Contents
Title page
Join the mailing list
A note on chronology
In the Beginning
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Author’s note
The story continues
Do you want more?
Did you enjoy Hunter?
About the author
Also by Belinda Crawford
Dedication
Copyright, etc
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Details can be found at the end of HUNTER.
A note on chronology
Hunter takes place seventy-eight years
before the events of Hero.
In the Beginning
Humans colonised Jørn; they travelled across the galaxy intent on a better way of life, away from the influence of Earth. But the drones they sent ahead, the ones that told them that Jørn was their new paradise, missed something. Something important.
The colonists arrived, settled on the surface. And started dying.
The culprit, a native spore, carried on every wind to every corner of the globe.
Genetic engineering, blending DNA from Earth and Jørn species, saved their crops and livestock, but for humans there was no cure. Instead they took to the skies, turning their five great colony ships into cities that floated above the spore's reach.
Times were hard. All the resources they bought with them to start their new lives went into the fight to stay alive. They scavenged, they scraped, they made every morsel and every scrap go as far as it could, but it was not enough.
A few brave souls risked their lives to explore the planet. They scouted the surface, locating the resources the cities needed to survive, with nothing more than the thin membrane of their envirosuits and the claws of their genetically engineered steeds to keep them alive. They died in their dozens, victims of the planet's deadly wildlife and treacherous terrain.
They became known as Riders.
Legends.
Heroes.
They did their job well, and now, two-hundred years after the first human set foot on Jørn, humans are beginning to thrive.
The era of the Riders is ending.
But not just yet.
CHAPTER ONE
Subria skidded around the corner, only her grip on the hangar's door jamb keeping her on her feet.
'Not the day to be late, Venere!' Instructor Bayard yelled over the clang of cargo and the low of giant, shaggy cow-ocs lumbering across the deck.
Subria didn't have the breath left to yell back. She let the pound of her boots do the talking, sprinting across the cavernous hangar, dodging hover sleds piled high with supplies for the new biodomes being built on the planet's surface.
It was hard to hear over the thump of her heart and the heavy thrum of the shuttle's engines, but she could hear her classmates' yells, even if she couldn't make out the words. They sounded urgent, frantic almost, but there was no time to figure them out, just enough to scramble up and over a hover sled, squeeze between cargo containers, leap off the other side—
And hitting the deck a second later as a cow-oc lumbered into her path. She skidded under the beast's belly, getting a new appreciation for its shaggy hide and six legs before vaulting back to her feet.
Her classmates' yells made sense a moment later. The old Morague Academy shuttle was lifting off the deck, the down rush of its engines making their own tornado.
Bayard was standing in the shuttle's open hatch, feet spread, arms crossed, the lift of her brows and the tilt of her chin challenging Subria to push harder. Or fail.
No way.
Subria pumped her legs faster.
Ten metres.
The shuttle was hovering an arm's length above the deck.
Seven metres to the open hatch.
The hatch was waist-height now.
Three metres.
This would hurt.
Two.
Chest-height.
One.
Subria leapt.
She caught the edge of the of hatch under her ribs.
Breath left her lungs in a rush, pain exploding in her belly, but there wasn't time to worry about that. No time to breathe. The ground was gone and her feet were dangling in air as the shuttle continued to rise. She hung on with her elbows, gripped the smooth deck of the shuttle with her fingers and used every muscle in her body to inch herself forwards. The instructor's shoes were right there, bulky black boots, the nano-leather scratched and scarred, dominating her vision. She didn't need to see Bayard's face to feel the weight of her gaze, didn't need to see beyond the airlock to know her classmates were there, watching, waiting. Silent now, but their tension vibrated the air.
They watched but didn't move. Help wasn’t coming. On the surface, a Rider had only themselves, and so she had only herself now.
She slipped.
For a second, the flight hangar flashed in her vision: the cluttered deck, the cargo crates, the other shuttles just a few metres beneath her feet. She could let go and survive, perhaps break an ankle if she didn't land properly.
But that would be failure, and she wouldn't fail. Couldn't fail.
Subria gritted her teeth and pulled herself up. The muscles in her shoulders screamed; her elbows, wedged against the sides of the shuttle's airlock, ground into the metal; her fingers scrambled for purchase. Slowly, so slowly every second was an hour, and her shoulder blades felt like they were going to pop out of her back and her biceps were molten strings of steelcrete, she pulled herself up. Ribs scraping against the deck, cutting into her belly, making it harder to breathe. She didn't stop. And then she was in the shuttle, the airlock's outer hatch snapping closed, cutting out the roar of the engines and the whip of the wind. Subria flopped onto her back and stared blankly at the bulkhead, dragging oxygen back into her lungs.
Then the bulkhead was gone and she was staring past green-clad legs to arms crossed over a nano-leather coat, all the way up to Bayard's flat, dark-eyed stare.
'What are you doing, Venere?'
'Breathing…ma'am,' she said between pants.
'I don't pay you to breathe, recruit.'
Subria drew another breath before replying. 'You don't pay me at all, ma'am.'
'Hmm.' She turned on her heel. 'Get off that deck.'
'Yes, ma'am.' Subria
