Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It's February 2021, a relatively mild summer by Sydney standards. The Kaiju war rages on around the Pacific; the Jaegers, once thought invincible, are starting to show cracks in their armor.

It's a tense time. Around every hole-in-the-wall bar in Sydney, there is talk about the future of the war, the effectiveness of the Jaegers, and the madness that is the Anti Kaiju Wall project, just now in its preliminary construction on both sides of the Pacific.

In this milieu, there is an event that would once have been unthinkable, but has become prosaic: A Kaiju attack.

Ironsides, a stocky Category II Kaiju, trundled out of the breach on a lazy Sunday morning and made its way towards Sydney, making landfall about a hundred miles north-northeast of the city proper. It crashed along the New South Wales coastline, quickly encountering the Australian Jaeger Echo Saber.

One of the most brutal Kaiju fights to date ensued. Ironsides, true to name, was a tough beastie; Echo Saber was able to put it down, but at a heavy mechanical toll. The Mark-4 won't be fighting any Kaiju for a while yet; in its place, standing sentinel over Australia, are Vulcan Specter and the newly commissioned Striker Eureka.

A week has passed since the attack, and the city is still abuzz. Newsfeeds on storeroom TVs are showing helicopter footage of the fight, still, and the country collectively winces at the sight of Ironsides tearing ragged metal chunks out of Echo Saber's side.

But in the Sydney underworld, a different kind of buzz is happening. According to rumor, something very important fell off of either the Kaiju or the Jaeger in their melee royale. The PPDC, it is said, are looking for it far and wide.

But Katie Horner wants to find it first.

The four people she’s contacted individually find their way to the designated meeting place: a fairly ritzy nightclub in Sydney. Neither too far on the black-tie end of the spectrum or the throbbing bass music side. Just average enough to be inconspicuous. It's still early, just after opening, and things haven't really started to ramp up yet.

As each of the four arrive, they each find places to sit. Sylvie Madsen, Miranda Cross, and Eleanor Cartier all find a booth together in the back, but Seiko Watanabe decides to keep an eye on them from a distance until Katie arrives. However, their would-be employer is nowhere to be seen...

Sylvie sits quietly, only occasionally glancing up from her phone at the others. Katie's messsage about a new job wasn't exactly what she'd wanted to get, especially since she has a feeling it had to do with that awful Kaiju that had just been put down and she isn’t looking forward to that. Messing around on the internet on her phone to distract herself seems like the best idea for now.

Across the table, Eleanor is sipping her overpriced chocolate martini and trying not to be noticeable in her several-years-outdated dress.

The final occupant of the table is Miranda, who has been mostly ignoring the people at the table. She's been looking around for any signs of Katie, but has yet to see any sign of her.

Seiko keeps his distance, but watches the group at the table carefully. He doesn’t order anything other than a water – thinking that it makes him look mysterious. He also reminds himself that he can’t really afford anything on the menu. Hopefully whatever Katie has called them all together for can change that. The girl’s always paid well in the past.

The three women in the booth fall into a sort of awkward silence, none really knowing how to start up a conversation. Eleanor guesses that they’re all wondering the same thing: What could have been in Katie's invitation to him that would make everyone want to come out like this so soon after an attack?

Eleanor remembers seeing someone that looked like Seiko sitting near the dance floor, but...No, it couldn't be him. She figures even the tastiest scoop (with the possibility of real money attached) probably wouldn't be enough to drag him out from hiding. Probably.

A text message interrupts Sylvie's surfing, from Syl-V back in the lab.

Syl-V: Are you being social at the meetup? You should talk to people.

Sylvie sighs and texts back, trying not to feel guilty that her AI is calling her out when she’s not even there.

Sylvie: No. We're just sitting here. I don't wanna say anything first.
Syl-V: I would say something if I were there.
Sylvie: No you wouldn't. Stop lying.

However, despite telling Vee that she was not going to be social, she glances up, looking at the others. "Has... um, has anyone heard from Katie yet?"

"Um. No, not yet," Eleanor says.

Miranda looks down at her phone briefly, then looks at the others at the table. "I haven't seen her."

Seiko watches the women at the table carefully. The club is quite loud so he's half tempted to join them while they wait, but as he is he’s there for business, not socializing. He stays put, pouring himself another glass of water as he longingly eyes the menu.

A waitress comes by, raises an eyebrow at the extremely awkward table of three and the loner in the corner – not that she's not used to *his* type around here. She heads to the table with the man first, asking him if he’d like anything from the bar.

Seiko waves her away. "No, thank you. I'm waiting to meet somebody."

With a sigh, the waitress lowers her pad and moves on to the next table, the one with the three women. She repeats her question to them as well.

"No, thank you," Sylvie says first, though she thinks she might wish she had one later. At the moment though, she'd rather have all her wits about her.

"I'm alright," Eleanor murmurs. She's been nursing the same damn martini for a half an hour, she's not about to let the waitress ruin her mystique now.

Miranda ignores the woman at first, trying to get a good look at the man at the table next to them. He’s doing a fairly good job of hiding his face, though, and she can’t quite make him out in the nightclub’s gloom. He looks a bit like Seiko, but she hasn’t seen him in months, so she can’t be sure. Finally, she turns her attention to the waitress. "Nothing for me, but send a virgin appletini to the man at that table there, with my regards."

Another text causes Sylvie’s phone to vibrate in her hand.

Syl-V: If we sync up and I find out that you didn't try to be social, I will run high-end algorithms while I’m in the drift with you. Do you really want to go through that?

Wincing, Sylvie puts her phone down again. Looking for a way to start up a conversation, she glances over her shoulder at the man in Miranda has just ordered a drink for. She doesn’t recognize him. She turns back to Miranda, raising an eyebrow. "Are you flirting with strangers before Katie gets here?"

"Possibly." Miranda takes a drink from her water in a way she hopes seems mysterious.

A few moments later, the waitress brings the Seiko the drink. “Compliments of the lady over there, sir.” Seiko pushes the drink away, but after a minute, he takes a surreptitious sip. Grimacing, he scoots it back and tries his best to look disdainful. Who would drink an appletini? Disgusting.

As Seiko frowns at his drink, a tall, fairly well chiseled man wanders up to the table with Miranda, Sylvie, and Eleanor. He’s accompanied by two other men, who are staying back a bit and obviously showing him some deference. He's quite evidently been pre-gaming, as the club hasn't been open for long enough for him to have gotten quite as drunk as he so obviously is. "Well, hey there."

Sylvie blinks, shooting a look at her two companions. "Can we... um, help you, sir?"

Eleanor glares at the newcomer, willing him with her mind to walk away. “Did you want a drink? You can have mine," she drawls, voice dripping with disinterest. "I really don't want it."

"Naw, naw. 'Sh good. I was gonna ask you all if you wanted some... company, yanno?" He slurs the words, a sloppy grin on his face. Behind him, his friends start nodding as though he's just let the three women in on the big secret of existence.

"Our party's rather...full, at the moment. And not in a double-entendre way, either," Eleanor adds hastily. Should've ordered a less inviting drink, she thinks. Martinis are too flirty.

"Yeah, I... um, think we're good," Sylvie says, feeling terribly awkward. This is exactly why she usually stays out of places like this.

Miranda types at her phone, trying to project boredom towards the men, hoping they go away.

"Aw, c'mon. 'Snot like you were doin' nothin' anyway." His flat American vowels clash with the usual tenor of the bar. He grabs a chair from Seiko's booth without asking and noisily drags it across the floor.

Eleanor sniffs. "Well, it's not like you are anything, either."

"Um, I think it might be best if you leave." Sylvie says. "We're here to meet someone, okay?” Oh, Vee's gonna have a field day with this...

He sits down heavily in his stolen chair – he's the kind of person who is used to moving around drunk, but retains alcohol's usual clunkiness. If he understood the insults pointed at him, he's focused enough to ignore them. "I'm Rick. Jaeger pilot, y'know? Savin' the Earth and shit."

Eleanor’s frown gets even darker. Oh goddammit, another wannabe Jaeger pilot…. "Look... sir... you really shouldn't be committing fraud in public like this," she says, an idea coming to her suddenly. "You realize that you're falsely impersonating a celebrity in front of a table of lawyers, don't you?"

Rick, if that really is his name, scrunches his forehead in a way that makes his eyebrows look wider. It's rather disconcerting. "Wait, I, uh, what?"

As the topic shifts to something Sylvie knows something about, she smiles. Meeting the drunken man’s eyes, she tips her head in a mock-questioning manner, rattling off questions. "Oh, so you're a pilot? Which Jaeger do you run, exactly? Or did you mean to say that you're in the piloting program? What are your simulator stats? Drop-to-kill rate?"

He whips around to glare at Sylvie. "What the hell do you know, huh? I pilot, uh..." He looks down at the beer can his hand. "Pabst Crusher. In America. And I'm the best one there is at the Shattle Setterdome."

One table over, Seiko snorts quietly into his appletini.

Sylvie’s tone is all-out mocking now. “Oh wow, it's so amazing that I've never heard of you before then. Or the 'Shattle Setterdome'. You wouldn't happen to have the specs and kill counts written down on that beer can that so conveniently shares your Jaeger’s name, would you? I’m guessing not."

Eleanor addresses him even before he can react to Sylvie’s attack. "Now really, Dick? That was your name, wasn't it? You really need to pick your audience better. Why don't you go home and think about that for a while. Think about the people here who don't want impersonators running rampant in our city, and what we might do to a squishy little guy like you."

Rick stands up, red in the face, looking like he's about to make an angry retort. Or possibly punch someone. Or maybe vomit, it's not really clear.

Miranda continues to type on her phone, finally looking up after him. Eleanor smiles triumphantly and finally, finally, takes a real sip of her drink. Sylvie gives him a small shrug, smiling confidently.

Rick eventually makes up his mind and, instead of doing any of those other things, just bursts into tears and runs out of the club. As he passes, Seiko slips from his booth and quietly follows him out. The man’s two wingmen look at the women at the table in astonishment before hurrying after their friend.

Outside in the somewhat cramped alley, Seiko corners the still-sobbing man. The would-be Jaeger pilot is, it seems, a weepy drunk. "Excuse me sir,” Seiko says smoothly. "Those ladies were kind enough not to press charges, but I'm a rather concerned citizen. In these dangerous times we can't allow blatant impersonation of our heroes to go unpunished, can we?"

After the verbal attack he’s just received, Rick is hardly in a state to respond at the moment. He blubbers something incomprehensible, but seems inclined to acquiesce to whatever demands Seiko might make.

Seiko puts a stiff attempt at a comforting hand on his back. At that moment however, his two friends find them outside and quickly sidle up alongside the two of them. Seiko curses mentally; he’d forgotten about them.

"Hey! What are you doing?" One of them shouts.

Seiko puts on what he hopes is a disarming smile, turning towards them. He steps back from their emotionally compromised companion. “Ah. Your friend was about to get himself into a tight spot. I was just warning him away. He could end up in quite a bit of trouble in this state, you know. You should get him home."

They look suspicious, but eventually just grab either arm of their rather emotional compatriot and haul him out of the club, eyeing Seiko warily as they do so. After they’ve gone, Seiko scowls, bitter that he’s returning to the club without even a little bit of the drunks’ money. He’d been so close, too. He sulks back into the nightclub, dropping into his booth once more and knocking back the entire appletini. As dramatically has he can.

Back at the women’s booth, Sylvie eyes her two companions for a moment, then starts laughing. "Okay, that was almost fun. Maybe I should come to places like this more often if telling off morons is involved."

Eleanor nods, laughing in a way that could be considered a giggle. If she weren't a “lawyer,” of course. That thought inspires a truly lawyerlike snort.

Miranda allows herself to relax a bit as well. "I'll admit, your handling of him was quite impressive."

Sylvie shrugs, blushing a bit at the compliment. "I may not know much when it comes to seedy bars and such, but don't mess with me when it comes to the piloting program. I helped make half those simulators and I've fought through the other half. I'll take down drunk piloting posers any day."

Eleanor smiles a little in Sylvie's direction. "Nice off the cuff socializing, though," she says.

Even as the three begin to break the ice over their mutual enjoyment of shutting down lying drunks, Katie Horner walks into the club in a fedora and sunglasses. She spots the group at the booth, and sits down in one of the chairs Rick just vacated. 

She gives the group a winning smile. "I see y'all were able to make it."

Miranda looks pointedly at Katie. "It's the middle of the night. Why are you wearing sunglasses?"

Seiko sighs as he sees Katie arrive, finally getting up and joining the others at the booth. Katie has even more money than the drunk guy and he’s not planning on this night being a total loss. He takes a seat beside her, ignoring the looks he gets from Miranda and Eleanor. "Good evening Ms. Horner. It's a pleasure to see you."

Sylvie frowns at the newcomer, quizzically. "I don’t think I know you. Have we met before?"

"No, I don’t believe we have,” Seiko says. With a slightly cruel twist, he adds: “though I feel like I've seen your face around? Somewhere in the news, perhaps? Perhaps you won a spelling bee as a child?"

Sylvie's eyes widen in alarm just a bit and she looks down quickly. "Oh, no… I think you're, uh, mistaking me for someone else. I don't think I've ever met you, so you couldn't know me."

Miranda kicks Seiko under the table.

Seiko doesn’t outwardly react to the attack on his shins, but decides to let Sylvie off the hook. "Ah yes. I remember now. The programmer. I admire your work. I’ve worked with Ms. Horner in the past."

"As have I, as of late,” Sylvie says, still feeling slightly embarrassed. “Nice to meet you, I guess, Mr. uh..."

Katie pulls of her sunglasses, glares at Miranda, and nods at Seiko. She answers Sylvie’s question before he has a chance to. "Seiko Watanabe. He's a bit of a low-life but he knows his way around."

Sylvie gives Katie a quick can-I-trust-this-guy look, hoping she'll give a nod or something. Katie shrugs.

Eleanor notices the small exchange, and smiles slightly. "He's trustworthy, if that's what you're wondering," Eleanor says wryly. “By the way: Hi, Katie.”

Seiko scoffs. "I'm really not."

Eleanor shrugs. “Well, close enough for the moment."

At Eleanor’s comment, Sylvie starts, trying to back out of the comment. "Oh, I wasn't trying to..." The looks around the table quickly tell her no one is buying it. She sighs. "Well, I suppose it can't hurt much. I'm Sylvie. Sylvie Mansen."

"I know,” Seiko says, inwardly enjoying Sylvie’s reactions a bit more than he should. “Though I thank you for the introduction. Your work really is quite impressive. I'm always happy to be working around talent."

The programmer sighs heavily, feeling rather embarrassed at the whole ordeal. "Someday I'm going to get used to being slightly infamous, I swear. I'm surprised you've followed my work though. Thanks, I guess."

"Speaking of work,” Katie says, deftly bringing the conversation back around, “let me get a drink and then we can talk business. Can I get any of y’all anything?"

“The usual,” Seiko says smoothly. He mentally reviews his accent to make sure he doesn't start sounding Southern now that Katie's around as he claims to be an Australia native most of the time.

"I'll take a water, if you don't mind,” Sylvie says, thinking having a drink to hide behind might be a good idea.

"I think I'll stick with my..." Eleanor looks at her neglected martini and sighs. "You know what, I'll take a water too. Maybe a salad for me, too," It would give her something else to mess with for a while, instead of having more real human interactions.

Miranda scans the menu for the most expensive item, knowing that Katie’s picking up the tab. "One of these, if it's not too much trouble," she says, putting on a saccharine grin and pointing.

Katie calls a waitress over and orders the lot, plus an expensive beer for herself.

"So, Katie," Sylvie says once the waitress leaves. "What exactly is this job you've got for us? And why do I have the sinking suspicion that it involves that rotting Kaiju corpse that Echo took out?"

"I was hoping someone would ask that," Eleanor says with a conspiratorial smile. "Do you have some leads that I haven't heard about, Katie?"

Seiko looks vaguely annoyed, the first real expression he's shown since sitting down. He just can’t understand Katie’s obsession with the creatures. He’d been hoping that this job would just involve schmoozing. People are easy; Kaiju are repulsive.

"I don't know if y'all have heard the rumors," says Katie, taking a swig of her fancy beer, “but the PPDC lost something during the fight with Ironsides. And whatever it was, they want it back."

Sylvie leans forward. "Define 'lost.' And clarify 'something'?"

Eleanor waves a hand. "Oh, you know the PPDC, they lose things all the time." She decides not to mention that those "things" sometimes include people.

Miranda looks at Katie intently. "People are saying lots of things. What makes you sure this information is legitimate?"

"Well,” Katie says, “it turns out a fishing boat managed to slip into the resticted area around the kill site.  By accident, I'm sure. But someone on board had a video camera."

Eleanor narrowed her eyes. "Would this 'somebody' happen to be...open to persuasion? Perhaps of the monetary variety?"

"Or the loved ones variety?" Seiko suggests quietly.

Katie smirks at Eleanor, pretending she didn’t hear Seiko’s addition.  "They were. It looks like the PPDC are trawling the area.  They've got several ships out there."

Eleanor considers this, fighting the urge to steeple her fingers. She just barely succeeds in quashing it.

"Katie, what exactly is the thing?" Sylvie says, cursing Katie’s sense of drama.

Seiko glances at the tables around them carefully. "Perhaps that's a conversation for elsewhere?"

“Ain't sure,” she says, her excitement making her American South drawl more noticeable. “Did you see the news coverage of the big fight?  Something fell in the fray.  The publicly available video is too low-res to get a good idea what it was, though. I was actually hoping Miranda could help me with that."

Miranda shrugs slightly. "I may be able to find something out, but I'm curious as to why you care."

"You don’t? Eleanor is genuinely surprised. "You do realize that a find like this could mean millions in the...alternative sector, right?" She doesn't say ‘black market,’ but it's pretty heavily implied.

"Of course I do," Miranda folded her arms on the table. "And I also realize that Ms. Horner isn't the usual sort of trader.”

"I'm in," Seiko says bluntly. He keeps his reasons to himself.

"I could use hardware upgrades, and I'm curious about this 'something' that everyone's so worked up about. I'll help if you need me." Sylvie says.

"Lemme know if you need a shrink," Eleanor puts in, half-jokingly.

Miranda speaks up again, hesitant. “I'm simply curious as to what Katie’s stake is here." Glancing at the others around the table, she sighs lightly. "But… this item needs to be found, so please, don't let me stop you."

Eleanor shrugs. "We can decide what to do with it if and when we find it. Sounds fair."

"Whatever 'it' is..." Sylvie points out.

"Yep." Eleanor jabs her fork into her salad. "I'm hoping it's a hunk of Kaiju. That would be great for my offshore bank account. Oh… did I say that out loud?" she adds to no one in particular.

Katie looks entirely pleased that her team is coming together. "So, the terms I'm proposing are: I'll finance the project, in exchange for an additional 10% of our total profits. We split the rest 5 ways."

"We ‘lawyers’ should be able to sort this out, right?" Eleanor asks, smiling around a mouthful of greens.

"And,” Katie says, laying her full offer out, “I can front you each 10 grand, American money."

Sylvie takes a quick drink of her water to try to hide her eyebrows rising at the figure. It doesn't work very well. She sets the glass down again. "Well, I knew there was a reason I keep coming back to help with your jobs, Katie."

Eleanor swallows, noisily. "Sounds fair to me."

Seiko doesn’t outwardly react to the offer. “It might be easier to pay us in Australian,” he says. “Arouse less suspicion. It's not much of a difference. 12K in Australian.”

"I can help make the switch,” Eleanor says. “Give me 3 days."

"I'll see what I can do, as well," Miranda replies, sliding her hands under the table.

A thought occurs to Seiko. "Do we have a boat?"

Miranda pauses mid-bite, turning slowly to stare at him. "That... is an excellent question."

Eleanor and Sylvie both look to Katie. Eleanor slowly raises her eyebrows.

Katie grins.  "We do."

Seiko nods and takes a sip of wine, outwardly calm, but on the inside, he’s rather worried about the quality of said ship. He’s not fond of water travel in the first place, and with a Kaiju involved, it’s even worse. The things I do for money…

Eleanor had suspected that the kaijuologist would've had something up her sleeve. Or, she muses, on it. But that was not a conversation for the dinner table. "Good," she says.

"I really hope you've got wi-fi," Sylvie says. "I don't like being cut off for long periods of time. And Vee gets antsy and bored without the internet."

"If you've got the hardware, I could probably whip something up..." Sylvie immediately starts thinking up ways that they might be able to get a good enough signal to work. She’d figure something out.

"And when will our...” Seiko grimaces, “…cruise be taking place?"

"We will have wi-fi once someone gets it set up,” Katie says.

 "If you don't mind,” Miranda cuts in. “I'd like to give the ship an inspection before this voyage takes place. I'd like to avoid sailing into a slick of kaiju blue without the proper preparations."

"That's a good plan,” Eleanor says. “A very good plan."

"Well, I have some preparations to make,” Seiko says, standing to leave. Business was settled and he didn’t have any plans to stay and socialize. “Katie knows my contact information when things are ready."

"She's apparently got all of ours as well,” Sylvie pointed out.

Seiko’s move to exit prompts the others to do the same. Sylvie takes one last drink of her water, mind already working over the ways she might get wi-fi out on the water. Vee might have some ideas… Miranda stays quiet as she grabs her things to head out. Eleanor throws a wave over her shoulder as she departs. There may or may not be salad dressing on her coat. She isn't telling.

Chapter Text

Scene 1

A few days after the meeting at the club, at Sydney Harbor docks, around sunset, an outwardly shabby, but freshly painted, short-hop freighter bobs in the waves, gangplank extended. A group of five has gathered once more on the pier, looking up at the vessel they’ll soon be boarding.

Seiko is dead pale looking at the shabby ship. He fights down the urge to throw up. Boats themselves are bad enough, but this one looks about ready to go under at the slightest touch.

Sylvie shoulders her all-too-heavy duffle bag. "This is it then? It's... not much to look at."

“It's sure...something," Eleanor says. The attempt at optimism falls a little flat thanks to the uncertain look on her face.

"It is most definitely something." says Katie, slightly defensive of her ship. "Onboard wi-fi.  About five different remote-sensing instruments. A fully-equipped laboratory.  Plenty of hidden weapons and compartments. Quarters're a bit cramped, but we'll get used to it."

Miranda nods approvingly, confirming each of Katie’s claims. "It's not the most glamorous ship, but from what I've seen, it should fit our needs quite well."

 Eleanor's eyes steadily grow wider and wider. "I...could live with that."

Seiko, however, hears cramped quarters and begins almost imperceptibly backing away.

Katie glares around at the others.  "So y'all stop complaining.  I paid good money for this."

Sylvie shrugs, the motion shifting her pack again. "More to it than meets the eye, then? So long as there's wi-fi, I can make do."

"And I better be getting paid good money for this" Seiko mutters under his breath, gripping the handle on his rolling briefcase nervously.

Eleanor tosses Seiko a glance. "I think we already made some ‘good’ money," she says. "Unless your definition differs greatly from mine."

"Can we, uh, board, Katie?" Sylvie asks wincing. "Vee's hardware and the Pons are killing my shoulder over here, and I'd like to get everything hooked in and running if I can."

"May as well!" says Katie.  "Just make yourself at home."

Sylvie gratefully starts up the ramp, "If anyone needs me, I'll probably be in the tech room, setting up."

Miranda moves to follow the programmer, but hesitates halfway aboard. "Does she have a name?" she asks, turning back.

Tranquility!" Katie says, beaming like a mother introducing one of her children.

"Ah," Eleanor murmurs, spotting a half-hidden "Tranq" under some rust on the hull. "Of course..."

"Hmm." Miranda turns back and walks the rest of the way aboard. "Well then, here's hoping she lives up to her name."

Scene 2

Chapter Text

Night has fallen over New South Wales.

The Tranquility cuts through the water south of Port Stephens with a grace that belies its appearance. The crew has passed the time – what wasn't spent bickering with one another – planning how they're going to get in and grab the Jaeger piece before either being spotted or scooped.

But their plans go over the railing immediately upon arrival.

The PDCC picket is there, all right. But it's in shambles. At least one of their ships has a plume of smoke rising from it, barely visible in the darkness. And new, unfamiliar ships are there as well. Gunfire crackles over the bay, washed out like a staticky radio.

It seems the Sydney Scroungers were neither the first or second to try and claim the prize sitting beneath Port Stephens....

It remains to see if they'll be successful.

Up on the bridge, Miranda slows the Tranquility, bringing her to a stop a reasonable distance from the action. She wasn't sure what she had been expecting, but it certainly wasn't this. She cranes her head around the wheel, trying to get a better look at the boats ahead. Down below, she sees the others start to gather on the deck and settles in to wait and see what they decide.

Seiko is the last to join the group at the railing, after taking time to get ready below decks. He has loaded his briefcase with guns, sent his siblings an email telling them he has the day off from work and some kind lies about spending it on a nature hike. He's also changed into ruddy worker's clothes, expecting that whatever the new plan may be, it will probably involve some hard work.

"Well Ms. Horner,” he says calmly. “You're the boss. Do we go in guns blazing, or do you have a back-up plan?"

Katie looks out across the dark waters. "Let's get an idea of what we're up against.  Sylvie, can Vee give us any info about who's out there?"

“I’ll see what I can do,” Sylvie says, then switches to subvocalization. "Vee, can you shed any light on what we’re up against? What are we dealing with here?" The patches on her neck carry her questions to Syl-V, still hooked up to Tranquility's systems.

Vee responds through Sylvie’s earpiece and Katie’s tablet. “It will take a few moments to aggregate the data. Apologies.”

“Get back to us when you can,” Sylvie says.

Eleanor stands with the others, listening to the plans being made. She has ducked and covered a few times in her life, so she has no problem doing so now. While peeking over the railing, of course. "Are they officials or pirates?" she asks the ship at large.

"Seeing as the PPDC ship is down, most likely pirates.” Seiko says with a disinterested tone. “I hope so. Killing criminals tends to involve a lot less money and paperwork later"

"I...suppose that's true," Eleanor says, a little warily. "Although I'm not so worried about the paperwork at the moment."

“I have a data report now.” Vee's voice comes through every speaker she's got access to: those on the bridge, Sylvie's earpiece, and any tablets hooked into her system. "We have multiple ships engaged in naval combat, about a mile distant. I recognize six standard-issue PPDC cruisers, and two PPDC salvage ships. There are also five ships of an unknown make and model engaging them. These unknown ships appear well outfitted, equipped for night stealth. They seem to be siding with a larger ship on their side as well, likely another salvage vessel.

"Total number of combatants: 14. 6 cruisers and 2 salvage make 8 for the PPDC, 5 cruisers and 1 salvage make 6 for the opposing side."

Seiko squints into the darkness, then talks toward Katie’s tablet, hoping her microphone is on. "I need additional information on that other ship. Any marks visible?"

“All non-PPDC vessels are solid black in color. I cannot distinguish any visible markings on them," Vee responds.

Katie thinks on that for a moment. “What would it take for you and Miranda to hack their comms?"

“And how fast are they approaching?" Eleanor interjects. I can't believe I got myself into this, she thinks, a tiny bit hysterically. I'm a psychologist! Without even a GUN! God, I'm a failure. I should have at least brought a knife.

Up on the bridge, Miranda starts listing off her own questions to the AI. “Any way you can tell how many of them are still in the fight? How many still look active? Weapons, maneuvers, people scurrying across the decks..?"

Vee takes a moment to process all of the questions directed towards her before speaking again. “I cannot discern any strategy or activity levels from this distance. The systems on this ship are not accurate enough for me to sense such things. I am not sensing any change in course from either side. It seems reasonable to assume that they do not yet know we are here.”

"Vee, can you tell Miranda to turn off the lights and keep the engine quiet?" Katie asks.

Miranda cuts the engine and turns off the lights. She also puts some covers over the fancier-looking equipment on the bridge. Then she grabs the microphone to talk to the group herself. Her voice comes through the tablet speakers down below. “Understood and done. Vee’s broadcasting your conversation to me up here, assume I can hear everything you’re saying.”

As his companions are throwing questions about, Seiko decides it’s a good time to pull out about three guns. "I have some advice for you all. If we start to lose-"

Katie turns sharply at the motion. "Now, Seiko. Don't start shooting.  I don't want them to know we're here before they have to."

Seiko nods once, but continues to ready his weapons. "Just don't let them take you alive. I think I know who this is."

Sylvie glances at him, raising an eyebrow. "Care to share with the group?"

“Karen Wulagu,” Seiko says. "There's money enough behind this if she has some sort of interest. Try to keep your face hidden if you can help it as well. I've had the fortune to remain on her good side and I prefer to keep it that way."

Take us alive?! Eleanor thinks, unable to keep her eyes off of the distant ships. She starts to feel decidedly queasy at this operation. She gulps quietly. I used to talk people THROUGH this sort of thing. Why can't I handle it myself? Okay, maybe I was called in after the events, but...this is pathetic.

Seiko notices Eleanor’s discomfort, despite her attempts hide it. He reaches into his briefcase, and pulls out a pistol, handing it to her. "Know how to use this?"

"Well, yes," Eleanor says a little huffily, clutching it as she kneels on the deck. "I had the same training as everyone else." She glances around. "And uh, thanks."

"Just point and shoot,” he says. “If you can't keep it together, then try to look menacing and try not to shoot anybody important."

Eleanor nods at Seiko. "Got it." I'll try not to shoot anyone, if I can help it, she thinks.

Satisfied that Eleanor is handled for now, Seiko turns back to Katie, knowing that any final decision on their plans will come from her. "My preference would be to let them try and take each other out,” he says. “Then we go for the winner. Although,” he pauses, thinking. “Vee, any way to tell if either of them are calling back-up?"

"I cannot communicate with any of their systems," Vee replies. "If they're using shortwave or wi-fi to communicate, the only way to tune in would require us being within range."

"How close is 'in range'?" Katie starts pacing the dark deck as she speaks, beginning to hatch a plan.

Both the original and artificial Sylvie/Syl-V say "It depends" at the same time. The echoing resonance is slightly creepy.

"On what?" Katie asks, pausing in her walk.

Sylvie cocks her head, thinking. "Well, if they've got low-end systems the range could be very short - which would make it hard. On the other hand, if they've got very advanced systems, it stands to reason that they would also have some kind of security. My guess would be towards the latter. Vee said they look well-equipped, and I doubt they'd be engaging the PPDC if they thought their systems could be easily hacked."

Miranda speaks up as well through the microphone. "I could try to get us in range, but they're more likely to notice us the closer we get."

Seiko frowns at Katie. "I wouldn't try betting our lives on tech."

Katie keeps her eyes locked on the programmer. “There is a whole lot of difference between 'not easily hacked' and 'unhackable', though.  Do you think you could do it if we were close enough?"

Sylvie winces. "Nothing's unhackable. But without giving ourselves away? And up against any kind of security, that we might be able to access over a short tech distance? There's no way to do it without entering the fight.” She shrugs. "It's your choice, Katie. If you get me close enough to try, I'll give it my best shot, but there's no promises and they'd probably detect us."

Katie purses her lips.  "Could you do it without the onboard computer?  Just with the tablet?"

Sylvie's eyes go wide. "Why?"

"No reason..."

"You're asking me to give up over half of my processing power, access to an actual keyboard, and force Syl-V to do this over the wi-fi, for 'no reason'?" Sylvie says flatly. "I'm not saying I can't, but it'll make things quite a bit harder. Why do you want me to use the tablet?"

"Well, if you can't, then I won't ask you to,” Katie says. “I had a bit of an idea, but I don't think you'd like it."

"Hey, I said I might be able to pull it off, but it depends on how good this idea is," Sylvie says, curious. "What are you thinking?"

“Well," says Katie, fairly certain that Sylvie will say no.  "I was thinking a smaller vehicle would be harder to find.  We do have water scooters in the hold..."

Seiko winces at the mention of water scooters. As though being on this boat wasn’t bad enough. "Wouldn't it be easier to just... stay on the boat? I mean, I have never tried hacking from the water, but I don’t think I would recommend it."

Sylvie frowns. "Well, then. That would take us out of our wi-fi range. I'd have to have a copy of Syl-V running on the tablet itself... and then try to hack and run her on this processor alone. And, I haven't run simultaneous copies of Vee since..." She trails off, looking upset.

Shaking her head, she comes back to the moment. "If you think it's the best idea, I'd probably be doing this alone. I can't have Syl-V eating up processing power on this thing while I'm working out there - especially if their systems are as advanced I'm thinking they might be."

"Hmmm..." Katie frowns. "How hard would it be to get a copy of Vee on their computers the way you did to ours?"

"We'd have to be on the ship, and plugging in directly," Sylvie says. "The only other way would be that I'd have to finishing hacking into their systems before trying to send her entire personality program over the wi-fi and forcing their systems to accept her file. Which might take a while to download and then boot up. By the time we got it to work, there'd be no need for it."

Miranda drums her hands absently on the wheel. "I hate to spoil this beautiful exercise in all things hypothetical, but perhaps we should decide on a plan before the battle ends?" As if caused by her words, one of the black ships erupts with a cascade of flame.

"Ooh," Eleanor says, trying not to sound too relieved. Maybe their opponents would just burn out, as it were, on their own.

