"To the planes" was not exactly an order organized as easily as it was said. The Iron Vulture had left the island fully stocked, and that meant the aircraft as well. Thus, what was now available to fly on Pirate Island, to be used between twelve bodies, was the Petral taken from Bada Bing, the P-99 Stormhawk, and the tri-wing. Karnage and Kit had the Stormhawk; and they were the lucky ones. The others had to cram into the seaplane (the captain's 'no-flea-infested-flanks-in-my-plane' rule was still unwavering, end of the world or not, and the tri-wing was left behind).
Katie was among the group, and awkwardly so. She kept her mouth shut and tried to "go with the flow," as they say. Honestly, her reading the tome and explaining the story of Skaal the Undying was the extent of what she had to offer, as far as she could think of ― hopefully no one else realized that until she was safe and sound. Oddly enough though, it was Karnage who approached her as everyone was filing in the seaplane, as she was caught in that out-of-place moment where she didn't know if they meant for her to go along or not. He must have noticed that about her, and he insisted she was going along. "I of course need you," he grinned. "A big job! Part of the big plan!" He left it at that, though he seemed very excited at the prospect of this big job.
Before that, though, Kit, drawing up the route to the Twin Spires, noted that neither plane was going to make it halfway there without a refueling. While knocking over a gas station wasn't out of the question, it neither was the captain's first choice, for the risk of putting law enforcement on their tail on top of everything else. This instigated another meeting of the minds, with two differences from the last: it was much briefer, and since it was only the captain, Kit, and Will furrowing their brow at the map, the mind-to-mush ratio was a notch or two lower. Karnage slid his finger over the direct route between the island and the Spires, tapped his claw on it thoughtfully a moment, scanning with his eyes; at last he grinned, and you could practically see a lightbulb flash over his head. He slid his claw to an area well out of the way from the direct route, over a crescent-shaped cluster of islands. "The planes can make it here, no problemo," he said, pleased with himself.
"Hey, yeah!" beamed Will. "Ya think so, boss? We could get lucky!"
Kit was obviously out of the loop on this one. "What's over there?" he asked.
"Tsk, poor, poor boy," said Karnage. "If you had spent more time where you belong, stealing cargo instead of hauling it, you would know where the cargo is stolen."
"Sky trade route, mostly junk outta Hungi Kungi," said Will. "Usually ain't nothin' worth more than scrap to us, but forget the cargo. There's always a nice, fat cargo blimp somewhere around there."
Kit got the gist of the idea then, which to him seemed absurd. Heavy cargo airships, you see, were meant for long, sustained trips. Some of them could make a lap halfway around the world without stopping. But, there was a catch. "A nice slow cargo blimp, you mean," he said. "Those things move like snails. I mean, we could walk and get there faster. Plus, we can't just hijack an entire blimp!"
"Ya disappoint me, brat," said Will, while Karnage did what he did best: stood there being pleased with himself. "They go slow when they're loaded, but I thought you woulda known that some of 'em can really zip if ya jet the cargo, 'specially the zeps." Jet, being pilot shorthand lingo for jettison, and zep, zeppelin. You're welcome. "Hell, their holds are big enough to carry the planes, too. Win-win!"
Don Karnage snapped his finger. "We jet the junk, zip the zep, win the win, and I have a pirate ship again. Meh, almost."
"Except usually zeps have entire crews working on the inside, too," argued Kit. "What were we gonna do with them, huh?"
Karnage groaned at him, exasperatedly. "If you want to take all the fun out of it, fine. Our helpless victims get to go, not a scratch on their hairs."
"How do we do that? Especially if they fight back. And how would you even stop it without shooting it down?"
"Pff, it won't be us, boy. I don't care what happens to puny, cargo-hauling plebs. But this moron over here…" He was eying Flynn from across the chamber. The latter saw that he was being observed, and blinked.
"Say what, now?"
