift door had been bolted into the empty frame that Max was used to seeing. He pushed it open and he heard a service bell ding over the top. The interior of the shop was dimly lit, and most of the items lining the shelves were clocks and small boxes with locks on them. Junk was crammed everywhere in the shop and the only thing that looked to be organized in the small room was a piece of pegboard with what was probably thousands of keys on hooks. Then there was Bernie, standing behind the dirty glass counter with a pump-action shotgun, pointed at Max's head.

"That's close enough, damnit. You nearly had the Consortium close down my shop last time you was here Morgan, I don't need that again. I'm getting' too old and too tired to be putting up with the shit that you track in with you. I don't need that shit, Morgan, you hear me!" the old man raved as the door shut.

"Well, if the Consortium is that pissed off at you, I suppose you don't even want to see what's in the bag."

"Hell no! Take your AWOL ass out of my shop!"

"Guess you don't want to be set straight with the Consortium then," Max said, he gave a shrug and a deep sigh and opened the door to leave.

"No wait just a galldern minute. Set straight? You got rocks in your head boy?" Bernie said and began easing the shotgun down. Max unzipped the bad and reached inside, grabbing the envelope and the case. "What do you think you have in there that would possibly . . ." he started back up again and Max set the case on the counter with the envelope on top. The Black Dragons' seal stood out prominently on the rice paper.

"Think that might do it?"

"I'm not even gonna ask. Some stray dropped it off; and as fer as I'm concerned, that damn stray will find it in the dumpster by 9 tonight! Now get the hell out of my store you damn hooligan! Out!" Max smiled and walked back out the door. He looked at a clock as he left and saw that it was 5 in the afternoon. What could he possibly do for the next 4 hours in Tijuana? A smile crept over Max's face and he wore it all the way to the Soldier Bar.




Hunters Ch. 02



Author's note:

I had been intending to get this written much faster. Call it life hitting me about the head with a rubber dildo.

This follows immediately from episode one, the imaginatively titled "Hunters, Ch 01", and will make no sense at all unless you read that first. 

The sex in this one is less, and it is more about story and background. Call it delayed gratification.

####

When I awoke, it was in our room at the hotel, and I was alone.

I felt so dehydrated that I crawled to the bathroom, the room swaying crazily about me, and gulped water from the taps until I was full.

That took all the energy I had, and I lay on the bathroom floor, shivering violently, until I could crawl back into bed and, with shaking fingers, punch for room service.

I ordered tea, coffee, orange juice, toast and spinach omelettes for two, and could barely summon the energy to be civil to the girl who bought them before falling to as though I hadn't eaten for a week.

I ate, and drank, everything before I felt even remotely full, and then showered frantically, trying to avoid the two small, thin cuts in my groin and under my right nipple, then dressed, then sat on the bed and tried unsuccessfully to think as shock set in and I started to shiver again.

I don't know how long I sat there before I dragged myself to my feet and into the tiny kitchenette, where I had enough equipment and supplies to make a large plunger of quite good and very strong coffee and then lean against the counter drinking it and finally feeling the horror settle and become genuine and tangible.

What the fuck had happened? A vampire cult? I threw myself into the bathroom, pulled up my T-shirt and stared at my chest. The cut was a clean line, not two puncture wounds of any type. Yet I had certainly lost a lot of blood, and, although it made me sick to my stomach to think it, Rachel was not here.

When Christopher said "She'll do," did that mean that they had drained and killed her? Or where they still holding her captive? That thought finally drove me to action.

I finished dressing, choosing my walking boots, and grabbed my shoulder bag containing everything, including a multi-tool but not including my laptop, which comprised my full-day, away from home kit. I even slung a thin jumper through the strap.

Then, on the way out, I passed the doorman and went around the corner before asking a newspaper vendor for directions to the nearest police station.

#

"Have you tried calling her mobile?"

"She never takes it to clubs."

"Are you sure that she hasn't returned to the hotel?"

"She hasn't let me know."

The constable nodded. "Could you wait here, please, sir? I won't be long."

I waited. It was that, or run away, and there really wasn't much point to that.

We had gone through who I was, who she was, distinguishing features, what she was wearing, and finally how I knew that she was missing and why I was already worried. I was steeling myself for the thinly disguised allegations of spousal abuse and where, hypothetically speaking, I would have left a body if I, hypothetically speaking, had decided to murder someone.

It didn't take long for the interview room door to open, but it wasn't the constable returning. It was a weathered, hulkingly tall plain-clothes man with a sour look on his face that was, I strongly suspected, permanent.

He sat without introductions or other ceremony.

"Mr Lawson," he said with a voice as weary and as sour as his appearance. "did they drink from you as well?"

I stared at him, speechless.

He sighed, obviously not patient enough to let me work through things in my own time. 

"Mr Lawson," he continued, no change in his tone or expression. "take off your shirt."

Wordlessly, I lifted it far enough to show the scar underneath my nipple.

"Right, that takes care of verifying your innocence, and I can even understand why you lied to us, but it really doesn't help. Mind starting again?"

"If you know that much, why aren't you asking me for a blood sample?"

"Because they don't use drugs," he said phlegmatically. "As near as we can tell, it's a form of hypnotic process. Now, would you mind starting again?"

I didn't leave anything out, this time, and when I had finished, the man in plain clothes said "Do you know the traditional penalties for lying to the police, Mr Lawson?"

"Probably bigger than the penalties for keeping something like this from the public," I replied, trying to keep a handle on my temper.

The detective (presumably) leaned forwards across the table, his face getting slightly darker.

"Mr Lawson," he said evenly, "very few people have made complaints, and even fewer have chosen to continue after the hangover has worn off. You, Mr Lawson, are the first to report someone missing."

"Maybe they don't normally take couples home," I snapped. "How many people have never turned up without being reported?"

I didn't need my journalist's instincts to tell that I had touched a nerve. He looked as though he wanted to get me interred, somewhere remote and final.

"Don't worry about other people," he snarled, "You're not out of the woods yourself, yet."

Ah, thinly veiled allegations of spousal abuse. Finally. 

I took a deep breath. "You have already said... I'm sorry, you haven't told me what your name or rank was."

"No," he said, "I didn't." 

Ah. Right. So it was to be like that. Did I tell him, at this point, that I automatically record all conversations I have with authority? No. Probably not my best move right now. 

I decided to just wait him out, instead.

It turned out that he was better at intimidation than at patience.

"Mr Lawson, I have been doing this game a lot longer than you," he said bluntly. "I would strongly advise you to cooperate."

"Then ask me a question that doesn't insult my intelligence," I replied, my patience growing thin, "or give me something. Who, or what, are they?"

The look he gave me this time was more calculating, and he evidently decided to give me some credit, because the next thing he said was actually information.

"If we knew that, we would have a better handle on what to do about them. They might as well be fucking vampires. To answer your previous questions, nobody has gone missing in circumstances we can link to the same group, and no, we have never had any complaints from couples."

He suddenly leaned forwards across the table, his height bringing his head disconcertingly close to mine. "I am telling you this," he said evenly, "Because you are the first person to lodge a complaint while not obviously hung over, and because you are the first couple we are aware of."

As he said "hung over", I had a sudden flash to Mirka saying "He has drunk less of me," and shivered, the flash of recall as sinister as it was vivid and unexpected. 

The plain-clothes man, still leaning across the table, had no trouble seeing my shiver, and broke off in mid flow, only that sudden, out of synch cessation of movement betraying the switching of his thought processes. 

"What have you just remembered?" he asked, sounding for the first time like a colleague, rather than an adversary.

I didn't answer for a moment, taking a slow, deep breath as those moments of the night that I couldn't remember before unspooled in my head. Most of it was the interesting stuff, the details between Mirka first sliding down my body, mouth open against my skin and headed for my painfully hard cock, and the pain under my nipple bringing me back to semi consciousness. 

I took a second deep breath as he waited unreadably. 

"More details," I said slowly, before telling him the intimate bits, some of which actually made his expression change. 

"We've taken blood samples from all previous victims," he said slowly, "Without finding anything. But it could be either a drug we can't detect, or something with a very short half-life in the body, or ..."

"Maybe it's just a catalyst," I suggested helpfully, "and it's still a mostly hypnotic process. I'm pretty sure the rules have changed, but I've always had an extremely low susceptibility to hypnotism."

Trying to help may not have been the best move. His brow darkened, almost imperceptibly. "I should add, Mr Lawson," he said evenly, "That we must ask for your complete discretion as regards everything we discuss here today. Without it, it is extremely unlikely that we will be able to help you at all."

I stared straight back at him. "I can assure you," I said sincerely, "I have no intention of discussing this with anyone."

I didn't stay much longer - there wasn't really much more that could be said. When I left detective Blake - he had finally admitted his name - I took a bus in the right general direction, went several stops until the cafés started looking good, got off, found somewhere that looked more than usually alternative-friendly, ordered lunch and extremely strong coffee, fired up the Skype client on my mobile, and put a call through to an old university colleague of mine who was working for the better local newspaper.

"Al!" he said as soon as he picked up. "What can I do for you?"

"Might have something for you," I opened. "What do you know about people being abducted from nightclubs and then dropping the charges?"

"Al," he asked, "Are you talking about the vampire thrill cult?"

"WHAT?" I practically shouted down the phone. 

He chuckled. "Thought you were. What do you know about it?"

"You first," I demanded. 

"That fucking story," he began, "is this city's longest-running non-event. Every month, just about, someone approaches the police, or one or another of the media outlets, complaining about having been drugged at a nightclub, abducted, made to participate in group sex, bizarre rituals, bleeding - the details vary, but generally always include blood-letting - and then, just as the story is getting together, they withdraw every allegation, every word, get very embarrassed, and disappear from view. Most frustrating fucking recurring story I've ever encountered."

My stomach tied itself into a little knot as I listened to him. What the hell was happening in this city?

"So," he continued meaningfully, "what have you got?"

"Have there been disappearances linked to any of this?"

"Not that I've ever head of," he replied, "What have you got?"

"Not sure," I hedged. "Someone may be trying to spin the outsider a little yarn - some variation on urban legends. I promise that I'll bring you in on it."

He laughed, sarcastically. "I'll be waiting!"

#

I headed back to the hotel, walking half on autopilot, my legs choosing a pace that saw me weaving in and out of other foot traffic as my brain tried to process everything I needed to take in.

When I reached the hotel again, I was still too distracted to really pay attention to the staff, who I had been cultivating for good treatment and possible gossip, or I may have picked up a small clue instead of nearly getting a heart attack when I opened my room door, walked through to the bedroom and saw Rachel sitting on the bed, waiting for me.

I did not react normally, whatever "normally" should have been.

I stared at her, instead. Used to analysing my own reactions, I was shocked to find that I had too many to count, and could only stare wordlessly as my brain clogged and restarted the thought processes to try and regain clarity.

She smiled at me, wanly.

"You have noticed," she said, quietly. "They didn't believe me, but I was sure you would. You always did have the self-awareness."

I had noticed something, but I still had no idea what it was.

Then she stood up, and I finally saw. She was achingly, compellingly, beautiful.

To me, she always had been, but not like this.

She had always been great at dancing, but had always moved with efficiency and self-assurance. Now, as she stood up, she moved like a dancer who had energy and poise to spare.

"What happened?" I finally found my voice.

"I joined them."

She was standing as if on the brink of movement, a sense of balance and, somehow, stillness, that I found profoundly disconcerting and profoundly troubling.

"Joined them?" in the absence of knowledge, of understanding, I threw her statement back at her as a question.

"I couldn't turn them down when they offered," she continued, evasively.

"Rachel, who offered you what?"

She took a deep breath, as if steeling herself for this moment.

"I'm a vampire, now," she said in a very small voice.

I just stared at her, not sure whether she was joking, or whether I was hallucinating.

She sighed, sounding both achingly sensuous and helplessly sad.

She started to walk towards me, and I had a sudden, shocking flashback to Mirka. Without knowing that I was even moving, I came up hard against the door behind me.

Rachel looked as though she was on the verge of crying.

"You know that I have changed, and you know that it can't be natural," she said emptily. "I don't know how to explain it to you!"

That was too much for me. I wrapped my arms around her and held her as she sobbed into my shoulder. It took me several minutes to realise that my shoulder wasn't getting any wetter.

She noticed my reaction to that, and pushed herself away from me, wiping her eyes with a quick, automatic and unnecessary gesture that seemed like the most honest movement she had made since I had walked in.

"We don't cry," she said bluntly and a little angrily, "or a lot else."

That finally decided it for me. I took her hand, and led her back to the bed.

"Tell me," I said. "Everything. We've got all the time you need."

She laughed, suddenly and a little hysterically. "I'm sorry," she gasped. "I do have all the time I need, now. More time than I ever imagined."

This further evidence of her difference made my stomach clench, but I willed myself to keep a straight face, and to listen to her.

"Mirka and Christopher," she began, slowly, "Are vampires who hunt in nightclubs. They pick up a threesome partner, or one will pick up a partner alone, and they will take them back home and feed off them. Last night was their first foursome in many years, so they invited their friends to join in.

"They only ever take a litre at a time, between them, sometimes not even that, so nobody ever dies. Sometimes someone gets frightened if they can't remember what happened last night, or the cuts frighten them, but how can you seriously maintain a complaint if there's no obvious harm, and no drugs present?"

I almost mentioned my visit to the police, but stopped myself, wanting her to finish before I upset her train of thought.

"Last night," she continued, "Mirka misjudged you, and you woke up too early. So you remembered, didn't you? You noticed when they had me completely under control, because you weren't."

My mouth was dry, and I couldn't stop myself from interjecting. 

"What happened?" I asked. "How do they put people under, and why did I wake up?"

"We're ... Hypnotic," she said haltingly. "But our bodily fluids are like mind control drugs."

"'He drank less of me'," I repeated. "I went down on her once, and I kissed her, but you ... "

"I drank all of his cum," she continued, "and that would have been enough. But then he came inside me, as well, and I also kissed her while he was doing it. I was helpless not to become their bitch, really."

Her candour, part of our normal morning-after conversation, suddenly made me supremely uncomfortable.

"It doesn't work through the skin?" I asked weakly. 

"Not very well," she replied. "So, you woke up early, and you remembered more. I don't remember anything after he came into my mouth in the kitchen - just his incredible taste, and my need for more."

I found myself nodding, in the memory of that driving but unreal lust.

"I woke up this morning," she continued, "and they gave me more. But this time they kept me awake, and when they had finished with me, they told me that they had enjoyed me so much that they wanted to keep me, and offered me the chance to join them.

"I wasn't even myself," she recalled. "I couldn't give proper consent, but they were too selfish to take the risk that I would deny them. So they asked when I was a helpless little cum-slut gasping for more cock.

"And here I am," she concluded, weakly. "I'm one of them, now."

I found myself completely bereft of the right question, or the right thing, or indeed any thing, to say. I just stared at her, mind too full to process what she had been saying, while she had been saying it.

She just continued looking at me, with an air of slightly helpless expectation that finally drove me to start thinking properly.

So, okay. If we were going to play this game, and have her wait on me, I would take my time. 

So I looked at her - properly looked, for the first time since I had first fully realised her strangeness.

She wasn't different in face, although she was slightly different in figure - the slight depredations of being 30 reversed, a tightening and reshaping too subtle to escape the notice of anyone who didn't look at her as closely as I did, every day - but there was something alien besides the unnatural new beauty that glowed from every plane and angle of her features.

I'm not an expert, but I was once a psychologist, and I was her lover besides, and once I started looking it didn't take me long.

"You're not being honest with me," I said flatly, feeling a terrible sense of betrayal but keeping myself rigidly sitting next to her on the bed. "Your emotions aren't real."

"I don't have emotions any more," she said, as rigidly as I was sitting.

"I have hunger, and satisfaction, and anger, and jealousy and that is about it. I try to make myself feel, but I just don't have the capability any more. I know that I love you, and I remember what it felt like, but I can't feel it now.

"They tell me that faking emotions will become easier with time, and that I will learn to adapt to their absence, forget what they felt like and stop missing them, and that now I'm a more refined being, a finely tuned predator, but that doesn't stop me feeling like a machine."

Suddenly, the flatness in her eyes was broken by a very real flash of anger that nearly terrified me, no slow build-up of frustration possible to give warning or dampen the explosion when it came.

"I cannot feel!" she shouted, hitting her fists against my chest hard enough to stagger me. "You could fuck me, and I would feel you moving inside me, but I wouldn't feel arousal, I'd just feel flesh! My body responds, but I don't! I want to fuck strangers and kill them because I'm jealous at their petty pleasures! Satisfaction is the only thing I have left, and that means being a predator, it means hunting people for their blood!"

Her memories made her try to find solace from anger in tears or bitter, self-mocking laughter, but neither option was available to her, and she threw herself away from me, pacing like an angry tiger.

I tried to swallow in a throat gone dry, and forced myself to talk, to ask questions, to distract her. 

"How much blood do you need?" I asked. 

She laughed, harshly, a single bark that was purely from memory. 

"Oh, we still eat and drink, and we can even taste, although we don't get pleasure from the tastes themselves. The blood taken from us last night was enough for a week, for all four. It is not needed to fuel or sustain our bodies, but the power that keeps us alive, the vampirism itself, needs more than substance."

She sounded as though she was parroting by rote what she did not fully understand or appreciate, and almost certainly was.

"We are not just vampires because we feed on blood," she continued, "we are alive because of it. We really are undead. Without the vampirism, we are nothing.

"And the vampirism needs to feed off the life of others.




Hunters Ch. 02



"Mere social interaction will do it, but that's poor fare. Sex is fifty times better, but blood itself is ten times better than sex. It's like..."

Here rote repetition failed her, and experience took over. She faltered, as she sought for the right words to describe something new.

"It's like drinking pure caffeine," she said, finding an analogy I would appreciate.

"It's not like being drunk," she continued. "And you don't even notice the food value of the blood. You just feel so POWERFUL. Maybe that's what heroin feels like, I don't know. It's... not the blood itself, but the blood is a conduit for life. It's like the difference between GSM data and optical fibre."

At this point, I was happy to let my journalist's instincts take over and just keep asking questions. 

"If blood is a conduit, what about cum?"

"Half as good as blood," she said with a trace of a twisted grin flitting across her lips.

"What about sunlight?"

"We take damage from UV faster, and heal slower, but it's not something we can't manage."

"Garlic?"

That laugh was still from memory, but it was happy and sounded more genuine. 

"Garlic's healthy," she said, "and an antibiotic. It's good for us!"

"Do you need to breathe?"

She nodded. "The body is still biology."

"Poison, then?"

She shivered in sudden revulsion, and it seemed starkly real.

"The body is poisoned," she said, "but the vampire still lives. We can become properly undead, and even an animated corpse. Given time, anything can be healed if the vampire continues. Which is why, before you ask, the only sure way to kill a vampire is to kill the body by destruction - fire, beheading or destroying or removing the heart - or starvation. And if that happens, the body decomposes normally."

"Religious iconography?"

"As genuine as the religion. If you find one that works, let me know."

"Wooden stakes?"

"Wood is what was once alive and is now dead. It causes a spreading decomposition while it's in touch with our raw flesh - even our skin may not be enough defence. For the same reason, we have to drink blood directly from the living vein. Once it's begun to cool, it's poison to the vampire."

I suddenly realised that although I was talking as a journalist, I had let my emotions blunt my skills, and I belatedly noticed that she was facing me directly, and staring at me very steadily. With a shock, I realised that she had to be wondering if I was intending to kill her.

I stared at her, lost for words and beginning to realise the full significance of what had happened.

For a moment, we were at an impasse.

"You came back," I finally said. "Did you have to?"

She seemed to decide to trust me, then. She came back to sit beside me on the bed, and held my hand in hers, a gesture that may have been calculated but which I appreciated. 

"I need to maintain my old life," she said, "but they offered to make you my human servant. They were against me being honest with you."

I nearly asked about that "human servant" bit, but decided that if their powers of short term mind control were that good, I could guess as much as I needed to for the time being.

"Thank you," I said, for many different reasons. "What do we do now?"

She took a deep breath. "Can you live with me?" 

I looked her straight in the eye and said "Yes," without even having to think about it.

"Then we keep on going," she said. "I still eat, can still go out in the sun, don't get repelled by crosses any more than I used to. I don't even need blood, if I'm having to deal with people all day."

"Really?" I asked. "I was hoping we could try something new. I was getting bored with just nipple clamps."

She laughed again, a bark that mingled appreciation of the joke with a growing realisation that her intellectual response would not be accompanied by an emotional response.

"You," she said, "are a pervert."

"Yes," I replied, "and that's why you love me." I kissed her, full and lovingly.

"I can't argue with that," she said, breaking away for just long enough to say that, then returning the kiss with interest.

I pulled back, this time, although the sexual contact was affecting me as much as it ever had, if not, with the added emotional turmoil of the day, more so. "If you don't feel sexual pleasure, but you feed on energy, what do you feel?"

She didn't entirely let go of me as she answered.

"I already said satisfaction, but that's only part of it. I feel hunger satiated, and the more I eat the more I feel."

"The better you are, the better you like it," I ventured, deliberately finding the dirtiest angle I could.

She bared her teeth at me, a gesture that had been sexy even before the threat of biting me gained a new dimension.

