Solar worriedly glanced at the woman shivering in her arms. Not long after they had fled into the storage room, Moonbyul had started to show symptoms of sickness, her face growing pale and her body slowly resisting movement. What exactly had been inflicted on her, Solar could not tell. She was not the goddess of medicine -- how she wished that Hygieia was with them again. Maybe then Moonbyul wouldn’t be in such a sorry state, leaning against Solar’s shoulder as they sat there on the cold, dark floor.

“It’s too cold in here, isn’t it?” Moonbyul asked, teeth chattering.

“It is,” Solar replied, body blazing warm inside her suit. She held Moonbyul a little closer to her, hoping to share the warmth with her somehow. “Where do you suppose we are going?”

“Hmm.” Moonbyul frowned in thought. “Juris HQ? I honestly don’t know, but that would be my best guess.”

“And where would that be?”

Moonbyul rolled her eyes. “Like I’d know. I’ve never been there. But that’s where all the big-shots go, like the head honcho of the miners back on Mercury, they gotta go there to report and talk about stuff and attend stupid meetings. And then they always come back with either a pissed off face or a stupid grin. Didn’t matter to us anyway, all we had going for us was more work.” She rolled over and winced. “Science above, every bone in my body aches so much.”

Solar looked at her helplessly. From her suit pocket the metal hedgehog stuck out its head and scurried over to Moonbyul. She glanced down at it. “Don’t suppose you could do something about the pain again, huh, little guy?”

The hedgehog whined and curled up on her stomach. Sighing, she ran her hand over its quills. “Guessed as much.”

There they were, alone together in the dreary storage room. Solar found her restless hands at Moonbyul’s hair, it slowly and playing with the locks of midnight blue. She couldn’t lie to herself that the gesture was to soothe Moonbyul’s pain -- it was selfish, but she knew she was doing it for herself too. After a while, Moonbyul’s body grew heavy on her shoulder and side as she fell asleep, and Solar wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her even closer.

How she wished she was stronger. How she wished she could protect instead of always having to be protected, to be able to provide safety to Moonbyul instead of always dragging her into danger. And now here Moonbyul was, in her arms, sick and helpless because of her. She was thoroughly disgusted with herself, with her utter uselessness whenever they were in critical situations.

Just as Solar was about to berate herself to the ground, her sharp ears picked up voices from the other side of the door. One of them she immediately recognised as Hwasa’s, and the other… well, not so much. She strained to listen in from her position, taking care not to wake Moonbyul as she did so. The person conversing with Hwasa was definitely a female. Perhaps the woman was the figure Solar had seen leaving the spaceship just now, she wondered.

There was only one way to find out, and Solar was not looking forward to it.

Fortunately for the both of them, the voices grew softer, as if the two women on the other side of the door were leaving. For now, Solar and Moonbyul were safe -- or as safe as one could ever be while still in the enemies’ clutches. Breathing a sigh of relief, Solar eased Moonbyul away from her shoulder, propping her up against the wall so she could stand up and stretch her legs. With apprehensive footsteps she approached the door and pressed her ear against it, straining her ears to catch any sign of Hwasa’s presence.

Solar did not even realise that she had fallen asleep until she jolted awake at the sensation of someone gently trying to push the door open. Glancing over, she noted with some concern that Moonbyul had not moved a muscle. But she couldn’t rush over to check on her, not when someone was trying to enter the room. So Solar leaned her full body weight on the door, trying her best to prevent the other person from entering.

Whoever was on the other side of the door was terribly strong. Solar prayed to all the gods and goddesses that it was not Hwasa. The person on the other side suddenly released all pressure on the door, causing it to swing wide open.

Solar fell forward with the momentum of the door. Her hands broke her fall, and she came face-to-face with a pair of white boots.

“Woah. Who are you?” An extremely surprised voice asked. Solar looked up to see a young woman , no more than twenty-two years of age, staring down at her curiously.  The woman bent down and offered her a hand. “You good?”

Solar stared at the hand suspiciously. This woman seemed a bit too kind to a total stranger who had snuck on-board and now was essentially trespassing on their spacecraft. Offering the woman a cautious smile, Solar backed away and stood up, dusting herself off.

