Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Barracks ❯ Part 31 ( Chapter 31 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Ball Z – it belongs to its respective owners. This fan fiction is not a commercial project, and I am not making any money from writing it.
Warnings: Alternate Universe. Yaoi (male x male). Goten x Trunks and vice versa. Other pairings.
A/N: <b><i>Starcut’s crew members</b></i>:
1. Captain
2. Backup Captain
3. Master Sergeant
4. Navigator - (Adriel)
5. Communications Specialist - (Sildara)
6. Programmer - (Rokunda)
7. Gunnery Sergeant - (Monteira Fawa)
8. Arms Specialist - (Mandro)
9. Arms Specialist – (Hazel)
10. Flight Officer - (Reyn Dueri)
11. Flight Officer - (Jadenas Ealt)
12. Head Engineer - (Nohail Ofura)
13. Maintenance Technician
14. Maintenance Technician
15. Doctor - (Tamahi)
16. Medic
17. Head Cook
18. Cook
19. Soldier - (Edesha)
20. Goten
<b>Barracks</b>
by chayron (lttomb@yahoo.com), beta-read by quatreofdoom
Part 31
“Where do I put these?” Jadenas asked, lifting two magazines off the floor. Just as he'd promised, he had come to help Goten clean his cabin. It was nearly 8 pm, and the third-class suspected that the flight officer had hoped he would have already cleaned his room by this time.
Goten took a closer look at the magazines. It was porn; both males and females. The third-class pointed at the cupboard. “Just stuff it somewhere there.”
Turning one of the magazines this way and that, Jadenas leafed through a few pages. “On second thought… Can I borrow them?”
Goten shrugged. “Sure. There are some more in the cupboard if you’re interested.”
“I sure am.”
The third-class pointed at the bucket next to the door. “You know, you can leave everything as it is. Just go and wash that.”
Jadenas lowered the magazines back onto the floor and walked over to take a look. He moved away in disgust. “Somebody’s gotten sick in there.”
“Yeah, and it was you. Now go and clean that; I need that bucket.”
The flight officer gave him a surprised look. “Seriously? Me?”
Goten let out a longwinded sigh when the door behind Jadenas’s back closed. At least he could do that. The flight officer meant well, but he was absolutely useless – he got interested in everything he found, took his time examining it, and then would put it back in the exact same place where he found it.
The third-class walked over to the cupboard and gathered the rest of the pornography. After a short pause, he left one magazine for himself and took the others to the door for Jadenas to take later. Goten had seen a porn magazine or two, but hadn’t been particularly interested. It was not his kind of thing; he preferred movies. However, he doubted he had much chance of finding that kind of porn on <i>Starcut</i>, and he badly needed something to direct his thoughts off the prince.
After Mr. Elite’s rude interruption, he went to finish his business in the showers. They appeared to be empty, and he needed only a minute to end what had been started. Later, he had been glad that he went to the showers: the vents functioned passably in his cabin, but even then Jadenas had been able to detect the trail of scent he had left in his wake while masturbating. The flight officer had teased him about it lightly.
Goten couldn’t believe he had been so turned on that he had even regretted not fucking the prince back in the National Air Force headquarters. The thought alone was dangerous. And then he jerked off, having conjured a clear picture in his mind of the person touching him.
It was best not to make it a habit.
Nevertheless, maybe they really should have had sex. First, it might have appeared that they weren’t compatible at all and the sex was awful. Second, maybe once they had sex, that would be it: sometimes the most appealing idea about things you couldn’t have was the very notion that you couldn’t have them. So maybe after sleeping together, their interest in each other would have dimmed considerably. Goten doubted the second possibility, at least concerning himself, – after all, he had become interested in the prince even before he had any sex-related thoughts about him. Or maybe…
“Argghh!” Goten growled, throwing his arms up into the air. “Just stop thinking about it!”
It was easier said than done, though.
By the time Jadenas returned, Goten had already gathered everything off the floor. Jadenas clambered onto the stripped bed and watched Goten washing the floor with Cid Alright’s T-shirt. Five years had passed, and the crew still wondered what had happened to him – one day he simply didn’t show up for the flight, and Rokunda was sent in his place. They had tried contacting him, but everything had been in vain. They didn’t know what Cid Alright did outside his job when he wasn’t on the spaceship, nor did they know where he lived. The common opinion was that Cid Alright had gotten himself into serious trouble. He had been a laid-back type of a guy, but everyone had a feeling that there had been something shady going on behind his back.
“Well, that’s it,” Goten exhaled loudly, straightening. He wrung the T-shirt into the bucket. “Thank you for your attention.”
Jadenas chuckled. “Hey, it’s still more fun than to do it all alone.”
“For you, it was. You were staring so hard that I’m afraid the skin on my ass has peeled off.”
“That never happened.”
Goten shook his head, smiling. He grabbed the bag containing his sweaty uniform and went to gather the pile of sheets off the bed Jadenas was on. The flight officer had told him that there was a washing-machine on board. He had also warned him that it was broken more often than not. The third-class decided to try his luck first and then wash the clothes by hand if it sucked.
“Don’t you worry,” Jadenas calmed him down, standing up, “a week or so and you will be walking around stinking just like the rest of us.”
“Not if I can help it.”
“Nah, you can’t.”
Sighing, Goten left his cabin with Jadenas in tow. In reality, nobody smelled bad yet, but it hadn’t even been a week since they'd left their planet. Except Rokunda, but obviously she was an exception. She probably kept that horrible smell to ward the males off. Goten wouldn’t be very surprised if that appeared to be the truth. Spending months and months in a closed space with horny men might have driven her to mask herself behind the stench.
Most likely she was only lazy.
“One more spring cleaning?” Adriel asked, giving the bunch of clothes in Goten’s arms a look. He eased into step with the youth and the flight officer.
“You could have offered to help,” Jadenas admonished. “I bet most of the mess was made by you anyway.”
Adriel grinned at the flight officer. “Have you washed the bucket?”
Jadenas looked a little uncomfortable, but glared at him indignantly. “Sure I have!”
They reached the washing-machine, and the third-class realized why he hadn’t noticed it before – it was huge, but it was squeezed into the darkest corner above the stairs down to the lower deck. He must have thought it was some kind of furnace or something. It didn’t look all that trustworthy, and Goten gave it a suspicious look. The washing-machine stood on two planks of wood so as not to electrocute people. Two lights on its front were blinking red. The large round door was open, and Goten peered inside carefully. He yelped as Adriel pushed at his back, making him stumble forward. Only Goten’s wide shoulders prevented him from falling inside. His hands grasped at the frame, the bag and sheets dropping to the floor.
“God dammit!” Goten cursed, pulling his head out to glare at the navigator, who was grinning widely. “You could have knocked my teeth out!”
“Oh, c’mon, it won’t eat you. Just stuff the clothes in and leave it.”
The third-class inspected the controls. There were dials upon dials with all kinds of measurements. “It’s like controlling a freakin’ satellite,” he muttered. “Must be Human technology again – only they can make doing laundry so complicated.” Motioning at the clothes on the floor, he turned to Jadenas. “I just want them to be clean.”
The flight officer shrugged. “Well, your guess is as good as mine. We lost the instruction manual long ago. Just turn something and press that button.”
Goten turned to Adriel. “Any other ideas?”
“No, not really.”
“Just great,” Goten muttered, trying to discern between the knobs. Most of the writing had rubbed off, and he figured that they were the ones which had been used most, thus he set the washing machine according to them. “I’m taking <i>your</i> uniform if I find only bits and pieces,” he threatened Jadenas before pressing on the biggest button. Something clicked, and all lights started blinking.
“Sure. But you will have to take it off me first.”
Goten gave the flight officer a probing look. “Unexpectedly, you’re pretty lewd, aren’t you?” He started and moved away at the whooshing sound coming from the washing-machine.
“Well, it was you who flirted with me this morning,” Jadenas pointed out.
“Whoa!” exclaimed Adriel. “And Goten doesn’t waste time, does he?”
“I wasn’t flirting. I was having a hangover.”
“Aww… Don’t say that.”
Goten stared at the round glass door. Something was clicking and whirring inside. “What the heck is it doing?”
“Press the button again?” Adriel suggested. “Kick it?”
“Now I know why it gets broken so frequently,” Goten said matter-of-factly. “Oh, I think it’s working. It’s started pumping water.”
