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Final Fantasy VI: The Sands of Time
Book 1: The Beginning
Chapter 2 - City of Dreams
Part 2.2 - Phantom in the Night
Dune's agitated sleep was cut short by a sudden shaking that resounded throughout the whole room. What was going on? Was he dreaming again? Where was the crystal? Dune sat straight up and peered in the direction of his shirt just in time to see a dark figure stooping over it. The shadow saw him and dashed out of the room with remarkable speed, quickly shutting the door behind it. Dune could not make out what the figure was in the darkness, but it had definitely had an interest in his shirt, and that could only mean it knew about the crystal. Perhaps it had already taken it! The room was still shaking violently, but Dune tried his best to get up and get to his shirt. He grabbed his cane and quickly got out of the bed. The shaking was too much for him in his condition though, and he immediately fell to the floor, his cane rattling to the floor beside him. The thought of losing the crystal forced him forwards though. He crawled forward to the chair as fast as he could and reached up to grab a piece of the shirt that was hanging off the seat. He tore at the shirt like a madman searching for the crystal, the idea that it could be gone driving him into a frenzy. Success! The cold aura of the crystal met his fingers and he pulled it from its pocket to make sure it was really there. He clumsily rolled the crystal between his fingers, the shaking making it difficult to examine. He couldn't see or feel anything except the coldness in the darkness of his room, but he knew that the object in his hands was indeed his crystal. The bond that had formed between them was an unmistakable feeling, and he knew from its presence alone that it was real.
His lust momentarily quenched, he put the crystal back in its pocket and put his shirt on. His scientist's curiosity was coming back now, and he was determined to see what all this shaking was about. He grabbed his cane from the floor and staggered out of the room and down the corridor to the stairs...no the lift would be better in this situation. The lights were still out and only the dim blinking of the various control panels on the walls lit his way. He would never be able to make it up the stairs in this. He got on the lift and pressed the button for the bridge with the head of his cane. The Captain would know what was going on, and he would certainly be on the bridge giving orders by now. Slightly comforted by his confidence in the Captain's abilities, he carefully leaned on his cane and caught his breath while the lift slowly and shakily made its way to the bridge on the fifth floor. As the lift passed the fourth floor foyer, Dune caught a glimpse in the dim lighting of the sliding doors closing and a shadowy figure rapidly gliding between them and into the space beyond. It was that apparition again! Where was it going? The fourth floor was the cargo bay for the loading and unloading of all large equipment and vehicles. Was it trying to make an escape? Dune was tempted to stop the lift and see, but he felt it was more important to get to the Captain and see what the situation was before trailing the unknown intruder. Besides, the cargo bay doors could only be opened from the bridge, and the intruder couldn't possibly escape even if the doors were open. It was a thirty meter drop from the doors without the ramp being extended. What was it planning on doing? Dune's mind was filled with these thoughts when the lift stopped at the bridge and the sliding doors opened.
Even the bridge was bathed in relative darkness, with the dim lights from the dozens of buzzing workstations and the pale glow of the moons filtering in through the glass mixing to form an eerie scene. The workers where busily running from one work station to the other, but they were doing so silently and with much care, due to the extremely limited lighting and steady shaking. To Dune's eyes it looked like a macabre play, with the workers appearing as barely visible specters dancing in between the glowing faces of the workstation panels. He was taken aback for a moment, but his senses came back to him when he heard the Captain's voice yell out from one of the workstations.
"Dune! What the hell are ya doing here!" You should be in bed in your condition! Get the hell out of here!" He was more irritated than usual, and it seem as if something unusual was certainly happening on board the Figaro. This was the first time Dune had seen the Captain anywhere on the bridge other than up in the front in his usual position, giving orders to the rest of the crew.
"Captain, sir, what is going on? What is causing this vibration?" Dune yelled out across the bridge. He was not going to leave without some kind of explanation.
"You fool of a scientist! You're the geologist around here, you tell us! The entire area within a mile radius just started shaking about five minutes ago and hasn't stopped since. It was all we could do to keep the Figaro from falling over-Dammit! Not like that! More ballast to the quarter hold! Get that line set up right so we can have some damn light in here!" The Captain's explanation had trailed off into a heated string of commands to the unlucky crewman next to him. The Captain was no longer paying any attention to Dune. Dune didn't dare argue with him in the current situation, and he had gotten as much information from the Captain as he was going to get anyways.
Dune took one last look at the bridge for any clues as to what was going on, and then turned to leave. Before he got to the lift, though, he remembered the shadowy figure he had seen and thought it would be wise to let the Captain know. He rushed back into the bridge to tell him, but as soon as he stepped foot into the room a violent explosion rocked the Figaro. Pieces of debris large and small could be seen flying up and hitting the outside of the glass shield of the bridge from the floor below and then a huge black cloud of smoke rose up and blanketed the outside view, cloaking the bridge in almost total darkness. Small wisps of smoke swiftly poured into the bridge through cracks in the shield, making it difficult for anyone to see anything. A moment later a projectile of some kind cut a path through the smoke from below and wound its way up through the billowing black mass, the flames from its engines lighting its path through the darkness for all to see. It broke through the cloud, strings of smoke still clinging to its sides, and spiraled off away from the Figaro. The object quickly faded from sight, leaving a trail of exhaust behind it for miles. The Captain was quick to respond to this new threat, and changed his string of commands mid-sentence with the fluidity of many years in the position of being in charge.
