The Space Pirate 1 Read Free

waste matter, Charley stretched her legs and wandered through the mounds, wondering what the day would bring. She was filled with anxiety because she knew there was no chance her mother would let her back into the family hovel. Even if Matheson kept quiet about their little tryst last night the look in Anna’s eyes when she watched her daughter leave had said it all. Charley was officially homeless, that much was obvious. What did that mean for her prospects? Well, she’d be selling her body in no time if last night was any indication. No. That’s not how she wanted things to be. She was more than a whore and she wanted this fucking town to know all about it.
    Some of the figures in the streets and narrow trails were familiar to Charley. Her brothers were already at work, some of them meeting with gang members to discuss their strategies for the day, others moving silently on their own, depending on stealth and thievery to make their daily quota of credits. Doce and Trink were both skilled thieves and were more than capable of disappearing into little nooks and crannies around the town until they saw something worth stealing. As for the gangs, well they usually prowled on the edges of town and waited for visitors and strays with a few credits in their pockets. It was that or scavenge the wrecked starliner over in the dead wastes to the east of town. That particular hulk had been worked over for decades. It was doubtful there was any salvage left but every now and again new cache was found. The star liner was a creepy place, filled with the decaying corpses of all the passengers who had died when the ship was attacked by pirates.
    It was also a dangerous place for a single scavenger to operate in. A team was usually needed to help with ropes and hand boosts. The starliner was far too advanced for a lone scavenger like Charley.
    All she could do was try and find a cool, shaded hole and wait for an opportunity. Of course, nothing ever happened at Sandflower Downs and credits were often earned through brute strength and violence. If Charley was to avoid becoming a cheap whore for Boss Pete’s garbage men, she would need to think of something quickly. Charley knew a hovel that was relatively quiet during the day. A place she could crawl under and watch the main street in relative security. She found her secret place, trying to ignore a worrying hole she saw in the ground. The size of a credit chip, the hole was likely a scorpion nest and her body was less than a yard away.
    Perspiration already trickling down her forehead, Charley settled into position to watch the comings and goings in main street. A desert speeder cruised in around mid morning. It was Boss Pete’s personal vehicle but he wasn’t driving it today. One of his underlings stepped into the dust carrying a sack of supplies that were probably sourced from Zeba, the next town over. The man sauntered into a two-storey hovel with a red gas lamp hung outside the door. The whorehouse had its first customer for the day. About sixteen or seventeen girls worked that business. Many of them were Charley’s age or younger. The older women of the town had no prospects save for keeping house for whatever families they were able to hold together. Some kept a tighter ship than others. Charley watched the desert speeder in the street, She knew it would be DNA activated just as Matheson’s wrist pad had been. A bunch of youths ambled up to the vehicle and admired its smooth lines, leaning on the bonnet. Boss Pete’s man shouted from the upper level of the whorehouse.
    “Away, you sons of bitches!” he called. “Away from there!”
    The gangers moved away slowly, not wanting to appear cowed in any way. Of course, it was foolish to go up against any of Boss Pete’s men. That just earned you a bullet to the head. Charley felt a lurch when she saw that one of the gangers had a pistol holstered at his hip. The thing looked old, really old, and she doubted it was functional.