14
CHAPTER 14 – AMONG THE STARS
A pressurized hiss roused Squall from his slumber. It took slightly longer for his eyes to resume functioning; even as he creaked them open, there was only darkness. His time asleep had been no different. He'd had no dreams at all, nor any concept of time. True to Dr. Odine's word, the entire journey seemed to have passed instantaneously. And then, the pod's front opened. The light which came streaming inside was still too much for him in his groggy state. Squinting against the glare, he saw two human-shaped silhouettes step in from either side of the door, and hoist him up from under both arms. He took notice of their distinct military outfitting as his vision slowly adjusted; their uniforms were dark grey, each with a tactical vest and black combat boots.
He barely had the sense of balance to stumble his way out of the pod. The two escorts held him steady. Together, they shuffled him across the room to a sealed metal door. It parted just as the pod's had to a small antechamber. There was nothing much to the room's layout; the lights above bathed its walls neon yellow, leaving the floor bisected by a dark streak leading to the door opposite. Four segmented glass panels were set into the left-hand wall. Though they were reflective, Squall presumed them to be one-way mirrors to a control center on the other side. With the knowledge of where he was in mind, the room had to be a checkpoint set up to screen those coming aboard.
Before him stood Dr. Odine and a third uniformed officer. The latter man clasped an electronic tablet in his hands.
"Feeling alright?" the doctor smiled. "It certainly takes some getting used to."
"Where… where's Rinoa?" he stammered. However hazy his thoughts, her absence hadn't slipped by him.
"On the way. Her pod will be the last to arrive. We never shoot off more than one at a time, you understand? The base's position is in constant flux as the moon orbits the planet. And you never know what kind of debris might be drifting through the atmosphere or space between launches. It's always best to err on the side of caution with these things."
Squall's two escorts parted to either side of him as the third approached. The officer thrust the tablet he carried out to him in one hand. Its display showed the last few paragraphs of a lengthy agreement, with a spot to sign and date the form at the bottom. After a moment of rummaging through his uniform's pocket, the man's other hand returned with a stylus pen.
"Just a formality," Odine clarified. "Everything you'll see and hear aboard this station is strictly classified, dissemination of which may be punishable by fine, imprisonment, or both. We need your word in writing first."
You couldn't have gotten this out of the way before putting us on a one-way rocket up here?
However peeved he was, Squall understood their rationale. He took the stylus and, after briefly skimming over the extensive document, signed his name on the line. Only as he brought up his wristwatch to check the date did the length of time he'd been asleep truly hit home. The display read: 'Sunday, June 20th, 08:36'. Nearly three full days had passed in an instant. He finished dating the agreement, and handed the stylus back.
"Very good," Odine said. He gestured to the far door with one hand as the officer with the tablet stepped out of Squall's way. "And with that taken care of, I bid you welcome. Step right on in, and see for yourself all the world as few have."
The phrasing gave Squall pause. Regardless, he followed after the doctor. Through the door, a synthetic hallway stretched ahead. A row of reinforced windows spanned nearly the entire length of the wall to one side. Unlike those in the antechamber before, he could see clear through without any problem. What lay beyond took his breath away. His eyes widened. His legs, still yet to fully regain their balance, buckled again. He threw one hand out against the window to steady himself, and stared on in amazement.
Below, floating perpetually upon a sea of pure black, was the planet. Swirling white clouds wrapped around its body, obscuring the lay of the continents and their surrounding oceans. From what he could make out at a glance, its geography was nearly a dead ringer for the maps he'd studied all his student life. The only discrepancy was Centra, or what remained of it. Few attempts had been made to re-map the shattered continent since its destruction; besides what navigational difficulties the jagged terrain presented, the danger posed by its dense monster population made any efforts all the more impossible. The point of impact was obvious: the once dense landmass had been split into five major segments, splintered apart at the core.
