21. Love Her and Despair (1/2)

the flyer wobbled under the weight of extra passengers, with occasional commentary provided by rikku swearing in two languages. maroda rode white-knuckled, his

other with serene resignation. elma, the machina-phobe, clung to her seat with a dour expression, but gave herself away with a whoop when the flier hopped over a sand-worm that unexpectedly rose up behind a crumbling ruin. auron simply played barnacle. gippal was quiet too, for once, focused on steering for the sake of the two passengers with no proper seats.

they were streaking towards a gray hump emerging from the shoulders of the dunes. the shape soon resolved itself into a bulbous, unlovely hulk of an airship with the profile of an oversized bathtub, its hull a crude patchwork of fins, engine pods, exhaust ports and mismatched panels. it was anchored on the southern tip of the island with the bulk of its fuselage hanging out over open water. an aft loading ramp extended down to the beach. gippal banked sharply, angling towards it. for a terrifying moment, collision seemed inevitable. then the flyer slowed to a crawl and slithered up the ramp into the hold, jerking to a halt against a stack of barrels. the engines' roar grew to a crescendo in the enclosed space, then faded to a whine and silence. deafened passengers roused themselves and surveyed their surroundings. floor-to-ceiling stacks of crates and gun racks filled almost every inch of floorspace, making it a wonder they had not struck anything on the way in.

"well, here we are," gippal said, hopping up onto the flyer's windshield to kick a knob set in the wall. the ramp and cargo bay doors began to close with a hiss of hydraulics. dingy amber light panels flickered to life in the ceiling as the rectangle of daylight behind them narrowed and vanished.

"you gotta get a new paint job for this bucket, gippal," rikku said, standing and stretching. "it looks like a flying turd."

"flies like one, too." gippal dropped to the floor, circling around the small craft to secure it with magnetic clamps. "joyride's over, people. head upstairs. i'll be there in a minute."

rikku pushed past auron, scrambling over the side and heading for a long ladder on the forward bulkhead. auron climbed up after her. the others followed slowly, feeling their way in the alien environment. they emerged in a dim corridor lined by steel doors. the bulkhead at the far end opened onto the flight deck. here the yevonites pulled up short. the walls, floor, and ceiling were made of a clear material that looked like glass but clanked like metal. there were four crew stations arranged in a diamond in the nose of the ship: a pilot's seat suspended from the ceiling, a gunner's station inset in a well below, and navigation and operations consoles on either side.

rikku slid into the navigator's station and started pecking at the controls. a sphere of blue light materialized above her fingers, a smaller version of the scanner on cid's airship. "oh," she said, glancing over her shoulder at the logjam of people on the short tongue of metal in front of the doors. "take any seat but the top one. don't touch anything."

gippal emerged from the back as they were settling in. he chuckled at the shellshocked expressions of his yevonite passengers. "first time flying, eh?"

elma daringly lowered herself into the gunner's bubble with nothing beneath her but ocean. "wow. i think i'm gonna have to do all kinds of atonement when we get back to bevelle."

"we, uh, were on cid's airship once," maroda said, helping isaaru into the engineer's seat. "but we couldn't see out like this."

"the fahrenheit's a luxury yacht. this slug's an old army transport, with a few customizations. hey, rikku, you remember how to work the scanner?"

"i'm on it." she waved maroda over. "take a look. red dots are fiends. green dots are alive. green dots with a white circle around 'em are alive plus metal, which means people. simple, eh?"

"or a sand worm that's eaten a machina," gippal said, climbing into the pilot's seat and pushing the steering yoke forward. the airship swooped lower, swinging out over the waves and back inland. dunes began to scroll beneath them, gradually accelerating to a blur. "sing out if you spot anything."

"i'm not sure if lucil's carrying anything metal," elma said, watching the desert rushing between her feet.

"boots," maroda suggested. "buckles. her cane. is that enough for the sensors to pick up?"

"should be," gippal said. "oh, that reminds me...rikku, what's nooj done to get himself locked up this time? he got left behind when home was evacuated. cid blew me off about it."

"oh," she said. "gip, nooj had another fit and shot up the r & d lab. landed shinra in the infirmary. pops is still trying to decide what to do about him. he's a whiz with ancient machina, but if shinra can't figure out what's making him fritz, i'm afraid he may get his death wish." she sighed. "assuming sin didn't save us the trouble."

"the nooj?" elma said. "he's still kicking? i thought he was dead."

"not for lack of trying," gippal said. "lnywo vilgehk sukchukkan."

isaaru eased out of his seat and walked back to auron, who had planted himself against the rear bulkhead beside the doors.

