"Are you laughing still?" Mio asked threateningly, staring at Ritsu, who was turned away. The weapons specialist lifted a hand to cover her face. "No," she tittered unconvincingly.
"You totally are!" Mio cried.
"I'm sorry!" Ritsu laughed. "I just can't imagine you 'laying down the law,' you know?" she paused for a moment, then began chuckling again. "Actually, I can totally imagine it, and it's hilarious."
"Well, at least it's mostly just you I have to deal with," Mio teased. "You're pretty harmless." Ritsu stopped, whirled around, and looked at Mio incredulously.
"I'm what?!" she demanded. "I'll have you know I'm a deadly renegade!"
"So long as no one tickles you," Mio teased, lifting her hands in a show of force.
"You wouldn't dare," Ritsu scowled and pointed at Mio.
"I'm your captain, I can do whatever I want!" Mio said, reaching for Ritsu's midsection.
"No!" Ritsu squawked, sprinting into the bridge, Mio laughing at her as she herself entered the bridge.
"Hey Mio," Ritsu said, plopping down in the captain's chair. "Look at me," she said with a thick accent. "I'm the captain now!" Mio, despite the mutiny, shared a good-natured laughed with Ritsu.
Maybe this won't be so bad, Mio thought to herself. She was removed from her thoughts as she watched Ritsu rummaging through a drawer at the Captain's station.
"Ritsu, what are you doing?" Mio asked with exasperation. "You can't just go looking in other people's drawers!"
"Relax, Mio," Ritsu assured. "Yui keeps all her dirty secret stuff in her quarters anyway. I'm looking…" she paused dramatically, before pulling out a sleek black box with wires running out of it, holding it up triumphantly. "...for this!"
"What is that, a KBox 360?" Mio rolled her eyes.
"Excuse you," Ritsu said, offended. "It's a KStation 4. And I hereby challenge you to a race on Hyper Turbo 5."
Mio looked around the bridge. Shrugging, she looked at Ritsu.
"I guess we have nothing better to do," Mio admitted.
"Great!" Ritsu chirped. "Best four out of seven, winner gets to be captain?"
"What?!" Mio cried. "No! Yui said she wanted me to be captain. Wager something else."
"Ugh, fine," Ritsu rolled her eyes. "How about whoever loses has to do an embarrassing dare?"
Mio considered that seriously. On the one hand, she in no way wanted to be subject to humiliation, especially at the hands of Ritsu. On the other hand, the thought of Ritsu making a fool of herself almost made it worth the risk. She watched Ritsu plug in the gaming system.
"Against my better judgement," Mio said, "you're on." Ritsu grinned and handed her a controller.
/*-*-*\\
The only light in the infirmary came from a desk lamp situated next to Azusa's armchair. The aforementioned pilot sat quietly and read a book, one she had no doubt read many times over their journey. Yui, for her part, found trouble sleeping. Pain, adrenaline, and emotion swirled in her mind. Staring at the ceiling provided little entertainment for the captain, nor did it provide any refuge from her regrets about their situation.
Grunting slightly, Yui adjusted herself to sit up. Azusa noticed and put her book down on the table.
"Yui, Mugi said you need to rest," Azusa reminded.
"I can't sleep; my face stings and I'm not tired," Yui said quietly, finally coming to a cross-legged sitting position.
"Still, you shouldn't strain yourself," Azusa said with a gentle smile.
"I'm sorry, Azunyan," Yui said, bowing her head.
"No worries, I'm just repeating what Mugi said."
"Not for that," Yui clarified. "For everything else." Azusa cocked her head to the side.
"What do you mean?" she inquired.
"I came to you guys talking about treasure hunting and adventure, and all you got was trouble and heartache," Yui explained. "I haven't been the most responsible captain."
Azusa stood, walking to Yui's bedside. Yui looked up to meet Azusa's dim gaze.
"We have had adventure," Azusa assured. "Adventure is the treasure."
"But I-" Yui began, but Azusa put a finger gently over her lips.
"We trust you. We love you. We're proud to call you captain. We would go to the ends of the universe for you, just like you would for us. That's all that matters." Yui gazed at Azusa with teary eyes. Azusa leaned forward and rested her forehead on Yui's. "You're the best captain I've ever had." Yui chuckled.
"I'm the only captain you've ever had."
"Thank goodness," Azusa said. "I wouldn't have it any other way."
The light on the end table fizzled out with a buzzing noise. The girls straightened quickly and looked around. The hum of the air conditioning faded to a halt.
/*-*-*\\
"Good going, Mio," Ritsu said sarcastically. "Your suckage blew the circuit breaker."
"Sure, that's it," Mio rolled her eyes. "I'll go reboot the power."
"What, in the engine room?" Ritsu asked.
"Yeah, why? Are you afraid to be here alone in the dark?" Mio teased.
"Eh? No, I'm good. I'll chill here," Ritsu said, leaning back in Yui's chair.
"Alright, don't do anything stupid while I'm gone," Mio squinted at her, and then turned to leave.
"Mio?" A soft voice came from the threshold. Mio turned to see the dim silhouette of Mugi in the doorway. "Can you help me for a minute?"
