AUTHOR'S NOTES: Another air battle in this chapter, plus some cutesy Rosegarden. And maybe a little Bumblebee and Renora, with some gratuitous text-based shower scenes. Heck, even a little nod to Top Gun. References for everybody!
More notes at the end, along with an explanation.
Poznan-Krezesiny Airbase
Poznan, Republic of Poland
24 August 2001
Ruby Rose stared at the ceiling, knowing she should be asleep. She was exhausted, and going on adrenaline and caffeine. The bed felt soft and warm, and the shades were closed, just letting in a little of the dawn light. Yet she couldn't sleep. Ruby held up her fingers and saw that they were slightly shaking. It was with fatigue, she knew.
She fluffed up the pillow and tried to will herself to sleep. It was a luxury these days: four days after the party at Schnee Manor North and the night intercept near Krakow, Ruby had spent more time in the cockpit than in a bed. There had been no less than eleven scrambles against GRIMM. Some were false alarms, caused by equally exhausted AWACS radar controllers, still flying longer shifts than usual as power was restored to the ground radar installations. Others were genuine, but Ace Flight—who was closer to the southeast region than Ruby or Norn Flights—had gotten there first. There had been enough GRIMM to go around, though: everyone had gotten at least something, even Nora. Ruby reviewed Ruby Flight's scorecard in her head, and frowned: she still was behind everyone else, sitting at 21.5 kills. Weiss was just ahead with 22, Blake had 24, and Yang was on top with 29.5—something her older sister liked to remind her of. It felt good to look at the intake of Crescent Rose and see two rows of ten little red stars, and listen to Sergeant Vogelmord tell her that he was worried they would run out of room, but it was taking a toll on her body, she knew. Sooner or later, the bill would be due. And there were other things that were bothering her, too.
"Mmmf…" Ruby turned over and looked at Oscar Pine, who was sound asleep, and sighed. This was the other reason she wasn't asleep, probably. They had used the opportunity of everyone being too tired to notice them getting together in Oscar's room. Their lovemaking had been quicker than she'd like, but it had been sweet, and Ruby thought to herself that she could get used to this sort of thing on a regular basis. She was fairly certain she wasn't in love with Oscar, but he had become a trusted friend. This was their fourth time together, and she hoped there would be many more. Ruby, to her surprise, was starting to enjoy the intimacy of having a lover she could talk to more than the sex itself—though that wasn't bad either. Of course, she smiled wanly, he falls asleep as soon as we get done. Well, I can't say he didn't earn it. Gently, she reached out and took his hand, felt the calloused fingers.
It was enough to wake him up. "Uh?" He opened his eyes and blinked. "Oh. Hey there."
"Good morning, Oscar."
He withdrew his hand from hers long enough to check his watch. "0600. Four hours. I guess that's better than nothing."
"Oscar?" She began to say what was on her mind, but he spoke at the same time. They stopped, looked at each other, and grinned. "Oh," Ruby giggled.
"You first," he said.
"Sorry, I didn't meant to interrupt—"
"You didn't, actually—"
"Um…I was thinking…maybe…about JINN…"
"We should tell Ironwood," they said simutaneously. Ruby laughed again. "I guess we're on the same page again, huh?"
"Guess so," Oscar agreed. He reached out a hand and caressed her shoulder, then a little further down, sending little shivers down her spine. "It's really about time. I think he's choosing truth over fear." He chuckled. "Sorry, I get all philosophical when I wake up. Among other things." His hand went over her narrow waist, to her hip.
"Mmm." She pushed his hand away. "I know what you're thinking, buster. Wait a minute." Ruby rolled back onto her pillow. "I'll tell him. I'm the one who chose not to tell him in the first place about JINN and what we learned."
"No, you're needed to fly lead. I'll do it," Oscar said.
"But…you'll miss out on kills." The fact that Oscar might also miss out on dying violently didn't cross Ruby's mind.
"Yeah, I've got it." He pulled her unresistingly a little closer. "Ruby…don't get buck fever, okay? That's what one of my instructors called it at Pensacola. You get so hungry for kills you make mistakes and you get killed instead. In the end, who has the most doesn't really matter, right?"