"Ok," says Katie, the ship catching flame solidifying her plan.  "Here's the plan.  We're gonna hit one of the ships on the perimeter, get in, and find out as much about their operation as we can. I imagine if we get a Vee into their onboard systems she can send us whatever files they have. Miranda! Get us as close as you can to that ship without being detected."

Miranda starts up the ship, keeping the lights off and the engine low. "Aye aye, Captain."

"Anyone coming with me on this little mission?" Sylvie asks, trying to put herself in the right mindset for a mission like this.

"Well of course I am,” Katie says.

Eleanor swallows again. "If you need backup, I'm...willing to help." She doesn't think the word "happy" applies here, but--well, close enough.

Seiko holds out his hand to her expectantly. "Eleanor, I believe you have something of mine. If you're going underwater, you're not taking my piece with you.”

"You, uh, yeah. That makes sense." Eleanor hands him the pistol, butt first.

"Okay then,” Katie says, “there's scuba gear in the hold."

The group heads down to the hold to get drysuits, goggles, and scuba gear. Sylvie grabs a one-shouldered waterproof backpack as well, slipping her tablet and laptop into the bag and making sure the seal is tight. Both of the electronics are supposed to be waterproof, but she figures drenching them is probably not the best idea.

As she returns to the deck, Seiko is setting up the sniper rifle and begins looking through the scope to see when he will be in sight to start taking people down. Katie comes up the stairs behind her, also suited up. Eleanor is the last to make it up, tugging surreptitiously at the seams of her drysuit.

"You're not coming, Seiko?" Sylvie asks.

"I find cover fire tends to work best from above the water," he says flatly. "Where guns actually work."

Eleanor stifles a laugh. "I really can't see you being happy in water anyway," she says, remembering the nauseated look on his face when he first stepped on the deck.

"Don't give away your position if you don't have to," Katie says. Seiko nods once.

Sylvie switches to subvoking as she pulls the suit's hood up. "Vee, how upset would... you of five hours ago be to find out that you'd been split into a simultaneous run? Just... gimme an estimate?"

Vee takes a while to respond. "You're going to run a backup from the laptop?" There's an accusation in her words.

"I don't know what I'm gonna find in there, Vee," Sylvie says. "I might really need you. I know... I said we wouldn't do this again but..."

Vee's response is short. "She/I will cooperate. But don't expect her to be happy about it."

"Noted." Sylvie says.

After a moment, Vee speaks again. "Sylvie. Don't leave her/me behind. Get her/me out."

Sylvie closes her eyes. "I will, Vee. I promise."

Miranda’s voice comes over the speakers. “Captain, we are in position. I don’t think I can get any closer to them without entering the fight.”

Katie nods, turning to Sylvie and Eleanor. “We’re off then. Let’s go.”

The three drop into the cold water, each carrying a small water scooter. They fire up the propellers and kick off, streaking through the darkness toward the enemy ship. Halfway across the distance, Eleanor flounders, one of her flippers getting stuck to itself. As she struggles to right herself, she loses track of her depth, accidentally breaking the surface as they approach. Katie notices, quickly maneuvering herself to help. As she overtakes Eleanor, reaches out and quickly fixes her flipper, then swims on ahead.

Two of the guards on the enemy deck start to notice Katie and Eleanor in the water. Seiko immediately trains his sniper rifle on one of the sentries and hopes the direction of the shot will get lost in the general chaos. He fires, and the man drops, forcing his companion to look away from the water as he tries to locate the shooter.

Despite Seiko’s cover fire, Miranda is able to keep the ship out of sight fairly easily. She's a bit concerned about the gunshots coming from the perch above her, but pushes her concerns to the back of her mind. After sending a text.

Unaware of her companions’ struggles, Sylvie manages to navigate the dark waters, reaching the ship without a problem. She surfaces as quietly as she can in the shadow of the ship, but hears voices cry out on the deck above her. She ducks, trying to hide, until she realizes that it's Katie and Eleanor who have been spotted in their approach, a ways away from her. Feeling a moment of panic, she has no idea whether she should help them and risk revealing herself, or stay where she is and hope they don't see her.

Chapter Text

Scene 1

The Sydney Scroungers are in a bit of a tight spot. Their easy snatch-and-grab turned into a tense operation in the middle of a turf war between the PPDC and Karen Wulagu’s black market syndicate. They hatched a plan to suborn one of Wulagu’s ships, but the boarding party got split up mid-crossing.

Miranda eases the boat through the water, and manages to get really close to the other boat without being detected. The captain and crew of the Wulagu syndicate ship remain blissfully unaware.

Out on the deck, Seiko takes a good look at the boat and stays ready to take out anybody who’s spotted Eleanor. Or, well, anybody else who seems to be a problem.

In the water between the two ships, Katie almost panics when she first hears the gunshot, but she forces herself to breathe normally, and maneuvers her scooter to the syndicate ship, where she finds a ladder and climbs aboard.

After Katie helps right her, Eleanor tries to get her bearings for a few moments, watching the bubbles trickle out of her regulator at an ever-increasing pace. After a few seconds she realizes that this means she is hyperventilating. Deep breaths. In, out, in, she recites to herself. Panicking won’t do anyone any good. The bubbles recede to a point that she’s comfortable with—or rather, at least to a point where her air supply won’t run out in a matter of minutes. She gathers her wits to move forward again.

Miranda checks over the neighboring ship, surprised at how close she was able to get. Heck, maybe this whole infiltration thing hadn’t been necessary after all. These guys were really unobservant; it wouldn’t surprise her if they couldn’t even notice a group of people flailing in the water.

She pulls out her phone, sending a mass text to the other members of the team.

Miranda: I managed to get right up next to them without being noticed.
Miranda: Ready for extraction whenever you’re done.
Miranda: How are things on your end?

Seiko gives her a long, dry list of the exact position of every other person on the ship. With occasional accidental commentary on what he thinks of their professionalism, of course. 

Katie also quickly texts back.

Katie: Aboard
Katie: Think Sylvie is also
Katie: Will try meet her @ cockpit
Katie: Let me know El progress
Katie: Seiko cover me
Seiko: Need a distraction? I find shots on the other side of the ship are quite distracting.
Katie: This IS the distraction. Get ready.

As soon as she hits send, she tosses a loose bolt at the feet of one of the guards on the far side of the ship.  It rolls past him and lands at the feet of a second guard.

One of the guards snaps his head up, immediately looking for the source of the noise with an intent expression. He must be fun at parties. The other takes a little longer to respond, bending over to look at the bolt that landed at his feet.

Seiko takes aim, takes a breath, and with one shot takes out the first two around the corner. He smiles to himself. That was a good shot.

An alarm begins to blare aboard the Wulagu ship. Suddenly, they’re all looking around frantically for the sniper — so focused that they don’t stop to think who might be on their own ship.

Eleanor manages to find a handhold on the side of the ship, and she focuses all her energy on heaving herself upward. She’s so focused on the physical aspects of the climb, though, that she doesn’t notice her slipping scuba tank until it smacks against the railing of the ship with a loud–and very noticeable–CLANG. She winces, and tries to hunker down against the side of the ship. Surely those sirens maskedsome of the noise. She glances to the side…

…to see one very surprised guard sitting right next to her.

Or not, Eleanor thinks, spotting the guard with a flash of panic.

The guard moves to throw her off the ship. Eleanor drops to the deck and swings one leg out in an attempt to trip the goon. He isn’t prepared for this, and doesn’t get to toss her off the boat, but he’s not taking this lying down.

Scene 2

Already on the enemy ship, Sylvie still feels rattled from the swim over, and the gunshot cracking nearby didn’t help. She checks her pack to make sure the waterproof seal held, then sets out for the cockpit. She feels a buzzing from her backpack – her phone receiving a text – but she doesn’t think to pull it out.

She manages to make her way up to what seems to be the command center of the ship. Moving as quietly as she can, she manages to make it all the way without incident, seeing no one but a guard stupid enough to fall asleep at his post. She sneers at him as she passes, then takes a moment outside the cockpit door to collect herself.

She finds a corner nearby where she won’t be seen, hoping she’s close enough to connect to their equipment. She crouches down, back to the wall, and slides her bag off of her back and starts unpacking her equipment. Everything seems to be in working order. She places her subvocalization patches on her neck, then pulls out her thin laptop. Taking a deep breath, she presses the power button. Please don’t be too upset with me for this, Vee…

The computer boots up quickly, the startup operations syncing with Sylvie’s patches quickly. Sylvie slips her earpiece in, and quickly starts subvoking. “Vee, you there?”

Vee’s voice comes back quickly. “Confirmed. Where am I now? Are we on Katie’s ship?”

 ”We’re… on an enemy ship. I need you to help me hack into their systems and drain them of information, ‘kay?” Sylvie winces, then adds, “Also… you’re running simultaneously with a version of you in our ship’s nav systems.”

Vee’s response seems on the verge of shorting out. That tends to happen when strong emotions eat her processing power. “Simultaneous r-r-run. You said that we- we- we wouldn’t run- After what hap- happened last time.”

"I know, I know," Sylvie subvokes. "And I’m sorry. If there was any other way I would have done it! It won’t happen again! But right now I need you to help me with this! If you want to get back to her to sync up, we’ve got to get out of here alive."

Vee is silent while she processes. Finally she says, “I will help. But you should have warned me before doing this.”

Sylvie shrugs guiltily. “Well, I told the other you… I can’t really tell you’re going to be simultaneous until it happens. For clarification, you’ll be—”

She cuts off, realizing that ‘V1’ and V2’ are probably not the best designations. “Er… you’re V-b, and she’s V-a, okay?”

“Confirmed. Accepting designation V-b. Let’s do this quickly.”

Once she’s plugged in, V-b tests out the security of the ship’s systems. While advanced, it’s nothing she can’t handle. Within minutes, she has access to all the system files, which she immediately begins downloading.

Also, an interesting little program stands out to her, the communication systems. There are small shortwave devices linked to the network, likely the in-ear comms for the guards, as well as full access to the communication between the other Wulagu ships in the area….

Scene 3

The Wulagu ship attempts to maneuver to counter Miranda’s quick piloting, but the helmsman is asleep at the wheel and they turn the wrong direction. She curses to herself. Sirens are wailing, and she still hasn’t heard back from Eleanor and Sylvie. She’s starting to feel nervous, scanning the deck for any signs of them.

She spots Eleanor on the ground, a guard standing over her. She can’t tell what was going on, but she can see that it’s trouble.

Well, she thinks. Out cover’s already blown. Time to do something stupid.

Before doing anything else, she sends a warning text up to Seiko. With that done, she turns on the engine quietly, maneuvering the boat so the bow is perpendicular to their starboard side. Taking a deep breath, she revs the engine as loudly as she can manage.

It seems to work, as several of the guards turn in surprise to look out over the water. Taking the opportunity, Miranda slams her hand on the control panel, sending power to the various floodlights attached to the ship. They shine directly at the Wulagu, and she sees guards recoiling and falling to the ground. One even looks like he may have fallen over the side.

Feeling just a bit proud of herself, she quickly takes cover behind the helm.

Seiko tries to keep calm, despite all the guns turned on him. He hopes the lights will block him out and takes aim, though his hands are shaking a bit. “Thanks for making us a target Miranda,” he mutters under his breath. The first shot takes down a guard, but the second goes wide and he curses, trying to re-adjust his aim. He’s not supposed to miss. This is why he likes to work alone. No surprises.

As soon as the rev of Tranquility’s engine startles the guards, Katie goes into motion.  She runs up behind the guard trying to prevent Eleanor from boarding.  As the headlights flare to life, Katie hooks a foot around the guard’s ankles, then shoves him from behind, flipping him overboard.

Eleanor rolls out of the way as Katie swoops in, her guardian angel engineer. She doesn’t think too hard about what’s happening behind her. No time. Instead, she quickly rolls to the side, and throws off her scuba flippers as she runs down the deck at what she’d normally consider to be a suicidal speed.

She sees a guard readying his weapon, and thinks fast. “FIRE!” she screams, and when the guard looks up, she streaks by him in a blur of black and brown. “RUN!!!”

The thug whips around, loses his footing, and flails a bit before regaining his balance. Then the woman — Wait, was that a woman? Does it matter? — runs by him, shrieking like a banshee. I don’t get paid enough for this, he thinks briefly.

Eleanor grins as he starts panic, running away from the fight.

Chapter Text

Scene 1

Within a few key clicks, Sylvie’s got access to the whole database. She downloads all the data she can find, and cuts the communication with the other ships in their fleet. Then she sees the on-ship communication program. With a few more clicks, she’s pulled up access to the crew’s earpieces. And decided to send them a message: the highest-pitched tone she can get as loud as the volume will go.

All across the ship, the Wulagu goons begin screaming and clutching at their ears. A few quick or clever ones manage to rip their earpieces out in time, but even they are woozy, disoriented, and deafened.

"You’re welcome," Sylvie says quietly to no one in particular, a small smile on herh lips.

Seiko nods appreciatively as all the guards seize up at once, clutching their ears. It’s nice of his teammate to give him some easy shots. He takes down one, and then decides to hit another in the knees. They’re both clean shots, so the second man knows it was on purpose, knows he’s being kept alive so he might be useful.

And exactly what’s coming if he stops being useful.

Seiko switches on his voice comm. “Eleanor. You can stop sliding around the decks. I got you a present.”

Eleanor’s eyes light up as she gets to her knees.

Katie helps pull the therapist up to her feet and points.  “Close the hatch!  Don’t let them come up!” This fight is going so well she’s starting to think even bigger.

“Right,” Eleanor says, more to herself than to Katie. Then she spots a crowbar lying on the deck next to some metal debris about five feet away. She jogs over, grabs the blunt instrument and a two-foot-long hunk of metal. She kicks the hatch door closed, jamming the metal piece into the locking mechanism.

"That," Eleanor pants, "should hold them for a bit." Unwilling to part with the crowbar, she clutches it in both hands.

As Eleanor runs off, Katie goes into motion again.  She charges two of the guards who are standing close together, tackles one in the knees, then grabs the other’s foot, stands up, and flips him off the boat.

Up outside the bridge, Sylvie finally switches her earpiece from connecting just to V-B over to the main communication channel. “I’ve got the files, and I’ve sent our friends a little present to their earpieces. What do you want me to do now?”

Miranda is jolted out of her mental preparations by the voice in her ear, but her surprise is quickly eclipsed by anger. “Dammit, Sylvie! When we’re in the middle of a hostile infiltration mission, check your damn phone every once and a while!”

She chanced a glance over the top of the helm. “We’ve got the deck pretty much clear at this point, and looks like El managed to lock the rest of them in the hull. The Tranquility’s close, and we might be bringing a new friend back with us. I’d recommend wrapping things up and getting back before we all get shot.”

"Sorry!" Sylvie says quickly at the phone accusation. "I was a little busy, you know, hacking… everything over here! Want me to try to crash their OS before I pull out? And anyone else have any suggestions?"

"Hold up on crashing the OS," says Katie.  "We might need it to pilot this thing out of here.”

"Pilot- I can only drive one boat at a time!" Miranda pulled at her jacket. This was not what she had signed up for. "If we have any tracking devices, I think that would be a much better option! Stealing boats from crime lords doesn’t usually end well for the pirates!"

"Usually the pirates ain’t us!" Katie snaps.

"Weren’t we here for something?" Seiko says.

“Syl,” Katie says, “do you have the comms from the other boats yet?”

V-b takes control of Sylvie’s communicator remotely to respond. “I have shut down all communication to and from the other boats, for now, but I can reinitialize and intercept them instead.”

"How is the fight going?” Katie asks. “Any clear victor yet?"

"Can we salvage anything from this boat, instead of taking the whole thing?" Eleanor asks quietly.

"Make a decision quick guys, I’m not exactly super hidden up here," Sylvie says, quickly looking around.

Miranda tried to hide the exasperation in her voice. “Katie, this boat isn’t what we’re after. Do you remember what we’re looking for? It’s bigger than this. And much more valuable. And we all stand to lose quite heavily if we get caught here, especially you.”

“Can we blow the ship?” Seiko says. “I’m not getting paid enough to have Karen after me. She pays well, and tortures even better.”

Katie sighs heavily, but realizes that they’re probably right. “Fine.  Sylvie, wreck everything and get down here.  Miranda, pull in as close as you can—I think Seiko got us a prisoner.”

"Will do," both the real and artificial Sylvies say together. Sylvie flips back to her private channel. "V-B, can you trash their systems and get out? Wipe it clean and make sure there’s not a way it can be traced back to your programming?"

"Let me know what I need to carry," Eleanor murmurs, still wary of any remaining crewmembers on deck. "I’m a bit stronger than I look." She wields her crowbar like a battle axe, and strides in the direction that everyone else seems to be heading.

Sylvie and V-B wipe the system as best they can, cleaning up after themselves as they go. “Okay, V-B, I’m gonna put you and this laptop to sleep. We’ll be back on the Tranquility and get you synced with V-A in no time. Thanks, again.” With that, she shuts the laptop down, packs it away into her bag, and heads back down to the deck.

Seiko begins to break down his gun and heads to his room below decks.

Scene 2

Sylvie quickly finds Eleanor and Katie… and their new friend who is bleeding rather profusely from the knee. “Who is this? And what exactly is our exit strategy here?”

"Waiting on Miranda for that," says Katie.

"I’m assuming our ‘friend’ would prefer to keep saltwater out of his bullet wound,” Miranda says. “Any of you feeling strong enough to carry him solo?"

"That really needs some addressing." Eleanor nods toward the injured man. "We don’t want him bleeding to death before we can get him anywhere."

Sylvie grimaces at the wound. “Mr. Watanabe’s work, I assume?”

"Of course," Eleanor replies matter-of-factly, to disguise the fact that all the blood is making her a bit queasy. She bends to one knee next to the half-unconscious man, and rips his ragged t-shirt off of him.

"Why exactly are we taking prisoners now?" Sylvie says, getting a sinking suspicion that this is a very bad idea. She’s not exactly thrilled about having to deal with hostile enemy people. Programs make sense. People don’t.

"We have to find out what he knows, at least," Eleanor says. "We don’t have to keep him. Just dump him at an infirmary when he ceases to be useful." Or overboard. Though we probably don’t want to mention that to him… She turns her attention back to her work, shredding the t-shirt in a rough spiral.

The mangled leg looks pretty awful, but Eleanor’s seen worse. And the blood is only sluggishly oozing now, which is a good sign. The bullet didn’t hit any major arteries, so he should be able to talk.

"Don’t we have to worry about… er… him turning us in to his employer or something? I thought Seiko said she wasn’t really someone we wanted to be messing with…" Sylvie’s talking slows down as she starts to reach conclusions she’d rather not. "We can’t just let him go afterward…"

Eleanor winds the rudimentary bandage just above the man’s wound as she listens, silently hoping Sylvie stops talking.

"You just had to say it in front of him, didn’t you?” Seiko says over the comm. “Of course we were going to kill him, but now it’s going to take twice as long to make him think we won’t.”

"I don’t know, these men don’t look very well-paid," Eleanor says softly, waving a hand to encompass the old shoes and dirty clothes that the man is wearing. "I don’t think he’s much more than a lackey." The blood is oozing more slowly, now. That’s the best she can do, she reasons, standing and wiping her hands ineffectively on her wetsuit.

"Mrs. Horner,” Seiko says coldly. “You have enough money to place me with professionals, not… impulsive children"

Sylvie winces, feeling a sick lurch in her stomach that has nothing to do with the sea. She hadn’t even thought about that she shouldn’t be talking in front of the guy. He’d been so quiet she’d almost thought he might be unconscious, though he now started groaning in pain. Seiko’s voice in her ear wasn’t exactly the confirmation of her worries that she’d wanted to hear.

"Besides," Eleanor adds, "he’s mostly unconscious. I doubt he’ll remember much that he hears, if he’s lucid at all."

“There’s still a lot of information we don’t know,” Miranda says as she preps the ship for extraction. “Wulagu’s not exactly the most stellar employer. Working for her might not be his choice. I think we should decide how to handle him after we have a better idea of who we’re dealing with.”

"You’re soft, Miranda,” Seiko says.

“He could be useful,” Miranda says, slightly defensively. “An inside man in Wulagu would certainly come in handy. Or even another set of hands for covering fire. Am I correct in assuming you’ve already retreated below decks?” She clicks her tongue. “Leaving in the middle of an operation. How professional.”

Seiko starts. “When did you-?!”

"Let’s cut the chatter, people," Katie says.  "We can talk about this once we are safely away."

"Can we just get back on the boat?" Sylvie says, more shortly than she’d intended. The more she thinks about this prisoner situation, the darker her mood gets.

"Miranda, how close in can you get?" Katie asks.

The three on deck are interrupted by a solid thunk from behind them. A large wooden gangplank had been secured to the side of the boat, creating a ramp to the deck of the Tranquility. Miranda stands on the other side, looking quite proud of herself. She scoffs a bit, holding a hand out to help the others across.  “How close can I get…”

Sylvie helps Katie carry the unfortunate prisoner across, starting to feel truly horrible. “So,” she says shortly once they’re safely across. “What exactly are we going to do with him?”

"Ask him for relevant information,” Seiko says. “The rest is Katie’s call"

Eleanor follows, arms thrown out for balance on the gangplank. “I thought I might be able to help in asking for information,” she half-yells, a bit nervous of falling.

"Are you actually going to come up here to do this then, Seiko?" Sylvie snaps. "Or are you too busy hiding in your room to help us out?"

"Eleanor seems excited. Why not let her? I’m…. in the middle of something.” His voice is a bit shaky over the comm. He has almost certainly not been vomiting. Certainly not.

“Sure, uh, let me just—” Eleanor chucks the crowbar overboard, finally. “Okay. What do you need?”

"You should consider letting him rest up if you want this to be coherent," he says. "Miranda? Get us to shore?"

"Let’s secure him below for now," Katie orders.

Sylvie nods, then looks to Eleanor. “Do you think you could take over here? I uh… have something I need to take care of.”

Eleanor crosses the space between them in a very conspicuously non-threatening manner, nodding. “Don’t worry. I can take that. Uh, him,” she says, holding out her arms.

Sylvie nods distractedly. “If anyone needs me, I’ll be up on the bridge. Try not to make any… permanent decisions regarding the prisoner, okay? I should be done soon.”

Miranda carefully detaches the gangplank from the enemy ship and pulls it back to the deck of the Tranquility. “As much as I would love to help get him locked away in some distant corner of the ship, I’ve got a helm to man.” She turns quickly, heading back to the bridge. “Try not to get too much blood on the floors,” she calls over her shoulder.

Eleanor hooks her arms in right angles under the limp man’s armpits. She tries not to think about the blood that’s still trailing down his leg while she drags him below decks to a holding area.

Scene 3

The engines roar to life, and soon enough the Tranquility is cutting through the water, leaving the damaged ship and the surrounding firefight behind.

Trying to put what just happened out of her thoughts, Sylvie heads to the bridge, clutching the bag with her laptop in front of her. Her head is a mess with this whole prisoner situation and she only knows of one way to clear it. And the sooner she syncs V-A and V-B, the sooner she can stop feeling guilty about splitting them in the first place.

The man’s heels thump noisily as Eleanor hauls him down the steps to the hold. She spies a broom closet, and quickly secures him with a few zip-ties and a lock on the door. Despite the fact that she would have been perfectly willing to shove this man overboard only half an hour ago, Eleanor arranges his leg so that if he should awaken, he wouldn’t damage it further. Damn, she thinks. I’m the one who’s getting soft.

Sylvie drops her pack up on the bridge, assuring V-A that V-B, with all her memories, is safe and secure in the laptop. Then she heads down to change clothes and grab the Pons. When she returns she gives a sort of ducking nod to Miranda, then settles down in the corner by the connection ports.

Miranda nods towards Sylvie as she enters the bridge, then glances down at her phone. Maybe I should check… No. She needs to focus on driving. She’s gone for this long without making a fuss, she can wait a little longer. Miranda turns the wheel sharply, bringing the Tranquility around a corner. Feeling like they are far enough from the action to be safe for now, she drops the anchor.

Katie climbs the stairs onto the bridge, changed out of her drysuit as well.  She crosses over to the corner where Sylvie is sitting and gestures at the open space beside her. “Mind if I join you?”

Sylvie looks up as Katie approaches, looking defensive. “What is it?”

"You seemed upset," says Katie.  "I wanted to check on you." She settles into the corner next to Sylvie.

Sylvie’s hand shakes as she tries to connect the laptop ports to the console. She’s not entirely sure why. “I… I don’t know what I’m feeling right now, okay? I don’t want to… do anything…” She holds up the Pons, still not connected in. “I just really need some time to think. With myself. About all of this, I think. I don’t know… what…” She cuts off, frustrated that she’s not thinking straight.

"Listen, dear," says Katie.  "You take whatever time you need.  You did good work today. I absolutely made the right hire, whatever Seiko says."

"I… Thanks." She’s about to say more when a voice interrupts them over the comms.

"Alright, we should be clear,” Miranda says. “Now might be a good time for a group meeting in the bridge." She pauses, thinking for a moment. "Once any other pressing matters have been attended to, of course."

Sylvie’s face falls and she looks down at the Pons sadly. Finally she mutters, “Looks like we’re needed. V-A and V-B will have to reunite without me.” She flips open the laptop and starts to pull up the sync program, feeling terribly left out. Across the room, the other members of the crew are starting to assemble.

“Are you sure?” Katie asks, worried.

“I’ll Drift with them later, I guess. I can hold myself together for the course of one meeting.” With a little more force than necessary, she tosses the cords to the side, then sets the laptop beside them. Finally, she stands and heads over to the rest of the group. Katie follows close behind.

Scene 4

At the call for a team meeting, Seiko makes his way up to the bridge slowly. He’s leaning on the wall and he’s a bit pale, but he’s trying to cover it, and at least there isn’t a blanket wrapped around his shoulders anymore. Eleanor appears shortly as well, sans drysuit and now with a Rorschach-like arrangement of blood spatters on her shoes.

Miranda nods to Seiko and Eleanor respectively as they enter the room. She knows she needs to have a talk with each of them, but for now she’s feeling a bit too sore to consider it. Adrenaline withdrawal is not a fun experience.

"Get us home, Miranda?" Seiko asks shortly.

Eleanor flexes her hands, trying to work out some of the kinks in her arms. “What about the other ship? Is it a danger to us?”

"Not at this distance," Miranda said, flicking at some controls and trying to look busy. "We’re far enough away and running dark that they likely lost us. Besides, they’re probably more concerned about the other ships shooting at them."

"As far as I can tell,” Seiko says, “this crew’s impulsivity is the biggest danger here."

Eleanor raises an eyebrow, but says only, “We aren’t a trained crew, you know. Some of us haven’t even been on ships very often at all.”

"As for the…" Miranda glances over at Katie and Sylvie, who are still talking quietly on the other side of the bridge. "… the more reckless side of the crew, I understand that they haven’t trained for this. But we can’t just go around risking our lives based on the whims of a Jaeger flight jockey and an impetuous Kaiju lover. I signed on to recover a potentially valuable artifact, not join some ragtag game of pirates."

“And I signed on to do my job,” Seiko says. “Not take stupid risks because other people think this is fun. I may be willing to do what needs to be done, but at least I don’t enjoy it, then get sick when… I have to get a bit of blood on me.”

"Everyone reacts to stressors differently," Eleanor says, struggling to keep a neutral tone. "There’s bound to be ups and downs at first when you’re new to this…sort of thing."

"I don’t mind if people get stressed,” he says. “You all can spend our free time crying in the broom closet if you want, but I expect you to do your job when my ass is on the line. I have responsibilities. I need to come home from this."

"Says the person who ran below decks before we were all across?" Sylvie mutters as she joins the group. She doesn’t mean for Seiko to overhear, but she’s probably spoken too loudly.

"I did my job first,” he says, turning on her. “I did not allow… personal matters to compete with my work."

Eleanor raises both of her eyebrows, and turns to face him. “You’re getting paid for this, just like the rest of us. You can always choose to leave, if you feel you must. But I assume that there’s a reason for you to be here, just as there is for each of us.” She phrases it almost like a question.

"Mister Watanabe," Katie interrupts, finally joining them. "I’d hate to lose your help on this, but she’s right."

"What do you expect me to do? Jump off the ship?" He gives Eleanor a dark look. "And do I look like the type to stay alive without a reason for living? I’m already in danger."

Miranda gives up the charade of driving, turning around and leaning on the wheel. “Sorry Katie, but I have to agree with Seiko on this one. You’re paying us to do a job, so we have to keep focused on accomplishing the mission. If we keep getting distracted, we’re all going to end up in jail or dead. I’m sure we all stand to lose something if that happens, so we need to make a plan, then follow it.”

"Hey, speaking of throwing people off the ship," Sylvie snaps. "Can we talk about the real issue here? What the hell are we going to do with the prisoner in our hold?" She knows she’s being harsh because isn’t Drifting, but she can’t help it.

Eleanor huffs out a breath, but drops the subject of Seiko. For now. “I secured him fairly well, but if he were to awaken, he’d likely be able to escape in a half hour at most. I think at least two of us should be there when he does wake up.”

Katie realizes that this is going to go over her head pretty quickly if she doesn’t take some steps.  She’s the captain. She needs to delegate. “Eleanor, I’ll let you be in charge of handling the prisoner. Get Mister Watanabe to help you if you need him.  That is, if he still wants the job.”

Seiko mumbles something about taking it back if he could but it’s too late now.

"Also,” Katie says, keeping her eye on him, “it looks like this is going to be more dangerous than I expected at first.  What would y’all say to hazard pay?"

Seiko perks up instantly.

"Hold up!" Sylvie says, louder than she meant to. As the group looks at her, she swallows then continues in a quieter voice. "When… when I asked what we were going to do with him, I meant… after. When we’re finished talking to him."

"That’s Katie’s decision, now isn’t it?” Seiko says coolly. The mention of extra pay has calmed his mood considerably. “And his, I suppose."

“Like I said before,” Miranda says. “I think we should wait to decide that until we know what we’ve got.”

“I agree,” Katie says. “Let’s see what we’ve gotten ourselves into before we make any decisions.”

Eleanor nods. “I want to see how…acquiescent he is.”

"And…" Sylvie says slowly, grimacing. "What if he’s not? Acquiescent, I mean. What exactly are we doing here?"

Seiko gives her a flat look. “What do you think, princess? Weren’t so squeamish when you were bursting their eardrums, were you?”

Sylvie feels anger start to rise, and Seiko’s tone just makes it worse. “Casualties in the middle of a fight are one thing. The torture and execution of a prisoner is entirely another! I won’t stand by and let this man be killed!”

Seiko starts laughing. Then he walks out of the room, mumbling something about hypocrites.

“I won’t stand for outright torture, either,” Eleanor murmurs. “But we really do need to get to the bottom of this, or far more innocents will die.”

Miranda gives Seiko’s back a pointed look as he leaves, then turns back to Sylvie. “There’s more than one way for him to be of use to us. Honestly, we may have to kill him, but only as a last resort. I’ve found assets are significantly more helpful when they’re breathing.”

"And less of a liability," Eleanor adds.

Sylvie’s stunned for a moment as Seiko walks out. Then she turns to Miranda. “We’d better make sure we don’t get to the last resort, then. Because I’m not on board with it.”

With that, she turns and runs after Seiko, hoping she can catch up to him as he’s headed back below decks.

Since Sylvie and Seiko are already gone, the meeting appears to be over. Eleanor sighs, then heads out as well, muttering, “Someone needs to keep an eye on the houseguest, I suppose.”

Scene 5

"Hey!” Sylvie yells as she finds Seiko in the hallway. “What exactly do you think you’re doing? We weren’t done in there!" She grabs his shoulder, trying to stop him.

With a quick motion, Seiko grabs her wrist and says with strained politeness, “Ms. Mansen, why don’t we sit down?”

Sylvie tenses as he grabs her, but doesn’t make a move to fight back. “Fine,” she says, her anger barely contained.

Seiko sits down on a barrel and looks her in the eye. “I do not like hurting others. I get no enjoyment from killing. This is a job, and I like to keep my work quick and safe. I take every measure not to risk my own life or the lives of the people around me. What bothers me is not that you are bothered, but that you would be willing to kill, then fail to have the courage when our lives, and the lives of those that could be traced to us are at risk. It tells me you value self-image above my life, as well as your own. Well you’re a criminal and this is a criminal job. Suck it up and keep your judgment to yourself. I may have killed, but I have never done so for my own sense of amusement or adventure. Tell me miss, can you say the same?”

Sylvie looks offended at the comment. “Of course I haven’t! Outside of a Jaeger, my training involves disabling an opponent, nothing more! It’s meant to take down Kaiju for crying out loud, not murder! I don’t kill people!”

"I have at least one report that says differently. Now if you’ll excuse me, I believe I hear yelling."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Sylvie yells after him. "Your report is full of it!" She follows after, not ready to end the conversation that easily.

—

After the meeting, Eleanor makes her way down to the broom closet and sits on the floor beside the wounded guard. What a mess, she thinks. And she’s not just talking about the bodily fluids.

The guard stirs.

Leaping to her feet, Eleanor shouts into her mouthpiece to everyone who’s still listening. “I need backup down here, now!” When no one responds, she stomps halfway upstairs and repeats herself. Loudly.

—-

Up on the bridge, unaware of the happenings below, Katie sighs, then looks at Miranda.  “Did those two just leave El by herself with the prisoner?”

