AUTHOR'S NOTES: Finally up to the big dogfight between Tyrian and Reaper Flight! Hopefully the action here will make up for the last two chapters being a little quiet. Some more notes at the end.

Sea of Okhotsk

Near Sakhalin, Eastern Siberian Dead Zone

6 June 2001

Lie Ren, despite himself, yawned. He shifted around in the ejection seat of his J-10. It was never the most comfortable seat in existence, and after six hours in the air, his rear end was starting to hurt.

They'd gotten up at 0400, with it very much sunny outside; Eielson was near the Arctic Circle, and the sun never really went down this time of year. An evening with an amorous Nora had left Ren a bit sore, a bit tired, and quite happy. They'd made love, and talked, and slept, and made love again. Certainly Nora was her usual bubbly self this morning, and Ren had noticed Ruby and Pyrrha smothering grins. The good mood had lasted through Ruby's morning brief, on the flight between Eielson and their fuel stop at Shemya in the Aleutians—a fortress of a base that was known as the worst post in the entire USAF. But when they'd crossed the devastated, irradiated dead zone of the Kamchatka Peninsula, Ren's good mood had begun to evaporate.

He knew why. As they crossed the Sea of Okhotsk at 30,000 feet, he could see the distant coastline of Sakhalin. Beyond the coastal range would be Zonalnoye, now listed on the maps as Kuroyuri. Or, more properly, the ruins of Kuroyuri. He'd known from the moment that Rissa Arashikaze had given Reaper Flight its orders that they would be passing near his former village. There was nothing to be done about it, so Ren had simply accepted that fact. Nora had asked him when they were at Vulcan if he wanted to pass over the ruins. He'd answered no; it was a town of the dead, and he'd buried his family, physically and mentally, years ago.

"Reaper Flight, comm check." Ruby's voice shook him out of his thoughts, which he was grateful for.

"Reaper Two." Pyrrha was flying on Ruby's wing, about a mile to the left of Crescent Rose, using her radar to sweep the sky in front of them—the "eyeball" to the rest of Reaper's "shooters." Both the F-16 and the F-22 were about five miles ahead.

"Reaper Three," Ren checked in.

"Reaper Four." Nora sounded tired. Ren was not surprised: once more, due to the A-10's lack of autopilot, Nora was hand-flying the aircraft. Worse, the A-10 was again burdened with heavy ferry tanks; if they ran into GRIMM, all Nora had was a brace of Sidewinders and the gun. They all were carrying external tanks, but they could, in theory, still dogfight with them. If they were forced to drop their tanks, the J-10 and F-22 had enough fuel to make it to their destination—Chitose, Japan, on the northern island of Hokkaido—but Ruby's F-16 and the A-10 would need a tanker to make it, unless Ruby and Nora wanted to go swimming. Even in June, the Sea of Okhotsk would be very cold.

"Stand by for turn in five." Ren clicked his mike twice in response. Reaper Flight would not overfly Sakhalin, since GRIMM could be hiding in the mountains there, and the last thing they wanted was a dogfight. Normally, above 30,000 feet, they would be safe, but the appearance of the Beringal GRIMM meant that not even that altitude was secure. Instead, they would parallel the coast, then make the short run across the La Perouse Strait to Hokkaido. Ren wondered if Ruby had made that flight plan because she feared Beringal, or out of deference to him.

He watched the sky around him, something else that was tiring, but something that a fighter pilot never stopped doing if they wanted to live. He checked his radar warning receivers, which were clear. No threats. There was no AWACS coverage here, and Japanese radar could not penetrate this far north. Airliners flew a more southern route, trading the extra fuel for safety.

Ren twisted around in his seat. Something didn't feel right. He looked up. Above Reaper was a solid overcast, cirrus clouds at 40,000 feet. Below it was clear to the blue of the sea. He clicked his mike. "Ruby, Ren. I'm going to do a sweep behind."

"Ren, Pyrrha. Maintain position; I'll do it." Ren acknowledged. Ahead, he saw Pyrrha turn and begin an easy turn to the left, to do a circle and check behind them. It made sense: Pyrrha's radar was more powerful, and it kept their radar emissions to a single source. If GRIMM were tracking them, they would see only the F-22.

It was at that moment that all hell broke loose.

