<MIDNIGHT ARRIVING> of Parallel Pasts [APOCRYPHAL RP]

[IncuBoye]

"You have my confession: the scientists aboard the Eschaton offered us a star drive for the return of their children. Your agency damned us all by liquidating them. I told them the truth."

-Temiz uyn Birol, Kaijechean Intelligencer, seconds before impromptu execution.

THREE DAYS BEFORE MIDNIGHT

Mood music: https://soundcloud.com/dantheman1980/ch ... -a-vampire

KATARASTRAN FLATS
BEFORE DUSK

Sodalite sand reflects the crimson-dimmed sun like the segmented scales of a great blue beast. It was once said that the great tribes of the Vartochhen nomads roamed these flats. And beneath this smog-choked sky of ashen amber, history lay changed: twisted bodies of Othan and pack animal alike lay slaughtered atop the cracked sands. Distant fires did little to add to the dark clouds nor the dying eve's last gasps of muted color. No longer did the ethereal Katarastran dancers tell stories of a once-blue sky, their heresies finally quelled. Though the Suzerainty pilots knew not, they had snuffed one more truth that had been robbed from them.

There would be no one left to mourn the moving city of Katarastra. His Most Kind has afforded this 'mercy'.

Far above the ground, the radio chatter had long since grown silent. The rumbling of plane engines resounded throatily as the fighters finally fell back into formation. Missions were easier when the targets barely had the technology to beg on all channels. Visibility was low. The great factories of the east were churning machines of war beyond imagination which soured the very air. It was easy to differentiate what remained of contaminated clouds from the gaseous poisons: the shadowy feathers which curled around brackish clouds often spelled the sudden disappearance of a pilot.

"CHARITY SQUADRON, SOUND OFF." Skywarden Saen Gokcek shouted, having unfortunately survived the one-sided battle her commanding voice boomed over the airwaves.

The electric snappings of the Skywarden's plane was all but a telltale sign of her presence. One could nearly be forgiven for not being able to hear the rattling of loose plating which barely held her arc-systems in place over it. Above the clouds she took a place behind the rest of the air group. The mic's wires had long since been shorted, broadcasting to the open air her incessant clacking of teeth. The stimulants which coursed through her veins made her all the more insufferable. A stray arc of electricity flashed to the left of the plane as she finally got the thing to keep steady. One of the cables must've been wrenched loose from the rusted plates yet again.

His Most Kind's finest were out in force. Though each mission says they're headed by the finest in the suzerainty, there was a noted difference here: it was only a half-lie here. The scrapyard planes clustered together, their plating rustling like the chittering of insects. Each one bore some manner of lost technology strapped to its chassis, flown by proven pilots. It was more obvious to hear, with not even a single soul muttering battle hymns or gnashing rebukes over the radio. There was no silence where the Suzerainty had its way, but this time, there was no ever present propaganda beneath thin veils.

The formations were loose and barely coherent between the other squadrons. Home was two hours away and one could practically feel the exhaustion already catching some of the lesser seasoned pilots by surprise. Charity Squadron was sadly not as fortunate as to have some leeway, as the Skywarden herself had a reputation of field-style corporal punishment for not following orders. One that usually ended in an addition to her kill count.

VALERIA, AMARAN, and TAMAYDIN were the remaining members of the Skywarden's squadron. Three others were felled by the strange javelins of crimson light cast forth from now-lost Vartocchen heresies.

[Gunsight1]

Sky Captain Valeria sat strapped into the cramped cockpit of her Firebrand 220 pursuit fighter, the powerful 20 calendar radial engine rumbling a few feet in front of her. Somewhere within the plane, something rattled annoyingly. Something was loose, or broken or damaged and was rattling, it had been rattling since early in the mission when she'd had to evade some of the enemy surface to air fire that had claimed her wing man.

The blast of red energy had come close to claiming her as well, if she had not been so fast to throw her ship into an evasive juke. Even though she had dodged, she knew the blast had been close, she had felt the heat from it, how it warmed the skin of her plane, heated the air in her cockpit and how the heat from it had buffeted and fouled the air, causing her to loose over two hundred feet of altitude as she had evaded.

Kalena had not been so lucky. She had seen the flash, the burst of flames and inky black smoke that had trailed her fellow pilot's burning plane down to the blacked and ruined ground far below. Kalena had been a good pilot, a good friend, but not a lucky one.

Valeria frowned, seeing the other pilot's face in her mind, knowing that person was nothing more than a memory now, their ruined remains scattered across the dead lands she was leaving behind.

She watched the sky through her dirty canopy, her eyes finding the other planes left in the squadron. So few left now, their planes glinting in the dim, dingy light and brooding sky that seemed to get darker every day. Her eyes drifted down to her gauges, fuel; ok, engine temp; normal, oil pressure; acceptable.

Resting her left hand on the throttle assembly, she clicked it back a few notches, lowering her engine power, as she slid her control stick left and right a few times, so to see if she could roll out whatever had come loose and was rattling inside her plane. Nothing clunked around that she could hear and the rattle persisted. She bit her lip, letting out a long breath that warmed her lower face uncomfortably in the confined space of the heavy rubber and leather face that contained her rebreather and the hose to her planes air supply. She was going to have to open up the engine bay and see what was broken, hopefully there would be time before the next mission.

She pushed the throttles back up to power and pilled back on her stick, regaining speed and altitude to keep with the formation, her eyes continuing to scan the dark skies, looking for any sign of enemy.

Valeria expected an attack, especially after this mission. She was not happy with this mission, not happy with what she had been ordered to do, what the entire air group had been tasked with. Every day, more mission seemed to stray farther and farther from her purpose, her goal and the entire point of her being a combat pilot. She was there to defend her homeland and her people, not go out and decimate another city state, not exact His Most Kind's "mercy" on his enemies, or perceived enemies.

Why had they attacked Katarastra today? Did they need the ruined wasteland that much? She did not know and it gnawed at her. Not knowing why, the death of her friend and the whole mission made her stomach turn with disgust and guilt.

"CHARITY SQUADRON, SOUND OFF." The Skywarden's voice crackled over the radio, the fuzzy, crinkly sound of Gokcek's grating voice burst into her ears and she winced, her left hand darting to the radio controls, tuning down the volume so the voice and electronic noise from his still broken transmitter would not add to the headache she already had. She was slightly disappointed he had made it. What she would have given to trade him to keep Kalena alive.

She cleared her throat and flipped her transmitter on. "Charity Five reporting in" she replied curtly, then flicked her transmitter off.

[Jimmy]

Sky Captain Amaran glanced at his inadequate crudely drawn map between scans of the horizon. The watch on one wrist told him they had enough fuel to make it home, probably, if the damn thing was still working, while the much more dubious compass on his instrument panel correlated loosely with the sun between spells of spinning wildly around. Probably thanks to the Sky Marshals own aircraft. Probably.

