Kang Yebin had just watched two months of her life disintegrate in front of her. She had waited, and waited, planned and planned, just for this moment—and it was all ing gone in a split second. And all that was left of all that work was a bunch of blue particles for a few seconds, and finally, nothing. 

Her first big catch, or what she thought would be. Disappeared. 

Becoming a Galactic Enforcer had been hard enough, and now she had a real case, a real big target with some weight behind them. Someone genuinely dangerous and crafty. And she had spent two months planning this all. The fake heist idea was brilliant, she had thought. 

“You’re still an amateur.” Seokmin had warned her. “You’re going to forget something. You’re going to mess up. It happens.” 

Yebin hadn’t listened. It was the thrill of the first big case. Her first big case as a lieutenant, the fancy new title that shined on her badge and gave her a new, blue access card. One that let her into hallways and rooms in the Galactic Enforcer headquarters that she wasn’t allowed in before. She was so caught up in her own special-ness and glamorous new title that she had forgotten to put a damn teleportation blocking shield up, and now her target was gone. 

She realizes she’s still holding her gun out, mostly in shock. Every other member of her squad looks at her, and down at the faint bluish scorch marks on the floor where their target once stood. 

Nayoung, ever calm, sighs. 

“We’ll get her next time.” She says, tucking her gun away. 

“We didn’t put up a goddamn anti-teleport shield?” Soonyoung blurts out. 

Yebins words feel stuck at the back of . She blinks a couple more times.

Kyungwon, currently furiously navigating through multiple screens on her holo-watch, takes a second to defend her coworker. 

“We studied her patterns. She doesn’t usually teleport away! She’d have to activate it ahead of time, and she would only do that if she knew something was wrong.” She zooms in on a flight tracker. “Damn, no signal from her ship. She’s good. Though I bet the teleport took a few gallons of ship fuel out. Teleporting from inside a building is hard.”  

“What am I supposed to say to the captain? That we wasted two months on Yebin’s bull plan? Just for her to get away? The amount of wasted credits is not going to look good for any of us!” Soonyoung leans against the wall, frustration permeating even from his crossed-arms stance. 

“Getting angry won’t help much now.” Nayoung replies. “We failed. The GE fails often. We just don’t advertise when we lose.” She unlocks a small scanner from her belt, and bends down to the circle of teleport residue on the floor. “This is a situation to learn, and improve. It was Yebin’s first leading mission, let us not forget. She did relatively well for a beginner.”

Yebin finally finds the words to speak with. 

“Nayoung, am I going to get fired?”

Nayoung gives a light chuckle.

“No. Don’t be silly. My first mission, I messed up too. And I’m fine, aren’t I?”

“But you didn’t let the culprit escape.” Soonyoung mutters under his breath.

“Soonyoung!” Yuha snaps. “We are all at fault here. Just because Yebin designed the mission does not mean we are not culpable for whatever failings within it. Did you read the mission outline, like you were asked to, or did you pretend to read it like you always do?”

Soonyoung doesn’t respond, only scoffs and grumbles something under his breath. 

Nayoung stands up.

“Let’s head back to home base.”

+++

 

“I’m not saying I’m not disappointed. But I think that for a first mission, it’s understandable.” Captain Taeyeon leans over her desk, looking at the quartet, hands folded in front of her. Yebin can’t help but noti mce the shiny gold pin on the front of her uniform—the mark of a captain. “However,” the captain continues, looking directly into Yebin’s eyes, “Yebin, I believe your fanaticism for this particular criminal as well as your excitement over your promotion may have gotten in the way of this mission being the best that it can be. Your direct contact with the criminal before the mission was unnecessary, even with disguise.”

Yebin looks down at her lap, face reddened. Her teammates had been rather appalled that she wanted to play the role of the client, face covered, voice changed and all, but they had let her go through with it. She had just wanted to see Minkyung up close. She’d studied so many blurry security camera screenshots, headshots, portraits, but never had she experienced that face in person.  Not many had. She’d been tracking Minkyung’s—or Roa, as many in the public knew her—work for a long time, even while she was training for the GE. Many of Yebin’s other trainees would make fun of her for ogling the wanted posters that hung everywhere—giggling that she had a ‘crush’ on the wanted criminal. 

Taeyeon’s voice snaps Yebin back into reality.

