Title: Not Quite Paradise
Pairing: Kurogane/Yuui/Fai, Fai/Yuui, Syaoran/Sakura.
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. Chapter seventeen was mostly written by me, and chapter eighteen was mostly written by her.

The kids were waiting for him outside the lounge. Syaoran had his coat back on, but the toggles were unfastened, and he was leaning against the straight steel wall. A man twice as big as he, almost as huge as Kurogane, had materialized from out of seemingly nowhere and was now standing patiently next to the entrance to Karen's complex; his long blond hair was pulled into a scraggly ponytail and he wore heavy dun cold weather gear, including a scarf that covered his mouth and nose and a hat pulled down low so all Yuui could see of his face was his eyes. The bouncer eyed him over, but satisfied that Yuui was leaving, did not make any other movement.

"That was quick," Sakura said, coming up to him. She tilted her head to one side and frowned at him. "Where's Fai-san?"

"With the Captain," Yuui reassured her. He shifted his weight to his other hip, glancing warily around the chilly steel loading bay. "They're still working out the value of... of the cargo."

"Did Karen offer you a job?" Syaoran wanted to know, and Yuui raised his eyebrows. The kid didn't really look all that ashamed. "Captain Kurogane said he would speak to her about it. It'd be a really good idea, Yuui-san."

"So he said," Yuui said, with a light, polite smile. He could not entirely express how much he didn't want these two children encouraging him to work as a brothel security enforcer. Sakura must have sensed some of this, for she quickly changed the subject, seizing his elbow in both her pink mittened hands and beginning to tow him over towards the shiny doors of the elevator shaft. Yuui didn't think this one was the one they had left through, which meant they must be going to another habitat, a guess confirmed by Sakura a moment later.

"It's another elevator ride to the marketplace," she said. "It's safe there, almost as safe as at Karen's. The market mercs won't tolerate violence."

Yuui squinted at her, confused. "Mercenaries?"

"It's what they're called," she said, with a shrug. "You have to remember the way Europa started out, Yuui-san. Six different mining corporations bought grants out here. They imported their prisoners from all over... ERK hired out of Russian prisons, United Energy from American, Six Stars from Zimbabwe and so on... nobody here really likes each other. But the market and Karen's place are neutral territories, Karen's because she hires bouncers, the market because the sellers hire their own mercenaries."

"Karen's bouncers will throw you out, and maybe very unkindly depending on what you did to her girls," Syaoran continued anxiously, "But the marketplace has its own laws, and if you violate Europan market laws, the market mercenaries will carry out... justice. And not the kind with a legal system and fair representation."

"They have a firing range there," Sakura continued quietly. "It's not used much anymore, or at least, not in all the time we've been coming and going from Europa... but it used to be."

Yuui frowned. "These laws -"

"Don't steal from, threaten, kill or otherwise inflict injury upon a vendor," Syaoran interjected helpfully. "And don't take out grievances on other shoppers on the market floor. They don't care if you do it outside, but there's no violence in the market. It's fairly easy to stay within the rules."

That seemed reasonable enough to Yuui, though the thought of a mercenary police force wasn't one he relished. He had a sudden brisk mental image of some young brave pointing a weapon at a vendor; of men in black body armor pinning the fool down, dragging him over to a corner of the market where the walls were stained brown and red...

"We have a pretty large shopping list this time, don't we?" Sakura was asking brightly, her face turned toward Syaoran. He grimaced.

"You have the internal shopping list, but the biggest priority for me as far as I know is to replace the outer plates we lost in that dogfight. That'll take me hours to get done, unless we want to pay double for the labor."

Sakura reached up with her mittened hand, pushing a strand of hair under her hood. "Well, tell you what - why don't we all three go to the marketplace, but we'll find the processed ship hardware seller first, and you can go start your repairs?"

Syaoran frowned. "Kurogane always said not to leave you alone in the market, Princess," he said, but Sakura just scowled.

"I'm not a little girl," she said, with a trace of huffiness. "I'm - well, you know what I can see, and I haven't seen myself being kidnapped in the marketplace. Anyway, Yuui-san will be with me, and if I'm not safe with someone with hisgifts I'm not going to be safe at all."

Yuui couldn't keep from grinning. "Well said, Sakura-chan," he said cheerfully, and she turned and beamed proudly at him over her shoulder.

They didn't have to summon the marketplace elevator; it was already making its way toward them. When it stopped they had to stand aside from the doors to let its four passengers exit, and once inside the car Yuui stared back at the strange Europan men in their thick heavy coats as they made their way, in an orderly fashion, to Karen's bouncer, queuing to show him their IDs and be admitted into her perfumed halls. Would that be his job, he wondered, or would he be working inside? It was cold out there in the elevator lobby, a coldness that only spiked as the car doors closed and the elevator undocked.

"The miners won't be carrying any obvious insignia in the marketplace, but it's very important you don't confuse the groups with each other," Syaoran said, rubbing his gloved hands together. "The outer clothing style is a giveaway, but really, it's best to try not to try to work out which miner works for which company. It shouldn't come up unless something goes wrong. If you call a Six Stars miner a Shan-zhe... well, they'll be waiting for you when you leave."

Sakura pulled a face. "We get some slack because we're in-Solars," she said matter-of-factly, and grinned at Yuui's mystified expression. "It's what the Jovian colonies call everybody who lives between Jupiter and the Sun. It's not really a derogatory term, although sometimes they use it like it is."

"It's an English pun," Yuui guessed slowly. "In-Solar... Insular?"

