Chapter 04: The Hand That Rocks
The two young men just continued to shine their flashlights in every direction, finding more Imperium Crystal everywhere along the walls and the ceiling. The chamber stretched on beyond their sight, bending to the left off in the distance.
"Well. I think we have our answer about the...the significance," Endymion croaked out, his mouth dry.
"Most certainly," Kunzite replied.
"TURN BACK NOW!"
Kunzite immediate threw himself into Endymion, pushing him back against the nearest wall again and using his own body as a shield. He twisted his head around over his shoulder, looking around the large chamber.
"LEAVE THIS PLACE IMMEDIATELY, AND NEVER SPEAK OF IT AGAIN, LEST YOU BE STRUCK DOWN BY...BY ALL THE FURY...THE FURY OF...THE…"
Kunzite looked around the chamber, face wrinkled in confused.
"What the…" Endymion muttered, eyes moving over to his right, looking at a large rock jutting out of the floor a dozen paces from the entrance. Though the maddening echoes bouncing about the chamber made things difficult to trace, he thought he could isolate the booming voice to coming from behind it.
Kunzite took his flashlight and shined it over towards one of the walls right by the large rock, turning a small circle of the wall into a perfectly reflective mirror. This revealed what was behind the giant stone. A man, looking rather thin and frail, was crouched there, hands cupped by his mouth. A couple of sacks identical to the ones Endymion and Kunzite had picked up at the mine entrance were on the floor next to him, as well as a couple of bundled up blankets.
"THE FURY OF THE…" the man looked up, looking at the reflection on the wall. "...oh, shit," he muttered, standing back up.
Without a word, Kunzite marched over towards the rock, moving around it, briskly closing in on the frail man. Sure enough, the man began to try moving in the opposite direction around the stone, trying to keep it between him and the imposing, menacing genera of Earthl.
"P-PAY NO ATTENTION TO...TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE—"
"Oh, stop it," Kunzite hissed, stopping and turning around to go around the rock in the other direction. The man, not paying particularly good attention, kept going, quickly practically running right into Kunzite.
He flinched back, trying to evade the large white-haired bodyguard, but Kunzite grabbed the front of his uniform and lifted him up high into the air. He tossed him down onto his back on the floor, then brought his right hand up to point directly at him. A black, rectangular device was in his hand, the end directed straight at the man's chest.
"Who are you?" Kunzite demanded.
"U-uh, nobody!" he replied quickly, putting his hands up in front of his face protectively. "J-just a...an unimportant, irrelevant person, hardly even worth consideration or—"
Endymion pointed the small device in his hand down between the man's legs, and a red pulse of energy shot from it, down into the stone ground, just a finger length from his groin. The blast put a little crater in the floor, a wisp of black smoke kicking up from it.
"Who. Are. You?" Kunzite repeated, levelling the weapon back at the man's chest.
"J-J-Jericho!" he shouted, being sent into a panic at the sight of the firearm being pointed directly at him. "I'm a...I'm just a miner here, I work here!"
Endymion took a few steps towards his general and Jericho, Kunzite reaching out his left hand towards him. "Don't come any closer," Kunzite instructed.
"I seriously doubt he's capable of doing anything to hurt me," Endymion muttered, stopping several paces short nonetheless.
"Oh, I agree," Kunzite replied, glancing over at his charge. "It's just...he smells terrible."
"Oh," Endymion said, taking a cautious half-step away from the two.
"Now, then...Jericho," Kunzite began, not dropping his firearm from its spot pointing directly at his chest. "You've got ten secundas before I blow a hole in your chest cavity. If I were you, I'd fill those ten secundas with the truth. As much as you can."
"Okay! Okay!" he panted, nodding. "Anything you want, just...please, after what I've been through, I don't want to die now! Please!"
Endymion crossed his arms over his chest.
"I...I'm a moon miner, been working down here for forty cycles—"
"You were a moon miner," Kunzite corrected. "I think it's safe to say you're out of a job at this point."
"R-right," he acknowledged. "W-well, some time ago, me and...and another miner were sent down this way, told to survey the area, report back with initial findings, and...well, we found…" he gestured around him at the chamber walls. "...all this."
"And your orders to...report back with your initial findings suddenly slipped your mind, did they?" Kunzite questioned, voice harsh and commanding.
"L...look, man, I...I know what this is!" he gestured around. "I'm not a smart man—"
"That's obvious," Kunzite interrupted.
"...b-but, I know what this is! I...I make like three thousand creds a cycle! My wife runs a little fruit garden out of our backyard so we can make ends meet! My daughter wears the clothes that my son wore sixty cycles ago! I...I can't honestly be expected to just find something like this and...go about my job like it's completely normal!"
"I'm fairly positive that doing that is part of the contract you signed when you took on this job, so...yes, I think it's fair to expect you to do that," Kunzite countered. "So then, what ran through that mind of your next?"
Jericho glanced over at Endymion for a moment, then back to the man threatening him. "Well, me and...and the other guy...we got to talking." He nodded slowly. "This...something like this, just a single sackful of this stuff and we'd be set for life! My wife, my kids...they wouldn't have to worry about anything! I could retire, move to...move to Earth, maybe even send my kids to academy on Mercury. So...he said he'd go back, try to find an alternate exit to the surface, so he wouldn't have to go through the main gates. Told me that he'd come back with the right equipment, you...you can't mine Imperium with normal mining tools."
"An alternate exit to the surface," Kunzite repeated dryly. "This struck you as a likely find?"
