Chapter 18: Stuck in the Middle

A/N: First of all, my vacation is over, so I expect to be back to updating twice a week for the foreseeable future.

Second, I hit 3,000 views on the 9th of January so I want to say, thank you so much to all my readers, whether I know you or not. This significant milestone means a lot to me, and I'm looking forward to hitting many more!

"

Stretching his arms out to his sides, Endymion stared down the door to his bedroom. He groaned, gritting his teeth, rocking his body back and forth slightly.

"Alright. Alright. Just weather the storm, buddy." Endymion nodded, then reached forward to open the door.

It slid open and he quickly stepped inside. Eschewing a bombastic entrance, he just walked inside quietly, looking around the room that he had been away from for seven days. He relished these handful of beats, and then turned to the left to find his wife.

Serenity was laying back on the bed, pregnant belly expanded out even more it seemed. She was holding a book up in front of her eyes.

"Hey," Endymion said softly.

Serenity's eyes rotated over to look at Endymion, lifting her head slightly off the pillow. She just as quickly went back to her book.

Endymion gave a little shrug, and then purposefully walked across the room, over to the far side, hands in his pockets.

"It's been quite an ordeal," Endymion said loudly, glancing over his shoulder as he walked over to the liquor cabinet. "I mean, spending the night out in the woods, wow. You can read about it all you want, but you don't have the first clue about it until you actually live it."

He went behind the counter, reaching down to open one of the cabinets, pulling out a chilled drawer. "And trying to build a rabbit trap out of random things you find in the forest, brutal. Genuinely don't know how people do it on a regular basis. I—"

His right hand pulled out an empty glass bottle, freezing him mid-sentence. He held it up in front of his face, giving it a couple of gentle shakes, observing the insignificant amount of brown liquid pooled at the very bottom. Just a few drops.

He stared at the bottle for a few beats, blinking, face wrinkled in confusion. Then, he looked over to his wife. With a scowl of determination on his face, he quickly marched over towards his bed, the neck of the bottle firmly gripped in his right hand.

He rounded the bed rapidly, stopping at the side of it that Serenity was on, in her peripheral vision. He held the bottle up.

"I'm quite positive that this bottle wasn't empty when I left," he said sternly, giving it a firm shake. Serenity glanced over at the bottle, giving a sad, guilty little frown, before looking back at the book. "You're free to start blaming the maids any time now."

Serenity, however, didn't bother to defend herself, instead painting a clear picture with her facial expression.

"Seriously?" Endymion asked, hostility in his voice.

"It was mostly empty when you left," Serenity argued, thought her voice was muted and quiet, barely a mumble. "Only enough for a glass and a half. And I already feel awful about it, so you don't have to guilt-trip me."

Endymion's face hardened, clear anger in his eyes as he glared at his wife. "Serenity. You are at an advanced stage of pregnancy with a future member of the Earth royal family!"

"I didn't know that, tell me more," Serenity said caustically, closing the book and setting it down on the bed to her left.

"Gods, I...okay." Endymion lowered the bottle down to his side. "I am sorry that things haven't gone exactly the way you wanted recently, Serenity. But there are bigger things at stake here, and you should know that. Grow up."

He stormed back over to the liquor cabinet, loudly slapping the empty bottle down onto the counter, then grabbing one of the sealed, full bottles from the cold drawer. He slammed the drawer shut, and then turned around to grab a clean glass.

"You think I've been having fun the last seven days?" he called out loudly, opening a smaller drawer right above the one with the bottles, revealing a collection of round ice cubes. Using a pair of black tongs, he deposited four of them into the glass. "Out in deep space on a small ship, simulating what it's like to have no power, trying to find a way to generate heat to stay warm, sleeping on the floor, believe me. You're the lucky one, getting to stay here."

He took the full bottle and the glass of ice with him, striding over to the bathing room door on the opposite side. "Trust me, I wish I didn't have to do seven straight days of survival training."

