Chapter 11
It took me three hours to convince Barkhorn to let Vadim down. Currently I was laying in bed trying to get back to sleep after the alarm went off and I wasn't called out. Then something small, cold and wet touched the arch of my foot. "Ahhh! Cold!" I shouted as I jumped out of bed, taking the covers with me. "Damn it Vadim! I was trying to sleep!" I shouted while I started to remake my bed. "Alright get off." I said as I lifted him off the bed to make sure it was done right, a small habit from boot camp. "I'm gonna need some actual coffee if you keep waking me up like that Vadim." I sighed as I left the room while buttoning up my tunic. "Hey, Morrison, I heard you shout, what's wrong?" Erica cheerfully said as I bumped into her a few seconds after leaving. "Hey Vadim!" "He is the reason, him and his cold nose." I stated while looking down at my feet to see him sitting there. "Now I'm off to get some coffee and Vadim a snack." I answer. Well it's late in the afternoon now so I don't think coffee would be good for you." Sanya's queit voice spoke up from behind me. "Wait? WHAT!?" I exclaimed. "I thought I only slept a few minutes." "No you slept through the day. You could join me for night patrol if you want." Sanya explained. "Sure I'd love to. Erica think you could take care of Vadim for awhile?" I asked while looking over to Erica only to see her crouched down petting Vadim who was sniffing all the places dogs usually do when someone crouches down to greet them. "I'll take that as a yes." I said as I walked off with Sanya.
"Don't be so mean to her, Eila." Sanya suddenly broke the silence as we flew towards the group of witches. "Welcome back, everyone." She continued. 'Sanya' and 'Morrison' were their responses as we flew past them before joining up with them. "Oh, so you're on night patrol." Stated Eila. "Yes." Sanya answered as Major flew up alongside us. "Hold on, Sanya, Morrison. Gore relieved of tonight's duties. Head back to base with the rest." Major spoke as the girls gave her confused looks and I said. "What did we do wrong." But we did head back to base.
"Carrying this big thing around all the time must be really difficult, Huh, Sanya?" Yoshika asked while gazing at Sanya's rocket launcher. "Not really. I'm used to it." Sanya answered. "Sanya has night patrol by herself a lot. She uses the Fliegerhammer here when she has to fight." Eila explained. "Mostly to beef up her fire power as she has to be ready for anything." I say after removing my head from my striker. "Wow, that's amazing." Lynne said. "But I bet it's less lonely with someone else, right?" Yoshika asked. "Yeah." Sanya responded. "Huh, I just realized something." I said as I place my screwdriver back in the tool box. "What was that?" Lynne asked. "That most of the joint fighter wing witches are based off of aces from my world and are usually gender bent. Sanya here is the only one I know who isn't." I answered. "What do you mean by that?" Eila asked. "She is literally based off of the 'White Lily of Stalingrad' Lydia V. Litvyak. A member of the Russian night witches, a group of female bomber pilots who flew the out dated PO-2, they are mostly known for shutting off their engines and gliding over German columns to drop their bombs." I explained. "Oh, what about me?" Asked Yoshika. "Kaneyoushi Muto, is who you're based off of." I answer. "Oh, right." Eila says as she remembers something. "Here..." she says as she holds up a conifer twig for Sanya. "Oh, that!" Yoshika states. "Is that a conifer twig?" Lynne asks. "Take this, Sanya." Eila says. "Finally declairing your love." I say as I walk up behind Eila whipping my hands on an oil stained cloth only to receive a kick to the gonads. "Man down, we have a man down!" I say as I fall down and curl up. "Thank you, Eila." Sanya responds to Eila and takes the twig. "Where we were flying today, there's a cypress forest just ahead. It kinda looked the way Orussia does in the winter." Eila explains. "There were a bunch of those trees where I used to live." Sanya explained. "There are many in northern Manitoba." I chirped in while still curled up on the floor. "Yeah." Lynne exclaimed. "Really?" Yoshika asked. 'Hey Jarvis, status report.' I thought trying to bring forth my friend. "Yea you're fine. Nothing to worry about. Well aside from being hunted down nothing to worry about yet." He responds with the sound of a microwave beeping in the background.