"You could say that," she said. "And since I intend to maintain our current arrangement vis-a-vis more or less monogamy, I'm just going to have to get all my gourmet meals out of you, aren't I?"

She put her hands on my shoulders and pushed backwards, rolling on top of me as I landed on my back on the bed, but the movement had dislodged one final piece of unanswered question from the back of my mind, and I grabbed her hands, holding them still.

"Hold on," I said as she raised a questioning eyebrow, "exactly why the fuck does a vampire need to cut their victims?"

"Well," she drawled out as she drew her legs up beside me and rested her pelvis on mine, causing a deliciously sweet ache in my swelling groin, "I'd like to be able to say that it's to keep a low profile, or to be neater, but the truth is," she drew her lips back to her gums, revealing a perfect set of human teeth, "no fangs."

"Well, that's a bit of a let down," I said in my most disinterested voice.

In answer, she lunged forwards and expertly caught my nipple between her teeth through my shirt, making me cry out in surprise yet still arch up towards her.

"I'll still bite you if you want me to," she hissed against my ear as her fingernails drew down my chest to the hem of my shirt and reversed, peeling it off my skin.

I almost said something witty in response, but the sex in the air, the mingled emotions of shock, confusion, relief and lingering betrayal, and the unreality of how desirable she was, and how her body was affecting me, were all combining to make thinking difficult.

I had held on for as long as I could, but my nervous energy was wearing out.

I tried to process what she had just said on all its levels - flirting, candour, calculated assessment of opportunities - but she sat up and pulled her dress over her head, releasing her braless breasts, and I reached for them with a mindless and undeniable impulse.

I barely heard her croon in encouragement as I held her in my hands and wrapped my lips around one nipple, suckling with less than my usual, effective, skill and more raw need.

Her skin tasted human - salty with a night's worth of sweat, her own distinctive taste still present but now more compelling, the texture silkier, her smell driving conscious thought from my head with a rush of pure lust from my groin.

"It's a pity I can't lactate at will," she murmured as she gently detached my mouth from her now rigid nipple, and pushed me back on to the bed, moving up my body in one cat-lithe movement to hold her moist and bare pussy above my mouth. "You should be able to drink me. It'd make you such a helpless little slut."

I felt myself drowning in her scent, no longer able to process what she was saying, and I needed no extra encouragement to open my mouth and slide my tongue along her lips, pathetically eager to taste her dew before worming my way inside her as she lowered herself onto my face.

She rocked above me and crooned in encouragement as I felt my head sing from arousal and yet whirl about an insubstantial and black pool inside it.

I felt that I should recognise this feeling, but it was distinctly unimportant as I heard her murmur "Poor thing, so weak still. I was so hoping for a challenge. Don't go under, my dear, I need you to know what I'm doing to you.

"Now drink me."

With a small gasp that, even then, had the quality of a remembered sound about it, she came, and I felt the splash on my lips.

I swallowed her cum as greedily as I had swallowed Mirka's, but I did not spiral in to oblivion this time. I felt something holding me and, looking up along the taut length of her torso, past her tight breasts to her bright but hard eyes, I knew in my bones that I was, helplessly, her slave in every thought and deed.

"Good little puppy," she purred down at me, before placing her hands on either side of my head and, with a startlingly fast flick of her body, throwing her legs back straight and dropping on top of me, her tongue thrusting possessively into my mouth and licking around the inside of my teeth.

She glided down my body and suddenly I was deep inside her throat, crying out even in my fugue state as she sucked me with vampire concentration adding to her intimate knowledge of my reactions.

I felt her will locking my wrists to the bed, no shackles needed to keep me pinned with arms spread as she let my body writhe, helplessly and pathetically desperate to cum as she kept me on the edge, my cock painful between her lips as her hands massaged and squeezed my balls, her mind keeping me from cumming even when my body couldn't.

She drew back, rubbing her saliva over my cock, and said "Up."

I scrambled to my knees, limbs mechanical, as she slid on hands and knees up the bed, and grabbed the head-board.

She didn't need to tell me to move behind her, grab her hips with both hands and push inside her.

Her will was still preventing me from cumming, and the pain in my cock was driving all thoughts from my head as my body slammed into her over, and over, and over again.

It took incredible stimulation to make Rachel cum without clitoral stimulation as well, but she made me fuck her until she did, jerking and gasping with a sound like the most genuine fake orgasm I had ever heard as lactic acid made every muscle in my body scream with pain.

She let me stop when she came and I collapsed sideways, sprawling on the bed with a sob of pain as my over-stimulated cock slapped against my belly.

Rachel, still as lithe and as poised as a gymnast, swung herself astride my hips and suddenly I was inside her again, another sob of pain as I bumped into her cervix.

She sat up, there was a flash of steel in her hand, and she pulled on one nipple, distending it until she drove a long, thick needle straight through from top to bottom, pulling it out immediately and letting blood start welling out onto the swell of her breast.

"This is how I lactate for you," she whispered as she leant forwards and pressed the bloody nipple into my mouth.

I sucked upon it greedily, wantonly, the taste of the blood in my mouth the most potent, the headiest liquor I had ever tasted.

"Blood and intent," she told me with a fond note in her voice, "will pass the vampire to you."

As I sucked her blood from her hard nipple, she finally let me cum and my orgasm struck me brutally. I bit down almost hard enough to tear her flesh, a satisfied moan the only response she gave as I poured myself into her.

I felt as though her blood was burning its way down to my stomach like whiskey, then into my veins and all throughout my body. I felt detached, I felt surreal, and then I felt as though I was feverishly hallucinating as all my old human emotions were burned away and my human body altered.

I lay on the bed and burned for an hour as the vampire infected me, then fell into a sleep of physical exhaustion.

I awoke feeling more than just refreshed. For now I was vampire. Now, I was infinitely better.



Hunters Ch. 02



The Soldier was as busy as it usually was; it didn't matter what time of day you came in. There was never a cover charge, and it looked just like every bar did in Mexico. The Soldier had a red tile floor, huge oval bar in the center of the room with a mirror separating the two parts of the bar. The booze was always watered down and the beer was always warm. The tables that were randomly scattered about the place were as clean as they could be kept, while the booths went largely unbussed. Max wandered up and sat at the bar and sat on a stool. Nobody was at the bar. Nobody was ever sat at the bar except for Max in this place.

"I don't want any problems in here this time, cowboy," the bartender said suspiciously. A few of the men at the tables gave Max a sideways glance after hearing that. He gave a little chuckle. The tension in the entire bar rose like static electricity before an approaching storm.

"Don't mean to be any. Don't even have my gun on me this time," Max said a little louder than he had to. The bar seemed to ease a little bit.

"Doesn't much matter," grunted the bartender as he picked up a glass and wiped it out with an almost clean towel. "You're done when I say you're done, ya hear?"

Max nodded. "Glass of Scotch then, no ice," he said politely. He pulled his money out of his pocket and paid for the booze before the bartender poured. Max got the glass that the bartender had been "cleaning" and he drank the scotch slowly, savoring the flavor. "Thank God, for sparing Kentucky," he said softly with a grin and took another sip out of his glass. He wandered over to where the bar's popcorn machine was. Real popcorn with real butter. The Soldier was one of the last bars that Max knew of that one could still find such a thing. It was never stale, always fresh, always hot, and always swimming in butter. He filled a bowl and went back to his drink; shocked by the sight of another patron actually seated at the bar.

Max sat back down at his drink and the stranger nodded to him in a general acceptance of his presence. Max nodded back and took a few fingers of popcorn out of his bowl. The stuff was so salty and buttery it almost slid down his throat. Between the scotch and the butter, he was pretty sure it would be wise to wait until at least afternoon to fly anywhere tomorrow. Max stole a sideways glance at the new comer and there was something familiar about him, but Max just couldn't quite place it. He decided another scotch might help his memory and he flagged down the barkeep. 

"Two more, Morgan, and that's it. I don't need you tearing the hell out of my place again," the bartender said as the glass filled with amber liquor. The man beside Max began to fidget and started looking at Max out of the corner of his eye. 

"Now might be a good time to start remembering why this guy's familiar. Hope he's not a bounty hunter, or this could get real interesting," Max thought and took a good swig of his scotch. The second he started to swallow he saw the man beside him twitch. Not even Max's fast eyes saw the fist coming, however, and Max found himself on the ground with broken glass around his hand, a barstool skittered across the floor, and scotch all over his formerly clean shirt.

"Morgan? Maxwell Morgan?" the stranger and stood up, squaring off a fair distance from Max. For the first time Max got a good straight look at his face and his mind flashed a price under it; for almost a full second Max couldn't believe that he'd just been hit by Lelund Kromwell.

"That'd be me," Max said. "You owe me a scotch and an apology, buddy," Max added, almost laughing. Lelund responded by pulling a knife. Random expletives erupted from the patrons of the Soldier and some left. Some however, stayed to drink and watch the show.

"Morgan, goddamnit, I told you not to start problems!" the bartender yelled.

"Hey, fat man, he hit me!" Max fired back. He saw that Lelund's eyes moved to the bartender when he spoke and he snaked his leg over to the bar stool and started pulling it the three inches closer he needed to wrap his hand around it.

"I know, I saw that; that's why you're on the floor. But it stops here, Morgan, I mean it! It took me a month to get this place put back together after you were here last," the bartender spat. Lelund's eyes got wide and his gaze shifted back to Max.

"Yeah, but this different," Max said patronizingly. "This guy has a knife. The last three had guns. It won't be anything like last time."

"Wh-what was it like last time?" Lelund asked the bartender. Max shifted and got a leg of the barstool in hand and got ready to throw it. Lelund shifted nervously and Max's eyes caught the tip of the knife, trembling for an instant as his assailant processed the conversation.

"Hey buddy," Max said softly. Lelund's eyes slid to Max, still on the floor. He could see that they were wide and this Lelund was beginning to seriously reconsider hitting Max. "It started a little like this," Max said and threw the stool as hard as he could, rolling and nearly throwing himself into the oak bar to give the stool more momentum. The seat of the stool smashed into Lelund's hand and Max heard the knife hit the floor and slide. He stood up quickly and whirled around. Lelund was just standing there, looking stupid: not that that was different from his normal look as far as Max could tell.

"Um, I'm sorry," Lelund stammered to Max. Max took two steps closer and he was easily in striking distance. Lelund swallowed hard and looked Max up and down. Max simply stared into Lelund's eyes. Lelund moved; Max didn't think it was all that hostile, probably going for his wallet, but he didn't care. Max's arm shot forward and he grabbed Lelund's hair. He jerked his head down and his knee up, smashing it into Lelund's nose. Max let go of his victim's hair at the same time and the blow to his face carried him over backward, slamming his head onto the red tile floor of the bar.

"Morgan. Out," the bartender said gruffly. Max nodded and smiled to the bartender. 

"He didn't pay for his beer. Here you go," Max said and threw some money on the table. It was ten times the cost of the beer alone, but a little friendly bribe to the bartender might make things better next time. Max liked the Soldier; it was his bar. Lelund seemed to wake up and started moaning and trying to cradle his face; most of which was painted in blood.

"Do basdard! Do boke my node!" Lelund shouted as he kept trying to cradle his face, each time pulling his hands away in pain.

"Yup, that I did. Come on, junior. Let's go get me paid," Max said and picked Lelund up by the hair, eliciting a very womanly scream from him as his skin pulled tight across his face. "Oh come on, none of that," Max said, dusting Lelund off a little. "Oops, bleeding out the back, too," Max said and slapped the back of Lelund's head. Lelund about fell forward onto the tile again, but Max caught him.

"Morgan," said the bartender in a warning tone. Morgan nodded and he pushed Lelund out the door while holding onto the back of his bloodstained jacket. They walked out the door of the Soldier and Max heard a bullet whiz by as it cut through the air. He was sober in an instant and he looked to his right and saw two men in black suits with black sunglasses. Both were in the crowded street nearly a block away; one was standing in front of the other, being used as an armrest for the man behind him who was shooting with a silenced pistol. People around them started to scream and Max bolted back inside the bar, leaving Lelund stand on the stoop of the Soldier.

"Now damnit, Morgan, I meant it!" the bartender hollered at the running cowboy. "Hey, what's the . . ." he started. 

"Get Down!" Max yelled as he jumped and landed on the bar with his back. He looked out the door as he briefly slid across the bar and saw Lelund twitch to the beat of an automatic pistol. Max fell of the bar to the bartender's feet and landed hard on the tile floor. The bartender ducked just seconds before a blast from a submachine gun tore through his stock and the large mirror between that divided the bar.

"Morgan, Goddamnit, every time you're in here," hissed the bartender.

"I'll apologize if we survive. Still got my gun that you stole?" Morgan asked quietly. He heard not less than 4 men come into the bar, their dress shoes clacking loudly on the tile. It sounded like most of the patrons were either in the process of leaving or had already fled through the back door. The bartender pulled a pistol out from under the bar and Max looked at it lovingly. It was his pride and joy while he was in the Marines and he had it specially engraved. The main gun was gunmetal black, while the engraving was the glimmering silver of cut steel. "Dono misericordia duo unciae ad semel," gleamed in the low light of the bar just as the day it was freshly engraved. Max snapped back to reality by the resounding silence in the bar. He grabbed a bottle and threw it up in the air a few feet from where he was crouched with his gun. A single shot took out the bottle and Max knew about where that gunman was, but the others were going to be problems and he had to move fast. He checked to see if there was actually a round chambered and was very relieved that there was.

Max threw bar towel so it just barely cleared the bar but still looked like a dirty white shirt bounding up a little to high. Max heard an explosion of gunfire flare up at the rag and popped his head and gun up for a second and fired off two rounds, hitting two of the shooters in the elbow. He heard them swearing in Japanese and the clatter of their weapons on the floor. Max ran around to the other side of the bar, staying low. He got a glimpse of another gangster looking over the bar back as he rounded the corner and pulled the trigger twice as he moved. One shot fired and the other made a loud click as the firing pin slammed forward into the empty chamber. The one good shot he had hit his target in the forearm and his submachine gun dropped to the ground.

Max rolled into a crouch, using the now wounded and swearing man as a shield to check for more men in this half of the bar. Max caught the falling submachine gun and spun up from his crouch to punch the wounded man. His fist drove solidly into his eye, shattering the black sunglasses and sending him into an elaborate unconscious spin. Two machineguns opened up as Max dropped back down, and he heard the bullets sink into the man he just hit and watched as streamers of blood erupted from his body and the mirror shattered in a hail of lead. Max checked the clip of his new submachine gun and set his pistol behind the bar. It had a full 30 rounds in it, and Max noted with some dismay that they were using RK-10's: the lowest of the low quality street submachine guns. They had the firing pattern the size of a refrigerator and he would more likely scare someone to death than kill them with it. Max slammed the clip back in and grabbed his gun, tucking it into his pants and decided it was time to move again. He rounded the bar and headed back to the front where the bartender was busily loading a shotgun, looking around nervously for a head or a gun to pop up over the counter. His face actually lightened up when he saw Morgan come back around.

"Give me that!" hissed in a whisper. He slid his pistol and the RK-10 over to the bartender. "Reload this!" he whispered again as they slid. The bartender tossed Max the shotgun and Max bolted up and fired at the closest thing he saw that wasn't a table, stool, or chair. He clipped one of his hunters in the leg, and he fell down cursing loudly. There was a smell that Max couldn't identify in the air; it wasn't normal steel or lead shot in the gun. He cocked it and looked at the bartender. A big smile flew across his face.

"Rock salt," he mouthed to Morgan. Morgan smiled back at him and whipped back around the corner of the bar, firing and cocking twice a mid the sounding of the RK-10's firing. The shotgun sounded like a canon over the noise of the small 9mm SMG's and their burst of fire was silenced by two more men screaming. Max wasn't as careful now; the rock salt was only lethal at close range. Most of it pulverized before it left the barrel so it was like getting shot with really chunky sand that burned like hell fire when it lodged in the skin. Max shot both of them in their guts, aiming so he wouldn't accidentally hit them in the neck. They didn't' seem ready for him to come running back so soon, either, and they paid dearly for it Max stood up and looked through the shards of shattered mirror and fired another two blasts with the shot gun. Five men down, one to go. They didn't even return fire before Max ducked back down and what was left of the mirror shattered in another blast of lead.

Max ran around to the front again, running toward the bartender. He tossed him the shotgun and held out his hand for his gun. The bartender threw it to Max as he jumped up on the bar. The gun was in his hand and it moved to point at the last man standing as he opened up with his RK-10. Max fired twice in a flying leap off the bar and twice more in mid air. He'd have fired more, but at least one bullet slammed into him and took his breath away. He involuntarily curled up in mid air and hit the ground in a heap, feeling his shoulder crunch as he slid into a table. Max pulled it down with his quickly diminishing strength and took shelter behind it, for what little it would provide.

He looked down and his shirt had turned half red from a flesh wound in his side. He knew the bullet had passed right through but it still burned like hell and he'd need to be stitched back up. Max forced himself into a crouch and he couldn't hear the man moving over the moans and screams of the other men on the ground. What Max did hear was the thunder of the shotgun blasting the room quiet for a second and the sound of one less man moaning in pain. Small pieces of salt bounced off the stone floor and the table Max was behind and scattered into booths and all about the room.

"Morgan, you're clear. These bastards aint' gonna tear you up anymore," the bar tender said and cocked the shotgun. Max stood up unsteadily, held his gun out, trying to cover as many of the men on the floor as he could at once. He limped over to one of the more coherent men on the floor and pointed his gun at the man's head. He didn't say a word but pulled the hammer back on his pistol. The man didn't say anything, but tried to back away, using his hands and his good leg to push himself back. Max looked at the man's left hand and saw that his pinky had the tip cut off at the last knuckle. 

"Black Dragons, I should have known. Tracer in the case," Max stated, all emotion gone from his voice. His eyes narrowed. "And the old man?" Max asked, his left eye twitching.

"Died with honor," the man said quietly. Max's face went slack, but his eyes blazed. He slid his aim from the man's forehead to his abdomen and fired. For the second after the shot, the only noise in the whole bar was the jingling of the shell casing on the red tile floor. The Syndicate man tried in vain to hold in his pain and a scream forced itself from him, but he fought it the whole way out. Max limped out in to the street, still holding his side. He could feel blood ooze slowly between his fingers, and he forced his crunched knee to work better with each step, no matter how hard it hurt. Police sirens roared behind him and Max started cutting through back alleys to get back to Bernie's. The back alley dwellers were used to seeing violence more often than the tourists on the streets. There were no cops and no screams, just the occasional mother herding her children to the relative safety of indoors when Max moved through their neighborhood.

He was getting light headed by the time he made it to the back door of Bernie's. The city had begun to light up and the sun had set. "Always a good sunset in TJ. Wish I could see it," Max thought dreamily. He pushed open Bernie's back door and saw that the shop was nowhere near as bad as he thought it would be. He didn't know what he expected, but it almost looked like nothing at all had happened. He heard the old man cough from the front of the shop and heard someone else shush him.

He limped forward, the world beginning to close around him. He made it to the counter top in the front of the small store and he fell against it, his gun clattering across the glass and falling to the floor. Max barely registered that someone was helping Bernie, maybe bandaging him up, he couldn't tell as his vision faded to black.

"Got me worse than I thought," Max said and the world crashed into darkness around him.

The first thing he heard was the striking of a lighter, a deep inhale, a pregnant pause, and then a deep exhale. The perfectly timed ticking of clocks in the background came to him and Max forced his eyes open; it felt like his eyelids were made of lead and weighed a ton each. His eyes slowly focused and he knew that he'd been brought to Meg. She was sitting there watching him. 

"It's only midnight, don't even ask. You've only been out about 3 hours. I got you stitched up and you're good to go, but no rough stuff for a while, tiger," she said and took another drag on her cigarette. Max began to speak but his tongue felt both swollen with dryness and like someone had glued it to the roof of his mouth. Meg nodded to the side of the bed and Max slowly turned his head and saw a glass of water. He pushed himself up as best he could and a symphony of discordant pain shot through his abdomen. Max still managed to prop himself up and he took the glass of water.

Meg looked on, smiling, her green eyes almost glittering and her brown curls were pulled back in a ponytail. Max could see that her fingers were stained with blood. "My blood," Max thought in silence. The water rose to his lips and she stood up.

"You're gonna be just fine. Just rest here tonight and I'll check on you in the morning. If you're nice I'll even bring you some juice and cookies after I take care of the rest of the kids," she said, turning to wink as she swayed out of the room. Max's tongue had loosened up just enough to laugh a little. The water was finished and so was Max; he was out before he even set the empty glass back on the nightstand.

Max awoke to the sounds of children laughing and to the busy sounds of Tijuana traffic. His eyes opened easier this time, though still reluctantly. He forced his body to roll up and sit on the bed and the pain in his side thundered, but not nearly as badly as yesterday. His feet touched wood floorboards and he suddenly remembered not taking off any of his clothes, but they were sitting there, folded and stacked on a chair, next to his boots.

Max stood up painfully and dressed himself, but not before enjoying the feeling of real air on his chest and legs, not that recycled crap in the ships or even from the climate centers on Mars or at Robinson's.

He limped down stairs and saw Meg down there, reading to the kids that she was caring for. Most of them had bandages wrapped around an arm or a leg, and all of them were urchins. Meg took care of all manner of strays that wandered into her clinic, even grown ones that should know better. Meg kept reading her story but winked to Max as he came down the stairs quietly. Max smiled and blew a kiss to her and walked out the door. 

