Rake tried to open his eyes, but light stabbed at him viciously. He immediately squeezed his eyelids shut again for a few moments before he tried again, this time more slowly. The light was vicious, but he persisted against the pain.

Did I die again? he wondered, then immediate dismissed the notion. No, if I had died again, I’d remember getting another insurance policy. Last thing I remember is that skiptracer, and a shootout, and the air venting into space. If I were dead, they’d have used my memories from before to bring me back, and I wouldn’t remember the shootout.

He congratulated himself on his reasoning. So, I’m okay. But where am I?

The light finally seemed to ease its attacks, and Rake slowly soaked in the details as they came into focus. The overhead lights hung from a metal ceiling, gently curving toward the floor. He was lying on a medical table of some sort, with a medical AI standing nearby in a powered-off state.  A single viewport looked out into the darkness of space, providing an unparalleled view of brilliant stars.

Cabinets lined the walls, all the workspaces clear of any loose items. Rake lifted his arms and found he was not bound—in fact, there was nothing keeping him on the medical bed. He did some more mental math. Okay, so everything’s neatly stored away and tidy as can be. Between that and the view of the stars, I must be on a ship. Given the firefight outside the insurance facility, it’s probably the ship that shot the place up. And given that I’m not bound, they’re probably not skiptracers, either.

So, someone rescued me.

Rake slowly sat up, giving himself time to adjust. Dizziness swept over him, but he persisted, refusing to relent. When he was fully sitting up, he slowly pulled himself around to let his legs dangle off the bed. Ever-so-slowly, he eased himself off, carefully transferring his weight to his feet, supporting himself with his arms to ensure he didn’t fall.

It wasn’t until he was standing with most of his weight on his legs that he realized he wasn’t feeling any pain from his wounded leg. He looked down in surprise and saw clean white medical wrapping securely in place around his entire calf, from knee to ankle. He experimentally shifted even more of his weight to his wounded leg and felt barely a twinge from it. Definitely not skiptracers, he decided. They wouldn’t have bothered patching me up unless it was a critical wound and they needed me alive for the reward.

As he straightened up, no longer leaning on the bed, he had another sudden revelation: he was dressed only in a thin medical gown. Rake glanced around, but saw no sign of his clothes. “Of course not,” he muttered. “With everything else packed away, they would have packed my clothes up, too. No loose objects on a ship.”

A whistle from the door brought Rake’s head up and around. Leaning against the frame, arms crossed, was a gorgeous dark-haired woman, hair cropped well above her shoulders and hanging loosely around her heart-shaped face. “I think I prefer to keep you like this.”

“Like this?” Rake repeated.

“Mostly naked,” the woman said with a wink.

“Uh, right,” Rake muttered, blushing before he could catch himself. “It seems you have me at a disadvantage,” he answered. “If we’re going to be on equal footing, maybe you should strip down, too.”

She laughed, a wicked sound promising all sorts of delights. “Who said I want to be equal with you?” She finally relented with a brilliant smile. “Check the upper drawer under the bed.”

Rake bent over and pulled the drawer open, finding it empty. He looked up questioningly at the woman.

Her smile was just as wicked as before. “Oops, my mistake. One drawer lower.”

The man glanced down at himself and realized the gown had ridden up when he had bent over. He blushed again, then shrugged and pulled open the lower drawer.

He found his clothes neatly folded inside—the trousers, shirt, and jacket he’d worn in the insurance facility. Gratefully, he pulled the clothes out and started dressing, pulling on the pants before he shed the medical gown.

“You don’t need to do that,” she said lightly. “After all, it’s nothing I haven’t seen already.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Rake said dryly as he pulled his shirt over his head. “Quite the voyeur, are you?”

“Fine way to talk to the woman who pulled your ass out of the fire,” she said, her light tone contrasting her words. “Next time a skiptracer has you, I’m just going to watch.”

Rake raised an eyebrow at her as he pulled his jacket on. “Wait, that was you shooting at Slade?”

The woman raised both eyebrows in return. “That skiptracer was Slade?!”

“You didn’t know?” Rake asked in return.

“Honey, when I got your message to pick you up from the insurance facility, I had no idea you were in that kind of trouble.” She shook her head. “Damn, that was an enemy I could have happily never made.”

