All Hail The King

by the7joker7

Once the supreme power and the center of the galaxy, the Kingdom of the Moon has fallen to ruin, forced to merge with the Kingdom of Earth to survive. Fortunately, Prince Endymion and Princess Serenity do love each other...unless certain discoveries can change that. SilMil, Alternate Timeline, Rated T for some violence, language, themes.

53. The Great Spaceship Robbery

Chapter 53: The Great Spaceship Robbery

Zoisite lightly rapped his knuckles on the threshold of the open doorway, peeking inside the large, dark-toned room loaded to the brim with expensive artifacts and art, as well as curated collections of reading materials. Princess Mercury, sitting at the large desk near the back of the room, glanced up from a small stack of documents. She straightened up a bit as Zoisite walked in.

"Can I...uh…" Zoisite gestured towards the heavy wooden door. Mercury nodded, Zoisite needing no other permissions to reach over and swing it closed.

"So what's this about? Am I not meeting my quota?" Mercury asked, sounding a little caustic.

Zoisite pulled out a rectangular black device, holding it up in front of her mouth. "Just a moment, Your Highness." He stared down at a readout on the side of the object.

"I'm not recording anything," Mercury said, sounding weary.

Zoisite, though he looked rather sympathetically towards Mercury, continued to hold the device up in front of his face as he went up to the desk. "Next month, there's a museum opening on Earth. They're having a grand opening, some of the exhibits have never been seen before, I'm here to officially invite you."

"Yes, yes, I know the official reason for your visit, Zoisite," Mercury said impatiently. "Just...just get to the real reason, please."

Satisfied, Zoisite pocketed the rectangular tool, standing up straight in front of the large desk, betraying at least a little discomfort at how brusque the Princess was being, as well as her less-than-settling appearance, with bags under her eyes and skin discoloration on her face. "The High King sent me to deliver a private message, yes."

"Did he send you to kill me?" Mercury asked, taking Zoisite off-guard enough to draw a bewildered, almost frightened, look. "He already sent you to lie your way into our vault, you did such a wonderful job of that, is this your next mission?"

"Of course not," Zoisite said. "It's...it's just information for you to pass along to the interested parties."

"Well, you'll just have to forgive me for assuming nothing when it comes to your High King and what he wants to do from day to day," Mercury said tersely.

Zoisite swallowed down hard. "Your Highness, manufacturing has been put on a temporary hold. There will be no new imperium shipments for now. Make sure your clients are aware that things have been delayed."

"For how long?" Mercury asked, grabbing a pen off the left side of her desk.

"Unknown. Probably just a few days," Zoisite answered, still reeling a bit from Mercury's accusations. "We were anticipating a supply of boron crystal fluid to have been delivered by now, but for currently unknown reasons, we haven't yet received it."

"Should I even bother hoping that it might be forever?" Mercury asked, hovering the pen tip over a scrap of paper on her desk for a brief moment before deciding to set the writing tool back down.

Zoisite paused, glancing around the large room slowly. "He also wanted me to ask if you happened to have access to any boron fluid that you could procure for us without it being reported as stolen. Of course, even if you did, you would lie, yes?"

"I suppose so," Mercury said. "However, even if I wouldn't lie, I would still say I have no access to anything like that. Is that all?"

"Um, right," Zoisite said, nodding. "That's all, Your Highness. Just inform your clients that future imperium shipments have been placed on hold."

Mercury waved her arm towards the door on the other side of the room behind Zoisite with a couple of jerky movements. "You'll forgive me if I'm not rooting for your success."

Zoisite turned away from the member of Mercurian royalty, sighing, sad to see hard evidence of how unhappy the Princess was with him. Of course he knew it was the case without having to see it first-hand and understood it completely, but it was nevertheless unsettling to see.

He took a few steps, then turned to glance over his shoulder back at her. She had already returned her focus to the document in front of her. "I...I have to do what he tells me, no matter what," Zoisite said. "I have no ability to refuse him. That's what being an Earth general is. Whatever he wants me to do, I have to do it."

"Then I suppose we have something in common," Mercury replied, her tone just slightly less harsh, still not lifting her gaze up.

"You, um...Your Highness, if I may," Zoisite said cautiously. "You're looking a little unhealthy."

"Not sleeping well," Mercury answered quietly. "I'm really not cut out for this sort of thing, you know. Lying, sneaking around, breaking the law." She glanced back up towards Zoisite. "It takes a toll. You, your generals, your High King, maybe you don't feel it. But I do. Spend half my day thinking about all the ways I could get caught. It's not fun."

Zoisite gave an empathetic nod. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"I'm more sorry to feel it," Mercury countered.

"I doubt you'll get caught," Zoisite offered, unable to come up with anything more comforting than that. "You're far too smart for that."

"Well, I appreciate that," Mercury said, a sarcastic, maliceful venom in her tone that surpassed the one she had even a secunda or two before. Zoisite took the obvious hint, turning away and hurriedly retreating.

"

Kunzite held the large tablet out in front of him, screen pointing away from his chest. The image projected from the screen was a simple one. A large black barrel, tipped over onto its side so that the bottom was easily visible. A slight patch of discoloration in the black surface, while not immediately obvious, was clearly present. A small clump of painted clay was stuck to the barrel's bottom.

"We can't continue on with SpoChem. Every single boron crystal fluid barrel in the warehouse has one of these on them," Kunzite explained. The two men were standing out in the palace hangar, just outside the entry ramp of The Bastion, which was docked in the private bay near the back of the hangar. Walled off, it was private enough for a sensitive conversation.

"I thought the whole point was that we were stealing it," Endymion said, grimacing as he looked at the picture on Kunzite's tablet. "Can't we just take the tracking beacon off?"

Kunzite put the tablet back to his side, folding it up close to his hip. "If we do that, it'll be obvious to the agency that we're stealing from SpoChem, and they'll increase security on their warehouses a hundredfold. If we steal a barrel, it will be the last barrel we can ever steal from them. Besides, our contact inside SpoChem already backed out. Under that heavy of an investigation they'd figure out it was her."

Endymion rubbed his right temple. "Some help she ended up being."

"Your Highness, it wasn't supposed to be like this," Kunzite assured him. "These tracker beacons weren't on anything else, just the boron crystal fluid. The agency is clearly involved, they've got eyes on SpoChem and know exactly what to look for. Our contact is certain to spend the rest of her life in a cell on The Savery if she helps us, it's not worth it for anyone."

"Alright," Endymion relented. "There's more than one chemical warehouse in the universe, isn't there?"

Kunzite blinked down hard. "Your Majesty, it's going to take cycles to find another contact on the inside of another warehouse, and it's more than likely that the agency will have set up similar surveillance there as well."

"Okay, well, what do we do next then?!" Endymion snapped. "I'm not hearing any solutions here."

"I-I haven't gotten that far yet," Kunzite admitted. "I just found out about this, I called you right after I saw this."

Endymion scoffed. "We're out now, aren't we?"

Kunzite nodded. "The last batch was all we had. I triple-checked Saturn for more warehouses, there's nothing left there."

"So we get to try to pitch Seiya's crew on buying our product when we don't have any product," Endymion said darkly, crossing his arms over his chest. "Brilliant."

"Um, we should...shelve that for now, obviously," Kunzite said. "We'll figure something out, all of us are going to be devoting all of our resources into trying to find something."

"This opportunity with Seiya won't be open forever," Endymion said sternly. "The most important thing right now is that we capitalize on it."

"Um, Your Majesty, if I may," Kunzite leaned up against the side of The Bastion, placing his right hand on the hull and glancing back and forth. "What's going on with Queen Serenity? That might be more important."

Endymion rolled his eyes as dismissively as he could. "Oh, she's more than fine. Trust me, she's never been better, the...schemes she cooks up in her head, I didn't know she was even capable of it!"

Kunzite rubbed his left temple, digging his fingertip hard into the skin. "Your Highness, is she going to be a problem? Remember, she knows everything about what we've done, she's fully capable of sending the entire operation crashing down."

"If she wanted to turn me in, she's had every opportunity to do so," Endymion snapped, slapping his palm against the hull absentmindedly. "She won't do it, she knows it'll ruin her as much as me."

"I understand that, but you have to admit, Your Majesty, Queen Serenity can be emotional," Kunzite pointed out.

"Oh, I have to admit it?!" Endymion said, sounding semi-hysterical. "Hm, interesting, Kunzite, such a thought had never occurred to me, she's only just staging a fake suicide attempt in order to manipulate her mother into doing what she wants!"

"If she's capable of doing something like that, then she's capable of letting something slip to the wrong person in a moment of weakness," Kunzite said sternly. "You need to do something to make sure that doesn't happen."

Endymion clearly bristled at being lectured, but quickly gave a curt nod. "Just...just make sure we're actually able to do something that she could turn me in for. I doubt your precious Princess will be happy about us having to shut down manufacturing."

