Morning mission to panic mode; A tight spot; Dug up and departed;
Footsteps of the future; Eye in the sky; Changing fate; Missing friends; W.T.F.!?
Cid was antsy, had been for the last week and a half. Darill's doomed mission was nearly here and he couldn't remember what day she'd left on, just the day she'd been shot down. His worry didn't excuse him from his own missions, though. He needed to pick up an army squad from Midgar at the buttcrack of dawn and drop them a few miles northwest of Billy's chocobo farm for some sort of field exercise. His anxiety over Darill kept him from sleeping well, and it was a relief when the alarm on his PHS went off. Doing stuff, even ferrying grunts around, was better than lying in the dark fretting himself off his goddamn rocker.
Yawning as he stepped out of the apartments, he almost ran into her, a muzzy shape in the dark blue barely-morning.
"Mornin'," he greeted. "Ya got a mission too?"
There was a faint flash of teeth as she smiled. "Thankfully, no. Setzer and I are off today, and we plan to make the most of it."
"I bet," he chuckled. He headed off toward the brilliant white lights of the hangars, grinning ruefully. Damn, but he wished he and Shera could get a corresponding day off.
It was an easy round-trip flight, and the troopers didn't get on his nerves too much, but sticking around waiting for them was a pain. He'd've preferred waiting for them back in Kalm where he could grab a proper lunch. After wasting a good part of the day waiting for army boots to finish tramping about the hills, Cid finally lined up for a landing at the airbase. Now he could get back to his real job, that of getting that lard-eating dipshit off the board.
On his approach, he glanced at the row of airships out of habit. The Highwind and the Blackjack were in place, and the scaffolded skeleton of Qator's, but there was a hole in the line where the Falcon should be. He set the Atomos down hard, the troopers in the back shouting complaints, and taxied the bare minimum off the runway for safety. He didn't bother going through the shutdown checklist, but leapt from his seat and out the door, dropping in a crouch to the ground and seizing the nearest person to yell at.
"Raffy!" The young pilot jumped and shrank away, but Cid had a tight grip on him. "Where in the fucking eighteen coldest hells is the Falcon?"
"Um, it got scrambled for Wutai-"
His stomach dropped. Across from the tarmac, he saw the rusted hull of the Viltgance, heat rippling off the twisted metal. He remembered the day it crashed, the flames and explosions. Was that going to be the Falcon in some Gaia-forsaken valley in Wutai? Everything they'd done, for nothing, time fixed in its course?
"Why?" he muttered before exploding, the green-haired boy leaning desperately away from him. "Why the hell did it go?! She had no fucking mission today!"
"Hey!" Elly ran full-tilt up to them, a torque wrench held almost threateningly in her hand. Don't yell at my brother just 'cause your crush is gone!"
"She ain't my crush, I'm-", he almost said married, "-I've got Shera. Now, why the hell did the Falcon leave?"
"I don't know," Elly glowered. "Something about SOLDIER, Sephiroth, and new tactics. Why's it so important?"
He didn't bother answering them but took off instead for the main pilot hangout. Fuck, he needed to find the Other or Setzer, they'd have Darill's PHS number. Call her, get her to check her coordinates, send her to the right place, done. She wouldn't have reached Wutai yet. They still had time to get her on the right course.
He swung around the corner of the hangar that held the pilots' cantina, swearing. Who at, he wasn't sure. "Fucking blunder-headed, piss-stinking, flat-footed, hole-borne, goblinoid -"
"Cid!"
Shera popped out through the hangar door, her eyes huge in her frightened face. She reached one hand out to him. He grabbed it and dragged her close, clamping his sweating hands on her shoulders.
"Falcon's gone," he gritted, trying not to yell. Why the hell hadn't she called him when it left?
"I know, it left almost two hours ago but we've got bigger problems, Vincent called and I've been trying to get hold of you for half the day-"
"Crap, I didn't hear any-" He yanked his PHS out of his pocket, checking for missed calls, but the screen was dark and blank. He almost threw the damned thing on the ground. When he turned the alarm off this morning, he must've turned the whole thing off.
