Chapter 68: A Great Negotiator (2)
"I rarely show up in the black market; never thought I’d slip up," Kishi sighed. "Ask whatever else you want."
"Why are you working for the space pirates?" Yuka asked.
"Not everyone lives as comfortably as you," Kishi paused, "I don’t mean anything by it, but in the Alliance, especially farther from Capital Octoxis, many people on smaller planets live a life of barely full one day and starving the next. I was one of them."
The current Imperial Alliance of the Stars was the result of a compromise between the Alliance Army and the royal family following their conflict. The royal family still held sway over most of the prosperous planets, operating under ’imperial’ rules.
In contrast, the poorer, backward planets were designated under the ’alliance’ jurisdiction. These planets were left to seek their own development and self-governance. Although the Alliance Army appointed officials to manage them, not every small planet could receive attention, similar to the planet with ’the Grand Coliseum’ that Yuka and her friends had visited.
As a result, space pirates became rampant, directly dominating these small planets and turning their inhabitants into puppets.
"I was taken by space pirates when I was very young," Kishi said. "They fed me, gave me money, and a citizen’s identity of the Alliance, in exchange for carrying out tasks for them with this identity."
"You said earlier that you wanted to leave the space pirates, right?" Yuka asked.
Kishi nodded, "To completely break away from them, I’m willing to sacrifice everything I have now."
"Why don’t you seek help from the Alliance Army?" Yuka inquired.
Kishi fell silent for a moment before responding, "I don’t trust them."