"

Chibiusa held the large cardboard book up in front of her face, intently focusing on the words and pictures in front of her. The young girl was sitting on her mother's lap on a luxury sofa in the main lounge room of the Moon Palace, clearly aware of the desire to show off her talents to her mom.

And of course, her grandmother as well, who was leaning up against the backrest of the couch, looking over her daughter's shoulders, three generations of Moon royalty practically lined up alongside each other.

"He had made...his own luck," Chibiusa said slowly. "He could now...provide...for his…"

"Family," her grandmother said from behind her.

"I know!" Chibiusa insisted. "Family...and to him, that was all that mattered."

Queen Serenity managed a wan smile as her daughter finished the sentence. "That's...that's really good, sweetie. You're doing great."

"She really is!" the eldest of the three Serenities chimed in. "Definitely smarter than me when I was that age, and...well, sorry honey, probably—"

"I know, I know, she's definitely smarter than me," the Queen interrupted, stroking the top of Chibiusa's head. "Smarter than me right now, probably."

"I really like that story."

Endymion entered the room from the main hallway, pulling his lapels over his chest as he did. All three generations of Moon royalty turned their heads to look at him enter. Two of them looked excited to see him.

"It's got a fantastic moral, I think. That whole idea of a man, doing whatever it takes to provide for his family, because that's the only thing that's important to him, and nothing else is even worth thinking about." Endymion leaned up on the backside of the couch, right next to his mother-in-law. "I like that."

"Everything's okay?" the elder Serenity inquired.

"Oh, yes, everything's fine," Endymion said hurriedly. "Well, it's far more important that everything's fine in here, the most important women in my life, all gathered together like this."

"Oh, we're doing fantastic," she answered. "Um, by the way, it wasn't exactly clear when you called me, are you two...planning to take her back with you today?"

"Yes, I think it's probably time," Endymion said immediately. "What, it's been ten days now?"

"Um…" Queen Serenity quickly spoke up. "A-actually, I'm not sure that's a good idea."

Endymion's nostrils flared a bit, his cheek twitching as well. "I am," he said, trying to sound strong to eliminate any possibility of a retort.

"No, no, I'm really not, I don't think I'm ready for that," Serenity insisted. "A-and, really, given your responsibilities as High King, I'm the one who ends up being...more responsible for her. So I think maybe my input should weigh more here?"

Endymion scoffed. "We are her parents, and—"

"Um, I don't mind either way," the elder Serenity said hurriedly, looking quite mortified that she had sparked an argument about Chibiusa while Chibiusa was in the room. "It's...totally fine, I don't mind at all."

The High King chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment before looking back at his wife. "Alright, I suppose we'll be...having a discussion before we leave today."

"I suppose so," Serenity replied, sounding quite tired and put-out.

"

Endymion watched as the back ramp of The Bastion closed the final couple finger-lengths of distance between it and the hull, securely sealing the royal couple inside the cutting-edge spaceship. The moment the ramp had shut completely, the High King rounded on the Queen.

"I already told you how this can end," Endymion menaced. "Chibiusa is our daughter. She's going to be raised by us, that's all there is to it."

"And I already told you, she's not living there as long as you're involved in this business. She's not getting caught in the crossfire." Serenity leaned up against the port-side wall of the ship's interior. "If your...obsession with this nonsense gets us both killed, then so be it, but not her."

"Even if I was willing to entertain this nonsense, Serenity, do you think your mother is really going to be okay with raising your daughter indefinitely?" Endymion asked, gesticulating towards the sealed back hatch of the ship. "She's being polite right now, that isn't going to last forever!"

"I will worry about that, she's my mother, that won't be your concern. I'll make sure she understands." Serenity nodded.

"Oh, she'll understand," Endymion grumbled. "She'll understand that something's wrong with us, and she won't rest until she finds out what it is! You are not blowing everything up over some misplaced paranoia!"

"And how sure are you that I won't blow everything up anyway?" Serenity asked, turning her hard glare over towards her husband. "It's stressful, Endy, having her in the room while you're shaking hands with the worst people in the galaxy. The kind of people who might kill you and your whole family because you looked at them the wrong way."

"Serenity, we both know what happens to you if I go down," Endymion threatened.

"Under that stress, who knows what I might do?" Serenity said, voice thick and frantic. "Look what you've made me do already. You got me to fake a suicide in front of my mother." She gripped the front of her dress in her hands, wringing it around in her fingers. "You don't think I might lose control one day, let it slip? Your father's around all the time, it'd be so easy to make a mistake."

The High King turned away from her in disgust. "Are you really trying to blackmail me?!"

"It's not blackmail!" Serenity protested. "Endy, it's hard enough to control myself when I'm scared for myself. There is nothing you can say, nothing you can do, that can convince me we're safe, not after what happened with Cronus. You put my daughter at risk, I might just do something stupid before I can stop myself."

Endymion slowly ran his right hand down his face.

"But you know what? You give me what I want here, and you've got yourself a partner you can rely on," Serenity continued. "Alright? I won't say a word to anyone, I'll launder your money, whatever you need me to do to enable this insanity, I'll do it. But she stays here until it's done."

"Gods…" Endymion lashed his right arm out to his side, smacking his knuckles right into the metallic hull. He winced, immediately regretting his action as he drew his hand back towards his chest. Giving his hand a few shakes, he turned back towards Serenity.

"Are you okay?" Serenity asked, not sounding particularly concerned.

"Sometimes it's almost infuriating how Kunzite knows everything," Endymion muttered darkly.

"What?" Serenity looked rather befuddled.

"N-nothing, nothing," Endymion said, agitation evident in his tone. He gave the most annoyed sigh possible, putting his hands on his hips. "If we do this, your mother is your responsibility. The day she starts to wonder if there's something we're not telling her is the day she comes back to live with us."

"So we have a deal?" Serenity asked tersely, tightly crossing her arms over her chest.

"We'll visit every other day," Endymion said matter-of-factly. "She'll be less suspicious if we're at least seeing her frequently." He swallowed down hard. "And as far as your mother knows, you're seeing Diogenes for therapy sessions, ongoing."

Serenity nodded.

"Then we have a deal," Endymion said begrudgingly. "If it makes you feel any better, if I can't resolve this boron crystal fluid problem, I'll be leaving this business much sooner than anticipated."

"

"Thank you for the lovely dinner," Princess Venus said, bowing her head slightly towards Endymion. "It's a beautiful palace you have here."

"Uh-huh," Endymion grumbled, beckoning the blonde forward. "Enough of that."

"I didn't want to say anything in front of Serenity, but I couldn't help but wonder, where's Chibiusa?" Venus asked, quickly stepping through the doorway, allowing Endymion to seal the heavy door shut behind her.

"Not your concern," the High King said darkly. "And keep your shoes on at my dining table next time, this is a royal palace, not a farmhouse."

"So you were looking at me under the table?" Venus said with a raised eyebrow.

"Why would people take their shoes off in a farmhouse?" Jadeite asked. All four of Endymion's generals were gathered up next to each other against the wall on the near-side of the room, a small and basic structure with little defining it other than four walls, a ceiling, and a floor of dark, muted colors.

Endymion just shot Jadeite a piercing look, getting him to demure quickly.

"Well, moving onto things that are my concern, what makes you all think you can shut down production without my input?" Venus asked, putting her hands behind her back and sizing up the four generals, not showing any intimidation at all despite being outnumbered.

The High King silently pointed at Zoisite, who stepped forward off the wall and towards the Princess, producing a small black rectangular device from his front pocket. "One moment, Your Highness," he said, holding the object up in front of his mouth as he spoke.

"Really?" Venus put her hands out to her sides incredulously. "You're afraid I'm wearing a recording device? Are you insane?" She twisted around to look at Endymion. "I had you dead to rights last year and didn't turn you in, you think I'd do it now?"

Zoisite nodded over at Endymion, who chose to not engage the Princess on his paranoia. "Shutting down production is the last thing I want to do, Venus, but we have no choice. And I think you know that."

"How would I?" Venus asked defensively.

"The agency's cut off our supply of boron fluid," Kunzite said. "Surely it must have come up in a high council meeting, they've put trackers on every single barrel of the stuff at SpoChem."

Venus couldn't help but give a tiny smirk. "The agency is treating the case as closed with Cronus dead, they don't even think you're active right now. I haven't heard a word about monitoring boron fluid supplies."

"Who else could it have been?!" Endymion snapped. "Trackers don't just materialize of their own accord."

Venus sighed. "I think your father might be running an operation on his own time. He certainly has the money and influence for it."

"Or, maybe, the agency suspects you and you're being kept out of the loop," Endymion suggested.

The Princess scoffed. "If they didn't trust me, the game would be up. Do you have any idea how easy it would be for them to discover the work I've been doing up there to hide the smuggling on Venus? I wouldn't survive an investigation that lasted more than a day."

"Well, I for one am just brimming with confidence now," Endymion said, covering his face in frustration.

"Hey, buddy," Venus said competitively, turning towards the High King and pointing up towards her face with both of her index fingers. "This is a face that people trust."

