Gift for diamondsjack part 1
To: diamondsjack
From: pastdazed
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
Title: Space Oddity (subtitled: Ungrateful World) Part 1
Pairing/Group: Butoukan-centric
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: SPACE AU. Looong. Stupid boys. Blood. Random appearances by other groups not Butoukan.
Notes: This fic may have possibly broken a mind. The possibly broken mind hopes the fic treats you well, diamondsjack!
Summary: Take one tiny ship, five people and send them to an unknown planet for a totally easy mission. Will they survive? Will the ship blow up? Who knows.
ENBUJOU SPACE STATION
The designs for the ship were scattered across Takizawa Hideki’s desk and Tsubasa stopped his mouth from twitching upwards in a smile. He was annoyed, too annoyed to be amused by the chaotic mess of paper - actual paper covering com-units and electronic readers with actual reports stored in their memories - on the desk that only Takizawa could make sense of.
“I am not your secretary,” Tsubasa said, “And I am most certainly not your fetcher of things even if I do have the starship and you have the station.”
Takizawa smiled at him. “I trust you.”
It was unfortunate that Tsubasa liked Takizawa too much to hate him as much as he should sometimes.
“Well, I fetched and this is going to be the only time I ever, ever, ever fetch for you again. Especially from Koichi.” Tsubasa had his own sadistic tendencies, but General Domoto Koichi had a few years and a great deal more experience compared to Tsubasa. He had been lucky to get out with his flesh still on his bones, flinching from what everyone knew as Koichi’s support ship’s crew. Never mind that they were really the Fleet‘s. Everyone knew they were really Koichi‘s. “How did you bribe Koichi into giving him up, anyways?”
“I was very convincing.” The smile on Takizawa’s face grew bigger. It was almost sickening. “And he’s not giving him up. We’re sharing.”
“Right. Do you want me to send him in?” And let me leave, he thought, not maliciously, but with the desire to step out of the way of Takizawa’s nervous energy. Later they could socialize; once Takizawa had done all he could about his special project and Tsubasa had seen that the Wing was taken care of. “Or we could stand here some more and he could sit out there. And we could just wait.”
“Send him in. Wait - the others have been notified?” Takizawa’s fingers drummed on his desk.
Tsubasa silently sighed. “I am not your secretary - no. Maybe you should do that after you tell their leader.”
“Personalized. I like that.”
“As if you weren’t planning on having it that way.” Tsubasa stepped towards the door and raised an eyebrow. “Dinner tonight?”
“Of course. On Enbujou instead of The Wing? The Italian restaurant near Third Bay.” The gleeful anticipation in Takizawa’s eyes finally caved Tsubasa’s will and he wryly smiled. His partner was too obvious.
“You want to stare at that new starship of yours.”
“Well, yes.”
*****
“You’ll be the leader of a new crew I’ve selected,” Commander Takizawa told him nonchalantly as Yara tried not to stare too obviously about the commander’s office. He was trying not to look impressed - because he wasn’t - but he knew that Machida would grill him for comparisons between Takizawa’s office and Tsuyoshi’s office. It was a matter of pride, Machida had said, because General Tsuyoshi and Commander Takizawa headed the two largest space stations within the Fleet.
Yara figure that no matter what he said Machida would decide that Endlicheri was far superior compared to Enbujou. When Yara had commed him from Wing and given him a detailed description of the starship Machida’s response had been, “Oh, then Koichi’s Shock would take it, huh?”
Rather than tell Machida he was being biased - or mention that one day he was going to get over his Koichi-crush - Yara had just hm-ed in reply and changed the subject.
Takizawa’s space was messy, but open. Yara was amused by the amount of outmoded paper tacked to cork boards on the white expanse of wall behind him and to the sides. Bookcases lined the walls with actual books hugged the walls and a few readers were tucked among them, shiny and glossy next to old and worn. General Tsuyoshi kept his office neat, but it was cramped. Not due to space issues - the offices were generally the same size Yara thought - but because of display cases and random artifacts and art that he would collect or Koichi would bring home. All of it was ordered neatly, but it took up a lot of room.
Yara preferred Tsuyoshi’s office to Takizawa’s and he knew it was due to familiarity. Or maybe because he saw Takizawa as a peer than a commanding officer thanks to both of them joining the Fleet around the same time before Takizawa’s rapid promotions had brought him to where he currently was. This was interesting though.
“Sorry. What did you say?” He must have been too distracted because Takizawa hadn’t said what Yara just thought he said. Maybe he needed to more formal . . . but no. It was Takizawa.
“You’re the leader of a new crew I’ve selected.” Takizawa didn’t seem annoyed that he had to repeat himself. He seemed downright gleeful that he got to say it again.
“New crew,” Yara repeated slowly, stuck on those words. He wasn’t slow, but maybe the longer he dragged the words out, the less they would be true. He was part of the crew of the fighter MA. He and Yonehana and Machida had always been on MA and they were MA. He was MA. This was rather late in the game for MA to be disrupted.
The crew of MA were in the background of the Fleet. Stable. “I’m -”
“Don’t worry,” Takizawa waved his hand as if he had realized the direction of Yara’s thoughts. “It’s a special unit, a special crew for certain missions. You’ll still be on MA. Think of this as a side job with perks!”
Takizawa was possibly more cheerful than should be possible, but his words released all the tension in Yara’s shoulders and suddenly Yara was almost too interested. “A special unit. For Enbujou? Or Wing?”
Not Enbujou certainly. That would be like competition . . . Unless Koichi was feeling like an evil bastard.
“Just for me. Actually, you’ll have your own ship.”
“Really.” It wasn‘t as impressive to Yara as it would have sounded possibly any other person within the Fleet that wasn‘t on a Triple S. MA was designated a Special Support Ship - further classified as a emissary vessel - within the fleet, also known as a Triple S. A Triple S tended to be a smaller ship that accompanied flagships and larger cruisers. They carried small crews of highly trained individuals. They weren’t elite, but they were the backbone of the Fleet.
MA was crewed by three - once by four - and so Yara really already had his own ship. Not that he wasn’t going to rub the fact that he had two ships in Yonehana’s face.
“She’s an experimental vessel,” Takizawa explained without prompting. “She’s been extensively tested and is ready for launch as soon as you and your crew are ready.” Yara translated that as: We don’t think she’ll blow up but lets throw some guinea pigs on it to make sure. He grabbed a stack of papers and made to hand them over to Yara before laughing at himself, putting the stack down and pulling a thin black reader from under the papers. “This is probably more convenient to read than paper.”
“Probably.“ The reader was already on, displaying an outline of what had to be the ship on the screen. He scrolled downwards and the specs for the ship appeared.
Takizawa continued talking, not that he seemed to expect Yara to listen since Yara already had everything he needed to know about the ship in his hands. “Her name is Butoukan. She’s been designed for exploratory purposes, er, or investigative needs of the Fleet.”
“What would need exploring?” Yara murmured. She was smaller than MA but her engine capabilities would allow her to go further and faster. Not much firepower or armament to Yara’s concern, but she had cloaking abilities that that only the Triple S ABC had.
Takizawa fidgeted and laughed. “Planets with possibly valuable resources in contended areas of space.”
Okay, Yara could see where this had gone. Takizawa had been getting bored and the higher-ups in Fleet had decided to give him a new project to keep him entertained. Enter Butoukan.
Several further scrolls down - Takizawa having settled down into an anticipatory silence - Yara came to the heading CREW with his name directly at the top and three others listed below. They were from other Triple S ships.
“Ah,” he said because he knew all of them in varying aspects. “The other members. Interesting.”
“They’re the right people for Butoukan,” Takizawa said with pride. Great, Yara was in charge of Commander Takizawa’s baby of a spaceship. “They have the qualifications I was looking for and the exact temperament for missions that Butoukan will be taking.”
Itty bitty living space, Yara translated in his head, and unfailingly nice in one way or another. Also special.
Senga Kento of Kisumai he had worked with multiple times - the kid was good at what he did, but there totally wasn’t something right there in his head. Yamamoto Ryota of MAD - considered a slightly newer, bigger sister ship to MA - he knew from joint missions the sister ships had taken - and he was reliable. Efficient. Maybe a bit too easily infatuated with certain things. Or people. And Hamanaka Bunichi of Veteran - a Triple S ship from the Kansai Sector, he noted, instead of the Kanto Sector - he had maybe met only a few times but he vaguely remembered him. Something about him going bright red and fleeing the room after multiple raunchy jokes.
Which Yara had totally not started.
With several Triple S crews recently dissolved, Takizawa had picked from what were the most experienced Triple S crew in the Kansai Sector and three of the most experienced Triple S ships in the Kanto Sector. The absence of a member from a specific Triple S ship bothered him.
“No one from ABC is on Butoukan,” Yara observed.
Takizawa leaned back in his chair. “They helped me conduct interviews and advised me on other Triple S crew. I couldn’t assign one of them to Butoukan without -” Takizawa waved a hand in the air.
“Without it seeming like you were giving preferential treatment,” Yara finished for him even if that didn’t seem quite right because Takizawa should have shrugged that off. Or he hadn’t wanted - right. Yara wasn’t an idiot.
“Maybe.” Takizawa shrugged.
“You’re an ass.” Yara really wasn’t an idiot and he had been around long enough to know when someone was testing him. Takizawa wasn’t even trying to fool him. “Butoukan needs someone from ABC because of her cloaking capabilities. You want to know who I think would fit on the crew.”
“And that would be?”
As tempting as it was to threaten a Commander in the Fleet - this specific Commander - Yara held his tongue. He knew everyone from ABC perhaps better than any other Triple S crew besides MA. It took a moment, but he fit the missing piece in the puzzle. Only one person on ABC filled the specific hole in Butoukan’s crew concerning specialization and, even more so, temperament. “Tsukada Ryoichi.”