She snuggled closer to him. "Yeah, I guess." He pinched her bottom, and then dodged a pillow. "Ow! Asshole!" Ruby yelled at him. "Okay, okay—you're right. I'll be careful." She was silent for a moment. "But dammit, Yang is still way ahead."
"Not as far ahead as Pyrrha. And not as far behind as me." Oscar had gotten his tenth kill, which was pretty impressive for an ensign. Pyrrha had reached what American pilots called the Bong Mark, which was 40 kills—until the emergence of the GRIMM, Richard Bong was the top American ace, with 40 victories in World War II. That number had been shattered by several pilots since; Maria Calavera was considered the top ace now. Still, the Bong Mark separated the elite from the majority of pilots. He leaned forward and kissed her nose. "Ruby…you are the most beautiful girl I've ever been with."
"I'm the only girl you've ever been with," she reminded him, then smiled. "But thanks. You aren't half bad yourself." She shrugged. "I'll be sure to remember you when I move on to bigger guys—you know, like Clover, or Cardin, or—"
Oscar hit her with a pillow.
Back at Ruby Flight's dorm room, no one noticed Ruby was not there, or that she'd never even gotten back to the room in the first place. They were too tired. Weiss was splayed out on her bunk, face down, snoring softly, her covers thrown haphazardly over her. Blake was curled up in her bunk, and as the sunlight crept through the blinds, she suddenly realized that she wasn't alone.
"What the hell…" Blake slowly woke up. She had been having a dream, of Adam Taurus, of all people—but it hadn't been a nightmare; she hadn't had one of those in months. It had been a pleasant one, a dream that replayed one of the few good memories she had of her former lover, a day that they had taken in the Menagerie open air market, just being boyfriend and girlfriend for once, a day that had ended with them in a hotel room. The remembrance of that was what made the current situation so odd: there was someone in bed with her.
Slowly, Blake turned over. It was fairly obvious who it was: she was confronted with a solid mass of blonde hair. The Faunus girl rose up a bit: Yang was dressed in her usual sleeping attire of T-shirt and panties—which was all Blake was wearing, for that matter; she hadn't even changed into her normal yukata. Her friend was also curled up around a pillow, her back to Blake, and sleeping softly.
Blake lay back down. Why Yang had crawled into bed with her was unknown, but she was too tired to care, and having the warmth of another body was kind of pleasant. She found herself thinking about Sun Wukong, and wondered how he was doing, or even if he was still alive. There had been no word about how things were going in Israel against the GRIMM threat there—
Blake's eyes widened. Yang mumbled something and turned over, throwing her arm across her friend. She felt the other woman's copious breasts pressing into her back. Blake sighed, deciding that she could tolerate it for her friend, but then a hand suddenly moved and rested on one of her breasts. "Yang, no," she whispered, afraid to wake up Weiss. "Stop. These are unauthorized snuggles!"
"Numnh?" Yang stirred, and Blake went bright red as not only did Yang throw a leg over her, she squeezed the breast—at least, Blake thought to herself, it was her real hand rather than the metal one. Then she felt Yang stiffen, move, and found herself staring eye to eye with her wingmate. Yang stared down at her, suddenly realized where her hand was, and jerked it back like it was on fire. "Oh shit!" she said, then lowered her voice. "Oh shit. Sorry, Blakey." She moved her leg and fell back onto the other side of the bed. Blake turned over to look at her, cheeks still burning in embarassment. Yang smiled sheepishly. "I was having a pretty good dream. A really good dream."
"No shit! What are you doing in my bed?" Blake asked.
"Well…" Now it was Yang who blushed. "I…I couldn't sleep. My arm was hurting, and when it starts hurting…well, I usually end up having that nightmare. About Adam. So I thought maybe, if I crawled into bed with you or Weiss, I wouldn't." Yang thumped her head against the bed. "When I say it like that, it sounds like I'm ten or something. Sorry, Blake…I'm tired. My judgement is shot. What little I had to begin with."
"So you slept all right?"
"Yeah, actually…I really did." Yang looked apologetic. "I should've asked first, though. That was pretty dumb."
Blake turned back over. "I suppose you can stay. Just don't grope me or anything."
"What if I ask nicely?"
