Page 5 of The Last Hunt
Fraternize at your own risk
The first rule is the motto of Two Roses. The Hunt is the Heart. Aethon slides a light finger over the guild crest pin on his collar. He’s put all of himself into this work ever since he left Freehail.
The second rule has been helpful for Aethon through the years, but now it taunts him. Crime is endless - there’s always another hunt, always more money to be made. If he could just bring in a bounty.
The third rule is simple. The Guild of Two Roses must be powerful enough to inspire respect from other guilds, and fear in criminals. Hunters who belong to Two Roses must be ruthless, precise, and good at their jobs.
The last two rules are warnings. Criminals usually don’t forget the hunters who caught them. A recently released or escaped criminal seeking revenge is always a possibility. Aethon has become used to watching his back at all times. And last - relationships between bounty hunters are dangerous.
Aethon thinks back to an incident a few years after he was inducted into Two Roses. Two older hunters - Harlan Yates and Jasmine Fellows - had gotten married. Harlan was gray haired and grizzled, his nose crooked from being broken and not set right. Jasmine was thin and wiry with light blonde hair streaked with silver. Aethon heard Jasmine talking to another hunter after the small marriage ceremony. She and Harlan had saved up enough money to retire on some quiet planet. Aethon remembers being happy for them, if a bit incredulous. At the time, he couldn’t imagine giving up the hunt.
The week before they were set to leave Brix-9 and Two Roses for good, one of Jasmine’s old bounties broke out of a high security prison. Aethon remembers the alerts popping up on his tab proclaiming the escaped convict as “unusually dangerous”. Jasmine had, of course, decided she needed to get this scumbag back in prison before she retired. Harlan had gone on the hunt with her - unusual, but not unheard of for two hunters to work together. A week later, Jasmine returned to Brix-9, hollow eyed, dragging the criminal in tow. Aethon was there when she arrived. Harlan was nowhere to be seen.
Hera Laurent had just recently been elected as the leader of Two Roses. She watched, her dark eyes taking in the scene. Two guards took the criminal from Jasmine and locked him up in a holding cell.
“Where’s Harlan?” Hera asked as Jasmine tossed her tab on the counter to receive her bounty.
Jasmine clenched her fists at her sides and shook her head. “Dead.”
The air in the foyer of the building had gone still. Aethon watched as Hera placed a gentle hand on Jasmine’s shoulder.
“That murdering asshole -” Jasmine started, her voice dry and raspy. She gestured to the holding cell, indicating the criminal she just brought in. “He said he heard Harlan and I were married. And he hoped we would hunt him together.” She shrugged Hera’s hand off her shoulder and turned away. “Because he wanted to take away my future - like how I took his.”
Her words have stayed with Aethon. He doesn’t know what happened to Jasmine, but he always hoped she was able to find some peace in the end.
Aethon zips his bag closed and takes a last look around his quarters, thinking about what he has to do. Aside from the written guidelines of the Guild of Two Roses, there are also unspoken rules - the first of which is: shadow-hunting is a bitch move. Meaning, a bounty hunter shouldn’t shadow another hunter in order to swoop in and take their bounty. A hunter does their own damn work. They follow their own leads. They use their own wiles and influence to find their quarry. A hunter can get iced out of Two Roses for stooping as low as shadowing. No one with any self-respect does it.
Aethon clenches his teeth and strides quickly out of his quarters heading toward the Stable. If anyone could make a bitch out of him, it’s Maeve Bladesbearer.
Chapter 3
Shadows and Mirrors
Maeve
Every bounty hunter has a special connection to their ship, and Maeve is no exception. A ship is essential to the job, and most hunters spend just as much time living on their ship as wherever they call home.
The Archer is a Bracken-class spaceship - fast and stealthy, and shaped like a steel gray kite. Maeve has modified it to meet her specific needs. It’s small, but more than enough for her. The door is at the back with a ramp for easy access. Inside, Maeve’s quarters are to the right and equipped with a tiny bathroom. There’s a brig to the left for transporting bounties, a kitchenette, and then there’s the bridge at the front of the ship. The captain’s chair is in the center, and the angled dash at the very front displays the ship’s readings and controls. The dash is also equipped with a tiny 3D printer to create components for minor repairs. It’s black now since the ship isn’t fully powered on. The viewscreen is clear and capable of displaying all kinds of information about the route and surrounding area, but it’s shuttered while the Archer sits in the Stable.
If necessary, Maeve can stay on board the Archer for about a month before she needs to resupply food and fuel. One of her more expensive mods is a mirror-cloak which allows her to move through some areas of space undetected. But mirror-cloaks are a high ticket item on the black market and Maeve doesn’t want to make herself a target for smugglers, so she only uses it in emergencies.
Recently, Maeve added an AI system to the Archer to help with routing and computer maintenance, but she’s not sure the convenience will be worth the trouble since it has some strange personality quirks.
“Hi Maevey!” The AI’s voice greets Maeve as she enters the Archer. The voice has a feminine tone to it, and the accent reminds Maeve of old Earth movies she used to watch with her parents. The sheer number of nicknames and pet names this thing spits out makes Maeve think it absorbed some truly strange media.
“Hello, computer,” Maeve mutters. She tosses her bag into her quarters to the right of the entrance into the ship.
“Haven’t I told you to call me TAI?” the AI says. “Technical Artificial Intelligence!”
“Fine,” Maeve replies, rolling her eyes. “Just fire us up, TAI.”
“Sure thing, honey.”
The Archer’s systems blink to life, the dash a rainbow of readings and settings, every system customizable.
“Open viewscreen,” she says. She taps a few buttons on the dash, starting the calculations for her first jump. The Keidar Belt is about five jumps away from Brix-9, and the Archer’s systems will have to rest after each jump, but Maeve wants to get there as fast as she can. At best speed, it will probably take her about a week - assuming nothing happens to throw off her timeline.