He nods. "And the only one that supports life is an ice planet with poison air. No one's visiting this system at all. It's totally deserted…which is why it makes sense that the Buoyant Star is out here. Who's gonna look for her near a shitty little binary star on the fringes of a forbidden system? No one, that's who." His eyes light up with enthusiasm. "Except us."
"Still say it's haunted," I grumble, but I leave it at that.
We enter Lord Straik's apartments, and my brother Mathiras is standing next to Lord Straik, both of them regarding the star map up on screen with intent faces. Over the last few weeks, while I've been befriending the crew, Mathiras has had his head down with Lord Straik, insisting on going over every star chart of the Slatra system. He seems to be handling the loss of the Little Sister better than myself and Kaspar, who's still bitter about the fact that our ship was abandoned. "We'll get her back," Mathiras has told us a half-dozen times. "Let's focus on getting the Star and making our fortune, and then we can retrieve the Sister at a later date. No one's going to find her this far out off the beaten path."
I'm not so sure about that. I suspect Zoey is gonna come looking for us after not hearing from us for a while, and she's gonna be super pissed if all she finds is an empty ship. But Mathiras is the smart one, so I don't point this out. Personally, I think he likes working with Straik. They both seem to be cut from the same plas-film. They both take things way too seriously, spend all their time planning for everything, and basically don't enjoy life much at all.
"I'm here," I announce as I approach them. "Let the fun begin."
Both Straik and Mathiras shoot me disgusted looks.
"About time," Straik says.
"Why do I smell soap?" Mathiras asks.
"You don't want to know," Kaspar replies.
I rub my hands, doing my best to look as excited as the others. "So. Where's this distress signal? Can I hear it?"
Lord Straik turns back to the star map and touches a small section of it. The screen sharpens, zooming in on the area he touched. "It's coming from the vicinity of this particular binary star, right at the edge of the ice belt." He touches the screen again, zooming ever closer. "In fact, it might be too close. Perhaps that's why it was never heard from again."
"It iced over?" I ask. "What's an ice cloud doing out here?"
"Sometimes a planet disintegrates," Mathiras tells me as if I'm a child who's never cracked open a vid-lesson. "With the pull of the sun—in this case, twin suns—being too great for it to handle, it falls apart and creates a debris belt. In this case, it's ice." He gestures at the screen. "Nothing but pure ice as far as the eye can see."
"Sounds like Kaspar's last date," I joke, nudging Mathiras.
Both of my brothers—and Straik—glare at me.
"Oh come on. That was a good one."
"Can you be serious for a moment? Just one?" Mathiras puts a hand on the console and taps it. A noise comes out, the particular unique, ear-screeching klaxon used for all distress signals, followed by the ship's registry number and name, read aloud by the ship computers. Normally, though, a distress signal is followed by a statement from the distressed ship, but there's nothing but silence from the Buoyant Star. Mathiras turns to me. "Well?"
"Ghosts," I say again. "Definitely ghosts."
Kaspar lets out a pained sigh.
"It's not ghosts, you noodle-brained idiot," Straik snaps. "Ghosts don't exist. Someone's on board that ship or it's been abandoned. Either way, I need to get there and recover her. That is my family's legacy."
"Why do you care so much about your family's legacy if they kicked you out?"
Straik glares. "No one kicked me out. We had a disagreement or two. That's all."
Kaspar coughs into his hand. "Not what I heard."
Mathiras glares at both of us.
Why does he care so much about his family's legacy? It hits me and I laugh. "You want to buy your way back into their good graces, don't you? That's what this is. You don't give a keffing flip about what's on that ship, you just want to show Mommy and Daddy that you're a good son and you can be invited back to Homeworld again."
"Someone shut him up." Straik rubs a hand over his face. "His constant nattering is giving me a headache." He gestures at the screen. "Besides, it could be a trap."
I snort. "Are you kidding? It's most LIKELY a trap." Glancing between my two brothers, I continue. "How many times have we chased a distress signal only to find that it's more pirates waiting on the other end?"
"Dozens," Kaspar admits. "But that just means more people to rob. More credits for all of us."
Mathiras gives him a dirty look. "Here's the thing. I know it seems too good to be true. After weeks of searching every nook and cranny of this keffing end of the universe, it doesn't make sense to find her just sitting so quietly out here. It sounds like a trap for sure." He glances at the map and then touches a portion of it again. "Here's the thing, though. It could very well be a distress signal. Look at how close it is to the ice belt. Now, compare this map to one that's ten years old." He flicks through a few images on the screen and then lines the two up next to one another. "The ice belt is moving in rotation, no doubt being pushed along by the force of the other planets." He gestures at a point on the map. "The distress signal is coming from here."
"Right in the path of the ice belt."
He nods, a thoughtful look on his face. "If they get swallowed up, it's going to be a constant barrage of comets and asteroids hitting the craft. It'd tear anything stationary to shreds in a short matter of time. That could be why they're sending out a distress signal instead of just leaving the area. Maybe they can't. Maybe their engines died and they're just floating and waiting for rescue." He pauses. "Or…it's a trap."
"I know which one I think it is," Kaspar says, grinning. He cracks his knuckles again. "But if it's a trap, there'll be more than just one ship. And that means more for us to take home."
"We can definitely make our fortunes," Mathiras admits, and he's got a smile on his face. At Straik's scowl, he adds, "Or at least sixty percent of a fortune."
"The Buoyant Star was the largest cargo ship of the va'Rin fleet," Lord Straik says, crossing his arms. "Whatever cargo it has on it, it should belong to my family."
"Except the laws of salvage declare that whoever finds it at this point gets to keep it," I point out. Even I know that. “You get forty percent. Not more."
The mesakkah lord turns and glares at the screen, a pensive look on his face. "We'll see."
7
JADE
I'm fast asleep in my room when Alice wakes me up, shaking my shoulder. There's a look of worry in her big eyes, and her heart-shaped face is lit up with a mixture of excitement and fear.
I know that look, and I sit up the moment I see it. "A ship?"