Separated From The Stars, 2/5
They were gathered around a table in Sakurai Sho’s royal suite aboard the Miyabi. Although they dined only on heated meals in plastic trays, the quality was excellent. It was far better than the freeze-dried rations Satoshi had eaten on the journey out here. He wondered how many hours of kaenium power were used up in the Kagerou factories that had made these meals for deep space travel, the juicy steak and crusty bread that tasted almost as authentic as something from back home. How many Akatsuki citizen work hours were helping to feed him now?
Satoshi was seated across from Sho, who had his bodyguard Harada to his left and his pilot Kinoshita to his right. Both men were fairly quiet, obedient in a way Satoshi’s trusted staffers rarely were. But Sho dominated the talking anyhow, managing to completely ignore the reason Satoshi had come all this way. There was no mention of the asteroid mines, no mention of kaenium shortages on Kagerou.
Instead Sho had turned on his charm, discussing his visits to Akatsuki in glowing terms. Apparently after a few of his meetings with Satoshi, he’d toured around incognito, visiting several shrines and other points of interest before returning home. He had nothing but nice things to say about Satoshi’s home planet, and even if he sounded sincere, Satoshi knew he couldn’t fall for it.
If Sho liked Akatsuki so much, maybe he should work harder to support the citizens who left it behind to toil thanklessly in his stupid mines.
Satoshi spent most of the meal concentrating on eating, letting Jun smooth things over and Nino too. Sho had several questions for Jun, asking about how the Akatsuki civil service academy worked, offering comparisons with Kagerou’s. He encouraged Kinoshita to chat with Nino about engines, about flying. He asked after Satoshi’s brother-in-law Kenji, who had briefly studied off-planet in one of Kagerou’s universities as an exchange student. He even wanted to see photos of young Prince Yuta, Mina’s son, and Satoshi begrudgingly shared a few via his CompTab.
Everything he did and everything he said was friendly, curious, and kind. Satoshi almost wished he hadn’t agreed to the meal, that he instead had pushed to open negotiations right off the bat, to find out what the hell Sho even wanted with this secret meeting of his. He’d obviously had to work hard to keep this entire mission off his father’s radar, but he didn’t appear nervous at all. And that worried Satoshi all the more.
When Sho disappeared into his personal quarters and returned with a bottle of clear alcohol, Satoshi got to his feet. He couldn’t afford to drink, not when so much was at stake.
“It’s been a long journey out here, and my men need rest,” he said calmly.
Sho actually looked disappointed. “Just a nightcap?”
“Thank you very much for the meal, Sho-kun. It was very kind of you. But we’ll be excusing ourselves now.”
“Satoshi-kun…”
“Thank you.”
Without another word, his guards, Nino, and Jun got to their feet, bowing respectfully to Sho and heading for the airlock. Sho nodded. “As you wish. Perhaps tomorrow after we’ve spoken. We might both need a drink then.”
“Good night.”
-
Later that night he sat in his quarters alone, unable to sleep, reviewing all the materials Jun had prepared for him. He practiced various arguments back and forth in his mirror, at least until he grew sick of looking at his own face.
He couldn’t go anywhere, tethered as he was to Sho’s ship until their negotiations ended. What was Sho’s big plan? And how did Satoshi and Akatsuki figure into it?
The little chime at his door went off, startling him a little. What did Jun want at this hour? He looked down at himself, sighing. He hadn’t changed out of his formal clothes after dinner, his shirt thoroughly rumpled and a sauce stain on the lapel of his jacket. They were hundreds of thousands of kilometers from laundry service. He got to his feet, shuffling over and pressing the button to slide open his door.
Where he expected to find Jun he instead found Sakurai Sho, and he straightened up. His clothes were equally mussed, his formal red jacket gone and his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, a few buttons undone. There was none of the proper Crown Prince standing in his doorway now, just a tired-looking man with a soft smile.
Satoshi could see a suspicious Maruyama standing guard just behind Sho. It was probable that Maruyama had asked Sho not to disturb him, but Satoshi knew very well that princes usually got their way.
“I don’t believe I gave you permission to come aboard,” Satoshi offered in greeting.
Sho leaned forward, resting his hand against the doorway. His wicked grin could have melted the ice caps of his stupid planet. Oh stars, had Jun and Nino been right? Was Sho coming to…coming to…
“Do you want to look at the planet with me?”
“Huh?”
Sho chuckled quietly, clearly not wanting to disturb Nino and Jun who were hopefully asleep in the passenger quarters nearby. “The view from my suite is the best one.”
Satoshi sighed. “Sho-kun, what’s this really about?”
Sho raised an eyebrow. “Honestly, when do you think we’ll be back out here again? We ought to take advantage.”
“My sister put everything she’s worked so hard for at risk to send me out here. I don’t have time to sightsee.”
Sho reached out a hand, presumably to pat his shoulder, and Satoshi watched Maruyama’s hand go to the holster around his middle.