"Still sticking to that one, huh?" Serenity said. Endymion froze a few steps away from the door, then twisted his head around, staring at his wife. She had gone back to her book.

Endymion opened his mouth, and then closed it, squeezing his eyes shut and swallowing. "Serenity, I don't know what you mean by that. But I suggest you get used to the concept of there being more things happening in my life than just you."

With that, he turned around, quickly sweeping into the bathing chamber, slamming the door shut behind him.

"

Submerged in the heated basin of water up to his neck, Endymion rested the back of his head up on the cushioned platform, closing his eyes, still frowning. A small brown table was just over to his right, supporting the weight of the mostly-full bottle of light brown liquid and the half-full glass of ice floating in the same liquid.

"Great job, there," Endymion muttered under his breath. "Phenomenal work."

He reached his right hand up to grab the glass, taking a drink from it. The powerful jets of water being sprayed along his back down in the basin, going to work on his muscles and nerves, helped relax him after the extended stint aboard the The Qesem.

He tried to think on more positive things to settle his mind, which was currently being pulled between anger and frustration. Five point two billion creds worth of refined imperium were now sitting in a securely locked room in one of Nephrite's safehouses, having been transported a couple sacks at a time by Nephrite and Kunzite. Soon, inside of a year, it would be sold out to the civilians of Earth. The Prince wouldn't even have to do any more work at this point. He had satisfactorily set things up to where there was nothing to do but watch his 'business' account take in money. So long as they had unfettered access to the imperium vein on the Moon, and nobody else found it, this venture was going to work.

He couldn't work the frown off his face, however. He hadn't expected Serenity to express herself in such an overt and destructive way. It did bring up the question of whether she'd actually be able to shrug this off quickly. And more than that, she had possibly endangered the well-being of his first child! Just thinking about it made his blood boil. All the precautions they had taken to ensure an ideal situation for the pregnancy, and she'd throw it away on something so trivial as being unhappy for a few days?!

Melodramatic, to be sure. Two glasses of a fairly-mild alcoholic drink was highly, highly unlikely to have any sort of effect on the child. But the principle of the act was more than enough to irritate him.

He opened his eyes, glancing over at the bathing room door, trying to figure what his next move should be. Nothing sounded especially appealing. He groaned.

"Ah, boy," Endymion muttered, raising his soaked left hand up to his face and rubbing it on his forehead. "Come on."

"

What was otherwise a quiet, peaceful afternoon on Earth was being broken ever so slightly by the staccato repetition of rapid clops. The horse enclosure behind the Earth palace was being utilized on this day, Helios racing along the brown track along the outside, right by the fence. Prince Endymion sat on the horse's back, leaning down low to cut down on wind resistance. Holding the reins in his hands, Endymion applied a continuous, gentle pressure to his prize steed, goading Helios to continue galloping at full speed.

Endymion, a tight grimace on his face, embraced the sensation of the wind blasting into his face as he accelerated as much as his horse could handle. He had already made at least five full rotations around. He didn't really have a plan for how many more he would be taking. He knew that a horse as strong as Helios could handle many more before even the slightest bit of fatigue set in.

He barely even had to think about it after awhile. Steering the horse was a simple matter, giving it a tiny pull to the left every time a bend in the track came up. The straightaways took care of themselves, Helios sprinting across the dirt by his own volition. This allowed him more opportunity to think things over, mulling the situation.

He hadn't really made any progress when he noticed Kunzite standing just outside the fence, watching him. With a yank on the reins, he slowed Helios down to a gentle gallop, then a trot. Gradually, the horse slowed to a stop underneath Endymion, and he dismounted over to the right side.

"Good boy," Endymion said, coming up to stroke the side of Helios's mane with his hand. He reached down into his rider's pouch on his belt, pulling out a half of a red apple with the core carved out. He raised it up on his palm close to the horse's mouth, and Helios took it in his teeth. Within beats, he had consumed it. "Alright, back to the stables!" He tapped Helios on the side with his palm, and the horse slowly wheeled around to take off, running inside the track and onto the grassy field.