“On those nose.” Takizawa touched his nose and winked at Yara. “I’ll send out the summons for the rest of Butoukan‘s crew to have them here within the week. And then we can go look at her.”
The nervous tension that Takizawa had been exuding vanished as soon as Yara made his pick and now a sickening sense of unbridled enthusiasm filled the air. Obvious all serious and semi-serious discussion was at an end for the moment. And thus Yara felt it appropriate to quip, “Is Tsubasa comfortable with the fact that you’re seeing another woman?”
“You should come to dinner and ask him. He’d appreciate that.”
Yara grinned. “Sure. I’ll ask your wifey.”
TRIPLE S MAD
When people wondered why the crew of MAD was so intensely specialized in medicine Yamamoto had the urge to invite them to spend a week onboard. Sure MAD was equipped with latest in medical technology but it wasn’t so they could respond to other ships unable to deal with their wounded or a disaster on planetside. No, it wouldn’t be that at all.
“Yama-chan, you’re hurting me,” Kawamura complained and tried to pull Yamamoto’s hand off his knee. “You’re not supposed to injure me further.”
No, it was because the majority of the MAD‘s crew were idiots and injured themselves because of said idiocy. Like jumping off the walkway in the cargo hold. If they didn’t have the medical equipment, half the crew would be off-duty due to injury the majority of the time.
Yamamoto released his hold on Kawamura’s knee and pulled the scanner away. “You cracked the bone of your heel and gave yourself a bad sprain. Next time don’t jump.”
Kawamura crossed his arms over his chest. “I heard that silent ‘idiot’, you know. You totally wanted to say it.”
“I did,” Yamamoto admitted distractedly, wondering if he would have to start the healing on Kawamura’s heel - ha! heal and heel - and ankle with one of the larger machines or if he could get away with a handheld setter device.
“And it’s a good thing you didn’t,” a very familiar voice added. Yamamoto turned his head to find Noda in the entrance to the medbay. He hadn’t realized the door had slid open. “Because I seem to remember a certain incident with a face plant and the pilot’s chair.”
He wasn’t going to wince, he totally wasn’t going to wince - he totally winced.
“That’s what I thought,” Noda said and stepped further inside. “I’ll take care of Kawamura. You have a message from Commander Takizawa waiting for you on the comm in your room.”
Yamamoto froze. “Commander Takizawa? Why?”
“I don’t know, but it was sent through high priority and coded for your eyes only,” Noda paused thoughtfully. “We’ve been told to break away from Arashi and join up with KAT-TUN and drop something off . . . they’re on their way to Enbujou Space Station.”
Why KAT-TUN? Drop off what?
“Great, um, I’ll be right back.” Yamamoto bolted for his room.
Fortunately when he arrived it was empty of his roommate. Yamamoto would have felt uncomfortable kicking Maeda out.
He gave the comm unit on the room’s only desk his name and immediately it chirped out, “Vocal confirmation: Yamamoto Ryota. Confirmed.”
The message was straight to the point and when it finished Yamamoto blinked at the screen and nervously laughed, then quickly glanced around to see if anyone had seen.
Of course no one had seen. He was alone in the room.
With three hours to pack his bags because in three hours they would be meeting the KAT-TUN and he would be boarding her.
So it could take him straight to Enbujou Space Station to meet Commander Takizawa for a ‘very important meeting’ and ‘a secret mission‘.
Yamamoto was going to pretend he hadn’t heard himself whimper like that.
TRIPLE S KISUMAI
Someone had decided that it was spring cleaning day aboard Kisumai despite it not being spring and there technically being no night and day. Nikaido earned a smack on the back of the head from Yokoo for pointing that out.
Senga Kento had wanted to say something along the same lines. Nikaido had just gotten to it first thanks to the loose leash he kept on his tongue. It probably had saved Senga’s head because Yokoo was feeling violent today - the rest of the crew suspected it was because he had spent a week in the company of the crew of Kanjani8 due to a mission mix up. But no one mentioned that because Yokoo seemed determined to pretend that that little incident hadn’t happened.
Except the out of character violence was a little hard to ignore.
So here Senga was, in their tiny kitchen scrubbing where the wall meet the floor with a toothbrush. Maybe Kisumai had been a little dirty, but this was totally unnecessary.
They needed a mission and then Yokoo would focus on something different and they would have something to do other than spend all day on their hands and knees in the most unpleasant way. Weren’t new ensigns supposed to deep clean their ship when they docked somewhere? Senga vaguely remembered - vaguely because he was still trying to mostly block it - doing such a thing when he first joined the Fleet.
He sat up. “Hey, we’re trained professionals. This isn’t our job, right? Right?”
Fujigaya paused in talking to Tamamori - well mostly talking at Tamamori because Tamamori was at the point where he was nodding at whatever Fujigaya said and giving the odd, random agreement from time to time - to hiss, “Senga!”
And then there Yokoo loomed and Senga gave a wavering smile, but oh no, that wasn’t going to work. The hand was coming down and he shut his eyes and braced himself for -
“Yo, leave him alone, Wataru,” Kitiyama said, arriving to Senga’s rescue. “We try to leave the abusing of crew members for everyone in the Kansai Sector, remember? We‘re more civilized in Kanto.”
Yokoo froze, looked like he was considering ignoring Kitiyama, and finally allowed his hand to fall. “She’s our ship. We should take care of her,” he muttered as Miyata gently pulled him back and away.
“R-right.”
Kitiyama helped Senga stand and took the toothbrush from his hand. “I would have let him smack you, Ken-chan, but Tackey left an urgent and private message for you. You should probably go, you know, open it. Since it‘s urgent.”
“Oh, Takizawa-senpai? Really? I‘ll definitely go and - um - thanks! Hiro-kun is the best.” Senga beamed and bounced out of the almost sparkling - though not sparkling enough to Yokoo’s satisfaction - kitchen.
The message wasn‘t very long, but Takizawa was straightforward in his words. Senga‘s stomach dropped a little. Kisumai members had gone off on individual missions before, but this was Senga’s first time. First time ever. And it didn’t come from some distant, impersonal higher up official, it had come from Takizawa.
This was a good thing. Takizawa liked him. He liked Takizawa.
Senga’s stomach knotted up a little bit. Nikaido wasn’t going to be very happy, he thought.
TRIPLE S VETERAN
Hamanaka was the only one up and on deck when Veteran announced, “Urgent. Message. For. Hamanaka. Bunichi. From. Commander. Takizawa. Of. Enbujou. Space. Station.”
He stopped looking through former mission report on the console, looked around the empty deck and then stared at the mission report he had been reviewing. A message icon now flickered in the corner. He was Hamanaka Bunichi. He probably should answer it.
Glancing around confirmed that the deck was still empty.
He opened the message.
“Vocal. Confirmation. Requested.” Yesterday, Ito had programmed the ship’s voice supposedly after some ancient comedian. Kikuoka spent last night drunkenly declaring that he was going to chew off his own ears if Ito didn’t change it back to its normal settings. Several drinks later, Ito had been convinced to restore the original settings, but obviously he hadn’t gotten around to it yet.
Probably because he was still in a drunken stupor in his bed.
“Hamanaka Bunichi.”
“Vocal. Confirmation. Hamanaka. Bunichi. Confirmed.”
The message played and when it was over Hamanaka swiveled once in his chair. Twice.
And then he stood up because he needed to pack his things and he needed to wake the other members up to tell them he was leaving. Just for a little while. He would be back.
They had arrived at the old Four Leaves Space Station yesterday afternoon, ahead of schedule. Mission completed early. Hamanaka had been the sober one - they always designated someone to remain sober in hopes that it would keep things like Ito stripping down to his underwear before performing in a karaoke club - and they had wandered the bars together.
If only the mission had run a little longer, then they wouldn’t be on Four Leaves. If the mission had run a little longer, he would have had a little longer with everyone.
But it hadn’t and a high-class cruiser was already docked at Four Leaves waiting for him. Waiting to take him to Enbujou.
Hamanaka would try waking Muro first. He hadn’t imbibed as much alcohol as the others.
TRIPLE S ABC
Tsukada was thinking that it would be nice to wash up and catch more than the half hour of sleep he had managed the past few days when Totsuka laughed. It had an exhausted, hysterical edge to it.
It attracted the attention of all three other members.
“What is it, Tottsu?” Kawai finally asked. Kawai always asked.
“Yokoo has them doing spring cleaning on Kisumai.” Totsuka’s eyes crinkled up at the edges. He was probably too easily amused, but that was okay because Tsukada thought it was pretty amusing too.
“Ugh,” Kawai’s head fell back on his armrest. “Someone give them a mission.”
“They’re putting their free time to good use,” Goseki pointed out. He was smiling, but it was tired.
“No, putting their free time to good use would be using it to sleep.”
Totsuka rolled his eyes and Tsukada mildly pointed out, “You could go sleep, Kawai-kun. We are finished with the mission.”
“And then why aren’t you sleeping?” Kawai returned wryly.
No one answered because they all already knew the answer. They weren’t home yet. The mission may have ended, but they hadn’t made it back to ’safety’. They had been on a mission for KAT-TUN - the flagship unable to turn away from a larger mission that required her firepowers - and ABC was small enough and specialized in exactly what needed to be done. Now they were only two hours out from rendezvous with KAT-TUN. Then they would all be able to sleep.
“Tsuka-chan, there’s a message from Tackey coming in for you,” Goseki announced, his voice a little more energetic than it had been earlier. “It’s urgent and voice-locked. So private. Do you want to take it in your room?”
