In the cold of space you find the heat of suns

Thank you for the reviews. They are much appreciated.

There is an author’s note at the end of this chapter. Please read it as I am asking for some help with something. All suggestions gratefully received.

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

Warning: there is violent, non-consensual sex in this chapter.

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.

72. Messages

Kabuto pushed confidence into his gait, his posture and his expression; weakness was never an option with a future.

Orochimaru was standing, which was bad. There was the used body of a cat-human hybrid discarded in the corner, which was worse. Kabuto stopped at his usual place and waited to be acknowledged.

He did not flinch or raise a hand in defence when Orochimaru closed the distance between them and struck him, backhanded, across the face. He was dragged to the couch and thrown face down across its arm.

Sometimes this happened. Kabuto was always prepared. He forced himself to relax and sent his mind elsewhere. He heard fabric rip. He felt the blunt end of Orochimaru’s hugely enhanced penis against his anus and pushed down to facilitate entry, trying to avoid as much damage as possible. There was no pain; he had been generous with the analgesics.

This time Orochimaru was particularly rough. He wanted a reaction so Kabuto supplied it; he had enough memories from the early days to come up with a convincing set of noises.

Finally he finished; there was a sucking sound as he withdrew.

Kabuto lay there. He could feel semen, blood and lube running down his perineum and scrotum. He was not sure if he could stand. Not standing was better than trying and falling.


Orochimaru turned him over, put one arm under his knees, another under his arms and lifted him. Kabuto knew what was coming. He shut his eyes and began the silent mantra, ‘He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care. Whatever he says, he does not care. He is incapable of caring.’

“You should not make me do that, Kabu-chan,” he whispered as he carried Kabuto across the room to the large chair. He sat with Kabuto in his lap, cradled in his arms. Orochimaru rocked him and cooed at him. Despite everything he knew and all he had experienced, Kabuto desperately wanted it to continue.


He woke lying on a bed. There was a regenerator in his rectum. Orochimaru lay beside him but on top of the bedcover, fully clothed. Discarded on the quilt was the hypospray used to wake him.

“I have decided to forgive you for not bringing him to me,” Orochimaru told him. “But not for starting the embryos. You did not have permission for starting the embryos. Later, you will be punished.”

Kabuto knew that starting the embryos was the correct decision. Whatever he said now, Orochimaru would be intrigued by them. It was important to keep him interested and have experiments with which to distract him.

“Kisame the sharkman is on the ship with the fox-human hybrid,” Kabuto told him. “That is why I brought you Itachi Uchiha. The sharkman will come for him.”

Orochimaru was pleased. Kabuto could tell. He toyed with keeping the best news for the future, but Orochimaru might punish him for delaying.

“The fox-human hybrid is by Bara. His mark is perfect.”

His master smiled. He kissed Kabuto gently on the lips. “You are forgiven,” he whispered.


Orochimaru reread Kabuto’s report, noting the omissions as well as the inclusions. Kabuto was his best slave because he did not believe he was enslaved; he was deluded enough to believe that he had an identity beyond that of Orochimaru’s tool. He even had pride, which made him surprisingly resilient. It was amusing.

Bringing the woman’s tanked body illustrated one of Kabuto’s strengths; he used his initiative. The symbiote was interesting. The work the medico, Rin, had done on alternative ways of activating it was promising. The fact that activating the symbiote damaged the host did not bother him; most of his tools were short-lived. Infecting some hybrids with the symbiote would be an interesting experiment.

What required more thought was how to trap Bara’s hybrid and whether the sharkman was a means to that end.


He made his way to the laboratory. Kabuto was transferring the most promising of the embryos to gestators. Orochimaru was still annoyed with him for beginning the experiment without permission but that did not prevent him spending an enjoyable fifty minutes examining and analysing some of the discarded embryos. They even had a discussion about which of the deformed embryos should be grown on. It was pleasant.

“You are to run a full diagnostic on Itachi Uchiha,” Orochimaru told him. “I want to wake him, if that is possible.”

Kabuto looked up from the embryo he was transferring.

“Later today will be soon enough,” Orochimaru decided.


Itachi did not recognise the room nor remember how he had got there. Recalling anything was difficult. He would reach for a memory only to have it slip away. He felt weak. What he could see of himself was thin, almost wasted. His limbs ached. Had he been tanked?

Where was Kisame?

He was in a treatment bed, restrained by straps about his torso and limbs. It was not the Uchiha household. It was not any ship he recognised.

A man with grey hair and round eyeglasses entered the room; Itachi guessed he was a medico. He had a white coat and a tablet. He sat on a chair beside the bed.

“Do you know your name?” he asked.

“Who are you?” Itachi demanded.

The man made a note on his tablet. “I am Kabuto. I am the medico in charge of your case. I need you to answer my questions. Do you know your name?”

“Yes, but I have no intention of sharing it with you,” Itachi told him. “I demand you find someone I know and can trust.”

The man smiled. “You mean Kisame. Kisame is all you have left.”

