The Bounty Hunter: Reckoning Read Online Free PDF Page B

single
augmented arm.
    On the third day, she reviewed all
the information she could find about the planet. Her arm could serve as well as
any tablet computer, and she viewed what data she had on there. The arm’s
display emitted from her right hand and she manipulated the interface with the
fingertips on her left. She ignored the constant error messages she got as she
cycled through the information: connection lost, network not found, wireless
signal missing. Many times she followed a link to view that message, working
only with what data she had saved locally to the arm’s drives that assumed she
still had a consistent galactic internet connection.
    Most of the information she already
knew or was useless to her: Meidum was officially uninhabited, there was
unusually high amounts of oxygen in the atmosphere for a desert world, it was
suspected that the planet had large subterranean caves that was home to most of
the planet’s indigenous lifeforms. She looked for weather patterns and exact
timings on the length of the planet’s day and night cycles. Each day and night
lasted a week and she estimated she had landed in the middle of the day cycle
by the star’s position and direction of movement in the sky. 
    She read about frequent sandstorms
when the planet switched between day and night, when the changing temperatures
would draw together fierce winds. Suddenly, she thought she understood the
stacked crates—to protect the underground from being flooded with sand. She
made a note to replace the heavy crates and keep a pile of the worst worn
clothes to stuff through the cracks between them.
    On the fourth day, the system’s
star began to set. Jess inspected the repairs Burke had made to the solar array
and found that he had done a terrible job. Her years of experience as a
mechanic made her able to see improvements immediately, but the heat that had
built up on the surface near the end of the day cycle was too much for her to make
the changes. She retreated back down into the basement level and prepared for
the week-long night that lay ahead of her.
    Burke had burned through many of
the power cells in his stay as he was unable to restore them. She was confident
that she could recharge them where he had failed, but not in a week’s time. She
had no idea what would remain functional when the star’s light set and the
solar array was no longer able to accumulate power.
    She collected as many plastic
containers from the boxes that she could find and filled them with water,
unsure if the filtration system would still function during the night. She
emptied another crate and filled that with soiled clothes and water and then
sealed it away. All of the weapons were collected and placed in the opposite
corner of her bed. Burke had left Eric’s rifle and she decided that was the
weapon she would use when she went out to hunt during the night, as she had
heard Burke suggest before he put a bullet in Eric’s head.
    She thought of his final words as she
cleared the last things of his old room. Had he intended to shoot Eric all
along, or was it a decision he made on impulse as Eric walked away? Jess looked
over the wall nearest the bed and saw lines etched into it that she hadn’t
noticed before. They were a tally, and she counted the first hundred before
deciding they had to total up to the days Burke had spent on the surface.
    “He must have killed Eric to spare
him from what had been done to himself,” Jess whispered as she ran her fingers
through the tally marks. “Why though, when he had just proved that he lived
through it? A fuck load of good it did in the end, someone’s stuck here after
all.”
    The base felt suffocating to her
after that, and she suffered the lessening heat to watch the hours of sunset before
the darkness of night fully fell around her. She had no idea how long it would
be until the animals came out of their refuge from the day’s heat. She sat on
top of the base with her rifle, alternating between