Shera's voice was tight with worry, but her hands were steady as they rose to take his. "He said he didn't tell us right away because there was nothing we could've done, but the Turks found the Shera and now the Weapons Department is there digging it up! Barret and I have packed everything, we're ready to go. We can get it out if we get there fast."
"The Shera's being dug up?" His mind seemed to have slipped a gear, processes crashing to an abrupt halt.
"Yes!"
Shit. His mind clicked into gear again. The Atomos he'd just flown was still ready to go, but it was big and slow and didn't have enough fuel to make it to Banora. "There's a fueled-up Valfarre in Hangar Three." The Weapons Department was being slow with supplies again, and there hadn't been enough bombs to outfit the full squadron, so one plane had been left behind. "Our shit can fit in the bomb bay. It'll be fuckin' tight with the four of us, but it's the fastest thing we got. Get Marlene and Barret and load it up. I'll be there in a moment. I ain't ditchin' Darill yet."
Shera bit her lip, the kicking-up wind blowing her hair across her face, and nodded. She ran off and Cid burst into the pilots' break room yelling for Setzer. The gambler wasn't there but the Other was. "Hey, Cid! Ya need to fucking call Darill, she's got bad coordinates. She's headed straight for a Wutai gun encampment!"
The half-dozen pilots in the room were staring at him. His other stood frozen, poised to throw a dart. "The hell?"
"Stop standing there, and warn her!" he yelled.
Seeing the other reaching for his PHS, he started to leave for the Valfarre. Behind him, Sazh called out, "Where are you going?"
Already out the door, he shouted over his shoulder, "I've got my own mission!"
He threw open the side door to Hangar Three and ran to the front, pounding on the button that opened the main door. As it creaked open, he ran for the cockpit. Damn, but this was going to be tight.
"Cid!"
He turned and saw Marlene coming up, dragging a bag with Fairy Tale tucked under her arm. Jumping down, he took the bag and staff from her, stowing them in the empty bomb bay. "Alright, up you go." He lifted her into the plane. "Try to work yourself into that back area." Problem was, it was going to be fucking loud in there. "Wait a minute." He ran over to one of the long workbenches that lined the room and grabbed a fistful of heavy duty earplugs out of a big canister.
Back at the plane, he passed a pair to her. "Here, little gidget, put these in your ears."
By the time Barret showed up, looking like a walking luggage rack, Cid had the plane warmed up and was pacing anxiously. "That all of it?"
"Shera's got the last bag," Barret said, passing over Venus Gospel.
Cid tucked the spear in, packing bags around it to keep it from rattling and losing its edge. He should get it a padded blade cover.
Barret clambered halfway up the plane, but stopped, one foot braced against the metal and the other still dangling in the air as he surveyed the cramped interior, trying to figure out where he'd fit. "Hope everythin' here works out, or we'll have spent our time in this hellhole for nothin'."
"Me too." It was physically painful to leave, not knowing how things were gonna work out, but there was no way they could let Shinra take the Shera. "Now try to fit your fat ass in there somewhere."
There was a sudden voice from the open hangar door. "We came to talk with you, but it looks like we showed up just in time to keep you from running off." There were two people in the open hangar door, black silhouettes against the glare. Cid could make out the butt of a shotgun over the shoulder of the speaker. They took a few steps inside, and Cid could see them more clearly - Turks. The shotgun belonged to a woman with a high ponytail, and from the way her partner carried his hands, he was clearly packing too, probably more than one.
Probably-Two-Guns asked, voice a calm, professional drawl, "What's the rush?"
"Family emergency." He couldn't make a move here. The damn turkeys would shoot him before he could get Venus Gospel back out. Barret was hanging on to the Valfarre with his regular hand, the transforming gun hand free. Cid reached out with care to put a calming hand on the sun-warmed metal. They couldn't have him shooting yet. Shera still needed to get back and gunshots would draw too many people.
"The company doesn't lend out planes."
Buy time, buy time… shit. "Plane's pretty fuckin' useless just sittin' here. Ya'll'll get it back soon enough. 'Sides, organization in this place is so shitty that without you showin' up no one'd known it weren't officially taken. Maybe ya fancy dress latrine-lounging lollygaggers should get back to your nice air-conditioned office and look inta fixin' that."
