9. Fall From Heaven
"Sierra Three, Base. Sector Four sweep complete, zero contact. Over."
"Copy Sierra Three, continue sweep into Sectors Five through Seven. Over."
"Roger, continuing sweep."
Kairi had been listening to similar radio chatter for the better part of an hour. She was sitting in the back of one of the Air Force's delta-shaped shuttles, exhausted and worried. Her helmet lay on the seat next to her along the ship's wall, allowing her to run her gloved hands through her hair in frustration. The crew, though amazed that they were flying around with the actual Kairi, left her alone. The pain and worry was obvious on her face.
There had been no contact with Sora since he had been ejected from the station. Not one sensor had registered so much as a peep: radar, optical, infrared… all returned nothing. The radio was silent as well. It was as if he had vanished alongside all the Heartless that had been shot from the station. Nobody had found an errant Heartless, either. Kairi buried her face in her hands. Why were things suddenly disappearing with such frequency?
She had tried to blame herself for Sora's predicament. She wanted to blame herself. It was a mistake to have let him get so far away. General Harris would have called it a 'tactical error'. To Kairi, it was less a matter of flawed tactics as it was a failed responsibility. He may be strong, but he still needed protection occasionally, and Kairi had taken that role for herself. Now she was safe aboard a search and rescue ship while Sora was slowly running out of oxygen somewhere in the void.
However, her reluctant conclusion was that she couldn't have foreseen such a sudden and powerful attack. He hadn't been away from him for much more than ten seconds. Luck had decided to have the Heartless show up at that exact moment of broken formation. It was a quintessential application of Murphy's Law to the real world.
Thinking about her dearest love suffocating in the blackness of space, she wished that she could switch places with him. After everything that he'd done for her, he surely didn't deserve to be in yet another predicament for her, especially one in which he had no control over his own fate. If he had to be in another life-or-death situation, at least let it be one he could fight his way out of. Asphyxiation is difficult to defeat only using the Keyblade.
But then she realized that he'd be in her current situation, namely, sitting in the back of a shuttle wondering if his wife was dead or alive. That was one worry she didn't want him to have. Which was worse: risking her life to secure his safety, or watching him do the same for her? Neither was a good option.
From her seat, Kairi could just see the front window if she strained against her restraints. She wanted to be in the cockpit with the pilots, helping them find Sora in any way possible. But they had been ordered to keep her out of their way, so she resigned to being strapped into one of the seats in back.
In the cockpit, a bulletin came over the administrative frequency. The pilots, who were not accustomed to high-level orders being broadcast directly to them over the admin band, looked at each other in confusion.
"Sierra Team, unknown object about to begin reentry directly below your position. Radar return parameters do not match station debris. Scan and analyze. Over."
The shuttle commander complied, pitching the nose down towards the planet and engaging the full-spectrum scan. Radar, optical, and infrared scanners searched over a huge swathe of area beneath the ship, looking for a medium-sized object at an altitude of about thirty kilometers and descending rapidly. There were replies over the radio that used jargon unfamiliar to Kairi. The basic idea she got from what little she did understand was that the entire shuttle squadron in the area was leaving no figurative stone unturned. If there was so much as a sand grain in the space beneath them, it would be detected by at least three ships.
On a display to the right side of the instrument panel, large objects detected were displayed on a screen with relevant data next to them in small green letters. One small green dot flashed something next to it that Kairi couldn't read. The co-pilot, however, took special notice of it.
"Hey, organic chemicals detected on this one."
The shuttle pilot turned to look at the screen.
"Train yer optics on it. Lesse what we gots."
A large screen came to life in the center of the instrument panel, showing the image from the rescue shuttle's long-range camera. It panned over an archipelago of islands off of Aegis's largest continent before the object came into view. Kairi's heart skipped a beat when she could see that it was distinctly humanoid. The crew, however, continued with trained nonchalance.
"Sierra Three to Base. Humanoid detected. Attempting to raise transponder now. Over."
Seconds later, the co-pilot clenched his fists in triumph.
"Got him. It's Sora."
Kairi nearly fainted.
She was brought back to reality, though, by the co-pilot's next statement.
"Base, he's begun reentry interphase. Space-borne recovery not possible. Over."
Kairi couldn't believe what she had heard. Recovery not possible? What did that mean? Did that really mean that… that Sora would fall to Aegis? There was no way he could survive that fall! Even if he could get through the searing heat, there was still the problem of him falling from space at terminal velocity. Though Sora was tough, surviving that would be absolutely inhuman. Her heart outright rejected what her mind was saying: Sora was going to die.
