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“Did you you know that this shit’s banned on Alfa-31Delta because people died from touching it?” Jimin asked suddenly, and Namjoon winced as he shifted Hoseok’s weight on his back.
“Not the time, Jimin,” he said wryly, but Jimin didn’t seem to hear him. Or pretended not to, at any rate, because the Naver simply nodded his head as he continued to ramble on.
“Yeah, it was like, one second you’re fine and healthy and all, and the next, bam!” he said, throwing his hands out to emphasize his point. “You’re dead, just like that!”
Hoseok groaned weakly into Namjoon’s left ear, arms tightening around the Doll’s shoulders, and Namjoon couldn’t help but squeeze his thighs comfortingly from where he held the Captain.
“You’ll be fine,” Namjoon assured him. “Jin’s got Dr. Aoki on it. He’s the best herpatazoologist this side of the Hydra system. We just need to get back to Taemin before the venom sets in completely.”
“Can’t feel m’ legs,” Hoseok protested, speech slurred terribly.
“Don’t worry, they’re right there,” Namjoon told him.
“Hey, look! It’s an asteroid!” Jimin said excitedly, and Namjoon looked up to see where he was pointing up at the lilac sky.
There was a line of dense, white smoke trailing behind what appeared to be a blazing ball, arcing just above the three moon-suns that were rising - or falling; Namjoon still wasn’t used to that planet’s time zones - in the horizon. At first glance, it did look like an asteroid, but Namjoon’s eyes were made to zoom a hundred and fifty times that of an average human’s.
It was most definitely not an asteroid.
“Jimin, try your com again!” Namjoon said urgently, rushing to the side where there was a cluster of densely-growing blue-green trees. “And get over here before they see you!” he hissed at the Technaver as he hide under the colourful leaves.
Hoseok groaned again behind him, and Namjoon apologized quietly as he laid him down on the ground as comfortably as he could. Jimin followed behind Namjoon obediently, but didn’t hide the disappointed look on his face.
“Yoongiiiii!” he sang, hand pressed against the com in his ear. “Can you hear me? Joonie’s being all bossy again.”
“Jimin!” Namjoon hissed at him.
“So, if you can hear us, there’s something up with that asteroid that’s about to crash into the planet!” Jimin continued brightly, not even sparing Namjoon a glance.
“It’s not an asteroid,” Namjoon told him, exasperated. “It’s a Union-class shuttle and I think it’s Tuan’s!”
Jimin sobered up immediately, then, and the hand he was using to hold the bag of ripe Apples tightened.
“Fuck,” he declared, and Namjoon sighed. “Yoongi, we need to warp ass!” Jimin said loudly, but their coms remained stubbornly silent in response.
“We need to get to the pick-up point,” Namjoon said. “But you move faster without me and the Captain like this.”
“No,” Jimin refused instantly, shaking his head. “No way, you know what happened the last time we split up!”
“We don’t have a choice, Jimin,” Namjoon said, waving a hand helplessly at their motionless Captain.
Hoseok had lost consciousness again, and Namjoon’s eyes landed uneasily on the green rash that had spread up to his neck from under his shirt and jacket. It had only been a small patch on his side, an hour ago from where the Deltoid sample had touched him.
“If Tuan finds us and the others don’t know, we’re fucked,” Namjoon said succinctly.
Jimin pursed his lips, unusually serious, and nodded his head jerkily after a moment. “Fine,” he spat. “But the Apples stay with you, so make sure you don’t let them get you.”
With that, he shoved the bag at Namjoon, who could only grab it in surprise. Jimin shot off before Namjoon could even think to protest, a blur of orange-blond and sparking tech. With a sigh, Namjoon tied the bag off at his gun holster around his waist, making sure it wouldn’t fall off, before he leaned forward to take another look at the shuttle.
It was so much closer to the surface now than minutes before, and Namjoon found himself praying that Jimin could get Yoongi to them before Tuan’s men did.
