The workshop smelled of hot metal and soldering flux.
Haruto worked. He didn't talk. He barely ate the nutrient paste Akari left for him. He slept in short bursts on a cot in the corner. His back was starting to hurt from hunching over the workbench.
He was building them a new arsenal.
He took the plasma cutters from the Icarus's engineering bay. He stripped the power cells from the emergency life support. He cannibalized the Ghost's secondary sensor array. Akari issued a string of clipped, formal protests. He ignored them.
Kaito found him on the third day. Haruto was meticulously winding a magnetic coil around a small, dense cylinder. His hands were steady. The tremor was gone.
"What is it?" Kaito asked.
Haruto didn't look up. "A surprise," he muttered. He picked up a micro-welder. A tiny flame hissed. "The Duke has armor. He has numbers. We need something that negates both."
He worked for another hour. Kaito just watched. Haruto stopped once to arch his back, a pained grunt escaping his lips, then immediately bent back to his work.
Finally, Haruto straightened up. He held the finished device. It was a small, ugly grenade, heavy for its size.
"EMP," Haruto said. "Non-lethal. To electronics. It will fry their comms. It will short out any powered armor within fifty meters. It will give us a window."
He set the grenade down. It was the first of a dozen. A promise.
"Make me thirty more," he said to Kaito. It was an order. For the first time in days, Kaito saw the officer in his eyes again. The one who knew how to win.