Syaoran shrugged. "My English isn't great, but that sounds about right? The words sound similar anyway. Did you speak English at home, Yuui-san?"

Yuui swallowed and smiled, but it was a small thing. "Sometimes," he said, and something in his face must have given away that it was a sore topic, for Syaoran dropped his gaze and moved to gaze out the elevator window.

There were two men waiting for their elevator to dock, and they shoved themselves inside as soon as the door opened without giving any of the current passengers a chance to leave; Syaoran and Sakura seemed to have been expecting it, because they didn't make to leave the car until the men had claimed a space at the railing around the edge of it. Irate, Yuui stepped out after the kids, brushing at his shoulder where one of the men had barged him. It was much busier - and warmer - in this lobby; there were six elevator mouths, one of which was substantially larger than the others.

"We're in the red corner," Syaoran said, checking the wall marking quickly. "That means these elevators connect to a couple mining habitats, two straight quarry facilities, Karen's garden and the big one goes right up to the surface. We'll have to take the stairs up to the plate vendor.."

Sakura was pulling her hood back and stripping off her mittens with her teeth; this done she balled the mittens up with each other, shoved them into her pocket, and began unzipping the coat. "It gets hot in the market," she said warningly when she caught Yuui watching her, and he quickly copied her lead, twisting his coat and zipping it up the way she showed him to make a neat self-contained backpack. That done, the three of them made their way into a small manual steel door, with a handle and a sign in multiple languages urging users to PULL, and obeyed the instructions to pile into the market.

It was at least twice the size of Karen's habitat in floorspace, domed with a second walkway tier running around the edges of the dome. Irregularly spaced spiral staircases connected the second tier with the ground, and everywhere signs were hung; some neon, some printed, others blockily lettered in dark substances that didn't look like ink. "MEAT," read a sign on the second floor above their head in English. Under the printed title, six small emblems Yuui recognized as belonging to the mining corporations were printed, as if to say the seller was endorsed by all six companies. Elsewhere he saw some old, oldRussian, like he'd still seen on the more ancient buildings in Siberia before the Earth-bound Russians switched at the EFS' directive to writing their alphabet in Chinese characters; on yet another sign FUEL was printed six times in different languages each time. A stall to their left advertised proudly that it sold GUNS AND EROTICA; a stall further down sold alcohol, needles and thread, and religious icons all at once.

"How is anybody supposed to find anything here?" Yuui asked, dazed, and Sakura chuckled.

"Mostly you just walk around," she said. "You can spend all day here - there are places to sleep overnight. Shopping here isn't a daily trip for the miners. It takes at least six hours in one of those elevator cars to travel from the best habitats, down deep close to where the work is, so people come up here to spend their weeks off. One Europan week is under four Earth days, so they work five in a row then get one off, usually. The red entrance we just left is one of eight lobbies."

Syaoran stretched his arms above his head and nodded. "That's where we want to go," he said, "The one on the second tier with the sign of the lightning bolt - that's the parts supplier. We've used her before. She's crooked, but not excessively so."

Yuui could see the lightning sign above them, behind a stall that let shoppers come in and rent a commset to watch the 'latest Earth & Martian soap operas'. It looked as grungy as stalls in this crowded hall came, and Yuui took a step back, shading his eyes with one hand to see if he could see any merchandise from here. It didn't seem likely, and he lowered his hand and began to remark on this when he realized Syaoran and Sakura had already begun making their way there, and were several meters away from him, threading effortlessly through shoppers. Yuui hurried after them, cursing under his breath.

He'd known markets back on Hong Kong; there had been one not too far from the squalid tenement block in which he'd grown up. There, the stallholders had barked constantly to draw your attention, and the shoppers themselves had mostly browsed in silence, creating the perfect conditions for a telekinetic thief to snatch him and his twin up some morsels while the vendors were distracted. The Europan sellers, by contrast, seemed almost somnolent to his Hong Kong senses; they sat back in stools or on chairs, arms folded and eyes lidded lazily, watching as shoppers came and browsed their goods and called out to them. "How much for this movie?" Yuui heard as he edged his way around a stall displaying a great deal of pornographic films. "How much for this one?" "How much for six of them?"

Each stall seemed to have at least five customers browsing its wares, calling out price requests to the merchants or asking if he (and there were no women in evidence) had any specific goods. People were shouting over each other, and how the vendors could keep all the voices straight Yuui could only guess to be practice. Ahead of him Sakura's pink coat-turned-backpack stuck out like a beacon, bobbing in between men in nearly identical dull earth-colored jackets, and he quickened his pace past vendors selling fabrics, folded blankets, dingy second-hand video game consoles, boxes and boxes of cigarettes, razor sharp hunting knives, chipped plates, hats - the items began to blur together, the voices rising in pitch, and as Yuui darted around another shouting unmoving customer he thought, I've been on the Mokona so long, this is like being on an alien planet.

Karen's enclosure had been much quieter, but Yuui doubted it stayed that way at all times; he had noticed the stage with its poles and curtains. He thought of his brother on Karen's sofa, still and limp, and with a sudden bolt of protectiveness decided he'd not bring Fai out to the marketplace - not like he was. And he'd have to ask Karen if - if he did accept the job, if there could be more soundproofing, because surely this, this overwhelming susurration of noise and pressing humanity... this must be what had been bothering Fai.

"There you are," Sakura said to him apologetically when he reached the two of them at the bottom of the staircase up. "I'm sorry Yuui-san, I forgot you're new to the market. We'll just get these plates ordered and then we can look around, if you like."

