AUTHOR'S NOTES: Time to get Yang caught up in the story, and reveal what's happened to poor old Weiss. More notes at the end.

The Branwen Camp

Palmdale, California Dead Zone

15 June 2001

"Hey, wake up."

Weiss Schnee's eyelids fluttered, and she blinked as she came fully awake. For a second, Weiss thought that who was standing over her was a boy, but then remembered the voice as being feminine. She was short, with hair cut close to the sides of her head, tattoos on her left shoulder, and wore what looked to be some sort of homespun outfit, with no sleeves. Oddly, she wore a collar around her neck and the thickest wristwatch Weiss had ever seen on her right wrist. Weiss ran her tongue over cracked lips. "I don't suppose you're here to release me," she rasped.

"Afraid not." The girl bent over the radiator that Weiss was handcuffed to. "I am here to move you to somewhat better accomodations, though." She unlocked Weiss' handcuffs, but there was no chance of escape: besides the two pistols that the girl wore on her narrow hips, there were two other rather rough looking men at the door with assault rifles.

Weiss kept her mouth shut as the girl put the cuffs back on her and led her out of the room; now that she was alert, she remembered the Code of Conduct: give the captor nothing. A black hood was put over her head, then she was pushed out into sunlight. Through the hood she couldn't see much, but could tell she was being led over concrete. She also smelled jet fuel and oil, the unmistakeable smells of an air base or airport. Then it was dark again as she was led into a building. The hood was taken off, and Weiss could see she was in some sort of storage shed, though it was concrete and cool. It had been converted into a cell. There was a military style cot with a blanket, a toilet, a sink, and a bucket. Her stomach rumbled: next to the bed was wooden box, but atop it was a bowl of stew and a can of soda, plus a bottle of water. She hadn't eaten anything in nearly two days, and except for half a canteen of water, nothing to drink.

"I'm sorry it's not a palace or whatever you're used to," the girl said, "but it's better than being cuffed to a radiator." She took the handcuffs off and stuffed them into a pocket. "You can wash up in the sink. There's some soap there."

Though in theory she was supposed to only give her name, rank and serial number, Weiss needed information. "Who are you?"

"Vernal," the girl answered.

"Where am I?"

Vernal smiled. "Nice try. You don't need to know that. And you don't have to bother with that Code of Conduct bullshit: we already know who you are, Weiss Schnee."

Weiss massaged her wrists, which were red and chafed from being cuffed. "What about the other member of my crew—Rick Tardor?"

"At the bottom of the Salton Sea, I'm afraid."

"He was no threat to you!" Weiss snapped.

Vernal put a hand on one of the pistols. "I don't care. You're lucky our chief recognized you, otherwise we would've shot you too." She looked at Weiss with contempt. "We don't normally deal in trafficking people; not really worth our time. But once we realized we had a Schnee, that changed."

"People will come looking for me," Weiss told her.

"You mean the US Navy?" Vernal snorted. "They came sniffing around your crash site about an hour after we captured you, but they're not going to move against us. Certainly not for one pilot." That confirmed to Weiss that neither of the Fast Eagles had gotten out. "Don't make this complicated. Just keep quiet and cooperate, and you'll be back in your mansion before you know it."

"You mean you're going to ransom me back to my father?"

"That's the plan."

Weiss burst into laughter. It wasn't her normal giggle, but insane-sounding guffaws that left her bent over. Vernal stared at her as if she'd lost her mind—which, Weiss reflected, maybe she had. Then she took a step forward and punched Weiss in the face. Taken by surprise, Weiss fell to the concrete. "Shut up," Vernal growled. "Even if your piece of shit father doesn't pay up, someone will. At least, you better hope so."

"Or what?" Weiss sat up, rubbing her cheek.

Vernal shrugged. "I dunno. I guess the Tijuana whorehouses could use some new meat." With that threat lingering in the air, Vernal opened the door. "Like I said, just don't start any trouble. There's no one coming to rescue you." She left, slamming the door behind her.

McCarran International Airport

Las Vegas, Nevada, United States of Canada

15 June 2001

Yang Xiao Long signed the Form One, turning over temporary ownership to the ground crew. They clustered around the unfamiliar and exotic F-23A Black Widow. The crew chief whistled. "Never seen one of these before."

"Probably never will again," Yang replied with a smile. "She's one of a kind."

"We'll take good care of her, Captain," the sergeant smiled back. He motioned towards a squat, concrete structure down the tarmac. "CO's office is that way. He's expecting you, ma'am."

