Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In general, Jensen tried to live his life in way that didn't leave much time for regret.

He'd never regretted leaving Agripony when he aced the navigator entrance exams – space settled him in a way that life on a farm colony never had, even if he only talked to his family these days over the com.

And he'd never regretted joining up with Jim Beaver's crew after he graduated, even though The Mischief only ran cargo transport hops where nothing exciting happened, because he'd gotten to see more worlds and meet more people than he'd ever dreamed possible.

Hell, he didn't even regret sticking with Beaver after a couple of unplotted asteroids and a less-than-understanding buyer had made him sell half his captaincy to Fredric Lehne, who'd bought in to keep the ship from getting scrapped. Lehne was a tightwad and a tightass, but he'd gotten their books out of the red and even brought in a number of new clients, even if some of those contacts gave him the heebs.

However, Jensen was pretty sure that he did regret whatever had happened last night.

As soon as he could remember exactly what that was, anyway.

He remembered the crew going out to celebrate their last night station-side. He remembered bar hopping through a progression of rowdier and rowdier spacer bars. And after that… after that, was a big old blank.

One thing was certain: Whatever had happened couldn't have been good. Nothing could be good if it led to waking up in a cramped room – maybe 10x10 if he was feeling generous and he most definitely wasn't – with no windows or doors, just four flat, uncomfortable bunks that folded down from the walls. The bunks and the walls were all the steel-grey metal that made up nine-tenths of Nero Station, so no help there. His head hurt, his nose hurt, and there was a funk in the air that smelled like the personification of regret, if such a thing existed – a mixture of body odor, stale alcohol, vomit and urine.

Part of that was him, for sure; he sniffed his shirt and recoiled.

Yeah, he smelled like he'd been rolling on a barroom floor, for sure, which-

Wait.

The end of the evening flooded back into him.

"MOTHERFUCKER!" he yelled. "That asshole punched me!"

The inhabitant of the bunk to his left sat up, his shaggy long hair doing nothing to hide his split lip or the massive bump on his head. "Don't worry," he said, "I cleaned his cage for ya right after that."

"Don't be a smug asshole, Kane," Jensen said crossly. "It makes your face even uglier than normal."

Christian Kane – the pilot, and Jensen's best friend, just laughed. "Aw, worried about my looks? I knew you loved me, Jenny."

He tossed Chris the finger just as a woman chimed in from his other side. "Don't be a baby, Ackles. That guy needed punching. It was a moral imperative."

Unlike Chris, Lisa looked composed and perfectly put together, not a curly black hair out of place. The only visible signs that the supply officer had been in a fight were the red smears that stood out against her dark brown skin and a set of scrapes along her right knuckles. Jensen remembered woozily watching her clock the guy from the floor where he'd landed after-

"SON OF A BITCH!" he yelled, whirling around to glare at the room's last inhabitant. "You punched me!"

The older blonde woman managed to look a little contrite as she hopped off the bed and started putting her wrinkled uniform to rights – not that it was going to do much good with the jagged rip down the left sleeve and the shiner around her right eye.

"In my defense, Ackles," Sam Ferris said, "I was aiming for Benedict. It's not my fault that you put your face between my fist and his face at the wrong time."

Jensen reflexively wiped his nose with the back of his hand, and ow, it came back crusted with dried blood and a few spots of new blood.

"Damn right I did," he said hotly. "I was trying to stop the fight so we wouldn't spend the night in lockup," he accentuated the last few words, "like we so obviously did. Dammit, I had plans, you assholes."

Sam smirked, throwing an arm over Jensen's shoulders to give him a playful shake. "Sorry not sorry, but those plans were so not happening on our watch."

Lisa joined in on Jensen's other side, hooking her arm around his waist. "He's right, Ackles. Even if we hadn't had to teach Upchuck Benedict's crew a lesson, we weren't about to let you walk out of there with Hayden-Drones-"

"-Jones," Jensen corrected stubbornly.

"-That asshole," she finished, unperturbed.

"Don't look at me," Chris said, thankfully not joining in on this weird whatever-it-was group hug. "I was in favor of letting you make your own stupid mistakes."

"I dated you, didn't I?" Jensen shot back, shrugging off their arms.

"Nuh-uh," Lisa laughed. "Chris is just your run-of-the-mill asshole. Drones is a certified dirtbag. Friends don't let friends date dirtbags."

"Especially not that one," Sam agreed. Then she stepped back and peered at Jensen's face. "Shit, I really did clock you good, didn't I? Dang, I think I broke your nose!"

Jensen scowled – "I'll break your face."

Chris laughed. "More like break your fist, the way you fight. You gotta learn how to throw a punch before you go around tossing out insults like that."

Jensen shrugged them both off. "Yeah, yeah, yeah." Usually he didn't mind Chris needling him about being a pacifist, but today it kind of pissed him off. Maybe it was the fact that the blood on his face was his friends' fault. "Whatever. Christ, did you guys at least win?"

"That depends on your definition of win." The wall in front of them suddenly shimmered into a translucent telescreen. Behind it stood their ship's co-captain, Jim Beaver, glowering at them from between two of the station's security officers, who looked as monolithic as ever in their green-and-blue armor and opaque faceplates.

"What you've won," Beaver continued, "is having your cuts of the last payout docked to cover the damage you caused." He ignored their cries of dismay. "You're also confined to ship's quarters until we leave port. No arguments."

Jensen relaxed minutely. If Beaver was confining them to quarters, then he wasn't really mad. It could be a very effective punishment – nothing like being trapped on a small ship for a few months at a time to make you appreciate every second you got to spend off it, after all – but they were slated to leave on another run that night. Confining them to the ship was basically sending them to bed without their supper.

He looked back at the guards and nodded, speaking into the vocoder to the left of the screen. "These four miscreants are all members of my crew-" he indicated each of them in turn- "Jensen Ackles, Lisa Berry, Christian Kane, Sam Ferris. My name is James Beaver. As co-captain of The Mischief, I hereby assume responsibility for my crews' debts and fines for public violence, antisocial behavior and property damage, and agree that Nero Station can assay the debts to our account."

The guard on the right stepped forward, tapping a sequence into the keypad below the vocoder, and the screen – and the wall itself - vanished entirely.

Beaver stepped back into the hall and turn to leave, growling, "Get moving, you assholes." He didn't even glance back as the four of them slunk out of the holding tank, Jensen feeling actually repentant and the other three doing relatively well at faking it. Relatively – Jensen did have had to elbow the grin off Chris's face as they passed the guards.

The walk of shame back towards the docking bay continued in silence, the four of them mostly too hungover to do more than scramble to keep up with Beaver's fast pace. After a few blocks of curious stares and disapproving frowns from the station's denizens, however, he changed course to the nearest available public hygiene stalls and pressed his credstick against the meter.

"Inside," he growled.

The minute they were inside, he whirled around and scowled at them. "You four are the sorriest bunch of pathetic excuses for crew that I've ever seen, you know that, right?"

Jensen just shrugged. "Don't look at me – I tried to stop 'em."

"Traitor!" Chris hissed.

Sam raised her hand. "In our defense – they started it."

Beaver rubbed his fingers against his forehead and sighed. "Yeah, yeah, and you ended it, as well as two tables, a chair, half a shelf of relatively expensive brandies, and an assortment of random complaints for ruined drinks, glassware, and clothing. Tell me again why I shouldn't leave your sorry asses behind bars to work off the bill for your little stunt and pick up a new crew that won't cost us half our profits covering up your property damage?"

Lisa looked from Chris to Sam to Jensen, and then back to Beaver. "Because they had it coming?"

Chris nodded vigorously, then winced. That whack to his head probably hurt like a motherfucker when he moved. "They were badmouthing the Mischief. We had to defend her honor."

"They said-" Lisa leaned forward, eyes gleaming with a renewed desire for vengeance- "that she oughta be decommed and scrapped."

"So I've heard." Beaver sat down heavily in one of the chairs in the front lounge. "And that's why you're all officially reprimanded."

He smiled. "Unofficially, however, we all know Chuck's an idiot and his crew even more, so… clean-up's on me. Mender and first-aid to the left, showers and sinks to the right. Get yourselves set up right again so I'm not embarrassed to be seen with you by the light of day. But I ain't made of money, so you've only got 20 minutes. Make the most of it!"

Life in space meant very little respect for privacy. The four of them stripped down then and there, and then Jensen dumped all of their clothes in the menders and headed over to first aid.

There was a vivid purple bruise surrounding his left eye, and from the red tint outlining his green pupil, Sam's fist had broken some blood vessels as well. Jeez, no wonder folks were staring. His nose had a weird, bruised crook to it, and there was dried blood splattered down his chin.

"How the hell do I look worse than any of you when I didn't-" he winced as something moved that shouldn't have when he touched his nose, and yelled, "when I didn't even throw one fucking punch?"

"Cause yer a pussy!" Chris yelled back.

Beaver walked over to him. "Christ, kid, sit down and let me help you with that." He rummaged around in the med kit until he found the tube of healing nanites, then broke the seal and handed it to Jensen. "I'm only doing this because I don't want to have to spend the next three weeks looking at your lumpy face while it heals the old-fashioned way."

Jensen grimaced, raising the tube up to his nose as he prepared for what he knew came next. Just as Jensen squeezed down, sending nanites flooding up into his nostril, Jim gripped his nose and gave it a sharp jerk, realigning the broken cartilage.

"FUCK!" Jensen yelled, jerking his head away from Jim's hands. He pounded his fist against the bench and tried to breathe through the pain as what felt like thousands of microscopic needles pierced his tissues and began repairing the damage they found. He'd seen Beaver do this for Chris before, but he hadn't understood exactly how painful it was to experience. When you didn't get in fights, you didn't have to get patched up like that.

"Hit the shower, Jensen." Beaver patted his shoulder in commiseration. "You did the best you could. Ain't your fault they're all idjits."

Beaver's comm beeped behind him as Jensen headed towards the shower stall Lisa had just vacated. "Beaver here. What? Os, kid, take a breath. Take two breaths. That's right, easy does it. Now, start over at half the speed and decibels…"

Jensen tuned everything out as he relaxed in the shower. The synth-2-O felt good against his skin, chemicals immediately doing their job to disinfect his healing cuts and dissolve all the dirt and dead skin. Unlike most folks, he could tell the difference between it and real water, growing up on a farm world as he had. Still, it was a hell of an improvement over sonic showers, which always left him feeling itchy even though they did the job. By the time he pulled on his now-clean uniform and ran a comb through his hair, there was only a faint bruise around his eye to show he'd been in a fight at all and he felt most of the way back to being human.

"Change of plans." Beaver looked a lot less relaxed when they all reassembled. "It's going to be all hands on deck when we get back to the ship. Lehne wants us to clear port ASAP."

"What?!" Chris said, just as Sam asked, "Why?"

Beaver snorted dismissively. "Some kind of weird communications brouhaha going on and an alert over the comm channels." He picked up the pace as he talked. "Lehne's predicting that it's going to involve Nero, which usually means a port-wide grounding. He wants us out ahead of it so we don't end up sitting around with our thumbs up our asses while our cargo rots in the hold."

No one argued.

Back at the ship, they clicked back into place seamlessly. Sam, Beaver and Lisa made sure the cargo was safely stowed and powered through the lift-off checklist while Jensen plotted the course and Chris ran diagnostics. Next to them, the nervous little communications guy who'd joined the team at the last port, Osric Chau, was finalizing swapping their departure time for an earlier slot while filling Beaver in on everything that he knew so far.

Jensen kept one ear tuned to the chatter between Lehne, Beaver and Chau, trying to figure out what was going down. He knew Chris was doing the same.

"That's the thing," Chau was saying. "It started sometime last night. No one knows what set it off – someone or something triggered some kind of tight-beam transmission straight to Nox. The tracers lost contact the minute it hit the shields, of course."

Jensen and Chris exchanged glances. Nox was the mysterious dark sector on the furthest edge of the quadrant. No transit was allowed in or out, no ships were allowed to plot a course near it, and the perimeter was secured by a drone shield that shot down the unlucky few who were foolish enough to try. Not that many did – the closest nearby worlds were nothing but ruins. You might see a few scavengers from time to time, or scientific research teams trying to figure out what happened, but for the most part, there was no profit to be made in a dead sector, and no one in their right mind was going to waste the fuel on a useless trip.

"But then there's this," Chau continued. "Today, right before I called you on the com-" speaking now as fast as his hands are moving over the keys- "someone from inside of Nox sent a transmission back."

Lehne and Beaver exchanged wary glances.

"Well, like that ain't all foreboding or nothing," Beaver muttered. "Sure you don't want to stick around to find out what happens next?"

Lehne tilted his head. "In my experience, making history is far less profitable or enjoyable than making money."

