This is a fusion fic with the Saints Row universe. As such it has a lot more violence and swearing than canon.
In the last days before the earth was consumed in nuclear fire, one of the orbiting space stations called down a request for more air filtration components. As a result of the jingoism and paranoia that had become typical, base command sent to the station two extra air filters and seventeen crates of ordinance. The Ark may have been short on all resources vital to sustaining life but one thing that never ran out was guns.
For Clarke it started when her father was floated. The warring gangs that claimed and fought over parts of the Ark had always been there, but their presence was distant from the well patrolled corridors of Alpha station. Something to be discussed over the dinner table along with particularly interesting patients that had come into the clinic. Then Jake Griffin discovered that the Ark was running out of air.
Abby, Councilwoman to the core, never outright said it but when she seemed certain the problem would work itself out Jake knew she meant that the gangs would kill one another off. True or not, Jake found he couldn't condone that kind of inaction. They had brought Clarke up believing the cardinal rule of the Ark: the strong survive. People joining gangs were doing it for survival. They were fighting against Alpha station's rule for a better life and they deserved to know that soon there might be no life on the Ark at all. A point he made loudly enough that Clarke could hear it through the wall.
She found him making the video the next day.
"All those groups the council likes to dismiss," He said sadly. "They're fighting for good reasons. They just need leadership. As long as they squabble with themselves it's easy for the council to ignore them or turn them against each other."
"And you think this will make a difference?"
"I think they deserve to know."
"Then I want to help."
"Clarke, no. I need you to stay clear of this. If the council finds out –"
"I won't tell anyone."
Jake reached out to cup her face in one hand. "Stubborn, just like your mother."
He had just enough time to catch her up in a hug when the door to their unit burst open. "You don't know what's happening, Clarke. You don't know what's happening," He whispered insistently, not letting go even when the hum of shocksticks filled the air. "Say it."
"I don't know what's happening," She repeated, confused. Then the guards tore him from her arms and she recognized the words for the shield they were. "What's happening?" This time she yelled them, playing up a daughter's frantic terror.
She kept repeating them. To the guards, to the council, to her mother. A mantra of confusion that made them dismiss her. And once she had held her father for the last time and watched him sucked out into the cold emptiness of space, Clarke ran.
It wasn't that Clark had never been off Alpha station, but there was a pretty big difference between regimented upper levels of Mecha where her father worked - or had worked - and the unpatrolled hallways of Factory. Splashes of paint tagged the grey walls with bright colours and music vibrated the deckplates, trash collected in corners and Clark passed at least one person trying to sell her stolen goods. Clark adjusted the overlarge, grease stained jacket she'd taken from her father's closet, trying to look less than completely uncomfortable when a voice interrupted her.
"Can you spare any ration tickets?"
Startled, Clarke looked down to see what she had thought was a pile of debris resolve itself into a girl, no more than eleven or twelve. "Oh! No, I'm sorry I don't have any," Clarke cursed herself for not thinking to raid the stash of tickets her mother kept locked in the drawer of her desk. "They should let you in at a cafeteria though, right?"
The girl gave her a baleful look. "Caf space is guarded." She said, like Clarke might be deaf or stupid.
Shouting caught Clarke's attention before she could reply. A group of men dressed in blue had come up on a knot of kids at the end of the hall who were painting over something with slashes of bright yellow. They postured for a minute, one of the yellow kids shouting about the Kings and waving a club made out of old cracked piping.
Then one of the men in blue pulled out a gun and all hell broke loose.
The half the kids in yellow took off, the rest of them pulling out weapons of their own. The girl on the floor seized Clarke's hand and pulled them both into an alcove as bullets pinged off the corridor walls. Clark had a sudden sickening vision of the look on her father's face as decompression had wrenched him out into space and was thankful that the bullets manufactured and used on the Ark were metal that was much too soft to penetrate the hull.
They shot through people just fine though. One of the Kings in yellow went down just in front of them, staring sightlessly back at Clarke as their blood seeped out onto the deck. The girl screamed, high and terrified, and a blue-clad thug ducked around the corner. He laughed when he saw them huddled against the back wall.
"Sorry girls," He was grinning, wide and unpleasant as he leveled the gun at them. "No witnesses."
In a burst of panic and rage Clarke threw herself forward, trying to stop him shooting the little girl long enough for her to get away. Whether the thug was all talk or she just surprised him, the bullet she was expecting never came. Instead Clarke rammed into his middle at speed, knocking him sprawling on the floor. "Run!" She screamed without looking behind her, lashing out at the man's face with a punch that would have made Wells deeply ashamed of her.
She managed to get two wild hits in before one of his crew struck her in the side of the head with the butt of his gun and Clarke's world went black.
She woke to the sound of a gunshot.
There were two men standing over her. The older, shorter one was holding the gun, pointed not at Clarke but at the man in blue who was lying next to her and now missing the back of his head. The other, tall, with his dark hair slicked back, had his hand on the shoulder of the girl. He said something too low for Clarke to hear and then gave her a nod which she returned before running off.
"She's okay?" Clarke tried to sit up and then fell back to her elbows again when the world started to swim.
The tall man – well boy really, he couldn't have been much older than Clarke – gave her a strange look but his companion smiled and offered her a hand. "Thanks to you, kid. Seems you're a fighter." He steadied her when she swayed a little. "I'm Shumway; he's Bellamy, you can thank him later. If you're sick of shit like that you should come with us."
"You're recruiting now?" The Bellamy protested. "She's not even from Factory."
"That doesn't mean a damn thing," Shumway cut him a reprimanding glare. "It can't. If we're going to change things we need everyone we can get. At each other's throats is just where the council wants us."
As long as they squabble with themselves it's easy for the council to ignore them or turn them against each other. Jake had told Clarke. They just need leadership.
"Shumway, she's just lost. She's not-"
"I want to help." She interrupted. They both stopped to look at her; one pleased, one skeptical. Clarke set her feet and tipped her chin up in defiance of Bellamy's doubt. "I can help."
"Good," Shumway clapped her on the shoulder. "Follow us to the church."
Bellamy took a look at her bloody knuckles as he let her walk ahead and snorted. "Hope you can throw a punch better than that, Princess."
Clarke had been to the church on Alpha station before, to see the tree, but this place clearly hadn't been used for any kind of religious service in a long time. The seats that weren't broken were shoved to the side, leaving an open space in the center of the floor and people who were definitely not dressed to worship were loitering around, talking and laughing. Shumway strode confidently to the far end of the room, stepping onto a pile of crates that put him a head and shoulders above everyone else. "Alright listen up!" The room fell silent, all eyes on him. "Every one of you here knows what they need to do. Those assholes are running around thinking they own this station. I don't care what colours they're wearing – Floaters, Kings, jumped up Guards – no one's making me scared to walk Factory. We need to lock this shit down right now."
There was a chorus of agreement from the assembled people and Clarke found herself nodding along. Shumway wasn't a great speaker but he obviously knew his audience.
From the corner of her eye she saw a boy with floppy hair and wide set eyes catch sight of her and do a double take. "Who the fuck is this chick?" He shouted. Bellamy, who was still standing near Clarke reached out to cuff him across the back of the head.
"Blake and I found her, she says she wants in."
"Shumway if she wants to run with us she's gotta be canonized." The boy looked gleeful enough to make Clarke nervous, and there was a matching grin spreading across Bellamy's face when she turned to him for an explanation.
"He's right Shumway," He called without taking his eyes off her. "Everyone had to do it."
Clarke was jostled towards the middle of the room, people backing away from her laughing and whooping. She spun in place, looking over her shoulder at Shumway as he stepped down to close the circle.
"You ready for this, kid?"
