AUTHOR'S NOTES: The confrontation between Yang and Raven. Sparks will fly!

For those of you who are fans of Netflix's Warrior Nun series, Shannon Masters did appear in that, briefly. However, I was (and still am) a big fan of the original Warrior Nun Areala comic series, and so Sister Shannon has shown up in my Evangelion fanfics (along with Rissa Arashikaze). This will probably be the only spot where she shows up in this AU, as a cameo; I can't have Arashikaze running around everywhere, and maybe this universe's Vatican is active in fighting the GRIMM...

Palmdale

California Dead Zone, United States of America

16 June 2001

Vernal—she didn't know her last name, and didn't care—walked to the cinder block storage house that had been converted to a prison. She'd shown Yang to the barracks where she could clean up, then went over to fetch Weiss Schnee. She sighed; probably the Schnee girl was going to whine and complain about the accommodations not being up to her standard. Vernal had little time for anyone who had not grown up in the Dead Zones, where survival was something you fought for every day. Two guards trailed behind her, their assault rifles slung over their shoulders.

She unlocked the door to the storage, and opened it. "Yo, Schnee. You've got a visitor. Get your skinny ass—" To her surprise, there was no one there. The food was gone, the bed was slept in, but Weiss was nowhere to be found. "What the hell…" Vernal ran into the room, searching frantically. There was no escape from this place; there were no windows—

Above her, one of the acoustic tiles in the ceiling fell in, and Weiss dropped downwards. Vernal's reflexes, honed by living in the Dead Zones all her life, were enough that she dodged the former heiress' jump, but not the bucket Weiss hit her in the head with. Stunned, Vernal wavered, and it was enough for Weiss to grab her with her left hand, spin around to use the bandit as a human shield, and with her right draw one of the M1911s Vernal wore on her belt—one of Rick Tardor's Colts. The guards unslung their rifles, but Weiss put the gun to Vernal's head. "Put your weapons on the ground! Do it or she dies!"

Vernal blinked away the spots in her vision. "What the hell do you think—"

Weiss jammed the barrel into Vernal's temple. "Shut up!" She glared at the guards. "Do it!" Both the guards looked at each other, then slowly put the weapons on the concrete floor. "Step back from them! Hands behind your head!"

"Dammit, Schnee!" Vernal shouted. "You don't have a chance at—"

"According to you, it's either this or get sold to a Tijuana whorehouse," Weiss hissed in her ear. "Other pistol. Two fingers. On the floor." She pressed the Colt into the bandit's head even harder. "I've got nothing to lose now. And if you don't think I can't kill you and them, I'll have you know I took second in the Luftwaffe marksmanship competition last year." Vernal carefully took the other Colt out as instructed and let it clatter to the floor. "You two," she addressed the guards. "Get on the floor. Hands spread out, heads down. Either of you twitch, and I'll scatter her brains all over the walls." To Vernal, she said, "Start moving." As Vernal walked forward, Weiss kicked the other pistol out of reach.

"This isn't necessary," Vernal said calmly. Death was so commonplace in the Dead Zones that one lost their fear of it rather quickly. "Besides, I came to get you. You have a friend."

"I don't have any friends left," Weiss snarled. She kept Vernal moving forward, watching the guards; both men obeyed her and stayed face-down. She blinked as they walked into the hot sunlight. There were other guards now, and they stared at Vernal and Weiss. Some of them hesitantly went for weapons, but stopped when they saw the look in Weiss' eyes.

"Where's your aircraft?" Weiss asked Vernal.

"You'll never get out of here," Vernal warned her.

"I'll take my chances. Now again, where is—"

"Weiss?"

To her credit, Weiss neither turned at the sound of the voice behind her, nor did she let go of Vernal. She felt the other woman tense up for a move, and reminded her of the pistol again. Slowly, she turned both of them around.

Yang Xiao Long, dressed in her flight suit, stood there with a grin on her face—that maddening, devil-may-care grin that had annoyed Weiss when they first met, but one the former heiress had missed. "Yang?" Weiss asked, stunned. "What…where did you come from?"

"She's here to rescue you," Vernal said with an ironic laugh. "I was actually taking her to you."