By the time the Crow got back to where Jimin had left Namjoon and Hoseok, the two of them were nowhere to be seen, and Jimin slammed a fist into the console with an angry curse.
“Are you sure this is where you guys took cover?” Yoongi asked, wisely not saying anything about the newly-formed dent next to the Nav panel.
“I left a pin on that tree,” Jimin said through gritted teeth, pointing at the blinking yellow light on the map. “I knew I shouldn’t have listened to him!”
“And then what? We’re down a Captain, a Navigator and a Technaver?” Yoongi shot back. “Track the Apples if you can’t trace their coms, they can’t have gotten that far.”
Jimin’s hands were flying all over the console, and a moment later, another map flew up on the screens, glowing iridescent blue. There was an orange triangle blinking steadily on the terrain, five hundred metres north-west of them, and Jimin zoomed in closer with a touch.
“That’s the mountains,” Yoongi mused. “Why’re they going there?”
“They landed on the other side of the planet,” Jimin agreed, unease curling down his spine. “A trap?”
Yoongi shook his head, even though Jimin couldn’t see him since he was standing behind the Naver’s seat. “They’ve got Captain and the Apples. Nothing left for them here,” Yoongi reasoned.
Jimin smashed a couple of buttons on the console, narrowing his eyes on the orange triangle that was blinking back at him, almost mocking.
“Guess we’ll just have to follow and find out,” he muttered grimly.
Jimin landed the Crow several yards away from the location pinned on the map. The triangle had been moving slowly as they’d flown towards it, but it had stopped completely some three minutes ago. When they climbed out of the Crow, they found themselves at the foot of a steep mountainside, covered in moss and algae and foul-smelling trees that dripped toxic sludge from their brown leaves.
Jimin gagged as he covered his nose, looking around at the trees warily. “This station stinks,” he said in a nasally voice to Yoongi.
The Navigator rolled his eyes, nodding his head to the side. “They should be over the range there,” he said.
The two of them crept towards a row of the disgusting trees, and found a ledge that overlooked a narrow but deep ravine. At the bottom of it, Jimin could clearly see a Union shuttle, half-buried in the mud on the ground, and Namjoon was leaning heavily against its side, his cuffed hands clutching a gun between them in front of him.
Two Union Officers in white were on the other side of the shuttle, armed with guns of their own and throwing charges in Namjoon’s direction.
“On three,” Jimin heard Yoongi mutter, and a quick glance told him the Navigator had his rifle at the ready, aimed at the Officers below.
Jimin nodded curtly, crouching down low on his haunches. At Yoongi’s count, he threw himself over the ledge and sailed through the air with an excited cry.
“YAAAAAAAAH!”
His voice resounded eerily throughout the ravine, echoing against the solid rock walls, and Namjoon looked up in surprise, eyes widening when he saw the source of the sound. The two Officers looked up, a split second after him, but two bullets lodged themselves in the centre of their foreheads, one after another, before Jimin is even halfway down to the ground, and they’re dead before they could even react.
“Jimin!” Namjoon shouted with concern, dropping the gun he’d been holding and raising his hands in front of him helplessly in Jimin’s direction.
Jimin huffed out an amused laugh at his actions, and his eyes flashed - silver and mercurial - before the shuttle’s door flipped open and Jimin angled himself until his foot met against the edge of the panel and he vaulted off of it in a backflip before landing neatly on the ground.
“Ta-da!” he said with a wide grin at Namjoon, his hands thrown out to his sides theatrically.
“You dumbass, you could’ve gotten hurt!” Namjoon said, but he was smiling, too, helplessly relieved.
Jimin shrugged, moving forward and throwing his arms around Namjoon’s and hugging the Doll tightly.
“Where’s Cap’n?” Jimin asked as he pulled away a moment later and squinted down at Namjoon’s cuffed hands. They were normal cuffs - standard Union-issue - and Jimin’s eyes flashed briefly again before they clicked open and fell from Namjoon’s hands to the ground.
