6. Zero Gravity

The larger moon orbiting Aegis was low on the horizon, casting a white glare across the calm ocean. The smaller moon would rise in a few hours, adding its dim glow to the pale light of the first. Out by the coast, the lights of the city couldn't bleach the sky. Thousands of points of light dotted the cloudless night sky. The world became a monotone of dark blue in the still of the night.

The only color along the beach came from the lights of a kitchen in which a tired young couple were finishing the final cleaning and storing jobs of the evening. They packed the final coolers on the floor in their pantry and turned off the lights, leaving the coastline devoid of artificial illumination.

Moving slowly and deliberately, they walked up the stairs, giving an extra effort to stay awake until they reached their bed. The evening had been exhausting. Once it had become too dark to play volleyball any longer, they had taken the net down and started swimming in the final light of the day. Eventually, everyone had left in the same tired state. Jokes about falling asleep at the wheel had been made, playful jabs had been exchanged, and they had departed, leaving the house silent.

As they slipped into bed, they bid each other good night. Within seconds, both of them were asleep. Nothing moved in the house. The only sound audible was the sound of crashing waves on the beach. Clocks silently declared the passing of the minutes. The silence was disarming; it penetrated deep and slowed everything until it was frozen in place.

Miles above the calm house, the scene was quite the opposite. Gunfire filled the air with sharp cracks as the strobe lights of muzzle flashes cast staggered shadows along the walls. Men and women ran towards exits as the midnight-black creatures pounced on the slowest, clawing and slashing at their armored suits. Even for Marines, it was not a fair fight. The Heartless outnumbered them fivefold by now.

After the initial panic reaction, the soldiers let their training take over. When they were outnumbered in close quarters, they had been trained to retreat to one of the station's built-in bottlenecks, where they could mount a more effective defense. Squads split up in the halls in an attempt to minimize casualties should one group find themselves surrounded. Squad leaders began coordinating a rendezvous point for the scattered troops.

For now, the Heartless were contained in the hangar bay. It was anyone's guess as to how long their makeshift prison would hold them, as well as how many fallen soldiers were among their number. Until everyone was in the same place, a head count was impossible. All anyone could do was get to the bottleneck as fast as possible.

Captain Darrin walked backwards along a service corridor, breathing heavily in her vacuum armor. Her rifle felt heavy in her hands. The only thing keeping her aim steady was the years of training and experience she had fighting in this exact situation. On her home world of Marathon, she had fought in the first doomed battles with the Heartless in cramped alleys and high-rise buildings. Now, many years later, she was one of the finest in the Corps, serving with distinction aboard the station named after her home.

So this situation was nothing new. The only thing different was the consequence of failure. Should this station fall, it would open the door for innumerable hordes of Heartless to swarm over the face of Aegis. She could not allow mankind's last hope to be destroyed because she was a little nervous.

Satisfied the corridor was secure, she dropped down an access vent with the rest of her squad. A pair of maintenance personnel welded the vent shut, hoping to stem the eventual advance of the Heartless into this area. Darrin removed her helmet, glad to be able to breathe air that hadn't been recycled through the suit's filters. For now, it still tasted fresh. If the Heartless managed to break through their defenses, though, it would be replaced with a much worse taste.

The Marines around her were busy setting up portable barriers, triage stations, and everything else they'd need to hold this corridor. Should this line be broken, there were two more natural choke points to which they could fall back and start again. After that, though, there would be no stopping the Heartless from swarming all over the station. These bottlenecks were the last line of defense for this station.

***

"I don't understand. What do you mean, 'breached'?"

"I mean that the Heartless are inside the Marathon. They're fighting the onboard Marines as we speak. It's absolutely vital that we get you two up there as soon as possible."

Sora, who was struggling with his armor, hadn't quite been listening to Harris as the general had been explaining the situation. The last explanation, however, hadn't been filled with technical details. Sora didn't even know that damaged Gummi engines leaked radiation. He was surprised that he wasn't glowing green; given how much damage some of his designs had suffered a few years back.

