Title: Space Troopers
Chapter 4
Rating:
PG for this chapter.
Pairings: Mainly Cid/Vincent. In-between-the-lines Cloud/Aerith, Zack/Cloud/Sephiroth and any couple combination amongst the three.
Warnings: AU. Violence and yaoi in further chapters. Spoilers for both movie and game.
Summary: Space mechanic Cid Highwind was having a wonderfully crappy day when he happened to stumble upon an old Shinra-issued cryogenic pod. His kind heart forbade him not to wake up the poor bastard. His cursing brain knew he was getting into a heap of trouble.
Notes: All my babble about technology is pure guesswork and imagination. Don't take it too much at heart. Also, I will be freely mixing elements from both game and movie.

Cid disengaged the auto-pilot and leaned over the console, entering a few commands and coordinates. This area of space was tricky at best and had the unfortunate habit of beating ever damn automatic programming that tested it with swift and nasty surprises that usually blindsided it completely. Cid had tried it once –only once—and had had his ass royally handed to him. So now he was going manual.

So far it was going well, but that didn't mean anything, so he kept his attention on his monitors.

"Are you expecting danger?" Vincent asked beside him, following Cid's looks and carefully scrutinizing the length of the console, then outer space.

The thing about Vincent, Cid had discovered, was that he noticed everything, especially about people, and he was damn curious --Cid could tell as much, though the man could be worse than a bloody wall most of the time. Vincent just about never asked questions. He only did when it was related to his security, or something vastly impersonal yet still important. Which didn't happen often. So he rarely asked anything.

Cid sat back and shot Vincent a large, confident grin. "Not right now." Vincent raised an eyebrow. "This area's out of Shinra's grubby mitts, but it's a bit tricky to navigate. Nothing to really worry about, though." Because nobody in the universe could outfly Cid Highwind on fair ground. Shinra wasn't fair, but they didn't patrol here either.

Vincent stared back for a moment before nodding. When you got down to it, Cid thought, the guy's eyes weren't like SOLIDERs' at all. They did shine a bit and all, but it was different. More like a background glow than Cloud's flashlights. It didn't make it any less creepy wondering how that had happened, though.

"Tricky? What do you expect?" the gunner asked, returning his gaze to the monitors and screens.

"Anything. Magnetic fields, stray asteroids, monsters, star winds, black fucking holes, you name it. Thing is, that planet we're headed for is at the tail-end of a pretty fucked up system, and that's the only reason nothing permanent's ever been built in space around here," Cid explained, and a low-danger warning on his screen had him readjust a few settings before sitting back.

"What's coming?"

"Small solar heat wave," Cid snorted dismissively. "I put some shields up and changed the ship's angle, but I probably didn't even need to. The closest sun's pretty damn far, that wave's going to be small by the time it reaches us."

Vincent looked sceptically amused. "You're pretty relaxed, yet you mentioned black holes."

Cid barked a laugh. "They take a whole lot of time to form and the planet broadcasts a warning as soon as they're detected. See that screen?" He jerked a thumb to his left at a small, flickering monitor. "That's the list and location of the identified ones. Aren't many, anyways, but we're still taking a detour to avoid the nastier of 'em. As for the ones that aren't found yet…" Cid shrugged. "They're just too small to bother. You can detect them from far enough to have plenty of time to manoeuvre well and safely out of their influence area. You gotta be one ass of a pilot to get in trouble then!"

Vincent had listened attentively, his head cocked slightly to the side. "You know a lot about space."

"Not like I have a choice," Cid replied. "If I didn't, I wouldn't have made it this long."

"It makes sense," Vincent said, but his voice lacked focus. The gunner looked back outside with that very far-off, almost longing look in his eyes as he stared at something well beyond the stars. "I don't know space."

"Not that many people do, even those who've never stepped on a planet." Cid had met some folks that had never walked out of their space colonies and that had never bothered learning why sometimes the red warning lights flashed and they had to take cover while the pilots and engineers fixed the problem.

"In any case, you're a damn lucky bastard," Cid continued, snapping Vincent back from his thoughts. The man shot him a faintly disbelieving look.

"Lucky?" he repeated, and his tone was dubious and sarcastic.

"Of course! I don't know how long you'd been floating out there in that pod, but you didn't meet anything nasty enough to blast you. That makes you lucky."

Vincent blinked as if he hadn't been expecting that answer. "I guess I was."