"Ready for what?" The question wasn't really necessary, from the way the boy who had shouted was cracking his knuckles as he lined up at the edge of the ring. It was going to be a fight. Bellamy's comment about throwing punches suddenly made a lot more sense.
"Blood in, blood out." Shumway said.
The floppy haired boy whooped and threw himself at Clarke, winding up to a wild hay-maker.
On Alpha station guards patrolled the corridors regularly and curfew was strictly enforced. Most people would go their whole lives with no battle wounds more severe than slicing their finger on a kitchen knife. But Clarke's father worked on Mecha station – constantly contested territory; her mother ran the hospital – where people were willing to do a lot for medicine they'd been denied; and her best friend was the Chancellor's son – with the Ark's biggest target on his back. Clarke ducked under the boy's punch and jabbed up hard at his septum.
There was a collective ooooh of pain from the crowd at the sound of the crunch that came from his nose. The boy staggered back, yelling as blood began to flow.
For a moment no one spoke; the crowd just stared as Clarke adjusted her feet, too wary to drop her guard. Then Bellamy spread his arms wide with a disgusted look on his face and flicked his hands at Clarke. "Well?"
This time three of them rushed her.
Clarke got maybe two disciplined punches and a kick in before the fight devolved into flailing and dirty tactics. Someone hit her hard enough in the solar plexus to take all the air out of her lungs so she bullrushed him as she doubled over and landed on his groin with her full weight when they both fell. A shape leaned over as she tried to catch her breath and Clarke kicked out in a panic. She rolled to her knees just in time to avoid a heel driving itself into the ground where her head had been a moment before, but not in time to miss the kick to the ribs which sent her rolling across the floor. Somehow she made it back to her feet before anyone could get another hit in and then she was throwing out her elbows and scratching with her nails, jabbing at any wounds she could see and screaming in defiance.
When the hits stopped coming she was on one knee, with blood in her mouth and dripping into her eyes but no one else was rushing forward. Clarke staggered up, her ribs screamed in protest but they didn't shift and she could still inhale fully so they were probably only bruised. She spat blood on the deck and turned to Bellamy, watching her from the edge of the circle with a grin that was sharp as a knife. Clarke stepped towards him, raising her hands to a guard again slowly and with effort, then tipped her head at him in challenge.
He laughed, the sly grin blowing out into a real smile. "Brave Princess. Shumway she's not smart but she's got guts."
"I am so smart." Clarke protested, but it came out a little slurred around her rapidly swelling lip.
Shumway threw her a length of purple cloth, looking pleased. "You earned your colors today. Blood in, blood out."
The group cheered, crowding around to congratulate Clarke, and help her stay on her feet. She smiled, despite how much it hurt. Her whole world was dying slowly and her father was dead, but these people could do help. She'd passed their challenge and now she was part of something that might make a change.
"That's some impressive shit," A man in a work shirt tagged 'Red' in neatly stitched letters clapped a grease stained hand on Clarke's back so hard she nearly fell over. "The only other Saint who kicked ass like that was Blake."
Bellamy arched a brow, looking unimpressed. "Took me half the time," He scoffed. "And I could stand up afterwards."
Clark used the back of her middle finger to catch the blood that was still flowing from the cut on her forehead and flick it off onto Bellamy's shoes. Red laughed approvingly at his grimace. "I like this chick."
"Yeah," A girl with a long ginger ponytail bumped Clarke's shoulder with her own. "Welcome to the Sky Saints."
Shumway waved everyone to silence again, walking through the crowd to make sure they were all listening. "Let's get down to business. If we're serious about taking back our station, we have to let those motherfuckers know what time it is. Unless we wipe them out, they'll keep coming. It won't be settled until the Floaters and the Kings are nothing but a memory." He pointed to Red, who stepped away from Clarke and straightened so that the group could get eyes on him.
"Red, you're in charge of watching the damn guard. Weapons manufacturing in Mecha station is up and I want to know why, and what we need to watch out for. Be smart on how you move against them. See if you can get the engineers to turn; we need them alive and willing to work for us if we're gonna keep our foothold."
"Got it." Red nodded.
"Salujah," Shumway called and a dark skinned woman who'd been slouching against the wall straightened up sharply looking mildly alarmed. "You're dealing with the Kings."
"Not a chance." She replied instantly.
"The fuck you say?" The sudden anger in Shumway's voice and expression was enough to have everyone backing up a step.
Salujah looked contrite but determined. "Anyone but them."
"You scared of going against Green and Grus?" Red teased.
"Man, fuck that," Bellamy interrupted, raising his hand. His tone was mocking but his eyes rested on Salujah for a moment and he looked almost concerned. "I'll take Grus out."
"Blake, it's not that simple."
"Bullets still kill assholes, right? Besides I've got a score to settle with him."
Shumway turned to the boy whose nose Clarke had broken. He was standing with another young, dark haired man, both of them flanking Bellamy like bodyguards. "Keep an eye on your boy."
"I don't need fucking babysitters, Shumway." He spat.
Shumway stared him down until Bellamy dropped his challenging posture with a noise of irritation and then repeated more slowly. "Keep an eye on your boy."
"Who's got the Floaters?" Red interrupted the stare down.
"I do." The voice was female but it was a moment before Clarke could peer around the crowd to get a good enough look at the diminutive woman to tell she was wearing an armband in Floaters' blue.
"Rachel, why are you wearing that blue shit?" Bellamy demanded.
"I asked Lemkin to join up with the Floaters. We don't know enough about their operations, so I wanted someone on the inside."
"Perks of a history with the skybox." Lemkin shrugged.
Someone in the crowd snorted. "I didn't think the Floaters had girls for sale."
Bellamy rounded on the group, practically snarling but Lemkin was quicker. All Clarke saw was a flash of her long curls and then there was a guy on the floor whining and bleeding. "Anyone else want to say something cute?" She asked.
"Don't throw your shoulder so much." Bellamy called. Lemkin turned a glare on him, but he just held out a hand for a hi-five.
"Good to know we've got a volunteer for cleaning duty, "Shumway waved a dismissive hand at the prone man. "Pick him up. Anybody doesn't have a job, you talk to one of these three. They'll have something for you. It's our time now," He grinned at them. "Let's get this shit started!"
The energy after Shumway's speech meant that the church emptied quickly. Saints running off left and right to who knew where. Clarke just slumped onto the nearest bench and began to catalog her injuries, too overwhelmed and exhausted to think.
"Go home and sleep it off Princess," Bellamy sauntered over to her after the group of people crowding for his attention had dispersed. "No one expects you to do too much after all that."
Clarke hadn't made any plans for where she was going to go. She didn't know a soul outside of Alpha station who wouldn't report her to the guard – or worse, to her mother. She tried to draw in a deep breath then choked as her ribs protested, and the whole weight of the day came falling in on her. Jerking her head awake from Bellamy, Clarke blinked rapidly to dispel the burn of threatening tears. Maybe Shumway would let her stay in the church for tonight.
"Oh hell Princess. Get up." Bellamy huffed.
"What?"
"Those punches knock out your hearing? Come on." He chivied her to her feet and out of the church. Just down the hall he stopped and banged his fist against the wall in a sequence she vaguely recognized as the first half of 'shave and a haircut'. Clarke hummed the last two notes, helplessly and Bellamy shot her a bemused glance but was stopped from commenting by the wall opening.
The girl from the corridor, who Clarke had tried to save just hours ago, peered out at them with a wary expression. "New roommate for you Charlotte." Bellamy said. "She's a Saint now which means?"
"She's family." Charlotte repeated dutifully, even if she looked a little skeptical at all the blood on Clarke's face.
"Right, so you look after her and she'll look after you and both of you stay out of the halls after curfew or I'll sell you to the Floaters for spare parts." He banged on the wall panel once for emphasis and then vanished down the corridor.
