[fic] part one
Title: Burning a Path Between the Stars
Fandom and OT3: Super Junior; Shiwon/Eunhyuk/Donghae
Rating: PG
Word Count: 18,466
Summary: The three man (and one robot) crew of the spaceship Sapphire favour adventure and exploration above all things - unless there's some money to be made in the process. So when an ancient myth falls into their hands the possibility of it being real, and making a fortune, is too great to resist. And there begins their adventure through the galaxy, or a wild fowlbat chase between the stars.
Warnings: None
Notes: Space!AU, and my entry for troisbang. This fic is for puppycadet, wherever you are ♥
There was a sigh, as if all the planets in the galaxy had fallen squarely upon his shoulders. Donghae looked over towards the clock. He seemed to almost bounce in his chair for a moment before bursting out, "He's taking an age! I bet he's gotten himself into some kind of trouble again. Shouldn't we send Kibum out to go find him? Hyukjae always does this, I swear."
Shiwon, who the little tirade was aimed at, glanced up from the filepad he was reading. Calmly, he responded, "He'll be fine, he knows what he's doing. He's probably getting some extra supplies, or something." He glanced at the clock himself, just for reference; Hyukjae was taking a little longer than expected, but nothing to worry about, Shiwon was sure. "It's hardly necessary to send out Kibum," he added, "let's not bother him."
"Can a robot be bothered?" Donghae wondered, frowning, and this idea seemed to puzzle him into quiet for the next five galaxy standard minutes. He was soon back to bouncing his leg and tapping his fingers rhythmlessly against the control desk in front of him. Eventually, Donghae opened his mouth to say something more, when a sound from beneath made him pause.
It was the unmistakable sound of Hyukjae coming back aboard ship, and in only a few moments he had made his way into the cockpit, where his two crew mates were sitting in wait for him.
Before Donghae could begin his tirade Hyukjae was already talking, fast and excitedly, eyes bright and his smile wide, waving something in their faces. "Sorry I took so long but look you'll never guess what I found, I bought it down in Bad Market!"
Shiwon reached out and took the flimsy-paper from Hyukjae, looking over it curiously.
Donghae was less calm about things. "Bad Market? What were you doing there? You can't trust anything from there!"
"More so than from the scammers in Goodside Market. Anyway, this is amazing, the chance of our lifetime! Just look at it."
Without a word, Donghae turned and snatched the flimsy from Shiwon's hands, his frown only deepening further the longer he looked. "What is this, a map? These planets don't even exist! What is this for?"
"It's a map to the lost treasure of Zared-Xxorlyn," Hyukjae said, rather proudly, and pulled the map carefully from Donghae's twisting fingers. "And it's one hundred percent real, I can guarantee you. I bought it from a good source."
Donghae scoffed. "A good source? There's no such thing on this planet."
Hyukjae moved over to his own seat, which was by the navigation console. It took up the whole wall, perpendicular to the control desk, and the window where both the captain and the co-pilot sat. He didn't look at Donghae as he responded, "I can always find a good source. Trust me, this is real, and," now, he did turn to look at Donghae, a grin beginning to form, "if this treasure does exist, don't you want to see it?"
The anger had seemed to dissipate slowly from Donghae as he considered the possibilities, though there was still a frown on his face. "Well of course, who wouldn't? But the treasure is mythical, and that map can't be real, none of those routes exist."
Here, Shiwon finally put in a word, having waited for the mood to diffuse somewhat first. "The legends of Zared-Xxorlyn's treasure are at least a millennia old. Maybe the names of the routes and planets have changed since this. Or were changed, to make it harder to find." He looked, rather pointedly, over at Donghae, "Treasure hunting isn't supposed to be a piece of fizz-cake, after all, or every smuggler and trader would have found it by now."
"Exactly!" Hyukjae was huddled over his console, carefully scanning the flimsy-paper map with a datareader. "That already occurred to me too, so I'm going to scan the map and upload its information into the navigation maps and see if I can find any matching locations."
Neither of these had occurred to Donghae, and he scowled. "That would still be too easy, anyone else could think of that, too."
"Yeah, but it's a starting point."
"All right, play around with your maps, if you want. But I'm tired of being docked and planet-bound, so if no one minds, can we get off this rock now?"
"Sure, if you like," Hyukjae answered, far too much like he was granting permission. He was only the ships navigator, not the captain, and this further irritated Donghae.
So, going through the warm up and preparation for flight as quickly as he could, it was almost unexpected when their ship made the leap out of the docking port, quickly up through the atmosphere, and out into space. Hyukjae hadn't even finished scanning the map, and Shiwon hadn't been able to follow the proper space-flight procedure. Quickly, he switched the last few buttons, hoping Donghae's rashness wouldn't have burned out any of the engines, as leaping into space too quickly could sometimes do.
After a quick look through the engineering systems on his computer, and a brief consult with Kibum, the state of the engines was confirmed fine, and all was ship-shape for inter-space flight.
With this settled, Shiwon turned in his chair to look between Donghae and Hyukjae. "So, about this treasure," he said.
"Kibum," Donghae started, looking over at the robot curiously, "can you be bothered?"
Kibum, (his name was actually KB37105, according to both batch number, and robotic type, but Donghae thought that was both too much of a mouthful, and too impersonal) had been their on-ship robot for a little over two galaxy standard years now. His job, in its official capacity, was to communicate with the ship itself and all her computers, and source out any issues that arose. He wasn't there to fix these problems, of course, he was an engineer-consultant robot, not an actual engineer and it would fall to Donghae, Shiwon or Hyukjae (whoever lost at swamp, planet, black hole) to fix the problems, but Kibum was there to find the problem and tell them how to solve it, which saved a lot of time.
In his unofficial capacity he was also the general help, at least to Donghae, and he was a better cook than Hyukjae. Of course Kibum never objected to being put to such uses, as he was a robot and felt no emotions he couldn't feel put out, or annoyed, or get angry at being asked to go out and buy them some food supplies. But sometimes, he did like to point out what his official capacity was and state that he was not programmed for such mundane activities. 'I am not a helpbot,' he would tell them sometimes. Donghae thought this was just an odd quirk in his personality programming, but Shiwon was inclined to believe that Kibum really did feel perhaps a robots sense of having been asked to do too much.
Quirks aside, they all agreed that they liked having the robot around, even if he was dry and robotic in manner, he was helpful. And a lot quicker at sourcing a problem than even Hyukjae, who couldn't plug himself in and talk to a computer and had to go the long, human, way about it.
"The Tionary term states that it means to annoy, pester, worry. It can also mean being in a perplexed state, or a thing or person that is troublesome, burdensome. As I do not feel emotions, Donghae, I cannot feel annoyed or worried by something."
"Oh, I see." Eyebrows creasing together, Donghae considered this new information. He was quite satisfied, and would be happy to go back to Shiwon and inform him that Kibum could not, in fact, be bothered, and therefore Donghae was not a bother to him.
Before he could turn and go tell of his triumph however, Kibum opened his mouth again and spoke, adding, "Although it can also mean to inconvenience, and whilst I cannot feel that emotionally, I can feel inconvenienced when you ask me to do something that isn't my job to do, when I can instead be doing something more worthwhile."
This put a great dampener on Donghae's triumph, and he quickly decided that Shiwon would never know of this conversation, or its outcome.
"Well, Kibum," he began loftily, " I am the captain of the ship and all its crew, including you, and whether it's part of your programming or not, it's your duty to do as I tell you. So there."
And as quickly as he could, Donghae ended the conversation before it could find its way into dangerous territory - he didn't want a robot mutiny on his hands! - and decided to go and bother Hyukjae instead.
"And so then I just plugged in the vector commands which broke the image down into little pieces and I-"
"Hold on a minute!" Donghae held his hands up, looking pained. "Can you please explain that in non-nerd terms? So that Shiwon and I can actually understand you?"
No one felt like telling Donghae that everyone but him could understand perfectly fine, so Hyukjae, looking only a little disappointed, began again.
"Like you said before, none of the locations and routes on the map are real, they don't fit any planet or galaxy patterns, either current or ancient ones. So something Shiwon had said came to mind, about the names maybe having been changed, to make the treasure harder to find."
All the while Hyukjae held in his hand a flimsy print out of the original map, gripping it excitedly as he explained his breakthrough.
Nodding, Donghae said, "Okay, but can you get to the point?"
This deflated Hyukjae somewhat, as it wasn't often he had the chance to come up with an honest breakthrough of genius, but he carried on regardless. "Basically, I scanned the map into my computers and built up a 3D image of it. Once I started looking at the planets from alternate views and angles, I found it!" Here he paused and help up the flimsy-paper map, as if the image of this gave any insight whatsoever. "This isn't made like a normal map, but once you can visualise how it would look if you were following it through space, and changed a few of the angles, it really does fit galaxy routes that still exist today!"
His excitement was barely contained, as he ended this in an oddly high-pitched voice, which had Shiwon wincing quietly in the corner.
"Oh, so, it's actually real?" Donghae asked slowly, considering.
Hyukjae nodded excitedly. "It is! The planet names aren't the same, which is to be expected, but I've found the route on the map, which is all we need!"
There were a few moments of silence as all in the cockpit considered this information. And then Donghae let out a shout, pumping his fist in the air, before going over to Hyukjae and giving him a firm smack on the back of the head.
"Why didn't you just tell us that in the first place? That's all we needed to know!"
There was revelry that night on board the ship, as Donghae and Hyukjae especially celebrated heavily on their supplies of Blackhole Blackout, some of the strongest alcohol known throughout the universe (and highly illegal in fifteen systems, with a punishment of death if caught selling on at least ten of those).
Needless to say, there were only two people capable of speaking a coherent sentence the next morning, let alone fly a spaceship, and one of those people was a robot.
And so began their search for the mythical treasure of Zared-Xxorlyn.
All was quiet, or as quiet as a spaceship could ever be, as Shiwon sat alone in the cockpit. Donghae had vanished to do some 'Captain duties', as he'd called it, although Shiwon was certain he'd just gone to his quarters to sleep, and Hyukjae was down in the engineering bay with Kibum, checking something over. It was left to Shiwon, as the pilot, to ensure the ship continued on its way. With their route loaded into the navcomputer it was an easy job. They were on their way to the first point on the map, and making good time. By the time Donghae resurfaced, Shiwon guessed that they would soon be at their destination.
Shiwon had been a part of their three-man crew for almost five standard years now. Fresh out of the academy and proudly displaying his spaceflight license, he had seen an advertisement on a databoard seeking a pilot for some work. He'd responded with interest, excited to so soon be able to use his new qualifications, and had turned up at the meeting point to find Donghae, Hyukjae, and a somewhat inelegant looking ship called Sapphire, seeking his skills.
No specific job had been mentioned, Donghae had managed to say so many words in such a short time and yet not mention what their purpose was, and Shiwon was so perplexed that he simply forgot to ask. It had seemed strange, and he had almost backed out (especially once he saw the name of the ship, not even pleasure cruisers had such unctuous names as Sapphire). But the opportunity to get to fly through space and see new places had lured Shiwon in. And Donghae and Hyukjae seemed nice enough, if not a little odd.
Five years later, after a copious amount of trade-work, and a dubious amount of smuggling, not to mention the countless jobs of carrying cargo and the several failed expeditions between them all, and they had, somehow, become the best of friends. Shiwon couldn't imagine working with anyone else, on any other ship. Even if Donghae refused to change the name (he said that he'd won it from some lottery and it had already come with a name, and it seemed rude to him to change it now).