There was now a clear opening for the fateful question of exactly why he'd been floating in space in the first place, but Cid didn't take it. He had an inkling as to what some of the answer could be, and if it was anything like Cloud, it would do more harm than good to poke around.

Something suddenly beeped on a monitor and Cid sprang forward, checking the readings and warning signs. Nothing alarming, but he still did a few last preparations. His precautions might be overkill, but so far he'd never heard anyone from his crew complain about his obsessive tendencies to over-protect the ship. It had often enough been the only reason they were still alive.

"Here comes that solar heat wave," he said, and sure enough the ship suddenly shuddered, just as the deep blackness of space shimmered before a thin film of yellow-orange heat floated by, its contact against the ship's shields making bluish sparks dance across the bay window. Cid could tell by the wave's near transparency that it wouldn't last much longer, but it still made a pretty show.

It was gone before Cid could blink twice, but he still went through his systems to make sure everything was still working as smoothly as it should.

"I…wasn't expecting that."

Cid looked up and across at Vincent, who was looking outside with a hint of that look he got from people who'd never really seen outer space before and got to experience one of its prettier but more harmless displays.

"What did you think it'd be like?" he asked, poking off a few layers protection now that the wave had passed.

"More destructive," was the even answer as Vincent shrugged his usual poker face back on. Cid stopped a smirk when he thought it still looked a little awed, though.

"Trust me, if you'd been out there when it hit, you would have thought it pretty destructive," he said instead, stretching his arms up to pop a few vertebrae back in place. They were close to the planet now, although it was so small he could barely make it out from the other stars, and if he could make it without more disturbances, he'd be a happy man.

Cid realized he'd somehow stepped on the guy's toes when Vincent's face went blank and his clawed hand twitched. He frowned, not knowing what he'd said that could have hurt or angered Vincent, but cursed Shinra a few times for good measure. It was never that hard blaming everything on them anyways.

Before Cid could ponder on his inability to comfort people in any way, the door hissed open behind him and he heard the muffled sound of boots stepping inside, along with the creak of weighted leather. Cid rolled his eyes and peered over his shoulder at Cloud; the kid was carrying his sword.

"Something wrong?" Cid asked, ignoring how Vincent and him exchanged one good, long weighing look.

Cloud shook his head. "No. Are we near?"

"Just half an hour out before we have to release your ship. If we get lucky and space leaves us alone."

"It isn't so bad once you get close to the planet," Cloud pointed out.

Cid snorted his opinion of that. "No offence, but it's always bad around here. I get something new every time I make this trip."

"You didn't have to ferry us."

Cid shrugged with one shoulder. "There's always good business for a mechanic over there. No loss for me."

It had been an interesting discussion, convincing both Cloud and Tifa that he could afford carrying their asses through the hazardous system to their last delivery pickup before they closed their loop. It was true that the planet always welcomed space mechanics openly, especially ones with no love for Shinra, but more importantly it provided him with the perfect excuse to keep Cloud on board a little while longer to help making sense out of that pod and its inhabitant. Not that they'd gotten very far.

"You said the planet was one large, protected park," Vincent stated, but it sounded a little like a question, too.

"The Universal Nature Preservation Park. Built it there cause Shinra can't harvest any stars around here and stays out of the system, but it also means economy isn't really strong and they're always having trouble keeping their qualified specialists." It made Cid grumpy just thinking how high the price was of living in a Shinra-free system. It shouldn't be like that.

Silence settled in the cabin, and little wonder, with both Cloud and Vincent in the same room, but Cid didn't have time to ponder on it. His radar had started picking up small signals that had nothing to do with space debris. He ran a scan, but he already knew what would come up. Space monsters. Just what he didn't feel like dealing with right now. Grumbling to himself, he entered a few commands and opened the com links to bark battle orders. Cloud peered over his shoulder at the radar readings.

"It's a small pack of around a dozen. Can you tell what kind?"

"Probably black bats or some basic bombs. There's not much else around here. Hopefully they won't attract anything bigger."

"Bigger?" Vincent repeated questioningly.

Cid nodded. "Sometimes a few dragons follow the black bat colonies over here for a good hunt. I only ever saw one, but I'm not taking chances." He twisted around in his seat and settled his eyes on Cloud. "Show Vincent into a fighter suit. You have to be ready to go outside if some of 'em get past the guns."

Cloud blinked his surprise. "Aren't you coming?" They'd fought together before, but this particular situation was new.

"Not in this area I won't. I need to stay here."