Blake couldn't hold back a chortle. Yang snickered. The scramble alarm went off. Both of them put their heads into their pillows and groaned.
Weiss was up instantly. She rolled out of bed and grabbed her flight suit. "Here we go again," she grumbled. "Mein Gott, Salem, don't you sleep?"
"Um, Weissy…" Yang began, as Weiss stepped into the legs of the flight suit.
"What are you two doing? Get up!" Weiss yelled. "And why are you in bed together? Is there something going on I don't know about? I swear, everyone but me..."
"Yang had a bad dream," Blake said, getting out of the bunk. "That's all. Ah, Weiss—"
"What? Do you not hear the scramble?" They both noticed that Weiss' German accent got more pronounced when she was tired.
"Weiss!" Yang finally shouted.
"What?!"
Yang got out of the bed and grabbed her flight suit. She pointed at Weiss. "You going to put on some underwear first, or go commando?"
Five minutes later, they were racing out of the dormitory, right onto a sidewalk that led to the hardstands of Ruby and Norn Flights. Pyrrha waved them over, the deep circles under her eyes betraying that she hadn't gotten much sleep either. Ren looked like he had been hit by a truck, and Qrow's stubble was growing into a beard. Only Nora seemed chipper, but somehow she had always been able to run on very little sleep.
"Gather 'round," Qrow said as the scramble alarm wound down. Down the line of hardstands, staggered to keep one string of bombs from hitting more than one aircraft, the ground crews were sweating and cursing, doing final checks and fueling the aircraft; against safety regulations, the aircraft had missiles preloaded as soon as the squadron had landed the night before. "Haisla picked up a pretty big formation, around Lvov, headed northwest, over here in what used to be western Russia." He pointed to the map in his hands. "Raid count is about fifteen. Looks like the same mix we ran into four days ago—Taijitus, with Beowolves as escort. If they stay on the same course, that means they're aiming for Lodz." All of them knew the significance of that target: Lodz was the headquarters of the 1st Armored Division.
Ruby looked at the map, and a slow grin spread across her face. "We're closer than Ace Flight, aren't we?"
Qrow returned her grin, though she saw concern in his bloodshot eyes. "They're on mandatory crew rest anyway. They took an intercept about 0200. It's all us."
"Hell yeah!" Nora pulled a map out of her knee pocket, compared it to Qrow's map, and made a few quick notes with a pencil. Then she stood on tiptoe, kissed Ren on the cheek, and dashed away for her A-10. "I'll get in the air!" she called back over her shoulder. "Meet you there!" Ruby almost stopped her, then realized Nora was thinking ahead: the sooner her slow A-10 got in the air, the better.
Qrow opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it, and then went over tanker tracks, safe bailout zones, and radio frequencies, which Ren—rather morosely, Ruby thought—said he would pass on to Nora once they were all in the air. When he was finished, Oscar raised a hand. "Look," he said, "I don't want you folks thinking I'm a coward—"
"We'd never think that," Pyrrha told him. Oscar had saved her life the day before, shooting a Beringal off her tail.
"I was thinking—we need to tell Ironwood what happened with JINN. It's been too long, and the longer we wait, the more pissed he's going to be. So if it's okay with you, Colonel, I'm going to go over to Ironwood's HQ and talk to him. I hate to sit this one out, but…"
Qrow nodded. "No, that's a good idea. I can take your place in Norn Flight. We'll see you when we…well, later." He had caught himself: fighter pilots tended to be rather superstitious, and one common belief was that a pilot never talked about coming back. Death was waiting at the border, and none of them knew who would be at dinner that night.
Oscar nodded, noticed that Yang's attention was diverted by Nora taxiing out of her hardstand, and gave Ruby's hand a quick squeeze. He then walked briskly away, to arrange transportation to Ironwood's headquarters. Ruby watched him go, then Qrow broke up the meeting by clapping his hands.
As they all dispersed, Yang jogged next to her sister. "Hey, where were you?" She had to raise her voice over the din of the A-10's engines. "You weren't in the dorm!"
"I crashed on Pyrrha's couch!" As a major, Pyrrha had a room to herself. Yang looked to Pyrrha, who had been close enough to hear. She nodded. Yang looked back to Ruby, nodded herself, and clapped her sister on the back as they reached Ember Celica in its hardstand.