“Um.” Looking very put out, the stranger retracted her hand and scratched her head. Now that her sight was not obscured by backlight, Solar could clearly see the stranger’s features. The woman was pretty -- not just simply pretty, but in a very uniquely cute sort of way -- and, when the left corner of her lips twitched up in an awkward smile, a deep dimple stretched itself into existence on her cheek.

“So, um, where did you come from?” The pretty stranger asked, tucking a curl of blonde hair behind her ear. She leaned to her left, peering into the darkened storage area where Solar had appeared from. Her eyes widened in utter shock.

“Byul!”

The blonde stranger dashed past Solar and ran straight towards Moonbyul. Kneeling on the floor, she pressed her one hand against Moonbyul’s forehead, then checked her pulse. “Oh, Byul, what happened?”

Solar warily approached them. “You know Moonbyul.”

“Of course!” The stranger nodded, still patting Moonbyul down and checking her symptoms. “She’s our friend.”

“Our?” Solar glared at the stranger. “You are referring to the woman named Hwasa as well, are you not?”

The stranger nodded again, only half-listening. She sat back, worry radiating off her face. “Gods, what did she do to Byul?” Leaping up, the stranger strode towards one of the wall-mounted cupboards and, rifling about, took out a box marked ‘First-aid’.

Crouching back down next to Moonbyul, she opened the box and took out a syringe and ampoule after examining its contents. She stuck the syringe needle into the ampoule and drew the piston back, then leaned forward and placed the syringe against the inner side of Moonbyul’s right elbow.

“Wait!” Solar shot out her hand and grabbed the syringe. She glared at the stranger. “What do you think you are doing?”

“I could say the same about you, you know,” the stranger replied, annoyance showing clear on her face. She jerked the syringe back. “I’m trying to help Byul. How about you?”

“I-” Solar’s words stuck in . What was she trying to do? To protect Moonbyul, she supposed, however she could. “I cannot allow you to harm her.”

The stranger sighed and with a quick jerk extracted her hand from Solar’s strong grip. Then, without any warning, she jabbed the syringe into her own arm and pushed the plunger. “I would never ever harm Byul. Please trust me,” she pleaded.

Solar was stunned, to say the least. Never in her life -- and she had lived a long, long life -- did she ever meet someone as tenacious as this random blonde woman. When she had stabbed herself with the syringe, she did not even hesitate or flinch, and her eyes shone only with determination and compassion for Moonbyul. The stranger had shown that, in a span of only a few minutes, she was essentially everything that Solar wanted so very badly to be. “A-alright,” she managed.

“Good.” The blonde took out another similar ampoule and syringe and injected the medication into Moonbyul’s arm. From the first-aid kit she also took out a small plaster and neatly patted it onto the miniscule puncture mark.

Her job done, she rose back up to her full height -- of which Solar noted wasn’t that much at all -- and offered a grin at Solar. “She should wake up in a while feeling much better, so don’t worry!”

A quick check on Moonbyul indicated that, indeed, Moonbyul was definitely showing some immediate signs of improvement. For one, her temperature had begun to stabilize, and Solar noticed she had stopped shivering. And although it might not have been easily discernible even by the goddess of medicine herself, to Solar’s eyes the relaxation of Moonbyul’s sleeping face by just a few degrees was unmistakable.

“I see,” Solar breathed out in relief. She smiled back. “Thank you so much.”

The stranger shrugged. “No problem.” She fiddled with the left sleeve of her spacesuit and frowned at the tiny display screen embedded in it. “Well, that was fast.”

“What is?”

The blonde woman closed her eyes, considered her options, then opened them. Crouching down next to Solar, she took her hand and gripped it firmly. “You gotta listen to me and do as I say. When we land back home in like five minutes, you need to get out of here immediately. Do you know where the exit is?”

Solar nodded.

“Good. I’ll try to distract Hwasa as long as I can so you two can escape. Once you have, you’ll find yourself in one of the Juris airstrips. It’s a big, open space with lots of other spacecraft. Go into the main building, follow the signage to the main healing bay, and hide there until I come to find you. Okay?”

