AUTHOR'S NOTES: This one is running late this week-unfortunately, writing isn't my job, but teaching is, so I had other commitments. (Hooray for summer!) Hopefully a long chapter and some air combat will make up for the delay...along with the return of one character and the introduction of a few more.
Caesars' Palace
Las Vegas, Nevada, United States of Canada (Provisionally)
22 April 2002
Riana Arashikaze dreamed of piloting a giant robot across the forests of Japan, towering over the countryside. It was a very odd sort of dream, and just as she prepared to engage the monster—despite her mecha being strictly experimental and not designed for this sort of pitched battle—an alarm went off in the cockpit. She stared at it for a moment, because it sounded a lot like a telephone. Then she woke up and sleepily realized it was a telephone. With a muffled grumble, she reached out and picked it up. "Mmf. Arashi—" Abruptly, she remembered that she was undercover. "Uragano."
"'Sup, Arashiuragano," Yang said, entirely too cheerfully. Riana groped for her eyeglasses, found them, and put them on. It was 11:30 PM. After calling her grandmother to tell them of their unscheduled—and, as it turned out, unauthorized—diversion to Las Vegas, Riana had found herself surprisingly exhausted. She had watched some anime and gone to bed. I've got to stop watching mecha shows before I go to sleep.
"What is it, Yang?" Riana murmured.
"Need you to get dressed and join me and Blake. We've got…well, I'll tell you when you get over here. Kind of a private thing."
Despite her exhaustion, Riana understood: the phones at the hotel were likely tapped by Amoncio Glass, the Mafia don that owned the place. "Okay…give me a few minutes to wake up."
"Meet us by the high rollers' room." The line clicked off, and Riana hung up. She sat up and yawned, rubbed her eyes, then got dressed.
Las Vegas was the city that never slept, and the casino was still crowded when Riana got downstairs. The ringing of the slot machines, cheers when someone won at one of the tables, and the babel of voices did little to relieve the start of a headache. Finally she saw Yang and Blake, and a cat Faunus she didn't recognize dressed in the now-familiar toga. Yang waved, and Riana headed in their direction. Other than a quick greeting, they said nothing as they went out front, back to the tree and statue-lined entranceway, the fountains providing a pleasant backdrop to the neon-lit night.
"Okay," Riana said, stifling a yawn, "what did you get me up for?"
"What are you, a farmer?" Yang joked.
"It was a long day, okay? What is it?"
"Riana, this is Lynn Mikado." The Faunus in the toga smiled and gave a tentative wave. "Lynn, this is a friend of ours with a certain Agency that we're not supposed to talk about, but she can help."
"Uh, okay." Mikado gave a nervous glance around. There were Palace staff around and a lot of guests in various states of inebriation, but no one seemed to be paying attention. "Like I told Miss Belladonna upstairs, um, Riana, Faunus have been disappearing in Las Vegas."
Riana fought down the urge to say that this had nothing to do with their mission. "All right. How?"
"It started about six months ago," Mikado explained. "You ever walk down the Strip?" All three women shook their head, so Mikado pointed to the nearby boulevard. Even from where they stood, they could see men and women handing out flyers to disinterested passerby, though a few did accept them—mostly older men, Riana noticed. "Most of those are for sex workers—prostitutes, escorts, whores, whatever you want to call them. Humans and Faunus. But suddenly there were flyers being put up that promised good wages, a work site out of town. All you have to do is show up at McCarran with no more than two bags of luggage. You get on a plane, and you're supposed to be back in a few weeks."
"Let me guess," Blake said. "No one's come back." Mikado shook her head. "Yeah, that sounds familiar."
"How so?" Yang asked.
"It's the same tactic the Schnees used to pull. Good wages, good working conditions, just call this number or show up at this place and you'll be taken care of." Blake scowled. "And next thing you know, you're working in some lithium or coal mine somewhere, twelve hours a day, and whatever money you get paid is taken away by the company store. You're told you can buy out your contract, but of course you never can." Her voice was harsh and bitter.
"The White Fang used to free those people," Mikado said into the awkward silence that followed.
"That's how I know about it. We…yeah, we tried, anyway." Blake turned away. Yang put a metal hand on Blake's shoulder, and though Riana knew neither pilot well, she did know about Blake's relationship with Adam Taurus. That must be what's bothering her, she mused, then Riana caught herself. Other than the slavery, of course.
