Publicans had the power to conduct surprise inspections, with the assistance of a mechanic to check the engines for any unapproved tracking, and then collect any fines or extra taxes. They would not be the guards’ favorite people, but they should command respect and a little dose of fear. Just what they needed.

They walked through the dusty Asteria to the transport room, stiff and silent. It’d been a long fourteen hours with a weapon always within reach. The small shuttle down in the hold looked like every other military emergency transport vehicle. It was an oblong craft that could barely fit two people. It looked like a bullet. Or a coffin.

Eris and Clo settled into the pod and Clo prepped the coordinates. She wasn’t nervous, exactly, but she was sparkish—it had been so long since her last mission. If Eris was on edge at all, it didn’t show. Clo remembered Eris as a chameleon, able to shift into someone else at a moment’s notice. She’d seemed to thrive on that knife’s edge of danger, as if it made her feel alive.

But as the lights in the craft dimmed, throwing the other woman’s face into sharp relief, Clo heard Eris release a shaky breath. Maybe the perfect princess had her own nightmares from this place, after all.

“Takeoff in ten seconds,” the ship’s calm voice intoned.

“Let’s go spy on the Empire,” Eris said. Clo didn’t reply, her fingers tightening around the throttle.

The ship’s computer gave them their final warning. “Three, two, one.”

Clo shoved the throttle forward and the pod burst out of the ship and toward Myndalia.

—

It’d been a long time since Clo had barreled through the atmosphere in such a small craft. She’d forgotten how much she hated it.

The interior grew warmer, until the controls were almost too hot to touch. A halo blazed around the small ship. The world grew clearer, closer, the ground seeming to rise up to meet them. A few thousand feet from the ground, Clo swallowed hard and wrenched the controls, slowing their descent and making sure the cloaking tech was engaged.

They landed, the craft skipping the swamp mud until it slowed to a stop on mostly dry land.

Clo powered down the engine and took off the safety belt, stumbling from the ship. The smell of the planet hit Clo first, and her stomach heaved. Too many memories. The dampness of the mud, the rotting stench of decomposing greenery and algae on stagnant water. The sulfur. The far-off scent of too many people living together in such a small space.

Her boots squelched in the puddles as Clo staggered to the edge of the path. There, she bent over and threw up the scant remnants of her breakfast.

Godsdamn transport sickness.