Clarke's new home was an old single person unit with the door replaced by a wall panel. There were four narrow beds crammed into the small space that was meant to serve as both a living and sleeping area for one. It was smaller than Clarke's bedroom back on Alpha station and she had to share it with Charlotte who was watching her warily from where she'd perched on the bed farthest from the door.
Clarke took the bunk on the opposite wall bouncing up and down to check the give. There wasn't much. She gave Charlotte a reassuring smile all the same. "Feels like home."
Oddly enough, it actually did.
A bang on the door woke Clarke from a dead sleep and had her scrambling for it before she even remembered where she was or why. Lemkin was on the other side of it, looking impatient. "You look like shit," she held up a hand to stop Clark before she could do anything with the length of purple cloth that she'd fallen asleep clutching like a lifeline. "Leave that. No colours where we're going."
Clarke pulled on her boots, not bothering to tie the laces and checked over Charlotte, who hadn't even stirred at the knock on their door. Lemkin threw her a ration bar as Clarke slipped into the hall. "Where did you get this?" Bars were regulated, usually given to the guard who might have to eat on shift.
"Raided a kitchen supply," Lemkin shrugged. "Most of us can't go to monitored caf halls. Figured that since you were sleeping in the safehouse, you couldn't either."
Clarke considered for a moment how fast the guards would be on it if Abby Griffin's runaway daughter appeared in a Factory caf. "Good point." She shrugged and unwrapped the bar.
"So why did you join?" Clarke asked, once she'd wolfed down all she could stomach of the chemical tasting rations. "The Saints, I mean."
Lemkin sucked in a breath. "Blondie, I know you're new but asking that is gonna get the shit kicked out of you." She looked Clarke's slightly purple face over. "Again."
"I didn't mean-"
"Yeah, yeah," Lemkin waved her off. "What's a nice mother like me doing with a crowd like this? Everyone wants to know."
"You have a kid?
"And a husband. My daughter just turned seven. Most beautiful thing in the whole universe and she never had enough to eat or drink or breath until I joined the Saints."
"But what if something happens to you?" A horrible thought occurred to Clarke. "You're undercover! If they catch you and figure out who you are-"
"Then she's got her daddy. He'd lay down his life for her, no question."
"But is it safe? A weakness like that?"
Lemkin stuck out one foot abruptly, sending Clark tripping over her unlaced boots and face first onto the deckplates. "God you're a judgmental bitch Blondie, you know that?" Lemkin crouched down beside Clarke's head and poked her until she rolled over and could see her face. "You're practically an infant, so I'm gonna tell you something and you better fucking listen. You cut out all your softness and you'll be steel, sure; you'll also be miserable, crazy and dangerous to anyone around you." She hauled Clarke up and glared pointedly at her boots until Clarke bent to tie her laces. "If you don't have something to hold onto besides anger, it'll fuck you up. Love isn't a weakness, its strength you need to keep going in this shithole."
Clarke paused, thinking of her father's face before he was sucked out into the vacuum. The calm there when he said he loved her. "Okay," She straightened. "Okay." But it wasn't okay, not at all.
Rachel Lemkin and her husband were willing to die so their daughter could live and in a year she'd die anyway. They wouldn't cherish the time that was left the same way, they wouldn't try to find a solution because the council wouldn't tell anyone it was happening. They were happy to float her father and bury the truth.
But Clarke didn't have to do that. "Rachel…"
"Leave it, we're good." Rachel reached out to tug Clarke's hood over her hair, forestalling her confession with business. "Since you're new, Shumway and I figured you won't be recognized in Floater territory. Any dark secrets that are gonna cause problems in Prison or Arrow?" Clarke shook her head and Rachel nodded. "Good. I'm leaving before you hit the market; its better if no one sees us together. I want you to do a sweep behind me, watch the Floaters' positions and remember where I stop. Those stalls are gonna be the mainstays of the Floaters' protection racket. Here,"
She held something out and Clarke looked down to see that it was a gun, glinting dull grey in the light of earthrise through the window. "It won't bite." Rachel teased, which was just enough of a prick to her ego to make Clarke to grab it.
It was heavier than it looked and cold against her palm.
"I'm gonna assume you've never used one before?" The question was rhetorical, Rachel didn't even pause. "You shouldn't be using one today either but if you need to then brace the grip with your free hand, squeeze the trigger as smoothly as you can and just don't point it at anything you don't want to die, okay?"
Rachel waited for her nod of understanding and then picked up her pace as they rounded the next corner, leaving Clarke to trail behind into the market.
She'd been here a few times, though not terribly often. Alpha station had its own version of the market which set up every few weeks for trading. This one was more permanent and frequently less legal. Constructed in the wide open space that formed the link between Prison and Arrow stations the market was a motley collection of hawkers selling anything you could get your hands on in the Ark. Clothing, furniture, dishes, bedding, spare parts re-purposed into all manner of things – some of them inherited or scavenged, some of them liberated in other ways. Technically everything on the Ark was supposed to be collected and redistributed according to need, but the market had grown up anyway, trading luxuries and essentials to anyone with the means or the need. Though it was technically against the charter, everyone used it. The guards simply didn't patrol. Which made it the perfect place for a gang to move in.
Where Clarke was used to seeing black uniforms there were scattered figures in blue armbands. The Floaters were all visibly armed, but idle. They weren't expecting trouble and it showed in the way they meandered through their patrols, and the long gaps between sweeps. Pulling an old pad and a stub of pencil out of her pocket, Clarke scribbled a quick outline of the space, adding small circles for where the guards were standing and tiny stars for each stall Rachel lingered at.
Each time Rachel stopped the shopkeepers responded differently, some were obsequious and smiling as they handed over their sheaves of tickets, some just seemed resigned. One even started a shouting match that prompted two other heavies in blue to drift close. Rachel waved them off but their appearance had been enough to get the angry woman to back down and she gave up the protection payment without a fight.
They did one more circuit of the market with Clarke trailing and trying not to look like she was trailing, before Rachel stopped to lean against a wall. Clarke sidled over as carefully as she could, examining a rack of glasses she didn't need rather than looking at Rachel.
"Everything okay?"
Rachel snorted. "It's not a spy movie, you can look at me. No one's here."
Clarke turned around with a sigh of relief. "I got the patterns down," She offered her notebook. "And the stalls. Did I miss anything?"
"No, it's good," Rachel said. "What you need to do is hit these guys, no purple at first. Just take out all the Floaters and rough up the vendors. Then bring in some Saints flying colours and make it look like you're running them off."
"Like the Floaters can't protect anyone but the Saints can."
"Exactly, then we take over their protection and the Floaters lose their territory-"
"Hey Lem!"
"-Fuck!" Rachel cursed as three men in blue came sauntering over. "Don't say anything and hide that shit." She gestured to the notebook as she stepped around Clarke to greet the Floaters. "What's up?"
"Junior wants to know if you got the payment."
"Oh," She shouldered off the bag and wave it. "Yeah, got it."
"Who's this," One of them peered around Rachel to get a better look at Clarke. She ducked her head but not fast enough to avoid him commenting. "She's cute Lem, I didn't know you had a girl."
"She's not my girl asswipe."
"She want in on the Floaters? 'Cause I got an entrance exam for her right here," He used both heavily tattooed hands to gesture at his crotch. "I bet you'll pass with flying colours baby."
"She's –" Clarke noted the way all three of the Floaters were covered in crude pictures, and how one of them was eyeing her notebook suspiciously.
"I'm her tattoo artist!" She interrupted. "Lem said she needed ink, since all you guys are rocking it."
The thugs relaxed, preening a little at the complement. Clarke pretended to fumble with the notebook, giving her a chance to flip pages to an old drawing she'd done of a bird, waving it at Rachel and the others. "So, this is a good one, it'll look great on your shoulders. Come by my unit some time tonight and we'll go over everything."
