Separated From The Stars, 1/5
Title: Separated From The Stars
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Ohno Satoshi/Sakurai Sho
Summary: Their worlds have never gone to war, but tensions are at an all-time high. Satoshi has little choice but to attend secretive negotiations with his rival, Crown Prince Sho. Their rendezvous at a forbidden planet will lead them down an even more dangerous path than they realize...
Notes/Warnings: Space Royalty AU! Includes sex, adult language, some violence. The title comes from Perfume’s Cosmic Explorer.
Buttoning his coat, he waved off the servant who was attacking him with a hairbrush. “Enough already,” Ohno Satoshi complained. “I can brush my own hair.”
Perched on the corner of Satoshi’s desk, Matsumoto Jun let out one of his characteristic sighs. “If you’d returned on time, Your Highness, we wouldn’t be rushing like this.”
He scowled at his advisor. For someone whose purpose in life was to serve him, Jun seemed to take great pleasure in being casual. It hadn’t always been this way between them. When Satoshi had turned twenty, his father had assigned Jun to him. Back then, Jun had only been seventeen, still studying in the civil service academy. He’d been promoted early only because Jun’s father had served the Ohno royal family for many years. Thrilled with the appointment but nervous, young Jun had used the politest of polite language with Satoshi, had looked on him almost as a god.
That hadn’t lasted long.
Satoshi had just turned thirty-six, and Jun had been advising him for sixteen years now. These days Jun called him “Your Highness” only because he’d get thrown in prison for calling him an idiot.
Satoshi snatched the brush from the servant’s hand, looking into the glass and frowning at the state of himself. His sister did not understand what the word “vacation” meant. He’d been relaxing on Lake Kobayashi, fishing his days away. Satoshi relished his private time, time away from his royal commitments. And then Mina had sent that nasty summons.
“You! Get back here now!” it had said, and he’d had no choice but to comply.
After all, his older sister ruled the planet.
So he’d left all his stuff behind at the lake cabin, his fishing rods and tackle box. He’d ditched his casual fishing clothes and had boarded the Kaisei, flying back to the capital in near-record time. Of course, there’d been the small matter of not reading Mina’s message right away. He’d been on the lake when it had arrived, and Jun had had to rent a boat himself to come out and find him. So while he was back in record time, he wasn’t exactly on time.
“You still smell like fish,” Jun teased when Satoshi had made himself presentable enough, the two of them walking through the royal palace to the throne room.
“And you ought to be executed for your comments,” Satoshi snapped back, still pissed off about being torn so abruptly from his vacation.
He’d never actually do anything to Jun, rude comments or no. Without Jun, Satoshi would likely be hated planet-wide. Jun kept Satoshi on a schedule, got him from royal function to royal function, helped write his speeches, kept him informed of all the important kingdom developments. Jun and all his efforts made Satoshi look like a well-behaved sparkling prince rather than the lazy curmudgeon he actually was.
The guards opened the doors, and Satoshi strolled in, spying his sister sitting on the throne in all her glory. The bright blue banners of their royal house that were suspended from the ceiling hung a bit limply in the warm room to either side of her, the summer breezes Satoshi had enjoyed on the lake not quite following him home. She had her CompTab in her hand, was reading some report or other that her advisors had given her.
Their father had abdicated only a year earlier, and Mina had inherited a larger burden than she’d realized. King Mamoru had come from the “My Pace” school of leadership, the “let the advisors handle it” school. Mina, however, was far more driven than her father or her younger brother. She was active, intelligent. And really damn bossy.
Then again, she’d decided that she had to be.
Akatsuki, their planet, was a real mess. But it always had been, and their father had mostly just tried to keep them at status quo. To not let things get any worse at the expense of pushing for things to get any better. Akatsuki was a largely agrarian world, most of its populace engaged in farming. But Akatsuki was overpopulated. Not everyone could have a farm or work for one. Cities were crowded, and there wasn’t enough food for everyone.
The solution a century ago had been migration. Their neighboring planet, wealthy Kagerou, had set up several mining colonies in the asteroid fields that lay just beyond its orbit. With Akatsuki overburdened and the domed cities of Kagerou needing an absurd amount of power, Kagerou had offered jobs to Akatsuki. Hundreds of thousands left Akatsuki for the Kagerou mining colonies, where they were given housing and food along with wages in exchange for their labor.
But it wasn’t a perfect solution. While the overpopulation problem was kept at bay, thousands leaving every year for the colonies, their lives weren’t any easier. Kagerou’s mines were dangerous, Akatsuki citizens doing all the hard labor digging for the kaenium that powered Kagerou’s cities. Nothing they mined went back to Akatsuki.
And snobby Kagerou didn’t really care what happened to the miners. The housing was barely adequate, their food was rationed, and wages were low. As the decades wore on and people continued to leave Akatsuki either way, Kagerou figured that they could keep treating the Akatsuki people like second-class citizens because there’d always be more coming. If one group of miners tired of the poor conditions and headed back home, there’d always be fresh blood coming to replace them.
The situation had worsened in the last few years as King Mamoru’s reign came to a close. Sakurai Shun, the king of Kagerou, had inherited problems of his own. Kagerou was a technology-rich world, but it was not an easy place to live. While Akatsuki had a good climate and breathable air, Kagerou didn’t. Kagerou was cold. Kagerou’s air wasn’t fit for humans. Kagerou’s cities were all inside massive domes, and the more domes they built across their harsh planet, the more kaenium they needed to burn to keep them running.
As their cities sucked away all the kaenium, more and more money went to funding their mining colonies. The Kagerou cheapskates never wanted to budge on wages or on better living conditions for their workers, funneling most of the money into making the mining process itself more efficient. Spending money on technology and general upkeep rather than on the hardworking people they relied on.
It had finally come to a head six months ago, only half a year into Mina’s reign. A group of miners on one of the asteroids had gone on strike. Though their work contracts prohibited them from formally organizing themselves, they’d done so in secret. The strike spread each week from asteroid to asteroid, colony to colony. Kagerou retaliated by cutting rations, threatening to cut power to the housing units scattered on or below the asteroids’ rocky surfaces. The only person keeping things from getting violent was Mina, who’d been in contact with the union organizers and had urged calm.
From the look on Mina’s face, the latest round of negotiations with King Shun and his representatives had not gone well.
Satoshi approached the throne, bowing politely. “Your Majesty, I have returned.”
She looked up, her heavy jeweled headpiece jiggling with the effort. “Well, it’s about time.”
The advisors and guards in the throne room kept their facial expressions neutral, but everyone had served the Ohno family for a long time. They all knew that Satoshi and his sister weren’t terribly interested in adhering to overly polite court etiquette if they could get away with it.
“Have I missed anything?” he inquired, approaching her without permission and sliding into the empty throne beside her. He leaned back comfortably, watching Jun’s expression darken as he once again ignored protocol in favor of playing the foolish little brother.
Mina’s husband Kenji, the prince consort, was on a peacekeeping mission in the Southern Reach region. Many miners came from the area, and their families frequently held protests demanding the Queen take stronger action against Kagerou. If Mina was smart, she’d sent her son and heir Yuta along. Nothing dispersed an angry crowd like an adorable three year old waving.
Mina didn’t make any comments about how he was sitting, his usual slouch. She’d always been very tolerant of his occasional leaps into childishness, so long as he did what she asked. And Satoshi was very good about following orders, even if he complained along the way.
She leaned over, the royal lapis lazuli ring gleaming on her left hand as she held out the CompTab. Tapping the screen, a video started to play, the sound echoing through the throne room. Satoshi watched with a frown as a group of miners broke into a general store in one of the mining camps, a young female clerk cowering in fright as men carried off sacks of rice, passing them out the door and into the waiting arms of other miners.
Mina stopped the video. “The more they act up, the more Kagerou will push back.”
Satoshi looked at the paused image on the screen, the camera focused on the poor young clerk, likely someone from Kagerou. He imagined that every video screen in every one of Kagerou’s cities was replaying this on a loop. The lazy Akatsuki thugs who can’t be bothered to work stealing from their generous employers. At least that was how their media would spin it.
“Was the clerk injured?” he asked.
“No, thank the stars,” his sister admitted, handing the CompTab off to one of her advisors. “They know what will happen if they hurt anyone.”
In order to keep the strike as peaceful as possible, Mina had enacted a temporary law that said any striker causing physical harm to Kagerou equipment, property, or persons would be jailed back home on Akatsuki, no exceptions. Satoshi wondered if stealing rice came under the purview of Mina’s new law.
He sighed. “Of course they’re going to steal if Kagerou keeps cutting their rations.”
“I know that,” Mina agreed.
He didn’t like the dark circles under his sister’s eyes, the exhaustion in her voice that he could hear but few others would discern. The longer the strike carried on, the worse it would be. People were demanding that Mina send food and supplies to the strikers. And Satoshi knew she wanted to help, but intervening would bring even tougher retribution from Kagerou.
The two planets had never gone to war. They’d never had reason to. But things were on edge more than ever these days. The miners were considered Kagerou workers, and the strike was a Kagerou issue. If Mina sent aid to the miners, it would be seen as unlawful interference, even though they were her people. Bolstering the miners in their strike would have grave consequences. And if the strikers kept refusing to work, Kagerou’s reserves of kaenium would dry up. The domed cities would get cold. Maybe even go dark. And as soon as Kagerou felt the loss, as soon as their pampered little lives got just a bit harder, they’d retaliate.
It had been a tightrope for Mina to walk the last several months. Satoshi had only run away for a vacation to get out of the capital for a few days, to get away from the protesting crowds, to get away from their all too reasonable requests for the Ohno family to do something.
“You didn’t call me home just to watch a video,” he said, continuing to sit casually but lowering his voice and hoping he sounded serious.
