JOON'S MANUAL

A PHOTON is a particle of light. Just like matter is made of electrons and nucleons, light is made of photons. So, when you lie in the sun, you're bombarded with thousands of photons every minute, like little balls of energy that hit your skin. Those particles of light have different energies depending on the wavelength of the light. Blue light has a shorter wavelength and therefore possesses a higher energy, whereas red light has a longer wavelength and a lower energy. And to come back to sunbathing: The so-called UV (ultra-violet) light that's so dangerous for our body, has an even shorter wavelength than blue light and therefore a much higher energy that can destroy parts of the DNA and therefore cause skin cancer. Microwave and gamma photons possess even more energy than UV light.

Moreover, photons can interact with other particles like electrons. Because of the energy a photon possesses it has a mass, and therefore can bump against an electron and push it off, like two billiard balls colliding.

But! All photons have the same speed unaffected by their energy. They all travel by lightspeed (scientific sign c).

Lightspeed c ≈ 300'000 kilometers per second ≈ 186'282 miles per second

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Tae focus

Taehyung and Yoongi had already been in the kitchen when the captain had called out for lunch. The white-haired had told him about the conversation with Hoseok, and he had confirmed that he would have gone for Earth, too, even if Bang had voted for Eos. Their talk ended in a discussion about moral on different planets, and his colleague had been pretty shocked about V's moral codex. Taehyung did not understand why. He never understood why most nations were so caught-up about some things he thought of as natural.

Prudery for example was something he could not understand. But even Jimin, a Charmer, had misunderstood the situation in the showers. Or maybe the man had just been horny. However, the scene could have become very ugly back then, because Taehyung had never felt so horny within a second. It had been unbelievably difficult to keep his hands off, and he did not know if he would be able to withstand again if Jimin tried harder. The fact that the petit man was attractive even without the Charmer-pull did not make it easier.

"Hello again," Jin greeted them when he entered the kitchen and started the food automat. "By the way, has this awful machine a name?"

"You mean the food automat?" Taehyung asked and took a sip from his poffee.

"Yes."

Yoongi answered with a small smile. "This model is called FP-7. It's from the Foodprint series of AIR*."

Jin stared at the white-haired like he began to doubt mankind's intelligence. "Foodprint? Oh, hell no."

Taehyung chuckled. "The other series are called Foodlocker, Meatmixer and Bar-Becue."

The doc looked like he wanted to cry.

"I think you should stop, Tae," Yoongi whisper loud enough for the hazel-haired to hear, "He looks like he's about to break down." They chuckled in unison, amused about the oldest.

"What's so funny?" the captain wanted to know when he entered the kitchen and ordered his food bar.

"Oh, nothing, Jin's being Jin," Taehyung said and stood up to get his own lunch.

"Bubblegum?" Jimin, who had entered the room a second ago, asked shocked when Taehyung pressed the baby-blue button. "For lunch, at that?"

Everyone stared at the V in horror. He shrugged and took the bar to sit down again and make space for Jimin in front of the machine. The small man blushed slightly when they passed each other. A blushing Charmer. That was rare.

"Poffee and bubblegum," the husky voice of the pale pilot said amused. "You're truly weird."

Taehyung grinned proudly. He was a V. Being called weird was a compliment whereas being called normal was something he wanted to avoid by any costs. Not that he had to put much effort into that.

Jungkook and Namjoon entered the kitchen.

"Namjoon!" he called out for the Brain. He wanted to get closer to the man, now that he knew how to. "Do you have another funny fact?"

"Why do you always ask for fun facts?" the Brain replied.

Taehyung tilted his head. "I'm a V."

The blonde looked at him for a moment, then he seemed to understand that this had been the explanation and a hint of a smile curled the plump lips. Namjoon had a beautiful dimpled smile, Taehyung noticed once more, and the Brain should show that way more often.

"Well," the commander began, and for some reason everyone was listening carefully, "If you chased a photon with the speed of light, it would still move away from you with the speed of light."

Taehyung grinned satisfied.

"But," Jimin insisted shyly, "didn't you say nothing moved faster than light? Then, how can light be faster than light?"

