Cress

Chapter 57

"Satellite AR817. 3 ... deflect tracker ... set alternating timer ... 

 and check. 

 Which should just leave Satellite AR944. 

 I ... and ... that ... should ... do it." 

 Cress paused, breathed, and slowly lifted her fingers away

 from the cockpit's main screen, where she'd spent the last 

 three hours ensuring that any satellite's in their path would 

 be convenient turned away from them as they passed. 

 As long as the Rampion's orbital

path held, they shouldn't be detected.

At least, not by satellite or radar.

There was still the problem of visual sightings, and as the

Eastern Commonwealth had announced twenty minutes

 ago that an enormous monetary reward would go to 

 anyone who found the stolen Rampion, every ship between

 here and mars would be on the lookout.

They had to be prepared to run if anyone did spot them,

 which was made extra difficult now that they no longer had

 a trained pilot onboard.

At least, not one who could see.

 Thorne had managed to talk Cinder through the liftoff 

 procedures, with vast amounts of help from the Rampion's

 new auto-control  system, but it had been a rocky takeoff 

 followed by an immediate switch to neutral orbit. 

 If they were faced with anything requiring more complicated 

 maneuvers before Thorne got his eyesight back, they'd be

 in trouble.

According to have they'd be in trouble even when he did have his

eyesight back.

Cress massaged her neck, attempting to get her thoughts to stop spin-

ning. When she was in the middle of a hack, it tended to fill up her brain

until her vision hummed with coding and mathematics, skipping ahead

to each necessary task faster than she could complete them.

 It tended to leave er in state of drained euphoria.

But for now, at least, the Rampion was safe.

She turned her attention to a yellow light at the base of the screen

that had been annoying her since she'd begun, but that she'd been

 too preoccupied to deal with. As expected, when she promoted the

 ejection, a small shimmering D-COMM chip popped out from the

 screen.

The match to the chip that Sybil had taken from her satellite, cutting