"She still doesn't know, does she?" Weiss remarked into Blake's ear. The Faunus smothered a smile and shook her head.
Near Grojec, Republic of Poland
24 August 2001
The clouds had thickened as a summer thunderstorm swept across Poland, but it provided little cover for the GRIMM: the AWACS' radar saw right through it. Qrow had ordered all of the eight fighters to leave their radars off; apparently the GRIMM had done the same thing. Both sides were now sneaking around: Ruby and Norn flights trying to lay in an ambush, the GRIMM trying to slip past to hit their targets. The clouds might not be much cover against radar, but they were cover against human and Faunus eyes, and drone proximity sensors.
Qrow dipped the F-117's wing and checked outside the narrow canopy of his aircraft. The Nighthawk wasn't really built for this sort of thing. "Haisla, Qrow…no joy."
"Qrow, Haisla. Bandits are at five miles, bearing zero-two-zero, angels twenty." That was to the front and off to the left, and below: the fighters were at 30,000 feet. He craned his head, but there were too many clouds. He was about to ask the AWACS for another vector when suddenly Ruby sang out, "Ruby, tally-ho! Seven Taijitus, eight Beowolves, ten o'clock low!" Qrow's eyes went to that, but from his angle, he still couldn't see it. He had to trust Ruby's eyes, which were rarely wrong.
"Roger that. Here we go." Qrow knew he sounded like he was watching a particularly boring race begin, but that was to keep everyone calm. "Ruby Flight, wait five and roll in. Pyrrha, I have the lead."
"Roger that." Pyrrha had given Qrow the lead when they had gotten within fifteen miles of the GRIMM, acknowledging his seniority. Ren and Nora were well behind them, but that was on purpose. Qrow had been baiting a very elaborate trap, and he was about to spring it.
Ruby took a deep breath of pure oxygen to get her heart under control. Thoughts raced through her mind: she could come out of this with enough kills to tie Yang. She could also be about to die. She spared a quick prayer for her flight, thought of Oscar for a second, watched the clock, and then rolled onto her left wing. "Ruby's in." Behind her, Weiss waited a moment, then rolled in behind the F-16, opening the range a bit. Yang and Blake followed, also opening up their formation. They went through the clouds, visibility going to nil in a second, raindrops pattering against her canopy and streaking past. Then she was through, coming out of the bottom of the cloud, and there were the GRIMM.
It wasn't the largest formation she'd ever seen by any stretch, but it was impressive all the same. The catamaran-like Taijitu were in the middle in a loose circle, while the Beowolves were arrayed around it as escort. The bombers were contrailing, which was unusual; even the GRIMM avoided contrailing, as it pointed directly to them. She checked the range—ten miles—and switched on her radar. Every one of the GRIMM would detect that, but a second later, she pulled the trigger. "Ruby, Fox Two!"
The AMRAAM crossed the distance in seconds, and one of the trailing Beowolves disintegrated. Ruby immediately slammed the throttle forward and engaged her afterburner, shooting ahead to make her next attack before the GRIMMs' electronic brains could register they were under attack. She shot past one Beowolf and lined up on one of the Taijitu. She had forgotten that the bombers had rear turrets, and the drone reminded her of this fact. Tracers split the sky around Crescent Rose, Ruby yelped, abandoned her attack, and climbed.
Weiss saw the F-16 fly upwards into the clouds, and shook her head: Ruby was being too aggressive, and had made a mistake. But then the Taijitu made a bigger one: the bomber formation, rather than staying together in a mutually supporting combat box, began to break up and scatter. It was, quite simply, the worst thing the GRIMM could do.
Not that Weiss minded. There had been three Taijitu to the rear of the formation: the one Ruby had nearly been shot down by, and the two in front. Weiss realized she had closed the distance a little fast as well, and opened her speedbrake to slow down. She switched to guns, lined up, and opened fire. The heavy 27 millimeter slugs chopped into the GRIMM's left engine, which sparked, smoked, and caught fire. The bomber slowly began to roll over onto the dead engine, and Weiss switched to her second target. "DUST, IRIS," she responded. Myrtenaster automatically switched to infrared missiles, and locked on. "Weiss, Fox Two." Weiss pulled the trigger twice, and two of the extremely fast IRIS missles darted off the rails and slammed into the Taijitu. One of them struck the bomb bay, and the GRIMM vanished in an explosion; Weiss pulled the stick back into her lap and vaulted the explosion. "Weiss, splash two and three."