"Well...no, but it was worth it!" Again, he gestured around at the Imperium surrounding them. "Any chance at all, it was worth it! Guys like me, we're lucky if we get one chance in our life at a score like this, if there was even the tiniest chance of pulling it off, we had to take a chance!"
Kunzite glanced around. "There were two others that were sent down here shortly after you and your friend. Did they make it down here?"
Jericho hesitated, swallowing down hard. "Y-yeah, they...they found this place too, and...I, I uh...well, I had to kill them."
Kunzite's glare hardened even more at this proclamation. "You killed two of your colleagues? I have that right?"
"I'm not proud of it, but...they just...they showed up here, and I was outnumbered, and...I would only have the element of surprise once, so...I did what I had to do!" He nodded. "I had no idea how they would feel about this, they might have ruined everything, so—"
"You've got maybe four secundas left alive, and you're not doing yourself any favors on extending that right now," Kunzite said warningly.
"...right, well...y-yeah, I killed them. Judge me for that if you must."
"Oh, I will," Kunzite menaced.
"I suppose the flares were your doing?" Endymion chimed in, pointing over his shoulder at the cavern entrance.
"Y-yeah," Jericho said, nodding. "After those two, I thought...they might keep sending people down here, so...I had to try something to keep them away. Best I could do with the equipment that I had, figured it might buy me some time." He glanced over towards the cavern entrance. "I guess it did, because...no one else has come here until now, and it's...well, I've lost track of time."
"You've been down here three-quarters of a cycle," Endymion said. "How are you still alive, anyway?"
"Uh...strict rationing," Jericho replied evasively. "The two guys who came down here still had their kits on them, that helped. Those pill bottles have a few hyper-compressed water capsules and vitamin supplements to keep you going."
"...and?" Kunzite prodded.
Jericho couldn't quite keep himself from glancing over behind the large rock he had been hiding around when the two had initially entered the room. Kunzite glanced over in the same direction, then reached down towards his belt.
"Now, I'm...I'm not proud of anything I've done down here," Jericho said frantically as Kunzite kneeled down over him and began to roughly frisk him, feeling down his body. "I need you to know that, that's very important, I'm ashamed of everything I've done here, but I only did it because—"
Kunzite pulled a pair of steel cuffs from a loop on his belt, quickly slapping them on Jericho's ankles. They slammed shut on his appendages, and then a small indicator light on the centerpiece turned green. Immediately, the restraining device slammed down hard into the ground, the gravity-manipulation technology within making them feel as if they weighed thousands of libras, holding the man in place on the ground.
"H-hey!" he yelped as he was rendered immobile. He tried to yank his legs free from the restraints, but to no avail. Kunzite stood up and quickly walked around the rock, towards the man's initial hiding spot.
As Kunzite disappeared, Jericho turned to Endymion. "L-look, buddy, I don't know...how you and him know each other, I don't know who you guys are, really, but...that guy, he's nuts, you gotta chill him out, he's gonna kill me, I—"
"Eugh," Kunzite grunted from behind the rock. A few moments later, he emerged, a scowl on his face, stalking back over towards Jericho.
"What?" Endymion asked, looking over Kunzite's shoulder.
"Do not go back there," Kunzite instructed firmly, then rounding on Jericho. "Well, I suppose everything you just confessed to me would be more than enough to land you in a prison cell for the rest of your life anyway...but cannibalism, now that's a low that few people are capable of."
"Oh, ugh!" Endymion exclaimed, nose wrinkling. "Oh, Gods!" He regarded Jericho with disdain, feeling a faint sense of nausea set in.
"H-hey, they...they were already dead at that point!" Jericho lamely insisted.
Kunzite wordlessly lifted his firearm back up towards Jericho's chest.
"W-wait! WAIT!" he begged. "Please, don't kill me!"
"You should be begging me to pull the trigger," Kunzite said. "The prison sentence you'll be serving when we take you back to the surface will make a quick death seem like paradise. And that's if you're not handed over to the agency for attempting to privately mine raw Imperium."
Jericho looked down at his leg cuffs, again trying to squirm out of them.
"Your friend, no doubt dead somewhere deep in the tunnels, slowly decomposing, perhaps never to be found...he's the lucky one, believe me," Kunzite said.
"Hey," Endymion said suddenly, looking over at Kunzite. "Come here, let's...we need to talk."
Kunzite glanced back down at the frail-looking prisoner, but then quickly marched over towards his charge. Endymion quickly retreated back into the entrance tunnel, away from Jericho.
"Okay, okay...forget that guy for a second," Endymion said under his breath. "What are we, what are we looking at here? Like, this, all this stuff." He pointed back towards the chamber. "It...I know it's big, but, what are you thinking?"
"Well," Kunzite said in a similarly low voice. "Once again, legally, there's nothing for us to think about. Legally, the only thing we can do is report this."
Endymion nodded. "I know that, but...is that a good idea?"
Kunzite grimaced. "Given that doing anything else can easily result in heavy fines, possibly even a prison sentence on board The Savery...it's certainly not a bad idea."
"Okay," Endymion said. "So, let's say we go up to the surface, tell Queen Serenity about this, or...arrange for them to find out, or what have you." He glanced up the tunnel, back the way they had came. "What happens then?"
"Well, then the Agency would immediately assume ownership of every last carat of it," Kunzite said. "They'd send their mining crews down, strip it, take it off to The Savery, and that's that." He swallowed. "They would...probably give the Moon Kingdom some sort of finder's fee. Though they're not required to, they often do for significant findings. And this one is...most certainly significant."
"Mere percentage points of what it's worth," Endymion muttered.
"Percentage points of percentage points," Kunzite corrected. "But...even then, it would be a very large sum." He thought for a moment. "Possibly, enough to...alter the nature of the Kingdom merger, if that's what you're thinking about."
