AUTHOR'S NOTES: Sorry about the very lengthy time between updates-I was on vacation, and then I got sick, so I was both in a place where I couldn't upload here, and then I felt too crappy to do anything but feel sorry for myself.
A bit short this time, but I'll make up for it with another chapter very soon. One thing I did want to add: this story shares only one thing with Ace Combat, and that's aerial dogfighting. That's it. Anything else is purely coincidental. After having played Ace Combat 7, I am not a fan of the game, not the least reason of which is that your wingmen, the AWACS, and the enemy do not shut up. IRL, people don't talk about their mental problems, daddy issues, and mission briefings in the middle of combat, because that's a really good way to die. If you like Ace Combat, great, more power to you, but it's not for me.
Corn Creek
10 Miles Northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada, United States of Canada (Provisional)
23 April 2002
Ruby Rose dipped the wing of her F-16 and looked at the GRIMM formation ten thousand feet below her. The GRIMM ignored her, probably because she hadn't entered into their threat detection range—and, Ruby ruefully admitted, they were right to. Her remaining AMRAAMs and Sidewinders were no threat to the dozen Centinel tanks that formed a wedge in front of the monster Megagoliath that brought up the rear. Her 20 millimeter gatling cannon buried in the F-16's left wing root was even less of a threat: it wouldn't penetrate the armor of the ground GRIMM, far better armored than their aerial counterparts.
The rest of Ruby Flight was in the same boat: they were helpless, unable to do anything but watch the GRIMM inexorably roll and stride towards Las Vegas. Even if the various criminal organizations that ran Las Vegas had armies capable of stopping the GRIMM—and they didn't—they wouldn't bother until the drones reached the walls surrounding the Strip. The favelas, the desperate poor that surrounded the affluent central city in a ring that stretched for a dozen miles outwards, would be left to fend for themselves. The GRIMM, programmed to kill whatever lived in front of them, would slaughter thousands. There was help on the way—two flights of F-16s from Luke Air Force Base, loaded with air-to-ground ordnance that could probably stop the GRIMM—but Ruby had figured it out in her head. The GRIMM would be inside the favela for five minutes by the time the F-16s arrived, and destroying them there would kill even more people.
"Ruby Lead, Briar Lead." Ruby took her attention off the ground GRIMM and climbed a few thousand feet. Whoever Briar was, they might be the only chance that Las Vegas had.
"Ruby, go Briar," Ruby radioed back.
"Ruby, we got clear skies?"
"Roger, Briar, skies are clear. Are you groomed for ground?" Ruby asked.
"Affirm. Just stay out of our way, Ruby."
Ruby fought down anger at that and Briar Lead's condescending tone. Then again, she thought, this really was Briar Flight's show now. "Roger that. Ruby assuming TARCAP, holding high to the north at angels fifteen. Ruby Three, Ruby Four, RTB now; Ruby Two, Raven, maintain CAP." Ruby would hold herself, Weiss and Raven Branwen north of the GRIMM as a combat air patrol, in case any other aerial GRIMM showed up. Blake, whose F-18 was damaged and going on one engine, would return to Las Vegas, with Yang escorting her; no one flew alone in GRIMM country. Ruby's tone brooked no argument: Blake had already pushed it by flying alone to identify the Centinels and the Megagoliath. Blake and Yang didn't try and talk her out of it, either; both pilots acknowledged and flew to the southeast.
Ruby made one last pass as she exited out of the target area, a little lower than before. The GRIMM still ignored her. The Centinels were tanks, squat armored boxes on treads with a turret that armed a 100 millimeter main gun; their biggest strength was numbers, quantity having a quality all their own. The Megagoliath, on the other hand, was something out of a science-fiction movie. It didn't roll on tracks: it strode on four massive legs. Atop the legs was a rounded armored box with missile launchers attached to the rear; a turret sat atop the box with a longer, much more powerful 120 millimeter main gun, surrounded by smaller cannon for antiaircraft and antipersonnel work. The box and turret were three stories high, and the entire effect was some kind of nightmarish armored mammoth, designed to terrify. Ruby thought that Salem might have watched a little too much Star Wars or anime at some point. Still, as they had learned in Poland, the Megagoliath was remarkably hard to kill: they had done it by having Penny Polendina point an airborne laser attached to a B-1 Lancer at a leg until it weakened to the point of collapse—one thing the Megagoliath could not do was walk on three legs. But the B-1 was destroyed and Penny was dead.