Rachel narrowed her eyes but nodded easily. "Alright, Blondie. Don't forget what I said though; no colours at first."
"See you then!" Clarke said and took off through the crowd as fast as she could without drawing attention.
Shumway seemed pleased with the plan when Clarke made it back to the church. He called up a crew and left her to run it, which she was less than thrilled about. Still, she was the one with the information and the Saints seemed content enough to listen and follow her lead. Getting them to give up their colours for the first part was a little more difficult, but their pride was soothed by the chance to take down some Floaters.
Clarke put herself with the second group, reasoning that she'd be better off where she could observe change the plan if she needed to. Despite her worries the whole operation went off as smooth as silk. The plainclothes saints neatly took out the idle Floaters guards and roughed up their businesses just the right amount before Clarke and her crew rushed in, shouting "Sky Saints!" and shooting to miss.
There was one hairy moment when an unaccounted for Floater leapt out of the shadows between two stalls and clipped one of Clarke's men in the arm. She rounded on her heel and braced the gun just like Rachel had told her, squeezing the trigger in one smooth pull. The recoil threw her too off balance for a second shot but the Floater was already laid out on the deck with a round hole in his chest and blood seeping into his shirt.
Clarke waited for the panic, the guilt, that sick sinking feeling she always got when she watched her mother loose a patient but it never came. There was only the fading rush of adrenaline and a sense of satisfaction. Enriq was grazed, but from the sound of his complaining behind her he'd be fine, her people were safe and Rachel Lemkin's family would have that much more air.
She could live with that.
Clarke's innocent face and halo of blonde waves turned out to be just as effective at talking people in to buying more useful protection as it had been talking her and Wells out of trouble. Even the people who'd just seen her kill a man seemed vulnerable to her very genuine concern for their safety. She had most of the crew stay behind to clean up the mess and establish their territory but by the time the curfew bell rung Clarke could go back to Shumway and tell him the market was theirs.
They broke out a bottle of moonshine stolen from Agro station to celebrate, and though the place where her father had been still felt like a hole in the core of her, Clarke slept easily and without dreams.
It was a few days before they heard from Rachel again. Time Clarke spent letting her bruises heal and getting to know the people she was calling her brothers.
The Saints seemed like a pretty motley operation but they didn't spend all their time terrorizing children or making sacrifices to pagan gods the way that some Alpha station mothers said they did. Mostly they just hung around the church waiting for their rounds, staying on call in case of trouble and shooting the shit. It seemed hilariously like being part of the guard. Albeit with less paperwork and way more firearms training.
Bellamy ran the firearms training. Well that wasn't strictly true, Salujah ran the firearms training – she was a confident, clean shot and she could disassemble and reassemble a pistol for maintenance in a terrifyingly short amount of time – but Bellamy was there so often, needling and correcting his own crew that he'd sort of taken over as unofficial instructor for the truly hopeless.
Not that Clarke was hopeless. Salujah had explained that once someone wasn't afraid of the recoil and knew what it was like to take down a living target, everything else was just repetition. So she had set herself to practicing in the small hours of the night because it meant that the range was empty of hecklers and because it meant she was back at the right time to help her roommate.
Charlotte was a nice enough girl. Quiet and a little suspicious, but she seemed to have decided Clarke was good people. She wasn't officially a Saint – no one wanted to put a twelve year old girl through canonization – but she hung around wearing purple and running messages, and when she lived anywhere she lived in the safehouse.
She also woke up screaming three nights out of four. The first time Clarke had woken bleary eyed from a dead sleep and shot a hole in the wall looking for an attacker who wasn't there. The second she'd managed to get up without damaging anything, but had been to sleepy to be of any help calming Charlotte down. After that, Clarke decided she'd be better off staying up until Charlotte had a nightmare, and then soothing her through it before going to bed herself.
It wasn't until the fourth night that Charlotte told Clarke what her dreams were about.
The story pulled out of her like it was bringing all her insides out with it. Clarke stroked her hair and tried not to have a panic attack because her solution to intense emotion had been to run away and join a gang and she was not equipped to help anyone else. But Charlotte didn't seem to need answers so much as she needed to feel like she wasn't alone. So Clarke didn't tell her that it would stop hurting, she didn't tell her everything was going to be alright. She told Charlotte that the Saints would be her family now.
Clarke told her that she wasn't alone and, slowly, she started to believe it herself.
Two days later, Shumway waved Clarke over. "Come on kid, you're up."
"Me?" She looked over her shoulder at the assembly of Saints, lounging and drinking and playing cards. Most of them were older than she was by nearly a decade, all of them had been with the gang longer.
"Did I stutter? You led the last Floater operation. Get your ass in here."
From the corner he and his boys had claimed Clarke heard Bellamy laugh as she scrambled into the office after them. Rachel was waiting there, still in blue, with a triumphant expression on her face.
"It's a crime spree." She said, unrolling a hand scrawled map on the table in front of Shumway. It was the floor plan of Alpha station, several key rooms circled in red.
He whistled low and long. "They've got some balls on them, don't they?"
"They're desperate to recover what they lost when we shoved them out of the marketplace," Rachel agreed. "And they want the prestige of it. If the Floaters can hit Alpha and get out clean they're gonna get a lot of buzz and a lot of new recruits."
"The hospital isn't on here," Clarke touched the open room on the plan. There were red circles on the rooms around it, but the hospital was clean.
Rachel shrugged. "Too heavily guarded?"
There were a pair of armed guards stationed outside twenty-four hours a day but that wouldn't have been a deterrent for so many Floaters. "The stuff in there is more valuable than anything else on the Ark. The morphine alone is so strictly regulated – " She cut herself off, noting the speculative looks the other two were giving her. "Never mind. Maybe they don't think it's worth the hassle."
"The guard would definitely come out in force for that." Shumway nodded, but his attention was firmly on Clarke now, instead of the operation.
Rachel cleared her throat, clapping both hands on the table loudly. "The point is that they're gonna try to hit these places. I say we hit them first."
"No," Shumway said. "Alpha's valuable, but it's a hornet's nest. We get that station riled against us and we can kiss our asses goodbye. Go on back to the Floaters, Lemkin. Don't break your cover. We'll make sure that they don't get anything they're after."
Rachel huffed in irritation at being dismissed, but she didn't argue with Shumway. Turning instead to Clarke. "Looks like it's going to be a stealth op, Blondie. You might want to get yourself a hat."
When Clarke set foot on Alpha station for the first time since her father had died she had four Saints at her back and her hair tucked under a knitted beanie that Red had thrown her when they started moving out.
She'd dropped it when he shouted think fast and Red had laughed and walked over to hand her the rest of what he was carrying. A radio, smaller than the ones the guards wore but clearly built out of scrap and spare wire. "Had a genius girl down in zero-g engineering whip these up for me," He explained. "Unused frequency, works anywhere on the Ark and small enough to hide. Keep it on you somewhere no one will see."
Clarke nodded and clipped it to the strap of her bra, where it would be covered by the fall of her shirt. Red gave a lascivious eyebrow wiggle she returned with a glare and then whipped the next radio overhand across the room. "Blake!"
Bellamy caught it without turning his head from where one of his crew – the one with the floppy hair whose nose Clarke had broken – was complaining.
"…We need more people, If you'd just fucking replace Miller." His voice rose loud enough to carry over the room.
"No one's replacing Miller."
"What good is a second if he's in the damn Skybox?"
"He'll be useful when he's out," Bellamy looked irritated, like this was an argument he'd had before. "Saint's don't fucking abandon each other when it's going to be less than a year."
"And if they decide he's gotta float?"
"Then we kill all the guards and hide him in the floor," He said with a wry smile. "You want to be second Murphy? Stop whining and prove you can." Bellamy turned on his heel and it was only when they locked eyes that Clarke realized she was staring and jerked her head away.
