"All SeeDs and SeeD candidates, stand by for landfall. Repeat, stand by for landfall." The skiff's intercom shut off with a buzz of static, leaving silence in the egress chamber where the three students and Instructor Garren waited behind the large forward doors which would allow their exit onto the beach. Of course, silent was a relative term, as the engine was humming louder than ever.
"Everyone ready?" Garren asked.
"This is it!" exclaimed Tobias. "Let's do it!"
"Woo-hoo!" agreed Selphie.
Nida gulped.
The skiff jolted to a halt as its doors swung open, letting in a blast of air charged with salt water, smoke and bedlam. Inertia pushed Nida out onto the beach, which was scattered with green-uniformed Dollet infantry darting behind rocks that provided seriously inadequate cover. He could hear at least three different types of automatic gunfire competing with each other.
An explosion sent up a cloud of sand and small rocks not ten yards ahead and to his left and drowned out everything for a second. He dove out of the way, but there was nowhere to take cover — the biggest rocks on the beach didn't even reach up to his knees, and the Galbadian soldiers were perched on top of the seawall with a clear view of just about the entire beach.
"Wooo…" said Selphie, bouncing sideways along the beach as she looked around her. "I don't see the InfoNet anywhere!"
Then she disappeared, in the middle of another blast that erupted at her feet.
Nida started toward her, then realized he shouldn't be running toward an explosion and forced himself to think. The Galbadians didn't seem to have any heavy weapons set up, so it was probably just Fire magic. There were a pair of blue-armored Galbadian infantry running in their direction, and he even spotted the glow of residual magic fading around one of the soldiers' sabers.
"Are you okay?" he asked as the smoke and fire cleared. One low-level spell shouldn't be enough to bring down a SeeD candidate, and sure enough Selphie was staggering back out of the blast looking only a little singed.
"They're just a bunch of kids!" one of the soldiers exclaimed.
"You'd better give up now!" said the other.
"Yeah, right!" Selphie readied her weapon, a nunchaku with each stick nearly as long as her torso, and Nida fell in beside her.
Since Galbadians didn't use GF, their soldiers relied on magic stones to cast spells; and since each soldier only had a limited quantity, they would probably rely on basic physical attacks for a little while. Nida, on the other hand, had spent most of the night stocking up on magic, so he didn't need to hold back.
A thunderbolt hit the soldier who'd attacked Selphie before he even reached the two SeeD candidates, and a second later Selphie's nunchaku caught him in the leg. The second soldier, though, charged in undeterred and took a swing at Nida's side that very nearly connected. Nida parried, but the force of the attack nearly twisted the dagger out of his hand.
He'd been trained to recover from attacks like this. The first step was to get distance, so he turned his stumble into kind of a backward-sideways double hop to prevent the soldier from following through. He thought he saw an opening, and straightened his grip on his daggers, but then hesitated. He'd been trained to do something else, too.
Don't just attack blindly. Keep the whole battlefield in mind. Instructor Aki had said that a lot. Off to his left, he saw Selphie retreating from her attack on the first Galbadian; that soldier was staggering a little, but still in the fight.
Barely. Nida charged sideways and slashed at the soldier before he could regain his balance. One dagger cut into the man's side, the other his shoulder, and he fell face-first into the sand.
That move left Nida pretty dangerously exposed to the soldier who'd first attacked him, though. He turned in time to see that soldier rounding on him, and just then Selphie's nunchaku caught him square in the back of his helmet. The man staggered, taking a flimsy swing that Nida barely even had to dodge, and Nida finished him off with another Thunder spell.
"Whoo-hoo!" Selphie exclaimed, bouncing up and down while holding her nunchaku up in the air. "Mission complete!"
"That wasn't actually our mission," Nida said.
"Oh, man…" At first, Nida didn't recognize the voice. Turning around, he saw Tobias standing about five meters back with his hand hovering near the hilt of his saber, which he still hadn't drawn. "Guess this is a real battle. Pretty intense, huh?"
Nida frowned. Was he actually freezing up? The whole point of having a training center with real monsters was to get students over the fear of combat.
"So…Squad A is in charge of the beach," Nida said. "There should be an info-net cable around here somewhere. Maybe those those utility poles on top of the seawall?"
After another second, though, Tobias blinked at him. "Did you say something?"
