Separated From The Stars, 3/5

[astrangestorm]

A strong hand on his shoulder woke him.

Sho was on his feet, looking into his face with a slightly shy smile. “Um, I need to go.”

Satoshi blinked the sleep away. His back and neck were a bit stiff from sleeping upright, and he was disoriented for a moment as he tried to remember how he’d gotten here.

“Go where?”

Sho looked away. “I need to go…I have to relieve myself.”

“Oh.”

The pod didn’t have a toilet or a sink or a shower. He was close to asking Sho to simply drink a bottle of water and just pee in that for now, if only so he could get back to sleep. But that wouldn’t be very friendly, and despite their differences, they’d have to get along now if they were going to get through this.

“How’s the air outside?” he asked.

Sho moved away, heading to the control console. He was upright and walking, albeit slower than what Satoshi knew was normal for him. He’d managed to find a clean shirt in one of the caches of supplies. None of his usual fancy fabrics, but he’d found a tight gray thermal shirt with long sleeves. It clung perfectly to him, and Satoshi hoped his interest wasn’t showing in his face. It was more important that they both stay warm.

“The air outside is fine. It’s chilly, but the O2 levels are perfectly adequate. We won’t have to wear the pressurized suits or anything,” Sho admitted. “I ran a scan of the immediate vicinity. I did a topographical scan, a thermal scan, and…”

“Sho-kun, if there’s a tree out there, just go pee on it.”

Sho turned to look at him, embarrassed. “Right. You’re right. I also checked the radar. I can’t trust the scanners to be a hundred percent accurate. Especially given atmospheric interference and…”

Satoshi sighed. “You don’t have to skirt around it. Just ask me to go out there with you.”

Sho nodded. “Will you go with me?”

He unbuckled the harness, joints cracking as he got to his feet. “Of course.”

After running a few final checks, the airlock door hissed when they opened it. The red parachute was still blocking their view, but they managed to make the step down onto the ground. Cutting the parachute out of the way with a utility knife from one of the supply cases, Satoshi kept it out in front of them as two princes from fairly distant worlds set foot on Rakuen soil.

Lucky for them, the pod hadn’t landed in the ocean. It hadn’t landed and sunk, drowning them. Instead they’d managed to land in a valley, the air briskly cold but not unmanageable. Breathing real air again after being on board the Kaisei, the Miyabi, and the pod was downright refreshing. He took in lungfuls of it, finding it not so very different from Akatsuki air.

The valley was several kilometers wide with hillier terrain all around them. The grasses waved in the chilly breeze, almost blue in color compared to the green of Akatsuki. It was untamed terrain, the grasses coming up to their knees. Satoshi was still in his rumpled jacket and slacks, his clothes and boots spattered with some of Sho’s blood that had dried there. He knew some of it had belonged to Harada and Kinoshita as well.

While Satoshi turned away, keeping the knife out in case of any threats, Sho moved around to the far side of the pod to relieve himself. He returned, wiping his hands with an antibacterial wipe he’d brought with from the medkits. Civilized and fastidious as always.

Sho had a handheld scanner with him, pulling it from his pocket so he could help to orient them. By the time Satoshi had gone ahead and relieved himself as well, just so they wouldn’t have to come back out again so soon, Sho had some answers.

Twenty kilometers to the north was a salt lake that covered maybe half the continent. Eight kilometers to the south were foothills that eventually led to the jagged mountain range beyond the valley. To the west was marshland, not easy to navigate.

And forty-two kilometers to the east was a heat signature that made Sho gasp in surprise.

They looked at the screen together. “What could it be?” Satoshi asked.

“That’s kaenium,” Sho mumbled, still shocked.

“Like a vein of it that hasn’t been mined?”

“No, as in people. A settlement. I know more about kaenium deposits than I ever thought I’d have to, with all the research I’ve invested in,” Sho explained, tapping on the screen. “If kaenium hasn’t been extracted yet, it really won’t give off a reading like this. Only when it’s burned.”

Satoshi rudely snatched the scanner out of Sho’s hand. “Then maybe they can help us.”

“Wait,” Sho protested. “Wait a second.”

“We have enough food for a week, maybe a few days more if we skimp a little, but I don’t think that’s very wise. We’re in unfamiliar territory, and we need to be at our full strength. So we have to eat. But what happens if we get to the end of that week and nobody has rescued us?”

Sho rolled his eyes, taking the scanner back. “We can’t just go wandering off.”

“I’m not saying that. It’s not wandering if we plan. If we say to ourselves that if we pack enough to get us there, if we spend the days here in the pod analyzing the terrain, water sources, possible threats to us…”

“The settlement could be a threat to us. There’s been no contact with any people on Rakuen before. None of the other expeditions found anyone.”

“Had any of them landed here? On this part of the planet?”

Sho was silent. That was a no.

“Well?” he prodded. “The pod has four passengers’ worth of food, water, medical supplies. And items for defense. There are laser pistols. There’s more knives like the one I’ve got. We have the means to protect ourselves, we have items for trade or barter.”