"Punkass isn't wrong," Red shrugged when she looked back to him. "About Miller. That kid would be useful tonight. No one else on the crew can crack a lock so fast."
"You think they'll let him out?" Most cases that came up for review were pardoned. The population of the Ark had to be maintained, after all. But theft tended to be a grey area.
"Oh sure, Miller's old man is a guard."
That might actually make the whole thing worse. Clarke hoped the review board wouldn't try to make a point of Miller. Bellamy seemed to think he was worth waiting for and he sounded useful.
"Better get my team moving out," Red nodded. "See you on the flip side, kiddo."
He and his people were headed for the communications hub to keep the guards squelched. Clarke, Bellamy and Salujah were each heading a team to a different part of the station. She hadn't noticed she was holding her breath during the assignments until Shumway had placed Clarke's team far away from her old housing unit.
Her team was four: Koster, one of the older members of the Saints who bristled with knives and surly expressions; Trent, a weedy kid who was trying and badly failing to grow a mustache; Shas, a girl even smaller than Clarke, but with a ferocity that belied her stature; and Enriq a bald, Hispanic man who managed to move almost silently despite being the approximate size of a tank.
Clarke held up one hand, clenched into a fist the way she'd seen soldiers do in military movies. Enriq bumped it as he shuffled past her down the hall, whispering an explosion noise.
"It means stop." She hissed.
"Next time," Shas said as she came sauntering up. "Just say stop."
"Oh go to hell." Clark shot back.
"Let's send these guys first." Enriq waved them over and they all stuck their heads around the corner to see six Floaters emptying a supply room.
"I've got this." Shas handed off her weapon to Koster and strolled out around the corner, stopping short with a fake-terrified squeak that was just loud enough to draw the Floaters attention. "Help!" She cried plaintively and then sprinted back to them.
"Get that bitch!" Clarke judged the sound of running feet just right so that when the first Floater rounded the corner he ran at full speed into the swing of her big pipe wrench. His homeboy couldn't stop short enough, tripped over his crumpling friend and took Enriq's bat to the back of his skull. The third man rounded the corner more slowly but one of Koster's knives found its mark in his forehead pretty fast.
"What the fuck?" Came the shout down the hallway. Clarke rounded the corner to see the remaining three Floaters going for their weapons.
Trent whooped in excitement, running out into the hall with his gun drawn. He picked off two with reckless shots that drowned out Enriq's warning yell but weren't half as loud as the burst of automatic fire that cut him down.
Shas cried out and Clarke heard Koster swear but she only had eyes for the Floater who was fumbling for another clip. She dashed out from cover and swung wide; her wrench sent the magazine flying down the corridor and left the thug howling over his broken hand.
"You son of a bitch!"
Clarke took the momentum of the first swing, of all her rage and pushed it into whipping the heavy weight of the wrench down onto the Floater's head as hard as she could.
He slumped to the deck with half his skull pulped. Behind her Clarke heard Shas start to cheer and then cut off. At the end of the hall - breathing hard, looking horrified, and in his pajamas - was Wells. He opened his mouth and Clarke didn't know if he was going to say her name or shout for the guards but either way she launched herself forward and in three sprinting steps she leapt, knocking him hard to the floor and wrestling him down until she was sitting on his chest with one hand over his mouth. Never in seventeen years of play-fights and sparring matches had she managed to pin him that fast.
"Don't you dare say a word." She told him, bending forward to whisper in his ear. "My father is dead because of you. If you tell anyone where I am or who I am Wells, I will kill you." She dropped the now bloody wrench against the deckplates right by his head and was impressed when he didn't even flinch. Louder, she continued. "You're going to go on home and you're not going to tell anyone anything because you didn't see anything. The Saints are going to take care of your little rodent problem."
"Hey, isn't that the Chancellor's kid?"
Clarke felt her face screw up in frustration for a moment before she could will herself back to calm. "So?"
"So he saw our fucking faces!" Enriq spun so only his hulking back was visible. Shas and Koster stayed where they were, though they looked almost as wary.
"Who cares," Clarke scoffed, before any of them could think about murdering witnesses. "You think he knows the name of anyone from Factory? We're floated if the guards catch us anyway. I'm not afraid of the Chancellor. Now," She turned back to Wells. "I know you aren't stupid so you aren't going to say shit, right?" He nodded, his expression solemn even around the cover of her hand. "Good."
Clarke levered herself off him. Wells scrambled to his feet and stared at her for a long moment before Koster half shouted "Get the fuck out of here!" and he took off running.
Shas laughed and shot a grin at Clarke. "You are seriously crazy, boss."
Clarke rolled her eyes. Death and Wells had sucked any thrill out of the evening. "Let's just get this done."
Between the teams, the Saints managed to either take out or leave for the guards every one of the Floaters who'd tried to hit Alpha station. Wounds were mostly superficial and besides Trent there had been only one other loss. So when they hit the rendezvous at a run, everyone was riding high.
Enriq and Shas were telling anyone who would listen about how Clarke, had threatened the Chancellor's kid. It was getting bigger with each recounting and Clarke wouldn't be surprised if by tomorrow fictional-her had battled a seven foot Chancellor who could shoot lasers from his eyes.
Across the crowd, Bellamy was grinning with blood on his teeth. A cut at the corner of his mouth said he'd taken a few hits, but the scrapes over his knuckles were evidence that he'd dished out more. He raised his brows questioningly when he caught her eye and he wandered close as they trooped back to the church.
"Alright there, Princess?" He swiped two fingers over her brow and they came back bloody.
"Better than you," she taunted. "None of the blood on me is mine."
"Don't get fucking cocky. My whole team came back."
Clarke's mouth dropped open. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
"Just don't want you getting all high and mighty 'cause you threatened a kid," He jerked his thumb in Shas' direction.
"So you're throwing a Saint's death at me just to be a dick."
"A death that wouldn't have happened if you'd been careful." He shouted.
"He didn't fucking follow orders and some Floater got a lucky shot, goddammit. You're not giving Salujah shit about her team."
"Salujah is a fucking adult. She knows how to handle things."
"And you clearly have a problem with how young I am seeing as your second is in the Skybox," Clarke was shouting now too, dimly aware they were attracting attention. "Or are you just pissed at me because you can't protect your people either?"
Bellamy's face tightened in rage but before he could respond Shumway pushed through the crowd they were gathering. "What the fuck is this? We get a success against the Floaters, we lose good people and you two are squabbling like children?"
"He started it!" Clarke began at the same time as Bellamy said "It was her fault!"
"I don't want to hear it." Shumway cut them both off and they resorted to glaring at one another. "You two handle your shit or so help me I will bench you both and make Red figure this out."
Red's protest was covered by Bellamy's sneer. "Princess just needs to get over herself." He sauntered away before Clarke could say anything.
"What an asshole." She muttered, forgetting that Shumway was still close enough to hear until his laugh startled her.
"He is, but he's earned it. I'm not saying you two have to be best friends, but you need to work together."
Clarke squared her shoulders. "I can," She promised. "I will."
Shumway nodded his approval. "You did good tonight, kid. Don't forget that."
He melted away into the crowd and Clarke stood for a moment, feeling lighter just for having his approval, before Enriq tugged her over to him. "Come on chica, join the party!"
Clarke smiled but shook her head, ducking out from under his arm. "I think I'll just head to bed."
Enriq nodded, his expression turning serious as he reached out to snatch two cups from a passing saint. She snarled at him halfheartedly but Enriq ignored her in favour of passing one cup off to Clarke. 'For Trent," He explained, raising the cup in toast. "May we meet again."
"May we meet again." Clarke repeated. The moonshine burned all the way down and it felt like goodbye.
