A/N: Sorry this chapter took so long to post but, hey, it's 10,000 words.

Sooyoung stretched her long legs before she stood up and then moved on to crack her neck, her back and the knuckles on both hands.

They hadn’t been in the air all that long (and Sooyoung hated the phrase “in the air” since it was scientifically inaccurate) but they’d had to circumvent an undocumented asteroid belt and that had taken longer than expected. Now that they were more-or-less in the clear, and now that it was a straight shot to Jaesan, Sooyoung figured she could take a little breather.

She peered down at Solji and a smug smile tugged at the corners of her lips. Solji was frowning as she stared down at her tablet. It was the one in the pink case, her personal tablet, the one that she used to communicate with the crew about things that didn’t pertain to work. Presently, she was reading through a series of rambling text messages.

The first set was from Elly. In it, the young captain was emotional, ranting sloppily about Hyuna in ways that Sooyoung suspected were meant to be subtle.

They were not.

The second was from Yuri, some less-than-appropriate questions about Yoona that might’ve made Solji laugh if she wasn’t currently spread so thin and grinding her teeth.

The third was from Hyerin, asking if Solji had noticed the way Solar and Moonbyul had been spending so much time together down in the engine room. If they were just working on the engine, why did they keep turning off their comm-system?

“Having fun?” Sooyoung asked, grinning.

Solji glared up at her, tried to think of something witty to say back, but eventually just grunted. No one onboard ever spent as much time with Sooyoung as Solji and, as such, they’d developed a very different understanding of her. The rest of the Unity crew saw Sooyoung as someone intelligent and calculated, someone awkward who excelled in the sciences but struggled with social interactions.

They weren’t entirely wrong but that still wasn’t the Sooyoung that Solji had always known. In the cockpit (and in the kitchen when they’d have breakfast together, or when the crew had a day off and they went exploring shops together), Sooyoung was comfortable and quick-witted. She had a sarcastic side that only Solji seemed to know about and she had a tendency to deadpan. She was brave, resourceful, well-read, an all-around excellent person with whom Solji had always felt privileged to share a ship.

She knew that the little Pandora-crushing incident on Cheoeum had shaken Sooyoung’s already precarious confidence but even in her infinite captain’s wisdom, Solji didn’t know how to help her get over that.

“Dyke drama,” she said, locking her tablet and shoving it away. “I swear, I’m a magnet. It even follows me into space.”

Sooyoung snorted and headed for the fridge they kept in the back of the room. More often than not, during flights, Yoona or Hyerin would check in on them to see if they wanted anything to eat or drink. But for those times when they didn’t want to bother their friends, they had their own stash.

“I seem to remember someone causing her own share of dyke drama back in flight school,” Sooyoung sang arrogantly as she reached for a bottle of water. There was a box of LifeForce on the counter and from it, she pulled a pouch of orange-mango. Solji gasped in offense and Sooyoung laughed, ripping open the packet and pouring the bright powder into her bottle.

“First of all,” Solji said dramatically, “how dare you?”

“I also seem to remember,” Sooyoung went on, fastening the plastic cap so that she could shake up her drink, “a young girl named Tiffany Hwang who was just so in love with this redheaded heartbreaker called Heo Solji.” Solji rolled her eyes, not enjoying this stroll down memory lane half as much as Sooyoung was. Undeterred, Sooyoung sat down and continued, “But this Heo Solji just could not be contained to one woman and so she played the fields.”

“You’re ridiculous, you know that?”

“And then,” Sooyoung continued loudly, “there was this beautiful, brainy scientist named Choi Sooyoung who happened to share a room with this hot mess redhead who thought she was some kind of playboy. Sometimes Sooyoung would have to sit and do her homework in the hallway because Solji was busy with one, sometimes two girls. Other times, when Solji was out, this beautiful Sooyoung would have to console a distraught Tiffany Hwang, even though that was so not her responsibility.”

Sooyoung paused to take a sip of her drink and Solji stared through her, face completely blank.

“Are you finished?” she asked lifelessly.

Sooyoung smirked.

“Just about, yes.”

“I’m not saying I was perfect,” Solji said, turning her attention to one of the screens on the dashboard. “I was young and and made bad decisions, sure. But I grew out of it.”

Sooyoung snorted.

“Sure,” she said. “When you met Hyerin, yes, you grew out of it. But these girls haven’t yet. They’re young and , too. And, evidently, not nearly as smart as we were back then.”

“At least I never brought my personal life onto the ship,” Solji said.

Sooyoung glared at her, amused.

“You mean other than that time you married our onboard doctor?”

She cocked an eyebrow as she awaited Solji’s retort but after a beat, all that came was the redhead’s defeated scoff.

“Aigoo! You certainly have a lot to say today, Ms. Choi!” Solji’s tone, flustered and slightly offended, had Sooyoung bursting into belly laughter, something that was somewhat of a rarity inside the Unity’s cockpit. “How about you make yourself useful and check the landing conditions on Jaesan instead of busting my balls?”

“Aye-aye, Captain,” said Sooyoung once she’d caught her breath. She noodled around with the touch-panel in front of her and while she waited for the weather report to load, she looked backed to Solji. “All joking aside, though, good luck today. You, Hyoyeon, Hyuna and Elly all inside one rover?” She whistled, worried on Solji’s behalf. “That’s going to be rough.”

“Nothing I can’t handle,” Solji said, thinking of Hyerin’s gracious offer to sneak her some Xanax before she left. “Elly and Hyuna are both professionals. They’ll keep their together.”

“And Hyoyeon?” Sooyoung asked.

Solji chewed the inside of her cheek.

“Hyoyeon is a wildcard,” she admitted, “but she listens to Hyuna. It’ll be fine.” Sooyoung didn’t look convinced so Solji put on her best serious, professional face and said once more, “Really. It’ll be fine.”

Sooyoung nodded, conceding but only because some of the hardware on her side of the ship needed calibrating and she wanted to do it before they landed. Besides, if Solji was confident, so was Sooyoung. She didn’t think that Hyoyeon or Hyuna would do anything to outright sabotage their efforts to find Jiyong but she did think that the tension between them and Elly would be enough to give Solji a migraine.

But, heck, sometimes that was just the life of a captain.

Down in the kitchen, Elly was living that same lesson.

