Trouble in the Cargo Hold

This is another little excerpt from my sci-fi novel Star Liner. Jan and Sara are doing work they did not sign up for, when they discover Simon is missing.

I worked away and we both finished at the same time. Then we went to work in the conference room where we had our meetings. We had finished the forward lounge when it was time for lunch. Sara called Simon to find out how he was doing. There was no answer. She tried again. No answer. “Can you locate his pad?” I asked.

Sara did a check. “It is in the cargo hold.”

A sudden thought filled me with foreboding. “I wonder how many unprotected vents there are in the cargo hold.”

“Let’s not get crazy,” Sara said. "There could be a good reason he is not answering.” I could think of a couple of reasons, but I did not say them out loud.

”Let’s go down and check.”

We made our way down to the forward part of Deck A where the cargo hold was. We opened the big door. We stepped in. It was dimly lit. The pallets cast odd shadows. I said, “Simon?” there was no answer. “Simon.” I looked around at the shadows. “I don’t like this.”

“I don’t either.” She shook her head. “I never should have sent him down here alone. Stupid! Stupid!”

“Let’s go round up some numbers and come back.” Sara nodded. We left and sealed the door. I called up Rawl and asked if any of the flight crew could come down and join us. But he said that they were all busy at the moment and it would be at least a half hour before he could spare anyone. Neither Sara nor I were willing to wait. We knocked on Millie’s door. When she answered I said, “Simon may be in trouble in the cargo hold, but we want more people to go in with us. Are you up for it? It might be dangerous.”

“I’m in,” she said.

I had a gun, Sara had a stunner. “Do you have a weapon of any kind?”

She thought about it, then said, “Just a sec.” She ran to the rec room and returned with a fencing foil. She popped the safety tip off.

“Okay, I guess that is better than nothing.” Next we went to Blant’s door. He answered and we told him what was happening. He produced a work tool that had a 4 inch knife blade as one of the attachments. “Okay, we are a pretty motley crew, but let’s do this.” We returned forward to the cargo hold. Sara opened the door. “Everybody stay close together. Sara and I in front because we have the better weapons. You guys watch our sides and back. Keep your eyes open for movement.” We stepped in and Sara closed the door. The dim work lights barely held sway against the darkness.

“Yeah,” Millie whispered. “This is pretty creepy.”

We slowly moved down the center aisle. I called out softly, “Simon?”

Sara whispered, “If Simon jumps out at us to scare us, I’m going to kill him.” We laughed the laugh of the nervous.

Star Liner on Amazon

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