Weiss closed her eyes. "Schiesse." She let go of Vernal and stepped back, hands in the air. Vernal waved the other bandits down, then held out her hand. Weiss reluctantly gave back the M1911; Vernal holstered it. There was new respect in her eyes. "Not bad, Schnee," she said. "You might've been able to pull that off." She motioned Weiss over to Yang.

The two former members of Ruby Flight reunited. "You look like shit," Yang said.

"I love you too, Yang," Weiss replied sarcastically. Both were grinning now, stupidly, and neither cared. Then, to Yang's surprise, Weiss hugged her.

Raven Branwen didn't live in one of the outlying buildings; she actually lived in a tent, within sprinting distance of the big hangar that still wore the faded emblem of the Lockheed Skunk Works. The tent was drab, painted so it would blend into the desert around the hangar, but the interior was cooled by fans powered by a generator, and looked to Yang like something out of Arabian Nights. They sat on cushions piled up around a low table, with other cushions and a large, comfortable looking futon in one corner. Vernal—who was careful to stay out of arm's reach of Weiss, Yang noticed—poured them steaming cups of tea. A plate of cookies was set out, and though Weiss took two, Yang didn't touch them. Raven watched her, sighed, then took a cookie for herself and ate it, to prove it wasn't poisoned or drugged. Yang still didn't take one; she wasn't hungry. She did take a sip of tea. Raven nodded to Vernal, dismissing her, then lounged against her cushion. She had changed out of her flight suit, and instead wore an airy, comfortable-looking kimono; Yang was reminded of Blake's sleepwear. Her mother's hair was caught up in a red bandanna, though it was still wild around her face and shoulders. All of them had removed their footwear before entering the tent.

Mother and daughter watched each other for a moment, then Yang spoke. "So, what were you going to spout off, Raven?" Yang pointedly used her mother's first name.

Raven did not seem to notice. "Tea is good, but I wish we had coffee. It's harder to get out here."

"Your daughter asked you a question," Weiss told her.

The bandit leader turned pitiless eyes on Weiss, and pointed with her teacup at Yang. "She gets to live. You I haven't made up my mind about, so shut your fucking mouth." She took another sip and set down the teacup, and sat back again, putting one knee up. "What I was going to spout off, Yang, was to tell you the truth…and the truth is, the actual truth is rather hard to come by in our business." She looked towards the ceiling of the tent. "I imagine Qrow has told Ruby and her friends a lot of stories."

"He's never given us a reason to doubt him before," Yang said.

"That doesn't mean those reasons don't exist," Raven answered. She smiled at Yang's murderous glare. "You know, you and your flight might as well be on recruiting posters. Your motives and your nationalities might be different, but you all joined up to try and make the world a better place." She sniffed a laugh. "It's adorable."

"Yeah, imagine that," Yang growled. "Not everyone is a selfish asshole. It's what fighter pilots do."

"Not all of them, Yang. Some people are just in it for the money. Others do it because they want to be famous. And then there's us." Raven twirled a finger in the air, including everyone in the tent. "We joined because we want to be the best of the best. We all have something to prove. The two of you are trying to prove that you're better than your parents—better than your ass of a father, Schnee, and better than me, Yang." She shrugged. "Your Uncle Qrow and I didn't join the Air Force just to become fighter pilots. We joined up to learn how to kill fighter pilots."

Weiss nearly dropped her teacup in shock, and Yang looked shocked. Raven chuckled. "Daddy and Uncle left that part out, huh?" She poured more tea. "Aside from the GRIMM, the Remnant was the only thing capable of ruining our little independent lifestyle here, and hunting us down. When Qrow and I were volunteered to join, it was because our parents decided the Branwen Tribe needed a counterforce against the government. The US was still recovering from World War III, but once it did, it would reclaim California—and we didn't want it to. And Qrow and I were the perfect age."

"Didn't the government know who you were?" Weiss asked.

