Rico got out of the truck, listening to the men as they got ready to do the day's work. General chatter about what needed to be done, or finished from the day before. "Boss is here already." He heard one of them say. "Swear she lives here." Another one chimed in making the others laugh.

No one could ever say that Aja Bird didn't work as hard as she expected her crew to. Every morning, Aja traveled to Panabul, before the rest of the crew would arrive. Or she would just stay late the night before, crashing on the Breeze for a couple hours and then get right back to work. Aja would set up the equipment, organize the lunch tent for the caterer and double check all the diving equipment. With the potential dangers of underwater salvage work, she did everything she could to make sure her guys were safe while they did it.

It was one of the reasons Rico had stayed so loyal to her all these years. She wasn't just a boss. She was one of the crew as well, and they knew it. She'd never ask them to do anything she wasn't willing to do herself.

Rico started forward towards the staging area, spotting Aja there among the dive tanks and wet suits, checking the tanks against a paper she held. He smiled watching her check each tank at least twice before moving on to the next.

He paused to speak with one of the crew about what the second team would be working on. When he looked back, Aja was standing stock still on the dock and staring out at the water.

The ride to the sunken ship was relatively quiet. The guys talked about the specifications of the ship below the surface, discussed where to start cutting in relation to which part was going to be needed to be moved so they could get to the rest of the ship easier. Rico could tell that Aja wasn't really listening. The closer they got to the vessel, the more he could tell that uneasy feeling had returned. She stared through the water at the ghostly outline of the vessel, he watched her as she took a deep breath settling her nerves so she could get to work.

They dove down into the depths and got to work. Aja entered the vessel with Reggie, the two of them got to work on making the cuts for the guys on the outside of the vessel to follow when cutting sections away. Other crew members were starting on removing items to the wagon. A couple divers started on cutting away the mast while two others roped it to the massive buoy above, so it wouldn't fall to the vessel and potentially collapse it on people inside.

The work was slow but steady, securing lines into the still solid sections of the vessel and then rounding up the crew inside to get them clear when the first section was pulled away, opening up the rest of the vessel for exploration.

As the first section was hauled up, Aja motioned for the divers to head to the surface. Now was a good time to take a break and get new tanks. As they broke surface, Aja nudged him, pointing to the section being lifted out of the water to the area of the beach where the rest of the crew would commence taking it apart and look for identification of the vessel if none was found prior.

He waited till she took a moment to collect her thoughts. He knew she would after checking on the crew. The way she looked while staring down at the stirred up water told him everything he needed to know. She was still troubled by something. He viewed it as part of his job to make hers a little easier.

One of the crew came and exchanged her spent air tank for a full one without her notice. Rico watched as Gregory came to kneel by her.

"Uh, Boss?" Gregory was talking to her now, she looked up at him and tried to smile easy. "Yeah?" "Next dive, we need you to look at what we found in the hold." He looked uneasy. "Good, bad or ugly?" she asked almost afraid of the answer. "Hideous." "Wonderful." Aja said looking back down to the water. "What is it?" "This was a slaver vessel we think given by what we found." "Oh gods." She said starting to get an idea of what they might have found, Rico's own thoughts went to what it could be and the picture wasn't a pleasant one. "Yeah. Couple cages...people still in them." Gregory looked as grim as she did now. "Well...I knew this one wouldn't be fun and games. Mark the section. We'll arrange for netting it, make sure the bodies make it to Parker and his crew for proper burial." "Yes, Ma'am." Gregory nodded once as he settled next to her. "You alright?" "Yeah. Yeah. Just starting to wonder how the heck this guy was running this port. Ya know?" Aja motioned around the harbor. "All these vessel's laying on the bottom here, clouding up the water, making it look horrible." Aja sighed, then looked at Gregory. "I can't imagine how this guy even kept business coming in." "He didn't." Gregory said simply. "Which is probably why he sold it to you. Thought it was a lost cause, money wasn't coming in so he figured with you being rich and all.." Gregory trailed off not wanting to insult the boss, not that it was likely. She would just accept it as truth and she often encouraged that sort of candor with the senior members of the crew. They had earned the right to speak their minds, whether she was the captain or not. "Yeah." she replied quietly.

Gregory looked up, catching Rico's eye and nodding when Rico gave a head jerk to him. The man got up and went back to business as Rico came over to Aja.

"You did say this one was bad." "Hate to think anything this ugly ever happened so close to our home, Rico. How did we not know" Seems like we should've." "You can't know everything." "But something like this?" Aja looked up at Rico then. "Come on. It's right down the coast from Arcadia." "Aja, these people could've been there for many years." he knelled down next to her and spoke quietly. "Before we even arrived in Arcadia. Since then, we've done everything to stop this sort of thing. Could be why the man had such disregard for the port. Once we started cutting into his business, he gave up caring." "I hope he dies slowly." she didn't bother to keep the malice from her voice when she spoke. "He probably will." Rico reached out and patted her shoulder, the anger faded from her face as she looked at him. "Thanks, buddy." she gave him the smallest of smiles and got up. "We should get back to work." "On it, Boss." he grinned and set back to getting the crew ready.