The Voyage of the Excalibur
Kingdom Hearts
Rated PG-13
Sci-fi AU, incomplete
Riku/Sora
"Mayday. Mayday. This is the Destiny Free Ship Excalibur. We are out of power and adrift. We request rescue. It is now standard time 32103.921, and we are at position..."
"Captain?" Flight Officer Riku Highwind called across the bridge. "This is a distress call."
"Play it," Captain Leonhart said. Riku flipped a switch, and the radio signal played over the bridge speakers. "...Tortuga to Agrabah. We are beginning emergency life support procedures. This message will be recorded and repeat for three hours, until our radio runs out of power. I repeat, this is a mayday. Mayday. Mayday." As promised, the message was starting over. The speaker sounded like a teenage boy, maybe Riku's age or a little younger, trying to sound calm through a thick layer of nerves. "Can you find the ship?" the captain asked.
"Sure," Riku said. "They're ballistic. I can plot their course to the centimeter. But if their life support goes off with their radio they'll be awfully chilly by the time we get there."
"Just give me the course," the captain said.
"Yes, sir." Riku punched up the fastest intercept the Gunblade's engines would give them. Even a slight chance of saving someone was worth it. "There." Captain Leonhart looked at the course and acceleration, nodded, and the HMS Gunblade began to turn. The Gunblade was a corvette, a small, fast ship with only a four-person crew. Odds were good they'd get there before anyone else - if anyone else had even heard the message way out here.
Lieutenant Yuffie Kisaragi spoke up. "A Free Ship running from the biggest pirate port in space to a world that just went over to the rebels?" The gunner laughed. "You just want to know what she's carrying, skipper."
Leonhart scowled. "Captain," he corrected. "And we need the salvage, too."
Riku frowned at his console. He didn't like to be reminded of it, but they were in a war, and they were losing. Their homeworld of Radiant Garden had suffered a coup. Too much of the Space Force had gone over to the pretender already. The crews still loyal to King Ansem, wherever he was, had taken refuge at Traverse, but they were never going to beat the rebels (Hollow Bastion, they called themselves) with the ships they had. But even so, they shouldn't be answering a mayday with plans to loot the hold and take the derelict apart for parts.
Riku's console beeped. He looked down and saw a data transmission from the gunner's console. "Data," that is, in a loose sense of the term. Aw, don't be sad, Riku. We'll rescue the cute signals officer too. Lieutenant Kisaragi thought military formality was for other people.
Shut up, Yuffie, Riku typed back quickly, then closed the window before the captain saw.
It just opened again as Kisaragi sent him a new message. He's from Destiny, he might even be up for that kind of thing. This time Riku just ignored her, and went back to work.
---
"Are you sure that's it?" Captain Leonhart asked.
"It's on exactly the course the mayday said they'd be on," Riku said. They were still too far away to see anything out the viewport, but their sensors were reading a tiny little ship - a fighter, even smaller than the Gunblade, with no room for more than one person. Even then, it was amazing anyone had tried to make a deep-space trip in a ship that small.
"Well," Kisaragi joked, "at least that solves the problem of where to put the crew."
The captain stared at the wire-frame sensor image for several seconds. The distinctive marks of blaster damage scarred the fighter's flanks. It was a pattern Riku was used to seeing on enemy ships - blasters were a Radiant Garden Space Force weapon. Of course, the rebels used the same guns. "Could be a trap," Leonhart said finally.
That was too much. "Captain!" Riku said. "The pilot is dying." He was reading no power at all from that ship. The heaters and air scrubbers had been dead for some time.
"Then you volunteer to board the ship first?" Leonhart said.
Riku swallowed his first answer, which involved language inappropriate for addressing a senior officer, and said, "Yes, sir." He was the logical one to send, anyway - he was the lowest-ranking member of the crew, and least-needed in a fight.
"Good." The captain pressed a key on his console. "Engineering, break out a thruster suit. Officer Highwind is going for a walk."
---
All space suits are fairly bulky. Keeping the air in is relatively easy, but they also have to store pressurized air and clean water, not to mention keep the wearer from freezing in the cold of deep space - or frying in unfiltered sunlight. A military thruster suit also has to mount all the machinery and fuel to let the wearer maneuver alone in space, a hull knife, boarding blaster, a small tool-belt, and full body armor. By the time Riku was suited up, the Gunblade had matched course half a kilometer off Excalibur's wing, and Riku was wearing his own mass. Luckily, the engines were off, so he didn't feel the weight. "Check your seals," Cid said. (He always answered to "Engineering" or "Cid" instead of "Lieutenant Highwind" - it was a common last name, and Riku wasn't the first shipmate he'd shared it with.)
"Seals green," Riku said. "Come on, we're already in position."
"Yeah, yeah," the engineer grumbled. "No reason to kill a second young idiot trying to save the first one. You're set." He pushed a button on the wall. "Engineering to bridge. Ready for EVA."
"Go ahead," the captain said, and Riku pushed himself toward the external hatch. It looked like just a red section of wall, but it was raw gummi, electrically charged so it would stay quasi-fluid. As Riku went into it, it gave thickly, sealing around his suit as he moved through it. It felt like swimming through a wall of pudding. In a few seconds, Riku was Outside, looking across at the drifting wreck of the Excalibur. He curled his toes, triggering his thrusters, and began flying toward the fighter.
"I'm on my way," he said over the radio. It felt like he was lying on his back, and the fighter was falling toward him. The cockpit would be cold by now, bitter cold. It would be quiet, too, without the constant hum of computers and life-support systems that reassure spacers that their ship is keeping them alive. And it would be dark. I'm coming, Riku thought. Just hold on a little longer. Halfway across, he flipped over on his maneuvering thrusters, decelerating so he wouldn't splatter himself against Excalibur's hull. "Gunblade, give me a three second contact warning, please."
"You got it," Yuffie said. And presently Riku heard her voice again. "On my mark... now." Riku cut his main thrusters, flipped again, and hit the fighter feet-first. The gummi hull was tacky, sticking to Riku's boots as he walked around to the cockpit. It looked like a plain two-meter sphere stuck into the middle of the hull, barely visible top and bottom, with no windows at all and certainly no hatches or airlocks. It obviously wasn't designed to be opened in space. Riku couldn't see how to open it at all.
