Disclaimer:  All FFVIII characters and situations belong to Square.  No profit is being made from their use.

Author's Note:  The first four chapters laid the groundwork for the story, and this chapter is going to clarify some things some of you may have had questions about.  Then the real challenge will begin…  I've also learned why it's a good thing to reread what you've written when writing about something that already happened.  The crash of the Ragnarok almost had a very different cause than mentioned in chapter one.  Once again, I'm sorry that this is short, and that chapters are few and far in between.  I'm struggling to finish an epic fic I've been working on for two years, an the fact that final exams are just around the corner is no help with my time.  I can't wait until winter break…

AGAINST THE ODDS

Chapter Five

Ghost Transmission

The map spread out on the wall revealed a world several times larger than his homeland.  Squall reached up, his fingers brushing the dark circle representing the capitol city of Zophyr.  Rinoa…  I know you're there.  I'll be there, someday.  Wait for me.  It would be a long road, spanning both distance and time.  She was half a continent away, and it could take years before Squall could work his way into King Kielan's favor.

He rubbed his face, where the still-unfamiliar eye patch rubbed his skin.  Distractedly, he wondered if Rinoa would even recognize him.  Half his face was the pale, smooth white of scarred flesh, which would never heal to match the rest of his face.  And then he had changed on the inside, as well.  Would she like what he'd become? 

Squall backed up so he could get a better view of the map.  He had to gather intelligence; he was a SeeD, and his training demanded that he know everything he could about his situation before formulating a plan and putting it into action.  As a stranger to this land, his knowledge was woefully lacking.  He knew that King Andor Kielan was a self-made ruler, that he'd been a councilman in the city of Zophyr before grabbing power for himself and declaring himself king.  Zophyr was capital of Altair, the largest of the eight countries of the Balharra continent.  Of the other countries, one had formed an alliance with Kielan, while the smallest had been cowed into submission by its much larger neighbor.  Together, these three countries had amassed an enormous army and already, another country had fallen to Kielan's rule.

This was all very enlightening, but it didn't make Squall feel better about the whole thing.  He may have been a mercenary, a soldier who sold his services for money, but SeeD had had standards.  They'd never assist in world conquest.  Hyne, Squall thought, shutting his eye and leaning his face into his palm.  How did I get into this?

He opened his eye again, though he no longer saw the tent around him.  He was in Esthar, where it had all started, ironically, with a map very similar to the one that hung before him…

*    *    *

"Do you think that's it?"  Rinoa's voice interrupted Squall's thoughtful scrutiny of the map before him.  "Is that where it came from?"

Squall cocked his head so he could see her when she came up beside him.  "I have no idea…  No one's heard anything from the Eastern Continent for centuries.  I didn't know maps of it still existed."  The Esthar archives had a great many things Squall had never seen before, but it was the map that he'd come for today.

"And no one's thought to check to see if anyone lived there?" Rinoa's voice was incredulous.  "Did they think the whole continent had just vanished, or something?"

Squall shrugged.  "You've never heard of it before, have you?  Neither did I," he said when she shook her head.  "Who's going to look for something they don't even know exists?  And then, apparently, there are some currents here," Squall ran his fingers over a stretch of open ocean, "that are impassible, both by ship and by air.  It has the same strange effect on instruments as that blasted plain outside Esthar."

"So maybe what we heard was a ghost," she said, speaking in a whisper.  She blew gently on the back of his neck, sending shivers down his spine.  Squall snorted, and she laughed.  "Okay, so no ghosts."

"That would make things easier," Squall said quietly.  "Rinoa, if there are other people on that continent, then our world is going to go through drastic changes.  Figures this would all wait until I'm in charge."  He sighed, as he felt another heavy burden on his shoulders.  And he'd only just gotten rid of the last problem! 

"Don't be so pessimistic," Rinoa said, squeezing his shoulder lightly.  "Maybe things will work out for the better."

"Right.  Better."  This would never have happened if the seal on Adel's tomb had never been broken.  For seventeen years, the communications systems had been down in every town, city, and Garden.  The creators never thought that the effect of the tomb would be planetwide; or rather, they'd never considered that there were other lands besides their own that would be affected. 

