Title: Not Quite Paradise - Chapter 10
Pairing: Fai/Yuui, Kurogane/Yuui/Fai
Warnings: Violence, sexual content, crazy.
Summary: AU. In a not-too-distant future where science and psionics rule the skies, and both are controlled by the iron fist of the Earth government, two young men make a desperate leap into the unknown in order to evade capture and slavery.
Author's Notes: This fic is being cowritten with Reikah. Although we are both working on all parts of the story, chapter nine was mostly written by Reikah and chapter ten was mostly written by me.
The three days until the meeting stretched out interminably; after the incident with Martian security, Yuui was far too spooked to want to go on any more shopping adventures. So it was just the four of them, once again stuffed into the too-cramped ship with only each other for company; and Kurogane, at least, was company only a masochist would enjoy.
The big man's temper was short at the best of times, but the closer they drew to the meeting with the Triads the worse his demeanor became. His normally curt responses - which Yuui had come to recognize were just his brusque, no-nonsense approach to communications - grew to contain a savage bite, and he became increasingly more irritable and aggressive to even the most minor offenses.
By the last day he was spending most of his time in the rec room, practicing a savage routine of kendo and martial arts. Neither of the kids dared to approach - even if Kurogane left for a while, he was surely to come storming back in shortly and roar at them to get out and give him some god damned peace and quiet to practice. Only Yuui was able to stick out his presence
Yuui stayed partly because, he realized with a certain guilty conscience, it was his own need for pharmaceuticals that had let to this deal that was driving Kurogane to distraction. The kids had said it outright; Kurogane never dealt with drugs, and thus, never with the Triads. But more than that - he realized as he exchanged joking, witty banter for snarled insults - he was coming to find that even at his most irascible, Kurogane didn't scare him.
So perhaps it should have come as no surprise that on the day of the meeting, Kurogane abruptly ordered Yuui into the shuttle to accompany him down to Mars.
"Why me?" Yuui asked as he followed Kurogane obediently to the hatch - another tunnel leading "up" away from the ship's core towards the vacuum outside. "The kids are both from Mars, they know it better."
Kurogane grumbled irritation as he buckled himself into the pilot's harness, running through a mysterious array of pre-flight checks. "They're good kids, but they're both entirely too honest," was his flat reply. "If I'm going to bring another body to this meeting, it might as well be someone who could pull his weight in a fight if things go south."
"Do you expect them to go south?" Yuui asked, inwardly almost dancing with excitement that Kurogane thought he was a worthy partner in the fight. "If it's too dangerous for the children, then isn't unfair to drag me into it, isn't it?"
Kurogane shot him a flat, fulminating glare from around the captain's chair, before he turned back to the shuttle's touchscreen. "Don't be an idiot," he said. "You're just as dangerous as they are."
Quietly, Yuui swung his way forward into the copilot's chair, settling himself into it with a grace that his pre-kinesis training self would have marveled at. "But they don't know that, do they?" he said. "I mean, it's not something you can tell just by looking."
"Of course they know," Kurogane grunted as he unlatched a row of safety seals from the docking clamp controls. "Martian Planetary Security knows all about you, so they do too. But even if the MPS didn't rely on the Triads to launder most of their under-the-table affairs, don't think they'd let the arrival of a kinetic as powerful as you run around unnoticed. Way too big a risk."
"Oh," Yuui said, still not used to thinking of himself as a risk. "Will they - will I be in danger from them?" he asked with a wary edge in his voice.
"Course not," Kurogane snorted. "They'll probably try to recruit you, though. Don't commit to anything. An outright refusal would be a deadly insult - that's your death, just to clarify - but anything that sounds like it might give them an opening they'll pounce on like a starving hyena and hound you for fucking ever about it."
"That doesn't leave many options," Yuui observed after a moment. "If you can't say no, and can't say yes."
"I never said they were fair," Kurogane said, with a smile that was barely more than a flash of bared teeth. "Strap in. We're going for the drop."
The shuttle screamed towards the planet's surface like a furious tiger, and Yuui's hands clutched around the arms of the copilot's chairs and reminded himself - again - that this was all routine for space travel. But that was remarkably little comfort when hurtling towards a planet's surface in a metal box with the aerodynamics of a brick.
Eventually they began to level out, and Yuui watched the Martian surface flying by with more interest. They were headed well away from the city this time, out into the barely-terraformed backlands along the Martian equator. The terrain was harsh and unforgiving, and totally inhospitable to roads; for this town, as with many others, they only way in or out was by air or by foot.
The low-slanting angle of the sun threw the uneven ground into vivid relief, and Yuui started fascinated at a landscape unlike any he'd ever seen in inner-city Hong Kong. Even the undeveloped lands of planet Earth had been known, charted, and tamed for centuries now; but the virgin lands of Mars were truly wild and unknown, uninhabited and untrodden by the foot of any man.
They passed by towering cliffsides with ruler-straight strata fragmented into right-angle patterns as complex as a circuit board, and flew over plunging ravines that vanished into unfathomable blackness, legacy of violent floodwaters millions of years gone. Rocks had been broken from their native beds and carried away for miles before being deposited on soft beds of red clay; some of them were twisted and eroded into shapes so complex and breathtakingly detailed that it was hard to believe they weren't man-made sculptures. Here and there they overflew stands of trees, grim and gray in their decades-long struggle to find a foothold in the barren soil and cold, dry winds - yet inch by inch, they spread their roots and branches and conquered the planet.
A blip on their radar signaled the town coming up long before they saw it, and Yuui was surprised to realize that there was no dome. The landmark for which the town had been named - Needle Rock - loomed up tall and red and sharp against the sunset, with a peculiar and perfectly smooth hole worn through the exact center of the peak. The town itself was only a few acres, low square blocks of native stone, plastic, and concrete. They made a bizarre ornament to the wild, rugged contours of the land, and Yuui was once again struck with a sense of disorientation.