She was trying not to regret her decision to tell Solji and the Unity about Hyuna, trying to remember that her personal pain was wholly unimportant in the grand scheme of things and that this was all for the greater good. But it was hard.

She’d woken with a knot in her stomach, just like she had the last three days in a row, and was forcing herself to eat breakfast in spite of it. It was going to be a long day and she needed her strength even if her heart was squeezing the life out of her appetite. Yoona seemed to notice this and take pity, asking Elly as soon as she entered the dining room what her favorite breakfast was so that she could make it fresh.

Elly liked Yoona. She could see why Yuri was so into her.

Now she was staring down at a plate of French toast, drawing circles in the syrup and wishing she felt good enough inside to enjoy it.

Today was going to .

On a ship as big as the Unity, she could spend the whole day hiding from Hyuna. In fact, so far, she’d been doing just that. But inside of a rover? Traveling together as a unit down the streets of Jaesan? There was no way for Elly to avoid the inevitable, pulverizing pain that was about to come her way and no amount of delicious breakfast food could save her now.

But sometimes, that was just the life of a captain.

Moonbyul entered the kitchen just as Elly was finishing her orange juice. From her usual seat, Yoona asked Moonbyul what she wanted for breakfast and Moonbyul just flashed her a charming smile and said that she’d take whatever was already on the stove.

Moonbyul took the seat across from Elly and smiled a smaller, more reserved smile before asking, “How’d you sleep?” It was a rhetorical question since Moonbyul already knew the answer but it beat sitting in silence. Since she knew Elly wasn’t going to answer, she added, “How’s the French toast?”

“Excellent,” Elly said and then pushed her plate at Moonbyul. “You have it.”

“You going to be okay today?” Moonbyul asked, accepting Elly’s fork.

“I won’t know ‘til I’m in that rover,” Elly said, smiling weakly. “How’s your new friend Solar?”

Moonbyul grinner, her cheeks growing pink as she poked at the bread on her new plate.

“I’m in love,” she said dreamily and Elly rolled her eyes, grinning genuinely for the first time in a month.

“You fall in love twice a week,” Elly pointed out but Moonbyul just waved her off.

“This is different,” she insisted. “This is real.”

“Whatever you say, Byul,” Elly said, smirking. “Whatever you say.”

And it was true that Moonbyul felt differently about Solar than she ever had about anyone else. It was sudden and confusing and exciting and intense but now wasn’t the time to talk about it and Elly wasn’t the person to hear it. Once things calmed down, maybe she’d bring it up to Sunny and see what the older girl thought of her situation.

But just as quickly and as easily as their light-hearted moment had come, it was gone and Moonbyul could feel her chest tightening at how nervous Elly looked. All that pain and worry? It didn’t suit her. Moonbyul missed the way things had been before, missed Elly’s laugh and the confidence that sometimes bordered on arrogance. That had looked a hell of a lot better on her.

“What’s on your mind?” Moonbyul asked, leaning forward to rest her arms on the table. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

Elly frowned, pensive. She didn’t want to share what she’d been thinking about all morning but she figured that had to hurt less than keeping it all to herself.

“Why is Hyuna okay?” she asked quietly. “Why is she fine? How is she fine? We were together two years, Byul. We loved each other. We really, really loved each other. And it all fell to and we went our separate ways and maybe we moved on but how can she just walk back in here and feel nothing?” She shook her head and reached for the napkin Yoona had given her, wishing it was paper instead of cloth so that she could rip it into pieces. “Seeing her is tearing me up inside and she isn’t even batting an eye.” She swallowed hard and shrugged her shoulders. “Why does she get to be fine when I’m not?”

Moonbyul wanted to comment that Hyuna was someone who was dark and twisted and not entirely human and, as such, didn’t have normal emotions but she knew taking potshots wouldn’t do Elly any good. Instead, she said something much more realistic.

“You don’t know how Hyuna is feeling inside,” she said calmly. “You don’t know what she’s feeling. Hyuna has always been someone who took pride in her professionalism, in her stoicism. This is a very big deal to her, to Hyoyeon, to our crews and to the universe. She was always very, very good at burying her feelings, unnie. You know that.” She paused and reached across the table to touch the top of Elly’s hand. “You just make it through today and we’ll take it from there, okay?”

Biting her lip and trying to will away the lump forming in , Elly nodded.

“Thanks, Byul,” she said. “If you marry Solar, I’ll make sure you mention this heartfelt moment in my maid-of-honor speech.”

Moonbyul snorted, letting go of Elly’s hand so that she could pick up the fork.

“If,” she repeated teasingly. “Like there’s any doubt that that girl will be mine.”

Hyuna, Hyoyeon, Solji and Elly climbed into the rover without saying much of anything at all.

They’d docked on Jaesan without any issue and Solji had distributed orders to the rest of the crew so that everyone had something productive to do while the captains were away.

Then she’d handed the keys to the rover to Hyuna.

The ease with which she’d handed control over to Hyuna spoke to both the level of Solji’s trust and the degree of ignorance and desperation – Solji didn’t know  about Jaesan and she didn’t have a choice but to rely on Hyuna’s know-how to somehow get them to Seunghyun.

The Unity’s rover seated four, and the seating that followed was almost inevitable – Hyuna and Hyoyeon took the front and Elly and Solji sat in the back, nobody saying a word as Hyuna started the engine and confidently steered them onto a main road leading away from the docking port.

The rover, a two-year-old, forest green piece of equipment that Hyerin had affectionately dubbed the Mantis, was a Class-C rover, meaning it was closed off and covered like a car rather than open and exposed to the elements like a motorcycle or ATV. Class-C rovers were permitted on main roads and state highways in the Cosmos but Solji had no idea about the traffic laws of the Jesamgi system.

Was it legal to drive the Mantis on a public road like this? Solji had no idea. And if there was some law forbidding it, Hyuna either didn’t know or didn’t care.

Somehow, Solji suspected the latter.

And, fittingly, Solji didn’t care. Hyuna and Hyoyeon made their living walking the fine line between rebellious and incarcerated. If they were confident that they could charm their way out of a traffic ticket, so was Solji.

There were much bigger fish to fry anyway.

“So, Hyuna,” Solji said after they’d traveled five miles in silence. “Who exactly is it that we’re meeting?”

