[JE] [JEF#1] Personal Space 1/4
Title: Personal Space (part 1/4)
Series: JE Fleet
Fandom: JE (primarily KAT-TUN)
Genre: Alternate Universe. Also: sci-fi, comedy, angst, romance. Oh, does 'crack' count as a genre?
Rating: R for violence and m/m activity between consenting adults (I don't know if it quite gets to NC-17)
Word count: 18,100
Pairing: Primarily Akame, but many others are hinted at. Hopefully there is something for everyone to appreciate in there, including an Arashi OT5 for my dear friend kurorokoon.
Disclaimer: Yes, I'm writing about real people in an entirely fictitious universe. I do not own the following groups: KAT-TUN, NewS, Arashi, Kanjani8, Tackey & Tsubasa, though if I did I would be the happiest woman on Earth. I am making no money from this fic. (I don't own V6 either, but they're only in one line for cannon fodder.)
Summary: Akanishi Jin, former space pirate and current captain of the JE ship AT-TUN, accepts a mission that could put an end to the war ravaging the Sol System. Such a small thing, to remove the tactical advisor of the Fahngarlian fleet, but by no means simple. Not when said advisor happens to be his ex-partner.
This fic contains: Attempted genocide, violence, bloodshed, electrocution, one scene that could be construed as torture, drugged up!Kame, evil!Kame, large quantities of alcohol, gratuitous chair love, heavy-duty angst, m/m activities between consenting adults, glasses!Pi, action hero!Jin, crossdressing!Jin, Pin idiocy and off-screen Arashi orgies.
Personal Space (1/4)
On the bridge of the JE fleet's newest Jaguar-class ship, the AT-TUN, the crew were taking a well-deserved break from their duties. Lieutenant Tanaka Koki, normally in charge of Security, was catching forty winks behind his station. Ensign Taguchi Junnosuke, resident Communications expert, was thoroughly engrossed in the long-distance racing game he was playing against Ninomiya Kazunari on the NES 5000. Hotshot pilot Ensign Nakamaru Yuichi was demonstrating his beatboxing skills to some of the trainees, and even Commander Ueda Tatsuya, the second-in-command, was relaxing with his guitar.
The peace was shattered, however, when a crash from the door jarred them all back to reality. Ueda accidentally played the wrong chord, Junno forgot to hit the brakes and slammed his car into a brick wall, and Nakamaru had a coughing fit that woke Koki up from his nap. They all glanced at the sliding doors, which were threatening to buckle inwards from the force being used against them.
Ueda sighed. "Captain!" he called through the door. "Press your thumb to the panel on the wall!"
There was a moment of silence, then the doors shuddered once and creaked open. Akanishi Jin, ex-space pirate and current captain of the AT-TUN, stepped through the gap. He glared at the offending doors, which shut halfway before admitting defeat.
Jin turned to his crew and beamed, dazzling them all with the full force of his smile. "Commander Tat-chan, make a note! The bridge doors need fixing."
"I'm not your private secretary," Ueda pointed out, annoyed. "And if you'd stop and think before trying to force the doors open, we wouldn't have to keep getting them fixed. That's the seventh set since we were assigned to this ship!"
The captain's smile faltered for all of three seconds. "It's only been six months," he protested. "I'm still getting used to it. You guys are too, right?"
The other four had joined the JE at the same time as their captain, following him when he decided to give up the glamorous-but-not-always-that-successful life of a space pirate and go legit. His friendship with Commodore Yamashita, himself a former smuggler, had gotten them the newest ship in the fleet. Jin had named it himself, though to him, the name always seemed unfinished, like it was missing something. Another initial. Another former pirate, his co-captain and so much more...if Kame had been with them still...
But nobody talked about Kamenashi Kazuya anymore. Not when Jin was around.
There was a general chorus of, "No, that's just you, Captain!" and Jin sank into his usual seat, rubbing the bruises he'd acquired in attempting to open the door. It wasn't his fault the ship just didn't like him - it was always putting things in his way, or making them impossible to open, though the rest of the crew never seemed to have that problem. They were good guys, all of them, but because of their background, they had the worst reputation in the fleet. They refused to wear the regulation uniforms, they carried unorthodox side-arms and never saluted anyone. (Except Admiral Takizawa and his partner, Earth President Tsubasa, because nobody could help it.)
But that was all going to change. Jin had a plan, carefully formulated late last night in the middle of an extended drinking session with the commodore, that was going to put an end to their war with the Fahngarlians once and for all. He'd be a hero, and his crew would finally receive the glory they deserved.
"Ensign Taguchi!"
Junno dropped his controller and blushed guiltily. "Yes, Captain?"
"We're still in communications range of the last group of Fahngarlian scoutships that passed through, aren't we?"
Koki regarded his captain with suspicion. "As head of Security I'd like to remind you that it's in all our best interests if you don't do anything stupid."
"Too late," Ueda muttered, and Nakamaru nodded in agreement.
"We're in range, but..." Junno let the sentence hang, not because he didn't know how to finish it but because a victorious message from Nino popped up on the screen and he had to send a reply to challenge him to a re-match. Just because Nino's birthday was coming up didn't mean Junno was going to let him win.
Jin stood up, placed his left hand on his hip and raised his right index finger in the air. "Then," he declared, "we're going to send them a message! I was chatting to Yamapi last night and you know what? No one's actually tried talking to the aliens! Not one human in the entire Sol System has ever spoken to them, let alone asked them what they want."
Nakamaru, who'd flown against them several times, knew perfectly well what they wanted. "They want to kill us. Either that or they show affection in their culture by shooting people with plasma torpedoes."
"But without asking them, you won't know which," Jin said, shaking his head and smiling in an 'I told you so' fashion. "Broadcast a message on all channels - something friendly and maybe just a little bit cute." He saw Koki make a move towards Junno and hastily added, "And no rap. We don't want to confuse them."
Ueda strummed a few bars of 'It's the End of the World As We Know It' and approached Jin. "Captain, you want to make friends with the people who've been trying to wipe out mankind for the last year? Are you sure that's a good idea?"
"Of course it is. It's my idea, and I'm going to take the credit for it. But if there's any reward money, I'll share it with you guys." Once a pirate, always a pirate, and Jin was always generous with the booty.
There was nothing the rest of the crew could do. Once the captain made up his mind, there was only one person who could make him change it. But Kame could be anywhere in the universe by now.
Junno did his best to comply with Jin's wishes, adopting a light and cheerful tone. "Moshi moshi? AT-TUN no Taguchi desu! Fahngarlian-san-tachi to hanashitai- ugh!" He stopped abruptly when Koki kicked the back of his chair.
"They're aliens! Of course they're not going to speak Japanese!"