They stared at the water rising behind the glass. The washing-machine seemed to work properly, providing no entertainment, and they lost all interest in it.
“Well, I’m going to sleep,” the navigator said. “Gotta get up early.”
Jadenas went back to Goten’s room to take his magazines and also left. Goten mooched about in his cabin for half an hour, then decided to go to the bathroom and check his clothes on his way back.
The third-class was taken aback slightly when, upon entering the toilets, he saw Reyn cleaning one of the hatches. The flight officer turned around to look at who had entered the bathroom, then concentrated back on his task. Goten hesitated at first, then approached Reyn. He stared at the flight officer’s back while he was vigorously working on the hatch with a toilet brush. The third-class wondered why Reyn was doing this and why at this time.
“Did you get punished for something?”
“Yeah, for picking a fight with you,” Reyn explained without turning around.
“Oh. I see. But why aren’t I punished, too? For agreeing to it?”
Amused, Reyn turned around to look at him. He grinned widely. “If you’re looking for punishment, you’ll definitely find it. Are you the masochistic type?”
“Nah. It just doesn’t seem very fair.”
“Well, it was me who provoked you. Besides, you’re a newbie, and I’m an old-timer here. I wasn’t very welcoming.”
Goten was studying him, a hint of suspicion reflecting on his face. Reyn shrugged and turned away to continue cleaning the inside of the hatch. He had apologized to the youth, but it didn’t seem that Goten was taking the apology seriously. He probably shouldn’t either.
“Where can I get this?” Goten asked, pointing at the cleaning liquid and equipment next to Reyn. “What about gloves?”
Reyn lowered the brush to the ground and turned his head to look at him with eyebrows raised. “You serious?”
“Yeah.” Goten laughed at the flight officer’s expression. “I do feel a little bit guilty. And you did help me out that time in the showers.”
Reyn measured the third-class from head to toe. “Try the maintenance technicians. If they aren’t sleeping yet.”
The flight officer snickered and shook his head in disbelief when the door closed behind Goten’s back.
The third-class returned in about ten minutes with a small bucket filled with cans of washing powder and liquid in his hand. He put gloves on and got down to work.
There were five hatches, and Reyn had already cleaned two of them. The working principle of a hatch was simple: everything that went into a hatch was covered by a hermetic lid, then one needed to press a button so that the waste would be sucked out by a blast of air. If you wanted to get rid of something so that nobody would find it, this was also one of the best places.
Reyn stole a look at the third-class who seemed to be working energetically. He was serious about his business, scrubbing the inside of the hatch thoroughly. There was something about Goten that made you like him. He wasn’t overly cheerful, he wasn’t overly depressed, he wasn’t overly smart, and he wasn’t overly stupid, he wasn’t handsome, and he wasn’t ugly either. He was your average guy no matter how you took it, but something in his demeanor had already made the crew accept him. Probably it was that seemingly simple nature that made him into a likeable guy.
In silence, they finished cleaning the toilets, then Goten cleaned two washbasins.
“How long do you have to do this?” Goten wondered, taking his gloves off.
“For a month.”
The third-class gave this some thought. “Then I’ll be coming here for the next two weeks.”
Reyn couldn’t help grinning at the youth. There was both something irritating and agreeable in Goten’s choice. He shrugged. “Fine.”
When Goten returned to his cabin, it was already half past eleven. He decided not to disturb the maintenance technicians; he would return the gloves and the rest of the cleaning remedies tomorrow. He undressed and went to sleep.
The third-class was half-asleep when a thump against the wall made him stir and open his eyes. He hummed sleepily and closed them again, trying to find a more comfortable position on the bed. A series of rhythmical thumps woke him up completely. Blinking, he stared at the ceiling trying to figure out what was happening. A few more seconds made it clear that someone was having sex behind the wall. Or against it. It was Jadenas’s room on the other side of the wall. Goten sighed and decided to wait it out. However, the thuds against the wall became even fiercer and louder. Now Goten could also hear accompanying moans wafting from the other cabin.
It lasted for half an hour, making Goten as much hard as irritated. He started pounding with his fist on the wall. “Finish it up and go to sleep, dammit!”
The moans and thumps ceased at once, and it was silent for several seconds. Then a muffled “sorry” came from the other room. Goten couldn’t recognize the voice. The silence lasted for a minute, then even more enthusiastic groans followed.
“Fuck it!” Goten cursed, pulling the pillow over his head to try and block the noise.
<center>ooOoOoOoo</center>
“Goten!”
The third-class, who had just stepped out of his cabin, turned around to see who was calling him. It was Jadenas. “Yeah?”
The flight officer scratched the back of his head sheepishly. “Sorry about last night.”
Ah. It was about yesterday’s rendezvous. “Yeah. You’re a bit too noisy,” Goten complained.
Jadenas chuckled. “Sorry, sorry. We promise not to disturb you anymore, right guys?”
Goten looked past Jadenas at the two arms specialists who appeared from the flight officer’s cabin. The third-class blinked. He pointed his index finger at Jadenas, then at the twins. “You three?” Now it became clear to Goten who exactly his neighbors were and why he had an entire cabin at his personal disposal.
“When do you go to sleep?” Hazel asked, ignoring Goten’s disbelieving and somewhat jealous look.
“Uh.” Goten lowered his hand. “Well, usually at ten.”
Mandro shrugged. “Fine, then. Ten it is. You’re welcome to join us, though.” He yelped when his twin smacked at his head.
“Don’t fucking go around inviting innocent children!”
Goten’s eyebrows rose. He speculated shortly if Jadenas had told them that he was still a virgin. And that was after he had specially asked him to keep his mouth shut. Fucking bastard.
“Yeah,” Jadenas agreed with Hazel. “I’m certain Goten has more interesting things to do.”
Mandro laughed at Jadenas, “Moron.” Hazel was grinning.
Indeed, Goten wondered what could be more interesting than sex with twins, but decided not to voice his thoughts out loud, or he might really find himself in a foursome. That wouldn’t be bad at all if only they weren’t second-classes.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Goten said to Mandro. “I kind of already have two hypothetical boyfriends. Wouldn’t want to add to the mess.”
Jadenas’s forehead wrinkled in an attempt to comprehend Goten’s words. “Huh?”
The third-class waved this off dismissively. “Never mind. Even <i>I</i> have trouble understanding it. Thanks for your consideration, though.”
Mandro winked at him. “No problem.”
Goten grinned. “I meant the curfew at ten.”
“Ah. A smart ass.” Mandro’s answering grin rose up to his ears. “Well, neighbors have to live in harmonious coexistence, as they say.”
Goten winked back at him. “I’d like that harmonious coexistence to stay away from my ass.”
Mandro and Hazel burst out laughing.
The third-class became aware of the look Jadenas was giving Mandro. He was going to get his ass fucked tonight or maybe right after breakfast. In any case, Jadenas was not going to leave it like that – Mandro would be howling his pleasure for everyone to hear.
<i>Damn masochists</i>, Goten thought. He was aware of the pain-pleasure appeal for some people, but didn’t really comprehend it. When someone hit him, it hurt. When someone caressed him, it felt good. It was simple as that. And there were things he never wanted to know about some people. Jadenas was one of them.
Together, all four of them went to the canteen and, to Goten’s dismay, sat down at one table. He liked Jadenas, but wanted to be as far away from the twins as possible – he didn’t want to experience more temptation.
Goten and most of the crew members had just finished eating when the loudspeakers screeched like tortured hamsters. Everyone’s heads rose at the captain’s loud voice.
“Your captain’s speaking. I expect to see everyone in the meeting hall in five minutes. Out.”
Sipping his tea, Goten could bet he knew why the meeting had been arranged. He looked around the canteen to see the crew munching on their lunch with renewed speed. Everyone seemed to be a little surprised at the sudden call.
With the rest of the crew members, Goten filed into the meeting hall. The captain, the backup captain, and Monteira were already there. As usual, the third-class took a chair in the front row, as he knew from experience that hearing range worsened according to the number of rows in front of you and, especially, the number of surrounding people who distracted your attention with their babbling.
“I gathered you here,” the captain began, “because the master-key has disappeared. Has anybody seen Mr. Elite’s collar? It’s been missing for a day. As it grants unique access to most of the cabins, its disappearance is worrying.” He pointed at Goten, who had gasped in disbelief and whose hand had shot up into the air. “Yes?”
