AUTHOR'S NOTES: And here we go.

Swidwin, Poland

7 September 2001

9:00 AM Local

"Are you sure you can fly this?" Winter Schnee asked Penny Polendina.

Penny ran her hand along the nose of the F-18. "Oh, yes. It's really easy to fly. I took it up a bit last night, and I've read the manual. I'll take good care of it for Oscar. I know I've been flying mostly B-1s, but I am combat ready, Colonel!"

Winter nodded. "Well…good luck, Penny." She wanted to say something more, but the words were not there. Winter Schnee was not known for her eloquence.

"You're not coming with us?" the clone girl asked.

"No…not immediately." She nodded towards her Typhoon, which only carried a brace of Sidewinders. "I'm going to fly back to Berlin and rearm. They finally got those damned Meteor missiles—we've been only waiting for three months now. I'm also going to check on General Ironwood. He and what remains of Ace Flight flew back to Tegel. Something doesn't seem right there."

"I'm sure it'll be okay." Penny started to begin her preflight, then stopped and reached into a pocket of the flight suit. "Here."

Winter took the envelope. It had her name on it. "What's this?"

"Something I've been meaning to do for awhile." Penny winked. "Nothing earthshaking. See you when we get back."

Winter put a hand on Penny's shoulder. "Penny…be careful up there today. I think Salem is going to make a run at those transports. If she can disrupt the evacuation, then we're going to be in a very bad way."

"Yeah, I know." Penny patted her hand. "You be careful too, okay? And keep an eye on the general. He didn't seem…right."

Winter nodded. "Good luck," she repeated, ducked under the nose of the F-18, and began walking towards the Typhoon. As she walked across the busy tarmac, where the Happy Huntresses and the Poles were arming up for the day's mission, she saw Qrow climbing into his F-117. They had already discussed Winter going to Berlin the night before, among other things. He waved at her, and she waved back. Then she put Qrow, Penny, and everyone else out of her mind. It was going to be a busy day.

Berlin-Tegel International Airport

Berlin, Federal Republic of Germany

9:15 AM

Harriet and Elm came to attention as Ironwood came out of the cockpit of the B-52. He returned their salutes. "Good morning."

"Good morning, sir!" Harriet barked. Then she couldn't keep the awe out of her voice. "Your bird, sir?"

Ironwood smiled up at the B-52. "This one is mine, yes." As SACEUR, Ironwood was automatically assigned a small fleet of executive aircraft, but he had used few of them, and asked that the B-52 he had flown while still on flight operations be assigned to him. It was the only aircraft in the USAF that carried his name beneath the canopy, and four stars beneath that. He had never thought to give it a name. His smile faded and he motioned them to follow. They ducked beneath the long fuselage and stood up inside the Stratofortress' cavernous bomb bay. Even Elm had no trouble standing up straight in it. A group of enlisted men had just finished loading a large cyndrical object, and Ironwood politely asked them for some time alone. Once they were out of the bay, Ironwood pointed to the object. "I know both of you have volunteered to accompany me today, but I wanted you to know what I'm carrying. This is a modified ICBM warhead, with a yield of two megatons—identical to the one that was detonated the other day. Its existence violates just about every arms treaty that exists…but Salem never signed those treaties, did she?" Both women shook their heads. "So here is what I'm going to do. I am going to drop it just east of our lines in northcentral Poland. It will be an airburst, so there will be very little fallout, but it will obliterate anything within six miles of ground zero. Assuming I live through dropping the damn thing, I'm going to fly back here, refuel, and head to Washington. Maybe they court-martial me; maybe they give me a medal. I don't give a damn anymore, to be honest—but at least I'll have saved my troops."

"General," Elm cautioned, "depending on where you drop that, you might kill a lot of Polish civilians. There hasn't been the same amount of evacuees in the north as in the south."

"Collateral damage, I'm afraid," Ironwood said.

"How are you going to drop it?" Harriet wanted to know. "I didn't see a crew, sir."

Ironwood led them back out of the bay. "This B-52 was the first prototype for the Paladin Project. It was modified so one person could fly it, as well as drop the bombs and even use the tail guns." He pointed at the M61 Vulcan gatling cannon in the tail. "It still has places for a full crew, but I can fly it to the target and back myself." Though it's going to be a hell of a lot of work, he thought. One reason why the Paladin Project had been moved to a B-1—aside from the Lancer's far superior maneuverability—was because the workload in the B-52 tended to be too much for a single person.