She curved around a little bit and spotted Briar Flight coming in from the southwest, over Mount Charleston, in a four-ship diamond formation—something more appropriate to airshows than combat. Out front was a small fighter, which she recognized as an AMX—a Italian-Brazilian multirole light fighter. On its left wing was the more familiar silhouette of a Mirage F.1; on the AMX's right wing was the less attractive form of a Buccaneer. The Buccaneer had been out of British Royal Air Force service for over a decade now, a naval strike aircraft converted to a superb light bomber. Bringing up the rear was the equally ugly-looking A-7 Corsair II—known to pilots as the SLUF, the Short Little Ugly Fucker, it was nonetheless also an excellent strike aircraft. Ruby put her fighter into a lazy circle to watch the show, for once a spectator to the action than a participant, and kept the channel open to listen to Briar work.
"Briar Flight, Lead, split…now!" The diamond formation broke up, with the AMX climbing and rolling out to the rear of the GRIMM formation, at the same 15,000 feet Ruby was at. The Buccaneer and Mirage went into a holding pattern as well, but the A-7 descended and flew parallel to the GRIMM, out of range. "Ruda, make your run; Ivy, Roane, stand by."
"Ruda's in, south to north." Ruby recognized the accent, instantly reminded of Little—Ruda, whoever she was, was Polish. The A-7 snapped hard to the left and came in at a thousand feet. The GRIMM suddenly detected it, turrets swinging right and opening fire: tank guns had little chance of hitting the A-7, but they might force the pilot to break off. A dozen white painted bombs came off the outboard hardpoints and disappeared, then Ruby saw the explosions of hundreds of tiny bombs on the ground. Rockeyes! Ruby thought. The Rockeyes were cluster bombs, dropping submunitions—one wouldn't be enough to kill a Centinel, but a few dozen would. As Ruby watched, five of the six Centinels to the south slewed out of formation. Three of them shuddered and exploded, and two just stopped, smoking with internal damage. The sixth trundled on, firing machine guns at the departing A-7. The Megagoliath fired three missiles at Ruda, but the A-7 climbed hard, dropping flares behind it; none of the missiles came close.
"Ivy, Roane! Go, go!" The Buccaneer and Mirage peeled out of their holding pattern and raced in behind the Megagoliath. Ruby's breath caught in her throat: the Buccaneer had to be no more than ten feet off the ground, flying across the desert floor so low that its shadow was directly behind it, so fast that she could see dust kicked up behind it. The Mirage, out in front, wasn't much higher. "Roane, Mavs off," said an accented voice, and two smoke trails appeared from under the Mirage. Both guided and struck the forward legs of the Megagoliath. The giant GRIMM staggered.
"Ivy, Mavs off!" That voice was so thickly accented that Ruby barely understood her. This time, four missiles came off from beneath the Buccaneer, and once more all four struck the Megagoliath's rear legs. The GRIMM suddenly bent backwards, then fell, the knees of the rear legs destroyed. It still kept trying to drag itself forward.
"Bianca in, west to east. Ivy, Roane, clear."
"Roane here, already clear." The Mirage was still low, shooting out from between what was left of the Centinel formation.
"Ivy's off, climbing!" The Buccaneer shot upwards. The AMX now dived on the Megagoliath, and Ruby saw four bombs come off its underwing rails. The bombs detonated in four splashes of white streamers. Holy shit, Willy Pete, Ruby thought in amazement. White phosphorus! They're not messing around. Instantly, the Megagoliath caught fire in several places.
"Bianca's off. Ruda, finish off the Centinels."
