Ok, so this got a loooot longer than a 500 words drabble. But in my defense I love sci-fi and I was very inspired by this prompt XD I hope you enjoy! ♡
The ship is ancient. The corpse of a dead behemoth that has been drifting amongst the stars for at least a century.
Koala's voice cackles over the voice comms. “We should have brought Robin for this. She'd have loved it.”
Sabo makes an absent hum in a reply as he glides along an ancient unlit hallway of the ship. The artificial gravity is off, and so is life support for most of this old floater. Yet when they caught and followed a weak distress signal, the shields were still up around certain parts of the ship, protecting it from meteors and other space debris. The weak impulse of remaining power is why they even chose to board the ship in the first place instead of just towing it. How any remnant of power is still still running after all this time is a mystery.
“This ship must be at least a century old.” Sabo notes as he peeks in through a broken doorway, the torchlight on his helmet casting an eerie glow on the remains of a living quarter. Items are scattered and frozen, some hovering mid-air in the absent gravity, but otherwise the cabin is unchanged from how it'd have been on the day when the original occupant had last left the room. It's like a time capsule. “Judging by the damage, it was taken out in battle. I'm surprised we haven't found any corpses yet.”
As if on cue, Koala lets out a shriek across the comms. “Ack! No, I found some. Gah!”
Sabo grimaces at the mental image. Space mummies are never a pleasant sight. Their ever staring empty eye sockets, where the low pressure caused the liquid to boil and turn to gas, are creepy.
A low electrical hum alerts Sabo, and he kicks off the wall to hurry up his progress along the hallway. “I just found the area where the power is coming from. The door is shut, but…” He does a route check of the control panel and is surprised to find that it is still operational. What's even more surprising is, “It's an airlock?”
“What?” Koala says, “And it's still on? Does that mean life support is still on in there!?”
“The chances are low…” Sabo mutters. They really are, for a ship this old, floating like a ghost for a century. Sure, if core power was all redirected to life support it could technically keep running for a long time. But the ship would be a dead floater in space. Bacteria getting into the plant nurseries and taking out the food supply, or infecting people, usually means a crew is still doomed if they don't get found fast.
After a century, there is no chance of survivors.
“I probably won't find anything nice in there, but I'll proceed according to the protocols for dealing with potential survivors.” Sabo says as he plods in the command to let him through. Luckily the ship runs on an old version of galactic standard. Similar to what his grandfather's old ship uses—though if his crazy cyborg uncle heard Sabo call any part of his masterpiece and beloved baby old, he'd have Sabo's hide.
The airlock works. It takes 20 minutes for the pressure and oxygen levels to re-adjust, and then Sabo is finally let into the still powered on area.
Sabo looks around, unsurprised. A few skeletal remains are sprawled on the floor and leaned against walls, flesh having long since rotted away here where there is still oxygen. Sabo is glad that his helmet is still on and that he doesn't have to smell air that's been recycling for decades.
It makes sense that the survivors of whatever battle this ship went through would have prioritized keeping this part of the ship running, and had locked themselves in here while waiting and hoping for a rescue. Unfortunately they were not found in time.
Sabo carefully picks his way through the room, looking over the clues left behind by these poor souls in their last moments. Judging by the amount of ancient dry blood pools, they at least hadn't starved to death.
On a metal examination table, Sabo notices a folded paper; held down to the table with a magnet. Closer examination shows that it's actually a letter, folded so the content isn't visible—though the name of the recipient is. Across the slightly blood stained paper is written: ‘For Ace.’
“A family member maybe?” Sabo wonders as he tilts his head. He leaves the letter alone for now and turns around a corner, only to receive the shock of his life.
“Holy shit!” Sabo gasps, staring wide eyed at the humming, lit up, and still very evidently running cryogenic sleep capsule.
“Koala!” Sabo yells into his comms, “Get here fast! There's a fucking cryo capsule!”
“What!? Is it still running!?”
“Yes!” Sabo yells back, then shuts off the comms and stares wide-eyed at the unbelievable sight, before shaking himself to regain his wits and quickly moving to examine it.
The capsule is an old model, with only a narrow window in front of the frozen inhabitant's face. Sabo leans in and uses his glove to vibe off decades of dust from the glass, to let him get a look at whoever is inside.
It's a young man: dark hair and long lashes resting gently across his freckled cheeks. His objective beauty is not what strikes Sabo though, and he frowns as he mutters, “Why do you look familiar?”
It takes Koala 10 minutes to move through the ship, and another 20 to be let into the med-bay through the airlock.
Sabo uses that time to read the letter to ‘Ace.’ The content makes him look at Koala with a grim expression as she enters.
“I've learnt the name of this ship.” Sabo informs her, letter still in his gloved hands, before she can ask anything. “It's the Mini Moby 3.”
“Mini Moby—like the Whitebeards!?” Koala yells in shock. “But—I thought their entire fleet was lost during the Paramount War over a century ago?”
“Technically it was.” Sabo says with a frown, because the floating coffin ship they have stumbled across can hardly count as a survivor. Except for one person, of course.
Once again Sabo turns to look at the humming cryo capsule. It's a miracle that it's still running after all this time, with no human upkeep, and only AI to fix any technical issues. According to the display on the capsule, its occupant is heavily injured, and frozen to preserve him until he can get somewhere with better medical aid, but still very much alive.
Sabo says quietly, “The guys in here were Whitebeard pirates. Survivors of the Paramount War. They were all heavily injured though, and their ship was limping along on low impulse power. They had no remaining allies, and knew that they were unlikely to make it to a port safely… so they chose to prioritize. They had one functional cryo capsule. Hoping that their SOS signal would one day be picked up by someone friendly, they used the capsule for their youngest—despite his protests.”
