We Board the Princess Andromeda

**We Board the Princess Andromeda** is the eighty-sixth chapter of The Gift of a Best Friend. It was first published on April 21st, 2019.

## Chapter

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**Jasmine's POV**
Riding the hippocampus looked fun, but I loved riding Toothless more. We zipped along near the water, Toothless letting the tips of his wings touch the water just to show off with the hippocampi, speeding through the waves so smooth and steady I hardly needed to hold on at all.
As we got closer to the cruise ship, I realized just how huge it was. I felt as though I were looking up at a building in Manhattan. The white hull was at least ten stories tall, topped with another dozen levels of decks with brightly lit balconies and portholes. The ship’s name was painted just above the bow line in black letters, lit with a spotlight:

*PRINCESS ANDROMEDA*
Attached to the bow was a huge masthead—a three-story-tall woman wearing a white Greek chiton, sculpted to look as if she were chained to the front of the ship. She was young and beautiful, with flowing black hair, but her expression was one of absolute terror. Why anybody would want a screaming princess on the front of their vacation ship, I had no idea.
I remembered the myth about Andromeda and how she had been chained to a rock by her own parents as a sacrifice to a sea monster. Percy’s namesake, Perseus, had saved her just in time and turned the sea monster to stone using the head of Medusa.
*That*f Perseus always won. Percy told me that’s why his mom named him after him, even though he was a son of Zeus and Percy’s a son of Poseidon. The original Perseus was one of the only heroes in the Greek myths who got a happy ending. The others died—betrayed, mauled, mutilated, poisoned, or cursed by the gods. Percy’s mom hoped he would inherit Perseus’s luck. I wouldn’t quite say he has yet.
“How do we get aboard?” Annabeth shouted over the noise of the waves, but the hippocampi seemed to know what they needed.
They skimmed along the starboard side of the ship, riding easily through its huge wake, and pulled up next to a service ladder riveted to the side of the hull.
“You first,” Percy told Annabeth.
She slung her duffel bag over her shoulder and grabbed the bottom rung. Once she’d hoisted herself onto the ladder, her hippocampi whinnied a farewell and dove underwater. Annabeth began to climb. Percy let her get a few rungs up, then followed her. Toothless landed us on the deck up top and Will and I dismounted him, waiting for the rest of them to join us.
Finally it was just Tyson in the water. His hippocampus was treating him to 360 aerials and backward ollies, and Tyson was laughing so hysterically, the sound echoed up the side of the ship. It would’ve been a lot cuter if he was an actual baby.
“Tyson, shhh!” Percy said. “Come on, big guy!”
“Can’t we take Rainbow?” he asked, his smile fading.
Percy stared at him. “*Rainbow?*”
*Yes, that’s my name*, the hippocampus whinnied.
Rainbow? Why does that sound so familiar?
“Um, we have to go,” Percy said. “Rainbow . . . well, he can’t climb ladders.”
Tyson sniffled. He buried his face in the hippocampus’s mane. “I will miss you, Rainbow!”
*I’ll miss you too, Tyson!*
He sounded like he was crying, and it was so cute.
“Maybe we’ll see him again sometime,” Percy suggested.
“Oh, please!” Tyson said, perking up immediately. “Tomorrow!”
Percy didn’t make any promises, which was probably good because who knows where we’re going to be tomorrow? But he finally convinced Tyson to say his farewells and grab hold of the ladder. With a final sad whinny, Rainbow the hippocampus did a backflip and dove into the sea.
———————————————————————————————————————
The top of the ladder was a maintenance deck stacked with yellow lifeboats. There was a set of locked double doors, which Annabeth managed to pry open with her knife and a fair amount of cursing in Ancient Greek, though I could’ve opened them myself easily without any hassle, which I’m pretty sure she knew, but I left her to do that to see if she could.