He knelt down and fished a microphone out of his belt and stuck it to the cockpit, plugging the wire into his suit. The cockpit was silent. No breathing. After ten long seconds, Riku sighed. "Highwind to Gunblade," he said over the radio, "I think he's..." From inside the cockpit, a soft thub sound. Could it have been a heartbeat, maybe? "Rescue! Gunblade, he's alive, rescue rescue rescue flank!"
To his credit, Captain Leonhart didn't waste any time. He'd already turned the ship, and in less than a minute the Gunblade was parked right over Riku's head, the access hatch almost close enough to reach up and touch. "Just land on my head, bring us both in." Now it felt like the pudding wall was slowly falling on him, as Leonhart gently maneuvered the Gunblade right into the fighter. Two live ships crashing into each other would only do each other damage, but with the Excalibur's computers offline it was just gummi wrapped around a bunch of spare parts, and the fighter glommed right onto the corvette. Riku was pushed backwards through the hatch into the Engineering deck, and the Excalibur's whole cockpit came in after him, nearly crushing Cid as it floated across the compartment. The ship was stopped, and without the acceleration there was no gravity.
They got it to a stop, and Riku pounded on the surface, looking for a way to get it open. He wasn't even sure it was right side up, though at least he couldn't feel the pilot bouncing around inside. "Calm down, kid," Cid said. "The computer would have woken up when it went through our hull. Let me just get a cable..." But Cid was right, and Excalibur's computer didn't need to be told to open up. The top of the cockpit (which was on Riku's left at this point) split and opened, making the cockpit look like an orange with a slice missing.
The pilot wasn't in a chair, he was hanging from the walls by some kind of straps. Fortunately, they were easy to peel off the pilot's wrists and ankles, and Riku had pulled him out in a few seconds, holding him as they floated. It indeed looked like an adolescent boy. He wasn't in a uniform - Destiny didn't have one - he wore a helmet and gloves over some complicated black and yellow civilian style. Riku pulled off the helmet. It was a boy, his cheeks smooth, his brown hair feathery and floating in the micro-gee. He was beautiful.
Riku shook himself. Forget beautiful, was he breathing? He put the back of his space gauntlet over the pilot's mouth, and after a moment, there was a very faint fog as he breathed out. Then the pilot shifted, and his eyes fluttered open. "You're okay," Riku said, and the boy recoiled. "What? Oh, the suit." Space armor wasn't designed to be cute or reassuring. He pulled the helmet off and tossed it aside.
The pilot smiled woozily. "Oh, good," he whispered, too quiet for Cid to hear. "It's you, Riku." Then he passed out again, and Riku stared in confusion at the stranger who somehow knew his name.
---
Sora woke up with a pounding headache. He was in somebody's bed, and didn't remember how he'd gotten there. The last thing he did remember was Tortuga, so it was likely he'd forgotten himself and drank something. (There was water on Tortuga, but it made you just as sick as the beer.) In which case he'd passed out alone on Tortuga, which usually meant losing your virginity, your money, or your ship. Since Sora didn't currently have any money or virginity...
"Ungh," he groaned, putting an arm over his eyes so no light could accidentally get through. "Where's my ship?"
"You're awake," someone said. "How are you feeling?"
"Where's my ship?" Sora said again, not opening his eyes.
"We attached it belowdecks. Do you need water or anything?"
No drinking. Drinking was what had gotten him into this mess. "Wait, I'm in space?"
"Yeah... This is HMS Gunblade of the Radiant Garden Space Force. We found you adrift after your power failed. Don't you remember?"
Sora cracked one eye open. At first he just saw stars from the spike of agony the light gave him, and he whimpered. Then it resolved into a tall silver-blonde in a uniform. "Adrift? Aw, crap." This wasn't a hangover, it was hibernation sickness. "What happened to my ship?"
"It got the crap shot out of it," the navy-boy said frankly. "How many power orbs was it supposed to have?"
"Four."
"Well, we only found two, and they were both leaking and empty. It looked like half your guns and engines were gone, too. The only thing that didn't get hit was the cockpit."
"I can fix it, then," Sora said, closing his eyes and flopping back down on the bed. First he'd sleep for about a week...
"How did you know my name, Sora?"
"What?" Sora rolled over and opened one eye by a tiny crack. "I don't know your name. How do you know my name?"
"I asked your computer. It said you were Captain Sora Excalibur." Sora's eye opened the rest of the way. "Military ships have ways of getting computers to talk when they're not supposed to," the navy-boy explained a bit sheepishly.
Sora blinked his open eye slowly, and then snickered. "You hacked my computer?"
"Is that funny?"
"You could have just asked me what my name was."
"You were asleep. Look, that doesn't matter. Sora..."
"Don't call me that. And don't talk so loud, you're giving me a headache."
"What?"
"My name is Excalibur." Getting called by his given name usually didn't bother Sora this much. Not from foreigners. You can't go around to different planets and expect them to know your customs. But here... well, maybe it was because Sora was alone with a guy and lying in what he was beginning to suspect was the guy's bed.
"Well, you called me by my first name."
"I did not."
"I mean before."
"I've never seen you before in my life," Sora said.
The guy sighed, exasperated. "When I pulled you out of your cockpit. You looked at me and called me Riku."
Riku? Sora cracked both eyes open and looked at the guy. Then he held one hand up to cover the dorky uniform, and suddenly the resemblance was obvious. "I was out of my mind on hibernation drugs," Sora muttered. "I don't know what I said. I knew another Riku once, that's all. You sort of look like him."
"Oh." Then, tentatively, Riku said, "What happened to him?"
"He died. Could you go away, please? My head's about to split open."
"Sorry," Riku said. "I'll be quiet." The guy was going to watch him sleep? Maybe he really did think he was Sora's boyfriend or something. Right now, though, all Sora cared about was closing his eyes and waiting for the little elephants to stop drilling through his brain...
The door opened, and Riku scrambled to his feet. "Captain!"
"What?" Sora grouched.
"He meant me," said someone with a deeper voice than Riku's. Sora opened his eyes, and saw a tall young man with dark hair. Same dorky uniform, more shiny bits. He handed Riku a pistol. "Mr. Highwind, now that the prisoner is awake you're to carry a sidearm."
Sora propped himself up on an elbow and forced both eyes open. "Wait, prisoner?"