"-The hell? Someone get a tracking signal on that thing! Don't let it out of your sight! That looked like one of ours, so one of you get your asses down to the cargo bay and check the registration logs to see which one he took. He won't get away from me that easily!" A single crew member silently leaped from his console and dashed out the door. The Captain quickly swiveled around on his wooden leg to face a group of crewmen huddled around another workstation. "You three! Get down there and help him. Get a damage report and get those flames under control ASAP!" He swiveled again, "You there, get the air turrets working and clear this blasted smoke off the shield! And would someone get that damn line set up right so we can tell our asses from our faces!" The Captain was spinning like a top now. "Connor! Get over here and help me adjust the ballasts. That explosion knocked us off balance again. Just when the shaking stopped too, hmph!" The Captain's commands were settling back down into their previous cycle and the situation, on the bridge at least, was back under control.
Dune had been knocked to the floor in the commotion, and he didn't dare get up until things were under control. Not having anything on his mind but what was happening immediately around him, he had noticed that as soon as the unknown object had left the Figaro the shaking had stopped. His head throbbed with all the possibilities of what could be happening and what it all meant, and he just wanted to get off this horrible ship and back on the solid, still ground of Narsille. There were never earthquakes there, not since the Committee had set up seismic regulators around its perimeter. Dune thought about all the pleasantries of his home to keep his mind off the chaos that was swirling around him. A sharp tug at his shoulder stirred him from these soothing memories, and he looked up and saw the sharply lined face of the Captain, dripping with perspiration and stained with soot. He could sense the heaving paunch, and knew it was time to get up off the floor.
"I thought I told you clear outta here, Dune! You could've been killed, you know that? Damn fool of a scientist..." The Captain seemed more shaken over Dune's safety than over the events that had just happened, and he kept staring at Dune to make sure he wasn't hurt.
"I'm sorry Captain. I wasn't hurt in the explosion, so don't worry about me." Dune stopped for a second and patted the pocket with the crystal to make sure it was still there before continuing, "Sir, I came back onto the bridge to warn you about an intruder I had seen entering the cargo bay on my way up...but I guess I was too late."
"Arrr, so there was an intruder...hmm." He straightened himself out and wiped the sweat and soot off his face, then continued, "No worries. We've got his number and he won't get too far. Don't know what he could have possibly wanted here, though. We didn't find anything on the dig, and the Figaro doesn't carry any especially valuable equipment. Doesn't make any sense..."
Dune felt another pang of guilt at the mention of the supposed failure of the dig, but something inside him kept him from divulging the crystal's existence even then. He knew this would only breed more trouble later on, but he couldn't bring himself to tell the Captain. Not yet. He promised himself that he would tell the Captain everything once they reached Narsille to set his mind at ease. He would make this promise more than once before the Figaro made it to the gates of the city.
The Captain adjusted his eye patch and turned to the bridge, taking in the aftermath of the explosion and the earthquake. "Why'd all this have to happen so close to Narsille? The repair crew back home is going to have a helluva time fixing this baby up. A destroyed searchlight, totaled cargo bay, cracked bridge shield, the ballast equalizers are shot to hell, and I don't know what the problem was with the lights...what a mess. And we were only a day's ride from the city, too. I'm gonna catch hell from the Committee over this." The Captain slammed his fist against a nearby workstation and left Dune to continue yelling orders to the crew. The lights had since been restored and the smoke and debris cleared, and all that was left to do was make sure the Figaro didn't lose her balance on the last stretch of the voyage home.
Dune doggedly got up and made his way to the foyer, aware that he was doing nothing but getting in the way by staying. He had seen enough, and wanted to get back to his room and get what little sleep he could before morning. He got on the lift and started down towards the third floor once more. He glanced cautiously at the foyer to the fourth floor as he passed it, but there was nothing to be seen except the sturdy blast doors now securely in place due to the explosion. Whoever that was, he had came for the crystal, and had failed. He had managed to escape, though, and whoever he was working for, if anyone, would know Dune had the crystal now. Dune clutched the pocket out of habit, and wondered just what it was he had found, and why it seemed all of heaven and earth wanted it. He certainly couldn't see what its value was from a logical standpoint, even though he knew that he too would do anything to keep it from the rest of the world.
Far away from the Figaro in an open clearing, a shadowy figure stood invisible and motionless in the black night, the moons' rays seeming to pass through him. He was surrounded by the wreckage of what appeared to be a small plane of some kind, and he was quietly speaking in a hoarse rasp of a whisper, apparently to himself.
"I have ascertained the location of the second gravity crystal. It is in the possession of one Dune Karn, a Narsillian archeologist on board the mobile base Figaro."
"No, I was unable to retrieve the crystal."
"...Yes... 'He' intervened, as expected. I was detected and had no choice but to make my escape."
"I will not fail next time."