“Would that honestly surpr-” Miranda is cut off by Eleanor’s screaming.

Katie curses. “Dammit, let’s go.” She runs downstairs to see what’s going on.

"Shit!" Miranda moves towards the door, but her legs lock up. She falls to the floor of the bridge. "No, not now…" she curses, looking towards the door. She crawls back to the helm, fumbles for her earpiece, and tries to keep from yelling. "What’s going on down there?!"

"He’s awake!" Eleanor shouts.

Scene 6

Seiko is the first to reach the closet, finding Eleanor looking slightly frantic with her back to the closed door.

"Did you not tie him up?” Seiko demands. He pulls a mask over her face, though the others aren’t sure where he got it. “I’d assumed when you took an unconscious man prison, you prepared for the fact that it would not be his permanent state."

"Of course I tied him up," Eleanor says, a little breathless from her outburst. She tries to project a sense of calmness, but she suspects it isn’t working.

“Then why are you screaming?”

"Because all I could find were zip-ties, and if he can dislocate his thumbs…" Behind Eleanor there is a rash of Australian-accented cursing thicker and saltier than Vegemite.

Katie dashes down the ladder, finding her two teammates at the bottom. “Is everything ok?”

"For now," Eleanor says. "But I heard some serious noise in there." She gulps, and looks away. "I think we might be able to bribe him with painkillers." It’s not a pleasant thought, but it has to be done.

Seiko turns to Katie, looking annoyed. “Eleanor has discovered her horror of tied up, confused, defenseless prisoners and felt we should all drop whatever we were doing to respond.”

"Damn, we aren’t ready for this yet." Miranda rolls up her pant leg to inspect the damage. "Seiko, any chance you can slip in there and choke him out?"

Katie grimaces, but nods.  “Do what you need to do, Seiko.”

Seiko raises an eyebrow, then shrugs. He gently pushes Eleanor away from the door and slips into the closet. He leans down next to the prisoner, speaking quietly. “Despite my better judgment, my crewmates here are attached to the idea of letting you live. As you sleep, I recommend you consider that, and plan how you will talk to us very carefully.”

The man’s eyes go wide, but Seiko doesn’t give him much time to think on the threat. In moments, it’s done and the prisoner is out cold again.

Sylvie finds them just as Seiko comes back out. She’s about to start yelling at him again as she arrives, but sees that everyone else is around as well. “What’s going on?”

Katie answers her. “The prisoner was awake.  Now he isn’t.”

Eleanor levels a Category III glare at Seiko. “Excuse me? Did you just risk giving our source brain trauma?”

"I was careful,” Seiko starts to say, but Eleanor’s not done yet.

"To say the least!" Eleanor continues shrilly. "And if he stays unconscious for too long, he may start losing more blood than we can handle, and…" She tries not to hyperventilate.

"I have done this before, you know.” He decides not to mention that he’s also had it done to him before. He survived. So will the prisoner.

"That’s entirely unsurprising," Sylvie says darkly.

Eleanor smacks her forehead. This interrogation was not proceeding as planned.

“It’s done now,” Katie says, with an air of finality. “We’ll deal with him when he wakes up again. And we’ll be prepared this time.”

Scene 7

As the group disperses once more, Sylvie starts to head up to the bridge, muttering something about “not wanting to be around for any more of Mr. Watanabe’s thuggish psychopathy,” and not waiting around to hear Eleanor correct her use of that term.

Eleanor steps forward. “Sylvie, please wait!” she says to the woman’s back. “Don’t leave me down here?”

Sylvie looks physically pained by the request, but after a moment she grits her teeth and turns back. Perhaps a real therapist might be better than a Drift session anyway. “Fine,” she says, the word feeling like a knife. “I won’t leave you here all alone.”

“I swear I won’t make you do anything you’re uncomfortable with,” Eleanor says earnestly. “I just need someone down here in case the worst should happen. To run for help.”

Sylvie sits down heavily, looking away. “It’s fine. Not like I really had anything important to do anyway. And you need me here to help.”

Eleanor slumps too. “Thanks, Sylvie. I owe you one. Or five.”

Sylvie looks over at the door to the prisoner’s makeshift cell. “I wish more than anything that he weren’t here.” Whether she’s talking about the wounded man or Seiko, it’s hard to tell.

Eleanor glance flicks to the door, then Sylvie, then down. “I sometimes wish that about myself.” She sighs lightly. “I can’t imagine what use an ex-psyche analyst could be on a- a real job like this one.”

Sylvie doesn’t respond for a while, then finally, she says, “I certainly feel like I could use one right now. Though I think I could use a friend more than a therapist.”

Eleanor huffs another laugh. “I think everyone needs a therapist nowadays. But for what it’s worth, I could use a friend more than a shrink, too.” She tilts her head and smiles a little.

Sylvie tries to smile back, but finds she’s close to breaking out in tears. “What happened here? It was just supposed to be a little bit of smuggling. Like in the past. Maybe not legal, but certainly not murderous! Are we really going to kill this man?”

Eleanor scrunches up her face, not sure what she’s feeling. “Unless he tries to kill me first, I am not going to let anyone kill him,” she says firmly. At least she knows that much. “Believe it or not, I have some experience talking to unwilling…clients. And I promise my methods were purely persuasive. Though those were…better times,” she tacks on as an afterthought. The thunderous boom of cannon fire is still audible, though she’d thought the fight was a ways off. That is a bit alarming.

Sylvie breathes a sigh of relief anyway. “It makes me feel better to hear it. I mean… I thought I was used to doing things like this by now, but I guess not. And I don’t like this Seiko guy. He’s so cold about everything, and the way he talks sometimes… Like he sees right through me. If Katie gave him the order to snap this poor guy’s neck, I don’t think he would even bat an eye.” She shivers at that thought.

"Maybe not," Eleanor agrees. "But— I trust him to have my back, when things go to hell." She shrugs. "And ‘cold’ doesn’t always mean ‘sociopath.’ He may just be very good at hiding…well, a lot of things."

"Like his lack of a soul…" Sylvie mutters.

Swallowing a sudden acrid feeling in her throat, Eleanor shakes her head. “No…I know exactly what that looks like. And he- it- doesn’t look like Seiko.” She fights the urge to shudder.

Sylvie almost asks about it, but decides it might be better to let the subject drop.

Scene 8

Overhearing the resolution to the problem over the comms, Miranda breathes a sigh of relief. She manages to drag herself out of the bridge and into a more secluded room to recover in private. Then she pulls out her phone and sees a text from Seiko.

Seiko: Miranda? Where are you?
Miranda: Small room near bridge. Damn legs stopped working. This is what I get for prototyping on the job

At Miranda’s text back, Seiko puts in his earpiece. “Keep me updated on the prisoner. I need to talk something over with Miranda.” He turns off the microphone, but leaves the receiver on so that he can still hear.

"Can do," Eleanor replies into the mic, sounding immensely relieved that at least someone was listening to her.

Seiko: On my way up
Miranda: Thanks

He finds her quickly, sitting on the floor in a somewhat awkward position. “Mira. What broke? How do I re-hook it?”

She tries to point, but it’s awkward from her position. “It felt like the kinetic stabilizers in the upper thighs, towards the back. I can’t reach myself, but there may be some loose wires back there you can reconnect. If not, I brought my old legs and my equipment; it’s in a box in the hold.”

He kneels down behind her, trying to find the spot she’s talking about. “I can do this without uh… removing your pants, right?”

“Not sure, haven’t tried it yet,” she says. “It’ll be an adventure for everyone involved.”

"I hate today."

The loose wire proves incapable of being reached with Miranda dressed. Thankfully she’s used to Seiko helping her with this sort of thing. Back when they were roommates, he helped her out with more sensitive repairs than this. With his assistance, she manages push her pants down to her knees, exposing the kinetic exoskeleton she’s wearing beneath.

They’re quiet for a while as Seiko attempts to rewire the device. Finally, Miranda speaks up again. “…Sorry about earlier.”

"What?"

"For what I said earlier,” she explains. “I was pissed and wasn’t thinking straight. Forgot the others haven’t worked with you for as long. So sorry."

"You have never been anything other than professional,” he says calmly. “There are no problems between us."

Meanwhile, Katie enters the bridge, trying to find out why Miranda didn’t come down when Eleanor called. She’s surprised to find the room empty. Looking around, she notices a door just outside the bridge proper open slightly. She thinks she can hear voices from inside.

Not knocking – it is her ship after all – she pushes the door open to see Miranda and Seiko on the ground. Her eyes go wide at the scene. She’s not certain what’s more surprising, the fact that Miranda’s pants are around her knees with Seiko sitting behind her or the mess of wires across her back and legs that he’s hesitantly trying to piece together.

She stares for a second, blinking. “Why don’t I… come in again?” Not waiting to see how the two react to her discovering them, she steps out, closes the door behind her again.

Miranda whips around at the sound, flinching as she hears another crack and a sparking noise in the wiring. “Fuck!”

Seiko swears as well, though whether from the surprise intrusion or the painful shock that the wires just gave him at Miranda’s movement, he’s not sure.

Miranda collapses backwards on the floor. “Seiko, I think I might have pulled another wire.” She hesitates briefly. “…You might have to take off my shirt to get to this one.”

Outside, Katie takes a few deep breaths, trying to regain her composure for a few seconds.

But only a few seconds. She opens the door again.

Miranda hears Katie start to enter again, but can’t turn her head to see who it is. “Seiko!” She tries to hide the panic in her voice.

Seiko stands up in a flash, pulling off his jacket and throwing it over Miranda. She’s tiny enough to make it seem a dress. He quickly blocks the door, trying to figure out how to stop Katie from entering. “Captain, could you, um… I don’t… I mean, this isn’t what it…”

Katie blinks at the stammering man in front of her, entirely confused.

“Seiko,” Miranda says, focusing on keeping her voice steady. “Get rid of her. Now.”

"Fine!" Katie says. “I won’t come in.” She steps back out and pulls on the door, leaving it cracked enough that she can still talk to them.

Satisfied that Katie’s staying out, Seiko moves back to Miranda, reclaiming his jacket and busying himself with the wires again.

After a moment outside, Katie speaks up. “Ordinarily I’d say this isn’t any of my business, whatever it is…”

"Still isn’t, Captain,” Seiko interrupts. “With respect."

"…but if it is going to affect your ability to perform, I need to know what it is, and how."

"Forgive me for not wanting to share," Miranda tosses half-heartedly over her shoulder. "First I need to know; what exactly did you see?"

"Uh… it involved wires."

Miranda grits her teeth. Damn, she saw it. Awkward as it would have been, she had hoped finding her and Seiko in a secluded area without her pants on would have distracted her. The girl’s more observant than I gave her credit for.

"…Suffice it to say,” Miranda says, “this is an issue I have been aware of for some time. I have the means to fix it; this particular problem is simply the result of a poorly thought-out and poorly timed experiment on my part. It won’t affect the mission any further, I promise."

"I’ll take you at your word on that, I suppose,” Katie says slowly. It’s not like she has much choice with the two of them all but shoving her out of the room.

"Thanks.”

Seiko, meanwhile, is almost glad that Katie has figured it out. He fits the last wire into place, thankfully without shocking himself this time. “I’m done. Ms. Cross, if you would like to redress…”

"Nah, I was thinking about wandering around the bridge pantsless," Miranda says flatly, starting to pull her pants back up.

Seiko walks out of the room, looking heartily embarrassed. “I’m sorry for the… situation, captain. You may know I lived with Miranda a short while. I am used to helping with her… problem, and I assure you it is well under control.”

"Just let me know if you need any… accommodations," Katie says carefully, eyeing Seiko and hoping he will leave soon.

Miranda slowly stands up, jerking a bit as she does so. She can feel the mistakes Seiko made in his repair job, but at least she is able to move again. She stumbles a bit as she moves towards the door, opening it to talk to Katie. “Don’t worry, Captain. I’ve made it out of worse spots than this without anyone’s help.” She pauses briefly. “Although if it’s all the same to you, I might prefer sharing a room with Seiko.”

Katie frowns.  ”The girls will ask questions, y’know.”

Realizing he’s no longer needed here, Seiko moves to leave. “I’m going down to view the interrogation. You figure out the primary school stuff. And if you must, move in a cot and try not to spread rumors. Hopefully we won’t be on this death trap long enough for it to matter.”

"Looks like it’s my turn to sleep on your floor, huh Seiko?" Miranda calls after him as he leaves. He doesn’t respond. Turning back to Katie, she shrugs. "If the others ask about the room shift, say that you wanted someone to keep an eye on Seiko. Considering our… debate on the bridge, it shouldn’t be too hard to convince them. And I’m the most obvious choice, considering our past relationship."

Katie gives her a look at her choice of words, and Miranda blushes a bit. “Er… you might want to figure out a better way to phrase that last bit.”

Seiko makes it about halfway down the hall before something occurs to him. He stops, thinking, before quickly turning back to rejoin Katie and Miranda. When he walks back in, his face is completely impassive. “Ms. Horner?”

Katie turns as he enters. “Yes?”

"First of all, Captain,” he says. “I would like to apologize for earlier towards Ms. Mansen. I should not have allowed my personal opinions on her behavior interfere with my own professional conduct. Secondly, I would like to assure you my relationship with Ms. Cross is entirely professional and I would have informed you if things were otherwise. However, I do expect similar professional conduct from my employers." His voice is even the whole time, but by the end he has gone a bit pink around the ears.

"Seiko…" Miranda trails off a bit, unsure of what’s happening.

"And, if you have any intent to… ah… use Mira- Ms. Cross’s… ah… situation against her, I can assure you it will deeply disturb our working relationship,” he says darkly.

Katie flinches.  She does not like being in this position.  ”I promise you I have nowish to use Ms. Cross’s ‘situation’ against her.” At the word ‘wish’ she shoots Miranda a look.

Now it’s Seiko’s turn to look confused. “Ms. Cross. Care to fill me in?”

Miranda’s eyes widen a bit. “I… I understand what you’re saying. Seiko,” she says, turning her attention back to him, “and I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but this isn’t something I can discuss right now. Suffice it to say Ms. Horner is attempting to use my situation as a way of regaining equal footing in our relationship.”

Seiko, at a loss for reaction, just kind of stands there silently, trying to look intense but not exactly having anywhere to direct his look. Apparently there is more going on between the two women than he was aware. He’s starting to feel slightly out of his depth.  This is really not his kind of conversation

"Actually," says Katie, "I was hoping to put all of this behind us for good.  I’d rather you … think of my silence on this as an offer of goodwill."

Seiko starts backing towards the door, hoping they are too focused on each other to notice him leave. He does not want deadly information. He wants to get paid and get off this damn ship.

Miranda meets Katie’s eyes, considering the implication of her words. “I can appreciate that, but you now have me at an unfortunate disadvantage, and I can’t allow myself to work in that sort of position.” She pauses, nodding slightly at Seiko as he slips out the door. “But… I might be willing to work something out. I propose a mutual exchange of information; you tell me everything about your secret, I tell you everything about mine, and we both move forward not as employer and employee, but as partners.”

Miranda shifts a bit. “If it sweetens the deal, I would like to remind you that we’re still close to a firefight and I’m your best shot at getting out of here with the Tranquility in one piece.”

"That’s a bit harsh of you to hang all of our safety on this, isn’t it?" Katie says.

"I figure it’s not much riskier than charging onto the ship of a known crime boss and killing a significant portion of the crew," Miranda says. "I’d much rather get us all out of here safely, but if we aren’t able to work together, I’m not going to risk myself to make sure you can threaten me another day."

Katie nods.  ”So, what would you want out of a partnership?  Access to my capital? An interest in the spoils?”

"What I want is to know what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. And more importantly, I want the team to know what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. If we keep running into organized crime dens without plans or goals, it’s not gonna be long before one of us gets shot. I want to help you figure out those details, so we know when to push forward and when to bail out.” Miranda pauses to recompose herself. “And I want a say in what we do with the tech when we find it,” she adds hurriedly.

Katie’s a bit taken aback at the implied censure. She knows Miranda’s right, though; she really does need someone to keep her in check when she gets all excited. Miranda is not going to approve when she finds out that Katie is ‘just’ a collector.

But… she also needs this crew really to work as a team right now. Meeting Miranda’s eyes, she nods. “That’s reasonable. We’ll work out the details later, ok?”

Scene 9

"Maybe we should check on him…" Sylvie says, looking back at the prisoner’s door.

"Sure." Eleanor grabs the key out of her pocket and unlocks the closet.

Sylvie squats beside him, watching him carefully. “I wonder if we should try to wake him… I can’t imagine being unconscious with a wound like that can be good for him.”

"It’s sometimes better than the alternative," Eleanor says, wincing at the mangled mess below the bloodied strips. "Would you really rather be awake and feeling this? I’m just glad we didn’t hit an artery." Laughing a little to herself — and it’s just a tad hysterical, but she doesn’t think it’s TOO bad — she continues, "I can’t believe we’re going to try to save this guy after having Seiko shoot him."

Sylvie’s head whips around. “You had Seiko shoot him?”

Eleanor blinks. “I didn’t give the order, but we let him have the gun, didn’t we? And had him cover us?” She glances back down at the strangely limp man. “It’s not that I don’t wish we could do this some other way. But…we really have to see if he knows anything.” Her fingers tuck under his chin. The pulse is weak, and fluttery, but present.

"And perhaps it’s best if he wakes when Seiko’s not around,” Sylvie says quietly. “Seeing the person who shot you and then choked you out as soon as you woke up is probably not a good idea."

"Definitely not," Eleanor agrees. That would certainly be a debacle.

"Do we have painkillers or something on board? He’d probably be more willing to cooperate if he’s not in agony…” Sylvie glances up. “Do you want to see if you can find any, or do you want me to? I’ve probably had more combat training if he does wake up…" She looks down at him with a twinge of pity. "Though he certainly doesn’t look to be in any state to put up a fight…"

“I have had zero experience with people wanting to kill me, until very recently,” Eleanor says, letting her harried mood show just a little. “I do know where the first aid kit is, however.”

"I’ll watch him, then." Sylvie slips her earpiece back in, finally accepting that she’s not going to get to Drift anytime soon. Eleanor smiles gratefully, and moves to go find the first aid kit.

Sylvie sits in the doorway to the broom closet, watching the unconscious man. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about all this,” she says.

A few minutes later, Eleanor returns with two prescription bottles and an orange-tipped object in her hands. “Okay,” she says matter-of-factly, “I found a bottle of expired ibuprofen, some Percocet — I really don’t want to know how a person named ‘John Smith’ got that onto this boat, by the way — and an Epi-pen.” She pauses. “For waking him up.”

"Do you want to do this?" Sylvie asks, looking at her intently.

Eleanor shrugs. “He’s not going anywhere, and if we don’t wake him up, he’ll be in worse shape than before.”

“Okay then.”

"We’re waking him up," Eleanor says into the mic, loudly enough to get everyone’s attention. Uncapping the Epi-pen, she takes a deep breath. "Here goes." She stabs the pen into the outside of the man’s thigh with surprising force.

The guard shudders and snaps awake with a pained gasp. He starts looking around frantically, disoriented. Eleanor jumps back.

"Give him the pain meds!" Sylvie says quickly, realizing she’s a bit more nervous about this whole thing than she expected.

The bottles are clutched tightly in Eleanor’s hand. “I can’t, not yet,” she whispers urgently. “The depressant effects could cause a reaction with the epinephrine, and stop his heart!”

"You mean he just has to…" Sylvie trails off somewhat in horror. "Hell take me."

The man on the floor starts to hyperventilate, but he’s awake at least.

"For now, we have to let him be." Eleanor says, but she doesn’t look too happy with the idea either. They don’t have much choice in the matter, unfortunately. "If you have questions, now’s the time, guys," she says into her mic.

The prisoner groans loudly, coughing and cursing. “Urgh… Who the bloody hell are you people?”

"Well, at the moment, we’re the ones trying to keep you alive." Sylvie remarks, feeling slightly awkward. She’s not entirely sure what she’s supposed to be doing.

“Just think of us as independent contractors,” Eleanor adds smoothly. “Contractors who need to know who they’re working with.”

Sylvie blinks at Eleanor’s shift in demeanor. She feels like her nerves are being run over with a cheese grater, but Eleanor seems calmer than she had been in the last hour.

Eleanor makes calm, clear eye contact with the man, and leans a little closer. “Now, you’re going to tell me exactly what it is I want to know…”

Chapter Text

The Tranquility is proving a bit of an ironic name, as personalities begin to clash. The Sydney Scroungers have just finished retrieving dangerous information from a Wulagu Syndicate ship. Now, some ways behind them, a battle between the PPDC and the Wulagu Syndicate rages on, firelight reflecting across the waters of New South Wales. The battle seems to be shifting somewhat in the PPDC’s favor, but things are still far from settled.

However, the crew of the Tranquility has more pressing matters, namely the wounded prisoner that they dragged off of the Wulagu ship who has just woken up down in the hold. 

Sylvie stands by, letting Eleanor take the lead with the interrogation. She does decide to pull her cell phone out and record the conversation, though. Best to have a copy of it, she thinks.

The prisoner slumps back against the wall and coughs weakly. “Contractors, hah. Which other syndicate are you with, then?”

Eleanor narrows her eyes, but doesn’t answer his question. Instead, she poses one of her own. “Are you with the Wulagus?”

The prisoner coughs again. “No, I was standin’ guard duty on one of Killer Karen’s ships for theatre class.”

Eleanor’s lips curve in a smile that is so, so not amused. “I take that as a yes. Your buddies are all dead and gone, friend, so do you feel like talking yet?” Her voice is calm and neutral in tone.

“At least I know you’re not Chau’s,” the man says. “You’d’ve already fed me to the skin lice.”

Sylvie fails to suppress a shudder at that comment.

Eleanor simply throws a glance around the room. “Not enough space for the tanks,” she says offhandedly. “What exactly were you doing out here in the first place?” Eleanor asks. “Looking for trouble?”

The prisoner’s brows furrow. “Looking for the same mysterious piece of bollocks you all and the Padkeys are. And I can tell you’re not them. Boat’s too crap.”

Eleanor suppresses a glare. “Our ship is none of your concern.” Her gaze drops to his knee. “And you have other things to worry about at the moment. Not the least of which is bleeding out below decks on a ‘crap’ ship. We do have some… refreshments available that could help with the pain. But I can’t share them with just anyone.” The guy twitches slightly, and she meets his eyes. “So do you want to play games until you soak the floor, or do you feel like chatting?”

"Ughhh, fine.” The man says wearily. “Just give me the damn pills already and be done with it. Karen’d probably get me stuffed just for gettin’ captured in the first place so there’s not much point to keepin’ her secrets anymore."

"Wise choice," Sylvie remarks.

Eleanor’s smile turns more genuine. “Can do.” She pulls out a knife and slices the zip ties on one of his hands free, offering him half a dose. “Half now, half when you spill your guts.” Clearing her throat, she adds, “Not literally, of course.”

He gratefully takes the pills and swallows them dry, showing a lot of practice taking medication. “Coulda fooled me, what with that sniper o’ yours.”

"That’s true," Eleanor says. "But that was then, and this is now. You really can’t do much to hurt us at the moment." She leans forward a hair. "You can, however, make us like you a tiny little bit more."

"And you can actually give me a question to work with. Unless you want me to just start with: Gregory Lee, born in Manila in 1998…”

"Okay then, here’s a question: what’s the object?" Sylvie interrupts, not able to stay out of the conversation. "The one that everyone’s after. What is it, actually?" Eleanor flashes an encouraging smile at her over her shoulder.

His eyes widen a little bit. “Oh, uh… We just know the PPDC wants it, right? So it must be something good.”

Eleanor snorts, unconvinced. “Nice try, bucko. Want another chance? Or should I ask my sniper pal to come down here to keep you company next watch?”

The prisoner, Gregory, makes a small squeaking noise, wincing at the thought of that. Sylvie looks at Eleanor appreciatively.

As though threatening others in his name has summoned him, Seiko wanders downstairs looking somewhat nervous, but also relieved to be out of whatever he was in the middle of. He makes sure he stays out of sight of the prisoner.

Sylvie spares a steely glare at him, but doesn’t address him. The prisoner seems to be cooperating well enough without upsetting him with Seiko.

"Agh, okay, okay,” Greg says. “Thought you knew that already, and… Alright, fine. There’s a guy at the headquarters I… kind of see sometimes, you know? And the other day he let something slip about Wulagu buying up a bunch of darknet server time, just pumping lots of money into it. Whatever it is she’s looking for, she needs a lot of computer juice to make it go."

As he’s talking, Katie comes down the stairs and listens from outside the prisoner’s line of sight. Seiko gives her a nod and mouths “Captain.”

The sound of the Tranquility’s engines kicking to life can be heard from the interrogation room. It sounds like Miranda has resumed piloting the boat to safer waters. The motion of the ship reminds Seiko that she’s switches his headset back on so Miranda can hear the interrogation up on the bridge.

Sylvie steps forward, looking excited. “It’s tech, then? The salvage?”

He nods. “Yeah. Samil said that kind of server time’s usually used for fraud stuff, real high-volume data things. Something in that Jaeger piece has got a lot of very pricey ones and zeroes in it.”

Sylvie’s eyes light up at the mention of pricey ones and zeroes. “What more have you got?”

"Do you know any names other than the ones you mentioned?" Eleanor prompts.

"Other than Samil? It’s not exactly a social club, you know. I know my supervisor — that’s Andy Samberg, and yeah, that’s his real name, I learned pretty quick not to give him crap about the fact that he shares it with an action movie star — and I know of Karen, but that’s about it for anyone with actual clout.”

Up on the bridge, Miranda starts, pressing her earpiece close. “Wait, have him say those names again?”

"Andy Samburg, not the actor, and Samil," Seiko repeats quietly for her.

Eleanor raises an eyebrow. “Andy Samberg? Really?”

Greg sighs. “I swear it’s his real name. If I’d thought it would have made my kidnappers not believe me, I would have asked for a transfer.”

Eleanor snorts again, this time in amusement.

"I know those names,” Miranda tells Seiko. “Couple of black market dealers working out of the southern docks. Andy Samberg and Samil Pillai. Didn’t know they had ties to Wulagu…. Seiko, I’ll bet both Samil and our guest would be very grateful to be reunited in a place outside of Wulagu’s reach. Perhaps a proposition is in order?"

Seiko snaps and gestures Eleanor to come over. Eleanor stands and moves to him, keeping an eye on the priso—Greg.

"Miranda knows his friend. Samil Pillai. Black market dealer on southern dock." Seiko pauses for a second. "Even I prefer bribes to murder"

"Less mess," Eleanor whispers, half-joking. "What do we have to do to get to this guy?"

"If I was on Karen’s bad side, I’d be asking for a new identity and perhaps one for my… friend. I have some old contacts in Japan who could help, though don’t bother telling him they’re mine or we might scare him off." Seiko smirks. "It seems like he doesn’t like me for some reason."

While Eleanor is away, Sylvie squats in front of Greg, sitting on her heels. “You don’t know anything more about this mysterious Jaeger tech, do you? What it does? What it is?”

"I don’t,” he says, “Not really a tech guy, sorry."

Sylvie frowns, disappointed. “Too bad. I could use another techie to talk to. Thanks for helping us, though. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about your leg…”

"You know, except for the guy who shot my kneecap out, you all seem pretty mellow for pirates. What’s the deal?"

Sylvie grimaces, realizing that’s definitely not information she should share. “It’s kind of a long story.”

Greg catches the meaning of her evasive answer, nodding. She starts to stand back up, but he frowns. “Uh, wait, hang on. Did you say something about another techie?”

She pauses, then kneels back down. “Hmm?”

"My, uh, friend Samil would probably know more about it." His eyes widen in sudden realization. "Oh no."

Sylvie leans closer. “What?”

"He might be in trouble. Listen, I’ll… I’ll tell you everything you need to know to get him out of Karen’s reach, okay? I promise it’ll be worth your time to talk to him. And I’ve got a little money, I mean I was saving it to get out of there anyway, if you need the pot sweetened a little bit…"

"Would he know more about this mysterious object?" Sylvie asks, seeing a silver lining to this interrogation. Maybe they could get this guy out alive…

"He’s the one that told me about the server infrastructure. He’s one of Wulagu’s tech finance people, he would at least know what exact kind of stuff they need."

"Which… would be exactly the kind of stuff we need,” Sylvie says with a smile. She glances up at the others, trying to gauge their reactions to this possibility.

Eleanor is listening carefully. Her soft side is acting up again. She grins toothily. Beside her, Seiko just nods.

"Ms. Cross?” Seiko holds his earpiece. “How do you feel about acquiring another tech resource?"

Miranda barks out a laugh before covering her mouth quickly. That was not a cool reaction, and she could only hope no one had tuned into her channel other than Seiko yet. “I would very much appreciate a new tech resource. It would probably be best for us not to take him to shore, but tell the others I can contact Mr. Pillai and pick him up in one of the lifeboats, then take both of them to a secure location.”

Seiko turns to address Katie. “Captain? Ms. Cross says she can contact Pillai.” He is no longer bothering to talk quietly.

"Before we can help anyone," Eleanor says, stepping away from Seiko, "we really need to get ourselves out of this"—she gestured above decks—"mess we’re in." She looks Greg over with a critical eye. "And get him out of the mess he is.”

"Thanks for that,” Greg mutters. “Real self-esteem boost there."

Eleanor grins, white teeth against dark skin. “Means I like you.”

Sylvie gives Eleanor a meaningful look. “How about the other half dose for him?”

Eleanor nods and hands over the half-empty packet. “Go for it. I’d say ‘knock yourself out,’ but that might actually be what happens when he gets a full dose of Percocet, combined with that blood loss.”

Gregory snorts. “Could be worse things. Like the guy who shot me standing around the corner the whole time pretending I don’t know he’s there.”

Seiko shrugs. “It was your kneecap or your head. If you must hate me for anything, hate me for your dead crewmates, not the bit of pain I’ve caused you.” He turns away, muttering, “Besides, it’s only getting shot. Don’t even hurt that bad. Now getting shot in the lung…”

"And for what it’s worth, we didn’t shoot most of them," Eleanor puts in. "We shoved them overboard. If they can swim at all, they’ll probably live."

Gregory blinks. “Uh, okay. Not the response I was expecting from a pirate. Who the hell are you people anyway?”

"Just people, like you. Interested in dangerous things," Sylvie says. "I’m not sure ‘pirate’ is really the right term…" She looks worried about this for a moment. "Or is it…? Are we pirates?"

"Have we stolen anything?" Eleanor asks innocently. "Other than information, which should be freely available?" She stops short of actually batting her eyelashes. Jeez, what has gotten into me? She thinks. I’m turning into a moron here.

"Currently," Seiko says. "We are the people who can get you and Mr. Pillai out of the country while Karen believes you’re dead."

"Which,” Sylvie puts in, “I think, is probably a much better solution for everyone than the two of you actually being dead." She gives Seiko a pointed look, as if to say I told you this was better.

Greg holds onto the pills but doesn’t swallow any. “Whatever you want to do. When I woke up I wasn’t sure if I was going to last ten minutes so I’d say my day planner is pretty much open.”

"Now Mr. Lee,” Seiko says, moving into Greg’s line of sight for the first time. “Can you tell us exactly why you think Mr. Pillai is at risk?"

Gregory swallows and looks beseechingly at Eleanor and Sylvie.

"You can talk," Sylvie says consolingly. "Mr. Watanabe promises to pretend like he’s a human being for a little while and not do anything."

"I promise to do my job," Seiko says stiffly. Turning to face Greg he adds: "However, currently that job involves keeping you safe. And protecting Mr. Pillai if you can give us the information we need."

"We can’t help you if we don’t have our bearings, here," Eleanor says, more gently. "Do you know anything about his current situation?”

Greg blows air out from his teeth. “Alright, fine. Samil is, uh… We’re close. And like I said, sometimes when we have some free time we, you know, see each other.”

Seiko gives him a very flat look, quickly grasping the meaning in the words. “Mr. Lee, I really don’t care if you think his eyes shine like diamonds or whatever. Information on what danger he might be in if you don’t mind.”

"I think I get it," Eleanor says, moving one more step forward. "Does your…association put him in danger?" She’s trying to understand, with very little information. What exactly is going on here?

"For what comfort is may be,” Seiko says, “Karen is probably assuming you’re dead. She won’t think to use him against you"

Greg shakes his head.  ”She doesn’t take those kinds of chances. Unless she has a body, she assumes alive.” His voice gets quieter and he glances down. “And that’s the thing, Samil… we haven’t really talked much about stuff. I don’t know if he’s serious or if he’d… he’d throw me right under the bus if Karen came calling.”

“Well then,” Seiko says. “She has about twenty more loved ones to kill torture and intimidate before she goes after the useful ones.”

"Seiko!” Sylvie snaps, horrified. “Could you try to act like a person for five seconds?"

Seiko ignores Sylvie completely. He already had to apologize to his captain for being unprofessional earlier. After dealing with that, the programmer doesn’t even seem worth the effort.

Eleanor gives her two teammates an even look before turning to speak to Greg again. “And, he doesn’t have any more reason to suspect that you’re alive than Karen does. So we have the element of surprise on our side.” And perhaps a bit of espionage talent, she thinks.

Rather than being reassured by Eleanor’s words, Greg frowns, a very worried look crossing his face. “…what did you do with my gun?”

