Song: Oingo Boingo - Stay

I was looking down at Pandora from the cargo ship. We were bound to leave soon and it was breaking my heart to see the planet from orbit and know we'd be many light years away from it soon.

We had some nice cabins and the cargo ship had a good few facilities, so hopefully we wouldn't get too bored during the trip. I hadn't even looked around for too long, I just threw my luggage into the room and ran up to the window.

"You alright, chica?" I heard Mordecai's voice behind me. I turned around and smiled at him.

"I think so. It feels weird to be leaving. But I guess I gotta get used to it, with all the new Vaults and whatnot." I replied.

"It's gonna be a while until we're going out to find them. They've a shooting range and a swimming pool on the ship, thought you might like that."

"That sounds pretty good. Are you nervous about going back home?" I asked. Mordecai just shrugged.

"I don't even know what home is anymore at this stage." he replied.

"Look at them, guys, aren't they just the cutest?" I suddenly heard Gaige say behind me. I turned around, wondering who she was talking to and looked straight into an ECHO device.

"What the- get that thing outta my face, Gaige!" I protested. She was probably ECHOcasting to her followers. There were quite a good few of those left after the hype about her killing her classmate was over and she had started casting again from Pandora and Elpis.

"Come on, Nova, say something to my followers!" she replied and stepped back a little. I rolled my eyes. Her followers were apparently big fans of me, since she uploaded that video of us sneaking out of the hostel on Elpis.

"Hi everyone. Happy?" I said and gave Gaige a smile. She held her thumb up and then turned the ECHO device towards Mordecai.

"No, no, no, I don't wanna be on your ECHOcast!" he protested, but Gaige just didn't listen until he sighed and cursed under his breath.

"Come on, Mordy. Say something deep." Gaige replied and laughed. Mordecai just shook his head.

"Hey, Gaige's followers. Tell her to stop being annoying." was all he had to tell them. Gaige gracefully ignored his comment and walked up to the window, to record Pandora from orbit.

"This is it, guys. I'm going off planet again. Take one last look at Pandora, for now at least. I'm gonna miss that piece of shit." she said and zoomed in on the planet as much as she could.

"Okay, that's enough. We're off to Artemis, which is Mordy's home planet! How's it feel to go back home, Mordy?" she asked and held the ECHO device in his face again, slowly zooming back out.

"I dunno. I'm kinda looking forward to it. Kinda nervous. Who even cares?" he replied with a shrug.

"Anyone you wanna say hi to?"

"No, now go and bother someone else, okay?"

"You're getting really good." Mordecai said, as I shot bullet after bullet into the target that was on the ship. Target practice was much more fun now than back on Pandora. Mostly, because there wasn't much else to do on the cargo ship. Plus, I had consistently been getting better and better at this from all the training on Pandora, so it was way more fun to actually be successful.

"Thanks. You think I got a chance to win something?" I asked. Gaige was standing around, recording us shooting. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw how she filmed me, lying on the ground with my sniper rifle.

"Definitely." Mordecai answered with a smile and focussed on his own target again. I decided to take a break and sat up, watching him for a bit. I still found it insanely hot to watch him snipe stuff.

"Look at those two, guys. They're gonna be some strong competition on Artemis and they're not even using any fancy technology or anything." Gaige said. I looked over at her and grinned. I had gotten used to her documenting the whole trip on her ECHO device and I was starting to see the fun in it.

"Look at that hot lady over there, she's gonna be slayin'!" Gaige commented and zoomed in on me. I laughed and waved, before I decided to resume my target practice. One day I would look back at Gaige's ECHO casts and laugh about them and remember some good times.

"And Mordecai's dreadlocks are getting more majestic every day." Gaige commented next. I saw Mordecai just shaking his head at her.

She was right, though. Just yesterday we had actually sat down and taken care of his dreadlocks and they looked like new. I was thinking of getting rid of the mess on my head, as well and just going for dreadlocks myself. But I wasn't completely sure yet. It would certainly make things easier, if I did, though.

"And then we have Axton, an unparalleled stud, being trigger happy." Gaige said next and recorded Axton who was emptying magazine after magazine with his assault rifle. It was almost like he was trying to get rid of some frustrations or something. He definitely wasn't trying to hit anything.

"You okay, Axton? You seem to be kinda... uh... angry." I commented. Axton looked over at me and only then noticed Gaige recording him. He quickly smiled and winked at her, before he turned back to me.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Why are you asking?"

