Adult-FanFiction.org : Yu-Gi-OH

Lifeline
By : Athena
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh > AU - Alternate Universe
Views: 1003 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own Yugioh or make any profit.
Chapter List
- 1
- 2
- 3
A/N: Thank you to everyone for giving this story a chance :)
o.o.0.0.O.0.0.o.o
Chapter 2
Planet - 252179
The alarm chimed and Yami sat up reflexively. His neck was sore and he was still wearing his headset, which was weird.
It took him a moment.
"Yugi!"
He went to click on the mic, only to realise it already was. Nothing came through from the other end. Yami tried again, hoping not to sound panicked, "Yugi? Yugi, are you there?"
The silence was torture. He held himself tightly and rocked a bit as the minutes passed.
Was it a dream, had he made Yugi up – created himself a friend? It would explain how Yugi knew so much about him…
Oh no… He really was losing his mind.
There was not even static on the other end.
Another alarm sounded. It was time to shower. He released his knees and stood up without hesitation. The compulsion was unnerving and it unsettled him even as he obeyed it. He left the headset on the bed and stripped out of his clothes, tossing the laundry into the clean cycle. He set the timer for it, then stepped into the shower tube. Hopefully he would be able to ween himself off of this reliance once his travels were over.
The partition sealed and he stood over the drain before turning on the water. After washing up, he finished the rest of his morning routine. It was as programmed, and he had almost forgotten about Yugi until it came time to put the headset back on.
He had no other work to do while the ship sat derelict. And yet, only silence greeted his calls over the radio.
Maybe he was going crazy...
But, just to be certain, he waited.
If he did not hear from Yugi by the midday report, he would restart the engine.
It was humiliating... He had already included the Aralia's crash in his report. There was still 28 hours to change it, but the system would show he had killed the engines. And, worst of all, there existed a record of him talking to himself.
He sat at his desk in silence, listening.
He stared at nothing, his mind blanking until the breakfast alarm went off. He had not consumed the ramen from last night and now it sat on his desk, cold. He did not bother reheating it, but pouted and poked at it. It gave him something else to think about.
"Yami? Are you awake?"
Noodles went flying.
He fumbled the container and choked down a mouthful, nearly falling out of his chair in the panic to flip the mic back on.
He recovered. "Yugi! You're okay!"
"Sorry! Guess I worried you. I had to turn off the radio for a while."
That did not sound good.
"Why? What happened? Are you loosing too much power?"
His favourite laugh came over the radio. That shy, nervous little hum. "You were snoring… It was cute at first but, well, then it got weird."
His face went slack and jaw fell open. It was like a silent scream. Yami was mortified.
"Yami?"
He choked on air.
There were no words.
None.
What could he possibly say? Should he apologize? How bad was it that Yugi needed radio silence?
Yugi roared with laughter.
Every time he tried to calm down and form words, whatever Yugi was trying to say made him laugh again. After about five minutes, he finally got it under control. "It was like… It was…. Oh Yami, I promise I will take this to my grave, but, I love it. You are so funny and I could not stop laughing last night. I'm sorry, I know it's mean- Heh-heh-heh… Oh, give me a minute."
He breathed deeply into the radio. "Okay, so, ahem. I wanted to tell you, I have already drained seven pods. But - good news, I have a few instruments working in the bio-lab and I now have the atmospheric data you asked for. I'm confident that it is a planet, roughly the size of mars and-"
"I know where you are now." Yami pulled down the screen and started adjusting his report for planet-1311819.
"You do? So, using that much energy…" he sounded frustrated. "Okay, good. Good. I will shut it all down then. This is good. It was worth it…" His self-reassurance quickly fell away, the taste of his own lie upsetting him. Yami was too quiet on the other end. "Did you receive any word? Has anyone contacted you?"
"Yami?"
He flinched hearing his name, slowly snapping out of it. "Sorry, I was stuck in my own headspace. Does 'Yugi' have one 'u' or two?"
Yugi sighed in agitation. "I don't care, people spell it wrong all the time."
"Well its going to only get one then," Yami bit back. He frowned. "Are you mad at me?"
"No, why would… It's nothing. I'm just…worried, about everyone else. My dad is still out there. My friends…" Yugi's voice drifted off. "I want to know what happened."
Yami felt guilty. "Can you forgive me? You wanted to know what life as an ISRT was like, well, this is the pinnacle of it."
Yugi sounded confused, Yami was only half-focusing again. "What is? What do you mean?"
"Renaming things. Making stupid jokes for my own amusement…"
Shoot. Was it too late to retract his statement? Yugi was quiet and patiently waiting. It seemed like it was. "I… I just renamed the planet-252179… It's stupid, but it made me laugh."
