Niko had still been a Free Trader then, able to travel where she wanted, as long as the Merribelle was bound there or, if not, as long as she could find another Trader ship to transfer to that was. She’d been part of a crew, a crew that included all manner of races, all sorts of beings that had managed to escape their home planets, drawn together by a desire for life among the stars and an existence in perpetuity there, raising children on the Free Trader ships who would never know those planets, and would go on to join crews of their own.

A crew that included a Florian, a visitor from outside the Traders, signed on as an apprentice.

Florians never had been known to go off their own planet; they are a vegetation-based species, and more empathetic than most races. Niko knew that the Florian, Petalia, had been sent by their people to learn how to be a merchant, calculate numbers, and help their planet establish trading outside its system. They were already part of the crew of the Merribelle when she joined as a gawky eighteen-year-old, her credentials vouched for by her uncle West, who’d done her pilot training himself.

They got to know each other because they were both low rung on the crew, the members that the particularly dirty or particularly tedious jobs fell to. Petalia had a dry sense of humor and the young Niko didn’t feel as awkward around them as she did around her fellow humans, whom she found confusing and bewildering after a sheltered upbringing aboard one of the largest Free Trader ships around, West’s ship, the Constant Craving.

Niko learned music from Petalia—the odd and ethereal purr melodies that only Florians can create. Niko would not find out till years later how honored she had been, when she learned that a Florian shares song only for the sake of friendship. At the time, all the young midshipman knew was that Petalia was her friend and a good one, good enough to share their bunk from time to time, sometimes for sleeping, other times not. But more than that, they resonated with each other, learned each other well enough to predict the thought shaping in the other’s head even before they could speak it.

Then by chance collision, pirates took the Merribelle. They had an agreement with the Free Traders, but the Belle had gone poking its nose where it shouldn’t have, because the captain was eager to get a few extra credits, and that made it fair game.

All would have been well, and things should have gone according to an established routine. A demand for ransom tendered, a payment made (predetermined by custom, each Free Trader hostage was worth a sum calculated according to their age, skills, and experience), and then the release of prisoners.

Except for the pirate named Tubal Last.