CHAPTER XVIII

SHOOTING FOR THE STARS

The newly christened Fenrir 2 glided between asteroids as it dodged attacks from the heartless vessels surrounding it. It didn't take King Mickey, Cloud, Aerith and Yuffie very long to find what they were looking for. Cloud had intended to find a heartless ship and tail it back to whatever base it planned to land on, but he had been treated to at least twenty times what he expected. Only an hour into their interstellar flight, the mighty Fenrir 2 was ambushed by approximately thirty heartless ships which were hiding behind a massive set of asteroids.

Aerith and Yuffie were piloting the ship – Yuffie was fast on her feet and fast at the controls, taking evasive maneuvers whenever she could. Had she not been at the helm, the ship probably would be scrap by now…but luckily for the friends, it had only taken two or three direct hits, and those were deflected by the superior shields on the Fenrir 2. Aerith meanwhile was fiddling with the computer screens, keeping shields at the proper power levels.

Unlike the Barrett, the Fenrir 2 didn't have a top mounted laser turret…instead, the ship boasted a set of slash gummis that were positioned on either side of the vessel. They were controlled from a bottom side cockpit that had a swiveling metal seat like the one in the Barrett. On either side of the cockpit were two large metal tubes with handles at the far ends – one could reach their arms inside, grab the handles and effectively swing their arms sending out powerful laser slashes from the two slash cannons on the outside of the ship. King Mickey was doing a fine job at this – maybe even having fun as well.

"Easy now…don't take 'em all out before I've had my fun…" Cloud mused as he climbed into his surprise in the cargo hold. Sure enough, Cid had left the black and yellow gummi mech in good hands – Cloud had christened it the 'Oblivion' – and Cid had even gone so far as to design a gummi saber which replaced the right arm of the mech.

Cloud got into his mech and immediately pressed the intercom button, so that he could speak with the main ship.

"Okay guys, now make sure to leave one so we can damage it and cause it to have to retreat. I don't want to have to fight another whole ambush…" he said, slashing through a strange heartless ship that looked like a dragonfly.

As the Oblivion got farther away from the Fenrir 2, the signal started to fade and become riddled with static. King Mickey switched on his intercom and tried to talk to Cloud.

"Cloud, something strange is happening behind you…some weird black portal…steer clear of it…"

But unfortunately, the garbled transmission Cloud got didn't convey the important points of the message. His gummi mech was slammed from behind by a silver ship with white tribal marks on it, and Cloud didn't even notice what was happening until he looked toward the Fenrir 2 and saw the tiny Legion ship dashing straight at it.

The Fenrir 2 turned to face the new threat, as King Mickey mopped up the final heartless dragonfly ship. He stayed in the bottom mounted cockpit and continued to talk to Cloud.

"Those marks…" Mickey said. "Didn't Merlin say something about them?"

"Yeah. Those are the same marks on the uniform of the Legion members. The one I saw in Radiant Garden had almost the same thing…"

The line clicked and Aerith joined the conversation. "So…that's a Legion ship? Well, that's what I call jackpot," she turned and smiled at Yuffie. Yuffie wasn't smiling back – her brow was dripping with sweat as she pulled the Fenrir 2 out of a series of spins and flips, firing her main cannons at full speed at the Legion ship.

Cloud turned on his thrusters and was behind the Legion ship in seconds, taking one good slash with his new sword and sending the ship into a dizzying spin. He didn't connect – but King Mickey did as the Legion ship spun helplessly by him.

It looked like a fantastic game of pinball – the crew of the Fenrir 2 got dizzy watching it – as the the Legion ship got smacked with the slash gummi, it flipped toward an asteroid which it bounced off of with a soundless thud. Then, going the other direction, it was pelted with smaller rocks, changing the direction of the ship so that it was going directly at the Oblivion. Cloud readied his sword like a baseball player at bat…and the Legion ships thrusters kicked in, sending it running like a scared kitten from a dog!

As Cloud exited the cargo hold, rubbing his arm and feeling the strain of combat once more, he met Mickey on the way to the bridge. Aerith and Yuffie were sitting back chatting as they looked through the view screen at the Legion ship – dashing straight ahead, completely unaware that the Fenrir 2 was following closely behind.

