Iteration

‘Iteration’ is part of the space saga that began with ‘In the cold of space you find the heat of suns’ and continues in ‘Tales in Tarrasade’.

Thanks to Small Fox for being my beta. For this story he has also been my muse, suggesting a number of the ideas that have evolved to create this arc.

Apologies if the characters have grown differently in their new environment.

Thank you to those who have left a review. I truly appreciate every one and more would be very welcome. Thank you Oni~K for your kind words. Remember if you wish to be emailed every time there is an update, my email is in my profile. Just drop me a line.

This is posted in the Naruto/Sasuke section because it is part of a Naru/Sasu/Naru space saga. However, it does feature many other pairings (and a few threesomes). Apologies to those who are expecting Naruto/Sasuke or Sasuke/Naruto every chapter.

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Chapter twenty-four: Operatives

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Sasuke had no intention of allowing Shikamaru to leave his office until he had some answers. How in known space had Shikamaru intercepted Shibito’s message to Naruto so quickly? How did he have the capacity to ensure a light speed relay pathway between Kaze III and the Warren?

“Well?” he prompted.

Shikamaru took a deep breath. “It just grew. Little by little.”

“Shikamaru!” Sasuke demanded.

“It started with the Snuffers,” Shikamaru admitted.

“Snuffers?” Sasuke queried. “What do Snuffers have to do with it?”

“When I found out about Neji, I vowed to get rid of the Snuffers,” Shikamaru told him.

“The Snuffers who had hurt Neji,” Sasuke checked.

Shikamaru frowned slightly. “No. All Snuffers. Up to a point it went well. I estimate that I got rid of nine-tenths of them. The others dug in. They worked out how to avoid me. The numbers started to rise again. I couldn’t have that.”

“Got rid of them?” Sasuke queried, slightly behind.

“I broadcast evidence of what they were doing and offered a bounty,” Shikamaru explained. “That was enough. Or it had been for nine out of ten Snuffer crews. For the others I could not collect good enough evidence.”

“And you wouldn’t point a finger and offer a bounty without it,” Sasuke surmised.

“Of course not,” Shikamaru replied. “Then Klenn suggested that I needed a few operatives. So that I could collect better evidence. Like he has Garner.”

“Klenn,” Sasuke echoed. “Klennethon Darrent?”

Shikamaru pinked. “You gave me permission to correspond with him,” he reminded Sasuke.

“Four standards ago. When we were chasing Kabuto.” Sasuke scowled at him. “How often do you communicate with him?”

Shikamaru’s blush darkened. “I’ll get to that. Anyway, I thought about it. It wasn’t like I didn’t already pay people to do things for me. I mean, sometimes one of the identities has to do something that requires a body.”

There was a pause. Sasuke got up and went towards the alcove where he made tea and put the kettle on. “The identities,” he recapped as he came back and sat down. “Like the ones Temari mentioned when we first met her. How many did she say you had?”

“Seven thousand, one hundred and eighty-two,” Shikamaru answered without having to think about it.

“And how many do you really have?” Sasuke asked.

“Current and active? Not that many. Fewer than five thousand,” Shikamaru answered.

“Including inactive? And non-current?” Sasuke pressed.

Shikamaru considered. It depended how you defined an identity. “About forty thousand?” he suggested. “Most of them are just entries in databases held on various planets, in case I need someone who comes from there one day.”

Sasuke blinked at him. “And it did not occur to you that moving from virtual identities to full time living and breathing operatives was something you ought to mention to me?”

Shikamaru could not hold his gaze. “Yes, but I hadn’t told you about the Snuffers. And I knew that you didn’t realise that I was in regular contact with Klenn. I thought you would stop me corresponding with him.”

“And you do not want to,” Sasuke suggested.

“No,” Shikamaru admitted in a small voice. “I don’t want to. We play Go and Shogi and set each other riddles. He understands my jokes.”


And, at that moment, it was as if Sasuke did not have anywhere to stand and he was falling.

