Moonbyul iced her lip with a bag of frozen peas.

She’d been too embarrassed to admit her spat to the doctor, too ashamed that she’d gotten caught up in a personal feud in the middle of a universe-altering scavenger hunt and too ashamedtot admit that she’d gotten knocked on her , so she let Yoona assess her wound and write a prescription.

“Peas are good,” she’d said, digging them out of the freezer, “because you can move them around. They’ll mold to the shape of your mouth.” She cracked a smile and added, “I’d give you a steak, but we don’t give out the expensive ice packs to our guests.”

Solar, who’d been standing close by, her eyes never leaving Moonbyul, faked a polite laugh, realizing that Yoona was just trying to lighten the mood, but Moonbyul was too dazed to do anything but nod.

How did she get here?

She skulked back to her new room – though she felt it was more like a pod – with her tail between her legs.

As much as she’d ed about it while it was still in the sky, Moonbyul kind of missed the Pandora. Sure, it was rickety. The fuel tank leaked, they had no escape pod, the engine was a dinosaur and sometimes the gravity controls bugged out, but at least it was theirs. Her room had been hers, filled to the brim with hand-picked decorations and personal effects, none of which she’d had a chance to properly mourn. Everything had happened so fast – looking for Jiyong, losing their ship, meeting the crew from the Unity, reuniting with Hyuna and Hyoyeon, joining forces and kind-of-sort-of ambushing the Termite, teaming up with Jiyong’s friends to try and save the universe. She’d blinked and her whole world had changed.

There were millions of human lives at stake, not to mention the seemingly immeasurable number of Berm in danger, so Moonbyul couldn’t sit around and cry about her comic books and posters or the journals her mother had given her. She was sure that there’d be time for that later, afterthey all saved the world.

Her lip throbbed.

Hyoyeon had a mean right hook.

What surprised Moonbyul the most was that it had never come to blows before. They’d certainly gotten into each other’s faces in the past, though they almost always made sure to do so away from Elly and Hyuna. Usually, the only person to bear witness to how much Moonbyul and Hyoyeon hated each other was Sunny, and Sunny, the ultimate peacemaker, would never let them square up.

(It was weird. Sunny had just as much of a problem with Hyuna as Moonbyul did, but her feelings never seemed to carry over to Hyoyeon. If Moonbyul approached the situation thinking that a man was known by the company he kept, then Sunny preferred to hold people responsible for their sins and theirs alone. Fundamental differences, Moonbyul figured. She was a realist, and a cynical one at that, but Sunny saw the good in people. Somehow, she even saw the good in Kim Hyoyeon.)

So why now? After everything they’d been though, taking into account all of their history, and despite of the times they’d gotten drunk and gotten under each other’s skin, why had Hyoyeon waited until now to throw a punch?

Was it simply the intensity of the situation? Hyoyeon was an intense person. She liked to be an active player, liked to be in on the action. The Juggernaut didn’t have a full crew – it had always been just Hyuna and Hyoyeon. Because of that Hyoyeon was always right there in the thick of it, boots on the ground, ready to play, ready to fight. Now she was docked, twiddling her thumbs, while Hyuna went off to help save the world. Was it possible that Hyoyeon was just itching for a fight? Had being benched right before the biggest game of her life left Hyoyeon hungry for confrontation, desperate for a little adrenaline?

Moonbyul swallowed hard, then pulled her phone from her pocket. Putting the bag of peas beside her on the bed, she the front-camera and looked at her lip. The ice was helping, but it was still swollen. She’d look ugly for a few days. Was this her penance?

Because while the ‘Hyoyeon is just a powder keg and was looking for a fight wherever she could’ argument was reasonable, there was another argument that, regretfully, seemed a lot more likely and made a lot more sense.

Moonbyul had been flailing in the kitchen, trying to get a rise out of Hyoyeon because, in reality, she was itching for a fight. She was upset about being left behind and she wanted something better to do. She’d exaggerated, pontificated, screamed like a crazy person, and had even said things she’d hadn’t totally meant. Though her feud with Hyoyeon had always centered around Elly’s relationship with Hyuna, their arguments usually stayed focused on each other. This was the first time in a while, possibly the first time ever, that truly tackled their feelings on the other’s best friend.

