In the cold of space you find the heat of suns

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

Author’s note. Thanks to Michiru, who recently reviewed chapter 1, which made me go back, have a look and rewrite some of the sentences. Likewise to other reviewers – like Prism0467 and Nivell - who have pulled me up for errors (which I have tried to eliminate).

Spacer crews travel the Far Borders and the Fringe of occupied space, trading. Spacing is an ancient and honourable profession carved out by millenniums. Most spacers start out as fourteen-year-old boys seeking a future. Few survive a decade spacing.

39. Tarrasade

The fees were enormous but they managed to secure the use of a whole spur. They moored the ships in quick succession: the Birch, the Estelle, the Silver Leaf, the Beech and the ship carrying the Uchiha fighters. There was only time for the briefest of face-to-face meetings with their allies. Sasuke introduced them to Naruto, identifying him as the gunner, and gave the captain of each ship an invitation to a longer meeting. Even that amount of time was a risk: the crowds built up with every moment’s passing.

They walked. Sasuke was in the centre with Naruto on one side and Kakashi on the other. Asuma and Gai went before them and the rest of the Silver Leaf’s crew behind. At the periphery of the party were the other eight Uchiha fighters. Above and beyond were Shino’s flyers.

As they walked towards the station end of the spur they could hear the screaming. On the other side of the door fifty of the security personnel they had hired were in place and waiting. Sasuke gave the signal, Jiraiya spoke to the authorities and the doors to the spur slid open.


Shikamaru’s plan of having a squad at each juntion made the difference; they made it to the unit in the inner residential ring. Sasuke flopped into a chair. Even if the new accommodation had been ready they could not have reached it; the mob was densest outside the Uchiha compound. Instead they had rented this ridiculously priced unit because it had a level of security that even Jiraiya considered laudable.

Jiraiya, Shino, Shikamaru and Neji were in the next room monitoring the media coverage. Naruto was prowling about, still hyper from the walk. Kakashi and Ibiki were talking through the security with Asuma and Gai. Iruka was looking over the accommodation. Sasuke spotted Haku standing, white faced, one arm hugged across his chest. He beckoned him over.

“They all have his description, Haku. If he tries to make contact we will know.” Sasuke pushed the youngster’s hair from his eyes and then changed his mind and hugged him. “I still want you to stay with us, Haku-kun, but we will keep our word. We will not stop you leaving with Zabuza-san.” He held him more tightly and whispered in his ear. “I dreamed of a future with Iruka-sensei raising my children and you being queen of my crew.”

Haku gave a small yelp, wriggled out of Sasuke’s arms and ran from the room. Rin-san, who had been watching from one of the doorways, sighed.

“It is madness,” she told him. “Lady knows what he is worth on the open market given his association with you. Zabuza probably already has a buyer in mind. Have you thought what you will do when the ransom demand arrives? You know you can never yield. They’ll vivisect him, then snuff him and sell the video.”

“Be silent!” Sasuke ordered, but he knew that Rin was only voicing their worst fears.

Rin came close enough that Haku could not possibly overhear. “You should have Zabuza killed.”

Sasuke had considered it but he would not do it without some evidence that Zabuza’s intentions were other than honourable. They did not even know if the rendezvous was real; it might only exist in Haku’s imagination.


The unit was safe and painfully costly but it was not large for twenty-two people. Once they has set aside a room close to the entrance as Sasuke’s office and given the smallest bedroom to Tsunade-san, Iruka was struggling to work out where everyone would sleep. He gave the largest of the three bedrooms over to the elite fighters because they might need to sleep singly. He stood in the remaining bedroom, trying to imagine fitting in three pairs and three singles. There was no question that Jiraiya would sleep in Tsunade’s room.

“Tents,” Rin suggested.

Iruka looked at her in incomprehension.

“Single and double tents. Collapsible ones. Think about them as portable bunks with drapes. Jiraiya could probably have them here by tonight if you asked him now.” She smiled. “Tents are easy to store during the day. We could use the whole unit for sleeping. Naruto and Sasuke could sleep in Sasuke’s office.”

That did it: Iruka went to find Jiraiya. Then he started to work on how to feed twenty-two from the tiny kitchen.


Shikamaru needed to speak to Sasuke. It was time to discover whether Sasuke saw the ‘voice in my ear’ role extending to non-combat situations. He accepted his bowl and a fork from Haku and then wove his way through the others to the corner where Sasuke and Naruto were eating.

“There is more,” he told Naruto, who was regarding his empty bowl mournfully.

Naruto was gone. Shikamaru hunkered down next to Sasuke, who looked at him with some surprise.

“I need to tell you something,” Shikamaru admitted.

Sasuke frowned at him. “You never have to ask, Shikamaru-san.”

Shikamaru took a deep breath. “You are running out of credit.”


Sasuke had never thought about money. The Uchiha were rich. They had always been rich. He did remember his mother keeping household accounts and he had paid attention when Tsunade-san had presented the Silver Leaf’s balance sheet at Meetings. It was a big jump between those simple examples and complexity of what Shikamaru was trying to show him. It did not help that he had insisted on going to the office at once and seeing the evidence immediately. Shikamaru had not yet decided now to present the information, so it was littered with Shikamaru-sized deductive leaps. It was like trying to keep up with Naruto when he forgot to move slowly.

“Can you show me the credit flow over the last three standards?” he asked, hoping to establish some baseline he could understand.

Shikamaru considered, inputted some instructions and projected the resulting chart. Sasuke gulped. You did not have be an expert or a genius to understand that credit had be going out at a faster rate than it was coming in and that the gap between the two was increasing.

“Last ten standards,” Sasuke demanded.