“Pick me up?” His head was spinning. “I’m out of it for a few weeks, and nothing makes sense.”

The woman offered him another dazzling smile. “You don’t even recognize me, do you Rake?”

The question set him aback. “I know you?”

She shook her head. “For shame, Rake. If your stored memories are that old, we’re never going to get you clear of this mess you’re in.”

Rake studied her for a moment, and then a moment longer before he finally recognized the crystal blue eyes nearly hidden behind the dark hair. “I’ll be damned,” he breathed. “Caree Staka.”

“Ah, you do remember me. I was prepared to be offended,” she said with a wink.

“How many years has it been since you and I pulled that job off New Recice?” Rake asked with a shake of his head. “We were both still wet-behind-the-ears kids!”

Caree grinned. “That didn’t stop us from doing some stupid things,” she said.

“It’s probably why we did stupid things,” Rake replied with a broad smile of his own.

“Aw, is that the only reason we…?”

“Hell, no,” he interrupted. “If that was the only reason, you think I would’ve called you when I’m in trouble?”

“Always the charmer, Rake. You haven’t changed a bit.”

“You have,” he commented. When she raised an eyebrow, he said, “You’re all the more beautiful for it. Besides, the Caree I worked with off New Recice would never have walked into the middle of a shooting match.”

“I did no such thing,” she sniffed disdainfully. “I started that fight.”

“So, uh,” Rake said awkwardly, “if you have some idea what’s going on, I’d love to know. I kind of woke up from a tank and have no idea what I’ve gotten myself into.”

Caree grimaced. “I was hoping you took a flash of your memories before you died so that you would know.”

“Well, what do you know?” he asked. “How did you know where to find me, or even that I needed help?”

The dark-haired beauty blew out a sigh. “Of course, on to business.”

“Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay.” She shrugged, a liquid motion that drew Rake’s eyes. “I’ve just…missed you.” She held up a hand to forestall his reply. “Business first.”

“So, first question,” Rake said. “Where are we?”

“Edge of the Terra system,” was Caree’s answer. “We’re mostly powered down, passive sensors only, and our core is cool enough that we should be invisible against background noise unless someone’s running active scans. And if they are, we’ll pick them up with the passives.”

“And if we need to run, how long will it take you to be ready?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

“We’ve already got an emergency jump plotted,” she said. “We’ve got enough power in the capacitors to hit the point drive, but we’ll have nothing left when we get there.”

“That’s a lot of juice in the caps,” Rake commented. “Bit past spec, isn’t it?”

She smiled. “Since when are you concerned with legality?”

Instead of answering, he changed the subject. “So how did you find me? And why were you out here in the first place?”

Caree paused for a moment before answering. “Just over three days ago, I got a transmission from you out at Clarion. You wouldn’t give me the details, but you said you were in a lot of trouble and didn’t think you’d survive. You told me you had a life insurance policy at one of the Terra insurance companies and you’d need me to pick you up in a few weeks if things went south.” She grimaced. “You told me you needed someone you could trust if you were going to slip the skiptracers chasing you, that you’d need to lay low for a while.”

“Given what we left of that insurance station, I’d say I was right,” Rake grumbled. “So I didn’t tell you anything more? Any hint at what kind of trouble I was in?”

She shook her head. “Not a word, other than to say how bad it was.”

“Well, at least one skip figured out I had a life insurance policy,” he said grimly. “Not only that, but he figured out where they’d be bringing me off ice. And where there’s one, there will be more.” Rake contemplated for a moment before asking, “So where are we headed?”

“I was hoping you would have an answer for that question. I came all the way to Terra to get you—we had no job that would’ve taken us this close to civilization,” she said, adding a slight mocking tone to the final word.

“Let me think on it a bit,” Rake said. “Actually, no need to think about it.” He took a deep breath. “Set a course for Clarion.”

Caree stared at him. “Um, wouldn’t that be where you were killed? Are you sure no one is going to still be looking for you there?”

The pilot shook his head. “I died a few days ago, and word officially made it onto the ComNet if my insurance policy was invoked. Anyone who was looking for me there will know I’m dead and gone.” He offered a cynical smile. “In fact, they’re probably combing Earth, Terra, and the rest of the Home Region, waiting for me to show up at an insurance company.”