Nida sighed. He wasn't sure if Tobias had actually not heard him, or was just being a jerk, but he supposed it didn't matter.
"Anyway!" Tobias pointed to the stairwell. "It's time to get down to business. Squad A, move out!"
Nida sighed.
They found an HD cable box on the side of the road that ran along the top of the seawall. Nida hadn't been sure whether the system would give them access to the military network, but the access keys that Dollet's military had provided were apparently still working, and they had logged on within minutes of connecting their laptops.
"All right!" Selphie said. "Time to get the info!"
"I guess we'd better find the most relevant information to report," Nida said.
"Man, what a pain." Tobias was resting over on top of the seawall. "You guys can take care of that. I'm the squad leader, so I'll review your work when you're done."
The files were an assortment of security camera footage, utility records, and emails that hadn't made it out of the city's network before the Galbadians cut the outside lines. A lot of them were basically useless, and Selphie seemed to change her mind a lot about which ones she wanted to include, but Nida put the list together as deliberately as he could. Since Squad A wasn't likely to face combat again, his ranking on the exam was probably going to depend on this.
"Those are the ones you picked?" asked Tobias, who hadn't looked at the files at all until Nida announced they were done. "…Yeah, that looks pretty good. I'll approve it." He nodded decisively. "Alright, I'll submit this to the Instructor."
He left, heading down the stairs toward their landing craft where Instructor Garren was waiting. Nida sighed.
Gunfire echoed down on them from the distance, signaling that the main assault had probably started somewhere safely away up in the bluffs. The city of Dollet was on a peninsula that stuck out from the continent's main landmass, and SeeD's plan had been to use a quick assault from the sea to force Galbadia's troops back into the highlands, where Dollet's forces were waiting for them. According to the information Nida had just collected, there hadn't been many Galbadians in the city to begin with, so the operation had probably already advanced at least that far.
"…I guess that's it?" Selphie asked, stretching her arms over her head. "Hoo…kinda boring."
"We'll have to keep watching the net in case there's any new information," said Nida. "But yeah, it's probably over for us."
Selphie started pacing. Down at the beach, their transport skiff was pulling away, presumably to take Instructor Garren to the SeeD team's landing site so he could relay the intelligence.
"So…," Nida asked, trying to think of a conversation topic. "You transferred from Trabia?"
"Yup!" she replied. "I did all my training in Trabia Garden. There aren't a lot of SeeD candidates there, so we have to come to Balamb for the exam."
Nida nodded. "What did you study?"
"Lots of stuff! I was sort of an unofficial member of the Tech Squad, 'cause I hung around them a lot. They could do some really cool stuff, too! Like, last year for our Garden Festival, we programmed all the lights in Garden to blink on and off during the concert. I wonder if we could do something like that here? Your Garden is huge, so it's gotta have WAY more lights!" She finally paused for breath. "I was really happy when I heard that you've got a Garden Festival, too! I'm planning to be on the committee! Heey, do you wanna help out, too?"
It took Nida a second to realize that she was actually waiting for an answer. "Um…."
"Alright then." Tobias was back, looking pleased with himself. "Looks like our job is complete. You guys better stay on your guard, though. We're in the middle of a war zone, so that means anything can happen."
Nida sighed.
More time went by. Tobias tried chatting up Selphie, she tried to recruit him into the Garden festival, and Tobias decided they should all be quiet so they could be more alert in case more Galbadians came.
About an hour passed like that before a lone Galbadian soldier appeared, running towards them down the coastal road.
"Don't shoot!" the soldier called, as the students jumped up to meet him. The man was unarmed, and held a folded piece of paper in his hand. "I've got a message for your commander!"
"Here we go," said Tobias. "Watch — this is a test of my, the squad leader's, judgment skills." To the Galbadian he said, "I'll take your message. You wait here."
He ran down the stairs and over to the command post. Nida and Sera stayed, watching the Galbadian, who looked very uncomfortable as he waited.
"S-so you guys are SeeDs, huh?" he asked. "You know, I thought about joining Garden myself, but it seemed really tough. Of course, then I get drafted into Deling's army, so it probably wouldn't have mattered." He chuckled nervously. "Except I'd probably be a captain by now if I'd gone through the Garden program, of course."
No one replied.