“Maru, it’s okay…” he said sharply, ordering his guard to stand down. Sho wasn’t threatening him, he could feel it.
Sho froze, hand hovering in the air. Eventually he let it drop. “Sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t think about what that looked like…”
Satoshi had a hard time believing him. Sho, who seemed to know everything. Sho, who for the first time since they’d met, looked almost sad. Almost…lonely.
He hadn’t come looking for sex, as Jun and Nino had teased. Perhaps he’d come to Satoshi as someone who might understand him better than anyone else. As an equal, at least in status. Perhaps even as a friend.
How much pressure was Sho under, as Kagerou’s heir? And if he really was planning to break with his father on the Akatsuki miners, what would it mean for him? Satoshi knew that Sho had younger siblings. Would he be replaced? Branded a traitor? For all that Satoshi disagreed with him, Sho was intelligent and knowledgeable. He doubted there was anyone who knew Kagerou policy and procedure as well as Sho did. And yet he was risking it all to stand here, in Satoshi’s doorway, orbiting a distant planet thousands of kilometers from home.
“I’ll come look, alright?”
Sho nodded, stepping back, and Satoshi followed him to the airlock, Maruyama behind him. When they got to the point where the ships were joined, he turned around, looking at his guard. He was obviously entitled to bring Maru with him, to have Maru standing by while he entered Sho’s private quarters. It would be a breach of protocol to go without him. It could all be a trap, Sho’s bodyguard inside waiting to tie him up, make Satoshi a hostage.
But why would Sho risk that when he was clearly outnumbered, when Satoshi had twice as many people on his side? Nino wasn’t a bodyguard, but he was military trained. He could hold his own. And Jun knew which end of a laser pistol to hold even if he was a mere advisor.
“Maru, stay here.”
“But Your Highness…”
“I understand your misgivings,” Sho said softly, moving to remove the ruby stud from his ear. It glimmered in his palm as he held it out. That damn earring was probably worth enough kaenium to power Kagerou’s royal capital for a year. “Take it. Take it as proof that I mean your prince no harm.”
Maruyama let Sho drop the ruby into his hand. Jun wasn’t going to like this when he found out, but for the first time, Satoshi had seen doubt in Sho’s face. He’d seen Sho’s defenses lowered. Perhaps he could turn this to his advantage ahead of the morning’s negotiations.
Maruyama stayed back on the Kaisei side of the airlock as Satoshi followed Sho onto the Miyabi. Nothing happened as they walked through, turning the corner back to where they’d just been for dinner hours earlier. Sho’s bodyguard Harada was standing outside the door to Sho’s suite with the same solemn calm he’d had on display all evening.
“We’re going to enjoy the view,” Sho explained. “And we are not to be disturbed.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Harada stepped aside, and Satoshi followed Sho inside. The door sealed shut quietly behind them. Sho did a lot more traveling aboard his royal vessel than Satoshi did aboard his, so his quarters were decorated far more elaborately. There was a large bed in the center of the room with red blankets and the family’s crest stitched onto both the top coverlet as well as the white pillowcases.
There was a massive CompStation with a large screen where Sho could work. He had a private bathroom, a walk-in closet full of more red jackets and more military-style uniform coats. Sakurai Sho was Kagerou’s royal family on the move, heading from dome to dome to give speeches and check in with local aristocrats. He practically lived on the Miyabi, as far as Satoshi could tell.
Hidden behind a heavy set of red curtains was the viewing window Satoshi knew Sho had been referring to. Unlike the small round portholes on the Kaisei, Sho’s personal quarters had a wall-to-wall window, thick tinted glass. Satoshi had only seen it from the ground, where Sho’s view had been restricted to the inside of the Akatsuki space dock. As Sho pulled the curtains inside, Satoshi took in a breath. Though the view from the bridge of the Kaisei had been impressive, this was stunning. Floor-to-ceiling, all there was to see was the brightness of Rakuen. Sho tapped in a code on the panel beside the window and the pinkish tint vanished, revealing Rakuen in all its green glory.
Unable to help himself, he stepped forward, boots dragging along Sho’s fluffy carpeted floor. He knew the glass was thick to withstand the temperature shifts that came from entering and exiting a planet’s atmosphere, but it was so clear. So absolutely clear that he felt almost like he might walk through, fall down to the planet below. Physics and logic became afterthoughts.
“Amazing,” he mumbled, nervously putting his hand to the cold glass, relieved with the confirmation that he wasn’t going to tumble out of the Miyabi and into the vacuum of space.
Sho was still at the panel, his expression serious. “I’ve invested my entire inheritance to solve this problem of ours, Satoshi-kun.”
“Yeah?” he muttered in reply, not really hearing Sho when there was so much beauty to look at kilometers below.
