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

dozen oars on each side and a pile of crates between them. Men sat on each side, the chains on their wrists rattling as they pulled hard on the oars. Another stood over them with a whip. He cracked the whip one side or the other, making the men row faster to turn the boat and avoid the rocks.
    Guy ran ahead along the riverbank, waving his arms at the boat. “Can you give us a ride to Kingston?” he yelled.
    Two leather-clad men crouched in the bow, and aimed crossbows in Guy’s direction. Another raised his bow toward Daniel, who smiled and waved, then hurried across the bridge as fast as he could. Falling into the river would probably hurt less than an arrow in his guts.
    A fourth man, wearing a metal breastplate and helmet, stood between the others. “And why would I do that?”
    “I’ve got shinies.”
    “So have I. How do I know you’re not just trying to get us to stop so you and your pirate friends can rob us?”
    Guy nodded toward Daniel. “Does he look like a pirate?”
    Daniel yelled as his boot slipped again, and pain shot through his thigh as his knee smacked down on the wood. He grabbed it, open-mouthed and gasping. That didn't help much.
    “Not a very good one,” the man shouted. “But they have to start somewhere.” He muttered to the man with the whip, and pointed toward the shore. The whip cracked on the shoulders of the men on the left of the boat, and it turned slowly toward the riverbank, a short distance from where Guy stood.
    “Hey, boy,” the armoured man yelled. “Save us all a lot of time, and just jump.”
    Kill himself? Why would he do that?
    Oh. The boat was turning until it would pass beneath him as they rowed it under the bridge. He looked back and checked again, guessing where it would emerge on the far side, then stumbled across the logs until he was balanced on the last of them, three or four metres above the racing water.
    A drone buzzed in for a closeup of his face as he stared down, then tilted until it could see what he was looking at. If he screwed this up, he'd probably be dead, and they'd have a great recording of his demise for the commissars back home. They’d be laughing for days.
    The bowmen aimed at him as they went under the bridge. Seconds later, the prow of the boat appeared below his feet. No point waiting. The longer he delayed, the more chance he had of landing in the water behind the boat. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and jumped. His stomach rose into his chest as he fell, then he grunted as his feet smacked into the boat. He tumbled to the deck, smashing down onto his still aching knee. He lay there for a moment, until the pain subsided, then opened his eyes. He was still alive, and the drone was still flying around him, recording.
    He grabbed the side of the boat, pulled himself up, and leaned against it, rubbing his knee. Guy was watching from the shore. Daniel gave him a thumbs up.
    Guy stared at him with wide eyes. When an arm reached around Daniel's chest, and pressed the cold steel of a dagger blade against his neck, he understood why.

CHAPTER 14
    H e sat on the cold, stone floor of his cell, in the faint circle of light around the stinky little candle. They’d called him the Brain for so long that he couldn’t even remember what his name used to be, back before he arrived on this rotten planet. The chains manacled to his ankles and wrists rattled as he moved his foot to relieve the ache in his hip. His beard scraped against his belly button as he raised the candle to try to read the scratches on the wall. He scratched his bald head. The equation should be correct, but the math just didn't work, no matter how many times he checked it. What had gone wrong?
    If he was younger, or back home where a pill once a year could stop ageing altogether, he'd still be able to read it. But thirty years on Hades had rotted his eyes as much as the rest of his body. Spectacles. He should make some. Metal and glass, with a few curves to magnify the world.