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Namjoon rolled his eyes in annoyance, hands flying faster than the human eye could see over the shimmering lights of the control panel.
“Taemin, please inform the good Captain that he can kindly go fuck himself and that he shouldn’t fucking ask me for fucking advice when he’s not going to listen to a fucking word I say,” Namjoon growled.
“Yes, sir,” chirped Taemin brightly, and a moment later, told him with just as much enthusiasm, “Cap’n says he appreciates the sentiment!”
Rolling his eyes again, Namjoon scowled as he struggled to find a different route off-station that didn’t overlap any Union courses, all the while listening to Jeongguk and Jimin bickering through his communicator. The two had taken a Crow down to the denser parts of the station’s uninhabited jungle, and they’d been fighting since they’d debarked, arguing over which fruits there were edible, and which were likely to give you diarrhoea.
Namjoon felt like telling them that nothing that grew naturally on the station was safe for consumption, polluted as the plants were by the Union’s fission drill corrupting its primitive Core, but he was too busy trying to also keep track of Hoseok and Yoongi’s positions. The two were on the other side of the station, trying to sneak into a Union bunker. Or at least, Yoongi was taking Namjoon’s advice to sneak in while Hoseok was charging in, guns blazing as usual.
The station was off the beaten path, neglected for years now because no one knew if there was anything valuable at all left there. The only people there were the Officers that were at the bunker, and there were twenty, at most. Still, Namjoon figured that if they’d found evidence of an Idunn Apple hidden there, there would doubtless be other Pirates around. Or worse; Raiders.
Besides which, the fact that a fission drill was here, in the middle of seemingly nowhere, was sign enough that the Union was aware something precious existed there. Which meant the station, as abandoned as it looked, was on their radar.
“IS THAT A CARROT?!” Namjoon heard Jimin shriek excitedly, and Namjoon cursed, slamming a hand down on one of the buttons on the panel. A quick glance told him that Jimin’s orange indicator light on his screens showed that he and Jeongguk were close to a particularly toxic part of the station.
“Park Jimin, you stay the fuck away from anything that looks remotely like food down there!” Namjoon hissed, listening to the Technaver groan on loudspeaker.
“But Joonie,” Jimin whined.
“You can’t eat anything here, Jimin,” Namjoon said firmly, dragging his fingers over a row of buttons and watching with satisfaction through the windows as the ship’s shields reset themselves. “You might die,” he continued, launching a drone. A view of its cam flew up on the glass, and Namjoon watched intently as it flew over a wide landscape of greenery.
“Is Cap’n okay?” the more subdued voice of Jeongguk rang out. “I can hear charges and screamin’.”
“Is it your Captain screaming?” Namjoon asked, tempted to turn Hoseok and Yoongi’s com line back on, but not wanting to stop sulking just yet.
“No?” Jeongguk replied unsurely.
“Then they’re just fine,” Namjoon reassured him, though he couldn’t deny that he felt slightly relieved at Jeongguk’s confirmation. “Focus on the mission. You should be right on the source of the signal in three, two, one. There!”
Jeongguk’s red indicator was a foot away from Jimin’s orange, but Namjoon heard Jimin’s coo of awe at whatever it was they were looking at.
“I think I see it!” Jimin said. “It’s fucking beautiful, Joon!”
Namjoon smiled at his amazement, eyes on the drone’s view. It was getting closer to Hoseok and Yoongi, judging by their yellow and blue indicators, but all he could see was the canopy of the surrounding trees.
“Grab it and haul back to the Crow,” Namjoon told Jimin. “Shields are back up, but they’ll only last so long without proper fuel.”
Jimin chirped an affirmative, accompanied by Jeongguk’s hum of agreement. “Taemin, tell the Captain we’re done here,” Namjoon said to the ship.
“Ah, we might have a situation,” Taemin said apologetically.
Namjoon’s hands clenched into tight fists, and the Doll sighed in aggravation. “He broke his com again, didn’t he?” he asked flatly.
“Well, the com’s broken, all right,” Taemin said. Somehow, he managed to sound sheepish as he added, “Cap’n might’ve gotten himself ambushed. The Officers tried to confiscate his com, but from the sound of it, Cap’n didn’t cooperate and crushed it against a wall.”