Endymion turned his focus to his guardian, quickly closing the distance to the fence.

"How are things?" Kunzite asked. "How is Serenity?"

Endymion's face puckered. "She'll come around."

"I see," Kunzite replied, a discouraged look on his face, twisting his head to look up at the Earth Palace. The rear side of the structure was no less imposing than any other, with several stories worth of marble and crystal accounted for. "It's just, it's been eight days since we got back, so…"

"She's not really saying very much to me," Endymion admitted, putting his hands on his hips and similarly looking up at the palace. "You know...just has to make sure that I know how unhappy she is." He rolled his eyes. "But, how long can she keep it up, with that baby prepping to pop out? Cycle, maybe a bit more, she'll be a mother, so, worst-case scenario she won't possibly be able to remember any of this by then."

"You are actively trying to get her to come around, right?" Kunzite asked, giving his charge a slightly caustic glare. "Not just waiting for her to forget on her own?"

"Yes, obviously, now get out of my marriage, that's not your realm," Endymion said dismissively. "Give me some, how about some good news? Hm?"

Kunzite twisted his head around slowly, scanning the nearby area, before saying anything. "Everything's flowing. Still only the four total arrests, things are picking up just like Nephrite said. Nothing out of the ordinary to report."

Endymion nodded. "We should consider expanding."

Kunzite's cheek twitched a bit. "How do you mean that?"

"We need to grow our operation. You're right, even six billion creds a year isn't enough. We need to keep accelerating. Exponential growth. These people we're selling to, if they're willing to buy unregulated imperium, it stands to reason that they might be willing to sell it."

"That's diving into some very significant risk," Kunzite argued. "Remember, every member of Nephrite's network was personally vetted by him. We lose our assurance of competency if we start to bring on customers as sellers. And their loyalty, we have no way of guaranteeing that they won't just feign interest in order to run off with the imperium." Kunzite folded his arms over his chest, turning around and leaning up against the fence, looking at at the expansive grassy field surrounding the Earth Palace off to the west. "That could be more trouble than it's worth."

"If Nephrite vetted those men, then it stands to reason than those men are trustworthy. And if that's the case, their ability to vet others to come on board should also be trustworthy," Endymion countered. "Imagine if all of Nephrite's men, spread out across the Earth, had three or four men working underneath them. We could clear twenty billion a year. If we want to actually put a dent in things, we need something like that. Think about it."

"Also, let's remember, we're playing this safe," Kunzite continued, tugging at the collar of his grey uniform. "We're keeping to areas that aren't taken by other dealers. Exponential growth means we step on some old, long-established dealing networks that will push back."

"Old dealing networks," Endymion hissed. "Old, as in out of date. Nobody else has what we have, not even close. Those networks, selling garbage product synthesized by children. People will take our product over theirs every time, if given the choice."

Kunzite pursed his lips a bit. "Your Highness, it just might not be a good time to be so aggressive. We've got a good thing going for the moment. Exponential growth might have to wait."

Endymion put his index finger up towards Kunzite. "Keep it in mind, though. We have something here, but we need to grow it. We stagnate, then, well, you're right, it's not worth the effort we're putting in." Suddenly, his eyes popped open. "O-oh, check this out!"

He pulled the left side of his riding jacket open and reached into the inside pocket, pulling out a small little toy-like object. Two perfectly round pieces of wood, one painted to resemble the Earth and the other the Moon, were tethered together by a thin white piece of rope a couple finger-lengths long. He tossed it to Kunzite, who caught it.

"What's this? A toy?" Kunzite asked, holding the two spheres and looking down at the rope.

"I was making toys for the baby," Endymion explained. "Lots of woodworking. But I was thinking, you know, now that we lost The Qesem, I needed to do something to hide those first two uncias that we made that I kept. So…" He glanced down at the object of wood and string. "I figure that's a pretty safe place to hide something."