"Pyrrha, break and attack. I'm CAP." Qrow climbed away from Pyrrha, releasing her to seek her own prey. With a veteran's instincts, he had a feeling that this battle could easily degenerate into a wild melee, with everyone getting in each other's way in the confusion. He skimmed the bottom of the clouds, then rolled inverted, ten thousand feet above the dogfight, to control it. "Haisla, Judy," he instructed, which would keep the E-3's controllers quiet for now; they would break in if they needed to, but he wanted the net clear.
Qrow kicked the tail of the F-117 around, and saw two Beowolves go down within seconds of each other, courtesy of Yang and Blake. Two of the rightmost Beowolves had turned to engage, but one of them exploded as Pyrrha took it down with a Sidewinder. The second was blown apart as it tried to engage the Raptor, hit by a medium-range AMRAAM shot from Yang. Ruby's going to be pissed, Qrow thought with a smile. Speaking of his youngest niece, he saw her F-16 flash downwards out of the clouds to take on one of the remaining Beowolves.
He rolled back to level flight and dipped the nose. "Ren, Nora. Two Taijitu descending. All yours. One Beowolf accompanying the bombers; Pyrrha, he's yours." Two clicks of the mike.
Nora grinned behind her oxygen mask. This was a new tactic they had tried out the day before, and it had worked: she and Ren held low, waiting for the others to flush GRIMM to them, operating where the A-10 operated best. Ren didn't seem to mind—at least, Nora thought, he hadn't said anything. She peered forward, and saw the two bombers break through a cloud. "Ren, I've got the one on the left."
"Roger, I'm on the right. Going to guns. Watch theirs." Nora nodded, though Ren couldn't see her: the Taijitu sported heavy cannon in both noses and they were going head-on. Ren swung his J-10 out and to the right to clear the GRIMM's guns, then raked the Taijitu with his own. He marched shells down the length of the catamaran drone. Flames erupted from the holes, and the GRIMM became a torch.
Nora bore straight in, and actually waited until the Taijitu began to fire. Ren saw the movement and he screamed "Nora!" Almost in slow motion, he saw the smoke of the heavy cannon shells from the GRIMM, but Nora effortlessly avoided them, climbed a bit, then put down the A-10's nose. Gunsmoke streamed backwards from the nose as the Avenger gatling cannon tore the Taijitu apart.
"Ren, break left!" Ren did so without even thinking, and realized he had done something stupid as well: he had let himself get distracted. As he went to the left and down, rolling and checking behind him, he saw the Beowolf flare and explode under a Sidewinder from Ruby. "Ruby, splash two!" He curved right to get back in the fight, just as yet another GRIMM went down under Pyrrha's guns.
"Forget the damn fighters!" Yang shouted over the open net. "It's the bombers we want!" She flew through a contrail and concentrated on one of the Taijitu, still doggedly trying to reach its objective, over thirty miles away.
"Qrow, Pyrrha, raid count!" Pyrrha's voice was ragged with G-forces.
"Three Taijitu left!"
Yang closed in, dodged the return fire from the rear turret, and opened fire with her F-23's guns. The 20 millimeters pounded the bomber, but she evidently hadn't hit anything vital. She realized she was overtaking the bomber, pulled off the power, and rolled off to the left. "Yang's off; Blake, take him!"
"On it," Blake replied, and made her own guns pass, afraid to use a missile because there were other aircraft in the area. As she pulled away from mortally wounded Taijitu, her eyes widened: her friends were actually queueing up to fire on the two remaining GRIMM. Weiss was closing into guns range, while behind her Ren dropped in to wait his turn. Behind Ren came Ruby. Weiss exhausted her ammunition, pulled away, and Ren finished off the bomber; Ruby rode the kill down until she was sure it was finished.
