17
CHAPTER 17 – LUNAR STRAIN
"I'm telling you, for the safety of everyone aboard this station, you've got to let us through, right now! We need to see Dr. Odine!"
Squall couldn't have played up his desperation any more if he tried. Still, the two guards outside his and Ellone's suite refused to budge.
"We need more than that before we go against the doctor's orders," one said. "And if it's really so urgent, it's the commander you should be seeing."
"Fine! Whatever! Take us to the bridge, then! Just let us out of here!"
"Not until you give us the details."
If only you'd believe me…
He had no means of forcing his way past them. Besides their tactical gear, both guards carried a holstered side-arm. It was a gamble not worth taking, least of all with Ellone to his back. Were there only one, he'd have been tempted to retreat back inside, and have her use her power to momentarily incapacitate him. Even then however, leaving her alone with Ultimecia potentially stalking about on the base was riskier still. He had no choice but to come clean. As he mulled over how to explain the situation in a way they might take seriously, all went dark.
"The hell?!" the other guard shouted out.
The lights had gone off. Sunlight shining in through the room's windows behind him cast long shadows across the sterile, synthetic corridor. Squall blinked his eyes; he could hardly see anything beyond the silhouettes of the two men standing opposite. Before he could question why, a feeling of weightlessness washed over him; it was as though he'd instantly lost every ounce of bodily mass. He looked to his feet below. To his astonishment, his boots had left the metal floor, yet to touch back down. He was floating in mid-air.
"The gravity system's gone offline!" the first guard roared, now levitating along with Squall.
"Everything has!" the other corrected him.
Squall ignored them both, craning his neck back to Ellone instead. She too had been lifted off the ground, her feet flailing wildly in search of stable footing. Her hair was an unkempt mess; every lock swirled and bobbed as if submerged in water. Squall's own surely looked no different. Out of the corner of his eye, the lion-pendant around his neck drifted upward. Ellone's right hand quickly shot down to keep her skirt from doing the same. Taking hold of the door-frame with one hand, he clumsily maneuvered himself back and reached out for her left. Her frantic features softened as their fingers joined and intertwined.
"Just hold tight," he told her.
She hesitantly nodded. Satisfied, he turned his ire back to the still awestruck guards floating opposite. Emergency lights blinked on up and down the hall. His eyesight had returned. Yet as seconds continued to tick by, gravity refused to follow suit.
"Main generator offline!" a voice called over the loudspeaker system. "Backup systems engaged! Maintenance crew, get on it, stat! Repeat…"
"Damn!" one of the officers swore. "We're running on backup power now. Should be enough to keep the lights and oxygen systems running, but that's it."
"What about the shields?!" the other panicked. "You saw how fast the moon is swelling out there!"
"Do you believe us now?" Squall growled impatiently. "Everyone aboard this station is going to die if we don't do something, fast! Take us to Dr. Odine, or the commander, or whoever you think can help us! All that matters is we get moving, now!"
The guards turned their heads, sharing a look between one another. Their deliberation to follow was silent, swift, and no doubt a matter of circumstance; with or without a proper explanation from Squall, their lives clearly now hung in the balance.
"Follow us," one finally said. "As best you can, that is."
One after the other, the two grabbed the wall to either side of the door, and shoved off. They floated through the air down the right hand side, their momentum carrying them to the turn in the hall.
"Let us know if it's too difficult," the other called back. "We'll get you there."
Squall turned to Ellone again. She nodded once more. Their fingers still linked together, he shifted himself horizontally, put his feet against the door-frame and pushed off, pulling her along after the guards.
Their trek to the command center proceeded slowly. Save for a few inadvertent bumps against the walls however, Squall soon grew accustomed to moving about in zero-gravity. It was fundamentally no different from swimming, and without any resistance to contend with. Not even pulling Ellone along presented a challenge. Keeping themselves vertically oriented was the hardest part; up and down they bobbed, their position vacillating between ceiling and floor.
The knot in Squall's stomach grew tighter with each pivot along the winding corridors. The station's power failure couldn't have been a simple glitch; the timing coincided too perfectly with their arrival, not to mention the swelling on the lunar surface. He half expected to see Rinoa's withered husk come careening down the hall at him at any moment. However frail her body, the power flowing through her veins knew no bounds, nor the consciousness within her mind.