"Ah," Kunzite said, giving both wooden spheres a shake. "That's good. Just maybe don't keep it on your person going forward."

"I'll put it up on the dash of the next ship we get for the purpose of synthesization," Endymion explained. "Speaking of which…"

"Yes, I wanted to bring that up," Kunzite said, throwing a quick glance around yet again. "After the events with The Qesem, it's occurred to me that there could be some difficulties getting a new ship."

"

"Do you have a few secundas, Your Highness?" A short, skinny man with dark skin and short black hair bowed before the High King of Earth, drawing an annoyed hand gesture from Kasios.

"How many times do I have to tell you people? Up here, up on The Savery, I'm not a King!" Kasios sidestepped over to the wall of the hallway, getting away from the middle of the path to allow a couple people behind him to go past him. "But, yes, uh...Officer...Officer…"

"Officer Hector," the man filled in, holding a brown folder in his right hand, also coming over to hug the wall, standing before the King rather stiffly.

"Hector, right! I should know that," Kasios said. "What have you got?"

"Well, Your Highness, I-I understand that you're the lead on the new imperium strain that's been showing up on Earth recently via the black market? The Tuxedo Mask investigation?"

Kasios nodded. "I'm taking charge on it, yes."

"Well, I've got something, I think," he said. "There's a salvage company that operates out of Jupiter. One of their salvage ships had an interesting story, they reported it to the authorities. Took awhile for it to filter up high enough for me to see it, but I like to keep an eye on salvage yards. You know how we're always saying that mobile imperium labs are much better than anything that has to stay stationary?"

"Yeah yeah, what...what do you have?" Kasios asked impatiently.

"About eight days ago, one of their salvage ships found an abandoned ship floating around outside of the asteroid belt. So they go inside to check it out, hull is intact and the life support systems are still running, minor power still running, but the ship interior is a dump. Just a mess. Now, what caught my eye is the report mentioned a lot of broken glass, some big boxes that looked like some kind of equipment, and a bunch of these rubber tubes that ran up into the ceiling." Hector opened up the folder.

"Abandoned imperium lab," Kasios thought aloud, hands on his hips, eyes cast down at the floor. "Where's the ship? They took it back to the yard?"

"Get this," Hector said, turning a page in the folder in his hands. "So the two scouts are still checking out the interior, and suddenly, the ship starts blowing up. Just random explosions. So they bail real quick and turn off the containment field, because they're afraid the engine might go and take them with it. The moment they do, the ship springs to life and jumps away."

Kasios's mouth fell open a tiny bit, eyebrows dropping fractionally. "Where?"

"They didn't follow. They're a salvage ship," Hector explained. "But according to the two men who checked it out, nobody was on board. So how does that happen?"

"How long were they checking the ship?" Kasios asked. "Did they at least get identification?"

"Said they were in there for maybe two secundas before the explosions started. They admitted they didn't check everywhere really good, but it was just a B-class so there aren't that many hiding places." He closed the folder. "Check this out though. They scanned the ship after they put up the field, no identification. So they looked for the engraved ID in the cockpit, filed off."

"Not so abandoned," Kasios reasoned. "Sounds to me like that lab was running, maybe immediately before the salvage ship got there." He squinted, deep in thought. "When they get caught in the field, they start destroying everything to try to make it look abandoned, then they hide. Set up some explosives to try to scare off the salvagers, then they bust out of there."

"I was thinking that," Hector agreed. "They saw enough to know it was a Notre-model, B-class. Not a ton of those out there, so I checked every starship junkyard in the galaxy to see if any of them had crushed one of them recently, last ten days." He gave a crooked little frown. "Nothing came up."

"No no, these guys...if that ship was associated with Tuxedo Mask, they'd know better than to take it to a junkyard." Kasios leaned up against the wall next to him with his back. "If they have any sense, they'd have it destroyed, that's for sure. Just crash it into an asteroid, maybe. Launch it into the sun. But never a junkyard."