Raven laughed. "There was so much chaos in the decade after the nuclear exchange, nobody knew who was who. It was easy to come up with a fake background, and that we were orphans." She sipped her tea. "Basic was a summer vacation. Even flight training was easy—apparently Qrow and I have some natural talent in that regard. Our instructor said we could outfly the birds. We were good." Raven smiled wistfully, remembering. "We were very good." She set down her teacup and stood. "So good that we caught the attention of one Captain Oscar Ozpin. He watched us, along with two other up and coming young pilots—a gawky kid from North Carolina with the weird name of Taiyang Xiao Long, and a cute girl with silver eyes from Arizona named Summer Rose. He made sure we all got assigned to the same squadron, and eventually we became Strike Flight. Oh, he took care of us." The other two girls could hear the bitterness in Raven's voice.

"What do you mean by that?" Yang wanted to know.

"Oh, constant attention from Ozpin, orders to where he wanted us to go, extra training, turning a blind eye to whenever we broke the rules—like when we'd tear up a bar that was off-limits or something." Raven smiled at them. "Sound familiar?"

Shit, Yang thought, was she spying on me when I tore up Junior's club in Madison? "What's your point?"

Raven paused, still standing. "How much do you know about Ozpin? About his past?"

Yang didn't answer, so Weiss did. "Well…he was a Medal of Honor awardee. Navy."

"Yeah, he flew F-8s in the 60s and the early 70s. I guess they grounded him and he started running the Vytal Flag program out of Beacon," Yang said.

Raven inspected her fingernails. "Oh, he wasn't grounded. He grounded himself. And it wasn't just Vytal Flag he designed, or Strike Flight that he recruited. He designed Red Flag, and Top Gun down there in Key West. And he made sure that he had friends in every nation with a decent air force in the world. England. Germany. Japan. Israel. Iran. Ozpin had friends everywhere that were loyal to him and his cause, even above their own nations."

"Against the GRIMM," Weiss added. "It makes sense. He wanted to present a united front to the GRIMM."

"Not just the GRIMM," Raven corrected her. "Because, you see…old man Oz had a great and terrible secret. One that would lead to another world war, and one he eventually entrusted to our team. Once I knew that secret, there was no going back. I wanted to know more, but every time I learned something new…the more horrifying the world became." Yang noticed her mother suppress a shudder. Something was coming that had even frightened Raven Branwen.

"Okay, then tell us," Yang said. "What's the big secret?" She used her fingers to make scare quotes. "What's so crazy that the rest of us don't know?"

Raven glared at her daughter's flippant answer. "How about that the GRIMM do have a master—a woman named Salem?" Weiss gasped, causing Yang to look at her in surprise, then she realized that Weiss didn't know about Salem. For that matter, Raven didn't know that Yang already knew herself. Her mother, however, hadn't noticed Yang's lack of reaction.

"Who is she?" Weiss asked.

Raven was quiet for a long few moments. "We don't know, exactly. Oz didn't know…or he didn't tell us if he did. All we know is that she harnessed the power of what was left of the Soviet Union, and created the GRIMM." She looked at Yang. "What we do know is she can't be stopped. God knows we tried. We can't even find her. Summer died trying to find her." Yang was surprised to see Raven briefly lose her composure—it was very brief, but there was pain still there. Somewhere deep down, Raven still missed who had been her best friend. "She can't be stopped," Raven repeated. "She can't be reasoned with. And she wants nothing less than all of humanity and Faunuskind at her feet."

Weiss set down her teacup. "That's…all this time…there was someone running the GRIMM."

"Is. Salem is still alive. She's out there right now. Beacon was her doing," Raven explained. Then she looked at Yang again. "I tried to warn you."

Now Yang got to her feet. "Why in the hell should we believe any of this?"

Raven nodded at her. "Now you're catching on, Yang. So far, you've done nothing but be a good little pilot, accepting what others tell you without question. But now, you need to start questioning everything. Otherwise, you'll end up just as blind as Qrow…and your fool of a father."

Yang shot across the table, throwing a right hook that would've broken Raven's jaw, had it connected. As it was, it came close as Raven jumped back. Yang slid to a halt on one of the cushions, her teeth bared. "Shut the fuck up!" she shouted. "You don't get to talk about him like that, you fucking bitch!"