Jensen worked faster.

Chapter Text

Lehne's instincts were right. Shortly after they cleared the gravity well and jumped to hyper, Chau reported that Nero Station was locking down its transport lanes and refusing incoming traffic. Only the Mischief and a handful of other ships had gotten out in time. Satisfyingly, Benedict's God Complex wasn't among them.

If Beaver hadn't listened, they would have been stuck sitting for who knows how long with nothing but a hold full of exotic foods and beverages, no buyer, and a hefty failure-to-deliver fine waiting for them when they were finally allowed to take off. Instead, they were headed for Fergus CR, a juicy payout and a week of downtime to spend at the quadrant's infamous "crown port of vice."

Once they were safely underway, anyone who wasn't needed on the bridge took the chance to settle back in for the journey – putting away anything new they'd bought, getting something to eat from the commissary replicators, and getting into more comfortable clothing. Uniforms were for stations when you were representing your ship or wooing new customers. Time in deep space was better spent in comfortable clothes that you could laze around in, shoes with sticky soles and soft shirts with lower collars that didn't make you feel like you were about to choke.

Jensen actually liked his uniform's pants; they were durable, comfortable, and had a lot of useful pockets where he could – and did - stash his tools. And they were black, so they went with everything. He was more than happy, however, to swap his starchy-collared shirt and jacket for one of the cozy dark-green V-necked shirts that his mom had sent him, each carefully handmade with the softest wool sheared off the neighbor's geep. The sleeves were a little long – measuring wasn't her strongest suite – but they rolled up easily, so he hadn't had the heart to tell her about them. It was nice carrying a piece of Agripony around with him, even if he had no intention of ever going back there.

"-word about Nox yet?" Beaver was asking when Jensen returned to the bridge.

Chau frowned. "No, and it's weird. No one's can figure out what the transmission said, or even how old it was, but look – that kind of deep space communication requires a relatively high level of technological advancement, including space travel. Even if that sector was blocked off for something like a plague that killed everyone, there's no reason we shouldn't have transcription codes for it, or I don't know – records! But the system just locks up before anyone can make heads or tails of it. It makes no sense."

"Well," Beaver said, settling down into his captain's chair, "you got a week with nothing else to do but solve the mysteries of the universe, son. Just remember, if it happens on this ship or in that uniform…"

"…everyone gets a cut." Chau laughed. "Got it, old man."

And for the next two days, that was it – just a strange puzzle that no one had the answer to.

On the third day, Chau reported that the comms were all in an uproar across the quadrant, because holy shit. Alien contact.

Well… not entirely alien, apparently, and not exactly contact, but things were happening… strange, mysterious, portentous things.

For the first time ever in Jensen's lifetime, the shields around Nox had powered down. Not for long – perhaps only 10 seconds. Just long enough for a small ship to hurtle through, following the path of the beam transmission straight towards the station.

Almost immediately, the Quadrant Central Authority sent out an all-purpose Interdiction forbidding anyone from approaching, engaging or even hailing the ship during its journey.

On the fourth day, the alien craft reached Nero, and all hell broke loose.

As soon as Nero Station's far-range sensors identified the ship, Governor Pileggi preemptively declared a mandatory curfew. Spacers were confined to their ships and residents to their quarters on the threat of being confined somewhere far less pleasant otherwise. From this allegedly securer vantage point, the station – along with the rest of the quadrant – watched the screencasts in amazement as the ship landed, annotations flying across the screen from some of the quadrant's eminent historians and scientists, hypothesizing context for what they were seeing.

The ship appeared to be old but exquisitely maintained, although it had obviously been modified given its impressively modern speed and handling. It was large enough to hold a crew of six, maybe 10 if they were all humanoid, but the ship was shielded to prevent heat signatures. None of its markings were familiar.

A moment later the ship's doors opened, and a single figure emerged, encased in a gleaming obsidian power suit of clear alien design. Like the ship, it looked decades out of date, old-fashioned and bulky, but the person wearing it moved as if it weighed nothing. Most interesting was its striking resemblance to the salvaged pieces of armor found on the shatterworlds, remnants of a civilization whose planets had been so decimated by war that very few indicators of their culture remained.

There was no doubt that the alien who exited it came from a military culture, not only dressed for war but armed for it as well – a lasgun on its back, a pistol on its thigh, and a pair of monoblades hanging from its hips. Yet despite this, it didn't act like an aggressor. In stance and poise, it was closer in bearing to an ambassador, or a king.

At the same time, it was equally impossible not to see the coiled potential underlying every movement that warned how all that could change in an instant depending on how things went next… Or maybe that was just Jensen. Everyone else seemed excited as the armored figure strode down the walkway.

The alien stopped a respectful ten feet apart from Pileggi and the fretting cloud of officiants and guards that accompanied him. It pressed the knuckles of one hand into the palm of the other, bowing slightly, and waited expectantly. After a moment, the governor nervously returned the gesture.

At that, the figure stepped back and lifted up its gloves to remove its – no, his – helmet.

Swarms of miniature screen drones immediately zoomed in to get a closer glimpse of the alien as long brown hair spilled out of the helmet, falling away to settle around his shoulders. He was humanoid, male, with a mature face, probably somewhere between three and decades of age by human standards. His face was handsome, with a full but trimmed beard and eyes that shifted color between green, gold and blue in the light as he glanced around the docking bay, taking it in.

"Holy fuck," someone said, "he's hot." A second later Jensen realized that someone was him.

Nodding respectfully to Pileggi, he knelt down, and placed his helmet on the ground. Next, he reached toward his back, pausing his action as he saw the guards go on alert. Slowly, he removed the lasgun from his back and carefully placed it on the ground to the left of his helmet, his posture indicating a gesture of respect, or so the screencasts' experts said. Then he glanced at Pileggi for permission to continue.

At the governor's nod, the alien removed first his pistol and then both swords, as well two daggers that had been inset in his armored forearms, as the screencasts debated it as a potential gesture of trust or possibly a request to negotiate.

Once the weapons were displayed to his satisfaction, the alien pressed his hand to his heart, the touch causing his chest plate to separate into individual sections – chest, arms, gloves – which he then removed, piece by piece, placing them to the right of his helmet, until finally he stood bare from the waist up.

Somehow, Jensen thought, the lack of armor and weapons didn't make him any less threatening. There was something about him, some coiled intent in his lithe but muscular torso that chilled Jensen to the bone, that said he didn't need weapons or armor to destroy anyone who did not destroy him first.

Enemy.

Jensen shook his head. That was probably going a bit too far. Certainly no one else on the Mischief was reacting that way, especially not Sam, who merely whistled quietly and said, "That's right, take it all off," sounding almost disappointed when his pants and boots stayed on.

Circling above him, the cameras quickly zoomed in on his lone ornamentation – a pair of vivid green-and-black tattoos on his right shoulder that almost seemed to glow from inside. The top design was a circular starburst or meteor pattern with a crown inside it. Below it, there was a strange, half-circle geometric design.

The visitor gestured down at his armor and weapons, indicating them with his left hand and then raising it up in a fist to meet the crown on his right shoulder. Then he looked expectantly at Governor Pileggi.

The governor, in turn, looked expectantly at the head of his guard.

The guard looked back at Pileggi. After a moment, she lifted her faceplate with an expression like a woman on her way to her own funeral, and reluctantly removed her helmet, placing it and her gun at her feet. The rest of her squad followed after. Once all the weapons were on the ground, Pileggi awkwardly mimicked the gesture that the visitor had done.

Apparently, that was the right thing to do. Formalities somehow settled, the alien straightened to his full height, towering over Pileggi as he said… something… in his language, then waited for a response.

The governor apologetically conferred with his delegates, who looked nervously at each other at the alien, and then dispatched a guard on an errand.

"I'm sorry," Pileggi said. "Could you, um, repeat that?"

After a moment, the alien cocked his head and did so, looking a little surprised at the lack of response. What followed next was a slightly embarrassing game of "Do you speak…?" as each delegate tried to query the visitor, who simply shook his head at first calmly, then with growing frustration, at the language barrier.

Finally, the messenger guard came running back, holding up every explorer's reluctant last resort: a so-called universal translator.

If there was one thing that ancient science fiction authors had been overly optimistic about, it was the ability of technology to translate all languages instantaneously and flawlessly. Perhaps if the universe only operated on written communication, that might even have been true. When it came to multi-channel communication involving verbal and non-verbal components, however, the universal translator was… less than optimal.

Upon use, there was first a notable delay as the device ran the recorded dialogue through all of the 10,000 or so most common languages in known space. If none seemed appropriate, there would be a significantly longer delay while it queried the archives at Central and compared the words to the additional hundreds of thousands of lesser commonly known languages. After that, it would apply whatever language it had determined most appropriate to the rest of the conversation. Those occasions where the device came to a wrong conclusion had created many epic failures of communication in Jensen's lifetime alone, not to mention a handful of assassinations and at least two wars.

And that wasn't including the occasions like this one, where the device clearly couldn't find any linguistic match. In those undesirable circumstances, the translator would use its analytic function to, for better or worse, give its best guess, placing particularly loud emphasis on those words on which it was most definitive.

To Jensen's surprise, the alien nodded at the translator as if he had been expecting it.

The device hummed for a very tense few minutes, then announced, "Dialect unknown. Best translation follows: 'Yar Trisjar Red Pad'Alecki, cho Sonsot eh War, qelm voglechoja eh Rossjen Pad'Ack'liis, cho Shamot D'qum, fo qoeh quuc betrayed umja nelmoja. Mequ, feq'bol, y lodeyso, fubot voom canmoja vi cho D'qum geh chc kruso, your world. Y seno folo ym kouso, q'kemsc req'loja, varmolubro, ceh chug y nui locsao ni y'gomjoja um'ja jorybl g'qeh qelrjc hlen despair before all perish.'"

Before the translator had even finished its final pronouncement – "Probably of accuracy: 12.3 percent" –Pileggi's guards dropped down to one knee and retrieved their weapons, keeping their eyes on the alien  for any sudden gestures. The alien, meanwhile, merely crouched into a defensive position, eyes flickering between the guards, his swords, and the translator, with a wary but slightly confused look on his face.

Pale as a sheet, the governor stepped forward, hands raised in a gesture of peace. "Please, everyone, stay calm. I'm sure whatever is happening, we can talk this out. I'm sure this is just a big, uh, misunderstanding. Weapons down, everyone, we can work this out, I said-"

"Holy shitballs," Beaver said, muting the screen. "Did that guy just declare war on us by himself?"

"That can't be right," Chau muttered, hands once again skittering over the keyboard. Screen after screen popped up – the alien's tattoo, a map of the shatterworlds, the schematics of the translator.

"Well, thank god we're heading to Fergus then," Lisa said brightly. "If the world's ending, I'm gonna get plastered and laid first."

"I'll join you," Jensen, Sam and Chris all said in unison.

Chapter Text

As soon as the crew left the bridge, Osric popped open a line to the comspec channel that he and his fellow comms officers haunted when they had nothing better to do on deck – which was often, given the nature of delivery and transport within the quadrant. Usually it was just bullshitting or looking up weird facts about whatever planet or station they'd set down on, but he knew there'd be only one topic on their minds today, and for once, he was glad.

Beaver had said Osric would have three weeks of downtime to figure out the mystery of the Nox transmission. But after Nero Station, he was pretty sure the world didn't have nearly that long.

comspec chat log #932047733124-1122hg:

chau.o: Did you guys see that?
monroe.m: Sure did! Who knew aliens were hot.
mulligan.d: FAKE.
monroe.m: Still hot.
buckley.j: You say that about everything M.
westert: I'm w/M here.
chau.o: No I think he's right.
westert: SEE?
ishibashi.b: utrans is never that bad. it always gives some kind of answer.
chau.o: Exactly. It doesn't make sense.
bass.a: SABOTAAAAAGE.
mulligan.d: JUST WATCH. THEY'LL RELEASE SOME BULLSHIT DECLARATION OF WAR NEXT.
chau.o: Why?
bass.a: LISTEN ALL YALL IT’S A SABOTAAAAAGE.
bass.a: LISTEN ALL YALL IT’S A SABOTAAAAAGE.
bass.a: LISTEN ALL YALL IT’S A SABOTAAAAAGE.
westert: NE1 got current source on the UT?
bass.a: In B4 u. It's clean.
westert: Whatever's in Nox is the key.
monroe.m: Sign me up for the hidden world of hot guys.
ishibashi.b: scraping data at central. might be hax there.
buckley.j: Gonna deep dive c-theories on Nox. Get ready to deprog me if I start talking like M.
bass.a: 2 late.
westert: NE1 kno some1 on N3R0 w/eyes on the box?
chau.o: On it like a comet.
buckley.j: Cross-reference Nox and the shatterworlds. That armor...
ishibashi.b: I know, right?
monroe.m: Yeah, like, we've always assumed those worlds were lo-tech because it was so bulky, but judging by the body mass of the mysterious Mr. Hottie, maybe it was just made for people from a world with a heavier gravity, so they didn't need to worry about the weight. The thing is, if that's the case, then the other theories about a plague or some kinda lo-tech planet killer tech being the source of the destruction are... We might be looking at the remnants of an unknown hi-tech war instead.
bass.a: ...
buckley.j: ...
mulligan.d: ...
monroe.m: WTF guys, thirsting for alien D doesn't mean I don't have a brain.
westert: ...
bass.a: SABOTAAAAAGE.