I figured we’d have to sneak around, being stowaways and all, but after checking a few corridors and peering over a balcony into a huge central promenade lined with closed shops, even flying up in the air, I began to realize there was nobody to hide from. I mean, sure it was the middle of the night, but we walked half the length of the boat and met no one. We passed forty or fifty cabin doors and heard no sound behind any of them.
“It’s a ghost ship,” Percy murmured.
“You’re telling me,” I said.
“No,” Tyson said, fiddling with the strap of his duffel bag. “Bad smell.”
Annabeth frowned. “I don’t smell anything.”
“Cyclops are like satyrs,” I said. “They can smell monsters. Isn’t that right, Tyson?”
He nodded nervously. Now that we were away from Camp Half-Blood, the Mist had distorted Tyson’s face again, though it wasn’t a problem for my powers. Toothless also growled in agreement, looking around us on high alert. I also felt the presence of many things around us, but it was hard to tell what when you couldn’t find anyone.
“Okay,” Annabeth said. “So what exactly do you smell?”
“Something bad,” Tyson answered.
“Great,” Annabeth grumbled. “That clears it up.”
“Don’t you explain things like that, Annabeth?” Will asked.
“Maybe. But only sometimes.”
We came outside on the swimming pool level. There were rows of empty dock chairs and a bar closed off with a chain curtain. The water in the pool glowed eerily, sloshing back and forth from the motion of the ship.
Above us fore and aft were more levels—a climbing wall, a putt-putt golf course, a revolving restaurant, but no sign of life.
And yet . . . I sensed something familiar. Something dangerous. I had the feeling that if I weren’t so tired and burned out on adrenaline from our long night, I might be able to put a name to what was wrong.
“We need a hiding place,” Percy said. “Somewhere safe to sleep.”
“Definitely,” Will agreed.
“Sleep,” Annabeth agreed wearily.
We explored a few more corridors until we found an empty suite on the ninth level. The door was open, which struck me as weird. There was a basket of chocolate goodies on the table, an iced-down bottle of sparkling cider on the nightstand, and a mint on the pillow with a hand-written note that said: Enjoy your cruise!
We opened our duffel bags for the first time and found that Hermes really had thought of everything—extra clothes, toiletries, camp rations, a Ziploc bag full of cash, a leather pouch full of golden drachmas. He’d even managed to pack Tyson’s oilcloth with his tools and metal bits, Annabeth’s cap of invisibility, Will’s bow and arrows, and my dual blades, which seemed to make us all feel a lot better.
“We’ll be next door,” Annabeth said. “You guys *don’t* drink or eat anything.”
“You think this place is enchanted?” Percy asked.
She frowned. “I don’t know. Something isn’t right. Just . . . be careful.”
Annabeth, Toothless, and I headed to the next room with our stuff and locked the doors behind us.
Annabeth and I crashed on the bed together while Toothless took the couch, even though he didn’t seem to like it much.
“Isn’t this exciting?” I asked Annabeth.
“What?” she replied.
“We’re on a new quest to save camp.”
“Yes, and what a thrill it’s been so far, what with sneaking out of camp without permission, and possibly die doing this whether we succeed or not.”
“Oh, you ruin the fun out of everything.”
“I do, don’t I?”
“Yes, you do.”
I snuggled in close to her, which she didn’t particularly like, but she didn’t push me away either, and we tried to sleep as best we could. I thought I heard voices out in the hallway, like whispering. I knew that couldn’t be. We’d walked all over the ship and had seen nobody. But the voices kept me awake. They reminded me of my trip to the Underworld—the way the spirits of the dead sounded as they drifted past.
But I did eventually manage to fall asleep.
———————————————————————————————————————
I woke to a ship’s whistle and a voice on the intercom—some guy with an Australian accent who sounded way too happy for my taste.
“Good morning, passengers! We’ll be at sea all day today. Excellent weather for the poolside mambo party! Don’t forget million-dollar bingo in the Kraken Lounge at one o’clock, and for our *special guests*, disemboweling practice on the Promenade!”
Annabeth and I both sat up in bed. “What did he just say?”
Even Toothless stood up from the couch.
