Lingering threat travis.., p.1
Lingering Threat (Travis Hurts Novels Book 4), page 1
Lingering Threat
Travis Hurts
Toby Neighbors
Lingering Threat: Travis Hurts #4
Copyright © 2023 by Toby Neighbors
ISBN: 978-1-952260-71-1 Print
978-1-952260-70-4 eBook
Mythic Adventure Publishing, LLC
Idaho, USA
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Also by Toby Neighbors
Book 1
Book 2
Book 3
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Space Fever Sample Chapter 1
Space Fever Sample Chapter 2
Space Fever Sample Chapter 3
Prologue
She didn’t have to wait long. The attack came from one of her lieutenants. Iona Freeze had known it was coming, just not from who, and not when.
Failure was not something she was accustomed to. But she had failed to ensure that Travis Hurts was killed. That was the task Dice Jester had given her. It didn’t matter that Morgan Black had been captured without completing the job. Or that her own plan of springing Leon Hurts had been a bust. It was all on her head, and the Incendius Organization didn’t accept failure, either real or perceived.
She had just finished working out. Iona Freeze was a purist in the gym who enjoyed lifting heavy weights. Unlike most women who focused on body sculpting, Iona was fully devoted to strength training. And after years of daily workouts, she was fitter than most men. But that wasn’t why she did it. Iona liked being strong. And she liked the message it sent to the people around her. She wore a snug-fitting leather vest with nothing underneath it. She liked showing off her arms and shoulders, and even the muscle striations across her upper chest. It wasn’t the type of beauty that many women aspired to, and to many people it was a turn off. But Iona wasn’t interested in winning a beauty competition or finding a husband. Fear was her goal, and with her muscular physique and angular features, just one look at her made most people uncomfortable.
Meesha Tate had always claimed to have a similar interest. Not in strength training, but in gaining respect through fear. She was in many ways the opposite of Iona, a woman who looked completely harmless. But in reality she was a ruthless killer, especially with a knife. While Iona trained with weights, Meesha trained in Kali martial arts. It was a weapons-based fighting system, and she could twirl her custom blades in a beautiful display. Iona had seen her slash a man’s throat before he knew she was a threat. Since then, Iona had always kept her distance from Meesha, which was what saved her when the inevitable betrayal happened.
They were on the Putnam Exchange, a large space station that was located on one of the galaxy’s most often used trade routes. It was Iona’s second home. She kept a small apartment on Putnam. Her best people ran a few rackets on the exchange. It was the perfect place to move stolen goods, partly because of the amount of trade that took place on Putnam, and partly because she was bribing most of the Transit Authority officers on the exchange to look the other way.
Iona came out of the gym with a towel around her neck. Meesha approached holding her data slate in one hand. Iona knew that sooner or later Dice would want her dead. She was paranoid, but she knew how the game was played. Word had gotten out that the boss of the Incendius Organization wanted Travis Hurts dead. But the bounty hunter was still alive, and had recently apprehended the most feared assassin in the galaxy. It was a bad look for the crime boss. He appeared weak. In fact, if Iona hadn’t been his target she would have been plotting to have him killed so she could take his place. But she had become his scapegoat, and he would have her killed to restore his reputation.
“I just got word from on high,” Meesha said as she approached Iona. “They’ve got a new plan.”
“What is it?” Iona asked, pretending to wipe the sweat from her forehead.
“They want you dead!” Meesha snarled.
The blade was fast. It cut through half the towel that Iona used to block the slash at her throat. But it wasn’t an unexpected attack. Meesha hadn’t caught her boss unprepared. Iona wrapped Meesha’s hand, and the blade, in the towel, then kicked Meesha’s knee. It was a simple, stomping action, but with her heavy, lace-up boots, the blow was powerful. The strike came down and forced Meesha’s leg to bend the wrong way. She screamed and stumbled back, limping from the pain in her leg.
“It didn’t take them long to turn you,” Iona said, stalking down her associate.
“They didn’t have to,” Meesha said, waving her curved knife blade in a menacing fashion. “You’ve lost touch. It’s time for new leadership.”
It was the way the gangsters to always be testing the limits of the person above them. It took ambition to break the law. People who were risk averse didn’t become outlaws. And those that did were always looking for their next target, a better con. Iona had risen through the ranks because she could get things done, often better than her male counterparts. And she was an earner too, with schemes on a dozen worlds. Each scheme was run by teams of hand-picked people, many who were made men and women with strong ties to the Incendius Organization.