Solji didn’t know much about Jaesan or Hyuna’s plans once they were inside the city limits but she knew that they weren’t going directly to Seunghyun. There was someone that Hyuna knew, some fancy Jaesan connection, that would help get their feet in the door.

“His name is Lee Jinki,” Hyuna said casually, her eyes not leaving the road. “We go way back.”

Solji saw the way Elly flinched when Hyuna spoke. It was subtle, a slight baulk that Solji assumed was purely a reflex, a physical response to the emotional turmoil the young captain was facing, but she forced herself to ignore it for the good of the day’s objectives.

“How did you meet this Jinki character?” Solji asked. She didn’t actually care but the tense, awkward silence was making her teeth itch. Better to fumble her way through mindless small talk than give herself a worse headache.

“Through a young man named Tao,” Hyuna replied, sounding almost proud, and Elly made a face.

She remembered Tao. She’d only met him a handful of times but he was a difficult man to forget. He had a unique look to him, his dark skin contrasting with his platinum blonde hair, his youthful face hardened with something deeply complex. When he smiled, he looked like an innocent college student. When he frowned (and frankly, that was just his resting face), he looked deadly.

And that was appropriate, Elly figured, because he was just that.

Hyuna had always referred to him simply as her ‘weapons guy.’

When the Juggernaut girls needed new firepower, they called Tao. Somehow (and Elly had never asked about this), he was able to get his hands on any weapon in the universe. If you needed anything from face-melting plasma to black market nitrogen-blasters to good old-fashioned bullets, Tao was your man. If you could dream it up, Huang Zitao could find it.

And that, Elly had learned very quickly, was an incredibly useful resource, especially for two aggressive space bandits like Hyuna and Hyoyeon who sometimes acted without thinking.

“So that’s who we’re going to meet?” Solji asked. “Jinki?” Hyuna nodded. “And where are we meeting him?”

“Someplace inconspicuous,” she said, glancing in the mirror to look back at Solji. “When it comes to doing business in Jaesan, it’s better to play it safe.”

“Meaning what exactly?”

Hyuna considered her words carefully and then said, “Meaning it’s better to assume that all walls have eyes and, in some cases, ears.”

“You never know who might be listening,” Hyoyeon expanded. She was staring out the window and, following her lead, Solji turned to peer out the tinted glass. But there wasn’t much to see. Jaesan boasted nothing drastically different or noticeable, nothing like the golden skies like on Geum Haneul or the purple seas of Misul. If anything, Solji thought it looked like a sandy, slightly dilapidated version of earth.

At present, they were riding down what looked like a main road with businesses, restaurants and the occasional apartment building bordering both sides of the street. There was a decent amount of graffiti covering parked trucks and brick walls but for the most part, Solji thought that Jaesan resembled any other inner-city. She wasn’t entirely sure what she’d been expecting (before this trip, her entire knowledge of Jaesan was limited to two facts – it was smaller than any planet in the Cosmos system and its main export was silver) but this wasn’t it.

Out the windshield, Solji spotted a pothole that would’ve been big enough to cause hindrance had it not been for the Mantis’ newly-upgraded traction system. (Hyerin had mentioned something about under-funded and poorly-maintained Jesamgi infrastructure once but, as she had been getting undressed at the time, Solji hadn’t really been listening.) The original rover salesman, a fast-talking man named Leeteuk, had given Solji his card, saying to call him anytime she wanted something upgraded and so far, she’d made that call twice – once to upgrade the Mantis’ weapons system and once to level-up the tires.

After the installation had been completed, Leeteuk had assured her that this particular upgrade would enable the Mantis to drive on virtually any surface and, so far, that had been true. The Mantis had yet to encounter a terrain it couldn’t handle and, with a state-of-the-art navigation system, a fourteen-day supply of rations and two top-of-the-line plasma blasters mounted on the roof, Solji didn’t think very much could stop it.

And that was good because she had a feeling that there was still a lot standing between them and a comfortable resolution to all of this.

Another few minutes passed and Solji felt the Mantis begin to slow. Smoothly, Hyuna pulled off the road and into the parking lot of a rundown-looking shopping plaza. The land featured a laundromat, a bakery, a children’s clothing store, an investment bank and a mini-mart. Hyuna parked the Mantis in an empty spot outside of the bakery and then pointed to the far side of the lot.

“That way,” she said, answering Solji’s question before she could ask it.

No one said anything as they exited the Mantis and the natural separation continued with Hyuna and Hyoyeon leading the way while Elly and Solji stayed a few steps behind. There weren’t many people around – an elderly couple coming out of the bakery, a middle-aged man entering the bank and a mother pushing a stroller into the children’s boutique. Either it was a slow day for capitalism or this plaza wasn’t especially popular.

The Speedy Mart convenience store was the last business on this end of the mall and as they turned the corner, Solji made note of the green-and-gold paint splattered on the cracked brick wall. She wasn’t sure who the Rattlers were but she assumed they were a graffiti gang and this was their turf.

Behind the mini-mall was a railroad track blocked only by a sagging chain-link fence, another example of poorly-kept infrastructure. But leaning against that useless enclosure was a slender man in dirty jeans and a maroon t-shirt. As he was caught up in a handheld videogame (Solji recognized it as a Dream-Pro 4, the same model that she always caught Yuri playing in the observation deck) but as they approached, he seemed to remember his purpose, stiffening as he shoved the game into the pockets of his pants.

“Hyuna,” he greeted, bowing once she was close. “Long time no see.”

“Jinki,” she said coolly. She looked him up and down, appearing neither impressed nor surprised with what she saw. “Staying out of trouble?”

He had narrow eyes and a wide nose, with messy dark hair and a bright smile made him seem younger than he probably was. Like Jaesan, Jinki wasn’t at all what Solji was expecting, but Solji still wasn’t sure how this could be since she hadn’t pictured anything specific in either case.

“Not really,” he said with a smirk. “Hi, Hyoyeon.” The blonde merely nodded in response, evidently not as friendly with Jinki as Hyuna was. The young man folded his arms over his chest and nodded to Solji and Elly, his eyes full of questions. “And who are these fine ladies?”

“Captains Heo Solji and Ahn Elly,” she said, “of the Unity and the Pandora respectively.”

