The rest of the night on Vesta passed by without any further incidents. The only other sounds that Alex heard throughout the night were the mating calls of Vestan insects. By the time the sun started to rise, it looked like the moment of danger was already over.

That didn’t mean that they were going to exit the pod without watching their backs, and that was why Alex spent the first half hour outside the pod that morning teaching Jenna the finer parts of surveillance and cover before they started their trek to Vesta.

“Remember to get low if you see or hear anything that could be a potential threat,” he said, toward the end of the impromptu training. “And don’t call out to me. Use hand signals like I taught you.”

“Like this?” she asked, holding up her palm without making a fist. “This means stop, right?”

Alex smiled. “Exactly right. We don’t have the luxury of knowing everything that’s out there but two sets of eyes are greater than one. With a little bit of luck, we can reach Vesta in just over a week.”

That seemed to do the trick and they both left the pod right after eating another freeze-dried meal of flapjacks and sausage (which tasted like anything but).

For their packs, Alex loaded up enough freeze-dried food to last them on the trek to Vesta plus a few days just in case. Alex topped off the water in two large canteens that he strapped to his back, and he also bought some purification tablets with them just in case the Vestan water wasn’t drinkable.

They also loaded up a change of clothes for both of them as well as the first aid kit, two pulse pistols, sleeping bags, and basic survival kits that carried a variety of tools for use in the wilderness.

With everything strapped to their backs, it was time to go. They stepped outside the pod, where the carcass of the bear was still lying where it fell. It was Jenna’s first time seeing it up close, and he could see that some of her confidence was lost when she saw just how big it was.

“Are you sure we should leave the pod?” she asked while glancing at the dead bear. “I’d hate to see another one of these things find us out here.”

Alex shrugged. “We either try or we slowly starve to death. We don’t have the luxury of better options right now.”

Jenna nodded reluctantly, seeming to trust his judgment. She said nothing further about it and they prepared to leave.

Alex looked one last time at the escape pod before turning in a northeasterly direction. By the judgment of the navigation, they should reach the river in two days. From there, it would be simply a matter of following it north until they reached the city.

It was an interesting experience as they started to walk the alien landscape of the country. The pod had landed in an arid and rather desolate valley that was surrounded by mountains on either side. The valley ran in a northeasterly direction, where it would eventually open up to the river and a large plain on the other side.

There wasn’t much in the way of animals. At one point, Alex spotted what looked like a prairie dog back on Earth, but it scampered away shortly after discovery. The good thing about their trek on Vesta was that they didn’t see anything that resembled the bear from last time.

In fact, it was hard to believe that there were so many Vestan life forms out there as they just simply didn’t see many of them.

Another thing there wasn’t much of was conversation. Though Alex wanted to get to know Jenna, the first day traversing through an alien planet was certainly not the optimal time to do so. They worked silently for the most part, with Alex taking point for the majority of the day and Jenna covering his rear with the second pulse pistol. After a very short lunch, they traded off and he let Jenna lead for a while while he covered her. She proved to be a quick learner when it came to being on patrol, using her hand signals several times to communicate.

By the end of the first day, Alex was tired of the long journey but happy with the progress they’d made so far. When it came time to settle down for the night, he intentionally placed them in a rocky area that would be easy to conceal themselves from any dangerous wildlife. Using the saw in the tool kit and finding two small trees, he was able to construct a very basic lean-to that would give them shelter for the evening.

Creature comforts were very few and far between. They ate another freeze-dried meal with what water they had with them but they shunned the use of any fire just in case it would be a magnet for wildlife. With the use of their sleeping bags, they settled in for the night. It was determined that Jenna would take the first watch, and Alex went over the finer points of what to do or when to wake him up should any threat arise.

Finally, there was nothing left to do but wait for night to fall. And that was when the first real conversation of the day started.

“For some reason, I didn’t picture camping in the wilderness as being a possibility when we got to Vesta,” said Jenna with a smile. “I heard Vestan accommodations, even for being a remote and poor colony, were a step above Earth.”

“That still wouldn’t be saying much,” replied Alex. “Most of the people that are left on Earth are the poor ones these days. Anyone with influence long ago left for the orbital ring around the planet, or left for another system completely. In a way, us camping out here is only a step below what we would find on Earth.”

Jenna nodded. “It’s one of the reasons I wanted to get away. I had several, but the thought of spending the rest of my life on Earth wasn’t a pleasant one.”

“I had the same feelings myself, especially when a recruiter showed up outside my trade school shortly after I turned twenty-one,” said Alex, shaking his head. “I was about to become a welder but the idea didn’t excite me that much. I was just a kid really, and I wanted more to life than just joining the workforce. The recruiter approached me one day when I was leaving and he started to sell me on joining one of the many battalions forming for the elites on the orbital ring. He promised to take me to the ring and to put some excitement in my life, and like the dumb kid that I was, I took him up on that offer. My life hasn’t been the same ever since.”

