Author's Note: I got tired of finding ways to explain when Mordecai is talking in Spanish without saying Spanish. We all know it's Spanish. I'm calling it what it is. Anyway, in this chapter, blah blah blah computer stuff. The more stuff I totally make up, the more fun it is, which kind of explains every Star Trek episode ever.


Tasha's prediction about the bandit gang had been accurate. They dissolved into in-fighting, seemingly content to leave the building alone and write it off as a loss so long as the vault hunters remained in residence. The four convened in the control room, scattered across the metal floor in quiet exhaustion. Tasha lay on her back with Zero sitting cross-legged nearby, watching her slow and even breathing. He hadn't attempted to wake her and seemed content to let her come around on her own. Maya had sent him after a med-kit from the runner, as he was adept at not being seen, and after he'd returned he'd apparently decided that was the extent of his help.

Mordecai was under Maya's care and the sniper was incredibly unhappy about it all. He'd been making an effort to empty his flask, which May suspected held something stronger than beer, and was still quite irate over how fast Gary had been.

"I mean, I blink, and that bastard had his hand around my wrist," Mordecai said, "I can't say I've seen someone move that fast in a while."

"I saw what happened," Zero said, "It was entirely your fault. If you hadn't been trying to keep yourself between the bandit and Tasha's position, he would never have gotten close enough to lunge like that."
Mordecai fell silent and went still. He turned his head, gazing off at a wall, and after a moment Maya moved closer, pulling at the ties that held his vest closed. She'd already managed to get him to at least remove the harness he wore that carried his sword and rifle sling, now hopefully Zero's comment would take the rest of the fight out of him.

"C'mon," she said, "You got hit pretty hard. Let me see."

She drew the vest off without difficulty. The sniper muttered something under his breath and pulled his shirt up and over his head, tossing it aside. After a moment, he followed suit with both his bandanna and goggles and sat there, shoulders hunched, bare from the waist up. It was the first time Maya had seen him without the goggles. She hesitated a moment. He seemed even skinnier with the vest and shirt gone, but there was a layer of muscle there, pressed tight between the skin and bone of his lean frame. His skin was marked with scars, thin ones from where bullets had gotten through his shield, and one particularly ugly one up around his shoulder. That had to have been a bad injury. And his face... was not what she expected. He had such an angry, violent demeanor that she expected it to be reflected in his eyes, but there was none of that there. The arrogance, similarly, was stripped away and for a moment she could only look at his eyes. There were lines there, etched in at the corners, drawn thin by the leanness of his features. He seemed restless, even though he remained motionless, and Maya saw in his expression – finally visible in its entirety – a sort of certainty. A fearless, reckless certainty. She looked away, unnerved.

"Lay back," she told him, drawing the med-kit closer, "The light is bad, I need to see your bruises better."

He complied, rolling back to lay with one arm tucked up under his head. He started to put the other across his stomach and then hesitated, remembering why it was she even asked, and put it by his side. Maya understood. He was uneasy, being taken care of like this. Maya hissed at the sight of his torso – even though he didn't betray it aside from a certain set to his jaw, Mordecai had to be in a lot of pain. The entirety of his abdomen was a single bruise, black in spots, bleeding out to a sickly purple along the edges where it wrapped around his side. There was another spot on his chest, along the left side, where the bruise was localized in one area as a massive crimson stain, flecked with green and yellow. It was right across the bottom two ribs.

"Who patched you up in the past?" she said, "When you were hunting for the first vault."

"Roland," he replied, "The man has got some field medic training. What about you four – Axton handle it?"

"Shit, no," Maya laughed, "It's Salvador."

"What, seriously?" He started to sit up and Maya pushed him back down to the floor with two fingers.

"Yes, seriously. He's... honest, in his own way, and I can trust that. I think Zero does too."

"I have my own reasons," the assassin replied.

"Besides, Zed's med-kits are pretty easy to use, lucky for you. Once all the bullets are out it's just picking the right syringe. For you... I'm pretty certain the ribs are cracked, if not broken, so I need – this one!"

"They're broken all right," Mordecai grunted, "This ain't the first time I've been punched in the chest – hijo de puta..! Damn Maya, could you have stabbed me any harder!?"

He rolled to his side, putting his back to the siren with an anguished groan. Maya had taken advantage of his momentary distraction to jab him with the syringe, emptying the contents in the area close to where he'd been hit in the ribs. Mordecai continued with his cursing, swapping entirely over to Spanish now, and Maya took no heed, merely removed from the kit the next syringe, the one labeled 'internal bleeding'. She jabbed this one into Mordecai's side and the sniper grunted in protest and muttered something that she believed translated to 'something-something bitch'.

"Unfortunately," Maya said, replacing the empty vials into their slots, "it seems Zed doesn't pack anything to help with being knocked unconscious or concussions. We'll just have to keep an eye on Tasha ourselves. Has she made any sign of stirring, Zero?"

"Not yet."