She'd just made it back to her room with enough time to wave hello to Charlotte and shuck her father's jacket when the radio still clipped to her bra made a little static buzz.
"Who's that?" Charlotte asked as Clarke fished it out, tuning until the channel cleared
"Hello?"
"I need you at Arrow station," Rachel's voice came through tinny and strained.
"Now?" It was almost one in the morning. It didn't seem possible that the Floaters could have another plan worked out so soon after the Saints had crushed their smash and grab.
"Just you." Rachel added before Clarke could ask if she should grab Shumway. There was the sound of a sharp crack through the radio.
"What was that?"
"Nothing. Come to unit 71."
The radio clicked off. Clarke replaced it and gave Charlotte a shrug and a grin, reaching out to snag her coat. "No rest for the wicked. Get some sleep, I'll be back before morning."
"Don't get killed!" The girl called after her.
Clarke watched the door to unit 71 from the end of the hallway. No one came or went; she hadn't seen a soul in the ten minutes she had been standing there. She hadn't passed anyone since the lift let her off at this level of Arrow. It was shift change, there should have been people around. She adjusted the gun in her hand, keeping her finger right on the trigger guard.
Which came in handy when she touched the control panel on the door and it hissed open to reveal the grin of a Floater who'd been hiding behind it. "We've been waiting for you." He said. Or at least he tried to say it. The words were cut off when Clarke put two bullets in his chest.
There were two more Floaters in the room behind him. Rather than turning to run, Clarke stepped forward and caught the dead Floaters' weight before he could fall, hefting him like a human shield and firing over his shoulder. One of them went down, but she only managed to wing the other before the impact of bullets into the corpse became too much and she had to drop him, diving for the nearest door.
Raising her gun again she shot out the control panel and the door slid closed just before two bullets blew through it. "We'll bury you with Lem, bitch!" The Floater screamed.
Clarke didn't waste her breath shouting back.
Unit 71 wasn't a residential space. It was meant for recreation, but had been converted into manufacturing, which left one large room with lots of stuff and equipment to hide behind. Fortunately, it also meant that there was likely to be more than one exit. She just had to reach it before the Floaters cut her off.
Clarke heart pounded as she slammed a new magazine into her gun. Rachel had been found out. She might already be dead.
Clarke dashed from cover to cover across the room, watching the shadows for any Floaters that might have been lying in wait and trying to listen under the sound of screamed invictives from the hallway. The back of the room offered two doors. One back out to Arrow station and the other into the storeroom that was now a warehouse supervisor's office.
Through it she could hear the sound of something scraping against the floor and a muffled groan.
Clarke hit the release for the office door and brought her gun up.
"Rachel?"
She swept the room but one glance told Clarke why the Floaters wouldn't have bothered setting guards. Rachel was tied to a chair, her clothing hanging off her in shreds and stained with blood. Her face was one massive mess of bruising. "Oh fuck, Rachel."
"No," The words came out awkwardly around bruised lips. "Ah, no. I hoped you weren't coming."
"Of course I came," Clarke's voice came out high and a little hysterical, even as she aimed for reassuring. She shoved the gun into the back of her waistband and bent to unbind Rachel's feet. "Saints don't leave each other behind, right?"
"Not even when they should."
The voice came from behind her, male and mocking but Clarke didn't manage to see more than a blue coat before the bat hit her and the world went black.
Rachel's voice, weak and rasping and cursing the air blue, roused Clarke.
"….You better not be fucking dead. If those asshole tossed your ass in here with me and you're a fucking corpse I – I… Wake the fuck up!"
Clarke groaned, tried to reach a hand up to touch the swelling she could feel on her head and cracked her knuckles against metal. "What the hell?"
"Oh good," Rachel laughed and it sounded like a wheeze. "Now we can die together."
"Rachel are you okay?" It was pitch dark and they were standing, half slumped, chest to chest in a space so narrow Clarke couldn't raise her arms more than a few inches outward in any direction. "Where are we?"
"No I'm not okay," Rachel kicked her and then made a wounded sound at the impact. "They stuck us in a fucking vent room."
Clarke's stomach dropped.
Vent rooms were small spaces off airlocks, used to equalize pressure and deliver oxygen to the chamber when allowing someone back into the station. And, alternatively, used to slowly leach out the atmosphere when opening the airlock into space. They were going to be floated without the mercy of a quick end in the vacuum of space. They were going to be slowly suffocated in the dark.
She opened her mouth but no sound came out. Rachel kicked her again. Clarke felt the shift as her foot lashed out a third time but instead of hitting her it connected with the wall and Rachel grunted in triumph at the sound of creaking metal. "Don't just stand there. Help me!"
It was meant to be a command but ringing off the metal of their coffin it sounded like a plea. "Okay," Clarke whispered. "Alright."
Shifting as much as she could, Clarke braced herself on the far wall and brought her knee up. She kicked back a hard as she could, feeling the plate give a little. "Rachel…"
"No," Her voice was edging into hysterical. "There are air pipes. These vents feed air in. Tor told me!" She coughed and something warm and wet splattered Clarke's cheek. She didn't need to see to recognize the tacky feeling of blood.
Clarke cast about mentally for something she could pull off to staunch the bleeding when there wasn't enough space to shuck her jacket, when she realized that though the Floaters had taken her gun and the shiv she'd taken to keeping in her boot, she was still dressed and she could feel the small square shape of the radio clipped to her bra. Squirming to get her hands up, Clarke brushed against Rachel's side, her fingers skating over skin that was bumpy and wet. Rachel sobbed in agony.
"Sorry," Clarke whispered. "Sorry, sorry. It's going to be okay though. It's going to be fine."
She tapped the radio, searching for a signal. "Hello? Please is anyone there?" only static and silence. Clarke kicked backwards again, panic lending frantic strength as she shouted. "Hello!?"
There was another beat of silence before. "What the fuck, Princess?"
"Bellamy! Bellamy help!"
"What's wrong?" The sleepy gravel was gone from his voice in an instant. "Princess where are you?"
"A vent room." Bellamy swore and for a moment the urge to kick and scream and fight like a trapped animal was almost overwhelming; then Rachel coughed, wet and pained, bringing Clarke back to herself. "The Floaters found out Rachel was a spy and used her to get me. She's in bad shape, but there's no light, I don't know how bad."
"Where are you?"
Clarke opened her mouth and then closed it. They could be on any level. On any station. Anywhere on the Ark with an airlock.
"Arrow," Rachel wheezed. "Level seven."
"I'm on my way," through the radio Clarke could hear Bellamy's drumming footsteps as he ran. "Keep talking to me."
"Kick." Rachel said again and Clarke nodded even though she couldn't see, slamming her foot back.
"Rachel thinks we can break through to the maintenance space," She narrated. "I can feel the panel shifting but I've got no leverage."
"Keep going." Rachel and Bellamy said at the same time. He was murmuring encouragement as he ran but Clarke tuned him out. Focused on Rachel's breathing and the shift of metal against her heel, she kicked with renewed vigor. The poorly sealed plating shifted and bounced, then gave under the impact. A dim glow from dozens of little machine lights seeped into the space.
"I got it." She breathed, pulling back into the new space so she could examine Rachel properly. The bruising was still obvious but now that Rachel was standing Clarke could see her dislocated shoulder and the distention on the side of her rib cage that meant they were badly broken. The blood in Rachel's mouth wasn't coming from a cut, her ribs had punctured a lung and she was drowning in her own blood.
"Bellamy, you have to hurry," She said mindlessly. Reaching out as though she could push everything back into place and it would all be healed. "Rachel needs help."
"I'm coming," He was panting now. "Focus on the air."
"The tubes," Rachel tried to point with her good arm, sliding down to the now wider space of floor. "Look for the one marked internal atmosphere. There'll be a dial showing the pressure of the airflow."