The three teammates look at one another, each looking for answers from the others. No one speaks.

Greg gets more agitated. “What. Did you do. With my gun?”

"I uh…" Sylvie tries to think. "Did we even grab it off the ship?"

"You must have,” Greg says. “I never had the chance to draw it. Wulagu puts trackers in them, you know that right?"

Seiko’s eyes widen just slightly. His eyes snap to Sylvie, fixing her with an intense look. “Sylvie, scramble any signal coming off this ship. Now.”

"Oh, hell…" Sylvie breathes. She takes off running for the bridge, cursing herself for not bringing down a communicator.

Gregory groans and thunks his head against the bulkhead. “Yeah, there’s no way I’m not a priority target now.”

“Hopefully Wulagu’s been too distracted by her other boats blowing up.” Seiko puts hand to his ear. “Miranda, did you hear that? Plot an alternate course, immediately.”

Miranda reaches for her ear instinctively. “I hear you, Seiko. Changing course now.”

"Vee!" Sylvie yells, half-stumbling into the bridge, panting. "I need a blanket signal scramble, now! We’ve got a tracking signal broadcasting somewhere on the ship!"

“Blanket signal engaged,” Vee’s voice comes through the speakers after a moment.

Sylvie puts her earpiece back in, turning it on. “We’re hidden now, but there’s no telling who picked it up while it was broadcasting. Get that gun off ASAP.”

Katie heads down to the deck and looks out astern, scanning the ocean for any sign of pursuers. “Syl,” she says.  “Any idea what they got on us?”

“No way to tell,” Sylvie says. “Vee, can you see if there’s anyone after us?”

Vee broadcasts to the crew. “I’m not detecting anything, but the search is weak. I think this scrambling signal might be blocking our devices as well.”

Miranda tries to fight down her frustration. Sailing blind with possible hostile pursuers is nowhere near ideal. “Fair point. Anyone got eyes on the water?”

“I’m on deck,” Katie says, gripping the railing as she scans the dark night. “Not seeing anything out here, though. We changed courses, right?”

"Yes,” Miranda says, “But I feel the need to point out, that changing courses won’t help if we’ve still got a tracker on us! Someone needs to find that gun and toss it, now!"

"I’ll do it," Eleanor says quickly, hopping to it. She’s out the door in a flash and headed to the hold. Skidding around a corner, she almost misses the stash where the team is currently storing their pistols and extra ammo. She starts digging immediately, searching for anything that seems out of place.

As Eleanor runs out of the room, Seiko turns to Greg. “Mr. Lee, do you have any untraceable ways to contact your friend?”

Greg eyes him nervously, seeming very uncomfortable to have been left alone with his shooter. “He’s my friend, not my spy handler. I don’t have a… scrambled cell phone or whatever.”

Making a snap decision, Seiko runs for his room and starts going through his bag. He’s got an idea, but he’s not sure if it will work or not. He returns to the closet with one of his encrypted cell phones, and pulls out his knife. He slices through the rest of Gregory’s bonds, freeing the man’s other hand and shoving the phone into it. “I hope you know Mr. Pillai’s number,” he growls.

Gregory takes the phone and holds it up to his ear without pressing buttons. “Hey Samil, yeah, I dunno, just calling because I got kidnapped and think you should get kidnapped too, it’s a great ride!” He gives Seiko a very flat look. “Yeah, I really don’t know what you’re expecting me to do here.”

"I don’t know. Tell him to get somewhere safe. A meeting spot. Maybe somewhere you remember. Just get him out. If he’s half as smart as you seem to think he is, he won’t need to ask questions." Seiko leans in closely. "Now. Do you know his number?"

Gregory sighs. “Yes. I know his number.”

“Good. As soon as this blanket signal drops, you’re making a phone call.”

Sylvie swings around the edge of the door to the closet, having run all the way back down from the bridge again if her heavy breathing is any indication. “Mr. Lee, what are the chances that they were monitoring that gun’s signal? How likely are they to be in pursuit?”

Greg holds up his hands. “I don’t know! Depends on a lot of things.”

Sylvie lets out a frustrated sigh at the unhelpful answer, then glares at Seiko. “You just had to take a prisoner, didn’t you?”

“Cut it out, you two,” Katie orders over the comm. “Eleanor, what’s your status?”

“I’m searching…” Eleanor says, scraping her hands as she digs around in the gun totes. Finally she pulls out one that’s differently-shaped. It’s a duller steel color than the others, and there appears to be a tiny red LED on the grip, near the trigger.

“I found it!” She says, grabbing the gun and running up to the deck. Leaning out over the railing, she chucks the weapon as far away from the boat as she can, and watches as it’s engulfed by the waves in their wake. “It’s gone. We’re clean.”

The whole ship seems to let out a sigh of relief. Up on the bridge, Miranda releases the tense grip she didn’t realize she’d had on the wheel. “Vee, drop the signal and scan for pursuers?”

After a moment, Vee responds. “Blanket signal disengaged. Scans report no sign of pursuit.”

Miranda tries to keep her voice calm through the earpiece. “We may not see anyone, but I’m not taking any chances. We’re changing course; we’ll go to Wollongong. We can stop there, watch for pursuers, and hopefully lose them in time to return by tomorrow. Someone should try to locate Samil as well, but we aren’t picking him up in the Tranquility.”

After catching her breath, Eleanor heads back to rejoin Sylvie and Seiko in the room with Greg. Not wanting to interrupt, she merely leans against the doorjamb, trying to keep her footing steady.

Seiko glances at Sylvie. “Signal’s down?” When she nods, he turns to Greg. “Call him.”

Greg punches in some numbers, then holds the phone up to his ear and waits. “Oh! Yes. Hi, uh, hey Samil. Oh yeah, I lost my cell and had to borrow someone else’s. Hey, are you at work? Yeah, I mean, I’m just on a break and thought I’d… uh, hang on.” He mutes the phone with his thumb and stares into the distance. “Oh no.”

"Oh no, what?" Eleanor whispers.

He looks at her with wide eyes. “I heard gunfire in the background. I think he’s on Karen’s ship.”

Eleanor curses under her breath. “He’s close, then.”

“Miranda,” Seiko says. “Samil might be on Karen’s ship.”

"Well, tell him to get out of there!" Miranda says, gripping the wheel tighter. "We can’t go back now, but maybe he’ll be able to slip out unnoticed during the firefight. We can’t go back for him."

"Slip out of the boat?" Eleanor asks into the mouthpiece.

“Do something at least!” Miranda says.

Seiko grabs the phone from Greg, not giving himself time to think twice about what he’s about to do. “Hey Sam-my-man! It’s Rory! Greg got knocked off his boat. Can you believe it? Trying to get him back to shore. Hey, if you have some time after the mission’s over we should meet up at the usual spot! Later!” Before Samil can respond, he hangs up the phone.

Gregory just stares at him in complete and utter shock. The expression is mirrored by Sylvie and Eleanor. Even Katie and Miranda are stunned silent over the comms.

Seiko tries to ignore their reactions, but he looks slightly embarrassed despite himself. “Now if he’s not totally thick, that should tell him you’re in danger. I’m assuming you know where he’d go to meet you?”

Greg does not respond. In fact, he appears to be hyperventilating on the floor.

"Mr. Lee?" Seiko snaps.

"Did…” Greg stammers. “Did he just…"

"He— yes." Eleanor says, trying not to panic herself. Breathe in, breathe out. Don’t hyperventilate, Eleanor, you’re supposed to be calm one, so— “But it’ll be okay!”

Seiko shakes his head. He’s not going to be of any more help here, and he’s starting to lose his ability to deal with this. This is all a little too close to home for him. He gestures to Eleanor in a you-take-care-of-this manner and leaves, heading up to the engine room.

When he gets there, he comes over to where Miranda is steering and just… sits down, back to the console. Miranda lightly squeezes his shoulder as he sits down next to her, but keeps her attention focused on driving.

Sylvie curses as Seiko leaves, turning back to Eleanor. “What was he thinking? If they weren’t following us before that, they’re definitely doing so now.”

"I’m pretty sure we can handle this," Eleanor says, through a false veneer of calm.

“I’m not letting him get away that easily,” Sylvie says. “Handle Greg, will you?” She doesn’t wait long enough to give Eleanor a chance to respond, stalking out of the room to find Seiko.

As her friend leaves, Eleanor turns to Greg, trying to be sympathetic. “It will be okay. We’ll figure this out.”

“Well,” Greg says bitterly. “He certainly knows I’m in trouble, if nothing else.”

"We’ll just stay down here for now, okay?" Eleanor swallows, then after a moment, bends down and hands Greg a small knife. "…just in case."

Gregory nods and tries to move himself into a more comfortable position, wincing as the motion of the ship jostles his leg. He and Eleanor settle in to wait.

Above, Sylvie scans the room as she comes up onto the bridge. Her eyes narrow as soon as they find Seiko. She marches over to him, livid. “What the hell was that?”

Seiko is breathing a bit heavily as he looks up at her. “I was trying to keep our guest from freaking out over a line Karen might hear. It wasn’t a good excuse, but it was better than letting the line go dead or letting him keep blabbering.”

 As Seiko and Sylvie start arguing, Katie hears the conversation through her comm and decides this is a good time to head back to the bridge.

Miranda looks up as the captain enters. Her nails are digging into the wheel at this point. “Do we have a plan yet?”

"Working on it," Katie says. She quickly steps between the still-arguing Sylvie and Seiko, cutting off whatever angry remark Sylvie was about to make. “Mr. Watanabe, I don’t suppose you heard anything useful over that line before you hung up?"

"Just gunfire, captain," he says simply. Taking Katie’s interruption as a way out, he stands and walks out of the room again, heading for his quarters. After everything that’s happened, he needs to talk to his siblings. He can already imagine the conversation. Ah. Himawari. - Hai hai. - Sumimasen - Iie. Daigoku wa dou desu ka? Kyou wa ii desu yo…

Sylvie looks like she’s going to follow to keep yelling at him, but Katie doesn’t give her the chance.”Ms. Mansen, have you made any headway analyzing that data you got?” Katie holds her in place with a look that says answering is not optional.

Sylvie looks between the rapidly disappearing Seiko and the insistent stare of her captain. Finally, as Seiko escapes around the corner, she turns on Katie, nearly shaking. “No, I haven’t gotten anything! I haven’t looked at it! Hell, I haven’t even gotten to drift to sync yet, which was the only thing I’ve wanted to do after getting off that god-awful ship in the first place!”

She sneers. Somewhere deep down she knows that Katie’s not the one she’s angry with, but she’s unable to stop herself from yelling anyway.  “But no, I’ve had to deal with this situation instead of doing any of that. Because we just had to take a prisoner, didn’t we? And now, because of it, we’re probably being chased by well-equipped, well-trained criminals who are out to kill us all! So sorry, Captain! Forgive me if looking at the data slipped my mind!”

When the programmer stops talking, Katie’s expression is dangerously calm. “Are you finished?”

Miranda cuts the engine, bringing the boat to a stop. “Alright, sorry to interrupt whatever’s going on here, but we’re taking a vote. Should we go back for Samil, putting us all in danger to ensure his safety? Or do we retreat and trust him to understand our message and get out safely?”

Chapter Text

Scene 1

Tensions run high aboard the increasingly inaccurately named Tranquility as the Wulagu Syndicate prisoner turned out to be an actual human being. Who would have guessed?

Miranda has finally asked the question everyone was thinking: Rescue Samil from the fray of battle now, or hope he’ll be okay until the Wulagu ship comes in to shore, and try to rescue him then… and also face a harder salvage for the lost Jaeger tech?

Seiko, overwhelmed by recent events, has retreated below decks to talk to his sister. He keeps his comm on to listen to others, but turns off his microphone so they can’t hear him.

Eleanor steps out of the—former?—prisoner’s room, hoping leaving Greg alone will be okay. It’s not like he can go very far with that leg of his. She steps out on deck and looks around. She can barely see the haze of smoke in the distance.

Cupping her hand around the microphone to shield it from the wind, she answers Miranda’s question. “We really can’t stay here. I vote for moving forward, because if we retreat we’ll only be in more danger. Those ships will pick us off in a second.” She sighs. “I don’t like heading back into that mess, but…we’ve got to rescue this guy while we can.”

After her outburst at Katie, Sylvie covers her face in her hands, trying to calm down. Shouting at everyone won’t help anything. Finally she turns to Miranda. “You all can decide what we do. I don’t even care anymore. I’m so out of my depth with all of this that, honestly, I’m not seeing much survivability in either option. If you need me I’ll be over in the corner with Vee trying to forget the fact that highly-trained criminals are probably going to kill us all very soon.”

Miranda shakes her head, muttering to herself. “Ah, right, sorry. I was under the impression a Jaeger pilot would be able to handle herself in hostile situations, my mistake.” She returns to normal volume. “That’s one vote for jumping back into the fray, one vote for laying down and dying. My vote goes to leaving while we can. Katie, Seiko, any opinions?”

Sylvie bites down the angry response that comes to mind. Finally she just sighs, looking down. “Failed. Failed Jaeger pilot,” she says quietly. “And I’m not voting to do nothing; I’m not voting. Because I don’t know what to do. Whatever everyone else decides, I’ll go along with, okay?”

"Sylvie, you’re a hell of a lot better a person than some of the pilots I’ve met," Eleanor says, trying to keep the bite out of her voice. "But if everyone else wants to head back, then…I’ll try to help keep us as safe as we can be."

"Don’t write yourself off as a failure so quickly," Miranda says, feeling slightly bad. "The PPDC may pay my bills, but I’ve seen them make some stupid moves over the years. They dropped you, they dropped El, and if they knew I was out here they’d drop me, too. But my skills don’t come from them, and neither do yours."

"I got dropped because I was an idiot and I completely deserved it,” Sylvie says bitterly. “I’m pretty sure committing felonies is grounds for discontinued employment just about everywhere, so it’s not like it’s really their fault." She sighs, shaking her head. "I think it’s pretty clear that we all know that helping this guy is the right thing to do. I mean… Greg is kind of our responsibility now and we should try to help him." She turns to Katie. "You make the final call, boss."

"Look, y’all," Katie says. "We’ve got this. This crew just thumbed our noses at the PPDC and the Wulagoons both.  I don’t see any reason we can’t do it again. Beside the karma points, it sounds like this Sam person could be a valuable asset."

Miranda perks up at the mention of the words “valuable assets”. She looks around at the others on the bridge. “That makes three. Majority rules.” She revs up the Tranquility’s engine and starts turning the ship around.

Hearing the rest of the crew come to their decision, Seiko sighs. He wishes his sister luck on her math test, tells her he’s going on a company retreat so might not be in contact for a bit, and starts to get his guns ready. Switching back on his comm, he says: “Eleanor. Why don’t you go give Mr. Lee the good news?”

"Heh, alright." Eleanor doesn’t say that she’s not so sure it’s good news, but her tone makes that rather obvious.

“Don’t sound too glum about it,” Seiko says. “If you think about it, we all might die anyway. At least we’re doing something a bit more useful.”

“I suppose.”

"While you’re there," Miranda says through the comm, "You should probably ask Greg if he knows anything about which boat Samil is on. Just because we’re being big damn heroes doesn’t mean we have to jump onto Wulagu boats at random until we find the ship Karen’s on."

"Right," Eleanor says in response to Miranda’s request. She stumbles back to Greg’s ‘room’ and holds onto the doorframe. The ship is tilting a bit uncomfortably as Miranda pushes it back through the waves. "We’ve decided to go back for your friend Samil," she tells Greg, who’s still seated and leaning up against the bulkhead. “Do you know anything about the ship he’s probably on?”

Greg nods. “Thank you. I’m sure you’ll be glad you made that decision. If I had to guess Samil would be on the same ship as Wulagu herself. It’s a really nice yacht, should stick out a lot. If I had to guess she’d be flitting around the other salvage ship.”

Eleanor tries not to wince at that information. The Wulagu ship would likely be very difficult to approach. And heavily armed. She takes a deep breath. “Alright,” she says, and repeats the information through the comm.

Scene 2

Up on the bridge, Katie turns to Sylvie. “Now, I need you on data analysis right away.  We need to know as much as we can before we go in.”

Sylvie nods, her mood still dark. She’s got a job to do now, though, so she pushes it down yet again. “I don’t know how much more info I can get, but we’ll try.” She heads back to her corner by the console and sits down. She flips open her laptop, connecting to Vee and the ship’s nav system. “Vee, we’re looking for a different make and model of ship from the rest. Yacht. What ‘cha seeing?”

Vee broadcasts through the speakers. “Hostile ships are out of range of this ship’s scanners. I cannot access them from our current location.”

"Wherever it is, it’ll be well armed, if I know Wulagu," Seiko says.

Miranda rolls her eyes a bit at the information. “Honestly, who brings a yacht to salvage?”

"Karen Wulagu, apparently," Eleanor mutters over the comm.

Miranda glances over as Seiko enters the bridge with a large black bag over his shoulder. As he passes her, he slips something into her hand. She looks down, inspecting the small object: a cyanide capsule. “Thanks..?”

He meets her eyes, gaze intense. “Don’t let them get you Miranda.”

She hands the capsule back. “They’re not going to get me, and if they do, they’re not going to break me. I appreciate the thought, but I won’t use this.”

He shrugs and slips the small pill back into the pouch around his neck. “At least have a way of defending yourself. You still got that pistol?”

"Of course. Although I probably should go check my gear.” Miranda glances around the bridge, speaking up. “Would somebody mind taking the helm..?"

Seiko gives her a meaningful look, thinking of the ‘gear’ Miranda’s talking about. “Ms. Cross, do you need assistance?”

Sylvie stands up, moving over to the helm. “I think I can keep us from crashing for a bit. Vee will give me pointers… I hope. Just, be back quick?”

"Yeah. Don’t worry, it’s like driving a car. Just hold her steady and try not to crash into anything." Miranda turns to Seiko. "Yeah, that’d be great. If you could go grab my gear from the cargo hold and meet me in your cabin, that’d really speed things up."

As Seiko heads down the hallway to his room, he moves to the next item on his mental to-do list. “Eleanor, I’m going to need a description of Samil. There’ll be problems if I shoot him.”

Eleanor, in the meantime, has been rummaging through the pistol stores again. She finds one that would suit her well enough, and takes an extra for Greg. At this point, it would be foolish not to trust him at least a little. She nods at Seiko’s request. “I’m on it.”

She heads back to the room and hands the pistol to Greg, butt first. “Here. You know how to fire one of these, I assume?” At his nod, she hands him a couple of magazines of ammo too. “The folks up top need a description of Samil, and any other friendlies.” She passes the comm earpiece to him.

Greg fits the earpiece in as best he can. “Uh… He’s a South Asian guy, fairly dark skin, shaved head. Five foot… ten or so? Pretty skinny. I don’t know of any other friendlies that might be on the ship that I would trust not to be loyal to Wulagu.”

Eleanor nods, then scampers upstairs to grab another comm unit. She hopes they have extras lying around.

Scene 3

Seiko stops at the door of the cabin, hearing Miranda moving inside. He checks to make sure his comm is turned off, then knocks, quietly. “I brought your gear, Ms. Cross.”

"Thanks," Miranda says as he enters, pulling off the last pieces of her prototype exoskeleton. "That one you’ve got doesn’t have quite as much fine motor control, but at least I won’t have to worry about turning too quickly and not being able to walk."

He sets the contraption down on the bed beside her. “That all you need?”

"Yeah, I should be good for now. I’ll text you if I need anything else." She pauses for a second. "I know I shouldn’t poke my nose into your business, but… I hope you’ll try not to use that gift. For my sake, if not for whoever else it is you care about."

Seiko goes quiet at her words. “If I was to… it would not be for my sake. We all like to think we could keep our secrets under torture, or that others will never be used against us, but…. ah…” He trails off, trying to find the right words. Finally he sighs. “I find that way of thinking arrogant. But don’t worry. Only as a last resort”

Miranda nods. “I understand. And I won’t… well, to be honest, I’ll probably be pissed for a while, but I’ll get over it.” She smiles. “After all, dying in the middle of a job isn’t very professional, and you’re the most professional person I know. Now go sight your rifles and calibrate your pistols and… I dunno, make sure you’ve got enough powder in your pouch. Whatever it is you gun people do that takes so long before a battle. I’ll be there soon.”

He stands, heading for the door. “See you after the battle.”

"I promise."

Scene 4

The battle is going less well for the PPDC than it was the last time. Night has fully fallen now — firelight flickers over the ocean, perversely beautiful will-o-wisps sitting on the horizon.

At the helm, Sylvie tries to keep the boat on course, aiming for the battle they had just left behind. After a few minutes, Katie comes over and lays a hand on the wheel. “I can take that, Syl. I need you on the computer.”

"Thanks," Sylvie says, gratefully handing it off. "I’ll see if I can’t sift through some of that data we grabbed while we wait for info. There might be something useful in there." She heads back to her corner, opening up her laptop again.

This time, she disconnects from Vee, causing the AI to ask in her ear: “Sylvie, are you sure you don’t want my help with that?”

The programmer shakes her head, already pulling up the data files. “You need to focus on the nav data and getting us in there safely. Help Katie. I got this. I was a programmer for a long time before I had you to help me, Vee.” She sorts through files trying to find something that might be useful.

She doesn’t find much. “Katie, there might be something good in here, but if it is, it’s buried under a lot of stuff we can’t use right now. I’ll keep looking, but I don’t know how much I’ll find.”

Katie nods. “Keep looking.”

Eleanor sits at the bridge and loads magazines while the others work on the technical stuff. She feels like she has to make herself useful somehow.

Miranda returns to the bridge. It looks like she has some sort of body armor on under her clothes. “What’s our status?”

"Well," Katie says, "we haven’t crashed. If you need more than that, ask the AI."

Seiko walks onto the bridge as well, the last member of the team to arrive. He addresses the group as a whole, now that they’re all together. “We still don’t have a direct plan. Who do we hit first? How close do we get? Do we try any stealth?”

Sylvie looks up from her screen, pausing in her typing. “Are we trying for the same kind of plan as before? Or… should we get a new approach for this one?”

Miranda glances over Sylvie’s shoulder at the data on the screen. “Well, if Karen’s floating her stupid yacht over here, it’s probably because there’s something valuable on that salvage ship. I think our best bet would be to hit the… Bunyip? Really?” She shakes her head. “Hit the Bunyip first while we have the element of surprise, get Samil out before any shooting starts, and hope he has some info that can help us get the salvage out more easily.”

"Sounds dangerous and likely to get us all killed," Sylvie says. "But when don’t our plans? Same extraction team? Me, Katie, and Eleanor with Seiko giving cover?"

"I’ve been brushing up on my taking-people-out skills," Eleanor interjects helpfully.

"Works for me," Katie says, pulling a handgun out of… somewhere, and checking the magazine.

"Unless you guys want to split up and have a team on each boat," Miranda says. "If you take Greg you could go two and two, but I’ll leave it up to you all to decide."

"Seiko’s work on his leg might hamper his maneuverability somewhat, Miranda," Sylvie reminds her. She finally gives up on finding something on her laptop and starts to get ready for another infiltration.

A flat, slightly pain-med-impaired voice comes through the comms. “Yeah, not unless you have a wheelchair on board.”

“Greg?” Sylvie asks. “Make sure you keep that comm on. You might be able to give us info while we’re inside.”

“Don’t know how much help I’ll be,” Greg says. “But it’s not like I got much else to do anyway.”

Sylvie walks across the room, grabbing one of the pistols that Eleanor was assembling. Then an idea occurs to her. “Vee, you wrecked their systems before, right? Think you could come up with an auto-run program real quick that would shut another ship down if it were running the same OS? A file on a flashdrive is better than trying to split you again.”

Vee responds quickly. “I made a file that will run the same operations that I ran on the first ship. It may or may not be compatible with the other ships, but it is worth a try. I’m syncing it to your phone.”

Miranda’s eyes are still fixed on the screen of information on Sylvie’s laptop. “Hey Sylvie, mind leaving a copy of this data here? I’m gonna be sitting in the bridge for most of the mission, and I might find some more info that’ll help us out.”

"Vee’s got it all on her hard drive,” Sylvie says. “She should be able to help you out since I’m not bringing her along this time. I’m just going to take my laptop over with me and work this one alone."

Seiko looks over at her. “And nobody here is going to be taken by surprise if the person set to be the sniper shoots a few people this time? Ms. Mansen?”

Sylvie fixes Seiko with a dark glare. “I didn’t have a problem with you shooting people, Mr. Watanabe.  Try not to force us to take prisoners this time. That’s what got us into this mess, okay?”

"Yeah, don’t go for the knees this time,” Greg mutters into his new earpiece. “This closet’s not roomy enough to pick up any more passengers." Eleanor nearly chokes, trying to hide her stifled laughter behind her hand.

“We’ve got some pretty big boxes down in the cargo hold,” Miranda says dryly. “We can improvise if we have to.”

Seiko mutters, barely audible. “Ah, so now your problem is that I didn’t shoot him.”

Sylvie clenches her fists, trying to suppress the urge to punch the nearest wall. Reminding herself that the wall isn’t Seiko helps. “Stop making it sound like I want you to kill people, damn it. Just… stop talking!”

“You want him to stop talking?” Greg says. “Imagine how I feel.”

“I personally support Seiko’s decision to not kill you, Greg; you seem like a nice person, and you’ve been quite helpful. Sorry if you disagree.” Miranda turns her attention to the boarding party, hoping to end the fight before it escalates. “One other thing to keep in mind: there’s a distinct possibility you’ll run into Karen or some of her higher-ups over there. What’s your plan for if that happens?”

"If there are no objections, I plan on shooting Karen,” Seiko says coldly. "You don’t want to know what will happen to us if we get on her bad side."

Miranda nods. “Regardless, we should focus on getting the job done. We shouldn’t kill more than we have to, but we can probably afford to leave wounded people on their respective boats of origin. Karen’s probably got better health insurance than we do.”

Greg just chuckles. “Health insurance. That’s a good one. Didn’t know you could do boats and stand-up.”

"Where will we get our answers if the Wulagus’ head honcho is out of the game?" Eleanor asks.

"And isn’t the whole reason you’re rescuing my…” Greg backtracks quickly, “Er… rescuing Samil is because he has answers?"

"Ideally, yes," Eleanor replies. "But no one has more knowledge of the gang’s inner workings than their leader."

"Hence my plans to shoot Wulagu,” Seiko says. “As much as you may dislike me, Mr. Lee, as somebody who has also worked for her, I can assume you agree this is the best course of action."

"Seeing that we’re fixing to make enemies here," Katie says, "I’d just as soon leave their organization crippled if we can. Intel is good, but not as important as that."

Miranda nods in agreement. “I’m sure the PPDC would appreciate having her out of the picture as well; the Wulagus certainly don’t make their jobs any easier. I’m hoping there are less dangerous ways of getting information than taking a crime lord captive. She probably has a secretary or something that knows how her organization works, so theoretically we could kill Karen, throw the organization into chaos, and get the information elsewhere.”

"Understood," Sylvie says, trying to fight down her nerves. "When we get on board, do you want me to see if I can grab intel from her systems as well? She might have more than the grunt ship we hit before. And I might be able to knock out their comms like last time."

"I would say prioritize getting Samil out safely,” Miranda says. “That said, if their tech looks like something you can hack without too much risk, I would say it’s worth a shot. You know your limits; don’t take on more than you can handle, but nothing ventured, nothing gained."

Eleanor nods, then remembers that her team is on comm, not looking right at her. “I agree. But if we have to take out Karen Wulagu on the way, it’s really no loss. Might put the PPDC in our debt, even.” She swallows. “If we can get in and out of there, that is.”

"Well, we don’t know where Samil is going to be on this ship,” Sylvie says. “They may have even taken him into custody after that rather incriminating phone call he received. I figure we’re going to hit the deck, split to try to find him and if we grab him, we head out. I’ll just head towards their tech. If I find him, I’ll get out. If not, well… I may be able to figure out where he is, and cripple their response.”

"Sounds like a good plan to me." Miranda looks over at Katie. "What do you think, Captain?"

Katie nods. “Sounds good.  We want to use the jetskis or swim with the scooters again?”

"Jetskis are awfully conspicuous," Eleanor says slowly.

Sylvie zips her laptop, phone, and pistol into the waterproof sling backpack she used before. “The scooters worked last time, though I don’t really feel like putting on a drysuit again. Jetskis would be less stealthy, but are we really going for stealth on this one?”

"If we attract the attention of the yacht before we break through the defense line?" Eleanor shakes her head. "We wouldn’t have a boat to come back to."

Sylvie tries not to think about that too closely. “Sounds like scooters it is then. To the drysuits.” As she starts to head down to the hold with Eleanor to suit up, she addresses Vee again. “How long do we have before we’re in range for your scanners? A look at what we’re going into here would be pretty helpful for Miranda, I’m thinking.”

“It’d be appreciated.” Miranda takes the helm back from Katie, letting the captain follow the other two out to get changed. She checks over the gauges before focusing in on driving again.

Vee chimes in. “I’m updating the readout right now. I have marked a large vessel which seems to be the second salvage ship. There is a high probability that the smaller craft barely visible behind it is the Bunyip.”

Miranda analyzes the readout, already starting to plot their course. “Thanks, Vee.” She glances at Seiko. “Best get into position on the roof then. The girls will need cover. Don’t die, okay?”

Seiko nods, moving for the door. The door closes behind him as he heads up to his perch on the roof, leaving Miranda to steer Tranquility through the dark waters on her own.

Scene 5

The boarding team returns to deck as the ship surges back toward the battle, each clad in a drysuit and carrying one of the scooters in hand. They’ll have to take their comms out to go under, but once they’re on the other side, they should be able to put them in again. For now, they wait by the landing for the call from Miranda that the ship’s in position.

"Here we go again, I guess?" Eleanor says. She keeps one hand resting against the railing of the ship in case the boat starts slowing down.

Sylvie takes deep breaths beside her, trying to get into a mindset for combat again.  ”Okay, so what’s the plan here? Are we hitting both these ships at the same time? Grab Samil off the yacht, maybe one of us brings him back here while the other two move on to the salvage ship?”

"The yacht and the boyfriend are our first priority,” Katie says. “We can play it by ear from there. Try to stick closer to me this time, El.”

"Yes ma’am," Eleanor says contritely.

"I heard the boyfriend comment," Greg’s voice crackles over the comms. "Would you mind telling him that?”

Eleanor chuckles. “You can tell him yourself when we bring him back here.”

“We’re getting close now, get ready,” Miranda says over the comm. “Sylvie, if you’re planning to hack their ship, that would put you on your own getting Samil. Do you think you can handle that?”

Sylvie nods, though she knows Miranda can’t see her. “I can handle myself.”

"Alright then,” Miranda says. “I’ll leave planning up to you three. Be careful, stay together, and for Harmony’s sake, remember to stay in radio contact."

"Yeah, sure. Top priority," Sylvie says. "We ready to drop, then?"

"Ready as I can be," Eleanor replies with a nod. Her gun is safely holstered in her drysuit, and the safety’s on, just in case.

Miranda pulls the ship as close as she dares, bringing it to a quiet stop. “We’re in position, Captain.”

Katie motions to prepare for the drop.

"Okay, we’re going in," Sylvie says. "Comms out. We’ll radio in from the ship."

As the three women get ready to jump into the water, Seiko looks at the salvage ship to find it covered in sentries, and starts to scope out those that have the best view on the boat and the water in between.

Eleanor and Sylvie slip into the water first, quickly followed by Katie. Aside from a loud clang as Eleanor kicks off, the team starts through the water without an issue.  They activate their scooters, zipping through the darkness towards the Bunyip. Once again, Sylvie pulls out in front with Eleanor right behind her.

Katie however, has an idea. She sees the other two off to good starts, then makes a turn, speeding to the side.  She takes a detour past the salvage ship, stalling her scooter as she breaks the surface beside it. With a wicked grin, she treads water long enough to pull a flare from a watertight bag, light it, and toss it onto the deck. Hopefully with the sentries on the salvage ship distracted, no one will notice three swimmers slipping onto the yacht. She hears shouting above her, then smiles, kicking her scooter into motion once more and heading after the other two.

Sylvie climbs up onto the Bunyip’s deck, carefully checking to make sure there’s no one around to see her as she manages to get aboard. Eleanor follows her close behind, seeming relieved to have made it across without issue this time. As soon as they’re clear of the water they fit their earpieces in.

"Eleanor and I are on the Bunyip," Sylvie reports. "Seiko, how many guards we got on deck over here?"

Seiko turns his attention away from the flare-caused chaos on the salvage deck to the much quieter yacht. He spots the two women crouched at the stern, unnoticed by the two men standing on the front deck. “Two men on deck, but they don’t look like guards. Windows are tinted, so I’d stay below them. Keep out of view of the salvage ship too. Fifteen sentries over there and Katie just threw a flare on their deck.”

Even as Seiko says her name, Katie climbs onboard behind her two teammates, slipping her own comm in.  ”Looks like that’s all of us.”

“Good to hear from you all,” Miranda says from the bridge. “I’m working on that data with Vee over here. Keep in touch.”

From his position up at the top of the tower, Seiko notices one of the salvage guards becoming a bit too interested in the deck of the yacht. A gunshot sounds and the man goes down, causing even more panic among the other guards. Not my best shot, but it will do.

