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“I’m going—!”
“No, you’re not,” I said. “Your mom put you in my care and this time, I intend on doing my duty. You’re going with Waev and that’s the end of it.”
Cleb pouted and ground his teeth.
“You’ve done very well, little spymaster,” I said softly. “But I could get into a lot of trouble with the police.”
There was no “could” about it. It was guaranteed.
Cleb’s expression softened.
“Will you bring her back?” he said.
“I’ll try,” I said.
Cleb leaped forward and wrapped his arms around me and kissed me on the cheek.
“Good luck, Uncle,” he said.
Waev gave me a look of warning before slapping me on the back.
“I’ll put a file in the cake the next time I see you,” he said.
He scooped Cleb up in his arms and carried him outside. The door shut automatically behind him. I jumped in the pilot’s seat and fiddled with the buttons. It’d been a long time since I needed to fly one of these things myself. But it couldn’t be that hard. If Waev could do it…
I took the shuttlecraft directly up and then over the spaceport building. The force shoved me back in the seat. I recalibrated and swung the shuttlecraft around.
The spaceport drifted away from me, far below, and I tilted the ship forward, barreling directly for Bianca’s transport ship. It sat uselessly on the runway, directly behind the merchant ship that had broken down. A hundred mechanics descended on it, plugging into its systems to figure out what was wrong with it. The powerful little tug ships were getting into place to shift the merchant ship aside so the others could take off.
Bianca’s ship would be first in line.
Soon, the spaceport’s security system would kick on. The security teams in their capsules would be launched at me. Fully armed and with near-indestructible hulls, there would be no way for me to mount an effective defense against them.
For now, there was chaos. And it would play to my advantage.
But I didn’t have long.
I hit the brakes hard just yards from the transport ship’s hull and immediately dropped vertically, almost striking the ground. Then I turned the craft around and reversed up to the back of the ship.
“Citizen,” a commanding voice over the shuttlecraft’s radio said. “This is a restricted area. Power down for immediate boarding. This is not a request.”
I checked the scanners. The security capsules had been launched but they hadn’t reached me yet.
But they would within minutes.
I shut the radio off and lowered the ramp. I ran down it and got out. I was an ant compared to the giant passenger ship. The ship would be locked down immediately before liftoff. But first, the pilots would carry out a series of last-minute tests to ensure it was fully operational.
When thousands of lives were at stake, or billions of credits of merchandise could get blown sky-high if a single piece of the ship wasn’t working properly, you ran tests every chance you got.
One such test was ensuring the shutters were all closed immediately before liftoff. They were left open in case of a sudden emergency landing on the runway. It was the only way in before the ship would take off.
I gauged the distance I had to run and jump over. It wasn’t too far—but even a yard was a long way when a fall meant making a concrete dive a hundred feet below.
The security capsules’ flashing lights spun and their sirens wailed.
I had run out of time. I had to jump now.
So I did.