The woman paled. “So it would probably be best to get us out of the Home Region,” she said.

Rake nodded. “So, Clarion.”

She frowned at him, but the expression didn’t detract a shred from her beauty, which Rake was trying very hard to ignore. “What are you hoping to find there?”

“Two things,” Rake answered. “First, maybe I can kick up something to tell me why skiptracers were hunting me down with intention to kill. And second, I want my ship back. I’d bet every credit I have left that my ship is parked somewhere in that system.”

“Pilots,” she murmured. “You’re all alike.”

He snorted. “What does that make you?”

Caree offered another dazzling smile. “I’m the captain, not the pilot.”

“Well, then, captain, you’d best give the orders to get us moving,” Rake said with a broad smile and a nod.

“Of course,” she said with just a bit of stiffness. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, once we have this boat under way.”

Rake watched her leave, admiring her backside the whole time. When she had disappeared from sight, he forced himself to sit down and think.

Okay, Rake, he told himself, start from what you know. First, you know you died sometime in the last few days. Your death was reported on the ComNet, and your life insurance policy brought this body off ice with your last memories restored. Sometime between that flash two weeks ago and the day you were killed, you got yourself into some kind of trouble—something deep. You were killed, most likely on Clarion, but that didn’t satisfy whoever was after you, since a skiptracer showed up here at Terra to try to grab you.

Not only that, but he did it inside an insurance facility. That realization worried him. Not only was this something bad enough to get you shot, but it was bad enough for a skiptracer to break all rules of decorum to make sure you didn’t make it out of the facility free. The credit payout on your head must be huge. Large enough to risk breaking dozens of laws to get.

Well, at least I know I’m not wanted by any of the Home Region governments. He smiled to himself. They would’ve had uniformed officers there to arrest me, not some skiptracer.

I must be in trouble on one of the Outlying Worlds, or with one of the kingpins.

Rake frowned. This business doesn’t lead to a lot of friends, but I must not have thought I could trust anyone if I called Caree to pick me up. We haven’t spoken in years, but she was always as good as her word.

The pilot continued to sit with eyes closed as he continued to poke and prod at the few facts he knew, trying to wring out any more information, but they were as dry as stones. Even with the distraction of his own thoughts, and the deep-seated fear underlying them, he couldn’t miss the sensation of a point-to-point jump.

Rake didn’t understand exactly how point drives worked—for that matter, he doubted more people than a handful of astrophysicists in the entire Expanse truly understood it. The usual metaphor for the technology was enough to satisfy his need for knowledge.

Developed several centuries ago, point drives were the solution to the speed-of-light limit. Instead of hurling a craft at transluminal velocities—long discovered impossible—point drives bent space itself to allow immediate transition from one spot to the next. When Rake was a child, he had been taught the concept with a single sheet of paper. If a person lived on that paper, in two dimensions, he’d never experience the third dimension that was being bent. When the paper met, he might be able to pop from one half of the sheet to the other, without actually crossing the open paper between the two points.

Point drives had major drawbacks. Properly calculating a point-to-point jump was nearly impossible, because the calculations required knowing about every single mass object larger than a few specks of dust between a ship’s current position and its intended destination, as those objects affected how space “folded”. Because of the sheer complexity of it, all ships except exploration craft were limited to pre-existing transition points, and point drive exploration had been dead for nearly twenty years—the war between Earth and Terra had seen to that.

And there was always the effect point-to-point travel had on humans.

A quarter of humans weren’t affected at all, but for the rest of humanity, using the point drives was an uncomfortable experience.

Rake always likened the sensation to being ripped away, completely disoriented, and then dropped in a new place. As a pilot, he had a fairly keen sense of direction and could virtually always keep his bearings, but jumps left him dizzy for half a minute or so.

This jump was no better. In fact, it was much worse.

Rake woke up on the deck of the medical bay, staring up at the light overhead. An ache at the back of his head pounded in time with his heartbeat.

“Ow,” he muttered. “Well, that was ugly.”

“Rake?” a voice called on the medical bay’s intercom. “Rake, are you still there?”

He pulled himself to his feet, using both hands to keep himself steady. “I’m here, Caree.”