And though Moonbyul had called Hyuna a and a and a dragon lady, Hyoyeon had taken it all in stride, smiling the same stupid, smug, unfazed smile as always. It wasn’t until Moonbyul started throwing out hyperbolic scenarios that Hyoyeon had cocked her fist.

“I don’t give a    what Hyuna’s been through. Her past does not excuse away her future. She doesn’t get a pass, Hyoyeon. I don’t care if she was tied up and shipped to a labor camp on Byeongsa.”

That had ushered no response. But…

“I don’t care if she was sold off to a Berm-fighting ring on some ty outlier rock.”

Boom. A shot to the mouth.

Moonbyul swallowed again, suddenly dry. (Hey, at least it wasn’t filled with blood, right?)

She hadn’t meant any of it literally. She’d been exaggerating, putting on a show, trying to piss Hyoyeon off. Sunny always told her she was too dramatic, and maybe, like always, Sunny had been right. Hyuna had always been a skilled fighter. Hand-to-hand combat was sort of her thing. Moonbyul had never asked where she’d learned to fight. She’d also never asked her anything about her past, not about her parents or her childhood. Sure, she knew about her dad. That was pretty common knowledge in their circle. (The government might not have known about Hyuna’s father, but their friends all did. It wasn’t exactly a secret, but that was because the type of people Hyuna hung out with weren’t exactly on friendly terms with the Cosmos anyway. Even if they knew, what would they do about it?)

Was it possible that Hyuna had spent time in a fighting ring? Not a Berm-fighting ring, since Moonbyul was 95% sure she’d made that term up asshe said it, but something more realistic? Was it possible that Kim Hyuna’s origin story, the one that Moonbyul had never once asked Elly about, was actually a lot darker and a lot more tragic than she ever realized?

It wasn’t just possible, Moonbyul realized all at once, feeling about as low as anyone else on Geum Haneul. It was likely.

She thought back to that night in Elly’s apartment, the night she’d found Hyuna with Nana. Yeah, that night was memorable for a bunch of reasons. It was, for all intents and purposes, the night that Elly and Hyuna’s relationship ended, and a painful milestone in Moonbyul’s friendship with Elly, but it was also the first (and only) time Moonbyul had seen Hyuna .

The way Moonbyul chose to remember it, she walked into Elly’s bedroom, saw Hyuna and Nana, and immediately stormed out, but the truth was that she was so stunned and so disgusted that she lingered for a moment. In that moment, she’d seen Hyuna’s scars.

After that, much like with the loss of the Pandora, things moved so quickly that Moonbyul didn’t have a chance to process it all. In the immediate aftermath of that night, there was chaos. Tears, screaming, alcohol, Hyuna showing up at all hours of the night, Elly calling her to tell her how much she hated her. In fact, it wasn’t until that very moment, sitting inside the so-clean-it-was-almost-scary #9 dorm of the Unity that Moonbyul remembered the scars at all.

Where did someone get scars like that?

Had Moonbyul’s attempt at provoking Hyoyeon worked too well? In her haste, and her malice, had she actually gotten it right?

“,” she whispered. She dropped the bag of peas on the nightstand, deciding that she didn’t deserve her ice pack at all. If she was right, and Hyuna had endured something terrible, she’d earned that punch. It still didn’t justify what she’d done, or how badly she’d hurt Elly, but it still hadn’t been Moonbyul’s place to ever mention it, even if she didn’t know it was true.

And now she had to face the fact that she was every bit the Hyoyeon always thought that she was, and that maybe she deserved a little bit more than a fat lip.

She slid down the bed and rested her head on the pillows, staring up at the ceiling and wallowing in her own personal brand of self-pity. She rubbed her face with her hands, careful not to touch , and tried haplessly to go through all of her memories of Hyuna, wondering if this was, in fact, more obvious to others than it had been to her. Had she been so wrapped up in her own problems with Hyuna that she hadn’t noticed other signs, other scars? Had it been spoken about, clear as day, right in front of her, but she’d been too busy shooting daggers across the dinner table to pay her any mind?

Was Moonbyul really that self-centered, that narrow-minded?