"He did what?" Aldis Hodge slumped back in his chair in disbelief. "We've come so far and now this-" The researcher pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, pointedly not looking at the blonde man with the military haircut holding a frozen screencast about the incident at Nero Station. "What the hell was he thinking?"

Chad Michael Murray – the bearer of the bad news – shrugged and sat down opposite him, leaning back in the chair and putting his feet up on the desk. "I'm pretty sure he was thinking this is the only chance he's going to get, and he doesn't want to let it – him – slip through his fingers." He tapped on the screencast. "I can't say I blame him. "

"I don't care, Chad!" Hodge yelled, running his hand over his tightly curled afro. "It's a stupid risk. He is literally the key to all of this. If something happens to him-"

"Yeah, well, that's why I got authorization for you and me to get off this rock and go help him."

"For real?" Hodge looked up, startled. "Murray, if you are pulling my leg, I'm gonna-"

"No," the blonde man replied, looking him right in the eye. "Not a hoax. You've been bitching for years – looks like you got your wish. Let's go keep your precious key safe."

"Ten years on this rock for the so-called good of all mankind, hush-hush, top-security, no-one-can-know bullshit, and now they change their minds?" Hodge all but shouted. "Now, we get to go rejoin civilization?"

Murray nodded at the screencast. "Yeah, well, cat's outta the bag now, isn't it? I'm not saying we're gonna go give interviews to the press about what we're doing, but think- if he's really out there-"

Hodge whistled. "Then it's gonna be a brand new world soon."

Murray unlocked the bottom right drawer on his desk and pulled out his pistols. "And we won't be the only ones looking for him, either." He checked to make sure they were unloaded, then began to methodically clean each one while Hodge gathered up his datapad and research notes. "And if the wrong people find Ack'liis first…"

Hodge powered down his computer. "Then it'll be a brand new world war instead."

Elsewhere, a very different blonde man was busy sneering down at Curtis Armstrong, a mousy, overwrought man who was currently yelling, "No, you idiot! What are you doing?" at the computer screen in front of him.

"Talking to yourself again, Curt?" the blond - Mark Pellegrino - shoved the man's papers out of the way, intentionally making a mess as he perched on the edge of the desk.

"Yes, of course, Mark, I always talk to myself when I watch thirty-five years of hard work and dedication go down the drain. What the hell is happening here?" He wiped the nervous sweat off his brow with his sleeve, running more calculations on his keypad with the other hand as he did.

"Well," Mark Pellegrino said, reaching out and tipping over Armstrong's framed picture of himself, then looking a little disappointed when the glass didn't break. "Offhand, buddy, I'd say what's happening is that package you lost all those years ago has just resurfaced, and you're about to be in a lot of trouble. "

"I didn't lose it. It was all taken care of." Armstrong cursed. "Everything was perfect."

"Really?" He pointed to the footage from Nero Station. "Does that look perfect to you? Because it doesn't look like that to me." He put his hand on top of the picture he'd tipped over and leaned forward, enjoying the satisfying subsequent crack. "From where I'm sitting, it looks a lot like Central is about to find out exactly how you made all that money to buy your way into this cushy little office of yours."

Armstrong reached a trembling hand out towards his coffee, little droplets of liquid spattering on the desk as he raised it, shaking, to his lips. "Okay- this isn't- I can fix this." He took a deep drink and immediately choked as it threatened to go down the wrong pipe. More coffee slopped out onto the desk as he slammed the cup down. "DAMMIT!"

"I bought you time," Pellegrino said. "Couple of days head start, anyway. It'll take them that long to unsnarl the translator problems enough to talk to Pad'Alecki."

Armstrong took a deep breath and looked up at Pellegrino. "Okay. That's good. I can make that work. This all fixable. It- it is." He sounded like he was trying to convince himself most of all, eyes darting about the room like there was an answer to be discovered, before finally turning back to the man menacing him. "Tell-tell me how to fix this."

Pellegrino chuckled. "That's more like it, Curt." He tore off part of one of the coffee-stained papers and flipped it over, writing a series of digits on the back. "Find the package before they do, then call this number and ask for Collins. Pay him enough and he'll deal with it for you." He held the paper out to Armstrong. "No package, no problems, right?"

"Right." Armstrong took the paper and shoved it into his breast pocket. "Right, yes. I'll take care of it." He took another breath, sounding more sure this time. "I'll make it happen."

"You do that, Curt," Pellegrino said darkly. His eyes wrinkled as he smiled in a manner that was more threatening than reassuring. Then he stood up, straightening his clothes. "Good talk," he said dismissively, ignoring Armstrong's half-hearted goodbye as he left without a second glance.

Pellegrino strode down the hallway, whistling cheerfully as he passed office after office full of the Council's petty bureaucrats. Once he was alone in the elevator, he pulled out his phone and made a call of his own.

"Hey, Wade, I got a job for you. Collins is going to get a call about a job soon – I need you to shadow him, make sure he does the job right. If he doesn't finish it, you do it for him, and then finish him, too."

He smiled jauntily at the receptionist as he walked out the building. "Good afternoon, Gen! Lovely day, isn't it?"

comspec chat log #932047733124-1243hh:

buckley.j: NE1 around?
mulligan.d: WHATUP.
buckley.j: So get this, remember how there used to be a T.I.I.R. about Nox?
buckley.j: So now instead of "This information is restricted" there's this bullshit about some planet that declined to obey central and set up the drone field themselves to keep *us* out.
mulligan.d: SO? WALK IT BACK. GOTTA BE A BACKUP SOMEPLACE. THE NET SEES ALL.
buckley.j: Yeah, but like, it's *all* restricted notices. All the way back to the last data dump point... and then it's some bullshit about being cordoned off because of a plague and Central setting up the drone field.
mulligan.d: DIFFERENT LIE, TRYNA KEEP FOLKS FROM PANICKING.
westert: Think Pileggi woulda met him helm-off if he was plagued?
buckley.j: So either someone told him something, or that's a lie too.
bass.a: Fuck M was right.
mulligan.d: VINDICATION

"Lieutenants Nemec and Heafey… so good of you to join me." Governor Pileggi grimaced at his empty wine glass and moved to refill it, then thought better and just lifted the bottle to his lips, draining it in one gulp before continuing. "As you are well aware, in under six hours Nero Station will be besieged by a cadre of scientists, linguists, historians, and epidemiologists, not to mention the top-tier team of negotiators, translators and Council officials coming from Central. And you can bet there'll be screencasters and journalists there, clinging to their sides like the leeches they are, clamoring for a story for the next edition."

He looked mournfully at the empty bottle and tossed it unceremoniously in the trash. "So please, from the top, tell me again exactly how the two of you managed to misplace the one man on this station for whom your sole responsibility was making sure he stayed still and not trying to figure any of this mess out until Central's team arrived."

The guard captains winced.

Nemec stepped forward. "Well, as you know, sir, before the alien's arrival, we had ascertained that the initial transmission to Nox was triggered by the presence of a routine blood analysis conducted at the scene of a public disturbance at one of the prominent spacer drinking establishments. Upon closer analysis, we found some unusual genetic markers in the blood that could not be identified."

"Skip to the part where you tell me things I don't know," Pileggi grumbled.

Nemec took a deep breath. "The translator – we still haven't been able to identify the difficulties that are causing the garbled translation, but Lt. Heafey –" he gestured to the woman next to him "-suggested that we show the alien the 3D model of the DNA that we'd reconstituted from the blood sample, to gauge his reaction and record anything he said for later translation. So we would, er, have more to show to Central when they arrived."

Heafey nodded reluctantly. "When we showed it to him, he seemed very excited, like it meant something to him. So after some-"

"-a LOT of-" Nemec cut in, earning a disgruntled stare from Heafey, who then continued, "-a LOT of back-and-forth pantomiming, we figured out that he wanted to see the spacers who'd been involved in the disturbance since it belonged to one of them. That would be the crews of The Mischief and the God Complex. We have not been able to reach the Mischief, but the God Complex is still docked."

After sharing a look with Heafey, Nemec took over. "We weren't expecting the level of… enthusiasm… with which he received this news."

Pileggi had seen that part of the footage from the station's cameras. When the guards accompanying him refused to take him to visit the God Complex – what a name for a ship, that – and tried to return him to the very nice rooms Pileggi had dedicated for his comfort during his stay, the man had tossed aside all three like they were children, then stormed out of the room and down toward the docking bay.

"And how did he know where to find the ship?"

The two guards exchanged glances again. "I think he just… figured it out," Heafey said finally. "He doesn't speak the common tongue, but he seemed to have little trouble navigating the station."

"It's possible he's had some exposure to our culture before this," Nemec volunteered.

Pileggi's frown soured at the speculation. "Let's hope not, or this is going to get a lot more complicated than it already is." He looked mournfully at the empty wine bottle. "Besides, where the hell would he have done that? That sector's been dead for eons."

"He'd already spoken – mimed – whatever – to Benedict's crew by the time we got there. Apparently, he took one look at their crew and decided none of them were what he was looking for, so that asshole second of Benedict's, the short guy with the bad mustache –"

"Richard Speight," Heafey filled in.

"-well, he somehow got into Nero's system and pulled up the mugshots from the fight that night, and get this-" Nemec typed on his datapad. "That translator message about Rossjen Pad'Ack'liis?" The pad popped up a hologram of a man with brown hair, green eyes and an obviously broken nose. "Meet the navigator of the Mischief, Jensen Ackles. Sound a little familiar?"

"The Mischief left port after the transmission went out, correct?" Pileggi didn't like the picture that was emerging. "Seems very convenient. Check any communications records we have from the time they were docked. If there's collusion, find it."

Nemec nodded and made a note in his datapad.

Pileggi pressed his fingers against his forehead, trying to forestall the migraine that was gathering. "And then what?"

Heafey coughed into her fist, looking uncomfortable. "At that point, the alien departed from the station in his ship. The guards who saw him were unable to detain him, but we are happy to say they did not sustain any permanent damage."

Permanent damage. The alien had disarmed and disabled their armor almost faster than the cameras could track, then knocked them cold with what looked like nothing more than the flick of his wrist.

"We didn't pick up his ship on the sensors until after it was off-station," Heafey said. "His ship must have had some kind of cloaking device that he hadn't bothered to activate until then."

"Fuck," Pileggi swore heavily. "Did anyone see him leave?"

"Negatory," Nemec said. "That docking bay was still off-limits to general personnel. Only the guards on rotation know what happened, and possibly the crew on the God Complex."

Pileggi straightened up. "Fine. In that case, seal off the docking bay and tell Benedict we'll impound his ship if he says anything to anyone. Officially, Pad'Alecki is still here. Squash any rumors to the contrary." He paced pensively over toward the window that opened onto the starfield above Nero. "Where was the Mischief headed?"

Heafey consulted her notes. "Fergus CR, sir. Cargo is exotic fruits and vegetables, all on the acceptable import list."

Fergus, Pileggi thought bitterly. Of course it had to be there. The station was located on a moon that orbited one of the oldest planets in the quadrant. If the Mischief actually docked at the port itself, the situation could be easily resolved. If Ackles fled to the overpopulated, urban sprawl that covered the planet below – there were hundreds of billions of people living there. If the alien decided to declare war on it over Ackles-

"Bring the manifest to me, along with everything you've got on Ackles. I'll notify Director Morgan about this. With any luck, Central can intercept both of them at Fergus before this becomes an interstellar incident." Pileggi crossed his hands behind his back, looking out at the stars. "And trash that translator while you're at it. That piece of junk is useless."

comspec chat log #9320477331348-8943z0s:

buckley.j: OSRIC.
buckley.j: CHAU.
buckley.j: WTF IS CHAU NE1 HAVE COMM.
monroe.m: What's up?
buckley.j: Nero backchat is what's up.
mulligan.d: ...
mulligan.d: WTF?
mulligan.d: CHAU
bass.A: YO CHAU
buckley.j: Someone get ahold of Chau. INCOMING.

Captain Lehne was alone on the bridge and three days away from Fergus CR when the Mischief received a tight-band call from Nero Station. It was third watch – the time he most preferred to be on duty, when the deck was free of the crew's inane chatter.

