[JE] [JEF #4] Past Flaws 5/12
Title: JE Fleet IV: Past Flaws 5/12
Series: JE Fleet
Fandom: KAT-TUN
Pairing: Akame
Rating: R (m/m activity)
Genre: AU, crack, sci-fi
Word count: 54,000
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the guys or random song lyrics that appear in this fic. Credit for naming the Yunaka goes to maya_morning.
Summary: When Akanishi Jin runs away from Earth, falling in with thieves along the way, the last thing he expects is to attract the attention of rookie Lunar/InterPlanetary Security officer, Kamenashi Kazuya.
Chapter 5
"This isn't Jupiter," Jin complained as the Yunaka settled into orbit around Mercury. "We jumped in the wrong direction!"
Koki looked up from the toolbox long enough to wave a wrench at him. "We filed a flight plan to Jupiter and left Earth's local space illegally - you think we're going to go where we said we were going and just wait for them to pick us up?"
Jin pretended he hadn't said anything and turned his attention to Nakamaru instead. While Koki prepared to go out and fix the communications array, the pilot was muttering quietly to himself over the controls.
"Um," Jin ventured, "are we going to Mercury?"
Nakamaru shook his head. "Nah. We're just going to hang out here a little while Koki suits up and does some repairs, then we'll be on our way. We've got to meet a buyer on Neptune before we do anything else, so-"
"You have to tell our resident stowaway all the details?" Koki asked, annoyed.
"Come on, Koki, it's not like we can just drop him off in the middle of space, can we? And I don't think he's a bad guy."
"I'm not!" Jin chimed in. "I'm really sorry about accidentally firing your weapons, and trying to take you hostage, and the communications array, and-"
"Just...stop apologising," Koki said wearily. "We're not going to kick you out, all right? You're a handful, but," he mumbled the next bit, "that was impressive, what you pulled off back there."
He donned a protective suit and headed for the airlock before Jin could register the praise.
Nakamaru grinned. "Koki must like you."
Jin certainly hoped so, because it didn't look like they were going to be making port any time soon and he didn't want to be stuck on a ship full of hostility. He could've stayed at home for that.
He hadn't really had a chance to stop and take stock of the situation since he'd been found hiding in the cargo hold, and it was a relief to just sit for a moment and not have to worry about getting shot, discovered, or otherwise endangered. What had he gotten himself into? Far from hitching a ride with a couple of entertainers, he'd gone on the run with a couple of jewel thieves. Not quite what Jin had had in mind when he'd wanted to leave Earth.
"Hey." It took a few seconds for Jin to realise Nakamaru was prodding him with a gentle finger. "You all right? You spaced out for a bit."
Jin squirmed - the finger was getting a little too close to his collarbone. "Fine. But I have no idea what's going on."
Sad to say, this wasn't an unusual state of affairs.
Nakamaru offered him a consoling smile. "Don't worry about it. You're in this as deep as we are now - I guess a guy so desperate to leave Earth that he has to stow away isn't going to turn in a couple of jewel thieves, is he?"
"Turn you in for what?" Jin said airily. "I didn't see anything." He clapped Nakamaru soundly on the shoulder and went to retrieve his backpack from where he'd left it in the cargo hold. The other man made no move to stop him.
-----
Six hours later, the Yunaka, complete with a working communications array, was making preparations to leave for Neptune. Introductions had been done properly, if not thoroughly - Jin didn't want to mention old man Kitagawa, on the off-chance that his new friends were acquainted with him, so he simply said he'd run away from Earth to escape family problems. He'd received a raised eyebrow and a couple of sympathetic nods in return, but no one said anything.
Koki and Nakamaru, as it turned out, where also from Tokyo, though they hadn't lived there for over a year, choosing to eke out a life between the stars aboard their jointly-owned ship. Firm friends, they'd taken up thievery to indulge in Koki's love of accessories, and because Nakamaru wanted to do something to break himself out of what was shaping up to be a very dull life.