Between the ash-blackened sky and the glowing water, and the ash-blackened clouds and glowing sun in the sky Amaran wondered how much longer it would be possible to tell the difference between the sky and the ground soon. Would one jerk of the control yoke propel him into a hard, fiery impact of the ground one day instead of the safety of higher altitude one day soon? The only certainty it seemed was that the Sky Marshal had unfortunately survived the mission also.

He let the aircraft climb, cruising on its powerful engine that lifted the large frame of the aircraft easily. The empty bomb racks made the relatively new V47 feel as light as a leaf on the wind compared to the amount of crude explosives it had had strapped under its wings at the start of the missions. Explosives whose marks were now scattered over the ruins of the once moving city, now graveyard. The heavy fighter tipped a wing as it entered formation in the lead, the furthest away from the Sky Marshal. Hopefully the compass would still work.

“Charity Two, standing by!” Amaran reported cheerily.

It was a put on cheer, but he was good at it. He’d become very good at lying for more food lately. The large aircraft groaned around him as the force of gravity shifted with him pushing the yoke down to level out the plane, the throttle was in the lower half of its reach and the engine thrummed with restrained power as he wrangled it to stay in loose formation with the remaining aircraft.

Early in the war three losses would have been manageable. Now they were devastating. But between all them, they were survivors of other units. Each of their aircraft told that story well enough.

[MechaMeme]

Aerial Knight Tamaydin peered out from behind his metallic visor as sweat poured down his neck and his wrists. The thick gloves he wore kept the heat of the engine adjustment levers from burning him, being as they were directly linked into the thermal propellers. They also kept his hands from freezing when he had to reach outside to clear a jam in one of the guns. Right now though they just made him sweat, but sweat was proof that he still lived, proof that he'd won the day. Still it was disappointing, he thought, that they'd been sent out merely to bomb enemy air defenses.

Where was the glory in that, where was the honor in bombing motionless targets on the ground?

He performed a roll as his aircraft tore its way through the air, propelled by air sucked in through his venerable biplane's intakes and heated in its thermal propellers. The twin trails of superheated air shimmered behind the biplane, marking its passage through the air as he formed up on the remains of Charity squadron. Tamaydin took up a position to the left of Amaran's V47 and just behind it. He frowned as he took stock of the squadron's remaining numbers, strange to think that their squadron had lost so many to this threat.

"Charity 6, standing by." He sounded off, and while he didn't sound quite as enthusiastic as Araman, his tone was genuine.

[IncuBoye]

"AMARAN SURVIVED?" The Skywarden's hyena-like laugh cut through the airwaves, "LOOKS LIKE HE MIGHT BE USEFUL FOR MORE THAN TELLING ME HOW HIS MOST KIND'S BOOTSHINE TASTES."

A prayer could barely be heard beneath the crackles of radio interference. As the air group progressed, a curious feature soon made itself known: a slim floating spire of crimson glass wreathed in clouds. An anomaly unknown to anyone not in the skies, and all official reports redact their mention: these crimson stakes often caused radio interference that caused some pilots to interpret as omens and wards. A few of the pilots of neighboring squadrons could be heard broadcasting muttered words as this landmark was passed. They were more desperate than usual: their numbers having dwindled seeming to embolden the strange aviation tradition.

It looked like a hearth from where Charity Squadron flew. A dim glimmer of crimson which was swaddled in charcoal-dusky cloud. Its gnarled bottom all but pointing at the ground below with its top-heavy formation.

Though home was far away, there was little that could be done to the group over this airspace. As the blue sands of the Katarastran Flats seemed to finally end somewhere before the horizon line, most territories between here and there were subjugated. Smoke could still be seen from the north, where fires were still dying down from a ground invasion. Through the devastation, there was respite. A glimmer of relative peace: if one could ignore the Skywarden's gnashed speech and the interference coming from the strange crystal.

"... Outnumbered... ... Eschaton... ... Casualties are exceeding..." A distant signal warbled.

Eschaton: a name which stained history. The research station where no planes had the technological capacity of reaching. A mere dot in the upper atmosphere. A catalyst for the endtimes, creator of the star drive. All Othan knew of this tale, of the ones who took up arms against the Coalition of the south. Those who denied the species access to the stars, trapped within this ever-worsening ball of smog and ash. Sometimes, their signals could be heard: but there was something different about this, it was coming from a Suzerainty channel.

"Skywarden Saen, do you copy?" A man's voice all but sighed.

"STILL HERE." She barked.

"There's been a change of plans. Charity and Salvation squadron are being called to assist in a matter just due south." The man said with little emotion, signal strong.

"GOT A LOCATION ON THAT?"

"Airbase Fhahar. An airborne target requires pacifying: airbarge Kazzarrene."

There's a pause. Charity squadron is spared the clacking of teeth, perhaps a warning of what is to come. A low groan sounds through the airwaves, projecting clear annoyance.

"YOU LOT STILL GOT AMMUNITION?" The skywarden gnashed, soon barking out coordinates and heading changes as though already familiar with the location: some strange location right on the border of the Flats with the rest of the Suzerainty, roughly south-east.

[Gunsight1]

Valeriya wished she could kill the speaker. The constant static and interference was not the issue, nor was the sparse chatter of her wing-mates or the other squadrons within range of her radio receiver. But the constant grinding and gnashing of the Skywarden's teeth, their grating voice and shrill laugh was to Valeriya's ears as was the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard. She was behind and above their plane. A slight dip of the nose, and a quick pull of the trigger and that annoyance would be gone. She was sure no one in the squadron would report her for the murder, let alone do anything at all about it... But no, there was so few of them left now, and despite her dislike of the skywarden, she could not just gun them down in cold blood.

She sighed, her eyes catching sight of the crimson glass spire swathed in swirls of gray cloud. It was an eerie and foreboding sight, striking fear or bad omen into most, but, at this moment, thankfully drowning out some of the warden's teeth grinding with the general blanketing of static and radio garbling. Valeriya wondered how these things were formed, what freak of devastation to this world caused them? She knew she would never get the answer. So much grew stranger and stranger by the day now. She slewed her plane over, adjusting course to keep in the clear air as they passed the structure. She frowned behind her re breather as the snippets of new sounds filtered through the interference. The name Eschaton gave her pause. Why was that place being mentioned... with.. casualties... outnumbered? Was this a transmission from that place, was something happening there? Or was this a jumble of radio traffic distorted and mashed together by the foreboding red formation?

She glanced at her guages as the new transmission came in... what now? An extension to their mission, another battle before they got to land. She checked her fuel. The level was "okay", though if there was a prolonged fight, it might be an issue. Then the call for ammunition levels.

Valeriya flicked on her radio transmitter, the amber light on the unit winking on as she transmitted. "Five here, ammunition sufficient for a moderate engagement" she reported to the skywarden, then killed her transmitter again, sinking into her seat and re-settling her hands on her controls as the light winked back off.

[Jimmy]

“Skywarden, a pleasure always. Perhaps one day you will tell me what His Most Kinds ass tastes like way up there.” Amaran replied, in a tone that cheerily told one to go to hell, politely.

