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1. Paradise, Inverted
It was a place full of soft light.
Not the Silver Anchor's cramped living area — something else entirely. A quiet, elegant terrace that suggested a resort in some distant country. On the table, Shutia's favorite tea steamed in its cup, amber-colored and unhurried.
"...Hehe."
Shutia settled back in her chair and let the contentment settle over her.
"Sorry to keep you waiting, Shutia."
With those words, Ledea — her beloved sister — took the seat beside her.
Today's Ledea wore something soft, a light fabric dress. The sun came through her silver hair and made something of it — a figure from a story, barely real.
"Sis! What's gotten into you? Coming to sit beside me that quickly — did you miss me?"
Shutia leaned toward her in her usual way.
Ledea's response exceeded all projections.
"...No. It's just — I felt like..."
Without warning, she closed the distance. Shoulder to shoulder. Something warm and faintly sweet in the air.
"S-sis...?"
The sound that came from Shutia's throat was involuntary. She was always the one who initiated contact. Always the one who reached. Being on the receiving end of it — being *given* this, by Ledea — produced a processing error somewhere in the system that was supposed to be running her.
Then it got worse.
"Mm..."
Ledea turned her face toward Shutia's neck. Made a small, quiet sound.
"Wha — huh?! Sis?! What are you — what is—"
"You smell nice, Shutia. ...Calming. It's a calming smell."
Ledea looked up at her with completely unguarded eyes, and then moved to the curve behind Shutia's ear, and kept going.
The electricity that went through Shutia was total.
She was always the one with her face in Ledea's hair. Always the one cataloguing the scent of Ledea's neck, her shoulder, the air she'd left behind in a room. The idea that this could ever reverse — that the reversal was *happening right now* —
Every breath Ledea exhaled against her neck dismantled another section of Shutia's functional reasoning.
*(Sis is — sis is smelling me. My heart is going to undergo nuclear fusion, I'm going to — what do I do, what face am I making, what if I smell wrong—)*
The happiness exceeded the system's rated capacity. Shutia reached the limit and kept going past it.
"I CAN'T — I LOVE YOU — I LOVE YOU SIS—!"
She lunged forward with both arms to grab hold of Ledea and never let go —
— and the world flipped over.
*THWACK.*
Cold floor. Dull impact.
Shutia opened her eyes. The Silver Anchor's cabin. Her own room. She had gone entirely off the edge of the bed and was now making close acquaintance with the floor, face-first.
"...A dream......"
She checked for nosebleeds. Found none. Rolled onto her back on the floor and stared at the ceiling.
"...It was a dream. But it was the best dream."
She lay there for a while, savoring the residue of it.
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2. Cold Reality, and a Reckless Proposal
"...Shutia. Your face has gone strange. We're working."
The Silver Anchor's cockpit. Ledea, at the controls, directed a genuinely weary look at her sister's expression, which had not fully returned from wherever it had been.
"Hehe, sis. You look especially radiant today. ...Hey, speaking of which — I have a request."
"I have nothing but bad feelings about this, but I'll hear it."
Shutia spun her chair to face Ledea directly, eyes full of hope.
"In my dream, sis smelled me — so I was wondering if sis could also smell me in real life—!!"
"......"
Ledea reached for her terminal without speaking and set the cockpit ventilation to maximum.
"What is this person saying... Let's get some fresh air in here."
"That's so mean! Don't dilute my love with ventilation!"
"That wasn't love. That was a suspicious request. ...Stop fooling around. The target is coming up."
The main monitor showed the shadow of a massive asteroid ahead.
Today's job: emergency extraction in the resource-rich Subaru Delta zone. Geological surveys had confirmed high-concentration rare metal deposits inside — but the surrounding area was thick with unstable electromagnetic gas.
"The gas is dense. Visibility and scanner range are both terrible."
"Leave it to me. With the bond between sis and me, this gas is basically a light mist— ...hm?"
The alert fired.
Two heat signatures, closing fast from the far side of the gas.
*"...Found you. Nice-looking rock you've got there."*
A voice through the comm, the kind that had learned to sound casual about taking things that belonged to other people. Raiders — the small-craft variety, called the Ged Rats in this stretch of the frontier.
"...Raiders again... Battle stations. Anchors ready."
"Understood, sis. Really, the nerve of some people."
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3. The Bite of Teamwork, or: Cleaning Up
The raider craft spread out around the Silver Anchor, working to surround it.
They knew the gas. They used it — firing plasma rounds in alternating bursts from the scanner's blind spots.
"—Attitude control can't keep up!"
The ship shook hard. Ledea pressed her slight frame into the seat and held on to the controls.
"...We're not running. Shutia — drive the anchor into the debris. Hard as you can. We're going to physically push the gas out of the way."
"Copy!"
Shutia fired the tow anchor. It caught the surrounding rock mass. Ledea pushed the engines to full and spun the ship like a top — raw mass forcing the gas aside, and for one moment the raiders' positions became visible.
"Now, Shutia!"
"Right where sis wants it — there!"
Shutia fired. The rock the anchor had been holding launched from the released tension and connected with one of the raider ships, which departed the area at significant speed and did not come back.
The remaining ship held its position.
Shutia turned to face it with a pleasant expression.
"How would you like this to go? I can collapse your bridge with the anchor, if you'd prefer. Or I could burn the engine out. Either works for me."
The remaining raider ship left at maximum thrust before she finished the sentence.
"...We won't pursue. Let's do what we came to do."
Ledea exhaled slowly, and put her hair back in order.
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4. The Scent That Remained, and a Small Hope
The work was done. The Silver Anchor was on its way home.
The cargo container held more rare metal than projected. Enough to cover the equipment upgrades for the foreseeable future.
"Good work today, sis. Your piloting was perfect, as always."
Shutia came into the cockpit with two warm cups. Ledea was sunk deep in her seat, eyes closed, the particular stillness of someone whose body is resting while the mind is still running down.
Shutia set a cup in front of her.
Ledea looked at it for a moment.
"...It smells nice."
"Mine's not as good as sis's, but — how is it?"
Ledea said nothing, and drank her tea.