[fic] Space Troopers, 6/(?)
Finally finished Persona 4. I'm not sure how much I like the ending compared to P3, but it was still enjoyable. And yeah, Kanji's farewell comment? The tone of voice? Seriously, game designers, with Akihiko and Shinjiro and now this, I'm beginning to see a pattern. Not that I'm complaining, mind.
Also, just so I can freak out a few people....Space Troopers' latest chapter. Yes, that's right. It's done. It's the worst kind of teeth-pulling one I've ever had to write I think, and I get a general feeling of not-quite-there-ness about it, but if I have to read it again I will have to spork my eyes out. So, maybe it's a bit awkward in places, weird pacing, and typos, but I feel guilty about making you guys wait more so it's still going up. :P ff.net might have to be a tad more patient about it.
Title: Space Troopers 6/(?)
Author: Jameva
Rating: PG
Pairings: Cid/Vincent, with Cloud/Aerith more or less explicit, and any combination including Zack, Cloud and Sephiroth. And maybe Aerith as well. -eeeeee OT4-
Warnings: AU, and most probably eventual violence, yaoi, maybe smut. AU.
Summary: Space mechanics Cid Highwind was having a wonderfully crappy day when he happened to stumble upon an old Shinra-issued cryogenic pod. His kind heart forbade him not to wake up the poor bastard. His cursing brain knew he was getting into a heap of trouble.
Notes: Holy crap has it been a year????
Cid appraised the ship with a critical eye, taking in the lumpy hull, the oddly assorted metal plates, the atmosphere-burnt sides and the immaculate propeller engines, half as big as the ship itself. The little bugger had to be more solid than it looked from the outside, to be able to resist the strain from so much power. That was odd enough by itself, but there was something else that nagged him about the ship’s design, something he couldn’t quite identify but that reinforced his certainty that this was no simple delivery shuttle.
“It might not look like much, but it’s fast. We use ships like those when we travel to the colony,” Aerith explained as she helped the one ranger that had accompanied them gather everyone’s bird.
Straightening from his inspection of the underside, Cid pointedly looked at the deserted field stretching in all directions. The grass was almost as tall as his bloody shoulders, and the ship just happened to be settled in a convenient little depression between two hillocks. Yeah, great place for business travels.
“S’long as it’s too fast for Shinra.” He doubted it, but he hoped they’d think they were dead or injured in the crash, or not already on their merry way.
“Can you fly it?”
“I can fly anything with an engine,” he declared unashamedly. “Just get your asses on board already!”
Aerith gave him a half-amused smile that skittered over his already frayed nerves. He might admire Aerith’s even keel later when he was in better condition, but for now it just fuelled his annoyance. Tightening his jaw around an invisible cigarette, he punched the control pad to open the main hatch and strode inside before he said or did something stupid.
The interior was just as dingy as the exterior, but Cid could tell that under the rundown look, the structure was sound. He studied the console as the others stepped inside, crowding the small cockpit and spilling out the door as he familiarized himself with the basics needed for the escape. Cid didn’t like the odds; this ship looked to be all about speed, with just a standard thermal gun under the bay window for basic defence. If they were noticed, it’d only take two or three hits.
He heard Aerith say something to the ranger before shutting the main hatch. Cid activated the warm-up sequence of the engines and watched the monitors and graphs spark to life as a low hum travelled through the ship. He dropped down in the pilot chair with a curse as he waited, his fingers clenching and unclenching around the armrest. Every moment they sat here the Shinra net drew tighter, and he was in no hurry to be caught.
There were two other seats in the cockpit. Cid looked over his shoulder. “Cloud, Aerith, I want you both here. I need people who either know engines or outer space around this planet. Everyone else, go sit your asses down and buckle up. Once this baby’s ready, I ain’t waiting around!”
As Cloud and Aerith took their assigned seats, Cid’s eyes crossed Vincent’s. The gunman wore an indecipherable expression, and Cid didn’t know him well enough to be able to make anything out of it. With a slight nod, Vincent broke eye contact and left the cockpit.
It took ten agonizingly long minutes before the engines reached the appropriate temperature. By then Cid had figured everything he needed to know to fly this small hunk of metal, and he didn’t waste a second punching in the commands and coordinates. With a rattle like a tin can full of nails, the small ship lifted off the ground and, ever so slowly, gained altitude and speed. Cid cringed at the sound and slanted an unconvinced glare towards Aerith.
“You know, there were easier ways to kill us,” he growled as he adjusted the angle slightly to try and smooth the friction.
Aerith was concentrating on the communication panels before her, twisting something on her headpiece searchingly, but she still spared him a knowing curl of a smile. “Give it a chance. It’s tougher than it looks.”
“Haven’t got a chance to spare,” he huffed, but the ship did start taking up speed properly once it reached a certain altitude, and although the shaking didn’t diminish, at least it didn’t worsen despite the thrusters’ growing roar.
“Keep us in this direction. HQ is going to guide us through Shinra’s blind spots. They shouldn’t have enough wide-range radars in the area to cover the whole atmosphere yet.”
Not the whole of it, but Shinra only needed to cover the section they had to fly through. It would all depend on how many ships they had, and how fast they could deploy more. Hopefully there wasn’t a battle station that could get here before they got away. Cid ground his teeth. Shinra was mobilizing a lot of resources for his little crew. He didn’t like it.
The shuttle’s death rattle increased as they hurtled through the atmosphere, but that was to be expected. He held his breath as they reached the critical point, releasing it in a choppy rush as the ship broke through in one piece and settled in a calmer, if still shaky, pace. He’d flown out in space more times than he could count, but even in the best of ships it still tied a small knot in the bottom of his stomach. It would take the smallest thing, the tiniest mistake or sabotage, and they’d be dead in a matter of moments.
“Aim straight for area NEN-7654O,” Aerith instructed, her voice slightly breathless. “76537 and its neighbours are all under surveillance.”
Cid changed the ship’s direction accordingly, putting the planet’s green and blue curve to their right as they navigated the knife-edge of its gravitational pull while still profiting from its energy. Cid couldn’t make out the colony from the stars yet, but his radar indicated that it was only slightly to their left.