“Rescue protocol states that we should stay put, continuing to broadcast our rescue beacon,” Sho explained, crossing his arms to stay warm. He was unable to hide a small wince of pain. His little shivers were probably agitating his injury. “To leave would be reckless.”

“We have no cover out here, Sho-kun,” Satoshi said. He gestured wildly around them. Nothing but grass in every direction, and an escape pod with a red-tinted hull in the middle of it. The nearest tree was probably a few kilometers away. “Our position isn’t very defensible.”

“That hull is made of the strongest aluminum alloy. If it can get through the atmosphere without breaking up, I doubt weather will damage it.”

“We don’t know what’s out there.”

“Precisely,” Sho argued, “which is why we need to stay inside the pod unless absolutely necessary.”

“And if our food runs out, and we didn’t plan for that scenario? If we’re out of food and kilometers away from anything we can use to sustain ourselves? Or say that we do let the food run out because hey, we’ve got water for a few more days. Then what happens if that runs out?”

“Satoshi-kun, your solution assumes there are people out there eager to help two outsiders. You think we can just hike over to that heat signature, assume there’s people living there who won’t flee or attack at the first sight of us?”

Sho was getting angry now. Even during all their hours of negotiations on Akatsuki, he’d never lost his temper. Satoshi hadn’t even been aware Sho had a temper. He’d always been the picture of calm.

Then again, every time they’d met before, Sho had his CompTab. He had his arguments and his bullet points. His rules and his protocols. Sakurai Sho was the type of man who always had a plan. Sakurai Sho never went into anything without having all the facts. Something like this, deciding something on the fly…it had to be absurdly foreign to him.

Satoshi supposed that he’d always been a touch more open-minded. Jun would probably say “spontaneous” was more accurate.

He reached out a hand, resting it on Sho’s shoulder. “All I am saying is that we need to come up with plans for a worst-case scenario. The scenario where they don’t come back for us.”

Sho’s eyes widened with fear, and Satoshi wondered if it had been the wrong thing to say, even if it was a possibility. He took his hand away.

Sho shook his head, sighing. “How would they find us if we were forced to leave the pod? If they do manage to make it here?”

Satoshi rested his hands on his hips. “We leave a note.”

“That’s your genius plan? A note?”

He was losing patience. Things had been much less stressful when he’d been sleeping.

“Sho-kun, you think it’s reckless to leave the pod. The rule book you probably memorized when you were a toddler is your guide in all situations. And honestly, if we had weeks’ worth of supplies, I wouldn’t be bugging you about this right now at all. But the fact of the matter is that we are on the clock. And we’ve been on the clock since we landed. So you propose we stay here. Terrific. Fine. We only go outside to take a piss. We’ll do what you want, it’s your escape pod and I’m just your lucky passenger. But the attitude we need to take inside that pod starting right now is that it’s not sustainable. We need a source for fresh water. We need a source for food, even if we’re just bringing it back here. We can’t just sit around staring at the beacon like it’s a given that they’ll find us.”

“That’s pessimistic.”

“That’s being practical. A trait I thought you possessed, but clearly I was wrong.”

Sho stared at him, astonishment in his eyes.

“What?” Satoshi spat at him, exhausted.

He was surprised when Sho smiled at him. “I think that’s the most you’ve ever spoken before. I mean, all in one go.”

“Fuck you,” he replied, even though he didn’t really mean it.

That just made Sho laugh. “Where have you been all this time? Where has this Prince Satoshi been hiding?”

Satoshi found himself wondering the same thing.

“You’ll get sick if we keep standing out here. Go back into the pod.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Sho said, none of the bite left in his words. He obediently moved to go back to the airlock. “And we’ll make scanning for potable water in the immediate vicinity our first priority.”

—

They made it through their first twenty-four hours without any mishaps. They kept the pod’s hatch locked tight while they slept, but to preserve the remaining oxygen, they left the hatch open during daylight hours. It also allowed them to divert power away from life support to the pod’s sensors instead so they could get a better lay of the land.

There was a small spring half a kilometer to the south of their current position, and the water from it was most likely potable. And if it wasn’t, they’d run checks on some of the supplies in the medkits. The computer had informed them that some small yellow pellets could be mixed in with water to improve its potability. They’d only drink that in case of emergency. Come morning, they’d pack the water bottles they’d already emptied and refill them at the spring, just as a precautionary measure.

Since the pod’s computer and other controls were far off the Kagerou network, the only information they had to work with was whatever the scanners could pick up and whatever was already in the computer logs. The pod hadn’t been designed for long-term guests, so the systems were fairly sparse. Rakuen’s atmosphere disrupted most long-range scans either way.

The heat signature to the east, the place with the burning kaenium, was still mysterious. Was it a massive city? A tiny hamlet? Just one person? They had no idea. The mountain range to the south interfered just as much with their scans.

