Moonbyul had been living and working her off in Section V of Mercury for as long as she could remember, and damn if she was going to stay here any a day longer. It wasn’t as if she didn’t like the place, oh no; she didn’t just dislike Section V, she hated every single inch of the damned planet.

Well, okay, sure, so maybe her fellow miners weren’t that bad, but they were all old fogeys, Science above, and what did centenarians know about freedom and fun? Nothing, that was what. All they knew, from their half-hearted conversations while digging for iron, were of revolutions at least centuries ago, even bloody millenia ago. Honestly, she grumbled to herself one night, who even cared about the First World War these days? It was nearly a millennium ago, damn it.

And why were humans still forced to harvest silicate and iron when it was a well-known fact the Juris had more than enough droids that could work faster and better than they all could? Because the Lords of the Juris decided that humans were more disposable than droids, that’s why, according to the oldest miner in her Section. The government, in Moonbyul’s own very private opinion, were a bunch of snobs up to no good.

And she, Moonbyul, a woman halfway through her twenties, was stuck here, rotting her youth away in the deep ferrous mines of Mercury. She wished she could go up to the Juris and give them a piece of her mind.

A trickle of sweat into her right eye interrupted her thoughts and incited a string of expletives as she lifted her hand to rub at her stinging eye. Around her, her fellow miners chuckled at her colourful use of language.

“Pretty words for a young lady, eh?” one of them called out.

Moonbyul turned to grin at the speaker. Lars, the head of Section V and oldest friend of hers -- both in age and friendship -- smirked back. Lars was a scrawny man with a wizened face and barely any hair on his head, and whatever was left was scraggly and snow-white. What he lacked in coiffure, however, he had in wit and leadership. Moonbyul heard rumours that long before she was born, Section V was even worse than its current state, with the previous leader always hogging the little bit of water that they were granted from the Juris, barely leaving any for the rest of the miners. It was no surprise that a good number of them died from dehydration before Lars appeared.

But when he arrived, he came in like a typhoon. Younger, stronger, tougher, he disposed of the selfish leader with a sweep of his hand and took the exhausted miners of Section V under his wing. Since then, water was distributed equally, the sick were reported and taken care of, and everyone was happy and well taken care of.

In Moonbyul’s mind, Lars was better than any of the Lords of the Juris, and deserved to stand at its helm. But alas, he was stuck on this desolate planet like the rest of them, and instead of grumbling chose to reach out to them with a kind and benevolent hand.

“Cat got your tongue, kid?” Lars asked, amused.

“Got your face first, didn’t it?” Moonbyul countered, earning Lars a round of jeering as he faked a grimace.

“Any more savage and you’d be a cavewoman, Moonbyul,” he teased.

“Then I’d finally be at the same level as you, Lars!” Satisfied with their jest and the hooting applause from the other miners, Moonbyul returned to her task at hand, raising her pickaxe to hack away at the crater of iron silicate beneath her feet.

To her utter surprise, her pickaxe didn’t stop at the hardened fayalite as it usually did, and went straight through. She lifted her pickaxe to eye level; at the very tip of the hook was a small glimmer of crystal ice.

“Well, .” Moonbyul dropped her pickaxe and scrabbled through the silicate dust. Her fingers felt something cool, and she grabbed a fistful of it and brought it to the light of her miner’s helmet.

“Holy hell, Moonbyul.” Lars was standing next to her in a heartbeat, and both of them peered at the glistening ice in her hand, amazed as their reflections peered back at them. “You’ve found water.”

“You ain’t gonna report it, are you, Lars?” Moonbyul asked, half nervous and half excited by her unexpected find. “, the Juris hasn’t been giving us water for days now, we can’t just give this over to them. We need the water more than they do.”

“Now, kid.” Lars laid a hand on Moonbyul’s shoulder, his face shining. “Don’t get too ahead of yourself. Let’s dig it all up and see how much ice we’ve got first.” He gestured the other miners over and showed them the small bits of ice that had dislodged from the crystal in Moonbyul’s hand.

“Look at that, boys.” The miners were all boys to Lars, no matter what gender they identified with. “We’ve got ourselves some fresh water, frozen at the base of the very same crater we’re working on.” He broke off more ice from the main crystal and handed a few grains to each miner for them to examine.

“Try it.” He lifted his palmful of ice to his lips and crunched in, letting the ice melt in his mouth. As the ice turned to water and trickled down his throat, he felt a smile spread across his face. The other miners, including Moonbyul, followed suit after witnessing his contentment.