“I was hoping to hear that,” she said steadily. “We’re being hailed, and they’re looking for you.”

Rake gripped his pistol firmly, telling himself, No, I’m not terrified. Just because there’s someone out there apparently willing to break the rules to get at me doesn’t mean I’m a dead man.

Yet.

“Come on, Earthstepper, I don’t have all day,” the filtered voice said.

“Who are you?” Rake demanded, checking his ammunition and charge on the weapon. Looks good. Keep him talking, and then jump out and nail him by surprise. He did his best to ignore the nagging voice telling him that he already knew his reflexes were subpar.

“Does it matter, Rake? You’re my payday, regardless of who I am.”

“Well, you broke all the rules by coming into an insurance facility with gun in hand and apparently willing to shoot anyone in your way,” Rake commented as he tried to recreate the room in his mind. If he’s near the entrance to this room, there’s no real cover there. This simulator’s on the opposite side of the room, and there’s good cover here. I should be able to get a clean shot at him. “That means you’re either new to the game or damned good.”

The filtered voice took on a dry tone. “My name is Slade.”

Rake swallowed hard. Great. One of the best skiptracers in the Expanse.

“I’ll admit, I thought I had you on Gallos,” Slade commented. “I could have sworn no one else was even close to you. But then you turn up dead, and I had to lay down a lot of credits to find out where I could catch up with you again. Of course, now you don’t have all the information that made you so valuable, but I’m sure we can find some way of getting that again.”

“I’m sure,” Rake repeated. “What information did I have, anyway?”

Slade’s chuckle was colder than deep space. “See, that’s the problem with your insurance policy. You got yourself killed, and you don’t even know what’s coming for—“

Rake didn’t bother listening to the rest, hurling himself from the simulator and twisting his gun hand toward the entrance. His finger was squeezing the trigger when he smashed into the floor.

No Slade.

“You’re not bad, kid,” an unfiltered male voice said as a cold barrel tapped his ear. “Now drop the weapon.”

Rake carefully laid the weapon down on the floor. “Look, I don’t know what you want from me, Skip, but we both know I don’t have it.”

“What I want is your head,” Slade said calmly. “Now stand up.”

Rake glared at the treacherous door. “You hijacked a soundbox for your voice, didn’t you? So I’d be looking the wrong direction.”

“Kid, you don’t get to be the best by using insurance policies,” Slade said smugly. “Now stand up, nice and slow, and we’ll both get out of here without your insurance company paying for another body.”

Rake swallowed hard. Great. Trapped in a faulty body and caught by a skiptracer. This day couldn’t get better. Slowly, he rose to his feet with both hands held away from his body. “I don’t suppose there’s any way you and I could discuss an alternative, is there?”

“Earthstepper, a skiptracer gets a reputation by bringing in his target,” the hunter said coolly. “Even if you had an extra couple million credits in your back pocket—which I somehow doubt—to take your money and let you go would be to ruin my own reputation.”

Rake tried to think, but everything had moved so fast since he woke up in the tank. “It doesn’t really have to be this way,” he said offhandedly. “I mean, it’s not like anyone would know.”

“I shot three of this company’s personnel on the way in, and I don’t doubt my face is plastered all over security cameras right now. So move.” He prodded the pilot again with his gun.

Rake spun, hand flashing out to knock the weapon away. Slade was caught off-guard by the sudden move and lost his grip on his carbine, allowing the two-handed gun to clatter away across the floor. Rake scooped up his pistol and sprinted straight for the exit, not bothering to turn back and fire at the skiptracer.

If he lives up to his reputation, that’s the last time I’ll ever take him by surprise, Rake thought as he sprinted hell-bent for freedom.

He had just broken the plane of the doorway when fire blossomed in his calf. He stumbled and went down hard, smashing head-first into the hallway wall, rebounding and landing in a heap on the floor.

Rake looked down and saw blood beginning to pool on the polished floor.

Slade walked up to him, the carbine leveled at the fallen Rake the entire time. He didn’t speak as he bent over to retrieve Rake’s pistol, attaching it to his own belt with a magnetic click. “Looks like my information was wrong,” he remarked. “Here I thought you’d be moving slower in that new body of yours, at least for a few days. Instead you damn near made a fool of me and got away.”

