[ Author's Note:

Hello, ladies. This is going to be my first venture into Storm Hawks fiction, but I have a feeling that you'll find it to be entertaining. If you have any concerns, just let me know. In addition, the reviews are filled with spoilers. Try to avoid them until you've read up to the latest chapter.

This is set a little while after the final episode. Everything that happened in the series happened in the storyline of this story, and events leading up to the 'present' (i.e. the time between the final episode and the first chapter of this story) will be filled in as the story progresses. I just felt like sharing that. Be sure to review! I love feedback, and it makes me feel better knowing that someone's actually reading this stuff.

So, without further ado, I give you 'In Memory Of'. Don't forget to review.

~CWO

P.S. And, no, this is not a self-insertion. ]

The first thing I remembered hearing was an alarm. Needless to say, it was rather… alarming. I had been asleep – for whatever reason – and my eyes opened slowly to reveal a rather dim and dingy ceiling. After gasping and breathing heavily for a few seconds, which was most likely a reaction to a nightmare that had been cut short, I decided to pull myself up to a sitting position and examine my environment. When I tried to pull my body up to do so, I felt a dull pain coming from the muscles in my arms, so I took a moment to assess my condition. I was clearly on a bed, and it seemed like I had gone to sleep – or been placed there – without bothering to use the blanket. Thankfully, I was also fully clothed in an odd, old-fashioned-looking jacket and trousers which looked to be a little bigger than my size. For some reason, I couldn't remember what I'd been wearing before… before…?

I decided that I was still groggy. Worrying about anything other than my current situation could prove to be useless, or even dangerous, I thought. I straightened my jacket, gingerly twisted myself off of the bed, and stuffed my sock-feet into the pair of thick, black boots that were waiting on the wood-paneled floor below me. Once my feet were protected, I remembered to check my surroundings; after blinking a few times, I could tell that I was at the end of a row of empty beds, and it seemed like all was still and quiet, except for the siren going off and echoing, breaking the silence. The room itself was lit by an orange-tinted glow coming from a small lantern on a wooden nightstand, just a few beds down from mine. That was when a long, vaguely metallic creak pulled me out of my observation and brought me back to the present, albeit a tad more unnerved than I had been before.

"I'm… on a ship," I remarked, but I immediately made a sour expression at the sound of my voice… it sounded rusty from disuse. After clearing my throat a few times, I decided that I might as well see what was in store for me beyond the bedchamber door. I began walking, but found that action to be exceedingly difficult due to the fact that I seemed completely unable to move in a straight line. I lurched to the left and threw my hands onto the wall, which just barely kept me upright. I shook my head and blinked a few times in an attempt to regain my composure and began creeping along slowly, keeping my left hand on the wall and my right hand in the air above the foot of the beds in case I decided to lose my balance again. I kept blinking – the glow from the sole light source in the room casting shadows with all of the objects in it, including me, was playing tricks on my vision. The alarm blaring every few seconds did little to help.

Rattlerattle… my eyes shot to the source of the metallic jangling, and I realized that I had hit the knob of the door with my left hand in my dizzy foray across the room. I stared blankly at the door at first, but eventually I decided to go ahead and open it. I pulled it slowly with a lingering creak, and stepped through it quietly. After it drifted to a mostly-shut position behind me, I glanced to the left. It was a hallway, but the light from the bedchamber faded off into impenetrable blackness. I shrugged, and glanced to the right. There was another door at the end of the hallway with light coming from underneath, so I decided that I might as well head that way.

"Deeps, deeps, they'll crush your tiny hulls…"

I froze. Voices were rising up from the door I was walking to, joining together in a chorus.

"Deeps, deeps… leave nothing but your skulls."

I made an effort to mentally distance myself from the otherwise terrifying situation. After taking a deep breath, I analyzed the facts. One, I was sleeping on a bed in here, so obviously I must be some kind of guest. Two, there were multiple beds in my room, so obviously there would've been other people in there – someone on this ship definitely knew that I was sleeping in there. And three, I… I couldn't remember a thing. Maybe I was drunk, I thought absently. Whatever the case, I would have to go through the door in front of me, no matter who was singing on the other side. I began taking some semi-confident strides down to the door, wrapped my hand around the cold metal knob, twisted it firmly, and then pulled it open. Without waiting for a greeting or seeing who – or what – was inside, I walked past the threshold without a word and closed the door behind me.

"Well, hello," a gravelly voice called from behind my back. I spun around and came face-to-face with a towering figure wearing a tricorne hat and dark dreadlocks. The only other remarkable thing about him was that he had a hideous gap where his left eye should've been.