"Either way," Kunzite said loudly. "Even if we are able to make contact with someone else working inside a different chemical warehouse, we have no guarantee that their supply won't be monitored as well. And we can't take any course of action that results in a supply of it being reported as stolen. Even if this is Kasios acting alone, any theft will prompt a massive investigation."

"Okay?" Venus said, sounding irritated and confused. "Last I checked, there's more than one formula to synthesize imperium. Find one that uses substances you can obtain." She gestured over towards the four Earth generals, then pointed at Endymion. "The most powerful man in the galaxy and his four advisors putting their heads together couldn't figure that out? It took me less than a secunda!"

"Those formulas result in an inferior product," Endymion countered. "We have a standard to maintain, our clients have expectations of us."

"A standard to maintain?" Venus repeated. "King-man, this isn't a fried fish restaurant, you have no competition! Nobody else has anything close to your product, they'll buy whatever you produce!"

"You don't get it," Endymion insisted. "Any other formula will reduce the potential output of the product by more than half, we'll be making a fraction of what we are right now. And I'm a High King, by the way."

"Better than the nothing we're making right now!" Venus protested. "There happen to be a lot of moving parts on my end, Endymion, a lot of people who expect to be provided imperium and money, we can't just stop everything indefinitely."

Endymion sighed. "That's your problem, Venus. Need I remind you that our laboratory is currently outfitted to handle one specific synthesization formula, and would need to be refitted if we started another. I'm not wasting our product on inferior formulas."

"Then sell it to someone who will!" Venus suggested. "What am I missing here, do you really prefer to just let your supply sit there and collect dust while everyone makes no money?"

"I prefer to figure out a way to get boron fluid," Endymion answered simply. "I prefer to make the best, most powerful, most efficient product possible. I prefer to make the most money possible. I prefer to not waste most of my product's potential because of impatience!"

"Oh, wonderful, certainly fine by me," Venus said. "Of course, by you saying that, I'm just assuming you have some plan by which we can obtain boron fluid in the very near future. Because it'd be ridiculous to say something like that otherwise!"

"My product, my formula, my laboratory, my rules," Endymion spat back. "Boron fluid is plentiful in this galaxy. Downright common, actually. I don't accept that a man in my position can't find a way to obtain it."

Finally, the argument had run out of steam, Venus not able to come up with a direct retort to this statement. Though still not particularly convinced of his decision, clearly conveyed by her facial expression, the blonde Princess simply stood there and fumed.

"We've been turning over every stone, trying to figure out how we can get a sustainable supply of boron fluid," Nephrite said, his stern and serious demeanor doing much to bring the temperature of the room back down. "The difficulty lies in doing it in a way that won't be reported."

"Every cycle, a freighter ship leaves Jupiter," Zoisite said. "Boron crystals get harvested from the planet, and there's a facility there that sparks the reaction to produce the fluid. The fluid gets loaded onto this ship, which then transports it around the galaxy to various chemical warehouses. It's not in barrels either, they keep it all in one big tank. The whole ship is segmented, different tanks for different chemicals, each section has a faucet on the outside. That ship is probably our best chance since the fluid isn't in barrels yet, but it's still difficult to imagine how we could do it."

"And there's still the issue of doing it in a way that makes it so nobody knows anything was stolen," Kunzite pointed out.

"Which strikes me as impossible by definition," Zoisite added.

The room, once again, fell silent, Endymion pacing back and forth, everyone deep in thought over the seemingly-insurmountable problem that was placed in front of them.

"Still sounds easier than convincing this guy to be a little flexible," Princess Venus said sourly, pointing her thumb over her shoulder towards Endymion.

"The best idea we've had so far is to destroy the freighter after we've stolen the boron fluid," Jadeite said. "Destroy it in a way that makes it impossible to tell if anything was taken or just destroyed." The blond General leaned up against the near wall.

"But it's messy," Kunzite said. "Very messy. And there's a very good chance that robbery would be suspected anyway, which I'm sure would bring down the full might of the agency."

"But, if we pulled it off, we wouldn't have to worry about this again for a long time," Endymion said quietly. "That freighter ship carries several hundred culeuses worth of boron fluid every cycle."

Venus grimaced. "Well. Seems like we don't have a choice but to figure this out."

"We've got eight days before the next freighter is scheduled to depart Jupiter. So, we can count on your assistance, if we do decide to go through with this?" Kunzite asked, turning towards Venus languidly.

She sighed. "It certainly appears that way."

"

Kunzite tapped the butt of his fist against the corner of the clear glass table, activating a hologram just above the surface, of a peculiar ship design. Long and tubular in shape, the vessel was made up mostly of identical-looking compartments attached to each other, eighteen in total, looking as if you could have added more of the compartments to the rear of the ship, making it as long as you wanted.

"This is the freighter that they use," Kunzite explained, pointing at the green-glowing ship representation. "The compartments get loaded with chemicals at various facilities on Jupiter. There are four people in the cockpit at the front. Two pilots, a person to represent Jupiter's mining interests, and a person to represent the warehouses. Very valuable payload, they don't want to take any chances with it, so people are present at all times."

"If we go the messy route, we'll have to dispose of them," Nephrite said, gathered up on the opposite side of the table with Zoisite, Jadeite, and Princess Venus.

"I have a better idea. Hopefully," Kunzite said. "After being loaded, the freighter goes up beyond Jupiter's atmosphere, plots a jump course, and then begins jumping from warehouse to warehouse across the galaxy to make deliveries. That little window is our opportunity. After they leave Jupiter's atmosphere, before they jump."

"That's two secundas at most," Zoisite said, sounding a little unimpressed, arms crossed across his chest. "How fast does the faucet even pump out?"

"Two secundas at most, unless we delay the ship's jump," Kunzite pointed out. "It'll have safety mechanisms active, of course, and won't jump if it detects something in its immediate path. We just have to keep something in that path."

"As much as I hate to say this, that's actually the easy part," Jadeite chimed in. "How are we going to get the fluid out?"

Kunzite pointed over towards Jadeite. "That's where you come in."

"I knew it," Jadeite muttered. "Unfortunately, we're going to have to be very close to the freighter in order for me to work effectively. As in, close enough for our ship to show up on their radar."

"Not this ship," Kunzite countered, tapping the corner of the hologram-projecting table with his fist again, getting the freighter to disappear and be replaced by a different ship, a flat, sleek looking design with short wings.

"

"Lady and Gentlemen, The Thurloe," Kunzite said, giving a large tug on the edge of a large blue blanket that was covering up a small vessel deep within the private wing of the royal palace hangar bay. The giant piece of fabric fell away onto the floor next to Kunzite, revealing a ship identical to the one he had displayed on the hologram. Flat, sleek, short wings. It wasn't that much bigger than Kunzite, and looked as if it might just barely be big enough for two people.

"Oh, that is pretty," Venus said.

"It's also a military secret," Nephrite said, casting a quick glance over towards the Princess. "An Earth military secret."

"Desperate times, Nephrite," Kunzite said. "Jadeite, this will be your ship."

"I thought this was still in the testing phase," Jadeite said warily, eyeing the tiny, smooth ship over suspiciously.

"It's been tested enough," Kunzite assured him. "It works. The Thurloe represents the latest and greatest in stealth technology."

"Radar-proof?" Venus asked. "That's a secret worth knowing."

"Not quite," Kunzite corrected. "The Thurloe will show up on radar, but it's small enough to be dismissed as a tiny asteroid as long as the engines are off." Kunzite held his left hand up in the air, index finger extended out. "I'll be waiting nearby, above Jupiter, with The Thurloe in my payload bay. When the freighter ship is emerging from Jupiter's atmosphere—" Kunzite used his right hand's index finger to simulate the freighter's path upward, then sending his left index finger towards his right one, "—I'll fire it at the ship. Not directly at the ship, that would raise the alarm, but close enough for Jadeite to do the rest of the work. Just as he's passing the freighter, he'll give The Thurloe a quick burst towards it, and then latch it onto the hull." He pressed his index fingers up against each other. "The ship is small enough and flat enough to not register on any of the freighter's instrumentation once it's latched on. All we have to do is make the colors match, and it'll be almost impossible to detect."

"We should rename this ship," Zoisite said. "The Parasite. Latches onto the larger organism and leeches off of it."

"Yeah, about that," Jadeite said. "I'm not seeing much storage room on this ship. How am I going to steal boron fluid in this?"

"You won't be putting the fluid into the ship," Kunzite explained.

"

The white-haired Earth General held an empty black sack up in front of him, the mouth of which was a circular piece of hard plastic, the rest made of a nylon-like fabric, though it was no doubt far more secure than that. "We'll be using these."

The collection of Earth Generals and singular Venusian Princess were now in a storage room a couple floors beneath the Earth Palace, shelves of supplies weaving throughout the room. One of the boxes next to Kunzite was open, revealing a large stack of the bags, which were barely bigger than Kunzite's fist when folded up.

"Looks like...a quarter of a culeus? Maybe a fifth?" Jadeite said.