"You just seemed a little... stressed." I answered. Axton was shaking his head and firing another round at the target.

"No, I'm fine and dandy." he said. I heard Mordecai snickering next to me.

"He's under pressure."

Gaige switched the cameras and was recording herself now. All she said was "Wow."

Song: Bob Marley - Mellow Mood

I was standing in the bathroom that Gaige and I shared for the trip with my toothbrush in my mouth and music blaring from my ECHO device. It was early in the morning and Gaige was still asleep. She probably wouldn't be for much longer, though. I was in a good mood and getting ready for some target practice, which was more and more fun the better I got at it.

Since we had left Pandora behind us, my mood had only been improving. Maybe I had finally gotten over the fact that I was leaving a large part of my life behind and was getting excited for this whole new adventure, maybe it was the showers that were actually working, maybe it was me getting better at shooting or maybe it was just that I could finally wear comfortable, baggy clothes and relax without constantly being in danger of getting killed.

I was in the process of sorting out my hair and gathering it into a ponytail, which was difficult because there was just so much of it. And it was all over the place. I really needed to do something about that or it would get in my way all the time. I'd have to talk to Gaige about that.

"I'll play your favorite song, darlin'

We can rock it all night long, darlin'

'Cause I've got love, darlin'

Love, sweet love, darlin'

Mellow mood has got me

So let the music rock me"

I was absentmindedly singing along to the music, while rocking back and forth on my heels. My mood just kept getting better, even when I heard a noise at the door. I turned around and gave Gaige a big smile.

She was standing there, barely able to keep her eyes open, looking at me like I had finally lost my mind. But no matter how tired she was, she was still holding her ECHO device in her hands and was recording. I couldn't care less at the moment.

"People, it's 6 in the morning and this is what I have to put up with." she said. I laughed, the toothbrush almost falling out of my mouth. This is how the universe was going to see me. Amazing.

"'Cause I've got love, darlin'

Love, sweet love, darlin'

Quiet as the night

Please turn off your light."

I just kept singing along. And I knew I had the worst singing voice in the history of the entire galaxy, but as long as no one complained about it too much, I didn't really care enough to stop singing.

"You in a good mood?" Gaige asked, when I finally managed to have all my hair tied up in one ponytail. I just nodded at her.

"You wanna greet anyone?" she asked laughing. I took the toothbrush out of my mouth, now that I had my hands free again.

"I wanna greet my mum and dad, if they ever see this. Oh, and my little sister Eden - hope you didn't end up taking my place as the family disappointment." I said with a laugh. Honestly, in that moment things like that just seemed so far away and so unimportant, it was easy to joke about them and laugh them off. I didn't even remember why I was so bitter with my family for so long.

"Wow. Some deep words here. Guess I'm not getting much more sleep today." Gaige replied.

"Shouldn't have been sneaking out late at night." I told her with a shrug and grinned at her, as I was brushing my teeth.

"Pfft, don't tell me what to do." she answered jokingly.

Song: Arctic Monkeys - Fluorescent Adolescent

"Didn't know you had a sister. What else are you keeping from us, huh?" Gaige asked later that day when we were all just sitting around, trying to pass the time. Mordecai and Axton had started watching some ECHO show together and I just knew Mordecai wasn't having a good time with that show. He'd been complaining about it all night last night, but he had promised Axton to sit through it with him, so now he had to actually get through the whole show.

"I'm not keeping any more secrets. I think. Can't be sure, I forget stuff. But yeah, my sister. Sore topic." I replied, staring at the ceiling. I wasn't 100% sure whether Gaige was recording this or not.

"What happened?" she asked.

"Nothing really happened, Gaige. I mean... she is like 5 years younger than me. And when I went through my rebellious teenage phase, she obviously was my parent's favourite child, so of course I had a massive grudge against her. It was stupid, but so was I, so it makes sense, you know?" I said and sipped my coffee.

"You know anything about her?" Gaige wanted to know. I just shrugged. To be honest, I didn't really hear much about her after I left for Pandora.

"No, not really. I mean, she was always the polar opposite of me, always well behaved and obedient and nice and graceful and whatnot. Never went out partying or drinking, never did drugs, never brought boys home, always good at school, yada yada. She's probably out working at one of the resorts or something. Maybe married with kids, who knows. She'd be the type for it." I told her.

"But have you never had any contact with your family after you left Aquator? I mean I figured you might have gotten some ECHO messages or something."