“And one of the labs I was working with has finally made a definitive confirmation. A process by which the same kaenium ore we mine could be augmented chemically to yield twice as much as normal. The current extraction process is cumbersome and outdated. With this discovery, the entire mining industry might be improved. The money saved could go to the betterment of worker lives…”
He turned, Sho’s words sinking in. “Wait, what? Are you serious?”
Sho’s face was still solemn. “I’m quite serious.”
“Why…why would you tell me that now? We’re not supposed to meet until the morning.”
“I thought I owed it to you, man to man. After all the hours we’ve spent together where I’ve had to be so harsh. Where I had to act like I didn’t care about all those people. I do care, Satoshi-kun, as if they were my own citizens. They work for us, they work so hard for us and still we treat them like numbers. Not humans. I’ve been working with scientists on this project for many years, even before the strike. As I said, I really have invested my entire inheritance to fix this problem. It’s only now that I finally have definitive results I can use…”
Satoshi was confused, even as his heart was leaping in joy with Sho’s news. And with the knowledge that Sakurai Sho wasn’t the heartless man he’d originally thought he was. Oh stars, if Kagerou could power itself on half of what it was currently extracting, the miners wouldn’t have to be overworked. Overcrowded. Underpaid.
He needed Jun. Jun would know what to say, Jun would know what to do with this information. But all Satoshi could do was ask questions, keep Sho talking.
“Why arrange all this behind your father’s back? Why come to Akatsuki with this discovery before telling your father?”
Sho took a breath. “Because I know that my father won’t act based on mere lab results. Would your sister? I doubt it. We need proof, real proof from a functioning kaenium mine that the new extraction and processing method is sound. I can’t authorize a test on any of the Kagerou mining operations. With the strike, our reserves are so depleted we can’t risk it not working on the ore that’s already been extracted. And obviously, with the strike, we don’t have the workers to dig for more.”
Satoshi narrowed his eyes. He could hear Mina’s voice, Mina’s warnings ringing in his ears. Mina reminding him that if Sho’s negotiations put Akatsuki in an awkward position, it was Satoshi’s duty to stop them. To stop immediately and back off.
“You have a planet full of people too, Sho-kun,” Satoshi reminded him. “Get your own people to do the mining.” He took a step closer, hands on his hips in irritation, desperately trying to keep from saying anything nastier than he should. But it was hard to hold his tongue after all these fruitless meetings and negotiations. “Or is that beneath you Kagerou folks? Putting in a day’s labor?”
He clearly had no right to say such a thing. As a prince, Satoshi had never worked in a dangerous kaenium mine.
But he had worked.
He’d worked on fishing boats before, and he’d spent the summers of his teen years on farms, getting sunburned with the common people as he planted crops and picked fruit. Mina had too. His father may not have been the strongest leader Akatsuki had ever had, but he’d refused to allow his children to grow up without having at least some experience with the land, among their people. Satoshi knew the value of work, even if he’d spent the last few years as more of a diplomat than anything else.
Sho frowned. Perhaps Satoshi had earned his very first point in their hours of arguing, saying something he’d wanted to say for years and right to the Crown Prince of Kagerou’s face.
He stood there, breathing heavily after getting so worked up, waiting for Sho to respond. Satoshi had an idea what Sho was going to propose. He’d want to negotiate with Mina, to have one of the mines on Akatsuki test his science project for him in secret. And once there was proof of success in a working mine, Sho could then go to his father with the results. It was dangerous. It was ridiculous, quite frankly. And what did it mean for the people suffering because of the strike that was still ongoing?
But this wasn’t their official meeting. They still had a whole day in Rakuen orbit to talk more about it.
“Sho-kun?”
Sho held up a hand, his face seeming even more pale than usual. “Wait.”
“Wait? Wait for what?”
Sho’s face grew panicked, and the look of it was so foreign that Satoshi almost laughed at him.
“Something’s wrong.”
And that was when they heard the alarm. The alarm that Nino had described earlier that day as the “good” alarm. It was something to do with the hard seal. The airlock…
“No!” Sho shouted, racing away from the panel by the window and to the door to his quarters. He tapped the button again and again but it wouldn’t open. “Harada! Harada!”
Satoshi nearly stumbled as he felt the screeching of metal. The same noise that he’d heard when the two ships had joined earlier that day. But now it sounded like the Miyabi had released the clamp holding the Kaisei to it.
“What the fuck is going on?” he yelled at Sho, standing at the doorway with him. “What’s happening to my ship?”
“I don’t know!” Sho yelled in panic. The calm, collected, perfect Crown Prince had disappeared…Satoshi couldn’t recognize him any longer. He pounded again and again on the door. “Harada!”
The ship-wide intercom sounded, and Satoshi could suddenly hear Nino’s frightened voice coming over it.
“Miyabi, this is the Kaisei. What’s going on? Why have you disengaged? Miyabi, come in!”
