AUTHOR'S NOTES: After Ruby's explosion last chapter, this one is not a cooldown chapter-it's an action chapter, because Neo is coming for Ruby and her flight, and plans to put some blood on the walls. There might be more than meets the eye, though.

Part of this chapter was inspired by Top Gun Maverick, and many thanks to C.W. Lemoine and Gonky's review of the movie, so I could see what was right and wrong about that scene. Anyone interested in fighter combat and aerial combat in movies should definitely look into their YT channels.

Many thanks for the reviews. They keep us authors going.

Silac Airfield

Banska Bystrica, Independent Confederation of Slovakia

14 September 2001

Luckily they were already in their flight suits. It was a hard run to the hangars, with Pyrrha—despite her breakdown—shouting that they would worry about flight assignments once they got in the air. Ruby said nothing, not even to Yang: she just ran as fast as she could, as if by running she could leave all the ugly words that had been said behind.

She skidded to a halt in front of the F-5F. The crew chief was already waiting. "Will she fly?" she puffed.

"She'll fly. You put a hell of a strain on the airframe, but she's still strong." He helped her with the G-suit. "Forget the survival vest. There's no time," Ruby ordered. He nodded and helped her strap on the parachute. Ruby had put one foot on the ladder when Little came running up. "Absolutely not!" Ruby yelled at her.

"I'm not staying here!" Little grabbed the parachute and started putting it on. The crew chief immediately started helping her, even as the rest of the ground crew slammed the gun doors shut and secured them, and pulled the covers off the seeker heads of the two Sidewinders mounted on the wingtips. Ruby noticed there was a belly fuel tank attached to the centerline.

"You're safe here!" Ruby insisted.

"No, I'm not!" Little pointed to the burned-out hangar. "I'm coming with you!"

Ruby murmured something unprintable and finished climbing into the front cockpit. Little, once she had put on the G-suit and parachute—climbed in as well. Seeing that Ruby needed no assistance with helmet, oxygen mask or radio feeds, the crew chief devoted his time to helping Little, who yelped when her helmet was crushed down over her ears.

Ruby ran through a very quick preflight as the ladders were taken away and the canopies closed. "Banska Tower, Ruby Lead." Even the callsign seemed to mock her. "Raid count."

"Ruby Lead, Banska. Raid count is four aircraft, bearing zero-eight-five, altitude five thousand, speed 1200." Holy shit, Ruby thought, that's nearly Mach 1 on the deck. What the hell are those? "Possible trailers, altitude four thousand, speed 500. Range to bandits is 70 and rapidly dropping; ETA five minutes." As Ruby taxied out, the tower quickly gave her weather conditions; there was another thunderstorm making its way towards Silac, the latter half of the cold front that had moved through the day before. "You are number four for takeoff." Ruby tapped the toe breaks as first Yang's Hunter and then Blake and Marrow in the F-14 taxied out. The two sisters exchanged a glance, and even at the distance with their oxygen masks on, Ruby could see the concern in Yang's eyes. Blake did not even look at her; Marrow did only for a moment. Pyrrha's F-22 rocketed into the air a second later, standing on its tail and accelerating into the sky like only a Raptor could.

Pyrrha leveled out at 12,000 feet, her radar already on and searching for targets. She shoved the guilt over Penny and her anger at Ruby aside; such thoughts had to wait, because distracted fighter pilots got killed. Her radar quickly painted four targets moving very fast, with another two sweeping around to the east. She had full fuel, but only two Sidewinders and the gun. Pyrrha decided she would take command; Ruby would have to just deal with it. Her F-22 was better suited. "Ruby Flight, Juniper Lead. Raid count is six bandits." She read out speed, heading and altitude, and warned that the flight had split. "I'll intercept them as far out as I can, but there will be leakers. Juniper out." She advanced the throttle and swung out to the west a little.

"Yang is up." Behind her, the Hunter was in the air, Yang firewalling the smaller fighter's throttle to catch the raiders as far out as she could.

"Blake is up. Yang, I'm low and to your right." Pyrrha dipped a wing and distantly saw the specks of the Hunter and the F-14 catching up. She thought she saw Ruby's F-5F take off as well, but Ruby didn't report in. Weiss was still getting to the runway in her little G.91.

