AUTHOR'S NOTES: A somewhat quiet chapter this time around, but setting up for the huge battle that will finish out the story arc.
Over the Dunkelman Line
Manitoba, United States of Canada
2 May 2001
They flew on for another thirty minutes, this time with radars on; if there were GRIMM, they almost certainly knew about Ruby Flight's presence; whatever mysterious computer network controlled them, they did seem able to communicate by some sort of datalink. But there were no other GRIMM around.
They made their way into Manitoba, over what was called the Dunkelman Line—the northern version of the Eberle Line in Iowa. Now they were clear of the Dead Zone, and passed New Winnipeg on their left, a walled fortress city that held tenaciously to the edge of the Dead Zone. Oobleck lead them northwest for another half an hour, then ordered them to turn around and head due south. They would follow the Red River to Fargo. To their surprise, Ruby Flight also heard him order a tanker. Yang checked her fuel gauge; she still had enough for another six hours of flight, if not more. Blake, Weiss and Ruby had dropped their external tanks when the battle had begun, but even on internal fuel there should still be plenty. They could easily make Fargo, and even fly back to Beacon. Maybe Oobleck's just being safe, she thought.
They orbited while the tanker caught up to them; only in the direst of emergencies would tankers venture over the Dead Zones, and even then, it was discouraged. Yang saw the three-engined KC-10A Extender fly over them, then settle down to their altitude. "You first, Yang," Oobleck said. Yang almost protested that she had enough fuel to fly to the Pacific, but bit back her argument and slid into place. The refueling boom attached to the tail, below the third engine, dropped down.
Refueling in midair was routine; Yang had done it a hundred times, in every kind of weather. It could still be tricky. She opened the refueling door on her right wingroot and held the F-15 steady. About fifty feet above her, an enlisted boom operator "flew" the boom down.
"Yang," Oobleck abruptly said, "why did you choose this line of work?"
Yang lost her concentration for a fraction of a second, and dropped out of the boom's reach. She throttled back and got back into position. Why the hell is he asking me that now? I'm busy.
"Green Anchor, hold refueling," Oobleck radioed. The refueling boom stopped moving. "Answer my question, Yang."
"Uh, okay. Well, to fight the GRIMM and save—"
"Green Anchor, resume," Oobleck interrupted.
Oh, I get it. A test. Yang smiled; this wasn't that tough. "Like I said, it's to fight the GRIMM—"
"No, that is what you do," Oobleck interrupted again. "I want to know the why."
"Okay." Yang brought her F-15 forward a bit. Just in front of the boomer's position on the tanker were two rows of light. They were mainly for night refueling, but she could use them in the daylight as well. The stripes on the boom also were a visual aid. "The honest reason? I get off on this shit."
"Contact," the boomer broke in. The boom slid home and connected with the refueling port. Now all Yang had to do was keep Ember Celica steady in the tanker's slipstream, which wasn't that hard, either—at least in clear sky. Normally, Yang liked to joke around with the boomer and make bad sex puns. Aerial refuelling had more than a bit of a sexual aspect to it, with long probes going into holes, and joking about it was as old as the process itself. With Oobleck around, she decided it wasn't the best time.
"Care to explain that a little?" Oobleck said, though he sounded amused.
"I just want to see the world and get wrapped up in all kinds of crazy-ass adventures. And if I help people and kill GRIMM along the way, well, that's just the awesome icing on the super cake. It's a win-win, y'know?"
"I see."
"Disconnect," said the boomer.
"Yang's off." Her fuel tanks topped off, Yang dropped off the boom. She waved at the boomer, who waved back, and rolled off well to one side.
"Your turn, Weiss."
