“Alright, ladies. I’m gonna make this simple for you,” one of the masked girls said. Her smile was the toothy one, so it wasn’t the vender. “You’ve proved you can keep your word to us, so I’ll make sure you know who you’re in a ship with.” 

Mina couldn’t help but feel uneasy at that. She had a good feeling that the vender was genuine, as well as a few others she’d—partially. She didn’t yet trust this one. 

“You met our mechanic already. One of them. She’s the reason we haven’t been doing a whole lot of smuggling or other work.”

What exactly did ‘other work’ entail?

“But to make sure all of that went smoothly, we needed money for materials and thus, my ladies, we have a fair amount of debt to people we aren’t so fond of.” 

Momo caught Mina’s eye. She didn’t like this either, but did they have much of a choice? Not one ship on that trading post would have been perfectly safe. Like it or not, she had to trust Sana’s instincts. At least she’d do it regarding the vender. 

“We’ll be arriving at T9 pretty soon. You don’t want to continue with us, we’ll give you back your money. Though I’d hope a portion’d stay with us for that initial departure," said the girl with the scars.

“I can go around the landing pad,” the vender said—or the mechanic, “see if there’re any people I recognise and ones you can trust enough for a safe passage home.” A pause. “Unless public is an option?”

“There’d be a stampede if we were recognised,” Sana replied. “And if the people who are after us made it to the transport on any of its stops—we just can’t risk it.”

“When you say you owe people money,” Mina began, “how long have those debts been open and how large are they?” 

To her surprise, the toothy smile appeared again. How it could look warm with half the face covered was a mystery. 

“Good of you to ask.” She the flat device in her hands. There was a short silence as she tapped around on it. Then she handed it over. “Paid and unpaid debts all there. I could show you how many signals we actually have, but you’ll laugh.”

Mina took it. Fortunately, the paid list was longer than the unpaid one, but the open debts were huge. What they’d given them would pay half of those, but there’d be a small dent in the largest one. Three hundred thousand signals. 

“How did you let all this accumulate?” Momo asked. 

“You all saw our storage room,” the vender said. “Those materials cost a lot and we needed, still need, a lot of it.” A small smile. “Would you also like to see the wish-list?”

“I think we’re fine,” Sana said, taking the device before scrolling up. It went back years. “Do you still want to take us back?”

“You see that and think we don’t?” Toothy-smile grinned. 

“We escaped on that trading post,” she replied. “They’re not a small group. You’ll certainly be high on their suspect listed.” 

Mina didn’t miss the frown of the vender. 

“If you endanger our lives severely,” a new person said, “then we’ll find you a new transport. Try to at least, unless we’re real close to the end.”

“Which is?” The vender crossed her arms. “All the way to Earth?”

“Preferably, but the moon or Mars would do.” 

“The moon or Mars,” she muttered. “Wonderful.” With that, she walked off. 

“Are you sure the decision to take us is unanimous?” Sana asked. 

Another of the masked crew spoke then. “She’s just concerned for safety, but the moment those debts are paid, she’ll be more than happy we helped you.” 

“And you’ll have more than enough to pay those debts,” she replied.

The promise was true, but Mina still thought it shouldn’t be said with such certainty. Once those masks were off, she’d feel better. She worked better if she saw people’s eyes. You could tell a lot from that. Like the one with the toothy smile. Did that smile reach her eyes? Could you see any other scars in their gaze, aside from the ones across the girl’s mouth?  She knew and understood the reason why they were keeping them on, but it still kept her on edge. 

_____

The T9 station was as massive as it was beautiful. Every corner had been carefully designed. From the outside, it was comprised of a series of rounded disks. Each was a mixture of silver, white and black. Some of the glass panels gave way to the bright colours held within, but it was otherwise the epitome of elegance. Something that was hard to come by around here. 

Dahyun always loved exploring it whenever they docked. That’s what she’d intended to do before certain occurrences sprang up. 

“I’ve got it,” Nayeon said, tilting her head to the side. “Wait ’til we’re in your system before we pay off the debts.” She frowned at one of the princess’s—were they friends or staff? Both? “And don’t worry, we’re refuelling with our signals.” 

The girl nodded, still not looking satisfied. Dahyun couldn’t blame her, but if this was her attitude, she’d be continuously disappointed in their way of doing things. Was she the head of security or something? It was probably only a matter of time until their communications network was secured. If she got past Jeongyeon, or Nayeon. 

She turned away to see the princess staring up at the station in awe. The side of her head was pretty red. Still from the stampede? She’d been lucky she hadn’t broken any bones. 

“Have you ever been to T9?” 

“We call it JYP.” Then she nodded. “But I have. Never like this.” They’d given them different clothes, ones that were both cleaner and less like the ones from before. Even if those were rags, those rags weren’t from here. If someone was looking closely, they’d pick out the details. 

“How do you mean? Unguarded?” 

“That,” another nod, “and from this angle. We always arrived there.” She pointed to the very top of the station. The part that was mostly silver. It was also the tallest disk, probably for the many celebrations Dahyun had heard happened up there. 

“For yearly vacations?” Nayeon asked. 

The princess gave her a look. “For deals, conferences.” 

The other captain’s mouth twitched, like she wanted to throw a retort back. They didn't need that. Yet.

“What is your plan if we’re searched again?” Dahyun asked. “Fake identities? Disperse onto the station until we’re ready? Or find a nice hiding place here?” 

“You have one?” the one with the black eye asked. 

“In the walls of the storage room.” Where a few more valuables were held, but she didn’t need to mention that. 

“Hope you don’t mind dead bodies,” Jeongyeon said. 

“Excuse me?”

“She’s kidding,” Tzuyu said, cradling her arm, “they always get dumped out or broken down.” 

“You’re both hilarious,” the princess turned back to Dahyun, “would you mind if we went off the ship when we land? Mina can give you our comms.” She gestured to the one who wasn’t a fan of Nayeon. 

She wanted to ask why only one person had them on her, but that’d probably raise another back-and-forth that they didn’t need right before arrival. 

“‘Course. Give those to her.” She nodded at Jeongyeon. 

“We’re still not using names either?” the Minatozaki girl asked. “I heard her be called Jeong.” 

Chaeyoung coughed then, smiling. It was an embarrassed one. Dahyun had missed that slip. It wouldn’t matter pretty soon. Eventually the bruise would fade on the other one. She couldn’t exactly refer to her as Black-eye then. 

“You’ll learn the rest later.” 

They needed to get enough fuel somehow, as well as other supplies. If that was really difficult, they’d need different methods. That was riskier. She’d rather be as anonymous as possible until then. Even if these three knew what ship they’d been in, she didn’t need proper names attached to that. 

“You want different masks?” The ones they had still fit alright. Dahyun had thankfully swapped Jihyo’s for her own, relieving her head of most of the terrible pressure. 

“Don’t need them.” This was Black-eye talking, but she had Mina’s helmet in her hands. Maybe not to risk being recognised because of the bruise. “Yet.”

Yet. A terrible word. One that they were throwing around quite a lot. It made her very uneasy. 

_____

Author's Note

I hope you're alright with the slightly shorter chapter today. The next one should be ready by tonight or tomorrow. Not quite sure yet. Thank you for the lovely responses to the story so far! 

MiSaMo are more than a little bit distrustful of this crew, but they aren't quite at ease with the new arrivals either. However, both sides are sticking around. One has to get back to Earth, while the crew wants their debts paid off (and extra). 

Would love to know what you think. See you in the next one!