Something dropped out of the cirrus; if Ren had not been looking in that particular direction, he might've missed it. It was about two miles in front of him, and whatever it was, it was painted black. It was also making a beeline for Ruby. "Ruby! Break right, GRIMM!" Ren shouted. He shoved the throttle forward and switched on his radar. Whatever it was, he wasn't getting a solid lock, but he pulled the trigger anyway. "Ren, Fox Three, Maddog!" The last was to let Reaper Flight know that he was not guiding the missile; the AMRAAM was relying on its own radar, which tended to lock on to whatever was directly in front of it. Hopefully it would be the GRIMM. Ruby had not questioned the break call. The F-16 was making a hard right turn, though not as tight as normal, due to the external tanks.

The GRIMM rolled to the left, turning back towards the missile, and Ren murmured a vile Chinese curse; the missile couldn't make the turn and sailed off into the sky, unable to find a target. The GRIMM turned broadside to Ren for a moment, and he stared at it. It was a compact design, with the engines set out on the wings, and a fuselage that blended into a nose chine. Canards stuck up from below a bubble canopy, and the twin tails were canted inwards. Aside from the canards, it looked like someone had superdeformed a SR-71.

It has a canopy, Ren thought. That's not a GRIMM. Someone is piloting that.

Ren opened his mouth to warn Reaper Flight, but now the not-GRIMM was turning in his direction. Nose on, he noticed a bulge below the fuselage. What the bulge was was answered a second later, when it sparkled. Ren dived the J-10 as cannon shells reached out for him. He came out of the dive after only a second, bringing up the nose to fire his own cannon, but the aircraft hadn't followed him down: it was making another hard turn, going after Ruby.

Ruby cheated the turn as tight as she could; any more and the tanks would rip off the F-16, and damage the aircraft.

"Ruby, Ren! That's not a GRIMM!"

"What the hell is it, then?" Ruby wondered, though she didn't hit the mike button. Then she saw it. Wait, I know what that is! It's…well, oh shit, it's firing at me. She twisted away from the cannon shells, but then the stick nearly flew out of her hands as Crescent Rose shuddered with a hit. Ruby's eyes instantly scanned her instrument panel, but no fire or failure lights were on. The strange fighter swept past and she glanced at it. There was a pilot in the cockpit, and he was looking back at her. It was hard to tell on through the mask, but she could've sworn he was grinning at her.

I'll give you something to grin at, motherfucker, Ruby thought angrily, and turned into him. The F-16 responded sluggishly. "Ah, shit," she groaned. "The tail." She clicked the mike button. "Reapers, Ruby, I'm hit. Bandit is a Skorpion, repeat, classify bandit as Skorpion."

Instead of the hard turn, it was more of a lazy one, and Ruby knew it. The Skorpion easily outturned her; Ruby punched off the external tanks. She was going to need a tanker, but it was either that or she was going to need an undertaker. She might need the latter anyway, as the Skorpion began to pull in behind her.

"Pyrrha, Fox Two." Ruby looked up and saw the F-22 charging towards them, tanks gone. The Sidewinder shot ahead of her, and the Skorpion abandoned its attack, diving away, dropping flares—but then the nose of the aircraft came up and tracers shot through into the Raptor.

Or where the Raptor would have been, if Pyrrha hadn't expected that: she thrust-vectored her fighter straight down, passing the Skorpion nose to belly. Ruby tried to come around to help, but the Skorpion suddenly shot upwards, disappearing into the clouds. Instead, Ruby put the F-16 into a shallow dive, as Pyrrha came up to cover her. "Reapers, channel three," Ruby ordered. The flight switched frequencies. "Pyrrha, give me a look-over."

The F-22 slid up next to her as they descended through 20,000 feet. "Ruby, you've got a hole through the upper part of your rudder. No other damage that I can see."

"Oh, did the little rose get hurt?" The singsong voice sent shivers up Ruby's spine. "That's too bad."

"Who the hell are you?" she demanded.

"My name is Tyrian Callows. Who, exactly, I am matters not to you," the voice taunted. "Or to you, Lie Ren. Or…well, you do interest me, Pyrrha Nikos. A shame about your boyfriend, by the way." Ruby glanced at Pyrrha, but the Raptor stayed where it was; that taunt had hurt, but Pyrrha wasn't going to fall for it. "Or…oh my, where did Nora Valkyrie go? Did she stall into the ocean trying to make a turn in that slow Warthog of hers? Oh well, too bad." The voice paused as Ruby and Pyrrha searched the sky above, and Ren looked frantically for Nora. "No, Ruby Rose, I matter only to you."

"Come on down, asshole," Ruby snapped.

