Terror silently berated himself as he led Maisie through the labyrinth of ship corridors. They were headed to the smaller shuttle that would be making a stop on The Cur to drop off a load of the much larger cargo ship’s hazardous waste. One of the only industries on the wild, lawless planet was waste disposal. It was a nasty, dangerous business that left the slums polluted. The wealthier inhabitants of the small planet lived in tall structures overlooking the poorer neighborhoods, breathing in detoxified air, eating safe imported food and drinking purified water.
Over the thrum of the ship, Terror heard the sounds of cargo pallets being loaded onto the shuttle. There were a few voices, most of them barely discernible beneath the noisy crane moving the pallets and the ship’s nearby engine bays. He pressed a finger to his lips and gestured for Maisie to stay hidden while he performed a quick recon. She rolled her eyes as if to say, “Obviously,” and then faded into the shadows.
Ignoring her bratty response, he crept forward to check out the situation. The shuttle was an older decommissioned Sky Corps ship that had been retrofitted for junk work. He spotted two pilots going through their pre-flight check of the ship’s exterior. The loadmaster stood in the cargo bay to oversee the pallets of waste being stacked on the deck. Somewhere inside the ship there was likely an engineer or two.
He spotted the access panel they would use to sneak onto the ship. They would need to be quick and silent, but he was fairly certain they could manage it, especially with all the noise and distraction of the crane and the pallets knocking against each other. Once they were on the ship, they would need to stowaway in one of the access corridors until they landed. It wouldn’t be a particularly comfortable ride, but it would get them where they needed to be.
Not wanting to waste their chance to board the ship, he gestured toward the shadows where he had left Maisie. She emerged a moment later, keeping low to the ground as she crept toward him. When she was at his side, he pointed out the access panel he intended to open and then the pilots, the loadmaster and the crane operator. They had discussed the plan numerous times back in their bunkroom. There wasn’t any reason to go over it again here, not when there was precious time to waste.
With a final nod, he eyed the crewmembers to confirm they were out of sight and slipped his multi-tool between his teeth. He scuttled forward to the access panel, thanking the universe for the bad lighting in the poorly maintained shuttle bay, and made quick work of disengaging the locking mechanism. He opened the panel just far enough to squeeze through and then gestured for Maisie to follow.
She looked left and right and then hurried to join him. She slipped into the space and wiggled around him, her lithe body rubbing against his in a way that had his traitorous mind flashing right back to their failed tryst. Ignoring the need she awakened in him, he re-engaged the locking mechanism from the control panel on the inside of the ship. He pointed toward the corridor ahead, silently telling her to move. The engineer would probably see the panel fault alarm and come to investigate whether or not the panel was open. Hopefully, the engineer would assume it was a bad sensor and not go looking for possible stowaways.
Better equipped in this sort of situation, Terror took the lead. He navigated the tight corridors of the shuttle’s belly until they reached a wider, taller emergency corridor that ran parallel to the hold. It was the safest place to ride-out the descent and landing. As the pathway between the cockpit and the escape pods, this emergency corridor would remain properly pressurized and oxygenated for the entirety of the flight.
Maisie leaned against a wall and slid down until she sat cross-legged on the metal grate floor. She kept her gaze fixed on the opposite wall and seemed perfectly happy to ignore him completely. He tried not to let it bother him, but he wasn’t very successful. He already missed the way she used to seek out his gaze and smile shyly at him.
The minutes of tense silence ticked by until the shuttle began to vibrate as the engines came online. Maisie glanced around and put her palms on