"Mr. Excalibur..." the newcomer began.
"Captain Excalibur."
"... fine. Captain Excalibur. You are under arrest, on suspicion of smuggling, piracy, and assault on ships of the fleet in time of war."
"What? You can't do that. I didn't do anything!"
"Your ship has damage from Radiant Garden weapons. You were running from Tortuga to a planet captured by the rebels."
Sora sat straight up. "Holy crap, they took Disney?"
"No. Agrabah."
"Why the heck was I going to Agrabah?" Sora asked, confused.
There was a pause. "I don't know," the other captain said. "I asked your computer, and it told me you don't keep a log."
"I don't like talking to myself," Sora said.
"It also said you delete your navigation history every time you make port which, conveniently, means we can't find out where you were before Tortuga."
"I'm a Free Captain," Sora insisted. "I don't have to eat up computer memory to satisfy your curiosity. And I didn't do anything wrong."
"How did your ship get damaged?"
Sora opened his mouth and hesitated. "I don't remember," he said. "The hibernation, it gives you amnesia..."
"Right. Officer Highwind, you have the..." He sighed, and looked around what was obviously Riku's quarters, "...brig watch, until eight bells, when Lieutenant Kisaragi relieves you and you take your turn on the bridge. As you were." He walked out. Riku relaxed, and Sora realized he'd been at attention the whole time.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"Whatever, navy-boy," Sora grumbled, and rolled over to go back to sleep.
---
When Sora woke up again, his jailer was a girl with dark hair. "I'm hungry," he mumbled.
"Hi, Hungry," she said. "I'm Yuffie." Sora rolled his eyes. "Come on, I'll take you to the galley." Sora stood up, and Yuffie held up a pair of magnetic cuffs. "Put your hands behind your back, please." With a sigh, Sora let himself be cuffed. He was barefoot, he realized, and wearing a plain, loose-fitting grey jumpsuit; probably what navy spacers wore to work on engines or something. They must have changed his clothes while he slept, which meant they weren't totally stupid. There were a few things hidden in his pockets he'd have loved to have right now. Without them, he'd just have to wait.
The Gunblade, like most small ships, didn't waste much cubage on personal space. Highwind's berth - Sora wasn't going to use his friend's name for some kidnapping navy-boy - was barely bigger than his bunk. The galley shipped a small refrigerator, a multi-microwave oven, a coffeepot, and a tiny table with two chairs. And then the coffeepot seemed to be broken. An older guy had the back panel off and was fiddling around inside. "Hey, Cid," Yuffie said. "I was going to find you after this, it's almost your turn."
Cid grunted. "How's he behaving?"
"Like a kitten," Yuffie said, digging through the refrigerator. "He slept through my whole watch." She started putting together some kind of sandwich on flat bread. "Do you think he really did anything?"
"How the hell should I know?" Cid grumbled. "They don't pay me enough for that crap." Sora sighed again but didn't comment. Cid pulled his hand out of the coffee machine sharply. "Shit!"
"What?"
"Damn thing ate my screwdriver!" He held up the plastic handle, with only an inch of metal left attached. The end looked melted. "Must be a bug in the nanofilters. Take the computer hours to fix." Sora looked at the coffeepot, smirking a little. "What are you laughing at?"
"Nothing." Yuffie re-cuffed Sora's hands in front of him so he could eat. Cid, meanwhile, tapped a panel on the wall, instructing Gunblade's computer to debug the coffeepot's nanofilters. Sora watched this with increasing amusement.
"Damn snickering brat," Cid muttered.
"So," Yuffie asked, "do all Destinese pilots name their fighters after themselves?"
"Of course not," Sora said. "A captain is named after his ship. We name people for their jobs, and otherwise everybody would be Captain Captain, and that would sound stupid."
"Oh. I guess that makes sense." The ship's speakers beeped. "All right, Cid, he's all yours." Cid just grunted again, took the pistol from Yuffie, and leaned against the wall to watch Sora eat.
"Do I have to go back to the bunk?" Sora asked.
"No skin off my nose," Cid said. "This is just as good, and there's more space."
"Okay." Cid cuffed his hands behind him again once he was done eating, of course. Sora sat quietly, but not patiently, tapping his feet and fidgeting. Every few seconds he'd glance at the coffeepot, as if he didn't want to miss it when it exploded.
---
Since Riku's bunk had a prisoner in it, he didn't have anywhere to go when Yuffie relieved him on the bridge. So he just stayed at his post, poking absently at the computer. He supposed he'd have to sleep in his chair.
"That Destinese kid is weird," Yuffie commented. "I'm almost convinced he's innocent, just from the way he acts. It's like getting arrested is just something annoying that'll get cleared up soon."
"He's madder about it than he looks," Riku said. He idly called up the recording of the original distress call. Mayday, mayday, this is the Destiny Free Ship Excalibur. We are out of power... "That doesn't sound like him," Riku noticed suddenly.
"He was scared," Yuffie said. "That can change a guy's voice."
"Yeah, but deeper?"
Yuffie shrugged. "Then maybe he was already passed out, and that's his computer."
"Maybe. That's pretty sloppy programming, though, to let a computer waste time simulating emotion in an emergency." Maybe, Riku thought, the computer had been programmed to sound like Sora's dead friend Riku. That might be comforting, to a certain kind of guy, to have the voice of a lost friend with you when you were alone in space. And it would mean Sora's friend Riku really had died, instead of showing up in the hills of Radiant Garden, with no memory of where he'd been before... "Wait a minute. Why would a computer say 'we'?"
---
"Gonna hit the head," Cid growled. "The door will be locked. Don't break anything." He left. As soon as the door closed behind him, the coffeepot beeped.
"Finally!" Sora said. He walked over, backed up to it, and awkwardly put his hands to the still-open back. He felt something cool slip across his wrists, like silk, and there was a hissing noise as the nanites ate his mag-cuffs. "I can't believe you used the coffeepot, Roxas."
"It's not like I had a choice," Roxas said, his voice coming from the speaker on the wall. "It was the only nanotech on board they let you come near. Just give me a minute, and you can draw." A slender snake of nanites trickled from the coffeepot into the silverware drawer.
Sora giggled. "I really can't believe they tried to hack you."
