IV
"Explanations are for those who can't find solutions. No one cares how much you know--as long as they know how much you can do."
--anonymous

Aya stood to attention as the the main weaponry instructor in Balamb, Sibuna Hathor, ambled into the briefing room of the spacious, ten-man transport. A grin parted his withered face, wrinkles like valleys separating into a mask of good humor. Most of the students were amazed he had kept going this long--he had been the one to train Commander Leonhart in the gunblade, and he showed no signs of stopping his lengthy career.

"Good afternoon, cadets," he said clearly. Everyone on the two teams that had taken Transport B saluted. "You can go at ease, I certainly plan to be," the instructor said, dropping into a chair. The students followed suit, all watching the instructor carefully. "I'm sure you were all listening in class," he said, eyes picking out a few problem students and riveting themselves for a moment on Aya, "and you know approximately where you're going. I'm here to tell you why."

Hathor hit a button on the table, and a crude 3D hologram of the Deep Sea Research Center popped up, flickering awkwardly for the first few seconds and rotating slowly. A few more button punches, and the image shed the top half as the Deep Sea Deposit slowly grew.

"You've all read the accounts of SeeD Leonhart's rather spur-of-the-moment expedition down to the DSD--and of how it ended when they made the rather well-fated mistake of fighting Ultima Weapon, which they had somehow brought up and liberated from the depths of the Deposit. Oddly enough, since they cleared the way, no one has ever decided to explore the regions they opened."

A flashing, green question mark appeared underneath the diagram, greyed-out artist's conceptions of the rest of the Deposit fluctuated randomly. A few of the cadets had to keep themselves from chuckling--Hathor had obviously had fun designing the briefing, if he was the one who had.

"If any of you were watching the newscasts for the last few months, you'd know that a big Estharan project--with a sizable budget--was sent down to the DSRC to explore these nether regions of the Deposit. Since they arrived, no trace of them has been found." Hathor fixed them all with a solid glare. "Your mission, SeeDs, as dictated by the Estharan Paramagical Ordinance Council's Research and Exploration Committee, is to scout out the ruins--bringing back detailed maps and reports, if at all possible--and to search for any trace of the former team, be it them or their corpses. Any questions?"

"At least one," Aya said almost to herself, and raised a hand. Hathor grinned at her for a moment, like a hawk grinning at a mouse--before he responded.

"Cadet Leonhart."

"What kind of resistance can we expect?" Aya asked, "forgetting" to tack on the respectful sir at the end.

"You can't expect anything, cadet," Hathor said. A few more taps on the control panel, and the hologram began to show rotating diagrams of various monsters. Each stayed around for about two full revolutions before disappearing to show the next one. "As you may have guessed, our records are twenty-eight years out of date, and marred by the reports that after Ultima Weapon was destroyed the level of monster activity took a sharp drop. Commander Leonhart's team reported a variety of monsters--Imps and Tri-Faces, to name a few. However, no one has brought back any record of what might be waiting below the Weapon platform. Be on your guard." Hathor glanced across the cadets. "Any more?"

"Yeah. Why not?"

Hathor's eyes narrowed. "Why not what?"

"Why didn't anyone ever bring back any information? What about the team that went there in the first place?"

"Your father's team?" Hathor asked bluntly, abandoning all tact.

"Yes," Aya said. "You would think that they would have at least a bit of an idea what was past Weapon Platform."

"The question is immaterial at the moment. For whatever reason, they never brought back any maps. Questions?"

"Not even an idea?" Aya interrupted.

"Cadet, are you getting to something?" Hathor asked. Aya shrugged.

"It just seems odd that after coming all the way down, they didn't even bother to peek down the hole they had just brought a Weapon up out of. You would think that they would be a bit more thorough."

"It may have seemed like a trivial concern at the time," Hathor answered. "However, if the question is really so important to you, perhaps you could ask your father directly." There was a low chuckle from one of the students, stopping abruptly under the icy glares that both the Instructor and Aya fixed on him. Hathor continued smoothly. "Or, if you can't wait until then, maybe you would prefer just to surpass your father and explore the Deposit for yourself?"

