Gadget drummed his fingers on the galley's metal counter while he watched the coffee fill the pot in a thin, petulant stream, and he mentally urged it to go faster. He appreciated drinking something that didn't come from a replicator, and he had gladly helped mod the galley for fresh food prep, but some mornings Gadget wished real food didn't take so long.
"C'mon," he urged the machine, and then he stifled a yawn.
He was up earlier than usual, mostly due to the fact that he'd woken up to find himself spooned along Gen's back, with an arm draped across Gen's waist and an erection pressed against the back of Gen's leg. Just the thought of it made Gadget's face warm, and he was grateful that he'd managed to get out of the bunk without waking Gen. The last thing he wanted was for Gen to think he was going to try and jump his bones or something, especially after the whole 'what's your type' discussion they'd had the night before. What do you say when a hot guy who's totally your type asks you what your type is? Gadget had no clue, and now there was a pretty good chance that Gen knew that Gadget found him attractive.
It had been nice, though, that moment of contented warmth before the panic and embarrassment had set in.
While the coffee finished brewing Gadget poked through the cabinets, trying to decide what he wanted to eat. By the time the coffee was ready he had chosen some sweetrolls that he purchased from a spaceport vendor the day before, and after he got his coffee he set a plate of them on the table and sat down to enjoy his breakfast.
He was on his second cup of coffee and his third roll when the door to his quarters opened and Gen came out, yawning and rubbing his eyes. Gen's golden-blond hair was mussed, and Shaw's sleep-pants rode low on his hips, making Gadget forget how to breathe for a few seconds. Fucking gorgeous, he thought, and his dick twitched in agreement. "Morning," he said.
"Morning," Gen mumbled as he shuffled toward the table. He sniffed the air. "Coffee?"
"Y-yeah, I'll get you a cup." Gadget bit his lip to keep from laughing; Gen would probably not appreciate being considered adorable. While he poured the steaming brew, Gadget felt a pang of longing for what could have been. He wasn't completely sure, but he had a feeling that maybe Gen liked him too, and Gadget thought it was a damn shame that in two more days he might never see this person again.
Although… he and Shaw took cargo to and from Kayuun a lot. Maybe they could still see each other now and then.
"Here's your coffee," Gadget said, setting a mug down in front of Gen. " I just bought those sweetrolls yesterday, they're really good." He took another roll off the plate and sat back down in his chair. "Did you sleep okay? Sorry about… hogging the bed."
To Gadget's relief, Gen just grunted and drank his coffee. A few minutes later Shaw ambled into the common room, and the three men ate in a companionable silence.
After they finished their breakfast, Gadget waited while Gen dressed, and then they returned to the lower engineering bay. Gadget pulled out the jumpdrive unit and checked on what he would work on for the day, and he noted with satisfaction that the unit was almost completely restored. "If we work on this today and tomorrow," he said, "I can put the jumpdrive on line and it'll be ready to test!"
Gen looked at him blankly. "And that's… good?"
Gadget nodded. "Hell, yeah! A working jumpdrive lets you travel at lightspeed—way, way faster than what we're going now. If this drive was working, we would've gotten to Kayuun in a couple of hours, instead of three days."
Gen tapped the top of the drive unit. "Was this one of the pieces the previous owner took? You've been working on it that long?"
"Yeah. Jumpdrives are hella expensive, but fortunately for Shaw, I am good at building things from parts. Whenever we're planetside, I check out all the places that sell used ship's parts, and I get what I can." Gadget patted the top of the unit. "Hopefully it won't take too long to test it once I'm done." He crawled under the support slides, and when he got into a comfortable position on his back he opened the lower access panel and set it off to the side. "Might as well get started," he said, and held out his hand. "A number three socket, please, and then you can tell me about how real wine is made—I've only had the replicated stuff."
While Gadget worked he listened to Gen describe the way they grew the grapes, and the steps they took to turn them into wine. Gen's voice roughened a little whenever he mentioned his father, but Gadget figured it was good for Gen to talk about him. So he asked questions and encouraged Gen to tell him more about Kinzaan, and as the morning wore on he was pleased to hear the melancholy gradually fade from Gen's voice.
He was just about to finish soldering the last connection when Shaw's voice crackled over the comm speaker.
"Gadget. Get your ass up here, and bring Gen with you."
Gadget rolled out from under the unit and scrambled to his feet. He poked the comm button on the wall. "Can't it wait? I'm almost done with the—"
"Get up here now. There's trouble."
Gadget frowned at the metal grille of the speaker, and then he turned to Gen. "Help me get this closed up," he said. "Shaw sounds funny… we'd better get up there quick."
When they got to the bridge, they found Shaw in his seat, staring at the plasglas canopy of the cockpit. Shaw pointed to an area of the canopy that displayed information from the ship's aft sensors. "We have company."
