The Smyrna Transit Portal was a mid-sized station, but parking was free, which felt like a miracle. My wallet was starting to feel alarmingly light, and I needed both a bite to eat and a refill on ship ammunition.

Standing in line at Smyrna's mess hall - a tiny, shabby cafeteria sequestered in a lonely corner of the station's promenade - I eyed the prices with hatred in my heart: twelve bucks for a helping of soup, the cheapest option. While I waited to order an old man who was passing by summed up how I felt, his boonies twang heightening the outrage in every word: "Twelve dollars for fuckin' slop."

It was this that rang through my head over and over as I sat down at an unbalanced plastic table and greedily dug into a thin vegetable gruel. The average Imperial diet had grown markedly poorer lately, and I thought of the military recruits on their huge battleships, and in their colossal planetary stations, getting real fresh fruit and vegetables at least a few time per week, or so the common wisdom went. It would've surprised me if it was more than once a week, but even that was an upgrade from what the peons got.

Twelve dollars for fuckin' slop.

After I'd dropped my tray in the garbage and found the station vendor - whose ammo prices were nearly as dire as that of the food - I skulked back to my ship, jumped up into the cockpit, and pulled out my handheld to make a call. Opening the courier app I pressed the button to contact my employer for this job, an older gentleman I'd worked for several times previously.

When he answered, I let him have all the tension and anxiety that had been bubbling up into a poisonous stew in my head ever since I'd first spotted the pigs on my tail. I'd been more spooked than I cared for by the crimson laser of the Wellmann, and the fact of the matter was I was very lucky that I'd outpiloted them so superbly. I could've easily been double-teamed by the remaining cruisers after my brave charge at the sniper; the fact that they were slow to respond was a big break. They might've been Empire-trained, but they were shabby pilots overall. Striking down two of them felt now like a grim, hollow achievement.

Yelling into my tinny handheld microphone I demanded to know who was behind this job, what it was he had given me, why in the world the Empire would have cops on my tail shooting first and asking questions never, all of these demands loaded with the release of tension after a life or death battle. At the same time, I felt proud of my piloting, and that only served to boost my courage and the force with which I made my demands.

The pale-faced old man frowned from the blurry handheld screen. "I don't know what you expect me to tell you," he said in a thin voice. "I can't reveal my sources. You've worked for me before, you know that."

I got angrier. "But if the fucking government's after it, I deserve to know what I'm getting myself into!" And why the hell would you use the app and leave such an obvious trail?, I thought, but elected not to say outloud. I wasn't sure a trail would matter, and at this point there were two pilots KIA and two cruisers lost in my wake; the fact that he'd used the app vs a back alley channel didn't matter anymore.

"The government's not after it. Or at least they shouldn't be." I glared at him; he worked harder to reassure me. "Listen, you're completely right. If you were carrying something hot, I'd tell you. I promise. As a businessman, I promise."

Spit on businessmen. I sighed, biting my tongue and sitting back in my seat. I ran my hand over my face, trying to ignore the stubble that greeted my fingertips. Sometimes it's good to have an old model with a shit camera.

I studied the old man's blurry face on my handheld screen, some old go-between who seemed more like a snake the more time passed. Somewhere inside me the wolf stirred again, and an idea slithered out from the darker crevices of my head.

"You give me forty percent instead of twenty-five for this, OK Derry?" I stared him down. He put on a face like a victim of some great tragedy; I refused to back off. "Forty instead of twenty-five. If I'm putting my life on the line here, I need to be compensated fairly for that."

I knew Derry well enough that I had a good feel of when I could strongarm him, and this time it was just the ticket. After Derry relented I badgered himout of some more information: that the job came from a "trusted source", and that he really was sorry he couldn't warn me about the danger. I decided to be nice and believe him, the extra commission helping to soothe my mood a bit. After we hung up I took a second to cool down, leaving my ship again to paceSmyrna's promenade, shabby from disuse and pockmarked with out-of-business shops.Once I found my way back to my shipI jumped into the cockpit, closed the top and curled up on the cot behind the seat, reading under a dim lamp until I fell asleep.

