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Zach was trying to cook up a plan while appearing to focus on his re-lit cigar. These idiots for sure couldn’t tell that’s what he was doing. They were all muscle and no brain—they lacked insight and nuance; otherwise, they’d be the leaders and not the foot soldiers in whatever Culum’s operation was.

What was Culum’s operation, come to think of it? Zach should have known what that was for situations like this one. It’d help now to know how hard Culum would be to outwit here.

Was he a mercenary? A pilot-for-hire? A glorified window washer for a corrupt corporation? Something that likely didn’t require creative thinking, whatever it was. Because Culum had as much personality as a bag of dirt. Zach worked with dirt a lot. Usually it had more personality than Culum. And now that he thought of it, he shouldn’t insult dirt like that.

“I flew halfway across the galaxy for this.” He shook his head and kept the dialogue up while planning his next move.

“That’s not a problem. Is it? It shouldn’t be. Not with your special strain here?” Culum pointed at the crate with his blaster.

Maybe he had a personality after all. 

“Well, for that sarcasm, you don’t get any Witch Head. And by the way, that was hyperbole. Halfway across the galaxy? Hyperbole. It’s a word that means exaggeration to illustrate a point. The point is, you’re screwing me over and I’m annoyed.” All this way for a setup. He could see the credits for the sale trickling away. And if he knew the sort of person Culum was—and he thought he did by now—he was going to try to take the mushrooms and keep his money.

“Don’t I?” Culum lowered his gun, finally. “Well, I guess we’ll just leave, then. Come on, guys.”

More sarcasm. What a guy. What an act.

The tension in Zach’s body relaxed in all the places he valued most as Culum’s gun dropped to his side, but not for long because the barrels of half the guns of Culum’s men lifted and leveled on Zach.

Was Ozzy thinking of a way out, for Christ’s sake? Sometimes Zach questioned the wisdom of having a Pegasion as a first mate.

Cody for sure wouldn’t be coming up with a plan. Zach glanced again at the boy and saw the panic in his wide eyes. Why’d he bring such a naïve kid on this deal? He was too fresh, too new at the job.

“My mom won’t believe it when I tell her I’ve traveled to the Monarch system,” he’d said on the ship at some point on their journey to the meadow.

Zach looked at Ozzy again, hoping the fool had been thinking of a way out of this. Basically an upright horse, the idiot was studying the nails of his large fingers—of which he had three plus an opposable thumb—ignoring the row of blasters aimed at them.

“What?” Ozzy asked when he noticed Zach staring at him.

Zach shook his head.

Of course Zach had used the Witch Head to get to the drop zone—of course he had. But it was still a bitch to come all this way for a deal that was falling through. And now he’d need to pay for fuel to get back into a zone where he could slip onto the Jump Plane, outside the boundaries of the sentry units that guarded the habitable zones and prevented ships from accidentally exiting right onto a planet or another ship.

He’d been counting on this damn sale.

Zach pulled the cigar out of his mouth. “So you think you’ve turned me in, and now you’ll steal the evidence, not pay for it, and leave me here to be caught by the Red Monarchy? But, if you take the evidence before they get here, then I’m in the clear.”

“You still have a ship full of contraband. I just need the one crate.”

If only he could bring himself to lie and say, “Oh, that? That’s the crate of mushrooms I poisoned.” But he couldn’t—he couldn’t muddy up his reputation like that.

Plus, it was the trick of a ten-year-old and wouldn’t work anyway.

“That’s still my crate. You try to touch it, and I’ll shoot you.”

“Good luck with that.” Culum looked up at the sky. “I’d say you have about twenty minutes before they get here.”

“You’re not taking the mushrooms. Unless we finish the deal. Then you can have them and leave with no casualties.”

“Why would I part with my money when I can just take the mushrooms?”

He hadn’t wanted to say this, but it was his last hope. Maybe it could turn this around. He took a pensive pull on his cigar, tasted it, and let the smoke leave his mouth.

“Listen, no one else has this strain,” Zach said. “I made it. I know it works and that you’ll travel farther than you ever thought possible with it and without the toxic side affects. I know those have been bugging you real bad, Culum. But if you ever want to see this strain again, you’ll change how you’re doing business with me right now.”

“I don’t think you’re in the position to be calling the shots, Zach Coburn. The Red Monarchy will be here any minute. And I’ll be gone.”

“Yeah, I guess, but you won’t be gone with any of my crates, unless I see two hundred thousand credits roll into my bank account.” Zach’s fingers began inching toward his gun beneath his long leather jacket.

On the one hand, Culum had a point about who was calling the shots. He also had more men. Which meant more guns.

And yet… on the other hand, his men were humans. Brutes. And nothing more.

To spell it out, they weren’t Pegasions.

Ozzy and all Pegasions like him were part of a bipedal race from solar systems in the Pegasus constellation, and incidentally, they hated the name humans had given them. In all fairness, it wasn’t just the connection to the Pegasus constellation that had influenced humans to dub their race Pegasions. The Pegasions also looked an awful lot like the non-threatening herbivores born of Earth, sans the mythological wings, of course.

Contrary to their calm, plant-eating appearance, they—very much—enjoyed busting heads.

Ozzy could take out six of Culum’s men alone in hand-to-hand combat. If it came to that. Which it probably wouldn’t.

Before he could work out the probability of winning in a battle between them much further, Zach heard the roar of what he assumed were the Red Monarchy ships in the distance as they broke into the planet’s atmosphere. Pandemonium erupted as Culum shouted unintelligible orders at his men.

Ozzy’s voice came over their comm, skirting the deafening roar bearing down on them. “Those ships are closing fast. I’d say we have less than ten minutes to get out of here.”

