The Termite was a very small ship.

When Captain Kim Taeyeon met someone new and they asked about her ship, that was all that she could say. She loved her ship, and she was proud of it, but it was just too goddamn small.

It was so small, in fact, that the flight deck wasn’t even its own room. Like her parents’ old RV, the cockpit opened up into the kitchen, the driver’s seat a whopping six feet from the stove. In a lot of ways, it reminded Taeyeon of the camper where she’d spent her summers as a kid. The kitchenette was nearly identical. On the left was a fridge, a stove, a sink and a small section of countertop upon which everyone’s favorite coffee maker lived. On the right, was a dining booth.

Back in the RV, that table had folded down into a bed. On the Termite, no such luck.

At the other edge of the kitchen was a door that led into a cramped common room. It was where the crew spent most of their downtime. There was a couch that opened up into a bed (or at least it would have if there was enough room), a pinball machine that Hwasa had begged for, a punching bag that Amber had begged for, a television pre-loaded with all of Krystal’s favorite shows (that she didn’t have to beg for because Taeyeon was smart enough to buy it before she started whining) and a small bookshelf that was obsolete but kept Taeyeon sane.

Next, a hallway led in three directions. Turning left would take you to the engine room and from there, a hatch in the corner led downstairs to the cargo hold and depressurization chamber. Turning right took you to Krstyal’s office. Taking the corridor straight back led to the dorm that all four girls shared. Taeyeon desperately wished that the ship was big enough to host four separate bedrooms – hell, she’d settle for two bedrooms where they could pair off – but that just wasn’t her reality.

Like in the RV, bunks were built into the wall. Krystal and Hwasa had the top bunks while Amber and Taeyeon were on the bottom and a door at the back of the room led into the bathroom.

And that was it. That was the whole ship. She’d known pilot’s whose escape pods were bigger than her entire carrier. She was only 5’2 but she was constantly banging her head, knees and elbows on walls, counters and the bottom of Hwasa’s bunk. She spent a lot of time waiting for the bathroom, or trying to shimmy around the punching bag that tended to block the common room door when not in use.

It didn’t always bother her. At the beginning of her career, the small ship had been by design. Taeyeon and her crew were trackers. They found things – or people – that no one else could. Sometimes it was stolen goods, sometimes it was missing pilots, sometimes it was pieces of ships or satellites that had broken off and gotten lodged somewhere.

If you needed it found, the ladies of the Termite could track it down and in order to quickly and efficiently bounce around from solar system to solar system, they needed a ship that was small, fast and cost effective. The Termite was powered by a mid-level antimatter reactor and used back-up generators and a sizable rocket fuel reserve in case their matter-intake dropped in the air.

The Termite served its purpose. It was fast and it wasn’t wildly expensive to maintain. It always got them from point A to point B (and sometimes points, C, D and E if things got weird while they were exploring a galaxy) and it rarely gave them any problems.

But it was a shoebox. It was too small to house four active women and after three years together, everyone was feeling a claustrophobic case of cabin fever.

In the pilot’s seat, Taeyeon stretched as best she could. Behind her, in the kitchenette, she heard the distinct sound of Hwasa mixing herself a drink, the spoon clinking off the tall glass before she dropped it into the sink. In another few seconds, she took the seat beside Taeyeon, smiling.

Muffled commotion sounded from the common room – a thud and maybe a groan – and Taeyeon would’ve looked over her shoulder to investigate if she hadn’t gotten so used to it.

“What the are they doing back there that’s making that much noise?” she snapped. “Are they ing or are they fighting?”

Hwasa smirked.

“With Krystal and Amber, it’s basically the same thing,” she said. Taeyeon glared into the darkness, irritated. The ship hadn’t seemed so small back when Amber and Krystal were just colleagues but now that her engineer and tech analyst couldn’t go fifteen minutes without either screaming in each other’s faces or having on the couch, it felt like the walls were closing in.

Out of the corner of her eye, Taeyeon caught a glimpse of the orange, fizzy liquid in Hwasa’s glass, then the younger girl downed it all in one shot, wiping with the back of her hand.