The co-pilot seemed to share some of Kairi's fear, though much diluted.
"Dammit, we couldn't get him. Now what? How the hell are we going to retake that station?"
The pilot was unfazed. "He's in the new Air Force suit, son."
Incredulous, the young co-pilot stared slack-jawed at his superior. "What the hell good is that going to…?" The pilot cocked his head condescendingly, looking at the inexperienced flyer as though he was the single dumbest person in existence. The co-pilot seemed to get the unspoken message. "Ohhh, right."
***
When Sora finally came to, the first thing he noticed was that there was no gravity. Great. What a perfect way to wake up. I fight off hundreds of Heartless just to end up in vacuum. Ugh, somebody upstairs must have it in for me. I wonder if-
Kairi!
He looked around in a panic, trying to find his love. She was nowhere in sight. When he caught view of the station, it was barely more than a twinkle in the darkness. The light reflecting off of its metal surfaces bleached all the color out of it at this distance. His helmet display had shut down, so he had no way of telling exactly how far he was from it. All he knew was that it was a really, really long way. If something looked far away in space, it was at least ten times farther away than it seemed. He could only guess how far Kairi had gotten.
The incident in the Outer Ring kept replaying itself in his mind. He should never have strayed so far from her, even for a second. Considering his luck, it was fortunate that they had both survived the initial attack. Whether his sudden and powerful Strike Raid on the mob of Shadows had been a good idea or not was still to be determined. If she survived, he would conclude that while it may not have been the ideal course of action, it was still a good idea.
After some time of frantic search, Sora figured out that he was moving at a very high speed. Because he was not accelerating and didn't have anything to judge himself against, it was not immediately obvious. However, he looked back at the station and saw that it had gotten much smaller in a short time. He was speeding away from the station, away from rescue, and away from Kairi. He flailed him limbs in a panic, trying and failing to slow himself down.
Above him, he could see small dots moving around. They weren't Gummi ships; those were more colorful. They looked like Air Force shuttles. Why were shuttles roaming the sky now? It was far too dangerous. Wait – hadn't General Harris told him that the Air Force had reassigned some old shuttles to Search and Rescue duty? Were those little pinpricks looking for him?
He tried his radio, but it was dead. Irritated, he brought up the emergency power display. The rapid decompression, coupled with debris impact, had damaged much of his equipment. For power-saving purposes, the only two things shown as active were his emergency locator transponder and something labeled 'Emergency Recovery System', whatever that was. Sora could find no way to activate it from the display, much to his dismay. An emergency system isn't much good if I can't activate it when I need it!
After some time (had it been just a few minutes or an hour?), Sora could feel himself speeding up. Wherever he was going, he didn't want to get there any faster. He tried to think of some way to slow himself down. With a sudden realization, he summoned his Keyblade. Gotta think of a spell that shoots forward. Maybe I can use it to slow myself down if I point it so that it pushes me away from wherever I'm going. One of the N-guy's laws, right? Notown? No, Now, New, Newton! That's it! Which number? One? Three? How many are there, anyway? Man, I always sucked at physics…
Pointing the Keyblade in the direction he was going, he thought of his spell. Summoning his reserves of concentration, Sora cast his spell.
"Deep freeze!"
Ice crystals shot forward into the blackness, disintegrating several meters away from him. The Keyblade kicked back at him, slowing his progress somewhat. He felt a small rush of euphoria at his discovery. However, the rush was short-lived, for he could feel himself speeding up again. In his frustration and despair, he simply went limp. Exhaustion had taken its toll. The long time struggling against space coupled with fighting aboard the Marathon in his armored suit had drained his energy.
As he sped up, he felt a small bump. Looking around, he saw nothing. The only thing he felt was a slight heat penetrating the suit. It was nothing serious, just a bit of extra warmth. Considering how hot and sweaty he already was, he was not surprised he was having heat flashes. His concern only came in when the heat didn't go away. Instead, it grew more intense with each passing second.
Sora looked to his sides, trying to find the source of the heat. He was shocked to see his shoulders glowing a pale orange, starkly contrasting with the drab gray of the rest of the suit. He looked straight up and made a shocking discovery: he was going into reentry upside-down and head first.
The bump must have been him hitting the very edge of the atmosphere. Now he was beginning to fall back to the planet like a spaceship from before the discovery of Gummi blocks. The vital difference was that Sora didn't have a heat shield. Though his suit was climate-controlled and heat-resistant, it couldn't withstand the inferno of deorbiting. He'd be cooked before he hit the stratosphere. If that miraculously didn't happen, he'd still be hurtling towards the ground at upwards of 150 kilometers per hour. Given the choice, I'd take the 'hitting the ground' option. Burning to death sounds so painful. Well, I guess I'm going to find out, aren't I? I don't wanna die! Not here. Not now. I have so much left to do! This isn't fair! I… I…
I just hope Kairi is okay.