The vendor was a thin woman with a nose like a beak. She wore a pin on her shoulder, quite prominently, of a snarling panther head crossed with an old musket-type gun; when she saw them she sniffed. "I remember you," she said to Syaoran. "You were with that big bastard what does jobs for Kasumi."

"Hello, ma'am," Syaoran replied, which made her scoff.

"If you're being paid to deliver a message from Kasumi, you can tell her to shove it," the woman said. "I didn't marry Boss Iksyan for no reason, you know, his boys keep me totally safe. I ain't going up in them gardens."

Sakura shook her head. "We're looking for outer hull plating for our ship," she said, and that seemed to concentrate the woman's attention. She pulled an old-style tablet out from under the desk in front of her, smacked it into its docking station (hammering it in with a few blows of her palm when it refused to connect at first) and switched on the keyboard.

"How thick?" she said, all business, and Syaoran leaned over the desk to look at the blueprints unfurling on the tablet screen.

"Thicker than that. And that. And that. No, keep going... uh-huh. No. No. No."

"You pirates?" the woman queried, pausing her scrolling through models. "You're after some proper plating here, you planning on getting into a fight?"

"Smugglers," said Syaoran, with an honesty that made Yuui's eyebrows rise. It seemed to relax the seller, though; she nodded thoughtfully and flipped through.

"You don't want too thick, slows you down. If you ain't pirates then you want more speed than survival, specially with this bloody ghost fed ship that's supposed to be going around out there."

Syaoran stiffened. He wasn't the only one. The back of Yuui's neck broke out in a sweat, and beside him Sakura stood up straighter, her fingers curling into a loose fist. "A fed ship? Here?" Syaoran demanded, maybe too sharply; the woman glanced up at him and gave him a long sly look.

"Maybe," she said. "I ain't seen it. Neither has me hubbie, nor any of his boys. Some of them Six Stars boys swore up and down they seen it though, when they was freighting the fuel ships in."

"They didn't get a positive I.D?" Syaoran's eyes were fiercely bright; the woman's expression became speculative, and she leaned back in her seat and folded her arms over her chest.

"Seems to me you got some extra interest in this ship," she said. "You're still here, so you prolly ain't loaded up on contraband from this little moon yet, which means you been runnin' stuff out here, near as I can tell."

"Nothing but pharmaceuticals from Mars," said Syaoran. "And it's all legitimate, we have receipts."

The woman rolled her eyes and looked past him, piercingly, at Sakura. Her mouth worked, and then she said, "Seems like the feds is increasin' pressure on the gifted nowadays, not just on Mars. I heard they was askin' questions at Ganymede. Those soft bastards practically rolled over and gave up; six telepaths, handed over, just as easy as you please."

"Ganymede? But -" Sakura's mouth thinned. "But Earth has no claim to anybody on one of the Jupiter mining colonies, and nobody here can possibly have committed crimes against Earth for it to apply for extradition. Why would Ganymede give up their 'paths? It's not like Earth could run one of their battleships out here, not for long. They'd run out of fuel and time."

"Well," the woman drawled, "Ganymede is a bunch of cowering sissies, always been. Even the Callistowans agree with us on that, let alone those morons from Io with that cheap shale they're passin' off as fuel. Still. The Six Stars boys swore up and down they saw a Fed ship, and with Ganymede showin' Earth its belly just like that, it's making us all a bit antsy. If you want the thicker platin'..."

Syaoran sighed wearily, and all of them expected it when she finished, "It's gonna cost you more."

The woman smiled happily, as if to say now you're getting the message!, and Yuui felt his heart sink. More expenses the crew were paying on on his behalf. "Listen," he said, in a low voice, "I still owe Captain Sourface for the fare out here -"

Sakura trod heavily on his foot, and when he glanced at her, she gave him a bright, artificially happy smile, seized his elbow, and pulled him away from the trader. Yuui took the hint and kept silent until they were some way down the walkway and Sakura released him. "Should I have not -"

"You shouldn't've offered to pay us," she said flatly. "The captain said you were as good as crew, at least on the way out here." She made her way over to the railing, looking down onto the market floor, and leaned against it with a small sigh. "Listen, if you don't want to keep your money because it's stolen and you don't think it's worth much, Yuui-san... there are other things you could spend it on. You could buy yourself a hard-vac suit. The captain might appreciate that more than anything else, since I learned a lot of really good naughty words when he found out you didn't have one to begin with."

"What use is a hard-vac suit if I'm going to stay here?" Yuui asked quietly, and Sakura sighed and looked at him.

"Are you?" she said. "Are you going to stay here, Yuui-san? Or do you think that there's some possibility that you'll stay with us? While you were with us we got attacked by the feds, which is admittedly a first; but you can cook, and you're smart, and I like having you around. To talk to." She stopped, self-conscious. "I'm sorry, it's just -"

Yuui sank down with his back to the railing, feeling old, suddenly. "But what, Sakura-chan?"

Sakura opened her mouth as if to reply, and then closed it, clearly having thought better of the plan. But Yuui knew her by now, knew how sometimes it took her some time to work out what she wanted to say, so he sat and said nothing until finally she volunteered, "I miss my brother."

I know that feeling, Yuui thought. He breathed out slowly. "It depends on Fai," he said, quietly. "I don't... I don't think I know Europa as well as I know the Mokona. But all of this - all of it, leaving Earth and coming out here - it was for Fai. I... I'll have to see, Sakura-chan. Captain Haggler says we'll... you'll... we'll be in dock for a few days yet."