It was for all those reasons that Shiwon was not at all surprised to be going on some crazy treasure hunt, and it was because of all those reasons that he too was excited about the possibilities. He couldn't deny that a little of his crew mates attitudes had rubbed off on him over the years, and the idea of possibly finding ancient, mythical treasure was a thrilling one, even if part of Shiwon thought it unlikely. If he had learned anything since his academy days it was to hold no expectations, especially if Donghae was one of your friends.
He was brought, quite sharply, out of his reverie by the sound of a ship trying to contact him through the open interspace communicator. Checking the screen, Shiwon saw that it wasn't a comm-number that he was familiar with, but a quick look through the viewport showed that the ship itself, hanging out there close by in space, was most definitely familiar.
Opening the comm line, the face that came up on the viewscreen a moment later was also one that Shiwon recognised. With an almost bored expression on the man's nearly too-pretty face, and the familiar shock of red hair atop this, Shiwon greeted him with a nod. "Heechul," he said.
The man, Heechul, seemed to peer at him for a moment, before recognition also set in. "Shiwon! It's been awhile, I'm surprised to find you're still piloting that ugly piece of junk."
Shiwon shrugged. Over the past few years they'd run into Heechul every now and then, enough so for them to be familiar with each other, and on first name terms. There was also that time when Heechul had taken them all out for a drink on a little known star system, and they had discovered Blackhole Blackout and the, uh, repercussions it could have, for the first time. Shiwon had felt hungover for at least a week, standard, and had vowed never to drink it again; Donghae and Hyukjae vowed much the same, but still ended up drinking their smuggled supplies at times. Heechul was never thanked for this discovery.
"How have things been?" Shiwon asked politely, all the while wondering what Heechul was up to, or could get up to. Smoothly, he groped about under his console, until he found the button that would silently alert Donghae in the captain's quarters to get here. Heechul was a friend - possibly - but no one trusted him.
"Business has been terrible," Heechul bemoaned, his pretty face falling into a frown. "Trade has been down, and if trade is down so is smuggling. With a lack of trade, there's hardly anything to steal!"
"What a shame for you. Maybe you should go respectable?"
Heechul laughed. "Oh, Shiwon, but being respectable would be so boring. You have to follow the rules." He laughed again, shaking his head, before adding, "You know, you should really have taken up my job offer. It's still open, if you're interested now."
A couple of years ago Heechul had in fact offered Shiwon a job aboard his ship, but it hadn't been the pilots position. Shiwon shuddered just to remember that incident, even now, and quite firmly shook his head. "Thanks, but I'm fine right where I am."
"Pity," Heechul said, shrugging. "You can always change your mind, though."
It was then that Donghae, with Hyukjae not very far behind, came into the cockpit, and a look of surprise crossed his face at the sight of Heechul on the viewscreen. Hyukjae just looked wary, as he slipped over to his computers.
"Oh, hello, Heechul."
"Donghae, good to see you. What brings you to this fine area of the galaxy?"
Although he may not have looked it, Donghae was already alert and on his guard now that he saw it was Heechul. After their run ins over the years, Donghae had learnt that lesson the hard way, especially after the time Heechul had boarded their ship, put on a show of great friendship, and then stolen their cargo of smuggled xinktacks; that had lost Donghae the small fortune he would have made from them, enough even to maybe gamble for a new ship.
"Just having a look down on Kervo Six, checking out the market, you know. What about yourself?"
"Following up on a few hints. Hey, that trick you pulled last time, out by the Jix system, that was clever." Although Heechul sounded genial and friendly, Donghae could see that that little trick still stung. "Do you always keep fake stargems, in case you get boarded by pirates?"
Donghae didn't even try to hide the grin from his face. "Oh no, Heechul," he said, shaking his head. "Those were just for you, I figured I'd run into you again at some point, and play a little trick of my own. It worked, I take it?"
"Oh it worked, all right. And cost me a bomb, for that."
Donghae's grin widened, "Well, that was for the xinktacks, you know."
Waving a hand dismissively, Heechul said, "Anyway, as lovely as talk of old times is, that's not why I'm here. I still need to earn a living, you know, it's not always easy being a pirate and a scoundrel. As you'll all be quite used to this by now, just sit tight and prepare to be boarded, I'm coming to check out what treasures you may have in your cargo hold. And," he added, his own smile widening now, "what fortunes you have hidden in that ugly ship of yours. See you soon!" His face vanished and the viewscreen went black as communications disconnected.
Quickly, Donghae turned to Hyukjae, mind already racing. "Hyukjae, how quickly can you calculate and plot a lightspeed route? One that Heechul couldn't track?"
Hyukjae thought about it a moment. "The best thing to do is probably a lot of mini lightspeed jumps, set up at random, all around the place. No one should be able to track that."
"Okay, whatever, stop being a nerd and just tell me how long it'll take?"
"A minute, minute and a half, I think."
Donghae nodded, "Good, be quick, we have a minimum of two minutes before Heechul can begin boarding."
Without another word, Hyukjae turned to his navcomputer and began his work.
They were all used to Heechul's boarding trips by now - he was captain of a pirate ship, after all - but this was one time when Donghae really didn't need Heechul aboard his ship. They weren't carrying any cargo, not anything worthwhile, and they currently weren't smuggling anything either, but Heechul always ran a thorough check and there was the chance of him coming across the map, either the data map, or the flimsy map Hyukjae still had somewhere. He might even come across the navigational routes, plotted into Hyukjae's computer, ready to be followed. And Heechul finding the treasure was the last thing that Donghae wanted.
And besides that, it was always fun if they could manage to outsmart and trick Heechul.
"Shiwon," Donghae said, turning to the pilot, "be prepared, as soon as those routes are on your computer screen, get us there."
"Of course."
A few moments later, Hyukjae's fingers moved almost at lightspeed seemingly, and then he gave a triumphant, "There! Ready!"
Donghae had seconds to strap himself into his seat, shouting "Go!" at Shiwon, even as his fingers fumbled with the safety belt. A few clicks later, and there was the familiar surge that always came when a ship jumped into lightspeed. There were a lot of little surges, actually, the mini jumps Hyukjae had mentioned.
"Is it working?" Donghae questioned, looking unconvinced, as they continuously jumped through the absolute blackness of lightspeed travel.
"I'm pretty sure it is," Hyukjae answered. "I told the computer to come up with completely randomised routes, and to take us through them in a lot of small jumps, all over the place. It's too random, and too many jumps, for anyone to be able to track us all the way through them."
Shiwon turned to look at Hyukjae, an expression of surprise on his face. "That's really quite intelligent of you, Hyuk."
Hyukjae grinned. "Thanks! It took awhile for me to work out enough to create a program for it, but it's pretty good now."
Entirely unaware of the moment of genius sitting across from him, Donghae said, with a sigh of disappointment, "I wish I could see Heechul's face right now. He must be going red."
Almost too seriously, Shiwon said, "I can take you back there, if you like."
Donghae sighed again. "No, it's fine. I suppose I'll see it, whenever we next run into him. We always do, at some point."
For a group of mostly-traders and sometimes-smugglers, life aboard the ship had become a little, in Donghae's opinion, boring. Hyukjae was busy doing what navigators did best, which was navigate, and Shiwon was wrapped up in his own duties of flying them through Hyukjae's navigation routes. Even Kibum was similarly occupied with his own occupation, which resulted in the robot spending an almost alarmingly large amount of time in the engine room and hooked into the computers, ensuring that no problems arose whilst they were in inter-space flight mode.
But with his (rather blunt, and ugly) ship moving steadily through space at normal speed for the time being, and with nothing else of interest happening, it meant that Donghae was the only one with nothing to fill his occupation; that being, he had nothing to captain.
So for the past two standard weeks he had taken to extremes when it came to his duty as captain, involving himself and his opinion in the very smallest of decisions. Such as when Hyukjae programmed the next navigation route through the small star system they were currently flying through, when usually Hyukjae would inform of his routes being complete, Shiwon would simply plug them in and fly the course, with no need to ask for the captain's permission. Donghae was insisting that the decision be run through him, first, before any courses were followed, just so that he could issue a command.
He was also going to great pains to assign kitchen duty, even to go so far as to implement rations. Just in case they found themselves in trouble, he said, as it was his job as captain to think ahead to such unfortunate but possible events occurring. And just because he was captain, and he could, Donghae was taking a certain enjoyment out of making Hyukjae do the ships cooking most of the time, even if it was usually asked of Kibum to do it.
And when Shiwon had decided he would go to bed, just the other night, Donghae had vetoed the decision, until Shiwon asked him properly, the title of 'captain' properly used, before allowing him to go to his quarters.
So it shouldn't have come as much as a surprise one (possibly afternoon, but it was hard to tell in space) day when Hyukjae sought out Donghae, lounging in his own quarters, to have a word with him.
It went something like this:
"What at stars end are you playing at, Donghae?"
"That's 'captain', if you please," Donghae replied, ignoring Hyukjae in favour of studying the lines on the palm of his hand; on one of the planets they had once visited, a small, jungle like world, the native humanoid species lived their lives according to what those lines dictated for them. A strange kind of religion, but one of the species leaders had ensured Donghae that that rather long, thick line across his palm showed that he was a man of great virility, and would never lack in lovers. It didn't matter to Donghae that he hadn't had anyone quite like that in a long while, since Shiwon joined his crew, in fact. Local ladies on the planets they stopped off at always seemed to favour him, oddly.
There was a noise of frustration, as if Hyukjae couldn't quite get this feeling properly across in words and some sound just had to free itself from his mouth. "This is ridiculous, we can't run a ship like this! There's only three of us, four if you count Kibum, and we've all been working together for years. It's not as if we need to ask the captain for permission."
Donghae looked up from his hand then, annoyance creeping into his face. "This is my ship, you're my crew, and I am the captain! I'll captain you if I want to!"
One eyebrow raised incredulously, Hyukjae took a step forward. "You'll 'captain' us?" He asked. "Who found us the map in the first place? Who worked out the routes? And who got us away from Heechul so that he didn't end up stealing the treasure right from under us?"
This, as was the intended effect, managed to deflate Donghae somewhat, mostly because it was all true. And he couldn't think of a very good comeback. That was more Kibum's department, even if he was a robot and devoid of a personality he always seemed very good at delivering a scathing response.
"I'm still the captain," Donghae said instead, rather petulantly.
Hyukjae threw his arms up in defeat, shaking his head. "Fine, just stop making me cook, all right?"
The loud, shrill sound of the ship's klaxons went off then, startling the two for a moment, before their deeply inbred spaceflight training kicked in, and without another word both were out of Donghae's quarters and running through the ships corridors until they reached the cockpit.
"Something's come up," Shiwon said, rather grimly, turning only briefly to eye the both of them, before turning his attention back to the viewport in front of him.
Hyukjae slid into his seat, fingers already flying across his console, calling up images. Donghae dropped himself into his own seat, beside Shiwon's, an expression of growing horror on his face as he stared out at the viewport.
They were making their way at normal speed across a small star system; it was easier to travel through systems at normal speed, as doing so at lightspeed wasn't always guaranteed to get a ship through planetary orbits safely. Now, Donghae could see for himself why this was. The ship was some way distant from the nearest planet, a small ball of rock, its deep green atmosphere hiding the lay of the land beneath its protective shell. And some way away from that, directly in front of them, was an asteroid field.
"This wasn't listed on your map!" Donghae accused, glaring over at Hyukjae. "Did you get us lost along the way?"