He looked down at the call, deliberating on whether he really wanted to answer it. After the recent tumultuous events, whatever the call heralded was probably something he didn't want to hear. On the other hand… something gut instinct told him to answer. He just didn't know why.

Finally, curiosity won out. "Mischief here, Captain Lehne speaking."

"Freddy, hey, this is Captain Benedict on the God Complex. I can't talk long, but look – your guys took the fall for mine back in the bar, so this makes us square. That guy who arrived on Nero Station – Trisjar Padasomething – they're being all hush-hush about it, but he's looking for something… and I'm pretty sure whatever it is, your navigator – Ackles – has got it."

Lehne chuckled. "Thank you, Rob. I very much appreciate your forethought. Consider us very much 'square'."

He broke the transmission and then sat back, drumming his fingers as he thought.

The first priority was delivering their cargo. Not only would it net the crew a large payout, but failing to do so would blow a serious hole in the ship's budget. More important than that, however, were the zifarian diamonds carefully layered inside one of the crates of fruit, which would net him personally a much larger profit and open doors that he had been very patiently working on for a very long time.

The second priority was Ackles, whatever strange alien nonsense he was caught up in, and whether Lehne could turn that, too, to profit.

Continuing to Fergus CR was risky if the alien decided to come after them. The moon was a pleasure destination, rich in vices, low on any kind of large military force outside of the individual security forces that a lot of the casinos, resorts and other leisure-based enterprises maintained. Far below the moon, the planet it orbited was a desperate slum, full of people too poor or uneducated to get off-planet, and the bloated ticks who profited off their misery. It was filthy, overcrowded – and the perfect place to get lost if need be.

What Fergus also had was a thriving shadow economy. At any time, you were practically guaranteed to be able to get the ear of at least a handful of major quadrant-wide criminal operations, three or four of whom kept their headquarters hidden in the planet-side slums below. And all of them had deep pockets and a penchant for finding interesting and unique items that they could add to their exclusive collections, never to be seen again, or resell at auction to the highest bidder.

Whatever Ackles had gotten his hands on at Nero had started a chain of events that had the eyes of the entire quadrant watching them… which automatically made it interesting and desirable… and something that would go for a hell of a lot more than zifarian diamonds.

Ahhh. A faint smile played along Lehne's lips. So that was what his gut was telling him. It was a gamble, especially since he didn't know exactly what it was Ackles was holding… but it was a potentially insanely lucrative gamble. If he played his cards right, he might even be able to buy himself a much higher place at the table and start a collection of his own. He just had to figure out what it was, and how to make Ackles part with it.

But first…

He opened up a private channel to a number on Fergus that he knew by heart.

"Heyerdahl speaking."

"Christopher. This is Fredric Lehne. I have a proposition for you."

Chapter Text

The alarm on Jensen's comm unit dragged him shrilly out of what had been potentially the most erotic dream of his life. He fumbled towards the button to answer it, trying desperately to remember the quickly vanishing images of yellow-blue-green eyes and long, powerful fingers as the dream evaporated into consciousness.

"Ackles here. What's up?"

The comm crackled back. "Lehne here. I need you to take over on the bridge. My dinner does not appear to be agreeing with me."

Fuck. Well, there was nothing to be done for it. "Be there in ten, sir."

Ignoring his unhelpfully bobbing erection, he staggered over to the clothes he'd worn the night before and sniffed them to make sure they weren't too rank. They were a little wrinkled, he decided, and smelled a touch like Lisa's bottle of gin, but they'd do. He stopped in the bathroom and splashed some water on his face, wishing again that the wake-me-ups Chris was so fond of after late drunken nights did anything for him. Then he stumbled to the lift that led to the bridge.

Lehne barely nodded at him before hurrying off, and Jensen made a mental note to check the food replicators in the morning to make sure they weren't malfunctioning. God knows it happened often enough. He thought longingly of the fruits carefully stored in the hold, each preserved in their stasis pod at the peak of freshness, to be sold for the exorbitant fees that only organic, non-replicated foods could command.

On the other hand, most of those fruits costs the equivalent of three or four short-haul payouts for him, so… replicated food from recycled molecules it was.

A blinking red light on the sensors console snapped him out of his musings. They wouldn't reach Fergus for another five hours – the cratered remains of the large, dead red planet were still blocking it from view. So what-?

It was a ship.

There was a ship approaching, where there shouldn't be a ship, because first of all, that was impossible until they had both entered hyper together and that had most assuredly not been the case, and even if it wasn't impossible, it was still cataclysmic because the slightest error in either ship's nav plots could send them hurtling fatally into each other.

He ran a quick diagnostic on the sensors. It was probably just some strange input error, misreading something like an asteroid or a floating chunk of the destroyed planet below it that hadn't yet been mined to pieces.

He yawned and scratched his head until the program dinged a notification: Diagnostics complete. Systems 100% operational.

The ship was still there. Within sensory range, but outside any of the Mischief's cameras. Not that it mattered; Jensen was sure it was the alien. It had to be. Nothing else made sense.

He leaned over and pressed the comm to Beaver's unit, keeping his eyes on the sensors the whole time. "Jim, sorry to disturb you at this hour, but we've got a situation and Captain Lehne wasn't feeling well. I think-"

There was a strange ringing sound, like a bell ringing, but distorted and folded in upon itself, folded and folded and folded and-

"Say again, Ackles? … Ackles? Jensen, kid, you there?"

There was no one on the bridge to answer.

Fred lifted up Ackles' mattress again just to be sure, feeling on the bottom for any possible hidden slits or out-of-place lumps. He'd searched the navigator's quarters thoroughly, but there was nothing out of the ordinary – nothing that could explain-

BAM BAM BAMBAMBAMBAM

The pounding on the door gave him just enough time to drop the mattress back into place and school his face into an expression of concern. As he turned around, the door slid open, revealing Osric's panicked face.

"He's not here," Lehne said gravely, letting the young man's assumptions fill in the blanks.

Chau had clearly been dragged out of a sound sleep – he was glad in pajama bottoms and an unbuttoned, hastily donned shirt, with no shoes or socks. He was babbling something about blood and fighting and-

"Osric," he interrupted sternly. "Summarize, please."

Instantly, the stream of babble stopped. The young Asian man stood up straighter, running his hand through his hair.

"I've heard back from my friends on Nero. They know what the alien is looking for now."

"Yes, yes, I know," Lehne said irritably, gesturing at the quarters around them. "But whatever he stole, it's clearly not here. I think-"

"No, that's wrong, that's not it at all," Osric said. "Pad'Alecki's not looking for an item, he's looking for a person. He's looking for-"

"Jensen," Lehne breathed out. Well, that definitely made things more interesting.

"Yeah," Osric nodded at him. "Only thing is, I think he's found him, because I can't find Jensen anywhere on the ship."

One minute Jensen was leaning on his nav console, trying to wrap his head around the impossible. The next minute, he was falling forward as the console disappeared – along with the rest of the bridge. He staggered forward for a second, expecting to fall, but caught himself in time.

Where the hell was he? A second later, he knew: somehow, he was on the other ship.

Part of him was excited to be on board an actual, alien vessel. The technology to have accomplished everything that was happening had to be incredible. The other part of him was confused as hell… because something in him knew this ship. The room he was in – small but spacious, round, with a door on the far side – had to be the transportation reception chamber. Which meant that he'd find the transmission console nearby, probably on the other side of the hallway from – he opened the door to check, and yep, opposite this room. And whoever was inside…

He skirted away from that in his head. He knew the ship had at least one inhabitant; might as well scout for any others. To the left and up a ladder would be the bridge, big enough for a crew of three, but pilotable by one if need be. To the right would be the crew's quarters. He chose left, slipping quickly down the hallway, one ear tuned for the sound of a door opening behind him.

It was a little bit of a relief to confirm that the bridge looked relatively familiar. The consoles were covered in glyphs that almost made sense to him, the numbers and images rearranging themselves inside his head like a puzzle, unlocking – but before the puzzle could finish, a piercing pain split his mind, making him look away. It vanished as soon as he did.

Even more of a relief was the fact that he could see the Mischief from the panoramic windows that wrapped the bridge, giving him a 360-degree view of the starfield zooming past them. He walked forward, lost in the beauty of the endless colors that filled the spaces in-between the stars in hyperspeed.

Some nameless instinct told him to raise his hand towards the screen. He pointed at the Mischief, and the screen instantly responded, zooming in until the ship filled the screen. That same strange alphabet began to appear over different points of the ship – the cargo hold door, the turret gun Chris used to knock asteroids out of the way, the forward sensor array. He turned away and the original view returned. Fascinated, he lifted his hand and pointed towards what he thought was a random star. More symbols appeared – probably a name and a distance, from the format. He pointed towards the shattered red planet, and a wall of text appeared, many of the symbols blinking an ominous red. Small glowing boxes began to appear on the screen, outlining what he assumed were some of the endless rubble that would spell instant death for anyone daring to travel too close in hyperspeed. Soon the screen was filled with them, each tagged with its own symbols.

The level of detail was unheard of. Why, with this tech, it might even be possible to plot a course-

"Vouagyhar, ycm'g yg? Y ujelo yg ak folo."

The voice was strange, guttural and ugly. It made him drop his hand and leap forward, ready to flee. He spun around, back pressed to one of the screens, heart rabbiting in his chest like a scared geep.

He hated it.

The alien who'd landed at Nero Station stood at the entrance to the bridge. Gods, he was tall – way taller than he'd looked on the screencasts. Unlike then, he wore no armor, no weapons, just a simple pair of blueish green pants not unlike what Jensen was wearing, and a form-fitting black type of t-shirt that left little to the imagination. The fact that he was unarmed didn't make Jensen any more relaxed. There was something in the way he carried himself, poised and taut, that felt like a threat (a very hot threat, Jensen's mind traitorously added) that could erupt into violence at any time. He stood and moved in a way like at any moment, if the discussion turned angry, he could easily kill you with a thought.

For a moment, when the alien scowled at his flinch, Jensen even thought he might. Then the alien reluctantly pulled a battered oblong device – a portable version of a universal translator – out of one of his pockets and slammed it down, watching for it to light up.

Jensen glanced past the alien, to the hallway. No one else appeared.

 The alien stood up and did that strangely formal bow again. "Yar Trisjar Red Pad'Alecki, cho Sonsot eh War," the translator helpfully spit out.

Jensen mirrored the bow slightly. "Great to meet you, Yar, but uh- where I come from, kidnapping is a big no-no, so-"

The alien glared at the device, shook his head and said something. The translator whirred and repeated, "Meg yar. Trisjar Red-" He paused, and tried again, placing a hand on his chest. "Jar Red-" He tried again, each iteration accompanied by that damned pause before the translator. "Jarred. Jaahred. Jerred. Jared." He nodded, satisfied. "Jared-" pause- "Tristan-" The delay between his language and the translation was diminishing as the translator got used to it. "Jared Tristan Pad'Alecki, cho Sonsot eh War umja ieal husband."

That was a weird mistranslation, Jensen thought. Probably meant captain or something.

He smiled slightly. "Great, nice to meetcha, Jared. Since you had no problem yanking me out of my own ship a few minutes ago, I'm gonna assume you already know that I'm Jensen Ackles, pissed-off navigator of-"

The alien shook his head. He pointed sternly at Jensen. "Meh, yar meg Jensen Ackles." He snorted derisively. "Chug yuc meg ieal muno. Ieal muno fuc voom fyjjom hlen iea, uc iea fubo voom fyjjom hlen no. Iea ulo Rossjen Pad'Ack'liis. Iea ulo cho Shamot D'qum eh eal koekro, ni war bride, cho emo quoeco blood quyra ekom eal hagalo umja logalm ac geh cho cgulc. You are mine, uc Y un iealc. Uc eal blood will flow-"

Oooooookay, Jensen thought wildly. Husband – war bride – so… not a mistranslation, then.

"Look, I don't know who this Rossjen guy is you're looking for, but it ain't me, so if you don't mind-"

" Y'n jeot chyc ura qulemt. Ni muno yc Jared - Jared Tristan Pad'Alecki, ieal voglechoja. Ehhysyurai, cho Sonsot eh War." He gestured between the two of them. "Yg'c u quoero gygro chot, rypo iealc. D'qum umja Sonsot."

The alien strode forward. To Jensen's dismay, his muscles locked, freezing him in place with his back pressed against the screen behind him. He wanted to run, but he couldn't, all but pinned into place by his own damned fight-or-flight reaction. He used to joke that it came from being raised on a planet full of geep, but he'd had it his whole life.

