InuYasha Fan Fiction / Cowboy Bebop Fan Fiction ❯ Space Hanyou ❯ Nine ( Chapter 9 )

A/N: Been a long time since I updated this one…hope someone is still reading it!

 

 

Space Hanyou 09

 

 

“You sure you wanna do this?” Spike asked doubtfully as he suited up. Somehow he just couldn't rest easy knowing that his life and the lives of everyone aboard were resting on this devious punk's ability.

 

“Fuck no, I don't wanna do this,” Inuyasha snapped, pulling on a pair of heavy leather welding gloves. He yanked hard and his claws came out the fingertips like razors. “I'm not suicidal either!”

 

“Could have fooled me,” the bounty hunter muttered, zipping the seals that kept his EVA suit airtight. Inuyasha wasn't going to wear one, didn't need it, so he said. Spike wasn't sure he could trust a guy that claimed to be able to swim naked in hard vacuum. But he liked even less that Higurashi implied the Hanyou would survive even after life support cut out and Bebop's hull was opened to space.

 

If this little trick failed, they would all perish quite soon. Inuyasha didn't seem to be concerned so much with their survival as his own. Even if he lived after having the ship blown out from under him, he'd have nowhere to run. That flying cannon of a gunship outside was hot after his ass and he had nothing to gain but a long, painful death by torture if they failed.

 

Spike didn't trust much in this world, but he trusted a man…or hanyou…to look after his own survival first. Which meant this insane scheme of Jet's might just work.

 

“Here,” Faye said, tossing Inuyasha a breather mask. It was good for doing repairs in tight spaces where the ship's environmental might not be stable. Cold places, dark places too where the friendly touch of oxygen life support didn't reach. Inuyasha fit the mask over his mouth and nose, scowling a bit when the pickup didn't reach his ears.

 

Faye grinned and pulled out a small clip to secure the headset to one of the Hanyou's pointed ears. “It's gonna pinch a bit,” she said as he glared at her. “But you need to be able to talk to Spike and Jet. If you can't seal your side of the breach, then we're all dead if we try to run.”

 

Inuyasha said something, his breath misting the clear plastic of the mask. Scowling, Faye fiddled with the comm, holding the loose end of the headset up to her ear. “Spike, you hear me?”

 

“Yeah,” he answered. Curious, he turned to look at Inuyasha when she repeated the question. Nothing.

 

The Hanyou nodded and tapped his ear, then the faceplate of his mask. Faye sighed and reached for it. “You can hear us, but we can't hear you,” she said as she slipped it off. “Must be a faulty wire or…”

 

Without a word, Inuyasha grabbed hold of Faye's shoulders and covered her mouth with a fast kiss. Spike stood silently as she struggled, making high-pitched whines of protest as their prisoner continued his oral assault. He couldn't tell if the damn fool was trying to suffocate her or just kiss Faye until she collapsed in a heap. Either way, they were wasting valuable time.

 

Inuyasha's hands slid down her arms, locking around her wrists as she tried to hit him. He pinned her easily to the bulkhead, his lips nipping and sucking at her own. Faye felt dizzy, finding it harder and harder to fight him. Why is he doing this, she wondered, feeling her knees getting weak. Now isn't the time to make a pass, is he insane?

 

Is this a kiss goodbye?

 

Against her will, her arms lifted to curve around him. And wasn't it deserved, he was going to take the huge risk of staying in the environmental pod, enduring all the gravity Bebop's mass would produce at a hard burn. Strong as he swore he was, he might not survive…

 

“Nice,” Inuyasha murmured, breaking their kiss with a moist lick to her upper lip. Faye's vision swam a bit as he touched her cheek, sliding his hand into her hair. “I knew you liked me just a little.”

 

She was about to answer that when he suddenly slid her headband off and turned away. “Thanks, sweetheart,” he said, grinning wickedly as he used it to tie his silvery hair in a ponytail. “Null-g is a bloody nightmare when you've got long hair.”