"Don't sit," Clarke reached out to lever her down. "You'll make your ribs worse and that will speed up the bleeding."
She heard Bellamy repeat the word bleeding and curse through the radio but she was more focused on wadding up her jacket to pillow Rachel's head.
"I'm fine," Rachel smiled with bloody teeth. "I'm tougher than I look. Get the atmo line."
The hum of powering machinery filled the air, somewhere a heavy fan kicked on. "They're opening the airlock." Clarke said faintly.
"Hurry." Rachel insisted. Bellamy was shouting.
The tubes that held piped in the airflow were thick and only semi-flexible. Sealed with metal valves at intervals. Lacking anything to slice into the surface, Clarke stood, wrapped both hands around it firmly and dropped with all her weight. The valve held for an instant and then ripped free. The end of the pipe hissed with escaping air and it was the most beautiful sound Clarke had ever heard.
"I got it!"
Through the radio Bellamy groaned in relief. "Good, Princess."
"Check the pressure." Rachel reminded her.
Clarke squinted at the small dial in the dim light. "The needle is dropping. What does that mean?"
"There's," Rachel sucked in an agonized breath before she could continue. "There isn't enough air pressure to fill this whole space. Put the tube to your mouth."
"Okay," Clarke readjusted so she was sitting, her mouth just high enough to reach the end of the hose. "This is going to hurt, but I'm going to lift you up and brace you against me so we can share." She tugged Rachel's head into her lap.
"No."
"I know it's going to suck, but there's no other way. I'll fix your ribs after, I promise but first we have to live through this."
Rachel shook her head weakly. "I can't."
"The hose won't reach you down there Rachel, you have to get up!"
"It's too late," There was a bubbling sound in her breath now as she wheezed between each word. "I'm a gonner, Blondie. I can see it in your face."
"No," Clarke insisted. She couldn't catch her breath to yell. "We are both getting out of this."
"Just you," Rachel's lips twitched, but she couldn't quite manage a smile. "I betrayed you. Got you caught. It's only fair."
"No, no you didn't, you didn't," Clarke smoothed a hand over her brow. "You have to live. Your daughter needs you."
"She has Tor. She knows I love her. Breathe Blondie, breathe."
Clarke shook her head, but her lungs were screaming and she did as she was told. The air tasted bitter and full of chemicals.
Rachel drew in one long, hard won breath and began to hum. Halting and strange and soothing. The sound bounced off the metal walls of their prison and grew louder and more resonant until the last note sputtered away on a shaky exhale.
Clarke waited, her hands still soothing over Rachel's brow, the wetness on her face no longer just blood.
She breathed.
Eventually the fan ground to a halt, the electronic whine fell silent and after a few heavy blows the side of the vent room pulled back. Clarke was blinded for a moment and then Bellamy was there. His hair unslicked and falling in tousled curls, his face devastated.
"Help me get her out?" He nodded and reached in to pick up Rachel's body. Her ribs cracked and he flinched like he'd been struck. Clarke eased Rachel's head and shoulders free so they wouldn't hit the walls when he lifted her before crawling out herself.
There were two dead Floaters on the floor in front of the airlock. Clarke stared at them for a moment and then at her own reflection in the glass of the airlock door. She was shaking and sickly pale, her face was splattered with blood and cut with tear tracks. She turned back to Bellamy, carrying the body of his friend, of her friend. "It's not enough."
He didn't have to ask what she meant; Bellamy just cradled Rachel more closely. "Not nearly."
The Saints knew what happened before Bellamy and Clarke made it back to Factory station.
They'd been broadcasting across the open channel after all. Bellamy was the first to respond but their panicked shouting had eventually woken others and the Saints turned out to clear the halls back to the church and pay their respects to their fallen Lieutenant.
When Bellamy laid Rachel out on the table before Shumway there was a man standing next to him who looked as though his world had cracked down the middle. Tor, Clarke assumed. She was grateful he hadn't brought their daughter. Her last memory of her mother should be something better than bleeding and broken.
Tor bent over Rachel and kissed her forehead as Shumway recited the blessing. There was silence through the church for a long moment.
"The Floaters need to pay!"
And then came the anger.
"Yo, we can't let them do this to us."
"They'll all die."
"We should march on Arrow right now! Kill every fucker wearing blue."
"No!" Clarke's voice rang out over the crowd without her consciously deciding to speak. "We don't know what Rachel told them."
"She wouldn't have said shit!"
"They got Lemkin to flip on her, didn't they?"
"Dammit," Clarke turned to Bellamy who was already looking at her. "What do I say?" She asked under her breath.
"Do you have a plan?" He murmured back.
One was quickly taking shape in her mind. "Yes."
Bellamy nodded and turned to face the assembled crowd. "The Floaters beat Rachel to death and got one fucking name!" He shouted. "I'd like to see any of you do better. She was a Saint from blood in to blood out and we need to honor her for it," Angry muttering had ceased. The room was quiet, watching. "The Floaters think that they can hurt our people and we won't strike back. They think they have us running scared but they're wrong! We're the god damn Saints; we look after our own and we are not to be fucked with!" A chorus of voices cheered in triumph. Bellamy had them hanging on his every word. "But that means we need to be smart about this. We need a plan."
He didn't have to look at her for Clarke to know a cue when she heard one. She stepped forward, just in front of Bellamy so that she could see the Saints and they could see her. "If we go charging after the Floaters they'll dig in and we'll lose people. To wipe them out we need to take down their leader, "
"Hell yes!" Someone shouted from the rear of the room.
"We need volunteers for a round the clock watch on the Floaters," Clarke continued. "Find out where their lieutenants live, who gives them orders, then we make damn sure he understands what floating really means. Who's in?" A forest of fists shot into the air. Saints crowded forward, wanting to offer their help.
From the corner of her eye she saw Bellamy look at Shumway and Clarke caught the expression on their leader's face; something between thoughtful and sour. He didn't like her taking charge like this. She stepped back, turning to face him and trying to look deferential even though she didn't feel it. "Who should go where, Shumway?"
He started her down for a moment before he offered the slightest of nods. "Good plan, kid. Glad you're safe."
In the end no one could stop the Saints and the Floaters from skirmishing wherever they ran into one another, but that made it easier for those not flying colours to slip about in Floaters territory without attracting attention.
It only took a few days before Shas and one of Bellamy's boys – Atom, Clarke was pretty sure – came to her with two names and a schedule to plan around.
The Floaters leadership was primarily handled by a man named Ricky Shaw; he gave the orders, ran the gangers and doled out punishments. But Ricky got directions from the man at the top. The head of the Floaters, who kept their books, their plans and the guards off their backs. The Floaters called him Xavier, but that wasn't a name that came up on a housing search and no one knew where to find him except Ricky.
Fortunately Ricky Shaw was predictable.
Clarke presented the schedule to Shumway already knowing where he'd tell them to hit. Every Friday night after he dropped off the take Ricky rolled down to an illegal bar on the lower levels of Arrow, where it connected with Factory and Agro stations. The kind of place where the guards didn't look to closely and women did whatever they needed to for extra ration tickets. Not the kind of place you'd bring too many bodyguards.
She hadn't expected Shumway to have them infiltrate the club.
Clarke and her sunny blonde waves was deemed too distinctive, so she was with Shumway, Bellamy and a group of heavies at the club's back entrance waiting for the women impersonating staff members to bundle Ricky out to them.
The door burst open, Shas and another girl appeared. They were wearing what amounted to strategically placed bandages and dragging an unconscious Ricky between them. He had a black eye and from the way one hand was twisted at least two of his fingers were broken. Clarke raised an eyebrow at the redheaded girl who just shrugged. "He got handsy." Shas high-fived her.