“Sorry to bother everyone,” came a voice from nowhere. Moonbyul lifted her hands and sat up, looking around her room for a person, but found only a small speaker near the door – the Unity’s intercom system. (It was cute that they had an intercom system. The Pandora’s communication system had been a three-pack of walkie-talkies.) “I don’t like to use the ship-wide PA, but this is important.” Once her brain caught up to her ears, Moonbyul realized it was Yuri that was speaking. “I need everyone to grab their tablets and make sure they’re all logged into the Unity’s chat server. Sunny and I just added a new room. It’s encrypted and unhackable.”

“Virtually unhackable,” Sunny’s voice interjected.

“Yeah, yeah, right, whatever,” Yuri said hastily, and Moonbyul pictured her swatting at Sunny as she spoke. “Just make sure you’re logged onto the right server. Things are about to get messy and we’re going to post all of our updates there. It’s faster that way, and more secure. We’re going to need all hands on deck soon. Just be vigilant. That’s it. Rest while you can. See you all at dinner.”

The intercom clicked off and Moonbyul decided to stay upright. This was the first time she’d really taken a good look around her room. When she wasn’t roaming around the ship or getting her kicked, Moonbyul mostly spent her time in the engine room with Solar. She only retreated to her dorm to go to sleep, and that was just because every time she tried to go to Solar’s room, the doctor looked at them like she knew all of their secrets. (And what did Hyerin really know? She was the strong and silent type, and Moonbyul had an inkling that she had dirt on everyone on-board, even the new guys she’d only known for a week.)

Though the Unity was a massive ship, the room itself wasn’t very big. It was nondescript and tidy, reminding Moonbyul of a hotel room – there was a queen-sized bed, a dresser, a nightstand, a framed picture of what appeared to be a random nebula and a tiny bathroom with a toilet and a shower. There were light panels on the ceiling and a lamp on the nightstand. Beside the lamp was a small remote, and Moonbyul was pretty sure it controlled the lights, plus a TV screen that she figured was somewhere in the wall above the dresser.

To Moonbyul’s knowledge, the ship boasted twelve bedrooms, and she figured all of them looked the same. (Except for maybe Solji and Hyerin’s. The captain and her wife had the master suite, right?) Between the repeated floorplan and the fact that they were parked, the Unity really did feel more like a lodging house than anything. There were thirteen of them on-board and while they were in the midst or something terribly serious, it was beginning to feel more like a sorority house than a spaceship. (Only, unlike her last time at a sorority house, Moonbyul wasn’t having nearly as much casual .)

With nothing better to do (what use was an engineer when the engine wasn’t even running?), Moonbyul pulled her tablet from the duffle bag beneath her bed and found the secure server Yuri had been talking about. Everyone but Amber and Krystal had logged in, and Moonbyul had a hunch that that had something to do with the fact that they were sharing the dorm #11.

Sunny and Yuri had typed up a long introductory post and formatted it neatly into a bulleted list. Apparently, in the time it took for Moonbyul to get punched in the face, there had been some crucial developments. Some were good. Some were bad. Too many were centered around Kim Heechul.

The good news was that the Termite had gotten their hands on the whole tracker, and it appeared to be functioning beautifully. They were, quite literally, on their way to pick up Kwon Jiyong, and they were making great time. The tracker was leading them, one breadcrumb at a time, to what appeared to be a moon mine. Though they hadn’t been able to safely and securely confirm with Seunghyun that that was where Jiyong was staked out, everyone on the Termite was confident that they’d have him in a matter of hours.

The bad news was that Kim Heechul was tracking the Termite’s every move. Yuri and Sunny weren’t sure how that was possible, but they didn’t care. It didn’t matter to them how he’d locked onto them – it just mattered that they find a way to throw him off the scent. At the very least, it seemed like Heechul trusted Taeyeon completely. He knew nothing of the alliance between the four ships, and nothing of Seunghyun’s involvement. As far as he was concerned, his little errand girl was doing her due diligence, bouncing around every corner of the universe looking for Jiyong, just like she’d been paid to do.

But it was pretty obvious, even to a grease monkey like Moonbyul, why they needed to scramble Heechul’s senses. He was watching the Termite, sitting back with his ugly boots kicked up on his desk, tracking the ship’s trajectory on a big space map. He’d been providing them with clues, hints, his own line of breadcrumbs based on the intel he had. If he told them to go left and instead they went right, he’d be the first to know about it. He’d question it. And when he didn’t like the answers, he’d likely show up with a missile or some other scary space-wars projectile.