"Koki's right," Jin said. "Try English!"
There had been a move to make English the intergalactic standard language, but with humans from every country on Earth having joined in the mass colonisation of other planets, most people retained their mother tongue as their primary form of communication. For the majority of the JE fleet, that was Japanese. Following the election eight years ago of Imai Tsubasa as Earth President, making him the man with overall political control of the entire Sol System, an increasing number of new recruits were of Japanese origin.
Still rubbing his back, Junno obediently tried again, but only managed to produce a somewhat strangled "Check it out!"
"I can do better," Jin said scornfully. "Let me have a go."
He strode over to Junno's station, pressed the big green button and launched into a torrent of casual American English he'd picked up from staying in LA for six months, back when he was still living on Earth. Unfortunately, he hit the shipboard radio at the same time, ensuring his message was accompanied by a secret recording of Koki rapping 'Shorty'.
There was an anguished wail from Koki, who ducked out of sight, and Ueda addressed his captain sternly. "You promised to remove those comm links in the showers," he said.
Jin pouted. "But I like it when you guys sing so I can dance to it! I have to do something to keep myself in shape now that we're no longer attacking rich traders."
The war with the Fahngarlians had put an end to piracy as a profitable lifestyle, as anyone who could afford to do so stayed at home, or made a fast exit to Alpha Centauri. Pickings were slim round the Sol System, and Jin and his crew had been forced to find a new source of income. Fortunately, the military was so desperate for recruits that they'd take *anybody*.
At that moment there was a flash of light from the centre of the bridge, and Commodore Yamashita Tomohisa, nicknamed 'Yamapi' by Admiral Takizawa for his love of pink ships, materialised on the AT-TUN. Captain and Commodore performed a complicated secret handshake they'd developed back in their junior days as runners for old man Kitagawa, then Yamapi elbowed Jin out of the way and made a beeline for the abandoned captain's seat. He sank down into the soft, leather-cushioned chair with a sigh of relief, clutching his head.
"Why haven't you got a hangover?" he asked Jin.
Jin gave him a secretive smile and winked, causing one of the younger and more impressionable trainees to swoon into Ueda's arms. "Because as a dashing young captain I'm in much better shape than a commodore who spends all his time lazing around on his bright pink flagship and never sees any real action."
Yamapi snorted. "Hah. I'll have you know it's a tough job keeping the fleet in line. I get all the action I need just trying to keep control of you and your crew, never mind Captain Shibutani and his gang of lunatics."
Jin looked at the massive viewscreen showing the rest of the fleet, where the multi-coloured K8 could clearly be seen next to Yamapi's flagship, the Pin. "Subaru can be a handful," he agreed. "So why are you here instead of locked in a conference room?"
"Two things." With some difficulty, the commodore raised his head and looked Jin in the eye. "First, I'm here on behalf of the entire JE fleet to tell you to stop broadcasting on all channels. You're coming through loud and clear on all speakers, and it's annoying. It's stupid trying to contact the aliens like that."
"Hey!" Jin was indignant. "You told me it was a great plan last night!"
"I also told Shige he had to stop doing kitty cosplay with Koyama when he was on-duty, so clearly I said a lot of dumb things last night."
"Ah hah!" Nakamaru crowed triumphantly. "That explains a lot about the weird messages I kept getting when I was trying to sleep. What's wrong with my face?"
Captain and commodore exchanged guilty looks, struggled to remember what they'd said in their numerous drunken messages, and gave up at more or less the same time. "Absolutely nothing," Jin said soothingly. "Your face is perfect, just like Koki's hairstyle."
The shaven-headed lieutenant popped up, his mortification forgotten, and demanded to know what was wrong with his hair. Jin informed him that it was fitting for the man in charge of Security to have such an intimidating look; placated, Koki sat back down.
"And now for something much more important than Captain Bakanishi's attempt to singlehandedly end this war by making the aliens so mad that they blast us all out of the universe."
"Akanishi!"
"That's what I said." Yamapi tried, unsuccessfully, to brush his bangs out of his eyes. He was thoroughly disheveled, which wasn't an unusual state for him even when he hadn't spent the night drinking with friends. Unlike the crew of the AT-TUN, the commodore wore the elegant black-and-red uniform of the JE Fleet, though he hadn't been able to resist adding a few touches of his own. The stylish black jacket was festooned with strips of bright pink ribbon and random swatches of fur from long-dead animals, and the combination was not so much "eye-catching" as "vision-destroying".
Jin, who was going for the simpler option of black leather trousers and a plain white shirt - buttoned only halfway, of course - was getting impatient. "You can't call me an idiot, Pi. Not after what I saw you trying to do to that hologram of Admiral Takki last night."
Yamapi had the good grace to look embarrassed. "I just wanted to thank him for all the help he's given me in my career," he protested weakly, but judging by the chorus of "Admiral's pet!", nobody was buying it. "Anyway," he continued, "do you want to hear your mission or not?"
"We have a mission? Really?" The disbelief in Jin's voice was swamped by excitement. The AT-TUN was sorely under-utilised, despite being one of the most heavily-armed ships in the fleet, because nobody was quite sure what its wild-card captain was likely to do with that much firepower at his disposal.
Yamapi nodded. "Really," he said solemnly. "And you're the only person who can do it."
The ensuing backslapping, high-fiving, hugging and general party atmosphere died after five minutes when Commander Ueda asked, "So what is it?"
The commodore fished around in his jacket pockets for a few moments and pulled out a data disc, which he threw to Junno to load. "I received this about an hour ago. This is the latest information we've got on the Fahngalians, courtesy of Sakurai Sho from the Agency of Really Awesome, Smart and Handsome Individuals."
Jin groaned. "Why does our Intelligence division sound like a talent agency?"
"Because they're UNDERCOVER," Yamapi told him matter-of-factly. "They don't want people knowing they're military intelligence, do they?"
"And I suppose Aiba's an essential part of that cover?"
"Well..." Yamapi shrugged. "He made it in with two out of three. Besides, we needed someone to name the new spaceship types. Where do you think the 'Fuzzy Lion' came from?"
The data disc finally stuttered to life, replacing the external view on the main screen with a familiar face.
"MatsuJun!" the AT-TUN crew exclaimed in unison.
"MatsuJun Version 3.0," Yamapi corrected them. "He's been upgrading himself again."
Arashi's cool, stylish and always-in-fashion weapons designer wasn't shy about making use of the latest in cybernetic enhancements, even in wartime, and another one of the impressionable trainees fell into a dead faint.
Jin regarded the younger members of his crew in disgust. "That's the last time I volunteer to train rookies," he muttered.
