Krill was trapped in a prison of fear, worst of all, he was trapped in a prison prison, a human prison, the most brutal species in the galaxy putting their own most brutal into close confines with no way out and no connection to the outside world. What was worse, this wasn't even a licensed prison overseen by the UNSC or the GA, this was an outlier, a maximum security penitentiary on a border moon designed specifically to deal with the people that no one else wanted to. It was lawless, it was mad, and it was a great way to get yourself Killed.

After seeing his life flash before his eyes earlier, when confronted by one of the other prisoners, he now clutched desperately to the back of Commander Vir's jumpsuit forever thankful to the human for his act of courage, in offering to fight the entire prison population to protect him, but Krill new the truth. Commander Vir was no alpha here, he wasn't the right kind of human, these ones were hardened, cold and calculating. The commander had the tendency to be juvenile naive and trusting at times.

He was going to have to bluff hard to survive, or neither of them were going to last a day.

Together they were dragged across the room and seated rather aggressively at the center of the human table . Adam grimaced visibly as he sat held fast by the large man from earlier who looked around the group of humans and made eye contact with each and every one of them, "Well everyone please welcome our newest guest, "Captain Jack."

Adam looked up his confusion overriding his worry, "What?"

"You have an eyepatch and a peg leg, that makes you a pirate."

"I mean, yeah, but if I Recall Captain Jack had both eyes AND both legs."

The man's smile fell brows falling, "Are you questioning my nickname choice."

Adam shrunk back a bit, "I ur.... No sir...."

The man glowered at him and then began to laugh. The rest of the group followed suit, Krill shrank closer to Adam's legs. It may have been laughter, but it definitely wasn't the inviting kind, he chucked wiping tears from his eyes, "Sir ... ain't that quaint.... This little bastard thinks I'm a sir."

More laughter.

Suddenly Adam felt himself jerked to his feet held at least an inch off the ground by the front of his jumpsuit staring the large man in the eyes, nose to nose, "Don't call me, sir."

"S-sorry s-si.... I mean yes.... Of course..... It's just a bad habit." His composure from earlier was beginning to crack a little. Krill hid under the bench.

"What you army or something."

"Yes.... yes. I have the tattoo to prove it." That seemed to ease their curiosity and he was set down and ordered to show them. He did as he was told, pulling off the top layer of his jumpsuit to hang around his waist, and pull down the neck of his T-shirt to show the tattoo. There was a murmur from the group, "Aviation, so you can fly planes and shit?"

Adam let go, "Yes.... more like jets and shit...."

"You ever been in combat?" One of the men asked interested

Adam rubbed the back of his head glanced towards the Drev side of the room, made a decision and nodded, "Yes I.... I was deployed during the Drev war. The atmosphere on their planet doesn't.... Exactly allow for much flying, so I was ground infantry during our last push."

There was another murmur around the table.

"So you gotta kill you some of those battle bastards." Andam jerked forward uncomfortably as he was slapped on the back, "Thank you for your service!"

"Wait..... Is that where you lost your leg and your eye."

Adam swallowed, "Just the leg, the eye was an accident."

There was a murmur of appreciation from around the table, "Hey, that mean you were involved in operation Steel Eye." One of the men asked, and the rest of the group muttered in anticipation leaning forward. Adam scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.

"I uh.... Well yes."

There was an eruption of glee around the table and Adam was slammed by a wall of delighted hollering, laughing, and back patting by the group of men cheering him on for having crushed the Beatles, shown them their place, and so on.

"Alright, alright that changes things a bit. I hate using people's names as you know, so I'm not going to let you keep yours, but I'm gonna come up with something better for you like Steel, short for Steel-Eye, I like that, it's a good name, honorable. Wait till those big ugly beetles know who we got on our side."

Adam went slightly pale glancing across the room. The largest Drev there was an almost 10 foot female with Vivid green carapace. She looked like she could have charged through a four foot steel wall, "or we.... Could not mention that."