Satoshi exhaled a breath, if only because he knew that Nino was alive. The two ships had decoupled, but the Kaisei was still functioning. The airlocks had disengaged, the ships had separated, but there’d been no decompression. The Kaisei was okay, the Kaisei was going to be okay…
“Harada!” Sho screamed, and this time Satoshi joined him, pounding on the door. “Harada, I order you to open this door right now!”
“Miyabi, come in. Please confirm the safety of Prince Satoshi,” Nino demanded over the intercom.
There was a brief moment of interference and then Jun was speaking.
“This is Matsumoto Jun of the Akatsuki royal court. We demand that you respond regarding your sudden and dangerous action. If you do not, we will consider your behavior to be an act of war. You have abducted a member of the royal family during a neutral meeting based on good faith, and you will be held accountable for it. Miyabi, please respond.”
When Sho leaned his head on the door, giving up on his shouts and simply pounding his fist against it, Satoshi backed away.
He took a deep breath as he reached inside his coat for the secret pocket stitched within it. He tore the button loose, pulling out the small laser pistol he kept within on Jun’s orders. He’d been stupid. Stars, he’d been so stupid to trust Sho.
A new scientific discovery? Of course it was a lie. Of course this was all a lie. He could already see the beautiful green view of Rakuen shifting. Miyabi was coming about, and surely she’d have her weapons drawn, aimed directly at the Kaisei.
He pointed the pistol directly at Sho. “If you fire on my people, I’ll kill you right here.”
Sho stumbled back, raising his hands, shaking his head. “Satoshi-kun, I didn’t…I don’t know what’s happening!”
“You fucking liar! You’re a liar! You don’t give a shit about Akatsuki, admit it! But I will not be made a fool! You hear me?” He adjusted the dial on the pistol’s barrel, shakily turning it from stun to a burst strong enough to kill. “If you set this all up just to take me hostage, then do it. But you will let my people fly back to Akatsuki safely. You will let them go!”
Sho had tears in his eyes, was still denying it. “Satoshi-kun, I swear. I swear to you,” he said, voice quivering. “I don’t know what’s…”
And that was when the artificial gravity in Sho’s quarters shut off.
He was moving, rising from the floor, and he nearly lost the pistol. Sho’s feet left the ground too, his hands scrambling for something to hold on to and failing. In seconds the two of them were floating, weightless. The pillows floated up off the bed, the bottles of liquor on a cart in the corner of the room rising. Anything not bolted down was in motion.
It took every bit of concentration Satoshi had to keep a hold on his weapon, although with Sho floating and himself floating, it was difficult to keep his aim steady.
He’d never seen Sho look frightened before, clinging to one of the air grates lodged on the wall near the doorway. Seeing that, Satoshi’s rage was quickly replaced with a more surprising feeling. The need to protect him. The pistol wavered in his hand. Harada and the pilot, Kinoshita…they had to know that Satoshi and their Crown Prince were both in here.
Which meant that Satoshi might not be the target…
When the door opened, Satoshi could still hear Jun and Nino’s panicking voices over the intercom, demanding that he be returned. The gravity problem was ship-wide, not just isolated to Sho’s quarters. The painfully slow, noisy clomp of gravity boots came down the corridor, and they were joined by Sho’s bodyguard, Harada. He had a laser pistol of his own, but his aim was true thanks to the special magnetized boots. Even through the Miyabi’s thick carpets, he was able to keep from floating.
“Harada,” Sho demanded. “What is the meaning of this?”
“Your Highness, a member of the House of Councillors suspected you of treasonous behavior. I was tasked with determining what your plans might be and to act as my conscience dictates.”
Harada didn’t even bother to look in Satoshi’s direction, which allowed him to lower his arm, hide his hand and pistol in his coat pocket even as the movement sent him twisting about unsteadily.
Sho raised his hands, betrayal evident in his eyes. Apparently, it had been treason for Sho to tell Satoshi his plans, to openly plot behind his father’s back, even if it had been nothing more than funding scientific inquiries. Satoshi wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Sho’s quarters were bugged, the bodyguard and pilot waiting for Sho to admit his plans out loud.
“Harada, does my father know?”
“No, Your Highness. My orders were to prove your guilt or your innocence before the King was to be notified.”
Satoshi could see Sho’s tears floating in the air around him, drifting away from his face. It seemed that Satoshi had been wrong. Sho had been telling the truth. About the mining, about the new discoveries he had made. But at what cost?
Sho’s voice was shaking. “You will restore normal gravity parameters to the ship, and you will allow Prince Satoshi to return to the Kaisei.”
Harada adjusted the dial on his laser pistol. “I’m afraid I cannot take orders from traitors. I feel that I have failed in my duties all these years. It’s best we die together to keep from bringing shame on the royal house of Sakurai.”
“Harada, wait…” Sho protested, eyes widening.
Satoshi raised his pistol and fired just as Harada did, the kickback from the weapon in zero-g pushing him all the way back until he smacked into the cold glass window. He heard Sho cry out, and Satoshi fired again. This time the glass at his back kept his aim steadier, and he watched Harada drop back with a scream, the boots likely keeping his legs in place while his body flew back from the force of Satoshi’s fire.