Mikado's ears, smaller than Blake's, abruptly went back. "Wait…in your group…"
Yang grinned. "Don't worry about Weiss. She's not like that at all. She's not like her piece of shit father."
"Oh…well, that's good, at least." They still heard the undercurrent of suspicion in Mikado's voice.
"So do you know where they take them?"
Mikado shrugged. "Not really. They're loaded on airliners at McCarran, they take off, and they're never seen again." She paused. "Some of us started watching the airliners when they take off, and they head north. No commercial flight ever heads north out of Las Vegas—there's nothing to the north. Northeast to Salt Lake, but never due north."
"Yeah, there's zilch north of here until you get to Idaho, and even then." Yang rubbed her chin in thought. "I could ask Ruby. She might know, flying out of Hill."
"I can tell you this much. This isn't a government operation," Riana said.
"Are you sure?" Blake countered. "The CIA doesn't know everything."
"Isn't that the truth," Riana laughed softly. People tended to think the CIA was some hypercompetent monolith capable of superhuman feats, but in reality, it was lucky if it accomplished half its goals in any given year. Her grandmother was frighteningly efficient, but even Rissa Arashikaze had not predicted the attack on Beacon. "Still…this sounds corporate…and someone with a mad-on against Faunus. Otherwise there would be humans disappearing too."
"There might be," Mikado conceded. "We don't really know about them. Or care." They all detected the hate in Mikado's voice.
"Why would someone just jump into the dark like that?" Yang wanted to know. "God, they have to know that's a setup."
Mikado nodded. "We suspected, and the local Faunus community put out the word not to take those flights. But they're still doing them." She motioned around the cityscape. "This is a bad place to be unemployed in, and even if you do have a job, most of the time it's not enough. My whole family is lucky enough to have work, and we live just outside the Strip walls. We eat regularly, and have running water...and electricity, most of the time. It's worse in the favela. The further out you go in the desert, the hungrier you get. You jump at anything that promises to feed you and your family for a few weeks."
"I guess the police do nothing," Riana stated.
Mikado barked a laugh. "The police? The Las Vegas police? They're paid by whatever crime lord is in their sector, and they do whatever they're told! For all we know, they're in on it…and in any case, they rarely go into the suburbs, and never into the favela!" Her voice was rising.
"Keep it down," Blake ordered. "Miss Mikado, we can look into it, but, well, we're not actually here on vacation. We do have a mission. Still, what we can do, we will."
Mikado gave a small smile. "That's more than anyone else has done, Miss Belladonna. I knew coming to you was the right thing-at least some parts of the White Fang still work, and care about us."
Riana cleared her throat; she had always considered the White Fang an enemy. "I can make a few phone calls in the morning. It's not much, but it's something." Mikado looked surprised at that. "We're not all bad, Miss Mikado…not all of us humans."
"Thank you," Mikado told her, holding back tears. She started to shake hands with Blake, then turned it into a hug. She did the same with Yang, then with Riana. After another furtive look around, Mikado walked briskly back inside the casino and was gone into the crowd.
Yang sighed. "We call that mission creep, but what the hell—it's for a good cause."
"Thank you for that—both of you," Blake said. "With everything going with Salem, and then the court-martial and going to sea…I haven't really had much chance to think about what my parents are trying to do, reforming the White Fang." She stared in the direction that Mikado had gone. "She's right. We used to free slaves, all over Europe and the Middle East." Blake's eyes turned wistful. "We at least got that right, Adam and I." She visibly shook off the feeling. "Anyway, we should probably get inside." Riana started to walk in that direction, but Yang hesitated. "Yang?"
"Hold on." Yang walked slowly, forcing them to do the same. "Blake, what if this shit is connected? The Kobolds and the missing Faunus?"
"How?" Blake and Riana said at the same time.
"We said that the Kobolds didn't have the range to hit Palmdale and Phoenix from up in the Oregon Dead Zone, where they usually start off at. So what if they have a base somewhere closer? They're going to need people to keep that base up—"
"—so you kidnap a bunch of Faunus that no one will ever miss. For that matter, they could be being used to build the GRIMM as slave labor." Blake finished. "That's brilliant, Yang."
Yang grinned. "I have my moments."
Riana picked up the pace. "I think I'd better make that phone call now."
The Greenbrier
White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, United States of Canada
23 April 2002
Trivia Vanille chortled as her opponent died from a single shot to the head and a spray of blood. "That's what you get, you damn camper," she murmured, then spun her character around to look for more targets. She glanced at the clock, which read 2 AM, then shrugged—she had the day off today, so she might as well just stay up and keep playing. She had always been a night owl.
