Milton was not intelligent. Milton did not know when to let dangerous men have their way. Milton was a dead man. Every month, the villagers filled a small strongbox with banknotes and had Tyrell shuttle it off to Niska’s satellite. The sum of money in that box was a pittance to Niska. He might as well have been using those notes to wipe his nose for all the good they did him. But to the villagers it was money scraped together with increasing difficulty every month off their meagre miners wages, adding up to a grand total that could have paid their way off their rocky homeworld many times over. But if Niska didn’t get the protection money, his wrath would end their settlement. Put them all out of work. If he wanted, he could have them sold as slaves. Niska held all the cards, and so the villagers paid up, month after month, year in, year out. Tyrell was a good man, a no-nonsense war vet whom everybody trusted to get the money up to Niska. He was a big guy, you’d think he was just a knuckleheaded brute to look at him, but his eyes had a steely glint that belied a sharp wit and a level head. Scarred head to foot from the war, he looked like he was carved out of granite. Never had a pistol more than an arms reach away. Nobody had ever tried to put one over on Tyrell. Except Milton. Milton was a born-and-bred miner, he’d spent more hours in his life under the ground than above it. And he was a *wiry* son-of-a-bitch. He was thrown down the pits as soon as he was old enough to swing a pick, his momma knew he’d get work quick on account of him being skinny enough to fit through just about any crack or crevice down there. More than that, being a bit simple-minded, Milton didn’t have any fear of cave-ins, gas, getting crushed by the big mechanical grinders on the bigger lodes. It just didn’t occur to young Milton that the mines were a dangerous, hellish place to work. Or that his weekly wages couldn’t have bought him half a packet of cigarettes off-world. But then he went and pissed off Tyrell. Now, let’s get one thing straight, Tyrell was not a man who lost his head easily, but the man had had a very bad month, and was drinking heavier than he usually did in the stinkin’ miners bar next to the pits, with an expression on his face so stone-cold that most folk were stayin’ as far away from him as they could. His ship had been impounded by an Alliance patrol when he’d done the grain run to Persephone. The gorram gou tsao de sons-of-bitches had pulled him in on some trumped-up charge about licence markings. They just didn’t like him taking business away from the alliance-sanctioned freighters. He’d had to pull in some favours, *valuable* favours, to get a rust bucket that would let him carry on his business until he got his ship back. And now he was gonna have to make the payment run to Niska in that worn-out piece of fei-oo. He was gonna look like a gorram amateur. Then Milton saunters into the bar and sees him sittin’ there, all sour lookin’, and Milton thinks he should go and cheer the big man up. His momma is always tellin’ him that nobody likes a sour face, and if you see someone lookin’ down, you go talk to them. So he sits down right next to Tyrell and says: ‘Why the long face friend?’ And Tyrell just sits there, sayin’ nothing. ‘Come on’, says Milton, ‘can’t be that bad, lemmie buy you a drink.’ ‘With what?’ says Tyrell, still staring blankly into the middle distance. Milton just sits there, doesn’t understand at all what the big man is on about. ‘Money?’ He says. Finally, Tyrell turns to face him. ‘Money. What money? You miners get paid less than the sewer scrapers on Persephone, you ain’t got shit to pay for a drink, little man.’ Milton was annoyed, he had only been trying to cheer Tyrell up. And that remark about his wages was just a step too far. ‘Look here, Tyrell.’ He said, poking the mercenary in the arm. ‘I get paid quite enough to see me by and to send a little to my momma and daddy every month. They do well by it. So I ain’t complaining.’ By now, just about everyone in the bar was listening intently to the conversation, although most of them where trying their damndest to pretend not to. Tyrell was going red in the face. ‘You ain’t got a place of your own to stay, have you?’ ‘No, I sleep down in the…’ ‘So Niska don’t ask any protection money from you.’ ‘No, he don’t.’ Said Milton, he had no idea where this was going. Tyrell leaned in closer. ‘That money you send to your mom and pop, won’t half cover what they have to pay to Niska.’ Milton was speechless. Surely Tyrell was just tryin’ to put one over on him. Niska wouldn’t take all that money, what in the hell would he need it for? ‘You’re lyin’’. He said. ‘I ain’t.’ Said Tyrell, pleased that he’d got the little cretin scared without having to start a ruckus. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m takin’ that money along with half the wages of the whole village up to Niska this very evening.’ Milton looked pale. ‘Prove it!’ he blurted out. Tyrell smiled, and reached down under his chair, picked a big strongbox up in his tree-trunk like arms and slammed it down on the table. He took a little keycode chip out of his pocket, waved it over the latch on the front of the box, then opened it wide. Milton had never seen half as much money in his whole life. More notes than he could count, all neatly packaged in little bundles. He just sat there, slack-jawed. ‘You see, little man?’ Said Tyrell. ‘You ain’t got shit to pay for a drink, neither have your momma and poppa, because it’s all in this here box. Now, Niska wants his money, and I intend to take it to him.’ Tyrell slammed the box shut, and carried it under one arm out of the bar. Milton switched from amazement to sheer rage. Niska. That son of a bitch, takin’ all that money from honest, hardworking folk. How dare he? And Tyrell, taking it straight to him, like it was the most natural thing in the world. Milton got up and started to walk out the bar. Just then a miner who had been listening in grabbed him by the arm. ‘Listen, sonny, it ain’t smart talkin’ to Tyrell like that, you’re god damn lucky he didn’t take you outside and beat some sense into you. In fact, the way you were talkin’ I’ve got a mind to do that myself.’ Milton shook his arm free of the miners grip, and continued to walk out the bar. ‘Where you goin’ boy?’ shouted the miner behind him. ‘I’m gonna get my mommas money back.’ Said Milton, and unfortunately for him, the miner didn’t hear him and beat that sense into him like he’d promised.

