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’. There is also a one-shot ‘Silver Leaf Tales: Tying the knot’.

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.

The number of reviews hit 500 (27 February 2011), which was a big milestone. Thank you again to those readers who have written a review and particular thanks to smauigirl, The Horseman of Death, Kat Saama, Gingitsune, richon, v, unneeded, Prism0467, lonelylulaby, sadie237, xxShadowheartxx, cynaga, satterb and disembodiedvoiceofthedying who reviewed chapter 62. Every time I read a review I feel encouraged to keep going.

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

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.

---

Chapter sixty-three: Hidden

---

Shino, Neji, Kakashi, Jiraiya and Itachi spent a slice of every morning analysing the incoming communications that Shikamaru had processed within minutes. They had a room set aside for it. Shino would allocate the formal messages and then begin dissecting the hacked data. Encrypted messages went to Itachi who decoded them before sending them to the most appropriate person. Jiraiya dealt with communications from strangers, Neji took Uchiha business and Kakashi handled general intelligence. Once he had finished decoding, Itachi worked with Kakashi.

At the same time each morning, Sasuke would arrive at the room and ask for a report. Shino both looked forward to and dreaded Sasuke’s visit. The heartfelt thanks Sasuke expressed warmed him but each time Shino had to watch the faint glimmer of hope in his eyes fade into sadness.


It seemed a day like any other. He had worked his way through the messages and started on the latest hack. The small data package caught his attention immediately; it bore an Uchiha label but it was not addressed to Uchiha. Indeed, it was not addressed to anyone. It was just there, going wherever the flow of the data stream took it. Only a hacker would find it.

Shino tried not to be excited. It was encrypted. He marked it as priority and sent it to Itachi. He watched Itachi’s reaction; his sudden and total attention.

“Itachi?” Kakashi queried immediately.

“Hush,” Itachi ordered rather than requested, so focused on his task that he appeared, for once, to forget that he was not an Uchiha. “Yes!” he announced and put the message on the display for all to see.

Heading for Cardinal Station. Maroon Plushie. Free but unprotected and hunted. Shika and Haru.

Sudden hope was tempered with dread. Shino swallowed at the thought of Shikamaru and Haru out there. It would be bad enough even without the Akatsuki chasing them.

“Where’s Cardinal Station?” Kakashi demanded. “Who understands Shika-kun’s route-finder best?”

“Sasuke-sama,” Shino replied immediately while Neji projected the hologram showing known space and entered the location. They watched the map zoom in on a sector of the Far Fringe and then to an obscure gated system.

“He’ll have picked a system that had a data relay in the gate,” Neji observed. “Even if it doesn’t look easy to get to it will be.”

Shino understood; Shika-san probably carried his route-finder in his head.

Kakashi had activated the intercom. “Sasuke-sama, we need a priority route to Cardinal Station in Far Fringe sector seventeen. Gai-san, get the Dart ready.” He released the switch. “You ready to go, Neji-san?”

Neji was even paler than usual. “Packed and ready, Kakashi-san.”


Then, impossibly soon after the intercom announcement, the door opened and Naruto was there. His eyes scanned the room and settled on the display showing the message.

“How long until we can get there?” he asked.

“Sasuke-sama is finding a route,” Kakashi told him.

And, as quickly as he had appeared, he was gone; Shino imagined him running towards Sasuke’s office.

---

Sasuke was trying to stay calm. Battling the route-finder was difficult at the best of times; Shikamaru had never built an interface that a normal person could use. Struggling with it had made Sasuke realise how differently Shikamaru thought.

He should have found time to practise more; he had believed he understood the route-finder better than he did. Precious time was being lost; minutes during which something appalling could happen to Haru or Shika.

Then the door opened and Naruto was beside him. He rested a hand on Sasuke’s back; encouraging but not distracting.

“The message is from Shi-chan himself,” Naruto told him. “He is free and he has Haru with him.”

It was what Sasuke needed to hear.

“Run the calculation,” Naruto advised.

“But that will take minutes,” Sasuke objected. “I haven’t finished linking all the information I need to use.”

“Run it, teme,” Naruto insisted.

Sasuke reluctantly initiated the calculation. Naruto was right; there was no guarantee that he would make significant progress during the time the calculation took to run. He could work on it more while it was running.

Naruto captured his hands and pulled him gently from his chair.

“Dobe!” he objected.

Naruto wrapped him in a hug and nuzzled his hair.

Sasuke felt the stress dissipate. “I wish we could go with them,” he whispered.