Mina spoke quietly as well, her fingertips tapping on the arm of the chair. “Sakurai wants to talk.”
Satoshi smirked. “He wants you to throw the thieves in jail.”
“I’m sure he does, but that’s not the Sakurai I meant.”
He slumped even further in his chair. Not this again. “Nee-chan, no.”
“He’s gone behind his father’s back this time. I had my techs check the encryption on the message he sent. They traced it back, and it was definitely sent through unofficial channels. I think he’s finally going rogue.”
The rogue in question was Sakurai Shun’s heir apparent, Crown Prince Sho. The future ruler of Kagerou had been a thorn in Satoshi’s side the last several months. King Shun would never leave his stupid dome to negotiate about poor, lowly miners, so he usually sent his son. Crown Prince Sho had come to Akatsuki five times in the last few months of the strike, arriving with his entourage of sycophants.
Satoshi had been forced to sit through meals and day-long meetings with the guy, serving as Mina’s primary representative. Crown Prince Sho was everything Satoshi was not. He actually was the “sparkling prince” stereotype and didn’t rely on someone like Jun to keep him in line.
Where Satoshi’s hobbies included leaving the capital to fish and forget about his troubles as often as possible, Sakurai Sho was obsessed with rule. Unlike Satoshi, a second child who was already outranked in the line of succession by a three year old, Sho was the eldest child of the Sakurai family and would come into power whenever his father retired or passed away. He had a handful of degrees from Keio Academy, his planet’s most prestigious institution. Politics and law and economics. He presided over the Kagerou House of Councillors, the planet’s lawmaking body, as his father’s right hand man.
When Satoshi would try to ease into negotiations, going through the talking points Jun and other staffers had forced him to memorize, Sakurai had a counter-punch to every single one. A raise in wages? After half a year of intermittent striking they’d be lucky to continue on at their current rate. Fewer restrictions on rationing? Shipping costs between Kagerou and the colonies weren’t cheap, especially since Akatsuki contributed nothing, so close monitoring of goods and foodstuffs was increasingly necessary. Shortened work hours? Sakurai had pages and pages of forecasting readouts on his CompTab, Satoshi’s eyes spinning at all the math. Shortening hours meant that hiring more workers would be necessary to keep up the pace of production, and the cost of housing and feeding them would cut even further into their bottom line.
Satoshi came out of those meetings close to screaming, especially because Sakurai Sho barely seemed like he had to try. He had an answer for everything or a deflecting reply that would pivot away from Akatsuki’s genuine concerns. He was simply a parrot for his father’s inflexible policies toward the foreign workers, a genial robot spitting out numbers and percentages that left Satoshi sputtering and desperate to get back to the solitude and simplicity of his lake cabin.
And the worst part? The absolute worst part?
Sakurai Sho was stupidly attractive. Brains and beauty, Jun knowingly teased in an unnecessary fashion whenever Satoshi failed yet again to get the guy to budge.
He was very pale, as so many of his people were from living under thick domes and relying on artificial light their entire lives. But he was athletically-built and strong, bragging during one of their meals about some “Dome to Dome” running challenge he’d undertaken recently, racing with others across his planet’s unforgiving surface in a space suit and helmet with an oxygen tank on his back.
He had a big friendly smile and an easy laugh. He was a few inches taller than Satoshi, always looking down at him with a wry grin when they shook hands, even though he was a few years younger and didn’t have to be so obvious and rude about the differences in their sizes. He had large brown eyes that Satoshi liked way too much. Round and unchanging, even as the hours passed during their meetings and Satoshi tried more and more desperately to crack him, to get him to give in on at least one damn thing for the sake of the people caught in the middle.
“What do you mean by going rogue?” Satoshi asked, not believing it. In every meeting they’d had, Sakurai Sho came across as his father’s son through and through, a loyal heir who’d continue the same practices when he became king.
“He thinks that sooner or later his father may abandon diplomacy. That is, if more incidents like the theft of the rice happen, and we know they will. We cannot afford a war with these people. We have the superior numbers, but they could crush us in a day with their ships and firepower, and we both know it,” Mina explained. “Crown Prince Sho still wants to negotiate with us, but in secret.”
Satoshi rolled his eyes. “What’s to be negotiated? I’ve met with the guy five times, hours upon hours, and he’s bested us every time. Kagerou won’t bend on the strike, which means we’d have to. Even though they’re the ones exploiting our people, Nee-chan.”
“Perhaps without his father’s oversight he’s come up with a plan that’s beneficial to both our planets. He communicated with me at great risk, Satoshi. Perhaps there’s more compassion in him than it seems.”
Satoshi doubted anyone from Kagerou, much less its Crown Prince, had any compassion for the miners from Akatsuki. They were only numbers on one of Sakurai Sho’s spreadsheets.
“When’s he coming?”
His sister laid a firm hand on his wrist. “You’re going.”
“To Kagerou?” he sniped at her. “No way.”
He and Mina had visited with their mother as children. For all their technological advances, for all their fancy houses and machines, the place felt so sterile. Akatsuki had its problems, but Satoshi loved his planet with a fierceness that was unshakable. Kagerou was artificial, from the faux sunlight to the oxygen circulating in their domes to the ugly green turf that they thought of as grass.
Satoshi preferred his own home. The bobbing of his fishing boat on a choppy lake. Real dirt and grass under his bare feet. Sunlight baking his skin and fresh country air. Sure, the capital was more cramped. There was the smell of humanity everywhere but along with it came other smells. Baking bread and sizzling meat on a grill. The air purifiers in Kagerou’s cities sucked the life, the enjoyment, out of everything.
“You’ll go in the Kaisei and rendezvous with the Crown Prince’s ship. He assures me that he’s made up some lie about a vacation, but he’ll actually be meeting with you in orbit around Rakuen.”
Satoshi’s jaw dropped. “That’s…that’s…why in the stars would he want to meet there?”
“No patrols, I suspect,” Mina guessed.
Rakuen was another planet in their system, even more hostile to life than Kagerou. It lay several flight hours past the most distant of the asteroids belonging to Kagerou. Nobody was quite sure what lay below the mysterious green planet’s thick cloud cover these days. Evil aliens, said the books Satoshi had loved as a boy, but that was unlikely. Humans probably lived there or had at some point, back when their people had arrived in this solar system from the Old Planet. But that was centuries ago.
Akatsuki had considered Rakuen as an alternate place of settlement decades earlier, a potential colony for their overburdened world, but it was too distant to be workable. Kagerou had sent science and exploration teams over the years, but most had not returned. The planet’s atmosphere messed with ships’ sensors, and they’d probably crashed on the surface. The ones that had returned spoke of ferocious beasts and rocky terrain unsuitable for farming. With all the inherent dangers, true exploration of Rakuen had been postponed indefinitely by both planets. Kagerou sent ships that way every once in a while, if only to observe from orbit if conditions had improved. Otherwise, Rakuen was left alone.
And now Sakurai Sho wanted to meet him there in secret?
“This doesn’t strike you as suspicious, Nee-chan?”
She sighed. “Of course it’s suspicious, but what choice do we have? He’s sent along coordinates for his planned orbit. He’ll be in that eyesore again.”
Satoshi rolled his eyes. The Crown Prince always flew to Akatsuki in his sleek little red ship, the hull tinted obnoxiously to match the Sakurai family’s royal colors. The Miyabi was outfitted like a miniature command center, since Sakurai had given Satoshi a tour of it at the capital’s space dock so he could brag about all the bells and whistles. All the latest in terms of shielding, offensive weaponry, and comfort.
Satoshi preferred his own ship, the Kaisei, that he’d inherited from his mother’s family. It wasn’t as grand as his sister’s royal vessel, the Hoshizora. Nor was it the fastest or the prettiest in Akatsuki’s fleet. It was almost a century old and a little clunky, but it was his. The Kaisei could zip him to his lake cabin in an hour or out into space and to Kagerou in fifteen. That was more than fast enough.
“How secret is this secret mission?” he asked. “Who knows about this?”
“On Sakurai’s end, I have no idea. Presumably he’ll have bodyguards, perhaps his chief of staff…although since he’s supposed to be on vacation, my guess is just the bodyguards or it would look suspicious to his father and the court.”
“Well, I’m taking Jun.”
Mina looked up, and Jun bowed reverently in his perfect Jun way. Even though he was Satoshi’s advisor, he was always far more deferential to Mina, even before she’d become queen.
“Of course you’re taking Matsumoto-kun,” Mina scoffed. “Someone competent has to help you negotiate with the Crown Prince.”
Jun’s eyes sparkled with mirth, and Satoshi nearly slid off his seat in shock from the insult. He knew his sister trusted him, but she’d never stop teasing him. Even in front of her advisors. It was likely his own fault for being the court’s leading whiner at times.
He scowled at his sister, crossing his arms. “I’m taking Jun. Nino will fly me. And bodyguards?”
“Two. It can only look like you’re going on vacation, too,” she said. “In case King Shun sends envoys here and they report back that you recently flew off with escort ships the same day Sakurai Sho did. They’re not stupid. No, it’ll just be you in the Kaisei. We can’t afford for this to leak out. Not to Kagerou, and not to Akatsuki. This court officially negotiates only with his sovereign majesty, King Shun of Kagerou.”
He got to his feet, giving his jacket a little tug. “Well, perhaps it’s just as well that I vacation as often as I do. None of the envoys would be alarmed by my absence.”
She grinned at him. “Of course you’d twist that behavior of yours into a positive. My baby brother, the laziest prince in the galaxy. You leave tonight, and please for the love of the stars, behave yourself. If Sakurai’s willing to bend, we still have to be cautious. His promises mean nothing so long as his father reigns.”
