Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Barracks ❯ Part 36 ( Chapter 36 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: chayron 
Anime/Manga: Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Adventure / Hentai / Sci-fi / Angst | Type: Yaoi | Uploaded On: 09.30.2011 | Pages: 5 | Words: 7.5K | Visits: 254 | Status: Work In Progress
Anime/Manga: Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Adventure / Hentai / Sci-fi / Angst | Type: Yaoi | Uploaded On: 09.30.2011 | Pages: 5 | Words: 7.5K | Visits: 254 | Status: Work In Progress
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: Starcut’s crew members:
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 – (Hazel)
9.Arms Specialist – (Mandro)
10.Flight Officer - (Reyn Dueri)
11.Flight Officer - (Jadenas Ealt)
12.Head Engineer - (Nohail Ofura)
13.Maintenance Technician – (Mirun)
14.Maintenance Technician
15.Doctor - (Tamahi)
16.Medic - (Yereli)
17.Head Cook
18.Cook
19.Soldier - (Edesha)
20.Goten
Barracks
by chayron (lttomb@yahoo.com), beta-read by quatreofdoom
Part 36
While approaching Orion, they tried contacting it over and over again, but nobody responded. When the passenger ship came into full view, it didn’t seem that it had been damaged in any way. Since there was no one to accept them, Reyn had hoped for at least a tiny hole to squeeze into Orion through but, after circling the ship a few times, found no such thing. In the end, he resorted to blasting his way through to the runway and maneuvering the shuttle inside.
The fire around the hole died out almost instantly since there was no oxygen it could feed on. With rising apprehension, the third-class watched bodies and debris float leisurely around the gap after being sucked out of the runway. He hoped that the passengers had been sensible enough to keep away from the runway after contacting them. While their shuttle was being carefully flown through the opening, Goten had an opportunity to examine two corpses which were in very close proximity to their cockpit. One was clearly of the female persuasion with half of her head missing, while the second body was probably male. The third-class couldn’t tell what had been the cause of his death, but he could see that his right arm was unnaturally bent. He wasn’t overly familiar with Human physiology but, since their skeletal structure was very similar to that of the Saiyans’, he figured that it wasn’t supposed to bend like that.
While Reyn was still maneuvering the shuttle to a landing place free of debris inside the hangar, the crew were already unbelting themselves from their chairs.
“How long did those bastards keep them captive?” Edesha wondered. “Most of them were badly mangled. Is there a safe or something like that on board?”
“There probably is,” Reyn said. “Humans usually do that sort of thing.”
Tamahi tsked while Edesha appeared to be very interested in the custom.
Goten counted in his head and reached the conclusion that the passengers might have been kept hostage for a day or two. In all probability, it must have lasted until the pirates had taken everything of value.
“Alright,” Reyn said when the wheels of the shuttle touched the metal ground softly, “first, we go inside and see how to seal off this part of the hangar. The control panel should be next to the door as usual.” He killed the engines and turned around in his chair to face them. “Goten and Tamahi, you will go to the living quarters and look for survivors. Edesha and I will go to the captain’s bridge. Is that clear?”
Everybody nodded except Goten. He was staring at Reyn with a frown on his face.
“What?” Reyn asked.
Suddenly, Goten exhaled sharply. He looked around. Right. His being here had mixed up the order of things: Reyn had paired them up in twos while, originally, he would have gone alone, sending off Edesha and Tamahi together. He wondered who the fourth member would have been. Now even the place the flight officer had intended to search had changed.
The third-class raised his eyes to Reyn’s face. “Can I offer a few changes to the plan?”
With a sharp grin on his face, Reyn swiveled with his chair right and left. Staring at Goten, he leaned back. He was as much disturbed as amused by this slap in the face, however, he had almost expected something like this after agreeing to take Goten on this mission.
“I was of opinion that I was in charge here,” he said calmly, putting his hands onto his lap and steepling his fingers, showing he was not going to lift any of them to make it easier for Goten.
Goten turned sideways so that he could see all of them: Reyn, Edesha, and Tamahi. If this were Kyon, Ario, and Ranvera, he would simply ask them to trust him. And they would. Would trust him blindly. These men, though… There was probably nothing he could do to make them believe him.
Fuck.
“Alright,” Reyn said bitterly, suddenly perversely curious as to how far Goten would go with his permission. “Let’s hear it.”
This was his chance, and, dizzy with exhilaration and anxiety, Goten seized it with his shaky hands in a death grip: “We seal off the hangar, but pump out the air right away after that. You and Tamahi go together to search the living quarters. Edesha and I will go to the captain’s bridge.”
Confused, the team stared at him, not comprehending why he mainly only made changes to the search parties. What was the point?
“Are you afraid of a fire starting in the hangar?” Reyn asked finally, scratching his chin absently.
Goten nodded. He didn’t know for certain – maybe it had been a bomb, or the fire had spread from other parts of the ship.
Reyn watched him carefully, then, with a slap on the right armrest, rose off his chair. He shrugged. “Alright. Tamahi, you’ll go with me to the living quarters, Edesha with Goten to the captain’s bridge. We pump the air out of this part of the hangar.” He turned to look at Goten. “Happy now?” he had said in a mocking tone, but the grateful and relieved smile the youth gave him smacked him like a brick between his eyes. Huffing in disbelief and feeling uncomfortable, Reyn turned to go.
With their ki-shields on, they left the shuttle and started flying forward. The only source of light was their ki, it was absolutely dark otherwise. There was enough light for the section numbers to reflect it, though. They were in Section 2. Goten didn’t know exactly how long the air reserve inside a ki-shield could last as it depended on its size, however, all of them had enough of air for about ten minutes. They also had space suits, but using them meant additional time for dressing and undressing and needing to drag the suits around.
Goten wondered what they would do if they had damaged the controls upon entering the ship, or if the partitions for separating sections didn't want to move. Fearing that their shuttle had floated off in the zero gravity, he turned around to stare behind him. The shadowy contours of it still were there. Must be the magnets in the wheels or something. It seemed that there was indeed a lot he didn’t know about these kinds of things.
Despite his fears, soon all of them were standing at the control panel watching Reyn tinkering with it. After he entered one of the master passwords, it was responding flawlessly, and Reyn quickly blocked off Sections 1 and 2 from the rest of the hangar. He turned on the air pumps. Without waiting for the air to fill the room completely, they opened the door to the next section of the ship. The air whooshed in, and they stepped into a long corridor. Faint emergency lights were flashing red across the hall. It was eerily silent.
“Get moving,” the flight officer said after noticing that Goten had stopped at the panel on this side of the door, looking for a way to pump out the air again. The youth seemed to be positively lost amongst the blinking lights of the control panel. All of the Terran writing looked like gibberish to him. Of course, all of them had scouters, which had been armed with the main Terran language plus at least five random ones, but it was going to take time for Goten to translate it.
Reyn dropped his ki-shield. “I’ll do that.”
“Thanks,” Goten said, stepping back away from the control panel to give Reyn way. He dropped his shield as well.
“You push this, then this and this,” Reyn demonstrated.
Goten nodded. Watching the flight officer sealing the door again, he hesitated, then decided to get it out. “You know, don’t waste your time talking to the Human child. If you hear an explosion, just grab him and run to the hangar as fast as you can; the captain’s bridge and most of the living quarters will already be on fire.”
The flight officer raised his eyes off the panel and turned to face Goten. “What? What Human child?”
Goten scratched the side of his cheek nervously. “The one you will probably find.” With his head, he motioned at Edesha. “Let’s get moving.”
Edesha followed him with a grin on his face. “You’re the boss.”
Goten rolled his eyes. They were never going to allow him to forget this. If they left this ship alive, that is.
They found their first corpse soon after setting straight for the captain’s bridge. Warily, Goten prodded the Human female with his foot. She stayed dead. They moved forward.
“You know,” Edesha said, “I think that there was a rat or two on board. Otherwise they would have radioed for help. First thing they did was to capture the captain’s bridge and cut the connection off and then they let Domera in.”
“Yeah,” Goten agreed, trying to hurry his step. He wanted to run. Edesha, however, was taking it easy and didn’t seem to be in any rush. “Probably that’s what happened. But Domera might have simply jammed their connection from the outside. I hear some pirate ships do that. And why did they close the runway after them?”
