A Space Adventure
About The Book:
Harry Danbeu did not expect to ever leave the prison planet, Lark, but one day an old buddy snatched him off planet.
"Harry, do this one little job for the President of
The Federal Union and you will receive a pardon,
making you a free man again. One catch, we are
dropping you on the worst prison planet in the
sector to find and retrieve the President's missing
16-year-old daughter."
Teamed up with Federal Agent Mīa Roberts, with brains and beauty, Agent Sinclair Price, and his old buddy, Senior Agent Kalvin Nelson, they're dropped onto Tirus, a prison planet run by a vicious warlord.
On Tirus, they quickly realize that a normal day starts with brutality, and goes downhill from there. The team is informed by Jane Garrett that daddy, the President, wants her back because he needs her organs. President Garrett was injured and will die unless he has her organs harvested. She's his perfect match. So she ran and ended up on Tirus.
Harry vows not to let that happen. Of course, Agent Nelson has a different idea.
BANISHED WORLDS IS WHERE YOU NEVER WANT TO GO VISIT, EXCEPT TO DIE!
CHAPTER 1
I recognized the body armor the minute they entered Mick's bar. These were Federal Agents, Guardian class. Body armor was not a new sight here. The fact that these two wore new, polished gear caught my attention and everyone else's too. New armor also meant that it was charged, energy shields that would stop weapons fire and help the wearer in hand-to-hand combat. Most of the armor on the planet had long since lost its charge. I knew my old armor was depleted. I pushed my chair deeper into the shadows to sit and listen. It was not my business, but right now I had no business at all.
The first of the two men moved a step forward. This man appeared younger by his body motion and his larger muscles. They pushed at the edges of the armor. While the second one's gear hung loosely on him.
"I am Senior Agent MoCco. I am looking for Agent Harold Danbeu. Who in here knows Agent Danbeu?"
"Get out, you Flagger," yelled someone in the crowd. Anyone sent to Lark who still thought they had rank or position, got called a Flagger. Here there were no officials, no federal government offices, and no retirement for the old. No one had an official position on this tiny little world. Using titles was just a grim reminder to everyone that we were out of the network of planets and stuck here forever. Flaggers needed to learn fast that whatever their old life was, it was over once they were dirt-side on Lark.
"Your cooperation is expected in this matter. You might be on a Correction Planet, but you are still citizens of the Federal Network and you can be punished." MoCco scanned the crowd expecting trouble or hoping for some.
I did not know what these former agents were here for, and new arrivals with powered body armor could only lead to trouble. I slipped out of my chair and moved further into the shadows.
The second man moved forward. "We can also reward those that help us."
Now there would be trouble, and I decided to find a door and not the front one. One step back and I hit a wall, well, more like the wall hit me. "Ain't you called Harry?" a monster sized man said to me. "And ain't Harry just short for Harold?"
"No," I said softly. "Harry is the other guy, the one over there." I pointed to a dark corner across the room.
The monster man seized my right shoulder and I was sure, I could have sworn at that point he had crushed it in his grip. He stepped forward, taking me with him. "Hey, this is Harry. Is he the one you looking for? What's the reward?" The monster man propelled me through the crowd to the first guard. "Is this him?"
"I told you no," I said between clinched teeth from the pain shooting up my whole arm.
The guard raised a scanner and held it up to my face. With one arm all but useless, and my head locked in the power grip of the armored glove, I was forced to submit to the eye retina scan. A red light flashed in my face and the guard read the screen. "No match."
"See you dumb ape. Let me go," I said.
"You're sure?" the monster man said to the guard.
"Pay attention when I talk to you," the guard said and struck him sharply in the chest. The monster reeled back, taking me with him, as he had not released my shoulder yet. We crashed to the ground and I was free. It took a second to move, but I rolled over and got to my hands and knees. I leaned over close to the monster.
"Are you really going to take that?" I whispered.
He stood up just in time to see the two guards headed for the door. He charged with arms open wide, to grab them both.
I did not wait to see the results, but ran for the back door that opened into the street. I ran a full block before I slowed to a walk. I was not being chased, mind you, but after the two guards beat on the guy for a time he might want to return the favor. Or they might. There was also the fact that I could not breathe, I was out of shape.
Two blocks later, I glanced around and changed directions toward my place. Another block and I altered course away from home and walked one more block before I cut back and walked the rest of the way home. The three flights of stairs normally did not bother me, much, they were a minor reminder that I was out of shape. I lit a cigarette at the top of the stairs, unlocked my door and entered. The minute I steeped through the door someone grabbed my bruised shoulder. I turned to the right, swung with my left, and hit the energized, armored face plate of an agent. I cried out in pain and nearly collapsed to my knees.
"Hi, Harry," MoCco from the bar said to me.
"Wrong, Harry, remember," I said, twisting my head to look around at the agent.
He tossed me into the center of my living room floor. Hard.
"I lied," he informed me.
"Now, Harry, why are you causing my men so much trouble? They asked very nicely in the establishment you hang out in and you didn't step forward. Why is that?"
"Nelson?" I sat up in the middle of the floor, for the second time today, and I'd had only one beer. "Oh shit." I jumped forward toward the door, where my fallen cigarette was starting to burn another hole in my worn out carpet.
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