"Or call it off entirely," Endymion said darkly.
Kunzite seemed slightly taken aback by that suggestion. "Your Highness, I...not that I'm an expert in such matters, but...that's not the impression that I get at all." He cocked his head. "Serenity...she loves you for you, doesn't she?"
"Yes," Endymion said tersely, nodding. "...probably."
"Probably?" Kunzite repeated.
"Well, I don't know how to read minds!" Endymion protested. "You never truly know what's going on in...someone's head, and everyone knows that there's political ramifications behind this marriage as well. Just, it can't be completely ruled out!"
"She carries your child," Kunzite pointed out.
"Okay, well, fine...let's move forward assuming that Serenity loves me and is marrying me because of that," Endymion reasoned. "Because that's...probably the case." He looked back towards the chamber. "But even given that, perhaps it's not good for us if they were to find out what they're sitting on right now."
Kunzite nodded. "Alright. Well, it seems like the miners are unlikely to come through here any time soon, so...we could just keep it to ourselves until the merger is complete and the marriage is official. Then we arrange for this to be found. I imagine the Serenities will be a little sore about it, knowing they had all this right under their nose this whole time, but they won't be able to do anything about it. And, because of the union, it'll be the Royal Family of Earth that's entitled to any finder's fee."
"Crossing our fingers that nobody ventures here in the meantime," Endymion added.
"Seems unlikely," Kunzite countered. "But, that seems a reasonable course of action to me. Technically in violation of a few agency laws, but I doubt we'd get caught."
Endymion's face wrinkled, glancing around the tunnel. "Not sure I'm a big fan of it."
"I'm not seeing any other possibilities," Kunzite said patiently. "What don't you like?"
"Look, I..." he spun around, pointing towards the chamber of Imperium. "Just...give me your best guess, an estimate, I know we've only been in there for a little bit, and...I'm not holding you to anything you say, but...what's in there? What are we talking about? That much Imperium at that level of purity, what...how big a deal is this?"
Kunzite pursed his lips. "I...I can't give any sort of accurate assessment, based on how little I've seen." He blinked a few times. "But, applying some educated guesses and making some assumptions…" he thought for a moment. "Even given the rate of technological advancement in the galaxy. Even given the rate of population growth. I believe that the contents of this cave could run the entire galaxy for five centuries."
Endymion nodded. "And that's a big deal."
"Very, very big deal," Kunzite agreed. "If I had to guess, I would even say that the contents of that chamber are worth more than the entire Kingdom of Earth that you're heir to. Maybe many times more."
"And it's here," Endymion continued. "It's here, on the moon, which belongs to the Royal Family of the Moon. It...it belongs to Serenity, it's...it's her birthright."
Kunzite shook his head. "Your Highness, I...you know this, you know how this works. Yes, the planets and the moons are all owned by the various Royal Families of the galaxy, but Imperium is another thing entirely. Every carat of Imperium in this galaxy belongs to the Galactic Imperium Agency, every single Kingdom in this galaxy has agreed to this arrangement."
"Yes, three hundred years ago," Endymion argued. "Three hundred years ago, a collection of panicked, short-sighted, foolish rulers decided that it was a good idea to hand absolute authority over the most precious resource in the galaxy to...to a...an impartial, unbiased, and fair third-party. And it's impossible for me to put enough quotation marks around the words impartial, unbiased, and fair, so excuse me if I don't even try. And so, because of this...absurd decision on their part, the woman that I love is forced to give away her birthright for a pittance. And I don't like that."
"Your Majesty, ideological debate is one thing, but it's the law. I sympathize with your point, but there's not really much we can do. The agency is effectively a superpower, and most of the Kingdoms in this galaxy cooperate with them. One day, when you're King, perhaps you can bring about some amendments to the arrangement with the Agency, but right now there's nothing that can be done." Kunzite crossed his arms over his chest. "And, I shouldn't need to remind you of this, but your Father sits on the High Council of the agency, and is among the most pro-regulation people in the entire galaxy. To defy the agency is to defy him. So, I'm not seeing any other way to proceed."
Endymion raised his hand up by the side of his head, index finger pointed outward, shaking it towards the wall. "Okay. Bear with me here." He turned away from Kunzite, slowly pacing up the tunnel. "What if we sold it? You and me."
Kunzite reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. "Oh, Gods...can I go off the record for a moment here?" He paced after his charge a couple steps.
"Feel free," Endymion urged.
"Have you lost your mind?" Kunzite growled. "Have you gone insane? I'm really asking."
"Okay, let's go back on the record, if you're going to be like that," Endymion said, slightly moody.
Kunzite sighed. "Your Highness, that's a very bad idea, and I'm shocked that I even need to say it. Distributing unregulated Imperium is one of the worst crimes in the galaxy, and even your status wouldn't protect you from consequences. Even if your father could protect you, he wouldn't. You know how he feels about Imperium."
"There's a very active Imperium black market, I know that for a fact," Endymion said. "Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn of course, most moons, even some on Mercury...despite the best efforts of most governing bodies, tons of the stuff slips through. If they can do it...why can't we? It's incredibly lucrative."
"Lucrative? Your Majesty," Kunzite said sternly. "Do you know who you are?"
"I have some idea," Endymion replied.
"Endymion, you live in a massive palace, surrounded by servants, surrounded by fine jewels and rare art, with practically anything you desire a snap of your fingers away," Kunzite continued. "What do you stand to gain with any of this?"