The place he had grown up was as far from nature as you could possibly get; the closest to trees and rocks he ever came as a child was playing in the park with his twin. The Earth had been thoroughly beaten into submission, harnessed into service and coaxed into displaying its fruits and beauties according to human aesthetics. But this wild land defied such taming, and for all their alien nature, the buildings and the town seemed appropriate for the setting - as tough and rugged and enduring as the stones themselves.
It couldn't be said that the rural Martians lived in harmony with the land - it was more of a wary détente. There wasn't much room for fanciful illusions about the balance of nature and the beauty of the planet when the ecology - not to mention the world itself - was doing its level best to wipe you clean off its face. And yet the buildings an the layout of the town shouted of determination, a rough pride in all that they had accomplished. Look, they seemed to say, here we are; these are the things that matter to us, and here we'll stay.
Yuui could definitely see how Syaoran could have come from a place like this one.
His surprise edged into dismay, however, as Kurogane set the shuttle down on the flat expanse of bedrock that served this town for a landing pad (several other shuttles, hovercars, and light aircraft were crammed into a corner by the cliff.) "There's no dome," he said.
"This place is barely big enough to qualify for its own outhouse, let alone its own dome," Kurogane replied, switching the shuttle into standby mode and activating the security systems.
"But - the roads between the houses aren't covered," Yuui said. "How do they get from one house to another?"
"Simple," Kurogane said. He unstrapped himself from the pilot's chair and stood, reached into a dark corner, and pulled out a huge heavy wool coat which he tossed at Yuui. "Here, put this on," he said. "You'll find gloves in the pockets, and scarves - as well as outer boots - are in the locker behind you. Oh, and your breath mask."
"They go out in the Martian atmosphere?" Yuui said incredulously.
"Sure do," Kurogane said. "Terraforming's been going for over a hundred years by now. Atmospheric pressure isn't much worse here than you'd find at Earth in the highest mountain ranges - although most of it's carbon dioxide, at least so far. Once the trees get fully established and cover half the planet, humans will be able to breathe on Mars without assistance. But it doesn't have a patch on vacuum - it's cold and dry, so it'll be hell on your skin, but it won't kill you."
With some trepidation, Yuui drew on the heavy coat - he realized instantly that it must have been Kurogane's, since it was not only long enough for him but actually too big and loose around the shoulder and chest. He inhaled deeply, catching a musky scent that must have been Kurogane's, and a bolt of electricity seemed to shoot from his nose down his spine. He quickly bent down under the cover of pulling on the boots to hide the blush. His arms disappeared into the sleeves, but at least he wouldn't be cold; he was sweating just standing in the warm shuttle.
He watched Kurogane carefully as the bigger man pulled on his breathing mask and imitated his actions, adjusting the straps to fit it closely to his face and pulling the hood up around the edges of the mask. Thin plastic disks covered his eyes, but they didn't obscure his vision any more than the edge of the hood did anyway. The small, lightweight air canisters hung from his shoulders over his chest, and the coat fastened over everything.
When they were finished, the two of them stood in the shuttle's hatchway almost like strangers; if not for Kurogane's distinctive height and breadth, Yuui wasn't sure he would be able to recognize him at all.
"Let's go," Kurogane said brusquely, his voice slightly muffled by the breath mask. Then he punched open the shuttle hatch to the airlock, and the two of them cycled through.
The wind roared past them as the outer hatch opened, but not with the hurricane gale of a vacuum, and Yuui realized that Kurogane was right; the air pressure wasn't that much less than on Earth. He stumbled slightly as he dropped onto the ground below before he managed to steady his balance. The surface was loose, crunchy gravel, and Yuui felt a moment of obscure disappointment that his first moment standing on Martian soil was not more glorious. The sky above was clear of clouds and it was still hours until sunset, but even so the light seemed strangely dim to Yuui, like a winter's day compared to the same sun on Earth.
As they crunched across the gravel stand towards the town, Yuui felt the wind tug harshly at the sleeves of his heavy coat. He could feel the chill even through the layers, and the light glinted on tiny particles of dust and ice driven by the wind. But there were no exposed areas of skin for them to claw at, and his breathing remained harsh but steady behind the mask.
Three men were standing on the side of the airfield, waiting for them. They too were attired in heavy hooded coats and breath masks, but Yuui caught a flash of red encircling the upper arms of each of them; a cloth armband printed with a pattern of three interlocking triangles.
"That's the Triads' symbol," Kurogane muttered before they came into hearing range. "In the cities flaunting that armband would get you arrested on the spot; but out here, it's more than your life's worth mess with someone wearing that symbol."
The leader of the three men raised his hand as they approached, with a glinting electronic device encased in clear plastic to protect it from the grinding dust. Kurogane pulled something from his pocket that flashed in return - an exchange of encryption keys, Yuui guessed. Redundant, since they had to have gotten their ID's off the Mokona's shuttle before they could have even landed, but Yuui supposed it made sense for them to be careful who they dealt with.
The men - guards, Yuui supposed - fell into formation around them as they turned towards the town. Once off the wide, flat airstrip, windbreaks of stone and trees began to reduce the chilling effect of the wind. The road was made of tough plastic topping a solid concrete foundation, but off to the side bare ground was occasionally broken up by dun-colored grass. Yuui spotted other figures walking to and from the buildings, all dressed in the same dark brown or grey coats and heavy boots and with their faces hidden.
"Is everyone in this town part of the mob?" Yuui muttered to his companion.
"Who, them?" Kurogane surprised Yuui with a chuckle. "Nah, they're just the townspeople. The Triads own Needle Rock pretty much outright - own most of the land and the production - but that doesn't mean all the people are members. They're just getting along, doing what they have to survive; most of them work on the farms."