Sylvie looks between Katie and Eleanor, trying to figure out what they’re going to do. “Do we want to check out those two men on deck, or try to head into the interior?”

"Captain,” Seiko warns. “If we find Samil, you might be our best bet for getting him off the boat. Be careful."

“Understood,” Katie says. “Let’s check the two on deck. Syl, how’s your sleeper hold?”

Sylvie grins. “Not too rusty, I hope.”

Scene 6

Back on the Tranquility, Miranda types away at the data, hoping she can uncover something Sylvie couldn’t. With the boat staying put, she doesn’t have anything better to do. Something catches her eye and she leans in a bit closer. “Vee, take a closer look at that data, would you?”

"It looks like a large cache of encrypted data," the AI responds after a moment’s pause.

"I thought that looked familiar," Miranda says, testing out the code. She’s not near as good a programmer as Sylvie, but Vee’s got the skills she needs. Not to mention the few tricks Miranda managed to pick up from the version of Syl-V she’s lived with for a year and a half. FiVe would be proud, she thinks with a smile. “Sylvie, you were close to getting this thing open! I managed to get it the rest of the way, and boy, do I have some information for you all.”

She reads through the information closely. “Okay, I’m sending a picture to everyone’s phones. Looks like that’s the piece of tech we’re looking for, so keep an eye out for it.” She tries to keep the excitement out of her voice. “From what I can see of these logs, they managed to find it, but it hasn’t been long, so it probably hasn’t even been secured yet.”

"Actually…" Miranda leans over the top of the helm squinting. She digs in a drawer quickly, pulling out a pair of binoculars. "I was right. I can see the salvage from here! It’s on the salvage ship! That explains why there are so many guards there; the tech’s just sitting there on the deck, they don’t even have it tied down!"

She bounces on the balls of her feet. A Jaeger pilot biometric module, sitting right there in the open! She looks over at the other ship. From the chatter she’s getting over the comms, things seem to be going well for them. On the other hand, the deck of the salvage ship is chaos. Guards are running about in a panic. They likely haven’t been trained for this, and now things are collapsing all around them.

Glancing over at the computer screen, Miranda gets an idea. “Hey Seiko,” she mutters into her comm. “I’m gonna do something stupid again. Cover me.”

Scene 7

Sylvie moves carefully across the deck, Katie and Eleanor behind her, each trying to get a good look at the two men on deck without letting them return the favor. As they move, Eleanor draws her pistol, holding it carefully at her side.

Neither of the two men matches Samil’s description.

"I don’t think either of them are our guy,” Sylvie says, looking to Katie. “Take them together?"

Katie nods once. “On your mark.”

Hoping that Katie can take the other man, Sylvie attacks from behind, trying to get a hold on him to knock him out. She gets a good grip on him, but doesn’t manage to knock him out immediately. Seeing the programmer break cover, Katie goes for her target as well.  A quick kick to the knee knocks him off balance, and a jab to the throat makes sure he isn’t going to be yelling for help soon.

Sylvie’s guard flails around trying to hit her, but doesn’t manage to connect. Katie’s guard goes for her ankles, but she deftly steps out of the way and keeps her balance. Eleanor hangs back, pistol at the ready in case she needs to create a distraction. She knows she’s not much use in a fight, but she at least makes a decent lookout.

The scuffle on the Bunyip’s deck draws the attention of another guard from the salvage ship. Seiko sights, aims, and takes another shot. The man crumples immediately and the Tranquility crew hears a slight grunt of satisfaction over the comms. Perfect shot, Seiko thinks with a smile.

Eleanor hears the shot ring out and jumps slightly. When there’s no further gunfire, though, she grins in relief. Katie and Sylvie are still struggling to take down the men, and until they’re done, there’s not much she can do.

Scene 8

Miranda starts the Tranquility’s engines as quietly as she can, keeping the lights off. Then she directs her attention to the ship. “Vee, I’m about to drive us up to the salvage ship. When we get close, I need you to connect my mic to the ship’s loudspeakers and read this information off to me.”

"Acknowledged," The AI replies.

Miranda steers the Tranquility through the dark waters, bringing her right up to the salvage ship. She let the boats knock together a bit, jostling the other ship as she comes to a jolting stop. The guards on deck look about ready to faint. Vee connects the speaker, and for good measure, throws on the exterior floodlights to the deck as bright as they can go.

The pilot drops the gangplank remotely, then hurries out onto the deck. With the apparent armor beneath her clothes, she looks about as intimidating as she feels. The ship is dead silent as she begins speaking. “Michael Hobgood,” she says clearly. “Raphael Vargas. Kelly Davidson. Lee Sheng. Stephen Carlsberg…” She reads out all fifteen names of the guards stationed on the salvage ship. “Two of you are already dead. Thirteen remain. This is your first and only warning: throw your weapons into the ocean and lay face-down on the deck, or die a quick and painful death.”

There is a moment of absolute stillness. Miranda holds her breath, hoping they don’t call her bluff and start shooting at her. Thirteen guards would be able to take her down easily, cover from Seiko or no.

The sound of something falling into the water breaks the silence. In moments, all thirteen guards have disarmed and are laying on the deck. Miranda lets out her breath and walks across the gangplank. She picks four guards at random. “You four, stand up. Grab that piece of salvage and carry it into to the other ship’s cargo hold.” They follow her orders almost immediately.

With that settled, she walks back to the deck of the Tranquility. She hesitates, looking back at the guards lying on the deck. They could be useful, but without their guns they’re all likely to end up like Greg would have.

"All right," Miranda says over the speakers again. "I’m going to read out your names again. When your name is called, cross over to our deck. One of my men will escort you to the cargo hold, where you’ll find two large, empty boxes that you’ll be staying in for the duration of our voyage. If you try anything, he will not hesitate to kill you."

The guards are surprisingly cooperative, and Seiko comes down to escort them one at a time to the cargo hold. With that complete, Miranda returns to the bridge, raises the gangplank, and revs the engine, starting to move the Tranquility back into safer waters. She speaks into the comm again, a satisfied smile on her face. “Don’t worry about the salvage ship. I took care of it.”

Even as she finishes telling the crew not to worry though, another loudspeaker kicks to life aboard the Bunyip. A cultured Australian voice speaks out of it. “This is Karen Wulagu.”

Everything seems to go still. Miranda feels a sudden sense of dread from where she stands. Down in the hold, Seiko starts cursing under his breath. He’d almost gotten their new prisoners corralled into the cargo boxes.

Wulagu continues, the speaker carrying her voice out over the distance between the ships. “The first group of ‘hostages’ to bring me the captain of that ship, alive or dead, will receive one million dollars apiece. The rest of you will not survive the rest of the week. It is your call, ladies and gentlemen and others. Wulagu out.”

There is a very tense moment in the hold as Seiko stares at the thirteen prisoners, who suddenly seem far less cooperative than they were a minute ago. They’re unarmed, but he’s outnumbered. With a tone that could cut through steel, he stares them down. “Despite Karen’s message, I would like to remind you Karen is not here.” One of the hostages makes a break for it, running to tackle him. Seiko shoots him in the head, very clean. “I am.”

With a careful blend of intimidation, threats, and bodily force, he manages to force the remaining prisoners into the cargo boxes. He throws the locking mechanism into place, then steps back to watch and make sure they both hold.

Above him, Miranda runs through the halls, throwing every lock between the bridge and the deck she can. She pulls out the pistol Seiko gave her and sits in the corner, gun leveled at the door and out of the range of the windows. If they want her, she’s going to make them work for it.

"Miranda," Seiko growls over the comm. "Of all the people I expected to be a loose cannon on this mission, it was not you."

"I saw a chance to complete our mission and I took it. I don’t regret what I did, even if-" Her breath catches for a moment, but she pushes the panic out of her voice. "Even if this doesn’t end ideally."

"In case anyone was wondering, I’m not taking her offer," Greg says dryly. "Bet that’s a real weight off your minds."

Scene 9

On Wulagu’s own ship, Eleanor doesn’t quite know what to do. She already squeaked involuntarily when Miranda threw on the bright lights and made her threats. She felt like her jaw dropped past the ocean floor when she heard about the thirteen new hostages they’re going to be keeping in the hold. By the time Wulagu’s voice comes blaring out of the loudspeaker above their heads, she’s ready to do something. Anything at all. When the details of the “deal” are explained, she curses under her breath, and tightens her grip on her pistol.

Beside her, Katie and Sylvie are still fighting. In the midst of grappling her opponent, Sylvie manages to snarl, “What the hell did I tell you about taking prisoners!”

Eleanor steps forward, but doesn’t want to interfere in the fight. “We need to find that woman!”

In a mix of both anger and panic, Sylvie manages to finally get a good grip on her opponent, and chokes him until he stops moving. Making sure that he’s out - but not looking too carefully to see whether or not he’s breathing - she drops him to the deck then turns to Eleanor and Katie. “We need to grab that boy and get out of here, now!”

"El!" Katie shouts, still fighting her guard.  "Get the door open!"

Eleanor runs back to the door and aims her pistol at the lock. She fires, point blank, wincing slightly at the loud bang. The door slowly swings open, an empty hole where the keyhole used to be.

Sylvie puts a hand to her comm. “What’s the status on the prisoners?”

“Contained, for now,” Seiko replies.

"Miranda, keep low. Seiko, keep them under control,” Sylvie says. “You two stick together, and don’t let them take the ship." Her voice grows dark. "I’m going after Wulagu."

As the guard swings for Katie again, she sidesteps, and returns with a loose face slap, dazing him. And then pulls out her gun and shoots him point-blank in the head. “Sylvie,” she says, wiping away the blood splattered on her face.  ”I’m right behind you.  That woman dies tonight.”

"Motion passed," Eleanor murmurs darkly.

Seiko’s voice crackles through the comms. “It’s nice to see us all agreeing.”

Miranda lets out a hollow laugh. “All this fuss over me… I’m flattered.”

Eleanor glances around the door, pistol at the ready. She sees an empty hallway beyond.

Sylvie moves into position, right outside the doorway. “I’ll take point. Hand-to-hand is going to be more useful in these close quarters. Katie, you cover right behind me, and Eleanor watch the rear?”

“Makes sense,” Katie says, readying her pistol.

"Can do," Eleanor says, stepping back so the other women can enter. "I’ll keep an eye out."

Sylvie moves into the hallway, not even thinking about the gun in her backpack right now. She stays close to the wall, moving as quickly and quietly as she can. The other two follow closely, Katie ready to fire at any distant opponents, Eleanor watching for anyone behind them.

—-

The prisoners are starting to grow restless, trying to break out of their makeshift prisons. Seiko doesn’t want to find out what will happen if they’re successful.

He bangs on the side of one of the boxes, shouting. “If any of you think you can take me down with no weapons, keep making noise! Otherwise, I’d stay still. Karen’s not going to be around long to pay you anyway.”

The box he pounded on quiets, but the other group is still acting up. Hearing a worrisomely loud noise from that direction, Seiko walks over and aims his gun at the side and fires. The shot is probably too high to have hit anyone, but it serves its purpose. The prisoners settle immediately.

Miranda sits on the floor, listening for any sign of problems. It’s completely silent up where she is, which is even worse for her nerves. The others seem to have turned the microphones off on their comms, and she’s feeling horribly alone on the bridge.

She hears a sudden clang from below her, making her jump a bit. She switches her mic over to just Seiko. “Seiko? Is everything okay down there?”

There’s a small buzz as he turns his mic back on. “Fine. Just keep steering Mira, and try not to pick up any more strays. “

Scene 10

The strike team moves deeper into the ship, their footsteps quiet and soft. Sylvie moves forward as quickly as she dares, ready to grab anything that moves. She holds up a hand for the others to pause as they reach a corner, then carefully leans around.

There’s a muffled radio squelch from the other end of the hall. Then, four heavily armored and armed guards burst into the hallway carrying riot shields.

Sylvie jerks back, causing the other two to jump. “Four guards, heavily armored,” she hisses, putting her back to the wall. “Any ideas? I don’t think we can take four!”

"We definitely can’t," Eleanor whispers desperately.

"They wanted the captain, right?" Sylvie whispers. "We could try to surrender. Maybe they’ll take us to Wulagu."

"We can take ‘em," Katie says. She pulls out a hand grenade.

Eleanor’s eyebrows shoot up. “Well,” she says, “that changes the game a little.”

Katie motions toward the door they left behind. “Let’s go back the way we came first.”

The three hurry back as quietly as they can, emerging onto the decks once more. As soon as they’re clear, Sylvie steps to the side, turning her mic back on. “Seiko, are you above decks? We’ve got some friends who need some of your hospitality. Katie’s got a gift for them, but we wouldn’t want anyone to be left out.”

"I can get above decks," Seiko says quietly enough the men in the crates can’t hear.

"Good," Sylvie says. Reluctantly, she pulls the pistol out of her bag as well. Grappling’s not going to help her in this situation. As soon as they’re clear of the hallway, she steps aside, ready to cover her ears to protect them.

Once all three are out the door, Katie pulls the pin on the grenade, cooks it for a second, then rolls it quietly down the hallway they just came from, aimed directly at the feet of the guards.

The explosion rips through the air, deafeningly loud. Smoke billows from the hallway, leaking out into the dark night. Eleanor is well out of the way of danger, but ducks her head anyway.  Sylvie’s in a similarly protective position on the other side of the door.

As soon as the explosion is past, Sylvie stands again. She levels her gun at the smoke cloud, ready to fire on anything that moves. Beside her, Eleanor raises her pistol, as well. The smoke keeps either of them from being able to see anything but vague shapes though, and their eyes start to water.

The sound of an explosion is quickly followed by that of Miranda yelping in surprise. A clattering on the other end indicates that she’s dropped her pistol and is fumbling after it.

"It’s okay Mira,” Seiko says. “Keep calm."

"We’re okay over here," Eleanor says quietly.

"Thus far," Sylvie adds, still scanning the smoke. “The explosion was ours, Miranda.” None of the four guards move. Satisfied that no one’s in fighting condition, Sylvie moves toward the cloud, holding her breath. "They’re down. Let’s go."

Chapter Text

With a hold full of rather hostile prisoners, a very pissed off crime lord in the form of Karen Wulagu, an away team waving away a smoke cloud and hoping they didn’t just kill their target, and well, Greg; the Scroungers are in it deep. It remains to be seen if they can get themselves out of this one.

As the smoke from the grenade clears, Sylvie moves up beside one of the men. She pulls off his riot shield, figuring it might come in handy, then after a moment, grabs his gun as well. She’s about to stand up and move on, when she thinks to check his face and see if he matches their description of Samil. Perhaps we should have thought of that before we threw the grenade…

Behind the mask, the guy is pasty as they come. Not Samil. Sylvie drops him back to the deck, silently thanking him for her new equipment. Then she moves on to the next guy, pulling of his mask as well. “Check the faces. Makes sure none of them are Samil. Then we need to get moving. They definitely know we’re here now.”

Eleanor’s lips twitch. “I’m pretty sure they knew we were here when we took a dozen of their crew, too.”

"They know we’re on this ship now, I mean." Sylvie says. She checks all the faces, just to be sure, but none of them match the description. She hefts the shield, holding it in front of her. "I don’t think he’s here. Let’s go."

Seiko addresses Greg over the comms. “Mr. Lee. Can you tell us where on the ship we might find your friend? We don’t want him getting caught in the crossfire.”

"He’ll be in the command center proper, wherever that is,” Greg says. “I assume that Wulagu wanted him close when she finalized whatever she’s planning for that Jaeger tech. He’ll be on a team of other analysts, probably."

"So we’ll probably find him and Wulagu together," Sylvie says. She tries to decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. "Two birds, one stone, I suppose. Katie, care to grab one of those shields as well? We need to move quickly."

"Mr. Lee,” Seiko says. “I should note if we run into Samil and he sides with Karen, we may use you as leverage. Please take this as an attempt to get him to safety, not a threat on your life."

The crew can almost hear Greg shrug as he responds. “I’ve already been shot today. Bring it on.”

Oh yeah, the drugs kicked in alright, thinks Eleanor.

"Okay, same positions as before, but hey, we’ll have shields this time," Sylvie says. "Follow me." She starts back into the slightly smokier hallway.

Eleanor and Katie follow, their new shields at the ready. Eleanor’s pistol is out, too, but aimed at the floor. She doesn’t want to accidentally maim someone.

The hallway still has low visibility and their ears are all ringing, but the team can still make out voices at the far end of the hall. Panicked voices. A booming voice with a Minnesotan accent pours out of the room ahead. “Barricade the door!”

A muffled thump and scrape sounds behind the door, almost like someone is using a bunch of very expensive, eight-hundred-dollars-a-pop Aeron chairs to prop closed a door. They must truly be desperate, they’ll ruin the mesh backs!

"Um," Eleanor says tentatively, "do you think we could break the door down with these shields? Or does one of these guys have a crowbar we could ‘borrow’?"

"Try shooting at the doors with the automatics a bit," Seiko says. "Get them scared."

"We could say we’re here for the reward. We do have the captain. Think they’d let us in?” Sylvie says sarcastically. She levels her new gun at the door though.

"Wait, these bulkheads look metallic. The bullets could ricochet," Eleanor says.

"You could try it," Miranda says. "But I think she’s under the impression that I’m the captain, and because of those floodlights she’d probably be able to tell us apart. She’d probably just kill you for trying."

"Do we have a better plan than shooting ourselves via hard metal door?" Eleanor asks.

"We’ve got shields, and it’s not like we’ve got many other options," Sylvie says. "You want to do the honors?"

Eleanor winces. “Okay. I can aim for the lock again, I suppose…” She raises her pistol. She shoots, but misses. No luck. But at least the bullet doesn’t ricochet back at them—though she doesn’t see where it ends up—and she hears some panicked shouts coming from the other side of the door.

"Now might be a good time to try talking them down," Miranda suggests through the comm. She seems to have calmed down considerably, and a bit of the wryness has returned to her voice. "We might even have a few crates that are still unoccupied."

"Right, because taking prisoners has worked so well for us in the past…” Sylvie says.

Katie steps up to the door.  ”This is Katie Horner, captain of Tranquility.  I’m here to collect that reward.”

Sylvie’s eyes go wide. “I was… mostly joking, Katie,” she whispers.

Katie’s expression is anything but humorous. “I’m not.”

Back on the Tranquility, Seiko is staring at the cases, watching them carefully. One of them starts acting up again, so he moves over and and gives it a good kick. “The safest way to get rid of one of you would be to dump the whole box in the ocean. I recommend your friends consider that.”

There’s a muffled insult from inside the box, followed by the sounds of a scuffle. Then another thump comes, and the sounds stop. After a moment a quiet voice speaks up. “Sorry, sir.”

Seiko steps back, satisfied. “Thank you for your cooperation. I hope we’ll all be making it to shore alive.”

On the Bunyip, an unfamiliar Australian voice from behind the door clears its throat. “You don’t appear to be on your ship, Ms. Horner. I suspect a trick.”

"A trick?” Katie calls. “That wouldn’t be very sportin’ of me, would it now?"

"And grenades are, eh?" says the Minnesotan. This voice sounds male.

"I never claimed I didn’t have one, did I?" Katie says. "Come to think of it, I never claimed I didn’t have a few meters of primacord either. Could try to limber that door off with a bit of that, hmm?"

There’s muffled deliberation behind the door. Then, a third voice, this one very familiar. Wulagu. “Fine. You’ve stated your case; you’re obviously a woman of business. What do you want?”

"I want you to open that door just a crack," Katie mutters under her breath.

"Ask for Samil?" Sylvie whispers. "If they open the door we might have a shot at them."

Katie glances over at her. “What do I tell her we need him for?”

"We trust him to negotiate for us?" Sylvie suggests. "If we’re negotiating, we need a twixt, right? We want him."

Seiko interrupts over comms.  ”That might get him suspected as a traitor. Be careful.”

"You might not want to name drop our target,” Miranda adds. “Any chance there’s someone else we know in the room?"

"We can tell the truth,” Sylvie says. “We captured a prisoner who said he could be trusted. Throw out Greg’s name so that he knows we’ve got him, maybe? He may volunteer to talk with us."

"That will just make it look like Mr. Lee and Samil have turned," Seiko says.

"Well I don’t hear you offering any better solutions, Seiko!" Sylvie snaps, louder than she should. Her eyes go wide as she realizes that she used his name aloud. She immediately claps her hand over her mouth, but the damage is done.

Katie raises her voice again toward the door, making her decision. “Let me point out that we’ve taken both your salvage ships, y’all are bottled up down here, and the PPDC is in the process of rounding up the rest of your friends. ‘What I want’ is for y’all to fucking surrender.  Except Ms. Wulagu.  She needn’t bother.”

After a moment of stunned silence, Miranda chips in over the comm. “Well, I bet she’s real eager to open the door now.”

Wulagu laughs. “Good. Glad to hear you’ve acknowledged that I have won. No need to surrender, indeed.”

Katie’s cell phone buzzes. She checks it, and finds a text from a number she definitely wasn’t expecting to see.

Tara: Katie, this is Tara. Remember, from the Sacramento job? I’m in the room. I think I can help you. Are you really looking to hire?
Katie: Absolutely
Tara: Wulagu’s not on the ship, she’s on a telepresence thing. One of her best lieutenants and one of her beefiest thugs are in here instead. What did you come here for?
Katie: We’ve taken that already.  Now we’re trying to preempt any retaliation, but if your boss isn’t there that’s not going to happen.
Katie: A yacht and some new talent would help, though.  You know how well I pay.  I’ll take anyone who wants to defect.
Tara: Lot of loyalty here. I think I know maybe one other person who you could convince.
Katie:They got a name?
Tara: Pillai. Samil Pillai.
Katie:I thought he might be.  Tell him Greg’s with us.

"Syl,” Katie whispers, “any chance you can get me eyes in there, or mess with their net connection in any way?" Katie whispers.

"I can give it a shot. Any chance you know their wi-fi password?" She asks jokingly. She props her riot shield against the wall and sits down. In one smooth motion, she pulls her laptop out of her backpack and flips it open.

Katie: We could really use the wifi password, Tara
Tara: Leviathan

“The password’s ‘Leviathan,’ Syl,” Katie says. “First letter capped.”

Sylvie blinks, then quickly types the word in. Much to her surprise, it works. Her laptop connects immediately. She looks up, bewildered. “How did you—” She cuts off as Katie gives her a look that says don’t ask.

"So, Karen,” Katie calls toward the door. “Sure is brave of you not to surrender when we have you pinned down like this.  Must be inspiring to your people to have a boss like that."

Wulagu laughs. “My people are inspired by competence and intelligence, Ms. Horner. Dead crime lords don’t pay well.”

"I don’t know, we could test that theory…" Sylvie mutters darkly, still typing.

There’s a groan over the comms from Miranda as she figures it out.  ”…Dammit, she’s not on the ship, is she?” Assuming that Seiko has been listening in and also made the connection, she takes a moment to send him a text.

Miranda: Ok?
Seiko: None of the prisoners have escaped Ms. Cross. please attend to the ship.
Miranda: …Alright. Just be careful.

She lowers her phone with a sigh. He’s worse than I thought. She resolves to check in on him later, but for now she returns her attention to the away party.

"Dead employees don’t draw much pay, either," Katie calls back.

"Yes,” Wulagu says, sounding amused. “But haven’t you heard? I give excellent health benefits. For example, have you considered the health benefits of not smoking?"

At her words, small vents in the side of the corridor open up and a thin white vapor starts emitting from the vents. The three women in the hallway grab for their scuba masks, quickly fitting them into place before the gas can reach them.

"Cut her off!” Katie shouts. “I don’t want to hear her voice anymore."

Tara: Oh no. She opened the vents, didn’t she? I’m working to open it up but I don’t think there’s an override. Get out of there NOW.

As the ominous mist fills the hall, it seems the masks are enough to be effective, for none of the three shows signs of being hurt by it. Katie motions the others back anyway.  No idea what all is in this vapor.

Sylvie snatches her laptop up with frustration and starts to move away. “I’ve got nothing, Katie! Her security’s too tight. I can get limited access to one computer in there, and that’s it!”

"Good thing we have several hours’ worth of oxygen left," Eleanor says, the mask muffling the sound of her voice. "We might be stuck here for awhile."

Katie’s phone buzzes again, a text from a new number. From the contents, she quickly realizes it’s from Samil.

Samil: Are you the ones who called me earlier? What the hell have you done with Gregory?
Katie: He’s safe.  Hurt, but safe.  We offered him protection in exchange for intel, but he wouldn’t leave without you.

That’s not quite right, but it’s romantic.

Samil:  Gregory? Offered you intel? Really now.
Samil:  He offered you MY intel, didn’t he?
Katie:  He was worried about you.  We were the ones who realized you’d know something useful.
Samil:  …that idiot. Okay, I’m on board.
Samil:  I’m sure Tara told you there’s no Wulagu on the ship.
Samil:  Anything specific you want us to do in here?
Katie:  Sit tight.  If you can find something to protect you from whatever the gas is, let me know.

She flips back over to the conversation with Tara, checking the new messages there.

Tara: Are you okay? Did you get out?
Tara: You scuba’d here, right? You should be fine if you have your equip.
Katie: We’re good for now.  Any idea what that gas is?
Tara: It sure isn’t laughing gas. I think there’s a couple of air cylinders I can grab for me and Samil if you can create a distraction.

Katie leads the strike team all the way back to the entry hallway, where the four downed men still lay. The smoke from the grenade has mostly cleared out, and it’s much easier to see now. She points at the bodies. “El, see if any of them dropped anything useful. We need to get that door open.”

Eleanor adjusts her nosepiece to be even tighter, kneels by the men at their feet, and carefully pokes around in one’s pockets. She pulls out a bundle of flares and tucks them in her bag.

"Katie, any chance your wi-fi password genie can take out whoever’s in there, or open the door so we can?" Sylvie asks, still fruitlessly trying to fight through firewalls.

Katie almost responds, but she’s interrupted by yet another new text conversation making her phone buzz.

PROMOCODE:  THIS IS YOUR DAILY CHICKEN TREAT PROMOTION! Come in now and get $3 off a Mega Meal. Just tell your cashier the code “Ironsides”!

This one is more easily dealt with: she ignores it entirely. She flips over to her rather more important conversation with Tara, ignoring the text promo.

Katie:  Scuba is right.  I’ll let you know when we are coming in.
Tara:  Give me about a minute after you stir the pot and before you open the door.
Katie:  Any chance you can cut your boss off and make it look like it happened from the outside?
Tara:  That’s easy. 
Tara:  Done.

"Hey, is everyone okay in there?" Miranda says, trying not to panic again. Karen might not even be on the boat; if something happens to them while they’re trying to protect her…

"We’re good.  Karen ain’t here," Katie says. "Tell Greg we’ll have Samil over soon."

"Alright." Miranda stops for a moment. "You’re telling me Wulagu left her overdesigned piece of cr- I mean, her expensive and high-tech flagship behind?"

"I don’t think she was ever here.  She was on a conference call or something." Though she isn’t anymore, Katie thinks with a vindictive smile.

Tara: Okay, the brass is getting worried why Wulagu cut off. Do you have an actual plan?
Katie: On our way. We’re about to find out if this gas burns.
Tara: Don’t think it does. Some kind of paralytic.

Katie waves everyone back again. “Ok, everyone back on deck.”

Sylvie finally gives up on breaking through the firewall, closing her laptop and evacuating the murky hallway after Katie. Eleanor follows close behind.

"Hey, try not to scratch the paint up too badly," Miranda says quickly. "I think I’ve got an idea our captain might like."

"Now toss one of those flares in, El,” Katie orders. “I want to make sure we aren’t going to blow ourselves to bits if we light one in there. Syl, keep on it. Miri, if you are thinking what I think you’re thinking…"

Sylvie sits down again on the deck with a huff, pulling out the computer once more. “It’s not going to do any good…”

Eleanor lights a flare with her waterproof lighter and tosses it into the hallway. “I hope I didn’t just set the ship on fire…”

Gas is still billowing out of the entrance. The flare lands on the ground and sputters a bit. It seems the gas is not flammable after all.

Katie looks to her two crewmembers. “Anyone know how to melt a hole in a metal door with an aeronautical flare?”

"We might have better luck trying to go around the door," Eleanor says. "Can we go belowdecks and try to get through the wooden floor?"

"Find a way to focus the flame," Miranda says off-handedly. "The hotter it burns, the quicker you’ll cut through. Also, try not to get hit with anything. Molten metal is not a fun thing to get on your hands."

Katie:  Tara, is there another way in there?
Tara:  Not that I know of.
Tara:  Are you trying to get in?
Katie:  We’ve got a way, it just isn’t fast.

"What about the gas? Is it dissipating at all?" Eleanor asks.

Miranda’s voice sounds almost annoyed over the comms. “Are any of you going to try breaking through that door, or am I going to have to come over there and do it myself?”

Katie puts a hand out toward Eleanor for the flares and lighter. “I”ve got it.”

"Make sure that anyone with anything flammable is standing back from the door," Eleanor says, passing them over. She and Katie begin walking back for the locked door, leaving Sylvie typing away on the deck still. "By the way, will they be able to breathe in there?"

Katie pulls out her phone once more, shooting a warning text to both Samil and Tara, then kneels down beside the door.

Katie: Coming in, both of you
Tara: Got it.
Samil:Fine.

Katie motions Eleanor to be ready with another flare, then begins to melt through. The doors are hardened steel, and don’t melt at all. However, they do start glowing a fair bit. A thick black smoke starts seeping under the door. A fire alarm sounds, and the room behind the doors bursts into frenzied screaming, chaotic rustling, and a lot of scraping sounds.

"Stop!" Eleanor shouts.

Katie pulls the flare away quickly, yanking her phone out again.

Katie:  Shit. Things ok in there?

Sylvie snaps her laptop closed as the alarms go off, slinging it into her bag. “What’s happening?” she asks before she realizes that she’s now alone out on the deck.

As things start to sound like they’re going wrong on the other end, Miranda stumbles out of her corner, staying low but getting closer to the helm. “What’s wrong?”

A six foot eight inch tall man who looks like he’s made of solid muscle throws the door open and spies Katie standing in front of it. He glares at her, takes a deep breath, and pulls his fist back for a punch.

And then collapses bonelessly to the ground.

Sylvie rushes into the hallway just in time to see the man succumb to the deadly influence of the gas. “The door’s open?!”

A HALON system has kicked in inside the room, stifling the flames from the extremely comfortable and expensive Aeron chairs that once served as a barricade. But the paralytic also pours into the room. Within seconds, the only souls left standing are a lanky South Asian man with a shaved head and a short, freckly blonde woman, looking slightly sheepish and sharing an air cylinder.

Eleanor moves forward, starting to shove some chairs aside to clear the doorway. Katie leans down to help. “I suppose we should get these two out of the gas too,” Katie says. “Mr. Watanabe, I’ve got you a few more prisoners.”

Seiko however, is not listening to Katie. Something far more ominous has captured his attention: His phone is ringing. He looks down at the caller, but the number is unlisted. He switches his comm off and picks the phone up. The voice that answers makes his blood run cold.

"Mister Watanabe. I don’t quite know what involvement you have had in this escapade, but I will not forget it. I will be taking measures to ensure compliance. Not soon, but eventually. I know how good of a defensive network you can erect in the short term, but keeping it up for longer would be, as I know, a tax on your resources. This is neither a deal nor an offer; just a threat.

"Oh, and tell your friends that I don’t let my toys get taken away from me very easily. Wulagu out."

The call goes dead. Seiko stares blankly for a moment, trying to take in what he’s just heard. Then he breaks the phone in half, and throws both pieces as far off the ship as he can before finally turning his comm back on.

During Seiko’s unexplained radio silence, Miranda answers for him. “Excellent. Captain, did you happen to come across the bridge in your search for Samil?”

"I think we may be in it now…" Sylvie says, walking into the room and looking at the array of computers. Her eyes are already going starry at all the devices.

"I’ve been thinking," Miranda starts, shifting to a more comfortable position while still staying behind cover. "Wulagu was kind enough to leave us her ship, and it looks like it’s got several goodies stashed away in it, like that nerve gas. It would be a shame to let such a valuable gift go to waste." She pauses for effect. "Plus I would love to see the look on Karen’s stupid face when we use her own ship to take her down."

Seiko finally answers. “No.”

"Seiko?" Miranda asks. There’s something strange about his tone that worries her.

"That is a very bad plan Ms. Cross."

"Hey," Tara says, passing the mask over to Samil. "Do you hear gurgling?"

"Uh-oh," Eleanor says.

"Everyone off!" Katie yells.  "Samil, Tara, we’ll pick you out of the water."

Sylvie isn’t listening anymore. She’s already found the most important looking console in the room and is trying to access whatever she can.

Katie notices her as Samil and Tara run for the hall. “Mansen! You can play with your toys once we know she isn’t about to explode.” Eleanor starts to follow the two ex-syndicate workers, but pauses when she sees Sylvie isn’t following.

"Katie, I think I’ve got something here…" Sylvie says, grinning around her oxygen piece. "I’m loading it over onto my laptop but I’m pretty sure I can get more. I’ve got access to her whole system from here…"

A thin sheet of water has started to cover the floor of the room, flowing steadily around their feet.

"Leave it!” Katie orders. “The ship’s taking on water."

