The Union vibrated differently when it was trying not to be seen.
Not the loud, confident thrum of a ship pushing hard burn. Not the steady, "we own this lane" pulse of a crew that believed the sky belonged to them. This was a quieter rhythm—power bled down, nonessential systems muted, fans cycling slow to keep heat signatures from blooming.
A ship holding its breath.
Rook felt it through the soles of her boots.
Rafe felt it through her fingertips on a stripped-down control casing, two tiny screws and a cracked ribbon connector laid out like a patient on a table.
They worked side by side at the mech bay bench, close enough that their shoulders brushed when one of them leaned, close enough that they didn't have to ask for tools. A hand would extend and the right wrench would already be there.
Not magic.
Habit.
Training.
Two people built from the same set of lessons and the same kind of loneliness.
Above them, the bay's harsh work-lights made everything honest. The Dire Wolf sat in its berth like a sleeping animal with its heart still warm. The Highlander rested with soot-streaks along its flank where the armor had kissed fire. The Griffin crouched with its missile bays closed and its PPC housing still faintly heat-hazed. The Marauder stood half in shadow because the pilot liked shadows and the machine had learned to match her.
And overhead, hanging in mag clamps and chain restraints, the captured Atlas.
An entire assault god turned into suspended salvage.
Rook tilted her head back to look at it.
Rafe did too, a beat later—same angle, same frown.
"Clamp integrity—" Rafe murmured.
"—is good," Rook finished, eyes tracking the chain points, the way the metal tensioned at the corners. "But the cockpit seam—"
"—is listening," Rafe said.
They both went still for a second, because they were right.
You didn't survive this long without learning when a predator was awake.
The Atlas didn't move. It didn't have to. The presence was enough—like a storm cloud hanging over the bay, quiet only because it had decided quiet was more useful right now.
Rook looked back down at the bench.
Rafe turned a micro-driver between her fingers.
"Work," Rook said.
"Work," Rafe echoed.
And they did, because work was the one place their lives had always made sense.
---
They weren't pilots.
Not like Dack, or Jinx, or Taila.
They were the kind of people who kept pilots alive. The kind of people everyone forgot until something broke, then suddenly remembered with panic.
Rook and Rafe had learned early that machines lied.
Not on purpose. Machines lied because metal fatigue didn't announce itself in words. It announced itself in hairline fractures you only saw if you looked with the right kind of attention.
People lied on purpose.
Machines lied by omission.
They trusted machines more anyway.
Rafe lifted a cracked heat sink baffle and held it up to the light. The damage looked minor at first glance—scuffing, a shallow bend, nothing dramatic. But Rafe's eyes narrowed.
"Micro-warping—" she began.
"—from repeated thermal cycling," Rook finished without looking. "The Highlander ran hot."
Rafe hummed agreement. "She pushed it."
"Jinx," Rook said, and it wasn't an insult.
It was a diagnostic.
Jinx pushed everything. Her mech. Her mouth. Her luck.
Rook reached for a stylus and started marking a repair list on a holo-slate.
Highlander: rail alignment check, heat baffles replaced, actuator lubrication
Griffin: missile feed seals, PPC capacitor test, torso gyro recalibration
Marauder: PPC mount stress check, right torso plating patch, laser conduits inspected
Dire Wolf: lower leg armor scoring, knee actuator damping check, LRM rack doors reseal
Rafe watched the list appear and nodded once. Then she added a line with a quick flick of her finger.
Atlas: restraint cycle check, cockpit breach plan (contingency)
Rook glanced at it and didn't argue.
They weren't scared of the Atlas.
They were scared of what happened if everyone else forgot to be scared.
---
Their father had taught them that.
Not in speeches. Not in sentimental lessons.
In the way he'd stop them mid-repair, tap the housing with a knuckle, and make them listen.
"Do you hear that?" he'd ask.
Most people heard nothing.
Rook and Rafe learned to hear the difference between healthy vibration and dying vibration. The difference between a bolt seated properly and a bolt pretending. The difference between a machine that would hold and a machine that would betray you the moment you needed it most.
They'd grown up in salvage yards and backwater bays that smelled like coolant and scorched insulation. They'd grown up under flickering lights, surrounded by dead machines that still had stories in their bones.
Other kids had called them weird.
They were quiet. They didn't play the same games. They didn't talk about celebrities or romance or who kissed who behind the dorm blocks.
They talked about actuators.
They talked about ferro-fibrous layering.
They talked about how to coax a dead reactor into giving you one last ignition without exploding.
It made people uncomfortable.
People liked girls who were pretty and soft and impressed.