“I know that,” he said seriously. Even though her voice was light, he could sense how important this was. For her reputation as queen, for the future of their planet. They could not afford a war with their neighbor, and meeting Sakurai Sho in secret could easily be seen as a prelude to serious trouble. He’d never do anything that compromised the safety of his family or his people. His sister had to know that, but he tried to assure her anyhow. “Mina…I know.”
She beckoned him to her. As he stepped close, he knew whatever she was going to say was for his ears only. Not her advisors, not her guards, and not Jun. He leaned in, feeling her hand squeeze his shoulder and her breath tickle his ear.
“I fear this is a trap.”
“In what way?” he whispered in reply.
“If Sakurai is planning to turn on his father, he probably figures having Akatsuki as an ally will only help him. If he thinks to use our people to support him in a civil war, he is mistaken. And if negotiations seem to be heading in that direction…if he says he’ll improve conditions for our people only if we help him first, I want you to come directly home. Say whatever you need to say to break off the talks. They’ve used and abused our citizens for far too long, Satoshi, and I will not see them become a bargaining chip in Kagerou’s internal politics.”
The Sakurai Sho that Satoshi had met didn’t seem the type to start a rebellion. But then again, how well did Satoshi really know him?
“I’ll be cautious,” he said. “I promise.”
She nodded, one quick wave of her hand dismissing him, none of her fear showing in her face. She was, as always, the picture of calm even though he knew how heavy her burdens were. Lake Kobayashi seemed very far away, but he had his orders. And he had his usual part to play. For once, his preference for avoiding court would serve him well.
He bowed to her with unnecessary deference, making sure her advisors heard no tremor in his voice even if he was more nervous than he’d ever been.
“I live to serve you, my Queen.”
-
He slid into the unoccupied co-pilot’s chair, resting his polished black boots on top of the control console.
“Your Highness, may I remind you that this is the bridge, not a lounge,” came the ever flippant and casual voice of Ninomiya Kazunari, the pilot of the Kaisei.
The Ninomiya family were cousins of his, and though Nino thus had fairly aristocratic origins and could have operated grand estates or farms anywhere on Akatsuki, instead he had chosen his passion over his birthright. That passion was ships. Though Akatsuki’s defense fleet was small, Nino had been flying since he was old enough to join up. He’d flown orbiting patrols, small freighters, pleasure liners, and transport ships to the Kagerou asteroids. And for the last few years, he’d been Satoshi’s personal pilot.
This kept him out of space most days now, but Nino seemed to like tinkering with ships as much as he liked to fly them. With Satoshi spending most of his time either in the capital or at Lake Kobayashi, Nino had plenty of time to indulge himself at the capital’s space dock. But the mission to mysterious Rakuen had been enough to get Nino’s attention.
Nino was small and slim, but he had the confidence of a man twice his size. Well, at least when it came to flying. Even now as Satoshi refused to move his boots, Nino was probably monitoring a dozen screens and read-outs at once. All the gauges and dials that made Satoshi’s head swim. And despite that, Nino was also sitting cross-legged in his pilot’s chair, his ever-restless hands fiddling with some gadget or other from the ship he was building himself back at space dock.
Though Satoshi trusted his pilot and friend more than most people, the guy had learned his poor manners from the greatest of teachers - Matsumoto Jun. He and Jun both had that same way of saying “Your Highness,” that same twinkle in their eyes when they spoke to him, as though they shared some private joke Satoshi just wasn’t getting.
Nino looked over, sighing. “Bored already?”
He nodded. They’d been flying for more than seventeen hours and had almost a full day to go. “I finally ordered Jun to go to sleep.”
“You know he’s not sleeping,” Nino teased. “He’s probably writing a script for you so you don’t blow it with the Crown Prince.”
Satoshi narrowed his eyes. “You have so little faith in me.”
Nino’s smile was infectious. “I like your approach, it’s cute. Your stuttering and mumbling approach. The throw everything at your enemy and see what sticks approach.”
He crinkled his nose. “Sho-kun isn’t my enemy.” At least Satoshi didn’t think so, based on their previous encounters.
“The Crown Prince of Kagerou wants to meet you secretly at a forbidden planet. Just our two little ships and a handful of guards. Hours and hours, hundreds of thousands of kilometers away from his daddy’s spy network. In my estimations, he’s planning to either bed you or kill you. Or both, if he’s kinky that way.”
Satoshi leaned across the aisle and smacked Nino’s arm. He and Jun both had seen right through him, discovering that Satoshi’s feelings toward Sakurai Sho were a bit complicated.
“It’s a political meeting, and Sho-kun is nothing if not professional.” Satoshi smacked Nino again for good measure. “And stop fucking around. The future of our planet is at stake, you know.”
“How do you think I feel, as a citizen of said planet?” Nino teased. “Considering Her Majesty put you in charge of this mission.”
He glared at his pilot. “You better shut your mouth when I’m meeting with him. I’d like him to take me seriously for once.”
“Well, then perhaps you’d do well to start thinking of him as ‘Crown Prince Sho’ and not ‘Sho-kun,’ hmm?”
He blinked. “What?”
“You do realize that throughout this entire conversation you have referred to him as Sho-kun, right?”
Satoshi looked away, fingers twisting in the fabric of his slacks. They were both princes, of equal social status on their respective worlds. It was in their very first meeting that Sho had firmly broken with protocol. They’d shaken hands, and Sho had opened their negotiations with a gentle smile.
“Is it alright if I call you Satoshi-kun?” he’d said, nearly knocking him back with the force of his confident smile.
In the post-mortem of that first failure to get Kagerou to budge on the strike, Jun had presumed Sho’s friendliness was some psychological thing they taught at Keio Academy. Start negotiations on the friendliest of friendly terms. Get them to lower their guard, to look at you as a buddy rather than a political opponent.
And then smack them in the face with all your statistics and logical arguments one after another.
Despite losing every single argument with Sakurai Sho, it was still hard not to think of him as “Sho-kun” now. After all, the guy had insisted on it, insidious as his intentions may have been. And besides, if Sho called him ‘Satoshi-kun,’ it would definitely be a sign of weakness for Satoshi to lower himself and call Sho ‘Your Highness.’
Not that he felt like explaining any of this to Nino.
“I’m going to be super professional,” he declared to the bridge of the Kaisei, the only response being the usual dual hums of the life support system and the ship’s engines.
Nino had turned back to the gadget in his lap, absent-mindedly tapping at something on the control console with his left hand (something with the auto-piloting mechanism, Satoshi assumed) before picking up his screwdriver and twisting at a loose part.
“I’m thirty-six years old, you know, and just because I don’t have a hundred scholarly degrees from Keio Academy doesn’t mean I’m clueless. He probably wants to meet me because he knows Kagerou’s fucked. He knows Akatsuki miners are their only hope. If they run out of kaenium, they’ll have to give up their precious climate control in their domes. Ah, can you imagine? Kagerou people with all their money having to use it to buy sweaters and extra blankets and a kotatsu for their houses? How embarrassing for them.”
“Clearly,” Nino agreed. “Crown Prince Sho is most certainly flying all this way to beg you to help end the strike so he doesn’t have to buy a kotatsu.”
He looked over, saw the smile on Nino’s face.
“Thanks for the pep talk,” Satoshi snitted, getting to his feet. Nino wiggled his fingers to bid him farewell for the night.
He left the bridge, walking through the Kaisei. It had been so long since he’d been out in space. He sometimes forgot it was a place he could go. Well, he didn’t forget so much as he rarely had much need to leave Akatsuki. He’d forgotten the chill. The emptiness. Gazing out one of the thick glass portholes, he saw nothing but black. Akatsuki was far behind them now, and Kagerou too.
Rakuen. He’d never been so far from home.
Tapping his fingers against the sturdy glass, he could feel the quiet but steady presence of Machida, one of the two bodyguards he’d been allowed to bring with him. The man was standing in the corridor, watching him. Likely wondering if Satoshi had what it took to help end the strike peacefully. Machida and the other bodyguard, the sleeping Maruyama, were two of only a handful of people in the entire universe that knew where he was going. That was kind of scary too.
As a member of the royal family, he usually had an entire staff traveling with him, even on his vacations. The only times he was really, truly alone were when he was out on the lake - and even then there were a few guards on boats of their own not too far away, making sure he wasn’t gobbled up by non-existent monster fish.
But even with Machida behind him, with Maruyama asleep in one of the cabins, Jun likely worrying himself to death in another, and Nino on the bridge…even still he’d never felt this alone before.
He trusted that Nino would get him where he had to go. He trusted that Machida and Maruyama would protect him. He trusted that Jun would spend most of the following day distracting him with this and that report he had about mining conditions, about miners’ medical complaints, about all the different things he could remind Sakurai Sho as a way to try and get Kagerou to budge.
He kept walking, boots heavy against the cold metal flooring in the corridor. Of course Sho’s ship, the Miyabi, had carpeting because why wouldn’t it? He grinned at the thought, heading for the small engine room at the rear of the ship. He sat down just inside the doorway, leaning forward with his forearms balanced against his thighs. He stared at the engine, listened to it thrum with steady strength.
It was kaenium-powered the same as all of Kagerou’s cities. But this kaenium came from Akatsuki itself. The amount needed to burn their way to Rakuen was massive, and unlike Sho and his carpeted red monstrosity of a ship, Akatsuki didn’t have a massive mining industry. Hardworking men and women had dug and dug and dug for the kaenium propelling the Kaisei right now. Men and women who depended on him, just like their counterparts on the mining colonies. He couldn’t let their efforts go to waste.
When he’d been negotiating on his sister’s behalf in the capital, it hadn’t felt this scary. He’d done his duty, he’d made his points (even though Sho-kun had countered them all). The strike had gone on. But this was different. This was a mission that could end very badly for all involved. If Sho’s father found out. If Sho’s motives weren’t as innocent as they appeared. And for once it was all resting on him.