It was Shiwon who answered for him. "That map is ancient, and we never checked a more recent one of this system. Obviously this asteroid field developed over those millennia from then until now. I should note, there's no chance of getting through this at lightspeed, not without possibly crashing into one of those and blowing ourselves up."
"Well, just turn around and we'll fly around it then."
"Too late, we're too close. And at this speed, the gravity of that planet over there is pulling us in. Our only option now is to fly through it, until we can get clear enough to make the jump to lightspeed."
Shiwon's expression was as grim as his voice, and Donghae blanched at the idea of this. This asteroid belt looked worryingly erratic, with some of the chunks of rock just crashing into each other, breaking each other down into smaller pieces that would then fly out, and crash into another rock. They'd had dangerous trips before, of that there was no doubt, but nothing quite like this. None of them had ever wanted to brave a run through an asteroid field, not in this ship.
Donghae looked at Shiwon. "Can you fly us through this?" There was no point wasting time, if this was their only option.
Shiwon shrugged, and answered, worryingly honest, "I'm not sure. But I'll try my best."
"Oh, that's a relief, as long as he tries his best," Hyukjae could be heard to mutter from his seat. Shiwon shot him a look, before turning back to his flight controls.
"I'll get us through this," he said, bolstered, and bluffing no doubt. But he looked a little more confident.
"Good. Hyukjae, you can't route us through this, so go down to the engineering bay with Kibum and keep an eye on what happens down there. Fix anything that goes wrong."
With a brief nod, Hyukjae was gone from the cockpit, and making his way along to the maintenance and engineering bay. Donghae, meanwhile, pushed himself from his seat.
"Where are you going?" Shiwon asked.
"Someone's going to have to blast apart those rocks, if you can't worm our way through them." Donghae flashed a grin at Shiwon, before vanishing too. He made his way quickly from the cockpit access hall, along the main corridor, until reaching the ladder that would lead him down into the small hatch where the ship's lasers could be accessed. Strapping himself in Donghae then switched on the computers, firing up the lasers, flexing his fingers over the controls to familiarise himself with them again; it had been quite awhile since he'd had the chance to shoot at something.
With all their inter-ship comms switched on, Donghae sent out a call to both his shipmates. "How goes it?"
"All set down here," came Hyukjae's voice, "I've got Kibum all plugged in to the ship's computers here, ready if something happens."
Shiwon's voice came through then, "All set here. We're coming up to the beginning of the belt, things are about to get a little bit bumpy," he warned, sounding a little more grim than Donghae would have liked, "so fasten your seatbelts, everyone."
The ship seemed to swoon, then, and Donghae knew it was because Shiwon was turning her right onto her side, and he could see out through his viewport that this was the case, as his view seemed to swoop over onto its side with them. And then the bumps began, the ship rocking and bouncing as Shiwon swooped and dived through and around and under the floating lumps of rock. Luckily, the ship was only a small freighter, and as ugly as she was, she was small enough to, hopefully, make it through the asteroids in mostly one piece.
Shiwon seemed to be doing a good job, no major damage so far, as Hyukjae periodically reported, but the further into the belt they flew the more asteroids there were floating around them; small pieces, large pieces, rocks of all sizes floating around in erratic, haphazard orbits, crashing into others, pushing those out of their orbit and into another, wildly unpredictable.
It was now that Donghae had to begin to help Shiwon out. As excellent a pilot as he was, and so far avoiding any collisions with his quick swinging and diving, there were just too many asteroids to avoid entirely. His fingers tightening on his control stick, Donghae pulled the view piece down over his eyes and his vision changed entirely now to only that of targets to be hit. Pulling hard on the control stick, he pressed the button that would fire the twin ultra lasers affixed to his ship. Two bolts of blue plasma fired, blowing up a looming asteroid, creating a space for Shiwon to fly the ship through relatively safely.
Several more times Donghae had to pull on the controls and fire plasma bolts at asteroids that were just too close to avoid, delivering them through a tricky spot. But it was a particularly big asteroid he'd just fired on, and it didn't break down into tiny pieces of rock and fine asteroid dust, like the smaller lumps of rock had, and one particularly large lump came flying in their direction. There was a shock, as the ship rocked, and a moment later Hyukjae's voice came hurriedly through the communicator.
"Damage on the port side, a pretty big hit to the main cargo hold. We'll have a beautiful dent, but no further damage done."
"Good," Donghae answered.
"Oh, and nice shot, Captain."
Hyukjae's sarcasm was not at all lost on Donghae.
There was another round then, as the ship flipped itself right over onto its back, to avoid an incoming asteroid and Donghae had barely seconds to react to the rock he could see looming on their port side, about to collide right into them. With a jerk of his thumb, two plasma bolts quickly sorted that dilemma out, reducing the rock into fine particles of dust, now floating through space almost like space-snow. Another swoop, and an almost sickening swing to his stomach along with it, and the ship was righted once again.
Before any of them could see it, Donghae to shoot, or Shiwon to avoid it, a rock crashed right into the side of the ship, coming out of nowhere seemingly.
"Hyukjae, what happened?" Donghae demanded, even as the ship continued to rock and sway with the repercussions.
"It's just crashed into the engines," Hyukjae's panicked voice filtered through, a bit tinny with the ships communicator. "Kibum's trying to override and bring up the emergency engines, to at least get us through the asteroids, but our space flight is severely limited. We'll have to land somewhere civilised as soon as possible and repair the damage."
"If we make it out," Donghae added grimly.
Ahead of him and through his viewpiece Donghae could see that his targets were beginning to come to an end, and that the asteroids were finally thinning out. They were almost out of the belt, and after a few more swoops, dives and rolls, and several more shots from the lasers, they found themselves safely out from the rocky field, and out once again in, relatively clear, open space.
Shutting down the laser systems and removing his headpiece, Donghae lurched his way up the ladder, feeling a bit sick to his stomach with all that rolling, and almost stumbled back into the cockpit, where Shiwon genuinely looked rather worse for wear.
"Hyukjae, how's it going?" Donghae asked, through the comm.
"It's pretty bad down here. I'll leave Kibum to handle it for now, I have to come back up and find us a safe place to land. And close by."
All but falling into his seat, Donghae looked over at Shiwon. "Good flying, there."
Lips tight, Shiwon shook his head. "Not good enough, we still received damage."
Quite seriously, Donghae leaned in, one hand going to Shiwon's shoulder, his grip brief, but tight. "Without that flying, Shiwon, we'd have been obliterated into tiny pieces, and left out there with those asteroids." A sobering thought, that field of dead rocks, their graveyard and final resting place.
Shiwon turned to glance at Donghae, and, just briefly, offered him a tiny smile. "Well, it's good we're not dead, I guess."
"I guess," Donghae agreed. The relief of having not died, and having made it through, was enough to keep the adrenaline from the experience pulsing through his body, leaving him a little bit breathless, and quite a bit light headed. They'd made it through! Another accolade to add to their list, he thought.
The door of the cockpit slid open then, and Hyukjae came over to his computers, drawing up maps and images of their immediate vicinity - recent maps. After a few moments of searching and running the information on all their nearby planets, searching for ones he was familiar with, or failing those ones with intelligent life, advanced technology, and spaceports primed for spaceship repairs, he brought up the image of one planet for all to see.
"Styko," he told them, the planet sounding vaguely familiar to all of them. "Its system is pretty far out from the core of the galaxy, so it's kinda politically turbulent, but we're not going their to bring them news of the glorious government, are we?" He almost grinned, then, at his crew mates; it wasn't unusual to any of them to land on those planets faraway from the core, of the galaxy and of the universal government, which proclaimed to govern all the civilised planets. But those systems nearer the edge of the so-far explored universe were under only a tenuous hold from the universal government, and their spaceports and towns were just the places for smugglers, bounty hunters, pirates, and all the low-life vagabonds of the galaxy to conduct their less than legal business.
"What a relief," Donghae sighed, "We'll finally get a chance to have some fun, and some good conversations. Rogues are always more interesting than the respectable types."
Shiwon looked between them, quite unable to understand, as he wasn't particularly fond of the seedier ports and planets they had visited. But with Hyukjae plugging in the navigation route and Donghae grinning in anticipation, and as it was the nearest planet for them to get their repairs, Shiwon only sighed quietly to himself and followed the route down to the planet, beginning the landing process that would soon have them docked in one of the seediest space ports he was sure he would ever see.
Of course, the three man (and one robot) crew of the good spaceship Sapphire were not disrespectable, or disreputable, and officially (and legally) their jobs involved small time trading and private cargo carrying. There was nothing at all illegal, or shady, to tarnish their official reputation. That wasn't to say that they didn't sometimes dabble in the somewhat disreputable side of galactic business. During dry patches, who could blame them whenever Shiwon got a good tip off; they just had to have a run with good quality parsh spice, or traipse across the galaxy and sell off all the finest Blackhole Blackout they could get their hands on. Smuggling was only a part-time business, for them. And, as Donghae often liked to declare, Exploration and Adventure were their real full time jobs.
So whilst they hadn't searched out the nearest tavern from the spaceport necessarily for business ventures, as they usually would, no one was going to say no if someone decided to offer them a good tip. Unusually, the tips more often than not went to Shiwon who wasn't the keenest of the three of them on their shadier business dealings, but he had such an air of trustworthiness about him that tended to make people come up and offer him advice and market tips, for cheap.
"You have the face for smuggling," Donghae often told him, with a teasing grin.
The first tavern they came across was called Styko Central, rather to the point, but a place where they should be able to find themselves a good repairman or two, and inexpensively. Their last business dealing just before they had found the treasure map had resulted in quite a nice amount of galactic certs, until Donghae had found out that Hyukjae had spent quite a bit of them buying the map in the first place. As much as Donghae had wanted to stuff Hyukjae into a box deep in the cargo-hold and leave him there, he'd been talked out of this desire by Shiwon, who pointed out that the treasure map really was quite valuable, and if it ended in them finding any actual treasure, they should end up tripling just what Hyukjae had spent alone. Often the voice of reason, Donghae had felt compelled to listen to Shiwon; besides that, he didn't really like the idea of searching for a new navigator.
The tavern looked like any other tavern, in any other spaceport this side of the galaxy. Old, rather run down and dirty, and as if it were a den of criminal activity. It also looked like the place to get a good, strong drink, and maybe play a few hands of kkliiujkd; Hyukjae was known to be exceptionally good at it, and if they were lucky he could gamble quite a portion of their funds back for them.
"Let's split up," Donghae advised, looking between them all. "I'll take Kibum with me and go look for someone to fix the ship. Hyukjae, you know what to do." With a brief nod, Hyukjae went through first into the tavern, not to look as if they had all come together. Turning his attention back to Shiwon, Donghae added, "And you, go make friendly, have some drinks, see if you can get any information out of anyone, or at least any tips for this years trade run."
Shiwon, looking less than pleased with that - he'd been brought up so well, after all - nodded also, and went through the slide door and inside.
Donghae was left with Kibum. "Well, let's see what we can find. Play down the damage, so we can get the best price possible."
"All right," Kibum answered, in his monotone robotic voice, and they too shuffled inside the tavern. It was a vast change from the planet's surface, which had been bright with the light from its nearby sun, but chilly, not enough so for snow or ice but enough to be uncomfortable in. Inside, however, it was warm, and terribly dim. "There's always something about taverns," Donghae said, in a quiet aside to Kibum, "as if criminal business can't be conducted in the light."
