jet blue, rocket red, for fashcndy
Title: jet blue, rocket red
Recipient: fashcndy
Characters: Minho, Jinwoo, Seunghoon
Rating: T
Warnings: Violence, language
Summary: Song Minho, intergalactic smuggler and occasional felon, is offered a shipment he can't refuse. Literally.
They’re twenty miles off-planet when the fuel runs out. Twenty miles, Minho learns quickly, is a long way to fall.
“Do something!” he yells, while mentally calculating the amount of impact needed to shatter bone and metal. Their safety system went offline a long time ago: Minho remembers an argument about getting it fixed quickly turning into a decision to sell the spare parts for whiskey. He grimaces. He should have saved some of the booze.
Seunghoon shakes his head, slamming buttons on the nav panel at random. “She’s not listening to me - you know how she gets when she’s empty!” He flicks a switch, and the cabin goes dark. “Oops.”
“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!” Minho screams. The ground looms closer. “Stabilizers?”
“Broken.”
“Landing gear?”
“Broken.”
“Parachutes?”
“I think,” yells Seunghoon, “we can assume from here on out that everything is broken!”
They break the clouds, and Seunghoon starts swearing in a language Minho doesn’t understand. “Just so you know,” Minho says through gritted teeth, “first thing I’m gonna do once I get to hell, find you and punch your teeth out one by one.”
“Aliens don’t go to hell,” Seunghoon says, gripping the sides of his chair for dear life, “we’re pure and innocent angels-“
“You’re ungodly freaks and I hope you die first- Fuck!”
With a rumble the size of an earthquake, Minho’s ship crashes face first into the red-rock planet.
For a long while, nothing moves but dust.
“Seunghoon?”
Silence.
“Seunghoon?”
There’s a groan.
Minho sits up, rubbing his head. His hand comes away sticky. The last doctor he saw told him that if he got another head wound he’d die from it, and that was about three head wounds ago. Minho isn’t too worried, though. He’s not that much of a risk-taker.
He stands up, grimacing at the pain in his left leg. Twisted or maybe broken - either way, that’s gonna be a bitch to walk off. Sparks dance across his vision, either from dangling wires or his broken brain. He moves across the cabin, trying not to look at the ship’s ruination. His baby’s gotten fucked up before, but never this badly. It’s gonna take a lot more credits than he has to get it right.
Seunghoon is slumped across his chair, staring at the static nav panel. He’s not bleeding, thankfully, but something’s off with his right shoulder. Minho touches it, and Seunghoon blanches.
“I fucked up the second head,” he says, pushing Minho’s hand away. “It’s gonna take even longer to grow back, if it does at all.”
For once Minho tries to hide his disgust with Seunghoon’s alien anatomy. “That… that sucks,” he says, trying on a sympathetic tone. “You okay, though? Besides the…” He gestures to Seunghoon’s head lump.
Seunghoon rolls his shoulders and winces. “It’ll get better,” he says. “Nothing’s bleeding - look at yourself, though, Jesus - but the ship’s hurt pretty bad.” He looks around. “We didn’t have the money for gas, we sure as hell don’t have the money to fix her.”
Minho sighs. “You stay here and see what you can salvage. The outpost is about ten miles from here - if I start walking now I can be there by morning.” He tries not to think about his leg, or what his hypothetical doctor would say.
“How,” says Seunghoon, “are you gonna get me my parts with no credits, no cargo, and a face like that?”
"I know a guy."
“What - Oh, no,” Seunghoon says, grimacing as it hits him, “Song, no, don't do this to me-“
Minho, despite himself, grins. "Relax. I just have a few things I gotta talk to Kang Seungyoon about."
Kang’s base, much like the smuggler himself, is a fetid pit of grime and depravity.
“Why should I help you?” Seungyoon makes the place look good, Minho has to admit. The ambiance is… lacking, unless you like hollowed out sand pits and perpetual dampness, but Seungyoon’s strange predilection for fur throws and musical antiquities give the place a certain sense of hominess.
This hominess is somewhat undermined by the gang of hulking mercenaries staring directly at Minho’s throat.
“Hey there,” Minho says winningly. The lead thug grunts.
“Why,” Kang repeats a touch louder, “should I help you, after what you did to me?”
“Come on,” says Minho, cajoling, terrified, “that was years ago.”
“That was one year and eight months ago,” Kang says. “Any guesses on how many weeks? I know.”
“I didn’t know it would break!” Minho exclaims before he can stop himself. The thugs stir at the outburst, and Minho quickly sits back in his seat. He continues, quieter: “I didn’t know, Kang, I told you.”
“You didn’t know,” Seungyoon says slowly, just as he did the last time they had this conversation, “that a twenty thousand year old glass flute from the original Mars colonies, which had been kept safe from damage in a hermetically sealed box until you brilliantly decided to show it off, would break if you were to, I don’t know, crash your ship into the side of a fucking Empire base?” He slams his hands down on his desk. A bottle of brandy rattles. Minho wants to drink that brandy.
“I mean,” he says, trying on a smile, “it did get me sent to an Empire prison for a year, that’s kind of good? For you, right? Not, uh, not for me.”
Seunghoon raises his hand for silence. Minho gulps down the rest of his explanation. He wonders if Seungyoon is going to feed him his tongue. He’s seen him do that before.
“Song,” the smuggler says after a long, long moment, “you’ve disappointed me in the past. You’ve gravely disappointed me in the past.” The word ‘grave’ lingers in the air. They both pause to contemplate it.
“But.” Minho very acutely feels his lifespan hanging off the end that syllable. “You are also not the worst smuggler I’ve ever seen.”
“Thank you,” Minho says magnanimously. Seungyoon continues on as if he hadn’t heard.
“I’m going to give you a shipment. A very small shipment. If you show me that you can complete this task,” Seungyoon spreads his hands, “I’ll give you everything you want, and more. If you fail, however…” He smiles. It’s not a good look.
Minho hesitates. “Is there… is there a way for me to get that stuff without all that?” Seungyoon’s smile vanishes. Minho fears for his life.
“Tell me,” Seungyoon asks quietly, “how is Seunghoon’s family?”
“Fuck you,” Minho snarls, unable to stop himself. Seungyoon, standing up, chuckles.
“It’s a short journey,” Seungyoon says, as if he doesn’t notice Minho’s enraged flush . He motions for one of the hulking men. “The drop-off is just a few days away, if you travel fast. Your ship is, obviously, junk, but don’t worry, I have a spare. And besides, once you get this done you’ll have enough credits to buy twenty of those junk heaps.” He smiles at Minho, cold and empty. “Do we have a deal?”
Minho doesn’t have any choice but to smile back.
The lug Seungyoon had called takes Minho out back. At first Minho thinks it’s to shoot him and dispose of the body, but it turns out he just wants to explain how to operate the new ship’s engine. Minho reminds himself to practice tolerance sometime in the future.
The ship is beautiful, an Empire hawk, not exactly top of the line but about a thousand notches above his old ship. He should feel guilty, he thinks, rubbing his hands over the smooth chrome lines, but he’s never been a one-ship kind of guy.
“Where’s the cargo?” he asks the lug, who shrugs and points his thumb towards the back of the cruiser in what Minho thinks is an amiable fashion. Minho opens his mouth to thank him, but he’s already turned around to trudge back into Seungyoon’s compound. Minho watches him go fondly.
He gets back to Seunghoon in record time, delighting in the way this new ship skims the sand dunes like a pebble across a pond. Seunghoon stands in the desert, covered in grease and dying ship. Minho hovers above the sand.
“I’m not letting you get in my ship until you’ve taken at least three showers,” he booms through the ship’s amplified speakers.
“Fuck off,” Seunghoon yells, giving him the finger, “I smell like roses.” Minho grins and lowers the walkway, and Seunghoon, without a backwards glance at the corpse of Minho’s baby, walks into the ship.
“So, what?” he says, his voice echoing as he attempts to navigate the narrow hallway. “You just sauntered into Seungyoon’s office, flashed your teeth and he gave you a hawk?”
“Don’t be silly,” Minho says absently, retracting the walkway and easing the cruiser up towards the sky, “I sucked him off, too.”
“Minho, what the fuck is this?” Seunghoon asks incredulously, finally emerging into the ship’s control room. “I thought we were steering clear of Seungyoon after - after the thing.”
Minho shrugs off their prison time, examining the tactical console. “It’s just a short run to a system a few days away. Seungyoon says we’ll make enough credits to never come back here, if we do it right.”
“Yeah,” says Seunghoon, “because he’ll make sure he buries our bodies on an asteroid, Minho! Or else we’re gonna get back here and there’s gonna be about a hundred Empire guards waiting to throw our asses back in jail, did you think of that?”
“I didn’t have a choice,” Minho snaps, looking up. “It was this or get my spinal cord ripped out of my neck, which would you have chosen? And don’t,” he says quickly, “say spinal cord, because you have two and that’s not fair!”
Seunghoon falls silent. He chews his bottom lip, running his eyes across the new pulsars and subspace sensors. Finally, with what looks like great reluctance, he nods.
“Fine,” he says. “One run.” Minho lets out a whoop of triumph, and Seunghoon gives him a slightly strained smile. “Although,” he continues, “you never did tell me what the cargo is.”
“I think that might be me,” says a voice from behind them.
There’s a man standing in the doorway, and his neck is tattooed blue.