All this time…
They forewent the elevator system to spare themselves potential injury. Fortunately, the gap stemming the stairwell was wide enough to thread comfortably. Several more turns later, and they'd arrived back at the command deck. Each workstation glowed noticeably dimmer, now operating on auxiliary power. The technicians were still seated in orderly rows to either side, tethered by their safety belts. Commander Piet floated at the fore. A visibly agitated Dr. Odine hovered by his side; for the first time, the stout man's face was perfectly level with another. Despite his thrashing, the long protrusion of hair jutting out from the crown of his head remained stiff as ever.
"Generator room, do you copy?!" Piet shouted into the receiver in his hand. "Repeat, generator room! Dammit, of all the days to be dragging their heels!"
"This is outrageous!" Odine grumbled. "How can the moon already be so close to critical saturation?! Only the Lunatic Pandora has ever caused it to swell this fast. And now, with the shields offline… I'd assume sabotage if I didn't know any better!"
"It is," Squall said as he and Ellone came up behind them.
On screen, the moon's surface had progressed further still. The mass of monsters bulged outward like a swollen pimple, ready to burst.
"What are you talking about?" the commander pivoted to him. "Do you know something about all this?"
"It's Rinoa! She's been possessed by a sorceress all this time!"
Anyone else would have scoffed at his claim. Fortunately, the two men before him were the ones he could most rely on to take it seriously.
"A sorceress?" Odine echoed as he cocked his eyebrow.
"Yes. The same one who's been searching for Ellone. She's passed her power on to Rinoa, and taken hold of her mind. We've got to find her, fast, and put her out of commission somehow."
"And you know this for sure?" Piet countered his assertion.
"This sorceress has passed her power on to your friend, you say?" Odine asked incredulously. "Then how could she still be ali-"
"There's no time to explain everything!" Squall cut him off. "We need to act now! Give the evacuation order!"
The doctor and commander shared a sidelong glance. Piet was the first to break eye contact. He tapped another button on the intercom and brought the receiver up to his mouth.
"Med bay, come in!" he barked. "Med bay, do you read me?"
Squall clenched his fist as the seconds ticked by without a response from the other end. He could respect his and Odine's skepticism to a point. They had not seen what he had through Ellone's mental influence. Neither did they know anything of Ultimecia. It was unreasonable to expect them to blindly take him at face value.
"Generator room, talk to me!" Piet diverted again, his voice now audibly anxious. "Will somebody please just pick up the damn com link?!"
"Commander!" another man's voice came through at last. "Maintenance team reporting! We've just arrived on the scene. It's a mess down here! The main generator's been completely blown to hell. No way we can fix it without getting some replacement parts shipped up here."
"Where's the crew? Have they told you what happened?"
"Every one of them was floating around, knocked out before we got here! We've got a couple oxygen tanks on hand, but it's not looking good."
Piet hesitated. His eyes drifted up to Squall in the interim, shooting him a look of reluctant acceptance.
"Order them to round up the wounded, and get them to the escape pods," Squall said.
"Don't be so naive!" Odine scolded him, fighting to keep his eye-line level as he bobbed in place. "You've no idea how fast a Lunar Cry travels. The last time we induced one, it reached the planet's surface in less than a day. It'll swallow up the pods long before they make it inside the atmosphere."
"What's our alternative, then?!"
Squall's patience had reached it's breaking point. In his frustration, he barely felt Ellone's dainty hand land on his shoulder. He turned his attention to her. Her pleading eyes begged him to remain calm. How she possibly could given the situation, he didn't know.
"If we can't outpace it, then we'll just have to clear the radius in time," Piet answered. He spun to a nearby technician. "Signal the Ragnarok to return to base, and prepare for evacuation. I'll be giving the order momentarily. You two! Escort him and the girl to the docking bay."
"I'm not leaving without Rinoa!" Squall barked.
"And what exactly do you intend to do?" Odine asked. "You realize you quite literally don't have a leg to stand on. Further, you're unarmed, and have no idea where she might be right now."
"I know where she'll be heading."
Though the full extent of Ultimecia's plot still eluded him, her end destination was a given. He stared out the cockpit windshield to Adel's containment unit at the base's center. There it idled, seemingly unaffected by the power outage. There were no suited attendants in its vicinity. The moment one popped into view, all would be lost.
"Where's the nearest airlock?"