"Twenty-five… twenty-one… seven - you renamed it Yugi…"
Yami snorted at his own joke. "I did."
"I know you can't see me shaking my head, but, please, imagine it."
Yami's laughter spilled over and Yugi's joined him, even if he was reluctant. Yami was so embarrassed.
"You are lucky I like you Sennen, or this recording I have of you snoring would be all over the internet."
"Not if you don't get rescued."
"You wouldn't!"
"I wouldn't."
Yugi hummed over the intercom. "I have already said it, but I'll say it again - I'm glad it's you. I really needed to laugh just now." He sighed, his voice trembling. "I was sick to my stomach all night. I'm so worried about my dad. Has there been anything? I can't believe I'm the only one that made it."
Yami chewed the inside of his cheek. "I would need to change frequency, but I didn't want to leave you stranded. This morning… I was worried you weren't real - that I was losing my mind and talking to myself and-"
"Yami…"
"-I'm serious. Can you… Can I ask a favour?"
"Of course." Yugi's tone carried an edge of concern.
"Can you tell me something I don't know? Something I wouldn't know, because it happened after I left?"
There was a long silence before Yugi replied, his voice soft and dulcet, "Yami, I want to... I reeeally want to help you. But, there is nothing I could tell you, that you wouldn't be able to manipulate into thinking you had made it up. If I am not real, and the Aralia is a figment of your imagination, then everything is. But I promise it's not. I promise I am real. You need to trust me. I need you, and everyone still alive from the Aralia needs you too."
Yami shook his head, regretting that he had ever brought it up. Yugi was speaking to him as if he was about to jump off a tall building.
In ways, maybe he was.
"Oh! Um, how about this? Try telling me what I look like. Just imagine it, and I'll let you know if you get it right. Once I get rescued, I can transmit a photo and you can confirm it."
Yami drew in a slow breath. He thought of the girl that went missing. "Brown hair, blue eyes?"
"Wrong on both accounts."
"Blonde hair, brown eyes?" He sounded less confident in his answer this time.
"Nope. Violet eyes and black hair, dyed at the ends."
"Violet? That's unique." He actually did feel a little better. He never would have guessed violet.
"Mhm, kind of like yours. I don't know many people with red eyes."
"You really are stalking me, aren't you?"
"Tsk, you're the one naming planets after me."
"Touché…"
It was always so quiet when they both ran out of things to say. This one was slightly less uncomfortable.
"Yugi?"
"Mhmm?"
He really did not want to do this. But, he needed to be the brave one. He could not let Yugi pick up on his nervousness.
"The report is going to launch in less than twenty-six hours. In the meantime, I am going to change frequency and see if I can get a hold of anyone else. You should try to head out and find supplies. If you can, keep track of any areas that could be used as a landing zone, but don't let the wreckage out of your sight. You will want to get back before it gets too cold. I will check in on you when the sun goes down…You said it was on a sixteen-hour cycle? So… it will be down again in, four hours?"
"Roughly." Yugi's voice was crestfallen.
"Remember, you own this planet now. You can handle whatever is out there," Yami said, with as much charm as he could muster.
It seemed to work.
"Yea, well. Let's hope the natives are friendly." That made them both nervous.
"Hold on, let me recheck the reports. Sometimes if there is a high enough concentrate we can-"
"Don't worry about it. There was a stun-gun in the security office and I have a filter from the bio-lab. Other than my nerves, I'm ready to go."
There was that stupid silence again.
"Okay, please take the radio with you."
"I can't, I need to save the battery. I'm half way through the pods. I have maybe, two more nights, before I am out."
"You could always…" Yami shook his head. He already sensed Yugi's disappointment.
"No… They are alive. In fact, they have a better chance than I do of making it out of here."
"That's not true." How could Yugi even think that? Yami was in disbelief. "Yugi, help won't come right away. By the time this reaches Earth, unless someone is already in your star cluster, you will be stuck there - for at least a month, if not longer."
"The pod's reserves won't last more than a month…"
"No, they won't. So, it's a gamble, but you need to think on it, and take it seriously. Right now, you could siphon enough energy to wake a few of them. But, as you said, you don't have any food. So, if you go out over the next few days and find the canteen, you could consider it. However, you need to keep warm at night. The energy you would waste reviving them-"
"Stop. Yami… Just stop."
"I can't. Not until you promise me."
"Promise you what?" His words were laced with anger.
"That you will put yourself first."
"I-"
"Please?"