His name is Jinwoo, and they’re not, as it turns out, tattoos.
“We’re born like this,” their passenger explains. He’s perched in what should be the captain’s chair, watching the two of them with wide, curious eyes. Seunghoon is ostensibly fascinated with the new ship’s nav system, although he keeps giving Jinwoo darting glances over his shoulder. Minho doesn’t even try to pretend - he watches their new passenger with delight, peppering him with too many questions to be considered polite.
“I have other patches,” Jinwoo continues, rolling his sleeves up to show birthmark-like splotches of aquamarine. “Apparently our skin used to be completely blue, but almost no one is born like that anymore.” He rubs his neck awkwardly, and Minho notices small, raised scars scattered across his throat. Jinwoo clears his throat before he can answer.
“Thank you,” he says awkwardly, “for, for doing this for me. Seungyoon said he would arrange something for me but I didn’t think…” He looks down. “I didn’t think he actually would.”
Seunghoon shoots Minho a glance at that, equal parts disbelief and worry. Minho waves him off, and turns back to Jinwoo.
“Why did you need Seungyoon for transport?” he asks, overly casual. “There’s a hanger in that town, not great ships but they could have gotten you out of there.”
Jinwoo shrugs, still looking down. “I just… didn’t want the hassle.” His hands have curled into white-knuckled fists; Minho notices that, too, and files it away for later.
“Well,” he says, clapping Jinwoo on the shoulder - Jinwoo jumps, and Minho quickly withdraws his hand - “if you wanted discreet you’ve picked the best ship in the galaxy!” Jinwoo gives him a doubtful look. Minho ignores him.
“So,” Seunghoon says, doing a much better job of keeping his voice level than Minho, “where are you from, Jinwo-“
He’s cut off by a scream.
“What the fuck?” Minho asks, bolting back into his chair. Red lights flash overhead, the universal warning of an oncoming attack. Minho inhales sharply - they haven’t been attacked in months, and they’re too far away from any patrols that might recognize them as felons.
“They came out of nowhere!” Seunghoon says, tapping the nav panel, “I can’t see how many there are - I can’t see anything!”
The ship rocks as something slams into its side. Behind them, Jinwoo lets out a small noise, both of terror and something else Minho doesn’t recognize.
The view screen is dark. For a wild, incredulous moment Minho wonders if all the stars have dropped out. That would probably be the better option. His heart drops even further in his chest as he realizes what he’s seeing.
A vulture looms over their tiny ship. Military-grade and armed like it too, it dwarfs their tiny hawk. It seems to lumber through space, but Minho knows its potential firepower, as well as the barbarity of the marauders occupying it, all too well. He has the scars to prove it.
The controls beep with an incoming message. Minho hesitantly accepts it.
ATTENTION, SONG MINHO, YOU SCUM SUCKING PIECES OF TRASH, YOU HUMILIATIONS TO THE LOWEST MUD-CRAWLING WORMS. RETURN THE PRISONER TO ITS RIGHTFUL OWNERS IMMEDIATELY AND YOU WILL BE PERHAPS BE ALLOWED UNCONSCIOUSNESS AS WE FLAY YOU LIMB FROM LIMB.
The message disappears.
“Uh,” says Seunghoon.
“What,” says Minho.
“Fuck,” says Jinwoo.
As if in response, the vulture’s primary weapons system begins to warm up with ship-shaking vibrations. Minho watches as the pulsars begin to gleam red, primal in the dark of space. He imagines the impressions of light they’ll leave behind as their ship is destroyed in its vibrations. It will only take a second.
Minho starts sweating. “Seunghoon,” he says, leaving behind words like ‘captive’ and ‘flay’ for the moment, “get us the fuck out of here.”
“Give me a second!” Seunghoon says. “I don’t know how to work this ship!” He pokes a button experimentally. The ship screeches in retaliation. He swears.
The ship begins to vibrate faster and faster, the pulsars spinning. Seunghoon taps something on the nav panel, and the ship moves out of the vulture’s shadow, but it’s still too slow to get out of the pulsar’s radius. Minho’s stomach drops.
“Come on,” he hears himself muttering, “come on come on come on-“
The messaging system refreshes itself. This one is shorter. YOUR DEATH WILL TAKE MONTHS.
“Come on come on come on come ON,” Minho yells, pounding on random controls. Seunghoon is sweating bullets; the ship is getting closer; Jinwoo is muttering what sounds like a prayer; their death is getting closer. The pulsars gleam-
There’s a loud, metallic screeching, and, against all hope, their ship lurches forward once more, faster and faster and faster. The navigation system glows beneath Seunghoon’s fingertips, plotting a course for anywhere but here. They shoot forward, gaining distance with speed, until they’re far out of the reach of the lumbering vultures. Seunghoon lets out a whoop of triumph, and Minho feels like echoing him.
In the view screen Minho watches the pulsars, far behind them, blazing towards empty space, useless, angry, blood red.
Behind them, Jinwoo is silent and still.
Seunghoon keeps them at full speed for about half a system. When he’s sure they haven’t sent anyone after them, he drops their speed by half. The engine’s rumbling stutters, and then goes quiet, leaving in its wake a terrible silence.
“So,” Minho says finally, “I take it Seungyoon wants you dead, too.”
Jinwoo’s eyes widen, and he begins to stutter out denials. Minho raises his hand for silence. Jinwoo, biting his lip, complies.
“What do you mean?” Seunghoon asks, never one to be concerned with Minho’s wants or needs. “Are you saying - are you saying that Kang sent that vulture after us?”
Minho shrugs. “Sent after us, hired nearby thugs, whatever. They knew my name. They knew I was gonna be in this ship. The only way that happens is if-“
“Is if Kang told them,” Seunghoon echoes. His face has gone ashen. “But if he wanted us dead, why not just shoot us back there? Why go to all that trouble?”
“Because of him,” Minho says, jabbing his thumb at Jinwoo, who has obediently stayed silent. As the two of them focus their attention on him, he goes white, and then rose pink.
“I’m not… I mean, I’m...” Seunghoon and Minho continue to stare at him, unyielding; eventually Jinwoo’s protests die out, and he seems to deflate. “Yeah,” he says finally, “okay. You’re probably right.”
Minho leans back against the weapons panel and crosses his arms. “So, Mr. Blue Neck,” he says, “let me ask you something. Who the hell are you that makes Kang Seungyoon so eager to take you out?”
Jinwoo looks at him, surprised. “Seungyoon didn’t tell you?” Minho, annoyance rising, shakes his head no. He pauses, and then: “And you’re sure you don’t recognize me?”
“Are we supposed to?”
The man goes silent, as if calculating. Finally he sighs, as though coming to a conclusion.
He looks at Minho, his eyes wide, his mouth set. “Have you ever heard of a planet called Imdo?”
Seunghoon immediately starts swearing. Minho, staring in silent shock at this stranger, agrees.
Nobody knew how many survivors there were. After the drought, the people of Imdo scattered seemingly to the winds. Sometimes in stations you would see a small family begging for transport, or just a few credits, or hear rumors about another suicide by assassination attempt, but mostly people didn’t really talk about it. Minho certainly doesn’t.
Minho has never seen an Imdo sapphire himself, but he’s heard they sell for a million credits and outshine the stars. Some people say it was worth Yang drying up the sea, just for the small supply at its bottom.
“How did you escape?” Minho asks now, watching Jinwoo with a wary curiosity. “I thought it was almost impossible to get out, once Yang pulled out.”
Jinwoo smiles grimly. It’s not a good look. “Despite what people said about us, we did have ships - just a limited number of them, more equipped for wave-skimming than interstellar flight. There were only a few spots. It went by lottery.” He touches his neck. “I won.”
Minho watches the gesture, and asks tentatively, “And those are…”
Jinwoo lowers his hand, revealing a pattern not of tattoos, as Minho had thought, but gills. Seunghoon draws a sharp breath. Minho watches, fascinated, as they move in tandem with Jinwoo’s breath.
“They’re not functional now, of course,” Jinwoo says, somewhat self-consciously. “If we were in water they would kick in, but off-planet they’re just decoration.” He pauses, and that smile, terrible as it is, comes back. “I guess they would be planet-side too, now.”
“That doesn’t explain,” Seunghoon asks, breaking what would have been an unbearable silence, “why Kang wants you dead.” Minho notices that Seunghoon has gone pale, ghost white. He shoots his friend a glance, but Seunghoon looks away.
Jinwoo pauses. “Do you remember that assassination attempt a few months ago? The one on the head of the Yang Corporation?”
“Yeah,” Minho says, “it was right after we got out of prison, they were so scared they almost didn’t let us lea-“ Jinwoo watches him levelly. “Oh.”
Seunghoon asks, in a strangely calm voice, “What are you doing here?”
“Yang is hosting a summit a few systems over. He’s partnering with the Empire, planning on expanding his mining operations. They’re going big this time. It’s not just gonna be Imdo. It’s gonna be the whole galaxy.” He smiles. “I intend to be at that summit.”
“And when you get there?” Seunghoon asks, very, very quietly.
Jinwoo’s smile grows.
“So, Jinwoo,” Seunghoon asks conversationally, “are you a humanoid or ichthyo?”
They’re docked at a waystation in the boondocks, which really isn’t much more than a restaurant with a relay station attached. It’s the kind of place people like Minho and Seunghoon come when they want to eat without an arrest attempt. Minho likes it here. The decor is modeled off of old Earth diners, and the waitresses always grunt when he tries to flirt with them.