“I think that was done by the passengers themselves once the computers became responsive.”
“Ah. For fear that someone else would sneak in?” Goten spotted one more body in front of them and could understand why they wouldn’t want anyone else entering Orion. “Edesha?”
“What?”
“Can you check the engine room?”
The soldier let out a colorful curse. “What the hell’s wrong with you today? The possibility that there would be people is close to z-”
“That’s not what you should be looking for. Look for fire or explosives or both.”
Edesha gave Goten a very careful look. “What’s with that? And what you will be doing meanwhile?”
“I’ll head straight for the captain’s bridge.”
Edesha could tell that Goten was jumpy and nervous and had a pleading air about him, but it seemed that he was telling the absolute truth. Another thing that Edesha could read in the youth’s eyes was that if he didn’t do as told, Goten would simply do what he wanted to do anyway.
“Whatever,” he said finally. “It’s your skin Reyn will be taking off if anything goes wrong.” He hardly managed to finish the sentence when Goten shot forward into the corridor like a rocket. He stared at the youth’s receding back for a few seconds, then shrugged.
Just like in his dream, the endless corridor seemed to go on for all eternity. And then Goten nearly collided with a young Human male who had just turned into it. He skidded to a halt while the two of them stared at each other. It was half-light in the corridor, but the man seemed to recognize him for what he was.
“I’m from the rescue team you contacted. Head for the hangar and we’ll pick you up.”
Goten waited for the buzz of translated gibberish his scouter had emitted to ebb away in the silent corridor. The man nodded and hurried in the direction Goten had come from. The third-class thought that all of them would be saved a lot of trouble if they could simply broadcast what he had just said through the ship’s loudspeakers. The survivors who could move around would gather and wait for them there. Maybe he would be able to take care of that once he reached the captain’s bridge.
Two more people, a man and a young girl, appeared when he had nearly reached his goal. The girl started screaming at the very sight of him, which made Goten step away in order to protect his sensitive ears from the shrill sound. Saiyans never had horrible voices like that, even when they were infants. The father, or whoever the other Human was, was unnerved by both the third-class’s sudden appearance and the girl’s hysterical screams. He pushed her behind him, facing Goten with a determined look on his face. Goten’s scouter did not detect any trace of arms on him, and the third-class discarded this desperate attempt to protect his kind as non-threatening.
The Human didn’t attack him at once, and Goten presumed that it was safe to think that he wouldn’t do it at all. He had just startled the man. Besides, for an unarmed Human to attack a Saiyan meant the first’s certain death. They both knew that.
“I’m from the rescue team,” Goten shouted through the girl’s shrieks when he noticed that the man had finally gotten a grip on himself. “Go straight down the corridor to the door to the hangar. We’ll pick you up once we head back for our mother ship.”
The relief on the man’s face was immense. He nodded quickly and, dragging the screaming girl after him, turned to go in the direction Goten had pointed.
“Calm down, will you? It’s alright. It’s a friend. Stop screaming finally!” the man snapped at the girl when she didn’t stop. “We don’t have time for this!”
The third-class thought that she probably wasn’t his daughter. He thought of asking how many survivors there were, but realized that it wasn’t really important. If he didn’t get his ass to the captain’s bridge in time and see what the situation was, none of that would matter.
Goten soon stood at the door he had been looking for. He leaned over the panel and pulled a folded list of master passwords out of his pocket. After a moment of thought, he summoned his ki. After a few more moments of tinkering with the numbers and letters, he powered up even more. He didn’t know what was behind the door, but didn’t want to be unprepared – he could still perfectly remember the smell of his burning flesh when Reyn had blasted the hangar’s door in the dream.
The door reacted to the third password on his list. It slid open to reveal a wall of smoke. Goten walked in, but couldn’t see a thing. He spiked his ki suddenly, and the burst of power created a blast of air, clearing the room for a few seconds. He nearly stepped back at what he saw. The entire floor was littered with bodies, about twenty of them. All had uniforms on, and it was clear that this was the place where the pirates got rid of most of the crew.
The carpeting under Goten’s feet caught fire and he cursed Humans for their impractical thinking; most of what Saiyans used and wore had at least some kind of fire resistance so as not to flame up once a Saiyan powered up.
That there was nothing he could do, Goten saw at once: at the end of the room, one of the terminals was already alight with the open fire. The terminal adjacent to it was also smoking. Tiny white wisps were also coming out from under the large screen panel. After spiking his ki and clearing the air once again, the third-class saw that the smoke was also coming in through the vents. The wiring had caught fire and was carrying the flames into the lower level.
Goten poked around one of the terminals, but didn’t manage to get it work. And, after a few seconds of flickering, it died altogether. With a groaning whoosh, the emergency lights went out. Goten reached out for the switch on the side of his scouter.
“Reyn,” he called.
The answer came nearly at once. “Yeah?”
“This is Goten. The captain’s bridge is on fire. It’s spreading into the lower levels.”
“How much time do we have?”
This was a question Goten didn’t know the answer to. “Well, it has just started on this level. It’s only a small-scale fire. But I have a very bad feeling about this. Wait, I’ll contact Edesha. He’s in the engine room, he should know more.”
“What the hell is he doing in the engine room? Goten? Goten? Goten!”
Goten switched over the channels without waiting for permission to disconnect. A minute later, he contacted Reyn again.
“You seriously have the nerve to…” Reyn growled into his scouter.
Goten ignored the anger bursting out of his receiver. “Edesha says it’s bad. He says there are reservoirs with liquid he can’t identify and one of them is about to catch fire. I told him to get the hell out of there.”
“Good. Now wh-”
“The ship is going to blow up, Reyn,” Goten said softly, cutting him off. “We need to get out.”
Reyn was silent. “Can you turn on any of the terminals and use the loudspeakers? To round up the survivors?” he asked in a few seconds.
“No. The power is down. If we don’t hurry, we won’t even be able to pump in the air back into the sections we’ve sealed off. It’s fine for us, but I don’t think the Humans will be able to handle it.”
Reyn cursed. “Alright, head back,” he instructed. “Be at the hangar in seven minutes. Take as many people as you can. We are retreating to a safe distance from Orion.”
“Understood.”
Soon, Goten’s scouter crackled again when Reyn dictated the same orders to the other team members. The third-class left the captain’s bridge. Running back along the corridor, he would shout and randomly bang on the cabin doors for passengers to come out. It was completely dark in the corridor now, only Goten’s ki illuminating the space around him.
When Goten reached the hangar, he was followed by about thirty people. He had to push his way through to the hangar door, past twenty or so others who had come with other members of his team. He hadn’t even reached the door when an explosion shook the walls. He cursed as the people suddenly turned into a terrified and screaming mass. The wall of Humans which had suddenly formed was impregnable, and he had to resort to simply shoving people in fives and tens out of his way.
Reyn was already unlocking the door when Goten got to him. The third-class noticed the same Human boy at Reyn’s side as he had seen in the dream. While the flight officer was immovable, the child was being smothered by his own kind. He looked faint. Goten grabbed the kid and shoved him in front of himself. He planted his palms on the wall next to Reyn, pushing the crowd away with his back, creating a kind of air lock for the boy.
“The air pumps?” he shouted to be heard through the clamor.
“Working so far,” Reyn answered, the door opening in front of him. Were he not a Saiyan, he would have been knocked off his feet right away by the panicking crowd rushing forward. As it was now, he simply turned around, and held out his arm in front of the door, blocking it. He nearly knocked some man’s teeth out with the abrupt movement. There was a howl of pain, which Reyn ignored completely.
“Go open the other door,” he ordered Goten.
“Where are Edesha and Tamahi?” the third-class shouted, lifting the kid over his head with one hand so that he wouldn’t get squashed while he was squeezing through the crowd.
“They will be here soon. They found two wounded.” Reyn lifted his eyes. The child was kicking at Goten’s arms viciously, trying to get away.