 

Her face flushed instantly, realizing there was nothing wrong with his comm, nothing more to his kiss than just a distraction. Once again he'd played her, toying with her for his own amusement. This time he wouldn't go unpunished either!

 

Faye covered her face with her hands so he couldn't see her face. Her shoulders shook with fury, but it wasn't hard fake weakness as she slid down the bulkhead. “You're such a bastard,” she said, her voice breaking.

 

Inuyasha stepped back, confused. “Hey, honey,” he said, concerned. “Don't get so worked up. I didn't mean anything by it.”

 

“That's the problem,” she said, still hiding behind her hands. “Everything is just a joke for you, isn't it?”

 

“Uh, Inuyasha,” Spike said uncomfortably as the Hanyou knelt beside the crying woman. “I wouldn't…”

 

It was too late. As soon as Inuyasha touched her shoulder, his expression contrite, Faye looked up and punched him as hard as she could. Surprised, Inuyasha fell on his ass, staring up at her as she got to her feet with a grim smile. Faye's eyes glittered dangerously as she loomed over him, her fists clenched.

 

“Keep your goddamn hands off of me,” she bit out furiously. “I hope you enjoyed that little kiss because it's probably the last one you'll ever have. When we get away from those bastards outside, I hope there's not enough left of you to scrape off the walls with a sponge!”

 

She stormed out of the room, her angry footfalls echoing off the metal walls. Inuyasha rubbed his jaw and blotted away a trickle of blood from his lip. He sighed dejectedly like he hadn't deserved such abuse and pulled himself to his feet. Spike only shrugged and picked up his helmet, locking it into place as Inuyasha picked up his discarded mask.

 

“Is she always like that?” he asked, fiddling with the clip on his ear.

 

The lanky bounty hunter grinned at the hanyou's depressed tone. “Most of the time. I'd say you got off easy. Faye's more likely to shoot someone when she's that pissed off.”

 

Inuyasha grinned. “But she sure is damn pretty when she's mad.” His golden eyes narrowed slightly, considering. “All sugar and vinegar, I like that.”

 

From what Spike could tell, there wasn't much about women that Inuyasha didn't like. And considering that it was Faye, he had to give the guy points for persistency. Or stupidity…you didn't get points for being too damn dumb to know when you didn't have a shot. Kinda like this half-crazy plan of Jet's, which wasn't going to work, but they still had to try.

 

A smart man knew when the odds were against him. A man who wanted to stay alive didn't always have to option to be smart.

 

He sighed and thumbed his comm. “Jet, we're ready to step outside.”

 

oOo

 

“Jet, we're ready to step outside.”

 

“Got it, Spike.” A pause. “Good luck.”

 

Crackling static answered him and Jet heard the manual release on the airlock start to cycle. Down in the belly of the ship, he was starting to sweat as he tried to ease BeBop's engines back to life.

 

Pressure gauges, the acrid tang of oil and cold machinery, it was the last place he wanted to be when there was a gunship outside. He could see his breath mist in the air and disappear, a place too cold and dry to have condensation survive for more than a micro. BeBop wasn't going anywhere without his help, it was his job to breathe more than mist. He had to breathe life back into this ship.

 

“Systems up and running,” he muttered into the comm, letting Higurashi and Faye know he was making progress. Now that he had her engine computers back up, they could start to talk to each other and begin the slow drag back to life. One thing was for sure; he was seriously going to ask for more money on this bounty.

 

That damned flying cannon out there had knocked a hole in BeBop's skin, knocked a hole in his pride too. He wanted to have a few minutes with this Kagura woman, preferably a few minutes with an impact pistol or the Major's stun wand. He had seen less scrupulous cowboys try to poach a bounty before and he'd been on the receiving end of that tactic more than once.

 

That was why you always watched your back and you always had an alternate plan. Whether in a dark alley or in the dark of space, you didn't let someone get the drop on you. Hell. No.

 

But to blast open the side of a ship, kill the crew and maybe the bounty head just to make a snatch like that? Jet smiled grimly to himself as he primed engine one by hand, letting the fuel seep into the cold recesses of the machinery. No, they weren't dealing with rival cowboys and he was damned sure even Inuyasha would prefer federal lockup to what was waiting for them out there.