Shotgun made a thoughtful humming noise. "You don't have a high opinion of how the department is run."
"Master of observation, aren't ya?"
"And you've been quite vocal about changing things, like getting rid of Palmer."
As long as the damn suits were questioning them, they weren't shooting. He could play along. "Damn right I have. When I see something wrong, I'm gonna say it. This place is a shitshow."
Guns grinned faintly. "Then how about you come back with us to Midgar and you can put in an official complaint."
"And get fucking disappeared, ya think I'm stupid?"
"Why would you think that? The company is always interested in the concerns of its employees."
"I bet. Nah, I ate enough of that shit a long time ago and learned my lesson. We'll be takin' off with or without you in the way."
Both Turks reached for their guns at the same time he could feel Barret's arm start to shift. But the Turk in the back was fastest, he had both guns out and firing - or at least tried. Cid dove to the side the moment shit started to go down but heard only the one brief crack of gunfire. There was no second volley. He popped his head back up to look.
"Cid!" Shera called, out of breath, running up to them between the stopped Turks. "I'm sorry I took so long, Ines waylaid me and I didn't-"
"Shera!" He grabbed his wife in a hug, kissing her soundly. "That's the best damn timin' you've ever had!" She grinned back up at him and he felt a powerful urge to give her another kiss.
"C'mon, fools, that ain't a powerful stop spell, they'll be moving soon."
"It's a tier two, should hold for a bit," Shera replied as Barret gave her a hand up.
"It'll hold long enough," Cid said, throwing the last bag into the bay and slamming it shut. Getting into the pilot's seat was a tight fit - forget elbow room - but he managed. "Clench those assholes, here we go!"
He didn't even properly taxi out of the hanger but powered the engine on from a standstill. It only took a few hundred feet for him to bully the plane into the air, the airfield and all the progress they had made quickly dwindling behind them.
There was no airstrip in Banora so they came in with a bouncy landing on the dirt road leading into town. From Barret's spot squished up against the glass (the right side of his face felt permanently flattened) he saw from the air the towering cranes and excavators Shinra had brought in. On the ground, he unfolded himself from the hours' long flight and tried to rub some feeling back into his limbs.
"Come on, ya slowpokes, let's go!" Cid was shouting, tossing packs willy-nilly onto the ground trying to get his spear out.
"I'll move when I can walk," Barret growled back. Damn skinny short kid with his damn skinny short legs.
"Daddy, help?" Marlene asked from the cockpit, reaching for him.
He held his arms up. "Alright, c'mon down," and she slid into them, his stiff joints protesting at the added weight. She wobbled a bit after being set down and he hovered nearby to make sure she was alright.
"Move it!" Cid was already running on wobbly legs down the road, pack on his back, spear in hand. Shera, at a more tender-footed pace, was trailing behind him.
Barret ignored them. "Can ya walk or should I carry ya?"
"I can walk," Marlene said firmly, small face fierce.
"Alright, then let's go." He took both their packs but passed his daughter her staff. Together they made their way through the small town, Barret keeping an eye on the locals gabbing in front of their houses. Less than a half a mile past the center of the village was the large pit Shinra had dug to get to the airship. It was cordoned off with security tape and surrounded by excavating equipment and heaping mountains of dirt, rock, and mako crystals. A lone trooper guarded a temporary elevator.
"You're the other two from Air and Space?" the woman asked, sounding slightly doubtful. Her helmeted gaze slanted down at Marlene.
Looked like Cid and Shera had given some sort of cover story as they came by. For once, Barret was glad that Air and Space was shit at communication. He'd thought there would be rifles in their faces as soon as they got here. Or worse, the Turks'd be here ahead of them. To the guard he replied with a gruff, "Yeah, mechanic, and this's the engineer's sister."
The guard shifted uncomfortably. "She can't go below," she explained.
Marlene pouted, putting on her best puppy-dog eyes. "I want to see it. I won't make any trouble!"
