A/N: Here I am again! I bet you people are seriously sick of me and wish a truck hit me. Well, I didn't even go outside today, so there. Anyway. Whee, new fanfic! *cracks fingers* So, what do I see here? Most of the same old, same old… Shounen ai, Shoujo ai, het… blah blah blah… In any case, fans of fantasy will like this installment! ^^ It may be more time between chapters, because this is going to be much more difficult than To Die or Not to Die. I have nothing to go on, it's all me. That could be good or bad, so let's just see how it works out. For soundtracks… I would suggest any Enigma or Delerium CD… or maybe the soundtrack for FF7 or FF10, either or. There will no longer be any lists in any chapters, but if you want the right feel for this story, those are good. Yes, Shadow. I'm sorry, but there will be much Akito and Akatsuki bashing. Literally, in some places. I have to do it, sorry. Anyway, let's get the show on the road!

~*~

"One, two, three, four… Two, two, three, four…" Redhead pilot Amano Hikaru skipped down the dorm hall and stopped in front of a room that seemed no different than the others. She knocked on the metallic door and stood for a moment, waiting for an answer, and tapping her metallic toe against the metallic floor. 'Dude, this sounds really cool…'

The door opened to show a man, taller than her, but still her age, and looking rather annoyed at her. Hikaru smiled anyway. "Hey, Akito! Why don't you come down to the party in the breakfast room? We haven't seen much of you lately!"

Martian cook Tenkawa Akito turned away from the girl and ventured back into his room. "I've been busy."

"Busy doing what?" Hikaru stayed in the doorway. If she were doing this, maybe, a month or two ago, she would have followed him into his room. Or they would have been on their way to the cafeteria.

"Stuff. Yurika stuff." Since the Nadesico Boson Jumped from Mars to… wherever they were now, you could barely ever see Akito and Captain Misumaru Yurika apart.

Hikaru nodded, leaning against the wall next to the door. "Yeah. And I bet you to are dying for some time on your own." 'Subtle obvious approach.'

Akito looked back to the door. "Like hell!" He disappeared into the room again. "Nice try, Hikaru. You're missing the party."

Hikaru sighed and left. 'Well, I tried, and that's what counts.' She walked silently all the way back to the cafeteria. When she got there, she sat down at the table closest to the ordering counter, on the left from the door. She was alone at first, but then five other people greeted her.

"No luck, eh?" asked Kazamo Itsuki, flirtatious and elegant. Hikaru shook her head before replying, "Nope. I think I'm getting close to giving up."

"How many times do I have to say it? He's an asshole. Fuck him." Hikaru turned to the next speaker, Yamada Jiro, or rather, Gai Daigoji. "Think about what you just said, Gai-chan." It took a moment for the tall dark pilot to realize the other meaning to his words. "Oh hell! Dammit, Hikaru!" She just giggled.

Aoi Jun, the only one in their group dressed in white, snorted. "Let's not ruin this by think of that little prick. It's his own damn fault if he wants to give up on all of his friends. Now," he clapped his hands together, "where's my gum wrappers?"

Itsuki pulled a gift out from under the table and handed it to green-haired Subaru Ryoko. "Happy birthday, darling." Ryoko ripped it open, and her jaw dropped when she saw what it was. Maki Izumi looked over Ryoko's shoulder. "The hell?"

Itsuki grinned. "I told you I'd plant vibrators in your bed at some point, Ryoko!" Ryoko picked up the gift and threw it at the purple haired lesbian. It missed horribly and conked Jun in the head instead. Jun's mouth opened in shock. "Why the hell are masturbation tools being thrown at my head?" Gai shook his head and pushed a present in front of the blue-haired man. "Here, take it and ask all the questions you want."

The request made Jun raise an eyebrow as he ever so slowly opened the package, making everyone squirm. When he opened the box, though, is when he realized what the much younger man meant. He pulled the article out of the box, holding it up for all to see, and giving Gai an expectant glance. "Well? Why did you give me a bra, of all things?"

Gai smiled as he prepared his answer, and began ticking them off his fingers. "One, it seemed appropriate. Two, I heard interesting stories about how you were a nun at the funerals. Three, plain and simple, Jun. You're a hot and sexy bitch. So I had to give you an embarrassing undergarment. It was… required." Gai flashed him a million dollar smile and prayed that Jun didn't dissect him for it. Not that the smaller man could, anyway.

