A/N: For Maevemauvaise. I hope you have a lovely, lovely birthday and I want to thank you so very much for all of the support and inspiration you give me.
I wanted to write you a collection of fairy tales, but then I remembered how many lovely and talented people there are in our fandom, so I recruited them to create lovely things for you as well. So this is just one of many.
A/N 2: I have… problems with Sleeping Beauty, but I wanted to see if I could make it into something I liked, and I hope it's something that you love.
A/N 3: So… a futuristic sci-fi retelling, with a verse similar to Firefly/Serenity/Star Wars. Obviously AU. Translations at the end.
A/N 4: A HUGE thanks to Ro for beta reading this for me.
Pairings: 3x5, background: 3x4, 1x3, 3x6, 1x6
Warnings: angst, language, sexy times
Sleeping Beauty- Part 3
Back aboard the Scythe, Trowa ignored Duo's inquiring look, Rashid's glare, and he locked himself into his bunk.
He wasn't needed at the moment - Duo could navigate the asteroid field without Trowa's help, and the grav generators on the Scythe were kept low enough that the ride promised to be a bumpy one, ensuring that all of the Mags would keep out of Duo's way as they prayed for survival and empty stomachs.
Hell, he wasn't needed at all now that he had gotten them past the IF. He was just a merc, another hired hand here to do Quatre's bidding.
He was furious with himself, for manipulating Heero, for allowing Quatre to manipulate him.
Trowa spent two hours mentally berating himself, dredging up all of his worst failures, before he managed to fall into a fitful sleep.
When he awoke, five hours had passed and his comm unit was vibrating.
He rubbed at his eyes and swallowed the bitter taste in his throat.
"What?" he asked as he thumbed it on.
"Time to rise and shine, Tro. You'll have to reminiscence about Captain Irksome later, because I've got a sensor reading up here that's not like anything I've ever seen."
Despite himself, Trowa felt a thrill at the words.
As much as he wanted to be done with this - to be as far away from anything to do with Quatre Winner as possible - he couldn't quite squash his excitement at the chance to actually find the Nataku.
Like every other kid who had grown up in space, Trowa had heard the stories, and he, just like every other kid, had dreamed of one day finding the lost treasure ship and changing his life.
But Trowa had put those dreams aside and had grown up knowing that he would never change his life, never find treasure, and never be anything more than he was.
With those bracing thoughts, Trowa climbed out of his bunk and joined Duo in the cockpit.
Rashid and two other Mags were already there, making it a tight fit, but Trowa shoved his way past them and leaned over Duo's chair.
"Where?" he asked, when a quick scan of both the instrument panel and the viewport revealed nothing more than asteroids.
Duo tapped on the panel, while at the same time gesturing to a clump of asteroids several hundred meters away.
"There. You see - hang on, wait - there. See how the radar mirrored back to us?"
"Yeah?"
"Tro, it exactly mirrored back to us, despite the fact that it was bouncing over a non-spherical surface."
Trowa frowned. "Cloaking device?"
Duo nodded. "That's what I'm thinking. And those coordinates are about twelve klicks away from the ones Q-man provided, so I'm guessing that ugly-ass lèsè is our baby."
"So what's the plan?" Rashid asked.
Duo twisted to sneer at him. "The plan was for me to pilot us here. I'm not a fucking pirate. You tell me what the plan is."
Rashid's hands clenched into fists. It was, Trowa had decided years ago, the natural reaction to almost everything that came out of Duo's mouth.
"If it's a cloaking device, and it's two hundred years old, odds are that it's going to drop once we get within visual proximity," Trowa spoke up, before Rashid decided he would risk piloting the Nataku out of the Belt without Duo's expertise. "We sidle up, figure out where the airlock is, and dock."
"Any of you fine gents know Mandarin?" Duo asked, as he settled in and nosed Scythe closer.
"No. Why?" Rashid was frowning.
Trowa didn't need to see Duo's face to know he was rolling his eyes.
"If this is the Nataku, everything is going to be in Mandarin - the access keys, the nav console… None of you know Mandarin?"
Rashid and the other Mags exchanged dark looks.
"Go find out if anyone else knows Mandarin," Rashid ordered, and the other Mags left.
Duo snorted. "Kind of an oversight for Q-man to send you all here and none of you know Mandarin. Kind of means you really, really need Tro and I, doesn't it?"
Rashid looked ready to kill Duo, consequences be damned.
It was, Trowa reflected, a good point though. Quatre was anything but careless - he would have known that the Nataku would need a crew familiar with Mandarin, and it seemed foolish, at the very least, to trust Duo and Trowa as translators.
"The Mags who knew Mandarin - they all died, didn't they? Trying to get out here."
Rashid looked away, and Trowa knew he was right.
Well. How very unfortunate. That wasn't going to help Quatre with recruitment.
The other Mags came back, out of breath, and shook their heads.
Rashid made an irritated sound.
"You know," Duo said, and Trowa had to sigh, wondering just how Duo planned to next provoke Rashid. "I always thought this whole Nataku thing was garbage - so I never really cared. But, I guess, if it's real, you think that means the whole Princess thing is too? The Changs putting their most beautiful princess on the ship with all of their other treasures?"
Trowa rolled his eyes.
Rashid snorted.
"If it is, Master Quatre will claim her as well."
Duo looked at them over his shoulder. "Well, I mean, Tro and I get five percent of her. Whaddya think, Tro, could a Princess and a guy like me…?"
"No," Rashid and Trowa said at the same time.
"Do you really think there's a princess frozen in stasis on that thing?" one of the Mags asked, and Trowa looked at him, realizing just how very young he was.
"I've never heard of stasis lasting this long," Rashid said dismissively. "The longest anyone was in stasis was one hundred years, and he- he went insane. If there is a princess, the kindest thing would be for her to die as soon as she is revived."
