"Let us see how much your pride is worth when your precious fleet is branded as a band of common river pirates, Cassandra."
The low mutter vanished into the damp night air as Richter slipped through the service corridors of the steamboat, his posture shifting seamlessly back into the hunched, timid frame of an insignificant lowborn scrapper. By the time the first rays of morning light pierced the dense smog of Upper Aethelgard, the mechanical whisper of the river had been replaced by the deafening sirens of the central docks. A massive, heavily guarded luxury cargo transport belonging directly to the Galileo Corporation had been ruthlessly hijacked in the northern canal, its high grade electronic components completely wiped from the transit tracking grid.
Inside the sprawling glass an