"Farms?" Yuui looked around. "I haven't seen any."
"You have, you just don't realize it - they're all indoors." Kurogane's masked face nodded towards a row of very long, low buildings set in the distance. The roof was capped with clear plastic, Yuui realized, although from this angle they couldn't see what was inside. "Everything on Mars is indoors, one way or another."
"What can they possibly grow here, though?" Yuui wondered.
"Oh, you'd be surprised," Kurogane said. "Martian cultivation technology is the best in the solar system - has to be, instead of on Earth where it's cheapest to just grow everything outside and let the sun do the work. But a lot of delicate plants do surprisingly well in the lower gravity and higher CO2 concentration of Mars, so if they put their mind to it, they can grow just about any plant you'd find on Earth - and a few more.
"Mostly what they grow is drugs, though," Kurogane added as an afterthought, and Yuui almost choked.
"Drugs?"
"Lots of these little Martian towns do. They can grow food crops and cotton and what have you, but the profit margin on drugs is much higher - after the Triads take their cut, it's the only way they can make enough money to survive. But like I said, they own Needle Rock pretty much outright, so it's one of their biggest production bases. All of the cargo we'll be taking to Europa was grown and processed here."
Yuui started to ask another question, but Kurogane cut him off with a growl. "We're here," he said.
They had reached the tallest building in the town - not the biggest by a long shot, but the most stories - and there were two more heavily bundled guards sporting red armbands by the door. They were mostly for show, Yuui guessed, and as his eyes flicked upwards he caught glimpses of the flat panels and slightly recessed weapon ports that provided the real security for this place.
The guards with them held up their electronic identifier again, and the door slid open. The group moved quickly inside and Yuui, the last one through the door, hesitated for a moment on the lintel as he felt the blast of an air curtain on his face. A hard hand grabbed his elbow and yanked him forward, allowing the door to seal behind him. "Never stand in an open doorway," Kurogane muttered, keeping hold of Yuui's arm as they moved through a second set of doors into a warm, well-lit interior. "It's the rudest thing you can do here - lets the air and heat out."
"Oh." Kurogane still hadn't taken his hand off Yuui's arm, and Yuui wondered if he ought to say something. Maybe Kurogane was keeping tabs of him like a parent would an errant child, to stop him from wandering off and causing trouble - or then again, maybe Kurogane wanted everyone watching to know without a doubt that Yuui was here with him.
Once inside, it was hard for Yuui to believe that they were still in the same rustic Martian village he had seen outside - the interior of the building was hardly different from any office he'd seen on Earth, aside from the complete lack of exterior windows. Desks and carpets, discreet shoji screens, the occasional potted plant - it was about as far from the cavernous hideaway where villainous pirates counted their ill-gotten loot as Yuui could imagine. Yet the money was still here. The expensive feel of the carpets underfoot, the imported wood paneling on the desks, and the tasteful, muted aesthetic of the decorating all screamed 'expensive!'
Yuui began to feel more out of place than ever.
A pretty girl in a grey business suit appeared before them, smiling at Kurogane. "Welcome," she said with a polite bow. "Mistress Amamiya is ready for your appointment - she said not to keep you waiting."
She ushered them over towards the elevator, but then Kurogane's hand on Yuui's elbow dragged him to a halt. "Right," he said. "I don't want you sitting in for this."
"What?" Yuui looked over at Kurogane, bewildered and a bit hurt. "But I thought you brought me along to - watch your back." He stumbled over the last words, suddenly aware that it might be less than polite to say so in front of their hosts.
"Yeah," Kurogane said, his eyes flickering around the push office lobby and narrowing. "And I've done that - let everyone watching know that I'm not fucking around, and that I've brought enough firepower to back myself up. But this is business now, and none of yours."
"Wait a minute!" Yuui said, as Kurogane released him with a little push and turned towards the elevator. He lowered his voice to a hiss, not wanting to get into a very public and spectacular fight with his - partner? Employee? Associate? What exactly did their strange relationship make them. "You brought me all this way and now you're saying you don't trust me enough to have me in the room?"
"Pretty much, yeah," Kurogane said, his own expression hardening. "There's trust and there's trust, kid. I trust you to watch my back in a fight, but let's face it, you don't know anything about this kind of business deal. So make yourself scarce for an hour or so. No one who works here will bother you unless something's gone very wrong."
"And what if something does?" Yuui challenged him. "If something goes 'very wrong' and I'm not there to help you?"
"Then get back to the shuttle if you can," Kurogane replied flatly. "And good luck."
Yuui felt his face getting hot, and at the same time he was suddenly intensely aware of the presence of others - the pretty secretary, the half-seen figures behind the screens, others invisible behind the walls but listening intently through monitoring equipment. He didn't really want to have all of them listening in on this spat, but he promised himself that he would take this up with Kurogane later.
He turned on his heel and marched for the door, the back of his neck burning, and heard the hiss of the elevator doors behind him. Somehow, the pristine office seemed an even less appealing place to wait than the cold Martian tundra.
Once outside, he paused to look around, shivering a bit disconsolately in the cold gritty wind. The two guards at the door were looking at him - it was impossible to read expressions through the breath masks, but he thought their attitude was rather coldly intimidating. Obviously they wouldn't take kindly to him hanging around outside their mob boss's office for the next hour, so he crunched off over the gravel the way he'd come.
Without having any real idea of where to go, Yuui headed back towards the shuttlepad from where they'd come, with a vague idea of waiting out the hour in the warmth of the ship's interior. He stopped, though, when he saw another shuttle sitting beside the Mokona's - one whose wings were branded with the logo of a snarling tiger.