When I woke up it had been a few hours and I spent some time sitting quietly in the dark of the cockpit. Stretching achy limbs and climbing back into the pilot's seat I plugged some information into the ship's computer and read the output, scrolling around the map it gave me. I was a little more than a day from my dropoff point now, a solid thirty or so hours of cruising. It wouldn't be fun, but it also wouldn't be hard, provided no more imperial patrols started tailing me along the way. I wasn't so sure it would be that simple; I wondered briefly if I should've held out for 45%.

I wondered what Roza would think of the money I was pulling in on this job. The imperial grunt starting salary had been standardized at $250 a month, but you didn't have to buy food or pay rent. Just serve on a battleship and die in space.

On my immortal soul and the name of my family, curse the Empire to Hell!

Sliding the key into the ignition and flicking the switches on the dashboard I started up the Velenoso from its place in dock, cockpit lighting up as the engine spun on. I hadn't been damaged in my scuffle, save for some blemishing on the side where the Wellmann had grazed me; when I saw the scorched metal from the outside I was impressed and horrified by its power, and once again proud of my piloting.

It doesn't matter how big the gun you come after me with is if you can't handle it.

I wondered if the empire had sent a crack team after me or an expendable group of grunts; they might've been a specialized unit, but maybe I was overestimating myself now. Maybe they were off the grid, lackeys of an officer within the army who had some kind of informal power in this sector? That felt too convoluted to be true; and even if a certain officer did have an iron grip on this sector, that's no reason to go shooting incineration beams at random courier ships.

They had to be after me, specifically. Maybe for a previous job? Was I barking down the wrong path -- were the answers for my attempted murder totally hidden from me?

I contemplated all of this as I left the station and hit cruising speed towards my destination, a small planet called Tivoli. A nebula of purples and dark blues stretched out into the distance off my port bow and I thought about Heather, and about the two ships I'd destroyed previously, and - with a twinge of paranoia - the third ship that had gotten away. Would he return for me, eager for revenge? Would he bring backup? Was I flying into a trap?

Accelerating further I punched commands into the ship's flight computer to recalculate fuel cost and other metrics if I hurried a little more than I already was. I hadn't previously been rushing, but now the drive containing the bitter last words of Roza Bazayev felt heavy and hot in my pocket.

I slipped it out and examined it between my fingers as I leaned back in my seat, eyeing the drive in my hand and the nebula, stars, and ships twinkling lightyears in the distance. The radar was quiet, and before long I'd settled into the heavy hypnosis of a long distance flight, eyes fixed on the path ahead, brain humming something incoherent instead of thoughts.

Before not long enough, this leaden peace was disturbed by a hail from an imperial police unit. Like a powersaw through timber my headphonescame to life, interrupting my daydream.

"Imperial Police hailing Registrar Number Two-Four-Seven-Four-Zero-Seven-Five. Identify yourself."

Two ships, the same kinds of cruisers as yesterday, lit up on the radar. Hopefully no heavy artillery this time, I thought bitterly as I picked up the receiver from my dashboard.

"Courier ship Velenoso on a transport mission, destination planet Tivoli, over." I had nothing to hide - save the two cops I'd killed yesterday, although that was in self-defense and the Imperials tended to leave such matters up to the participants to resolve - and I wanted to avoid seeming like I had anything to hold back. Unfortunately they still gave me trouble, curtly demanding to know what I was transporting.

"You received my dispatch when I responded to your hail. It's in the files, over."