The stars shooting past ABC‘s deck windows distracted his eyes for a second and he jerked his head away, then smiled. “Uh, sure. Yeah.”
Off deck the rest of the ship was eerily quiet. ABC had two different modes on how it ran. Quiet or silent. Silent is for missions and that Tsukada doesn’t mind. Quiet is for anything that isn’t a mission. When it was quiet it wasn’t always so quiet because Kawai would have his music playing or Totsuka would be singing. That was always before a mission. It was only after a mission when things got like this and maybe that was part of the reason Tsukada stayed on deck as he did. Maybe.
He didn’t rush to his room to play the message but he certainly didn’t linger. Takizawa’s voice fills the quiet and when the message ends, the quiet comes rushing back. It takes Tsukada an extra minute to move because the desk chair is comfortable.
But he wants to be with the others and he should probably tell them that Takizawa wants to meet with him - not any of the others which should incite a rather entertaining reaction from Kawai no matter how tired he is.
So Tsukada smiled and made his way back to ABC‘s deck. Totsuka was humming and Kawai was nodding his head in time to the melody. His smile grew a little wider.
Kawai was definitely going to be jealous.
Transmission between ENBUJOU SPACE STATION and INDEPENDENT STARSHIP BUTOUKAN
“Takizawa to Butoukan.”
“This is Butoukan. What happened to this being a secret mission? What if someone overhears?”
“We’re communicating on a private and secure channel. No one will even know we’re talking.”
“Oh, well then, I’m surprised you restrained yourself for so long. It’s only been, what, two hours?”
“I thought I would catch you before you hyper-jumped. After your first one you’ll be out of range for anything approximating secure except for delayed code messages.”
“Your sense of timing is alarmingly impeccable. We‘re an hour out from hyper-jump range.”
“I know Butoukan‘s stats inside and out. Obviously.”
“I’m still convinced that you held a secret ceremony behind Tsubasa’s back and married yourself to this ship.”
“She’s my baby.”
“Getting off the topic of how this ship is related to you . . .”
“I wanted to know how things were going so far.”
“We haven’t blown up yet! But it’s only been two hours and we haven’t hyper-jumped so that’s always a future possibility.”
“Don’t joke, Yara.”
“She’s small, Takki. Really small once you cram five people into her.”
“Mm. The cramming. How is that going?”
“It’s only been two hours. But we’ll be fine.”
“What’s that noise in the background? Is something -”
“That’s Senga. Laughing. And I thought you were confident in your baby’s abilities to not blow up?”
“I am! I just - you’re an evil man, Yara.”
“You’re the one that picked me.”
“You don’t have to rub that in my face.”
“Are you regretting it?”
“No.”
“So do you have an official reason for calling us or did you just want to chat?”
“I wanted to check in. You’re heading into questionable territory and I have every confidence that you’ll do fine . . . but be careful.”
“You’re fretting.”
“Butoukan is currently registered as an independent ship. She’s not under Fleet and she’s definitely not designated a Triple S. Yet. Be careful. If something does happen to you, no one is under any obligation to help you.”
“We know. We really know since you’ve mentioned that at least twelve -” “Fourteen.” “- ah, fourteen times Yamamoto says. We know Fleet’s policy. Kick it out and see if it works, then accept it.”
“Yes, well, get out there, get the mission done and then come home for Fleet’s stamp of approval.”
“Enter contested territory in space using a state-of-the-art experimental starship with high-class cloaking technology, land on a planet and check it out for valuable resources, and then leave and return to Enbujou. It doesn’t get much easier than that.”
“I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not.”
“It’ll be easy, Takki. Don’t worry.”
“I’m not worrying.”
“I’ll pretend to believe you.”
“Have a safe mission. I’ll see you in a few weeks. And . . . don’t blow up.”
“Oh, thanks. You’re an ass. Butoukan out.”
“Good luck, everyone. Enbujou out.”
INDEPENDENT STARSHIP BUTOUKAN
“Are you cooking?” Yamamoto eyed Senga from across the room, where he sat fiddling with the medical equipment Butoukan had stowed aboard her. She didn’t have the range of equipment that MAD did, but he couldn’t really complain. Takizawa had loaded her with some of the newest technology and it was more than enough. Butoukan would be able to take care of her crew until they could reach somewhere with a larger medical facility.
Actually, anything else would be larger because while Butoukan‘s medical bay was large enough for five people to fit in comfortably it was also acting as their crew area and dining area. Seats and tables could shift and collapse down into the floor and most of the medical equipment was pulled from the side wall. On one side of the room dishes and cutlery were stored and on the other, everything medical. Yamamoto wasn’t entirely sure he appreciated the hygienic and supposed cleanliness of such a shared area, but in tight quarters a person had to make do.
So this was why when Yamamoto was eying Senga across the room, he really wasn’t eying Senga across from much of anything.
“Yes,” Senga answered and then ducked behind the counter, disappearing from Yamamoto’s sight and looking for who knew what.
Yamamoto closed his eyes. “You’re cooking. Can you cook?”
“It’s all pre-packaged,” Hamanaka said, stepping into the crew room from the hallway that led to their rooms. The ship’s two rooms where somehow Yamamoto had ended up rooming with Yara in the smaller one. Yamamoto suspected everyone else had cheated during jankenpon. “He can’t mess that up.”
“Seriously?” Yamamoto could remember more than a few instances on MAD that had resulted in him wishing his stomach away. Far, far away. “You’d be surprised. You’ve never had any screw up the food on your ship before?”
Hamanaka stared at him. Through him. “We take our food seriously.”
“Ah,” and because Hamanaka was still looking at him, he fumbled for another topic of conversation. “Everything’s set up on deck then?”
Okay, that had been a dumb question.
Hamanaka shrugged and sat down across from him. “We’re hyper-jumped. Not much to do but let the ship go.”
Once hyper-jumped for however long, the ship was pretty much untouchable so long as systems didn’t fail. Directions couldn’t be changed and communications couldn’t be sent or received unless the ship was in sync hyper-jumping with another ship - and then it was only between those two or however many starships were sync hyper-jumping together.
Which was also why Hamanaka wasn’t on deck, piloting.
“Right,” Yamamoto said.
“We didn’t blow up!” Senga chirped from wherever he still was behind the counter.
“We have ten hours left in hyper-jump. We could still blow up.”
Yamamoto wasn’t sure if Hamanaka was serious or not so he stopped checking the emergency pack he had opened and locked eyes with the other man. And Hamanaka stared back at him.
“Hey, we have a cold unit on board!” Yamamoto jerked his eyes away from Hamanaka’s as Senga triumphantly popped up from behind the counter with a bunch of celery in his hand. “And fresh food.”
Now he was going to try and not look horrified. All that lovely food. In Senga’s hands. Could Senga cook? They needed someone that could really cook. Could Senga?
Yamamoto couldn’t. He wouldn’t even try.
The ladder from the deck to the crew room clattered a little as Yara appeared from above, stepping down the first two rungs before jumping the rest of the way down. Tsukada followed behind him in much the same manner. The hatch over the top of the ladder slid shut.
“I guess we do get a little luxury despite the cramped quarters,” Yara said, obviously having overheard Senga’s announcement. “Or else Takizawa is feeling really guilty.”
Hamanaka ‘hm’-ed and said, “The hyper-jump engine is running smoothly?”
Yara wrapped an arm around Tsukada’s shoulders and Tsukada grinned back at everyone. “Tsuka-chan and I were just running some diagnostics on the engines and checking out Butoukan‘s guns. Everything’s fine. We won’t blow up.”
Hamanaka’s mouth twitched upwards. “Senga-kun was about to start dinner.”
“Can Senga cook?” Yamamoto asked again. Someone had to know the answer.
“Yes, I can!” Someone that wasn’t Senga.
Apparently, Tsukada did because his smile turned on the nervous side and his brow furrowed slightly. “Pre-packed is fine. I don’t know . . .”
Yara laughed. “I actually need you, Senga. We need to send a coded message back to Takizawa when we drop out of this hyper-jump.”
“Oh?” And Senga put the celery back on the counter much to Yamamoto’s relief. “But nothing’s happened, has it?”
“No, however I thought it might be nice to let Takki know that we haven’t blown up.”
Senga had already made his way around the counter, but he glanced back. “Dinner?”
Yara pushed Tsukada forward. “Tsuka-chan can start it and when we’re done you can help him finish.” The skin around Yara’s eyes crinkled as his grin grew bigger. “We can have dinner be a crew bonding experience.”
“Great, that’s great,” Yamamoto said once Yara and Senga had climbed the ladder, the hatch closing behind them. He turned to Tsukada, who now just looked confused. “Can you cook?”
Tsukada blinked. “Cook?”
“You don’t know how to cook?”
“No! No, I know how to!” Tsukada’s hands flailed in the air and he blushed, finally moving and stumbling his way back behind the counter. “I can cook. It’s pretty tight back here. Do you think he was serious about all of us cooking together for a crew bonding experience.”
Hamanaka tilted his head. His mouth tilted downwards at the corners briefly. “I think he was being sarcastic.”
“Ah, good.” Tsukada had ducked down beneath the counter already, probably looking into the cold unit and his voice was muffled. “But - but you know, it is Yara.”
Hamanaka’s mouth quirked upwards this time. Yamamoto’s stomach dropped at the thought of all five of them shoved into and about that tiny space, trying to cook together. Too many limbs and too many sensitive areas. Yara was fantastic. Yara was awesome.
But everyone knew about Yara’s sadistic streak.
“I’ll help. Tell me what to do,” he said and put the emergency medkit away. “And we can have Bun-chan cut vegetables and stuff on the table here.”
“. . . I - what? Why am I getting volunteered?”