"Oh, the rose has thorns!" Tyrian laughed. "Why, my little flower! I'm here to whisk you away with me! Well, after I shoot you down. But don't worry, I'll be careful. You can eject, and you'll be picked up. My queen wants to meet you."

My queen? What the fuck? Ruby asked herself. "What if I don't want to meet your queen?"

"Then I guess I'll just have to take you."

"You'll do it over us," Pyrrha snarled.

"I was hoping you'd say that. One down, three to go. And don't worry, Ren and Pyrrha…a friend of mine provided you some playmates."

The RWR in Pyrrha's F-22 sounded an alarm. She looked at her RWR, then her radar. "Pyrrha to Reaper. Contact, multiple bandits, twelve o'clock low, two Spin Scan." That meant MiG-21s. No one around here flew MiGs, so it meant air pirates. Pyrrha sighed. There really was no other choice. "Ren, take Ruby and evade south. I've got these." Eight against one, she mused as she moved the throttle forward. I've done this before. And if I don't make it… she smiled. Be seeing you, Jaune.

Tyrian listened to the radio call and laughed to himself. This was going perfectly. Nora Valkyrie had crashed, Ruby's F-16 was hit, and Pyrrha would be distracted, though he doubted the air pirates would be more than a distraction. He'd kill Ren, force Ruby to bail out, and then maybe get a distracted Pyrrha as a bargain.

Then there was a flash of sunlight in the mirrors set into the canopy bow. He glanced up, and slammed the stick forward. A second later, a hail of thirty millimeter cannon fire went through the spot he had been.

Nora had cleaned off her tanks, and, noticing that no one was paying attention to her, slowly climbed through the overcast. While Tyrian was running his mouth, she had been stalking him. She dived after the Skorpion, but it was too fast. "Reapers, Nora! Almost had him, but he's diving—six o'clock high, Ruby!" The clouds parted around her. She switched to Sidewinders, but Tyrian was just too fast.

"Ren, on him." Ren, who had joined up with Ruby, turned into the Skorpion and fired a Sidewinder. Once more Tyrian evaded the missile with flares, then shot past. Ren realized that he'd committed too fast; Tyrian bore on Ruby with singleminded ferocity. "Ruby, check six!" he called out.

Ruby was already watching the Skorpion. She began slowly weaving the F-16, as if she was hit worse than she was, one finger on the speedbrake switch. A little closer…little closer…gotcha. She suddenly climbed and opened the speedbrakes, the butterfly flaps on either side of the Viper's engine. It had the effect of killing her speed, forcing the Skorpion into an overshoot. Tyrian fell for it and went past her. Ruby pulled in the brakes and slammed the throttle forward, dropping in behind him, but the Skorpion was already turning. She turned with Tyrian, knowing she'd never stay behind him; he was too quick, and Crescent Rose just wasn't able to make the tight turns it normally could. A quick glance behind: Ren was coming around, and Nora was bearing down. Ruby made a quick decision. "Nora, Ruby, break off! Help Pyrrha!" Nora didn't acknowledge, but she saw the A-10 flatten its dive and go overhead. Then she looked across the circle she and Tyrian were on the outer edges of. His nose began to point towards her, and she saw the missiles slung under the Skorpion's narrow fuselage. She dropped a few flares; he was going to shoot.

"Crow 13, Fox Two on the Skorpion."

Tyrian heard the call and broke off, climbing hard. The missile turned to follow, but the Skorpion's engines were baffled like the F-22's, so it gave up and optimistically locked onto the nearest heat source: the sun, shining through the clouds. Ruby watched the Skorpion as she came out of her turn, and inside her mask, her mouth fell open in the second surprise of the day. "Uncle Qrow?!"

The F-117 seemed to come from nowhere as it followed the Skorpion into the climb.

Pyrrha watched the eight bandits come closer. They turned in her direction, and she noticed a ripple go through the formation. A veteran pilot could tell when their opponent was hesitating, was shocked, or was green. She suspected it was all three.

The closing speed was too fast for AMRAAMs, so she selected Sidewinders. Then the specks grew to objects, and her eyes narrowed. "Reaper, be advised, bandits are two Fishbeds, two Frescos, two Fitter-As, and two Mayas." She used the NATO reporting names for the MiG-21, MiG-17, Su-7, and L-29 Delfin.

"Someone knock over a museum?" Nora said.