"Anyway, Your Highness, at this point I'm stuck. I think that the clear stuff was getting made on that ship, but I don't know where to go with it at this point."

"Hey, great job," Kasios said, putting his right hand out and clapping it on Hector's shoulder. "Great job with all of this, picking up on that report and everything, I mean that. I'm not going to forget all this work you did."

"T-thank you, Your Highness," Hector said, nodding.

"Okay, B-class Notre ships never sold that well, so maybe we should take a look at recent purchases. See who was registered to having one recently. Check records of junkyards for them acquiring any of those ships in the last four cycles, while you're at it. Other than that, these boys are going to have to get a new lab running assuming they destroyed the old one, so we should keep an eye out on civilian purchases of starships. B and C, just in case they decide to get a bigger ship since they're making so much money. Something that can jump, since their first ship could jump, maybe that's important to them." He shrugged. "Not much else we can do other than that."

"I'll get right on that," Hector agreed. "Thank you, Your Highness,"

"Great work," Kasios repeated. "I'll make sure to recommend you for fast tracking at the end of the cycle."

"

Endymion looked over at the left side of his bed out of the corner of his eyes, over to where the very pregnant Serenity was laying, still with her nose in a little book. He sighed, saddened as she continued to take no notice of him.

Still fully-clothed, he laid back heavily on the bed, mulling over assorted words in various combinations. Nothing was obviously good or clearly useful. Finally, he figured he'd force the issue.

"Serenity, if there's something you'd like to accuse me of, then it'd be better for both of us if you just came out and did it," he said, trying to keep his voice and tone as gentle as possible.

Serenity blinked a few times, then turned her head to the right. "Accuse you of something?"

"Yes, just...come out with it," Endymion urged. "Get it off your chest, and allow me to actually defend myself. It'd be good for both of us. It might make you feel better, maybe I can put your mind at ease."

Serenity gave him a bit of an odd look. "And what do you think I might want to accuse you of?"

Endymion grunted. "S-Serenity, I'm asking you. You tell me. What is it that you think I'm doing? Because, clearly, you're not happy about something, and this isn't going to get better until you address it directly. So, put it out there, and we'll talk about it."

Serenity inhaled through her nose, still giving a blank stare, and then returned to her book.

"Oh…" Endymion swung up into a standing position at the side of the bed, violently spinning around and putting his hands on his hips. "What? Do you think I'm having an affair? Is that it? If that's it, just say it! Say you think i'm having an affair!"

Serenity ignored this angry outburst, unwilling to play his game, which only accelerated Endymion's frustration.

"Serenity." Endymion lowered his head slightly, keeping his gaze down at her. "I am not having an affair. I would never do that, I have absolutely no interest in things like that. We've only just gotten married, you're about to bear my child, the last thing I want to do is be with another woman. You are the only woman in my life. You have my word, there's no affair."

Serenity made a tiny little grunt, barely audible. "I suppose you want me to have a trophy made for you?" She rolled her eyes, putting the open book down on her stomach. "Engrave it. Prince Endymion of Earth. Didn't have an affair."

Endymion's shoulder slumped. "W-where did you even learn to speak like that?!" he snapped. "Sarcasm doesn't suit you, you know."

"Endymion. Listen. You say it's not an affair, great, wonderful." She sat up the little that she could. "But then, what is it? Because I know it's something. And I don't have the first clue about what it might be, so I'm not going to sit here and accuse you of anything. I don't want to." Her face started to harden a little bit. "But something is going on, you are not acting like yourself. And if you want to make me feel better, then you need to open up to me about it. That's all there is to it."