"You said it yourself, didn't you?" Endymion questioned. "This deposit is probably worth more than the entire Kingdom of Earth. This isn't about me...having a couple more servant girls to fold my clothes for me, or adding a new rare painting to my bedroom wall." He leaned in closer to Kunzite. "This find could change the balance of power in the galaxy for millennia. Whoever controls this controls the entire solar system for generations. So, you'll forgive me if I'm hesitant to just hand it over."
"How do you plan on running an illegal Imperium distribution network out of the Earth Palace?" Kunzite asked. "Serious question."
"I'm not saying it's going to be easy, but...nothing worth doing is. My education has concluded, my playboy days are over, and there are only so many books in the world to read." He shrugged. "I could use something to do with my time anyway. Why not...work to secure the future of the Kingdom I stand to inherit?"
"Do I need to point out that you're about to become a husband and a father?" Kunzite asked.
"I'm aware. And, as a husband and father, this is a burden that I'm obligated to bear, for their sake. As a husband, I have to protect my wife from having this priceless trove be taken from her by those who would use it for their own profit and benefit, and as a future father, I have to protect my child's birthright from having its riches be pillaged." He pointed with his thumb towards the chamber. "This is quadrillions of creds, potentially, the opportunity to enrich the Earth and the Moon to this degree can not be discarded out of hand."
"Does it occur to you how much you sound like the cannibal in there?" Kunzite asked, jerking his head back towards the chamber.
"Oh, this is...completely different," Endymion said dismissively. "Don't even...make that comparison. And, you know, the agency...let's not pretend they're saints or something. Plenty of corruption and abuse of power there, price gouging, everything. Handing them this kind of leverage doesn't seem like a good idea to me. No, Kunzite, we're doing this. I've decided. I will not let people come here and ransack Serenity's birthright until it's worthless just because of decisions made three hundred years ago."
Kunzite sighed deeply. "Your Highness...are you giving me an order?"
Endymion shrugged. "I don't want to, but...maybe I have to?"
Kunzite gave a little grumble, puffed a powerful breath out of his nose, and then glanced around. "It's going to take an awful lot of things to even give us a chance to make this work."
"Well, that's why I have you around, isn't it?" Endymion said with a sly little grin.
Kunzite fought to not roll his eyes. "I suppose that, if we're going to do this, the first step is obvious." He reached down towards his waist and pulled the long, thin dagger out of its scabbard. "You can stay here if you'd prefer."
"Whoa whoa!" Endymion reached forward and clapped Kunzite on the shoulder as his guardian turned around. "What are you doing?"
"Saving Jericho from an extended, unpleasant, painful stint in prison," Kunzite replied. "He knows too much, he can't be allowed to leave this place alive if this is what we're doing."
"Wait wait!" Endymion insisted, tugging Kunzite back. "I...hold on now, um...you're just going to execute him?"
"Yes," Kunzite said matter-of-factly.
"W-well...wait," Endymion said hesitantly. "I...look, it's just...he's unarmed and defenseless."
"I agree," Kunzite replied. "Executions are typically carried out on unarmed and defenseless people."
Endymion flinched a bit. "He...can we just not make that decision right now? We'll be back soon, obviously, he's not going anywhere, let's...you know, hold off."
Kunzite gave his charge a curious look, but ultimately sheathed the bladed weapon again. "There's not much of a decision to make, but...very well."
The two marched back into the chamber, Jericho still laying on the floor right where they had imprisoned him.
"H-hey, guys, um...you know, I told you who I was, but...just occurred to me, you haven't told me who you guys are. W-why are you guys down here?" he asked loudly.
Kunzite ignored the inquiry, looking around the large cave. "We'll be back tomorrow."
"O-oh, okay," he said, looking down at his leg restraints. "Um...could you, maybe…"
Kunzite simply turned around, placing his hand on Endymion's shoulders, guiding him back towards the cavern entrance.
"Wait! Wait, guys, I...I can't get to my food and water from here!" Jericho protested.
Just as the pair was about to disappear around the bend of the tunnel, Kunzite turned to scowl over at the traitorous miner. "If you were to take one more bite out of that...food source of yours, then you would be very, very lucky if you died of poisoning before I returned," he snapped. "Coward."
Endymion shrugged the sack looped around his shoulders off, taking a couple steps forward and tossing the bag through the air, arcing it towards the prisoner. It landed right next to him.
"That'll get you through," Endymion said before turning to leave alongside his guardian.
"T-thank you!" Jericho called out.
"
Endymion peered down into the small sack of assorted mining tools, fingers dancing along assorted contraptions. "You're sure nobody saw you?"
"Of course I'm sure," Kunzite replied, guiding his shuttle across the moon's landscape, back towards the mines. "Are you sure that Serenity doesn't find it odd that you're disappearing two nights in a row?"
"She's just happy I have an interest in the Moon, don't worry about that," he insisted. "So what happens when they do inventory at the academy and come up short on the equipment checklist?"
"Well...whatever happens, it certainly won't be suspecting the Prince of Earth and his most trusted guardian of stealing them," Kunzite replied. "So I wouldn't be concerned about that." He gave Endymion a meaningful look. "Your Highness, there's no scenario where Jericho can be allowed to live, if we're to actually attempt to do what you're suggesting, so...you should prepare for that."
"We'll...we'll see," Endymion said dismissively, looking out the window of the shuttle as it zipped along the moon surface.
"He's a murdering traitor," Kunzite reminded him. "And a cannibal. He will not be missed."
"I know, okay? I know, it's...it's just, he's...he's got a wife and kids," Endymion said lamely. "We'll, we'll talk about it later, okay?"