He could see the red spray of blood floating all around the cabin, globules matching the Sakurai family colors. How much was Harada’s? How much was Sho’s?
Suddenly, Jun and Nino’s voices were silenced. The intercom was cut off. What replaced their voices sent a shiver down Satoshi’s spine.
“Auto-destruct sequence activated. One hundred twenty seconds remaining.”
Kinoshita, the pilot…
He’d likely be slowed down by the magnetic boots too, if he was wearing them. That would give Satoshi the advantage he needed. He didn’t bother to call out to Sho, instead using his own feet to kick off the glass and propel him across the room to the open doorway. He desperately tried to ignore the unnatural way Harada had fallen, his lower legs all but glued to the floor because of the boots, his body flung back and hovering, sprays of red flooding the air around him.
Satoshi drifted through it, feeling droplets land on his face as he grabbed hold of the doorway.
“Auto-destruct sequence activated. One hundred ten seconds remaining.”
Using the doorway for leverage, he pushed off and floated down the corridor to the bridge. To his surprise, he found the quiet Kinoshita-san floating in the air himself, holding a laser pistol to his temple.
Satoshi clung to the doorway, holding out his own weapon.
“Auto-destruct sequence activated. One hundred seconds remaining.”
“Deactivate it,” Satoshi ordered. “Deactivate it, I said!”
“I have participated in a treasonous act,” the pilot said, his face solemn as Harada’s had been even as he fired at his prince. “I must atone for bringing shame on the royal house of Sakurai.”
“Wait…wait!” Satoshi screamed, but the pilot was set in his decision.
The shot echoed in the small bridge, followed by a splattering sound that turned his stomach.
“Auto-destruct sequence activated. Ninety seconds remaining.”
Satoshi hauled himself onto the bridge, pushing Kinoshita’s floating body out of the way. Oh stars, how had it all gone so wrong so quickly? Clinging to the pilot’s seat, he saw that Kinoshita had smashed the intercom. There was no way to get a message to Nino in time, no way to tell them what had happened. He scanned the dials and gauges, desperate for something that looked familiar. Why had he never paid any attention when Nino had tried to teach him?
“Think, think, think!” he cursed himself, flinging the now-useless laser pistol out of his hand. It thumped against the glass and remained floating.
He recognized one gauge. Thrusters. Forward or reverse. He looked down, finding the lever he needed that matched the one Nino was always using.
“Auto-destruct sequence activated. Eighty seconds remaining.”
He pulled it back as far as it could go, and he felt the effects immediately. The Miyabi shot backwards, and he clung to the pilot’s seat. Out the glass, he could see the Kaisei growing smaller and smaller.
“Don’t follow. Don’t follow me, Nino,” he mumbled uselessly.
“Auto-destruct sequence activated. Seventy seconds remaining.”
He turned, finding Kinoshita still floating in the red air behind him. The interior of the Miyabi matched the exterior now, all too well.
“Get out of my way!” he shouted, pushing the corpse aside as he kicked off from the pilot’s seat, hurrying back down the corridor.
“Auto-destruct sequence activated. Sixty seconds remaining.”
Harada was still bent in that strange position, and Satoshi pushed his way back into Sho’s quarters. He followed the trail of red to Sho’s bathroom, finding Sho still leaving bubbles of blood in his wake. The shot had struck him somewhere on his side, the white fabric of his dress shirt soaked through.
“Sho-kun, it’s me.”
Sho was hovering near a panel on the wall, holding onto the curtain rod of his shower, stretching his fingers out. Satoshi used the doorway to propel himself forward. “Kinoshita?” Sho asked, gritting his teeth.
“Dead.”
“Auto-destruct sequence activated. Fifty seconds remaining.”
“I didn’t know how to turn it off,” Satoshi admitted.
“It’s okay,” Sho mumbled. “I’m the only one that knows this code. Well, Harada knew it…”
“Tell me.”
“572910…”
“Auto-destruct sequence activated. Forty seconds remaining.”
“…9335198,” Sho finished, and Satoshi followed his instructions.
A panel in the wall of the bathroom slid open, lights turning on inside to reveal an escape pod with four seats just through a small airlock. Satoshi hurried inside, reaching out for Sho’s hand and pulling him into the pod. For all that the Miyabi’s design had annoyed him before, he supposed he couldn’t complain now.
“Auto-destruct sequence activated. Thirty seconds remaining.”
As soon as the door sealed shut behind them, Sho hit a bright red button to the side of the door. With a whoosh of air, the pod pressurized on its own, artificial gravity restoring itself. They collapsed to the floor in a heap, the feeling of weightlessness vanishing in an instant. Sho groaned heavily, landing on top of him. The droplets of blood from Sho’s wound that had been floating fell and splattered on the floor around them.