Solar nodded again.

“Great. Awesome.” The stranger got up again to leave.

“Wait!” Solar called out. The stranger turned. “My name is Solar. I haven’t asked you what yours was.”

The stranger grinned. “Nice to meet you, Solar. I’m Wheein.”

Solar kept a watchful eye on Moonbyul, and forced herself to contain her glee when the latter began to stir. Just in time, too, as she was convinced she could feel the spacecraft beginning to descend.

“Solar? What’s going on?” Moonbyul asked the moment she was fully awake.

“How are you feeling?” Solar helped her up as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

Moonbyul stretched, loosening her muscles and warming up her body. “Well, I felt like just a few minutes ago, but I feel really alive right now.”

Solar beamed at her. “That's great!” The floor underneath their feet trembled; the jarring sound of gears meshing against each other grew louder. “Just in time, it seems. We are about to land.”

“.” Moonbyul all but dashed to the door, peered out to ensure no one was standing outside, and rushed to one of the windows, Solar following in her wake. “! We’re already starting to land.”

“On one of the Juris airstrips, I was told,” Solar helpfully informed Moonbyul.

“Juris?” Moonbyul slowly turned, her eyes wide with shock. “We’re actually going to land at Juris HQ?” She pressed her face to the window and stared out. “Oh, crap.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Solar, you don’t understand.” Moonbyul looked at her in sheer panic. “We’re literally landing into major enemy territory. This is Hwasa’s territory. Science above, we’re so screwed.”

“Don’t worry,” Solar assured her. “I have a plan.” She informed Moonbyul about Wheein, about how the blonde woman had essentially saved Moonbyul’s life and had given very specific instructions upon landing.

“Wheein?” Moonbyul closed her eyes to think. “Wheein… sounds familiar.” She opened her eyes again and rubbed at the small band-aid on her arm, trying to recall any possible past memory of the woman.

“A small woman?” Solar placed a hand beside her elbow. “This tall, with a cute dimple in her cheek.” She squished her own cheek with a finger.

“Ah!” Moonbyul laughed; it was a sound that lifted Solar’s heart. “Small Wheein! And you said she told us where to go?”

“That’s right.”

“If there’s anyone we can trust, it’s her," Moonbyul murmured.

Just as she said that, the spacecraft landed with a small bump. Both women looked at each other, terrified and excited. “Time to go,” they said simultaneously.

One could never imagine how strained Moonbyul’s and Solar’s muscles were when they snuck around the spacecraft. Tiptoeing in boots was no easy task, and when the spaceship they were in was dead silent, keeping quiet was an even greater challenge. Solar allowed herself one quiet breath when they reached the start of the corridor that led to the exit.

“It’s just there,” Moonbyul hissed. “You ready?”

“I believe I am.” Solar steeled her nerves. “We must move directly towards the main building and find the healing bay.”

Moonbyul gave her a firm nod. “Right behind you.”

On the count of three, they sprinted towards the door, not caring when the heavy sound of their boots echoed throughout the spaceship. The only thing that mattered was getting through that door.

Twenty metres.

Ten metres.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One metre away from freedom -- and the door at the end of the corridor burst open. Hwasa stood there, whip ready in hand and a furious glower on her face. Behind her was a flustered Wheein, nervously peeking over Hwasa’s shoulder. When Solar caught her eye, she quickly waved her hand, gesturing for them to run away.

“And where do you think you’re going?” Hwasa thundered.

“! Go!” Moonbyul followed Solar through the exit door and slammed it behind her, leaning against it with all her might as the door jerked and trembled under the force of Hwasa’s power.

They found themselves in a small room, only a few square feet wide.

“Well? How do we get out?” Moonbyul demanded.

Solar tapped the floor with her boot, and it trembled under her feet. “This… this is a platform. See the thin line there?” Moonbyul’s gaze followed Solar’s pointed finger. There was indeed a thin slit running around the room, lines meeting at four corners to form a square. “This is the real exit.”

“How do we get out, then?” Moonbyul asked, her voice straining as her hands clung onto the wall and the door giving way behind her. “There’s gotta be some way to activate the damn thing.”