"We only go for the good stuff, though," Koki assured Jin. "None of your cubic zirconia junk."
Nakamaru burst out laughing. "He says that now, but you should've seen him drooling over gold-plated studs."
Koki pulled a face. "Shut up."
"So why performers?" Jin wanted to know.
"It makes a great cover story for all the travelling we do," Nakamaru explained. "Plus, it's fun!"
Jin couldn't argue with that, and when his new friends tossed him a beer from the fridge and graciously let him have first pick of the snack selection, he didn't feel inclined to argue with anything ever again.
He'd just settled down with a bag of double-chocolate chip cookies when a text-only message popped up on the main viewscreen in the cockpit. Jin couldn't see it clearly - Nakamaru's head was in the way - but he knew it couldn't be good news when Koki thumped his fist down on the console in front of him and began swearing up a storm.
"It's our buyer," Nakamaru said. "He's got some business in Lunacy and wants to meet us there instead to make the sale."
"And we don't want to be anywhere near Earth or its moon for a while." Koki had calmed down. "We can't skip out, though - the deal's worth millions and we need a new hyperdrive."
Privately, Jin thought what they actually needed was a new ship, but he managed to stop himself from blurting this out by cramming a cookie in his mouth. He made what he hoped was a suitable sound of concern, and Koki nodded at him.
"Exactly! I said the same thing only last week."
Jin wasn't sure what Koki thought he'd said, but it was good that they were in accord. He gulped down the rest of the cookie and looked at the message again. "This ship isn't wanted for anything other than an accidental weapons discharge, right? And you guys don't have records?"
"We haven't had time to get to a studio lately-" Koki began, sounding defensive, but Nakamaru interrupted.
"Right, we don't have criminal records. But if LIPS have a bulletin out for us on their system, we'll be flagged up the moment anyone checks our registration - which they will do if we go in to land. We don't have any shuttles - we want to go to Lunacy, we have to land there, and there's no way to do it under the radar in a city."
"Would your buyer be willing to meet you on your own ship?" Jin asked. "He'd want to see the goods, right?"
Koki's voice was glum. "We were supposed to meet on neutral ground. With a sample. He was going to send an agent to do the actual work once he'd decided he wanted to do business."
"Hmm. This ship's not exactly inconspicuous." Jin was thinking of the bombshell blonde painted on the side. "Using a false reg won't help, not if there's a description out. But that's assuming they're definitely interested in finding the Yunaka again."
Nakamaru stole one of Jin's cookies. "You think otherwise?"
Jin shrugged. He wasn't exactly an expert on how the minds of security forces worked. "I just think they were messing around with us - that Ishida guy, definitely - and it was obvious the shot was an accident. Come on, who deliberately fires on another ship in front of LIPS? They probably just think we're uncoordinated idiots - don't look at me like that, you guys - and they're busy with more important things."
It took him another ten minutes to make his point: that they couldn't be blamed for leaving Earth's local space when everyone else had done the same thing, and all they had against them was an accidental discharge, which merely carried a fine.
"A fine we're not that well-equipped to pay," Nakamaru said. "All our assets are in the cargo hold right now - everything else went on hull repairs and Koki's salon bills."
"It didn't cost *me* that much to go blond," Jin murmured, looking askance at Koki's hair.
Still, they could scrape together the means if they had to. It figured Jin stowed away with a couple of guys in a less than ideal financial situation; he was hardly burdened by reserves himself.
It was decided in the end that it was worth the risk. They weren't talking about more than a fine, if that, and the only people who might have reason to cause trouble for them were the crew of one solitary LIPS cruiser.
Who they'd never encounter again, of course, because what were the odds of that?
-----
"You think it's the same guys?" Jin panted as he scrabbled frantically at his seat restraints.