Satoshi pushed him off quickly. “We have to get away. Right now.”
Body shaking a bit with adrenaline, he hauled Sho into one of the seats, buckling him in. He snapped his fingers, seeing that Sho was a bit woozy. “Sho-kun, how do I launch it?”
Sho blinked, hand drifting to his side, covering his wound. “It’s voice activated. Just…just hit that yellow one right…right there…”
“Auto-destruct sequence activated. Twenty seconds remaining.”
He hit the button on the control panel in the center of the circular pod. He then got into the seat next to Sho, buckling the harness over himself and letting out one last prayer that the sensors on the Kaisei were good enough to realize that the Miyabi was about to blow. That no matter what, Nino would keep the Kaisei out of the line of fire.
“Disengage. Authorization Sakurai 0125.”
And with a jolt, they were moving. The strength of it flung Satoshi forward against the harness, a pain blossoming in his chest that felt almost like being kicked in the ribs. Looking over, he could see that it had made Sho lose consciousness. Either that or his injury had finally knocked him out.
He looked over at the control panel, holding tight to the harness. There was an intercom! He stretched out his hand, straining and straining. His finger managed to brush against the switch.
“Nino! Nino, it’s me! You have to…”
A shockwave hit the little pod from the opposite direction, slamming Satoshi back into the seat. He groaned when his head hit the back of the unit hard. The Miyabi had probably just exploded, not that there was any sound in space to give them a warning.
Ears ringing, he looked over and saw that Sho’s head was still down, jostling as the pod rumbled along, his chin bumping repeatedly against his chest.
As Satoshi squinted out through the small porthole in the side of the pod, all he could see was green. The pod ought to have been able to stay in orbit, but the shockwave from the Miyabi’s destruction had sent them on a different path.
Rakuen’s pull was too strong now. The Kaisei wouldn’t be able to retrieve them.
The intercom crackled with static. “Satoshi!”
“Jun! Jun, it’s me!” he shouted, the entire pod shaking as they plummeted down toward the planet below.
“…happened…where…Satoshi!”
“Jun! Nino! Nino!” he shouted uselessly. “Go back! You don’t have enough fuel. Go back and get help! Can you hear me? Go back and get help!”
The static took over. There wouldn’t be any further contact, and that realization made him tighten his grip on the harness until it was digging into his palms. Nino and Jun were smart, he knew. They had enough fuel to orbit Rakuen for another day, but they’d be stupid to try it. They’d never get a clear reading on where the pod landed, not with the interference from the atmosphere. And Nino and Jun wouldn’t be foolish enough to waste the kaenium they needed to get back to Akatsuki to go looking for him at random.
No, they’d go back. They’d go back and get help.
What this meant for Akatsuki, for Kagerou…Satoshi had no idea. He didn’t envy them, having to fly back and try to explain to Mina what had happened. They probably had no idea what had really gone down. By all accounts, Satoshi had been abducted and then the Miyabi had blown up.
Maru had watched Satoshi walk away, had accepted Satoshi’s order, the breach of protocol. Harada and Kinoshita, spying on Sho…and for how long? If they hadn’t taken advantage of Sho inviting Satoshi to his quarters, would they have opened fire during negotiations the following day? Would Jun and Nino, Machida and Maruyama have paid the price?
What would Jun do? What would Mina do? Would they contact Kagerou? Wouldn’t they have to, given that their Crown Prince was in danger? Kagerou had better ships to launch a rescue, but wouldn’t that compromise Mina’s position?
If the Crown Prince’s own bodyguard had tried to murder him for what he perceived to be treason, to let him die instead of bringing shame to the royal family, how would Kagerou react to Akatsuki’s private meeting with Sho? Things had just gone from bad to worse and far beyond that to an impossible situation.
“Nee-chan, I’m sorry,” he mumbled, knowing that nothing would be the same.
Even if Mina managed to mount a rescue mission, Sho’s “vacation” would start to look suspicious if he was gone too long. Satoshi was known for his vacations. Sakurai Sho the workaholic, Sakurai Sho who presided over the Kagerou House of Councillors, probably wasn’t. Mina would have to act fast if she acted at all. But Akatsuki had never sent science or exploratory missions to Rakuen before. He didn’t even know if they had the ships for it.
He looked over, still seeing nothing but green out the glass. He had no idea what angle they were at, what course they were on. Whatever had been programmed into the pod’s computers had likely been thrown off by the Miyabi’s shockwave. He shut his eyes, the pod on an unstoppable course now.
He could only hope that it didn’t need Sho’s voice to activate a parachute.
-
Though the ride down had been the bumpiest of Satoshi’s life, the landing wasn’t as rough as it might have been. As soon as they were stable, Satoshi looked out the glass, only to see red.