"Out of the question!" Odine snapped. "I won't let you throw your life away on a foolhardy gambit."
"What does it matter to you?"
"It doesn't. What concerns me is her."
The doctor pointed past him to Ellone. As Squall turned to look, her face, usually so gentle, had formed the sternest glare he'd yet seen from her.
"You mean, who I'll tell about it," she fired back, venom dripping from each syllable.
For the first time, Odine had no comeback prepared.
"The Lunar Cry!" a technician's voice suddenly ripped across the command deck. "It's breaking loose!"
Squall spun his attention back to the video feed. The affected surface area had shriveled but slightly as the bulbous protrusion drooped further towards the planet. Precariously it hung in place, its base thinning like a clinging water droplet on the verge of falling to earth. And then, it snapped free. The speed with which the great mass of monsters shot through space from a dead stop beggared belief; it cleared the magnification's periphery within seconds. All at once, the bridge erupted into a panicked frenzy.
"Everybody, stay calm!" Piet raised his voice over the pandemonium. "Rachelle, what's the status on the Ragnarok?"
"They… they're en route as we speak," the woman from before stuttered. "They'd already started back once they noticed the swelling stabilize. ETA should be less than 5 minutes."
"You heard her, people! Prepare to evacuate! All stations to the docking bay, on the double!"
Without bothering to salute, or even pay their commander any modicum of respect, men and women up and down the fuselage unbuckled themselves from their seats and shoved off into the air. Squall envied the grace with which they maneuvered through zero-gravity. Daily life spent among the stars had prepared them well for such an emergency. No matter his resolve to rescue Rinoa, that alone wouldn't be enough to make his way to her.
"Such a shame," Odine moped. "To have come so far, and accomplished so much aboard this station…"
"And what about you?" Piet asked Squall, ignoring the doctor. "You're not still thinking of going out there, are you?"
"I was prepared to risk it all just by coming here," he replied.
His mind was made up. Rinoa's only hope for survival now lay with him; whether by transferal of her sorceress power to Adel, or being swept up by the Lunar Cry, she would surely die without his intervention.
"Bah, you hopeless romantics are all alike," Odine scoffed. "Can't imagine where you get that from."
"He's a SeeD," Piet clarified as he reached his hand into his pocket. "I'd expect nothing less. And there's a point where I stop trying to argue. If you're going after her, then at least take along some protection. Catch!"
The commander brought his hand back out, and thrust it towards Squall. From his grip flew a gleaming silver cuff, floating perfectly level through the space between them. Squall reached out. With some fumbling, he hooked his fingers around its curved interior. To his surprise, it was the most familiar piece of technology he'd seen since coming aboard the station. Flashing LED lights embedded in the bangle indicated it had been preemptively powered on.
"Clamp it on your wrist. It generates a negative energy field around your body that's designed to counteract and neutralize a sorceress' powers. Its field of influence is wide enough to encompass one of our space suits. Men, escort him to the airlock, help him get suited up, and then get the girl to the docking bay."
"You're giving away our ace in the hole to SeeD, just like that?!" Odine fumed.
Squall simply nodded to Piet. He had no intention nor reason to reveal his prior experience with the bangles. Still, the doctor's overblown reaction was unwarranted; surely he ought to have expected SeeD would become privy to Galbadia's acquisition at some point. He set the matter aside as he rolled up his jacket's sleeve and fastened the device to his wrist. Both ends magnetically sealed together. He only just barely stifled the urge to ask Piet for the keycard to unlock it.
"We'll circle around Adel's tomb once we've got everyone aboard the Ragnarok," the commander followed up. "If you're not there…"
"I understand," Squall accepted the terms. He turned back to his and Ellone's escorts, both still hovering at the ready. "You know the way? I think I'll take you up on that offer from before."
"If you insist," the nearest to him sighed. Though he clearly wasn't happy at the prospect, he took Squall by the arm all the same.
The other secured his hold on Ellone, and together they hauled the two of them back along the length of the freshly emptied command center. Odine and Piet's bickering continued all the while, fading from earshot by the time they reached the door.
"Do you want me to show you her current position?" Ellone asked out of the blue.
Squall hadn't thought to ask, nor even considered if it would be possible; he'd assumed her power must have a cut-off point, a set time-frame within which her influence could not reach while still so close to the present.
"You can do that?" he asked with bated breath.
