1: Breaking the Surface

Lobos was a fan of classical music from the beginning of the 20th Century. This much was evident at the bizarre throat chanting and drumming that was playing through the squad band. Were they screaming in Norse? The burst of radiation following the torpedo exploding had overloaded his radio, and it had started as the last saved configuration.

Lobos was resuscitated violently. PEHG's automated kit contained crash recovery serums, dispensed automatically in the event of systemic shock - such as being rapidly decelerated without proper bracing. A cocktail of adrenaline, lidocaine, and caffeine was shot directly into Lobos' femoral artery. He awoke with a low, guttural growl.

The screech of venting oxygen behind, PEHG warning indicators blaring radiation alerts and warned of imminent decompression hazard to his rear. Decoupling from the vessel, Lobos became weightless, untethered and was pulled immediately toward the breach. Using the momentum this gave him Lobos turned himself midair much in a similar manner one would use a skateboard to perform a midair turn. Using the inertia and drift he steadied himself and approached the breach.

"Zaki! Foam!"

Lobos planted his feet in the seams of the bulkhead leaning far away from the breach as he could. Preventing decompression from spacing him by strength of body alone. "Cas, ge da patch!"

"Hinkley, overwatch!"

Lobos knew step one to fixing any hole was to make it bigger, PEHG made it easy, seeing the fist sized hole Lobos immediately began to punch the hole. It only took three strikes to clear the hole anything that would interrupt the patching process. Smoother edges meant the foam could cure and seal with better integrity.

"God Damnit, Claire." Lobos growled and struck the bulkhead once, twice.

"Hinkley get Cas stable, ambulatory if possible"

Of the immediate concerns casualties were the most demanding. He didn't have time to consider guilt or remorse. He had just saved everyone's life, on accident. But the standing orders were to take the fight to the enemy.

He weighed the options and decided a show of force couldn't possibly go wrong. He could sate any need for vengeance, a need he was being consumed by. He could also still parley with Claire. And if her crew was a bit thinner it would give him a better bargaining position.

He relieved Cas of his sidearm and spare ammunition. He stacked three reserve magazines on his right breast side. The light repeater he placed on his left thigh. The magnetics of the armor held each in place. He promised himself he would give them back.

"He should be awake by now."

Couldn't concern himself with that now. Sometimes horrible things happen. The universe was a cold, unforgiving bitch. And fretting about that didn't change anything. Next task, they needed a success, not just a success but a win.

"Zaki we have to get to the airlock, if we use navigation thrusters we should be able to evade detection."

Lobos laid against the bulkhead and pounded his fist on it another time. Lobos was no Saint, but mass murder was not something he could so casually dismiss. "We have to surrender. At least for now."

Gideon double checks that the atmosphere in the Lahmu has stabilized before he unseals his helmet, letting it float away as he gasps, helping himself remember how to breathe. He unseals his gloves and throws them aside, fumbling for Cas’ helmet.

Lucky for him his training takes over, deprioritizing the gaping maw of loss in his chest, focusing on the man in front of him. He checks for a pulse, holds a finger under Cas’ nose to make sure he’s breathing, and then checks his pupils. They’re constricted almost to pinpoints, along with shallow breathing and elevated heart rate. As Gideon does a check of Cas’ limbs, the Belter barely registers that his arms and legs are being manipulated.No physical injury, acute stress response. No frickin’ crud, Hinkley. As awful as this was, it would only get worse when Cas came out of it and started processing what had happened. It’d be worse for all of them when the adrenaline wears off.

The relative quiet in the skiff is unsettling, Gideon realizes they’re all just sitting there, Lobos’ words hanging in the air, the echo of his pounding against the bulkhead still ringing in their ears. Cas is barely blinking.

"He’s right, Zaki," Gideon calls out to the cockpit above the hold as he does his best to get Cas righted and comfortable in his seat. "If we die out here then… We just have to survive."

"Pashang…" they hear from the cockpit, and then the cuffs of Zaki’s VAC suit repeatedly smashing against the control console in fury as he screams. "PASHANGWALA PASHANG ÓWALA KAKA FELOTA!"