Tearing his awestruck gaze away, he set his eyes to work elsewhere. Every which way he looked revealed something new. Off in distance gleamed the sun; though the glass was surely resistant to ultraviolet radiation, he didn't dare keep focused on it for long. Fighting to get a better glimpse of the base itself, he noticed a giant wheel spinning slowly around the outer rim, carrying an evenly spaced array of protruding antennae. Only then did it occur to him that he was standing horizontal in proportion to the planet's position; he never would have guessed on account of the artificial gravity system.
"Magnificent, isn't it?" Odine prodded. "And a bit disheartening, even. Here we stand before a universe full of endless potential, stretching on into infinity. And what do we as a species have to show for it? Our world: a single small pebble at the bottom of a vast riverbed. Age after age gone by, empires rising, falling, warring with one another over it, oblivious to the promise of something so much greater beyond."
"How long have you…" Squall started. He trailed off as he continued looking over the base's massive ringed layout.
"We'd been working on this station for many years before the war. It's original purpose was just to observe the moon's surface, but that all changed about 17 years ago."
"How so?" he asked, finally turning away from the view. "And why did you have to bring us here in the first place?"
"You'll understand soon enough. Come now, let's keep moving."
Squall followed the stout doctor's lead down the hall. Each twist and turn brought them circling further around the base. Every glance outside only added to his disorientation, as they appeared to be moving sideways along with the spinning antenna array. Occasionally, he caught a glimpse of the moon looming just off the other side of the base. Its pale, cratered surface looked just as desolate as every image released to the world had ever shown. To think he now stood closer than the lens of any earthbound telescope could reach.
I bet Zell would be shitting himself if he could see all this…
Just like that, the guilt over leaving behind his comrades, and indeed all of Balamb Garden, returned. The unparalleled view from above felt all the more hollow without someone to share it with. He only hoped a speedy recovery on Rinoa's part would make it all worthwhile.
The pair finally stepped through into what Squall presumed to be the main command deck. Its fuselage stretched straight ahead from the entrance at the rear, lined by console after console to both sides. Yet more uniformed officers manned nearly every one from fore to aft. Most kept their attention on their work, while those who'd noticed Odine walking down the aisle flashed him a quick salute. Oddly, none seemed to pay Squall any mind. Surely someone dressed as casually as he was couldn't have been commonplace aboard the station. But then, considering Odine's pod had arrived ahead of him, they'd probably already been informed in advance.
A blonde man in a white coat stepped forward to greet them as they approached the windowed cockpit at the end. Besides the outfit, the badges displayed on his breast spoke to his authority.
"Sir, we're picking up a large gravitational swell on the lunar surface," he said to Odine, ignoring Squall. "It might just be a random spike, but it seems to correlate with Tears' Point coming around in the planet's rotation."
"Do we have a visual?" the doctor bluntly asked.
The man directed him over to a monitor on the right-hand side of the cockpit. Squall followed behind. Everything being so new, he was content for the moment to listen and learn. The screen in question showed a close-up camera feed of the moon. He noticed the area in question almost right away: a small, dark red blight had congealed in one place upon the otherwise colorless rock surface. Its actual size must have been massive for it to stick out so prominently. As the camera zoomed in further, he realized the affected area was visibly ebbing; a subtle ripple like a wave washed over it, causing it to pulse.
"And this has just started now?"
"We first noticed it building up over the last 15 minutes," the senior officer replied.
"I see," Odine hummed pensively. For the first time since Squall had met him, the doctor seemed genuinely concerned. "Perhaps it's not as far off as we assumed. Continue to monitor the situation, and let me know immediately if anything changes."
"Yes, sir."
After a salute, the man finally turned his attention to Squall.
"Commander Piet," he introduced himself, extending a hand. "I'm chief of operations aboard the Lunar Base. For 6 months out of the year, at least."
"Commandant Squall Leonhart of SeeD," Squall said as he accepted the handshake. However undeserving of the title he now felt himself to be, he hoped the weight it carried might incline Odine and the commander to be more forthcoming.
"Pleasure to meet you," Piet smiled back. "You know, before my promotion, I was one of the lead technicians assigned to renovate each of the three Gardens. I still occasionally pop on over for routine maintenance checks, when I'm not stationed up here."