Gadget peered at the illuminated display. "Another ship? So what? We see other ships all the time." He showed Gen a seat that was against the back wall, off to the side, and then he plopped down into his chair.
"Yeah, but usually when you see another ship, you hail them and at least say hi. I've tried hailing this ship three times, over three different frequencies, and they don't answer. Another thing," Shaw said as he gestured at the nav panel, "I've deliberately made some course changes, and it did too. It's following us."
"That's not good." Gadget felt a trickle of fear in the pit of his stomach, and when he glanced over at Gen he saw that Gen was gripping the armrests of his seat.
"Yeah," Shaw said. "I'm gonna try another course change, and increase our speed a bit. Strap in, boys."
Gadget fastened his harness, all the while watching the aft sensor screen. The Shakujou's engines roared as Shaw increased their speed, and Gadget could feel the ship bank starboard.
A few moments later, the other ship copied their movements.
A red button lit up on the main sensor panel, and Shaw leaned forward to examine it. "Shitshitshit!"
"What?" Gadget said.
"They're bio-scanning us. Our manifests and checkpoint clearances only list two people on board, and they're going to find out real soon that there are three of us here."
"Fuck," Gen said.
"Gadget, you didn't happen to finish rebuilding the jumpdrive today, did you?" Shaw's gaze never left the sensor screen.
"No," said Gadget unhappily.
A star-like burst of light flashed from the other ship.
"What the hell is that?" Gadget asked, pointing at the screen.
"No no no no," Shaw breathed.
"What the fuck is going on?" Gen shouted from his seat behind them.
Shaw whirled around in his seat. "They just fired on—"
An explosion thundered in the rear of the ship, and metal squealed as the hull shuddered violently. While the three men clutched at their seats, red lights lit up all over the main sensor board, and the buwoop buwoop buwoop of the critical alert alarm echoed throughout the bridge.
"Gadget!" Shaw barked. "Where were we hit?" He pushed the accelerator forward, and the ship groaned and shuddered again.
"No!" Gadget wailed, and he slapped at one of the monitor screens. "Not my engine room! I just fixed all that shit!"
A high-pitched siren joined the cacophony of noise on the bridge.
"Not good," Shaw said. "We have to get out of here."
"What?" Gen stared at him.
"The engine room's been hit—she's going to blow. We need to get our asses off this ship now. Fuck!" Shaw turned to Gadget. "You and Gen get to the shuttle, pronto. I'm going to send a quick comm to Kai, and let him know where we are."
"Right." Gadget unbuckled his restraints and quickly rose from his seat. He rested a hand on Shaw's shoulder. "Don't take too long, okay?"
Shaw shook his head. "I love this ship, but I'm not going down with it, bro. Now go!"
Gen was already on his feet and standing by the doorway. "Follow me, and stay close behind," Gadget told him, and he led Gen down the corridor and through the common room area.
"We're not getting any clothes or supplies?" Gen asked, jerking a thumb back toward their quarters.
Gadget stopped in front of the lift tube that was situated to the aft of the common room. "Don't need to," he said. "The shuttle is packed with everything we need, and I have a duplicate toolkit in there as well." He pushed Gen into the tube, and then he reached in and pressed the top button. "You go up first, get out of the tube, and wait for me." He waved in what he hoped was an encouraging way as the tube ascended and took Gen up to the upper deck.
Another explosion rocked the ship, and Gadget bounced on his heels as he waited for the lift to come back down. "C'mon, c'mon," he muttered. He could heel his heart racing, and when the lift finally stopped in front of him Gadget opened its plasglas door with a trembling hand. "Shaw!" he shouted. "Hurry up! We don't have much longer!"
"Coming right behind you, bro!"
Gadget reached the top deck, and he was relieved to find Gen waiting for him. "Shuttle's back there," he said, pointing to a hatch beyond the racks of storage shelves. They sprinted toward the hatch, and Gen helped Gadget turn the large wheel and pull the hatch open. Gadget punched in the access code on a panel next to the shuttle door, and with a whoosh the door slid open, revealing a space that was perhaps twice as large as Gadget's quarters.
A third explosion rumbled below them, and the sound of a new alarm filled the air. "The reactor," Gadget breathed. "We gotta go. We gotta go now. Hurry up, Shaw." He flung himself into the pilot's chair, and began rapidly flicking switches and pushing buttons.
Gen strapped himself into the nearest seat behind Gadget. "You ever have to do this before?" he asked.
"Escape from a ship that's about to blow up? No." Gadget toggled a few more switches, and the shuttle's engine hummed to life. "But we've taken the shuttle out lots of times, usually when a planet's spaceport is in orbit." He breathed a sigh of relief when Shaw bounded through the door. "Shaw! About fucking time, dude, she's about to blow." He closed and locked the access door while Shaw took his seat, and then he took his place in the co-pilot's chair and tapped in the code sequence that would open the shuttle bay door.