The walk to Bernie's was short, only about a block. He walked in and the old man was behind the counter, tinkering with something. He didn't even look up as far as Max noticed, but he knew that Bernie knew he was there.

"Yer shirt's torn, kid," he said softly as he pried on what looked like half the works from an old clock. He grunted, sucked his breath in and something gave way. There was a metallic ping and something shot out of the clock works. Max snatched it from the air and set it back on the counter top. Bernie nodded and grunted a thank you. Max just stood in silence.




Hunters Ch. 02



"Dragon's Blood. That's what was in the case," the old man said and set his project down on the counter. There had been almost a full minute of silence. "It's an." he started up again. Max cut him off.

"Experimental combat drug developed by the Martian military to counteract the Syndicate's Bloody Eye. Effects are similar to Bloody Eye, but longer lasting and with no side effects save for extreme, long term addiction. Getting off the habit usually ends in death." Bernie just nodded in response. "How much was in the case?"

"5000 doses. The only thing the note read was 'For the new Lieutenants.' I ain't got the slightest damn clue what that means, but I think we did somethun good by gettin' it off the streets, Max," the old man said and puffed his chest up with pride. It was short lasted and Bernie erupted into a coughing fit. He brought himself back under control and drew in a deep breath

"You all right, old man?" Max asked.

"You're damn right I'm okay, I'm still breathin' ain't I. Anyway, them Black Dragons are gonna be plenty mad at you for takin' that case, and it's a safe bet they know you're the one that stole 'em. It'd do you good to not be someplace where they'd get to," Bernie said, his breathing not quite as soft as it was before he started coughing. Max nodded and headed out the door. 

"Maybe I'll get back to work," Max said as he crossed the threshold. "This vacation's killin' me."

Max slowly walked to the hanger where the Mako was parked. He checked it over for explosives, and finding nothing suspicious, he got in and started it up. The engine kicked over, the computer came up fine, and she lifted off the ground. He was out of the hanger and leaving the atmosphere before he turned his television on to channel 99. He had just missed the beginning of Big Shots and the "Today's Menu" screen flashed up. Max was once again not disappointed to see his name on the list.

"After a failed attempt to catch him, this bad man from the badlands is still at large and evaded a posse on Earth! His reward has been raised by an outside source to a whopping 10 Million! Catch him if you can but be careful . . ." the black guy shouted excitedly. Max cut off the transmission and smiled all the way to Robinson's.



Hunters Ch. 03



**Read and Enjoy! Don't forget to leave a comment.**

The steady rhythm of heavy breathing and flesh slamming into a sand-filled leather bag filled the air. Max was alone in the workout room, and he was in the center, working the heavy bag with a vengeance. Every punch was delivered with a look of concentrated fury, every kick landed with a grimace of hatred. His naked torso and arms were glistening in a sheen of sweat. Every blow on the bag caused a shower of moisture to cascade off Max's well-muscled body. He had been at Robinson's almost a week and a half and he was worried that he would be getting soft. He just hoped that the stitches would hold up.

A few more solid blows landed and Max heard the squawk of the paging system. 

"Morgan to the tower. Morgan to the tower," Jen's voice said loudly. Her voice sounded tinny over the speakers, but there was an under current of fear in it, and that made Max put a little hurry into his step. He toweled off a little, put on a light cotton workout jacket and grabbed his cigarettes. He struck his lighter and inhaled the fire, savoring the taste after his hour and a half of pounding on the bag.

The cool air of the main building hit his skin like a tidal wave crushing an unsuspecting surfer. He loved it. He paused for a step and just enjoyed the feeling; it was like jumping in a lake after being in a sauna. He sighed happily and continued on his way to the control tower. He didn't bother knocking as he got there, he just walked in. Inside he saw Jen, Robinson, and the ambassador who had escorted him off the Megalodon. The seat before the radar and communication screen was empty, but the screen showed an old man in a suit sitting at a desk. Max sighed very deeply and pulled the chair out with a defeated look on his face.

"Major Morgan," the man in the suit said plainly, his face revealing no emotion.

"Sir," Morgan replied and saluted half-heartedly.

"Dispense with the attempted formality, Major. Your government needs your help."

Max took a long pull off his cigarette and nodded. He slouched in his chair and looked into the screen. "My former government, sir. I stopped being a member of your citizenry two years ago."

"Be that as it may, you still are in the Martian Military and you will do as your told this time or I will take it upon myself to give the order to destroy that little piece of rock you're on," the man said, still no emotion showing on his face. The radar screen left of the screen Max was talking at light up along the edge with at least 30 blips on the radar and alarms started sounding and lights started flashing. Robinson leaned forward and flipped a toggle switch; the alarms stopped, but the blips remained on the radar and the red lights still flashed angrily.

"Max," Robinson said calmly.

"Fine, what do you need?" Max said, clearly agitated.

"Major, we need you to go back to Earth and rescue a political prisoner. Corporal Anders is being held at the prison in Rotterdam. The charge and conviction was for piracy and we need Anders returned to us safely."

"Corporal Anders? One of yours?" Max questioned non-chalantly.

"One of ours. Until your dismissal fr. . ." the man started. Max cut him off.

"Court martial. Say it with me, sir; until my court marital from the Martian Special Forces."

"Until your dismissal from the Martian Special Forces, Anders is still under your command as well, Major."

Max nodded. "What's Anders' specialty?"

"Piloting. There isn't a ship in the system that Anders can't fly; makes you look like a grandmother driving to church on Sunday morning, Morgan," the man in the suit said. Morgan, Robinson, and Jen all raised their eyebrows simultaneously. The ambassador stood in the room as stoic as ever.

"Fine. I'll do it. What's in it for me?"

"First of all, you will return your stolen Mako. Second of all, you will receive a full pardon from the Martian government and you will be processed without any necessary appearances by yourself as having a discharge under other than honorable conditions. Third, we will drop our portion of your bounty, lowering it by 5 million. Furthermore, if you accept we will pull our ships back except for one and we will not incur further trespassing on Thomas Robinson's legally held space."

"As opposed to if I refuse and you'll blow up this rock and probably double the bounty on me if I escaped somehow."

"I have no doubt you'd escape in the Mako; that's what she's designed for and that's what we trained you to do. However, the other 50 of Thomas Robinson's employees will not be as fortunate."

"Like I said, I'll do it. Now what's this business about pulling back all but one ship?" Max asked, leaning back in the chair and taking a deep drag on his up-to-this-point neglected cigarette.

"The ship that will remain is the Twilight. She is a two-seater and she's the ship you will use for the mission. It is an experimental ship that we have 5 of, and she uses some of the modifications that you brought forward while you were still active. You will fly out alone in the Mako and a trade will take place between you and the pilot of the Twilight. When you return with the Twilight, you will drop the ship off at the base in Alva City along with Anders and then we will process the concessions that I mentioned."

"Done. When do we make the exchange?" Max asked, moving to sit up straight in the chair. Max was getting very tired of this dialog.

"One hour, Major."

"Done," Max said and flipped a toggle switch. The screen went blank.

"You realize you're going into a trap, right?" Robinson said grimly. "They're never going to let you out alive."

"That's just what my girlfriend said before I joined the Corps," Max laughed. "Besides, what do we have here, thousand to one odds? That's just getting this Corporal Anders. Then I have to get out of a military held prison and through God only knows what for defenses while avoiding the Black Dragons, the Consortium, and trying hard to not piss off the Red Dragons while I'm at it. Then I have to get back here without getting killed and drop a ship off at another military base and then get out of there." Max shrugged. "Sounds like my kind of deal," he said smiling. Max stood up and walked out the door. "The Mako ready?" 

"Has been since we gassed her up when you limped back here," Robinson replied calmly. He patted himself down for his cigarettes and pulled them from the inside pocket of his coveralls. He stepped out the door after Max and lit a cigarette.

"What about the 'Don? She gonna be ready by the time I get back?" Max asked, taking the last pull of his cigarette and flicking it out into the shop toward the Megalodon.

"Maybe, I won't promise shit, Max."

"You never do. That's what I like about you, Robinson. Try to have her ready; I have a feeling I'm gonna need her before this little job is done." Robinson only nodded in reply. Max headed for the barracks so he could shower. The shower was faster than Max would have liked, but he was filled with a sort of giddy nervousness. He was excited about finally getting the military off his back, but part of him was already sadly missing the chase. Time seemed to fly by. The shower, getting dressed, getting in the Mako and the fast trip to the rendezvous seemed to take minutes to Max. 

The switch went fast, too. Max tethered himself to his pod and he floated over to the Twilight and the pilot in there, some Private, Max noted, seemed awfully frightened and very relieved to get out of the Twilight. "Yup, that confirms it," Max thought. "She's got a bomb in her; probably an ELR Transponder, too. Gonna have to fix that when I get to Earth." He watched as the shuttle pilot got into his Mako. Max watched the other pilot pull in the tether, lock down the pod and blast away. He got a horrible sinking feeling that was the last time he would ever see her again.

"Get a move on, Major," sounded a voice over the speakers in the Twilight.

"Is that you, L.C. Upton?" Max said as he buckled in. He started looking around the cockpit figuring out where all the buttons and indicator lights were.

"Colonel Upton actually, Major. Move that thing, we're on a schedule here," Upton shot back agitatedly. Max buckled his harness into place and he grabbed the control sticks and put his feet on the pedals.

"Wasn't told we were on a timeframe here, Colonel," Max said and brought the ship around. The smooth handling and response of the Twilight impressed Max immediately. He also noticed something quite happily; when she was moving, she had an artificial gravity field. That had been one of his recommendations. If they had gotten that one down, he wondered what else they might have gotten figured out.

"At full speed you have 4 hours to parole Anders after reaching Earth," Upton said emotionlessly. Max's left eyebrow rose. He kicked the Twilight down and the Martian ships were only a twinkling of afterburners after a few seconds. 

Max couldn't help but play with some of the buttons and switches. The Twilight had an auto guidance system set up to go through gates, get in lines at the toll stations, and even had specific destinations pre-programmed into it. The artificial gravity steadily increased up to Earth's 1G. The plane was constantly under the cockpit, Max noted, and it never shifted. The Twilight could turn tighter and faster than any other craft designed; until it hit a gravity well like a planet and then it was up to the toughness of the pilot to not pass out. She was armed with two missile launchers and twin 40mm Vulcan cannons. The magazines had 100,000 rounds in them at maximum capacity. Max noted that right now, all the magazines were empty. Max got so caught up in fiddling with things in his new toy; he barely realized the time that it took to get to the Mars gate. He could make out Alva City on the dark side of Mars before he realized where he was. He flipped the VOX on and rotated the station to the comm. channel that the gates operated on. Instantly noisy chatter filled the air; most of it sounded like long-haul couriers.

"This is Major Morgan of the Martian Marines, I am enroute to Earth on a military emergency. Clear the gate or I will blow it clear," Max said in a rushed voice. He brought the Twilight into a tight turning spiral and veered sharply toward the gate. The chatter on the radio picked up dramatically with the scattered expletives of truckers and commuters. The gate controllers seemed to be amazingly calm through the whole thing, directing traffic as best they could. Max was actually impressed with the efficiency that they worked. Holding true to his word, Max didn't even slow down. He hit the gate aperture at the maximum speed of the Twilight, skimming a mere 3 feet from a long chained freighter. Max hit the hyperspace of the gates and was gone.

The trip to Earth was taking about half the time it took with the Mako, but that was still fine with Max. He made sure the autopilot was locked on to Rotterdam and sent a communication through the gate system to tell them that he wasn't going through the tollbooth on the other side and that he wasn't slowing down when he was out. They were to make sure the route to Earth was clear. He was sure there wouldn't be any problems and he went to sleep.

Max awoke later, only two hours before he got to the gate at Earth. He started pulling up what information he could about Rotterdam and the prison there. The more information he got, the less happy he became.

Rotterdam had fallen into decay in the last 50 years. It had been pounded by falling rocks from the gate accident and it had turned into the slum of Europe. The prison there wasn't a prison, but it was a para-military controlled base of a group calling themselves The Fourth Reich. They sought to reunite Europe and build defenses to take out the incoming rocks before they hit the Earth, allowing them to rebuild. Unfortunately, they also wanted to establish Earth as the predominate power in the system again, which meant they wanted an all out war with Mars. It seems that they had been gathering men and weapons and ships for the last 10 years and were on the verge of taking over several of the cities in Europe. That meant that they had lots of people that were highly trained and this wouldn't be just a smash and grab run. It also meant that Anders wasn't being executed for piracy; Anders was being executed for espionage.

Max kept trying to look up information on the location of where Anders was being held and he kept coming up with blanks. His research lasted until he blasted through the Earth gate and found quite happily that it had been cleared as requested. The Twilight was on approach to the planet when the viewer screen turned itself on and a man in a uniform popped up on the screen. Max recognized him immediately as his former commanding officer, Colonel Upton.

"Morgan, there's not a lot of time here, so I'll be brief," he said and seemed to shuffle papers around on a desk.

"It's night time in Rotterdam right now. We have a way in and out of the place where Anders is being held; the laundry service. They're friendly to us and have helped us out on previous missions in Rotterdam and in other cities in Europe. Our people on the inside already have you signed up for a job. You start in 2 hours."

Max was liking this less and less all the time. He had been lied to consistently so far. He didn't have 4 hours; he had 2. Anders wasn't in some prison, Anders was in a military held building. Anders wasn't being executed for piracy; she was most likely being executed for espionage. The whole situation was spiraling rapidly out of Max's favor, and he didn't like that. He wasn't even sure anymore that he was supposed to get Anders out. Or even that there was an Anders. He was given no description, only a rank and a name.

"The landing coordinates are preset. You are going into hostile territory and you are going to encounter heavy resistance. Furthermore, the metal detectors in the facility will not allow you to carry a gun, and they have strict rules that will be explained to you when you show up for your assignment. Just show up at the Über Sauber washing service and you'll be given instructions on how to act, what to say, and where to go once inside," Colonel Upton said. When he was finished, he sat back in his chair. "Any questions, Major?"

"I don't speak German," he said plainly.

"Du sprechst nicht Deutsch? Auch, das tut mir leid," the Colonel said with a broad smile.

"Gesundheit," Max said with a scowl. "I wasn't joking."

"Neither was I. It is too bad you don't speak German. You'll have to improvise, Major. Being a marine, I suspect you know how to do that. This is Upton, out," the Colonel said and Max's viewer went blank.

"What a bunch of sanctimonious assholes," Max muttered as he started to penetrate Earth's atmosphere. The automatic guidance took over and Max just sat back and enjoyed the ride. Whoever programmed the mono-system in the Twilight did a hell of a job. It glided down into the city and parked itself on the ground floor of a multi-storied hanger. The display screen popped up with a list of directions to Über Sauber and a contact name of Heinrich. Max followed the directions and within minutes of walking through the slums, he arrived at the business. The scent of urine, death, and decay in the slums was overridden by the powerful smell of bleach from the laundry, and Max was almost glad to have that stench burn into his nose instead of the other scent oozing into his skin.

Inside, Max saw a number of people milling about, most of them trying to look busy, and almost all of them doing a very non-convincing job. The place seemed to be fairly well automated, and Max quickly surmised that while the machine was going through its cycle, there probably wasn't a whole lot of work to be done unless something went wrong with the machine itself. A few heads turned his way when he entered, most went back to minding the machines, but one man stepped forward.

"Kann Ich helfen Sie?" the man said, the words pouring out of his mouth so fast that Max barely understood what they were; not that he could translate them anyway.

"Heinrich," Max said plainly. He looked around casually, but kept his eyes sharp, continuously keeping track of the workers without really looking at them.

"Moment, bitte," the German said and wandered toward the back of the laundry. Max wasn't sure if he had just been insulted or not. He was thinking that he wasn't, but it was hard to understand the words exactly and he kept translating them into English as best he could. "Moment" seemed pretty self-explanatory, but "bitte" sounded too close to "bitch" for Max's taste. He let it slide and waited.

The first German came back with another man, standing about 6 feet tall with a good build on him. He was wiping his hands off on a towel tucked into his belt. He reminded Max more of a waiter than a laundry worker.

"Gutten Tag, mein Herr. Ich bin Heinrich," the new German said and extended his hand to shake. 

"I'm Morgan," Max said clearly as he took Heinrich's hand. The Germans exchanged a quick glance at each other and looked back at Max. Max with drew his hand after a firm shake. "Du sprechst nicht Deutsch?" Heinrich said slowly and clearly. He recognized it from Upton saying it earlier, he was pretty sure that "nicht" was night and he knew that Deutsch was the German word for German.

"I don't speak German," Max said after a moment's pause. Heinrich and the first German exchanged another quick look and Heinrich motioned to the back with his head. Heinrich looked back at Max and clasped his hand to Max's shoulder.

"Do not vorry, mein Ionian freund. Ve vill tell you vhat you need zu know," Heinrich said in his thick accent. A smile crossed his face and then it quickly faded. "Aber, time ist short, zo ve must be quick. Kommen Sie mitt," Heinrich said and turned to go in the back. Max followed and they got to a small room in the back of the laundry that appeared to be a small office. There was an actual television set up with a disk reader. Max saw the first German fire it up and move a chair a few feet from the small screen.

"Bitte," he said, gesturing to Max and then to the chair.

Max sat in the chair and Heinrich shut the door behind him. The screen on the TV went to a 4-panel gray-tone with a dialing count down in the center. Max watched the 5, 4, 3, and 2 all disappear and the screen faded to black.

"Welkommen!" a voice said in a friendly manner. The word "Welcome!" came across the still-black screen in all white letters. "Das ist ein Deutsche Lection für das Aulander," the voice said. The words "This is a German lesson for the foreigner," faded into view and "Welcome!" faded out.

"Papieren, bitte," the voice said again. "Papers please" flashed up on the screen. It showed a little play-acting between a man in a flannel shirt and a man in what looked like a police uniform. The man in the flannel produced what looked like a passport and handed it to the officer. The scene faded to black.

"Wo bist du? Ich bin John," the voice said again. The voice was beginning to get on Max's nerves, but this was at least a little entertaining. It reminded him of the typical infomercial voice actor. The words "Who are you? I am John," flashed up on the screen. Again, there was a little play-acting between the man in the flannel and the cop. The cop asked, the man answered. Max was taking careful mental notes and trying to mouth the words.

"Was bist du machen? Ich bin hier zu arbeit," the voice said again. "What are you doing? I am here to work." flashed up on the screen. The scene was acted out, with the officer becoming more direct and threatening and the man in the flannel backing off a little. The picture faded to black.




Hunters Ch. 03



Author's note: 

This one took an unconscionably long time to write, but there was a period where I couldn't write it properly, and today that finished, and so did this story.

It's shorter and punchier than the others, and the sex is more about the foreplay and the build than the consummation, but it finished well enough, I think.

There's probably no point in you reading this if you haven't already read the first two - Hunters Ch. 01, and Hunters Ch. 02 (They'll be easy to find).

As always, comments are welcome, and help persuade writers to do more of it.

####

Rachel ordered us more room service - her company could afford a very large tab - while I walked into the bathroom, feeling my new senses, my new appreciation of balance and forces and delicate minutiae, with every step, and stared at my naked body in the mirror.

I looked better now. I was fixed. I was now as beautiful as Christopher. I looked the way I should. I could hunt well, now.

Rachel glided into the room behind me, every footstep placed perfectly, every line of her body exquisitely arranged, a beautiful goddess men would fall in love with and beg to feed.

She draped her arms around my shoulders and breathed into my ear "I couldn't have you missing out on this."

I laid my fingers over hers, feeling the life in her pressed against my back, and replied "It was the right thing to do."

I stretched, feeling each individual muscle move as I did so.

"I'm hungry," I said, speaking for both my needs.

"I ordered room service," she replied, then faked a human giggle perfectly, "and take-away."

I slid around in her arms to face her, curious, but she lay one finger against my lips before whirling away and stepping out of the bathroom with a swing of her hips.

No matter, I would find out in time.

I looked at myself in the mirror again, in profile. My gaze travelled down my body. With the faintest effort of will, my penis sprang erect, hard and engorged. Yes, it worked perfectly.

When I walked out of the bathroom, I could almost smell her anticipation. She was pulling a robe about herself, adjusting it automatically to better show her sexuality. I did not pay attention to her breasts as she hid them in the fabric - vampires cannot feed from other vampires.

"I ordered dinner to eat in," Rachel explained, "you need to feed your body, and you need to be sure that you can pass in human society. But you need to feed the vampire first, so I ordered something else."

I cocked my head to one side, and belatedly realised to give her my usual quizzical look.

"Put a robe on," she ordered me. "She should be ..."

She was interrupted by a brisk knock on the door. 

With a stirring of predatory anticipation, I put myself out of sight of the door, slipping noiselessly into one of the hotel's supplied robes.

Rachel called out "Come in!" investing her voice with submerged layers of seduction, not yet compulsion but planting the seeds.

The door was opened briskly, and I felt a curl of energy, of vibrant and headily potent humanity, before the woman walked through.

She was medium height and had musculature sculpted by constant, disciplined usage. She wore cycling pants and expensive jogging shoes, with a midriff-baring top, little more than a sports bra, stretched firmly across tight breasts. She was carrying a folded massage table in its bag across one shoulder and a gym bag in that hand, her other hand opening the door, and was neither straining nor leaning to counter-balance them.