The man stopped in front of him and pointed at his chest. "Jen. Sen. Ross." pause. "Pad'Ack'liis." Pause. "Jensen. Jensen." He pointed to himself. "Yar Jared, Pad'Alecki. Lea ulo Jensen, Pad'Ack'liis." His shoulders dropped a little, like he was dejected, and his tone softened – as far as horrible alien screeching and clicking could, anyway. " Umja… iea'lo reepot ug no rypo Y'n ymcumo."

Jensen sighed. "Yeah, whatever, look-"

The alien turned away from him abruptly, looking out into the hyperspeed fields. "Junnyg, Y fubo ceh naseh Y quumg geh gora iea, Y fuja chyc quoero ckooseh klokuloja, umja Y jem'g amjolcgumja quoi ura eh choco vrucgoja glumcrugelc ulo nurhamsgyuemot ceh vujri! Yg'c lyujyusareac! Y'bo ckomg ioulc quych ieal csyomgycgc umja choi fubo meh gleavro - vag yg jeocm'g nuggol. Y'bo voom quuygot hel iea ura ni ryho, you were made to be mine, rygolurai. Y cheatfg iea quolo jouja. Y cheatfg chyc - ac - quuc recg. Vag folo iea ulo. Y heamja iea. Y should have known I'd find you vogquoom cho cgulc."

The minute the alien's gaze wasn't on him, Jensen could move again. He walked casually back toward the consoles. "Yeah, vogquoom cho chugluc to you as well, but you've got the wrong guy."

Instantly, the man was back at his side, grabbing him by the hand and pulling them both down the corridor. Jensen's skin burned at his touch, but he couldn't pull away from his grip.

"Epui, chyc yc- chyc yc hyzuvro. Reep, Y'bo teg u tuloug leen louji hel iea, heeja, jlymp, regc eh gyno geh gurp umja tog geh pmequ ouseh echol vohelo cho quedding solonemi. Quo'ra dacg teh vusp geh Seuja umja Urjyc umja choi sum ozkruym obolichot, epui?" He dragged him excitedly down the hall toward the area Jensen had been sure held the crew quarters.

It looked more like some strange alien honeymoon suite. There was a huge bed in the middle – large enough for the alien to sleep on without hanging over the edge, which Jensen knew from experience was a pain in the ass. He looked again… large enough for two aliens. Or one alien and one… him.

The bed was hastily made up; the alien had clearly been sleeping in it earlier. Beyond it, he could see some kind of door to a shower in the far corner. Some of the alien's clothing was scattered on the floor, as well. Jensen watched with amusement as the man tried to surreptitiously kick them under the bed, like he hadn't dropped everything at a moment's notice to kidnap Jensen in the middle of the night some kind of weird alien matrimonial ritual that was absolutely not happening.

Jensen pulled up short, yanking his hand free. "First off, not your husband. Not your bride. Not your anything. And this-" he gestured between the alien, himself and the bed- "is not acceptable. Not now, not ever." Well, maybe if they'd run into each other at a bar and got on, he amended in his head, but definitely not like this. Not after being kidnapped off his own ship.

The alien's face fell. "Jem'g vo csuloja. Cholo'c mechot-"

He looked around, some kind of recognition dawning belatedly on his face. "Y pmequ, yg'c quoylja, Y usearja fubo cheatfg chyc chleatf nelo. Y dacg cheatfg - Y jem'g pmequ quoug Y cheatfg." He hung his head slightly, looking frustrated. "Ug cho boli roucg Y usearja meg fubo helteggom cho glumcrugel ym cho echol leen."

Jensen turned towards the hallway, wanting to get out of the bedroom before things got any weirder. "I'm telling you, you've got the wrong man." He pointed at himself and waved his hands in the universal "no" gesture.

The alien moved to block his path, waiting until Jensen retreated backwards into the room. Then he ran his hands through his hair and backed away, hands in the air. "Dacg jem'g - dacg jem'g teh. Quo'ra hytalo chyc eag." He pointed at the room, then at Jensen. "Cgui. Krouco."

And then he left, the unmistakable sound of a door locking behind him.

A second later, there was an echoing, metallic boom in the hallway and a bellowed, "Hasp!"

Jensen waited for a few minutes, listening at the door. As soon as he was sure the alien – Jared – was gone, he waved his hand over the panel by the door, trying to make it open. Nothing happened.

A deep-seated panic spread through him. He had to get out, had to get away. The alien was probably preparing to change course or whatever impossible hyperspeed maneuver he could somehow pull off. If he didn't get back to the Mischief now, who knew if he'd ever be seen again. His skin crawled at the idea of being trapped on the ship. He couldn't let that happen.

Jensen felt around the outline of the door, looking for something that his gut told him was there – an indentation, or something, a pressure point where – there! – where the door could be forced opened manually. He was half-relieved, half-hysterical when he found it, its existence raising far more questions about how he knew how the ship's archicture worked than it answered.

The lock is for privacy, his mind explained nonsensically. Privacy, nothing else, because we don't take prisoners. The failsafe is just in case-

The door slid open quietly as his fingers fit into the hidden recesses. He slipped into the hallway after confirming it was clear, ignoring the obvious fist-sized dent in the wall as he headed toward what he hoped were the transportation transmission controls. He could hear a sound that he somehow knew was the engines engaging as he reached what he presumed was the console.

Running on sheer intuition, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes, listening to his inner voice, fingers hovering over keys covered in incomprehensible symbols as he typed in information he couldn't understand, sequences that should send him back to the Mischief. Should. Unless they sent him straight into space instead.

He had to leave. Had to go get away get out now get out-

If he'd done it right, he had less than a minute to get to the transportation chamber across the hall. If he'd done it wrong- No, he thought calmly. He'd done it right. He just had to make sure- He reached under the console and grabbed the wires there, separating them until he found the right ones to yank ruthlessly out. The panel immediately went dark as green sparks danced across the exposed wiring.

The last thing he saw as he dove for the transportation chamber that would send him back to the Mischief was the alien sprinting down the hallway towards him, a look of panic and profound loss on his face.

And then there was the sound of bells, and he was back on the bridge of the Mischief, ignoring the commotion from his crewmates as he suddenly materialized in front of them. Instead, he shoved Chris out of the way, hands flying over the piloting station as he diverted as much power as possible to the warp engines.

"Good to have you back, Ackles," Captain Beaver said from the chair, his tone a blend of worry, relief and irritation. "Perhaps you'd like to explain exactly what in the hell just happened?"

Jared Tristan, Prince of the Alecki, the Sunset of War, looked at the sabotaged transportation console and smiled. He should be angry at the setback, he knew, but mainly, he was angry at himself, for acting so rashly when he knew better. Give him a squad, a conflict, a goal and he could devise a plan and execute it flawlessly. Give him something unstructured like this, however, and watch him fall over himself like a pup that had just found its legs.

But even though possibly the most important man in the universe was doing his best to fly as far away from him as possible at that very moment, he still smiled. Because there it was, confirmed on the console's frozen screen, the proof that he'd known in his heart the first time his eyes had met the bright green eyes of the man who had been his destiny since birth. No one but an Alecki or an Ack'liis could have operated his ship. It was literally coded into their blood. And he'd met him – spoken to him face to face.

"Jensen," he said, enjoying the way the name rolled off his lips. "Jensen Ross, Prince of the Ack'liis, my Shining Dawn. Where you run, I will follow. I will bring you home."

Chapter Text

Jensen looked at Lehne apprehensively. "Are you sure? I don't want to put anyone in danger."

Seated calmly across the conference table from him, Lehne nodded somberly. "Sometimes, Mr. Ackles, it is impossible not to end up there, nonetheless. Besides, the crew have been…" he glanced around the table at the rest of their shipmates, "most insistent upon this course of action."

Lehne tapped the globe the console on the table and waited until the holographic image of Fergus CR and its planet fully materialized. "You and Ms. Ferris will proceed down to the planet's surface in our shuttle."

He spun the slightly flickering model of the blue-and-green planet to one of the landmasses, tapping out a point on its eastern coast. "My associate, Mr. Heyerdahl, has agreed to shelter you until we can figure out how to smuggle you off-planet. He has some rather, erm-" his eyes glanced shiftily sideways and back again- "eclectic resources at his disposal that should help you safely disappear until the matter is resolved. The rest of us shall deliver the cargo to Fergus as planned, with Mr. Kane here serving as a passable decoy, at least from a distance."

"Chris-" Jensen started, readying all of the reasons why this was a terrible idea.

In response, his friend simply pressed a button on his watch, and his image flickered and twisted into a mirror of Jensen's face. "Shut it, Ackles. This is happening."

Beaver coughed. "Look, it's only temporary. I'm sure the folks at Central are hard at work figuring all this out."

Next to him, Lisa shrugged. " I still say you're running in the wrong direction. You've got a hot, mysterious alien who's clearly desperate to bang you. What's to figure out?"

Jensen scowled. "Funny, Berry. Ha-ha-ha."

Ferris smirked. "Don't worry, Ackles. I'll keep you safe from the big bad alien."

Pad'Ack'liis, his mind corrected. Not for the first time, he wondered what it meant.

"-the FUCK were you thinking?" Chad yelled through the comm unit. "Half the quadrant thinks you're declaring war on us, the other half think you're going to infect them with some ancient plague, and on top of all that you're telling me you managed to alienate the one guy whose opinion on all this actually matters!"

"Do you know," Jared said calmly, as if the blonde man hadn't said anything, "my people were made to fly between the stars, yet this is the first time since before I was born that one of us has been able to do so?"

"It's okay, Jared, we get it," the somber voice of Murray's partner, Aldis, crackled over the receiver.  "It's a-"

Jared stared at the starfield, feeling it thrum through his soul. "No, Aldis, I don't think you do. I had no idea before now what my forefathers gave up – voluntarily, I know, but for the sake of people who have all but forgotten us. I have lived a half-life until now, on the promise that one day-" he broke off his thoughts. What he had been about to say – what he was still thinking – Hodge and Murray might well interpret as a threat if it was uttered aloud.

Was it a threat? It might be. Jared wasn't sure.

After a moment, he continued. "Here's what 'the fuck' I was thinking, Murray," he said stiffly. "I was – foolishly, apparently – expecting that the same technology that allows me to converse with you would also allow me to converse with my intended as equals. I was expecting that the quadrant for whom my people have sacrificed their lives remembered us, remembered me, and what I represented, that the two of you were but the smallest cornerstone in an effort to solve our problem."

"C'mon, man, you haven't been forgotten," Aldis said. "You know how hard Murray and I have been working – we've been right there beside you for years, trying to fix this thing."

"That may be so," Jared said frustratedly, "but we are a people, not a thing, and we tire of waiting in darkness for a future that you have yet to deliver, year after year after year. Jensen Pad'Ack'liss is our future. He will bring the dawn."

He looked down at the planet below him, every inch of its green and blue surface covered in the glittering lights. Then he looked at the moon, the word's FERGUS CR spelled out in its surface in a dense urban grid, a moon port built one letter at a time to satisfy one man's ego, five letters still dark where his luck – and his money – had run out. Right before Jensen's ship had docked at the port, a small shuttle had broken away and headed to the planet. One of the ships was a decoy. But which one?

"There is only one path ahead. You and your people must find Jensen Ackles and return him to me so that we can be united. You have 24 of this planet's hours. If you do not find him –" He paused, aware of the finality of his words. "If you do not find him in 24 hours, I will call upon my people to help me find him. You know what that might entail. For my entire life, I have chosen to remain the Sunset, even after the Dawn was stolen away from me. But now, my people will have their sunrise… one way or the other."

He would find Jensen, and return his people to the stars where they belonged. It was the only option.

comspec chat log #9714926734434-1222zzt:

ishibashi.b: hold on to your butts, I got the dope on the utrans sit. It's a
ishibashi.b: V
ishibashi.b: I
ishibashi.b: R
ishibashi.b: U
ishibashi.b: S
chau.o: What?
monroe.m: What?
mulligan.d: utrans?
ishibashi.b: Yeah. Weird-ass ouroboros snake-eater one too. Tiny little packets swarming all over the place.
bass.a: Speaka de Englisse.
ishibashi.b: HOWBOUT U learn how to listen instead.
bass.a: For real, drop the know.
ishibashi.b: Someone stuck a snake on the utrans transmissions to-and-from Central. Real fucky-like. Picks out a few words to let slide, kills the rest.
westert: Badass. Any sig?
ishibashi.b: Still biting that tail.
chau.o: More important, do you have the real trans?
ishibashi.b: From Cent's ears to yours, I sure do. Stuck an ears-all on their in-and-outs and got the goods.
buckley.j: Spill it!
bass.a: Shaddup and let her.
ishibashi.b: Okay, so here goes:
ishibashi.b: "I am Jared Tristan, Prince of the Alecki,
ishibashi.b: "the Sunset of War, sworn betrothed of Jensen Ross,
ishibashi.b: "Prince of the Ack'liis, the Shining Dawn,
ishibashi.b: "he who was betrayed and mourned. Now, however,
ishibashi.b: "I rejoice, having been summoned by the Dawn
ishibashi.b: "to this place, your world. I come here in peace,
ishibashi.b: "weapons lowered, vulnerable, so that I may rescue
ishibashi.b: "my intended and deliver two worlds from despair
ishibashi.b: "before all perish."
monroe.m: Holy shit. Told you that alien was hot.
bass.a: Hey Chau you telling me you didn't know Ross was that Dawn guy?
chau.o: Not a fucking clue. He didn't know either.
chau.o: The guy just like, showed up and ported him right off the bridge.
buckley.j: Bullshit. Ports don't work that way.
chau.o: Swear-to-G, he did, and back again, too.
mulligan.d: Anyone else still processing that we're not on the brink of alien war after all?
buckley.j: Not really, no. I'm too busy processing this fucking big-ass bounty Central just slapped on your dude, Chau.
chau.o: WTF.
monroe.m: Don't be a dick J.
westert: Hey Chau you know if we split that six ways that'd still be enough to retire on right?
bass.a: Chau?