“I aim to please,” Rake mumbled, trying to cope with the ringing in his ears, the dizziness from running headfirst into a wall, and the throbbing in his calf. “You shot me in the back. Not very professional of you.”

“I shot you in the leg while you were fleeing,” Slade corrected him. “Very professional of me. Prevented your escape, and I can deliver you intact to Colonel Velles.”

Colonel Velles? Why does that name…? Oh, shit.

That’s not good.

“Great,” Rake said. “Very professional, then. Except now I can’t walk out of here.”

The bounty hunter looked him over, and for the first time Rake got a good close look at the infamous skiptracer.

If Slade had a last name, Rake had never heard it—and he looked like a man who didn’t care about such trivial things. His dark hair was gathered back in a ponytail, and he wore a dark leather duster over a heavy set of armor. His face was unmarked, revealing cold blue eyes, an over-large nose, and a plethora of scars.

Slade looked every bit the fearsome skiptracer his reputation made him out to be.

The armed man snorted in disgust. “Thought you were supposed to be tough, Earthstepper. One little bullet wound and you’re too injured to walk.” He reached under his duster and withdrew a small coil of rope. With practiced ease he formed a loop and pulled it over Rake’s uninjured leg. He pulled it tight, wrapped the other end of the rope around his left hand, and began dragging the pilot across the polished floor.

“You can’t really think,” Rake said from the floor as he slid along surprisingly easily, “that you’re going to drag me to wherever your ship is moored.”

“Hardly,” Slade said. “My AI and my ship are already at the emergency docking collar at the hospital across the walkway. In a few minutes you’ll be locked away until I can get you to Velles.”

Rake considered his options. Well, I can try to fight him with a bad leg while my good leg is bound—not to mention I’m unarmed. Or I can let him drag me to his ship and try to escape from him there.

I don’t like either of these options.

The hallways of the insurance facility were empty as Slade stalked through them, dragging his prey behind like Rake was already dead. It struck Rake as odd, until he realized that the facility was likely watching the entire thing on camera and wasn’t going to risk its own personnel fighting an armed man.

I hate the Core worlds. Earth or Terra VI, they’re both alike. Well, they were before Earth cooked. Everyone’s too damned scared to do anything, Rake thought distastefully. That’s what happens when you have all the fanciest facilities and a life of ease. You forget how to fight when you need it. This skiptracer walked into your facility, shot up people, and is dragging one of your clients out by a leg, and you sit around and wait for the weathermen to get here.

Figures.

The front door to the insurance facility hissed open, allowing Slade to walk out with his bound captor in his wake. He immediately turned hard to his left and didn’t miss a step, even when Rake bounced off the corner of the door.

“Ow,” the pilot complained. “Keep that up, and you won’t be bringing me back in working order.”

“Shut up,” Slade said.

With nothing else to say, Rake found himself complying, even as he tried to figure a way out of the trap he found himself caught in. Nothing brilliant came to mind.

The insurance facility and the hospital, separated by less than fifty meters of walkway, were both against the edge of the Terra VI orbital station, to better allow for emergency access. Two airlocks were available in the space, allowing for a pair of ships to be offloaded at the same time. Both locks were currently occupied, the vessels visible through the transparent alloy commonly installed in viewports on space-going vessels; the skiptracer was clearly making his way for the lock closer to the insurance facility.

If he gets me on his ship, I’m dead, Rake thought bleakly. Wow. What a wonderful investment the life insurance policy was this time. I would’ve been better off staying dead, I think.

They were ten meters away from the lock when Slade’s ship blew up.

The viewport took the blast without so much as a scratch—it was actually tougher than the cheaper materials used to build ship hulls—but the open airlock wasn’t so fortunate. As the docked ship was hurled out into open space, the lock failed to close. Wind, virtually unheard of aboard space stations, quickly rose to a howl as it rushed out the compromised portal.

Aboard a station this size, the chances of the airlock failure being fatal to the inhabitants was minimal—it would take many minutes to empty the atmosphere into space aboard such a large space. However, that was the concern furthest from either of their minds.

Slade swore, a curse Rake had never heard before. “Vultures!” he shouted. “Always some damned vultures around to steal from me!”