Evidently, it wasn't just the trainees who were powerless in the face of MatsuJun's beauty. The viewscreen sputtered, gave a short burst of static, and died in a fit of bliss, leaving the image frozen on the screen.
"Somebody switch that thing off!"
"Yes, Captain!"
Under a barrage of attacks from Ueda and Koki and the threat of Jin's blaster, the screen reluctantly switched itself back to the external view of the JE fleet. Junno popped the now-melted disc out and returned it to Yamapi.
"It's a good thing I brought a hard copy too," he said, and pulled out a sheaf of papers. Rather than giving them to Jin, however, he stared at them for a moment, shook his head, donned a pair of glasses and tried again. "Right," he said dizzily, "the intelligence. Do you know why we're losing this war?"
"Because you won't let me lead a squadron of fighters against the enemy ships?" suggested Nakamaru.
"Because we have a 'failure of communicating'!" Junno said brightly in English.
"Because we're outnumbered?" Koki reasoned.
"Because our leaders are idiots," Ueda muttered.
"Because the aliens are *weird*," Jin said. "Just look at the tactics they've been using! How are we supposed to combat things like them flooding our ventilation systems with glitter so we all choke?"
Every man on board shuddered, remembering the painful-but-oh-so-shiny fate of the V6, one of the most recent casualties of war.
"It feels kinda strange saying it, but...Jin's right," Yamapi said. "The Fahngalians have a master strategist working for them. Their battle tactics changed drastically seven months ago, when they started winning more skirmishes and becoming bolder with their attacks. Thanks to Arashi, we finally know who's behind it."
Jin had a bad feeling about this. A really bad feeling, like the time he'd made the mistake of asking Captain Shibutani Subaru for a date and known instantly that it was never going to work.
"Their strategist is," Yamapi paused for dramatic effect, "Kamenashi Kazuya!"
Instead of the stunned gasps and astonished faces he'd been expecting, the commodore's announcement was met with stony silence. The command crew looked warily at each other, then at their captain.
Jin's face was unreadable, devoid of emotion. He held himself perfectly still, hands forcibly restrained at his sides, his features a frozen mask.
"Jin?" Yamapi said hesitantly.
The impassive mask cracked enough for a few low, harshly spoken words. "I never want to hear that name again."
Yamapi staggered to his feet and put a comforting hand on his shoulder, but Jin shrugged him off. He didn't want sympathy from his best friend, and he certainly didn't want it from his commanding officer. Yamapi had already joined the military by the time Kame disappeared; even so, Jin had turned to him for solace just as much as his crew.
They'd been inseparable, the two co-captains Akanishi Jin and Kamenashi Kazuya, terrors of the trade routes. Equally skilled and unable to agree on who should be captain, they'd consented to share the position.
It hadn't been all they shared.
Their first ship - stolen, of course - had been a tiny Striped Tiger Mk II, with only two cabins. The six of them had crammed in, sharing three to a cabin and not standing on ceremony. Everyone worked together, and if anyone felt uncomfortable in such close conditions, they never said a word.
Before long, their spoils amounted to more than they could carry, even converting to currency as they went along. They captured a Leopard-style cruiser from a rich industrialist with a taste for jailbait, and after some heavy-duty redecorating they had all the room they wanted. Luckily, the two largest cabins were the same size, so the co-captains didn't have to squabble over who got the biggest room. They were also next to each other, and had a connecting door.
Over the next four years, that door saw a lot of use. Especially at night. Celebratory bouts at midnight inevitably ended the same way, with one sleepy captain curled up round the other, sated and secure. The crew knew that whichever cabin their leaders were in, they'd be together, and thus let them lie in every day so as to avoid catching them at an awkward moment.
But the good times couldn't last forever. There was pressure on the military to do something about the increased pirate activity in the Sol System, and Yamapi, a captain himself at the time, was sent to forcibly dissuade them. He'd known them all well, hadn't wanted to take them in, but he'd had no problem tracking them down. He'd been authorised to offer them a pardon if they went straight and returned their ill-gotten gains - the best deal he could negotiate with Earth President Tsubasa - but Kame hadn't cared for the idea.
Jin hadn't been all that certain about it himself, but he knew they couldn't go on as they had been for much longer. An alien fleet had been making attacks on the outlying colonies in the Sol System and scouts had been spotted as far inward as Mars. People were becoming paranoid, taking fewer risks, and that meant he and the others had to pull more jobs planet-side, or risk docking at the vast, wheel-shaped orbital colonies.
Not wanting to alarm his crew, he'd met with Yamapi again privately to discuss his options. He hadn't told Kame, and when the other captain found out...
Exactly what Kame had been so upset about, Jin had never been able to ascertain. He'd woken up the next morning with a splitting headache and an empty bed, only to find his partner had packed his things, taken his share of the profits and disappeared in the faster of their two shuttles at some point during the night. Ueda, who'd been on watch at the time, hadn't been able to enlighten him. Kame had said he was feeling restless and that Ueda should go to bed - he'd take the watch himself. The autopilot was keeping them in a secure orbit round Phobos, and Ueda hadn't considered there to be anything amiss.
Jin had used every contact he'd ever made to try to track down Kame, but never found so much as a trace of him. The man had simply disappeared, and there was nothing Ueda, Yamapi or anyone else could do to convince Akanishi Jin that his partner was gone for good. It wasn't until war had officially broken out and Akanishi, Taguchi, Tanaka, Ueda and Nakamaru had joined the military that Jin stopped being angry and confused, and started focusing on pulling himself back together for the sake of his new ship.
He was still heartbroken, though. At least he hadn't had to give anything back - Tsubasa had taken one look at his forlorn face and immediately pardoned all five of them, instructing Admiral Takizawa, his other half and the man in charge of the Sol System's defenses, to keep a close watch on them. Takki had promptly delegated to the newly promoted Commodore Yamashita, who, thrilled that Jin was going to join him at last, took the bold step of giving him an expensive ship and legitimizing his captaincy.
And now he was going to make him work for it.
"Jin, I know you don't want to hear this," Yamapi said gently, "but the information's correct. Arashi's Ohmiya team nearly died to get it, and we can't afford to ignore it. You understand? Kamenashi is working for the Fahngarlians and if we remove him, perhaps we can bring this war to an end."
Jin kept his eyes averted, carefully avoiding the sympathy he knew he'd see on the faces of his friends. "I should've known," he murmured. "Who else would contaminate the Titan colony's water supply with hair dye?"
As one man, the crew clutched their stomachs in sympathy for the lost souls of Titan, every last one of them dying a redhead.
"If it's any consolation," the commodore continued, "we don't think he's helping them of his own free will. There's a mention in the report that he was acting strangely...and had track marks all over his arms." He stepped back and waited for the explosion.