While Goten was pushing past the flight officer, he felt a trickle of wet warmth touch his left shoulder and then run down his back. Confused, he looked up. The kid was peeing on him. Goten lowered the boy and, carrying him under his arm, rushed forward to the control panel. With a loud explosion, the ground suddenly slipped from under his feet and he slammed into the wall with his right side. It didn’t hurt at all since he had his ki-shield on. Leaving a wet imprint of his shoulder on the wall, he pushed himself up. He was more worried about the child, whom he had grabbed and embraced none too gently to prevent him from crashing into the partition face-first. But the boy was screaming hysterically at the top of his lungs, which showed that his physical condition was more or less alright.
Goten started pushing at the buttons on the control panel. He was anxious that time would run out and didn’t wait for the air to completely fill the hangar. His ki-shield was more than enough to protect them both from the whoosh of air coming from the corridor. It nearly lifted Goten off his feet, though, and he could hear Reyn curse too while he tried to keep people from being lifted into the air and tossed over his head. In a few seconds, he removed his arm, letting them gallop into the next section and then the hangar.
The flight officer saw uncertainty on Goten’s face when the panicking herd of Humans stampeded towards him. He wondered how the newbie was going to handle this. Soon, he saw that he probably wasn’t going to handle it at all.
The readings on Goten’s scouter shot up lightly and he stepped back before a ki-blast hit the metallic floor right between him and the oncoming crowd. He gave Reyn a confused look, but immediately understood what the flight officer had done when the Humans came to an instant halt, some of them now even moving backwards. While for Goten this was only an insignificant ki discharge, the Humans took it differently.
“Form a queue!” Reyn bellowed from behind the crowd. “Goten, see to that that everyone is seated in their seats on the lower deck. And if someone tries to squeeze in out of turn, kick them out of the shuttle.”
The third-class gave an overly dramatic salute. “Yes, sir!”
The corners of Reyn’s lips quirked up at the act. He turned around to the sound of footsteps. Farther down the corridor, two figures appeared through the smoke. He rushed over to Edesha and Tamahi to help them carry the wounded. They locked the door behind them and turned on the pumps to suck the air out.
When they reached the shuttle, the oxygen was already sparse and the last of the rescued people’s backs were disappearing through the trapdoor. Once they climbed the few steps leading into the shuttle, Reyn left the doctor and Edesha to deal with the injured on their own. He went to the captain’s bridge. He could hear the clamoring people from the lower deck. At about this time, Goten was probably about to lose his patience. The newbie probably had no idea what a nuisance Human civilians could be. Very likely, he hadn’t even been familiar with the idea of someone so frustratingly helpless.
Belting himself into his chair, Reyn checked the readings and found that the oxygen was almost gone from the two sectors. There was no point in returning and lifting the partition, thus he started the engines. Once they warmed up, he backed the shuttle away as far as possible and fired two shots at the wall separating them from the rest of the hangar. Everything shook and jolted around in the hangar, then it settled down, and Reyn started maneuvering towards the fresh hole in the partition.
Goten and Edesha joined him on the captain’s bridge when they were already flying through the hole in the hull.
“How is it on the lower deck?” Reyn asked. “Why are they screaming?”
Edesha shrugged. “Must be happy that we rescued them. That or they got scared when you fired the missiles.”
The flight officer rolled his eyes. They had finally cleared the hole and were distancing themselves from Orion. He started increasing speed and stole a glance at Goten. The third-class’s hands had turned into claws, his fingers spasmodically digging themselves into the armrests. He was going to crush them.
“Hey, Goten, relax,” he said, fumbling with the transmitter. “It’s alright now.”
Goten didn’t seem to be convinced. The look in his eyes was apprehensive. “I don’t think we found all of them,” he said.
Was this what the newbie was worried about? Reyn shrugged with a sigh. “Yeah, we probably didn’t. You can’t have it all. It rarely works that way, does it?” Something sorrowful flitted over Goten’s face. Reyn watched him for a few seconds, not certain what this was brought on by, then was startled by a beep from the loudspeakers.
“Kareli, this is Starcut. Do you read me?”
The flight officer pressed the receiver button. “Yes, this is Reyn.”
“What’s the situation?”
“Orion is on fire. We are heading back to Starcut. We’ll be back in three hours.”
“Roger that. Any survivors?”
“Yes, about fifty civilians, only Humans. Three with serious injuries.” Reyn fell silent. “Sildara?”
“Mm?”
“Where the hell will we put this many people?”
“Haah. That’s a good question. Captain? Captaaaain,” Sildara sang, his voice now distant, “we have a situation heeere.”
“Okay, you deal with that. I’m out,” Reyn muttered, pressing on the receiver button, ending the connection. He concentrated on the terminal with the intention to enter the coordinates into the autopilot’s memory. He stiffened as his sight went blurry for a moment. He shook his head and blinked a few times to clear his vision. Was he tired? Reyn’s fingers touched the keyboard and then the space around him shrunk abruptly, his vision going dark, spotted with tiny white lights. Startled, he moved his hand away from the keyboard and leaned back. His head was suddenly pounding, his skin aflame.
Goten started in his seat at Reyn’s scream. The flight officer was thrashing wildly in his seat, only his seatbelt keeping him in place. The third-class hardly climbed out of his seat when a gasp from Edesha told him that there was also something wrong with the soldier. Goten’s priority was the pilot and he hardly spared Edesha a look. It took only a few seconds, but by the time Goten was at Reyn’s chair, the flight officer had stopped shaking. Now he was staring at the screen, his eyes wide in shock.
“Reyn?” Goten asked, his hand hovering above Reyn’s head, not certain if he should touch the flight officer, in case he set him off again. “You alright?”
Reyn started at the third-class’s voice. He blinked and turned to Goten. For a few seconds, he simply stared at the third-class. When Goten started thinking that it would be a good idea to give Reyn a good shake to get him out of whatever trance he was in, his lips twitched and he finally spoke: “I think I am. Especially considering that I should be dead.”
Avoiding Reyn’s stunned and openly questioning eyes, Goten stepped back. He broke eye contact and turned to Edesha, who had a dazed look on his face.
“I just saw the strangest thing…” he muttered. “I think I was on fire.”
“Funny that, isn’t it?” Reyn said, forcing himself to concentrate on his terminal despite the fact that the thoughts in his head were still swimming. He felt dizzy, reality didn’t seem so real, and there was still something flickering before his eyes.
“Hey, hey.” Goten grabbed Reyn when he started slumping forward. The third-class suddenly realized that this must have been what happened to the prince back when he had prevented him from getting shot in the head. He had nearly fainted then. Somehow…for some reason they could see what would have happened to them if he hadn’t interfered. Was this something like a forceful breakthrough past the point of their death? He could only guess.
“Reyn? Reyn, c’mon.” Goten slapped the flight officer on his face. “Come out of it. Somebody has to pilot the ship.”
Reyn’s eyes blinked open. Confused, he stared at Goten, then scrunched his nose. “You stink of piss,” he said, pushing the younger male away.
The third-class rolled his eyes. “If you have time to be bothered about that, get down to piloting the damn shuttle.”
Reyn was still light-headed, but somehow managed to enter the coordinates and set the ship on autopilot. Once he did that, he slumped in his seat. In a few seconds, he turned around in his chair to watch how Goten was trying to bring Edesha around.
“Just leave him be. He’s sleeping,” Reyn muttered. He felt like taking a nap as well. There were still three hours until they got to Starcut. Sleepily, he stared at the third-class’s back. “We’ll have a talk about this once we are back,” he said.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Goten said without turning his head.
Reyn watched him humorlessly. “The fuck there isn’t,” he spat. “I’m rather grateful to you for saving my life, but I want to know what the fuck is going on.”
“Don’t just decide on your own. I didn’t d-”
“Yeah, yeah,” Reyn waved him off dismissively with his hand. He turned back to the screen. “Let’s postpone this for later. I’m too tired to put up with your bullshit now.”
The third-class woke up after eight hours of sleep. Yawning, he rubbed at his face. Feeling fresh and rested, he rolled over onto his back, his gaze sliding over the smooth metallic ceiling. Then the feeling that he wasn’t alone overtook him. He quickly raised his head. It took only a second to spot Edesha on the other bed. Puzzled, Goten stared at the sleeping soldier. Edesha was lying on his back, snoring softly, his injured arm resting on top of the covers.
