Crash Land on Kurai – Chapter 1

My fist flies forward, smashing into Gen Miyazawa’s face with a satisfying crunch. The crowd around us falls into silence as if they’ve jumped off a cliff and left nothing behind but a rush of air. Gen’s head snaps back, and if he hadn’t strapped himself in, he’d be floating away instead of unconscious at the mess hall table. That was easier than I thought it would be. When Gen’s mouth runs, my temper jogs alongside it, my foot jerking out to trip him. I should have punched him ages ago.

My brother groans, knocking me out of my head and into the pain radiating up through my knuckles. No big deal. I shake my hand, but nothing feels broken, not like the last time I beat someone down. That was when I almost lost my job, though, so it was a difficult fight to top. This? This was me dealing with a bully.

“Thanks, Yumi,” Ayamé says, tilting her head and watching the drops of blood float away from Gen. “I can’t believe what an ass he is.”

“Don’t encourage her.” Shintaro, my loving and caring brother, points his finger at Ayamé. “She gets no extra props because he’s an asshole.” He crushes his food pouches and unstraps from his seat. “What am I going to tell his boss now, huh?”

I dig in my food pouch for the last chunk of carrot in my stew. “The truth. Tell his boss that Gen can never keep his mouth shut when he should.”

People at other tables either mind their own business or nod along with me. One thing’s for sure, Gen’s not popular, and I’m the least of his worries.

“And don’t bring him around here again. I know you’re trying to make friends with other people on the ship, but he’s not worth it. Really. Look at what he said about you, about us, our family. I should’ve broken his arm too so he’d be stuck on the ship.”

Gen stirs with a snort. This is an excellent time for me to skedaddle.

Shintaro leans in, dropping his voice to a harsh whisper. “Just because you’re one minute older than me doesn’t mean shit.”

“You’re right,” I say, pushing away from him with Ayamé by my side. My hair floats forward into my face, the long strands brushing against my cheeks where it came out of my requisite zero-G ponytail. “It doesn’t mean shit. It never has.”

Time to blow out of here. I grasp the mess hall’s door frame and use my momentum to curl me around into the hallway toward our room. Ayamé takes my arm, hoping to help me flee the scene of the crime quicker.

No such luck.

“Yumi Minamoto!” The deep male voice echoes off the surrounding corridor, and my blood cools. Shit. It’s the commander. “You’re one strike away from being sent home,” ricochets through my head, the last thing my boss, Chieko Mori, said when she caught me trying to put together a Friday night fight club. Honestly, she should have let me do it. I could’ve blown off my steam there instead of at the lunch table.

“Don’t move,” the commander barks at me. I turn around slowly, hoping this doesn’t piss him off. The ship’s doctor floats past him into the mess hall as other people try to exit. Several jet past me, and I stare them down until they look away.

“Maybe I should go,” Ayamé whispers at me. I reach behind me and grab her hand.

“No. Stay. Please,” I beg her. “Look, I know it wasn’t right, but now you’re my only witness.”

“Fine.” She sighs, jerking her chin at the mess hall.

The commander finishes talking to whomever is inside the door and rockets down the hall. He’s a bird floating on the wind, not an awkward man in space.

“Yumi Minamoto,” he says, hooking his foot into a handhold in the “floor” (or what I consider to be the floor at this moment) and crossing his arms. Never has my full name carried such a weight of significance. “Why am I not surprised to find you at the center of this mess?”

“Sir, I —”

He holds up his hand, his eyes hard as stone. “Don’t you dare say another word.”

My face heats as I clamp my mouth shut. I’ve never been reprimanded by someone so high up the chain of command. I’ve really screwed this up.

“And where the hell is Kazuo Uchiyama? The only reason he’s on this trip is to keep you in line.”

I don’t know whether to answer or not.

“Never mind. I’m at my limits with you.”

They’re going to send me home, I know it.

“Sir, may I speak?” Ayamé asks, piping up from behind me.

He narrows his eyes at her. “And you are?”

She clears her throat. “Ayamé Akiyano, uh, Plant Biology.” This is the first time she’s ever addressed a member of the naval crew. She usually has so little contact with them, but I manage to bring out the second in command. I have a talent for getting into trouble, or so my mom says.