For Weiss it was a bit trickier. The Typhoon was European-designed, which meant that it did not use the USAF style boom-plug combination. Instead, the KC-10 streamed a long hose from a pod underneath its right wing, with a basket on the end. A probe popped out of the right side of the nose, and Weiss accelerated to catch up with the basket. Unlike the boom, which was rigid, the basket flopped around in the tanker's slipstream, which made the hookup a bit tougher. Yang snickered at the thought of Weiss hooking up, but as much as she wanted to say something, she stayed quiet.
Sure enough, Oobleck started in on Weiss. "And you, Weiss? A Schnee? A girl born into fame and fortune such as yourself doesn't need to be doing this job. You're certainly not in it for the money. Why risk your life when you could be sitting in a cushy staff position in Germany?"
Weiss closed the distance and caught the basket in a single try. "As you said, Oobleck: I'm a Schnee. I have a legacy of honor to uphold. The Schnees have always served. Once I realized I had a knack for flying and fighting, there was never a question of what I would do with my life. It was my duty."
"Ah, interesting."
Weiss was on the basket longer than Yang had been on the boom, but she had to take on more fuel. When she was done, the Typhoon disconnected, drifted back a bit, then turned hard to clear the way for Blake.
Yang watched Blake approach the basket. Her own aircraft shuddered a bit, as they hit a bit of clear air turbulence. It was nothing to worry about, but now the basket was going up and down more. The Tomcat's probe popped out of the right side of the nose as well; the Navy used the same style as the Europeans, though Americans would insist that the Europeans used the Navy way of doing it. Yang did not envy Blake: flying the big F-14 and trying to refuel could not be easy. She had to be careful not to chase the basket, which could cause any number of bad things to happen, ranging from looking like an idiot to a midair collision. Yang remembered Neptune Vasillas once describing the process after one of Port's classes. He had compared it to trying to put a banana up a wildcat's rear end.
Yang shook off that mental image. Bad Yang, she told herself.
Now it was Blake's turn. "What about you, Blake?" Oobleck asked. "You seem to have a sense of purpose."
Blake chased the basket for a moment, then settled down. On her third try, she made contact. "There's too much wrong in the world to just stand by and watch it happen. Someone has to do something about it."
"Ah, Edmund Burke," Oobleck observed. "'The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.' Very good. How do you intend to do something?"
A sudden ridge of air caused the basket to go dangerously upwards, and Blake manipulated stick and throttle to keep from losing the basket, or worse, forcing a brute-force disconnect—which could leave the basket and hose wrapped around Gambol Shroud's nose, or down an intake. Oobleck quieted, and Blake was able to recover the situation. "I don't know," she finally answered, "but I'm…damn this thing…working on it."
Finally they reached smooth air again, and Blake finished refueling.
To their surprise, Oobleck took on fuel next, then cleared Ruby in. Everyone listened intently for what Oobleck was going to say, but he said nothing. Ruby had no trouble refueling at all. She dropped off the boom, and Oobleck simply thanked the tanker crew for their help, then led them south again.
The trip from the tanker to Fargo was uneventful. Fargo had been untouched by the Third World War, but it had been overrun by GRIMM a few years after. Today it was nothing but deserted ruins, crumbling after years of harsh winters and lack of maintenance. The roads were empty, overgrown with prairie grass, but even a casual observer might notice that the runways of the former Hector International Airport were curiously clear of overgrowth; a more close inspection would find that the large "cracks" in the runways and taxiways was paint.
"Hector, Oscar Oscar. Code Applejack, repeat, Applejack," Oobleck radioed.
There was a second of silence, and then a new voice came over the radio. "Oscar Oscar, Hector. Roger Applejack. You are cleared into Runway 36 Left. Winds out of the northwest at 15 knots. Ceiling unlimited."
"Roger." Oobleck ordered Ruby Flight into trail, with each about five minutes apart from each other. He came in over the ruins of Fargo, over a dilapidated perimeter fence, and landed smoothly on the runway. A dragchute billowed out behind the F-106, slowing it down even more. Once Oobleck reached the end of the runway, he taxied off, trailing the now collapsed dragchute. Ruby, Weiss and Yang landed soon thereafter, and Yang followed Weiss onto the tarmac, near some rusting hangars. To her surprise, the hangar doors opened, and about fifty men and women swarmed out of one hangar to rapidly guide the five aircraft inside. The doors were shut almost as soon as Yang's tailplanes cleared them.