It was real dark, and Milton was crouched down behind some crates next to the launch pads. It stank something awful behind there, Milton reckoned folk had been using it as a toilet. But this was the kind of stuff you have to put up with if you’re gonna do something right in these hard times. He was waitin’ for Tyrell, but he couldn’t see his ship. Surely the drop hadn’t been made already? God damn it he hoped not. Just then Milton caught sight of Tyrell’s big ugly form striding up onto the pads, carrying the strongbox on one shoulder, with a shotgun in the other hand that looked like it could blow a hole clean through a rock wall. Maybe he should steal that too, thought Milton, it could be useful down the mines, after all… Tyrell walked over to a little green rusty ship that looked like it would have trouble breaking atmo, where was his regular ship? Milton sprang up from behind the crates and ran across the pads, sticking to the shadows. Tyrell slung his shotgun into his belt, pulled down the cargo doors and walked inside. Milton saw his chance, and sprinted towards the ship, jumping up into the tiny cargo hold, and hiding behind some empty barrels. For a moment Milton thought that someone had been using the ship as a toilet too, but then he realised that his butt was soaking wet. Gorramit, he had been sitting on the ground behind those crates. Maybe he should have checked it out first. Milton paused for a minute, he had no idea what he was going to do next. Before he could decide, the cargo doors swung shut behind him, and a loud roaring noise started coming from the other end of the ship. Tyrell was taking off! Milton knew he had to act now. He jumped up from behind the barrels, and climbed the rickety ladder that led to the cockpit. Reaching the top, he saw that it was a tiny little space, with pipes and cables hanging down off the low ceiling and running over the floor. Tyrell sat in the pilots chair, facing away from Milton. Right behind him, set down on the floor, was the strongbox. Milton knew he could do this. Tyrell hadn’t seen him, so all he needed to do was creep up nice and slow and grab the box. Then again, the engines were so loud, maybe he should just make a run for it. Yeah, that was a great idea, just run forward and get it, then run out again. His momma would have that money back! Milton made a dash for the strongbox, but before he’d travelled two paces he smacked his head on a big-ass pipe hanging off the roof. He fell to the floor in a daze, and Tyrell exploded out of his chair. ‘What in the hell!?’ He bellowed. ‘You!’ He flicked on the autopilot and yanked Milton up by his collar. ‘How did you get on my gorram… what the… what is that smell, boy?!’ The stench was overpowering and when Tyrell grimaced, Milton saw his chance and kicked him square in the balls. Tyrell shouted out some cuss word that Milton had never even heard, and his grip on Milton’s collar loosened. He broke free and scampered across the floor to the strongbox, but when he grabbed the handle on the top and tried to lift the whole thing up, he couldn’t move it one inch. Damn thing must’ve been made out of iron or somethin’, it was so gorram heavy! Tyrell swung back round in a rage and stormed towards Milton, who jumped back over the pilots controls. Milton wasn’t sure which lever he pushed, but suddenly the gravity felt ten times stronger than it should’ve been, and it was goin’ in the wrong direction, pulling them down towards the cargo bay. Milton managed to grab hold of another pipe hanging off the wall, but Tyrell flew straight back down the cabin. He managed to grab a hold of the sides of the door, but then looked up and saw the strongbox headed straight for his face. Milton watched Tyrell tumble into the cargo bay and out of sight, then the controls on the pilots console started going beserk, beepin’ and flashin’ and what not. The gravity went normal, the controls calmed down, and Milton fell to the ground. He picked himself up and walked across the cabin towards the cargo bay. Looking down the ladder, he couldn’t see anything, only darkness. There was a switch next to the door, he flicked it and the lights came on. Tyrell lay face-down on the deck at the bottom, and there was a lot of blood coming from his head. The strongbox lay next to him, it’s lid had broken clean off in the impact with Tyrell’s mean-lookin’ mug. Money was strewn everywhere, floor to ceiling, some of it stickin’ out of cracks in the walls, between cables, sitting in empty crates and barrels. Milton just stood and stared. But then he remembered that he was here for a reason. He climbed down the ladder and started stuffin’ bills into his shirt and pants. He climbed up the piping on the wall to fetch more, he even picked up a few that had Tyrell’s blood on them. When he was done, he climbed back up the ladder into the cockpit. There was this big red display on the console that said ‘Autopilot ON’. He reckoned that’s what had set the gravity right again. Milton’s cousin Elias was a pilot, and he had told Milton about autopilots once. He said that autopilots ships that fly in the black always need a place to go. A ‘destination’ it was called. Milton could see what this autopilot’s destination was now. He couldn’t see any space out of the windows, it was all taken up with the side of something big and grey. Something that the Tyrell’s ugly little ship was dockin’ with. The ship swung round and flew backwards in towards this long extendable tube thing. Milton heard the cargo bay doors start to hiss open, and a cool rush of air flooded through the ship as the pressure equalised with the atmosphere inside the big grey thing. He climbed down the ladder into the cargo bay, turned round, and found himself face-to-face with three guys who might just all have been bigger than Tyrell. The men looked at Tyrell, lying motionless on the floor. They looked at the strongbox, lying broken and empty next to him. And finally they looked down at Milton, a skinny little guy covered in blood and piss, with notes sticking out of every item of clothing he was wearing The one in the middle picked Milton clean off the floor and stared him in the face. ‘I think Mr Niska is gonna want to see you.’ He said.