Kunzite swallowed down hard, turning his focus back to his pilot duties for a moment. Earlier that day, he had found a particular spot on the moon that was largely deserted and had one of the mine tunnels come up very close to the surface right underneath it. If they were to be making routine return trips to the Imperium cave, they would need an alternate entrance to the mines.
"Okay," Kunzite said, turning back to his charge for a moment. "Endymion. As your friend, I...I just...look, if this is what you want to do, then I'm duty-bound to assist you in any capacity, I understand that. But, as your friend, I just...I need to know what's going on."
Endymion slowly turned to look at his guardian. "I'm not sure what else I can say. What's down there is worth a thousand times more than everything else on this moon put together, and I'm not going to let someone come in and just take it." He adjusted himself a bit in his seat. "It's...it's hers. She has a right to it. And, by extension, so do I."
Kunzite thought for a moment. "Endymion. You don't need money. You have never needed money. You will never need money. The Kingdom of Earth is one of the most prosperous in the galaxy, our treasury is loaded with creds, our vaults filled with valuable gems and minerals, our warehouses packed with exports. Even if taking the Moon as our responsibility ends up being a burden on the Earth, it'll be a drop in the bucket. Your father has done an extraordinary job of guiding the Kingdom of Earth into a golden age, the Moon will be fine once this merger is complete."
"Well...nothing stays the same forever," Endymion reasoned. "Kingdoms are always rising and falling, aren't they?"
Kunzite grimaced. "It...it just doesn't make very much sense," he continued. "I've known you very closely for eleven years now. I might know you better than anyone else in the galaxy. And you've never been anything except a...a...someone who wanted to read, study history, learn to truly grasp the weight of the responsibility you'd have one day." He sighed, then nearly chuckled. "You had girls from Venus clawing all over you when you were fourteen, and you hardly wanted anything to do with them. Took Jadeite two years to get you to loosen up with them, remember?"
Endymion rolled his eyes, embarrassed by a non-trivial amount.
"And now, suddenly, after...nineteen years of doing everything by the book, marching the path your father and your guardians set out for you...you're just…" he paused for a long moment. "I just...I just wish you could say something that would...help me make sense of it."
He turned to Endymion, putting his hand on his shoulder.
"If...if there's something else going on that I don't know about, something going on with you, then you should tell me. That's what I'm here for. Really, you should tell me. It's not weakness to talk about your problems."
Endymion sighed deeply, pursing his lips, turning back to face the front window as the grey rock of the moon sped by below.
Kunzite finally relented, taking his hand off Endymion's shoulder. "It just...what's going on? I'd like to know, Your Highness."
Endymion glanced to his right, then turned to Kunzite, considering his words carefully. "I am awake."
Kunzite's face was blank at this proclamation, waiting for something else to come from his charge's mouth. Nothing further came out, however, leaving the pair in silence.
"Well. That didn't really help," Kunzite said resignedly.
"We're almost there," Endymion said, leaning forward and looking down at the moon surface below.
"
"Oh, yes," Kunzite muttered, as the green glowing drill tip gently pressed through the thick sheet of Imperium. Kunzite wore a pair of form-fitting goggles over his eyes as he deftly maneuvered the drilling tool through the transparent material. "It's crystal all the way through here. Gotta be a solid six or seven thumb-lengths deep."
"You should let me help!"
Endymion and Kunzite turned around, looking over at Jericho, still trapped by the leg cuffs and unable to move.
"Seriously, I'm a miner, this is what I do!"
Kunzite turned back to his work, carefully pressing the spinning drill down into the Imperium. He glanced over at Endymion. "I don't know what you're dragging your feet for, but I will have to execute him before we leave tonight. You can't honestly expect to just...keep him prisoner in here forever, because that would be the only other option." He glanced back over his shoulder. "Even he'd prefer death to that."
Endymion sighed. "What if we bribed him?"
The glowing drill immediately shut off, Kunzite turning to give Endymion a piercing glare. "You can't be serious."
"Look, I'm just spit-balling here," Endymion said defensively, glancing over his shoulder at Jericho, then turning back to Kunzite. "He's a working-class Moonite, he can be bought."
"Your Highness, this is already risky enough. Allowing him to leave these tunnels alive, under any circumstance, makes everything far more complicated. Needlessly, might I add." Kunzite turned the drill back on.
"It just...doesn't sit well with me," Endymion said, somewhat weakly. "I get it, it's just...if there's another way, I want to consider it."
Kunzite slowly worked the drill upward, gliding it fraction-by-fraction through the Imperium. "You allow him to leave alive, bribed or not, he could come back looking for more. He could tell someone else about this, intentional or otherwise, and they could come down here. He could tell the Agency just to spite us." He leaned over towards Endymion. "Your Highness. If you actually want to involve yourself in something as illegal and dangerous as Imperium smuggling...you can not balk at the concept of executing a man who, by the way, deserves it."
"Come on, guys! It's bad to lay down for this long! My muscles are gonna atrophy!"
Endymion glanced back over his shoulder at the prone miner, then back to Kunzite. "I'm thinking about it, alright?" He stood up. "You good here?"
Kunzite nodded before returning his full focus back to his drilling.
Endymion slowly wandered away from his guardian, looking around the giant cavern of Imperium, meandering over towards Jericho as he did so. His brain, though impressive and fully capable of handling a great many complex thoughts, couldn't even begin to process the scope of what was currently surrounding him. The numbers that had to be used to truly capture the immense value and utility on the walls and ceiling of the chamber were so large, even he was having difficulty really grasping it.
"Hey!"
Endymion looked down, finding Jericho maybe half a dozen steps away from him.