Even growing up in a poor neighborhood on Earth, Yuui still recognized the trademark symbol of the Kajitori. It was a word that had become synonymous with space travel - like other household names, like Ford or Disney or Dobratz (who had achieved an early lockout on methods of prepping and storing edible food for space environments,) it was hard to remember that 'Kajitori' had once been the name of a real person. Or a family of people, rather - the Kajitori had been one of the zaibatsu, the Japanese mega-corporations who built the grand space stations hanging in the sky over Earth.
Apart from the generalities, though, Yuui was only vaguely aware of what exactly the Kajitori did - up until they'd been 'recruited' by the psi academy, neither he nor his twin had ever dreamed of traveling off-planet. He knew of them only as much as everyone growing up in the modern world knew on them, and perhaps it wasn't as much of a shock as it should have been to find them working hand-in-glove with the Triads. Despite the legacy of enmity between the Chinese and Japanese that stretched back hundreds of years, business was, after all, business.
Still - if outsiders came to this town regularly, then mob-owned or not, there had to be some sort of inn or restaurant that catered to outsiders. Yuui reversed his steps, beginning to shiver even inside the heavy stifling coat, and headed for the largest and busiest-looking street in the town.
Although he saw several other people on the streets - of various sizes and builds, some walking alone, some in small pairs or groups - all avoided and ignored him when he tried to approach them. Eventually he homed in on his destination by following the strains of music and voices that drifted from the doorway of a large, well-fronted building on the street, and was rewarded with a small, discreet plaque over the door that said Drinks in three different languages.
This time, he remembered to move quickly through the doorway and let it close behind him. It was unquestionably a bar; the smell of booze and tobacco,\ p as well as the faint sweet trace of other substances - filled the air, and tables dotted an open space before a bar manned by a humorless-looking local. The air inside was much hotter than the office building had been, and he peeled back his hood and lowered the breath mask almost immediately, shaking his sweat-dampened hair out with relief.
A whistle pierced the hot, smoky air of the bar, but Yuui didn't immediately associate it with himself as he shrugged out of the heavy coat and hung it from a peg on the wall. As he walked towards the bar, however, a hand shot out from one of the tables and grabbed his wrist. "Hey, baby!" the would-be grabber shouted, his voice with the slightly off-key cadence of the drunk. "You're so fine, I'd like to use your thighs as earmuffs!"
For a moment Yuui staggered, caught off balance; then training kicked in, and he twisted his wrist against the grip to free it and fell backwards into a self-defense stance. The group of men at the table in front of him just laughed uproariously, as though his resistance was part of some cosmic joke.
Yuui ran his eyes over the group of drunks, taking in their flashy, outlandish clothes - they didn't look or act anything like the other locals. "You guys are with the Kajitori?" he said with some surprise. The Kajitori ship had arrived after theirs did, which meant these men had been here for less than an hour, and they were already shit-faced?
"That's right, sweetface!" the man who had grabbed Yuui's arm said boisterously. "And you know what that means, right? We're rich!"
"Rich as thieves," one of the other men said, toasting an oversized shotglass which clinked with ice. "Which I suppose technically is what we are. Without going into the details, ten percent of a fuckton of money is still a shitload of money."
"Come and have a drink with us, honey," the grabby man said again, pawing his arm towards Yuui's waist. "Or better yet, a lot of drinks, and then an hour in the upstairs room. How about it, sexy? I promise I'll buy you all the diamond earrings you like afterwards!"
Yuui dodged the arm, his annoyance growing. "I'm not a woman," he corrected them icily.
"Oh, baby, I don't hold that against you," the drunkard said, which produced a roar of laughter from his friends. "No, seriously… you're almost perfect, baby."
"Almost?" Yuui asked before he could help himself.
"Yeah, almost," the guy said with a slightly off-center leer. "We've been talking for five minutes, and you're not naked yet!"
Yuui rolled his eyes and turned his back, heading for the bar. Good gods, how stupid did you have to be to actually try a line like that in public? As if this drunken idiot could hold a candle when it came to - Kurogane, for example. Yuui felt a moment of renewed appreciation for Kurogane's ability to accept 'no' for an answer.
"Hey!" the drunk shouted from behind him. "Where do you think you're going?"
"Somewhere cleaner," Yuui shot back over his shoulder, and took a seat at the bar. He eyed the row of bottles behind the bartender, wondering if he'd be obliged to pay for a drink in order to be allowed to stay here and if so, what he could order that wouldn't likely make him sick.
"Don't turn your back on me, you stupid bitch! I'm Kajitori Yosho, and nobody turns their back on me!" the man yelled, his voice losing the humor and turning ugly. There was a scraping sound of a chair being pushed back, and Yuui tensed, stilling as he centered himself for a fight.
The next one to speak was the bartender, in harsh, rapid Cantonese. It took a moment for his peculiar accent to filter through Yuui's ears; something about "rules" and "not to bother" and a slang term he'd heard referring to the streetwalkers in his old Hong Kong neighborhood.
"He's not one of yours," the drunk said sullenly, his own dialect slightly more comprehensible. "What do you care about some gwaipor?"
Yuui considered pointing out to the parties involved that he could speak Chinese, but somehow it didn't seem worth the effort.
"Rules are rules," the bartender said flatly. "Settle down or get out."
The drunken Kajitori returned slowly to his chair, and a sullen silence over the bar was slowly broken by rising voices and the shuffle of glasses again. Yuui gave a bright, plastic smile to the barman, who nodded expressionlessly at him and asked "What'll you have?"
Kurogane stormed out of the artificially elegant building into the cold Martian air, yanking his hood up over his head as the blast of the air curtain rolled over him. Stupid bitch, he thought seethingly. Just can't pick up on a hint, or take 'no' for an answer.