"Small enough to be dismissed as long as they pose no obvious threat to the freighter," Kunzite explained, tossing the empty sack over to Jadeite, who caught it. "Once you're latched on, you'll start. Get the mouth of these bags onto the mouth of the faucet, open the faucet for about three beats, close the faucet, seal the bag, and just let it float off. After the freighter leaves, we'll come back to collect them."

"If I had to guess, I'd say that there'll be an alarm in the cockpit if any of the faucets are opened while the ship is in flight," Zoisite pointed out.

"There most certainly will be," Kunzite agreed. "Fortunately, the blueprint for the freighter makes it clear exactly where in the cockpit this alarm will show. And someone of his abilities will be able to suppress it."

"Whoa whoa whoa," Jadeite said. "Um, Kunzite, uh...I hate to be the bottleneck here, but this is beyond my powers. You want me to control these sacks, the faucet, the alarm, I can't do all of this at once."

"Oh, I know," Kunzite said. "Fortunately, The Thurloe is just barely big enough to hold two people."

Jadeite cocked his head. "If you're thinking about what I think you're thinking about, there aren't that many people in the galaxy that it'll work with."

"I've already found someone, he's being transported to one of my safehouses," Kunzite quickly addressed. "We'll go meet with him shortly." He pointed at Princess Venus. "You might want to stay away when we interact with him, if you prefer to keep your involvement a secret."

"You've got to be kidding me," Nephrite said gruffly. "You're bringing in outside assistance on this?!"

"It's not as if I like it," Kunzite said. "But there's no other way."

"Objection!" Venus said dryly. "I believe utilizing a different formula to be another way. A way that, as near as I can tell, would involve none of these absurd risks."

"Yeah, I'm...finding myself agreeing with that sentiment," Jadeite said, looking down at the sack in his hands.

"It's not our decision to make," Kunzite answered impatiently. "Now, while you're filling these sacks with boron fluid, we'll be doing everything we can to delay the ship's jump. You should be able to fill four to five bags a secunda as long as you work well with your partner."

"Could we, maybe, spend a little more time on the subject of this partner?" Jadeite asked.

"

A scarred hand passively extended out towards Jadeite, who regarded it cautiously. This despite the fact that the man who was extending said hand was all by himself, nobody on his side of the room, whereas Jadeite had his three fellow Earth Generals right alongside him. Not to mention that the man extending said hand looked perfectly agreeable and pleasant.

"Pleasure to meet you," he said. "So, you're the psychic I'll be working with?"

"Perhaps," Jadeite said, cautiously lifting his right hand to quickly shake his.

"Uh, I'm Linos," the man stated. "It's not often I get to meet someone else with the gift."

"It's not enough to have the gift," Jadeite said, still acting a little standoffish. "If you're not able to match me, you'll just get in the way out there."

"Oh, you don't have to worry about anything sir," Linos said earnestly. "I've been trained."

"You don't look like a product of Mars," Jadeite said, his defenses still up as he sized up his supposed partner.

"Oh, I'm definitely not, sir," Linos agreed. "No, I was trained by Beryl, personally. You've heard of her?"

"Yes, we have," Kunzite said, stepping forward to intrude on the awkward interaction. "Now, Linos, I'm sure you're very confused right now, being brought all the way here to meet with four Earth Generals about a criminal operation."

"Hey, you don't...you don't have to worry about anything," Linos assured the much larger man. "I don't really care about any of that. I just want to get paid and do my job."

"That's the right attitude," Kunzite said sternly. "Because men of our power and abilities can't be outrun. And if you were to tell anyone anything about this operation once it's over, then we'd have little choice but to hunt you."

"Of course, this...this isn't my first robbery, I know how it goes," Linos said. "I don't even really want to know the details, it's easier if I don't."

Kunzite cleared his throat, turning towards Jadeite.

"A-actually, sir, I'm assuming this operation you've got going here is pretty...sizable, based off what my pay is, so let me just say, if you ever need my talents in the future, I'd love to...you know, help out," Linos said. "Or maybe, if you ever wanted to meet Beryl, I can be your connection! She's a hard woman to get a hold of, obviously, but...I've got history."

"First, let's see if you're capable of helping us at all," Kunzite said, gesturing towards Jadeite. Slowly, the blond Earth General began to tug the white glove off of his right hand, using his left to loosen each finger before whisking the entire garment off. Flexing his fingers a few times, he waited for Linos to put his hand out again, then took it in his freshly-bared palm.

The faint, let unmistakable, blue glow from the contact of skin made it clear that there was a strong reaction between the two telekinetics, Jadeite's eyes widening slightly as he looked down at the pair of clasped hands.

"So, what do you think?" Linos asked, still sounding remarkably earnest and polite, a sharp contrast to his past of being trained by Beryl and his considerable powers.

"In order for our operation to be successful," Kunzite began, as Jadeite continued to feel him out. "We need you two to work as one. Many things will be happening at once, and exact, precise control will be required."

"I can do that," Linos said.

"Maybe give us a couple days to get to know each other," Jadeite suggested, gritting his teeth slightly as the blue glow between their palms began to intensify. "You know, I think this safehouse could really use some wallpaper," he said, starting to grin a bit.

As soon as Jadeite finished the sentence, a fat, leather book laying on its side on the shelf took flight, hovering in mid-air, before opening to the first page. One at a time, in rapid-fire succession, the pages of the book were ripped out by an invisible force, each one flying off to the nearest section of uncovered wall and sticking there. The three non-telekinetic Earth Generals present watched the bizarre show of book pages rapidly being plastered onto the walls, the entire section of wall being covered in a matter of beats.

"Looks like this might work," Zoisite acknowledged.

"

"I'm seeing one thing that won't work, though," Nephrite said, looking over at Kunzite across a small, circular table in the back corner of the safehouse, Zoisite sitting along the side of the table and studying a blueprint of the freighter ship on a tablet. "Surely, a significant portion of the boron fluid disappearing from the freighter will be noticed. Even if they can't figure out how it was stolen, it'll be reported as stolen."

Zoisite smirked from behind the tablet. "I'm just assuming that Kunzite thought of that already." He looked up at his colleague. "Don't disappoint me."

Kunzite nodded, about to start explaining the rest of his plan, when a series of rapid swishing sounds drew attention away. All three generals turned to look across the room, where Jadeite and Linos were still holding hands, using their powers to manipulate a razor-sharp machete into neatly hacking up a thick wooden post into thin slivers, the bladed weapon knifing back and forth through the tip of the post and sending small slices to the floor.

"Where'd you get that wooden post?" Zoisite asked.

"Fence out front," Jadeite answered, keeping his focus on the task at hand.

Zoisite rolled his eyes and was about to start arguing with them, but Kunzite gestured to stop him.

"Don't worry, as soon as our business with Linos is done I'm having this safehouse destroyed," he said as quietly as he could. "In any case, the act of covering our tracks is simple. We replace the boron fluid that we steal with water. The two substances weigh almost the same per volumetric unit, so it'll be quite simple."

"Too simple," Nephrite grunted. "We'll never get away with that."

"Oh, we'll get away with it," Kunzite assured the brunette General. "Jupiter won't. And even Jupiter won't get more than a slap on the wrist and a docking of payment. The chemical facilities that receive the fluid will simply believe that Jupiter was trying to bolster their exports by sneaking some water in. It's a fairly simple procedure to sift the water out, and that'll be that."

"Jupiter won't like being falsely accused of that," Zoisite pointed out.

"Oh, there'll be an argument. Little back-and-forth. Ultimately, little more than the typical posturing you'd find when very wealthy entities are haggling over the cost of precious materials. It'll pass, and importantly, nobody will ever suspect theft."

"I'm not seeing how we pull this off," Nephrite said, steepling his hands in front of his face. "We're more than doubling the time we need to stall the freighter's jump, for one."

"No, we let the freighter jump, with The Thurloe latched on," Kunzite explained. "But we know where it's first stop is, Uranus. All we have to do is obstruct it's path halfway through the jump, and it'll be forced to stop. We'll have sacks of water waiting there, and then we just have to stall the freighter while they refill the compartment."

"Wow," Nephrite mused, his head turned slightly to look up at the wall to his left.

"I know, I actually think it might work," Kunzite replied.

With a minimal movement of his left hand, Nephrite pointed up at the wall, drawing Kunzite's attention to it. Twisting his body around, the eldest of the active Earth Generals saw that an entire layer of white paint was being stripped off the wall in one big paper-thin sheet.

"Maybe I won't have to destroy this safehouse myself," Kunzite grunted, turning back around and looking over Nephrite's shoulder, spotting Jadeite and Linos holding their hands out towards the wall currently being stripped.

"

High King Endymion swept his vision across the royal bedroom slowly, unnecessarily checking once again to be sure he was alone in the massive room. Of course, there'd be no reason for anyone to have suddenly appeared in the last few secundas since he had last checked to make sure he was alone, but with such an important operation looming over his head, he felt extra motivated to leave nothing to chance.