He scowled at the sight of it. Even the damn parachute was tinted with the Sakurai red. Unbuckling from the harness, he slid out of the seat with shaky legs, moving to the control panel. He squinted at all of the various read-outs. A silent alarm was going off inside the pod, the regular lights having shut off at some point during their descent and replaced with tiny emergency ones. The inside of the pod was bathed in red light as the alarm let out its soundless warning.
With a few tentative taps on the console, he was able to confirm that available air in the pod cabin was currently at 88 percent. That the air outside was breathable, too. That the outside temperature was almost comparable to Akatsuki, although closer to Akatsuki in the early days of winter. Pushing the button for the intercom revealed only static as he suspected.
He sighed, looking across the large array of switches and dials and levers for something that might be able to send out a beacon, something that could alert rescue ships from either of their planets that they’d crashed here, that they were both still alive.
Satoshi’s eyes widened in alarm. They were both still alive, right?
He hurried over, kneeling down in front of Sho, tapping his cheek. His chest was slowly rising and falling. He was alive, he was breathing, thank the stars.
“Sho-kun? Hey Sho-kun, are you alright?”
He was rewarded with a heavy, pained groan, and he couldn’t help but smile. Better a groaning Sho than a dead one. If Satoshi hadn’t shot Harada in time, the bodyguard’s aim might have been much better. Sliding Sho’s hand out of the way, he tugged at Sho’s shirt, buttons scattering as he pulled it open. His pale torso seemed mostly uninjured, Satoshi’s hand trying to turn him a little to find the actual injury. He couldn’t quite ignore the firm muscles of Sho’s abdomen, how solid and warm he felt under his fingertips.
There was a harsh laser burn on Sho’s side. It had broken skin, enough to make him bleed as heavily as he had back on the Miyabi, but it was more of a graze than anything that seemed life-threatening. Not that Satoshi was a doctor, but he’d worked on farms. He’d seen injuries from equipment, and the wound on Sho’s side was not as awful as some of those had been.
“Sho-kun, it’s me. Satoshi. I’m gonna need you to help me out here.”
He looked up, watching as Sho lifted his head just a little, hair falling in his eyes. “Satoshi-kun,” he whispered, sounding horrible.
And no wonder, Satoshi thought. His own bodyguard and pilot had just tried to kill him, to blow him up and a prince of Akatsuki right along with him.
“Sho-kun, where can I find a med-kit on board this thing? We need to patch you up before you get an infection.”
“Panel…panel on the other side of your seat. Inside.”
He got up, locating the panel in question. It was labeled ‘Medical,’ which ought to have been obvious. There was a number pad beside it. “Needs a code.”
“All…all the codes within the pod are the same. 4-4-8-7-2.”
“4-4-8-7-2.”
The panel slid open with a quiet hiss, revealing several small packages and cases. Everything seemed properly sealed, even after the rough journey down to Rakuen. He dug through, letting other things fall to the floor of the pod. Painkillers, bandaging, nausea meds. He found a case labeled “Wound Care” and tugged it out, breaking the seal. Inside was a rather shocking array of supplies from the most elementary to the most advanced. For once, Satoshi was glad that Kagerou was so wealthy.
There was a needle and thread, a pair of scissors. And then there was also a laser-powered tool Satoshi recognized. It was one he’d seen a doctor use on him before when he’d gotten a cut on his face several years back. His wound had been deep, but the tool the doctor used had sealed him up, leaving him only with a small scar on his cheek.
But it had hurt more than the initial injury had.
He dug around for some sort of numbing agent, not having much luck. Most of the medical terms on the different pharma packages didn’t sound familiar, and he didn’t want to pick the wrong thing. He’d just have to do without, lest Sho keep bleeding all over the place. Well, it was better than sewing Sho back together with a needle and thread. The tool would cauterize the wound, and the various medicines and creams Satoshi actually could recognize would keep him from getting an infection.
The only problem now was determining how it worked. It was heavy and cold in his hand, and it had a dial with various settings.
“Hey Sho-kun, I know you’ve got a bunch of degrees. Did you study medicine too by any chance?”
“No.”
He couldn’t really do much with Sho slumped in the chair, so he put his arms around him, tugging him up. Sho groaned in reply, not putting up a fight. This wasn’t exactly the most sterile place, but he had little choice. Sho’s wound was still bleeding, and if he lost any more blood he’d be in serious trouble. It wasn’t like the medical cabinet had pouches of blood on ice for transfusions.
Once he’d gotten Sho’s shirt all the way off of him, not wanting the fabric to be fused to the wound with the laser, he gently eased Sho to the floor of the pod, keeping him on his side so he could see the full extent of his injury. He reached for one of the little kits full of antibacterial wipes, tearing a few open and doing his best to clean the area around the wound. Sho whimpered, shaking a little on the floor.
“You think that hurts,” Satoshi mumbled. “Here, keep your arm out of the way.”
He took another look at the laser tool. The settings went all the way up to five. From the looks of Sho’s injury, it couldn’t possibly be worth a five. Maybe a five was something like a limb about to fall off. Satoshi felt a little woozy at the thought of that, swallowing before setting it to the ‘2’ setting.
