"...That was really something," said a voice in the darkness.

  "Huh?" Aellyce lifted her head, felt her hair brush against the bars. Her hands still clung to them like they were the controls of her Casket.

  "You and him..." the girl continued with a glad sigh. "Thanks for trying."

  Aellyce's face stung all over. In the dark, nobody could see the bruises that covered it, or the blood drooling from her nose.

  "What's your name?"

  "Allyze—" Her busted lip made talking difficult. "Wahh yers?"

  The girl said, "Dorothy."

  A few bare footsteps came from the corner of the room, invisible to them both, though Aellyce thought she could see Longwood's tall silhouettte. "Hey. I'm Longwood."

  "Longwood? That's an interesting name," she remarked.

  "First name is Tyler, actually. Longwood is my callsign. And my last name."

  "Callsign? Are you both soldiers?"

  "Uhh, something like that. Not for the Federation, or anyone else." A word came to mind: "Freelance."

  "That explains how you put up a fight." Her voice sounded like she was smiling.

  "I tried my best. Sorry you couldn't get away."

  "It's okay. I had a feeling I'd end up in here again."

  Aellyce was confused, but couldn't muster the energy to try to ask why.

  Longwood asked, "You're here from Jupiter?"

  "Yeah. The pink hair gave it away?"

  "I've heard only aliens have pink hair. That's a myth?"

  "Depends who you ask, I guess. Federation forces this far Earthside seem to believe it."

  Aellyce furrowed her brow, trying to follow the conversation. Growing up on Lower Earth, there had never been any worries of aliens or hair color or... Remembering her own green hair, she suddenly had a strangely potent compulsion to dye it.

  "This has happened before. I try not to let it bother me anymore. Just a part of like, y'know?"

  "I get what you mean. Even if you dyed your hair, you'd still show up as a Jovian on ID checks and DNA tests. What are you doing so far from home, anyway?"

  "Looking for work, same as everyone else. Things are different on Jupiter. It's not exactly the kind of work I'm looking for..."

  Longwood, of course, had heard the stories of lavish casinos and hedonistic parties from that side of the solar system. Jupiter was known for two things: rich bastards and girls in bunny costumes. Once upon a time, a bunny sticker on a ship had demonstrated a 'frequent flyer' of those kinds of parties... until Earthside collectively decided that those stickers meant a ship was ready for scrapping; they'd made wrecks of hundreds of those things, and eventually all word from Jupiter had been cut off. Nobody got in, and nobody got out.

  He realized, then, that Aellyce had been banging against her cage, thrashing against the bars, and barking: "Rogwod! Rogwod!"

  "Hey, relax, would ya? I know, I'll ask!" He waited impatiently for Aellyce's commotion to die down. "Dorothy, was it? If you really don't have a mysterious benefactor trying to hunt you down from across the solar system, would you consider taking a job aboard White Horse? We're a small band of mercenaries with... Well, I guess I could say our hearts are in the right places, mostly. We're looking for a cook and a service worker right now, some cooking and maybe a bit of cleaning. Our boss, Bella, she looks out for us. I'm sure we could score you more than five-hundred cred a week, and that's not including the free hospitality, free transport..."

  "I'm not sure I'd be any good aboard a mercenary ship. I have no combat experience, and I'm not the best chef either..."

  "Bwed! Bwed!" argued Aellyce.

  It took Dorothy a moment to understand. "Oh! The bread I gave you? I baked that, but... Well, cooking is a lot different than baking..."

  "How so?" asked Longwood. "It's all just following recipes, no? Not to mention most of our stuff is just frozen and gets reheated. And besides, Aellyce doesn't have much combat experience either, and she's one of our main pilots."

  "Hey!" Aellyce growled. But her rage quelled when she thought of what Longwood had said—the food is frozen and reheated. Her brain bubbled with rage and despair as she realized she really could have hired any old idiot from the food court. She resisted slamming her head against the bars—the pain she was feeling was already plenty.

  "I, um..."

  "Don't let me twist your arm," said Longwood. "We'll be here for a while. If you decide you want to come along, we'll have you."

  Aellyce thought about that, too—they were supposed to return to White Horse by 6 P.M. She looked down to her wrist, forgetting they'd confiscated her watch during the lock-up.

  "Aellyce, this your first time getting locked up?"

  "Mhm."

  "You really didn't have to jump in. I was getting my ass kicked just fine."

  She smiled but couldn't laugh; her ribs were aching too from a few kicks she'd taken.

