Hornet's Nest

The Fine Print

The take-off turbulence was a real struggle. Daigo had experienced it at least fifteen times in the past couple of months, and every single one, he decided against suffering it ever again. That he would acquire those gravity disruptors even if he had to steal them from the military.

Every single time, though, Daigo would quickly forget all about it. He just loved space too much.

Nothing really prepared someone for the true glow of a star. Unbarred by any atmospheric particles, true light really shined notoriously potent. In space, one could see incalculable distances of darkness and void, all illuminated by one mass of self-sustaining fire.

It never failed to make Daigo emotional.

“You are cleared for detachment.”

“Hornet’s Nest acknowledges,” Daigo confirmed. “Thank you for the lift and have a very nice day. Over and out.”

Kiyin yawned as she pulled the lever to execute detachment. Daigo watched them gaining distance from the shuttle as if they were loose debris. Dozens of other ships were doing the same.

“Why can’t you always be that civil, Daigo?” Kiyin asked, waking up the ship’s engines. It rumble with the consumption of fuel.

Ahead, the other ships lit up and started powering themselves free of inertia’s grasp, each moving in a different direction. Within minutes, Daigo and his crew would be completely alone in the void.

That was how big space was.

“Because civility is an insult to those close to you,” Daigo replied while unclasping the belt. He stood up out of his chair. “I’ll go check on the passenger. Set up our path and get us moving, okay?”

“Right,” Kiyin passively said. “Where are we heading?”

Daigo stopped mid-stride, thinking.

“I’ll check with our passenger,” he said comically.

Daigo heard Kiyin laughing as he walked out of the cabin.

That’s been happening more and more lately, Daigo thought, gladly, but not often enough. She’s got such a pretty laugh.

Daigo shuddered, imagining how she’d react to that comment if she heard it spoken out loud. Not very happily, that’s for sure.

Passing by the bathroom, he heard Hannes suffering through his usual barfing. The toughest guy on the ship, he had the weakest stomach.

Moving on, Daigo went straight for Kyle’s quarters.

“Captain,” a young voice called out, matching the soft mechanical whir produced by the cabin door opening. “He’s… in the room,” Kyle said, conspiratorially, and also winking.

“Good work, kid,” Daigo said, still in a very good mood. ”Please don’t do the winking thing. So how about preparing us a meal? I think it’d be good to eat in about an hour?”

Kyle smiled warmly “Sure, I’d be happy to!”

“Great, then.” Daigo closed Kyle’s door before moving on to find that special room of theirs.

John was sitting on his bed, looking quite uncomfortable. His large cape looked almost like an over-sized coat, long enough that he sitting on it instead of on the bed.

“John,” Daigo called out.

“What was that?” his deep voice complained, with a tremor. “Are you sure this ship’s spaceworthy?”

Daigo gasped in insult. “Of course, it is!”

“Will it need a shuttle to land, too?” John asked, displeased.

“Yes, but don’t worry, we have escape pods in case you need to drop into a planet without one,” Daigo reassured.

“Escape pods?” John didn’t feel reassured, apparently. “Are you crazy?”

“What do you mean? They’re standard practice.”

“They’re not common practice,” John slowly said, glancing around with a doubtful look on his face.

“Well, it’s what we got,” Daigo said with a smile. “I need to know where we’re heading. In our rush, I forgot to ask.”

John hesitated in a very telling way.

“Muena three,” he finally stated, looking aside.

Daigo’s heart reached out to his brain and kicked it, making his body shudder away his smile.

“Sorry? Did you say Muena?”

“Three,” John added casually, “yes.”

“Well now…” Daigo leaned against the doorway, crossing his arms with a shake of his head, “I am really sorry I didn’t ask before. We actually have a very strong policy against messing with the lizards.”

“It’s okay, Daigo. They’re expecting me.” His tone of voice wasn’t any different, it was like he really didn’t know about Muena’s lizards. That was very much impossible since every human being knew about them.

“Friend…” Daigo said carefully, “there are only two things the lizards expect of others. That’s to leave them alone and to die.”

“I know the stereotype but this is different,” John said, sure of himself.

Daigo raised an eyebrow and kept a few seconds of silence, considering the situation. He had given John plenty of opportunities to fully explain himself, and offer proof to back up his confidence, but the man seemed intent on keeping his secrets. Daigo could only trust the man’s confidence blindly.

Yup, Daigo thought, smiling, that just about forces my hand, John.

“Well, the righteousness of clientele and all that, right? You paid us, we’ll sure deliver on that. Muena 3 it is!”

John nodded in agreement.

Daigo gave him a mini-salute and a wink. “I hope you enjoy your stay, John. Make yourself comfortable, it will be a few days until we get there.”

“I know,” John nodded again. “Thank you, really.”

Daigo chuckled. “Hey, not a problem, John. You’ll get your money’s worth or my name isn’t Daigo!”

