I am a pilot
23 Feb 2021User319792
I ran into another one of the pilots that was in the room when I slapped that Diplo after getting back to Alioth and he recommended I check out HIP 12099 B. As soon as I got there I remembered the man in the black suit.
I was at home with my dad and, when he answered to a knocking at the door, the man in the black suit asked to speak with him in private. From behind the crack in my bedroom door I could see my dad sitting, facing me, and the man started speaking with him. They were talking about me. I'll never forget the look on my dad's face when he stood up and walked toward my door.
I froze when he opened it. I'd been working with him as house-service for a wealthy Cubenista family and I recognized the language of his body as he came to me and braced myself. Instead of grabbing me by the arm and pulling me, he hugged me with a fierceness I haven't experienced since.
He told me the man in the black suit was an important person that was sent to us after being told about things the family had been seen doing. He asked me if I'd been beaten. I told him yes, by her son. He asked me if I'd been whipped. I told him yes, by the woman's other servants. After that he went back to the man in the black suit.
One day later my Dad and I were boarding an Imperial Courier. I remember the look on the woman's face as she stared in cold silence at us and the man in the black suit. The other men in black suits were speaking with her husband, who was demanding to know why he was being violated and on whose authority.
When we stepped off the Courier at Wedge Market I was already drunk on wonder. I remember thinking the Courier looked weird for an airplane. Then we went into space. Then we went into a space in space where other ships would come from and go to space.
The Imperial Eagle next to our ship was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen until I saw the Clipper two platforms over.
For the next two years we bounced from station to station as my dad's work demanded until I saw the man in the black suit, again. He was stepping out of a Sidewinder in a flight suit. He didn't recognize me until I turned away. I felt his hand touch the scar on my shoulder as he put his hand on my shoulder and asked me if I was Franklin's daughter. I told him yes. He asked me how old I was now. I told him 13. He asked me where my dad was. I told him he was in the next room over.
He and my dad stood behind me as I looked around the cockpit. I heard my dad say that something was ridiculous and that I was just a girl. I didn't see the man in the black suit again until two years later and he and my dad sat me down and asked me if I wanted to try flying the Sidewinder and that there was a group of people willing to offer a chance to never have to work for anyone else again. I remembered the man in the black suit smiling at me. I remembered my dad looking at me as if he were trying to find out if I understood what he was saying to me. I remembered my silence. I remembered that all I could think about was the look on the woman's face as we left. I told them yes.
I wanted to see the woman's face again. I wanted to fly back to Cubeo 3 and knock on her door. I wanted her to feel the whip in her hand. I wanted her to feel it cut into my back. I wanted her to hear me scream. I wanted her to feel my dad's hug and to see his look of pain when the man in the black suit started talking to him. And I wanted to take it from her. I wanted to take everything from her.
When I finally got my Pilot's Federation License I flew to Cubeo 3 as soon as I could. I stationed at Chelomey knowing I'd see the shoreline by the woman's house every time I left and every time I came home. I would never take my eyes off her. I would never take my eyes off her.
With everything going on in those early days, it hadn't even occurred to me that Cubeo was the new Headquarters for Princess Aisling Duvall. The woman hated Aisling Duvall. The woman thought she was a spoiled child that would never know what it was like for the business-people of the Empire that were just trying to make it for themselves.
I pledged myself in the service of Aisling, immediately. It was the least I could do to thank her for Cubeo 3 and Chelomey. I wanted her to know that I know what she did to me. I wanted her to know that with every launch, with every mission and with every bounty I would give my life to her like it was given to the man in the black suit by my dad. The man that put me into the Sidewinder. The man whose choice led me here to the man that destroyed the Thargoids in the first Thargoid War.