"The excavation zone is too dangerous." The whole cavern's roof had been demolished, and the silver airship, daylight gleaming off its smooth surface, was clearly visible from the pit's rim. The guard softened. "You can stay up here with me and we can look down at it," she offered.
Marlene pouted and twirled one foot in the dirt. "It's not the same."
"She's been livin' at the airfield, she knows not to get in the way."
"I understand, but Scarlet is here and none of us want to get in trouble."
Scarlet was here. Barret drew a sharp breath, seeing red. Remembering smoke rising from Corel, the woman's cruel blue eyes as she shot him, the smug smile as she walked Tifa into the gas chamber.
A sharp squeeze around his wrist made him look down. Marlene was frowning at him, little brows drawn together. He let his breath out, unclenched his hands from the tight fists he'd made. Right. The plan. Couldn't kill her without a replacement. He gave a gentle squeeze back and looked at the guard again. "Look, I promise Marlene won't be down there long, just need to meet up with her sister and we'll find a place for her to go."
The guard's mouth wavered and she relented. "Alright, but be quick."
The elevator was an open thing inside a steel scaffold, thrown up in a hurry. Marlene looked nervously at the open space on three sides of them and the grinding cables and machinery against the rock wall on the fourth, and pressed close to his side. Barret kept a hand on her shoulder but barely registered the descent. His breath hissed between gritted teeth and he kept a mantra of "can't shoot her, can't shoot her" going through his head.
The lift reached the floor with a soft crunch, the noise of the metal floor coming to rest against gravel. There were boulders of all sizes scattered around the cavern, crushing the delicate calcite formations. The mako crystals lay in pieces and the shallow lake where the airship sat was cloudy from kicked up debris. He felt about ready to explode. Damn Shinra, damn Scarlet, damn the lot of them, they couldn't respect a damn thing about the planet. The fuckers just had to wreck the place like every other place they touched on Gaia. The only thing he could think of as a little positive was that now the Shera was free.
A gaggle of folks were over by the airship's ramp, still folded up against the ship's side. Two infantry, some of the excavation crew in hard hats and denim coveralls, what might be a few engineers in safety vests and clean shirts. A man with a welder's mask stood next to a large tank covered in warning labels, blowtorch in hand. Among the solid work clothes, all blues and browns and yellows, was a flash of red. Scarlet, in her red pantsuit, red boots, and red denim jacket that would look more at home in some designer store than in a work zone, stood looking over Shera's shoulder as the engineer pretended to inspect the locked entry to the ship.
Cid, standing impatiently next to the women, came alert when he saw them, waving them over. "There's the mechanic. 'Bout damn time you showed up. What took so long.?"
"Nothin','" he groused. He didn't trust himself to say anything else.
"Then hurry up and open it! We could have cut into it by now, if you weren't so concerned about the 'damage'," Scarlet snapped. With a sneer, she added, "I swear your department's as useless as your director. I suppose at least the three of you are smart enough to avoid the current mess your department's in. It's no place for a kid right now."
There was a faint metallic noise. He could feel the mechanisms inside his gun-arm moving, vibrating up through the stump, ready to transform. Damn bitch didn't know a damn thing beyond her damn bitchy attitude. Cid called his name and met his eyes with a hard stare. "Ready?"
"Yeah." Marlene was gripping his hand hard again.
"Right. Y'all stand back," Cid called to the workmen. Shera bent again to the airship and entered the code to let down the bay door.
He heard the latches on the inside release and the ramp began to lower. There was a collective intake of breath, followed with plenty of oohs and ahhs. Scarlet, however, questioned the quick entrance. "How did you know the code?"
"It's, um… There's some wear on the pad. After that it- it was a lucky guess on the numbers' order." The code was the date of Cid and Shera's wedding, Cid's sneaky way of ensuring he couldn't forget his anniversary.
"Hmm." Scarlet's hand lashed out, grabbing Shera's chin. The engineer tried to shrink away but was held fast. Scarlet stared into her eyes, suspicion and disdain dripping from her voice. "If this is a ploy by your department, I assure you, you won't even live to regret it." The ramp reached the ground and stopped, ripples expanding around it and splashing in tiny wavelets against people's feet. The Weapons Director's attention snapped to the top of the ramp and the shadowy bay just visible inside.
