Hours passed as Jason waited, cuffed in a Sapphire Industrys shuttle. He tried getting the attention of passers by but after yelling into the void for some time he decided it was useless. Where was Julie? Was she hurt? Was she alive? He had gotten her into this mess because he underestimated his opponent and now he found himself on the wrong end of some serious leverage. Migo said that he had a use for him that remained a mystery and that made Jason anxious.

*VERRRRRRRR* The shuttle's engines started up with a jarring rumble.

The shuttle ride didn’t last long. Jason figured that it meant they were taking him back down to the red light district. The landing struts sent another shutter through the craft. Two men came up to him and lifted him from the bench he had been tethered to. Within three steps Jason was thrust from the shuttle and into the wet cold mud. The men grabbed his legs and tied them to his wrist in a hog tie fashion. Laying in the mud Jason heard the men heave out a heavy object that hit the wet ground with a thud followed by another lighter thump of a second object. The men walked by him toward the shuttle and one of the two made his presence known with a swift kick to Jason’s ribs taking the air out of his lung. Jason struggled for breath as the shuttle lifted off and flew away. Jason struggled blindly to find anything that he could use to cut his bindings. After Slithering through the mud for some time he came across a sharp object which he found as it ripped into his back as he thrashed about in the mud. Jason moved his bonds up and down against the sharp object over and over until the rope was cut freeing his wrist and allowing him to take the hood off his head. Jason observed his surroundings and saw by the towering piles of jagged junk that he must be in the red light’s dumping zone. He looked back to where the shuttle had been and was Julie laying in the mud still unconscious and bleeding from what looked like an incision her head and next to her was Jason's gun. Jason moved to her side and tried to wake her but it was no use. As he reholsterd his gun, thunder in the distance alerted him that the humid nexus night was about to give way to rain. He had to get some shelter soon. Placing Julie on his good shoulder he waded deeper into the junk.

…………………………………

The sound of a Thunder clap woke Julie up with a violent jolt, in fact it was so violent that she almost knocked herself hitting her head on the metal debris Jason had put her under.

“Ow” she said out loud rubbing the bump she had on her head from their incident with the sapphire guards.

“Be careful over there.” jason said in a low tone devoid of emotion. He was sitting under the wing of a long abandoned spacecraft working hard to get a fire started. Julie got up from where she lay and crawled through the wreckage to sit next him.

‘“What happened back there Jason?

Jason shook his head thinking for a moment silently, “We- I was played. Migo set some sort of trap and I walked right into it.” Julie could see the frustration and anger manifest in the furrow of his brow, “Now we are being forced to play his game.” Julie looked at him confused.

“What game Jason, what are you talking about!?”

“I don't know” Jason said very matter of factly, “All Migo said is that he had some plan for us and that when the time is right we would know.” Julie stood up, “Well that Fucker pissed me off, and i'm not going to wait here while someone uses me again! Come on, we know what we are up against now so now if we go in we---``Jason grabbed her arm and pulled her back inside the shelter. He had furry in his eyes.

“Don't you get it, he already has us! There is nothing we can do about it. Companies like sapphire have a lot of guns and eyes everywhere. Migo said he would kill us the second we walk into the lobby so we don't have a chance to get at him. He won, we have to do his job.”

Julie sighed and bit her lip in frustration, “Well… What do we do now?” jason looked around arbitrarily,

“Well our first move is to get out of this junk yard. I know it looks nice but there are some bad characters that live in here, and I’d rather not get caught by some junk head looking for food.” After walking for hours through rust covered valleys, the sound of the perpetual rain was broken by the sound of rustling at the top of one of the huge mounds of scraps. Jason looked up briefly and caught a glimpse of a figure quickly ducking behind the empty hull of a ruger speeder. We

“Be ready.. I think we are being watched” Jason stated in a hushed tone.

“What? Where do you see them? Julie replied, becoming tense.

“Try to calm down ok. Stay loose. Being tense will throw off your aim, besides you did great back at sapphire tower and there is no way these guys have the skill those corpo’s did.`` Jason said reassuringly, soon after he said this the chanting started. Voices rose over the piles of junk, the chant was in some language Jason could not understand. It seemed like they were using it to organize their approach, Jason had heard stories of the junk dwellers attacking workers who had the unfortunate task of entering the dump zone. Jason leaned over to Julie, “Here's the plan, it sounds like there are a lot of them coming for us but guns are pretty rare here so they will most likely charge us with improvised weapons. We have the advantage of moving back the way we came and using the tight valleys so they will not be able to overwhelm us. Ok?” Julie nodded just as the horde rounded a bend up ahead some 150 yards. Jason unholstered his gun and pointed it at the oncoming Junk dwellers, this was going to be interesting, he thought.

