Square-Enix owns Star Ocean. I'm just a two-bit hack who writes about it.

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After a few more hours of flying, Maria suddenly stood, as much as she could with her leg. "There!" she called, pointing.

And there it was. The ship we had been looking for.

The Diplo and the much larger pirate ship were moving slowly. We were able to board easily; the pod slid perfectly into place. That was where the easy part ended. As soon as the doors slid open, a pirate charged in, fists flying. The attack failed, as Maria had already been aiming at the door, and the pirate dropped to the floor. We slipped into the ship, careful not to be noticed. Now Maria gestured to the upper level. "We'll be able to reach their ship easily," she told us. "The ships are still docked together." Peering around a corner, she motioned for us to proceed. She followed, a bit more slowly, and we were on the stairs up.

"Hey, you!" a voice called behind us. I turned to see another pirate stepping over his fallen comrade; footsteps from the top of the stairs told me that he had alerted others, as well.

Easy. Sure.

Without hesitating, I rushed straight for the pirates on the lower level. They moved to defend, but too slowly. My axe had already made contact. I fought them back, then smirked at the sound of an explosion behind me. The pirates from above had run right into my mines without looking. "That's what ya get," I said confidently. "Ya can't beat a real man that easily!"

The enemies seemed more angry than intimidated, but now they were keeping their distance, staying just out of range of my axe. Well, that was what I carried other weapons for, after all. The whip caught them completely off-guard, and first one, then the other was repelled.

After struggling for a minute, the two I was dealing with got bold. They rushed me again and started stabbing wildly. Of course, this was no more dangerous than anything else they had done so far. I didn't even have to try to dodge. With a few quick swings, I knocked them both down, and leapt on them, hacking away.

"Pathetic," Albel declared. I turned to respond.

"Yeah, I know, what do they think we..." at this point I trailed off, noticing the ground. Really, what I noticed was that I couldn't see the ground. We were now standing on a carpet of criminal corpses. Albel kicked a few of them for good measure.

"Why even bother leaving guards this weak?" he continued, stepping back onto the stairs.

"Simple," Maria explained. "They weren't placed here to prevent outside invasion. They're just supposed to be a last line of defense. By the time a captive escaped and made it onto this ship, they should be too tired to keep fighting. I suspect there are only a handful of strong fighters in the pirates' crew, and to attempt to occupy both ships would have spread them too thin."

The others were nodding their understanding, but I didn't really care. The pirates' strategy really didn't matter, we were here to save our friends. All that mattered was that we were here and they were there, and we had to get there so we could bring them here.

A little more meaningless strategy and we were off again. We started up the stairs once more, only slowing down briefly as a few more pirates emerged from hiding. We left their bodies behind and hurried along a corridor on the upper level. After a few minutes of hacking through minions, and a few more minutes of sneaking around, we stopped in front of a big door. Maria signalled that this was the entrance to the pirates' ship. We readied ourselves, then burst through. The two standing guard didn't know what hit 'em. First one dropped, then the other. As soon as they were dispatched, a sound caught our attention. Nearby, Sophia and Mirage were confronting a pirate. Both looked hurt; Mirage was limping and Sophia clutched a wounded arm. Acting on pure instinct, I readied my axe and streaked through the air toward the pirate. I think "exploded" is a good word for what happened to him. There wasn't much of him left intact. Retrieving my axe from his remains, I looked up at Sophia, who seemed absolutely shocked by the rescue. "Are you two alright?" I asked. Sophia just sputtered incomprehensibly for a minute, then sat down, leaning back against the wall.

"Hey, we match," Mirage commented, glancing from Maria's leg to her own. "Well, now that you're here I guess we can finish things."

Maria nodded, then thought for a minute. "We've only got one option," she said. "Mirage, you come with me back to the Diplo. Nel, Albel, you two have to go cause as much chaos as you can on this ship. Sophia..." now she hesitated. "I hate to send you in your condition, but we don't have anyone else, so while Nel and Albel create a distraction, do you think you could get to the cell where they're holding the others?"

Sophia nodded. "Okay, I can do that much."

"Good. I need you to take Roger and find them. Tell Cliff we're using 'that weapon'."

Mirage was apparently not happy with this idea. "Captain, are you sure?" she said, surprised. At least, I think that's the tone of voice I heard. With Mirage it's hard to tell. And her expressionless face didn't help things. "If we use it and miss..."

"I won't miss," insisted Maria. "We don't have any other options, and we need to do this quickly." Mirage seemed to understand, and immediately everyone went about their assigned roles.

Sophia dashed down corridor after corridor, and I followed as quickly as I could. Now and then we would stop and wait for hollow metallic footsteps to fade, and then we would be off again.

"It was in this area..." Sophia said to herself, looking around. I glanced around a corner and spotted a group of pirates up ahead. Quickly I readied myself, but stayed out of sight. Now wasn't the time to fight, if it could be helped.

It turned out, though, that it couldn't be helped. The pirates were approaching, and as they rounded the bend I caught them off-guard, taking out three with my initial swing. The rest were about to retaliate, but were stopped by a surge of electricity. Sophia winced, as she almost dropped the staff held in her damaged arm. I tried to approach her but she waved me off. "We're almost there, keep moving," she said, proceeding.

Sure enough, we arrived at the cell we were looking for almost immediately. Inside were Fayt, Cliff, Peppita and Lieber. Peppita was unconscious, and Lieber was hovering over her in a motherly manner, which is weird for a guy, even a guy like Lieber.

"Sophia?" Fayt gripped the bars, his face inches from Sophia's, looking really relieved, because of course he was. "I heard a commotion a while back and I was afraid something had happened to you."

"I'm fine, Fayt," Sophia lied, holding her arm behind her back. "I'm here to get you out, and to tell you Maria's going to use 'that weapon'."

"What? That's impossible," Cliff interrupted. "Maria would never decide to do that unless there was absolutely no other choice."

"Then I guess there's no other choice," Sophia said with a shrug. "Anyway, it's time to get you out of there."

"Good luck," Cliff said. "I haven't been able to do a thing to these bars. Maybe Mirage could, but I sure can't."

"Oh, I think we can manage," Sophia said, looking down at me. "Hey, Roger, are you hungry?" she asked as she reached into her bag.

"What, are you crazy?" I demanded. "We're in the middle of a rescue here! Why would you..."

Before I could finish, she had shoved several chocolates into my mouth.

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I know, it's been entirely too long. I've just been busy lately. I'll try and make the next chapter faster. In case it takes a long time again this time, though, you can always pass the time by reiewing.