It was so madly refreshing Moonbyul immediately decided that the ice contained some kind of addictive drug. She quietly informed Lars so, and he slapped a hand on her back as he laughed heartily. “No such thing, kid! That’s pure, fresh water right there.” He leaned into the group and grinned. “And it’s all ours to harvest. Let’s get cracking!”

With a whoop and cheer, the miners started digging in a great fervour. At Lars’s instruction, Moonbyul jogged to their allocated rest area to retrieve buckets to store the ice. They worked for hours until each miner had their own bucket filled to the brim with ice and more, and then they all sat down to rest, exhausted as they were.

“Boys, take the next twenty-four off. Go home, rest, sleep, and enjoy your water.” He grinned and poked a finger in Moonbyul’s side. “Let’s have a round of applause for our youngest. Without her youthful eyes, we wouldn’t have so much water with us right now. To Moonbyul!”

“To Moonbyul!” The rest of them echoed, each taking their turn to thump her on the back -- a sign of approval and pride, she knew -- before leaving with their haul.

Lars continued to sit with Moonbyul, waving at the leaving miners until only the two of them were left. “Do you know what you’re going to do with all that ice, then?” he asked.

“Dunno. Drink it, I guess. Maybe take a shower now I’ve got just enough. What else?”

“Well,” Lars said, thoughtful, “I was thinking along the lines of trading a bucketful or two at Central for some nice, proper food. Then I’ll bring the food back for everyone to eat.”

Moonbyul gaped at him. This, she thought, is why Lars was the leader, and not her. “That’s bloody genius thinking!” she exclaimed. “Explains why you got the two extra buckets, eh?”

Lars looked over at her. “Well, actually, I’ve only got one extra bucket. The other is yours.”

“Mine?”

“That’s right, yours. Like I said, you were the one who found the source, so you should get at the very least one extra bucket. It’s only fair.”

Moonbyul leapt at him for a hug. “Thanks, Lars. Say, would you mind if I follow you to Central?”

“Of course I don’t mind,” Lars assured her. “I’ll see you in a few hours. Still living in that drive-about of yours?” At her nod, he stood up. “Alright then. Wait for me there, then you can drive us to Central.”

With her two -- two! -- buckets of ice in hand, Moonbyul skipped back home.

Home was in the form of a shuttle she had found in the junkyard of Section V. Once, it was dilapidated, its door hanging from rusty hinges, gliders all but gone, and nothing to speak of inside. After years of work at the mines, however, Moonbyul had saved up enough money to carry out considerable repair and refurbishment work on her prized possession.

The first agenda on her extensive list was, of course, the need for efficient climate control inside the shuttle. Although the domes that housed Central and Section V had decent enough weather mods, the lack of any visible clouds within the dome caused her skin to always feel like it was on fire, and she did not have the luxury of easily relieving herself of the stifling heat. After poking around Central and the warehouses of Section V, and sketching the various mechanisms that kept whatever little water the Juris had given them nice and cold, she engineered a cooling device not dissimilar from a refrigerator.

After that was reinstalling a proper door with hinges replaced, polishing and improving the cockpit of the shuttle, and changing the outer shell with greater, more heat-resistant metals and coating it all with a few layers of paint. Under her almost maternal touch towards the acquired shuttle, a small shower cubicle and stowaway sleep pod were installed. She had even purchased the appliances and tools needed for a kitchenette, despite the fact she had never cooked before and probably would never cook.

The door to her shuttle opened as she approached, and slid shut after she entered. Placing the two buckets of ice in a small cupboard that was specially cooled, she headed off to her shower cubicle to rinse off the dust and dirt from hours of mining. She stripped off the heavy khaki miner’s clothes and dumped them on the floor before turning on the shower tap. The amount of water that dripped out of the showerhead wasn’t generous, but to Moonbyul, it was more than sufficient to wash her entire body. Miners didn’t need to shower much anyway, since it was a given that in no time at all their hair and skin would accumulate silicate dust again.

Moonbyul ran her fingers through her now wet hair to shake off any remaining dust before towelling off with a spare rag Lars had given her years ago. There was a long panel of reflective metal next to the shower cubicle, and she paused in front of it. The woman in the mirror had long hair the colour of a cloudless night trailing past her shoulders and settling halfway down her back. A lock of hair curled itself on her forehead, covering her left eyebrow. Dark brown eyes with hints of silver stared out; a sleek nose scrunched up when she tried a smile.