Jinki’s smug smile transformed into a grin of curiosity and enlightenment as he began to say, “Elly? You mean the Elly? The one that you–?” Hyoyeon growled and took a menacing step forward, and that was enough for Jinki to get the hint and stop talking. He backed up further against the fence and cleared his throat. “Nice to meet you girls.”

Elly’s face burned red and she couldn’t decide if this flush had come from the rage and the embarrassment of Jinki knowing about their past, or the painful reminder of what she and Hyuna used to be. Whatever the reason for her blushing cheeks, she hated herself for it.

“Yeah, same to you,” Solji muttered, her tone empty.

“What exactly can I help you with?” Jinki asked finally, his eyes returning to Hyuna.

“Remember that time Hyoyeon and I saved you and your boys from getting vaporized on Tujaeng?” Hyuna asked, grinning as she leaned forward ran her fingers through her hair. “Well, my friend, today’s the day that we finally cash in on that favor.”

Jinki seemed intrigued, his eyes widening and his jaw clenching as he stretched his neck and shoved his hands into his pockets.

“Alright,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

“We need to speak with Seunghyun,” she said and then Solji watched the color drain from Jinki’s face.

He swallowed hard and then said, stammering and speaking way too quickly, “I-I don’t know why you’d think t-that I would even know that. I have no idea where Seunghyun is. He’s probably not in Jaesan anymore. Last I h-heard, he was–”

“Save it,” Hyuna said, raising a hand to shut him up. “I know he’s here, Jinki. We traced his emails to Jaesan and we know all his buddies live here. And I know that you know where he spends his time. Jinki, it’s kind of, sort of catastrophically crucial that we speak to him as soon as possible.”

“It’s not that simple,” Jinki said after a beat, his voice hushed like he was suddenly worried that the yellow grass and rusted train tracks could hear his every word. “Seunghyun has a lot going on right now and even if I did know where he was–”

“You do,” Hyoyeon interjected.

“-even if I did,” he maintained stubbornly, “there is no guarantee that I could even get you inside, let alone get Seunghyun to talk to you.”

Hyuna smiled a very unique, very specific smile and it was something Elly knew very well – pure arrogance. It was in Hyuna’s nature to confident but sometimes she took it to a little too far and talked a much bigger game than she’d actually be able to ever deliver.

And that smirk had always elicited complicated feelings inside of Elly. Her temples ached with annoyed anticipation as she tried to imagine what could come next. Her stomach twisted in remembrance of all the times that cocky attitude had gotten to them into trouble. And then, just a little lower, there was something that felt an awful lot like heat and that made Elly hate herself even more than she did that morning.

“You leave that part to me,” Hyuna said, that mean smirk still pulling at the corners of her lips. “I just need you to get us there and let Seunghyun know that we’re not a threat.”

Jinki cocked an eyebrow and said, “Aren’t you?”

Hyuna laughed.

“Not this time,” she said. “It’s his lucky day.”

“We’re here to help him,” Elly said, startling everyone. It was the first time she’d spoken since getting into the rover and although her voice was shaky, her body language was strong and steady. “We know a lot of Seunghyun doesn’t and it’s important to him, to Jiyong and to everyone in both of our systems that we collaborate before hits the fan.” She moved her eyes from Jinki, glancing briefly at Hyuna before finally settling on Solji. “Things could get seriously ed up if we don’t let him know what’s coming.”

“You think that the Cosmos System is a mess now?” Hyuna asked rhetorically, effortlessly picking up exactly where Elly had left off. For a split second, it felt like old times. If Elly closed her eyes, if she just listened to Hyuna’s voice and focused on the pounding of her heart, she may have been able to pretend that it was two years before and they were working a mission together. She swallowed the lump in and forced back the rush of adrenaline and warmth that seemed to anchor her to the ground. “Trust me, Jinki,” she continued coolly. “It can get a whole lot worse.”

Jinki sighed and dropped his head, clearly defeated. He ran a hand through his messy hair and then peered up at Hyuna, his dark eyes almost apathetic.

“Alright, alright, fine,” he conceded. “Save it for Seunghyun. The man is a er for a good speech. I’ll take you to his club.”

It was Hyuna’s turn to be confused.

“His club?”

“I’ll explain on the way,” he said and grunted as he pushed himself off of the fence. “You have a rover, I assume?”

“Yeah but it only seats four,” Elly said. “It’ll be tight.”

Hyoyeon made a noise that fell somewhere between a snort and a scoff and then took it upon herself to break away from the group and head back towards the parking lot on her own.

“Maybe you can sit on Hyuna’s lap,” she quipped, a scurrilous remark that left Elly recoiling like she’d been slapped.

Solji had the strong and sudden urge to reach forward and grab Hyoyeon by the hair, yanking her back and forcing her to apologize, but the blonde was already too far ahead, her hips swaying victoriously as she headed towards the Mantis without another word.

The Black Pearl looked just like any other grungy music club in the universe but Hyuna knew better.

An unsuspecting hideout was one of the first things every law-breaking super-group needed. And Seunghyun’s crew had certainly taken that to heart. The Black Pearl was nothing you’d look at twice, brick-faced with peeling paint and an ugly neon sign with four letters completely burnt out. It was set back on a large parking lot, most of the blacktop cracked and eroded. The grass around the club was rotten and riddled with weeds, and one of the front windows had been shattered and patched up with wooden planks.

“It’s cozy,” Hyuna murmured as she pulled into the lot.

“Not exactly the word I’d use,” Hyoyeon remarked. Following a heated discussion outside of the Mantis that Elly and Solji hadn’t been able to hear, it ended up being Hyoyeon sitting on someone’s lap – Jinki’s, in fact. They shared the passenger’s seat while Hyuna drove, taking careful directions from Jinki who seemed to be one speed bump away from unraveling.

“Just let me go in first,” he said, already sweating. “If Seunghyun and his guys think that something is up, anything at all–” He trailed off and shook his head, visibly troubled by the idea. But Hyoyeon just snorted.

“Why are you so afraid of these guys?” she asked. “They’re activists. Hippies. Isn’t their entire existence based on peace and love and unity?”

Although she couldn’t see his face the way she was sitting, Jinki glared at her.