"Roger, Bianca; Ruda's in, north to south." The A-7 now came in again, over the six remaining tanks to the north. She was also low, and machine gun fire came up in red tracers—but the GRIMM targeting computers were not leading the A-7 very well. Two more bombs cleared the A-7's wings, and tumbled in Ruda's wake. Ruby had a feeling she knew what they were, and was right: the napalm exploded a second later, leaving a wide trail of orange flame across the Centinels. As the A-7 went into a climb, the Centinels emerged from the flames, but soon shuddered to a stop, smoking, the intense heat melting the internal electronics of the drone tanks from the inside. Then, with a thunderous detonation, the Megagoliath went up, blowing itself apart: unable to move and itself overheating as the intensely hot white phosphorus greedily melted through the GRIMM's armor, its self-destruct algorithm activated. A visible shockwave spread across the desert, and what remained of the GRIMM rained down on the old highway.
"Megagoliath destroyed," Bianca reported. "Three Centinels operational. Roane, be a dear and finish them off."
"Roger, roger." The Mirage made a few strafing runs, and that was that: Ruby's Vulcan might not be able to penetrate the top armor of a Centinel, but the heavier DEFA 552s on the Mirages, which fired thirty millimeter shells, were a different story. "Disco, Briar: all ground GRIMM destroyed. We're Winchester and will recover at Vegas."
"Understood, Briar; Bravo Zulu. Ruby, Jedi and Saber will be on station in ten; no other targets in your AO, so go ahead and RTB. Bravo Zulu to you, too."
"Many thanks, Disco—Ruby RTB." Ruby waggled her wings at Weiss and Raven, and pointed Crescent Rose III's nose southeast.
Ruby, Weiss and Raven had to wait in a holding pattern before finally landing at McCarran: with the airspace clear, the airport was now moving as many airliners out as possible and bringing in flights that had been holding. Ruby watched her fuel state get lower as they waited, and it was only after Raven threatened to strafe the tower that they were finally allowed to land.
Ruby taxied into her spot on the tarmac and shut down the engine as the ground crew put in the wheel chocks. She raised the canopy and leaned back in the headrest. Another one down. A year ago, Ruby knew she would be all smiles, eager to add a few more kill marks to the growing number of them on the intake of her F-16. Now she was just happy to still be alive. My God, she thought, how has Uncle Qrow done this for 20 years straight? No wonder he drank. She unstrapped as the crew chief safetied the ejection seat, undid all the connections to the aircraft, and climbed down the ladder, pulling off her helmet.
Yang was waiting, her blonde hair even more messy than usual from being stuffed into a helmet. "Good mission, sis."
"We got sloppy up there." Ruby pointed to where Blake was looking over the damage to her F-18. Metal stuck up at odd angles and the paint had melted where the Beringal's cannon shells had torn through the aircraft. "Blake and I got target fixated. I almost midaired, and Blake is damn lucky she got back. We do that again, and we're both going to be buying some agriculture."
Yang nodded. They had gotten a bit sloppy and overconfident. She was about to say something more when the four women of Briar Flight sauntered over. They were as much of a study in contrast as Ruby Flight itself was, though none of the four were Faunus.
"Looks like Bianca was right about Ruby Flight being here." This from a dark-skinned woman with red hair, pulled into two pigtails—which looked a bit ridiculous, given that she was wearing a well-worn flight suit. She pulled down her aviator sunglasses.
"Oh, great. What are they even doing here?" asked a woman whose voice Ruby recognized—the Polish one. Her appearance was even more bizarre: hair dyed a bright orange.
Weiss joined Ruby and Yang. "Who are you?" she demanded.
"Oh look, they talk." This one was tall with long brown hair, cut back at the temples; her voice held a Scottish burr.
"They also can kick your ass," Yang growled.
"Easy." The last of Briar Flight stepped forward, a woman with blonde hair so light that it was almost white. She put out a hand to Ruby. "Lieutenant Rose? Bianca Prisma." They shook hands; Ruby noticed that Biana had the same shade of blue eyes as Weiss as well, but they lacked the humanity that the Schnee girl had. These were what her father called the eyes of a killer. "Your reputation precedes you."
"In more ways than one," said the Pole.