Kibum, equally quiet, answered dryly, "I suspect it's so that the criminals faces are less obvious in the dim light and between all the shadows."
Donghae scowled at Kibum. "Why do you always ruin my fun?"
Kibum shrugged, a very human gesture, one that he'd probably learnt from Hyukjae, who tended to shrug more than Donghae liked. "Perhaps it's in my programming."
The lighting was terribly dim, as it always was in places such as this and there were a fair amount of people already inside, either seated at the more private booths, cut out of the walls around the building, or lined up along the bar which cut in a long U shape across the width of the room. Small groups of people whispering in the shadowed booths, or pairs of seeming friends talking at the bar. All kinds of spacers, humans, humanoids and aliens, doing and talking about all kinds of things.
With a surreptitious look around the room Donghae soon located Shiwon, who was perched near one end of the bar sipping at some dark concoction that probably wouldn't agree with him the next day, and already engaged in a casual conversation with an alien. Turning his attention, Donghae saw an archway that probably lead through into the gambling den of the tavern, where the kkliiujkd tables and spinxx stands would be located, and Hyukjae would be through there, hopefully winning them some certs.
With his shipmates sorted Donghae made his way over to the bar with Kibum, sliding into a vacant space between two spacers and ordered himself a good, strong drink. Not as good as Blackhole Blackout, or as strong, but just as illegal, and almost as enjoyable. He took a grateful drink, before turning to Kibum. "Go have a look around for a repairman. Get talking to a couple of the patrons, see if you can dig out someone good, and cheap."
With barely the briefest of nods, Kibum was off, working his way through the patrons; he knew what he was doing, and Donghae could trust he'd come up with something. So he turned back to his drink, simply enjoying that for a moment.
"Hey, you're from off-world, aren't you?"
The sudden voice came as a surprise to Donghae, and he almost jumped, turning to find himself looking up into a pair of large, dark, compound eyes, staring back unblinkingly at him. The alien had sidled up to him too quietly for Donghae to have noticed, but he quickly regained his composure, offering a slight smile.
"Yeah, I am. Just arrived a few standard hours ago, actually."
"How exciting. Where did you fly in from?"
She - because as Donghae looked at her it was obvious she was female - spoke in Universal, the most common language throughout the galaxy, although her accent was a little thick. Discreetly looking her over Donghae could see instantly that she was a Ctlkt, a humanoid species that differed in humans mostly from the large, compound eyes that took up most of their face, the extra finger on each hand, the long, long legs they were known for, and the pleasant shades of pink that their skin was. This particular Ctlkt was showing off the more human of her assets, he noted, with her rather tight-fit, almost skimpy, outfit; Donghae had a feeling that he probably knew where this encounter was trying to lead itself to. Usually, this happened to Shiwon.
"You may not have heard of it," Donghae answered, an easy smile lingering on his cheerful face, "it's a little planet called Eerone." This was a joke, albeit not a particularly good one, as most everyone within the galaxy was aware that Eerone was both the centre, and the capital. It was the political home of the Government, and almost all the trade routes ran through it, or near it.
This Ctlkt obviously knew this too, as she indulged Donghae's joke with a smile.
"That's a very long way away. What brings you all the way out to the rim of the galaxy?" Lightly, but without shyness, she rested her long fingered hand against Donghae's arm. Oh, dear, when was Kibum going to come back?
"Exploration and adventure," Donghae answered with a shrug, effectively removing the hand from his arm in the process. He took a sip of his drink, "You know, all those things we spacers dream of."
The woman moved in closer now, lowering her face to be more on a level with Donghae's, and her accented words came to him in a breathy whisper. "I can show you adventure, if you're interested."
There was no way to pretend to ignore this now and Donghae couldn't help the red that began to fill his cheeks; not very roguish, he thought, to blush. "Ah, thank you, but, this is enough adventure for me to tonight," he said, holding up his drink for emphasis.
"Oh, well, someone else's gain, I suppose," she said, completely indifferent now that Donghae wasn't interested, and without another word her long, slim form slipped away into the crowd of customers. Donghae let out a low sigh of relief.
Before he could get too bored on his own, Kibum sidled up beside him, and looking around Donghae saw that the robot had someone in tow alongside him. Probably a repairman, but he looked a little bit young, Donghae thought, taking a closer look. He certainly looked younger than Donghae, and that image wasn't helped at all by the full, round cheeks he possessed, making him look like some cute teenager. Was this really the best Kibum could do?
"This is Henry," Kibum said, introducing him. "He tells me that he can fix the damage, and quite quickly. I have checked, and he is a certified engineer, even if he does look very young for human standards."
"Nice to meet you, Henry," Donghae said, leaning in a little. "I'm Donghae, captain of the ship. Kibum told you of the damage?" Even after another look, the boy still seemed young to Donghae, with his brown hair just falling across his eyes. That closer look revealed something else to Donghae, that despite his human appearance Henry actually was not. There was a distinct, pale blueness to his skin, meaning that he was a Ytun; the same in every way to a human, apart from the blue sheen of their skin. It was told, in both ancient human and Ytun legend, that Ytuns were the humans that left the home planet in times of trouble, in search of a new place to live, and the planet they eventually found themselves on, Yrinn, whilst similar to the home planet, and containing everything necessary for humans to survive and flourish there, had a heavy concentration of a gas in the atmosphere that eventually, over centuries upon centuries, had the effect of turning the skin blue.
Donghae hadn't met many Ytun before, and thought that it might be interesting later to ask Henry, if there were a chance, of how he'd been told the story of origin. But for now, he had a ship in need of repairs.
"I've been briefed on what the damage is," Henry confirmed with a nod.
"Good! If you don't mind, as I'm on quite a tight schedule, would you come and have a look right now?" Donghae began to lead Henry out of the tavern, Kibum following behind. He paused, just briefly by the door, searched out Shiwon with his eyes, and when his pilot had caught sight of him in return, Donghae gave him a slow wink, a pre-arranged signal between them, it meant: Got what we needed, check on Hyukjae and get back soon. There was the briefest of nods in return, and Shiwon was continuing his conversation with a seemingly lovely example of the Ghyunt species (not only were they green, but they possessed four arms, and females had a rather long, and rather dangerous, tail).
It was a breath of fresh air once they were out of the dingy tavern, as Donghae led Henry back to the nearby spaceport and his damaged ship.
"But, I haven't yet been told what caused the damage," Henry enquired, a curious look on his face.
Donghae, sharing a brief look with Kibum, shrugged his shoulders, and said as casually and as carelessly as he could, "Oh, just an asteroid collision..."
The door to the engineering bay slid open almost silently, admitting Donghae through the passageway. It was a little dim down here, he noted, but that was probably because of the damage done to the system, no doubt Henry would be able to sort out the issue of the power, as well as actually fix their engines.
"How's it going?" He asked, finding Henry, or at least the back end of Henry, as the rest of him was leaning forward inside one of the engine panels beneath the flooring.
There were a few mechanical noises, the hiss of a sparking wire, and another metallic bang, before Henry slid out from the panel, wiping his forehead with the back of one dirty hand, before looking up at Donghae. "It's getting there. That asteroid did quite a lot of damage to the engines, you're lucky you even managed to land at all!"
That was quite a frightening thought. "Well, we're used to a little danger," Donghae said, faking the bravado. "How much longer do you think it'll take you?"
Henry frowned in thought for a moment, mentally calculating, before offering an answer. "At least another standard hour, I expect. Maybe less."
"Great! Well, the intercom is still working, so if you need to get hold of me just call through that."
"All right." With that, Henry once again submerged himself within the engine panel and the clanking and hissing of mechanical work started up. For someone as seemingly young Donghae was impressed with his mechanical ability, and his speed at it. He wondered if maybe Henry could be persuaded to join the crew; Hyukjae was all right, and Kibum could be useful, but they lacked a really good engineer for things like this.
The door slid open again as Donghae left, and he made his way around the ship and back to the cockpit, the main hub of the ship, to both keep an eye on the ship's state, and to access the communications if need be.
It wasn't much later when the alert came up on one of the screens that the boarding ramp was being lowered, and that someone was coming aboard. A moment later a breathless Shiwon all but fell into the cockpit, his eyes wide and his face red, and a look of utter panic crossed his face.
"Quick, must get the ship ready for take off," he wheezed, between gasping breaths. "Hyukjae's been caught out. A gang of angry Ewuerts are after him." Another pause for breath, and Donghae couldn't take his eyes off Shiwon, the panic growing in him too. Ewuerts were known to be a temperamental, and unforgiving, species. And they were known to absolutely loathe cheating. "They're trying to blast him to pieces! Not even stun. We have to leave, quickly."
Donghae was still just sat there, eyes wide at this news.
"Quickly!" Shiwon prompted, his anger being numbed by his lack of breath, but it was enough to get Donghae moving, and he turned to the controls.
"But the engines aren't even fixed yet!" He gasped, fingers flying across the controls, bringing up statistics and information, searching for the engine capability read-out for take off right now. To his dismay, it was only a little over sixty percent.
"It'll have to do, they'll blast us all to atoms otherwise!" Shiwon slid into his own seat, strapping himself in. He'd regained enough of his breath back to put a comm call out to Kibum, demanding that the robot plug himself in and coax the engines into behaving long enough at least for take off.
"How far away was Hyukjae?" Donghae asked, his attention still fully on the controls. They'd had to do things similar to this before, sudden take off whilst waiting for one of them to make it back, so he knew it could be done, but it was tricky, especially with the timing, and made harder still this time because of the engines. He had to turn on the repulsors - the engines used in atmosphere - just before Hyukjae reached them, and fire them up as soon as he was on the boarding ramp, waiting only until the ramp was closed and sealed, before blasting into space flight.
"He should be about a minute behind, now." Shiwon was loading all the information necessary; they wouldn't be going very far, and they wouldn't be able to jump into lightspeed yet thanks to the engines, but they should be safe enough hanging in space, just beyond the planet's orbit.
A few seconds of adrenaline filled racing hearts, and sounds could be heard beyond the ship, the distinct fizz of plasma bolts being fired, and hitting walls and other objects. Then a load of voices, shouts, threats, and more blasting. Donghae switched on the repulsors, hovering just barely off of the ground, and a moment later the crash of boots against the metal boarding ramp could be heard, and then Hyukjae's voice, shouting down through the corridors, "Go, go go!"
Gripping the controls tightly, Shiwon pulled back the control yoke, and they were up, lifting quickly out of the spaceport and into the sky. The sounds of bolts hitting the ship could be heard, a dying fizz as they were met with the deflector shield, hastily thrown up as soon as the boarding ramp had been closed and sealed.
There was a moment of hesitation, Shiwon and Donghae sharing a look that clearly wondered if they were going to make it out of this alive.
And then Donghae said, "Just go you idiot, get us off of this rock!" Breaking the moment, and forcing Shiwon to switch to the space flight engines, only now at not quite seventy percent capability. There was the usual rush that came when a ship blasted out of an atmosphere and into the depths of space, and moments later, to their relief, they found themselves alive, alive and hanging their, quite safely, in space.
Donghae let out a triumphant whoop! and Shiwon reached out and grabbed him in an embrace, caught up in the excitement of making it out of a dangerous situation and still being alive. Moments later, Hyukjae came into the cockpit, still gasping and looking a little the worse for wear, but alive and uninjured.
It wasn't until the intercom crackled to life, and a small, confused voice came at them through the wires. "Um, Donghae, what just happened?"
Donghae's eyes widened in sudden realisation.
"Oh, blast," he cursed. "Henry's still on board."