"Nice." One of the heavies agreed, but he was looking at their bodies rather than their handiwork.
Bellamy smacked him hard across the back of the head and gave the girls a smile that was somehow both charming and obscene. "Ladies." The redhead giggled but Shas rolled her eyes right along with Clarke.
"Alright that's enough," Shumway cut them all off. "You girls make sure that Shaw's crew don't cause any trouble for the bar or the ladies. And that they don't make it back to the Floaters. The rest of us," His smile was a knife in the dark when he turned back to them. "We're headed to waste processing."
They didn't burn trash on the Ark; they couldn't afford to waste the resources. Everything that could be reused was reused. And after sorting any scrap metal went into the compactor, where it was crushed down into small bars and heated to form new ingots for Mecha and Factory.
Ricky Shaw was about to become a lot more dense and really well done.
Clarke forced herself to remain impassive and not look away. She had become inured to killing fairly quickly and she found the rush of combat was actually pretty fun. Torture, however, was making her queasy. From the way the muscle in Bellamy's jaw was jumping in her peripheral vision, he wasn't enjoying it either.
Shumway seemed to be in his element.
"Tell us where he is, Shaw."
"Fuck you!" The man shouted, the sound transforming into a scream as the compactor crushed in just that much further. Random bits of metal slowly slicing and stabbing into his body.
"No one's coming for you Shaw. No one will know you're gone for days and I can make this last a long, long time," Shumway flicked a different dial on the control box he was holding and the smell of burning filled the air as the heat flicked up. "Tell me and it all stops."
"I can't, I can't," Shaw protested around screams of agony. "He'll kill my family."
"He'll kill them anyway when you don't come back," Shumway switched the heat up another notch. "We can get to him first. Then they'll be protected." He let Shaw thrash and shriek for a moment before the heat went back down.
"No, please. I can't!"
The crusher hummed back to life. "You can Ricky."
"He lives on Arrow!" Shaw howled. "Tenth level, right where it joins Alpha."
"What number?"
"I don't know," Something popped and it wasn't metal. Shaw's screaming went higher in pitch. "I don't, we meet in his office! On Prison station!" he panted. "Unit 46, level 3!"
"Is that where he keeps the books?"
"Yes, they're in his office. Hidden drawer in the desk!"
The screaming cut off abruptly. Shaw had been so loud that Clarke didn't even register the gunshot until she saw Bellamy lower the weapon.
Shumway spun around, looking annoyed. "The fuck was that Blake?"
"You got what you needed," Bellamy shrugged. "And he was grating my last nerve."
Shumway snorted in disgust, jerking the compactor up to full power and leaving it to finish its gristly job. "Next time," he said low and dangerous as he shouldered past Bellamy. "You wait your ass until I give the word."
Bellamy was still in the doghouse with Shumway by the time they were ready to move the following night. Salujah was leading the raid on the Floaters' Arrow station territory with the bulk of the Saints while Shumway, Clarke and a smaller team shot through to Xavier's office in Prison station.
She'd been expecting to kick the door down, guns blazing but instead they knocked – careful to leave Clarke the only one visible through the peephole that had been illegally installed on the door, of course. When no one answered Shumway had Koster pop the lock.
It wasn't until they stepped into the office that Clarke put together their location and the view of the multi-level Skybox offered through the window. "Is he the warden?" She asked, incredulous.
Shumway flipped on the computer and began trying to crack the password. "Warden's office is on the ground floor," He said. "Bet this fucker has some cushy admin job. Just close enough to the box that he can set up anyone leaving for a little Floaters recruitment pitch."
Koster whistled, low and a little impressed as he settled himself half in and half out of the doorway to keep an eye on the hall.
Clarke turned her attention to the desk. "Secret drawer, secret drawer" She muttered, gliding her fingers over the corners and under the lip. "Where are you secret drawer?" She found the small catch just inside the lid of the top tray.
There was a click and a thunk, and what had looked like a plain panel slid open to reveal a thick book covered in faded blue imitation leather.
Xavier's ledger was made of actual paper. Clarke retrieved it with reverent hands, careful only to touch the corners of the pages. The paper had obviously been erased and rewritten at some point; palimpsest textures making the neat hand nearly illegible in places.
"This is their whole organization," Clarke marveled as she paged through the book. "The guards they were bribing, the deliveries they were skimming off of. There's even a list of members. Why would he write that down?"
"He's either compulsive or paranoid," Shumway took back the ledger and started copying parts of it into his tablet.
"What are you doing?
"Some of this we can use," Clarke craned her neck to read over his shoulder but Shumway was transcribing into some kind of coded shorthand. "The dirty guards can be blackmailed or convinced to see our side of things and supply line details always come in handy." He finished what he was writing and pulled out a heavy marker, dragging it in thick streaks across the page to hide the information he wanted for himself.
It made Clarke want to cry a little.
Koster jerked back inside, closing the door as gently as possible behind him. "Incoming."
He took up position on one side of the door, with Clarke on the other where they could get behind Xavier just as he came through. Shumway settled into the man's chair and put his feet up nonchalantly on the desk.
It was almost like a farce the way Xavier stormed in, distracted and then visibly flinched when he caught sight of Shumway. Koster stepped in behind him, closing and locking the office door in one smooth motion. "Gentlemen," Xavier attempted a recovery, couldn't suppress the sweat that was beading on his temples when he took in Koster and Clarke. "And lady. I assume you're here on business."
Shumway snorted. "Yeah, hostile takeover."
"I see where you're coming from," Xavier prevaricated. "But I have to tell you I think it's short sighted. The network that the Floaters have built is far reaching and very valuable. Put together with the might of the Saints –" He cut off when Shumway nodded and Clarke pressed her gun against the back of his head.
"Shut the fuck up," She said slowly and with great violence.
"My dear, don't be hasty. I'm sure your – commander? – sees the advantages someone like me could bring to your organization."
"Any chance of a deal you had was gone when your man gave up your ledger." Shumway smacked the book against the desk for emphasis. "We don't give a fuck what you're offering."
"Shaw," Xavier hissed. "I'll make him pay."
"You won't be around to make anyone do anything; but don't worry, we took care of that internal affairs problem." Shumway straightened and leaned forward, bracing his elbows on the desk and steepling his fingers. "You shouldn't have taken out my girl like that."
"You shouldn't have sent that bitch in," Xavier protested. "That was business! You would have done the same."
With a cry of inarticulate rage, Clarke pulled back and slammed the butt of her gun into his skull. "Her name was Rachel, motherfucker!" Xavier collapsed to the ground his hands coming up in surrender as she pressed the weapon to his forehead. "Rachel! Say it!"
""Alright, alright, Rachel!" He looked over at Shumway. "Call off your dog."
"Kid, " Shumway admonished. Clarke's finger tightened on the trigger for a moment before she gave in and stepped back.
Xavier took a deep breath and straightened his jacket as best he could in such a prone position. "I'm glad to see you can be reasonable-"
Shumway drew his gun and put a round between Xavier's eyes in the time it took for him to say the last word.
The man slumped, all his arrogance and his cruelty extinguished in a loud noise and a spray of blood. Clarke looked at the body for a stunned moment. Then drew a deep breath and sneered "What a dick."
They all chuckled. Koster's hand fell softly on Clarke's back and she leaned in to it, just for a moment. "You should have let her do it, Shumway." He admonished.
Shumway's lip curled in displeasure. "It's done. That what matters." Seizing the book off the desk he aimed a kick at what was left of Xavier. "Now help me get him up."
The next morning when Thelonious Jaha exited his housing unit to begin the day, the former leader of the Floaters was sitting across the hall with a bullet hole in his forehead and his ledger in his lap. The Chancellor was furious but Wells was oddly nonplussed.
Really he was just glad to know Clarke was still alive.