Zaki falls silent again, and after a moment the Lahmu shudders as it releases from its desperate grip on the pirate ship. It only takes half a minute for the thrusters to bring the skiff around to one of the Bonny’s two airlocks. There’s the gentle lurch as the repair skiff connects and seals. Gideon glances over at the airlock and wonders what’s waiting for them on the other side. His gaze continues to the man who, for all intents and purposes, is their commanding officer, standing in a suit of armor that’s meant for busting through a ship’s hull and pacifying resistance with extreme prejudice, adding Cas’ gun and ammunition to his arsenal. He could probably kill every single pirate aboard the ship without breaking a sweat. Of course, it’d probably get the rest of them killed in the process.

"Cas is uninjured," Gideon says over his shoulder to Lobos, his voice quiet and even. "He’s in shock. He’ll come out of it but he should be able to move… Are you okay, sir?"

"I'm so far from okay."

Lobos pushed his inner voice down, pushing it into the blackest part of himself as he set his teeth. His posture indicated, not fine, angry, tense, ready. "We will all have time to deal with this when we're out of this situation." There was a very small glimmer of hope in this. "I know we all just lost friends. I want to kill every last person responsible for this. But wanting vengeance - it'll get us all killed."

Membership had its benefits. "I don't know how they know. Or why it mattered. But the Captain of the Anne Bonny just invited us to parley by name." There was a tremor in his voice, Lobos wasn't entirely confident of the offer. "That could be a trap to get us to surrender and kill us without any struggle. But, I know, well at least I used to know her." His Claire, she wouldn't double cross him - and she wouldn't kill without a good reason. But this Claire, his gut wanted him to run but there was nowhere to run. Heart wanted to fight, but that would just get all of them killed. Brain exercised caution, it won out. "Full disclosure, she knows I'm OPA - hell she got me into Ashford's OPA. So... do we die fighting or take her offer?"

Lobos looked at Hinkley first - knowing he'd be the only one in the vessel who didn't already know what the tattoo on his hand meant. His opinion was the first he looked for.

"Whatever was in the ice sample is what got our crew killed. We need to get it back. Stealth, subterfuge stay alive to tell the tale."

As Cas was rallying Lobos returned his sidearm and ammo. He took a moment to register Cas' vital signs, noting them coming stable on his HUD.

He got into a ready position at the airlock. Then returned Claire's wave. "We're ready to surrender."

Lobos stared at the Inner, the woman who was so out of place. Though the expressionless matte of his visor would not reveal it - his posture did. She was the center of his attention. Setting his HUD to record Lobos began taking stills in high definition, her facial structure, high resolution recordings of her irises, recording heartbeat and respiratory patterns.

Lobos was already in the ships network - had been since just before they attacked. He began to download all information the on-board surveillance had caught of her in particular.

Appealing to their relationship, he was as much as her Blue as she was his Claire. Much as he was afraid of the thing she had just done - he couldn't hate her. He wanted to understand why.

"Kopine, mi to Amo Blue. Milowda fongi de kapawu, wit na ereluf, no fut, no owkwa. At your mercy. Kowmang sit fo donner, showxa fo posh? Introduce me to your new friend."

Lobos cast the relevant data to his terminal. "Don't hurt my men." He didn't use her name, it was definitely phrased as a veiled threat and Lobos made no attempt to disguise it. She knew better than most what he could do if that threat was necessary. He could see the questions on her face. Burning questions that needed answers. Lobos decided to play his cards. "And the way I see it, we are part of your crew now." He had managed to work his helmet package free. Looking her right in the eyes, green/gold eyes locked on her's of green/silver. He was not exactly as she remembered, hard lines at his eyes, and a lucky scar over his left eye. Looking at it she could see the embedded crystals repairing the lens. The scar had healed well, barely noticeable unless the light hit it, then it looked garish. "Milowda mowteng, du raison to kill our crew."

He stopped talking regarding Claire, reading her, she was easier to him to read than any person alive - he just thought about what he would do think or say and it usually worked for her. His posture opened, Lobos reached out and delicately touched her wrist, holding it delicately. PEHG could feel her heartbeat, translating it to a sensation of approximate warmth and frequency to the gallium membrane that encapsulated Lobos. It couldn't translate the softness of her skin though and that irritated Lobos who at this exact moment needed human comfort.

