April 2nd, 1997, 11:03 A.M. local time, somewhere over British Columbia
 
<Flight Sergeant Jonathon L. Tiff, 802nd Bomber Squadron, currently assigned to B-62 Fortress Eagle 'United Effort' 96-00756>
 
>Bright white flurries stacked high like cones of confectionery sugar rolled by under the view of the frosted glass, slivers of stark white blended into the drift as tracts of verdant green and slate grey peeked through the shuffle with a soothing laziness.
>The doldrum hum from the engines was threatening to put you to sleep.
>You were up here for hours already, hunched over your console watching nothing but clouds and other sets of wings.
>The cabin was still pressurized for now, it would be a while until you were in riskier airspace, and that low toning sound from the engines coaxed you towards settling in your chair and passing the time a bit quicker.
>Maybe the skipper wouldn't get too mad if you just caught half an hour or so.
>...
>Just as it felt like maybe the sheep could start counting, you felt a whiffing of air just under your nose.
>You shrug your shoulders and tilt your head to set yourself away from it.
>It comes again, brushing across your nostrils with a feathery feeling that made you want to curl in on yourself.
>You aren't one to be robbed of your rest this easily, so you tilt your head forward this time to continue the game of keep away.
>A breezing of chilly air is all the warning you get before something akin to an oversized feather duster hits you lightly across the face, bringing you out of your would-be nap, sputtering and trying not to sneeze. You're sure you may have inhaled a few of those ticklish hairs.
"Okay! Okay! I'm up."
>"Better me than the skipper, heh heh heh. -I think he's in a bit of a mood today.-"
>The voice over your left shoulder lowers towards a whisper on the second half of the statement, lest the man in question overhear from his post further above the two of you.
>A bushel of fur waves in your face playfully, a sanded orangish tan on one side, and a salt flecked silver on the other, all wrapped up with an inky black tip.
>You grab the offending extremity and push it back up towards its owner while shooting them a look, clearly displaying the exasperation you felt in being denied a last snooze before taking a ride over hell in this heavy metal coffin.
"Mary, come on!"
>She looks down at you with a mischievous flick of an ear. The whites of her teeth blend with the creamy streak of fur dominating her lower jaw and the front of her throat. Aside from the inky black clinging to the sides of her snout around her nose, the rest of her face is a mixture of orange and the salt tipped hairs trailing up from her back.
>"I'm just making sure skipper doesn't rip yer balls off when he catches ya napping. Ya kinda need those."
>The mischievous glint in the honeyed amber of her warm eyes tells you her spirits are high.
>You suppose they would be, since fox-folk are usually more energetic. You didn't think Captain Folly would be quite THAT moody though.
"He's not a hyena you know."
>"I dunno, he seems to be acting like one recently... and not one of the butch girls either. Have you seen the way he's been looking at Lola recently, and they way he gets all meek when talking about her? Oooo, she's got his number and doesn't even know it yet."
>The legendary hardass that was Folly getting all gooey over his co-pilot, that'd be the day.
>But the fox may just be blowing hot air again, with her usual fair spent being cooped up in the nose of the plane, staring through a bomb sight, her trademark energy was spent more at the rumor mill.
>You hate to kill that smarmy little smile, but she doesn't have a habit of double checking.
"You sure about that? Did you see it yourself?"
>"...no"
>typical
"Than maybe don't shoot off gossip in earshot of the man in question."
>Her grin slides off of her snout, and she returns to staring forward out of the glass canopy. You can tell with the way her tail fidgets that she's anxious for at least something interesting to look at.
>"Yeah... I guess. They would be kinda cute together though, don't you think?"
>You still can't picture Folly going soft. You turn your view back forwards, keeping an eye on Mary's voluminous tail.
"You should stop digging around the rumor mill, Duster."
>She tries to brush you across the face with it again, you handily deflect it with your hand.
>"Hey. I told you to call me Mary."
>The annoyance in her tone was obvious, after all, it was your fault that the nickname stuck as her call sign.
>This crew was assembled a fair time ago, some effort to push humans and anthros into better working together.
>You found Mary cleaning up the flight lounge, a fellow early comer like yourself, issue was she was dusting off the counter tops with that cloud-like tail.
>After that first day, 'Duster' stuck as her call sign and nickname, and the furry bombardier was determined to never let it fail to at least perturb her.
 