As she walked past me, I could taste her like the first vapours of whiskey as they curl into your sinuses.

She smiled, practiced and professional, as she judged her distance to Rachel against the need to close the door, and stepped forwards with her hand out, saying "Hi, you must be Rachel, I'm Sam."

"Magnificent," I murmured as she walked past me, pitching my voice to slide past her consciousness unnoticed, but linger in her subconscious and prime her for later touches. Rachel's expression did not alter, but I could sense her approval at my touch.

"Hello Sam," Rachel said as she shook hands, feeding her familiarity and trust through that touch. "I'm so glad you could fit us in. That's my husband Brett, behind you."

She twisted around, startled not to have noticed me, and I smiled at her as I closed the door, investing the smile with all of my human charm and feeding into it enough vampire direction to soothe her surprise and redirect her imbalance to an appreciation of us - our strength, our beauty, our virility.

As I shook her hand, tasting her, I could tell that she wasn't interested in Rachel, not sexually, and that she had an implacable professional discipline which would prevent her from so much as flirting with me, but she also had an informed appreciation of us physically, and there was more than enough there to work with.

I had to exercise the strongest discipline I could, to prevent myself from lingering over the handshake, but I hid the struggle inside a mannerism and stepped back, leaving her with an extra twinge of flattery lubricating her subconscious.

She hid her confusion impeccably, turning to examine the room, asking "Who's first?" as she took a quick look at the carpet, decided it would do, and lowered her bag and table to the floor.

A look passed from Rachel to me, simple glance that told me she was in control as she said "Oh, I'll go first," as she slowly began to untie her robe.

Sam had her table set up in admirable time, and flicked towels onto it from her bag, grabbing more towels and a pump pack of oil as she asked "One hour each?"

"Yes, please!" Rachel replied, but I was momentarily tongue-tied, lost in a brief moment of ecstatic anticipation. One hour, of tasting her through her hands! My vampire hunger became sharp, and I almost salivated, a brief struggle preventing me from trying to seize her mind too early and losing everything.

Rachel shot me a look of measured, admonitory warning as she lay down on the table, using the robe to shield her nakedness from Sam, letting propriety have the upper hand for now.

She lay down with a grace which Sam could not ignore, the masseuse's professional thrill of pleasure at her movement mingling, without her recognition, with her human sexual response to sexuality.

As Sam draped some towels over Rachel's naked body, positioned her oil bottle and squirted some into her hand, I focused myself with an effort of will, bleeding my voice nearly dry of premature subliminal cues as I asked "Can I get you anything?"

"No, thanks," she said, smiling over her shoulder with a quick, barely more than professional, flick of her lips, "but if you want to put some music on, go ahead."

I moved to the stereo, making just enough noise for her mind to track me and not keep her unsettled, and the habits of my old, human sense of humour immediately selected Dead Can Dance from Rachel's already plugged-in MP3 player, adjusting the stereo's volume to occupy part of Sam's attention without distracting her.

I moved into the kitchenette, out of sight of the table, and pressed my back against the wall, mouth agape as a repressed shudder of need ran through me and my hands curled into claws against the woodwork.

It was not a sexual hunger, although Sam's body had awoken that in me as well. Nor was it a hunger from the stomach - I had eaten well that day, and the vampire, in possessing me, had not taken a debt of nutrients or protein.

It was something other. A hunger and a need which I had never felt before, had never imagined and was struggling to understand. The frustration of delayed satisfaction was making itself felt in my human flesh through genital arousal and salivary gland activity, but my mind had the power to control both of those urges - satiating either would not help.

I drew in a deep, silent breath, expelled it and drew in another. The mingled frustrations were making me feel tight within my skin, and gave me a caged-animal nervous energy which I must not reveal.

I closed my eyes and focused, dredging up old practice in Dai Qi and Aikido to pool that energy, concentrate it and make use of it. It helped, a little.

To quell the hollow in my stomach, I pulled iced water out of the fridge and mixed myself lime cordial, being busy for long enough to return to a place of composure before I stepped back into the doorway.

Sam had exposed Rachel's naked back and was making long, deep strokes with her thumbs up the spine, the sight making the vampire in me thirst, and the man admire.

"You don't have any knots that I can find," Sam was saying in a voice half admiring and half surprised.

"I keep myself limber," Rachel replied, her voice distorted by the table but devoid of vampire controls.

I could see what she was doing - she was feeding on Sam through her skin, only a small and delicate tasting, but enough to tire and dull the masseuse's mind, making the extra effort of control, unnecessary.

Nonetheless, as I stood silently and watched, my drink almost forgotten in my hand, I could feel myself mentally stretch and reach out, hungry to take hold of her mind and bring this flirtation to a rapid close.

As I did so, I felt, to my astonishment, Rachel dampen my move, pouring a mental bucket of cold water on my ardour, leaving me no less frustrated but considerably chastened.

I retreated back into the kitchenette for a moment, shocked that she had been able to do that, then steeled myself and walked calmly through and into the bedroom, to lie on the bed staring unmoving at the ceiling, fighting a grim battle to keep myself in check.

My body reminded me of the drink in my hand and I sipped at it, focusing on the physical sensations of the cold sliding down my throat, the wetness and the trickle into my stomach, long practice and discipline removing all sexual connotation even as my body maintained its arousal, the knowledge of what was happening next door remaining in my flesh.

I closed my eyes, stilled my breathing, concentrated, and suppressed the flesh, stilling the chemistry so that my penis and my nipples shrank again, my breathing relaxed without my control and the sense of pressure in my head faded.

I lay on the bed, feeling my body and my sense of control until I knew that I had control and would not lose it, then finished the glass in my hand and swung to my feet.

I was able to spare enough mental focus to ensure that my balance and my muscular control was perfect, and then enough again to allow myself a feeling of satisfaction that my human self may have experienced as smugness.

I walked through the main room again towards the kitchenette, seeing and feeling the faint flicker of attention that Sam gave to this new stimuli as she worked her knuckles deep into the side of Rachel's left buttock.

I could also taste the slow, delicate satisfaction of Rachel's tasting of the masseuse, a controlled trickle of life carefully calculated to not quite be noticeable, and to be well within Sam's reserves. It was an exhibition of self control, and of endurance, that I would need to learn from.

In the kitchenette, I leaned against the counter top and pressed my forehead against the wall, closing my eyes as I sought a deeper level of relaxation.

I knew the drawn-out pleasure of satiation delayed, I could play that game. But it did not come naturally to the human, nor the vampire. Both were primitive beasts, cultured by history but not genetics, and all their hungers cried out for gratification.

Their combined clamour threatened to overwhelm me the instant I dropped my guard, which made concentration the one essential here. Everything else - dissembling, feeding, manipulating the oh-so-vibrant prey in the next room - was dependent upon my being able to control the human and the vampire at the same time and under great duress. Had Rachel planned this? Had she gone through this torment, or had she decided that I needed more?

With sudden resolve, I pushed myself upright and walked casually back into the suite's main room. In order to defeat this challenge, I must face it.

I sat down nearly out of Sam's line of sight as she stood facing Rachel's feet and ran her hands in deep, hard, flesh-distorting strokes down my maker's calves. I could sense that her body was slightly more tired than she should be by this point, which was as tired as I would be after walking to my local shop, but that her mind was delicately fatigued in a way that she could not recognise and was powerless to fight.

I was struck by respect at how Rachel had achieved this (could I still feel admiration?), then felt the masseuse with my vampire instincts and realised that I had this ability, but not, perhaps, the self control. My respect remained, but now with a different focus.

Now I felt intently, eavesdropping on how Rachel was manipulating the masseuse, feeling my vampire grow and mature as it witnessed this, feeling everything that the vampire held in instinct and racial memory, be lain bare before my awareness. 

So that explained how Rachel, less than a day old, was so accomplished. There is no long period of apprenticeship to be a vampire - merely a long period of mastery.

I could also sense the limits to Rachel's self-control and patience, and her hunger itching to be satisfied.

I stood up, dropping my robe off my shoulders and stepping forwards naked. 

Sam stepped backwards, docile, not questioning our decision to change places, not reacting to my inappropriate nudity although her body knew, and her body reacted as any young and healthy human would.

Rachel moved off the table like an impatient leopard, stalking across the room, holding herself in check.

I lay down, making myself comfortable as Sam, moving mostly by habit, lay a towel across me and began the massage.

I could taste her even through the towel, and had to hold myself in check from grabbing her and drinking my fill.

She was so far under our gentle control by this point that she didn't even notice that my mental tension was becoming physical before I forced myself to relax and to savour her taste.

But I could feel Rachel across the room, and her hunger was flavouring the air between us, making it hard for me to concentrate.

When Sam pulled the towel down and applied her oiled hands to my bare skin for the first time, the direct contact made the vampire in me rear its head like a striking snake, and both Rachel and I had to struggle to withdraw.

Sam was working hard, her muscles bunching and flowing under her skin as she pressed her fingertips deep into the muscles in my back, and it was like drinking through gauze, that lets you taste but gives you only a trickle.

A fresh vampire, I was like a man lost in a desert, and I was growing crazy with thirst.

My body was enjoying the massage, but the conflicting signals it was receiving from the vampire were confusing it, and it responded sexually, growing painfully hard against the table.

My hands curled into claws as I struggled to draw out this experience, savour it and not be a rabid beast ripping at any tasty morsel sent its way.

It was Rachel who moved first.

"I've waited long enough," she said with a growl in her voice, standing up still naked and stalking across the room.

Sam, blank of mind, swayed backwards as I twisted from face-down to sitting, cock demanding human fulfilment as I felt the vampire stretch out through every part of my body, reaching for this feast in front of me.

Rachel reached Sam and yanked her shorts off her hips and down to her knees in one quick motion, pushing her forward onto me.

Her knees folded as I lifted her up to the right height, and she ended up kneeling astride my hips, pressing into me.

"You will give to my husband," Rachel snarled, reaching around to spread Sam's puppy lips with one hand while guiding me into her with the other.

The masseuse gave a soft cry as she dropped fully around me, and her head rolled back onto Rachel's shoulder.

I pushed her sports bra up off her tits and Rachel's hands came up to cup and crush them, pulling the tight, muscular body hard against her with more than human strength.

Rachel's mouth attacked to Sam's neck as though she really did have fangs, and I pushed them both back, giving me room to lower my head and first lick, then bite and suck the nipples protruding, engorged and hard, from between Rachel's fingers.

Sam, reduced to a nearly mindless body, flesh with strongly fertile instincts and responses, moaned and gasped, shuddering and beginning to lift and lower on my cock, her knees on the table effortlessly taking the strain as she fucked me, desperate for her release.

Rachel, knowing the value of all emotions, including frustration, held Sam hard, forcing her to a slower pace, all the while grinding the masseuse's breasts in slow circles, the flesh twisting and distorting under her hands, the sensations flooding into Sam's mind along with the pleasure from her nipples and her cunt and rolling together, indistinguishable.

Rachel began to bite on Sam's shoulders and I moved upwards, my mouth taking hers and kissing hard enough to bruise her human lips as I guided her hands off my shoulders and behind her, to where her twitching fingers found Rachel's cunt and clutched at it, following my wife's desires perfectly.

The feel of Sam's life was so much greater than the mere touch of her hands had been, so much more potent and sweeter.

It was like being wrapped in heat, like swimming in syrup.

It coated me the way no sex ever had or ever could, and made me want even more, and I could already feel my body's response curling in my balls.

"We need blood," I said as Sam's assaulted body neared orgasm and was halted on the brink by a glancing effort of my will.

Rachel merely smirked, and pulled a tiny, folding blade out of her mouth, un-clipping it from her back teeth.

She made a quick cut on each of Sam's shoulders, and we both dropped our mouths to drink as I released my hold on her orgasm and she came with a strangled wail.

Her blood tasted iron in my mouth, but the energy in it exploded inside me like a star. 

I screamed against her skin and my body exploded inside her, my cock shooting my sterile seed deep in her cunt.

I felt for a second like a god as her life rushed through me, and felt Rachel's ecstatic response on the other side of Sam's sweaty, shaking body.

It did not take much blood to give us all that we could handle, and when we had finished Rachel stepped back and I rolled Sam's half-insensate body onto the massage table, letting it sprawl there half on, half off, her sports bra bunched up above her tits, her shorts around her ankles, her cum and mine leaking slowly out her shaved cunt.

I stood, stretching, feeling the energy course through me, knowing that, if necessary, it would keep me going for a week.

"What do we do with her?" I asked casually as I felt Rachel humming with new life beside me.

"Do you have any more appointments today?" Rachel asked the limp figure.

"No..." it breathed weakly, barely audible.

"Are you meeting anyone later today?"

"Boyfriend... Dinner... Eight..."

"Good, that's easy," Rachel said, suddenly decisive, her voice humming with harmonics of Sam's personality as the traces she had absorbed, evaporated from her.

We quickly dressed, fixed Sam's clothes, and helped her carry her stuff down to her car, avoiding other guests who might wonder at the somnambulist between us.

Rachel drove Sam's car back to the masseuse's house and I returned to the room to wait for dinner to be delivered.

When it came, the trolley was being pushed by a short, young girl who hid tattoos under her uniform and who was only just within regulations as she checked me out with youthful appreciation when my back was turned and she thought I wouldn't notice.




Hunters Ch. 03



"My wife's dropping a friend home," I said casually, testing her. "She'd like your hair - it's cute."

I could see in her eyes, let alone taste it in the air, that only the threat of losing her job prevented her from flirting with me, and with my wife as a bonus.

I let her go, but I remembered her name, and when she would be working next.

It was always good to know where your next meal was coming from.



Hunters Ch. 03



"Ich denke du lügst. Nein, Ich bin hier zu arbeit," said the voice. The first sentence sounded very agitated, the second was very concerned. "I think you lie. No, I am here to work," flashed up on the screen, and the actors came on again, with the officer reaching for what was probably some weapon that was on the far side of his body and the man in the flannel held his hands up and shook his head.

"Stehen Sie hier, Ich geh. . ." the voice said and choked off with a strangled gurgling sound. "You stand here, I'm go. . ." flashed up on the screen. The scene showed the officer turning around after speaking and the man in the flannel choking him and breaking the officer's neck. "Sometimes the language barrier just breaks down," flashed up on the screen.  Heinrich reached down and shut off the TV.

"Stay quiet und by mich und du vill be gut," Heinrich said. "I vill be goink in mit du, und I vill get du insite."

"Can we take guns in there with us?" Max asked hopefully. Heinrich shook his head.

"No metal. Even ein bullet vill trip alarm." Max rolled his eyes and took out his gun. He set it on the television and began pulling extra clips from his boots, his belt and two from the inside of his flight suit. Heinrich laughed a hearty, deep belly laugh.

"Du kommst prepared, Ionian!" Heinrich said, still chuckling. "Aber kommst, ve vill geh zu ze compound. Es ist time." Heinrich opened the door and they went to a closet a few feet from the small office. He gave Max a set of white coveralls with "Über Sauber" embroidered on the back. Heinrich got a pair of coveralls out for himself as well and he began putting them on.

"Remove dien suit, Morgan. It vill not look richtig und they vill not let uns in," Heinrich said. Max took his flight suit off and pulled the white coveralls on. 

"What about boots?" Max asked, pointing to his combat boots. Heinrich looked at his feet and the feet of the first man that Max had spoken to.

"Otto, gibst er dein Steifeln," Heinrich said quickly.

"Aber. . ." Otto started

"Nein Aber. Gibst er dein Steifeln. Du mochtest haben dem wenn er est tot." Otto only nodded and took his boots off. Max put them on and laced them quickly, but he had a very bad feeling about all of this. He didn't like that they were speaking in English, albeit broken English, and then suddenly switched to German. He was positive he was walking into a trap.

"Ready to go," Max said as he stood up from tying his boots. Heinrich looked him over and nodded. 

"Ve go," Heinrich said and they went out through the main laundry among huge washing machines and strings of hanging clothes that were moving through a dry somewhere in the building. They walked out an area in the back and out into a loading dock area. There was a truck waiting just through an overhead door that was already running. Max got in and they pulled out of Über Sauber and Max took very good mental notes on how to get back. He was going to have to come back for his gun and his boots before he left Earth.

The trip was only a few minutes, and Heinrich seemed to stick to twisting back roads instead of the main thoroughfares, but that was just fine with Max. It gave him more time to calm himself down and focus. Aggression and fear are emotions that will throw a plan out of balance, but if they're focused, they bring everything into light and the world becomes clear. Right now, Max was extremely angry at being played for a pawn, and at letting himself be played into a trap. He was also scared because he was walking into a military complex with no gun and an unfair home-team advantage. They knew he was coming, but Max knew one thing they didn't. Max knew he was leaving.

"Your Anders ist on ze 8th floor. I vill tell you ver to find Anders. After das, du bist on your own," Heinrich said as he backed the truck up to a loading dock. "Zu gehst zu Anders, du go left zu ze stairs. Second floor, take links und go zu ze door ab end of hall. Geh aus ze stairs zu 8th floor und Anders is at end of hall. Door code is one, three, seven, neun, one. Okay?" Max nodded and watched as Heinrich got out of the cab. Max quickly followed his lead. Heinrich went to the back of the truck and opened it. Max saw two laundry gurneys inside; Heinrich pushed one of them out to Max and pushed the other himself. Max followed the German's lead and walked right in.

There were two guards dressed in midnight blue uniforms inside the doors, and Max noticed that these guards were using HK machine guns. After being in business since well before the turn of the century, HK knew how guns should be made. They shot straight, they shot fast, and they almost never jammed. If a gunfight did start, it would be up to human error to not hit Max, and that was a fact that he was growing more and more painfully aware of.

They pushed their carts inside the main doors and Heinrich kept walking. They went through a metal detector and Heinrich passed but when Max went through, a buzzer sounded. "Here we go," thought Max.  The two guards stepped forward from behind the uprights of the metal detectors.

"Armen auf," said the guard. Max guessed to put his hands on his head and wait to be patted down. He guessed wrong. "Armen auf!" said the German firmly. Max put his arms straight out this time and the guard shook his head and started patting Max down. "Geh aus und kommst züruck," the guard said. Luckily for Max he waved his arm through the metal detector and then pointed at Heinrich. Max backed the cart out and then came back through. Again, the buzzer sounded. The guard that had been ordering Max around motioned to the cart and the other guard started searching it. He didn't search long before he came up with a combat knife. Max sighed deeply.

"Was ist das?" the guard said haughtily, waving it in the air a little. The first guard moved quickly and brought Max's hands behind his back and restrained them with what felt like a zip- tie. Max just let him do it. The first guard came closer with the knife, moving it in his hand to for a firmer grip. The guard behind Max was holding him by his restrained wrists and had Max in a position that would be difficult to muscle out of. The guard with the knife rushed forward.

Max threw his chest back and smashed the back of his head into the guard's face behind him. The guard stumbled back, letting go of Max in the process, and Max was free to move around. The guard with the knife rushed forward with the knife out in front of him. Max dropped and twisted behind the metal detector. The guard jerked downward to try to slice into Max's legs but Max tripped him instead, sending him into the other guard, knife first. The blade sank into the guard's leg, clear to the hilt and he screamed painfully. Max twisted his feet between the now-screaming guard's legs and tripped him. The knife thudded loudly on the floor, and the guard's head bounced off the cement, silencing him for the time being. 

The other guard seemed paralyzed for a second, debating to try to help his friend or deal with the escaping prisoner. That hesitation was all Max needed. His foot went to the side of the guard's knee, hyper extending it sideways until the guard's leg almost bent in half. Max barely rolled out of the way of the falling guard and head butted him after he hit the ground. His body went limp and Max got himself to his feet. He bent down and pulled the knife from the other guard's leg and used it to cut the plastic zip-tie holding his hands together. Max looked over to Heinrich to see him standing in a doorway, holding an HK with the barrel leveled straight at Max's chest.

"Das ist ze end, Herr Morgan," the big German said and a smile crept onto his face. Max's left eye started to twitch and then he saw something moving behind Heinrich. It was at the end of the hallway and was coming up behind him.

"Was machst du da?" came a deep voice from behind Heinrich. Max shifted the knife in his hand to throw it better if that's what it came down to. Heinrich's smile lessened but did not completely vanish.

"Ich habe der Martian. Er totst twei Brudern," Heinrich said over his shoulder, keeping his eyes locked on Max. Max's eyes quickly floated around the room, seeing how easy it would be to get a machine gun from a guard. The one that took the knife in the leg was probably going to be the easiest; the sling was just around his head and the weapon was off to his side. The other guard was just about lying on top of his gun.

"Prima! Geh für der Fürher. Ich habe ihn," the voice said. Heinrich nodded and backed through the door he was standing in. The guard would have to cross the line of fire and then Max would act. He saw the shoulder of the same blue uniform of the men at his feet and he threw the knife and dove for the gun around the guard's neck. 

