Starr sniffed the air, taking in the aroma of hard liquor and wandering tobacco smoke. She loved bars, ever since E.C and Roker took her to her first barfight. Deep-Water had almost had a heart attack when he found out. If he knew that Starr was in a bar even now…shudder to think.

“This place alright, Starr?” Monid asked hopefully. The pilot never took her anywhere off-ship without her approval.

“It’s fine, Roker. How come you always ask me if ‘it’s alright?’ I’ve seen every dive this half of the system, and you ask if ‘it’s alright.”

“Just don’t want you doing anything you don’t wanna. E.C and the Cap feel the same.”

“If I didn’t want to do things I didn’t want to do, I’d never have crewed up on Phoenix. And besides, wasn’t it me who pointed this place out?”

She sidled into a scarred barstool, and immediately got her drink. Strangely, she could outdrink E.C and Roker, a skill not very common to Companion’s daughters.

The daughter of a renowned Companion. Of course, this was a mistake. Companions usually did not have children, as a child was an unattractive feature. Starr had inherited her beauty, but nothing else from her. Senryu (her mother’s only name, translated into ‘river-willow,) had left her to an orphanage, a helpless baby with no name.

Roker sat beside her, pondering over the Captain’s words before they’d split up from the ship. Something about ‘crew…’ Alas, Roker had been a little preoccupied nursing a bruise from the epic cargo bay battle. The yellow-haired pilot also thought about what he had said to the captain, about the girl who’d left for some distant moon. That was a lie he had cooked up, to make him seem less pathetic to E.C and the Captain, and perhaps to make Starr a tad jealous. E.C had believed it, and maybe Starr, but Deep-Water knew a lie when he heard one.

“What was it the captain said ‘bout ‘crew,’ again?” Monid said loudly and melodramatically, making it sound like a badly recited line.

Starr smirked at the tone, and answered, “He’s hiring up some new cr