“They’re activists but they’re thugs,” he said. “This isn’t Woodstock, Hyoyeon. This is deep ing space and these guys really don’t like it when people try to bust up their .” He shook his head again and ran his fingers through his hair. “Seunghyun has been more than a little edgy ever since Jiyong got picked up and put away. He’s paranoid.”

“But Jiyong is out now,” Solji said from the backseat. “We’re supposed to assume that Seunghyun had nothing to do with that?”

Jinki peeked over his shoulder, looking at Solji like she was a grade-A moron.

“What, you don’t think helping break your best buddy out of Cosmos super-max prison is a good enough reason to be paranoid?”

“Fair enough,” she mumbled, tired. She had no interesting in sparring with this guy.

Jinki took a deep breath and then patted Hyoyeon’s thigh.

“Alright, cupcake, let me up before I lose my nerve.”

Solji thought Hyoyeon might react explosively to that but instead, the blonde just laughed, awkwardly shifting so that Jinki could slip out from underneath her and wiggle himself out the door of the Mantis.

The four women watched silently as Jinki adjusted his clothes, hair and posture before taking a deep breath and heading to the front door of The Black Pearl.

As soon as he was inside, Hyoyeon pulled a tablet from inside of her jacket and began typing.

“Checking for a security system?” Hyuna asked, her tone almost playful.

Like everything else, this was just a game to them.

“And shutting it down if I find one,” she said. She peered back at Solji and Elly for half a second before devoting all of her attention to the screen. “We don’t have time to wait for Jinki to butter them up.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning we’re just going in the old fashioned way,” Hyuna said.

“No security system,” she said. “At least not a kind that I can hack into.” She looked up at Hyuna. “They probably have guards posted. Snipers, maybe. People can be more reliable than software sometimes.”

“Snipers?” Solji repeated in disbelief.

“They probably just have shock-darts,” Hyuna said. “Not bullets.”

Solji’s expression was purely incredulous.

“Probably?”

“Worth the risk,” Hyoyeon and Hyuna agreed in unison.

Solji narrowed her eyes, the utter disbelief she was feeling manifesting itself as cold apathy.

“Is it, though?” she asked wildly.

But Hyoyeon and Hyuna were already clamoring out of the Mantis and gesturing for Elly and Solji to follow behind.

Elly shook her head, having seen all of that coming, and unbuckled her seatbelt.

Solji’s eyes went wide.

“You can’t possibly be going with them,” she gaped and Elly merely shrugged.

“Eventually,” she said with a sigh, “you get used to this.”

Solji made a frustrated noise, waited until Elly was a good fifteen feet away, and then reluctantly clamored out of the rover and jogged to catch up to her.

“I don’t want to get used to this,” she said, huffing a little. “This is insane.”

Ahead of them, Hyoyeon had already thrown open the front door and was holding it open for Hyuna. A second later, she was gesturing impatiently for Elly and Solji to catch up and get inside.

“Maybe,” Elly said quietly, picking up the pace. In her head, she thought, “But they get done.”

She just didn’t have guts to say it out loud.

Instead, she slipped inside the club just as Hyoyeon let go of the door and tried to keep her distance.

Since Hyuna had been the first inside, she was the one that got the best look around.

It was a small club, nothing fancy or spectacular. It seemed like they were standing in some sort of lobby and the room branched off three ways. A staircase in the center of the room led up to what Hyuna assumed was an office. A closed door to the left, red and nondescript, blocked anything substantial from view and so Hyuna didn’t bother to guess what it was, but to the right sat an empty doorway that left a lot to be seen and subsequently studied.

It was wide, probably home to double doors at some point, but they’d since been ripped away to reveal a big, open room with dated furniture and a poorly stocked bar. There was no discernible theme, no apparent color scheme or style of decoration. In fact, it all seemed thrown together haphazardly, décor that favored functionality over aesthetics.

The walls were a mess, cracked and littered with what looked like bullet holes. There were messy patches of spackle spaced out in sloppy intervals that nobody had bothered to sand or paint over. The bar stools were crooked, all of them with one short or broken leg that caused them to lean dramatically to one side. The upholstery on the stools was a tacky, bright red and each one, without fail, was ripped in some way, white stuffing spilling out of the cuts and cracks like billowing smoke.

There were frames on two of the walls, some pictures and some documents, but Hyuna wasn’t close enough to make out any of the specifics. She wondered idly if they were genuine mementos (was Seunghyun the nostalgic type?) or if they were just there to cover up the wounds that spackle wouldn’t hide.

What she could see, though, was a white board, the kind that they used in schools and business meetings before technology took over the ‘verse.

It was covered with a sheet, a very cheap and rudimentary security measure, but Hyuna could see three dry erase markers – green, purple and red – resting in the metal tray.

Across from the bar were two coffee tables and a faded navy couch. The tables were covered in what Hyuna recognized as planning supplies – folders, tablets, maps, blueprint, memory chips, energy drinks and takeout containers.

Seunghyun and his men were plotting something.

Hyuna took a step forward, just barely aware of the fact that Hyoyeon, Elly and Solji had joined her in the lobby, and that was when she heard the all-too-familiar sound of a blaster powering up. She’d just placed the high-pitched whine of plasma heating when she felt the barrel jam against her temple.

“Another step and the next stain on that wall will be your ing brain matter.”

Hyuna swallowed.

She’d gotten so caught up in looking around that she hadn’t noticed the man – the goon – hiding in plain sight near the stairs.

Rookie mistake.

“Hey,” she said calmly, making sure that her hands were visibly empty at her sides. “Just take it easy.”

Her fingers actually itched with the desire to disarm him, to have him on the ground with his own gun pointed in his face, but she refrained. It would be simple enough to take his weapon, to turn the tables and have him begging for mercy, but if she’d missed him, what else didn’t she see?

Or, worse and much more likely, who?

His buddies probably weren’t far and if Hyuna was going to die at the hand of some wannabe thug with a black market plasma blaster, she’d prefer to do it off of Jaesan.

This planet  and she deserved to die somewhere much nicer.

“Hey!” called the man whose face Hyuna still hadn’t seen. “We’ve got four more here!”

“Four?” A man’s voice, deep and loud, was coming from the open room. He sighed dramatically and then said, “. Alright. Bring them in here.”

Hyuna finally risked a glance back to the man with the gun to her head. He was average, nothing much to look at with wide eyes and shaggy brown hair, and as she was sizing him up, he pulled another blaster from the back of his pants.