The knife caught the guard in the chest and sunk in a few inches. By the time Heinrich knew what was happening, he didn't have a clear shot to hit Max. With a quick roll to the ground Max picked up the guard's head by his hair, swung the gun out and dropped the guard's head.  Max charged forward toward the wall along side the door. The guard with the knife in his chest slumped forward and made a sickening gurgling sound as the knife drove deeper into his lung. Max took a quick look at the wall and saw that it was plaster on the outside. He took a step back and let loose a burst with the HK in a tight arc where Heinrich should be. The HK tore chunks out of the sheet rock out of the wall went through the other side, ripping through it like tissue paper. Max waited a second and fired another burst, chewing up more of the wall. Hearing nothing from Heinrich, Max looked cautiously through one of the holes he had just blown in the wall. Heinrich was laying face down in an ever-growing pool of blood.

Max had other problems though; the HK was not silenced and there would be more guards. Lots more guards. He quickly went to the men around him and took an extra HK and all the ammunition he could find. After less than a minute, Max was ready to go.  He pulled the knife from the guard in the door way and stuck in Heinrich's back just to be sure that he wasn't going to have to fight through him on the way back through. Max remembered the directions and hoped that just maybe he wasn't lied to about that. He'd have to grab a guard without seriously injuring one and ask him a few questions.

Max didn't waste any time in going to his perceived destination. He followed the directions exactly and was facing almost no opposition. That alone was worrying him more than if he was fighting off the entire army of Rotterdam. He didn't see anyone until the stairway that was mentioned in his directions to where Anders was being held. Then all hell broke loose.

Max saw two guards running down the stairs, taking defensive position in doorways and they were shouting, apparently to more Germans who were on the way. Max started shooting at a door, waiting for the bullets to chew through the steel and weaken the lock. It didn't take long and he shouldered the door in just as the Germans in the hall started firing. He was inside what looked like a utility closet, and there were chemicals everywhere. Max's eyes kept shifting between the bottles and the open door, listening for the sounds of boots coming down the hallway.

"Shit, it's all in German," hissed Max under his breath. Something caught his eye though, something that's universal to any language. There were hazardous materials signs on half of the chemicals. After a very fast search, he found one that looked to be the most flammable judging from the warning diamond numbers. Max dumped most of the contents of the plastic bottle down the floor drain in the center of the room and shook the bottle. He kept shaking it as he ducked around the corner to see where the Germans were positioned. More had joined the two that had come down the stairs, and there was a small group all bunched up. Max's head came back around the corner as their guns opened up and a torrent of lead flooded the hall. 

Max shook the bottle a few seconds more and threw it out into the hallway by the small group of men near the stair well. He let lose a burst with the machine gun as and ducked back into the relative safety of the supply closet. The Germans opened up with their machine guns and there was shouting heard above the gunfire, but Max couldn't make it out. Both the guns and the voices were silenced a split second later when an explosion rocked the hall. Flames shot past the door that Max was hiding in. Max shot around the lock of the door across the hall and ran out of his room and barreled through the new door. In the instant that he was exposed in the hall, he saw that all the Germans in the hall were down, and some were on fire. Max was out of the room almost as fast as he had gotten in it and was in the hallway, looking over the guards on the ground and trying to cover the staircase in the hall as well as all of the other three door ways into the hall. One face down guard near Max began to moan softly. 

Max put a boot to him and rolled him over. The German coughed and wheezed and Max saw that most of the skin on his face was either black or red. Max was seriously beginning to like the potency of the cleaning supplies of Europe. The man's eyes opened slowly and it was obvious he was in extreme pain.

"Speak English?" Max asked calmly. He pointed the HK at the guard's forehead. The guard shook his head. Max frowned. "Prisoners?" The guard only looked scared and confused in response. "Auslander?" Max asked after a short pause, thinking back to his German lesson. The guard pointed up the stairs and then to the right of the staircase. Max nodded, kicking the guard in the head and knocking him out. 

He started charging up the stairs at the same time more guards started coming down. Max brought his other machine gun to bear and cut down the oncoming Germans, but he caught a bullet in his left arm and it went numb after a blinding flash of pain. Max ran up the rest of the stairs, blood running down his arm and leaving a trail of crimson dots in his wake. Here the directions changed from where Heinrich said to go. Heinrich said to take a left at the stairs. Max trusted the dying man more than the one walking him into a trap and went right. The 3 doors on either side of the hall all had security locks on them. Max let loose a burst of machine gun fire at the first door on his right and the bullets barely penetrated. Max gave the door a tremendous kick, and the door caved under his foot. His eyes lit up and for a second he forgot that he was even wounded. 

The room that Max had gotten into was not a jail cell, but a munitions storage. There were dozens of handguns, a few HK's in some racks and some cardboard boxes. Max looked at the boxes very quickly and saw one that grabbed his attention; it wasn't in English, but the main word on the box was Canitri, and Max knew that they were an explosives manufacturer. He opened the box and sure enough, there were 12 gray-pink bars of extremely stable high explosive inside. Max grabbed a bar of the explosive and tucked it in his crimson stained white uniform and looked around for another box that should have contained the detonators and he was very happy to find that this one was in English. Not only that but it was from Digidet, the premiere company for making easy to use electronic detonators. They also happened to be the chief military suppliers in the system. 

Max opened the box and counted 25 detonators and the master switch. The detonators were white and about the size of a match stick with a head on it the size of a pencil and half of an inch long. Max's fingers pushed on the two ends of the detonator and the number "01" appeared on the head. He turned the stick and the numbers ran all the way up to 50 before recycling back to 1. Max repeated the process with the master switch; a similar device with a body as thick as Max's pinky and a head the size of his thumb. He played with the detonators and with the master switch for another second or two before peeking back out into the hall. A three-shot burst of an HK made him duck back inside the room. He grabbed a small wad of the explosive from the box and wrapped it around the detonator. Max put the master control switch on to "01" and turned the detonator on to the same number. He stuck his hand out the door for just enough time to flick the explosive down the hall. He waited a second and a half and pushed the top of the switch down and it gave a little beep. A fraction of a second later an explosion shook the building for the second time in 5 minutes.

Max moved fast, pounding on the doors until he got to the last one on the left. Someone pounded back.

"Speak English?" Max shouted. He heard a muffled yell from the other side of the door. Max could barely hear it and couldn't' understand any of it. There was a pause and Max checked the hallway again for more Germans. It was a mess from the explosion and dust was still thick in the air from the smoke and from the pulverized sheet rock walls. Then Max heard it; 3 close poundings on the door, 3 slower harder knocks, and then 3 more fast hits. SOS in Morris code. Max fired a round into the door and he hoped whoever was on the other side backed up. He grabbed a small pinch of the grayish putty and smashed it in between the door and the door jam beside the door handle. He stuck a detonator in it and backed off a few feet down the hall. Max pushed the head in on the master control and a flash of fire and a billow of smoke erupted around the door. A second later the door flew out of the door jam and Max could make a boot out in the smoke surrounding the door. He heard coughing from inside, but it didn't sound right somehow; but his ears were ringing from the explosions and the gunfire in the small spaces.

"Corporal Anders? This is Major Morgan. Corporal?" Max shouted. 

"Jesus H Christ, it's about time you got here!" rang a voice. Max must have been hearing things wrong, his hearing had to have been more damaged than he thought. A form walked out of the smoke and dust and Max realized that he wasn't hearing wrong and his ears weren't ringing nearly as bad as he thought they were. Corporal Anders, the best pilot in the Martian Special Forces, was a woman. 



Hunters Ch. 04



**This is a direct continuation of Session #3. If it's been a while since you've read it or haven't read it yet, everything will make a lot more sense if you take the 5 minutes to read it now. Thanks. Don't forget to vote!**

* * * * *

Max was taken back by the sight in front of him. Anders was not only a girl, but a good-looking girl. She looked like she'd been in the same clothes for about two weeks, she had no make up at all, but there was just something about her short messy blonde hair or the sexy athleticism that her body seemed to drool. Maybe it was the way her eyes were beginning to dull from captivity but there was still the shine of a predator in the blue-gray pools that were looking him over as hard as his eyes were examining her. 

"Quit staring at her, you're still in deep shit," a voice said to Max. It took him a second to realize that it was his own thoughts trying to snap him back to the situation at hand.

"Corporal Anders?" Max asked, turning around and covering the hallway as best he could. He noticed his arm wasn't just numb now, but it was getting cold. He could hear the blood dripping on to the floor, sounding like a metronome keeping slow, but steady time.

"Yes sir," she said.

"I'm Major Morgan, and we're gonna get the fuck out of here," Max said and walked forward. Anders was right behind him, ready to go after being cooped up in a room for half a month Max walked down to the munitions room and motioned to it with his head. Anders ducked inside and Morgan followed her in, covering the door.

"So you're Morgan, huh?" Anders said and started grabbing pistols. She tucked two into the waste band of what looked like Special Forces BDU pants and grabbed a couple clips of ammunition. She picked up an HK and three extra clips of ammunition for it. All the while, she kept talking. "Martian Medal of Honor, 5 purple hearts, two silver stars, and two accommodations for bravery. Went AWOL in 70," she finished. Anders cocked all of her weapons and looked at Max. "How the hell did they get you to come get me?"

"Same way they do everything, bribes and lies," Max said and swung out the door, gun first. Anders followed him close, covering the stairwell with her HK. They both heard voices down below, but no Germans were on the stairs. Max reached in to his coveralls and tore off a finger sized lump of the explosive and wrapped a detonator around it after setting it to "01." He twisted the master to the same number and put it in his injured hand. He concentrated and made his fist contract around the device. "What's in here?" Max gestured to the door straight across from the stairs going down to the first floor. It had been blown in by Max's first gift for the Fourth Reich after leaving the munitions room, but it was still standing.

"Large room, goes to the end of the building. I saw it when they brought me here, but I didn't get a good look," Anders said still covering the stairs. Max knelt down by the handrail for the stairs and stuck the lump of explosive on the edge of the ceiling of the first floor. No one down there seemed to see him do it, and returned his hand with all of his fingers happily attached.

"That's our exit, transport is right outside," Max said and kicked in the cratered and heat stressed door. His HK was ready and his thumb was on the top of the control for the detonator. Max went in the room and was semi relieved to find it void of people. The room itself had a large picture window that over looked what Max hadn't realized before to be a scenic view of the heart of Rotterdam, with her steel and glass towers still gleaming through the grime of the city. A very small part of Max appreciated that, and it would return to him later; now was not the time for sight seeing or hesitation. Anders followed behind him, guarding the door and keeping a close eye on the stairs. The room itself had a large table running down the center of it, and that would be a problem.

"Major, the windows are bullet proof," Anders said calmly. Max kept striding across the room, but dropped its his gun to be supported by the sling and got another wad of the high explosive out of his pocket. He stretched it into a thin "X" on the window and pushed a detonator into it, turning it to "01." 

"Corporal, I need this table moved clear of the window," Max said as he pulled another wad of explosive out of his pocket and stuck a third detonator into it, turning it also to "01." Max threw it against the wall of the stairs, and he watched it stick Anders looked at the table and sized it up. It appeared to be one long table, made of solid oak. It ran almost 50 feet, virtually the length of the room. She went to the side of the table and looked under it. Her HK came up and she pointed it at the first of the strong legs holding the table up. She opened fire and Max saw chunks of wood shoot out from under the table. Anders raked the underside, chewing the wooden legs apart. She had to reload twice, but after 25 seconds of work, the table creaked loudly over the jingling of hot brass on the floor and the table collapsed under its own weight. 

"Clear," Max said loudly and crisply. Anders moved quickly to the wall of the boardroom, putting 15 feet between her and the table. Max stood against in the corner against the other wall and pushed the plunger down on the switch.  

The three explosions went off simultaneously. The men down stairs were no doubt killed instantly, and if any survived there wouldn't be enough stairs left to get to the second floor. The open stairway helped channel the explosive force to the second floor and the boardroom door blew off its hinges amid a column of flame. The explosion on the window weakened it and broke most of the glass, and the flying steel door finished the job nicely as it crashed through. Anders was on the way to the window before the door even hit the street. Max joined her a split second later.

It was quite a jump to the laundry truck below the window, but both managed it nicely. They jumped off the top of the truck and piled inside with Max behind the wheel. He turned the engine over and the pitter-patter of machine gun fire sounded behind them. Max heard the box of the truck getting chewed up. 

"Put your head down," Max said. Anders ducked immediately, her shoulders touching her knees.

"Limber little minx," Max thought to himself as he broke the window out with his machine gun. Max hit the gas and turned right, exposing the passenger side. The machineguns from the building fired again and Max opened up with his, sending the guards scattering. Max put the gun down and put both hands on the wheel. The feeling was rapidly leaving his left hand again, and his entire arm was becoming washed with red.

"Sit up, Anders. We're not out of this yet," Max said as the truck lumbered down the street. Max remembered the way to the Twilight exactly. First he was going to go get his ship, and then he was going to get his gun back. They arrived relatively unmolested at the hanger, and Max plowed through the security check at the entry. The guards inside the shack shouted something at Max in German and waved his fist in the air angrily. Max didn't need to know German to understand the string of profanity streaming from the guard. Max whipped the van around inside the garage in front of the Twilight and killed the engine.

"Upton said you're a pilot. I was lied to about everything else on this little trip, did he lie about that, to?" Max asked getting out of the truck. Anders jumped out.

"No sir!" Anders said energetically and jumped in the pilot's seat in of the Twilight. Max tried to hurry, but it was feeling like his feet were made of lead and as if he were swimming through the air instead of walking through it. He drug himself up into the co-pilot's seat and shut the door behind him. Anders already had the computer fired up and was turning on the engines.

"Seat belt," Anders half sung in a worried little melody. More men in blue uniforms were streaming into the garage. Anders brought the Twilight up off the ground and spun her to face the incoming enemy and opened fire with the twin vulcans. She only hit one of them, and the rest scattered. Anders flipped more switches fastened her own harness. She pulled the stirrups on the control pedals and the ship shot up through the roof of the hanger. Max felt like she left his stomach back on the ground. He loved that feeling. "Where to, sir?" she said, the craft hovering in the air over the hanger.

"Über Sauber," he said slowly. Max started taking his coveralls off and looked at his arm. The main artery hadn't been severed, but he was still losing a lot of blood. He ripped the sleeve off the suit and tied it around the wound. Max found that he was forcing himself to stay conscious as the craft moved the few blocks to the building. "Set it down in the street," Max said. Anders responded immediately, dropping the craft quickly, but pulling up just before the landing gear connected. "Make me a door," Max said. Anders fired a burst from the machineguns and the front windows of the laundromat blew inward. The bullets hit something inside the laundromat and the glass exploded back out into the street, as well as formerly clean clothes, machine parts, and even a few random workers; or what was left of them.

Max jumped out after the fire sucked back into the building. He still heard metal clanging inside, and excited shouts in German that he couldn't make out over the other noises of the shop. He went in, arm bandaged, HK pointing ahead, with the explosive still in his coveralls and detonators clinking lightly in his pocket.

He walked in and there were a few workers tying to figure out what had happened. Most of them were missing hair or covered in suit. A few of them had clothes that had burned away in patches. Max counted 6 and possibly 7 of them moving around. He fired a short burst from the HK into the ceiling and whistled loudly. All of the workers' faces shot toward him, looks of fear and panic on them.

"Get out," Max said loudly, clearly, and slowly. Most of them ran out into the brightness of the street only to see the Twilight sitting in the street, gun barrels still smoking. They scattered like cockroaches in the sunlight and Max started moving slowly through the shattered shop. 

Small fires were still burning in the front of the store, consuming what was left of the clothing and of a few random workers. He made his way to the back, keeping an eye open for any remaining in workers. He was almost back to where the lockers were and he heard the sound of clanging metal across the main stretch of the building. Max spun around and felt something land solidly on his back between his shoulders. He lurched forward but managed to keep his feet. He spun around and pulled the trigger on the HK, but the only noise was a loud click as the bolt slammed forward into the empty chamber. The big German, the first one Max spoke to in Über Sauber not even an hour ago was standing there with a chunk of pipe, smiling broadly.

"Gutten Tag, bischen Mann," the German said and took a stepped to Max. Max hit the release on his HK's sling and threw it aside. The German swung with the pipe and Max dropped to one knee before the swing connected and punched his opponent square in the solar plexus, moving him back, but not affecting him much more than that. He reacted by swinging the pipe in a low arc, still aiming at Max's head. Max threw himself backward to the floor and kicked the German solidly in the groin. Max felt a squishing crunch and the man spun around with his momentum, collapsing into the burning machine wreckage with a crunch. Max stood up and tightened his bandage. He grabbed the pipe and kept walking back to the lockers. They were locked, but badly damaged from the explosion. 

Max wound up with the pipe and smashed into the door of the locker where his things had been put. The locker shuddered and the door rattled open. He saw his boots inside, and thankfully, his gun. He pulled off Otto's boots and put his own back on, lacing them quickly and strapping the armor plates into place. He grabbed his flight suit and went back out to the Twilight, checking to see if his gun was loaded. He saw brass and let the slide slam back forward. He hurried as best he could back to the Twilight. By the time he was outside, he could hear sirens over the shouting people. Max barely registered the gathering crowds as he climbed in.

"Sir?" Anders said and lifted up.

"American West, Desert Brigade H.Q." Max said slowly. He felt like he was coming out of a dream; his body felt weighed down by heavy blankets, the air was cold, and he wasn't sure if he was awake or not. The Twilight took off and headed for the setting sun. Max passed out before they lost sight of Europe and drifted into a black, dreamless sleep. 

He was shaken awake what felt like seconds later. Max's hands immediately shot to where the controls should have been and tried to straighten up in his seat. He found that he'd been strapped into the passenger seat of a two-seater fighter and it took him almost a full second to remember everything that had happened.

"Anders?" Max asked as the Twilight skimmed along the desert floor. Another explosion off the port side of the ship knocked it sideways a little, and Anders was quick to correct for it. She didn't answer right away and Max looked down at the radar. There were three dots chasing them, and they looked to be about 500 meters behind them.

"Sir, there are three ships chasing us, they've been doing so since Texas. They aren't answering their radios and they aren't very good shots."

"Why aren't we at the Brigade?" Max asked, still groggy. His eyes wouldn't quite focus on anything outside of the cockpit. The ground was a blur of brown and the sky was an open field of blue.

"I didn't think that they'd much appreciate us bringing in three hostiles, sir," Anders responded. Max nodded his head. It still felt like his skull was made out of stone and he discovered he had a headache "Sir?" Anders questioned.

"Corporal?" Max asked. His senses were slowly returning to him.

"You might want to strap yourself in tighter, sir. I'm gonna shake 'em," Anders said quietly and checked the straps on her harness. Max did as she suggested and sat up. He didn't see how they were going to shake them; he could start to make out some rises and buttes, but nothing maneuver worthy. Then the whole world rose up before Max. He slammed up into his harness and his stomach felt like it was in his throat. Max could feel himself trying to pass out again, but he fought it back and kept his vision from going completely blank. The small dot of light that he could see re-expanded and he realized that they were in a canyon. It was plenty wide, but he saw that it must have been terribly curvy; it looked like Anders was speeding toward a wall.

Max's eyebrows arched and he stole a sideways glance at his pilot. Anders was biting her lower lip in concentration, moving the craft as close to the walls as she could and twisting the Twilight through the bending canyon with the touch of an expert. Max looked down t the instrument panel and saw that their relative ground speed was fluctuating between 1700 and 1720 kilometers per hour.

"Corporal, are you. . ." Max started to say. The gravity of what was going on hit Max and it snapped him back to crisp, clear reality.

"Yes sir. Shut up," Anders said. Max looked down on the display and saw that one of the dots had fallen off radar, but the other two were still on them. Max turned and looked out the back of the pod and saw that they were above them, easily keeping pace. An alarm started to beep and Max looked down at the display. "Missile" started flashing in red over the top of the radar and Anders pulled back hard on the control sticks and Max saw her twist her feet in opposite directions. They had slowed down some, but now they were up out of the canyon and flying backwards. Max was impressed that the Twilight was holding together, and even more impressed with Anders' flying. At least he wasn't lied to about that.

Anders didn't even hesitate. As soon as they were pointed at the incoming fighters, she opened up with the machine guns until the "Radar Lock" light came on over the display and she launched 2 missiles at the craft straight ahead of them. Not half a second later did that craft explode in a white ball of light and flame. Anders banked hard to port and used the drag of the Twilight to slow them down just enough for her to get a bead on the second ship and she cut it in half with the 40mm vulcans. 

Max was in awe. He'd never done anything like this in recon before, not with the skill and finesse that Anders just displayed. The radar showed the third blip appear on its edge and Anders took off for it immediately. She had acquired a missile lock on the target and was prepared to fire when a panicked voice came over the radio.

"Don't shoot!" the voice pleaded. Anders looked to Max and Max shook his head no.

"Who is this? Identify yourself," Max said with a strength that he didn't even know he had.

"This is Xio Lin," the voice said, still shaking.

"Who are you working for? Black Dragons? Consortium?" Max asked. Silence answered him. "You'd better start talking. You might just live through this if you do. If you don't, you won't live to hit the desert floor," Max said with anger joining the strength in his voice. Still there was nothing. Max waited a second and started laughing. Anders looked over at him a confused look on her face.

"You have to be Black Dragon. The Consortium doesn't have power on Earth yet and if you were Red Dragons, there wouldn't have been 3 fighters, there would have been 10. Hope it's been a good life," Max said and flipped the radio off. Max pushed the thumb switch for the missile himself. Max watched as the twin trails of smoke shot out from the Twilight. A few seconds later there was an explosion a little over 4 kilometers from them; Max simply shook his head.

