Chapter 29: Breaking out
The Invincible sailed through the air towards the South gate, streamers of smoke leaking from our engines…but the ship kept going, just.
I had left the auto-pilot on and was analysising the damage to our systems, it appeared that weapons was badly damaged, although still barely functional, engines were at forty-five percent and shields at sixty-five. It was enough to get us back to Oeilvert where I would have to resort to using the Hildagarde V. It was a pity, this ship was much better at everything…but it was now severely trashed.
I smacked the panel with the palm of my hand and turned away from the display, watching the mist in the lower part of the valley drift past.
I hope Lawrence is ready when we get back I thought to myself.
“This doesn’t make sense!” protested Alex “We’re the good guys!!”
The guard stood there, her arms folded as Alex shook the bars of our prison cell.
“Typical,” said Mizrah “We survive the annihilation of Treno only to get captured by our own side.”
I grunted and crossed my legs.
“Do you think Fury’s struck here?”
Alex kicked the door and turned to face us.
“He must have done…it’s the only way this makes sense…perhaps he’s using some sort of mind control on them…I don’t know.”
Suddenly the door behind her creaked open and a tall brunette woman stood on the other side, her sword drawn.
“Beatrix!” yelled Alex.
“So it is you. I’m sorry about this…but you must understand the times we are in.”
Alex nodded and Reiganna stood up.
“Is Doctor Tot alright?” she asked
Beatrix shook her head.
“No…he’s still unconscious.”
Reiganna sighed, her shoulders drooping.
“Where have you come from?” asked Beatrix of us.
“We’re from the Discworld.” I said, indicating Mizrah and myself.
Beatrix nodded and indicated for us to leave the room so we followed her. She led us down a corridor, the walls of which were covered in little black marks and holes.
“What are these?” I asked, indicating the holes.
“Weapons impact.” Said Beatrix in a pained voice.
“Weapons?!? What’s been happening here Beatrix?!” asked Alex
Beatrix pushed some of her brunette hair away from her eyepatch and sighed deeply.
“While I was in conference with Regent Cid, Fury attacked Alexandria with an airship fleet, he then came here in the Invincible and attacked us with a small commando raid. Two genomes and a woman were with him. They knocked out most of our guards and killed a couple, then they abducted Queen Garnet and left as quickly as they came. I arrived in the Red Rose as they left, Cid is chasing after them. He said something about the South Gate when he left.”
There was a pause as he left the building and emerged into the outside sun, in front of us was the city of Alexandria, a sprawling red roofed area with spires littered across it. It was also on fire in some places, drifting smoke occasionally blotted out the sun.
We stood, looking at the destruction.
“We were lucky.” Said Beatrix.
Alex nodded
“We were at Treno when Fury attacked, we barely escaped.”
“So…what do we do now?” asked Mizrah.
Reiganna stood forward.
“I have to take Doctor Tot to the Twilight Forest…”
“I can’t let you do that, Doctor Tot is a citizen of Alexandria and…” interrupted Beatrix
“Can your doctors treat him? Well, can they?!” asked Reiganna in a clipped tone of voice.
“Well…no…but…”
“Then let me take him before he dies!!”
Beatrix covered her face with her hands and sighed
“Alright alright…take him…but before you go, can you look at someone for me?”
Reiganna bowed
“Of course, who?”
“Adelbert Steiner…he was shot by Fury, he’s not dead but he’s badly hurt.”
Reiganna nodded
“I’ll see what I can do.”
I walked around the bridge, looking out of the viewer, cursing that this was my primary sensor, as the other sensors on the Invincible were out of action.
“Come on.” I muttered as the airship moved at what seemed to be a snail-like pace.
I turned and saw Yugami talking to the prisoners, I moved closer so I could hear what she was saying.
“And when we get back to Oeilvert…the things I am going to do to you…”
“You couldn’t possibly do anything to us…not you.” Said Zidane
“You remember the old me Zidane? The real me? That’s what you’re facing now.”
I heard Zidane quietly curse and chuckled.
I turned around again to see a Lindblum airship in front of us, its cannons already firing.
“Oh shit!”
The impact of the Turbulent’s cannon rippled across the Invincibles shields.
“That’s it! Take that airship down!” yelled Noding.