“Why has nobody informed me of the collar? Isn’t this reckless?” Goten spilled. “Certainly, if an enemy gained access to…”
“Yes, yes,” the captain, wearing a bored expression on his face, agreed with Goten. “In fact, it’s just a kind of walking master-key. It makes no difference if it’s hanging on a wall for everybody to take or is walking around. There’s a tracker in that collar as well. So have you seen it?”
“No,” Goten answered gloomily. “First time I heard about it.”
A soft murmur had started amongst the crew, but nobody had seen the collar. The third-class had suddenly become aware of Reyn’s probing look from across the hall on his left. Slowly, Reyn’s lips stretched into a knowing grin. And Goten knew that Reyn knew the real reason why he had been so bent on cleaning the hatches yesterday.
It didn’t seem that anybody else knew anything about the missing collar, thus the captain organized five search parties and gave the order to turn <i>Starcut</i> upside down to find the microchip. Goten was paired up with Edesha, another unspecialized soldier on board. The third-class had practically had no contact with him up until now. He was pretty interested in what kind of person Edesha was. Their task was to comb the second perimeter in the engine room. Goten and he took their flashlights and went downstairs.
“Does the cat really come down here?” the third-class asked after taking a look at the gurgling pipes and cables twined all around the sector. Huge, looming blocks of machinery took up most of the place. Goten didn’t know the purpose of half of them.
“Yeah, he does. Last time he shredded one of these cables here,” he said, pointing. “Monteira has been cutting his claws since.”
“Why the hell does he keep that furry abomination?”
“Well, you see, there was this time when Monteira was sleeping and his ki-gun malfunctioned and flared up. If not for Mr. Elite, Monteira would have burned alive.”
Now it became much clearer to Goten. “I see. Kind of makes more sense now.”
Edesha nodded.
While they were looking for the collar, the soldier tried to do his best to show him around and explain the tasks certain machinery performed, but he was far from mechanically minded. With an inward smile, Goten realized that he knew about the same or even more than Edesha. The third-class found the older man’s awkward but genuine attempts at explaining endearing.
All the teams gathered just before dinner in the meeting room, and it became clear that the search had brought no results. While the teams were reporting, Monteira gave Goten a mistrustful look: the collar’s evaporation coincided with the youth’s appearance on board. He believed that nobody else suspected anything about Goten as they hadn’t seen his profile. At first glance, the youth looked like a shy incarnation of absolute harmlessness. His history at pre- and paramilitary schools, and later at officers’ school, however, showed that Reyn’s broken nose was only the tip of the iceberg. Was this Goten’s revenge for chewing him out? There was no proof, though, that the collar had been taken by Goten.
“I have some more news,” the captain said when it was obvious that the collar topic had been wrung dry. “The Leiadors joined our side.”
“Yeah!” Adriel exclaimed, pumping his fist into the air. “Fuck yeah!”
Exultant whoops of other officers joined his. Waving his hands about, the captain indicated for them to calm down. “The Nectarines broke the treaty and joined the Ice-jins, though,” he said, dissipating everyone’s good mood instantly.
Adriel scowled. “Fuck. Yellow bastards.”
Musing, Goten scratched his head. “Well, technically,” he drawled, “they didn’t even break it as they had signed the treaty with the triumvirate and it doesn’t exist anymore.”
“That’s old news,” the captain corrected him. “We managed to secure a new treaty with them right after the triumvirate had collapsed.”
“Bastards indeed,” Goten endorsed Adriel indignantly.
“It’s a pity that now we are a bit too late to marry our prince off to Princess Deira of the Nectarines,” Sildara mused. “What?” he asked when everyone fell silent around him.
Goten suddenly realized that, without a doubt, currently the prince must be pressured from all corners of the universe. It would be no wonder if most of the pressure were coming from the Saiyan Empire itself. Marriage with one of the nations would secure their loyalty and unconditional support. The prince was going to have it rough.
“What? What?” Sildara shrugged at everyone’s stares, then threw his hands up. “Look at the Terran Republic. They can’t retreat even if they want to.”
Goten frowned at him. “Yuck. Can you even imagine what our royalty is going to look like in a few centuries? He’s half-Human already and to marry a Nectarine… His offspring…if he can even have any… Humans are more or less fine. But Nectarines… They are fucking yellow! With pink hair and green eyes.”
“Goten, you’re full of prejudiced shit,” the communications specialist said matter-of-factly, pointing his index finger at the third-class accusingly.
“Ha.” Goten grinned at him. “I’m certainly not. I’d like to see your face if somebody forced <i>you</i> to marry one. The delights of six breasts…” he snickered.
Sildara thought for a moment. “You’ve got a point here. My tastes run closer to…”
“…dicks,” the captain finished for him sternly. “Enough of these useless discussions. That’s not all I wanted to tell you.”
“There’s more?” Adriel wailed theatrically. “Don’t tell me we’ve been ordered to head for battle in this piece of junk!”
“Shut up, Adriel,” the captain commanded. “Nothing changed. We are entering hyperspace in two hours and, after twenty-nine more hours, we will finally reach our final destination – the Renera Section.”
“Ah.” Goten raised his hand.
“Yes, Goten?”
“Why didn’t we use the hyperspace jump right after leaving Vegeta-sei?”
The captain gave him a look. Then he remembered. “Ah, right, you were sleeping for three days so you missed that little interruption we had. The gate we usually use went out of order, and the rest of them were just too busy with sending off battleships to the conflict zones. So we went for the next closest one here, in the Krahu Section.”
“Figures,” Goten muttered.
“Well, that’s all,” the captain said, clapping his hands. “Hyperspace jump in two hours. Go and eat something before that. Dismissed.”
They went to the canteen where Goten took his food and started looking for a place to sit down.
“Hey, come here!”
Goten turned to see Sildara waving at him. There was an empty seat next to him.
“Adriel was just telling us about this guy he had at paramilitary school,” Sildara grudgingly informed Goten while the third-class was setting down his tray.
Goten groaned mentally - he had just been dragged into a lovers’ quarrel. Silently, he arranged his plates and tea on the table and then leaned the empty tray against the leg of the table. His thoughts went out to his own encounters in paramilitary school which consisted of a third-class cornering him in a bathroom and forcing a kiss on him. He hadn’t been interested in that third-class at all and rejected him at once. Thus his first kiss ended up with them coming to blows. There had been a few more attempts to court him, but he had been rather wild and nuts back then – he hadn’t allowed anyone close to him. All he had cared about was his dead brother and the stupid elites.
“…was this lengthy tapeworm wriggling on the bed!”
Goten resurfaced from his memories. His spoon faltered in front of his mouth while he was looking at Adriel. Mandro and Jadenas were laughing. Hazel had squirted tea out of his mouth and onto the table and was all red from choking on it.
“Must have felt like a ribbed condom!” Mandro squealed in perverse delight.
Grinning, Adriel shook his head. “It wasn’t as if I even knew it was there.”
“So what did you do then?” Goten asked, his spoon still hovering in the air, not touching his mouth.
“Well, we pulled it out. The whole two meters of it.”
Disgusted, Mandro frowned. “Eww.”
Goten laughed at his reaction. “Should they have pushed it back in?” He mouthed his spoon, swallowed the soup, then, remembering, waved it in the air. “I had one as a kid. It freakin’ surprised me one night by…”
“Fuck, Goten! I’m trying to eat here,” Sildara complained.
The third-class grinned and saluted him with his soup-filled spoon. He continued eating and soon was again lulled by the peaceful hum of voices in the canteen. Adriel was still talking about something, his friends listening to or interrupting his blabbering to comment on one thing or another.
Absently, Goten’s thoughts returned to his first kiss, and then they drifted to the earlier idea of the prince’s union with the Nectarine princess. Politically, it would be a successful union. Genetically… Vegeta’s House had the most powerful bloodline in Saiyan history. It would be unforgivable to allow it to be watered down and degraded. Humans were the only race which had proven itself not to have a negative influence on Saiyan blood. Mixed blood was commonly frowned upon, but the first generation of Saiyan/Human half-bloods were just as strong as – or even stronger – than their Saiyan parent. But this was only with half-bloods. Third- and quarter-bloods were a completely different matter – they were useless. They held only a fraction of their Saiyan parent's power and strength and, in most cases, were born deformed.
The prince just had to have a Saiyan mate.