All of them had forgotten Vernal's presence in the room; the younger bandit had been sitting at the tent flap, just inside. Now she was on her feet, the M1911 raised and pointed at Yang in a steady grip. "You need to calm down," she ordered.

Weiss, now the only person still seated, checked all three women, briefly considered decking Vernal with the teapot, then decided she wasn't that fast. Neither was Yang. "Yang, please," she pleaded.

"Listen to your friend, Yang," Raven told her daughter. "Your flight has never let you down before."

Yang couldn't make up her mind if Raven was being sarcastic or not. All she wanted was to plant steel fingers between the woman's eyes. "You don't know the first thing about Ruby Flight," she snarled. "You don't know the first thing about me. You were never there, remember? You bugged out, and left Dad holding the bag with me. You. Fucking. Ran."

Raven was silent for a moment; Weiss noticed the bandit leader's hands curl into fists. "I know more than you realize." There was a tightness in her voice; Weiss could tell that some of Yang's words had hit home. "Not just about you, and not just about what I've been told, but things I've seen with my own eyes. I know the GRIMM have a leader. I knew before the fall of Beacon that there were orbital weapons flying around. And I know there's a lot of shit out there that no one wants to admit exists. Genetic experimentation, nuclear weapons. You name it." She walked past Yang, pushed Vernal's pistol down, bent over, and grabbed her boots. "Follow me. I want to show you something."

Yang and Weiss got their shoes on as well, and followed Raven across the hot, cracked tarmac to the Skunk Works hangar. She went through a side door into a dusty hallway, took a key from a pocket in her kimono, and unlocked a second door, ushering them inside. She walked forward, leaving Weiss and Yang to gape.

"Impressive, isn't it?" Raven said, her voice echoing through the hangar. She ran her hand across the downturned wingtips. "Meet the X-31 Night Raven. Appropriately named…but then again, I was the test pilot for it. They were going to name it something different if it went into production…Foxfire or something. Quite a step up from those early A-model F-15s and F-16s Summer and I flew, to say nothing of the F-4 Qrow and Tai flew." She walked around it, and motioned the two to come closer.

Yang had seen the Night Raven when it had shot Neo Politan off her tail over Mountain Glenn, but it had been a fleeting glimpse. It was a big aircraft, half again as large as a F-15, with a dogtoothed delta wing that blended smoothly into the fuselage. The nose stuck out like a vulture, chiseled for stealth; the bottom of the fuselage, save for the heavy, stalklike landing gear, was smooth. The intakes were above the wing, set back to reduce its infrared signature, and only a short distance from two immense engines—its one weak point, Yang thought, because the engines were not baffled like those on the YF-23; those exhausts would give off a large heat source from the rear. Two canted tails stuck up from the engine casings. Raven walked under the nose; she didn't have to bend over, and she was not a short woman. "She's a beauty."

"You done bragging?" Yang folded her arms across her breasts.

Raven laughed. "Not yet. Because you don't know it's true purpose." She did have to bend over to get under the fuselage, where she tapped it. "Titanium construction, like the SR-71. Capable of Mach 3 as easy as breathing. Stealthy—not only is the aircraft itself designed to reflect radar waves, but it also projects false radar signatures around it."

"It's an interceptor," Weiss said.

Raven waggled a finger at her. "Not quite. That was the original prototype's designed purpose, yes. Its design began in the Soviet Union even before the nukes flew. Strike Flight managed to get into what was left of western Russia to steal the plans for it. We came out through Norway, with every damn GRIMM in existence nipping at our heels. And then Ozpin assembled what was left of the Skunk Works team in Texas to build it. It made its first flight on August 28, 1977." She leaned against the nose gear, smiling at Yang.

"A month after I was born." Yang put the pieces together. Her left hand began to shake. "And you stole it two months after that."

"Yes. The USAF wanted it as an interceptor, Yang, equipped with the prototype of DUST and with enough firepower to destroy a Nevermore on its own. But not Ozpin. He wanted it as a high-speed nuclear delivery platform. It would approach a target by stealth, drop its nuke, and then speed off at Mach 3. I confronted him over it, and he admitted it." Raven shook her head. "He lied to us, Yang. He told Strike Flight the Night Raven would be used strictly as an interceptor. And I was tired of the lies. So I stole it and returned to the tribe."

