“Um, Boss? We sorta have a situation. You might want to get down to the common room.”
Jeth blinked, all his disappointment from their unadventurous journey vanishing in the space of a single breath. It wasn’t often that Will Shady sounded nervous.
Wondering if maybe the ship was on fire, Jeth turned and headed off the bridge with Celeste quick on his heels. They arrived in the common room on the deck below moments later. Jeth stopped in the doorway, surveying the scene. There wasn’t a fire. There wasn’t anything amiss at all, as far as he could tell. Shady was sitting on one of the sofas, his attention focused on the 3D projection from his portable gaming system, a wave of bloodthirsty robots coming at him, each one falling to his simulated gunfire. The comm unit he’d used to radio the bridge sat discarded on the sofa beside him, in danger of being swallowed by a cushion.
Jeth approached him. “What are you doing?”
“Practicing,” Shady said, not looking up. The scowl on his face as he let off a triple blast, drilling a robot right between its bulbous black eyes, made his features look distinctly leonine, the appearance aided by his shaggy mane of blond hair. Shady’s assigned role in the Malleus Shades was ordnance officer.
Jeth put his hands on his hips. “We’re not going to be shooting anybody on this job. And please tell me this wasn’t the thing I needed to see.”
Shady shook his head. “Nope. It’s in that storage locker.” He pointed to the row of lockers along the wall across from them. “The one in the middle.”
Jeth arched an eyebrow. He considered pressing Shady for more, but knew there wasn’t much point. All the crew dealt with prejob nerves in different ways, and once engrossed in his ritual video game, it was hard to get Shady to concern himself with anything else.
Jeth crossed the floor to the locker in question, wondering where the Debonair had been last. Their employer used the ship for lots of different jobs, and it was possible it had been parked planetside someplace where a wild animal could’ve gotten in. An image of something furry and clawed and with teeth the size of fingers flashed through Jeth’s mind. He wasn’t wearing a gun, and he briefly considered getting one before finding out what had Shady so nervous, but then he shrugged and pulled the door open.
There was something alive in there all right, but it wasn’t a wild animal. Still, it took Jeth several moments to come to grips with what it was. Who it was.
“Lizzie,” he said, gritting his teeth hard enough that pain shot through his jaw. “What are you doing here?”
His little sister grinned at him, and her response came out more question than statement. “Um, I took a wrong turn and got stuck?” She twirled a finger through her auburn hair as she spoke.
“Hilarious,” Jeth said, fury bubbling up inside him. Lizzie had been begging him to go on a job for weeks now, ever since she’d started training to take over the tech ops position. At twenty, their current tech was getting too old to remain with the Shades. But Lizzie wasn’t ready to take his place yet. As far as Jeth was concerned, she would never be ready. Not that he had the final say in it, of course. Their employer, the infamous crime lord Hammer Dafoe, had that.
But Jeth was certain Hammer hadn’t approved this.
“It’s true. Shady locked me in.” Lizzie pointed at Shady, who looked up from his game.
“Did not.” He frowned. “Not the first time, anyway.” He glanced at Jeth. “I just found her in there, Boss. Right as we were landing, she tried to let herself out but couldn’t.”
Lizzie’s ears went pink. “I didn’t know I couldn’t open it from the inside.” She fixed a glare at Shady. “And thanks for locking me in again, by the way.”
Shady shrugged and returned his attention to the game. “I didn’t want Jeth blaming me for this.”
“Coward,” Celeste said, her tone more matter-of-fact than accusatory.
Shady shrugged again, a hint of a grin curving the edges of his lips.
“Lizzie.” Jeth made her name sound like a curse. He understood at once what had happened. She had snuck in while they were preparing to leave and decided to stow away in the locker until they were far enough from home that they couldn’t turn back.
Yeah, well, she’s got another thing coming.
“It was an accident, I swear.” That grin spread across Lizzie’s face again, the dappling of freckles on her nose and cheeks doing its best to convince Jeth of her innocence but failing.
He glanced at Celeste. “Go spool up the engines. It’s early enough that we should be able to break atmo without drawing attention.”
“What?” three voices said in unison around him.
Jeth swept his gaze over the room. “I’m in charge, and I say we’re aborting this job.”
Celeste jammed her hands onto her hips. “That’s crazy, Jeth.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Hammer will kill us,” said Shady, tossing his gaming unit onto the sofa and standing up. He was taller and bigger than Jeth, but it didn’t matter. Jeth wasn’t backing down on this.
“He’ll get over it. It’s not safe for her to be here. She’s just a kid.”
“I’m almost thirteen,” said Lizzie. “I’ll be fine.”
The argument quickly escalated into a shouting match. But they all fell silent a few seconds later as a new person entered the common room. Trent Danforth was the only adult on board, and not officially a member of the Malleus Shades. He wasn’t supposed to be here, but their usual tech had fallen sick right before they’d left, and Danforth was the only one with the skills necessary to take his place.