Doorways to Everywhere (Tourist Trap Book 2)

Chapter 45

"What is the Starswan?" Sadie asked.

"It's the name of this vessel," Zannah replied. "It may not look like much, but it's a fine piece of engineering."

"How did you find us?" Zeke asked.

"I took the liberty of slipping a miniature tracker on you back at the bar," Zannah said. "When I heard you discussing the Hooblerians with those demon scumbags, I knew you would be worth keeping tabs on."

"Did you kill the Master demon guy?" Zeke asked.

"I managed to take out a few of his underlings, but the Master escaped when my colleagues showed up. Thank you for summoning them for me, by the way."

"No problem," Zeke said. "I kept a cool head and stayed on top of that situation. That's me, after all. Always calm under pressure."

"Would you like to meet the rest of the crew?" Zannah asked.

"I guess so," Zeke said. "I mean this ship didn't look that big from the outside. We're probably going to be running into each other and everything. So I suppose we should meet."

Nulfar was still sleeping in the bed with the goat, but Zeke, Sadie, Milosh, WBDG, and Bumble-Boo followed Zannah through the hatch and up a ladder. They emerged in a room that looked like a lounge. There were sofas and bean bag chairs all over the place as well as a big screen television. There were a couple of pinball machines in one corner, a dartboard on the wall, a pool table on the one side of the room, a ping-pong table on the other side, and a small little bar in another corner. Zannah told them to make themselves comfortable while she found the other crew members and walked out a door into another room.

"Now this is my kind of spaceship," Zeke said as he lowered himself into a beanbag chair. "These guys know how to travel in style."

"We should," said a dark green man with an eyepatch, who was standing behind the bar fixing himself a drink. "We've pillaged enough loot over the years to make this place luxurious. My name's Torean, by the way, but you can call me Captain, since I'm the captain of this ship."

"Pillaged enough loot?" Sadie asked. "Are you guys some kind of space pirates?"

"Pirates is a bit of a harsh term," Captain Torean said. "I prefer the term treasure hunter. We generally only recover items of interest from lost ancient civilizations, or the ocassional wrecked spaceship. We only steal from manned spacecraft if the people flying them are a bunch of jerks."

"Treasure hunters?" Zeke asked. "I thought Zannah said she recruited a bunch of warriors and specialists to help her hunt down the evil scumbags that destroyed her planet."

"We don't mind a good fight once in a while, and Zannah's one of the best fighters I've ever seen," Captain Torean said. "That's why I let her join my crew. She helps me get what I'm after, and in exchange we help her with her quest for vengeance. It ends up working out pretty well for all of us. Would you care for a drink?"

"Uh, yeah, that would be great," Zeke said as he sat down on a stool by the bar. "I'll have whatever you're having."

Sadie sat down next to him and asked for a drink as well. Milosh and Bumble-Boo had begun playing a round of pool, while WBDG and Shazmar started throwing darts.

Zannah returned with a shiny silver mechanical man walking behind her. "This is our robot. His name is the WN5000. We call him Wayne. He's in charge of the mechanical upkeep of this ship."