He would have shed a small tear, but he was rocked by a thick layer of air that knocked him unconscious as he impacted it. His limp form continued its descent, building a brighter and hotter aura around him. If he had been conscious, he would have heard a mechanical female voice in his helmet speakers.
"Initiating Emergency Recovery System."
The back panel of Sora's armor was jettisoned, followed quickly by a small circular drogue chute. The chute's line twanged taut, instantly decelerating Sora. He was snapped around by the small metal cable, changing his descent to a feet-first fall. There was still some noticeable fire around his boots, but it was far less intense than the glowing around his helmet and shoulders.
He fell and fell, slowed by the drogue chute behind him. As the atmosphere thickened, the fire returned, burning more intensely than ever. With the new fire came a second chute, unfurling from its super-compressed state. Again, the heat dissipated as Sora's speed was gradually reduced. Though he was no longer burning, impact with the ground would still be fatal at this speed.
As he approached the surface, a final parachute deployed. Unlike the first two, it was a full parachute, designed to slow his impact to a manageable speed. It would still be painfully fast, though. The chutes had to be light and small enough to be compacted into the small back panel on the armor. The thin fabric, lined with a silvery metal, unfurled in the early morning sun, its arching rectangular shape reflecting the orange rays in every direction.
Sora, who had been unconscious for the entire descent, awoke to see rolling hills below him, the valleys between scattered with small towns. To his right, the hills gave way to a small strip of flat land next to the ocean. The sun was just beginning to poke out from below the horizon. On his helmet display, the word ALTITUDE was shown above a steadily decreasing number of meters. Sora looked up to see the giant silver parachute above him. He looked down and saw his boots dangling in midair above the coastline. He could only thing one thing.
Why do I always wake up in the weirdest situations?
***
Kairi ran off the Gummi ship towards the small base complex. She had spent the last four hours trying to get off the rescue shuttle and onto a ship that could land on the surface. The shuttles, while quick and agile in orbit, couldn't fly in the atmosphere. She had come very close to threatening the shuttle crew if they didn't take her to someplace where she could get a ride to the surface. Word had spread about the incident on the Marathon, and nobody was stupid enough to get between her and Sora.
She wasn't entirely sure how he had survived. The pilots of both the shuttle and the Gummi ship kept saying something about the new Air Force suit he was in. Kairi assumed there must be a new feature in it. She and Sora were scheduled for a training session sometime next month. Would it have been about this new feature?
The instant she saw the gray suit, however, all other thoughts were pushed out of her mind. Jumping to the ground, she ran from the Gummi ship pad to the small cohort of medics and guards that surrounded Sora. The guards formed a human wall to check her advance, and it took all of Kairi's effort and better judgment to not plow through them. If they were keeping her away form Sora, they must have a good reason for it.
As if in cue, the guard in the center explained his actions. "He's been slightly wounded from his descent. His right femur was broken and he has two cracked ribs. Other than that, he's alright. Just don't expect him to be able to support your weight.
Kairi looked between the guards. Sure enough, he was leaning on a crutch with his leg armor being disassembled. The torso segment was already gone; medics had gotten to work wrapping his chest in supportive bandages. Promising to not hurt him, Kairi walked forward to her husband, restraining herself from wrapping him in her arms and squeezing. He didn't need any more cracked ribs.
Sora could sense Kairi's longing and took action himself. With his one free arm, he pulled her close and planted his lips firmly on hers. She reciprocated, making sure not to touch his torso. She simply let his arm support her, no small feat considering the amount of armor she was still in. They didn't move for what seemed like an eternity, both rejoicing in the fact that the other was still alive and mostly unharmed. Neither had truly believed that the other would survive. Tears began to fall from both of them. They were still 'them'. Nobody was leaving anyone else yet.
***
General Harris stood smugly in the darkened videoconference room of his headquarters. He was the one that had insisted on the new modifications to the Air Force's vacuum suit, so technically he had saved Sora's life. Normally, he was not one to let his accomplishments go to his head, but this was absolutely monumental. Saving a Keybearer? For that to happen, there first needed to be a Keybearer, which only happened once every century at best. The odds were long to begin with.
He snickered to himself. Mommy always told me I'd do something important someday.
The giant display flickered to life, interrupting his comedic reverie. On it, there was a shaky picture of Sora as he was being transported to a local hospital for further care for his fall. The mobile videoconference screen, though handy, was not particularly stable, leading to some mild nausea among watchers with weak stomachs.
