Ten miles inside the Dead-Ship Gravity Whirlpool, hidden inside the hollowed-out skull of a dead iron Leviathan, Whirlpool Captain Black-Fin glared at the glowing red laser line cutting right through his command room.
Black-Fin was a Rank 7 Early Shadow-Wraith commander under the Second Star-Lord. For eighty years, he had sat at the west entrance of the whirlpool, collecting tolls of blood and cargo from every merchant ship foolish enough to drift near the rim.
Right now, that thin red laser beam was shining directly across his tea table, slicing the shadow of his teapot into two perfectly equal halves.
“What kind of arrogant lunatic shines a red carpenter’s light through my Dead-Ship Whirlpool?!” Black-Fin snarled, slamming his webbed black fist onto the bone table. “Scout Three! Where is that light coming from?”
A skinny shadow-scout tumbled through the cabin doorway, his black hood singed at the edge. “Captain! It’s the Dry-Well Star-Train on the platform of World Thirty-Five! Some maniac in a yellow construction helmet is standing on the edge holding a five-foot black ruler-sword! He looks like he’s getting ready to swing at the whirlpool!”
“Swing a sword at a hundred-thousand-mile gravity vortex?” Black-Fin burst out laughing so hard his black mask flapped. “Does he think he’s chopping firewood? Even First Star-Lord Crag-Devourer couldn’t break our whirlpool with his stone club! Turn on the Nine-Core Gravity Tsunami Array! Let’s stir up a ten-thousand-foot black gravity wave and swallow their whole train platform before he even lifts his arm!”
