The Worst Pirate Hunters in the Fringe by Skyler Ramirez

Author:Skyler Ramirez [Ramirez, Skyler]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Persephone Entertainment Inc.
Published: 2023-11-13T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

Meeting the President

It’s the dead of night on the part of the planet where Kayla directs us to land. We can’t go straight to the capital city and meet with her father in the presidential mansion. According to her, they think some of the local populace may actually be working with the pirates, spying for them on the planet’s surface. That seems farfetched at first, given the small size of the population and their common ancestry and tight family ties, but she explains that they get a good share of migrant farm workers that come to the planet only during certain regional seasons. A spy could easily hide among their number.

Still, it feels somehow wrong to meet with a planetary president on a dark piece of farmland with a single small house and a surprisingly large barn, big enough to accommodate our ship. We land on one of the plowed fields, almost breaking off our landing gear in the process, but then taxi slowly into the barn, directed by a man on the ground.

As Jessica and I do the post-landing checklist to shut everything down, Kayla is quite literally bubbling over with excitement at seeing her father. As soon as the ship stops in the barn, she jumps out of her seat and leans forward, kissing me on the cheek, and then bounds out of the cockpit to go open the airlock for us to disembark.

Chagrined, I look over to see Jessica frowning at me. “Really, Brad?” she asks. “Can we at least try to be professional?”

I shrug, embarrassed but also a little annoyed at her tone. Who is she to tell me who I can and can’t date, especially since she’s made it pretty clear she doesn’t want to be with me?

I don’t say any of that, of course. Paula Mendoza may have raised a screwup and eventual mass murderer, but even I’m not that stupid. I was married, after all.

Harris excuses himself from the cockpit next, mumbling something about changing his shirt. Judging by his usual appearance, he’ll probably exchange one rumpled t-shirt for another and look equally dodgy in front of President Carter. But I don’t say anything; he might put makeup on me in my sleep.

Right as I’m about to get up and leave as well, Jessica stops me. “Hold up,” she says, her condescending tone from before lost. “Before we go out there, I don’t think we should blindly trust Kayla and her father. We got away from that pirate way too easily.”

“You call that easily?” I ask incredulously. “We almost died like six times!”

She rolls her eyes at me. “You know what I mean. No way a couple of those mines injured them enough to stop chasing us unless one was a really lucky hit. Something about this entire situation seems off to me. Just promise me we won’t take everything they say at face value. Even if they’re honest with us, there may be more going on here than even they know.”

I’m hoping this is just her jealousy of my budding relationship with Kayla.

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