Flexing her arms, she nodded approvingly at the hard, defined muscle that appeared, a telling sign of years of swinging pickaxes and hauling iron ore. Her abs were taut, slim body full of lean muscle and not much fat. Satisfied, Moonbyul strolled towards a drawer where she kept her other clothes. She pulled out a plain white support tank and matching underwear, then shrugged on a heat-resistant hoodie and a comfortable pair of sweatpants.

She stood there in the middle of her shuttle with her hands on her hips, debating what to do next. She decided to sort her haul of ice as it seemed to be the most important and pressing matter at the moment. Setting one bucket aside for trading purposes, she scooped out a few handfuls of ice out from her other bucket to supply her shower cubicle. Larger clumps of ice were to be used to fuel her shuttle, while the smaller crystals were for self-hydration. As she sorted the ice, she crunched on a crystal, delighting in the way the ice melted in and made its way down . Water, she decided, was always best when drunk cold.

A knock on the door interrupted her train of thought. “Moonbyul, help an old man with the ice, will you? It’s quite a load to carry, especially since I had to trek all the way here from the main building.”

Moonbyul opened the door to let Lars in. He was still in his mining gear, and sweat dripped down his forehead and neck in rivulets as he held up his two insulated buckets of ice. “Kid, let me tell you: if we didn't have these magic buckets, all the ice would’ve melted. Then I'd be stuck carrying water that would evaporate straightaway in this bleeding heat. Then I'd have walked all this way for no good reason.”

“Lars, the mine camp is a kilometre away at max.”

“Easy for you to say, kid, you haven't even lived three decades yet. Trust me, when you've hit your second century mark, things go downhill really fast.” Lars stumbled into the shuttle and dropped the buckets on the floor with a loud thump. Inch by inch he straightened his back, easing out the pops and cracks as his spine reverted to its original curves, and let out a sweet sigh of relief.

Chuckling, Moonbyul picked up the buckets that Lars had left on her floor and moved them to her refrigeration compartment where her own stock of ice was kept. “You're so ancient, Lars, I'm surprised you ain't dead yet.”

It was meant as a joke, of course, but Lars’s face immediately turned so solemn at her comment Moonbyul instantly regretted her words, fearing she might have been quite discourteous. But just as quick as Lars’s face turned dark, it turned bright again, a corner of his mouth quirked up in a bemused smile. “Only gods live forever,” he murmured.

Moonbyul frowned. It was quite unlike Lars to mention beings of mythos in such a serious-sounding sentence. She had heard him say things like “Goddamn” and “hell”, even the occasional “Christ!”, but everyone knew those were just curses, exclamations of an old man.

It was common knowledge that mythical creatures were, well, mythical. Imaginary, if you will. This had been made exceedingly clear by the Juris for as long as she remembered. The fourth millennium was built on science and innovation, and in Moonbyul's opinion, these were the only things that mattered in this day and age. Creativity was welcome, sure, where would they be without music or movies? As long as everyone understood that these sorts of stories were works of fiction and did not insist on their credibility, everything was fine.

Not that this had mattered to Moonbyul in the slightest, since there wasn't anything creative on the planet she lived on except tales of her fellow miners. As far as Moonbyul could recall, Lars had definitely never mentioned gods or deities or any of that sort of thing. Ever. So this sort of behaviour was extremely un-Lars-like, and had her very worried.

She placed a hand on Lars's shoulder. “You okay, man?”

Lars reached up to pat her hand. “Definitely. Just tired.”

Moonbyul was unconvinced, but nodded anyway. She gestured to her shuttle's cockpit. “Should I start the engine, then?”

Lars grunted in agreement as he eased himself down onto the floor and sat down with a satisfied sigh. Moonbyul settled herself in the pilot’s seat, and with a few flicks of switches and buttons being pushed, the shuttle’s engine rumbled to life.

Her fingers flew over the panels as she inputted their destination.

*You will arrive at your destination in 5 minutes.*

“That voice sounds familiar,” Lars remarked behind her. Moonbyul swivelled around in her chair to face him, her cheeks already flushing in embarrassment.

“Yeah?”

“Yes, it does.” Lars peered at her for a while. Suddenly his lips peeled back in a smirk. “That’s Chrystal’s voice, isn’t it?”

Chrystal. The femme fatale of Venus with an alluring voice and ethereal looks. From the pictures, she seemed cold, unmoving, fierce; from the vid screens, her smile, childish and teasing, said otherwise. She was all Moonbyul ever wanted, all Moonbyul knew she would never have, at least not physically.

Which was exactly why she programmed Chrystal’s voice into the interface. She was pretty sure there wasn’t any law against that, and even if there was, no one would ever know anyway. It wasn’t as if she was ever going to leave this planet.