Just as she was about to close in for another kill, her cell phone rang. She spared it a withering glance, then picked it up, flipped it open, and somehow cradled it between her shoulder and cheek while she gunned down another hapless opponent. "Vanille."
"Hey, Trivia."
"Oh, hi, Riana!" Trivia grinned. She wondered why Riana's voice always sounded a bit hesitant when they first started talking. "How's Sin City? How was the flight over?"
"Scenic," Riana replied tersely. "What are you up to right now?"
"Deathmatch."
"Damn…I hate to interrupt, but I need you to go track down a few things. It can't wait until tomorrow morning. Sorry."
Trivia fought down a sigh. Reluctantly, she logged out of the game and set down the controller. "Okay, what am I looking for?"
Riana related Mikado's story about the missing Faunus. Trivia grabbed a notepad and quickly scrawled some notes. "That's horrible!" she exclaimed after Riana finished. "They're kidnapping Faunus? What kind of sick asshole does that?" Trivia's strict Methodist upbringing meant that she rarely cursed, but the situation seemed to merit it.
"More or less," Riana replied. "Anyway, after I get up tomorrow, I'm going to pull some flight logs at McCarran if I can find them—these flights have to have some kind of flight plan. What I need you to do is see if you can find any landing sites between Vegas and the Idaho Dead Zone. Abandoned airports, old World War II airfields, whatever. See if we've got any sat data showing activity somewhere." There was a pause, and Trivia heard a voice in the background. The voice sounded familiar, but she couldn't place it. "Oh—right. The runways need to be fairly long. Some grass airstrip isn't going to cut it. That should narrow it down a bit."
"Okay, got it. I'll poke around for a few hours, hit the sack, and look some more tomorrow. I won't do you any good if I pass out at my keyboard."
Riana chuckled. "That's true. Thanks, Trivia. Talk to you soon."
"You bet. Bring me back a souvenir." Trivia hung up and got to her feet, dusting chip crumbs off her pajamas. She shut off the game and logged on, which required a few different passwords, each with a website that looked nothing like something the CIA would run—all of them still had graphics that were archaic in 1998. Finally, she was where she needed to be.
Trivia brought up satellite data and scrolled through that for an hour, only getting up to grab a soda and for a call of nature. She saw plenty of abandoned airports—two in Reno alone—but zooming in, they looked overgrown and the runways too badly cracked for use. Then again, she thought, that could be paint. We used to do that—Trivia paused, her eyebrows coming together in confusion. Wait, when did we ever do that? The CIA? She gave it some thought, but the memory remained tantalizingly out of mental reach. That happened now and then, the aftereffects of the head wound she had suffered in Tehran. Still, even when she went back and looked at the abandoned airports, she couldn't see anything.
Another hour passed, and now her eyes were drooping with fatigue that even another soda couldn't stop. She rubbed her eyes, yawned, and decided it would have to wait until in the morning. Fighting down another yawn, she tracked back down to Las Vegas, wanting to take a quick look at where her friend was staying before she went to bed. That was when she spotted the craters—dozens of them.
What's that? Trivia thought, then checked the tag on the photograph, which helpfully read OLD NEVADA TEST SITE. She did a quick search for that on Ask Jeeves. Oh, I see. The Nevada Test Site was where the government had tested nuclear weapons above ground in the 1950s and early 1960s, before using them in the real thing. The place had been rapidly abandoned in the 1960s, and these days the government did their below-ground testing in Utah. It was interesting, but nothing more, and she started to resume scrolling down to see Las Vegas.
Then something else caught her eye, to the northeast of the craters.
It was a light tan, much lighter than the surrounding desert. There was a long runway—a very long runway, and some hangars and infrastructure. It didn't look abandoned, and when she zoomed in, there was a single aircraft on the tarmac—an airliner of some kind. She had seen those on the abandoned airports, but those were obviously wrecks now—burned out, rusting, corroded. This one didn't look at all like a wreck. She checked the date on the photograph: four months ago.
There was no label on the airport, but there was one for the geographical feature. "Groom Lake?" Trivia asked aloud.
Caesars' Palace
Las Vegas, Nevada, United States of Canada (Provisionally)
23 April 2002
The telephone ringing was no less jarring to Yang as it had been to Riana or Trivia. Yang willed it to go away, but it kept going. Ruby mumbled in her sleep, and Yang blearily opened her eyes and reached for the phone on the nightstand. The digital clock read 6:30 AM. She finally grabbed it. "What the hell do you want?" she growled into it.