Inside, the hangar was clean and maintained. Yang shut down Ember Celica and opened the canopy, letting musty air inside. She disconnected from everything—radio, G-suit, straps, oxygen—and climbed down a ladder placed there by the ground crew. "Good afternoon, Captain," a sergeant greeted her.
"Hi." She thumbed back at the F-15. "Check the tires and clean the windshield, okay?"
The sergeant smiled. It was an old joke. "No prob, Captain. We'll get you some new Sidewinders, too."
Yang joined the rest of Ruby Flight. "What is this place?" Weiss was asking.
Oobleck pulled off his helmet. His hair was even more of a mess than usual. "This, Oberleutnant, is a very closely guarded secret. There are active bases scattered through the Dead Zones—at least the areas not in danger of radioactivity. The bases are kept secret so no one can betray their presence to air pirates…or other enemies." He motioned around the hangar. "Only a few buildings are occupied, and personnel stay out of sight as much as possible, so as not to attract GRIMM. There is a limited amount of fuel and weapons available here, but both are indeed limited—which is one reason why we took on fuel from the tanker on the way here." He waved them out of the hangar, as the ground crew began turning around the aircraft by hand.
They left the hangar, still indoors, and took an interior corridor to another building. The windows were boarded up; cracks between the boards revealed windows long since bleached into opaqueness. Inside the room were ten bunks, with sleeping bags rolled up on top of them. "Here is where we'll stay the night, ladies. Since I doubt any of you brought your pajamas with you, you'll have to sleep in your flight suits. That is my suggestion, in any case."
Weiss wrinkled her nose. "Are there showers?"
"Yes. Food will be delivered shortly. Don't expect anything gourmet. Lieutenant Rose, follow me."
Oobleck led her out of the building, through an empty but again well-maintained hangar, to a staircase. They went underground, took a few more turns before Ruby was thoroughly lost, and ended up at a steel door. Oobleck rapped on it, and the door opened to reveal an air policeman. Unlike at Beacon, this man was dressed in full battle gear, with urban-style camouflage, body armor, helmet, and a slung assault rifle. He came to attention. "Hello again, Doctor Oobleck."
"Ah, hello, Sergeant! The lieutenant and I would like to go up to the tower."
"Yes, sir, but be careful. We just spotted some GRIMM to the east."
"I will. Thank you. Come along, Lieutenant." Oobleck led her past the security man, up a long flight of spiral stairs, into a wide control tower. There were five people inside the tower, all wearing the same uniform as the air policeman, though none seemed armed. Then Ruby noticed the stacked assault rifles on a shelf. The interior of the tower looked like any other control tower she had been in, though it seemed more advanced. The windows were clear and clean, but noticeably thicker than just safety glass.
Oobleck waved her over, got down on hands and knees, and reached through a small opening. A female security forces airman backed out of the opening, rolling aside for Oobleck and then Ruby to crawl through. They ended up in what Ruby recognized as a hide, cleverly disguised to look like an extension of the tower. Perched on the edge and balanced on a fixed position was a .50 caliber sniper rifle, and a huge set of binoculars. "Which would you like?" Oobleck asked.
"I'll take the fifty!" Ruby replied happily, and laid down behind the weapon. The stock settled into her shoulder, she put a finger aside the trigger, and looked through the large scope.
"Hold your fire," Oobleck warned. "Do not fire that rifle unless ordered." Ruby moved her finger back a little. Her father had taken her and Yang hunting, and Ruby was actually a deadly shot; she had been meaning to qualify for the USAF's marksmanship ribbon. "Look to your left, about eleven o'clock." She remembered Taiyang Xiao Long's advice, and slowly moved the rifle; sudden movements attracted the eye.