"Ruda, enough. It's not like any of us have never gotten in trouble." Bianca pointed to the other three women. "Roane Ashwood, Ivy Thickety, and the loudmouth there is Ruda Tillerroot. Not her real last name; her real one is a Polish jawbreaker. We're Briar Flight, as in 'don't throw us into that briar patch.'" Bianca searched Ruby's face in vain for recognition.
"Like Br'er Rabbit in Song of the South," Raven said, walking up behind Ruby Flight.
"Yeah, exactly. You must be Raven Branwen." There was instant tension in the air, and Ruby saw the hate on Briar Flight's faces—towards Raven, not her own group.
"That's the rumor." Raven's lips curled into a predatory smile. "Didn't there used to be more of you?" Ruda's teeth bared, her fists balled, and she stepped forward. Ruby was unsure if she wanted to try and stop her when the decision was made for her.
"Briar Flight!" All of them turned as Colonel Wilkerson stomped towards them. "I thought you were told never to come back here!" He brushed past Raven to stick a finger in Bianca's face. "Jesus Christ, you four! Go away! Haven't you terrorized us enough?"
Bianca looked like she wanted to give Wilkerson what she was getting, then she just shrugged. "C'mon girls. Let's get out of here. We wouldn't want to jeopardize the Colonel's precious fucking neutrality, would we?" She nodded at Ruby. "Nice to meet you."
"Yeah, same." They watched as Briar walked away, with Ruda throwing a last homicidal look towards them—either Wilkerson or Raven, possibly both.
Blake finally joined them. "What was that all about?"
"Briar Flight are mercenaries," Wilkerson explained, his voice still angry. "Not decent mercs like the Happy Huntresses, but the worst kind. They'll work for anyone, do anything, as long as there's cash involved. And they don't work cheap."
"They seemed all right, except for their smart mouths," Weiss remarked.
"They're not," Raven told her. "There used to be about a dozen of them. One of the cartels down Tijuana way decided to hire them to wipe my ass out. That's why there's only four of them now."
"So if they're cutthroat mercenaries," Blake asked, "then why help Vegas today?"
"Someone hired them to," Wilkerson answered. "They're operating out of Kingman to keep it on the down-low, so who knows. It wasn't Glass, so I don't know…Arisaka, the Wing Kongs, maybe even El Jefe. It doesn't matter."
"They did stop the GRIMM," Ruby said.
"Yeah, they did," Wilkerson admitted. "It's not that they're bad at their job—they're not. All of them are former Huntresses who got kicked out or left because they weren't making enough bank. They're actually damn good, really. I wish I had them permanently assigned here, working for me…but they won't. Some crime boss or Salem herself would hire them away, and they'll turn on you. They're actually banned from here because they did turn on one of the bosses. Uncle Enzo—one of the Mafia dons before Glass took over a year ago—he hired them. Then someone paid them more, and Briar napalmed Enzo's ranch." He chuckled ruefully. "Pretty sure Ashwood is a pyromaniac. Unless they're going air to air, she always loads her bird with nape."
"Well…what now?" Yang asked. She wondered if Wilkerson was telling them everything about Briar Flight; he seemed to know quite a bit about them.
Wilkerson turned to them. "Get a shower and I'll get you a ride back to Caesars' Palace. I don't think today was anything more than a random attack. Riana Uragano said she had something for you—she's over in debrief." He paused. "What's her deal, anyway? She wears a flight suit, but she's unrated—she's not a pilot."
Ruby decided to be truthful. "She's CIA."
"Oh, I see." Wilkerson smiled. "So that's what you four are doing now. Guess that's better than going mercenary. Anyway, go and get changed, and let me know when you want to head back to the hotel."
Weiss, Yang, Blake and Raven began walking towards the USAF building, but Ruby held back. "Colonel, can I ask you a personal question?"
"Sure, Lieutenant."
"What did you think of the court-martial? Y'know...ours."