Personally, Goten couldn’t imagine it any other way. He held conservative views concerning that. He felt no attraction to other species, and the thought of Saiyan blood mixing with other races made him sick. He didn’t feel guilty about this either as he believed that this was simply nature’s way of preserving any species.
He had very similar views concerning classes in Saiyan society – they shouldn’t mix, to keep power from diminishing. His belief had been unshakable. At least until he had met the prince. Now it wasn’t so firm anymore. It seemed that the elites had already reached a time when their genetic pool was too small and they were starting to degenerate. It was all that purple-haired bastard’s fault, all these ill thoughts.
And he badly missed that bastard.
“Goten!”
Goten started in his seat, his eyes concentrating on Adriel, who had obviously been calling him for a few seconds.
“Want to go play cards before the jump?”
“Sure,” Goten agreed. “Whose cabin?”
“Ours,” Adriel said, motioning at himself and Sildara. He turned to look at the table behind him. “Hey, Reyn, wanna join?”
Reyn raised his head from the bowl of soup. “Join what?”
“Cards.”
“No drinking?”
“None whatsoever.”
“Cool. Count me in.”
Adriel turned back to his table to meet awkward glances. Then everyone’s attention went to Goten, who was silently wondering about Reyn’s question.
“Huh? Oh, Reyn and I are cool. Really,” the third-class reassured them, seeing the disbelief on their faces, “we are cool. I swear.”
If at first Goten wondered why Adriel didn’t invite more people, it all became clear to him when he stepped into their cabin. Seven of them were a full house, and there was simply no space for more. All of them were sitting in a tight circle, trying hard not to show their cards or to see the cards of their neighbors. Despite Goten’s assurance that he and Reyn had no lingering resentment towards each other, it was arranged so that he and Reyn would be sitting separately.
They played for an hour, then, gathering their winnings or mourning their losses, they drifted away to their cabins.
“We are entering hyperspace in ten minutes,” Adriel’s voice sounded through the loudspeakers soon after they had separated.
Goten went to his desk/table to belt himself to the chair in front of the dead terminal. On his way, he had grabbed a magazine filled with computer science gibberish in the hope that it would make him fall asleep. However, he found a page with jokes and started perusing it.
“Entering hyperspace in thirty seconds, twenty-nine, twenty-eight, twenty-seven…”
There was a jolt and <i>Starcut</i> started shaking and vibrating. The shaking lasted for a few minutes, then there was one jolt and the ship evened out.
“Hyperspace cleared,” Adriel announced. “Reaching the Renera Section in two days. Goodnight. Out.”
Goten yawned. Indeed, he felt sleepy. He undid the belts, took off his uniform, and went to bed. Sleep wasn’t in a hurry to claim him, though. His thoughts inevitably went out to his friends. He didn’t allow himself to brood during the day, but thoughts about Toharu and worries about his father overtook him at night when his will softened.
The prince’s promise to keep an eye on them offered him a sense of ease. It was false, of course, – it was not as if the prince would lock them up to protect them from this war. His promise only meant he would know their location. Anything could happen. Thinking about them made Goten fear for his own future.
It was dark when Goten woke up. At first this confused him. Then he remembered that he wasn’t on the base anymore. The total darkness which came after turning off the lights was still surprising, even after spending several days on board.
“Lights,” the third-class commanded. This gave no result. He clambered out of bed and groped his way to the light switch. He pressed it, yet the lamps didn’t react at all. The third-class tortured the switch for a few more seconds, but the lights stayed out.
On his way back to the bed, Goten hit his big toe against the chair. Cursing loudly in pain, he groped around for his boots and clothing. It took him a while to dress, then he went to the door, which slid open without any problems. The whole length of the corridor behind it was submerged in darkness. Wishing he had a flashlight, the third-class stepped through the door. He powered up slightly to light his way.
Goten was passing doors on both sides of the corridor without trying to open any of them. There was something strange about this endless hall: he couldn’t remember some of the doors ever being there; the corridor itself seemed to be longer and wider. The most peculiar thing his senses registered was that the smell was different – the air was filled with the scent of Humans. This definitely wasn’t <i>Starcut</i>.
Everything around the third-class shook suddenly, the floor slipping from under his feet. Goten drew himself close to the wall. At about the same time, the sound of an explosion caught up to him. Wide-eyed, he stared at the brightening light in front of him.
“Fuck! Fuck!” he growled out panicky, looking around for a door. He jumped to his left and tried to open the door there. It didn’t even budge. The card lock appeared to be different, and Goten didn’t even have time to try his keycard. He powered up and kicked the door in. He was just in time to roll inside the cabin and take cover behind the walls as a blast of fire and heat whooshed past the open door.
Now Goten had to change direction and head back, away from the heart of the explosion. To return into the corridor would be insane – he could feel the heat radiating from it. The third-class settled on blasting a hole in the wall. Stepping inside the neighboring cabin, he looked around. It was completely dark in this one as well. He flared his ki, but it was empty, lifeless bunks and chairs standing around. Not certain if he wouldn’t be swallowed by a wave of water or sewage in case he burst a pipe or a reservoir, he blasted through the next wall. After the dust had settled, he saw a couple of silhouettes in the room. One was glowing with ki, and when he turned around to say something to the other, Goten called out unthinking:
“Reyn!”
There was no reaction, neither from the flight officer nor the second person in the room; they didn’t pay Goten any attention, exchanging words rapidly.
“He can’t hear you.”
Even before turning around to see who was behind him, Goten already knew whose voice it was. “You again…”
Goten’s eyes left Gohan’s face and concentrated back on Reyn. A dream. Something at the back of Goten’s head was shouting at him that this one was of those dreams where he had to pay attention to every detail. The third-class found it hard to believe: despite the rising heat and Reyn’s presence, all of this felt unreal and irrelevant.
“Where are we?”
“On a spaceship.”
Goten grunted something unintelligible. He was already used to the imposter’s useless answers. “Gohan” never knew more than he did. That, however, didn’t mean that he wouldn’t try:
“What kind of spaceship is this?”
With a knowing smile on his face, Gohan watched Goten’s back. “<i>ORION 3056</i>.”
Goten’s lips twitched, but he nodded. Just as his nose had told him, it belonged to the Humans.
The third-class walked closer to Reyn and the person he was talking to. He flared his ki higher and, to his surprise, saw that this was a delicate Human child of the male persuasion. Only now Goten realized why he hadn’t been able to understand what they were talking about: the language they were using was Terran and Reyn was employing a translator. The child was frightened and was crying. Reyn, as far as Goten could tell from his vocal intonation, was asking a lot of questions.
Finally, the flight officer lost his patience with the terrified human child, grabbed him by his midsection and flung him onto his shoulder. Flaring his ki and putting on a ki-shield, Reyn moved towards the door. He kicked it, tearing it off its hinges, and, instinctively, Goten flared his own ki as a wave of heat hit him.
The third-class could hear Reyn cursing as he was running along the blazing corridor. Forgetting all about the imposter, Goten ran after them. The walls of the corridor were glowing ember red behind them. Now the corridor was littered with dead bodies, and the third-class wondered how he hadn’t seen them before.
The heat was intensifying with each passing second, no matter how fast they ran. The spaceship was enormous and the hall never seemed to end. The air around them was filled with smoke and was steadily turning into molten lava, starting to scorch their lungs. Their clothing was smoking, and Reyn had moved the child off his shoulder and onto his forearms to shield him from the heat following them from behind. Goten could see blisters forming on the fair child’s skin. He was crying loudly and smelt of burning flesh.
The third-class didn’t know where Reyn was headed, but the only place to be now was the hangar with the space pods; the spaceship was done for. It was too late to isolate separate sections, and Goten doubted that Reyn had any idea where the emergency button was or whether it was functioning at all.
They had finally reached a door. Goten’s lungs were burning, eyes aching and watery from the smoke. He was coughing and could hardly walk. His only hope was that this was one of those dreams. Now it felt only too real, and he couldn’t see Gohan anywhere.
Reyn blasted the door open, and a second later, the wave of fire that had been raging behind it engulfed them. Goten screamed in pain, feeling his skin burning and peeling off.
The third-class woke up gasping for air, his whole body trembling and covered in cold sweat. Only now Goten realized what it was he had been witnessing. He rolled out of bed, but his legs were jelly and he crashed down onto his knees.
“Lights!”
Cursing, on all fours, Goten scrambled to his desk in dire need of a pen and a sheet of paper. Still cursing, with a trembling hand, he wrote down the name of the spaceship he had just escaped from – <i>ORION 3056</i>.
