"It is. Amber, where do you think they keep the laser heads?" Jade asked, walking along the wall marked with parts.
"I don't know. Oh, my Goddess! They have the newest versions of the splicers!" Amber exclaimed.
"The T204P3?" James asked.
Amber blinked at her little brother. "How do you know about them?"
James grinned. "I saw the diagram of it on Mom's desk. She was looking at adding the micro-replicator to it so that if you switched it one way, it was a laser and if you switched it the other, it would scan and recreate the part," he said.
"Hey, guys, I found something!" Jade's voice echoed across the equipment room.
The air crackled with excitement as James and Amber hurried over to her, their eyes filled with a mix of curiosity and thrill. Crouched next to an obscure panel in the wall, Jade could barely be seen behind a stack of metal containers. Her fingers delicately traced the smooth, cool surface of the metallic wall as she searched for a release mechanism.
"I saw on an old schematic of the ship that there was a smuggler's nest. I wanted to see if it was still here," she said.
Amber cocked her head. "Why would they have a smuggler's nest on a warship?"
"I read something about they had a bunch of them during the war in case they were ever captured. The warriors used to hide weapons in them. If the enemy captured them, they could get to some weapons."
Amber leaned over one of the metal boxes. "Is there anything in it?"
Jade found the release and tapped the panel lightly. She released a soft gasp of excitement when a secret compartment slid open with a quiet hiss, revealing a control device with blinking lights. "Oh. My. Stars. Is this what I think it is?"
"It looks like… Mommy's miniature cloaking mechanism," James said, eyes widening. His voice was barely a whisper.
"What's it doing there?" Amber asked.
All heads turned in unison as the smooth sound of the door to the equipment room sliding open reached their ears. Jade's eyes widened, and she urgently motioned for her sister and brother to find a hiding spot. She carefully stowed the small device in her jacket pocket, making sure to close the compartment securely, before joining Amber behind a rack of equipment. The sound of footsteps approached the back room, and they instinctively held their breath as three men entered.
"I hid the device here," a lean reptilian man with two heads said.
"How long do you think we've got before they discover it is missing?" a huge gnarly-looking alien with thick scars running along one side of his face asked.
The third man let out a disdainful snort. His face had three low ridges, which, combined with its flattened shape, gave him a distinct and memorable look. When Jade saw that they were wearing maintenance uniforms, a frown creased her face. They shouldn't be in this section. It wasn't the typical gray uniforms of the tech maintenance crew, but rather the eye-catching burnt-orange outfits of the refuse workers on the spaceport.
"Probably not until they go to use it and it doesn't work," the alien replied with a malicious chuckle.
When the men walked over to the stack of crates, Amber quickly tugged Jade behind a large box, hiding from their view. Sliding between the crates, the lean, two-headed reptilian man bent down, his green scales shimmering in the dim light. His low curse came a few seconds later, and Jade instinctively scrunched up her nose in disapproval.
"What's wrong?" the gnarly-looking alien demanded.
The reptilian man looked around with a sneer on his lips. "It's gone."
"Gone? How in the galaxy can it be gone? I thought you said you had it hidden!" the flat-faced man snarled.
"I did! I made sure I hid it where no one could find it! Hell, I even stacked the crates here. There's no way anyone could have known it was missing, much less here. It's only been a couple of hours," the reptilian snapped back.
"Spread out. Search the room. It's got to be here somewhere," the gnarly alien instructed.
Jade nervously bit her lip, feeling a slight sting as her teeth grazed against her delicate skin. There was no way they wouldn't be discovered. As she frantically tried to think of a plan, the door of the equipment room slid open once more, revealing a ray of hope. The quiet of their surroundings was broken by the sound of footsteps, signaling the imminent arrival of another person. When Jade saw it was the two security guards that had been assigned to them, a silent groan escaped her lips.
"What are you doing in here?" the first guard demanded.
The reptilian man stepped in front of his friends. "We were instructed to move these crates into the other room," he said.
The guard frowned at them before he stepped to the side and motioned for them to grab the crates. "Go ahead. This is a restricted area. You shouldn't have been allowed in here."
The second guard glanced around the room. "You haven't seen three kids running around, have you?"
