Bounty Hunter 1: The Bounty Hunter's Revenge Read Online Free PDF

soiled
from that time but I removed what I thought was useful. When I was finished I
used the grappling hook to drag each corpse away from the base. I made a mental
note to bury them when I felt strong enough to do so.
    Back in our makeshift shelter I spent a
few hours working on the largest piece of the broken blade that came out of my
right arm. I scraped one end of the blade along a wall to roughen it to the
extent that I could hold it with risking any damage to the armor. I then tore
up one of the shirts I had taken from the thieves and wrapped the strips of
cloth around the dulled edge to act as a handle.
    I used my new tool to carve and gut the
dead rat creature. There was not very much meat on its bones, and it was slow,
awkward work with one of my arms broken and the other holding the blade. Cass
only allowed me minimal movement of my bad arm and it was delegated to holding
the body down while I cut into it.
    The most intact pieces of electronics
that I had kept were broken open and I yanked the largest pieces of wires out
of them that I could find. Cass guided me in connecting the wires with the
cooking plate and the suit’s circuits, and we managed to get a current flowing
into the device. She warned me that generating heat would be particularly
draining on the suit’s power reserves and that we could probably only do this
during the day.
    The meat was cooked and Cass allowed me
to eat as much of it as I wanted, as neither of us were sure how long it would
keep before spoiling. She did remind me to eat it slowly, which was difficult
after not actively consuming food for days. I barely tasted the meat, which was
probably a blessing considering how bad it looked. I settled down to sleep with
a full stomach and slightly raised spirits. It wasn’t the worst day I had had
since being left on the planet.
    Days passed until the sun was looking to
finally set. The base was fully picked clean and I had nothing to do but heal
and rest. I tried to move as much as possible and was gradually regaining my
mobility and strength. I knew that it would be months before my bones would
fully heal but I was already able to move my left arm without wanting to scream
in pain.
    “Night on this planet will be just as
long as its day cycle, Burke. Almost a week of standard time,” Cass explained
when we were in the last few hours of twilight. “I won’t be able to convert any
more power without sunlight. We’ll have to conserve as much as possible but we
still need to get you up and moving so you don’t lose the progress you’ve made
healing. When we’re not doing that, you should try to sleep, or not to move.”
    “I understand.”
    “And Burke,” Cass added. “You may want
to pick out the best handgun and keep it loaded. I don’t know how many of those
creatures might come out looking for food.”
    Night began and was initially without
event. We got up and I stretched and exercised my body three times a day—as
much as we could call it a day. It was lonely without Cass to talk to but it
was a relief to finally be out of the blistering heat. The temperature built
and fed into itself day after day without a sunset. I suspected the opposite
would happen at night and it was only when the surface cooled enough that the
animals ventured out.
    In the stretches of time when Cass was
powered down and I couldn’t sleep, I found myself bitterly going over the
events that had led me here. I had trusted Adam with my life more times than I
could count, and he had trusted me. It was a rare thing, I remembered being
told, to find a bounty hunter that didn’t work alone. I found myself in a foul,
dark mood when I reflected on that knowledge, and how I finally understood why
that was the case.
    On other days, I strained my memory and
mind to think of possible reasons why Adam would turn on me. Each time I would
start my thinking session hopeful that there must be something I was missing,
or someone that was making Adam do things against