People didn't like girls who looked at a mech and saw exactly where it would fail.
So the boys didn't ask them out.
And the few who did made the same mistake: they acted like choosing one twin was "normal," and the other one would just… accept it.
Rook had stared at the first boy who tried and said, flat, "No."
Rafe had added, equally flat, "Both."
The boy had laughed like it was a joke.
Rook had replied, "Not joking."
Rafe had said, "We don't split."
He'd walked away calling them freaks.
They'd learned two things that day:
People didn't understand them.
And they weren't willing to be understood by people who wanted to cut them in half.
So they stopped trying.
They had each other.
They had machines.
That was enough.
Until Moonjaw happened.
---
Dack had been the first man who didn't look at them like a novelty.
He'd looked at their work.
He'd looked at their results.
He'd looked at the way they moved without needing to speak and decided it was useful.
That alone had been strange.
Then he'd said, "You two did well."
Not flirtation.
Not charm.
Acknowledgment.
Rook had felt heat in her chest and hated it.
Rafe had felt it too and pretended she didn't.
Now, in the mech bay, Rook heard footsteps on the deck and didn't look up until she heard the specific rhythm.
Dack.
Not fast. Not slow. Purposeful.
He moved like someone who didn't waste motion because wasted motion was time, and time got you killed.
Rook looked up as he passed.
Rafe did too, half a beat later.
Dack's face was… average. Lean. Hard around the eyes. The kind of face you wouldn't notice in a crowd. The kind of face you remembered after you watched it stay calm during the kind of violence that made other men shake.
He didn't stop at their bench this time. He just glanced at the slate.
Rook watched his eyes flick over the repair list.
Rafe watched the tiny tension shift in his jaw at the "Atlas contingency" line.
He didn't comment.
He nodded once.
And that nod meant, Good. You're thinking.
Then he kept walking.
Rafe exhaled quietly.
Rook muttered, "He reads like a checklist."
Rafe answered, "Until he doesn't."
They both knew what she meant.
The pack around him was changing him.
Jinx leaning into his space like she belonged there.
Taila hovering close like a trained wingman with a shy smile she pretended wasn't real.
Lyra moving through the ship like a pilot with steel in her spine.
Morrigan watching from shadows like she wanted to bite anyone who tried to touch what she'd finally decided was hers.
And Dack—Dack letting it happen, even if he didn't know how to say out loud what it meant.
Rook watched him stop under the hanging Atlas again.
Watched his head tilt slightly, like he was listening to a machine breathe.
Rafe watched too.
The voice that slid down from the cockpit seam wasn't machine.
It was human.
Smooth.
Amused.
Dangerous.
Rook's fingers tightened around her driver.
Rafe's thumb hovered near the edge of a tool tray like she was choosing which tool would make the best weapon.
They didn't move.
Because Dack hadn't ordered it.
Because Dack's rules mattered.
Because this was a crew, not a pirate mob.
Still…
Rook and Rafe shared a look.
One thought, split into two halves:
If she breaks free, we will end her ourselves.
---
Jinx breezed past their bench next, like she'd been born in a mech bay and raised on chaos. Her long dirty-blonde hair was half tied back, eyes bright and wicked, black-and-red clothes tight and shameless in a way that made most people uncomfortable.
Rook didn't mind discomfort.
Rafe didn't either.
But they did notice something else: the faint paleness under Jinx's confidence, the way her smile didn't fully reach her eyes for one heartbeat when she thought nobody was looking.
Jinx pointed at the slate without slowing. "You two are amazing. Also you're both my favorites. Also—" She leaned in slightly, voice dropping like she was sharing a sacred secret. "—we're doing uniforms."
Rook didn't blink. "We already have uniforms."
Jinx snorted. "No. You have clothes. I mean uniforms."
Rafe asked, careful, "Functional?"
Jinx grinned. "Sexy."
Rook's expression stayed flat.
Rafe's didn't change either.
Jinx took that as a challenge. "Black and red. Dire Wolf sigil. Tight. Revealing. Combat ready. You can make it practical. I can make it hot."
Rook said, "Heat kills."
Jinx grinned wider. "Not the kind I'm talking about."
Rafe sighed. "Airflow matters."
Jinx waggled her eyebrows. "So do boobs."
From somewhere near the Griffin, Taila hissed, "Jinx!"
Jinx laughed and kept walking like she owned the ship and the universe was her playground.
Rook watched her go.
Rafe watched too.
Rook said quietly, "She's going to get shot."
Rafe answered, quieter, "Not if we keep fixing her mech."
Rook added, "Not if Dack keeps winning."