Aya glowered at him, annoyed by the comparison between her and Squall. She said nothing.

"Questions?" the instructor snapped out again.

No one spoke up. Hathor nodded.

"All right. There are eight of you here, and I've split you into teams of four. Team rosters are: Squad B is Ranier, Laertes, Carman, and Malle. Ranier is the Squad Leader. Squad C is Nattaka, Dyson, Leonhart, and VanJarim. Nattaka is the Squad Leader. If you have any objections, I'd like to hear them now."

No one objected--they all had a reasonable idea that they would get points docked if they did. However, glancing at Kamalyn, Aya could see that the Squad Leader had turned a shade paler.

"All right, then," Hathor said. Turning, he stepped through the door to the pilot's seat. The transport gave a soft shudder.

The cadets stood up from their places around the table, sliding the chairs around through the network of grooves in the floor. Although the chairs were required by Garden safety regs to anchored to the floor, the grooves allowed them to be reorganized in some semblance of freedom. Squad B clustered to the back of the ship next to the narrow, reinforced window that stretched across the hind end of the craft, and Squad C began to group near the table. Aya smoothly moved over to the console, activating the hologram of the DSRC.

"He didn't mean anything by it, you know," Kamalyn said awkwardly, dropping into a seat next to her. Aya didn't even glance at him.

"Which part?"

"...I don't think he meant anything by any of it," Kamalyn said.

"Right."

The ship rumbled again, and there was a vague sensation of movement. Aya glanced out of one of the portholes, and could see the semi-hovercraft beginning to glide out, mere centimeters from touching the waves. The hologram on the table popped up to display one of the various conceptions of the region beyond Weapon Platform, then split to display five at once. Aya shuffled through them, noting the wide variety.

"Look at this," she said, selecting four. "These hypotheses were done by the Estharan Ancient Civilization Council. This one shows a straight drop-off--a tunnel going straight down--this one shows that it stops a level below in a kind of nondescript room, this shows a spiral like the one that lead up to it, and this one shows a much more elaborate structure. What does that tell you?"

"It tells me that they have no idea," Kamalyn said.

"Why would the EACC make--" Aya checked the banks, "--seventeen hypotheses on the region beyond the Platform? Hmm?"

"You're getting at something," Kamalyn said. "Just tell me so we can get it over with."

"The EACC was interested in this--interested a lot. So why didn't they explore it? They had the resources, and Grandp--President Loire would have OK'd it. So why weren't there any expeditions besides the one we're chasing after?"

"I'm missing this," Kamalyn said.

"So am I," Aya said. Flipping off hologram and the four spinning hypothetical maps, she switched on the console built into the table. "Let's try another angle. The DSRC was built by the Galbadians to develop a Junction system and find an ultimate draw point. For a while, it was mobile--until they stationed it over the DSD. Why?"

"Just tell me."

"That's the problem," Aya said. "I don't know. There's no record of an ultimate draw point ever being found, and there would be no reason to stop otherwise. Plus--" she scrolled down in the text a bit. "Do you have any idea how Da and the rest ran into Ultima?"

"They activated a machine which drew it up on a cable. Or something like that."

"Something like that," Aya echoed. "Now, it they drew it up on a cable, what does that say about the far end?"

"It would have to be attached to the Weapon," Kamalyn answered uncertainly. "Wait--"

"Go on," Aya encouraged. Kamalyn glanced at the data.

"If they had to attach it to the Weapon somehow, and the Weapon had to be brought up, then someone would have had to go down and attach it."

"Exactly," Aya said. "That place has already been explored. For some reason or other, no record--or at least no public one--survived. Why not?"

Kamalyn didn't have an answer. "I guess we'll find out," he said.

"Yeah," Aya agreed. "I guess we will."