"Pyrrha engaging." She pushed the throttle up a bit, suddenly broke hard to the right, counted off a second, then swung back into the fight. As she'd expected, the maneuver had thrown the bandits into confusion, but one of the MiG-21 pilots had not been fooled. He fired two missiles at her. She accelerated, dropped chaff and flares behind her, and trusted in the F-22's stealth for the rest. Both missiles spun past, neither coming close, as she went to guns. The cannon spoke a half second later, chopping into the MiG just behind the cockpit, where the fuel tank was. The MiG-21 disintegrated and she rolled over the burning wreckage. "Pyrrha, splash one." Out of the corner of one eye, she saw one of the MiG-17s turning into her. The gun-armed MiG-17 was no pushover and could maneuver quite well, but it could be sluggish at high speeds and low altitude; the air bandit had forgotten that. Pyrrha hadn't. She fired a Sidewinder, and the MiG-17 joined its comrade in spiraling down towards the beach of Sakhalin. "Pyrrha, splash two."

Tyrian fought against the press of gravity as he craned his head around. He stared in shock. He was being followed by a F-117. Despite its designation, the Nighthawk was no fighter, even if had fired a Sidewinder at him. He'd heard Ruby's call on the radio, and nodded. He toggled the radio as he pulled into an Immelmann and rolled down to engage. "Qrow Branwen," he said. "A true Huntsman has entered the fray!" He cackled. "Did you get my message in Juneau?" Tyrian opened fire with the 30 millimeter cannon underslung the Skorpion's fuselage.

Qrow rolled away from the shells with seeming ease, and to Tyrian's surprise, fired a few back at him; for the second time today, Tyrian escaped death by a foot or less.

"Ren, Ruby," Ruby called out. "Go to channel five." She was hoping this Tyrian was going to be too busy to bounce frequencies again. "Ren, go help Nora and Pyrrha."

"Ruby—"

"That's an order, Ren." The J-10, which had been trying to join up with her, rolled away, and Ruby put Crescent Rose into a lazy circle, throttling back, conserving fuel. And looking for an opening.

Tyrian fired a missile at the Nighthawk, but the missile failed to guide; the F-117 was, after all, designed not to reflect heat. He fired another, but Qrow dodged that one; the F-117 wasn't supposed to do that, either. Tyrian got in behind the Nighthawk, but Qrow broke into him, and the two ended up in a rolling scissors, each trying to get the better of the other, but then Qrow's nose suddenly came up and the Skorpion overshot. The Nighthawk's cannon pounded away and Tyrian felt a hammer blow against the back of his seat. The armor plate held, but for the first time in a long while, Tyrian Callows felt fear.

Qrow saw the sparkle of a strike behind the cockpit and smiled. Whoever this Tyrian Callows was—and he had a fair idea—he was a damned good pilot; it had been all he could do to stay with him. The F-117, even Qrow's heavily modified one, was simply not designed for this, but Qrow suspected that even if he'd been in Pyrrha's Raptor, the Skorpion still would've given him a run for his money.

But now it was over. The Skorpion fluttered, fell over on one wing, and went into a terminal dive. Qrow nodded: hopefully he'd killed the bastard. He followed the Skorpion down, half-hoping Tyrian would eject so Qrow could gun him in his parachute. Normally he was the less bloodthirsty one of the Branwen twins, but after what Tyrian had done in Juneau, he was willing to make an exception.

Then Qrow suddenly realized he'd been had. The Skorpion straightened, then came out of the dive, then snapped over in a hard right break just over the waves. Qrow had to climb as well or go into the water, and he had to start his pullout earlier since the Nighthawk was nowhere near as responsive.

The Skorpion continued its turn and got in behind Qrow.

Pyrrha watched a Su-7 go down, trailing smoke and flame, the pilot trying to keep the nose up long enough to bail out. "Pyrrha, splash three." She shook her head. Air combat was never fun, not for her, but this was less a battle than a massacre. Her opponents were green as grass, flying antiques.

"Nora, splash one!" She watched and saw one of the L-29s disintegrate under Nora's Avenger gatling cannon. The L-29 was a trainer—a responsive one, in the hands of a good pilot, but also not designed for combat. The other was trying to run as Nora closed in on them. With a quick scan of the sky, Pyrrha took in the situation: Nora was on the other L-29, but one of the Su-7s was racing in to stop her: it was more suited to ground attack than air combat, but it had heavy cannon and it was fast, so it represented a threat to the A-10. Pyrrha opened the throttle a little, waiting for the Fitter to edge out a little as she selected an AMRAAM. She saw Ren arrive and engage the MiG-21, which had been headed towards where Ruby, Qrow, and this Tyrian lunatic was.