"Hell," Qrow said to himself, "this isn't a battle; this is a massacre." He keyed the mike. "You're on the last one, Nora!" Pyrrha was angling in, but broke off; Nora had the better sight picture.
"Woo-hoo!" Nora came in behind and under the Taijitu and opened fire. The GAU-8 sawed off one catamaran, and the GRIMM tumbled into the ground below.
Qrow checked around. "Haisla, Qrow, any other bandits?"
"Negative, Qrow, scope's clear." The controller sounded impressed. "Bravo Zulu, you guys. We were sending down Dragon Flight of the Huntresses to help, but doesn't look like you need it."
"Easy day, Haisla. Break break. Ruby, Norn Flights, let's head for the barn. Damn fine job today."
Poznan-Krezesiny Airbase
Poznan, Republic of Poland
24 August 2001
Nora leapt into Ren's arms, still wearing her helmet. "Renny! Did you see that? Shit hot, man!" She giggled and booped his nose. Her momentum spun them around, and Ren set her down. She dashed back to her A-10 and planted a kiss on the gun housing in the nose. "You did good today, Magnhild! Mommy's proud of you!" She threw her laughing crew chief a V-for-Victory sign. "Paint two more on there, Kathy!" There were already ten kill marks on the side of the A-10.
"Nora, we need to talk." Nora turned at the seriousness in Ren's voice. She suddenly realized he wasn't smiling.
Ruby unzipped her flight suit, wrinkled her nose at the sweaty smell, and tossed it into her locker, then pulled off her underwear, which were in no better shape. Guess I need to do some laundry. She grabbed a towel and wrapped it around herself, and headed for the shower. Yang didn't even bother with the towel, and just walked naked across the women's locker room. Pyrrha, who was taking off her own flight suit, turned red and looked away. "Sis!" Ruby yelled. "Put some clothes on!"
"Why? This is my house; I'll do what I want." Yang stuck out her tongue and walked into the clouds of steam coming from the shower. "Don't use all the hot water, Blakey!"
The door slammed shut and Weiss walked in, her white hair matted to her head from two hours under a helmet. She advanced directly on Ruby, her boots squelching across the floor. "Ruby!"
"'Sup, Weissy?" Ruby grinned at her. "Hey, I think you're up to 24 now! I'm still a half-kill behind, but—"
Weiss didn't stop walking, forcing Ruby to back up against a locker. "Yang! Blake! Get out here!" she shouted. Yang, on the threshold of the shower, stopped and looked back quizzically; Blake stuck her head out from around a corner, trying to blink shampoo suds out of her eyes. "This goes for all of us, but especially you, Ruby!" She poked her friend in the chest. "You almost got killed out there today!"
"Huh?" Ruby was confused; it had been one of the easiest missions she'd ever been on.
"Your first attack. After you splashed the Beowolf, and went after the Taijitu. You know, the one that almost shot you down with the rear turret? The one you almost collided with?"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Weiss!" Ruby protested. "I didn't almost collide with it. I was overshooting, yeah, but that's an exaggeration—"
"No, it isn't!" She poked Ruby again. "You went after it like there wasn't another GRIMM in the sky. Or me. That's the worst part, Ruby—you left your wingmate. You never do that!" She was yelling now; Ruby noticed that Weiss' scar tended to go purple when she was well and truly angry. She backed off a step, and threw an angry glance at Blake and Yang. "Have we forgotten every damn thing we learned at Beacon?"
Yang and Blake were silent, glancing at each other, too shocked at the explosion of anger from the normally reserved Weiss Schnee. They also knew she was right, and so did Ruby. In her mind's eye, she saw the tracers coming from the rear turret. After they had landed, she had quietly checked over Crescent Rose during postflight, but there were no hits on the F-16. "I'm sorry, Weiss," she said quietly.
Weiss glared at her, then she closed her eyes. "I know, Ruby. But sorry isn't going to be enough if I have to tell your father that you're dead." She opened them and stepped away. "Look. We all want kills, yes. But I think we're starting to get a little obsessed with them. We're all keeping track, and trying to catch Pyrrha—" She smiled at the Greek girl, who looked even more embarrassed "—but we can't get sloppy or careless, trying to be the one who paints the most kill stars on the side of our aircraft. That's how we get killed…and I've already buried enough friends for a lifetime."