Pyrrha went back to the matter at hand, and then, a little bit of cloud parted, and she spotted them. "Tally-ho! Northern bandits are four Fitter-As!" Luckily, she remembered the old NATO reporting name for the ancient Sukhoi Su-7. The slim strike aircraft was pretty in its own way, a 1950s-era fighter in name only, built for speed rather than maneuverability, a tube of a fuselage with swept wings and tails. "Pyrrha engaging!"

She started to roll in, but then noticed another contact on her radar, well behind the Su-7s. She doubted ground radar had picked it up, but the F-22's radar left nowhere to hide. She hesitated for a moment—whatever it was, it was riding the leading edge of the thunderstorm—then dismissed it; it was well behind the Su-7s, which were the main threat. Pyrrha snapped the stick to roll in, then cursed; her moment of hesitation had been too long, and the swift Su-7s were already past, moisture shock cones forming around the speeding aircraft as they neared the speed of sound; she remembered that the Su-7 could reach supersonic speeds at low level, unlike most aircraft of its era. "Pyrrha, no joy! Four bandits proceeding south; engaging bandits to the east. Warning—there may be a trailer!" Pyrrha watched the four strikers clear a wooded ridge, then switched her attention to the other two bandits.

A trailer? Ruby thought. She heard Weiss report that she was in the air, but deliberately did not check in. It had occurred to her during the hurried takeoff that Neo might be monitoring their transmissions; either Cheshire would have told her or he had tortured it out of him. Then she heard Pyrrha's call that there was a possible trailing aircraft. That's her, Ruby thought. Neo would trail her strikers, her F-5 waiting for Ruby Flight and Pyrrha to commit, then ambushing them from behind. It was an old, effective tactic, and just something that Neo would enjoy.

Not this time, Ruby promised herself. She might have lost her temper on the ground, she might have even lost her friendship with Pyrrha and the others, but she could at least kill Neo Politan. "Little," she said, the first time she'd acknowledged the mouse Faunus since the hangar.

"I'm here," Little replied, trying to put as much friendliness in her voice as she could.

"Keep your head moving around. You see any aircraft coming in behind us or to the sides, you let me know, okay? That's your job. Watch our sides and tail. Don't worry about what's on the instrument panel; watch the sky. We lose sight, we lose the fight, got it?"

"Yes," Little acknowledged. "Um…why aren't we with the others? Don't you all need to stick together?"

"Why are you even here," Ruby mumbled, watching the sky ahead of her, waiting for Neo to break out of the clouds. The F-5 had a radar, but it wasn't a very good one, and she was keeping it off. Neo's gonna try and ambush us. Well, I'm gonna ambush her.

"Uh, what?" Ruby hadn't realized Little had heard her. The intra-cockpit radio was sound-activated. "I promised I'd help you."

"I promised too." Ruby's voice was both sad and angry at the same time. "I promised to serve my country as a fighter pilot and Huntress. That I'd keep people safe. That I'd be there for my friends."

"Ruby?" Little's voice was full of concern.

"You don't know what I've done, Little," Ruby said. "What I couldn't do. If you stay with me, there's a good chance you'll end up dead too. Nothing we can do about that now. When we get back, you should just go home."

"Ruby—"

"There she is." Ruby had seen the trailing bandit. Outlined against a white cloud, the leading edge of an angry thunderstorm already riddled by lightning, was a F-5E.

Marrow watched the radar intently. He wished he was anywhere but back in the backseat of the Tomcat that had tried to kill him the day before, but this was duty. "Raygun, Raygun! Locked onto Bandit-2, range 13, closing speed awfully fast!" He hoped Blake would remember she was in the older style F-14 and not in Gambol Shroud this time.

"Blake, Fox One!" Blake pulled the trigger twice this time, sending two Sparrows on their way. "Blake is padlocked!" She was worried, and not just about Ruby: the Sparrow was not really a maneuvering missile, she had to stay straight and level to make sure the missiles guided, and it was rapidly reaching the Sparrow's minimum interception range. There were two Sidewinders nestled under the F-14's wings, but that and the gun was it. A quick glance to her left showed that Yang had dropped back to cover her, surrendering the lead to her friend without a word.

Blake watched the two thick white missile smoke trails, and switched to Sidewinders with a flick of the thumb. The first trail went past the Su-7 and exploded against a ridgeline. The second Blake was sure would miss, but then it suddenly twisted sideways, caught the fighter broadside, and blew it apart in an orange and yellow explosion. "Blake, splash one!" There was a blur to her left. "Yang, one Fitter going between us!"

