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Leader	By : mannahpierce Category: Naruto > Yaoi - Male/Male > Naruto/Sasuke Views: 2163 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: This story has some of Masashi Kishimoto's characters from Naruto in a universe of my own devising. I do not own Naruto. I do not make any money from these writings.

Chapter List
- 30
- 31
- 32
Thank you to my beta and muse, Small Fox. This story grew from a plot idea he gave me.
Also thanks to eunmook, cynaga, maliya, melissen, sadie237 and disembodiedvoiceofthedying for reviewing after chapter 30 was posted.
Readers’ feedback, support and comments mean a great deal to me. Feedback keeps me writing.

Leader
Part 4: Parry
31: Stealth

Deprived of a surface on which to organise the equipment, Sasuke had resorted to a list. Each item was labelled with a number that corresponded to a neatly-written entry. To the right hand side of the sheet were headed columns. The first two columns were filled with ticks and Sasuke was working on the third.
“Number twenty four,” he pronounced.
Naruto found the numbered item in the corner they had netted to make a storage area. “Limpet bomb, small, remote detonate using coded signal.”
Sasuke ticked it off. “Number twenty-five.”
“Same.”
Sasuke scowled at him and Naruto sighed. “Limpet bomb, small, remote detonate using coded signal,” he repeated.
“Number twenty-six.”
“Shaped charge, large, remote detonate using coded signal.”
“Number twenty-seven.”

Finally they finished. Naruto uncurled from his position next to the net and executed a slow motion back flip into his chair. He looked across at the list with suspicion.
“What are those other columns for? I hope it’s not for yet another check.”
Sasuke had been thinking that maybe one more check would be wise. “No,” he decided. “This one is for checking the items out of the net; this is for recording which pack it is in. I thought we would use letters for that. This one is for recording when they have been used.” He looked at the last column. If he admitted it was a spare Naruto would know it had been for an extra check. “And this last one is to record if they worked properly.”
Naruto looked at him disbelievingly.
“Food bar?” Sasuke suggested.
The bar was gone in three bites but it had worked, Naruto’s attention had moved from the list to the plans that Sasuke had tacked on the walls.
They were colour coded. At various points there were neat numbers, which referred to equipment from the net.
Sasuke was rather proud of them.

The main problem was that they had no idea of the size, composition and distribution of the crew. Each plan, except the blue and perhaps the yellow and probably the red, were alternatives for different situations.
The blue plan involved placing remotely detonated charges in key places in the docking bays and on the outer hull over the drives. Red represented their plan of last resort; they would explode the charges over the drives and take advantage of the chaos that followed.
Yellow was step one of the measured, information-seeking approach. They would try to find a way into the engine room, create a fault and wait to see who turned up to investigate. Hopefully the person, or people, would tell them what they need to know without them having to resort to torture.
Purple, green, pink and brown were different plans for various scenarios Sasuke had thought through. He was hoping for green: a crew that was just big enough for them not to be sure of each other’s whereabouts and the Orochimaru print holed up in an apartment rather than commanding the ship.
“So it’s blue, then yellow and then reassess the situation,” Naruto checked.
Sasuke’s mind filled with the other plans. In essence though, Naruto was correct. “Yes,” he admitted.
“Good. Let’s get our packs and suits sorted for the first bit.”
Sasuke looked at him.
Naruto rolled his eyes. “Blue,” he clarified.

Sasuke wished that he could hang out the hole in the docking bay door and check what Naruto was doing. Instead he settled for changing the angle of the snake camera, cursing its limited field of view.
There was a single tug on the rope and he paid out two more spans. Another tug; at this rate they would run out of rope. Where was Naruto going?
Naruto had argued against the rope but Sasuke had insisted. Naruto could be injured or lose consciousness; he wanted to be able to pull him in.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the reel began turning to take up slack; Naruto was on his way back.

Once they were back inside, Naruto grabbed a tablet.
“I had a good look around as well as planting the bombs.”
“I noticed, dobe,” Sasuke complained.
“It was worth it, teme. This is a standard model ship, modified to take the miniature Mulligan drive. I’ve located some airlocks and reference numbers. Put with the data the Oak collected, we might be able to find some plans.”
“There are ship’s plans in the Blossom’s database?” Sasuke asked.
“Shi-chan put everything he thinks might be useful into the database. This is useful, so Shi-chan will have thought of it.”
Sasuke wasn’t convinced by Naruto’s logic, but the ship’s plans were there, as he had predicted.