Jin whirled around and snatched the papers from Yamapi's hands. "So either they've got him drugged or he's a junkie! What do you expect me to do about it?"
Seeing that Jin was making no attempt to actually read the papers, Yamapi stole them back. He found the pictures he was looking for and held them out to the captain. "You see this cluster of ships? That's the bulk of the Fahngarlian fleet currently stationed near Jupiter. Which one do you think Kame's on?"
Jin studied the photographs intently, looking over each of the ships in turn. It wasn't the first time he'd seen a picture of the enemy fleet, but more often than not he'd only run into lone ships, or at worst a small patrol. Their ships didn't look much different from those built at Sol's main shipyard on Mars, though presumably they didn't have the odd feline naming system. There were several large vessels that looked near-identical to the sleek Panther Destroyers, and a handful that might have been Lynx Carriers at the back.
Right in the middle, protected by a small group of fighters, was a cruiser of a similar shade of pink to Yamapi's flagship, though it had additional silver stripes running along the hull. It was clearly the centre of attention, the flashiest ship in the fleet.
Jin pointed at it and said, "I want to say that one, but..."
Right at the back, partially obscured by larger ships, was a comparatively small craft of the same dull grey as the bulk of the fleet, utterly non-descript and lacking in personality. It was bland, boring, and had all the charisma of a speck of dust.
"That one," Jin said firmly, pointing with conviction. "The nobody at the back. He's hiding out there."
Yamapi grinned. "Good guess. How'd you know?"
"Maybe he's drugged or brainwashed but he's not stupid. A human attempting to destroy his own people? He'd be the first target on everyone's list, no sense making himself visible - unlike some people with their ships that look like they've been dipped in strawberry milkshake..."
Yamapi ignored the slight and fished out another piece of paper. "Here are the blueprints for that ship. There aren't that many places Kame could be - according to Nino, they're carrying a lot of cargo and it's spilling over into the living quarters."
"What is?"
"The furniture." The commodore shrugged. "Don't ask me why, but apparently they're transporting a load of chairs."
Jin flashed back to some of Kame's more unusual tastes, and shook his head to banish the memory. It refused to leave. His eyes started to mist over and he wondered if he was about to tear up from nostalgia. Then he noticed everyone else was doing the same thing, and realised it was all Yamapi's fault. The commodore was wielding a can of hairspray in a futile attempt to tame his bangs.
"Use mousse or something!" Jin yelled at him, trying not to cough.
The other man gave him a look of wide-eyed innocence. "But I'm not carrying any mousse."
Much to everyone's surprise, Koki whipped out a can of mousse from one of the vast pockets of his non-regulation hooded sweatshirt, thus resolving the hair issue. One of the remaining conscious trainees was sent to fetch refreshments. Ten minutes, two pieces of cake and a good, stiff drink later, everyone had recovered whatever degree of composure they usually managed to achieve and the briefing resumed.
"I shouldn't have drunk that, should I?" Yamapi moaned, collapsing back onto Jin's chair. Various members of the AT-TUN crew murmured their agreement and speculated on whether or not to call the Pin and ask them to teleport their wayward leader home. He didn't care for the idea. "They'll have to wait. I haven't finished giving Captain Bakanishi his mission yet."
"Akanishi!"
"That's what I said. Anyway, you need to get on board that ship. If Kame's under the influence of something, you're the best chance we've got of making him see sense. Get him out any way you can. Preferably alive, but I'll understand if something unavoidable happens."
For a change, Jin didn't like the suggestive tone of Yamapi's voice. The implication that he might decide to kill his ex-partner as revenge for upping and leaving him without a word... Even if Kame was really trying to kill off the entire human race, Jin couldn't, in all good conscience, do the same to him without hearing his explanation. Especially if he'd been coerced in some way. It wouldn't explain why he'd left Jin, but Jin had resigned himself to never knowing the reason he'd had his heart broken into millions of tiny, jagged pieces.
"I'm not killing Kame," he said softly. "And even if you'd ordered me to, I wouldn't."
"I wouldn't order you to do such a thing." Yamapi looked around the motley crew of the AT-TUN and added, "Not like you guys ever follow orders anyway. You're out of teleport range for the Fahngarlian fleet, so you'll have to get in closer. You've got spare bracelets, right?"
Jin jangled his silver teleport bracelet, a fashionable but practical accessory designed by MatsuJun. "Hundreds," he said airily.
Ueda started to protest that actually, they only had a few dozen left thanks to the captain's habit of misplacing his bangles, but decided his time would be better employed in hiding the remainder. The AT-TUN and its subordinate crafts were the first ships they'd ever had with teleport capability, and even after six months the novelty had yet to wear off.
"Nakamaru can fly me closer in the Beat Box. It's only a three-seater, but it's got cloaking technology and that'll get me in teleport range without them detecting us."
Nakamaru perked up as Jin mentioned his name, eager for the chance to fly his beloved fighter into enemy territory. The fleet's reluctance to use him in combat meant that most of the Beat Box's flight time was spent joyriding around with Koki. The AT-TUN itself spent so little time flying with any urgency that the autopilot was usually sufficient to take care of the ship's needs.
"We can definitely do it," the pilot agreed. "They'll never notice us at all."
"Aren't you forgetting something?" Ueda asked. "As far as we can tell from the corpses we've recovered, the Fahngarlian ships are staffed only by females. Our captain, pretty though he is, isn't a girl." Suddenly conscious of everyone's stares, the commander casually rubbed away his lipstick with the back of his hand and added, "And if anyone tries to make me go, I'm going to beat them up."
The bridge was suddenly filled with loud exclamations of how butch, masterful and just darn manly their commander and resident boxing champion was.
"Ueda can't go because he has to stay and run the ship," Jin declared, and no one was going to contradict him. "I've got the blueprints, remember? I'll memorize the layout and keep out of sight. If I'm spotted I'll just call Nakamaru to teleport me out and he can put me down again somewhere else. Besides," he patted the stunner hanging from one hip and the customised blaster hanging from the other, "I'll have these."
Jin had seen some of the Fahngarlian corpses retrieved from downed fighters, and every last one of them had looked like a human female. Despite the savage attacks they'd made on his species, he wasn't keen on the idea of shooting them down - not unless they shot first, which they didn't seem to have a problem with. If their species had males, they evidently kept them somewhere secret, perhaps back home on Fahngarl in Andromeda. Not much was known about the planet, though scientists had determined its make-up was similar to Earth, and so Jin didn't anticipate any breathing difficulties on his mission.
In any case, if Kame really was on board the Fahngarlian ship, he had to be breathing somehow. Jin ushered Yamapi out of his seat and settled down to study the blueprints. He'd worry about getting Kame out first - stun him him if had to - and then allow himself to think about what to say to the man who'd walked out on him.