-
part two >
Fandom and OT3: Super Junior; Shiwon/Eunhyuk/Donghae
Rating: PG
Word Count: 18,466
Summary: The three man (and one robot) crew of the spaceship Sapphire favour adventure and exploration above all things - unless there's some money to be made in the process. So when an ancient myth falls into their hands the possibility of it being real, and making a fortune, is too great to resist. And there begins their adventure through the galaxy, or a wild fowlbat chase between the stars.
Warnings: None
Notes: Space!AU, and my entry for troisbang. This fic is for puppycadet, wherever you are ♥
There was a sigh, as if all the planets in the galaxy had fallen squarely upon his shoulders. Donghae looked over towards the clock. He seemed to almost bounce in his chair for a moment before bursting out, "He's taking an age! I bet he's gotten himself into some kind of trouble again. Shouldn't we send Kibum out to go find him? Hyukjae always does this, I swear."
Shiwon, who the little tirade was aimed at, glanced up from the filepad he was reading. Calmly, he responded, "He'll be fine, he knows what he's doing. He's probably getting some extra supplies, or something." He glanced at the clock himself, just for reference; Hyukjae was taking a little longer than expected, but nothing to worry about, Shiwon was sure. "It's hardly necessary to send out Kibum," he added, "let's not bother him."
"Can a robot be bothered?" Donghae wondered, frowning, and this idea seemed to puzzle him into quiet for the next five galaxy standard minutes. He was soon back to bouncing his leg and tapping his fingers rhythmlessly against the control desk in front of him. Eventually, Donghae opened his mouth to say something more, when a sound from beneath made him pause.
It was the unmistakable sound of Hyukjae coming back aboard ship, and in only a few moments he had made his way into the cockpit, where his two crew mates were sitting in wait for him.
Before Donghae could begin his tirade Hyukjae was already talking, fast and excitedly, eyes bright and his smile wide, waving something in their faces. "Sorry I took so long but look you'll never guess what I found, I bought it down in Bad Market!"
Shiwon reached out and took the flimsy-paper from Hyukjae, looking over it curiously.
Donghae was less calm about things. "Bad Market? What were you doing there? You can't trust anything from there!"
"More so than from the scammers in Goodside Market. Anyway, this is amazing, the chance of our lifetime! Just look at it."
Without a word, Donghae turned and snatched the flimsy from Shiwon's hands, his frown only deepening further the longer he looked. "What is this, a map? These planets don't even exist! What is this for?"
"It's a map to the lost treasure of Zared-Xxorlyn," Hyukjae said, rather proudly, and pulled the map carefully from Donghae's twisting fingers. "And it's one hundred percent real, I can guarantee you. I bought it from a good source."
Donghae scoffed. "A good source? There's no such thing on this planet."
Hyukjae moved over to his own seat, which was by the navigation console. It took up the whole wall, perpendicular to the control desk, and the window where both the captain and the co-pilot sat. He didn't look at Donghae as he responded, "I can always find a good source. Trust me, this is real, and," now, he did turn to look at Donghae, a grin beginning to form, "if this treasure does exist, don't you want to see it?"
The anger had seemed to dissipate slowly from Donghae as he considered the possibilities, though there was still a frown on his face. "Well of course, who wouldn't? But the treasure is mythical, and that map can't be real, none of those routes exist."
Here, Shiwon finally put in a word, having waited for the mood to diffuse somewhat first. "The legends of Zared-Xxorlyn's treasure are at least a millennia old. Maybe the names of the routes and planets have changed since this. Or were changed, to make it harder to find." He looked, rather pointedly, over at Donghae, "Treasure hunting isn't supposed to be a piece of fizz-cake, after all, or every smuggler and trader would have found it by now."
"Exactly!" Hyukjae was huddled over his console, carefully scanning the flimsy-paper map with a datareader. "That already occurred to me too, so I'm going to scan the map and upload its information into the navigation maps and see if I can find any matching locations."
Neither of these had occurred to Donghae, and he scowled. "That would still be too easy, anyone else could think of that, too."
"Yeah, but it's a starting point."
"All right, play around with your maps, if you want. But I'm tired of being docked and planet-bound, so if no one minds, can we get off this rock now?"
"Sure, if you like," Hyukjae answered, far too much like he was granting permission. He was only the ships navigator, not the captain, and this further irritated Donghae.
So, going through the warm up and preparation for flight as quickly as he could, it was almost unexpected when their ship made the leap out of the docking port, quickly up through the atmosphere, and out into space. Hyukjae hadn't even finished scanning the map, and Shiwon hadn't been able to follow the proper space-flight procedure. Quickly, he switched the last few buttons, hoping Donghae's rashness wouldn't have burned out any of the engines, as leaping into space too quickly could sometimes do.
After a quick look through the engineering systems on his computer, and a brief consult with Kibum, the state of the engines was confirmed fine, and all was ship-shape for inter-space flight.
With this settled, Shiwon turned in his chair to look between Donghae and Hyukjae. "So, about this treasure," he said.
"Kibum," Donghae started, looking over at the robot curiously, "can you be bothered?"
Kibum, (his name was actually KB37105, according to both batch number, and robotic type, but Donghae thought that was both too much of a mouthful, and too impersonal) had been their on-ship robot for a little over two galaxy standard years now. His job, in its official capacity, was to communicate with the ship itself and all her computers, and source out any issues that arose. He wasn't there to fix these problems, of course, he was an engineer-consultant robot, not an actual engineer and it would fall to Donghae, Shiwon or Hyukjae (whoever lost at swamp, planet, black hole) to fix the problems, but Kibum was there to find the problem and tell them how to solve it, which saved a lot of time.
In his unofficial capacity he was also the general help, at least to Donghae, and he was a better cook than Hyukjae. Of course Kibum never objected to being put to such uses, as he was a robot and felt no emotions he couldn't feel put out, or annoyed, or get angry at being asked to go out and buy them some food supplies. But sometimes, he did like to point out what his official capacity was and state that he was not programmed for such mundane activities. 'I am not a helpbot,' he would tell them sometimes. Donghae thought this was just an odd quirk in his personality programming, but Shiwon was inclined to believe that Kibum really did feel perhaps a robots sense of having been asked to do too much.
Quirks aside, they all agreed that they liked having the robot around, even if he was dry and robotic in manner, he was helpful. And a lot quicker at sourcing a problem than even Hyukjae, who couldn't plug himself in and talk to a computer and had to go the long, human, way about it.
"The Tionary term states that it means to annoy, pester, worry. It can also mean being in a perplexed state, or a thing or person that is troublesome, burdensome. As I do not feel emotions, Donghae, I cannot feel annoyed or worried by something."
"Oh, I see." Eyebrows creasing together, Donghae considered this new information. He was quite satisfied, and would be happy to go back to Shiwon and inform him that Kibum could not, in fact, be bothered, and therefore Donghae was not a bother to him.
Before he could turn and go tell of his triumph however, Kibum opened his mouth again and spoke, adding, "Although it can also mean to inconvenience, and whilst I cannot feel that emotionally, I can feel inconvenienced when you ask me to do something that isn't my job to do, when I can instead be doing something more worthwhile."
This put a great dampener on Donghae's triumph, and he quickly decided that Shiwon would never know of this conversation, or its outcome.
"Well, Kibum," he began loftily, " I am the captain of the ship and all its crew, including you, and whether it's part of your programming or not, it's your duty to do as I tell you. So there."
And as quickly as he could, Donghae ended the conversation before it could find its way into dangerous territory - he didn't want a robot mutiny on his hands! - and decided to go and bother Hyukjae instead.
"And so then I just plugged in the vector commands which broke the image down into little pieces and I-"
"Hold on a minute!" Donghae held his hands up, looking pained. "Can you please explain that in non-nerd terms? So that Shiwon and I can actually understand you?"
No one felt like telling Donghae that everyone but him could understand perfectly fine, so Hyukjae, looking only a little disappointed, began again.
"Like you said before, none of the locations and routes on the map are real, they don't fit any planet or galaxy patterns, either current or ancient ones. So something Shiwon had said came to mind, about the names maybe having been changed, to make the treasure harder to find."
All the while Hyukjae held in his hand a flimsy print out of the original map, gripping it excitedly as he explained his breakthrough.
Nodding, Donghae said, "Okay, but can you get to the point?"
This deflated Hyukjae somewhat, as it wasn't often he had the chance to come up with an honest breakthrough of genius, but he carried on regardless. "Basically, I scanned the map into my computers and built up a 3D image of it. Once I started looking at the planets from alternate views and angles, I found it!" Here he paused and help up the flimsy-paper map, as if the image of this gave any insight whatsoever. "This isn't made like a normal map, but once you can visualise how it would look if you were following it through space, and changed a few of the angles, it really does fit galaxy routes that still exist today!"
His excitement was barely contained, as he ended this in an oddly high-pitched voice, which had Shiwon wincing quietly in the corner.
"Oh, so, it's actually real?" Donghae asked slowly, considering.
Hyukjae nodded excitedly. "It is! The planet names aren't the same, which is to be expected, but I've found the route on the map, which is all we need!"
There were a few moments of silence as all in the cockpit considered this information. And then Donghae let out a shout, pumping his fist in the air, before going over to Hyukjae and giving him a firm smack on the back of the head.
"Why didn't you just tell us that in the first place? That's all we needed to know!"
There was revelry that night on board the ship, as Donghae and Hyukjae especially celebrated heavily on their supplies of Blackhole Blackout, some of the strongest alcohol known throughout the universe (and highly illegal in fifteen systems, with a punishment of death if caught selling on at least ten of those).
Needless to say, there were only two people capable of speaking a coherent sentence the next morning, let alone fly a spaceship, and one of those people was a robot.
And so began their search for the mythical treasure of Zared-Xxorlyn.
All was quiet, or as quiet as a spaceship could ever be, as Shiwon sat alone in the cockpit. Donghae had vanished to do some 'Captain duties', as he'd called it, although Shiwon was certain he'd just gone to his quarters to sleep, and Hyukjae was down in the engineering bay with Kibum, checking something over. It was left to Shiwon, as the pilot, to ensure the ship continued on its way. With their route loaded into the navcomputer it was an easy job. They were on their way to the first point on the map, and making good time. By the time Donghae resurfaced, Shiwon guessed that they would soon be at their destination.
Shiwon had been a part of their three-man crew for almost five standard years now. Fresh out of the academy and proudly displaying his spaceflight license, he had seen an advertisement on a databoard seeking a pilot for some work. He'd responded with interest, excited to so soon be able to use his new qualifications, and had turned up at the meeting point to find Donghae, Hyukjae, and a somewhat inelegant looking ship called Sapphire, seeking his skills.
No specific job had been mentioned, Donghae had managed to say so many words in such a short time and yet not mention what their purpose was, and Shiwon was so perplexed that he simply forgot to ask. It had seemed strange, and he had almost backed out (especially once he saw the name of the ship, not even pleasure cruisers had such unctuous names as Sapphire). But the opportunity to get to fly through space and see new places had lured Shiwon in. And Donghae and Hyukjae seemed nice enough, if not a little odd.
Five years later, after a copious amount of trade-work, and a dubious amount of smuggling, not to mention the countless jobs of carrying cargo and the several failed expeditions between them all, and they had, somehow, become the best of friends. Shiwon couldn't imagine working with anyone else, on any other ship. Even if Donghae refused to change the name (he said that he'd won it from some lottery and it had already come with a name, and it seemed rude to him to change it now).