“Want some?” Hwasa asked, placing her glass on the dashboard. “There’s still a few packets left.”

“I don’t know how you drink that stuff,” Taeyeon said, referring to the ever-popular Lifeforce energy drink that burned her tongue and throat every time she’d ever tried it. “It’s tastes like battery acid.”

“Battery acid that keeps me awake on those twenty-four hour shifts, unnie,” Hwasa said, settling into her seat. Lifeforce was widely regarded in the ‘verse as being one of the most powerful energy-replacers, stronger than coffee and longer-lasting than any of the other brands. It was packed with vitamins B, C and D, all of which were important for people who spent their lives inside a spaceship, and a whole lot of caffeine and B-12. It was powdered, brightly colored and fizzled when it was added to water.

And it really did taste like battery acid.

“I don’t like orange,” Taeyeon said.

“We also have mango and grape,” Hwasa teased. Something beeped onscreen and Taeyeon leaned forward to make sure it wasn’t anything dangerous or journey-altering. “What is it?”

“Meteor shower,” Taeyeon said.

“Close by?”

Taeyeon shook her head.

“Out west. We won’t pass through it but I had Krystal set it to alert me of anything in a ten-lightyear radius. I hate surprises.”

Hwasa snorted and said, “I’ve noticed.”

Because she wanted to pout and feel sorry for herself, Taeyeon tried to hide her smile, but with Hwasa staring at her like she knew all her secrets and thought they were stupid, she just couldn’t.

“Shut up,” she said. Hwasa reached across the tiny cockpit and slapped Taeyeon’s thigh, her laugh doing wonders to drown out the sounds of Krystal and Amber doing whatever it was they were doing in the other room. “Remind me why I fly with you.”

“Because you love me,” Hwasa said casually, leaning back in her chair like she was ready for a nap. “And because I’m the best damn co-pilot this side of Geum Haneul.”

Both were true. Because so many of their jobs required such long journeys, there was no way Taeyeon could’ve survived without a co-pilot. She met Hwasa at a trade show and bonded when they debated nuclear power versus antimatter. Hwasa had all the skills of a captain but without the ego. She was too mellow and too selfless to need or want the glory that came from calling the shots and she was all too happy to play the part of the middle-reliever.

She was Taeyeon’s right-hand and, more importantly, her emotional support. Taeyeon was awkward, quiet, introverted. She had a hard time talking to people, even if it was just polite chitchat while she waited at a refueling station. She really had trouble opening up, talking about her thoughts and emotions, communicating what she needed or what she was feeling. Connecting with other people had always been hard for her and her social problems were a cross she’d had to bear all her life.

Hurdling through space in a tin can of a ship for weeks (and even months) on end was hard on the heart and harder on the psyche. If Taeyeon didn’t have her team, if she didn’t have Hwasa sitting next to her, if she was truly isolated, she might’ve launched herself from the escape hatch, sans-pod, by now.

But she wasn’t alone. She had Hwasa who was intense and focused and always knew when Taeyeon needed to talk. Hwasa was strong-willed, a critical thinker who could find a solution to virtually any problem. She had Amber who was loud and light-hearted and fiercely loyal. Amber was so protective of the other girls that it sometime bordered on annoying but Taeyeon was always amazed by just how big her capacity for love truly was. She had Krystal who was, by all accounts, a total brat but a brat who was brilliant and dedicated and so good with computers that Taeyeon thought she might actually be a cyborg.

Taeyeon knew that she was much happier sharing a too-small ship with three people she loved than she would’ve been if she was all alone and living comfortably, even if her sixteen-year-old self would slap anyone who’d ever suggested such a thing. It was cramped and it was a burden but her friends saved her from herself and that was worth all the solo bedrooms in the world.

At least that’s what she was telling herself those days.

“Unnie?” Hwasa prompted after minutes had passed in silence.

“Hmm?”

“Can I ask you something?” Taeyeon turned her head find Hwasa playing with the ends of her blonde hair. She’d cut it to her shoulders recently, the result of a bad breakup, and Taeyeon liked it. It made Hwasa look older. She was already youngest on the ship and her baby face didn’t help. She was, after all, the most mature person on-board. It was nice to see her starting to age. Taeyeon felt like Hwasa was starting to catch up with her.