"They had no idea I was an AI," Roxas said. "They didn't have a chance. And their signals officer was watching you sleep when I did it, so they don't even know I owned their ass. Okay, ready." Sora reached into the coffeepot, closed his fist on a handful of nanite-silk, and pulled. There was a flash and a rattle, he came away holding a keyblade, made from the coffeepot and silverware. It was grey-black, with a guard made out of the coffeepot's handle and tines like a fork's sticking sideways out of the end. The charm dangling off the pommel was a spoon.
"Wow," Sora said. "That looks really stupid. What am I supposed to call it, the Cutlery Key?"
"Hey!" Roxas said. "I can turn it back into mag-cuffs, if it's not pretty enough for you."
"Sorry, sorry. Where's Cid?"
"Locked in the bathroom. But he's very angry and has a toolbelt, you should seal the door shut." Roxas opened the galley hatch. The hatch to the head was right across the way, and Sora indeed heard muffled swearing from inside. He tapped the keyblade against the frame, and there was a faint hiss as the nanites ran along the edge of the hatch. In a few seconds, it was just a funny-looking bulkhead. They'd have to cut a hole to get Cid out. "Crap," Roxas said suddenly. "What does the code for emotion simulation look like?"
"Huh?" Sora said. "Who cares?"
"Officer Highwind, apparently," Roxas said. The AI lived in the quantum computers in Excalibur's cockpit. He didn't really have code like a normal computer would, just a personality-state. "Oh, well. Better run, Sora."
---
"File not found?" Riku frowned at his console. "Something's wrong." He tapped a key. "Cid, please call the bridge."
There was a pause for a few seconds, and then, "Yeah?"
"How's the prisoner?"
"Stuffing his face with our food. Why?"
"Just checking, sir. We've got a computer problem up here. Can I ask Lt. Kisaragi to watch him so you can come help me with it?"
"Pfft," Cid's voice said. "I'm busy. It's probably nothing."
Yuffie craned her head over to look. "Lazy bum. Why would he say that?"
Riku studied the console. The intercom, too, was run by the computer, so it was theoretically possible that... "Sir, what was that bar you were going to take me to in Traverse Town?"
"What the hell are you babbling about now?"
"That's not Cid," Riku said. "We are so hacked." He flipped open the cover on a button labeled "Red Alert" and pressed it. Nothing happened.
"You have no idea," the ship's speakers said, in the voice from Excalibur's distress message.
---
"Okay, you really need to hurry now," Roxas said.
"I can't find my clothes!" Sora shouted. The entire contents of Riku's space chest were flung about his cabin.
"They're probably in engineering. I know the Kingdom Key is there. Forget your pants, just go!"
"Slow down, Roxas. Everyone's locked in somewhere, right?"
"Yeah, but the bridge door has a mechanical emergency open from inside. I guess it's so you can get out if the ship's wrecked, but they're using it now. And I think Cid is shooting his way out of the bathroom, and the captain's gonna hear something and wake up eventually. Just go, okay?"
"Okay, geez," Sora said. "Which way?"
"Turn right. It's downstairs."
"Below, Roxas," Sora said as he ran. "It's called below, or aft. You're supposed to be a ship's computer, you could at least learn the words."
"Why? You knew what I meant." Roxas' voice switched from speaker to speaker as Sora ran through the ship, and hatches opened on their own to let him through. "Cockpit's powering up. I'm glomming off parts for us, but they're gonna be half Garden. Think you can hit anything with blasters?"
"Sure! I can shoot anything," Sora said, perhaps a bit untruthfully. The normal Destinese weapons were lasers, which meant Roxas did most of the aiming. But there was no time to worry about it. Sora burst into engineering, and saw his clothes piled by what looked like the Engineer's station, along with his helmet, gloves, and the chain for the Kingdom Key. He dropped the keyblade he was holding, and the blade disappeared again, leaving only an oddly heavy spoon. Sora scooped everything up, and turned for his cockpit, which was half-stuck in the wall.
"Hold it."
Sora didn't hold it, he threw his stuff into his cockpit and turned around. The Cutlery Key flashed into his hand. It was Yuffie. "What, just you? Where's Highwind?"
"He's trying to reboot the Gunblade's computer," Roxas answered for her.
Yuffie was holding a hull knife, designed to cut through the hull of a ship so you could board it. It would cut flesh without even feeling resistance - but then, a keyblade was just as sharp, and longer. "Come on, Yuffie," Sora said. "I don't want to hurt you. Just let me go, okay? I've got somewhere to be."
Yuffie smirked, and ran at him. She looked like she knew how to use it. Sora dropped into guard.
Then the engines turned off. Suddenly weightless in mid-step, Yuffie drifted towards the ceiling. With no way to get her feet on the ground, she threw the knife. Sora swung, and knocked it out of the air. It sunk into a bulkhead, up to the hilt, and Sora heard a whistling sound as air leaked out around it. If anyone took the knife out, Engineering would be full of vacuum in about a minute. Sora jumped into the cockpit, and it closed around him.
Engines, guns, power-orbs, and all the other parts Excalibur had lost in the forgotten fight slid through Gunblade's gummi hull, as Roxas improvised a ship design. He wasn't that good at it, but as long as he had the right number of everything, Sora could reconfigure later. "They'll have control back in a few minutes, Sora," Roxas said. "If I'm not here I can't stop them. Should we take all their engines, leave them drifting?"
"No! They're not bad guys, Roxas, just stupid. Make sure they can't catch us, though."
"No kidding. Separating." Excalibur split off from Gunblade again. But this time Excalibur was powered up, and Gunblade was, at least for a few minutes, adrift. "Where do we go?"
"Agrabah, still," Sora said. "Just a minute, let me get dressed, and I'll take the helm."
"Okay," Roxas said. Sora changed into his own clothes, and put on his gloves and helmet. "Can you tell me now," Roxas said, "why we're going to Agrabah?"
"Um," Sora said. "No. I forgot in hibernation. I was hoping you knew."
"You said you'd explain later."
"Oops. Well, maybe we'll figure it out when we get there." He closed the visor of his helmet, and it turned on. Instead of the grey inside wall of his cockpit, he saw stars, as though he were free-floating in space, and the ship was his body. He looked back, and saw Gunblade, what was left of it, drifting silent, and shrinking as they boosted away. "He looked..."
"What?" Roxas said.
"He really did look," Sora said, "just like Riku..."