But two weeks ago, the systems had begun to come back online.  And three days ago, they'd received a shocking transmission from a woman claiming to be from a city called Zophyr.  It seemed she'd been running an annual systems check on their com system, and had been stunned to find an open channel.  The Esthar operator who'd received the call had spoken to her for several moments, and she'd been polite, until he'd told her where he was from, and she'd promptly switched off. 

When no one could locate any such town or city, no one was worried.  The 'ghost transmission,' as it had been dubbed, was merely a curiosity, an unusual enigma that wasn't worth getting concerned about.  Probably a prank, or a misunderstanding, they thought.  Until a bored technician tried to trace the call, and found that its pathway bounced off one of the old satellites at an angle impossible for anything from this continent.  Laguna had mentioned it in passing to Squall, whose curiosity had been piqued.  Anything that could get him away from the pile of paperwork on his desk, the new bane of his existence, was worth investigating.

"Is there a Zophyr?" Rinoa asked, her gaze sliding over the map.

"Not that I've found.  But it's an old map, and Zophyr may be a new city."  Squall shrugged there's no way of knowing."

He was aware of her intense scrutiny, and turned to meet her eyes.  "What?"

"Ten gil for your thoughts?" she offered.  When he didn't respond, she continued.  "You're thinking of going there, aren't you?"

"Organizing an expedition into an unknown land is a massive effort," Squall said.  "We'd have to select a diplomatic team, and we'd have to make damned sure we don't land somewhere that would frighten the locals or offend a local custom and accidentally start a new war…"

Rinoa's gaze still hadn't left his face.  "But you're not thinking of an organized expedition.  You want to sneak over there and do it yourself, don't you?"

Had he really become that easy to read?  Or did Rinoa just know him too well?  "The Ragnarok could make the trip in an hour.  It could land in a sparsely populated area, a quick recon could be done…  I'd be in and out before anyone would know I was there."

"It would be risky.  Not something that a commander should do," Rinoa chided, but her eyes gleamed at the prospect of adventure.

"I risk death every day when I deal with paperwork.  Do you realize that if the pile tipped over, I could be crushed beneath it?" Squall's voice was serious, but he could feel a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

"Poor baby," she scoffed.  "So when do we go?"

"Rinoa, I never said I was going…" he protested.  But he'd been seriously considering it.  He was bored, and he needed some action.  He wasn't meant for peacetime, it seemed.  "And besides, who said you were going?  You don't do reconnaissance work."

"No, but I am a sorceress, and I'd like to put those powers to use.  Practicing spells on Grats and T-rexaurs just isn't satisfying."  Rinoa's gaze was hopeful.  "Besides, I'm bored, too.  And you said that we'd be out before they knew we were there, right?" she reminded him.

Squall caved.  "All right.  We'll both go.  And Zell, since neither of us can pilot the Ragnarok and he's the only one currently in Esthar.  But we can't tell the others; if we let them know, they'll all want to come, and we'll have to wait.  I want this to be quick, not some big SeeD mission.  Besides," and here he smiled wickedly, "they need to be reminded that their old commander can still do things without their help." 

"So, when do we go?" Rinoa asked again.

"Let me tell Laguna, so at least someone knows where we'll be, then we can be off, if Zell's willing."

*    *    *

Zell was more than willing.  It seemed boredom was an affliction that plagued all the SeeDs.  He was ecstatic to be included in a secret mission that the others were going to be jealous about, and he was ready to go as soon as Laguna had been told.  The president hadn't wanted them to go, arguing that they should wait, but he hadn't been able to come up with a good reason for them not to go.  He could only beg them to be careful.

The flight had been pleasant, though Squall had been impatient to reach their destination.  His sense of adventure had been piqued, and he was eager for exploration.  It had been too long, it seemed, since he'd done anything like this.  The office had become his life in the past few months, and he was afraid of becoming like Headmaster Cid – stuffy, and old, and only good for dealing with the stuffy politicians who hired SeeD. 

It was Rinoa who'd felt it first; perhaps, as a sorceress, she was more sensitive than the others, or perhaps Squall and Zell had been to eager to notice until Rinoa said softly, "Squall, do you feel that?"