The worry must have shown on his face, because Harriet noticed it. "General…with all due respect, you're not trying to get yourself killed, are you?"

Good question, Ironwood considered. The thought had occurred to him. Certainly the politicians would prefer it—dead heroes like Ozpin were so much easier to scapegoat. "No, Harriet."

"But this thing is going to be a lot of work for one person, right?"

"Harriet—"

"I volunteer as your copilot, sir."

Elm's mouth dropped open, and Ironwood shook his head. "You'd be better off as an escort, Harriet. Besides, have you ever flown a BUFF before?" He used the B-52's nickname.

"How hard can it be, sir? It's just a bomber."

Ironwood had to laugh at the fighter pilot arrogance, but he gave it some thought. It would be easier with two people. "That would leave us with just one escort—I don't think we need a third person in the B-52, Elm."

"For which I thank God, General." Elm obviously wanted no part of the bomber.

"True, sir—but if Salem's forces see a single large aircraft with a single escort, they'll believe it's a weather reconnaissance aircraft or an Elint bird or something. A bomber would have bloody well more than one escort! Sir," Harriet finished, remembering just how much Ironwood outranked her.

Ironwood slowly nodded. "That's true." He came to a decision. "All right, Flight Lieutenant Bree—climb aboard. I'll walk you through preflight and everything else while Elm gets her F-35 into the air."

"Yes, sir!" Harriet replied with a grin, then stopped. "Sir, I'm a Flying Officer."

"Not anymore. I can still promote people. Pretty sure that NATO owes me that much."

Harriet threw Elm a quick, jaunty salute, then headed for the B-52. She exchanged a more solemn one with Ironwood, then shook his hand. As she watched the short woman and the tall man climb into the immense bomber, Elm wiped her eyes. "This is madness," she whispered. "Utter madness."

Near Leszno, Poland

7 September 2001

10:05 AM

Cinder Fall looked out of the bifurcated windscreen of the Night Raven. She really hadn't had time to appreciate flying it the night before, in the short subsonic jaunt from Poland to Germany, but now that she was flying sedately along at 40,000 feet through scattered clouds, she admitted to herself that she liked it. For such a large aircraft, it was fairly light on the controls, and the cockpit was laid out well, with all the information she needed on three multifunction displays, backed up by analog displays. Visibility to the rear was very limited, but there was a rearward facing camera between the two tails to at least partially alleviate that.

She kept the Night Raven in the clouds as much as she could: it would stand out against the sky due to its shape and size, and Cinder was well aware how good Ruby Rose's eyesight was. She checked the clock, smiled underneath the oxygen mask, and pressed the radio button on the throttle. "Raven to Assassin. Start the show."

Ruby Rose was also admiring the sky. Today the sky was blue, with white fluffy clouds all around, above and below. It was hard to believe that the air below was still charged with radioactivity; the walk to the flightline had been at a run, the aircraft washed off before takeoff. The radiation was still not enough to be deadly, but the Geiger counters at Zagan had shown a definite increase. Ruby craned her head behind her. Far off in the distance on the northeast horizon, she could see the buildup of clouds, already starting to create a thunderhead. That would grow to a line of thunderstorms, which might help wash away the fallout already on the ground—or bring more of it down.

She moved the tail of Crescent Rose around a little more, and got a much better sight, the first formation of evacuation aircraft. It was certainly a mixed bunch: there were a dozen aircraft of three different manufacturers from six different airlines. Four were 747s marked with the golden eagle of Lufthansa and the stylized Union Jack of British Airways; four were 777s, more Lufthansa but two with the golden lion of Menagerie Airlines; bringing up the rear was the single Airbus A330 in Air France livery. In the middle, unmistakable at any distance, was the hideous, misshapen Airbus Beluga, a heavily modified A300 with a bulbous fuselage designed to fly entire wing sections between factories. This was a prototype, and it was filled with refugees and luggage. Out front was the real surprise of the day: an aging Boeing 727, in Pan American Airways colors. It had arrived that morning, flown by a crew of old men who had flown it to Wroclaw on their own, because they wanted to help. Aging or not, the 727 still took aboard a hundred refugees.