I waited a few moments for one of them to check their ship's computer for my dispatch, listing all the legal information for my ship and its full contents, "one personal drive" included. I felt that I should do a mental check to make sure I didn't have anything on board that I shouldn't, but my mind felt muddy and my spirit anxious, and I instead waited longer and longer for the all clear message I'd been hoping for but never really expecting. Antsy, the silence growing heavier by the moment, I shoved my hand into the boost port once more, feeling the painful twinge and the calming release afterward. After a breath I stuck my hand back into the port, receiving another dose. Running my hands through my hair and taking a deep breath I glanced at my rearview to see what the cops were doing.

The ships had backed off, and were readying their guns.

Pushing hard on the wheel I nosedove just as gunfire from both cops sent a burst of shots wide and one shot pinging off the backside of my ship. Sucking my teeth I looked at the computer and saw no alarms - hopefully that meant the damage was glancing.

I immediately dropped a mine behind my ship as I fled, hoping to catch one of my two pursuers acting overly aggressive, and frantically scrolling through the computer plotted a new courseto zig-zag around a nearby planet and its moons - 3, average-sized all - hoping to lose or kill my pursuers by dragging them into difficult terrain.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

A bit savage, isn't it? Like an apex predator dominating its prey.

Body and brain still oiled from combat several hours before, boosters saturating my state of being, the cops presented easy prey. One of them seemed to get lost near the pole of the first moon, where I took my ship on a feint in one direction before dropping a mine and cutting hard the other way. In this manner I slipped between two large asteroids that masked my ship via sightline and radar, the only cost being some turbulence as I danced between large rocks. It was extremely risky, but it worked, and one pursuer was lost as my confidence increased.

The other stayed on my tail past the second moon, continuing to pepper the space around me with gunfire. With another difficult maneuver I spiraled down towards the moon, then with a hard cut spun around and flew towards the other ship. Trading bursts of fire with him as we arced over the dark side of the third moon, his shots flew wide past me as I watched mine connect. His cruiser imploded from the wing-in, cockpit evaporated by the chain of explosions, sparse debris left in my wake as I sped past.

With one ship down and the other off the radar I course corrected and, slightly delayed, was back cruising towards Tivoli within an hour.

In the quiet of space I replayed my interaction with Derry, and I thought about when I had made the initial pickup - had he acted strangely? I tried thinking if I had noticed myself being followed or targeted before this mission, but I had no way of knowing; if the government had been tailing me before now, I certainly hadn't noticed.

What would I find on Tivoli? Would it be safe to drop the drive off at the arranged point? This issue troubled me deeply. I wondered if I could make some kind of arrangement through Derry to move the pickup for safety reasons.

Typing hurriedly on the ship's computer, I wrote a short message to Derry, secured it, and sent it via the courier app. At this point I was so far out that it would take a short time to reach him, and even if he saw it and responded immediately it would take some time for that message to reach me, and for him to contact whoever he would need to if he said yes...But I had to try to get in touch with him, if only for my peace of mind. I had, at times, found myself thinking: I'll never forgive you if you die stupidly. If I didn't lock the ship when I went to sleep in a station, or I didn't perform a rote but important maintenance check on it, or I didn't make sure my guns were as loaded as they could be when I had the chance - it fed into paranoia I knew I harbored, but I was powerless not to obey it.

Some people would call that paranoia caring. But who was there to care about me? I was nobody. I had contacts, not friends. I drank at bars and sometimes they were the same ones, sometimes there were regulars there who recognized me, and there were people I knew on the app who gave me good jobs. But they weren't watching out for me, they did business with me because I did good business. And the more time I spent drinking in my ship alone the less I felt like I needed those bars with those regulars and their increasingly steep prices. It was cheaper to get drunk in the Velenoso, so why wouldn't I? I could sit alone and think without interruption, or read, or stare out at the majesty of the universe, and when I was ready to pass out there was no commute necessary - I could get right in my cot, or just lean back in the pilot's chair, and close my eyes, and drift away...