Kneeling before Sho, he rested a hand on his hip to try and keep him steady, moving the tool until he had it hovering a few inches over Sho’s body.
“You can shout all you need to. It’s perfectly manly for you to do so.”
“Shut up,” he replied with a soft chuckle. Well, at least Sho could still find the strength to laugh at their crazy situation. “Just do it.”
Guilt tore at him when Sho’s screaming started echoing throughout the pod. To Sho’s credit, he kept remarkably still, body hot and quivering under Satoshi’s hand where he held onto him. After a few passes of the tool over his skin, Satoshi turned it off. He remembered the slightly burning smell from the time his own doctor had fixed him up. This was a little more intense, and he tried not to gag.
But now where there’d been the harsh burn from the laser pistol, the small cuts and abrasions where the blast had broken his skin, there were tiny criss-crossing white scars. His skin was pink, but even that would fade soon enough. He patted Sho’s hip, feeling the soft fabric of his slacks.
“Very manly,” he teased. “I’m proud of you.”
Digging through the rest of the supplies, he found an anti-bacterial cream, smoothing a generous amount over the wound before bandaging him up.
“I don’t want to get off the floor,” Sho mumbled, turning over onto his back and shutting his eyes.
Satoshi tried not to stare at his bare skin, the muscles of his arms. He was kind of glad Sho hadn’t been shot near his crotch. He left Sho where he was, getting back to his feet.
“Do you know if there’s a rescue beacon on here? How do we activate it?”
It took a few moments before Sho responded. “Once the parachute opens, it’s supposed to trigger a beacon automatically. You’re looking for a gauge on the upper left of the console.”
Looking quickly, he found one that had a small, pulsing green light. “Found it. It’s blinking. Blinking’s good, right?”
“Yes, blinking is good.”
He exhaled in relief before looking down, seeing Sho lying there, his middle wrapped in bandages, a hand over his eyes. Probably more vulnerable than he’d ever been. Well, Satoshi could understand it. But someone had to take charge here, and though most of the other meetings they’d had together had been easily dominated by Sho, this was a different matter altogether.
He clapped his hands.
“Okay. I’m going to check our supplies.”
Sho said nothing, but there was no doubt he was still in shock.
Satoshi left him where he was, walking around him as he needed to in order to punch the code into each of the wall panels, to examine just what Kagerou’s Crown Prince had available to him in his escape pod. Now that Sho’s health crisis was seemingly handled, he took an inventory of what else was available to them. Unlike the fancy freeze-dried meals aboard the Miyabi, the ration packs he found in the pod were mostly protein bars, vitamins and supplements. Nothing that required cooking or heating.
The pod had been prepped for four people, so he took that into consideration. With just the two of them, it meant whatever had been stored would last them twice as long. Which was a very good thing, he realized. Nino and Jun wouldn’t make it back to Akatsuki for more than a day. And then it would be up to Mina to come up with a solution. Whenever that solution was determined, any rescue operation mounted came with that same travel time. The Kaisei wasn’t the fastest, but ships still needed a full day to get to Rakuen. And that was without the time needed to get the ships ready to fly, which could honestly take days.
He counted and recounted. He counted the food. He counted the bottled water. If anything was essential right now, it was the water. He opened the tight seal on one of the bottles, drinking some and nodding. Still fresh. None of the seals on any of the bottles were broken, thankfully.
After assessing everything, he determined that they had enough food to last a week and enough water to last two. Since ships like the Miyabi rarely traveled this far from home, it was a wonder they had that much to work with. If Sho’s ship had crashed somewhere on his own planet, he’d have been rescued within hours. Satoshi doubted the Kaisei’s escape pods were as well-equipped.
But at the same time, would Mina be able to rally and send help in a week? Given all the political considerations. And more importantly, the technological ones. What if the ships came and the atmosphere made it impossible? What if they couldn’t be found?
It was only then that reality sunk in for good. Sho had come to him in the middle of the night, and then everything had gone to hell. He hadn’t slept yet. Escaping the Miyabi, attending to Sho’s injuries, assessing their supplies…he’d been running on pure adrenaline. All that was left now was fumes. Exhaustion hit him almost as hard as the shockwave from the exploding ship.
He’d found a pair of blankets in another supply bin, and he took them out. It had to be uncomfortable on the floor for Sho, but Satoshi could tell that Sho wasn’t feeling well enough to move yet. Without words he crouched down, tucking the blanket around him.
With the second blanket in hand, he settled back in the seat, covering his body. The warmth of the material was surprising considering how thin it was, but then he remembered Kagerou with their artificial everything. Living under their domes. They probably didn’t handle the cold as well, did they? He settled the harness back over himself, buckling it over the blanket. As silly as it probably looked, he felt far more secure.
He gave in to sleep within minutes.
part three