"You disobeyed an order and you got caught." Ruby looked at her boots, and Wilkerson put a hand on her shoulder. "Lieutenant, I don't give a damn what you did or didn't do in Poland. I care a lot about what you did today." He pointed to where the airliners were taxiing out or taxiing in, taking off and landing; he raised his voice as Briar Flight started their engines. "If those GRIMM had gotten in here, I'd be tagging and bagging a lot of dead people. You and Ruby Flight kept that from happening. Looks like you even managed to get that incredible bitch of a bandit queen on your side. In my book, that makes you a damn good pilot and a solid officer." He winked at her. "Keep the faith, Lieutenant."
Riana Arashikaze was scribbling away on a legal pad when Ruby walked in, her hair still wet from the quick shower. The flight suit still stank of sweat and white salt patches were forming under the armpits and crotch, but there wasn't much she could do about that. Riana glanced up and smiled. "Hey, Ruby!"
"Hi, Riana." Ruby poured a cup of coffee and sat down; fatigue was beginning to take effect.
"Did I miss anything?"
"Oh, the usual. GRIMM almost killed me, almost had a midair collision, Blake almost got killed…typical Monday."
Riana looked up, peering at her over the top of her glasses. "Wow. How do you guys do it?"
"That which doesn't kill you makes you more embittered and pissed off," Raven said as she walked in. She had changed clothes, wearing a short-sleeved blouse, skirt that Ruby thought was way too short for a woman of a certain age, and knee-high boots, all in black and red. Ruby wondered if Raven even owned any clothes that weren't either color. She dropped into a chair and put her feet up on the table. Riana went back to her writing as the rest filed in.
Ruby noticed that, after she sat down, Yang was soon in the same pose as Raven. "Hi, spy!" she greeted Riana.
"'Sup." Riana got to her feet. "Okay, so I used the diversion of a mass GRIMM attack to do some digging." She glanced nervously at the door, which was closed. "First things first. I was able to pull the flight logs—Wilkerson helped me with that one. It was surprisingly easy, but the quickest way to ensure that no one looks too closely at your stuff is to act like you're legit. And whoever is running this labor scam with the Faunus is doing exactly that."
"Like Al Capone?" Yang asked.
"Kind of, but I imagine these people pay their taxes…whoever they are."
"No idea who they are?" Blake poured a cup of coffee for herself as well. She preferred tea, but any caffeine in a storm.
"None," Riana replied. "I'd have to do a lot more digging, and we're not equipped for that here. Maybe back in Greenbrier, but anyway…" She tapped her notes. "So the flights leave about once every month, every third Saturday or so. Sometimes earlier, sometimes later. Their flight plans have them listed as flying from Las Vegas to Pocatello, Idaho, and they return three days later. As far as I can tell from the flight plans and a quick call up to Pocatello, that's exactly what they do."
"What are they flying?" Ruby wanted to know.
"And what's the name of the company?" This from Blake.
"Boeing 737s. Old ones—737-200s." Riana and Ruby shared a nod; the others looked confused at the aviation geekery. "The name of the airline?" She smiled. "Air America."
"Oh, fuck," Raven said. "That's the name of the CIA's covert airline back in 'Nam."
"It sure is," Riana confirmed. "That's when I called Grandmother. She confirms that the CIA hasn't run Air America since 1978. So someone's playing a joke on us."
"Or the CIA's doing something your grandma doesn't know about," Raven put in.
"Anyway," Riana continued, ignoring Raven, "the people that show up board and the aircraft takes off…but when it reaches Pocatello, it's empty. The flight plans show the flights as cargo only. Everyone around here knows they're not; Colonel Wilkerson says he's seen the lines to board."
"Dear God," Blake breathed. This was the nightmare of all Faunus: to simply be disappeared, as if one had never existed at all. It was very uncommon in places like the United States, but it was depressingly common elsewhere—even in Europe in her lifetime, it had happened. She had seen the results, firsthand. It was the reason she had remained in the White Fang as long as she had, even as she realized that Sienna Khan and Adam Taurus were not much better than the monsters they fought.
"Then they have to stop somewhere!" Weiss exclaimed. "The AWACS would know, at least."