I eyed the ammunition counter for my guns and checked some of the other meters along the register, mind ticking through memorized checklists and quick calculations. I sighed. Three lives in two days. I looked out at the twinkling stars and starships in the distance, following their paths with eyes sore and throbbing from stress, and pondered the fresh addition of blood to my hands.

I thought about the savage instinct I showed in battle.

The imperial military's loss.

Sometimes I wondered if that other voice was the old me. The me before the treatments and new clothes and all the other shit I still can't afford, all to slowly change into a new version of the same person with the same behaviours. Same over-reliance on alcohol, same sociopathic wall around the soul, same powerlessness in the face of temptation. The same flareups of cruelty, the malicious kind I felt like my father had passed down to me via his fists and tongue.

With trembling fingers I undid my glove and shoved my hand in the boost port again. After the loud hum and the prick of pain I leaned back, head and heart pounding. My eyes watered. I sniffed. The Velenoso had a third of a tank of fuel left.

There are so many rabbit holes to drop into from space.

With the radar clear and my mind reeling I grasped for the bottle I kept in the glove compartment and took 3 pulls, one for each life I'd erased out here in the stars since yesterday. Afterwards I fell asleep, and when I woke up my head pulsed absently. I took another couple of drinks and spent the rest of the ride nodding in and out, radar silent the whole time. I never saw another ship except in the haze of my dreams, Velenoso on autopilot the whole way to Tivoli.

When I landed I was mostly sober and I docked in port at the capital, receiving no special welcoming. Derry never responded and I decided that was fine by me: the fewer complications from here on out, the better, I just wanted to be done with this job.

Before hopping out of the cockpit I changed out of my flight suit and into something casual, slipped the drive in the pocket of my coat, and stuck my hand in the boost port once more.

The weight of the pistol on my waistband was less comfort than I wished as I walked through the city's surprisingly well-maintained subway, unfamiliar to me but navigable thanks to clear and thorough signage and maps. I liked the maps, and looking at them I found myself wishing I was visiting under better circumstances. Often on deliveries I spent time exploring the places I end up before I pick up another job, but not this time; I was finding myself eager to get out of Tivoli once this job was done. I wanted to put the whole business far behind me, three dead Imperial cops especially.

Mind drifting on the train I watched the sparse crowd of commuters going about their days. I made a mental note to analyze the combat data the ship's computer would have picked up from my encounters; it was hard to focus on, but studying it paid dividends. Then I wondered why I cared so much. Was it because I wanted to live, or because I liked being good at something? Did I want to be good at killing?

I got off at the stop nearest the post office and trotted up the stairs and onto the streets of Tivoli. Checking the map on my handheld to make sure I was headed the right way I began to walk. The capital's streets were old and its buildings were skinny, long, tall structures, oddly shaped to my eyes but quaintly beautiful in their dark brown shades of brick. It was springtime, midday, and mild, and my coat began to feel a little too heavy as I strode down the deserted sidewalk. I balled my hands into fists in my pockets.

After a couple of minutes, almost as soon as the post office came into view, a man approached me from towards the entrance. Hand twitching towards the pistol concealed at my belly, I eyed him warily. Dark bags clung to the bottoms of his eyes, which were steel-grey and seemed to chill the air around them. His hair was a short, recently buzzed greying blonde.

When he spoke his voice was clear, carrying with it an air of authority.

"Are you the courier?"

I figured there was no sense in lying and I nodded. He nodded back. He was thin, even by Imperial standards, and there was a neurotic twinge in his voice.

"There's been a change of plans. The Empire knows about the drive, and if you drop it in the post we'll never see it again. You're to hand it off to me instead."

I felt something fierce and hot light up in my chest.

"The only thing I've been told is to drop this in a PO box. You need to tell me who you are, who sent you, a name, something. I can't just hand it over to someone I've never even seen before, that's completely out of the blue."