The crimson crystal wasn’t the only one of its kind, but there always seemed to be at least one. Sometimes hovering on the horizon, sometimes glimpsed between clouds, but always their presence seemed to be felt. Other than the radio ghosts they had never done anything but watched, observing the end of days of a world and its people. Amaran supposed that whatever the crystals could do would just accelerate what was happening across the planet.

Fhahar was an airbase near the border, a place expected to be bombed. It wasn’t far, about fifteen minutes flight time, they would still be in the blue sodalite plastic dunes of the desert. He checked his map and made a best guess of their bearing to the airbase. It wasn’t on their way, but it was close enough.

Amaran’s wings were empty of all bombs, but a quick press of the trigger and the blaze of a split-second burst from machine-cannons that shook the aircraft and sent tracer round flying into the dark cloudy sky, competing with the setting sun for a brief moment.

“Charity 2, all ordinance expended, cannons only.” He reported to the skywarden before he took his hand off the throttle to switch to his long-range transceiver.

“Charity 2 to Command, confirm designation on target. Airbarge Kazzarrene?” Amaran asked.

Amaran had never heard the designation of “Airbarge”, they even had a name for it.

[MechaMeme]

Tamaydin flicked a gauge in his cockpit in order to stabilize it while he checked for ammunition, the nixie-tube displays embedded within the cockpit flickering for a moment before settling in, letting him know that both cannon and machine gun ammunition were at nominal levels. "Six here, I'm quite alright as far as ammunition goes," He said in his trademark tone of voice. At least the warden had kept the teeth gnashing to a minimum while giving them coordinates, he thought to himself, but her behavior was quite unbecoming of an officer.

The eccentric pilot gunned his throttle for a moment, pulling up and out of formation and performing an aileron roll as he passed over the flight and gave a wave to his fellow pilots while upside down. As he did so, Tamaydin caught a glimpse of the red crystal spire glinting in the sunlight. It seemed, in that moment, that the dirty light which poured through Yedazhiv's polluted skies seemed to be almost pure as it refracted through the spire's blood-red material.

As he came back down on the other side of the formation he changed his vector to match the rest of the formation, heading towards the new target; the Airbarge.

[IncuBoye]

"Charity Two, nomenclature and model unknown. Designation Airbarge given in lieu of proper identification." Command responds after a pause, voice rich with well-read monotony.

Salvation Squadron remained silent. A strange cluster of pilots, they never truly broadcasted anything but the most vague of hums over their radios. It took them very little time to get into formation alongside Charity Squadron. Some believed them to be on the very verge of heresy, with their veneration of the red crystalline structures: but their orders were held nearly sacrosanct. No questions, and an impressively low defection rate.

"IF YOU WERE HALF THE PILOT AS VALERIYA, YOU'D KNOW FOR YOURSELF." The Skywarden belted out somewhere between her moistly-clacked teeth and laughs which grated the ears.

Tamaydin's stunt earned him a pleased, but equally grating laugh from the Skywarden's comms between the sputtered static. "STEADY ON. LET'S BURN SOME SKYBARGES."

"... Tamaydin..." The electro-cracks of the wayward signals whispered, "There's no... ... Stars... ..."

APPROACHING AIRBASE FHAHAR
DUSK

Mood music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjrSn0aJ9ao

A ring of fire was what announced the target's presence. Dark clouds hung as a blanket over the region around Fhahar, but the clouds themselves: they burned, what unholy chemicals comprised their make turned them ablaze like standstill explosions. From the ground, it must have looked like some perverse inversion of an eclipse, but from the sky? It was something different. As the squadrons approached above the clouds, the shape of their target was the lone, massive structure in the center of the ring: it was not an aircraft that anyone in the squadron had ever seen.

It was a strange jagged thing in the shape of a corroded rectangle. Its mouth splayed open in the center: purposes unknown, with a layer of light at the very entrance. Strange were the placement of its thrusters, downward-facing and propelling up rather than forward: a thing of distant science fiction. Distant chatter could be heard over the airwaves, but there was no direct communication from airbase Fhahar at this range. No open hostilities made from the strange vessel which hung still upon the air as though strung up with twine. It was off the ground by some margin, but not yet matching the squadron.

The blue sodalite looked a brackish violet beneath the crimson jets of the Airbarge.

"... Children and unnamed aboard: I repeat..." A signal blared through the radios of Tamaydin, Valeriya, and Amaran's radios: a man's voice, soon smothered by unnatural interference.

A click. The slider of the radios twists on its own, "This is Command, channel two." That familiar monotone returned, "Presence of biological weapons of mass destruction confirmed. Eliminate to prevent use by enemy forces."

"... We have a Training Creche's worth of... ... Onboard..." The brassy tone of the man's voice was drowned beneath clearly-imposed interference.

A click.

"This is Command, channel three." Command's monotone cracked: anxiety laced beneath the undertone, "Ignore all incoming broadcasts from Airbarge Kazzarrene. Fire upon the thrusters when in range. His Most Kind has deemed the airbase expendable for the greater good."

"The High Marshal copies." Came the strange voice from the leader of Salvation Squadron, his voice sounded as though it were passed through no less than three fans.

"NOT TO WORRY, COMMAND!" The Skywarden barked, "THIS SHOULD COME NATURALLY TO YOU, VAL."

[Gunsight1]

Valeria gritted her teeth as she flew in her position in the formation. Her eyes darted from her guages, to the dark and evil sky, making note of where the skywarden's plane was, slightly below and a few degrees to the right, then back, continuing the cycle again and again as the skywarden's words rolled through her mind. At first she had not understood why she had been called out by name, what exactly she was being referenced too, beyond that the warden had suddenly decided it was her turn to be antagonized.

Then the skybarge had come into range and the garbled radio signals had started ads they had come within comm range.

"children... aboard..." had immediately caught her attention. Then the immediate order to switch to a new frequency. Then a comment that there were biological weapons aboard the barge. Why would there be claims of children and unnamed aboard if the cargo was bio weapons?

"Training creche... onboard..." then an order to switch frequencies again... Valeria frowned and then the skywarden had made their final comment; "THIS SHOULD COME NATURALLY TO YOU, VAL." She grimaced behind her re-breather mask, the grating sound of the skywarden's voice like a shriek in her ears.

Her eyes shot to the closing barge, it's flame surrounded bulk almost silhouetted, but visible enough to see that it was not a weapons platform.

It all fell into place. The radio signals. There were children aboard. A lot of children. This was not a weapon, but a refugee ship. The skywarden's own comments had proven it, despite radio controls attempt to hide it with channel switches and misdirection. Why else would the skywarden single her out? The icy ball of guilt and regret and loss that forever lived in the pit of her stomach made it's presence known, forcing a wave of nausea and bile up from her stomach.