Solar started feeling around the walls, looking for a button, a lever, anything to activate the platform.

“Can you hurry up?” Moonbyul shouted as the weight of the door (and the person on the other side of it) bore down on her back.

“I’m trying, I'm trying!” But there was nothing to be found.

Suddenly, Solar saw the light. She stomped her foot on the platform, hard. With a cranky growl the platform shook before giving way. She slipped her helmet on before gesturing at Moonbyul to hop on as the platform rapidly but gracefully descended.

Moonbyul arranged her suit helmet, then with a mighty leap jumped through the hole the platform had created. She landed on the ground with a muffled thump, her high-tech boots naturally absorbing most of the impact even as she followed through with the instinctive forward roll.

The view before them was like nothing either of them had ever seen.

Overhead the sky burned a brilliant blue, though not a single bird was in sight, nor were there any clouds in the sky.

Hwasa’s impressively massive spacecraft stood amongst many other smaller ones, although the smaller space shuttles were still much bigger than anything Moonbyul could ever imagine piloting. They were all perched on runways that extended into the horizon, engines thrumming like the heartbeat of a hawk preparing to launch itself towards its prey. One could certainly almost see the air shimmering with the combined heat of all the shuttles in the large space.

Working on the giant space shuttles were dozens and dozens of technicians and engineers, all armed with manual tools such as power drills and screwdrivers. Snaking between them were smaller robots that latched onto the shuttles and assisted with repairs and touch-ups. Yelling was inevitable; there was no other way to be heard, the engines of the shuttles drowning out all other sounds.

It was perhaps this constant state of cacophony that allowed Solar and Moonbyul to sneak around an empty shuttle and hide behind it without being noticed.

“There’s so many shuttles around!” Moonbyul quietly gushed to Solar, all sickness and pain from before completely non-existent. Her eyes shone with excitement and awe, as never in her wildest dreams would she ever have laid eyes on these many gorgeous machines. The engineers and technicians here were completely different than those on Mercury; unlike Moonbyul’s fellow miners, scrawny and slow as they were, these people appeared tough and well-built, and worked with a vigor that no simple workman could match.

And the shuttles! Oh, Science above, the shuttles were magnificent. Moonbyul did not have the opportunity to admire Hwasa’s space shuttle -- on account of being unconscious when kidnapped and all of that -- but now that they were a good distance away from it, she could admire it in all of its glory. The way it shone, all sleek silver and polished black. The way it rose onto its spindly legs, allowing the many technicians gathered around it to do a quick fix-up, then a careful shift back to its original position.

And yet… for some reason, Moonbyul felt like it would never compare to the Woolsthorpe. A strange wave of sadness washed over her. Like her predecessor, she couldn’t complete the mission set out to them; there was no way she could ever round Neptune, and the idea of even managing to return back to Mercury was but a wistful dream.

“Moonbyul? Are you alright?” Solar placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“Yeah. Yeah, don’t worry ‘bout it. Just thinking about… stuff.” Moonbyul rubbed at her eyes. Now was not the right time to be thinking about home, not when they were stuck here, trespassing in a potentially hostile environment.

Solar considered her next action, then nodded. No point in prying. Not now, at least. Instead, she gestured to their left with her chin. “Would you suppose that that is our destination?”

Moonbyul leaned over. Her eyes bugged out of their sockets when she saw what was before them. “Pretty sure that’s it.”

The building was, on all accounts, extremely intimidating, not just because of how it seemed to extend upwards into the sky -- although that did play a large part in its formidable presence --  but also because of the raw power that Moonbyul knew it held within its many rooms.

It was, after all, the headquarters of the ruling government of the galaxy. This was where all the members of the Juris would gather once a year, as well as all the people who worked directly under them, for the Grand Meeting.

Like everyone else, Moonbyul understood the true importance of the meeting. It was carried out over the span of a few days, and almost always ended with the Juris Lord that oversaw the happenings on Mercury returning with a bountiful harvest of items, and would occasionally be generous enough to give out some of those that they had procured.

