Starchild
I do not own Fire Emblem or any of its characters.
Chapter Fifteen: Peace Sets Sail
On one level, it was all familiar. Eirika was suited and helmeted, strapped into her crew couch inside the Falcon III, perched atop the great Ashera rocket that would hurl her into lunar orbit for the second time. The rocket, filled with a mix of liquid fuels that, if detonated on the pad, would have the force of an atomic weapon, expanded and contracted its metal skin like something breathing, something alive. She'd been here before, and yet there was no way that something this extraordinary could possibly be routine. All the little changes between Gemstone and Peace startled her even now, right now to the design of her pressure suit. She'd been surprised to see her family name, Sieglinde, embroidered on the collar of her suit instead of the expected 012.
"We're all flown pilots," Roy said of the change, and it did make sense. They were no longer state secrets. As soon as they were safely clear of the launchpad, the goals of their mission would be announced, and once they'd landed on Luna, their egress to the surface would actually be televised. Perhaps that accounted for Eirika's sense of apprehension- she knew that, this time, the world would truly be watching.
The Chief Designers certainly were. She'd caught a glimpse of the man she recognized as G when the crew had exited the van that took them to the launch pad. Standing beside G was a dark-haired youth whose face was as childish as Roy's, and Eirika knew without being told that this "young" man was Chief Designer S. Had the mysterious pair come to see the ultimate realization of G's work, the success of Project Fire Emblem... whatever that was?
Or had S merely come to witness the fiery failure of G's plans?
Ephraim had slipped in to see her before the launch, had whispered a final caution to her, after she was already suited up and beyond the reach of his potential contagion.
"G is Sephiran's tool, unless it was the other way around. And you're riding with one of his pets. I'd rather fly with a Lopt as my co-pilot."
He looked as though the past two weeks had been excessively hard on him. Eirika wondered if the Ministry of Truth had been sending her brother letters.
-x-
Launch itself was as familiar as it was extraordinary; Eirika, was, after all, the only one of the crew to have experienced the Ashera rocket's power, and she could measure the difference between the Ashera's ride and that of the earlier Pegasus rockets in the expressions of her comrades.
"This isn't bad," said Roy, his voice just audible above the roar. "You can tell the Pegasus is a ballistic missile from the way it fights you."
"Ashera doesn't fight. We're too small for her to care about us," Eirika replied, and hoped her smile would let Roy know she was mostly joking.
So, while the flight was as she remembered- the rising G-forces followed by the sharp forward jolt- the experience was different, like watching two performances of a play rather than a repeat screening of a film. This time, when they reached earth orbit and the protective shroud over the Falcon III capsule fell away, they had an immediate duty- rendezvous with the lunar lander that had been tucked safely beneath them in the rocket stack and now floated free, awaiting capture.
The lander- formally dubbed the "Heron" shortly before launch, apparently for its stilt-like legs- was controlled by the ground, but it was the duty of Roy as the senior pilot to capture this Heron and dock it safely to the Falcon III. It was the same maneuver he would use to bring Eirika and Marth both back to Terra once the Heron craft rose from the surface of Luna. Assuming it did. Eirika watched Roy as the Elibean guided the two crafts together with an expert hand, and she thought back on Alm's words and wondered what it would do to Roy if he returned to Terra alone.
"Perfect," Marth commented once Roy had completed the docking. "All right, Eirika. Let's get in there and make sure she's in working order."
The inside of the Heron seemed improbably small for two people to live and work for two days, but Eirika knew how to make the most of it as living space after so many trips to the factory and so many sessions in the simulator. To tumble "upside down" through the docking hatch and bring the Heron to life in zero gravity was exciting- here was something she'd never done before. She wondered if Micaiah had enjoyed it nearly as much during her first-ever testing of a Heron in space. This was Eirika's Heron now; Marth might be the one at the controls, but the craft was Eirika's machine, the same way the Falcon III was Roy's, and she felt an unexpected affection for it as she checked it out from top to bottom. Or bottom to top- direction in zero-G being purely a matter of perspective.
Once the Heron was verified functional, they were allowed to leave "parking orbit" and venture off toward Luna. Again, familiar tasks for Eirika, yet made new by the reactions of her senior crew-mates. So it was with the most mundane tasks. Roy had never used the improved food packets that debuted on Aureola. Marth had neither eaten nor slept in space- on the Starlight mission, there hadn't been any time for either. It amused Eirika to be the veteran and expert on so many details of interplanetary living.
What struck her, though, was Marth's reaction to the sight of Terra, perfectly framed through the window.
"After all the times I've told the story of how Terra looks from space... I think I'd forgotten how beautiful it really is."
No, Eirika decided, however familiar space might become, it wasn't something a person might ever be used to. There always would be something to catch one off guard. She thought on this well into the appointed time of their resting period, as she floated in her mesh sleeping restraints like a moth caught in a cobweb. Each time she opened her eyes, Eirika caught a glimpse of some new strange thing- the way Roy's unruly red hair floated around his face as he slept, the way Marth had curled up and wedged himself against the bulkhead, as though he didn't like the sensation of drifting free. Eventually her thoughts ran down, in the manner of a dying clock, and Eirika surrendered to sleep even as the Falcon and the Heron made their silent progress towards Luna.
It might be the last good sleep she ever enjoyed.
To Be Continued...
Author's note: Yes, Chief Designer S is, indeed, Soren.