Sakura smoothed her hair out of her face and nodded. She sucked in a deep breath, as if to centre herself, and then stood up straight, clasping her hands in front of her. "Yes," she said. "We'll be here for a little while yet. Let's get you a hard-vac suit anyway. That'd give us a new one for you, and the current ship's spare for your brother!"

Yuui sighed, contemplated arguing with her, and found he just didn't have the energy. The money wasstolen, after all, and red with the blood he'd shed to get it; he wouldn't mind giving it away. "Do I get to pick the design?"

Sakura beamed at him. "As long as it's not pink," she said, seriously. "Then we might get ours mixed up."

Yuui glanced up at her from his seat on the floor, where his head was about level with her waist, and lifted his eyebrows; her poker face lasted for all of five seconds before she covered her mouth with her hand and giggled, and he couldn't help but smile along with her.

Sakura had that effect on people.

The woman in front of Kurogane had a grin like a shark, and bright eyes that sparkled as she tapped the green touchscreen spread out flat between them. Under her fingers, the touchscreen played out the animation of cards shuffling; she flicked her hand toward him and two computerised cards flew across the screen to rest perfectly in front of him. Kurogane lifted the little flap in front of him with his left hand in order to display a personal monitor, taking another mouthful of his whiskey as he did so, and took in the card faces. Huh. A six and an eight. The dealer dealt herself out two cards and tapped on one of them to flip it over: a four.

Next to him Karen took a drag on her cigarette and said, "Hit," and the dealer tossed her another card. They were the only three people at the blackjack table; although the Flower Garden dabbled in gambling, it was more to show off the pretty dealers than to attract any serious hustlers. Most of the hardcore players kept to their own clubs, further down in the ice.

The negotiating had been handled and now Kurogane had only to wait for the return of his crewmates. 39 per unit was the highest he'd been able to talk Karen into, which was fair enough; she had to make a profit, she'd been right about that. There were no betting cards on the table. This game was purely for recreation. Kurogane knew better than to gamble with his contacts.

"So," said Karen, taking a sip of her own drink - a fruity concoction with a lemon rind at the edge of the glass. Theirs was not the only cards table in use, although the presence of the owner had deterred most of the punters from approaching by itself. The roulette table just over was proving the most popular, its dealer a tall graceful Chinese woman wearing a spangly evening gown. "Word from my folk up on the port-web is that your ship's looking very battered."

Kurogane set his face in a sour expression. "Feds," he said. "Just after we cleared Martian airspace, they came at us. We sent them home limping."

Karen's earrings chimed as she tilted her head to look at him. "They've been getting pushier. There's rumours around here of a Fed ship skulking around."

With a gesture at the dealer, Kurogane was given another card; he grunted when it turned out to be a three. "There's always been rumours of Fed ships out here. You guys know they hate the piracy."

"They don't usually handle it directly," Karen pointed out. "Usually they subcontract pirate-busting to the mining companies, and they just post bounties up and leave it to us colonists. Did you hear there was a raid on Ganymede?"

Now that had Kurogane's attention. "A Fed raid?" he asked, and scowled when Karen nodded solemnly. "What were they after?"

"The same thing they're always after," she said. She closed her private monitor delicately, laying her cards out publicly on the table; Queen, six, five. The dealer nodded at her and after Kurogane had set out his hand, tapped her second card to flip it, revealing an eight. Karen smiled and took another drag of her cigarette. "They found quite a wealth of telepaths, as I understand it." With a sidelong glance at Kurogane, she ground out the cigarette butt in the ashtray affixed to the edge of the gameboard, and in a low voice, said, "Your kinetic's brother seems to be very interesting indeed."

"Yeah?" Kurogane tried to keep his voice neutral. "What've you heard?"

"Nothing much," Karen said, "Just rumours. More about your kinetic, but I can understand that. From what I've seen and heard, Yuui-san has a... great deal of power behind his gift. He dragged a fuel-freighter out of the air, in full Earth gravity, and smashed it into the grounds of the federation psi academy to create a distraction! I have never met a kinetic that gifted. Have you?"

Kurogane snorted. "He doesn't know how strong he is," he said. "I'm pretty damn sure of it. I've seen him use his gift since then. He acts like it's a big deal to restrain four humans at once, when I'm damn sure he could squash us flat without even thinking about it. Maybe there's some kind of confidence block there, I don't know. But he'll work for you, and hard."

A waitress walked past, pausing briefly to collect Kurogane's empty glass and deposit another one in front of him. Karen toyed with the slice of lemon, and then she said, quite abruptly, "Why are you letting him go?"

"I don't follow," said Kurogane.

"Your kinetic. That kind of talent doesn't just come and go. Was it the brother? He seems fundamentally flawed in some manner."

Kurogane scowled. "That spoonbender swears up and down he wasn't always like that. I don't know. They're close. The brother doesn't get on with my crew. The 'kinetic... doesn't know much about anything. Don't get me wrong, you know I'd shield 'em, but... he says he wants to leave the ship here, so I'm letting him go. I don't take anybody who doesn't want to be there. Otherwise they'd be a liability."

She just laughed. "Did you not see the poisonous look he gave you, when I mentioned that you were a customer here? Captain Kurogane, that poor in-Solar boy is half-smitten. What in the wide universe did you do to him?"

"Nothing," Kurogane growled, his grip tightening on his glass, but Karen was undeterred.