Harris turned on his earpiece-microphone combo. "Sora, do you read me?"
Sora nodded, his fingertips pressing against his own earpiece. "Loud and clear-ish, General. You're coming in a bit fuzzy."
"Is it a problem?"
"Not at all."
The General shifted his microphone. "Well then, I'm glad you're alive. I trust you enjoyed my new parachute system?"
"Everything except the landing."
Harris allowed himself a small laugh. "It's meant to save your life, Sora, not to be comfortable."
"It broke my leg."
"But you aren't dead. That's the important part. Besides, you'll be able to get that healed fairly quickly. I hear the local healer around there is quite talented. She'll get you fixed up in no time. So stop being such a baby."
Sora's face scrunched in irritation. "Is there something important you have to tell me, General? I know these videoconference sessions aren't cheap."
Harris nodded his head, his face taking on a grave expression. "As a matter of fact, yes. While your actions aboard the Marathon saved Kairi and yourself, it sparked simultaneous Heartless attacks at all defensive locations the Marines had set up. Whatever you did, it sure pissed them off. They broke through in many places, taking the command center and other vital points. We're still picking up lifeboats, but the projected station survival rate is below 15 percent. Most ODN and Navy personnel were lost, along with almost every Marine on board. The Marathon now belongs to the Heartless."
Eyes wide in disbelief, Sora turned to his right to listen to an indistinguishable voice from off-screen. After a few seconds, he replied. "Less than 15 percent. We've lost the station." There was a barely audible gasp, which the general recognized as belonging to Kairi.
Wanting to clarify the facts, Harris spoke up again. "This was the predicted outcome from the beginning, Sora. We never actually expected you to be able to hold that station. Your deployment was a last-ditch effort to stave off the inevitable." He saw a slightly offended expression come across the Keybearer's face. "Sora, we could have sent every Special Forces team in Aegis to that station and you wouldn't have been able to hold it. There were simply too many. Frankly, I'm surprised you didn't have to jump out a station airlock five minutes after you got there."
"Very funny, General."
"I'm serious. That was going to be my evacuation recommendation. No way was I going to risk you fighting your way back to a potentially infested hangar bay."
Sora's face displayed an expression of pure shock. "So wait… you expected me to jump?"
Harris nodded with a smirk. "Why else give you an Air Force suit when you were going to be amongst Marines?"
Silence. Then, "I'd been wondering about that."
"Well, now you have your answer." A technician knocked at the door of the videoconference room. Harris invited her in, curious as to what was so important that he would be interrupted in the middle of a videoconference with Sora. The gray-clad tech handed Harris a small memory chip, whispering something in his one uncovered ear. He nodded, returning his attention to Sora.
"I've just been handed a transmission from SkyEye. I'm told it has unusual content. We'll resume this conference from the base VC room when you've been released from the hospital."
The spiky-haired Keyblade master nodded once, then turned off his camera, leaving the screen black with small white test reading NO INPUT in the middle of the display. Harris walked to a nearby console, examining the chip as he went, trying to divine its secrets before he had to wait for the computer to display it. He slid the small black memory chip into a slot on the computer.
The screen's display changed from small error text in the center to a computer-to-computer communiqué with the SkyEye emblem watermarked in the center of the screen. Harris eyes scanned the green text, widening as he read further. When he finished reading the message, he ran out of the room, leaving the display on.
***
INCOMING TRANSMISSION
…
BEGIN DECRYPTION
…
…
…
DECRYPTION COMPLETE. CONTENTS:
Report: Long-Range Sensor Satellite 03 Sentry
Status: Solar Panel #3 Damaged – Replacement Necessary
Priority: Important
/ALERT!
/ANOMALOUS WARP JUMP DETECTED
RANGE: approx. 1.7 x 10^13 km
MASS: 680,000,000 – 750,000,000 kg
COMPOSITION:
- (NO DATA – OUT OF RANGE)
CONCLUSION: GUMMI SHIP FLEET-WIDE JUMP
RECOMMENDATION: BRING ALL FORCES TO READINESS LEVEL ALPHA.
INITIATE ORBITAL BLOCKADE.
EVACUATE NON-COMBAT PERSONNEL FROM ORBITAL PLATFORMS.
PREPARE NUCLEAR MINE-LAYING CRAF%7
--WARNING! HIGH-SPEED MASS INBOUND!
--ORIGIN: ODN PLATFORM Marathon
…
$$.":+=
…
*
CONTACT LOST.
CONNECTION TERMINATED AT HOST