“Is that happening right now?” Namjoon asked exasperatedly, but he was already out of his seat and grabbing the rifle slung across the back of Yoongi’s empty First Mate’s seat. It was Lambardian, but Namjoon was a good enough shot.
“As we speak,” Taemin said. “Last I heard, they’re taking them off-station.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Namjoon muttered to himself as he exited the bridge. He clicked on the com in his ear as he walked briskly, saying, “Jeongguk, I need you to keep Taemin warp-ready when you get back.”
“You’re comin’ down?” Jeongguk asked, sounding confused.
“We’re almost to the ship, Joon,” Jimin piped in.
“The kids need rescuing,” Namjoon told them, reaching Hoseok’s Windcutter in the hangar. “I’ll be quick, but you know the drill. If we’re not back in ten-”
“We can’t leave without you guys!” Jimin shouted, indignant.
“You can, and you fucking will,” Namjoon said in an annoyed tone as he strapped himself into the compact ship. The controls lit up with a bright yellow glow that momentarily blinded him, and a huge holographic ‘HAVE A FUN FLIGHT’ message glittered in orange capital lettering up in his face. “You don’t think I can get them back in ten minutes?”
“It’s not that!” Jimin protested.
“Then you’ve got nothing to worry about,” Namjoon cut him off, waiting impatiently as Taemin prepared to open the hangar’s hatch, the Windcutter turning on the spot as the platform it stood on spun and lowered into the floor. “Just make sure we’ll be ready to warp.”
Jimin made a sound of grudging assent, and Namjoon smiled wryly to himself before tearing his com out of his ear and tossing it behind him. “Ten-minute countdown, Taemin,” Namjoon said, putting his hands on the cyclic of the Windcutter awkwardly. He was more used to buttons and holograms, but Hoseok had always been old-school.
“Aye’aye, Namu-yah!” Taemin said through the ship’s speakers, and Namjoon could almost see an imaginary salute tossed his way.
Then the Windcutter dropped, and Namjoon braced himself, pulling it up before it could lose much altitude. They’d anchored somewhere just below the station’s stratosphere, and it was a struggle to keep Hoseok’s ride steady; the Windcutter wasn’t made to withstand high-pressure, but it was the fastest, smallest ship they had besides the Crow.
Namjoon could’ve waited for Jeongguk and Jimin to return and then taken that instead, but he was feeling petty. A little damage to the Windcutter would piss Hoseok off like nothing else, and he deserved nothing less.
It was harder to fly it than Namjoon remembered, though, and it took him longer than he liked to reach the Union bunker. There was a landing pad on the roof of the central building, and Namjoon dropped it there, climbing out with the rifle held tight in his hands.
Surprisingly, no one was waiting to attack, and Namjoon climbed down as quickly as he could, searching frantically for somewhere that looked like where they might take Hoseok and Yoongi. He passed by a few bodies as he went down two floors, their white Officer uniforms singed with blue and orange charges, and Namjoon’s hold on the rifle tightened.
There was the sound of shouting and angry swearing coming from what Namjoon assumed was the entrance to the ground floor, so Namjoon quickened his pace before slowing as he got nearer, cautiously creeping against a hallway as he tried to take in what was happening there.
From his position, Namjoon saw only a single Officer, clad in black and yellow, a pretentiously huge cap resting on top of his – quite large, in Namjoon’s honest opinion – head. He seemed to be doing most of the swearing, arms waving around him in a clearly aggravated manner. It wasn’t until he stomped off to the side that Namjoon saw Hoseok, looking heavily-bruised but no less smug and defiant as he usually looked in front of Union dogs.
He was kneeling on the dirt ground just beyond the entrance, hands cuffed in front of him and a shock collar wrapped around his neck. Namjoon bit back a curse at that; it was a fucking pain to get Union shock collars off, and Hoseok was usually whiny and generally uncooperative throughout the tedious process. Namjoon entertained the idea of leaving the thing on for a week or two, just to teach Hoseok another lesson, but a loud yelp of pain snapped him out of his spiteful thoughts.
Hoseok looked more alert, too, and just a little less snarky about the situation, and Namjoon understood why when a white Officer passed by in front of Hoseok, hauling Yoongi – similarly restrained like Hoseok – by the hair. It wasn’t the roughness of the Officer that had Namjoon seeing red, however; it was the fact that Yoongi’s right pant leg had been torn off from the thigh down, along with the biosynthetic skin there. A jammer had been stuck onto his calf, rendering his prosthetic useless, and Yoongi was in obvious pain as his leg dragged along behind him uselessly.
