Pacing The Cage

Amy Benning wanted nothing to do with Mars.

She didn’t want to be on Jupiter Station, waiting to board the ship that would take her to the red planet. She didn’t want to work with John Temple. She knew this would all end badly.

Unfortunately, she didn’t have a choice. She went where they sent her, killed who they told her to kill and destroyed what they told her to destroy. They owned her, body and soul, for two more years.

If she survived.

Sometimes, she was astonished that she had made it through the first eight years of her contract. Most operatives didn’t, the average survival rate was five years on a ten year contract. Those that did survive were often injured beyond repair.

A few re-upped. Like John Temple. Rumor had it that Temple was on his fifth contract, something no one had ever done before. But he had paid the price for those years, no one doubted that. Amy had no intention of ever paying the price that he had.

All she had to do was survive for two more years. Something that might be hard to do working with Temple. His teams had an unbelievably high casualty rate. She had friends who had died working with him. The thought left her cold.

She paced back and forth in her quarters, her impatience growing. She had rejected the offer of being in on the briefings and the preliminary legwork. She had files on her computer, but she refused to open them. She’d read the final prep file on the journey to Mars, not before.

She wasn’t an investigator, like Temple. She was just a soldier. She’d kill what they told her to kill, that’s all she needed to know. Where to point her gun.

But the waiting was torture. She pulled the station guide from her bag and looked for the closest bar. Maybe a drink or two would settle her nerves.