"We need to get to the Brigade," Max said.

"Where are they located, sir?" Anders asked obediently.

"An old airfield in New Mexico. We can't be far from there now," Max answered and turned the radio on. He turned it to 300.780 and cleared his voice. "Lt. Dire, Sgt. Greene, anyone there?" 

"Yeah, Dire here, what do you want?" sounded a familiar voice to Max's ears.

"Dire, it's Morgan. I'm in a pretty big hurt and I need some emergency work. If you got the time I got the cash," Max said.

"Morgan, eh? Yeah, I can see what I can do. The old man's at the coast picking up a delivery," Dire said back. The sound of ice clinking in a glass could be heard through the radio.

"I really appreciate it, Lieutenant. We'll be there in about 5 minutes. Morgan, out," Max said and switched off the radio. Max punched the coordinates into the navigation system and leaned back. His arm started throbbing painfully. The harness was uncomfortable and he unbuckled it. After slouching in his seat, Max closed both his eyes and enjoyed the feeling of the speed as they cruised above the desert. "That was some superior flying back there, Corporal Anders."  

"Thank you, sir," Anders said proudly.

"You don't have to call me 'sir,' Anders," Max said, opening one eye and rolling it over to look at her. "I left the military a long time ago and left all that behind me." Anders nodded.

"Why did you leave?" she asked after a long pause. Max found himself suddenly wanting a cigarette. He licked his lips only to find that his mouth had gone dry and he forced himself to salivate.

"I left the military because I was tired of being used. You're a tool, Corporal. You let yourself be marginalized and you let yourself be used because someone with more brass on their lapel or a bigger patch on their shoulder says you have to," Max said, closing his eye again. "It's all bullshit, and it's all for nothing," he added with a sigh.




Hunters Ch. 04



"Hey! I am proud to be here! Nothing pleases me more than to serve my government!" she said loudly. Max could hear her shift in her seat to face him, but he kept his eyes closed and took a deep breath.

"I'm proud of the ends, but not the means of my missions," Max said plainly. He was starting to fall asleep again. "Achieving the goals that we did violated almost everything that I hold sacred and made me a worse human being."

"But your missions," Anders started. She paused for a second. "Because of you, the Syndicate didn't get itself established on Titan. Because of you the Syndicate wasn't able to reform at any where near its former power."

"Because of me, we might have just started a war with part of Earth. Because of me, we don't have one major Syndicate to take care of; we have three," Max said softly. "Because of me," he started again and stopped. "Because of you," his voice said inside his head, "your family and everyone you cared about is dead." Max sighed deeply and shut his eyes tighter. "Because of me, people have died. Lots of people died, as a matter of fact, and not all of them were bad."

"But. . ." began Anders. Max's eyes flashed open and he turned his head.

"But what! I bled and fought and nearly died for my government so many times that I can't remember them all anymore, and after all of that, what did I get? A pat on the head and I was told that nothing I would ever do from that point forward would ever be official again! Not even my death! My government disavowed my existence and used me as a tool to get its own schemes going and to keep them going. And let me tell you something, missy; if you think you're any different than me, you're dead wrong. You're a fucking tool. All you are is another cog in the machine. Your government didn't care about you so much that they sent me to come get you and it's been a trap every step of the way. As a matter of fact, the only reason I have to trust that you are who I was told you are is because you didn't kill me when I was passed out," Max said, his face a mask of fury. Anders opened her mouth to say something and then shut it, turning her head slowly forward again, her eyes staring out the front of the pod. She looked like she was going to cry, but much to her merit, she didn't. Her lip quivered, but Max noticed not one single tear roll down her face. The two rode in silence the rest of the way to the Desert Brigade.

Max noted that the old man had only added to the collection of junk in his yard. More vehicles had been added, a few old tanks, and even what looked like old missiles or old space boosters. He had added quite a collection of old pods, and it looked like his new collection was sitting on about 10 acres of new land. 

"That's it. Land us by the small hanger with the rusting out doors," Max said quietly. They landed and Dire ran out to meet them. Max saw him as the dust settled, a handkerchief tied around his face to protect his nose and mouth from the dust and his Oakland Bruisers cap was on backwards. He was also wearing a Bruisers jersey, and Max couldn't tell if it was the same one from a few months ago when he was out here or if it was a new one. As always, he was wearing his cheap black-framed sunglasses.

"Hey Dire, how's your Bruisers doing?" Max asked, stepping out of the Twilight. Dire's jaw was just about hanging on the ground. Anders killed the engines and got out. She cast cross, sideways glance at Max when she came around to the other side of the ship. She stood silently, her arms crossed tightly across her chest.

"Well, you know us Bruisers fans," Max said, grinning sheepishly. His eyes kept running up and down the Twilight's hull. Max just imagined it wasn't just the lines on the ship that he was checking out, but those on the pilot as well.

"Same as always then," Max laughed.

"Yeah," the Lieutenant said breathlessly and ran his fingers along the hull. "So what do you want done with her? You know the old man is better with these mono-ships," Miles added and looked back at Max.

"Yeah, I know," Max said and started to pat himself down looking for some cigarettes. Then he remembered; he left them back in the locker with his spare clips. "Hey Dire, you have a, wait, no you wouldn't. Damnit. Anyway, all we need is the transponder taken out and anything else that's giving off odd radio signals. Engine's fine, she runs like a champ. We could use some more ammunition though," Max continued. He climbed up on the Twilight and grabbed his flight suit. "We need this done like it was done yesterday, Dire," Max added. He looked over to Anders. She was still pissed off, her arms folded, her head down watching her boot toes move in the dirt.

"Anders over there needs a shower, too. Got any hot water?" Max asked.

"We're in the desert! All we have is hot water!" Dire said laughing. He walked around the Twilight to the pilot seat and got in. The two Marines walked off to the main hanger, with Anders following slowly behind Max. When they were clear, the Lieutenant assistant fired the engine of the Twilight and lifted her off the ground. Max turned around and watched Miles move her gently into the small hanger they had parked in front of. Max continued to the hanger with Anders and showed her where the bathroom was. He managed to track down a clean towel and gave that to her before she got in. Part of Max really wanted to sneak a peek, but another part didn't want to violate her like that. 

Max poured himself a cup of coffee and wandered out to the hanger. Dire had the Twilight hooked up to a diagnostic machine.

"What's the verdict, doc?" Max asked and slowly sipped his coffee.

"You have a military aircraft here that's not decommissioned. Again. Steal this one, too?" Dire asked as he read the diagnostics equipment.

"Nope, not yet. Mission is still active," Max said smiling. Dire laughed. "Bruisers aren't playing today?"

"No, they lost the last game for the play-offs. It was so close this time, too! If only they'd sent in the relief goalie! Murphy's good, but he's getting old, he can't defend for 3 periods straight anymore!" Dire said emphatically. Max just shook his head and laughed slightly. "Well, I can tell you that you have an ELR transponder sending out a constant signal," Miles said, grunting as he crawled inside the Twilight. "You didn't really want that, did you Morgan?"

"Nope, can't say that I do," Max said and swallowed the last drop of coffee. There was the sound of shorting out electronics and a crunching sound, followed by a power drill whirring to life and dying in a quick cycle. Max watched a handful of screws fly out the cabin of the Twilight and then Miles backing out with the Transponder in hand. He set it down on the bench and removed the power source, setting it aside. Max smiled and listened to its faint hum go down into nothing. "So they know it's here?"

"Probably not. The sun let lose a huge solar flare a couple days ago and the magnetic storm hit Earth today at about noon and has been screwing with communications all day. There was even talk of shutting down the gate because of some concern, but the gate company said there was enough shielding," Dire said, shrugging. "This baby was it though, no more signals coming from her," Max added, slapping his hand down on the transponder.

"Ammo and gas?" Max asked, leaning against the starboard side Vulcan cannon.

"Yeah, yeah," the Lieutenant said smiling and unlocked the ammunition magazines. He gave a low whistle. "40mm penetrators! The old man's gonna hate me if I don't charge you for these things. You ever see what happens to a ship when they get shot with these?" he asked excitedly. Max's mind immediately went back to the Syndicate ship he saw a couple weeks ago. That thing had been shredded by 40mm penetrators, and Max suddenly had a very bad feeling that gave him a very unhappy outlook on the future.

"Dire, was this transponder sending out a coded frequency?" Max asked cautiously. Miles shrugged and plugged the power source back into it. The transponder powered back up and Miles went to the diagnostic equipment and turned some knobs and flipped some toggle switches. The diagnostic computer started to beep slowly but rhythmically. Max's eyes got wide. "Shut it off!" 

Dire jumped to it and pulled the power source. The slow beep died faster than the transponder's gentle hum.

"Communication wasn't cut off on the planet, was it. Just off planet."

"Right," Dire said. "The atmosphere protected almost anything Earth based."

"Lieutenant, we have to get this thing out of here right now. Have anything disposable that can fly fast and far by itself?" Max said, grabbing the transponder and the power source.

"Nothing that's cheap," Dire said and pointed to the main hanger. Max took off running for it and Dire followed suit. 

"Hook this thing up, and gas something up that'll make it into the gate. Whatever we use it needs to have an accident in hyperspace," Max said looking around the shop. There were half a dozen things that would probably work, it was just a question of what Doohan wouldn't steak Miles down in the middle of the desert for blowing up. Max saw an old police cruiser in the back. "What about that?" he asked pointing to it. Dire nodded and they ran over to it.

"I'll plug in the transponder, you get this thing programmed," the Lieutenant said. They both crammed into the cruiser's mono-pod and Max powered it up and moved it out of the shop. He set it down again and Dire jumped out. "You're all set, Morgan!" he yelled and backed off toward the main hanger. Max punched in the coordinates for the gate and programmed it to have a thruster "malfunction" 15 minutes into hyper space and veer to port, effectively turning it into a quantum anomaly that would be traveling forever between hyperspace and normal space. When that was set, Max turned on the sirens and the flashers and jumped out, shutting the pod door on the way off the cruiser. He got himself clear of the craft as it thrusted up and out of the atmosphere. If it were night, Max would be able to see it almost the entire way to the gate. Both of them breathed a sigh of relief.

"There's still a chance someone will come looking for me," Max said after a few seconds. Dire nodded and they walked back to the small hanger with the Twilight in it. 

"I'll be sure to tell Gunny," Miles said. "He might be getting old, but the old man can still throw someone a beating like you wouldn't believe." They both laughed about the thought of watching the old Irishman working over a couple of Syndicate members. Max was somehow certain that his vision wasn't too far from the truth of the matter, if it ever came down to it. For being almost 70, Gunny was one of the toughest men that Max had the pleasure of knowing.

After reloading the magazines on the Twilight and refueling her tank, the two men walked back to the main hanger where they found Anders asleep on the couch outside of Doohan's office. Max took a second to look at the image of beauty before him. 

The Corporal's tall, lean Martian body was draped gracefully over the couch, her head snuggled against one arm rest, her left foot resting on top of the other arm rest, the right tucked between her and the back of the couch. Her face was cradled in her arms, her blonde hair was draped over her arms, but her small ear was sticking through the curtain of silk She hadn't put her clothes back on, but instead she had found Max's flight suit and put it on. Max, in all his life, had never seen a flight suit look so good. Her body wasn't exactly hour glass, but she had shapely hips, a small and trim waist and then her body flowed up to her bosom. It seemed that her legs stopped at about her neck. Max was staring for he didn't know how long. He was brought out of it by Dire pushing him a little; Max was so taken in by Anders' body that he had to catch himself from falling over. Max stood straight back up with a sheepish grin on his face. He was sure he was blushing slightly. The Lieutenant just laughed softly and they walked quietly back into the office.

"Now, for the cost of the cruiser, I'm gonna need 10. Ammunition for that thing isn't easy to come by and she needed a pretty good amount of fuel, so we'll charge you 1 for that. 11 mil is your total today, kind sir," Dire said softly. Max nodded and they set up the transaction. It was processed within seconds and both men shook hands. Max realized it was a huge sum of money, but desperate times in a supply-side environment were never cheap, even among old friends.

"A pleasure as always," Max said smiling. Dire smiled back. "We gotta get going," Max added. They walked out of the door and Max stood several feet from the couch. The Lieutenant walked out of the hanger. "Corporal Anders," Max said clearly. Anders snapped to attention and was almost standing before she knew what was going on. Her brain caught up with her body and she looked at Max.

"Morgan," she said, the word rolling out of her mouth like poison.

"We need to be somewhere else," Max said and started walking out the door. Anders caught up to him and they headed to the small hanger.

"I don't care where you're going, I just want to go home," she said, the spite still thick in her voice. Max stopped in his tracks and looked that the Twilight gleaming under the lights of the hanger. A smile crossed his lips and his eyes clouded over in nostalgia.

"Home," he said softly and the two of them walked to Max's ship. 



Hunters Ch. 05



**If this is your first brush with this series, please go back and read the first 4 chapters. Enjoy, and don't forget to vote!**

Max sat alone in the darkness. The only light coming into the tiny room was dimmed by cloth over a finely cut panel; the odd mixture casting eerie shadows on Max's face. Max heard a noise next to the small room he was in and a small panel next to his head slid open, revealing a working of cloth and wood similar to the one letting light into the booth. Someone on the other side of the panel cleared their throat, and it was a deep sound, Max guessed that the person next to him was a man.

"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned," Max said lowly. He paused briefly before continuing. He hadn't been in a confessional since before he had been in the service, when he was still living on Io. That has been right after Max's 18th birthday, and right before he was going to propose to Cindy. He had wanted to go into that after being forgiven for his sins, but not before. "It's been 8 years since my last confession."

"Tell me of your sins, my son," the priest said. There was an air of both compassion and boredom in his voice. The combination struck Max as odd, but extremely understandable. The priest was probably used to hearing all kinds of lame sins, and he went home thinking that people aren't really all that bad; petty larceny at best in a community like this. Today, he would go home with a different feeling in his heart. Max almost smiled and thought "Let's test that faith, Father."

"I have sinned, and I have broken the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth, ninth, and tenth commandments, Father. I have sinned against God in thought, word, and deed," Max said, his brow knitting as he recalled exactly what he had done in the name of the Marines.

The priest in the other booth coughed slightly. Max could hear him shift in his seat as he cleared his throat. "How have you done this, my son?" the priest asked, his voice cracking sharply. 

"I have taken the Lord's name in vain on countless occasions and I felt it in my heart on many of those occasions. I have not observed the Sabbath in over 5 years, and on some I was acting in a less than pious manner. I dishonored my parents by specifically disrespecting their wishes for my future and by refusing to speak with them on the subject. I have killed countless hundreds of men, and through my action and inaction I have caused the death of still more men, women, and children. I have stolen property from individuals, many of whom were unaware of the theft; some tried to recover their property only to meet death at my hands. I have lied and cheated in order to protect my own self-interests. I have coveted property on many occasions, and often blatantly, with no intention of returning it, and I have often destroyed the items I've coveted so the owner can never get them back," Max said slowly. As he spoke, memories flooded into his mind, and most prominent of those memories was his first mission.

Max and his squad had been sent to Titan to clean up the remaining pockets of dissidents left after the war. There were still small pockets of soldiers fighting each other, regardless of the fact that their main forces had pulled off the planet. Some of these groups were separated from their armies and didn't know the war was over, others knew only fighting and the prospect of peace scared them. Others enjoyed the blood shed and the carnage and were busily trying to declare their own governments. The main reason that Max and his squad had been sent was to take care of a small group of Syndicate members that had been recruiting some of the marooned soldiers. The main objective of their strike was a particularly violent new Syndicate recruit with the name of Gillian. 

Gillian and a few of her freshly found soldiers were held up in an old military compound. Max's team's orders were to go in and remove them. The mission had been planned for only a few short days, and it was known that Gillian and all of her closest circle would be at the compound. When Max and his team arrived, they launched mortars into the compound from all angles and each of them slipped inside. In the confusion, it was pretty easy to do; the Syndicate's newest soldiers were busy trying to look for the invading force while the Special Forces team slipped through the shadows. Max was supposed to get into the main compound, and he did that extremely quietly. His mind hazed and he couldn't recall all of what happened, but he knew that by the time he got to his objective he had been wounded.

The main barracks area had an office suite; the planning room, the communications center, and the administrative office were all the areas where Gillian was supposed to be. Max forced his way inside the barracks and dealt with the Syndicate members in there. Four hand grenades took care of most of the opposition, and what was left was easy to pick off. Max charged into the office, not fully knowing what to expect, but it certainly wasn't what he saw. The administrative office was virtually empty. A file drawer hung half open, its contents had been pulled in a hurry, judging from the papers scattered on the floor. The other files had been pulled similarly, and even the desk chair was missing from the room. The desk, however, was there and on it was a computer with a camera set up beside it. On the screen was a smiling, young and wicked looking woman with long red hair. Max recognized her immediately as Gillian.

"You were wrong to come, Lieutenant. But instead of killing you, I think you should have to watch the rest of your squad die," she said with a giggle. A fan of red hit the camera and it panned down to show Max the headless body of one of his troops. He thought it was Collin, but he wasn't sure until he saw the head roll into the camera, Collin's eyes looking up vacantly. One by one, the rest of Max's squad met with a similar fate, each of them silent in their death. Max watched on in anger, unable to turn away.

"You just made a big mistake, Gillian. I'll find you," Morgan spat.

Vicious just smiled widely and turned off the view screen. Morgan snapped back to reality and the sounding of the priest's voice.

"You sound like a man with a heavy heart and a heavy conscious, my son. Did you commit these acts joyously?" the priest asked.

"Some of them, yes Father. Most I did because of duty," Morgan said wearily.

"Then you are a soldier?" the priest asked.

"I was," Max said after a short pause. "I was a soldier for almost 6 years."

"No longer?"

"No, Father. No longer," Max said with a touch of remorse in his voice. 

"Why is that?" the priest asked. "Did you no longer feel your purpose in life was soldiering?"

Max laughed a little. "No, Father, I think I will be a soldier for the rest of my days in some means or another. I was tired of being used as an instrument of unguided destruction. I felt as if my actions only incurred other further wrongs and injustices to be committed."

"Mmmm," the priest said in consideration. "I believe that all soldiers think this at some point; many that I've spoken with have discussed a similar dilemma of their religious beliefs conflicting with their orders. On the one hand, they have to deal with the thought of living in shame and facing punishment from their superiors. On the other, they have to worry about how they are seen by the Eyes of God."

Max's thoughts drifted to his family. He had brothers, a sister, and two loving parents back on Io. His girlfriend was there, and as soon as Max was done with the military, as soon as his 8-year tour in the Special Forces was up, he was going to go home and get married to that girl. Max still remembered Cynthia's scent, the feel of her silken hair, the warmth of her breath, and the little flecks of silver in her eyes. The military helped in taking all that from Max as well.

After the missing Gillian on Titan, it was discovered that there had been a Syndicate spy in the Marines. It made sense, and it was a constant risk, which is why only officers were given information, and usually only hours before a strike force was assembled and shipped out. This particular informant had told the Syndicate of the mission to Titian to try to eliminate Gillian. Among the information given was the name and rank of all the members of Max's team. It had all been a set up to try to turn Max against the Marines, and while he would never actively join the Syndicate, having an easily accessible family made him easy to control. 

First there were the threats; things like "we know who you are and further missions against us will become actionable." Max told his superiors and they said that they would not give in to terrorist threats from any organization. However, they did offer to move his family to the base on Mars. Max talked about it with his parents; they still were angry that he left, but understood the urgency of the situation at hand. Cynthia agreed at once and said she would help his parents out. Max's brothers and sister took the news about the same. The move was set up and they got loaded on to the transport.

Unfortunately, the whole process involved Captain Tao who proved to be the Syndicate spy. Max received a letter, hand delivered by a Marine courier, that was from Vicious. He said that it would have been better if things had worked out differently, and that Max should have stayed locked in his cage. It wasn't two minutes later that Max's commanding officer, then Major Upton, came into Max's office. He said there was something of a mutiny on the military transport and it was apparent that they Syndicate was behind it. Max's entire family was killed in the incident and there was to be a full investigation. It wasn't long after the investigation began that they had traced the leak back to Captain Tao. He committed suicide over the matter, and in a way, a very large part of Max did too.

After that, Max was the soulless killing machine that the military had trained him to be. His reputation in the Corp soared, even for a person that was, after a few years, not even officially recognized by the Martian government. His almost legendary exploits were carried out with an efficient lethality that most war heroes dare not dream of. As the Syndicate closed in on the Martian government, the Martian Special Forces closed in on the Syndicate. Their outposts on Earth were destroyed. Their power on Venus was disrupted and natural entropy of power took place there. It wasn't only that, but it was other missions, too. Defusing difficult situations was Max's specialty, and it wasn't because of his subtlety with his tongue; it was because he had nothing else to live for except for the Corps as far as he was concerned.

"You left out when the soldier has to justify his actions to himself?" Max asked quietly. He wasn't aware of how much time he had been sitting in silence, the thoughts flashing through his head. His internal clock wanted to say it had only been a few seconds. His mind wanted to tell him an eternity had been spent.

"Ethical dilemmas stem from both obligation to duty and reverence for God. All ethics ultimately come from religion for either their justification or their enforcement. Even heeding the authority of a single person or a group of people can be traced in its roots back to the very fundamentals of religion, so in truth, all things concerning a hierarchy are religious in nature," the priest said. 