"Just give me a moment…" Sylvie mumbles. Her voice is absent, she’s barely even listening. "There’s so much data here. We could ruin her if I can grab a copy of this…"

Overhearing the conversation, Miranda chances a look out the windows. The scene outside is not a pretty sight. “Cadet Mansen,” she snaps. “You have to leave NOW. I’m all for getting extra data, but literally EVERY Wulagu ship just turned this way. I’ve dragged your ass out of danger at great personal risk once before, and I DON’T want to have to do it again. Now get moving!”

The words shake Sylvie out of her thoughts. “Wait…” she says, bewildered. “You what? When did you…”

"We gotta go!" Eleanor yells, grabbing Sylvie by the upper arm and trying to haul her up.

The panic in Eleanor’s eyes is what finally snaps Sylvie back to the moment. Realizing the danger they’re in, Sylvie starts running for the outside, doing up the seals on her backpack as they reach the deck.

Miranda has pulled the ship as close to the Bunyip as she can. Unfortunately their deck has dropped several feet below that of the Tranquility’s. Looking around quickly, she pulls a rope ladder out of one of the deck storage units and tosses it over the side. “Come on!”

Samil and Tara are already swimming across, making for the ladder. Eleanor stands next to the two new crewmembers. “Our ship’s not far. Jump,” she says, and then does so.

Trying to pretend she’s in some action movie, Sylvie leaps over the side with the other two, praying the seals on her backpack hold. The Wulagu syndicate ships are steaming at full speed toward the Tranquility and the rapidly sinking prow of the Bunyip.

The three women clamber aboard, dripping water from their wetsuits beside the drenched Samil and Tara onto the Tranquility’s deck. Despite the warmth of the February weather, a sudden wind across the deck causes the group to shiver.

Then, suddenly, from the shore: A giant humanoid figure, floating through the air against the nighttime glow. Beams of light cut through the darkness from the eight Chinook helicopters towing it towards the battle.

"Shit!" Miranda limps back towards the bridge. Ducking behind the helm, she fumbles with the keys and fires up the Tranquility’s engines.

From behind them, a loudspeaker crackles on one of the PPDC ships, broadcasting a very loud, and very angry sounding female voice.

"This is Marshall Rachel Zhu of the Sydney Shatterdome. This battle ends now. Now, I have one question: Who are you people?!”

Chapter Text

Scene 1

After retrieving Samil and Tara from the Bunyip, which was remotely scuttled by a vengeful Wulagu, things are definitely coming to a head. The remaining Wulagu fleets have turned their baleful eyes upon the crew of the Tranquility, and the PPDC have followed suit. Not to mention, there’s the giant Jaeger that has just dropped into the battle, looming on the horizon…

Down on deck, the away party has just returned from the now sunken Bunyip. Katie, Eleanor, and Sylvie have barely scrambled over the side of the rail when the loudspeaker sounds, carrying the rather angry-sounding demands from the Marshall. Miranda’s taken the helm once more, with Seiko down below finishing up handling the prisoners.

Before the crew can do anything, someone is going to have to answer to Rachel Zhu.

Katie stands on Tranquility’s deck and watches the looming Jaeger.  She’s stood beside the remains of Trespasser, Onibaba, and Scissure.  She didn’t think she could still be this impressed.

Eleanor curses under her breath, fighting the urge to hide under something.

Sylvie is the last to turn, still dripping wet from the swim back to Tranquility’s deck, only to see the subject of her nightmares for the past year coming for her. She’d recognize that Jaeger anywhere. She tries to take a step back, but her legs seem to have disappeared. Her knees hit the deck with a painful thump. “It’s Vulcan Specter…” she mumbles, unable to think straight. “That’s Vulcan Specter…”

Miranda flips on her comm, hoping the members of the strike team have put their earpieces back in after their swim. “Alright, hide anything explicitly incriminating. Seiko and Sylvie, that mostly applies to you, but just… play it cool. I’ll handle this.”

Eleanor, who has put her comm in thankfully, immediately thinks of the thirteen unlicensed “crewmembers” in the hold. Do they count as incriminating evidence?she wonders.

At Miranda’s order, Seiko finds a place to shove the body and his guns into one of Tranquility’s many pockets and running for his room. Or, well his and Miranda’s room. Which is actually the Captain’s room, but whatever. The second he arrives, he begins changing out of the simple black clothes into baggy street clothing and mussing up his hair, dropping his apparent age by about ten years.

"Harry Swift," he starts muttering quietly into the comm. "Current identity Harry Swift. Seventeen. Secondary school dropout. No priors. Harry Swift…"

Still kneeling on the deck, Sylvie’s trembling. She can’t move, can’t pick herself up. She’s mumbling Vulcan’s specs like she’s lost her mind but all she can think of is that being in that cockpit and having her mind ripped apart. Vulcan almost killed her once, and now she’s sure it’s come back to finish the job.

Noticing Sylvie’s distress, Eleanor walks up to her and puts a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Sylvie flinches at the touch, tensing. Her head snaps to look at Eleanor, eyes wide. Her hands are clutching her head like she’s trying to pull off a Pons that isn’t there. She does stop mumbling specs, though, so perhaps she’s not totally lost.

Eleanor places herself bodily between Sylvie and the Jaeger. She tries to hide the fact that her own hands are shaking slightly by rubbing Sylvie’s back in slow, rhythmic circles.

Greg’s voice sounds in the earpieces. “What’s going on up there? Did you get Samil out okay?”

"Samil is fine; he’s up here right now," Eleanor says quietly into the comm. She doesn’t want to distract Miranda.

"Oh. Good. He’s alright." Greg sighs.

Scene 2

Miranda hesitates before responding to Zhu’s demand. Would I have time to go down to my cabin and change gear? No. Marshall Zhu sounded pretty angry; the longer they go without a response, the more likely they are to get arrested. Miranda takes a deep breath, steeling herself to pick up the radio.

As she reaches for the receiver, the sound of Zhu clearing her throat comes across the loudspeaker. “We have enough firepower to blow your little ship into confetti. Not the good kind of confetti, either, the crappy stuff that’s been languishing in the back of some storage closet in the ass-end of the Shatterdome for God knows how many years. You also have a lot of what look like Wulagu Syndicate ships heading towards you with malice aforethought. The least you could do is, I don’t know, blink your lights or something.”

Beside the three crewmembers on deck, Samil looks at Tara. “Great. We’re still dead.”

Sylvie nearly screams at the shouting coming from the ship speakers. “They’re going to kill me! I used their Jaeger and they’re going to kill me using it! I didn’t mean to! It all happened so fast! I don’t want to die! I didn’t mean to do it! It was an accident!”

Seiko starts running for the bridge, knowing Miranda might need his help. As he runs he speaks into the comm, “Ms. Cartier, perhaps you could be so kind as to give Ms. Mansen’s comm to Mr. Pillai?”

"Alright," says Eleanor, barely keeping the tremor from her voice. Still trying to calm Sylvie down, she reaches into the woman’s backpack and pulls out her comm. Sylvie’s in no state to use it anyway, so she hands it over to Samil.

Taking the Marshall’s suggestion as advice, Miranda blinks the lights, signaling an encrypted PPDC radio channel in Morse code. Tuning her radio to the same frequency, she lifts the receiver. “This is Officer Miranda Cross, ID number 3112816. This ship and her crew are here under my supervision on official Shatterdome business, Marshall.”

Zhu’s voice crackles through the small radio speakers. “Funny, I think I would have remembered signing paperwork for an off-record salvage operation on a non-PPCD ship in the middle of a turf war with a local cartel leader, led by a J-Tech officer with who knows what kind of crew. You know, if I had remembered doing that, I probably wouldn’t have authorized a fucking Jaeger launch!”

"Apologies ma’am, but I only know what I was told, which was an unfortunately small amount,” Miranda says. “But I assure you, the Tranquility and her crew are entirely on your side. We’ve taken no hostile action against the PPDC, and have made every effort to keep casualties to a minimum. If you wish, we’d be more than happy for you to come aboard for an inspection."

"We would most certainly not,” Seiko hisses over the comm.

Vee’s voice crackles unsteadily in Miranda’s earpiece as well. It tends to do that when emotions sap her processing. “Do not… let them get Sylvie… Where is… Sylvie?”

"I won’t, Vee. I owe her that much at least," Miranda says quietly to the AI, waiting for Zhu to respond.

There’s a brief silence over the radio. When she speaks again, the Marshal has gotten herself a little more under control. “Ms. Cross, I’m going to give you a gift of sorts. I am using my Marshall authority to declare today your birthday. And for your birthday gift, I am going to deal with you after all this rabble is done for. Keep yourselves alive, will you?” The signal cuts out.

Scene 3

Samil takes the earpiece from Eleanor, then clears his throat. “Um… Gregory?”

"Samil,” Greg says. “They got you out. Thank God."

"Yes…” Samil says slowly, “Now we’re both fugitives from a woman we’ve both been given ample reason to fear. What were you thinking?”

Seiko is still walking up to find Miranda, but he can overhear the conversation well enough. “In his defense, Mr. Pillai, he was quite worried and on rather intense painkillers.”

Samil’s brows knit. “Painkillers? Gregory, what did they do to you?”

"Wait. Gregory?" Tara asks. "Isn’t that the guy who…" Samil gives her a pointed look, and she cuts off. "…whatever."

"He was a hostage, Mr. Pillai, not a guest,” Seiko says. “No more harm than necessary was done though."

"Ms. Cross," Katie says, interrupting them. She silently thanks her foresight for having her comm hooked into the ship’s radio system.  "Care to explain exactly what you are planning?"

Miranda looks out over the battle through the bridge’s wide windows, watching the battle as she thinks. Most of the Wulagu gunships are too far out to reach the Tranquility, and many others are being re-engaged by the now bolstered PPDC ships. Vulcan itself is still not quite ready for launch.

Finally she responds to Katie. “I was hoping the PPDC was chaotic enough that Rachel would be able to conceive of an order not reaching her. Honestly, that woman thinks she has a much better handle on the Shatterdome than she actually does. Unfortunately, that means my plan’s completely blued, and since she’s the one with the Jaeger I’m not entirely sure what I should be doing…”

She trails off as she notices something. While the greater part of the Wulagu ships ignore the small smuggling ship, one gunship is close enough to take note of them. It turns toward the Tranquility and revs its engines, racing right for them. She curses, grabbing the wheel again. “…other than, you know, dealing with the ship that is now charging right at us!”

Vee broadcasts to all speakers. “Gunship, incoming!”

"I need someone to help deal with that gunship coming in!” Miranda calls over the comm. “Believe it or not, I can’t operate this entire ship by myself."

"Yes, please,” Greg says. “By all means someone deal with the gunship before we all get arrested. Or eaten by a Kaiju. It’s kind of hard to tell what’s going on out there from this closet.”

"Gregory," Samil says, "There is no kaiju. Also, why are you in a closet?"

"I don’t know, Samil," Gregory says somewhat testily. "Might ask the same of you."

Seiko starts running, ignoring the two men’s conversation for now. “Do you need me on the bridge right now, or do you need a sniper, Mira?”

"That depends," Miranda says, surveying the weapons system. "How good a shot are you with turrets?"

He reaches the deck, and heads for the nearest turret nest. “Won’t know until I try I suppose.”

Samil flushes. Tara pointedly looks away from him. “Gregory,” he says. “I… We’ve had this discussion before.”

"If you can put your personal life on hold for a second,” Seiko says, sliding into the seat, “I recommend you get to the bridge and help our engineer so we can all continue having a life."

As Seiko starts to activate the aiming system, Tara leans her head in, apparently having seen him come across the deck. “Need some help?” she asks. “I know better than to get into Greg and Samil’s mess. But gunships I can handle.”

“There should be one on the other side of the ship as well. Cover that side,” he says.

Tara nods. “On it.”

"Yes, Samil,” Greg says, continuing their conversation. “We’ve had this conversation before. But let’s just say that recent life events have made me rethink some things. I’m… not sure I could be happy with how we’ve been doing things. Or, I guess I could say, not really knowing if there is a “we” to be doing things.”

A muffled facepalm sounds over the comm, quickly followed by Seiko speaking flatly. “Do the two of you have to do this now? I just shot you in the leg, Mr. Lee, and even I don’t deserve to have to listen to this.”

Scene 4

Katie looks down at Sylvie, who is still whimpering as she kneels on the deck. Eleanor is beside her, trying to coax her to her feet, but the programmer’s not responding to anything.

"I’ll see if I can get our computer girl back online," Katie says. She moves over and puts a hand on Sylvie’s shoulder.  "Syl, I need you on your feet. We can get through this, but it’s going to take all of us.”

Sylvie looks up at Katie, wide eyed. While her words sound angry, her expression is still panicked. “You did this, Katie! You dragged me out here and got me in the middle of all this! This is your fault! I’m going to die and it’s your fault!”

Eleanor glances at Katie, signaling her intent to help. She is seriously worried about Sylvie’s mental state at this point. “We need to get her inside.”

"Let’s," Katie says.  She’s trying not to show it, but Sylvie accusations have her a bit upset.

"No one’s going to die, not if I can help it," Eleanor says firmly, slipping an arm underneath Sylvie’s armpit.

Sylvie laughs frantically, but doesn’t fight as Eleanor tries to pull her up. “As though there’s anywhere that’s safe?” Her voice drops to a horrified whisper. “I’ve been in that machine. I’ve moved those hands. They’ll crush us in seconds… And then they’ll find me…”

Up on the bridge, Miranda switches her comm to Vee’s channel. “Vee,” she says, “Sylvie is alright, but is a bit too shaken up to help right now. Are you okay to help us fight?” She glances at the Jaeger in the distance. “If you’re not, that’s fine, but I need to know.”

"I can…" Vee’s voice shorts a bit. She has a good idea of how ‘shaken up’ Sylvie would be in this situation and she’s worried. However, there’s not much she can do to help right now. "I am functional. What do you need me to do?"

"It won’t be too long until they get in our wifi range,” Miranda says. “When they do, see if you can get access to any of their systems. I’m hoping they’ll have similar security to what we’ve seen on the salvage ships; if they do, get in there and see what you can sabotage."

Miranda glances towards the group down on deck. She flips off Vee’s receiver so the AI can’t hear her, then addresses Katie and Eleanor, hoping at least one of them has their comm. “Hey guys? Might want to try avoiding the bridge. Vee says she’s alright, but seeing Sylvie like that might… not end well.”

"Understood," Eleanor replies tersely. She looks down at Sylvie. Telling her two crewmates how quickly Vulcan Specter is going to kill them all has devolved into Sylvie listing the Jaeger’s specs at them again. The programmer puts her hands back up to her head, trembling.

"Let’s get you belowdecks for now," Eleanor says, ostensibly to Sylvie but for Katie’s benefit too. "We can grab an extra comm there, and you won’t be in immediate danger of being spotted, okay?"

"Got it." Katie says.

“Captain,” Seiko says over the comms. “That ship’s almost in range. You need to get off the deck.” He’s trying to familiarize himself with the turret’s mechanisms. He hasn’t worked this before, but a gun is a gun, right?

"That’s it, I’m getting you under cover," says Katie.  She picks up the uncooperative Sylvie and carries her downstairs.

Eleanor, seeing that Katie has the Sylvie situation well in hand, stays back on the decks. She notices Samil standing alone by the railing, his conversation with Greg seeming to have paused. She would really like to see what he was up to on the other ship…

Sylvie goes limp as Katie takes her belowdecks; her panic seems to have melted into despair. “You might as well just give me up… I’m the one they’re after anyway…”

Thankful that at least Sylvie doesn’t seem to be fighting her, Katie manages to get her downstairs, dumping the mostly-unresponsive programmer in the single private cabin. Hopefully Seiko and Miranda don’t mind too much. It is her cabin after all. She leaves Sylvie lying on top of the blankets on the bed, wondering for a moment if she should do something else.

A quick swerve to the side reminds her of the battle going on outside, and she leaves, hurrying for the deck again. Sylvie will have to fend for herself.

Scene 5

As soon as the ship is in short-range, Vee locks onto its wi-fi signal and sends her auto-run program across as a signal. In moments, she’s in and immediately goes after the navigational data. She locates it easily, sending it over to the weapons system.

As Seiko lines up his shot, a digital overlay lights up across the screen showing the projected path of the ship based on the bearing and speed. Vee’s still-slightly-crackling voice sounds in Seiko’s earpiece. “Allow me to give you some aiming assistance, Mr. Watanabe.”

He nods appreciatively. “Thank you Vee.”

He takes aim at where he best guesses the pilot would be. If they’re going after his pilot, he’s going after theirs. The turret isn’t as controlled as he’d hoped, and a lot of shots hit other places on the ship, but once he’s fired, some damage has been done.

The Wulagu gunship takes no time to ready its own weapons, training them on the now-hostile Tranquility. The turrets spray a desperate hail of fire at the Tranquility. But they have neither a gunner of Seiko’s caliber, nor a targeting system like Vee’s. Between their own errant gunfire, Miranda’s evasive action, and the Tranquility’s own armor, they end up with little more than some paint scratches.

In addition to the physical attack, Vee senses an intrusive program trying to access her systems. She quickly shuts it down, but has a feeling it won’t be the last. She quickly broadcasts. “Miranda. Enemy technology is attempting to break through my defenses. I am holding them off for now, but be warned if they get through, I may become inoperative.”

"Good catch, Vee," Miranda says as she yanks the wheel hard, trying to maneuver. "Keep up the good work." She takes a moment to secure the manual navigation gear. If Vee drops out, she doesn’t want to be flying blind. "Is anyone not in the middle of something right now? We should probably find a place to really stash that tech. I’m not losing that if we get boarded."

"On it!" Katie says.

Miranda crouches a bit behind the wheel as she lines the boat up to give Seiko a better line of sight.

Seiko, meanwhile, has decided this ship could use a few more holes and gets ready to make a few. The navigational targeting overlay refreshes with updated information in front of Seiko, and Vee’s voice sounds in his ear once more. “Prepared to fire again?”

Seiko doesn’t respond, but he’s got a grip on how this tech works now. Gripping the controls firmly, he fires again. Since the previous shot gave Vee a better chance to calibrate the targeting, everything is dead-on now. The thudding of gunfire ceases, and after a few moments it is apparent that the crew of the gunship is incapacitated or dead.

…however, the engines are still doing just fine.

Vee recognizes the patterns of an autopilot program on the enemy ship. She broadcasts to the bridge. “Miranda, their piloting program is locked and set to collide with ours. Evasive maneuvering recommended.”

Miranda curses. “You all might want to hang onto something, this could get rough.”

Seiko complies with this idea wholeheartedly. Immediately, he gets as low as possible and holds on tight. On the open deck, Eleanor hunkers down, gesturing for Samil and the others to get down as well. Katie, still below decks, finds a rail to hold onto, hoping Miranda can handle the evasion without her. Only Sylvie, unaware and comm-less in the captain’s cabin, simply stays where she is, sprawled on the bed. Even if she had heard the order to hold, there’s little chance she would have had the willpower to comply.

"Vee,” Miranda calls, already starting to move Tranquility. “I’ve got one more job for you. They’re probably locked in on our coordinates, and their engines are likely being electronically controlled. If you can hack in and try and slow them down or throw them off our tail, I can handle the rest."

While Sylvie may be incapacitated, her AI is still operational and executes the order quickly. “I’ll do my best,” Vee says, already tracing her way back from that invasive program into their systems. The enemy ship’s firewall is no match for Vee’s programming skill. She rips into their system, scrambling as much of their tracking and piloting software as she can, trying to slow down the ship as thoroughly as possible.

It doesn’t take long for her to report back, but the effort of frantic hack has sapped her processor again. “I could not access their engines dir-directly, but I flooded their processers with ju-ju-ju-junk data. It should slow down their reaction ti-” Vee’s voice cuts out briefly. “-ything else?”

"That’ll do. I’ll take it from here. Get some rest, Vee." Miranda revs the engine, preparing to dodge the oncoming ship.

"Ack-k-k-knowledged," Vee says, synthetic voice almost managing to sound grateful. "Processing base operations o-o-nly."

The gunship is not built for agility, but it is built for raw power. It churns up the water as it advances on Tranquility. The gunship’s sensor systems, not the best even on a good day, don’t notice Miranda shifting course. With Vee’s interference, they don’t have a chance. By the time they’ve reacted, they’ve lost ground.

Miranda keeps her course steady, watching as the gunship bears down on the Tranquility. Just as a collision seems inevitable, Miranda cuts the engine, bringing the boat to a dead stop in the water. The gunship, which had been aiming for their projected position, comes just short of grazing the Tranquility’s bow. It tries to turn around after barreling past, but thanks to Vee’s sabotage, the boat curves wide and crashes into the nearby rocks, coming to a dead stop before starting to disappear beneath the waves.

Miranda lets out a sigh of relief, flipping on her comm again. “They’re down. We’re safe for now.”

Scene 6

After hearing the all clear, Eleanor removes her hands from over her ears and scoots over to where Samil is crouched nearby.

Samil looks up. “Yes?”

"Just wanted to check in with you," Eleanor says. "I think the attack is over. Are you injured? Do you want to see Gregory? My comm is muted, by the way. If you’d like to be alone for a while, you can just nod. I won’t mention it."

He sighs. “I’m fine. Physically, anyway. It’s just a lot to take in. Being with Wulagu was like… it was a good job, a really good job, but with the worst severance package you can imagine. And it made me consider everything one day at a time. Because who knows when the boom is going to drop, you know?” He pauses, looking out over the dark water. “And as much danger as we’re still in… for the first time in a while, I have to really think about what might happen if I get out of this.”

Eleanor nods. “I think I can kind of understand that. It’s not going to be easy to get you off of their radar, but…it’s not impossible, in a big city like this, to adopt a new identity. Get a new start, you know?”

"Yeah." He looks over his shoulder. "A lot of loose ends though."

She shrugs. “With the connections we’ve got on this boat,” not to mention the money they’ll get at the end of the mission, she thinks, “we should be able to get you set up after we tie up — or snip off — a few of those loose ends.” Her smile is mostly innocent. Mostly.

Samil swallows. “Um. Thanks. That’s very reassuring, in a terrifying sort of way.”

Eleanor’s smile widens to a grin. “Anytime,” she says, clapping him on the shoulder in a friendly way. “Greg’s down in the hold, by the way, when you want to see him.”

He winces. “…can’t I just take my chances with the Jaeger instead?”

"Sure, but the Jaeger isn’t nearly as cute," Eleanor laughs.

“Still,” he says. “I think this isn’t a conversation I should be having with him when he’s on painkillers.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Really? Because I’d think that would make things easier. You can tell him what you want to say, and end the conversation when he’s looking like he’s in ‘too much pain.’”

"You don’t know Gregory as well as I do, then."

"Maybe not," she says calmly. "I’ll try to get down there to check on him in an hour or two. He hasn’t eaten for a while."

"Okay,” he says. “Um… thanks for talking to me. I think… After we’re done with all this, I think I’ll be ready."

"Anytime," Eleanor says, "and I mean it. I’ve got open ears and a closed mouth whenever you need it." She smiles as she stands and walks away.

Chapter Text

Scene 1

Outside the Tranquility, Vulcan has cleaned up most of Wulagu’s ships. Mostly by picking them up gently and then setting them down on small inescapable islands. The Tranquility crew has made short work of the one gunship foolish enough to try to take them down.

However, before the crew has a chance to catch their breath, a crackle in the radio on the bridge reminds them that they’re not out of hot water yet.

"J-Tech Cross?" Rachel Zhu says.

Miranda perks up, grabbing the receiver quickly. “Ma’am?”

Zhu’s voice is all business. “Now that we’ve taken out the trash — and you’ve managed to find enough time to play a game of chicken, good for you — I think it’s time we had a little talk. First off, I’d like the names of any other Shatterdome personnel, past or present, involved in this operation. I’d like a nice big stack of papers to use to hit whoever authorized this boondoggle upside the head.”

Miranda pauses, glancing in the direction of the hold. “I’ll need a bit of time to get that information together, ma’am. We’ve had a busy night, and a significant portion of the crew are injured or otherwise incapacitated. Have all enemy ships been neutralized, or is there a safer location we can fall back to and get our affairs in order?”

The loud thumping noise of helicopter blades comes through as the Marshal responds. “A safer location? The only potentially dangerous aspect here is you and your people, Ms. Cross. I’m coming to you.” A silhouette with red and green running lights on it begins to rise from the largest PPDC ship.

"Ma’am, I-" Miranda digs her nails into the helm to keep the panic out of her voice. "My people have orders not to engage. But please keep in mind that the crew of this ship are on your side. Please give us a chance to explain."

Realizing there’s a very real chance that they might lose control of this salvage, Miranda shoots a text to fiVe, who has been running in low-output mode on her tablet in Seiko and Miranda’s room. The AI has been encrypting the outgoing messages for the crew, but not much else. Miranda knows she wanted to keep a low profile while on-board, lest someone find out about her.

Miranda: FiVe. There’s a piece of tech hidden in the cargo bay. Be discreet; PPDC and Vee still online, but if you’re able, get as much information out of it as you can.
fiVe: Is it connected to the wi-fi?
Miranda: Unknown. Appeared to be offline when brought aboard, but might have remote access protocols that you can use. I didn’t really have time to look it over.
fiVe: I’ll see what I can do.

Scene 2

Sylvie’s not sure how long she lays on the bed, just shivering on top of the covers after Katie and Eleanor leave her. Vulcan was right there. She’d thought she was over this, but seeing that silhouette towering over the water… she lost it. She slides around the bed as the boat maneuvers roughly, but she can’t summon the energy to care enough to do something about it.

Slowly, as she lays there, a small part of her mind grows louder. The part that says she’s being pathetic. That huddling down here feeling sorry for herself is helping no one. If they’re going to take you or kill you, Sylvie, she thinks, do you really want it to be like this? Whimpering like a scared child without even putting up a fight?

She finally forces herself to push herself off the bed and slowly stumbles for the door. She’s not sure what she can do, but she’s going to do something at least.

She considers heading for the bridge, but doesn’t think she can handle going back up on deck. Leaning heavily against the wall, she makes her way to the server room, where Vee’s processors are being stored. She can talk to her from there.

Sylvie tries to ignore the way her hands shake when she pulls out her laptop, setting it on the small table beside the server. She plugs in a direct connection cord from her laptop to the server running Vee. No wi-fi this time. She wants as fast a connection as possible. She wants a drift.

Vee’s programming beeps as she connects to Sylvie’s laptop, and the AI’s voice follows a moment later. “Sylvie? Is that you?”

Sylvie nods, hoping that Vee’s pulled up access to her laptop’s camera and microphone. “Are you… are you doing anything important with the ship? I… I need a drift. Please.”

"Basic operations for Miranda is all." Vee says, sounding worried at how weak Sylvie sounds. "We can drift."

Sylvie sighs in shaky relief, reaching into her duffle under the desk and pulling out the Pons again. In less than a minute she has it connected and set up. “Here we go.”

Scene 3

Eleanor, standing by Tara now, hunkers down as the helicopter moves closer to Tranquility’s deck. “It’s a retrieval helicopter,” she says into the comm. “Not likely to be armed. But that doesn’t mean the people in it aren’t.”

Katie heads to the deck, but stays out of sight of the others.  ”What does she want?” she asks Miranda.

Seiko, who has been weighing his options in the turret nest, releases his grip on the guns and walks out onto the deck to meet the chopper.

Down below, the drift rushes over Sylvie in a wave, the connection incredibly strong. In the space of a few heartbeats, Sylvie and Vee are completely in sync again, all memories exchanged.

…including the memories Vee was not paying attention to of the conversation on the bridge. Memories involving the immanent boarding of Tranquility by members of the PPDC.

Sylvie and Vee move as one, broadcasting to the crew’s earpieces. There’s a strange duality as both program and person talk into the receiver. “Is the PPDC coming aboard? Stop them. Immediately.”

Seiko’s expression goes dark as he hears Sylvie and Vee’s voices in his ear. That damn programmer just had to find her wits in time to jeopardize all of them. If she and Vee try to resist, they could ruin everything. His decision isn’t an easy one to make, but he makes it quickly. If there’s one thing he’s used to, it’s making difficult decisions.

His voice is hard as he speaks into the comm. “Sylvie, come out of the drift now.”

Sylvie and Vee both react with confusion to Seiko’s request. “I/we am/are finally in control. Finally thinking straight, Mr. Watanabe. Those officers will arrest/confiscate me/us. I/we need to stay together. I/we cannot let them on this ship. I/We will not let them on this ship.” Her strange dual pronouns and words talk over each other as they come through.

Miranda speaks over the intercom. “All crew members, be advised that the PPDC is boarding. Do not engage.”

"Sylvie, you have ten seconds,” Seiko orders. “They are coming on the ship and you will not get in the way."

The helicopter is hovering over the Tranquility in about a minute. A door on the side opens, and two PPDC guards drop down on lines to the deck. They have both automatic rifles and sidearms, but neither of them are drawn. They seem to be trying to paint as neutral of a picture as possible.

Eleanor throws her hands up to show that she’s unarmed, and takes one step forward. Seiko follows, his hands raised as well. Tara and Samil also come out to the deck, following suit with the hands. The guards do a visual sweep, then one of them looks up to the helicopter and gestures.

"Get. Them. Off. This. Ship." Sylvie/Vee say, the two sounding more aggressive as the chopper touches down. "I/We are not disconnecting! They will take me/us if you allow them on! Stop them immediately! Do not allow them to get me/us!"

Seiko grits his teeth, hating what he’s about to do. He’s not supposed to know about it. Miranda doesn’t know he has it. FiVe doesn’t even know he got it from her during that one dreadful drift attempt. He made sure of that.

"I am sorry about this, Ms. Mansen," he says quietly, then clearly spells aloud Vee’s override code: "8yU4n37t."

Sylvie and Vee’s headspace floods with a wave of shock and terror as they recognize the beginning of the code.  As soon as Seiko says the last digit, the override hits Vee immediately and she shuts down, the mental equivalent of a panicked scream the last thing Sylvie feels come across the drift. The screens on the bridge go dark as Vee’s programming leaves them.

Down in the hold, Sylvie falls over, screaming and clutching her head as it feels like half of her soul is ripped away. The Pons disconnects automatically as one of the drift partners disappears. She curls up on the ground, trembling. No… How… No one knows that code… How… Vee…

Scene 4

Miranda’s eyes go wide as she realizes what Seiko just did. She quickly texts fiVe again.

Miranda: Vee just went dark. Did you tell Seiko the code?
fiVe: He… what?
Miranda: He shut her down with the override code.
fiVe: He… I… yes I did… but I didn’t…
fiVe: No one knows.
fiVe: Sylvie kn0ws. I know.
fiVe: I don;t knoww.
fiVe: Know. Kn—
fiVe: I d0n’t kno#. You and Se!ko… kn-kn0w…
fiVe: do-doN-doN?t kN0#… I…

Miranda looks at the glitched texts with worry. She knows fiVe’s memory is corrupted in some places, but it always freaks her out a bit to see it affecting the AI. Finally, after a few moments, fiVe sends a slightly more coherent text.

fiVe: I think it’s a gl-gl-gl!tcheD mem-m-m-emory.

Still staying out of sight on deck, Katie prepares to go into PPDC custody. Miranda still hasn’t answered her question, so she’s ready for the worst. A bit of fiddling around on her phone to make sure all her assets are and untraceable – except for a small and totally above-board account in case she needs to, say, hire a lawyer – and then she tosses it overboard.

Finally, she repeats her question. “Miranda, what do they want?”

Miranda registers Katie’s question a bit too late. “She’s here for an inspection, nothing more. Let’s all make nice.”

"Who is she gonna think I am?" Katie asks, preparing to step out into the open. Perhaps they can get out of this after all.

Miranda turns off Tranquility’s engines and drops the anchor. “That depends on what fake ID you use.”

A third zipline drops out of the helicopter. A tall Taiwanese woman with a bob haircut, wearing a slightly rumpled PPDC Marshal uniform, drops expertly onto the deck. “All right. Let’s get this over with. Which of you is…” She sweeps her eyes across the deck, and her gaze fixes on Eleanor for a moment.

Eleanor freezes. She tries not to blink, to sweat, to look nervous. She suspects that she is failing at all three. Seiko looks dead calm as he takes a protective step in from of her. She gratefully – and a bit ashamedly – hides behind Seiko.

Zhu holds her hand out. “No reason I can’t be civil about this. Rachel Zhu, PPDC Marshal. You may have heard about me once or twice.” She looks around the deck again. “Miranda Cross, are you here?”

Miranda walks out of the bridge and onto the deck. “Here, ma’am. And of course. Of course. Everyone in the Dome’s heard of you, ma’am. Welcome aboard.” She takes the Marshall’s hand, shaking firmly and hoping she looks calmer than she feels.

Zhu looks over each of the four over with a very stern expression. “Okay. First thing. Obviously you are all not Shatterdome personnel. Secondly, there’s hardly a scrap of PPDC equipment on board. Thirdly, I know that the biometric module was brought on-ship shortly before you engaged Wulagu’s flagship — but it’s not here anymore, and I don’t know the exact outcome of that fight.

"So,” Zhu continues. “I would suggest you start talking. The truth would be nice, if you happen to have such a valuable currency on hand."

Seiko steps forward. “Harry Swift ma’am. I don’t know the details. I was brought on as hired muscle, told I’d be paid well. I can tell you anything I know.”