"This has to work," Endymion mumbled under his breath. Suddenly, he jumped up from his seat on the corner of the royal bed, stalking over towards the bedroom door. "Has to work, has to work, has to work," he repeated quietly as he went over to the door, pressing his ear against it, listening intently.

"Freighter ship The Autonoe is heading towards the jump point," Kunzite announced, Endymion hearing him clearly through a small black earpiece lodged in his right ear canal. "Leaving Jupiter's atmosphere in thirty beats."

Satisfied, Endymion pulled his ear away from the door, restlessly pacing back and forth. "Five bags equals one culeus, one culeus equals twenty-five hundred libras of product, twenty-five hundred libras...on Venus, two and three-quarters billion." Luckily, his aimless mutterings of math could be heard by no one else, as he did not have a transmitter into the conversation between his Generals, only a receiver. "Each bag, over half a billion creds."

"Twenty beats," Kunzite said.

"

Kunzite leaned forward, quickly examining some of the data on a screen in front of him in the cockpit of the reconstructed Falconeri. "Jadeite, Linos, prepare."

Looking out at a wide, expansive view of Jupiter and a slice of deep space beyond it from a couple thousand dolichos away, Kunzite placed his right hand's index finger on a red button on the right side of the center console. His left hand went up above his head, flicking a switch, causing his view out the front window to zoom in heavily towards Jupiter.

Sure enough, he soon spotted The Autonoe, zipping upwards and away from the planet, mere moments away from passing through orbit.

"Launching," Kunzite said, pressing the red button.

"

A hatch on the bottom side of The Falconeri opened and The Thurloe was fired out from it, zipping towards Jupiter at tremendous speed. Entirely dependent on the momentum imparted on it by the launcher in The Falconeri, the revolutionary stealth-ship's engines were powered off, meaning it would be easily dismissed as a piece of space debris or a small asteroid, only worthy of consideration if it became an immediate threat.

Inside the tiny ship, Jadeite and Linos were lying prone, just barely enough room for the both of them. Each had their eyes glued to the informational screen that was projected along the top side of the ship's interior hull, giving them enough of a view outside to have a good understanding of where they were relative to the freighter ship and the planet.

"Your trajectory looks good from here," Kunzite said, his voice feeding into earpieces that Jadeite and Linos both wore. "Ten beats until you pass."

The blond Earth General reached up to a panel of buttons on the right side of the screen with his right hand, while his left hand reached over towards his partner, who took it in his right.

"The Autonoe has breached the atmosphere," Kunzite reported.

Jadeite pressed one of the buttons above his head. The ship's engine hummed alive just as it was passing the larger freighter ship underneath it, giving it just enough of a push to turn it right towards its underside. Giving it a second quick burst of power to flip it around so it was oriented properly, The Thurloe neatly slapped itself right into the base of the freighter, latching on securely.

"

"Whoa!"

"What's up?"

Kallias stared down at the blipping green-screened radar built into the console right in front of him. He could feel the eyes of his three fellow crewmen aboard the cockpit of The Autonoe staring at the back of his head as he tried to figure out what had just caused the ship's radar to blast a warning signal for a brief moment.

He reached forward, tapping the screen with his finger a couple times. No indications of any disturbances or danger, nothing but a blank screen. No alarms blaring complaints of hull damage either. Finally, he shrugged.

"Thought I saw a power signature right beneath us," Kallias muttered. "I guess not."

"What do you mean, you guess not?" Georgius asked. "That's kind of a big deal."

"No, it's nothing, it's nothing," Kallias insisted. "It didn't even last long enough to trigger the actual alarm, probably a graphical glitch." He reached up and toggled a switch above his head, checking another screen in front of him. "Hull is undamaged, we're fine."

"First stop, Uranus," Tychon said. "Plot the jump."

"Unless you think the ship's hardware is faulty," Theodosia chimed in from next to Tychon in the back seats of the cockpit. "Kallias, your call."

"

Kunzite winced, leaning in towards a speaker built into the center console, knowing that the entire operation was over if the crew of The Autonoe decided to postpone the delivery and head back to Jupiter.

"No, no, we're fine," Kallias said, Kunzite hearing his voice through mild static from the speaker. "Plotting jump now."

Kunzite wasted only half a beat on a sigh of relief. "Phase one is successful, proceed to phase two."

"

"Right," Jadeite answered, not wanting to waste any more syllables on a reply than that. He and Linos were heavily focused on quickly offloading the boron fluid from the freighter, knowing that every beat counted.

A small hatch on the outside left wing of The Thurloe was open, revealing a hidden compartment packed with the black bags, each one neatly packed up to be as small as possible. One of the sacks was already whipping up to the right side of the ship, the mouth wrapping around the faucet attached to the fourth compartment from the cockpit.

As soon as the mouth of the sack had formed a seal, a steel lever right next to it was telekinetically pulled forward, causing a powerful flood of boron fluid to pour into the small sack. This, of course, would have caused an alarm to start sounding off in the cockpit, but the combined power and co-operation of two powerful telekinetics was enough to force the ship's hardware to suppress it.

It took only three beats for the bag to be filled to capacity, at which point the lever was put back into its original position and the bag was detached. Sealed, the contents safe for the time being, it was allowed to aimlessly float, away from The Autonoe, another empty sack coming to take its place.

Already, both of the young powerful psychics were starting to sweat, both from being crammed in such tight quarters and from the exertion of focusing on so many different tasks at once. Jadeite wiped the back of his gloved hand across his brow.

"

"V, prepare to move into position."

"Copy," Princess Venus said, turning her ship slightly to the right, aligning herself so it would be only a quick burst forward to the coordinates programmed into her navigator.

"Not yet," Kunzite followed up. "The longer it takes for their jump route to be impeded, the longer we'll have."

The Princess was in a simple B-class vessel that they had rented out for the day, anonymous and forgettable, not associated with her or the Earth Generals in any obvious way. Not even christened with a real name, it was simply known as TLV-122.

"Isis, Aphrodite, be ready," Venus called out. "Just in case we need additional stalling."

"Yes, Your Highness," was the quick reply through the communicator system.

"

Endymion's heel was bouncing up and down on the floor, as he had again taken his spot on the corner of the bed, exuding nervous energy despite being countless dolichos away from the attempted theft.

"Not on Venus...not on Venus…" Endymion continued to mumble assorted thoughts in an effort to calm himself. "Other planets, maybe...maybe eight hundred million creds a bag, seven-fifty at worst. Negotiate a better deal, seventy percent, less overhead." He was practically bouncing up and down on the corner of his mattress. "Seiya...Seiya…"

"V, now," Kunzite ordered.

"

Kallias was just about to reach forward to engage the ship jump procedure after receiving a go-ahead from The Autonoe's navigation system, only for a series of flashing red lights to pop up across the front dashboard.

"Yikes," Kallias said. "Looks like we're obstructed."

"Alright, just turn the jump on," Georgius said. "I'm sure whatever it is, it'll move out of the way in a couple beats."

Kallias pushed the button on the center console, sending a signal to the ship's jump engine to engage as soon as the navigation computer was satisfied that the immediate path forward was obstruction-free.

"

"Jump has been successfully delayed," Kunzite announced, rapidly scrolling through data readouts on The Falconeri's main display. "The jump engine is sitting idle. V, hold position. Jadeite, progress report."

"

"Eleven," Jadeite answered, again keeping his words to a minimum. Him and Linos were both sweating as if they were in a sauna, using every last bit of their powers to keep a steady flow of sacks going over to the boron fluid faucet. Already, almost a dozen of the filled containers were lazily spinning off into deep space. But they were only just getting started.

Fortunately, the task was quite repetitive, so they were starting to work themselves into a solid rhythm. With each new sack of stolen goods, their timing got better, and their efficiency was on the rise.

"

"Seiya...higher demand, higher cost," Endymion continued, looking as if he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown as he listened to the communications his Generals were making. "No distributors to pay, maybe. Either way...one billion creds a sack? One point one?"

The High King jumped back to his feet, quickly pacing over to the bedside table to grab a bottle of a light brown liquid. Skipping the glass, he simply ripped the cap off and took a swig from it.

"Average it, eight-fifty a sack, fifty sacks over forty-two billion, sixty sacks fifty-one billion." Sighing wearily, Endymion walked towards the middle of the room, bottle in hand. "Five hundred libras of product per sack…we need more...we need more...come on, come on, come on."

"

"Well, this is weird," Kallias said, tapping his hands against his lap. The alerts warning of an obstruction in the ship's jump path were still blinking after more than a secunda of waiting. "Whatever it is, it should have cleared our path by now."

"Doesn't make any sense, why would a ship just stop in the middle of space?" Georgius added.

"Is it a ship?" Theodosia asked. "Can we hail it and ask it to move?"

"H-hold on," Kallias said, reaching down to his right and pulling a lever back, then pushing it back forward. "I'm restarting the jump calculator, maybe it's just not updating."

"I don't know how I feel about riding in a ship that has a jump navigator that doesn't update," Georgius pointed out as the center console began displaying jump route data.