The pair of them had both changed entirely out of the clothes they’d worn on the Miyabi in favor of the thermal gear in the pod. Satoshi didn’t want to admit how much he liked the comfort and warmth the clothing provided. Akatsuki miners had dug up the kaenium that powered the Kagerou factories that had manufactured them. He and Sho matched now, gray thermal long-sleeved shirts and pants, gray zip-up jackets with hoods. Each item had the Sakurai family insignia on it, stitched in red. Satoshi felt a bit guilty for wearing it, but warmth and his health were more important.

The weather was something they were keeping a close eye on. The valley grew bitterly cold at night. Even with the clothes and jackets, they couldn’t afford to be out in the open after dark. If they did have to abandon the pod, they’d have to find shelter at night or they’d surely freeze to death. They had special pressurized suits with O2 tanks available, designed in case the pod’s airlock had malfunctioned on their descent. But they were heavy, clumsy to wear. They’d never be able to evade predators.

And to their horror, predators were out in abundance.

Satoshi was no stranger to animal life. Akatsuki was home to creatures of all sizes, from stinging hornets and wasps to larger animals like bears. It was forbidden to swim near Lake Kobayashi where he liked to fish because poisonous snakes commonly lived in the reedy areas along the shoreline. Sho, on the other hand, knew such creatures only from behind glass. A few of Kagerou’s cities had zoos, all the animals imported from Akatsuki.

Rakuen, however, was a different matter. The valley where the pod had landed was home to numerous creatures. They’d seen a bird of prey flying overhead in the distance, its wingspan at least twice the size of any bird Satoshi had ever seen. There’d been audible howling when they’d opened the airlock hatch in the morning, the noise traveling up from the hills and mountainous terrain to the south. The pod’s sensors picked up various small heat signatures during the night, indicative of animals sniffing around outside in curiosity. There was no telling whether they were friend or foe. Before going outside, even just to relieve themselves now, he and Sho both toted laser pistols. Satoshi also kept the utility knife in his pocket.

As the dangers surrounding them became more clear, Sho had finally come around on the idea that their rescue was a guaranteed thing. They’d agreed that if their pod wasn’t found by their fifth day in the valley, they would head east and hope for the best. Sho’s biggest concern had been tracking, wondering how they might be found by rescue teams outside of the pod, but they now had a better answer for that as well.

Since the pod was equipped for four, that meant they had four handheld scanners that could be used to determine the terrain ahead, to assess whether plant life was poisonous or okay to eat. The scanners’ internal batteries were designed to last six months, and they’d come to the realization that if nobody found them in six months, there wasn’t much else they could do but accept it.

They immediately checked the batteries on two of the scanners before powering them down to hold in reserve along with the two extra laser pistols they had for protection. The third scanner they’d use for its usual purpose in the event they did have to abandon the pod. And the fourth Sho was currently in the process of re-programming. Sho was using the pulse signature on the pod’s beacon as a guide, hoping to convert the scanner into a traveling beacon of their own. The signal would be weaker, but it would have the same signature that anyone from Akatsuki or Kagerou would recognize as familiar, as a friendly signal.

They had just locked down the pod for the night for the second time, Satoshi in the process of packing. The two extra sets of thermal clothing, water, food, and tactical items. It was something to do, something to focus on. At least they had a plan. With a plan, he couldn’t give in to fear.

He cinched the lighter pack closed, hoping Sho hadn’t noticed that Satoshi had put all the heavier items into the pack he intended to carry himself. Sho’s wound needed to heal, even at the cost of his pride.

He looked over, saw that Sho was still tinkering with the scanner. His brown eyes seemed tired, and he finally set it down on top of the console with a gentle thunk.

“You fix it?” he asked.

Sho shook his head. “Think I need to sleep on it.”

“We’ve got time,” he replied quietly.

He sat down on the floor of the pod beside Sho, tugging the blanket from his seat so he could sit on it. They both sat with their backs against the center console for support. He said nothing for a while, listening to Sho’s breathing beside him.

They’d gotten this far because they had plans to make. Objectives. They’d go to the spring in the morning, they’d work more on the scanner. But Satoshi could still feel reality sinking in. The larger situation was out of their hands. They had no control over how Mina reacted. Over how Akatsuki would handle this and what Kagerou’s reaction would be. Would they be rescued? Would they be presumed dead? Would their home planets go to war?

He had a feeling that Sho was realizing it, too.

“My father appointed Harada-san as captain of my guard when I was fourteen.”

He looked over, saw that Sho’s eyes were wet. He simply let him speak.

“For twenty years, he’d been by my side. When I was a rebellious teenager, he was always the one who got me back in line. He never raised his voice, he hardly had to do anything.” Sho wrinkled his nose, perhaps trying to keep from crying. Satoshi was still trying to wrap his head around the idea that Sakurai Sho could have ever been rebellious. “I respected him. I trusted him. I thought he might understand that I wanted to solve Kagerou’s problems. I only wanted to help people…”

Satoshi looked away, the grief in Sho’s face too raw and painful for him to watch.