Jun simply sighed and pushed the box away. Hikaru handed a box in Izumi direction. "Don't worry. It's nothing embarrassing." Izumi raised an eyebrow. "Not embarrassing? Hell, it's gag gift day. I'm expecting it to be embarrassing." She opened the box without care, but seemed genuinely happy when she saw what the package was. She held up a haunted house horror book titled, 'Above the Roof, Under the Floor' by Rebecca Saline. "Jesus Christ, Hikaru! Where the fuck did you find this? I've wanted this book for the longest time!"

Hikaru smiled at her best friend. "I know! I bought it off Sayuri for 500 yen. She hated it." Izumi walked around the table to give her best friend a hug. "Thank you so fucking much."

Ryoko blinked. "Wow, that was a rather sobering moment." Gai's eyebrows knit. "Ryoko, we kinda aren't drinking." Jun smiled wickedly. "And I'm the only one legal here!" Everyone groaned.

~*~

It was hard to miss the pilots at the fifth celebratory party. After the first two, the crowds got smaller and smaller, until it seemed that the pilots were the party. Nevertheless, Megumi Reinard, the petite communications officer, and Haruka Minato, the curvy helmswoman, sat in the cafeteria, alone together for the first time in a long time.

Megumi stretched, flipping her braid behind her head. "I think this is the last one I'm coming to. I can't stand the retardation," commented Megumi, indicating with a toss of her head that she meant the group of pilots. Minato nodded slowly, ignoring the commotion from that side of the room. "I'm surprised Kanchou didn't come. She started these things."

Megumi sighed. "Akito didn't come either, so there may not be many more of these." 'Must be nice, to just stop, smell the roses, and just generally hang out with someone you love.' Megumi looked down at the table in front of her. "Minato?"

Minato twirled a bit of hair around her finger and yawned. "Uh huh?" Megumi bit her lip before asking her question. "What's it like to be in love?"

The question took Minato off guard, and her eyebrows snapped together. She looked at her younger best friend unbelievingly. "You mean you don't know?"

Megumi shook her head, feeling ashamed. Minato smiled. "Of course you do! You're crazy Megumi. You are in love."

"With who? Last time I checked, I wasn't in love…"

Minato tapped a finger against her chin. "Hello? Meg, did you just have a brain fart? Your mystery man from your dreams?" Megumi snapped her fingers. "I almost forgot about him! But… I don't even know him." Minato shrugged. "Maybe it's Jun with long hair." Megumi glanced at the other occupied table at the Executive Officer, laughing at one of Izumi's few good jokes. "Oh hell no. No offense to him, but… his crowd. Ugh."

Minato shook her head. "You judge too easily Megumi. Look past appearances, you just might see something beautiful. Remember when we were being held in this room, against our will, a long time ago?"

Megumi nodded. "You said… 'Never judge a movie by its poster.'" Minato nodded. "I stand by that today."

Megumi sighed.

~*~

Yurika smiled at the computer operator, Hoshino Ruri, as she entered the bridge. "Hey, Ruri-chan! Haven't seen much of you lately!"

Ruri glanced at the captain. "I've been coming to my post, rather than go to the celebratory parties." Yurika nodded. "Oh. Well, I decided to grace the bridge with my presence today. So, any pressing news Ruri?"

"Communications output is receiving no response."

"Well, that's good. We won't have random people like Erina coming to yell at us." Yurika smiled at the young girl. Ruri sighed. Sometimes Yurika didn't get it.

Admiral Fukube Jin stood and leaning over the railing, intrigued by Ruri's report. "No response? Are they even receiving?"

"We have no way of telling, sir." Yurika's blue-violet eyebrows gathered. "What are you suggesting, Admiral?"

Fukube cleared his throat before answering. "We may be in a more serious situation that we thought."

~*~

"So what you're saying is that we have no fucking clue where we are?" asked Uribatake Seiya, Head Mechanic. Inez Fressange, Head Doctor, nodded. "In essence, yes. We are much farther from the Earth and Jupiter than expected, and with the Nadesico drifting in space for the past week, we are very far off course. It would be lucky if we could find out where we are, but with being so far from civilization, we are unable to contact those who could help us."

"Great," whispered Shiratori Yukina, the Jupiterian girl, "we're literally up Shit Creek without a paddle." Inez nodded. "Basically."

"But couldn't we just Boson Jump our way back to Earth? I mean, if we jumped all the way out here, we should be able to Jump back, right?" suggested the Martian captain, much more confident about Jumping than she had a mere week ago.