"Captain Xiao Long, this is Colonel Wilkerson. Get your ass up, and get your flight up. I'm sending a police van for you in ten minutes. Consider this an alert."
Yang was instantly awake. She got up and grabbed a robe. "Yes, sir. What's up?" She reached out with a foot and kicked the side of Ruby's bed, hard. Ruby curled up into a fetal position under her covers and sleepily told Yang to do something anatomically impossible.
"We have GRIMM inbound. They're on a direct course for Vegas, ETA one hour, raid count twelve. The AWACS just picked them up, so they're not those stealth GRIMM, at least."
"Okay, got it." Yang got to her feet and kicked Ruby's bed again. "Who else besides us?"
"You're it. Bastards caught us in the middle of a rotation. I just sent the guys from Tucson back home last night." Yang thought that sounded too much of a coincidence, but she'd have to think about that later. "It gets worse. They're escorting ground GRIMM. One of the watch stations on Mount Charleston saw a dust cloud. Still waiting for confirmation on what those are. Anyway, get down here ASAP. We'll brief when you're here."
"Yes, sir."
"And get your mother up too. I don't like asking the leader of the damn Branwen Tribe for help, but we need it, and she's damn good. See you in a few." Wilkerson hung up. Yang stared at the phone for a moment, then hung up as well, realizing that she had actually forgotten about Raven.
Ruby started to snore softly. "Dammit, Ruby, get up!" Yang shouted, and kicked the bed so hard it nearly came off the frame.
"I'm awake, I'm awake! God, Yang!" Ruby sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. "I need coffee. And a shower."
"You ain't getting shit. Get dressed. We're scrambling. GRIMM inbound."
Ruby blinked. "Really?" Yang gave a sharp, short nod. "Okay. Sorry. Damn. Fucking GRIMM." She got up and headed into the bathroom. Yang felt herself oddly embarrassed, because her sister had apparently taken to sleeping in the nude.
Yang changed into her flight suit and passed Ruby coming out of the bathroom. She crossed over to Blake's room next door and banged on the door with her metal hand. "Blake, get up! We've got a scramble!"
"I'm up. I heard you talking on the phone." Yang had forgotten how sensitive the Faunus' ears were. "I'll call Riana."
Next Yang slammed her hand on Weiss' door. "C'mon, Sticky Fingers! We've got GRIMM to go kill!" Weiss yelled something in German that Yang didn't understand, but sounded foul. Then again, Yang thought, everything in German sounded foul; she had overheard a casual conversation between Weiss and Winter once, and it sounded like they were summoning demons. When she had asked Weiss about it, it turned out they were just discussing finances.
Yang paused in front of Raven's door. Part of her wanted to let her biological mother sleep—not out of any concern for Raven's health, but because Yang really didn't want to fly with her. Raven might be trying to reach out, but there was more than two decades of abandonment between them, and that wasn't going to be undone with an apology and dinner. Then Yang put her personal feelings aside: if the GRIMM got into Las Vegas, they were going to kill a lot of people, good people like Lynn Mikado, and that was more important than her issues with Raven. "Raven!" She banged on the door, hard. "Raven, get up!" She thumped on the door twice more before she heard angry footsteps coming towards the door, which was flung open. Yang averted her eyes: bad enough she'd seen her sister naked this morning, but she didn't need to see her mother, either.
"What the fuck do you want?" Raven hissed, her eyes bloodshot and her breath smelling like vodka.
"We got GRIMM headed for Vegas. About a dozen of them, maybe ground GRIMM too. No Kobolds this time...we hope. Want to join us?" Yang said it casually, like she was inviting Raven to dinner.
Raven wiped her face. "Shit. Who else they got?"
"Just us. And whatever the Mafia gets in the air, I guess."
"Just us, then. Fuck. Okay…not the first time that I've flown hung over." Raven closed the door.
Yang went back towards her room just as Weiss came out, tying up her hair into a bun, already in her flight suit. "'Sticky Fingers?'" she asked with a raised eyebrow.
"You said you were calling Marrow last night." Yang made a lewd gesture with two fingers. Weiss went beet red, then made an equally obscene gesture with just one finger.