“Always,” she said.

“Do you think we made the right call deciding not to after Jiyong?” she asked, the elephant in the room made even larger by the fact that the room was so damn tiny. “A hundred-million is a lot of money. And if anyone could find him, it’s us.”

Taeyeon nodded slowly while her friend spoke. It had been a group decision, something they’d discussed in the common room the day the government posted the listing. It had been on her mind for the last few shifts, nagging at her like a bug in her brain. But Taeyeon had good instincts and she trusted herself. Her gut said it was the wrong choice to go after that bounty and so she’d shared that with the rest of the ship.

In the end, they trusted her instincts, too.

“It is a lot of money,” Taeyeon said, “but it’s not guaranteed money. Every freelance pilot in the universe is going to be looking for Jiyong. As talented as we are, I just don’t think we’ll be the one to find him. And then we’ll have wasted, days, weeks or even months chasing after a ghost and losing money. And think of it this way. With everyone busy on this wild goose chase, there will be open positions everywhere. We will be drowning in work and making serious cash. If we’re the only trackers on Occupants Net, we can set our own wages.”

Taeyeon could tell that Hwasa was thinking very deeply, considering every word she’d said. She was very expressive and the crease in her forehead always meant that the cogs were turning.

“Yeah,” she said thoughtfully. “I guess you’re right. I think I was just blinded by that number.” She folded her hands over her stomach and exhaled, blowing her bangs out of her face. “A hundred-million bucks, unnie. Imagine what we could do with that kind of money.”

From behind them, it sounded like something hit the wall. Krystal yelled something. Amber giggled.

Taeyeon rolled her eyes.

“Oh, I’m imagining,” she said. “But a few months of solid, steady work with a pay increase because everyone else is on a galaxy-wide scavenger hunt?” She shook her head. “Kid, we’ll have a bigger ship before we know it.”

“Aren’t your eyes tired from all that rolling?”

“My eyes are tired from being open for eighteen hours,” Taeyeon countered.

“Take a nap,” Hwasa said and before Taeyeon could argue, she added, “Look, we’re on auto-pilot right now and we will be for quite a bit longer. I can more than handle it. If anything big and scary pops up, I’ll blast it with a missile.”

Taeyeon shrugged and gestured to the common room.

“I don’t want to go back to the dorms and walk through whatever’s happening in there.”

“You’re making excuses,” Hwasa said. “I’ve seen you sleep in that chair dozens of time. You sleep and I’ll man the controls. You won’t do anyone any good if you’re burnt out. I’ll wake you if anything good happens.”

Taeyeon considered protesting but it would’ve been fruitless. Hwasa was always a stubborn person but when it came to getting Taeyeon to take care of herself, she bent about as much as a steel pole. She knew that Taeyeon needed to be pushed, otherwise she’d take on the whole galaxy by herself with an empty stomach and blurry, sleep-deprived eyes.

“Wake me if anything happens,” she said and Hwasa replied with a mock salute.

“Aye aye, captain.”

Sighing, Taeyeon reclined her seat and shut her eyes, intending to play her usual count-backwards-from-one-hundred game until she wound down enough to truly relax.

She only made it to ninety-one before she fell asleep.

Peacefully, she dreamt of her friend Hani, a musician back on earth. Hani toured the country in a too-small van, traveling from state to state with her friends and living her dream. It wasn’t easy but it was her path and it made her happy.

Taeyeon felt that she did the same thing, only millions of miles away.

She hadn’t seen Hani in over three years but she still streamed videos of her band’s performances online, smiling fondly (and maybe a little sadly) to see her friend thriving. For a split second, it made her homesick but even in her dreams, that nostalgia wore off quickly.

Taeyeon’s destiny had always been too big to be contained to just one planet.

Frankly, it was beginning to seem too big for the Termite, too.