The leader of the horde shouted something over the chanting and the roar of at least 50 Junk dwellers swelled into the night sky and they charged. Jason could not make out the members in the back of the group, but all of the front line of the charging horde had only makeshift weapons. Bang! Jason's shot rang out and found its target exiting the man's body with a reddish mist.Bang Bang Bang! Julie's bullets tore down the range with less accuracy but at 100 yards he couldn’t blame her. The night was filled with gunfire Julie and Jason were firing as fast as they could pull the trigger. Jason had killed at least 15 of the oncoming wave before he had to give the order. “Fall back! I'll Cover you!” He yelled, Julie didn’t waste a moment and sprinted back the way had come. Jason walked backwards picking off a few more before a retreat was absolutely necessary . Bang, the last bullet ripped through the air and collided with a man center mass at 20 yards leaving a smoking hole in his chest as he fell. Jason turned and ran to where julie was tucked into a small ravine in between to large mounds. As he moved bullets whizzed past him as she covered his retreat, she was good, he thought as he made it to cover. Jason only had time to turn around and reload before the wave of bodies crashed into the narrow ravine. Jason and Julie fired furiously filling the ravine floor with bodies and blood, it didn't matter how many they killed, more junk dwellers kept flooding through. Jason knew they were being overrun. He holstered his gun for a moment to hand Julie a long cylindrical tube with a pull pin on top. “I need you to take this flare and climb to the top of this heap. If we are lucky some one might come and help us get out of this shit.” he shouted over the noise of gunfire and guttural screams. “What if no one comes?!” Julie asked frantically,

“ You can't think of that right now, just climb!”

Jason moved to where Julie stood so he could get a better sight line of the battlefield. The horde was seemingly endless, he had to think quickly to stem their assault. He looked around in between shots and noticed that the foundation of the trash mound directly to his left had been damaged in the assault and was now unstable, only supported by a single steel beam. Jason maneuvered over to the beam and gave it a hard kick. The beam only moved a little. He kicked the beam again with the same effect. The junkers were almost on top of him, he would probably only have one more kick left before it was all over for him. He shot the nearest one who flew backwards under the influence of the bullet. “Come on you son of a bitch!” Jason kicked the beam as hard as he could and to his surprise it broke free and tumbled out of where it was lodged. The junk mound released a loud metallic groan and then began to tumble filling the ravine with huge shards of jagged metal. Frantically Jason scurried the opposite junk mound and began climbing up the side to avoid the raging metal river which was now shredding everything in the ravine. After a few moments of climbing he reached the top and layed down on his back in exhaustion, but thankful he was not part of those below, whom he could still hear screams of agony filtering through the rubble.

“Get up.” Julie said in a tone of disbelief, “Why?” jason said in between labored breaths. Julie pointed down from where he had just come, “we are done yet, they are still coming.” Jason rolled over and saw she was correct. The second wave of junkers were crawling through the rubble below and climbing up after them.

“What do we do?” Julie asked anxiously. There is not a lot we can do, he thought but would not say out loud. The blue flare burned bright and gave them the most light they had in hours. The night was cool and the air atop the mound of junk was crisp… there were worse ways to die. Jason raised his gun, “If they want to keep coming, we will keep fighting” he said as the chaos in his mind cleared and he was focused in the moment. Gun fire tore through the night and drowned out the sounds of agony from below. Julie and Jason stood back to back firing down the sides of the mound, ammo was running low. A Junker had slipped by the two of them and tackled Jason to the ground. The force of the collision knocked Jason's gun from his hand and it clattered to a halt. The junker swung down with a makeshift sword and slashed Jason's right shoulder stump. The pain swelled but he knew the blade bounced of the bone and he was fine. The junker raised up his sword again to go for a killing blow. All of a sudden the sounds of a ship's engine krept into Jason's ears. It wasn't close by but there was hope. The junker must have heard the engines too because for a brief moment it took his focus away from jason. Jason used the disracton to deliver a heavy punch that knocked the junker off of him. When the junker recovered he charged jason once more, but this time he didn't even get close. The hair on Jason's neck and arms stood up with a feeling of being charged by static, and all of a sudden a pink beam of crackling energy struck the junker effectively exploding his torso leaving behind only the junker's legs and the sickening scent of vaporized meat. The engines were blasting loudly now as an C Class Ridge-razor hovering above the junk mound shooting down at the now retreating junkers, many of whom were turning into puffs of energized mist when they were hit by the ship's main guns. The door gunner had on an old school citadel fight helmet and motioned for jason and julie to get in the main atrium.without a moment's notice jason jogged over to the ship and followed Julie inside. All at once the engines roared to life and launched the ship into the night cool night sky.