Series: JE Fleet
Fandom: JE (primarily KAT-TUN)
Genre: Alternate Universe. Also: sci-fi, comedy, angst, romance. Oh, does 'crack' count as a genre?
Rating: R for violence and m/m activity between consenting adults (I don't know if it quite gets to NC-17)
Word count: 18,100
Pairing: Primarily Akame, but many others are hinted at. Hopefully there is something for everyone to appreciate in there, including an Arashi OT5 for my dear friend kurorokoon.
Disclaimer: Yes, I'm writing about real people in an entirely fictitious universe. I do not own the following groups: KAT-TUN, NewS, Arashi, Kanjani8, Tackey & Tsubasa, though if I did I would be the happiest woman on Earth. I am making no money from this fic. (I don't own V6 either, but they're only in one line for cannon fodder.)
Summary: Akanishi Jin, former space pirate and current captain of the JE ship AT-TUN, accepts a mission that could put an end to the war ravaging the Sol System. Such a small thing, to remove the tactical advisor of the Fahngarlian fleet, but by no means simple. Not when said advisor happens to be his ex-partner.
This fic contains: Attempted genocide, violence, bloodshed, electrocution, one scene that could be construed as torture, drugged up!Kame, evil!Kame, large quantities of alcohol, gratuitous chair love, heavy-duty angst, m/m activities between consenting adults, glasses!Pi, action hero!Jin, crossdressing!Jin, Pin idiocy and off-screen Arashi orgies.
Personal Space (1/4)
On the bridge of the JE fleet's newest Jaguar-class ship, the AT-TUN, the crew were taking a well-deserved break from their duties. Lieutenant Tanaka Koki, normally in charge of Security, was catching forty winks behind his station. Ensign Taguchi Junnosuke, resident Communications expert, was thoroughly engrossed in the long-distance racing game he was playing against Ninomiya Kazunari on the NES 5000. Hotshot pilot Ensign Nakamaru Yuichi was demonstrating his beatboxing skills to some of the trainees, and even Commander Ueda Tatsuya, the second-in-command, was relaxing with his guitar.
The peace was shattered, however, when a crash from the door jarred them all back to reality. Ueda accidentally played the wrong chord, Junno forgot to hit the brakes and slammed his car into a brick wall, and Nakamaru had a coughing fit that woke Koki up from his nap. They all glanced at the sliding doors, which were threatening to buckle inwards from the force being used against them.
Ueda sighed. "Captain!" he called through the door. "Press your thumb to the panel on the wall!"
There was a moment of silence, then the doors shuddered once and creaked open. Akanishi Jin, ex-space pirate and current captain of the AT-TUN, stepped through the gap. He glared at the offending doors, which shut halfway before admitting defeat.
Jin turned to his crew and beamed, dazzling them all with the full force of his smile. "Commander Tat-chan, make a note! The bridge doors need fixing."
"I'm not your private secretary," Ueda pointed out, annoyed. "And if you'd stop and think before trying to force the doors open, we wouldn't have to keep getting them fixed. That's the seventh set since we were assigned to this ship!"
The captain's smile faltered for all of three seconds. "It's only been six months," he protested. "I'm still getting used to it. You guys are too, right?"
The other four had joined the JE at the same time as their captain, following him when he decided to give up the glamorous-but-not-always-that-successful life of a space pirate and go legit. His friendship with Commodore Yamashita, himself a former smuggler, had gotten them the newest ship in the fleet. Jin had named it himself, though to him, the name always seemed unfinished, like it was missing something. Another initial. Another former pirate, his co-captain and so much more...if Kame had been with them still...
But nobody talked about Kamenashi Kazuya anymore. Not when Jin was around.
There was a general chorus of, "No, that's just you, Captain!" and Jin sank into his usual seat, rubbing the bruises he'd acquired in attempting to open the door. It wasn't his fault the ship just didn't like him - it was always putting things in his way, or making them impossible to open, though the rest of the crew never seemed to have that problem. They were good guys, all of them, but because of their background, they had the worst reputation in the fleet. They refused to wear the regulation uniforms, they carried unorthodox side-arms and never saluted anyone. (Except Admiral Takizawa and his partner, Earth President Tsubasa, because nobody could help it.)
But that was all going to change. Jin had a plan, carefully formulated late last night in the middle of an extended drinking session with the commodore, that was going to put an end to their war with the Fahngarlians once and for all. He'd be a hero, and his crew would finally receive the glory they deserved.
"Ensign Taguchi!"
Junno dropped his controller and blushed guiltily. "Yes, Captain?"
"We're still in communications range of the last group of Fahngarlian scoutships that passed through, aren't we?"
Koki regarded his captain with suspicion. "As head of Security I'd like to remind you that it's in all our best interests if you don't do anything stupid."
"Too late," Ueda muttered, and Nakamaru nodded in agreement.
"We're in range, but..." Junno let the sentence hang, not because he didn't know how to finish it but because a victorious message from Nino popped up on the screen and he had to send a reply to challenge him to a re-match. Just because Nino's birthday was coming up didn't mean Junno was going to let him win.
Jin stood up, placed his left hand on his hip and raised his right index finger in the air. "Then," he declared, "we're going to send them a message! I was chatting to Yamapi last night and you know what? No one's actually tried talking to the aliens! Not one human in the entire Sol System has ever spoken to them, let alone asked them what they want."
Nakamaru, who'd flown against them several times, knew perfectly well what they wanted. "They want to kill us. Either that or they show affection in their culture by shooting people with plasma torpedoes."
"But without asking them, you won't know which," Jin said, shaking his head and smiling in an 'I told you so' fashion. "Broadcast a message on all channels - something friendly and maybe just a little bit cute." He saw Koki make a move towards Junno and hastily added, "And no rap. We don't want to confuse them."
Ueda strummed a few bars of 'It's the End of the World As We Know It' and approached Jin. "Captain, you want to make friends with the people who've been trying to wipe out mankind for the last year? Are you sure that's a good idea?"
"Of course it is. It's my idea, and I'm going to take the credit for it. But if there's any reward money, I'll share it with you guys." Once a pirate, always a pirate, and Jin was always generous with the booty.
There was nothing the rest of the crew could do. Once the captain made up his mind, there was only one person who could make him change it. But Kame could be anywhere in the universe by now.
Junno did his best to comply with Jin's wishes, adopting a light and cheerful tone. "Moshi moshi? AT-TUN no Taguchi desu! Fahngarlian-san-tachi to hanashitai- ugh!" He stopped abruptly when Koki kicked the back of his chair.
"They're aliens! Of course they're not going to speak Japanese!"
"Koki's right," Jin said. "Try English!"
