"Space Cadets 950922, 970324 and 961229. Report to Headcommander Park's station immediately for further instructions on Task Sierra 12."

For the first time today, Nayeon pulls away from Mina's lips with an ugly scowl. She collapses onto the other side of the bed, her arm still a little sore from propping herself up for a good ten minutes, and breathes out a long, dramatic groan. 

On the other hand, Mina looks to her girlfriend with tender eyes and giggles through her gummy smile, whispering as she moves closer to Nayeon's pouty face: "Baby, I thought you've been waiting for this for ages?" The Japanese girl gives the older cadet a peck on the nose (which earns her squinty, judgemental eyes followed by the eventual upturn of her lips, no less) and pushes herself off her bed and onto the sheer white floor of her dorm. 

"Didn't you send twenty-three formal requests for us to get paired together, anyway?" Mina elaborates, turning to retrieve her training pack from the top of her desk. 

"You counted?" 

"You asked me to print them out each time you were done with paraphrasing a couple lines."

"I didn't know we'll get it in Term Eight! I thought we were gonna get it at the start of the next term!" Nayeon yells, her head thrown back. Her girlfriend can only give her aother hearty laugh in response. 

The older girl bounces her head back down, and meets the brunette's eyes in an inquisitive gaze. And Mina can already smell that she desn't like her girlfriend's sudden dispositional shift. "How long till Satang gets tired of our bull?" she asks with a devilish smirk, getting off the squeaky bed and ambling forward. An unamused Mina snaps her head around to grab her transceiver off the shelf, but is stopped by Nayeon's insistant fingers pushing it back to face hers. 

Even after giving Nayeon (yet another) quick peck on the lips, she insists on holding Mina's free hand sandwiched between both of hers, and begins to manipulate her with the power of puppy-like whimpers and large, pleading eyes.

"No, Nayeonnie, if we don't get there, he'll kick our butts and we won't graduate."

"But babe~" Nayeon starts, inching closer to Mina as if their intense proximity decided on the promptness of their departure. 

Mina rolls her eyes and cups Nayeon's puffed cheeks in her palms, saying: "And we won't get to embark on our adventure across the Sankt Galaxy like we promised." To which Nayeon simply directs her gaze at the insanely large digital map projected in Mina's dorm wall, with small digital hearts marking planets and stars, with a dotted line marking routes and lengths, with tiny texts containing two types of handwriting on destinations and sites and their history. 

With bright eyes, Nayeon regards the younger girl again with a little "Yeehaw?"

"Yeehaw," Mina replies. And it's enough for Nayeon to snatch her own training pack off the hook behind the door too, if it weren't for the energetic girl bursting through it with a wide grin plastered on her face. 

"MiNayeon! MiNayeon! Sierra Twelve! We're on Sierra Twelve together!" Sana hollers as she rushes towards them and clashes into their forms, knocking them out of their heartfelt embrace by the bulk of her bright pink tote bag. 

Mina can only let out a chuckle at their fellow cadet's enthusiasm, but the grumpiest among them allows a loud "Yah!" to escape from and tops it off with a shove against Sana's biosuit-clad shoulder.

Watching as both Sana and Nayeon bicker over "who's going to be Head Trooper" or if "Sana's going to be third-wheeling in agony", Mina decides that it's high time that they leave for their Headcommander's station and proceeds to the ajar door of her dorm room. 

Giving it a sharp knock to get their attention, Mina shrugs at the two girls who look at her now with confusion, irritation and anticipation in their expressions. "You guys coming?" she questions them. And as exptected, the two race each other out of the space and down the hallways of their dormitory. 

♡

"Sana, you will be Head Trooper for this task," the Headcommander reveals, his shaded eyes surveying Sana's trembling form behind sunglasses. The seated girl tilts her head over to the oldest of the trio and gives her a knowing, cheeky smirk. "I know you'll find your way out of any sticky situation," he adds.

"And I picked Mina, because you'll be travelling to multiple planets and require someone learned in the history and culture of their foreign soil." Nayeon squeezes Mina's hand in pride, nodding in her direction before facing Headcommander Park once more for his remark on her. 

"And Nayeon... because you wrote in twenty-three requests..." he mentions with a sigh, continuing with a "... and can operate a K3-ZZR." 

"As if that's not really important?" Nayeon sasses, removing her hand from Mina's to bring it in, crossing her arms. Mina rolls her  eyes (yet again, although it's like clockwork when she's with Nayeon), places a reassuring hand on her girlfriend's thigh, leans into Nayeon's ear and whispers a soft: "It is baby, but please shut up." 

Nayeon cranes her neck to face Mina, who mouthes a "Yeehaw" that sends her heart aflutter. 

"Headcommander Park, will it really only be a mission for the three of us? I mean, Cadet 961130 had four cadets on his task, as well as Cadet 980114, Cadet 940718, Cadet 970415..." Sana quieries, her hands now placed on the chilly metal of the commander's steel desk. She looks to Mina, then to the commander, then back to Mina for confirmation and is met with the raising of Headcommander Park's eyebrows.

"Ah... that. Yeah, you'll get a fourth member for your party." Lifting himself off from his desk, the headcommander jogs to a separate door that the three can only assume leads to his study, and gingerly turns the knob, letting whoever it may've been out into the main area of the station.

Out walks a doe-eyed woman, noticeably alien to Earth, dressed in a mutard gown atypical of any Earthling fashions, with hands clasped before her as if to say she's nervous. The foreigner scans the three cadets with a searching look, but her vision lands on the girl with her lips parted, and considers her with a faint smile that begs to be understood. Unavoidably, this girl notes her extended stare, and instantly lowers her head, the hint of a blush creeping onto her cheeks. 

"Cadets, this is Momo of Antofagasta," the middle-aged man introduces with a heavy pat on the foreigner's shoulder. "Consider her... a transfer cadet. She's a shape-talker," he adds with a content grin, and gently pushes Momo towards the awestruck trio. 

Hesitantly, Sana steps forward, a hand outstretched for her to shake, announcing: "Greetings Momo, I'm Sana. I'll be your Head Trooper for our task." And Momo nods and gapes at her extended arm, causing Sana to retract it and instead rub the back of her neck in embarassment and perhaps something more. Because the foreign girl looks into her eyes like they've been acquainted for aeons and it's causing her heartbeat to hasten its pace. 

"Sana," Momo enunciates, as if she'd been practising its utterance since long before. 

"Here we go again," a grinning Nayeon whispers into Mina's ear. Upon which Mina reacts (understandably) with a forced smile and a well-deserved nudging of her elbow against Nayeon's ribs. 

Bemused by the two pairs of girls before him, the headcommander clears his throat rather disruptively with an "Ahem", and reaches for a sleek folder atop his desk. "Anyone care to listen to what your task is about?"