Sasuke could recognise loneliness when he saw it; he had experienced enough of it when he was younger. He thought of the story that Shikamaru told the children, about the two lonely boys who had found each other. Suddenly it was a thousand times more poignant. Shikamaru, despite his deep commitment to their family, was still a lonely little boy. His genius condemned him to it. There were parts of him that none of them could understand, never mind reach; not him, not Naruto, not even Neji.

Sasuke finally understood how close he had come to losing Shikamaru on Elessen. It terrified him. If Klennethon Darrent had been a century younger, if Naruto had not claimed Shikamaru as his best friend, if Sasuke had not given him the ring, they would have lost him.


He went to finish making the tea. His hands were trembling. He wanted a drink of alcohol. He never wanted alcohol.

“I am sorry,” Shikamaru whispered.

Sasuke took two deep breaths to calm himself. He picked up the tea tray and took it to the table. He poured them each a cup of tea.

“I gave you permission to correspond with him,” he said. “It is fine. I trust you. There is no need for you to stop.” He cast about for a thought that would cheer Shikamaru up. “Maybe Haru will understand your jokes when he is older.”

It worked. Shikamaru smiled at him. “Thank you for Haru,” he said.

Sasuke was not sure that this was territory they should explore. “Thank Naruto. Haru is his gift to the both of us.” Mentioning Naruto made Sasuke more secure. He saw Shikamaru’s gaze go to the picture frame, to the image of Naruto with the children.

“Tell me about these operatives, then,” Sasuke instructed.

Shikamaru took a sip of his tea. Sasuke could imagine him wishing it were coffee, which was only fair as Sasuke was wishing it were sake.

“Well, they needed to be mobile. Ideally they needed ships with miniature Mulligan drives, the fastest conventional drives on the market, improvers and light speed communication relays. I could only get two of those. So I asked Klenn if he could source the miniature Mulligan drives for me.

“He agreed. He also offered to give me three improvers, on two conditions.”

Sasuke waited.

“The first was that I would try to correspond with him every day,” Shikamaru admitted. “Usually it is just a Go move and maybe a Shogi move. Sometimes there is a puzzle or a joke. About once every ten days I write him a letter or, if there isn’t time for that, I record a message.

Shikamaru took a deep breath. “The second condition was that I would not simply give the improvers to Uchiha,” he confessed.

Sasuke counted to ten in his head. He would not lose his temper. He told himself that he was not angry at Shikamaru but at Klennethon Darrent, who was bent on placing temptation in Shikamaru’s way. He took another mouthful of tea and swallowed.

“He would not have given you the improvers to give to Uchiha,” he acknowledged. “And I know that you would not accept them under false pretences. Now we have found ourselves in a situation that we cannot address without them, you are using them. I assume you are using one of them to lay a string of minigates.”

Shikamaru looked shocked. “No. Never. Minigates are Uchiha technology. I would not dream of allowing a non-Uchiha ship access to them. No, the ships can bridge the gaps to create a conventional communication route.”

Sasuke almost smiled. In Shikamaru’s mind the fiendishly complicated situation probably made perfect sense.

“Can I ask what your operatives do?” he asked. “In outline,” he added hastily as he watched Shikamaru’s eyes unfocus, indicating that he was thinking more deeply.

Shikamaru’s gaze came back to Sasuke. “They have two general tasks. They map holes and they collect information and inject it into the data streams for me to find. Other than that, I assign specific tasks. For example, I have had one keeping an eye on the Warren, which was how I picked up the message for Naruto so quickly. They also have guidelines defining situations where they should use their initiative.”

“How did you recruit them?” Sasuke asked.

“I advertised,” Shikamaru told him. “Then I selected from among the applicants. I put thirty-nine through various tests and, finally, I paid a Hyuga to interview the final nine. I listened to her report and watched the holovids.”

“You did not think of using Neji?” Sasuke asked, imagining how much it must have cost Shikamaru to hire the Hyuga.

Shikamaru shook his head. “Out of the question. He is Uchiha, he is too easily traced back to me and I did not want him knowing about the Snuffers.”

The pieces began to come together in Sasuke’s mind. “They do not know they are employed by you,” he deduced.

“Of course not,” Shikamaru replied. “Hopefully they think they are employed by some ancient, eccentric philanthropist. Even if they don’t, they would find themselves working through a succession of other identities before they even began to find their way to me.”