But still she blushed. “So what?” she countered, embarrassed.

Lars flashed her a smirk. “Good choice.”

“Yeah? Well.” Moonbyul got to her feet and stuck her hands in her pockets to hide her mortification. “We’re going to be at Central soon, so you might want to look a bit more presentable than you are now. Because let’s be honest, Lars, you look like you just woke up and climbed out of a coffin.”

Rolling his eyes for form, Lars headed towards the shower cubicle to splash some water on his face and slick whatever little hair he had back. When he walked out, Moonbyul beckoned for him to join her in the cockpit, and both miners looked out the plexiglass shield at their destination: Central.

Central was the ultimate haven for anyone living on Mercury. It was encapsulated by a humongous weather dome, its sole purpose to regulate the temperature within it by creating a suitable atmosphere. The bubble-like dome itself was tinted, blocking out the majority of the sun's glare. Cloud engineers puttered about, injecting man-made clouds near the top of the hemisphere to cool down the district.

Inside, Central was a busy place. There were shops that sold mechanical and electrical bits, markets that held foodstuff and water for the planetary workers, some clothing stores, and a few miscellaneous stalls; and at the very centre of the district, standing tall and proud, was Merc HQ.

Merc HQ was helmed by one of the members of the Juris, and was home to the planet's treasury, rations store, and medical hall, as well as a few scientists that were posted to the planet. Moonbyul was familiar enough with the rations master as every Earth month she would drive to HQ to collect her sector’s rations on behalf of her colleagues. She had heard that the doctors working there were of ex-military status, and could kill as well as they could heal.

Patrolling Central was a small army of droids. It was easy enough to tell when they were approaching: the whirrs and clacks of the gears running the droids were ridiculously loud. Moonbyul suspected the droids never had tune-ups, and so their gears had never been oiled. Most of Central’s inhabitants took it as a convenience rather than an annoyance, especially those in the black market trade or those selling off some of their rations for more than twice the price -- which was illegal -- as they could quickly pack up and flee at the sound of approaching droids.

Shifting her drive back to manual, Moonbyul slowed her shuttle down to a snail’s crawl as she maneuvered around the tight streets of Central’s marketplace. A few traders recognised her shuttle as she passed by and waved at her. She parked her shuttle in a large lot and opened the door for Lars.

“Excuse me!” A smattering of shoppers and traders turned around at his voice. Moonbyul lugged out the insulated buckets of ice from their haul and arranged it next to him. Lars grinned. “Would you like some fresh ice?”

In a matter of seconds they were mobbed. “Ten credits a scoop! Ten credits a scoop!” he cried over the din.

“Hey, Lars, old boy,” one man elbowed his way to the front of the crowd. “Y’alright with tradin’? How much a dozen apples worth?”

“Show me yours and I'll give you mine,” Lars replied.

“Deal!” The customer burrowed his way out and returned with a small box of apples.

“Hey!” Moonbyul peered into the box, picked up an apple and gently pressed it. “This is that reconstructed , ain't it?”

“What, kid, you think I got the real stuff? This is Mercury, dammit, I don't got none of that .”

That made sense, and besides, reconstructed apples were better than no apples at all. “Fair. You get a solid helping of ice, boyo,” Lars said, scooping up two large handfuls and dumping it in the waiting man's bowl. Aside, he told Moonbyul, “Go and wander about, kid. I’ll take care of things here.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, kid, you should go out, get some new clothes or something. Isn’t that a thing that young people do?”

Moonbyul shrugged. “Dunno, man. I’ve been stuck here since forever, with y’all oldies, I wouldn’t know what young people do.”

Lars nodded wisely. “Well, I say it is, so off with you. Shoo.” He made a send-off gesture, waving her away from the crowd surrounding her shuttle.

Now that she was free, and had a few credits still on hand, Moonbyul strolled through the market, greeting shopkeepers and customers alike. She paused briefly at a few stalls, but kept going.

One particular stall caught her eye, and she deviated away from the main pathway of the marketplace. The stall in question held a vast array of bags in many different designs. She the thick faux cloth of a large carry bag, testing the strength of its seams and durability of its multiple zips.

“Interested, miss?” The shopkeeper's head popped up from behind the bag, followed by the rest of him as he waddled out to sell his stock. He was a dwarf of a man, the top of his head only reaching halfway up Moonbyul's torso, with stocky limbs, a wicked grin, and a glint in his eye.

“Sure, yeah.”

“Very well! You can call me Mes,” he stuck out his hand.