“I guess humanoid?” Jinwoo says, picking at the wriggling dish in front of him. Minho suggested they stop here to ease the tension brought about by Jinwoo’s confession, and it seems like it’s paying off. Seunghoon’s relaxed a little bit, and Jinwoo seems a little less on-edge. He’s tied a scarf around his neck to hide the gills, but the faintest hint of blue peeks up around his jawline, like an ice colored blush.
“We’re descended from humans, I think,” Jinwoo continues, “or maybe humans are descended from us?” He shrugs.
“We used to have legends about people who lived under the sea, maybe that’s where you come from.” Minho pauses, watching with growing horror as Jinwoo picks up one of the wriggling creatures and pops it into his mouth. “Is that a shrimp? Isn’t that cannibalism?”
Jinwoo flashes him a toothy smile. His teeth look like fangs.
“We’re both, and a little bit more,” Seunghoon says. He gestures to the whole of his body with a burnt french fry. “Genetically engineered to be the best in the galaxy. It’s why we make up most of the Empire’s army. Fast reflexes, sharp eyes, two brains.” He pops the fry into his mouth. “Perfect.”
“How did you lose your other head?” Jinwoo asks, curious.
“It’s a pretty normal thing,” Seunghoon shrugs. “They start us training when we’re young, piloting, weapons training, kid’s stuff, real lasers right from the beginning. About once a week we have a kid blasting another’s non-primary head off. Same thing happened to me, except,” he grins, “it wasn’t so much a kid as a really pissed off Empire captain.”
“So why don’t you just go home and get yours fixed?”
Seunghoon’s smile sinks. He opens his mouth, and then closes it. Minho, seeing the panic in his partner’s eyes, jumps in.
“One of the reasons they’re some of the most prized soldiers in the galaxy is that their planet produces the purest tritanium you can get. Their ships are the fastest, their training starts the earliest… Word got out about twenty years ago, and…”
“They mined the planet dry,” Jinwoo says quietly. Minho nods.
“But at least our ships are faster now,” Seunghoon says, in a brittle voice.
The table falls silent. Around them, hulking creatures arm-wrestle and bet on next week’s speeder races. Minho sketches nonsense on the tabletop in water droplets. He doesn’t know what to say, or what to do. It’s a new feeling.
It’s Seunghoon, surprisingly, who speaks first. His voice is gruff and scratchy, strained with the effort of holding something back, but it keeps steady, and Minho admires him for that.
“Do you want help?” Seunghoon asks.
Minho’s finger stops. He looks up at Seunghoon, more surprised than he’s felt all day, which is saying something. His partner looks at him, raising his eyebrows a little - not asking for permission, rather, acknowledgment. Minho, heart hammering his ribs, can’t speak.
He looks at Jinwoo. Jinwoo, whose wide eyes are shining with a kind of fervor Minho has never seen before; Jinwoo, whose smile is victorious and exhausted and razor sharp; Jinwoo, whose skin is glowing aquamarine. Jinwoo and Seunghoon stare at each other, and a kind of understanding passes between the two of them that Minho knows he’ll never understand.
“Yes,” Jinwoo says, and then, “please.”
Seunghoon nods. His face is set.
They turn to look at Minho.
“Minho,” Jinwoo begins.
“You don’t have to,” says Seunghoon.
“Fine,” says Minho.
“What?” they say together.
Minho sighs, not unhappily. “I’m not going to stop my best friend and my - recent acquaintance from going on a suicide mission. Even if I tried I doubt I could. Besides,” he addresses Seunghoon, “you need someone to babysit you.” Seunghoon snorts. “Anywhere I go I’m gonna be a target, the Empire, hell, Kang Seungyoon confirmed that. If I’m gonna die,” he shrugs, “why not do it in style?”
Something like relief floods Jinwoo’s face. He smiles, almost shyly. “I’ve been alone most of my life,” he says softly, so softly Minho has to lean in, “I’ve never met anyone… willing to risk themselves like this.”
Minho feels something settle in his chest - nerves, and trepidation, and, nested warmly between them, certainty.
Someone taps his shoulder. Minho, still warm with the decision of certain death, turns around. A large tattooed humanoid, body plated head to toe with steel and spikes, grins down down at him.
“You say Kang Seungyoon?” it rumbles, as deep as a vulture’s engine.
“ - Yes?” Minho says, elation quickly backing away towards terror.
“You that guy he sent that message about? The one he’ll, what was it? Pay 2,000 credits per individual toe?” An interested, equally burly crowd is gathering. Minho feels very small.
“No?” Minho says.
“I think,” the humanoid says, “you’re lying.”
By the time they reach the falcon Jinwoo has lost his scarf, Seunghoon has a black eye, and Minho’s leg is back to being fully inoperable. They can never go back to that diner again, Seunghoon tells him, but it doesn’t matter. It won’t matter soon, anyway.
They sketch out a rough plan in the remaining day it takes them to hit the summit. It’s not a great plan, Minho thinks, but it’s not the worst he’s ever seen. It’s not exactly reassuring.
They ditch the falcon at a shipyard a few clicks from the summit. “Seungyoon’s trace is all over it,” Jinwoo explains, “and besides, we can’t get in with our own ship. Only Empire military are allowed in or out.” They don’t discuss how, exactly, they’ll leave.
Instead, they use the credits the falcon nets them to buy themselves places on a dignitary transport. The guard, a bored mercenary, seems skeptical, but he perks up after they offer up enough credits. He sells them the IDs of absent dignitaries, “honorary ambassadors” from backwater systems too important to get a seat at the table, too venerable to completely ignore. Minho is amused to see they’ve been made representatives of Earth’s home system.
Minho paints Jinwoo’s neck with acrylics, shading his gills with brilliant pinks and yellows and blue until his skin is a tapestry of color. Jinwoo tells their delighted fellow passengers that it’s a custom on Old Jupiter; when pressed for details he just smiles mysteriously and refuses to speak further.
They reach the summit the night before it begins. The station is a spectacle built just for this meeting, more than a billion credits poured into one night’s negotiation. Its exoskeleton has been constructed to resemble old-world glass, so that the stars shimmer above and below the open-mouthed guests. The hallways twinkle with minerals specifically mined by Yang. Jinwoo’s mouth tightens at the sparkling Imdo sapphires, but he manages to keep from crying out.
They only see Yang once, from within a milling crowd of spectators. He stands on a balcony, looking down upon the throng. He smiles, looking from this far away like an emperor surveying his kingdom. Empire dignitaries touch his shoulder and call him away, inside to the festivities. Minho watches him go, sapphires sparkling all around.
Seunghoon managed to talk his place into the reserve mercenaries hired for the summit. It wasn’t difficult - once the CO realized his home planet, he was in uniform. He winks at Jinwoo and Minho as they’re ushered down the glittering hallway, and then snaps back into attention as his squad leader screams for attention.
They’re brusquely shown their suite, a cramped, industrial affair far removed from the luxurious apartments of the more distinguished systems. They’re strongly encouraged to stay in their rooms for the night. Their guide, as added encouragement, locks their door from the outside.
“Well, fuck,” says Minho, sitting down on the bed.
“Come on,” says Jinwoo, “there’s gotta be something.”
They’re debating how dead they would hypothetically be if they were to smash the window and scale up the side of the station (very), when the door clicks open. They both look up, tensing, but relax as Seunghoon slips inside.
“Hey,” says Seunghoon. He’s completely dwarfed by the merc uniform, but he still looks completely, almost too comfortable with a gun at his side. “Sorry it took so long, we had to be on guard during Yang’s feast, and then we all had to march down together to the mess, it was actually pretty fun. The booze was okay and I met this cool pilot, Taeh-”
“Seunghoon,” Minho interrupts, “did you get it?”
Seunghoon, not perturbed in the slightest, nods and pulls a small disc from the depths of his uniform. He tosses it to Jinwoo, who examines it for a moment before breaking it in half.
A model of the ship snaps into view. It’s labeled with sleeping quarters and service hallways they hadn’t been able to access on normal channels. Jinwoo, eyes darting here and there, finally sketches a line through the winding hallways, drawing a pathway between their own chamber and one much larger, marked “YANG”.
“We’ve got it,” he whispers. His voice is solemn, almost reverent.
After a moment, Seunghoon speaks. “I’m gonna go back to the mess. I’ll keep the mercs distracted as long as I can, but they’re gonna start patrolling eventually. Minho, can you stay on top of them?”
Minho swallows down his nerves and nods. Seunghoon, standing up, gives him a strangely tender smile. Minho wants to say something - don’t die, stay here, good luck, don’t fuck up - but they all trip over each other, and stop up his throat. By the time he can speak, Seunghoon has vanished through the door.
“Alright,” Jinwoo says immediately, standing up, “let’s go.”
“So soon?” Minho hears himself saying, and knows he’s a coward.
“Yes,” Jinwoo says, which what might be gentleness. His skin glows blue. Minho wills himself calm.
The door clicks open this time. The hallway is silent, but they creep at its side, remembering the sensors marked red on the map. Minho tries to keep as silent as he can, even as his legs screams out in pain, even as his breath turns into gasps. Jinwoo is muttering something under his breath, a rhythmic drone timed with his steps. Minho doesn’t recognize the language, but he runs the tune through his mind. If Jinwoo thinks a god might be listening, Minho wants it to focus all of its attention on them.