Iona feinted one way, then lunged the other. It wasn’t an unexpected move, but with one leg throbbing in pain from being kicked in the knee, Meesha wasn’t agile enough to dodge out of the way. She tried to stab Iona, but the stronger woman caught her wrist with one hand, and punched her straight in the face with the other.
Meesha stumbled backward, her head hitting a metal wall. She groaned, bent double, then straightened with a laser pistol in her hand. It was a tiny, one-shot laser weapon called a Stinger, but one powerful enough to kill. But before she could point the weapon at her boss, Iona grabbed the hand with the knife and twisted it hard. Her wrist bent backward and Iona shoved it into Meesha’s stomach. The Stinger fell from her hand, and she looked up with fear in her eyes.
“You shoulda had my back,” Iona said.
“You killed me.”
“You’re lucky I can’t kill you twice, because I would,” Iona said.
She backhanded her associate hard enough to send her sprawling on the deck. Then she picked up the Stinger and looked at the tiny weapon. It was made of some fancy material, maybe carbon fiber, or some exotic polymer. It probably wouldn’t get pinged by a metal detector, the perfect self-defense weapon for a criminal who always needed to protect herself.
“Did the boss really order a hit?”
“No,” Meesha said in a weak voice that was barely more than a whisper. “I thought …”
“You thought you would be proactive and bring the boss my head,” Iona said. “Did you really think I wouldn’t see you coming a mile away?”
“You’ve been slipping.”
“No, I’ve been trusting the wrong people,” Iona said, pointing the Stinger at Meesha.
The woman had once been a close confidant, but that relationship was forever shattered by Meesha’s betrayal.
“And I’m correcting that mistake,” Iona continued, just before she pulled the trigger.
The laser beam wasn’t powerful, but at close range it was deadly. It hit Meesha in the left side of her chest, the focused light vaporizing skin, muscle, and bone, before burning through her heart. She died instantly, and Iona began making plans to get off Putnam and track down Travis Hurts. The only way she survived was to kill the bounty hunter herself. And she had an idea of how she might pull it off.
1
“It’s used,” Ava said, “but’s made for a Econo Freighter 228, just like the Purgatory.”
“You’re kidding,” Travis said, not quiet believing she had done it.
“No, it’s only four hundred and ninety-nine thousand.”
“Half a million credits?”
She shrugged. “It’s pretty nice. A full galley. A bigger bathroom.”
“And it fits our ship?”
“Yes, it’s made for it, Travis. It’s got storage, real closets, the rec space is twice the size of our total living area now.”
“And it won’t slow the ship down?”
“No, it stays in space,” she explained.
“Where is this incredible wonder?” Travis asked.
“It isn’t far,” she said. “It’s in the Hyburnum system.”
Travis knew the system. He had done some work there. Hybur Four was a highly populated planet. The system had a thick asteroid belt. There were several mining operations, and a major refinery station, as well as a shipyard. Several of the planets in the system had outposts, although Hybur Four was the only habitable world with a breathable atmosphere.
“I’ve been there,” Travis said. “I picked up a fugitive that was working for a mining company harvesting the belt.
“We could go and see it,” she said. “As soon as we’re done on Scye Primary.”
“I don’t suppose it could hurt. I just can’t help but think we could use that money to build out the house on Expanse, or make a down payment on a condo somewhere.”
“Why spend money on a place we’re only going to visit from time to time?” she argued.
“You really want to keep doing this?”
“We both do. Don’t deny it,” she told him. “Let’s just agree that we’re going to be honest about every job, and we’re going to live with a certain level of danger.”
Travis looked over at Kaylee and couldn’t help but smile. She was asleep in her bassinet and looked so peaceful and innocent. He probably could have given up chasing down outlaws for her, but Ava wasn’t asking him to, despite the fact that they had nearly been killed numerous times. In fact, in his entire career he had never come so close to dying even once. But with Morgan Black in custody, Travis felt a little less worried about their safety.
“Yeah, okay,” he said. “We’ll get our new safety clothing from Edwardo, and go check it out.”
“I’m going to message the owner. I don’t want him selling it to someone else,” she said.
Travis sighed, but it was a sigh of contentment. They had planned to spend a few days in Capree taking in the sun and surf along the coast, but he knew that after they paid Edwardo she would want to leave immediately. And to be honest, he was pretty excited about the prospect. A real bedroom would be nice, he had to admit. Two would be even better. And if Ava could do so much with the tiny kitchen in their tiny living quarters on the Purgatory he couldn’t help but wonder what she could create in a full-sized galley.
