Author's Note: These last chapter is going to be written in third-person, I hope that doesn't throw you guys off since I'm not going to be able to accomplish what I am aiming for in first person. If it helps, you could interpret all the first person chapters as Locket telling his past and the moments in thirds person are happening in real time. Thought that wouldn't explain the omake from earlier and the entirety of "Tale of 2 Cs," but I digress. We'll see how this goes and I'm working out how I'm gonna write the chapter after this, teaser basically, since the next chapter is the finale for this story.
High Altitude
It was a quiet flight was all I could describe the trip from the bunker to Church's location, in the cockpit anyway. Grif and I were focused on trying to fly the pelican while Sarge was going over the data that Simmons and Carrie had given them. We found the controls to be surprisingly simple, to to be real neither of us really had much of a flying experience. The most Grif ever flew was a single engine prop-plane which he used to get his pilot's license while I've only ever flown my dad's old Bell helicopterā¦.only thing I flew successfully anyway.
"Hey Sarge," I call behind me.
He looks over to me.
"We'll landing soon," I tell him.
"Alright," he pulls up a microphone and switches it on. "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your navigator speaking. We'll be landing shortly, probably shot down by SAMs before losing control and slamming into the ground at high velocity, and we'll be slightly ahead of schedule. Now if you'll please direct your attention to Caboose who'll demonstrate the safety features of our D77H-TCI dropship."
"He's not serious about us getting shot down is he?" Grif asks concernedly.
"Carrie is doing her best but she can only stop so much," I sigh.
Now it was Caboose's voice to sound through the intercom.
"Hello," he greats calmly, "All Blue vs Red Airlines come equipped with three emergency exits, which are welded shut for your safety reasons. Please keep your hands inside the vehicle at all times, no flash photography, and please take crying babies to the lobby. In the event of a water landing start swimming, in the event of a fire landing please burn, if we have an air landing that means we are still flying, and if we experience a snow landing everyone should fall outside the vehicle while it slide across an icy plane and then does this tilty-teetering thing before it tumbles into the ocean below. That one never happens though."
A moment of silence passes before his voice sounds again.
"No, but we have a community jar of peanut butter that you can stick your finger in and lick."
We can assume he was answering questions.
"Oh, that would be great, and while you're getting one, can you please get something for me."
"Damn, he's pulling this all out of his ass," whistled Grif.
"Uh huh," I agreed, "He's got the flight attendant impression dead on."
Suddenly a red alarm starts blaring.
"Um, what's that?" Grif asks.
"That's missile lock," I murmur as my face pales. "Sarge!"
"On it!" he grabs the mic and says "Hello passengers, this is your navigator speaking, your Captain and Co-pilot have just turned on the seatbelt sign, please strap in!"
"We got a missile!" Grif reported.
"Deploying flares!" I shot while pulling a lever while Grif banked to the left.
The flares did their job at distracting the missile and it detonated harmlessly in the air. As soon as the alarm cleared and Grif got the pelican leveled, the alarm turned on again.
"Shit here comes another one!" Grif cries.
"Bank right bank right!" I scream as Grif and I fully wrestle with the controls.
The missile hits our tail.
"Shit we're losing altitude fast!" I report, "Sarge!"
"On it!" Sarge grabs his mic "Uhh, this is your navigator speaking again, we're gonna crash. Assume crash positions!"
"Did Caboose even go over crash positions?" Grif asks and I shook my head as I pulled a lever dumping the remaining fuel.
I'm not even going to imagine what the panic back there looked like.
Caboose continues calmly as we went down , "We wanna thank you for crashing with Blue vs Red Airlines. We know you have a choice with us crashing and we hope you consider us for all your future crashing needs."
"1,000 meters," I reported.
"500."
"Where do I put hr down?" Grif asks.
I look out in front of us and I see Wash and the Meta duking it out on the ice. It looks like the Meta is about to kill Wash.
"See if you can hit the Meta," I reply, "If we're gonna die, I want to take him with us."
The automated voice started to sound off at this point.
"Terrain: Pull Up. Terrain: Pull Up. Terrain: Pull Up."
"Everyone brace for impact!" I scream as the counter reaches zero and we reached the ground.
I found myself briefly blacking out as the world shook around me and when I came to, I opened my eyes to complete darkness. I reached down and pulled out my lighter.
I call out as I light it before it .
"Grif, Sarge?" I grunt.
Grif lets out a loud pained groan and Sarge replies "We're good."
I then announce "Alright, who's not dead! Sound off."
I quickly found out that we were in fact upside down and I put out the light to cut myself loose.
"We have now landed," a muffled Caboose sounds off, "Please proceed to the exit."
"Shut Up Caboose," Tucker curses. "Man, this must have been one hell of a night huh guys?"
"Shut Up Tucker," Fergo growls.
"Ow, my entire body hurts," Simmons whines. "But at least I landed on something soft."
"That was me Simmons," Rowe responds.
"Oh, sorry Doc."
After we got ourselves loose, we made our way outside. As we opened the rear hatch, our eyes were blinded for a moment by the bright light as we exited the craft.
Author's Note: This is just a little teaser, sorry for those who were hoping for a whole chapter, but I sort of need that one to be its own thing since it's the finale of this story. It won't be really as long as you think since it's just the final fight and some closure at the end. One thing I will tell you, the ending fight won't be nearly as flashy as the original. For my needs, I'm going to need something a lot more personal and a lot moreā¦.brutal I should say, as well as quite a bit shorter. That's what I have in mind, but it is possible that it could change. I have no idea if I should bring Text back or not, for now she's still in her capture unit like in the original until I can figure out what to do with her.