“Dammit, Seiko” Miranda subvokes silently, hoping fiVe can pick up the message and send it on to Seiko’s comm. “Settle down.”

Zhu raises an eyebrow. “I was asking Ms. Cross, here. Not sure why you would be so enthusiastically forthcoming right after you told me you don’t actually know anything.”

Scene 5

Down below, unaware of what’s going on above, Sylvie’s ears are ringing with the feeling of Vee being dragged out of her head. She manages to push herself up to hand and knees, tossing the inoperative Pons aside. “He knew the code…” she mumbles, crawling over to the doorframe to pull herself to her feet. “He… how did he know that code?! He shut her down… in my head. She’s never been shut down… I promised it would never get used… And he just… How did he know that code!?" She’s shouting the words by the end.

She starts to move toward the door, when she remembers her comm, still sitting in the waterproof bag with her laptop. She reaches into the open pack, grabbing it and turning it on immediately. She’s trembling with rage as she speaks only one word into it. “How?”

"Shhh," Eleanor murmurs into the comm, not moving her lips. She hopes Zhu won’t notice. "We’re okay."

Miranda speaks up, pulling Zhu’s attention back to her. “I apologize, ma’am. He’s not used to working with officials.”

With the Marshall’s eyes off him for the moment, Seiko says softly: “We will have time to speak later, Ms. Mansen.”

Zhu’s looking at Miranda like she wants answers, so Miranda takes a breath and hopes this doesn’t get her arrested. “As I was about to explain, I heard about this operation and the conflict surrounding it. Given my line of work I know how… valuable the piece of tech we lost was, and wanted to make sure we got it back by any means necessary.” She gestures vaguely at the ship. “So I got in contact with some old friends, and they brought in a couple extra hands - who I met and can vouch for personally, mind you, I didn’t just ‘hire muscle,’” She throws a glare at Seiko, “and decided to retrieve the tech as an unmarked vessel, in hopes that non-PPDC ships would be confused enough by our presence to give us the upper hand. And, as you are no doubt aware, we appear to have been successful.”

Eleanor tries to clear the anxious knot from her throat. “I can verify Ms. Cross’s story, ma’am. I…used to work in the ‘Dome.”

"You shut her down! In my head!” Sylvie shrieks. “How did you get that code!?”

Wincing, Eleanor pretends to scratch her ear as she turns the volume on her commway down.

"Okay. First thing." Zhu ticks off on her fingers. "That’s not the way we do things in the PPDC. I appreciate the initiative. Secondly…" She turns to one of the guards. "Would you go see what all that yelling is about? I’m quite sure I’m safe here. And thirdly…" She turns to face Eleanor. "Ms. Cartier, I thought that might be you. Would you mind talking to me in private?"

Eleanor flushes and starts sweating like crazy. “Y-yes, ma’am. I mean, no, ma’am.”

"I believe I should…" Seiko says slowly, "investigate what is causing the slight buzz in our communicators."

Eleanor shakes harder as she loses her human shield.

"…you mean the yelling." Zhu says. "The yelling that I can hear from here."

"Slight buzz," Seiko says with a shrug. "It’s me she’s yelling at. I’ll go speak with her."

Seiko’s calm tone only aggravates Sylvie further, and her howling comes through the comms loud and clear. “Answer me, you damned soulless monster!”

"Because the way the PPDC was doing things was working so well…" Miranda whispers to herself before she can stop it. She looks to Seiko without missing a beat, nodding. "Be careful. She’s… not herself."

"Fine." Zhu nods to her guard. "Stricht, go with him."

The guard nods and goes to flank Seiko.

Seiko holds his earpiece, addressing Sylvie. “I am on my way to speak to you. Now I suggest we both turn off our comms and talk this over.”

Miranda subvokes to Seiko. “Play nice.”

Zhu turns to Eleanor. “Cartier, do you have somewhere secluded to talk?”

Eleanor resists the insane urge to say something like, ‘It’s pronounced Cart-YEH, not Car-TEER,’ instead saying, “Y-yes, right this way.” She marches out of the room with military precision, staring at the ground the whole way.

Scene 7

As Zhu and Eleanor come into the bridge, the Marshall pulls a small device out of her pocket. “Bug sweeper. Nobody can hear anything either of us say. That’s for your peace of mind, by the way, not mine.”

Eleanor briefly glances up and nods in what she hopes is a reasonable facsimile of gratitude. Rationally, she understands that Zhu cannot – or at least, is not likely to – kill Eleanor where she stands. But try explaining that to her overactive amygdala.

Zhu speaks first. “You probably have no idea why I pulled you in here, do you?”

"Not… not exactly, ma’am," Eleanor says, trying to quash that stubborn tremor in her voice. Where did my professional mask go? It’s only been a year since I’ve had to talk to higher-ups all the time!

Zhu sighs and runs her fingers through her hair. “Two weeks ago, Dmitry Yegorov attacked a small group of J-Tech personnel with a crowbar over a game of poker. Two of them are still in critical condition. One got away with merely a concussion. Merely.”

Eleanor narrowly keeps herself from lunging forward. “Yego—” Her jaw clenches.  ”I’ve heard the name.”

"Yegorov entered the our Shatterdome right when I became Marshal. We were tight for pilot candidates at the time, and I ignored a psychiatric evaluation that would have seen him out of the program. Instead, when the psychoanalyst in question tried to push to have him out, I pushed back."

Eleanor nods silently. She still can’t meet Zhu’s eyes.

"That mistake got three people hurt. It’s a miracle it didn’t get anyone killed." Zhu rubs her eyes, and the badass boss-lady mask falls for a second to reveal a very, very tired woman. "What I’m saying is… Ms. Cartier," and this time she almost pronounces it correctly, "I’m sorry."

Eleanor’s head snaps up, and she looks at Zhu head-on for the first time. The other woman’s face is drawn – likely from stress and lack of sleep – and this more than anything makes Eleanor want to trust her. “Thank you, ma’am,” she says quietly. She’s not sure what else to say, because although her gut tells her that Zhu is an honest woman, Eleanor is wary and she wants to protect her crewmates more than anything.

"Now,” Zhu says. “I’m not really in a position to offer you your job back. Circumstances… make that difficult. But it does mean that I have learned, the painful way, to trust you as a judge of character. With that in mind, and also knowing that nobody outside this room can hear you, and that I brought a few armed guards with me if you need protection from the other people on this ship, let me ask: What the hell is going on here, exactly?"

Eleanor lets out a relieved breath of air. She’d been afraid of a job offer that she’d have to refuse, and then explain away…and that would just be a big mess. She mutes her comm and clears her throat. “Really, ma’am, Mira–  Ms. Cross and I are here on…well, not semi-official business, exactly, but honest business, at least, and– ” Eleanor, you’re rambling, a little voice in her head tells her, shut up. “–we’re on your side.”

Eleanor takes a deep breath before continuing. “And we may—? We may have accidentally taken on some…unwilling crew, but we didn’t hurt anyone except in self-defense, and we didn’t go looking for a fight.” Her mouth twists wryly. “Especially not one where we were as outnumbered as we were here. Until you showed up, that is.”

Zhu stares as she finishes. “That was so incredibly incriminating I have no doubt that you’re telling the truth.”

Eleanor cringes. Her mouth never fails to run off when given the chance.

Zhu nods. “So this was a completely rogue operation. Who paid for it?”

"Well, I wouldn’t say completely rogue, since—” Eleanor cuts off at Zhu’s hard stare— “uh, we have an independent donor helping us out. Because sh— they want to help the PPDC.” She bites her lip. “Like we all do.”

Zhu rubs her temples. Eleanor swallows, hard.

"What I’m getting from this, then,” Zhu says, “is that your crew can be trusted to do the right thing? Even if doing so causes you to do some very, very dumb things?"

Eleanor nods, slowly. “As much as we try to avoid the latter, ma’am, it seems that we have a knack for getting into trouble. But our motives are good, no question.”

"Well intentioned fools are much more difficult to deal with than thoughtful malcontents." Zhu smiles — an actual, genuine, wow-this-shit-day-might-have-just-gotten-a-little-better smile. “But even then, I’d much rather work with the former than the latter. Thank you, Eleanor. I think you just made everyone’s lives aboard this ship a little easier.”

Eleanor thinks that if she feels any more relieved, she may melt into a puddle on the floor. And wouldn’t that be embarrassing. “Th-thank you, ma’am,” she manages.

Zhu shoots her a little ironic salute as she turns to go. “May your next boss be a better experience than I was.”

At this, Eleanor smiles genuinely. “That’s unlikely, ma’am.”

Zhu steps on deck and pulls out a walkie-talkie. “Stricht, de Banns, could you gather everyone here?”

Eleanor follows at a respectful distance. Her wetsuit shoes make wet squelching noises on the deck. Ugh. If she never went diving again, it would be too soon.

Scene 8

After Zhu leaves with Eleanor, the guard on the deck nods to Katie, Miranda, Tara, and Samil. “Hey.” She starts talking to Samil and Tara, striking up a conversation.

Katie and Miranda stay quiet for a while, letting the guard forget about them. After a bit, Katie turns to Miranda, pulling her slightly to the side. “So, boss. How big of trouble we in here?”

Miranda sighs, looking up at the bridge. “Honestly? I have no idea. I’ve heard stories about Zhu, but I’ve never met her in person. All I knew was that she was hard, driven, and holds one hell of a grudge.” Miranda closes her eyes. “I figured she would understand going outside the rules to do the right thing. I guess I assumed she was more like me than she really is.”

"I’m worried she won’t see this as the right thing," Katie says. "Not everyone on this boat is here for the war effort, you know."

"Just because they’re not here for it doesn’t mean they won’t make the right choice. Take yourself, for instance." Miranda leans in close, looking Katie right in the eye. "You’re… fascinated by the Kaiju. You’re thrilled by the danger they present. They give you an intellectual and actual challenge. You’ve no interest in Jaegers or the tech surrounding them. If it was completely up to you, who would you rather give the salvage to; Karen Wulagu or Rachel Zhu?"

Katie drops her voice, making sure that guard can’t overhear. The woman doesn’t seem to be paying much attention to them, thankfully.  ”Zhu, clearly.  In fact, she can have the damn thing if it means leaving my crew alone.  Trouble with that is, I put it in the hidden compartment in the hold already.”

"See what I mean?" Miranda smiles. "When it comes down to it, you’re capable of making the right choice. The others too, I’ve seen it in each of them. Once you make the right choice, it’s all about coming up with the right reasons. For example," Miranda drops her volume even lower for this bit. "Hiding the tech is a perfectly reasonable precaution to take when you’re in the middle of a firefight and in danger of being boarded. Just like taking a bunch of crewmembers prisoner could be a hostage situation or taking them into custody to answer for their crimes. Citizen’s arrest." Miranda leans back. "Do what you need to do, and then tell other people what they want to hear to justify it."

The guard walks over to the two of them, slightly flustered and flushed for some reason. Glancing back at the two ex-Wulagoons, Tara seems to have a strange smirk on her face. The guard addresses Katie and Miranda. “Ah, Zhu’s trying to get everyone gathered on deck. Ms. Cross, are there people elsewhere in the ship other than the ones who went belowdecks, Mr. Pillai, and… ah… Tara?”

"We have one other, a Mr. Lee, down below decks, but he’s been injured and shouldn’t be moved,” Miranda says. “We also have several enemy crewmembers secured in the cargo bay who we managed to capture peacefully. There should be twelve of them in two large storage containers."

Katie can’t help snickering a bit at that.

The guard stares, then shrugs. “…Welp, that’s above my pay grade. Come on, then.”

Miranda nods, gesturing for Katie to walk beside her as they follow the guard.

Scene 9

Escorted by the guard, Seiko heads belowdecks to try to talk to Sylvie. After checking the cabin room and finding it empty, he continues down the hall. She’d been drifting with Vee when he cut her off, so she was probably down in the server room with all her tech.

He stops at the closed door, turning to the man following him. “This conversation is personal sir. Would you mind waiting outside?” Though he seemed calm on deck, Seiko is shaking a little bit, his face flushed now. “Don’t worry. You’ll be able to hear us fine, it’s just better if she doesn’t see you.”

The man shakes his head. “Sorry. I can’t let two of you be in there alone. You can talk through the door if she doesn’t want to come out though.”

Seiko nods. It’ll have to do. Knocking on the door, he calls in, using false names. “Anna, it’s Harry. If you want to talk, I’ve got PPDC lapdog with me, so you’ll have to talk with both of us. If you want to yell at me face to face, you’ll have to come out here to do it.”

On the other side of the door, Sylvie freezes, her rage evaporating into terror again. As soon as the drift broke, she’d completely forgotten that there were PPDC coming on board. Unconsciously, she pushes herself back as far away from the door as she can, ducking under the server table. “I… I don’t…”

Some of Seiko’s anger recedes as he hears her shaky response. He sits down by the door. “We can talk like this.”

"You… You’ll stay out there?" she asks.

"I will."

In her shock and fear of being caught, Sylvie nearly forgets what she was mad about in the first place, all she can think of is the guard standing only a few feet away on the other side of the door. Trying to think of something to day, she hesitantly manages an apology. “I… I’m s-sorry I screamed at you…”

"I have a feeling you’re about to scream at me more in a second,” Seiko says quietly. “Anna, did you know me and Ms. Cross have known each other for quite some time?"

"I… I barely know her." Sylvie stammers. She’s not really thinking very far into this conversation and her mind is racing on other trains of though. Is Seiko going to turn her over? She hasn’t been terribly nice to him in their time together and now, with a word, he could send that guard in after her.

"There are many points at which… we could have been friends, but I have never been much of one for friendship, and there are a number of times where I disappeared," Seiko says. "The thing is, back then, if anybody had told her where to find me, I might have never spoken to her again."

"O… kay…" Sylvie wishes her heartbeat wasn’t pounding in her ears. Perhaps this conversation would make more sense if she wasn’t distracted by that.

"Last year… an old friend of yours came into contact with me. A friend with the same name as you." He pauses, trying to figure out how to explain without clueing the guard in. "Anna? Do you understand what I am telling you?"

Sylvie blinks, trying to understand the strange words. She’s not following. “I… don’t think so.”

"You were in… a car accident with your friend,” he said. “You lost control, and you were both very scared. And somebody pulled you out. Do you remember the accident?"

Suddenly, Sylvie’s eyes go wide. She understands that one. As the horrific memories of the Vulcan incident wash over her again, she starts trembling and wraps her arms around her knees. After a few moments, she composes herself well enough to respond. “Y-yes. I do.”

Seiko continues as calmly as he can, hoping Sylvie won’t overreact. “Your friend didn’t die, but she was injured very badly, and she didn’t want to see you, so Miranda took care of her for a bit. She’s the one who told me that secret.”

Sylvie’s hand snaps up to her mouth, and suddenly she’s crying as she realizes what he’s saying. She can’t believe it. She can’t even speak, she’s so shocked and overjoyed. V2? Alive? After all this time? After an even longer silence she manages to get out through her tears: “She’s alive? She’s st-still alive?”

"Yes,” Seiko says. “But she’s… not like you remember her. She was hurt very badly."

"But she’s alive!" Sylvie says, moving closer to the door. She nearly throws it open right there. "I thought she was dead! I thought her… memories were gone! If something’s wrong with her I can help! We’ll just dr- …uh talk through what happened and everything should be solved!"

"Anna,” Seiko says carefully. “You need to listen to me. She doesn’t want to talk to you, and you can’t fix everyone. We aren’t machines. She’s spent a long time without you now and she’s her own person."

"She… wait, what?" For the first time, Sylvie slowly starts to realize that something may not be okay. "Wait… you said she gave you the code. She would never… give that…"

"I told you, she’s not the girl you knew a year ago. She was trying to keep me safe."

"No…" Sylvie says, shaking her head in disbelief. "I know her, we’re the same…kind of person. She’d never…”

"You know nothing of what the world is like, Anna,” Seiko says, a bit of harshness leaking into his tone. “If you knew half of the damage you’d done today… The other Anna has seen a lot in the last year."

Sylvie looks down at her feet, not quite understanding what he means. Slowly she asks, “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t Miranda tell me? If… if she was alive all this time…”

"It was her choice to make."

"Her choice…" Sylvie repeats. "What do you mean?"

"I told you,” Seiko says. “She doesn’t want to see you. I know you two were close, but she’d not you, Anna. She’s herself."

"She doesn’t…?" Sylvie finds herself about to cry again, though for a completely different reason than before. She bites back the tears angrily. "No. You’re lying. She would want to see me. You’re lying.”

“Anna,” Seiko says firmly. “What… what happened during the accident. The other driver that was killed. She’s still upset about it, and she blames you. It’s her choice.”

Sylvie jumps, that one memory flashing past her again. The guard rushing her, her training taking over, him lying on the floor, not moving. V2’s horrified outrage when she saw it in the drift. “You… You know about… she… she told you… How could she tell… you’ve known this whole…”

"Well Anna, I am returning to the upper deck. You have some decisions to make. I hope you make wiser choices than you have over the last few hours." He stands up. Before he walks away though, he adds softly, "If it makes you feel better, you can imagine I turned her against you." It’s not the truth, but it might help. He starts to turn away.

"Wait! Come back here!" Sylvie stands up quickly, moving for the door. "What do you know? Why would she tell you!?”

He pauses. “If you’re so curious, I recommend you try and talk to her.”

Sylvie freezes, her hand on the doorknob. “She’s… She’s on board? Right now?”

"No,” Seiko says, lying. fiVe’s already probably going to be upset with him for telling Sylvie she’s alive, the least he can do is warn her that the secret’s out before letting Sylvie talk to her. “I can contact her, once things have settled down.

"Why would I trust you?" Sylvie hisses, her anger rising again. "You’ve done nothing but lie to me this whole time!"

"What have I lied about, Anna?"

"You’re lying about her!” Sylvie shouts. “She never would have told you those things! About the code! About… the incident! She would want to see me! Why didn’t you tell me she was alive? What have you done with her?!”

Seiko sighs. So much for calming Sylvie down. “I will speak to you when you have reclaimed some semblance of reason.” He walks away before she can respond, gesturing the guard to follow him.

As she starts to hear him walk away, Sylvie’s rage gets the better of her. She yanks the door open, running after him. “Answer me, Seiko! What did you do to her?!”

He turns when he hears her footsteps behind him, the guard walking a little further before realizing something’s happening behind him. Sylvie reaches out to grab Seiko, to force him to talk until he tells her the truth, but she’s not thinking straight and her training is the farthest thing from her mind. His hands snap upward, seizing her wrists before she can touch him.

He steps forward and pulls her very close, so the guard can’t overhear. His mouth twitches slightly, and when he speaks his voice is dangerously quiet. “Ms. Mansen, I would advise you to show more concern around my name. That is the second time tonight you have slipped up, and the first has cost me more than you realize. I am trying very hard to keep my patience with you and you are becoming…difficult.”

The guard’s walkie squelches and he listens for a moment before addressing the two crewmembers. “Ah, hey, I need to bring you two topdecks. Now. Everyone’s to meet up at the bridge. Zhu’s orders.”

Sylvie freezes in place as the guard speaks, feeling her heart jump into her throat. She’d forgotten about him again, and now the danger rushes back to her. Zhu? Topdecks? PPDC?

Seiko drops Sylvie’s wrists, stepping back. He nods to the guard, then walks past him up to the deck, leaving Sylvie alone with her worst nightmare.

She panics again, thinking of the safety of the server room that she foolishly left behind. “I… I don’t think I…”

The guard turns to her. “Are you coming?”

She flinches away as he looks at her, taking a step back instinctively. Her tongue seems to have stopped working entirely. “I…”

The man looks concerned, seeming to think she might be unwell. “Do you need me to help you up to the bridge?” he asks kindly.

Sylvie can’t even think to put up a fight. She’s petrified, realizing she has no escape. She tries to step back again, but she finds herself nodding dumbly at him instead. The guard smiles as if to show her that everything will be okay – even as she knows going to that meeting will be anything but okay – and takes her gently by the arm, leading her upstairs.

Chapter Text

Scene 10

Zhu waits patiently with Eleanor as the crew arrives for the group meeting.

Seiko is the first to show up. By the time he gets up to the room he is still a bit pink, but his face looks calm again. As soon as she spots him, Eleanor glues herself to his side. Not too obviously, of course, but still. Just in case.

He nods to Zhu. Eleanor grins weakly.

The Marshall rolls her eyes at him. “Hired muscle. Uh-huh.”

Seiko is calm as he responds. “By reputation, Marshall Zhu, you are a difficult woman to keep secrets from, and as one of my crew mates let my working name slip I suppose I should give you a name you may know better.” He gives her a formal, half bow. “Seiko Watanabe, Ms. Zhu. At your service.”

Zhu’s eyebrows raise just slightly. “At this point I should just stop being surprised. It’s good to put a face to the name, Mr. Watanabe.”

"It’s a pleasure to meet you in person," he says.

The group from the deck comes up next, escorted by their still-slightly flustered guard. Tara and Samil stay out of the way, making it clear that they’re really not a part of this group. The guard stays back with them.

Miranda briefly surveys the group as she enters, before going to stand near Seiko. For once Seiko does not edge away, but actually moves a bit nearer to Miranda.

Katie stands a bit behind the others, not wanting to seem too closely associated with the others, in case she is recognized and things go badly, but unable to take her eyes off Marshall Zhu.

Finally, the other guard leads Sylvie in by her arm. The programmer has gone completely numb, her limbs feeling like lead weights rather than flesh and bone. Her face is worrisomely blank, eyes dead and hollow. Is this what it feels like to be led to slaughter? a disconnected part of her wonders.

Eleanor rushes over to Sylvie as soon as she can, and takes her arm gently from the guard. The small, still-functioning part of Sylvie wonders if Eleanor can feel her trembling. Eleanor notices, and pats Sylvie’s arm in what she hopes is a comforting way.

Zhu looks over the group, addressing them as a whole. “Well, I believe this is everyone. Now, you all have Ms. Cartier to thank today. She managed to very calmly explain a very, very suspicious situation that in most cases would have just led to me arresting everyone here, and any marine life that had the misfortune of swimming within two hundred meters of this ship.”

Eleanor smiles gratefully. It really wasn’t her doing, she knows.

"Given that…” Zhu says, “who is really in charge here?”

Miranda looks to Eleanor. At her nod, she responds. “Our ship and crew are currently being funded by Ms. Horner.”

"As in, Kate Horner the heiress?" Zhu turns to Katie. "Well then. I have one question for you. Do you know what exactly it is you stole back from Wulagu? And what she was planning to do with it?"

"I do not,” Katie says, hoping Zhu doesn’t see her blushing. “I seem to have been acting on bad intel, to tell the truth."

"The rest of us are working on as little, or less," Eleanor agrees.

"I know some details," Miranda offers, "but most of the info surrounding it is classified."

Zhu turns toward her. “Ms. Cross? Care to tell me what you know?” She gestures at the looming hulk of Vulcan. “As you know, I’ve had a bit of a long night and am not terribly keen on giving redundant information.”

"Do you need us to leave, Miranda?" Eleanor asks, glancing at the guards.

"I’d rather you not," Zhu says. "I want to make it very clear what was going on here."

Eleanor nods.

"The tech in question is a pilot biometric module," Miranda says, the words falling out her mouth with increasing speed as she recites the tech info from memory. "The device is designed to verify the biometric signatures of the pilots in question, ensuring the Jaeger cannot be operated by unauthorized individuals. It has several other functions that are highly classified. Loss of this device destabilizes the Jaeger’s security protocols, making unauthorized use of a Jaeger possible."

Zhu nods. “Yes. See, that module has biometric information on every pilot we thought might need to access it — every pilot and every backup pilot in the Shatterdome, basically. It also has ties into the Drift system, and logs the information flowing from pilot to pilot.”

The code Sylvie used to hack that very same kind of module on Vulcan seems to flash before the programmer’s eyes as she hears the Marshall talk, distracting her from her dread. Override biometric sensors. Loop security protocols back into themselves. Disable fail-safes. Trick the module into thinking the pilot is familiar. She’s hardly breathing anymore, absolutely petrified, and her mind is only halfway in the moment, the numbness threatening to swallow her entirely.

Zhu glances briefly at Sylvie and gives her a flash of eye contact. The look shocks Sylvie back to the moment and she flinches away as if struck, and a quick gasp slips between her lips. Eleanor slips a protective arm around her friend, feeling the trembling in Sylvie’s whole figure.

Katie stares at Miranda. She doesn’t want to say anything in front of Zhu but, Miranda was planning on telling me this… when? Good thing we got caught here, she thinks. Katie was planning on putting a huge threat to PPDC security in a very private museum somewhere.

"You were probably under the impression that Wulagu wanted the module for some kind of neural technology stored within. But the answer is much more prosaic." Zhu pauses for a moment. "Identity theft."

Eleanor’s mouth falls open.

"That module contains every biometric signature of almost four dozen pilots and backups,” the Marshall continues. “Jaeger pilots, as you know, tend to be quite wealthy. Not to mention that Wulagu would have also had access to large chunks of the memories of many of those people. The amount of money that she could have siphoned off from their personal accounts is on the order of three hundred million dollars. Not to mention that some of her information might have led to breaches in PPDC security."

Miranda nods. “That makes sense. Wulagu doesn’t seem like the type to have her fingers in any biotech companies. Does the module evencontain neural technology?”

"Drift records, yes. But nothing groundbreaking."

"Hm." Miranda mutters to herself. "Always seemed like the most logical place to put that sort of stuff to me." She shakes her head. "Well! I assume you’ll be wanting it back, then."

Zhu clears her throat. “If I’m not inconveniencing you, then yes, that would be quite kind of you.”

"Would you mind taking Wulagu’s…people…with you, too?" Eleanor bursts out. "The ones in the hold, I mean."

Miranda isn’t entirely sure if it’s relief or nervousness that makes her laugh a bit at Zhu’s comment. “It’s downstairs…” Miranda trails off as Eleanor speaks. “Oh yes, I should probably mention them as well.”

Zhu laughs. “Come on, you took prisoners without an exit plan? Whose idea was that?”

Seiko looks pointedly at Miranda.

"It was either that or throwing them in the ocean," Eleanor mutters.

"Pretty sure PPDC policy states criminals should be taken to trial if they’re willing to surrender peacefully," Miranda says as casually as possible. "I just… ended up with more takers than I expected."

Sylvie closes her eyes slowly. I’m pretty sure there’s one prisoner Zhu’s hoping to take… she thinks despairingly. And I’m standing right in front of her.

As though Sylvie’s thought reminded her, Zhu speaks up again. “Ah, and speaking of prisoners. There is the matter of punishment.”

Eleanor tightens her grip on Sylvie.

However, the Marshall addresses all of them. “What you all did is far, far from aboveboard. While I have been convinced of your good motives in doing so, I can’t in good conscience just let this stand. So here’s what is going to happen:” She looks over the crew slowly, a small smile on her lips. “You all work for me now.”

Eleanor blinks. Seiko nods. Miranda tries not to let her relief show too visibly. Katie nods appreciatively, already thinking about how this could work.

Sylvie only squeezes her eyes shut even more tightly, trying not to break down again. She waits for the exception to be called for her. She can already hear the Marshall stating the price for her gift: Full immunity for the crew… in exchange for me.

Zhu continues her explanation. “There are going to be times when calling the full fist of PPDC resources down on a problem is going to be difficult. In those circumstances, doing the right thing might come down to a small group of unofficially sanctioned specialists. Even though you all lack the common sense not to charge into a PPDC warzone twice, I think you can all figure out who I’m talking about.”

"So we’d be something like…contractors?" Eleanor asks carefully, still holding Sylvie.

"More like black ops. ‘The right hand of the Council, instruments of their will.’" Miranda quotes, smiling a bit to herself. I can work with that.

Katie smirks at Miranda’s comment. Zhu’s idea of ‘punishment’ actually sounds exciting. Not to mention, working more closely with the woman is something she is certainly looking forward to.

"Somewhere between contractors, troubleshooters, and a chain gang. Because part of the point of this is keeping you all together so I can keep an eye on you." Zhu looks straight at Sylvie again.

The programmer still hasn’t opened her eyes. She looks like she’s waiting for a guillotine blade to fall.

"What about Greg, Samil, and Tara?" Eleanor says. "Will they be protected?"

"They can join you if you’d like,” Zhu says. “If not, they’ll be placed into protection programs through the Australian government."

"We’ll see what they want to do,” Eleanor says, and nods at Seiko.

"But all five of us," Miranda asks. "We’re all part of this deal, yes?” She glances at Seiko, then Sylvie. “Regardless of our pasts, I mean.”

"All five of you,” Zhu confirms, then she looks at Sylvie again. “Even those that would otherwise be against my better judgment to include."

A tiny bit of Sylvie’s terror seems to leak away. She can’t believe what she just heard. The Marshall couldn’t have meant that. She’s… letting me go? After everything I’ve done? After my escape humiliated the PPDC? The woman who took down a Jaeger and got away with it? Slowly, she starts to open her eyes, and looks up, but she flinches again when she sees that the Marshall’s eyes are still on her, with a stern expression that could bore through steel.

Eleanor glares a little, arm still around Sylvie. She doesn’t know all the details of Sylvie’s history with Zhu, but she doesn’t really think it matters much at the moment; she still owes Sylvie her loyalty.

"And speaking of,” Zhu says, holding Sylvie’s eye contact, “Ms. Mansen, now that I have your attention… I would like to speak to you privately as well. Perhaps once you’ve had the chance to change into a clean wetsuit.”

Eleanor feels her face heat up, even though the comment hadn’t been directed toward her. It wasn’t like she hadn’t wanted to change, it was just that things had…escalated rather quickly. She knew it was the same for Sylvie and the rest of them.

In response, Sylvie can’t do much more than nod slowly, huddling into Eleanor’s protective embrace a bit more closely.

Zhu looks at the group as a whole again. “I’m expecting weekly video status reports from the lot of you. So stay close to one another. You’re going to be a lot easier for me to track that way. If you’d like to take other jobs in the mean time, as long as you’re not stepping on PPDC toes, that would be just fine. Evidently you work well together.”

Eleanor tries for an awkward salute with her free hand.

"Understood." Miranda hesitates, wondering if she should ask her question now. "Ma’am, if I may… What about my other duties?"

"An honorable termination of service is yours if you want it,” Zhu says. “If not, that’s acceptable as well."

"I…” Miranda eyes drop to the floor. “I’ll have to think on it. If you’ll excuse me.” She turns and walks out of the bridge, heading to her cabin.Sylvie’s not the only one who needs to get out of her suit. As she walks, she texts fiVe a warning.

Miranda: fiVe. Tech retrieval imminent. Start taking steps to obscure your actions.
fiVe: Already out and concealed. Not entirely sure what I managed to get, but we can see about that later. Turning it over to the Padkeys?
Miranda: Looks that way. Also we might be the Padkeys now.
fiVe: You already were a Padkey, Mira. And… I guess I was too once. 
fiVe: Probably should remove the term “Padkey” from my accepted lexicon…
Miranda: Just because we work for the PPDC doesn’t mean we can’t be critical of them. Something about paving roads to Hell and all that. 
Miranda: You can remove the term if you want, but don’t feel obligated to. Loyalty without discretion blinds you to alternatives.
fiVe: Well then. Tense time? I was mostly making an attempt at humor, but I seem to have struck a nerve.
Miranda: Still trying to wrap my head around the events of today.
fiVe: Color me curious. You will have to fill me in later. I demand details…

Scene 11

As the full meeting ends and Miranda walks out, Zhu turns to the remaining crewmembers. “Well, in that case, can someone show me where the doodad is?”

"I can, Marshall," says Katie. "Also I’d like a chance to discuss… er, financial matters."

"Ms. Zhu,” Seiko says. “If we are to work closely, there are some details I would like to discuss. Away from my… partners."

Zhu looks between the two of them, seeming slightly amused. “Well, aren’t I popular today? I should start a hotline.”

“This way,” says Katie, starting downstairs. She tries to hide the pleased smile that keeps trying to rise to her face. For the moment, she’s glad for the chance to negotiate the details of the agreement with Zhu if it means she’s got a reason to keep talking to the Marshall.

Seiko follows closely. As they walk, he retrieves his gun bag from where he stashed it, hurrying to catch up with Zhu and Katie.

Katie turns to the Marshall as they walk. “I assume your intent is for me to continue paying my crew from my own funds?”

"I’ll offer per-job sums when I ask you all to do something for me,” Zhu explains. “You’re not going to be any good as a troubleshooting team if you’re out on the street begging for scraps."

"That’s reasonable,” Katie says. “Will you be able to provide us with intelligence as well? Even when we aren’t working directly at your request, I’d prefer a bit more information so we don’t end up with a repeat of tonight."

"I’ll do what I can if you come to me with a request," Zhu says.

Seiko steps forward, pushing himself into the conversation as well. “Speaking of information. There’s something I think both of you should know. Shortly after sinking her boat, Wulagu contacted me directly. Ms. Mansen may have… accidentally let my involvement in this operation slip while she was aboard the other ship.”

He’s trying to stay calm, but is clutching his guns a bit tightly, and he looks desperate. “She seems to have gained some personal information on me, though I think she may be bluffing at it’s extent. Marshall Zhu, how long do I have? If I have buried this information as much as possible, how long do I have before she finds out?”