 

When they got out of this, hell, if they got out of it, he was going to have a talk with some of his enforcement buddies about this Kagura and this Naraku asshole. They sounded as bloodthirsty as any Syndicate he'd ever heard of and if there was bounty available for either of their miserable hides, he was going to take it.

 

“Take it as payment down,” he grunted, the lights of Bebop's systems winking in the darkness like a promise. “Way I figure, I got me some restitution coming for this damage. They're gonna regret they day they ever came after Bebop!”

 

oOo

 

Kagome leaned over the console, trying to watch everything at once. Her pass codes had been entered, the strange kid kept giggling to herself as her fingers danced. Across the room, Faye was watching the sensors, muttering to herself as she keyed from one outside camera to the other. The White Feather hadn't fired again or given any evidence of attack. In her left ear, she heard the urgent trill of a mayday signal, broadcasting Bebop's call signs and location with an almost desperate cry.

 

She touched a switch, watching the numbers roll by as Bebop reported that her beacon was active on all frequencies. If any enforcement or legitimate shipping craft picked up that signal, they were required to boost it and log the distress situation immediately. There was still a chance that a deep space cruiser might be listening, even a chance that it would come running to their rescue.

 

“Ed,” she said softly, “are we still being jammed?”

 

“Oh, yes,” the girl said cheerfully, spinning circles in her chair. “Jammed up, jammed down!” She giggled again and the small dog gave a placid yip. Higurashi sighed, realizing the kid had no clue how close to death they really were. She'd embedded a program into the mayday signal, supposedly feeding data back into the stream without that gunship's knowledge. Kagome just hoped it was working, with the firepower that monster seemed to have; they couldn't take another direct hit.

 

“Can you tell if they're getting our signal?” she asked, too worried to help herself.

 

The girl turned a toothy grin on her. “Ed knows what she's doing,” she chirped. “They see Bebop's beacon, nothing else!”

 

“You might as well believe her,” Faye said in a glum voice. “Kid never makes sense half the time, but when it comes to computers…” She shrugged and fished around for a cigarette, lighting it and exhaling blue smoke into command center.

 

Kagome raised an eyebrow in a graceful arch. “And you trust her with your life? What about your crewmates?”

 

Faye shrugged. “I don't trust anyone but myself, marshal. But if there's a way to get us out of here, Jet will do it. And Spike's too tough to go down without a fight. If there's a chance in hell of this working, they can pull it off.”

 

“The question being if there's a chance at all,” Kagome returned. The aux batteries were being depleted at an alarming rate. It wouldn't be long until all hope of escape vanished in the deep dark of space. It was time to make decisions, however unpleasant. “You do realize that if worse gets to worst, I can't let the Hanyou fall into their hands.”

 

Faye's eyes narrowed. She didn't want to talk about Inuyasha, not after what he'd just pulled. But curiosity got the better of her and she stubbed out her cigarette on the console. Jet hated that, hated cleaning ash out of the boards, but right now she didn't give a damn. “What are you going to do about it? If he can survive having this hull opened while we all suffocate, you're not going to be able to keep them from doing whatever they want.”

 

Higurashi slipped a small control from her belt and contemplated it grimly. “The collar will take care of it,” she said quietly. “I'll detonate it myself, if necessary.”

 

Breath hissing between her teeth, Faye sat up a little straighter. “That's murder,” she said, revulsion in her voice. “You can't just blow the guy's head apart!”

 

The marshal shook her head, a sober expression on her face. “If I have to. The explosives are strong enough to take out the ship as well. There's a chance they won't wait for us to die, Faye. I have no intention of being taken alive by anyone working for Naraku.”

 

“Whoa, wait a minute!” Faye's eyes snapped furiously as she confronted Higurashi. “I'm not ready to die, screw that! At least give us the chance to get off the damn ship! We can make a run for it and…”

 

“And run where?” Kagome's voice was a hard sneer. “You're a fool if you think they'd let any of us get away. They're after the Hanyou, but Naraku doesn't leave witnesses. And if he thinks that any of us might be used as leverage to get the Hanyou to give up his secrets, have no illusions for your own survival.”