“And I think what hurts the most is that I’ll never get to ask him why. When I told him where we were going, that I was just taking him and Kinoshita, he didn’t question it. But now I’ll never know how long he’d been working against me. I’ll never know what hardened his heart so much that he’d rather see the both of us dead than allow me to pursue the course I was on.”

Sho’s chuckle was incredibly sad, disbelieving.

“I’ll never even know how many others were against me. Those men and women in the House of Councillors who never wanted to raise a finger to do anything for your people. I’ll never know how many of them would smile to my face even as they tried to undermine me. What I was doing, it wasn’t treason…it wasn’t at all. It was an alternative to strike breaking, an alternative to exploitation. There was nothing shameful about it.”

“I appreciate what you were trying to do, Sho-kun,” he said softly. “But Mina would never have let you use our mines to test your theory. You’d have put us in a terrible position. Mina would never put our people at risk that way.”

“You’re probably right.”

“No, I’m definitely right.” He tapped out a gentle rhythm on his knee with his fingertips. “She’s my sister, and I know what she’d have said.”

“But my father would never have…”

“How do you know that?”

“He’s my father,” Sho said, his tone bitter. “And I know what he’d have said.”

Satoshi sighed. “Then the strike goes on. Your people continue to starve and mistreat mine.”

Sho’s mumbled “yes” in reply hung in the air for quite a while.

Finally he got up, tugging his blanket with him.

“I’m going to sleep. You should sleep, too. We’ve got a field trip tomorrow.”

Sho said nothing but did as he was told.

—

He woke to the sound of the proximity alert. The console was blinking, and he grumbled in his seat. The lights kicked on at Sho’s command, and he blinked, seeing Sho hurry over to shut off the alert.

“Satoshi…”

He unbuckled the harness, moving to Sho’s side. “What’s wrong?”

They’d synced the clock with Rakuen daylight hours. The sun had been up for almost an hour already. Sho pointed to one of the screens on the console. When they’d gone to sleep, there’d been two heat signatures, both kilometers away. But now the pod was surrounded by a sea of red.

“Stars…” Satoshi whispered, backing away from the console and heading to the porthole near the hatch. They’d cut the parachute away in the afternoon yesterday so their view wasn’t obstructed. He inhaled sharply at the sight outside. The proximity alert should have been set off earlier, he thought. “Sho-kun, this…is not good.”

He felt warmth behind him, Sho coming up and resting a hand on his back. He felt Sho’s hand tighten in the fabric of his shirt. “What are they?”

As far as he could see out the fairly small porthole was brown. They were large creatures, four-legged, with heavy-looking fur. Some had thick horns protruding from their heads. Hundreds of them, maybe even thousands. They’d come to the valley overnight, and they were grazing. Perhaps they were some Rakuen equivalent of cattle, but they were obviously wild. The cows Satoshi knew in farms back home were gentle, unassuming creatures. Even the smallest among the ones out in the valley now, the babies and the young, were the size of adult cattle back home. The others were two, maybe three times the size.

He watched them munching obliviously on the bluish grass, his heart racing, Sho’s increasingly nervous breaths tickling the back of his neck as they tried to share the view out the small porthole.

“They might not be hostile,” he mumbled. “Could be that this valley is just where they come to eat. They’ve come with their…calves, I guess. If they were intent on neutralizing a threat, would they all come? The mothers and babies? Probably not?”

“Why weren’t they here yesterday?”

“Migration? How should I know, Sho-kun, I’m not an animal expert.”

The proximity alert went off again, and before Sho could move to go turn it off, the pod started to rock a little.

They stumbled back, Sho tripping and falling against the console. Satoshi fell against him, trying to stay steady. As the pod jostled around, Satoshi leaned forward, keeping his feet apart to try and keep from sliding around. Sho’s body under his was solid and warm, shaking. He tried not to laugh when Sho let out a little whimper of fright. Instead he leaned closer so Sho wouldn’t be jostled around, injure himself further.

The rocking stopped about a minute later. He found Sho still beneath him with his back against the console, Satoshi all but trapping him with an arm to either side of him. It took a few heartbeats before either of them had the courage to react. Sho looked up at him with flushed cheeks, raising an eyebrow.

“You think there’s a…a space cow out there trying to hump our escape pod?” he asked nervously.

Satoshi backed away, a little embarrassed at their closeness. He moved back to the porthole. He watched one of the largest of the creatures pass by, a massive brown blur as he circled the pod. “We’re gonna call them space cows? They’re on the ground, you know.”

“I stand by space cows. It sounds extremely scientific,” Sho said with a chuckle, clearing his throat and turning back to the control console to get a handle on their situation.

He was kind of glad Sho had opted for a comment on the cows rather than on the awkward position they’d found themselves in. Close enough to kiss. That feeling he’d had on board the Miyabi, it had returned. That unsettling need to protect Sho, do whatever he could to keep him safe.

Which was absurd.