"Fuck, that was close," Shaw was breathing heavily. "The cargo holds are on fire."
"Shit, bro." Gadget watched the shuttle bay door slowly retract in front of them. C'mon, c'mon, c'mon!
"Yeah, it sucks." Shaw turned to face Gadget. "Please tell me you finished installing that scanjam module you were bragging about a month ago."
Gadget nodded vigorously. "It's all done! It should work." He flipped a switch to active the module.
"I hope to hell it does, Gadge," Shaw said grimly, as he engaged the engine's thrusters. "We don't want these people thinking we got out of this alive." When the door finally retracted, Shaw pushed the accelerator to max and exited the shuttle bay. As soon as they cleared the bay, Shaw killed the engines. The shuttle drifted away, carried by the initial momentum of the thrusters.
"Why did you stop the engines?" Gen demanded. "Don't we need to get clear of the ship?"
"Yeah, but we can't let the other ship see us actively moving," Shaw said. "Gadget found a module that jams bio-scanners on small craft, and he fit it to this shuttle. If it works it will read like no one is on board, but no jammer will hide the flare of an engine's thrusters. I just hope we're far enough away from the Shakujou."
"I think we're okay," Gadget said, and then he pointed to a blip on the display. "Shit. They're still here."
"Fuckers want to make sure nobody escapes." Shaw eyed the green light on the Gadget's module. "With any luck, we just look like a big piece of debris."
They watched as multiple, silent explosions wracked the Shakujou, and then suddenly there was a bright flash of light. Everyone shielded their eyes, and then there was nothing left of the ship but debris. Bits of metal and other material pinged off the outside of the shuttle.
"Goodbye, baby," Shaw said.
"Shit," Gadget said. Behind them, Gen said nothing. They remained tense and silent, waiting for the other ship to leave. Finally, the ship moved, and minutes later they saw the tell-tale streak of a lightspeed jump.
Gadget exhaled and sat back in his chair. "Oh, man, that was brutal."
"What happens now? Gen asked quietly.
"We wait for Kai," Shaw said.
"Does your friend have a freighter, too?"
"Kai deals in a different sort of merchandise," Shaw replied, "and he pilots a courier ship. There's enough room for us, though." He got up from his seat, and then he thumped Gadget's shoulder. "Good job with the jammer, bro," he said. "Kai should be here any minute, so we need to suit up and get our shit together." Shaw fetched three suits from a locker in the back of the shuttle and tossed two of them to Gadget.
Gadget helped Gen with his suit, and then he put on his own.
"I feel fucking useless," Gen said.
"You are fucking useless," Shaw said, "But at least you have enough sense to stay out of our way and do what we tell you."
A flash of light to their right got their attention, and suddenly a small, sleek white ship appeared on the display.
"There he is," Shaw said. He walked over to the tiny cockpit and turned off the scanjam module. "Time to become visible again." They waited until the new ship maneuvered alongside the shuttle, and when the ship's own shuttle bay opened Shaw initiated a tether.
Gadget checked all the fittings on Gen's suit, and then he handed Gen the pack that contained his emergency supplies and other belongings. "You can carry this for me, and I'll take my toolpack."
Gen fastened the pack to his suit. "We're going to go from one ship to another in open space?"
"Yeah," Gadget said. "I've done tethered repairs, but I've never gone from one ship to another this way. Shaw has, though, we'll just follow his lead. Just take it slow." He had to admit, he admired the way Gen had remained calm throughout their escape from the Shakujou. Only now, up this close, could he see the tension in Gen's jaw, the pulse throbbing along the side of his neck, and the droplets of sweat clinging to Gen's temple. "You're doing great for someone who's never even been off-planet," Gadget said, and he held Gen's serious gaze while he drew the plasglas helmet over Gen's head.
He secured his own suit, and then they followed Shaw out of the shuttle's airlock.
He and Shaw kept Gen between them as they made their way along the tether cable, locking their legs together to minimize drifting. Hand over hand, hand over hand, for what seemed like an eternity, until they finally reached the other ship's open shuttle bay. Shaw disengaged the tether and then he closed the bay door. After another eternity, a ping and a green light told them the bay was pressurized. Gadget undid his helmet, and he glanced at Gen and saw that he was already halfway out of his suit.
The inner airlock's hatch opened. "Shaw, I've met you in some pretty strange places, but this has to be the most bizarre. Gadget, it's good to see you again." Kai Gonocho held the hatch open, and he gestured for everyone to enter. He started when he saw Gen. "You have company," he said.
Shaw shoved Gen past the hatch, into the ship's common area. "The motherfuckers blew up my ship, Kai," he said, "and they were after this bastard." He pointed at Gen. "I want to know who he is, and why they want him dead so much that they will blow up other people's ships."