She remembered with a distant fondness telling her fellow miners -- and amusing Lars -- with tales of what she would do if she ever became one of the Lords. She would stride down one of their endless hallways, walk past the scientific research area, up the lift, and take the quick glides near the healing bay directly to the spacious meeting area where the other Lords would discuss whatever important matters they usually discussed.

Hwasa would be there, sitting regally like a queen on her throne, face impassive as she half-listened to the others speak. A few faces seemed familiar -- one of them was most certainly the Juris Lord from Mercury. The other, the most beautiful woman in the galaxy, Chrystal, sat opposite Hwasa, hands covering a beguiling smile. She beckoned Moonbyul over, and Moonbyul started forward…

Solar grabbed Moonbyul’s arm in a vice-grip. “Moonbyul, what’s wrong?” she asked, voice thick with worry.

Moonbyul frowned. Just a moment ago she swore she was in the headquarters of the Juris with the other Lords, although she had no idea how she knew any of them, or how they would sit. It was such a vivid daydream, too vivid to possibly be real.

“Nothing, just… weird daydreams.” She brushed it off, unsure as to what would happen if she dwelt on it any longer.

Solar stared at her a while longer. Moonbyul’s behaviour was becoming more and more unusual, more distracted, unlike her usual focused self. “Well, now isn’t exactly the appropriate time to daydream. We need to get in that building and find our way to-”

“Hey!” A gruff voice shouted. Shocked, both women looked up. An engineer, rough around the edges and a hefty wrench in one hand, glared down at them. “What you doin’ here?”

“Crap.” Moonbyul pushed Solar, and they both tumbled away, rolling back up onto their feet. “Run!”

“Oi!” The engineer bellowed at them. “And where d’you think you’re goin’?” He ran after them, the wrench never leaving his hand. Moonbyul risked a glance back; with the way the engineer’s hard boots slammed against the ground, and his mouth twisted into a grimace, it was as if a crazed bull was on their heels.

They ran around shuttles, bobbing and weaving, nearly crashing into others as they fled the shuttle runway. Rounding the corner of the tall building, Solar’s keen eyes spotted a side door cleverly installed so it stood flush to the side of the building.

“In here!” She exclaimed, and both women hurriedly crammed themselves through the door. They caught their breath there in the darkness of the hidden passageway, doubled over with their backs to the door.

“Nice one,” Moonbyul breathed. “He shouldn’t be able to find us, we totally outran him then.”

“I certainly hope so,” Solar agreed. “Where do you think we are?”

Moonbyul glanced around in the awfully dim passageway. “Probably one of those secret technician’s entrances. For the cable guys and stuff. The building’s big enough that you gotta have a billion ways in for all the not-so-important people, y’know, for those of us who aren’t the Lords nor work under them.”

Solar sniffed contemptuously. “You’re important to me.”

Moonbyul blinked, then grinned. “Me too. I mean, you, you’re important too. To me. We’re friends, after all.”

“Just friends?” Solar murmured, so quietly that Moonbyul nearly missed the question.

“I-” Moonbyul hesitated. “We really shouldn’t be having this conversation now.” She attempted to steer the conversation away, but Solar was having none of it.

“You almost died back there, Moonbyul.” With the bleak lighting in the narrow corridor, Solar’s face was framed in shadows. Her pink hair sat dull on her shoulders, her head bowed down. “It made me really think about us -- or the potential of an ‘us’.”

“Solar, I can’t give you an answer just like that.”

“And why not?” Solar challenged.

Moonbyul heaved a sigh. “Because I’ve never actually been attracted to anyone. I don’t get feelings. Solar, I’m sorry, I just…”

Solar scrubbed at her eyes, stinging for reasons she did not want to think about. “It’s alright,” she quipped, her voice hard and dry as granite. She turned to look down the passageway. “I think we should go now. Wheein might be waiting for us.”

Moonbyul was not entirely surprised by Solar’s apathetic tone, and decided not to argue. How could she, after what could essentially be seen as a sort of rejection? So she followed Solar in silence, not speaking up until they exited the small passageway and found themselves in a long corridor not too dissimilar to the interior of Hwasa’s space shuttle.