He was glad now that he'd sent Yuui away for this meeting - Sonomi had insisted on addressing him by his family name for the entire interview, and he'd eventually given up on the point in order to better dig in his heels over other things. No, he was not going to sign a contract for further drug runs. No, he was not going to accept any 'complimentary loans' of ships or troops to escort him. No, he would not do any spying on the chaotic governments of the Jovian sphere once he was out there and report it back to the Triads via a secure link. And no, no matter what she offered, he was not going to persuade his 'esper friends' to seek protection from Earth depredations with the Triads. As if their 'protection' was anything less than a life of indentured servitude, however prettily they dressed it up!
Walking in the cold Martian wind soon cooled his boiling temper to a low simmer, and he began to look around for his companion. A small twinge of guilty conscience assaulted him; he supposed it hadn't been very tactful of him to throw him out of the meeting with Sonomi without even telling him where he could safely wait. There weren't really many places in this town for outsiders to go, and he tried the local bar first. The sun was beginning to dip towards the horizon, and ice was beginning to precipitate into a thin layer of frost under his boots as he headed in that direction.
He was in luck - he spotted the blond head sitting over by the bar as soon as he came in. He glanced over the rest of the crowd, assessed the crowd of unruly drunks as 'not a threat' and dismissed them from his attention, heading straight over to the bar. Yuui looked up as he approached, and his first expression of pleased welcome made Kurogane's chest warm. It was quickly quenched by remembered annoyance, and those blue eyes narrowed dangerously before the man snorted eloquently and turned back to his drink. "Finished your meeting?" he said icily.
Well, he supposed he deserved that. Kurogane slid onto the bar stool next to Yuui and called the bartender over. "I'll have two double whiskeys, and keep them coming," he growled. Mars whiskey wasn't as good as Earth whiskey - there was always a distinctive harsh aftertaste - but at least they made the booze in this place strong enough to kill a cow.
The drinks were slapped in front of him with gratifying speed, and Kurogane took great pleasure in paying for it with the Triads' own money. He took a large gulp, closing his eyes tightly for a moment while he fought the burn, then set the emptied glass down with a harsh exhale.
Yuui had turned to watch him. "Didn't go well?" he offered dryly after a moment.
"About as expected," Kurogane growled. At least the worst was over, and he could concentrate on getting drunk as quickly as possible. Thank God for autopilot controls, which meant he could feel free to get as smashed as necessary and still be back in the Mokona by tonight.
He picked up the second whiskey, and this one at least lasted more than two swigs. "Don't worry about it, though," he said after a minute. "It's set. They're loading up the cargo into the shuttle within the hour. Your brother will get what he needs."
Yuui wilted slightly on the bar stool, and the rest of his annoyance at being excluded from the negotiations dissolved. "Thanks," he murmured. When he looked up, his blue eyes were huge and full of a sincere gratitude. Holy shit, Kurogane thought, and went back to his drink in self defense. "Sorry... about all this. I know you didn't want to have to do it."
"I don't do anything I don't want to," Kurogane corrected him, staring into his glass as a safer alternative to those wide blue eyes. "Being an independent ship's captain means you can't always avoid the hard jobs, that's all."
They drank in companionable silence for a while, and Kurogane gradually began to unwind. It had been a long time, he realized, since he'd been able to relax in the company of another man - not just with the kids, whom he liked and trusted but who ultimately depended on him for guidance and protection, but with an equal. For a change, he actually felt comfortable enough in someone else's presence to vent some his frustrations.
"There's just no safe way of dealing with these people," he said. The bartender was still within hearing range, but he wasn't worried; the man was a local townsmen, which meant he dealt with the Triads, but he didn't have to like them and he didn't spy for them. "You give them an inch, they take a fucking mile. They'll fall all over themselves to offer you a sweet deal, but as soon as you take it, you'll find the fucking wolves at your door waiting to collect a thousand percent."
"Sounds like the only way to win is not to play," Yuui remarked, tilting his own glass - Kurogane noticed he'd been working on the same one he'd had when Kurogane had come in, while he'd polished off three himself in the same time.
"Yeah, exactly," Kurogane agreed. "And the most infuriating thing was that they kept trying to get at you guys through me, because you're espers and the fucking Martians think they should have a lock on all things telepathic -"
"Us?" Yuui looked up quickly, and it took a moment for Kurogane to process what had alarmed him so.
"You and the girl," he amended quickly. "I never said a thing about your guest, and they don't seem to have heard of him through any other channels either."
Yuui relaxed again. "Thanks," he muttered.
"They're not Earth," Kurogane felt the need to say. "They don't abuse their own people, and it's a damn sight sure they'd be able to protect you from Earth more thoroughly than one ship's captain and a crew of kids."
Yuui met his eyes again, and smiled - and it was funny how Kurogane had come to tell the difference between his fake plastic smiles and the rare, real ones. "I'll take my chances," he said.
They drank in silence for a few more minutes. "But they must hold you in pretty high regard, in order to offer you this job at all," Yuui said. "If they're not as bad as all that, then why are you so opposed to doing business with them?"
Kurogane grimaced, the warm fuzzies melting away as his bad mood returned. He downed another shot of whiskey, feeling the buzz finally beginning in his head and hands. "Don't get the wrong idea," he growled. "They play nice and put on an honorable front when they can, but underneath they're still a bunch of thugs and criminals. They run a dirty business that ruins millions of people's lives, and they don't care who else they do business with who isn't as nice and honorable as they are."
He thought back to the last argument he'd had with Sonomi, and had to put the glass down again before he crushed it in the grip of his involuntary rage. "I told her I'll never sign any contracts with the Triads while they still do business with scum like the Kajitori," he spat.
To his surprise, Yuui barked a laugh, and took another drink of his own whiskey. "If they're anything like that lot of drunken idiots, I don't blame you there," he said.