"Well…"

After a moment, the warning lights began to blink again.

"Rest assured, we're not, the calculator is fine. There's just someone in front of us who won't move," Kallias said simply. "I'll try hailing."

"Let's just change the route, make two jumps," Tychon suggested. "Angle off to the right, go halfway, then angle back."

"I'd prefer not to do that," Kallias said, tapping a few keys in front of him. "Uses more imperium to make two jumps."

"

"I'm hailing the ship now, just one moment."

Kunzite leaned back in the pilot seat. "V, you're getting hailed?"

"Yes," Venus replied through the earpiece. "More than happy to ignore it."

"It doesn't look like it's moving to adjust course," Kunzite reported. "If they're fuel-conscious, this'll be even easier."

"Forty," Jadeite announced through the communicators.

"

"Forty, forty, forty," Endymion repeated to himself, starting to sweat, hands nervously clenched behind his back as he paced around his carpeted bedroom floor. "Has to be more, has to be more, come on, come on."

He nearly jumped to the ceiling as his communicator started to vibrate, rattling hard against the end table up by his side of the bed. He glanced at it, spending maybe half a beat on thinking about answering before he dismissed the notion, returning to his aimless rambling.

"Five thousand libras every ten days...possible, thirty sacks last one cycle." He took another large swig from the bottle.

"

"No response," Kallias said. "Not even a ping."

"Are you even sure it's a ship?" Tychon asked.

"Definitely a ship," Kallias assured him. "I mean, we've been drifting in Jupiter's orbit this whole time, that alone should have pushed it out of our path. Bizarre."

"Let's just move the ship up a little bit or something," Georgius suggested, pointing his finger up above his head. "We can't wait forever."

"Right," Kallias agreed. "I'm taking us up." He deactivated the jump, then began guiding the booster engines with a pair of black joysticks to his left and right.

"

"Should be good in a secunda or two," Kallias said, Kunzite hearing him over the speaker.

"V, ship is about to move upward, adjust trajectory to remain in the jump path," Kunzite ordered.

"

"On it," Venus replied, giving her own booster joysticks a couple of nudges to get her ship to move in approximate parallel with The Autonoe. "Still waiting for this to somehow end with all of us getting vaporized in a massive jump collision that causes tremors on the other side of the asteroid belt."

"I would never put you in that position, Venus," Kunzite said through the multi-way communicator.

"Me, on the other hand, that's a different story," Zoisite chimed in.

"No, just Jadeite," Kunzite countered. "Zoisite, how are you two doing?"

"

Millions of dolichos away, Zoisite glanced to his left towards Nephrite, sitting in the co-pilot seat on the left side of the cockpit. Out in the middle of space, nothing of notice in any direction to mark this area of space as different than just about any other, they were waiting in a C-class luxury cruiser.

"Just waiting," Zoisite answered. "Very much doubting that this is going to work the way we think it's going to."

"Don't look at me," Venus said dryly. "I just wanted to use a different formula."

"

Endymion's nose wrinkled as he finally felt an emotion other than fear and anxiety.

"Can't wait to be rid of this bitch," he grumbled to himself.

"

"Let's just try to think positive," Kunzite suggested, again leaning up towards the speaker in his center console. "They should realize something's wrong any moment now."

"

"Okay, what the hell?" Georgius said the moment the red flashing lights went off again, signifying that their jump route was still being impeded. "I've never had anything like this happen before, this ship isn't even that big!"

"We don't even know if it's the same ship," Kallias pointed out. "Although, it'd be just as peculiar if it wasn't."

"Okay, this is ridiculous, just change the destination point and make two jumps!" Tychon snapped from the back seat. "What are we going to do, play peek-a-boo with some practical joker all day?!"

"There's no way this is intentional," Kallias argued. "Alright, alright, just...let me play with the boosters a little more, I'll take us up a little bit more."

"

Kunzite used a small white hand towel to wipe his face off. "Jadeite?" he asked.

"Ninety," Jadeite's quick reply was still noticeably labored, betraying his exhaustion.

"Okay," Kunzite grunted. "V, hold position, phase two is complete. Stand by for fluid retrieval after The Autonoe leaves."

"Sounds good," Venus responded.

"Jadeite, Linos, get ready, we'll have a very small window once their jump navigator gives them the go-ahead," Kunzite said.

"

The inside of The Thurloe could have passed for an oven now, both occupants losing buckets worth of sweat.

"Would...would a coolant unit make this ship that much bigger?" Jadeite panted. "When we get back...I'd like to make that suggestion to the engineers."

"Focus!" Kunzite commanded. "Wait for the signal."

"

"If this goes on much longer, I'll just call down to the surface and get them to figure this out," Kallias explained. "Honestly—"

Suddenly, the blinking red lights all turned off, the navigation calculator trilling a soft little sound cue.

"Ah ha!" Kallias said. "There, nothing to worry about." Before another obstruction could move into the jump path, he reached forward to activate the jump.

"

"Now!" Kunzite said sharply, Jadeite and Linos both wincing slightly at the volume of the order in their ears.

Linos raised his right hand up and twitched his finger.

"

Just before Kallias could activate the jump, the engine of the ship shut off, leaving the lead pilot of The Autonoe pressing a button that had no effect.

"

Shhnk!

The glass bottle of alcoholic drink broke at the neck as Endymion squeezed it far too tightly, sending the body of the jug crashing down at his feet, tipping over on contact with the carpet and spilling its contents into the thick fibers.

The High King barely noticed, simply walking away from the mess he had just created, all of his focus on listening to the conversation in his ear.

"Jump prevented," Kunzite reported, Endymion breathing a sigh of relief. "Now we just have to hope."

Endymion, feeling the tension in his body slacken a bit, finally looked down at his right hand on feeling an odd damp presence on it. A trickle of blood was running down his fingers, a cut on his palm now starting to ooze out the thin fluid.

"Gods," he muttered, quickly running across his room to the bathing chamber.

"Keep filling those bags," Kunzite said. "And pray they don't decide to abort."

"

"It just shut off, I didn't do anything!" Kallias said, reaching down and cranking the lever to restart the jump engine. Sure enough, it reactivated as if nothing was wrong, the previous coordinates still punched in and the calculator waiting to be told to check the course. "Yeah, everything looks fine, it just...shut off."

"Well, hold on," Theodoria said, reaching her left hand forward and placing it on Kallias's shoulder. "Is this ship even safe to fly on? If the engine can just turn off like that, should we even be flying this?"

"Um...it seems fine now," Kallias said. "Georgius, did you bump something?"

"Definitely not!" the co-pilot said immediately. "I didn't do anything."

"Maybe it automatically shuts off if it idles for too long?" Tychon suggested. "Some sort of energy saving measure?"

"Uhhh...maybe," Kallias answered, flicking through settings on his console.

"Should we really be doing this, this really doesn't seem safe to me," Theodoria reiterated.

"I'll run a diagnostic scan," Kallias said. "This'll take a couple secundas."

"

"Beautiful," Kunzite muttered. "Jadeite, Linos, keep going, it'll take them some time to sort this out."

"What does their conversation sound like?" Nephrite asked. "Any indication what they're leaning?"

Kunzite tapped his fingers on the control panel. "The woman sounded concerned. Theodoria, she seems like she might be leaning abort. I'm not sure though, the diagnostic should come back clean. These are valuable chemicals, the facilities get antsy when the shipments get postponed."

"If they abort and go back to Jupiter, then the operation isn't just a failure," Princess Venus pointed out. "We'll be getting caught with our hand in the cookie jar for sure."

"Tell me something I don't know," Kunzite said.

"

"Hundred forty," Jadeite said, running his right sleeve over his face, trying to pick up as much perspiration as possible.

"You're doing great," Kunzite replied.

The left-wing compartment of the stealth ship had already been emptied of all the sacks, a hundred little round containers bobbing about through space, and the two psychics were now utilizing the ones stashed in the right-wing compartment, now managing to get through the process in a neat assembly line.

"Ever had to...exert yourself like this before?" Linos asked, the two of them having the procedure down to a science now.

"Yeah," Jadeite answered raggedly. "But that time I was actually enjoying myself. And I wasn't with a guy when it happened."

"Ah," Linos said, nodding. "I feel that."

"Stop clowning around," Kunzite ordered.

"

"And be ready to act quickly, the diagnostic is finished," he added, leaning back in towards the speaker in his center console.

"Yeah, the test is clean, everything in the engine and central computer is operating fine," Kallias insisted.

"

"What runs the diagnostic?" Tychon asked. "The computer? So the central computer tests itself and finds nothing wrong?"

"No, it's...it's a separate system that runs the diagnostic," Kallias said. "Of course, it'd have to be or else it's worthless."

"Well, you're the lead pilot," Tychon said, leaning up to look over at Kallias. "It's your call, as far as I'm concerned."

"I don't see anything wrong with this ship," Kallias insisted. "Seriously, I checked the settings manually, everything's fine."

