The Secret of Spellshadow Manor 3 by Bella Forrest (i can read book club txt) 📕

spoken. Sure, I could run. And maybe I could escape for a few days, or even a few weeks. But eventually, one of the hundreds of other Tracer ships would find me, and I doubt all those captains would exhibit nearly as much diplomacy as their leader. So, I was going to talk to the baddest pirate in the world. Face to face. On his ship.

“Wanna come?” I asked my own Pirate. He promptly shut his eyes and curled his tail around his hind legs for a nice nap. Sometimes I envied him.

* * *

What to wear, what to wear. I’d just stepped out of my first shower in at least two weeks and I felt like I was getting dressed for a first date. A very dangerous first date that could turn into a last one, too. I stood in my quarters wondering whether I should try to hide some kind of weapon on my person. A knife maybe? I’d never been good with guns, plus they’d be checking for those anyway. Hell, they’d probably find a knife too, and it’s not like a hidden blade was going to save me against the 10 or 15 Tracers on board. In the end, I just threw on my standard work pants and denim shirt, grabbed my tool kit, and made for the airlock.

“If I don’t check in within the hour, blow the seal and make a break for Earth’s moon,” I told Gary as I strapped my comm link on my wrist. “And don’t forget to feed Pirate. I loaded the dispenser yesterday.”

“I always knew I’d outlive you,” Gary mused.

I snorted as the airlock door closed behind me. Other than the obvious reason Desmond might be interested in me – to fix or tow a ship – I had no clue what he might want to discuss. Politics? Fashion?

The light above the Golden Bear’s airlock door switched from red to blue, and the door slid open with a hiss. I expected a security detail of some kind, but was instead greeted by the man himself. Desmond stood just over six feet tall, roughly my height. That surprised me. You hear enough folklore about a person and you imagine them larger than life. He extended a hand and smiled warmly, his teeth bright white.

“I don’t think you’ll be needing that,” he said, noting my toolbox. “Not this visit anyway.”

I put the toolbox down in the airlock bridge, but didn’t step forward onto the Golden Bear.

“If you don’t need me to fix something, I’m not sure what we have to talk about,” I said, trying to keep any hint of fear or annoyance out of my voice. “All due respect.”

“Who said I didn’t need you to fix something?” he replied, arching an eyebrow.

The Golden Bear was a perfect example of form following function. As a mechanic, nothing bothered me more than a poorly designed ship. The federation was chocked full of them. Too slow. Or too armored. Or state of the art in some capacities but severely lacking in other areas. This vessel, however, was exactly what the king of the Tracers needed (king was my word, not his). I could hear the subsonic hum of the double propulsion system. The nuclear fission reactor was silent, but the two sleek propulsion jets on either side of the long ship teemed with raw power.

We passed the ample cargo bays, a necessity on any Tracer ship, and I followed Desmond toward the galley. His crew was also what I had expected: a mismatched collection of tattooed badasses. Some of them diligently worked at stations, while others relaxed, meaning their jobs fell more into the boarding/thieving aspect of Tracer life. A few of them shot me looks that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, but for the most part it was a chill environment.

“Is that double plating?” I asked, noting the shielding on the walls.

“Triple,” Desmond replied, slowing down to give me a moment to admire the workmanship.

“But…how do you compensate for the weight? Doesn’t it slow you down?” I said, touching the dark gold material. He didn’t answer at first. And he didn’t need to. Once my finger sunk a few millimeters into the first layer, I realized it was some kind of foam, or…

“Hydrogenated nanotubes mixed with foam,” Desmond explained. “We recruited one of the top radiation experts in the world a few years ago, and he’s been outfitting our fleet with the material ever since.”

Two things about that explanation immediately jumped out at me. The first was that Tracers often referred to people they captured as recruits. Meaning if you had some value, you were basically given the option of joining up or, well, being taken off the board. The second thing was that he called the other ships his fleet. They were all on the same team to a certain extent, but using a term that mirrored the way the federation defined their structure was something I hadn’t heard from the Tracers before.

The galley had five long, horizontal tables in it and a small round table off to one side. A few crewmembers ate and drank at the long tables, but the round table was empty. Desmond motioned for me to sit.

“Can I get you a drink?” he asked, flicking his eyes at the beverage station.

“I’m good, thanks.”

“I hope you don’t mind if I have beer,” he said, raising a hand. A teen boy that was sitting nearby reading a book immediately jumped up and headed to the fridge.

“Make it two,” I added, turning back to Desmond. “You didn’t say anything about beer.”

“Plus it’s your birthday,” he noted. The man knew entirely way too much about me.

A few moments later, we clinked cans of honest-to-goodness Earth ale. That alone was worth the risk of stepping on board Desmond’s ship. Despite general chaos and near-constant territorial battles, mostly between the Chinese Empire and the Western Alliance, the people of Earth still produce a fair amount of products,