"Well... there wasn't much. When I ran away from home to go and make some cash before leaving they were trying to find me for a while. Then they just stopped. Don't know what happened. Probably too ashamed of me or something. I sent an ECHO when I left for Pandora, but I didn't hear anything back. So yeah. That's all I got." I replied to Gaige. It was kind of nice to talk to her about it. I mean, over the years I probably had gotten quite a different perspective on things and reflecting about it all like that... it was good. It was like making peace with everything.

"So, they don't know you're still alive and a total badass? They don't know you're with the Raiders? They never heard about Mordy?" Gaige asked, completely fascinated by the lack of connection I had to my family.

"Nah. They probably wouldn't like any of that. They're like... really conservative. Really, really conservative. They wouldn't like me even owning a gun. They'd be up in arms about me joining a rebel group. And Mordy? Hell, I can imagine they'd be nice to his face, but they'd be absolutely appalled. So yeah. There you go. I've no good reason to update them on my situation."

"But don't you miss them or something?"

"I did miss them for the first couple of years, but after a while I got used to it. I mean, I barely even thought about them half the time."

"Wow. That's wild. Hey Mordy, did you know your girlfriend's parents probably won't like you?" Gaige shouted in the direction of the couch they both were sitting on. I rolled my eyes.

"What the fuck, Gaige, don't tell him that." I said.

"Chill, he's not even reacting." Gaige replied and got up to walk over to where he and Axton were sitting. She suddenly started giggling quietly and waved me over. I raised an eyebrow, but got up anyways and slowly made my way over to the couch.

"They're both fast asleep." she told me. I looked down at them, both wrapped in a blanket, a bowl with popcorn between them and a bunch of empty soda cans on Mordecai's side of the couch.

He was indeed asleep, and it warmed my heart how peaceful he looked, especially because he had been up for most of last night, having difficulty falling asleep. It was nice to see him like this, sleeping like a baby.

"Will we draw on them?" Gaige asked giggling. I shook my head, as I took the half empty can of soda out of Mordecai's hand gently and put it on the little side table. He deserved some sleep after everything.

"No, let them sleep. Mordy's been up for most of the night and I'm glad he's finally getting some rest. Seems like his insomnia is getting a little better, since we left anyways."

The swimming pool was nothing much, but it was more luxury than I would have expected from a cargo ship. Sure, you had to keep the crew amused and working on a cargo ship was pretty rough, but still. Looked like Saul hadn't been stingy when organizing this for us. Maybe he wasn't that bad.

There were a few other people around, some of them travelling like the four of us, others were crew members. I honestly wasn't sure how to behave towards the other people travelling to Artemis. I didn't know anything about them. None of them were from Pandora, they were from either Dionysus or Tantalus and had basically been picked up on the way. Not sure who of them was travelling for the competition, either.

"You going in or what?" Gaige shouted from the other side of the pool. I looked around me and figured I might as well jump in. I threw my towel over the railing and walked back, so I could take some run-up.

"Oh my God, she's going for the cannonball!" Gaige exclaimed. I actually wasn't going to go for the cannonball, but now I kind of had to, didn't I? I grinned at her, took a deep breath and started running towards the pool.

"Oooooh, here she comes!" Gaige was screaming just as I jumped in. I jumped into the water with a loud splash and quickly swam up to the surface again, gasping for air and rubbing some water out of my eyes.

"That was one amazing cannon ball, girl, damn!" Gaige shouted and came running over to me.

"Thanks. You know you're still pretty dry yourself." I replied, grabbed her arms and pulled her into the water. She was shrieking, as she fell in.

"Oh my God, I really hate you sometimes!" she shouted as she came back up to the surface.

"Yeah, sure." I replied in a sarcastic tone and laughed. I knew Gaige didn't hate me, we were hanging out all the time. It was then that we noticed a crew member standing at the edge of the swimming pool, looking down at us.

"Uh... can we help you, Sir?" I asked, trying to remember how I'd talk to people back on Aquator. I noticed then and there I wasn't really used to not living on a borderplanet anymore.

"Yeah... I'm sorry, Ma'am, but please refrain from jumping into the pool. It's against our health and safety regulations." the guy said. I could hear Gagie giggle behind me. Oh God, this was pretty awkward. I hadn't been given out to since I left my home planet, mostly because... who the hell would give out to you on Pancora?