 

Faye groaned and covered her face, wiping her hair back from her cheeks. Touching the loose strands, her lips thinned in annoyance. What a prick, to have dragged them all into such a mess. Next time she saw Inuyasha, she was going to kick him into the next sector. If they lived that long.

 

“What did he do anyway?” she heard herself mutter. “I saw his sheet, it didn't say anything him being this dangerous. Just piracy and smuggling, violent crimes, and sex offenses, nothing else. How does he rate this kind of attention, even from feds?”

 

 

Kagome pursed her lips, looking somewhat anxious as she watched their power levels descend. “It's not his record that made him a target, even if it is extensive. It because of who he is…and what he is, and what he knows that makes him valuable. Naraku will stop at nothing to gain this information. As soon as we found out what Inuyasha had done, we knew we'd have to keep him out of Naraku's hands.”

 

“So what did he do?” In spite of herself, Faye was fascinated. Feds after him, but not for his crimes? That was a new one, but she'd thought it was suspicious when Higurashi had insisted on boarding. Jet thought she was just another high-handed fed, intent on bringing in a notorious criminal for her own advancement. It seemed like there was more to the story. Not that Inuyasha's story wasn't already pretty unbelievable, who the hell bought that crap about a space youkai pirate when…

 

“Hey,” she said, rounding the console to stand in front of the marshal. “That crap about his father, it's true?”

 

The major didn't blink. “Yes. The pirate Inutaisho is very real, and Inuyasha would be very valuable if we were able to get information about his father. But…” Kagome's voice faded and she bit her lips, obviously struggling with some inner decision.

 

“But that's not the reason you're really here,” Faye said, knowing that they'd been conned from the beginning. “Come on, let me in on it. I knew that little snot was hiding something with all his smutty comments.”

 

“Faye likes Inuyasha,” Ed chimed in, having been unusually quiet until now. Faye leveled a death glare at the young girl who was grinning so hard her face looked like it would crack.

 

“I do not!”

 

“Does so!” Ed spun her chair, Ein yipping excitedly when Faye grabbed at the girl. “Faye kissed Inuyasha and she liked it!”

 

“You little brat!”

 

“Enough!” Kagome didn't have to shout, but her voice cut the air like a lash. “I'll tell you what's so important, but you have to back me if it comes down to dying before we let Naraku's men get their hands on him.”

 

“I can't promise anything like that,” Faye said coldly. She shrugged her shoulders and checked the monitors. “There's nothing I consider worth dying for.”

 

She jumped when she felt Higurashi's hand on her shoulder. Surprised, she met the other woman's dark eyes and shivered at her words. “Inuyasha claims to be half youkai alien, but that's not exactly true. His mother was a famous scientist, known for her work in bio-engineering. She went missing years before his birth and was assumed to have been killed when her laboratory was attacked by anti-genetic research terrorists.”

 

“So what?” Faye blurted out. “He said she was dead.”

 

“She is,” Kagome said, her voice hard. “But she wasn't killed in that attack, instead she was rescued by Inutaisho. In exchange for his protection, we believe she agreed to work for him. One of her experiments just happens to be her son.”

 

“What?” Faye was confused; she'd assumed that this mysterious alien might have fallen in love with a human, if Inuyasha's story was true. A bit of romantic space flot, but hardly worth dying for.

 

“And another aspect of her specialized research was in biological weapons technology,” Kagome said quietly, watching other woman's eyes widen. “As I'm sure you're aware, bio-weapons are outlawed in all sectors of civilized space.”

 

Kagome dropped her hand and turned away. “A few months back, there was intelligence that Inutaisho had perfected her research. We weren't sure of the nature of this weapon, or how it works, but the information came to us when we found that a human programmer at his research base had possibly been suborned by Naraku and stolen the research.”

