The gut-wrenching feeling of one minute standing on solid ground and the next having nothing underneath me was a shock to my system but no more than seeing the top of the cliff rapidly disappearing away from me. The wind stung the corner of my eyes as my arms windmilled; I had to do something or the next few moments would not be pleasant, nor was it an unpleasantness I thought I would survive.

  Time appeared to slow down around me as I grasped my axe in a death grip and swung it at the cliff. It bounced off the soft mixture of clay and stone, sending vibrations down my arm; I tried again and again and finally sliced it into the cliff face. I held onto the axe handle with both hands while I continued my journey downwards, but this time at a much slower rate.

  Thinking I was saved I sent my prayers up to the powers that be but they were either misplaced or not heard as the axe head snapped with a loud ear-splitting snap and I went tumbling head over heels into the water below.

  I broke the surface with a splash that would have been life-ending if I hadn’t slowed my fall down. Water chilled my bones and invaded my sinuses as I kicked and flapped my arms in some vain attempt at swimming. What felt like an age passed before my head broke the surface of the river and I came up coughing and heaving. Seeing the bank not far from me, I swam towards it with feeble strokes until my face touched its muddy bank.

  I lay face down in the mud while I threw up whatever water I had swallowed.

  My eyes stung. My throat was sore. My limbs hurt.

  So it was with something between annoyance and rage that I heard the water behind me come to life and I looked over my shoulder to see the very beast I had escaped try to swim towards me. I sat up in disbelief and watched as the big predator paddled towards me. I didn’t know which god or deity I had pissed off, but whoever it was really wanted to bend me over and give me a good seeing to.

  Unable to get up from where I sat, I watched as the creature came towards me, but it didn’t get far as the water exploded around it and a monstrous set of reptilian jaws closed around it with a snap.

  The struggle was brief. The struggle was violent.

  But it ended just as quickly as it began, with nothing but a single air bubble floating to the surface of the water after it was done.

  I stared at the river at a loss for words over what I had just seen. Maybe my prayers had been answered after all. Noticing my feet were still in the water I hurriedly lifted them out and got to my feet. Tilting my head to one side I did my best to try and get out the water and mud that had collected in my ears.

  I called up the map from my computer on my wrist and frowned as I saw the location of The Kennel. My short trip off the cliff and into the river had taken me further away from my desired destination, and it would now take me some time to get to where I needed to be.

  I looked at the trail I would now need to follow to get to the ship and turned towards it. The suns were already setting over a densely forested area I would need to make my way through if I had any hope of getting off this planet.

  I could think of nothing less I wanted to do than travel through a forest at night on an alien world, but if I wanted to get to The Kennel, then that was what I would have to do.

  Uttering a helpless sigh I began my trek.

  * * *

  I was ant,- mosquito-, flea-, and fly-bitten as I emerged from the clutches of the forest and saw The Kennel. No sight had ever filled me with so much joy as I passed my eyes over the hull of my ship—well, my crew’s ship, a crew called the Junk Yard Dogs. A crew who had kidnapped me against my will, taken me halfway across the galaxy to a planet filled with murderous thugs, gangsters, thieves and everything in between. They had taken me away from a life of misery and dissatisfaction and given me one of freedom.

  But freedom always came at a price, even if that price meant slogging through an alien forest at night unarmed.

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  Thinking back to the life I once had—the stable office job for Xcorp where I was guaranteed the same monthly pay, the unsatisfied marriage where my wife had been cheating on me for years, and the feeling of dread I felt when I woke up every day, hoping, praying it would all come to an end—I would cross a thousand forests at night, on a thousand different planets, never to wake up to that feeling again.

  Mud caked my boots and legs as I walked up towards the cargo bay doors of the ship and stood in front of them.

  Hands on my hips, I waited.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  “Do you want this thing?” I asked, pulling the idol out of my waistband. “Because I can just as easily throw it in the mud and be done with it.”

  The ship’s weapons slowly swivelled my way and Tuari’s voice came over the speakers: “Willis, stop pointing the guns at Quinton; it isn’t his fault he’s so late and we have been waiting here for him with nothing to do but play board games. I guess that’s just the type of person he is.”