There had been a move to make English the intergalactic standard language, but with humans from every country on Earth having joined in the mass colonisation of other planets, most people retained their mother tongue as their primary form of communication. For the majority of the JE fleet, that was Japanese. Following the election eight years ago of Imai Tsubasa as Earth President, making him the man with overall political control of the entire Sol System, an increasing number of new recruits were of Japanese origin.
Still rubbing his back, Junno obediently tried again, but only managed to produce a somewhat strangled "Check it out!"
"I can do better," Jin said scornfully. "Let me have a go."
He strode over to Junno's station, pressed the big green button and launched into a torrent of casual American English he'd picked up from staying in LA for six months, back when he was still living on Earth. Unfortunately, he hit the shipboard radio at the same time, ensuring his message was accompanied by a secret recording of Koki rapping 'Shorty'.
There was an anguished wail from Koki, who ducked out of sight, and Ueda addressed his captain sternly. "You promised to remove those comm links in the showers," he said.
Jin pouted. "But I like it when you guys sing so I can dance to it! I have to do something to keep myself in shape now that we're no longer attacking rich traders."
The war with the Fahngarlians had put an end to piracy as a profitable lifestyle, as anyone who could afford to do so stayed at home, or made a fast exit to Alpha Centauri. Pickings were slim round the Sol System, and Jin and his crew had been forced to find a new source of income. Fortunately, the military was so desperate for recruits that they'd take *anybody*.
At that moment there was a flash of light from the centre of the bridge, and Commodore Yamashita Tomohisa, nicknamed 'Yamapi' by Admiral Takizawa for his love of pink ships, materialised on the AT-TUN. Captain and Commodore performed a complicated secret handshake they'd developed back in their junior days as runners for old man Kitagawa, then Yamapi elbowed Jin out of the way and made a beeline for the abandoned captain's seat. He sank down into the soft, leather-cushioned chair with a sigh of relief, clutching his head.
"Why haven't you got a hangover?" he asked Jin.
Jin gave him a secretive smile and winked, causing one of the younger and more impressionable trainees to swoon into Ueda's arms. "Because as a dashing young captain I'm in much better shape than a commodore who spends all his time lazing around on his bright pink flagship and never sees any real action."
Yamapi snorted. "Hah. I'll have you know it's a tough job keeping the fleet in line. I get all the action I need just trying to keep control of you and your crew, never mind Captain Shibutani and his gang of lunatics."
Jin looked at the massive viewscreen showing the rest of the fleet, where the multi-coloured K8 could clearly be seen next to Yamapi's flagship, the Pin. "Subaru can be a handful," he agreed. "So why are you here instead of locked in a conference room?"
"Two things." With some difficulty, the commodore raised his head and looked Jin in the eye. "First, I'm here on behalf of the entire JE fleet to tell you to stop broadcasting on all channels. You're coming through loud and clear on all speakers, and it's annoying. It's stupid trying to contact the aliens like that."
"Hey!" Jin was indignant. "You told me it was a great plan last night!"
"I also told Shige he had to stop doing kitty cosplay with Koyama when he was on-duty, so clearly I said a lot of dumb things last night."
"Ah hah!" Nakamaru crowed triumphantly. "That explains a lot about the weird messages I kept getting when I was trying to sleep. What's wrong with my face?"
Captain and commodore exchanged guilty looks, struggled to remember what they'd said in their numerous drunken messages, and gave up at more or less the same time. "Absolutely nothing," Jin said soothingly. "Your face is perfect, just like Koki's hairstyle."
The shaven-headed lieutenant popped up, his mortification forgotten, and demanded to know what was wrong with his hair. Jin informed him that it was fitting for the man in charge of Security to have such an intimidating look; placated, Koki sat back down.
"And now for something much more important than Captain Bakanishi's attempt to singlehandedly end this war by making the aliens so mad that they blast us all out of the universe."
"Akanishi!"
"That's what I said." Yamapi tried, unsuccessfully, to brush his bangs out of his eyes. He was thoroughly disheveled, which wasn't an unusual state for him even when he hadn't spent the night drinking with friends. Unlike the crew of the AT-TUN, the commodore wore the elegant black-and-red uniform of the JE Fleet, though he hadn't been able to resist adding a few touches of his own. The stylish black jacket was festooned with strips of bright pink ribbon and random swatches of fur from long-dead animals, and the combination was not so much "eye-catching" as "vision-destroying".
Jin, who was going for the simpler option of black leather trousers and a plain white shirt - buttoned only halfway, of course - was getting impatient. "You can't call me an idiot, Pi. Not after what I saw you trying to do to that hologram of Admiral Takki last night."
Yamapi had the good grace to look embarrassed. "I just wanted to thank him for all the help he's given me in my career," he protested weakly, but judging by the chorus of "Admiral's pet!", nobody was buying it. "Anyway," he continued, "do you want to hear your mission or not?"
"We have a mission? Really?" The disbelief in Jin's voice was swamped by excitement. The AT-TUN was sorely under-utilised, despite being one of the most heavily-armed ships in the fleet, because nobody was quite sure what its wild-card captain was likely to do with that much firepower at his disposal.
Yamapi nodded. "Really," he said solemnly. "And you're the only person who can do it."
The ensuing backslapping, high-fiving, hugging and general party atmosphere died after five minutes when Commander Ueda asked, "So what is it?"
The commodore fished around in his jacket pockets for a few moments and pulled out a data disc, which he threw to Junno to load. "I received this about an hour ago. This is the latest information we've got on the Fahngalians, courtesy of Sakurai Sho from the Agency of Really Awesome, Smart and Handsome Individuals."
Jin groaned. "Why does our Intelligence division sound like a talent agency?"
"Because they're UNDERCOVER," Yamapi told him matter-of-factly. "They don't want people knowing they're military intelligence, do they?"
"And I suppose Aiba's an essential part of that cover?"
"Well..." Yamapi shrugged. "He made it in with two out of three. Besides, we needed someone to name the new spaceship types. Where do you think the 'Fuzzy Lion' came from?"
The data disc finally stuttered to life, replacing the external view on the main screen with a familiar face.
"MatsuJun!" the AT-TUN crew exclaimed in unison.
"MatsuJun Version 3.0," Yamapi corrected them. "He's been upgrading himself again."
Arashi's cool, stylish and always-in-fashion weapons designer wasn't shy about making use of the latest in cybernetic enhancements, even in wartime, and another one of the impressionable trainees fell into a dead faint.
Jin regarded the younger members of his crew in disgust. "That's the last time I volunteer to train rookies," he muttered.
Evidently, it wasn't just the trainees who were powerless in the face of MatsuJun's beauty. The viewscreen sputtered, gave a short burst of static, and died in a fit of bliss, leaving the image frozen on the screen.