Not anymore, you won't.
Setting aside Balamb and Galbadia Gardens' mobilization, not to mention Trabia's destruction, what ties SeeD held to Esthar had surely died with Norg. The ramifications hadn't been lost on Squall; there was no telling what the future held for their monopoly over GF technology should Odine Industries learn the truth. As things stood, it was one of the few advantages Squall presently had over the conniving mad scientist.
"Anyway, I suppose you'd like to know what it is we do aboard this base."
"Why don't we start with Adel?" Odine suggested.
"Excuse me?" Squall blurted out. It took another couple of seconds before the implication registered.
"You wanted to know what happened to her?" the doctor smiled knowingly. "It's like I was saying, this base serves a much greater purpose now than even I could have anticipated. Look out there, straight ahead. Piet, enhance magnification."
Squall did as he was told. His eyes followed Odine's pointing finger out the cockpit's windshield. There the planet's surface loomed in the distance, still breathtaking as ever. All that obstructed his view was a gleaming mass of silver metal alloy; it floated in suspended animation roughly 100 yards away. Two large appendages sprouted outward from either side of its circular centerpiece, resembling a pair of mechanical wings. He squinted hard in an effort to make out the fine details. As Piet flicked a few switches on the central control console however, he realized he needn't have bothered. The view-port's holographic display began zooming in, the strange contraption growing larger until he could at last discern what was contained in the center of it all.
His jaw fell open on the spot as she came into focus. Her petrified body stood upright, swathed from head to toe in some unknown translucent material. Incredibly, she hadn't aged a day. From her muscular physique, to the swirling black tattoos running all across her pale skin, and her blood-red hair tied in a single lengthy plait, she was precisely as history remembered her. The royal black gown and jeweled headpiece she wore looked just as perfectly preserved. Her face had contorted into an unflinching mask of snarling rage. Not once did her eyes blink, nor her mouth move. Under any other circumstance, he might have assumed it to be a life-sized wax replica.
"Seventeen long years, and holding," Piet proudly gloated.
Squall was speechless. He'd already had a hunch given what he'd learned from the Deep Sea Research Center; if Galbadia had been using a sorceress' power to produce their own GFs, it only made sense for Esthar to have done the same. Their chosen means of imprisonment was on another level entirely, however. The location alone couldn't have been further removed from where the other sorceress had been sealed away.
"The tomb's physical composition is made up entirely of precious adamantine," Odine explained. "It's the rarest and strongest known metal, virtually indestructible. You'd sooner see this entire space station ripped apart at the seams before putting a dent in its frame. The same goes for the electromagnetic seal itself. And I can assure you it does so much more than just keep her body held in stasis.
"Once she'd set me to work on studying Ellone's brainwaves, she allowed me to record an impulse pattern of the current running through her own brain for cross-reference. She wanted the girl's power for her own, after all, by any means. Fortunately, that made it possible for me to reverse-engineer a frequency capable of restraining the influence of her conscious mind. I wasn't going to take even the slightest chance of her being able to conjure a spell to escape. The seal is constantly emitting this frequency at all times. Unfortunately, I failed to consider how it might affect radio wave transmissions down on the planet before shooting her up into space."
"You… you mean…?" Squall stuttered disbelievingly.
"Yes, I'm the one to blame for the radio interference. One of very few achievements for which I hold no pride. We sent her into orbit, and then had to develop an entirely new method of transit just to reach her again. What's that old saying? 'Putting the cart before the chocobo'?"
Just when you think this guy can't surprise you any more…
The waiver he'd signed hadn't been unwarranted. In the last 15 minutes alone, Squall had become privy to more top-secret information than any Balamb student or official before. He doubted even Norg had known the full extent of Esthar's ventures.
"And for what?" he eventually asked. "Why send her into outer space to begin with? Couldn't you have just kept her under surveillance down on the surface?"
