AUTHOR'S NOTES: Technically this is the end of "Season 4," but I don't think there's been enough chapters to call it good just yet, so we'll just swing right into "Season 5" without further adieu.

Dubai International Airport

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

9 June 2001

Oscar Pine tried to relax. He didn't know why he was nervous. He was a pilot, after all—newly graduated with wings of gold, yes, but still a pilot. He'd landed on carriers. There was no reason to be scared, sitting in seat 44K of a Boeing 747-400, Delta Airlines Flight 905 from Atlanta to Tokyo-Narita via Dubai. After all, the massive 747 had gotten him to Dubai without any issues, so the rest of the trip should be safe and easy. Even the weather had been good.

It was the people, Oscar decided. The flight was packed. Normally Delta would fly nonstop from Atlanta to Japan, over the pole at high altitude to avoid GRIMM. But now even higher altitudes were not safe. Even the alternate route through Hawaii was considered too risky, with the increased GRIMM presence over the former West Coast. So this was the only safe route—the long one, across half the world. At least the two seats next to him were still empty; the kind, nearsighted, little old lady that had flown with him from Atlanta had gotten off here to fly into Europe, which still wasn't allowing direct flights from the United States.

Then he saw the big man walking towards his row, and sighed. He was huge, with arms nearly as wide as Oscar's waist, a Lincolnesque beard and a mop of brown hair. Much to Oscar's chagrin, he stopped at row 44. The big man looked at the seat row number on the overhead bins—which he was eye level with—and then at Oscar. "I think you're in my seat," he rumbled.

Oscar hated to argue with him, but he pulled out his boarding pass. "Uh, it says I'm in 44K, and that was the seat I was given in Atlanta…"

The big man showed Oscar his ticket. It also read 44K. Then he smiled. "Ah, airline screwup." He waved it off and took a seat in 44H, the aisle seat. "To be honest, I need the leg room." He opened the overhead bin, stopped for a moment, then stuffed in his duffel before closing it. Carefully, he sunk into the seat, which squeaked alarmingly; Oscar wondered if he wasn't going to give the 747 a slight list to starboard on takeoff. "Where are you headed, sailor?" he asked Oscar.

"Sailor?" Oscar asked. He was traveling in civilian clothes, not in uniform.

"I know a TO-packed seabag when I see it." His smile widened and he put out a beefy hand. "Hazel Rainart. I was in the Marines for 20 years."

Oscar laughed a little, and took the hand. It was like shaking hands with a grizzly. "Oscar Pine. You're right; I'm Navy. Ensign; just graduated last week from Pensacola."

Hazel nodded. "I was ROTC. Good to meet you. Headed to Atsugi?"

Oscar hesitated. Technically, his mission was secret, but there were only so many US Navy bases in Japan, and Atsugi was the main flying base. "Yeah. First duty assignment. Super Hornets."

Hazel's eyebrows went up. "No kidding? I was in Harriers at Cherry Point. Did some time at Futenma in Okinawa, too." He settled back in his seat. "This time I'm just going for pleasure."

"Weird time to be traveling."

"True." Hazel turned and looked at him again. "Have we met before? If you don't mind me asking, where are you from?"

Oscar was pretty sure he would've remembered someone like Hazel. "I don't think so," he said, a little nervously. "I'm from Nebraska."

"Ah. No, I guess not…never been there." The engines began to spool up, and Oscar's hands began to shake. Hazel noticed it and chuckled. "Afraid of flying when you're not the pilot?"

"Yeah," Oscar replied. "How did you guess?"

"Most pilots are like that. I used to be myself." Hazel leaned back into his seat again to watch the safety briefing. "Nothing to worry about," he told Oscar softly. "It's the safest way to travel."

London Heathrow International Airport

London, United Kingdom

9 June 2001

Weiss Schnee pushed the wide-brimmed sun hat down further on her head, then self-consciously ran her fingers through her white hair. Her fingers came away stained. She'd washed the hair coloring out in a private bathroom while Leonardo Lionheart waited, then changed clothes. She and Lionheart had then left through a service entrance, climbed into an airport utility vehicle, and drove across the busy tarmac and runways to the cargo area—just the two of them. Weiss was more nervous as herself than she had been masquerading as Pearl White, as if every eye in Heathrow were on them. As Lionheart assured her, nobody would be watching a mere airport service vehicle in a sea of similar vehicles, start carts, luggage trucks, and airliners.