The only explanation the third-class had for the occurrence was that there were not enough cabins to accommodate the sudden increase in Starcut’s population. Over were his days of kingship. His castle didn’t belong only to him anymore. But why Edesha? Wasn’t there a way to do this somehow differently?
Mulling over the fact in his head, Goten rolled out of his bed and grabbed his clothes. Just in case, he sniffed at them to assure himself that his uniform didn’t smell of piss. He had taken a shower yesterday and changed, but he didn’t trust himself not to mix his clothes up. He wondered how the Human boy was and decided to check on him later.
Goten left for the toilets and then the canteen. One look and sniff at the toilets made it clear that his latrine duty had to be performed immediately. He didn’t have time for it, though. The canteen was bustling, Humans milling about. The mood was much better, tentative smiles blossoming here and there. Not everyone was eating, actually, only the minority was. It seemed that the canteen had become a place to gather, a sort of refuge. Feeling out of place, Goten circled the counter and joined the chef with the cook in the kitchens.
“What are you feeding them?” he asked, his eyes already riffling through the pots. He had seen something on their plates, but failed to identify what it was. It was going to be problematic to provide safe and suitable food for Humans for the next five or so days until they were picked up by their kin.
“Some meat, some vegetables. Soup,” the chef said. “The usual stuff we eat. But I boiled and fried everything to the point where it’s hardly recognizable, even the salad… No casualties so far.”
“Well, yes,” Goten agreed, looking through the pots, filling his plate. “As long as it’s germ-free, it should do. They may not like it, but at least they won’t get infected. Listen, don’t we get our normal food?” he complained, eying his plate suspiciously. He nudged the boiled salad with a fork. “I don’t want this squishy thing.”
The cook snorted. “Then don’t eat it. We don’t have enough time to be double-tasking, especially not with this many additional mouths.”
“That’s true,” Goten agreed, closing his mouth around his fork. He pulled it out and chewed tentatively. “Not that bad,” he commented. “You’ll need help, a lot of it. Oh, no, no,” he shook his head at their hopeful faces, “even if I’d gladly agree, I’m supposed to look after those two in the medical room. Ask someone else.”
The chef sighed. “This is a pain in the ass. I had to go through the list of fruit and vegetables to learn which had a chemical composition that’s harmful to Humans.”
“Hmm, yeah, there are some,” Goten agreed, sitting down. He started inhaling his food. “But I don’t think we should have any of those on board. For obvious reasons.”
“True, we don’t have them.”
“So who took Edesha’s cabin?” Goten asked.
“Somebody took it?” the chef wondered. “Well, yeah, makes sense; he lived all alone in his cabin. The captain must have put him up with some other crew member.”
Goten licked at his fork with great appetite. “Yes. With me.”
Both the chef and the cook gave him incredulous looks. Goten could guess what they were thinking. He didn’t mind working with Edesha at all, but sharing a cabin was a completely different matter altogether.
“Err…makes sense,” the cook said. “To conserve space,” he added with some reluctance.
Goten shrugged. It did make sense. To one who didn’t know that he had rejected Edesha and the man was still bitter over the fact. To one who didn’t know… Or maybe the captain didn’t give two shits about these kinds of petty frictions amongst the crew.
“Have you seen Reyn around?” Goten asked.
“I think he’s still sleeping. I think I remember him complaining about a major headache before he went to bed.”
Goten didn’t say anything, but he bet he knew where the headache had come from. He finished his brunch and went to the medical room. He had intended to wash his uniform but, after checking the washing-machine, it appeared that it was already taken, a large bundle of clothing spinning inside. Once inside the medical room, Goten relieved Yereli of his watch. He took his place at Tamahi’s desk.
The number of patients had increased to five, the three wounded Humans resting on the other side of the medical room, opposite the pirates. Goten found this ironical. He had better watch that they didn’t try to kill each other off. Yereli had informed him that the unconscious Nondren hadn’t come round and that there was a good chance that he never would. The other Nondren looked much better, though. He seemed weak and exhausted, but was already half-sitting in his bed, watching Goten with dark, unfriendly eyes. The third-class rather preferred the unconscious and sleeping patients to him.
In about two hours, Adriel found Goten at his post. He had searched through nearly the entire ship until he had finally remembered about the third-class’s new duties. He felt rather sheepish about it as he had been the one to inform Goten about them.
“Hi,” he greeted the third-class. The door closed behind him and he headed straight to the desk Goten was sitting at. “We need to have a little talk,” he said softly.
“Mmm?” Goten wondered. Recently his popularity had skyrocketed. He cast a look at the patients and saw that the pirate was dozing. He doubted Humans could understand Saiyan. “About what?”
“Whose phone number is this?” Adriel asked, putting the painfully familiar paper slip on the desk.
Goten stared at it, then his eyes rose to the navigator. “I have no idea,” he said.
There was a short pause, then Adriel smiled. “Why do you keep it if you don’t know whose number this is?”
The third-class returned the hearty smile. “It’s not mine.”
“I know it’s yours.”
“But it isn’t.”
Adriel sighed. “Goten, I know it’s yours because I know who picks up the receiver. And you’re the only one on this ship who has ever had any contact with him. Don’t forget that I’ve seen your profile and know who all the reports at Hataro Officer Training School were written by.”
“You’re deeply mistaken about me being the only one here who has any connection with him. But never mind that. Why are you asking me if you know it all?”
“Oh?” But since Goten kept quiet, Adriel shrugged. “Because I’m curious. Curious about two things: first, why you have it. And second, why it was Reyn who asked me to check who the number belongs to.”
Goten stared at the accursed paper slip. He had known it was going to come back to haunt him. “Reyn, was it?”
“Yes. And since you are being so furtive about it… What should I tell Reyn?”
“Tell him it belongs to my father or something. When did he ask you to check it?”
“Yesterday. Right after you had returned from Orion. And right after threatening to write a report about me breaking into his terminal. The information he wants is the price for his silence.”
Goten sighed guiltily. “Sounds like him… Part of it is my fault. I accidentally asked whether the captain accepted his report, and then he figured out that…”
“Whatever,” Adriel cut him off. “Why do you have it?”
Goten’s lips pressed into a dash. “Because he gave it to me.”
Adriel searched his face, then Goten flushed such brilliant red that the navigator’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Oh my god,” he gasped. “It’s… Is he the boyfriend whose existence you were so doubtful about?”
Goten groaned at the phrasing, and felt his face heat up even more. He shook his head. “Of course he isn’t.”
Adriel stared at him. He wasn’t fooled. The only thing he wasn’t certain about was how much of it was Goten’s imagination and how much of it was real. “I’m rather afraid to question you more…” he admitted in a soft mutter.
Goten chuckled nervously. “I promise that it’s nothing like that. Well, it’s not that we… Well, I don’t think that... Oh, for gods’ sakes, this is only a telephone number. I asked him to keep an eye on my father and friends and…” He stopped when Adriel appeared to be more and more stunned by the second.
“You asked him?”
“Well, I did save his life twice!” Goten shot back with defensive stubbornness. “I kinda felt entitled to that! Besides, it’s not that he minded it much!”
Adriel watched the indignant third-class in shock. “Twice?” It probably wasn’t Goten’s overactive imagination after all. If it were, Goten wouldn’t be so irritated. This was obviously some kind of defense mechanism, denial of sorts. It was the prince they were talking about after all. Goten wouldn’t admit anything even if he were standing in court. Especially if he were standing in court.
They were silent for a few moments, then Adriel shrugged. It wasn’t his place to interfere, especially when it was obvious that Goten hadn’t sorted out his own thoughts concerning the whole issue either.
“Why did Reyn have it?”
“I realized that it was missing quite a while ago. He must have taken it.”
“Why?”
“How should I know? We didn’t exactly hit it off at first, so maybe he thought he’d have something against me. Or maybe he was just curious.”
“It’s probably the former. He isn’t overly nosy, but he can be a bitch to deal with once stroked the wrong way.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed that much.”
“So what will you do?”
“Nothing,” Goten muttered. It wasn’t as if he could tell Reyn to leave him alone and shut up about it. It would never work; the flight officer was good at pressuring people. He was already dreading the inevitable confrontation he and Reyn were going to have concerning all this.