Endymion's cheek twitched, his hand reaching up to suppress it. "Serenity, I...there's nothing to open up about! I'm a twenty-year-old Prince of Earth, newly married with a child on the way! I like to read and ride my horse! That's all that I am!" He started to pace around aimlessly. "There's nothing to tell you! A-and you sitting there, telling me that you're just so sure that there has to be some big secret, it's...it's maddening, and honestly, I just wish you would...what…"

He looked around, face clouded with a nasty scowl.

"I'm a Prince!" he snapped. "I have responsibilities, I have duties, it's not all just...sitting around, and I wish you'd just...I mean, I wish I was more exciting! I wish I had some big amazing secret that would just blow your mind when you heard it, but...just, forget it."

The Prince stormed over to the bedroom door, his attempt to rationalize his behavior and put his wife at ease having developed into a nonsensical rant that meant nothing and could convey nothing of use. Serenity simply watched him go, yanking the door open and slamming it behind him. She simply went back to her book after he had departed in a huff.

"

Princess Mercury's fingers ran across the edge of the disc-shaped communicator, scrolling through various options before landing on the desired one. A lengthy random string of numbers and letters was shown in hologram form just above the disc, the one she had been searching for. She tapped the center of the disc, prompting a thin blue line to project from the disc.

She waited, nervously clenching her hands into fists and twisting around to look around her bedroom, checking for the tenth time that she was alone. Nothing but the countless priceless artifacts and fortune worth of diamonds to keep her company.

Suddenly, the blue line turned green, and crystal-clear audio began to emit from the disc.

"Mercury?"

Mercury huddled her head down towards the communicator, unreasonably paranoid even in the safe confines of her room. "Q-Queen Mars, are you alone? Do you have some time to talk?"

"Sure, I have time right now, nobody else is here," Mars replied, the green line vibrating and spiking, taking the form of a soundwave as her voice came through. "What's going on?"

"Oh, n-nothing, I'm fine, I just need to ask something." She sighed, putting her forearms down on the desk. "It's just, I haven't been able to stop thinking about what Serenity said, a little while back. When we were all chatting. Do you remember?"

"About Endymion?" Mars asked. "I remember. What about it?"

Princess Mercury dug her right index finger into her temple. "W-well, not that I'm an expert in this particular area, in fact I'm probably even below average, but was it just me, or was it fairly obvious what's going on here?"

"Oh, yeah," Mars replied quickly. "Couldn't be more obvious. Cut and dry."

"That is, to say...there's another woman?" Mercury said trepidatiously.

"Definitely. The Prince is having an affair. May as well come out and say it, it's so obvious."

Mercury, with a little sigh, put her palm on her forehead, staring down at the desk surface below her with wide eyes. "I...it's just hard for me to believe, someone like him, in the situation that he's in, would just—"

"Mercury. You know who my father is." A short pause on the line. "Trust me, there's nothing men can do, no low they can sink to, that surprises me."

Mercury gave a small nod. "Y-yes, it was just hard for me to believe it. But, I've...I can't bring myself to say it to her."

"I'm sure she's already thinking it," Mars pointed out. "She's not a three-year-old, it has to occur to her. What else can it be?"

"I-I know," Mercury said, wiping at her forehead. "But, you know her, she might not be ready to believe it. She might have doubts, probably thinks it's a possibility, but I really don't think she'd be willing to accept it based off suspicion."

"Right," Mars agreed. "I mean, I'm certainly not saying anything to her about it. Gods, could you imagine? I couldn't live with myself."

"I know!" Mercury replied, again turning around to make sure she was alone in the room. "I've honestly picked up the communicator in my room thirty times over the last half-cycle to call her, but I just figure she'll get mad at me for saying it! Even if she's thinking it herself, she's not...I can't do it. But, I was thinking, maybe if I could prove it. If I had evidence. If I wasn't just reading into the things she was telling me, then maybe I tell her. Because it doesn't sit well with me. Imagine that she's not thinking of it as a possibility, and I'm sitting here knowing what's going on but I don't tell her because I'm scared." She shook her head. "Not a good friend if I do that, am I? So, I need some sort of proof."

