Free Adrift (Book 1) by K.R. Griffiths Page B

looking increasingly like a forlorn hope.
    "Did Ledger put you up to this?"
    Dan frowned.
    "Uh, I don't know who that is. Look, I didn't see a body exactly, but I saw somebody throwing something overboard. It was body-sized and body-shaped. When it hit the water, I'm positive I saw a human leg. It could well be nothing, but I thought I should bring it to the attention of the security personnel. I figured that the man in charge would at least take it serio—"
    "Calm down there, son," Vega growled, and the steel in the man's tone made Dan's words catch in his throat. For a minute there, he had been working himself up toward some righteous indignation, and had almost forgotten that talking to strangers was meant to flat-out terrify him.
    Vega stared at him thoughtfully, and Dan suddenly saw something beyond the starchy exterior the man presented. Something that made Dan suspect that the man wasn't just pretending to have been a soldier.
    "What's your cabin number?" Vega rumbled.
    "217."
    Vega turned and looked at a huge schematic of the ship that dominated the wall behind his desk.
    "Hmm. You have any idea how many decks down the object you saw being tossed overboard was?"
    Dan frowned as he tried to recall.
    "Not really," he said. "A long way down, I think. It must have been one of the lowest decks."
    Vega stood abruptly, making Dan flinch.
    "Follow me, son," Vega said without emotion. "And if it turns out that Ledger put you up to this, I'll throw you overboard myself."
    "I already told you, I don't—"
    "Yeah, I heard you," Vega snapped. "And I've been around long enough to know that if something smells like bullshit, that's exactly what it usually is."
    Dan blinked. The conversation wasn't going as he had envisioned at all, and the security chief's constant references to someone called Ledger just left him feeling confused and nervous.
    "Look," Dan said. "I've done my bit, and I've reported what I saw. I think now I'd like to go back to my—"
    "You'll be released in short order, Mr Bellamy. For now, I'd like you to follow me, please. This way."
    Dan stared at Vega, open mouthed, as the big man made his way around the desk and moved to the office door, gesturing for Dan to follow. After a moment, Dan traipsed after the head of security, keeping his eyes pointed at the floor. His mind was filled with a single, utterly confusing and worrying thought.
    Released?

10
     
    Mark pointed his flashlight up each of the four ventilation ducts that connected to the junction he had stopped at to smoke, and he frowned.
    The beam of light revealed nothing, of course, but instinct made Mark look anyway, as though he expected to find the owner of the voice he had heard crouched in the shadows waiting for him.
    Get a grip, Mark. There's nobody here but you .
    Mark held his breath, straining his ears to catch a sound. The voices—assuming Mark hadn't imagined them in the first place—had fallen silent, but he thought he could hear something else. A sort of tapping. A scrape. Something metallic.
    Someone was close by, Mark was sure of it. If the missing security guard he was supposed to find actually existed and was down in the ventilation system, it didn't sound like he was alone.
    Maybe maintenance got called in. Maybe there's a problem with the air con. Sure, that's it. Has to be.
    So why are the air con staff talking about being terrified?
    Vega was right, Mark thought abruptly. He was a smartarse. Even the voice in his head was a sarcastic bastard. All of a sudden, Mark felt a tiny surge of sympathy for his boss. Just a little one, though.
    That thought struck Mark as funny, and he might have chuckled, but for the growing suspicion that maybe Vega hadn't sent him on a wild goose chase after all.
    That couldn't be true. Mark thought it very unlikely that Vega would send him to deal with an actual security threat. No way in hell he'd send him alone. No, Vega would send somebody he trusted to deal with something like that.
    Given that Mark