TBC
Warnings: Alternate Universe. Yaoi (male x male). Goten x Trunks and vice versa. Other pairings.
A/N: <b><i>Starcut’s crew members</b></i>:
1. Captain
2. Backup Captain
3. Master Sergeant
4. Navigator - (Adriel)
5. Communications Specialist - (Sildara)
6. Programmer - (Rokunda)
7. Gunnery Sergeant - (Monteira Fawa)
8. Arms Specialist - (Mandro)
9. Arms Specialist – (Hazel)
10. Flight Officer - (Reyn Dueri)
11. Flight Officer - (Jadenas Ealt)
12. Head Engineer - (Nohail Ofura)
13. Maintenance Technician
14. Maintenance Technician
15. Doctor - (Tamahi)
16. Medic
17. Head Cook
18. Cook
19. Soldier - (Edesha)
20. Goten
<b>Barracks</b>
by chayron (lttomb@yahoo.com), beta-read by quatreofdoom
Part 31
“Where do I put these?” Jadenas asked, lifting two magazines off the floor. Just as he'd promised, he had come to help Goten clean his cabin. It was nearly 8 pm, and the third-class suspected that the flight officer had hoped he would have already cleaned his room by this time.
Goten took a closer look at the magazines. It was porn; both males and females. The third-class pointed at the cupboard. “Just stuff it somewhere there.”
Turning one of the magazines this way and that, Jadenas leafed through a few pages. “On second thought… Can I borrow them?”
Goten shrugged. “Sure. There are some more in the cupboard if you’re interested.”
“I sure am.”
The third-class pointed at the bucket next to the door. “You know, you can leave everything as it is. Just go and wash that.”
Jadenas lowered the magazines back onto the floor and walked over to take a look. He moved away in disgust. “Somebody’s gotten sick in there.”
“Yeah, and it was you. Now go and clean that; I need that bucket.”
The flight officer gave him a surprised look. “Seriously? Me?”
Goten let out a longwinded sigh when the door behind Jadenas’s back closed. At least he could do that. The flight officer meant well, but he was absolutely useless – he got interested in everything he found, took his time examining it, and then would put it back in the exact same place where he found it.
The third-class walked over to the cupboard and gathered the rest of the pornography. After a short pause, he left one magazine for himself and took the others to the door for Jadenas to take later. Goten had seen a porn magazine or two, but hadn’t been particularly interested. It was not his kind of thing; he preferred movies. However, he doubted he had much chance of finding that kind of porn on <i>Starcut</i>, and he badly needed something to direct his thoughts off the prince.
After Mr. Elite’s rude interruption, he went to finish his business in the showers. They appeared to be empty, and he needed only a minute to end what had been started. Later, he had been glad that he went to the showers: the vents functioned passably in his cabin, but even then Jadenas had been able to detect the trail of scent he had left in his wake while masturbating. The flight officer had teased him about it lightly.
Goten couldn’t believe he had been so turned on that he had even regretted not fucking the prince back in the National Air Force headquarters. The thought alone was dangerous. And then he jerked off, having conjured a clear picture in his mind of the person touching him.
It was best not to make it a habit.
Nevertheless, maybe they really should have had sex. First, it might have appeared that they weren’t compatible at all and the sex was awful. Second, maybe once they had sex, that would be it: sometimes the most appealing idea about things you couldn’t have was the very notion that you couldn’t have them. So maybe after sleeping together, their interest in each other would have dimmed considerably. Goten doubted the second possibility, at least concerning himself, – after all, he had become interested in the prince even before he had any sex-related thoughts about him. Or maybe…
“Argghh!” Goten growled, throwing his arms up into the air. “Just stop thinking about it!”
It was easier said than done, though.
By the time Jadenas returned, Goten had already gathered everything off the floor. Jadenas clambered onto the stripped bed and watched Goten washing the floor with Cid Alright’s T-shirt. Five years had passed, and the crew still wondered what had happened to him – one day he simply didn’t show up for the flight, and Rokunda was sent in his place. They had tried contacting him, but everything had been in vain. They didn’t know what Cid Alright did outside his job when he wasn’t on the spaceship, nor did they know where he lived. The common opinion was that Cid Alright had gotten himself into serious trouble. He had been a laid-back type of a guy, but everyone had a feeling that there had been something shady going on behind his back.
“Well, that’s it,” Goten exhaled loudly, straightening. He wrung the T-shirt into the bucket. “Thank you for your attention.”
Jadenas chuckled. “Hey, it’s still more fun than to do it all alone.”
“For you, it was. You were staring so hard that I’m afraid the skin on my ass has peeled off.”
“That never happened.”
Goten shook his head, smiling. He grabbed the bag containing his sweaty uniform and went to gather the pile of sheets off the bed Jadenas was on. The flight officer had told him that there was a washing-machine on board. He had also warned him that it was broken more often than not. The third-class decided to try his luck first and then wash the clothes by hand if it sucked.
“Don’t you worry,” Jadenas calmed him down, standing up, “a week or so and you will be walking around stinking just like the rest of us.”
“Not if I can help it.”
“Nah, you can’t.”
Sighing, Goten left his cabin with Jadenas in tow. In reality, nobody smelled bad yet, but it hadn’t even been a week since they'd left their planet. Except Rokunda, but obviously she was an exception. She probably kept that horrible smell to ward the males off. Goten wouldn’t be very surprised if that appeared to be the truth. Spending months and months in a closed space with horny men might have driven her to mask herself behind the stench.
Most likely she was only lazy.
“One more spring cleaning?” Adriel asked, giving the bunch of clothes in Goten’s arms a look. He eased into step with the youth and the flight officer.
“You could have offered to help,” Jadenas admonished. “I bet most of the mess was made by you anyway.”
Adriel grinned at the flight officer. “Have you washed the bucket?”
Jadenas looked a little uncomfortable, but glared at him indignantly. “Sure I have!”
They reached the washing-machine, and the third-class realized why he hadn’t noticed it before – it was huge, but it was squeezed into the darkest corner above the stairs down to the lower deck. He must have thought it was some kind of furnace or something. It didn’t look all that trustworthy, and Goten gave it a suspicious look. The washing-machine stood on two planks of wood so as not to electrocute people. Two lights on its front were blinking red. The large round door was open, and Goten peered inside carefully. He yelped as Adriel pushed at his back, making him stumble forward. Only Goten’s wide shoulders prevented him from falling inside. His hands grasped at the frame, the bag and sheets dropping to the floor.
“God dammit!” Goten cursed, pulling his head out to glare at the navigator, who was grinning widely. “You could have knocked my teeth out!”
“Oh, c’mon, it won’t eat you. Just stuff the clothes in and leave it.”
The third-class inspected the controls. There were dials upon dials with all kinds of measurements. “It’s like controlling a freakin’ satellite,” he muttered. “Must be Human technology again – only they can make doing laundry so complicated.” Motioning at the clothes on the floor, he turned to Jadenas. “I just want them to be clean.”
The flight officer shrugged. “Well, your guess is as good as mine. We lost the instruction manual long ago. Just turn something and press that button.”
Goten turned to Adriel. “Any other ideas?”
“No, not really.”
“Just great,” Goten muttered, trying to discern between the knobs. Most of the writing had rubbed off, and he figured that they were the ones which had been used most, thus he set the washing machine according to them. “I’m taking <i>your</i> uniform if I find only bits and pieces,” he threatened Jadenas before pressing on the biggest button. Something clicked, and all lights started blinking.
“Sure. But you will have to take it off me first.”
Goten gave the flight officer a probing look. “Unexpectedly, you’re pretty lewd, aren’t you?” He started and moved away at the whooshing sound coming from the washing-machine.
“Well, it was you who flirted with me this morning,” Jadenas pointed out.
“Whoa!” exclaimed Adriel. “And Goten doesn’t waste time, does he?”
“I wasn’t flirting. I was having a hangover.”
“Aww… Don’t say that.”
Goten stared at the round glass door. Something was clicking and whirring inside. “What the heck is it doing?”
“Press the button again?” Adriel suggested. “Kick it?”
“Now I know why it gets broken so frequently,” Goten said matter-of-factly. “Oh, I think it’s working. It’s started pumping water.”
They stared at the water rising behind the glass. The washing-machine seemed to work properly, providing no entertainment, and they lost all interest in it.
