[Galaxy Of Fear] - 08

CHAPTER 1


The hum of starship engines was music to Zak Arranda’s ears.

He sat in the rear compartment of the Shroud, the ship in which he traveled with his sister, Tash, and his uncle Hoole. He was as close to the engines as he could be-probably closer than it was safe to be while they were operating. A thick layer of heat-resistant shielding separated him from the actual ion engines. Even so, the heat leaking through the durasteel walls was already making him and his clothes sticky with sweat. But Zak didn’t care.

“So the hyperdrive motivator must connect to the main thrusters here,” he said to himself, looking up from his small datapad and poking a finger at a thick piece of cable.

After a lot of searching through the ship’s computer, Zak had finally found a diagram of the Shroud’s engines. The diagram should have shown him everything he needed to know, but unfortunately, the Shroud’s previous owner had made a lot of changes. And the changes were what interested Zak. To a twelve-year-old boy who loved to take things apart and put them back together again, the starship was a flying playground.

One particular wire-a thick green-and-white-striped cable-caught Zak’s eye.

“You know,” said Zak to no one in particular, “I’ll bet if I just connected this wire to the back-up power system, I could-“

Suddenly, the door behind him slid open. His sister stood in the doorway, her hands on her hips. “There you are,” Tash Arranda said. “You know, we have a lesson with Uncle Hoole.”

“Oh, yeah,” Zak sighed. Hoole was a stickler for education. Even though Zak and Tash traveled constantly with their uncle and had not attended a regular school in months, they probably did more homework than any other twelve-and thirteen-year-olds in the galaxy. “When does it start?” he asked.

“Five minutes ago,” Tash replied. “You’re late.”

“Be right there,” Zak said.

Tash leaned over his shoulder and looked at the tangle of wires running through the wall to the powerful engines beyond. “Are you sure you should be messing around with that?”

“No problem,” Zak said confidently. “Go on ahead. I’ll be right there.”

Tash gave her younger brother a doubtful look, then sighed and turned away. “Just be careful.”

Zak grunted and waited until he heard the door slide shut. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Tash. He did. She was his sister and his best friend. They’d been through more together than most brothers and sisters. Their parents had died several months before when the Empire destroyed their homeworld, Alderaan. Luckily, Tash and Zak had been offworld at the time. And now they lived with their anthropologist uncle, Hoole-which meant they traveled all over the galaxy with him.

Even though Zak and Tash were brother and sister, they were very different from each other. Tash wasn’t as interested in machines as Zak was. She liked to read and study. She was always using brainpower-especially since she’d become interested in the old Jedi Knights. Zak preferred anything that he could take apart and put back together with his own two hands.

“I’m sure I can boost the ship’s power if I just disconnect this wire…, ” he said. He plucked the wire from the wall. Nothing happened.”

.. And connect it over here.” He moved the thick wire to another panel in the wall, and looked for the right outlet. “There,” he said, and stuck the wire into the wall.

Zzzzzzaaaaappp!

Electric current ran up Zak’s arm, through his neck, and right into his head. Lightning flashed behind his eyeballs. A loud pop! followed, and Zak jumped backward as though a bantha had kicked him. Sparks flew from the panel.

The electrical tingle in Zak’s body lasted only a few seconds. He checked his hands. They were hot, but he wasn’t burned.

He had a feeling he was lucky:

Another loud pop! exploded from the panel in a shower of sparks. Zak froze. What had he done to the engines? What had he done to the ship? He waited a moment, but the engines continued to hum with their usual strength.

He had a feeling he was really lucky.

Zak hurried out of the engine room and down the corridor. A thin trail of smoke and the smell of burning metal followed him. What had caused that pop? What had he done wrong? And, more important… Should he tell Uncle Hoole?

Probably, was Zak’s first thought.

But his second thought was, Why bother?

After all, the engines were still running perfectly. Whatever he’d done couldn’t be that bad. It might not be worth mentioning. Besides, if he told Uncle Hoole, Tash would be sure to find out, and the last thing Zak wanted to hear was “I told you so” from her.