One of the guys next to hi laughed, "You're a funny guy, Steel, you don't have to worry about nothin' we won't let them touch you, not when you are such an esteemed addition to the human species." Adam grimaced again as the table cheered. Krill hugged his leg, they were totally going to die.

"Tell us, aside from being a beetle killing badass, what else can you do, what are your talents. You see despite your service, no one just eases by here. What can you bring to the table." There was a whole lot of learning going on in this group, and Krill could tell that the Commander wasn't particularly happy about the situation....

"I uh.... Like what? I mean I can fly, but that's not.... Useful here."

"Nah, friend, we talkin bout stuff like drawing, steeling, fighting...." that seemed like a pretty varied list to Krill, and he couldn't imagine how the first one went with anything.

"Ur ... uh, I can draw a little.... Not like shading or anything like that... but I can do outlines I guess ... ur -"

"And you can fight." Someone prompted

Adam grimaced but was forced into a nod under the scrutiny of the other prisoners. He was grabbed around the shoulder and pulled in close, "Well there it is, our new tattoo artist." The big man looked down at Adam, "he left us under..... Well a sheet, so you get his job now. Glad to have you on board."

-

Adam was coming to learn that his original understanding of how prison worked was.... Completely wrong. Documentaries were generally the way to go, but even then those were not entirely accurate either. If anything movies romanticize prison, crazy how stupid that sentence was out of context, but really the only thing he might consider comedic or cinematic about the whole thing was The Boss's use of nicknames.... And yes, that was his nickname. No one knew what he was really called, all they knew was that he was The Boss and should be treated as such. The other men Adam and Krill had met on the first day were his Lieutenants. The big dark man was Smiley, the handsome man was Fabio, and then the two little men were the Gemini boys

That first night Adam had been forced to eat the nastiest prison 'glop probably ever prepared in the history of humanity. Adam had almost thrown up on multiple occasions arguing that it wasn't necessarily the taste, but the texture that was throwing him off. He had eventually given over the rest of his trey to Smiley who seemed to enjoy the glop. When the bell rang, the group of them were ushered into their containment units. Krill was forced to Separate from Adam, but luckily ended up in a sell with a terrified Tesraki who spent most of his time hidden under the bed.

Adam, on the other hand, walked into the cell to find the top bunk absolutely overwhelmed by a massive balding man with a greasy face and broken nose. He paused in the doorway grimacing as the man looked at him, but with a buzz, the doors slid shut behind him. They made eye contact for a very long moment and the other man drifted a lazy expression over him.

Adam felt his insides turn to mush, but he tried not to show any fear. Showing fear in a prison was like showing fear to a dog. Fear meant weakness, and weakness was a reason to attack. Instead he nodded stiffly, "Evening, guess this makes me your new roommate. What's your name."

The man eyed him, but didn't answer.

"Adam eyed the bottom bunk, and the sagging bunk above it. He had no intention of lying down in that bed scene it seemed at any moment he was going to get crushed as the top bunk fell. He glanced around the room and was sickened. It was maybe ten feet long and seven feet wide with an open toilet in one corner and a sink next to that. Otherwise there were no other furnishings.

Truth be told he really had to pee, but he was coming to find out quickly that he had a serious issue doing that when other people were present. Plus the boogeyman was still staring at him. With a sick sigh and a churning stomach, Adam sunk to the floor and leaned his head against the bars looking out into the hall which had gone dark. A few flashlights swiped here and there from the prison guards on patrol, but otherwise there was no movement. Listening to the sounds, he caught the soft mutter of voices, and a few other unsavory sounds, but he tried not to think about them too much. Glancing towards the top bunk he found a pair of eyes still glittering in the darkness.

He took a deep breath through the nose to calm himself.