"Uh... yeah, sure. Sorry 'bout that." I said. Gaige had burst out into laughter at this stage. I turned back to her, an annoyed and also horrified expression on my face. I shook my head at her, but she kept laughing.

"Oh my God, shut up, Gaige..." I mumbled and turned back to the crew member. He was grinning at us and bent down to me.

"We find it annoying, too, but you know... corporate would go mad if anything happened and such..." he said quietly. I nodded and forced myself to give him a smile. Wasn't his fault we had no idea how to behave, after all. (Well, it was mostly me, to be honest, Gaige just got a great deal of amusement out of this.)

"I understand, Sir. Thanks for the heads up." I replied. He nodded, got up and walked away. I turned around to Gaige and looked straight into her ECHO device. Of course she'd record the whole thing. I didn't even mind anymore at this point.

"That. Was. Awkward."

Song: Anti-Flag - Captain Anarchy

"Hey, Mordy, how ya doin'?" I asked when I got back to our room. He was sitting on the bed, an amused expression on his face, looking into his ECHO device.

"Come over here, you gotta see this." he said. I raised an eyebrow, but walked over anyways.

"What is it?"

"Gaige's ECHOcast. She's gonna get in so much trouble."

I sat down beside him and looked at the recording. It looked like she was live streaming or something. She was in some super dark place and talking in a hushed voice, but she looked incredibly excited.

"Okay, guys, it's like really, really dark in here... but we're almost down in the main engine room. This is gonna be so much fun, I mean, I've always wanted to take a look at the engines of such a massive cargo ship. Especially after we built our own little rocket to get to Elpis. So I reckon those ones will be waaaaaaaayyyy more impressive. Maybe I can even find some ways to optimize them and we can use that to build a proper space ship on Pandora, who knows."

Gaige started walking around in the dark, using the little bit of light from her ECHO device to navigate in the dark.

"Oh God, she's gonna break her neck and die or something." I mumbled. Mordecai shrugged.

"She's been doing well so far and I think she's close to the actual engine room, though. Like, she's probably gonna make it. I just wanna see how long she can be there without anyone kicking her out." he replied.

"You know we have to bail her out if she gets caught?"

"Yeah, but it's kinda worth it."

"Okay, guys, just gotta get down this vent and we're in the main engine room. Just gotta open this here..."

There were some drilling noises, as Gaige unscrewed the air vent cover. In my head I could see all possible and impossible horror scenarios unfolding slowly. I just hoped she wouldn't fall in the middle of the technicians and engineers or something when she went through that air vent.

"Okay, ladies and gentlemen... wish me luck!" she said and more or less climbed down into the main engine room. There was finally way more light and I could see the grease spots and streaks all over Gaige's face. The engine room seemed to be fairly empty. At least the part Gaige was in.

"So. There we are. There is no one really around, which is good, so... we're gonna take a little walk down here. Lots of cool stuff. Okay, let's check out this console first."

Gaige wandered over to some massive console. It looked really big and really important and... oh God. Gaige was touching it. I knew Gaige was great with technology and machinery of any kind, but... goddamn, I could see how she would kill us all in my head. It was at that stage that I really hoped someone would find her and get her out of there, before she'd get us off course or whatnot.

"Okay, this seems to be an engine maintenance control. Very important, guys, but not actually controls. Let's see what we can find out about those engines, shall we?" Gaige babbled. She was having a great time with this.

"She know what she's doing?" Mordecai asked, sounding a little concerned.

"Uh... probably? I mean, she knows her stuff, but... ah fuck it, I'll echo her to get out of there immediately." I replied and grabbed my ECHO.

"Cool, so we have... can you guys see this?... we have..."

"Gaige, get out of there immediately! You're either gonna kill us all or get in a shitload of trouble and I'm not in the mood to bail you out of anything!" I echoed her. She looked back up from her ECHO device and into the camera.

"Okay, you all heard that, right? Well, first of all, with those controls I can't do any damage. Well, not too bad, anyways. And second..."

Gaige turned around quickly and then everything just went blurry, as if she dropped her ECHO device.

"Oh fuck!"

The recording stabilised and showed her ducking behind an engine. She looked pretty panicked. In the background I could hear some mechanical noise, probably one of the doors opening.

"Okay, guys, they have somehow found me. Stay with me, in case they treat me unfairly or arrest me or something. I need you as witnesses that I did nothing wrong. You'll have to stand up for me, people!"

"Hello? Is there someone there? Identify yourself!"