The design of the ship, relatively small but with six docking bays, was uncommon enough for there to be only twelve possibilities. Eight were close to the correct size but only one was made in a shipyard that used reference numbers like the ones Naruto had found.
“They may have modified the internal layout,” Sasuke warned as they poured over the plans.
“Why bother?” Naruto asked. He tapped brought up the plans for the docking bay they were in. “Here. This maintenance lock is internal. It won’t be linked into the external security.”
Sasuke considered. If Itachi was running their security the lock would have been identified as a potential weak point and trapped. There again, if the ship’s chief of security had been as good as Itachi they would have been discovered by now. He studied the plans more closely. The lock led to a lower storage hold. “That hold will have gone. They would need space to accommodate the second drive.”
“If this side of the lock is there, the other side will be too,” Naruto pointed out. “If we’re lucky, it’ll lead directly into the drive room and, if they are half-way competent, they will have their drive room depressurised.”
It was a nice thought. If the room at the other side was depressurised the pumps would not be activated and there would be less chance that someone would pick up the fact that an airlock was opening and closing.

They went fully equipped to check out the airlock. If it was not there the attempt would turn into a dry run and they would re-plan; no other option looked half as good.
Once they were suited, they checked the equipment from the net into their packs, strapped on laser guns and fastened the controller for the bombs around Sasuke’s left forearm.
Then Sasuke donned his dark vision goggles, they closed their helmets and they were off, securing the Blossom behind them.

Naruto swung himself over the edge of the platform and pushed off using his feet. Sasuke watched him diving downwards.
Sasuke stepped off and used his gas gun to follow. As he approached the floor he could see Naruto landing close to where they expected the airlock to be, in the floor five paces from the curved inner wall. He turned and gave a thumbs-up.
It only took Sasuke a few minutes to get the first door of the airlock open and little longer to override the safety systems that normally prevented both doors being open at the same time.
He watched as Naruto tried the inner door. If there was air on the other side, the pressure would hold it shut.
It opened.
Naruto moved so their helmets touched. “There’s no light at all; I’ll have to use a glow stick.”
Sasuke understood the warning; his goggles would be at maximum gain. He screwed his eyes shut, waiting for them to adapt to the new level of light.
The way Naruto squeezed his upper arm told Sasuke that the news was good.

The storage hold had indeed been converted to take the miniature Mulligan drive. It was in the centre of the room, held there by the isolation rods. The only other equipment was a diagnostics panel.
Sasuke shivered. They did not want to be caught in here when the drive was activated and began generating the jump field; this close there would be all manner of radiation currents.
Naruto touched helmets again. “That’ll be the airlock to the engine room,” he said, pointing diagonally across the room.

Sasuke used his gas gun to propel himself in the indicated direction while Naruto shut the airlock behind them. He was two-thirds of the way across when Naruto went by him, landed in a crouch by the lock and gave him another thumbs-up.
Sure enough, there was a label on the door that read ‘Engine Room’.
Naruto was trying the door. It did not open, which was not surprising. Common sense suggested that it would have last been used by someone exiting the drive room and the lock would have been left pressurised.
They could activate the pump from this side but that risked activating a warning light in the control room.
If Shikamaru were there, he would connect some magic interface and override the signal. He wasn’t, so Sasuke was going to disconnect all the circuits. It might be identified in the control room as a fault but that was better than showing the airlock being used.
That had to be done from within the lock, where the control unit was located.
He anchored himself using a convenient handhold, brought out his tool kit and began drilling the smallest of holes. Meanwhile, Naruto prepared a patch before connecting their suits so that they could talk.
Not that they did but Naruto was making small, foxy sounds of encouragement, like he did with the children; it was sweet.
The drill bit broke through and Sasuke kept it in place to restrict the flow of air; the slower it was, the less likely it was to attract attention.

