1 Month Ago... 

Most space cadets dream of this day. Graduation from the Interpol means one of two things – a secure job in one of the wealthiest privatized sectors in the galaxy, and a solo shuttle trip to the far unexplored corners of the universe. The latter is what lures hormonal teenage boys to the training programme, and the former is what keeps the experienced ones there.

He’d graduated top of his class, a shining student, the star of the Intergalatic Police Academy. And damn if that wasn’t worth bragging rights. And so Jung Yunho had every right to be pissed off that his first solo mission was a ing ‘exploratory trip’ to the 98th Parallel.




“Exploratory trips’," Yunho explained, through gritted teeth to a highly amused Yoochun, “are just a nice way of saying ‘here, these are two tourist tickets to the Moon.'”

“Give me a ing break already! That’s what we did in sophomore year! I’m a graduate! I should have gotten to go back to Earth to see if there was anything left of it after 2953.”

Naturally, this was not granted.

“The first rule of The Interpol—”

“Take orders, I know, I know.”

“The second—”

“Never interrupt a senior official. I get it Father.”

“So you accept the mission.” His father smiled benignly, clapping his hands. “Which is good since they’ve assigned you the Mirotic.”

“WHAT?!”

“In the good old days, things were made to last, boy.” His father winks. “Take it as a learning experience.”






The Mirotic was the largest and most advanced space shuttle the Interpol owned-- it was the first to be lined with gravitational devices in the helm which ensured that the pilot and co-pilot at least would be grounded in at least the physical sense of the word – fifty years ago.

Right now, the only remotely amazing thing about it was how the ancient hunk of metal was still even functioning in the first place.

Yunho gave the side of the spaceship a nudge with his boot. It groaned heavily, clanking lethargically as it did.

Yunho threw up his hands. “Fan-ing-tastic.”




“You’re excited.”

Yunho lets out a soft growl as he storms into the locker room. “You’d be too if you were me.”

Heechul whirls around to give him a sardonic half-grin. “What? Path shifting is suddenly too much of a hassle for you, Mr Bigshot?”

“Drop the tone hyung,” Yunho says sitting down on the seat a little harder than he probably should have, it groans uneasily but holds. “I got an exploratory trip.”

Heechul whistles low, instantly looking a tiny bit more sympathetic. “Ouch.”

He shuts the locker door, puts down whatever he’s been fiddling with.

“Status indefinite.” Yunho says, miserably.

“You know,” Heechul says, plopping down next to him, his ponytail whips the side of Yunho’s neck sharply and Yunho grimaces. “Sorry, but you know your dad probably had a good reason for giving you this mission.”

“To bore me to death, most likely.”

“That too,” Heechul concedes, thoughtful. “But I think he’s just tired of you being so serious about the Interpol.”

Yunho looks affronted. “That’s my job! And as the second Commander of the Private Galatics and the General’s son—“

“Whoa, whoa, slow down.” Yunho blinks and Heechul sighs, with a patient roll of his eyes, “you’re twenty two, Yunho.”

“Yeah and?”

“Sometimes you should act like it.”

“Are you calling me childish?”

Heechul laughs, “on the contrary, I think you’re a fifty year old trapped in a young body.” He gives Yunho a very heated once over, and Yunho scowls, shifting uncomfortably under his attention. “A really hot young body. Use it sometime, okay? When was the last time you even got laid?”

Yunho opens his mouth to protest, but finds he has nothing to say, and clamps it shut again.

“Exactly. See what I mean?”

Yunho does. “So it’s been a while,” he grumbles, “but there’s still no point sending me on an exploratory trip. It’s barren. No hot chicks there.”

Heechul thinks about it for a minute, his mouth twisting.

“You’re right,” he agrees, “that does . Soju?”

“It’s gonna take a whole lot more than that to make me feel better,” Yunho grouses, but lets Heechul pull him up.

“We’ll make it two bottles.”




“Well, well,” Dongwook strolls into the laundry room, two heavy pilot uniforms draped over his arm, just as Yunho is leaving. Choi Dongwook, ranked seventh in the year and also the Interpol’s ultimate wipe.