Almost an afterthought, behind and below the Beluga, was the Snowball Shipping Gulfstream. Ruby spared a special prayer for that one, because in its narrow fuselage sat Oscar Pine, Nora Valkyrie, and Whitley and Willow Schnee. To get out of the fallout pattern as quickly as possible, the aircraft—once formed up into the nearest equivalent of a combat box Ruby could get out of the commercial pilots—had gone north, then turned west. They were over central Poland, a lot closer to the front lines than Ruby liked, but it minimized further contamination and brought the formation closer to any mutual support Robyn Hill, Winter Schnee, and Qrow Branwen might be able to provide.

"Ruby Lead, Haisla." The E-3 AWACS had long since been up, orbiting over the Oder River. "Bogey, bearing zero-nine-zero, thirty miles, angels twenty-five and climbing, speed three-zero-zero. Positive squawk." Ruby might have breathed a little easier at the latter—that meant a friendly aircraft—but the AWACS said something that stopped that relief instantly: "No flight plan."

Since Ruby was playing shooter, her radar was off. Weiss, two miles to Ruby's right, was eyeball. "Unidentified aircraft at thirty miles, course zero-one-two, this is Ruby Two. Identify yourself or I will shoot. Buddy spike," Weiss added, letting whoever it was know that Myrtenaster was locked on with an AMRAAM.

"Ruby Two, Huntress Blue Three," the voice replied, with a slight French accent, "hold fire. I'm a friendly. Authentication Rainbow." Ruby looked down at the radio codes in one of her clear flight suit pockets. Rainbow was the correct authentication for Robyn's Blue Squadron, the other section of the Huntresses Ruby hadn't interacted with much. "Huntress Blue Three is a Draken. Took off from Wittstock a little while ago to rejoin my squadron—I was undergoing maintenance there." Huntress Blue Three let the radio button go for a second, in case anyone needed to break in.

Ruby did just that. "Huntress Blue Three, Ruby Lead. We'll clear you through our AO, but stay ten miles out from Echo Flight." That was the code for the evacuation flight. Ten miles was still a little close, just in case this was someone unfriendly, but the Draken couldn't carry radar missiles—at least that Ruby was aware of.

"Roger that, ten miles."

Ruby was about to add something else when the E-3 broke in. "All Little Friends, Haisla! Bandits, bandits, bearing three-five-one, speed five hundred, range one hundred and closing! Raid count—" the controller paused for a moment "—raid count is thirty, I say again, three-zero bandits."

GRIMM, Ruby thought, her heart rate jumping. Salem was making her first move, and it was against the evacuation convoy. Dammit, I knew she couldn't just let us go, the bitch. She supposed it could be worse.

"Ruby, Haisla, Norn Lead. We and Dragon have the intercept." Pyrrha's voice was calm, almost bored sounding. "Dragon, you have the lead; Norn Two, Four, and Five will support." Ruby climbed a little and looked behind her again, watching as seven specks detached from behind the airliners and turned east—what would be the four F-15s of Foulke's Dragons, Ren's J-10, Marrow's F-35, and Emerald's MiG-21. Pyrrha was testing the former thief's loyalties early. "Norn Three, you and I will backstop." She was keeping Penny and herself close by the rear of the evacuation flight, in the likely event some GRIMM broke through.

"Ruby Lead, Huntress Blue Three! Mind if I join in?"

"Huntress Blue Three, Ruby—be my guest." Ruby had to smile at that. The Draken was another one of Robyn's antiques, but it was still a good aircraft in the hands of a good pilot, and right now anything would be a help.

"Ruby, Haisla. New contact, bandits, bearing zero-eight-nine, angels thirty, course one-six-one, speed four hundred, raid count fifty." Another pause, while Ruby's heart rate went up another notch. "No threat to Echo. Huntress, Haisla, I have trade for you…" Ruby shut the AWACS out of her thoughts; the new GRIMM formation was headed towards the NATO forces to the north, probably to attack there. That was Robyn's problem, not hers, which felt selfish to think, but Ruby reasoned she was only human. Looks like Salem's going for the full-court press. Those GRIMM attacking us might be a diversion! Still, might be some leakers there… "Ruby Lead to Ruby Three and Four. Close up." If she needed to take Weiss and engage any threats from the north, Yang and Blake would need to cover the front.