Chapter 2
Rated PG-13
Sci-fi AU, incomplete
Riku/Sora
"Mayday. Mayday. This is the Destiny Free Ship Excalibur. We are out of power and adrift. We request rescue. It is now standard time 32103.921, and we are at position..."
"Captain?" Flight Officer Riku Highwind called across the bridge. "This is a distress call."
"Play it," Captain Leonhart said. Riku flipped a switch, and the radio signal played over the bridge speakers. "...Tortuga to Agrabah. We are beginning emergency life support procedures. This message will be recorded and repeat for three hours, until our radio runs out of power. I repeat, this is a mayday. Mayday. Mayday." As promised, the message was starting over. The speaker sounded like a teenage boy, maybe Riku's age or a little younger, trying to sound calm through a thick layer of nerves. "Can you find the ship?" the captain asked.
"Sure," Riku said. "They're ballistic. I can plot their course to the centimeter. But if their life support goes off with their radio they'll be awfully chilly by the time we get there."
"Just give me the course," the captain said.
"Yes, sir." Riku punched up the fastest intercept the Gunblade's engines would give them. Even a slight chance of saving someone was worth it. "There." Captain Leonhart looked at the course and acceleration, nodded, and the HMS Gunblade began to turn. The Gunblade was a corvette, a small, fast ship with only a four-person crew. Odds were good they'd get there before anyone else - if anyone else had even heard the message way out here.
Lieutenant Yuffie Kisaragi spoke up. "A Free Ship running from the biggest pirate port in space to a world that just went over to the rebels?" The gunner laughed. "You just want to know what she's carrying, skipper."
Leonhart scowled. "Captain," he corrected. "And we need the salvage, too."
Riku frowned at his console. He didn't like to be reminded of it, but they were in a war, and they were losing. Their homeworld of Radiant Garden had suffered a coup. Too much of the Space Force had gone over to the pretender already. The crews still loyal to King Ansem, wherever he was, had taken refuge at Traverse, but they were never going to beat the rebels (Hollow Bastion, they called themselves) with the ships they had. But even so, they shouldn't be answering a mayday with plans to loot the hold and take the derelict apart for parts.
Riku's console beeped. He looked down and saw a data transmission from the gunner's console. "Data," that is, in a loose sense of the term. Aw, don't be sad, Riku. We'll rescue the cute signals officer too. Lieutenant Kisaragi thought military formality was for other people.
Shut up, Yuffie, Riku typed back quickly, then closed the window before the captain saw.
It just opened again as Kisaragi sent him a new message. He's from Destiny, he might even be up for that kind of thing. This time Riku just ignored her, and went back to work.
---
"Are you sure that's it?" Captain Leonhart asked.
"It's on exactly the course the mayday said they'd be on," Riku said. They were still too far away to see anything out the viewport, but their sensors were reading a tiny little ship - a fighter, even smaller than the Gunblade, with no room for more than one person. Even then, it was amazing anyone had tried to make a deep-space trip in a ship that small.
"Well," Kisaragi joked, "at least that solves the problem of where to put the crew."
The captain stared at the wire-frame sensor image for several seconds. The distinctive marks of blaster damage scarred the fighter's flanks. It was a pattern Riku was used to seeing on enemy ships - blasters were a Radiant Garden Space Force weapon. Of course, the rebels used the same guns. "Could be a trap," Leonhart said finally.
That was too much. "Captain!" Riku said. "The pilot is dying." He was reading no power at all from that ship. The heaters and air scrubbers had been dead for some time.
"Then you volunteer to board the ship first?" Leonhart said.
Riku swallowed his first answer, which involved language inappropriate for addressing a senior officer, and said, "Yes, sir." He was the logical one to send, anyway - he was the lowest-ranking member of the crew, and least-needed in a fight.
"Good." The captain pressed a key on his console. "Engineering, break out a thruster suit. Officer Highwind is going for a walk."
---
All space suits are fairly bulky. Keeping the air in is relatively easy, but they also have to store pressurized air and clean water, not to mention keep the wearer from freezing in the cold of deep space - or frying in unfiltered sunlight. A military thruster suit also has to mount all the machinery and fuel to let the wearer maneuver alone in space, a hull knife, boarding blaster, a small tool-belt, and full body armor. By the time Riku was suited up, the Gunblade had matched course half a kilometer off Excalibur's wing, and Riku was wearing his own mass. Luckily, the engines were off, so he didn't feel the weight. "Check your seals," Cid said. (He always answered to "Engineering" or "Cid" instead of "Lieutenant Highwind" - it was a common last name, and Riku wasn't the first shipmate he'd shared it with.)
"Seals green," Riku said. "Come on, we're already in position."
"Yeah, yeah," the engineer grumbled. "No reason to kill a second young idiot trying to save the first one. You're set." He pushed a button on the wall. "Engineering to bridge. Ready for EVA."
"Go ahead," the captain said, and Riku pushed himself toward the external hatch. It looked like just a red section of wall, but it was raw gummi, electrically charged so it would stay quasi-fluid. As Riku went into it, it gave thickly, sealing around his suit as he moved through it. It felt like swimming through a wall of pudding. In a few seconds, Riku was Outside, looking across at the drifting wreck of the Excalibur. He curled his toes, triggering his thrusters, and began flying toward the fighter.
"I'm on my way," he said over the radio. It felt like he was lying on his back, and the fighter was falling toward him. The cockpit would be cold by now, bitter cold. It would be quiet, too, without the constant hum of computers and life-support systems that reassure spacers that their ship is keeping them alive. And it would be dark. I'm coming, Riku thought. Just hold on a little longer. Halfway across, he flipped over on his maneuvering thrusters, decelerating so he wouldn't splatter himself against Excalibur's hull. "Gunblade, give me a three second contact warning, please."
"You got it," Yuffie said. And presently Riku heard her voice again. "On my mark... now." Riku cut his main thrusters, flipped again, and hit the fighter feet-first. The gummi hull was tacky, sticking to Riku's boots as he walked around to the cockpit. It looked like a plain two-meter sphere stuck into the middle of the hull, barely visible top and bottom, with no windows at all and certainly no hatches or airlocks. It obviously wasn't designed to be opened in space. Riku couldn't see how to open it at all.