The Yunaka was picking up speed, Nakamaru pushing her as hard as he dared while he waited for the hyperdrive to warm up. They couldn't jump to safety, not yet, and the purple and white LIPS cruiser on their tail wasn't going to give them the chance.
"Of course it's the same guys!" Koki's hands were a blur, simultaneously activating the shield generators and arming the weapons. "Why else would they be chasing us?"
Nakamaru wiped the sweat from his forehead and stared grimly at the panel before him. "They're trying to talk. Someone else get it; I have to concentrate on going round that asteroid instead of through it!"
With the other two busy, the task would've fallen to Jin anyway, but he happened to be sitting at the comm as well. He accepted the incoming message; his heart almost stopped when the small screen in front of him flared to life. The Murasaki had given up communicating on audio-only - they had video now too, and once Jin's heart had recovered from the surprise, it started dancing a salsa against his ribcage.
The man on the other end of the connection - a boy, really, and probably younger than Jin himself - wasn't goodlooking, exactly, but he was striking in a way that made Jin want to keep staring at him, watch him from every angle, try to figure out how a face could seem odd and awkward one second and strangely beautiful the next. Jin was still making his own transition from gawky teen to the smoothness of adulthood, though he liked to think that it was almost over; this boy still had a good way to go, but the final result was sure to be worth waiting for. The signs were all there.
When the LIPS officer spoke, Jin didn't hear him at first. Violent yells from the bridge of the Murasaki drowned out the sweet, slightly-raspy voice, and when Jin finally registered that he was being addressed, the sweetness had been replaced by stern impatience.
"I said, cut your engines! Or we'll lock on with a tractor beam and you'll blow them anyway if you try to move!"
Jin shook himself into awareness. "Are you Kamenashi?" he blurted out.
"Huh?" The officer seemed to lose concentration for a moment. "Yeah, I'm Kamenashi. Cut your engines."
"What?"
Kamenashi sighed. "Are you an idiot? E-N-G-I-N-E-S."
"Not an idiot." Jin produced his best pout, then realised Kamenashi couldn't see it. He flipped a switch to make the video communication two-way, letting the other man get a good look at him. Kamenashi's gasp, hastily smothered, convinced Jin he'd done the right thing.
"You're Akanishi, right?"
"You remembered!" Jin was happy, right up until he realised Kamenashi was reaching for the instrumentation panel in front of him - probably to get a lock with a tractor beam.
"I always remember the people who cause problems for me." Kamenashi's eyes bore into Jin like thermal lances, and Jin stared right back, not caring how uncomfortable it felt to have his skin, his self, his soul seared by the flame. Then Kamenashi's hand moved, and the screen went dark.
Seconds later, the Yunaka rocked violently and stopped dead, throwing everyone into their seat restraints.
Nakamaru scurried to shut down the sub-light engines before they could overheat. "They've got us in a tractor beam!"
"Tell me something I don't know!" Koki retorted as the ship began a slow crawl back towards her harrier. "Akanishi, what the hell did you say to them?"
"It's not my fault!" Jin tried to get the connection back, but the LIPS cruiser didn't respond. What had he done to annoy Kamenashi so much? Okay, so there was that little incident with the holographic ship, but Jin couldn't be held responsible for that, could he? He hadn't actually done anything himself. Certainly nothing worthy of being chased halfway from Earth's moon to Mars, and then getting hauled in by tractor beam.
Nakamaru slumped down in his seat. "We're too small to break free - we'd blow ourselves up in trying. Might as well sit back and start working on your pleas to the judge, because we're going to have company in a few minutes and there's absolutely no way they're going to miss the stash in the cargo hold. We don't have enough hidden compartments to take more than a third of it."
"There has to be *something* we can do," Jin said. "We can't just give up!"
"If you've got any ideas that don't involve us declaring war on an armed security ship or getting ourselves killed, you've got about five minutes to put them into practice," Koki advised, taking out a comb and fixing his hair for their unwanted guests.