"Three!" Yang called out.

"Four," Blake reported in.

Ruby watched the F-23 and F-14 pull in a little closer, now less than a mile, and then caught movement. The aircraft turned slightly, and she recognized the unmistakeable double-delta design of the Saab Draken. It was painted a glossy dark green. Old Danish bird, Ruby mused as it flashed by, headed for the rear of the formation. SF.35XD—I think that's the designation—wait, what's that? Out of the corner of one eye, Ruby caught the flash of sunlight on metal, above and to the front.

A cloud went by beneath the Night Raven's nose, and Cinder spotted the formation below. Oh my, now that's a target-rich environment. I feel like a mosquito in a nudist colony—I don't know where to start. Cinder kept the radar off—the moment she turned it on, her aircraft would no longer be invisible to radar—but used the infrared sensor in the nose to line up her first shot. The reticle in the HUD fell on the Beluga. She reached forward to switch on the radar, then, to her surprise, she hesitated. There had to be at least five hundred people on the Beluga—men, women and children. For the briefest instant, Cinder saw her reflection in the windscreen—but it wasn't her, but a half-starved waif, wearing a dirty white shirt, her hair in pigtails, staring back in fear.

Who are you, Cinder Fall?

"I'm a killer! Leave me alone!" she snarled, blinked, and the memory was gone. All the same, she pushed the nose down slightly, and the pipper instead fell on the 727 in the lead. She angrily shoved away the thought that there were children aboard that aircraft too, and switched on the radar. It instantly locked on the target. "DUST, select radar missile!" Nothing happened, then she remembered. "Fucking Russian Hound!" Cinder snapped. "Pylevaya radiolocation rocketto!" Cinder then pulled the trigger.

In a split second, one of the weapon bays opened, kicking a Sparrow missile into the slipstream. The rocket motor ignited a second after that, and it crossed the distance between the Night Raven and the old airliner in less than a minute—Cinder had to keep her radar locked on, because unlike the AMRAAM, the Sparrow followed a guidance beam. That was little issue against a slow, nonmaneuvering target. The missile struck the airliner in the middle of the fuselage, lanced through the cabin, and exploded, touching off the fuel tanks. The 727 was blown into four pieces, the nose tumbling end over end, the wings falling like steel leaves, the tail actually continuing through the fireball before it too fell. From the explosion itself rained the main landing gear, seats, luggage, and human beings.

"Where the hell did that come from?" Yang shouted over the open net.

Blake's voice overrode her. "Haisla, Haisla, Ruby Four, Pan Am 727 is down, repeat, Pan Am 727 is down, no survivors! We're under attack!"

Ruby switched on her radar. "Ruby Lead, no joy—"

"Ruby Two, bandit, twelve o'clock high, angels forty!" Weiss had used the Typhoon's infrared sensor to pick up the Night Raven's engines.

"Cinder to Ruby on Guard." Guard was the one frequency everyone monitored, since it was usually used for emergencies; Ruby had kept the airliners on it. "Now that I have your attention, I just wanted to say…I knew your plan would be bold, but I never could have predicted all of this. At least, not without a little help from JINN. Now, which one should I kill next? The A330? The Beluga?" The Night Raven appeared from behind the clouds. "Which one, Ruby Rose?"

Ruby bared her teeth unconsciously behind her oxygen mask. She rammed the throttle forward and threw the F-16 into a climb. Her fingers switched from radar missiles to heat to guns in a moment; she needed to stitch the Night Raven across the canopy, to make sure that Cinder Fall would die. Weiss, being the good wingmate, followed her into the climb. So did Yang and Blake, throwing themselves to the north to box in the Night Raven.

Cinder seemed unconcerned; the Night Raven made no move to dodge. "I suppose I have all of you to thank for one last lesson. Sometimes, if you want to win…you simply can't do it alone."

All of them had forgotten about the Draken. It was something that Cinder and Neo had counted on. Unseen by anyone, Neo had slowed down, made a slow turn beneath the airliners, and now was below and behind Ruby. She checked the distance—it was a little far for her six Sidewinders, but the glowing tailpipe of the F-16 was bright against a cold blue sky. Neo grinned savagely and pulled the trigger twice, sending two missiles at Ruby.