He stared at the Kaisei’s engine, praying he wouldn’t make a fool of himself. Praying that after thirty-six years of avoiding it that he could actually be tough. Authoritative.
That like his sister, he was a leader, too.
-
He looked out the thick glass on the bridge, Jun at his side. Nino was prepping them for docking with the Miyabi.
A few hundred kilometers below lay Rakuen, the green swirling clouds lending the planet a rather soothing air. It wasn’t a sickly green but a vibrant one. The photos and vids he’d seen couldn’t quite capture the beauty of it. He knew that underneath the green were creatures unknown. Even this far up, Nino had noted that some of his read-outs seemed off, and he’d had to switch them to an orbit a bit further away to keep his gauges from screaming at him.
He wondered if Sho had ever been this far from home himself.
As the Kaisei eased into its approach, Satoshi stood up straighter at the first sight of the Miyabi. The Crown Prince’s ship was maybe half the size of the Kaisei, perhaps a little larger. The red tint to the ship wasn’t as noticeable out here, at least not until Nino got them a little closer.
The Miyabi’s pilot came over the intercom once the two ships were in range of each other, and Nino was more serious than Satoshi had ever seen him. Nino had changed out of his normal frumpy clothes and into the stiff, pressed blue uniform of the Akatsuki Space Guard, which lent him a very professional air. At Satoshi’s side, Jun was in a more formal outfit of his own, his CompTab held firmly in his hand as they listened to Nino and the other pilot babbling back and forth, a bunch of numbers that didn’t make too much sense but meant that the Kaisei would align with the Miyabi.
Sho’s ship had a special clamp that could keep the Kaisei attached, their airlocks joined so they could pass from ship to ship. While docked, the Kaisei would power down a bit and let the Miyabi do the driving. Nino wished it was the other way around, that he was controlling things, but Sho had requested the meeting and probably considered this part of his “hosting” duties.
Sho hadn’t spoken a word yet. They’d only heard from his pilot. Satoshi wondered how many men he had aboard. Was it more or less than the five people aboard the Kaisei?
If Sho had intended to kill him with a surprise sneak attack, he’d had plenty of opportunity already. The Miyabi could have fired on them as soon as they’d come into range. So Satoshi had exhaled in relief the closer they got. There was no real benefit to Satoshi being killed anyhow, Jun had figured. If Kagerou wanted to kick the Ohno family off the throne, to replace them with a family that would let them steamroll over the rights and freedoms of the Akatsuki people, they’d have gone after Mina. Since Mina had a child and heir, Satoshi wasn’t exactly a prime target for assassination.
But, Jun had warned him, Satoshi could still make for an interesting hostage. Kagerou could abduct him, hold him until the strike was stopped. Satoshi had been irritated at the thought of any of the striking miners giving in just because their prince had been taken hostage. “You underestimate all the hard work I’ve done to make you look good. They love you, Your Highness,” Jun had teased, cutting the tension that had dominated the long trip out to Rakuen.
The Kaisei groaned a little as the Miyabi’s clamp took hold of them, Nino still calling out numbers to his counterpart on the other ship. Satoshi rested a hand on the back of Nino’s seat, shutting his eyes and focusing on breathing. With a few more loud noises, a few more frightening quivers of his ship, the two ships were fully connected. Nino leapt up from his chair.
“Gotta make sure the airlocks have done a hard seal, Your Highness.”
Satoshi opened his eyes as Nino hurried off. He looked over at Jun, raising an eyebrow. Jun just chuckled. It might have been the most sincere “Your Highness” that Ninomiya Kazunari had ever uttered.
He turned, crossing his arms. Satoshi nodded to Maruyama. “Stay with Nino. In case they open their airlock and start firing at us.”
That only made Machida’s face grow more serious, and he took a step closer, lifting his laser pistol from the holster at his side.
Satoshi waved his hand dismissively. “Put it away. And keep it on the stun setting. We’ve come in peace, you know. It’s up to them to be equally well-behaved.”
Jun spoke up. “Do you want to review the pictures?”
Jun had what Satoshi deemed a “slideshow of misery” on his CompTab, pictures of miner homes on the asteroid Hikari 4, one of the oldest colonies. The housing hadn’t been refurbished in decades, the homes deep inside the asteroid carved into the rock with flickering lights, unreliable power, and old pipes for water. The units had been built to house four adults each, but some of them held eight, some ten with all the demand for kaenium. He still couldn’t shake the faces of his people, who deserved far better than they got. The people who needed him to take this seriously, to take their futures seriously.
“I don’t need to see them again,” he said quietly.
He and Jun had spent the second half of the journey to Rakuen strategizing. This time Satoshi had numbers of his own to throw back in Sho’s face.
An alarm went off briefly. “It’s a good alarm!” Nino hollered from the other end of the ship. “Good alarm, don’t panic!”
He rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t panicking.”
“We have a hard seal!” Nino called. “We’re all clear.”
With Machida leading the way and Jun behind him, Satoshi stayed calm, walking to the airlock passageway that was in between the passenger quarters and the engine room. Nino and Maruyama were standing there waiting, and Nino had his finger poised over a button on the control panel.
“On your command, we can open up.”
“Go ahead.”
Nino pressed the button, and the first of the two airlock doors slid open. After confirming on the control panel that they were safe, Nino activated the second door. As it slid open, Satoshi could see that the equivalent door on Sho’s side was opening at the same time. Machida and Maruyama moved in tandem, stepping in front of him. He cleared his throat, and they moved a little so he could actually see across and into the Miyabi.
Inside, he found Sakurai Sho, the Crown Prince of Kagerou, with only one guard standing directly behind him. Satoshi tried not to react at the sight of him. He was not as formally dressed as the group aboard the Kaisei, his long red jacket unbuttoned to reveal a simple white dress shirt and dark slacks tucked into his polished boots.
Just as he had on all their previous meetings, he was wearing that cheerful smile of his along with the adornment that had caught Satoshi’s eye immediately. His left ear was pierced with a small but shining ruby stud that matched his family’s colors and made him look a bit younger than his thirty-four years. His dark hair fell across his brow, a bit longer than the last time they’d met. It made Satoshi’s stomach tie in knots. It would be much easier to negotiate with an ugly person, he thought, unable to completely tamp down his immaturity.
Sho settled his hands on his hips. “You made it.”
“I made it,” he replied.
“The chronometer on the Miyabi runs on Kagerou Royal time, the time in my capital. And according to said chronometer, it’s almost dinner time. On behalf of myself, my bodyguard Harada-san, and my pilot Kinoshita-san, I’d like to welcome you and your people aboard for a meal. It’s not as good as you might get back in the capital, since it’s freeze dried, but I do want to show my appreciation for you coming all the way out here.”
Satoshi stood his ground. “It was my sister’s understanding that you wanted to talk business.”
Sho’s smile widened. “It is, it is, but not tonight.” He gestured to one of the portholes beside him in his own airlock. “How often do you find yourself orbiting Rakuen, huh? All of our other meetings have been rather formal and stiff, Satoshi-kun, and I figure that’s why we’ve had such problems truly connecting.”
“I don’t feel like the setting has been the problem,” he replied.
Sho’s smile didn’t change. “I understand your hesitation, truly I do. And I know that much is at stake here. That’s why I’d like to postpone the difficulties until tomorrow, to meet with you this evening as equals and I hope as friends. To find a little more common ground without opening the topic of the mines.”
He looked aside, finding Nino. “Do we have enough fuel to idle here?”
“Your Highness, we have enough fuel for perhaps two dozen orbits and then the return trip. We can remain here for about 36 hours.”
Satoshi turned back, eyeing Sho warily. “We eat. We sleep. And then we negotiate. Do you feel that we have enough time?”
Sho was a little more serious when he spoke again. “I do.”
“Very well. Let us know when dinner is ready. Until then, I think my pilot could use a little time to check our systems.” He looked over. “Nino, shut the door.”
Before Sakurai Sho could say another thing, Nino activated the panel and the airlock door closed with a quick whoosh. Satoshi was already moving, heading for his cabin. Jun was at his heels, following him inside. He waved off the guards, pacing the floor while Jun closed the door.
“A friendly dinner?”
Jun’s voice was hesitant. “We came all this way, and he wants to postpone instead of jumping right into it. I don’t like it.”
“I don’t like it either,” Satoshi replied, scratching the back of his head. “You think it’s a delaying tactic? That the Kagerou fleet is on its way to surprise us, kidnap me?”
Jun shook his head. “Maybe, maybe not. If he wanted to take you hostage, he could have done that closer to Kagerou.”
“Right?” He stopped moving, staring at Jun straight on. “Maybe he thinks I’m really stupid, that I’ll drink too much tonight and be hungover tomorrow so I screw up the negotiations.”
“Are you planning to drink too much?”
He scowled. “Of course not.”
“Then maybe it’s something else entirely.”
“And what’s that?”
Jun leaned forward. “Maybe Nino’s right. Maybe he wants to seduce you, and the whole miner negotiations thing is a smokescreen.”
He gave Jun a rough shove, gritting his teeth. “I forbid you and Nino to talk about my love life ever again. Ever!”
“Of course, Your Highness. Nino and I are both fully assured of your integrity and were Sakurai Sho to proposition you, we know that you would instantly refuse.” Jun grinned. “You would instantly refuse, yes?”
“When we get back home,” Satoshi spat, “remind me to fire you.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
He knew Jun’s teasing was only to put him at ease. And much as the thought of Sakurai Sho, Crown Prince of Kagerou, coming on to him made his heart race, he couldn’t let his lustful feelings get in the way of his duty. Perhaps once the strike was over…
“Call me when dinner is ready. Dismissed!”
part two
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Ohno Satoshi/Sakurai Sho
Summary: Their worlds have never gone to war, but tensions are at an all-time high. Satoshi has little choice but to attend secretive negotiations with his rival, Crown Prince Sho. Their rendezvous at a forbidden planet will lead them down an even more dangerous path than they realize...