"When you radioed in to let us know to expect you, some of my... gentlemen became quite excited. And yet you haven't once asked for them." Her eyes were very bright, gleaming with barely-concealed glee. Among her legions of women, Karen harboured quite a few young men whose tastes were considered questionable on the hyper-masculine mining habitats; men whose inclinations put them at risk. Kurogane was no stranger to them, either.

"I'm on business," he said, in a low voice. "Triad business. That - that Earther wants to leave. So he can. No skin off my nose, he's a free man, after all. Him and his crazy brother."

"Mmm." Karen plucked the slice of lemon out of her drink, now looking rather bedraggled, and bit deeply into it. Kurogane knew she grew the fruits here on the habitat, somewhere under their feet where customers and outsiders were not permitted, but even with that local source their yield was low enough that even a lemon was a novelty, a fresh fruit. Karen glanced at him sharply. "You said the brother was a farseer, correct?"

"Yeah," Kurogane said. "Hardly an important skill, not burned-out like that."

Karen shrugged. "Perhaps it's not the man himself that's created the interest, but something he saw."

"If his brother chooses to stay here," Kurogane said, turning his attention to his hand, still face-up; the dealer had yet to deal again, "That'll be on you. Are you sure that's something you want on your back?"

After a while, Karen said, "I can handle the Feds. I handled the mining corporations and I've handled the miners. I'm not sure I could handle the consequences of turning this burned-out farseer over to the Feds, not when his brother went to so many lengths to get him out. As long as Yuui-san is... productive, I think I can keep them hidden from the occasional Fed patrol. Rumours of this ghost ship notwithstanding, it takes them too much time, fuel and money to make their way out to this far-flung little moon.

"Besides," she continued, raising her glass and delicately sipping from it, "I can tolerate a little bit of crazy, so long as Yuui-san pulls both their shares of the yoke."

It was strange, but something in the way she said that, some implication that she would hand them both over if Yuui was somehow unsatisfactory - Kurogane found it put his hackles up. He'd shielded Yuui - and his broken brother - for free; it had felt like the right thing to do. And he knew Karen didn't have the luxury of remaining mobile, like he did. He knew it. She was taking on a highly significant risk, and he hoped Yuui knew it too... but it bugged him, regardless. He put the glass down. "Speaking of the brother," he said bluntly, "Going to check if he's feeling better."

"You know the way," Karen said, but she was watching him as he pushed himself up to his feet. He left his glass there with her and her dealer, and didn't look back as he walked away.

The burned out farseer was curled on his side on the sofa. Yuui must have helped him out of his coat, which was spread over him like a blanket. He was also awake, which surprised Kurogane; his eyes were thin slits of blue. That said, he didn't so much as twitch when Kurogane let go of the heavy door, which slammed closed with more force than Kurogane was used to. "Shit," Kurogane said anyway, on reflex.

Fai's eyelashes fluttered. Kurogane leaned over the sofa, a little intrigued despite himself with this near-perfect duplicate of Yuui. It was hard to imagine this spaced-out, limp individual was worth anything to anyone except his twin. Yuui, now, with the strength of his gift - he could be worth a lot. If Karen was right and they wanted him for something he'd seen...

Kurogane straightened up with a grunt, folding his arms over his chest. Fai jerked slightly, his eyes opening a little more, although he didn't seem to be looking at Kurogane; he turned his head so that his cheek rested better against the sofa arm, his dull eyes staring out at nothing. His lips parted, giving him a slack-jawed look. Kurogane wondered briefly, and with some cautious distaste, if he was going to start drooling on Karen's sofa. He doubted she'd be pleased.

And then Fai said in a cool, professional tone, "Long-range recon station six six eight echo to Macau central psionics. Received tip-off confirming location of the Black Dragon of Suwa. Suspect Suwa no Youou is currently located in the Flower Garden habitat on Jovian satellite Europa, over."

Kurogane stared, his arms unfolding to fall to his sides. Fai's gaze was still glassy and uncomprehending. "Oi," he said, unnerved, "The fuck are you talking about? How do you know that name?"

"Macau - Macau central - This is Macau central central central -" Fai screwed his eyes shut, his voice rising, "Static, I can't, clairvoyant cancels out clairvoyant it's fuzzy I can't - Macau central psionics confirms - confirms, static and static again, it all goes around and comes out as dust - Macau central issuing confirmation to Eurasian Federation Deep Space Battleship Mihara , you are cleared for jump - jump jump jump jump!"

To Kurogane's horror Fai's back seemed to seize painfully and he screamed, an animal, inhuman sound as he bent backwards on the sofa, his legs jerking painfully as he kicked against the coat; without thinking Kurogane rushed forward, throwing his weight over the blond's legs to keep them still and grabbing his wrists to immobilize his hands. At that moment the door flew open, and Kurogane had just enough time to notice a flash of blue before Yuui was next to him, skidding to his knees on the carpeted floor. His power fell over his twin like a wave, and Kurogane let go slowly, watching carefully as Fai's body remained rigid but unmoving, caught in the grips of his brother's telekinesis. He glanced up at Yuui, who was kneeling on the floor next to Fai's head, both of his hands cupping his brother's face; Yuui's teeth were gritted and sweat gleamed on his brow. Fai's face was shuddering between Yuui's hands, the only part of him that seemed to move, and his eyes were tearing about in their sockets.