>Since then you had warmed up to eachother, but calling her 'Duster' was still your preferred way to tease her.
>At least she was a good sport about it.
>Looking back up towards her, a sallow frown was tugging at the corner of her mouth as she stared ahead, pouting.
>She had a habit of getting like this if there wasn't anything engaging to focus on; you can swear some days the girl is hyperactive.
>She likes to talk, one of the many things you know about her. So you decide to keep her occupied by spilling what bits of intrigue among the crew you've seen evidence of yourself.
"If anyone has eyes on anyone else, it's Talia."
>That got her attention, and she looks back down at you from her station. A curious, if disbelieving, look is worn into her muzzle.
>"What? Talia's been working her tail off recently. I don't think she'd have the time."
"That's because she's been finding every excuse not to bug the hell out of Smith."
>Mary shoots you an incredulous look, but you definitely remember Talia sneaking peeks at the engineer whenever she wasn't immediately occupied. The girl prides herself on being professional, and ogling her crewmates makes for an easy tell that she's interested in someone, if restraining herself.
>"Oh please, she's only bothering Mark because Ned is such a buzz kill. I am sure if he had the option, that bore would lock himself in solitary every time we go up."
"It's not like she doesn't have options."
>"Oh please, Joe is all the way at the tail of the plane, Devon looks like he got hit with a shovel, and despite what you say, I'm sure Folly only has eyes for Lola. Plus, the skipper is a bit of a stickler for regs, even if that particular one has been ignored for a while now."
>She rolls her eyes a little to append the end of that statement. A lot of the formalities had gone out the window as soon as this whole affair really kicked into gear.
>For a little over two years now, mother Earth was threatened from beyond.
>They arrived in 1995, crashing down on trails of fire. From the craters came swarms of monstrous creatures, guided by their masters, hidden away in silver machines.
>Despite years of preparation, the highest echelons having known about the coming war for almost five decades, it was a day of slaughter. The event carries a name that will live in human history for however long it has left, Firefall.
>The aliens gave no warning, no channel for diplomacy, not even a garbled demand for surrender. It was clear that mankind was now locked in a death spiral with the Marauders, and it would only end when one side was extinct.
>Since then it was two years of pain, watching cities overturned and ravaged, armies overwhelmed and destroyed, but humanity still held on.
>In every corner of the globe, they fought. In every corner, they bled. In every corner, they stand side by side with their compatriots: the anthros, products of great science that appeared across the world decades ago, bred for war and ready to stand by humanity's side.
>And it was all under a single banner, The United Terran Republic. You had signed on to the EDF aircorps, to defend the Earth from the sky.
>Mary herself said that she had signed on to the aircorps of the venerated Earth Defense Forces for, quote 'high flying excitement'.
>If she wanted excitement, she certainly got it, even if it wasn't as glamorous as flying a fighter, today's sortie promised to put the whole squadron through a trial by fire.
>You were to fly thousands of miles from your home strip across the stretches of Marauder occupied northeastern Canada, and deliver your payload down onto the fallen city of Anchorage. You had met up with other bomber squadrons assigned to the same flight, now you all flew in a wide, defensive formation. Bracketing over eachother with your defensive turrets covering every possible angle.
>Should the Marauders attack, even if they managed to squeeze past the fighter escort, the skies would be filled with led.
>While it's not like this style of strategic bombing was never used elsewhere around the world, this was the first taste of it, for you and most of EDF North American air command.
>Before your missions had always been smaller flights acting in more direct support of the land-bound offensive crawling north to raze Anchorage to the ground. That city was a bug nest now, and if the Marauders' pet bio-weapons surged in number too quickly, it could steal away that chance at victory.
>You usually didn't think over the reasons why you were here, but something tugs at you to at least make sure you had a good reason to be in your potential coffin.
>The bomber always gets through, but a creeping pressure grips you when you can't answer if it will be coming back again.
 