That seemed to earn her interest, especially as she pivoted closer to him. “Tell me about it, Alex. I know we don’t know much about each other. What was your life like before signing up to go to Vesta?”

Alex swallowed heavily. “In a word? Messy. I’m not sure you really want to hear the whole story. It’s not exactly my proudest moment.”

“I can sympathize with that,” she said quietly. “I have a lot of things in my past that I’m not proud of. But I want to know, Alex. Tell me what happened. Tell me how you ended up being thrown in prison.”

Nearly a decade and a half of memories assaulted his mind at that moment, most of them bad. It was a story that very few people in his life knew, but seeing as how much Jenna had already imprinted onto his life, it didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

“The battalion that I joined was one of many that were forming around the same time,” explained Alex. “When all the elites on Earth moved to the orbital ring, they found that the same rules and laws they abided by on the planet didn’t exist up there. They claimed what existed already was Earth law and since they were in space now, it didn’t apply. That meant you had a whole host of upper class people with plenty of money and a penchant for breaking the law. When you add in the fact that many of them were bored on the ring before it developed enough entertainment to keep them occupied, you had a very volatile and lawless situation.”

“That’s hardly surprising,” replied Jenna. “Especially since the orbital ring hasn’t been around for that long. Wasn’t it only completed about sixty years ago?”

Alex nodded. “Yes, in 2965. And even then, there were huge sections of it that were empty for a long time. It was pretty lawless up there until it started to fill out with the homes of all these wealthy industrialists, old-money patricians, and politicians. And even then, they had to build up the infrastructure once they started living there. For a long time, it was pretty lawless, and that was only made worse when the first group of elites started to create private armies.”

“Which directly kicked off the Orbital Wars, right?”

“Not yet at least. Most fighting was small scale at first. Two lower-chamber Consortium members sending off gangs of men to fight for influence or space on the ring. Sometimes they fought for nothing at all, only because they just liked fighting. Steadily, the sizes of those private armies started to grow until you started talking entire battalions and regiments. As you can imagine, it felt like your own private war was developing on the rings when they clashed.”

Alex continued. “That was what I walked into after I enlisted in the Bastards Battalion, the private army of Marcus Gatton, an industrialist that’s called the Baron. Gatton was a man that didn’t come from old money. His grandfather got lucky by investing in one of the mining operations in the Alpha Centuari system. From my understanding, he was part of a trio of core investors but inherited the whole mess after the other two died under mysterious circumstances.”

Jenna smiled. “I’ve learned that mysterious circumstances are usually an indicator that someone had a lot to gain from someone else’s demise.”

“That’s the theory at least. In any event, he passed that wealth on after he died an old man. Gatton’s father almost squandered all of it toward the end of his life, and the young Gatton grew up relatively modestly until they landed a new contract to mine the moons of Alpha Prime, reinstating all the wealth that he’d lost. After he passed away, Gatton inherited all of it. And apparently, he lost all the modesty he had when he was poor.”

“I’m guessing he started to act like he was better than everyone else?” asked Jenna.

Alex nodded. “The man has one hell of a stick up his ass. In hindsight, it’s no wonder we were constantly fighting. My training period was short and brutal once I joined the battalion. They taught me how to fight, how to work within a team, and even how to survive when our position was pinned down. I made a lot of friends fighting in the battalion but quite a few enemies as well. As you can imagine, that kind of work didn’t attract the best clientele.”

“I remember hearing about the fighting when I was still on Earth,” said Jenna, scooting closer to him absentmindedly. She didn’t stop until their shoulders were touching. “I was still just a teenager when it started to get really bad.”

“I spent almost a decade fighting with them before the fighting really intensified. For most of that time, it was small-scale fighting—skirmishes and raids, that kind of thing. That was before the private armies really started to take off and the wars got bigger and more deadly. It was at that point that I started to really think about leaving the battalion.”

“Could you leave? Could you have just gone back to Earth at any time?”

Alex shook his head. “I didn’t have permission to leave before my contract was up. I’d signed a fifteen-year contract, which was standard at the time. Leaving the battalion meant desertion which meant getting sued for breach of contract by the men that owned the private armies. They would come for everything you had so it wasn’t worth deserting unless you were comfortable losing all your possessions or having your wages garnished for the rest of your life.”

“So what changed?” asked Jenna after a moment. “It sounds like you were around a tough group of characters for a long time. I’m not getting the impression that you’re a hardened criminal or soldier, and you’re certainly not like Serrano or his men. So what was the tipping point? How did you keep your humanity instead of becoming a cruel mercenary?”

Alex looked her right in the eye for his answer. “Honestly? It was due to meeting my wife.”