"You...you seem like the reasonable one, uh...come on, man, I'm a miner! I know how to drill Imperium, let me go and I can help!" Jericho pleaded. "I'm not doing anyone any good stuck here."
Endymion sighed, looking over at Kunzite's back. "You really don't know who I am, do you?"
"Should I?" Jericho asked.
"Yes," Endymion replied simply. "But...that's fine." He looked around, putting his hands in the pockets of his pants. "You do smell awful, by the way."
"Yeah I know," Jericho grumbled. "Come on, man, who are you?"
Endymion just gave a small smile, lips held tightly shut.
"Look, are...are you guys gonna kill me?" Jericho asked. "Because...I mean, if you are, then...I mean, I'm begging you not to, really, I'll do anything you guys want me to, I swear, but...if you're going to kill me, then keeping me alive for a few extra minutas, it's not really doing me any favors."
Endymion's small smile faded, pushing a heavy breath out of his nose. "I don't know. I don't know." He jerked his head over towards Kunzite's back. "He wants to."
"Yeah, I picked up on that," Jericho replied. "What about you?"
Endymion puffed his cheeks out a bit. "I'm looking for a reason not to. I'm afraid I might not have a choice, though. I'm wondering if there's...something you could say to me that convinces me that I do. I'm not sure that there is."
Jericho swallowed down hard.
"But...I'm not saying that there isn't, either," Endymion finished in a low voice.
"Look, buddy, I...I don't know what you and your friend over there are getting at here, and...trust me, I don't care at all. None of my concern, I'm...if I ever get out of here, I'm forgetting everything that happened down here. Didn't happen as far as I'm concerned. This cave could be full of candy for all I know." Jericho cleared his throat. "I'd run back home, get my wife and kids, and we'd run and never look back. Head to Jupiter, start a new life, new names, everything. Start over." He shrugged. "What's here, this crystal, hundred percent yours, I just want to leave with my life. Please."
Endymion tapped his foot on the stone floor a couple times. "You know how much this cavern is worth? If I told you, you wouldn't believe it." He blinked a few times. "You can really just...forget about something like that?"
"Hey, if that's what I have to do to save my life, then...yeah, no problem," Jericho said.
"You've stayed down here for nearly a cycle, sleeping on the stone floor, eating crackers and…" his nose wrinkled. "...And, well...yeah...just so you'd have the faint chance to grab a little piece of the riches in this room. You've killed in cold blood, abandoned your duties, abandoned your family, all just for a longshot hope of making off with a sackful of crystal. And now I'm supposed to believe you can just...forget it exists?"
"At this point? Absolutely," Jericho said emphatically. "I stayed down here this whole time because...I mean, what else could I do at that point? But, if you can...you know, get me out of here without getting arrested, then of course I'd forget it."
Endymion grimaced, unconsciously pulling his hands out of his pockets and tugging at the cuffs of his shirt. "Uh-huh."
"Look, I got a family, and...hey, I know you just told me that I abandoned my family, and I'm not saying I didn't, but...this is for them, man. Me staying here, doing all these awful things, I did it...I did it for my family. I'm a miner, I don't want my son to be a miner when he grows up, and...hey, there aren't exactly many sterling opportunities for him to become much more than that. Like, this was it, maybe! But...if it's either that, or me never seeing them again because I'm dead, then...there's no decision."
Endymion nodded. "Two kids?"
He nodded. "Son and daughter."
"How old?" Endymion asked, glancing at Kunzite's back out of the corner of his eyes.
"The boy is...one hundred forty-six cycles, so, twelve years?" he replied. "Girl would be...seven years, then."
"Good kids?" Endymion continued, not really sure what he was doing other than trying to distract himself from the seemingly inevitable execution he'd have to permit.
"Oh, the best," Jericho replied. "All because of her, I'm sure...no idea what she's doing with someone like me. She should be with one of the genius guys on Mercury. How about you, any kids?"
"Uh...not yet," Endymion replied. "Expecting, actually. Probably six or seven cycles away."
"O-oh, do you...we still have the crib that we used," Jericho said. "You let me go, it's...it's yours, you need a crib?"
Endymion couldn't help but chuckle. "Oh...I think we're fine, thank you."
"So, you're married, then?" he asked.
"Uh...about to be," Endymion said uneasily. "I kind of...pulled the trigger a little early."
"Hey, me too," Jericho said with a smile. "My wife was showing when we took our vows, kind of embarrassing."
Endymion nodded. "What would you have done with the crystal if you had gotten out?"
"Oh...moved to Earth," Jericho answered, laying his head back against the stone floor. "Easier to sell it off to chemists down there. Bought a place near the ocean, I...I always envied Earth for having those beautiful oceans, would have loved to live by one. Maybe gotten into brewing beer in my basement, always been an interest of mine. Bought some real jewelry for my wife, had to...buy imitation stuff for her. Pack some away to send my kids to Mercury for a couple years when they get older, get a real education. You know."
"Sounds good," Endymion said, nodding approvingly. "Sounds real good."
"Hey!"
Endymion's head snapped up, looking over at his guardian, who was scowling over at him, having given the drill another short rest. With a mournful little glance at Jericho, he quickly jogged over to Kunzite, who flipped the goggles up onto his forehead.
"You're not making this any easier for yourself," Kunzite scolded. "Come on. Stop it."
Endymion nodded with little conviction. "Kunzite, this guy...he's got a seven-year-old daughter," he said lamely.
Kunzite couldn't help but give a frustrated sigh as he turned back to the Imperium Crystal in front of him.