They manage to avoid everyone until they reach the arrivals port, which blocks the way to the service hallway they need. An Empire soldier, clothed in red and black, sees them before they can run the other way. She advances towards them, pistol raised.
“Halt!” she says, in what she probably hopes is an authoritative voice. “Who are you? Why are you out of your chambers?”
“Uh,” Minho responds. He freezes at the sight of her uniform, red and black and gray, gray prison. His tongue goes heavy. He needs to hide.
Jinwoo, thankfully, has a faster brain than Minho’s. “My companion suffered a fall and hurt his leg,” he says. He prods Minho, who lets out a very real groan. “He needs medical attention?”
“Why not just use the medpac in your room?” she asks, still suspicious.
“He’s human,” Jinwoo says in a conspiratorial voice. “Still hasn’t evolved beyond flesh and blood doctor. You know how it is.” He gives the guard an exasperated look. Minho feels offended.
“Human, huh?” the guard says, looking curious. “I think we got another one on board, one of the mercs.” She looks around, and, once she confirms that the hallway is empty, lowers her weapon. “Alright,” she says, “if you take the hallway down there and go down the first right you’ll get to a vet the Cancri brought to tend to their Rho earthworms. Their stuff will probably work on humans, right?”
“Yeah,” Minho says, forgetting himself, “we’re virtually indistinguishable from earthworms.” Before he can say anything else Jinwoo is pulling him away, with a heartfelt “thanks” to the guard.
The service hallway is dark and dingy. Minho feels right at home. They get to the first fork and turn left. The hallway is bathed in crimson lights, which bathe Minho’s skin in blood.
Jinwoo walks beside him, steady, calm. Minho wills himself to be the same.
They climb up a ladder, and then another. There aren’t any guards, which means that Seunghoon’s doing his job, but Minho doesn’t know how long he can keep them at bay. Seconds feel like minutes, minutes feel like hours, and at every turn Minho expects a bevy of guard, lasers drawn, ready to fire.
And then, finally, after what seems like a thousand minutes of climbing and walking and waiting, they reach a small, nondescript door marked “Main Exit”.
They stop. Minho looks at Jinwoo. Jinwoo looks straight ahead.
“We’re here,” he says, in a small voice. Still, he doesn’t move.
“Jinwoo?” Minho asks. He almost reaches over to touch the man, but stops himself for a reason he can’t quite explain.
JInwoo reaches up, almost unconsciously, to smear the paint from his neck. His skin flashes a brilliant purple underneath the lights. “Can it be this easy?” he asks. “Can I just… go in here, and finish it?” He looks at Minho, finally betraying some kind of anguish, some kind of terror. It captivates Minho, in a sickly way.
“Can I finish this?” Jinwoo asks, in a whisper.
Minho, not hesitating now, reaches over to touch Jinwoo’s hand. Jinwoo looks over. His eyes are bright.
“Don’t fucking move!” yells a voice behind them. Before they have a chance to react, something large and heavy barrels into Minho. Minho grabs the blaster at his side and shoots at random; the figure holding him lets out an inhuman scream, and drops to the floor. Minho turns around; dozens upon dozens of mercs are streaming through the hallway, guns out, lasers focused. Minho shoots one, two, three. They drop to the ground, green and blue blood spilling across the floor.
The largest of them locks eyes with him. Without hesitating, he lowers his weapon, and shoots him square in the leg. Minho drops to the floor, howling in pain. The merc looms over him, sneering. Pain arcs against Minho’s head. His vision spots. His stomach sinks.
“Minho!” He looks up. Jinwoo, lithe, small, darts between the furious mercs, just out of reach of their grubby hands. His teeth are bared, and leave little pinpricks of blood against their skin. He hesitates, eyes on Minho’s body. The door is open; Minho bleeds. Minho, without thinking, nods towards Jinwoo, towards the door.
Jinwoo only pauses to give him a searching, anguished look, before he vanishes behind the door. It locks behind him automatically, and the mercs, roaring with anger, begin firing at the lock with full power.
Minho’s captor hauls him up by the neck. “You’re gonna pay for that, kid,” he mutters, his breath hot and sour in Minho’s face. “You’re gonna pay for that for a long time.”
Minho gulps. His throat is dry.
The holding cells are tiny, either because they didn’t expect to use them, or to minimize the noise. Minho suspects the latter.
The guards begin by detailing what, exactly, they will do to Minho if he doesn’t comply. They begin with his fingers, and then move to his eyeballs, and then his fractured limb. In between this, they pepper him with questions - who are you, who was the man, why are you here, who hired you? Minho keeps his mouth shut, focusing all of his energy on Jinwoo sneaking into Yang’s room, finding Yang’s sleeping body.
The merc who captured him snarls, frustrated. “This isn’t a joke,” he hisses, “and I promise you, for every minute you don’t talk, that’s gonna be an hour of pain for your friend. Now tell me, who hired you?”
“Fuck you,” Minho says. The guard slaps him.
“Tell me.”
“Fuck… you,” Minho repeats.
The man slaps him again. He tastes blood in his mouth. The guard hits him again and again, until Minho’s vision is spotted red. In the bloody haze he imagines he can see Seunghoon, still dressed in the narc uniform, sneak into the room.
“Who,” the guard hisses, “hired you?” Seunghoon slides his hand to his holster.
“You wanna know?” grunts Minho, voice thick through the blood. “Fine, fuckface, I’ll tell you. I was hired to assassinate Yang by Kang Seungyoon.”
The guard stares at him dumbly. “Who?” he says.
A few things happen at once. Seunghoon raises his gun, ready to fire on the closest merc. On the control panel in the corner, a red light begins blinking, urgent and fast. And, through the door, they can hear an alarm beginning to scream.
“What the hell?” the merc yells. He yanks the door open and bodily grabs a passing soldier. “What the hell happened?” he asks the kid, dangling him by the collar. The soldier wriggles around, breathless. “There’s been an attack! On Yang!” he exclaims. “The guy who tried is getting away!” He manages to get out of the merc’s grasp and sprints down the hallway.
“Move out!” bellows the merc. The troop surges out. He points a stubby finger at Seunghoon, the only one with his gun drawn. “You! Guard the prisoner! Don’t worry,” he hisses down at Minho, “I’ll be back for you.”
Seunghoon waits until the hallway is empty, before hauling Minho to his feet and slinging his arm over his shoulder. “Come on!” he hisses, “we have to get out of here!”
“But Jinwoo-”
“He’ll find us! Come on, Minho, the hanger is just a few hallways away!”
They hurry down the now-deserted corridor. They can hear screams and crashes above, but even the hanger has been completely abandoned. Seunghoon hurries him towards a small hawk and pushes him inside.
“We have,” Minho mutters, “to save Jinwoo.”
“Stay here,” Seunghoon says, strapping Minho into a chair and wiping the blood from his chin. It’s an oddly comfortable gesture. “I’ll be back, Minho, I promise.”
With one last look he hops out of the hawk. Minho tries to hold on for a moment longer, but can’t stop himself from succumbing to the darkness. The last thing he sees as he faints away are the lights above, pulsing black and red over and over again.
He wakes up to the sound of a weapons system clicking on.
“See,” says a voice, “I told you the only thing that would get him up was heavy artillery.”
Minho cracks an eye open, and groans. “Fuck,” he says, pressing a hand to his jaw.
HIs vision blacks out again, and a hand grasps his own, gently guiding it away.
“Don’t do that,” says Jinwoo, smiling down at him. “You’ll give yourself another concussion.”
“How,” Minho croaks. His tongue feels heavy.
“Well,” Seunghoon says, looking over from the nav panel, “they chased us for a while, but this baby is too fast for their best speeders.” He pats the new ship’s console like a proud parent. “Plus, once the lunk that captured you remembered ‘Kang Seungyoon’, I figure they decided, why go after the pawns when you can get the kingpin?”
“Pawns?” Minho can’t stop himself from asking.
“Pawns,” Seunghoon confirms.
Minho lets this rattle through his mind, and then asks, “Yang?”
“Alive,” Jinwoo says quietly. “I couldn’t,” he says at Minho’s expression, “I couldn’t. This summit, this thing - it’s not going away with Yang. I saw their lists, I saw the planets they’re going after next. Minho, it’s… hundreds. Hundreds of planets that are going to die like mine, like Seunghoon’s. It’s not stopping with Yang. And, besides,” he says, looking away, “it would be a pity if you died.”
Minho looks at Jinwoo, so many things waiting to be said that he instead stays silent. Jinwoo looks back at him, expression now steady, almost serene. Finally, Minho manages: “Why aren’t you angry?”
Against all odds, a small smile spreads across Jinwoo’s face. “Well,” he says, and then turns to Seunghoon.
Seunghoon, with the same sly smile, fiddles with something on the panel. A model of the galaxy pops up on the view screen. Planets are marked in random with red ‘x’s, each labeled with a small number. Minho glances at the nav screen - they’re headed, as it turns out, straight for number one.
“Is that,” he asks.
“A map of every mining operation Yang is planning on pursuing, in order?” Jinwoo asks. “Yeah, yeah it is.” He looks at Minho, smile wide, skin glowing sea-blue. “Minho, how do you feel about starting a rebellion?”
Minho’s head spins. His heart pounds. He smiles, and then, after a moment, begins to laugh.