“Yara. And small places. Bad -” and then Yamamoto realized he was talking to someone from the Kansai Sector and sometimes they had different ideas about ‘bad things’ in the Kansai Sector. “Never mind. Just help out.”
Transmission between ENBUJOU SPACE STATION and FLEET FLAGSHIP SHOCK
“Takizawa.”
“Koichi-kun!”
“Have you heard from them?”
“We had a little chat before they went into hyper-jump. And I received a delayed message from Yara just a few minutes ago. ‘We haven’t blown up,’ were his exact words.”
“And what else?”
“That was it. You can stop laughing at me now.”
“You wanted him. And your new toy had better not blow up on him.”
“She’s safe. There is no way that she’ll - really. Stop laughing at me.”
“I’ll try. Keep me updated on their status if they send anything else. I have two neglected MA crew members to treat to lunch.”
“I will. Thank you, Koichi-kun.”
“And seriously, Yara better come back not blown out. Koichi out.”
INDEPENDENT STARSHIP BUTOUKAN
Senga woke up to the hissing of the bedroom door sliding shut and he blinked sleep blurry eyes at the time display on the console next to his bed. “Huh?”
“Are you awake, Senga?” That was Tsukada’s voice, whispering from up above him. More specifically the bunk above him.
He rubbed his eyes. Of course the room was still dark except for the light from the console’s display. “Mmm, I think so. Was that Bun-chan leaving?”
“Yeah. We’re about to drop out of hyper-jump.”
“Does this mean we have to get up?”
He heard Tsukada shifting above him. “Not quite yet. But we will have to check the engines and Yara will have to double check our coordinates before we go for the next hyper-jump.”
“How many more hyper-jumps do we have left?”
“I - Three, I think. Three.”
“That’s right.” Senga pulled the covers up to his chin. “Have you ever been in MornMu territory before?”
“Once,” Tsukada admitted. “We had a rescue mission and I really don’t remember much. I ended up stuck in the medbay for most of it. Kawai yelled at me.”
“Did you complete it?”
“Mm, of course. It wasn’t that hard. After that the Fleet ended up signing a truce with the MornMu.” Another shift from Tsukada above him. “We aren’t really heading into MornMu territory anyways. Just the neutral zone.”
“Closer to their territory.”
As Senga’s eyes became used to the dark he could see vague outlines, darker shapes and lighter space. Tsukada shifted above him once more and this time his head peeked down from over the top of the bunk, his face unnaturally serious even upside down. “Senga, are you worried about this mission?”
It wasn’t that. Senga trusted and liked everyone Butoukan. He had been on tougher missions with Kisumai. “This is my first time off of Kisumai and I like Butoukan - I really do - but what if this mission goes too well and we’re made permanent? I don’t know what I would say to them.”
Tsukada slipped down halfway and then flipped over, landing on his feet. He sat down on the edge of Senga’s bed and all Senga could see of him was the dark outline of his back. “I don’t know what I would say either. To everyone on ABC.” Tsukada admitted quietly. “But I do know I don’t have to worry about it.” Tsukada twisted around and Senga couldn’t see his characteristic grin, but he could hear it in his voice. “I know I don’t have to worry about it because of Yara.”
“Yara?”
“General Koichi would maim Takki if he didn’t keep his end of the bargain.”
Senga wasn’t sure if Takizawa was afraid of anyone. The man seemed to get along with everyone, but if there was anyone Takizawa wouldn’t mess with it, it would likely be any one of the Domotos. Senga giggled. “I bet ABC would steal you back, anyways.”
Tsukada poked him in the side, “No, that would be Kisumai. Gocchi and everyone would just harass Yara and make him hate his life.”
Senga flopped back on his bed, amused. “They’re going to yell at Takki-senpai when we get back.”
“Mm. I want to be there for that.”
“So do I.”
“Well, the faster we check out this planet, the faster we can get home.”
A heaviness fell upon Senga and he shut his eyes as his stomach twisted around and around. In less than a second the sensation disappeared, but Senga still felt queasy. He twisted his mouth and Tsukada let out a groan.
And then the lights came on and Yara’s voice blared over the comm system, “Wake up, you lazy bums. We’ve dropped out of hyper-jump and we have diagnostics and, oh, look, some stretching and exercise to do!”
The shock and suddenness of the lights and Yara’s booming voice had Senga jumping out of bed . . . And tripping over Tsukada.
“Ouch,” Senga said, his face against the cold floor.
“Ouch,” Tsukada weakly echoed.
Transmission between SPACE STATION ENBUJOU and TRIPLE S MAD
“Ah, you’re Takeuchi, aren’t you? The communications expert on MAD?”
“I - yes.”
“What can I do for you?”
“Is Yamamoto all right? He did get there, right?”
“He arrived safely on KAT-TUN, yes. Did you think they were going to drop him off in deep space.”
“We were told that we were dropping something off. We thought it was a package or one of our older pieces of medical equipment. Yamamoto isn’t something.”
“Sorry about that. I should have had them be more specific.”
“He hasn’t sent any messages since he got there. Is he all right?”
“He’s fine. He’s not blown up which is probably better than fine.”
“Um . . . Can we talk to him? No one at Enbujou will put us in touch with his personal comm.”
“That’s because I have his personal comm and he’s unreachable at the moment.”
“You said he was fine!”
“And he is, but he’s currently on a mission that requires the utmost secrecy.”
“Yamamoto is -”
“Yes.”
“. . . it’s not dangerous is it?”
“It’s a mission. I’ll have him contact you as soon as he returns.”
“Went will that be?”
“Unfortunately, I don’t know. However long the mission takes.”
“Oh.”
INDEPENDENT STARSHIP BUTOUKAN
Yara had ditched the navigational console and joined everyone else in the crew room below, leaving Hamanaka by himself on deck.
“We can’t have Tsuka-chan cooking our every meal,” Yara had said before heading down the ladder.
Hamanaka only wondered if Yara was implying that he could cook, because at this point Tsukada was the only one with a decent hand at making something edible.
So he was left with the stars and the steady blink of lights on the console. He could have set Butoukan on automatic control, but that made him feel like he was neglecting his duties. Yara had promised to send someone up with food once it was finished.
Hamanaka’s stomach growled and as if it was a summons, the hatch slid open and Senga climbed up the ladder carefully and onto the deck, a metal box carefully held against his side with one hand. The hatch slid shut after him.
“Bun-chan! I brought you food!” Senga held the box up with a grin.
“Thank you,” he said as he opened the box and pulled out a bowl of rice balanced on a full plate of food. He looked up after digging his chopsticks into the rice and saw that Senga was still there, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
“Have you eaten yet?” Hamanaka asked, his chopsticks paused halfway to his mouth.
Senga wouldn’t meet his eyes. “It’s lonely up here, right? By yourself?” He darted a glance back at Hamanaka and then sat in his communications seat at the right front of the deck. To the right front of Hamanaka. “I’ll keep you company.”
“The others are probably eating without you,” Hamanaka pointed out. “If you wait, they’ll eat all of it.”
Senga swung his chair around to face Hamanaka. “That’s all right,” he said, smiling, “I can make myself something later.”
Their second meal aboard Butoukan had been allowing Senga free reign with the food. That certainly wouldn’t be happening again.
Hamanaka thought about it carefully and then picked up the overflowing plate and bowl, grabbed the extra set of chopsticks someone had thoughtfully left in the bottom of the box and sat down on the floor next to Senga’s seat.
“What -”
“We’ll share.”
“Oh!” And Senga slid off his chair to sit next to Hamanaka, his smile growing big and bright. “Thank you.”
“It’s nothing.” Hamanaka hoped the lighting on the deck disguised his blush, because he could feel his cheeks heating up. It probably wasn’t nothing. He didn’t mind the quiet, but it wasn’t natural and was far from natural concerning what Veteran was like.
“You’re a little bit annoying. You won‘t leave people alone and you‘re always there,” Hamanaka mused from around a mouthful of food. He pretended not to see how Senga’s face froze in shock and looked maybe a little bit destroyed. Hamanaka swallowed and ruffled Senga’s hair. “Don’t change. I like it.”
“Aaaah,” Senga tipped over on his side, “don’t do that to me. I really thought you didn’t like me.”
“I like you.” He thought about the rest of Butoukan‘s crew, chewing on the end of a chopstick. “I like everyone onboard.”
“I like everyone, too.”
Hamanaka chewed on the chopstick a bit longer before he pulled it out. “What has Yara been sending to Takizawa between every hyper-jump.”
Senga giggled. “Oh, those? Pretty much ‘We haven’t blown up.’ ‘Still haven’t gone kaboom.’ ‘BOOM - Nope, just kidding.’ That’s about the extent of it.”
“Mm, I like Yara.”
“Me too.”
Transmission between ENBUJOU SPACE STATION and TRIPLE S KISUMAI
“Takki-senpai, where’s Senga?”
“Ah, Nika! That was rather straight to the point, wasn’t it?”
“He hasn’t contacted me. Or anyone else.”
“That’s because he can’t, Nika. He’s on a mission.”
“Kitiyama did when he was on a separate mission. Why can’t Sen-chan?”
“Kitiyama’s wasn’t a secret. Senga’s is.”
“. . . does that mean Senga’s is in more danger than Kitiyama was?”
“No. It means that whatever he’s doing, the Fleet doesn’t want out yet. As of this moment I can promise you that he’s perfectly fine.”
“At the moment.”
“The mission is still ongoing.”
“He’d better come back.”
“He will . . . You like him that much, Nika?”
“We’re best friends.”
“I meant - ah, never mind.”
“Are you laughing at me?”
“You’re still young. I’m sure you’ll understand soon enough.”