"What?" Kurogane squinted at him, frowning.
"That lot over there," Yuui said, nodding over his shoulder at the group of drunks Kurogane had dismissed earlier. "They're Kajitori - I saw their ship outside. They were making themselves obnoxious earlier on, bragging about how much money they made doing an equipment run for the Triads…"
Yuui kept prattling on, saying something about cheesy pickup lines and idiot drunks, but Kurogane wasn't listening. His vision had narrowed to a tunnel of dark red, all the rage he'd been struggling with for the past few days igniting to a flashpoint.
It wasn't the fault of these men. He knew that objectively. But that didn't stop the fury that roared up in him like a dragon, breathing clouds of smoke and flame that dimmed his vision and drove him out of his chair. He walked towards the men gathered around the table, drinking and laughing - laughing, as though they had the right…
"Captain Tipsy? What are you doing?" Yuui's voice came from behind him, but Kurogane barely heard it. He came to the edge of the group and hesitated, restraining his muscles from lashing out with a great effort. Four of them, Kurogane made note; two staggeringly drunk, two relatively sober. Only one with the presence of mind to keep his weapon nearby.
Gradually the talk and laughter died down as the Kajitori became aware of his presence. The drunkest one, who had his back towards the bar and Kurogane, twisted around and squinted up at him. "Oi! You got a problem?" he said belligerently. "Don't stick your ugly mug in here when we're busy drinking!"
"You've got an awful lot of money to throw around for a bunch of worthless low-lifes," Kurogane said, and the other conversations in the bar came to an abrupt halt. He hadn't raised his voice at all, but there was a dangerous edge to it, a humming undercurrent like a live cable just waiting for someone foolish enough to put his hand on it.
"Yeah, so what?" the drunkard sneered. His eyes traveled up - and up - Kurogane's frame, and he couldn't suppress a gloating smirk at how easily he loomed over the smaller man. "Freak."
Kurogane leaned forward, getting into the guy's face, and the man turned slightly paler as he leaned back to try to get away. "So I wonder where you got so much blood money," Kurogane snarled. "Who'd you have to kill to get so rich? That's all you Kajitori bastards know how to do."
"What of it?" one of the other Kajitori said, his tone edged to match Kurogane's own. He stepped forward, hand on the katana at his waist, and Kurogane watched that hand hungrily. Yes, oh yes, be the one to draw first - "Who are you, the space cops? 'Cos if so, you picked the wrong bar to show up in. Or are you one of those dickless Mino bas -"
Kurogane's hand was still on the table's edge. On any self-respecting spaceship - or even a station - what he was about to do wasn't possible, because all furniture was bolted down in potentially free-fall environments. But this was Mars, and they didn't care about such things, and so the table was only a lump of metal and plastic free-standing on the floor. The table itself weighed over a hundred kilos, and the Kajitori went scrambling back with curses and yells as Kurogane heaved up the edge and flipped the table. Plates and glasses slid everywhere and shattered, bottles of gin and vodka crashing onto the floor and spraying everyone with their contents.
Before the glass had finished shattering Kurogane jumped up onto the table's underside, falling into a stance on the rocky footing. The Kajitori fell back, looks of shock and outrage on their expression. "What the fuck are you doing, you crazy bastard?" one of them cried. "You've got no idea who you're messing with! Kajitori Shouji is my uncle - one word from me about you, and you'll never ride a space lane again!"
"Only if you live long enough to go crying to him, you spineless cockroach," Kurogane snarled, and drew his sword from its scabbard with a long, sinuous scrape of steel. "I'm not a cop, and I'm not Mino. I'm the Black Dragon of Suwa, and if you want to live, you'd better fight; if you try to run, I'll cut you down like the dogs you are!"
He watched their faces, the dark part of him glorying in their expressions as the meaning sunk in; first puzzlement, then shock, then fear. Two of them - the stupid ones, Kurogane marked them - sputtered in disbelief. "But that's not possible," the nephew-Kajitori said. "The Black Dragon - but he was -"
The other two, either less drunk or more quick on the uptake, didn't bother with words; they both drew their swords in reply, and charged at him with fierce cries.
"Captain!" he heard Yuui cry, and saw the blond man start towards him. "Please stop - you don't need to do this!"
Kurogane suppressed a surge of irrational fury that anyone else would dare to interfere - no, Yuui probably just thought he was trying to help. Or had Yuui gotten the idea that Kurogane was somehow defending his honor? What an idiot. "Stay out of this!" Kurogane roared back at him, keeping his eyes on the enemy. "This is none of your business!"
All of the children of the zaibatsu trained in the use of swords - Mino, Kajitori, and Suwa. It was a tradition as old as the space stations themselves. When their ancestors had built the first solar habitats, they quickly became aware of the terrible vulnerability of their floating cities to the vacuum outside. Their life-support systems balanced on a thread between fire and ice; an explosion or a gunshot in the wrong place could kill hundreds. As a precaution against disaster, they banned firearms and explosives of any kind on the station, and kept a strict monitor on the chemicals or facilities that could be used to manufacture them. Not even the police and security officers were permitted to carry guns, because a single misplaced shot could doom the very people he was sworn to protect.
But human nature never changed no matter how dangerous the environment, and there had to be some way to enforce rule and order on those who would dissent. So the Japanese dug into their history and revived the old practices, and weapons, of bushido. A sword was much less likely than a stray bullet to ignite flammable gases, after all, or ricochet and piece an external shell open to vaccum. Not only the police were trained in the use of swords; the elite ruling class ordered their own weapons forged in modern furnaces, and taught their children the use of the sword as well as the old doctrines of honor and loyalty. The sword-bearing samurai, lost to legend on Earth, soon emerged as the symbol of the ruling class in space, and within a generation it had become embedded in their culture.