Inez shook her head. "We only Jumped last time because we had no choice. I'd rather we didn't do it blindly again. With the computer on the ship, I believe that long-term effects may come to the Nadesico and her crew if we keep it much longer. Also, and I'm sure you felt it as well, Kanchou, but Boson particles are streaming in and out of the device, filling the Nadesico."

Yurika glanced at her hands, folded in her lap. "What does that mean, Miss Fressange?" Inez shook her head, and then reached into her pocket, pulling out a plate that her younger self gave her. "It's only a matter of time until we know. But, for now, no Jumping. It'll interfere with my experiments on the device as well."

Akatsuki Nagare, CEO of the company that originally built the Nadesico, spoke up. "Experiment, Doctor?" Inez nodded. "I'm fairly sure I know what this… thing does." She turned the plate over in her hands. "However, I will not use it until we are certain that it is safe. Right now, I'm more worried about the traveling Boson particles. That, and while we know how it works, we haven't mastered Jumping. What if there are permanent damages to those who are not qualified?" Inez shook her head, and hid the plate in her pocket once again. "No, I'm sure that if we keep scanning and heading in our present direction, we'll reach civilization soon."

Yurika's head tilted, making her look like a child. "Are we going to meet aliens?" Inez smiled. "Possibly."

Yukina sighed, and folded her hands behind her head. "I don't know what the big deal is with you Earthlings and aliens. You thought we were aliens for a while, right?" Uribatake stood and, nodding, left the room.

As soon as he was outside, he started to laugh gleefully. 'Aliens? Maybe they have advanced technology and even sexier robots!' He rubbed his hands together as he headed for the hangar bay.

~*~

Yukina plopped into Megumi's chair and sighed, leaning back and stretching. Ruri glanced at her slightly. "Are you aware that that's Miss Reinard's chair?" Yukina shrugged. "You know, Ruri, one thing that's bugged me for a while," she picked up Megumi's radio and placed it on her head, adjusting it to fit her head, "is that I'm completely useless."

Notsumote Ariko, Ruri's younger brother, was fixing Minato's controls. "No you're not, Yukina. You just…" He thought for a moment. "Well, you should be happy you don't have a job."

The seemingly human boy next to Ruri turned to the silver-haired prince. "But I thought you loved your job!" Electric blue lights flashed in the boy's eyes, giving away the fact that his was a robot. Ariko nodded slowly. "Yeah, I do, Omoikane, but sometimes I just wish I could just sit around and do nothing. I never could at home, and I can't here." He closed up the panel and wiped his sweat on his blue-clad arm.

Yurika came back onto the bridge then. "Alright, Ruri, can you fill Megumi in on- Oh shit, you weren't there…" The Martian woman looked down at Megumi's seat to see Yukina sitting there. "Yukina?" Yukina turned around and smiled. "I was there, I know what was said. You want me to report it?" Yurika nodded slowly, perplexed as to why the young Jovian girl would want to do Megumi's job. She shrugged though. 'Hey, it doesn't make Ruri search all over for Megumi and then make me explain things to her. It may be a lot easier this way.'

It took Yukina a few moments to realize what button did what, and after switching to Emergency Broadcast, which was barely used for emergencies, her face appeared on the bridge for all to see. Yukina smiled and clapped at her success, but cleared her throat. "Hey everybody! All right, we've got some problems that we need to report, not to mention other little things."

~*~

Megumi was surprised to see Yukina on the screen in the cafeteria. "The hell?" Minato smiled. "I suppose she decided to do your job for you, since you weren't there." Megumi shrugged. "Just as well. I was getting kind of annoyed because I didn't have a back-up like everyone else."

Strangely enough, the pilot's table shushed the two women. This irked Megumi slightly, but she stayed focused on Yukina.

~*~

"Okay, here's the scoop. To sum it all up, we have no freaking clue where the Nadesico is right now." Yukina heard murmurs from what seemed like the entire ship. "Hey, shut up! I'm not done! Anyway, Miss Fressange doesn't want to Jump back, because she wants to make sure it's safe first, so we're going to travel in whatever direction we're going until we reach some kind of civilization. Yes, that may mean aliens." Yukina sighed as the murmurs started to go faster. "Miss Fressange is experimenting with the Jump computer, and she happens to think that it's leaking Boson particles everywhere, for some strange reason. She's not sure what this will do, to the ship, or us, but for now, just live with it. In fact, go on with the normalcy of your daily lives. Leave the worrying to the professionals, all right? No rioting in the halls please. Let's keep the atmosphere friendly. Thanks!" Yukina's face disappeared.