“Inside the shuttle,” Namjoon told him, already moving towards the thing and climbing up its side to the entrance.
Jimin followed after him, glancing up to give Yoongi - cute and tiny, all the way up where he was - a thumbs up. Yoongi’s head disappeared out of sight from the ledge, probably to get the Crow, and Jimin made his way into the shuttle after Namjoon.
It was smaller on the inside than a normal shuttle, the whole of it practically just the cockpit without a cargo hatch like most others, and Jimin saw Namjoon on one end, leaning over an unconscious Hoseok who was strapped into a seat securely. Jimin rushed towards them, vaguely noticing - and ignoring - the dead Officer sat in the pilot’s seat, and knelt on the ground next to Hoseok’s knees to help undo the straps around his calves.
“He got worse?” he asked, looking at Hoseok’s sweat-damp cheeks and the rash on his neck that was inching closer to his chin.
“Didn’t get any better,” Namjoon said wryly as he unclasped the straps over Hoseok’s chest and arms.
“Did the Officers say anything?”
Namjoon’s hands paused momentarily at Jimin’s question, but his voice was low and steady when he answered, “Didn’t say much, and then I shot the pilot. They were taking us back to Tuan’s warship, though.”
“He’s here?” Jimin asked, alarmed, just as he got the last strap off of Hoseok’s legs.
“Just outside the stratosphere,” Namjoon confirmed. He got Hoseok free, and pulled the Captain onto his back with ease.
Jimin watched, ready to help if the Doll needed it, and then Namjoon stilled as he looked at the Naver hesitantly from under his bangs.
“Admiral Kim’s with him,” Namjoon said quietly, his voice rough and nervous. “I- I heard him ask them about you.”
Jimin’s jaw clenched instinctively at his words; a familiar swirl of old anger, hurt and resignation flooding through him. But Hoseok groaned, then, suddenly and painfully, and Jimin swallowed back his feelings and pointed at the shuttle’s entrance.
“Cap’n’s dying,” he said wryly and Namjoon’s eyes widened before he was scrambling up towards the hatch as quickly as he could manage.
Jimin helped him, pushing up at the Doll’s bum gleefully despite Namjoon’s cry of indignant protest, and by the time they got out of there, the Crow was hovering over the ravine, a syntex ladder dangling from under it and Yoongi glaring down at them with worry from the pilot’s seat. They tied Hoseok to the ladder and grab onto it and each other before Yoongi reeled them up.
“Incoming transmission from the USS Harbinger, Yoongicchi,” Taemin’s voice, dimmed but clear, rang out from the Crow’s speakers just as Jimin and Namjoon managed to lay Hoseok down across the passenger seats behind the Navigator. “Wanna chat?”
“Don’t call me that,” Yoongi grumbled before glancing over his shoulder at Namjoon. “Namjoon?”
Namjoon looked at Jimin in return, an uncomfortable look on his face. Jimin rolled his eyes, and waved at Yoongi carelessly. “You’re First Mate,” he said in a pointed tone. “First-Mate it.”
Yoongi rolled his own eyes in response, turning back towards the nav panel and pressing a few buttons. They started moving faster, then, and Jimin almost fell onto his ass if Namjoon hadn’t grabbed his arm in time and pulled him along towards the co-pilot’s seat and pushing him down onto it, standing behind Jimin with his hands on Jimin’s shoulders. Jimin would never admit it, but his strong, firm hold comforted him immensely.
Especially when Yoongi said to Taemin, “Alright, patch ‘em through, but don’t forget to scramble our signal this time.”
“The one time, sheesh,” Taemin replied in an indignant tone, but his voice was quickly replaced by static, and then a beep before silence fell over them.
“Lieutenant Min, I presume?” a voice said after a moment, and Jimin couldn’t help but tense up at the familiar baritone.
“I’m retired,” Yoongi replied in a deadpan. “What do you bastards want?”
“Just to talk,” the voice replied coolly. “I heard about your Captain’s… delicate condition.” The voice paused dramatically before continuing, “I have the antidote.”