  "Well, here's what you need to know: a few decades ago, this company called QuickCourt? bought up all of the courts in Earthside space. They have this thing called QuickHearing?, where we'll essentially be having a court case over the span of a minute or two. I know, not a lot of time to argue a good case, but they process a lot of people so they don't want to waste their time. If we're lucky, we could get a massive payout when the court decides we were trying to prevent an act of discrimination. Right, Dorothy?"

  "Huh?"

  "Pink hair is native to Jupiter... but yours is dyed pink. I get the strangest feeling that you weren't just standing around before those cops started to work on you."

  "Rogwod!" cried Aellyce.

  "I'm not complaining. It's a genius way to make a living, really, scamming QuickCourt? for that kind of money could set you up for years, if you're careful. And if you're not careful... There goes your freedom."

  After a moment of silence, Dorothy whispered, "It's true. I am from Jupiter, so my DNA and residence history are accurate, but... The pink hair, it's..."

  "A scam. I don't hold your ingenuity against you in the slightest. But, again, up to you if you want to give up the high risk, high reward lifestyle for the bottom-feeding life of a bunch of mercenaries."

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  Aellyce pouted. Longwood being mean to Dorothy right off the bat did not feel good to her. She worried they'd be pushing her away more than drawing her in, calling out her way of life and her 'disguise'...

  Then the door down the hall opened, and a glare of light came in. They each got a glimpse of each other in their individual cages, Longwood being bruised and cut, Aellyce being bloodied and battered... And Dorothy with barely a scratch on her.

  "First QuickHearing? is up," commanded the voice down the hall.

  Aellyce's cell door opened automatically with a shriek. She walked down the hall toward the guard in his black armor and winced against the light... Before long, he'd sat her down before a wall with a small computer monitor and keyboard protruding from it, and scanned his ID tag over a sensor to activate the live feed, where a silhouette appeared and soon began to speak.

  When the clock appeared for Aellyce's minute to speak, she broke down crying immediately: "I don't wam go to prison! I'm scared! My face hurts, my body hurts, I just didn't want that poor girl to get hurt, too! I'm just trying to help...!"

  When it was Longwood's turn, he was honest: "I didn't like how she was being treated. No, I didn't attack first. No, I didn't know her. Yes, I believed she was from Jupiter. No, I didn't comply to their orders."

  And on Dorothy's turn, she of course spun her story. "They attacked me. No, I didn't instigate them. Yes, I dye my hair; it's important to my heritage. Check my DNA record, I am from Jupiter."

  And then they were thrown back into their cells to silently await their ultimatums.

  Aellyce lay prone on the bed in her cell, her head resting on her arms as she tried to quietly suppress the anxiety she had at her first arrest.

  Longwood sat on the floor, meditating, or just silently waiting for it all to be over.

  Dorothy sat on the edge of her bed kicking her feet, like it was just another day of the week for her.

  Eventually, the door down the hall hissed open again, and they were bathed once more in that blinding light.

  "Alice?"

  Aellyce lifted her head. "That's, um, Aellyce, sir."

  "No bail. First offense, you leave today with a warning."

  "Oh, thank you..." She felt her tears swarm as she hopped up and rushed to the cell door, feeling nothing but blissful relief as she hurried down the hall once her cell opened. "I'll wait outside, Longwood..."

  Longwood, however, did not hold that optimism in his heart. A first offense was easy in the Federation. For however many offenses he'd racked up, he feared his fate might be much more severe.

  "Dorothy. QuickHearing? has determined that you were unfairly targeted and profiled for your hair color. There's a letter of compensation prepared for you at the front desk. Turn it over to your QuickHearing? professional to receive your credits."

  "Thank you," she said, and quietly walked free from her cell.

  "Tyler Longwood... This isn't your first or your second offense, and not your first time having a scuffle with the guards at this very station..."

  "I was only trying to protect that girl—"

  "Your bail is set at 500,000 credits."

  "Five hundred...!?" He leapt up, grabbed the bars of his cell. "Hey, you can't do that...!"

  "It's up to the judge, Tyler Longwood... And it's up to the few little details I sprinkled in on your behalf."

  He glared through the bars, trying to get a glimpse of the guard... All he could see was their black, faceless mask as they approached him. Then his cell door was opening. He released the bars and stepped back as the guard stepped into the doorway. "Hey, what the hell is this...?"

  "Oh, don't worry, darling. I won't hurt you."

  "Darling...?" His heart was pounding in his chest.