Trowa wondered if Rashid was only thinking about the possibility of insanity, or if he knew just how Quatre liked to treat the women under his control. He didn't want to ask.
Just as Trowa had predicted, as soon as Scythe came within twenty meters of the asteroids, there was a tell-tale flicker and then-
And then an ancient hulk of a ship sat before them.
"By the gods. I didn't think it was real," Rashid whispered.
Duo snorted. "You came a hell of a long way to have doubts. Q know about them?"
Rashid offered him a toothy grin. "Of course. He said that if it turned out there was no ship I could kill you however I wanted to. I thought it was a fair trade."
Duo looked away and concentrated on bringing the Scythe up to one of the airlocks.
"We should probably get into enviro gear - no telling if the hull has been breached or what the air quality is like," Trowa suggested.
"We only have four suits," Duo pointed out, sounding not at all sorry.
"Then it's a good thing we brought our own." Rashid squeezed Duo's shoulder tight enough that Duo grunted and broke free.
"Let's suit up and get over there," Trowa said. He gave Duo a meaningful look. It was definitely time to initiate his plan to get a few of these Mags killed off.
-o-
It was surprisingly easy.
The first died almost as soon as they set foot on the Nataku, pushing past Duo as he code-sliced his way past the airlock security door, clearly eager for glory, and he paid for it, falling down at Trowa's feet, a smoking crater in his chest that burned with orange flames around the edge.
"Well, at least we know there's oxygen," Trowa said, and stepped over the body.
Duo snorted and followed him.
They were in a hold of some kind, illuminated by the dimmest emergency lights Trowa had ever seen and their own enviro suit lights.
Rashid had some kind of complicated measuring device and, after a moment of sweeping it in the air, he sighed in relief.
"It's clear. It won't smell very good, but there are no traces of pathogens or harmful chemicals. Take off your helmets."
It was an order, and even though Duo and Trowa hesitated, they followed suit. If they kept their helmets on, they might as well be broadcasting their intentions to release harmful chemicals into the atmo.
Duo took off his helmet, shoved his gloves into it, and dropped it on the deck.
He started to wander off, but Rashid stopped him.
"Maxwell, go to the bridge and see if this thing can fly."
"I'll need to look at the engines, too," Duo said.
"Fine. Take Omar and Adam with you. And you, Barton, Hamza, Caleb and I will start looking for the treasure. The rest of you, split into pairs and carefully start looking. Do not touch anything that looks dangerous."
Duo snorted again, but he mercifully refrained from saying anything. He started to walk away, and Omar and Adam fell into step behind him.
"You take the lead," Rashid gestured towards Trowa.
"You're too kind," Trowa muttered, but he turned on the chest lamp on his suit and started off in the direction opposite of Duo.
During their flight out from L4, the Mags, Trowa and Duo had looked over schematics for old Chang war cruisers, which, according to the most popular versions of the myth, the Nataku was most likely to be.
So far, their research was paying off.
Trowa managed to avoid at least seven traps based on his recently-acquired knowledge - doors where they didn't belong, ductwork that followed the wrong alignment. He pointed all of them out as he went, except for the seventh one, as they were passing through the empty mess hall. He saw the thin green beam of motion sensor light at ankle height and casually, carefully, stepped over it without saying anything.
By chance, Rashid and Hamza did as well.
Caleb, on the other hand, stepped through it and found himself without a left foot.
He fell to the deck, writhing and screaming in pain, rolling back into the laser, and suddenly he wasn't screaming or moving anymore.
Rashid gave an irritated sigh, but Hamza looked like he was going to be sick.
Trowa led them deeper into the bowels of the ship, through hold after hold, deck after deck - but the ship was completely empty.
There was no treasure.
There was nothing. No signs that there had ever been anything or anyone on the ship. If there had been a treasure and it had been looted, the pirates had done a remarkably thorough job.
They were completing the final circuit, on their way back to the front hold through which they had boarded, when they passed by the med bay.
Unlike the rest of the ship, the med bay was well lit - bright white light flooding the corridor, so startling that Trowa actually winced as the bay doors slid open.
He hesitated on the threshold, wary of more traps, but Rashid shoved him forward, and Trowa just barely managed to keep his feet.
Heart racing, he looked around, ready for death.
He didn't die, but his heart stopped all the same.
Fastened to the rear wall of the med bay, a halo of lights and monitors surrounding it, was a stasis capsule.
The capsule was nothing like the modern ones - all so sleek and curved to perfectly fit a human body. It was large and bulky, and the glass front had no artistic and modest frosted panes. It was completely transparent, revealing the completely naked and completely perfect body that it held.
"Yo, I've got bad news and more bad news."
Trowa was dimly aware of Duo's voice in the outside corridor.
"Where are Adam and Omar?" Rashid angrily demanded.
"Well, that's the first piece of bad news - Omar bought it trying to open up the bridge even after I told him it was probably rigged to electrocute. He told me I was full of shit. And while that is true, I was also right about the door. Then Adam kind of… blundered into a laser tripwire. Not pretty. The other bad news is that the engines are totally done for. With a salvage crew and half a million creds worth of parts, I could get this baby moving again, but we ain't got either of those. Say, what happened to Caleb?"
"Get your ass in the med bay and see if Barton is still alive," Rashid growled.
"What do you mean 'still alive'?" Duo's voice was without amusement or sarcasm, a low, deadly threat.
"He's been in there for almost five minutes, and-"
The med bay doors whooshed open, and Trowa turned to see Duo step inside.
Duo was pale, but as soon as his eyes locked on Trowa, he sighed with relief. But then he looked past Trowa and arched an eyebrow.
"That is not a princess."
-o-
Translations:
Lèsè: trash