She hesitated, and then smiled.
"I remember those eyes," she lightly chuckled. "They're the same ones you had when you were little. So curious and innocent, like a little puppy."
"Ellone… this is no time to be caught up in the past," he reminded her.
"That's right. What's important is the here and now. It's thanks to you I finally understand that."
Almost word for word, her epiphany perfectly lined up with what Rinoa had said to him that night at Fisherman's Horizon. Her insistence then had likewise been a turning point for him. And for however desperately he'd pined for those days of late, what mattered most was the promise of more like them to come. Only by taking action now could there be any chance of it.
"I can't show you this precise moment," she explained. "But I can take you right to the very edge, to the instant where present gives way to past. Are you ready?"
Squall nodded. With their escorts there to haul them along to their destination, there was no more perfect opportunity. Ellone closed her eyes. Within moments, the familiar compulsion to do the same washed over him, and he gave in willingly.
The baggy sleeves and pant-legs of the spacesuit poorly fitted Rinoa's frail body. Were there ample time, Ultimecia would have made a more thorough search through the lockers for a female cadet uniform. Maneuvering her way into it without anyone else to assist her presented another challenge. A generous application of telepathy had been required, both to hold the components in place amid the zero-gravity environment, and to ensure every seam was tightly sealed around her body.
The route she'd taken around the base had provided her no visual of Adel's tomb. Were she able to mentally pinpoint its location, teleporting herself there would be a cinch. Even then however, she'd have thought twice. Traversing the void between dimensions, however convenient, wasn't without its risks. There was no telling if Rinoa's body could withstand the transition in such a fragile state, to speak nothing of the suit.
Making it out to the tomb in one piece took precedence. It was imperative she disable its jamming frequency, and pass on the power inherited from Edea before the Lunar Cry came crashing down around the station. With the resonance of Adel's own consciousness still fragmented, there was no threat of the imprisoned sorceress reanimating. Only once restored with the power of the holy Guardian Force would she awaken. It fell to Seifer to secure the proper sphere, by whatever means. With the Lunatic Pandora at his disposal, he now held the most powerful bargaining chip on the negotiation table. And soon, with the end of the worldwide radio interference, the means to make the fullest use of it. Another imposition on his mind would be in order shortly.
[You really think you're just gonna fly out there in this thing without any practice?]
Ultimecia winced. Rinoa's comment came just as she'd reached for the switch to engage the suit's rear thrusters. The girl had a point; she had no experience traversing through outer space even in her own era, much less the distant past. Fortunately, she'd done her research beforehand; the file cache she'd downloaded from Odine Industries' database included all the necessary information pertaining to the station's layout, facilities, equipment, and standard crew procedures of the time. It all flashed through her mind again as she ran her fingers up and down the handheld joystick protruding from the left sleeve's underarm.
Watch me. I've given too much, and come too far to let this opportunity slip on by. You should feel honored, you know! Think of how few people have the chance to float among the stars. Let that be your final comfort as your body and soul fade away into the ether.
[Rinoa! Can you hear me? Listen to me! you've got to fight her control!]
[Squall? Is that… really you?]
You again?! Stay out of this!
"Hey, you alright, kid?"
Squall groaned as his eyes flitted open. For however quick Ultimecia was to impose on the minds of others, she apparently had little tolerance when it came to her own. He'd been thrust out just as the first time. Fortunately, he'd gotten all he'd needed. That she'd yet to make it out of the station gave him some reassurance. A glance down at his body gave him more still; he was already halfway outfitted in a spacesuit.
"Thought we'd lost you two already," one of his and Ellone's escorts half-joked. "You still sure you wanna do this?"
They all hovered amid a locker bay strikingly similar to the one Squall had observed through Rinoa's eyes. Both guards were hard at work outfitting him, piecing together the bulky suit's components around his body as quickly as they could. Ellone idled off to the side; she'd grabbed onto a nearby locker handle to keep herself in place. The airlock proper was just a short ways down, divided by a reinforced window.
"I'll be fine," he insisted.
"Let's hope," the other said. "Standard procedure before a spacewalk is to breathe pure oxygen for 20 to 30 minutes. The good news is you should still have enough left in your system from your trip up here in the capsule."
