June 12
There were two Galbadian soldiers standing along the wall of the conference room in addition to the four who escorted Keri and her teammates into it. From this, she supposed the Galbadians thought the three of them a serious enough threat – even unarmed – that subtlety was a matter of secondary concern. That, or they were very interested in reminding the SeeDs of how much potentially hostile muscle they were surrounded by.
Either way, she sensed that very little good was likely to result from the encounter.
It was barely after dawn, and the SeeDs had yet to begin their work for the day; they had been summoned virtually straight out of their bunks by their supervisor, in what Tavin had guessed was a tactic by the Galbadians to throw them off guard.
In addition to their direct supervisor, the intelligence officer whose name Keri hadn't bothered to learn, there was a man whose uniform identified him as the vessel's captain and a woman in civilian clothes who was probably a government representative. All of them looked particularly stern.
As they were trained, the SeeDs stepped up to the opposite side of the table, and saluted. "At ease," said the captain.
"I'm sure you're wondering why you've been summoned here at this time," said the intelligence officer. Keri noted that they weren't being asked to sit.
None of the SeeDs replied, although the officer waited for one. After a short time, the second man broke in. "I'm Commander Darman," he said, "the captain of this vessel. Based on your directions, my ship has been all though north Centra – and some less-than-friendly waters – but somehow the target we're after keeps slipping away. So in plain language, I want to know why the hell that is."
"We're pursuing them to the best of our ability," said Tavin. "They're proving to be extremely good at covering their tracks."
"Good enough that four operatives of Garden can't track them down, with nearly a full week to do it?" asked the woman.
"We feel we're making progress," said Tavin. "Their vessel is damaged; they can't be far."
"Assuming you've been leading us in the right direction," Darman said. Tavin narrowed his eyes at her, but she didn't give her an opportunity to respond.
The woman looked to Keri. "How do you explain the fact that you have been operating on nothing but speculation as to the whereabouts of the target even after discovering evidence of their recent presence in the area as of 10 June?"
Keri noted that, so far, everyone was being careful not to give any mention of what their "target" was. Tavin had instructed the other SeeDs not to speak up with Keri's hypothesis, though he'd made clear he nonetheless intended to get the Galbadians to verify it. Somehow. "Our target has shown an innate familiarity with the north Centra region," she said, "which we simply don't have for ourselves. Moreover, weather conditions here make it difficult to use conventional surveillance techniques, limiting the effectiveness of our search. That doesn't leave us much except our own informed guesses."
"Which could stand to be more informed," Sean interjected.
Their supervisor leaned forward, frowning. "I've heard this complaint before. Are you saying the only reason you haven't completed your assignment is because we have withheld information from you?"
"Well, we can't know that, sir, unless we've seen the information," said Tavin. "Which we haven't. You've been asking us to solve a puzzle with half the pieces marked as classified; and the reason you've been hearing the complaint before is because it's been a problem for us ever since we set foot on this boat."
"So you fill the gaps with your own imaginations," said the woman, accusingly.
"We don't have anything else to fill them with," replied Tavin. Keri held back a wince at this; she felt as if they were walking into a trap, though she wasn't quite sure what it was.
"You aren't here to speculate," said the captain. "You're here to point us to the target so we can take it out. Now that's a job I haven't seen you doing yet."
"With respect," Tavin began – and Keri could easily identify the low growl in his voice – "the more information we have, the easier our job is. If you want the job done fast, then you give us all the information you've got."
"So it's our fault that you haven't met your objective," said the intelligence officer. "You can say this without even having seen the classfied data to know what it contains."
"It's impossible for us to know whether the data would help us or not," said Mara. "But you can't know that either. Why not give us the benefit of the doubt?"
"The information is classified," said the intelligence officer. "Why do you want to see it so badly?"