"Roger, too fast! Two more down the right side!" The Jabberwocky pilots—Blake was sure that was who they were—did not bother to engage, and headed straight for Silac. She guessed Neo's orders had been to hit the base as hard as they could.

"Yang, Blake, float right and take the bandits to the east! Weiss, you and I have the leakers!" Pyrrha ordered.

Blake wondered where Ruby was. "Roger that—going right!" She turned the Tomcat to the east, the wings raking back for speed, as Marrow held on. Yang accelerated, pushing the old Hunter to its limit to keep up. They saw the Raptor go over their heads, Pyrrha breaking the sound barrier as she pushed to catch up to the Su-7s.

"Raygun," Marrow called out again. "Locked onto east bandits, twelve o'clock level, range 12 miles and closing." They had no Sparrows left, but now Marrow's job fell to watching the radar and the sky around them.

Blake heard the growl of the Sidewinders as the missiles' seeker heads picked up the targets. They were still a little far. "Tally-ho!" Yang called out. "East bandits are two L-39s!"

Blake watched her HUD count down. Eight miles. Good enough. Once more, she pulled the trigger twice. "Blake, Fox Two on right bandit!" The Sidewinders leapt off their rails, as if eager for the kill. They closed the distance quickly. The L-39 pilot broke to the right, dropping flares. It decoyed off the first missile. The second one wasn't fooled, and struck the converted trainer just behind the cockpit. The L-39 vanished in a fireball, and Blake was already rolling upwards to keep Yang's bandit in sight. "Blake, splash two!"

There hadn't been time to load Sidewinders on the Hunter; Yang knew she would have to do it the old fashioned way. She set herself on a collision course with the remaining L-39. Okay, buddy…let's see who has the bigger set of balls. Figuratively speaking. She eased back on the throttle a bit, but kept the L-39 in the gunsight reticle of the HUD. The range counter was spinning down like a slot machine. They were three seconds from one or the other breaking off; five from a spectacular midair collision.

Yang's gamble paid off. The Jabberwocky pilot's nerve broke, and they suddenly climbed. Yang had a split-second of the L-39 spreadeagled in her gunsight, and pulled the trigger. The Hunter's four 30 millimeter cannon bucked with enough force to shake Yang's feet on the rudder pedals, shredding the L-39, which disintegrated in midair. She ducked as the Hunter flew under the fragments of her kill. "Yang, splash three!"

Weiss had firewalled her throttle, but the G.91 was not particularly fast. She was, however, able to get herself upsun and higher than the speeding Su-7, the one that had gone between Yang and Blake, and that gave her a bit of an edge. She dived on her target, firing one of her two Sidewinders. "Weiss, Fox Two!" As soon as she said it, she knew she was going to miss: the Su-7 was just too fast. She was about to call out she had missed when suddenly her opponent broke hard to the left to avoid the missile, even though it was not going to hit. The pilot had made the turn too fast: the Su-7 stalled, went out of control, and tumbled into a hill just outside the base perimeter. She flew past the explosion. "Um…Weiss, splash four!" A kill is a kill, she decided.

She spotted the other two Su-7s. They had slowed down at least, but as they turned, she noticed something else: the old fighter only had a small number of hardpoints, and it gulped so much fuel that two of those hardpoints were always used for underfuselage drop tanks, leaving the wings free for bombs. Weiss had expected they would carry cluster bombs, assuming the Jabberwockies had them, which would do maximum damage for a single pass.

For the brief moment they turned their bellies to her, Weiss saw that the wing stations were empty.

There was no time to warn anyone, and in moments, it became academic. Pyrrha's F-22 roared in, firing two Sidewinders: both blotted the trailing Su-7 from the sky. As Weiss watched, Pyrrha skidded the Raptor, vortices streaming from its wings and tails, using thrust vectoring to shed speed in a hurry. Given another second, the Su-7 might have completed its turn and accelerated away, but the pirate did not have another second: Pyrrha opened fire with the gun. It chopped into the engine, tearing it apart, and the Su-7 flew into the ground. "Pyrrha, splash five and six. All bandits accounted for." She slowly went into a climb. "All friendlies check in."

Yang and Blake had rejoined to the east, and checked in. "Weiss," Weiss called out.