They speed through space, and vanish into the stars.
Recipient: fashcndy
Characters: Minho, Jinwoo, Seunghoon
Rating: T
Warnings: Violence, language
Summary: Song Minho, intergalactic smuggler and occasional felon, is offered a shipment he can't refuse. Literally.
They’re twenty miles off-planet when the fuel runs out. Twenty miles, Minho learns quickly, is a long way to fall.
“Do something!” he yells, while mentally calculating the amount of impact needed to shatter bone and metal. Their safety system went offline a long time ago: Minho remembers an argument about getting it fixed quickly turning into a decision to sell the spare parts for whiskey. He grimaces. He should have saved some of the booze.
Seunghoon shakes his head, slamming buttons on the nav panel at random. “She’s not listening to me - you know how she gets when she’s empty!” He flicks a switch, and the cabin goes dark. “Oops.”
“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!” Minho screams. The ground looms closer. “Stabilizers?”
“Broken.”
“Landing gear?”
“Broken.”
“Parachutes?”
“I think,” yells Seunghoon, “we can assume from here on out that everything is broken!”
They break the clouds, and Seunghoon starts swearing in a language Minho doesn’t understand. “Just so you know,” Minho says through gritted teeth, “first thing I’m gonna do once I get to hell, find you and punch your teeth out one by one.”
“Aliens don’t go to hell,” Seunghoon says, gripping the sides of his chair for dear life, “we’re pure and innocent angels-“
“You’re ungodly freaks and I hope you die first- Fuck!”
With a rumble the size of an earthquake, Minho’s ship crashes face first into the red-rock planet.
For a long while, nothing moves but dust.
“Seunghoon?”
Silence.
“Seunghoon?”
There’s a groan.
Minho sits up, rubbing his head. His hand comes away sticky. The last doctor he saw told him that if he got another head wound he’d die from it, and that was about three head wounds ago. Minho isn’t too worried, though. He’s not that much of a risk-taker.
He stands up, grimacing at the pain in his left leg. Twisted or maybe broken - either way, that’s gonna be a bitch to walk off. Sparks dance across his vision, either from dangling wires or his broken brain. He moves across the cabin, trying not to look at the ship’s ruination. His baby’s gotten fucked up before, but never this badly. It’s gonna take a lot more credits than he has to get it right.
Seunghoon is slumped across his chair, staring at the static nav panel. He’s not bleeding, thankfully, but something’s off with his right shoulder. Minho touches it, and Seunghoon blanches.
“I fucked up the second head,” he says, pushing Minho’s hand away. “It’s gonna take even longer to grow back, if it does at all.”
For once Minho tries to hide his disgust with Seunghoon’s alien anatomy. “That… that sucks,” he says, trying on a sympathetic tone. “You okay, though? Besides the…” He gestures to Seunghoon’s head lump.
Seunghoon rolls his shoulders and winces. “It’ll get better,” he says. “Nothing’s bleeding - look at yourself, though, Jesus - but the ship’s hurt pretty bad.” He looks around. “We didn’t have the money for gas, we sure as hell don’t have the money to fix her.”
Minho sighs. “You stay here and see what you can salvage. The outpost is about ten miles from here - if I start walking now I can be there by morning.” He tries not to think about his leg, or what his hypothetical doctor would say.
“How,” says Seunghoon, “are you gonna get me my parts with no credits, no cargo, and a face like that?”
"I know a guy."
“What - Oh, no,” Seunghoon says, grimacing as it hits him, “Song, no, don't do this to me-“
Minho, despite himself, grins. "Relax. I just have a few things I gotta talk to Kang Seungyoon about."
Kang’s base, much like the smuggler himself, is a fetid pit of grime and depravity.
“Why should I help you?” Seungyoon makes the place look good, Minho has to admit. The ambiance is… lacking, unless you like hollowed out sand pits and perpetual dampness, but Seungyoon’s strange predilection for fur throws and musical antiquities give the place a certain sense of hominess.
This hominess is somewhat undermined by the gang of hulking mercenaries staring directly at Minho’s throat.
“Hey there,” Minho says winningly. The lead thug grunts.
“Why,” Kang repeats a touch louder, “should I help you, after what you did to me?”
“Come on,” says Minho, cajoling, terrified, “that was years ago.”
“That was one year and eight months ago,” Kang says. “Any guesses on how many weeks? I know.”
“I didn’t know it would break!” Minho exclaims before he can stop himself. The thugs stir at the outburst, and Minho quickly sits back in his seat. He continues, quieter: “I didn’t know, Kang, I told you.”
“You didn’t know,” Seungyoon says slowly, just as he did the last time they had this conversation, “that a twenty thousand year old glass flute from the original Mars colonies, which had been kept safe from damage in a hermetically sealed box until you brilliantly decided to show it off, would break if you were to, I don’t know, crash your ship into the side of a fucking Empire base?” He slams his hands down on his desk. A bottle of brandy rattles. Minho wants to drink that brandy.
“I mean,” he says, trying on a smile, “it did get me sent to an Empire prison for a year, that’s kind of good? For you, right? Not, uh, not for me.”
Seunghoon raises his hand for silence. Minho gulps down the rest of his explanation. He wonders if Seungyoon is going to feed him his tongue. He’s seen him do that before.
“Song,” the smuggler says after a long, long moment, “you’ve disappointed me in the past. You’ve gravely disappointed me in the past.” The word ‘grave’ lingers in the air. They both pause to contemplate it.
“But.” Minho very acutely feels his lifespan hanging off the end that syllable. “You are also not the worst smuggler I’ve ever seen.”
“Thank you,” Minho says magnanimously. Seungyoon continues on as if he hadn’t heard.
“I’m going to give you a shipment. A very small shipment. If you show me that you can complete this task,” Seungyoon spreads his hands, “I’ll give you everything you want, and more. If you fail, however…” He smiles. It’s not a good look.
Minho hesitates. “Is there… is there a way for me to get that stuff without all that?” Seungyoon’s smile vanishes. Minho fears for his life.
“Tell me,” Seungyoon asks quietly, “how is Seunghoon’s family?”
“Fuck you,” Minho snarls, unable to stop himself. Seungyoon, standing up, chuckles.
“It’s a short journey,” Seungyoon says, as if he doesn’t notice Minho’s enraged flush . He motions for one of the hulking men. “The drop-off is just a few days away, if you travel fast. Your ship is, obviously, junk, but don’t worry, I have a spare. And besides, once you get this done you’ll have enough credits to buy twenty of those junk heaps.” He smiles at Minho, cold and empty. “Do we have a deal?”
Minho doesn’t have any choice but to smile back.
The lug Seungyoon had called takes Minho out back. At first Minho thinks it’s to shoot him and dispose of the body, but it turns out he just wants to explain how to operate the new ship’s engine. Minho reminds himself to practice tolerance sometime in the future.
The ship is beautiful, an Empire hawk, not exactly top of the line but about a thousand notches above his old ship. He should feel guilty, he thinks, rubbing his hands over the smooth chrome lines, but he’s never been a one-ship kind of guy.
“Where’s the cargo?” he asks the lug, who shrugs and points his thumb towards the back of the cruiser in what Minho thinks is an amiable fashion. Minho opens his mouth to thank him, but he’s already turned around to trudge back into Seungyoon’s compound. Minho watches him go fondly.
He gets back to Seunghoon in record time, delighting in the way this new ship skims the sand dunes like a pebble across a pond. Seunghoon stands in the desert, covered in grease and dying ship. Minho hovers above the sand.
“I’m not letting you get in my ship until you’ve taken at least three showers,” he booms through the ship’s amplified speakers.
“Fuck off,” Seunghoon yells, giving him the finger, “I smell like roses.” Minho grins and lowers the walkway, and Seunghoon, without a backwards glance at the corpse of Minho’s baby, walks into the ship.
“So, what?” he says, his voice echoing as he attempts to navigate the narrow hallway. “You just sauntered into Seungyoon’s office, flashed your teeth and he gave you a hawk?”
“Don’t be silly,” Minho says absently, retracting the walkway and easing the cruiser up towards the sky, “I sucked him off, too.”
“Minho, what the fuck is this?” Seunghoon asks incredulously, finally emerging into the ship’s control room. “I thought we were steering clear of Seungyoon after - after the thing.”
Minho shrugs off their prison time, examining the tactical console. “It’s just a short run to a system a few days away. Seungyoon says we’ll make enough credits to never come back here, if we do it right.”
“Yeah,” says Seunghoon, “because he’ll make sure he buries our bodies on an asteroid, Minho! Or else we’re gonna get back here and there’s gonna be about a hundred Empire guards waiting to throw our asses back in jail, did you think of that?”
“I didn’t have a choice,” Minho snaps, looking up. “It was this or get my spinal cord ripped out of my neck, which would you have chosen? And don’t,” he says quickly, “say spinal cord, because you have two and that’s not fair!”
Seunghoon falls silent. He chews his bottom lip, running his eyes across the new pulsars and subspace sensors. Finally, with what looks like great reluctance, he nods.
“Fine,” he says. “One run.” Minho lets out a whoop of triumph, and Seunghoon gives him a slightly strained smile. “Although,” he continues, “you never did tell me what the cargo is.”
“I think that might be me,” says a voice from behind them.
There’s a man standing in the doorway, and his neck is tattooed blue.
His name is Jinwoo, and they’re not, as it turns out, tattoos.