There was little cover in the meadow. Either Zach and his crew would need to duck into the woods that bordered it, or they’d have to race back to their ship and hope a fast getaway was possible.

“Dammit,” Zach said. The Red Monarchy soldiers weren’t going to be nice about this. Zach’s choice now was to run—somewhere—or be captured. He’d have to take his chances on his ship, The Toadstool, being capable of outrunning the Red Monarchy ships. 

“Zach!” Cody shouted over the roar from three meters away.

“On the comm, kid!” Zach called, tapping his ear so Cody could see what he meant. His cigar was a liability now. He hated to do it, but he ripped it from his mouth and threw it to the ground.

Cody touched his ear to activate the comm.

“Zach!”

What a waste of a second, shouting Zach’s name like that into the comm. Pointless. The kid screamed rookie in every possible way, yet Zach had a soft spot for him. He was good, through and through, though he wanted so much to be a badass.

“Run, kid!” Zach’s hand cannon was in his grip as he began to run. “No talking! Just run back to the ship!”

“The crate!” Cody called.

Zach turned and saw Cody trying to grab the crate.

“Leave it! Leave it! Save your hide, boy! I don’t give a damn about the crate. Come on!”

He did give a damn about the crate. But not if it meant dying.

He stopped and turned, feeling the time run out on his lead even as he did so. But Cody was too far behind to make it without cover fire as Culum’s men began shooting and approaching. 

“Cody, I’m covering you, boy, you better run your ass off and forget about the crate.”

Once again, Zach was struck by how surprisingly open and coverless the meadow was. It was one of those obnoxious meadows at the bottom of a valley between two peaks. He suspected Culum picked it for how naked and vulnerable it would leave Zach. Going forward, Zach would have to insist on always picking the spot for his deals. This meadow was unacceptable. He should have seen that it was a set-up from the beginning—like the Angel Starwanderer job of yore. That one had ended up working out, with perks no less, but this one didn’t have the same potential in any way.

Anna had vouched for Culum. She’d gone out on a limb, which he saw now had caused him to be too trusting.

He’d work that out later; for now, he dodged blaster fire as he unleashed hand cannon fire back at Culum’s goons to keep them back. He had two spare cartridges, but the only way he could keep the goons at bay was a storm of fire from his gun. He hoped Ozzy would join in soon.

“Ozzy, how soon till you can help keep these jerks off our asses?”

“Almost ready, Zach.” Ozzy didn’t even sound winded. Those Pegasion lungs meant he could gallop faster and better than the rest of them.   

Cody had given up on the crate—which he’d dragged along a few meters—and was finally racing toward Zach and the ship, leaping over molehills and purple and yellow wildflowers. Warm sunlight poured down on them. Bees and insects floated lazily on the breeze in stark contrast to the chaotic scene. If they hadn’t been under the heat of a firefight, the kid running across the meadow toward Zach would have called for a romantic song about being reunited. It was a damn gorgeous scene.

But, well, the blaster fire added a dangerous twist to it. So maybe an operatic aria instead, highlighting a dark and interesting contrast.

Zach’s heart pounded in his throat. Cody was about thirty meters away now, so Zach took off running in a scissor-run, with his hand cannon stretched back toward Culum’s men. Fire from another blaster suddenly joined in. Zach glanced back toward the ship and saw that Ozzy had reached the ship, but he’d stopped at the ramp and unleashed fast bursts of artillery at Culum’s thugs.

“Thanks, Oz,” Zach said. Running sideways was hard work. The muscles along the sides of his thighs began to ache, plus he had to keep checking on his path to make sure he didn’t trip on a random ditch or molehill.

“Hurry, Zach, and get on the ship. Fire her up.” Ozzy’s voice came over the comm. Calm as a priest at a Christening. That was another reason Zach kept Ozzy around—he emanated chill vibes.

“As soon as I’m there, you know that’s what I’ll do.”

Culum’s goons kept advancing like they hadn’t a care in the world.

Zach was a pilot, not a soldier, so he’d missed his target about twenty times as he attempted to duck and dodge the blasts coming at him.

“Oh, home run,” he crowed as he saw one of his projectiles connect with a thug.

“That was mine,” Ozzy said.

“Like hell it was.”

“Just as well, I’ve already taken out three. Head shots.” Ozzy was in fact an amazing soldier.

Cody suddenly seemed to get the harebrained idea that he’d run sideways and start shooting at the men behind him.

Why’d we give him a gun?

“Kid, just get to the ship. Ozzy’s covering you. I’m covering you. Just get to the—”

Too late.

In a surreal moment, Zach watched time slow down. He saw a hand cannon projectile exit one of the goon’s muzzles. If he’d not witnessed it himself, he’d never have believed it as he watched the bullet split the air and zip through the atmosphere. It sliced the wings off a bee cheerily buzzing by before it carved a hole in Cody’s head.

The boy tumbled and fell, his body collapsing in a twist of limbs, blood and brain spraying like a pinwheel across the meadow, backlit by the brilliant white sun and blue sky.

Zach’s thundering heart seemed to erupt against his ribs in an explosion of its own.

Bile surged in his throat. Between breaths, he choked out, “Ozzy, did that just happen?”

“Yes it did, my friend. The boy is gone.”

“Damn. Ozzy. Take out every one of those jackasses that you can.”

“I will.”

“Head shot, right?” Maybe there was a chance…

“He’s gone, Zach.”

“The Red Monarchy is almost here,” he answered, feeling dazed. Could they get Cody’s body? The rumble rolling off the ships was closer than ever. Their arrival was imminent.

“Get on the ship, Zach. We have to leave or his sacrifice is worthless.”

Zach let out an angry roar, turned, and booked it for the ship, running a dodging, zig-zagging path to the lowered gangway.