Onto Part 2
From: pastdazed
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
Title: Space Oddity (subtitled: Ungrateful World) Part 1
Pairing/Group: Butoukan-centric
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: SPACE AU. Looong. Stupid boys. Blood. Random appearances by other groups not Butoukan.
Notes: This fic may have possibly broken a mind. The possibly broken mind hopes the fic treats you well, diamondsjack!
Summary: Take one tiny ship, five people and send them to an unknown planet for a totally easy mission. Will they survive? Will the ship blow up? Who knows.
ENBUJOU SPACE STATION
The designs for the ship were scattered across Takizawa Hideki’s desk and Tsubasa stopped his mouth from twitching upwards in a smile. He was annoyed, too annoyed to be amused by the chaotic mess of paper - actual paper covering com-units and electronic readers with actual reports stored in their memories - on the desk that only Takizawa could make sense of.
“I am not your secretary,” Tsubasa said, “And I am most certainly not your fetcher of things even if I do have the starship and you have the station.”
Takizawa smiled at him. “I trust you.”
It was unfortunate that Tsubasa liked Takizawa too much to hate him as much as he should sometimes.
“Well, I fetched and this is going to be the only time I ever, ever, ever fetch for you again. Especially from Koichi.” Tsubasa had his own sadistic tendencies, but General Domoto Koichi had a few years and a great deal more experience compared to Tsubasa. He had been lucky to get out with his flesh still on his bones, flinching from what everyone knew as Koichi’s support ship’s crew. Never mind that they were really the Fleet‘s. Everyone knew they were really Koichi‘s. “How did you bribe Koichi into giving him up, anyways?”
“I was very convincing.” The smile on Takizawa’s face grew bigger. It was almost sickening. “And he’s not giving him up. We’re sharing.”
“Right. Do you want me to send him in?” And let me leave, he thought, not maliciously, but with the desire to step out of the way of Takizawa’s nervous energy. Later they could socialize; once Takizawa had done all he could about his special project and Tsubasa had seen that the Wing was taken care of. “Or we could stand here some more and he could sit out there. And we could just wait.”
“Send him in. Wait - the others have been notified?” Takizawa’s fingers drummed on his desk.
Tsubasa silently sighed. “I am not your secretary - no. Maybe you should do that after you tell their leader.”
“Personalized. I like that.”
“As if you weren’t planning on having it that way.” Tsubasa stepped towards the door and raised an eyebrow. “Dinner tonight?”
“Of course. On Enbujou instead of The Wing? The Italian restaurant near Third Bay.” The gleeful anticipation in Takizawa’s eyes finally caved Tsubasa’s will and he wryly smiled. His partner was too obvious.
“You want to stare at that new starship of yours.”
“Well, yes.”
*****
“You’ll be the leader of a new crew I’ve selected,” Commander Takizawa told him nonchalantly as Yara tried not to stare too obviously about the commander’s office. He was trying not to look impressed - because he wasn’t - but he knew that Machida would grill him for comparisons between Takizawa’s office and Tsuyoshi’s office. It was a matter of pride, Machida had said, because General Tsuyoshi and Commander Takizawa headed the two largest space stations within the Fleet.
Yara figure that no matter what he said Machida would decide that Endlicheri was far superior compared to Enbujou. When Yara had commed him from Wing and given him a detailed description of the starship Machida’s response had been, “Oh, then Koichi’s Shock would take it, huh?”
Rather than tell Machida he was being biased - or mention that one day he was going to get over his Koichi-crush - Yara had just hm-ed in reply and changed the subject.
Takizawa’s space was messy, but open. Yara was amused by the amount of outmoded paper tacked to cork boards on the white expanse of wall behind him and to the sides. Bookcases lined the walls with actual books hugged the walls and a few readers were tucked among them, shiny and glossy next to old and worn. General Tsuyoshi kept his office neat, but it was cramped. Not due to space issues - the offices were generally the same size Yara thought - but because of display cases and random artifacts and art that he would collect or Koichi would bring home. All of it was ordered neatly, but it took up a lot of room.
Yara preferred Tsuyoshi’s office to Takizawa’s and he knew it was due to familiarity. Or maybe because he saw Takizawa as a peer than a commanding officer thanks to both of them joining the Fleet around the same time before Takizawa’s rapid promotions had brought him to where he currently was. This was interesting though.
“Sorry. What did you say?” He must have been too distracted because Takizawa hadn’t said what Yara just thought he said. Maybe he needed to more formal . . . but no. It was Takizawa.
“You’re the leader of a new crew I’ve selected.” Takizawa didn’t seem annoyed that he had to repeat himself. He seemed downright gleeful that he got to say it again.
“New crew,” Yara repeated slowly, stuck on those words. He wasn’t slow, but maybe the longer he dragged the words out, the less they would be true. He was part of the crew of the fighter MA. He and Yonehana and Machida had always been on MA and they were MA. He was MA. This was rather late in the game for MA to be disrupted.
The crew of MA were in the background of the Fleet. Stable. “I’m -”
“Don’t worry,” Takizawa waved his hand as if he had realized the direction of Yara’s thoughts. “It’s a special unit, a special crew for certain missions. You’ll still be on MA. Think of this as a side job with perks!”
Takizawa was possibly more cheerful than should be possible, but his words released all the tension in Yara’s shoulders and suddenly Yara was almost too interested. “A special unit. For Enbujou? Or Wing?”
Not Enbujou certainly. That would be like competition . . . Unless Koichi was feeling like an evil bastard.
“Just for me. Actually, you’ll have your own ship.”
“Really.” It wasn‘t as impressive to Yara as it would have sounded possibly any other person within the Fleet that wasn‘t on a Triple S. MA was designated a Special Support Ship - further classified as a emissary vessel - within the fleet, also known as a Triple S. A Triple S tended to be a smaller ship that accompanied flagships and larger cruisers. They carried small crews of highly trained individuals. They weren’t elite, but they were the backbone of the Fleet.
MA was crewed by three - once by four - and so Yara really already had his own ship. Not that he wasn’t going to rub the fact that he had two ships in Yonehana’s face.
“She’s an experimental vessel,” Takizawa explained without prompting. “She’s been extensively tested and is ready for launch as soon as you and your crew are ready.” Yara translated that as: We don’t think she’ll blow up but lets throw some guinea pigs on it to make sure. He grabbed a stack of papers and made to hand them over to Yara before laughing at himself, putting the stack down and pulling a thin black reader from under the papers. “This is probably more convenient to read than paper.”
“Probably.“ The reader was already on, displaying an outline of what had to be the ship on the screen. He scrolled downwards and the specs for the ship appeared.
Takizawa continued talking, not that he seemed to expect Yara to listen since Yara already had everything he needed to know about the ship in his hands. “Her name is Butoukan. She’s been designed for exploratory purposes, er, or investigative needs of the Fleet.”
“What would need exploring?” Yara murmured. She was smaller than MA but her engine capabilities would allow her to go further and faster. Not much firepower or armament to Yara’s concern, but she had cloaking abilities that that only the Triple S ABC had.
Takizawa fidgeted and laughed. “Planets with possibly valuable resources in contended areas of space.”
Okay, Yara could see where this had gone. Takizawa had been getting bored and the higher-ups in Fleet had decided to give him a new project to keep him entertained. Enter Butoukan.
Several further scrolls down - Takizawa having settled down into an anticipatory silence - Yara came to the heading CREW with his name directly at the top and three others listed below. They were from other Triple S ships.
“Ah,” he said because he knew all of them in varying aspects. “The other members. Interesting.”
“They’re the right people for Butoukan,” Takizawa said with pride. Great, Yara was in charge of Commander Takizawa’s baby of a spaceship. “They have the qualifications I was looking for and the exact temperament for missions that Butoukan will be taking.”
Itty bitty living space, Yara translated in his head, and unfailingly nice in one way or another. Also special.
Senga Kento of Kisumai he had worked with multiple times - the kid was good at what he did, but there totally wasn’t something right there in his head. Yamamoto Ryota of MAD - considered a slightly newer, bigger sister ship to MA - he knew from joint missions the sister ships had taken - and he was reliable. Efficient. Maybe a bit too easily infatuated with certain things. Or people. And Hamanaka Bunichi of Veteran - a Triple S ship from the Kansai Sector, he noted, instead of the Kanto Sector - he had maybe met only a few times but he vaguely remembered him. Something about him going bright red and fleeing the room after multiple raunchy jokes.
Which Yara had totally not started.
With several Triple S crews recently dissolved, Takizawa had picked from what were the most experienced Triple S crew in the Kansai Sector and three of the most experienced Triple S ships in the Kanto Sector. The absence of a member from a specific Triple S ship bothered him.
“No one from ABC is on Butoukan,” Yara observed.
Takizawa leaned back in his chair. “They helped me conduct interviews and advised me on other Triple S crew. I couldn’t assign one of them to Butoukan without -” Takizawa waved a hand in the air.
“Without it seeming like you were giving preferential treatment,” Yara finished for him even if that didn’t seem quite right because Takizawa should have shrugged that off. Or he hadn’t wanted - right. Yara wasn’t an idiot.
“Maybe.” Takizawa shrugged.
“You’re an ass.” Yara really wasn’t an idiot and he had been around long enough to know when someone was testing him. Takizawa wasn’t even trying to fool him. “Butoukan needs someone from ABC because of her cloaking capabilities. You want to know who I think would fit on the crew.”
“And that would be?”
As tempting as it was to threaten a Commander in the Fleet - this specific Commander - Yara held his tongue. He knew everyone from ABC perhaps better than any other Triple S crew besides MA. It took a moment, but he fit the missing piece in the puzzle. Only one person on ABC filled the specific hole in Butoukan’s crew concerning specialization and, even more so, temperament. “Tsukada Ryoichi.”