“What do you want Choi?”

Dongwook shrugs, swinging himself up onto one of the washing machines with a cat-like grace.

“Don’t get your in a twist,” he says, grinning infuriatingly. Yunho clenches his fists by his side and tries not to imagine how satisfying it would be to punch him. They’d been trainees together and ever since, Dongwook had made it a point to make his life living hell.

Yoochun suspected he was jealous, Yunho knew for a fact that he got some kind of sick kick out of it. Maybe. Whatever.

“I just came to congratulate you. Heard you were, you know,” Dongwook laughs, conspiratorial-like. “Assigned to the ninety eighth parallel.”

“Well,” Yunho folds his arms, gritting his teeth. “You’re done now. I accept your congratulations.”

“Oh, touché, but I don’t blame you. I would be too if they sent me to the 98th parallel,” his lip curls with distaste. “An utterly pointless mission.”

Dongwook sounds all too smug, and Yunho wants to wipe that grin off his face. Possibly smear it into the tiles.

He manages to keep his voice level. “ to be you.”

“Well I guess I’d better get going,” he smirks,  “wouldn’t want to be late for the Mercury Mission briefing.”

Yunho’s fingernails bite angry half-moon dents into his palm. Dammit. The Mercury Mission should have been his. He’d been training for it ever since he could spell "mercury".

Dongwook sneers. “You may be the first in our year, Jung Yunho, but we all know who is the most capable pilot in the Interpol.”




In 2004, when most of the galaxy’s population still lived and breathed on earth, a pact had been signed by the governments in a concerted effort to prevent further scientific developments in weapons of mass destruction. The ban imposed strict regulations on the usage and study of atoms, naturally occurring explosive elements and molecular bonding.

After the disintegration of most part of Earth’s body by global warming, the human species was evacuated to various planetariums, making global control almost impossible.

In 2890, scientist Lee Soo Man produced the first nitroxy bomb, rumored to be sixty times more powerful than the atomic bomb. The legal action taken by the Galaxy Consular led Lee into hiding, and since then, spawned the Essem syndicate.
While the criminal base is still unknown, it is suspected to be set up in the 27th coordinate (here, Yunho had messily scribbled 'Mercury!') although despite this popularly perpetuated belief, this has never been proven.

Yunho flicks the PC-Textbook away with a sigh and it obediently closes itself, beeping, scuttling away to an unobtrusive corner of his room. “This is so ing unfair. Mercury was supposed to be my mission!”

“I know,” Yoochun quips from where he’s lying on Yunho’s bed, his feet comfortably resting on Yunho’s pillow. “You’ve said that about fifty bajillion times now.”

Yunho glares at him, shaking his head. “I don’t get how they picked him over me.”

“I’d put my money on a lotto.”

Yunho scowls and drops to sit on the bed next to Yoochun.

“Seriously, man,” Yoochun says, rolling over onto his back, he grins at Yunho. “Stop obsessing. Anyone would think you were in love with the guy.”

‘Wha—I—“ Yunho sputters.

“I know you’re not,” Yoochun clarifies quickly, “because he’s kind of an and greasy and really, hyung, just no. But. You gotta admit, the boy’s good looking.”

Yoochun is looking at him in that way that he looks kinda smug, and annoying and Yunho thinks he might need to punch him. Punch him and then throw him out of his dorm so he can rot on one of Jupiter’s moons.

“What are you trying to say?” Yunho says warily.

“Nothing,” Yoochun says, smiling in the way that means he totally means something but isn’t going to tell. “You know.”

“There’s nothing to know.”

Yoochun just grins. “You know and I know that—“

“Shut up! I was drunk that time!”

Yoochun mimics, closing his eyes and writhes against Yunho's bed in a way that makes Yunho want to a. set his bed on fire or b. set his eyeballs on fire. Or maybe both, just to be sanitary.

"You were never supposed to bring up their incident again under penalty of death." Yunho says, menacing, but Yoochun is hardly intimidated. He wiggles away from under Yunho's grip and grins unrepentantly.