He knelt down and fished a microphone out of his belt and stuck it to the cockpit, plugging the wire into his suit. The cockpit was silent. No breathing. After ten long seconds, Riku sighed. "Highwind to Gunblade," he said over the radio, "I think he's..." From inside the cockpit, a soft thub sound. Could it have been a heartbeat, maybe? "Rescue! Gunblade, he's alive, rescue rescue rescue flank!"
To his credit, Captain Leonhart didn't waste any time. He'd already turned the ship, and in less than a minute the Gunblade was parked right over Riku's head, the access hatch almost close enough to reach up and touch. "Just land on my head, bring us both in." Now it felt like the pudding wall was slowly falling on him, as Leonhart gently maneuvered the Gunblade right into the fighter. Two live ships crashing into each other would only do each other damage, but with the Excalibur's computers offline it was just gummi wrapped around a bunch of spare parts, and the fighter glommed right onto the corvette. Riku was pushed backwards through the hatch into the Engineering deck, and the Excalibur's whole cockpit came in after him, nearly crushing Cid as it floated across the compartment. The ship was stopped, and without the acceleration there was no gravity.
They got it to a stop, and Riku pounded on the surface, looking for a way to get it open. He wasn't even sure it was right side up, though at least he couldn't feel the pilot bouncing around inside. "Calm down, kid," Cid said. "The computer would have woken up when it went through our hull. Let me just get a cable..." But Cid was right, and Excalibur's computer didn't need to be told to open up. The top of the cockpit (which was on Riku's left at this point) split and opened, making the cockpit look like an orange with a slice missing.
The pilot wasn't in a chair, he was hanging from the walls by some kind of straps. Fortunately, they were easy to peel off the pilot's wrists and ankles, and Riku had pulled him out in a few seconds, holding him as they floated. It indeed looked like an adolescent boy. He wasn't in a uniform - Destiny didn't have one - he wore a helmet and gloves over some complicated black and yellow civilian style. Riku pulled off the helmet. It was a boy, his cheeks smooth, his brown hair feathery and floating in the micro-gee. He was beautiful.
Riku shook himself. Forget beautiful, was he breathing? He put the back of his space gauntlet over the pilot's mouth, and after a moment, there was a very faint fog as he breathed out. Then the pilot shifted, and his eyes fluttered open. "You're okay," Riku said, and the boy recoiled. "What? Oh, the suit." Space armor wasn't designed to be cute or reassuring. He pulled the helmet off and tossed it aside.
The pilot smiled woozily. "Oh, good," he whispered, too quiet for Cid to hear. "It's you, Riku." Then he passed out again, and Riku stared in confusion at the stranger who somehow knew his name.
---
Sora woke up with a pounding headache. He was in somebody's bed, and didn't remember how he'd gotten there. The last thing he did remember was Tortuga, so it was likely he'd forgotten himself and drank something. (There was water on Tortuga, but it made you just as sick as the beer.) In which case he'd passed out alone on Tortuga, which usually meant losing your virginity, your money, or your ship. Since Sora didn't currently have any money or virginity...
"Ungh," he groaned, putting an arm over his eyes so no light could accidentally get through. "Where's my ship?"
"You're awake," someone said. "How are you feeling?"
"Where's my ship?" Sora said again, not opening his eyes.
"We attached it belowdecks. Do you need water or anything?"
No drinking. Drinking was what had gotten him into this mess. "Wait, I'm in space?"
"Yeah... This is HMS Gunblade of the Radiant Garden Space Force. We found you adrift after your power failed. Don't you remember?"
Sora cracked one eye open. At first he just saw stars from the spike of agony the light gave him, and he whimpered. Then it resolved into a tall silver-blonde in a uniform. "Adrift? Aw, crap." This wasn't a hangover, it was hibernation sickness. "What happened to my ship?"
"It got the crap shot out of it," the navy-boy said frankly. "How many power orbs was it supposed to have?"
"Four."
"Well, we only found two, and they were both leaking and empty. It looked like half your guns and engines were gone, too. The only thing that didn't get hit was the cockpit."
"I can fix it, then," Sora said, closing his eyes and flopping back down on the bed. First he'd sleep for about a week...
"How did you know my name, Sora?"
"What?" Sora rolled over and opened one eye by a tiny crack. "I don't know your name. How do you know my name?"
"I asked your computer. It said you were Captain Sora Excalibur." Sora's eye opened the rest of the way. "Military ships have ways of getting computers to talk when they're not supposed to," the navy-boy explained a bit sheepishly.
Sora blinked his open eye slowly, and then snickered. "You hacked my computer?"
"Is that funny?"
"You could have just asked me what my name was."
"You were asleep. Look, that doesn't matter. Sora..."
"Don't call me that. And don't talk so loud, you're giving me a headache."
"What?"
"My name is Excalibur." Getting called by his given name usually didn't bother Sora this much. Not from foreigners. You can't go around to different planets and expect them to know your customs. But here... well, maybe it was because Sora was alone with a guy and lying in what he was beginning to suspect was the guy's bed.
"Well, you called me by my first name."
"I did not."
"I mean before."
"I've never seen you before in my life," Sora said.
The guy sighed, exasperated. "When I pulled you out of your cockpit. You looked at me and called me Riku."
Riku? Sora cracked both eyes open and looked at the guy. Then he held one hand up to cover the dorky uniform, and suddenly the resemblance was obvious. "I was out of my mind on hibernation drugs," Sora muttered. "I don't know what I said. I knew another Riku once, that's all. You sort of look like him."
"Oh." Then, tentatively, Riku said, "What happened to him?"
"He died. Could you go away, please? My head's about to split open."
"Sorry," Riku said. "I'll be quiet." The guy was going to watch him sleep? Maybe he really did think he was Sora's boyfriend or something. Right now, though, all Sora cared about was closing his eyes and waiting for the little elephants to stop drilling through his brain...
The door opened, and Riku scrambled to his feet. "Captain!"
"What?" Sora grouched.
"He meant me," said someone with a deeper voice than Riku's. Sora opened his eyes, and saw a tall young man with dark hair. Same dorky uniform, more shiny bits. He handed Riku a pistol. "Mr. Highwind, now that the prisoner is awake you're to carry a sidearm."
Sora propped himself up on an elbow and forced both eyes open. "Wait, prisoner?"
"Mr. Excalibur..." the newcomer began.