Annabeth and I quickly jumped out of bed and ran to the boys door, and we knocked on it urgently to get the boys attention, then we stuck our heads in, finding Percy and Will also sat up on the bed, but Tyson was still half asleep, lying facedown on the couch, his feet so far over the edge they were in the bathroom
“*Disemboweling* practice?” Annabeth said.
Once we were all dressed, we ventured out into the ship and were surprised to see other people. A dozen senior citizens were heading to breakfast. A dad was taking his kids to the pool for a morning swim. Crew members in crisp white uniforms strolled the deck, tipping their hats to the passengers.
Nobody asked who we were. Nobody paid us much attention, which probably wasn’t that surprising since there must have been hundreds of people aboard, and it’s hard, if not impossible, to remember every single one of them. But there was something wrong.
As the family of swimmers passed us, the dad told his kids: “We are on a cruise. We are having fun.”
“Yes,” his three kids said in unison, their expressions blank. “We are having a blast. We will swim in the pool.”
They wandered off.
“Good morning,” a crew member told us, his eyes glazed. “We are all enjoying ourselves aboard the *Princess Andromeda*. Have a nice day.” He drifted away.
“Percy, this is weird,” Annabeth whispered. “They’re all in some kind of trance.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Like they’re all retarded.”
Then we passed a cafeteria and saw our first monster. It was a hellhound—a black mastiff with its front paws up on the buffet line and its muzzle buried in the scrambled eggs. It must’ve been young, because it was small compared to most—no bigger than a grizzly bear.
The weird thing was: a middle-aged couple was standing in the buffet line right behind the devil dog, patiently waiting their turn for the eggs. They didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary.
“Not hungry anymore,” Tyson murmured.
Before either of us could reply, a reptilian voice came from down the corridor, “Ssssix more joined yesssterday.”
Annabeth gestured frantically toward the nearest hiding place—the women’s room—and all six of us ducked inside.
Something—or more like *two* somethings—slithered past the bathroom door, making sounds like sandpaper against the carpet.
“Yesss,” a second reptilian voice said. “He drawssss them. Ssssoon we will be sssstrong.”
I clutched my fists. I *hate* snakes, but these sounded different from the other ones I’ve met.
The things slithered into the cafeteria with a cold hissing that might have been snake laughter.
Annabeth looked at us. “We have to get out of here.”
“You think I *want* to be in the girls’ restroom?” he replied.
“Uh, yeah,” Will agreed. “But I will admit, it is nicer than most boys’ restrooms I’ve been in.”
“I’m sure it is,” I said.
“I mean the ship, guys!” Annabeth said. “We have to get off the ship.”
“I know what you meant.”
“Smells bad,” Tyson agreed. “And dog eat all the eggs. Annabeth is right. We must leave the restroom and ship.”
I stared at them. If Annabeth and Tyson were actually *agreeing* about something, I figured I’d better listen.
Then I heard another voice outside.
“—only a matter of time. Don’t push me, Agrius!”
It was Luke, beyond a doubt. I could never forget his voice.
“I’m not pushing you!” another guy growled. His voice was deeper and even angrier than Luke’s. “I’m just saying, if this gamble doesn’t pay off—”
“It’ll pay off,” Luke snapped. “They’ll take the bait. Now, come, we’ve got to get to the admiralty suite and check on the casket.”
Their voices receded down the corridor.
Tyson whimpered, “Leave now?”
The five of us exchanged looks and came to a silent agreement.
“We can’t,” Percy told Tyson.
“We have to find out what Luke is up to,” Annabeth agreed. “And if possible, we’re going to beat him up, bind him in chains, and drag him to Mount Olympus.”
I stared at her. I never thought I’d ever hear her say something like that, especially about Luke. She must be serious. At least, I hope she was, but when it came to Luke, I could never be too sure with her.

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## Character Appearances

### Main Characters

* Jasmine Saturday
* Annabeth Chase
* Percy Jackson
* Will Solace

### Pets

* Toothless
* Rainbow