Carter watched the recording that was going around and frowned. Turning to the three Sybils, who had probably processed the contents of the recording faster than he could understand, he sighed. "What do we want to bet that was the mysterious Boss the pirates keep referring to?"

  The vixen frowned deeply. "If it's not, they definitely work for him. And that ghost ship part was a none too subtle reference to us..."

  The girl then voiced what was on all their minds. "He's trying to turn the galaxy at large against us. This could be trouble..."

  Only John was unfazed. "Well, it's not like we ever depended on anyone before now. So what if this means we get in a few more scrapes? We'll fight them off like we always do!"

  Carter shook his head. "It won't be that easy. We can't take on the entire outer reaches! The only saving grace is he appears to be setting the two major factions he controls against each other more than focusing on us. But I don't like that either. What's the point of it all? Is he just using one to gain influence over the other? Whatever power, money, or influence he gains will be offset by what he's losing by investing so much into both sides of this fight. I don't like it. I feel like there's a missing factor here that we're overlooking."

  All three Sybils looked at Carter in surprise. Having all three focused on him like that made him uncomfortable, so all he could do was ask, "What? Is there something on my face?"

  It was the girl who answered. "No, we just didn't anticipate that much insight from you. Normally, you'd only be thinking about the next step rather than worrying about the big picture!"

  Carter rolled his eyes. "You make me sound like I'm some kind of knuckle-dragging thug. I doubt I would have made it this far as Captain if that were the case." He turned to the vixen. "You alone would have made sure of that!"

  The vixen smiled, and Carter awaited her cutting remark. Not that he had to wait long. "I suppose our little cockroach had grown a little..."

  Carter looked at the woman in surprise. "That...might be the nicest thing you've said...ever! I didn't know you had it in you!"

  The vixen's face fell, and she now frowned in Carter's direction. "You know I can still kill you, right? It wouldn't even be a challenge."

  John laughed and patted her on the shoulder. "Now, now, no need to fall back on tired old threats. We all know you could kill the lad, but if you were to do so, who would you argue with all day? Me? We play fight, but you can't hide your thoughts and feelings from me! Those pirates you've got locked away in some dark room somewhere? I doubt they have any fight left in them!"

  Carter looked up in surprise. "That's a good idea!"

  John looked confused, while the vixen looked annoyed as the pirate voiced their confusion. "What. Me fighting with my other self?"

  Carter shook his head. "No, not that. The prisoners you've got locked away! We should show them this video and see what they think about it! Maybe they can tell us something useful!" He hesitated and then turned to the vixen. "They are...still alive, right? And not totally broken?"

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  The vixen rolled her eyes. "Yes, they're still alive. We haven't been able to get much live prey lately, and I'm not about to throw away the only outlet I've got! As for how broken they are...well...I wouldn't trust them with a knife, but they should be more or less still kinda sane."

  Carter shook his head and sighed. "I guess I'll have to take what I can get..."

  -

  Miles was walking down another of the unending corridors on the massive ship. He'd been going on walks occasionally to keep himself moving. The rec room allowed for more strenuous activity like weight lifting or running, but sometimes it was nice to just wander around and see what he could find, and there was always more to explore. Most of the time, it all felt kind of samish, but once in a while, something happened.

  It started out as small things. Movement out of the corner of his eye, a flickering light, or maybe a door that hissed open for seemingly no one. Miles thought it was just his mind playing tricks on him for a while because of his isolation, but then something far more frightening and exciting happened.

  Miles had been alone in another mostly empty room. It had probably been some kind of storage once upon a time, but now it only contained dust and faded grease stains. As he searched the back shelves to see if there was anything interesting, the lights started flickering, and when he turned around, Miles was no longer alone in the room.

  Shambling toward him had been something Miles could only describe as a ghost. It had been translucent and moved in short, stuttering bursts, fading in and out of reality as it did so. He'd immediately stepped back, hitting the wall behind him harder than intended as the ghost continued stalking forward. However, just as Miles pressed his back against the wall in a vain attempt to place more distance between himself and the ghost, it stopped and turned toward one of the shelves.

  With a start, Miles realized the shelves were no longer empty, though the contents were no more substantial than the ghost itself. The ghost seemed to shove items out of the way as if looking for something. Then, just as it found what it had been searching for, the lights came back on, and Miles was once more alone in an empty room.

  Miles stood there for a while, trying to process just what had happened. With no answers forthcoming, he eventually called out. "John? Did...did you see that? What was that just now?"

  A moment later, the large, boisterous pirate appeared in the room. "What was what lad?"

  Miles pointed to the place the ghost had last been. "That...ghost thing! It was right there a moment ago!"

  John looked toward where Miles had been pointing, then back at the kid. "I don't know what yer talking about, lad. It was just you here in this room before I showed up!"

  Miles shook his head. "No! Just a moment before I called out to you, someone or something else was in here with me! It looked like a person, but it was all fuzzy like it wasn't properly focused or something!"

  John's smile fell a little as he looked at Miles with concern. "Maybe you've been exploring the ship a little too much lately. Perhaps a little sleep would help with that..."

  At the time, Miles just gave in and agreed, thinking it might all be in his head. He returned to his room, though sleep had been a long time in coming. However, he'd spotted no less than five more apparitions since then. He no longer called for help but instead just watched and tried to learn something about the mysterious ghostly figures. So far, they'd spoken three times, though he'd only been able to make out any of the words they'd said once. It had been two short sentences some ghostly woman had repeated endlessly. "Where'd they go? I'm all alone..."

  So it was that Miles had been wandering down another corridor, hoping that maybe he'd run across another piece of the puzzle of this ghost ship, when he spotted movement out of the corner of his eye as he approached another intersection.

  Ducking back instinctively, Miles quickly realized it wasn't one of the ghosts he'd been looking for, but rather it was Captain Carter. That was odd. The Captain usually hung around the small populated section of the ship containing the bridge and living quarters. This far out, the only thing Miles usually ran into besides ghosts was the mindless maintenance drones, meaning whatever it was he was doing out here was probably something interesting.

  Ignoring the tiny voice in the back of his mind telling him this was a mistake, Miles decided to follow the Captain and see what was going on...

  Of Men and Spiders book 1 is now available to order on amazon in all formats! PLEASE,* if you enjoy my stories and want to help me get back to releasing chapters more regularly, take the time to stop and leave a review. It's like tipping your waiter, but free!

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