Not surprisingly, Jin didn't.
Series: JE Fleet
Fandom: KAT-TUN
Pairing: Akame
Rating: R (m/m activity)
Genre: AU, crack, sci-fi
Word count: 54,000
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the guys or random song lyrics that appear in this fic. Credit for naming the Yunaka goes to maya_morning.
Summary: When Akanishi Jin runs away from Earth, falling in with thieves along the way, the last thing he expects is to attract the attention of rookie Lunar/InterPlanetary Security officer, Kamenashi Kazuya.
Chapter 5
"This isn't Jupiter," Jin complained as the Yunaka settled into orbit around Mercury. "We jumped in the wrong direction!"
Koki looked up from the toolbox long enough to wave a wrench at him. "We filed a flight plan to Jupiter and left Earth's local space illegally - you think we're going to go where we said we were going and just wait for them to pick us up?"
Jin pretended he hadn't said anything and turned his attention to Nakamaru instead. While Koki prepared to go out and fix the communications array, the pilot was muttering quietly to himself over the controls.
"Um," Jin ventured, "are we going to Mercury?"
Nakamaru shook his head. "Nah. We're just going to hang out here a little while Koki suits up and does some repairs, then we'll be on our way. We've got to meet a buyer on Neptune before we do anything else, so-"
"You have to tell our resident stowaway all the details?" Koki asked, annoyed.
"Come on, Koki, it's not like we can just drop him off in the middle of space, can we? And I don't think he's a bad guy."
"I'm not!" Jin chimed in. "I'm really sorry about accidentally firing your weapons, and trying to take you hostage, and the communications array, and-"
"Just...stop apologising," Koki said wearily. "We're not going to kick you out, all right? You're a handful, but," he mumbled the next bit, "that was impressive, what you pulled off back there."
He donned a protective suit and headed for the airlock before Jin could register the praise.
Nakamaru grinned. "Koki must like you."
Jin certainly hoped so, because it didn't look like they were going to be making port any time soon and he didn't want to be stuck on a ship full of hostility. He could've stayed at home for that.
He hadn't really had a chance to stop and take stock of the situation since he'd been found hiding in the cargo hold, and it was a relief to just sit for a moment and not have to worry about getting shot, discovered, or otherwise endangered. What had he gotten himself into? Far from hitching a ride with a couple of entertainers, he'd gone on the run with a couple of jewel thieves. Not quite what Jin had had in mind when he'd wanted to leave Earth.
"Hey." It took a few seconds for Jin to realise Nakamaru was prodding him with a gentle finger. "You all right? You spaced out for a bit."
Jin squirmed - the finger was getting a little too close to his collarbone. "Fine. But I have no idea what's going on."
Sad to say, this wasn't an unusual state of affairs.
Nakamaru offered him a consoling smile. "Don't worry about it. You're in this as deep as we are now - I guess a guy so desperate to leave Earth that he has to stow away isn't going to turn in a couple of jewel thieves, is he?"
"Turn you in for what?" Jin said airily. "I didn't see anything." He clapped Nakamaru soundly on the shoulder and went to retrieve his backpack from where he'd left it in the cargo hold. The other man made no move to stop him.
-----
Six hours later, the Yunaka, complete with a working communications array, was making preparations to leave for Neptune. Introductions had been done properly, if not thoroughly - Jin didn't want to mention old man Kitagawa, on the off-chance that his new friends were acquainted with him, so he simply said he'd run away from Earth to escape family problems. He'd received a raised eyebrow and a couple of sympathetic nods in return, but no one said anything.
Koki and Nakamaru, as it turned out, where also from Tokyo, though they hadn't lived there for over a year, choosing to eke out a life between the stars aboard their jointly-owned ship. Firm friends, they'd taken up thievery to indulge in Koki's love of accessories, and because Nakamaru wanted to do something to break himself out of what was shaping up to be a very dull life.