It was for all those reasons that Shiwon was not at all surprised to be going on some crazy treasure hunt, and it was because of all those reasons that he too was excited about the possibilities. He couldn't deny that a little of his crew mates attitudes had rubbed off on him over the years, and the idea of possibly finding ancient, mythical treasure was a thrilling one, even if part of Shiwon thought it unlikely. If he had learned anything since his academy days it was to hold no expectations, especially if Donghae was one of your friends.
He was brought, quite sharply, out of his reverie by the sound of a ship trying to contact him through the open interspace communicator. Checking the screen, Shiwon saw that it wasn't a comm-number that he was familiar with, but a quick look through the viewport showed that the ship itself, hanging out there close by in space, was most definitely familiar.
Opening the comm line, the face that came up on the viewscreen a moment later was also one that Shiwon recognised. With an almost bored expression on the man's nearly too-pretty face, and the familiar shock of red hair atop this, Shiwon greeted him with a nod. "Heechul," he said.
The man, Heechul, seemed to peer at him for a moment, before recognition also set in. "Shiwon! It's been awhile, I'm surprised to find you're still piloting that ugly piece of junk."
Shiwon shrugged. Over the past few years they'd run into Heechul every now and then, enough so for them to be familiar with each other, and on first name terms. There was also that time when Heechul had taken them all out for a drink on a little known star system, and they had discovered Blackhole Blackout and the, uh, repercussions it could have, for the first time. Shiwon had felt hungover for at least a week, standard, and had vowed never to drink it again; Donghae and Hyukjae vowed much the same, but still ended up drinking their smuggled supplies at times. Heechul was never thanked for this discovery.
"How have things been?" Shiwon asked politely, all the while wondering what Heechul was up to, or could get up to. Smoothly, he groped about under his console, until he found the button that would silently alert Donghae in the captain's quarters to get here. Heechul was a friend - possibly - but no one trusted him.
"Business has been terrible," Heechul bemoaned, his pretty face falling into a frown. "Trade has been down, and if trade is down so is smuggling. With a lack of trade, there's hardly anything to steal!"
"What a shame for you. Maybe you should go respectable?"
Heechul laughed. "Oh, Shiwon, but being respectable would be so boring. You have to follow the rules." He laughed again, shaking his head, before adding, "You know, you should really have taken up my job offer. It's still open, if you're interested now."
A couple of years ago Heechul had in fact offered Shiwon a job aboard his ship, but it hadn't been the pilots position. Shiwon shuddered just to remember that incident, even now, and quite firmly shook his head. "Thanks, but I'm fine right where I am."
"Pity," Heechul said, shrugging. "You can always change your mind, though."
It was then that Donghae, with Hyukjae not very far behind, came into the cockpit, and a look of surprise crossed his face at the sight of Heechul on the viewscreen. Hyukjae just looked wary, as he slipped over to his computers.
"Oh, hello, Heechul."
"Donghae, good to see you. What brings you to this fine area of the galaxy?"
Although he may not have looked it, Donghae was already alert and on his guard now that he saw it was Heechul. After their run ins over the years, Donghae had learnt that lesson the hard way, especially after the time Heechul had boarded their ship, put on a show of great friendship, and then stolen their cargo of smuggled xinktacks; that had lost Donghae the small fortune he would have made from them, enough even to maybe gamble for a new ship.
"Just having a look down on Kervo Six, checking out the market, you know. What about yourself?"
"Following up on a few hints. Hey, that trick you pulled last time, out by the Jix system, that was clever." Although Heechul sounded genial and friendly, Donghae could see that that little trick still stung. "Do you always keep fake stargems, in case you get boarded by pirates?"
Donghae didn't even try to hide the grin from his face. "Oh no, Heechul," he said, shaking his head. "Those were just for you, I figured I'd run into you again at some point, and play a little trick of my own. It worked, I take it?"
"Oh it worked, all right. And cost me a bomb, for that."
Donghae's grin widened, "Well, that was for the xinktacks, you know."
Waving a hand dismissively, Heechul said, "Anyway, as lovely as talk of old times is, that's not why I'm here. I still need to earn a living, you know, it's not always easy being a pirate and a scoundrel. As you'll all be quite used to this by now, just sit tight and prepare to be boarded, I'm coming to check out what treasures you may have in your cargo hold. And," he added, his own smile widening now, "what fortunes you have hidden in that ugly ship of yours. See you soon!" His face vanished and the viewscreen went black as communications disconnected.
Quickly, Donghae turned to Hyukjae, mind already racing. "Hyukjae, how quickly can you calculate and plot a lightspeed route? One that Heechul couldn't track?"
Hyukjae thought about it a moment. "The best thing to do is probably a lot of mini lightspeed jumps, set up at random, all around the place. No one should be able to track that."
"Okay, whatever, stop being a nerd and just tell me how long it'll take?"
"A minute, minute and a half, I think."
Donghae nodded, "Good, be quick, we have a minimum of two minutes before Heechul can begin boarding."
Without another word, Hyukjae turned to his navcomputer and began his work.
They were all used to Heechul's boarding trips by now - he was captain of a pirate ship, after all - but this was one time when Donghae really didn't need Heechul aboard his ship. They weren't carrying any cargo, not anything worthwhile, and they currently weren't smuggling anything either, but Heechul always ran a thorough check and there was the chance of him coming across the map, either the data map, or the flimsy map Hyukjae still had somewhere. He might even come across the navigational routes, plotted into Hyukjae's computer, ready to be followed. And Heechul finding the treasure was the last thing that Donghae wanted.
And besides that, it was always fun if they could manage to outsmart and trick Heechul.
"Shiwon," Donghae said, turning to the pilot, "be prepared, as soon as those routes are on your computer screen, get us there."
"Of course."
A few moments later, Hyukjae's fingers moved almost at lightspeed seemingly, and then he gave a triumphant, "There! Ready!"
Donghae had seconds to strap himself into his seat, shouting "Go!" at Shiwon, even as his fingers fumbled with the safety belt. A few clicks later, and there was the familiar surge that always came when a ship jumped into lightspeed. There were a lot of little surges, actually, the mini jumps Hyukjae had mentioned.
"Is it working?" Donghae questioned, looking unconvinced, as they continuously jumped through the absolute blackness of lightspeed travel.
"I'm pretty sure it is," Hyukjae answered. "I told the computer to come up with completely randomised routes, and to take us through them in a lot of small jumps, all over the place. It's too random, and too many jumps, for anyone to be able to track us all the way through them."
Shiwon turned to look at Hyukjae, an expression of surprise on his face. "That's really quite intelligent of you, Hyuk."
Hyukjae grinned. "Thanks! It took awhile for me to work out enough to create a program for it, but it's pretty good now."
Entirely unaware of the moment of genius sitting across from him, Donghae said, with a sigh of disappointment, "I wish I could see Heechul's face right now. He must be going red."
Almost too seriously, Shiwon said, "I can take you back there, if you like."
Donghae sighed again. "No, it's fine. I suppose I'll see it, whenever we next run into him. We always do, at some point."
For a group of mostly-traders and sometimes-smugglers, life aboard the ship had become a little, in Donghae's opinion, boring. Hyukjae was busy doing what navigators did best, which was navigate, and Shiwon was wrapped up in his own duties of flying them through Hyukjae's navigation routes. Even Kibum was similarly occupied with his own occupation, which resulted in the robot spending an almost alarmingly large amount of time in the engine room and hooked into the computers, ensuring that no problems arose whilst they were in inter-space flight mode.
But with his (rather blunt, and ugly) ship moving steadily through space at normal speed for the time being, and with nothing else of interest happening, it meant that Donghae was the only one with nothing to fill his occupation; that being, he had nothing to captain.
So for the past two standard weeks he had taken to extremes when it came to his duty as captain, involving himself and his opinion in the very smallest of decisions. Such as when Hyukjae programmed the next navigation route through the small star system they were currently flying through, when usually Hyukjae would inform of his routes being complete, Shiwon would simply plug them in and fly the course, with no need to ask for the captain's permission. Donghae was insisting that the decision be run through him, first, before any courses were followed, just so that he could issue a command.
He was also going to great pains to assign kitchen duty, even to go so far as to implement rations. Just in case they found themselves in trouble, he said, as it was his job as captain to think ahead to such unfortunate but possible events occurring. And just because he was captain, and he could, Donghae was taking a certain enjoyment out of making Hyukjae do the ships cooking most of the time, even if it was usually asked of Kibum to do it.
And when Shiwon had decided he would go to bed, just the other night, Donghae had vetoed the decision, until Shiwon asked him properly, the title of 'captain' properly used, before allowing him to go to his quarters.
So it shouldn't have come as much as a surprise one (possibly afternoon, but it was hard to tell in space) day when Hyukjae sought out Donghae, lounging in his own quarters, to have a word with him.
It went something like this:
"What at stars end are you playing at, Donghae?"
"That's 'captain', if you please," Donghae replied, ignoring Hyukjae in favour of studying the lines on the palm of his hand; on one of the planets they had once visited, a small, jungle like world, the native humanoid species lived their lives according to what those lines dictated for them. A strange kind of religion, but one of the species leaders had ensured Donghae that that rather long, thick line across his palm showed that he was a man of great virility, and would never lack in lovers. It didn't matter to Donghae that he hadn't had anyone quite like that in a long while, since Shiwon joined his crew, in fact. Local ladies on the planets they stopped off at always seemed to favour him, oddly.
There was a noise of frustration, as if Hyukjae couldn't quite get this feeling properly across in words and some sound just had to free itself from his mouth. "This is ridiculous, we can't run a ship like this! There's only three of us, four if you count Kibum, and we've all been working together for years. It's not as if we need to ask the captain for permission."
Donghae looked up from his hand then, annoyance creeping into his face. "This is my ship, you're my crew, and I am the captain! I'll captain you if I want to!"
One eyebrow raised incredulously, Hyukjae took a step forward. "You'll 'captain' us?" He asked. "Who found us the map in the first place? Who worked out the routes? And who got us away from Heechul so that he didn't end up stealing the treasure right from under us?"
This, as was the intended effect, managed to deflate Donghae somewhat, mostly because it was all true. And he couldn't think of a very good comeback. That was more Kibum's department, even if he was a robot and devoid of a personality he always seemed very good at delivering a scathing response.
"I'm still the captain," Donghae said instead, rather petulantly.
Hyukjae threw his arms up in defeat, shaking his head. "Fine, just stop making me cook, all right?"
The loud, shrill sound of the ship's klaxons went off then, startling the two for a moment, before their deeply inbred spaceflight training kicked in, and without another word both were out of Donghae's quarters and running through the ships corridors until they reached the cockpit.
"Something's come up," Shiwon said, rather grimly, turning only briefly to eye the both of them, before turning his attention back to the viewport in front of him.
Hyukjae slid into his seat, fingers already flying across his console, calling up images. Donghae dropped himself into his own seat, beside Shiwon's, an expression of growing horror on his face as he stared out at the viewport.
They were making their way at normal speed across a small star system; it was easier to travel through systems at normal speed, as doing so at lightspeed wasn't always guaranteed to get a ship through planetary orbits safely. Now, Donghae could see for himself why this was. The ship was some way distant from the nearest planet, a small ball of rock, its deep green atmosphere hiding the lay of the land beneath its protective shell. And some way away from that, directly in front of them, was an asteroid field.
"This wasn't listed on your map!" Donghae accused, glaring over at Hyukjae. "Did you get us lost along the way?"