  The guard's helmet erupted in steam as it decompressed, and their slender hands moved up to remove it from their head... Then he saw the purple lipstick on the pale skin of the woman hiding beneath the facade. "Don't you recognize me... darling?"

  "You...!" he growled. His fists came up.

  She laughed. "Oh, please, don't be so silly. Would you really hurt the woman who paid your bail?" Her voice was slick as a blade, sensual like a rose. "You're a free man in the eyes of the Federation, Tyler, be happy!"

  "What's the catch?"

  She bit her tongue coyly. "But there's a debt in that."

  "You think I give a damn about paying a debt? Send the bill to Bella; White Horse, docking bay C-9. She'll pay for it." Though I'm sure she'd hate me for that.

  "Oh, Tyler... That's the thing: we want Beautiful Bella out of the picture."

  His stomach sank. "I'm not Imperial anymore. I flew with you for a year at best."

  "Two years and sixty-three days. But your blood still runs with the Earther genome; the further out we're born, the more our genetics change from baseline... But you? You're pure, Tyler. A true-born Upper Earther."

  "Shut up. Imperial blood doesn't mean shit."

  "You're wrong." Her voice became sharp. "That girl of yours... She's Imperial, too?"

  "Leave her the fuck alone."

  The woman slowly cocked her head to an angle. "Is that the message you'd like to send to your former employer? You know, she's visiting your ship right now..."

  Longwood sucked in a shaky breath. "Don't... Don't do anything to them!"

  "That's outside of my hands. Bella should have been more careful in considering the contract." She approached closer, placed her lips right beside his ear. "...Don't you wonder who's been piloting that Black Casket?"

  His eyes widened.

  "I recognized you by your piloting... It was fun seeing you again... But I hope we'll be able to dance for longer, next time. But maybe... Maybe you'll have no choice. If you want Aellyce to live, that is."

  He grit his teeth.

  "Now, Longwood, here's what you're going to do..."

  Celeste was hunched over on the floor, curled up like a ball, cradling her head on one of the large crates ready to be lifted from the grand docking bay into the ship. She stared off idly at the far wall of the bay, at all of the thousands of windows which indicated rooms in the Federation Starbase Hotel, the same chain oi hotels in every Federation starbase. She watched the various lights flicker on and off between the rooms, between the massive glowing advertisements that were unavoidable in Federation starbases. Capitalism had won, totally and completely. Capitalism had held Lower Earth under its boot until the weight was too much to bear... And then it had crushed Lower and Upper Earth together.

  She turned and looked over her shoulder, past the guard rail, down into the endless abyss below the docking platform, where thousands of other docking platforms and ships resided. She followed the walls up and up... until all she could see was the big, ugly hunk of metal that was White Horse. She groaned in bemusement.

  "Oy, Campbell, move over. That one's getting loaded next, but my crane can't grab with organics too close."

  She lowered her head deeper into her slump. Her eyelids were heavy and dark. "You're the only one that calls me by my last name, Cruze."

  The big man approached from down the way, his right eye closed in a familiar expression of pain. "My eye won't goddamn stop hurting! Don't you start being a pain, too."

  She grumbled. Then she lifted her head up off the crate. "Don't you think White Horse is kinda ugly?"

  "Mm. Yeah, but isn't every ship ugly?"

  "What about the Enterprise?"

  "What about it? We're talking about real life, not some sci-fi bullshit."

  Celeste didn't say anything. Then she lowered her head back down onto the crate. "Something's off today, Cruze."

  "The hell are you talking about?"

  "There's a bad energy. Like how your eye hurts, it's like a dog sensing a storm..."

  He glared with his one good eye.

  "Sorry. Not what I meant..."

  "Feddy air conditioners don't mean a storm is coming. It means the air in here is dryer than an Earth desert."

  "But you feel it too. Don't you?"

  He grumbled. "Yeah, I do. Fine. Feels like the winds are about to change. Feels like White Base is approaching something it shouldn't be. This whole job has been suspicious from the start... And Bella is usually open to talk about a job, but this time? Clammed up. Won't say a word."

  Celeste cocked her head to look up the catwalk which led into the ship. "I don't think we're going to like the next few days. Maybe I'll just lock myself in and watch anime until it's all over..."

  Cruze looked grimly at the ship. And judging by how late Aellyce and Longwood were getting to be, he worried they felt it, too. "If you're gonna be holed up watching something good... Save a seat for me."

  "No way. You ate all of my snacks last time."

  Neither of them laughed. The dread was almost too much to bear...