Squall didn't bother to ask why. Whatever the reason, he didn't care in the slightest. All that mattered was getting out to the containment unit before Ultimecia. And now, as an added bonus from his peek into her mind, he'd received the proper know-how to do so.
"The jetpack's another story," the first aide said as he slotted the device in question onto the suit's rear. "I'd say it's like flying a ship, but… well, you wouldn't know much about that either, would you?"
"I understand the concept."
Amazingly, it was true. Though he'd never used anything like the retractable joystick fixed to the inside of his left sleeve, its functions made perfect sense as he curled his fingers around it. The means to operate it had flashed through his consciousness just as Ultimecia's. He had no experience, but then, neither had she. Topped off the by Odine Bangle, the playing field had been leveled as much as he could reasonably expect.
"Squall," Ellone called to him. "Please… promise me you won't push yourself too far. There are too many things I still need to…"
"I won't," he cut her off. A rare smile crested his lips as he reassured her. "And whatever happens, you've already done more than enough for me. You wanted to see what you could learn in the past, and all the while, I was learning more about myself. It's made me who I am today. Thank you, Sis."
She blushed at the kind words. Even Squall had surprised himself. He hadn't intended to call her 'Sis'; it had just instinctively slipped out of his mouth. Still, he meant every word of it. A partition of glass dipped down in front of his eyes before he could say anything more. The helmet sealed around his head with a pressurized hiss.
"That ought to do it," one of the aides spoke; now fully sealed within the suit, his voice was significantly more muffled to Squall's ears. "Can you breathe okay?"
Squall nodded. The air seemed cleaner somehow as he sucked in a whiff through his nose. He gingerly moved his arms around to get a feel for his range of motion. However bulky the suit, it weighed nothing in the current environment.
"Alright, let me give you a quick rundown of the jetpack controls. That joystick under your sleeve-"
"I know," he cut the man off.
He tilted it forward and pulled the trigger beneath. The pack sputtered on his back before revving up. Almost immediately, he was sent hurtling towards the airlock. A pull back on the joystick slowed him to a stop just before he hit the transparent partition.
"Easy, there!" the officer yelled. "You're gonna burn up all your fuel in no time like that!"
Squall barely paid him any mind. He scanned his eyes over the nearby control panel for the switch to open the hatch. The other aide obliged him before he could find it. With a press of the button, the screen raised up into the ceiling. He proceeded inward, tilting the joystick far gentler than before to carry him through.
"You sure you're gonna be able to figure it out on your own? We'd come out there with you, but without any prep… well, I know I'm not looking to get the bends."
Squall said nothing. As he turned back, he cast his stare clear past both men to Ellone. He gave her one final wave, as much to reassure himself as her. She smiled and nodded. Without another word, the airlock resealed; the aides must have understood there was no stopping him now. A persistent hissing enveloped the room as the air pressure rapidly dispersed all around him. It faded away as abruptly as it had started, leaving pure silence in its wake. There came no sound at all even as the thick metal doors at the fore of the chamber parted. Beyond lay the cosmos in all its grandeur, endless, unimpeded, beckoning him forth. With another tilt of the control stick, he answered its call.
Only as he passed through did the gravity of the situation, or lack thereof, fully register: there he floated freely above the planet, untethered from its grip, in a realm mankind at large still only dreamed of exploring. The visor's ultraviolet shielding let him see clearly despite the sun's glare. Countless stars peppered the blackness in the far distance, each a testament to how insignificant their existence was in the grand scheme. To be there in the middle of it all took his breath away. That he could draw another reassured him his suit's oxygen tank was functioning.
The momentary wonder evaporated as he laid eyes on the moon. From his perspective, the giant mass of monsters already rivaled the planet in scale. He instinctively pulled the trigger. Where once there came whirring from the jetpack's thrusters, there was now only silence. It still carried him forward all the same. With some marginal adjustment, he turned left towards Adel's tomb. There it idled at the center of the base, the frozen sorceress still immobile within its confines.
As he drew near, a small anomaly off the port side caught his attention. It moved at a pace comparable to his own, with a trajectory near identical; it too zoomed ahead towards the tomb. There was no question as to who or what it could be. No one else in their right mind would dare venture out for a spacewalk with impending doom so close at hand.