Blake caught the flash of the missile launch to her left, and hesitated for a fatal moment, because she wasn't sure if the Draken was shooting at Ruby or at the Night Raven. As the missiles tracked, she screamed "Ruby! Break right!" knowing she was a second too late.

Ruby's hands moved instantly, throwing Crescent Rose to the right, towards Yang and Blake, dumping flares into her slipstream. One missile wavered and then chased a flare. The other made a minute course correction and headed straight for the F-16.

Yang reacted instinctively: her sister was in trouble, and she needed to do something. In the split-second she had, she threw the F-23 between Neo's Sidewinder and the F-16. The Sidewinder did not guide on Ember Celica so much as it simply collided with it, but the effect was the same. The warhead detonated a few feet from the F-23, sending telescoping rods through the aircraft at supersonic speeds. Fragments tore through one engine, which disintegrated, and severed the oil lines on the other. The fuel tanks were somehow missed. The shock of the hit threw the F-23's nose sideways, and Yang's helmeted head into the side of the canopy, dazing her. The starboard engine seized, and Ember Celica went into a flat spin, as the computer desperately tried to find power it no longer had.

"YANG!" Blake screamed, as the F-23 tumbled from the sky.

Weiss broke left, rolling away from both Cinder and Ruby, and saw her friend in trouble. She also saw the Draken climbing past. "Yang, get out of it!" she shouted. "Get out of it!"

Cinder, using the confusion Ruby Flight was now in to her advantage, pushed the throttle forward, shot through the airliner formation, then used the energy built into the dive to climb. She grinned. "Fight's on!"

Pyrrha leaned forward, trying to see what was going on, and switched on her radar. She thought she could see something going through the formation, but couldn't tell at this distance who it was. Below, she saw the burning remains of the 727 land in a field. "Skata," she breathed. Something had gone very wrong.

"Norn Lead, Norn Three, Night Raven at one o'clock level, climbing! Am engaging!" Before Pyrrha could say anything, the afterburners on Penny's F-18 lit, the centerline tank dropped away, and the Hornet surged forward in pursuit.

Pyrrha moved her throttle forward as well, only to be halted by the AWACS. "Haisla to all Little Friends. New contact—bandits, bearing two-zero-one, angels ten, speed 500. Raid count is twenty. This is Haisla, time is 1210 Zulu."

"Haisla, Norn Lead!" Pyrrha snapped. "Distance and heading!"

A slight pause; she wanted to reach through the radio net and punch the controller when seconds now counted. "Ah, sorry, Norn Lead, distance is three-zero miles, course one-two-one. Angels now twenty; bandits climbing."

"Dammit!" She wanted to rail at the E-3 for not detecting this new threat sooner, then realized the GRIMM had probably been at low level, taking advantage of the AWACS watching two—now three—other threats. Salem's not concentrating against the north, Pyrrha thought, she's coming after us. She made a quick survey of the situation. Yang was going down, whoever was in the Draken was enemy, and Cinder Fall was here. Penny could take over from Yang. Her flight and Dragon was already engaging the GRIMM coming up from the rear. It was a cold calcuation, but a logical one. She was the only one left.

Without further hesitation, Pyrrha snapped the F-22 over and headed for the GRIMM coming from the southeast, alone. "Norn Lead has the intercept on southeast bandits. Norn Two, when you can, I'll need you down here."

"Norn Lead, Haisla, raid count on southeast group is twenty, repeat, twenty bandits!"

"Haisla, Norn, judy." She didn't want to hear anything more from the AWACS. Twenty to one, she sighed to herself. I like those odds, Jaune.

"Yang! YANG!"

Yang blinked, and wondered for a moment why it was hard to breathe, why everything seemed to be blurry, and why Ruby and Blake were screaming at her. Then consciousness flooded back: it was hard to breathe because her G-suit was squeezing her, and everything was blurry and everyone was yelling because she was in a flat spin.

Yang forced her head away from the canopy, feeling like her skull weighed 90 pounds—which was a fair guess, at the moment—and looked at the altimeter, focusing on that. She knew if she looked outside she would become disoriented and die. The altimeter read 10,000 feet above the ground, and was spinning rapidly.

"Yang, eject, eject, eject!" Blake had followed her down, both to try and do something, and to keep Cinder from finishing Yang off.