I looked over to Mordecai just in time to see him facepalm. Honestly, Gaige had just recorded herself trespassing, how did she think she did nothing wrong? This was going to get messy and awkward.

"Oh God, they're coming closer... I better move... this is gonna end baaaadly." Gaige whispered into the ECHO and started moving around the engine. Just as she snuck around the corner, the recording showed a pair of legs and then panned upwards to reveal an angry looking officer.

"We found her. Security to engine maintenance." the officer said into his ECHO device, as Gaige got up. Looked like she was trying to run away.

"You'll never get me!" she screamed and the recording got wobbly and all over the place. She was running. This would end badly.

"Intruder is resisting arrest, hurry up, security!" I heard the officer say, as he ran after Gaige. This would end badly.

"Will we be on our way to security now or do we wait?", I asked Mordecai.

"Let's wait. I think Gaige will be able to get some quality content for her ECHOcast in a confinement cell." he replied.

"AAAHHH!" I suddenly heard Gaige scream and then there was only a recording of the ground and the officer arresting her with the help of some security. Looked like they used a stun gun on her to stop her from running. I sighed.

"Looks like her little adventure is over for now."

I looked at Gaige through the one-way mirror. She was sitting in her little cell, ranting on about how unfair things were. It was almost comical, if it wasn't a real thing happening and I didn't have to bail her out. To be honest, the security people had been really nice about it, but I still had to pay a small fine to get her out of her cell.

"It's just completely wrong! I mean, what if I only wandered in there by... by accident? Would they just convict me then? And... hello? Using a stun gun? That must be against some human rights! I... I mean, I did kinda go in there on purpose. But still. I didn't do anything! I mean, come on, guys. Trespassing? Trespassing doesn't even really hurt anyone. I'm saying it as it is, I've been wrongfully arrested and am being held here against my will. They are the criminals!"

I sighed. I mean, Gaige could have just asked to see the engine room, I didn't really get why she was so stubborn about it. Then again, she was a teenager. She had gotten used to how things were on Pandora. She was probably traumatized. And most of all, she was Gaige. I should've seen it coming.

"I'm sorry about this. I'll pay her fine and get her out of there, no question. She's a teenager and has been on Pandora for too long at this point." I said with an apologetic smile.

"It's alright, she didn't mess anything up, but keep an eye on her next time, alright? She can't be running around in the engine room. It's dangerous and she could hurt herself or others." the head of security told me.

"Yeah, I will. Thanks, anyway." I replied and counted out the fine to bail her out. I really hoped she'd lay low after this. The head of security quickly counted the cash, nodded and then brought me to the cell door to unlock it

"So anyways, I'm just waiting to see when I'm being released or whether I'll even have a fair trial. Who knows, they might just try to silence me, which would make me a political prisoner and-"

"Yo, Gaige. Come on, we're going. I bailed you out, but I'm not doing it again, okay?" I said to Gaige once the cell was open.

"Oh, one second. There seems to be something up. I'll update you guys, when I have news. Gaige out."

Song: U-Roy - Natty Rebel

"Space travel is really weird." I concluded. It was a bit out of nowhere, but at this stage Mordecai was used to it. He sat up on his elbows and looked over to me, a questioning look on his face.

"Like, I don't even know what day it is and whether it's morning or evening, because all you can see is space. And I mean... what even is time out here?" I mused. Mordecai laughed and shook his head.

"Nova, it's 10 in the morning. According to that clock over there at least. Too early for philosophical discussions like this." he said.

"Yeah, I was just kinda thinking about it. It's weird. And I'm kinda hungry, but I'm too lazy to get up." I remarked.

"You should get Gaige to get you some breakfast. She kinda owes you after you bailed her out. Where even is she?"

"Don't know, don't care. I told her I wouldn't bail her out again, so that's that. We got any plans for today?" I asked.

"Lots of target practice. We should be getting to Artemis soon, so we need to practice more. There's only a couple of days left at this stage." Mordecai said. I yawned and nodded.

"It's gonna be really sad when we have to get out of this space ship. I mean, yeah, it's kinda boring and dull and stuff, but it just has this vacation feeling to it. Like we don't actually HAVE to do things. When we're on Artemis we have to do stuff again and report to Lilith and whatnot." I told him. I was feeling pretty philosophical this morning, but I had no idea why.

"You been talkin' to Lil lately?" he asked.

