Dragon Pearl(61)
The engineer rolled her eyes at this.
“But this time we have the advantage of a fox on our side,” he said, raising his eyebrows at me.
“If you’re thinking I can trick them with magic, forget it. They’ll be expecting as much. I revealed my heritage the moment I impersonated Hwan.”
“Do you have any other suggestions?” Chul asked.
I did have one. “Do we have time to set traps for them? Or at least make it look like we did? If they’re led to believe that any random crate or seat could be hiding a vicious attack fox”—the pilot snorted at this—“that might slow them down. . . .”
“Not a bad idea,” the engineer said grudgingly. “Let’s get started, because we don’t know how much time we have before they show up.”
We all put on our helmets. Now we would all communicate via headsets that we could switch on or off. I didn’t like the way it deadened my fox hearing.
“You still willing to help me?” I whispered to Jang with my headset turned off. “I know the Pale Lightning is your former ship, but something’s clearly rotten with the captain. And if my mission ends here, so do your hopes of getting more answers.”
“I know.” Jang sounded torn. “I’ll do what I can as long as no one gets killed.”
I was about to retort that I didn’t want to hurt anyone, either, but then the engineer gestured for me to follow her, so I shut up.
Rearranging crates in the ghastly green light gave me the creeps. I kept expecting ghosts to jump out of the shadows. Which was ridiculous, because I was already accompanied by one. Every time I saw a flicker out of the corner of my eye, I wondered if Jang was about to say something to me.
“Can ghosts see in the dark?” I whispered to him.
“Yes,” he answered softly. With cold air he nudged my left shoulder, then my right. “I can warn you which direction they’re coming from.”
“Thanks,” I said. “That might come in handy.”
We constructed makeshift forts to hide behind, leaving narrow gaps between the crates through which we could spot any hostiles. The thought of my comrades firing on people I’d served alongside made my gut clench.
A jangling sense of wrongness pricked at my nerves. And no wonder. Not only was our ship badly damaged, not only was Jang’s presence bringing us ill fortune, but we were making matters worse by rearranging the crates haphazardly. The gi flows throughout the ship had to be going completely haywire. But it couldn’t be helped. I just hoped we wouldn’t be stung by disaster at the worst moment.
The ship’s clocks were down, but the helmet’s air gauges gave me a way to estimate how much time had passed. Scarcely an hour, though it seemed like much longer. The combination of shadows and weightlessness and the unwavering green glow of the chemical light made me feel as though I’d become unanchored from the outside world. I couldn’t give in to that sensation, though. I had to stay alert.
I felt a faint vibration. I took off my helmet and listened. There was a slight hum in the air. I replaced my helmet, then motioned to Chul to get his attention. “I think they’re coming,” I said in a low voice.
The others didn’t question my sharp hearing. The engineer gave us just enough time to take up our positions behind the floating walls of crates, then snuffed out the chemical lights. Violet afterimages danced and flickered in my vision. I heard myself breathing too fast. My attempts at meditation didn’t help, not when the vibrations were getting stronger.
Finally there came the sound of metal screeching, and a clank that I was sure even the others could hear. Captain Hwan and his crew must have breached our hull.
Sweat dampened my palms and trickled down my back. Part of me wished the boarding party would hurry up already. But I knew from drills on the Pale Lightning that they’d be trained to proceed carefully, checking for ambushes and traps as they went.
Clomp, clomp, clomp. Not just one set of footsteps, but several. I held my breath, trying to figure out how many people were coming. The pilot had crouched down and pressed his helmet to the deck in a vain attempt to hear better, which I only discovered when I bumped into him by mistake. Like all fox spirits, I had good vision in low light, but this was no light. In total darkness I had to rely on other senses. And Jang presumably was saving his warnings for real threats so I wouldn’t accidentally blast one of the mercs.
At last the hatch to the hold opened, and a piercing, blue-tinted beam sliced through the darkness. I squinted so it wouldn’t blind me. The pilot and engineer raised their blasters to the shooting holes we’d made.
I waited for shadows to fall across the threshold, for Jang’s warning touch. If we were really lucky, maybe the boarding party would make the mistake of silhouetting themselves against the blue light, making themselves easy targets. It didn’t look like they were going to commit such a basic error, however.
A familiar voice hissed from the corridor: Captain Hwan’s. I’d been expecting him to shout, or roar, but he spoke so quietly that I had to strain to hear him. The effect caused my skin to prickle.
“Scholar Chul,” Captain Hwan said in his deep voice. “And Gumiho.” I couldn’t help biting my lip when he said that. “In a moment I am going to send in a couple of people to accept your surrender.”
My glance went to the engineer, who was shaking her head dubiously, then to the pilot, whose brow was furrowed in concern. None of us trusted the captain. There had to be some kind of trick involved.