The Bounty Hunter: Into The Swarm Read Online Free PDF

out first, knocking them onto the floor, before it unleashed
a large pile of sludge that they immediately began to feast on.
    Burke inhaled sharply and wondered how they kept the stench of all
the animals out of the air.
    The last corridor they walked through had another series of doors at
the end like the entrance had. The windows were spaced out much farther in that
hallway and held some of the largest aliens Burke had ever seen. In one there
were two rhymaws that were emitting loud, deep roars as their pen’s food chute
extended but nothing came out. They were a common target for bounty hunters.
Their bodies sported thick, long horns around their shoulders and head that
sold for a high price. They stood on four legs and were capable of running
fifty kilometers an hour during a charge, something that he had learned
firsthand.
    Burke was surprised that ACU had two in captivity. Their size and
strength made them notoriously hard to capture, never mind transport. The walls
inside their pen must have been stronger than the others, and he wondered how
many additional layers of protection had been added to the window. Most
surprising of all were the young group of rhymaws that crowded around the
larger one’s legs. The facility had a pair capable of breeding in captivity,
something that Burke had never heard of.
    Havard had to use his tablet once more on the doors at the end of
the hall. Burke looked through the nearest window as he waited. The pen was
dark inside but he could still hear noises from it. As he looked closer he saw
flashes of illuminated shapes in the darkness, parts of some animal that
shimmered when it caught the light in a certain way. He leaned forward to the
glass and three pairs of eyes snapped open and gleamed like neon jewels,
seemingly floating in the pen as their bodies stayed cloaked in the darkness.
    The doors opened and he followed Havard through. When they closed
behind him, and the wailing of the hungry animals faded away, he wondered if
they had moved to another section of the facility. The room they stood in was
massive, both tall and wide. It was a circular room, with stairs and narrow
walkways built onto the inside of the walls. Burke saw that there were more
windows that displayed pens similar to the hallways, but he was too far away to
see what was contained inside them. He was confused by that and wondered if
they were vacant; there were still no noises like there had been in the
hallways.
    There was a pillar in the middle of the room that ran from the floor
to the ceiling. There was a ring of desks and computer terminals around it,
each with a person behind it. There were other people around the room. Some
were climbing the stairs to check on the pens higher up, while some were moving
through doors dotted around the main level. Burke’s ears were ringing now that
he could no longer hear the captive animals. The sudden change, combined with
the calm atmosphere of the room, set him on edge.
    Havard walked to the central desks and Burke followed behind.
    “I need someone down here to retrieve a 1260 nucleus,” Havard
instructed to the man behind the desk. “Make sure there’s a nutrient bath ready.
I don’t want this one going dormant and hibernating for months.”
    “Nutrient bath?” Burke repeated quietly to himself. Even after being
reassured of Havard’s intention to eventually kill the alien, it still didn’t
seem right that it was about to be brought back to life in a flourish. When a
woman approached him a few minutes later, wearing a large glove on each of her
hands, he relinquished the core while trying to convince himself he was making
the right decision. He expected that the weight of transporting it would have
eased immediately when it was out of his hand. Instead, he felt worse.
    “Now,” Havard began. “We have a few more things to discuss. Like I
said, I have some more work for you. But first I have an offer. I want to
purchase the AI we sold you with your aegis