“We’re born like this,” their passenger explains. He’s perched in what should be the captain’s chair, watching the two of them with wide, curious eyes. Seunghoon is ostensibly fascinated with the new ship’s nav system, although he keeps giving Jinwoo darting glances over his shoulder. Minho doesn’t even try to pretend - he watches their new passenger with delight, peppering him with too many questions to be considered polite.
“I have other patches,” Jinwoo continues, rolling his sleeves up to show birthmark-like splotches of aquamarine. “Apparently our skin used to be completely blue, but almost no one is born like that anymore.” He rubs his neck awkwardly, and Minho notices small, raised scars scattered across his throat. Jinwoo clears his throat before he can answer.
“Thank you,” he says awkwardly, “for, for doing this for me. Seungyoon said he would arrange something for me but I didn’t think…” He looks down. “I didn’t think he actually would.”
Seunghoon shoots Minho a glance at that, equal parts disbelief and worry. Minho waves him off, and turns back to Jinwoo.
“Why did you need Seungyoon for transport?” he asks, overly casual. “There’s a hanger in that town, not great ships but they could have gotten you out of there.”
Jinwoo shrugs, still looking down. “I just… didn’t want the hassle.” His hands have curled into white-knuckled fists; Minho notices that, too, and files it away for later.
“Well,” he says, clapping Jinwoo on the shoulder - Jinwoo jumps, and Minho quickly withdraws his hand - “if you wanted discreet you’ve picked the best ship in the galaxy!” Jinwoo gives him a doubtful look. Minho ignores him.
“So,” Seunghoon says, doing a much better job of keeping his voice level than Minho, “where are you from, Jinwo-“
He’s cut off by a scream.
“What the fuck?” Minho asks, bolting back into his chair. Red lights flash overhead, the universal warning of an oncoming attack. Minho inhales sharply - they haven’t been attacked in months, and they’re too far away from any patrols that might recognize them as felons.
“They came out of nowhere!” Seunghoon says, tapping the nav panel, “I can’t see how many there are - I can’t see anything!”
The ship rocks as something slams into its side. Behind them, Jinwoo lets out a small noise, both of terror and something else Minho doesn’t recognize.
The view screen is dark. For a wild, incredulous moment Minho wonders if all the stars have dropped out. That would probably be the better option. His heart drops even further in his chest as he realizes what he’s seeing.
A vulture looms over their tiny ship. Military-grade and armed like it too, it dwarfs their tiny hawk. It seems to lumber through space, but Minho knows its potential firepower, as well as the barbarity of the marauders occupying it, all too well. He has the scars to prove it.
The controls beep with an incoming message. Minho hesitantly accepts it.
ATTENTION, SONG MINHO, YOU SCUM SUCKING PIECES OF TRASH, YOU HUMILIATIONS TO THE LOWEST MUD-CRAWLING WORMS. RETURN THE PRISONER TO ITS RIGHTFUL OWNERS IMMEDIATELY AND YOU WILL BE PERHAPS BE ALLOWED UNCONSCIOUSNESS AS WE FLAY YOU LIMB FROM LIMB.
The message disappears.
“Uh,” says Seunghoon.
“What,” says Minho.
“Fuck,” says Jinwoo.
As if in response, the vulture’s primary weapons system begins to warm up with ship-shaking vibrations. Minho watches as the pulsars begin to gleam red, primal in the dark of space. He imagines the impressions of light they’ll leave behind as their ship is destroyed in its vibrations. It will only take a second.
Minho starts sweating. “Seunghoon,” he says, leaving behind words like ‘captive’ and ‘flay’ for the moment, “get us the fuck out of here.”
“Give me a second!” Seunghoon says. “I don’t know how to work this ship!” He pokes a button experimentally. The ship screeches in retaliation. He swears.
The ship begins to vibrate faster and faster, the pulsars spinning. Seunghoon taps something on the nav panel, and the ship moves out of the vulture’s shadow, but it’s still too slow to get out of the pulsar’s radius. Minho’s stomach drops.
“Come on,” he hears himself muttering, “come on come on come on-“
The messaging system refreshes itself. This one is shorter. YOUR DEATH WILL TAKE MONTHS.
“Come on come on come on come ON,” Minho yells, pounding on random controls. Seunghoon is sweating bullets; the ship is getting closer; Jinwoo is muttering what sounds like a prayer; their death is getting closer. The pulsars gleam-
There’s a loud, metallic screeching, and, against all hope, their ship lurches forward once more, faster and faster and faster. The navigation system glows beneath Seunghoon’s fingertips, plotting a course for anywhere but here. They shoot forward, gaining distance with speed, until they’re far out of the reach of the lumbering vultures. Seunghoon lets out a whoop of triumph, and Minho feels like echoing him.
In the view screen Minho watches the pulsars, far behind them, blazing towards empty space, useless, angry, blood red.
Behind them, Jinwoo is silent and still.
Seunghoon keeps them at full speed for about half a system. When he’s sure they haven’t sent anyone after them, he drops their speed by half. The engine’s rumbling stutters, and then goes quiet, leaving in its wake a terrible silence.
“So,” Minho says finally, “I take it Seungyoon wants you dead, too.”
Jinwoo’s eyes widen, and he begins to stutter out denials. Minho raises his hand for silence. Jinwoo, biting his lip, complies.
“What do you mean?” Seunghoon asks, never one to be concerned with Minho’s wants or needs. “Are you saying - are you saying that Kang sent that vulture after us?”
Minho shrugs. “Sent after us, hired nearby thugs, whatever. They knew my name. They knew I was gonna be in this ship. The only way that happens is if-“
“Is if Kang told them,” Seunghoon echoes. His face has gone ashen. “But if he wanted us dead, why not just shoot us back there? Why go to all that trouble?”
“Because of him,” Minho says, jabbing his thumb at Jinwoo, who has obediently stayed silent. As the two of them focus their attention on him, he goes white, and then rose pink.
“I’m not… I mean, I’m...” Seunghoon and Minho continue to stare at him, unyielding; eventually Jinwoo’s protests die out, and he seems to deflate. “Yeah,” he says finally, “okay. You’re probably right.”
Minho leans back against the weapons panel and crosses his arms. “So, Mr. Blue Neck,” he says, “let me ask you something. Who the hell are you that makes Kang Seungyoon so eager to take you out?”
Jinwoo looks at him, surprised. “Seungyoon didn’t tell you?” Minho, annoyance rising, shakes his head no. He pauses, and then: “And you’re sure you don’t recognize me?”
“Are we supposed to?”
The man goes silent, as if calculating. Finally he sighs, as though coming to a conclusion.
He looks at Minho, his eyes wide, his mouth set. “Have you ever heard of a planet called Imdo?”
Seunghoon immediately starts swearing. Minho, staring in silent shock at this stranger, agrees.
Nobody knew how many survivors there were. After the drought, the people of Imdo scattered seemingly to the winds. Sometimes in stations you would see a small family begging for transport, or just a few credits, or hear rumors about another suicide by assassination attempt, but mostly people didn’t really talk about it. Minho certainly doesn’t.
Minho has never seen an Imdo sapphire himself, but he’s heard they sell for a million credits and outshine the stars. Some people say it was worth Yang drying up the sea, just for the small supply at its bottom.
“How did you escape?” Minho asks now, watching Jinwoo with a wary curiosity. “I thought it was almost impossible to get out, once Yang pulled out.”
Jinwoo smiles grimly. It’s not a good look. “Despite what people said about us, we did have ships - just a limited number of them, more equipped for wave-skimming than interstellar flight. There were only a few spots. It went by lottery.” He touches his neck. “I won.”
Minho watches the gesture, and asks tentatively, “And those are…”
Jinwoo lowers his hand, revealing a pattern not of tattoos, as Minho had thought, but gills. Seunghoon draws a sharp breath. Minho watches, fascinated, as they move in tandem with Jinwoo’s breath.
“They’re not functional now, of course,” Jinwoo says, somewhat self-consciously. “If we were in water they would kick in, but off-planet they’re just decoration.” He pauses, and that smile, terrible as it is, comes back. “I guess they would be planet-side too, now.”
“That doesn’t explain,” Seunghoon asks, breaking what would have been an unbearable silence, “why Kang wants you dead.” Minho notices that Seunghoon has gone pale, ghost white. He shoots his friend a glance, but Seunghoon looks away.
Jinwoo pauses. “Do you remember that assassination attempt a few months ago? The one on the head of the Yang Corporation?”
“Yeah,” Minho says, “it was right after we got out of prison, they were so scared they almost didn’t let us lea-“ Jinwoo watches him levelly. “Oh.”
Seunghoon asks, in a strangely calm voice, “What are you doing here?”
“Yang is hosting a summit a few systems over. He’s partnering with the Empire, planning on expanding his mining operations. They’re going big this time. It’s not just gonna be Imdo. It’s gonna be the whole galaxy.” He smiles. “I intend to be at that summit.”
“And when you get there?” Seunghoon asks, very, very quietly.
Jinwoo’s smile grows.
“So, Jinwoo,” Seunghoon asks conversationally, “are you a humanoid or ichthyo?”
They’re docked at a waystation in the boondocks, which really isn’t much more than a restaurant with a relay station attached. It’s the kind of place people like Minho and Seunghoon come when they want to eat without an arrest attempt. Minho likes it here. The decor is modeled off of old Earth diners, and the waitresses always grunt when he tries to flirt with them.
