June 10

"Foster!"

When Miranda had arrived in the Dollet Times' newsroom late in the morning, the level of activity there had already risen to a frenzy. Dissected copies of the day's paper had been pinned up along the wall, with notes scribbled on nearby whiteboards about what stories tomorrow's paper should follow up on, and how. Though it was not even noon yet, the front-page headline, GALBADIA RAISES NATIONAL ALERT CONTITION - GOVERNMENT RESPONDS TO UNKNOWN THREAT, had already generated enough notes to require two additional boards.

"How's it going, Blake?" she asked, changing course to join the man who had shouted her name. "Look, I had this idea over breakfast on the Howen thing, so I stopped by the Records Office on the way here, and I've got it! It's pretty well buried, but there's documented evidence that Deling's people gave him a big cash deposit right before the attack on Dollet! It doesn't say what for, of course, but considering all the stuff we already have about Howen betraying military secrets to Galbadia, this is a perfect last piece for the puzzle!"

"Foster —"

"Now I can call his people up for reactions right away, work out the rest of the article over lunch – I already have a draft right here – and be done by this evening so we can run the article tomorrow!" She glanced at the headline pinned up on the wall. "That is, if there's any room left in the paper after this Galbadia stuff."

Blake seemed less enthusiastic. "Look, Foster..."

"Hey, I know you gave me until the end of the week," she continued, "but I figure if we can run with this sooner, it's that much better! We've already waited half a month for this follow-up; why drag it out even longer? And besides, I had this other idea that I kind of wanted to go after, so –"

"Foster, shut up for a second." Blake waited to make sure she would actually do so before continuing. "One of your sources is saying you coerced him into giving a false statement."

Miranda blinked. "You've got to be kidding. Who said that?"

"Burgon, the guy from the campaign office."

"That's insane. I didn't do a thing to him; he was kind of nervous, but I didn't even have to lean on the guy."

"Well, he's telling a different story. Did you tape the interview?"

Miranda shook her head. "He wouldn't let me."

"Well, see, we've got a problem, then. Don't get me wrong, I'm guessing the Galbadians just got to him and gave him some dos and don'ts of press relations. Still, even assuming we don't cite him as a source, we could get hammered if we run the story now." He shrugged. "Besides, with this whole NALCON-3 thing having everyone on edge, we probably couldn't have run the article anyway."

"Terrific," Miranda huffed. "I finally get a break on this thing, and it gets knocked out by some stupid national emergency." She paused. "Hey, if the whole article's on hold, does that mean I'm free to check out something else?"

Blake frowned. "Well, we're not going to give up the story forever, you know. We just need to wait until —"

"See, there's this other story I've been wanting to check out for a while," interrupted Miranda, ignoring Blake's rather exasperated expression. "The thing about the pirate ship the Navy was chasing down south? Galbadia's been acting really weird about it, and I've got this feeling that there's something else going on down there."

"Foster..." Blake rolled his eyes.

"I'm not asking for much; I can do the whole investigation myself, and I'll cover all my own expenses. Just say the word, and I can get started right away."

"Foster, we've already got something going on with Galbadia." Blake motioned to the whiteboard. "Even if you could find something, we wouldn't have anywhere to run it. Plus you're only a junior reporter, and we don't usually give out big jobs like this to people who haven't even graduated from college. Besides, we're already in enough trouble over the way we're covering the partisans; the last thing we need is to get the G-men too annoyed at us in the middle of the biggest story of the year."

Miranda looked at him with an expression termed best as disappointment. "Hyne, Blake, usually you can at least come up with good ways to say no." Blake sighed, but could not even get out a 'Foster...' before she pressed on. "I mean, for all we know, this business down south is why Galbadia upped the NALCON, and if we don't follow up on it, inside of a week we won't have any news worth printing. And since when did you care what the Galbadian government thought of our stories?"

"Since they threatened to shut us down, Miranda. Didn't you read that memo?" Blake hesitated a moment, and his tone softened. "Look, this isn't fun for me. But we can't just go around causing trouble at a time like this."

Miranda scoffed. "I'm a reporter, Blake. It's my job to cause trouble."

"Foster!" snapped Blake. "You should know better than to go spouting off things like —"

"Okay, fine. It's my job to find out the truth about things that affect the lives of our readers, whether or not it might annoy the people who are occupying our country. I'm not going to sit on my hands just to appease the Galbadians, for crying out loud! I'm going after this story; and if you won't let me, I'll quit."