"We could have," Odine admitted. "In hindsight, it would have saved us a great deal of hassle, not to mention how badly I got it in the neck from the president over the interference. I suppose I was getting ahead of myself. All the potential applications of her power I'd dreamt up were just too tempting to ignore. My research might have sufficed with whatever test subjects we could gather from across Esthar, or Centra. But how could I resist the promise of a whole new world's bounty?"
He gestured back to the display of the lunar surface. The massive black coagulation on screen looked to be holding steady. An occasional ripple still crested it, briefly distorting its rounded shape.
"The moon is a world of monsters. Legions of species yet undiscovered by man are gathered down there, ripe for the taking."
"Those… are monsters?" Squall repeated, confused. There must have been millions packed together at that one single point to cover so much of the surface. "I don't understand. Why are they all clustering like that?"
"Not by their choice. It's the result of an intensifying gravitational imbalance between the moon and planet. Think of it like the tides: they rise and fall based on the moon's pull. Sometimes however, the planet's pull on the moon becomes so great that this happens. A saturation point develops on the surface, building and building, until it eventually breaks loose. Once that happens, all those monsters will come falling down to earth with the affected region in a single concentrated strain. I've named it the 'Lunar Cry'."
"That's… that's insane."
"It's a naturally occurring phenomenon, old as the planet itself. It's what destroyed Centra 100 years ago, in fact."
Revelation after revelation continued to unfurl before Squall, with no end in sight. He was beginning to doubt he had enough room in his mental faculties to retain it all. Most striking of all however was how Odine could remain so composed despite the implication carried by the swelling mass of monsters.
"And you're saying it's starting up again right now?!" Squall reeled in alarm. "Shouldn't we be evacuating, then? And what about down on the planet? Do we even know where it's going to land?"
"There's nothing to worry about," the doctor reassured him. "From the looks of things, it still has a ways to go before it reaches critical saturation. It could take weeks, or even months. It might even start receding as the imbalance corrects itself. In any case, we're in no danger up here so long as the station's shields remain active. As for where it will touch down on the planet, do you remember Tears' Point? The structure you thought was a memorial on the way to the Lunar Gate?"
He nodded his head. Given the cold sleep process, it felt as though he'd seen it barely an hour ago.
"It marks the exact spot where we've determined the next Lunar Cry will fall. Hence, the name 'Tears' Point'."
"And what's the structure's significance?" Squall asked, optimistic for an answer this time.
"To understand that, we have to go back more than 20 years, to when we'd just gotten this station into orbit. We spent those first few months observing the monsters' movement on the lunar surface, which led us to determine the correlation with gravity's pull on the moon. It gave me enough to form a hypothesis on what a strong enough swell could cause, but I needed more evidence. So, I sent out a research team to survey the Centra crater. If they could find any species of wildlife in the area to match those we'd already identified on the moon, it would validate my theory. But they discovered something else, as well. Something every bit as awe inspiring as anything you could hope to see from up here."
Squall bit his tongue. Given the context, he already knew exactly what Odine was referring to. He'd been there to see it, in mind and spirit if not in person.
"A massive pillar of crystal," Odine confirmed his suspicions. "But not any ordinary crystal. Its mineral composition exhibited a peculiar resonance, which seemed to also produce a gravitational surge back on the moon's surface. It's still difficult to say whether it came down with the Lunar Cry 100 years ago, or was the cause of it to begin with. Whatever the case, I was able to reverse engineer that resonance, as well. Once we'd determined the spot where another one was most likely to occur, we had it outfitted with several thousand generators designed to counteract and neutralize the strain at its point of impact. Granted, it won't stop the Cry from breaking loose altogether; those monsters will still come falling down when it happens. But at least it ought to ensure the continent won't be blown apart like Centra."
The explanation gave Squall some relief. The region had been sparsely populated from what he'd seen. Even so, it was only a few hours' drive from the city limits; however controlled, a cosmic event on such a scale would have lasting repercussions for the people. More importantly, there was still the fate of the crystal to account for. If what Odine had told him was true, it too posed a threat.
"And what happened to the crystal?" he asked, recalling his most recent vision of Laguna's time.