TBC
Converting /tmp/phpKAbvuw to /dev/stdout
Warnings: Alternate Universe. Yaoi (male x male). Goten x Trunks and vice versa. Other pairings.
A/N: Starcut’s crew members:
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 – (Hazel)
9.Arms Specialist – (Mandro)
10.Flight Officer - (Reyn Dueri)
11.Flight Officer - (Jadenas Ealt)
12.Head Engineer - (Nohail Ofura)
13.Maintenance Technician – (Mirun)
14.Maintenance Technician
15.Doctor - (Tamahi)
16.Medic - (Yereli)
17.Head Cook
18.Cook
19.Soldier - (Edesha)
20.Goten
Barracks
by chayron (lttomb@yahoo.com), beta-read by quatreofdoom
Part 36
While approaching Orion, they tried contacting it over and over again, but nobody responded. When the passenger ship came into full view, it didn’t seem that it had been damaged in any way. Since there was no one to accept them, Reyn had hoped for at least a tiny hole to squeeze into Orion through but, after circling the ship a few times, found no such thing. In the end, he resorted to blasting his way through to the runway and maneuvering the shuttle inside.
The fire around the hole died out almost instantly since there was no oxygen it could feed on. With rising apprehension, the third-class watched bodies and debris float leisurely around the gap after being sucked out of the runway. He hoped that the passengers had been sensible enough to keep away from the runway after contacting them. While their shuttle was being carefully flown through the opening, Goten had an opportunity to examine two corpses which were in very close proximity to their cockpit. One was clearly of the female persuasion with half of her head missing, while the second body was probably male. The third-class couldn’t tell what had been the cause of his death, but he could see that his right arm was unnaturally bent. He wasn’t overly familiar with Human physiology but, since their skeletal structure was very similar to that of the Saiyans’, he figured that it wasn’t supposed to bend like that.
While Reyn was still maneuvering the shuttle to a landing place free of debris inside the hangar, the crew were already unbelting themselves from their chairs.
“How long did those bastards keep them captive?” Edesha wondered. “Most of them were badly mangled. Is there a safe or something like that on board?”
“There probably is,” Reyn said. “Humans usually do that sort of thing.”
Tamahi tsked while Edesha appeared to be very interested in the custom.
Goten counted in his head and reached the conclusion that the passengers might have been kept hostage for a day or two. In all probability, it must have lasted until the pirates had taken everything of value.
“Alright,” Reyn said when the wheels of the shuttle touched the metal ground softly, “first, we go inside and see how to seal off this part of the hangar. The control panel should be next to the door as usual.” He killed the engines and turned around in his chair to face them. “Goten and Tamahi, you will go to the living quarters and look for survivors. Edesha and I will go to the captain’s bridge. Is that clear?”
Everybody nodded except Goten. He was staring at Reyn with a frown on his face.
“What?” Reyn asked.
Suddenly, Goten exhaled sharply. He looked around. Right. His being here had mixed up the order of things: Reyn had paired them up in twos while, originally, he would have gone alone, sending off Edesha and Tamahi together. He wondered who the fourth member would have been. Now even the place the flight officer had intended to search had changed.
The third-class raised his eyes to Reyn’s face. “Can I offer a few changes to the plan?”
With a sharp grin on his face, Reyn swiveled with his chair right and left. Staring at Goten, he leaned back. He was as much disturbed as amused by this slap in the face, however, he had almost expected something like this after agreeing to take Goten on this mission.
“I was of opinion that I was in charge here,” he said calmly, putting his hands onto his lap and steepling his fingers, showing he was not going to lift any of them to make it easier for Goten.
Goten turned sideways so that he could see all of them: Reyn, Edesha, and Tamahi. If this were Kyon, Ario, and Ranvera, he would simply ask them to trust him. And they would. Would trust him blindly. These men, though… There was probably nothing he could do to make them believe him.
Fuck.
“Alright,” Reyn said bitterly, suddenly perversely curious as to how far Goten would go with his permission. “Let’s hear it.”
This was his chance, and, dizzy with exhilaration and anxiety, Goten seized it with his shaky hands in a death grip: “We seal off the hangar, but pump out the air right away after that. You and Tamahi go together to search the living quarters. Edesha and I will go to the captain’s bridge.”
Confused, the team stared at him, not comprehending why he mainly only made changes to the search parties. What was the point?
“Are you afraid of a fire starting in the hangar?” Reyn asked finally, scratching his chin absently.
Goten nodded. He didn’t know for certain – maybe it had been a bomb, or the fire had spread from other parts of the ship.
Reyn watched him carefully, then, with a slap on the right armrest, rose off his chair. He shrugged. “Alright. Tamahi, you’ll go with me to the living quarters, Edesha with Goten to the captain’s bridge. We pump the air out of this part of the hangar.” He turned to look at Goten. “Happy now?” he had said in a mocking tone, but the grateful and relieved smile the youth gave him smacked him like a brick between his eyes. Huffing in disbelief and feeling uncomfortable, Reyn turned to go.
With their ki-shields on, they left the shuttle and started flying forward. The only source of light was their ki, it was absolutely dark otherwise. There was enough light for the section numbers to reflect it, though. They were in Section 2. Goten didn’t know exactly how long the air reserve inside a ki-shield could last as it depended on its size, however, all of them had enough of air for about ten minutes. They also had space suits, but using them meant additional time for dressing and undressing and needing to drag the suits around.
Goten wondered what they would do if they had damaged the controls upon entering the ship, or if the partitions for separating sections didn't want to move. Fearing that their shuttle had floated off in the zero gravity, he turned around to stare behind him. The shadowy contours of it still were there. Must be the magnets in the wheels or something. It seemed that there was indeed a lot he didn’t know about these kinds of things.
Despite his fears, soon all of them were standing at the control panel watching Reyn tinkering with it. After he entered one of the master passwords, it was responding flawlessly, and Reyn quickly blocked off Sections 1 and 2 from the rest of the hangar. He turned on the air pumps. Without waiting for the air to fill the room completely, they opened the door to the next section of the ship. The air whooshed in, and they stepped into a long corridor. Faint emergency lights were flashing red across the hall. It was eerily silent.
“Get moving,” the flight officer said after noticing that Goten had stopped at the panel on this side of the door, looking for a way to pump out the air again. The youth seemed to be positively lost amongst the blinking lights of the control panel. All of the Terran writing looked like gibberish to him. Of course, all of them had scouters, which had been armed with the main Terran language plus at least five random ones, but it was going to take time for Goten to translate it.
Reyn dropped his ki-shield. “I’ll do that.”
“Thanks,” Goten said, stepping back away from the control panel to give Reyn way. He dropped his shield as well.
“You push this, then this and this,” Reyn demonstrated.
Goten nodded. Watching the flight officer sealing the door again, he hesitated, then decided to get it out. “You know, don’t waste your time talking to the Human child. If you hear an explosion, just grab him and run to the hangar as fast as you can; the captain’s bridge and most of the living quarters will already be on fire.”
The flight officer raised his eyes off the panel and turned to face Goten. “What? What Human child?”
Goten scratched the side of his cheek nervously. “The one you will probably find.” With his head, he motioned at Edesha. “Let’s get moving.”
Edesha followed him with a grin on his face. “You’re the boss.”
Goten rolled his eyes. They were never going to allow him to forget this. If they left this ship alive, that is.
They found their first corpse soon after setting straight for the captain’s bridge. Warily, Goten prodded the Human female with his foot. She stayed dead. They moved forward.
“You know,” Edesha said, “I think that there was a rat or two on board. Otherwise they would have radioed for help. First thing they did was to capture the captain’s bridge and cut the connection off and then they let Domera in.”
“Yeah,” Goten agreed, trying to hurry his step. He wanted to run. Edesha, however, was taking it easy and didn’t seem to be in any rush. “Probably that’s what happened. But Domera might have simply jammed their connection from the outside. I hear some pirate ships do that. And why did they close the runway after them?”
“I think that was done by the passengers themselves once the computers became responsive.”
“Ah. For fear that someone else would sneak in?” Goten spotted one more body in front of them and could understand why they wouldn’t want anyone else entering Orion. “Edesha?”