Itachi did not know what he meant by that. Why was Kisame all he had left? What about his crew? What about his clan? He grabbed at some memories but they slithered away.

“It will be easier if you cooperate,” Kabuto informed him.

“Go fuck yourself,” Itachi replied.

The smile Kabuto gave him made Itachi’s flesh creep. “I can assure you that it will not be me being fucked, Itachi-san,” he replied.


Kabuto was amazed that a man that weak was capable of such a vicious and effective defence. He managed to put three of the bull-human hybrids out of action. However the remaining two plus three others had done the many tasks Orochimaru had assigned to them. Kabuto had expected the proud and arrogant man to fold and start begging, they almost always did, but the sorry wreck that was left was as defiant as before, even spitting in his face. Kabuto took the precaution of sedating him before returning him to the tank.

Orochimaru was viewing the holoprojection when Kabuto answered his summons.

“Interesting,” he observed. “Not what I expected, but it will do. It is so much more powerful if there is no sign of editing.”


Sasuke was reviewing reports when Shikamaru walked into his office without knocking. He was unusually pale.

“The Dart returned this morning,” Shikamaru told him.

Sasuke knew that. The further they went into the fringe, the longer it took a conventional ship to reach a gate with a light speed communication relay. Sending the Dart to hack the relays was the best option. This time it had been crewed by Dan, Kunugi and Konohamaru.

“As part of the hack, I get our correspondence, the stuff that would normally be downloaded to us when we jumped through a gate with a relay. Most of it is addressed to the ship or to you but this time there was a message for Kisame.”

He leaned over Sasuke’s console and inputted some commands.

“In the circumstances, I decided to open it,” Shikamaru admitted.

Sasuke was about to scold him for invading Kisame’s privacy when a holoprojection sprung to life over his desk.


It was Itachi. He was conscious and alert, although he was far too thin and his skin had a unhealthy yellow tinge. He was in a white, bright, well-lit room that contained apparatus that Sasuke did not recognise.

He was looking for a way out.

Then the monsters arrived.

He fought them. Sasuke could not help but be proud of the way he fought. But they won, because every time one of them fell it was replaced by another.

Once they had him subdued they began.


He was transfixed by the horror of it. Shikamaru allowed it to run for about five minutes; to Sasuke it was endless. Once Shikamaru had deactivated the projector, Sasuke started at the empty space over his desk.

“It’s thirty-seven minutes long, it gets progressively worse, I can find no sign of tampering and, yes, he is still alive at the end of it,” Shikamaru told him.

“You watched it all?” Sasuke whispered.

“No,” Shikamaru admitted. “I looked at stills at half minute intervals. Sasuke, what do we do? When Kisame sees it…”

“Get Kakashi and Asuma,” Sasuke ordered.


“You have to let him see it and you have to let him make his own decision of what to do,” Kakashi told him.

“Or you have to kill him,” added Asuma, “because if he thinks you kept this from him or stopped him going to Itachi, he will kill you.”

“The meeting room,” Shikamaru suggested. “Everything in the meeting room is replaceable. I’ll set it up down there while one of you talks to him.”


Kakashi and Asuma waited in the corridor. Kakashi was glad that the room was so thoroughly soundproofed; it had been the sounds that had made the holoprojection so immediate and real.

He studied Asuma out of the corner of his eye. Did Asuma suffer from the same ambivalence? Part of Kakashi thought Itachi deserved every horrific moment while the rest yammered that he was Uchiha and Kakashi should be protecting him. To make it worse, in the small part he had watched, Itachi was so… …Itachi; fine and proud and defiant. That look on his face was the one that had invariably led to Fugaku-kyou beating him; or worse.

The door opened. Kisame did not charge out on his way to his ship. There was no sound.

“Get in here,” Kisame demanded.

They cautiously entered the room. Kisame was sitting at the table with a tablet.

“None of you watched it though,” Kisame stated. He tapped a command into the tablet and the holoprojection sprang to life. It was from near the beginning, when Itachi was face down along a bench with one of the bullmen fucking him.

Kisame had to be showing them for a reason. Kakashi concentrated on the small details. Itachi’s arm was hanging down the side of the bench. His hand was jerking.

It was long-short. “Don’t overreact, Kisame,” Itachi had signalled. “He wants that. He won’t kill me. He wants you not me.”

Kisame froze the projection. “There is much more,” he told them. He jumped the projection to the end, when Itachi’s bleeding and cum-soaked body had been reduced to a crumpled heap on the floor.

Still Itachi’s hand moved. “Don’t overreact, Kisame,” he repeated. “That is an order.”

“I have transcribed everything,” Kisame informed them. “And I have sent a copy to Shikamaru. Itachi is certain there is someone controlling Kabuto. Perhaps this Orochimaru whose name came up in the search. And the gravity is right for Jewel.” He sat up straighter. “They will not know I have received the message, because it was hacked rather than delivered. That gives us more time.”

Kakashi was suspicious of Kisame’s mood. How could he have watched that and not have torn apart the room? “And you, Kisame-san, how do you feel?” he asked.

