He grunts, and I suspect we're both thinking of our brother, still on the bridge as the rest of us check out the mysterious ship. It has to be eating at Mathiras that he doesn't get to go on board with the rest of us. We talked everything over the night before, though, and it was agreed that if someone needed to step in and take control of things, it'd be Mathiras. Everyone likes and respects him.
They're a little terrified of me being in charge of anything. Same with Kaspar.
So Mathiras is on the bridge of The Darkened Eye and Lord Straik is at our back. A new idea occurs to me, and I lean forward to whisper to Kaspar again. "Do you trust him?"
"Who, Straik?" At my agreement, he snorts. "Of course not."
"Then why are we going in first?"
"What other choice do we have?" He grins over his shoulder at me. "Besides, you want to see what's on here as badly as I do."
He's not wrong. Curiosity is killing me.
We get to the end of the tunnel and into the staging room on the other side. We're now officially on the Buoyant Star, even if we're still breathing The Darkened Eye's oxygen. I peer around me curiously as the others file in behind us. Doesn't feel haunted so far. I glance over at Kaspar, but he's stationed himself at the door of the Star, waiting for the signal.
Lord Straik has his weapons put aside for the moment and his data pad is out. He holds it up to the door and then frowns as an error message flashes across the screen. "I can't synch up with the ship."
"You thought you could?" I look at him in surprise. "Even I'm not that dumb."
He gives me a withering look. "It's one of my family's ships. Of course I should be able to connect with the system. I have access to everything. Or I should." He frowns down at his data pad. "Someone's been tampering with things."
"Let's go tamper back," Kaspar says eagerly. He nods at the door. "Say the word."
"Er, before we race in…do we know how many crew were on this ship when she last left port?" I ask Straik, curious. The bigger the crew is, the more likely the odds for a mutiny.
"Seven," he says. "All very loyal sa'Rin males."
"Huh," is all I say. "Seven crew to operate this enormous ship?"
Kaspar shrugs. "So it's not livestock, then."
I guess not.
Straik turns to Kaspar and nods. He slides his data pad back into its holster and pulls his fancy-looking blaster back out. I admire it for a moment. I need to steal me one of those. Before I can ask where he got it, Kaspar hits the panel on the ship.
The doors glide open in a silent welcome.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up again. We didn't have to hack that at all. "Ghosts," I whisper again.
9
ADIRON
I follow close behind Kaspar, my weapon at the ready as we walk down the hall of the eerily quiet ship. The lights are on, and the floors surprisingly dust-free. That doesn't mean anything, of course. The cleaning bots could be going through their regular cycles, not realizing that there's no one on board. The hall itself is long and unadorned, the walls the same treated metal that most ships are made from. There's no damage to the gray paint coating them, either. No scratches or blaster scorch marks, and best of all, no blood. That's a good sign.
Kaspar lifts his head and sniffs the air. "You smell that?"
I look around and sniff. I don't smell anything. Well, no, I take that back. I smell dust and the air is sour and musty, but nothing else. "I don't smell anything but your socks," I joke.
"The air smells, but it's not as bad as it should be," Kaspar points out. "I thought it'd smell like your sac when we came in here, but nothing smells that bad."
I snicker, because that's a pretty good one.
"But no dead things, and the air's not too bad." Kaspar gets a thoughtful look on his face, his blaster raised at the ready as he looks around. "Someone's here."
"Hmm." I turn to look behind me and I can't help but notice that Straik and his men are waiting near the door, watching Kaspar and me wander in. I guess we're bait as much as anything else. Lovely.
I turn back to the front, taking a few steps ahead of Kaspar as he pauses. The hall branches in three different directions, all of them leading to new long corridors and myriad closed doors. There's a lot of places for someone to hide.
Kaspar turns back to Straik. "You have a schematic, right? Which way to the bridge?"
As my brother speaks, a pale face peers around the corner.