It took a while. Once Sasuke was sure most of the air was gone he withdrew the drill bit and tried the door. Having confirmed it would open, Naruto patched the tiny hole and Sasuke replaced the drill in his pack.
They entered the lock and fastened the door behind them. Then Sasuke opened the cover of the control unit.
“Teme?” Naruto queried.
The wiring was very simple, designed to be easily maintained. “As expected, dobe.”
Sasuke disconnected everything and then created a new circuit linking the power supply, the pump and the switch. He then reassembled the control unit, replaced the panel and packed up his tools.
“Ready?” Naruto asked.
The worst scenario was that someone was in the Engine Room, had heard them fiddling with the control unit and was waiting, with reinforcements, for them to open the inner door.
“Yes,” he replied.
He held his breath as Naruto hit the switch. The air pressure in the lock started rising, which was good. Sasuke slowly exhaled.
It seemed to take forever. As the dial entered the blue zone, Naruto disconnected their suits and they both readied laser pistols.

Naruto cracked the door and there was no response from the other side. There was, however, music coming from Sasuke’s helmet speaker; music and a strange squeaking.
The sound was being picked up by his suit’s external microphone.
Someone was there.

He was still running though the various options when Naruto slithered out of the gap and launched himself towards the nearest cover, which was behind a large console. He then signalled for Sasuke to join him.
Sasuke swallowed; if they were going into hand-to-hand combat in zero gravity it was difficult to see how he could be anything other than a hindrance.
Naruto gestured again, this time more urgently.
He tried to follow the path Naruto had taken, carefully pushing the door closed behind him with a foot.
Naruto had a snake cam out of his pack and was feeding the end around the edge of the console.
They looked at the display.

It took a moment for Sasuke to make sense of it. There was one minky with a large duster on a long stick. It was difficult to decide if he was cleaning with it or dancing with it. Sasuke watched him do a back flip followed by a pirouette.
The music was coming from a small portable player. The squeaking was him singing along.
Naruto signalled that he was going to open his helmet. Sasuke understood; Naruto would be able to collect much more information if he could use his nose.
Sasuke took charge of the snake cam. Naruto opened his helmet and took a slow, deep breath. “One minky,” he mouthed. “Ideal.”
And he was gone.

Sasuke watched the scene unfold using the snake cam. The minky’s head turned in their direction as Naruto accelerated. There was a squeak and the minky used the duster to launch himself towards the ceiling.
Naruto growled, kicked the closest surface to change direction and pursued.
The chase reminded Sasuke of the kits in the zero gravity gym; the minky was quick and it was amazing how he managed to dodge every time Naruto made a grab for him.
“Teme!” Naruto called and Sasuke belated realised that the minky was behind him.
He spun about, only just remembering to hook a foot around the edge of the console for anchorage. The minky squeaked and used the duster to pole-vault over him.
The distraction was enough; Naruto had him. There was the sound of small teeth snapping.
“Stop that!” Naruto growled and snarled, showing his fangs.
The minky was suddenly very small and still. Sasuke could see that he was old; his coat was greying. He also had an impressive number of scars.

They improvised handcuffs and shackles from ratchet-ties.

Naruto tried sitting him in the swivel chair at the console, but he kept wriggling off before Naruto could fasten the lap belt.
“Not allowed to sit in the chair,” he insisted.
The minky was more frightened of whoever had told him he was not allowed to sit in the chair than he was of Naruto.
Sasuke opened his helmet and took off his goggles. “Put him on the floor,” he ordered.
Naruto tethered him to the console.

Sasuke put himself where his head would be on the same level as their prisoner’s. “We don’t want to hurt you.”
The minky looked at him; disbelief was clear in his eyes.
Sasuke decided to try a more basic approach. “Do you have a name?”
The minky shook his head. “Not allowed a name.”
Sasuke wondered. The minky was old and he had probably spent long periods of time in stasis. It was possible that this was a minky that Kiba had raised.
“Kiba gave you a name,” he tried.
The minky stared at him, squeezed his lips together and shook his head.
His reaction was enough to convince Sasuke that he was onto something. He smiled. “Kiba raised you.”
“You know Kiba?” the minky whispered.
“Yes. He left Orochimaru and Kabuto and came to live with us.”
The minky’s eyes widened further.
“As part of our family,” Sasuke added. He recalled what he remembered about the minkies on Jewel. “Part of our group. He has nice food like fish every day and sleeps with the person he likes sleeping with.”
The old minky’s eyes filled with tears. “There’s only one of my group left,” he confided. “All the others are dead. He’s on this ship but Captain won’t let us be on the same shift. She says we waste time talking.”
So the captain was female; probably a neko.
“Are there lots of minkies on the ship?” he asked.
The minky shook his head. “Gone in their fighters. Didn’t come back. Six old ones like me left. We clean and lift and carry.”
“Hard work,” Sasuke suggested.
The minky shook his head. “No. Only one group of nekos. No Him.”
Did ‘No Him’ mean that there was no Orochimaru print aboard? Had the print stayed behind? Sasuke looked at Naruto who was looking back.
He decided to change tack. “Is anyone expecting you soon?”
The minky shook his head. “Long shift.”
“And will anyone come here to check on you?”
Another shake of the head but this time Sasuke saw Naruto’s whiskers twitch.
“You sure?”
“Not a neko,” he clarified. “Maybe a minky. Maybe Old-yellow-twenty-six. Probably not.”
“What should we call you?” Naruto asked.
“Old-old-red-eight,” the minky replied, pointing to his upper arm. On it was tattooed a large, neat red figure eight and two crude, faded blue blobs. “Two red squads since ours,” he added in a whisper.

