I listen for the sounds of a struggle. But there is nothing.

No sounds.

No signs of life.

No sign of the hunters either. That can’t be a good thing.

For what feels like the longest time, I stay perfectly still. I know I need to move, but I can’t.

I don’t want to leave her behind.

The rational part of my brain tells the irrational part of my brain that I cannot help her. She is gone. Jess is gone. This is all my fault. So get moving.

Now.

More shots are fired. High velocity tracer rounds tear into the cliff all around me. I take cover, shielding myself from exploding dirt and rock.

Jess is gone.

Her suit, an ExoSuit worth more than most people ever earn in a lifetime proved useless in protecting her.

Were we sold fakes? Was I ripped off?

No. I’m still breathing. Still moving. Wouldn’t be doing either if they were fakes.

Move.

I am frozen.

Move.

I face the cliff. I have been rock climbing maybe once in my life. There are vines. Vines that look like power cords. I could use these.

The voice of people who said I couldn’t do this, shouldn’t do this, fill my head.

I listen to them now.

Too late.

I grab onto a vine, the power cord, whatever it is, and prepare myself to climb as fast as I possibly can. I prepare myself to ignore the fact that the higher I climb, the further I have to fall, if and when I get shot in the back from whoever just killed Jess.

Wait, is Jess dead?

Another explosion. Another blast of light and heat.

The force pushes me forward. Into the cliff, takes my breath away. Takes my sight, and my hearing.

Even with the ExoSuit’s protection, I felt that one.

The suit tells me that its shield levels are critical. Armor integrity is critical.

I am thrown into a mess of vines, through the vines, I become tangled. I feel around for the cliff face, but there’s nothing there. No cliff. There’s an opening. A cave.

Another explosion. The vines are torn to shreds like Jess was torn to shreds.

My ExoSuit protects me. From the heat. From the pressure. The blast. The shock.

I get my money’s worth.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

I move deeper into the cave, into the unknown.

And then I fall.

Into darkness. Into nothingness.

My suit calculates the depth. My velocity. Tells me that I most definitely will not survive the fall. That I most definitely will not beat gravity.

I reach out. A drowning man will grasp at straws, and a falling man?

A man falling to his death?

He’ll grasp at thin air.

Once again, I become tangled in the vines or power cords or whatever they are.

My descent is slowed. Just enough. My suit does the rest. A retrograde blast from multiple exhaust ports allows me to almost make a perfect landing.

Almost.

Again, I get my money’s worth.

Once again, I defy gravity. Once again, I beat gravity.

My suit says, oxygen levels critical. Power core is critical.

But I ignore my suit because I’m thinking about that word.

Gravity.

And the weight of it.

I feel that weight.

On my shoulders.

On my heart.

I feel the burden.

I feel every bit of it.

I don’t know why I thought I could ever do this, to take on the world, and save the day, and save everyone.

When everyone else said it couldn’t be done. When everyone else said it shouldn’t be done.

Why did I ever start on this path?

I am not better. I am not special. I am not the chosen one. I am completely average. I will always be completely average.

But I am stubborn. I am so goddamn stubborn. And maybe I will never give this up. This way of life. This way of thinking. This fight. Maybe I will pursue this until it destroys me.

This is a kind of strength. But mostly, it is a weakness.

Mostly, it is insanity.

Give up.

I tell myself to give up.

Just stop.

But I can’t. I won’t. I don’t know why. I can’t explain this. But I need to keep going. I need to save my crew. I dragged them into this mess. Promised them the world. Promised them a fortune. A chance to make a difference. The least I could do is save their lives that I’ve endangered.

How? How are you going to save them? You couldn’t even save Jess. And she was ex-military. An engineer who served in Earth’s defense force. She had been upgraded. She was special. She was strong.

And you couldn’t save her or help her or keep her alive.

Wait. Stop.

Again, I remind myself that I don’t know if she’s dead. The only thing I know for certain is that she was taken. Maybe they took her alive. My suit runs a scan without me even prompting it, without even asking. It says her vitals have flatlined. Pulse. Oxygen levels. Blood pressure. Everything.

Her ExoSuit is not responding. It is offline. Or deactivated. Or destroyed.

The suit tells me to keep running. Through the darkness. The suit tells me which way to go. Says there is a corridor ahead. A large chamber. Several antechambers.

Where the hell am I? What is this place?

I shouldn’t be here. Should not have made the jump.

From the very start, I knew what the smart thing was, I knew what the right thing was. I knew what I should’ve done. But I chose the wrong thing, the hard thing. I chose to take on the Empire. I chose to defy the Empire.

I chose to jump through space and time and damn the consequences and risk the lives of my crew and risk never seeing my family again.

And I know in my heart I will choose the wrong thing, the hardest thing, I will choose this fight, again and again. Over and over.

This is no way to live. It is a full of risk. It is not a good life. Not a smart life. There is no careful planning involved with this. No rational decision making involved with this.

No future.

The only certainty, the only constant, is danger.

Death.

This, all of this, it comes from my heart, it comes from a place that should not be in charge of making life threatening, life altering decisions.

But this is who I am. I’m scared it’s who I’ll always be.

Completely Stubborn and completely reckless.

Average. Completely not special.

Like I said, this is insanity.

I keep running because my suit tells me to keep running if I want to live. But it is hard work. I’m starting to feel lightheaded, struggling to breathe.

In surviving the fall, the blast, my suit used up a lot of oxygen. Almost all of it.

Oxygen levels critical.

Nine minutes of breathable air left. After that, it’s lights out.

Can’t let that happen. I need to get back. No telling where the ship will jump to next. Maybe it jumps back to Earth. Maybe it doesn’t.

But getting back to the ship is my only chance of getting back to my wife. My kids. My parents.

My family needs me. I can’t abandon them. I won’t. They need me.

The Earth. All those people, dying, starving, a boot on their throat. All of them. They all need me.

Like Jess? Jess needed me. Look what happened to her.

Damn.

I should’ve listened.

And now I’ve got nine minutes of air left.

Nine minutes before its lights out.

Nine minutes before I pay the ultimate price for my sins.