“Where to after that?”
Aerith leaned forward and mapped a course over the checkerboard area map overlapping the planet’s image. Her finger trailed along their actual route for a while, bypassing the colony completely, before curving back wide and coming in from the colony’s far side, as if they came from outer space and not the planet. It was a sizeable detour.
“Damn it,” Cid rasped. As much as he wanted to hightail it straight to the colony, instead he checked the shuttle’s speed and made sure it wasn’t so fast it’d attract attention. They might not be within a radar zone just yet, but he’d rather be on the safe side.
The UNPP kept their end of the bargain. They steadily informed Aerith of the changes in the flightpaths of Shinra’s ships, and with a few more careful detours and doubling back, they managed to avoid being detected before reaching the colony’s space zone. According to their info, no additional ships had flown in to search. Cid was happy to hear it; it gave him the limit of Shinra’s interest in them.
The UNPP colony was a housing unit. Many of the park’s workers and their families lived there on alternating schedules of seven days, spending two weeks on the planet, then one on the colony. All considered it was a puny colony, with only one small space port that was bound to be under Shinra’s eye by now.
“You gonna trust your people so far?” he asked Aerith as he watched the dark grey disk of the colony draw nearer. It would only take one worker with no guts and a loose lip to sell them out as they landed. Cid wasn’t about to believe that a colony worker’s dedication to the UNPP stretched so far, not if a soldier was standing behind their shoulder.
“No,” Aerith answered bluntly. She did not have a quirky grin for him this time. “There’s an outwardly abandoned space port opposite the current one. We keep it secretly functional, just in case.” Her eyes were confident when she looked across at him. “The structure’s safe under the scrap metal, but there’s no one in the control tower. You won’t have any backup for landing.”
Cid snorted gruffly. “Never needed it. S’all well and good, but they’ll pick us up as soon as we’re in range.”
“Not if you activate the cloaking device.”
She said it so casually. Cid stared at her openly. “And why didn’t you fucking mention that earlier?” he snapped irritably.
Ignoring the bark in his tone, she etched a mischievous grin. “Because it depletes the power supply too much. We might not have had enough left to reach the colony.”
“Still nice to know in an emergency,” he grumbled, but bent over the console to locate said cloaking device.
That was what had bothered him about the ship’s design earlier. For it to work properly, the hull had to respect certain angles and parameters. He hadn’t expected to see anything close to a cloaking device’s calibre on the run-down looking ship.
“No use wasting time, then.” Cid began the approach carefully, waiting until the very last moment before activating the cloaking device. There was no way to know from the inside if it had worked flawlessly, making them invisible to eye and radar alike, but the colony outside the window shifted minutely, as if it had stepped one notch out of focus, just enough to smudge its outer line without really being fuzzy. That was a typical sign of a functional cloaking device, and at least it told Cid that it was doing something.
The section of the colony Aerith guided them to looked like a solid metal wall. Cid angled the ship slightly to the side as he scanned for an opening that could indicate a space port, but he was having no luck so far.
“There.” Aerith pointed at a structure that looked flat and normal, but under close scrutiny and a slightly upwards angle, revealed to be hiding a space hatch. “It’ll respond to a specific signal transferred directly from HQ.”
She said a few words in her headset, and a moment later the communication console before them came to life as the transmission began.
“Looks like you’re used to doing this,” Cid remarked. Aerith was guiding him with the ease and assurance of long practice. If she was nervous about anything going awry, she was damn good at hiding it.
As predicted, the space hatch began opening. Aerith settled back in her chair and shrugged. “I guess I am. We don’t really have a choice, if we want to survive.”
Cid grunted and engaged the ship in the proper trajectory. He kept an eye on his energy supplies; as she’d mentioned, they were dropping fast now that the cloaking device had been activated.
“Shinra made a move against the UNPP?”
She shook her head. “Not exactly, but we’re like a black hole in their tightly woven control over charted space. They don’t like that, and if they haven’t tried seizing control of the park outright yet, we still have to deal with their people getting themselves hired and spying on the system. We can’t always just send them away, so we do this instead.” She stretched her arm, encompassing the ship, its cloaking device and the hidden space port.
“Some day one of those bastards is gonna get in far enough and find out about it.” What she said made too much sense. Of course Shinra wouldn’t let this solar system be for too long. It was becoming the perfect hiding place for smugglers and terrorists.
“Probably, but until then, we can only do the most we can.”
Aerith had been true to her word; the interior looked more than just abandoned, it was nearly in ruins. Cid stared openly and cursed just as liberally when the second hatch opened, revealing the trashed structures.
“You sure about this?” he asked more than a little suspiciously.
She nodded and pointed to a landing zone off to their right. “The structure around that spot’s the strongest.”
Cid raised a disbelieving eyebrow even as he manoeuvred the ship through the touchy landing. “You let it some of it fall apart anyways?”
Aerith removed her headset as the ship hovered over the ground for a few seconds before Cid cut all power, engines and cloaking device included, dropping the shuttle to the floor. The sudden absence of its constant rattled left a ringing in his ears.
“We have to make it look convincing, don’t we?”
Cid snorted and opened the communication lines. “Everyone get your asses out, we’re down!” Opening the main hatch, Cid went through the landing operations quickly. The constant feeling of being chased was pulling tight, uncomfortable knots in his shoulders and neck. He’d be more than happy to wait and pound a few Shinra skulls, if it could actually do any good.
Everyone was waiting outside by the time he got out. Cid quickly did a head count, noting in passing the various signs of exhaustion, or lack thereof in the case of Cait, Cloud and Vincent. Though he didn’t look tired, Cid could see that his chocobo-headed friend was tense as a bowstring.
“We can’t stay on this colony for long,” Cloud said, shifting his balance minutely as he surveyed the surroundings. Cid noticed he’d kept himself a small distance from the group, undoubtedly to give himself room in case he needed to wield his enormous sword. Damn but that kid was the most level-headed ball of nerves Cid had ever known. Unless you counted Vincent, who’d managed to place himself with his back to the ship’s hull.
RedXIII raised his massive head towards Cloud and nodded. “We will find you transportation out of the system, but in the meantime we need to bring you to a better hiding place.”