How could the skywarden suggest that Valeria would or had killed children? How could they insinuate that it would come naturally to her? That she could do something like that after what had happened to her. She had never talked about her past with anyone but her closest confidants in the air group, and that was an incredibly small group of trusted people. The warden must have found her records somewhere. What had happened to her children. Her children who had died within her, before their birth, on the day her husband Guiullaume had been killed, days after her parents had been killed. They day her entire crumbling world fell apart. The skywarden knew her deepest and most private and most painful secret and was using it as a joke, as something to insinuate and disgusting horrible lie, to suggest that she had killed her own children, when she had miscarried when overcome by the utter grief at the loss of everyone she loved and cared about in her world.

It hit her deep in the gut. Painful, sickening and hard. The breath was knocked out of her and she almost vomited, and the hot sting of tears welled up in the corners of her eyes.

How could they? How could they?! She wanted to scream in anguish and rage at having her loss used and perverted by that disgusting creature.

Valeria's hand shook and she drew a long ragged breath as she forced the bile back down her throat. There were children on that barge. Children and families and civilians and they were being sent to murder them. And that monster was using her grief as a joke.

She sobbed, her body heaving, as the weight of it all crashed down on her, years of repressed pain and anguish that had never gone away, suddenly and painfully dragged back to the surface.

Then rage. Pure blinding fury welled up. Her hands tightened on her controls. "No" she hissed through the sobs. She was no murderer of children. She was no murderer of civilians. These mission had been getting worse and worse and now she was being ordered to kill a ship full of children?! And the skywarden was going to enjoy every second of it, and the skywarden knew her children had died and mocked her with it, taunted her with it.

Valeria almost didn't notice when she flicked the switch for her machine guns on, powering the motors for the 4 synchronized 50 caliber machine guns in her planes nose. The targeting retical for the guns flashed up onto the small thick glass plate in her forward canopy that was her gunnery head up display. The orange and red cross-hair pattern with range markers and deflection angles.

She rolled her fighter those few degrees to the right and dropped her nose down, lining the retical up to the right angle and lead that would drop her rounds into the skywarden's cockpit.

She switched her radio transmitter on, the red TRANSMIT light glowing angrily on her control cluster, the soft hiss of her own broadcast signal joining the cacophony of background interference and noise that always lived in the background of all radio traffic on this doomed world.

"I do not kill children" she said. Her voice was soft, flat and laced with despair and rage. Then she pulled the trigger.

The four synchronized guns chattered, spitting jets of flame as round after round was sent flying. Their path lighting up the thick twilight sky, every third round an incandescent tracer burning white hot. The burst lasted moments, sending dozens upon dozens of rounds screaming down to the skywarden's cockpit and fuselage.

[Jimmy]

Amaran raised an eyebrow at the Skywardens comments, certainly she hadn’t volunteered any information about the skybarge. He turned his head over to look at the other two survivors before wriggling back into his chair, keeping an eye out for Salvation squadron.

Airbase Fhahar

Amaran watched as his radio flicked between channels as the controller desperately tried to slide away from the radio interruptions, interruptions that chilled Amaran in his bones. He hadn’t liked the business on the Katarastran Flats, not at all. But they had at least had the ability to fight back.

This aircraft was unlike anything Amaran had ever seen, with its engines blasting it upwards with brute force instead of trying to catch any air along a leading edge, but no engine could propel something so big so easily. The skywardens last comment froze him up. The skywarden may have been their political officer, but he was their leader, and even if he had been raised under the floorboards, in the closet, and under the stairs. What little his parents had been able to give him, they had raised him better than that.

He took a seconds glance at the crimson crystal in the distance, and a thought came to his mind. A dangerous thought, a treacherous thought. But mostly, his mind produced a very simple thought.

“Sod it.” He spoke to himself before pulling his stick to the side and sending the plane into a dive towards the sky barge.

It’s the end of the world anyway.

The big heavy machine battered air out of the way, the mass of metal and machine pulled it downwards, an advantage in a dive like this. Drawing him up easily between the fighters of Salvation Squadron. He looked over his shoulder as he passed and saw Valeria lining up on the skywarden. He didn’t max his throttle, though. Not yet. Not until they were all in shooting range.

“Backseat driver.” He muttered, thinking of the skywarden as he spoke before turning to face ahead.

The V-47 shuddered and groaned as air screamed over the wings, creating a voice of its own as the machine shook in his hands, a scream as frightening as he felt. He held onto the stick tight, eyes ahead, watching as the big…thing drew up in his sights. He imagined the other pilots behind him, lining up their own shots, picking the exact moment their cannon would come into range.

“Hey Val, I guess I won’t get to take you on that sunset cruise after all, you’d have to cover your eyes.” He spoke.

He tried to communicate his intent, poorly, but he’d tried. Maybe Tamaydin would join their side, maybe he wouldn’t, Amaran had little idea what went on behind the mans mask. But at least this time, this time Amaran thought he might get shot down for something worthwhile.

He hit the firewall of the throttle as he crossed into range. The cowls around the machines circular body opened wide, like a dragon gulping in a breath before spitting flame as power surged through its guts. Amaran was vibrated before, but now he was positively thrown against his seat as brilliant white jets gushed from the sides of his engine and out the back port, charring the paint along the sides of his cockpit and under his tail. His forehead immediately beaded with sweat from stinging heat as he narrowed his vision to what was directly in his front window.

Whoever was behind him would have it worse as the interceptor seemed to explode with blinding light and deafening noise. Noise and light that continued as Amaran held down the throttle, his eyes wide open in fear and exhilaration. He had to get this exactly right or this little rebellion would be over real fast. He nosed down just underneath the airbarge, keeping his engine on for as long as he could to blind and disorientate the attackers. As the shadow of the barge passed above his canopy and the turbulence of the engines rocked him he shut down the max thrust and pulled back on the stick hard, hoping he’d left himself enough room to pull out before hitting the ground.

The large machine groaned and shuddered, the stick fought him, stuck with the air hard against the elevators, trying to push them flat. He planted both feet into the console and heaved. The nose began to rise, the speed began to become controllable. He might have seen a pair of the hangars of the airbase pass on either side of his cockpit, but the plane began to rise and he was suddenly pressed back against his seat, gritting his teeth, his entire body tight as he tried to keep blood in his head and eyes. But still his vision faded and he gasped in his mask as if suffocating as his brain ran low on oxygen, he tried to scream but couldn’t make any noise resembling anything.

The plane steadied, so did the forces on his body. He lay back against his chair, panting heavily, before he turned to check his tail and continued his loop to get above and behind anything that might have survived the dive after him.

“Charity Squadron, this is Charity Two. Gods and leaders have failed us, it’s the end of the world and perhaps none of it matters anymore. But we might just have to save our own souls, you don’t have to follow me, but since we are to die, I’d like to die with you both on my wings saving something, not destroying it. Vote with your guns.”

He took his thumb off the send button and prepared to fight with his entire life.

[MechaMeme]

Tamaydin's eyes widened in spite of himself at the strange whispers of the spire's electricity coming through his radio unbidden, almost static but discernable as voices. The pilot's resolve and knightly behavior, normally unflappable, was broken for a moment as the strange voice hissed over the radio's static. Those spires, he'd heard of them acting in similar ways before, but never anything like this, and accounts had always been second or third-hand. As the hissing voices over the radio ceased to speak, the light from the spire seemed to take on a slightly darker, more ominous, hue in Tamaydin's eyes.