After all, he had a lot of skin in the game. For him, this had nothing to do with treason. He didn’t give a about the Cosmos’ law. He wanted the Bermhole, and he wanted it for his own gross, bloody reasons. Jiyong was just a means to an end for him. If he had Jiyong, he had the Bermhole, and if he had unfettered access to the most physically imposing creature in all the galaxy, well, it was game over for anyone who ever went up against Kim Heechul and the Cosmos’ private military system.

So they had to throw him off. They had to do something to interfere with Heechul’s surveillance. It was of the utmost important, but they weren’t going to communicate this all to the Termite yet. They didn’t want to get to get inside their heads when they were so, so close to their target, didn’t want to risk distracting them, especially since they had no way of solving the problem yet. Once they scooped up Jiyong, and parked to regroup, then they’d tell them. Hopefully, they’d have some answers by then. For now, they just had to figure something out. Somehow, the hackers had to get into his system and change what he was seeing onscreen, something Moonbyul knew less-than-nothing about and, therefore, couldn’t possibly help with.

No, she was useless and lonely with a fat lip and a lot of regret, and she desperately wished she knew how to make the TV magically appear from nowhere.

It was amazing how life could still be such a underneath a beautiful golden sky.

A soft knock on the door pulled Moonbyul from her pity party.

She grunted as she stood up, half expecting to find blonde hair and another cocked fist as soon as the door retracted back into the wall, but was pleasantly surprised to find Solar there instead.

“How’s your lip?” she asked, skipping over all pleasantries and choosing instead to take a step forward, completely closing the gap between them. She stood on her tiptoes and pinched Moonbyul’s chin with her thumb and forefinger, then leaned closer to get a better look. Moonbyul was so taken aback, she almost lost her balance, but braced herself on the doorframe and held her breath. “You need to ice it or it’s going to swell worse. Where’s the bag of peas?”

Solar pushed her way into dorm #9, not giving Moonbyul a chance to interfere, or reply.

Flustered, Moonbyul ran a hand through her hair and said, almost sarcastically, “Please come in.” By the time Moonbyul pressed the button to close the door, and leaned herself against it, Solar was sitting on the edge of her bed. “Are you okay?”

“I’ve been doing some thinking,” she said, “since I saw you last.”

Moonbyul’s eyes went wide.

“Solar, it’s been less than an hour since you saw me last.”

Solar nodded.

“Time flies, huh?” Solar patted the spot beside her on the bed, the eagerness in her eyes leaving little room for debate. Almost begrudgingly, Moonbyul pushed off the wall and moved to sit beside her, unsure of Solar’s intentions, but certain of her own complicated feelings.

“Are you drunk?” Moonbyul countered, eyeing her carefully. “You seem like you might be drunk.”

“Did you read the post in the new server? All the updates about Heechul and Jiyong?”

“I did. Did you? And did you maybe chase it with some wine coolers or something?”

Solar shook her head, staring at a spot on the wall parallel to them.

“Things are getting serious,” she said, her voice taking on an unexpectedly somber tone. “Everything with Heechul tracking the Termite, and the hackers all trying to find a way to distract him long enough to break his connection, and the captains so close to Jiyong now. It’s just…” Her voice trailed off and she faked a smile, remembering suddenly that she’d shown up to Moonbyul’s door with a much cheerier disposition. “It’s a lot, you know?” She turned to catch Moonbyul’s gaze, hoping her fellow engineer would do her the courtesy of ignoring the way her eyes had gone glassy.

This wasn’t the world she was used to. Hyoyeon and Hyuna? They were tough guys, brawlers, fearless space pirates. The Termite crew? They were used to bouncing around the galaxy, tracking people down and dealing with shady characters. And the Pandora girls? They’d looked death in the face every time they managed to get their ship in the air. But not the Unity.

They were spoiled. They led easy lives, and they had cushy jobs. They had a boss that took care of them, a strong, competent woman that got them lucrative gigs and paid them handsomely for what little work they actually did. They’d thrown their hat in the ring because they were arrogant. Their quality of life had made them cocky. They’d had it so easy for so long, and after so many back-to-back successes, they’d genuinely convinced themselves that they were the best of the best.

But they weren’t the best. Not by a longshot. They weren’t even the best of the four crews working together to find Jiyong and protect the Bermhole. They were, essentially, a bunch of rich kids who’d never heard the word no and they were, for the first time in their professional careers, facing true, bone-deep, galaxy-wide danger. And it was terrifying.