“So do we,” Yoongi snapped, audibly annoyed. “Whatever you’re selling, we ain’t buying, kid.”
“You don’t have it yet,” the voice corrected. “And I’m younger than you by two years, don’t call me a kid.”
“Maybe if you stopped acting like one, I will,” Yoongi replied, sarcastic.
“Maybe if you guys stopped leading me on wild fishbird chases across the galaxy, I would,” the voice said petulantly.
“Nobody asked you to chase us, dumbass,” Yoongi retorted. “Seriously, you need a new hobby.”
“I just want to talk to Jimin,” the voice said, and now it sounded almost pleading. “I know he’s with you. Is he listening right now?”
Yoongi looked over at Jimin, who shrunk into himself and glared miserably down at the nav panel, and Namjoon squeezed his shoulders in reassurance.
“He doesn’t want to talk to you, kid,” Yoongi snapped, irritably. “You realize that the Union records every damn com line you guys have, right? What would your precious Council think if they heard their golden Admiral begging a pirate for scraps of attention, eh?”
“I disabled the system,” the voice said defensively. “And I don’t care, anyway.” There was the sound of a soft inhale, and then in a desperate, miserable tone, the voice said, “Jimin, come on. Please. I just want to see you.”
“Don’t talk to him, asshole,” Yoongi growled.
“Yoongi, it’s fine,” Jimin said quietly, reaching a hand out to touch Yoongi’s arm.
Yoongi looked over at him with a glare that was both angry and concerned, his brows furrowed so deeply that it looked like they would stay like that forever. Jimin offered him a small, shaky smile in response.
“You made your choice, Taehyung,” he said, louder, as he looked back at the nav panel. “Leave Cypher alone.”
The voice gasped sharply over the speakers, and then with palpable relief, said, “Jimin. Gods, it’s so good to hear you.”
“I mean it, Tae,” Jimin said, ignoring the stab of longing in his chest at the words. “If we ever saw each other again, I will kill you. And I won’t miss next time.”
“Jimin, I’m sorry,” the voice said, its relief changing rapidly to misery. “You know I never meant to-”
“You never do,” Jimin interrupted the voice harshly. “Fuck, Tae, just- just fuck off, okay?”
Jimin didn’t realize he was crying until he felt one of Namjoon’s hands reaching up from his shoulder to wipe gently at his cheek, and he looked over at Yoongi desperately.
Yoongi’s glare turned smug as he said, “Taemin, cut the line,” and the voice quickly shouted, “No, no, wait, please-!”
But Taemin had already closed the transmission, and the voice was gone, replaced by a flat beep that resounded through the Crow almost eerily.
“Taemin’s 30 seconds away,” Yoongi said after the beep faded out completely and silence had fallen over them once more. “Think Captain will last that long?”
“I fucking hope so,” Jimin choked out with a watery grin, wiping at his eyes. “We got this far.”
“Did Jin tell you anything about the antidote?” Namjoon asked, concerned.
“Besides complaining about how fucking hard it is to make without proper medical tech the whole time Aoki was on the line?” Yoongi said wryly. “Yeah, it was ready when we left.”
“Thank the stars,” Namjoon sighed.
“Thank Aoki’s habit of experimenting with illegal herbs,” Yoongi retorted.
“That, too,” Namjoon agreed.
A loud, pained groan came from behind them, and Yoongi promptly said, “Shut up, it’s your own damn fault you touched the fucking thing. Dumbass.”
“Oh, shit, was Cap’n’s nose always that huge?”
“What? Oh gods! Yoongi!”
“Shut up, we’re inside, calm the- holy Nebulon, Jimin, get Jin down here right fucking now!”
“So that’s how you die!”
“Jimin!”
“I’m on it, I’m on it! You guys really need to breathe some-”
“Jimin, I will fucking skin you!”
“JINNIE, YOONGI’S BEING VIOLENT AGAIN!”