"We excavated it, of course," Odine said. "Its observable effect on the moon combined with my proposed theory of the Lunar Cry was of great interest to Adel. By harnessing and further amplifying the crystal's resonance, it seemed we could use it to artificially invoke one at will. Naturally, she leapt at the idea of weaponizing something like this. And so, we constructed a giant mobile containment unit for the crystal, a moving fortress capable of inducing a Lunar Cry anywhere, at any time. We conducted its first test run up at the Vienne Mountains, 18 years ago. I'd say the results speak for themselves."
Squall could practically feel his brain starting to leak out from his ears as the never-ending stream of information compounded. He was at a loss. He darted his eyes every which way: from Adel held aloft in her containment, to the planet slowly turning behind her, the congealing mass of monsters on the moon's surface, and back. No matter where he looked, he had no clue how to begin formulating his thoughts. Fortunately, Odine quickly provided him an out to reel him back in.
"Worry not. Once we'd taken care of her, we had it sunk to the bottom of the ocean, where no one would find it again."
Gee, where have I heard that one before?
"But, coming back around to the point: why shoot her up into space? I'd become obsessed with researching her power and all its potential applications from the moment we sealed her away. And where better to find such an expansive reservoir of test subjects for the job? Yesteryear's communication technology was a small price to pay for the moon's endless possibilities."
"Fortunately for us, the interference is only drawn towards the planet," Piet finally chimed in again. "Anything situated behind her tomb is out of its radius. Otherwise, we'd be shit out of luck up here. Not to mention the guys aboard the Ragnarok."
"The Rag- … what?" Squall spluttered.
"Our space shuttle," Odine clarified. "Its crew scour the lunar surface periodically, and capture whatever monsters we need. We then merge their bodies with energy siphoned from Adel's tomb through a carefully calculated infusion process. The result is an entirely new order of being, a sentient, self-sustaining conduit of that energy."
"You mean Guardian Forces," Squall bluntly said. For the first time, it was the doctor who wore a look of surprise.
"Very perceptive of you. Yes, every sphere we've ever sent out to Balamb Garden, including yours, was manufactured on board this station."
For years, he had pondered the true nature of the energy contained within each GF. Now faced with the truth, he knew he never would have believed it. Even the notion that it was derived from Adel's power would have been a bridge too far; he'd have sooner assumed the inverse. Monsters from the moon was a greater leap still. Coming from anyone but Odine himself, he'd have thought they were insane for even suggesting it. But then, perhaps sanity had nothing to do with the matter.
Only an insane person could have dreamed all this up.
"It's far from the only use for the power, of course. And that brings us to the experiment we'll be conducting on your friend once she arrives."
"What is it?" Squall anxiously asked. He immediately relegated every other topic they'd discussed, however impressive, to the back of his mind. Rinoa's safety took precedence. If the procedure Odine had in mind had anything to do with Adel's power, he needed to know every minute detail before he gave the go-ahead.
"The concept is simple enough," he began. "We're going to see if we can jump-start her consciousness by using the energy as a catalyst. Think of it as a form of mental defibrillation, like how an electric current can get a person's heart beating again."
"And have you ever done anything like this before?"
"On a human? No, not yet. As I said before, the president explicitly forbade me from conducting any kind of human testing on the people of Esthar. The same went for the moombas we'd imported under Adel's rule, which he forced me to release back into the wild. And what a shame that was, considering all the breakthroughs I'd already made researching them. Such fascinating creatures. Do you know they have an eidetic memory for the scent and taste of another creature's blood? Just imagine how much more advanced our method of DNA testing could be if I'd been able to continue… but, I digress."
Squall had already begun tapping his foot as the doctor prattled on. His patience was nearly at its breaking point.
"So, to answer your question, no. We've never had an opportunity to test on anything comatose before. Though we have run similar tests on deceased creatures, for the purpose of reanimation, and those yielded promising results… at least temporarily. It seems the lack of a functioning cellular system means the energy can't naturally sustain itself. Once it's all used up, the creature reverts back to being dead."
"I didn't come all this way for a temporary fix," Squall hinted.