Eventually even those movements slowed and stilled. Kurogane pushed himself off the blond, watching carefully for any signs the fit would resume, but aside for the rapid rise and fall of his chest as he panted for air, Fai was motionless. Yuui let go of Fai's face, but did not release him, except to stroke his hair back briefly. He was breathing heavily, too.

"I didn't do anything to him," Kurogane said sharply, and Yuui's blue eyes flickered up to look at him. "I just came to see if he was doing okay -"

"I didn't think you did," Yuui interrupted. He heaved out a sigh, pushing a sweaty lock of Fai's hair behind his ear, and then abruptly dipped his head to rest his forehead against Fai's temple. "It's not the first seizure he's had. He used to have them before - before we went to the psi academy. He went into hospital for them, once."

"He was talking," said Kurogane. "Before the fit, I mean. Sounded like he was repeating comm traffic or something."

Yuui pulled a face and said, in a soft, sad voice, "My brother isn't himself, Captain. He says a lot of things that don't make sense, or that are just - paranoid. It doesn't matter."

Kurogane stared down at Fai, who seemed to have returned to his barely-conscious state, eyes down and unfocused, and said, "No."

That got Yuui's attention. He looked up sharply at Kurogane and said, archly, "Excuse me?"

"He's supposed to be a farseer, right? A clairvoyant? He said some stuff that - I recognised. It doesn't matter what," he added angrily, when Yuui looked as if he were about to ask, "But I don't think he's all the way insane." Kurogane raised his hands and scrubbed them through his hair, thinking quickly. "Listen, one of the things he said was clairvoyant cancels out clairvoyant. You're the spoonbender, what does that mean?"

Yuui looked surprised. "It means a clairvoyant can't see what another clairvoyant is doing, or see places where there are large concentrations of clairvoyants," he said, raising an eyebrow. He glanced at his brother. "You think he was using his gift?"

No, Kurogane thought, suddenly more sure than he'd been of anything else, I know it. Which means - which means someone he was spying on was blabbing to the Feds about me. Which in turn meant he needed to get the hell out of Europa, fast. "Maybe," he said impatiently. "Listen, where're the kids?"

"On the ship," Yuui said, startled. "Syaoran bought some plating to install, and Sakura's putting away the stuff we brought. Captain Hurry, what's -"

Kurogane pushed open the door, and Yuui scrambled to his feet. "Karen said there was might be a Fed ship prowling around the Jovian moons. That means we have at most a week to get the hell out of here before it reaches us, assuming it's at the furthest colony, which is probably Io around this time of year. I think your brother was trying to warn me to get out of here before I attract attention."

Yuui was staring at him, wide-eyed, and Kurogane couldn't help but relent. "Listen. I'll hurry through reloading, but I want to be out of here by this evening. I don't want those bastard Feds finding anything but dust. That gives you three hours. You need to decide if you're going to stay here or come with -"

"Actually," cut in a new voice, and Kurogane swivelled his head to see Karen standing in the hallway before the door he was still open. She looked more grim and focused than he'd ever seen her, but there was something strange about her expression, something brittle that he couldn't quite recognise. Her voice, when she continued, was wavering and a little unsteady. "You've got substantially less time than that. The chatter on the port-web above the moon surface is going berserk."

Kurogane could feel that cold hard knot of adrenaline beginning to form in his stomach. "That ship," he said, "The Fed ship. It's here already, isn't it."

And Karen met his eyes, and he knew then what the expression on her face was: worry. "I've never seen anything like it, Kurogane," she said. "It's bigger than any ship I've ever seen. Apparently it just... appeared, out there in the black. I don't know how..." She trailed off, uncertainly, but Kurogane could guess what she had been about to say. I don't know how it got this close so quietly.

"Jumped," Fai mumbled on the sofa, "The spider found us in its web. The Miharahas us. I told you. I told you..."

"What are we going to do?" asked Yuui, and Kurogane looked between them; at Fai, still rambling softly under his breath, crazed and incoherent; and at Yuui, who had done so much to keep him safe, and he knew.

"Get your brother," he said. "We're going back to the ship."

Kurogane stormed onto the bridge of the Mokona, slamming down into the Captain's chair. He seethed with nervous tension and slow-burning rage, thrumming under his skin like the hiss of a hydraulic pump even as he pounded out the key sequence for the Mokona's high-alert protocols. Damn it, things had been going so well; they should have left all this behind millions of kilometers ago. Didn't these Fed bastards know when the hell to give up?

The display leapt to life, zooming in on the patch of space beyond the edges of the Europa docks where the warship hovered. It cruised slowly around the borders of Europan space sovereignty, but did not - yet - dare to cross that invisible boundary.

Whatever they wanted Yuui and his brother for, it was increasingly clear that there was no time nor money cost that would deter them from coming after him. Not now, and possibly not ever.

"Captain," Yuui said, and for once he didn't follow it up with any silly nicknames; that as much as the tension of his voice said what the blond 'kinetic was afraid to.

Kurogane spared a moment from his pre-flight preparations to meet Yuui's eyes, so blue and so shadowed. "Get your brother secured in your cabin," he said with a growl. "Sedate him if you have to, just keep him out of the way. We might have to do some tight maneuvering to get out of here."

Some of the tension went out of Yuui's shoulders, like he'd let out a breath he'd been long holding. Kurogane couldn't muster up a smile, not in the middle of all this, but he gave Yuui a steady stare he hoped would be reassuring. "You're part of the crew now," he said. "Both of you. We don't give up on our own."

"The kids," Yuui replied anxiously, but Kurogane cut him off with a sharp jerk of his hand.