"Mi pensa xitim tu ken mi operashang. Milowda vedi pirata, im komme to kill. But if you want to know how and why I trust those men to board a vessel and kill enemy pirates - you'll have to sign us onto the crew." Lobos wondered if she was goading him on purpose. Trying to get him to reveal something - but the situation was transparent. In a firefight on a vessel the team with power armor seldom lost. "Mi mang da best. Milowda na tung du fo deradzhang tolowda didna." Lobos signed that it was love that stayed the violence.

"Yo nuva Kopeng. Im gonya bek fidesh."

Taking a risk, a big risk, Lobos showed the cross-referenced data from his earlier hack of the signal. Not just the trace - all of it.

"Xitim dey buza kowlmang." He emphasized this signed that Claire was now in this with him. "Whether you like it or not." Attempting to convince her to see his side of things - to rely on a more well known, better trusted source.

"I will definitely keep you safe."

Lobos didn't lie in that, he fully intended to support Claire's exchange. She was right it was big, massive in scope. But whoever masterminded this had failed to appreciate one reality of the universe. No matter how bad an organization thought it was, there was always someone who was worse. Claire had just pulled the trigger, the people who killed the crew of Abzu's Bounty, they were the ones who were responsible for the 48 souls lost in space. In doing so they had made an enemy of an incredibly dangerous person.

He was glad for the armor for the moment, it concealed his heartbeat. Working closely with pirates and UN Naval Intelligence had given Lobos a near perfect mask for microexpressions. He had absolutely no intention of letting the trade go off without a hitch. Neither, he suspected, did Claire. "Follow my lead when the time comes." Lobos raised his free hand and brushed a strand of hair out of Claire's face, fixing her with a look suggesting a deep longing.

It was cold in space, near zero kelvin, and Lobos felt quite fortunate indeed that the membranes of PHEG wouldn't drop below the freezing point of gallium by design. Or it would make the tedium of replacing each individual component of the massacred phase array truly awful. This far out it would require more battery power to keep him warm than he had remaining oxygen.

Lobos was soldering the leads into place, jumpers, timing switches, each in phase with each other. It wasn't necessarily a difficult task, but it required a great deal of manual dexterity - something most VAC suits didn't offer. He could see Zaki diligently working on the Lahmu. The repair skiff needed some TLC by Lobos' estimation, but he wasn't the greatest mech in The Belt, he wasn't even in the running.

"Komante - enyedzhi de sekang array."

Lobos watched hopefully as the array powered up, then immediately grunted in frustration as the solder flashed. It wasn't the worst malfunction, but it did indicate a problem in the power grid from his earlier attack. "Kaka-felota." He hissed and then called back to the bridge.

"Negatif Komante. Te mal tikiting, tripping de sukit bek. Kil de enyedzhi unte bypass."

Lobos heard the acknowledgement and laid on the hull of the Anne Bonny. He stared out into the black and slowed his breathing. He hated microgravity sure, but the worst of it was mitigated by the pressure in his armor. Space, the depth of it was undeniably beautiful. It tripped his inner ear, vertigo hit Lobos - but he enjoyed the sensation. While it wasn't true vertigo in the sense that gravity was pulling on him, it was identical - a trick the brain plays. He reveled in the sensation and relaxed on the hull. Time slipped by quickly in his meditative state, it was so quiet. His throat chanting did disturb many people but out in hard vacuum no one would hear unless he wanted them to.

About twenty minutes passed in such a state before he lost focus on the trance and it broke. Lobos sighed blissfully as he returned to a full wakeful state and began to resolder the array. It wasn't long after he finished before the greenlight was given. Test successful, Lobos headed back into the ship. He doffed his armor, and began the lengthy process of maintaining it. He decided since Hinkley had expressed an interest he'd show him the details. "Hinkley, want to get a close look at the X1? Just doing maintenance on it now."

