Chapter 5 - Falling Towards the Sky
A cold and cloudy sky blocked what little moonlight could be shown in this pitch darkness. Through the darkness cut five of the Altesian militaries finest airships; each armed to the teeth with state of the art weaponry and sensors. The mission was simple; get team RWBY, the faunus commandos, and a division of altesian robotic soldiers to the Skyfall cliffs and eliminate all obstacles that would present themselves. Simple and straight forward; there was nothing that would prevent them from succeeding in such an easy mission. That's what was causing Eustes Virdent; captain of the airship Shizno to worry.
He was a Veteran airship captain with more years piloting than any other captain currently in service. Most of his colleagues consider him an old warhorse; emphasis on old. He had seen enough war and death in his long life that he was smart enough to purposely go out of his way to avoid it.
Maybe that's why they sent him on such an assignment. Just a simple pick up and deliver, escort mission. At most he would be having to face aerial menaces in the form of Nevermores but besides that nothing else.
Yet tonight something felt off. Something somewhere didn't feel right to him and he knew that sooner or later trouble was going to go wrong.
" Helmsman, cut our speed by one quarter." Virdent didn't know why he decided to give the order, just something in his gut telling him that doing so was the right decision.
"Cutting speed by one quarter." The helmsman replied without pause and immediately cut the ships speed down by the designated amount.
" Ops, give me a full radar scan; full spectrum. Helm, standby with emergency thrusters." More and more his gut was telling him that something was wrong and all he could do was prepare for it.
" Sir, message from lead ship In the Air. Captain Brownman is demanding a reason for us dropping out of formation and going to full scan." The comms operator had a stern look on her face. Virdent knew that Brownman didn't demand so nicely; not that Virdent could blame him.
Captain Brownman was a part of the younger generation of airship captains and held a deep seated hatred for those old warhorses that was holding up his promotion to a higher position. He was so blatently conceited that he already had a nice oak desk ready when he obtained Fleet Admiral. There was even rumors of him doing backroom deals in order to be put in charge of the expeditionary fleet. Anything to help boost his change for promotion.
Virdent broke out of his light daze as the comms officer repeated her statement. He could only let out a sigh as he turned to look at all the young officers under his command.
"Comms, tell the captain that I thought I saw something abnormal on the sensor array and had slowwed down to investigate." He knew that it was a blatent lie. He was following his gut instinct and not the sensors; too bad following ones gut isn't an excuse to break out of formation.
What happened next was unexpected though. Virdent could hear the bridge speakers pop on with a rustle of hard static and the main screen shot bright. He first turned to the comms operator to see if she had anything to do with it, but quickly realized by her look of confusion and horror that she was innocent.
The blank white screen then shifted to that of a display of a young man in a captains uniform standing on board of an airship bridge. Virdent didn't have to be told that it was Brownman but seeing him be so arrogant as to perform a bridge communications override on his ship was pissing him off. " Captain Brownman, so glad to be in your presence. So as to what do I owe the pleasure?"
Brownman was't at all pleased. Virdent could tell right off the bat that Brownman was furious at his decision to slow down. " Virdent, I don't know how they did it back in the ancient days but here we follow orders and stay in formation."
Virdent let him have a pause; not knowing if the other captain would continue on his rant. " I'm truely sorry sir. If you had received our last message; you would understand that we picked up a sensor anomoly. We had slowed down to investigate. There was no reason to trouble..."
Brownman cut him off. " Sensor anomoly my ass. You're just trying to find an excuse to disrupt this mission. Don't think that I will let this slide captain. When we get back to Atlas; I will personally let General Ironwood know about..."
The rest of the captains words were lost in static and out the forward viewport; a massive light ignited the night sky. Right behind it followed three more lights; no not lights, explosions. Virdent looked around the bridge to see all the young officers stunned in fear. He knew he had to act or they all were dead.
" Helm, activate emergency thrusters and begin evasive maneuvers." Nothing, the helmsman was locked in fear. " Helm, EMERGENCY THRUSTERS NOW!"
Virdents loud voice cut through all the alarms and shock and knocked the helmsman free of his paralysis. Without even responding back he hit the emergency thrusters and begain moving the ship in near erratic motion.
" Ops, tell me what the hell just happened to the other ships." Virdent was right; something did indeed happen. Now he just had to be smart enough to survive it and get some much needed payback.