After he hit the button to close the door, Daigo ran back to Kiyin. He had to check with her before going forward with what he was planning to do.

“Well I don’t see any problem with that,” Kiyin said, pretty sarcastically.

“I know, we’re not--”

“I’m sure Sará will love the idea,” she complained, making Daigo chuckle.

She glanced at him a tiny bit embarrassed.  “Kiyin, we’re not going to Muena 3,” he said.

Kiyin breathed in relief, even if she still looked displeased. “Daigo, how many times do you think we can betray our clients before we get a reputation?”

“Hey.” Daigo leaned back on his chair and clicked through the holographic buttons to fully open the blast windows. “If we get the reputation that we’ll screw you over if you try and get us killed, then good. It’s not a bad reputation to have.”

“I’m not sure that’s the reputation we’ll get,” Kiyin teased. She then shrugged and added, “that your ship will get.”

“It’s our ship, Kiyin,” he casually corrected her, “and its reputation will be just fine, don’t worry.”

Kiyin scoffed and mumbled to the side, probably because she was dangerously close to smiling. “Says it’s our ship, but I never get any say in what job we get.”

“You get all of the says,” Daigo pointed out with comical gestures, “you are always saying things, and I hear you, I do, but decisions need to be made to keep this ship running. At the end of the day, that’s what we want, right? We already lift off which puts us at an expense, so we need him to come through, but we’re not going to no damn Muena 3. So that leaves only one thing we can do. Right?”

Kiyin didn’t say anything back, which Daigo had learned was how she showed that she either agreed with him or just liked what he said.

After a moment’s pause, she blew on her bangs to dismiss the tension of the decision. “Okay.”

He smirked at that. Daigo thought it was pretty cute how she did that. He didn’t let her know, of course, she might get rid of it then.

“Okay,” Daigo agreed back, “thank you.”

“Yeah,” she said, glancing farther away, which was an impressive feat. “Thank you for checking with me first.”

Daigo flinched. He was used to dealing with the passive aggressiveness, so as happy as he was, he didn’t really know what to do there. He filled a couple of seconds with an awkward hum as he thought about what to say.

He didn’t come up with anything. “Yeah, I mean, my pleasure, I wanted to.”

Daigo knew enough to predict that even more awkwardness was about to follow, so he promptly stood up to leave the cockpit. “I’ll go tell the others, call me if you want something.”

Clearing her throat, Kiyin assented with a nod.

Daigo left feeling pretty great about the progress he had made, but he quickly put that out of his mind so he could focus on the traitorous job at hand. He had Sará keep tabs on the video feed from John’s room, and went to eat. Hours ticked away. Too many hours went by before John finally decided to go to sleep.

An hour after that, Daigo went around the corner from John’s room. He peeled off a portion of the wall, a thin layer of metal sheeting that was hiding a secret panel. Daigo turned the switch on and spun the dial, and that got the knockout gas going into the room.

Daigo waited in the mess hall with Hannes. They were both tired since it was the middle of the night cycle, which they would be skipping.

“I’d complain ‘bout bein’ bored,” Hannes pointed out while scratching his armpit, “but at this point, I know better.”

Daigo chuckled while taking a bite out of his apple. He always ate one before risking his life, it was a habit he had taken up to try and decrease the rate at which he did risk his life.

Apples were expensive, and tasted terrible.

“Yeah, let’s not jinx it for once,” Daigo said.

The anxiety built alongside curiosity, with each passing minute. So much so that neither Daigo nor Hannes really gave it an hour, but rather just half that. Enough to make sure nobody could hold their breath. They went ahead and purged the room from the gas, using the same secret panel. After a few more minutes of waiting, this time just outside John’s room, they could finally go inside and find out what the cargo was.

Daigo pressed the button to open the door, and as soon as it slid open, he was met with a red blur.

To the sound of a roar, Daigo’s vision went dark as his head hit something very hard, or something very hard hit his head.

He heard Hannes curse while his back and head hit the wall behind him, all impressions which only became clear a few seconds after he bounced off and fell to the floor.

Finally getting his bearings, Daigo found John dodging a jab from Hannes. His cape had been fashioned into a scarf that was still covering his mouth.

So that’s what it’s for, Daigo realized, it’s probably got some tech in it to provide oxygen.

“You rat bastards!” John yelled, half muffled.

John grappled Hannes, a bit too expertly for comfort, and threw him over his shoulder and onto the ground so hard that the gruff mercenary had all his air pushed out of him. He still managed to grunt a profanity, though.

Daigo figured he had about half a minute before John was dead.

“We just want to know what’s in the box!” Daigo tried, “please calm down, we won’t kill you!”

“Liars and thieves!” John yelled out, his mouth escaping the scarf so he could breathe and fully vocalize how mad he was.

Taking a g*n out, John swiftly aimed at Daigo and pulled the trigger.