It turned out that ‘a better hiding place’ consisted of a storehouse near the actual, legal space port. The building was situated in a district a stone’s throw away from the busy lanes and businesses and markets of the space port area. So long as they weren’t seen coming in and out of the storehouse, they would be able to hide in plain sight until they found a ship ready to take them out of the system and throw Shinra off their tail.
Cid surveyed the interior of the storehouse, letting the smoke fill his lungs with cancer-choked bliss before hissing it out in a lazy cloud, feeling some of his headache flow away with it. Tifa had warned him to be careful when he’d declared he was making a little detour by the first shop they spotted that sold tobacco, but she hadn’t tried to stop him. Cid smiled around his cigarette. She knew it would be better for all concerned if he wasn’t grouchy on tobacco withdrawal.
The warehouse was used for storing construction materials. Crates upon crates were stacked up to the ceiling, along with sacks and tight stacks of wooden and metal beams. Though Cid could see the logic in the storing system, it still created a maze full of nooks and crannies they could hide in.
“Do the owners know their warehouse is part of your secret system?” Cloud asked, watching as Aerith locked the back doors on his heels. The building was thrown into near pitch-black darkness as soon as they sealed shut. Only RedXIII’s tail provided any light.
“No. But we know their workers’ usual schedules and their stock rotation. They have three other warehouses, and they should empty those before they come here,” she answered. Her words were followed by the click of a button as she opened a flashlight. She handed two others to him and Tifa. “Don’t worry,” she added, her green eyes intent on Cloud. “We’ll keep you, all of you, safe.”
Now, Cid wasn’t all that good at reading people in the best of times, but even he couldn’t miss the depth that lurked under those words. Cid couldn’t put a name on how Aerith was looking at Cloud, but he was beginning to wonder if she wasn’t falling for his asocial little ass.
“And we’re really grateful for that, but we should go find a better place than right by the doors to rest,” Tifa intervened, and by her tone she’d noticed too. It wasn’t jealousy, but a razor-sharp edge of worry and something like alarm made her words sound a whole lot less thankful than they were probably meant to be.
“Enough yappin’, then,” Cid declared, deciding that he’d had enough of the weird feminine eye-balling and quadruple-meanings he couldn’t make head nor tails of. It looked like the small exchange had sailed way over Cloud’s head, but that wasn’t surprising. As stupidly good as he was when it came to fighting and anything with wheels and a motor, he could be denser than a fucking mountain when it came to social interactions.
They found a corner in the stacks where they could sit or lie down without risking being caught by surprise from behind or above, then closed the flashlights, once again relying on RedXIII’s tail to provide a bit of illumination. Aerith excused herself, explaining that she was going to try and find a ship. Ignoring the itch growing between his shoulder blades, Cid sat down with a weary sigh and leaned back against a bag of something that was only half solid.
“You should try to sleep.”
Cid opened eyes he hadn’t realized he’d closed and looked over at Vincent. Although he was used to seeing Cloud’s glowing eyes, he was not so comfortable with the way Vincent’s subtler but just as alien red highlights seemed to swallow the darkness around them as he peered at the surroundings. Shrugging halfheartedly, he lit himself another cigarette to give himself something to do.
“Can’t sleep when I don’t know when Shinra might find our asses,” he answered, only half-true. His nerves were raw with wariness and the feeling of expectation, but it was all dimmed by a film of exhaustion. The dull, constant throbbing from his head injury hadn’t abated since the crash, sapping a lot of his bluster, and he’d stopped counting the hours since he’d last slept. He figured it had to be only twenty-four hours, but it had been a busy day and Cid never pretended to be a miracle man. Still, he’d rather not sleep and be awake and ready when -if-Shinra found them.
“We are enough, we can set a watch until Aerith comes back,” Vincent insisted, not looking even a little tired, the silent bastard.
Even less patient than usual, Cid just scowled at him. “I ain’t sleeping, I said.”
Vincent just stared at him for a moment before nodding the tiniest bit. “Would you prefer I heal your injury?” he offered instead, his tone as serious and honest as you please. Cid wasn’t buying it.
“So it’s a cure materia. Was wonderin’ about it,” Cid grouched. He removed his retracted spear from its sheath and propped it on his thigh, keeping a loose fist around it. “And no, I don’t. I ain’t looking forward to after the boost. Makes me fucking hungrier than the Zolom on a diet,” he added, shooting Vincent a baleful glance. Though not as much as the caster himself, it would still make him sleepy, and Cid couldn’t afford that.
Cid decided to blame the dark, fitful shadows for the ghost of a smile he thought he saw curve Vincent’s lips. “Where’d you get it? I don’t know how long you’ve been in space, but materia were pretty damn hard to get during the war. Only just started seeing shops of ‘em again.”
The hint of amusement that Cid figured he was imagining anyways winked out of Vincent’s eyes just as suddenly. Well fucking damn. Talking to that guy was like walking on fucking eggshells, except Cid was no bloody ballerina. He exhaled a cloud of smoke in an exasperated rush.
“Never mind,” he snapped, returning his attention to the thick darkness in front of him. Tifa and RedXIII were talking close by, with Cloud looming just around a stack corner, the stealth of his dark leather completely ruined by the bright shock of his hair.
“I stole it.”
Cid glanced back at Vincent. His expression was carefully blank, but at least he was talking. Cid was ready to take whatever he could get.
“If Shinra’s on my tail for one lousy cure materia, I’m leaving you on this shithole colony,” he growled, injecting enough humor in his grouch to show Vincent that he wasn’t serious.
The comment did manage to loosen up Vincent’s wall-face, at least. “They’re not.”
“Good to hear,” Cid nodded. He let himself drift off for a minute before adding, half to himself, “The way things are going lately, a couple materia could be a smart investment.”
Vincent nodded and stretched one leg before him. “You said they were hard to come by during the war. How available are they now?”
Cid raised one shoulder and began rolling his spear in his palm. “Expensive, but every city or colony worth mentioning’s got a shop now. Basic crap, of course, cure and the elements, but I saw a place close to Midgar that advertised a couple higher grades.” Cid snorted. “Probably bullshit.”