Even now, decades after the reign of the zaibatsu had broken, long after tougher spaceship hulls allowed guns to be brought back into common use, they still commissioned swords for their children and they still trained them all in the art of bushido. But, Kurogane thought with grim humor, most of the training nowadays was only a formality, or a sport, never used except in refereed matches.
Not his.
The first two swordsmen reached him, uttering high-pitched battle cries as they struck; but Kurogane was able to easily sidestep one blow and block the other. He'd been right, they moved like they were in an arena; they'd probably never been in real combat in their life. His own return blow was a savage cut at neck level that forced both of his opponents to stumble back with a cry, and he leaped down off the table after them.
The other twp Kajitori had finally pulled together enough to get their own weapons out, but after a certain point superior numbers ceased to be an advantage. They couldn't find footing behind him thanks to the upturned table, and as the four of them tried to crowd into position around him they mostly just got in each other's way. Kurogane was able to fend off their attacks with contemptuous ease, and took advantage of openings to slice them to ribbons.
Unfortunately (Kurogane thought,) the Kajitori were all wearing a set of space-grade workman's suits. Although not exactly body armor, it was woven with carbon nanotubes to make it tough and resistant to damage, and it would blunt all but a killing blow. So instead Kurogane concentrated his slashes on the parts of his enemies that were unprotected - mostly on faces and hands.
A cut to the face of the drunken nephew-Kajitori sent blood spurting, and the man whimpered and sunk to his knees, dropping his sword to clutch at his bloody cheek and ear. That would leave a scar even if he didn't lose the ear - he'd never be so pretty again, Kurogane thought, and snarled with satisfaction. Another man - the almost-sober man who was the closest thing Kurogane had to a real opponent - lost two fingers off his sword hand and went down screaming, and Kurogane tossed his head back and bellowed with laughter.
Kurogane was as drunk on bloodlust as on whiskey, and his vision was still clouded with a haze. He barely heard the sound of shouting beyond the immediate clash of steel and the screams of opponents. He was toying with his opponents, wanting to hurt and humiliate them even if he couldn't kill them - every single dog wearing the Kajitori colors, on Mars, on Earth, in Space, wherever they ran to.
"Look what he did! The crazy bastard!" nephew-Kajitori was wailing from behind him. "Look what he did to my face! To Ichiro's hand! Kill that motherfucker!"
A confusion of shouting distilled to a sullen muttering, and then Kurogane heard the sound that made the hair rise on the back of any swordsman's neck: the tooth-grinding hum of an activated katana.
There was one way in which the weapon of the zaibatsu differed from the swords of old. Times had moved on, and ceramic and nanocarbon armor made to withstand heavy gunfire laughed in the face of a plain steel edge. So the scientists had adapted, and come up with a new weapon; when unpowered it was no more than an ordinary sword, but it also contained an adapter that could channel a powerful surge. The surge couldn't be maintained for long - it ran on a battery, after all - but when activated it set up a micro-edge vibration barely a few atoms wide.
A micro-activated katana - colloquially known as a 'hot' katana - could be pushed into a concrete wall for the full length of its blade with no apparent resistance; it could easily cut through the front and back of any known body armor and didn't even notice the much softer human body parts in between.
The four Kajitori were circling him now with the ugly whine of hot blades coming from every side, and Kurogane's jaw set as he reached for the activation switch on his own sword. "All right," he growled. "You morons want to play with the big boys, then? Your funeral."
None of his opponents were very good, but when swinging a weapon that went through solid steel like warm butter, they didn't have to be. The only thing Kurogane could use to block their attacks was his own hot katana, and if he missed even one, he'd be in at least two pieces on the barroom floor.
Despite that, though, Kurogane wasn't afraid. There was no room in his head for fear. All he had was the rage and hatred, and the certainty that they were the ones who had raised the stakes; he would kill them all and spit on their headless corpses on the floor -
Two of his enemies suddenly jerked and let out a yell as a grip like an invisible hand knocked them off their feet. They went flying in opposite directions to slam against the walls; one of them crashed into a large plate mirror set along the wall and left a broad star-shaped network of cracks on impact. He dropped his weapon, which switched itself off for safety as it left his nerveless hand and tumbled to the floor. The other managed to keep a grip on his, but slashed futilely in the air against nothing as the invisible force kept him pinned. Kurogane glanced over long enough to see Yuui, his hands spread and eyes burning with fear and fury.
"I said stay out of it!" Kurogane snarled, but Yuui shook his head, taking a deep breath and perspiration stood out on his skin.
Nephew-Kajitori tried to take advantage of Kurogane's distraction to attack - but before Kurogane could cut him in half, the man lifted in midair and then spun head over heels before shooting up to slam against the ceiling. Kurogane snarled as he was deprived of his prey, although he couldn't help but take some satisfaction at the sight of the man's legs kicking helplessly in midair as he was pinned against the ceiling.
"Captain Kurogane!" Yuui gasped, and it was obvious from his strained, rigid expression that three opponents were all he could keep pinned this way. Three were out of Kurogane's reach, but that still left one within reach of his sword -
An explosion rang out from behind them, and all three men still standing - Kurogane, Yuui, and the remaining Kajitori - ducked as burning-hot debris rained down on them.
"Deactivate your weapons, now!" a bullhorn-amplified voice came from the doorway. Kurogane glanced aside - keeping his enemies within his field of vision the whole time - to see a squad of men with bright red armbands aiming flechette guns at them from behind the bar. Flechette guns were banned from all space installations even now, but this was Mars, and the Triads favored weapons that would make an impression. A grown man being turned into hamburger in a single shot tended to do that. The bartender hovered in the doorway behind them, and Kurogane was unsurprised to see the man pointing a double-barreled shotgun squarely in his own direction.
