Ghost Ship by Kathryn Hoff

Author:Kathryn Hoff [Hoff, Kathryn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-12-17T22:00:00+00:00

Four hours later, Sparrow’s temperature had dropped from pleasantly cool to damn cold as we conserved power.

I’d passed out blankets and coats and several of my hats to the crew and to Charity, who’d left her entire wardrobe on Mudpuppy. My Gavoran blood gave me a greater tolerance for cold, but once I’d finished shifting the casks of grav pellets to the starboard side, even I felt the chill.

Kojo had cocooned himself at the helm in a heat-reflecting blanket topped with a coat, gloves, scarf, and a hat lined with hyrax fur.

“You might as well get some rest,” he said. “Nothing for any of us to do until we reach the breakaway point.”

“I can rest as well here as anywhere.”

Sparrowhawk’s scanner buzzed with warnings that we’d entered the domain of a neutron star—the cold, dead remains of a star system that had collapsed into a core no bigger than a city. All the mass and gravity of its sun and all its planets and moons had imploded into that tiny chunk, too small to see until we were caught in its deadly grip.

Other than Sparrow, its gravity field was empty, even of ether—the star’s supernova death throes had absorbed or destroyed everything in its system. The only thing left was gravity strong enough to bend light. That gravity powered our awkward assembly of ships now, with Grand Duchess and Sparrowhawk falling together in a tight, fast parabolic orbit around the dead star.

If we’d entered that domain at the right angle and with the right speed, the dead star’s gravity would whip us around like a ball on a string and fling Sparrow back toward navigable space. If we’d miscalculated, that dead star would be the last thing any of us would see.

I’d replaced my usual beret with a wool cap that snuggled nicely over my braids. Drawing on a heavy coat left behind by a Gavoran passenger, I settled into the watch station.

Tinker snuggled in my lap, comforting me with her warmth.

Kojo raised an eyebrow. “Um, do you have to wear that coat? It gives me the willies.”

“I gave my cloak to Charity. This is the only thing left that’s big enough.”

Wearing the Gav coat did feel odd. It was the uniform of a sergeant in the Corridor Patrol, a class of person we usually avoided.

The sergeant wouldn’t miss it—he’d died a bloody death aboard Sparrowhawk during the awful voyage to Kriti.

“As if we don’t have enough ghosts around here,” Kojo muttered. “How are the others?”

“I gave Hiram a tranq—he wouldn’t stay in bed. Archer says he’s all right, but he looks like hell. Charity is worried about Davo—not about him being lost, says he can find his way out of a Thalian sandstorm, but about his health holding up.”

Kojo nodded tightly. “Hard to lose a dad. Even harder if she has to watch him go out slow.”

I was silent, remembering our own father’s last days, how he’d raged in fever while Sparrowhawk raced toward the nearest med center—not fast enough.

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