Notes/Warnings: Space Royalty AU! Includes sex, adult language, some violence. The title comes from Perfume’s Cosmic Explorer.
Buttoning his coat, he waved off the servant who was attacking him with a hairbrush. “Enough already,” Ohno Satoshi complained. “I can brush my own hair.”
Perched on the corner of Satoshi’s desk, Matsumoto Jun let out one of his characteristic sighs. “If you’d returned on time, Your Highness, we wouldn’t be rushing like this.”
He scowled at his advisor. For someone whose purpose in life was to serve him, Jun seemed to take great pleasure in being casual. It hadn’t always been this way between them. When Satoshi had turned twenty, his father had assigned Jun to him. Back then, Jun had only been seventeen, still studying in the civil service academy. He’d been promoted early only because Jun’s father had served the Ohno royal family for many years. Thrilled with the appointment but nervous, young Jun had used the politest of polite language with Satoshi, had looked on him almost as a god.
That hadn’t lasted long.
Satoshi had just turned thirty-six, and Jun had been advising him for sixteen years now. These days Jun called him “Your Highness” only because he’d get thrown in prison for calling him an idiot.
Satoshi snatched the brush from the servant’s hand, looking into the glass and frowning at the state of himself. His sister did not understand what the word “vacation” meant. He’d been relaxing on Lake Kobayashi, fishing his days away. Satoshi relished his private time, time away from his royal commitments. And then Mina had sent that nasty summons.
“You! Get back here now!” it had said, and he’d had no choice but to comply.
After all, his older sister ruled the planet.
So he’d left all his stuff behind at the lake cabin, his fishing rods and tackle box. He’d ditched his casual fishing clothes and had boarded the Kaisei, flying back to the capital in near-record time. Of course, there’d been the small matter of not reading Mina’s message right away. He’d been on the lake when it had arrived, and Jun had had to rent a boat himself to come out and find him. So while he was back in record time, he wasn’t exactly on time.
“You still smell like fish,” Jun teased when Satoshi had made himself presentable enough, the two of them walking through the royal palace to the throne room.
“And you ought to be executed for your comments,” Satoshi snapped back, still pissed off about being torn so abruptly from his vacation.
He’d never actually do anything to Jun, rude comments or no. Without Jun, Satoshi would likely be hated planet-wide. Jun kept Satoshi on a schedule, got him from royal function to royal function, helped write his speeches, kept him informed of all the important kingdom developments. Jun and all his efforts made Satoshi look like a well-behaved sparkling prince rather than the lazy curmudgeon he actually was.
The guards opened the doors, and Satoshi strolled in, spying his sister sitting on the throne in all her glory. The bright blue banners of their royal house that were suspended from the ceiling hung a bit limply in the warm room to either side of her, the summer breezes Satoshi had enjoyed on the lake not quite following him home. She had her CompTab in her hand, was reading some report or other that her advisors had given her.
Their father had abdicated only a year earlier, and Mina had inherited a larger burden than she’d realized. King Mamoru had come from the “My Pace” school of leadership, the “let the advisors handle it” school. Mina, however, was far more driven than her father or her younger brother. She was active, intelligent. And really damn bossy.
Then again, she’d decided that she had to be.
Akatsuki, their planet, was a real mess. But it always had been, and their father had mostly just tried to keep them at status quo. To not let things get any worse at the expense of pushing for things to get any better. Akatsuki was a largely agrarian world, most of its populace engaged in farming. But Akatsuki was overpopulated. Not everyone could have a farm or work for one. Cities were crowded, and there wasn’t enough food for everyone.
The solution a century ago had been migration. Their neighboring planet, wealthy Kagerou, had set up several mining colonies in the asteroid fields that lay just beyond its orbit. With Akatsuki overburdened and the domed cities of Kagerou needing an absurd amount of power, Kagerou had offered jobs to Akatsuki. Hundreds of thousands left Akatsuki for the Kagerou mining colonies, where they were given housing and food along with wages in exchange for their labor.
But it wasn’t a perfect solution. While the overpopulation problem was kept at bay, thousands leaving every year for the colonies, their lives weren’t any easier. Kagerou’s mines were dangerous, Akatsuki citizens doing all the hard labor digging for the kaenium that powered Kagerou’s cities. Nothing they mined went back to Akatsuki.
And snobby Kagerou didn’t really care what happened to the miners. The housing was barely adequate, their food was rationed, and wages were low. As the decades wore on and people continued to leave Akatsuki either way, Kagerou figured that they could keep treating the Akatsuki people like second-class citizens because there’d always be more coming. If one group of miners tired of the poor conditions and headed back home, there’d always be fresh blood coming to replace them.
The situation had worsened in the last few years as King Mamoru’s reign came to a close. Sakurai Shun, the king of Kagerou, had inherited problems of his own. Kagerou was a technology-rich world, but it was not an easy place to live. While Akatsuki had a good climate and breathable air, Kagerou didn’t. Kagerou was cold. Kagerou’s air wasn’t fit for humans. Kagerou’s cities were all inside massive domes, and the more domes they built across their harsh planet, the more kaenium they needed to burn to keep them running.
As their cities sucked away all the kaenium, more and more money went to funding their mining colonies. The Kagerou cheapskates never wanted to budge on wages or on better living conditions for their workers, funneling most of the money into making the mining process itself more efficient. Spending money on technology and general upkeep rather than on the hardworking people they relied on.
It had finally come to a head six months ago, only half a year into Mina’s reign. A group of miners on one of the asteroids had gone on strike. Though their work contracts prohibited them from formally organizing themselves, they’d done so in secret. The strike spread each week from asteroid to asteroid, colony to colony. Kagerou retaliated by cutting rations, threatening to cut power to the housing units scattered on or below the asteroids’ rocky surfaces. The only person keeping things from getting violent was Mina, who’d been in contact with the union organizers and had urged calm.
From the look on Mina’s face, the latest round of negotiations with King Shun and his representatives had not gone well.
Satoshi approached the throne, bowing politely. “Your Majesty, I have returned.”
She looked up, her heavy jeweled headpiece jiggling with the effort. “Well, it’s about time.”
The advisors and guards in the throne room kept their facial expressions neutral, but everyone had served the Ohno family for a long time. They all knew that Satoshi and his sister weren’t terribly interested in adhering to overly polite court etiquette if they could get away with it.
“Have I missed anything?” he inquired, approaching her without permission and sliding into the empty throne beside her. He leaned back comfortably, watching Jun’s expression darken as he once again ignored protocol in favor of playing the foolish little brother.
Mina’s husband Kenji, the prince consort, was on a peacekeeping mission in the Southern Reach region. Many miners came from the area, and their families frequently held protests demanding the Queen take stronger action against Kagerou. If Mina was smart, she’d sent her son and heir Yuta along. Nothing dispersed an angry crowd like an adorable three year old waving.
Mina didn’t make any comments about how he was sitting, his usual slouch. She’d always been very tolerant of his occasional leaps into childishness, so long as he did what she asked. And Satoshi was very good about following orders, even if he complained along the way.
She leaned over, the royal lapis lazuli ring gleaming on her left hand as she held out the CompTab. Tapping the screen, a video started to play, the sound echoing through the throne room. Satoshi watched with a frown as a group of miners broke into a general store in one of the mining camps, a young female clerk cowering in fright as men carried off sacks of rice, passing them out the door and into the waiting arms of other miners.
Mina stopped the video. “The more they act up, the more Kagerou will push back.”
Satoshi looked at the paused image on the screen, the camera focused on the poor young clerk, likely someone from Kagerou. He imagined that every video screen in every one of Kagerou’s cities was replaying this on a loop. The lazy Akatsuki thugs who can’t be bothered to work stealing from their generous employers. At least that was how their media would spin it.
“Was the clerk injured?” he asked.
“No, thank the stars,” his sister admitted, handing the CompTab off to one of her advisors. “They know what will happen if they hurt anyone.”
In order to keep the strike as peaceful as possible, Mina had enacted a temporary law that said any striker causing physical harm to Kagerou equipment, property, or persons would be jailed back home on Akatsuki, no exceptions. Satoshi wondered if stealing rice came under the purview of Mina’s new law.
He sighed. “Of course they’re going to steal if Kagerou keeps cutting their rations.”
“I know that,” Mina agreed.
He didn’t like the dark circles under his sister’s eyes, the exhaustion in her voice that he could hear but few others would discern. The longer the strike carried on, the worse it would be. People were demanding that Mina send food and supplies to the strikers. And Satoshi knew she wanted to help, but intervening would bring even tougher retribution from Kagerou.
The two planets had never gone to war. They’d never had reason to. But things were on edge more than ever these days. The miners were considered Kagerou workers, and the strike was a Kagerou issue. If Mina sent aid to the miners, it would be seen as unlawful interference, even though they were her people. Bolstering the miners in their strike would have grave consequences. And if the strikers kept refusing to work, Kagerou’s reserves of kaenium would dry up. The domed cities would get cold. Maybe even go dark. And as soon as Kagerou felt the loss, as soon as their pampered little lives got just a bit harder, they’d retaliate.
It had been a tightrope for Mina to walk the last several months. Satoshi had only run away for a vacation to get out of the capital for a few days, to get away from the protesting crowds, to get away from their all too reasonable requests for the Ohno family to do something.
“You didn’t call me home just to watch a video,” he said, continuing to sit casually but lowering his voice and hoping he sounded serious.