They reached the Toothsbury system an hour later. By that time, they were both very excited about the prospect of expanding their ship. Ava took the controls. Flying the Purgatory had become her passion. Somehow she managed to take care of a newborn baby, make Travis’ life wonderful, and fly the ship. All he did was catch outlaws and desperados.
He was nursing a few bruises from his fight with his father. Leon Hurts was an escaped felon that Travis had tracked down on Dur Rohstoff. Seeing him again after over twenty years was difficult. Time in the penal colony on Lucerne had not been kind to the old man. He was still strong and cruel, but not as tough as he once had been. Yet somehow, even in death, the old felon still found a way to torment Travis. Not an hour went by that he didn’t question whether he couldn’t have found a way to bring his father in alive. Guilt was like a knife in his back. It plagued him, and there was no cure, no way to stop the painful memories. He knew time would ease the feelings of hurt and regret, but there was no way to speed the process. And there was no guarantee that he wouldn’t carry the scar of having to kill his own father for the rest of his life.
They landed in an airfield on the edge of Capree and took Kaylee out into the fresh air. She was a happy baby. Travis wondered how different his life would be if Kaylee were fussy and cried all the time. He had heard horror stories about infants that never stopped crying, and parents who never got any rest. But Kaylee was a calm, happy baby. And she had stolen his heart.
They were flush with money too. They had returned from Dur Rohstoff with a ship full of fugitives. The reward money, even after repaying his fine to the GCIB, was nearly a million credits. He had insisted that Ava put two hundred thousand into a private account for herself and Kaylee. She swore that she wasn’t going anywhere, and they were even talking about marriage, but he wanted her to have options. Especially if something were to happen to him, which in his line of work was a very real possibility.
Edwardo Hernandez was one of only a handful of tailors in the galaxy that wove laser-absorbing fibers into clothing to create a barrier that could stop a laser blast, or at least reduce the damage it would do to his body. Travis had ordered a new coat and shirt. His last outfit had been ruined by Morgan Black. He didn’t like thinking of that terrible night on Expanse either. He even wondered if they would ever return and finish the homestead on Expanse. It held a lot of bad memories for Travis and for Ava.
“Welcome, my friends,” Edwardo said when they reached his workshop. “Come and see what I have for you.”
They followed him inside and found a holographic display running the news story about the capture of Morgan Black. The news anchor was going on and on about The Man In Black, the dreaded Ghost Gun assassin that was more myth than man. The newscaster even mentioned Travis, but thankfully he didn’t have a photo of the lawman responsible for bringing down the most infamous outlaw in the galaxy.
“You are famous!” Edwardo said.
“I was lucky,” Travis said. “I didn’t stop Black. I just took him into custody.”
“They say you saved his life,” Edwardo said. “Not this clown. He is bought and paid for by the Galactic Coalition. But there are better stories out there. They say you cut off his gun hand.”
“I didn’t,” Travis said. “That was someone else. I just took an injured man into custody.”
“But he was there to kill you, no?” Edwardo asked. “Did you face him down, Travis?”
“I saw him,” Travis said, not mentioning that it was just after he had killed his own father.
“You are brave. And you did it without my clothing,” Edwardo said. “We must change it. In fact, I have an offer for you. I think you’ll like it. First, let us try on the clothes, yes? It will be fun. Ava, let me hold the baby for you!”
Edwardo took Kaylee. Travis put on the shirt that Edwardo had made. It was a simple garment, gunmetal gray, long sleeves with button cuffs, and buttons up the front. Travis put it on and found it to be a perfect fit. It wasn’t stiff. There was stretch to it. And on top of the shirt went the new, knee length coat. It was thicker than the shirt, and made to be worn open so he could get to his weapons, but it could be buttoned up too.
“I did some experiments,” Edwardo said. “The shirt has one-way fibers, enough to absorb fifty to sixty percent of a normal laser. But the coat has fibers woven into the wool in two directions, overlapping. It’s not body armor, but my experiments show an increase in the efficacy of up to ninety percent, depending on the power and range of the weapon.”
“You’re saying this will stop a laser blast?” Travis said.
“Not the kinetic energy, but the heat, yes,” Edward said. “As well as the body armor you gave me.”
“Mine too?” Ava asked.
Edwardo nodded. He had made her a garment that was more a cloak than an actual coat, although it had sleeves. It was big enough that she could wear it over herself and Kaylee, if they were in a dangerous place.