Before Namjoon knew it, he had the rifle pointed at the Officer, taking him down with one shot through the head. He dropped to the dirt without so much as a shout, and Yoongi fell on him, the Officer’s fingers still gripping onto his hair. But he wasn’t in any immediate danger.
Namjoon’s shot had alerted others, and Namjoon could hear other Officers, yelling questions and orders, and Namjoon ran outside, jamming the butt of his rifle into the face of an Officer that crossed his path. The hit stunned him, and Namjoon took the chance to grab the Emelite dagger strapped to the Officer’s arm and stabbed it through the side of his neck.
The Officer fell, but Namjoon had no time to celebrate; another Officer was running towards him, armed with a rapier, and Namjoon side-stepped him, pulled the Officer’s gun out from his holster, and shot him in the back.
“Behind you!” Namjoon heard Hoseok yell, and Namjoon pivoted on his heels, shooting another Officer right in the centre of his forehead. “Headshot!” Hoseok cheered, and Namjoon rolled his eyes.
Something heavy banged into the back of his head, and Namjoon stumbled forward a few steps. Pain registered, but Namjoon didn’t need to look to know where his attacker was standing, and he blindly shot him with the Union gun still in his hand. The Officer fell to the ground with a loud thud, and Namjoon straightened, rubbing at his head.
“Is that a baton?” he asked incredulously when he looked behind him, seeing said antique lying on the ground next to the now-dead Officer. “That’s fucking archaic!”
“Namjoon, move!” Yoongi screamed suddenly in a pained voice, but Namjoon didn’t have enough time to react.
He felt the Enidian bullet pierce through his skin and into his collarbone, his whole body jerking back at the force of the impact. His brain registered it like a virus in a human body; Namjoon could practically see it in his mind’s eye, the dart-like ammunition embedding itself into the muscle and bone surrounding it. As Enidian bullets went, this one was pretty vicious.
It sprouted claws and dug itself into whatever it could get a hold of, and if it had hit Hoseok or Yoongi, instead of Namjoon –
Namjoon looked up slowly at the black-clad Officer, whose smirk twisted into a confused frown when he saw the lack of writhing and screaming on Namjoon’s part.
“That’s rude, you know,” Namjoon told him, eyes narrowed. “What if you’d missed and hit my friends, instead, huh?’
“Why isn’t it working?!” the Officer shrieked, seeming to be speaking to another Officer cowering next to him. “You said the project was cleared!”
“I- I don’t know, sir!” the other Officer told him in a helpless whimper.
With a roar of anger, the black-clad Officer shot the man in the neck. Almost instantly, the Officer screamed, falling to his knees as he clawed at his throat desperately, eyes rolling up into the back of his head and mouth foaming at the corner. A few seconds later, he froze, stilling like a statue before dropping stiffly to his side.
“That’s nasty,” Hoseok commented, making a disgusted face at the sight.
That drew the black-clad Officer’s attention to him. “You’re not worth the trouble, Pirate!” he hissed, aiming his gun at Hoseok. “To hell with Admiral Tuan’s orders!”
He fell before he could pull the trigger, lurching sideways and landing lifelessly on the ground, bullet hole decorating the side of his head courtesy of Namjoon’s rifle. Hoseok stood up with some difficulty, making a face as he limped towards where Yoongi was still half-sitting, half-lying next to the dead Officer Namjoon had first killed, and he nudged the Navigator with one booted foot.
“My fucking leg’s as numb as yours,” he said wryly, and Yoongi shot him an unamused glare.
Namjoon made his way to the black-clad Officer, digging through his pockets until he found the key to Hoseok’s and Yoongi’s cuffs. Pointedly not looking at Hoseok, Namjoon freed Yoongi’s hands first, pulling him up onto Namjoon’s back in a piggy-back ride, despite Yoongi’s half-hearted protests.
“Hey, what about mine?” Hoseok whined when Namjoon started moving back towards the building where the Windcutter was on.
Namjoon tossed the cuff keys over his shoulder without looking. “Get yourself out of your own mess,” he called out flatly.