Rafe's mouth twitched. "And he will."
They returned to their work.
But the conversation didn't leave.
Uniforms.
A silly thing.
A harmless thing.
And yet it felt like something else underneath it:
Belonging.
Marking themselves.
Becoming a unit, not just a cluster of desperate professionals clinging to each other for c-bills.
Rook didn't know how to want that.
Rafe didn't either.
Wanting things had always been punished.
Still… the idea sat in their minds like a bolt that hadn't been torqued down yet.
Loose.
Persistent.
---
Later—after Lyra's voice came over ship comms announcing scan patterns tightening, after Dack answered with that blunt "prep jump," after the Union's hum deepened into the pre-jump posture—Rook and Rafe shifted their bench work into motion planning.
They didn't panic. They didn't rush. They did what they always did when the universe got dangerous:
They prepared systems.
Rook ran a diagnostic on the Dire Wolf's knee actuator damping. The numbers came back within tolerance. Barely. Dack had been taking leg hits. On purpose. Because he understood angles and sacrifice.
Rafe checked the Griffin's missile feed seals. Taila had fired clean. No feed hiccups. That meant Taila had done her own pre-fight checks properly.
Rook checked the Highlander's gauss rail alignment. Jinx's shots had been crisp. No drift. That was good.
Rafe checked the Marauder's PPC mount stress. Morrigan's firing pattern had been controlled—mean, efficient, no wasted heat.
A clean unit.
A dangerous one.
Rook's eyes flicked to the Atlas restraints again.
Rafe's did too.
"Cage is solid—" Rafe began.
"—until someone tries to open it," Rook finished.
Rafe nodded. "Dack won't."
Rook's voice went colder. "Not unless he decides it matters."
They both knew what "matters" looked like on this ship.
Dack deciding the risk was worth the reward.
Dack deciding someone had crossed a line.
Dack deciding a truth needed to be dragged into the light.
Rook and Rafe had seen that look in men before.
The difference was: when other men looked like that, it was ego.
When Dack looked like that, it was protection.
And protection could be just as dangerous.
---
They heard voices near a door down the corridor at one point—Jinx, Taila, Lyra. Low, private. Tight.
Rook didn't drift closer.
Rafe didn't either.
They weren't thieves.
But they heard enough to register tone.
Something serious.
Something that made Jinx sound less like a firecracker and more like someone trying not to break.
Rook and Rafe exchanged another glance.
Rook murmured, "Data point."
Rafe murmured back, "Stored."
They didn't speculate out loud.
Speculation was how you made mistakes.
They just remembered.
Because remembering was how you saved people without embarrassing them.
---
When the jump warning hit—lights dimming, systems re-routing—Rook and Rafe strapped their tools down and secured the bench like it was a cockpit. Every loose object became a projectile during a bad jump.
Rafe said, "We should—"
Rook finished, "—go to the bay."
They walked together, shoulders aligned, steps matched without thinking, and stopped near the shadow line where they could see everything.
Dack near the Dire Wolf's berth.
Taila near him, quiet, attentive.
Jinx bright as always, a grin that looked like a shield.
Lyra at a terminal, eyes on ship status.
Morrigan in the doorway, arms folded, watching like she was guarding the whole pack by sheer spite.
Quill too stiff, too controlled, eyes flicking to the Atlas again and again like she couldn't stop checking whether her loyalty was still breathing.
And overhead, the Atlas hanging, silent and listening.
Rook felt the ship tense.
Rafe felt it too.
The jump hit.
Space folded.
The Union's bones thrummed, and for a heartbeat everything became vibration and pressure and the taste of metal in the air.
Then it settled.
A new dark patch of space.
A new moment of borrowed safety.
Rook exhaled quietly.
Rafe exhaled with her.
Neither of them smiled.
Not yet.
But when Jinx glanced over and pointed at them with that wicked, triumphant grin—you're still here, you weird little geniuses—Rafe's mouth twitched.
Rook's did too, half a beat later.
"Uniforms," Rafe said under her breath, like she was testing the word.
Rook replied, "Later."
Rafe's eyes stayed on the Dire Wolf sigil patch someone had sketched on a tool cabinet—black outline, red accents.
"You think—" Rafe started.
Rook finished, quieter than usual, "—we belong?"
Rafe didn't answer with a joke.
She answered with truth.
"We're here," she said.
Rook nodded once. "That's enough."
For now.
And if anyone tried to take this ship from them—this strange pack, this dangerous leader, these women who were learning how to trust—
Rook and Rafe already knew what they'd do.
Not because they were soft.
Because they were finally attached.
And attachments were worth fighting for.