~*~

Ariko was surprised to see her so fidgety during her report. The relieved sigh after it affirmed his thoughts; she was dying of nervousness. The prince smiled at the older girl. "You did great!" Ruri nodded slowly. Yukina blushed slightly. "No, I completely screwed it up."

"I didn't think so." All present turned toward the new voice, surprised to see Megumi standing there now. Megumi smiled and leaned over her chair. "It was very laid-back, and easy to understand. And your voice projection was perfect. No stuttering or anything. Ariko's right, Yukina. You did great."

Yukina was blushing fiercely now. "I was so nervous, I thought I was stuttering!" Megumi giggled. "I was nervous during my first audition, and I ended up doing very well. Get over it, Yukina. You have a seiyuu's talent. And I seriously needed back up. You've got the job, as far as I'm concerned, Yukina."

Viktor Bros, called Prospector, one level up, started calculating figures on his advanced calculator. "That's true… it will be much more efficient if Miss Reinard has a back up as well. Yukina, you're officially Assistant Communications Officer."

~*~

After Yukina's announcement, Inez couldn't help but smile to herself. 'I notice that Yukina forgot the part about me NOT using the key right away. That's slightly amusing, not to mention good for me.' She took the gray panel out of her pocket and smiled at it. "Hello, Beautiful." With a flick of her wrist and a twinge of green light, Inez floated above the Jump computer, and softly landed on top of it. 'There. The slot.' Barely visible, a small slot the size of the panel in Inez's hand rested at the top of the computer. Inez smiled somewhat wicked as she positioned the key above the keyhole, prepared to push it in.

But she took a deep breath and floated down from the computer's top. 'I can't do something like this without thinking it through first. While it would, in essence, make Boson Jumping as normal as breathing for many people and dominate travel, as Erina has preached about for years, but it would also seal the fates of those who do not know they stand at a crossroads. It would make our ship a permanent Jump site, the particles never dissipating. And, in the end, could kill us all.' She placed the key back inside her pocket. 'Science makes easy decisions seem difficult. But… why would Juveus-sama tell me to give myself the key, if there wasn't a purpose to it? Perhaps she didn't want it to fall into the wrong hands.' Inez tapped her foot, before rising up again, this time just for the thrill of walking in midair. 'She may have been a priestess, but she was no prophet. I will not use the key for now, but there may come a time when I have to say "Fuck it" and stick it in. I just hope it will come much longer in the timeline.'

~*~

Yurika was just brushing her hair out when she heard a knock at her door. "Come in," called she, not bothering to move to see who it was. It was nearly 5 o'clock. She knew who it was.

Akito stood in the doorway of her bathroom, watching her brush her hair through the mirror. "Dinner, Yurika." Yurika nodded, but continued to brush her hair. "I know."

Akito sighed, rubbing his eyes. "Will you stop and come out here already? You're beautiful as it is!" Yurika's smile made him realize his words, but he didn't regret them. She turned to him, putting the brush down on the sink counter. Aqua green eyes met chocolate brown, and, though Yurika was smiling, she could sense something wrong in the air. 'What is this feeling? Is this sensation the Boson particles Miss Fressange was talking about? Or… something else?' She shivered slightly; the room was just pleasantly chilly, not offensively cold. She shivered from the thought that, maybe, somehow, something was wrong with her perfect little world right now.

Akito's naïve brown eyes expressed pure concern. "You okay?" Yurika took a shaky breath, the nodded. "Yeah. Just got a weird feeling that's all." Akito shrugged, and then wrapped an arm around her shoulders, leading her out of the room.

~*~

TBC…

~*~

A/N: So. Who's still reading this? *sees no one* Dammit! I knew I would push you people away! Fuck! Anyway. Woo. What's with the lack of pilots crap? I think they were my favorites? Well, they are, but they'll get so much airtime later in this fic, you'll be sick of them, so let's keep them to a minimum, alrighty? Yukina didn't get much dialogue at the end of TDoNtD, so I gave her something to do, something Ariko can praise her on. I don't know. Megumi is slowly but surely getting my screen-time, but she has to. She's important this time. Anyway, I'm sure those of you that… are no longer here… want more, so I'll get to work right away with more confusion, endless plot holes, and conflicts up the ass! Tell me what you think so far! Cya!