"What are you proposing?" Mars inquired, voice suddenly dropping a bit in volume. "You want to get proof that Endymion's having an affair? How?"

Mercury cleared her throat. "I need your help, Mars. I'm only asking because Serenity is a close friend to both of us, and...well, I just think that if her husband is cheating on her, we both have a strong motivation to make sure that she knows about it."

"Of course I'll help, what do you need?" A bit of urgency in Mars's voice now.

"Well, I was wondering. Do you think it would be possible for you to read Prince Endymion?" Mercury asked, putting her mouth right up to the disc and whispering now.

"Read him?" The line went flat as Mars held silent for another brief moment. "No, he's a royal, he's had suppressors injected. State of the art ones too, I'm sure. Probably gets fresh ones every year. Even if he was right in front of me I couldn't get into his head."

"I know that," Mercury said. "I'm asking if you could...read him. Say, you got into the same room as him, and you and him were alone, for maybe ten secundas. In that scenario, could you read him?"

A longer pause this time. "How would this scenario happen? Those generals are almost always with him, especially the white-haired one. He wouldn't let me, and there'd be nothing I could do against someone trained like that."

"If I could make it happen. You and him alone, no generals. If I can make that happen, could you read him?" Mercury continued to press.

"Yes. Yes, I could do that."

"How long would it take?" Mercury asked.

"With that weakling?" Mars scoffed. "Give me a hundred beats, I'll have this woman's name and location. You get me in a room with him for four secundas, I'll know everything."

Mercury nodded. "T-thank you, so much Mars. I'll try to come up with a way to get him alone, it could take awhile but I'll get it. Just be ready." She swallowed down hard, feeling rather nervous at the clandestine nature of this act. "It...we owe it to Serenity."

"We'll get her her answers," Mars concurred. The line went dead, leaving Mercury to try to relax herself.

"

The parking dock for Class-A starships in Lecce City was a rather eerie place this late at night. It was completely dark save for the artificial sources of light, which came in the form of a handful of large lights every couple hundred paces down the line of assorted ships. It was also largely vacated, with nobody around save for a single guard drone and a security guard tucked away in a side room.

Inside one of the many ships parked there, a tall woman with blue hair that was tied into a single braid that fell just past her right shoulder, was anxiously waiting in the cockpit. Moving her legs around, fiddling with her fingers, constantly getting up to look out the windows, she certainly seemed in a hurry for something to happen. But yet, it didn't seem likely that anything would be happening in a place like this.

Finally, after what seemed like the millionth time she had looked, a humanoid figure came into view, purposefully strolling over from the left side of the line of ships.

"Finally! Gods," she grumbled, running up to the cockpit and tapping a couple buttons to lower the boarding ladder. Within beats, she heard the clanking of boots against metal, signifying someone using it.

Shortly, a head popped up from the hatch in the floor of the small ship. A head virtually identical to the head of the one currently in the ship, except that her hair was red instead of blue. Beyond that, even the hairstyle of the single braid was copied to perfection.

"About time!" she exclaimed, watching her twin pull herself up onto the ship.

"I have other responsibilities, Cyprine!" the newcomer argued, standing up and looking around as the hatch closed beneath her feet. "I had to make drop offs on Jupiter. You know how big Jupiter is?"

Cyprine rolled her eyes. "Alright, Ptilol, give it. You have it?" She held her right hand out expectantly towards her twin, motioning with her fingers.

"Of course." Ptilol reached underneath the hem of her skirt, removing a tightly-rolled up sheet of paper and snapping a tiny tie on it. She handed it to Cyprine. "That's everything. Those are the people we approach, that's what we tell them, and that's how we monitor things to ensure success. Make sure you do exactly what it says."

Cyprine grumbled, scowling just a touch as she looked the instructions over. "Absolute nonsense that we're doing this."

"Hey, you and me made a deal!" Ptilol protested. "You lost the coinflip, you have to babysit the distribution networks until we find a replacement."