He crossed his arms, looking at the creatures, brown dotting the landscape as far as he could see. “We open the hatch right now, it might frighten them,” he muttered.

“How are we going to get to the spring? For water? And how do you propose we pee?”

“I’d say we wait them out,” Satoshi suggested, “but that’s assuming that they’re inclined to move on any time soon. This is their valley, and we’re the unwanted guests.”

Sho tapped on the console. “According to this, we’ve got about seven hours of daylight left.”

“I’m not morally opposed to peeing in a bottle. But then again, us rough and tumble Akatsuki folks aren’t as civilized as you, right?”

Sho rolled his eyes. “We don’t think that…”

“Of course not,” he muttered. “You don’t think about us at all…”

“That’s unfair,” Sho said, shaking his head. “Can we…can we not turn my honest question into a political debate?”

Sho was right. And after Sho’s admissions since they’d met up in orbit, he knew for a fact that Sho wanted to help Akatsuki, even if his plans had been naive and arrogant. But Satoshi wasn’t quite in the mood to apologize. He’d never be worrying about grazing space cows in the first place if Sho hadn’t insisted on meeting at such a remote and dangerous place. He’d never have gotten trapped in this tiny pod with him if Sho had simply been more honest and upfront with his father. But he supposed Sho knew this just as well as he did.

“Seven hours of daylight,” Satoshi repeated. “In five hours, if our friends are still outside, it’s obvious that we have to give up on the spring for today. And if they’re still outside in the morning, then it means we might have to put ourselves at risk. To get to the spring or to start the journey east.”

Sho looked glum. “And if one of them gets friendly with the pod again?”

“Unless they tip it over, I guess we just have to put up with the neighbors’ hospitality.”

“Great.”

He tried to offer Sho a comforting smile. “Whoever fills their pee bottle first could win a prize.”

And that finally got a laugh out of Sho. “You’re disgusting.”

He shrugged, trying to ignore how much Sho’s laugh warmed him, comforted him. They couldn’t keep arguing. They really couldn’t afford to. And Satoshi knew he had to let go of his anger, his resentment for Kagerou. At least until they had a better sense of what the future held for them.

He headed for the handheld scanner Sho had been working with the night before. He picked it up from the console, holding it out as a peace offering. “Back to work then?”

Sho nodded. “Back to work.”

He backed away, inclining his head. “Then it’s guard duty for me. I’ll keep an eye on the space cows.”

“A most princely undertaking.”

He grinned, heading back for the porthole. “Moo,” he replied with a wink.

—

The space cows were here to stay, and as dawn returned, they reached a point where an empty water bottle wasn’t going to serve their needs. It wasn’t the most dignified moment of Satoshi’s life, talking through alternatives with Sho. But before he could suggest that they pop open the hatch and stick their bare asses out into the cold air, Sho admitted it was best that they take the risk with the cows.

The pod had moved a few times throughout the last day, but they sensed it was more out of curiosity than hostility from the massive creatures. The animals were likely marking it with their scent, claiming it the way they might mark any other territory. Well, now it was Sho and Satoshi’s turn to stake a firmer claim.

They both kept their eyes shut and fingers crossed while Satoshi opened the hatch. Sho’s attention was on the control console. They waited a few minutes, just to keep track of the heat signatures closest to them. Satoshi stood in the airlock entryway, breathing in the ugly combination of cold air and animal shit. It seemed that no matter what planet you were on, the local wildlife could stink.

At least it made him feel less guilty about his own planned contributions.

He looked around, seeing that most of the massive animals were paying no mind to him. There were a few bulls with horns wandering around in the distance, but their planned pathway to the spring would not be impossible. They’d just have to do their best to calmly walk through the sea of creatures.

He and Sho packed up their gear in the event they weren’t able to return to the pod. The last thing they wanted to do was fire their laser pistols, so their steps would have to be careful but confident. Lingering too long, especially when one of the bulls was in range, could be troublesome. Thankfully, Sho had managed to re-program the back-up scanner. Now they’d be detected by anyone looking for the Miyabi’s escape pod, the scanner sending out the exact same pulse.

Once they had their boots on the ground, they each took turns walking around to the other side, taking care of their business. Thankfully that went without a hitch. Sho came back around, cleaning his hands and then hoisting the pack that waited for him at Satoshi’s feet.

He’d helped to change Sho’s bandaging that morning, and while he was still a bit sore, the wound was clean and aside from the mishmash of white scars peppering his skin now, he was well on the road to recovery. Now they had to press on and hope that no further harm would come to them.

Laser pistols at the ready, Satoshi had volunteered to walk first, letting Sho hold on to the scanner behind him, giving him updates on the sea of cattle around them. They took a bit of a convoluted path, but it was a path through groups that were least likely to charge and murder them. The valley was large and vast, and already some of the cows had moved on from the area around the pod, looking for taller grasses further on.

The temperature was still cold, and the grasses had a fine layering of frost. That didn’t stop the cows from eating. The presence of the large, heavy animals actually helped them out a little, since much of the knee-high grasses had been eaten or in many places trampled over. The soil was hard-packed under their feet. They were pretty lucky, all things considered.