“Does anybody else in your ship have materia?” Vincent asked, and the way his eye turned to Cloud left no doubt about who he was implying by ‘anybody’.
Cid considered briefly the possibility of lying, but figured that it was a moot point by now. If Vincent was the traitor, there wasn’t much more damage he could do by knowing Cloud had materia. Wasn’t especially hard to find out anyways.
“Thunder and ice. Seal. Anything else he didn’t share,” he answered. The more they talked about it, the more he wondered why he’d never equipped himself before. True, the only thing he’d ever had to worry about before was monsters, but he could name a few run-ins that would’ve benefited from magic. Cid was pretty sure he was fit enough to handle the basic stuff, and they said the ability grew with time and practice. With the bastards on his tail, the little voodoo balls were certainly becoming more and more attractive.
“He is well equipped,” Vincent nodded. ‘For a delivery man’ hung thick in the air. Cid rolled his eyes.
“Yeah well, just be thankful he is if Shinra catches up to us.”
Aerith was gone for a long time, long enough that Cid was beginning to worry, when the back door of the depot clanked open and shut in a rush. He tensed, his grip tightening around his weapon as he listened to the sounds of running footsteps. They were too light for soldier gear, and single besides. It didn’t come as a surprise when Aerith’s voice preceded her appearance in the small hollow of light cast by RedXIII’s tail.
“They know we’re here,” she said immediately. She was breathing heavily and sweat trickled down her temples. She must have run fast and long to get to them before the soldiers. “I don’t know how, but they’ll be here in a matter of minutes. We have to go.”
Godamnit. He’d had enough of this stupid fucking bullshit. He jumped up and lengthened his spear in the same breath, slamming the butt against the concrete floor. “Let them come! It’s about time we faced the bastards!”
Without compromising his view of the rows beyond their corner, Cloud angled his head so he could fix a mako-blue gaze on the little party, too steady. The pilot could read the turmoil and tension in Cloud’s body language from the way he was not showing it.
“Did you find a ship?” he asked Aerith.
Grimacing, she shook her head. “I didn’t get the chance. They’ve also managed to ground all flights until they decide otherwise.”
Cloud nodded grimly. “Cid has a point. The best way to lose them now is to defeat them.”
“We ignore how many there are. I imagine we are sorely outnumbered,” RedXIII put in, his deep rumble laced with anticipation and a suppressed hunger Cid suspected wouldn’t mind trying the odds.
“With the element of surprise, it might not matter,” Cloud countered, and just like that, the mood shifted, taking the heavy, heady quality of anticipation when you know a bad storm’s coming, but you can’t wait to see who comes out on top regardless. Cid almost felt like grinning.
“This deathtrap ain’t no place to fight. Let’s get outta here first.”
They went out through the backdoor. Aerith led the way, since she probably looked the less suspicious along with Tifa, and they followed quickly when she signaled that the area was still clear. Although it wasn’t large enough to allow for delivery trucks, the back street was still big enough for fair-sized vehicles coming to get stuff from the back. Scanning both sides quickly, they opted instead for a connecting alley that would provide better cover while they chewed out a hasty plan.
“They were setting up guards up and down all the streets connecting to the warehouse,” Aerith explained. “I just managed to slip through. I don’t think they’ll be happy to just wait until we move, though.”
Cloud, the one with the better knowledge on how Shinra’s military operated -except maybe for Vincent, but Cid wasn’t going to start speculating down that road, not now-nodded his confirmation.
“Once they’ve set their net, they’ll start drawing tighter. We pick our ground and wait for them.”
With so many people with at least a minimum of battle experience, they managed to set the ambush before the first of the soldiers rounded the corner. Vincent had found his way up to the rooftop to provide cover fire, while the rest had dispersed in key points along the alley. The narrow space would prevent Shinra from surrounding them, and in greater numbers it’d be easier picking them off in single combat.
Theoretically.
It started well enough. There was the startled scream of pain and surprise induced by two hundred and some pounds of compact, animal muscles dropping on one’s head. As predicted, the remaining two soldiers backed into the alley for cover without the caution they would’ve taken if they didn’t have to contend with RedXIII’s full-fanged snarl, raising their rifles. Cloud took them out before they could pull the trigger.
Alerted by the noise, the other soldiers surrounding the warehouse made for the alley in tighter, controlled formations. From his end of the alley, Cid wasn’t overly worried. Although the odds weren’t in their favor -three to one, it looked like-they weren’t enough that Cid doubted they’d be able to fight their way out of this mess. He activated the electric current in his spear, reveling in the familiar, near-imperceptible hum against his glove-covered palms, and waited for the soldiers to be close enough to engage.
That’s when he heard the staccato whirring of chopper blades. He wanted to look up and see how many there were, and where, but the first Shinra crony came within striking distance and Cid couldn’t afford the distraction. At first he’d meant to lure the enemies to him, fight with his back covered instead of in a melee, but the sound of those helicopters forced his hand. He jumped forward instead, hopping in the thickening group of enemies, hoping that whatever weapons were on those choppers, they wouldn’t dare aim for him as long as they risked killing their own at the same time.
The long range of his spear worked well to keep the growing number of soldiers at a manageable distance, with the electric current disabling those he couldn’t dispatch with a first strike, and at some point during the battle Cid became aware of the silenced, bone-deep explosions of Vincent’s enormous gun. Men dropped around him sometimes, and Cid only had enough attention to spare to snarl and plunge in the openings left him. The battle-confusion was thick and Cid couldn’t waste a second to see how the others were faring, but he was beginning to see the end of his own little share of Shinra flunkies.
Cid noticed that he couldn’t hear Vincent’s distinctive report amongst the soldiers’, but still the chopper’s hammering, at the same time as a blast of magic slammed against his side and sent him staggering to one knee. It was like a plate of smudged glass had been dropped before his eyes; everything became murky and indistinct, a mess of gradually blurring shapes that made only just enough sense that Cid was able to deflect the butt of a riffle before it could club him in the head. He shook his head, trying to dispel the magic, but it was creeping beyond his vision like a space parasite gnawing its way along energy lines, shutting out sounds and sensations alike, cocooning his body in a numbing blanket. The world became dark and quiet, and Cid did not feel it when he hit the ground.