Chips of flooring began to fly up as bullets rattled around them. Slade took a pair of them without so much as a grunt—his armor deflected the projectiles—but scrambled to free his mask from his belt.

A figure in an assault suit stepped through the compromised airlock. Rake stared in disbelief. That takes guts, he thought blankly as the newcomer leveled his weapon and let another burst loose at Slade. To come in that fast, he had to be sitting just about on top of Slade’s ship when it blew up. Those assault suits can take a few bullets without venting into space, but shrapnel could have taken it to pieces.

Another trio of bullets smacked into the skiptracer. He swore again and dropped the rope around Rake’s uninjured right leg. Slade’s hands ducked under his duster and came out with a pair of pistols, firing nearly non-stop toward the attacker as he half-ran for the scarce cover of a parked magnetic transport car.

Rake decided this was the moment he was looking for and ran for his life.

Or he would have, had his leg not had a neat hole poked through it.

“Rake, come on!” the newcomer shouted, his voice as mechanically filtered as Slade’s had been in the testing room. “Come on, we have to get out of here!”

Try to get away from them both with an injured leg and take my chances getting caught by Slade again, or go with the person I don’t know. With his calf throbbing, there really was no choice. There’s no reward without risk.

He crawled as quickly as he could for the newcomer.

“Dammit, Rake, run!” the attacker shouted.

Deciding that some forward motion was better than none, Rake elected to continue crawling.

The angry whine of bullets over his head motivated him to do better, and a glance over his shoulder confirmed that Slade, rather than risk losing his prey, had chosen to shoot him, too. Doing his best to ignore the pain, Rake forced himself unsteadily to his feet and ran as best he could, his leg on fire every step of the way to the airlock.

Slade wasn’t going to let him go that easily, though.

The skiptracer was on the move again, this time with a different weapon in his right-hand—a highly illegal, very powerful, and very difficult-to-aim one-handed rocket pistol.

The newcomer apparently saw it, too. “Into the airlock,” he shouted frantically to Rake. “Now!”

Hobbled by his injury, Rake knew he wouldn’t make it—particularly when his leg gave out again and he crashed to the deck.

Slade leveled the weapon.

The newcomer dove to the ground.

And a new roar joined the rushing wind.

Metal shrapnel sprayed out at Rake. None of it was life-threatening; the pieces were small and tumbling, though several of them flayed skin open across his exposed arms as he cradled his own head.

The tortured scream of punctured, stressed metal and the ever-increasing roar of wind battled for supremacy for several seconds, before the metal surrendered the contest. Rake looked up, not understanding what had happened.

Holes as large as his fist had been punched through the station’s exterior. Rake’s eyes widened. That ship at the hospital airlock…was shooting at Slade? A starship, trying to shoot a person? The roar in his ears continued to grow in strength. And might have killed us all.

Then there were arms lifting him. Dizziness began to sweep over him. Hypoxia, he thought. The air’s moving past me too fast to get proper breaths.

As his consciousness faded, he managed one last thought: I didn’t have time to take out another policy.

Author’s note: I’ve changed the title to my current working title, which is far easier to remember.

New writing project. Inspiration hit me, and I was off and running. Long as I have the muse, I’m going to run with this one. Chapter 1 below.

The man startled awake, thrashing around as he tried to get his surroundings. Or rather, he would have started thrashing around, had his arms and legs not been both firmly bound.

The world around him was red-tinted. He blinked, trying to clear the haze from his vision, before he realized he was surrounded by fluid. The man almost panicked then, but oxygen continued to flow steadily through the mask strapped over his nose and mouth.

Where am I? What’s going on? He tried to think, to analyze the situation, but his brain seemed to be fogged over. He squinted and tried to peer through the liquid. I’m in a tank. Oh.

I’m in a tank.

He glanced up and saw the level of fluid already beginning to drop. His thoughts were still crawling along at a torpid pace, but the sights around him were beginning to coalesce into a picture he recognized. Oh, shit. I’m in a cloning tank. If I’m here, that means my life insurance policy was invoked, which means I’m dead somewhere.

As the sticky fluid dropped past eye level, he saw a man in a med coat standing outside the tank. He raised his eyebrows in an unspoken question. The man in the tank nodded in understanding. Yes, I’m under control. A moment later the restraints around his arms and legs snapped open, allowing him to begin moving. He reached up with unsteady hands and pulled the mask from his face, then let it dangle from the connecting tube running out of the cloning cylinder.