“I guess humanoid?” Jinwoo says, picking at the wriggling dish in front of him. Minho suggested they stop here to ease the tension brought about by Jinwoo’s confession, and it seems like it’s paying off. Seunghoon’s relaxed a little bit, and Jinwoo seems a little less on-edge. He’s tied a scarf around his neck to hide the gills, but the faintest hint of blue peeks up around his jawline, like an ice colored blush.
“We’re descended from humans, I think,” Jinwoo continues, “or maybe humans are descended from us?” He shrugs.
“We used to have legends about people who lived under the sea, maybe that’s where you come from.” Minho pauses, watching with growing horror as Jinwoo picks up one of the wriggling creatures and pops it into his mouth. “Is that a shrimp? Isn’t that cannibalism?”
Jinwoo flashes him a toothy smile. His teeth look like fangs.
“We’re both, and a little bit more,” Seunghoon says. He gestures to the whole of his body with a burnt french fry. “Genetically engineered to be the best in the galaxy. It’s why we make up most of the Empire’s army. Fast reflexes, sharp eyes, two brains.” He pops the fry into his mouth. “Perfect.”
“How did you lose your other head?” Jinwoo asks, curious.
“It’s a pretty normal thing,” Seunghoon shrugs. “They start us training when we’re young, piloting, weapons training, kid’s stuff, real lasers right from the beginning. About once a week we have a kid blasting another’s non-primary head off. Same thing happened to me, except,” he grins, “it wasn’t so much a kid as a really pissed off Empire captain.”
“So why don’t you just go home and get yours fixed?”
Seunghoon’s smile sinks. He opens his mouth, and then closes it. Minho, seeing the panic in his partner’s eyes, jumps in.
“One of the reasons they’re some of the most prized soldiers in the galaxy is that their planet produces the purest tritanium you can get. Their ships are the fastest, their training starts the earliest… Word got out about twenty years ago, and…”
“They mined the planet dry,” Jinwoo says quietly. Minho nods.
“But at least our ships are faster now,” Seunghoon says, in a brittle voice.
The table falls silent. Around them, hulking creatures arm-wrestle and bet on next week’s speeder races. Minho sketches nonsense on the tabletop in water droplets. He doesn’t know what to say, or what to do. It’s a new feeling.
It’s Seunghoon, surprisingly, who speaks first. His voice is gruff and scratchy, strained with the effort of holding something back, but it keeps steady, and Minho admires him for that.
“Do you want help?” Seunghoon asks.
Minho’s finger stops. He looks up at Seunghoon, more surprised than he’s felt all day, which is saying something. His partner looks at him, raising his eyebrows a little - not asking for permission, rather, acknowledgment. Minho, heart hammering his ribs, can’t speak.
He looks at Jinwoo. Jinwoo, whose wide eyes are shining with a kind of fervor Minho has never seen before; Jinwoo, whose smile is victorious and exhausted and razor sharp; Jinwoo, whose skin is glowing aquamarine. Jinwoo and Seunghoon stare at each other, and a kind of understanding passes between the two of them that Minho knows he’ll never understand.
“Yes,” Jinwoo says, and then, “please.”
Seunghoon nods. His face is set.
They turn to look at Minho.
“Minho,” Jinwoo begins.
“You don’t have to,” says Seunghoon.
“Fine,” says Minho.
“What?” they say together.
Minho sighs, not unhappily. “I’m not going to stop my best friend and my - recent acquaintance from going on a suicide mission. Even if I tried I doubt I could. Besides,” he addresses Seunghoon, “you need someone to babysit you.” Seunghoon snorts. “Anywhere I go I’m gonna be a target, the Empire, hell, Kang Seungyoon confirmed that. If I’m gonna die,” he shrugs, “why not do it in style?”
Something like relief floods Jinwoo’s face. He smiles, almost shyly. “I’ve been alone most of my life,” he says softly, so softly Minho has to lean in, “I’ve never met anyone… willing to risk themselves like this.”
Minho feels something settle in his chest - nerves, and trepidation, and, nested warmly between them, certainty.
Someone taps his shoulder. Minho, still warm with the decision of certain death, turns around. A large tattooed humanoid, body plated head to toe with steel and spikes, grins down down at him.
“You say Kang Seungyoon?” it rumbles, as deep as a vulture’s engine.
“ - Yes?” Minho says, elation quickly backing away towards terror.
“You that guy he sent that message about? The one he’ll, what was it? Pay 2,000 credits per individual toe?” An interested, equally burly crowd is gathering. Minho feels very small.
“No?” Minho says.
“I think,” the humanoid says, “you’re lying.”
By the time they reach the falcon Jinwoo has lost his scarf, Seunghoon has a black eye, and Minho’s leg is back to being fully inoperable. They can never go back to that diner again, Seunghoon tells him, but it doesn’t matter. It won’t matter soon, anyway.
They sketch out a rough plan in the remaining day it takes them to hit the summit. It’s not a great plan, Minho thinks, but it’s not the worst he’s ever seen. It’s not exactly reassuring.
They ditch the falcon at a shipyard a few clicks from the summit. “Seungyoon’s trace is all over it,” Jinwoo explains, “and besides, we can’t get in with our own ship. Only Empire military are allowed in or out.” They don’t discuss how, exactly, they’ll leave.
Instead, they use the credits the falcon nets them to buy themselves places on a dignitary transport. The guard, a bored mercenary, seems skeptical, but he perks up after they offer up enough credits. He sells them the IDs of absent dignitaries, “honorary ambassadors” from backwater systems too important to get a seat at the table, too venerable to completely ignore. Minho is amused to see they’ve been made representatives of Earth’s home system.
Minho paints Jinwoo’s neck with acrylics, shading his gills with brilliant pinks and yellows and blue until his skin is a tapestry of color. Jinwoo tells their delighted fellow passengers that it’s a custom on Old Jupiter; when pressed for details he just smiles mysteriously and refuses to speak further.
They reach the summit the night before it begins. The station is a spectacle built just for this meeting, more than a billion credits poured into one night’s negotiation. Its exoskeleton has been constructed to resemble old-world glass, so that the stars shimmer above and below the open-mouthed guests. The hallways twinkle with minerals specifically mined by Yang. Jinwoo’s mouth tightens at the sparkling Imdo sapphires, but he manages to keep from crying out.
They only see Yang once, from within a milling crowd of spectators. He stands on a balcony, looking down upon the throng. He smiles, looking from this far away like an emperor surveying his kingdom. Empire dignitaries touch his shoulder and call him away, inside to the festivities. Minho watches him go, sapphires sparkling all around.
Seunghoon managed to talk his place into the reserve mercenaries hired for the summit. It wasn’t difficult - once the CO realized his home planet, he was in uniform. He winks at Jinwoo and Minho as they’re ushered down the glittering hallway, and then snaps back into attention as his squad leader screams for attention.
They’re brusquely shown their suite, a cramped, industrial affair far removed from the luxurious apartments of the more distinguished systems. They’re strongly encouraged to stay in their rooms for the night. Their guide, as added encouragement, locks their door from the outside.
“Well, fuck,” says Minho, sitting down on the bed.
“Come on,” says Jinwoo, “there’s gotta be something.”
They’re debating how dead they would hypothetically be if they were to smash the window and scale up the side of the station (very), when the door clicks open. They both look up, tensing, but relax as Seunghoon slips inside.
“Hey,” says Seunghoon. He’s completely dwarfed by the merc uniform, but he still looks completely, almost too comfortable with a gun at his side. “Sorry it took so long, we had to be on guard during Yang’s feast, and then we all had to march down together to the mess, it was actually pretty fun. The booze was okay and I met this cool pilot, Taeh-”
“Seunghoon,” Minho interrupts, “did you get it?”
Seunghoon, not perturbed in the slightest, nods and pulls a small disc from the depths of his uniform. He tosses it to Jinwoo, who examines it for a moment before breaking it in half.
A model of the ship snaps into view. It’s labeled with sleeping quarters and service hallways they hadn’t been able to access on normal channels. Jinwoo, eyes darting here and there, finally sketches a line through the winding hallways, drawing a pathway between their own chamber and one much larger, marked “YANG”.
“We’ve got it,” he whispers. His voice is solemn, almost reverent.
After a moment, Seunghoon speaks. “I’m gonna go back to the mess. I’ll keep the mercs distracted as long as I can, but they’re gonna start patrolling eventually. Minho, can you stay on top of them?”
Minho swallows down his nerves and nods. Seunghoon, standing up, gives him a strangely tender smile. Minho wants to say something - don’t die, stay here, good luck, don’t fuck up - but they all trip over each other, and stop up his throat. By the time he can speak, Seunghoon has vanished through the door.
“Alright,” Jinwoo says immediately, standing up, “let’s go.”
“So soon?” Minho hears himself saying, and knows he’s a coward.
“Yes,” Jinwoo says, which what might be gentleness. His skin glows blue. Minho wills himself calm.
The door clicks open this time. The hallway is silent, but they creep at its side, remembering the sensors marked red on the map. Minho tries to keep as silent as he can, even as his legs screams out in pain, even as his breath turns into gasps. Jinwoo is muttering something under his breath, a rhythmic drone timed with his steps. Minho doesn’t recognize the language, but he runs the tune through his mind. If Jinwoo thinks a god might be listening, Minho wants it to focus all of its attention on them.
