InuYasha Fan Fiction / Cowboy Bebop Fan Fiction ❯ Space Hanyou ❯ Eight ( Chapter 8 )

Space Hanyou Chapter 8

 

 

“Um, hello?”

 

His voice sounded soft and scared even to his own ears. Inuyasha scowled, reaching out to tap the comm mic with one sharp claw. Even if he was being forced into this, there was no reason to sound like he was competing for pussy of the year.

 

“Hey, can you hear me out there? This is…uh…Bebop.”

 

A hand slapped against the back of his skull none too gently, reminding him that now wasn't the time to pull any funny stuff. “Tell them who you are,” Jet hissed menacingly, the barrel of his pistol level with Inuyasha's nose.

 

“Get that pop-gun out of my face, asshole,” he growled, wishing he had the time to holster Jet's sidearm in a place he'd bet the bounty hunter wouldn't appreciate. Stupid goddamn cowboys, why didn't they listen to him? If that was Naraku out there, this wasn't going to work. Naraku didn't play games, no, he ate people alive for the sheer pleasure of hearing them scream. If there was an easy or simple way to do something that didn't involve pain, Naraku would always choose a sly manipulation that was calculated to make the target suffer.

 

It was the number one reason he'd gone to such lengths of stealing back the Shikon in the first place. The second, of course, had been that he didn't dare let his father or brother know that he'd let her steal it from him. Damn if she hadn't been a beauty though, it was almost worth getting blasted by the old man just to have the memory of that sleek body under his hands.

 

He turned back to the mic, taking a deep breath and wondering what the hell he was supposed to say. Please don't kill us? Terms for surrender? Don't shoot these stupid fools because I already know you'll kill everyone even if they hand me over?

 

Inuyasha cleared his throat and thumbed the mic. “Uh…attacking ship, this is the Hanyou. I'm aboard so, uh, if you're trying to kill me just keep going and that's what you're gonna get…”

 

“Just great,” Faye hissed in disgust. She stalked over the console and yanked the mic away from Inuyasha. “Listen up, you bastards,” she snarled. “If you're after this white-haired punk, that's fine. Quit shooting up our ship and we'll give you the dumb son of a bitch on a platter. Twenty million ain't worth dying for!”

 

“Tactful,” Kagome murmured, a faint smile in her eyes when she turned to wink at Spike. “I can see that she probably handles all of your negotiations.”

 

“Only the ones involving money,” Spike grinned back. He rather liked the saucy wink she'd thrown at him. Made her seem much less like a cop and more like a woman.

 

“White-haired punk?” Inuyasha asked in a wounded voice. He put on his most puppyish expression and gave her a pitiful look. “Faye, I thought you liked me!”

 

“I like breathing better,” she snapped, dropping the mic in his lap. She leaned over him, not caring if he leered at her tits again, and smiled unpleasantly. “I like spending money, I like winning it even more. I like the idea of living to a ripe old age and dying filthy rich. As you're the reason I won't get to enjoy any of these things, I definitely do not like you.”

 

“That's not what you said in the corridor,” Inuyasha retorted. His pride had definitely been offended, how could the woman think this was his fault? He didn't ask them to drag his naked butt out of that whorehouse. In fact, he really missed that whorehouse right now, at least there the girls were more honest about being mercenary wenches. “You were all over me and begging for it!”

 

“I was not!”

 

“Oh yes you were,” he said, giving Spike and Jet a knowing grin. “She comes off like she's some kinda bad-ass cowboy, but when you rub her the right way…” He let his voice trail off suggestively before giving Faye a wicked smirk. “She heats up like a welding laser set for max burn.”

 

“You lying bastard,” Faye shrieked, forgetting that they were all in the process of trying to save their own lives. “I'm gonna tear your miserable tongue out!”

 

Spike made a quick dive for her as Faye lunged at Inuyasha, barely catching her around the waist in time to keep her nails from raking the Hanyou's face. She kicked and swore angrily before Spike dropped her hard on the deck. “Cool it, Faye,” he snapped, hoping this might be the one time he'd see common sense override that temper. “This isn't the time!”

 

“Fascinating as this conversation is,” a low voice drawled, “it serves no purpose other than to confirm to me that the Hanyou is definitely aboard your ship.”