“What?”
“Can you check the engine room?”
The soldier let out a colorful curse. “What the hell’s wrong with you today? The possibility that there would be people is close to z-”
“That’s not what you should be looking for. Look for fire or explosives or both.”
Edesha gave Goten a very careful look. “What’s with that? And what you will be doing meanwhile?”
“I’ll head straight for the captain’s bridge.”
Edesha could tell that Goten was jumpy and nervous and had a pleading air about him, but it seemed that he was telling the absolute truth. Another thing that Edesha could read in the youth’s eyes was that if he didn’t do as told, Goten would simply do what he wanted to do anyway.
“Whatever,” he said finally. “It’s your skin Reyn will be taking off if anything goes wrong.” He hardly managed to finish the sentence when Goten shot forward into the corridor like a rocket. He stared at the youth’s receding back for a few seconds, then shrugged.
Just like in his dream, the endless corridor seemed to go on for all eternity. And then Goten nearly collided with a young Human male who had just turned into it. He skidded to a halt while the two of them stared at each other. It was half-light in the corridor, but the man seemed to recognize him for what he was.
“I’m from the rescue team you contacted. Head for the hangar and we’ll pick you up.”
Goten waited for the buzz of translated gibberish his scouter had emitted to ebb away in the silent corridor. The man nodded and hurried in the direction Goten had come from. The third-class thought that all of them would be saved a lot of trouble if they could simply broadcast what he had just said through the ship’s loudspeakers. The survivors who could move around would gather and wait for them there. Maybe he would be able to take care of that once he reached the captain’s bridge.
Two more people, a man and a young girl, appeared when he had nearly reached his goal. The girl started screaming at the very sight of him, which made Goten step away in order to protect his sensitive ears from the shrill sound. Saiyans never had horrible voices like that, even when they were infants. The father, or whoever the other Human was, was unnerved by both the third-class’s sudden appearance and the girl’s hysterical screams. He pushed her behind him, facing Goten with a determined look on his face. Goten’s scouter did not detect any trace of arms on him, and the third-class discarded this desperate attempt to protect his kind as non-threatening.
The Human didn’t attack him at once, and Goten presumed that it was safe to think that he wouldn’t do it at all. He had just startled the man. Besides, for an unarmed Human to attack a Saiyan meant the first’s certain death. They both knew that.
“I’m from the rescue team,” Goten shouted through the girl’s shrieks when he noticed that the man had finally gotten a grip on himself. “Go straight down the corridor to the door to the hangar. We’ll pick you up once we head back for our mother ship.”
The relief on the man’s face was immense. He nodded quickly and, dragging the screaming girl after him, turned to go in the direction Goten had pointed.
“Calm down, will you? It’s alright. It’s a friend. Stop screaming finally!” the man snapped at the girl when she didn’t stop. “We don’t have time for this!”
The third-class thought that she probably wasn’t his daughter. He thought of asking how many survivors there were, but realized that it wasn’t really important. If he didn’t get his ass to the captain’s bridge in time and see what the situation was, none of that would matter.
Goten soon stood at the door he had been looking for. He leaned over the panel and pulled a folded list of master passwords out of his pocket. After a moment of thought, he summoned his ki. After a few more moments of tinkering with the numbers and letters, he powered up even more. He didn’t know what was behind the door, but didn’t want to be unprepared – he could still perfectly remember the smell of his burning flesh when Reyn had blasted the hangar’s door in the dream.
The door reacted to the third password on his list. It slid open to reveal a wall of smoke. Goten walked in, but couldn’t see a thing. He spiked his ki suddenly, and the burst of power created a blast of air, clearing the room for a few seconds. He nearly stepped back at what he saw. The entire floor was littered with bodies, about twenty of them. All had uniforms on, and it was clear that this was the place where the pirates got rid of most of the crew.
The carpeting under Goten’s feet caught fire and he cursed Humans for their impractical thinking; most of what Saiyans used and wore had at least some kind of fire resistance so as not to flame up once a Saiyan powered up.
That there was nothing he could do, Goten saw at once: at the end of the room, one of the terminals was already alight with the open fire. The terminal adjacent to it was also smoking. Tiny white wisps were also coming out from under the large screen panel. After spiking his ki and clearing the air once again, the third-class saw that the smoke was also coming in through the vents. The wiring had caught fire and was carrying the flames into the lower level.
Goten poked around one of the terminals, but didn’t manage to get it work. And, after a few seconds of flickering, it died altogether. With a groaning whoosh, the emergency lights went out. Goten reached out for the switch on the side of his scouter.
“Reyn,” he called.
The answer came nearly at once. “Yeah?”
“This is Goten. The captain’s bridge is on fire. It’s spreading into the lower levels.”
“How much time do we have?”
This was a question Goten didn’t know the answer to. “Well, it has just started on this level. It’s only a small-scale fire. But I have a very bad feeling about this. Wait, I’ll contact Edesha. He’s in the engine room, he should know more.”
“What the hell is he doing in the engine room? Goten? Goten? Goten!”
Goten switched over the channels without waiting for permission to disconnect. A minute later, he contacted Reyn again.
“You seriously have the nerve to…” Reyn growled into his scouter.
Goten ignored the anger bursting out of his receiver. “Edesha says it’s bad. He says there are reservoirs with liquid he can’t identify and one of them is about to catch fire. I told him to get the hell out of there.”
“Good. Now wh-”
“The ship is going to blow up, Reyn,” Goten said softly, cutting him off. “We need to get out.”
Reyn was silent. “Can you turn on any of the terminals and use the loudspeakers? To round up the survivors?” he asked in a few seconds.
“No. The power is down. If we don’t hurry, we won’t even be able to pump in the air back into the sections we’ve sealed off. It’s fine for us, but I don’t think the Humans will be able to handle it.”
Reyn cursed. “Alright, head back,” he instructed. “Be at the hangar in seven minutes. Take as many people as you can. We are retreating to a safe distance from Orion.”
“Understood.”
Soon, Goten’s scouter crackled again when Reyn dictated the same orders to the other team members. The third-class left the captain’s bridge. Running back along the corridor, he would shout and randomly bang on the cabin doors for passengers to come out. It was completely dark in the corridor now, only Goten’s ki illuminating the space around him.
When Goten reached the hangar, he was followed by about thirty people. He had to push his way through to the hangar door, past twenty or so others who had come with other members of his team. He hadn’t even reached the door when an explosion shook the walls. He cursed as the people suddenly turned into a terrified and screaming mass. The wall of Humans which had suddenly formed was impregnable, and he had to resort to simply shoving people in fives and tens out of his way.
Reyn was already unlocking the door when Goten got to him. The third-class noticed the same Human boy at Reyn’s side as he had seen in the dream. While the flight officer was immovable, the child was being smothered by his own kind. He looked faint. Goten grabbed the kid and shoved him in front of himself. He planted his palms on the wall next to Reyn, pushing the crowd away with his back, creating a kind of air lock for the boy.
“The air pumps?” he shouted to be heard through the clamor.
“Working so far,” Reyn answered, the door opening in front of him. Were he not a Saiyan, he would have been knocked off his feet right away by the panicking crowd rushing forward. As it was now, he simply turned around, and held out his arm in front of the door, blocking it. He nearly knocked some man’s teeth out with the abrupt movement. There was a howl of pain, which Reyn ignored completely.
“Go open the other door,” he ordered Goten.
“Where are Edesha and Tamahi?” the third-class shouted, lifting the kid over his head with one hand so that he wouldn’t get squashed while he was squeezing through the crowd.
“They will be here soon. They found two wounded.” Reyn lifted his eyes. The child was kicking at Goten’s arms viciously, trying to get away.
While Goten was pushing past the flight officer, he felt a trickle of wet warmth touch his left shoulder and then run down his back. Confused, he looked up. The kid was peeing on him. Goten lowered the boy and, carrying him under his arm, rushed forward to the control panel. With a loud explosion, the ground suddenly slipped from under his feet and he slammed into the wall with his right side. It didn’t hurt at all since he had his ki-shield on. Leaving a wet imprint of his shoulder on the wall, he pushed himself up. He was more worried about the child, whom he had grabbed and embraced none too gently to prevent him from crashing into the partition face-first. But the boy was screaming hysterically at the top of his lungs, which showed that his physical condition was more or less alright.
