I'm good at servicing my own equipment he thought, but assistance would be helpful, someone else who knows these black market builds.
He knew a person, a human of all things who knew his equipment, like the back of her hand. But how would he ask the Captain of the vessel to either employ or capture another?
Roe remembered when he was a slave to a pirate lord, doing missions, often boarding other ships to take out the helm. He had a small corner as room, barely larger than a small wardrobe, it was dirty, cramped noisy and dark.
During one of his missions he ran into a human, who recognized his implants and wings, and she was able to help him to keep them in top shape, so he could do the missions properly so the Master wouldn't punish him. It was a life but a horrible one. He didn't know any other.
He had considered ending it all, fail a mission, but that one engineer on that one mining station kept him going, the more mission he did the more he could meet her.
One day he was cleaning his guns, listening to the Master, Pirate Lord blabber on something when all the lights went dark and a volley of gunfire, all about 40 men standing around the Lord were down, only one man standing, a foreigner in black armor he didn't recognize, a human by the looks of the profile, holding a pistol, the wounded Pirate lord wounded on his knees, the human spoke "The bounty on your head, you can come alive or dead, matters not to me, your ship is enough for me"
The Master shouted something about attacking this human, but he Master didn't know the life long slave contract moves onto someone else if the old is killed in combat, and Roe didn't mind moving elsewhere.
The attacker glanced at the Assassin Raptor, apparently understanding the situation, the Pirate swore something shouting, and a gunshot ended the old contract, the Pirate bled out on the floor.
The human spoke "I have a boarding party entering through a gun port on the left, go there, unarmed if you want to leave this place" he finished speaking, took a blood sample of the dead Pirate and left.
Roe didn't understand the situation, he had a choice? The human asked him, if he wanted to leave, with this human? Anything is better than this old Pirate Lord.

So now he sits here, a room, a clean room, with equipment to maintain his equipment, a shower. But best thing he only remembered form his childhood from his childhood. A bed, his own bed, just thinking about it almost got him to cry.
His new master, or well Captain as he prefers himself to be called, runs a modified cargo vessel, looks civilian outside but packing weaponry to scare a capital ship, could perhaps use this engineer Roe was thinking about. Taking a deep breath, gathering his thoughts., finishing his work, he will go and ask the Captain for permission to get this engineer on board, he would even allow her to live in his room, not to take up extra space.


Art sandaliorudy
or https://twitter.com/WagonSketches on twitter