"Thanks." Yang put on her sunglasses, slung a duffel bag over one shoulder and her helmet bag over the other, and walked across the tarmac. There were a handful of other aircraft there—mainly F-16s, with the AZ tailcode and flag of the Arizona National Guard, but she noticed a F-14 Tomcat in the bunch, which brought an unpleasant reminder of Blake. She knew that, before the Third World War, Las Vegas had played host to the bustling Nellis Air Force Base northeast of town. It had survived the nuclear exchange—the Soviets had never targeted it—but not the onslaught of GRIMM. The base had been evacuated in the early 1970s, and never put back into service. She'd flown over it on the way in: the runways were still there, cracked and cratered, but the base was nothing but ruins, occupied by squatters. Across the ramp from where she was, airliners crowded around McCarran's terminal. While GRIMM attacks had been hitting other areas of the Remnant frontier, Las Vegas' airspace had been largely quiet. By the time she reached the building, her flight suit was soaked with sweat. The air temperature was hovering around a hundred degrees Fahrenheit, and the tarmac reflected the heat back into her. At least it's a dry heat, she thought to herself, feeling like every drop of moisture was being drawn from her body by the relentless sun.

The building was cool at least, and Yang gulped in the air conditioned air as she took off her sunglasses. She was directed to an office. On the nameplate was LIEUTENANT COLONEL LONZO R. WILKERSON, COMMANDING OFFICER MCCARRON AFS. She knocked on the door. "Come in," an authoritative voice said.

Yang set her duffel and helmet bag down, walked in and came to attention in front of the desk. "Captain Yang Xiao Long reporting for duty, sir."

Wilkerson stood and put out his hand. He was actually shorter than her, but muscles bulged beneath the Air Force blue uniform. "Good to meet you, Captain." She awkwardly shook hands with the artificial hand. "Heard you were at Beacon." He motioned her to a chair.

"Is that good or bad?" She sat down, remembering about her shootdown of Mercury Black. She had been framed for that, but not everyone knew it.

"Good. I've met your dad, and your uncle comes through here now and then. Any daughter of Taiyang Xiao Long can't be all bad." He held up a sheaf of papers. "We got your TDY orders faxed to us yesterday. You're headed to Atsugi?"

"Yes, sir. Staying here overnight, for gas, then pushing on tomorrow morning." She paused. "Hopefully."

Wilkerson looked down at the orders. "It says here that you may have a verbal, eyes-only message for me."

"You know about a plane getting shot down near the Salton Sea yesterday, sir?"

He nodded. "Four of them, actually. A Mexican Interjet 737 got tagged by GRIMM, then an An-12 about ten minutes later. The Navy sent out two Super Hornets to get the GRIMM, and got shot down by the Branwens. I understand the Navy's pissed—not that I blame them. The Branwens don't mess with our CAP here, but we don't go any further west than Death Valley."

"Weiss Schnee was aboard the An-12. Hauptmann Weiss Schnee of the Luftwaffe," Yang added.

Wilkerson's eyebrows went up. "As in the Schnee Company?" He thought a moment. "She was at Beacon too, wasn't she?"

"We were in the same flight. There's another pilot too—a guy named Rick Tardor. He's sheep-dipped."

"Working for the CIA," Wilkerson nodded. "Yeah, we get spooks through here all the time, too….Tardor," he mused. "Wonder if he's any relation to Amber Tardor."

"Speaking of the CIA," Yang said, "they think Weiss and this Rick guy got captured by the Branwen Tribe. That's my verbal, eyes-only message for you, sir. I'm supposed to go in and get them released."

Wilkerson leaned back in his chair. "No offense, Captain, but how in the hell are you going to do that? You giving them that F-23 or something?" He shook his head. "God, I hope not. We've heard rumors that Raven Branwen flies some sort of super-stealth fighter or something. We figure it was her that splashed those two Navy birds. They don't need any damn help."

Yang smiled. "Nothing like that, sir. I'm Raven Branwen's daughter."

He was silent for a moment, then leaned across the desk. He studied her for a long minute, then he laughed and thumped a heavy fist on his desk. "Well, I'll be damned. Yeah, you are. Hell, except for the blond hair, you're the spitting image of her." He shook his head again. "I met her once, before she went rogue, and I've seen her a few times when she's come through McCarran from whatever hideout she has. But I thought that your dad was married to someone named Summer—oh." He chuckled. "I get it."

Yang doubted it, but this wasn't the place to air old dirty family laundry. "Yeah—I mean, yes, sir. I'm supposed to try and make contact with a member of her gang here in Vegas, and then they'll escort me to wherever their base is. I guess they move around."

"They do. Where are you making contact at?"

She shrugged. "Supposedly her bunch hangs out at the Just Rite."

