Adiron (Corsair Brothers 1)

Either way, I can solve that.

I pause by Jade's room, listening, but when I don't hear noise or movement, I conclude she must be asleep. I won't wake her, then, to tell her what I'm doing. The protective feeling in me surges once more, and I want her to get a good night's sleep. I want her to get her rest. She deserves it.

My stomach growls, and for a moment, I consider heading to the mess hall on the ship and seeing what they have in their dispensers for a snack…but I remember how much Jade delighted over their food. How she said they had nothing left but noodles. I don't want to eat away at their stash of supplies, so I just pat my angry stomach. "Some other time, buddy."

I head for the control room, checking out the systems. Everything is neat and clean here, and there's a few of the buttons with tiny labels stuck to them, strange, blocky letters written next to arrows. This must be the humans making notes for themselves on how to run things. They're smart, and I wonder how much they had to figure out on their own.

I think of Jade and the others, pushing strange buttons and hoping that this one doesn't make the ship explode, or space them, and I can't imagine. They're so keffing brave. I think of the males that woke them up just to abuse them, and my fists clench. Part of me wishes those males were here so I could strangle them with my bare hands…but then that means Jade would have been abused that much longer. So I guess it's good that they're gone. Maybe after we get the Little Sister back we can hunt them down and make them pay.

I brighten at that thought and get to work on the control panel.

A couple of hours later, I have to acknowledge that I'm not getting anywhere. Whatever system is set up here, it's locked down tight. I can't override anything without taking it all apart, and I can't risk doing that in case something breaks. The systems haven't been serviced in three years and there's a bit of rust here and there, and dust clogging things. If it's working, best to just leave it alone.

At least I'm tired now, though. With a yawn, I head back down one of the halls, heading for my room. As I turn down another shadowy hallway, something appears out of the corner of my eye. I could have sworn I saw a figure moving, disappearing the moment I came around the corner.

Ghosts?

Kef me. I knew this place was haunted.

28

ADIRON

Ghosts. I hate that this ship has ghosts. That should be against the rules, shouldn't it? If a ship already has bad luck, adding ghosts on top of things is just adding insult to injury.

I hesitate in the dark halls of the Star. Do I wake up Jade and tell her that her ship is haunted? Or do I try to hunt down the ghost and protect my female? Not that I know how to stop a ghost, but I could at least try to scare it off. I war with myself for a moment, then decide I have to check it out. Damn it. I jog in place for a moment, trying to work myself up, and then race after the ghost, heading down the lonely halls in search of it.

Two turns down the corridors later, I'm relieved to find it's not a ghost at all. It's Lord Straik, of all people.

"You scared the kef out of me," I blurt out as I jog over to his side. "I thought you were a ghost."

"Of course you did." His tone is thoughtful, distracted. He leans against a railing that curves along the hallway, and stares out the large window in front of him. I'm not entirely surprised to see he's gazing out at the cargo bay. Jade showed me this window earlier. She didn't take me in to look at the cargo closer, instead just showing me from here. Instead of a view out to space, this window faces the cargo hold and from here, I suppose whoever was in charge of the ship watched the crew working on the cargo. There's no crew now, and all of the work stations are empty.

The cargo hold is not, though. It's filled with dozens upon dozens of pods that anyone familiar with the slave trade recognizes. They're stasis pods, stacked high and deep, and I'm just guessing, but I suspect the entire hold is full.

And I also suspect it's weighing heavily on Lord Straik's mind. For all that he likes to pretend he's a badass pirate, something tells me he's not as familiar with the seedier underbelly of the universe as he thinks.

"Couldn't sleep?" I ask, moving to stand next to him. I pretend to stare out at the pods, but all I can think of is Jade. She was in one of these, at some point, and some keffing loser saw her sleeping and decided to wake her up to entertain himself.