The speaker blares, red, his communicator 5.0 flashes once and Captain Junjin’s face appears on the screen.

“Report to the base,” he barks, grimly, “emergency meeting. Essem has made its first appearance.”

“We’ve intercepted one of their ships—“

“You can’t possibly think they’ve been smuggling WMDs to the other planets. We’ve been patrolling for God’s sakes.”

“The radial diameter of Pluto has been decreasing since late December last year, we don’t know if it’s due to—“

“It could be the metal they’re harvesting to create the laser proof alloy. That would explain why none of our shuttles have been able to capture them.”

“You’re all ing crazy,” Dongwook is saying, smugly, “they can’t possibly have. They’re not that powerful.”

Junjin grabs him by the collar, shoving him forward in his seat. “Shut the up, before I make you.”

Dongwook whimpers.

“This is not a ing simulation, boy,” he says through clenched teeth, “this is an Interpol mission. No time for theatrics or insipidity. If you’re not up to handling this like an adult, get the out of here before I kick you out.”

A young girl runs into the room, panting, she looks terrified. “They’ve established contact, sir,” she says, breathless, “they want to speak with you.”




No one had mentioned the incident since. The Interpol rumbled on its happy way, trainees streamed in and out of class, and despite the clearance of the emergency, Yunho suspected this was far from over. Beneath that unearthly calm, there was a storm approaching, he could feel it. People were tensed, strained, waiting for the right moment to fight or flee.

“Don’t you think it’s strange?”

Yunho paces around the room, ticking off his fingers as he speaks, “Mercury’s radius had been shrinking by 0.0000278% by the century and the higher ups feared it was being exploited as a base by Essem. And now we’ve established contact—“

“Drop it Yunho,” Yoochun says, exasperated. He rolls over and buries his head in Yunho’s pillow. “This science talk is making my head hurt.”

His dark circles have grown a lot more accentuated over the past days, and so has his grumpy attitude. It could be lack of sleep, Yunho muses, but there’d be no reason for him to be lacking any, unless he’s been assigned an extra project, and there'd be no reason for that, unless he's been drafted into--

“You know!” Yunho says accusingly, jumping on the bed and poking Yoochun in the chest. “You know something about this don’t you?”

“What?” Yoochun says, surprised (or maybe just sleepy) and almost a little guiltily.

“, are you on the Mercury Mission?”

Yoochun twiddles his thumbs.

“Are you?” Yunho demands.

“I can’t say anything,” Yoochun says miserably, “don’t make me, okay? They’re holding me hostage in the Engineering department, I haven’t slept in days. They’ve been pumping us with Insta-Caffiene and pages and pages of mathematical babble. Just drop it, I’m piled up with enough algorithms as it is. My brain’s not equipped to deal with anymore right now.”

Yunho sits up, and Yoochun snuggles back into the pillows shamelessly.

“I’m sorry hyung,” Yoochun yawns, “I’m just so. Mmm.”

“Dammit.” Yunho glares, his bedsheets for lack of a better way to express his manly anger.

Yoochun snores in agreement.





D-Day + 1

“Sir.”

It has to be the strangest thing, Yunho muses, when he finds himself at General Major Jung’s desk, to be calling your dad, ‘sir’.

“Ah, Yunho,” General Major Jung booms, smiling, looking up from his hearty feast of donuts and hamburgers. “You should be preparing for the mission, sonny boy!”

“It’s done,” Yunho says, quickly, “sir.”
 

Afterall, there wasn’t much practice or packing to be done when you were only going to be floating in space with nothing else to do. He’d headed down to the equipment department but they refused to arm him with any more than the basic artillery. Hell, even getting the basic artillery had been a problem.

“So you’ll be in the 98th parallel, eh?” The staff-in-charge mutters, chewing her gum unattractively, her jaw working at a tremendous speed.

“Yeah, I need the weapon installments for the Mirotic.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Yeah okay,” she says, bored, “hold on.” She turns around to yell, “ya Sungmin! Sungmin-ah! Someone’s here for the Mirotic.”

