I am a spacefaring bounty hunter, although my bounties are far more often objects than people. I’ve tried to cultivate an image of always keeping a mask or helmet on while in public as an homage to my idol who inspired me to get into this line of work, but in practice I’m really bad at being consistent with that.

  I have been hired onto a job working with my idol to recover some item or another from an abandoned flooded facility. I’m trying to py it cool, but it’s not really working.

  Unlike my idol-now-temporary-partner my armor and gear is not rated for working underwater. I wind up finding an oversized helmet and using it as a diving bell over my head after taking off my armor. My partner for the mission both points out how ridiculous the diving bell helmet looks and calls me out for showing off. I get embarrassed until she admits that she was the same way back when she first got a body she was happy with.

  We dive down into separate parts of the facility, keeping in touch remotely to coordinate our efforts of reactivating machinery to open doors and drain the water. Keeping my head inside the air bubble of my helmet and keeping it perfectly upright to maintain its seal is a challenge. More than once I have to hold my breath and pull my head out for a moment so that I can get up close to whatever it is I need to work with. I have a couple of scares with almost not getting my head back in before my held breath runs out or with the diving bell tipping and letting more water flood in. Fortunately my mission partner is there to talk me through everything I don’t know how to handle.

  Eventually we mostly unflood the facility and make it out with the items we were hired to retrieve. On the way back, she gives me advice on how to get unusual items like our present haul through spaceport customs. In addition to our agreed upon payment upon delivery, our client gifts us a complimentary box of doughnuts that we share.