"That's true," Namjoon said, and this time he did not use his lecture voice. Instead a cute dimpled smile decorated his face and he spoke with a happy tune. "But since Einstein we know that, though observers with different reference systems see the exact same incident differently, every observer, no matter if he's on Earth or on a spaceship, has to come to the same conclusions regarding the fundamental laws of the universe."

"That's still not satisfying," Jimin said and pouted his lips.

"What Jimin said," the hazel-haired doc agreed and tilted his head.

Namjoon thought for a moment, then he focused on the Charmer and tried to explain to him what the technical crew members had learned at the Academy. "With great speed come two effects: The first is called dilatation of time, the second contraction of length. Let's say you're on Earth and watch a spaceship that moves with half the speed of light flying by. Then you'll be able to observe that the clocks on board of the ship seem to move slower -one second on Earth would equal 0.86 seconds on the ship- and that the ship is much shorter than what the manual says -one meter on Earth would be 1.15 meters on the ship. But if you were on the ship, you'd say that the clocks work perfectly well and that the ship is exactly as long as the handbook reads. This leads to the beautifully confusing result that the crew on board of the ship still would measure the same speed of light like you'd do on Earth. You could say, but that's highly metaphorical, that because they move faster, their tape measure is longer and their clocks are slower. If we used their scale on Earth, we'd measure that light travels about 259'807'517 meters in about 0.866025 seconds what results in the normal speed of light."

Jimin looked like he actually tried to understand what the Brain had said. And while he was processing the information everyone stared at him, curious of his reaction. Namjoon even held his breath.

"That's pretty cool," the small honey-haired finally said and smiled a little perplexed.

Everyone moved out of their frozen state and Namjoon smiled widely.

Taehyung chuckled and poked Yoongi with his elbow to make him look at Jin. The handsome doctor looked at the commander as if he was being charmed.

"Someone's falling really hard right now," he whispered into the white-haired man's ear and made him chuckle lowly. Smart, beautiful and sympathetic, the physician's words came to his mind. It was a shame that everyone thought that brains had no emotions. That was as far from truth as one could get. Brains had problems with understanding other people's emotions, not with having emotions. They, in fact, were a little calmer, but that might be caused by their ability to think things through logically. Who would get angry if they knew all the reasons for the problem?

"But Namjoon," The Charmer came again, "You said the ship technically moves faster than light because of the Q-thing."

"The QGCS?" the blonde asked and gained a nod from the smaller, "Our system is cheating because it uses the second special force, gravity. The effects I described are based on non-gravitational propulsion. But if you looked out of the cockpit window you'd still measure the speed of light on the photons that pass the ship closely."

Jimin nodded lost in thought. The man looked cute with the furrowed brows. And Taehyung knew how much work it was to wrap one's mind around this, even for a smart person.

"Actually, I understood this just now," Hoseok admitted and laughed. "The teachers at the Academy never explained it that well."

Jungkook agreed with a hum.

And Namjoon beamed with joy. The Brain suddenly looked like the friendliest person Taehyung had ever seen, and he praised himself for initializing the conversation.

Yoongi leaned in to him, "If he's getting any brighter, Jin 'll start drooling," the white-haired whispered.

Taehyung grinned widely and nodded. Who knew? Now that the ice was broken, maybe their small group would get closer much easier.

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"I feel like my legs are going to fall off," the white-haired whined and let himself fall on one of the benches in the changing room.

Hoseok had made them work on their legs because he thought of them as the most important part in a battle. If nothing worked, one could still run off.

"If you can still whine, it wasn't hard enough," the captain said with a devilish grin. He had to be a sadist.

Yoongi instantly shut up and just pulled off his shirt. Taehyung's eyes were glued to the slim frame with the pale skin. The black clothes were such a perfect contrast to his colleague's complexion. And those perfect nipples on the softly toned chest... Shit, he was fantasizing way too hard. Gulping down his excitement, he rushed into the shower room and turned on the icy water. When the cold liquid hit his hot skin, he growled through gritted teeth and jumped from one foot to the other.

"Lively imagination?" the soft voice of Jungkook sounded from behind him.

The raven was showering in the cabin on the opposite wall, and a knowing grin showed his bunny teeth.