The guy they call Sungmin is slumbering on the chair behind the counter, he jerks awake with a snort, rubbing his hand over his nose.

“Weapons for the Mirotic?” he snorts. “You’re the kid heading to the 98th parallel?”

“Well,” Yunho begins defensively, then crosses his arms, it is kind of lame that he is the kid operating the Mirotic. “Uh. Yeah.”

Sungmin scoffs. “You don’t need weapons. Nothing there. Just a vacuum.”

“I’ll need the basic arms at least—“

“Hey Ara, the guy wants the basic arms.”

Ara puts her hand on her hips, eyeing him as she works furiously through her packet of Space Gum. “We’re out.”

“You can’t send me to the 98th parallel defenseless!”

Sungmin shrugs, “no can do, we’re out. Anyhow, I don’t think you have anything to worry about out there in that big scary vortex of nothingness. If you’ll excuse me.” And promptly went back to sleep.

Yunho had comforted himself by packing in twenty volumes of Space Ranger comics and a holographic viewer programmed with “Hairy Potter and the Chamber of Desire”. 


“So,” the general picks up a napkin and wipes his mouth, “what can I do for you?”

“Dad,” Yunho begins, wincing at how awkward and wheedling it sounds, “the Essem emergency—"

“Is under control,” his father says with a beatific smile.

“I was hoping I could help out,” Yunho says quickly, before his father can continue, “you’ll need more pilots scouting around here and the 98th parallel can wait—"

“No can do, kiddo,” General Major Jung says, taking a huge bite of the doughnut, pink icing clinging to the ends of his moustache, “I’ve already signed the Mirotic release documents. You know what a hassle it’d be to retract them.”

“I’ll do it for you,” Yunho says desperately, one, maybe half a step short of begging, “please don’t send me out to the 98th parallel!”

“I think you should do it,” the general says, “back in my day, we--”

“I’d be put to better use flying a shuttle where there’s need for it!”

“—never questioned the orders of our superiors,” General Major Jung is saying, the jam off his pinky.

Yunho slaps a hand over his face.




D-Day

“Good luck,” Yoochun says, sympathetically, patting Yunho on the arm.

“I won’t need it,” Yunho says, a little dryly, “I don’t think there’ll be anything pawing me in space, except. Oh, nothing. It’s a vacuum.”

Yoochun laughs, “you never know, when you need a little protection.” He wiggles his eyebrows.

“You’re terrible.”

“But just in case, I loaded the spaceship with extra condoms. And cookies.” Yoochun says, seriously.

Yunho brightens up at the thought. Yoochun gets the best supply of cookies, (although Yunho doesn’t exactly want to know why the kitchen maids are so eager that he dawdles around the kitchen so much).

“Thank you. Now I know why you’re my best friend.”

Yoochun is about to say something awful, probably another terrible ual pun when his face twists into surprise and then amusement.

“Oh, don’t turn around, I think the General might be looking at you.”

“My dad?”

“The one and only.”

“But—“

“I said ‘don’t turn around!’” Yoochun hisses through clenched teeth and a big phony grin.

It’s too late.

“Yunho!” A heavy hand clamps on his shoulder.

“S-sir.”

“Well, son, I must say I’m proud of you for taking on this incredibly challenging mission.”

Yunho kicks Yoochun who’s trying not to scoff too loudly in the background. “Um, thanks dad. I mean Sir.”

General Major Jung looks a bit teary. “Well, off you go then, boy,” he says, “and remember to report to base daily. We'll be looking out for any advancements in the area, eh? And always—“

“Flush,” Yunho finishes, cringing. “I know, dad.”

“That’s my boy!”

By the time the conversation is over, Yoochun’s rolling around on the ground, almost suffocating from laughter and Yunho almost wishes he was in the damn spaceship already because he’s pretty sure that somehow being blasted off into the middle of the 98th parallel, away from the rest of society, would be a lot less painful.

Little does he know…