"Not as much as I should have, probably. But yeah, she seems to be doing alright. They apparently found out where Athena lives and are having an eye on her right now, to see when they can actually get her. She said she's probably gonna wait for us to come back and do the job, though."

"Huh. Okay."

"Hey, can you tell me something?"

"What do you want me to tell you, querida?"

"I dunno, anything. Tell me something about Artemis. What's it like? What's the food like? You got any cool stuff we should go and see?"

Mordecai looked like he had to think about that one for a while. It probably wasn't that easy to answer questions like that when you've grown up in the place. I mean, everything probably seemed pretty normal to you.

"Well, there's lots of forests, lots of trees. We've got a few nice mountains. There are some bigger cities, they kinda look pretty modern. Maybe a little like Opportunity, but nicer. Not as modern. A little cosier. When you get to the borders of the cities you have a good amount of slums, mostly small cabins and huts, made of makeshift materials. A lot of them are overgrown with plants. That's where I grew up. Smaller places usually have a good amount of actual tree houses. I think just before I left they have started building some luxury ones for tourists."

"Any places we really have to see?"

"There are some nature reserves and such. If we have time we should go and see some of those. I think you'd like them. Apart from that... nothing really."

"That sounds pretty cool, we should definitely go." I said trying to imagine a planet full of trees. Man, I hadn't seen a bunch of green and lush trees in ages. I was really looking forward to it.

"Yeah. Yeah, that should be nice."

It had been about 2 hours now and Mordecai was still working away on my hair. I had decided I would just form the rest of my hair that wasn't dreaded yet into dreads as well. It would be way easier to tie them up and it would be easier to take care of them. Plus, it would look less messy.

Mordecai had actually offered to help me with my hair, because of how long it was. It would have been really difficult for me to do the dreads myself. Plus, I didn't really have experience. The couple of dreadlocks I did have had formed by themselves, because the hair got tangled up.

Gaige and Axton were hanging around the place as well, so it was basically like a big social event. Me getting my hair sorted. And of course Gaige was recording for her ECHOcast, so there were probably a lot of people who could experience this with me. Whatever this was.

"How do you have so much hair, chica?" Mordecai asked shaking his head. I could see he was getting a little frustrated with it, especially since my hair probably in a pretty bad state after Pandora.

"Dunno. Got it from my mum, I suppose." I replied.

"You have a lot of hair, girl. Like, it's unreal." Lilith chimed in over the ECHO. I was talking to her over the ECHOnet, too, mostly because I kinda missed her and also because I felt bad that we hadn't been talking as much as usual lately.

"Well, my mum had pretty big hair, to be honest. My sister has a lot of thick hair, too, but she always kept it at shoulder-length and neat and all. She was such a nerd when it came to her hair." I replied and rolled my eyes.

"You really hold a grudge against your sister, huh?" Gaige asked, her mouth full of popcorn or chocolate or some other snack.

"No. Maybe. A little. I don't know. I don't know what she's like now. I just know that everyone always liked her more than me. Like, everyone that was friends with my parents and all those good and decent people and whatnot."

"Sounds like you've got some repressed issues there. You wanna talk about that?" Lilith echoed.

"No! No, I don't. Stop psychoanalyzing me, Lil." I protested. Axton, who was reading something on his datapad looked at me.

"I dunno, sounds like something someone who has repressed issues would say." he commented. Oh. My. God. I didn't even know that he was actually listening. They were all joking. Right?

"What the hell, dude?" I said and turned around to him sharply. He started laughing and was shaking his head.

"I'm only messing with you, don't worry. I mean, doesn't everyone kinda hate their siblings? In a way?" he replied. I shrugged.

"Yeah, I guess." I answered and looked back at Mordecai who had both his hands on his hips. He didn't look happy.

"Chica, stop moving your head so much or I'm gonna have to tie you to that chair. I can't work like that!" he said. I knew I probably shouldn't have said it, but I couldn't stop myself. This was just too good.

"Kinky."

I swear, the whole room burst into laughter. Mordecai was just shaking his head and mumbling something about "not talking to you anymore".

"Wow, okay, uhm... that was interesting, Mordy." Lilith said over the ECHO.

"Guys, this is what I have to live with. At least for the next month or so." Gaige announced to her followers. I looked up at Mordecai who tried his best to look like he was mad at me. I knew he wasn't.

"I know you can't be mad at me." I said to him quietly. He tried to keep up his stern look, but had to laugh, too. I grinned back at him.