It was Shiwon who answered for him. "That map is ancient, and we never checked a more recent one of this system. Obviously this asteroid field developed over those millennia from then until now. I should note, there's no chance of getting through this at lightspeed, not without possibly crashing into one of those and blowing ourselves up."
"Well, just turn around and we'll fly around it then."
"Too late, we're too close. And at this speed, the gravity of that planet over there is pulling us in. Our only option now is to fly through it, until we can get clear enough to make the jump to lightspeed."
Shiwon's expression was as grim as his voice, and Donghae blanched at the idea of this. This asteroid belt looked worryingly erratic, with some of the chunks of rock just crashing into each other, breaking each other down into smaller pieces that would then fly out, and crash into another rock. They'd had dangerous trips before, of that there was no doubt, but nothing quite like this. None of them had ever wanted to brave a run through an asteroid field, not in this ship.
Donghae looked at Shiwon. "Can you fly us through this?" There was no point wasting time, if this was their only option.
Shiwon shrugged, and answered, worryingly honest, "I'm not sure. But I'll try my best."
"Oh, that's a relief, as long as he tries his best," Hyukjae could be heard to mutter from his seat. Shiwon shot him a look, before turning back to his flight controls.
"I'll get us through this," he said, bolstered, and bluffing no doubt. But he looked a little more confident.
"Good. Hyukjae, you can't route us through this, so go down to the engineering bay with Kibum and keep an eye on what happens down there. Fix anything that goes wrong."
With a brief nod, Hyukjae was gone from the cockpit, and making his way along to the maintenance and engineering bay. Donghae, meanwhile, pushed himself from his seat.
"Where are you going?" Shiwon asked.
"Someone's going to have to blast apart those rocks, if you can't worm our way through them." Donghae flashed a grin at Shiwon, before vanishing too. He made his way quickly from the cockpit access hall, along the main corridor, until reaching the ladder that would lead him down into the small hatch where the ship's lasers could be accessed. Strapping himself in Donghae then switched on the computers, firing up the lasers, flexing his fingers over the controls to familiarise himself with them again; it had been quite awhile since he'd had the chance to shoot at something.
With all their inter-ship comms switched on, Donghae sent out a call to both his shipmates. "How goes it?"
"All set down here," came Hyukjae's voice, "I've got Kibum all plugged in to the ship's computers here, ready if something happens."
Shiwon's voice came through then, "All set here. We're coming up to the beginning of the belt, things are about to get a little bit bumpy," he warned, sounding a little more grim than Donghae would have liked, "so fasten your seatbelts, everyone."
The ship seemed to swoon, then, and Donghae knew it was because Shiwon was turning her right onto her side, and he could see out through his viewport that this was the case, as his view seemed to swoop over onto its side with them. And then the bumps began, the ship rocking and bouncing as Shiwon swooped and dived through and around and under the floating lumps of rock. Luckily, the ship was only a small freighter, and as ugly as she was, she was small enough to, hopefully, make it through the asteroids in mostly one piece.
Shiwon seemed to be doing a good job, no major damage so far, as Hyukjae periodically reported, but the further into the belt they flew the more asteroids there were floating around them; small pieces, large pieces, rocks of all sizes floating around in erratic, haphazard orbits, crashing into others, pushing those out of their orbit and into another, wildly unpredictable.
It was now that Donghae had to begin to help Shiwon out. As excellent a pilot as he was, and so far avoiding any collisions with his quick swinging and diving, there were just too many asteroids to avoid entirely. His fingers tightening on his control stick, Donghae pulled the view piece down over his eyes and his vision changed entirely now to only that of targets to be hit. Pulling hard on the control stick, he pressed the button that would fire the twin ultra lasers affixed to his ship. Two bolts of blue plasma fired, blowing up a looming asteroid, creating a space for Shiwon to fly the ship through relatively safely.
Several more times Donghae had to pull on the controls and fire plasma bolts at asteroids that were just too close to avoid, delivering them through a tricky spot. But it was a particularly big asteroid he'd just fired on, and it didn't break down into tiny pieces of rock and fine asteroid dust, like the smaller lumps of rock had, and one particularly large lump came flying in their direction. There was a shock, as the ship rocked, and a moment later Hyukjae's voice came hurriedly through the communicator.
"Damage on the port side, a pretty big hit to the main cargo hold. We'll have a beautiful dent, but no further damage done."
"Good," Donghae answered.
"Oh, and nice shot, Captain."
Hyukjae's sarcasm was not at all lost on Donghae.
There was another round then, as the ship flipped itself right over onto its back, to avoid an incoming asteroid and Donghae had barely seconds to react to the rock he could see looming on their port side, about to collide right into them. With a jerk of his thumb, two plasma bolts quickly sorted that dilemma out, reducing the rock into fine particles of dust, now floating through space almost like space-snow. Another swoop, and an almost sickening swing to his stomach along with it, and the ship was righted once again.
Before any of them could see it, Donghae to shoot, or Shiwon to avoid it, a rock crashed right into the side of the ship, coming out of nowhere seemingly.
"Hyukjae, what happened?" Donghae demanded, even as the ship continued to rock and sway with the repercussions.
"It's just crashed into the engines," Hyukjae's panicked voice filtered through, a bit tinny with the ships communicator. "Kibum's trying to override and bring up the emergency engines, to at least get us through the asteroids, but our space flight is severely limited. We'll have to land somewhere civilised as soon as possible and repair the damage."
"If we make it out," Donghae added grimly.
Ahead of him and through his viewpiece Donghae could see that his targets were beginning to come to an end, and that the asteroids were finally thinning out. They were almost out of the belt, and after a few more swoops, dives and rolls, and several more shots from the lasers, they found themselves safely out from the rocky field, and out once again in, relatively clear, open space.
Shutting down the laser systems and removing his headpiece, Donghae lurched his way up the ladder, feeling a bit sick to his stomach with all that rolling, and almost stumbled back into the cockpit, where Shiwon genuinely looked rather worse for wear.
"Hyukjae, how's it going?" Donghae asked, through the comm.
"It's pretty bad down here. I'll leave Kibum to handle it for now, I have to come back up and find us a safe place to land. And close by."
All but falling into his seat, Donghae looked over at Shiwon. "Good flying, there."
Lips tight, Shiwon shook his head. "Not good enough, we still received damage."
Quite seriously, Donghae leaned in, one hand going to Shiwon's shoulder, his grip brief, but tight. "Without that flying, Shiwon, we'd have been obliterated into tiny pieces, and left out there with those asteroids." A sobering thought, that field of dead rocks, their graveyard and final resting place.
Shiwon turned to glance at Donghae, and, just briefly, offered him a tiny smile. "Well, it's good we're not dead, I guess."
"I guess," Donghae agreed. The relief of having not died, and having made it through, was enough to keep the adrenaline from the experience pulsing through his body, leaving him a little bit breathless, and quite a bit light headed. They'd made it through! Another accolade to add to their list, he thought.
The door of the cockpit slid open then, and Hyukjae came over to his computers, drawing up maps and images of their immediate vicinity - recent maps. After a few moments of searching and running the information on all their nearby planets, searching for ones he was familiar with, or failing those ones with intelligent life, advanced technology, and spaceports primed for spaceship repairs, he brought up the image of one planet for all to see.
"Styko," he told them, the planet sounding vaguely familiar to all of them. "Its system is pretty far out from the core of the galaxy, so it's kinda politically turbulent, but we're not going their to bring them news of the glorious government, are we?" He almost grinned, then, at his crew mates; it wasn't unusual to any of them to land on those planets faraway from the core, of the galaxy and of the universal government, which proclaimed to govern all the civilised planets. But those systems nearer the edge of the so-far explored universe were under only a tenuous hold from the universal government, and their spaceports and towns were just the places for smugglers, bounty hunters, pirates, and all the low-life vagabonds of the galaxy to conduct their less than legal business.
"What a relief," Donghae sighed, "We'll finally get a chance to have some fun, and some good conversations. Rogues are always more interesting than the respectable types."
Shiwon looked between them, quite unable to understand, as he wasn't particularly fond of the seedier ports and planets they had visited. But with Hyukjae plugging in the navigation route and Donghae grinning in anticipation, and as it was the nearest planet for them to get their repairs, Shiwon only sighed quietly to himself and followed the route down to the planet, beginning the landing process that would soon have them docked in one of the seediest space ports he was sure he would ever see.
Of course, the three man (and one robot) crew of the good spaceship Sapphire were not disrespectable, or disreputable, and officially (and legally) their jobs involved small time trading and private cargo carrying. There was nothing at all illegal, or shady, to tarnish their official reputation. That wasn't to say that they didn't sometimes dabble in the somewhat disreputable side of galactic business. During dry patches, who could blame them whenever Shiwon got a good tip off; they just had to have a run with good quality parsh spice, or traipse across the galaxy and sell off all the finest Blackhole Blackout they could get their hands on. Smuggling was only a part-time business, for them. And, as Donghae often liked to declare, Exploration and Adventure were their real full time jobs.
So whilst they hadn't searched out the nearest tavern from the spaceport necessarily for business ventures, as they usually would, no one was going to say no if someone decided to offer them a good tip. Unusually, the tips more often than not went to Shiwon who wasn't the keenest of the three of them on their shadier business dealings, but he had such an air of trustworthiness about him that tended to make people come up and offer him advice and market tips, for cheap.
"You have the face for smuggling," Donghae often told him, with a teasing grin.
The first tavern they came across was called Styko Central, rather to the point, but a place where they should be able to find themselves a good repairman or two, and inexpensively. Their last business dealing just before they had found the treasure map had resulted in quite a nice amount of galactic certs, until Donghae had found out that Hyukjae had spent quite a bit of them buying the map in the first place. As much as Donghae had wanted to stuff Hyukjae into a box deep in the cargo-hold and leave him there, he'd been talked out of this desire by Shiwon, who pointed out that the treasure map really was quite valuable, and if it ended in them finding any actual treasure, they should end up tripling just what Hyukjae had spent alone. Often the voice of reason, Donghae had felt compelled to listen to Shiwon; besides that, he didn't really like the idea of searching for a new navigator.
The tavern looked like any other tavern, in any other spaceport this side of the galaxy. Old, rather run down and dirty, and as if it were a den of criminal activity. It also looked like the place to get a good, strong drink, and maybe play a few hands of kkliiujkd; Hyukjae was known to be exceptionally good at it, and if they were lucky he could gamble quite a portion of their funds back for them.
"Let's split up," Donghae advised, looking between them all. "I'll take Kibum with me and go look for someone to fix the ship. Hyukjae, you know what to do." With a brief nod, Hyukjae went through first into the tavern, not to look as if they had all come together. Turning his attention back to Shiwon, Donghae added, "And you, go make friendly, have some drinks, see if you can get any information out of anyone, or at least any tips for this years trade run."
Shiwon, looking less than pleased with that - he'd been brought up so well, after all - nodded also, and went through the slide door and inside.
Donghae was left with Kibum. "Well, let's see what we can find. Play down the damage, so we can get the best price possible."
"All right," Kibum answered, in his monotone robotic voice, and they too shuffled inside the tavern. It was a vast change from the planet's surface, which had been bright with the light from its nearby sun, but chilly, not enough so for snow or ice but enough to be uncomfortable in. Inside, however, it was warm, and terribly dim. "There's always something about taverns," Donghae said, in a quiet aside to Kibum, "as if criminal business can't be conducted in the light."
Kibum, equally quiet, answered dryly, "I suspect it's so that the criminals faces are less obvious in the dim light and between all the shadows."