One wrong move by any of the hackers, one wrong move by any of the captains, and they could all go down. And then what? Jiyong could end up in the hands of Kim Heechul, or another crew that would turn him over to the Cosmos. Heechul would surely kill all four members of the Termite if he discovered they’d double-crossed him, and he wouldn’t rest until he had every Berm in creation under his thumb. What did that mean for Jiyong? Torture? Execution? And what about the rest of them? No doubt, if they were found to be aiding and abetting a felon, they’d be prosecuted for treason.

It was all a very far cry from their usual gigs – exploring the Cosmos, sampling rocks and furthering Sooyoung’s knowledge of the galaxy.

“We’re useless, you know,” Solar said, turning back to face the wall. “Me, you and Amber. Kind of hard to take care of the engine when we’re parked.”

Moonbyul smirked.

“I had that very same thought,” she admitted. She considered putting a hand on Solar’s back, a purely platonic gesture just to let her know that she was listening and that she understood, but hesitated. Solar was vulnerable like this. She’d been trying to hide her fears behind a big, wide smile but that façade had cracked open like a coconut shell, and the woman sitting beside her was feeling anything but optimistic. “But, hey, look on the bright side. If Heechul does find out what’s going on, he’s definitely going after us first. Then they’re going to need three handy-dandy mechanics to make this ship go super fast, right?” Despite herself, Solar laughed, and Moonbyul did, too. “Ah! I saw that. You smiled. See? It’s not all so bad. And the truth is, Solar, you’re right. There’s nothing you and I can do right now but wait. We’re here if anyone needs us but, unfortunately, we just need to bide our time. Luckily, we’re surrounded by a bunch of really smart people. They’ll figure it out. I promise.”

There was a beat. Solar turned all of this over in her head, then shifted gears.

“Let’s talk abut you,” Solar said, trying to discreetly wipe her tears before turning back to look Moonbyul in the eye. “What happened earlier between you and Hyoyeon? Do I need to go kick her ? Defend her honor?”

Moonbyul snorted.

“You are so cute,” she said, trying to picture petite, soft-spoken Solar facing off with a woman that kept knives strapped to her ankles. “But I really wouldn’t recommend trying to fight Hyoyeon. I once watched her body-slam a guy at a bar for taking her pool table. She broke two of her ribs and he apologized to her.”

Solar swallowed.

“Perhaps I could write a strongly-worded letter,” she amended.

Smirking, Moonbyul said, “Don’t waste your time. I’ve been doing some thinking, too.”

“Oh yeah? What about?”

Moonbyul pointed to her lip.

“I think I deserved the punch after all.”

Solar frowned.

“Don’t say that.”

“Hyoyeon, despite her many flaws, made some good points.” Moonbyul figured that they were using this biding-their-time thing to open up and share secrets, so it was only fair is she participated, too. “Elly is my best friend and my love for her sometimes skews my perception of things. I’ll always hate Hyuna for what she did to her but…” She bit her lip and looked down at the floor – pristinely white, just like everything else. “It’s possible that Hyuna’s been through a lot more than I ever realized. It doesn’t excuse what she did but I think I’ve been an even bigger to her than I should’ve been.” She shrugged her shoulders, inhaling deeply, then laughed at the absurdity of it all – the world could very well have been ending, the apocalypse imminent, Armageddon looming just overhead, and while millions upon millions of Cosmos citizens were none the wiser, two completely in-the-loop engineers sat in the dorm of a luxury ship, unable to contribute to the efforts in any way, spilling their darkest secrets and deepest fears. The more she thought about it, the more hilarious it became. “Something about the fate of the universe balancing precariously on the edge of a cliff really makes you introspective, huh?”

Solar didn’t respond, at least not verbally. As it turned out, she’d been considering the precariousness of their situation, too, and before Moonbyul could make sense of any of it, Solar was in her lap, her hands in Moonbyul’s hair. She kissed her with a certain desperation, but there was still a distinctively Solar softness to it. She cupped Moonbyul’s face, her fingertips surprisingly cold against Moonbyul’s skin, and kissed her just like the world was ending.

And maybe it was.