While Satoshi walked ahead, holding the pistol at his side, not wanting to lift it suddenly and draw attention from the onlookers, Sho was a constant source of reassurance. He was babbling for the sake of babbling, if only to remind Satoshi that he was right behind him. “Good, good. Might want to hang a left.” “Ah, think I stepped in shit…” “Let’s try and get around that group.”

They walked a quarter of a kilometer at their slow, careful pace and finally left the herd behind. A walk that would normally take a few minutes in a straight line took them about forty since they had to double back a few times or move far out of the way to avoid the animals. But aside from a few territorial grunts, the animals had ignored them.

They continued south to the spring. The grasses were taller since the herd hadn’t moved this way yet, but their path was unimpeded. With a playful shove, Sho moved to walk beside him, shoulder to shoulder.

“Do you feel like an explorer?” Sho inquired, an almost boyish giddiness to him now. It was rather cute.

“Sho-kun, we haven’t gone very far yet.”

“Oh, I know. But none of the other expeditions have been here, to this area before. At least I don’t think so.”

There was still a lot they didn’t know. Most of the Kagerou science expeditions, at least the ones Sho knew about, had touched down on other continents. But they had no way of knowing what might have transpired centuries earlier when the first ships started to arrive from the Old Planet. It wasn’t unreasonable to presume that some of them had come to Rakuen.

It had taken years for settlers to make a go of it on Kagerou. There was evidence that some people had stayed on Akatsuki for many years, at least until technology for creating the domes made it possible for Kagerou to be sustainable. Maybe some of them had gone to Rakuen to wait. Maybe some of them hadn’t left. Or maybe with all the atmospheric interference, they’d never been able to.

But if any of them had settled in this valley, there was no evidence of it left behind. On Kagerou, most of the transport ships from the Old Planet had been broken down and repurposed, used in the earliest forms of the domed cities. There’d been similar undertakings on Akatsuki, the metal melted down and used for construction. That part of their history had largely been lost because the first settlers needed the materials to survive.

So maybe there were people who had settled here. But at the very least, Satoshi and Sho were the first outsiders in the history of their planets to walk on this soil. That was rather amazing.

He couldn’t help smiling at the much more confident way Sho was carrying himself.

The scanner was accurate at least at this distance, and they came upon the spring. It wasn’t much more than a bubbling pool, connected to a stream that gently meandered through the grasses. Satoshi stood guard, pistol at the ready, while Sho crouched down, holding the scanner close to check the water.

“Good news. The scanner says it won’t kill us,” Sho said, setting his pack down and opening it.

“Bad news?”

“Bad news is…can you smell it?”

Satoshi crouched down, chuckling a little. “A bit like rotten eggs. It’s…Sho-kun, it’s not that bad…”

“It reeks,” Sho complained, crinkling his nose. “You forget that I’ve lived thirty-four years inside a literal bubble. A bubble with state of the art air and water purifiers.”

“Don’t be snobby,” he teased, snatching the scanner from Sho’s hand. There were very faint traces of hydrogen sulfide in the water. Certainly not enough to cause them any harm. Shoving the scanner back into Sho’s hand, he took out one of the empty bottles, loosening the cap and dunking it straight into the stream. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”

He snickered while Sho grumbled about the smell. Together they filled each bottle, and with each one he was able to put back in his pack came reassurance that no matter what, they had just bought themselves more time.

“We should just go,” Satoshi said, twisting on a cap.

“What?”

He looked over, saw the worry clouding Sho’s eyes. Sho the explorer had lost his nerve already? And all over a little stinky water?

“East,” he said plainly. “Just listen, alright? The weather’s as good as it’s likely to get. Skies are clear today. It’s what, forty kilometers off? Terrain’s a little hilly, but if we keep a steady pace we can hike that in a few days.”

“Maybe…maybe tomorrow…”

“What if it rains tomorrow? Snows tomorrow?”

“And what if a rescue ship arrives tomorrow? Satoshi-kun, you agreed to wait five days.”

“I agreed to wait five days when we didn’t have a field full of space cows camping outside. I’m sick of sleeping upright, and I’m not in the mood for another night of the cows nudging us.” He reached over, resting a hand on Sho’s shoulder. “We have everything we need with us. If we go back to the pod, it means we’re waiting for someone to save us. If we go east, it means we’re at least trying to save ourselves.”

“You really think they’re abandoning us here?”

“Of course not,” he said immediately, firmly. At least he could still trust those closest to him, unlike Sho.

Even if Mina explicitly forbade it, he knew that Nino and Jun would risk everything to come back for him. He knew that because he’d risk the same for them. And if it wasn’t within the Kaisei’s capabilities, he still knew they’d find a way. But they couldn’t be reckless about it. Even Nino and Jun would have to take time to plan, to analyze previous expeditions to Rakuen.

