Chapter 1

Desirée O'Toole's naked body was wrapped around me as I enjoyed the aftermath of our recent lovemaking. While basking in the afterglow, I thought back to the events that led to meeting Desirée, and her brother, Daniel.

My name is Tom O'Connor, and I am a licensed bounty hunter. You see the year is 2474 and mankind has spread to the stars. In fact, we've now settled on over a thousand worlds. Surprisingly, though, we met very few other races that were nearly as advanced as ours. We did find, out in the fringes, traces of older civilizations that were actually a lot more highly advanced than ours, but so far we hadn't run into any. Of course humans are very warlike outside of the human empires the border areas the planets were pretty much lawless.

Now don't get me wrong. Man, being what he is, still has a lot of paranoia, especially about the possibly an advanced race attacking us. So the Imperial Navy was huge. Unfortunately there was not enough budget left over for much of a peacekeeper force. That's where the bounty hunters came into effect. You see, it was a lot cheaper for them to post the bounty, than it was to maintain a large peacekeeping agency. Now most bounties were for outlaws, but a bounty could be placed on almost anything. A lot of bounties were on stolen or lost goods, or to gather information.

Anyway, I hadn't always been a bounty hunter. Actually, I was orphaned at eight years old, and went to live on Proxima Centauri Four, with my grandfather. He was a retired Galactic Marine Master Sergeant who lived on a small farm outside of the township of Sweetwater. Being a retired military sergeant, he also doubled as a town constable. After taking me in, he proceeded to teach me the value of hard work in keeping up the farm.

After I came home from school one day with a black eye and two bruised ribs given to me by the school bully and his three friends, my grandfather proceeded to teach me self-defense. As I grew he began instructing me in weapons.

Life with my grandfather was great, until one day after I had come home from school. I found my grandfather, dead, sitting in his easy chair.

After the funeral, I figured that I would just continue to live on the farm. But in this, I soon found that I was mistaken. It seems that grandfather did not own the farm. It was actually part of his retirement, and was owned by the town. It was his place of residence, and was provided for him, as part of his pay for his work as a town constable. This meant I would have to move within the next thirty days.

His best friend was the only lawyer in town. After the services, he gave me a letter addressed to me in my grandfather's handwriting. I found that my grandfather had left me 500,000 Galactic credits, and a letter urging me to consider joining the Galactic Marines. Grandfather further wrote that he had already been in contact with his old unit, and had secured me a place in it.

I know that with most 17-year-old boys, the first thing they would do after coming into that much money, would be to blow a big chunk of it on girls and fast vehicles. Very few would do as I had done. Firstly, I took the majority of the money and put it in a high interest money market account. Then, savings book in hand, I went to the bus depot. I caught a bus to the big city, where there was a Marine Recruiting Office.

Once there I marched straight up to the Marine recruiter, a large sergeant missing his right leg below the knee, and showed him my grandfather's letter. This didn't seem to impress the sergeant much, until another recruiter, who seemed to be the sergeant's boss, came over and read the letter himself. After he was finished, he turned to me.

He said, "Was your grandfather Master Sergeant Tom O'Connor?"

After I confirmed my grandfather's name, the first sergeant turned to the staff sergeant and asked if he knew my grandfather?

"I know that there have been a lot of Marines, who have won a Galactic Star. However, there are very few that have won it twice, and lived to collect it," the staff sergeant said.

The staff sergeant then turned to me and said, "I see you're planning on carrying on with the family tradition. I just hope that you're half as good as your grandfather was. Let's just get the paperwork filled out, then we can swear you in. We can't promise you what unit you will be in, but I'm sure you will make your grandfather proud."

I told him he needed to read the letter again, as my grandfather had secured a place for me in his old unit. That was the only unit I would accept. If he could not guarantee me that unit, he could just forget about my joining the Marines.

And after making a few calls, it was confirmed that there was a place reserved by my grandfather, in his old unit. That is, provided I could pass everything at boot camp, and come out in the top ten percent of my class.

As they were filling out paperwork, they got to the portion about age. They found out that I was only seventeen years old. That started another problem, but I told them if they'd look at a little closer they'd see I'd be eighteen, the day after tomorrow.

"If all else fails, we can just do the paperwork, and I'll get me a room. I'll come back, the day after tomorrow."

This started another discussion, until it was pointed out that by the time I reached the planet where the boot camp training school was located, I would be eighteen. Since the standard procedure was to re-swear everyone in, there should be no problem.