It took Moonbyul a few seconds to register what was happening. Though the kiss hurt her lip, she never wanted it to end. She wanted more of it. She felt like she’d been injected with pure heroin and now she was an addict. But there was still a very diligent, very chivalrous (albeit very small and obnoxious) part of her brain that was pumping the breaks.

She’d known she’d wanted Solar the moment she first laid eyes on her, but she didn’t want it unless it Solar wanted it, too. She didn’t want it unless it were real. And jumping somebody just because you’re nervous and afraid you might get blown up tomorrow? That wasn’t real.

“Wait,” Moonbyul said, breathless. She put her hands on Solar’s shoulders, pulling away despite every cell in her body screaming at her for being so stupid. “Solar, you are a nervous wreck right now. This might not be a good idea. I don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage of you, especially since you’re upset. I didn’t–”

“Shh,” said Solar, shaking her head. “Stop. None of that. You said it yourself. We have nothing to do. We have nothing but time to kill. And I don’t know about you, but this is probably my favorite way to kill time.” She gave Moonbyul a smile, wry and naughty, but still somehow the picture of innocence and femininity in a pale pink, miraculously not-grease-stained button up shirt. And, as if scripted, as soon as Moonbyul noticed her pretty shirt, it was gone. Solar hooked her fingers in the front of her blouse and pulled it open, sending two buttons flying to the pristinely white floor, and giving Moonbyul an eyeful of pristinely black lace. “You know that I like you, and I know that you like me. We could literally die tomorrow, or go be thrown in jail for treason. You know that, right? The stakes are high, Moonbyul. Really, really high.” Moonbyul didn’t have a response to that. She wasn’t listening. She hadn’t even blinked yet. Smirking, Solar covered Moonbyul’s hands with her own and guided them to her waist. Her skin was so smooth that Moonbyul actually whimpered. “You want to die without us ever getting a chance to sleep together?”

Moonbyul swallowed hard.

“No, ma’am,” she said. “No, I do not.”

Solar’s smile was brighter now, emblazoned by the realization that there was freedom in futility. The engineers couldn’t help, and the universe was going to do whatever it was going to do. Why not use professional purgatory as an excuse to have a little fun?

“Excellent,” she said, her lips before pushing Moonbyul back and watching her fall gracefully against the mattress. A second later, Solar fell on top of her, giggling and covering any exposed skin with quick, soft kisses.

If this was Armageddon, Moonbyul thought, staring up at the ceiling with renewed interest, maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.

Elly had known it was a mistake as she was making it, so why couldn’t her heart give her a break?

Pain was the body’s way of letting you know that something was wrong. It was a red flag, an alarm bell. Elly had read an article once about a woman whose leg was nearly severed in a car accident, but who felt no pain from her wounds. Her brain looked at the injury, understood that the body was in trouble, and decided that it needn’t send out painful stimuli as a response. Why bother? The woman knew she was in trouble. She didn’t need the pain to tell her. She already knew.

Elly knew that she’d ed up by sleeping with Hyuna, and she knew she was in trouble, so why the did she need the pain, too?

She’d thought for sure that she’d maxed herself out on pain. She’d fallen in love, been cheated on, left to wander the universe alone, reunited with the one-true-love that had broken her heart and then gotten shot. What could hurt worse than any of that?

As it turned out, relapsing made all of that look like child’s play.

And relapsing on Hyuna, she’d found out, was akin to drinking poison.

It was killing her from the inside, a pain that started in her gut and radiated outward, engulfing her entire body until she felt like nothing more than a mound of raw flesh.

That was the ironic part, of course. She’d traded pleasure for pain, and pain for pleasure. Was it worth it? Was erasing two years of progress worth two good s? It depended on which part of Elly you were asking. The realistic part, the stoic, pragmatic part that had spent twenty-four months in the air, working her fingers to the bone to keep her ship alive and forget all about Kim Hyuna? That part was devastated, betrayed, crushed. But the other part? The sad, lonely, pathetic and sickly part that was still every bit as in love with Hyuna as it had been all those years ago? That part didn’t regret a single minute.

It had been half a day since they’d ed on the floor of the engine room.

Hyuna, perhaps just as confused as Elly, hadn’t bothered to stick around and cuddle. For that, Elly was deeply grateful. She gave her an awkward kiss on the forehead, then scurried to some not-quite-far-enough corner of the ship. (Elly made an educated guess that she was hiding out in Krystal’s office. Besides the engine room, it was the only remotely private part of the ship.)