“Go ahead.” He waves his hand at her, resigned to the fact that this situation will not go quietly into the night.

“Gen Miyazawa is a bully and an asshole, sir.” His eyebrows raise. “He insulted Yumi’s entire family and then me for good measure. I was close to hitting him myself, and I’ve never hit anyone. Ever.”

All true. Ayamé is the sweet and quiet one, living in greenhouses and labs. If our families weren’t connected, I doubt we’d have ever become friends. But growing up together made us more tolerant of each other.

“Is that so?” He turns to look back at the mess hall and make eye contact with Shintaro. Shintaro shrugs his shoulders at the commander and heads off in the opposite direction.

He sighs again, rubbing his face. “I’ve had enough of all you civilians. You would think being raised together from birth would make it easy for you to work together. But no, I’m beginning to think it wasn’t the best idea the empress ever had.”

Mentioning the empress is a sure ploy to rile me up, but he presses on.

“Minamoto, you are confined to quarters for the next two days. Get someone to look at that hand of yours.”

I look down at my right hand, and the fingers are swollen and red.

“Sir, how am I supposed to do my job confined to quarters?” I was dismissed, and though he’s already two meters down the hall, he stops and returns. I immediately regret opening my mouth.

“Minamoto, do you have any idea how badly I fought to keep you off my ship?”

I don’t answer. It sounds like a rhetorical question. A trickle of sadness bubbles up in my belly.

He ticks off the points on his fingers. “You’ve been in jail a dozen times. You published an unauthorized account of the empress’s personal life, leading to days of protests in Yamato. You put two people in the hospital after you lost your temper at being fired from your job.” When he puts it all together like that, my missteps sound really bad. “And that was six months before we left Orihimé for this mission! Your boss assured me you wouldn’t get in the way. That your talent” — he growls the word — “far outweighed your behavior.”

He shakes his head, and I don’t know what to say. The empress forgave me in private for the exposé I had published without her permission. I figured that had been communicated, but it looks like the mission director left the information off my briefing. Hell, I’m here because she wanted me on this mission.

Everything else is true. I was in jail a dozen times, but mainly because I went there to protect my sources. I published that account of the empress’s life, but I was tired of her ruling over everyone and keeping her secrets, well, secret. Still, she eventually forgave me. And yes, I put two people in the hospital when I was suspended (not fired) from my job. They attacked me while they were drunk, hoping to scare me off from coming back to work when my suspension was over. The fact of the matter is that I’m the best journalist this mission could ever hope for. I get the story, and I don’t become emotional. I can’t help it if other people are jealous.

“She’s the best, sir,” Ayamé says, and pride overtakes the bubble of sadness. But I keep it down. I don’t crack a smile. Smiling now will just end me up in the brig.

I can be controlled when I want to be.

“Well, now she’s a third-level documentarian. I’m revoking your all-access pass to the ship. If you’re to cover something about the mission, you’ll do it with your boss, Mori, and no one else. Understood?”

“Sir, I don’t think you can do that.”

His eyes could melt snow. “I can and just did. Report to Chieko Mori as soon as you’ve finished your forty-eight hours cooling down in your quarters. And don’t be surprised if she keeps you in your room the rest of the trip.”

He pushes off and zooms down the hallway. I don’t bow. I don’t move. I don’t breathe until he rounds the corner.

“Fucking hell. My mother is going to kill me when I return home.”

Ayamé laughs. “What does your mom always say? The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree?”

“She says I fell and clung to her roots.” I press on the flesh of my fingers and watch the skin rebound slowly. I need to put my hand on ice. “But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to kill me. I get in enough trouble when I’m home.”

Ayamé floats backwards, coaxing me to follow her. Our quarters are in the next section over.

“I bet she’s in heaven with you gone. No late night runs to the police station. No meetings with the board of YNS. Just her, your dad, and your older brother.”

“Shut up and stop rubbing it in. Don’t you love me?” I wink at her. This is our usual banter. If I want to piss her off, I talk about how she was third in her class and not first, how she’s good with plants but can’t swim, and how she’s in love with my brother, though he only likes boys.

“No,” she lies. “Now let’s get back to the room before your hand falls off.”