Starchild
I do not own Fire Emblem or any of its characters.
Chapter Sixteen: Upon the Bay of Rainbows
After a flight of four days, five hours, twenty-one minutes, and seven seconds, the Heron lander undocked from the Falcon III and hovered alone above the surface of Luna, the place intended as the Heron's native habitat.
"May fortune smile upon you," came Roy's voice through the intercom as they left him behind.
Eirika was almost driven to reply, "I hope we see you again," but she held it back. This moment, like others in the flight, was being officially recorded and would likely be broadcast to the peoples of Terra.
"And on you as well, 007," she replied. Now that the two crafts were separated, the crew of the Heron responded to the call sign Peace, while Roy answered to his original designation of Pilot 007- a sign that they, not he, were the key part of the mission. If Roy was slighted by this, he didn't show it, any more than he ever showed disappointment over not going to the lunar surface. It was a three-pilot mission, and he had his role and served it to the best of his abilities, and that appeared to be quite satisfactory for Roy.
Perhaps some pilots really were less complicated than others. Eirika didn't have time to mull that over, though- not when the goal of Peace was so close at hand.
-x-
The Heron was stocked with whatever they might need for a two-day journey- reserves of water and food, the custom-fit "back packs" they'd need to venture around on the lunar surface, color cameras to record their visit, a number of mementoes to place on the surface, and the specialized tools and equipment for collecting geological samples. And, of course, the rover. But with weight being the limiting factor on whether or not the Heron would ever rise from Luna on the journey home, and with a substantial number of rocks being factored into the estimated return weight, there wasn't a lot of fuel on board. There was enough for one attempt at a landing, and no more.
As the Heron settled into a low orbit over Luna, Eirika became aware that she was well out of her zone of familiarity. She watched the curvature of Luna's surface flatten out as the distant craters below them transformed into mountains that loomed quite close, so close that she imagined the Heron's spindle legs would brush against them in passing. Yet still, they were not someplace that no human had ventured. Ike and Micaiah had already experienced this. It was that final twelve minutes of the journey that was unprecedented in the history of humankind.
As the Heron began that twelve-minute descent, Eirika had no time at all to worry about events back on the small blue disk of Terra, about the fallen premier and his plans, about the Chief Designers and their schemes. She had no time to worry about Marth and his allegiance to G- she was too busy spouting off trajectory data, altitude readings, and everything else she could glean from the computer data before her. She, as the pilot, was the eyes, ears, and mouth of this being called Peace. The hands on the controls were Marth's... and the brain of the organism was the Heron's onboard computer.
As the first of a series of alarms flared up on the panel, Eirika felt her perception narrow to encompass only what was in front of her. There was not a second's time to glance out the window at the approaching lunar surface. If she didn't settle these alarms... but the alarms were nuisances all, rather than symptoms of a failing spacecraft. Yet clearing them took time, and when Eirika finally did have a moment to look out upon Luna, she saw something far more distressing than a red-lit control panel.
The automated guidance system was steering them right into a field of impassable boulders- some the size of automobiles, some the size of houses, some larger still. Their designated landing site had no apparent place to plant the legs of the Heron- not if they wanted the Heron to stay upright for even a moment. They would have to activate manual controls, thought Eirika, but even as she looked to Marth for affirmation, she found he was already doing so. Without waiting for orders.
Without explaining to ground control what he was doing. Eirika's eyes darted to the fuel gauge; there was less than four minutes remaining to them. Four minutes and going, a guidance system gone awry... and someone who wasn't Ephraim in charge of the ship and their lives. Eirika forced her attention back onto the trajectory readings and began to reel off data; it was the only support she had in that moment. And, besides that, it was her duty.
Lower, then lower, the Heron scooted along above the crests of the menacing boulders. Ground control was restless; Eirika heard the tension in the voice that pointed out they had sixty seconds of fuel remaining. But there was a clear spot, or at least a clearer spot, ahead of them...
"Thirty seconds," came the distant voice in her headset. Of course, there was that two-second delay, coming from the ground, so that meant even less time remained to them.
"One way or another, we'll touch Luna," she heard Marth reply, and in that moment he sounded strangely like her brother.
She saw streamers of dust out the window now, great swirls of dust sent up by the force of their engines. Eirika remembered then the predictions that the surface of Luna was nothing but an ocean of dust, that anyone and anything that tried to land would be swallowed by the dust of the ages...
She forced her attention back to the fuel gauge. Twenty seconds or less...
And a new light appeared on her panel, a reassuring brilliant blue.
"Contact!" she called out; the probe on the bottom of the Heron had touched something solid.
The landing was so gentle that Eirika felt nothing, nothing but the realization that her body truly had some weight again.
"Greetings to the peoples of the world from the Bay of Rainbows. Peace has come to Luna."
He said it smoothly, brightly, sounding very much like the boy who called down to all Terra from the confines of Starlight. As Eirika heard a brief burst of cheering crackle through her headset- including a shout of encouragement from Roy- she looked at the solemn and pale profile of her commander. So that was was the sound of the pilot who'd just managed the most amazing landing in the history of human flight.
Marth turned toward her, and a quick, strange smile flashed across his face for a moment. He reached out for her- not in a quick clap upon the back, as her brother might have done, but with a tentative brush of his hand against her shoulder.
"We did it," he said, and now he was neither a stoic test pilot nor the confident envoy of humanity's triumph.
"That's it. We've done it," she replied, and even as the words left, Eirika wondered why that moment felt like an ending and not a beginning.
Outside, the light of an early lunar morning cast long shadows on the plain. The hostile ball of battered rock seemed pleasant and inviting. And, in that moment, it was entirely theirs.
To Be Continued...
Inspiration drawn from the landing of the US Apollo crafts, but most specifically from Apollo 11 and 12.