The Las Vegas Police van picked them up five minutes later, then they raced down Las Vegas Boulevard, sirens blaring, causing the morning traffic to pull over. They reached the airport in five minutes as well. Riana was with them, dressed uncomfortably in her borrowed flight suit. Ruby checked her watch: less than forty minutes until the GRIMM hit the city. They were cutting it close.
An airman directed them to the main hangar on the USAF side of the airport. Behind them, other ground crew were taking off the heavy drop tanks and replacing them with more missiles. Wilkerson was waiting for them, and briefed while they put on their G-suits and survival vests. "We have to make this quick. The GRIMM have increased speed—we've got less than thirty minutes." He thumbed towards Ruby Flight's fighters. "You're it for now. All we've got here is air-to-air stuff; no bombs. I let Luke know just as soon as I got the alert from the AWACS—they'll have two flights of bombed-up F-16s here in forty minutes. The ground GRIMM are a lot slower, so that should be enough time."
"Barely," Blake commented. "Don't we have air-to-ground here?"
"Nope," Wilkerson said. "Part of our agreement with Las Vegas. If we had bombs, they think the US government would be too tempted to use them to get Vegas back. Well, they may regret that now."
"What about the Mafia?" Yang asked.
"Not going to bother. They have 20 planes, but they're weekend flyers with a bunch of obsolete shit. It would take them an hour to get into the air, and all we'd end up doing is getting people killed." Wilkerson turned to Raven. "You're not under my command, Miss Branwen, but I have to ask you to help."
"Are you kidding? Wouldn't miss it for the world." Raven drank her second cup of coffee. "I'm always up to kill some GRIMM."
"I have to trust you on that, and I don't like trusting you," Wilkerson said. "Do you have ordnance?"
"Four Sidewinders, two Sparrows. Never leave home without 'em."
"Okay. Thank you." Wilkerson slapped his hands together. "Real quick. Everything past the favelas is a free-fire zone; no one lives out in the desert but nomads, and you can bet they've already hauled ass to the mountains. If you get hit, punch out and try to get over the mountains to the west or over the old Nevada Test Site to the east. Both should be safe bailout zones. Hit your beeper and I'll get the Jolly Greens on the way. Weather is CAVU. Good luck, ladies."
Yang grabbed her helmet bag. "Any inspirational words, sis?"
"Uh…for which we are about to receive, let us be truly thankful?" Ruby said awkwardly, put on the spot.
"Best benediction I've ever heard," Raven quipped, pulling on her helmet. They all stared at that: it looked like something not of this earth, all white with red trim that covered her entire face, the visor white and opaque, the mask part of the helmet. She threw them a salute and headed for her Night Raven.
"Riana, you stay," Blake ordered. "No offense, but mock combat for fun is one thing; this is real world." She dropped her voice. "Besides, this would be a perfect time to go look for those flight logs."
Riana nodded, relief on her face. "Thanks. I was about to crap myself, to be honest. Good luck."
"Thanks." Blake followed Yang towards their aircraft.
Ruby pulled on her helmet, nodding towards Riana, glad that Blake wasn't making the same mistake she had with Little. Riana might be somewhat more experienced than Little had been, and having an extra set of eyes would be helpful, but she could also be a fatal distraction. She climbed up the ladder, touched her fingers to her lips and then to the canopy rail, and got into the seat. An airman followed her up and helped her strap in as she spooled up the engine and the inertial navigation system. Once she was connected to Crescent Rose III, she lowered the canopy and gave the signal to the ground crew to pull chocks. The protective covers were pulled off the Sidewinder seeker heads and she began following the guiding hands of one of the ground crew. "Vegas Tower, Ruby Lead. Takeoff instructions, please."
The controller's voice was steady, but Ruby supposed this wasn't his first rodeo. "Ruby Lead, Vegas Tower. You are number one for takeoff. Airspace is clear. Ceiling unlimited, winds calm out of the southwest. Combat departure authorized as needed. Contact Disco on 123.6 after departure. God be with you, Ruby."
"Thanks, Tower. Ruby rolling." Ruby taxied to the active runway, and saw airliners—the early morning flights going to the United States and worldwide—being held short on the taxiways. Passengers and crew stared down at her as she taxied past, undoubtedly praying that these five aircraft would stop the GRIMM heading for them. Ruby took her mask off, gave them a big smile, and waved. Better buck up the home front. A few smiled and waved back, mostly the children, and that made Ruby feel good. Yeah, no GRIMM are going to touch you people. Fuck you, Salem, you don't win today. She turned onto the runway, checked off the aircraft going to position behind her—Weiss and her Typhoon, Blake in the two-seat Hornet, Yang in the Eagle, and Raven in the Night Raven, which felt really weird to see, knowing it was on her side instead of either Raven or Cinder trying to kill her with it.