It didn't help. In fact it took all he had not to break down into tears and start whimpering for his mom to come save him. Damn he was such a bitch. Instead he leaned his head against the bars and took a few more deep breaths. He wished Sunny were here, if she was here they would already be out, shed have bent the bars with her bare hands and kicked everyone's ass that tried to get in her way. Sure he wanted nothing more in the world to be a total badass, but where he pretended, she really was.

That night was probably the worst night of his life, and that included his multiple nights of PTSD induced fear right after the war. He was cold, scared, uncomfortable, and trying very very hard to block out the noises coming from the other side of the room. He didn't know what they were, and he didn't want to find out they could have been innocuous, but they could have totally not been, plus he needed to pee like a racehorse, but the toilets were metal, so that totally wasn't an option. He rested his head against his knees and, SOMEHOW, by the grace of deity was able to fall asleep.

He woke up the next morning to kidney pain, and the rattling sound of the doors as they beeped open. He hit the cold stone floor of the hallway with a grunt and a curse as the other prisoners began peering out into the light rubbing their eyes and grumbling.

A shadow darkened the space above him, and Commander Vir looked up to find the Boss standing over him with a bit of a grin, "Rough night?"

He cursed and scrambled to his feet adjusting himself as the boogeyman pushed past him out the door. Adam followed the man with nervous eyes, but hand clapped him on the back, "Oh don't worry about grunt, he's a gentle giant really, kind of quiet, but wouldn't hurt anyone."

Adam snorted and before he could censor himself, "I wasn't worried about him, I was worried about the bunk snapping and crushing me in my sleep."

Luckily the boss burst into fits of raucous laughter, "Didn't know you had such an acerbic tongue. I expect you down in the yard in ten, don't be late." The man let him go, and adam quickly rushed back into the room for the most relieving moment of his adult life before walking back out and picking up Krill a few cells over. The Vrul seemed to have had a better night floating in a corner while his roommate hid under the bed. Together they made a quick, and hopefully unnoticed exit down the stairs and onto the floor. In an almost panic, Adam found his way into the courtyard at the center of the jail where the humans had claimed a rather dodgy set of workout equipment

"There you are Steel, was just beginning to worry you had gotten lost ." The men about the yard chuckled, and Adam was forced to sit on the edge of a bench handed a strange contraption and a little well of inc, "Let's see what you can do, Kid."

Adam blinked and stared at the strange contraption, "The hell is this."

"A tattoo machine, what the hell else would it be."

Adam looked up, "Looks like something pulled out of a dumpster. Or the tetanus machine."

The prisoners folded their arms displeased.

Adam crossed his arms, "I get you guys don't exactly have anything to work with, but I am not going to work with that till it's proven sterile. I am not getting blamed for someone's death or infection, and AND I at least need a marker or something, so I can do an outline before I start. I don't produce shit. Also someone is going to have to convince Grunt to sleep on the bottom bunk because I am NOT doing that shit again."

Lucky for him the prisoners seemed at least amused by his demands, and were ordered off to find equipment. Adam tasked Krill with a way to sterilize the equipment, which Krill determined was highly unlikely but was forced to work with what they had. However, once the prisoners learned that Krill had medical training, He was suddenly accepted as a human, and then forced to look at everything from blistered feet to weeping sores. This place was disgusting, and he nervously glanced at Adam, who was now sitting on the bench top half of his jumpsuit tied around his waist, T shirt exposed trying to figure out how the hell to use the improvised machine, which required a rather steep learning curve.

Both of them were wildly out of their depth krill having gone from being the chief medical officer of a high tech floating space hospital in which he had requisitioned all the latest medical equipment one could hope for to doing back alley physicals on human convicts in a maximum security prison yard, while Adam had descended from Fleet Commander of the UNSC, golden boy of the GA, and most influential human in the galaxy to doing half rate prison tattoos with no more than a paperclip and improvised inc on another man's exposed thigh.

From what Adam seemed to think, they should at least ask for favors in exchange for their services. Perhaps that way they could make themselves invaluable enough that no one would be able to question their use, or their importance