Also, just so I can freak out a few people....Space Troopers' latest chapter. Yes, that's right. It's done. It's the worst kind of teeth-pulling one I've ever had to write I think, and I get a general feeling of not-quite-there-ness about it, but if I have to read it again I will have to spork my eyes out. So, maybe it's a bit awkward in places, weird pacing, and typos, but I feel guilty about making you guys wait more so it's still going up. :P ff.net might have to be a tad more patient about it.
Title: Space Troopers 6/(?)
Author: Jameva
Rating: PG
Pairings: Cid/Vincent, with Cloud/Aerith more or less explicit, and any combination including Zack, Cloud and Sephiroth. And maybe Aerith as well. -eeeeee OT4-
Warnings: AU, and most probably eventual violence, yaoi, maybe smut. AU.
Summary: Space mechanics Cid Highwind was having a wonderfully crappy day when he happened to stumble upon an old Shinra-issued cryogenic pod. His kind heart forbade him not to wake up the poor bastard. His cursing brain knew he was getting into a heap of trouble.
Notes: Holy crap has it been a year????
Cid appraised the ship with a critical eye, taking in the lumpy hull, the oddly assorted metal plates, the atmosphere-burnt sides and the immaculate propeller engines, half as big as the ship itself. The little bugger had to be more solid than it looked from the outside, to be able to resist the strain from so much power. That was odd enough by itself, but there was something else that nagged him about the ship’s design, something he couldn’t quite identify but that reinforced his certainty that this was no simple delivery shuttle.
“It might not look like much, but it’s fast. We use ships like those when we travel to the colony,” Aerith explained as she helped the one ranger that had accompanied them gather everyone’s bird.
Straightening from his inspection of the underside, Cid pointedly looked at the deserted field stretching in all directions. The grass was almost as tall as his bloody shoulders, and the ship just happened to be settled in a convenient little depression between two hillocks. Yeah, great place for business travels.
“S’long as it’s too fast for Shinra.” He doubted it, but he hoped they’d think they were dead or injured in the crash, or not already on their merry way.
“Can you fly it?”
“I can fly anything with an engine,” he declared unashamedly. “Just get your asses on board already!”
Aerith gave him a half-amused smile that skittered over his already frayed nerves. He might admire Aerith’s even keel later when he was in better condition, but for now it just fuelled his annoyance. Tightening his jaw around an invisible cigarette, he punched the control pad to open the main hatch and strode inside before he said or did something stupid.
The interior was just as dingy as the exterior, but Cid could tell that under the rundown look, the structure was sound. He studied the console as the others stepped inside, crowding the small cockpit and spilling out the door as he familiarized himself with the basics needed for the escape. Cid didn’t like the odds; this ship looked to be all about speed, with just a standard thermal gun under the bay window for basic defence. If they were noticed, it’d only take two or three hits.
He heard Aerith say something to the ranger before shutting the main hatch. Cid activated the warm-up sequence of the engines and watched the monitors and graphs spark to life as a low hum travelled through the ship. He dropped down in the pilot chair with a curse as he waited, his fingers clenching and unclenching around the armrest. Every moment they sat here the Shinra net drew tighter, and he was in no hurry to be caught.
There were two other seats in the cockpit. Cid looked over his shoulder. “Cloud, Aerith, I want you both here. I need people who either know engines or outer space around this planet. Everyone else, go sit your asses down and buckle up. Once this baby’s ready, I ain’t waiting around!”
As Cloud and Aerith took their assigned seats, Cid’s eyes crossed Vincent’s. The gunman wore an indecipherable expression, and Cid didn’t know him well enough to be able to make anything out of it. With a slight nod, Vincent broke eye contact and left the cockpit.
It took ten agonizingly long minutes before the engines reached the appropriate temperature. By then Cid had figured everything he needed to know to fly this small hunk of metal, and he didn’t waste a second punching in the commands and coordinates. With a rattle like a tin can full of nails, the small ship lifted off the ground and, ever so slowly, gained altitude and speed. Cid cringed at the sound and slanted an unconvinced glare towards Aerith.
“You know, there were easier ways to kill us,” he growled as he adjusted the angle slightly to try and smooth the friction.
Aerith was concentrating on the communication panels before her, twisting something on her headpiece searchingly, but she still spared him a knowing curl of a smile. “Give it a chance. It’s tougher than it looks.”
“Haven’t got a chance to spare,” he huffed, but the ship did start taking up speed properly once it reached a certain altitude, and although the shaking didn’t diminish, at least it didn’t worsen despite the thrusters’ growing roar.
“Keep us in this direction. HQ is going to guide us through Shinra’s blind spots. They shouldn’t have enough wide-range radars in the area to cover the whole atmosphere yet.”
Not the whole of it, but Shinra only needed to cover the section they had to fly through. It would all depend on how many ships they had, and how fast they could deploy more. Hopefully there wasn’t a battle station that could get here before they got away. Cid ground his teeth. Shinra was mobilizing a lot of resources for his little crew. He didn’t like it.
The shuttle’s death rattle increased as they hurtled through the atmosphere, but that was to be expected. He held his breath as they reached the critical point, releasing it in a choppy rush as the ship broke through in one piece and settled in a calmer, if still shaky, pace. He’d flown out in space more times than he could count, but even in the best of ships it still tied a small knot in the bottom of his stomach. It would take the smallest thing, the tiniest mistake or sabotage, and they’d be dead in a matter of moments.
“Aim straight for area NEN-7654O,” Aerith instructed, her voice slightly breathless. “76537 and its neighbours are all under surveillance.”
Cid changed the ship’s direction accordingly, putting the planet’s green and blue curve to their right as they navigated the knife-edge of its gravitational pull while still profiting from its energy. Cid couldn’t make out the colony from the stars yet, but his radar indicated that it was only slightly to their left.
“Where to after that?”