He jammed hard on the accelerator, pushing the jetpack to its limit. She already had a lead on him. Though he assumed releasing Adel from stasis would take more than a few button presses, he didn't intend on leaving anything to chance. His steering became more unwieldy as he continued picking up speed; the joystick's sensitivity was unsuited for such a rapid pace. The absence of wind resistance meant there would be nothing to slow him down until he finally hit the brakes. If he missed, it would take too long to reorient himself for another pass. It was now or never.
Here goes nothing!
Ultimecia decelerated before the cylindrical mass of metal, her vision lingering upon the fearsome woman held captive within. Face contorted in fury, her pale white skin adorned with swirling black tattoos, Adel looked every bit the wicked sorceress legend recalled. And likely even the image ascribed to Ultimecia herself; how those poor, paranoid souls had built up her coming for generations before her birth, crafting for themselves a villain whose role she was destined to perform. Begrudgingly, she'd taken on the mantle, and even come to enjoy it. Now in the guise of this fellow woman scorned, soon to be reanimated, she would at last shake off the shackles of a legacy preordained.
[Squall… please hurry…]
She scoffed at Rinoa's pithy final plea. Even now, moments from the end, all the girl could think about was her dear knight in black, come to save her. With a smirk, she reached out one hand for the tomb's control console.
Don't worry, my dear. I promise he'll follow you shortly. But first, you'll have the privilege of knowing exactly what I felt that day in Galbadia Garden. Poetic justice, I suppo-
The sudden impact slammed into her from the side. It knocked her away from the containment unit, sending her tumbling through space. Befuddled beyond measure, it took her a few seconds to notice the other spacesuit now grappled onto hers. A look through the visor filled her with a rage to match. From the other side stared back the face of the commandant, who'd flown in seemingly from nowhere. His arms tightly restrained her own from beneath, holding her in place as they floated further and further away from the tomb.
[I knew you'd come!]
Ultimecia gnashed her teeth at the nagging jubilation in the back of her mind. If there was anything she despised more than obstruction, it was being made to look the fool.
She considered summoning a blast of energy to knock him away, but resisted; to do so would likely have ramifications on her own suit's structural integrity. Although Rinoa could not physically die until her power was passed on, it was imperative her body remain in functional condition to make her way back to the tomb. Further into the distance it slipped. Closer the Lunar Cry drew all the while. Her window of opportunity was closing, fast. Even were she to risk teleporting herself back, the incantation would end up bringing the commandant along with her. Whether by his persistence, fate, or sheer luck, he'd successfully thrown a wrench in her plans yet again.
[Told you so.]
Silence!
Her patience with this meddlesome couple had run out. All she cared for now was Leonhart's death, preferably one equally as excruciating for Rinoa to witness. And on that count, the stars had aligned in her favor. Her primary objective had been fulfilled. The concentrated stream of monsters would engulf the space station within minutes. It would bring Adel's tomb down to the planet's surface all the same, right into the waiting clutches of Seifer and his troops.
The commandant, in his desperation, had thrown away his one chance to evacuate with the rest. The most he could do now was use whatever fuel he had left to clear the radius. Ultimately, it would only buy him a few more minutes; he would expire regardless once his air supply ran out.
For Rinoa, it would be a long and torturous eternity. There she would linger in perpetual suffocation, unable to die, forced to watch her beloved breathe his last right before her eyes. Given their position at the Lagrange point, held in perfect gravitational equilibrium between the planet and moon, it would be easy enough to send up a team to locate her again once Ultimecia took control of Adel down on the surface. Her new ploy crossed Rinoa's mind simultaneously. From where once there'd sprung joy, there now came a shiver.
You wanted to see him again so badly? Here's your chance. Enjoy your last few moments together. I'll see you again soon…
And then, she was gone. That indescribable mass which took up so much space in her mind, smothering her every thought for the last two months, was no more. A feeling so familiar, yet so alien. She blinked her eyes. To her astonishment, they responded. She craned her neck, and then tried clenching her first. Again, they obeyed. Her body was her own once more, and yet still, she felt disconnected from it. Weightless, even.
She disregarded everything else as her eyes met Squall's staring right back at her. No matter the horrible fate Ultimecia had condemned her to, that he was there at all gave her comfort enough.
"Squall," she called his name.
Though her voice did not carry through the vacuum of space, Squall could read her lips. More than that, the look in her eyes had completely changed; they were no longer the same malicious yellow he'd seen in Edea's, but brown, and filled with that same innocence and wonder he'd glimpsed on the dance floor a lifetime ago. There was no question about it. Ultimecia had left her mind. Rinoa was herself again.
