Hello my wonderful readers, it is I Jeremy 'Scout' delivering you yet another chapter of Dancing Through the Skies! I don't have much to announce, next story I update will either be Remnant's Panzers or New Beginnings, so if you read either of those, be on the lookout for a new chapter soon! Now then, without further ado, let's get right into this chapter!
Chapter 2: Nanko Airfield
As Charles opened up the canopy and exited the cockpit onto the wing, he saw an old man by a building calling him over. Jumping off the wing, Charles walked to the man taking off his gloves and put them in his back pocket as he approached.
"Name's Rocinante, but most people call me Pops." The old man told Charles as he extended his hand for Charles to shake. Charles took hold of his hand shook it. "Charles Karino at your service."
"I must say, that was some good flying you did there. Not many pilots can put out engine fires the way you did at that altitude." Rocinante complimented. "Oh no, it was nothing." Charles replied, shrugging off the compliment.
Charles tuned and glanced at the El Basteel to see it come to a stop and hover off the ground. After seeing that, he walked over to the Santa Cruz to go check the damage.
"Quite an odd looking airship you have there... I ain't seen or heard of anything like it." Rocinante said to him as they walked. At that, Charles raised an eyebrow. He would've asked how he had never seen a Levame battleship when he remembered the hole that had suddenly appeared.
'The whole world isn't known, maybe we were transported to an uncharted land. I'll have to let Fana and the admiral of the ship know and to tell his men so they don't say anything to draw attention to us.' Charles thought quickly as he inspected the engine cowling
Charles sighed as he looked at it. It was burnt and charred from the engine fire, the cowling was peeling off with the wind practically, and he could see that the engine itself was roughed up pretty bad.
Running his hand through his hair with a sigh, before opening his mouth and asking, "Do you have any spare engines? The engine pumps out about 2,000 horsepower but has room for a bigger engine if we ever got one. I'll pay you well." Charles asked the man.
"You're in luck, I've got an old engine lying around. It's pretty big, we took it off some strange looking fighter with weird markings, but our squadron's Shidens couldn't fit it. I think this could though. Not sure if it works though." Rocinante said as he looked back at the town.
'Shidens? That's an Amatsukami aircraft. Guess they're not completely unkown...' He thought as he gazed into the distance. Quickly snapping out of his thoughts, he turned to Rocinante and asked, "When do you think I could get that engine?"
"After we sit down and drink. And it would seem your friends in that airship of yours are coming down as well." Rocinante said as he looked at the El Basteel and saw some floatplanes coming down to land.
As the floatplanes aproached they their wheels down to avoid breaking the floats and gently touched down onto the airfield, avoiding the Santa Cruz.
The rear canopies opened as the admiral of their escort battleship exited one and the princess the other. Charles saw a familiar tuft of light sky blue hair practically jump out of her seat, and as soon as they hit the ground they stared running towards him, causing him to smile a bit as he watched her get closer.
"CHARLES!" Fana yelled in excitement as she opened her arms and practically tackled Charles when she got to him. Charles just patted Fana on the back and ended the hug as quick as he could.
"Now now princess, I'm fine with you being friends with the pilot, but don't get too touchy with him." The admiral told Fana with a sigh once he got there. "Admiral Mateo Guerrero of the Levamme Empire." He said as he extended a hand for Rocinante to shake.
"Rocinante, but like I told Charles back there, you can call me Pops." He replied and shook Mateo's hand, before turning to Fana who was still by Charles' side. "Who you are miss?"
"Fana del Moral, princess of the Levamme Empire." She replied with a small bow.
"Oh? A princess you say? Come inside then my friends, we can discuss your situation over some drinks. Your pilots want any?" Rocinante asked them kindly.
"They already said that they'd prefer to stay with their planes, though I'm sure they appreciate the offer." Mateo replied. "Well then, follow me." Rocinante told them as he led them to a small building with a tank that said, "Gas" on it in the back of the building.
Once there, Rocinate held the door for them and they all told him thank you as they walked in. Each of them all looked around and realized it was a bar with a few posters on the wall. It was clear that it was old and almost run down.