"And abandoned me," Yang finished.

"I had no choice," Raven said. She smacked a palm into the underside of the nose, eliciting a hollow bong. "This…thing…was more important than any of us, Yang. Me, you, your father, Strike Flight—everyone."

"Bullshit," Yang snapped. "Fucking bullshit."

Raven sighed. "All right. You can choose to believe me or not. If you don't, then hop back in your Black Widow and fly out of here."

Yang's anger was knocked out of her. "Wait. You're letting us go?"

"I'm giving you a choice, Yang—and you, Weiss." She stepped forward, spreading her hands. "You can stay here with me, and I'll not only answer your questions, I'll give you a place in my tribe. Both of you. You're immensely talented, Miss Schnee, and since you left your family and went AWOL, your career in the Luftwaffe is over. As soon as you set foot in any civilized nation again, you'll be arrested. You'll certainly never fly again." She walked up to Yang, and put a hand on her daughter's shoulder. "As for you, we can make a fresh start." Yang shrugged off the hand, and Raven sighed again. "Or, you can leave, go back to Qrow, and join a dead man's impossible war against Salem, and meet the same end as he did, and a lot of other people better than him, like Summer." Her reddish-brown eyes met Yang's lilac ones. "But can you really go back to trusting someone that's kept so much from you?"

Yang didn't even hesitate. "All I care about is making sure my sister is safe, and that Weiss gets out of here."

Raven let out a long breath, and glanced at Weiss. "My offer still stands, Weiss, even if Yang doesn't accept it."

"No, thank you," Weiss told her.

Raven's eyebrows went up. "After what I just said? About going to prison?"

"You think this wouldn't be one?" Weiss countered.

The bandit leader was quiet. She walked back to the Night Raven, and once more ran her fingers over it, almost lovingly. "Very well." She looked back at Yang. "If you side with your uncle, I may not be as kind the next time we meet."

"You weren't kind this time, either," Yang replied.

"I suppose not." Raven nodded at Weiss. "You take off in your F-23. I'll have Vernal fly Weiss down to Tijuana in one of our F-4s. It's a Navy F-4, Weiss, so don't think about trying to hijack poor Vernal again—there's no backseat controls like in the Air Force birds. You can escort them there, Yang. You should have enough fuel left. Sorry, I don't have the missiles to spare."

"When do we leave?"

"As soon as you want."

"Good." Yang tapped Weiss' shoulder, and turned her back on her mother. "Let's get out of here." Without looking back, the two women left the hangar, leaving Raven alone with her aircraft.

She stood there for a very long time.

General Abelardo Rodriguez International Airport

Tijuana, United Mexican States

16 June 2001

It was dark by the time Yang, Vernal and Weiss reached Tijuana. Weiss noticed that Vernal was careful to fly in from the east; the other approach would take them over the irradiated remains of San Diego and the Pacific Ocean. She knew why: the Navy was not in a particularly good mood, and any suspected air pirates that flew past the coast were fair game. As it was, the setting sun caught the ruins of San Diego just right, enough that Weiss could see the glittering of trinitite, the fusion of land, buildings, and people where the one-megaton nuclear weapon, launched from a Soviet submarine far offshore, had detonated in the city. Over 200,000 people had died, and San Diego was now a memory, aside from a few people that remained in Chula Vista, eking out an existence by salvaging the ruins.

Tijuana, however, had survived, spared the fallout by favorable winds, and even prospered—more or less. As Rick Tardor had told her, it was ruled by various gangs, only nominally still part of Mexico. Still, the gangs left downtown Tijuana alone as a neutral area, and that included the airport. At least to the point, according to Vernal, that opening fire on aircraft on approach was generally discouraged.

Yang let the ancient F-4J flown by Vernal land first, having radioed ahead that they were coming, and then followed once the Phantom pulled off the runway. Both taxied to the Mexican Air Force side of the airport. Vernal followed the ground crewman's light wands, and stopped, then powered down the engines. She raised the canopies, but didn't get out. "I take it you're not going into town," Weiss said, unstrapping as another ground crewman put a ladder up to the rear cockpit.

