Free Steal the Sky by Megan E. O'Keefe Page A

tonight.
    Ripka bit her lip, forcing herself to ignore the swathe of excess shade laid over the building she was reconnoitering now. She could not let her prejudices against the ex-commodore cloud her judgment; make her rash. Not tonight.
    She crouched alongside Banch and their newest recruit, Taellen, relying upon a hip-high stack of ruined crates to obscure their presence. On the opposite side of the targeted warehouse five other watchers lurked, awaiting her signal.
    The cold of the desert night bit into her flexed knees, stiffened her tensed back. She shifted her weight, pretending to adjust the angle she held her crossbow at, but found no relief. They had been a half-mark lurking behind that pile of detritus, and the sour stench of alley garbage was growing disturbingly less noticeable. Ripka resolved to give herself a full, hot bath just as soon as she got home.
    â€œThat’s the place, I’m sure of it,” Taellen murmured and gestured with his charcoal-blackened crossbow.
    â€œSo you’ve said,” she whispered, nudging his weapon back below the line of the broken crates. “Now hush.”
    He grunted, sullen, and she bit her tongue to keep from reprimanding him further. This had been his find, and she was grateful for it, but the lad was too eager to lay claim. Too eager, she suspected, to prove he served Aransa. He’d only moved to the Scorched a single moonturn ago and still carried a Valathean accent – and a Valathean name, despite her urging to change it. Aransa may be governed by Valathea, but the people of the Scorched liked their names harsh as the landscape that housed them.
    Banch lifted a hand in the air, his finger extended, circled it, then pointed. Setting aside her annoyance, she squinted through the dark at the window he indicated. The curtain flicked aside, the edge of a man’s face peering out into the dark. Ripka held her breath as he scanned the area beyond, then let the curtain fall back into place. Had he seen them? Heard them? She cursed her inability to communicate with her other team.
    A rumbling echoed down the street. She tensed, straining to make out the details. The sound was a dull, rhythmic clunk punctuated by two soft thumps. Clunk-thump-thump-clunk. Ripka raised her brows at Banch, a silent question, but he only shrugged.
    Something dark moved down the street, the finer details of it erased by the shadow of Thratia’s compound. Ripka made a note to later insist that these streets were kept bright by the lamplighter children. It was well past time to chase the shadows out of Aransan commerce and she, quite frankly, would be delighted to light some fires under the hides of those mucking about with shady dealings.
    A wide cargo door slid open on the face of the warehouse, its hinges so well greased she would have missed it if she weren’t looking right at it in that moment.
    Faint light spilled from the door, illuminating a small section of the road. Plodding toward the opened door was a cart pulled by the slow trod of a hump-backed donkey. Ripka squinted, and saw that both the creature’s hooves and the wheels of the cart had been wrapped in thick cloth. Shady dealings, indeed. Enough to reasonably demand the right to search them. She smothered a hungry grin and put on a smooth, professional expression.
    â€œYou see?” Taellen hissed, his voice high and eager.
    Ripka cringed and grabbed the lad’s arm, dragging him back down as his head popped up. “Quiet,” she whispered. “Wait until we have a better idea of what it is they mean to do.” And to see if they do anything obviously incriminating , she thought, but Taellen was too young for that train of thought just yet. Too green.
    Green things did not last long on the Scorched.
    Taellen grunted but ducked his head, annoyance simmering in the set of his shoulders. Banch caught her eye over the lad’s bowed head, one brow arched in amusement. To keep from grinding