"
"Your Highness, in my humble opinion you've had some questionable ideas lately. But this, I really need to strenuously make myself clear on this one, you are beckoning disaster here," Kunzite said, tone caught between demanding and pleading. "Just go out into the tunnel, plug your ears, count to forty, come back in, and it'll be like he never existed. You'll never see him again. That's all I'm asking."
"He's a husband and father," Endymion grumbled, picking the small sack up in his right hand after sealing it by pulling the drawstring tight. "And what he's done, he's done for them. It just wouldn't sit well with me."
"If you do this, you are allowing him to get away with the things he's done while he's been down here, none of which is excused by him being a...husband or father, that shouldn't sit well with you either" Kunzite pointed out. "Actually, you're rewarding him. What he's done in the last cycle is worthy of a death sentence, all I'm suggesting is that I carry it out and not a Moonite scientist."
"Kunzite, just...I'm about to give this guy more creds than he's ever seen in his life. He's not going to do anything to put that at risk." He put his open palm up towards Kunzite. "Now, I understand that you don't want to do it, so...let me."
With great hesitation, Kunzite slowly pulled a tiny steel rod from a loop around his belt and placed it in Endymion's palm. Endymion lugged the small sack and tiny key over towards where Jericho lay, Kunzite a few steps behind him.
Footsteps gently echoing through the air of the cavern, Endymion stopped a couple paces away from the imprisoned miner. He dropped the sack to the ground, drawing Jericho's attention.
"Alright, Jericho, here's what's going to happen," Endymion said, pointing down at the sack. "Inside this bag, there are two libras of raw Imperium Crystal, mined from this cave. You could sell it to black market chemists down on Earth or Jupiter or Mars, would get you eighty or ninety thousand creds. Few years' salary for a man like you. Enough to help you start a new, better life. And, this Imperium is yours, as is your freedom from these mines, so long as you never again think about what you found down here, for the rest of your life."
"O-oh, man...no problem! Not at all!" Jericho said. "I already said, I'm putting all this out of my mind! You, you let me have that, and...yeah, no problem! It'll never cross my mind again!"
"We're going to get you out of here, past the main gates. You're going to go home, get your family, jump on the first shuttle off the Moon, and go somewhere else. I don't care where it is, but it can't be here. And you never come back, for any reason. You find a place where you can sell off this crystal, you make your money, and that'll be the end of it. You won't speak or think of these mines again."
"Y-you've got my word," Jericho said, nodding enthusiastically.
"If you were to...fail to meet any of those criterias, then you answer to him," Endymion said, pointing over at Kunzite a few steps behind him. "He has a way of finding things out. And should you go back on your word, he will find you. And, you have my word on this, he will force you to watch him cut your wife and children into little pieces while they're still breathing."
He saw Jericho tense up a bit at this warning, hands down at his sides balling into nervous little fists.
"He doesn't feel remorse, or pity, or compassion, Jericho. Trust me, he thinks nothing of making people suffer, it means nothing to him. Nothing you say will get him to stop. By the time he kills you, you will be truly grateful for it after what he's forced you to live through. And I don't want that to happen to you. But, if you can't abide by my terms, it will."
"Hey...loud and clear," Jericho said, nodding. "I believe you, completely."
"Alright." Endymion went down to Jericho's leg chains, taking the steel key in his fingers and kneeling down. "It's your lucky day. Cherish it. Do something in your life to earn it."
He reached the key forward, towards a small hole right in the center of the connecting piece of the cuffs, poised to push it in and set Jericho free. As the key closed in, Endymion could hear his heart beating loudly in his ears. His fingers began to shake a bit, causing him to miss the hole.
He kneeled there, frozen outside of his fingers shaking. After a few beats, he looked up at Jericho.
"R-really. This place doesn't exist as far as you're concerned, if...you whisper about it, he finds you, I promise," Endymion reiterated.
"I got you, man, loud and clear."
Endymion pulled the key back a bit, then again moved to slide it into the hole. He got it past the lip, but the tightening knot in his gut again got him to stop before he could push it in enough to unlock the chains.
He sighed, key halfway in, swallowing down hard. He felt like a large, clammy hand was violently squeezing his stomach. He felt Kunzite's judging gaze on the back of his head, even though he couldn't see his trusted guardian.
There was a ringing in his brain, it felt like. Alarms. Sirens. If he moved the key so much as a tiny fraction of a finger-length more into the lock, he felt they might start to overwhelm him. His face was starting to sweat.
"...buddy?"
The single word from Jericho snapped him out of his daze. He didn't know how long he had been kneeling there, but he roughly ripped the key out of the hole and stood up straight, stalking up a few paces up by Jericho's head.
He rubbed his hand along his face, grimacing, giving a frustrated grunt and groan as he stood up straight and looked up at the ceiling of the cave.
"Uh, it...it didn't work, I'm still...my legs are still...I can't get out," Jericho said down from the ground, looking up at Endymion.
With a settling breath, Endymion calmed himself, focusing his mind, eliminating the blaring alarms in his head and getting himself to think straight again. With a subtle movement, his hand reached up into his inside chest pocket, going inside his waistcoat.
"I'm sorry."
Before Jericho could reply, Endymion kneeled down by his head, grabbing him by the hair and holding him with his left hand. His right hand emerged from his inside pocket, holding a broad dagger, maybe a couple palms long. In a single, smooth motion, he jammed the sharp blade into the back of Jericho's neck, firmly shoving it through the flesh, pushing it all the way to the hilt.
Endymion knew enough about human anatomy to know that his goal was to sever the spinal cord, cutting the brain off from the rest of the body's nervous system. Quick and relatively painless. He tried to focus his mind on little informational factoids like that, and not the horrible little death rattle that Jericho gave off as his body stiffened, then relaxed, falling limp to the stone floor.
