Summary: A handsome adventurer, a royal runaway, an unscrupulous businesswoman and a pirate king come together in pursuit of a mysterious box. But what is the Pompatus Box and how will its mysterious contents save the day and change our hero's life forever? Sci-fi AU, unrelated Sam/Dean. Warnings: medicinal use of illegal substances.
A/N: Finally had time to finish this story that I've been fiddling with on and off for ages. It's a space opera with touches of steampunk set inside the Earth-Moon system. Dean and Sam are unrelated but, as always, made for each other. As usual, expect a happy ending.
Warnings: I've called it M, but the naughty bits are not that shocking. It shouldn't bother a modern teen really. Also there's mention of medicinal drug use and drug addiction.
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, its fandom, its characters or anything connected to them. I do not make money or profit in any way from this story.
The Pompatus Box (Chapter 1: The Adventure Begins) by frostygossamer
Captain Dean, the former Dean Winchester, punches in his new course for Luna, leans back in his snugly upholstered captain's chair and exhales. It will be another three hours before his rocketship makes moonfall, and he has more than enough time to prepare for his latest mission.
Jo has found him a tasty under-the-counter hostage acquisition. Jo Harvelle is the dispatcher at Convoy Control on Terra, his official employer. The most lucrative jobs are always either hostage or artefact retrieval, quick but dangerous stealth missions that call for special skills and enhanced stamina like Dean's.
This one has come at the perfect time, when he's on downtime from his official escort duties protecting intrasystem transports from in-flight harassment. The convoy system has effectively eliminated the predation the space lanes between Terra and her three satellites, Luna and the artificial Eno and Emo, used to suffer in the early days. Escort work has become relatively easy money.
Dean studies his mission details on the visualizer. He believes he has vaguely heard of this missing guy before. He's some bratty royal from a small Terran grand-duchy called Campobello, a leftover from the old Union of North American States.
Jo wired him a mugshot of the runaway. Dean holds it up to the light and examines it critically. The guy looks happy, like some big goofy kid smartly tricked out in the fashionable designer casuals he endorses.
The snap seems to be a still from the guy's recent engagement bash. Dean recognizes the pretty blonde fiancee's face from Satellite News coverage of her accidental death. Some sort of weird-ass fire, right? Waste of a foxy chick, Dean thinks. Shame.
Rising wearily, he slowly flicks open the dozens of tiny brass buttons that close the front of his form-hugging, blue-black uniform jacket and shrugs it off of his shoulders. He pauses by his closet to retrieve a hanger before slipping out of his dark pants and carefully stowing his escort flier costume.
Attention to detail is important to the running of Dean's ship, a classic Impala-class dirigible call sign 8A-8Y. Especially since her crew consists of only Dean. If he doesn't put his crapola away no one else will. He knows when he gets back aboard after a mission he may be too goddamn shattered to do much more than sleep, never mind pick up after himself.
Speaking of sleep, Dean is going to grab himself an hour of shuteye while he can. He can trust his ship, his Baby, on automatic pilot. Dean's ship is a tight-run ship.
=O=
Baby sets down on autopilot outside the Lunar city of Serenity, primary centre of Mare Serenitatis province. Dean is here to meet up with an old friend and contact, the guy known only as Ash.
Serenity is both the second oldest colony on the terraformed Luna and the second biggest city on Terra's natural moon. The great and good of Luna reside in the viceregal capital, Dianapolis. Dean, however, is on a quest for information and he knows the best source for Lunar scuttlebutt is a certain tavern where a certain mullet-headed scholar holds court in a back room.
Dean and Ash go back a long way. Back to when the guy went by Miles and had to change his name and flee to Luna in the hold of a terraformer ship. He barely escaped Terran jurisdiction before Civil Security arrested his ass.
Ash's network now encompasses both old and new worlds. He even has friends in the lawless terraformer settlements established by the roughneck navigators who found themselves unwelcome on Terra-bound transports home when the job was done.
Ash is easily Dean's most useful contact on the three satellites and his first port of call for anything that requires an attentive ear to the ground. Dean is looking for a royal runaway who doesn't want to be found. Ash will take that as a challenge.
If Ash doesn't know where this damn princeling is no one will.
=O=
Dean emerges fresh from a steam-shower onto the ship's main deck with only a towel loosely wrapped around his slim hips, skin flushed pink and shiny. Removing the towel, he stands admiring himself in the mirror for a moment. Skin pale and flawless, handsome and with an almost feminine grace, no one would guess the hell Dean had put that perfect body through in his second life as a freelance adventurer.
Sighing he begins to dress, easing himself into a tight pair of drawers for maximum trim. He pulls the ornate lever that activates the hermetically sealed door of his equipment locker with an hydraulic shush and steps up to peruse the contents.
Serried rows of hazard suits hang on sterilized rails all along one side, on the other wall gleaming weapons of every shape and size. Light glints on twists of tubular brass, valves, cylinders and glowing cerulean crystal power units, all fully charged. The very latest technology questionably obtained credits can buy.
Dean selects himself a pair of leather pants and walking shoes. In Serenity, there will be more walking to do than asses to kick. That comes later. For on top, he chooses a plain white grandad shirt and brown tweed three-quarter jacket with leather reveres and elbow patches, long enough to hide the holster strapped to his thigh.
His favourite 3-barrel volley pistol slides snugly into its holster. His faithful knife goes into its own inside pocket. No need for ostentatious weaponry in the civilized streets of the second city. That will only attract unwanted attention from the civil constabulary.
As always, Baby is scheduled to lift off automatically if he doesn't return in 24 hours. Should anything happen to him, he doesn't want his pride and joy secured by the authorities for scrap metal.
He runs a comb through his short spiky hair. Maybe he should catch a haircut while he's in town. Pausing in the exit hatch, he salutes his favourite girl.
"Back soon, Baby."
Then he steps down onto the paved sidewalk of the Lunar metropolis.
TBC
A/N: What will Ash have to tell Dean? More coming soon. I hope to post short chapters like this one daily.