This surprised Blake enough to keep him silent for a few seconds. "You're out of your mind."

"I'll get a job at the IFP or something. I'm dead serious about this, Blake. Look, I was incredibly lucky to land this spot at the Times, but if the paper's gonna censor itself to make the Galbadians happy, then I'm gone."

Blake heaved what was probably the biggest sigh he had ever made. "Foster," he said, "...I'm starting to see how you got from intern to politics correspondent inside of six months."

Miranda watched him expectantly.

He threw up his hands. "Go for it. I'll probably get fired for this, and if Galbadia decides to burn down the building or anything, I plan to say it was all your fault, so don't thank —"

"Thanks, Blake!" Miranda was halfway to her desk before Blake could finish the sentence.

Keri was usually quite a morning person, having done most of her coursework as a student before any of her roommates had awakened to distract her. However, circumstances such as the time zone and unforgiving schedule set by the Galbadians were having a rather negative impact on her morale, which manifested itself in the form of perpetual drowsiness. All in all, it wasn't a very fun thing.

"So there are, what, twenty-three thousand islands in this archipelago?" asked Sean, who was hunched over a display screen. "And the pirates could be hiding on any one of them, if they're even here anymore. There's gotta be a better way to look for them than just throwing up search balloons and hoping they spot something."

"Like what?" Mara asked.

"The balloons are looking down from something like five miles up in the air," said Keri, absently playing with a pen. "They can see a lot of different islands from that high. And they did launch, like, thirty balloons."

"Still, there's gotta be something that doesn't involve us staring at a bunch of pictures of tiny little islands looking for some stupid ship-shaped dot," Sean pressed. "I can't tell a thing from these stupid images, anyway. How am I supposed to guess what's a ship and what's just some really weird-shaped rock?"

"Oh, quit your whining," Tavin snapped. "It's our job to find the pirates, not sit here and bitch about it."

Sean glared. "Look, man, why don't you —"

"Sean, shut up," Keri declared, yawning. "If you want respect, quit acting like such a whiner." She stood, an effort that, considering her drowsiness, took a considerably greater force of willpower than it normally would. "I'll take over if you really can't handle it."

"Hmph," Sean replied indignantly; but he did relinquish the monitor station without any delay. Keri sat down and began scanning through the images being transmitted by the Galbadian search balloons. It required a considerable effort on her part simply to focus on the screen enough to make the islands appear as something other than a big spotted blur.

"I don't suppose we can control the altitude of these balloons at all?" Mara asked. "Number 18's flown into a cloud or something; I can barely see anything on this screen."

Keri shook her head. "Not that I know of. They are balloons, after all."

"Right." Mara turned her attention to another of the display screens. Almost immediately, she frowned. "...Hey. There's something weird on one of these islands."

"What is it?" Tavin demanded, immediately hovering over her shoulder.

Mara shrugged. "Not a ship, I don't think. Unless they took it apart and dragged it onto the beach, anyway. But that really looks like some kind of debris."

"Which island is it?" asked Keri.

"I don't think it has a name," replied Mara, glancing at a map legend. "It's the one in grid J-14 on the feed from Number 20."

With an effort to set aside her drowsiness, Keri called up the data from the specified balloon and zoomed in on the island in question. "That does look like some kind of wreckage," she said. "It can't be enough for the whole ship, though; maybe it broke up and that stuff washed ashore?"

"We sure it's from the pirates, though?" asked Tavin.

"I don't know how we could be," Keri said. "I mean, boat wreckage looks like boat wreckage, especially from five miles up."

"Hold on," said Mara. "If that stuff just washed ashore, shouldn't it have washed up on more islands than just that one?"

"You've got a point." Keri frowned. "...That island looks like it's got a pretty nice beach, there. Maybe they stopped to make repairs, then left."

"Okay, I'm telling the Galbadians," Tavin said. "And keep looking; if they stopped to make repairs after escaping the Galbadian fleet, they can't be far from there now."

Keri held back a yawn. "You bet. We'll be down here, putting our SeeD training to good use by staring at video screens all day."

"Hey," said Sean. "I was gonna say something sort of like that."

This revelation hit Keri relatively hard. "...Hyne, I need a nap," she said.