Something wet and cold hit Kyra’s face startling her back to consciousness. To her surprise she was no longer in the prison. Instead she was in the back of what appeared to be a flatbed truck. Benches that were probably used to transport laborers ran along both side of the rear. The vehicle had an enclosed cab that looked like it would fit six or eight and though it wasn’t exactly armored, it was a heavy industrial vehicle, with shock resistant plasteel windows and a heavy construction. The oily reek of a diesel chemical motor tinged the air. 

They were moving along a rutted road at about thirty kph, the suspension was bad enough that even at that modest speed every bump felt like she was being body slammed. Shackles encased her wrists and bound her to a metal support post between her legs. It wasn’t quite freezing but large blue gray snowflakes, a product of the higher than normal copper sulfate levels in Benson’s atmosphere, floated down with enough insistence that there was already a rind of bluish snow. The back of the truck contained three other men. Two of them were guards, not cops, but men in mining utilities dark grey garments with yellow reflective markings at the wrist and across the small of the back. Both carried heavy semi automatic rifles of a solid electromotive variety which Kyra thought was very unminer like.

The last man was something else, he was hunched in a coat that concealed his face, but his aura was stormforged as Mistress Lelamai would have said. Other later instructors, followers of a less spiritual but more practical path, would have counseled her to put two in the back of his head just to be sure. The strange man was also shackled to his bench in much the same way as she. The pallor of his skin looked awful and he smelled of vomit and strong liquor. Kyra tried to smile but the effort was too painful. Dried blood stained her face and an unknown amount of hair had been burned from the side of her face, it probably wasn’t the best moment to judge her appearance either.

They moved along the road at the plodding pace for a minute or two longer before the vehicle shifted into some sort of a dynamic drive and they began to speed up. Forests of trees, mostly colonized with greenish fungus, stretched out to either side, save where electrical lines or pipes had been passed on suspended stablizier towers. Benson was supposed to be more tectonically active than most habitable worlds and the risk of burying pipes risked a kink or a break that couldn’t easily be fixed.

“Well thanks for springing me from jail and all but you guys can let me off wherever,” she said trying to sound as casual as she could. One of the guards turned and glared at her.

“Keep your mouth shut bitch, we know about you two and your little investigation. I don’t mind shooting you both but then the boss’d be pissed he didn’t get a chance to find out everything you know first.”