It was our third day, and we were finally out of the compound.

  We'd been assigned to a hunting party. I'd expected some rich crudmunger with a snotty attitude and hordes of servants.

  Instead, we'd gotten a guard.

  There was no other way to describe it. Eight grunts, two of which carried sniper rifles, standard Kassard V2's with aluminum stocks and more vents that was usable. Very light, which was bad for accuracy, but looking expensive and lethal. Good for fooling civs.

  The rest of the grunts were close-combat types armed with short auto-carbines of a make I didn't recognize, and stubby under-barrel grenade launchers.

  No good for hunting. Great for blowing your friends up. Or the four freshies who'd landed on your planet and wanted to sign with your clan.

  "Where are we going?" I said. Nobody replied. Crudmunging Syndics. I didn't like it one bit.

  We hadn't been given an option to come. Nobody talked about pay, or bonuses. This was a trial run, plain and simple. We were going to prove our mettle, or end up a liability. Whatever beast we'd go up against, we'd need to take it down rapidly enough, and brutally enough, to impress the Syndics. Anything else would either get us booted off-planet, or killed.

  Crudmuckers.

  We were traveling in a long, wide and somewhat squat transport that bounced along on eight over-sized tires, each jutting out beyond the body on a separate axle. Made the whole thing look like a rolling spider with broken legs. Quite comfortable, though, and the body-molding drop couches that lined the cargo compartment's sides were new and luxurious. The molding was so good, I almost didn't need the belts.

  The ground was uneven, sparse grass clinging to shallow dells, a few skinny bushes, nude branches poking at the sky, the occasional boulder with a mound of sand on its leeward side.

  And horses. We'd seen six different herds already. Two of them had been big, brown or black creatures taller than me that fled from the sound of our transport. Three had been shorter, squat, long-haired quadrupeds with stubby horns. The last one had been heavy, slow, and had lots of fur. No spider-lizards or panzer-sloths.

  One of the Syndicate snipers opened a small vent and started shooting, the pak-pak-pak of rapid, semi-automatic fire filling the cargo compartment. His aim was crud, though, as was his firing stance. All he managed to do was stink up the transport with the metallic scent of spent powder and hot casings.

  A horse, of the big, brown kind, suddenly leapt from a ravine mere fifty meters from our transport and one of crud-boy's bullets tore a gash along its hindquarter before their commander, one of the CQB-types, told him to crudmucking stop.

  "Wasting yer ammo, boy," was his exact words. "An' drawing the hyenas." Crudmucking Syndicate mungers the lot of them.

  "Where are we going?" I repeated.

  "Hunting," the sergeant said.

  "Not horses," I said.

  The Void Orb grunts laughed.

  "We sure are," the sergeant said. "Jest not this type of horses."

  After that, they clammed up, refusing to answer my questions. I huddled in the front of the cargo compartment with Hao, Talain, and Geir, wondering whether our wards would protect us if one of the Syndics accidentally fired his grenade launcher inside the transport. Maybe, was the best I could come up with.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  The light disappeared as the transport rolled into the shadow of a deep ravine that cut into a high, grassy hill. Going much too fast for my liking. I expected the pilot to break, but she turned the crudmucking transport, heading straight for a steep cleft going upward.

  The thing climbed, the eight big tires biting into sandy soil, spraying dust in a wide plume. The compartment tilted, but the drop couches held us fast. I kept a steady grip on my magerifle with one hand, my backpack full of supplies and water with the other. Two days’ worth of supplies, and a tightly-rolled insulating bag for sleeping. No bubble tent or powered mattress. Hopefully, there weren’t any poisonous critters on Remba.

  The transport crested, clawing its way out into light. No sun, only layers of dun clouds, partially obscured by dust. The top of the hill was like the bottom, a sandy, dusty place held together by short, scraggly grass. We'd climbed over a hundred meters in less than a minute. Unpleasant, but impressive.

  The sergeant tapped his com.

  "Pull up," he said. "We'll check the first blind, then walk to the second."

  "Sure thing, sarge," the pilot said. "It’s your blisters."

  The transport slowed, stopped, its hydrogen gas turbine falling silent. A small engine whirred. The loading ramp fell, and the grunts pilled out.

  Not all of them, though. One sniper and one fighter stayed behind, allowing us to pass down the ramp before exiting.

  Keeping someone behind our back, in case we balked.

  I wasn't much for pleasure hunting. In my view, you trapped what you ate, be it bird, rat, or lizard. Shooting something and leaving it to bleed and rot was a waste of ammo. There, the sergeant had the right of it.

  "Where's the blind?" Talain said. The lead Void Orb grunt, a woman who could have been a taller, fatter version of Stanko, pointed toward a low bump atop the hill where a squat concrete structure hid beneath a layer of soil and grass.

  So a blind was a shooting position. Likely as comfortable as the transport had been, if they pandered to the rich and spoiled crowd.

  Turned out, it was a bunker, bare concrete, with bare concrete benches and a few steel chairs bolted to the floor by the embrasures, allowing a marksman to sit somewhat comfortably, if you had thermal isolation in your pants. Which I didn't. Crudmucking Syndics.

  Three chairs, three open embrasures, the wind blowing dust through them. Most of it blew straight through the bunker, out the door opening. No door. They weren't afraid of anything entering.

  "Your position," the sergeant told me, pointing to the leftmost chair. "Harman, you're center. New girl, you're right."

  Talain looked at me for confirmation. The butt of the sergeant's carbine struck her in the side, and she folded with a squeak.

  "I'm the crudmucking boss around here," he screamed. I had my M3 out of its holster and rising when I spied the ready carbines of all the Syndicate grunts. We were stuck in a corner, backs against the concrete, and they had lined up, ready for this.

  They'd known it was coming.

  Initiation rite. Breaking the new recruits.

  Voidmunging stupid thing to do. Waste of talent, and time. It only worked on slave ships and in action-adventure vids. I holstered my gun with a grimace.

  "Listen to the man," I told Talain. "Chief says to sit, you sit."

  The sergeant glared, but he was too far away to strike me, and moving closer would put him between me and his grunts. By his look, a good many of them would have gladly shot him if they could blame it on us. Rank hath its hatred on a Syndicate world.

  The sergeant stayed where he was, growling and cursing. I waited for Talain get up and take her seat, then waited some more for the Syndicate sniper to take the center chair. Only when the sergeant moved up, putting himself between me and the grunts at the back of the blind, did I sit down and withdrew a pair of binoculars from my bag, leaving my rifle slung across my back. The sergeant didn't comment. Maybe he didn't care. Or he was looking forward to shooting me for insubordination.

  Outside, the grass plain undulated into the distance, with plenty of narrow gullies where the wind had cut into the sand, a dull-green, tan, endless desert. Not a thing moved, not even horses.

  What would you hunt in a place like this?

  "What are we looking for?" I said.

  "The bait," the Syndicate marksman said, settling his rifle on its bipod.

  I looked at the rifle's angle and followed the trajectory to an irregularity on the plain, a small pile of rectangular forms in the middle of a circle of sand blown clear by a heli-drone. A remote supply drop, albeit a very minor one. I zoomed in on it.

  Canned goods. Dried foods. Bottles of water. A case of heat-packs, a bar of candy, a medkit.

  Bait.

  We were hunting men.