"They do," Wilkerson repeated. He stood, and pointed at a map of Las Vegas attached to the wall. "You ever been to Las Vegas before, Captain?" She answered in the negative. "This is the Wild West out here," he told her. "The city's got a whole lot of nice hotels and casinos. People still fly in here worldwide, when the GRIMM aren't too bad. But every one of the hotels—the Sahara, the Sands, the Frontier, Caesar's Palace, and the Just Rite—are owned by organized crime. We've got the Mafia, Chinese triads, Japanese yakuza, Mexican and Colombian cartels, you name it. They kill each other on the street every night—except the Strip. That's off limits. You might get a good bar fight every now and then, but no murders." He put his hand on the Strip, the narrow band of casinos and hotels northwest of McCarron along Las Vegas Boulevard. "This area from the old Interstate 15 to the Hilton is pretty safe; it's where all the rich folks live, along with the dons and the oyabuns that keep house here." He made another wide circle with his hand. "The area that used to be the old city, that's pretty rough. That's where the gangs shoot each other. Hell, they've turned the old Las Vegas Speedway into an autodueling arena, where they modify old stock cars with machine guns." He then motioned to the rest of the map. "About five miles in every direction from that is the favela." At her quizzical expression, Wilkerson explained, "It's a Brazilian name for slum, basically. Squatters live out there, and refugees from the Dead Zones. Do not go out there without tank support. There's even rumors that some of them are cannibals."

"Holy shit…sir," Yang quickly added. "What about government stuff?"

"You mean the US government?" He pointed down at the floor. "This area of McCarron is it in Vegas. We have a deal. They pretend to be part of the Remnant and we pretend they still are. But Vegas is independent, Captain. The only leverage we have is that we control Boulder City and Hoover Dam, and keep the GRIMM away as best we can. Other than that, we leave them alone, and they leave us alone. Most of the folks here say we ran out on them when the GRIMM hit…and they have a point. That's why we can't reopen Nellis. They hate our guts."

"Am I safe?" Yang asked.

"Yeah, you should be. The funny part is, they like fighter pilots. I go in there in my dress blues, and I might just get my ass kicked. I go in there in my flight suit, and I might not have to buy a drink. Hell, we had this one pilot here—Amber Tardor. Anyhow, she knocked down about a dozen GRIMM on one hop, and one of the dons gave her the Emperor's Package at Caesar's Palace for the weekend." He sat down and sighed. "Amber Tardor…one of the best we had. GRIMM got her up Reno way a couple of months ago; I guess your uncle managed to rescue her, but she died on the helicopter. Lot of good men and women die like that around here. Either the GRIMM gets them, or the desert does." Suddenly, he looked much older. His black mustache and hair were flecked with gray, but Yang guessed he was about her father's age. He shook himself of the memory. "Anyhow, you should be okay. Just don't start a fight or something you can't finish."

"I'll do my best, sir."

Wilkerson got up again; Yang did the same. "We've got a little hotel here ourselves. We'll put you up here for the night, unless you want to stay on the Strip. Overpriced as hell, I'll warn you."

"No, sir, the BOQ will be fine."

"Anything else I can do for you?"

"I don't suppose you've got a car or maybe even a motorcycle I can use?" Yang requested. She had caught herself missing Bumblebee, her beloved motorbike. It had been parked at Beacon; it was probably melted slag now.

Wilkerson reached down into his desk and tossed her a set of keys. "Can you ride a Harley?"

The Just-Rite Hotel and Casino

Las Vegas, Nevada, United States of Canada

15 June 2001

Yang took off her sunglasses as she walked into the Just-Rite. Despite its rather odd name, which suggested a rather seedy place, it actually was not bad at all: a white high-rise hotel that stood across the street from two other hotels, the Xanadu and the Golf Club. She looked up at the casino's leaded-glass ceiling as she walked across the casino floor, which was alive with the noise of slot machines. Yang was tempted to stop and play the slots a bit, but fought it down; she wasn't here for fun. She didn't think her mother was bloodthirsty enough to shoot Weiss and Tardor, but she might be wrong.

Yang walked up to a huge bar, off to one side of the casino floor, and next to where the high rollers played poker and blackjack. Again, she was tempted—Yang had become a good poker player in flight school—but sat down on an empty bar stool instead. A bartender walked up to her. "Evening," he said, and adjusted his glasses. She'd showered, combed out her shock of blonde hair, and put on a fresh flight suit, which strained to keep her breasts in; Yang zipped it down. She wore a sports bra beneath it, but figured a little fanservice couldn't hurt if she was trying to get on people's good side. "What can I get you?"