She had no idea how long she’d slept before Hwasa shoved her awake. She mumbled something, shrugging off Hwasa’s touch, but then she heard the chiming tone from the dashboard and opened her eyes. She knew every single sound made by every single appliance and electronic feature onboard from the beeping of the microwave to the alarms that sounded when something got too close to the ship. But this sound didn’t belong to anything in the kitchen, nor was it signaling any apparent doom.

The Termite was receiving a video call.

“What the ?” Taeyeon mumbled sleepily, slapping her hand down against the panel so that her seat would return to its most upright position. “Who the knows our communication-ID?”

“No one,” Hwasa said. She pressed a green button on dashboard and a sleek, flat screen monitor slid up from behind the paneling. The monitor displayed, in bright, block lettering, that the call was coming in from an unknown CID and she and Taeyeon exchanged nervous glances. They tended to change their communication-IDs – a unique but untraceable string of numbers, letters and symbols used to link ships’ communication systems – frequently to avoid situations like this. Video calls were usually saved for personal affairs. They had a whole separate channel for business inquiries. Whatever this was, it was weird. “What do we do?”

Taeyeon shrugged, reaching forward to swipe at the touch-screen interface to the right of her main control system.

“Smile for the camera, I guess.”

Another click and the screen came alive. A man neither had ever seen before sat comfortably in what looked like a computer chair. His hair was auburn and wavy, stopping just at his chin. His eyes were dark and narrow, his nose straight. Something about him, perhaps the way he wore virtually no expression of any kind, seemed very sinister. He wore a strange collared shirt, striped with yellow and black, and a necklace with a thick chain.

Taeyeon’s famous instincts were screaming. Something was off about this guy.

“Hello,” he said coolly. The picture cut off at his chest but he raised his arms and folded his hands on whatever surface (Taeyeon thought it might be a desk) he was using. “Is this the right Termite ship?”

“That depends who’s asking,” Taeyeon said.

The man’s lips twisted into something that almost resembled a smile.

“I’m a friend,” he said.

“Our friends don’t make unwelcome video calls,” Hwasa said. “How did you get our CID?”

“Would you believe me if I said I got it from a friend?” he said almost teasingly and Taeyeon’s forehead creased. When she and Hwasa simply stared back at the man, blank and unimpressed, he shifted in his seat. It wasn’t a nervous or uncomfortable gesture. If anything, he seemed like he was trying to find a better angle for his camera. “Let’s start over,” he said, clapping his hands together. “My name is Kim Heechul. I am friends with Choi Minho. He says you do good work.”

Taeyeon fought the very strong urge to roll her eyes. ing Minho. He was sweet as sugar but he was clueless. He would give their CID out to some shady cat in a neon button-up. He probably thought he was doing them a favor, being a good guy and drumming up business for his favorite freelancers. But Taeyeon was already sure that things would go very differently.

“Maybe we do,” she said. “But what does that have to do with you, Kim Heechul?”

His smile was more genuine now but it didn’t make him seem any less insidious.

“Have you lovely ladies heard about the bounty that’s currently on the head of a Mr. Kwon Jiyong?” he asked, singsongy. “The escaped convict who the government is trying so hard to find?”

“We have,” Taeyeon said.

“And do you intend to take part in this galaxy-wide Easter egg hunt?”

“What’s it to you, guy?” Hwasa snapped. “Stop beating around the bush. What’s up?”

Heechul cocked an eyebrow.

“You must be Hwasa,” he said fondly. “Minho said you were feisty.” Hwasa’s fists balled at her sides and Heechul held up his hands. “Okay, okay. I’ll get straight to the point. We’re all busy people.” He clicked his tongue. “I need your help to find Mr. Kwon.”

“So you can get the reward money?” Hwasa snorted. “No thanks.”

“I have no intention of turning Mr. Kwon over to the government, ma’am,” Heechul said, sitting up straighter in his chair. “He and I have some unfinished business and I desperately need him here with me on Bujeonghan. We have some loose ends to tie up and that can’t happen if the government throws him back in prison.”

Taeyeon’s face was twisted in confusion, a grimace that masked her worry. Something still felt off about this guy and the alarms in her head were blaring.