"Finally! Out of my way." She started to stride up the ramp, boot heels clicking on the metal. Cid abruptly pushed past her, bolting for the bridge and yelling for Vincent.
"You! How- your whole department-" Scarlet's face contorted in rage. "Guards, get them!"
As the troopers started to move forward, Barret blocked their path, arm transforming into an impressive silvery machine gun. "Ain't no Shinra stepping onto the Shera."
They reached for their rifles, though what he could see of their faces showed more shock and confusion than open hostility.
"None of that, now," he growled. "You stay right where you are."
"Let's go, Marlene!" Shera whisper-shouted and the two of them ran inside, Shera shoving Scarlet off the ramp and hitting the button for the ramp to rise as she passed. The airship's engines roared to life, sending up a fine mist from the lake, where the water was sloshing away in larger waves now. Propellers started a steady whop whop rhythm above them.
"What are you waiting for, shoot them!" Scarlet screamed, pushing herself back up from the water as the ramp began to rise. "Where are those SOLDIERs?!"
A barrier shimmered into existence between Barret and the incoming bullets, Vincent's red cape appearing in his peripheral vision on either side of him as though the man was standing right behind him. Two shots fired at nearly the same time sounded in each ear. The sound of them threw him off for a brief second, though he couldn't take his eyes from the troopers to see. One was obviously from the three-barreled Cerberus, and the other sounded like a pump-action rifle. How the fuck was Vincent firing them both at the same time? However the hell he was doing it, it hadn't affected his aim. The rattle of the trooper's semi-automatics was abruptly silenced as the guns were shot from their hands.
Scarlet was instantly beside them, screaming profanities. She wrenched a grenade loose from a trooper's belt and reared back like a shot putter. Her spiteful blue eyes were fixed above them, on the propellers.
He glared one last time at the woman responsible for him losing his arm, his best friend, and his home as the ramp rose higher. "See ya in hell."
If the rifles had been loud, his machine gun was several hertz higher. The bullets tore through Scarlet, her body convulsing with the impacts. The last he saw of her as the ramp finally closed, ship rising away, was the red of her suit leaching out into the murky shallows of the cave she'd destroyed.
There was a distant, pinging sound of bullets ricocheting off the Shera's reinforced hull as the ship rose above the pit's rim. From the observation deck, Shera had a perfect view of all the shocked faces below them, locals and Shinra personnel alike. People were running toward them, to get a better look or to try and stop them. A pair of SOLDIERs were below them now. One crouched like he was going to try leaping aboard, but the engines gave another powerful roar and with a lurch, the Shera shot forward, Cid double-timing it to Wutai to intercept the Falcon.
She sagged down and sat on the steps. She felt as spent as a balloon that had lost all its helium. Ever since Vincent had called yesterday she'd been consumed with worry. Now surrounded with the familiarity of her airship, the bitterness of having to leave all her work at the airfield unfinished at the airfield was creeping in. She wondered how much trouble Ines and the other engineers would be in because of her. There was a soft click above her head and she looked up to see Vincent - the second Vincent, and what a surprise that had been - standing at the top of the stairs. He was gazing, unreadable, at her husband and their own Vincent.
Cid was chewing out the marksman for not calling sooner, when the Shera had first been discovered. Her husband might not understand Vincent's reasoning, but she did. There had been very little they could have done to save the ship at the time that wouldn't jeopardize everything they were trying to accomplish.
"Don't worry about Cid," she offered. "He's bark these days, not bite."
"So I was told," the gunman replied. He didn't offer any further conversation. At one time, she had found his silence and foreboding presence quite intimidating, but years of knowing Vincent had worn the fear away.
"How long will you be with us? We're quite glad to have you here."
"I will see this task through."
She nodded and adjusted her glasses. She'd suspected as much. "Things have changed since we made our original plans." She shook her head. Things were moving and indeed changing, but not in the ways they'd set out to accomplish. "I don't know what is going to happen next," she confided, voice barely above a whisper.