Koala follows Sabo's gaze towards the capsule. “So in there is…”
Sabo takes a deep breath, barely able to believe that he is going to say these words. “Portgas D. Ace, also known as Gol D. Ace. The cause of the Paramount War, whose death became the catalyst that changed an era.”
Koala swallows heavily and whispers. “Holy shit.”
Sabo concurs. When his grandfather hears about this, he is going to flip.
2 weeks later, Portgas D. Ace is safely awoken from cryo state, after sleeping for over a century. The waking process was arduous, and not one they could afford to fuck up.
Sabo is next to him as he comes to, and feels terribly tempted to make a sleeping beauty joke, but bravely refrains. Koala is busy manning the ship, but if she ever learnt about it, she'd kill him.
Ace's eyes slowly blink open, and it takes a long time for him to focus. No wonder. His brain has literally been frozen for a century. Eventually he finally manages to lock onto Sabo and asks in a groggy voice, “Who…?”
“A friend.” Sabo tells him with a small comforting smile. “I know who you are, Ace, and you are safe here.”
It seems to take a while for Ace to parse that, but when he does his first question is, “My crew?”
Sabo shakes his head. “I'm sorry. None of them made it. But they left you a letter.”
Ace's breath hitches and he squeezes his eyes shut, looking pained. He does not cry though. A few deep breaths later he looks at Sabo again and says in a dead voice, “So their plan worked then. Someone found me, and I survived.”
“What about everyone else? Pops?”
Sabo wets his lips as he searches for words. He's argued with Koala about whether they should even tell Ace what happened, but Sabo believes that while the truth might hurt, lying and giving him false hope would be cruel. “The thing is, Ace, it took a long time for anyone to find you.”
“One hundred and two years.”
Ace stares at him. He was already pale, after spending so long in cryosleep, but the look on his face—
“I'm sorry.” Sabo says, and turns away to give him a moment.
It takes a while for Ace's erratic breathing and smothered noises to calm down. When Sabo finally looks at him again, Ace's face is wet and he is staring vacantly up at the ceiling.
In a hoarse voice, Ace says quietly, “If over a hundred years have passed, I guess basically everyone I know is dead by now.” His face crumbles again as he barely manages to push out, “I'm the last one. I'm all alone.”
“Not quite.” Sabo says as he leans over him, trying to catch Ace's eyes. “Your little brother, Luffy, is still alive.”
Ace's eyes widen and snap to Sabo's so fast that it must make him dizzy, “Luffy's still alive!? Is he alright!? Is he—” Ace breaks off and blinks several times, seeming to finally realize, “Wow, if he's still alive that means he must be ancient.”
Sabo can't help but laugh. “Yeah, grandpa is pretty ancient alright. But he's very spry for a hundred and twenty year old.”
Ace, who was just struggling to sit up, freezes mid-motion and stares at Sabo again. “Grandpa? You're Luffy's grandson!?”
Sabo grins. “Yeah, he kidnapped me himself when I was five. That makes me his grandson, according to him anyway.”
Ace makes a face like he doesn't know what to think of that.
It makes Sabo laugh again and assure him, “Don't worry, I was old enough to agree to the kidnapping. I've been told that's just how space pirate adoption works.”
Ace finishes sitting up and scratches a hand through his hair. “I mean… I guess?” He says slowly, a hint of wry amusement finally appearing on his face, though it doesn't quite cover the sorrow still carved there. Ace must be thinking of Edward Newgate. His captain, ‘pops,’ and the most notorious serial adopter of his time.
Ace clears his throat and peers questioningly at Sabo for a moment, before hesitantly asking, “So, did Luffy… Did he manage to become—”
“The Pirate King?” Sabo asks. “Of course he did.”
For the first time, he gets to witness Ace's face as it blooms into a smile. Misty-eyed and grinning, Ace says, “I knew it. I knew he could do it. I just wish I'd been there to see it.”
Sabo smiles back and says, “Now that we've successfully managed to wake you up from cryosleep, without your heart giving out or you suffering permanent brain damage, I think we can finally inform grandpa that we're on our way with you. I'm sure he'll be ecstatic to tell you all about his adventures himself.”
Ace slowly shakes his head, still smiling but gaze a little distant as he says, “Luffy as an old man. A grandpa. I can’t believe it.”
“Grandpa, dad, husband, Pirate King.” Sabo lists out, lowering a finger for each title. Then he grins at Ace, only one finger still raised. “Though there is one title he always desperately wanted, but thought he could never get back.”
Ace looks at him, riveted. “What is it?”
Sabo smiles gently, eyes going soft as he lowers the final finger. “Little Brother.”
The words seem to hit Ace like a blaster shot through the chest. His face crumbles again, though as he cries this time, Sabo senses that his grief is equally mixed with relief.
There is still much that they need to talk about. They still have the bodies of Ace's crew; Sabo is sure that he'll want to give them proper space funerals. There is also decades of history for Ace to learn. Though it's just a blip in the total age of the universe, a 100 years is enough for their world to have changed a lot.
Sabo flies a good quality ship—as if his grandpa or his uncle Franky would stand for anything else. But there are also still weeks left before they reach the home port of the Pirate King.
During that time, Sabo eventually finds himself wondering if asking his grandfather's brother on a date is too weird, or if he can get away with it, considering that they're the same age and technically not blood related.
Three weeks in, the first time he startles a real, deep, laugh out of Ace, and watches his freckled cheeks flush with joy, Sabo decides that he is going to shoot his shot anyway, no matter what.