 

“Shit,” Inuyasha muttered. “I left the damn comm open, didn't I?”

 

Jet ground his teeth together, aching to beat the punk's head against the deck until his blood painted Bebop's hull. Of all the stupid morons in the universe, he just had to pick up the stupidest one of them all. He reached over Inuyasha's shoulder to close the comm. His hand was shaking from the massive self-control it took to not throttle their bountyhead and he slowly tightened his grip on the back of Inuyasha's chair until everyone in the command station heard the sound of plastic buckling.

 

“Tell me something, Hanyou,” Jet muttered darkly as he met Spike's concerned expression. “Does everyone you meet want to kill you this badly?”

 

~~oOo~~

 

The young woman who sat at the control console had the appearance of a young child, and although she had often been mistaken for a child, one look into her lifeless black eyes was enough to destroy the illusion forever. She never smiled, she rarely spoke, and when she did her voice was hardly more than a hollow whisper. And no child would ever run weapons and tactical for a gunship.

 

“They've shut down the communications,” she murmured, her small, pallid fingers dancing over the boards. “Their hull integrity is down to eighty-five percent. Ship's systems have probably sealed off the cracks as best as they can, but I detect serious damage to their environmental and life support. Engines have shut down, they're running on their emergency backups. Best estimate would be forty-five, maybe fifty minutes standard of power remaining.”

 

“And then they will start to die,” Kagura purred in satisfaction. “Thank you, Kanna. Have Bankotsu and his men on stand-by for a boarding party. We'll wait until we're sure that no one is left alive except for the Hanyou. Then we'll go in there and take him before we blow that wreck to pieces.”

 

“Do you think he'll resist?” Kanna asked, still entering data into the ship's targeting sensors.

 

“I certainly hope so,” Kagura answered, her smile becoming positively bloodthirsty. She sighed happily, stretching out her lean legs as she anticipated the pleasure of the upcoming kill. “I want an excuse to use as much force with him as possible.”

 

And once he was safely aboard and in her ungentle hands, Kagura had every intention of enjoying the interrogation. Inuyasha was a delicious specimen to play with, she'd actually been fantasizing about it ever since Naraku had sent them on this mission. There had to be some kind of compensation for this dangerous and usually unrewarding work.

 

As if it had been tracking her thoughts, her private comm line gave a muted beep. Kanna didn't hesitate or give Kagura a moment to collect her thoughts, she simply put through the shielded signal and ignored the grimace of annoyance from her captain.

 

A tiny screen unfolded at her elbow and Kagura breathed a quick sigh of gratitude. At least it wasn't him. “Kohaku,” she said pleasantly, recognizing the young man as Naraku's most trusted subordinate. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

 

“Naraku wants status,” the boy answered, his voice sullen and yet emotionless. The corner of Kagura's mouth twitched involuntarily, realizing that by having Kohaku make contact with her, Naraku was reminding her of what it would cost her if she ever became disloyal.

 

She raised her finger at Kanna to let the girl know to dump their files onto Naraku's secure channel. That way the manipulating bastard would know everything she'd been doing and everything she knew. No secrets from her employer, Kagura enjoyed her life too much to risk it.

 

“I'd estimate about another hour or so before we board,” she said easily. “Tell Naraku I will not fail him. As soon as I have the Hanyou in my custody, I'll make him spill every secret he's got locked away in that pretty white head of his. Even,” she smirked knowingly, “where he's hidden the Shikon no Tama.”

 

There, that for Naraku and his spies. If he thought she was stupid enough to not guess the reason behind her employer's hunt for this particular fugitive, he was indeed growing too complacent. Kagura didn't like being kept in the dark and she didn't like being sent blindly into a fight. Too often she was the one taking the damage that should have been reserved for Naraku himself.

 

“Naraku wants him alive and undamaged,” Kohaku said bluntly, hardly disturbed by her carefully calculated remarks. “The Shikon is not your mission, the Hanyou is.” The boy hesitated, his eyes glazing over slightly as the electronics inside his head demanded his attention with their own subversive signals. The boy's mouth twisted as if in pain for a moment and then his expression smoothed.