  “I say we blow his left nut off,” said Willis, “so he always has a constant reminder of what it means to waste people’s time.”

  I rolled my eyes as they continued berating me over the speakers until the cargo doors finally lowered.

  Shaking my head I walked forward and stuck my middle finger up at one of the ship’s cameras as I boarded.

  Mission completed, the only thing on my mind was whether to eat first or take a shower.

  Washed and clean I sat in the canteen and ate a plate of balsamic-glazed steak rolls with relish. My taste buds hugged me and my stomach thanked me, as I was now on my second plate. I had missed lunch when Tuari had made the meal for the crew so all they left me was leftovers, but I wasn’t complaining.

  Even leftovers made by Tuari were better than most five-star restaurant meals.

  I kept on eating as I heard footsteps approach me. The overpowering smell of a Cuban cigar rode on the air like a big-wave surfer as José took a seat opposite me; whisky glass in hand he leaned back in his chair and gave me a toast.

  “Great work today, boyo. You did your crew proud.”

  I nodded my head and kept on eating while I allowed the silence to lengthen between us.

  “How did you feel on your first mission?”

  “Not bad,” I said around a mouthful of food. “Could have used some backup, could have used my shotgun, but I guess it all worked out.”

  “I’m glad that it did. We were getting short on supplies such as fuel and food, not to mention ammo—Willis goes through more rounds a week than a military unit. Once we deliver the idol to the buyer it should cover us for a while, plus I can finally pay you fools.”

  “How come we’re so low on cash? I thought we got paid well for the job we did for The Lady?”

  I know I had.

  After Lady Isabella Ivanov had paid José and we had properly covered our tracks, José had split the money between the crew, and I had received a share. Shocked at first, I didn’t know what to say, but José had told me that my help towards the mission was invaluable and without it, the mission wouldn’t have been completed.

  About to protest, I looked at the money in my bank account and felt like a king.

  It would take me eight years of work plus overtime at my old job to even come close to what he had given me.

  “Lady Isabella did pay us well, but I had a lot of debts to clear and you guys to pay; after I took care of that, we were back to square one. There’s one thing I like to do, boyo, and that is pay my debts.”

  I scooped up the last of my meal and then laid my cutlery down with a clunk before I stretched my arms over my head.

  “Don’t worry if things didn’t go according to plan, it’s always the same. Everyone’s first mission goes to shit. You should have seen what happened to Willis—we were on the run for weeks after he destroyed an entire street. It took a lot of hush money to cover that shit up, Poppy’s was even—”

  He stopped and allowed the sentence to die in his throat.

  “Poppy’s was what?” I asked, anger lacing my words.

  “Poppy’s was even worse,” he said, Spanish accent thick and heavy.

  “Did you know? Did you know what she was before—”

  José held up his hand stopping me in my tracks. “This thing is not for me to discuss. This thing is between you and her. Each crew member aboard this vessel has their own personal demons that they are running away from or battling against.they trust me with them; this trust I can’t betray just because someone’s feelings got hurt.”

  “Feelings got hurt! Feelings got betrayed! She should have told me, she should have sat down and discussed with me what was going on instead of keeping it from me. We slept together, for fuck’s sake.”

  ”This thing is between you and her to discuss,” he said calmly.

  I got up to my feet, hands clenched by my sides as I stared his way while my jaw worked back and forth, trying to place the words in the correct place as they fought to come out from the pit of my stomach.

  ”You should have at least told me. She should have at least told me!”

  “Why?”

  “Because I…. because it was,” I balled my fists against my forehead while I tried to think of the correct thing to say, “because it was the right thing to do.”

  “What difference would it have made if you knew she was an AI humanoid? Do you think you would have handled the situation better instead of acting like an immature child and throwing a fit? Maybe you should have thought about her feelings first instead of acting the way you did. Maybe, just maybe, you would have looked at her side of things and thought about how she felt instead of how your little ego got hurt.”

  “You know what, José,” I said, pointing a quivering finger in his direction, “just—just—just fuck off!”

  I stormed off in the opposite direction but not before José called out to me.

  “I have never seen her act the way she acted with you, with anyone before. Maybe you should ask yourself why.”