"So what, the ship's just haunted then?" Theodosia suggested, putting her hands out to her side in exasperation. "All the weird things that have already happened, just...the Gods having fun with us?"

"I've been flying ships for decades, I've run into bizarre computer hiccups more than once," Kallias said defensively. "Look, maybe...maybe we're all on edge because of what happened to that ship over Saturn a few cycles ago, but...that was a bomb, it wasn't a faulty computer or anything like that."

Georgius cleared his throat. "The jump engine is giving the go-ahead now, let's...I say we do it."

"

Kunzite closed his eyes, intently focused on the conversation he was eavesdropping on, hoping that the pilots might get their way. He felt truly foolish for having to bet everything on a plan that left things to chance like this, but given time constraints he had no other choice.

"O-okay, go ahead," Theodosia said. "B-but any more problems, and I insist we turn back."

"Got it," Kallias said. "Alright, jumping in five beats."

Kunzite stabbed his fingertips down hard into his thighs. "Jadeite, they're jumping, close everything up!"

"

One final sack of boron fluid inflated like a balloon before being sealed, the bulb of precious chemicals now floating aimlessly along Jupiter's orbit with over one hundred and eighty of its brothers. The chemical faucet tightly shut once again, both Jadeite and Linos were finally allowed a moment of respite. As The Autonoe launched off, moving away from the galaxy's sun and towards Uranus, Jadeite reached down between the two and opened a square metallic container.

Inbetween a series of cold packs were two canteens, Jadeite not wasting any time in grabbing one of them, Linos snatching the other. Each was filled to the brim with a liquid concoction that would provide a massive, perhaps even unhealthy, shot of energy and adrenaline, preventing them from passing out and giving them enough to keep going for the next phase of their plan.

"Shit, man," Linos said after finally ripping his lips away from the mouth of the canteen. "Maybe we needed a third."

"In this ship? To hell with that," Jadeite said, laying his head back. "Just...just keep yourself awake. The drink will re-energize you, it just needs a little time."

"Halfway home," Linos said faux-cheerfully, picking at the front of his shirt, which was completely drenched in sweat.

"

Not seeing any reason to waste any time, Kunzite was now zipping The Falconeri through Jupiter's orbital lane, nearly two hundred transmitters having just been activated from each of the little boron fluid sacks. It would be a simple matter to scoop them up into the cargo hold of his ship using the miniature beacon he had installed just days prior. Catching each bulb in the containment field, one by one, pulling it up inside the ship.

"How many total?" Princess Venus asked through the communicator system.

"One hundred and eighty-seven," Kunzite answered, looking down at the list of transmitters on one of the screens being projected onto his display.

"Well. I suppose by some definition, it was worth it," Venus mused. "I'll be there in just a couple secundas to help out."

"Nephrite, be ready to move into position, they'll be there in about two minutas," Kunzite ordered.

"

"Alright, timing is everything here," Zoisite said firmly, leaning up towards the main controls of their spacecraft, watching a series of timers on the front window. "And remember, every beat counts, the more time we can waste, the better."

Nephrite was standing on the left side of the cockpit chamber, left hand clenched around a large red lever handle. He nodded solemnly.

"Moving into their jump path now, they should be forced out of their jump in instrumentation range of us," Zoisite muttered. Of course, as always, there were safeguards in place to make sure that a jump collision was impossible, but the thought of somehow managing to time things just right so that The Autonoe wouldn't be able to stop in time and smash right into them did cross his mind.

With a nudge of the controls, the ship's thrusters activated and pushed the vessel over to the right from the perspective of the cockpit.

"Release!" Zoisite commanded as he gave the ship a final push backwards before disabling the engines. Nephrite pulled the lever, causing the cargo hold doors to swing wide open, releasing a collection of several hundred sealed sacks filled with water out into the vacuum of space. Identical to the ones they used to steal boron fluid, these containers were once again small enough to not be detected by a ship's instrumentation as long as they weren't moving at dangerous speeds, as well as being nearly impossible to see with the naked eye due to their coloring.

Still, it seemed almost obscene, what they were trying to get away with.

"

All four hearts in the cockpit of The Autonoe leapt up into the throats of their respective owners as a series of alarms started blaring, the freighter ship suddenly ripped out of jump speed and automatically forced to a halt. Fortunately, before anyone could actually voice their panic, it became clear that it was just a safety mechanism kicking in.

"What is going on today?!" Georgius exclaimed as he began scanning the ship readouts.

"Space is massive, how can this happen twice in one trip?" Kallias grunted. "Should play the lottery tonight when we get back I guess."

"Oh, here it is!" Georgius announced, pointing at one of the radar readouts and getting it to show on the front window. "Yup, that's a ship, you can see it right there." He pointed up at the screen.

"Alright, it should be pushed out of our path in a secunda," Tychon said.

"Wait," Kallias said cautiously, looking up at the radar. "I think it's sending a distress signal, look."

"Oh, yeah, shit," Georgius said, craning his neck up. "Yeah, looks like it."

"Well, I'm sure someone will be along shortly to help them out then," Theodosia said. " They're not that far away from Uranus."

"No, no, the signal is weak, something's not right," Kallias said. "We're barely picking it up over here, nobody's going to pick that up on Uranus."

"The engine's off too, they might be in real trouble," Georgius concurred. "Let's get closer and try a hail, if their distress signal is that weak I'll bet they won't be able to communicate unless we're right near them."

Kallias pushed the ship forward through space, closing the distance between them and the seemingly-stuck ship.

"

"Okay, okay," Jadeite panted, holding his hand up again, allowing Linos to grab it in his.

"Are we really going to get away with this?" Linos asked, reaching up to feel his face with his off-hand.

"If we don't, I hope they catch us before we finish refilling the tank," Jadeite said, flicking his finger slightly, the right-wing hidden compartment of The Thurloe sliding open on his mental cue. A handful of empty, rolled up bags were still inside the storage space, but underneath them was a short length of a thick black hose, about half a pace-long, with one end having a much larger mouth than the other. Snaking up to the top side of the freighter this time, the hose quickly latched its larger end onto a nozzle on the top of the boron fluid compartment.

"The Autonoe is moving closer, you should be within range of the water sacks any time now," Nephrite reported. "We have no idea how much time we're going to be able to buy, be fast."

"One hundred and eighty-seven," Linos mumbled.

"One hundred and eighty-seven," Jadeite repeated in agreement.

As the ship they were latched onto slowly closed in on the seemingly dead vessel, both of the powerful practitioners of telekinesis felt the presence of bloated water bags all around them. Seeing no need to wait, they began to work together to grab one and yank it towards the waiting hose on top of the freighter ship. The mouth of the sealed container was locked into place on the smaller end of the tube, then the bag deflated into a crumpled mass, pushing all the water into the tank.

The moment the contents had been emptied, the bag unlocked from the end of the hose and fluttered away, discarded as refuse. Another identical sack was pulled towards the top side of the freighter.

"

"Hello? Hello?" Kallias called out, leaning forward to stare out the front window of the cockpit at the deactivated ship in front of him. "This is The Autonoe, we picked up your distress signal, please respond."

Nothing. Kallias took his finger off the radio button in front of him.

"You don't suppose they're dead?" Tychon suggested. "Who knows how long they've been stranded."

"We're not really equipped for this sort of thing," Kallias said. "Can't even scan the ship for lifeforms. I'll take us a little closer."

"Hello! Hello?!"

Kallias practically jumped out of the pilot seat, then leaned forward to hit the radio button again. "Receiving! You can hear us?"

"Yes, yes we can! Oh, thank the Gods, I thought we were in some real trouble!"

Theodosia sighed. "That's a relief."

Kallias cleared his throat. "We're, uh...we're passing through to make a delivery, you drifted into our jump lane. What's the problem?"

The communication line was filled with static, betraying a very weak signal.

"I, uh...we're on our way to Jupiter, going to meet some family."

"

Zoisite, finger neatly up against the radio button of his own center console, furrowed his brow as he considered the best possible way to stretch out the conversation. "My father, a couple younger brothers and sisters, haven't seen them in a little while. Um, my younger brother's birthday is tomorrow, actually."

"Sure, sure, okay, what happened?" Kallias asked through the crackling connection.

"Mid-jump, the ship just died on us," Zoisite explained. "Um, engines, boosters, pretty much everything except life support. It just happened less than a minuta ago. Our transmitter barely has any life in it too, we turned it on, but the range on the signal isn't anywhere near strong enough to help."

"You got that right," Kallias answered. "Well, today's your lucky day, I'll flip on my distress signal and we'll get someone over here to help out."

"Oh, thank you so much," Zoisite said, doing his best to convey relief through the highly garbled audio connection. "I wasn't sure what we were going to do, none of our personal communicators have enough range either."

Nephrite got to his feet and turned to leave the cockpit, bringing his right hand up to his collar. "We've got them stalled, you should have plenty of time."

"

It was almost obscene, how brazen their little trickery was. How they were betting everything on the crew of The Autonoe not realizing what was happening right above their heads, right behind their backs.