One specific poster caught Charles' eye. It showed a light skinned man with brown hair wearing an aviator jacket with goggles on his head and a Shiden in the background behind him as he grinned pointing at it, with the words Nazarin Air Squadron on it.
"Go stand by the bar, I'll poor you guys something to drink if you want." He told them as he walked behind the counter and began pouring them each a cup of sake. "I saw you guys come in through the hole there, but yet you're not Yufang. Are the hole's opening up in other places now...?" Rocinante said as he slid them each a cup.
"Yes, we're from the Levamme Empire. Charles was transporting the princess to a rendezvous with me and my ship. He had just dropped her off and we were about to part ways before we encountered this Hole too close to go around it and ended up here after we passed through. Any idea how?" Mateo asked him, taking a swig from his drink.
"I don't know much about the Holes myself, but I know this. The Hole's lead to other places that we don't know of and out comes stuff similar to what you guys have. That's about the extent of my knowledge though, sorry." Rocinante said as he took a drink from his cup.
"Judging from the lack of water around of here, is there nowhere we can land and refuel? We use hydrogen extracted from water as fuel and I saw none for kilometers around." Charles asked taking a small sip from his sake, feeling the burn from the alcohol go down his throat.
"You're outta luck there boy, the only body of water is in Ikesuka and they're recovering from the war they just got out of. I hear it wrecked the city quite badly." Rocinante replied as he gulped down some more sake.
At that comment everyone raised their eyebrows. 'No water except for one city? That's impossible!' Mateo thought.
Fana was the one to ask the next question. "If there's no water then how do you guys get around? Don't your planes need hydrogen to refuel too?"
"Not exactly my dear. We use aviation gas, or AvGas for short. We have hydrogen, but it's used in our airships so I'm sure you could keep yours in the air like that. As for how we get around, well we have cars, but that's for short distance traveling, longer distance is done via airplane or airship. For a fee of course, unless it's your own craft." He answered, before downing the rest of his sake in one go.
Mateo spoke up once more after that. "Where are we anyways? What is this place called?"
"This world is called Ijutsu. You're currently in a small town known as Nanko. Apparantly, there used to be oceans, but they all dried up a long time ago leaving this barren land that you see here. And about 70 years ago, a Hole opened up and gave us a lotta stuff, and with them came the Yufang. They made factories and brought their planes with them and other things. Then they left out of nowhere through another Hole." Rocinante said, refilling his cup as he talked.
"I have one more question, what's the Nazarin Squadron?" Charles said as he nodded to the poster.
Rocinante perked up a bit after hearing that question and put down the bottle he'd been using to refill his cup. "That, my boy is the resident freelancer squadron. There's only three members, but they're all great pilots, one of them is probably one of the best in all of Ijutsu."
"Freelancer squadron? They're mercenaries?" Charles asked, cleary interested. 'If they are, maybe I could join and fly again without having to fight a war this time...' He thought hopefully.
"Well yes, that's what they are. See, we use airships to move cargo around a lot and some people wanted to take that cargo. Those people became air pirates. As a result, people formed squadrons that were available for hire by a company to keep their cargo safe from air pirates. Some squadrons belong to a single company, those squadrons are exclusively only used on that airship owned by the company to defend it, though a freelancer squadron is occasionally hired to beef up their defenses just in case." Rocinante explained before taking a big gulp from hus cup and then sighing.
"Anyways, that's enough questions for today, I'm tired and need a siesta. There are some tools in the building next door you can use to fix up your plane a bit." He said quickly before taking their cups, noticing that only Charles and Mateo finished theirs, and downed the rest of Fana's cup shamelessly, ignoring their stares.
Right before Rocinante could get to his room in the back of the bar, Charles said something that caught everyone off guard.
"I want to join the Nazarin Squadron."
And that's this chapter done! Onto another story I go haha. Anyways, next chapter will be better, this one ain't the best, sorry bout that. Lemme know what you guys think of Charles joining the Nazarin. Make sure to give feedback in the review section. I'll see y'all in the next chapter, this is Jeremy 'Scout' signing off.