She turned back to watch him.
He’d found a broom somewhere and crossed his hands over the handle and leaned his chin on it. The gray of his eyes was lighter, as if he were deep in thought. “I don’t suppose you have access to a printout of the ship so we can figure out where to start?”
Morgan smiled. “Yes, as a matter of fact I do. But I’m already having the multicorder running a program within the Ozevroc system to see if it can uncover those elements anywhere else.” She checked the device. “It’s still running, so I’m guessing we’ve got some time before it’s done.”
Ari shrugged. “Okay.” He pulled the handle of the broom down and started sweeping. “Let me know when it’s done.”
She agreed and took a few precious moments to watch him work.Hmm,maybe she should check something out. Opening a different program on her multicorder, she had it run an analysis on the room they were in to check for that alien substance. It didn’t take long to complete. The results surprised her. While there wasn’t anything close to it in the room, it pointed a faint reading toward the shipElemi.
She glanced at Ari, wanting to make sure he was busy. His back was to her as he continued to toss stuff into the incinerator. Doing her best not to draw attention to what she was doing, she approached the still-open door of the ship, keeping her handheld aimed ahead. The readings were faint, but stronger. How could there be remnants of this stuff in here but not out in the room?
“What’cha doing?”
Morgan jumped at Ari’s baritone behind her. Her face heated as if she’d been caught red-handed doing something she shouldn’t. She jutted her chin. “There are crystalline readings on this ship, but not on the outside.” With a frown, she turned the handheld in his direction and walked around him, sweeping the device over him. “You actually have some on you as well, but it’s really faint.” Clicking the multicorder off, she hooked it on her belt and crossed her arms, facing him. “I don’t suppose you have any idea why you’re covered in this stuff?”
Ari matched her stance, crossing his arms with a smirk. “Oh sure, I do. But I’ve got to keep it secret for my health and all.” He dropped his arms, his expression serious. “If I had a clue what this stuff was, believe me, I’d tell you.” He circled a forefinger around the shambles inside the ship. “The sooner we solve these annoying hullabaloos, the sooner we can get off this bucket of bolts. I may not understand what that Ozevroc was saying, but I can tell when someone feels like they’re getting pushed into a corner. And keep in mind your little high chieftain is no friend to you or me. He wouldn’t hesitate to make examples of us of in a heartbeat. And I don’t mean by giving us a parade and keys to the city.”
Morgan nodded. “Yeah, I agree. When you’re done with cleanup, I’ll contact Bugurr and ask he assign some guards to us so we can follow the clues I’ve got in this baby here.” She patted her multicorder.
“You got a place to start?” He quirked a blond eyebrow with a smile.
For a moment she got lost in how the simple curl of his lips lifting upward made his handsome face striking. Swallowing with a dry throat, she grasped the first thing that came to mind. “Yeah, but we’d better replace that missing collar of yours first.” Morgan pointed to the now-absent black scarf around his neck. He must’ve pulled it off when he was working with the incinerator. “Or we’ll have a bigger problem to deal with.”
“Sounds good,” he agreed with a grimace. “But I gotta tell you I hate that damn thing.”
Morgan cocked her head. Maybe he was getting some kind of memory on how painful thenuteshsnare was when activated.
“Let’s do this before I change my mind,” he stated with a stubborn tilt to his chin.
Later that afternoon, Morgan stomped into the engine room with clenched fists and resisted throwing a tantrum like a toddler.What a total waste of time that was.She and Ari spent hours looking for any clues on where the Talon of Ancients could be on the ship. She’d rather stayed in the engine room to finish working on that little spider-droid. At least they got the fakenuteshsnare around Ari’s neck before Grozzik and some of his goons came for them. As long as no one inspected it or tried to use it, it’d be good enough.
That pout he wore when he clicked the leather collar on his neck was cute as hell. She half expected him to argue, but thankfully, he didn’t.
The two of them spent hours scouring the ship where her multicorder showed the strongest readings. Every time they found some of the crystalline residue, there was no way to determine how a small portion congealed in one place, but was absent around it. As if whatever carried the crystalline, popped in and out without using the normal entry points. Someone or something had to be using a teleporting device.
Morgan glanced at Ari. Or had the ability to do so.
When she’d last ran a scan on him to see if he had some of the crystal substance on him, she also ran a deeper probe. While inconclusive, it made her determined to get a blood sample from him and run that in her handheld. If he was what she suspected he was, he’d have no trouble going in and out of rooms without using the normal entryways.
The main thing that bothered her was he wasn’t the one creating the strange crystal readings. What was on him wasn’t strong enough to leave the different trails they’d found. But it meant at one time he was close enough to whatever created them. Inside that pretty little head of his was the answer. She just had to figure out how to get it out of him.
But not tonight. She was beat. A little shut-eye would help clear her fuzzy mind.
“I’m turning in for the night. See you in the morning,” Ari announced, heading to the part of the room he’d claimed for himself.
“Goodnight,” she said, watching him settle. She pursed her lips. How interesting he slept next to the wall byElemi. She hadn’t noticed that before.
After a quick visit to the refresher unit, she changed out of the mechanic’s overalls and into a long shift she’d created in the replicron earlier. The material was soft but strong enough to help keep her warm while she slept.
The last thing she heard was Ari’s light snore from across the room.
The first thing Ari sensed was impatience. Why couldn’t they look around first? He glared at the man next to him. Which didn’t faze the ass one bit.
Well, since there was no making his brother change his mind, he gave the guy a wide smile. “Come on, bro. Let’s see what we can find.”
“No funny stuff,bro.“ The guy bit the last word out with a frown. Yeah, the man hated it whenever Ari used that nickname.
But that didn’t mean his brother had to be such a dick! Here they were, on an abandoned gangster planet filled with all sorts of goodies just waiting to be discovered. But the only thing his companion wanted to do was go around in this lame circular hallway to find some kind of hint where the missing human women might have been. And then, presto! A clue to where they all went would suddenly pop out.