He was right; dropping it in the post would be foolish, from the perspective of a person who cared about the contents of the package itself. At this point, I mostly just wanted it out of my hands, under the assumption that cops would stop trying to kill me once the package was out of my general vicinity. This was basically why I had tried to reach Derry again, although that was mostly out of concern for my pay. But I had to maintain some kind of standard, and I had fought and killed for this package; I couldn't just fork it over to the first person who came calling out of the blue.

On my immortal soul and the name of my family, curse the Empire to Hell!

I spit on the ground behind me. Well, now blood has been spilled in your name, girlie. Only posthumously, like so many of history's pivotal figures.

The man, agitated, sighed. "I thought couriers didn't want to know their clients' business."

"Yeah, well most business doesn't require me to kill for it."

A heavy silence hung between us; I scowled. He wore a deep frown and stared me down before speaking again. "We can't risk the empire getting their hands on that drive."

"I've been chased by multiple police squadrons on my way here and they were more than happy to use me for target practice. They don't want this thing; they just don't want you to have it. Now: who are you?"

He sighed again, looking up at the clear sky above us. Clearly eager to get moving and annoyed by my questions, he relented. Leaning towards me now he dropped his voice to a murmur. "I'm a member of an underground political group. We want the recording to use as evidence of anti-war sentiment rising throughout the empire."

My mind flitted through a million questions at once, like I was tuning a radio. I hit upon one: "Are there others like this? Other recordings?"

"There's other artifacts like this, yes. Stuff from soldiers that affirms anti-imperial politics. The Empire works hard to suppress its existence." He laughed, bitterly. "That's why they tried so hard to stop you from getting here."

I turned this news over in my mind, and finding my appetite met I reached into my coat and pulled out the drive. I held it out to him.

"It's yours. It's brought me nothing but trouble, and quite frankly I don't have the time or energy to investigate any part of your story for being true. At the very least, anyone pissing off the empire's goons is fine by me. Just leave me out of it from now on."

The man smiled, a glimmer passing through his storm grey eyes as I took the drive from me. "Thank you, comrade. You've done an important deed getting this to us." He did a curt examination of the object and then stuck it in his pocket.

"If you ever meet someone from the movement and need a favour, mention Dmitris. They'll know who you mean."

I smiled, a little sour, and with a handshake we parted ways. As he hurried on farther down the street I eagerly reached back into my coat, grabbing my handheld to look up directions to the nearest bar.

Turning through the wide cobblestoned streets of the city I headed in the exact opposite direction I had come, somewhat wary of being tailed but also feeling less penned in than I had a few minutes before.

I thought about how many people had tried to kill me, how many people I had killed, and what the delivery of the recording to the thin man in Tivoli would do for any sort of resistance movement, or any of the teenagers whose bodies were vaporized instantly by ionizing radiation a hundred thousand lightyears from home.

My name is Roza Bazayev. This is my final will and testament, as I await death in battle tomorrow.

As I passed through the bar's heavy wooden door I felt grateful to be done playing with my life, yet no less weighed down by the matter than I had been during my dogfights with the police.

I sat down at the bar and ordered my drink. Checking my handheld I saw that I had received a new notification. I opened the courier app to check the alert: Derry had rated me 5 stars for the job I had just completed.

Curse the Empire! Curse the Empress and her guard!

I put the handheld away and raised the bar glass to my lips and thought about how the app used to let clients tip you. I closed my eyes as cool liquor touched my tongue and stung the back of my throat.

Ordering another round I could see reflected in the many glasses behind the bar the crest of the Imperial Police on the jacket of a man at a table behind me, looking down at a handheld of his own, beer untouched on the table.

On my immortal soul and the name of my family, curse the Empire to Hell!

I drank the second shot and ordered a third as quickly, plus something I could sip on.

In the center of my waistband hung my pistol, with a full mag and a round chambered, and in the center of my chest now warmed by alcohol sat the weight of what I had spent a lifetime running from, yet always brushing up against.

I wondered how many drinks I could afford before I had to go, and I signaled to the bartender to pour me another.