Aerith leaned forward and mapped a course over the checkerboard area map overlapping the planet’s image. Her finger trailed along their actual route for a while, bypassing the colony completely, before curving back wide and coming in from the colony’s far side, as if they came from outer space and not the planet. It was a sizeable detour.
“Damn it,” Cid rasped. As much as he wanted to hightail it straight to the colony, instead he checked the shuttle’s speed and made sure it wasn’t so fast it’d attract attention. They might not be within a radar zone just yet, but he’d rather be on the safe side.
The UNPP kept their end of the bargain. They steadily informed Aerith of the changes in the flightpaths of Shinra’s ships, and with a few more careful detours and doubling back, they managed to avoid being detected before reaching the colony’s space zone. According to their info, no additional ships had flown in to search. Cid was happy to hear it; it gave him the limit of Shinra’s interest in them.
The UNPP colony was a housing unit. Many of the park’s workers and their families lived there on alternating schedules of seven days, spending two weeks on the planet, then one on the colony. All considered it was a puny colony, with only one small space port that was bound to be under Shinra’s eye by now.
“You gonna trust your people so far?” he asked Aerith as he watched the dark grey disk of the colony draw nearer. It would only take one worker with no guts and a loose lip to sell them out as they landed. Cid wasn’t about to believe that a colony worker’s dedication to the UNPP stretched so far, not if a soldier was standing behind their shoulder.
“No,” Aerith answered bluntly. She did not have a quirky grin for him this time. “There’s an outwardly abandoned space port opposite the current one. We keep it secretly functional, just in case.” Her eyes were confident when she looked across at him. “The structure’s safe under the scrap metal, but there’s no one in the control tower. You won’t have any backup for landing.”
Cid snorted gruffly. “Never needed it. S’all well and good, but they’ll pick us up as soon as we’re in range.”
“Not if you activate the cloaking device.”
She said it so casually. Cid stared at her openly. “And why didn’t you fucking mention that earlier?” he snapped irritably.
Ignoring the bark in his tone, she etched a mischievous grin. “Because it depletes the power supply too much. We might not have had enough left to reach the colony.”
“Still nice to know in an emergency,” he grumbled, but bent over the console to locate said cloaking device.
That was what had bothered him about the ship’s design earlier. For it to work properly, the hull had to respect certain angles and parameters. He hadn’t expected to see anything close to a cloaking device’s calibre on the run-down looking ship.
“No use wasting time, then.” Cid began the approach carefully, waiting until the very last moment before activating the cloaking device. There was no way to know from the inside if it had worked flawlessly, making them invisible to eye and radar alike, but the colony outside the window shifted minutely, as if it had stepped one notch out of focus, just enough to smudge its outer line without really being fuzzy. That was a typical sign of a functional cloaking device, and at least it told Cid that it was doing something.
The section of the colony Aerith guided them to looked like a solid metal wall. Cid angled the ship slightly to the side as he scanned for an opening that could indicate a space port, but he was having no luck so far.
“There.” Aerith pointed at a structure that looked flat and normal, but under close scrutiny and a slightly upwards angle, revealed to be hiding a space hatch. “It’ll respond to a specific signal transferred directly from HQ.”
She said a few words in her headset, and a moment later the communication console before them came to life as the transmission began.
“Looks like you’re used to doing this,” Cid remarked. Aerith was guiding him with the ease and assurance of long practice. If she was nervous about anything going awry, she was damn good at hiding it.
As predicted, the space hatch began opening. Aerith settled back in her chair and shrugged. “I guess I am. We don’t really have a choice, if we want to survive.”
Cid grunted and engaged the ship in the proper trajectory. He kept an eye on his energy supplies; as she’d mentioned, they were dropping fast now that the cloaking device had been activated.
“Shinra made a move against the UNPP?”
She shook her head. “Not exactly, but we’re like a black hole in their tightly woven control over charted space. They don’t like that, and if they haven’t tried seizing control of the park outright yet, we still have to deal with their people getting themselves hired and spying on the system. We can’t always just send them away, so we do this instead.” She stretched her arm, encompassing the ship, its cloaking device and the hidden space port.
“Some day one of those bastards is gonna get in far enough and find out about it.” What she said made too much sense. Of course Shinra wouldn’t let this solar system be for too long. It was becoming the perfect hiding place for smugglers and terrorists.
“Probably, but until then, we can only do the most we can.”
Aerith had been true to her word; the interior looked more than just abandoned, it was nearly in ruins. Cid stared openly and cursed just as liberally when the second hatch opened, revealing the trashed structures.
“You sure about this?” he asked more than a little suspiciously.
She nodded and pointed to a landing zone off to their right. “The structure around that spot’s the strongest.”
Cid raised a disbelieving eyebrow even as he manoeuvred the ship through the touchy landing. “You let it some of it fall apart anyways?”
Aerith removed her headset as the ship hovered over the ground for a few seconds before Cid cut all power, engines and cloaking device included, dropping the shuttle to the floor. The sudden absence of its constant rattled left a ringing in his ears.
“We have to make it look convincing, don’t we?”
Cid snorted and opened the communication lines. “Everyone get your asses out, we’re down!” Opening the main hatch, Cid went through the landing operations quickly. The constant feeling of being chased was pulling tight, uncomfortable knots in his shoulders and neck. He’d be more than happy to wait and pound a few Shinra skulls, if it could actually do any good.
Everyone was waiting outside by the time he got out. Cid quickly did a head count, noting in passing the various signs of exhaustion, or lack thereof in the case of Cait, Cloud and Vincent. Though he didn’t look tired, Cid could see that his chocobo-headed friend was tense as a bowstring.
“We can’t stay on this colony for long,” Cloud said, shifting his balance minutely as he surveyed the surroundings. Cid noticed he’d kept himself a small distance from the group, undoubtedly to give himself room in case he needed to wield his enormous sword. Damn but that kid was the most level-headed ball of nerves Cid had ever known. Unless you counted Vincent, who’d managed to place himself with his back to the ship’s hull.
RedXIII raised his massive head towards Cloud and nodded. “We will find you transportation out of the system, but in the meantime we need to bring you to a better hiding place.”