"We just told you," snapped Sean. "Look, ships don't leave tire tracks. You want us to find them, we've gotta anticipate where they're going to be tomorrow, not just where they were yesterday. The only way to do that is to have as much information as we can, so we can figure out what they're going to do before they're going to do it. And right now, we can't, because their behavior doesn't match any kind of logical pattern that follows the information you've given us about them!"
"Meaning?" the intelligence officer prodded.
"Meaning these guys are either completely insane, or there's something big you're not telling us."
Now it was the civilian woman's turn to lean forward. "What you should know," she said, "is that failure to exercise proper discretion in the performance of your duty will have serious repercussions for our government's relationship with your organization – and for you, personally.
"You threatening us?" Tavin demanded. "Look, if these –" he hesitated for a split second – "targets were so easy to catch, you would have done it yourselves. What do you expect if you keep us in the dark like this?"
"What we can expect —" began the captain.
"We can expect you to pursue your objective with the full measure of commitment," said their supervisor, cutting off the captain. Keri's eyebrow twitched; simple pride dictated that the Galbadians wouldn't admit that SeeD was a more capable body than their own military, and one potentially effective retort would go a long way toward confirming the four SeeDs' suspicions. Some of the Galbadians seemed more aware of this fact than others.
"And just why do you think we wouldn't?" Tavin demanded. "A job is a job. The target could be Edea Kramer for all we care – hell, it was once. The only thing that matters is accomplishing the mission."
Keri was surprised by Tavin's outburst; self-control wasn't his strongest trait, but his particular words were unexpected—and he was a little too effective in seeming believable.
Sean was apparently surprised as well, and expressed his feelings more vocally. "What did you say?" he demanded, provoking a wince from Keri and a near-murderous glare from Tavin. The Galbadians looked just a tad bit nonplussed.
"Shut up," Tavin said. "I'm speaking for the team here."
"Sounds like you're speaking for them," said Sean indignantly.
"Shut up!" Tavin shouted. "This is our mission! We're SeeDs!"
"Oh, please," said the captain.
Tavin turned on him again. "You want us to track down your prey for you blindfolded and with a hand tied behind our back! If you had half a brain between the three of you, you wouldn't need to bother asking why they're slipping away!"
"That's enough!" the woman said. I've seen all I need to. Your mission is terminated."
"Great," said Sean, tone stuck halfway between sarcasm and general hostility. "Well, thanks, this has been really productive. And fun!"
"I want them off my ship," said the captain.
"You'll be transported to a cutter and returned to the port at South Lanker," said the officer. "Immediately."
"Brilliant," said Tavin. "So we just blew five days on some stupid gold chocobo hunt? And you think now your targets will just magically appear right in front of you?"
The captain snorted. "Please. Without you blocking us, we'll find your friends in no time – and string them up for all you Garden types to see, teach you damn SeeDs a real —"
"Darman!" The officer and the woman had already realized what had happened. So did Keri, who was too caught up even to notice who had interrupted the captain. For his part, the captain stopped cold.
"You bastards," Sean breathed.
The officer turned to the captain and muttered something harsh to him. Then, as the captain turned and left, the woman turned to the officer and muttered something harsh to him. Then she left as well. The officer turned back to the SeeDs.
"You don't know anything," he growled. "You can't prove anything. And if you say anything, it will be bad for Garden, and very bad for you."
Then he left as well, as did all but two of the guards.
"...Hyne," said Keri.
"Idiots," said Tavin.
- - - -
Squall lay on his back, staring through the canopy of trees at the moon hanging overhead. It had to be after midnight by now, but as tired as he felt, he couldn't sleep. He'd eaten a decent meal that evening for the first time in what seemed like years, but his headache hadn't gone away and he felt a little like throwing up. Even the moon looked unsettling; well into its gibbous phase, its distorted oblong form was giving him thoughts about the warped reality of Time Compression, or Rinoa in a spacesuit drifting off into vacuum.
This is ridiculous, he thought. I've got enough problems now without reliving old ones.
He sat up. Rinoa was lying not two meters away, apparently asleep. Since evening, her waking moments – if those were what they had been – had faded away; her pulse and breathing remained normal enough, so Squall could only hope she had finally managed some genuine rest.
