1: Breaking the Surface

After about 24 hours since the destruction of the Bounty, the Anne Bonny switches to thrusters and eases into the Saturnian inner satellite Prometheus. Saturn looms behind it, both the rings and the planet an impossible expanse to put to scale.

From a distance the pockmarked, elongated moon is distinctly potato shaped. Prometheus is a backwater even in a backwater planetary system. Prometheus is little more than a small ice mining station. Prometheus is a waystation for the occasional freighter or science vessel, or else rockhoppers working Saturn’s rings for ice water hauls. A place to get top ups of cheap water and prohibitively expensive air. It was never a priority to spin up, so the few permanent inhabitants will be born into and die in microgravity.

Once the Bonny is docked with about a half-dozen other ships in a rough-hewn dock built right into the ice, Claire goes over the plan with the crew, already suited up. The pirates are dressed in street clothes but are all concealing weapons. Claire and four pirates–-Lobos notices Sharma, the only non-Belter crew member and confidant of Claire’s, is among them–-along with Hinkley and Cas will meet with the buyer, Hector Cruz, leader of a splinter faction of the Jovian Collective, a militant but minor arm of the OPA in the Outers, in an old work tunnel cut into the moon. Claire and Lobos are familiar with Hector, he’s a blowhard radical, but an honourable blowhard radical at least. He could have the money he promised, so Claire will confirm that while the sample stays under heavy guard in the Bonny’s cargo hold. She doesn’t expect any trouble–-Prometheus is hardly big enough that bands of roving pirates could go unnoticed, and there’s a decent security firm presence. In case Hector’s people try anything, Lobos will be waiting at a service airlock nearby in the skiff. Payment comes through, Hector and two of his people come back to the Bonny, take the sample, everyone walks away happy.

Claire makes Lobos promise he'll only engage if there's trouble. She wants to just get the whole Bounty affair over with, but she thinks it's smart to have backup since a group of pirates will be remaining on the Bonny to guard the sample. Claire insists that Hinkley and Cas come with her to the meetup. Hinkley was part of the work detail that extracted the sample. Also, Zaki, Hinkley and Cas are technically still prisoners, and the pirates aren't happy about the fact that they even took survivors. Lobos learned pretty early on after coming aboard the Bonny that it wasn't part of the plan.

*

The Lahmu slips out of the dock. Zaki receives a message in the cockpit. "Repair sekiff, keting to du, ke?"

"Na im gut, kopeng!" Zaki responds cheerfully. "Mi pampa dzhemang foget im tools ere da náterash. Mi go ge im."

A beat. "Taki taki, sekiff. Tenye wa tim gut."

Claire had paid him off. It wasn’t unusual for a skiff to make a pickup from a discrete crater. As long as things stayed quiet none were the wiser.

Zaki followed an old ice mining line not too far from the docks and gently put down a few feet to the left of the door. A gentle lurch and all is still. "Milowda gut, pampa."

*

Claire, Hinkley, Cas, Sharma and the other four pirates take a little used service exit from the docks and head down an old mine converted into a makeshift emergency shelter for the station’s inhabitants. Little more than mining tunnels with air.

"All gut on da ground," Claire says into her ear piece. "Message from Hector that they’re coming in from the station. Im kowl gut."

Within the hour of docking, Zaki had Prometheus’ entire security system slaved to the Lahmu.

"Im na da impressive, Pampa," he said a little bashfully. "Inyalowda corp na update Prometheush OS ere wa lowng tim. Mi ta kang du xidawang fong wa owkwa kaka machine."

They were able to keep an eye on Hector and his people, practically uninterrupted, all day. There wasn’t much to see. They mostly sat drinking at the station’s one canteen. The OPA ship, a modest little rockhopper, arrived not long after the Bonny docked and other than a couple of Belters coming and going while they got a water top up, they didn’t get up to much. Zaki and the Bonny monitored the space around Prometheus. Other than two independent Belter rockhoppers in for a water and air top up, the hours since they arrived on the minor moon are quiet.

Zaki and Lobos watch the proceedings from the Lahmu, parked just outside of the service airlock from the early days, when Prometheus was just a place Belters scraped up some water on a long haul. Claire gathers her cadre and heads through the docks, down onto the small public promenade. Simultaneously, Hector and five of the largest of his OPA thugs peel off from the group at the canteen, who start settling up the tab. Both groups head for the same old water mining tunnel from different ends of the station.

"Señor Pesimista," Claire teases into her earpiece, direct to Lobos. "Na du worry Blue, mi ta ge xidawang."

Lobos had kept his eye on the Inner woman throughout the prep, but she seemed to be working seamlessly with the crew, oftentimes directly with Claire, comms and logistics. Sharma and Claire had a good rapport. Claire laughed off any suspicions about her, Sharma was straight with her, she claimed. "Gutmang."

They watch as Claire and Sharma head in first, followed by Cas, slouched and loping, with Hinkley beside him, alert, cool but clearly ready for trouble, with two more pirates behind them.

Inside of the tunnels the security feed is poor, the ancient low res cameras are only really meant to catch Belter kids sneaking in and making out. The ancient crags of the old, dark and dirty tunnels, the occasional busted light, they could make out the meeting as dark blobs. The audio, on the other hand, is crisp.

"Hector," Claire drawls at the juncture where the two meet.

"Claire, mi setara mali," Hector purrs back at her. "Milowda gonya fo ge wa drink ye, ke?"

"Na da diye xiya," Claire sighs back, exasperated. "Bera business."

She sounds cool and in control as Hector sighs and brags at his people about some trouble he and Claire got up to back in the good old days. Typical posturing. Zaki sighs in boredom.

"Setara mali, depelésh to ge da tip? Bik dinaro!" Hector asks as they sync their handhelds to make the initial exchange. Half to be taken to the sample, the other half once they’ve walked away with it alive.

"Inside source, hush hush," Claire shoots back, but it’s a warning. He’s not paying for information. "Keting ere to?"

Hector rocks on his heels, probably beaming like an excited little boy. "Oh, bik tings afut, sésata. Bik mang ere da OPA."

"Milowda ge im!" Zaki groans from the Lahmu’s cockpit. "To falotawala Anderson Dawes. Gut maliboy, go back fo Ceresh, sabaka!"

He keeps muttering to himself in annoyance.

Hector points to Hinkley and Cas, "Imalowda fong da kapawu?"

He doesn’t seem happy about that, and Claire starts to make the case that Hector takes them, alive, back to the OPA, unharmed. They could pay him on the other end, and it would be doing a favour for Claire. Maybe the OPA could use them?

"Pampa!" Zaki cries from the cockpit, frantically keying in on the security terminal. "Mi think mi see something! Amash... Im na kang bi wa kapawu! Mi na see anything on da scopes!"

Zaki’s pointing to a dark section of space just above the station from an exterior camera. Lobos thinks he sees something like the shape of a ship, but as dark as the space behind it. The only thing that makes it noticeable is the sudden absence of stars.