The lunch alarm went off. He got up and walked over to the food processer, then stopped. "I won't eat until you eat."
"Yami don't…"
"I mean it. You are the guaranteed thing. Promise me you won't give up."
Yugi sighed, defeated. "I won't give up…"
"Good." Yami smiled with relief. "Now I can tell you that there are two other signals near you."
"What?!"
Now that sounded more like the Yugi he had met yesterday.
"I'm going to check it out and I will be back on this frequency in three hours. Don't keep me waiting?"
"Okay, yes! I'll set an alarm on the omni-tool."
"Good luck."
"You too."
Reluctantly Yami moved off of Yugi's frequency and started tuning in to the anomalies picked up by the large-range scanners. By the time he was seated back at his desk, he had already honed in on the first which was a distress beacon.
"This is Captain Solomon Mutou of the SR3-Aralia, seeking emergency aid. Please respond."
Yami brought the recording software online and practiced a few times to get his tone right. Then he started the recording. "This is ISRT- 251139 responding. Captain Solomon Mutou, acknowledged. Long-range emergency broadcast imminent. Location, identified as planet-25-21-7-9."
He let it play a few times then lined it up. It was now set it to loop back between the delay on the original broadcast so that the two talked to each other. Even if they could not transmit, they would at least know that they had been heard.
The next step was to figure out the specific location. If he could get the computer to produce, even a quasi-accurate map, there would be a possibility of guiding Yugi to them. But, that assumed the beacon had not been launched or knocked clear of the ship. It was too dangerous to send Yugi any great distance without a guarantee of safety.
While the computer worked on that, he started tuning in on the second signal. He mumbled into the microphone a series of 'hello's, hoping, if the broadcaster heard, they would reply and he could use their voice to guide him manually into the frequency. But nothing came of it.
He switched back to the emergency broadcast and listened for any changes in the message. It was weird to hear his own voice, but there was nothing new.
He opened a modelling program and loaded his data on planet-252179 into it. An image of the planet, in its orbit, appeared above his desk. He moved it around, curious to see if there was a temperate zone Yugi could move to where the extreme cold would not be a problem. Perhaps near the north pole where the axis nearly faced the sun. 'North', of course, being relative in space and only orientated based on the current position of the model.
If Yugi could get there, it would be hot during the day and cool at night. He could survive outside in both conditions, provided there was enough food and water available. It had potential, but if there were any Earth-like organisms, they would thrive in these zones as well. That included dangerous micro-bacteria.
The computer beeped and he switched back to the emergency broadcast. It had changed.
This is Captain Solomon Mutou of the SR3-Aralia. Acknowledged ISRT "Yami". Gratitude. Confirmed location: "Yugi".
It was as Yami thought, their signal was scripted. But it was not impossible to communicate if someone knew how to tweak the programming. The beacons were always very basic so they could operate no matter what terrain they landed on, for years if they had to. He thought of how he wanted to phrase his response, knowing the survivors would need his words to formulate the reply.
"This is ISRT-251139. Overwatch, Planet-252179. Supply requisition acknowledged. Recommend coordinates 48 N, 123 W, linking model. Caution. New coordinates requested."
He set the new information on loop. If they had been able to change the message, they must be near the beacon. Yami had Yugi's location narrowed within 10 degrees of error, but on a planet-wide scale that would not be useful. When on foot, the difference translated to about 100 kilometers of error on either side. He could accidentally mislead Yugi and guide him in the wrong direction, and it would take days of travel before Yami would even notice. It was best to keep Yugi where he was until it was no longer safe.
He listened again to the emergency broadcast, but it hadn't changed.
The tone for dinner went off. His stomach growled. There were still noodles all over the floor, but he would worry about that later.
Yugi would need to head back now. And, if the beacon was not secured, the survivors would also need to seek shelter. That meant it was unlikely he would hear from them again tonight.
He switched over to his report and updated it with new data from the emergency broadcast. It was now ready to submit and the countdown to firing began. It would do so automatically while he slept.
Finally, he had his chance to switch back to Yugi's frequency.
"This is ISRT-251139 acknow" - He caught himself still talking to the robot - "Yugi? Are you back?"
No response. Only the deafening silence.
He tapped the table impatiently. Maybe now was a good time for cleaning. It had been a long time since he had, and, it was a task that could keep his mind busy while he waited.
But, when all was said and done, Yugi never came back on the channel. The alarm for sleep went off and Yami fought it as long as he could. He ended up asleep on the floor.
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Lifeline	By : Athena Category: Yu-Gi-Oh > AU - Alternate Universe Views: 1003 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own Yugioh or make any profit.

Lifeline