"That makes you like the rest of us."
She glanced up at him. Cid had quit yelling and started grumbling over the controls. Marlene had captured their Vincent and was telling him about their exploits on their airbase, and this Vincent was watching them now. He was right, she supposed. It was strange how quickly she'd gotten used to knowing the future. Strange how frightening it was now that she didn't. It wasn't the same as before they came back. That had been a normal worry, a curiosity, hope and anxiety for tomorrow all mixed. Now she knew a future and she wasn't sure how close or far they were from it, if things were better or worse. She'd have to go back to the way things had been, taking things one day at a time, trying to do the best she could with no clear blueprint to follow.
Despite her curiosity about this Vincent, and despite the anxiety coiled around her chest, she knew that if she stayed where she was, she would fall asleep on the stairs. She hadn't been able to sleep at all during the cramped, panicked flight to Banora, and they had a few hours before they would catch up to the Falcon. Excusing herself, she made her way to the cabins. Outside Barret's door, she paused. He hadn't been on the bridge. She knocked softly and asked, "Barret, are you in? Are you okay?"
There was a long silence, and she was contemplating whether she had the energy to search the airship to find where he was hiding, when a rough voice spoke from inside. "'m fine. Lemme be."
Meek from the rebuff, she retreated down the metal corridor, finding comfort in her cabin. It was the only room on board to have a wood floor and siding. There were carved cabinets with handles made from antlers, a woolen rug from Nibelheim, one of two that she'd found at a flea market sale (she'd given its near twin to Tifa), and a large bed topped with a quilt she'd received from a friend as a wedding gift.
Dropping her pack, she took her hair down from its high ponytail, feeling the tension ease out of her scalp. Then, toeing off her damp shoes and socks, she pulled a fresh, if wrinkled, outfit from her pack and set it aside for easy access when she woke. Sleep didn't come swiftly and it ended much too soon as Cid's voice blared over the intercom.
"All right, all you S.O.B.s who got to sleep, we're flying over the beaches of Wutai. From here on out, we've got clowns on both sides that'll try to shoot us down, so get fucking ready."
Shera groaned into her pillow but crawled out from under the warm quilt to get dressed. Her shoes were still wet, but they were the only pair she had, so she laced them up with reluctance. On the bridge, she found both Vincents (that would take a while to get used to) on lookout. They stood on opposite sides of the observation deck, scanning the skies and the forest below. Cid, of course, was scowling where he stood at the helm.
She felt bad for having left him alone to fly. He'd been awake for over twenty-four hours and most of that time had been spent piloting one craft or another. If she found time, she'd make him a pot of black tea. "How much longer till we're close to Darill?"
He held his hand out to her. She took it and he pulled her close and rested his head on her shoulder. He sounded exhausted. "The Shera's about three times faster than the Falcon, should catch up to her in a couple minutes. Right around the mouth of that damned valley, and that's only if the other didn't get the message through."
"Message?"
"Yeah. Hopefully she got it, and she's at the drop-off, and we're flying inta a fuckin' hurricane of enemy fire for no good goddamn reason." He was leaning more and more against her.
"Let me go make you a pot of tea."
"Don't bother. Once this is over, you're flying."
Footsteps approaching made him stand up. Barret and Marlene were coming onto the bridge, hand in hand. Marlene's face looked puffy with sleep, but her attitude was perky, a sharp contrast to the glowering expression of her father.
With forced cheer, Cid turned to them. "Right, ankle biter, you head for the rear observation window. There's a com button up there. You see someone coming up behind us, you slam that button real hard and let me know, alright?"
"Alright!" The little girl nodded and quickly off to her post.
Barret watched her go before turning to Cid. His voice was rough when he spoke. "Ya just said that to get her outta the way."
Cid snorted, going back to leaning on her shoulder. "That, and if we get shot, the upper deck will be the safest place. It's also near the bay. Vincent can grab her and be out on an air-board before any of us get back there."
"Hrumph. Got everything figured out, don't cha."
"Hardly, now get your eyes on the sky."