He worked diligently as always. Lobos had never been the most talented computer programmer or engineer - but when it came to powered armor he had always been a nerd. He never lost interest in it, reading Iron Man comics as a child, working on exoskeletons during his time in trade school, during his bit in prison, and in the UN Marines. Now, most fielded power armor in the UN had similar features - but at 45,000scr a unit they were made for a specific purpose and nearly disposable.

Ishimura Integrated Systems, in cooperation with 1st Force Recon UN Marines created a thing of beauty. The endoskeletal components were non-biological but to the undiscerning eye it would be an easy mistake to make. They had the familiar blue/green sheen of an insect carapace, indeed they were designed to mimic the function of a moth. The myofibril musculature was mimicked by lightweight actuators and semiconductors. Each sarcomere made of a braid of amorphous silicon, stabilized in liquid crystal. Brainchild of The Eggheads of Ishimura, and the Marine Special Forces.

Saturn at his back, the void ahead of him, this is where Zaki is meant to be. Standing on the edge of steel alloy and nothing.

He shouldn’t be out here, sepíng da sabaka deting im. But it’s a point of pride. Lobos’ pirata pashangwala has da Anne Bonny; Zaki has da Lahmu. He’s clumsier, moves slower. One wrong slip and he’d be saying oyedeng fo ereluf, and oye fo da bik falota fo detmang.He swears as the metal he shaped inside won’t fit over the puncture exit. He increases magnetization in his extremities, locking himself on the Lahmu’s hull, and begins punching furiously at the piece of metal with his gloved fist, cursing with each hit.

"Pashang! Sabaka! Pashang! Sabakawala! Nakangepensa! Belta! Dzhemang!"

He forces a big breath of air in his lungs, which feel like they’re being squeezed in an industrial vice from the G-force of the ship’s burn, and then flips the patch over. It’s a perfect fit.

Zaki takes the small bolt gun off his belt and seals it. It’s clearly a patch job, the newer metal from the kit is shinier than the dusty old skiff’s hull, but it’s a clean fix. He applies a thin coating of foam around the seam for a little reinforcement.

The pilot strains to stand up and clomps over to the skiff’s emergency maintenance hatch, crawling through the small hatch into the cockpit. He glances down, and instead of the dour, fat, heavily tatted Belta scowling at Zaki, it’s the welwala murdering captain in her EVA suit.

"To na du wanya mi crawling ere kuxaku to should have clocked da hatch," he points out as she watched him close the hatch. "Na much fo wa Belta sili to na vedi deting ere wa kapawu."

O’Rourke gives a deep, hearty chuckle as Zaki clambers down clumsily, struggling to drag his tool kit behind him. "Mali Belta rock rat crawling around. Mi ta na du showxa to ta kang use da wowkshop."

"Oh, bik pirata queen!" he gives a simultaneous flourishing bow with the universal ‘pashang fong’ sign. "Mi na du mowteng to pashangwala wowkshop."

Zaki struggles down the ladder into the hold, and sets his tool kit by the patch job the survivors slapped onto the bulkhead earlier, double checking to make sure the outer puncture is sealed properly before cutting away the haphazard inner patch with a microsaw."Mi pensa to might start to pirata fleet with this bucket, ke?" O’Rourke teases. She’s not being mean or cruel, but Zaki’s in no mood.

"Mi natim bi pirata welwala… kill Beltalowda fo Inyalowda…" he mutters, shooting a scowl at O’Rourke, but she meets his eyes and nods. He turns back to his work. "Mi natim ong nating fore. Xidawang mi kapawu. Da Lahmu save milowda, so mi fix da Lahmu. Beltalowda fix tings. Maye to forget deting."

O’Rourke sighs, her breath crackling over the line. "Im bera wa job, kid."

"Keradzhang to xiya, ke?" Zaki asks, preparing the matching inner hull patch. He’s not used to working in sepíng, having to hold up the part while fumbling for the bolt gun.

"Mi bera ando wonder keting Eroshwala rock rat du wit Pampa Coyo, sasa ke?" she states. She’s keeping her voice neutral, but she’s clearly suspicious.