"There. You just can't be mad at me." I repeated. It was pretty funny to me to hear Mordecai snicker to himself trying not to laugh, while he was holding a strand of my hair in his hands.

"I will get mad at you, if you don't stop moving your head!" he said, but he had to laugh again. This would take at least a few more hours and I wasn't even sure if that was good or bad. I was having fun on the one hand, on the other hand my ass and my neck and my shoulders were in bad pain.

"Guys, you'll be doing this for like 10 hours if you don't get a move on with that hair." Gaige commented.

"Yeah, I know that. I mean, you can take over if you want, but my girl here has an unreasonable amount of hair." Mordecai replied.

"Sorry." I mumbled, actually feeling a little bad for what I was putting him through. I knew how much of a bitch my hair could be.

Song: Raging Fyah - Everlasting

I was actually pretty glad about having my hair sorted out. I didn't really feel as much out of place when we were getting breakfast the next morning. The breakfast on the ship wasn't really all that special, but they sometimes had fruit and I hadn't seen fruit in a good while. It was a luxury thing on Pandora.

Today we weren't really lucky enough to get a table for the four of us, so we had to split up. Axton and Gaige were sitting at a table with two other women and it looked like Axton was aggressively flirting with both of them. I was kind of curious about how successful he would be with that.

Axton could be really charming if he wanted to and objectively, he was pretty good looking (not my type, but that was a story for another day). Sure, even Gaige probably had a thing for him. She was always on about how handsome he was and how cool he was. He sent that girl's hormones in an unparalleled fit of rage.

But then again, there was some sort of conversation happening at our table and I kinda wanted to focus on that. Couldn't hurt to make some friends on the way, friends would probably be important.

"So yeah, I'm going to see family and Jayna will be in the competition." the man opposite me said. I kinda had missed half their life story, but that was probably besides the point. Mordecai would have to fill me in later.

"Cool. Yeah, we'll both be in the competition, but Mordecai here is from Artemis himself. So he'll have to give me a tour of the place." I said. I had already forgotten the man's name, but at least I knew the woman was called Jayna. She had porcelain white skin and long reddish brown hair that was tied up into a tight braid.

"Where are you from?" she asked, looking at me. Her face was weirdly expressionless and that kind of unnerved me.

"Uh... Aquator." I replied, deciding to play it safe by not mentioning I was from Pandora. Pandora would lead to questions and honestly, as long as I couldn't be sure how she felt about Hyperion. Or about the Raiders.

"Aquator wasn't on the route of this ship." she said.

"Yeah, well, I was born on Aquator. I don't live there anymore." I answered. This was getting kinda weird. Why was she so insistent on knowing where I was from and where I had been?

"So you're from Pandora, huh?" she wanted to know.

"Yeah. Why do you wanna know?" Mordecai replied instead of me. I kinda wished we could have gone for breakfast later just to avoid this conversation.

"Just wondering. My cousin was working on Pandora for a while. You from Hyperion then?" Jayna said. Oh God. This was bad. This was really bad. Her cousin must have been working for Hyperion and if she found out we were with the Raiders things would go... badly.

"No. We were on Pandora just minding our own business. Nothing to do with Hyperion or anything whatsoever." Mordecai answered calmly. I had no idea how he could pull this off in such a relaxed way. I glanced over at Jayna who now seemed to be more relaxed. She gave us a warm smile.

"Good. 'Cause Hyperion shot my cousin when he made the tiniest mistake and I really don't like them." she replied. I sighed with relief. I thought we'd get murdered in our sleep before we would ever get to Artemis. Or we'd get handed over to Hyperion as soon as we set foot on the planet. But it seemed that for once it wasn't an issue that we weren't with Hyperion.

"How are things since Handsome Jack died?" the man beside her asked. I nudged Mordecai to answer because I still wasn't really able to think straight, after getting quite panicked right there.

"A little chaotic, but generally better. The planet's slowly recovering from all the mining. I don't think Hyperion is trying to meddle much on Pandora anymore, they only really got Helios station left." Mordecai answered his question.

"Wow. Must have been difficult. Surviving all that." the man commented.

"Yeah, I suppose we were lucky. You know, just laying low and hoping for the best." I replied, back at the old lying. We were doing anything but laying low, to be honest. Thank God. Otherwise Jack might have still been alive.

"Well, looks like you are going to be the first ever contestants for Pandora, so." Jayna said with a smile.

"Really? Huh. Well, I guess, there aren't really that many people living there and most probably wouldn't be too interested in the competitions. Where were you guys from again?" I answered.