Then it was time to go, and Ruby felt her heart rate accelerate. She pushed the throttle forward into afterburner, then let the brakes off. The F-16 surged forward, and she watched the speed build. Then she pulled the stick back just a little, and the little fighter rose into the air. There was the briefest glimpse of the Strip, then Ruby stood her aircraft on its tail, still accelerating as she went upwards, grabbing altitude. She didn't level off until she reached 30,000 feet. "Ruby Flight, Lead. Level off at angels 30, expanded box. Raven, fall back—I want you as a trailer. They can't see you."
"Ruby Lead, Raven, roger that. I'll top off at angels 60." 60,000 feet, Ruby marveled. The Night Raven could actually comfortably reach almost twice that.
"Disco, Ruby Lead, vector to bandits?" Ruby radioed the AWACS.
"Ruby Lead, Disco. Your bandits are at one-two-five Bullseye, raid count twelve. They're in a staggered formation, eight forward, four back, angels 18, speed 500, range forty-five. Looks to be a mix of Beowolves and Beringals. No joy on ground GRIMM. Jedi and Saber Flight, ETA two-five minutes. Clear skies, you are weapons free at your discretion, Ruby." Ruby translated that in her head: the GRIMM were northwest of Las Vegas—Bullseye—at 18,000 feet with a speed of 500 miles an hour. Jedi and Saber Flights were the F-16s from Luke AFB; she had to smile at those callsigns. Someone's a nerd too. Oscar would love this.
"Roger that, Disco. Break break—Rubies, let's light them up. Weiss, Yang, eyeball; Blake and me are shooters."
"Two!" Weiss checked in.
"Four!" Yang acknowledged, then quickly followed it with "Shit! No joy, no joy—my radar is inop." Ruby mumbled a curse—Yang's radar wasn't working right.
"Ruby Three, eyeball." Blake put in. Her radar was working fine.
"Weiss, padlocked." Weiss had already locked onto the GRIMM.
"Blake, padlocked."
Ruby took a deep breath of oxygen. They would be in firing range in seconds, at the merge in less than a minute. She kept her head moving around—it would be just like the GRIMM to put nice, fat targets in front of her while the Kobolds snuck up behind her, or did an end run on Las Vegas.
"Disco, Jedi." A new voice entered the channel. "We have bogeys, two-seven-zero Bullseye, speed 550, range 80, angels five and climbing, heading now one-two-zero towards Bullseye." Dammit, Ruby sighed, that's exactly what the GRIMM did. Got around behind us—wait, though, then Jedi wouldn't have detected them—
"Disco, Disco! We're friendlies! This is Briar Flight, out of Kingman!" The voice was female, with a slight Southern twang.
"Briar, Disco, alpha check."
"Disco, Briar is one Alpha Mike X-Ray, one Buccaneer, one Mirage F.1, and one Alpha-7." What the hell? Ruby thought, trying to divide her attention between the radio calls, the dwindling range, and where her flight was. An AMX, Buccaneer, Mirage F.1, and an A-7? Who are those guys? "We're groomed for ground GRIMM. ETA to GRIMM fifteen minutes."
"Weiss, Fox Three!" Ruby's head whipped around to her right, just enough to see a flash of light as an AMRAAM came off the rails and shot forward.
"Blake, Fox Three." Another flash of light below and to the right, as Blake launched another AMRAAM.
"Disco, Ruby. Judy, judy—we're engaging." The fight was on. "Raven, engage at discretion." She stole a quick glance above and was rewarded with the briefest flash of light far above her, where the sky was so dark it was almost black, of sunlight reflecting off the Night Raven's fuselage.
"Roger that."
Ruby switched on her radar now—no point in staying hidden, as the GRIMM's own radar would see her now. She did another quick search, then saw two tiny explosions ahead of her. "Weiss, splash one."
"Blake, splash one." Their missiles had scored.
"GRIMM are breaking right!" Ruby exclaimed. "Follow 'em!" She gave a quick twist on the stick, and went into a right break. She didn't have to tell Weiss; her wingmate was already moving into the turn. So were Blake and Yang, Ruby Flight so used to working with each other that their movements were almost telepathic.