I made an effort to not voice my surprise, but my eyes widened. "Hello," I greeted with a voice a bit firmer than it had been before. It must've still come across as a bit timid, because he chuckled quietly as a reply. I glanced around the raider, and noticed that a large fraction of the rest of the crew was gathered around the bridge of the ship, all at their stations. One by one, they each looked up and noticed my presence. I narrowed my eyes in response. Seeing where I was looking, the first raider swung around and cleared his throat.

"Listen up, lads," he began, clasping his hands behind his back. "This is the young lady we recovered from the crash." He nodded at me, but I stared back blankly. "She will be treated as a guest. Besides, she didn't have anything of value on her, anyway!" he finished, sparking uproarious laughter from the crew. He turned to me and bowed slightly. "Captain Scabulous, at your service." Apparently, his chivalrous attitude was amusing enough to bring out a few more chuckles from the crew.

I nodded in reply. "I… I'm…" Scabulous raised an eyebrow. "I can't seem to remember anything."

The captain stared at me with a raised eyebrow. "Are ye serious, lass?"

"Yes, I'm serious," I replied flatly.

"Amnesia?" he ventured, switching his raised eyebrow to the other side. "Grog?" Seeing no response forthcoming, he shrugged. "Just wait while I deal with one little problem, and then we can discuss your little problem… Oi, what was setting off the proximity warning?" he asked the nearest crewman. When he was answered with a shrug, he lumbered over to the radar screen and examined it silently. "That's a big marker," he murmured, stroking his chin furtively. Eventually, his face broke out into a pointy smile. "A big ship means a lot of loot, lads. Bring us up!"

After the crew cheered in response and began angling the ship for an ascent, I stared out of the bridge into the deep, murky clouds outside. There was nothing to be seen aside from a few rocky outcroppings in the distance and to the edges of my field of view, but we had definitely begun our ascent. While everyone on the bridge began their dark chanting of "Deeps, deeps," I stood by and squinted in the general direction of our supposed target. Eventually, I saw a few dim red glows in the gloom. The general shape of the ship started to take form in front of my eyes, and with a creak from our vessel punctuating it, I could make out a few details. It was a massive red airship with a stylized claw-like metal covering.

"A Cyclonian destroyer…?" Scabulous muttered incredulously. "Why would they come to Terra Deep? I mean, there's probably only one or two of those things left!"

I raised an eyebrow. I didn't recognize the vessel at all, and the meaning of "Cyclonian" escaped me.

"Oh, who cares," my host continued in a growl. "I bet it's loaded down with all kinds of loot. Move in for an attack!"

Our ship was now at the same elevation as the "Cyclonian" vessel, and we were both aimed directly at each other and advancing gradually… but that was when I noticed it. The others followed suit shortly afterward with reactions of their own, but my only gesture was a small frown. I was frowning – and others were suddenly barking alarmed words back and forth – because of the series of red glows behind the Cyclonian ship.

"I think those 'one or two' ships are all here," I stated. My comment was met with a few dry chuckles and growls. Their lack of enthusiasm was to be expected – there were five Cyclonian destroyers arrayed in battle formation, and they were clearly upset judging from the way the ships on the sides of the group began branching out in their trajectories, obviously trying to swallow our vessel whole in a movement that would spell out a blaster-induced doom.

"Alright, lads, head down as quickly as ye can!" Scabulous shouted, glancing around at his nervous crew. It was then that the Cyclonians decided to open fire.

Ka-BOOM… I raised my eyes up to the Cyclonian vessels again, and grimly acknowledged the familiar sound. They definitely saw us, I thought.

"Eh, cap'n," a crewman began, waving for Scabulous's attention. "Our hull's been breached – they're usin' serious firepower! We can't descend!"

"Call for backup, then! Hit the distress beacon!" Scabulous shouted, rage boiling over. "Full reverse!"

I clenched my fist. "Full speed ahead!" I shouted.

"What… did you say?" Scabulous asked, staring down at me. He didn't seem pleased.

"If you rush through them now, they'll be forced to fire into the center of their formation," I explained, brow furrowed and grimace evident. I felt furious at him, as if this all should've been obvious. "If you divert all shielding power to the front of the ship, we can speed through and force them to turn around. Once they've spent all that time turning around, we'll have had plenty of time to bombard them and your 'backup' will have arrived to hit them from behind a second time."

Scabulous stared blankly. "I… that's bloody brilliant," he murmured. He took his eye off of mine and fixed it on his crew, who stood in a hesitant silence. "You heard her!" he yelled. "Full speed ahead! Focus our shields in the front!"

