CHAPTER XVI

AND THE STEW GETS METEOR

Goofy was playing around with the in-ship intercom system while Sora piloted the Barrett. Donald and Kairi were close by, in the cramped living quarters of the ship. Nothing about it said 'home', but it wasn't a terrible place to spend a day or two.

"Gawrsh, is that what my voice sounds like?" asked Goofy over the intercom. "Are ya sure?"

Everyone yelled an exasperated "YES!" at him, and he finally turned off the intercom. So far, it had been pretty smooth sailing. Sora read the various computer screens in the dash of the ship and was pleased to see that the World That Never Was was only two or so hours from their current location. He switched the ship onto auto pilot and walked back into the cabin. "Goofy, keep an eye out for enemy vessels…lemme know at the first sight of a ship."

Goofy nodded as Sora disappeared through the sliding door.

Sora met up with Kairi and brought her over a cup of tea. "Hey," he said to her. "Tea?"

She nodded with a smile. "Donald and I checked out the entire ship – there's a gun turret that can seat one of us, if we need it during a firefight. And the surprise in the cargo bay that Cid mentioned? It's the gummi mech I used back in the Red Zeppelin! I think I'm going to call it the 'Olette'. What do ya think?"

Sora was about to say 'why do you get to name it'; but instead, he settled for "I like it, Kairi."

Goofy's voice rang out through the intercom. "We're under attack! Sora! Donald! Kairi! Hang tight!" he yelled, as the ship went through a series of sickening lurches and spins.

Donald rushed by them, heading for the main deck. "Goofy! I'm coming!"

Sora turned to Kairi as he ran for the ladder in the center of the cabin. "You go hop in the Olette! I'll see what I can do from the laser turret!"

Sora poked his head up into the small, cramped space on the topmost portion of the Barrett. Inside were a few whirring gizmos, a metal chair that swiveled and a pair of handles with two triggers on each. The handles were connected to a four foot long repeating laser turret that could move in a full 360 degrees around the gun station – the main guns could only shoot forward firing rounds. Hanging from the headrest of the chair was a pair of neon yellow goggles with black trim – he put them on and realized why they were there – the extra thick glassine protecting the gun station made it exceedingly difficult to see anything out in space, but the goggles heightened everything like turning the contrast up on a video set. It also had readouts of a very primitive nature – arrows blinked in the direction of oncoming enemies; right now, all four arrows were blinking, which Sora took to be bad news.

Bad news, in fact, was a drastic understatement – there were at least three dozen ships closing in on the Barrett from all sides – mostly they were the same variety of ship they destroyed in orbit around Disney Castle, but there were a few fresh ones. These new ships looked like flying saucers…but as they came close to the Barrett, they sprang open to reveal six arm-like appendages, each of which started shooting a spray of powerful, but inaccurate, laser fire. Sora clicked the thumb triggers on his turret – a powerful shot rocketed from the gun, recoiling and making Sora's hands hurt from not gripping tightly enough. These guns didn't have any targeting hardware…so every shot Sora made had to be manually aimed.

Goofy and Donald, on the other hand, were having a whole different set of troubles. The repeating blasters on the belly of the ship were doing their job, taking out one weak heartless ship after another…but the navigation controls became completely knocked out by some sort of interference, making Goofy have to take the reigns and maneuver completely on his own. Usually, he just had to make evasive maneuvers – now he was in charge of the ships entire flight path – whether they crashed into meteors, enemy ships, debris – it was all in his hands. Donald was tearing panels off of walls and slamming his Sizzle Stick all over the ship, trying to get the main navigation computer back online.

Kairi, in the meantime, was already outside doing some serious damage. She had perfected the combination of the spinning drill kick and the wrist blaster, taking out nearly ten heartless before Sora fired his first shot.

Sora lined up his sights with the flying saucer heartless ship hovering in front of the Barrett – Goofy's random cannon fire wasn't doing enough damage to it, and Kairi was busy – so Sora pushed both thumb triggers and an enormous 'whap' sound cut through the air, blasting through the center of the ship and causing it to explode. The resulting explosion send the six arms of the vessel flying off in all directions, impaling three more smaller ships on the way.

"Main navigation computer is back online!" Donald said, as he sat in the co-pilot's seat. "Concentrate on evasive maneuvers and don't go too far from Kairi!" The ship zoomed in an arc through the hollowed out inside of a meteor, seeing Kairi punching and kicking her way along on the other end.

The arms of the Olette suddenly stopped whirring. They had gotten snagged on something…Kairi pushed with all her might to release them, but it was no use – they were pinned behind her back. If only she could see what it was that was holding her back…but up ahead there was a worse sight – a six-armed heartless ship was hovering dead ahead, ready to unleash its blasters upon the now immobile Kairi.

Sora saw the two six-armed heartless ships up ahead. All of the smaller craft were wiped out, and these were the only two left. Why was one floating there, aiming its arms at the other one? He didn't want to find out…he aimed his laser at the back of the first heartless ship, planning on shooting a beam that would go right through it and blast the other one as well…he gripped tightly…

…as the intercom crackled with static, and finally Goofy's voice broke through. "Sora! Kairi's in trouble! She's behind that heartless, don't shoot!"

It was too late – Sora had already pushed the thumb trigger…but in the two milliseconds he had before it fired, he slammed the turret into a 90 degree turn and shot his beam into the wall of the meteor crater! He hollered back at Goofy through his intercom. "Gimme a little more notice next time, would ya! But I missed, so she's safe…" The words had barely left his mouth when he completed the turn to see the rocks and debris slowly crumbling and closing in, like a supernova, all around him. "We have to get out of here, Goofy! This whole place is gonna explode…well, implode…well, whatever it does, it won't be pretty!"

Kairi finally broke free of the grip of the enemy ship, and ducked down below as the fire from the last of the heartless ships obliterated the one that had previously held her captive. She looked back at the Barrett – it wasn't under fire from anything, so why was it moving so fast? And then she saw the rocks clamping closed behind them, as the pressure of space mixed with the unstable crater in the center of the center of the meteor, causing a massive implosion. The Barrett was nearly at the Olette now…no matter how fast Kairi got her engines started in the direction of the exit, it wouldn't be fast enough…that implosion was right on the Barrett's tail…

As the Barrett passed by Kairi's mech at near warp speeds, Sora noticed that Kairi wasn't moving with her own engines…she was just floating there, staring at the Barrett and her impending doom…after they passed her, Sora turned around and saw nothing but rocks and meteor shards compressing in a huge implosion behind the Barrett. He watched the final heartless vessel get sucked in to the implosion, crushed by the incredible pressure of the meteor.

Sora jumped from his seat and slid down the entire length of the ladder. He ran through the ship, heading for the cargo hold. He yelled up to the bridge, "Kairi was in there! We missed her!" but when he threw open the door to the cargo hold, there was the Olette, waving at him just like Kairi had so many times before. His heart didn't know it could stop pounding until she hopped out and walked up to him, smiling like nothing had happened.

"Nice goggles! We going swimming?" she joked. Sora tore off his goggles and stared after Kairi.

"I thought we lost you! I thought…I mean…I thought you were dead," he managed to stammer. "I thought I had lost you."

Kairi looked at him for a moment seriously and said, "now you know how I felt when you left the other night," but instead of making Sora feel worse than he already did, her serious attitude changed to a bright smile as she leaned in, kissed him quickly on the cheek and pranced off to the bridge.

Sora stood in the cargo hold, rubbing his cheek for a few minutes after that. Quite a few minutes, indeed.