“-ike seriously. Never again.” Interlocking seals gave way with a hiss. A Lohkin, dressed in the denim jacket and leather straps of a ranger from the Te’Ranni Fringe, wiped fettered grime from their forehead. Sleeve scraping thorny scutes. Yellow pus stuck to her fingers, turning their shoulder length waves a dingy orange shade. With a grimace she trudged into the blinking and quiet station corridor, followed by the sounds of boots and cws cnging softly against the grated flooring.

  “C'mon you had fun Quin.” Luke’s vocal-synth chortled, as his eyes shimmered in pixel blues. A smile, genuine yet mechanical. “It wasn't thaaaat awful.” Xer b coat and bck hair flourished with the soft billowing of his internal fans.

  “It was.” Popped up Pixt’s bright blue space-buns and bugging purple Astoroi peepers, from behind her companions trailing coat. “Very much it was.” She looks like a jumping spider. The thought hummed in Quin’s brain as she gnced down at their storage sized Navigator.

  Luke ran in front of the crew, slowly jogging backwards. “And you are certain nothing will convince you otherwise?”

  “Money?” Quin replied, as they pushed past steam from a leaking vent. Ancestors damn maintenance shafts.

  “Cash.” In synch drawled the bck lips of the seven foot Tirnanese, as Lyra shoulder-slung her pulsar-rifle and ducked under a pipe.

  “A new VCR.” Burbled the warbling voice of the small hexapodal rabbit-like creature cmbering behind Lyra. Urmn. Who despite his small stature and small backpack jingling with tiny tools. Was in fact, the oldest of the crew by species age.

  The gravity was suddenly higher. “Bing mo–” Luke tripped. Pixt gasped. The android almost falling over an un-railed ledge. Before the sturdy grasp of their pilot, caught them.

  “I’ll buy you a new VCR Urmy. We’ve got the money to.” Quin strode out onto the ledge opening into the station center, pulling Luke behind them. “Among other things.” Looking down and out form the outer ring of a sphere, to the rows of buildings and walkways below. Icarus - 9.

  And down below, the pce Quin was looking for. The first pce she saw Lyra. Back before New Angus, or even the past year or so sailing the starless sea. An out of time little inn, constructed of aged wood and covered in bioluminescent moss. Toadwren Tavern,

  “Like what darlin’” Lyra moved quickly, her hand snapping her paramour’s colr. Like a mantis. Gently caressing Quin’s neck. Fingers cold. They shivered. The only thing less legal about Lyra than her weapon, was the miltary grade Te’Ranni polymer-steel cybernetics of her limbs and spine.

  “For once. Without corpos, pirates, extradimensional horrors, or just being ft broke.” Quin nervously stretched upwards, softly kissing the sharp toothed gunner. Their brown eyes lost in hers, forest-green and hungry. “I'm gonna take you on a date babe”

  “Good girl.”

  …

  …

  ..

  .

  “Get a room . . . please.” Pixt pleaded, blushing as she ran towards the elevator.