Squall turned towards her, frowning.  "Feel what?"  Was she having second thoughts about coming with them?

"That… empty feeling…  I can't describe it," she whispered.

Now that she mentioned it, Squall did feel odd somehow.  Excitement, maybe?  He didn't have time to explore the sensation further, however, for Zell suddenly cried out, "I see land!"

Squall raised his head to see out the viewport, and even Rinoa was distracted from whatever had alarmed her.  The coastline grew until it filled their view, becoming a sandy beach leading off into a thick, dark forest.  "Make for that," Squall pointed towards the woods.  "There shouldn't be anyone in the woods, and there may be a clearing we can land in.

And that was when everything went wrong.  The ship suddenly shuddered, and Zell struggled with the controls for a moment to steady the ship.  Squall thought they'd just hit a bit of turbulence, until Zell cried out in shock.  Squall didn't know much about the gauges arrayed along the control panel, but he was certain they weren't supposed to be whirling in a rapid circle.  The scanner flickered, showing an inverted image of the landscape before them before shutting down.

Along with the rest of the Ragnarok's systems.

The engines abruptly went dead, leaving them in a peculiar silence interrupted only by the rush of wind against the hull.  "And then, apparently, there are some currents here," Squall ran his fingers over a stretch of open ocean, "that are impassible, both by ship and by air.  It has the same strange effect on instruments as that blasted plain outside Esthar."  His words from hours earlier came back to haunt him.  They'd clearly found one such impassible stretch.  But there was nothing they could do about that now.

"We're going down!" Zell cried. 

What followed was a confusion of color: the flawless blue of the sky, replaced by a dark green as the Ragnarok spun on its axis and they were upside down over the forest.  The clear canopy scraped the trees, then the glass shattered. Squall glimpsed a rain of glittering fragments coming at Zell… saw dark rivulets of blood torn in his friend's flesh… heard Rinoa's screams mix with Zell's as a large fragment grazed her temple…  Then Squall felt something give, and realized his seat belt had come loose… and then he was falling… falling…  tree limbs lashed at him, tearing cloth and skin, bruising flesh and breaking bone.  The last thing he saw, before darkness obscured his vision, was the prow of the Ragnarok catching in the trees and flipping with a scream of rending metal… and then… nothing…

*    *    *

His life had become hell after that moment.  So many times, he'd wished he could have died.  So many times, death had eluded him.  He'd begun to fear that he'd cheated death in the crash, and as a punishment, death no longer wanted him. 

But now…  A battle-scarred, embittered Squall gazed at the map that was so like the one that had started it all.  He wanted to pull down the map, to shred it and stamp it beneath his steel-toed boots…  But he had to be the ideal soldier.  He would do nothing to ruin his climb to the top.  Nothing would keep her from Rinoa.

"Private."  Squall didn't start at the commanding voice, instead turning smoothly and flowing into the 'attention' stance, hand snapping into a salute.  Captain Morz nodded approvingly.  "At ease," she said, and Squall obeyed.  "What are you doing in here?" she asked in a clipped tone.  "Few grunts come in here of their own free will."

"I'm a foreigner," he said calmly.  He couldn't deny it; it said as much in his file, and his accent gave it away.  He didn't need to tell her just how foreign he was, however.  "I don't know much about this part of the world."

Morz arched her brow.  "Willingness to learn.  I don't encounter that too often in my men."  Was that approval he heard in her voice?  Squall didn't respond to the comment, recognizing it as bait.  Sound too egotistical, and she'd be disgusted and punish him.  Try to act modest, and she still might punish him.  Military mind games were the same everywhere.

She "hmphed," then jerked her chin towards the tent flap.  "We march tomorrow.  I suggest you get packing, Private."

Squall saluted again and left.  He'd unintentionally caught the eye of his CO, and managed to impress her in the process.  Now he just had to distinguish himself in battle.  And if they were marching tomorrow, he'd have his chance very soon.

I'm coming for you Rinoa.  Wait for me.  Please, be safe.  We'll be together again.  I swear it.

To Be Continued…