Then she saw them. At first she thought the rifle's scope was distorting them, but a quick turn of the scope's focus, and she realized it wasn't. "What the…"
"Those, Lieutenant Rose, are GRIMM. Ground-based, rather than the aerial ones we're used to dealing with. Not exactly Ground Launched, but no one felt like changing the acronym." Ruby glanced at him; Oobleck was staring through the high-powered binoculars. "I'm afraid your sniper rifle will do nothing more than agitate a GRIMM that size. They're codenamed Goliaths."
"Whoa." Ruby had heard of Goliaths, but had never seen one. They were gigantic, three stories high, walking on four articulated legs. The body was squared off, with a turret on top; through the scope, she could see machine guns in turrets front and rear, and below, but the turret was armed with a very large weapon. "What's it packing?"
"A 100 millimeter high-velocity gun. Three 12.7 millimeter machine guns. And armor thick enough to shrug off anything we're carrying. To take down a Goliath you need an A-10, or a tank." Oobleck pulled back from the scope. "We are lucky. Goliath wander around until something attracts them, or they're ordered somewhere—we don't know how. They heard the sound of our engines, and came to investigate. Luckily, they're still about a mile off, and across the Red River. While they can easily ford the river, now that there's not any noise, they will likely lose interest and wander off." He rubbed his hair, trying to get it into something that didn't look like he'd been electrocuted. "Goliath seem to have more of a self-preservation routine than most GRIMM. If they run into something stronger than they are, they will retreat. But before then, they will try to destroy everything they encounter."
"If they came over here…"
Oobleck laughed, humorlessly. "There are about seventy people here, Lieutenant. That sniper rifle is the largest weapon they have. Their assault rifles can kill Boarbatusks and Creeps, and enough of them can probably stop a King Taijitu or shoot down a Beowulf. But anything more than that, and they have to call in airstrikes. The closest base is Winnipeg, and they are thirty minutes away. These people here—they know what they face, and their chances of survival. But they are all volunteers."
"Why risk them out here?" Ruby asked.
This time Oobleck's laugh was a little more genuine. "A base like this is a godsend to a Huntsman or Huntress low on fuel, on weapons, or options. They can be your lifeline, Lieutenant, but you must realize that they risk their lives for you to have that option. Do not abuse their courage."
Ruby thought about that for a minute, as Oobleck turned back to watching the Goliaths. Sure enough, the GRIMM began to move east, away from the base. "Doctor Oobleck?"
"Yes?" He did not take his eyes from the binoculars.
"On the tanker…you never asked me why I wanted to become a Huntress."
"Oh, that." He moved the binoculars around to face the south. "I already know, Lieutenant."
Ruby waited for more, but Oobleck was silent. Then she asked, "Okay. Why did you want to become a Huntsman? Why did you quit?"
"Good questions, one I've been waiting for you to ask." Oobleck played with the zoom and focus. "What did you see of Fargo on the approach?"
"Ruins and empty streets." Ruby found the place creepy; a city of the dead.
"Mm. I see lives that could have been saved." He leaned back from the scope against the back wall of the hide. "When I was a Huntsman, flying as you and your friends do, it was my job to protect the people. It still is, but while I could've continued on with my career and fought our enemies with my aircraft, I thought I would have more of a lasting impact with my mind. As a teacher, I'm able to take knowledge—the most powerful weapon of them all—and place it in the hands of every student that passes through my classroom." He waved his hand towards the ruins of Fargo, unseen through the hide walls. "I look at this wasteland, and I do see lives that could have been saved, but I also see opportunity: opportunity to study places like this and learn from the tragedy of them, learn what we did wrong and we did right as human and Faunus, and therefore become stronger." He smiled at her. "I'm still a Huntsman in my own way, Ruby, and there's nothing else in this world I would rather be. Much like yourself."