“I want it downloaded onto handheld devices, and have the whole bloody ship swept,” Jack snarled. “In the meantime, prep the ship for warp. We need to be ready to get out of here at a moment’s notice.”
The pirate hit the intercom and announced, “The following crew members to the command deck immediately.” He reeled off a list of names. “All other crew not on duty are to return to their quarters. Captain out.”
He slumped back in his chair and rubbed at his chin. “Someone is a step ahead of us.”
“What does this mean? Who is doing this?” wondered Quinn.
“I think that we may not know until we discover the source of the signal,” mused Giles.
Aria felt a rising tension, largely feeding off the anxiety so clearly emanating from everyone else. For the first time, she understood the undercurrent that ran through all of her companions: the fear of getting caught.
In all of her calculations over her future, Aria had never even considered this. She had wondered if she preferred a life with Jack to a life of nobility on Palamar, but the notion of prison had never occurred to her. Now, for the first time, she considered the flip side of the coin that had promised her the freedom of the galaxy: the possibility of life in a cage somewhere.
Aria looked at the crew around her. All of these people had, at some point in their lives, made the calculation that living their lives as pirates, with the risks involved, was better than any other choice they could make.
The knowledge was in some way humbling.
The additional crew members Jack had summoned arrived on the command deck and began assembling some sort of scanning equipment. They clustered around the comms officer, who fed them the data they needed to scan for the signal. Quinn was giving them assignments for various parts of the ship so that no part of theMaracaibowould be left unexamined.
The first scanning team turned on their equipment, and the crewman frowned. “Uh, Captain?”
“What is it?” asked Jack.
“According to the scanner, the signal is coming from the command deck.”
Everyone went very still.
“All crew, stand up, and keep your hands in the air,” Jack ordered, doing so himself. “Nobody make any sudden moves. Everything and everybody is getting scanned.”
Everyone did as they were ordered. No one spoke.
“Scanning crews, search the command deck by quarters,” said Jack. “There’s no need for you to go anywhere else, so let’s do this as quickly as we can.”
The scanning teams moved through the command deck, going over every piece of equipment and every crew member, until the last area remaining was the dais around the command chair and the people standing on it.
“This is ridiculous,” observed Giles.
“Don’t make this any worse than it has to be,” said Jack quietly.
A team ran its scanner over Giles then shook their heads. Giles breathed out in relief. “I thought somehow Ilich had got one over on me.”
“Apparently not,” said Jack, his face drawn.
The scanner team examined Quinn, who regarded them with a hint of scorn. The tech crew shook their heads. Quinn exhaled, ever so slightly.
The team moved to run their scanners over Aria. Despite herself, she felt both fear and doubt.
A small beeping intensified as they brought the scanner past her left leg. The scanner team looked up at Jack, and their expressions told Aria all that she needed to know.
Her vision hazed over, and everything turned gray and misty. In the midst of the rising fog, she heard Jack say grimly, “We’ll need a special containment field to block the signal. Get on it right away.”
Aria felt as if waking life had just been transformed into a nightmare. “Jack, you can’t possibly believe…”
“I don’t know what to believe,” he said tersely. “Take her to the brig and secure her there. I want a signal blocker in place ASAP. We’re going into warp,now.”
Again, the hands on her arms were like something from a terrible dream. “Jack, I would never—”
The last sight she had of the pirate was his anguished expression as she was escorted away, and the expression on his face tore at her heart.