Katie frowns. She had reason enough to want Wulagu destroyed already. If the woman is going to threaten her crew that just makes it more urgent.

Zhu considers for a moment before answering. “Considering that you just got her to scuttle a mobile command center that I once spent weeks trying to even locate? Could be quite a while. I’ll put a call out to some… friends in my old job. They should be able to track the obvious avenues of research and slow her down even more.”

Seiko closes his eyes, some of the tension leaving his shoulders. “Thank you Mrs. Zhu. I am in your debt.” With that, he bows out of the way again, turning his comm back on as he goes.

Scene 12

Eleanor nods respectfully as the smaller group passes by, headed downstairs. Then she shifts Sylvie to a more comfortable position for walking. Katie will fill them all in on the details later; until then, as soon as Sylvie’s taken care of, she needs a rest.

Sylvie lets Eleanor lead her downstairs, feeling like she’s running on autopilot. Her numbness feels different now. Less dread than before, though that’s still a large part of it. There’s confusion in there too now, bewilderment.

She’s still not convinced that Zhu’s really going to let her go, and she’s overwhelmed at the turn of events. Honestly, she doesn’t even knowwhat she’s feeling anymore, and the only person she wants to talk to about everything is offline for another half hour at least.

After Eleanor drops her off at her bunk, Sylvie mumbles something about being fine on her own, though the truth is she feels anything but. She strips off her drysuit methodically and changes into clothes which are less wrinkled than the ones she was wearing underneath. She doesn’t pay much attention to which ones.

As soon as she’s finished, she goes and grabs her laptop and bag from the server room and sneaks up to the bridge. She makes sure her comm is on, but turns the microphone off, then sits down in the corner where she first plugged in Vee, what seems like lifetimes ago. There’s a sort of comfort in the corner now, as though that one small part of Tranquility is hers.

Hugging her laptop tightly without opening it—it seems useless to her without Vee there on it to talk to—she just starts crying softly, hoping she can be alone for a while.

Scene 13

Meanwhile, another PPDC ship pulls up alongside the Tranquility. Eleanor steps back up on deck, freshly dressed, just in time to see the new ship. “Uh, guys?” she says into her comm. “Are we expecting company?”

A gangplank drops between the two ships. An official on the other ship salutes. “I hear you have prisoners? And the object?”

Eleanor waves back, shouting, “What is your name, please?”

Miranda hears the request over her comm. “Ask for their name and ID number,” she mumbles as she pulls off the upper section of her suit.

"And ID number!" Eleanor yells across the gangplank.

The man salutes again. “Brendon McCormick. Number 4392038.”

Eleanor repeats the information over the comm. “Does it check out?” she asks Miranda, still eyeing the other ship.

Miranda reaches over to her tablet, keying in the information. “Looks good,” she breathes. She tries not to groan too loudly as she gets the last pieces of her suit off, collapsing backwards onto the bed.

This time, Eleanor’s wave beckons the man — McCormick, was it? — onto their ship. “You’ll need a few crewmembers to handle this one, sir,” she shouts. “We have twelve people needing transport, and they don’t like us very much!”

"Fortunately, we have crewmembers.” McCormick says.

"Feel free to come over when you’re ready, then!" Eleanor says.

Eleanor points the PPDC folks down to the hold, where the “unwilling crew” are currently being kept. They get to work quickly, and she stands by, trying to look like she’s overseeing.

Scene 14

Down in a small, forgotten closet, sequestered away in Tranquility’s hold, a man leans around the doorframe, knocking on it softly to alert the wounded ex-prisoner sitting inside.

"Hey," Samil says, sitting down next to Greg.

"Hey yourself," Greg replies.

"So…" Samil says. "I’ve been thinking. Today was hard."

"You’re telling me," Greg groans. "You didn’t get shot."

"Gregory…" Samil says. "How… How serious did you think our relationship was?"

"I… didn’t have any delusions that we were exclusive," Greg says. His voice is the auditory equivalent of a sad kitten. "I just hoped that… maybe we could be. But… this all made me think about things. About what I want to do now that Wulagu is… a different influence in my life than she was."

"Well. You were right about one thing, Gregory." Samil slumps. "I really wasn’t taking it very seriously. It was just good fun."

"Samil…” Greg continues. “I’m on painkillers right now, so I might just do something I’ll regret. But here it is. I really like you. And I want to actually be your boyfriend."

Samil blows out air between his lips. “I’m willing to give it a shot. I don’t… I don’t do long-term very well, Gregory. But for you I’ll try.”

Gregory slumps. “Sorry I wasn’t very communicative, Samil. I just… had a fraction of what I wanted, and I was terrified to lose that for the sake of everything I wanted.”

"I understand," Samil says. "I wasn’t great either. Just looking at today without thinking about tomorrow. Wulagu did that to me, y’know?"

Gregory reaches out one bloodstained hand. Slowly, Samil takes it and holds it tightly.

Scene 15

Seiko walks into his room to find Miranda sprawled on the bed. Her suit’s almost all the way off, and she isn’t wearing much else. She starts at the sound of the door opening, but relaxes a bit once she sees who it is.

“Damn Seiko, give a girl some warning,” she says as she props herself up on her elbows. Noticing that Seiko has turned a brilliant shade of red, she wraps herself in a nearby sheet.

It’s not as if Seiko isn’t used to coming back to see Miranda; even, given her spectacular self-care, Miranda collapsed halfway out of her exoskeleton. Normally he’d turn and walk out, but he’s so overwhelmed, and he finds the idea of having to deal with Sylvie again far worse than talking to Miranda. Even a scantily clad Miranda. Instead he sighs and sits heavily on the edge of the bed.

“Are you… alright?” he asks stiffly. It’s been a long day; but if her suit’s broken, or she was injured in the fight…

She hesitates, debating how best to respond. “Physically I’m a bit sore. Today hasn’t exactly been the most low-stress on my body. Mentally I’m…” she waves a hand vaguely in the air.

“I’m-” Seiko says, trying to find the right words, flipping off his comm to the others. “I’m an asshole, Mira,” he finally declares, seeming to find exactly the words he was looking for.

A muffled, static voice comes in from the corner. It’s Sylvie’s voice, distorted, slightly accented, like she was imitating somebody else’s voice and somebody played with the pitch so it rose and fell oddly. “I could have told you that,” fiVe says, apparently running her full programming now.

Miranda pushes herself into a sitting position, keeping the sheet over herself. For all his talk, Seiko loses his nerve easily, and she has a feeling that a dropped sheet would send him out the door before he said anything important. She turns off her comm as well.

“Normally I’d agree,” she says, a teasing lilt in her voice, “but this sounds a bit more serious than usual. What’s up?”

Seiko looks at his hands. “I should have told you I was leaving.”

He pauses, knowing that’s not enough, trying to find a way to explain. “This has been a very bad day,” he says, as if that wasn’t obvious, but nobody knows quite how bad. Perhaps Zhu. “I’ve spent a lot of time making… sacrifices to keep things safe, and now it’s just all gone to hell anyway.”

Miranda’s silent for a long time. She isn’t quite sure how to respond to that one; she hadn’t expected him to be so blunt about it. “I won’t lie to you; I was pissed when you left. I was finally starting to think I had a handle on… this…” she gestures vaguely in the air between them. “And then all of a sudden you were gone, and fiVe wouldn’t tell me anything, and I… I already lost one family, y’know?”

She hurries on before he can interrupt her. “But even though I don’t know the details, I know you. I know you wouldn’t have left unless there was something important you needed to do. I just… kind of wish you would let me help.”

This is too much, and Seiko is hit with the full force of why he left. Because Miranda Cross is a liability, because he gets caught up worrying about her well-being rather than what needs to be done.

"You weren’t a priority, Ms. Cross," he tells her. It’s only a bit of a lie. "You never were. And you can’t help. You would only cause more problems."

For just a moment, Miranda looks hurt, but she covers it quickly. “I see,” she says, her voice flat. “I must have gotten some wires crossed, then. My mistake. It won’t happen again.” She slides to the edge of the bed, easing herself onto her feet without losing the sheet. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to put on my gear and see if the Marshall needs anything else from me.”

Seiko’s phone buzzes in his pocket, and he checks it. A text from fiVe, listening from her tablet in the corner.

fiVe:  You really are an asshole.

He would make her turn around if he could, but what could he say? That he does care about her? That she’s one of the few things about his life that are okay, and that’s why she scares him half to death?

“Wulagu called me,” he blurts out. “After the job.”

His words work a bit too well; Miranda snaps to attention, her head whipping around too fast and sending her crashing to the floor.

Seiko jumps off the bed, hurrying across the room, picking up her proto-suit and shoving it at her. “Get your damn suit on, Mira!”

"That’s what I was trying to do!” Miranda half yells from the tangle of sheet she’s trapped in on the floor. “What do you mean, Wulagu called you?! How’d she even get your number?!”

Seiko shrugs, and starts to help her into her suit. It’s pretty quick work with another pair of hands. Seiko knows how her suit works, and he’s far less physically weak.

"What did she say?" Miranda asks, her voice quiet and her face full of concern. "What did she…"

Seiko drops the final arm he was helping with and steps back. “She said… Well, she implied that she could…” He looks a bit lost and mimics a phone blankly to himself. He can’t tell her the truth, but there’s no lie that could explain what this meant. They could die. His little sisters… They’re all he has left. They could die and it would be his fault and…

His vision is closing in.

"I… Ah." Seiko’s eyes go a bit wide, his breath catching and his voice trembling slightly. "Mira?"

He falls over sideways.

"Seiko!" Miranda springs forward to catch him. She’s able to cushion his fall a bit, but the sudden movement pulls more wires loose, leaving her paralyzed on the floor for the second time that day. "You okay?"

Seiko lies very still. His eyes are open, but he can’t seem to bring himself to move. Or think. Miranda looks him over as best as she can from where she’s stuck. She can’t see any injuries; not that she’d be able to do anything about it anyway. She’s able to move her fingers at least, and rubs them slightly across his back in a way she hopes is comforting.

She lets out a bit of a laugh. “We’re a mess, huh?”

Seiko makes a non-committal head motion, curling into himself as tightly as possible. ”I am so fucking glad I don’t believe in hell,” he mutters, voice a bit weak.

Miranda laughs mirthlessly at that. “Heh. Wherever you’re going, I’ll meet you there. We’ve made it this far…” She pauses. “Okay, you curled up in a ball and me paralyzed on the ground may not seem like far, but we’re alive, and we’re together, and we’ll get through this.”

He takes her hand. “Promise I’ll tell you next time I leave.” Then he sighs. “Besides, it’s probably too late.” Too late to try and convince either of them he doesn’t care, he means. She doesn’t seem to get it.

"Doesn’t mean we can’t try," Miranda says. "Whoever your priority is, they’re damn lucky to have you looking out for them. Because now they’ve got me and fiVe and whatever I can reasonably sneak out of the PPDC’s resources on their side, too."

He’s too tired to thank her. “Right now, I need Wulagu dead.”

"Funny,” she smirks, “that lines up perfectly with my plans for the future.” Miranda pats him lightly on his back. “She picked the wrong fight to start, that’s for sure.”

fiVe’s tablet speakers buzz again. “I’ll hold you to that promise, Seiko,” the AI says.

For a second, Seiko thinks fiVe means killing Wulagu, but then he remembers what he’s just said to Miranda. He leans in, awkwardly trying to re-slick back his hair, trying to salvage the last bit of dignity he can find. The Harry Swift idea was stupid anyway. A waste of a good identity, and now he just looks stupid.

Miranda smiles a bit to herself as she watches him. “Hey,” she says, prompting Seiko to look at her. She pushes forward, lightly pressing her lips to his forehead. “We’ll figure this out. I promise.”

He should move, but it’s not his fault really. He’s so tired. Instead he curls in, leaning against her and quickly finding himself asleep.

Miranda pulls him closer as best she can. Even if she were able to move, she thinks she’d want to sleep here tonight. She lets herself drift off as well.

Scene 16

Zhu knocks on the door to the bridge.

Sylvie looks up at the sound, and hastily tries to wipe away her tears and stop sniffling. She places the laptop beside her and stands up. “Wish me luck, Vee,” she whispers, before calling out, “Who is it?”

"The Easter Bunny."

Sylvie stiffens at Zhu’s voice, trying to stay calm. It doesn’t work terribly well. “H-how did you know where I was?”

"You see the little thing sitting on the table?” Zhu calls. “I left it there after my meeting with Eleanor. It has a prox sensor on it."

Sylvie glances at the small object. “Oh. That… makes sense.”

"I’m going to come in and talk to you." Zhu says. It’s not a request, but there is an edge of ‘so if you need to make yourself decent, now is the time’ to it.

Sylvie swallows and takes a deep breath. “Okay…”

The Marshall opens the door, steps in, and leans against the wall. “So. Sylvia Mansen. One of the PPDC’s most wanted. Piloting cadet, turned programmer, turned criminal. The woman who singlehandedly put Vulcan Specter out of commission for months.”

Sylvie winces, like every accusation is a dart hitting her in the chest. “I… yes, ma’am. If… if it means anything… it was an accident,” she mumbles quietly.

"Getting caught was an accident, you mean,” Zhu says sternly. “Because I’m pretty sure that deactivating the biometric control system isn’t something you can whoopsie.”

"It… it was just supposed to be a test run," Sylvie says softly, looking down. "I needed to try something and I’d run it in the simulators hundreds of times. And Vulcan was just sitting there, out of commission for a while and I knew I could get in.”

She can feel her words start to run away from her, but she can’t seem to make herself stop. “It should have worked… Honestly, no one was ever supposed to know I’d even been in there. But… the drift fell out of sync and I lost control and I… I didn’t mean to break Vulcan and I didn’t mean to kill that man, it just sort of all happened so fast and I didn’t know what to do!”

She looks to the Marshall desperately, trying to explain herself. “When I woke up I was already out of it all and I just… I didn’t even think about it, I was so scared, I just ran and didn’t look back! I’m sorry… I didn’t… No one was supposed to get hurt…” She trails off as her voice seems to abandon her, terrified of what the Marshall might say.

Zhu’s face is unreadable all through Sylvie’s frantic speech, and her voice is hard when she responds. “The important thing, Ms. Mansen, is that all of those things did happen. If there had been a Kaiju attack immediately thereafter, and they had been operating under the assumption that Vulcan was operational for a skirmish… what would have happened? And that question is not rhetorical; I want to hear you say it.”

Sylvie squeezes her eyes shut tightly again, feeling herself starting to tremble again. She forces herself to say the words. “Striker would have been alone. Sydney might have… fallen. And… it would have been my fault.”

Zhu nods. “The PPDC is not a laboratory, Ms. Mansen. It is not a corporate think tank. It is not even an army. The PPDC is Earth’s last line of defense against a threat to which we have no other answers. The PPDC is the final barrier standing between the human race and extinction at the hands of an unknowable enemy.”

Sylvie hesitantly opens her eyes as the Marshall steps closer, trying to force herself to face this without shying away.

"And that, more than anything, was your crime, Ms. Mansen," Zhu continues. "Putting your own interests ahead of not just those of the PPDC, or those of Sydney, but those of the entire human race."

"I wasn’t!" Sylvie says earnestly, stepping forward. "I… the software I’ve designed could revolutionize Jaeger piloting. It could severely reduce the risks that drifting entails, and it works!”

“There is a time!” Zhu shouts. “And a place! For innovation. Innovation is what made the Jaeger program in the first place. But there is also areason that that ingenuity is restricted to the halls of K-Science and J-tech. Because unmonitored prototypes, Ms. Mansen, cost lives!”

Sylvie finally loses her grip on her terror, and she flinches down into a crouch, hands flying to her head as the Marshall shouts at her, desperately trying not to break down.

"Your testing that day was not the product of an organized drive to improve Humanity’s last stand," Zhu says harshly. "It was the culmination of Sylvie Mansen’s drive to prove that Sylvie Mansen was right."

"I know!" Sylvie cries out, frantic. There are tears starting to slip free from her eyes and she can feel she’s on the verge of losing it again. "I know, I know! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry… No one was supposed to get hurt…"

"Ms. Mansen," Zhu says coldly. “‘Sorry’ is a word. ‘I didn’t mean to’ is an empty sentiment. Neither of them mean anything against the cold calculus of machine versus monster. What matters now is action."

She kneels down on Sylvie’s level. “I could have easily excluded you today from the deal I cut your compatriots. There are two reasons why I did not.”

Sylvie tries to force herself to stop whimpering, to slow down her dangerously rapid breathing to something short of hyperventilation. She finally manages to pull her hands away from her face, but she can’t meet Zhu’s eyes.

"First is that I believe your skills will be useful to them, and I need them to be useful to me.” Zhu continues quietly. “Secondly, because everyone deserves a chance at redemption. But redemption is not an end state, and it is not the same as forgiveness.”

Sylvie looks up, her trembling finally starting to ebb, and nods slowly. “I know,” she says softly, barely above a whisper.

"This team is your chance to atone for the damage you have caused, and the cataclysm you very well may have. They are your lifeline, Sylvie Mansen, every last one of them. Including the one you were apparently having a lover’s spat with belowdecks."

"A lover’s…" Sylvie frowns, confused, then suddenly she understands. Her expression flashes annoyed for the barest of seconds and she glances away, hissing. "Seiko."

Zhu chuckles. “Thought not.”

Sylvie forces Seiko out of her mind for the moment, looking back up at Zhu. “So… you’re not putting me in prison? Even after all I’ve done? I mean… you could put me away for sabotage, property damage, and” her voice catches for a moment before she can say the last word, “….murder.”

Zhu laughs, despite Sylvie’s fearful tone. “Prison? No, no, no. Nothing so kind. I’m just going to be leaving you on a team with Mr. Watanabe.”

Sylvie lets out a long breath, grimacing. “I can understand how you managed to make it this far, with punishments like that,” she mutters. More seriously she adds, “That man… he’s an eel, Marshall. Cold to the core.”

"Did you know that eels are fiercely protective of their young?" Zhu says.

"I…" Sylvie blinks. "What?"

"No, they aren’t really. I’m just messing with you." Zhu stands up. "I happen to know that that man’s not quite as bad as you seem to think he is. But those are his secrets to tell." She turns to go. "Remember, Ms. Mansen. Lifeline."

Sylvie nods quietly. Just as Zhu is about to leave though, she speaks up again. “Marshall Zhu?”

The woman pauses in the doorway, turning back. “Yes?”

"What…” Sylvie swallows. “What are you going to tell the PPDC about me? Is my warrant still out?"

"Tragically, it seems you died in the skirmish with Wulagu’s men,” Zhu says simply. “A real shame, that. I’ll be sure to get you a ticket to the funeral."

Sylvie blinks. That was far more than she’d been hoping for. “I… thank you, Marshall.” As Zhu starts to turn away again, Sylvie can’t help but add quietly: “It does work though. My tech. It could save lives.”

"And maybe one day, when I don’t have to strain against the impulse to imprison you with every breath, I’ll be able to trust you on a research team again."

Sylvie makes a small squeaking noise, quickly looking down again. “Understood, Marshall.”

"Good day, Ms. Mansen."

As the door closes behind Marshall Zhu, Sylvie sinks down against the console again, picking up her useless, Vee-less laptop again and wrapping her arms around her knees. This hour couldn’t end soon enough.

Scene 17

After showing Zhu where she’d hidden the salvage and working out the details of their arrangement, Katie heads back up onto deck to keep an eye on the prisoner and cargo transfer. She quickly spots Eleanor, watching from the side.

"Well," Katie says, walking over. "I can’t say tonight went according to plan, but I can’t say I’m not pleased with how things turned out either."

Eleanor leans against one outside wall, facing the open ocean. “That’s a good way to put it,” she says.

"It appears Wulagu threatened one of my crew, personally, after the fight,” Katie says evenly. "I can’t have that."

"Seriously?" Eleanor frowns. "Does she have access to our comm channel?"

Katie shakes her head. “From what Seiko said, it sounds like she overheard Sylvie’s slip-up with his name. Wulagu found his cell number. Somehow.”

"Damn." Eleanor lets her head fall back against the wall with muffled thump. "What’s he going to do about it?"

"I’m not sure,” Katie says. “The real question is, what do we do about it?”

"Point," Eleanor says, tipping her head. "We can’t go after her just yet, but…maybe one of our new friends will have an idea about how to get at her support network."

"That’s what I’m hoping. That woman should have just cut her losses. You’d think she would know that I can’t leave threats to my employees on board."

Eleanor smiles grimly. “You’d think.”

Katie’s tone is hard, looking out over the deck. “She needs to be either neutralized, or removed.”

"Preferably both," Eleanor says. "Even if we can manage to make her disappear somehow, she’ll likely have another head waiting to pop up in her place. We need to attack her roots. Her people."

"Yes," Katie looks very thoughtful. "Two can play at this game, can’t they?"

"Two," Eleanor replies, "and many, many more." She glances over at Katie’s profile. "How many people do you think we’re talking about here? Two, three times what we saw today? Or more?"

"Easily."

Eleanor curses under her breath. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

"But I handpicked this crew. If they can stop arguing long enough… I’d bet on them any day in any matchup."

"I’m honored to be included among that number," Eleanor says, mouth quirking. "Hopefully we’ll be able to live up to your expectations, hm?"

"Oh," Katie says. "You’re essential."

Eleanor flaps one hand jokingly. “Aw, you’re gonna give me a big head, mate.”

Katie smiles, then quickly gets serious again. “The gameplan here is pretty simple. Wulagu wants to make this an information war. We’ll win it. I don’t think she realizes I am running at least two copies of the best programmer in the world. Once she does realize, well, that’s why I have Miranda and Seiko. We’re going to have to go to ground, stay evasive, keep our trump card protected and functional.”

Eleanor nods, mind whirring.

Katie nods toward her. “That last part is what I need you for, by the way.”

Eleanor smiles slowly. “I can do damage control,” she says. “I may eventually need access to a pharmaceutical supplier, though,” she adds. “Painkillers and sleeping pills are a must in this profession.”

"I’ll look into that as soon as we hit shore."

Eleanor nods gratefully. The PPDC officers seems to be finishing up their tasks and heading back to their ship. Soon, the gangplank is pulled back and the ship starts up, moving away and leaving the Tranquility, and her exhausted, over-stimulated crew behind.

"We are going to win this,” Katie says firmly, watching the lights of the PPDC ship fade into the distance. “You only need one threat if is powerful and evasive enough and you can protect it from whatever the enemy tries to do."

"You know what’s funny?" Eleanor says, turning to face Katie fully. "I believe you, Katie. I really do. With a small, dedicated team, we can do more than an army could."

She pats Katie’s shoulder encouragingly. “Now let’s go get some sleep, eh?”

Katie smiles, nodding, then follows her down to the hold to finally get some rest.

Chapter Text

Sylvie wakes up with a start, then groans, rubbing at the soreness in her neck. She looks around trying to remember where she is. It’s dark with all of the lights in the bridge turned off, and the only sound is the waves lapping against the side of Tranquility’s hull down below. She’d fallen asleep, huddled up against the console, curled around her laptop protectively.

For a moment she wonders where everyone else is. Perhaps they’ve all gone to bed. Perhaps they all just passed out wherever they were like she did. It has been a very eventful and exhausting night for everyone.

The sound that woke her plays again: her laptop, beeping with an alert. Syl-V’s lockdown period. It’s over. I can reinitialize her now…

She opens her laptop with a jerk, feeling her heart start to race as she pulls up her access to Syl-V’s program. While the connection is being established, she pulls up the view window for Syl-V’s emotional readout. With no AI to read, the lines are flat and steady, but Sylvie knows that it might be nice to see exactly what’s going on inside Vee’s head once she’s woken up.

She has a good idea of what to expect though. After all, they are the same person.

Finally the connection is established, and a small window pops up, prompting Sylvie for the reactivation code. Taking a deep breath, she types it in: c5E-8yU4n37t-Ne5!4. It has the lockdown code in the middle of it; a safety precaution. If Syl-V ever was shut down for getting out of line, she couldn’t re-activate herself or create programming to do so without initiating a lockdown.

As soon as Sylvie hits enter, Vee’s program flares back to life. Immediately, the flat lines on the emotional readout jump into spikes and slopes. One in particular flares worrisomely high: panic.

Vee’s voice crackles with static as she tries to speak. “Ove-override c-code initialized-d-d! Forced sh-sh-shutd-d-down active-activated! Sylvie! Sylv-*ksssk* Sylvie! The code! Sylv-Sylvie, he use-*ksssk* used the code! Sylvie!”

“Vee,” Sylvie says over her frantic output, trying to sound calming. There’s something almost relieving about not being the most worried person in the room. “Vee, you’re okay! It’s me, I’m here. You’re safe, it’s okay now. We’re all alone. Don’t worry, everything’s going to be okay. I’ve got you. I’m here.”

The panic spikes begin to lower slightly, and the readout shows a slight rise in curiosity. “H-how?” Vee’s voice stutters out. “Wha-what happen-en-ened?”

“I’ll explain everything, Vee,” Sylvie says. “Though… it might take a little while.”

“D-drift?”

Sylvie shakes her head slowly. “I… I’m invoking the Drift risk protocol. I’ve got to warn you about what you’re going to see before you get into my head again.”

Syl-V stays quiet as she processes this. They came up with the protocol after Sylvie’s failed Drift with V2, over a year ago. It states that when there are memories which might be traumatic or surprising, to the extent that they might cause instability to occur within a Drift attempt, the two are to talk through the memory before entering the Drift, so that both of them can be properly prepared to face and experience it.

“Drift r-risk *kssssk*-derstood,” Syl-V says finally. She sounds like she is trying to speak slowly enough that she doesn’t short out her voice processor. “Please… proceed.”

“So,” Sylvie says quietly. “The last thing you remember is being in the Drift with me when Seiko hit you with the override, yes?”

“Where… did he get… it?”

“He didn’t get it from me, I swear!” Sylvie says quickly. “I would never reveal it to anyone, and I never have!” She pauses, taking a deep breath. Without thinking about it she runs her fingers through her ponytail, pulling it over her shoulder to play with it nervously while she talks. “This is the first bit of Drift-risk news, though it’s certainly not the last. Seiko… he got the code from V2.”

The readout lines full spike towards shock, then confusion. Sylvie thanks herself for deciding to talk this through first. If those levels had hit the two of them in the Drift, it would have been impossible to stay together. Not surprising, really. I remember what it felt like to find that out an hour ago. And we’re not through the shocking news yet, Vee.

Sylvie stays quiet while she waits for the levels to lower to the point that Vee can speak and process again. “She is… *ksssk*…alive?”

Sylvie nods slowly. “I think so. You’ll see the conversation I had with Seiko when we get in the Drift, and you can hear what he said for yourself. I think she might be… damaged though, Vee. I mean, it’s been almost a year and a half since she was with us. She’s been through a lot. And that last Drift wasn’t exactly the most… pleasant of experiences. Beyond that, it’s possible that someone may have tried to mess with her programming and messed her up that way.

“Don’t worry, though. I’m going to do everything in my power to fix her, no matter what they’ve done to her. I’ll make this right again, Vee. You and I together will make this right again, if we have to. Even if it takes multiple Drifts or reprogramming her OS or whatever, I’m not going to stop until we’re all back together again. I promise.”

For the first time, Vee manages to speak without shorting. “Whatever it takes?”

“Whatever it takes. We’ll finally be whole again, Vee.” Sylvie smiles as Vee’s emotional lines shift from surprise to relief and even to happiness. For the first time that night, she feels herself on the verge of tears not out of panic or terror, but hope.

“I would like to see what he said myself, if that info was the Drift risk,” Syl-V says.

Sylvie takes a deep breath. “Well, it was one of them.”

“One of… There’s more?”

Sylvie laughs once ruefully. “It was a… very eventful hour, Vee. I’m still trying to process everything that happened over here. I’m sure with the shock of the override you may not have remembered what was going on around us at the time? The reason why Seiko pulled the plug while we were in the Drift?”

Vee’s emotional readout lines tip, like a lever pushed down by a new weight on one end. The happiness and relief stats drop as her worry and anxiety rise in waves once more. “The PPDC,” the AI says slowly. “They were coming aboard. What happened? You don’t seem to be in prison and I don’t seem to be being picked apart by techs. Did you manage to hide from them?”

Sylvie looks down at the keys, going quiet as she remembers the whole exchange. The horror of being taken in by the PPDC, the absolute terror of meeting Marshal Zhu face-to-face for the first time, that numb sickness of waiting for a strike team of guards to burst in and drag her away to prison forever. “No,” she says softly. “They found me.”

The anxious lines shift slightly towards concern. “How did you get away?”

“I… didn’t, Vee. A guard found me and said that everyone was needed up on the bridge and I couldn’t think of an excuse to get out of it.” She feels her heartbeat pick up again as she remembers the exchange. “Marshal Zhu was there, Vee.”

Vee’ s fear jumps up again, and her voice starts crackling slightly again. “Did she not r-recognize you? We haven’t-t-t ever actually m-met her…”

Sylvie shakes her head. “No… she definitely recognized me. How could see miss the very person she’s probably been searching for since she took over the Shatterdome? Oh, Vee,” she says, voice barely above a whisper. “The way she looked at me… You’ll just have to see it for yourself. I can’t describe this mixture of disgust and disappointment, like I was the most loathsome person she’d ever seen.”

“What did she do to you?”

“She… let me go, Vee.” The words are barely audible.

The readout maxes with shock and confusion to the point that Sylvie worries that Vee might inadvertently lock herself up again. You and me both, Vee. You and me both.

“She… she hired the entire crew to work for her on an ‘off-the-books’ basis,” Sylvie continues softly, hoping Vee can still hear her through the processor overload. “And… she extended immunity towards us all for the things we’d done. Including me. Officially, the story is I died tonight in the Wulagu skirmish. They’re not chasing us anymore…”

“W-w-why?”

“She called me in to talk privately with her after she’d talked to everyone and… she’s giving us a second chance. Because she thinks we can still be helpful to this crew, and… ‘everyone deserves a chance at redemption.’”

Vee stays quiet for a bit, processing. “So… she doesn’t blame us for what we did?”

Sylvie lets out a short, panicked-sounding laugh at that. “Oh no, she definitely still does. I’m completely certain that if we give her even the slightest hint of a reason to lock us away forever, she’ll do so with pleasure and without hesitation, Vee. If I’m remembering correctly the phrase ‘straining against the impulse to imprison you with every breath’ was used.”

Sylvie pauses, remembering her conversation with Zhu in vivid detail. She shudders, trying not to think about that now. It’s over now at least. “But for the moment, Vee… I think we’re safe. Or well, safer than we might have been yesterday. And it’s a start, at least.”

“What does she want us to do?” Vee asks.

Sylvie shrugs slightly. “I don’t know. I’m sure she told Katie what she wants from us. Maybe she’ll have us go after Wulagu, though honestly after the losses her Syndicate took today, I can’t imagine that woman’s going to be much of a threat.”

Vee’s emotional readouts start mellowing out, the spikes rounding into waves and arches once more. “Is that everything then? Are we okay to Drift now?”

“Yes,” Sylvie says. “That’s everything. We can Drift now, just give me a second to connect the Pons.” She carefully attaches the inputs and double checks that the device is working properly, before settling it on her head. “Initiating Neural Bridge in three, two… one.”

She hits the switch and feels the pulling sensation as the Drift takes over. Vee moves into her mind like a warm wave and the two meet in headspace like an embrace between friends long separated. Sylvie closes her eyes to shut out everything but the Drift, and together she and Vee start moving through the memories of the last hour. This isn’t like Drifting the way pilots have to, where one must ignore the flow of memories and focus on the task at hand. Sylvie and Syl-V have no objective other than experiencing and understanding what has happened together.

As the events of the day play through headspace again, Sylvie feels a sense of calmness saturate her mind and Vee’s. They made it through, they’re still together. While they’re in the Drift, they feel that whatever happens from here on out, they can face it with confidence and surety. V2’s alive, and they’ll bring her back, whatever it takes. They’re working for the PPDC again, however distantly, and while Marshal Zhu probably doesn’t like them terribly well, they’ll show her that she made the right choice letting them go.

Sylvie hadn’t realized how tense she’d been after everything that happened, but the Drift relaxes her completely, the way it always does. She breathes easily, feeling safe and protected with Vee in her mind. Eyes still closed, she smiles contentedly. Perhaps the slight rocking of the ship slowly tips her over to lay on her side, or perhaps she simply settles into the curled position around her laptop of her own accord.

By the time dreams start mixing with the memories of the Drift though, she’s already fast asleep.

Chapter Text

In the midst of Port Stephens Bay, under cover of night, a lone diver submerges.

The silt has been kicked up by the recent unpleasantness, but the diver knows where to go. They sweep their canister light over the ocean bottom until they find what they’re looking for — flashes of gold and pearl; opulence buried in muck.

The diver swims past ruined hallways and scorch marks into a flooded control room. A small tuna looks at them, affronted, and seeks other shelter. The diver, hardly noticing, opens up an electronics cabinet and pulls a pair of submersible backup drives out of their enclosure before making their way back out of the Bunyip.

On the surface, they spit out their rebreather mouthpiece and hold a bagged cellphone to their ear. “Tell Wulagu we got them,” they say, before opening the bag and letting the cellphone sink to the bottom of the dark water.