Not for the first time since the briefing had begun, Central Prime Director Jeffery Dean Morgan wished that he had decided against running for re-election for one more term.

"From the top… who is this guy and why do I care about him?" He leaned back in his chair and spun around in it, grabbing a cigar out of the box on his desk on one of the rotations.

"The briefing should be on your desk, sir," Aldis said. "If you just open it and turn to page three, you'll find a summary-"

Morgan unwrapped the plastic from the cigar. "Break it down for me." He carefully clipped the end of it, letting it fall on the unopened folder.

"The Alecki and the Ack'liis are a race of genetically created super-soldiers."

Morgan snorted. "How come I've never heard of 'em?" He clenched the cigar in his teeth and talked around it as he fumbled for his matches. "They can't be all that impressive if they're not in the history books."

Hodge gave a pained sigh. "Like I told you, sir, because of the level of potential threat they represent, their existence and history have been extremely classified."

Morgan spun his chair around to face the screen, smiling as he found the matchbox and pulled it out of his pocket. "Declassify it then. You've got thirty seconds to make me care before my next appointment gets here."

Hodge tried again. "Again sir, the folder-"

"Twenty-five seconds." Morgan struck the wooden match against the box and raised it up to the end of the cigar.

Hodge's shoulders drooped. "You know the shatterworlds?"

"Yeah?" Morgan said, cupping the flame against the end of his stogie, "what of them?" He sucked in.

"…They shattered them."

If the scientist took any glee at Morgan's coughing fit after that, he kept it to himself, only giving into a smug smile as the director actually began to read the file.

"I don't know," Lisa laughed, "you wanna make it convincing, you gotta bow those legs of yours a lot more." She ran her scanner over the pallet in front of her a final time, making sure the contents matched, then stood back and watched as the truck carrying it disappeared deeper into the warehouse.

"Are you nuts?" Chris asked. "Legs aren't meant to bend like that in the first place! I've got no idea how Ackles does it." It was a little disorienting, he thought, seeing Jensen's face in place of his own every time he saw his reflection.

Lisa dusted off her hands as she looked into the Mischief's empty cargo bay. "That's the last of the payload. You think we've been out here with our thumbs up our asses long enough to throw off the scent?"

Chris laughed. "I sure as hell hope so, because this is boring as shit."

Lisa shrugged. "It's just one alien dude, right?" She dropped her scanner back into its holster. "Let's close up here and check in with Beaver. You owe me, like, all the drinks after this."

"One drink, at most," Chris haggled. "Although really, since I did all the work while you just scanned 'em in, you're the one who oughta be buying me the drinks tonight."

She elbowed him lightly and laughed. "Nice try Ch- Ackles."

Neither of them noticed the shadowy figure that trailed along behind them from a safe distance.

Or the less-shadowy figure that trailed along behind that one, either.

Chapter Text

Jensen looked back at the shuttle apprehensively. It blended in well enough with the other shuttles in the bay, but it didn't seem right to just abandon it there. He didn't like being grounded, but there really wasn't any other option.

"Don't second-guess yourself, Ackles," Sam warned him. "Once we get to Heyerdahl, you'll have some downtime to figure out what you want to do next. Who knows, maybe once they can figure out the right translator for that Pad'Alecki dude, you might even want to go with him." She kept her posture loose, her eyes solely on Jensen as they walked – just two down-on-their-luck shmucks, wandering down a half-deserted street, trying not to stand out or catch the eye of anyone unlucky enough to be living in these buildings.

Jensen thought about the ease with which he'd been able to understand how the ship worked and wished, not for the first time, that that ease had extended to understanding its captain, too. On the other hand…

"Thanks, but I'm really not a fan of the whole kidnapping-as-a-form-of-getting-to-know-me thing, you know?" He stamped his feet, trying to keep warm. "Let's just… find that car Lehne said would be waiting so we can get to that friend of his."

Ahead at the end of the street, a black limousine pulled to a stop, looking ludicrously out of place as it flashed its lights at them while a digital billboard overhead flickered between news stories and advertisements for massage parlors and strip clubs.

"That's gotta be it," Sam said. "So much for keeping a low profile?"

Jensen shrugged and started forward. "You know, I don't care right now. I just want to get somewhere where I can get some actual food and about a gallon of booze in me. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to getting wasted and not having to think about any of this craziness for, like, a week. I just need some time to get my head together, y'know?"

"Uh… about that…" Sam said, staring at the digital billboard as a new story flickered into view. A huge picture of Jensen was flashing on it, with something about a million-cred bounty for his 'safe apprehension'.

"You've got to be kidding me!" Jensen pulled the hood of his jacket further down around his sunglasses, glad that he hadn't had time to shave for several days. "What the actual fuck!"

Sam whistled. "I don't think you're gonna have that long to figure things out. At that price, hell, even I'm tempted-" she laughed at Jensen's stricken expression. "Just kidding." Then she glanced back at the limo, her smile fading into contemplation. "Seriously, though, who sends a limo to a rundown shithole like this?"

The hunger pangs in Jensen's stomach suddenly curdled into discomfort. There were only two kinds of people who would bring an expensive car into an area like this: idiots on the cusp of getting robbed and/or carjacked, and people who had nothing to fear because no one would think of interfering. Someone with power.

Someone who would care more about that price tag floating over Jensen's face than any friendship with his captain.

The closer they got to the limousine, the stronger Jensen's anxiety became. He inclined his head toward Sam, heart rabbiting, and grabbed her elbow. "I think you're right, Sam. I don't like this. Look, just… follow my lead. There's an alleyway about half a block after we turn the corner, and a second alley intersecting that."

She looked at him sharply, but didn't object.

"I just… want to see what they do, if we do something they don't expect," he said defensively. In response, Sam just leaned her head against Jensen's shoulder and widened her eyes, letting her expression melt into a smile that he would have believed real if he didn't know better.

As soon as they were out of sight of the limo, Jensen broke into a half-run, dragging Sam along with him. Sure enough, a few seconds later he heard the limo's engine turning over. They were in the alley by then, but he risked a peek around the corner just in time to see the limo slow to a hover and a man in a black suit climb out, a small laser pistol held close to his body.

He yanked his head back and waved for Sam to follow him into the second alley. Then, acting on instinct, he pushed her out of sight in the doorway behind them.

We're not here, he thought. Just a blank door. You can't see us.

A minute later, the man with the gun walked by them without even giving the doorway a second glance. He strode to the end of the alley and looked around, then walked past them again back towards the limo, speaking into some kind of earpiece. "I lost them, sir. … No, I'm not sure what happened … Yes sir, we'll keep looking … Yes, sir, I am aware of the money at stake-"

Jensen stayed frozen in place until the limo's engines faded in the distance. It was only when Sam coughed that he realized he should move.

Sam put her hand on his arm when he moved to walk back towards the street. "What was all that back there, Jensen?"

He looked at her curiously. "What do you mean?"

She gestured around them. "The alley – and the doorway – and that guy just walking past us! I thought you'd never been down here before."

He shrugged. "I haven't."

Sam pursed her lips disbelievingly. "Then how'd you know it was here?"

That was… huh. He fell back against the building, mind whirling. "Sam, I have no idea."

Misha Collins sat in the furthest booth, nursing a coffee as he watched his target, who was currently throwing back shots with his crewmate at the bar. The man seemed blissfully unconcerned with the fact that he had a million-cred bounty on his head – or perhaps just unaware, since this bar had no newscast scrolling in it. The man also seemed unconcerned with the number of shots he'd been tossing back, most likely because they contained one of the mildest alcohols served at the bar.

He'd been contracted to kill Ackles, but that was out of the question. 50K in credits for the kill versus a million for the capture? Fuck the hit his reputation might take for throwing the contract; business was business, but this… this was a retirement fund. He ran his thumb over the number on the flyer.

Of course, there was that other matter to take care of, first. Collins dropped a credstick on the table to cover his tab and headed for the bathroom, then pulled out his pistol and slipped a tranq shot in.

Like clockwork, the man who'd been shadowing him pushed open the door cautiously. He'd barely had time to notice the barrel of Collins' gun before the tranq was embedded in his neck. A second later, his eyes rolled up in his head.

"Buddy, you are not as subtle as you think you are. I've had you clocked since yesterday." Collins reholstered his gun, then plucked the pistol out of the other man's hands and pocketed it. "Let's get you someplace more comfortable."

He slung his arm under the man's armpit and half-dragged him into the last stall. He posed him like he'd passed out on the toilet, using his belt to tie him upright so he wouldn't fall off. Then he patted the man down, pocketing his credits and ID.

"Gimme that big meaty paw of yours, Mr. … Wade, is it?" He grabbed the man's hand and swiped his thumb across the phone to unlock it. "I know, I know, your friends call you Travis, but you and me-" he winked at the unconscious man, "we're not friends."

He checked the last number that had called Wade's phone and scowled. "Predictable as ever, Pellegrino. Well, I guess that makes this next move even easier."

He glanced out the bathroom door, making sure that Ackles was still at the bar, then pulled out his own phone and started to dial the number on the flyer. And then he paused as a faint shimmer seemed to run over Ackles' profile.

A holoface.

"Oh, you dumb motherfuckers." He holstered his gun. "Must be a hell of a guy to be worth getting shot over." Collins sighed and looked down at the flyer ruefully. "See that, Wade?" he asked the unconscious man rhetorically, nodding at the fake Ackles drinking at the bar. "That's my million creds getting pissed down the drain. Looks like neither of us is getting paid tonight."

He went to crumble up the flyer when a paragraph in much smaller print caught his eye. -offering 50k in credits to anyone with useful information-

A pleased smile spread across his face. "Well, well, well. Looks like it's a good day after all."

Collins dialed the number.

Chris was tossing down his fifth shot of the evening when he felt that familiar chill on the back of his neck, like he was being watched. He leaned in towards Lisa and tilted his head slightly. "We got an audience?"

She did her best to look around subtly. "I'm…" she pursed her lips. "I'm not sure. I thought we might but I don't see him n-"

Chris followed her eyes as she trailed off, but didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

"Ah, there you are!" They both jumped as a man with dark hair and blue eyes suddenly materialized out of nowhere. "Ms. Berry, and the man who is definitely not Mr. Ackles! A pleasure to make your acquaintance."

Chris tensed for a fight. "About time."

The man put his hands up. "I'm not here to fight, I'm here to help." He saw the skeptical look Chris was giving him and nodded. "Well, fair enough, I was here to kill your friend, but the situation's changed."

Lisa leaned in close and said, "I've got a Safe-Way-Home shock prod in my pocket pointed right at you, Mr.-"

"Collins," the man said mildly. "Dmitri, but you can call me Misha."

She jabbed her pocket in his direction. "Give me one good reason I shouldn't just shock your ass and leave you here."

Misha smiled. "I can give you two. One, I know the name of the person who tried to hire me to kill your friend. And two…" he held up the flyer and then nodded at Chris. "You're out in public, wearing the face of a man with a million-cred bounty on his head, and I know a back way out of this bar."

"Say," Director Morgan said, dropping the pages back down on his desk, "what's all this stuff about betrayal and Ackles that keeps coming up? Who betrayed who?"

Aldis rubbed the bridge of his nose. "We don't exactly know sir. But… there's a good chance it was us."

"What?!" Morgan said up straight.

Aldis spread his hands. "It goes like this. You've got two worlds constantly at war, super-advanced technology, the works. One of 'em gets in their head to create their own superpowered army. The other finds out and does the same. They both go all out on their creations – genetically enhanced, knowledge literally programmed into their DNA, created for heavy gravity warfare and space exploration. Tons of industrial espionage means every time one world gets an idea, the other one has it right after. They make them fanatically loyal by also hardwiring in the inability to communicate with the enemy, or any of the other races they're currently at war with, which is pretty much all of them. And they add in a kind of subconscious hive-mind; if one gets hurt, they all react like they got attacked, and they all know who did the attacking."