"I'm hopeful that will be the difference between a comatose subject and a dead one," Odine reassured him.
"And this is going to be the first time you've ever tried this procedure on a human, living or dead?"
"Yes. Although given what I've learned of late, it might be for the best that I've never been allowed a deceased human specimen before."
"And why is that?"
"Each creature we revived was shown to be extremely prone to aggression and violent behavior. Upon further study, I now believe I understand the cause. It is my theory that a sorceress' will, her very consciousness even, is inherently tied to her power. It then stands to reason that those reanimated creatures, absent any pre-existing consciousness of their own, may have been possessed by Adel's lingering will through the energy infusion process. Fortunately, there's a big difference between the minds of man and beast. Just like with GFs, the creatures' brains likely didn't have the mental capacity to harness the power to its fullest. If we were to try it with a human corpse… well, you might as well go out there and unseal her right now. The end result would probably be the same."
As he listened to the explanation, Squall reflected once more on his descent into the bowels of the research center. He'd expected something of the sort ever since. The frenzied wailing of the sorceress as her skeleton had risen from the depths seemed to perfectly line up with the theory; he'd felt it piercing into his brain, growing more potent as her energy had engulfed him and his teammates.
"But, that shouldn't be a problem in your friend's case. Provided her consciousness is still buried within her mind, there should be no threat of her body becoming a conduit for Adel's."
There'd better not…
"Commander!" one of the nearby officers on the bridge abruptly called out. "Another bogey incoming on the port side!"
"And there's number 3," Piet responded. "Standby to intercept."
Almost immediately, the magnification displaying Adel's tomb shrunk back to normal size. Squall craned his neck to peer out through the left-most panels of the cockpit. In the distance, popping out against the planet's backdrop with the sun's glare, a sleek metal capsule rocketed up through space. It was growing more pronounced by the second as it continued its approach. At its current speed, he couldn't see it slowing in time to avoid a collision. And then, in the blink of an eye, all flashed neon green through the window.
"Our station-wide force-field," Odine explained as Squall covered his eyes. "To protect from the Lunar Cry, of course. Its elasticity is designed to absorb the impact from and deflect any volume of mass spread across its surface."
"So, how is her pod supposed to get through?" he responded, peeking through the gaps in his fingers.
"Like any bendable material, it's not unbreakable. With a steady application of force concentrated onto a single point for long enough, it'll eventually punch through. The pod's boosters will get the job done."
Even as he spoke, Squall could see Rinoa's capsule beginning to form a divot in the shielding. The luminous, translucent barrier pulsed, buckled, and soon gave way. Gradually the head popped through. Inch by inch the metal projectile worked its way inside at a grueling pace, until finally its boosters carried it on through. The hole rapidly resealed in its wake, and disappeared into infrared along with the rest of the force-field.
Out of the blue, another streak of green light extended out from the station itself. It met the metal capsule head on; as the pod traveled straight ahead along its length, it abruptly slowed. Within a span of 5 seconds, it had come to a virtual standstill.
Unbelievable…
"They'll collect her and bring her into the nearest docking bay," Odine told him. "But before that, I'm sure you'd like to see Ellone, am I right?"
Squall's tongue caught in his throat. He'd been so caught up in all the wonder and amazement among the stars that he'd completely forgotten.
"Wh-Where is she?" he stuttered.
"Still in cold sleep. I sent her up here with explicit instructions not to wake her until I personally gave the go-ahead. I couldn't have her using her power to reach out to anyone back on the ground before all the pieces were in place, now could I?"
He really has thought of everything, hasn't he?
"But, a promise is a promise," the doctor said as he turned back around. "You wanted to see her before we go forward with the experiment. Here's your chance. Come now, we've dawdled long enough."
He traipsed back down the length of the command deck without another word. Squall took one last look back outside at the capsule, now surrounded by a squad of astronauts with jetpacks. After such a long distance traveled, beyond all earthly bounds, the time had finally arrived. And whether through Ellone's assistance or Odine's, he was prepared to see it through to the end.