It turned out that ‘a better hiding place’ consisted of a storehouse near the actual, legal space port. The building was situated in a district a stone’s throw away from the busy lanes and businesses and markets of the space port area. So long as they weren’t seen coming in and out of the storehouse, they would be able to hide in plain sight until they found a ship ready to take them out of the system and throw Shinra off their tail.
Cid surveyed the interior of the storehouse, letting the smoke fill his lungs with cancer-choked bliss before hissing it out in a lazy cloud, feeling some of his headache flow away with it. Tifa had warned him to be careful when he’d declared he was making a little detour by the first shop they spotted that sold tobacco, but she hadn’t tried to stop him. Cid smiled around his cigarette. She knew it would be better for all concerned if he wasn’t grouchy on tobacco withdrawal.
The warehouse was used for storing construction materials. Crates upon crates were stacked up to the ceiling, along with sacks and tight stacks of wooden and metal beams. Though Cid could see the logic in the storing system, it still created a maze full of nooks and crannies they could hide in.
“Do the owners know their warehouse is part of your secret system?” Cloud asked, watching as Aerith locked the back doors on his heels. The building was thrown into near pitch-black darkness as soon as they sealed shut. Only RedXIII’s tail provided any light.
“No. But we know their workers’ usual schedules and their stock rotation. They have three other warehouses, and they should empty those before they come here,” she answered. Her words were followed by the click of a button as she opened a flashlight. She handed two others to him and Tifa. “Don’t worry,” she added, her green eyes intent on Cloud. “We’ll keep you, all of you, safe.”
Now, Cid wasn’t all that good at reading people in the best of times, but even he couldn’t miss the depth that lurked under those words. Cid couldn’t put a name on how Aerith was looking at Cloud, but he was beginning to wonder if she wasn’t falling for his asocial little ass.
“And we’re really grateful for that, but we should go find a better place than right by the doors to rest,” Tifa intervened, and by her tone she’d noticed too. It wasn’t jealousy, but a razor-sharp edge of worry and something like alarm made her words sound a whole lot less thankful than they were probably meant to be.
“Enough yappin’, then,” Cid declared, deciding that he’d had enough of the weird feminine eye-balling and quadruple-meanings he couldn’t make head nor tails of. It looked like the small exchange had sailed way over Cloud’s head, but that wasn’t surprising. As stupidly good as he was when it came to fighting and anything with wheels and a motor, he could be denser than a fucking mountain when it came to social interactions.
They found a corner in the stacks where they could sit or lie down without risking being caught by surprise from behind or above, then closed the flashlights, once again relying on RedXIII’s tail to provide a bit of illumination. Aerith excused herself, explaining that she was going to try and find a ship. Ignoring the itch growing between his shoulder blades, Cid sat down with a weary sigh and leaned back against a bag of something that was only half solid.
“You should try to sleep.”
Cid opened eyes he hadn’t realized he’d closed and looked over at Vincent. Although he was used to seeing Cloud’s glowing eyes, he was not so comfortable with the way Vincent’s subtler but just as alien red highlights seemed to swallow the darkness around them as he peered at the surroundings. Shrugging halfheartedly, he lit himself another cigarette to give himself something to do.
“Can’t sleep when I don’t know when Shinra might find our asses,” he answered, only half-true. His nerves were raw with wariness and the feeling of expectation, but it was all dimmed by a film of exhaustion. The dull, constant throbbing from his head injury hadn’t abated since the crash, sapping a lot of his bluster, and he’d stopped counting the hours since he’d last slept. He figured it had to be only twenty-four hours, but it had been a busy day and Cid never pretended to be a miracle man. Still, he’d rather not sleep and be awake and ready when -if-Shinra found them.
“We are enough, we can set a watch until Aerith comes back,” Vincent insisted, not looking even a little tired, the silent bastard.
Even less patient than usual, Cid just scowled at him. “I ain’t sleeping, I said.”
Vincent just stared at him for a moment before nodding the tiniest bit. “Would you prefer I heal your injury?” he offered instead, his tone as serious and honest as you please. Cid wasn’t buying it.
“So it’s a cure materia. Was wonderin’ about it,” Cid grouched. He removed his retracted spear from its sheath and propped it on his thigh, keeping a loose fist around it. “And no, I don’t. I ain’t looking forward to after the boost. Makes me fucking hungrier than the Zolom on a diet,” he added, shooting Vincent a baleful glance. Though not as much as the caster himself, it would still make him sleepy, and Cid couldn’t afford that.
Cid decided to blame the dark, fitful shadows for the ghost of a smile he thought he saw curve Vincent’s lips. “Where’d you get it? I don’t know how long you’ve been in space, but materia were pretty damn hard to get during the war. Only just started seeing shops of ‘em again.”
The hint of amusement that Cid figured he was imagining anyways winked out of Vincent’s eyes just as suddenly. Well fucking damn. Talking to that guy was like walking on fucking eggshells, except Cid was no bloody ballerina. He exhaled a cloud of smoke in an exasperated rush.
“Never mind,” he snapped, returning his attention to the thick darkness in front of him. Tifa and RedXIII were talking close by, with Cloud looming just around a stack corner, the stealth of his dark leather completely ruined by the bright shock of his hair.
“I stole it.”
Cid glanced back at Vincent. His expression was carefully blank, but at least he was talking. Cid was ready to take whatever he could get.
“If Shinra’s on my tail for one lousy cure materia, I’m leaving you on this shithole colony,” he growled, injecting enough humor in his grouch to show Vincent that he wasn’t serious.
The comment did manage to loosen up Vincent’s wall-face, at least. “They’re not.”
“Good to hear,” Cid nodded. He let himself drift off for a minute before adding, half to himself, “The way things are going lately, a couple materia could be a smart investment.”
Vincent nodded and stretched one leg before him. “You said they were hard to come by during the war. How available are they now?”
Cid raised one shoulder and began rolling his spear in his palm. “Expensive, but every city or colony worth mentioning’s got a shop now. Basic crap, of course, cure and the elements, but I saw a place close to Midgar that advertised a couple higher grades.” Cid snorted. “Probably bullshit.”
“Does anybody else in your ship have materia?” Vincent asked, and the way his eye turned to Cloud left no doubt about who he was implying by ‘anybody’.