As he expected, the problem had been much worse since the massacre.

“Main causes?” he asked.

Shikamaru considered. “Idiots have managed your family’s investment portfolio over the last two hundred standards, no one thinks twice about charging Uchiha way over the market rate for everything, your agents and allies have been skimming the cream since your father’s death because no one had been stopping them and you have been spending a lot of credit lately. Have you any idea what today cost?”

An amount of credit appeared. It was a scarily large number.

“I can’t see our expenses reducing any time soon,” Shikamaru warned him. “We have to sort out our base here and work out a solution for spacing. Every time you go out in public it will cost us a fortune. You are going to have to spend a lot of credit. Credit you do not have. Uchiha cannot be seen to borrow. The minute anyone works out that you are not filthy rich the Uchiha reputation will be permanently damaged.”

“Solutions?” Sasuke asked.

“Give me the permissions I need to manage your investments. Issue a gentle warning to your agents and allies that someone is going to monitoring future transactions. Introduce cost as a factor into decision-making. Do something that will realise a large lump of credit.”

Shikamaru’s hesitation was worrying. “Tell me,” Sasuke insisted.

“You could sell the whole Uchiha compound. Today’s events, combined with everyone knowing you have not entered it since the massacre, would give you a face-saving reason for doing it now.”

It was beyond Sasuke to consider it. “Is there no alternative?” he whispered.

“One. You could give the media an interview. To make it worth enough credit it would have to be exclusive, a live broadcast and it would have to include Naruto. You could say that you are doing it so that the media will go away and leave you alone, which is ridiculous but they would swallow it.”

An Uchiha pandering to the media: the thought made Sasuke’s blood run cold. He then imagined Naruto giving a live interview, which made it even worse.

“None of the other alternatives come close,” Shikamaru told him. “They do not realise enough credit, they risk exposing our lack of funds and they jeopardise our effectiveness for the future. I can show you if you wish.”

Sasuke shook his head. “I trust you, Shikamaru.”

“I think I can get you more than a teracredit for the interview.”

It helped.

“What do we tell the others?” Sasuke asked.

“Describe it as a credit flow problem. Except for Neji, they have no concept of finance. Neji will not say anything.”

“I will tell Naruto why the interview is so important,” decided Sasuke. “Otherwise he will not understand why I am asking him to do something he will hate so much.”


They were about to return to the others when Shino knocked on the door.

“Boss. Someone who says he is Zabuza is at the outer cordon.”

Sasuke and Shikamaru exchanged looks.

“Ask Asuma and Gai if they will accompany Ibiki and Jiraiya out there,” Sauke instructed. “If it is he, they should bring him here. Then ask Tsunade-san if she would join me.”

“Sure thing, boss.” He paused. “I think Haku-kun overheard,” he warned.

Sasuke swore. “Tell Haku… No, get Haku in here before Tsunade-san.”

Haku was very pale. Sasuke ruffled his hair, which he usually hated. He did not react.

“I have sent Ibiki and Jiraiya because they will be able to confirm it is him. If it is he they will escort him up here. Haku, I would like to speak to him before you see him.”

“I won’t change my mind,” Haku insisted. “You won’t be able to buy him off.”

“I am not going to try to bribe him, Haku.”

“Or threaten him. Or kill him. Or set Naruto on him.”

“None of those things. You have my word. I am going to see the Captain. She will need to calculate your share. Why don’t you spend some time with Iruka-sensei?”

Haku nodded and left. Shikamaru looked at Sasuke and shook his head.

“I’ve tried,” Sasuke complained.

“Not hard enough,” Shikamaru replied.


It was Zabuza: huge, scarred and swathed. Sasuke sat at the desk with Naruto behind him. The Captain stood, arms folded.

“I want to speak with the Uchiha alone,” Zabuza demanded.

“No,” Naruto said bluntly.

“Him and you. Not her.”

The Captain shrugged and left.

“He still wants to be with me,” Zabuza stated.

“Yes,” Sasuke agreed. “He is Haku.”

“She saved him.”

Sasuke remembered Haku lying there, as his mother had lain there. “We, I, have tried to make up for what Itachi did to him.” He went for it. “I want him to stay with us. I want him to swear to Uchiha. I feel a personal responsibility for him.”

Zabuza was still for some time. “I will see him now,” he stated.


Haku stood a little way from him, wide-eyed and flushed. “You came,” he said.

“I came," Zabuza agreed. “We are leaving. Go make yourself pretty, then fetch your things and wait at the outer door. Tell your Captain to have anything you are owed ready to give me. I have a crew lined up. They don’t need a cat, there isn’t a place as crew but they’ll fit you in as a floosie. Make sure you look good enough that they don’t regret it.”

Sasuke could hear a rumble in Naruto’s chest.

Zabuza waited until the door shut and then a little longer. “Give me two days. It will be rough and I will have to be cruel but I will break him of the habit of me. I can’t be sure that he will hate me the way he hated Itachi but I will try.” He considered. “I did not kill Itachi. He was too quick. You did not kill Kisame. You understand loyalty. You will look after Haku.”


It was two nights and a day when they were contacted by the guards on the outer cordon. Naruto left immediately to fetch him, followed by the first two fighters that Sasuke found.

His eyes were lifeless. He lay cut, bruised and pale in Naruto’s arms.


Later, bathed by Iruka and treated by Rin, he sat between Neji and Shikamaru on one of the couches. Slowly, to the surprise of the others, he chose Neji’s chest to curl up against. Neji sheltered him in the curve of an arm.

“My Zabuza was a Hinata,” Haku confided to Neji in a whisper. “He was not real.”

.