the sound of the slides switching brought my attention forward. "Air Force spy planes took these photographs." Major explained. "It just looks like a bunch of noise." Barkhorn commented. "This is the Neuroi we spotted this afternoon. This is what happened when they tried to photograph the whole thing. Estimates put it at over thirty thousand meters long." Major continues. "Do we have a U-2." I comment from my place by the projector. "So it reaches an altitude of thirty kilometres?" Barkhorn asks. "Um, so compared to Mt. Fuji, it's..." Yoshika says counting her fingers. "It's slowly cruising towards Rome, at a rate of 10 kilometres per hour. The difficult part is about its core's location." Major states before slapping her meter stick against the top of the Neuroi. "The very top?" Barkhorn asks while I just count on my hand what episode I'm in. 'Shit the next one is where a Neuroi is hiding in panties' I blush. 'Fuck, that's not good.' I thought. "Yes. I verified it myself." Majoe interrupted my train of thought. "But our striker Units top out at ten thousand meters." Perrine explained. "Right. So for this mission, we'll need to use this." Major said before it switched to a picture of a rocket engines blueprints. "A rocket booster." She confirms my theory. "Ah shit, it's based off the Me 163's engine. Why does that plane keep haunting me?" I ask only to be ignored. "Then we'll be able to fly up to the core?" Yoshika asks. "No, I don't think it's that simple." Barkhorn says. "Yea, nothings ever that simple, what's the catch." I agree with Barkhorn. "Right. The booster is quite powerful, but it consumes magic power at a very high rate. We'll only be able to fly for a short while." Commander explained. "Then we should carry someone part of the way up." Barkhorn suggested. "Precisely." Major answers. "But thirty thousand meters up, there won't be any air." Shirley explains. "What? No air?" Lucchini panics. "Then we won't be able to talk either." Erica explains. "No you're both wrong. I cut them off. It's just that the air is too thin to breath normally but we could still go normally for a couple minutes before hypoxia sets in." I explain. "That and sound relies on air density to travel. As such there is no sound in space." "What?!" Lucchini panics more. "Thirty thousand meters is unknown territory, well beyond the highest altitude record, how do you know all this Morrison." Commander asks. "From the future and a different reality remember." I answer. "But we're Witches. There is nothing Witches cannot do." Major explains. "Besides survive the slalom witch trials." I mutter. "So the one best equipped for extesive momentary combat is... Sanya. I'd like you to attack the core." Major explained. As Eila went from relaxed to shocked. "Your Fliegerhammer is critical to this operation." Major continued before Eila cut her off. "Excuse me! I'd like to go with her, then." "Oh, right. Eila, have you ever used a shield, by any chance?" Major asked. "A shield?" Eila said before smileing and crossing her arms. "I don't mean to brag, but I've never once used a shield in combat." I facepalmed at this. "Then you can't go." Major said. "Yeah, exactly. What?" Eila answered. "Yeah that's not going to do." Commander said. "Wh-Why not?" Eila said standing up from her seat. "Besides using the booster, this mission will demand survival ability in extreme conditions, as well as skills for dealing with high levels of magic power consumption. In other words, Sanya will not be able to put any focus on protecting herself. We'll need one other person to protect Sanya up there." Major explained. "I-It's not like I'm not able to use a shield!" Eila argued. "But you've never done it in combat." Major said. "That's right." Eila said proudly. "That won't cut it. Miyafuji, you go." Major said. "Yes ma'am! What?" She said as she realized what she got into. "You're able to deploy very strong shields." Major explained. "R-Right..." Yoshika said only to find Eila's Glaring face in her face.
I watched as Lynne lined up her shot on Perrine with Eila floating between them. "U-Um... Are you sure about this?" Lynne nervously asked. "I'm sure. Please do it." Perrine said from her spot. "B-But..." Lynne tried to protest. "Okay! Eila, pretend I'm Sanya and protect me." Perrine cut her off. "Pretend you're Sanya?" Eila asked. "Are you... Are you really sure about this?" Lynne tried to protest again. "Just do it, already!" Perrine snapped. "O-Okay!" Lynne said before her anti tank rifle belched out a shot only for Eila to dodge the shot and Perrine to put up her sheild. "A-Are you all right?" Lynne asked. "Why did you dodge it?!" Perrine snapped at Eila. "This training is pointless if you dodge it?!" "Sorry. But you weren't getting fully into it." Eila explained. "Perrine go take a breather. I'll take over for here." I say as I place a hand on her shoulder. "Alright Lynne shot when ready! Eila I won't be using a shield at all, so if I'm hit I'm probably dead." I say. "Okay..." Eila trailer off before a shot flew past my head and splashed into the water a few miles away. "Lynne alittle more to the left!" I call out. Another bang and i flies past my face on the other side. "A wee bit to the right!" I shout out correcting her shots and stopping any protests. I watch as Eila puts up a shield that holds for about a second before failing as soon as it does my shield comes up and stops the round. "Again!" Would ring out throught the sky for a couple hours.