"Yeah, what's up?" Mio asked as she followed Mugi down the hallway. They rounded the corner to the storage room.
"I was doing inventory, and I can't reach the shelf to put the Beta Rocket shells back," the blonde said sheepishly. "I figured since you're a little taller than me you might be able to reach."
"Well," Mio said, "I was on my way to reboot the power, but this will only take a second, I guess."
The two entered the storage room, where a lit flashlight sat on a table next to a cardboard box full of bottle-shaped pieces of metal. Mio spied an empty spot on the top shelf.
"Up there?" she asked.
"If it's not too much trouble," Mugi said graciously. Mio nodded and lifted the box above her head. It was just out of reach. Standing on her toes and extending the box with her fingers, she got one corner on top of the shelf. She precariously tried to bounce to nudge the box forward, but it slipped and tipped backwards, showering her in metal shells. After the cascade of weaponry had finished falling on her, Mio was left standing with her hands clasped over her ears and her eyes shut tightly in panic.
When no deadly explosion came, Mio tentatively opened one eye and looked at Mugi's concerned face.
"Mio, are you okay?" she asked.
"We're alive?" Mio asked shakily. "None of them went off?" Mugi cocked her head.
"They're just shells," Mugi explained. "They're empty; they're what's left after you fire a Beta Rocket. We recycle them." Mio visibly relaxed.
"Oh," she said, lowering her arms and sighing. "Let me help clean these up."
After that fifteen-minute debacle, Mio was finally able to restart the power system, which had likely been temporarily fried after Yui jettisoned the second weapons bay. As she came back to the bridge, Ritsu was still seated in Yui's chair, looking relaxed. Mio sauntered over to her engineer's station and eyed the screen wearily.
'3 new messages', it read.
Wincing, Mio opened the messages.
"19:00 GMT - Greetings, this an automated message from the Northern Galactic Administration. We have detected your ship is in unauthorized space. Please move your ship out of this private area. Thank you." Mio read aloud. "Yikes, this was like an hour ago, before the power went out. Guess it only just got here after I refreshed the system." Mio opened the second message.
"19:30 GMT - Greetings, this an automated message from the Northern Galactic Administration. We previously contacted you about your ship's unauthorized position. Please move your ship as soon as possible, or you will be prosecuted. Thank you." Mio grimaced.
"That's gonna be a hefty parking ticket," Ritsu remarked. Mio hesitantly opened the third and final message.
"19:55 GMT - Greetings, this an automated message from the Northern Galactic Administration. We have detected your ship is still in unauthorized space. Please move your ship in the next five minutes or it will be moved by force. Thank you." Mio froze. Looking at the system clock, her blood ran cold. 19:58 GMT. They had two minutes. She clumsily pulled her radio from her hip and spoke into it.
"Azusa! Get out here now! We gotta get out of here in the next two minutes or we're toast!" Distant scrambling followed, as well as the sound of approaching footsteps and a cry of "Coming!"
/*-*-*\\
It had been a long day for the stand-in captain. It had started normally enough, but quickly devolved into running from the law, fighting off alien insectoids, and narrowly avoiding parking tickets. Mio had been exhausted.
A good night's sleep had done wonders for the engineer, who awoke feeling refreshed and ready to face the day. Mugi reported that Yui's stitches were infection-free and that the air-headed captain would be ready to retake her position at the helm of the Houkago Space Time.
Mio, who had come to appreciate the difficulty of being captain, made one last round through the ship to make sure everything was running smoothly. As she surveyed the bridge, she came to Yui's desk. Looking at it scrutinously, she noticed some writing on the surface.
'Whatup Yui-dawg? Love yo face - Ricchan' Mio face-palmed.
"Ritsu!" She called. "Get over here." Ritsu scampered over like a guilty puppy and stood before the still-technically-in-power captain. "What is this?"
"It's just marker," Ritsu assured. "Watch, it'll come right out." She licked her thumb and rubbed at the writing. It didn't even smudge, remaining as clear and dark as before.
"Ritsu…" Mio said dangerously. "I was supposed to keep things running smoothly, and now Yui's gonna come back to a vandalized desk because you couldn't keep yourself in check!"
"Hey, hey," Ritsu assuaged. "I'll take the heat for it, don't worry."
"She's gonna hold me responsible because I was supposed to be keeping you out of trouble!"
"Trouble?" a voice came from the entrance to the bridge. Ritsu and Mio looked to see Yui standing tall in the doorway, face bruised and stitched, but nonetheless confident. "What's going on?"
"Captain!" Mio said, straightening up. "I tried to keep everything in line as best I could, but…" she watched silently as Yui read the graffiti. She held her breath as Yui turned to Ritsu.
"Ricchan, that's so sweet!" Yui said with a goofy smile. "I love yo face too!" She hugged Ritsu as Mio watched on in disbelief.
"And Mio-chan," Yui said. "Thank you for keeping everything running smoothly." She gave the engineer a warm hug as Mugi and Azusa entered the bridge. Breaking her hug with Mio, Yui looked proudly at her crew.
"Well then, crew," she said finally. "Onwards!"