"Too late for all of us," he said. "We're all implicit. We're all involved. We're fucking fine with that. Now all we can do is get out of here. As a crew, whole."

Yuui did smile, though it was wan and weak compared to his usual million-watt grins. "Thank you, Captain," he said, and then dropped down out of sight through the hatch.

Once he was out of the way, Kurogane's mind turned towards accounting for the other members of their crew. He keyed open a comm channel and raised Sakura's helmet frequency. "Tell me you're on board," he said, without any preamble.

"Yes, Captain!" Sakura's voice came back through the link, excited and breathless. "I just docked with the shuttle now. I have the last load of consumables with me."

Kurogane grunted satisfaction. "Get them stowed somewhere, anywhere they won't be flying around if things get messy. Then get to the engine room."

"Aye aye, cap'n," Sakura said, and dropped off the channel. As soon as it was clear Kurogane switched over from Sakura's comm frequency to Syaoran's.

"We've got trouble, kid," he announced, keeping one eye on the display where the warship hovered.

"Yes, I see them coming," Syaoran's voice came back. Kurogane frowned at the muffled echo. There was a subtle distinction - one you would never hear unless you had grown up in a space installation - between the way a voice sounded inside an unsealed helmet, and one that was closed on vacuum. Kurogane quickly pinged Syaoran's suit telemetry, and -

"What the hell are you doing out there?" Kurogane barked, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end as the picture resolved itself: Syaoran was out-ship. "Get back inside, now!"

"No, captain," Syaoran answered calmly.

Kurogane glared at the arm of his chair as though the glare could transfer to his wayward pilot. "That wasn't a suggestion, dammit! I gave you an order!"

"And this isn't a military outfit, so you can't give orders," Syaoran countered. "Listen, the repairs on the last armor plates are almost complete. Without them, we'll be a sitting duck if this comes to a firefight - one good hit on the weakened section and we'll all be breathing space."

"We'll just have to take that chance," Kurogane growled. "We've got a bogey within positive visual range, for fuck's sake. Leave the repairs and get to safety!"

"They can't open fire yet and you know it," Syaoran pointed out. "Right now every weapons-capable boat in Europa local space is locked on to them. They might be bigger than any individual ship out here, but they can't possibly fight all of them at once and they know it.

"If they want to engage with us, they'll have to either wait till we leave the dock, or negotiate with Europa fire control for permission to come in and apprehend us. Either way, we should have a lead warning time of at least three hours. I'll be finished the last weld and back inside by then, but I can't leave it now."

Kurogane ground his teeth, but he knew that Syaoran was right - both about the standoff and the armor plating. Technically, this wasn't even Syaoran's job - he was the pilot, not the ship's engineer, but both he and Syaoran knew that Syaoran would never permit the thought of sending Sakura into harm's way. Nor would he. "All right," he yielded grudgingly.

Stats and specs were beginning to scroll up on the display alongside the static image of the floating fortress; the Mihara was a battlecruiser-class, with a crew of thousands and enough missile power to blow apart a sufficiently small moon. The up side was that in terms of sheer acceleration, there was no way a ship with that much mass could match the speed of the Mokona. The down side was that they had a huge missile envelope, and more than enough armaments to blow the smaller ship out of the sky as soon as they made a move.

How the hell had they even gotten out here? It didn't make sense; it couldn't happen. Spaceships of any size were strictly limited in how far they could go by the docking and refueling capabilities of the ports at their destination. None of the Jovian moon colonies had port facilities that would, or even could, handle a Fed warship of that size. The only thing that Kurogane could think was that they'd somehow manage to construct a secret base out in Jupiter local space, out of sight of any of the locals. The logistical cost of such an operation would be staggering, but it was the only explanation that made sense.

Which meant that even if Kurogane could get his ship out from under the Mihara's eye and out of Europa local space, there was the very pressing question of where they could go. If the Feds could field warships in Jovian space, that meant none of the lunar colonies - Callisto, Europa, or Ganymede - would be safe from them. Where, then? The only manmade habitation between them and deep space was distant, lonely Triton, and it was becoming painfully clear that distance alone was no protection.

Kurogane's feverish thoughts were interrupted by a blat from his console. A communications request had just come in from the Fed ship. Kurogane considered ignoring it - he doubted there was anything the Feds had to say that he wanted to hear - but in the end he punched the channel open with a curse. If nothing else, maybe talking around in circles would buy them some time, or maybe he could piss them off enough to make a fatal mistake.

The setting that resolved itself on his screen was painfully, hatefully familiar: a uniformed figure seated in front of the prim, dull green background of the Eurasian Federal Alliance's banner and seal. The speaker wore the trim uniform of a Federal Captain like a second skin - he wasn't sure if it was a good or a bad sign that the ship's commander was addressing him directly instead of going through a subordinate. At the very least it meant that they weren't underestimating him.

The captain herself was a woman, which surprised Kurogane somewhat; although the Federal military was supposedly open and egalitarian, the reality of the old-boys network firmly in place behind the scenes kept most women from ascending to senior rank. Those women who did manage to fight their way up in the hierarchy to command positions tended to be competent, driven and ruthless, not necessarily a good thing from their perspective.

"Captain Kanoe Kigai, of the Eurasian Federal Deep Space Battleship Mihara, commanding," the woman said crisply. She had long, glossy black hair that flowed in attractive waves down her shoulders, heavy-lidded eyes and firm sensual lips; under other circumstances Kurogane might have found her attractive. As it was, her appearance only repulsed him; the more so when contrasted with her voice, which was as cold as the ice world below. "You are suspected of carrying illegal cargo, unlicensed telepaths, and wanted criminals of Federal jurisdiction. You are hereby ordered to heave to and submit your vehicle for a military inspection."