Airbase Fhahar
Tamaydin listened as the Skywarden gave her orders, his mouth twisting with distaste as if he'd eaten a rotten piece of meat. The airbarge was, quite obviously to anyone with a lick of sense, quite unarmed and unsuited for anyone with any kind of honor to do combat with. Civilians were meant to be protected, not used as target practice. When Valeria made her move of reckless defiance he gave a grim grin, and when Araman voiced his intentions over the radio the grin spread into a smile, invisible to all outside the cockpit as it was hidden behind Tamaydin's visor.

"Charity Two, Charity Five. Perhaps you two have the makings of knights, eh?" The eccentritc pilot said, sliding into position in front of the shocked members of Salvation squadron and slamming his Kırlangıç-Gelis' Thermal Propellers into full reverse, sending a beam of brilliant glowing heated air out in front of the biplane just as all thrust ceased from the rear, sending the plane backward. The true airspeed wasn't that high, but in comparison to the aircraft of Salvation squadron which were still flying forward at top speed, he was practically rocketing to their rear . As he passed behind Salvation squadron, Tamaydin flicked the nose of his fighter, passing the beam of heat over two fighters and letting it do its work.

[IncuBoye]

"Break formation. Charity Squadron has been compromised." The High Marshal's chopped monotone spoke mere seconds before Valeriya let loose her volley.

Valeriya's attack perforated the silence with a sound which almost deafened. The Skywarden's last noise was a gnash of the teeth, a moment away from laughter. Gunfire reflected in Valeriya's dark sclera as the blasts of light shredded through armor. A horrible gag sputtered across the channel, the rounds slammed into the cockpit with ease. In panic, the Skywarden's plane pulled up, a sheet of metal bolted to the side of the cockpit sent flying behind. A blue inferno began at either wing; short lived, as she made a fatal error. Her plane's flame touched a dark cloud just off the squad's one-trajectory.

Death was assured, as the gaseous anomaly burst into flames. The Skywarden's ship stalled out as it became a wraith-like conflagration of its former self. Teeth which once gnashed over the channel were finally silenced.

There were a few precious moments between the Skywarden's fortunate death and the reaction to the sudden, inhumanly fast order. Amaran's engines flared a brilliant nova across the ruined air: its blinding light seared retinas and scorched ozone alike. An immediate reaction was clear, heard over the radio channel. Pained noises hissed from their once-sister squadron as they blindly tried to steady their planes, two of them already fired upon the location that they thought were Amaran went, their shots sent ringing through the air. Each heavy munition's thud sounded out near Amaran, each one missed him at first by what seemed like miles, and then what seemed like mere yards.

Explosive shells slammed into the ground to the left of Amaran's plane as he dropped down low. From beneath the Kazzarrene, thrusters of impossibly bright crimson streaked pillars of fire against the once-airbase. The internals of the ring-like airbase were entirely scorched. Scaffolding was melted into the concrete, and the burnt-out husks of construction vehicles littered the surroundings. Amaran could see, if he looked up past the bright lights, that the only thing fully constructed about the Kazarrene was the underbelly where the thrusters connected to the under-hull. Distant sparks of welding torches could be seen along the externals, right above the lip of the underside.

Whatever the Kazzarrene was, to call it a plane was to understate it. It was as though it were a sea-vessel which denied its station. Its size humbled Amaran's puny plane with its leviathan shadow.

Mood music: https://youtu.be/UhcRv8FZ1jo

Tamaydin's plane jolted from the sheer force of the divinely-scorching light from his experimental armaments. A surprised scream sounded out from his radio as the first head from Salvation squadron rolled: the plane nearest to the High Marshal's. Bisected, Tamaydin could see the melted metals of the target's mechanical innards, mere moments before it burst to flames and spiraled. Heat flushed into his cockpit, his vision dyed an amber-crimson. Just a moment longer: his secondary target was in his sights, between the beams, the plane breaking formation with the rest as they scrambled away from the cacophony of lights. It was just out of reach, able to keep itself mere meters from decimation as the surprise attack began to be adapted to.

Frenzied breath. It panted over the radio. It was not long before it became manic screaming as the heat alone cooked the pilot in her plane. The cockpit melted upon itself in the heat, welding itself shut in a metal coffin. A moment's desperation inspired a frantic plan: the pilot of the now-warped plane careened as sharply as she could manage, in some attempt to ram Tamaydin... Only to be met with the sister of the twinned beams which sealed her fate. Before Tamaydin's eyes, what was once a pilot had become an exploded hunk of scrap: falling down upon the planet, a few dozen yards from the ring of air formed by the edges of the clouds which 'burned'. The light refracted against a tall tower of crimson which floated due south of the airbase's airspace, swaddled in a nest of dark clouds.

"... Charity?" A voice rose from the blanket of static, "... Experimental... ... Can try... Help..." The words repeated in the now-familiar baritone of the Kazzarrene's smothered frequency; those within were still subject to the jamming.

Five remained of Salvation's ranks. Wild chatter mixed with the nigh-omnipresent white noise. Two already converged upon Valeria, broken off from their ranks, prepared to snuff out her life: her only saving grace? Their seared retinas forced most thundering shots to miss, buying her more time to react. Upon the sheer horror that Tamaydin unleashed, the duo pilots of the rank and file hesitated. In their panic, they focused on not remaining in one place, and charged the more distant enemy as to not contend with prospect of their planes becoming pressure cookers.

"Your bloodline: liquidated." Salvation squadron's leader spoke in his highly altered voice, a commanding presence through the static, "Yours is the blood of whores."

The jagged exterior of the High Marshal's plane bore etches on the side. It was written in a script unfamiliar to any in Charity. A thundering boom sounded out as within an instant, the High Marshal's plane shunted itself during a sharp curve: scorch marks covered the exterior of the opposing side. Dark amber tinted his cockpit's window, claw marks set within it. A staccato of sharp armament fire filled the airspace around Tamaydin's side. Whatever the High Marshal had done, he moved unnaturally upon the skies, and denied the very basics of aviation common sense. The bullets clawed at the very edges of Tamaydin's plane, and should he directly engage rather than evade, the risk would be great.

[Jimmy]

Amaran groaned as his machine juddered with the air-bursting shells that flew under his aircrafts fuselage, pulling the machine up and through the loop. His engine struggled against gravity and quickly began to lose as his speed bleed away despite the massive power of its engine but he also knew his pursuers would be having the same difficulties. He turned his head and saw the rest of the scene unfolding before him.

“Charity Five, I’ve got two on me. I see two on you. Merge with me, scratch your back scratch mine.” He shouted into the radio, unable to keep the groan out of his voice as his cockpit slowly inverted and his shoulders pressed painfully against the straps of his seat.

He rolled the big V-47 and turned to look over his shoulder just in time for more tracer fire to pass his wing, making him roll and bank to evade again.

