Sebastian wakes up early in the morning. He instinctively reaches for his phone to check the time, but only feels its vacancy in his empty pocket. He sits upright, immediately feeling pain along the length of his neck and back. He hadn’t noticed it before, but there are two windows in the kitchen, both of which have been opened. Dim morning light shines through, catching on a bright pink note which has been neatly folded and placed next to him.

"The smoke from breakfast made its way to the upper level. The day jobbers are acclimated to the smell, but it messes with my sinuses. Please keep the windows open when you cook.

Looking forward to breakfast tonight."

-Olsa, NS

He finds himself smiling as he folds up the note and tucks it into his pocket. He walks over to the windows and looks outside. The sparkling walls of the glass cavern stretch on for a seemingly endless length. The morning sunlight shines in from the cave entrance above, reflecting beautifully off the crystal surfaces that surround the ship. Sebastian sticks his head out the window to get a better look—for the first time he has a clear view of the vessel’s exterior. Popping out from a thick layer of dust, the ship's armored surface is painted in stripes of pale blue and sage green, further overlapped by the pink and blue refractions emitting from the cave walls. Pure white glass sand covers the ground, more occasionally slips down from the entrance.

A cloud of nicotine wafts past Sebastian’s face. He looks to his right and sees Dusty with her head sticking out the other window, smoking a cigarette. She stares at him.

"Hey there, lune." She says.

"Good morning…" He returns.

"Sleeping on the flour. Is that a chef’s technique? Help break it in and what not?"

Sebastian tries to figure out if she’s joking. Dusty turns away and continues smoking. He has been meaning to ask a clarifying question.

"So… what happened?" Sebastian asks.

"Hm? When?"

"I uh… overheard the speech last night. I think you were talking about what happened in Vento?" He leads.

"Probably didn't match up with the news, huh?" She looks back at him.

He shakes his head nervously. Dusty sighs. Sebastian waits for her response.

"The Captain’s been searching for some old friends of hers. Nobody knows why cuz she won’t tell us why." She starts.

She takes a short drag. The cinders at the tip of her cigarette flare in response. Sebastian looks down, noticing the oversized colorful racing jacket that Dusty is wearing. On her left shoulder is a large circular patch with an image of a squid? An Octopus? His eyes return to Dusty’s when she begins speaking again:

"Apparently, she got word from another captain named Comoro, that one of her friends had been living steady in a mining colony called Vento."

Sebastian begins thinking about the news report he had seen yesterday morning. The horrific imagery of the destroyed colony. He feels a pit forming in his stomach.

"We began to make our way there before we were spotted by a fighter jet. A Vulture, I think. Couldn’t really tell for sure, we could only hear its screeches every time it dove in for a shot at us. It chased us through the dunes until we got close to Vento. As soon as we were maybe ten klicks from the colony wall, the miners started pelting us with anti-air." Dusty recollects.

She takes another drag. This one is longer than the last. She exhales a stream of smoke before continuing:

"We were trapped between an aerial bombardment and an angry colony wall. I learned real quick that Tyrannis is built to siege. The ship moved like a bat out of hell—and there was plenty of fire to whip us. It was madness," She shakes her head as she stares into the distance. "It wasn’t until we were through the wall that we learned that Vento is no mining town at all. It’s a military installation. Fully loaded with some of the most advanced shit I’ve ever seen. Firsthand, I can tell you that the place is guarded tighter than Oasis."

The pit in Sebastian’s stomach momentarily fades as he becomes confused. The destroyed colony he had seen on screen looked nothing like a military base. Sure, the walls are usually occupied by Vanguard forces, but the colonies themselves are just regular towns.

"We fought our way through the wall, through the base, and out the other side. The Captain burned all our fuel outmaneuvering beam cannons and missiles. So, after our escape we needed to refuel. Every free outpost between Refraction and Oasis turned us away because of the heat. We had to duck into a cave like this one ‘til we were sure the lune birds were off our tail. The rest of the crew wanted to ransack another ship, kill its crew, take the fuel and all that. But I couldn’t…"

Dusty raises her cigarette towards her lips but stops as she instead takes a moment to process her feelings. She lowers the cigarette and continues.

"So, I came up with a more… bearable alternative. After a couple hours underground, we stole a credible looking tadpole from a truck stop and made our way towards Oasis. A couple hours later, we got stuck at a lune checkpoint and kidnapped you to get through."

Dusty takes another long drag from her cigarette. She looks over and reads the confusion on Sebastian’s face.

"I don’t know, I thought the story was simple enough to follow…" She shrugs.

"No, it’s not that. It’s just that…" Sebastian trails off.

Dusty waits.

"The news broadcast I saw yesterday said that you had attacked a mining town—"

Dusty laughs loudly. A genuine smile gleams across her face.

"You still believe the state? Oh, that’s precious." She giggles.

He isn’t sure how to answer the question. She continues to laugh before taking one last drag from her cigarette. Her smile fades as she produces a cloud of smoke. Her eyes become distant as the smoke obscures her vision, seemingly lost in the fog that she's created. After a few seconds, she returns to the present.

"We’re wasting time." Dusty says as she tosses her cigarette out the window.

Sebastian watches the cinder fall into the sand below.

"I’ll go get the meat. Get to work on your prep. The others will be awake soon." She says.

She ducks back inside and quickly leaves the kitchen. Sebastian follows suit, ducking back inside and making his way over to his flour bag bed. He brings the flour over to the counter, finds a large bowl amongst the cabinets and spends several minutes looking for measuring cups. He finds none. Dusty returns with a box of sausages in hand, finding Sebastian in the middle of his search—his head practically stuck in a drawer. She drops them down on the counter, right next to Sebastian’s head. He jolts upright.

"Ah! Um—"

"What’re you looking for?" Dusty asks.

"Do you have any measuring cups?" Sebastian asks.

"…I don’t believe so. No."

"Hm..."

"Will that make things difficult?"

"It might…"

"Of course it would." She shakes her head.

"I think we’ll be fine for this recipe… I just need three parts flour and one part water for the tortillas." He explains.

"Okay." She responds plainly. "Where do you need me?"

"Uh…huh?"

Dusty looks angry. "What do you need me to do? To help? How can I help?"

"Oh. Right. You could…" Sebastian looks around the kitchen. "You could mix the dough for the tortillas."

"One part water, three parts flour?"

"Right. And a bit of salt."

"How much salt?"

"A very small amount… a teaspoon."

"No teaspoons here, but I get the idea." She says as she walks away.

Sebastian grabs the cast iron pan and holds it out to shield his face from the incoming heat. He cranks the switch to light the burner, standing back a bit to maximize safety.

Click! Click!

Frmf.

To his surprise, the stove’s flame is small and tame. Then he remembers that the source of the stove’s power, the ship's engine, is under no workload at the moment. He then realizes that the ship’s engine is constantly running. They never turn it off.

"Stove working, lune?" Dusty asks.

"Yeah it—"

"You should be, too. Get to it."