Predictably, he pointed it at the other three girls and nodded his chin at the open room.

“You heard him,” he barked gruffly.

Hyuna sighed, gave a brief nod to Hyoyeon who looked ready to pounce and reluctantly led the group into the next room, her hands raised in a lifeless display of cooperation.

Hyuna hadn’t been able to see the front corner of this room from the lobby and that, evidently, was where all the people were.

There were four men altogether, including Jinki – a blonde and a brunette, both toting blasters and twin black t-shirts, and a tall, muscular redhead with big ears.

The redhead was holding Jinki against the wall – a foot off the ground – by this throat.

“!” Hyuna said hastily, a reflex. “Put him down! Don’t kill him. Aren’t you people supposed to be pacifists?”

The redhead turned to look over his shoulder at them, an eyebrow cocked and his lips twisted into something that almost looked like a smile.

“You people?” he asked, offended.

“Activists,” said Hyuna.

After a beat, the redhead released his grip on Jinki and the smaller man fell to the ground with a dull thud.

“And how do you know we’re activists?” he asked over the sound of Jinki coughing on the floor. Subtly, he signaled for the blonde and the brunette to lower their weapons and they did, tucking them securely into the back of their pants the same way Staircase Guy had.

“We know a lot of things,” said Hyuna. She wondered for a second if anyone else had wanted to speak, if Hyoyeon had wanted to interject or if Elly wanted to let out her frustrations by dueling with a thug, or if Solji was a better wheeler-and-dealer than her sweet face suggested. But Hyuna, always a confident public speaker, just went with it. “We’ve been doing our homework.”

The redhead smirked arrogantly. He was smug, sure that the four petite women before him couldn’t possibly have any sort of edge on his squad. Anything they thought they knew had to be inaccurate, maybe even false information that he and the guys had planted themselves to throw nosy girls like them off the trail.

He was underestimating them and Hyuna had learned many, many years ago to use the ignorance of egotistical men against them.

“We know what this place is,” she said casually, lowering her hands now that she was confident nobody was going to shoot her. “We know what you’re all about, how you’re trying to protect the Berm from violent extremists and keep the peace. We even know about the– What did they call it again, Elly?”

Hyuna was only doing this for dramatic effect and Elly knew that – expected it, even – but hearing her name from Hyuna’s lips for the first time in two years hit her like a shock dart to the chest.

“The Bermhole,” Elly said after the initial agony had passed. She knew how Hyuna worked, understood the games that Hyuna played, and so, for the sake of the mission, she needed to step up and play along. “The wormhole leading to the Berm’s home ‘verse that no one is supposed to know about.”

The redhead’s face paled and little and Hyuna fought back a smile.

On the floor, Jinki had stopped choking and was now listening intently, his gaze moving between the redhead and Hyuna like he was watching a tennis match. 

“We know that you guys found it. And we know about Seunghyun. Or, as you guys probably call him, TOP.”

“Lame nickname, by the way,” said Hyoyeon, the only person Hyuna knew who would dare to be sarcastic and condescending with a blaster fixed on her chest.

“We know Seunghyun and Jiyong were tight and that you guys broke Jiyong out of super-max and that you stashed him somewhere. We know a whole lot about you boys and even more about your boss.”

Hyuna smiled and in spite of the ice storm raging in her stomach, Elly almost did, too.

Hyuna was bluffing. No one from the Unity, Pandora or the Juggernaut had found any sort of concrete connection between Seunghyun’s group and Jiyong’s escape from Keun Gamog, nor had they found anything out about any of the men currently in the room. Hyuna was an excellent liar and she had one hell of a poker face. She could sell any story and from the looks on the faces of the three men before them, this was no exception. 

She was taking a risk and it was paying off.

Taking another long, deep breath, Hyuna eventually added, “But there’s a whole ton of stuff that you and Seunghyun don’t know and that’s why we’re here.” She raised her eyebrows and smiled innocently, laying on the charm the way she always did after a big speech. “We’re here to help. For the sake of the Berm and the sake of the ‘verse.”

The redhead his lips, his hands opening and closing into loose, anxious fists at his sides. Behind him, the blonde and the brunette were sharing an intense glare like they were trying to reach each other’s minds. Staircase Guy was squinting like he was trying to decide whether or not to lower his gun. Jinki was still on the floor, rubbing at the sore spot on the front of his throat.

A moment passed and then the blonde spoke.

“You were supposed to be on watch and five people got in here,” he said, his tone light as though he were making a joke. “Seunghyun is going to have your balls, Chanyeol.”

The redhead, apparently Chanyeol, scowled and opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by a voice from the doorway.

“I don’t want his balls. I have my own. They’re much bigger and made of steel.”

In perfect synchronization, everyone turned to seek out the source.

Hyuna immediately recognized him from the photos.

This was Choi ‘TOP’ Seunghyun, hacktivist mastermind, in all his glory and the man was wearing a denim jacket. He wasted no time in joining the group and as he got closer, Hyuna tried to soak in as much as he could.

He was tall, dark and handsome, something Hyuna had already been anticipating from the pictures she’d seen of him. His dark hair was cropped short and styled neatly. Thick-framed, black glasses made his high cheekbones even more defined and his eyebrows were more precise than Hyuna’s.

There was something about him, something imposing but not exactly intimidating, that felt magnetic. His presence was felt rather than seen and Hyuna acknowledged immediately that she was not dealing with some low-level Berm supporter and an unregistered plasma canon.

Seunghyun was an equal.

As much as it hurt her pride to admit it, he may have even been a superior.

Because of this, she knew she’d have to play her cards right. With a player of this caliber, she couldn’t around. She needed to pull out the big guns.

“Sorry to impose,” she asked, volunteering to break the silence in an attempt to gain a slight upper hand. “We had information that we thought you really needed and we just couldn’t afford to waste time going through the proper channels.”

Her smile was bright, charming, only a degree or two away from being genuine. She couldn’t be sure whether or not she was Seunghyun’s type but her looks were too strong a weapon to keep holstered. She’d throw her hair, her lips and her shirt if she thought it would help.

At the very least, she was hoping that he found her cute enough to accept her winning smile as some gesture of peace.