“On those nose.” Takizawa touched his nose and winked at Yara. “I’ll send out the summons for the rest of Butoukan‘s crew to have them here within the week. And then we can go look at her.”
The nervous tension that Takizawa had been exuding vanished as soon as Yara made his pick and now a sickening sense of unbridled enthusiasm filled the air. Obvious all serious and semi-serious discussion was at an end for the moment. And thus Yara felt it appropriate to quip, “Is Tsubasa comfortable with the fact that you’re seeing another woman?”
“You should come to dinner and ask him. He’d appreciate that.”
Yara grinned. “Sure. I’ll ask your wifey.”
TRIPLE S MAD
When people wondered why the crew of MAD was so intensely specialized in medicine Yamamoto had the urge to invite them to spend a week onboard. Sure MAD was equipped with latest in medical technology but it wasn’t so they could respond to other ships unable to deal with their wounded or a disaster on planetside. No, it wouldn’t be that at all.
“Yama-chan, you’re hurting me,” Kawamura complained and tried to pull Yamamoto’s hand off his knee. “You’re not supposed to injure me further.”
No, it was because the majority of the MAD‘s crew were idiots and injured themselves because of said idiocy. Like jumping off the walkway in the cargo hold. If they didn’t have the medical equipment, half the crew would be off-duty due to injury the majority of the time.
Yamamoto released his hold on Kawamura’s knee and pulled the scanner away. “You cracked the bone of your heel and gave yourself a bad sprain. Next time don’t jump.”
Kawamura crossed his arms over his chest. “I heard that silent ‘idiot’, you know. You totally wanted to say it.”
“I did,” Yamamoto admitted distractedly, wondering if he would have to start the healing on Kawamura’s heel - ha! heal and heel - and ankle with one of the larger machines or if he could get away with a handheld setter device.
“And it’s a good thing you didn’t,” a very familiar voice added. Yamamoto turned his head to find Noda in the entrance to the medbay. He hadn’t realized the door had slid open. “Because I seem to remember a certain incident with a face plant and the pilot’s chair.”
He wasn’t going to wince, he totally wasn’t going to wince - he totally winced.
“That’s what I thought,” Noda said and stepped further inside. “I’ll take care of Kawamura. You have a message from Commander Takizawa waiting for you on the comm in your room.”
Yamamoto froze. “Commander Takizawa? Why?”
“I don’t know, but it was sent through high priority and coded for your eyes only,” Noda paused thoughtfully. “We’ve been told to break away from Arashi and join up with KAT-TUN and drop something off . . . they’re on their way to Enbujou Space Station.”
Why KAT-TUN? Drop off what?
“Great, um, I’ll be right back.” Yamamoto bolted for his room.
Fortunately when he arrived it was empty of his roommate. Yamamoto would have felt uncomfortable kicking Maeda out.
He gave the comm unit on the room’s only desk his name and immediately it chirped out, “Vocal confirmation: Yamamoto Ryota. Confirmed.”
The message was straight to the point and when it finished Yamamoto blinked at the screen and nervously laughed, then quickly glanced around to see if anyone had seen.
Of course no one had seen. He was alone in the room.
With three hours to pack his bags because in three hours they would be meeting the KAT-TUN and he would be boarding her.
So it could take him straight to Enbujou Space Station to meet Commander Takizawa for a ‘very important meeting’ and ‘a secret mission‘.
Yamamoto was going to pretend he hadn’t heard himself whimper like that.
TRIPLE S KISUMAI
Someone had decided that it was spring cleaning day aboard Kisumai despite it not being spring and there technically being no night and day. Nikaido earned a smack on the back of the head from Yokoo for pointing that out.
Senga Kento had wanted to say something along the same lines. Nikaido had just gotten to it first thanks to the loose leash he kept on his tongue. It probably had saved Senga’s head because Yokoo was feeling violent today - the rest of the crew suspected it was because he had spent a week in the company of the crew of Kanjani8 due to a mission mix up. But no one mentioned that because Yokoo seemed determined to pretend that that little incident hadn’t happened.
Except the out of character violence was a little hard to ignore.
So here Senga was, in their tiny kitchen scrubbing where the wall meet the floor with a toothbrush. Maybe Kisumai had been a little dirty, but this was totally unnecessary.
They needed a mission and then Yokoo would focus on something different and they would have something to do other than spend all day on their hands and knees in the most unpleasant way. Weren’t new ensigns supposed to deep clean their ship when they docked somewhere? Senga vaguely remembered - vaguely because he was still trying to mostly block it - doing such a thing when he first joined the Fleet.
He sat up. “Hey, we’re trained professionals. This isn’t our job, right? Right?”
Fujigaya paused in talking to Tamamori - well mostly talking at Tamamori because Tamamori was at the point where he was nodding at whatever Fujigaya said and giving the odd, random agreement from time to time - to hiss, “Senga!”
And then there Yokoo loomed and Senga gave a wavering smile, but oh no, that wasn’t going to work. The hand was coming down and he shut his eyes and braced himself for -
“Yo, leave him alone, Wataru,” Kitiyama said, arriving to Senga’s rescue. “We try to leave the abusing of crew members for everyone in the Kansai Sector, remember? We‘re more civilized in Kanto.”
Yokoo froze, looked like he was considering ignoring Kitiyama, and finally allowed his hand to fall. “She’s our ship. We should take care of her,” he muttered as Miyata gently pulled him back and away.
“R-right.”
Kitiyama helped Senga stand and took the toothbrush from his hand. “I would have let him smack you, Ken-chan, but Tackey left an urgent and private message for you. You should probably go, you know, open it. Since it‘s urgent.”
“Oh, Takizawa-senpai? Really? I‘ll definitely go and - um - thanks! Hiro-kun is the best.” Senga beamed and bounced out of the almost sparkling - though not sparkling enough to Yokoo’s satisfaction - kitchen.
The message wasn‘t very long, but Takizawa was straightforward in his words. Senga‘s stomach dropped a little. Kisumai members had gone off on individual missions before, but this was Senga’s first time. First time ever. And it didn’t come from some distant, impersonal higher up official, it had come from Takizawa.
This was a good thing. Takizawa liked him. He liked Takizawa.
Senga’s stomach knotted up a little bit. Nikaido wasn’t going to be very happy, he thought.
TRIPLE S VETERAN
Hamanaka was the only one up and on deck when Veteran announced, “Urgent. Message. For. Hamanaka. Bunichi. From. Commander. Takizawa. Of. Enbujou. Space. Station.”
He stopped looking through former mission report on the console, looked around the empty deck and then stared at the mission report he had been reviewing. A message icon now flickered in the corner. He was Hamanaka Bunichi. He probably should answer it.
Glancing around confirmed that the deck was still empty.
He opened the message.
“Vocal. Confirmation. Requested.” Yesterday, Ito had programmed the ship’s voice supposedly after some ancient comedian. Kikuoka spent last night drunkenly declaring that he was going to chew off his own ears if Ito didn’t change it back to its normal settings. Several drinks later, Ito had been convinced to restore the original settings, but obviously he hadn’t gotten around to it yet.
Probably because he was still in a drunken stupor in his bed.
“Hamanaka Bunichi.”
“Vocal. Confirmation. Hamanaka. Bunichi. Confirmed.”
The message played and when it was over Hamanaka swiveled once in his chair. Twice.
And then he stood up because he needed to pack his things and he needed to wake the other members up to tell them he was leaving. Just for a little while. He would be back.
They had arrived at the old Four Leaves Space Station yesterday afternoon, ahead of schedule. Mission completed early. Hamanaka had been the sober one - they always designated someone to remain sober in hopes that it would keep things like Ito stripping down to his underwear before performing in a karaoke club - and they had wandered the bars together.
If only the mission had run a little longer, then they wouldn’t be on Four Leaves. If the mission had run a little longer, he would have had a little longer with everyone.
But it hadn’t and a high-class cruiser was already docked at Four Leaves waiting for him. Waiting to take him to Enbujou.
Hamanaka would try waking Muro first. He hadn’t imbibed as much alcohol as the others.
TRIPLE S ABC
Tsukada was thinking that it would be nice to wash up and catch more than the half hour of sleep he had managed the past few days when Totsuka laughed. It had an exhausted, hysterical edge to it.
It attracted the attention of all three other members.
“What is it, Tottsu?” Kawai finally asked. Kawai always asked.
“Yokoo has them doing spring cleaning on Kisumai.” Totsuka’s eyes crinkled up at the edges. He was probably too easily amused, but that was okay because Tsukada thought it was pretty amusing too.
“Ugh,” Kawai’s head fell back on his armrest. “Someone give them a mission.”
“They’re putting their free time to good use,” Goseki pointed out. He was smiling, but it was tired.
“No, putting their free time to good use would be using it to sleep.”
Totsuka rolled his eyes and Tsukada mildly pointed out, “You could go sleep, Kawai-kun. We are finished with the mission.”
“And then why aren’t you sleeping?” Kawai returned wryly.
No one answered because they all already knew the answer. They weren’t home yet. The mission may have ended, but they hadn’t made it back to ’safety’. They had been on a mission for KAT-TUN - the flagship unable to turn away from a larger mission that required her firepowers - and ABC was small enough and specialized in exactly what needed to be done. Now they were only two hours out from rendezvous with KAT-TUN. Then they would all be able to sleep.
“Tsuka-chan, there’s a message from Tackey coming in for you,” Goseki announced, his voice a little more energetic than it had been earlier. “It’s urgent and voice-locked. So private. Do you want to take it in your room?”