Kurogane keyed the comm channel open from his side as well. In contrast to her impeccably-turned out appearance, he knew that his own left a lot to be desired; rumpled and bedraggled from the day's activities, with only the cramped and rundown background of the Mokona's cockpit to frame him. He didn't care. "Captain Kurogane of the independently registered passenger freighter Mokona," he replied. "The Eurasian Federal Deep Space Battleship Mihara is hereby ordered to kiss my ass."

Kanoe smiled, a cold expression that moved her full lips but not her eyes. "Surprisingly mouthy for a man in your position, Captain," she said. "The Mihara possesses overwhelming fire superiority, and you have nowhere to run. Your best chance is to surrender now peacefully, when some leniency might still be offered."

"I've had all I can fill of Fed leniency in my lifetime," Kurogane growled. "We're millions of miles outside of Earth's jurisdiction, and none of your big talk is going to change that. If you try to pick a fight in Europan airspace, you'll find very quickly that your 'superior firepower' is a load of cold gas. There's enough hardware in Europa orbit right now to turn your fancy ship to scrap."

"So there is," Kanoe replied. "I think we've danced through enough formalities by now, haven't we Captain?" And the comm channel abruptly went dead.

As Kurogane was still trying to figure out just what she'd hoped to accomplish with that - other than cutting him out of the last word, of course - the console blatted at him again, this time with the multi-harmonic tone that indicated a message was going out on the all-ships deep-space beacon channels.

"What the hell is she doing?" Kurogane muttered. That particular frequency was reserved for emergency events, intended to warn every ship in local space of an explosion that might put shrapnel in their path or a local gravity flux. Only the highest authorities of the space traffic control agency had access to it; how the hell had this harpy gotten them in her pocket? Unless, of course, she'd simply hacked it; messing with the emergency beacons was the sort of thing that a deep-spacer would never even consider, but who knew what these dirtsuckers were capable of?

The transmission came over Mokona's speakers, not just his personal comm channel. Kurogane couldn't have turned it off even if he'd wanted to. "All ships," Kanoe's voice rang out, only slightly fuzzed by static. "All ships in Europa local dock. This is a public service announcement from the Eurasian Federal Bureau of Revenue Services. The independently registered small-freight class Mokona, currently docked at berth one-one-seven Alpha in local space, is known to be carrying fugitives of intense interest to the Federation. A monetary reward of no less than ten million yenbucks will be redeemed, cash upon delivery, through the nearest official representative of the EFBRS." Her voice lost its clipped, emotionless delivery and took on a sardonic, triumphant tinge. "That would be us. Have at it, boys."

For one precious moment Kurogane sat frozen in his captain's chair, mind still gibbering at the implications of Kanoe's little speech. Every ship in the sky would have heard that, it wasn't something that any ship could shut out even if they'd wanted to ignore it. And ten million yenbucks, ten million, that was enough to buy your own goddamned habitat on this worthless iceberg! Every lowlife grubber and cutout with a ship that could mount a weapon would be -

A shrill alarm broke into his paralysis, followed by a surging hum and ripple of the deck around them. "Proximity detected," Mokona announced. "Lidar targeting detected on the starboard hull, source one-seven-nine point nine kilometers planet southward. Initiating evasive maneuvers."

Kurogane cursed and dove for his controls, hastily switching the Mokona's threat priority system away from the Mihara, still hanging safely - and smugly - outside of range. Live weapons this close to the dock, were these people frigging insane, they were likely to blow up half the Europan infrastructure as well as vaporizing their intended moneymaker -

The only thing that saved them was that the Mokona's systems had already been on high alert when the first shot came in. They managed to twist out of the path of the first missile, streaking past them in a dark path to nowhere, and then it was Kurogane's turn. Her guns were hot and so were her antimissile defenses; the hapless ship who'd fired that shot hadn't been so lucky, the nameless greedy skipper jumping to get his shot in before anyone else could react. Kurogane's torrent of return fire barreled into him in a swift blossoming of fire, blooming silent and deadly in his display.

But although the doomed ship's shot had missed them, the quarters were just too close for it to pass harmlessly by. It struck the edge of the Mokona's berth and exploded, shredding the reinforced steel like so much paper-mache. The explosion rocked through the Mokona's cockpit, a tsunami of concussive force carried to them by the long arms of the pier scaffolding that had held them in place.

Damage reports flooded Kurogane's console in a wave of scarlet, but his attention was riveted by only one: a glancing bit of shrapnel had winged by the section of the Mokona's hull plating that had been damaged in the last firefights. The section where the armor repairs were, even now, just being completed.

The hoarse yell of Syaoran's voice over his comm link hung frozen in the Mokona's cockpit. The debris had only glanced off him, not enough to damage his suit... but it had snapped his tether line like a thread, and the concussive jolt of the Mokona had sent the tiny suited figure spinning off in the opposite direction. The computer readouts showed his suit's telemetry: still lit up, still sustaining life-support, but the distance between suit and ship climbing rapidly and uncontrollably upwards.

Syaoran was still alive, but falling untethered into the endless black emptiness of space.

And a half-dozen more ships were just beginning to turn towards them, lighting up red on Kurogane's threat display as their weapons systems came online.

~to be continued...