The Su-7 pilot abruptly realized he was being marked and abandoned his pursuit of Nora. Pyrrha rolled in anyway, when she suddenly remembered she'd missed one of the bandits—the remaining MiG-17. Instinctively, she twisted around, to see the squat, snubnosed fighter sitting right between her tails. Her hand was already moving, snapping the stick to the right to break, but the MiG's heavy cannon opened fire, and a shell hit the F-22.

Pyrrha felt the hit, which nearly sent the Raptor out of control for a moment. She climbed hard, knowing she could easily outdistance the old MiG, and checked the instrument panel. No fire lights, engine temperature looks good, but he hit something, I felt that…idiot Pyrrha! You stupid ass! she cursed herself. Sitting in a 5th generation fighter and you get hit by a damned fighter that was obsolete before my parents were born! Stupid, stupid!

Then she knew what had been damaged. Smoke began to pour into the cockpit and into her mask. A look at the radar display: it was blank; her radar was dead. Now the fire light came on. Onboard oxygen system is hit. She kept the F-22 jinking as she began to roll back into the fight. The instrument panel was getting hard to see, and she coughed. Pyrrha pulled the mask off, and dived, praying nothing else was hit. Below 15,000 feet, she wouldn't need oxygen. The smoke was getting so thick that she could barely read the altimeter, and seeing out of the canopy was now impossible. She coughed again, harder, and Pyrrha ran through her options. She could try to fight like this, and perish when she got disoriented and flew into the water or choked to death on fumes. She could eject and pray that neither the air pirates nor the cold water didn't kill her. Either way seemed a surefire way to die. It tempted her for a moment. She might not be actively suicidal, but neither did Pyrrha care overmuch what happened to her. If she lived, that was fine, but death was no longer something to be feared, if it ever was; if anything, it was now a friend, welcoming her to see her friends and Jaune again.

She dismissed that. Not yet. There was a third option.

As Pyrrha came out of her dive, she did two things. She switched off the oxygen system, which hopefully would starve the fire, and then pulled the emergency canopy release. She ducked down in the cockpit as the canopy blew off, banged once against the fuselage, and went to parts unknown. Instantly, a four hundred mile an hour wind threatened to rip her out of the cockpit and follow her canopy, but she ducked down a little lower. The wind instantly cleared the smoke, and the fire light went out.

The slipstream battered her, and Pyrrha put her mask back on just to protect from the bitterly cold wind. She throttled back as much as she could, and tried to stay behind the instrument panel, the only thing that now gave any protection from the wind.

And then she saw the MiG-17. She had ended up below and behind it. The pilot had made the same mistake she had: he or she had gotten overconfident. It was flying along in level flight, and as she watched, it began to turn in Nora's direction. Pyrrha pulled up the nose and fired a Sidewinder. It instantly locked onto the MiG-17's exhaust, guided true, and blew the tail off. The MiG tumbled end over end into the water.

Well, that's a first, she thought. I hope my radio still works.

Qrow looked into the mirrors in his canopy frame and let loose a string of curses. He couldn't see the Skorpion. He was more mad at himself than anything else: Tyrian had suckered him, then caught him out of energy, and the cockpit of the F-117 was not known for good visibility. He twisted and turned, but knew it was a matter of time until he got tagged, unless he figured out how to get the Skorpion off his tail. And he was running out of sky and airspeed.

Something hit him a hammerblow on the side.

"Ruby, Fox Three!"

Ruby had seen her chance. As Qrow had climbed, Tyrian had gotten in behind him, firing. The Nighthawk was out of energy—but so was the Skorpion. Ruby had picked her moment, and fired. It was still a hasty shot, but she was locked onto the Skorpion.

Tyrian cursed himself much as Pyrrha had, because he'd made the same mistake; worse, he'd completely forgotten about Ruby Rose, so wrapped up in the dogfight with her uncle. He snapped the stick over into his left knee, falling over on one wing, and slammed the throttle forward to the stops as he dropped his last packet of chaff behind him. It was enough to break Ruby's lock, but now the AMRAAM's onboard radar clicked on. Its robot brain had a choice of three targets: the F-117, the chaff cloud, or the Skorpion. It ran through them, and decided that the Skorpion provided the best target; the fins turned slightly and it accelerated towards its target.