There was a moment of hesitation during which Vincent stared at Cid and Cloud stared at Vincent and Cid just munched around a few curses. Finally Cloud nodded and Vincent followed a second later.

Cid turned his attention back to his control panel. Sending Vincent out to fight might not be the wisest ideas, but Cid was ready to believe he wouldn't use the confusion to shoot anyone in the back. He hoped.

--

He'd used fighter suits before, so Vincent could tell the quality of the one he was using, even if it wasn't the best out there. The simulated gravity was set at the perfect level to give him his full speed and range of movements, aside from the points in his boots that never let him jump too far away from the ship that he lost connection and was stuck floating. He did have small boosters to navigate if that happened, but using those in the middle of battle was not well advised.

Since their sortie, they'd disposed of two bombs, but two more had escaped the guns. Their shells were very tough and Vincent had already emptied more than one clip on them, but they weren't indestructible. It was merely a job of trying to keep them from getting too close to the hull when they decided to explode, but close enough for the others to fight.

And, as far as he'd currently seen, they knew how to fight.

His instincts told him to keep especially careful watch of Cloud. The moment they were outside the man had pounced on the closest bomb like a chocobo on a green, moving with all the speed and strength that the mako in his blood suggested he had. Tifa –she'd joined them as soon as she heard about the monsters-- was also good, and the two moved as if they'd fought together enough to be able to do so efficiently. Either they were more than they pretended to be, or Vincent had been asleep so long he'd missed how space had grown to be so dangerous even civilians were forced to become seasoned fighters.

It was a shame Cid had to stay inside to pilot the ship through the dangerous system. He would have liked to see exactly what the man was capable of with his spear.

The bomb before him inflated suddenly, grinning grotesquely, and Vincent forced it away with a few shots and jumped well back. Before it could follow the bomb exploded, its heat wave hitting Vincent just enough to make him stagger but not enough to damage. He looked around, gun raised, but there were no more monsters in view.

"Are there any left?" he asked. He could just make out the torso of someone standing lower down the ship's side, and from his pose he guessed it was Cloud. His inactivity itself told him that that area was clear.

"Radar's clear," Cid answered through the static of the com links. "Let's get you all back – wait!"

"What's wrong? Are there more?" Tifa asked, but she sounded too anxious.

"Six, four small and two big, fast."

"Dragon?"

"Too fucking fast, and they don't travel in groups. Back inside, now!" Cid ordered, and Vincent turned towards the hatch. He could hear Cid yelling at his team through the links, and the ship lurched under his feet, picking up speed. Vincent broke into a run, understanding perfectly that as long as there were people on its hull, the ship would not be able to run from whatever was coming.

Apparently Cid had not overestimated the threat. Not six feet from the hatch door, just after Tifa had disappeared inside the ship, something hit the hull close enough that he was flung back in the air, the gravity points in his boots straining to bring him back down. Vincent readied his gun even before he landed and was just fast enough to see a ship curve around the hull and fire at the other side. The ship rocked under the assault, but Vincent stood frozen.

"Damnit, Vincent, what the fuck are you waiting for? I can't raise the shields while you're standing there!" Cid cursed through the links, sirens blaring in the background, and Vincent broke out of his thoughts to run back and down the hatch.

He'd recognized those ships. Dimly, he wondered about how much of Cid's growing trust he had just lost.

--

Swearing up and down, Cid jumped out of his seat and ran his hands over the commands. The shield that had finally sprung up was heat-sensitive, and as the airship rocked under a second assault, its graphics showed it was already under heavy strain. Cid raised more covers and sent orders down to the engine room, and then there were more hits, all from the same direction, and that felt too much like a broadside fire for comfort.

Cloud, Vincent and Tifa burst in the room behind him, but they kept an admirable cool head as they watched Cid go through his commands. Before they could decide to ask, the pilot rounded on Cloud.

"Go find me that damn cyborg and get him connected to engine room's com link," he growled, and would've snapped some more at Cloud's amused nod if the kid hadn't promptly left the room as he'd been asked. As it was, he didn't have time to waste.

Vincent stepped back to stay out of Cid's way. "How bad is it?"

The ship suddenly lurched forward as it boosted to faster speeds, and Cid felt a hit that probably should have caught them square graze the tail of the ship.

"It's more than fucking bad! We've got four fighters and two heavy artillery assaulters on our tail!" Where was that stupid cyborg when you needed it?

"Are they space pirates?" Tifa asked.

"Those ain't space pirates ships, they're too fucking good," Cid growled, and if he didn't have to stay right where he was, he'd gladly go to a battle station himself and shoot the bastards down.