Nino and Jun would try, but they wouldn’t leave unprepared. It was Satoshi’s duty to stay alive and justify the risks they were taking. In the pod, in that wide open valley, they were exposed. But there was a forest to the east that would offer them cover from predators and the elements alike.

“We’ve already spoken about this plan. All we’re doing is moving it forward,” he continued calmly, not in the mood to argue yet again. That would solve nothing. “There is nothing for us back in the pod. We can’t afford to ignore the opportunity we have right now. Fair weather, the scanners are functioning. We don’t have to walk back through the cow shit.”

“The cow shit was pretty rough,” Sho replied, smirking.

He closed the bag, getting to his feet. The added weight of the water would slow them a little, but they didn’t have a guarantee of fresh water ahead. Or at least fresh water that was as easily obtained as it was from the spring. The more they had with them now, the better off they’d be.

“We have to trust each other,” he said softly. He didn’t bother saying “or we won’t make it.” He figured Sho knew that bit already.

Sho hoisted his own bag, his eyes still a little uncertain. But he nodded in agreement, taking out the scanner, gesturing for them to continue on their journey.

They walked quietly, scanning carefully for any creatures that might live in the grasslands. They had plenty of medical supplies from the pod, but Satoshi hoped they wouldn’t have to use them.

It was an hour before Sho said something that had nothing to do with the path ahead, with the readouts from the scanner.

“Satoshi-kun?”

“Yeah?”

“I…I do trust you.” Sho’s voice was nervous, almost shy. “You saved my life, and I still haven’t thanked you for it. So…thank you. And I just want you to know that I trust you more than anyone right now.”

“Glad to hear it,” he mumbled, trying and probably failing to keep from blushing.

All they could do was move forward, but his steps felt just a bit lighter with Sho’s admission.

—

The ground was gone. Why was the ground gone? He floated through red, his vision blurred.

“Help me!”

He tried to turn, unable to find his way. The voice’s pleas grew louder still.

“Help me! Help me!”

He tried to move, unable to place his feet firmly. He drifted, desperate to help. He managed to turn a corner.

He found Sho, floating. His hands were up. He was surrendering. But Harada…Harada was there and he…

“Help me!” Sho screamed, and then Harada fired.

He watched Sho disintegrate right in front of—



“It’s okay…”

He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t…

“Hey, Satoshi-kun. Hey, you’re going to be okay.”

He opened his eyes, the images already starting to fade. His nightmare had propelled him into a seated position, the blanket bunched around his legs. His breaths were coming in gasps, and he moved a hand to his cheek, finding tear tracks. They weren’t in space. He wasn’t floating. And Sho was alive. Sho was real.

It was dark, and he couldn’t see much of anything, but he could feel warmth beside him, all around him. Sho had an arm around him, reassuring, reinforcing the idea that they were here. The Miyabi was gone. But they were alive. For now, at least, they were alive.

He shut his eyes, mumbling an apology. Sho’s hand rubbed up and down his arm in a comforting motion.

“You were talking in your sleep,” Sho said, his voice low. “You were upset.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

Satoshi took a few deep breaths, annoyed with his brain for playing such cruel tricks on him. The last few nights he’d been so exhausted, mentally and physically, that sleep had come to him quite easily. Dreams had abandoned him, but tonight they’d returned. And in an awful fashion.

He focused on facts. He focused on reality.

They’d walked fourteen kilometers that day, stopping when they’d come upon a hollowed out tree. The forest was old, the trees here soaring far above their heads. The trees had been here long before them, and the trees would be here long after them. They’d set up camp inside the massive trunk, enough space for them to curl up, sleep on their sides. It wasn’t the most comfortable, and it was still cold, but they were largely protected from the wind, as were their supplies. They’d saved a large swath of fabric from the parachute that had eased the pod’s landing. It now served as a makeshift covering, and it was flapping gently in the night air.

“Sho-kun, I’m sorry for waking you…we should rest…”

He turned away, Sho’s hand slipping off of him as he turned over onto his side, bringing his knees up, making himself small.

“You sure you don’t want to talk about it?” Sho mumbled, lying back beside him.

“Just a bad dream.”

“I think I had a dream last night where I was playing violin. I haven’t played since I was a kid.” Sho’s chuckle was warm, gentle. “You’d think with all the stress we’re under that I’d be having nightmares, just like you. The brain is remarkable, I think.”

He shut his eyes. While some of his dream had faded away, the feelings hadn’t. He could still hear Sho’s desperate pleas, his cries for help. He hadn’t been able to save him. His racing heart probably thought he was still in the nightmare. Satoshi didn’t really believe in dreams and what they meant or symbolized. It was one of those things Mina had been obsessed with years back after reading some fortune teller’s book. She was always asking her advisors and attendants what they had dreamed about, and then she’d say if it was a good or bad omen. At least she’d given up that nonsense when she’d become Queen.

