Free Condemned (Death Planet Book 1) by Edward M. Grant

That’s about all I can say right now.”
    “Why me?”
    Guy shrugged. “Maybe I’m just trying to do some good in my life. If someone had helped me when I was a newbie, I might not have ended up in the damn mines.”
    Did he mean it? He could have killed Daniel a dozen times before now, if he wanted to. Or kept him tied up, and sold him to slavers. Or eaten him.
    Besides, what other choice did he have?
    “I guess I’m in.”
    Something thumped in the distance. Was that someone shouting, or was he just imagining it? Daniel turned, and stared into the darkness. Something was coming toward them along the track. Something big and fast, surrounded by a swarm of drones.
    “Down,” Guy yelled.
    Daniel threw himself into the mud. Wood clattered on rocks, and he looked up. A cart approached, a bear in the driver’s seat, a man hanging on beside it, his teeth digging into the bear’s arm. The girl with red and blue hair swung from side to side in a cage in the back of the cart as it bounced along the track. One hand clung to the bars, the other pointed a revolver between them. It boomed as she fired, and the muzzle flash briefly illuminated the track. Then the cart raced past, and rattled away from them, dragging a man behind it, his foot caught in a leather strap dangling from the cage.
    Guy stood as the cart disappeared into the darkness, and the noise faded. He brushed the dirt from his leather pants.
    “Don’t see that every day.”

CHAPTER 12
    “L et me out,” the girl yelled from the cage, and rattled the door. She grabbed the locking bar and shook it, but it still wouldn’t move. She settled for kicking the door.
    “Wait a moment,” Brunhilde said. They’d crossed the bridge half an hour ago, and now rolled slowly along the track on the far side of the river. The girl had been complaining most of the time, at least since she stopped screaming when the hauler grew too tired to keep running. The sky beyond the woods was turning red with the first hints of sunrise. One of the moons was sinking toward the sea. How many did it have?
    The hauler huffed and puffed in front of her, then let out a loud fart. The smell oozed into Brunhilde's nose, overwhelming the stench of river mud and wet fur. That was as good a reason as any to pull off the track for a moment. She hauled on the reins until the hauler dragged the cart onto the grass, then pulled back hard until it stopped. It snorted loudly, then relaxed as she loosened her grip. It lowered its head and chewed on the plants as she climbed down from the cart.
    Dumb creature. When she was a little girl, she’d wanted a pony. She never got one, only the commissars' kids did, but she met a few, and they were smarter than these things. Didn’t have as many legs, either. With eight of them, how did it manage to walk without one getting in the way of another all the time?
    Joseph’s body lay beside her on the bench. Blood and brains were smeared around him where she’d had to smash his skull on the seat to stop him biting her. The bites on her arm had almost stopped bleeding, but blood still matted the fur around them.
    She’d have thrown him out, but she did need some clothes. She pulled the leather jerkin from his body, and wiped off as much blood and goo as she could on his back. Her arms were almost as wide as his chest, and the pants he wore were barely large enough to work as gloves. She settled for tying the jerkin around her waist as a loincloth. That would have to do for now.
    She climbed over the back of the seat, and around to the side of the cage, keeping an eye on the girl. Pretty face, big tits that didn’t flop down when she was naked, and a round ass. She must have had good connections to get a lot of body mods back home. Probably wasn’t a killer, at least, though she’d made a good job of that guard. She still held the gun in her hand, but wasn’t pointing it toward anything.
    “Hurry up, please, comrade,” the girl said. Polite, too.
    Brunhilde