Cid considered briefly the possibility of lying, but figured that it was a moot point by now. If Vincent was the traitor, there wasn’t much more damage he could do by knowing Cloud had materia. Wasn’t especially hard to find out anyways.
“Thunder and ice. Seal. Anything else he didn’t share,” he answered. The more they talked about it, the more he wondered why he’d never equipped himself before. True, the only thing he’d ever had to worry about before was monsters, but he could name a few run-ins that would’ve benefited from magic. Cid was pretty sure he was fit enough to handle the basic stuff, and they said the ability grew with time and practice. With the bastards on his tail, the little voodoo balls were certainly becoming more and more attractive.
“He is well equipped,” Vincent nodded. ‘For a delivery man’ hung thick in the air. Cid rolled his eyes.
“Yeah well, just be thankful he is if Shinra catches up to us.”
Aerith was gone for a long time, long enough that Cid was beginning to worry, when the back door of the depot clanked open and shut in a rush. He tensed, his grip tightening around his weapon as he listened to the sounds of running footsteps. They were too light for soldier gear, and single besides. It didn’t come as a surprise when Aerith’s voice preceded her appearance in the small hollow of light cast by RedXIII’s tail.
“They know we’re here,” she said immediately. She was breathing heavily and sweat trickled down her temples. She must have run fast and long to get to them before the soldiers. “I don’t know how, but they’ll be here in a matter of minutes. We have to go.”
Godamnit. He’d had enough of this stupid fucking bullshit. He jumped up and lengthened his spear in the same breath, slamming the butt against the concrete floor. “Let them come! It’s about time we faced the bastards!”
Without compromising his view of the rows beyond their corner, Cloud angled his head so he could fix a mako-blue gaze on the little party, too steady. The pilot could read the turmoil and tension in Cloud’s body language from the way he was not showing it.
“Did you find a ship?” he asked Aerith.
Grimacing, she shook her head. “I didn’t get the chance. They’ve also managed to ground all flights until they decide otherwise.”
Cloud nodded grimly. “Cid has a point. The best way to lose them now is to defeat them.”
“We ignore how many there are. I imagine we are sorely outnumbered,” RedXIII put in, his deep rumble laced with anticipation and a suppressed hunger Cid suspected wouldn’t mind trying the odds.
“With the element of surprise, it might not matter,” Cloud countered, and just like that, the mood shifted, taking the heavy, heady quality of anticipation when you know a bad storm’s coming, but you can’t wait to see who comes out on top regardless. Cid almost felt like grinning.
“This deathtrap ain’t no place to fight. Let’s get outta here first.”
They went out through the backdoor. Aerith led the way, since she probably looked the less suspicious along with Tifa, and they followed quickly when she signaled that the area was still clear. Although it wasn’t large enough to allow for delivery trucks, the back street was still big enough for fair-sized vehicles coming to get stuff from the back. Scanning both sides quickly, they opted instead for a connecting alley that would provide better cover while they chewed out a hasty plan.
“They were setting up guards up and down all the streets connecting to the warehouse,” Aerith explained. “I just managed to slip through. I don’t think they’ll be happy to just wait until we move, though.”
Cloud, the one with the better knowledge on how Shinra’s military operated -except maybe for Vincent, but Cid wasn’t going to start speculating down that road, not now-nodded his confirmation.
“Once they’ve set their net, they’ll start drawing tighter. We pick our ground and wait for them.”
With so many people with at least a minimum of battle experience, they managed to set the ambush before the first of the soldiers rounded the corner. Vincent had found his way up to the rooftop to provide cover fire, while the rest had dispersed in key points along the alley. The narrow space would prevent Shinra from surrounding them, and in greater numbers it’d be easier picking them off in single combat.
Theoretically.
It started well enough. There was the startled scream of pain and surprise induced by two hundred and some pounds of compact, animal muscles dropping on one’s head. As predicted, the remaining two soldiers backed into the alley for cover without the caution they would’ve taken if they didn’t have to contend with RedXIII’s full-fanged snarl, raising their rifles. Cloud took them out before they could pull the trigger.
Alerted by the noise, the other soldiers surrounding the warehouse made for the alley in tighter, controlled formations. From his end of the alley, Cid wasn’t overly worried. Although the odds weren’t in their favor -three to one, it looked like-they weren’t enough that Cid doubted they’d be able to fight their way out of this mess. He activated the electric current in his spear, reveling in the familiar, near-imperceptible hum against his glove-covered palms, and waited for the soldiers to be close enough to engage.
That’s when he heard the staccato whirring of chopper blades. He wanted to look up and see how many there were, and where, but the first Shinra crony came within striking distance and Cid couldn’t afford the distraction. At first he’d meant to lure the enemies to him, fight with his back covered instead of in a melee, but the sound of those helicopters forced his hand. He jumped forward instead, hopping in the thickening group of enemies, hoping that whatever weapons were on those choppers, they wouldn’t dare aim for him as long as they risked killing their own at the same time.
The long range of his spear worked well to keep the growing number of soldiers at a manageable distance, with the electric current disabling those he couldn’t dispatch with a first strike, and at some point during the battle Cid became aware of the silenced, bone-deep explosions of Vincent’s enormous gun. Men dropped around him sometimes, and Cid only had enough attention to spare to snarl and plunge in the openings left him. The battle-confusion was thick and Cid couldn’t waste a second to see how the others were faring, but he was beginning to see the end of his own little share of Shinra flunkies.
Cid noticed that he couldn’t hear Vincent’s distinctive report amongst the soldiers’, but still the chopper’s hammering, at the same time as a blast of magic slammed against his side and sent him staggering to one knee. It was like a plate of smudged glass had been dropped before his eyes; everything became murky and indistinct, a mess of gradually blurring shapes that made only just enough sense that Cid was able to deflect the butt of a riffle before it could club him in the head. He shook his head, trying to dispel the magic, but it was creeping beyond his vision like a space parasite gnawing its way along energy lines, shutting out sounds and sensations alike, cocooning his body in a numbing blanket. The world became dark and quiet, and Cid did not feel it when he hit the ground.