The past is gone, the future's blind
Don't care how long it takes this time
Like fragments of a broken mind
I splinter by my own design
This search is not a waste of time
What lies ahead
You cannot find for me....
--The Offspring, "The Long Road Home"
"Amy, wake up!" Seifer's voice.
Amy shot up, her forehead connecting with his chin with a resounding smack. As one, they clutched their wounded spots, swearing round oaths from both worlds.
"As I was saying...before you so rudely accosted me..."
Amy glared at Seifer, who continued, nonplussed.
"I can't get a reading on the console. Maybe you could help?" His eyes appealed to her. "Better at this crap than I am."
"I can try." Amy said. "Anything visual?"
"Main screen's malfunctioning. I think this poor boat's had one too many trips through the fabric of time and space. Probably not covered under the warrantee, either."
Amy recognized this; pure Seifer, trying to cover up his nervousness with a facade of carelessness.
She stood and examined the console. "It's not an internal problem. Something's been done to the outside."
"Crap."
"Crap is right. I'll have to do an EVA."
Seifer stared at her. "....EVA?"
"Extravehicular activity. Space walk."
"I know what an EVA is, damnit." Seifer said. He stood up. "Look, Amy, I'm qualified to do EVA's. Standard Guarden testing proceedure. Let me do it."
How cute. "Yes, but who's the better engineer?" Amy asked, smirking. "I'll go. Show me the suits."
Kira woke up suddenly, aware of the pressure suit and it's clausterphobic loneliness. She tore her helmet off, gasping, and hoping to hell that there was oxygen wherever she was.
Where was she, anyway?
In her scout craft. She began running a diagnostic; none of the local coordinates were quite what she remembered, and she had to do a thorough update of the system before she'd be able to go anywhere.
Next, an external scan. Everything seemed fine. She began a thorough scan of her nearbye airspace and was startled to learn that a foreign, possibly enemy, craft was located in her vicinity.
She switched the scan to visual and felt her heart beat as the events of the past twenty four hours flooded back to recall. There was the foreign ship that Amy's Seifer had brought through the black hole. Had they made it?
Were they alive?
She opened a hailing frequency.
Amy had never been a fan of EVA's. Spacewalking was one of her big fears; she always felt, even though there were electromagnets in her boots, that she was about to fall off and drift into space.
She inhaled, and then stepped out of the airlock and headed towards where she was pretty sure the problem was. She carried with her a small, military-issue duffel that had come with the ship. It contained a toolset and basic spare parts. She only hoped that one of them would fix the malfunction.
"I'm approaching the external scanning mechanism." She said, clinically, into the mic of the pressure suite. She did this mostly to keep herself calm, but it still felt good to hear Seifer's voice.
"Well, I'm getting a reading of you on the surface. Surface-to-interface equipment seems to be working. It's just the stuff in our immediate vicinity that we can't see."
"That's good to know."
"Just in case you're wondering, you're sharing the lovely surface of our ship with about five billion dust motes."
"Good to know, Seifer. Good to know."
She walked towards the jutting satellite dish (that was the only phrase she could think of to describe it; Seifer didn't know the actual term) and felt her heart sink. The tiny dish seemed to have broken off entirely.
"Seifer, bad news."
"Hm?"
"The dish is gone."
"Fuck."
"My sentiments exactly."
A pause. "Well, how about you walk up top and see what you can see?"
"I guess that'll do. I have the handheld you gave me; it should do some good."
"Let's find out."
For twenty minutes, she left the hailing frequency open. Nothing.
She was about to dispair when she looked and saw a suited figure walking jerkily along the top of the spacecraft.
Unless she was mistaken, that was Amy. She'd never been comfortable in open space, preferring the vehicles and stations that her society created to exist in it.
She toggled power and felt the drives respond. In ten minutes, they'd be warmed up and ready to go, and she'd be that much closer to answering some of her questions.
Standing, she plugged in her pressure suit. She never performed an EVA with a half-charged suit.
"Seifer....I can see it." She whispered. She sounded almost emotional. "Oh, Seifer, it's home. I can see Balamb and Esthar. And it's so pretty from up here."
"Well, at least we know we're in the right place." Seifer said.
"Yeah, but I don't know how we're gonna...holy shit."
Seifer's head jerked up from his position of bored indolence, leaning against his right hand, which was propped up against the console.
"What?" His voice was sharp.
"I can see Kira's ship. I wonder..."
"Don't you dare sever contact with this ship, Amy. I'll suit up and come rescue your ass, and then we're both fucked."
"I won't. But I hope she's alive."
Amy sat there, on the top of Seifer's ship, wanting more than anything to weep. She wanted to know that her friend was alive, that she hadn't inadvertantly caused her death.
She wanted a piece of her own world, and the chance to show this one to Kira.
She wasn't, however, stupid enough to give into her childish whim. Tears were a right nuisance in free-fall.
Suddenly, a flare. It seemed as though Kira's ship was being operated, or at least, coming back to life. The main drive shafts were glowing faintly, proof that they were active and charged.
The ship slowly headed towards their vehicle, circled it twice, and then came to rest near where Amy was. Hope flared through her; she only hoped that it wasn't the automatic programming of the scout that had done that. They were programmed to come to rest at the nearest port of call in an emergency where the pilot was unconscious. Or worse.
A door opened, and a suited figure pushed itself out. Amy's face stretched into a grin. She knew, from the grace with which the figure launched itself towards her, that it was Kira, and that she was alive.
"Kira!" She cried, pressing the call button and waving her left arm slowly. Kira waved back.
A few seconds of adjusting frequencies, and they found one that worked so that they could talk.
"Our main external sensor is damaged. Well...missing." Amy said, pointing. "See?"
"I do. I think we might have something we can jury-rig to it in the scout."
"Oh, Kira. I'm so sorry I brought you here." Amy looked very distraught. "I'm sorry..."
"Don't be. Hey, at least I won't get arrested for treason here." Kira grinned.
"That's true." Amy agreed. "Oh, hang on, let me get on the wire with Seifer."
Kira's eyes sparkled. Even after all of these centuries of radio waves and instantaneous communication, some people still used archaic phrases like "on the wire."
"Seifer, Kira's alive, she's here with me in an EVA suit. We have to go to the scout; it's hovering about a quarter of a mile out from us at the north, north-west bearing."
"Why do you have to go?" Seifer asked. She could hear panic in his voice.
"We're going to look and see if there's a dish array we can jury-rig into the slot, so that we'd have sensors. We can't land if we don't have them, love."
She froze and her face turned crimson. Over the intercom, Kira squealed. "How adorable!"
A silence. "Do it." Seifer sounded like he was crying, or close to.
"I'll be back."
"You'd better, or, I swear to Hyne, I'll find you in the afterlife and haunt you."
"You better keep that promise." Amy and Kira linked arms and as one pushed off of the surface of the ship, heading towards the tiny white scout, a beacon in the dark space.