Dragon Pearl(33)

Then I remembered. One of the guards back in the Market District had mentioned a tiger captain. This was him!

“Cadets,” Captain Hwan said. His voice was low and rumbling with a hint of a growl in it.

I straightened in spite of myself, wishing I hadn’t caught a glimpse of his teeth as he spoke. They didn’t look sharp, which surprised me, but they were unnaturally perfect and white. Like most other supernaturals, tiger spirits could assume human form whenever they wanted to. They sometimes adopted the guise when they were hunting, to fool their prey. But they couldn’t shift into other things the way foxes could.

Captain Hwan fixed me with his stare. “How have you been feeling, Cadet Jang? Lieutenant Ju-Won informs me you’ve been distracted lately.”

Oh no. I’d performed so poorly that I’d come to the captain’s attention. If he figured out I was a fox in disguise, I’d be in real trouble. And I knew better than to use any additional Charm around a tiger. Given his predator senses, it would be a dangerous proposition.

“I’ll work harder, sir,” I said, hating the way my voice trembled.

His brows drew down. Next to me, Sujin held very still. “Cadet Jang,” Hwan said, “what do you think serving in the Space Forces is about?”

“Protecting the Thousand Worlds,” I said. Not an original answer, but a safe one.

Hwan smiled wryly, as if he could read my thoughts. “That’s one of our functions. We spend most of our time defending our territory against the Jeweled Worlds. But we are also tasked with keeping the peace within our own worlds.”

I nodded, not sure what he wanted me to say next.

“Sometimes local rulers seek to grab power,” he went on. “They rarely do so openly, of course. Even the rashest members of the Dragon Council or the Pearled Halls know better than to risk getting caught if they want to play such games.” He leaned closer and pointed a finger near my chest. “There are plenty of mercenaries, though, who will carry out raids for anyone who can pay them. Haven’t you wondered why we were patrolling this area when we came across the rascals who wounded you?”

An odd chilly dizziness gripped me. “Listen closely,” Jang’s voice whispered in my ear.

Neither Hwan or Sujin showed signs that they’d heard the ghost. If only I had Jang’s memories, I could respond to the captain with more confidence. Charm didn’t work that way, though.

Cautiously, I said, “I figured mercenaries were looking for easy prey with that unlucky freighter, sir.”

“There has been a lot of mercenary activity lately,” Hwan acknowledged. “And the raids are becoming bolder. Those pirates knew we were in the area and yet they still went after the Red Azalea.” His mouth compressed as his eyes bored into me. “They’re looking for something specific, and they’re getting desperate. They seek the Dragon Pearl. It’s important that we keep it out of their hands.”

The Dragon Pearl. A snippet of the investigator’s conversation with Mom came back to me: According to his captain’s report, your son left to go in search of the Dragon Pearl.

Hwan was that captain. He knew when my brother had gone missing, and he thought he knew why. I was getting so close to finding out the truth!

I couldn’t speak without the captain’s permission, so I just nodded again to indicate Jang’s understanding. If I wanted Hwan to trust me, I had to convince him that I remained a reliable member of the crew, despite my screwups.

“At least it doesn’t seem that the Pearl has been found yet—the Space Forces’ shamans would have detected its reappearance,” the captain said, continuing to look at me to gauge my reaction.

I wondered why the captain was telling me all this. Had he known Jang well? As for Sujin, they were still frozen in place.

Then I realized what was going on. Hwan was concerned that Jang had been shaken up by his encounter with the mercs.

“The pirates who attacked that freighter might have been able to tell us more, but unfortunately, none of them survived our skirmish,” Hwan said. “Sooner or later we’ll capture someone and force them to tell us what they know. In the meantime, I’m hoping to get intel from the sole survivor of the freighter’s crew.”

My breath caught. By sole survivor, he meant Byung-Ho. The girl, “Bora,” was dead. Even though I’d wanted everyone to think that, hearing him confirm it made me feel odd. Thankfully, it didn’t sound like the captain thought Byung-Ho was going to die. I hoped my pilot friend would wake from his healing sleep soon.

I was allowing myself to get distracted. I hated taking the risk, but I had to ask, and Hwan seemed to be in a talking mood. “Permission to speak, sir?” I ventured.

“Yes, Cadet?”

“Sir, does any of this relate to the cadet who vanished with his comrades? Cadet Jun?”

His eyes turned to slits, and I knew I’d made a mistake. “Have you been listening to gossip, Cadet?”

“I’m worried about him,” I said.

Beside me, Sujin groaned slightly.

“The whole group of them went AWOL,” Hwan said curtly. “It’s none of your affair.”

I gulped. “Yes, sir,” I said hastily.

Something was wrong. When I’d mentioned Jun’s name, I’d caught the distinct stink of alarm. Hwan was definitely hiding something.