Their flight was tense and quiet. If anyone on the ground shot at them, they were too high up to be hit. As for long guns, Vincent had spotted one Shinra encampment through the trees and they all braced for evasive action, but the gun remained quiet. As they flew, she could see from their aerial vantage point areas of scorched earth and fallen trees, the marks of previous skirmishes.
"There, two o'clock." Vincent's baritone cracked a little as he spoke, and Cid and Barret snickered. Shera hastily covered her smile, trying to keep her amusement to herself. Vincent ignored their reactions.
Cid's amusement, however, was short-lived. "Shit, she's still headin' for the valley!" He grabbed his radio. "Hailing the Falcon… fuck, Darill, come in!" Nothing. "Gagihandi crap, she must be running silent."
"How will we reach her, then?" They had been cagey about giving out their PHS numbers. The price of that was they didn't have anyone else's. In this instance, even if they did have Darill's number, the fact that she was here meant no one had been able to reach her on it.
"We'll fucking out maneuver her," he growled. "Valley's a tight fit, we'll block her."
Worriedly, she asked, "And if she shoots at the unknown ship?" The Shera was fast and agile but had no guns. A private freighter, by no means a warship.
"Ain't no airship captain alive that'd shoot the Shera."
She looked at him dubiously but figured he was probably right. With only three known airships in the world, the appearance of a fourth was more likely to inspire curiosity than fear in an airship captain. Running full power, they overtook the Falcon from above, putting enough space between their positions to give the older airship room to stop.
"Y'all hold on to somethin'!" Cid shouted.
Shera had barely gotten a good grip on the railing before they dropped, plummeting several hundred feet in a steep dive then pivoting and coming to a hard stop blocking the other ship's path. The maneuver had flung her glasses somewhere across the deck and she went groping for them blindly as she heard Barret cursing from where he'd fallen. At least Cid had been right, and they weren't fired at. After finding and jamming her glasses back on, she could see that the Falcon had also pivoted so the two airships were hovering broadside to each other.
With a pop of static, the loudspeaker crackled to life, Cid's voice blasting across the airspace "Darill, those shitty eggheads back at HQ goddamn gave you the wrong fucking coordinates. Your drop site ain't here. I'll fly you over."
"Cid!" Darill responded from the Falcon's speakers. "Where did you get that ship!?"
"She's mine. Ain't she a beaut'! I'll explain later." With that, the Shera started to lift and pull away.
As the Shera crept away at a snail's pace and the Falcon sat still, she began to worry that Darill wouldn't follow them.
The same worry seemed to plague Cid if his anxious mutters of "C'mon, c'mon" while chewing an unlit cigarette were any indication.
Finally, after several tense minutes, the Falcon started to move, turning to follow them. Shera let out a sigh as they picked up a gentle cruising speed the older ship could easily match.
"Right, ya'll start looking for a Shinra camp," Cid said as they made their way up a valley southwest of where they'd met the Falcon.
"Ya don't know where this place is?" Barret, along the window, didn't look too impressed with the pilot.
"Ya think I remember every little ruttin' thing from the past? I just know it was about three valleys this way from where she went down."
This time it was the other Vincent who spotted the encampment and they climbed upwards to avoid any potential guns, though the fact that no non-Shinra airships were known granted them some grace. It was probably for that reason the other camp hadn't fired at them. As long as the circumstances of Scarlet's death hadn't reached the forward camp, they were more than likely safe. Once near enough for the Falcon to see the establishment, they stopped to hover - with some distance between them, just in case.
As the other ship made its descent, it flashed a code at them.
Shera knew only the smallest amount of Shinra's air code. Stumped, she turned to her husband for an explanation of the sequenced lights. "What are they saying?"
"They want to meet up at Barrow."
Vincent - theirs - stepped away from the window approaching the helm. "We should head for Nibelheim."
"Nibelheim?" Barret also came over, one thick eyebrow raised in concern. "Weren't Tifa and Spiky suppose' to take care of that?"
"The Turks have made an association between Cloud and his family. He and the others have gone to relocate them to Cosmo Canyon. The Shera will provide a safer transport."