According to Harris, the radiation from the damaged engines had actually been a signal jam originating from the craft's transmission array. It blocked the sensors designed to detect onboard Heartless. Not only that, but they had latched on the back of the ship; hiding from the station's cameras and windows. The creatures were devious.

Sora finally managed to get the torso section of his suit on with the help of the Air Force sergeant in charge of the armory. Though it wasn't bulky, it was confusing to put on. It wrapped around the wearer and sealed in the front, making it look like an armored vest. Sora had less trouble with the arms, as they were essentially detachable sleeves with gloves.

Vacuum suit design had enjoyed many breakthroughs since the first days of space exploration. Instead of huge, bulky designs, modern suits were nearly-skintight suits with layers of synthetic fiber weave, not dissimilar to Kevlar. The helmets were no longer massive, either. They had shrunk to just large enough to be comfortable. The faceplate had become light-sensitive; polarizing itself to differing light conditions.

The Air Force suit was essentially the same as the Marine Corps. suit, with the exception of the weapon-linked faceplate display being swapped for a Gummi ship-compatible targeting suite. The fiber-weave layers were dull gray and the armor plates were nearly black. The plates, though rigid, did not subtract much from the suit's flexibility, despite covering most of the surface area. Areas that needed to move had a zigzag cut in the plates to allow for some shifting, exposing the mottled gray beneath the armor. The only areas left completely uncovered were the joints, which had an extra-thick layer of weave.

Surprisingly, Sora understood all the suit's functions as the sergeant explained how everything worked. It wasn't much different from the training suit Sora had used when he had earned his zero-gravity certification two years earlier. The only difference was that this suit would thoroughly abused by a number of crazed creatures.

When both Sora and Kairi had sealed their suits completely, the general led them to a hangar filled with identical Gummi ships. One, however, had many people milling around it. Some were fastening steel armor plates to a skeletal frame that had recently been placed over the entire ship. Harris stopped just outside the radius of workers going to and fro.

"This is the ship that will take you to the station. If you notice-"

Sora, who wasn't paying much attention, blurted out, "What's with the metal all over it?"

Shaking his head, the general continued. "This particular ship has been retro-fitted with extra armor plating to take some extra punishment. We don't think you'll need it, but better safe than sorry. You'll leave as soon as the last plates are securely in place."

Minutes later, a lesser officer walked up to Harris, saluted, and reported that the ship was ready. Sora and Kairi climbed into the cockpit along with their Air Force pilot. Sora initially sat in the pilot's seat, but he reluctantly gave up control to Harris's choice of "chauffeur", as he had said.

When all three people were strapped into the cramped military cockpit, the hangar doors opened amid blaring alarms and flashing lights. Sunlight flooded into the hangar as the ship slowly lifted off the ground and drifted towards the opening.

As soon as the ship cleared the doors, the pilot pushed the throttle forwards, sending the ship hurtling away from the hangar. He pulled back hard on the joystick, pointing the Gummi ship's nose skyward. Sora and Kairi, who weren't used to this kind of flight, were snapped backwards by the sudden acceleration. Luckily, their straps only allowed them to get an inch away from the seat, so neither of them was injured. Sora was impressed by the pilot's skill. Even after several years of flying, Sora was less skilled than the current flyer.

As the ship climbed higher into the upper reaches of the atmosphere, the pilot began communicating with the station.

"ODN Platform Marathon, this is Osprey Two-One. Request emergency hangar clearance. Over."

"Osprey Two-One, this is the Marathon. Advise cargo. Over."

"Marathon, Osprey Two-One. Precious cargo onboard. Order direct from Gen. Harris, 10AF. We have OPSEC clearance. Over."

There was a brief pause. Sora thought for a moment that the station would deny them landing clearance, but his fears were soon assuaged.