Morgan snorted, pouring out two shots of whiskey and handing one to Hodge. "So why aren't they running the world?"

"Honestly?" Hodge leaned back, sipping his whiskey. "Too evenly matched. Even with their armies, neither side could get a clear advantage. Whole lotta other worlds got taken out in the cross-fire, though. Then some genius on one side decides to use a plague to wipe out the enemy all at once. And it works. Except there's that whole industrial espionage problem they never solved, and the plague gets released on both of their worlds, and then all of a sudden the only folks left are the super-soldiers because fuck they universe, it turns out they're immune to the plague."

Morgan poured them each another shot. "So that was the betrayal?"

"No." A deep voice behind them spoke up. "That came later."

Aldis stood up hastily, eyes a little wild. "Prime Director Morgan, I'd like to introduce you to Jared Tristan Pad'Alecki." He leaned in towards the man who had just entered and hissed, "I thought we agreed you would stay on the ship."

Jared inclined his head. "I changed my mind."

Chapter Text

"Why are you placing this on me?" Lehne grumbled into the comm unit in his room. "I practically gift-wrapped him and delivered him to you, Heyerdahl. You're the one that lost him."

The man on the vid screen narrowed his eyes. "He was right there and then he just – vanished. Someone must have tipped him off. If you're double-crossing me for to get that bounty, I'll rip your ship apart myself."

"Don't be ridiculous," Lehne spit out. "You and I both know the only thing that bounty did is raise the opening bid to two million. I-" he paused, a strange look on his face. "Hold on. Apparently, he's calling me."

He glanced in the mirror, screwing his face into a look of worried concern before answering the call. "Jensen, are you okay? When Christopher told me you didn't show at the drop-off point, I was concerned."

"Yeah, about that," Sam Ferris's face filled the screen, "How well do you know him?"

"He's always been trustworthy in our dealings," Lehne said. "I asked him to show you his best hospitality on my behalf. However, the situation has changed."

Jensen scowled. "Yeah, there's a bounty on my head now somehow."

"No, no, my boy, this is a great opportunity. That bounty is from Central itself. Jensen, if you return to the ship, we could claim the bounty and get you the government's protection while this whole thing is, er, figured out. It's a perfect win-win situation – and just think how much good that bounty could do split between the cr-"

"You know… thanks but no thanks," Jensen said. "I think I've got this." The signal went dead.

Lehne opened the comm back to Heyerdahl. "I've got him. Sending you the coordinates now. Try not to fuck it up this time. Don't forget, we're splitting this 50-50."

In the hallway outside of Lehne's quarters, Osric Chau froze, one hand still raised to knock while he processed what he'd just heard. Then he quietly pivoted and walked back in the direction he'd come from, his mind racing.

Jared looked at the strangely rumpled man who was apparently responsible for overseeing Central and its government, and tried not to feel dismayed. He smelled of smoke and alcohol, his chin was covered in unevenly shaved stubble, and his shirt wasn't buttoned properly.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said. "It was a perfectly logical solution. The Alecki and the Ack'liis could not meet – we were already at war, and we were not created with the ability to 'stop' being at war. Nor could we turn to any of the races we had previously met – those we had not decimated in war were nonetheless demarcated as enemies. It was only our good fortune to encounter an expedition of your scientists, sent to study the plague that had killed our creators. We were not at war with you, so we could ask for your help."

"That's the thing," Hodge said excitedly. "In the end, it was all about loopholes. The people who created them were geniuses, but they weren't perfect. Neither the Alecki nor the Ack'liis were endowed with the ability to procreate, because that might introduce mutations. So they figured out that if they created a new member of each species, they might be able to alter the genetic programming. They made them babies –"

"Because they couldn't attack each other on sight," Morgan gesticulated wildly with his whiskey, not caring if it splattered. "And the whole marriage thing-"

"We have to share our blood," Jared said quietly. "It was intended to be symbolic, joining our separate people together as one. As the blood mingled, our programming would be assimilated and spread to our people. The only problem was-"

He paused long enough that Morgan filled it in. "That pesky betrayal."

Jared frowned. "There were – factions – that didn't want peace. Insurgents among my own people attacked the ceremony midway, killing the scientists and everyone involved in the ritual. Until a few days ago, we believed Jensen had been killed as well."

Hodge leaned forward and took the whiskey out of Morgan's hands as Jared continued. "The attackers made sure that Jensen had received my blood before they attacked. With the ceremony incomplete, the Ack'liis are unable to take any significant action to defend themselves, while the Alecki remain on the brink of war."

Hodge nodded. "We've been trying to reverse engineer the process that created Jensen ever since, but with the scientists dead and their notes destroyed, and only a very small number of people in the know at any time to avoid accidentally triggering them to be at war with us, which is why-"

Morgan crowed, "-which is why you want Jared back on his ship and he doesn't want to be there. Man, I'm great at figuring this stuff out."

Hodge pressed his lips together and nodded. "You sure are. Hey, I notice the whiskey's empty. Why don't you go get us another one?" He waited until the politician had wandered off drunkenly before pulling out his phone.

"Chad, tell me you've got something."

"Oh, I've got something, all right," his partner yelled over the unmistakable sound of weapons firing.

Jensen dodged back around the corner as a shot rang past him. "Will somebody please tell me what the hell is going on?"

Chris looked up at him from the ground where he sat pressing a cloth into the sluggishly bleeding pistol burn on his upper arm.

"Osric found out that Lehne set you up to get auctioned off to the highest bidder. He called us with the coordinates, and we got down here as fast as possible to find you and Sam the prize in a three- no, four-way fight over who gets the bounty that's also on your head for some unknown reason."

Jensen scowled at the man slumped down next to Chris, his face pale with blood loss. "And you brought your new friend along with you, the hitman who's supposed to kill me?"

The man opened his eyes and smirked. "The hitman who saved your life, you mean." He held out his gun to Jensen. "Look, if you set up some suppressive fire-"

"Save your words." Lisa grabbed the gun out of Misha's hand. "Jensen doesn't use guns. I'll do it. You get ready to move on my say so."

 Jensen's head jerked up as a blonde man skidded around the corner, firing wildly. "Woo, there you are!" He flipped open his coat, flashing his badge. "I'm Chad, I'm on your side." The man looked Jensen up and down. "Still in one piece, that's good to see. Any particularly murderous urges you can't help act on?"

"Not yet, but keep talking," Jensen growled.

"Can you do that freaky don't-pay-attention-to-me thing?" Sam asked from her vantage point on the fire escape.

Jensen shook his head. "I tried, but I think the drones don't care about that."

Lisa looked back impatiently. "Can we have this conversation once we're under cover, please?"

With Chad and Sam's help, they were able to get Chris and Misha unsteadily on their feet.

"You ready?" Lisa yelled.

"No!" Chad said. "Which way are we running?"

"Back to the building," Jensen said. "It'll give us the most cover and get us away from the cameras." He pointed up at the veritable fleet of drones raptly following the action. "Plus, there's at least two more exits once we're inside."

"On three!" Lisa yelled. Then she opened up.

"You're supposed to actually do the countdown," Chris yelled as they ran.

Lisa grinned as she caught up to him. "You knew I wasn't gonna."

He snorted, then grimaced when the action pulled at his wound. "Yeah, I did."

"It's not his fault, you know," Chad said once they were all safely inside the building.

Sam squinted at Chad. "Damn straight it's not. It's the fault of whatever idiot put that bounty out on him."

Chad winced. "We're still working that one out. But it's the guns I'm talking about." He looked over at Jensen. "Haven't you ever noticed that your friend here is a bit of an extreme pacifist?"

Chris leaned against the wall next to the window, trying to look outside without attracting the attention of any of the drones. "He's a farmer," he said dismissively.

"Was a farmer," Jensen corrected, irked. "And haven't been for 16 years." It was a long-standing point of dispute.

"Actually," Chad drawled, drawing both their attention, "if he would stay in one place long enough for us to talk to, I could tell you that he's absolutely not a farmer, no matter what he or you thinks about it."

"Yeah, yeah," Chris said, "we know, he's actually-"

Chad gave him a withering look.

"Here's the deal," he told Jensen. "Even if everything hadn't gotten all cocked up from the start, it would still sound unbelievable, but yes, you really are the prince of an alien race. Your people were soldiers, and slaves, and conquerors. You and Jared – the prince of his people - were both genetically created to help resolve a century-long war that ripped apart worlds and eradicated entire planets. Your DNA is a masterpiece that I have wasted years trying to reverse-engineer, and it can't be done. You're it."

Jensen shook his head. "You've got the wrong guy. That's not me."

Chad looked at him. "It's absolutely you. Jared told me you could operate his ship. That's you – your blood. Your genetics." He pointed at the rest of the crew, who were watching him warily. "Your friends here? Put them on that ship and they couldn't do shit with it. Trust me, I've tried."

He shook his head. "The whole marriage thing is a ritual that was supposed to happen when you were both babies – shared blood, shared intent, uniting two people, blah-de-blah. And we really, really, really need you to go through with it, because your stupidly impatient but well-intentioned fiancé is probably going to show up here even though it's a terrible idea, because you're in danger. And if he gets hurt – or you get hurt in front of him – then his genetic programming is going to kick in and declare us all enemies. And if that happens? This planet, and all of central, is going to look like the shatterworlds, because that's all that's going to be left."

Chris whistled. "Damn, brother, that sucks."

Chad looked sympathetically at Jensen. "If it's any consolation, I know Jared sees this as more than a contract, but if that's the only way you can handle it, he'll respect your wishes. He's stubborn and he won't listen to advice, but he's a good guy."

All of a sudden, the windows began to rattle as the distinctive sound of a spaceship engine echoed through the streets outside.

Chad sighed. "A good guy with the tactical sense of a general and the common sense of a potato." He looked at Jensen. "What's it gonna be?"

Chapter Text

The crew of the Mischief – which now apparently seemed to include one bloody-but-not-bleeding-out hit man – reconvened while Chad was off yelling into his phone in a strange approximation of the alien's guttural language.

"You sure you want to do this?" Chris asked.

Jensen shrugged, wishing he had a better answer. "No, but I think the guy's right. When I was on his ship, it was amazing. They've got tech that puts ours to shame. There's just something about the guy that makes me wanna run away, I don't know why."

"I can answer that one," Chad said, walking back over to them, "It's because the ritual wasn't finished. It was never supposed to leave you defenseless, just, y'know, not so homicidal. But until you share your blood with Pad'Alecki, the process isn't complete."

"Jared says he's just parking the ship there so we can get to it, which is… actually, not the worst decision he could have made. If he just stays on board until he can extract us, this could actually work out."

Chris checked out the window. "The drones are the problem. I can't even look out the window without them noticing." He gestured to the small cloud of them hovering nearby. "We go outside with them there and they'll be all over us in an instant."

Misha cocked his head and looked over at Lisa. "How attached are you to your shock prod?"

She laughed and tossed it to him. "Don't you know you're supposed to buy a lady dinner first?"

Misha popped the cover off its controls and studied it. "Love to, but in my experience, it's a lot safer to ask about that dinner once they're not holding a shock prod." He pulled out a knife and clipped a wire, then bent the wires back into the board and smiled when it started sparking. Then he tossed it out the window, right into the cloud of drones. Lightning arced out of the prod when it hit the first drone, zapping between the drones in a neat little net of conductivity that took down all but one.

Sam looked over at Chad. "Okay, here's how it's gonna go. Lisa and I are going to go up and provide cover. You two–" she nodded at Jensen and Chad – "get these other two losers to the ship."

Jensen scowled and shook his head. "Counter-offer: Either all of us go, or none of us."

Chris looked at Sam. "Don't even think of it. You can cover us from just fine up-close."

Misha walked over to stand next to them, pointing at Lisa. "Besides, I owe her dinner."

"All right, when we get to the ship, I need you all to lose your weapons," Chad said. "I'm deadly serious here. Nothing that could be seen as a threat goes on that ship. We clear?"

Somehow, they got to the ship without losing anyone, and they even remembered to toss their weapons down before he gave Jared the signal to open the door. Sam helped Chris limp up the ramp, followed by Lisa and Misha. Then it was Jensen's turn, with Chad covering the rear, and just as he thought it was going to all work out, a shot rang past him, ricocheting off the ship.

"35 YEARS!" The cry – and the shot – came from a short, shlubby, pencil-pusher type guy who looked like he had no idea how to even handle the gun that was shaking in his hand. "All that careful planning and lying, hiding files, and destroying evidence while we tried to figure out how you people tick, and this is what I get for it? I refuse to let that happen!"