Yuffie was finally smiling. "Ship's on auto pilot – following the exact course of the Legion ship, thanks to Aerith's course plotting…not to say the little bum even knows were following it – our cloaking systems are active, too."

"Do you really think the Legion ship will lead us to their base?" King Mickey asked Cloud, sitting down and cracking his fingers.

"Well…it'll lead us somewhere," Cloud said.

"Uh…yeah Cloud, it will…that's the understatement of the year…" Yuffie moaned.

"I mean it'll lead us somewhere significant – these ships can't be flying around on a pleasure trip – it'll either take us back to its closest base or to some world that they're planning on attacking with heartless. Either way, we're right there to find out a little more," Cloud walked out of the bridge moodily, heading for the sleeping chambers.

Aerith looked at the computer terminal with a puzzled look on her face. "That's really weird…the signal for the auto-pilot is fading…Yuffie, you might have to manually follow this guy until I can get it fixed."

"Sure," Yuffie agreed. She swiveled and grabbed the controls, focusing directly on the little silver and white ship. The Legion ship was now moving very erratically, swaying one way one minute, another way the next. Suddenly, it looked like it dove straight up into the air, turned around and crashed directly into a moon-sized asteroid floating in the middle of viewscreen.

"Whoa! Aerith, this guy just crashed right into the asteroid! Is he nuts?" Yuffie yelled.

"I've completely lost his frequency...auto-pilot is worthless without a frequency or coordinates…" Aerith complained.

King Mickey's ears perked up as he stared intently out the viewscreen. "Do exactly what he just did, Yuffie."

"Your highness?" Yuffie asked. "Wouldn't that be…suicide?"

"Merlin told me a lot about these Legion guys…if they're half as strong-willed as they used to be, they'd never do something foolish like intentionally crash into an asteroid. Trust me," Mickey looked at Yuffie. She could understand his point…it had made it an awfully far way without crashing so far, so why would it all of a sudden crash on an asteroid bigger than most moons?

Yuffie pulled the ship up into a climbing roll…at the point where the Legion ship flipped over, she did so – diving straight at the asteroid.

"It's gotta be fake…" Mickey said, still convinced. "A hologram or something…"

"It's looking realer every second, your majesty…" Yuffie nervously twitched her fingers on the controls, looking for something that would tell her it was a hologram.

"Stay your course…" Mickey told her firmly.

"We're getting way too close now…Aerith, put all power to the forward shields…" Yuffie asked, but King Mickey stayed Aerith with one hand.

"Don't. We're gonna need that power for the engines…"

Aerith didn't know who to listen to – King Mickey had never steered her wrong before, but Yuffie was a true friend…she had proven herself many times…but so had King Mickey, she told herself. Finally, the decision was made for her – she looked out the viewscreen and saw a dark black speck on the side of the asteroid, no bigger than their ship.

"There!" she said, pointing. Immediately, Yuffie adjusted their course so that they were aiming straight for the hole.

"An asteroid base…" King Mickey marveled. "If what I've heard about these things is true, they have…"

"AUTOMATIC DOORS!" Yuffie bellowed. "Aerith, all available juice to forward thrusters, get us moving!"

As Aerith punched in some numbers, the ship started moving faster and faster as it slid through the hole, barely nicked by the automatic door. Up ahead, another door was closing in on them…Yuffie scraped the top of the ship trying to get past this one. A deafening, shrill noise echoed through the ship, making Aerith and Yuffie cringe. Up ahead, the final door was already closed. Yuffie was about to hit the cannons, but the door was ripped into four neat pieces by the slash gummis.

King Mickey's voice rang through the intercom. "Bring us down somewhere out of sight," he told Yuffie.

As Cloud, Yuffie, Aerith and King Mickey all climbed off the Fenrir 2, their steps echoed out on the cold concrete floor. The massive center of the asteroid was home to many things – giant wooden crates, some intact and some broken open; a massive computer screen with a large computer terminal beneath it; and literally thousands of various heartless ships.

There were the small, annoying blue ones in the greatest numbers…but there were a staggering amount of the red saucers with arms, the green dragonflies, and plenty that they had never seen before. Some looked like giant robot men, some looked like disgusting variations of butterflies. They all bore the heartless insignia, as did the computer screen.

King Mickey, Cloud and Yuffie couldn't speak to save their lives. Aerith managed to stammer one word:

"Jackpot."