“We can. We can. I can ensure your freedom, hell, a top place in the crew, or money. Tell me what you want and we canworktogether.”
A few stifling seconds went by before Gunner answered. “I want my ship.”
Brent squeezed his showerhead tighter. “I can’t give you that. I don’t have it.”
Gunner pushed his thumbs into his jeans and let them slide the rest of the way down his legs.
“No. I didn’t think you did. But working requires work, right?” he asked, cocking his head as the pirate stiffened, shaking as he took in his nudity. Gunner stepped out of his pants and kicked them into the bedroom, commanding the lavatory door closed.
“Yes. That’s true. So you want information, and for it... I get to live? We both get to live. I can pretend this never happened and I can transport you out of the brig and into better quarters.” Brent tentatively took a step out of the shower.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Gunner warned.
He stepped back in.
“What’s going to happen is I’m going to ask you several questions and you’re going to answer them truthfully. If you do that, I’ll let you walk out of here alive.” Gunner didn’t give the guy time to think about it. “What’s your rank?”
“We don’t have ranks on this ship, only jobs, and my job is Lower Warden.”
“You’re in charge of the guards?”
“And the shoe-ins and new recruits. The wares and goods and the runnings of the lower dregs.”
“You have access to the bridge?”
“Only when summoned. I don’t have the codes if you’re looking to take the ship.”
Gunner sat on the closed toilet seat and rested his elbows on his knees. No, he wasn’t going to take the ship. Not yet at least. “Who’s above you?”
“Top deck there’s only the captain of this ship, he goes by Juke. There’s also the co-pilot, the weapons runners, and the nav team but we’re equal in power here. Ballsy is our head of tech and security, if you want the inner workings of the vessel, you’ll want him first. He’s our data anchor.”
“Who’s above them?”
Brent wiped the sweat from his brow. “The fleet. We’re only one in a black market group that work outside the main channels and the off channels. I don’t know how many ships are in employment—that information isn’t open—but we’re one of the higher-ups in the armada, that I do know.”
“Name?”
“None. No one names shit since Larik’s empire went down. Once a name’s been given, it vanishes.”
“And yet names still exist,” Gunner twiddled his thumbs. “What wouldyoucall the organization you work for?”
He hesitated, “Black Fleet. All our ships are black and if they’re not, they’re changed.”
“And what does this Black Fleet specialize in?”
“Salvaging. Rebranding what we take and selling it to those looking for what we provide. Boarding lone ships we come across in no man’s space, and those we don’t kill, we traffic and sell to the highest bidder. Like you and yours...”
“Like mine...”
The pirate took a deep breath and Gunner could smell the sour bile released into the air between them.
“Yes,” he agreed.
Gunner sighed and stood, making his captive jerk back. “Where’s my ship?”
“Salvage. Salvage yard. On a salvage station most likely.”
He took a step closer, breathing in the delicious impending moments before a kill. “Where’s that?”
