AllFreeNovel
Share Us
We entered the city limits. The streets bulged with creatures and sights and smells all too familiar to me.
Even as a child, I hated the city. It was smelly, noisy, and everyone hustled to get their tasks done. No one worked together—not if there was no profit in it.
Alice gaped at each sight, the same way I did as a small child. Trying to take everything in at once.
I took her hand. “Stay close.”
I paused as a pair of Enforcers brought a cart to a stop and began to search it. They were dressed in thick metal armor plate and carried powerful pulse rifles attached to their arms.
I curled my scarf into a hood to hide my features. The last thing I needed right now was to be identified.
“Down here,” I said, tugging on Alice’s arm and taking her down a side street.
I turned one corner after another and didn’t stop until I was certain the smugglers were out of sight. I found myself in a quieter street with carts loaded with books and other manuscripts.
“What’s going on?” Alice said.
“Enforcers,” I said in a hushed voice. “We need to be wary of them.”
I need to be wary of them.
“Why?”
“They carry out the law in the galaxy,” I said. “Often with an iron fist.”
Alice’s eyes sparkled. “They’re cops? That’s great! We can tell them what happened with your ship and crew and they’ll help us get it back.”
I shook my head. “They hunt down smugglers like cockroaches. The second they know I’m a smuggler, they’ll slap me with a lifetime sentence.”
Alice bit her lip in thought. Then her eyes drifted over to the wall behind me.
I turned to look at what had grabbed her attention. It was a wall decorated with hundreds of posters. They showed wanted men and women and a big fat reward attached to each one. There were a lot of them. Most sported moving images of bad guys carrying out illegal activities.
“There was something like this back in Party Central where you abducted me from,” Alice said.
I glanced at the people milling past in the street. I wished she would keep her voice down.
“They had all these missing posters on a big wall like this,” I said. “I guess some of the people on this wall are responsible for those missing girls.”
She was more right than she realized.
“Come on,” I said. “We need to get going—”
Alice lifted one of the posters, revealing a hand-drawn face that offered one of the largest rewards.
“This is you?” she said. “You’re a wanted felon?”
She sounded surprised. I didn’t see why she should be. Still, I didn’t want everyone on this street knowing it. They’d hand me in faster than a winning lotto ticket.
“I’m a smuggler,” I said quietly.
“I thought slavery was common in the galaxy?” she said.
“It is. But there’s legal and there’s illegal.”
She shook her head, disbelieving. “I had no idea.”
“Well, now you do,” I said, removing her hand from the poster so it fell back down over my face. I wished I could tear it off without getting suspicious looks.