"sir auron?" he said, lowering his voice. "your thoughts?"

"we're running out of time." not for the first time, he felt the maddening tug of a goal receding into the distance, as he had so often those first years in dream-zanarkand before he mastered slidewalks.

"yes. but we must make certain that pacce and lucil are not lost in this yevon-forsaken wilderness." isaaru smiled at auron's sour expression. "i know: sin won't wait. but in all honesty, my friend, do you believe we are ready to face sin?"

"no." auron grimaced. "this pilgrimage is going nowhere."

"as i thought," isaaru said, unruffled. "i must speak with elder cid. his machina may be our only chance of saving bevelle."

"we won't reach it in time. sin's heading north. we're headed south." auron considered. "except...its next target may be macalania. and it's expending a great deal of power. eventually it has to rest."

"may yevon grant it so." isaaru moved through the motions of prayer, then turned towards rikku. "i'm eager to learn what is on that sphere. do you know, sir auron?"

"probably."

"you don't sound pleased." isaaru tilted his head. "are you afraid of what it will show us?"

"you'd learn sooner or later," auron said, voice flat and tired. "i just hope 'sooner' turns out better than 'later.'"

two hours later, they had found nothing more than patrolling machina, a salvage team in the ruins of old home, and a territorial zu that kept bouncing off the glass until they gave up on that sector. elma was starting to drift off after miles of featureless sand. gippal nudged her with his foot. "yo. don't touch that, lady, or you'll really have something to atone for." he leaned back, turning to isaaru. "well, that's the whole island. you folks satisfied? we've got to turn for home sooner or later. cid's gonna blow a gasket as it is."

"but—" maroda said.

elma jerked away from the gun controls. "i know how you feel, captain, believe me." she stared at the monotonous landscape spread out below them. "but we've got a job to do, eh? pacce's a trooper. he'll be fine wherever he is. and the general wouldn't want us wasting time on her."

"we must pray that they were left behind in djose," isaaru said. "meanwhile, sin continues its pilgrimage. we must resume ours."

rikku rolled her eyes. "yevonites."

"i'll take that as a yes," gippal said, throwing the steering yoke hard to one side. elma yelped as the ground tilted steeply and a burst of acceleration pressed them into their seats. maroda went skidding backwards. the dunes below quickly gave way to reef, then open water, dropping away rapidly as the ship climbed.

"whew," rikku said. "you've been tinkering with the engines again, haven't you?"

"you'd better believe it. though i can't take full credit. i'm testing a new booster design for shinra."

maroda righted himself and looked irritably at auron, who had not budged. "give us a little warning next time, gippal, okay?" he came forward again as the ship began to level off. "so how long till we reach home?"

"we've got about five hours," gippal said. he pressed a button, pushed away the controls and propped his boots on the handlebars. "phew. i'm beat. i've locked us on cruise. rikku, think you could handle things up here if i crash for a while? i haven't slept in two days."

"sure, leave it to me!" rikku chuckled at elma's expression, which had changed to alarm at the word crash. "don't worry. i know how to fly this thing. i just can't land!"

"oh, great," elma said.

"all righty, then. no rearranging the control preferences while i'm out." gippal climbed down from the pilot's seat. "i'll see you in a few hours. buzz me if the scanner starts pinging." with a wave, he ambled past auron and through the doors.

"well." maroda cleared his throat. "since we've got some time—"

"gotcha," rikku said, digging wakka's sphere out of her beltpouch. "gimme a sec. i think i can project the recording onto the forward screens." she hopped up and moved to the console in front of isaaru, popping wakka's sphere into a socket. she paused with her finger over a button. "um...auron? if you've got anything to say, better do it now."

auron shook his head. "just do it."

the

eathtaking panorama of ocean and sky receded behind a floor-to-ceiling hologram, a nebulous darkness spattered with stars and swirling lights. at first, it was impossible to decipher what they were looking at. then the lower half of a girl's face flashed into view, filling most of the screen. elma gasped. thirteen years had passed since anyone had seen the high summoner alive, but her etherial, sweet smile was unmistakable.

rikku squatted down on the floor next to isaaru, folding her arms tightly around herself.

the view tilted crazily as yuna set the sphere down and stepped back, revealing a night-shrouded landscape of rubble and

oken spires. the darkness was not merely black, but a tapestry of somber colors too subtle to distinguish. rivers of pyreflies flowed over the ruins in sluggish eddies, weaving across the shells of pulverized walls and

oken pavement. it was a beautiful, terrible, unreal vision, a dream flirting with the shores of nightmare.