Just as Chad raised his gun to return fire, pain ripped through him, and he staggered back, looking down in disbelief at the bloodstain spreading through his midsection. His gun fell out of his hand and clattered to the ground.

For a second, the mousey man looked just as startled. Then his eyes glazed over, and the now-late Curtis Armstrong pitched forward, his gun discharging as a red hole bloomed between his eyes. Chad peered around, trying to see where the shot had come from, but all he got was a glimpse of a blonde man hurrying away in the haze.

There was – something – happening in the ship. A smear of blood. A cry of anguish. Armstrong's accidental discharge.

"Ah, shit," Chad thought, slumping forward into the ship's doorway. "We were this close."

Shot. Jensen looked down at the hole in his shoulder. He'd been shot.

"See, Chris? This is why I don't like getting into bar fights. It always fucking sucks." He heard the thump of a body hitting the ground behind him, saw Lisa running slow motion towards him, pulling the blonde guy's limp form up the ramp so the ship's door could slide shut behind him. And then Jared was in front of him, reaching out with a look of panic and sorrow that was slowly transforming, inch by inch, into rage.

It made Jensen want to flee, but he just didn't have the energy.

He couldn't let this happen.

He couldn't stop Jared physically, so he just closed his eyes and let himself fall forward, trusting the man to catch him.

"Hey there, husband," he muttered. "Husband-to-be. Whatever. Looks like I've got some blood for you."

Jared's muscles were tense, almost locked into position, caught up in some internal conflict. That war-trigger Chad had talked about.

Jensen will his hand to reach up and cup Jared's chin, forcing his head down so they could meet eye to eye. "No," he said firmly. Or what he hoped was firmly. "No destroying the galaxy."

He was pretty sure Jared wasn't listening.

"Lisa!" he yelled. "If Chad's not dead, slap him until he wakes up and tells me what to do."

A second later, there was a horrible screeching sound that echoed everywhere as an emergency broadcast system that probably hadn't been used in half a century suddenly came to life and a drunken voice slurred, "Hey, is this thing on?"

More static and noise reverberated for a second, then-

"Greetings, citizens of Earth. This is Central Prime Director Morgan here, with a very special announcement for the two aliens we've all come to know and love, Jensen and Jared. If you crazy kids are out there, I hope you're goddamn listening." There was a pause. "By the power invested in me-" and then a whispered, "I can't say this, this is unpronounceable-" Another pause. "No, really, I think I need like a second tongue or something." More static. "I'm just saying, if this causes an intergalactic incident, it's on your head, Hodge."

Behind Jensen, there was a wet cough. Chad. Lisa pulled him into a half-slump against the bulkhead opposite Jensen.

"Hand," Chad muttered, hand pressed against a spreading stain along his abdomen. "You gotta cut his hand, and yours, palm to palm." He coughed. "Same time."

The tattoos on Jared's arm were glowing, Jensen noticed. A red tinge was spreading underneath the green, a sickly orange-red glow that made Jensen think about a hot, searing rage. He pulled Jared's face closer to his. "Stay with me, Jared. Think about something else. If we're doing this, you owe me a honeymoon, and I'm not spending it destroying a planet."

He looked over helplessly at Chad. "You made me drop my weapons at the door. How am I supposed to-"

"His belt," Sam said, her presence a calm, steady anchor against his panic. "He's got a knife on his belt. Just- put the blade between your hands and then pull."

Easier said than done, Jensen thought. He dropped Jared's chin, trying to hold his gaze as long as possible as he dropped his hand down and felt around for the knife.

The speakers burst back on with another squeal of feedback. "Dearly beloved," the voice slurred, then argued, "look, I don't care, it's a wedding, I get to say that, it's a law." Then it boomed louder, "Uc ieal vreeja notroc, nui kuaisyuem ceecho cho cellequc eh cho kucg."

Off to one side, Chris laughed. "He sounds like he's dying."

Jensen didn't care. The words sounded ridiculous – not even close to the way Jared had spoken – but they ignited something inside him. He palmed the knife, concealing the blade in his hand so that Jared wouldn't see the weapon, then intertwined their fingers.

"- nui cho jouch eh omonyuoc tyubo quui geh cho vyulch eh urayuoc, nui cho quyumgol eh quul voseno cho cklotgyuno eh kouso-"

This is not an attack, he told himself. This is a marriage. Before he could think about it further, he pressed his hand as tightly into Jared's as he could, then lifted his other hand and yanked the blade away.

Jared roared and tried to pull his hand back, but Jensen doggedly held on, pressing their palms together.

"- umja nueui - how am I even supposed to pronounce this? - nueui cho hagalo lyuco geh noog cho cgulc. That means, may the future rise to meet the stars."

Jensen's palm began to tingle, like it had fallen asleep and was just waking up, the prickling sensation sweeping up and over his whole body. Something was happening- he didn't-

Jared looked just as confused as he did.

"By the power infested in me," the voice slurred, "as Prime Director of this place, I now pronounce you alien and spouse. Alien and alien. Groom and groom." He paused. "Non-hostile life form and non-hostile life form!" There was another, calmer voice in the background, telling him that was fine, he could put down the mic now.

Jensen wasn't sure what it was talking about. He wasn't holding any mic.

There was another burst of static, like a scuffle was taking place in the great cosmic air, and then the first voice yelled, "You may kiss the whatever."

Jensen looked up at Jared and thought he might like to do that. For a moment, he thought Jared was bending down with the same idea. Then he realized they were both sliding to the floor.

"Whatever you did, it worked, Jensen. It's okay now."

That was good, Jensen thought faintly. He rather wanted to take a nap.

The last thing he heard was Lisa's faint expression of surprise. "Is it just me, or is his arm glowing?"

"Look at you," Chris teased. "Looking all tough like you're some kind of hero in that armor of yours."

He did look like a hero, Jensen thought. It was the same type of armor Jared had worn when he'd first come looking for him. He couldn't move in it quite as effortlessly as Jared made it look – yet – but it would keep him safe when they made the trip home.

Home. That was a weird thought. He rubbed his hand over his shoulder absently.

Chris slapped at his fingers. "I told you to stop scratching at that. You're a prince now or some shit. It's undignified."

The tattoo didn't actually itch – it had, in fact, just materialized there wholly formed while he'd slept, a perfect counterpart to Jared's green tattoos, except in vivid purple. But his brain thought it ought to itch.

"You sure you don't want to come with me?" Jensen asked. "You, the crew – you're all welcome."

"Yeah, yeah," Chris said. "We'll probably take you up on it, too, since Aldis and Chad are gonna need a ride back once they get all the paperwork done here."

Well, once Aldis got the paperwork done. Chad was using his gunshot wound as an excuse to avoid doing any of it, and Aldis was letting him get away with it, because – well, a little to the left and Chad wouldn't have been around to complain.

"You gonna be okay without us?"

Jensen smiled, and thought of a world he'd never been to yet, a homeland full of people whose blood now actively thrummed in his veins, buzzing with excitement at the changes that would come when he and Jared returned. He looked over at Jared, who had turned out to be funny, and a little shy now that the ritual had removed the blocks that kept them from understanding each other. Jared, who was – for the moment – something less than a husband, but more than a friend. Someone he didn't want to be without.

"Yeah," he said quietly, "you know me. No regrets."

And he meant it.

Chapter Text

(Bonus Content)

Yar Trisjar Red Pad'Alecki, cho Sonsot eh War, qelm voglechoja eh Rossjen Pad'Ack'liis, cho Shamot D'qum, fo qoeh quuc betrayed umja nelmoja. Mequ, feq'bol, y lodeyso, fubot voom canmoja vi cho D'qum geh chc kruso, your world. Y seno folo ym kouso, q'kemsc req'loja, varmolubro, ceh chug y nui locsao ni y'gomjoja um'ja jorybl g'qeh qelrjc hlen despair before all perish.

I am Jared Tristan, Prince of the Alecki, the Sunset of War, sworn betrothed of Jensen Ross, Prince of the Ack'liis, the Shining Dawn, he who was betrayed and mourned. Now, however, I rejoice, having been summoned by the Dawn to this place, your world. I come here in peace, weapons lowered, vulnerable, so that I may rescue my intended and deliver two worlds from despair before all perish.

Vouagyhar, ycm'g yg? Y ujelo yg ak folo.

Beautiful, isn't it? I adore it up here.

Meh, yar meg Jensen Ackles. Chug yuc meg ieal muno. Ieal muno fuc voom fyjjom hlen iea, uc iea fubo voom fyjjom hlen no. Iea ulo Rossjen Pad'Ack'liis. Iea ulo cho Shamot D'qum eh eal koekro, ni war bride, cho emo quoeco blood quyra ekom eal hagalo umja logalm ac geh cho cgulc. You are mine, uc Y un iealc. Uc eal blood will flow -

No, you are not Jensen Ackles. That is not your name. Your name has been hidden from you, as you have been hidden from me. You are Jensen Ross, Prince of the Ack'liis. You are the Shining Dawn of our people, my betrothed, the one whose blood will open our future and return us to the stars. You are mine, as I am yours. As our blood mingles -

Umja… iea'lo reepot ug no rypo Y'n ymcumo.

And… you're looking at me like I'm insane.

Junnyg, Y fubo ceh naseh Y quumg geh gora iea, Y fuja chyc quoero ckooseh klokuloja, umja Y jem'g amjolcgumja quoi ura eh choco vrucgoja glumcrugelc ulo nurhamsgyuemot ceh vujri! Yg'c lyujyusareac! Y'bo ckomg ioulc quych ieal csyomgycgc umja choi fubo meh gleavro - vag yg jeocm'g nuggol. Y'bo voom quuygot hel iea ura ni ryho, you were made to be mine, rygolurai. Y cheatfg iea quolo jouja. Y cheatfg chyc - ac - quuc recg. Vag folo iea ulo. Y heamja iea. Y should have known I'd find you vogquoom cho cgulc.

Dammit, I have so much I want to tell you, I had this whole speech prepared, and I don't understand why all of these blasted translators are malfunctioning so badly! It's ridiculous! I've spent years with your scientists and they have no trouble - but it doesn't matter. I've been waiting for you all my life, we were made for each other, literally. I thought you were dead. I thought this - us - was lost. But here you are. I found you. I should have known I'd find you between the stars.

Y'n jeot chyc ura qulemt. Ni muno yc Trisjar - Trisjar Red, Pad'Alecki, ieal voglechoja. Ehhysyurai, cho Sonsot eh War. Yg'c u quoero gygro chot, rypo iealc. D'qum umja Sonsot.

I'm doing this all wrong. My name is Jared - Jared Tristan, Prince of the Alecki, your betrothed. Officially, the Sunset of War. It's a whole title thing, like yours. Dawn and Sunset.

Epui, chyc yc- chyc yc hyzuvro. Reep, Y'bo teg u tuloug leen louji hel iea, heeja, jlymp, regc eh gyno geh gurp umja tog geh pmequ ouseh echol vohelo cho quedding solonemi. Quo'ra dacg teh vusp geh Seuja umja Urjyc umja choi sum ozkruym obolichot, epui?

Okay, this is- this is fixable. Look, I've got a great room ready for you, food, drink, lots of time to talk and get to know each other before the wedding ceremony. We'll just go back to Chad and Aldis and they can explain everything, okay?

Jem'g vo csuloja. Cholo'c mechot-

Don't be scared. There's nothing-

Y pmequ, yg'c quoylja, Y usearja fubo cheatfg chyc chleatf nelo. Y dacg cheatfg - Y jem'g pmequ quoug Y cheatfg.

I know, it's weird, I should have thought this through more. I just thought - I don't know what I thought.

Ug cho boli roucg Y usearja meg fubo helteggom cho glumcrugel ym cho echol leen.

At the very least I should not have forgotten the translator in the other room.

Dacg jem'g - dacg jem'g teh. Quo'ra hytalo chyc eag.

Just don't - just don't go. We'll figure this out.

Cgui. Krouco.

Stay. Please.

Hasp!

Fuck!

And as a bonus, Jeffrey Dean Morgan's wedding speech:

Uc ieal vreeja notroc, nui kuaisyuem ceecho cho cellequc eh cho kucg, nui cho jouch eh omonyuoc tyubo quui geh cho vyulch eh urayuoc, nui cho quyumgol eh quul voseno cho cklotgyuno eh kouso, umja nui - how am I even supposed to pronounce this? - nui cho hagalo lyuco geh noog cho cgulc.

As your blood mingles, may passion soothe the sorrows of the past, may the death of enemies give way to the birth of allies, may the winter of war become the springtime of peace, and may - how am I even supposed to pronounce this? - may the future rise to meet the stars.