The girl had been lost to this seedy underbelly shortly thereafter. The teenager’s father hired Alex to search for her during her last stay, when Michaela had been missing for over a year.

She managed to locate the girl, but Michaela had refused to return home. Her pimp shot at Alex, and she’d decided it just wasn’t worth the risk. She’d told the father she couldn’t find his daughter. Lying had secured her payment, but she’d handed the credits to a small family starving in this squalor. She couldn’t bring herself to accept payment for a lie.

“We’re not old friends,” she finally said to Sackor, who she found staring at her with an amused look on his crusty face.

Alex looked away again, and spotted Michaela across the room. The young girl was so high, she probably didn’t even notice the guy pimping her out to whoever was willing to pay for her, was planning to sell her to the brute busily squeezing her breasts as if he were checking for ripe fruit.

Damn that stupid little girl. Now, I’m going to have to do something about it before I get out of here.

In spite of feeling more at home in the slums of the desperate and criminally inclined, she still despised wrongdoings to the innocent or stupid.

All kinds of alien and humanoid races frequented this joint. It was the best way to score work. Most of the time, the pay wasn’t great, but it was enough to accrue the credits she needed to survive on her ship. One of these days, Alex needed to take some time off to visit one of those tropical planets advertised in almost every space station across the galaxy.