Sasuke could see ‘that look’ growing on Naruto’s face; the one he got when people, usually hybrids, were being mistreated.
They had to be hard-hearted. This minky, and probably the others, would turn on them in a flash; they were too scared of their masters to do otherwise.
“Is Orochimaru onboard?” he asked.
Old-old-red-eight shook his head.
“Or Kabuto?”
Another shake.
“Or any purebreds?”
The minky considered. “May be purebreds in the pods. Delivering pods to Orochimaru-sama.”
So even the minkies knew about the pods.
“Twelve nekos,” Naruto checked, “including the captain.”
Old-old-red-eight nodded.
“Are there any other nekos in stasis?”
“No. Stayed behind. To tidy up.”
Sasuke was not sure if he believed it. According to the minky, the Orochimaru print and the bulk of his resources had stayed behind and this ship had only a skeleton crew.
“What about minkies?” Naruto asked.
“Back up squadron in stasis,” the minky told them.
“Two groups,” Naruto checked.
Old-old-red-eight nodded.
“And their ships are in docking bay.....?”
“Two,” the minky finished.

Naruto signalled that Sasuke should close his helmet, so they could talk privately.
“If they get the sixty minkies out of stasis we are in trouble,” Sasuke pointed out.
Naruto gave a small growl of agreement. “The longer we wait, the more likely they are to find us. One dart gun loaded for minkies, one for nekos. Laser pistols as backup.”
Sasuke knew he had to think fast. Naruto was raring to go; he was already loading the dart guns. “What if some of them hold up in the control room?”
Naruto paused for a moment, then pushed back his helmet and addressed the minky.
“Is the captain on duty or off?”
The minky looked at the chronometer on the wall. “Captain off duty. She’ll be in her cabin with Neko-six.”
Naruto closed his helmet again. “Perfect. We’ll start there rather than the crew room.”
“But...” Sasuke objected.
“They’re a group and neither Orochimaru nor Kabuto is aboard. If we have half of them, especially if we have the leader, they’ll cave in.” He looked at Sasuke with serious blue eyes. “The biggest risk is delaying. If we lose the advantage of surprise we’re in trouble.” He turned about and shot Old-old-red-eight with a dart.
The minky looked puzzled for a moment and then flopped. Sasuke watched as Naruto went over, retrieved the dart and removed the ratchet ties, leaving him loosely tethered to the console.
“Just in case,” he admitted.
Sasuke knew he meant the untying rather than the dart; trust Naruto to be thinking about the minky’s welfare.

Naruto led the way out of the engine room and had jumped before Sasuke had orientated himself. He looked up along the shaft and ladder that ran through central core of the ship and readied his gas gun. By the time he had launched himself, Naruto was warning him that the artificial gravity cut in once they were past the docking bays.
Once he crossed the boundary, he suddenly slowed and started to fall; he grabbed the nearest rung and started to climb.
Naruto was giving a running commentary over their radio link as he began subduing the neko crew. One grenade of knock-out gas went into the captain’s cabin and another into the crew room. He then darted two of them in the galley.
“Four left, teme,” he observed. “I think two are in the control room but we need to locate the other two. You seen anyone yet?”
Sasuke was only on the level above the docking bay. He stepped off the ladder. “No. I’ll work my way up.”
“Be careful,” Naruto warned.