"Rinoa," he said her name back. Barely a whisper, it still broke through the all-encompassing silence around him.
She smiled. The sight alone brought one to his own lips. Indeed, there was no other cause for contentment; they couldn't possibly get back to the base in time, and though they'd drifted a good distance away, there was every chance they might be sucked back in by the Lunar Cry's gravitational pull. Their oxygen supply wouldn't last forever at any rate. Despite all this, he felt only satisfaction. Were this the end for him, he could at least go with a clean conscience.
And then, Rinoa's stare pivoted over his shoulder, reminding him of when she'd done so that night in the ballroom. He craned his neck back to see what had caught her attention.
A giant red vessel was approaching their position. From head to toe, it must have spanned several hundred feet easily. But then, perhaps head to tail was a better analogy; its cockpit protruded from the body by a neck-like appendage, just as the thrusters and rear fins resembled great wings extending outward. The closest comparison which came to mind were the fearsome ruby dragons said to roam Centra's Lenown Plains. It sported firepower to match if the cannon jutting out beneath the head were any indication.
The spaceship dipped down. A hatch set into the roof opened as it slowed to a crawl beneath their position. Two astronauts emerged, both tethered to the interior by thick safety cables, and floated up to meet them. Begrudgingly, Squall released his hold on Rinoa, and passed her off to one of the men. The other took hold of him from behind. Together, they all descended back into the ship. Yet more suited attendants stood by to intercept them as they passed into the airlock, two hard at work reeling in the life-lines by a pair of mechanized spools.
As the hatch closed above, a hiss enveloped the chamber just as before; it was the first sound from beyond the suit's helmet to reach Squall's ears since he'd exited the base. More startling was the sudden re-introduction of gravity. His body's weight gradually returned, pulling his feet to the floor. The surrounding technicians had already started disassembling his and Rinoa's suits by the time they touched down. He savored his first whiff of air as the helmet was removed. Of every close brush with death he'd survived since the Dollet siege, this one he would surely never forget.
Content to let the aides do their job, he turned his attention to Rinoa. She stood flanked by a cluster of four astronauts as opposed to his two; those not preoccupied with helping her out of her suit held their sidearms at the ready. It was unclear how much she understood of the circumstances, or the actions taken by Ultimecia through her body. To her credit however, she wasn't resisting. As she looked to him, the worry and confusion wrought upon her face melted away. An embarrassed smile blossomed in their place.
"Thank you, Squall."
Those three words were music to his ears, carried by the most breathtakingly beautiful timbre. How he'd longed to hear that voice again. It almost brought him to tears. He turned his head away, racking his brain for a deflection. Where once he would have reached for 'Whatever', or 'It's my job', he could no longer bring himself to.
"Don't mention it. I just… did what I wanted to do."
Sincerity was a refreshing change of pace, apparently for Rinoa as much as himself. Her smile grew wider. Now fully stripped of her spacesuit, the appropriated officer's uniform she wore beneath sagged off her emaciated figure. One of her retainers wasted no time in clipping a pair of Odine bangles to both her arms. Her expression reverted as they hauled her to the door.
"Hold it!" Squall protested. His own aides held him back. "Where are you taking her?"
"To the brig," one told him. "Commander's orders. He and Dr. Odine want to see you immediately. Come with us."
Stepping out of his suit's pant legs, he followed them into the adjoining synthetic hallway. Rinoa and her escorts turned the corner up ahead. He prepared to pick up the pace, when the view out the nearby row of windows stopped him in his tracks. The Lunar Cry continued its plummet to earth, at a distance still too near for Squall's liking. The abandoned space station lingered in place just below, practically a speck. A few more seconds, and it was fully consumed, disappearing completely into the torrent.
If such a stream had left behind the massive crater in the Vienne Mountains, let alone Centra, there was no question as to the fate of the Lunar Base. He doubted any portion would reach the planet's atmosphere still intact, much less the surface. Adel's tomb was another story, however. Odine had been confident enough in its durability, as apparently was Ultimecia. And though Rinoa was safe, and free of the sorceress' control for the moment, nothing had truly been resolved. Esthar's certain doom sped ever onward through the void. The worst was yet to come.
Where the hell do we go from here?