And so it was that I spent the next six years of my young life as a Galactic Marine commando. I actually enjoyed the time I spent with my unit, but I seemed to have a huge problem with the officers with which they kept sticking us. It's hard to put up with some butter bar shave-tail who, in his ignorance, is going to get you or your men killed. Finally, just before my six-year enlistment was up, we were on what turned out to be my last mission.

A new lieutenant gave the platoon the most asinine order I'd ever heard. He surely would have killed everyone in the platoon. I changed his orders for my squad, and we got the mission done, with no casualties.

The lieutenant was very upset.

Instead of taking credit for a job well done, he had me put up for a court-martial for disobeying a direct order. The court-martial turned out in my favor, sort of ... They determined that I had done the right thing, but they still found that I was guilty of disobeying a direct order, no matter how stupid it was. So that was the end of my time in the Galactic Marines.

After my discharge, I kind of wandered around some. I was doing odd jobs when I stumbled across this 'Town Bulletin Board', while searching for my next bit of work. One section was titled: "Wanted". It had a list of people, what they were wanted for, and the bounty that was on them.

Naturally, I started reading through the list. I discovered two that I recognized. Using a small amount my savings, I went to a pawnshop and bought a small needle gun, hoping that I could keep it from blowing up in my hand (the previous owner had not kept the gun in very good condition).

As needle guns were legal on almost all planets (because you could set the power for different conditions) it would be great, as all I wanted, was to capture someone. I would set the power on low, with tranquilizer darts as secondary munitions. Lethal force with the power set up high, and explosive darts, were available with the flip of a lever.

Considering the condition of this gun, I was hoping I would never have to use it. I made up my mind that unlike most bounty hunters, if I could, I'd bring them in alive. Most thought it was easier and less trouble just to bring them in dead. However, I wasn't that cold blooded. Plus, it seemed that the bounty hunters that operated that way, soon had bounties on their own heads.

Going after the first wanted man turned out to be a piece of cake, after I got the drop on him. He came along very peacefully. He was wanted on this planet, and that made it so much easier. All I had to do was drop him off with the planetary authorities, and collect my reward.

I found out that it was not that simple. It seems that only a licensed bounty hunter could collect on the bounties. Since I wasn't licensed, I was just a private citizen doing his civic duty.

This really pissed me off, and I told them that if they weren't paying the bounty, I might as well just turn him loose. They laughed at me and said if I turned him loose, and I would be guilty of aiding and abetting, and would be going to jail myself. So I asked them how much it was for a Galactic license, and they told me that it would cost me 100,000 Galactic credits.

Hearing this, I almost went into shock. Then I got to thinking that if I went into the bounty hunting business, there was at least a chance to make some real money. Even with all these odd jobs, I was just barely keeping my head above water, with a place to sleep and food in my belly. So I handed him my credit chip. I told him to go ahead and grant me a license.

100,000 credits poorer I said okay now you can pay me the 20,000 credits that were offered for the guy. They laughed at me and said they were very sorry, but this guy was brought in by a non-licensed bounty hunter.

Seeing that I could not win this one, I thought I had at least I learned something. As I turned to leave, one of them stopped me and handed me a small booklet that read: "Guidebook and Rules for Galactic Bounty Hunters". He then told me that it would be a good idea to read it, to help keep from getting a bounty put on myself, if for no other reason. Looking through it, I discovered quite a few things I did not know.

1. Only a licensed bounty hunter or law officer may collect rewards (This explains the reluctance of those law officers to pay the bounty on the first man I brought in.)

2. A prisoner, upon being turned over to the proper authorities, may post bail of at least double the posted reward.

3. Planetary bounties are payable only on the planet of posting.

4. Most bounties are payable only if the subject of the bounty is alive, unless otherwise specified.

There were quite a few other rules but most of them were minor, in comparison to those four.

After going through the booklet, I headed toward where I knew the second wanted man normally hung out. I had seen him several times in one particular bar, down by the spacedocks. However, I wasn't sure how I could get to him in the bar, as I would be outnumbered by so many. From the many times that I had seen him in there before, I knew he was very popular. It would be hard to arrest him while he was drinking, as he was always with his friends. Heading over to the bar I came up with a plan. Since I had observed this man usually drank beer, all I needed to do was wait until he had to head for the Men's Room, and capture him there.