1: Landing
Inside the control room, the Gummi ship was merely a blinking green dot on the radar screen. To the untrained eye, it was a blip with numbers and letters nearby. To the radar operator, however, it gave a detailed picture of the Gummi ship, showing speed, direction, and other vital pieces of data, which is why he was worried.
Outside the control room, a streak of fire punctuated the otherwise calm night sky. The Gummi ship had entered the atmosphere at far too steep an angle, and now it was decelerating too quickly. The pilot couldn't maintain control under the pressure of the bone-cracking G-forces. The ship groaned and shuddered as the wings were sheared off in the fire of reentry.
The pilot kept his cool, though. No sense in panicking now; it would only get them killed. He let go of the joystick. Maybe he could pull them out of their dive once they got to a lower speed. Once his hands were off of the stick, the ship rolled, applying even more G-force to the passengers and pilot. One passenger blacked out from the intense pressure. The others screamed as flames engulfed the outside of the cockpit. They were in full reentry now.
As the air thickened, the flames and pressure became even more intense. The pilot strained to keep conscious as he glanced at the reentry timer. In forty more seconds, the radio would become operable again. If he could stay alert for that long, the guys on the ground would be able to talk him out of this dive. All he could do was hope the fuel wouldn't ignite and turn what was left of his ship into a fireball eight miles above the ground.
Back in the control room, the radar operator was still mildly worried. These kind of things happened all the time. Some poor saps would find a Gummi ship and try to flee the Heartless. Someone would give them the proper coordinates, and the warp would go smoothly, provided the occupants could add. A small percentage of ships ended up warping into the heart of a star because nobody on board could do the basic warp calculations.
The greater danger was reentry. So many inexperienced pilots flew their ships into the atmosphere way too steeply. It always ended up that they fell like a rock. All anyone else could do was hope they missed the major population centers. Recently, in the wake of a particularly deadly crash in a densely populated urban area, there was talk awhile back about shooting down "rogues," as they were known, with surface-to-air missiles, but people rejected the idea immediately. There was always the chance somebody may get lucky. Not to mention that they were supposed to be attracting people, not driving them away.
Onboard the Gummi ship, the fire had cooled from a blazing white to a cooler yellow-orange. The jarring shudders had decreased somewhat, and the G-forces had begun to subside. Soon the fire would dissipate completely, and the pilot could attempt a crash-landing somewhere. The odds of surviving a well-executed crash-landing were fairly good; about 80% of victims walked away with no permanent damage. But then again, most of them at least had their wings.
Finally, the sheath of flames disappeared entirely, and the ship was in normal free-fall. The pilot radioed the regional Air Traffic Control room on the distress frequency.
"This is the Origami! Mayday! Mayday! Losing altitude fast! Roll controls are unresponsive!"
The radio hissed and responded quickly. "Aegis RATC here. Origami, pull up at rate two degrees per second."
The pilot complied, gently pulling the stick back. Sure enough, the nose of the ship gradually drifted up. He felt himself becoming giddy with excitement. I just may make it!
"Origami, increase thrust to fifty percent."
Gradually pushing the throttle forward, the pilot felt the acceleration pushing him into the back of his seat. He watched as his rate of climb gauge slowly inched its way out of the negative numbers. In mere seconds, it would become zero and he'd be in controlled flight.
"Hey, it's working! It's working!" He turned to his remaining conscious passengers and began to shout.
"We're gonna make it! We're gonna-"
***
The phone rang loudly on the table next to Sora's bed. He awoke slowly, rubbing his eyes and yawning. Looking at the phone in disgust, he growled vague threats to the caller. He had specifically instructed them not to call him at night except in emergencies. This had better be good.
He held the handset to his head. "Uh, what?"
The voice on the other side of the line sounded urgent and official. "You're needed at a crash site. It's about twenty miles north of Anchor Point City."
Sora groaned. "A crash? Crashes happen all the time. They're almost more common than landings. What's so special about this one?"
"The pilot worked for a commercial Gummi transport line."
That caught Sora's attention. Commercial Gummi pilots were second only to military aviators in skill and training. Not to mention that most commercial pilots were ex-military, anyway. Many of them were also incredibly arrogant. Sora tended to avoid them. But skill is skill. No company would hire a pilot that would drive his ship into the ground during reentry. There must be a good reason.
"Where exactly is this crash site?"
"A car has already been sent. Is Kairi awake?"
Sora glanced over his shoulder. There, sleeping peacefully, was the red-haired girl of his dreams. His heart fluttered as his eyes found the diamond ring on her left hand, which was holding the covers close to her petite body. Sora still smiled every time he thought of how lucky he was to have wed Kairi.
"Sora?"
He snapped out of his daze and quickly replied. "No. She's still asleep."
"Alright, then let her stay that way. Come alone."
Sora mumbled a quiet affirmative and sat up on his bed. He rubbed his temples gently and shook his head to ward off sleep. He rose slowly, making sure not to disturb Kairi. Gently opening his closet, he threw on a simple long-sleeve shirt and pants. He also picked out a hooded vest for good measure. The nights on Aegis got cold.