"We only go for the good stuff, though," Koki assured Jin. "None of your cubic zirconia junk."
Nakamaru burst out laughing. "He says that now, but you should've seen him drooling over gold-plated studs."
Koki pulled a face. "Shut up."
"So why performers?" Jin wanted to know.
"It makes a great cover story for all the travelling we do," Nakamaru explained. "Plus, it's fun!"
Jin couldn't argue with that, and when his new friends tossed him a beer from the fridge and graciously let him have first pick of the snack selection, he didn't feel inclined to argue with anything ever again.
He'd just settled down with a bag of double-chocolate chip cookies when a text-only message popped up on the main viewscreen in the cockpit. Jin couldn't see it clearly - Nakamaru's head was in the way - but he knew it couldn't be good news when Koki thumped his fist down on the console in front of him and began swearing up a storm.
"It's our buyer," Nakamaru said. "He's got some business in Lunacy and wants to meet us there instead to make the sale."
"And we don't want to be anywhere near Earth or its moon for a while." Koki had calmed down. "We can't skip out, though - the deal's worth millions and we need a new hyperdrive."
Privately, Jin thought what they actually needed was a new ship, but he managed to stop himself from blurting this out by cramming a cookie in his mouth. He made what he hoped was a suitable sound of concern, and Koki nodded at him.
"Exactly! I said the same thing only last week."
Jin wasn't sure what Koki thought he'd said, but it was good that they were in accord. He gulped down the rest of the cookie and looked at the message again. "This ship isn't wanted for anything other than an accidental weapons discharge, right? And you guys don't have records?"
"We haven't had time to get to a studio lately-" Koki began, sounding defensive, but Nakamaru interrupted.
"Right, we don't have criminal records. But if LIPS have a bulletin out for us on their system, we'll be flagged up the moment anyone checks our registration - which they will do if we go in to land. We don't have any shuttles - we want to go to Lunacy, we have to land there, and there's no way to do it under the radar in a city."
"Would your buyer be willing to meet you on your own ship?" Jin asked. "He'd want to see the goods, right?"
Koki's voice was glum. "We were supposed to meet on neutral ground. With a sample. He was going to send an agent to do the actual work once he'd decided he wanted to do business."
"Hmm. This ship's not exactly inconspicuous." Jin was thinking of the bombshell blonde painted on the side. "Using a false reg won't help, not if there's a description out. But that's assuming they're definitely interested in finding the Yunaka again."
Nakamaru stole one of Jin's cookies. "You think otherwise?"
Jin shrugged. He wasn't exactly an expert on how the minds of security forces worked. "I just think they were messing around with us - that Ishida guy, definitely - and it was obvious the shot was an accident. Come on, who deliberately fires on another ship in front of LIPS? They probably just think we're uncoordinated idiots - don't look at me like that, you guys - and they're busy with more important things."
It took him another ten minutes to make his point: that they couldn't be blamed for leaving Earth's local space when everyone else had done the same thing, and all they had against them was an accidental discharge, which merely carried a fine.
"A fine we're not that well-equipped to pay," Nakamaru said. "All our assets are in the cargo hold right now - everything else went on hull repairs and Koki's salon bills."
"It didn't cost *me* that much to go blond," Jin murmured, looking askance at Koki's hair.
Still, they could scrape together the means if they had to. It figured Jin stowed away with a couple of guys in a less than ideal financial situation; he was hardly burdened by reserves himself.
It was decided in the end that it was worth the risk. They weren't talking about more than a fine, if that, and the only people who might have reason to cause trouble for them were the crew of one solitary LIPS cruiser.
Who they'd never encounter again, of course, because what were the odds of that?
-----
"You think it's the same guys?" Jin panted as he scrabbled frantically at his seat restraints.
The Yunaka was picking up speed, Nakamaru pushing her as hard as he dared while he waited for the hyperdrive to warm up. They couldn't jump to safety, not yet, and the purple and white LIPS cruiser on their tail wasn't going to give them the chance.