Mina spoke quietly as well, her fingertips tapping on the arm of the chair. “Sakurai wants to talk.”
Satoshi smirked. “He wants you to throw the thieves in jail.”
“I’m sure he does, but that’s not the Sakurai I meant.”
He slumped even further in his chair. Not this again. “Nee-chan, no.”
“He’s gone behind his father’s back this time. I had my techs check the encryption on the message he sent. They traced it back, and it was definitely sent through unofficial channels. I think he’s finally going rogue.”
The rogue in question was Sakurai Shun’s heir apparent, Crown Prince Sho. The future ruler of Kagerou had been a thorn in Satoshi’s side the last several months. King Shun would never leave his stupid dome to negotiate about poor, lowly miners, so he usually sent his son. Crown Prince Sho had come to Akatsuki five times in the last few months of the strike, arriving with his entourage of sycophants.
Satoshi had been forced to sit through meals and day-long meetings with the guy, serving as Mina’s primary representative. Crown Prince Sho was everything Satoshi was not. He actually was the “sparkling prince” stereotype and didn’t rely on someone like Jun to keep him in line.
Where Satoshi’s hobbies included leaving the capital to fish and forget about his troubles as often as possible, Sakurai Sho was obsessed with rule. Unlike Satoshi, a second child who was already outranked in the line of succession by a three year old, Sho was the eldest child of the Sakurai family and would come into power whenever his father retired or passed away. He had a handful of degrees from Keio Academy, his planet’s most prestigious institution. Politics and law and economics. He presided over the Kagerou House of Councillors, the planet’s lawmaking body, as his father’s right hand man.
When Satoshi would try to ease into negotiations, going through the talking points Jun and other staffers had forced him to memorize, Sakurai had a counter-punch to every single one. A raise in wages? After half a year of intermittent striking they’d be lucky to continue on at their current rate. Fewer restrictions on rationing? Shipping costs between Kagerou and the colonies weren’t cheap, especially since Akatsuki contributed nothing, so close monitoring of goods and foodstuffs was increasingly necessary. Shortened work hours? Sakurai had pages and pages of forecasting readouts on his CompTab, Satoshi’s eyes spinning at all the math. Shortening hours meant that hiring more workers would be necessary to keep up the pace of production, and the cost of housing and feeding them would cut even further into their bottom line.
Satoshi came out of those meetings close to screaming, especially because Sakurai Sho barely seemed like he had to try. He had an answer for everything or a deflecting reply that would pivot away from Akatsuki’s genuine concerns. He was simply a parrot for his father’s inflexible policies toward the foreign workers, a genial robot spitting out numbers and percentages that left Satoshi sputtering and desperate to get back to the solitude and simplicity of his lake cabin.
And the worst part? The absolute worst part?
Sakurai Sho was stupidly attractive. Brains and beauty, Jun knowingly teased in an unnecessary fashion whenever Satoshi failed yet again to get the guy to budge.
He was very pale, as so many of his people were from living under thick domes and relying on artificial light their entire lives. But he was athletically-built and strong, bragging during one of their meals about some “Dome to Dome” running challenge he’d undertaken recently, racing with others across his planet’s unforgiving surface in a space suit and helmet with an oxygen tank on his back.
He had a big friendly smile and an easy laugh. He was a few inches taller than Satoshi, always looking down at him with a wry grin when they shook hands, even though he was a few years younger and didn’t have to be so obvious and rude about the differences in their sizes. He had large brown eyes that Satoshi liked way too much. Round and unchanging, even as the hours passed during their meetings and Satoshi tried more and more desperately to crack him, to get him to give in on at least one damn thing for the sake of the people caught in the middle.
“What do you mean by going rogue?” Satoshi asked, not believing it. In every meeting they’d had, Sakurai Sho came across as his father’s son through and through, a loyal heir who’d continue the same practices when he became king.
“He thinks that sooner or later his father may abandon diplomacy. That is, if more incidents like the theft of the rice happen, and we know they will. We cannot afford a war with these people. We have the superior numbers, but they could crush us in a day with their ships and firepower, and we both know it,” Mina explained. “Crown Prince Sho still wants to negotiate with us, but in secret.”
Satoshi rolled his eyes. “What’s to be negotiated? I’ve met with the guy five times, hours upon hours, and he’s bested us every time. Kagerou won’t bend on the strike, which means we’d have to. Even though they’re the ones exploiting our people, Nee-chan.”
“Perhaps without his father’s oversight he’s come up with a plan that’s beneficial to both our planets. He communicated with me at great risk, Satoshi. Perhaps there’s more compassion in him than it seems.”
Satoshi doubted anyone from Kagerou, much less its Crown Prince, had any compassion for the miners from Akatsuki. They were only numbers on one of Sakurai Sho’s spreadsheets.
“When’s he coming?”
His sister laid a firm hand on his wrist. “You’re going.”
“To Kagerou?” he sniped at her. “No way.”
He and Mina had visited with their mother as children. For all their technological advances, for all their fancy houses and machines, the place felt so sterile. Akatsuki had its problems, but Satoshi loved his planet with a fierceness that was unshakable. Kagerou was artificial, from the faux sunlight to the oxygen circulating in their domes to the ugly green turf that they thought of as grass.
Satoshi preferred his own home. The bobbing of his fishing boat on a choppy lake. Real dirt and grass under his bare feet. Sunlight baking his skin and fresh country air. Sure, the capital was more cramped. There was the smell of humanity everywhere but along with it came other smells. Baking bread and sizzling meat on a grill. The air purifiers in Kagerou’s cities sucked the life, the enjoyment, out of everything.
“You’ll go in the Kaisei and rendezvous with the Crown Prince’s ship. He assures me that he’s made up some lie about a vacation, but he’ll actually be meeting with you in orbit around Rakuen.”
Satoshi’s jaw dropped. “That’s…that’s…why in the stars would he want to meet there?”
“No patrols, I suspect,” Mina guessed.
Rakuen was another planet in their system, even more hostile to life than Kagerou. It lay several flight hours past the most distant of the asteroids belonging to Kagerou. Nobody was quite sure what lay below the mysterious green planet’s thick cloud cover these days. Evil aliens, said the books Satoshi had loved as a boy, but that was unlikely. Humans probably lived there or had at some point, back when their people had arrived in this solar system from the Old Planet. But that was centuries ago.
Akatsuki had considered Rakuen as an alternate place of settlement decades earlier, a potential colony for their overburdened world, but it was too distant to be workable. Kagerou had sent science and exploration teams over the years, but most had not returned. The planet’s atmosphere messed with ships’ sensors, and they’d probably crashed on the surface. The ones that had returned spoke of ferocious beasts and rocky terrain unsuitable for farming. With all the inherent dangers, true exploration of Rakuen had been postponed indefinitely by both planets. Kagerou sent ships that way every once in a while, if only to observe from orbit if conditions had improved. Otherwise, Rakuen was left alone.
And now Sakurai Sho wanted to meet him there in secret?
“This doesn’t strike you as suspicious, Nee-chan?”
She sighed. “Of course it’s suspicious, but what choice do we have? He’s sent along coordinates for his planned orbit. He’ll be in that eyesore again.”
Satoshi rolled his eyes. The Crown Prince always flew to Akatsuki in his sleek little red ship, the hull tinted obnoxiously to match the Sakurai family’s royal colors. The Miyabi was outfitted like a miniature command center, since Sakurai had given Satoshi a tour of it at the capital’s space dock so he could brag about all the bells and whistles. All the latest in terms of shielding, offensive weaponry, and comfort.
Satoshi preferred his own ship, the Kaisei, that he’d inherited from his mother’s family. It wasn’t as grand as his sister’s royal vessel, the Hoshizora. Nor was it the fastest or the prettiest in Akatsuki’s fleet. It was almost a century old and a little clunky, but it was his. The Kaisei could zip him to his lake cabin in an hour or out into space and to Kagerou in fifteen. That was more than fast enough.
“How secret is this secret mission?” he asked. “Who knows about this?”
“On Sakurai’s end, I have no idea. Presumably he’ll have bodyguards, perhaps his chief of staff…although since he’s supposed to be on vacation, my guess is just the bodyguards or it would look suspicious to his father and the court.”
“Well, I’m taking Jun.”
Mina looked up, and Jun bowed reverently in his perfect Jun way. Even though he was Satoshi’s advisor, he was always far more deferential to Mina, even before she’d become queen.
“Of course you’re taking Matsumoto-kun,” Mina scoffed. “Someone competent has to help you negotiate with the Crown Prince.”
Jun’s eyes sparkled with mirth, and Satoshi nearly slid off his seat in shock from the insult. He knew his sister trusted him, but she’d never stop teasing him. Even in front of her advisors. It was likely his own fault for being the court’s leading whiner at times.
He scowled at his sister, crossing his arms. “I’m taking Jun. Nino will fly me. And bodyguards?”
“Two. It can only look like you’re going on vacation, too,” she said. “In case King Shun sends envoys here and they report back that you recently flew off with escort ships the same day Sakurai Sho did. They’re not stupid. No, it’ll just be you in the Kaisei. We can’t afford for this to leak out. Not to Kagerou, and not to Akatsuki. This court officially negotiates only with his sovereign majesty, King Shun of Kagerou.”
He got to his feet, giving his jacket a little tug. “Well, perhaps it’s just as well that I vacation as often as I do. None of the envoys would be alarmed by my absence.”
She grinned at him. “Of course you’d twist that behavior of yours into a positive. My baby brother, the laziest prince in the galaxy. You leave tonight, and please for the love of the stars, behave yourself. If Sakurai’s willing to bend, we still have to be cautious. His promises mean nothing so long as his father reigns.”