He took another step forward, his full lips turning into a soft smile of his own, and reached out to slap Staircase Guy in the back of the head.

“Kyuhyun,” he said roughly. “Please lower your weapon. Is that any way to treat a lady?” Staircase Guy – Kyuhyun – looked sheepish and offended but did as he was told, lowering both of his blasters before tucking them away. “This,” said Seunghyun, “is why you don’t have a girlfriend.”

At that, the blonde and the brunette both snorted, and Seunghyun looked charmed that someone had laughed. He cleared his throat and took another step forward, offering his hand to Hyuna.

“Sorry for my boys,” he said. “They can get a little touchy.” He looked Hyuna up and down and then said, “What’s your name, beautiful?”

A wave of pure acid rose up in Elly’s throat and she swallowed it, trying not to grimace at the way it burned her up inside. It had been two long years since Hyuna had been anything other than the rugged captain who broke her heart but she still didn’t want anyone – not even some bossed-up Berm-lover – calling her beautiful.

Maybe she was petty like that.

“Kim Hyuna,” she said, her tone fake and coquettish as she shook his hand without her usual iron grip. Better for him to underestimate her the way the rest of his squad had.

Something about this answer seemed to please him.

“You’re Korean?” he asked. Hyuna nodded and a puzzling grin spread across Seunghyun’s face.

What followed was a conversation in smooth, rapid Korean, thought Hyuna had barely noticed the language change. She was just as fluent in Korean as she was in English so what did it matter?

In fact, almost everyone else in the room seemed wholly unbothered by the switch, their heads bobbing with a comfortable, comprehensive understanding of the words being spoken.

And then there was Elly.

Yes, her parents were Korean. And yes, she’d even spent two years attending flight school in Seoul. But neither of those things changed the fact that Elly could barely speak the language. Her parents had never aggressively encouraged her to pursue it and the Jido Flight Academy? It had been the most prestigious flight school in the world, hosting students from the United States, China, France, Australia – everywhere. The primary language in every class had been English, meaning the only Korean that Elly had needed to learn was basic survival stuff.

She could introduce herself, ask directions to the nearest hospital, inquire about the price of a train ticket, and order a whiskey sour but beyond that, she was pretty much helpless.

It had been five years since Elly had spoken anything other than English and Seunghyun and Hyuna were speaking so quickly. Her eyes bounced from one to the other, occasionally picking up on a word here or there but mostly just struggling to make any kind of sense of what was going on.

“You say you have information we need?” Seunghyun asked, his arms folded neatly across his broad chest. “What type of information? And, more importantly, what makes you think we don’t already have it?”

“If you knew about any of this,” Hyuna countered seamlessly, “you wouldn’t just be sitting around.”

“What makes you think we’re just sitting around?”

“You’re planning something,” Hyuna said, gesturing to the board and the coffee tables, “I’ll give you that. But there’s a man on your trail, a man with great resources who’s capable of starting some serious , and if you knew the first thing about him, you’d quit planning and start acting.”

Seunghyun smirked.

“Please tell me, Kim Hyuna, how one acts without planning?”

Elly was completely lost, squinting as she scoured her brain for some hidden nuggets of knowledge and wishing that she hadn’t been so dense to the surrounding culture in flight school. She’d been so buried in tests and diagrams and labs. When exactly was she supposed to find time to learn conversational Korean? How could she ever have foreseen something like this?

Lucky for her, Solji was both observant and generous. She noticed the change in Elly’s body language, the way her head was cocked and her forehead creased, and stepped forward to assist. Solji, having been raised in Seoul by two Korean-American parents, had no trouble translating. She spoke quickly and quietly, adeptly paraphrasing the conversation and highlighting the important pieces that Elly was missing.

Not wanting to interrupt, Elly simply reached up and squeezed Solji’s shoulder, a silent gesture of gratitude.

But Hyuna was observant, too. She saw what was happening, the squinting and the translating, and suddenly remembered that Elly didn’t know the language. No sooner had the realization hit her than she raised her hand, cutting Seunghyun off mid-sentence.

“Speaking Korean drains my energy,” she lied. “Can we do this in English instead?”

Subtly, Seunghyun followed her eyes. After a beat, he conceded. His English was heavily-accented but otherwise perfect and if anything, his desire to speak Korean seemed based more out of a homesick nostalgia than anything else.

Hyuna guessed that he simply missed Korea.

“This man,” Seunghyun said, “the one with the great resources. Tell me about him.”

Elly seemed relieved by the switch back, her entire body relaxing visibly when Seunghyun began speaking English, but Solji couldn’t shake the bad taste in . In her eyes, there was something just slightly manipulative to Hyuna’s motives, something just a little weird about Hyuna deciding what Elly could comprehend and what she couldn’t.

But Solji was begging herself to stay out of Elly and Hyuna’s drama, pleading with her better judgment to let them hash it out without getting involved.

But that was harder than it seemed.

Hyuna thought of Kim Heechul and sighed heavily.

She was getting awfully tired of talking about this sadistic ginger but if it was for the good of the ‘verse…

“Mind if I sit?” she asked, motioning to one of the couches.

“Please do.”

As soon as she was seated, she launched into her spiel, starting with how she’d first come into contact with Kim Heechul six years ago and ending with the way he was using a crew of trackers to hunt Jiyong down and keep his own hands clean. The middle was filled with sordid details and horror stories as Hyuna tried to accurately portray Heechul’s character. She wanted Seunghyun to understand that Heechul wasn’t just your average wannabe supervillain.

Heechul was the type of guy who would knowingly and guiltlessly start a ‘verse-wide civil war to boost his status and pad his pockets.

She spoke of his connections, dropping names of infamous Cosmos higher-ups that Seunghyun was sure to recognize. She told tales of his malice, his spite, his greed and, most dangerous of all, his charm. She told them all about the depth of his pockets and the severity of his reach, pausing briefly to accept a bottle of water from the brunette and to let Hyoyeon interject with a story highlighting just how loyal the Cosmos government was to him.

If Heechul told them to jump, the Cosmos tended to as how high. Then they gave him a big cash bonus for his honesty.

“And this man is after Jiyong,” Hyuna said when she was sick of telling stories. “He will stop at nothing to find that wormhole, the Bermhole,whatever.”

For the first time since Hyuna began speaking about Heechul, Seunghyun softened.