The main airlocks, a small one for people and a larger one for freight, were located at the level above the docking bays. The rest of the level was dedicated to storage. Sasuke cracked open each door in turn to check the light levels; if they were pitch dark they were unlikely to be occupied.
When he tried the fourth, light streamed out the narrow opening and his suit’s external microphone picked up music that was similar to that in the engine room.
The light levels suggested hydroponics and the music minkies, but he decided to check. He pulled a snake cam out of his pack and introduced the end around the edge of the door.
There were took elderly minkies tending the plants. He presumed one was Old-yellow-twenty-six.
He could dart them or gas them. The room was large; the sleep-gas might take a long time to build up to a high enough level. On the other hand, they probably could run, dodge and jump like Old-old-red-eight.
No, darting was the correct choice. The music should cover any sound he made and the bright lights meant that the door was in relative shadow.

He shot the younger one first. He gave a squeak of surprise and turned. His companion had just asked what was wrong when he was also hit.
Sasuke quickly checked that the darts were empty and the minkies could breath before finished searching the rest of the level.
“Got the two in the control room,” Naruto announced over the radio link. “Darted and tied. Working my way down.”
Sasuke wondered how Naruto had managed it. “I’ve darted the other two minkies on duty. I am climbing to the next level.”

The next level up was divided into two: on one side were the minky living quarters and on the other ranks of pods. Sasuke resisted the urge to go and look for the children; there were nekos and minkies to deal with first.
In the smallest of the rooms, in a corner, he spotted a nest containing three sleeping minkies. He rolled in a gas grenade and shut the door.
“I have found and gassed the three off-duty minkies,” he reported.
“Good. I’ve checked the top three levels. They have to be on the level between you and me. What haven’t we seen so far?”
“Infirmary, armoury and briefing room,” Sasuke suggested. It made perfect sense to have those at the interface between minky and neko territory.
“Let’s meet in the central shaft.”

Given the number of lethal objects in armouries and infirmaries, they decided to gas the entire level, using what Naruto complained was a vast excess of gas grenades.
Sasuke wanted to be sure.
They found one neko in the infirmary and the other in the armoury.
“Their internal security is awful,” Sasuke observed as they carried the two bodies to the central shaft. “Not even gas sensors.”
“Orochimaru probably wants to be able to gas them if they begin thinking for themselves,” Naruto pointed out. “You go look to see if you can find eighteen empty pods and I’ll collect the rest of the bodies.”
Sasuke was still shocked how easy it had been. He had expected at least some of the nekos to realise what was happening and fight back.

All the full-size pods and over half the minky-size were empty. He checked one over carefully. It was a standard model; not modified in any way.
They soon had a system for stripping the bodies, loading them into pods and running a diagnostic. Naruto made a neat pile of clothes for each hybrid and added a label with his or her number; even the nekos were tattooed.

As soon as the last pod was loaded into the racks Naruto smiled at him.
He smiled back. “The children.” He wanted to kiss Naruto but there was still too much sleep-gas in the air for them to open their helmets.
“The children,” Naruto agreed. “Did you see their pods in the racks?”
Sasuke hadn’t.

They rechecked the racks and then started to search the rest of the ship. Sasuke’s heart had started to hammer. What if the pods were not aboard? What if, somehow, they had been transferred to another ship? Or never been on this ship at all?
He took a deep breath and calmed himself. Old-old-red-eight had said they were delivering pods to Orochimaru.
“They will be in one of the storage holds,” he said firmly, trying to convince himself as much as Naruto.
“Yes, next to the airlock,” Naruto agreed.

For once he slid down the ladder as quickly as Naruto.

They were in a rack in the third storage hold they checked; five pods, one for each of the children. He was surprised that there was no sixth. From what he had overhead when the neko was reporting from the Sakura, he had thought Orochimaru was interested in Rin.
Naruto was checking the names that they had watched being written on the pods’ shells. Sasuke watched him freeze. He looked at Sasuke with wild eyes.
“Yoshimi isn’t here.”
Sasuke’s mouth dried. He looked for himself. There were only three marked ‘fox hybrid’. From the descriptors written underneath, it was indeed Yoshimi who was missing.
Yo-chan was with the Orochimaru print.
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Leader