"Nope. TJ's a fun place, but I'm not really in a fun mood." She did unstrap, enough to look behind her as Weiss climbed out. The former heiress took off her helmet and left it sitting in the seat; her own helmet was still in Germany. "You got to be crazy to turn down Raven's offer. You'd go pretty far in the tribe."

"I might," Weiss admitted. "Assuming the tribe has much further to go."

Vernal shook her head. "Well…hell…good luck, Schnee." She hesitated, then reached down into her shoulder holster. She handed Weiss the Colt. "A going away present."

Weiss took the gun. "Rick had two of these."

Vernal shrugged. "I'll keep the other one. Prize of war."

Weiss shrugged too—short of killing Vernal, she wasn't getting the other pistol back. She climbed down the ladder and fell back, as Vernal told the ground crew in Spanish that she was taking off again. Weiss didn't watch the Phantom leave; instead, she walked over to Yang, who was already beginning her postflight inspection of the F-23. "You okay?" she asked.

"Yeah," Yang said tightly. "Pissed off, but I'm okay."

"I'm sorry." Weiss felt like someone should apologize.

Yang looked up from under the Black Widow, and suddenly smiled. "Nothing to apologize about, Weissy. Ruby's going to go apeshit when she sees you."

"She'll go even more apeshit when I'm led away in chains," Weiss sighed. Then both women saw three people walking towards them. They came to attention and saluted; luckily, the Fuerza Aerea Mexicana used ranks very similar to the USAF's. The person in the lead was a Colonel; the other man was a lieutenant, while the third, a redhaired woman that reminded Weiss of Pyrrha Nikos, was in civilian clothes. The Colonel returned their salutes, then smiled. In the lights of the military terminal, he was rather handsome for an older man, Weiss thought. They shook hands. "Colonel Alejandro Montero," he introduced himself. "This is Lieutenant Jose Sieres, and Sister Shannon Masters."

Weiss saw the large silver crucifix Masters wore. "Sister?"

"I'll explain later," Masters replied.

"Lieutenant Sieres will see to your aircraft," Montero told Yang.

Sieres grinned. "I'll take good care of her, Captain. I'll even wash the windshield and change the oil." Yang returned the grin, but only reluctantly left the F-23—like, Weiss thought involuntarily, a mother afraid to leave her child.

Montero led them into the hangar attached to the terminal as the airport shook from Vernal's afterburners. Once inside, Yang gave a low whistle. "Wow! I didn't know you guys had gotten F-20s, sir."

The colonel smiled proudly. "Our first batch of six. Unfortunately, the F-5s we purchased from the United States are getting rather long in the tooth, so we bought F-20s rather than have Brazil upgrade our Tigers. Took a bit for Northrop to restart production, but our President and President Shawcross came to an understanding." He paused. "My understanding was that the President was convinced by your commander at Beacon, Captain Ozpin, to provide the aircraft. I was very sorry to hear of his passing."

"Yeah, us too," Yang said absently, forgetting rank in the memory of what Raven had told her only a few hours before, about Ozpin cultivating contacts in every air force. She wondered if Colonel Montero was one of those contacts.

Weiss noticed that there were just the four of them in the hangar, and guessed correctly because Montero didn't want anyone else to hear what he had to say—or see what he was going to do. Suddenly she was very tired. "Colonel, with respect. There's no reason to beat around the bush, as it were. You undoubtedly have orders to arrest me, so…allow me to take my leave of my friend here, and we'll get it over with."

Montero and Masters shared a glance, and both of them grinned at each other. Then both began to laugh. Weiss and Yang shared a glance too, but neither of them laughed. "What's going on?" Yang asked. "I mean, I'd prefer Weiss not get arrested and court-martialed…"

"And she won't be," Masters told them. She reached into a pocket of her slacks, and pulled out several folded pieces of paper. "This was actually meant to be given to you when Mr. Tardor and yourself reached Tijuana." She turned somber. "I suppose he won't be joining us."