"Ruby, Pyrrha. Come in." There was no response. "Ruby, Pyrrha. Come in." Still nothing.

"Pyrrha, Marrow. I have her on scope, bearing one-zero-one, range 32, speed…uh…450." Weiss felt the fear crawl up her throat. That's into the thunderstorm.

"Ruby Flight, Pyrrha, join on me!" Pyrrha was already headed in that direction.

Weiss blew out her breath. She had to say it, and it felt horrible to do so. Ruby was her best friend. "Pyrrha, Weiss. Recommend you and Blake intercept Ruby. Yang and I will cover Silac." Both the Hunter and the G.91 were short-ranged, and neither could keep up with the F-22 or F-14; Weiss also knew that it could be a trick, with another Jabberwocky attack group circling around to hit the base from another direction. Banska Tower had been silent, but ground radar could be fooled much easier than airborne.

A pause. "Roger that. Yang, fall back."

"Yang, roger. Shit." Yang did not sound happy. Weiss watched the two fighters head for the thunderstorm, and hated that she wasn't going with them. Come on, Ruby, she prayed, don't do something stupid.

If it was Neo in the F-5E—and Ruby was certain that it was—she had abruptly realized that she was all alone. Her strike force had been wiped out in less than five minutes, and now there would be some vengeful fighter pilots after her. She had a head start, though.

But not against Ruby.

Ruby pushed the throttle into afterburner and dived, punching off the drop tank before it could be torn off. Little watched amazed as the airspeed indicator went past Mach 1. She closed the distance rapidly, and smiled savagely behind the oxygen mask as the Sidewinders began to growl. "You're mine, Neo," she breathed. "You're fucking mine." She heard the radio calls and ignored them.

Neo plunged into the thunderstorm, Ruby behind her. Visibility went to zero in moments, and Ruby slowed down a little, switching on the F-5's small radar. The rain cluttered it, but Ruby divided her attention between the radar and the sky. Neo was still ahead of her. The storm buffeted the little fighter, the wind threatening to grab it and smash the F-5 into the ground, but Ruby was now one with her aircraft, her hands and feet never idle, compensating for updrafts and downdrafts, for the wind pushing them to the side. The world around them was darkness, lit by flashes of lightning, but it was as if Ruby was tethered to Neo. The other woman would edge out of Sidewinder range, then be forced back into it; she would twist and turn as much as she could, still headed east back towards Kosice, the Jabberwocky base, but Ruby was not to be dissuaded. Once she thought she had a solid lock with the Sidewinders, but held fire: she wanted to be sure. Even forcing Neo to eject into a thunderstorm was not good enough; Ruby needed to watch her hated enemy die.

Little, for her part, found that she wasn't scared, much to her own amazement. She felt a little nauseous as the F-5 bucked and roiled in the storm, and she knew the ground was somewhere around—she knew what the altimeter meant, and watched as it fluctuated between 2000 and 5000 feet. The F-5F's dual controls moved with Ruby's inputs, and Little was careful not to touch either stick or throttle; the stick twice banged into her knees as Ruby fought a particularly bad updraft, but Little did not complain. The lightning raced around her, and she pulled her visor down rather than be blinded. She knew that she should be scared; if anything, she should be terrified, but yet she wasn't. It wasn't quite fun, but she felt the adrenaline surge through her system, her heart pounded, and she felt like she needed to go to the bathroom…and yet Boguslawa Wojownik, Little, had never felt so alive in her sixteen years on the planet.

They broke into a patch of clear air. The sky around them was still dark, just a hint of sunlight far above them, but then blue fire suddenly covered the F-5. Little realized what it was. "St. Elmo's fire!" she gasped. It skittered and played over the fighter, and she reached out to touch the canopy, although of course she could not actually touch the electrical discharges. Little found herself smiling behind the mask. This is why, she thought, despite the fact that they were in combat, that Ruby was hunting down another human being. This is why you fly, Ruby. My God, this is why. I love it. I love it too.