Dreaming about Sho in danger meant nothing. Right? Harada and Kinoshita were already dead, and Harada by Satoshi’s own hand. He’d never killed anyone before, and perhaps he felt guilty. But he’d do it again. He knew that. He’d do it again in an instant if Sho was in danger. He didn’t know if that made him a bad person. Frankly, he didn’t care.

“Why’d you stop playing?” he found himself asking a short time later, Sho’s shallow breathing behind him letting him know he wasn’t asleep yet either. “The violin.”

“I played violin for a few years, I just didn’t like it like I enjoyed playing piano, so I asked to focus only on one instrument. Piano just came more naturally. But I hardly do that anymore either,” Sho admitted. “Everything I do is work and work and work because I…”

Satoshi didn’t press him to finish his sentence.

“I like to sketch,” he said, keeping Sho from thinking about his father, his responsibilities. “They gave me a tutor for a while, my parents, but I hated him. He always wanted me to draw bowls of fruit and stuff. I drew what I wanted, and he’d come back every day with another stupid basket of fruit.”

“So you’ve always had a rebellious streak?” Sho teased.

“Damn right,” he said, smiling despite the lingering unease of his nightmare. This memory was a fond one. “One day I drew an apple and a banana teaming up to murder the tutor. He was…dismissed.”

Sho’s laugh warmed him much better than the blanket did. “And what was the reaction?”

“My mother was embarrassed, but my father said that I had a creative mind. I didn’t get in trouble.”

He could hear Sho turning onto his back, the soft rustle of his own blanket. “If I’d done something like that, I’d have been forced onto my hands and knees, to bow down and beg forgiveness from the tutor. And I’d have been drawing bowls of fruit until my hand fell off.”

“Because your parents are strict?”

“Because creativity isn’t as highly praised on Kagerou, at least among the court,” Sho muttered. “Tradition and duty are more favored attributes.”

Which explained a lot about why Sho’s creative solution, attempting to find a more effective means of using kaenium to generate power without asking permission first, was controversial. They were a planet of constant technological advancement, and yet they seemed so conservative in other ways. Harada and Kinoshita’s actions on board the Miyabi confirmed it all the more.

“Do you plan to keep things that way?” he asked.

“How do you mean?” Sho answered.

“When you become king?”

Sho was quiet for a while, and Satoshi thought he wasn’t going to answer. But finally, he heard Sho exhale, gathering his thoughts.

“I wonder if that’s a realistic goal anymore.” Sho sighed. “Given recent developments.”

Satoshi wasn’t sure if Sho was hesitant because of the possibility of being stranded here permanently or because people he trusted so deeply had betrayed him, nearly killed him.

“For what it’s worth, I think you’d be a good king, Sho-kun.”

When Sho laughed, he turned over, unable to see more of him than a faint outline in the dark.

“I’m serious,” he said. “You’re meticulous, knowledgeable. You want what’s best for your people.”

“They don’t understand,” Sho admitted. “Many of the people. They’re used to the way things are. They don’t think too hard about how the kaenium that powers their homes is mined. Or the people that do the work. All they care about is what it means for them when there are shortages. They only care once they start to feel the effects. And for some reason they aren’t angry at my father or his advisors or the inflexible and intolerant policies that led to those shortages. They’re angry at you. At Akatsuki, I mean. Their taxes support the mines…”

“And they assume we’re ungrateful for the employment opportunities Kagerou provides,” Satoshi interrupted, anger simmering within him. He’d heard all these arguments before, these insulting and infuriating arguments. Akatsuki’s people were the ungrateful ones?!

“Yes,” Sho said.

“I still think you’d be a good king,” he said firmly.

“But why?”

“Because you’ve spent your entire life preparing for it. Because you came to Akatsuki and argued your father’s viewpoint so strongly. You had an answer for everything, with data and evidence to back it up…” He smiled ruefully. “If you could be that convincing arguing for something you don’t even really believe in, just imagine how convincing you might be arguing the opposite position.”

“Satoshi-kun…”

“You pissed me off, you know. Stars, you really pissed me off. Every time you’d come visit. I hated sitting there, at a table with you, trying my hardest to get you to bend on even one little thing and you never did.”

“I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be sorry for it. Use it.”

Sho was quiet for a while. Satoshi’s nightmare poked at him again and again, Sho’s cries for help. Not being able to rescue him in time.

“You made it very clear that your sister, that Akatsuki, can’t help me,” Sho mumbled. “And the only reason we’re sleeping inside a stars-forsaken tree right now is because I almost got myself assassinated for having ideas contrary to my father’s. So what am I supposed to do?”

“For now, we sleep. Then we wake up. Then we keep walking east.”

“I get that,” Sho said. “But I mean in the long term.”

“I’ll help you.”

What was he saying? He could hear Mina’s complaints already, Jun’s following right along after. The Satoshi who retreated at every opportunity back to the peace and quiet of his lake cabin, his fishing boat. That Satoshi was complaining, too.

But the Satoshi of right now, the Satoshi on Rakuen, refused to change his mind.

“I’ll help you,” he vowed once again, and the conversation was closed.



part four