“We will be close behind,” Naruto assured him. “They will lay mini-gates. We will be in constant contact.”


A soft ping indicated that the calculation was finished. Naruto released him and Sasuke brought up the results. His heart fell. There were fifty-seven possible routes but they all used the shipping lanes for most of the journey and took many divs. He needed more time to incorporate the information that the Tennyos had been collecting about holes in that sector of the Far Fringe.

“How many of them share the first two jumps?” Naruto asked.

Sasuke looked and smiled. “All of them share the first three,” he admitted. He checked; he would have almost a day to sort out the route before the Dart made it through the third gate.

Naruto smiled in return. “We will want to see the Dart off. I just have time to run down to check that someone has told Shikaku-san and Yoshino-san the news.”

---

Iruka, Sasuke, Haku and Naruto went to the docking bay to bid Kakashi, Gai and Neji a safe journey. Iruka was watching Naruto hug Neji when, unexpectedly, Kakashi was kissing him and all coherent thought vaporised.

“I will bring them home,” Kakashi whispered in his ear when he finally allowed Iruka to breathe.

Iruka’s mind was still lost in the kiss. Kakashi never kissed him like that in front of other people. He pulled himself together. “I know you will,” he replied.


Once Kakashi, Gai and Neji were onboard they evacuated the docking bay and Naruto sealed the airlock behind them. Iruka could see that Sasuke was deep in thought, probably worrying about the route calculation. Haku was grinning at him, obviously delighted that Kakashi had reduced Iruka to mush. Iruka felt himself flush.

“It is likely that there will be frequent jumps,” Naruto reminded them. “The first three are much closer together than we would normally allow. We should be thinking about podding everyone we can.”

Iruka had not even thought of it. The physiological impact of each jump was minor, but successive jumps without recovery time had an accumulative affect. The children and the babies would be particularly susceptible.

“I will set up a meeting,” Iruka replied. “I assume you will be busy with the route calculation, Sasuke-sama.”

Sasuke nodded.

“We shall need Rin and all those responsible for a child at the meeting. Us three, Rin, Fu, Yoshino, Izumo, Kurenai and Kiba if he can leave the playroom. Perhaps you could gather them together, Naruto,” Iruka asked.


They decided to place all the children, including the babies in their gestators, into stasis and offer the same option to non-essential personnel.

Placing the gestators in their shells and podding the children was completed by the midday meal. Iruka was early to the galley. He took his usual place and watched Kamatari and Moegi setting the table.

They needed another cat. Iruka corrected himself; trainee.

He noticed that Choza had made more food than usual and wondered if it was an expression of his anxiety.

“More people will decide to eat communally,” Choza explained, as if he had read Iruka’s mind. “They will want an update on Shika-san and Haru-chan.”


He was correct. Kurenai and Asuma were there as well as Izumo and Kotetsu. Yoshino and Shikaku had been invited by Naruto. Even C-san turned up, apologising that he had not given any warning and admitting that he was hoping for news.

“I believe there was only the one message,” Iruka told him. He looked about. The only person missing was Sasuke. “Naru-kun, perhaps you should check on Sasuke. If he really cannot spare the time we can make him a tray.”

Naruto vanished in a blur and reappeared more slowly towing Sasuke, who looked defeated. Iruka cast about for some way to help.

“Maybe if you explained the route-finder to someone else?” Iruka suggested.

Sasuke sighed. “Maybe Itachi,” he admitted.

Itachi nodded. “I will try. I am not convinced I can help.”

“Maybe I can?” Shikaku suggested. “I know how strangely Shika-kun thinks. I can recall some of the software modelling programmes he created when he was a child.”

Iruka realised he had no idea what Shikaku did to earn credit. He had always been Shikamaru’s father who made wonderful toys.

Sasuke looked hopeful. “Thank you, Shikaku-san,” he acknowledged.

“I realise that I have never asked your profession, Shikaku-san,” Iruka admitted.

Shikaku smiled while Yoshino made a noise that was suspiciously like a snort.

“I do not exactly have a profession...” he began.

“He could have been a professor of mathematics,” Yoshino interrupted. “If he had only worked at it.”

“I take commissions,” Shikaku continued, “to build software models of processes. It earns well and leaves me time to make toys and play with my daughter.”

Iruka was confused. If Shikaku was that good a mathematician and he was aware of how strangely Shikamaru thought, how had he missed that his son was a typed-genius?

Shikaku was smiling at him. In an odd way it reminded Iruka of Kakashi.