The operations officer turned to Virdent with a pure ghost white expression on his face. " Sir, sensors are not picking up any residual heat signatures. I can't even tell you what direction that they were hit from."
What madness was this? How could someone not only have a weapon powerful enough to destroy multiple airships almost instantaneously but also not be able to leave any trace? Time was a luxury right now and against his own desire for vengence; he put that part of him away. " Helm, right rudder. We're getting the hell out of here. Comms, send an emergency message to both Beacon and Atlas. Tell them what happened and call for reinforcements. ALL HANDS BATTLE STATIONS."
" Sir, energy surge in the right engine. It's going critical." The rest of operations officers words fell deaf as the airship shuddered under the weight of a massive explosion. The bridge went alive with consoles and panels sparking and blowing up.
Virdent jumped from the captains dais and down to the operations officers station. He pulled the young officer off his console to see a burnt face with a piece of shrapnel embedded in his skull. A part of the captain wished that the young man met death quickly. Again he had to put his own feelings aside and do his duty to his crew. " Engineering, can you here me? How bad is it?"
A heavily static voice came over the ships speakers. " This is engineering. Right engine is completely gone. Central is about to go critical and left is down to half efficiency."
" Can you fix it?" Virdent already knew the answer but was hoping for a miracle.
" Half the engineering and emergency management crew is dead, including the engineering chief. There is nothing we can do." The young engineer had so much fear in his voice. He knew that they were dead.
" Listen to me. These will be the last orders you get. Dump everything from the central engine. Use what power we have left in the thrusters on the under right side to balance the ship as much as possible for as long as possible. After that is done; evacuate everyone you can to the life boats." What a long career Virdent has had. He had worked his whole life as a loyal soldier of the Atlas military. Even without huntsment training; he had fought and killed Grimm. He was so looking forward to retirement too. " Comms, send a message to Atlas. We are abandoning ship. Helmsman take over ops and activate the ship wide evacuation protocol... I still have one last thing to do."
Virdent sat at the helm; now in full control of his battered and broken ship. As captain, he was the only one allowed to do this last job...
'All I want is five more minutes...' That was the first thought that came through the young Ruby Roses mind. Always a late sleeper; being woken up before getting at least eight hours of sleep was just too much for her to handle. The violent motion wasn't helping either. Finally a hard blow went right across Rubys' cheek; forcing her awake. "What do you want?"
As she opened her eyes, she saw Weiss right in her face. " RUBY GET UP. HURRY, THE AIRSHIP IS GOING DOWN!"
What weariness left in the young huntress disappeared instantaneously. She shot up out of bed and saw that the other girls were quickly grabbing their weapons and a spare set of gear. None of them had bothered to change out of their sleep attire. Yang tossed her a bag and her folded up scythe before rushing towards the door. Yet the thought of going out in her pyjamas was too much for the young huntress. "What? I can't go out there dressed like this?"
" I don't like doing this anymore than you do Ruby." Weiss' sharp tongue was on point today and she definately wasn't putting up with Rubys' whining. Yet Ruby noticed Weiss say something low under her breathe. " At least you're wearing pants..."
All four girls stumbled out of their room and into the hallway to find the faunus soldiers all geared up and making their way towards the nearest escape ships. Ruby noticed that Jace was looking back towards the girls while grinning from ear to ear. 'He must be loving the look of us humans in our night cloths.'
As they made to the awaiting ships; they saw that Jace and Gideon had sent the rest of their team ahead while they waited for the girls of team RWBY. Gideon extended his hand towards the girls. " Come on girls. I don't think that this ship will last much longer."
Weiss was the first one to get to them and get escorted inside. " Why are you two waiting on us?"
" Back in our land there is a saying ' Last one out gets the lights.'" Both of the men laughed as they all got onto the ship. Yang instinctively took the controls of the ship and started lifting it off of the doomed airship.
Gideon got in the passenger seat right next to her and strapped in tightly. " Do you know how to fly this thing?"
" Fly? Yes. Land?.. Well we'll work that part out later..." Both let out a good chuckle as she cleared the doomed airship as another blast blew the ship first in half and then fully into pieces.
Someone knew how to take these ships down. Not only that but they knew exactly the destination and time that they would pass. One ship being destroyed would be impossible; five, well that means that they were set up. And there will be hell to pay to whoever was stupid enough to sell Gideon out...