Mind is fuzzy because of the mind-flash, he thought. I’m…who am I? Rake. That’s my name. Rake.

The fluid finished draining out the bottom of the tube with a gurgle. He rolled his shoulders experimentally, feeling strength start to flow into his muscles. The tube itself began to shake, and a moment later it was lifted away into the ceiling, leaving him standing—well, leaning—against the platform where he had been strapped.

The man in the white lab coat approached him with an outstretched hand. “Mr. Earthstepper, I’m Doctor Valance.”

“How long?” Rake asked hoarsely.

“It’s been two weeks since you last re-flashed your memory,” the doctor said, requiring no further clarification. “We received the end-of-life signal this morning and began the wake-up process. We’ll need to run you through the mental and physical tests to ensure the memory flash is holding. After all,” Doctor Valance added with a smile, “I’m sure you wouldn’t be happy if your insurance policy wasn’t fulfilled to the letter of the contract.”

“Of course.” Rake tried to swallow and struggled to find enough saliva. “Do I get to shower first?”

The doctor nodded. “The shower is right over there,” he indicated, “and the change of clothes you left is in the locker.”

“Great, thanks,” the cloned man managed to rasp.

“Disorientation is common following the memory flash process,” the doctor said. “I’ll give you a few minutes to get your bearings before we begin the quality assurance process.”

Rake stumbled his way to the shower and, as the water began pouring over him, realized for the first time he was completely naked. As he tried to wash the sticky red nutrient fluid from his body, he found his hair was longer than he preferred, and the stubble of a beard roughened his cheeks. What do you expect, that they’re giving you regular shaves and haircuts? he chided himself. When I get out of here, I’ll need to find a razor.

He steadfastly ignored the most important question, the query that kept nagging at him as his mind steadily cleared. How did I get here? What mess did I get myself into?

The steaming hot shower was a luxury he hadn’t had in quite a while—water was scarce and jealously hoarded aboard starships, and he seldom set foot planet side for long. While he wouldn’t normally spend much time bathing, the hot water seemed to help his mind clear. And, after all, I paid a lot of money for this insurance policy. I might as well make sure I get every pence worth.

When he at last shut the water off, Rake felt nearly normal again. It wasn’t the first time he had been forced to use an insurance policy—in fact, this was the third time—but the man never felt overly comfortable with it. Probably because the first time was in a backwater facility run by pirates after they had tortured me to death, and wanted a second shot at it, he decided.

The change of clothes he left was standard fare—dark trousers, soft mid-calf leather boots, a light shirt, and a dark brown leather jacket. Concealed within the jacket was the handgun he kept as a backup: heavy enough to be easy to shoot without being too heavy to aim, and completely illegal inside the cloning facility. He looked it over and decided not to push his luck, slipping it back into concealment in the jacket’s lining rather than attaching it to his hip.

Harder to get at, but if I want to renew my policy here, I’d rather they don’t throw me out for breaking the rules.

It was one of the few universally-accepted rules at life insurance facilities across the Colonies—no weapons inside. When life insurance was first implemented, it had been an early liability problem. Growing clones and flashing memories, not to mention the necessary storage for both, were delicate and expensive processes. A freshly-decanted clone getting shot as it stepped out of its tube raised serious liability questions: was the company responsible for another clone, or had it done due diligence? Rather than debate the issue in court, life insurance companies as a whole had declared their facilities weapons-free, even on backwater worlds where concepts like “murder” were legally murky.

Carrying the pistol in his jacket lining made it harder to draw in an emergency, so Rake made a mental note to ensure the weapon was at-hand before he stepped out of the facility. Once I’m on the street, all bets are off.

Fully dressed and far more comfortable now that he was armed, he stepped out of the bathing facility and walked back toward where Doctor Valance was hunched over a display, no doubt with Rake’s personal records and the information for his physical and mental tests.

“As you should be well aware, Mr. Earthstepper,” the doctor said without looking up, “we take quality assurance very seriously. Should this body fail to meet the necessary standards, we will need to eliminate it and grow you a new body from scratch. It will, of course, delay your departure by approximately a month, but it’s a necessary precaution.”