"Nah…got this…" Yang's voice was reduced to a grunt from the high G-forces. Her right hand was still on the stick, so she rammed that forward as far as it would go to get the nose down. There were warning and caution lights on all over her instrument panel, but those would have to wait; Yang was determined to save the aircraft. She reached out with her left hand and threw down the landing gear lever and the ram-air generator, noting in passing that both engine RPMs were now reading zero; the generator, deployed into the slipstream, spun up and restored power to the computer, which would keep the F-23 in the air—though not for long, with no functioning engines.

Slowly, Ember Celica came out of the flat spin. Yang was able to look outside again, and noticed that she was very low; the altimeter read five hundred feet. She saw a straight stretch of road. "Blake, Yang! I'm gonna put it down on the road!"

"Yang, punch out, for God's sake—"

"Not yet, not yet," Yang chanted, both to Blake and herself. Not punching out. Not gonna lose another Ember. I got this. She raised the nose a little. "C'mon, baby, c'mon…"

"YANG, EJECT!" Blake screamed, because she realized what Yang hadn't: the F-23 simply did not have enough airspeed or enough altitude to glide. Yang was going to try the same trick Blake had weeks before when she had glided Gambol Shroud to Poznan, but Blake then had plenty of altitude and airspeed. Yang had neither.

Yang finally saw that: her sink rate was too high. The nose came up, but then it pitched up too high as the computer tried to compensate. The F-23 began to stall. Yang's hands had moved to the ejection handles, but now went back to the stick to get the nose back down—Ember Celica was trying to roll over on its back, which would eject Yang right into the ground. The nose came down, but the ground rushed up, and Yang knew she had only a second to do something.

There was a small lake to her left, and in an act of desperation, Yang shoved down the left rudder pedal. The F-23 yawed to one side. In a split-second of clarity, she realized that it would hit the water before she had time to eject.

Yang sighed. It was over. "Ah, shit."

Blake watched in horror as the F-23 hit the water of the lake nose down, almost flat. It nosed under almost instantly, the water rolling over the canopy and across the fuselage. The tail bobbed once and then went under. "Yang, Yang!" Blake cried. "Oh God!"

Ruby, who was now engaged by the Draken, had just enough time to shout, "Blake! Talk to me! Where's Yang?" It wasn't good radio etiquette, but it was also her sister.

Blake blinked away her tears as she orbited over the lake that had swallowed her best friend. She cleared her throat, her training overriding her emotions. "Haisla, Ruby Four. Ruby Three is down. No parachute." She looked upwards, where the Night Raven was reaching the apex of its climb. "You're going to fucking die." She rammed the throttles forward into a climb, leaving Yang's grave behind as she climbed after Cinder.

Cinder rolled out at the top of her climb. Ruby was dueling Neo, and she was happy to let the assassin to do that, for now—especially as there was a F-18 climbing up behind her. Who's this? she wondered. Oscar Pine is the only one of Ruby's bunch that flies a Hornet. But last I saw he was a battered wreck after what Hazel did to him. No way he's flying that.

It didn't matter. Cinder did much the same assessment that Pyrrha had. The F-18 was not yet within parameters; the aircraft's AMRAAMs would not be able to get a lock on the Night Raven. The F-14 was far below, though climbing hard; Cinder guessed correctly that it was Blake Belladonna, bent on revenge for losing a wingmate. It would be a few seconds before she was in range as well. Cinder dismissed further attacks on the airliners; they were just there to distract her opponents when necessary. Then she spotted Weiss Schnee's Typhoon, angling to find a shot at Neo.

"I suppose I should save your stupid ass," Cinder said, and dived. It ruined Penny's target picture, forcing her to dive after her, and the Night Raven was past before Blake could fire. She was within range of Weiss in seconds; the Typhoon was in its own dive, trying to catch the Draken, and Cinder was in Weiss' blind spot. She switched to guns and put the pipper between her opponents' engines.

"Why did you have to come back?" The voice, over Guard channel, brought Cinder up short. She knew that voice. "I've got you now, Cinder!"