“Careful,” I warned “Queen Garnet is on that ship.”
He went to open his mouth, reconsidered something and then turned to the comms station and ordered.
“Tell the Victorious to circle around and meet us on this side…lets see if we can get him to the South Gate.”
“Aye sir, the Turbulent is requesting orders as well.”
I walked over to the station.
“Get the Turbulent on the port side and the Victorious on the starboard, we can herd him in front of us.”
“Good thinking sir.” Agreed Noding.
The Invincible dodged under the Turbulent and fled up the valley.
“Be careful…remember the Invincible is a potent weapon, even more potent with Fury in control of it.” I warned
“Damn that stupid old fool.” I yelled as the Invincible rocked under the impact of the cannon shells. I hit the acceleration and grimaced as several damage alarms wailed.
Taking the manual controls I guided the airship under the Lindblum battleship and up the valley. I didn’t dare use any weapons for fear of shorting out what was left of our weapons array.
We skimmed barely meters away from the Mist filled valley floor, our passing disturbing the mists tranquil appearance. A few birds flew panicked in front of us, but we passed them by.
A shell overtook the Invincible and hit the valley wall, causing me to swear and push the engines even harder, not knowing if they’d just melt in their places or whether we’d just blow up.
We rounded a particularly tight bend and the South Gate was in front of us.
Closed.
“Damn you Cid!!” I roared at the rapidly approaching obstacle.
“Ok, all ships prepare to form a blockade, let’s not let him slip back past us.” I ordered.
The Turbulent and Victorious took positions either side of the Vigilance , trying to cover the whole valley, but contrary to all our expectations the Invincible didn’t slow down.
It speeded up, still heading straight for the gate.
“What is he doing?!!” I yelled
Sam’s POV
I sat on the edge of a rock overlooking what was left of Treno as the dawn light began to filter through on the eastern horizon. Many of the fires were still burning, and there were one or two extremely lucky survivors, I could see some people rooting around in the wreckage, probably either trying to find relations or friends, or just looting.
Either which way, it didn’t matter to me, I was too busy replaying what I had seen of the attack over in my mind. I hoped Alex hadn’t had seen it, she had nightmares still of the strike on Alexandria, and that was nothing compared to the horror which had unfolded before my eyes.
“Excuse me.” Asked a female voice behind me.
I turned around to see a cloaked woman, her face obscured, standing behind me.
“Yes, can I help you?”
“Can you get me to…the,” she paused, as if trying to remember a name “Forgotten Continent?”
I raised an eyebrow
“Why do you want to go there?” I asked
“Well I,” another pause, this time she walked closer and looked at me, I felt uneasy and backed away from her “Sam?” she asked
“Yes? How do you know my name?” I asked in reply
“ ‘How do I know your name?’ Monkey maker, It’s me!”
I flinched, not having heard my old nickname used for almost a decade.
“Jara?”
The woman pulled back her hood and revealed herself as Jara Gedyen, a woman who had known longer than most of the people around me, and for reasons I had never let on.
“How did you survive the attack?” she asked
I sat back down on the rock and she sat next to me.
“I was on Gaia studying the eidolons when the Borg arrived, we were ordered not to use the teleporters, we heard about the failed attack on the cube…we heard city after city get destroyed until…”
“There were no more cities to be destroyed…no more people to be killed or assimilated.” Jara concluded, making me nod and wipe away a tear.
The anguished voices of those on the communicators, as their world was torn apart around them, still haunted me.
I didn’t ask her how she survived, having heard much of Jaras story from Domino, but I had to ask her how she was still alive after the events of last year.
She shrugged
“I don’t know…why is Yissan still alive? I doubt he knows either.”
I hugged her, as an old close friend.
“Well, whatever the reason is, I’m glad you’re with us Jara.”
She nodded and smiled faintly.
“I fear I’ve come back to troubled times.” She said, indicating the ruins nearby.
I nodded slowly.
“But I’ve come to make a difference.” She concluded, with a strong smile.
Time was running out rapidly, the distance between us and the barrier of the South Gate was shrinking at a speed of meters per second.
I had to act now.
Scanning the control board in front of me, I pressed the button to activate the forward particle cannons. I heard the whirr and clunk as the panels covering the guns moved away and the weapons emerged from their resting places.