Kisame looked at the space above the table that the holoprojection had occupied. “This is how the old Itachi would have reacted,” he admitted. “Before,” he clarified.

Asuma snorted. “There is no way back to ‘before’, Kisame,” he reminded him.


Orochimaru was prowling. Kabuto wished he would sit in his chair. It was safer when he was sitting down.

“Still no confirmation that the sharkman has received the message,” he complained.

Kabuto did not respond.

“Aren’t you going to remind me that they have a Mulligan drive and are therefore using ungated holes?” Orochimaru sneered.

Kabuto had no intention of repeating that error. To his relief, Orochimaru chose to sit.

“The symbiote killed the hybrids,” he mused. “We need to try it in a purebred. How is Itachi Uchiha progressing?”

“Well, Orochimaru-sama. The bullmen were careful to stay within the parameters you set them.” Kabuto suddenly wondered about the proximity of the two topics. “Itachi Uchiha as a host for the symbiote?” he queried.

Orochimaru’s amber eyes bored into him. “Who else? You?”

Kabuto decided not to question the wisdom of giving superhuman powers to someone who was already a formidable fighter. He had always managed to avoid becoming a test subject and intended to continue to do so. “I will be honoured to comply with your decision, Orochimaru-sama,” he replied.

Orochimaru relaxed slightly. “Perhaps we should acquire a purebred from the street and try it on him first,” he admitted. “See to it. Is there anything else of interest?”

Kabuto decided to tell him. “There was an intriguing item among my correspondence,” he began. “It is from the only surviving hybrid from Amachi’s venture in the Kaze system. He says that he had read my work and wonders if I have any idea of Amachi’s whereabouts. He wishes to consult with a expert on hybrids.”

Orochimaru considered. “Is the hybrid interesting?”

“He is highly functional,” Kabuto told him. “He has lived with purebreds, even though all that series were berserkers.”

“Follow it up.” Orochimaru decided. “Inform him of Amachi’s untimely demise and suggest that you may be available.”


Sasuke had waited in his office with Shikamaru for Kakashi or Asuma to report back on Kisame’s reaction. He stared at reports without reading them. Shikamaru sat curled up in one of the armchairs at the other side of the office with a portable console and earpiece. He had offered to get Naruto but Sasuke had stopped him. Naruto would be with Gaara and, anyway, Sasuke was not sure he could see Naruto without a slew of conflicting emotions exploding to the surface.

Suddenly Shikamaru was out of the chair. “Kisame just sent me a message,” he declared. “Apparently Itachi was sending signals in long-short. By the Lady, how could anyone think of sending long-short messages while being gangbanged by rapists hung like bulls?” He caught the look on Sasuke’s face. “Sorry, Sasuke-sama, I didn’t think.”

Sasuke shut his eyes. Shikamaru was Shikamaru, which included the faulty filter between his brain and his tongue when he was with people he trusted. “I forgive you,” he assured him.

He had read his father’s journal; he knew why Itachi was capable of such a feat. “What did Itachi say?”

“Mainly for Kisame to stay calm and not do anything stupid. Some stuff we already know about Kabuto. Confirmation that there is someone further up the food chain. An estimate for the gravity, which is consistent with Jewel. If this wasn’t your mad killer brother, I’d be mightily impressed.”


Sasuke could not get Shikamaru’s words out of his head as he walked towards the crew room for the midmeal. As a child, he had always been mightily impressed by Itachi. Itachi had been his hero.

Then he recalled the images of Itachi with the bullmen and felt sick. He slowed and stopped. He could not face a galley filled with people and food. He was about to turn and head back to his office when he saw Naruto walking towards him; Sasuke guessed that Shikamaru or Kakashi had told him what had happened. Naruto speeded up, closed the distance between them and gathered Sasuke to him.

Sasuke relaxed into Naruto’s embrace. Everything about Naruto soothed him but once he was calm the tears started to flow. Naruto picked him up and headed for the crew room.


He laid him on their bed. He removed Sasuke’s clothes. He licked away his tears. He nuzzled and groomed Sasuke until he lay warm and relaxed in Naruto’s glow. Gently, slowly, he brought Sasuke to a climax that was more sweet relief than dizzying ecstasy. Then he stroked him and cuddled him until he drifted off to sleep.


Naruto studied Sasuke as he lay sleeping. The situation was unacceptable. Kabuto had to die. The man telling Kabuto what to do had to die. They had to be killed quickly before more bad things happened.

Then, somehow, they had to put things right. Natsuhi-san had to be retrieved and allowed to die, rather than Rin keeping her as living test bed; only then would Sumaru-kun be able to grieve and move on. Itachi must be rescued. All the tissue samples had to be found and accounted for, including any that were growing into babies.

He did not know what they should do with Itachi.

He did not know what they should do with any babies that did not work.

But Kabuto and the other man would die.

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Author’s note

When I originally posted this chapter I asked for for some suggestions from readers for a mate for Gaara. A big thank you for all the readers who emailed me or left a review. The story had moved on now and new readers will be able to see how it turned out. Enjoy!