"Of course it's the same guys!" Koki's hands were a blur, simultaneously activating the shield generators and arming the weapons. "Why else would they be chasing us?"
Nakamaru wiped the sweat from his forehead and stared grimly at the panel before him. "They're trying to talk. Someone else get it; I have to concentrate on going round that asteroid instead of through it!"
With the other two busy, the task would've fallen to Jin anyway, but he happened to be sitting at the comm as well. He accepted the incoming message; his heart almost stopped when the small screen in front of him flared to life. The Murasaki had given up communicating on audio-only - they had video now too, and once Jin's heart had recovered from the surprise, it started dancing a salsa against his ribcage.
The man on the other end of the connection - a boy, really, and probably younger than Jin himself - wasn't goodlooking, exactly, but he was striking in a way that made Jin want to keep staring at him, watch him from every angle, try to figure out how a face could seem odd and awkward one second and strangely beautiful the next. Jin was still making his own transition from gawky teen to the smoothness of adulthood, though he liked to think that it was almost over; this boy still had a good way to go, but the final result was sure to be worth waiting for. The signs were all there.
When the LIPS officer spoke, Jin didn't hear him at first. Violent yells from the bridge of the Murasaki drowned out the sweet, slightly-raspy voice, and when Jin finally registered that he was being addressed, the sweetness had been replaced by stern impatience.
"I said, cut your engines! Or we'll lock on with a tractor beam and you'll blow them anyway if you try to move!"
Jin shook himself into awareness. "Are you Kamenashi?" he blurted out.
"Huh?" The officer seemed to lose concentration for a moment. "Yeah, I'm Kamenashi. Cut your engines."
"What?"
Kamenashi sighed. "Are you an idiot? E-N-G-I-N-E-S."
"Not an idiot." Jin produced his best pout, then realised Kamenashi couldn't see it. He flipped a switch to make the video communication two-way, letting the other man get a good look at him. Kamenashi's gasp, hastily smothered, convinced Jin he'd done the right thing.
"You're Akanishi, right?"
"You remembered!" Jin was happy, right up until he realised Kamenashi was reaching for the instrumentation panel in front of him - probably to get a lock with a tractor beam.
"I always remember the people who cause problems for me." Kamenashi's eyes bore into Jin like thermal lances, and Jin stared right back, not caring how uncomfortable it felt to have his skin, his self, his soul seared by the flame. Then Kamenashi's hand moved, and the screen went dark.
Seconds later, the Yunaka rocked violently and stopped dead, throwing everyone into their seat restraints.
Nakamaru scurried to shut down the sub-light engines before they could overheat. "They've got us in a tractor beam!"
"Tell me something I don't know!" Koki retorted as the ship began a slow crawl back towards her harrier. "Akanishi, what the hell did you say to them?"
"It's not my fault!" Jin tried to get the connection back, but the LIPS cruiser didn't respond. What had he done to annoy Kamenashi so much? Okay, so there was that little incident with the holographic ship, but Jin couldn't be held responsible for that, could he? He hadn't actually done anything himself. Certainly nothing worthy of being chased halfway from Earth's moon to Mars, and then getting hauled in by tractor beam.
Nakamaru slumped down in his seat. "We're too small to break free - we'd blow ourselves up in trying. Might as well sit back and start working on your pleas to the judge, because we're going to have company in a few minutes and there's absolutely no way they're going to miss the stash in the cargo hold. We don't have enough hidden compartments to take more than a third of it."
"There has to be *something* we can do," Jin said. "We can't just give up!"
"If you've got any ideas that don't involve us declaring war on an armed security ship or getting ourselves killed, you've got about five minutes to put them into practice," Koki advised, taking out a comb and fixing his hair for their unwanted guests.
Not surprisingly, Jin didn't.