While Zoisite was exercising his acting chops in trying to sell the image of an unlucky traveler who needed a good samaritan, Jadeite and Linos had gathered a veritable cloud of water sacks, all of them floating just above the top side of The Autonoe, waiting their turn. One by one, they'd connect to the open end of the hose, deflate their payload into the tank, then be discarded to the mercy of infinite space. It almost resembled a colony of ants, each one waiting to offer the toils of their day's labor to the Queen before running off to continue work.

Both Jadeite and Linos were again quickly exhausting themselves, their artificial energy augmentation wearing off fast. Even with the two of them working in unison, their powers were not meant to be utilized for this long while juggling so many different tasks.

"Just...hope they don't...look up," Jadeite said, managing a weak smile amid his sweat-soaked face.

"Kinda having second thoughts...about the whole...helping out in the future thing," Linos said.

"Me too," Jadeite grunted.

"

"One hundred eighty-seven," Endymion muttered to himself, arms folded tightly over his chest, hunched over, heart racing as his mind worked overtime trying to comprehend the fruits of this operation, and what they meant for him going forward.

The royal bedroom was still empty and peaceful, outside of the mess of glass and alcohol in the middle of the carpet, still providing perhaps the most ironic place for the High King of Earth to be approaching the point of a mental breakdown.

"One eighty-seven, ninety-three thousand libras, over a hundred billion on Venus, and...and with…"

"We have a problem!" Nephrite's deep, masculine voice snapped Endymion out of his tangle of thoughts, his right hand reaching up to press the earpiece deeper into his ear.

"

The brown-haired General was staring out one of the port-side windows of their temporary spaceship, eyeing a B-class cruiser with overly large thrusters on the back side. "Our tow ship is here," he said through gritted teeth.

"Oh, wow!" Zoisite said, holding his mouth up to the microphone built into the main controls. "I did not expect this kind of response time!"

"Yeah, I wasn't far away, and was helping with some debris cleanup. Dead engine?"

"Dead everything, actually." The third ship activated a tractor beam, enveloping the dormant one in it.

"Jadeite, how are we doing?" Nephrite asked.

"Fifty," was the throaty response through Nephrite's ear. The burly General sprinted back into the cockpit, ripping the door open and leaning in, drawing Zoisite's attention before holding up all five fingers on his right hand and making a zero with the thumb and index finger of his left hand.

"Alright, we'll get you out of here, figure out what's wrong," the tow ship said. "The Autonoe, thank you for your kindness today, who knows what might have happened if you weren't around."

"Wait!" Zoisite said, glancing down at the readouts beneath him, seeing that their ship was indeed now completely under the control of the tractor beam, meaning it would be moving along with the tow ship whenever it started. "Um...sir, before we do this...we should hash out payment. I mean, you're towing us, we should pay you for that, right?"

"We'll worry about that when we get you to Jupiter," was the reply.

"A-are you sure, you don't want to...get paid first?" Zoisite continued, milking out every syllable for all he could.

"Look, we're already running behind," Kallias interjected. "Could you two at least get out of our jump lane so we can get to Uranus?"

"...a-and, well, what about you guys?" Zoisite twisted around, looking at Nephrite, who was now holding up three fingers with his right hand and five on his left. "You guys stopped for us, used your distress signal, without...without you guys, we'd probably be stranded. Dead, maybe. We should pay you."

"

Kunzite massaged the bridge of his nose, listening in on the conversation, frustrated that he was helpless to influence anything at this point. The boron fluid pickups over Jupiter had concluded without issue, all one hundred and eighty-seven sacks safely within the cargo hold of The Falconeri, and Kunzite was now ripping through space towards where The Autonoe had been waylaid, intent on picking up The Thurloe after its job had been completely.

"Jadeite, listen to me," Kunzite said, sensing that Zoisite's attempt at stalling might be about to run out of fuel. "You have to detach before The Autonoe jumps. If you're a little water short, we'll just have to hope it's close enough. If you're still latched on, the operation is blown."

"Got it," Jadeite said. "Twenty."

"

"Endymion's knuckles were white in his lap as he clenched them harder than he had ever clenched them before, stomach doing flips and nausea starting to kick in. He was sitting on the corner of his bed again, no longer able to stand.

"Come on, come on, come on," he muttered, now completely focused only on the last couple steps that separated them from a clean theft.

"Look, guys, my name is Kallias, this ship is named The Autonoe, if you want to pay us, just contact Jupiter and tell them the name of the ship, we'll figure something out then, but right now we need to get going."

Endymion practically shoved the receiver all the way up his ear canal.

"

"Alright, we're moving!"

The tow ship's back engines roared to life, outputting enough power to pull both vessels through space with ease, clearing the jump lane. Kallias's jump calculator immediately started trilling an affirmative message, signalling that the path ahead was now cleared and a jump could be engaged.

"Alright, finally!" Georgius said in exasperation. "Damn, what's going on today!"

"Jumping!" Kallias announced, not wanting to wait for anything else to happen, reaching forward towards the button that would engage the full power of the engines.

"

Jadeite heard Kunzite's loud, authoritative order to detach from the freighter, just barely managing to be understood by him over the loud buzzing in his ears from the pure exhaustion that soaked every fiber of his being. He was also vaguely aware, thanks to the connection between him and Linos, that they were just four sacks short.

Operating on instinct, he twitched his free hand's index finger, mentally picturing the freighter's cockpit.

"

Pop!

The overhead light just above Kallias, used for illuminating the main dashboard, blinked out, pausing his finger just before it hit the jump button.

"What was that?!" Tychon asked, staring up at the tiny little fixture that had just stopped producing light.

"Damn thing popped," Kallias said dismissively, nevertheless annoyed. He scratched his mustache. "What else can happen today?"

"We have replacement lights in storage, we'll just swap the bulb out when we get to Uranus." Georgius pointed over in front of Kallias. "Now let's go. Unless you need the light to see the button."

Kallias sighed. "Jumping." He reached forward yet again.

"

The final required container of water, now empty, spun off in a random direction, free to roam the universe forever so long as no outside forces acted on it. The hose was quick to follow, detaching from the nozzle atop The Autonoe and being discarded like a used tissue.

Jadeite rammed his thumb down on a large red button on the right side of the controls, immediately severing the connection between the stealth ship and the freighter that it had so neatly parasites off of over the last few minutas. Not even a beat after the two ships had separated, The Autonoe disappeared off into the distance, now lancing through space at top speed, no doubt hoping to try to make up lost time. With any luck, they wouldn't have shown up on radar at all. At worst, a hiccup that was unlikely to be detected by the pilots on board.

"Ahhhhhhhh," Jadeite said, arm weakly flopping to his side.

"Jadeite, confirm, confirm status," Kunzite demanded. "Status update."

Jadeite had not a drop of power left in him. He could not have made a pebble roll over. Even getting his vocal chords to move was a trial right now.

"Detachment...successful," he croaked out. "Phase four...complete success."

"

Kunzite leaned over the body of The Thurloe, now nestled safely in the payload bay of The Falconeri, just where it had been when this entire crazy mission had begun. He was almost scared to check inside, as if concerned that the two psychics might have just melted into a pile of goop from over-exertion. He knew that it was irresponsible to push them so far, and truth be told, he couldn't even be sure if there would be long-term consequences. Lack of other viable options had forced him to hope it would all work out. But now, he was concerned about what he might find, now that the two of them had gone radio silent for the last half-minuta.

Grabbing a thin steel rod from a rack on the wall, he reached forward towards the center of the small ship and jammed it into a notch on the spine. The top hatch immediately started to slide open.

Steam practically bellowed from the ship the moment it cracked open, Kunzite recoiling slightly. He also quickly became aware of the stench. Fortunately, it seemed to be entirely a product of body heat and sweat, as both young men inside the ship seemed intact and conscious.

The noise of the panel sliding open got Jadeite to open his eyes, and he quickly rolled over, clawing his way out of the ship that was only marginally bigger than a large coffin. Panting, sucking in air, he violently crawled out of the ship and onto the grated floor of The Falconeri's payload bay.

"Are you alright?" Kunzite asked, grimacing at the sight of Jadeite's worn face and sweat-matted uniform.

Jadeite responded only with a series of disgusting retches, followed by strong coughing.

"Kunzite, status?" Princess Venus asked through Kunzite's earpiece.

The General hesitated as he tried to come up with the right answer. "Um...w-well…"

As the coughing subsided, Jadeite was able to get up on his knees, steadying himself. Then, he started to laugh.

"Uh," Kunzite managed, glancing over towards Linos, who was far more passive in his attempts to slowly drag his way out of the ship.

Jadeite's laughter started to pick up in volume, and he even managed to straighten his torso up a bit. Kunzite just stared.

"Kunzite?" Venus asked.

"AHHHH!" Jadeite suddenly shouted, lurching over so he was down on all fours, spittle hanging down off of his lips. "Whew!" He shook his head back and forth. "Gods!"

"I think he'll be just fine," Kunzite finally settled on.