"Ruby Lead, Disco. Two GRIMM to your left." The transmission was quick, the sergeant on the scope an expert: knowing that Ruby couldn't afford to be distracted, he had given her a fast vector to where the bandits would be. Ruby glanced in that direction as she turned, and saw the shape of two Beringals going below her, trying to get between the two elements of Ruby Flight. "Blake, Yang, two Beringals, seven o'clock low!"
"Ruby, watch out!" Weiss shouted, and Ruby realized she had allowed herself to get fixated on the Beringals for a moment. One Beowulf flashed past beneath her, and another went right in front of her; both avoided colliding with her by mere feet. "Oh, shit!" Ruby screamed, and instinctively she slapped the throttle back and raised the nose, slowing her F-16 down. She almost stepped on the rudder pedals like she would the brakes on a car. At the same time, her thumb moved the selector switch to guns, and she opened fire. At this range, she could hardly miss, and she stitched cannon shells across the Beowulf's narrow back. The GRIMM instantly flamed and then was gone beneath her nose, headed for the desert below.
"Ruby, two Beowolves, one o'clock low."
"Take the lead!" Ruby told her, and fell back to cover Weiss' tail.
Yang picked up the Beowulf that had gone behind Ruby and Weiss, and was now turning to get on their tails, but the Beringals coming up behind her and Blake were the bigger threat at the moment. "Blake, Blake! Bandit—you got a bandit at your seven level!" There was no response. "Reverse right, reverse right, Blake!"
"Blake is padlocked." Blake sounded annoyed. There were four more Beowolves now joining the fight from the north, and she had one locked on—but she had made a mistake. Blake had gotten used to having a second pair of eyes behind her in Terri Suul to warn her of bandits, and she had fallen into the same trap Ruby had: target fixation.
The Beringal opened fire. Two tracer rounds streaked past Blake's canopy, and those got her attention in a hurry. She snapped the stick right, but it was too late as shells tore through the left engine and skipped across her left wing. The break had saved her, but now alarm lights went off on her instrument panel. Blake dived for the desert as she hit the fire extinguisher and the fuel shut off switch. The Beringals were going too fast to follow and overshot Yang. "Blake!" Yang yelled again.
"Yang, Blake. I'm okay. Lost an engine. RTBing now." Blake quickly scanned the instrument panel. The warning lights were off, except for the RPMs on her left engine, which were at zero. There was no fire, and the controls were responsive. She leveled out about a thousand feet over the desert floor, which seemed a uniform color of beige. "Disco, Ruby Three, I'm hit but I can make it."
"Ruby Three, Disco, roger. Jolly Greens standing by. Can you see the ground GRIMM from where you are?"
"Negative." Blake did a quick scan of the sky; the dogfight was now well above her, and the GRIMM were otherwise engaged. She thought about climbing back into the fight, or even lofting AMRAAMs, but the fire-and-forget missile tended to forget which side was which, so it would be like firing a shotgun into a bar fight. She did one more look at her instrument panel, tested the controls again, and made her decision. "Disco, Ruby Three. Will try to ID ground GRIMM." She turned around, got lower where hopefully the ground clutter would hide her from the GRIMM, and spotted the remains of an old highway, still visible against the desert. I bet the GRIMM will follow that highway, she thought. So if I follow the road, I'll find them.
"Ruby, Weiss, four Beowolves, one o'clock level."
"Roger, Weiss—take them; I'll get the ones at eleven." The two women split away from each other, losing the mutual support of the formation, but keeping the GRIMM engaged. Ruby turned into the two Beowolves approaching from her left, popping flares and chaff behind her as she went; two missiles flashed past, guiding on the flares. She heard her Sidewinders growl as they detected the heat of the GRIMM, and she let one loose from the wingtip. It guided and hit the Beowulf in the nose, blowing it apart. The other went past her on the right. She broke left hard, reefing the F-16 into an eight-G turn; Ruby's adrenaline was pumping so hard she barely felt the press of eight times her weight against her body, even as the G-suit squeezed her. Got to get control of this, she thought.
"Ruby Flight, Raven." The older woman's voice was steady and calm. "Yang, join up with Weiss and engage Beowolves to the northeast. Ruby, the Beringals are going south along with your Beowulf; cover me."