“You knew that Shikamaru was a typed-genius, even as a child,” Iruka suggested.

This time Yoshino did snort; there was no missing it.

“I knew there was a good chance. We hid it,” Shikaku admitted. “I showed him what mistakes to make on the tests. Once people knew, that would have been it. We would have been inundated with psychologists and with people trying to buy his life. The Central Civil Service would have turned up and planted teachers in his school and families in our neighbourhood.”

“He said,” Yoshino complained, “that if we allowed Shika-kun to grow up normally he would decide what he wanted to do and be happier.”

“Which he is,” Shikaku insisted.

“It would have been nice if he hadn’t gone through the stage of being a secret master criminal who had to leave the planet at fourteen before anyone found out what he had been up to,” Yoshino pointed out. “I will never forget that day, Iruka-san. Those other crews. They were awful. Then you and Kakashi-san turned up. We were so relieved.”

Iruka had very vivid memories of her interrogating him.

“Best day of his life,” Shikaku insisted. “Even though it proved to be exactly what I had been trying to avoid; a powerful organisation looking for a typed-genius.”

Iruka flushed. “I did not know that Kakashi was Uchiha,” he admitted.

Shikaku smiled. “Exactly. You did not even want Shikamaru as crew.”

“He was not the ideal cat,” Iruka admitted, “but I, like you, could not allow him to go to one of those other crews.” He shuddered at the memory.

There was a short silence.

“He and Haru-chan will be home soon,” Yoshino insisted.

Iruka hoped so. At this moment, there was nothing more he wanted in the whole of known space.

---

Neji detanked Gai and Kakashi before the final jump via a gate into the Cardinal system. Seventeen jumps in twelve days was ridiculous. They had decided to tank Gai and Neji for the first third of the journey, Kakashi and Neji for the second, followed by Gai and Kakashi for the third.

Neji had been lucky, there had only been three other jumps in the last four days.

Finding a route had proved interesting. Sasuke and Shikaku had wrested it from the route-finder in four stages. Doubtlessly Shikamaru could have found a quicker route and taken less time to do so but Neji was impressed that Sasuke had managed to make any sense of it at all, even with Shikaku’s help.

The Oak was six days behind.


The sounds from below changed, suggesting that Kakashi or Gai had finished showering, had dressed and was on his way up. Neji’s eyes went to the ladder as the top of Kakashi’s mop of silver hair appeared.

“Do we have any more information?” Kakashi asked, taking the command chair that Neji vacated for him.

“Not yet,” Neji admitted. “We have to hope that there will be a message waiting for us on the station. As there is a data relay in the gate, the Stellar Exchange or its equivalent is bound to have a branch there. He’s being cautious,” Neji suggested.

Kakashi frowned. “If he’s made it this far. Jump slot and dock booked?” he asked.

“Yes to the jump slot. No to the dock,” Neji replied. “I did not want to draw attention to us by paying for a light speed message through the gate. I have hacked the relay. The dock is only one third full. There has been no unusual traffic. I can find no evidence in this system of one of the miniature Mulligan drives being here or making a jump using this gate.”

“Good work,” Kakashi acknowledged. “Be there, Shika-kun,” he muttered.

Neji could not agree more.


Cardinal Station was essentially a market and distribution centre with only a small resident population. They docked with no problem, assessed the local security and decided that Gai would stay with the ship while Kakashi and Neji walked the station.

The spacer quarter was small and they saw only a few crews. As Neji had suggested, they went directly to the local branch of the Stellar Exchange. He went up to one of the counters, wondering what he should ask for, only to have the woman serving squeak at him.

“You must be The Lover,” she told him, her eyes sparkling. “You have to show me two rings.”

Neji was more than a little taken aback. What if it had not been him? He displayed his left hand, with his and Shikamaru’s rings on the heart finger.

She leaned back in her seat. “It’s The Lover,” she called.

“Is he alone? Are any of the others with him?” another female voice answered.

The woman looked beyond him towards Kakashi. “The Sensei,” she replied.

Neji could not resist asking. “What did The Sensei have to show you?” he asked.

“He had to take out his eye,” she answered. “But you have shown me the rings so I will give it to you.”


A colleague passed an envelope to her and she handed it to Neji. On the front were the instructions for its delivery. As well as The Lover and The Sensei there was Goldie and Midnight, with a description of each of them. Goldie had to show his fangs and Midnight had to speak with the voice of velvet.

“Was it left in person?” Neji asked.

“No, it came by courier,” she replied.

