Page 4 of Saving the Space Pirate

I shrugged. “What was your life like here? How did you escape? How did you know about this place?”

His arms tightened around me while he thought about what to say. “I was a helldiver,” he said. “That’s what they called us, the ones who dove into the tunnels searching for new veins of ore. I jumped every day from the age of fourteen. And every day, I presumed I would die. Sometimes I wanted to die. Wanted it to be over. I didn’t know of anyone who ever escaped the mines. But something kept me going. Each day, I decided I wanted to live. One time, though, the line broke, and I was freefalling like we did just now. I nearly went too far. I’d gone past the last known safe hold. I thought—this is it. I’d accepted it. Then I saw the ledge, the one we used just now. I managed to catch onto it and save myself.”

“I’m glad you didn’t die.”

He kissed the side of my neck and a shiver ran through me. “So am I, sweetheart. Anyway, I waited for them to send the cable to pick me up. When it didn’t come, I realized they probably thought I was dead. That close to the core, the heat was messing with their detection equipment. For the first time in my life, I felt free. It was exhilarating. I explored these tunnels, found this place and, farther on, a tunnel to the surface.”

“Is that when you escaped?”

“No, not that time. It’s weird, but I told myself that I needed to plan, needed to get supplies, think of a way off the asteroid. But really, I was just scared of the idea of freedom. So I climbed my way back to the surface and slavery.”

“When did you escape?”

He’d gone quiet. I wanted to see his face, and I pulled free and turned so I sat on the sandy floor facing him. “Tell me.”

“I had a twin sister. Kara. She was sold to a brothel just before I became a helldiver.”

“You were only fourteen—children. How could they do that?”

He shrugged. “Kara was the only person I ever loved. And I could do nothing for her. Occasionally, she’d get messages to me. Then one day—I was eighteen—one of the guards told me she was dead. A group of soldiers had bought her for the night. Fucked her so hard, they killed her. Apparently, they had to pay extra.”

His voice was filled with years of pain and bitterness, and my heart ached for him. I could see now why he’d been so against me going back to the slaver ship. But also why he’d wanted me to succeed. Reaching out, I cupped his cheek. “I’m so sorry, Killian. But we’ll stop this. We’ll bring them down and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“Good luck with that. Things will never change.”

“They will. If enough people want them to.”

He shrugged again. He didn’t believe me and that made me sad.

“I went crazy,” he continued. “Nearly killed the bastard guard who told me—he was gloating about it. I was due for a flogging, though not too bad—I was valuable—and not until I’d done my work for the day. Anyway, as it turned out, that day I was scheduled to work on this tunnel. As I fell, I cut the cable, and I was freefalling. I almost kept going, but at the last moment the urge to live was too strong. I saved myself and once again made my way to the surface.”

“How did you get off the asteroid?” Hopefully, it would be something we could repeat now.

“Well, that was where I had a little good luck. I met Zak.”

“Was that when he was crown prince here?”

“At the turning point. He’d been kidnapped by his uncle in a coup to give control to his sister.”

“The lesbian-from-hell sister?”

“That’s the one. His uncle had brought him here. The plan was to shove him into the mines where there were no witnesses—at least, none that mattered—and let his body burn. He’d simply vanish. I killed Zak’s uncle, thought about killing Zak, but in the end I decided he’d be more useful alive than dead. We stole his uncle’s ship, renamed her theHelldiver, and away we went.”

“And you’ve been friends since?”

“Sort of. We had a few patchy moments. I was never particularly fond of Groths, so it was a hard slog. But he’s a good guy.”

“What did you do?”

“First, we found the men who had killed Kara. They all died and not well.”

“I’m glad,” I said fiercely. Before this, I’d never wanted anyone to die before.

“Then we just got whatever jobs we could. We always thought one day we’d return to Groth, get rid of his sister, put Zak back where he belonged, right all the wrongs…”

“But?”

“That sort of stuff is hard work. Instead we just fucked around. Made a bit of money, spent it. Got into trouble with some bad guys, agreed to free a slave girl from Earth…and here we are.”

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