"Captain Excalibur."
"... fine. Captain Excalibur. You are under arrest, on suspicion of smuggling, piracy, and assault on ships of the fleet in time of war."
"What? You can't do that. I didn't do anything!"
"Your ship has damage from Radiant Garden weapons. You were running from Tortuga to a planet captured by the rebels."
Sora sat straight up. "Holy crap, they took Disney?"
"No. Agrabah."
"Why the heck was I going to Agrabah?" Sora asked, confused.
There was a pause. "I don't know," the other captain said. "I asked your computer, and it told me you don't keep a log."
"I don't like talking to myself," Sora said.
"It also said you delete your navigation history every time you make port which, conveniently, means we can't find out where you were before Tortuga."
"I'm a Free Captain," Sora insisted. "I don't have to eat up computer memory to satisfy your curiosity. And I didn't do anything wrong."
"How did your ship get damaged?"
Sora opened his mouth and hesitated. "I don't remember," he said. "The hibernation, it gives you amnesia..."
"Right. Officer Highwind, you have the..." He sighed, and looked around what was obviously Riku's quarters, "...brig watch, until eight bells, when Lieutenant Kisaragi relieves you and you take your turn on the bridge. As you were." He walked out. Riku relaxed, and Sora realized he'd been at attention the whole time.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"Whatever, navy-boy," Sora grumbled, and rolled over to go back to sleep.
---
When Sora woke up again, his jailer was a girl with dark hair. "I'm hungry," he mumbled.
"Hi, Hungry," she said. "I'm Yuffie." Sora rolled his eyes. "Come on, I'll take you to the galley." Sora stood up, and Yuffie held up a pair of magnetic cuffs. "Put your hands behind your back, please." With a sigh, Sora let himself be cuffed. He was barefoot, he realized, and wearing a plain, loose-fitting grey jumpsuit; probably what navy spacers wore to work on engines or something. They must have changed his clothes while he slept, which meant they weren't totally stupid. There were a few things hidden in his pockets he'd have loved to have right now. Without them, he'd just have to wait.
The Gunblade, like most small ships, didn't waste much cubage on personal space. Highwind's berth - Sora wasn't going to use his friend's name for some kidnapping navy-boy - was barely bigger than his bunk. The galley shipped a small refrigerator, a multi-microwave oven, a coffeepot, and a tiny table with two chairs. And then the coffeepot seemed to be broken. An older guy had the back panel off and was fiddling around inside. "Hey, Cid," Yuffie said. "I was going to find you after this, it's almost your turn."
Cid grunted. "How's he behaving?"
"Like a kitten," Yuffie said, digging through the refrigerator. "He slept through my whole watch." She started putting together some kind of sandwich on flat bread. "Do you think he really did anything?"
"How the hell should I know?" Cid grumbled. "They don't pay me enough for that crap." Sora sighed again but didn't comment. Cid pulled his hand out of the coffee machine sharply. "Shit!"
"What?"
"Damn thing ate my screwdriver!" He held up the plastic handle, with only an inch of metal left attached. The end looked melted. "Must be a bug in the nanofilters. Take the computer hours to fix." Sora looked at the coffeepot, smirking a little. "What are you laughing at?"
"Nothing." Yuffie re-cuffed Sora's hands in front of him so he could eat. Cid, meanwhile, tapped a panel on the wall, instructing Gunblade's computer to debug the coffeepot's nanofilters. Sora watched this with increasing amusement.
"Damn snickering brat," Cid muttered.
"So," Yuffie asked, "do all Destinese pilots name their fighters after themselves?"
"Of course not," Sora said. "A captain is named after his ship. We name people for their jobs, and otherwise everybody would be Captain Captain, and that would sound stupid."
"Oh. I guess that makes sense." The ship's speakers beeped. "All right, Cid, he's all yours." Cid just grunted again, took the pistol from Yuffie, and leaned against the wall to watch Sora eat.
"Do I have to go back to the bunk?" Sora asked.
"No skin off my nose," Cid said. "This is just as good, and there's more space."
"Okay." Cid cuffed his hands behind him again once he was done eating, of course. Sora sat quietly, but not patiently, tapping his feet and fidgeting. Every few seconds he'd glance at the coffeepot, as if he didn't want to miss it when it exploded.
---
Since Riku's bunk had a prisoner in it, he didn't have anywhere to go when Yuffie relieved him on the bridge. So he just stayed at his post, poking absently at the computer. He supposed he'd have to sleep in his chair.
"That Destinese kid is weird," Yuffie commented. "I'm almost convinced he's innocent, just from the way he acts. It's like getting arrested is just something annoying that'll get cleared up soon."
"He's madder about it than he looks," Riku said. He idly called up the recording of the original distress call. Mayday, mayday, this is the Destiny Free Ship Excalibur. We are out of power... "That doesn't sound like him," Riku noticed suddenly.
"He was scared," Yuffie said. "That can change a guy's voice."
"Yeah, but deeper?"
Yuffie shrugged. "Then maybe he was already passed out, and that's his computer."
"Maybe. That's pretty sloppy programming, though, to let a computer waste time simulating emotion in an emergency." Maybe, Riku thought, the computer had been programmed to sound like Sora's dead friend Riku. That might be comforting, to a certain kind of guy, to have the voice of a lost friend with you when you were alone in space. And it would mean Sora's friend Riku really had died, instead of showing up in the hills of Radiant Garden, with no memory of where he'd been before... "Wait a minute. Why would a computer say 'we'?"
---
"Gonna hit the head," Cid growled. "The door will be locked. Don't break anything." He left. As soon as the door closed behind him, the coffeepot beeped.
"Finally!" Sora said. He walked over, backed up to it, and awkwardly put his hands to the still-open back. He felt something cool slip across his wrists, like silk, and there was a hissing noise as the nanites ate his mag-cuffs. "I can't believe you used the coffeepot, Roxas."
"It's not like I had a choice," Roxas said, his voice coming from the speaker on the wall. "It was the only nanotech on board they let you come near. Just give me a minute, and you can draw." A slender snake of nanites trickled from the coffeepot into the silverware drawer.
Sora giggled. "I really can't believe they tried to hack you."