“You need to get that bullet out of you,” Yoongi grunted into Namjoon’s ear as they climbed up the stairs inside. “Apparently the Union’s been messing with biotech from Nyx.”
Namjoon shook his head. “Later,” he said. “Jeongguk’s warping Taemin off-station in 3 minutes.”
“Did they at least get the fucking Apple?” Yoongi asked.
Before Namjoon could reply, a deafening explosion erupted from the third floor above them, and Namjoon crouched low, bracing the two of them as the whole building shook terribly.
“What the fuck,” he gasped as dirt and debris fell on them from above.
“Go back down!” Yoongi choked out, and Namjoon didn’t need to be told twice.
They met Hoseok running up to them on the first-floor landing, the pirate’s eyes dark with worry. “Cavalry’s here,” he told them, visibly relieved to see the two of them in one piece. “We need to get to the jungle, take cover under the trees.”
Hoseok led the way back out, running confidently towards the dense growth just a few yards beyond the bunker’s limits. Namjoon caught a brief glimpse of a familiar, wasp-shaped battlecraft zipping through the air above them as he followed, cursing under his breath; a Union-class FT Bugfighter. Bugfighters meant Warships, which meant they were in serious shit if they didn’t get the fuck off-station before Taemin warped.
The loud, tell-tale buzz of the Bugfighter’s engines weren’t far behind as they ran under the trees, and a row of vegetation burst into flames as it took a shot at them.
“Fuck!” Hoseok shouted, ducking under a low-hanging branch and narrowly missing a burning piece of something that flew in his direction.
Namjoon stamped down on the worry that was worming through his chest as he kept close behind him, reminding himself that he was supposed to be angry at the reckless pirate. Yoongi’s arms tightened around Namjoon’s shoulders as they ran, and it was a solid enough reminder of why he had every right to be furious at Hoseok.
A sudden wave of displacement echoed through his mind, brief but distinct enough to cause him to stumble a step. Moments later, Jimin’s distorted voice resounded in his head, worry palpable even through the terrible connection.
“We saw the Warship,” Jimin said quickly, likely fearing Namjoon’s wrath at having hacked into his systems without his permission. “Just listen, ’kay? There’s a massive lake about two hundred yards past the hill you’re heading for now. We’ll pick you guys up there! We won’t be able to warp in time before the Warship picks up our signal, but we can at least get the fuck off this shithole!”
Namjoon fought the urge to roll his eyes; he should’ve known Jimin and Jeongguk wouldn’t have left without them, but he was also really fucking glad they hadn’t. He couldn’t reply to Jimin, but he swore he’d smother the kid in hugs and kisses for a whole week when they got back.
“And Joon?” Jimin continued, sounding more hesitant now. “It’s the Stigma,” Jimin said with a hollow, fearful tone. “So be really fucking careful, okay?” With that, the displaced feeling in his mind faded away, but now Namjoon was filled with dread from head to toe.
Fucking Stigma, of all things. Just what they fucking needed.
“Hoseok!” Namjoon called out, and the pirate glanced behind at him questioningly, but didn’t slow down. “Keep going straight! There’s a lake up ahead! We meet Taemin there!”
Hoseok cackled at that, nearly running into a thick tree at his distraction. “Remind me to give those kids a fucking raise!” he crowed.
Namjoon couldn’t help the small smile that was forming on his own face, especially when Yoongi yelled back at Hoseok, “You don’t even pay them, you useless Captain!”
Their joy was cut short by another blast from the Bugfighter. It was closer this time, enough for Namjoon to stagger sideways as the ground grumbled. He almost dropped Yoongi, who yelped in alarm. The sound caught Hoseok’s attention, and the pirate reeled to a stop before running back towards them. Another blast from the Bugfighter, mere metres away to their right, and Hoseok cursed in anger and annoyance.
“Get moving,” he barked at Namjoon, and Namjoon almost buckled at the authority in his voice. Hoseok’s Captain voice. “I’ll catch up.”
Namjoon obeyed, shouldering Yoongi higher up his back before setting off again, but not without looking back. He saw Hoseok rolling up his left sleeve before he started off at a run, jumping onto the wide trunk of a crooked tree nearby and climbing higher until he disappeared up above the canopy of the jungle.