Then the St. Elmo's fire was gone, and they were plunged into utter darkness as they hit the squall line in the thunderstorm's wake. Rain exploded against the canopies, and Little gripped the side of the seat as the nose suddenly rose up and the tail was pushed down. She didn't know what wind shear was, so Little didn't know to be very afraid as the thunderstorm tried to kill them. Ruby still was silent; she fought the shear for a moment, then they were through. The clouds went from black to gray to white, and they were out into sunlight, the forested ridges of Slovakia beneath them. Neo dived again, getting low to lose herself in the ground clutter, where the heat of the ground might confuse the Sidewinders' seeker heads. Ruby glanced at her fuel—they were a little low, but plenty to get home—and dived after her, switching to guns. She settled the pipper on the broad back of the F-5E, then edged it slightly forward until it was centered on the white helmet that covered Neo Politan's head. Her finger slowly closed on the trigger.

The sky seemed to explode around them. Little screamed, and Ruby instinctively pulled up as antiaircraft fire covered the sky. Flak trap! Ruby's mind screamed. With a sudden and terrible realization, Ruby realized that she had not been pursuing Neo: Neo had been leading her into this the whole time.

Neo was forgotten as Ruby fought for survival. She saw the tracers of 23 millimeter fire lace the air, followed by the blue-black explosions of 57 millimeter fire. Above and ahead was the huge bursts of the heavy guns, 85 millimeters. She pushed the throttle and began jinking for all she was worth. She got lower, so low Little could now see individual treetops, so low the bigger antiaircraft guns could no longer track her. She ducked behind ridges and around tracts of forest, and soon even the 23 millimeter ZPUs lost her. Ruby thought they were going to make it—even if there were surface-to-air missile sites around, she was too low for those to be effective either.

Then she heard the thumps and cracks of something else hitting the F-5, and knew there was one threat she hadn't considered: small arms. Below her, the Jabberwockies' perimeter guards fired their AK-47s and light machine guns into the air. Only one out of every fifty bullets actually hit the speeding fighter, but that was enough. Ruby saw fire lights come on, then a new alarm told her that she was losing her hydraulics. The F-16 did not use hydraulics, but microprocessors to fly; the F-5 used hydraulic lines, and now those had been severed.

The aircraft was doomed. Ruby was not afraid, just vastly disappointed in herself. She had fallen for Neo's trick, again, and now she had a choice: eject or ride down the aircraft. The former meant likely capture by Neo; the latter meant death. It was a choice she contemplated for a second.

She couldn't let Little die. Ruby pulled back on the stick, getting as much altitude as she could before the controls locked. She watched the altimeter reach 9000 feet before the rudder pedals felt mushy. "Little, we're going to have to bail out. Remember what the chief told you about the parachute, okay? Tighten your straps! Hurry!" Little did so. "Put your head back in the headrest, make your back as straight as you can! Don't move your arms or legs!" The airspeed wound down. "Find me when we reach the ground! Don't try and fight anyone—let them take you prisoner! Neo doesn't care about you!" Ruby felt the F-5 begin to shudder with the beginning of the stall. "Ready?"

"No!" Little yelled.

"Eject, eject, eject!" Ruby reached up and pulled the ejection handles. The F-5F had command eject, which meant either pilot could pull the handles; either way, Little went out first. The canopies blew off, easily separating from the aircraft, which was nearly stopped in midair, then Little rocketed free of the aircraft. Ruby went a second afterwards, passing out for a moment as twelve times the force of gravity pressed her into the seat. Then she was clear, conscious again, and saw the F-5 fall away towards the forest below. It was an easy ejection, compared to the high speed one out of Crescent Rose the week before that could have easily killed her. Ruby felt the seat separate from her, and as she began to go into freefall, looked around frantically for Little. She spotted her, falling from a slightly higher height; Ruby tore off the oxygen mask and screamed, partially to warn Little and partially out of terror, afraid that she was watching Little fall to her death. Then she saw her friend move, the green silk billowed out of the parachute pack, and a good canopy formed over Little. Ruby grinned and pulled the D-ring on her own parachute, and was rewarded with a whumpf as the parachute deployed perfectly. There was an explosion as the F-5 crashed.

Ruby half-expected Neo to come around and kill them both in their parachutes, but there was no sign of the other F-5. She noticed Little was watching her, so Ruby reached up and grabbed the risers, then pressed her legs together. She hoped the other girl would notice, and then saw Little emulate her.

Luckily they did not land in the trees, but in a cleared section of forest. Ruby made an excellent parachute landing, staying on her feet. Little landed hard and rolled to her side, then was quickly dragged across the ground as the wind caught the parachute canopy and pulled it. Ruby rapidly got her 'chute off, chased Little, and jumped onto the canopy, collapsing it. She reached for her knife, then realized she wasn't wearing her survival suit. "Oh shit," she whispered. With no survival suit, she had no radio.