Kurogane almost - almost - disobeyed that warning and went for the kill. But the sight of Yuui's wide-eyed, fearful expression was like a rush of cold water dissipating some of the blood fury. With a great effort he took a deep breath, straightened from his attack stance and deactivated the switch on his katana. He slid the weapon back into its sheath with a click and raised both hands in the air.
"You - blondie," the bartender called out, and his voice was gruff but not entirely hostile. "Let the other three go now."
Yuui relaxed his telekinetic holds; the two Kajitori pinned against the walls slid down into heaps on the floor while the third was lowered with a completely unnecessary amount of care onto the floor.
"All right," the squad leader said into the silence, once all of the combatants had stopped moving under the watchful gaze of the flechette guns. "Here's the deal. I don't know what happened, and I don't care. None of our people got hurt, and you didn't bust up any of our equipment, so you'll all get to walk out of here with your legs on. But even if you work for us - suppliers, runners, whatever it is you do, there'll be no more fighting on our turf. You leave now, you don't cause any trouble, you get in your ships and go. Clear?"
"Not so fast," the bartender said, pushing his way to the front. "Easy for you Triads to say, but these assholes smashed up my bar! Who's gonna pay for all that!"
"That crazy bastard -" Nephew-Kajitori mumbled, starting to struggle to his feet, but Kurogane looked at him and he shut up, swallowing as his face paled.
"I'll pay for it," Yuui said before the seething tensions could erupt. Keeping a wary eye on the men with the guns, he hurried over to the bartender and dug in his pockets for his credit chit, and the two of them quickly became involved in negotiations. The Kajitori collected themselves - amid groans and curses - and hurried out, shooting Kurogane searing glances of hatred which Kurogane absorbed without visible emotion. He could have killed them all, and they knew it, and he knew they knew it.
The squad leader strolled over to Kurogane, and he clenched his jaw, determined not to be the first one to speak.
"Suwa You-ou?" the man asked in a low undertone, and Kurogane glared at him but did not deny it. The man nodded in satisfaction, and Kurogane realized that as head of security he must have been monitoring Kurogane's conversation with Sonomi.
"The family is aware of your… history with the Kajitori," the man said with a cold, tiny smile that Kurogane wanted to wipe off his face. "The family understands. But understand this. You are traveling under the Triad banner right now, and so were they. You will not take any actions which hinder Triad business from being carried out… not now, nor ever. Our patience and understanding extends only so far, Captain Kurogane. Do not test us."
"I'll behave as long as I'm doing this job for you, that's all," Kurogane growled, and the captain shrugged.
"Your cargo is loaded, Captain," the man said in normal tones again, and Kurogane saw Yuui glance over at him. "I would advise that you be on your way as speedily as possible. Lingering in Martian space might be… unwise."
He turned away and walked towards the backroom entrance from which he'd come, but he stopped by Yuui and the bartender before he left. "No need for you to pay anything, my friend," he said, just loudly enough for Kurogane to hear. "The Triads will cover your expenses. You are a formidable kinetic. If your contract - or your relationship - with this volatile freelance captain comes to an end, you really should consider employment with us. We guarantee stability and protection."
Kurogane turned on his heel - splintered glass grated beneath his boot - and stormed for the entrance, snatching his coat and mask off the hood. He was out the door and into the Martian atmosphere before he even finished donning the protective gear, and the howling icy wind was like a punch to the head. He held his breath as he strode through the growing darkness until he'd adjusted the breath mask to fit.
With that head start, he had almost made it to the shuttle before he heard the running footsteps and breathless voice behind him. "Wait, Captain Brawler," Yuui said, and Kurogane slowed as he approached the hatch. "Were you planning to leave without me?"
"Were you planning to take his offer?" Kurogane shot back, and saw Yuui's eyes widen behind the breath mask.
"No, of course not," he said in surprise. "But this isn't about me. What happened back there, Captain? You just jumped into a fight like you'd been waiting for one!"
"I told you it was none of your business," Kurogane snapped. "And I thought you were staying out of it!"
"I was, mostly because I wasn't sure who I should be helping!" Yuui returned acidly. "What in hell have you got against the Kajitori that even the mention of their name sends you into a blood fury?"
Silence rang out between them. Kurogane turned away from Yuui, and punched the airlock door open. The two of them cycled through the hatch, and once inside the shuttle they stripped off the heavy outdoor gear and settled back into the shuttle seats for takeoff. Kurogane called up the cargo bay readings, and they registered full; they'd fly heavy with all this onboard, but he'd loaded enough fuel to get them back aboard the Mokona.
Kurogane hoped that Yuui would take the hint, but instead it seemed the man had just moved on to a different question. "You called yourself the… Black Dragon," he said, hesitating slightly before repeating the term. "Of Suwa. What did you mean? What did that have to do with those men?"
"None of your business," Kurogane said shortly.
"Bullshit!" Yuui snapped, his blue eyes flashing. "If you've got some kind of vendetta you're going to drag me into - and the kids, and my brother - then I think it is going to be our business! If you - "
"This isn't the time for history lessons," Kurogane said, cutting him off. "We've got other things to worry about."
"Like what?" Yuui demanded. Kurogane reached over and activated the flight-control screens; the shuttle marked with the Kajitori identifier was screaming away into the sky ahead of them. Kurogane wasn't worried about them; a shuttle that size would have no armaments to speak of, and besides, the Triads' own air forces would be keeping an eye on both of them until they left Martian airspace.
Once back in space, however…
The Kajitori would have some trouble coming up with a plausible explanation for where they'd been and how they'd gotten their injuries. Their superiors would probably have a few hard questions as to where their missing equipment had gone. Those were just details, though. Eventually, they'd have all their masters on the trail like a pack of hounds.
"Getting out of Mars while the getting's good," Kurogane said.
~to be continued...