The stars shooting past ABC‘s deck windows distracted his eyes for a second and he jerked his head away, then smiled. “Uh, sure. Yeah.”
Off deck the rest of the ship was eerily quiet. ABC had two different modes on how it ran. Quiet or silent. Silent is for missions and that Tsukada doesn’t mind. Quiet is for anything that isn’t a mission. When it was quiet it wasn’t always so quiet because Kawai would have his music playing or Totsuka would be singing. That was always before a mission. It was only after a mission when things got like this and maybe that was part of the reason Tsukada stayed on deck as he did. Maybe.
He didn’t rush to his room to play the message but he certainly didn’t linger. Takizawa’s voice fills the quiet and when the message ends, the quiet comes rushing back. It takes Tsukada an extra minute to move because the desk chair is comfortable.
But he wants to be with the others and he should probably tell them that Takizawa wants to meet with him - not any of the others which should incite a rather entertaining reaction from Kawai no matter how tired he is.
So Tsukada smiled and made his way back to ABC‘s deck. Totsuka was humming and Kawai was nodding his head in time to the melody. His smile grew a little wider.
Kawai was definitely going to be jealous.
Transmission between ENBUJOU SPACE STATION and INDEPENDENT STARSHIP BUTOUKAN
“Takizawa to Butoukan.”
“This is Butoukan. What happened to this being a secret mission? What if someone overhears?”
“We’re communicating on a private and secure channel. No one will even know we’re talking.”
“Oh, well then, I’m surprised you restrained yourself for so long. It’s only been, what, two hours?”
“I thought I would catch you before you hyper-jumped. After your first one you’ll be out of range for anything approximating secure except for delayed code messages.”
“Your sense of timing is alarmingly impeccable. We‘re an hour out from hyper-jump range.”
“I know Butoukan‘s stats inside and out. Obviously.”
“I’m still convinced that you held a secret ceremony behind Tsubasa’s back and married yourself to this ship.”
“She’s my baby.”
“Getting off the topic of how this ship is related to you . . .”
“I wanted to know how things were going so far.”
“We haven’t blown up yet! But it’s only been two hours and we haven’t hyper-jumped so that’s always a future possibility.”
“Don’t joke, Yara.”
“She’s small, Takki. Really small once you cram five people into her.”
“Mm. The cramming. How is that going?”
“It’s only been two hours. But we’ll be fine.”
“What’s that noise in the background? Is something -”
“That’s Senga. Laughing. And I thought you were confident in your baby’s abilities to not blow up?”
“I am! I just - you’re an evil man, Yara.”
“You’re the one that picked me.”
“You don’t have to rub that in my face.”
“Are you regretting it?”
“No.”
“So do you have an official reason for calling us or did you just want to chat?”
“I wanted to check in. You’re heading into questionable territory and I have every confidence that you’ll do fine . . . but be careful.”
“You’re fretting.”
“Butoukan is currently registered as an independent ship. She’s not under Fleet and she’s definitely not designated a Triple S. Yet. Be careful. If something does happen to you, no one is under any obligation to help you.”
“We know. We really know since you’ve mentioned that at least twelve -” “Fourteen.” “- ah, fourteen times Yamamoto says. We know Fleet’s policy. Kick it out and see if it works, then accept it.”
“Yes, well, get out there, get the mission done and then come home for Fleet’s stamp of approval.”
“Enter contested territory in space using a state-of-the-art experimental starship with high-class cloaking technology, land on a planet and check it out for valuable resources, and then leave and return to Enbujou. It doesn’t get much easier than that.”
“I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not.”
“It’ll be easy, Takki. Don’t worry.”
“I’m not worrying.”
“I’ll pretend to believe you.”
“Have a safe mission. I’ll see you in a few weeks. And . . . don’t blow up.”
“Oh, thanks. You’re an ass. Butoukan out.”
“Good luck, everyone. Enbujou out.”
INDEPENDENT STARSHIP BUTOUKAN
“Are you cooking?” Yamamoto eyed Senga from across the room, where he sat fiddling with the medical equipment Butoukan had stowed aboard her. She didn’t have the range of equipment that MAD did, but he couldn’t really complain. Takizawa had loaded her with some of the newest technology and it was more than enough. Butoukan would be able to take care of her crew until they could reach somewhere with a larger medical facility.
Actually, anything else would be larger because while Butoukan‘s medical bay was large enough for five people to fit in comfortably it was also acting as their crew area and dining area. Seats and tables could shift and collapse down into the floor and most of the medical equipment was pulled from the side wall. On one side of the room dishes and cutlery were stored and on the other, everything medical. Yamamoto wasn’t entirely sure he appreciated the hygienic and supposed cleanliness of such a shared area, but in tight quarters a person had to make do.
So this was why when Yamamoto was eying Senga across the room, he really wasn’t eying Senga across from much of anything.
“Yes,” Senga answered and then ducked behind the counter, disappearing from Yamamoto’s sight and looking for who knew what.
Yamamoto closed his eyes. “You’re cooking. Can you cook?”
“It’s all pre-packaged,” Hamanaka said, stepping into the crew room from the hallway that led to their rooms. The ship’s two rooms where somehow Yamamoto had ended up rooming with Yara in the smaller one. Yamamoto suspected everyone else had cheated during jankenpon. “He can’t mess that up.”
“Seriously?” Yamamoto could remember more than a few instances on MAD that had resulted in him wishing his stomach away. Far, far away. “You’d be surprised. You’ve never had any screw up the food on your ship before?”
Hamanaka stared at him. Through him. “We take our food seriously.”
“Ah,” and because Hamanaka was still looking at him, he fumbled for another topic of conversation. “Everything’s set up on deck then?”
Okay, that had been a dumb question.
Hamanaka shrugged and sat down across from him. “We’re hyper-jumped. Not much to do but let the ship go.”
Once hyper-jumped for however long, the ship was pretty much untouchable so long as systems didn’t fail. Directions couldn’t be changed and communications couldn’t be sent or received unless the ship was in sync hyper-jumping with another ship - and then it was only between those two or however many starships were sync hyper-jumping together.
Which was also why Hamanaka wasn’t on deck, piloting.
“Right,” Yamamoto said.
“We didn’t blow up!” Senga chirped from wherever he still was behind the counter.
“We have ten hours left in hyper-jump. We could still blow up.”
Yamamoto wasn’t sure if Hamanaka was serious or not so he stopped checking the emergency pack he had opened and locked eyes with the other man. And Hamanaka stared back at him.
“Hey, we have a cold unit on board!” Yamamoto jerked his eyes away from Hamanaka’s as Senga triumphantly popped up from behind the counter with a bunch of celery in his hand. “And fresh food.”
Now he was going to try and not look horrified. All that lovely food. In Senga’s hands. Could Senga cook? They needed someone that could really cook. Could Senga?
Yamamoto couldn’t. He wouldn’t even try.
The ladder from the deck to the crew room clattered a little as Yara appeared from above, stepping down the first two rungs before jumping the rest of the way down. Tsukada followed behind him in much the same manner. The hatch over the top of the ladder slid shut.
“I guess we do get a little luxury despite the cramped quarters,” Yara said, obviously having overheard Senga’s announcement. “Or else Takizawa is feeling really guilty.”
Hamanaka ‘hm’-ed and said, “The hyper-jump engine is running smoothly?”
Yara wrapped an arm around Tsukada’s shoulders and Tsukada grinned back at everyone. “Tsuka-chan and I were just running some diagnostics on the engines and checking out Butoukan‘s guns. Everything’s fine. We won’t blow up.”
Hamanaka’s mouth twitched upwards. “Senga-kun was about to start dinner.”
“Can Senga cook?” Yamamoto asked again. Someone had to know the answer.
“Yes, I can!” Someone that wasn’t Senga.
Apparently, Tsukada did because his smile turned on the nervous side and his brow furrowed slightly. “Pre-packed is fine. I don’t know . . .”
Yara laughed. “I actually need you, Senga. We need to send a coded message back to Takizawa when we drop out of this hyper-jump.”
“Oh?” And Senga put the celery back on the counter much to Yamamoto’s relief. “But nothing’s happened, has it?”
“No, however I thought it might be nice to let Takki know that we haven’t blown up.”
Senga had already made his way around the counter, but he glanced back. “Dinner?”
Yara pushed Tsukada forward. “Tsuka-chan can start it and when we’re done you can help him finish.” The skin around Yara’s eyes crinkled as his grin grew bigger. “We can have dinner be a crew bonding experience.”
“Great, that’s great,” Yamamoto said once Yara and Senga had climbed the ladder, the hatch closing behind them. He turned to Tsukada, who now just looked confused. “Can you cook?”
Tsukada blinked. “Cook?”
“You don’t know how to cook?”
“No! No, I know how to!” Tsukada’s hands flailed in the air and he blushed, finally moving and stumbling his way back behind the counter. “I can cook. It’s pretty tight back here. Do you think he was serious about all of us cooking together for a crew bonding experience.”
Hamanaka tilted his head. His mouth tilted downwards at the corners briefly. “I think he was being sarcastic.”
“Ah, good.” Tsukada had ducked down beneath the counter already, probably looking into the cold unit and his voice was muffled. “But - but you know, it is Yara.”
Hamanaka’s mouth quirked upwards this time. Yamamoto’s stomach dropped at the thought of all five of them shoved into and about that tiny space, trying to cook together. Too many limbs and too many sensitive areas. Yara was fantastic. Yara was awesome.
But everyone knew about Yara’s sadistic streak.
“I’ll help. Tell me what to do,” he said and put the emergency medkit away. “And we can have Bun-chan cut vegetables and stuff on the table here.”
“. . . I - what? Why am I getting volunteered?”