Little was swearing in Polish, so Ruby managed to get her free of the parachute. Shakily, Little got to her feet. She faced Ruby with huge eyes. "I…what…did I do…do it right?"

"Are you hurt?"

Little tested her arms and legs. "No…I don't think so." She looked down at her flight suit. "Oh no."

"What?" Then Ruby saw the spreading wetness across Little's middle. Oh God, she's been cut open.

"I wet myself."

Ruby, despite herself, laughed and slapped Little on the shoulder. "Hell, who hasn't? Congratulations, Little-you just survived an ejection."

"Great," Little breathed. "Now what?"

"Now we get the hell out of here." Ruby pushed her towards the west; she had gotten a chance to get her bearings while parachuting down. There was a treeline; if they could reach it, they could evade through the woods. In the distance, Ruby thought she heard explosions, though it could be thunder from the storm. Then she heard a faint sizzling noise, and looked up as smoke trails crossed the sky. "SAMs," she said. "Oh God, no. No. Whoever is out there, just leave us. Just leave me."

The F-14 and the F-22 burst from the storm. They had skirted it rather than go straight through it, something Marrow was fervently happy about. It was one thing to risk a thunderstorm when one was flying the aircraft; it was another when one was along for the ride.

Blake didn't have to tell him to start looking. Both fighters had their radars on; Neo knew they were coming, so there was no point not to. Marrow spotted a return to their front, directly east, where the navigation display showed Kosice's airport to be, but then it disappeared. Nothing else was in the air. "Scope's clean. Had a bandit at 15 miles, but I think they landed."

"Parachutes!" Blake called out. "Two 'chutes, two o'clock low." Then she saw the fire. "Burning aircraft, three o'clock low." Neo was in a single-seat F-5, so it had to be Ruby and Little. Blake willed herself to be calm. "Ruby, Blake, come up, channel three. Ruby, Blake, come up."

"Ruby, Pyrrha, come up on Guard." Pyrrha had switched to the universal frequency, despite knowing that Neo and any Jabberwocky with a radio could hear her now.

Then both aircraft's SAM warning lights came on. Marrow saw the flashes of launches from the forests below. "Radar warning!" he shouted. "Smoke in the air, Blake, break right!" He was slammed against the side of the cockpit as the F-14 went hard over. Marrow stabbed the countermeasures button, sending flares and chaff behind the Tomcat. "Blake defending!" Blake shouted. Two missiles flashed overhead, decoyed by either the chaff or the flares, but there were more coming.

Pyrrha was in no better shape as she broke to the left, dropping countermeasures behind the Raptor. The SAMs had more trouble locking onto the F-22 due to its stealth, but they were getting enough radar return that Pyrrha was forced to fling her fighter around the sky. She dived, but now flak curled up at her and she was forced to climb again; gunners firing over open sights didn't care about stealth. "Blake, stay high! Flak down low!" She dodged as someone even fired a shoulder-launched SAM at her.

"Talk to me, Marrow!" Blake screamed as a third missile streaked past.

"Smoke, smoke, three o'clock low!" He groaned as Blake twisted and rolled, causing a fourth missile to break lock. "Get us out of here!"

"We…can't!" Blake was straining against the G-forces, praying the engines wouldn't flame out. "Got…Ruby…"

Marrow saw in wonder a fifth missile go past, close enough for him to recognize it as a British-made Rapier. For some reason it failed to explode. Now a sixth was locked onto them, and out of the corner of one eye, he could see Pyrrha evade yet two more. "SAM, SAM, four o'clock low!"

Blake spotted the smoke trail and saw there was no time to try to run from it. There was one old trick left: she turned into the missile, either guaranteeing that it would hit and kill both her and Marrow, or the missile would be unable to compensate and miss. Luckily, it was an older Soviet-era SA-2, and that missile could not maneuver. It missed, but detonated behind them. Marrow felt something hit the Tomcat, and twisted around in his seat. "We're hit, Blake!"

"I know!" Blake dived, risking the flak to avoid any more SAMs. The controls felt a little heavy, but no fire or warning lights came on. "I think one of the rudders got hit. Pyrrha, Blake! We're egressing west!"