 

“Naraku says that you can play with him all you want, after you've successfully completed your mission and brought him in. Naraku wants to interrogate him personally.” The boy's voice tightened with revulsion. “You get what's left.”

 

“Bastard,” Kagura breathed as the channel suddenly closed. Her hand was trembling slightly as she reached out and shut the miniature screen. If she recalled Naraku's interrogation technique, there wouldn't be enough left of Inuyasha to play with. She shuddered, remembering the icy cold voice of her master when she'd been the one under his questioning. He could break anyone, even a hanyou, and he'd be begging for death long before Naraku was finished.

 

“What a pity,” she murmured, shaking of the ghosts of old pain. “I think you would have preferred my methods, Inuyasha. Naraku has no sense of fun.”

 

~~oOo~~

 

“The ship is called The White Feather,” Inuyasha said quietly. “Her captain is a woman named Kagura and she definitely works for Naraku.”

 

“You sure?” Spike asked as he lit a cigarette. The smoke pooled around his head like a halo and he leaned against the wall as if he didn't have a care in the world. “You only heard her voice for a couple seconds.”

 

The Hanyou snorted bitterly. “I wish I was wrong, but I know it was her. I know she works for Naraku because he'd never let her work for anyone else. Believe me, she hates his guts almost as much as I do, but she won't cross him.”

 

Major Higurashi was pacing uneasily around the room, her hands idly playing with her stun wand as she did so. Inuyasha watched her somewhat cautiously, wondering when she'd give him another zap. Damn sadistic fed, he thought, watching as she turned and walked away from him. Too bad she had such a nice ass.

 

“You sound like you know this Kagura rather well,” Higurashi said in a cool tone. “Why is that? Don't tell me she's one of your former conquests?”

 

Inuyasha laughed harshly, leaning back on the couch and linking his fingers together behind his head. “No way, babe. Not that fucking bitch, she's got tastes too kinky for even me. Some people like to play games with pain, believe me, she's the real thing.” He smiled to himself and closed his golden eyes. “Great body though, like you, her personality gets in the way.”

 

“Pig,” Faye muttered under her breath. She wasn't going to forgive him for what he'd said earlier, oh hell no. He'd been the one pursuing her, not the other way around.

 

Ever since he'd woken up in Bebop's holding cell, he'd been sniffing after her like he was a dog in heat. Persistent and lewd, he really wasn't her type at all. She liked rich men, dumb and good-looking guys who'd let her spend their money. Not lying outlaws who were being hunted by a psycho and had so many crimes on his record that it would make a sex offender blush.

 

But damn it, he knew how to kiss a woman so that it made her knees go weak. It wasn't worth giving up twenty million or her life, but Faye wasn't going to let herself think about what it might be worth.

 

Jet rubbed his head with an air of desperate distraction. Crippled, life support failing, a hulking gunship with a pain-crazy bitch captain…they'd been in some tight spots before but damned if he was just going to curl into a ball and die. The marshal's pacing was starting to wear on his nerves too. His eyes were drawn to her as she restlessly circled the deck, her soft features drawn into hard lines of concentration. If they could just fire up the engines long enough to make a break for it, he was sure he could make the auxiliary batteries do things far beyond their specs.

 

If the hull didn't crack.

 

If the environmental units would keep functioning.

 

If that damn flying cannon outside didn't blast them to little pieces when he tried to fire the Bebop to life. There had to be some way to fool the fucking…

 

It hit him like an impact bullet, entering with all the force of a cosmic storm and shattering inside his mind like the flash of a dying star. It was insane, but he was used to crazies by now and if it wouldn't have wasted their time, he'd have kicked himself for not thinking of it earlier. Then he couldn't blame himself at all. He was a practical man, someone on Bebop had to be, and he was used to thinking about what he had available.

 

It wasn't every day he had a federal marshal's fucking passcodes at his disposal.

 

“Major,” he rumbled, catching all their attention with his defiant grin. “We need to have a little talk.”

 

~~oOo~~

 

“Okay, Ed,” Spike said with a grin. “You understand what you're supposed to do, right?”

 

She just giggled at him, finally falling over on her side with her legs kicking in the air. “Ed knows,” she said, her eyes twinkling with mischief. “Ed can do it, no problem!”

