I stared at the half-full glass in my hand, trying not to give in to bitter disappointment. Around the table, Patrick and Natalie were having similar philosophical discussions with their drinks. All in all, we’d exchanged perhaps five words since leaving the landing site.

I leaned back in my chair and looked around. The pub, the Wild Knight Inn, was almost dead empty—unusual for a Saturday. Even so, the place smelled slightly of stale, spilt beer. The TVs were on, silently offering various sporting events, including a darts competition. The one waitress seemed to have given up on getting paying customers and was just leaning against the bar with a faraway expression, probably marking time until the end of her shift. The closest occupied table was a good twenty feet away, and the lone occupant was captivated by the nearest television. There wouldn’t be any trouble with our conversation being overheard.

I took a deep breath and broke the silence. “We’ve missed something.”

Patrick looked up. “Eh?”

“Chewbacca had to have a way to get into the ship. We can’t get into the ship. Therefore, we’ve missed something.”

“Excellent logic, Jack,” Nat replied. “But not helpful unless we can figure out what, exactly, we’ve missed.”

I opened my mouth to reply just as my phone rang. I pulled it out and glanced at the caller ID. Alice Kirby? Why would she be calling? We couldn’t have screwed up her order; it hadn’t changed in years. And anyway, she knew to call the store if there was a problem.

I liked Mrs. Kirby, but she could go on and on sometimes. I sent the call to voicemail, put the phone down, and nodded to Nat. “Okay, what are the possibilities? Just list them for now, no critiques or dismissals.”

Patrick thought for a moment. “Facial recognition.”

“Biometrics on the gadgets,” said Nat.

“Voice recognition.”

“A sensor plate on the ship you have to press.”

“Someone inside has to open the door.”

“You have to press several buttons at the same time, or in a sequence.”

“One of the touch screens has the ‘open’ command.”

“We don’t have the door opener.”

I snapped my jaw shut on what I was going to say and turned to Natalie with a disbelieving expression. She looked embarrassed and continued with a hand wave. “What if we don’t have all the gadgets? What if Chewbacca dropped one when you ran him over? Or it dropped off during all the subsequent handling?”

“Huh.” I thought for a moment. “That’s not completely implausible. It’s also the easiest option to check, so maybe we do that first.”

The drive back to the accident site was as silent as the drive to the pub, but the vibe was far more upbeat. And Patrick seemed determined to beat his previous time with each trip, which helped boost my adrenalin even more.