Vincent stared down at the controls, seeming to consider something, and suddenly straightened, his face heavy with tightly controlled anger. "Shinra."

Cid's hands froze over his console. "What?"

"I recognized them." His hand hovering near his gun, Vincent turned for the door. "I'm going to help shoot them down."

"I'll go as well," Tifa declared, and there was so much fury and anger and hate in her tone that Cid was taken aback despite the situation. Then again, it was understandable.

"Get them the fuck off my ass!" Cid cursed liberally. Of all the people to attack him, it had to be Shinra. He had an ugly idea why they were here, but he didn't let himself dwell on it for now. It would be useless if it got them all killed.

The com links, heavy with the dimmed voices of yelling crew members from various sections of the ship, crackled, and suddenly the noise was covered by a direct feed.

"Hey Captain! What's going on?"

Cid wasn't happy to hear Cait Sith's annoying voice, but at least now the cyborg would be useful.

"We're under fire, damn you! Cloud's ship is slowing us down, I need more power to the engines!"

"But Captain, they're already at full power!"

"I don't care where you get it so long as it's not the shields, but get me some speed!"

"I'll find something, Captain."

The com link snapped back to the general chaos and Cid returned his attention to his console. Failure signs where starting to pop up everywhere, and if they didn't get some speed on the bastards, the shields were going to fail completely. After that happened, they wouldn't last long under the assaulters' heavy fire.

The direct feed opened again, this time coming from one of the battle stations.

"Cid, cut my ship," came Cloud's even tone.

Cid growled under his breath; the shields were failing, there were still two fighters and an assaulter out there, but sixty percent of his guns were down. He needed the speed, but Cait Sith wasn't providing.

"Fuck, I can't do that!" he cursed, because losing Cloud's ship was losing him and Tifa's only livelihood, and he couldn't bring himself to just cut it off and leave it for scavengers to enjoy. Shinra had stolen enough from them all already.

"Do it," Cloud continued. "It's more important that we get away. Tifa will agree."

Cursing some more, Cid hesitated until the shields were holding by a thread before entering the fateful command. With an awful grating sound and a shudder as the airship recalibrated itself without its additional load, Cloud's vessel was cut off from his own. The Highwind picked up speed, and for a moment the fighters were left behind, but Cid's victory was short-lived. It was obvious the ships –even the fucking assaulter!-- wouldn't be shaken off so easily.

"Fuck the bastards!" Cid yelled, and when they were down to one last fighter and that bloody assaulter, with only thirty percent of the guns working and thus leaving tons of blind spots across the ship, the shields finally failed. If it hadn't been for that Cid might have tried his odds, but without the shields it would only take four or five well-aimed hits from the assaulter and they'd be going down.

There was only one option left, really. Cid didn't know if it would work in the condition his ship was in, especially with how heavy the fire had been around the engines room and thrusters, but Cait Sith had improved it a little under Cid's strict supervision, so they might just have a chance.

Cid opened all links to full. The din was deafening, but he cut the incoming communications so that there was only him on the lines.

"Hold down to something, people, I'm going to space hop!" he yelled, and waited about two seconds before reaching for the appropriate commands. There was another hit from the assaulter, straight on his tail, and damn if he was starting to think they were trying to stall him more than kill him, but thankfully it only damaged an auxiliary booster. He could do without that one.

He didn't give Shinra another chance to shoot. His ship had never had enough power to hop out of the attackers' reach to begin with, but with any luck he'd get close enough to the planet to crash-land and escape. Hopefully.

There was a second of sudden silence as the system activated, of time being stilled, and then his ship hopped. Lurching just like a frog's leap, the Highwind shuddered from one point of space to another in one second, but it was one second that lasted a long time, like minutes had been stretched, and Cid watched the stars black out before him as the ship hung as if suspended before lurching back to a stop.

And then suddenly there was noise again, sirens blaring deafeningly and crew members calling through the links, but Cid ignored all that as he rushed along his console.

His field of view was completely filled by blue and white and green, with the rare clusters of blinking lights. The planet was there, and he had only seconds to proceed with a crash landing before gravity caught them and they went down at the wrong angle. Cid cut all communications; he needed to concentrate.

The ship started rumbling and shaking badly as white-hot flames flicked to life and licked the edges of the window. Cid tried controlling his ship's angle as the nose kept wanting to dip until gravity finally caught them square and brought them crashing down mercilessly.

TBC