Endymion withdrew the blade from Jericho's body, quickly standing up and releasing his head. Without even really thinking about it, he dropped the weapon to the floor, vaguely hearing it clang and clatter against the rock ground. He took a couple shaky steps back from the warm corpse on the ground, staring down at the panicked expression on its face.
He felt a vague swirling in his head now. He felt dizzy, detached. His arms went slack at his sides, suddenly feeling quite weak. Unpleasant tastes were building inside his mouth.
And then, he was pulled out of this miasma by Kunzite roughly grabbing his right shoulder and spinning him a quarter-turn so they were looking right at each other. His expression contained a level of rage that Endymion didn't know his guardian could possibly direct at him.
"You should have let me do that," Kunzite growled, staring Endymion directly in the eyes, reaching up to grab Endymion's hair and holding him.
"I...I…" Endymion babbled, still feeling slightly shaky and hard of breath.
"What are you thinking?" Kunzite snapped, closely examining Endymion's wide, dilated eyes. "I never asked you to be the executioner, I would never ask that."
Endymion blinked a few times, swallowing the nausea that had accumulated in his mouth.
"Oh, I...Your Highness, I understand our relationship and how it works, but you need to make use of my expertise when appropriate," Kunzite continued, glancing down at the corpse that was starting to leak blood out of the back of its neck.
Suddenly, the rumbling in Endymion's head ceased, and with a little pop, he started to feel normal again. His posture steadied.
"It wouldn't have been fair," Endymion said, voice a little shaky. "Fair to you."
"Excuse me?" Kunzite questioned.
"This is...this is my decision, my choice. If it was up to you, we'd be handing him over to the authorities, so me just...I can't just have you do all the dirty work." Endymion looked over at Kunzite, his voice starting to steady. "It wouldn't be fair."
Kunzite couldn't hold back from rolling his eyes. "I have killed before, Your Highness. I think nothing of it, it means nothing to me to take a life. Certainly not that life," he said, looking back at the corpse. "You should have let me do it, now…" he grimaced, looking back at Endymion. "Now...you should see a therapist about this, but that's not really an option for us, so...I'll just have to do the best I can." He looked around the stone chamber. "So...let's—"
"I'm fine," Endymion insisted, looking down at the limp body, feeling his stomach loosen. "I'm fine now, just...a little bit of shock."
"Your Majesty, taking another's life is no trivial thing, and if I may say so, for one such as you, it is going to have a large mental and psychological impact. You are not fine," Kunzite insisted, finally releasing his master and backing off a bit from him. "Okay, just...look—"
"You were right," Endymion said, voice even and measured. "He had to go. No other way."
Kunzite nodded. "Yes, but—"
"He was going to ruin everything we were trying to do." Endymion looked down at the expanding puddle of blood spreading from the corpse, slowly stretching across the floor of the cave. "There was no other way."
"But I could have done it," Kunzite said. "I could have done it, and you wouldn't have...lost any sleep about it, or given yourself—"
"Why would I lose sleep?" Endymion interrupted. "You know, you...you said it. He deserved it. Murderer, cannibal, thief, all of it. His wife and kids, I...I did them a favor. The guy was scum, doesn't matter if he had a family. We can't let...someone like this jeopardize everything we're trying to do here."
Kunzite stared at Endymion for a couple seconds, and then nodded. "We'll revisit this soon. Speak only to me about this."
"I'm good," Endymion said, as Kunzite turned away from his charge and went over to where he had been drilling. Endymion kneeled down and picked up the sack he had previously offered to Jericho. "Really...it's alright."
"We head back to Earth tomorrow morning," Kunzite announced as he went up to the sight of his previous work. A small portion of the crystal that covered the near wall had been removed, rough cutlines where the drill had done its work. A couple of bags were on the floor, fabric containers filled with raw Imperium. "I'll need some time to gather information when we get back, so put this out of your mind for a bit. Focus on the wedding."
Endymion nodded as Kunzite bent down to lift the various sacks up. "I'm...I'm good."
"
Pulling his undershirt up over his head, Endymion discarded the garment over to the right, tossing it to the floor. His eyes were trained on his wife-to-be, laying in the large bed, head showing above the top lip of the blankets, eyes closed and a peaceful smile on her face.
Kicking his shoes off as he went up next to the bed, he was almost surprised to find himself not hesitating. His brain was insisting, demanding, that he quietly go to the other side of the bed, cautiously crawl underneath the covers, and then get to sleep.
He had never ignored his brain more emphatically than he was right now.
His pants roughly discarded, dropped to his ankles and kicked back behind him, Endymion bent down and roughly pressed his lips onto Serenity's. Her eyes fluttered open.
"Mmph, mmph!" Serenity moaned as she re-entered the world of the conscious, quickly waking up on realizing what had awoken her. Endymion, for his part, grabbed the blankets atop her body and tossed them over to the right, exposing Serenity's half-naked body and giving him free reign to mount her.
"Mm-oh! Endymion!" Serenity gasped, no grogginess in her voice as his big, strong hands began to jam underneath her, arms ensnaring her, rolling her over. "Ah!"
With an animalistic, almost feral ferocity, Endymion reached up and tore at her nightgown, growling with lust. Serenity almost squealed in surprise as she felt the silk of her nightgown split behind her.
"Wh-ah!" Serenity yelped. Endymion pressed his lips into her neck as he removed her clothes. "Ohhh!" He moved down to her right shoulder, using his teeth on her sensitive skin, making her shiver as he dug in with a gentle love bite.
"Oh! Endymion! W...where did...this come from?!"