"Ruby, roger," Ruby puffed out, as she leveled Crescent Rose III out and pushed the throttle forward to catch up. She spotted the two Beringals going south rather than engaging Yang; either they were programmed to head for Las Vegas, or they were searching for Blake. Then she saw the Beowulf trailing them disappear in an explosion, as the Night Raven dived from above. Glad you're on our side, Ruby thought, and pushed the throttle forward more.
Yang didn't particularly like taking orders from Raven, but the fact was that she could see the entire situation and they couldn't. She spotted the four Beowolves, then saw Weiss suddenly break her Typhoon to the right. "Yang, Weiss! I'm dragging them for you!"
Yang throttled back; with her radar out, the AMRAAMs were useless, but she had four Sidewinders that weren't. As the Typhoon went past five miles ahead of her, the Beowolves, sensing prey, turned to follow her. Two suddenly split off from the formation as they detected Yang, but it was too late. Yang rippled fired all four Sidewinders and the GRIMM ran right into the missiles. They disappeared into fireballs. Yang vaulted the explosions, hearing fragments spang off the bottom of the F-15. "My turn!" Yang went to the right as the Beowolves switched their attention to her. "Scratch my back, Weiss!"
"Weiss is in!" Weiss reversed her turn and dived slightly, going beneath Yang. The remaining two Beowolves were now swinging in behind Yang, who engaged her afterburners to extend outwards, trading the extra speed for the fact that she was now a better target for GRIMM missiles. "IRIS, target Beowolves!" Weiss looked at both GRIMM for a split-second, long enough for her DUST sensors to transmit the target information from her helmet to the IRIS missiles slung beneath her wings. She pulled the trigger twice. The nimble little killers rushed off their rails and destroyed both GRIMM a second later. "Splash two; Yang, you're clear." Weiss glanced at the clock on her instrument panel; barely a minute had passed since the merge.
Ruby watched as Raven closed in on the pair of Beringals. Two doors opened on the bottom of the Night Raven, discharging two Sidewinders, which easily tracked on the trailing Beringal. The GRIMM exploded, but the second turned back into Raven. Ruby saw the speedbrakes open on the back of the Night Raven as its pilot tried to slow down, but she overshot all the same. The Night Raven then snapped into a hard climb, its afterburners glowing as Raven seemed to disappear, acclerating past Mach 1 in mere moments. The Beringal turned to follow, and as it climbed, Ruby switched to her AMRAAMs. It was close, but she fired all the same. The first missile sailed past, unable to arm in time, but the second one guided true, and blew the GRIMM apart.
And just like that, the sky was suddenly empty.
Blake followed the highway. Her head was also moving, checking to make sure no other GRIMM dropped down on top of her, or others weren't hiding in the weeds like she was; she was also watching her instrument panel. The left engine was dead, but there were no more fire warning lights, and everything else looked fine. A quick look at her wing showed that the shells there had only left long scores there, chipping paint but little more than that. She reached forward and shut off the radar, not wanting to advertise her position; she would have to do this by eye, unless she wanted the ground GRIMM to detect her. Depending on what they were, they might have SAM batteries attached; they would certainly have guns. She vaulted a hill, and that's when she saw them.
There were twelve smaller vehicles in a wedge formation, which she recognized as Centinels—essentially GRIMM tanks. They were less of an issue than what was lumbering behind them. "Oh my God," Blake breathed. "A Megagoliath."
MORE AUTHOR'S NOTES: Can Ruby Flight take care of ground GRIMM with no bombs? Who's this Briar Flight, anyway? Well, if you've played RWBY Arrowfell, you've probably guessed.
It's really weird writing Neo as Trivia, whose new personality is so much different than everyone's favorite nutcase assassin. Still, there's some hints there that maybe her reprogramming isn't as complete as Arashikaze hoped it would be. (As for what game she's playing-probably Quake in 2002. I was playing mostly the early Medal of Honor games and Madden at the time, so I don't know my multiplayer games that well.)
Riana's dream at the beginning is an allusion to where she first appeared-as the "Sixth Child" in my abandoned Evangelion story. It's still on FF. net if you want to read it, but I ended up losing interest in it-there weren't too many readers, and I frankly got bored with the story. Still, if you want to see a slightly different version of Riana squaring off with Angels and trading barbs with Asuka, then it's "Evangelion Evolution." Since that Riana is strongly implied to be a dimension-skipper, maybe they're the same person...nah. I wouldn't put supernatural stuff in On RWBY Wings. Aside from radiation keeping Salem hot and changing people's eye colors instead of condemning them to a horrible death, anyway.