 

Faye's face was pale. She'd heard horror stories about what bio-weapons could do. Rewrite the victims' DNA; turn them into mindless zombies, suicide warriors. Or just turn their bodies into living bombs, with the victim being unaware of their deadly fate. They could mutate populations at will; bring entire systems under the domination of whoever controlled the virus.

 

“That's sick,” she murmured. “But you said it was stolen, how do you know that Naraku doesn't have it?”

 

“Because Inuyasha caught up with the programmer before Naraku could,” Kagome said, her voice low as she ran a fingertip over the dirty edge of the console. “I believe he might have persuaded her to hand over the program and destroy the research she'd stolen. All we know for sure is that Naraku didn't get what he wanted and I intend to keep it that way.”

 

“So he has it on him?” Faye didn't believe it for a minute. She leaned on the console and looked Higurashi directly in the eye. “I hate to break it to you, you're wasting your time. Spike and Jet caught him bare-ass naked and passed out in a whorehouse. He's got nothing but the clothes on his back.”

 

“Are you so sure?”

 

“Hell, we aren't amateurs,” Faye said, getting angry at the implied insult they couldn't even search a prisoner. “They scoped him end to end before they brought him in, believe me, he's not hiding anything. Even if he'd swallowed a data cube, they'd have seen it in his body!”

 

Higurashi gave her a pitying look that only made Faye angrier. “The Shikon no Tama is something which cannot be contained like simple data. It's far more extensive and expressed in biological equations. From what I know, Kikyou destroyed all the research when she smuggled the program from Inutaisho's laboratory. She might have been trying to protect it, or just wanted to have the exclusive possession of the information.”

 

“So you don't know that she was working for this Naraku?”

 

“We assumed so,” Kagome answered quietly. “But if that were the case I think that we wouldn't be having this conversation. For whatever reason, she destroyed the research and escaped with the results. Perhaps she feared Inutaisho's motives, they aren't clear. All I am certain of is that Inuyasha still possesses the information and now Naraku will stop at nothing to have it.”

 

At Faye's blank stare, Kagome sighed and ran her hand through her hair. “I'm not here to kill him, Faye,” she said softly. “I want to help him. If his father has really perfected something so deadly, I want it in the hands of the proper authorities. They can study it, find a way to reverse engineer it so it's no longer a threat.”

 

She was surprised when Faye laughed, her voice harsh against the metal walls. Ed looked up, having ignored most of the conversation until now and Ein whined at her feet. Kagome stiffened as the other woman wiped her eyes and glared at her.

 

“What's so damn funny?” she demanded.

 

Faye didn't consider herself to be a fool. For the most part, she didn't give a damn about politics, concerning herself with survival first. But she wasn't ignorant either and she'd never been one to believe blindly in the powers that be. “You must be some kind of idiot,” she snickered, waving a palm at Kagome. “A real by the book believer if you think that the government would just sit on a weapon like that.”

 

Kagome didn't answer, but met her eyes steadily. “I'd trust them before I'd trust Naraku. Lesser of two evils, wouldn't you say? Or three evils if you include Inutaisho and his forces. Faced with a weapon that could potentially wipe out humanity, who would you trust?”

 

“I wouldn't trust anyone,” Faye muttered, turning away to look at the display screens. Nothing indicated that the White Feather was doing anything other than waiting for them to die. She hoped it was so; it looked like their chances were getting slimmer by the minute. Now that she knew what Inuyasha was involved in, it scared her right down to her bones.

 

They were all probably going to die, her best bet would be to sneak down to the hangar deck and try to get out on her own. Maybe once the shooting started, if Jet didn't get the engines fired up, while that gunship was intent on tearing them apart. Hopefully before Higurashi blew Inuyasha's brains to space dust, she might have a chance to slip away…

 

“You didn't say where he has it,” Faye said suddenly. If she knew, she might be able to buy a little safety later on. Surely any information might be worthwhile if she had to spill her guts under federal interrogation. She wasn't going to consider anything else…nowhere to run this time.