"Roger, Blake! RTB, now!" Pyrrha dodged one last SAM as she followed the Tomcat west, ordering Blake to return to base. She thumbed the radio switch. "Ruby, if you can hear me, evade west! Evade west! We'll find you! We'll find you!"

"Holy shit," Ruby said, seeing the air filled with SAMs. She saw Pyrrha overhead for a moment, but there was no way to signal her—even if the other pilot hadn't been busy trying to survive. She and Little were running across the open field. "I sure fucked us good."

"What?" Little puffed.

"Nothing." Ruby saw there was a low barbed wire fence ahead and vaulted it at a run, then slid and fell in the mud. Little didn't try to jump it, but tried to pick her way through the wire, and promptly snagged herself on it. Ruby, cursing, got to her feet and ran over to help pull her free.

"Ruby!" Little warned. There was a jeep coming down the road. "Leave me!" she told Ruby. "Just run!"

"Not going to leave you," Ruby said, pulling one arm free.

"Come on, Ruby—"

"I said I wasn't fucking leaving you!" Ruby cut herself on a barb, trying to get Little's leg free. "My God, Little, I've watched enough of my friends die!"

The jeep braked to a halt, and four soldiers jumped out of it. Their olive drab uniforms could've been from one of a hundred armies, but each wore a triangular patch showing a winged serpent with three arms. All four had AK-47s, and all four pointed them at Ruby and Little. "Surrender!" one of them shouted.

"Run," Little whispered.

"I'd never make it." Ruby raised her hands.

The guards freed Little, then shoved them into the back of the jeep. It was a bit crowded, and Ruby considered making a grab for the wheel, but even if she managed not to wreck the jeep, she would probably get shot, and Little almost certainly would.

They drove to Kosice, and Ruby saw several antiaircraft positions and SAM sites—some older Soviet models, others brand new British or Italian Rapiers and Crotales. There were cheers as the jeep drove by, as the crews saw two of their victims. Ruby didn't begrudge them: they had done their job well. The jeep went past the airport, and Ruby noticed Neo's F-5E parked on the tarmac. She thought she spotted some other aircraft as well before one of the soldiers roughly grabbed her face and forced her to look away.

The town of Kosice reminded Ruby of Olesnica, where Jinxy had tried to sell them off; it had the same old world charm and refugee camps. It occurred to Ruby that she had spent a lot of time as a prisoner or someone threatening to make her one, and she took a deep breath, knowing that Neo was almost certainly going to hurt her. Her only chance was that Neo would want to make her pain last, long enough for Pyrrha to get the 82nd Airborne on their way. But they won't last long against those SAMs, she thought. Ruby supposed she should be terrified, scared that she was likely about to die in some horrible fashion, but she just felt tired. She looked at Little, who looked frightened and miserable, and part of her wished she had just rode the F-5 into the ground. At least then her problems would be solved, one way or another.

They reached an old building, painted yellow with a Russian-like onion dome on one side. The whole thing was surrounded by sandbags and concertina wire, with machine gun posts and an old T-55 tank parked out front. The jeep stopped; they were shoved out and led into the building, then down two flights of stairs into a dank but surprisingly warm basement. They were then pressed against a brick wall next to an iron-barred cell.

"Strip," one of the guards commanded.

"Fuck yourself," Little responded in Polish, and got slapped for her trouble. She stared back in defiance.

"Strip!" the guard shouted again.

Ruby faced him squarely. "I am Captain Ruby Rose, United States of Canada Air Force, serial number 226-22-5012. We are prisoners of war, accorded rights by the Geneva Conventions. Neither I nor my comrade will be subjected to humiliation, and rape is a capital offense under the Universal Code of Military Justice. You will be prosecuted by the armed forces of my country and shot." She half expected to be punched or laughed at, but to her surprise, the guard stepped back, unsure. She wasn't sure if he even understood her, but her voice carried a note of authority that Ruby didn't feel.

"Just do as they say. They just want the flight suits off. We'll give you clothes." They turned, and Little bared her teeth as Charles Cheshire walked down the stairs. There were no guards with him, but he was unarmed. "They're not going to hurt you." He got to the bottom of the stairs and waited; Ruby thought he looked sad and defeated.

Neo was not far behind him. She saw Ruby and her face split in an unholy grin. "They're not going to hurt you," she half-sang. "But I'm going to."