Goten started pushing at the buttons on the control panel. He was anxious that time would run out and didn’t wait for the air to completely fill the hangar. His ki-shield was more than enough to protect them both from the whoosh of air coming from the corridor. It nearly lifted Goten off his feet, though, and he could hear Reyn curse too while he tried to keep people from being lifted into the air and tossed over his head. In a few seconds, he removed his arm, letting them gallop into the next section and then the hangar.
The flight officer saw uncertainty on Goten’s face when the panicking herd of Humans stampeded towards him. He wondered how the newbie was going to handle this. Soon, he saw that he probably wasn’t going to handle it at all.
The readings on Goten’s scouter shot up lightly and he stepped back before a ki-blast hit the metallic floor right between him and the oncoming crowd. He gave Reyn a confused look, but immediately understood what the flight officer had done when the Humans came to an instant halt, some of them now even moving backwards. While for Goten this was only an insignificant ki discharge, the Humans took it differently.
“Form a queue!” Reyn bellowed from behind the crowd. “Goten, see to that that everyone is seated in their seats on the lower deck. And if someone tries to squeeze in out of turn, kick them out of the shuttle.”
The third-class gave an overly dramatic salute. “Yes, sir!”
The corners of Reyn’s lips quirked up at the act. He turned around to the sound of footsteps. Farther down the corridor, two figures appeared through the smoke. He rushed over to Edesha and Tamahi to help them carry the wounded. They locked the door behind them and turned on the pumps to suck the air out.
When they reached the shuttle, the oxygen was already sparse and the last of the rescued people’s backs were disappearing through the trapdoor. Once they climbed the few steps leading into the shuttle, Reyn left the doctor and Edesha to deal with the injured on their own. He went to the captain’s bridge. He could hear the clamoring people from the lower deck. At about this time, Goten was probably about to lose his patience. The newbie probably had no idea what a nuisance Human civilians could be. Very likely, he hadn’t even been familiar with the idea of someone so frustratingly helpless.
Belting himself into his chair, Reyn checked the readings and found that the oxygen was almost gone from the two sectors. There was no point in returning and lifting the partition, thus he started the engines. Once they warmed up, he backed the shuttle away as far as possible and fired two shots at the wall separating them from the rest of the hangar. Everything shook and jolted around in the hangar, then it settled down, and Reyn started maneuvering towards the fresh hole in the partition.
Goten and Edesha joined him on the captain’s bridge when they were already flying through the hole in the hull.
“How is it on the lower deck?” Reyn asked. “Why are they screaming?”
Edesha shrugged. “Must be happy that we rescued them. That or they got scared when you fired the missiles.”
The flight officer rolled his eyes. They had finally cleared the hole and were distancing themselves from Orion. He started increasing speed and stole a glance at Goten. The third-class’s hands had turned into claws, his fingers spasmodically digging themselves into the armrests. He was going to crush them.
“Hey, Goten, relax,” he said, fumbling with the transmitter. “It’s alright now.”
Goten didn’t seem to be convinced. The look in his eyes was apprehensive. “I don’t think we found all of them,” he said.
Was this what the newbie was worried about? Reyn shrugged with a sigh. “Yeah, we probably didn’t. You can’t have it all. It rarely works that way, does it?” Something sorrowful flitted over Goten’s face. Reyn watched him for a few seconds, not certain what this was brought on by, then was startled by a beep from the loudspeakers.
“Kareli, this is Starcut. Do you read me?”
The flight officer pressed the receiver button. “Yes, this is Reyn.”
“What’s the situation?”
“Orion is on fire. We are heading back to Starcut. We’ll be back in three hours.”
“Roger that. Any survivors?”
“Yes, about fifty civilians, only Humans. Three with serious injuries.” Reyn fell silent. “Sildara?”
“Mm?”
“Where the hell will we put this many people?”
“Haah. That’s a good question. Captain? Captaaaain,” Sildara sang, his voice now distant, “we have a situation heeere.”
“Okay, you deal with that. I’m out,” Reyn muttered, pressing on the receiver button, ending the connection. He concentrated on the terminal with the intention to enter the coordinates into the autopilot’s memory. He stiffened as his sight went blurry for a moment. He shook his head and blinked a few times to clear his vision. Was he tired? Reyn’s fingers touched the keyboard and then the space around him shrunk abruptly, his vision going dark, spotted with tiny white lights. Startled, he moved his hand away from the keyboard and leaned back. His head was suddenly pounding, his skin aflame.
Goten started in his seat at Reyn’s scream. The flight officer was thrashing wildly in his seat, only his seatbelt keeping him in place. The third-class hardly climbed out of his seat when a gasp from Edesha told him that there was also something wrong with the soldier. Goten’s priority was the pilot and he hardly spared Edesha a look. It took only a few seconds, but by the time Goten was at Reyn’s chair, the flight officer had stopped shaking. Now he was staring at the screen, his eyes wide in shock.
“Reyn?” Goten asked, his hand hovering above Reyn’s head, not certain if he should touch the flight officer, in case he set him off again. “You alright?”
Reyn started at the third-class’s voice. He blinked and turned to Goten. For a few seconds, he simply stared at the third-class. When Goten started thinking that it would be a good idea to give Reyn a good shake to get him out of whatever trance he was in, his lips twitched and he finally spoke: “I think I am. Especially considering that I should be dead.”
Avoiding Reyn’s stunned and openly questioning eyes, Goten stepped back. He broke eye contact and turned to Edesha, who had a dazed look on his face.
“I just saw the strangest thing…” he muttered. “I think I was on fire.”
“Funny that, isn’t it?” Reyn said, forcing himself to concentrate on his terminal despite the fact that the thoughts in his head were still swimming. He felt dizzy, reality didn’t seem so real, and there was still something flickering before his eyes.
“Hey, hey.” Goten grabbed Reyn when he started slumping forward. The third-class suddenly realized that this must have been what happened to the prince back when he had prevented him from getting shot in the head. He had nearly fainted then. Somehow…for some reason they could see what would have happened to them if he hadn’t interfered. Was this something like a forceful breakthrough past the point of their death? He could only guess.
“Reyn? Reyn, c’mon.” Goten slapped the flight officer on his face. “Come out of it. Somebody has to pilot the ship.”
Reyn’s eyes blinked open. Confused, he stared at Goten, then scrunched his nose. “You stink of piss,” he said, pushing the younger male away.
The third-class rolled his eyes. “If you have time to be bothered about that, get down to piloting the damn shuttle.”
Reyn was still light-headed, but somehow managed to enter the coordinates and set the ship on autopilot. Once he did that, he slumped in his seat. In a few seconds, he turned around in his chair to watch how Goten was trying to bring Edesha around.
“Just leave him be. He’s sleeping,” Reyn muttered. He felt like taking a nap as well. There were still three hours until they got to Starcut. Sleepily, he stared at the third-class’s back. “We’ll have a talk about this once we are back,” he said.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Goten said without turning his head.
Reyn watched him humorlessly. “The fuck there isn’t,” he spat. “I’m rather grateful to you for saving my life, but I want to know what the fuck is going on.”
“Don’t just decide on your own. I didn’t d-”
“Yeah, yeah,” Reyn waved him off dismissively with his hand. He turned back to the screen. “Let’s postpone this for later. I’m too tired to put up with your bullshit now.”
ooOoOoOoo
Goten was snoozing in his bed. Sleepily, he could feel someone walking around in the room but, since he couldn’t sense any hostile intentions, he was too tired to care. The three-hour trip back to Starcut, the chaos which followed their landing, and the oral and written reports had exhausted him.The third-class woke up after eight hours of sleep. Yawning, he rubbed at his face. Feeling fresh and rested, he rolled over onto his back, his gaze sliding over the smooth metallic ceiling. Then the feeling that he wasn’t alone overtook him. He quickly raised his head. It took only a second to spot Edesha on the other bed. Puzzled, Goten stared at the sleeping soldier. Edesha was lying on his back, snoring softly, his injured arm resting on top of the covers.