Rake tried to suppress his shudder. So, if I fail, they kill me and start again. He resisted the urge to flee the facility. Then again, dead and alive again would be better than trapped in a defective body. And the general quality of life insurance has gone way, way up in the last ten years.

“If you’ll step over here, Mr. Earthstepper, we’ll begin,” the doctor said with a gesture. “We’ll start with reflexes, followed by a memory test, and finish with a stress test to ensure all bodily functions are working as expected.”

The man reluctantly stepped over to the simulation pod for his reflexes test. With an uneasy sigh, he slipped into the seat and reached out to grasp the flight yoke for the simulator and waited for the screens to light up. The pod slid shut around him, consuming him in darkness for long moments before the displays began to cast light.

Quality assurance was a simple process for life insurance. Three tests were run on the cloned body—memory, reflex, and stress. Each time a policy-holder updated his stored memories—or “memory flashes”—the tests were run on the holder’s body at that time to ensure the comparison results were current. To pass quality assurance, he had to pass each of the tests with 98% of his “baseline” from the most recent flashing. Anything less, and his current body would be eliminated and a new one would be grown for the next attempt.

Rake had no particular desire to die again—plenty of motivation to put his best effort into the test.

The simulator flared to life, and he was at the controls of a starship navigating the junk fields in orbit around Earth. It was a classic reflexes simulation, designed to ensure a pilot’s reflexes were up to the task of quickly responding to changing flight conditions. This is old hat after earning my wings the first time, and then training as a Terran pilot during the Great War, he told himself.

The simulated ship was a small, one-man craft designed for tight and quick maneuvers. Rake remembered, very briefly, his last run in the simulation—nearly nine minutes of precision maneuvers before he had been clipped by a centuries-old satellite that ripped a wing off the ship and sent it spiraling into atmosphere.

This time, as he plunged into the debris field, he didn’t feel his usual ease at the controls of a ship. Sweat began to bead on his forehead and run down into his eyes as he struggled to keep the little ship from crashing. He wove in and out of wrecked starships, shattered orbital bases, old satellites, and unidentifiable junk. Instead of relaxing, as he normally found the simulation, he found himself growing more and more distressed.

And then, as he ducked around a battered freighter, he saw it coming toward him like a missile: an old airlock door, three-inch alloy designed to take a military-grade explosive. He tried to shove the yoke forward and dive out of the way, but his muscles seemed to fight him. The little ship’s nose pushed down, but far too slowly—the door ripped across the top of the vessel, splitting it open as neatly as a knife slicing flesh.

The simulation screens immediately went black, leaving only his time on the screen: four minutes, four seconds.

Shit.

The canopy hissed open, and Rake swallowed hard before forcing himself to look up at Doctor Valance. The man’s expression was grim. “I’m sorry, Mr. Earthstepper.”

“Give me another shot at the sim,” Rake said immediately. “It was bad luck, and I got blindsided. Let me have another run.”

“Mr. Earthstepper, we monitor more than just your flight time,” the doctor said gently. “Your reflex time to object within line-of-sight and your reaction time to it indicate you were responding at approximately 96% of baseline.”

“Give me another chance,” Rake demanded through gritted teeth.

“I apologize, Mr. Earthstepper,” the doctor said as he leveled a small, handheld device at Rake—a neurostunner, useful only at ranges of a half-meter or less. “We’ll have to revisit our records and see what went wrong with the first attempt. I assure you we will get the next body right, or you’ll receive fifty percent of your insurance fee back.”

Rake reached into his jacket, fumbling for his gun. I don’t want to die! he thought irrationally, knowing full well the company wouldn’t just leave him dead. I’ll deal with this body!

The doctor froze as a quiet “crack” split the air. Rake tried to draw back, knowing there was no avoiding the neurostunner.

Then the man in the white coat collapsed.

Rake stared wide-eyed at the body of the doctor as he finally withdrew his sidearm from his jacket lining. What? What happened to…?

“Nice and easy, Earthstepper,” a mechanically-filtered voice said coldly. “Just step out of the simulator so we can have a nice talk. Try anything stupid and, well, I doubt you’ve got another insurance policy ready to go.”