“Well, I’m going to sleep,” the navigator said. “Gotta get up early.”
Jadenas went back to Goten’s room to take his magazines and also left. Goten mooched about in his cabin for half an hour, then decided to go to the bathroom and check his clothes on his way back.
The third-class was taken aback slightly when, upon entering the toilets, he saw Reyn cleaning one of the hatches. The flight officer turned around to look at who had entered the bathroom, then concentrated back on his task. Goten hesitated at first, then approached Reyn. He stared at the flight officer’s back while he was vigorously working on the hatch with a toilet brush. The third-class wondered why Reyn was doing this and why at this time.
“Did you get punished for something?”
“Yeah, for picking a fight with you,” Reyn explained without turning around.
“Oh. I see. But why aren’t I punished, too? For agreeing to it?”
Amused, Reyn turned around to look at him. He grinned widely. “If you’re looking for punishment, you’ll definitely find it. Are you the masochistic type?”
“Nah. It just doesn’t seem very fair.”
“Well, it was me who provoked you. Besides, you’re a newbie, and I’m an old-timer here. I wasn’t very welcoming.”
Goten was studying him, a hint of suspicion reflecting on his face. Reyn shrugged and turned away to continue cleaning the inside of the hatch. He had apologized to the youth, but it didn’t seem that Goten was taking the apology seriously. He probably shouldn’t either.
“Where can I get this?” Goten asked, pointing at the cleaning liquid and equipment next to Reyn. “What about gloves?”
Reyn lowered the brush to the ground and turned his head to look at him with eyebrows raised. “You serious?”
“Yeah.” Goten laughed at the flight officer’s expression. “I do feel a little bit guilty. And you did help me out that time in the showers.”
Reyn measured the third-class from head to toe. “Try the maintenance technicians. If they aren’t sleeping yet.”
The flight officer snickered and shook his head in disbelief when the door closed behind Goten’s back.
The third-class returned in about ten minutes with a small bucket filled with cans of washing powder and liquid in his hand. He put gloves on and got down to work.
There were five hatches, and Reyn had already cleaned two of them. The working principle of a hatch was simple: everything that went into a hatch was covered by a hermetic lid, then one needed to press a button so that the waste would be sucked out by a blast of air. If you wanted to get rid of something so that nobody would find it, this was also one of the best places.
Reyn stole a look at the third-class who seemed to be working energetically. He was serious about his business, scrubbing the inside of the hatch thoroughly. There was something about Goten that made you like him. He wasn’t overly cheerful, he wasn’t overly depressed, he wasn’t overly smart, and he wasn’t overly stupid, he wasn’t handsome, and he wasn’t ugly either. He was your average guy no matter how you took it, but something in his demeanor had already made the crew accept him. Probably it was that seemingly simple nature that made him into a likeable guy.
In silence, they finished cleaning the toilets, then Goten cleaned two washbasins.
“How long do you have to do this?” Goten wondered, taking his gloves off.
“For a month.”
The third-class gave this some thought. “Then I’ll be coming here for the next two weeks.”
Reyn couldn’t help grinning at the youth. There was both something irritating and agreeable in Goten’s choice. He shrugged. “Fine.”
When Goten returned to his cabin, it was already half past eleven. He decided not to disturb the maintenance technicians; he would return the gloves and the rest of the cleaning remedies tomorrow. He undressed and went to sleep.
The third-class was half-asleep when a thump against the wall made him stir and open his eyes. He hummed sleepily and closed them again, trying to find a more comfortable position on the bed. A series of rhythmical thumps woke him up completely. Blinking, he stared at the ceiling trying to figure out what was happening. A few more seconds made it clear that someone was having sex behind the wall. Or against it. It was Jadenas’s room on the other side of the wall. Goten sighed and decided to wait it out. However, the thuds against the wall became even fiercer and louder. Now Goten could also hear accompanying moans wafting from the other cabin.
It lasted for half an hour, making Goten as much hard as irritated. He started pounding with his fist on the wall. “Finish it up and go to sleep, dammit!”
The moans and thumps ceased at once, and it was silent for several seconds. Then a muffled “sorry” came from the other room. Goten couldn’t recognize the voice. The silence lasted for a minute, then even more enthusiastic groans followed.
“Fuck it!” Goten cursed, pulling the pillow over his head to try and block the noise.
<center>ooOoOoOoo</center>
“Goten!”
The third-class, who had just stepped out of his cabin, turned around to see who was calling him. It was Jadenas. “Yeah?”
The flight officer scratched the back of his head sheepishly. “Sorry about last night.”
Ah. It was about yesterday’s rendezvous. “Yeah. You’re a bit too noisy,” Goten complained.
Jadenas chuckled. “Sorry, sorry. We promise not to disturb you anymore, right guys?”
Goten looked past Jadenas at the two arms specialists who appeared from the flight officer’s cabin. The third-class blinked. He pointed his index finger at Jadenas, then at the twins. “You three?” Now it became clear to Goten who exactly his neighbors were and why he had an entire cabin at his personal disposal.
“When do you go to sleep?” Hazel asked, ignoring Goten’s disbelieving and somewhat jealous look.
“Uh.” Goten lowered his hand. “Well, usually at ten.”
Mandro shrugged. “Fine, then. Ten it is. You’re welcome to join us, though.” He yelped when his twin smacked at his head.
“Don’t fucking go around inviting innocent children!”
Goten’s eyebrows rose. He speculated shortly if Jadenas had told them that he was still a virgin. And that was after he had specially asked him to keep his mouth shut. Fucking bastard.
“Yeah,” Jadenas agreed with Hazel. “I’m certain Goten has more interesting things to do.”
Mandro laughed at Jadenas, “Moron.” Hazel was grinning.
Indeed, Goten wondered what could be more interesting than sex with twins, but decided not to voice his thoughts out loud, or he might really find himself in a foursome. That wouldn’t be bad at all if only they weren’t second-classes.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Goten said to Mandro. “I kind of already have two hypothetical boyfriends. Wouldn’t want to add to the mess.”
Jadenas’s forehead wrinkled in an attempt to comprehend Goten’s words. “Huh?”
The third-class waved this off dismissively. “Never mind. Even <i>I</i> have trouble understanding it. Thanks for your consideration, though.”
Mandro winked at him. “No problem.”
Goten grinned. “I meant the curfew at ten.”
“Ah. A smart ass.” Mandro’s answering grin rose up to his ears. “Well, neighbors have to live in harmonious coexistence, as they say.”
Goten winked back at him. “I’d like that harmonious coexistence to stay away from my ass.”
Mandro and Hazel burst out laughing.
The third-class became aware of the look Jadenas was giving Mandro. He was going to get his ass fucked tonight or maybe right after breakfast. In any case, Jadenas was not going to leave it like that – Mandro would be howling his pleasure for everyone to hear.
<i>Damn masochists</i>, Goten thought. He was aware of the pain-pleasure appeal for some people, but didn’t really comprehend it. When someone hit him, it hurt. When someone caressed him, it felt good. It was simple as that. And there were things he never wanted to know about some people. Jadenas was one of them.
Together, all four of them went to the canteen and, to Goten’s dismay, sat down at one table. He liked Jadenas, but wanted to be as far away from the twins as possible – he didn’t want to experience more temptation.
Goten and most of the crew members had just finished eating when the loudspeakers screeched like tortured hamsters. Everyone’s heads rose at the captain’s loud voice.
“Your captain’s speaking. I expect to see everyone in the meeting hall in five minutes. Out.”
Sipping his tea, Goten could bet he knew why the meeting had been arranged. He looked around the canteen to see the crew munching on their lunch with renewed speed. Everyone seemed to be a little surprised at the sudden call.
With the rest of the crew members, Goten filed into the meeting hall. The captain, the backup captain, and Monteira were already there. As usual, the third-class took a chair in the front row, as he knew from experience that hearing range worsened according to the number of rows in front of you and, especially, the number of surrounding people who distracted your attention with their babbling.
“I gathered you here,” the captain began, “because the master-key has disappeared. Has anybody seen Mr. Elite’s collar? It’s been missing for a day. As it grants unique access to most of the cabins, its disappearance is worrying.” He pointed at Goten, who had gasped in disbelief and whose hand had shot up into the air. “Yes?”