“Come on, big girl.” He grunted as the large plane veered and shifted, bouncing on the turbulence of air.

[Gunsight1]

Mood music: https://youtu.be/vH0zv9hfjlY?t=90

Valeria held her breath. She saw the Skywarden's ship burst into flames, coming apart in a trail of metal wreckage, orange flames and black smoke twisting into a gas pocket, exploding and tumbling towards the ground far below.

She did not have time to relish the victory. She knew others would be out to avenge the hated wing leader. Valeria jammed her throttles forward to their stops and hauled back on her control stick. She was shoved back into her seat as the big 20-cilandar engine revved to full power and her small nimble fighter leapt forward and began to climb steeply. She could hear the wind whistling across her control surfaces as the big engine roared in front of her. She let out her breath and looked out of her canopy to see how many planes were coming after her. She knew her two surviving squadron mates were with her, but how many of the other squadron? None, she assumed.

She spotted the two coming for her just as Amaran's voice crackled over the radio and could see their tracers reaching out for her, far too short, as she rolled her ship onto it's back, cutting throttle to 3/4 power to gain added maneuverability as she rolled out and got eyes on Amaran, who did indeed have two gunning for his tail.

"I see them" she replied as she juked and weaved her ship, angling for a head on pass with her squadron mate, while keeping her Firebrand too mobile for her pursuers to get a bead on her. "Coming in, be ready, juke low" she said in a calm voice. She knew his plane was heavier and slower, so it was better for hers to take the high road in the pass.

She came in, almost nose on to Amaran's big V-47, her finger settled on the trigger, then with a kick to her throttle, a slight tug back of the stick and a little rudder she popped up over Amaran just in time, her retical passing across the first Salvation squadron plane, head on, as she squeezed the trigger, a short burst chattered from her four machine guns, then, she rolled slightly left, slewing her targeting to the second and squeezed again, sending a burst of machine gun fire at the second of Amaran's pursuers before snapping up onto her left wing and hauling hard, while slamming her left foot down on the rudder peddle, shoving the throttle to full again as she let her ship roll, tumble and loose some altitude before leveling off. The combination of engine power and altitude loss giving her a quick boost of speed that she quickly used as she pulled her Firebrand into a steep and rapid sweeping climb as she looked to see if her shots had connected with her two targets, or find good vectors to drop in on one of their tails if they needed some additional puncturing.

[MechaMeme]

Mood Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coGVpUF ... xR&index=8

Tamaydin licked his lips, chapped by hours spent in the thin dry air of the cockpit, as he maneuvered to evade the High Marshal's incoming fire. The hail of bullets vomited from the Marshal's strange aircraft had thus far failed to connect with the eccentric pilot's plane, but only just barely. The Marshal's plane, he thought to himself as he banked left and right erratically, working to avoid the gunfire, was moving in ways he'd never seen before. Did those scorch marks have something to do with it?

A one-on-one with the High Marshal was difficult enough, though Tamaydin thought he could evade long enough for the rest of Charity to arrive, but the other two pilots of Salvation who had stayed with the Marshal rather than pursuing Valerie worried him. They weren't firing yet, but a three on one would turn a hard fight into a quick death.

Discretion would prove itself the better part of valor here, he thought as he pushed the stick forward and nudged the plane into a dive, heading down in the direction of Charity, though not directly towards them. He needed to buy time, time enough for the other two to finish up with their own fight, time enough to puzzle out the High Marshal's aircraft and how to defeat it.

Tamaydin opened his radio to the rest of Charity, using their internal channel to speak. "Two, Five, Six here. I've the High Marshal at my back, I'm going to try to stall him and his lackeys until you two can finish up over there. I've a few tricks up my sleeve yet."

He then keyed his radio to the open channel, responding to the Marshal's message with a taunting voice. "Perhaps, good man, but you'll have to catch me first. Besides, better the blood of whores than the blood of a dog."

[IncuBoye]

"All callsigns, this is Guiding Light, Charity squadron has been confirmed compromised..." A warbled, woman's holier-than-thou voice cut through the airwaves with sharp clarity, "... and are complicit in bioterror attacks on Fhahar. All units are advised to liquidate on sight, do not contact, do not raise comms. Salvation Squardron has already been ambushed."

Valeria's arrival was announced with an entourage of tracers. Before Amaran's eyes, fire bloomed forth from machinegun fire that seemed almost larger than the planes they came from. The two hostiles split off from their paired beeline, the white-hot lead burnt in an arc. Valeria could feel the cold touch of death upon her shoulder. Even as she evaded with the skills of ages behind her hands, her plane groaned, the sound of nicks reverberated through her spine. Mere feet away from a death which had long been due: but most seemed to stray beyond her and into the Kazzarrene's massive hull. The screech of scaffolding was covered by the sound of a different sort of metal touched by bullets.

Amaran could feel the give of his plane beneath the hail of bullets. Bright streaks of light painted his cockpit as time almost seem to slow for him. Harsh air pressed against skin, hot air flashed before his eyes, and pain erupted from his body. His hand, previously wrought of five fingers, was now gnarled and nearly split down the center, missing the middle-most finger as crimson gushed. Adrenaline spiked within his body, and for perhaps just a moment, masked the thankfully unfathomed pain of the bullet embedded into his thigh's bone. Life leaked from his body as his avionics shuddered and corrected, their systems thankfully grazed; the rush offered physical epiphany, as his perception dilated and his vision sharpened. Unexpected focus was offered from the peripheries of a death-glance, as life-affirming squirts of cherry-red stained his uniform.

It was Valeria's own mettle that averted Amaran's death. There was desperation in the enemy pilots' movements as they curved to avoid the bullets meant for them, their own volleys astray from Amaran. 'SALVATION' painted the plane her bullets connected with, a title underscored by myriad handprints. The pilot had swerved to evade as best it could-- But it exposed the broad side of the plane itself, an almost fatal mistake as bullet holes perforated its frame. It managed to escape the volley as it dove towards Airbase Fhahar, shocked and shaky breaths barely audible beneath the voice which had since commanded the airwaves with superior communications equipment. A mere moment's reprieve.

"Requesting all available units in the area to reinforce Salvation Squadron." The woman's voice hardly even crackled over the radio, "We repeat, Charity Squadron has ambushed Salvation..."

"This one: Mine." The High Marshal's voice crackled over the airwaves, "Kill the runts."

It didn't stop the initial barrage of bullets sent Tamaydin's way from the two who remained with the High Marshal. They went wide, tracers serving only to ignite the faux-clouds of inky black. Thankfully for them, the pilot had led them to the general direction of the rest of Charity. They broke off without so much as a comment to the High Marshal and began to close the distance between themselves and the rest of Charity. As the High Marshal weaved through the clouds, he let loose a volley of bullets in Tamaydin's direction, his plane attempted to serve as a wedge between the two pilots who scrambled to get near the rest, and Tamaydin himself.

It almost looked as though the High Marshal invited the first shot.