“Clever,” Kakashi observed as they walked away from the counter. “There is no electronic trail to follow. Stellar Exchange personnel are almost always female. The romance of the descriptions would capture their attention and they would talk about it. They would each want to be the one to deliver the message so they would not forget.”


They stood in a corner in a way that meant that they could not be overlooked while Neji opened the envelope. It was empty.

Neji almost panicked before controlling himself, thinking and then examining the inside of the envelope. There was a series of dots and dashes.

“Long-short,” he said, handing the envelope to Kakashi.

Kakashi examined it. “It is a name, a long number and a shorter string of numbers and letters.” He walked over to a display that showed an interactive map of the station. Neji followed. “Look, it is one of the warehouses. I expect the number is a specific consignment and the other is the code we need to ensure its release.”

Neji’s mind boggled. Had Shikamaru shipped himself and Haru as freight?


The front office of the warehouse was a shabby, dingy room that Neji told himself was not actually dirty. There was the door by which they had entered, two shuttered windows, one big and one small, and a button. There were no seats. Neji was not sure if he would have risked sitting on one if there were. Kakashi pushed the button.


After a considerable wait, the shutter across the smaller window slowly rolled up. An old man in an unpleasant mustard yellow coverall scowled at them from behind a scratched, transparent shield. Neji could see him taking in their health, the signs of age retard in Kakashi’s face and the quality of their clothes. He straightened up and the scowl vanished.

“Don’t get many people calling in person,” he explained. “Most of the stuff is picked up by spacecraft, see.”

“We are here to arrange a pick-up,” Kakashi replied smoothly. “We have the consignment number. Once we have checked it is here, we can bring our spacecraft around to your dock.”

“Is it a freighter?” asked the man, as if doubting that Kakashi and Neji were the type of spacers who crewed freighters. “Our dock’s only suitable for freighters.”

“Maybe you could check the number?” Kakashi suggested.

The man grunted his assent and Kakashi dictated the string of digits.

“That’s small enough to take, just about. You’ll need a hover platform.” He smiled showing yellowed, aged teeth. “We could sell you one.”

Neji wondered how much he would charge and how ancient it would be.

“You get the consignment up here,” Kakashi advised. “Then we can consider transport options.”

“Derek will have to get it,” the old man informed them. “You could come back later. We could have it ready.”

“Please ask Derek to get it now,” Kakashi requested, his posture suggesting that such a polite approach was likely to be temporary.


The old man swallowed and pressed a button that apparently activated an intercom. “Displayed consignment to be delivered to the front office,” he stated. “Displayed consignment to be delivered to the front office.”

“Derek’s not exactly quick,” he confided once he had released the button. “Raoul was over twice is age but he moved three times faster.”

“What happened to Raoul?” Neji asked, ignoring the look Kakashi gave him for encouraging the old man to talk.

“He left. Inherited some credit and went to visit his daughter and grandchildren. All we could get was Derek,” he complained. He glanced at Kakashi. “Maybe you could enter the release code. That would speed things up when Derek gets here.”

A panel in the counter slid open revealing a keypad. Kakashi inputted the code.

“That’s fine,” the old man acknowledged. “All fees are paid.”

They waited.


Finally Neji thought he heard something. A short time later the old man perked up.

“That’s him. About time. He’ll load it into the lock,” he said, gesturing towards the larger shuttered window. Once this side is closed, we’ll open the outer shutter.”

There was the sound of an object being pushed onto rollers.

“You’ll need to shut the inner shutter,” a familiar voice informed the old man.

Neji’s heart jumped.

“Get out of the lock, you idiot,” the old man ordered.

A mustard yellow coverall landed on the inner side of the counter. “I resign,” the voice said.

“You won’t get paid,” the old man threatened.

“Quite right,” the voice agreed.

“Shut the inner shutter and open the outer one,” Kakashi ordered.


The outer shutter slowly opened, revealing the end of a packing case that was a span high and half a span wide. It was the expensive type, with an inbuilt hover function. Kakashi and Neji pulled it through the opening; it was a tall man’s height in length. They guided it down until it hovered at the usual level, a handbreadth from the floor.

As it sank Neji spied Shikamaru peering over the top edge. He was dressed in underwear and sandals. Once the packing case was clear he scrambled down and stood there with a small smile on his face.

Neji could not wait. He closed the gap between them, pulled him close and hugged him. He knew the old man was staring at them, his mouth gaping open. Neji did not care. He was holding his Shika. It was all that mattered.

---