Seifer was sitting against a tree, facing him. Squall flinched — he must be more tired than he had realized, as he'd forgotten about Seifer completely. Now that he thought about it, everything fit together: Seifer had led them to this relatively thick patch of trees, provided a soup concoction for their meal — they had tried to feed some to Rinoa, but she mostly coughed it back up. Had Fujin and Raijin been there too? He thought they might now be off standing lookout, but this memory was vague enough that he might have imagined it. He had barely been paying attention to any of this, having been too tired and distracted to ask or even formulate the dozens of questions that now ran through his mind.
"Trouble sleeping?" Seifer asked.
"..." Squall pressed both hands to his forehead and willed the throbbing in his forehead to go away, without success. "...Seifer."
"Yeah?"
"What are you doing here?"
"Right now? I'm standing watch," Seifer said flippantly. "Well, right now I'm taking a break."
"Seifer." Squall was trying to sound impatient, but the result spoke more to exhaustion.
"Hey." Seifer shrugged, nodding at Rinoa. "I told you I'd find her." There his attitude failed; he stood, and started to pace, eyes focused on nothing. "Except I couldn't. I got some of the archives of the post where she was captured, but it didn't make sense. I figured they'd send her to D-District, or keep her in Timber for an execution. Instead they shipped her off to some secret facility. I couldn't even figure out where. Or why. But, then I start hearing things about a Sorceress on the loose, heading this way." He stopped, leaning against another tree. "I've spent a lot of time around here. I can get around pretty well." Now he looked at Squall. "So how'd you find her? I thought you were stuck in Garden's gilded cage."
Squall half-thought Seifer had intended that last remark as a jab at him, but it didn't come across in the delivery. "...I was on a mission," he said quietly. "At the same facility where she..." He trailed off. This was the first time he had tried to put into words what had happened on Battleship Island. And the first time he had even tried to talk to anyone about it since.
"They tortured her," he said. "This scientist...he called it research." The word caught in his throat. I don't know how much trouble the others...I didn't...I couldn't just let that happen!"
Seifer stood frozen for a moment, seeming frighteningly calm. "...Yeah," he said eventually. "I kinda figured it was something like that." He took a step or two away from the tree, but was starting to look more than a little off-balance; he raised a hand to his head and stood there for a longer moment. Then he spun around and drove his fist into the tree, hard enough that Squall felt the force of the strike reverberate through the ground. "Dammit!"
Squall watched as Seifer sank back to the ground; he looked at Rinoa, who looked unchanged. Seifer, for his part, looked tremendously more drained. "Well," he said. "It's good she had her hero to ride to her rescue."
"Now it was Squall's turn to look at the ground. "...I'm nobody's hero," he said.
He told Seifer about Quistis and Zell. And the clinic. He told Seifer how lost he felt, and how little he knew about where he could go or what he could do. Seifer listened, silently, and took it all in.
"Doesn't feel too good, does it?" he finally asked.
"What?" asked Squall.
"Having to betray things" – he hesitated – "and people you care about for something you think you care about more."
Squall's eyes narrowed. "'Think'?"
Seifer nodded. "I turned on Garden – and Rinoa – for me. You didn't – you ran off 'cause you wanted to protect them. So congratulations, Commander – you're not me. But you're close enough. You didn't trust your friends enough to let them in on what was going on, or you didn't think about them enough to get the idea. And because of that, there's no one you can turn to for help, and Hyne only knows what they think of you now." He spread his hands in a 'there you have it' gesture. "Welcome to my life."
Squall couldn't think of anything to say to that; he leaned his head back against the tree, then slumped over to his side. "...So tired."
Seifer stood. "Don't let the bed-bugs bite," he said, before walking off to, presumably, stand sentry.
Squall closed his eyes. He felt even more drained than before, and the nausea remained. But his headache was all but gone, and he finally thought he could manage to sleep.