"And we'll have to ask them," Riana said. "But until then…I have no idea where they stop. There's nothing between here and Idaho but the Nevada Dead Zone. Thousands of miles of desert with the occasional ghost town. It's not like Oregon or Washington, where you might find the occasional farm or squatters still hanging on somewhere. There is nothing out there." She paused. "That we know of. I've got people back at Greenbrier looking into it." Riana checked her notes again. "The only thing I can find that I don't understand on the flight plans is a single notation—A51. I don't know what that means, but it's on all of them." She looked back up. "Any of you know?"
Ruby Flight and Raven all looked at each other. No one knew. "Anything else?" Ruby asked.
Riana sat down and sighed. "No, not really." She smiled again. "Well, I did find something else out. While I was going over the flight logs up in the control tower, I saw some Mafia types show up—at least I guess that's what they were. Business suits, mirrored sunglasses. Either government or Mafia. You'd think they'd dress casual." She shrugged. "They opened up one of the hangars, so I grabbed some binoculars, and got a look inside." She glanced at Raven. "If that hangar was Glass' bunch, then he doesn't have obsolete stuff."
"The hell he doesn't," Raven snapped. "I was up here six months ago, after rescuing his crackhead son, and Glass was showing off. Fuck, that lardass didn't have a squadron; he had a museum. I might have no room to talk, given some of the antiques my bunch flies, but holy shit. Armed T-33s, some F-86s, a couple of Thuds, and even a F-101, for fuck's sake. I think he even had a fucking Corsair—not an A-7, but a F4U."
Yang grinned at her sister. "Uh oh. I think Ruby's basement just flooded." She saw Ruby's eyes get wide at the mention of all the vintage aircraft.
"I admit that I love aircraft too," Riana said, "but I didn't see anything like that in this hangar. Maybe it's in the others…but not that one."
"So what was?" Weiss wanted to know.
"F-16s. New ones. C-models—I could see the little blade antenna at the base of the tail. At least six of them, painted black and silver. No insignia, no data block on the tail."
Raven sat up. "Okay, he didn't show me anything like that. And if I know Amoncio Glass—which I unfortunately do—he couldn't resist showing off shiny new '16s."
"Those aren't cheap, either," Weiss added. "Thirty million—and that's just the airframe. You start adding on electronics and so on, and you're looking at eighty million easily."
"$480 million bucks," Yang said, having done the math in her head. "Can you get all that from hotel receipts?"
"Maybe, maybe not," Blake said, steel in her voice. "But you can damn sure get them from Faunus trafficking."
They returned to Caesars' Palace after that, though Ruby was seriously tempted to go exploring the airport, either for the Air America 737s or the Mafia's F-16s. The trip back was made in silence, everyone thinking of the implications of what they had just discovered. They walked through the casino, to the elevator, and back up to the palatial room. Ruby watched the other patrons. A few people noticed the flight suits, and they got respectful nods, at least. She noticed a lot of money changing hands. Maybe Glass could make enough money here to buy those Vipers, she thought. There's a lot of money here—maybe billions. I mean, sure, I can totally believe a Mafia don would be involved in that sort of thing…but why? If he gets caught, the government will put him on a wall. Then she reconsidered. Or would they? Vegas is pretty lawless, like Mikado told Yang and Blake. And with that much money moving around…how hard would it be to bribe a Senator or two to look the other way? She knew the answer to that question.
Raven opened the doors to the room and stopped cold, causing Ruby to bump into her. She looked around the older woman's shoulder.
In the hotel room were six bodyguards, all dressed exactly how Riana had described the ones at the airport. Sitting on the couch, his feet on the table, was a large man, though when he struggled to his feet, Ruby could see he was not particularly tall. His thinning brown hair was slicked back, though neither it nor his mustache showed any hint of gray. She could also tell that he was not so much large as he was fat, which a suit that was worth more than a year of her pay could not quite disguise.
"Raven Branwen!" The man held out his arms wide. "It's too good to see you." He spotted Ruby. "And this must be Ruby Rose and her flight of heroines! Please, please come in." He gave them a winning smile and adjusted his bright yellow tie. "I'm Amoncio Glass. It's a pleasure."