One gun each side now faced forward, charged and ready to fire.
Pushing the power to maximum, I waited until the power levels reached almost maximum and then hit the red button marked ‘fire’.
Twin blasts of green light shot out from either side of the viewscreen and within seconds, slammed into the gate, sending a cloud of brick dust up into the air around it and large chunks of masonry down into the valley where they were swallowed up by the mist.
It created a hole barely large enough for us to fly through, I angled the ship as near as I could but still scraped the wings as we hurtled through.
Then suddenly we were inside the South Gate, I could see workers staring at us in surprise as we flashed past. Within seconds we were approaching the other end of the South Gate which was also annoyingly shut.
We’ll see about that I thought to myself, hitting the fire button again.
Nothing happened.
I looked back down at my control board to see a little screen flashing the words “Weapon Systems Overload” at me, swearing heavily I smashed at the screen with my fist several times, but nothing changed.
Acting fast I switched power from all systems except propulsion to the forward shields and stepped back from the control board.
“Hold on to something!!” I warned everyone, as the gate loomed large on the viewscreen.
Cid’s POV
If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes then I never would have believed it. The
Invincible first demolished the front gate with its cannons and then headed
straight for the other at full speed.
“He can’t be…” I muttered, but even as I uttered those words I saw that he was.
The Invincible collided with the other end of the South Gate at full speed, how she didn’t fall apart was a miracle, as was the fact that the gate itself crumbled and then collapsed, breaking a way through for the Invincible which shot away with a badly damaged front section.
We were in no position to pursue, the front of the gate looked like it would totally collapse within minutes and the other end didn’t look much safer.
“Get the gate evacuated.” I ordered, ashen faced.
“We had him in our grasp…he couldn’t escape…” muttered Noding in a state of shock.
“Contact Lindblum command…tell them we’ve lost the Invincible. Let’s hope that the Ocelot can track the fleet.”
The world shook endlessly as every alarm known to man went off on the bridge, when I looked up the viewscreen was totally gone, replaced by a gaping hole which showed the landscape around us but did nothing for the temperature on the bridge which plummeted as the wind whistled around us. A fire had broken out on the control panel, it looked serious. In fact it looked as if I had really totalled this ship.
And as I turned around, I saw an even greater problem.
The prisoners shields were down.
Drawing Surrelus I found myself face to face with Xola who had managed to steal the unconscious Kitiara’s sword. Smoke and steam drifted between us as the bridge groaned and shook.
“Don’t be stupid girl.” I warned her
She raised an eyebrow and swung the sword at me, a blow which I easily blocked and reposted, turning her attack into my attack.
“You must be stopped!” she yelled as I lunged at her.
“Not by you…pathetic weakling.” I chuckled as I knocked her sword aside and trod on it before she could pick it up again. She backed away, fear in her eyes and I smiled, knowing I had her cornered. Then she did something strange.
She slapped me.
The blow stung my face for a moment and I stopped, a look of surprise betraying my emotions. She went to strike me again but I caught her hand and bent it behind her back making her whimper.
“Your emotion is your weakness.” I whispered into her ear as I pushed her into a wall. She hit it and turned around, preparing to leap at me, but I had my sword point up and ready.
“Don’t even try it.”
She sighed and her shoulders sagged a little.
“What else am I to do?!” she yelled in desperation.
The question caught me off guard.
“Join me.” I proposed
Her head snapped up, defiance in her eyes.
“Never!”
She went to run forward again but a green blast from behind me cut her down.
“Stupid woman.” Said Yugami as she stood beside me.
“Stupid…but determined…we could use her.” I muttered
Yugami turned and looked at me, confusion on her face.
Kuja crept closer to the precipice of the cliff and looked down at the valley below, it was currently being filled with airships, they had been coming in and landing here for the past half an hour, in three groups. Some looked a little battle scarred but their crews seemed very jubilant.
“They look happy.” Commented Meowth.
“Yeah…I wonder why.” I agreed
“Pika, pika!” said Pikachu
“He said, He doesn’t think it’s good.” Translated Meowth.
Kuja just stared at his two travelling companions, reflecting on what a strange world it was. Then, with Meowth on his left shoulder and Pikachu on his right, he began climbing down the cliff face, slowing edging his way towards Oeilvert, and his destination.