"Well, Jimin is attractive after all," Taehyung retorted, knowing he would hit a weak spot.

The younger's face instantly fell. Bingo. Taehyung smiled satisfied.

"Jimin?" Yoongi, who just had entered the room dressed in a towel, asked with a raised eyebrow.

Taehyung winked at him, hoping that he would understand, and apparently the older did. A crooked smile lifted one corner of the pale pilot's mouth and a nasty glint sparkled in the ebony eyes. Taehyung turned his shower back to ice cold just to be safe. Demonic Yoongi held a certain thrill.

"Well, you're right. Our Charmer definitely has more than his diplomatic charms," the white-haired said while he turned on the shower next to Jungkook.

Taehyung could see the youngest clenching jaw and suppressed a chuckle. Jungkook was so easy to play. He had two weak spots: His injury that had ended his military carrier, how Taehyung knew from the database of Bang he had hacked, and the newer one, Jimin. The raven's liking in the Charmer was so obvious it could blink hot pink and would not be showier. But Taehyung envied Jimin for having someone who looked at him like this. Did the small man even notice? Or was he so caught up in the prejudiced images he had had to listen to all his life that he was not able to see love when it slapped him in the face? Taehyung stored that question for later and turned off the shower.

Jimin seemed to be at the women's again.

"Don't worry, Kook. We were just messing with you," he becalmed the soldier and earned a look of anger and relief. Then he turned towards the Switcher. "Are you still able to concentrate?"

His colleague nodded.

"Then let's have our date on the bridge when you're done," he suggested and left to get dressed again.

"Date?" he heard Jin when he left the shower room and grinned.

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He sipped on his caffeine-free poffee when Yoongi entered the bridge and stepped behind him. Letting his head fall over the backrest, he looked at the smaller. "You ready?"

"Yeah," the older sighed and looked anything but.

"If you're too tired, we don't-"

"I'm okay." The Switcher smiled at him as if he found it cute that he was concerned.

"Well, come with me," Taehyung said and stood up to take a seat on the floor in front of the giant window. Though it was scary to not see any reflection because of the special glass, he found this to be the most comfortable place on the whole ship, and when Bang increased the floor's temperature he smiled satisfied.

He pulled the older down and made him sit in front of him.

"Okay, I've got no idea how to work this, so we'll just have to try."

Yoongi nodded.

"Close your eyes and try to imagine what your emotionless state feels like." The white-haired obeyed, and when he sat still, Taehyung continued, "Try to recall how your body felt and how your mind felt. Copy the feeling-"

"Would you shut up! Your voice is distracting," the co-pilot growled.

Taehyung closed his mouth and just looked at the other. This was his chance to stare at his colleague without getting caught. The white hair had been toweled in a rush and was a little curly and messy, the soft nose glistened from the shower and the wing-shaped lips twitched occasionally. Taehyung tried to burn this image into his mind because it looked so different compared to Yoongi's normally grumpy or bored expression.

It took several minutes before the white-haired opened his eyes and Taehyung could see that it had worked.

"We did it!" he shouted and jumped up. "And on the first attempt!"

"You're loud," the hollow voice of the Switcher made him turn his attention back to the man on the floor.

He crotched down. "And now back." He watched the other attentively when the man closed his eyes again.

But the minutes passed by and nothing changed.

"It doesn't work," Yoongi stated, but he looked like he did not really care.

Taehyung mused for a moment, but then he shrugged. "Well, we can still do some hacking today. Let's take it slow with the switching."

Yoongi agreed with a nod.

"Oh, please don't turn into Jungkook when you're turned off," Taehyung said. He could not stand a nodding mute in the place of Yoongi.

"Who's Jungkook?" the other asked.

Taehyung froze. That could not be. He could not have forgotten about something like that. This was not switching personas, this was blocking emotions. He was about to say something, when the white-haired opened his mouth again.

"That was a joke."

Taehyung breathed out relieved and chuckled quietly. Yoongi was motionless. This was so weird. Apparently, the older still had some sense of humor, but he did not find himself funny. Well, hopefully, they would find out much more over the next weeks.

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*AIR... Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (see chapter 'Earth II'). It's a company I invented for the story.