Cinder awoke to a loud thump.
"Aces and spades—Cinder!" a voice called from the cargo hold.
Thorne.
Cinder rolled out of bed and ran out of her room. She had taken to sleeping with her clothes on in case of emergencies.
In the cargo hold, she found Thorne and Cress sitting on a large plastic crate in front of a netscreen.
"What is it? Is someone dead? Are we under attack?" Cinder demanded.
"No! This is worse!" Thorne lamented. "This is the absolute worst thing that could possibly-"
"Cut the dramatics, Thorne!"
"Look!" While Cress bit back a smile, Thorne motioned to the netscreen, which displayed a news article from nearly a week ago:
...THE FUGITIVE LINH CINDER, WHO IS NOW IN COMMAND OF A RAMPION MODEL 214 CLASS 11.3 WITH A RATHER DETAILED STENCIL OF...
"That! There! This fine ship is commanded by none other than Captain Carswell Thorne, the one and only!"
This time Cress was not quite successful at keeping in her laugh.
"What was that? Cress? Are you laughing at me?"
Cinder interrupted with a glare. "You called me in here for this? Have you ever heard of the boy who cried Wolf?"
Thorne tilted his head. "I didn't call Wolf. I called you."
Cinder smacked him with a rather large wrench.
"Ow! That was definitely not politically correct."
"I told you she would be mad, Captain," Cress commented quietly.
"Who's side are you on?" Thorne remarked grumpily.
"Well if you clearly didn't call me in here for an important reason, then what was that noise?" Cinder pressed.
"Oh that? That was probably Iko," Thorne said. "Apparently, she is not a morning person."
"Android," Cress corrected.
"Right. Forgot."
Cinder stormed out with an exasperated sigh. It was a mystery how Cress had fallen for such a complete imbecile.