“Why has nobody informed me of the collar? Isn’t this reckless?” Goten spilled. “Certainly, if an enemy gained access to…”
“Yes, yes,” the captain, wearing a bored expression on his face, agreed with Goten. “In fact, it’s just a kind of walking master-key. It makes no difference if it’s hanging on a wall for everybody to take or is walking around. There’s a tracker in that collar as well. So have you seen it?”
“No,” Goten answered gloomily. “First time I heard about it.”
A soft murmur had started amongst the crew, but nobody had seen the collar. The third-class had suddenly become aware of Reyn’s probing look from across the hall on his left. Slowly, Reyn’s lips stretched into a knowing grin. And Goten knew that Reyn knew the real reason why he had been so bent on cleaning the hatches yesterday.
It didn’t seem that anybody else knew anything about the missing collar, thus the captain organized five search parties and gave the order to turn <i>Starcut</i> upside down to find the microchip. Goten was paired up with Edesha, another unspecialized soldier on board. The third-class had practically had no contact with him up until now. He was pretty interested in what kind of person Edesha was. Their task was to comb the second perimeter in the engine room. Goten and he took their flashlights and went downstairs.
“Does the cat really come down here?” the third-class asked after taking a look at the gurgling pipes and cables twined all around the sector. Huge, looming blocks of machinery took up most of the place. Goten didn’t know the purpose of half of them.
“Yeah, he does. Last time he shredded one of these cables here,” he said, pointing. “Monteira has been cutting his claws since.”
“Why the hell does he keep that furry abomination?”
“Well, you see, there was this time when Monteira was sleeping and his ki-gun malfunctioned and flared up. If not for Mr. Elite, Monteira would have burned alive.”
Now it became much clearer to Goten. “I see. Kind of makes more sense now.”
Edesha nodded.
While they were looking for the collar, the soldier tried to do his best to show him around and explain the tasks certain machinery performed, but he was far from mechanically minded. With an inward smile, Goten realized that he knew about the same or even more than Edesha. The third-class found the older man’s awkward but genuine attempts at explaining endearing.
All the teams gathered just before dinner in the meeting room, and it became clear that the search had brought no results. While the teams were reporting, Monteira gave Goten a mistrustful look: the collar’s evaporation coincided with the youth’s appearance on board. He believed that nobody else suspected anything about Goten as they hadn’t seen his profile. At first glance, the youth looked like a shy incarnation of absolute harmlessness. His history at pre- and paramilitary schools, and later at officers’ school, however, showed that Reyn’s broken nose was only the tip of the iceberg. Was this Goten’s revenge for chewing him out? There was no proof, though, that the collar had been taken by Goten.
“I have some more news,” the captain said when it was obvious that the collar topic had been wrung dry. “The Leiadors joined our side.”
“Yeah!” Adriel exclaimed, pumping his fist into the air. “Fuck yeah!”
Exultant whoops of other officers joined his. Waving his hands about, the captain indicated for them to calm down. “The Nectarines broke the treaty and joined the Ice-jins, though,” he said, dissipating everyone’s good mood instantly.
Adriel scowled. “Fuck. Yellow bastards.”
Musing, Goten scratched his head. “Well, technically,” he drawled, “they didn’t even break it as they had signed the treaty with the triumvirate and it doesn’t exist anymore.”
“That’s old news,” the captain corrected him. “We managed to secure a new treaty with them right after the triumvirate had collapsed.”
“Bastards indeed,” Goten endorsed Adriel indignantly.
“It’s a pity that now we are a bit too late to marry our prince off to Princess Deira of the Nectarines,” Sildara mused. “What?” he asked when everyone fell silent around him.
Goten suddenly realized that, without a doubt, currently the prince must be pressured from all corners of the universe. It would be no wonder if most of the pressure were coming from the Saiyan Empire itself. Marriage with one of the nations would secure their loyalty and unconditional support. The prince was going to have it rough.
“What? What?” Sildara shrugged at everyone’s stares, then threw his hands up. “Look at the Terran Republic. They can’t retreat even if they want to.”
Goten frowned at him. “Yuck. Can you even imagine what our royalty is going to look like in a few centuries? He’s half-Human already and to marry a Nectarine… His offspring…if he can even have any… Humans are more or less fine. But Nectarines… They are fucking yellow! With pink hair and green eyes.”
“Goten, you’re full of prejudiced shit,” the communications specialist said matter-of-factly, pointing his index finger at the third-class accusingly.
“Ha.” Goten grinned at him. “I’m certainly not. I’d like to see your face if somebody forced <i>you</i> to marry one. The delights of six breasts…” he snickered.
Sildara thought for a moment. “You’ve got a point here. My tastes run closer to…”
“…dicks,” the captain finished for him sternly. “Enough of these useless discussions. That’s not all I wanted to tell you.”
“There’s more?” Adriel wailed theatrically. “Don’t tell me we’ve been ordered to head for battle in this piece of junk!”
“Shut up, Adriel,” the captain commanded. “Nothing changed. We are entering hyperspace in two hours and, after twenty-nine more hours, we will finally reach our final destination – the Renera Section.”
“Ah.” Goten raised his hand.
“Yes, Goten?”
“Why didn’t we use the hyperspace jump right after leaving Vegeta-sei?”
The captain gave him a look. Then he remembered. “Ah, right, you were sleeping for three days so you missed that little interruption we had. The gate we usually use went out of order, and the rest of them were just too busy with sending off battleships to the conflict zones. So we went for the next closest one here, in the Krahu Section.”
“Figures,” Goten muttered.
“Well, that’s all,” the captain said, clapping his hands. “Hyperspace jump in two hours. Go and eat something before that. Dismissed.”
They went to the canteen where Goten took his food and started looking for a place to sit down.
“Hey, come here!”
Goten turned to see Sildara waving at him. There was an empty seat next to him.
“Adriel was just telling us about this guy he had at paramilitary school,” Sildara grudgingly informed Goten while the third-class was setting down his tray.
Goten groaned mentally - he had just been dragged into a lovers’ quarrel. Silently, he arranged his plates and tea on the table and then leaned the empty tray against the leg of the table. His thoughts went out to his own encounters in paramilitary school which consisted of a third-class cornering him in a bathroom and forcing a kiss on him. He hadn’t been interested in that third-class at all and rejected him at once. Thus his first kiss ended up with them coming to blows. There had been a few more attempts to court him, but he had been rather wild and nuts back then – he hadn’t allowed anyone close to him. All he had cared about was his dead brother and the stupid elites.
“…was this lengthy tapeworm wriggling on the bed!”
Goten resurfaced from his memories. His spoon faltered in front of his mouth while he was looking at Adriel. Mandro and Jadenas were laughing. Hazel had squirted tea out of his mouth and onto the table and was all red from choking on it.
“Must have felt like a ribbed condom!” Mandro squealed in perverse delight.
Grinning, Adriel shook his head. “It wasn’t as if I even knew it was there.”
“So what did you do then?” Goten asked, his spoon still hovering in the air, not touching his mouth.
“Well, we pulled it out. The whole two meters of it.”
Disgusted, Mandro frowned. “Eww.”
Goten laughed at his reaction. “Should they have pushed it back in?” He mouthed his spoon, swallowed the soup, then, remembering, waved it in the air. “I had one as a kid. It freakin’ surprised me one night by…”
“Fuck, Goten! I’m trying to eat here,” Sildara complained.
The third-class grinned and saluted him with his soup-filled spoon. He continued eating and soon was again lulled by the peaceful hum of voices in the canteen. Adriel was still talking about something, his friends listening to or interrupting his blabbering to comment on one thing or another.
Absently, Goten’s thoughts returned to his first kiss, and then they drifted to the earlier idea of the prince’s union with the Nectarine princess. Politically, it would be a successful union. Genetically… Vegeta’s House had the most powerful bloodline in Saiyan history. It would be unforgivable to allow it to be watered down and degraded. Humans were the only race which had proven itself not to have a negative influence on Saiyan blood. Mixed blood was commonly frowned upon, but the first generation of Saiyan/Human half-bloods were just as strong as – or even stronger – than their Saiyan parent. But this was only with half-bloods. Third- and quarter-bloods were a completely different matter – they were useless. They held only a fraction of their Saiyan parent's power and strength and, in most cases, were born deformed.
The prince just had to have a Saiyan mate.
Personally, Goten couldn’t imagine it any other way. He held conservative views concerning that. He felt no attraction to other species, and the thought of Saiyan blood mixing with other races made him sick. He didn’t feel guilty about this either as he believed that this was simply nature’s way of preserving any species.