Penny. Cinder instantly abandoned her attack on Weiss and broke hard to the left, even as she glanced down to the Night Raven's rearward facing camera. The F-18 was following her into the break, cutting into the turn. The Night Raven was a heavy interceptor, built for fast, slashing attacks, and Cinder knew she had made a mistake getting into a turning fight. She also realized, with a wry smile, that Penny of all people had baited her into doing exactly that. All Cinder could do was watch helplessly as the Hornet slid in behind her, at excellent parameters for a Sidewinder shot. She almost pulled the stick back into a hard climb, which Penny could not match, but had a better idea.

Cinder leveled out and slowed a bit. Her real fingers tensed on the stick, ready to climb or dive if she was wrong, the other, steel hand on the throttle, one finger poised over the countermeasures button, to drop flares behind her. Penny closed the distance quickly before Cinder saw the nose come up slightly, as her opponent shed some speed to avoid an overshoot, but then the nose came down. Cinder knew, as well as if it was her own fingers, that Penny was switching to guns. "Why didn't you just learn your lesson?" she said, still trying to taunt Cinder into making a mistake, not realizing in her inexperience that Penny herself had already made a fatal one.

"Oh, Penny," Cinder radioed, "I did." She let go of the radio button. "Ognevoy tylova zenitnoy oborony." Her mind translated it: fire rear defense missile.

Cinder had no idea if Raven Branwen's stolen aircraft had two rear defense missiles; certainly the owner of the Spring Maiden had never used it in their dogfight over Tsushima. The Hound's Night Raven did have them, courtesy of Ambrosius, who rather liked the idea of a fighter that could fire backwards as well as forwards. The missiles were small and guided by the Night Raven's tail radar, but as close as Penny was, the missile didn't need guidance. It shot straight down Penny's starboard intake and exploded. Most of the tail was blown off, and the F-18 pitched upwards and began to tumble and break up. Penny was not Yang, and in any case there was no point in trying to save an aircraft that was gone behind the wings and on fire. She let it tumble one more time, braced herself, and ejected. The canopy separated cleanly and Penny was rocketed free of the doomed Hornet. The seat dropped away a few seconds later and a parachute streamed behind Penny before it opened. As it did, her emergency beeper activated, blasting across every channel for a few seconds before Penny switched it off."

Blake saw the F-18 explode and Penny eject. "Goddammit," she breathed, then keyed her radio. Yang was gone, but Penny had a good parachute. Cinder was climbing away again, and Blake took up position between her and the parachute. "Haisla, Blake. Penny is down; good 'chute. Scramble Jolly Greens." She fought down a hiss of frustration. "I say again, Penny is down, Yang is down. Need Jolly Greens ASAP." I'm not going to lose two friends in one day.

Raszyn Radio Mast

Southwest of the Ruins of Warsaw, Poland

10:15 AM Local

Salem sat on a lawn chair, a map spread on her lap, her eyes hidden behind sunglasses. Next to her was another chair, and a radio. Ambrosius was controlling the GRIMM a hundred miles to the west, which left Salem essentially a spectator. If necessary, she could use the radio mast to override Ambrosius' control, but that invited Ironwood to use the Winter Maiden on her. For now, the mast was only receiving, not transmitting, and because the air battle's participants were all using Guard frequency, her radiomen were able to monitor it. With the volume turned up, Salem could hear every move, every transmission, and keep track of the battle as it developed.

"Your Grace?"

Salem turned in the chair. "Major Orumov." His command trailer was some distance away, controlling the one GRIMM that Ambrosius wasn't: a high-altitude Sphinx, which was not designed as a fighter, but as a combat controller, the GRIMM version of the AWACS. Its transmissions were low-frequency enough that it could not be triangulated. At least, we don't think so, Salem corrected herself. She had thought the GRIMM control transmissions couldn't be detected either.

"Ma'am, the Sphinx has picked up a single slow-moving, large target, vicinity Stargard." She consulted the map: that was just across the Oder River from the eastern border of Germany. "It appears to have just one escort."

"Odd. What's its course?"

"East-southeast, ma'am. Speed is about 400 miles an hour."

"Probably just a radiation sampling aircraft, or a weather…reconnaissance…" Salem suddenly got to her feet. "Show me." She followed Orumov back to his van, where there was a radar repeater, showing the crew there what the Sphinx was seeing. He pointed to the blip on the screen. It was by itself, except for another next to it. Both were far away from the air battle to the south, where Cinder was, or to a developing one to the north between the GRIMM there and the Happy Huntresses. "Where is the greatest concentration of our ground forces?" she asked.