 

Kagome sighed, sitting down in Jet's chair to cross her legs and fold her hands across her thighs. “I told you, it couldn't be contained by the usual storage methods. Inuyasha is a hanyou; his parents engineered their own genes to create him. What they felt for each other, if anything, is irrelevant. His body is different, it's possible he was able to absorb the programming…biologically.”

 

Faye's head was starting to hurt; she felt the onset of a real migraine coming. Her mind didn't want to wrap around all this information. And she didn't want to know about it. Strangely enough, she felt a passing sympathy for Inuyasha. Created like that, growing up as an experiment, and now pressed with the containment of a deadly weapon…wouldn't it shake anyone to the core? Make them act out of desperation, clutching at any way to lie, seduce or fight their way out of this trap?

 

That was something she could understand. She'd do the same thing in his place.

 

“So it's…inside him somewhere?” What kind of a father would do something like that, turn his son into a living experiment and send him to recover a stolen program that made him a target for both a psychotic murderer and the government? Either of which would be happy to dissect the silver haired criminal, or carve him up alive if that's what it took to recover this weapon. They'd slice apart his brain, most likely…

 

She looked over at Higurashi, sickened by the marshal's ready acceptance of whatever fate the government intended. “How are you any better than Naraku?” she said, her voice hoarse with disgust. “They won't just lock him up, you know.”

 

Kagome flushed and looked at the floor, obviously stung by Faye's accusation. “I have to do it,” she said, sounding none too sure about her words. “I…don't want him to be killed either, but the risks of letting him go are just too great.”

 

And the same fate awaited him if they turned him over to enforcement, she realized grimly. No matter what, Inuyasha the Hanyou was screwed.

 

The comm buzzed, startling both women. Faye ground her teeth for a moment before reaching over Ed's shoulder to flip the toggle. “Faye here,” she said, clipping the words like icicles from her heart. “What's up, Jet?”

 

“Ready here,” came the tinny response. “It's go, the engines are as ready as I can make them. Has Spike reported in?”

 

“I'm here,” came a voice from the doorway. Faye spun around to see her crewmate standing in the doorway, an unlit cigarette in his mouth and his EVA helmet still under his arm. She met his eyes and realized he'd been listening to their conversation and when he turned to look at Major Higurashi, his lip curled with contempt.

 

“We're go, Jet,” he said, not taking his eyes from Kagome. “I've got the patch welded, but we're still dead if Inuyasha isn't able to seal his side of the breach.”

 

“Inuyasha?” Faye flipped the switch that connected Bebop's comm to Inuyasha's headset. “Jet's go, Spike's up here, and that ship hasn't made a move. You ready?”

 

There was a crackle of static and then everyone winced as the pickup screeched. “Yeah, ready as I can be. Got the welds as good as they're gonna get, honey. If this crate doesn't shake apart when we burn, I'll eat Ed's goggles.”

 

No one smiled, Faye and Spike still staring at Higurashi until Jet spoke. “Okay, kid,” the gruff voice said. “Strap yourself down, this is probably gonna hurt.”

 

“He's sacrificing himself to give us a chance,” Faye suddenly hissed, gripping the console as she glared at Higurashi. “And you'd turn him in, you fucking bitch.”

 

Kagome didn't flinch. “At least I'd do it out of duty, not to make a bounty head.” She leveled a cold stare at Spike and Faye. “Don't worry, I'll see that you get paid. I wouldn't dream of standing in the way of your reward.”

 

Faye gasped, her eyes shimmering with outrage until Spike stepped up and gripped her shoulder with a firm hand. “Nothing we can do about,” he said, his calm voice dropping into the painful tension like a blow. “Faye, let it go.”

 

“You assholes gonna do this or not?” Inuyasha's voice burst from the comm speaker, but he could hear anything unless Faye pressed the pickup. “I've been waiting all damn day for this ride. Now burn it already or we're all gonna fry!”

 

“You heard the man, Jet,” Spike said, reaching across the console to route all of Bebop's systems to Jet's board in the engine room.

 

“Let's burn.”

 

 

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