“I know that,” he said seriously. Even though her voice was light, he could sense how important this was. For her reputation as queen, for the future of their planet. They could not afford a war with their neighbor, and meeting Sakurai Sho in secret could easily be seen as a prelude to serious trouble. He’d never do anything that compromised the safety of his family or his people. His sister had to know that, but he tried to assure her anyhow. “Mina…I know.”
She beckoned him to her. As he stepped close, he knew whatever she was going to say was for his ears only. Not her advisors, not her guards, and not Jun. He leaned in, feeling her hand squeeze his shoulder and her breath tickle his ear.
“I fear this is a trap.”
“In what way?” he whispered in reply.
“If Sakurai is planning to turn on his father, he probably figures having Akatsuki as an ally will only help him. If he thinks to use our people to support him in a civil war, he is mistaken. And if negotiations seem to be heading in that direction…if he says he’ll improve conditions for our people only if we help him first, I want you to come directly home. Say whatever you need to say to break off the talks. They’ve used and abused our citizens for far too long, Satoshi, and I will not see them become a bargaining chip in Kagerou’s internal politics.”
The Sakurai Sho that Satoshi had met didn’t seem the type to start a rebellion. But then again, how well did Satoshi really know him?
“I’ll be cautious,” he said. “I promise.”
She nodded, one quick wave of her hand dismissing him, none of her fear showing in her face. She was, as always, the picture of calm even though he knew how heavy her burdens were. Lake Kobayashi seemed very far away, but he had his orders. And he had his usual part to play. For once, his preference for avoiding court would serve him well.
He bowed to her with unnecessary deference, making sure her advisors heard no tremor in his voice even if he was more nervous than he’d ever been.
“I live to serve you, my Queen.”
-
He slid into the unoccupied co-pilot’s chair, resting his polished black boots on top of the control console.
“Your Highness, may I remind you that this is the bridge, not a lounge,” came the ever flippant and casual voice of Ninomiya Kazunari, the pilot of the Kaisei.
The Ninomiya family were cousins of his, and though Nino thus had fairly aristocratic origins and could have operated grand estates or farms anywhere on Akatsuki, instead he had chosen his passion over his birthright. That passion was ships. Though Akatsuki’s defense fleet was small, Nino had been flying since he was old enough to join up. He’d flown orbiting patrols, small freighters, pleasure liners, and transport ships to the Kagerou asteroids. And for the last few years, he’d been Satoshi’s personal pilot.
This kept him out of space most days now, but Nino seemed to like tinkering with ships as much as he liked to fly them. With Satoshi spending most of his time either in the capital or at Lake Kobayashi, Nino had plenty of time to indulge himself at the capital’s space dock. But the mission to mysterious Rakuen had been enough to get Nino’s attention.
Nino was small and slim, but he had the confidence of a man twice his size. Well, at least when it came to flying. Even now as Satoshi refused to move his boots, Nino was probably monitoring a dozen screens and read-outs at once. All the gauges and dials that made Satoshi’s head swim. And despite that, Nino was also sitting cross-legged in his pilot’s chair, his ever-restless hands fiddling with some gadget or other from the ship he was building himself back at space dock.
Though Satoshi trusted his pilot and friend more than most people, the guy had learned his poor manners from the greatest of teachers - Matsumoto Jun. He and Jun both had that same way of saying “Your Highness,” that same twinkle in their eyes when they spoke to him, as though they shared some private joke Satoshi just wasn’t getting.
Nino looked over, sighing. “Bored already?”
He nodded. They’d been flying for more than seventeen hours and had almost a full day to go. “I finally ordered Jun to go to sleep.”
“You know he’s not sleeping,” Nino teased. “He’s probably writing a script for you so you don’t blow it with the Crown Prince.”
Satoshi narrowed his eyes. “You have so little faith in me.”
Nino’s smile was infectious. “I like your approach, it’s cute. Your stuttering and mumbling approach. The throw everything at your enemy and see what sticks approach.”
He crinkled his nose. “Sho-kun isn’t my enemy.” At least Satoshi didn’t think so, based on their previous encounters.
“The Crown Prince of Kagerou wants to meet you secretly at a forbidden planet. Just our two little ships and a handful of guards. Hours and hours, hundreds of thousands of kilometers away from his daddy’s spy network. In my estimations, he’s planning to either bed you or kill you. Or both, if he’s kinky that way.”
Satoshi leaned across the aisle and smacked Nino’s arm. He and Jun both had seen right through him, discovering that Satoshi’s feelings toward Sakurai Sho were a bit complicated.
“It’s a political meeting, and Sho-kun is nothing if not professional.” Satoshi smacked Nino again for good measure. “And stop fucking around. The future of our planet is at stake, you know.”
“How do you think I feel, as a citizen of said planet?” Nino teased. “Considering Her Majesty put you in charge of this mission.”
He glared at his pilot. “You better shut your mouth when I’m meeting with him. I’d like him to take me seriously for once.”
“Well, then perhaps you’d do well to start thinking of him as ‘Crown Prince Sho’ and not ‘Sho-kun,’ hmm?”
He blinked. “What?”
“You do realize that throughout this entire conversation you have referred to him as Sho-kun, right?”
Satoshi looked away, fingers twisting in the fabric of his slacks. They were both princes, of equal social status on their respective worlds. It was in their very first meeting that Sho had firmly broken with protocol. They’d shaken hands, and Sho had opened their negotiations with a gentle smile.
“Is it alright if I call you Satoshi-kun?” he’d said, nearly knocking him back with the force of his confident smile.
In the post-mortem of that first failure to get Kagerou to budge on the strike, Jun had presumed Sho’s friendliness was some psychological thing they taught at Keio Academy. Start negotiations on the friendliest of friendly terms. Get them to lower their guard, to look at you as a buddy rather than a political opponent.
And then smack them in the face with all your statistics and logical arguments one after another.
Despite losing every single argument with Sakurai Sho, it was still hard not to think of him as “Sho-kun” now. After all, the guy had insisted on it, insidious as his intentions may have been. And besides, if Sho called him ‘Satoshi-kun,’ it would definitely be a sign of weakness for Satoshi to lower himself and call Sho ‘Your Highness.’
Not that he felt like explaining any of this to Nino.
“I’m going to be super professional,” he declared to the bridge of the Kaisei, the only response being the usual dual hums of the life support system and the ship’s engines.
Nino had turned back to the gadget in his lap, absent-mindedly tapping at something on the control console with his left hand (something with the auto-piloting mechanism, Satoshi assumed) before picking up his screwdriver and twisting at a loose part.
“I’m thirty-six years old, you know, and just because I don’t have a hundred scholarly degrees from Keio Academy doesn’t mean I’m clueless. He probably wants to meet me because he knows Kagerou’s fucked. He knows Akatsuki miners are their only hope. If they run out of kaenium, they’ll have to give up their precious climate control in their domes. Ah, can you imagine? Kagerou people with all their money having to use it to buy sweaters and extra blankets and a kotatsu for their houses? How embarrassing for them.”
“Clearly,” Nino agreed. “Crown Prince Sho is most certainly flying all this way to beg you to help end the strike so he doesn’t have to buy a kotatsu.”
He looked over, saw the smile on Nino’s face.
“Thanks for the pep talk,” Satoshi snitted, getting to his feet. Nino wiggled his fingers to bid him farewell for the night.
He left the bridge, walking through the Kaisei. It had been so long since he’d been out in space. He sometimes forgot it was a place he could go. Well, he didn’t forget so much as he rarely had much need to leave Akatsuki. He’d forgotten the chill. The emptiness. Gazing out one of the thick glass portholes, he saw nothing but black. Akatsuki was far behind them now, and Kagerou too.
Rakuen. He’d never been so far from home.
Tapping his fingers against the sturdy glass, he could feel the quiet but steady presence of Machida, one of the two bodyguards he’d been allowed to bring with him. The man was standing in the corridor, watching him. Likely wondering if Satoshi had what it took to help end the strike peacefully. Machida and the other bodyguard, the sleeping Maruyama, were two of only a handful of people in the entire universe that knew where he was going. That was kind of scary too.
As a member of the royal family, he usually had an entire staff traveling with him, even on his vacations. The only times he was really, truly alone were when he was out on the lake - and even then there were a few guards on boats of their own not too far away, making sure he wasn’t gobbled up by non-existent monster fish.
But even with Machida behind him, with Maruyama asleep in one of the cabins, Jun likely worrying himself to death in another, and Nino on the bridge…even still he’d never felt this alone before.
He trusted that Nino would get him where he had to go. He trusted that Machida and Maruyama would protect him. He trusted that Jun would spend most of the following day distracting him with this and that report he had about mining conditions, about miners’ medical complaints, about all the different things he could remind Sakurai Sho as a way to try and get Kagerou to budge.
He kept walking, boots heavy against the cold metal flooring in the corridor. Of course Sho’s ship, the Miyabi, had carpeting because why wouldn’t it? He grinned at the thought, heading for the small engine room at the rear of the ship. He sat down just inside the doorway, leaning forward with his forearms balanced against his thighs. He stared at the engine, listened to it thrum with steady strength.
It was kaenium-powered the same as all of Kagerou’s cities. But this kaenium came from Akatsuki itself. The amount needed to burn their way to Rakuen was massive, and unlike Sho and his carpeted red monstrosity of a ship, Akatsuki didn’t have a massive mining industry. Hardworking men and women had dug and dug and dug for the kaenium propelling the Kaisei right now. Men and women who depended on him, just like their counterparts on the mining colonies. He couldn’t let their efforts go to waste.
When he’d been negotiating on his sister’s behalf in the capital, it hadn’t felt this scary. He’d done his duty, he’d made his points (even though Sho-kun had countered them all). The strike had gone on. But this was different. This was a mission that could end very badly for all involved. If Sho’s father found out. If Sho’s motives weren’t as innocent as they appeared. And for once it was all resting on him.
