Page 9 of Saving the Space Pirate

Bye-bye, fun.

Hello, serious stuff.

But maybe it was time. “I want to utterly destroy the imperial house of Groth and all the free people who never did a thing to stop this. I’d like to toss the lot of them down their own asteroid mines.”

“Actually,” Ruby said, “we want to bring them to court for breaking the Federation’s rules.”

Nice idea. But who did she really think had been standing by while all this went on? The goddamn Federation, that’s who. But I didn’t want to burst her bubble.

“Great plan,” Joe said. “But I think I’ll settle for tossing them down the mines.” He nodded to someone behind him, and the man came forward with a bottle and glasses. He handed one to me and Ruby and Joe. As he filled them up, the pungent scent of raw alcohol stung my nostrils. Obviously, Joe had decided to at least listen to us. Ruby was sniffing at the glass as though it might poison her. She took a small sip, and her eyes widened. This was the local brew, distilled from the grain which was the staple diet, and not for the uninitiated. She took another sip and smiled. “Good.”

Really? I found that hard to believe.

Joe caught my eye, raised a brow, and swallowed his drink in one go. I did the same. A small frown crossed Ruby’s face, but then she swallowed hers and licked her lips. She constantly surprised me.

“Now, tell me what you’re doing here,” Joe said.

I took a deep breath. I wasn’t going to admit that I needed their help, but they could make things easier for us…or harder. Where to start? “A few weeks ago, I took on a job to rescue an Earth girl from a Bhaxian slaver,” I said, and then told him what had happened between that moment and now.

Joe turned to look at Ruby. “So you’re an escaped slave? Just like us?”

“I guess so.” She looked at her empty glass, and the man rushed forward and filled it for her. Smiling at him, she wrinkled her nose as she thought about her answer; she was so goddamn cute. “Though I prefer to think of myself as an undercover agent working for the Federation’s Earth liaison.” Her expression cleared. “Besides, slavery is illegal, so there is no such thing as an escaped slave, just an illegally imprisoned person who has now gained their freedom.”

Good answer.

Smart as well as cute.

“Fair enough,” Joe said. “What do you want from us?”

I would have loved to have said “nothing.” But I had Ruby to think about as well. “We have to wait it out until things settle down on the planet. Hopefully, someone will come and get us, but it might be a couple of months.” I tried to work out how long it would take Zak to get to Earth and back in theHelldiver. She was faster than the Bhaxian slaver but it would still take weeks. “We need somewhere to hide out and some food.” I glanced across at Ruby. “And Ruby could do with some clothes.”

“And what do we get out of this?”

“When my ship gets back, we’ll pay you of course.”

“My ship?Aren’t you the hoity-toity one? How do we even know you’re not making all this up? You always did have an imagination.”

Ruby leaned forward. “Honest, he does have a ship. She’s pretty and silver and called theHelldiver.”

Joe cast her a smile, clearly warming to Ruby more than me. “Okay, we believe you then. We want weapons and money.”

We’d have both if Rekowski paid up as he’d promised. “We can do that.” I thought for a minute. “But first we need some intel. What’s happening on the planet? We need confirmation that our friends got away.”

“I’ll put out some feelers. We have some contacts in the ships that bring supplies. We’ll see what we can find out. In the meantime, you can stay here.”

“No. We’ll stay in the cave where you picked us up.”

“We not good enough for you?”

“Not even close. And Ruby’s shy and she’d prefer to be somewhere quiet.” A few weeks alone with Ruby sounded like a plan I could live with.

He nodded once. “Probably for the best. She’s a distraction, that’s for sure.” He turned to one of his men and spoke quietly. The man went off and came back five minutes later with a bag, which he handed to me. I peered inside. There was a small sack of grain, a pot, some clothing which didn’t smell too clean, but which we could wash, and a bottle of alcohol. I glanced up. “Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me. Just help us out when you get the chance.”

“We will,” Ruby said. “We’ll stop this.”

Joe shook his head. “So innocent. What do you really know about slavery? You’ve maybe played pretend for a few weeks, all the time knowing someone is on their way to save you. But with real slavery, there’s no one to save you. Someone owns you and it’s forever. No hope that anything will ever change.”

“But itwillchange. We’re already changing things. So are you.”

He shook his head. “Naive as well as innocent. Come on, I’ll take you back and show you something on the way.”

I had an inkling what he would show her and I wanted to stop it. But maybe Ruby needed to see where I had come from.

What had made me the man I was.

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