"We're from Dionysus, but my husband is from Artemis originally."

Of course. Of course she wouldn't say his name. I felt too awkward to ask about it at this stage, because we'd had a pretty good conversation for a good while. I really just wanted to actually leave this place, especially since I was done with my breakfast. I wanted to go for some target practice or whatever would get me out of this room. Thankfully, Gaige managed to create a distraction.

"THAT'S MY BOY!" she suddenly screamed. As I turned around I could see Deathtrap floating next to the breakfast buffet. Was Gaige just showing off DT, so Axton could impress the ladies?

"What the fuck, Gaige? Why is DT out?" I asked her.

"The girls wanted to see him. And I'm pretty proud of my boy, so yeah." she replied. I was shaking my head.

"I mean, the breakfast table isn't really the place to show off a murder machine, but okay." I commented.

"Hey! DT isn't a murder machine. He's my sweet little robot friend." Gaige replied.

"Alright, whatever, Gaige, but try not to repeat the Science Fair thing, please? We don't wanna draw a lot of attention. Deal?"

"Fine." she said and DT dematerialised. It actually hurt my heart a little to see him disappear like that. I was getting way too soft.

"Your daughter?" Jayna asked me with a smile. I sighed and just shrugged.

"Not really, but who cares at this point? Might as well be." I replied. This was the perfect opportunity.

"Excuse me, but I think I'm gonna go back to bed for a while. Didn't get a lot of sleep last night, so I'm gonna catch up on that." I said. Jayna nodded.

"Sounds like a plan. See you at the competition, I suppose." she replied.

I pointed at the door and looked back at Mordecai, a questioning look on my face. He gave me a wide smile.

"Puerta." he said. I walked away from the door towards the bed, just in time, because the door opened and Gaige came in recording for her ECHOcast. I sat down on the floor cross-legged and pointed at the bed.

"Cama."

"What are you guys doing in here?" Gaige asked. I couldn't really be bothered to answer her and neither could Mordecai apparently. I just pointed at one of the chairs standing around the table next.

"Silla." Mordecai replied. The table was next.

"Mesa."

"Nova, are you learning Spanish from Mordy?" Gaige wanted to know. I gave her a wide grin.

"Sí." I replied and pointed at the table again. I had missed what he had told me.

"Mesa." Mordecai answered again. He seemed pretty amused by my attempts to learn his language. And to be honest, I wasn't good with languages whatsoever, but I thought I might as well give it a try. Mordecai and I had known each other for almost 6 years at this stage.

"Oh my God, you are so cute." Gaige commented. I held up one of my dreadlocks. I wasn't even sure if I was going for the word for dreadlocks or the word for hair.

"Rastas. Or cabello, if you mean hair. But that's only used for the hair on your head. Any other hair would be pelo." Mordecai explained. I pointed at the mirror in the corner next. I was running out of stuff to point at.

"Espejo."

"Okay, okay. Ask me some stuff, I wanna know how much I remember." I said to him and smiled.

"¿Cómo te llama?"

"Me llama Nova. Come on, we went over that a million times."

"Vale, vale. ¿Qué es esa?" he asked and pointed at the chair.

"Es una silla." I answered. He pointed to the bed next.

"Es una cama."

"This is fascinating." Gaige commented. Mordecai pointed at the mirror. Fuck. I had already forgotten the word for mirror.

"Uh... Es... es una... mirrorera?" I replied. Mordecai was shaking his head laughing. I sighed. I really didn't find languages easy.

"Es un espejo. ¿De qué color es tu cabello?" he asked next. I just gave him a confused look. We didn't cover any of those words, did we?

"... qué?" I replied quietly. I had no idea what he was asking.

"What colour is your hair?"

"I dunno how to say that in Spanish!" I protested.

"Tengo el pelo negro. I have black hair. " he replied.

"Tengo el pelo negro." I repeated.

"Okay, guys. Again, this is very cute. But have any of you seen Axton, though?" Gaige asked. I shrugged.

"Saw him run off with one of the two ladies he met at breakfast the other day. Don't go looking for him, chica." Mordecai answered. Gaige had some sort of look on her face that I couldn't really define.

"Uh... thanks for the mental imagery. Bye, guys." she said and walked out of the door again. I looked at Mordecai, a little confused.

"See, I'm not sure if that was sarcastic or not, because from what I know of Gaige it could really be both."