Masters of the Sky

Chapter 27 New Opportunities

9 years ago

Celia was running through a dark, humid tunnel. She was late and cursed herself for being so caught up in her newly found book about airships that she almost completely forgot about such an important meeting.

Lady Luck has finally smiled upon her. Celia's efforts were noticed, and she was promoted to crew leader. She already had a few members that naturally followed her, like Theo, but today Lin was about to present recruits that had to be assigned to new teams. Her stomach crunched at the thought that this buffoon, Hector, had already grabbed the best people for his extortionist crew. Even though Celia was still young, she understood that she needed the best possible people with useful skills and dependability to succeed in anything. She alone could not carry them.

Celia entered the spacious cave in a full dash, almost crashing at the mass of gathered people.

"You are late," said a dry voice. Lin sat at the pile of crates, looking like a queen on a throne, with a pad and pen in her hands, her face screwed up in a usual scowl.

"Well, at least I'm here?" Celia smiled charmingly, but Lin only raised a brow, clearly unamused.

"You'll be the last to pick then. You know the rules."

"Do I? I have a feeling you made up those rules as suits you," Celia mumbled.

"What was that?"

"Nothing." Celia shrugged and turned to look at the gathered crowd of fresh recruits. They had all been in the cartel for a few weeks and got Lin's approval to be accepted as new Plunderer members. Though there were plenty of young people of various ages, one caught Celia's attention instantly. He towered over the others as a mountain peak over the forest. While most recruits were anxiously looking around and shuffling their feet, apprehensive of what was coming, he was perfectly still, with massive, muscled arms crossed over a broad chest. The flickering flames of oil lamps make his brown skin glow like a burned amber.

He would be a perfect addition to Celia's crew. Most of her people focused more on being quick and crafty, but a blunt strength was occasionally necessary. But someone else would surely pick him first because she was so stupidly late.

Celia clenched her fists and waited as other crew leaders inspected gathered people as if they were cattle on the market and started picking the most promising candidates. But to Celia's surprise, no one seemed interested in the giant man that caught her eye. She narrowed her eyes. Something was not right here.

When Hector was passing her, she grabbed his elbow.

"Why haven't you picked that big guy?" she asked. "He would be perfect for your crew. You're all about strength, no?"

Hector scoffed, wrenching his arm from her hand. "He might be promising, but it's a package deal. I'm not taking a bloody parasite to slow my crew down."

Celia blinked, confused. "Parisite? I don't...." But then she finally saw it. Behind the big man cowered a tiny little girl, no more than twelve, with her arms and legs thin as sticks, and though her skin had the same tone as her protector, hers had a sickly grey tint to it. A shiver ran down her spine when Celia met the girl's eyes. They were covered with white cataracts.

The big man must have noticed her stare because he scowled and shuffled on his feet, hiding the girl from view.

"Right, as everyone else made their choices, it's your turn, Cee-rat," Lin announced with a bored tone.

Celia crossed her arms and rubbed her chin. With only a few people left, no one except the giant man seemed like a good fit for her current crew. He would be an obvious choice, but if she took him and a child, they would have to care for her. There was not much food to go around, and having someone on the crew who didn't work was inefficient. She had to think about the interest of the whole company.