"Strawberry Sunrise," Yang smiled.

"Can do." He fixed the drink and slid it across to her, and she slid back a wad of cash, a good deal more than the drink cost. He picked it up and looked at her over the tops of his glasses. "Miss, I think you overpaid."

"Not if I want some information." Yang had no idea if this was how this sort of thing worked, but it always worked in the movies.

The bartender put some of the cash in the till and pocketed the rest; he made no show of hiding it, and Yang supposed she wasn't the first one to try this. "What do you need to know?"

Before Yang could say anything, a man in a faded flight suit and a red sash slid up next to her. His dirty blonde hair was cut in a rough mullet, he needed a shave, and he'd had way too much to drink; Yang's nose wrinkled at the powerful smell of sweat and scotch. "Heyyy," he said, throwing some money at the bartender. "Get me a beer, and this beauty a top up on hers." Yang had barely touched her drink. "You a Huntress, beauty? We haven't gotten a real live Huntress in here in a long time."

Yang sighed. That's what I get for flashing my tits. "I'm good. Thanks, pal." She gently pushed him away.

The drunk was not deterred in the least. "Woo, doggies. You are hawt, Goldilocks. Not too bulky. Not too lean. You're—"

"—just right. Yep." She pushed him away a little harder this time. "Like I said, I'm good." She looked down the bar. There were four others, three men and one woman. All wore similarly faded flight suits and red sashes, and all of them looked, as Qrow Branwen would say, three sheets to the wind. They were watching Yang and the drunk, grinning and clearly egging him on. "Why don't you go back to your friends, huh?"

The drunk was persistent. "You got the prettiest hair…" He reached in and touched it, running strands between his fingers on his right hand, while the other tried to cop a feel. That does it, Yang decided. She grabbed his right hand with her left, turned on the barstool, and slammed her artificial hand into his face. She actually meant it to be a slap, just enough that the drunk would get the idea without causing him damage, but Yang realized that, quite involuntarily, her artificial hand had closed into a fist. It was also a lot more powerful than she'd realized. The drunk was lifted off his feet and came down in a heap four stools down. He wasn't knocked out: he slowly got to all fours, and spit a tooth onto the carpeted floor. He looked up at her, blood coating his chin; his friends were no longer laughing. They slid off their bar stools and walked towards her. Oh shit, Yang thought, wincing, remembering both Rissa Arashikaze's and Colonel Wilkerson's advice: you'll be fine as long as you don't start a fight or something. And she just had.

She took a quick drink of her Sunrise and got to her feet, raising her hands defensively. "Hey, easy," she said. "Your friend was getting a bit too fresh, that's all. I didn't mean to hit him that hard."

"We don't give a shit, Goldilocks!" the biggest one of them said; he looked like a pro wrestler. "We're going to beat your ass!"

Yang sighed, and balled her fists, turning slightly and adopting a fighting stance. She didn't know if she'd end up in whatever passed for jail in Las Vegas, but she wasn't going to back up from a fight. She noticed her left hand—her real one—shaking like a leaf. "Let's go, then," she said, with a lot more confidence than she felt. Yang looked for bouncers, but there didn't appear to be any; instead, a crowd was gathering, and she saw money changing hands. Great. I'm going to get my ass kicked as a casino game.

The five of them—joined by the bleeding drunk—advanced on her, but suddenly stopped. Yang noticed that she was just as suddenly flanked by two other people. She glanced at them and her mouth dropped open. Both were dressed in flight suits as well, emblazoned with the patch of VF-143, the World Famous Pukin' Dogs. One was a tall African-American, wearing a ridiculous snapbrim hat; the other was a short Faunus girl, with distinctly non-regulation pink and blue-striped pigtails. Then she felt more people behind her, and saw it was a group of six men—they were also dressed in flight suits, but theirs were bright green. "Flynt? Neon?" Yang asked.

"Hey there," Neon grinned, showing her fangs. "Mind if we join you?" She raised her fists, her tail lashing.

"You want a piece of her?" Flynt asked the five red-sashed people. "You mess with one of us, you scramble with all of us."

The five attackers looked at each other. Yang noticed the woman among them staring at her, then she turned and whispered to the drunk, who looked rather sober, all of a sudden. The big man checked the odds, did some obvious mental calculation, and now was the one who put up his hands defensively. "Hey…we were just fooling around."

"We weren't," said one of the men in the bright green suits.

The big man nodded, and the five red sashes retreated as gracefully as possible to their bar stools. The pilots watched them for a moment as the crowd reluctantly dispersed, then Flynt gave Yang a big grin and slapped her on the back. "Yang Xiao Long, how the hell are you? Heard you got shot down at Beacon."