“Yara. And small places. Bad -” and then Yamamoto realized he was talking to someone from the Kansai Sector and sometimes they had different ideas about ‘bad things’ in the Kansai Sector. “Never mind. Just help out.”
Transmission between ENBUJOU SPACE STATION and FLEET FLAGSHIP SHOCK
“Takizawa.”
“Koichi-kun!”
“Have you heard from them?”
“We had a little chat before they went into hyper-jump. And I received a delayed message from Yara just a few minutes ago. ‘We haven’t blown up,’ were his exact words.”
“And what else?”
“That was it. You can stop laughing at me now.”
“You wanted him. And your new toy had better not blow up on him.”
“She’s safe. There is no way that she’ll - really. Stop laughing at me.”
“I’ll try. Keep me updated on their status if they send anything else. I have two neglected MA crew members to treat to lunch.”
“I will. Thank you, Koichi-kun.”
“And seriously, Yara better come back not blown out. Koichi out.”
INDEPENDENT STARSHIP BUTOUKAN
Senga woke up to the hissing of the bedroom door sliding shut and he blinked sleep blurry eyes at the time display on the console next to his bed. “Huh?”
“Are you awake, Senga?” That was Tsukada’s voice, whispering from up above him. More specifically the bunk above him.
He rubbed his eyes. Of course the room was still dark except for the light from the console’s display. “Mmm, I think so. Was that Bun-chan leaving?”
“Yeah. We’re about to drop out of hyper-jump.”
“Does this mean we have to get up?”
He heard Tsukada shifting above him. “Not quite yet. But we will have to check the engines and Yara will have to double check our coordinates before we go for the next hyper-jump.”
“How many more hyper-jumps do we have left?”
“I - Three, I think. Three.”
“That’s right.” Senga pulled the covers up to his chin. “Have you ever been in MornMu territory before?”
“Once,” Tsukada admitted. “We had a rescue mission and I really don’t remember much. I ended up stuck in the medbay for most of it. Kawai yelled at me.”
“Did you complete it?”
“Mm, of course. It wasn’t that hard. After that the Fleet ended up signing a truce with the MornMu.” Another shift from Tsukada above him. “We aren’t really heading into MornMu territory anyways. Just the neutral zone.”
“Closer to their territory.”
As Senga’s eyes became used to the dark he could see vague outlines, darker shapes and lighter space. Tsukada shifted above him once more and this time his head peeked down from over the top of the bunk, his face unnaturally serious even upside down. “Senga, are you worried about this mission?”
It wasn’t that. Senga trusted and liked everyone Butoukan. He had been on tougher missions with Kisumai. “This is my first time off of Kisumai and I like Butoukan - I really do - but what if this mission goes too well and we’re made permanent? I don’t know what I would say to them.”
Tsukada slipped down halfway and then flipped over, landing on his feet. He sat down on the edge of Senga’s bed and all Senga could see of him was the dark outline of his back. “I don’t know what I would say either. To everyone on ABC.” Tsukada admitted quietly. “But I do know I don’t have to worry about it.” Tsukada twisted around and Senga couldn’t see his characteristic grin, but he could hear it in his voice. “I know I don’t have to worry about it because of Yara.”
“Yara?”
“General Koichi would maim Takki if he didn’t keep his end of the bargain.”
Senga wasn’t sure if Takizawa was afraid of anyone. The man seemed to get along with everyone, but if there was anyone Takizawa wouldn’t mess with it, it would likely be any one of the Domotos. Senga giggled. “I bet ABC would steal you back, anyways.”
Tsukada poked him in the side, “No, that would be Kisumai. Gocchi and everyone would just harass Yara and make him hate his life.”
Senga flopped back on his bed, amused. “They’re going to yell at Takki-senpai when we get back.”
“Mm. I want to be there for that.”
“So do I.”
“Well, the faster we check out this planet, the faster we can get home.”
A heaviness fell upon Senga and he shut his eyes as his stomach twisted around and around. In less than a second the sensation disappeared, but Senga still felt queasy. He twisted his mouth and Tsukada let out a groan.
And then the lights came on and Yara’s voice blared over the comm system, “Wake up, you lazy bums. We’ve dropped out of hyper-jump and we have diagnostics and, oh, look, some stretching and exercise to do!”
The shock and suddenness of the lights and Yara’s booming voice had Senga jumping out of bed . . . And tripping over Tsukada.
“Ouch,” Senga said, his face against the cold floor.
“Ouch,” Tsukada weakly echoed.
Transmission between SPACE STATION ENBUJOU and TRIPLE S MAD
“Ah, you’re Takeuchi, aren’t you? The communications expert on MAD?”
“I - yes.”
“What can I do for you?”
“Is Yamamoto all right? He did get there, right?”
“He arrived safely on KAT-TUN, yes. Did you think they were going to drop him off in deep space.”
“We were told that we were dropping something off. We thought it was a package or one of our older pieces of medical equipment. Yamamoto isn’t something.”
“Sorry about that. I should have had them be more specific.”
“He hasn’t sent any messages since he got there. Is he all right?”
“He’s fine. He’s not blown up which is probably better than fine.”
“Um . . . Can we talk to him? No one at Enbujou will put us in touch with his personal comm.”
“That’s because I have his personal comm and he’s unreachable at the moment.”
“You said he was fine!”
“And he is, but he’s currently on a mission that requires the utmost secrecy.”
“Yamamoto is -”
“Yes.”
“. . . it’s not dangerous is it?”
“It’s a mission. I’ll have him contact you as soon as he returns.”
“Went will that be?”
“Unfortunately, I don’t know. However long the mission takes.”
“Oh.”
INDEPENDENT STARSHIP BUTOUKAN
Yara had ditched the navigational console and joined everyone else in the crew room below, leaving Hamanaka by himself on deck.
“We can’t have Tsuka-chan cooking our every meal,” Yara had said before heading down the ladder.
Hamanaka only wondered if Yara was implying that he could cook, because at this point Tsukada was the only one with a decent hand at making something edible.
So he was left with the stars and the steady blink of lights on the console. He could have set Butoukan on automatic control, but that made him feel like he was neglecting his duties. Yara had promised to send someone up with food once it was finished.
Hamanaka’s stomach growled and as if it was a summons, the hatch slid open and Senga climbed up the ladder carefully and onto the deck, a metal box carefully held against his side with one hand. The hatch slid shut after him.
“Bun-chan! I brought you food!” Senga held the box up with a grin.
“Thank you,” he said as he opened the box and pulled out a bowl of rice balanced on a full plate of food. He looked up after digging his chopsticks into the rice and saw that Senga was still there, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
“Have you eaten yet?” Hamanaka asked, his chopsticks paused halfway to his mouth.
Senga wouldn’t meet his eyes. “It’s lonely up here, right? By yourself?” He darted a glance back at Hamanaka and then sat in his communications seat at the right front of the deck. To the right front of Hamanaka. “I’ll keep you company.”
“The others are probably eating without you,” Hamanaka pointed out. “If you wait, they’ll eat all of it.”
Senga swung his chair around to face Hamanaka. “That’s all right,” he said, smiling, “I can make myself something later.”
Their second meal aboard Butoukan had been allowing Senga free reign with the food. That certainly wouldn’t be happening again.
Hamanaka thought about it carefully and then picked up the overflowing plate and bowl, grabbed the extra set of chopsticks someone had thoughtfully left in the bottom of the box and sat down on the floor next to Senga’s seat.
“What -”
“We’ll share.”
“Oh!” And Senga slid off his chair to sit next to Hamanaka, his smile growing big and bright. “Thank you.”
“It’s nothing.” Hamanaka hoped the lighting on the deck disguised his blush, because he could feel his cheeks heating up. It probably wasn’t nothing. He didn’t mind the quiet, but it wasn’t natural and was far from natural concerning what Veteran was like.
“You’re a little bit annoying. You won‘t leave people alone and you‘re always there,” Hamanaka mused from around a mouthful of food. He pretended not to see how Senga’s face froze in shock and looked maybe a little bit destroyed. Hamanaka swallowed and ruffled Senga’s hair. “Don’t change. I like it.”
“Aaaah,” Senga tipped over on his side, “don’t do that to me. I really thought you didn’t like me.”
“I like you.” He thought about the rest of Butoukan‘s crew, chewing on the end of a chopstick. “I like everyone onboard.”
“I like everyone, too.”
Hamanaka chewed on the chopstick a bit longer before he pulled it out. “What has Yara been sending to Takizawa between every hyper-jump.”
Senga giggled. “Oh, those? Pretty much ‘We haven’t blown up.’ ‘Still haven’t gone kaboom.’ ‘BOOM - Nope, just kidding.’ That’s about the extent of it.”
“Mm, I like Yara.”
“Me too.”
Transmission between ENBUJOU SPACE STATION and TRIPLE S KISUMAI
“Takki-senpai, where’s Senga?”
“Ah, Nika! That was rather straight to the point, wasn’t it?”
“He hasn’t contacted me. Or anyone else.”
“That’s because he can’t, Nika. He’s on a mission.”
“Kitiyama did when he was on a separate mission. Why can’t Sen-chan?”
“Kitiyama’s wasn’t a secret. Senga’s is.”
“. . . does that mean Senga’s is in more danger than Kitiyama was?”
“No. It means that whatever he’s doing, the Fleet doesn’t want out yet. As of this moment I can promise you that he’s perfectly fine.”
“At the moment.”
“The mission is still ongoing.”
“He’d better come back.”
“He will . . . You like him that much, Nika?”
“We’re best friends.”
“I meant - ah, never mind.”
“Are you laughing at me?”
“You’re still young. I’m sure you’ll understand soon enough.”
Onto Part 2