"No," Weiss replied sadly. "He was killed by the Branwen Tribe. They only took me prisoner because they thought they could ransom me."

"Hijo de puta," Montero cursed. "Banditos. We kill them when we can, which unfortunately is not often." He shook his head. "Tardor was a good man."

Masters handed Weiss the papers. "We will mourn him later. For now, here are your orders."

"Orders?" Weiss opened the paper, and her eyes widened to the point that Yang wondered if they were going to pop out. She wordlessly handed them to Yang, who scanned them, then she started laughing too. The orders were detaching Hauptmann Weiss Schnee from her present assignment as liasion to Schnee GmbH, to the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force, to train the latter in the use of DUST in combat. They were signed by James Ironwood, General, Supreme Allied Commander Europe. Weiss nearly fell, and settled on sitting down, on the dirty hangar floor. There would be no court-martial. She wasn't even AWOL. Ironwood had outmaneuvered her father. Yang grabbed Weiss and hugged her, and hauled her to her feet.

Montero was grinning. "I love giving good news." He motioned towards the terminal. "There is a Visiting Officers' Quarters here. It's not much, I'm afraid, but it's clean, there are showers, and it has comfortable beds. I'll arrange to have food sent up."

"Hot damn, Mexican food," Yang said happily, her stomach abruptly reminding her that she'd turned down Raven's offer of food. "And Mexican beer, too." She sobered a bit. "Well, maybe just a bottle or two. We have to fly tomorrow, after all. How's Weiss getting to Japan, Colonel?"

"Ah. We will put her on the courier C-130, which will fly her to La Paz. From there, a USAF C-141 will pick her up and fly her to Yokota." He nodded to Weiss. "Don't worry, Hauptmann. Tijuana is rough, but La Paz is far more civilized. You might even get to hit the beach while you're there."

"Actually, Colonel…" Masters looked sheepish, and pulled out another piece of folded paper. "This just came, when Captain Xiao Long radioed that she was bringing Hauptmann Schnee in. It's from…well, it's from Greenbrier."

"Greenbrier?" Montero was mystified, and opened the orders. He read them quickly, and handed them back to Masters. "Que diablos es esta mierda?" he shouted. "Esta loca?" Weiss winced. Masters turned a little red. Yang, who didn't speak Spanish outside of the word "taco," looked at all three of them. "Uh, what's going on?"

Masters smiled, embarrassed. "It seems that Director Arashikaze has asked…well, demanded…that Colonel Montero provide Hauptmann Weiss with one of his F-20s. He is…not pleased."

"That's putting it mildly!" Montero yelled. "We've barely broken them in yet, and I'm supposed to just give her one?"

"It's a loan," Masters tried to soothe him.

"Yes, but for how long? Madre de Dios!" Masters cleared her throat, and Montero abruptly remembered who she was. "I apologize, Sister. But still!"

"Sir," Weiss said, "it's only so I can defend myself from GRIMM. I'm sure the JASDF will assign me a new aircraft as soon as I reach Japan, and then Director…well, whoever she is, will provide a pilot to fly it back."

Montero rubbed his forehead. "Yes, I know, Hauptmann. And I know your combat record." He turned on Masters. "But FAM high command may feel differently! Does she know that?"

"I'm sure something will be worked out," Masters said with a smile.

"Very well." He gave a shrug, then a tired laugh. "Well, what can you do, eh? Let me go and get that food and beer arranged, Captain Xiao Long." He walked out the door to the terminal.

"And to go vent his spleen some more, out of my earshot. Poor man; he does so like his Tigersharks." Master shook her head. "Well, as the Colonel said, it has been a long day for all of you, so let's get you settled in for the night. It will be a longer day tomorrow, I think."

As they began walking, Yang's curiosity finally got the better of her. "Uh…miss? Sister? You're a nun, right?"

"Oh yes, Captain. I am attached to the Vatican's liasion office to the United States government."

"Then what is a nun doing here, doing this?"

Masters laughed. "Let's just say Arashikaze and I are old friends, and occasionally she uses, shall we say, unorthodox means of communication. After all, we don't know who we can trust, can we?"