They manage to avoid everyone until they reach the arrivals port, which blocks the way to the service hallway they need. An Empire soldier, clothed in red and black, sees them before they can run the other way. She advances towards them, pistol raised.
“Halt!” she says, in what she probably hopes is an authoritative voice. “Who are you? Why are you out of your chambers?”
“Uh,” Minho responds. He freezes at the sight of her uniform, red and black and gray, gray prison. His tongue goes heavy. He needs to hide.
Jinwoo, thankfully, has a faster brain than Minho’s. “My companion suffered a fall and hurt his leg,” he says. He prods Minho, who lets out a very real groan. “He needs medical attention?”
“Why not just use the medpac in your room?” she asks, still suspicious.
“He’s human,” Jinwoo says in a conspiratorial voice. “Still hasn’t evolved beyond flesh and blood doctor. You know how it is.” He gives the guard an exasperated look. Minho feels offended.
“Human, huh?” the guard says, looking curious. “I think we got another one on board, one of the mercs.” She looks around, and, once she confirms that the hallway is empty, lowers her weapon. “Alright,” she says, “if you take the hallway down there and go down the first right you’ll get to a vet the Cancri brought to tend to their Rho earthworms. Their stuff will probably work on humans, right?”
“Yeah,” Minho says, forgetting himself, “we’re virtually indistinguishable from earthworms.” Before he can say anything else Jinwoo is pulling him away, with a heartfelt “thanks” to the guard.
The service hallway is dark and dingy. Minho feels right at home. They get to the first fork and turn left. The hallway is bathed in crimson lights, which bathe Minho’s skin in blood.
Jinwoo walks beside him, steady, calm. Minho wills himself to be the same.
They climb up a ladder, and then another. There aren’t any guards, which means that Seunghoon’s doing his job, but Minho doesn’t know how long he can keep them at bay. Seconds feel like minutes, minutes feel like hours, and at every turn Minho expects a bevy of guard, lasers drawn, ready to fire.
And then, finally, after what seems like a thousand minutes of climbing and walking and waiting, they reach a small, nondescript door marked “Main Exit”.
They stop. Minho looks at Jinwoo. Jinwoo looks straight ahead.
“We’re here,” he says, in a small voice. Still, he doesn’t move.
“Jinwoo?” Minho asks. He almost reaches over to touch the man, but stops himself for a reason he can’t quite explain.
JInwoo reaches up, almost unconsciously, to smear the paint from his neck. His skin flashes a brilliant purple underneath the lights. “Can it be this easy?” he asks. “Can I just… go in here, and finish it?” He looks at Minho, finally betraying some kind of anguish, some kind of terror. It captivates Minho, in a sickly way.
“Can I finish this?” Jinwoo asks, in a whisper.
Minho, not hesitating now, reaches over to touch Jinwoo’s hand. Jinwoo looks over. His eyes are bright.
“Don’t fucking move!” yells a voice behind them. Before they have a chance to react, something large and heavy barrels into Minho. Minho grabs the blaster at his side and shoots at random; the figure holding him lets out an inhuman scream, and drops to the floor. Minho turns around; dozens upon dozens of mercs are streaming through the hallway, guns out, lasers focused. Minho shoots one, two, three. They drop to the ground, green and blue blood spilling across the floor.
The largest of them locks eyes with him. Without hesitating, he lowers his weapon, and shoots him square in the leg. Minho drops to the floor, howling in pain. The merc looms over him, sneering. Pain arcs against Minho’s head. His vision spots. His stomach sinks.
“Minho!” He looks up. Jinwoo, lithe, small, darts between the furious mercs, just out of reach of their grubby hands. His teeth are bared, and leave little pinpricks of blood against their skin. He hesitates, eyes on Minho’s body. The door is open; Minho bleeds. Minho, without thinking, nods towards Jinwoo, towards the door.
Jinwoo only pauses to give him a searching, anguished look, before he vanishes behind the door. It locks behind him automatically, and the mercs, roaring with anger, begin firing at the lock with full power.
Minho’s captor hauls him up by the neck. “You’re gonna pay for that, kid,” he mutters, his breath hot and sour in Minho’s face. “You’re gonna pay for that for a long time.”
Minho gulps. His throat is dry.
The holding cells are tiny, either because they didn’t expect to use them, or to minimize the noise. Minho suspects the latter.
The guards begin by detailing what, exactly, they will do to Minho if he doesn’t comply. They begin with his fingers, and then move to his eyeballs, and then his fractured limb. In between this, they pepper him with questions - who are you, who was the man, why are you here, who hired you? Minho keeps his mouth shut, focusing all of his energy on Jinwoo sneaking into Yang’s room, finding Yang’s sleeping body.
The merc who captured him snarls, frustrated. “This isn’t a joke,” he hisses, “and I promise you, for every minute you don’t talk, that’s gonna be an hour of pain for your friend. Now tell me, who hired you?”
“Fuck you,” Minho says. The guard slaps him.
“Tell me.”
“Fuck… you,” Minho repeats.
The man slaps him again. He tastes blood in his mouth. The guard hits him again and again, until Minho’s vision is spotted red. In the bloody haze he imagines he can see Seunghoon, still dressed in the narc uniform, sneak into the room.
“Who,” the guard hisses, “hired you?” Seunghoon slides his hand to his holster.
“You wanna know?” grunts Minho, voice thick through the blood. “Fine, fuckface, I’ll tell you. I was hired to assassinate Yang by Kang Seungyoon.”
The guard stares at him dumbly. “Who?” he says.
A few things happen at once. Seunghoon raises his gun, ready to fire on the closest merc. On the control panel in the corner, a red light begins blinking, urgent and fast. And, through the door, they can hear an alarm beginning to scream.
“What the hell?” the merc yells. He yanks the door open and bodily grabs a passing soldier. “What the hell happened?” he asks the kid, dangling him by the collar. The soldier wriggles around, breathless. “There’s been an attack! On Yang!” he exclaims. “The guy who tried is getting away!” He manages to get out of the merc’s grasp and sprints down the hallway.
“Move out!” bellows the merc. The troop surges out. He points a stubby finger at Seunghoon, the only one with his gun drawn. “You! Guard the prisoner! Don’t worry,” he hisses down at Minho, “I’ll be back for you.”
Seunghoon waits until the hallway is empty, before hauling Minho to his feet and slinging his arm over his shoulder. “Come on!” he hisses, “we have to get out of here!”
“But Jinwoo-”
“He’ll find us! Come on, Minho, the hanger is just a few hallways away!”
They hurry down the now-deserted corridor. They can hear screams and crashes above, but even the hanger has been completely abandoned. Seunghoon hurries him towards a small hawk and pushes him inside.
“We have,” Minho mutters, “to save Jinwoo.”
“Stay here,” Seunghoon says, strapping Minho into a chair and wiping the blood from his chin. It’s an oddly comfortable gesture. “I’ll be back, Minho, I promise.”
With one last look he hops out of the hawk. Minho tries to hold on for a moment longer, but can’t stop himself from succumbing to the darkness. The last thing he sees as he faints away are the lights above, pulsing black and red over and over again.
He wakes up to the sound of a weapons system clicking on.
“See,” says a voice, “I told you the only thing that would get him up was heavy artillery.”
Minho cracks an eye open, and groans. “Fuck,” he says, pressing a hand to his jaw.
HIs vision blacks out again, and a hand grasps his own, gently guiding it away.
“Don’t do that,” says Jinwoo, smiling down at him. “You’ll give yourself another concussion.”
“How,” Minho croaks. His tongue feels heavy.
“Well,” Seunghoon says, looking over from the nav panel, “they chased us for a while, but this baby is too fast for their best speeders.” He pats the new ship’s console like a proud parent. “Plus, once the lunk that captured you remembered ‘Kang Seungyoon’, I figure they decided, why go after the pawns when you can get the kingpin?”
“Pawns?” Minho can’t stop himself from asking.
“Pawns,” Seunghoon confirms.
Minho lets this rattle through his mind, and then asks, “Yang?”
“Alive,” Jinwoo says quietly. “I couldn’t,” he says at Minho’s expression, “I couldn’t. This summit, this thing - it’s not going away with Yang. I saw their lists, I saw the planets they’re going after next. Minho, it’s… hundreds. Hundreds of planets that are going to die like mine, like Seunghoon’s. It’s not stopping with Yang. And, besides,” he says, looking away, “it would be a pity if you died.”
Minho looks at Jinwoo, so many things waiting to be said that he instead stays silent. Jinwoo looks back at him, expression now steady, almost serene. Finally, Minho manages: “Why aren’t you angry?”
Against all odds, a small smile spreads across Jinwoo’s face. “Well,” he says, and then turns to Seunghoon.
Seunghoon, with the same sly smile, fiddles with something on the panel. A model of the galaxy pops up on the view screen. Planets are marked in random with red ‘x’s, each labeled with a small number. Minho glances at the nav screen - they’re headed, as it turns out, straight for number one.
“Is that,” he asks.
“A map of every mining operation Yang is planning on pursuing, in order?” Jinwoo asks. “Yeah, yeah it is.” He looks at Minho, smile wide, skin glowing sea-blue. “Minho, how do you feel about starting a rebellion?”
Minho’s head spins. His heart pounds. He smiles, and then, after a moment, begins to laugh.
They speed through space, and vanish into the stars.