"They had no idea I was an AI," Roxas said. "They didn't have a chance. And their signals officer was watching you sleep when I did it, so they don't even know I owned their ass. Okay, ready." Sora reached into the coffeepot, closed his fist on a handful of nanite-silk, and pulled. There was a flash and a rattle, he came away holding a keyblade, made from the coffeepot and silverware. It was grey-black, with a guard made out of the coffeepot's handle and tines like a fork's sticking sideways out of the end. The charm dangling off the pommel was a spoon.
"Wow," Sora said. "That looks really stupid. What am I supposed to call it, the Cutlery Key?"
"Hey!" Roxas said. "I can turn it back into mag-cuffs, if it's not pretty enough for you."
"Sorry, sorry. Where's Cid?"
"Locked in the bathroom. But he's very angry and has a toolbelt, you should seal the door shut." Roxas opened the galley hatch. The hatch to the head was right across the way, and Sora indeed heard muffled swearing from inside. He tapped the keyblade against the frame, and there was a faint hiss as the nanites ran along the edge of the hatch. In a few seconds, it was just a funny-looking bulkhead. They'd have to cut a hole to get Cid out. "Crap," Roxas said suddenly. "What does the code for emotion simulation look like?"
"Huh?" Sora said. "Who cares?"
"Officer Highwind, apparently," Roxas said. The AI lived in the quantum computers in Excalibur's cockpit. He didn't really have code like a normal computer would, just a personality-state. "Oh, well. Better run, Sora."
---
"File not found?" Riku frowned at his console. "Something's wrong." He tapped a key. "Cid, please call the bridge."
There was a pause for a few seconds, and then, "Yeah?"
"How's the prisoner?"
"Stuffing his face with our food. Why?"
"Just checking, sir. We've got a computer problem up here. Can I ask Lt. Kisaragi to watch him so you can come help me with it?"
"Pfft," Cid's voice said. "I'm busy. It's probably nothing."
Yuffie craned her head over to look. "Lazy bum. Why would he say that?"
Riku studied the console. The intercom, too, was run by the computer, so it was theoretically possible that... "Sir, what was that bar you were going to take me to in Traverse Town?"
"What the hell are you babbling about now?"
"That's not Cid," Riku said. "We are so hacked." He flipped open the cover on a button labeled "Red Alert" and pressed it. Nothing happened.
"You have no idea," the ship's speakers said, in the voice from Excalibur's distress message.
---
"Okay, you really need to hurry now," Roxas said.
"I can't find my clothes!" Sora shouted. The entire contents of Riku's space chest were flung about his cabin.
"They're probably in engineering. I know the Kingdom Key is there. Forget your pants, just go!"
"Slow down, Roxas. Everyone's locked in somewhere, right?"
"Yeah, but the bridge door has a mechanical emergency open from inside. I guess it's so you can get out if the ship's wrecked, but they're using it now. And I think Cid is shooting his way out of the bathroom, and the captain's gonna hear something and wake up eventually. Just go, okay?"
"Okay, geez," Sora said. "Which way?"
"Turn right. It's downstairs."
"Below, Roxas," Sora said as he ran. "It's called below, or aft. You're supposed to be a ship's computer, you could at least learn the words."
"Why? You knew what I meant." Roxas' voice switched from speaker to speaker as Sora ran through the ship, and hatches opened on their own to let him through. "Cockpit's powering up. I'm glomming off parts for us, but they're gonna be half Garden. Think you can hit anything with blasters?"
"Sure! I can shoot anything," Sora said, perhaps a bit untruthfully. The normal Destinese weapons were lasers, which meant Roxas did most of the aiming. But there was no time to worry about it. Sora burst into engineering, and saw his clothes piled by what looked like the Engineer's station, along with his helmet, gloves, and the chain for the Kingdom Key. He dropped the keyblade he was holding, and the blade disappeared again, leaving only an oddly heavy spoon. Sora scooped everything up, and turned for his cockpit, which was half-stuck in the wall.
"Hold it."
Sora didn't hold it, he threw his stuff into his cockpit and turned around. The Cutlery Key flashed into his hand. It was Yuffie. "What, just you? Where's Highwind?"
"He's trying to reboot the Gunblade's computer," Roxas answered for her.
Yuffie was holding a hull knife, designed to cut through the hull of a ship so you could board it. It would cut flesh without even feeling resistance - but then, a keyblade was just as sharp, and longer. "Come on, Yuffie," Sora said. "I don't want to hurt you. Just let me go, okay? I've got somewhere to be."
Yuffie smirked, and ran at him. She looked like she knew how to use it. Sora dropped into guard.
Then the engines turned off. Suddenly weightless in mid-step, Yuffie drifted towards the ceiling. With no way to get her feet on the ground, she threw the knife. Sora swung, and knocked it out of the air. It sunk into a bulkhead, up to the hilt, and Sora heard a whistling sound as air leaked out around it. If anyone took the knife out, Engineering would be full of vacuum in about a minute. Sora jumped into the cockpit, and it closed around him.
Engines, guns, power-orbs, and all the other parts Excalibur had lost in the forgotten fight slid through Gunblade's gummi hull, as Roxas improvised a ship design. He wasn't that good at it, but as long as he had the right number of everything, Sora could reconfigure later. "They'll have control back in a few minutes, Sora," Roxas said. "If I'm not here I can't stop them. Should we take all their engines, leave them drifting?"
"No! They're not bad guys, Roxas, just stupid. Make sure they can't catch us, though."
"No kidding. Separating." Excalibur split off from Gunblade again. But this time Excalibur was powered up, and Gunblade was, at least for a few minutes, adrift. "Where do we go?"
"Agrabah, still," Sora said. "Just a minute, let me get dressed, and I'll take the helm."
"Okay," Roxas said. Sora changed into his own clothes, and put on his gloves and helmet. "Can you tell me now," Roxas said, "why we're going to Agrabah?"
"Um," Sora said. "No. I forgot in hibernation. I was hoping you knew."
"You said you'd explain later."
"Oops. Well, maybe we'll figure it out when we get there." He closed the visor of his helmet, and it turned on. Instead of the grey inside wall of his cockpit, he saw stars, as though he were free-floating in space, and the ship was his body. He looked back, and saw Gunblade, what was left of it, drifting silent, and shrinking as they boosted away. "He looked..."
"What?" Roxas said.
"He really did look," Sora said, "just like Riku..."
Chapter 2