running, especially now that every merc in the ’verse had heard of me. I wanted a house and not to have to look over my shoulder every minute of every day.
My von Hasenberg genes kicked in—perhaps Loch was the key to that future. Father would drop my bounty if I gave him Loch. Oh, he wouldn’t do it easily, but Father could be swayed with the right incentive.
I shook off the thought. Loch had helped me, even if it was just for the money. While a true von Hasenberg would have no trouble stabbing him in the back in appreciation, I tried to keep my backstabbing to a minimum.
But by the calculating look on Loch’s face, I wasn’t the only one contemplating a double-cross. I’d need to be vigilant once we landed. After I paid him, I needed to disappear.
I stretched one last time then dropped into the navigator’s seat. Tau Sagittarii Dwarf Nine loomed large in the front window. We were approaching at the border of light and dark, so the planet looked like it was broken in half. Only a few faint lights glimmered on the dark side of the planet—a giant metropolis this was not.
“Atmospheric entry in five minutes,” the computer chimed. The window shutters slid closed, leaving us with video screens. I tried not to think about how long it had been since this ship had received routine maintenance. Landing was hard on ships.
The screens showed a bleak brown planet. A line of white-capped mountains marched across the border between light and dark. No greenery or oceans broke up the monotony.
We were close enough to tap into the planet’s information network. I pulled up the depressingly short wiki entry. It was dated a month ago. TSD Nine used to be a Yamado mining planet. Then the ore ran out. The miners and the diplomats moved on to the next planet, leaving behind the seedier elements that were all too happy to take over.
The wiki warned that the dark side of the planet was best avoided. Smugglers had taken over the abandoned mining shafts, and outsiders were unwelcome. Those who wandered in often went missing.
Lovely place, this planet.
The light side wasn’t any better, as it was rife with mercs. Every so often they’d go bounty hunting through the smugglers’ tunnels. The largest city, Gamamine, sat in perpetual twilight on the border between the two worlds.
Getting a better ship was going to be tricky. Usually I’d just book passage on the first ship off-planet, but I had a feeling the options were going to be few and far between—this wasn’t exactly a booming tourist location. I could afford to buy a new ship, but throwing that much currency around after landing in an escape shuttle would raise some eyebrows.
“Atmospheric entry beginning,” the computer chimed.
Loch settled into the captain’s chair and clipped in. The planet filled the video screens. After time in space, it was always weird to realize that you were intentionally hurtling yourself at the ground in order to land. And that there was ground at all.
It’d been over a year since I’d set foot on a planet, because I mostly bounced around between space stations. Stations always had flights available at the last minute and weren’t always the strictest about checking documentation. And the biggest stations were larger than surface cities anyway, so it was easy to get lost in the crowd.
The escape ship shivered as it decelerated. We had to slow down before we slammed into the atmosphere or we’d end up in itty-bitty pieces spread over half the planet. All of the data on my screen showed our entry was proceeding as expected, but the next ten minutes were the hardest on the ship.
A few minutes later, the telltale buffeting of atmosphere vibrated through the ship. The turbulence got worse as we descended. Thankfully these seats had shoulder harnesses. I’d landed in a subpar ship with just a lap-belt before and came out bruised for my effort.
We were on course to land at the small spaceport in Gamamine. The city was both our best chance of getting off-planet again and our best chance of getting caught. If the mercs caught wind that the two highest bounties in the ’verse had just landed in their backyard, we wouldn’t have a moment’s rest.
Loch’s hands moved across the screen and the ship blared a warning. Before I could ask him what he’d done, the ship dropped like a rock, throwing me into the shoulder harness. Blood rushed