 

“Eh, buddy,” Inuyasha said doubtfully. “You really sure she understands?” The kid was cute as hell, but he had a hard time picturing the hyperactive, and slightly creepy, girl as being the master hacker her shipmates said she was. In fact, he had a hard time picturing her sitting in one spot long enough to take a pee.

 

“Don't worry,” Spike said, enjoying the Hanyou's uncomfortable doubts. “If she can't, we all die anyway. What have we got to lose?”

 

The plan was amazingly simple when you looked at it on the surface. Spike was actually rather impressed that Jet even thought it up. There was no way that this Kagura woman could know that Major Higurashi was aboard. Her and her blasted passcodes.

 

“First thing,” Jet said, “we know they aren't going to fire unless we give them a reason. They aren't looking outside, they rely on their systems just the same as we do. Right now all they're doing is broadcasting a wide-band jammer to make sure we can't call anyone for help. That's what we got to work with.”

 

“So we're being jammed,” Faye said sullenly. “We know that, Jet. We have to get off this damn ship before…”

 

“Shut it, Faye,” Jet warned, shaking a finger at her. She scowled at him, more prickly than usual and definitely not looking at the Hanyou. He sighed to himself, promising once again that if he'd just be allowed to live a bit longer, he'd have that talk with her about her selfish ways. Damn her anyway, she knew better than to get personally involved in a bounty.

 

“Inuyasha,” he said politely, it hurt, but it was politely. “Tell us what you know about that ship's jamming capabilities.”

 

The Hanyou scratched absently at his ear. “It's a simple mirror-system,” he said at last. “If Kanna is still running tactical analysis for her, that's the only system she trusts.”

 

“What's a mirror system?” Higurashi asked quietly. “I've never heard of it.”

 

“Thought you feds were up on your hardware,” Inuyasha sneered. “She uses our own output signal against us. We transmit, she reflects it back and shoves it right down our throats. Don't you know anything about electronics that don't involve causing pain?”

 

Kagome flushed. “I know enough,” she spat. “I know that a jammer doesn't do a damn thing to disable that thing's guns.”

 

“No,” Jet said easily, stepping between the criminal and the law. “But it does give us something to work with. She's also using that mirror to monitor our systems. Works better than standard scan, as long as she's using it, they won't be looking for anything else.”

 

“Passcodes,” Spike said suddenly, a smile lighting his eyes. “Federal law enforcement passcodes to override Bebop's systems.”

 

“All right, Spike,” Jet said gruffly. “You're paying attention. With the major's codes, Ed can go into Bebop's systems and set up a dummy signal. That will be what we're putting out, that bitch will think we're just broadcasting a mayday beacon.”

 

“So?” Higurashi didn't look amused that her codes were being used to alter the ship's system and fake a distress call. But she'd already conceded that if they wanted to live for a few more hours, she'd have to allow them to be used. And if getting out of this alive meant that she kept Inuyasha and his secrets out of Naraku's grip, it was definitely defined as a lawful usage.

 

“While she's reading that false signal,” Jet continued with a wicked gleam in his eyes, “I'll be hard at work getting the engines to fire manually. They weren't damaged by the attack, but they went into cold shut down when the hull cracked.”

 

“How long does the start up sequence take?” Kagome asked seriously.

 

Jet grimaced. “Four hours by designer checklist specs.”

 

“We don't have four hours,” Inuyasha exploded. “You think Kagura doesn't know how much time this piece of shit has left?”

 

Moving surprisingly quickly for a man his size, Jet darted across the room and seized Inuyasha by his red vest and dragged him to his feet. “The next time you call my Bebop a piece of shit, I'm going to make you clean the san unit with your tongue,” he growled.

 

“And it's your ass we're saving from a long, slow death by torture,” Spike reminded him in a hard voice. “Be grateful we don't shove your ungrateful face out the airlock and make a run for it. I bet they'd have no problem deciding between you and us.”

 

“Was that really an option?” Faye asked. Inuyasha turned a glare on her as he broke Jet's grip. Stubborn bastard didn't have to take offense like that, he was just stating a fact. His golden eyes followed Faye from across the room. Just like every other woman, this one didn't mind selling him out to save her skin.