The assassin pushed himself to his feet, catching up his sniper rifle as he did. He nodded at Maya.

"Someone needs to keep an eye on the bandit camp, in case they organize."

"I'll join you," Maya replied, "You'll be fine here, right Mordecai?"

The sniper grunted in affirmation. Maya followed Zero down the hall to a ladder leading up to a roof access panel. The two made their way to the far end of the rooftop, settling down at the base of the satellite where they had a clear view of the camp below. The flood-lights had been shot out by this point, for reasons Maya couldn't quite discern. Possibly they thought it would help hide them from Zero's bullets, but Maya knew that the assassin had some sort of night vision built into his helmet. It wouldn't help them a damn if Zero decided he wanted to start picking off targets. She hoped he wouldn't. There was no need to antagonize them while they were still killing each other. The night was actually quiet now, apparently someone had managed to restore order. It would be dicey whether they were alive come morning, however, as now was when the opposition would be gathering their allies and getting ready for another bout of cold blooded murder. Maya squinted in the darkness. It looked like no one had touched Gary's corpse and she could see some movement near it, sharp motions, and she thought it looked like Bloodwing was still gorging herself on the dead.

"So," Maya said carefully, "Thoughts on all this?"

"Mordecai is deceptively competent."

"You wouldn't be following his orders otherwise, I imagine."

Zero tilted his head, as if in thought.

"Roland gives orders," he finally said, "Mordecai... simply expects everyone to follow where he leads. I am not sure if he's aware that this is what he's doing. Very different leaders. Not certain Mordecai even thinks of himself as a leader."

"I won't tell him so if you don't. I agree with that assessment. He seems to be the least hot-tempered of the three, in all honesty, even if he doesn't seem so on the outside. I mean, Lilith is – well, Lilith, and Roland is pretty even-keeled but he's also passionate. Which is a good thing, it's kept Sanctuary alive. But Mordecai?" She frowned. "He's got the same level of self-control you do, Zero, I think. Must be a sniper's trait. He just chooses to let something bleed through every now and then."

She thought of how he had shot Gary in the abdomen, carefully pinpointed to ensure he'd bleed to death and would take his time at it. There had been anger in that action, a quiet hate.

"I would disagree on that."

"Afraid he's going to usurp you?" She smiled. "Don't worry, I'll always root for team Zero. But we both agree Mordecai isn't leading us to our deaths. Tasha?"

"Unstable. Determined. Terrified."

Maya frowned at the last word.

"She overcomes it well enough, when she gets stuck in the fighting."

"No." Zero was quick to refute her, almost before she even finished her sentence. "There is fear in her every movement and those moments of ferocity are simply a different shaping of it. She expects to die each time. You can see it in her eyes."

He sounded so confident in his words. Maya wondered why this was, if perhaps he'd seen this sort of thing before. The siren knew she was a relative newcomer to the world of violence, that even though the cult had trained her she was not exposed to danger like she was here on Pandora. It had been... surprising, at first, but after the initial shock wore off she found she could bear violence well enough. There was something appealing about it, even. It had a way of making the world sharper, a narrow sort of clarity. But Zero was an assassin and he had seen violence and how it affected people far more than she had. It would stand to reason that despite his disconnection with those around him, that he would understand people's reactions better.

"So she's not going to be able to lead the Carrion Birds after this."

"I didn't say that. She has survived this long. I believe her control of the Carrion Birds will be complete and under her guidance, they will be devastating. A terrified leader is a very dangerous leader – it will be a violent, brutal regime. Mordecai and the others will be well to have her on their side, assuming Roland can direct the sword correctly. He has Lilith keep her bandits in check. There will be none of that with Tasha – she will need to be unleashed."

He paused.

"Or she'll die. I see no other option."

"She could leave it. Return to Sanctuary and stay there." Even as Maya said it, she knew it wasn't going to happen. Maya wasn't one to believe in fate – she'd become disillusioned after being raised to be a goddess – but in this instance, she could almost see its strands in play.

"Things are going to get much bloodier before this is done," Maya said and she heard the hollowness in her own words. Zero nodded softly in agreement. Neither of them spoke for the rest of the time they stood watch.


Tediore followed through with their promise to be in contact within a day. Mordecai called the two down from the roof over ECHO and the four gathered in the control room to hear what the man had to say. It was the same individual as before, looking as prim as ever. Maya was surprised to see that Mordecai had not yet fully dressed and instead wore only his vest, hanging open at the front so that the bruises across his body were clearly visible. He was moving slower now as well, his shoulders hunched unconsciously against the pain that Maya was certain was plaguing him. Tasha was also awake – at last – and she had a sort of glassy look to her eyes. The Tediore representative conspicuously eyed the crew from the other side of the viewscreen and Maya wished for a brief moment that they'd thought to kill video feed from their end first.

"So..." the man said carefully, "I assume the cold blooded murder didn't go as smoothly as anticipated?"