Her nervousness didn't recede any when she saw what Lionheart was driving towards, on one corner of the cargo ramp. At first, she thought he was heading towards one of the shiny DC-10s or A300s decorated with the colors of various cargo companies. Instead, the aircraft he was heading towards was not shiny, nor did it wear the colors of any cargo airline she was aware of. "You must be joking," she said.

"This is the best way," Lionheart reassured her.

They stopped under the transport's wing, and Weiss climbed out. It was an Antonov An-12, produced just before the Third World War, with a circular fuselage, slab tail, and glass nose that made it look like a throwback to World War II. Two huge turboprops out of four stuck out over her head. She stared back towards the tail. God, it's even got tail guns. Maybe this isn't such a good idea. The aircraft was painted overall light gray, but it was streaked with dirt and exhaust stains. Other than a single blue cheatline running the length of the aircraft, it had no markings other than CARGO in red letters behind the cockpit. "What a piece of junk," she said.

"It may not look like much," said a new voice, "but it'll get you where you need to go." They turned, and Weiss was seized with a sudden impulse to get back on a plane to Germany, and beg her father for forgiveness. He was tall, with features that showed a lot of exposure to the sun, wore a green flight suit, mirrored sunglasses, and a cowboy hat. If that wasn't enough, he wore a pair of holstered M1911 .45 caliber pistols on both hips, with pearl grips. No, ivory, Weiss corrected herself.

Lionheart smiled. "Weiss Schnee, this is Rick Tardor." The pilot stuck out a filthy hand. Weiss stared at the hand as if it was a rattlesnake. Rick saw the hesitation and wiped the hand on his flight suit. "Sorry," he said. "This thing tends to leak oil." Weiss swallowed and finally shook hands, then turned to Lionheart. "There's no other way?"

"Jacques Schnee is not likely to be looking for his daughter onboard what is essentially a tramp freighter, hauling flowers from the Netherlands to the United States," Lionheart told her.

"I thought there was an embargo."

"There is." Lionheart smiled. "On scheduled flights. Cargo charters are another thing entirely."

"Wonderful."

"I could have Mr. Tardor drop you off in Menagerie along the way, I suppose," Lionheart said.

"No…that's all right." It had occurred to Weiss, now that she'd had a little time to think, that a Schnee seeking asylum with the Belladonnas might put the latter in danger from the White Fang. And in Japan she was likely to get her hands on a fighter. She was going to miss her beloved Myrtenaster, but Winter would take good care of her, she was sure.

"You coming or not?" Rick asked. "We're a little rushed here."

"Yes, of course." Lionheart took Weiss' luggage from the back and helped her bring it aboard the An-12. The inside smelled like roses; Weiss was relieved to find that it was indeed flying a cargo of flowers. She half expected "flowers" to be a euphemism for heroin or something. He stowed her luggage next to the cargo net and a short row of backwards-facing seats. Once Lionheart made sure her luggage was secured, he headed for the crew door as Rick raised the rear ramp. "He's a good man," Lionheart told her. "You'll be safe. He…he has his own reasons for doing this."

"Thank you," Weiss said sincerely. "This means a lot to me, sir."

Lionheart waved it off. "None of it, Miss Schnee. We'll see you in Japan." He shook hands with her, then ducked out of the door. Rick came forward and slid that down. He thumbed at the cockpit. "You multi-engine qualified?"

"Jets only," Weiss sighed.

"Well, it's not too hard. C'mon." They climbed up into the cockpit. To Weiss' surprise, while it was definitely older, with a lot of round, analog instruments and dials, some modernization had been done, with modern navigation displays. Of course, there was also some exposed wiring. Rick climbed into the left seat, and Weiss took the right, and followed him in putting on a headset. "Where's the rest of the crew?" she asked him.

"You're it," Rick told her. He tapped the control wheel in front of him. "This thing may look like a pile of shit, but actually it's been modded so that one person can fly it. We won't be dogfighting with it, but it's a lot more potent than it looks." He pointed to the throttles. "I can control the engines, but it's a lot easier with a copilot."

"All right." Weiss put a hand on the throttles. She glanced downwards, into the crawlspace that led to the glassed-in navigator's station. It was empty, but she could see a M4 carbine with a M203 grenade launcher slung underneath the barrel. He followed her look. "Sometimes we land in places that aren't too trustworthy." He grinned toothily. "No sweat, Miss Schnee. This part of the flight's a milk run. We're flying from here to Gander, then Gander to Richmond—that's usually pretty safe, even by the New York Dead Zone-then from there to Dallas. We'll pick up and drop off cargo on the way. You can stay out of sight, but I doubt anyone's going to be looking for the heiress to the Schnee fortune on an An-12."