He was about to leave the room when he remembered something. Opening the drawer in his nightstand, he scribbled a quick note to Kairi, so she wouldn't panic when she woke up alone. He described the situation and put the note on his pillow, giving Kairi an ever-so-light kiss on the forehead.
As he descended the stairs outside his bedroom, he continued his mumbling of vague threats, this time directed at the pilot who managed to crash at two o'clock in the morning. Why did the majority of crashes happen at night? Couldn't people crash during, say, the afternoon? Maybe late morning?
Looking out his front windows, Sora saw no black government car there, so he quietly shuffled into the kitchen. After he put two pieces of bread in the toaster, he opened a window for some fresh air. The sound of crashing waves filled his ears and a salty smell wafted into his nose. No matter what world he was on, he was at home near the ocean.
However, there had always been that nagging voice in the back of his head that reminded him that this was not the shoreline of the Destiny Islands. Those had vanished years ago.
Soon after Sora and Riku had defeated Xemnas, the completion and subsequent opening of Kingdom Hearts took its toll. The millions of hearts that had poured out of it became millions of Heartless. The millions became billions, and the billions became trillions. There was no conclusive estimate as to the number of Heartless that swarmed through the universe. They came in droves, making the previous two organized efforts they had taken pale in comparison to the unstoppable tide of darkness that swept across the universe.
In the following years, thousands of worlds fell. It got so bad that people began to flee worlds at the first sign of the Heartless rather than try to mount a futile defense. The greatest and proudest militaries retreated immediately in the face of a Heartless attack. Even the Keybearers, the most feared humans in the universe, couldn't save their beloved islands. It seemed that humanity was doomed to run from the Heartless until there was nowhere else to run. Nobody wanted to talk about what happened after the last world fell.
Among the crushing defeats that most worlds suffered, there was a single victory. When the Heartless found the world of Aegis, they wasted no time in carrying out their normal pattern of attack. But for some reason, the Heartless were weaker on Aegis than any other world. The various nations' militaries, who were already engaged in a brutal world war, beat back the assault after months of fierce fighting.
When word spread that a world had survived a Heartless invasion, refugees fled there by the millions. A world that had been home to less than seven hundred million people suddenly ballooned to a world of over ten billion individuals. If people weren't united by a common fear of the Heartless, the mixture of cultures, races, and technologies from various worlds would have disintegrated in days.
Over time, Aegis lost contact with the other worlds, one by one, until there were almost no worlds left to contact. The population was stuck there. Society was restructured into a highly military one: service was compulsory from eighteen to twenty-two, regardless of race, sex, or creed. A one o'clock curfew was strictly enforced. The police were integrated as a special branch of the terrestrial Army. The Navy and Marine Corps split into two branches: terrestrial and space-borne. The only branch to remain relatively unchanged was the Air Force, but they got more space-related projects.
The governments of Aegis united under a strong centralized federal government that was based off of an island in the middle of the largest ocean to prevent more infighting over which ex-nation got the Capital on their turf. For the most part, people were happy with the government. The curfew angered some people, but there was little anyone could do. There was legal precedent and clear need for the population to remain organized.
The relative calm was shattered when news spread that Sora and Kairi were going to live on Aegis after the Destiny Islands were destroyed. The government had made extraordinarily generous offers of large mansions and highly trained security forces for them, but the young couple made it clear that all they wanted was a house on a nice beach.
And so Sora stood in his government-donated kitchen, waiting for his toast to finish cooking. The smell of seared bread mixed pleasantly with the salty ocean air. Within minutes, two pieces of golden-brown toast popped up from the shiny toaster. Sora set them on a plate and spread thick, creamy butter over them. He was about to take a large bite out of one when he saw headlights in his driveway.
He set the toast on a napkin and opened the front door. A black-suited man was about to ring the doorbell just as Sora walked out. He took a bite of his toast and cocked his head at the man. "What's with the sunglasses, Agent J? It's dark out."
"Standard procedure, sir. The car is waiting for you. Right side back seat, please."
Sora walked to the door and opened it, toast in hand. He sat down next to a uniformed soldier with a cap under his arm. The man smiled as Sora's door was closed by the agent.
"Good to see you again, Sora."
He extended his hand, which Sora shook. "Same here, General Harris."
Harris was easily the youngest general on Aegis, let alone the Air Force. He had climbed in the ranks quickly, thanks to his ingenious method of launching and placing sensor satellites without the use of rockets or cargo-capable Gummi ships, which saved the Air Force a lot of money. By the time he was twenty-nine years old, he was in command of the entire Tenth Air Force, which was dedicated to space-based weaponry and Gummi operations. One of his less glamorous jobs was overseeing odd Gummi ship crash investigations.
The general looked at Sora's toast and sniffed. "Mind if I have a piece? I didn't eat."
"Yeah, sure. Here." Sora handed Harris one of his pieces of toast. The general accepted it and took a large bite.
"Mm. Is this Black Stone Bakery?" Sora nodded, his mouth full of toast. Harris nodded in agreement.