"Somebody switch that thing off!"
"Yes, Captain!"
Under a barrage of attacks from Ueda and Koki and the threat of Jin's blaster, the screen reluctantly switched itself back to the external view of the JE fleet. Junno popped the now-melted disc out and returned it to Yamapi.
"It's a good thing I brought a hard copy too," he said, and pulled out a sheaf of papers. Rather than giving them to Jin, however, he stared at them for a moment, shook his head, donned a pair of glasses and tried again. "Right," he said dizzily, "the intelligence. Do you know why we're losing this war?"
"Because you won't let me lead a squadron of fighters against the enemy ships?" suggested Nakamaru.
"Because we have a 'failure of communicating'!" Junno said brightly in English.
"Because we're outnumbered?" Koki reasoned.
"Because our leaders are idiots," Ueda muttered.
"Because the aliens are *weird*," Jin said. "Just look at the tactics they've been using! How are we supposed to combat things like them flooding our ventilation systems with glitter so we all choke?"
Every man on board shuddered, remembering the painful-but-oh-so-shiny fate of the V6, one of the most recent casualties of war.
"It feels kinda strange saying it, but...Jin's right," Yamapi said. "The Fahngalians have a master strategist working for them. Their battle tactics changed drastically seven months ago, when they started winning more skirmishes and becoming bolder with their attacks. Thanks to Arashi, we finally know who's behind it."
Jin had a bad feeling about this. A really bad feeling, like the time he'd made the mistake of asking Captain Shibutani Subaru for a date and known instantly that it was never going to work.
"Their strategist is," Yamapi paused for dramatic effect, "Kamenashi Kazuya!"
Instead of the stunned gasps and astonished faces he'd been expecting, the commodore's announcement was met with stony silence. The command crew looked warily at each other, then at their captain.
Jin's face was unreadable, devoid of emotion. He held himself perfectly still, hands forcibly restrained at his sides, his features a frozen mask.
"Jin?" Yamapi said hesitantly.
The impassive mask cracked enough for a few low, harshly spoken words. "I never want to hear that name again."
Yamapi staggered to his feet and put a comforting hand on his shoulder, but Jin shrugged him off. He didn't want sympathy from his best friend, and he certainly didn't want it from his commanding officer. Yamapi had already joined the military by the time Kame disappeared; even so, Jin had turned to him for solace just as much as his crew.
They'd been inseparable, the two co-captains Akanishi Jin and Kamenashi Kazuya, terrors of the trade routes. Equally skilled and unable to agree on who should be captain, they'd consented to share the position.
It hadn't been all they shared.
Their first ship - stolen, of course - had been a tiny Striped Tiger Mk II, with only two cabins. The six of them had crammed in, sharing three to a cabin and not standing on ceremony. Everyone worked together, and if anyone felt uncomfortable in such close conditions, they never said a word.
Before long, their spoils amounted to more than they could carry, even converting to currency as they went along. They captured a Leopard-style cruiser from a rich industrialist with a taste for jailbait, and after some heavy-duty redecorating they had all the room they wanted. Luckily, the two largest cabins were the same size, so the co-captains didn't have to squabble over who got the biggest room. They were also next to each other, and had a connecting door.
Over the next four years, that door saw a lot of use. Especially at night. Celebratory bouts at midnight inevitably ended the same way, with one sleepy captain curled up round the other, sated and secure. The crew knew that whichever cabin their leaders were in, they'd be together, and thus let them lie in every day so as to avoid catching them at an awkward moment.
But the good times couldn't last forever. There was pressure on the military to do something about the increased pirate activity in the Sol System, and Yamapi, a captain himself at the time, was sent to forcibly dissuade them. He'd known them all well, hadn't wanted to take them in, but he'd had no problem tracking them down. He'd been authorised to offer them a pardon if they went straight and returned their ill-gotten gains - the best deal he could negotiate with Earth President Tsubasa - but Kame hadn't cared for the idea.
Jin hadn't been all that certain about it himself, but he knew they couldn't go on as they had been for much longer. An alien fleet had been making attacks on the outlying colonies in the Sol System and scouts had been spotted as far inward as Mars. People were becoming paranoid, taking fewer risks, and that meant he and the others had to pull more jobs planet-side, or risk docking at the vast, wheel-shaped orbital colonies.
Not wanting to alarm his crew, he'd met with Yamapi again privately to discuss his options. He hadn't told Kame, and when the other captain found out...
Exactly what Kame had been so upset about, Jin had never been able to ascertain. He'd woken up the next morning with a splitting headache and an empty bed, only to find his partner had packed his things, taken his share of the profits and disappeared in the faster of their two shuttles at some point during the night. Ueda, who'd been on watch at the time, hadn't been able to enlighten him. Kame had said he was feeling restless and that Ueda should go to bed - he'd take the watch himself. The autopilot was keeping them in a secure orbit round Phobos, and Ueda hadn't considered there to be anything amiss.
Jin had used every contact he'd ever made to try to track down Kame, but never found so much as a trace of him. The man had simply disappeared, and there was nothing Ueda, Yamapi or anyone else could do to convince Akanishi Jin that his partner was gone for good. It wasn't until war had officially broken out and Akanishi, Taguchi, Tanaka, Ueda and Nakamaru had joined the military that Jin stopped being angry and confused, and started focusing on pulling himself back together for the sake of his new ship.
He was still heartbroken, though. At least he hadn't had to give anything back - Tsubasa had taken one look at his forlorn face and immediately pardoned all five of them, instructing Admiral Takizawa, his other half and the man in charge of the Sol System's defenses, to keep a close watch on them. Takki had promptly delegated to the newly promoted Commodore Yamashita, who, thrilled that Jin was going to join him at last, took the bold step of giving him an expensive ship and legitimizing his captaincy.
And now he was going to make him work for it.
"Jin, I know you don't want to hear this," Yamapi said gently, "but the information's correct. Arashi's Ohmiya team nearly died to get it, and we can't afford to ignore it. You understand? Kamenashi is working for the Fahngarlians and if we remove him, perhaps we can bring this war to an end."
Jin kept his eyes averted, carefully avoiding the sympathy he knew he'd see on the faces of his friends. "I should've known," he murmured. "Who else would contaminate the Titan colony's water supply with hair dye?"
As one man, the crew clutched their stomachs in sympathy for the lost souls of Titan, every last one of them dying a redhead.
"If it's any consolation," the commodore continued, "we don't think he's helping them of his own free will. There's a mention in the report that he was acting strangely...and had track marks all over his arms." He stepped back and waited for the explosion.
Jin whirled around and snatched the papers from Yamapi's hands. "So either they've got him drugged or he's a junkie! What do you expect me to do about it?"