The good news was that Elly regained full feeling in her leg just about an hour later. Did that leave her with sixty minutes to lay in silence on the mattress where she’d just ed her ex-girlfriend? Yes it did. But it also meant that she was able to get up, take a shower, change her clothes and spend a long time sitting in the tiny bathroom, going over each and every individual moment that led her to this point.

She had her phone with her, and her fingers ran aimlessly over the screen, trying to decide what to do next. She couldn’t very well reach out to Sunny or Moonbyul. Not only would they be pissed at her (Moonbyul might actually break up with her), but it would distract them from whatever work they were doing onboard the Unity. No, that was a conversation better left to have in-person.

And even though there was a remarkably high (seemingly inevitable) chance that Solji and Taeyeon heard them, Elly couldn’t exactly talk to them about it either. They were so close to Jiyong that they could almost taste it, and having mid-mission wasn’t the most professional choice she’d ever made. It was bad enough she’d gotten shot and couldn’t pull her weight for a few shifts but now she was bringing her relationship drama (she hated having to call it that) into things, too?

She was lucky if Solji and Taeyeon didn’t walk away from this hating her.

So Elly did the only thing she could do – she texted the doctor.

It was a quick message, short and sweet: I had with Hyuna. I don’t know what to do now. She typed it as fast as she could, trying not to actually look directly at the screen, then threw her phone in her bag, and threw her bag under the bottom bunk.

If anyone could save her, it was Hyerin, but that didn’t mean she had the guts to face a response just yet.

Lucky for her, the world didn’t stop turning just because her heart was in turmoil.

Taeyeon’s voice came through the bedroom’s intercom speaker, loud and clear.

“We’ll be landing in about ten minutes,” she said, sounding almost proud. Despite her initial reluctance to join the mission (they had blitzed her and kidnapped her team after all), Taeyeon had become something of an unexpected leader. The Termite was her ship, which made her the true captain among captains, and, while meek, it was a role she filled well. “It’s chilly on these moon mines, so bundle up and get your asses into the cockpit. We’ve got a VIP to pick up.”

So that was it, then. They’d arrived. They’d come so far, yet they still had so far to go. They’d pluck Jiyong from whatever obscure mine he’d been calling home, and then what? They had to get back to the other end of the galaxy and deliver him to a wormhole. How would that work? How could they possibly get out of this unscathed?

Elly dug through her bag and looked for something warm to wear, but the heaviest thing she’d packed was an old college hoodie. Huffing, she pulled it over her clothes, ignoring the way her phone vibrated. A response from Hyerin? Probably. But Elly would rather face certain destruction out on the moon mine with the treasonous felon than see what her morally-sound new friend had to say about her most recent transgression. As soon as she was dressed, she ran from her bag like her was on fire.

The other three captains were already squeezed into the pit, all donning thicker jackets.

They’d already begun their descent. This moon was a tiny rock meant for tiny aircrafts. There was a long, narrow landing strip that fed into what was essentially a parking lot. All of the ships there were even smaller than the Termite, and were probably the personal aircrafts of the miners who likely lived on Naengdam, the closest planet to the mines. It was essentially the biggest factory in a small town, the most logical and practical place to work even if it wasn’t the most pleasant, and all business centered around it.

Taeyeon brought them down smoothly, and Elly hoped that nothing about their arrival seemed out of place. By all accounts, this was, perhaps, the most innocuous spot in the entire galaxy. It was why Jiyong and his friends had chosen it. It was a run-of-the-mill moon mine, rocky and cold, and there were thousands more just like it. Small ships came and went all day, miners traveling to and from work, and commercial shipping liners coming to pick up the day’s haul. Nobody would look twice at another ship pulling into the lot.

At least that was what Elly hoped.

They landed in silence, an expectant tension hanging over them like a fog.

Elly stood near the door, shooting subtle glances at Hyuna and trying to read her. Was she freaking out, too? Or was she too lost in the job to remember what they’d done just a few hours before?

When the ship was parked, Taeyeon stood up and cracked her neck.

“Well,” she said, clapping her hands together before pulling the tracker out of her coat pocket and waving it at the group. “Let’s go get him.”