"But we owe Darill some explanation." She still felt like they had abandoned everyone back at the airbase.
Vincent turned his red eyes on her, a heavy judgmental weight. "No, we do not."
"Ya'll shut up," Cid snapped irritably. "We'll stop in at Barrow on the way to Nibelheim. If Darill ain't there quick enough, we'll leave a fucking note."
"A note?" she asked as the Shera turned, pulling out of the valley.
Cid grinned. "Yeah. Dear Shinra, fuck you. Dear Air and Space, good luck."
Once out over the ocean, Cid showed her the heading before giving her a peck on the check and heading off to sleep. Barret and both Vincents left as well, leaving her alone on the bridge, blue water rushing by far below. Flying over the open ocean alone was monotonous and she found her mind drifting with the scattered clouds. After an hour or two Marlene joined her on the bridge. She was glad for the company, the cheerful chatter about seabirds and whales and the possibility of seeing any.
At a lull, Shera asked, "Are you going to be okay?"
"Hum, about what?"
"All your friends you had to leave at the airbase?" She thought especially of Dajh, the little boy had followed Marlene everywhere and Chocolina right behind him.
"Daddy already asked that. Maybe I'll get to see them again one day." She scuffed one shoe against the deck and continued in a quieter voice. "And it's not like all the other friends we left behind before we came back, like Rina. The ones at the airbase are gonna remember me."
An unhappy silence settled over them, Shera now thinking about all the friends she'd lost. Most had been residents of Rocket Town, neighbors and colleagues, but there had been a few colleagues and classmates from Junon who she had gotten back in touch with over the years. With that thought in mind, she offered, "Maybe you can meet her again and become friends again."
"Maybe." Marlene didn't sound convinced. She was drawing patterns on the floor now with the toe of her shoe. "But I'll be older than her."
That left her off balance. Of course Marlene would feel the effects of not being the right age as well. Maybe she hadn't been de-aged, but she also didn't have a counterpart here. Dajh, she realized, had probably been in his late teens when they had traveled back. And all of Marlene's friends wouldn't have been born yet… and with the changes they were making, might never be.
Before she could think of anything reassuring to say, Marlene shrieked in delight. She ran across the bridge to the glass wall, crouched down, and pointed out the dark forms of a small pod of whales below.
Flying at a leisurely pace, it was another two hours before land was in sight and Cid joined her on deck. He walked over to the com radio. "Close enough we should be able to pick some stuff up. Let's see if there's any chatter about us."
"And if there is?" she asked.
"Depending on the shit-storm brewing, we'll head for Brarrow or Nibelheim."
He flicked it on and instantly the air was alive, voices tumbling pell-mell over the speakers to where you could hardly sort out what they were saying. Shouting, cursing, threats. Some voices seem to be trying to calm the raging argument down, but they were quickly drowned out. But it was what she didn't hear that made her even more confused. There were mentions of Palmer and Heidegger (who was... in the hospital? Or dead?) but nothing about Scarlet or them.
Cid flicked the radio off, the only sound left the rumble of the engines and steady whop whop of the propellers. He stared at her. "The fuck was that?"
"I… don't know." She was at a loss of words. Never had she ever heard Shinra's Air and Space frequency so crowded before.
"Fuck, something's happened, and for once I don't think it's us."
They kept course for Brarrow, mainly out of curiosity to find out what was going on. Approaching the small settlement, they found an even larger surprise. The small collection of houses, buildings, and hangers that made up the town were dwarfed by the sheer number of aircraft that surrounded them. Helicopters, Atomos, Gelnikas, Valfarres. There was more aircraft in the fields than what was normally stationed in Midgar's Wastes. In fact, it looked like most, if not all, of Shinra's Airforce was parked beneath them. The Blackjack and the Highwind sat like dragons among a flock of needle kisses.
Before Shera could censor it, "What the fuck", slipped out of her mouth.
Beside her, Cid agreed. "Damn right."
Notes
Hee-hee, Scarlet literally dug her own grave. Skipper's got a real narrative cleverness to her, I tells ya. ~ Zephyr
So, uh, what is even happening with Air and Space?! Stay tuned.