Charmed, she took his hand and replied: “My name's Moonbyul.” He pumped it enthusiastically, nearly pulling her arm out from its socket.

“Good, good! Moonbyul! Are you very interested in this wonderful bag?” Mes hefted the bag that she was looking at and turned it around in his hands. “Allow me to demonstrate.”

He ped the bag and took out a long strap, which he then attached to both ends of the bag. He slipped the attached strap over his head, letting the bag hang at his hip. “It can function like a sling bag, as so.”

Then, shrugging it off, he fiddled with a small clasp on the strap, splitting it up into two shorter, identical straps. He deftly clicked the straps in two other places on the bag. Hooking his arms through the straps, he tugged on the bag. “And now, a backpack.”

“Savvy design, Mes,” Moonbyul remarked, impressed.

“Indeed, indeed, excellent eye.” Mes offered the bag to her. “Are you looking to buy it?”

“Y’know,” Moonbyul said, taking the bag from him and pulling it on, “I think I am.” She reached into her pockets and took out a handful of credits. “How much?”

Mes clapped his hands together and beamed. “Oh, wonderful! Fourteen credits for you, Moonbyul, for a young woman like yourself!” When she poured the credits into his palm, he bowed a full ninety degrees, his blonde hair sweeping his boots. “Thank you for buying!”

Fourteen credits lighter and with a practical bag at her side, Moonbyul strolled through the rest of the marketplace, stopping to buy a new set of clothes, as well as some other necessities.

That was when she heard the scream, so loud and so piercing it was like a tsunami of sound crashing over her entire body. She whipped around, wide eyes searching.

There. “No!” A woman, she realised, a woman in great distress. “Un. Hand. Me!”

For some unknown reason, Moonbyul was compelled to run towards the commotion. Her feet flew over the dusty roads of the marketplace, and as she ran, it slowly dawned on her that she was running towards the towering building that was Merc HQ. There would be many droids there, she knew, and a small army ready to kill anyone who disturbed the peace.

And still she ran.

Pushing through the crowd that had gathered before the giant wooden doors of HQ, Moonbyul spotted the source of the scream. A woman with wild hair the colour of rose quartz was thrashing in the grip of two droids, her limbs flying everywhere as she desperately attempted to break free.

And, Moonbyul noticed now, she was absolutely stark .

A crazy woman, Moonbyul decided in that instant, and started to backtrack. Then the woman, her crazed gold eyes whirling in her sockets, fixed themselves on Moonbyul.

“Diana!” she cried. “Help me, Diana!”

And who in the universe was that?, Moonbyul wondered, confused. But the mad woman was still staring at her, screaming for Diana. Who Moonbyul obviously was not. And yet…

She took a step forward. A hand grabbed her arm. “Miss, don’t. It’s dangerous,” someone hissed behind her. That she knew, but there was something drawing her to the woman, a sensation that she didn’t understand. Her mind was telling her to leave; still her body pushed forward, until she stood at the very front of the crowd.

“Let her go.” Every single person in the crowd turned to look at her, their faces a mixture of awe and fear.

“Negative. Step back, civilian.” One of the droids turned its mechanical head to address her.

What had gotten into her? Moonbyul’s body propelled her forward until she was face-to-face with the droid that had spoken to her. “I said, let her go.”

“Warning, civilian. Continued obstruction of direct orders of the Juris will result in punishment.”

Moonbyul glanced at the woman in their robotic hands. She had tired of screaming, and was now breathing heavily as her eyes began to glaze over. She looked at Moonbyul.

“Diana,” she said quietly in her hoarse voice. “Help me.”

Before she knew what was happening, Moonbyul’s fist plowed into the first droid’s face of its own accord, crumpling its metallic features. Finding the metal droid more pliable than she originally thought, she continued to punch the dented droid until it was nothing more than cogs and springs. She stood up and turned to the other droid. “Let. Go,” she warned in a deep growl.

“Alert! Alert! Assailant is identified as-”

It never got the chance to finish its sentence as Moonbyul crushed its grip on the woman with one hand and sent it sprawling with a kick to its chest. Fueled by an overwhelming need to protect, Moonbyul grabbed the bemused woman’s hand and dragged her to her feet.

“Do you trust me?”

The pink-haired woman nodded. “Yes.” Behind her, the damaged droid’s eyes started to blink an alarm red. Moonbyul glanced around; more droids were beginning to appear, attracted by the distress signal of the droid she had kicked.

“Good.” Moonbyul tightened her grip on the woman. “Run!”