“I am keeping this squadron on the case, since you all are the most informed on her. But please plan more carefully next time.” Taeyeon leans back in her chair, and snaps her fingers. A small circular droid floats over, handing her a purple cigarette. “Please keep in mind that we need to catch her. There are a lot of other organizations, especially bounty hunter collectives, after her. I was informed they are raising her bounty by another million credits. We cannot fail on this.” The droid lights the cigarette, and it floats away as she takes a long drag on it. “Get it done, ok?” 

“Yes ma’am.” All four of them respond in sync.

Yebin’s hands feel awfully sweaty.

 

+++

 

Minkyung awakes with a violent cough, the smell of burnt metal all around her. She’s lying head to the floor on the teleport bay of her ship, blue electricity still buzzing in the air around her. 

. 

She can’t believe she was right. It was a damn setup.

She curses her arrogance, her blindness caused by the promise of a million credits, that made her unable to notice earlier. It was so painfully obvious in retrospect. A crime designed by a bunch of people that only knew how to stop crime, not how to do it. 

Standing up, slow and steady, she centers herself, slowly stepping off the teleport bay with still-shaky legs, rubbing her temples in a feeble attempt to remove the burning headache that came with literally moving through space-time. 

Minkyung presses her hand to the door, and sighs as it lets her through. She’s thankful for the cloaking device on her ship—it had cost her a pretty penny, but it means she has a bit of time to readjust without the cops being able to track her down. She moves through the metal hallway until she reaches the pilot bay, and sighs as she plops down in her chair. 

“Nana, what’s the fuel reserves looking like?” 

The gentle voice of her ships companion AI gently lilts from the speakers.

“At about 25%, boss. I would highly recommend a refill.” 

“And what’s the nearest place we can reach on that?”

“Looks like the cybernetic planetoid structure Elision, boss. There’s a fuel compound there. I 

would recommend purchasing extra for next time you have to emergency teleport, boss.”

“I wasn’t planning on teleporting.” Minkyung sighs as she starts getting the ship warmed up. “Can you call Eunwoo? We need to talk.”

A holographic screen pops up in front of her as the ship begins to rumble into warp drive, jets slowly powering on. The face of an eager girl appears in front of her, who looks to be fiddling with a broken droid. 

“Minkyung! What’s up?”

“What’s up?” Minkyung says incredulously. “What’s up is that you linked me up with a ing set-up! I just almost got arrested!”

Eunwoo quirks an eyebrow, twirling her multitool in her hand.
“What now?”

“The ing mission you forwarded my way. The job. The easy one, for lots of money? It was a  cover for the damn GE to try and get my ! When I arrived at the joint, they tried to arrest me! Thank God I had the emergency teleport.”

“Oh. Emergency teleport.” Eunwoo chuckles. “That’s why your hair is so frizzy.”

“I’m going to kill you.”

“Nah, you love me.” The droid on the table fizzles a few sparks, and Eunwoo leans back. “Listen, I’m sorry. I can’t know everything. I did find you a pretty sweet score today though. Will that make it up to you?”

Minkyung crosses her arms, obviously frustrated, but still intrigued. 

“I’m mad, but I’m listening.”

“There’s this guy—crazy rich —who’s visiting Raliese for a business trip.”

“I hate Raliese. There’s so many cops there, you know that. And the people there are so prissy.”

“Hey, listen to me. Let me finish.” Eunwoo says firmly. “He’s got this necklace. Family heirloom. It’s a pendant made of this ancient amber, that comes from some rare dead planet or whatever. Anyway, I have this black market dealer that Jieqiong hooked me up with, and she’s willing to buy it from whoever can get it for a lot of money. Like as much as your bounty. Which they added another million credits to today, by the way.”

Minkyung gazes out past the screen and into the blackness of the stars whirring past her as she flies through space. 

“So I just have to steal the necklace? That’s what you’re saying?” 

“I mean it won’t be easy. He’s got a big security detail, and y’know—it’s on Raliese. Like you mentioned. It’ll be a challenge.”

“I’m intrigued. I like a good challenge.” 

“I’ll send the details your way. I’m sorry ‘bout today. Consider this me making it up to you for almost getting you arrested? A good old fashioned jewelry heist. You love those.” 

“I do love those.” Minkyung admits, somewhat defeated. She grabs the ship’s controls as she notices on the radar that she’s approaching Elison, steering it towards the earth. “Fine. I need a pick-me-up anyway. I gotta go. Bye.”

“Bye!” Eunwoo says cheerily. 

As the call flickers off, Minkyung smiles. A good old classic job. Just what she needed.