"Back in the saddle," she answered. She shoved her left hand into her flight suit to try and stop its shaking. She waved her artificial fingers. "It was a disarming experience." It was also a terrible pun, but everyone laughed anyway. Yang leaned back against the bar. "I owe you guys a round." She looked at the men in the bright green flight suits. "Jolly Greens?"

The one in the middle, whose flight suit's nametape strangely read FUCKHEAD, laughed. "Bet your pretty ass! We're Jolly Green 52, the local Combat SAR crew around here!" Fuckhead abruptly remembered what had started the fight. "Uh, I meant 'pretty ass' with the utmost of respect, Captain." He was a Lieutenant.

Yang grinned and carefully turned her back on him, leaning on the bar so that he got a good luck at her rear end, which did fill out the flight suit rather well. "It's okay if you look, Jolly Greens. One of your bunch saved my ass at Beacon." Actually, it had been Blake and an Army Blackhawk crew that had saved her life, but she figured a little honey instead of vinegar was appropriate. "Hey, let me finish up with the barkeep here and I'll buy that round, okay?" She motioned with her head, and the pilots got the message. They began drifting back to their side of the bar.

"You got it," Neon said, hugging her. "Hurry up, though. I'm thirsty!"

Yang turned to the bartender, who hadn't moved. Both his hands were out of sight, and she wondered if he kept a shotgun behind the bar. "Sorry about that." She tossed some more cash on the bar, but he shoved it back. "I'll just take it out of what you've already given me," he replied. "This one's on the house. That asshole has been annoying me all day." He put his hands on the bar. "So what did you need?"

"I'm looking for someone. A contact." Now she really felt like she was in a movie. Or some kind of anime. "In the Branwen Tribe."

The bartender made a pained expression. He thumbed towards the five with red sashes. "That's a couple of them down there. They always wear the red sashes."

Yang covered her eyes. "Ah, shit."

Two hours later, Yang left the Just-Rite. She had made sure to have only two Strawberry Sunrises before switching to soda; she didn't want to wreck Wilkerson's Harley by driving drunk. Behind her, she left Flynt and Neon—the other member of Funky Flight, Kobalt Ivori, had gone back to Europe, while Flynt and Neon were heading in that direction as well. "We were on the Enterprise," Neon had explained, drunk enough to forget about operational security, "but they transferred us to the Kennedy in the Med. Yeah, Ironwood's building up the carriers in the Sixth Fleet, too!" Flynt and Neon, along with the crew of Jolly Green 52, had a night of hard drinking and gambling ahead of them. They had started playing crud, a fighter pilot version of pool that was a full-contact sport, but Yang had declined to join them; she'd failed in her mission to contact the Branwen Tribe, but there was still tomorrow night. She hoped.

She climbed aboard the Harley and started it, loving the thrill of the horsepower between her legs. Damn, Yang thought with a half-smile, maybe I need to get laid while I'm here too, if starting a bike is getting me worked up. She turned to check behind her, and saw the drunk with the now-missing tooth heading in her direction. His friends were at the entrance to the Just-Rite, hanging back. Yang shut off the engine. "Hey, girlie!" he called out.

"Seriously?" Yang said in amazement. "This isn't over?"

"Not here to fight," the man insisted. "I'm Shady, by the way."

"No shit," Yang replied.

"Nah, it's my callsign. What's yours…" he grinned at her, with a gap in there now "…Yang Branwen?"

Yang stepped off the bike. "How did you know my name?"

Shady thumbed back at the casino. "I heard them other pilots saying your first name. And Bobbi Jo—" he motioned at the one woman among the Branwens "-she recognized you as Raven's daughter. Didn't know the boss had a kid, but you're her, no question." He paused, looking a bit confused. "You are,right?"

Yang let a smile slowly spread on her face. "It's Yang Xiao Long," she corrected him. "But I am sure as hell Raven Branwen's daughter." She reached out and put a friendly hand on Shady's shoulder. "And boy, do I want to see my mommy."

AUTHOR'S ENDNOTES: The Just-Rite is actually the Tropicana, which still stands; the Golf Club Motel really was a Las Vegas hotel, before it was torn down. The MGM Grand stands there today. There was a planned hotel named Xanadu, but it was never built-the Excalibur is where that place would've been.

The red sashes that the Branwen Tribe wears is a reference to Tombstone, which I thought was appropriate. Jolly Green crews really do wear bright green "party suits" if they're going out for some fun, and hardcore 80s GI Joe fans will get the McCarran AFS CO's name.