"Osprey Two-One, Marathon. Operational Security clearance checks out. Cleared to land in Hangar Three. Over."

"Osprey Two-One copies. Reinforcements inbound to Hangar Three."

The ship sped higher into the dark night sky. As the ship reached orbit, Sora and Kairi experienced a moment of vertigo as Aegis's natural gravity faded and the ship's artificial gravity set in.

As a power-saving mechanism, all artificial gravity fields were set to three-quarters the strength of the natural gravity on Aegis. The most immediately noticeable effect of this was the sudden drop in weight for everything. Recruits who had just been transferred to orbital stations often gawked when they saw someone leap up one full deck in the hangar bays. Eventually, however, the low gravity became "normal", which made returning to the full-gravity environment of Aegis interesting.

Sora had never gotten used to the low gravity, but Kairi was perfectly fine with it. She had passed her low- and zero-gravity training courses in near record time, leaving Sora struggling with the strange effects of differing gravity. Both of them had though that Sora would quickly adapt to weightlessness because of his flying experience in Neverland, but he floundered around helplessly. The lack of self-propulsion rendered all his experience moot.

All of this was swimming through Sora's mind as the ship flew towards the station, which drifted lazily closer in the distance. From here, it appeared as if there was no problem. Sunlight glinted off gold-plated rectangular windows and large, beveled observation areas. The three heavy cannons stood clustered around the center of the roughly hexagonal platform, surrounded by smaller turrets and missile ports. Though the metal of the station was a grayish-brown, it nearly disappeared into blackness where it was covered by shadow.

"Five hundred kilometers and closing. Velocity seven hundred meters per second. ETA twelve minutes."

Another thing about space that Sora hadn't gotten used to: massive distances looked so small.

The hangar bay doors gaped open to the vacuum of space, ready for the heavily armored ship to arrive.

***

She could hear them. That was the worst part. The enemy was so close that Darrin could hear their claws scraping on metal as they traveled through the now-sealed air ducts. Any second now, the Heartless could come crashing through the walls, ceiling, and even the floor. However, they hadn't yet. Even though the Marines had been vulnerable three separate times, the Heartless simply wouldn't show themselves. It was almost like they were waiting for something, and it had the Marines spooked. If the Heartless were trying out psychological warfare for the first time, it was working.

Or maybe they were just trying to figure out a way to attack the heavily fortified position that lay ahead of them. Should they come out of the walls, they would be appearing in the middle of a meat grinder. The Marines had set up two stationary machine guns that supplemented the twenty-five rifles that constantly pointed down the hall, ready for any sign of an attack. No matter who won the next standoff, the creatures of darkness would suffer staggering losses.

Captain Darrin was helping to set up a communications link with the station command center. Though her company had been relieved by one of the other ones stationed on board, she was one of the few company-level officers left on the station. Several other company commanders had taken leave this week to celebrate the tenth 'birthday' of the 23rd Orbital Battalion; the security forces stationed onboard the Marathon. So she was put in temporary command of the new company defending her location.

Just as she began to test the connections on the comm link, a transmission came over her personal priority channel. That channel was reserved for absolutely critical information passed down by her superiors. Something big must have happened, or they would have waited to use the nearly-completed link she was working on.

"Captain Darrin, do you read?"

The voice came through her helmet speakers, so the soldiers helping with the link looked at her in confusion when she turned away in the middle of the setup. "Darrin here."

"This is a priority message from Marathon command center. Hold position as long as possible."

No kidding, thought Darrin. What a useless order to send over my priority channel.

"Reinforcements are inbound. Sora and Kairi are coming on board right now."

Ah, not so useless. This is quite the morale booster. "Roger. Will comply. Darrin out."

The radio cut out as soon as she acknowledged the order. She switched to her helmet's external speakers.

"Marines! The Keybearers are coming on board as we speak, and they're gonna cut these bastards in two. All we gotta do is sit here and make sure the critters don't jump 'em from behind. We're almost done here. What do you say, Marines?"

