Space, unforgiving, cold, and black. ‘In a matter of hours I’ll join it too,' he thought 'and end up being as cold and dark as the Verse itself.' A man could lose his mind staring into nothing for too long, except this man, whose mind had been gone ever since he could recall.

So the time passed, and all the man could do was curse the crew of that rotten ship. They weren’t warriors, well most of em’ anyways. How was going to explain, this...

He chuckled, reporting failure was the last of his worries. He resigned himself to the black, let it tell him just where he was to be. It was sort of like pugatory, except there was no pearly gates, or fiery torment beyond, just sterile space, and the occasional sun.

“Well…here I am.” Jubal Early said, with all the conviction of a man with little hope and less fortune. How the hell had the little girl gotten the best of him? He was always a step ahead, always early. Here, a pint-sized female, with all the appearance of a retarded stepchild had bested him at his own game, and her arrogant brother and the gorramn dog of a captain made sure he ended up…here.

As his breath got shallow Jubal made the startling realization that he was down to less then 2 minutes of air. As he began to see the first signs of oxygen deprivation, Jubal let his mind wander into what had gotten into this mess…

-------------------

“She’s not exactly my usually quarry.”

“River is an extraordinary girl, Mr. Early, and we want her back. The price is fair I take it?”

“Why all the secrecy, seems to me you could have asked any number of Operatives to do your dirty work. Why me?”

“You’re a unique man Mr. Early, your days in our program helped us learn a lot about the way potential brains operate. You have a better chance then most…”

“I seem to recall that I didn’t do a lot of operating on your table Doc, seems more like you did. I think your afraid, afraid that your bosses might get a little…jittery if they know you lost her and couldn’t get her back. Now you want me to bring back