Zaki was wondering that himself. He and Coyo had worked well together on the Bounty. Zaki had even started to forget that his shift officer flew with the Ghost Knife of Callisto. When the pirates were boarding, Coyo’s call had saved Zaki, and doomed the rest of the ice hauler’s crew. Nabi… Olivera… Androva… It took Zaki back to the cycles after Jad got himself killed. The guilt and anger and self-hatred. He was still here, he shouldn’t be… and they were all dead.

"Im unte Romolo wowk together?" O’Rourke asks.

Zaki shoots her a disgusted look if she can catch it through the helmet of his VAC suit.Just as he’s bringing the bolt gun to the patch the metal patch slides out of his gloved hand and goes clattering to the skiff’s deck. He swears, face flushing with humiliation. O’Rourke appears at his side and picks the patch up and holds it in place. He thinks about putting a bolt through her helmet, but it wouldn’t help, and he’s no murderer."Taki," Zaki says, deadpan, as he seals up the patch. He puts his tools away and heads back over to the ladder up to the cockpit. Pashang, he hates gravity.

O’Rourke watches as he keys in commands and does an atmosphere test, "To tim im xox, mali rock rat." He ignores her. She can shoot him if she wants, he’s going to finish repairing his ship. No sense in filling the skiff, wasting precious ereluf, but he needs to make sure the seals take."Mi done xiya," Zaki says, powering down the skiff’s systems and crawling back down the ladder, wishing he could just stay in the Lahmu, not go back onto the pirate ship, have to face Coyo, and da Eartha, and Cas…

"Gut," O’Rourke drawls, handing Zaki’s kit back to him, which he clutches to his chest clumsily, struggling to hold up the weight.

As O’Rourke keys in the code to the bap kuxaku, Zaki bites his lip, then blurts, "Coyo pirata bosmang pashangwala… amash im na wowk wit ówala lik Romolo."

At least Zaki hopes not.

O’Rourke glances at him curiously, nods and opens the bap, and he follows her back up to the crew quarters.

Other than Cas curled up in a ball on the lower bunk, the prisoners’ quarters are empty and dark. Once inside Zaki sags to the ground, grateful no one can see him beaten down by pashang sepíng. He wrestles out of his VAC suit and realizes he’s still wearing Arnova’s tee, "FORT BRAGG". He gasps, trying to stifle a sob, and crawls across the floor over to the bunk, managing to pull himself up onto it. He whispers Cas’ name and can feel the bunk shake as da grieving Belta man makes room, sobbing quietly to the bulkhead. Zaki curls up against him, holding him tight. Neither have to say a word, tears and touch communicate everything. Sometimes this is all Beltalowda have; one another to cling to in the darkness of the void.

Lobos’ call comes through on Gideon’s handheld, and he’s happy to help Lobos with the armor, rather than sit impotently in a dark room.

He’s done little more than talk at, rather than with, Cas; giving the mourning Belter a few gentle mindfulness tips for dealing with grief, but after almost an hour of silence he simply let Cas know he was there and sat in silence, probing his own grief.

It may not be the first time Gideon’s lost someone… even someone he’s close to. He lost good friends during those months in Kabul. But Kabul was never going to be anything other than a living hell. Ice haulers don’t get blown up… until now, apparently. The violent suddenness of the loss of the Bounty’s crew is the makeup of the aching, hollow hole in his gut. He keeps picturing Kat, strapping herself into the crash couches in the medical bay, waiting to hear a call from Gideon that never came. Was she confused, terrified, alone when she died? He’d never know.

Gideon’s escorted by one of the guards down to Lobos in the machine shop on level 6, just below the hold. They’re left with a couple of the Belter engineers, who studiously ignore them as they go about their own work, discussing repairs that’ll need to happen when they next make port… what with the repair skiff that dug its claws into the exterior hull…

He rushes over to help Lobos with the suit, feeling much more comfortable with his feet firmly planted on the deck with the force of the Bonny’s acceleration. They don’t have the full rig from the Bounty, but they have tools and a charge port.

"What can I do to help, sir?" Gideon asks, he’s not much of an engineer but he did basic hardsuit training like everyone in boot.