Donghae scowled at Kibum. "Why do you always ruin my fun?"
Kibum shrugged, a very human gesture, one that he'd probably learnt from Hyukjae, who tended to shrug more than Donghae liked. "Perhaps it's in my programming."
The lighting was terribly dim, as it always was in places such as this and there were a fair amount of people already inside, either seated at the more private booths, cut out of the walls around the building, or lined up along the bar which cut in a long U shape across the width of the room. Small groups of people whispering in the shadowed booths, or pairs of seeming friends talking at the bar. All kinds of spacers, humans, humanoids and aliens, doing and talking about all kinds of things.
With a surreptitious look around the room Donghae soon located Shiwon, who was perched near one end of the bar sipping at some dark concoction that probably wouldn't agree with him the next day, and already engaged in a casual conversation with an alien. Turning his attention, Donghae saw an archway that probably lead through into the gambling den of the tavern, where the kkliiujkd tables and spinxx stands would be located, and Hyukjae would be through there, hopefully winning them some certs.
With his shipmates sorted Donghae made his way over to the bar with Kibum, sliding into a vacant space between two spacers and ordered himself a good, strong drink. Not as good as Blackhole Blackout, or as strong, but just as illegal, and almost as enjoyable. He took a grateful drink, before turning to Kibum. "Go have a look around for a repairman. Get talking to a couple of the patrons, see if you can dig out someone good, and cheap."
With barely the briefest of nods, Kibum was off, working his way through the patrons; he knew what he was doing, and Donghae could trust he'd come up with something. So he turned back to his drink, simply enjoying that for a moment.
"Hey, you're from off-world, aren't you?"
The sudden voice came as a surprise to Donghae, and he almost jumped, turning to find himself looking up into a pair of large, dark, compound eyes, staring back unblinkingly at him. The alien had sidled up to him too quietly for Donghae to have noticed, but he quickly regained his composure, offering a slight smile.
"Yeah, I am. Just arrived a few standard hours ago, actually."
"How exciting. Where did you fly in from?"
She - because as Donghae looked at her it was obvious she was female - spoke in Universal, the most common language throughout the galaxy, although her accent was a little thick. Discreetly looking her over Donghae could see instantly that she was a Ctlkt, a humanoid species that differed in humans mostly from the large, compound eyes that took up most of their face, the extra finger on each hand, the long, long legs they were known for, and the pleasant shades of pink that their skin was. This particular Ctlkt was showing off the more human of her assets, he noted, with her rather tight-fit, almost skimpy, outfit; Donghae had a feeling that he probably knew where this encounter was trying to lead itself to. Usually, this happened to Shiwon.
"You may not have heard of it," Donghae answered, an easy smile lingering on his cheerful face, "it's a little planet called Eerone." This was a joke, albeit not a particularly good one, as most everyone within the galaxy was aware that Eerone was both the centre, and the capital. It was the political home of the Government, and almost all the trade routes ran through it, or near it.
This Ctlkt obviously knew this too, as she indulged Donghae's joke with a smile.
"That's a very long way away. What brings you all the way out to the rim of the galaxy?" Lightly, but without shyness, she rested her long fingered hand against Donghae's arm. Oh, dear, when was Kibum going to come back?
"Exploration and adventure," Donghae answered with a shrug, effectively removing the hand from his arm in the process. He took a sip of his drink, "You know, all those things we spacers dream of."
The woman moved in closer now, lowering her face to be more on a level with Donghae's, and her accented words came to him in a breathy whisper. "I can show you adventure, if you're interested."
There was no way to pretend to ignore this now and Donghae couldn't help the red that began to fill his cheeks; not very roguish, he thought, to blush. "Ah, thank you, but, this is enough adventure for me to tonight," he said, holding up his drink for emphasis.
"Oh, well, someone else's gain, I suppose," she said, completely indifferent now that Donghae wasn't interested, and without another word her long, slim form slipped away into the crowd of customers. Donghae let out a low sigh of relief.
Before he could get too bored on his own, Kibum sidled up beside him, and looking around Donghae saw that the robot had someone in tow alongside him. Probably a repairman, but he looked a little bit young, Donghae thought, taking a closer look. He certainly looked younger than Donghae, and that image wasn't helped at all by the full, round cheeks he possessed, making him look like some cute teenager. Was this really the best Kibum could do?
"This is Henry," Kibum said, introducing him. "He tells me that he can fix the damage, and quite quickly. I have checked, and he is a certified engineer, even if he does look very young for human standards."
"Nice to meet you, Henry," Donghae said, leaning in a little. "I'm Donghae, captain of the ship. Kibum told you of the damage?" Even after another look, the boy still seemed young to Donghae, with his brown hair just falling across his eyes. That closer look revealed something else to Donghae, that despite his human appearance Henry actually was not. There was a distinct, pale blueness to his skin, meaning that he was a Ytun; the same in every way to a human, apart from the blue sheen of their skin. It was told, in both ancient human and Ytun legend, that Ytuns were the humans that left the home planet in times of trouble, in search of a new place to live, and the planet they eventually found themselves on, Yrinn, whilst similar to the home planet, and containing everything necessary for humans to survive and flourish there, had a heavy concentration of a gas in the atmosphere that eventually, over centuries upon centuries, had the effect of turning the skin blue.
Donghae hadn't met many Ytun before, and thought that it might be interesting later to ask Henry, if there were a chance, of how he'd been told the story of origin. But for now, he had a ship in need of repairs.
"I've been briefed on what the damage is," Henry confirmed with a nod.
"Good! If you don't mind, as I'm on quite a tight schedule, would you come and have a look right now?" Donghae began to lead Henry out of the tavern, Kibum following behind. He paused, just briefly by the door, searched out Shiwon with his eyes, and when his pilot had caught sight of him in return, Donghae gave him a slow wink, a pre-arranged signal between them, it meant: Got what we needed, check on Hyukjae and get back soon. There was the briefest of nods in return, and Shiwon was continuing his conversation with a seemingly lovely example of the Ghyunt species (not only were they green, but they possessed four arms, and females had a rather long, and rather dangerous, tail).
It was a breath of fresh air once they were out of the dingy tavern, as Donghae led Henry back to the nearby spaceport and his damaged ship.
"But, I haven't yet been told what caused the damage," Henry enquired, a curious look on his face.
Donghae, sharing a brief look with Kibum, shrugged his shoulders, and said as casually and as carelessly as he could, "Oh, just an asteroid collision..."
The door to the engineering bay slid open almost silently, admitting Donghae through the passageway. It was a little dim down here, he noted, but that was probably because of the damage done to the system, no doubt Henry would be able to sort out the issue of the power, as well as actually fix their engines.
"How's it going?" He asked, finding Henry, or at least the back end of Henry, as the rest of him was leaning forward inside one of the engine panels beneath the flooring.
There were a few mechanical noises, the hiss of a sparking wire, and another metallic bang, before Henry slid out from the panel, wiping his forehead with the back of one dirty hand, before looking up at Donghae. "It's getting there. That asteroid did quite a lot of damage to the engines, you're lucky you even managed to land at all!"
That was quite a frightening thought. "Well, we're used to a little danger," Donghae said, faking the bravado. "How much longer do you think it'll take you?"
Henry frowned in thought for a moment, mentally calculating, before offering an answer. "At least another standard hour, I expect. Maybe less."
"Great! Well, the intercom is still working, so if you need to get hold of me just call through that."
"All right." With that, Henry once again submerged himself within the engine panel and the clanking and hissing of mechanical work started up. For someone as seemingly young Donghae was impressed with his mechanical ability, and his speed at it. He wondered if maybe Henry could be persuaded to join the crew; Hyukjae was all right, and Kibum could be useful, but they lacked a really good engineer for things like this.
The door slid open again as Donghae left, and he made his way around the ship and back to the cockpit, the main hub of the ship, to both keep an eye on the ship's state, and to access the communications if need be.
It wasn't much later when the alert came up on one of the screens that the boarding ramp was being lowered, and that someone was coming aboard. A moment later a breathless Shiwon all but fell into the cockpit, his eyes wide and his face red, and a look of utter panic crossed his face.
"Quick, must get the ship ready for take off," he wheezed, between gasping breaths. "Hyukjae's been caught out. A gang of angry Ewuerts are after him." Another pause for breath, and Donghae couldn't take his eyes off Shiwon, the panic growing in him too. Ewuerts were known to be a temperamental, and unforgiving, species. And they were known to absolutely loathe cheating. "They're trying to blast him to pieces! Not even stun. We have to leave, quickly."
Donghae was still just sat there, eyes wide at this news.
"Quickly!" Shiwon prompted, his anger being numbed by his lack of breath, but it was enough to get Donghae moving, and he turned to the controls.
"But the engines aren't even fixed yet!" He gasped, fingers flying across the controls, bringing up statistics and information, searching for the engine capability read-out for take off right now. To his dismay, it was only a little over sixty percent.
"It'll have to do, they'll blast us all to atoms otherwise!" Shiwon slid into his own seat, strapping himself in. He'd regained enough of his breath back to put a comm call out to Kibum, demanding that the robot plug himself in and coax the engines into behaving long enough at least for take off.
"How far away was Hyukjae?" Donghae asked, his attention still fully on the controls. They'd had to do things similar to this before, sudden take off whilst waiting for one of them to make it back, so he knew it could be done, but it was tricky, especially with the timing, and made harder still this time because of the engines. He had to turn on the repulsors - the engines used in atmosphere - just before Hyukjae reached them, and fire them up as soon as he was on the boarding ramp, waiting only until the ramp was closed and sealed, before blasting into space flight.
"He should be about a minute behind, now." Shiwon was loading all the information necessary; they wouldn't be going very far, and they wouldn't be able to jump into lightspeed yet thanks to the engines, but they should be safe enough hanging in space, just beyond the planet's orbit.
A few seconds of adrenaline filled racing hearts, and sounds could be heard beyond the ship, the distinct fizz of plasma bolts being fired, and hitting walls and other objects. Then a load of voices, shouts, threats, and more blasting. Donghae switched on the repulsors, hovering just barely off of the ground, and a moment later the crash of boots against the metal boarding ramp could be heard, and then Hyukjae's voice, shouting down through the corridors, "Go, go go!"
Gripping the controls tightly, Shiwon pulled back the control yoke, and they were up, lifting quickly out of the spaceport and into the sky. The sounds of bolts hitting the ship could be heard, a dying fizz as they were met with the deflector shield, hastily thrown up as soon as the boarding ramp had been closed and sealed.
There was a moment of hesitation, Shiwon and Donghae sharing a look that clearly wondered if they were going to make it out of this alive.
And then Donghae said, "Just go you idiot, get us off of this rock!" Breaking the moment, and forcing Shiwon to switch to the space flight engines, only now at not quite seventy percent capability. There was the usual rush that came when a ship blasted out of an atmosphere and into the depths of space, and moments later, to their relief, they found themselves alive, alive and hanging their, quite safely, in space.
Donghae let out a triumphant whoop! and Shiwon reached out and grabbed him in an embrace, caught up in the excitement of making it out of a dangerous situation and still being alive. Moments later, Hyukjae came into the cockpit, still gasping and looking a little the worse for wear, but alive and uninjured.
It wasn't until the intercom crackled to life, and a small, confused voice came at them through the wires. "Um, Donghae, what just happened?"
Donghae's eyes widened in sudden realisation.
"Oh, blast," he cursed. "Henry's still on board."
-
part two >