“Did you base him on Klennethon Darrent?” Sasuke asked, mischievously.

Shikamaru flushed slightly. “Maybe. A bit. Perhaps more than a bit,” he admitted.

“How will you handle them working with us?” Sasuke inquired.

“Not a problem,” Shikamaru assured him. “It is a humanitarian mission. They will be helping the HDL, which leads to Naruto and therefore Uchiha. They have a list of organisations that they can ally with for specific missions. The HDL is on it, as is Uchiha.” He considered. “Can we keep the fact they are my operatives between you and me?”

Sasuke scowled at him. “On one condition,” he replied.

Shikamaru waited.

“You keep me informed about future developments in your secret life,” Sasuke told him. “At least the big stuff.”

There was a short silence. Sasuke was puzzled. Was he going to refuse?

Then Sasuke realised that Shikamaru was close to tears.

“I thought you would be angry,” he said softly.

Sasuke wished Naruto was present. Naruto would hold Shikamaru and it would be fine.

“Promise me, Shika-san,” he insisted.

“I promise,” Shikamaru said and, thankfully, smiled.

“Go work on ways we can save thousands of hybrids without actually being there,” Sasuke told him. “I’ll arrange for a flask of coffee to be brought to the laboratory.”

---

Until this mission the operative known as Tennyo Three had loved her job.

It was extremely well paid and the benefits, which included age retard, were amazing. It suited her a great deal better than the other ways she had earned her living. Spacing alone, with only an array of virtual lovers or friends for company, proved much less aggravating than spacing with flesh and blood people. Her ship, the Marishiten, was incredible. Usually the tasks she was assigned were challenging and exciting. She particularly liked it when she had to assume an identity. She was delighted that her hair, skin and eye colour could be modified, not by using dyes or contact lenses, but via nanobots.

But her latest mission was increasingly boring. She had to hack into the light speed communication relay in the system containing the Warren every five days. She was then to jump through two normally unusable holes to another system and inject the data into the light speed relay there.

Recently the second gate, where she injected the data, had changed. She assumed that was because the recipient of the information, who might or might not be Chaaruzu-san, had moved location.

Being tethered to the gate serving the Warren had been annoying. It severely limited where she could go and what she could do. She had even considered contacting Chaaruzu-san and asking if it were possible for her to be relieved.

Then she had noticed the message to Tarrasade from a bartender.

Bartenders, even if they owned their bars, did not send light speed messages. Once the hacked data was safely injected into the designated relay, she jumped back and docked at the Warren.

Initial investigations revealed that the bartender, Shibito, had sold his bar to send the message.

That changed it from merely intriguing to interesting. She opened the message.


It took her almost a minute to remember to breathe. It took a great deal longer before she started to think.

This definitely fell within Chaaruzu-san’s guidelines for when she should use her initiative. To be sure she checked using the relevant programme, feeding in ‘imminent death of thousands’. As she suspected the result was that she was free to so anything she thought necessary, up to and including using all the resources at her disposal and risking her life if she wished to do so.

She researched, planned, replanned and defined what she should do. She quickly decided that her objective should be to delay the massacre and hope that Chaaruzu-san, or Naruto-san, sent assistance. Her next decision was her target. She quickly chose the mayor, Onoki, who was renowned for his greed.

Her approach was obvious. She would pose as the representative of an extremely wealthy and profitable multi-system company that was looking to expand into this sector. They would, specifically, be looking for a space station with a good supply of hybrids. The company would have a strict policy about hybrid welfare.

Hopefully Onoki would delay the massacre until she left, for fear of losing the business opportunity.

She had never posed as the representative of an extremely wealthy and profitable multi-system company. More in hope than expectation, she entered a description of the desired identity into the designated programme.

It was there. All she had to do was fill in the details she required, the programme generated the rest. She checked; it was incredibly detailed. There was a packet of information to inject into the data stream and instructions to find a box in storage bay three.

The box contained everything she would need from bodywash and perfume to ear studs and boots. She set her hair to ‘expensive ash blond’, her skin to ‘I get to live on a planet’ and her eye colour to ‘obviously genetically selected blue’.