“Where would you suppose the main healing bay is?” Solar wondered, looking around for some sort of signage that could point them to their destination. Before she could even take a step Moonbyul grabbed her arm and pointed to their left.

“This way.”

Solar raised her eyebrows at her instant response, but complied. Moonbyul smoothly guided them through the building, somehow knowing when people would appear and which way to turn in the maze of corridors, and when she unhesitatingly pressed the button to the fourth floor in the elevator, Solar was thoroughly spooked.

“Moonbyul, how-”

Moonbyul shuddered as the elevator silently made its way up. Her eyelids fluttered, and she seemed to recoil as she regained her senses. “I don’t know, it just- it just came to me. Like my body knows where to go even though I don’t have any memory of it.” She paused and turned to Solar. “It happened once before, come to think of it. When we were on Mercury, the first time we met.”

“I was struggling against the robots,” Solar recalled.

“The droids, yeah. And I saved you. I didn’t mean to” -- Solar looked affronted at this -- “not at that time, at least, because I didn’t know you, but my body reacted before I knew what was happening.”

Solar grinned. “Instinct attracted us to each other, you mean?”

Moonbyul shrugged. “I guess? And maybe one kind of attraction could lead to another?”

Solar zoned in on that question. “What does that mean?”

The elevator came to a halt as she asked the question, saving Moonbyul from having to give an awkward answer. “Oh, we’re here,” Moonbyul exclaimed, clearly relieved. After glancing left and right, she gestured to Solar and snuck out of the lift. “Come on, this way.”

Solar trailed behind Moonbyul, nervously looking out for any sign of hostility. But as they crept along, something in Solar’s peripheral vision caught her eye. “Moonbyul,” she whispered, tugging on the back of her companion’s suit, “do you know what is behind that door?”

“Which one?” She turned to see Solar already pushing a door open. “Dammit, Solar, you can’t just trespass into other people’s places like that.”

Moonbyul followed her in anyway, and was stunned into silence.

Behind the door was a vast array of -- well, to be quite honest, even Moonbyul herself, self-declared technological expert extraordinaire, had no idea what exactly was behind the door. To Solar, everything was just made of metal and glass and made for science. There were too many lights, flashing and blinking in glaring red and calming blue, and wires that criss-crossed and curled around each other like snakes. Lines and shapes formed patterns on screens, along with a multitude of data that scrolled through at a rapid pace.

Solar had never felt more out of place than right now. She wandered around the room, disoriented, and came to a halt outside a vertical pod. Through its translucent viewing glass she could make out the silhouette of a person.

“Moonbyul!” she hissed, waving the blue-haired woman over. She jabbed a finger at the pod, her eyes wide. “There’s someone in here!”

Intrigued, Moonbyul trotted over and looked over the machine. She poked the small display screen attached to the pod, fiddling with the pictures and labels on-screen. A page of data flashed on, and she scanned through it quickly.

“It says there’s a lady in there, and she’s been in there for quite a while.” Her eyes darted left and right as she read. “Seems like they do experiments on her or something?”

“Then we should remove her from this machine. No living thing should be experimented on like this,” Solar pointed out.

“Okay, let me just-” Moonbyul circled the pod, then pressed a button at random.

The pod hissed as its outer dome lifted. Cold mist escaped the pod as it opened, making Moonbyul shiver involuntarily. Once the mist cleared, Moonbyul felt the oddest sense of deja vu as she stared at the figure sleeping in the pod.

“T-that’s…” At a loss for words, Moonbyul stumbled back as Solar surged forward, alarm written all over her face.

“Diana!”

Happy new year everyone! Would you believe it took me two months to write half a chapter and then like two-ish weeks to write the other half? Ridiculous, I know. It's been a mix of burnout, writer's block, and just me being too tired after work to use whatever little brain matter my human has to do things.

But anyway. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and as always, if you're liking the story so far, please do upvote and/or comment! Thank you for reading!

p.s. find me on twitter @ashensprites for more fun stuff (stories) that will probably happen in the future because i constantly have too many new ideas and honestly it's sorta kinda overwhelming