"Buck fever," Ruby said quietly. They all looked at her. "I, um, read about it in a book." She wasn't about to admit she'd heard it from Oscar with Yang standing there. "It's when pilots get more concerned with kills than anything else. And they get killed. Weiss is right." Ruby slid down the locker, putting her head against her knees. "Dammit. I messed up."
"We're all guilty of it," Blake sighed, wiping her face. "Easy days like today don't help."
Pyrrha opened her mouth to say something, then suddenly beetled her eyebrows together in thought. "Today was easy," she remarked into the silence. "In fact…it was too easy."
Yang nodded. "The GRIMM were pretty dumb today, even for them."
"Which doesn't make sense, because Salem is not dumb!" Pyrrha zipped her flight suit back up. "Get your showers, girls, and meet me in the ready room. I think we need to talk about this." The door crashed shut again, admitting Nora. "You too, Nora." Then she noticed Nora's expression was somber, not at all the ebuillent girl they were used to. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah," Nora said, opening her locker. "Everything's great."
Ruby and Norn Flights—less Oscar, who hadn't gotten back yet—filed into the ready room. Qrow raised his flask to take a drink, and Ruby's eyes widened. He smiled and handed it to her. "Lemonade." She sniffed the flask, breathed a sigh of relief—her uncle was still on the wagon—and handed it back. "What's up?" he asked Pyrrha, folding his lanky frame into a seat.
Pyrrha waited until everyone was seated, and spared Ren and Nora a concerned look. She knew them better than anyone, and from Ren's expression, or lack thereof, and Nora's subdued mood, she assumed they had fought. It happened occasionally; they weren't the perfect couple everyone thought they were. But who is? Pyrrha thought to herself, briefly remembered Jaune and then Clover, and pushed those thoughts away. She needed to concentrate on the here and now, not the past and a possible future.
Pyrrha brought up a map of Poland on the overhead screen, projected onto a whiteboard. "I know all of us want to get back to bed or get some lunch," she began. The fight with the GRIMM had lasted only five minutes, and it wasn't even noon yet. "And I promise this won't take too long." She picked up a dry erase marker and went to the whiteboard. "Let's go through all the intercepts that we've done over the past four days—Ace Flight, too. And the Huntresses, if you know them."
"Well," Yang said, "there was the fight we had over by Krakow…" Pyrrha made a small circle near the city. Then Ruby chimed in with another fight they had on the 21st, around the Polish-Czech border at Nowy Targ. Ren added some fights that Ace Flight had, then Nora—who seemed to know the most about the Huntresses' intercepts—spoke up. Finally, Pyrrha added the day's battle, east of Lodz, and stepped back. "There's a pattern."
Qrow got up, and walked to the map. "There sure as hell is." One hand swept over a few scattered marks in northeast Poland, across the Vistula River. "Here's where the Huntresses have been busy." His hand swept down to the southeast. "And here's where we and the Aces have been." He tapped the center. "And there's nothing here." He ran a finger down the Vistula. "400 miles, in the center. Except for today, nothing. All the intercepts have either been to the north or south—not here in the center." He pointed at the ruins of Warsaw.
"Do we know where the Army is?" Weiss asked.
"I think I remember." Pyrrha grabbed another marker and made loose red circles around where she thought the NATO divisions were placed. When she was done, no one spoke, because they all saw it: the center was weak compared to the flanks. There were still enough troops there, but they were spread thinner than the Polish divisions to the north and the American divisions to the south.
"Not good," Yang said. "But Ironwood has to have seen that."
"Jimmy has," Qrow confirmed. "He's too good to miss something like this. But right now, we've been hit hardest in the flanks, so he's beefed those up. He's worried Salem's going to try to encircle his whole army between the Vistula and the German border-like what happened to the Poles back in World War II."
"Salem's not going to hit us in the flanks," Ren said. "She's going to go straight down the middle."
"But that doesn't make any sense!" Ruby got up and looked at the map. "Why throw GRIMM at us? Why not just keep everything ready until she's ready to move? Why keep us constantly up, fighting her…" Ruby's voice trailed off, as realization dawned on her.