“You want us to commit treason for you,” Taeyeon said, almost laughing. The Cosmos – the official, brutal government that ruled in the ‘verse – were not a group of people she especially wanted to piss off. By nature, she was a rule-follower, something that guaranteed she’d never get into very much trouble with Cosmos sheriffs, but she knew plenty of people who’d had ruthless run-ins with the people who were supposed to keep peace in the universe. “Just so you can reunite with this guy? And we’re just supposed to do your bidding because Minho sent you?”

“Your crew is known for being able to find anything,” he continued. “I’ve heard stories. I’ve heard Minho’s accounts of the things you’ve done, of the things you’ve found. If anyone can track him down, it’s you girls. I came to you because you’re the very best. I have the utmost faith that you’ll be able to find him and find him quickly. With so many people tracking his scent, time is of the essence.” He looked to Taeyeon. “As a captain, I’m sure you understand that.” Taeyeon glanced at Hwasa. She was playing it cool, her face giving nothing away, but her fists were still clenched into fists. “I need your crew to find Jiyong and bring him to me before someone else finds him and turns him in to the Cosmos.”

“And what exactly do we get out it?” Taeyeon asked. “Besides the risk of being caught betraying the Cosmos and getting sent to a work camp?”

Heechul’s eyes shined with something menacing as his thin lips warped back into that twisted smile. Running a hand through his hair, he said, “I thought you’d never ask, Taeyeon.” Not liking way her name sounded on his tongue, Taeyeon frowned. “If you bring me Kwon Jiyong, relatively unharmed, before anyone else gets to him, I’ll pay you. Handsomely.”

“Handsomely?” Hwasa rolled her eyes. “What could you possibly–?”

“I’ll double the government’s bounty,” he said and Taeyeon felt like all the air had been out of her lungs, the room and possibly the whole ship. But surely something would start beeping if they were out of oxygen, right?

Her ears suddenly ringing, she asked, “Did you just say–?”

“Two-hundred million dollars,” he interrupted, “if you can find him.” He crossed his arms over his chest, hiding a good portion of his obnoxious shirt from view. “But I need your answer now. If you can’t do it, I need to initiate a video call with the second best trackers in the ‘verse.”

Her bottom lip between her teeth, Taeyeon looked back at Hwasa. The younger girl wore a very serious but very easy-to-read expression that told Taeyeon everything she needed to know – this decision was entirely up to her. Hwasa would support her either way. Krystal and Amber, wherever they were and whatever they were doing, would support her either way.

After giving them all such a long-winded spiel about why it was so much wiser to step back and let the rest of the universe fight it out, it seemed wildly hypocritical to take Heechul’s deal.

But two-hundred million dollars? That didn’t just buy a bigger, better ship. That bought an engine upgrade. That bought new, improved anti-matter technology that would let them go farther faster. That bought the kind of financial security that her crew deserved. That bought flight deck doors and solo bedrooms and an actual onboard gym.

That kind of money was life-changing.

And, after all, they were the best freelance trackers in the game. If anyone could find Jiyong, it was them. Taeyeon had no doubt about that.

She’d wanted to be bigger, right? She’d wanted her legacy to be known, wanted to fulfill her destiny, whatever that was. Maybe this creepy redhead in the ugly shirt was offering Taeyeon’s place in history to her on a silver platter.

Maybe this was her chance.

She made an executive decision.

Taeyeon looked to Hwasa one last time. Her co-pilot gave her a look like she’d heard every single thought and then offered up the smallest nod of confirmation.

“Okay,” she said, biting the inside of her cheek and watching how Heechul’s face brightened with legitimate joy. “We’ll find him for you. And when we do, when we deliver Jiyong to you, unharmed, you’ll pay up.”

Heechul clapped again.

“Excellent news, Taeyeon. I think that–”

“You’ll pay us two-and-a-half million,” she said sternly. When he blinked in response, she shrugged. “Call it the cost of doing business. A fee that comes with unsolicited video calls.”

A few seconds passed and then Kim Heechul laughed out loud, a booming chuckle that was just as disturbing as the rest of him.

“Taeyeon,” he said, “you’ve got yourself a deal.”