[MechaMeme]

Mood Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coGVpUF ... xR&index=8

As the High Marshal wove through the sooty clouds of explosive gasses, Tamaydin grit his teeth behind his metal visor. The enemy pilot had taken his bait, but the man's goons had fallen away unexpectedly to go and attack the remainder of Charity. He'd expected the High Marshal to eschew a fair fight, allowing Tamaydin to stall the rest of Salvation until Valeria and Amaran had finished off the ones who had come to attack them.

Perhaps it had been wishful thinking making a plan like that, after all no plan survives very long in the skies, but perhaps the situation could still be salvaged. The High Marshal was, at least, not en-route to the rest of Charity. The enemy pilot was weaving through the explosive clouds, roughly maintaining a position between him and the rest of Charity squadron. Defeating the High Marshal had just gone from an eventual necessity to an immediate one.

He had the enemy's back, at least for the moment, but with the way the Marshal's aircraft moved staying behind if he tried to close in would be no easy thing. No, he'd have to strike in a way that the High Marshal didn't expect, and these clouds might be just the thing. Tamaydin gunned the throttle, beginning to give chase and opened fire with his machine guns, feeling the biplane shake as the guns chattered their report and tossed brass away, sending it tumbling to the ground.

Of course, he hoped to hit despite not expecting to from this longer range, his aim was rather to begin to create a sense of urgency, of pressure. If he could force the High Marshal into action before he was ready to act, he could perhaps force him to make a mistake. After all, he would soon find himself trapped between Tamaydin's guns and the noxious clouds, a rather unenviable position to be in by any standards. If the High Marshal chose to stay there too long, he might find his plane chewed apart by machine guns and cannon fire.

[Gunsight1]

Valeria had her plane climbing for altitude as she looked out all sides of her canopy, keeping track of where the enemies and her small number of friends where, They were well outnumbered, that was for sure, but it was not a hopeless engagement by any means. Amaran and Tamaydin were good, quite good, by her opinion, definitely better than the pilots of Salvation squadron to be sure. But the others could still get lucky, numerical superiority did have it's advantages. The herd needed to be thinned out a lot.

Her plane shook and buffeted from turbulence as she clawed for altitude advantage, the big 20 cylinder engine thrumming and chattering in front of her cockpit. She took a breath and flipped her radio transmitter to open broadcast on all channels and spoke into her mic.

"This is Sky Captain Valeria" She announced in as clear a voice as she could with her flight re-breather mask on, her eyes scanning the skies for anyone trying to get a line on her as she came out of her climb and began a bank to the left. "Our leaders have lied to us. This is no military target they want us to attack, no weapon or high value supply cache that will help win the war or protect our people back home from another nights bombings" she said, her eyes catching sight of several of the surviving planes of salvation squadron below. "This is a civilian target. Children.. innocents.... not soldiers, not war targets" she hissed, the rage starting to slowly boil in her gut again as she spoke loud enough to drown out any attempt by the Martial or anyone else to try and speak over her.

"This is wrong and I will not take part in the massacre of children, nor will I stand for it" she stated as she adjusted her course, bringing her Firebrand 220 onto a high level intercept heading with them. "You all know who I am. You know I have been fighting since before any of you had even thought to become pilots, since before most of you were born. I have never been defeated. I have always been victorious in battle and the enemy has never stopped me from completing my mission" she said, loudly, clearly into her mic. "Most of you have not even flown the average 5 missions a pilot in our air forces is expected to be killed within. I have flown thousands. I am still here."

Valeria selected her next target as she spoke, the plane flying parallel to her own course, five hundred feet below, perfectly lined up for a dive attack from his blind spot.

"My mission now is to protect these children. Go home. You do not have to be my enemy. I do not want to kill you, you do not have to be my enemy. Turn to 47° North North West and fire a blue signal flare to announce your intentions to withdraw peacefully and you will be left alone. But if you attempt to prevent me from completing my mission" she paused. "I WILL kill each and every last one of you that chooses to be my enemy. I am Valeria, the undefeated. I trained most of you, you stand no chance."

She finished, just leaving the mic on broadcast she didn't care anymore, and began her dive, finger ready to squeeze the trigger for her four machine guns if the plane below did not follow her instructions to withdraw.

[Jimmy]

Amaran lined up his plane with Valeria’s, keeping it steady, there was a harsh rip of tearing metal and the gong of bullets struck his armoured seat a split second before glass in the bubble canopy behind him shattered and he gasped as lead tore his hand and thigh. The plane jerked sickeningly, its nose nudging to the left and up before he could quickly correct it. His engine still worked, and that’s what counted for the next part.

He kept the plane straight until the last moment before the big machine rolled inverted and flicked nose down, almost brushing propeller to undercarriage with Valeria’s aircraft. Amaran screamed into his mask as the rocking turbulence from their close pass disturbed the bullet in his flesh, the bug aircraft rolled onto its side, but already its weapons blazed a trail of tracer fire.

The V-47’s machinegun array was not regarded as anything special, but their sheer number, 8 arranged intricately through the wings, made the amount of tracer fire streaking towards Valeria’s pursuer look like a glowing firehose that passed by one with and corrected to the target. Bullet impacts tore holes through the nose cone of the enemy aircraft, shattered the windscreen, and tore off one of the wings. The V-47 had been made to deal with enemy bomber, a light fighter was sliced to metal ribbons and flames under its guns.

Amaran completed the roll back to level, before pulling the stick back and maxing his engine again, the loud boom and flash rocketed his plane skyward. The massive plane moved with surprising agility, even as it lost speed in the climb, but it lost speed much slower than the aircraft behind it struggling to keep up. Amaran turned to look out the back of his shattered canopy, he watched, waiting for his opponent to lose energy, to become vulnerable before he kicked his rudder right. The plane lurched and yawed slowly around its center for gravity, upward momentum arrested down, beginning to fall back down. The air against the fuselage pushed against the machine, and its heavy end, the nose fell fastest, flipping the plane nose down like an arrow towards the last enemy.

Unable to keep their nose up, the enemy could only look up and watch as Amaran came down upon them, a burst of tracer fire and the fuselage was punctured with a dozen holes. Sending the other aircraft to fall limply to the ground with a weak burst of black smoke.

[IncuBoye]

"Let it be known that Engineer Esma was complicit in comms sabotage." A man's baritone sounded out over the radio, "All personnel be advised: The Suzerainty will not grant leniency. Our Kazzarrene will touch the stars!"

The announcement was signaled by the fresh din of thruster-fire. Scalding, blinding light burst from the Kazzarene's underbelly. Leviathan as it was, the fire was enough to propel the impossibly large structure further into the skies. Voices clamored over the channels. No longer smothered by static, engineering reports and med-bay requests formed a wall of noise with no end. With a chorus of souls, the Kazzarene spoke. And should one find themselves looking too closely at the scaffolding, a single traitorous body was shoved from one of the struts.