"No," Mordecai replied, "I think we all learned an important lesson from it though."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Shoot the guy before he can hit you."

"I'll keep that in mind if I ever find myself brawling drunkenly in a gutter." The tone of voice implied that this was something that would never, ever, happen. "So. After reviewing the information provided, we have a few questions for... skag-girl."

"Yes? What?" Tasha snapped to alertness.

"First off, how did you interface with the digistruct units without triggering the self-destruct sequence?"

"I – what?" She blinked at him in confusion and even Maya was startled into paying closer attention.

"The self-destruct," the man replied patiently, "You know, when you access the root menu of the unit, there's an EMP pulse and the damn thing has to be restored to original settings?"

"Oh. Well, I don't actually use the interface. I, uh, well."

"She's illiterate," Mordecai supplied. It was apparent Tasha wasn't going to volunteer the information and the sniper seemed to want to hurry things up. Again, Maya was reminded that Tasha had admitted Mordecai wasn't exactly nice to her.

"I read the bits," Tasha continued, no longer looking at the screen but instead at the ground, "So I don't use the interface, I just patch in with a hard connection and read the on and off signals and decipher that."

"Wow," the Tediore representative whistled, "That's, uh, I'm not certain if that's genius or insanity. I guess it got around the self-destruct trigger, probably because whoever programmed it didn't think anyone would be so abysmally stupid to go at it in such a backwards way."

"Please don't insinuate Tasha is stupid," Mordecai replied, as calm as he was when he announced she was illiterate, "Or else I'll come shoot that pretty face of yours to pieces when I get off this rock."

"Oh good, death threats. Pandora's version of a friendship bracelet. I can tell we're really getting along splendidly now. Also, I am glad to hear that skag-girl has a real name rather than just a charming colloquialism. I was getting worried. Anyway, we've had our engineers looking at the data – and since it appears to be legit now – we think we've come up with a way to isolate what Hyperion has done. We're going to branch the digistruct traffic and drop Tediore onto a separate network, as well as introduce common functionality to branch any other traffic off the main stream and give control of it to the creator. Essentially, we're dividing the network into dozens of sub-networks. We want to pilot this on Pandora and if it works, we're going to introduce it to the Planetary Standards Committee."

Mordecai frowned and his eyes narrowed. It was strange to actually see them out from behind the goggles.

"Won't that take forever?"

"That's what bribes are for. And with the data found in the dumps you sent us, we'll be able to blackmail Hyperion into staying out of it – maybe even force them to sponsor the effort if we're feeling especially dickish. When it passes, it'll mean that the digistruct network as a whole will be less secure to outside hacking, but more secure from inside jobs, like what Hyperion has done. Might even net Tediore a new revenue stream, as we can lease out our channel to people who need to use the digistruct network but don't have the resources to secure their own channel. Brilliant, huh?"

"Yeah," Tasha said distantly, her mind clearly drifting off down a different path, "So, in lieu of a bounty payment, can we instead have reserved space on the Tediore channel?"

"I'll have to clear it with my superiors. What sort of traffic will this channel see?"

"Vehicle construction," Mordecai replied, seeing where Tasha was going with the request, "Supply transfers across Pandora."

"My sword," Zero added.

"Basically, we just want Pandora's inhabitants outside of Hyperion control."

The man considered briefly. "Will it piss Jack off?"

"Immensely," Maya promised.

"I don't see any problems running it past my bosses then. If you have a unit handy, I'll send you the program needed to branch the network. It has to be uploaded at a central data terminal though, and it'll replicate throughout the system from there. It's not a fast process, so you'll have to hold the place against reinforcements for several hours. You understand what I'm saying here?"

Tasha was hooking up her unit to the console and watching the program download in silence. She understood. They all understood the difficulty.

"We got this," Mordecai said quietly, "I killed the damn Destroyer. Tasha has an entire bandit clan at her back. And those two behind me are going to hunt Jack down and rip his heart out with their bare hands before this is over. I think we're more than capable of storming a data center and holding it."

The Tediore man appeared unimpressed, but Maya had to assume that was only because he was very biased against Pandorans. He should be impressed. He should be damn impressed and grateful this meeting wasn't face-to-face. She had a feeling Zero might have stabbed him by now otherwise. Friendly-like. Maybe in the leg.

"Right," the man said colorlessly, "I'll be shocked if I see all four of you alive again. Good luck."

The connection terminated and Tasha unhooked her unit and returned it to her satchel. The four looked at each other.

"A data center," Mordecai groaned, "We're going to be up to our ears in loaders. Maya, see if you can't contact your erstwhile companions. Surely they've got to have scrounged up a vehicle by now. Tasha, rally your Carrion Birds. We need a bandit clan for this one. Assaults we can do. Holding it? Not so much."

Maya nodded slightly and turned her attention to her ECHO. She wasn't one to believe in fate, but her earlier prediction that things would get bloodier before this was over seemed almost prophetic.