After the shields were diverted and the engines whined to full speed, we began gliding past the first two destroyers. Naturally, they began opening fire on our ship and – for the most part – hit each other more than us. I felt a little blip of pleasure when I noticed that one of the engines of the destroyer to our left had been blasted by friendly fire. Both of the destroyers that we had drifted past began turning slowly, obviously trying to get a better shot. We were between the second two destroyers now, and that was when a crewman checking the radar yelled, "Another ship's comin' in from ahead!"

"Yes, I know – bank right around the destroyer," I commanded, pointing firmly at the massive, foreboding craft in front of us.

"Yes, ma'am, but I was talking about the ship coming in behind it," he replied timidly, twiddling his thumbs as he did.

"What?" My eyes narrowed on cue from the blue craft that shot past the destroyer, peppering it with blue blaster bolts. "It seems like they're on our side for the time being," I remarked with a smug grin.

"That's the Storm Hawks' ship," Scabulous noted. He shrugged when I shot him a questioning glance.

"Then I suppose these 'Storm Hawks' take distress calls seriously," I replied. I hadn't the foggiest idea of who those people were, but help from any source would've been appreciated. "Continue with the plan. Bank right around the destroyer and bring us around."

After we shot past the last two destroyers – they peppered each other's hulls with their blasters, as I knew they would – we drifted to the right to get behind the fifth destroyer. Once we were about two thirds of the way around in our banking, the gunner asked if he should begin firing.

"Open fire," I stated evenly. "Aim for their engines… we're woefully outnumbered, so the goal is their retreat, not their destruction."

The gunner began bringing crashing blasts of purple to bear on the enemy ships from above, but I seemed to have made a small miscalculation regarding these "Cyclonian" destroyers, because the destroyer farthest away from us – the one with fully operational engines, at least – had managed to gradually swing around fully to face us and began firing bolts of red energy in our direction. The heavy energy cannons' shots splattered across the shields in front of our vessel, and shorted out quickly.

"Shields down!" someone screamed.

"Continue firing," I said flatly.

Another shot from the enemy destroyer crashed into the bow, and the ship lurched. The next one crashed into the starboard engine, and we started drifting to one side. A chorus of "Abandon ship!" rose up from the crew, and they began abandoning their stations. I glanced over at Scabulous, who was in a rage at the controls.

"They must be hitting us with everything left in the Cyclonian Royal Fleet," Scabulous snarled. "Why here?"

I had no answer for him. After a few more rumbling crashes and jarring, I noticed that – according to our radar – we had under a minute before all of the ships would be able to open fire. I glanced up, and evidently Scabulous had been looking at the radar as well, since his shoulders sagged and he let out a growl.

"We've gotta abandon the Blood Crow," he muttered sullenly. "Where are those blasted Storm Hawks when you need them? Some help they were!"

I chuckled. "Isn't the captain supposed to go down with his ship?"

He shot me a glare, then promptly pulled his hat off of his head and unceremoniously pressed it onto mine. "Cheers. You're the new captain." Then he calmly paced to the door out of the bridge, opened it, stepped through, and closed it behind him. I heard him sprint down the hallway from the other side.

I grabbed the controls of the ship and made sure that the Blood Crow was on a direct collision course with the destroyer with the crippled engine and then gunned the engines as high as they would go, but then I stumbled when an especially strong blow to the hull jarred the ship. After I staggered to the door, I went down the hallway as the ludicrous speed of the ship and the constant barrages from the enemy caused everything to shake around me. They were definitely all firing on the ship now, so I needed to get to whatever aerial vehicle was left in the landing bay before the Crow smashed into an enemy destroyer at maximum speed or was blown apart at its seams.

I ran through the landing bay door, and the outer door of the bay was wide open with all the murky fog of Terra Deep streaming past at high speed. However, there was one thing missing – all of the available aircraft had been taken. I stood, shocked, looking out into the abyss before me, even as the ship rumbled and creaked horribly, seemingly ready to buckle. There wasn't enough time to alter the course of the Crow, and even if I did the ship would be blown apart by enemy fire. There wasn't anything to escape on, either. So, I did the only reasonable thing that one could do in that sort of situation.

I jumped.

"Aaaah!" The wind was whistling past me so hard that I could barely hear my own yelling. I flailed around uselessly against the power of gravity, and absently noticed that a small trail of red fluid began dripping from my nose. The pressure from the depths will kill me before the fall, I thought glumly. Rather than be horrified and scream more, I felt resigned to my fate.

That made it a little confusing when I felt something soft come in contact with my body. It gave in to the velocity of my fall, but eventually leveled out in elevation.

"I've got you," a female voice called from somewhere around me.

"Who's got me?" I asked shakily, blood still dripping from my nose. It was then that I realized the black fog I'd thought was from the depths of Terra Deep was actually in my vision.

I fainted.