Tamaydin's gunfire tore through the radio's noise. A hail of munitions announced his plane's presence, far too bright, too loud, too close, for the High Marshal to ignore. An impossible choice was presented. A pilot trapped between a gaseous grave, and the sweet embrace of gunfire. Between the two, a single choice came almost instantaneous: the field of clouds which had claimed so many pilots over the years. It took mere seconds for the plane to become enveloped. Tamadyin's ordinance sliced through the clouds, reavealing the shadows of his adversary between brilliant bursts of flame, before...

The High Marshal simply seemed to vanish, somewhere in the dark. Precious seconds splayed themselves before Tamaydin. Pinpricks traveled up his spine as his instrumentation began to chill: something wasn't right.

Mood Music: https://youtu.be/cI5V_8RErzI

Valeria's words were loud against the background of voices. Somewhere within, one could hear the faintest of cheers in the wash of distortion... But none came from any familiar voices. Of the countless corpses which had formed Valeria's apprentices, not a single one responded. Instead, coordinates were being relayed. Corrections. Acknowledgements. The landscape had become lit with a beautiful scarlet from the Kazzarene's thruster-fire, which distantly stained the clouds. Those very same clouds would soon highlight the veritable wall of death that awaited Charity Squadron.

"You've abandoned your honor, Sky Captain!" Valeria's target barked out through quickly-panting breath, "Oh, gleaming Shards, take mine voice--"

And that's all it took. Mere heartbeats before Valeria's target, desperate in its evasion, met its end. A bloodied gasp was all that sounded out from the pilot. The screams of metal torn and perforated as the plane itself struggled to maintain any kind of flight. Further down it spiraled: before coming into contact with a beetle-like machine of war on the ground.

For Amaran, life was only spent. For even his own blood flowed freely from his mangled limb. Wind whipped into his cockpit, the holes formed a sickening screech that pierced the ears. His target sent into a death spiral into very earth, before him was what remained of his world:

A ruined ecosystem of sand, glass, debris, and mangled ruins. Beneath the dying sun, there remained little to no places that nature caressed. Blasted holes, melted buildings, it all formed an endless slurry of destruction. His heartbeat quickened, in some desperate attempt to start reclaiming some of what was lost. But even so, the hunger was already building. The way forward became less clear.

"Charity Squad, you don't have much time." The man's voice returns, "The Kazzarrene will shelter you-- You need to land in its mouth, where it glows a thin layer of red! We don't have time to explain, but there is still a way out of this!"

And in that moment, Tamaydin, in the middle of his next maneuver... Saw a flash of crimson lightning within the stygian clouds: the unmistakable shape of his adversary.

[Jimmy]

Amaran steadily pulled the plane out of the dive, man and machine groaning and creaking as gravity came right and the horizon flattened out. Amaran sucked in each breath as adrenaline and the fight for life gave way to realization and pain. He held, the control yoke with his knees as held the sheared remains of his finger with his other hand, taking a cloth out of his pocket and pulling a cord from his jacket to try and stem the bleeding there, the rag slowly turning red despite the pressure.

He peered over each shoulder as he fiddled with his belt, undoing it clumsily and pulling it out with a groan. He coiled it around his thigh and stopped to take a few breaths before groaning out loud as he tried to cinch the bleeding, to slow it down. He slumped back against his seat and tried to catch his breath, trying to keep the plane mostly straight through most of it.

Taking the yoke in his good hand he gently turned, circling around as he scanned the surroundings. He tried to make out the mouth that the radio message mentioned, a thin layer of red in the very front. Amaran felt a pang of sadness for the radio operators demise, it seemed the man had disabled the channel switching that had been present before and it had cost him dearly. The first casualty in Charity's act of defiance.

“Valeria, Tamaydin. I’ve lost track of you. Did you follow the High Marshal into a cloud?” He radioed, trying to keep most of the pain from his voice. “My machine is damaged; you’ll need to land ahead of me in case I crash.”

[MechaMeme]

Tamaydin worked the throttle as he gazed at the silhouette of the High Marshal in the clouds. The would-be aerial knight grimaced. The stubborn enemy pilot refused to fall, and he refused to be driven away. Until the High Marshal was sufficiently deterred, it would not be safe to move in to land on the Kazzarrene. He keyed his radio, speaking to the rest of Charity. "Amaran, I am still undamaged, but the High Marshal is hiding inside the clouds. I will attempt to drive him off while Valeria moves in to land on the airbarge."

Tamaydin pulled back on his stick, pulling up above the cloud within which the High Marshal was lurking. As ruby lightning crackled within the soot-black clouds, the mustached pilot tracked the enemy within the clouds by his silhouette. As Tamaydin passed over the high marshal, he pushed his stick back forwards and began to dive towards the cloud, counting on the dark clouds to mask his approach even as the lightning helped him track his prey despite them. As he neared the black clouds, he ignited his thermal lances, and jerked the plane to one side in order to evade any last-second return fire.

His aim was to ignite those ever-present flammable clouds, turning the High Marshal's hiding place into an oven, cooking the foe within it.

[Gunsight1]

Valeria watched the plane spiral down and slam into the war machine below. Her own aircraft descending gently as she watched and heard the horrid scream of the pilot's demise. She took a long breath and listened for any reply from the other pilots she had flown with, those she had trained and fought along side for countless missions. Nothing. They were gone, she knew it.

A new voice crackled over the radio, from the Kazzarrene, offer of safety, but only if they acted fast. She glanced about, spotting Amaran, his plane flying straight and level, a thin trail of smoke trailing, damaged.

Valeria kicked her throttles up and hauled back on her stick, rolling and climbing to intercept Amaran, sweeping into formation just below and behind him as he and Tamaydin spoke.

"Amaran, I'm below and on your six, making a quick visual inspection of your machine, control surfaces and landing gear look okay" she said as she slewed back and forth underneath his damaged aircraft. "I think you will make it" she said. She did not know that for sure, but now was the time for some hope, not reality. She needed all of her wingmates alive if they were to get through this.

"Tamaydin, be safe and quick on my heels, time is short" she added, then pulled out ahead of Amaran, heading for the airship.

"Kazzarrene, this is Charity five, we are on approach" she announced as she vectored for the vast airships flight deck.

Who were these people? Could they trust them? Was this a mistake? She had no answers, she...all of them, could be flying into the waiting arms of an enemy who would be able to easily shoot them down as they approached to land, or take them prisoner as soon as they were down. But there was little choice. Fuel was low, Amaran was damaged and probably wounded. They had to trust these strangers.

She breathed in sharply as she came into the final approach, throttling down, flaps down, pulling the lever that lowered her landing gear, the motors whining as the two big wheels folded out from their storage bays in the lower set of wings and the small wheel out of her machines tail, all locking into place with a metallic thud.

Her air speed dropped as she came in over the back end of the landing deck and cut her throttle to zero as she glided down the last few feet, her main wheels touching down with the hint of a skid as rubber met the surface of the flight deck. Her Firebrand slowed, loosing lift as she rolled down the deck, tail dropping, the small wheel touching down with a jerk, She was down, rolling, breaking to a speed where she could taxi and steer off to clear the landing area.

"I'm down, your turn, Tamaydin"