After getting back to our shared room I noticed Barkhorn going through my closet looking through my uniforms trying to find a winter jacket. "My winter jacket up top." I said as I leaned against my bed post. "Why would you put it up there?" Barkhorn asks while spinning around. "Mostly because I never had a need to use it, the jungles aren't cold you know." I answer. "Also because it clears up space for other equipment." "Such as?" Barkhorn responds. "You didn't look did you?" I ask. "Of course not." She answers while folding her arms over her chest. "Well let me show you." I say as I pull back a group of uniforms that was hiding a wooden cane, a steel box, dog food and a cardboard box of chocolate. "Here yea go." I say as I start to unlock the box. "And there." I say as the long and flat box opens to show off a sword. "What type of sword is that?" Barkhorn asks while leaning over my shoulder. "Hopefully you'll never need to know." I answer. "That sounds ominous." She states while standing back up. "That's the point." I state before closing and locking the box.
"Looking good, Lucchini." Shirley said while standing back to admire her handy work. "It's so hot in this..." Lucchini moaned. "Now you see how it feels for me to go from a nice cold temperature to baking alive." I answer. "Bear with it, Lucchini." Shirley said as I hefted my heavy Snow White winter jacket and placed my white neck warmer on, followed by my white toque. "The stratosphere is super cold." Shirley continued. "I hate cold!" Lucchini exclaimed. "Then you wouldn't do well in Manitoba." I shot back. "Now put these on." Shirley said while placing earmuffs on Lucchini's head. "Your coat is alittle big for me, Barkhorn." Yoshika said. "Better than no coat." Perrine answered. I then noticed a table of tea. "What's all that?" Barkhorn asked Lynne as she walked up. "I decided to try making ginger tea. It's supposed to warm your body." Lynne answered. "Smart." I commented while lighting up a smoke. "Oi Yoshika you want one?" I ask her. "No thanks." Was my response. I then downed the tea before placing the cigarette back. "How is it?" Lynne asks. "Not half back." I say as everyone else looks indecisive. "I used a lot of sugar, so it should be easy to drink." Lynne stated. "So that's why it reminds me of maple syrup." I say as everyone talks about how it doesn't taste right. Only commander was able to remain unfazed.
Mouth on the launch pad it was Sanya and Yoshika forming the top with Lynne, Perrine, Lucchini, Eila And Myself forking the second layer and Commander, Major, Barkhorn, Erica and Shirley forming the bottom layer. Then the countdown began. "Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One." Everyone counted down. Then the bottom layer started to carry us up. At ten thousand meters the bottom group broke off and the second layer used their boosters to take them up to twenty thousand meters. Then we broke away. "Godspeed, Yoshika, Sanya, Godspeed." I say as I fall away and waited for them to climb to 33,333 meters. I glanced over to Eila as she tried invain to catch up to Sanya. "No! I'll... I'll protect Sanya!" She called out. "What are you doing, Eila?" Asked Sanya. "You said it yourself. That I couldn't do it because I gave up. I don't want to give up. I will protect you!" She called out as she started losing ground. I watched as Yoshika grabbed Eila's hand and carried her to Sanya. I couldn't hear anything they said so I just spoke up. "Houston we have a problem." I muttered as I continued to watch from below. "Nevermind." I said as Sanya promised to bring Eila back down, cheers went up all around. "Godspeed, girls, Godspeed." I cheer as I watch them continue to climb. I watch as Yoshika breaks away and falls towards earth. "I'll catch her!" I say as I fly a few meters to my left and catch her in my arms. "Nice of you to drop in." I say just after I catch her. "Thanks." She answers. I look up just in time to see the Neuroi shatter into pieces. Everyone on the ground watch as they retune to base in one shape. "Alright I'll test you girls for hypoxia." I say as I walk up. "Wait what!" Eila says. "It's just a few reactionary tests." I answer before proceeding with the tests. "Both of you are fine." I say giving them the all clear as I finish writing down my observations.
Upon entering my room I found Barkhorn lost in thought while staring at a picture of Chris. "You miss her, don't you?" I ask while sitting on her bed. "Yea I do." She answers. "You'll see her again." I answer as I pat her back. "You'll survive, everyone but me I know will survive." "So you knew when Chris would wake up?" She asks. "Not the exact date or episode I just knew it was early in the series." I answer. "Thank you. But I have stuff to do so... OUT!" She says as she kicks me out. "Atlest pass out my sword." I call back in before she throws my sword box at me.
I find a small open field and unlock the box before taking out my sword. "Lets see if you really can help. I'll need you soon." I whisper as I draw it out of its sheath. I could feel the energy leave me and go into the sword. With a swing I watched as I chopped a tree in half. "Heh." I smiled as I twirled around and struck out with a frenzy. The everything the blade touched was cut, from the grass to the rock in the centre.