He had very similar views concerning classes in Saiyan society – they shouldn’t mix, to keep power from diminishing. His belief had been unshakable. At least until he had met the prince. Now it wasn’t so firm anymore. It seemed that the elites had already reached a time when their genetic pool was too small and they were starting to degenerate. It was all that purple-haired bastard’s fault, all these ill thoughts.
And he badly missed that bastard.
“Goten!”
Goten started in his seat, his eyes concentrating on Adriel, who had obviously been calling him for a few seconds.
“Want to go play cards before the jump?”
“Sure,” Goten agreed. “Whose cabin?”
“Ours,” Adriel said, motioning at himself and Sildara. He turned to look at the table behind him. “Hey, Reyn, wanna join?”
Reyn raised his head from the bowl of soup. “Join what?”
“Cards.”
“No drinking?”
“None whatsoever.”
“Cool. Count me in.”
Adriel turned back to his table to meet awkward glances. Then everyone’s attention went to Goten, who was silently wondering about Reyn’s question.
“Huh? Oh, Reyn and I are cool. Really,” the third-class reassured them, seeing the disbelief on their faces, “we are cool. I swear.”
If at first Goten wondered why Adriel didn’t invite more people, it all became clear to him when he stepped into their cabin. Seven of them were a full house, and there was simply no space for more. All of them were sitting in a tight circle, trying hard not to show their cards or to see the cards of their neighbors. Despite Goten’s assurance that he and Reyn had no lingering resentment towards each other, it was arranged so that he and Reyn would be sitting separately.
They played for an hour, then, gathering their winnings or mourning their losses, they drifted away to their cabins.
“We are entering hyperspace in ten minutes,” Adriel’s voice sounded through the loudspeakers soon after they had separated.
Goten went to his desk/table to belt himself to the chair in front of the dead terminal. On his way, he had grabbed a magazine filled with computer science gibberish in the hope that it would make him fall asleep. However, he found a page with jokes and started perusing it.
“Entering hyperspace in thirty seconds, twenty-nine, twenty-eight, twenty-seven…”
There was a jolt and <i>Starcut</i> started shaking and vibrating. The shaking lasted for a few minutes, then there was one jolt and the ship evened out.
“Hyperspace cleared,” Adriel announced. “Reaching the Renera Section in two days. Goodnight. Out.”
Goten yawned. Indeed, he felt sleepy. He undid the belts, took off his uniform, and went to bed. Sleep wasn’t in a hurry to claim him, though. His thoughts inevitably went out to his friends. He didn’t allow himself to brood during the day, but thoughts about Toharu and worries about his father overtook him at night when his will softened.
The prince’s promise to keep an eye on them offered him a sense of ease. It was false, of course, – it was not as if the prince would lock them up to protect them from this war. His promise only meant he would know their location. Anything could happen. Thinking about them made Goten fear for his own future.
It was dark when Goten woke up. At first this confused him. Then he remembered that he wasn’t on the base anymore. The total darkness which came after turning off the lights was still surprising, even after spending several days on board.
“Lights,” the third-class commanded. This gave no result. He clambered out of bed and groped his way to the light switch. He pressed it, yet the lamps didn’t react at all. The third-class tortured the switch for a few more seconds, but the lights stayed out.
On his way back to the bed, Goten hit his big toe against the chair. Cursing loudly in pain, he groped around for his boots and clothing. It took him a while to dress, then he went to the door, which slid open without any problems. The whole length of the corridor behind it was submerged in darkness. Wishing he had a flashlight, the third-class stepped through the door. He powered up slightly to light his way.
Goten was passing doors on both sides of the corridor without trying to open any of them. There was something strange about this endless hall: he couldn’t remember some of the doors ever being there; the corridor itself seemed to be longer and wider. The most peculiar thing his senses registered was that the smell was different – the air was filled with the scent of Humans. This definitely wasn’t <i>Starcut</i>.
Everything around the third-class shook suddenly, the floor slipping from under his feet. Goten drew himself close to the wall. At about the same time, the sound of an explosion caught up to him. Wide-eyed, he stared at the brightening light in front of him.
“Fuck! Fuck!” he growled out panicky, looking around for a door. He jumped to his left and tried to open the door there. It didn’t even budge. The card lock appeared to be different, and Goten didn’t even have time to try his keycard. He powered up and kicked the door in. He was just in time to roll inside the cabin and take cover behind the walls as a blast of fire and heat whooshed past the open door.
Now Goten had to change direction and head back, away from the heart of the explosion. To return into the corridor would be insane – he could feel the heat radiating from it. The third-class settled on blasting a hole in the wall. Stepping inside the neighboring cabin, he looked around. It was completely dark in this one as well. He flared his ki, but it was empty, lifeless bunks and chairs standing around. Not certain if he wouldn’t be swallowed by a wave of water or sewage in case he burst a pipe or a reservoir, he blasted through the next wall. After the dust had settled, he saw a couple of silhouettes in the room. One was glowing with ki, and when he turned around to say something to the other, Goten called out unthinking:
“Reyn!”
There was no reaction, neither from the flight officer nor the second person in the room; they didn’t pay Goten any attention, exchanging words rapidly.
“He can’t hear you.”
Even before turning around to see who was behind him, Goten already knew whose voice it was. “You again…”
Goten’s eyes left Gohan’s face and concentrated back on Reyn. A dream. Something at the back of Goten’s head was shouting at him that this one was of those dreams where he had to pay attention to every detail. The third-class found it hard to believe: despite the rising heat and Reyn’s presence, all of this felt unreal and irrelevant.
“Where are we?”
“On a spaceship.”
Goten grunted something unintelligible. He was already used to the imposter’s useless answers. “Gohan” never knew more than he did. That, however, didn’t mean that he wouldn’t try:
“What kind of spaceship is this?”
With a knowing smile on his face, Gohan watched Goten’s back. “<i>ORION 3056</i>.”
Goten’s lips twitched, but he nodded. Just as his nose had told him, it belonged to the Humans.
The third-class walked closer to Reyn and the person he was talking to. He flared his ki higher and, to his surprise, saw that this was a delicate Human child of the male persuasion. Only now Goten realized why he hadn’t been able to understand what they were talking about: the language they were using was Terran and Reyn was employing a translator. The child was frightened and was crying. Reyn, as far as Goten could tell from his vocal intonation, was asking a lot of questions.
Finally, the flight officer lost his patience with the terrified human child, grabbed him by his midsection and flung him onto his shoulder. Flaring his ki and putting on a ki-shield, Reyn moved towards the door. He kicked it, tearing it off its hinges, and, instinctively, Goten flared his own ki as a wave of heat hit him.
The third-class could hear Reyn cursing as he was running along the blazing corridor. Forgetting all about the imposter, Goten ran after them. The walls of the corridor were glowing ember red behind them. Now the corridor was littered with dead bodies, and the third-class wondered how he hadn’t seen them before.
The heat was intensifying with each passing second, no matter how fast they ran. The spaceship was enormous and the hall never seemed to end. The air around them was filled with smoke and was steadily turning into molten lava, starting to scorch their lungs. Their clothing was smoking, and Reyn had moved the child off his shoulder and onto his forearms to shield him from the heat following them from behind. Goten could see blisters forming on the fair child’s skin. He was crying loudly and smelt of burning flesh.
The third-class didn’t know where Reyn was headed, but the only place to be now was the hangar with the space pods; the spaceship was done for. It was too late to isolate separate sections, and Goten doubted that Reyn had any idea where the emergency button was or whether it was functioning at all.
They had finally reached a door. Goten’s lungs were burning, eyes aching and watery from the smoke. He was coughing and could hardly walk. His only hope was that this was one of those dreams. Now it felt only too real, and he couldn’t see Gohan anywhere.
Reyn blasted the door open, and a second later, the wave of fire that had been raging behind it engulfed them. Goten screamed in pain, feeling his skin burning and peeling off.
The third-class woke up gasping for air, his whole body trembling and covered in cold sweat. Only now Goten realized what it was he had been witnessing. He rolled out of bed, but his legs were jelly and he crashed down onto his knees.
“Lights!”
Cursing, on all fours, Goten scrambled to his desk in dire need of a pen and a sheet of paper. Still cursing, with a trembling hand, he wrote down the name of the spaceship he had just escaped from – <i>ORION 3056</i>.
TBC