Max understood this extremely well. Power was only gained through control, fear, and the person being controlled allowing for that power to be lorded over them. Religion was fundamentally no different; it was a simple choice of following and believing, or not following at all and having no purpose in anything. Without God, all things are random chance and causality, but with God a plan can be seen, because an innate hierarchy is formed.

"That would mean that God plans for us to fill certain rolls in life," Max said cautiously. "If all society is patterned through fear and acceptance of control and power, and all societies are based from psychology and philosophy, and all philosophy is grounded in religion and all psychology is grounded in man, then there is no escape from the hierarchy, because God is fundamental to it all," Max said and sighed deeply. "Which would mean," Max thought to himself, "that God wanted me to do those things, that God wanted for my family to die, because in the end, there is only God." Max couldn't remember a time when he felt more angry and lonely all at the same time than that one, empty moment.

"God allows for opportunity to happen, and in that opportunity, we are given choice. Do we turn left, or do we turn right? God ultimately has a place for us, my son; and I'm not speaking of the end where he accepts us to him in Heaven. Each of us has a place that we must get to, and sometimes the road is trying. Sometimes the road is wracked with dilemma and conflict. Some give themselves to God and deny all temptation. Some try to live life as best they can and help others become better people. Others simply live life, only to rectify the wrongs they have done later, but all three types of people have one thing in common. That thing is reverence and respect for God and acceptance that they are not perfect, that they have made mistakes, and through God they can have those mistakes forgiven, but still have learned the lessons that those mistakes taught them," the priest said. Max noted that the boredom was gone from his voice, and it was being rapidly replaced by an excitement that a person feels when doing what is right for them.

"What of those who don't forgive themselves?" Max asked, his voice sounding very small to his ears. "What about those who can't?" he asked even quieter.

"God will forgive you is you ask, my son. His love for you is unconditional, but you must want it in your heart for it to exist in your heart. As for you forgiving yourself, only time will allow for that to happen. As you said, God is the fundamental for all things. You sound as if you suffer from a broken heart of sorts, as if you have fallen out of favor with yourself. God allows the healing of your heart to take place, but you must chose to let it be healed; not even God can force that on you. What we do in life is all we have of ourselves, and we have to live with our actions. It takes a strong person to make it through all that you have said that you have done. It takes a stronger person still to accept the wrongness of their actions and to want God back into our lives."

"How can I even consider that after everything I've done in service of my government? I knew the things I was doing were wrong, but I did them anyway; and I even enjoyed them. How does that wound heal, Father?"

"A man with a conscious as far-reaching and as memorable as yours can take a life time to answer that question alone. The only thing I can suggest is a passage from Timothy, chapter 1: 'Be not ashamed therefore of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but suffer hardship with the gospel according to the power of God; who saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before times eternal, but hath now been manifested by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, whereunto I was appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher.' A soldier with a heart as wounded as yours must have done a great many things that he considered wrong. However, if you were true in your duties, as I am presuming you were, you fulfilled the role that God appointed you to. How can an appointment be a sin if it is God who appointed you?"

Max sighed deeply and he thought of his life after blasting his way out of the military base in Alva City with the Mako. He vividly remembered the tracers cutting through the air like stars rising up into the heavens. The explosions of the missiles around his rapidly degrading ship started falling off as Max out maneuvered and eventually out ran his pursuers. He knew then, or at least he thought he knew, that they would be there directly, and he thought long and hard about turning himself in. For the first time in 6 years he had been truly free. There was no morning drill, there was no paperwork, no desk, and no covert operations. There was only Max.

It hadn't stayed like that for long. It wasn't too long after that had happened that Max had been picked up by Robinson. Robinson was going to turn Max in for the little bounty that the Martian government had placed on him; standard procedure for soldiers who go AWOL and steal government equipment in the process, especially a 5 million dollar ship. Max convinced Robinson to hire him, though; Max could be a bounty hunter for Robinson and Robinson could turn in the bounties. It kept Max in money, repaired, and out of jail, and it kept Robinson armed and gave him extra money when he needed it; which was pretty much all the time.

"Maybe the sin isn't the appointment, but the path we take in getting there," Max said silently. He knew what the priest was going to say before he said it.

"Then once again, offer your sin and yourself to God and he shall cast your sin away and take you into Him."

Max nodded. He had been taking steps. Up until a week ago, he had been very careful to avoid killing anyone. There had been enough lives taken by his hands to satiate an entire brigade's blood lust. It had all been working so well, too. Up until Captain Gillian Vallemara of the Consortium. When the Syndicate collapsed, she was in the Consortium's corner and rapidly climbed to the top of the organization. She was known for her ruthlessness and had caught Max three times now, and he had escaped all three times. She had a habit of turning his non-lethal beatings into blood baths, killing her wounded men or forcing Max into a situation that put it down to three or four of her officers dying, or Max letting himself get killed.

Then there was the business he took care of trying to get the military to clear his name he tried in the beginning to not kill the guards, he really did. The first two, they should have made it, if the explosions and the fire didn't kill him. The next guard probably died, and from there on, every single guard he saw in the place lost his life at the hands of Max. There was no mercy, no quarter, not even any concern for their safety. It was all too easy for Max to do it, too; to just slip back into the mode where there are not people, to where everything is simply a target, an objective, or a non-combatant. How many men died in that building? 10? 50? Did it even matter after the first?

The simple matter is no. One wrongful, intentional death is just as bad as 1000, the only difference is how history sees you. The difference between hero and murderer lies in the body count. If a man fights bravely for his home and kills an intruder, he goes to prison. If a man fights bravely and kills 100 men because they wear different colors than he does, he's given a medal and a seat of honor in a parade.

Then there was the stealing, the cheating, and the lying. These were all bad of course, but they could be made up for. Stolen objects can be returned, cheats can be uncheated, lies can be retracted and apologized for. Extermination of another life is permanent. That person is dead. All those that the person knew are diminished in some way and that person will never get to know many of lives great joys and triumphs. The rest of it seemed almost petty to Max. So what, so he coveted the Mako. The Martian Marine Corp got her back, and in markedly better condition than what she left in.

"Why would God put appoint someone to a position that they question for the rest of their lives?" Max asked, some strength returning to his voice.




Hunters Ch. 05



"God only chooses the appointment. Sometimes the chosen is unable to cope with the appointment, but all are worthy, otherwise God wouldn't have put them there." Max sighed deeply and the priest continued after a short pause. "In the Bible, and throughout nearly all of Christian literature, the faithful are referred to as 'the flock' and either God or Jesus are referred to as 'shepherds.' I have never like this description, do you know why?"

"No father," Max said softly.

"Because sheep are stupid. They are some of the most ignorant, arrogant, and herd-dependent animals that God has gifted us with," the priest said. Max laughed a little. "Did you know that when trying to wrangle and move sheep, they will sometimes get themselves stuck in the barbed wire fences instead of going to shelter or food? Sometimes you can hit them in the head with a board and they'll just keep on walking straight and unfazed as the day is long. I don't like to think of people like that. I prefer to think of them as people, living quietly in their mud huts and tiny brick houses. Some people have been chosen by the community to do certain things; collect taxes, administer the laws, and keep the peace. Other people have been gifted with great skill in pottery, writing, carpentry, or metal working. Then there's the other class of people; the protectors. They keep every danger away from their people that they can. They fight off the lions and they keep the people of their village safe. Sometimes, my son, the protectors have to go far from home to protect your people, and sometimes that can have consequences."

"I don't know what your past has led you to do to get where you are," the priest continued, "but I do know that if God thought that you had done some great injustice or that you had chosen the incorrect path, you'd either be dead or someplace radically different from where you are now. The events of your past have made you the person you are and have given you the tools to be the person you will be. Some people are just people; they go to work, they do a job, and they go home. Some people are craftsmen and artisans. Some people are kings and queens or presidents. Others protect that way of life. The point is, my son, that you are fulfilling your role to the best of your ability as you're traveling in your path. When you get to your appointment, you will know it; life will just feel right some how. It's the blissful feeling of belonging somewhere."

That thought hit Max like a truck. He never really felt that he "belonged" when he was in the Marines. He was beyond being a good Marine, and he had the silver, brass, and gold to prove it. But in all that time, he didn't make any friends. He had people that he trusted with his life, and in turn they trusted him with theirs, but you never got too close to people in the service; you never knew when you would be holding their body as they bled out into the mud. The only thing he came out of the service with was enemies. His stories never started with "I had a friend who…" They were always beginning with "I knew this guy that…" It was only until recently that he had actually made friends again, and for the first time in 8 years he felt like he was home.

"I think I know what you're talking about," Max said in a heavy sigh. He considered a thousand memories flashing before his eyes about the last two years. Freedom, happiness, friendship, and belonging were constantly feelings he came up with when these pictures flashed through his mind. His family had become a rag-tag group that was half pirate and half mechanic. His home was where ever he was happy, and he was happy where he belonged. Max stood up in the confessional and went to open the door.

"Have I helped you find the path again, my son?" asked the priest. Max smiled and opened the door. He walked out into the great cathedral, feeling small among the gothic pillars of black granite. The rest of the church was empty, save for a few pigeons that had gotten in through the bell tower. Light streamed down through the gray interior of the church through the colored windows, making ornate patterns on the floor and over the pews. The gold and ivory statuary in the massive hall of worship glistened with the pinks and reds and greens of the diffused light of the setting sun streaming through the stained glass. The sounds of Max's feet on the carpet as he walked out through the main doors of the church were muffled until he hit the marble flooring of the entry. He walked through the massive oak doors and out into the sunlight.

The sounds of the world, kept out by the stone walls of the temple, returned to Max with the blinding light of the late-afternoon sun. After his eyes adjusted, he looked around and saw Anders sitting on the steps leading up into the cathedral, throwing handfuls of rice to the pigeons. Max chuckled a little and Anders turned to look at him, her hair fanning out for a second.

"Ready to go?" she asked, still sitting.

"Yeah, yeah I think I am."



Hunters Ch. 06



Read, review, and rip it apart. Most importantly have a merry holiday whether you're Christian or pagan or whatever your religious or cultural affiliation may be.

I highly recommend going back and reading the first 5 chapters if you have time, this will make better sense if you do.

The Darkness

* * * * *

The sequin studded crimson gown hugged the singer's curvy body. Max's well-trained eyes could see that even before the spot light hit her. Her head was down and her hair draped over her face, falling in two thick curtains on either side. The spot light irised open quickly on her and her head came up; her midnight blue hair fell into place like a silken drape. There wasn't a smile on her face, and her steel blue eyes were molten pools of lust, chilled by contemptuous boredom, and lit by a wondrous excitement.

Her sultry voice started wafting out over the crowded room, mingling with the cigarette smoke in the unlit house seating. Max was trying to listen to her, but a crackle came over his ear bud and Anders' voice broke his concentration.

"He's moving, Morgan. He's coming straight for you at your 4."

Max listened carefully and he heard the man's boots sliding across the floor, trying to be quiet as he navigated the maze of tables and chairs and patrons that were concentrating on the soft lyrics of the crooning singer. Max heard him step up behind him and heard something being pulled out of a heavy leather coat pocket, the leather creaking softly.

"You should probably sit down, and at least enjoy the show," Max said quietly, grabbing the pack of cigarettes from next to his half full glass of scotch and rocks. He put on in his mouth and then he felt the barrel of the gun press against his neck. 'Rounded slide and frame, heavy barrel, thick slide. Feels like an old 1911..." Max thought and slowly grabbed the lighter from beside where his pack of cigarettes was sitting. "Only two hunters I know use 1911's anymore," Max thought, striking the lighter. "And one of them..." his thoughts continued and he inhaled the smoke deep into his lungs.

"Hi there, Maxy," said a sultry female voice, the voice's lips tickling his ear right as the sound tantalized him to the core.

"Is a real bitch," Max's thoughts finished. Max exhaled thickly, the cloud of his breath mingling with the haze of cigarette smoke already in the room. He pulled the cigarette from his mouth and set it in the ashtray, watching the thin trails of smoke twist and writhe as they became phantom wisps in the air.

"Sit down Gillian, you're blocking the view of the people behind you," Max said softly. Gillian giggled and pulled the gun from Max's neck and set it on the table. She pulled the chair out and Max raised his hand. A waitress was over before Gillian had her jacket off.

"Two scotches, one on the rocks, the other straight," Max whispered to the waitress. Max saw her nod out of the corner of his eye and then stop. He'd guessed her eyes hit the .45 sitting on the table. "Don't worry about that, there won't be trouble," Max said non-chalantly.

"Morgan, what the hell is going on?" Anders said softly in his left, a high degree of concern in her voice. It almost sounded like she was trembling. Max had told Anders about Gillian Vallemara and that she was a person to be avoided at all costs. Now he had just welcomed her to sit down with him and she wasn't even the guy that was supposed to be after Max. 

"Anders, get back to Mars," Max said softly as he took a drink from his scotch. Gillian sat down. If she had heard Max speak, she didn't make any notice of it. Max noticed the leather long coat she was wearing had a hole in it and a dark stain on the inside liner. She sat down and snuggled into Max's arm, listening in silence for a second to the sultry tones of the singer.

"Nice coat. I take it Sakura won't be needing it anymore?" Max asked. He brought his cigarette back to his mouth and inhaled slowly, savoring the taste of the smoke mingling with the taste of the scotch. Gillian giggled. 
"I don't know about a coat, but he could definitely use a sheet," she responded. Max couldn't say he was sad. Sakura had chased them to Venus from Earth and fully intended on cashing in on the bounty that was on both of them. Sakura was one of the worst hunters to have tracking you, too. He was trained by the Syndicate to track down their members who had felt they could simply leave. But even good hunters could be surprised, and if it was Gillian who killed him instead of finding him dead, Max couldn't help but feel a little twinge of pity for him. The waitress brought their drinks and quickly walked away.

"So what are you going to do with me then? Simply march me out of here and down to the police?" Max asked after a moment of silence. He took the last pull of his cigarette and Gillian slowly reached up and grabbed her gun.

"I would like to, but there's a special bonus on you now," Gillian said sitting up. The singer finished her set and most of the rest of the room clapped. Gillian took a drink of her scotch and drained most of it. Max like wise drank most of his fresh glass. "If I get you and your new little pet Marine, there's a 2 million dollar bonus offered for turning both of you in."

"So that's 15 million for me, 750 for the girl, and a 2 million bonus? That's pretty tidy," Max said and drank the rest of his scotch. Gillian giggled lightly.

"That's what I was thinking. But I can't take you to the police for the bonus, Maxy. I have to take you back to Earth. Seems that the men you took your new little playmate from are very angry with you. Something about blowing up their head quarters and killing 30 of their men," Gillian said. Max turned to look at Gillian and he set his glass down beside its empty partner. Gillian's eyes were twinkling in the dim lights "Here I thought you were against killing, Maxy. From the sounds of it, they didn't even stand a chance."

"Unavoidable. They had guns and I was delivered into a trap," Max said softly.

"Uh huh. From what I heard you walked right in and blew the place to hell. Sounds more like the old Major Morgan than this new little scrap of man I see before me. Like it hardly matters. We're gonna go get your new little friend and we're going back to Earth," Max nodded and pulled the last drag off his cigarette before putting it back in the ash tray to finish burning out. Gillian started to stand and Max stood up as well, scanning the room quickly. He seemed to quite accidentally knock over what was left of his scotch and then dump the ashtray over near it. The scotch quickly soaked into the floor and the fire lit the fumes.

"Ready?" Max said smiling. He pulled his coat on and someone screamed behind him.

"FIRE!" a waitress screamed and Max turned, looking at the floor. The flames were spreading quicker than he thought they should, but then this was a bar, and God only knew how much of what had been spilled and soaked into that carpet after all these years. The sprinklers kicked on and the place was in even more of a panic. 

Max stepped back closer to the table and a throng of people erupted around him, pushing Gillian out the door.

"Morgan, damn you!" Gillian screamed above the din of the panicking patrons Max smiled back, and he knew he could see her as her head bobbed up and down in the crush of people heading for the door. Max waved and blew her a kiss before running for the back, jumping over a stretch of carpet that was engulfed in flames that were rapidly headed for the back of the little jazz dive.

"Anders, I need you outside at the back of Sal's and I need you back there like you've been there the whole time," Max said calmly as he shouldered the back door open. He was extremely happy to be blinded by the landing lights of the Twilight and by the snow that her engines were kicking up as Anders hovered her a few feet off the ground. Max felt the cold rip through his snapping clothes, carried by the thrust of the Twilight's engines.

"Never left," she said. Max saw the passenger door open and he didn't even break stride as he jumped up onto the Twilight's forward landing gear and hopped inside.

"Well, Sakura's dead," Max said and fastened his harness.

"Well that's good, I guess," Anders said and piloted the craft up into the dark Venus sky.

"Yes, I suppose that it is," Max said, still feeling a pang of sorrow for the hunter. He knew Gillian probably shot him in the knee from where the bullet hole in the jacket was. He could only imagine what she had done to him after that, but he was sure he didn't want to.

"But?" Anders said after just a second's lull in the conversation. "There was a 'but' there, even though you didn't say it," she added cutting of Max's inevitable question.

"Gillian's here, and she said there's a bounty bonus on us if we're both brought back to Earth. That's bad," Max said and very badly wanted a cigarette.

"Wait, you said 'us.' Morgan, is there a bounty out on me?" Anders asked, stopping the craft by one of the floating terraforming islands that were manufacturing a breathable atmosphere for the planet.

"Yes, yes there is," Max said in a sigh.

"But why, I haven't done anything! Just because my government tried to...oh I see," Anders said, her voice trailing off. There was a moment of silence. "How much?" she asked calmly and quietly. 

"750,000," Max said softly.

"Oh. How much is this bonus?" she asked meekly. It almost looked to Max like she was shrinking into her seat.

"2 Mil," Max said softly. There was another very pregnant pause and Max started staring out over the Sea of Athena, waiting for Anders to react.

"How much are you up to?" she asked quietly. The ship's chronometer clicked by over 2 minutes before she had spoken.

"15 Million if Gillian was right," Max said softly. His index and middle fingers started unconsciously tapping his knee quickly. He wanted a cigarette really badly now.

It had been a week and a half since Max had broken her out of Rotterdam. They stopped in New York for a quick afternoon to get a few supplies and to let Max go to church. They hadn't heard any news and they were running low on ideas. The Consortium knew they were on Earth and the military would be watching the gates back to Mars. Consequently, the only place they could go this time of the cycle was Venus, and it wasn't much better than their other choices. But, the Consortium wasn't already there and the Martian Military would be looking for them, but it wouldn't be a full-scale operation. Mars and Venus didn't always see eye-to-eye, and landing teams on each other's soil had always been a sticking point between the two governments.

Max was broken out of his thoughts by Anders chuckling softly. His head whipped around and he looked at her, with a confused look on her face. She was looking at him and there was a twinkle in her eye and a little smirk on her face.

"Looks like I have a ways to go if I want to catch you, Major," she said playfully and gently pushed the Twilight into movement again. Max half smiled at her and shook his head. For the first time in a week and a half, Max turned the viewer on and switched it to Channel 237.

The screen came on and that horridly cheesy western music started playing.

"AMIGO!" said the black man in the cowboy get up. Max felt like less of a bounty hunter and more of a clown every time he watched these two. "How y'all doin'!?" His voice came on loudly over the speakers.

"God I hate those two," Max breathed quietly.

"We have a special treat for you today, and we have a show jam packed with bounties for you!" the dizzy blonde said, her shirt almost flopping all the way open under the weight of her braless cleavage beneath. She made a gun with her fingers and pointed it at the screen. "PaChoo! PaChoo!" she said and cocked her hand back after firing each imaginary shot. The screen switched to the "Today's Menu" screen and it quickly dissolved into a side-by-side of Anders and Morgan, both wearing their dress blacks from the Marines.

"Maxwell Morgan is still at large and was last seen around Earth! He's worth an amazing 15 Million Woolongs since we last had him on the show and he's been a very naughty boy since then, too. His new accomplice is Erin Anders, another Marine from Mars! These two blasted their way out of a government building on Earth. IF you catch both of them together and get them back, the government in Rotterdam will pay out a 2 Million Woolong bonus!" the man said again and the words "Bonus Pay!" flashed on the screen a few times before the screen dissolved to the faces of 3 men.

"These 3 desperados are the Colton Clan from Mars!" the man started out. Max perked an eyebrow and Anders stopped the ship. "They are wanted for bio-terrorism and were broken out of custody before their trial! They were last seen in the area of Earth, but have not been spotted for some time. They are each worth 1 and a half million, but if they are brought in all at the same time, Double Bonus!" the man shouted, staring into the camera waving little victory signs around as "Double Bonus!!" flashed up on the screen.

"Oh shit," Max said. He switched the screen off.

"What? I know I've heard of them before, but I can't remember anything about them," Anders said and kicked the Twilight into motion again.

"Remember all that heat that Biotech Intersystem got into about a year and a half back?" Max asked, his face slack and the color drained from it slightly.

"Yeah," Anders responded.

"Ray Colton was one of their chief scientists in bio weapons. He'd take toxins and allergens found in nature and amplify them, purifying them and making them thousands of times worse than what the substance alone was capable of," Max said plainly and started looking out the window. It looked like it was snowing, but it was almost always too warm on Venus for that except at the high altitudes. The plants used for the terraforming were dropping their cottony seedpods and their flowers were blooming and bursting with pollen. It would have been a beautiful sight for Max, especially since he hadn't seen snow since being on Titan, but now it just filled him full of dread.