 

But it still hurt somewhere deep inside his heart. He hated that feeling of betrayal and worthlessness. His older brother had always told him that he was unworthy to be their father's son, that he was just a failed experiment. For years he'd been convinced that his mother had abandoned him, abandoned the genetic research she'd been hired to do, and left her half-breed child alone in a world that didn't want him. He'd thought she'd hated him, tossed him away like he meant nothing more to her than a lab animal. That was what his brother thought of him anyway.

 

By the time he'd learned the truth, it had been too late for him to change what he'd become and too late to save her life.

 

“Okay,” Jet said, surveying his small and motley group. “Major, I'll need you to take ops. If Ed runs into a problem with your codes, you're the only one that might have a shot at helping her. Faye, I want you to monitor that other ship.” He spread his hands helplessly. “You don't have much to work with because of the jamming, but the cameras are working and some of the secondary sensors. If she fires up her guns, you need to let me know immediately.”

 

“I can handle it,” she said quietly. She knew her face was still red and hoped they all thought it was just bad temper. Not that she didn't have reason to be pissed, but she honestly hadn't meant to suggest that they throw Inuyasha out the airlock. Spike had actually said it, but handing him over to these people was nothing less than cold-blooded murder.

 

“I'll be in the engine core,” Jet continued. “That's why we can do this. Manual start up sequence takes exactly one hour. We have forty minutes of emergency power. Then the blowers shut off, the scrubbers quit and we all start to suffocate. I can give them a little boost as I start to bring the engines online, but not by much.”

 

“What do you want me to do?” Spike asked, taking one last drag on his smoke. Talking about suffocation had ruined his enjoyment of it anyway.

 

Jet grinned. “You two,” he said, indicating Inuyasha along with Spike. “You get to take a little walk outside. You need to weld a patch on that breach or we could all just shake apart when I have to make a hard burn. We'll need to do that to get away from our friends outside.”

 

“It had better be a hard acceleration,” Kagome murmured. “Otherwise we'll be an easy target. If we catch them off guard and run as fast as this ship can, we might have a chance.”

 

“There's just one problem,” Jet said. This was the hard part. “You'll need to seal the welds from the inside of the breach or our life support won't come back online when we need it. You can't get to it from inside, the ship's emergency bulkheads can't be reset until we get to a repair port. One of you guys needs to slip through that narrow breach, the other will weld the exterior plates.”

 

“Doesn't sound too bad,” Spike said, raising his eyebrow at the scowling Hanyou. “Why the long face, Jet?”

 

He hated to tell him, he really did. Serious now, Jet leaned his arm on the back of the sofa and looked down at Inuyasha, then back at Spike. “Whoever goes inside has to stay inside and find some way to strap themselves down before we run. It's hard vacuum in there now, no pressurized atmosphere, no nothing.

 

Faye had decided that she didn't believe in much, but she believed Jet when he was this serious. “What's going to happen?” she whispered.

 

“A pressure suit won't hold up under those conditions,” Spike answered. It was a really simple matter. “And that breach is too narrow to wear something that might protect the body. Ever throw a ripe tomato against a wall as hard as you can?”

 

Faye's eyes widened and even Ed was silent. No gravity to slow the ride, no acceleration couches to cushion a body's joints and bones against the force that was going to be crushing it into the bulkhead. The only chance was that he'd be able to bolt himself down to the environmental piping, hoping that the stress didn't tear him or the irreplaceable life support components apart.

 

“Well,” Spike said, grinning for no reason at all. “I can't say how I'm going to feel afterwards, but it won't be the first time I've had the hell kicked out of me. It will be the first time that a ship does the kicking.”

 

There was no way around it, he had to be the one. He'd had a feeling from the beginning where this was heading and Spike was the kind of guy who liked to take risks, especially if it meant fucking over someone else's sadistic plans.

 

Too bad he wasn't going to get to do it. Inuyasha stood up and stretched lazily, wishing to hell that he'd stayed at the bar and got drunk with Miroku instead of chasing after a woman with dark and lying eyes.

 

He fixed Spike with a belligerent scowl and bared his teeth in a grin that had nothing to do with humor and everything to do with survival.

 

“Hey, asshole,” he said, gloating a little that someone was going to owe him for this one. “Who says you get to have all the fun?”

 

 

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