The only explanation the third-class had for the occurrence was that there were not enough cabins to accommodate the sudden increase in Starcut’s population. Over were his days of kingship. His castle didn’t belong only to him anymore. But why Edesha? Wasn’t there a way to do this somehow differently?
Mulling over the fact in his head, Goten rolled out of his bed and grabbed his clothes. Just in case, he sniffed at them to assure himself that his uniform didn’t smell of piss. He had taken a shower yesterday and changed, but he didn’t trust himself not to mix his clothes up. He wondered how the Human boy was and decided to check on him later.
Goten left for the toilets and then the canteen. One look and sniff at the toilets made it clear that his latrine duty had to be performed immediately. He didn’t have time for it, though. The canteen was bustling, Humans milling about. The mood was much better, tentative smiles blossoming here and there. Not everyone was eating, actually, only the minority was. It seemed that the canteen had become a place to gather, a sort of refuge. Feeling out of place, Goten circled the counter and joined the chef with the cook in the kitchens.
“What are you feeding them?” he asked, his eyes already riffling through the pots. He had seen something on their plates, but failed to identify what it was. It was going to be problematic to provide safe and suitable food for Humans for the next five or so days until they were picked up by their kin.
“Some meat, some vegetables. Soup,” the chef said. “The usual stuff we eat. But I boiled and fried everything to the point where it’s hardly recognizable, even the salad… No casualties so far.”
“Well, yes,” Goten agreed, looking through the pots, filling his plate. “As long as it’s germ-free, it should do. They may not like it, but at least they won’t get infected. Listen, don’t we get our normal food?” he complained, eying his plate suspiciously. He nudged the boiled salad with a fork. “I don’t want this squishy thing.”
The cook snorted. “Then don’t eat it. We don’t have enough time to be double-tasking, especially not with this many additional mouths.”
“That’s true,” Goten agreed, closing his mouth around his fork. He pulled it out and chewed tentatively. “Not that bad,” he commented. “You’ll need help, a lot of it. Oh, no, no,” he shook his head at their hopeful faces, “even if I’d gladly agree, I’m supposed to look after those two in the medical room. Ask someone else.”
The chef sighed. “This is a pain in the ass. I had to go through the list of fruit and vegetables to learn which had a chemical composition that’s harmful to Humans.”
“Hmm, yeah, there are some,” Goten agreed, sitting down. He started inhaling his food. “But I don’t think we should have any of those on board. For obvious reasons.”
“True, we don’t have them.”
“So who took Edesha’s cabin?” Goten asked.
“Somebody took it?” the chef wondered. “Well, yeah, makes sense; he lived all alone in his cabin. The captain must have put him up with some other crew member.”
Goten licked at his fork with great appetite. “Yes. With me.”
Both the chef and the cook gave him incredulous looks. Goten could guess what they were thinking. He didn’t mind working with Edesha at all, but sharing a cabin was a completely different matter altogether.
“Err…makes sense,” the cook said. “To conserve space,” he added with some reluctance.
Goten shrugged. It did make sense. To one who didn’t know that he had rejected Edesha and the man was still bitter over the fact. To one who didn’t know… Or maybe the captain didn’t give two shits about these kinds of petty frictions amongst the crew.
“Have you seen Reyn around?” Goten asked.
“I think he’s still sleeping. I think I remember him complaining about a major headache before he went to bed.”
Goten didn’t say anything, but he bet he knew where the headache had come from. He finished his brunch and went to the medical room. He had intended to wash his uniform but, after checking the washing-machine, it appeared that it was already taken, a large bundle of clothing spinning inside. Once inside the medical room, Goten relieved Yereli of his watch. He took his place at Tamahi’s desk.
The number of patients had increased to five, the three wounded Humans resting on the other side of the medical room, opposite the pirates. Goten found this ironical. He had better watch that they didn’t try to kill each other off. Yereli had informed him that the unconscious Nondren hadn’t come round and that there was a good chance that he never would. The other Nondren looked much better, though. He seemed weak and exhausted, but was already half-sitting in his bed, watching Goten with dark, unfriendly eyes. The third-class rather preferred the unconscious and sleeping patients to him.
In about two hours, Adriel found Goten at his post. He had searched through nearly the entire ship until he had finally remembered about the third-class’s new duties. He felt rather sheepish about it as he had been the one to inform Goten about them.
“Hi,” he greeted the third-class. The door closed behind him and he headed straight to the desk Goten was sitting at. “We need to have a little talk,” he said softly.
“Mmm?” Goten wondered. Recently his popularity had skyrocketed. He cast a look at the patients and saw that the pirate was dozing. He doubted Humans could understand Saiyan. “About what?”
“Whose phone number is this?” Adriel asked, putting the painfully familiar paper slip on the desk.
Goten stared at it, then his eyes rose to the navigator. “I have no idea,” he said.
There was a short pause, then Adriel smiled. “Why do you keep it if you don’t know whose number this is?”
The third-class returned the hearty smile. “It’s not mine.”
“I know it’s yours.”
“But it isn’t.”
Adriel sighed. “Goten, I know it’s yours because I know who picks up the receiver. And you’re the only one on this ship who has ever had any contact with him. Don’t forget that I’ve seen your profile and know who all the reports at Hataro Officer Training School were written by.”
“You’re deeply mistaken about me being the only one here who has any connection with him. But never mind that. Why are you asking me if you know it all?”
“Oh?” But since Goten kept quiet, Adriel shrugged. “Because I’m curious. Curious about two things: first, why you have it. And second, why it was Reyn who asked me to check who the number belongs to.”
Goten stared at the accursed paper slip. He had known it was going to come back to haunt him. “Reyn, was it?”
“Yes. And since you are being so furtive about it… What should I tell Reyn?”
“Tell him it belongs to my father or something. When did he ask you to check it?”
“Yesterday. Right after you had returned from Orion. And right after threatening to write a report about me breaking into his terminal. The information he wants is the price for his silence.”
Goten sighed guiltily. “Sounds like him… Part of it is my fault. I accidentally asked whether the captain accepted his report, and then he figured out that…”
“Whatever,” Adriel cut him off. “Why do you have it?”
Goten’s lips pressed into a dash. “Because he gave it to me.”
Adriel searched his face, then Goten flushed such brilliant red that the navigator’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Oh my god,” he gasped. “It’s… Is he the boyfriend whose existence you were so doubtful about?”
Goten groaned at the phrasing, and felt his face heat up even more. He shook his head. “Of course he isn’t.”
Adriel stared at him. He wasn’t fooled. The only thing he wasn’t certain about was how much of it was Goten’s imagination and how much of it was real. “I’m rather afraid to question you more…” he admitted in a soft mutter.
Goten chuckled nervously. “I promise that it’s nothing like that. Well, it’s not that we… Well, I don’t think that... Oh, for gods’ sakes, this is only a telephone number. I asked him to keep an eye on my father and friends and…” He stopped when Adriel appeared to be more and more stunned by the second.
“You asked him?”
“Well, I did save his life twice!” Goten shot back with defensive stubbornness. “I kinda felt entitled to that! Besides, it’s not that he minded it much!”
Adriel watched the indignant third-class in shock. “Twice?” It probably wasn’t Goten’s overactive imagination after all. If it were, Goten wouldn’t be so irritated. This was obviously some kind of defense mechanism, denial of sorts. It was the prince they were talking about after all. Goten wouldn’t admit anything even if he were standing in court. Especially if he were standing in court.
They were silent for a few moments, then Adriel shrugged. It wasn’t his place to interfere, especially when it was obvious that Goten hadn’t sorted out his own thoughts concerning the whole issue either.
“Why did Reyn have it?”
“I realized that it was missing quite a while ago. He must have taken it.”
“Why?”
“How should I know? We didn’t exactly hit it off at first, so maybe he thought he’d have something against me. Or maybe he was just curious.”
“It’s probably the former. He isn’t overly nosy, but he can be a bitch to deal with once stroked the wrong way.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed that much.”
“So what will you do?”
“Nothing,” Goten muttered. It wasn’t as if he could tell Reyn to leave him alone and shut up about it. It would never work; the flight officer was good at pressuring people. He was already dreading the inevitable confrontation he and Reyn were going to have concerning all this.
TBC
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