"Former heiress," Weiss corrected. "And from Dallas?"

Rick began running through his preflight. He was no longer grinning. "Well, then it gets interesting. We fly to Vegas, make the run across Old California to Hawaii. Then we hop to Guam, the Philippines, and up to Japan. The California run is the tough part."

"You've done it before?"

"Yeah. Just not in an An-12."

"Oh. What in?"

He hit the starter switches. "Let's talk about it later. For now, let's just get out of here."

Weiss let the matter drop for the moment, and helped him with the preflight. Aircraft were aircraft, and if the huge Antonov was nothing like her Eurofighter Typhoon, it was a bit like the twin-engined Cessnas her family owned and occasionally flew around in. She moved the throttles up on Rick's command, and the four turboprops coughed, whined, and then spun to life. The chocks were pulled by the airport ground crew, and they followed hand signals out to the taxiway. It took a few minutes, but they reached the runway behind a British Airways 747. The An-12 shook as the 747 took off in front of them, then it was their turn.

Weiss' heart was thudding in her chest. Well, here I go again, she thought. Then she smiled. Yang and Ruby were going to get a good laugh when she turned up in an ancient Soviet transport with a cowboy as her chauffeur. He nodded to her, and she pushed the throttles up to full power. The transport rumbled with the power of the four Ivchenko turboprops, then Rick let off the brakes and they surged forward. Weiss called out the speeds, watching the instruments, then slowly, almost reluctantly, the nose gear came up from the runway. The rest of the aircraft followed, and suddenly they were flying. Rick raised the flaps as they climbed into a clear sky, with only a few clouds. Weiss glanced out of her side of the cockpit. The city of London gradually gave way to fields. Rick took them up to 20,000 feet before leveling off; Weiss pulled back power halfway. "Not exactly a fighter," he commented, the first time he'd said anything not related to flying the aircraft. "It's kind of grown on me." He tapped the control wheel. "You want to give it a try? She's a little tailheavy."

"No, that's all right."

"Suit yourself." He checked the navigation instruments, then relaxed, flying the aircraft casually with one hand. "So you're Weiss Schnee. I've heard of you."

"Nothing bad, I should hope."

He tipped back his cowboy hat. "Heard you were a good stick. What do you normally fly?"

"Typhoon."

Rick looked at her over the tops of his glasses. "Whoa, not bad. I'm an Eagle driver, normally. Used to be with the 33rd out of Eglin."

Weiss was reminded of Yang. "Quite a step down," she remarked, waving around the cockpit.

"From a '15? Yeah, but it's worth it." She gave him a look, and he laughed. "You're wondering how I ended up here. I was sheep-dipped about a year ago. You know what I mean?"

She nodded. Weiss knew the term: a sheep-dipped pilot was someone who still officially flew with an air force—in Rick Tardor's case, the USAF—but flew black ops on the behest of an intelligence agency. She remembered what Lionheart had said about an old friend of the family; she had taken that literally. Now she realized that the "family" was probably the intelligence world; Rick was working for the Central Intelligence Agency, just as Lionheart was working with MI6. "Can you tell me why?" Weiss couldn't imagine giving up being a F-15 pilot to fly what most fighter pilots referred to derisively as garbage haulers.

"My sister, mainly. She got tapped to do some sort of secret thing a few years ago. We barely saw her, and then I heard she got hurt. Nothing more, just that she was hurt. I started doing this, hoping I could find her." He shook his head. "Say, you were at Beacon, weren't you? When it all went to shit?"

Weiss leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. "That's a good description of it."

"Look, maybe you can't tell me, but there was a rumor…that my sister was at Beacon. Kind of short, brown hair, cut about neck length? Looks kind of like me?" He took off his sunglasses. He had brown eyes. Weiss examined his face, tried to jog her memory. The only pilot that was close to that description was Octavia Ember, who was Jordanian, not American.

"I don't think so; sorry," Weiss apologized. "What was her name?"

"Amber. Amber Tardor."

"No, sorry," she said again.

"Shit. Well, that's okay." He put his sunglasses back on. "Lionheart told me she got killed at Beacon. He couldn't say more, but I just wanted to…" He took a deep breath. "I just wanted to know if she went down swinging. Maybe that would make it better…I don't know."

Weiss hesitated, then reached over and put a hand on his shoulder. "If she was a pilot, I would have known her. She would've been in one of the Vytal Flag flights. Lionheart might be wrong."