At length, Tobias returned with the soldier's original message and a new one. "Take these back to your commander," he said. "And hurry!"
The Galbadian nodded, and ran away back into the city.
Folding his arms, Tobias turned to Nida and Selphie. "Squad A, listen up! We've got a new mission. Our job is to relay a message to the other 3 squads. Because of my outstanding leadership, they've entrusted the task to us."
"Isn't it because we're the squad that's already at the beach?" Nida asked. He knew he probably shouldn't get in the way of Tobias' ego, but it was getting annoying how casually the guy was treating the exam. In any case, Tobias ignored him.
"So…we're gonna be messengers?" Selphie asked.
"It's not just any message." Tobias made that nod again. "This message…is the order to withdraw. You remember what that SeeD said? This is a top priority mission, and I've been given the responsibility for carrying it out. Now it's basically guaranteed that I'll be admitted into SeeD. All those instructors who said I should take the exam earlier, or I might get overshadowed by the younger cadets…shows what they know. I'm not some clown like Seifer, who fails year after year. And now I'm gonna graduate before Squall even takes the exam."
Nida groaned. "Don't tell me you're getting obsessed with those guys, too. Seriously, why don't you pay attention to your own interests for once?"
Tobias gave him a slightly annoyed look. In fairness, Nida was surprised with himself, too; he had no idea where that outburst had come from. "You got a problem, cadet?"
"My name is Nida," said Nida. "We've had five classes together, and I was on the Technical Committee for two years. You could at least remember my name."
Tobias shrugged. "I guess you weren't that memorable." Then he turned to Selphie and started ignoring Nida again. "Anyway, this is the message: 'All SeeD members and SeeD candidates are to withdraw at 19:00 hours. Assemble at the shore!'" He looked expectantly at Selphie and then Nida. "Repeat it!"
"'All SeeD members and SeeD candidates are to withdraw at 19:00 hours,'" they recited. "'Assemble at the shore.'"
"Right." Tobias nodded imperiously. "The most efficient way to alert all three squads is for us to split up. Squad C should be patrolling the street in the residential district, so I'll notify them myself. Selphie, head over to the harbor and find Squad D. Nida—" he flashed a smug grin. "YOU can go tell Seifer and Squad B. They'll be in the Central Square."
Nida made sure not to roll his eyes until after he'd set off down the road. Tobias quickly disappeared down a side street, leaving him alone in the seemingly deserted city. He didn't really like the idea of running alone through a war zone, even if the city had been mostly secured, and there should have been plenty of time for the three of them to find Squads B, C and D if all three of them had gone together. But orders were orders, even if Tobias was a jerk. At least it wasn't far to the Central Square.
But when Nida arrived, he quickly noticed a problem. The square was completely empty, except for a nervous-looking student pacing around the square's grand fountain. Nida recognized him as Ross, a younger kid who'd been one of Garden's hotshots before he put his energy into founding Instructor Trepe's fan club.
"Are you in Squad B?" Nida asked.
Ross nodded, a determined look on his face. He was practically shaking. "Yes sir!"
"…Where's the rest of them?"
"They took off, man!" Ross exploded. "Seifer was like, 'I'm the Captain, I do what I want!' and then he called Zell a Chicken-Wuss and Zell ran after him too! But I said, 'No way! Quistis told us to stay at the square, and that's what I'm going to do!'"
Nida frowned. "So, you just…left the rest of your team?"
"Hey, they left me, man! I'm gonna obey my orders to the letter, just like Quistis taught us!" The decision had obviously weighed on him; Ross looked almost hysterical. "I want her to be proud of her student, and maybe…just maybe, she'll finally see me for the man I am!"
Nida was edging away. "…Which way did they go?"
Ross blinked. "Oh, up toward that big thing on the cliffs." He motioned toward the old communications tower that loomed over the city. "We saw a bunch of Galbadians headed that way."
"Right." Nida sighed. "I'm supposed to deliver a message. Everyone's supposed to assemble back at the shore. All SeeD members and candidates are supposed to withdraw at 19:00 hours."
"At 19:00 hours?" Ross repeated. "Man, I'd better get going!" And he took off before Nida could object.
Looking down the road leading toward the bluffs, Nida couldn't see any sign of Zell or Seifer. "I'd better get going, too."