She loved her job.

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Shikamaru ignored the possibility that the massacre had already happened or would happen before they could intervene. There was nothing to be gained by dwelling on those outcomes.

Tennyo One and Tennyo Two would be travelling as quickly as they could to the gates that had to be bridged to make the light speed link between Kaze III and the Warren. As soon as Tennyo Three received his message she would dock at the Warren and be his eyes and ears there.

Planning what to do when they arrived at the Warren would require the expertise of other members of the crew. First he needed to do the things that only Shikamaru could do.

He wrote seven enquiries and submitted them to his data crystal array.

Then he mobilised funds. He set in motion a takeover of the Stellar Exchange. He instructed several of his virtual identities to buy as much of the Warren as was possible. He analysed the shipping lanes and made an offer for a company with a fleet of cargo ships active in that sector.

Two of the enquiries were back by the time he had finished. He reviewed the results and sent three more messages. Then he lifted his goggles and reached for the flask of coffee.

Neji was holding it and a cup.

Shikamaru took out his earpieces and stripped off his gloves while Neji poured the coffee.

“We are setting up one of the meeting rooms,” Neji told him. “Kono-kun is installing extra projectors at this moment. Shino-san is ensuring that we will be able to access all necessary communications from the room. The Dart is provisioned and ready to undock at a moment’s notice.”

“Kakashi would be captain?” Shikamaru asked.

Neji smiled. “Yes, Sasuke chose the crew and Kakashi is captain.”

Shikamaru relaxed slightly.


He felt even better when he and Neji entered the meeting room. The rest of Uchiha’s strategic thinkers were there; Sasuke himself, Kakashi, Itachi and Inari. Jiraiya and Tsunade were there to offer experience, Shino and Rin expertise, Asuma practicality, Iruka thoughtful questioning and Naruto his unique blend of lateral thinking and wisdom. Finally Konohamaru, Tayuya and Kisame were there because they had been in the Warren.

If they did not succeed, they would know that Uchiha had offered its best.

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“Onoki-sama will see you now,” the busty young woman told her before getting up and opening the door for her. “Tennyo-san,” she announced.

She walked in as if she already owned the station and everything within it. It worked. The old man stood, which meant those with him had no option but to do likewise. She recognised Kurotsuchi, a leader of the anti-hybrid movement, in the group to his right and Sumashi, a moderate, amongst those on his left.

Onoki liked the look of her, which was good but had scary implications she could not afford to dwell upon. He bowed slightly.

“Tennyo-san,” he acknowledged.

She bowed slightly lower. “Onoki-san,” she replied and waited. A blond man with a ridiculous topknot detached himself from the group on Onoki’s right, came around and presented her chair, much to Kurotsuchi’s annoyance.

She smiled at him, putting a little more warmth into the smile than was strictly necessary.

He leered in return and she pretended not to notice.


She walked away satisfied. They had been arguing before the door had shut behind her. She activated her earpiece to listen to what was going on in the room, courtesy of the bug she had planted on the underside of her chair.

“Our plans should not be changed to placate some foreigner,” Kurotsuchi was saying.

“We cannot afford to jeopardise an opportunity like this,” Sumashi countered. “Imagine the wealth it would bring. Think what the increased traffic could mean.”

“What difference could a short delay make?” Onoki suggested. “Once she has gone, we can proceed with the plan. Sumashi-san, would you like to show Tennyo-san around the station?”

There was an exclamation of dissent, presumably from Kurotsuchi.

“You wish to do it, Kurotsuchi-san?” Onoki asked disbelievingly.

“No, of course not. Mahiru-san will accompany Sumashi,” she insisted.

“As long as he can keep his cock in his pants,” Sumashi countered, confirming that Mahiru was the blond man with the topknot who had presented her chair.

There were sounds of chairs legs scraping against floor and a scuffle.

“Stop it!” Onoki ordered. Once there was silence he continued. “Sumashi-san and Mahiru-san will show Tennyo-san around the station. Only, of course, the parts we wish her to see. As for either of you having the slightest chance with her, do not delude yourselves, a woman like that is so far above either of you that you might as well reach for a star.”

She smiled.

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