"To wear us down," Ren answered. "To wear us down that when she does hit, we'll be too exhausted to fight back effectively."
"Or to notice this," Blake put in. She stood up. "I'll be the devil's advocate here. What if Salem is this stupid? What if she is just trying to weaken the flanks by pounding away at them?"
"She hasn't exactly been stupid," Qrow reminded her. "Yeah, we stopped her at Japan, but that's because we had some inside information. She beat us at Beacon, even though we tripped the White Fang's first attack early. Didn't matter, because the Fang were never her primary strike force. It was always the damn Wyvern." He took a drink of lemonade, wishing it was indeed something stronger. "She made us think we'd stopped her cold after Mountain Glenn and Winter using the B-52s. She was just warming up." He slammed a fist into the whiteboard. "Just like she's doing now."
"We've gotta tell Ironwood!" Ruby exclaimed. "I mean, what if he hasn't seen it? He's been kind of distracted too."
"Jimmy's going to want proof." Qrow pitched his voice in a fair imitation of Ironwood's. "'I'm not running around like a wet hen, Branwen!'"
"Then we get it. A recon mission." Blake walked forward, got the red marker from Pyrrha, and traced a line from Poznan to east of the Vistula. "Start here, around Warsaw. Go all the way as far east as the Pripyat Marshes, then come back. If there's anything there, we should be able to pick it up." Blake shrugged. "I'll do it."
"Whoa, whoa," Ruby said. "Why you? Ironwood can do a satellite pass, or maybe he can whistle up a SR-71—"
"Too high. We need to get down fairly low. And I'm the only one here with that kind of experience. My Tomcat can carry a TARPS pod, remember?"
"Yeah, we remember," Yang told her. "We remember that you almost got your ass shot off by Roman Torchwick over Cleveland."
Blake smiled. "Well, Yang, I suppose you'll just have to watch my ass, won't you?"
"You bet your ass!" Yang grinned.
"Can we stop talking about Blake's ass?" Weiss wanted to know. Everyone laughed, even Ren and Nora; they needed it.
"Four aircraft. No more than that," Blake said after the laughter had subsided. "Anything more, Salem's going to know we're looking around. Four aircraft might look like a CAP that got lost."
"That's us, then," Ruby said.
"When?" Pyrrha asked.
Blake had already put her flight suit back on. "No time like the present."
AUTHOR'S NOTES, SUPPLEMENTAL: Buck fever is a real thing, and Weiss and Oscar are right to be worried about it. Several fighter pilots have gotten killed trying to beat people ahead of them-it was such a problem in Korea that the USAF actually started pulling pilots out of the theater when they started taking chances. If you want to know where I got the inspiration for the massacre of the GRIMM, watch the movie "Battle of Britain," or just look up "Heinkel Turkeyshoot" on YouTube.
A quick bit of explanation, from an author's point of view: I know there are several people who are not pleased with Pyrrha and Clover becoming something of an item, and there might be White Rose fans who aren't happy with Ruby and Oscar becoming lovers (maybe it's a little easier in this story, since they're older and Ozpin isn't hanging around in Oscar's head), and there will be people pissed about the little buzz of Bumblebee in this chapter. The truth is, I'm a big Rosegarden shipper, based on the fact that Ruby and Oscar do seem to be pretty sweet on each other canonically. I'm a Bumblebee shipper too, but so far in this story, the characters themselves don't seem to be interested in each other all that much, having had different experiences than their canon counterparts. Will Yang "sleeping" with Blake mean they get closer? We'll see, but for now, they're just buddies.
As far as Pyrrha and Clover go, I get that readers are a little worried (and miffed) that Pyrrha's being set up with a guy we know that, in canon, is a dead man walking. But remember-that's canon. I've broken canon several times in this story-as Jaune Arc could tell you-and I ask my readers to have patience. Maybe Clover doesn't die in the battle with Tyrian. Maybe he does, but it's different. And maybe his attempts at romance with our favorite redhead aren't at all what they seem. Clover was a pretty nice guy and good buddies with Qrow (or more, depending on your POV) in canon RWBY...but there's a reason why he hasn't been as prominent in this story as he was in Season 7. Have patience, and see how this all pans out.