“He’s pissed,” Yoongi said, and Namjoon sighed.
A minute later, a sonic wave exploded in the sky above them, deafening them momentarily. They were climbing up the hill, almost to the highest point, when there was another explosion, and they felt more than saw pieces of the Bugfighter’s debris dropping to the ground all around them like dead flies. The hilltop broke through the canopy for a few metres, and Namjoon glanced behind to see Hoseok’s figure in the distance, perched above the expanse of treetops.
His prosthetic arm was bared, like Yoongi’s leg, and he had his palm still raised towards the sky. The Bugfighter was no more, but they could all clearly see the far-off shadow of the Stigma in the horizon, half-hidden behind foreboding, grey clouds. Hoseok looked impossibly tiny in comparison to the Warship, even as far away as it was.
“Holy Nebulon,” Yoongi breathed at the sight. Namjoon whole-heartedly agreed.
It took another three and a half minutes before Namjoon made it to the edge of the lake Jimin had described. He set Yoongi down on the ground once there, crouching down next to him to check on the jammer on his leg. Yoongi winced as Namjoon prodded at it, and the doll shot him a sympathetic look.
“Sorry, Yoongi,” Namjoon said, then promptly grabbed at the device and wrenched it off him with all the strength he could muster.
“FUCK!” Yoongi screamed, his whole body jerking before he fell flat onto his back. “Fuck, gods, that really fucking hurts, damn it!”
“Sorry,” Namjoon apologized again regretfully, latching the jammer onto the strap of his rifle. He helped Yoongi sit up, slowly.
“Fuck,” was all Yoongi could say, repeating the word over and over again like a mantra under his breath. Namjoon wrapped an arm around his waist to keep him steady, and Yoongi grabbed onto his shoulder, clinging to him for comfort.
The sound of footsteps thudding through the jungle reached Namjoon’s ears, and the doll tensed up, grabbing a hold of his rifle with his free hand and aiming it towards where it was coming from.
To his relief, it was Hoseok, bursting through the underbrush like a whale surfacing for air. He had a shit-eating grin on his face, but the tension in his shoulders and the dark, steely look in his eyes belied his real mood.
“Hoseok, you stupid fuck, help me stand,” Yoongi called to him. “Namjoon’s getting sick of me, probably.”
“No, I’m not,” Namjoon denied, but he let go easily when Hoseok reached them and bent down to pull Yoongi up, tucking him against his side.
“Kim’s fucking with us,” Hoseok declared cheerfully. “He could’ve sent more Bugfighters, but he hasn’t yet. Any ideas, Joonie?”
Namjoon glanced back towards the jungle uneasily, shrugging. “The Apple?” he mused. “He might not know we’ve already got it. Maybe he’s hoping we’ll lead him to it.”
Yoongi’s expression darkened, and he shook his head. “Apple’s ours,” he hissed. “They’ve been sitting on it for fucking decades; they don’t fucking deserve to have it!”
Namjoon was inclined to agree. It took Yoongi and Jimin months to decrypt the Apple’s signal, and even longer to devise a way to track it to the source. There was no way in fucking hell were they letting the Union take it without a fight.
Something on the lake caught Namjoon’s eye, and the doll turned to scrutinise it, frowning when he saw nothing out of the ordinary. It took a while for him to realise that what he’d noticed was the rippling of the lake’s surface, the previously calm waters now making gentle waves like someone had tossed several stones into it.
“You gotta be kiddin’ me,” Yoongi drawled, and Namjoon glanced over at him to see the man looking at the lake as well, but he’d seemed to have figured out what was happening because there was an impressed grin on his face, marred only by his ever-present scowl of pain. “Fuckin’ kids, man.”
“No way!” Hoseok barked with a disbelieving laugh. Whatever was happening, it was enough to throw him off his sour mood, and Namjoon frowned as he wondered what the fuck was going on.
He got his explanation moments later when a vast, dark shadow began to ascend from beneath the lake, and Namjoon stared wide-eyed as Taemin emerged, water flooding down its sides rapidly as it broke through the lake.
“All aboard the SS Young Forever!” Taemin announced brightly as it hovered three feet above the lake.
“I didn’t even know he could do that!” Hoseok laughed and Namjoon facepalmed so hard, he almost bruised his own forehead.