The car accelerated down the road, almost causing Sora to lose the last bit of his toast. The general stuffed the rest of his toast into his mouth and chewed laboriously. After a few silent seconds, he swallowed and turned to Sora.
"Okay, so here's the situation. At 0145 hours this morning, our sensor grid detects an inbound warp. A Gummi ship appeared on the scopes and requested permission for an immediate landing. The pilot sent us this in an encrypted packet along with his request."
The general handed Sora a manila folder. Inside the front cover was a dossier of the pilot, including his employment history. Sora flipped through the pages, not noting anything especially odd. "What's so special about this?"
Harris flipped back to the second page. "This is the medical history of one of his passengers. Anything stand out to you?"
Sora skimmed over the document until he reached the final entry. He read it aloud.
"Multiple contusions, claw marks, blunt trauma… Sounds like a Heartless attack."
The general nodded. "It was. Apparently, she was being flown here for treatment. Her husband was a close personal friend of the pilot, and he agreed to fly her here once the local hospital stabilized her. She could be considered the lucky one in this crash." Sora looked up at the general, confused. "She was killed by the G-forces before the ship hit the ground. But her medical history is only one part of the puzzle."
"Apparently, the regional Air Traffic Control center was able to talk the pilot out of his nose dive. Their records indicate that he was slowly regaining control of his craft when suddenly he spun out of control again and crashed in a field. We don't know much, but there is no evidence of structural failure after atmospheric insertion. He was able to stay aloft just barely because of his smaller maneuvering Gummis. We need to find out why this seemingly stable ship just plummeted into the ground."
Sora contemplated the general's words. In his six years of flying Gummi ships, he had never heard of one suddenly and inexplicably losing control. "What do you think happened?"
Harris laughed. "You mean expert opinions?" He pointed at Sora. "You're going to be the first. Who wants to get up this early to investigate a crash?" The general laughed as Sora scowled at him.
***
"Wow."
That was the only thing Sora could say. The sight before him was incredible. In a massive field that stretched for miles, there were burning pieces of the Gummi ship. They were strewn about in a pattern that suggested the ship had crashed at an oblique angle and spread the wreckage forward. The main hulk of the ship, including the cockpit and three engines, was surrounded by fire-fighting crews. The smaller pieces were being doused by volunteers armed with fire extinguishers. It was quite a sight.
Sora and Harris began to walk towards the remainder of the cockpit. "So, what have you told the public so far, General?" Sora asked.
Harris raised an eyebrow at him. "It's two thirty in the morning, Sora. Everyone's asleep. Later, however, the top Air Force spokesman and I will make a statement explaining whatever we find out here. So let's get started."
They arrived at the cockpit, which was still burning near the engines. One firefighter handed a small orange box to Harris and returned to his work. Sora cocked his head. "What is that, General?"
Harris smiled, satisfied with his luck. "That, Sora, is the inappropriately named black box, otherwise known as the Cockpit Data Recorder. It should tell us everything that happened on board before the crash. But at the speed this thing was last traveling, we're lucky to get it back."
The general waved to a group of black-clad agents, who walked brusquely towards them. One of them produced a small screen, which plugged into the black box. A menu appeared on the screen. Harris touched the VIDEO option, and a grainy color video of the cockpit appeared. Harris moved the video forward to reentry. They watched as the pilot struggled against the incredible G-forces.
Harris stopped the video about halfway through the reentry, pointing to one of the passengers. "Look here. She blacks out right now, and later…" He moved the video forward. "… she dies right about… now." The body of the unfortunate passenger was still limp in her seat. "Now whatever happens next should be the key to – oh, no."
Sora saw it too. Even the agents showed some signs of surprise. The woman had vanished. In her place was a Shadow. The other passengers and the pilot were completely oblivious as the small black being wrestled its way out of the oversized restraints and crept up behind the pilot. As it was about to pounce, the pilot turned around and began to shout with joy. The Shadow jumped and began to attack the pilot, who was helpless to resist in his restraints.
The pilot fell limply away from the camera as the Heartless was lifted off of the ground by the sudden return of free fall. It seemed to be drowning in midair until the feed was cut. No more video played. There was only static.
Everyone stared at the small screen, mouths agape. Sora was, uncharacteristically, the first one to break the silence.
"That… That… is not normal. Heartless can't do that! She was attacked hours earlier! If your wounds are treated, you don't become a Heartless when you die!"
Harris shook his head slowly. "Apparently, the Heartless have changed their game."
***
INCOMING TRANSMISSION
…
BEGIN DECRYPTION
…
…
…
DECRYPTION COMPLETE. CONTENTS:
Report: Sensor Satellite 0241 Euclid
Status: All Systems Green
Priority: Standard
/ALERT!
/ANOMALOUS MASS DETECTED
RANGE: 20,000,000 km
MASS: 300,000 kg
COMPOSITION:
99.87% Hydrogen (G)[Diatomic]
00.13% Helium (G)
CONCLUSION: PRIMORDIAL HYDROGEN CLOUD
RECOMMENDATION: ARCHIVE DATA AND IGNORE
/TRANSMISSION COMPLETE
/ARCHIVING… COMPLETE
/TERMINATING CONNECTION
…
…