Orumov looked confused at her question, but pointed to the screen. "Around here, Your Grace. Near Pila."

She traced the course with a fingernail. "Why would a single aircraft with virtually no escort be heading for the main concentration of our forces, except…" Suddenly Salem smiled. "Ah, of course. Of course. While I was using distractions to get at the evacuation flights, Ironwood was using them to distract me! A good maskirovka, General." She turned to Orumov. "Where are our reserves?"

"Here, ma'am. To the northeast and east of our position." He showed her on the screen. "We have twenty GRIMM here, at the northeast, and fifty east of the river. That is about all we have, Your Grace."

"That is a bomber," Salem said, pointing at the large blip. "Almost certainly a B-52, and James Ironwood is known to fly one. He's using these battles to slip by us."

"But why, Your Grace?" Orumov wanted to know. "A single B-52 can do some damage, but it can't stop our advance—"

"It can if it carries a nuclear weapon, Comrade Major. There were two nuclear warheads in the mine at Belchanow, and Ironwood recovered one. And now we know where it is, and where it's going." She nodded. "Commit the reserves; the northeast ones now, and bring up the eastern force as soon as possible. We have to stop Ironwood. Forget supporting the ground forces for now, and instruct Ambrosius to divert resources north if possible."

"That means using the radio, ma'am."

"We'll have to chance it, Comrade Major. If Ironwood gets through with that nuke, it will be academic—" She suddenly whipped around. "Wait, what was that? Turn that up, Sergeant!"

"Yes, ma'am." The sergeant reached forward and turned up a dial. "I say again, Penny is down, Yang is down. Need Jolly Greens ASAP." Salem didn't recognize the voice; it wasn't Ruby Rose.

"Penny? Penny Polendina?" Salem stepped forward, putting a hand on the sergeant's shoulder as she leaned forward. "Can we tell where that's coming from?"

"Right here, ma'am." The radar had an overlay of Poland beneath it. "It's actually not too far from where Ambrosius is."

"Do we have ground GRIMM in the area?"

"A few, Your Grace."

"Send them there immediately." She straightened up and returned her attention to Orumov. "Belay those orders to Ambrosius. His objective now is the recovery of Penny Polendina. I want that area locked down—have the GRIMM orbit over it. Send the northeast GRIMM force to intercept Ironwood, and the eastern reserves to the battle here, in the center."

"It will take about ten minutes to intercept Ironwood, and twenty to thirty minutes for the eastern reserves to get into the fight. The evacuation convoy?" Orumov asked.

"We'll use whatever's left after recovering the clone to mop up." Salem looked back at the radar. "I want Polendina. She is the objective in the center now." She stood, watching as Orumov gave the orders. Oh, Ironwood, she thought, oh, Ozpin. Both of you have made so many mistakes. You let the Winter Maiden fly into a dogfight, and now not only will I have neutralized that, I'll be able to actually clone something besides fools like the Hound. She nodded in satisfaction. I only hope I have enough genetic material left.

AUTHOR'S ADDITIONAL NOTES: Salem remembers her history. Japanese radar picked up the approach of the Enola Gay as it headed towards Hiroshima, but assumed it was a weather reconnaissance aircraft. Salem's not making the same assumption.

Some of the parts with Cinder are indeed an homage from Firefox, the movie that inspired the Night Raven's design (both mine and the GI Joe version). My Russian is at the mercy of Google Translate, so it may be pure garbage to native Russian speakers. Naturally, since the Hound was (more or less) Russian, he would have the DUST system aboard the Night Raven programmed to respond to Russian-good thing Cinder speaks it.

Penny being able to fly a F-18 with minimal training is also not beyond the pale. I have talked to pilots who were not trained on anything but Cessnas who got a chance to fly Hornets, and they said it was remarkably easy to fly and even maneuver. The Navy didn't let him, but Tom Cruise probably could have flown Maverick's F-18 around fairly well, since he's a qualified P-51 pilot. (Yes, I've seen Top Gun Maverick. Twice. So far.)

Next chapter continues the battle between Cinder and Neo, and what's left of Ruby Flight, Pyrrha's lone battle against 20 GRIMM, Ironwood's attempt to get through with his nuke, and Salem trying to get to Penny. Pretty busy day indeed...