"Not that!" Cyprine argued. "Well, yes, that, but...no." She pointed at the open paper in her hands. "Stealing from his dealers, that whole thing, why are we doing that? It's pathetic, is what it is."

"Orders come straight from the bossman himself," Ptilol pointed out pompously. "If you want to disobey them, it's your funeral, don't let me stop you."

"I'm not disobeying anything," Cyprine said somberly, a touch of bitterness in her voice. "But what are we doing here? Throwing pebbles at him? Putting a banana peel on the ground in front of him so he steps on it? Give me a break. Please tell me you agree."

"I...I see where you're coming from," Ptilol said, the playful malice in her tone drying up a touch. "Of course, I feel the same way, but orders are orders, and the bossman has reasons for this."

"Mimete was one of us!" Cyprine hissed through gritted teeth. "Mimete was family! I know it, you know it, we all know it. And this prick, whoever he is, Tuxedo Mask, he ratted her out and now she's dead! Say whatever you want to about her mental state, and about how she wasn't reliable anymore, she was one of us! And Tuxedo Mask signed her death warrant, and our grand plan to get back at him is to tip people off on how to steal from his dealers?!"

Ptilol gave a couple begrudging nods. "I cared for Mimete too. But we don't know everything here, bossman does. Trust me, I'd love nothing more than to hunt down Tuxedo Mask and gut him, and if the opportunity to do it ever comes up, I pray I'm the one to do it. But, clearly, bossman thinks he's worth more alive. And I think we both know why."

"I'd...I'd respect him more if he went up to her and shot her in the face," Cyprine muttered. "Just did it himself, went up to her and killed her. Maybe I wouldn't be so upset about this. But to rat her out, it's not right." She shook her head. "Gods, you don't think...bossman wants to work with him?"

"I have no idea," Ptilol replied. "But I do know that we need money. A lot of it. Fast. And the current business model is not working. So if I were you, I'd prepare for him to be willing to do just about anything, if it means achieving that goal. But, regardless of what bossman wants with Tuxedo Mask, I think that he'll eventually not be of any use to him. So, calm yourself, take a deep breath, and know that he'll eventually be made to answer for what he did to Mimete. He's already dead, he just doesn't know it yet." She glanced down at the closed hatch at her feet. "Now let me out, I've got to go make more drop offs on Mercury."

"

Prince Endymion sat on the side of the bed in the guest bedroom, a few rooms down from his own. Less ornate, fancy, and custom-tailored to Endymion's taste than his own bedroom, of course, but he felt the need to be away from Serenity right now. He hadn't yet calmed himself down after his outburst, although his target of anger was rapidly switching.

Her held his head in his hands, scowling down at the polished marble floor. Still holding a good amount of angry energy, so frustrated that he couldn't find the words to put his wife at ease, he jumped to his feet and began pacing around again.

He couldn't figure out what to say or do, he couldn't control himself, he couldn't even stop from making the situation worse. It was as if she could see right through him. He, educated from birth by the finest scholars in the galaxy, holding eight separate platinum-level distinctions in different academic subjects, as well as two crystal ones, couldn't lie to his wife.

And what's more, he wanted to lie to his wife! Needed to, even! That was probably even worse. His hands balled into fists, frustrated by all of this.

His pacing stopped in front of a full-length body mirror off on the right side of the room. He glanced at it, stopping right next to it, appraising the tall, thin man he saw looking back at him for the briefest of beats, feeling the intense self-loathing wash over him.

Without thinking about it, his right hand cocked back and launched into the reflective surface, shattering it with a loud crack and sending the shards to the floor with an even louder series of crashes. The large jagged shards of mirror broke into scores of tiny jagged pieces and spread out on the floor around the Prince. He just stood there as the sea of mirror chunks flowed out from the frame, then looked at his right hand knuckles to find them bleeding. Still scowling, he stormed away from the large mess he had made, back over to the bed.