“We don’t call it the Bermhole,” he said. He, too, had eventually chosen to sit, deciding on the coffee table furthest from the couch “We’ve always called it El Dorado.”

Hyuna didn’t question that and Hyoyeon didn’t bother making a snide remark. Instead, they just nodded, tired of this, tired of Heechul, tired of Jaesan.

“Heechul will literally do anything possible to get to it,” Hyuna continued. “And I mean anything. And if he succeeds–”

“And at this rate,” Hyoyeon interrupted, “he will.”

“–it’ll be catastrophic to everyone in the galaxy.”

It was silent for a while.

Seunghyun stared down at his hands, pensive. Chanyeol and Kyuhyun looked on-edge like they still weren’t sure whether or not they’d need their blasters after all. The blonde and the brunette continued to gawk at each other with some comfortable, wordless connection and Jinki just looked dumbfounded, an almost-innocent bystander who’d gotten caught in the crossfire.

Hyuna wanted to look back and gauge the mood of the three other girls but she didn’t want to look back at Elly and risk cracking her own composure. In these tense moments, it was easy to push her feelings to the side and work but she couldn’t just forget that it was Elly standing only a few feet behind her.

That was her Hyojin.

But it wasn’t worth the risk and so she stayed focused, keeping her eyes on Seunghyun.

Seunghyun, though, wasn’t the one who spoke up and shattered the silence.

“If you know all this,” Chanyeol said suddenly, this deep voice booming off the crumbling walls of The Black Pearl, “if you know so much, just how the are we supposed to trust you?” His eyes were wide with accusation, his tone frantic. Clearly he’d used his quiet time to jump to conclusions. “You expect us to believe that you weren’t hunting Jiyong? That this is just some big coincidence?” He scoffed and blew a few strands of red hair out of his eyes. “Bull.”

Seunghyun glanced at Hyuna, his expression as readable as a magazine. He didn’t condone Chanyeol’s outburst but he had to agree that the guy made an excellent point.

“It’s complicated,” Hyuna said after a beat. “We were after Jiyong, all four of us, but that was–”

“I knew it!” Chanyeol barked. “You’re a bunch of ing scammers.”

He reached for his blaster but Seunghyun cut him off, standing and swearing loudly in Korean.

“Let the woman finish,” he ordered sternly and Chanyeol shrunk back.

“Some things didn’t make sense,” Hyuna continued, overlooking the fact that he’d almost drawn on them again. “While we were looking for Jiyong, a lot of things didn’t add up. The size of the bounty, the charge of treason. Once we dug a little deeper and put it all together, our priorities changed. It stopped being about the money and instead became about doing the right thing for the ‘verse.”

Seunghyun’s perfect eyebrows rose.

“So that’s what it was about?” he asked. “The money?”

Hyuna swallowed.

“It was about revenge,” she said quietly, her eyes low and her fists balled in her lap. “When I was a kid, the Cosmos threw my father into super-max, the very same place they sent your pal Jiyong, and left him to die. I ended up in one of the many orphanages on Daedosi after my father was suspiciously murdered by two guards who claimed he’d lunged at them.” She peered up at Seunghyun, her dark eyes narrowed and filled with something impenetrable. “If the Cosmos had any idea who I was, if they had any idea who my father was, if they knew what I did for a living, they’d never let me be a pilot.” She paused and shrugged, briefly considering her past. “I really just wanted to find Jiyong so that the Cosmos would have to fork over a hundred-million dollars to someone they didn’t realize they despised.” She looked into Seunghyun’s eyes, hopeful that her sincerity was clear. There was a softness there in the darkness, an understanding. “Believe me, oppa. If anyone wants to expose the Cosmos for the murderous ing snakes that they are, it’s me.” She her lips. “You can trust us.”

Solji bit her lip.

Elly and Hyoyeon had known Hyuna for a very long time and, as such, they’d already known those sad stories. They felt the dull ache of sympathy, the twinge that came along with knowing someone you loved had been through so much. But to Solji, these horror stories were fresh, and as shocking and upsetting as they were, she thought they explained a lot about Hyuna’s personality.

“I still don’t trust her,” Chanyeol said indignantly and Hyuna smiled. She in inched up to the edge of her seat and crossed her legs, her body language changing subtly.

Elly recognized the look on her face.

She’d been tracking each and every one of Hyuna’s moves, almost comforted by how well she knew her ex-girlfriend.

Hyuna had the charm at first, flirting and being respectful to lower Seunghyun’s defenses. She’d told long, easily corroborated stories to impress him, to prove her wisdom and her knowledge. She’d shared a personal story to bond them and then even played the Korean card, using ‘oppa’ to flatter him and make them feel like old friends.

But now it was time for the guns.

Now it was time for her to put her money where was.

Hyuna pointed to the whiteboard.

“You’re planning something,” she said. “The next phase of your grand scheme, right?” Seunghyun didn’t answer. “Based on the blueprints and the maps I’m seeing, I’d say you’re looking for something. Something you need before you can move on to the next step, maybe.” She opened her arms, gesturing at herself and the other girls. “Let us do it.”

Solji paled. Seunghyun looked surprised but impressed.

“You’re bluffing,” Chanyeol said blankly.

“I’m not,” said Hyuna, her expression steely. “Look, fellas, we need to figure this out. We’re on your side here. Whatever you’re trying to do, we’re in. Whether that’s hiding Jiyong or sealing up the Bermhole or what, you need to do it fast. You’re running out of time. Whatever you need done, we can do it faster. I’m telling you that Kim Heechul is your number one threat and I promise you he’s moving closer every second. If you don’t act fast, he’s going to win and things are never going to be the same.”

She took a deep breath and leaned back, stretching so that her arms ran across the back of the couch. She was dead serious, a force to be reckoned with. Between her blood red lipstick and her high-heeled boots, Kim Hyuna was a vision of confidence and ferocity. She was going up against some of the galaxy’s biggest players and she wasn’t fazed. There was ice in her veins and iron in her heart and Elly remembered suddenly and vividly exactly what it was that Hyuna’s arrogance and toughness had always done to her.

For the first time that afternoon, everyone in the room was thinking the same thing – Hyuna had already won.

“So,” she said, her tone dripping with power, “what’s it gonna be?”