Tyrian waited a precious half-second, and twisted hard to the right. It saved his life. The AMRAAM detonated, sending fragments spiraling through the Skorpion. Tyrian felt something hit him in the side of the head with enough force to knock his helmet into the side of the cockpit, which was alive with alarms. Frantically, he dumped the gunpod and the missiles and headed west at full speed, despite the Skorpion threatening to shake itself apart. "She'll forgive me," he cried, tears running over his mask, "she'll forgive me."

"Yeah, that's right," Ruby said, "run, you little bastard." She locked on with her last AMRAAM.

Then she noticed the F-117. It was rolling away, leaving a trail of smoke, and wobbling dangerously. Ruby glanced back at the Skorpion, looked at her fuel, then broke off to go help her uncle. "Qrow, Ruby, are you all right?"

There was no response at first, then Qrow's gravelly voice, sounding a bit more gravelly than usual, came through. "Ruby, Qrow…yeah, I'm hit. Lost an engine." He sounded pained. "Can't make Chitose." The F-117 came back to level flight, and she flew up alongside him. The Nighthawk's rear fuselage was pitted, and she saw one hole distressingly close to the cockpit.

But she had her flight to take care of, too. "Ruby to Reapers. Go to channel base plus one." She hoped Tyrian wouldn't guess that the base number was zero. "What's your state?"

"Ren, ten thousand pounds, two active, three heat, no damage. Scope is naked, splash two," he added. Ruby translated that: he had ten thousand pounds of fuel, which was enough to make to Chitose with a little to spare; Ren had two AMRAAMs and three Sidewinders, had shot down two bandits, and there were no threats on his radar.

"Nora, six thousand pounds, two heat, no damage, splash two!" Ruby winced; that was not enough to make Chitose.

"Pyrrha, fifteen thousand, three active, two heat, splash four. Have taken damage, cannot make Chitose!" Ruby could barely understand her; it sounded like Pyrrha was yelling in a tornado.

Ruby checked her fuel. She had two Sidewinders left and one AMRAAM, plus the gun, but her fuel was no better than Nora's, and that was assuming the rudder wouldn't tear itself apart before they reached Japan. And then there was Qrow. She reached into a kneepad with one hand, pulled out her map, somehow got it unfolded by taking her mask off and using her teeth, and looked. The nearest airfield was Kuroyuri. It was marked as abandoned, but it was better than nothing. "Reapers, divert Kuroyuri." She checked her navigational display, and tapped in the coordinates. "Steer one-nine-zero, distance, ah, fifty. Check in."

"Crow 13. Understand Kuroyuri." The F-117 began slowly turning southwest.

"Reaper Two, roger!" Ruby wondered what was going on with Pyrrha. She waited for Ren and Nora to come up, but there was no response. "Reaper Three and Four, roger my last?"

"Reaper Three. Roger. Divert Kuroyuri." Ren's voice sounded more subdued than usual. Nora chimed in a moment later, sounding no more cheerful than Ren had.

They joined up a moment later, and Ruby saw Pyrrha's canopy was gone. She was ducked down into the cockpit as far as she could go, the nose held up; Ruby shook her head in wonder. There were times she wondered if Pyrrha was even human and not some autonomous weapon system; she was that good. Qrow was struggling along, staying in the air, but occasionally the wing would dip a moment before he recovered it. And her own Crescent Rose was still sluggish. "Aren't we a group of sorry bastards," Ruby chuckled ruefully. She keyed her mike. "Pyrrha, can you make it?"

"It's rather windy in here!" Pyrrha replied, somehow finding humor in their situation. "But I'm tactical!"

"Roger that. Crow 13, how're you doing?"

"Ruby, Crow 13. No prob." The wing dipped a bit again. "No offense to Pyrrha, but I'll need to land first. I, uh…I think I'm hit."

"You're definitely hit, Crow 13," Ruby confirmed.

"Nah, Ruby. I think I'm hit." Ruby edged in as close as she dared. Qrow held up a glove to the canopy.

It was bloody.

AUTHOR'S NOTES (PART II): Tyrian's aircraft exists: it is the PZL-230 Skorpion, intended as a low-cost, stealthy attack aircraft for the Polish Air Force. It hasn't gone into production, and as far as I know, it's never progressed beyond the full-scale mockup. Luckily, it gave me a "scorpion" for Tyrian to fly, since the only other alternative would've been the old 1950s-era F-89 Scorpion. That would've been a very short chapter.

Pyrrha's trick with the canopy probably is impossible; I actually had the idea in the back of my head for a planned novel that takes place in Korea, and the main character does the same thing in a F-86. It sounds cool, though, and something that Pyrrha would do, so I ask the reader to have a little suspension of disbelief.