The answer was one resounding shout from the entire company.

"Ooh-rah!"

***

Sora and Kairi crept along a corridor that showed signs of a recent struggle between the soldiers on board and the Heartless. Bullet holes and claw marks marred the walls and floor, and burn marks were scattered about. Both of them had their Keyblade drawn, ready to take down any and all Heartless they encountered.

But they hadn't encountered a single Heartless yet. Not so much as a wounded Shadow. It was as if the creatures had simply elected to disappear. In ten minutes of traversing hallways, hangars, and intersections, they had seen exactly zero Heartless. Kairi had been communicating with the commanders of the Marine defense posts, trying to glean any useful information at all. When she shared what she had learned with Sora, he became as spooked as the Marines.

"You know, it used to be that there was not one world where I could walk around for ten minutes without being swarmed by these things."

Kairi wanted to agree with him, but she knew that he would become too jittery if she did. She was his sole supporter anymore, and he depended on her for stability. Admitting that she was nervous as well would only serve to scare him more. He could face hordes of monsters without batting an eye, but when his enemy was out of sight, he practically trembled in his extra-large shoes. Kairi knew better than to send him into a paranoid tailspin such as that.

"They must be somewhere else in the station. If the Marines see them, they'll let us know. Come on, we've handled worse situations before. This is nothing."

Sora grimaced in his helmet. "I know. I just don't like fighting in tight quarters. I…" His voice trailed off, leaving a thousand-yard stare on his face as a terrible memory replayed itself in his mind.

Seeing his face, Kairi knew what was going through his head. She took a step to comfort him. Instead of hitting the floor again, though, she slowly drifted upwards. Surprised by her unexpected motion, she flailed her arms in an attempt to regain her balance, accidentally hitting Sora in the process. He spun slowly as he was also lifted off the ground.

The feeling of leaving his stomach behind snapped Sora out of his trance. When he rotated to see Kairi again, she was upside-down in the corridor, floating even with his face.

"Sora… why are you on the ceiling?"

"What? You're the one on the ceiling."

Kairi looked around, the slight motion sending her body gyrating in place. "Where did the gravity go?"

They looked at each other for a moment, Kairi's feet brushing the ceiling. They came to an irrefutable conclusion.

"Heartless in the power core."

They both brushed their hands along the walls until they each grasped one of the built-in handholds and pushed off towards the end of the corridor, floating into an intersection where they caught the support in the center and swung into another hallway that led towards the station's main power source. Kairi began alerting the various Marine posts of the new danger as the radio flooded with panicked orders and eventually slowed down into a series of check-ins. All squads were unharmed, just startled by the sudden disappearance of nature's fundamental force.

As Sora floated past another intersection, he recalled his previous statement. Suddenly, the lack of Heartless contact seemed like a beautiful thing. At least he could count on gravity always being turned on. He shook his head at the sound of that thought. He doubted that the station's gravity, or gravity in general, could be controlled by a switch.

He looked over his shoulder to make sure that Kairi was still with him. Good, she was behind him to the left. She pointed to the right side of a Y-intersection ahead, and they swung themselves into the corridor. Ahead was a door marked TO POWER CORE. Around the label, the words RESTRICTED ACCESS were printed in bright red letters. The door appeared unharmed, but the Heartless were very slippery when it came to going through physical barriers.

As they approached, the door opened on cue to let them through. The station's command center must have been tracking them remotely and opened the door for them. Inside, the lights were out. The corridor stretched into blackness. Sora turned around to see Kairi already activating her helmet's built-in light. He did the same, nodded, and floated into the blackness.

A/N: Wow, this was the longest stretch of no updates I've ever had. All the more unfortunate, considering I'm going to be gone for a while over the next two weeks. I'll try to get one more chapter of this up, as well as a chapter of Into the Dust. Hope you liked it!