"I still don't get what the big deal is, Morgan."

"See all this fluffy crap that we're flying through? Those are the seedpods of the plants in the terraforming platforms. That means the plants are starting to pollinate again," Morgan said.

"I thought plants dropped seed only after they had been pollinated," Anders said, a little confused.

"Not these. These plants had some sort of weird-cross pollination mechanism built into them. Some of the plants are male and some are female. What happens is the seeds are dropped and a day or so after they start dropping, the air floods with pollen from the male plants. That's what causes Venus Sickness, all the damn pollen," Max said patiently. "And if Colton and his brothers are here..." Max let his voice trail off.

"Then they could be messing around with the Venus Sickness and making it worse," mumbled Anders. She brought the Twilight around in a graceful arc. "But wait, they're still on Earth!"

"So are we," Max reminded. Anders grunted softly; she almost growled. "So basically, we just sit around and wait for something to happen. They're not really terrorists, they're mercenaries. If they were gonna do something like what we're thinking, there'd be a statement made. There would be a demand and a timeframe."

"How would we know about it?" Anders asked as Max watched the twinkling lights in the distance draw closer as they neared the city.

"Well, they'd put it on the..." Max said, cutting himself off and switching the TV back on. Big Shot was just ending and the news was starting. The view of a news anchor at his desk appeared and the channel 237 logo splashed on and then disappeared into the upper right hand corner of the screen, just over the reporter's shoulder. The reporter was an older man, fairly pale, with white hair that was combed neatly to the sides and a thick beard that had some gray in it still. He wore what looked like steel rimmed glasses and he picked up the newssheets and looked at the camera.

"Good evening, I'm Donner Blitzer, and this," he started and then held for a dramatic pause, "is the news. Tonight's top story come from the Venusians capitol city of Mithridates. A fire broke out in Sal's, a club on the lower east side of town that's famous for it's performances of early 20th century jazz, blues, and big band music. Though the cause of the fire was determined to be accidental and no one was hurt, the building and half the adjacent block were razed before the fire department could respond. We now go live to our correspondent, Betty Koric. Betty?" An overhead image of the block that Sal's sat on was shown in the window over the correspondent's shoulder. Betty was standing there and on cue the image switched to the main image and she walked through the devastation and the maze of rescue equipment.

"Thanks Don. What you see behind and around me is what remains of the historic lower east side of Mithridates. The city itself started out from humble beginnings, despite its regal name, and this area was the first to be built as soon as the terraforming project had enough of a stable atmosphere to breathe outside the first bases on Venus."

"I should have known you started that fire," grumbled Anders.

"Got out, didn't I?" Max shot back and Betty started to talk again.

"The start of the fire is not known, and Sal's had no surveillance system, though at least one witness said that this was the work of the fugitive Maxwell Morgan. The witness refused to be interviewed on camera and took off after giving a hasty statement to police," Betty said

"Betty, did any of the other witnesses place this Maxwell Morgan at the scene?" Donner interrupted from the studio.

"Don, there are conflicting reports of the presence of Mr. Morgan. However, the club owner and the wait staff all firmly deny that Mr. Morgan was present. A few of the patrons have said that they saw him there, but due to their degree of drunkenness, it is doubtful that the police will follow up on that lead. Instead the police are now looking for this woman," Betty responded and flashed a picture of a very angry red head in a long leather jacket. She had a black eye and soot on her face; her mascara was also less than perfect and her lipstick was smeared slightly. Max recognized her immediately as Gillian. 

"The police say that this is the first and only eye-witness to come forward and say that Maxwell Morgan was present, the other reports coming through only after questioning. This woman, however, had no Identicard on her and submitted a false name to police. If anyone has any knowledge of this woman's identity or whereabouts, the police would like you to call them at the number listed at the bottom of the screen," she said as the number for the Mithridates Police Department flashed up on the screen. "The woman is wanted in conjunction with questioning in the matter of this suspected arson. Anyone who gives information leading to her arrest and conviction will receive an award of 25,000 Woolongs. Don?" Betty finished. The scene moved back to the small display over Donner Blitzer's left shoulder and the studio was once again in the picture.

"Ha! Take that, bitch!" Max shouted. He'd have jumped in his seat if he weren't strapped in it. Anders laughed a little.

Donner started blabbering on about some cookie drive for the Venusians Bear Scouts or something to that extent; Max wasn't really paying attention. Then he heard gunfire in the background and the muffled shout of "Nobody Move!" 

"Here we go, Anders, get to the Channel 237 tower," Anders kicked the Twilight into high gear and she arched across the night skyline of Mithridates. The channel 237 tower wasn't hard to find; it was one of the taller buildings in the city and it had a big 237 in red on all four sides of it.




Hunters Ch. 06



A big man wearing a suit and a mouse mask forced his way onto the set and pushed Donner Blitzer out of the way.

"Citizens of Venus. You are my prisoners. Any ship leaving will be shot down, any ship coming will be intercepted and turned away or blow up; any military craft leaving their bases will be destroyed by our warships. Any attempt to siege this building will be a useless gesture. It is now controlled by the Consortium," the man said boldly and clearly. 

Max laughed inwardly and a smirk appeared on his face. "Time to raise that bounty," he thought and unbuckled his harness. He fished his gun out from under the seat as well as 3 extra clips of ammunition. He continued to listen to the man on the news station, however, to see what was even going on.

"We have placed in strategic terraforming stations several devices which enhance the transmission of the Venus Sickness. This new amplified version will be enough to infect every man woman and child on Venus; except those who have been vaccinated against it, that is. In order to destroy the devices the government would have to blow up each terraforming station, just to be sure that none of our devices were missed. Doing so, however, would doom all of the citizens to slow asphyxiation."

"Our demands are simple. We want control over Mithridates, New Paris, and New Troy. We also want transferred into a new account one half of the Gross Planetary Product of Venus. If this demand is not met, all of the citizens on Venus will die and we will just take what we want anyway. You have 8 hours to meet these demands without question before 2 billion lives are changed forever," the Consortium man said. At the end of speaking he raised his gun and fired a shot into the camera. The screen went blank for a second and then the multi-barred, multi-colored test pattern popped up accompanied by a quiet, but slightly high pitched whine.

"Anders, get me on that roof. If you see anything start exploding, get the hell out of here," Morgan said and checked the straps on his boot plates. Anders hovered the Twilight a few inches off the surface of the roof and Max got ready to jump out. He turned to Anders quickly and looked into her eyes. "If I don't make it out of this, you have to get back to Robinson's and tell him what's going on. If they get Venus, he's not safe," Morgan said and got ready to jump out.

"Be careful," Anders said softly. Max didn't hear her. He hit the roof and his mind went into the logistical-killing mode that he had tried so hard to just drop. He knew he needed it now, and that he would continue to need it in the future. He shot the lock out of the roof access door and kicked it in. As he stepped in out of the cold and wind, he heard a familiar voice in his head: "I prefer to think of them as people, living quietly in their mud huts and tiny brick houses. Some people have been chosen by the community to do certain things; collect taxes, administer the laws, and keep the peace. Other people have been gifted with great skill in pottery, writing, carpentry, or metalworking. Then there's the other class of people; the protectors. They keep every danger away from their people that they can. They fight off the lions and they keep the people of their village safe. Sometimes, my son, the protectors have to go far from home to protect their people, and sometimes that can have consequences."

"Should have held off on that confession," Max said half under his breath. He charged down the stairs to the landing between flights. "I'm just going to have to go right back," he added as his eyes narrowed. Max looked and moved, his gun out in front of him covering all of the paths of attack in front of him. His aim shifted quickly, his eyes absorbing everything that there was to see in the white staircase. Max continued moving down after seeing a little placard labeled "Transmitter Control Room." His feet kept carrying him down, his eyes kept searching for traps and Consortium goons while his gun was held straight out in front of him and it was stable as a rock. It was another 5 floors down before Max saw anyone. He caught a glimpse of a man running up the stairs, his gun waving in one arm as he pumped up the stairs. Max ducked back against the flight that he was on and waited.

The goon's head just appeared over the stairs that Max was lying on and Max hesitated for only a moment and fired a blast point-blank into his shoulder. The force of the blow knocked him into the wall and he slumped, sliding down the stairs he had been running up. The cement stairwell amplified the shot and Max's ears were ringing. He quickly got the guard's gun and patted him down for anything else useful. He found a key ring and a pack of cigarettes. Max took both. A few floors below, Max heard the sound of a door slamming and then shouting. He couldn't make out much of it because of the blaring in his ear from the gunshot. Max checked the gun over and sighed deeply to himself. "Why do they all have to use HK's?" Max thought quietly. He felt the staircase move with the charging of the Consortium men before he heard them. 

Max picked up the body of the dead guard and threw him down to the next landing with a thump. The men below raced up faster and saw their friend. Max still couldn't hear much, but he saw that they both stopped to check out their fellow guard. Max whistled loudly and they both turned. Max was pretty sure the last thing they ever saw was a man wearing black cargo pants in a white t-shirt with a leather coat over the top of that, blasting away with an HK. He patted them down in the same manner and collected another handgun and two clips of ammunition for the HK. He also found some pocket change and two more key rings with virtually identical keys on each of them. Max checked it against the set he already had and they were the same. 

Max's hearing was now almost completely gone, his ears feeling warm, a constant buzzing noise was all he got out of his right one and his left felt as if it were being used as a punching bag by his pulse. He knew the feeling would pass, and soon, but he also knew that his hearing could be irrevocably damaged if he kept firing. He slung his new HK and crept down the stairs. The guards didn't' run very far before they came to their ends, and Max kept his eyes on the signs by the doors on each floor. Floor 103 was labeled "News Floor" and Max figured it would be about right for where the last two should have come from. Max noted with some delight that the door opened into the floor instead of the stairwell. He walked up to the side of the door and knocked, his back against the concrete wall. There was a few seconds pause and a hail of gunfire tore through the door, obviously meant to cut whoever was on the other side in half. Most of the bullets embedded into the blocks on the far wall of the stairwell, a few hit the steel handrail and ricocheted up where Max had just come from.

After another few seconds, the door opened cautiously. Max looked down and didn't see a gun barrel. He whipped around quickly and delivered a high kick to the door, slamming it open while he spun clear. Another torrent of gunfire erupted and Max backed down the switch back of the stairs, using them for as much cover as he could. He could hear a lot of shouting coming from the room, but only from his left ear. Max propped the HK up on the stairs just in time to have someone poke their head through it.

"Here kitty kitty," Max said quietly. The man's head whipped around and Morgan opened fire, filling the man with 5 ounces of lead. He slumped down in the door way and Max saw a hand grab the shoulder of the dead man's jacket. Max put a shot into it from his gun and it exploded in a flash of red. The bullet went clean through the hand and slammed into the shoulder of the man he had just killed. The body slumped on its side and now had the door completely blocked.

Max took the time to feel his right ear. It wasn't bleeding, so he probably hadn't seriously injured it, He didn't understand why his left ear was still working until his hand hit a small chunk of cold metal in it. He was still wearing his earpiece.

"Anders, got a copy?" Max said just loud enough for her to hear. There was a response, but between the concrete and the steel in the staircase he was in, nothing came through but a small burst of static. "Damnit," Max swore and sidestepped up the stairs, keeping the door covered. He let loose a burst of fire from his HK, letting it ricocheted into the doorway, hopefully discouraging them from trying to step through. Max heard someone swearing on the other side of the door and then some one yelling "Blow it!" Max saw something round and matte black loft through the air into the staircase. Max recognized it at once as a shrapnel grenade and he raced up to it. 

The grenade bounced off the handrail and angled down to him. Max jumped up the last four steps and dove across the landing by the door, catching and throwing the grenade into the room beyond. All he saw was the surprised look on the man's face that threw the grenade, the pin's ring still around his right finger. Max still hadn't slid all the way to the wall and the grenade went off. Most of the shrapnel stayed inside the room beyond the stairs; some of it came through into the stairwell though, and Max felt a few pieces tear into his right arm, which was luckily covering his face. He tried to make a fist only to be met with bolts of pain shooting through his arm, lighting his nervous system up like he just grabbed onto high voltage and was lit on fire. 

Max got himself to his feet and cradled his arm to his body to keep it from hurting more than it did. He was losing a lot of blood, but not nearly as bad as he had been on his last few missions. Still, the faster he could get out of here, the faster he could get patched up. He charged into the room, his machine gun pointing directly at the man behind the news desk in the mouse mask. The other men in the room with guns, kept them trained on Max, but they did not shoot.

"Anybody even twitches, and Mickey gets a new hole to breathe with. Drop your guns," Max said. HK's clattered to the floor. Max walked up to the news desk, kicking some of the machine guns out of the way as he moved, piling them up in front of the desk. All the while he kept his aim steadily on the masked man at the desk. It was only then that he took a quick survey of the room. 

The man that was by the door when Max threw the grenade was dead. Little bits and pieces of him were dripping off the walls and some of the scaffolding. There was a glassed in loft on this floor and most of the windows by the door had been shattered and most of those had big pieces of glass that had fallen in, leaving gaping holes in about a quarter of the black glass façade. There were 12 men that had had machineguns in the room, all of them wearing charcoal gray suits, white shirts, and ties. All of them were wearing dress shoes. They were just regular Consortium goons, nothing more. Some of the actual television crew were hiding in the rigging under the loft, all of them had their hands up and they had been covered by a couple of the goons before they dropped their weapons. The desk he was behind was heavy steel, probably a good quarter inch thick. Standard ammunition wouldn't penetrate it. The man behind the desk was wearing a black jacket and Max noted that his hands were quivering in the air. "That's not good," Max thought. 

Max reached the desk and got behind the masked man in the black jacket. He pulled the mask off, covering the goons as best he could. The man sitting down had white hair and was balding in the back. It was not Ray Colton. It was Donner Blitzer. 

"I'd get under the desk, if I were you. Otherwise the next news broadcast you're a part of will be a memorial." Blitzer nodded and slid quickly off the chair and under the desk. Max could smell the distinct acrid taste of urine. "Raymond Colton!" Max shouted. The goons started grinning. Max saw one of them bending a little low and he fired a shot into his knee. It exploded like a fine crystal ornament and he hit the ground, trying not to scream through his gritting teeth.

"Next one of you dumb sacks of shit moves and you don't have to worry about St. Nick giving you a lump of coal; you'll need to worry about St. Heckler and St. Koch giving you a couple lumps of lead. The door opened to the control room in the loft and a man stepped out. He was broad shouldered and had thinning black hair. His black jacket was gone, but he still wore his white dress shirt and his black suspenders. A fat cigar stub was clenched in his teeth and he was clapping as he came down the stairs. Max hated it when adversaries smiled. There wasn't a word to describe the gut wrenching loathing he felt when they clapped. 

"Mr. Morgan, I presume," the man said, a cocky intonation resonating in his voice. Max knew it was Colton. Only he would be so cocky and that's part of the reason he was fired from Biotech Intersystem

"Mr. Colton," Max said. There was no question. It was an acknowledgement.

"Gillian said that you were slippery. I read her reports thoroughly on you when I heard you were heading for Venus after your little escapade on Earth. Nice work, by the way. My hat really goes off to you for your efforts there," Colton said. He had stopped clapping, but he was still smiling. He took a deep puff of his cigar and he pulled the fat stub from his mouth and exhaled deeply, sending a thick cloud of cherry-vanilla scented smoke into the air.

"Gillian is a slippery little one, herself," Max added. His aim shifted suddenly to another guard that was trying to sneak along the wall. Max put a five round burst into his stomach and then rapidly shifted the muzzle back to Colton. "Looks like you're down to 10 lords a' leaping," Max said, smiling out of one side of his mouth.

"Captain Vallemara is quite the trickster, that's why we hired her. How is her ship, by the way? We know it made it to Tom Robinson's little rock."

"Gillian blew it up on the pad. I don't have your ship, but if it's any consolation I know where about 200 metric tones of scrap metal is sitting. I can get you a memento if you'd like."

"Oh, my good Major Morgan, I do not think that you'll have the opportunity. We know you have her, we just don't know where," Colton said and leaned up against the handrail. He casually slid one hand into his pocket.

"I don't have your fucking ship," Max said, the sarcasm and humor gone from his voice. "Anders!" he barked. "It's getting stuffy in here, open the windows." A split second later the windows along the wall shattered, the bullets fired into the floor just past them and tore huge holes in the concrete floor. Max didn't even flinch at the maelstrom of glass that exploded into the room. Neither did Colton. The rest of the consortium goons in the room took shelter as best they could. Max took the opportunity to drop his almost spent machine gun and grabbed his pistol. "That is the Twilight. Military identification number X-108. She's a two-seater fast attack ship and sitting in her cockpit is one of the best pilots and gunners in the system. Does that look like your fuckin' ship, Colton? Why don't you ask Vallemara again about your missing Megalodon. I'm sure under the right persuasion she'll tell you all about destroying it trying to take out Robinson's."

"Maybe you're right," Colton said, the smile gone from his face as well. "But that is not the reason you came here tonight, is it, Major. You came to stop me from blinding 2 billion souls. You will fail," Colton said, the smile returning to his face. Max twitched and shot another one of Colton's goons, this one in the right elbow.

"9 ladies dancing. I don't think I want to see 8 maids a' milking," Max said, the smile creeping back on his face. "I don't think I'm going to fail. I think you're going to leave the planet in a black zippered bag or wounded as hell in a ship. You'll limp back to the Consortium and they'll demote you back to some little desk job for even trying something as asinine as this, even if there is a bomb. You're just hiding behind your name and an empty threat of your past and the Consortium. There are no bombs, there's no enhanced Venus Sickness pollen. You're on a power trip; a little power play from a little man."

"I'm the only one who can stop the bombs from blowing, Morgan," Colton said quickly. "Besides that, I'm worth 1.5 Million. You should chose smarter threats than to try bluff your way through this. Besides, at best you have 9 shots left in that gun. You can't kill us all."

The Twilight's spotlights flared up, flooding the studio with intense white light. 

"Excuse me, Colton was it?" Anders' voice came over the ship's external speakers. "I have a few more shots than just 9 in here. I think you'd better start reconsidering your words. I really don't care if I shoot Morgan, and none of you mean anything to me at all, so if I have to kill the rest of you, that won't bother me one bit. And as for the reward? Ha! I laugh at your 1.5 Million. I keep Morgan alive and turn him in, I have 15 Million. I kill you all accidentally, and I still have a ship locked and loaded. I'm sure can get money somehow." 

Max, meanwhile, was not idle. He quickly figured out which targets were priorities and which of them could stand to wait the second and a half it would take to finish off the rest of them. He wasn't even sure if he could do it; 9 snap headshots and then emptying what was left of the clip for the HK into the last goon. He had to let Colton live so he'd go back to the Consortium and they'd find and talk to Gillian; though Max had learned a long time ago that any of the syndicates "finding and talking to" anyone was never as innocent as it sounded. 

"Anders," Max whispered as she laughed and started talking about the money. "Kill the lights when you're done talking," he said just as quietly. She finished talking and Max watched Colton's face blanch and small beads of sweat formed on his brow. He was bluffing the entire time, Max had been right.

The instant there was a pause in Ander's speech, Max shut his eyes. He heard the lights click off and he flashed them open again. His eyes adjusted to the light much faster than the other 11 men in the room and it gave him the advantage he needed. Max aimed and fired three times before the guards even reacted to his pistol shots. The fifth man was hit before the first one hit the ground. Max's ninth shot had struck true before the fourth man slumped down and Max's hand hit the nearly empty HK as the 10th dove for a Machinegun. He whipped it around and looked at Max as Max opened fire and nearly cut one of his arms off with the quick rake. He reloaded the HK and walked up to Colton who had put his hands out and was still trying to blink away the after-images of the Twilight's spotlights. Max held his gun in cover and strode up to the last syndicate man standing. He picked up his pistol and tucked it back into his belt.

"We'll get you for this, Morgan," Colton spat. Morgan shrugged and smiled. His brows knitted together and he looked down at Colton's feet and then slowly back up. 

"Did you wet your pants?" Morgan asked calmly, that smile still on his face. A look of shock hit Colton's face

"What? I didn't..." Colton said as he looked down Max dropped the HK and slapped Colton. His head snapped up to look at Max and all he saw was Max take a half step forward and grab his hair simultaneously.

"Merry Christmas," Max said through clenched teeth and pulled his arm down as hard as he could while brining his right knee up. Colton's nose slammed into the top of Max's knee and his hair slid through Max's fingers as Colton flew backward into the iron staircase going up to the control room. "Anders, I think we should be leaving now," Max said quietly and started walking to the broken windows. Anders gently nosed the cockpit of the Twilight into the building and opened the door. Max grabbed it with his left arm and swung himself in. Anders pulled the Twilight back and spun her around. Max pointed to a glowing red light moving across the sky far off in the distance.




Hunters Ch. 06



"You don't suppose that's..." Max said, his eyes twinkling. Anders followed his finger and saw the light as well.

"That's not Rudolf you moron. That's a fuckin' cop."

"Oh," Max said. He sighed heavily and leaned back; for a second, Max looked disappointed.