Taeyeon had been right – it was cold. Elly shoved her hands into her pockets and tried to retreat into her sweatshirt like a turtle. Though Taeyeon carried the tracker, Hyuna lead the pack, walking confidently. Had she been reinvigorated by what they’d done in the engine room, or was she simply motivated by her own adrenaline?

They were walking, of course, towards a mine. It looked like a cave to Elly, though it had what appeared to be a reinforced metal doorway braced around the mouth. A metal track led inside, and motorized carts brought rocks and silver from the mine to a building on the other side of the parking lot.

“Mining perplexes me,” Solji said, shrugging her shoulders to shield her ears from the wind. “Technology has come so far, and yet mining remains so archaic.”

“We’re out in the sticks,” said Taeyeon, looking down at the tracker but glancing up at Solji to acknowledge that she’d been listening. “We’re in the country, not the city. They’re still behind on the times. Their ships probably all still use fuel instead of anti-matter.” From the back of the line, Elly frowned, remembering the Pandora, and Taeyeon frowned, remembering Elly. “No offense.”

The sky above them was dark, clouded with pollution, and the ground was packed hard beneath their feet. It was a harsh environment, not a place anyone would want to live full-time, and the stench of metal, dirt and acidic earth grew stronger as they reached the mouth of the mine. Men in blue jumpsuits mulled about, carrying shovels and axes, pushing carts and speaking loudly. None of them paid the girls any mind.

“Where is he?” asked Hyuna, stopping. She was looking around, scanning the face of each and every man around them and coming to the conclusion that none of them were Jiyong.

Taeyeon shrugged, passing her. She was distracted, a slave to the convoluted tracking system that had delivered them to this planet. It was like they’d bonded in the process of navigating to the mine, a quirky human-technology friendship born amidst the chaos.

“The tracker says he should be right here,” she said, head down as she walked deeper into the entrance of the mine.

“Shouldn’t we have face masks?” Solji asked, covering with the bend of her elbow.

“Hey,” said Hyuna, reaching for Taeyeon’s sleeve. “Maybe we shouldn’t be walking right into–”

“Well, well, well,” said a voice from the shadows. It came from a patch of darkness, a spot that she sun couldn’t quite reach, but a spot that hadn’t been illuminated by the wall-lights arranged deeper inside the mine. Hyuna grabbed Taeyeon’s arm and pulled her back, putting herself between the voice and the rest of the group. There wasn’t a visible threat, just a shadowy figure amongst the dirt and grime.

There was a laugh, dry and low, and then the figure, a living shadow in its own right, stepped into the light.

His orange hair had faded to a rusty, dingy blonde and his blue jumpsuit was soiled with mud and soot. His smile was crooked, arrogant, the smirk of a man with far too much power and all the knowledge in the galaxy about how to wield it. His skin was dirty, too, smeared with grease, and he wore thick gloves that probably protected his skin from the cold as much as they protected him from sharp rocks. But he slipped the gloves off his hands and threw them in the nearest cart before taking a step closer, exhaling into them, and three out of four captains had to fight the urge to take a step back.

Their silence was revered. The weight of this introduction wasn’t wasted on them, but recycled into something that felt strangely like respect. They didn’t know him, but after all this time, it sure felt like they did. They’d spent months looking for him, first separately, then together.

It had all led to this.

“You made it,” he said, sounding strangely relieved. He smiled again, looking first to Solji, then to Taeyeon, then Elly, and back to Hyuna. He clicked his tongue playfully and cocked his head to the side, sizing them up, then said, “I guess you were the ones to crack the code, huh? Pretty impressive.” With that, he reached into the pocket of his jumpsuit and pulled out the other tracker, using it to gesture to the one still in Taeyeon’s hands, and grinned like a kid showing off a toy. “These probably helped, though, right? Seunghyun was smart to have me use them.” He shoved it back into his pocket, then stared blankly at the girls like he’d just remembered something important. “Where are my manners?” he scolded, then offered a clean hand to Hyuna who shook it with an awed hesitation. “I’m Kwon Jiyong. It’s nice to finally meet you. You’ve probably been looking for me for a while.” He looked from face to face like he was somehow able to learn everything there was to know about each of them just by looking into their eyes. When he’d had his fill, when he’d figured them out and was satisfied with what he learned, he stood up straighter. Then, smirking, he asked, “What took you so long?”