Seeing that Jin was making no attempt to actually read the papers, Yamapi stole them back. He found the pictures he was looking for and held them out to the captain. "You see this cluster of ships? That's the bulk of the Fahngarlian fleet currently stationed near Jupiter. Which one do you think Kame's on?"
Jin studied the photographs intently, looking over each of the ships in turn. It wasn't the first time he'd seen a picture of the enemy fleet, but more often than not he'd only run into lone ships, or at worst a small patrol. Their ships didn't look much different from those built at Sol's main shipyard on Mars, though presumably they didn't have the odd feline naming system. There were several large vessels that looked near-identical to the sleek Panther Destroyers, and a handful that might have been Lynx Carriers at the back.
Right in the middle, protected by a small group of fighters, was a cruiser of a similar shade of pink to Yamapi's flagship, though it had additional silver stripes running along the hull. It was clearly the centre of attention, the flashiest ship in the fleet.
Jin pointed at it and said, "I want to say that one, but..."
Right at the back, partially obscured by larger ships, was a comparatively small craft of the same dull grey as the bulk of the fleet, utterly non-descript and lacking in personality. It was bland, boring, and had all the charisma of a speck of dust.
"That one," Jin said firmly, pointing with conviction. "The nobody at the back. He's hiding out there."
Yamapi grinned. "Good guess. How'd you know?"
"Maybe he's drugged or brainwashed but he's not stupid. A human attempting to destroy his own people? He'd be the first target on everyone's list, no sense making himself visible - unlike some people with their ships that look like they've been dipped in strawberry milkshake..."
Yamapi ignored the slight and fished out another piece of paper. "Here are the blueprints for that ship. There aren't that many places Kame could be - according to Nino, they're carrying a lot of cargo and it's spilling over into the living quarters."
"What is?"
"The furniture." The commodore shrugged. "Don't ask me why, but apparently they're transporting a load of chairs."
Jin flashed back to some of Kame's more unusual tastes, and shook his head to banish the memory. It refused to leave. His eyes started to mist over and he wondered if he was about to tear up from nostalgia. Then he noticed everyone else was doing the same thing, and realised it was all Yamapi's fault. The commodore was wielding a can of hairspray in a futile attempt to tame his bangs.
"Use mousse or something!" Jin yelled at him, trying not to cough.
The other man gave him a look of wide-eyed innocence. "But I'm not carrying any mousse."
Much to everyone's surprise, Koki whipped out a can of mousse from one of the vast pockets of his non-regulation hooded sweatshirt, thus resolving the hair issue. One of the remaining conscious trainees was sent to fetch refreshments. Ten minutes, two pieces of cake and a good, stiff drink later, everyone had recovered whatever degree of composure they usually managed to achieve and the briefing resumed.
"I shouldn't have drunk that, should I?" Yamapi moaned, collapsing back onto Jin's chair. Various members of the AT-TUN crew murmured their agreement and speculated on whether or not to call the Pin and ask them to teleport their wayward leader home. He didn't care for the idea. "They'll have to wait. I haven't finished giving Captain Bakanishi his mission yet."
"Akanishi!"
"That's what I said. Anyway, you need to get on board that ship. If Kame's under the influence of something, you're the best chance we've got of making him see sense. Get him out any way you can. Preferably alive, but I'll understand if something unavoidable happens."
For a change, Jin didn't like the suggestive tone of Yamapi's voice. The implication that he might decide to kill his ex-partner as revenge for upping and leaving him without a word... Even if Kame was really trying to kill off the entire human race, Jin couldn't, in all good conscience, do the same to him without hearing his explanation. Especially if he'd been coerced in some way. It wouldn't explain why he'd left Jin, but Jin had resigned himself to never knowing the reason he'd had his heart broken into millions of tiny, jagged pieces.
"I'm not killing Kame," he said softly. "And even if you'd ordered me to, I wouldn't."
"I wouldn't order you to do such a thing." Yamapi looked around the motley crew of the AT-TUN and added, "Not like you guys ever follow orders anyway. You're out of teleport range for the Fahngarlian fleet, so you'll have to get in closer. You've got spare bracelets, right?"
Jin jangled his silver teleport bracelet, a fashionable but practical accessory designed by MatsuJun. "Hundreds," he said airily.
Ueda started to protest that actually, they only had a few dozen left thanks to the captain's habit of misplacing his bangles, but decided his time would be better employed in hiding the remainder. The AT-TUN and its subordinate crafts were the first ships they'd ever had with teleport capability, and even after six months the novelty had yet to wear off.
"Nakamaru can fly me closer in the Beat Box. It's only a three-seater, but it's got cloaking technology and that'll get me in teleport range without them detecting us."
Nakamaru perked up as Jin mentioned his name, eager for the chance to fly his beloved fighter into enemy territory. The fleet's reluctance to use him in combat meant that most of the Beat Box's flight time was spent joyriding around with Koki. The AT-TUN itself spent so little time flying with any urgency that the autopilot was usually sufficient to take care of the ship's needs.
"We can definitely do it," the pilot agreed. "They'll never notice us at all."
"Aren't you forgetting something?" Ueda asked. "As far as we can tell from the corpses we've recovered, the Fahngarlian ships are staffed only by females. Our captain, pretty though he is, isn't a girl." Suddenly conscious of everyone's stares, the commander casually rubbed away his lipstick with the back of his hand and added, "And if anyone tries to make me go, I'm going to beat them up."
The bridge was suddenly filled with loud exclamations of how butch, masterful and just darn manly their commander and resident boxing champion was.
"Ueda can't go because he has to stay and run the ship," Jin declared, and no one was going to contradict him. "I've got the blueprints, remember? I'll memorize the layout and keep out of sight. If I'm spotted I'll just call Nakamaru to teleport me out and he can put me down again somewhere else. Besides," he patted the stunner hanging from one hip and the customised blaster hanging from the other, "I'll have these."
Jin had seen some of the Fahngarlian corpses retrieved from downed fighters, and every last one of them had looked like a human female. Despite the savage attacks they'd made on his species, he wasn't keen on the idea of shooting them down - not unless they shot first, which they didn't seem to have a problem with. If their species had males, they evidently kept them somewhere secret, perhaps back home on Fahngarl in Andromeda. Not much was known about the planet, though scientists had determined its make-up was similar to Earth, and so Jin didn't anticipate any breathing difficulties on his mission.
In any case, if Kame really was on board the Fahngarlian ship, he had to be breathing somehow. Jin ushered Yamapi out of his seat and settled down to study the blueprints. He'd worry about getting Kame out first - stun him him if had to - and then allow himself to think about what to say to the man who'd walked out on him.