"Yeah…maybe." He leaned forward and put both hands on the wheel, as a radio call came in for them to climb to 22,000 feet to avoid other traffic. Weiss pulled her hand away. "Anyway, Miss Schnee, that's why I'm doing this. Same as him. If Amber did die at Beacon, if someone killed her…" His jaw became set. "Then by God, I'm going to do whatever I can to kill them right back."

Mount Yamantau

Ural Mountains, Russian Dead Zone

9 June 2001

Salem stood at the entrance to the underground hangar, underneath the camouflaged tarp, and waited patiently as Cinder Fall taxied in the MiG-21. The engine wound down, and once the crew chief had helped her unstrap and safety the seat, Cinder climbed down, handing her helmet to him. Salem put her hands behind her back and smiled. Cinder looked tired, but not exhausted this time. "How was it?"

"Much easier this time." Cinder raised her artificial arm. "It's still painful, but I think I'm getting used to it."

"Excellent." Salem motioned for her to follow, and Cinder obeyed. To the latter's surprise, they did not enter the mountain, but instead took a path that went around the mountain, through the cool woods. Salem was quiet for awhile, and Cinder did not want to interrupt the silence; the sun through the woods was just warm enough to be pleasant, and to be honest, she needed to stretch her legs after being in the cramped cockpit of the MiG.

"I just heard from Leonardo Lionheart," Salem suddenly spoke. "It seems Weiss Schnee has escaped from her father and is heading to Japan."

"Interesting," Cinder replied, though it really wasn't, not to her. Weiss Schnee was not the member of Ruby Flight she wanted dead. "Could that complicate our plans? We could try stopping her along the way."

"No," Salem said. "She's heading to Japan through Dubai, according to Lionheart. That's a little too far south. I do have GRIMM operating in North Africa, but Schnee is not that important of a target." She detoured around a rock. "Still, it will make Jacques Schnee suspect General Ironwood of helping his daughter escape, and that can only help us. The longer that fool keeps up his embargo, the better off we are." Salem chuckled. "I'm sure all of you think of me as some sort of master planner, Cinder, but I hadn't anticipated Schnee to go that far with his political machinations. Men are so easily led." She shook her head. "No, Weiss Schnee isn't important. If she was heading anywhere near the Dead Zones in North America, then perhaps, but not through Dubai. Ah, here we are."

Salem led Cinder off the path to a lesser used one, and then past a guard who snapped to attention and saluted them both. Salem returned the salute and they walked under another gigantic camouflage tarp. To Cinder's surprise, she saw another long, camouflaged taxiway leading out to a runway, cleverly painted to look like a forest clearing. She'd flown over the area several times and never noticed it. Salem stopped and turned to her. "Tell me, Cinder, and be honest: are you satisfied with the MiG-21?"

"It's a piece of shit," Cinder said.

Salem laughed. "That's what I get when I ask for honesty." She motioned to a few ground crewmen, who hurried to something draped under a black tarp. "I hope you'll forgive my flair for the dramatic, Cinder." She raised her hand, and the men pulled away the tarp.

At first, Cinder thought it was a F-15, by the size, intakes, and twin tails, then a F-18, by the nose. Then she realized it was neither. The nose was long and stood high on a stalklike forward landing gear, to slope backwards to the slanted intakes and a wide fuselage. The tails rose above twin engines; a huge rearward-facing radar stabbed backwards from the tails. Ventral fins dropped below the tails. It was painted in three shades of blue that would be hard to see against a sky, or an ocean.

"That's…that's impressive," Cinder said, finding her voice. "What is it?"

"After the rockets stopped flying in the Third World War, there were many Soviet aircraft design teams that survived. Most were from the Sukhoi bureau. Of those, many fled to India, where they started producing MiGs for them. A few, however, made their way here; I've lured others back. As I said, men, and women, are so easily led. I've had them producing GRIMM, of course—I rather like that Western codename—but they've also been working on advanced manned fighters as well. As the West fields fighters to take on my GRIMM, such as the F-15 and the F-22, we've had to do so as well." Salem motioned her forward, and they stood next to the nose. "The designers refer to this as the Su-27—it's a fighter, hence the odd number, and the 27th design they've produced since World War II. Designers like their continuity. I've heard some of them call it a 'Flanker,' since they believe it will flank anything that flies, like a cavalry charge flanking an assault column. I suppose designers like their fanciful names as well." She ran two fingers along the fighter's nose. "It also has DUST, provided by the late, great Roman Torchwick." Salem turned and smiled, like a wolf who had just realized prey was available and bleeding. "And it's all yours, Cinder."

"Oh my," Cinder said, with a feral grin. "What I can do with this."