He stared at the Kaisei’s engine, praying he wouldn’t make a fool of himself. Praying that after thirty-six years of avoiding it that he could actually be tough. Authoritative.
That like his sister, he was a leader, too.
-
He looked out the thick glass on the bridge, Jun at his side. Nino was prepping them for docking with the Miyabi.
A few hundred kilometers below lay Rakuen, the green swirling clouds lending the planet a rather soothing air. It wasn’t a sickly green but a vibrant one. The photos and vids he’d seen couldn’t quite capture the beauty of it. He knew that underneath the green were creatures unknown. Even this far up, Nino had noted that some of his read-outs seemed off, and he’d had to switch them to an orbit a bit further away to keep his gauges from screaming at him.
He wondered if Sho had ever been this far from home himself.
As the Kaisei eased into its approach, Satoshi stood up straighter at the first sight of the Miyabi. The Crown Prince’s ship was maybe half the size of the Kaisei, perhaps a little larger. The red tint to the ship wasn’t as noticeable out here, at least not until Nino got them a little closer.
The Miyabi’s pilot came over the intercom once the two ships were in range of each other, and Nino was more serious than Satoshi had ever seen him. Nino had changed out of his normal frumpy clothes and into the stiff, pressed blue uniform of the Akatsuki Space Guard, which lent him a very professional air. At Satoshi’s side, Jun was in a more formal outfit of his own, his CompTab held firmly in his hand as they listened to Nino and the other pilot babbling back and forth, a bunch of numbers that didn’t make too much sense but meant that the Kaisei would align with the Miyabi.
Sho’s ship had a special clamp that could keep the Kaisei attached, their airlocks joined so they could pass from ship to ship. While docked, the Kaisei would power down a bit and let the Miyabi do the driving. Nino wished it was the other way around, that he was controlling things, but Sho had requested the meeting and probably considered this part of his “hosting” duties.
Sho hadn’t spoken a word yet. They’d only heard from his pilot. Satoshi wondered how many men he had aboard. Was it more or less than the five people aboard the Kaisei?
If Sho had intended to kill him with a surprise sneak attack, he’d had plenty of opportunity already. The Miyabi could have fired on them as soon as they’d come into range. So Satoshi had exhaled in relief the closer they got. There was no real benefit to Satoshi being killed anyhow, Jun had figured. If Kagerou wanted to kick the Ohno family off the throne, to replace them with a family that would let them steamroll over the rights and freedoms of the Akatsuki people, they’d have gone after Mina. Since Mina had a child and heir, Satoshi wasn’t exactly a prime target for assassination.
But, Jun had warned him, Satoshi could still make for an interesting hostage. Kagerou could abduct him, hold him until the strike was stopped. Satoshi had been irritated at the thought of any of the striking miners giving in just because their prince had been taken hostage. “You underestimate all the hard work I’ve done to make you look good. They love you, Your Highness,” Jun had teased, cutting the tension that had dominated the long trip out to Rakuen.
The Kaisei groaned a little as the Miyabi’s clamp took hold of them, Nino still calling out numbers to his counterpart on the other ship. Satoshi rested a hand on the back of Nino’s seat, shutting his eyes and focusing on breathing. With a few more loud noises, a few more frightening quivers of his ship, the two ships were fully connected. Nino leapt up from his chair.
“Gotta make sure the airlocks have done a hard seal, Your Highness.”
Satoshi opened his eyes as Nino hurried off. He looked over at Jun, raising an eyebrow. Jun just chuckled. It might have been the most sincere “Your Highness” that Ninomiya Kazunari had ever uttered.
He turned, crossing his arms. Satoshi nodded to Maruyama. “Stay with Nino. In case they open their airlock and start firing at us.”
That only made Machida’s face grow more serious, and he took a step closer, lifting his laser pistol from the holster at his side.
Satoshi waved his hand dismissively. “Put it away. And keep it on the stun setting. We’ve come in peace, you know. It’s up to them to be equally well-behaved.”
Jun spoke up. “Do you want to review the pictures?”
Jun had what Satoshi deemed a “slideshow of misery” on his CompTab, pictures of miner homes on the asteroid Hikari 4, one of the oldest colonies. The housing hadn’t been refurbished in decades, the homes deep inside the asteroid carved into the rock with flickering lights, unreliable power, and old pipes for water. The units had been built to house four adults each, but some of them held eight, some ten with all the demand for kaenium. He still couldn’t shake the faces of his people, who deserved far better than they got. The people who needed him to take this seriously, to take their futures seriously.
“I don’t need to see them again,” he said quietly.
He and Jun had spent the second half of the journey to Rakuen strategizing. This time Satoshi had numbers of his own to throw back in Sho’s face.
An alarm went off briefly. “It’s a good alarm!” Nino hollered from the other end of the ship. “Good alarm, don’t panic!”
He rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t panicking.”
“We have a hard seal!” Nino called. “We’re all clear.”
With Machida leading the way and Jun behind him, Satoshi stayed calm, walking to the airlock passageway that was in between the passenger quarters and the engine room. Nino and Maruyama were standing there waiting, and Nino had his finger poised over a button on the control panel.
“On your command, we can open up.”
“Go ahead.”
Nino pressed the button, and the first of the two airlock doors slid open. After confirming on the control panel that they were safe, Nino activated the second door. As it slid open, Satoshi could see that the equivalent door on Sho’s side was opening at the same time. Machida and Maruyama moved in tandem, stepping in front of him. He cleared his throat, and they moved a little so he could actually see across and into the Miyabi.
Inside, he found Sakurai Sho, the Crown Prince of Kagerou, with only one guard standing directly behind him. Satoshi tried not to react at the sight of him. He was not as formally dressed as the group aboard the Kaisei, his long red jacket unbuttoned to reveal a simple white dress shirt and dark slacks tucked into his polished boots.
Just as he had on all their previous meetings, he was wearing that cheerful smile of his along with the adornment that had caught Satoshi’s eye immediately. His left ear was pierced with a small but shining ruby stud that matched his family’s colors and made him look a bit younger than his thirty-four years. His dark hair fell across his brow, a bit longer than the last time they’d met. It made Satoshi’s stomach tie in knots. It would be much easier to negotiate with an ugly person, he thought, unable to completely tamp down his immaturity.
Sho settled his hands on his hips. “You made it.”
“I made it,” he replied.
“The chronometer on the Miyabi runs on Kagerou Royal time, the time in my capital. And according to said chronometer, it’s almost dinner time. On behalf of myself, my bodyguard Harada-san, and my pilot Kinoshita-san, I’d like to welcome you and your people aboard for a meal. It’s not as good as you might get back in the capital, since it’s freeze dried, but I do want to show my appreciation for you coming all the way out here.”
Satoshi stood his ground. “It was my sister’s understanding that you wanted to talk business.”
Sho’s smile widened. “It is, it is, but not tonight.” He gestured to one of the portholes beside him in his own airlock. “How often do you find yourself orbiting Rakuen, huh? All of our other meetings have been rather formal and stiff, Satoshi-kun, and I figure that’s why we’ve had such problems truly connecting.”
“I don’t feel like the setting has been the problem,” he replied.
Sho’s smile didn’t change. “I understand your hesitation, truly I do. And I know that much is at stake here. That’s why I’d like to postpone the difficulties until tomorrow, to meet with you this evening as equals and I hope as friends. To find a little more common ground without opening the topic of the mines.”
He looked aside, finding Nino. “Do we have enough fuel to idle here?”
“Your Highness, we have enough fuel for perhaps two dozen orbits and then the return trip. We can remain here for about 36 hours.”
Satoshi turned back, eyeing Sho warily. “We eat. We sleep. And then we negotiate. Do you feel that we have enough time?”
Sho was a little more serious when he spoke again. “I do.”
“Very well. Let us know when dinner is ready. Until then, I think my pilot could use a little time to check our systems.” He looked over. “Nino, shut the door.”
Before Sakurai Sho could say another thing, Nino activated the panel and the airlock door closed with a quick whoosh. Satoshi was already moving, heading for his cabin. Jun was at his heels, following him inside. He waved off the guards, pacing the floor while Jun closed the door.
“A friendly dinner?”
Jun’s voice was hesitant. “We came all this way, and he wants to postpone instead of jumping right into it. I don’t like it.”
“I don’t like it either,” Satoshi replied, scratching the back of his head. “You think it’s a delaying tactic? That the Kagerou fleet is on its way to surprise us, kidnap me?”
Jun shook his head. “Maybe, maybe not. If he wanted to take you hostage, he could have done that closer to Kagerou.”
“Right?” He stopped moving, staring at Jun straight on. “Maybe he thinks I’m really stupid, that I’ll drink too much tonight and be hungover tomorrow so I screw up the negotiations.”
“Are you planning to drink too much?”
He scowled. “Of course not.”
“Then maybe it’s something else entirely.”
“And what’s that?”
Jun leaned forward. “Maybe Nino’s right. Maybe he wants to seduce you, and the whole miner negotiations thing is a smokescreen.”
He gave Jun a rough shove, gritting his teeth. “I forbid you and Nino to talk about my love life ever again. Ever!”
“Of course, Your Highness. Nino and I are both fully assured of your integrity and were Sakurai Sho to proposition you, we know that you would instantly refuse.” Jun grinned. “You would instantly refuse, yes?”
“When we get back home,” Satoshi spat, “remind me to fire you.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
He knew Jun’s teasing was only to put him at ease. And much as the thought of Sakurai Sho, Crown Prince of Kagerou, coming on to him made his heart race, he couldn’t let his lustful feelings get in the way of his duty. Perhaps once the strike was over…
“Call me when dinner is ready. Dismissed!”
part two