>The things you may be leaving behind if you go down up here.
>You would be going down in the line of duty, but that would only be a small comfort to your family.
>"You okay there?"
>You look up to find her looking down past her shoulder at you again, a gentle concern evident across her.
>You suppose you would save the lecture on life and death, it's not like she hasn't heard it before, or she may be cycling it through her own head.
"Just thinking over some things."
>She gives a knowing nod, and then turns back towards staring out of the canopy glass.
>"Yeah, they tell you it's no use to worry about it, but..."
"You still worry about it."
>"Yep."
>She settles more easily in her seat now, but the twitch of her swaying tail betrays that she's still feeling anxious.
>Might as well keep her talking to try and help the both of you away from your pre-mission nerves.
>You think back towards anything that might gauge her interest, and you settle on family.
>You remember happening by the call-lines yesterday at the field, finding Mary chattering excitedly on the phone with her tail swaying in approval.
>By the tone of her voice and context clues in what little of her end you picked up, she was talking to her mother, and it was good news.
"How's your mother been doing?"
>"Hm?" You see an ear swivel in your direction, as she continues alternating between gazing outside and making fiddling adjustments to the column bomb sight between her knees.
"I just noticed you were on the line with her yesterday. How's she holding up?"
>"Oh! She's been doing great actually. I've been talking her out of the house to find someone new. I'm just glad she's out of her slump."
>She really needed it, you heard about the divorce secondhand from Mary a while after you met, it sounded rough, and terrible for her mother to learn about her husband like that.
>"I get it, I really do. The bastard lied to our faces about who he really was and who he really loved for years, but I keep telling her: You can't let that bastard rule over the rest of your life like that."
>You look back up from checking the screens on your console to find she's turned in her chair to at least face her right leg towards you as she lounges conversationally.
>She hasn't tilted her head down to look at you, but a genuine smile splays across her muzzle, ruffling the cream colored fur of her chin smartly.
>"I'm glad she's finally listening to me, but I wish she'd stop fussing over me so much."
"It's her job to worry."
>Taking the hint that you're looking at her, she pans down and you catch site of those honey colored eyes that you found so charming.
>"I know. I just wish she'd worry LESS. I keep telling her: Mama, I'm going up in a fortress, I'll be fine. I got six gunners watching my back, and a pair of cantankerous hard asses at the controls that won't take plummeting out of the sky as a suitable end."
>Her lips close into a more restrained grin, and her ears assume a neutral position.
>"It's not like I'm in the tank or mech corps, or God forbid, the infantry. Poor bastards."
>The things they had to deal with down there on the ground would give you pause, not that the skies were clear of their fair share of nightmares either.
>If there's one thing that bought you reassurance is that the thousands of pounds of munitions your crew dropped each sortie were falling on the enemy's heads, making the ground pounder's lives just a little easier.
"Well, that's where our job comes in, making it a bit easier for them."
>"I suppose so, especially today."
>You can tell through her more relaxed shoulders and lazier movements that talking about the highlights of her family is helping take her mind away from the dread hanging in the air.
"And your brother? How's he doing?"
>"Ooooh, mostly the same. Still in the backlines. Driving a truck. Where it's safe. Thing is, a few weeks ago, he was picked up by a hyena woman."
>You had to raise your brows and display a prominent concern over that, hyena women had a... reputation, to say the least.
>She recognizes your unspoken meaning and her face breaks into a wide smirk.
>"Yeeeeah, you know the type! She practically dragged him out for drinks, and she hasn't left him alone since then, keeps calling him cute."
"He's not in over his head is he?"
>"With all that woman, he kinda is, but from what he's told me, she's... comparatively mellow. Honestly, as soon as he mentioned 'hyena', I was half expecting him to start crying about broken legs and stolen virginity."
>"From what he tells me, she actually seems nice enough. I just warned him that he better be prepared to be absolutely destroyed if and when she decides to drag him into the bedroom, because from his accounts, she's twice his damn size."
"How short is he?"
>"Less that he's short, more that she's absolutely huge. Like, almost eight foot huge. The best part is he wants me to help him hide it from mom, thinks he'll look like a pussy for enjoying the attention."
>She chuckles to herself and turns back, reclining in the stiff seat as best she can, letting loose a sigh and letting her shoulders slump.
>You're feeling more at ease as well, watching the northeastern wilderness roll under you through the curved peak of the forward window.
 
>You turn your eyes upward again as you notice her lazily turning her head in your direction again.
>"Speaking of... you talk to your folks yet?"
>A wash of guilt climbs up from your feet, you had the wire time, but could never bring yourself to pick up the phone. The anxiety of trying to find the right words to describe this, especially when things weren't set in stone yet, kept winning the debate.
>Especially if it was your uncle to pick up the other end.
"...no"
>Her ears wilt, and she pouts intently.
>"Johnny! You promised!"
"I know, I just... can't find the right words for... this."
>She maintains a stern frown, trying to peer through you and discern the reasoning for your cowardice.
>"For what? Telling them you want to fuck a fox?"
>Your chest seizes as your heart makes impact with your larynx.
"MARY!"
>Immediately hear face adopts a splitting grin as she cackles with glee at your snapping glare.
>"HHAHA, I'm sorry! Opportunity was too good to resist, hehheeeh."
>Her laughter has always been underpinned with a sort of light chittering, a remnant of her species more natural calls worming into her speech. She takes a moment to steady her sides.
>"Sorry. I know we're not that far yet, but... if we do get that far. It would be nice to know your folks aren't going to blow up at me, they sound nice, even if your uncle is a little... ehhh-"
>To say the man despised anthros would be undercutting it. You weren't one to claim the various species were free of flaws, no person is, but the man's vitriol honestly disgusted you, especially after meeting Mary.
>Between the fox and you, your mutual habit of early rising led to a lot of private time in the golden hours, time you used to really get to know eachother. You were sharing the nose of the plane after all. After a while, you started seeing something deeper in eachother.
>Something you were beyond hesitant to inform your folks that you were exploring, your uncle's opinion still carried weight with them, just because they idolized him for serving once.
>He didn't even have any idea what it was you go through, just pretends at it, because he was there during the China crises, keeping scared, angry people in line.
>He never had to fight honest to God monsters.
>Mary's words ring in the back of your head, you can't let him lord over your life. You breathe deeply, and swallow the fear.
"I'll call them when we next touch ground, but like hell am I going to try excusing this to my uncle."
>She wears a patient smile, and speaks with an understanding.
>"That's all I can ask of ya. I think you're worrying too much, Johnny. Ya would have to break the news eventually, better sooner rather than later. It's not like yer folks would disown ya over me, even if your uncle sounds like scum."
>"I know mamma is just happy I found someone, annd my brother doesn't care, because I think he has to worry more about his girlfriend smothering him."
>She turns her gaze forwards and continues looking for something to catch her lazily wandering attention.
>"Whatever does happen, I'll be here for ya."
>You can't say she's wrong, you're sure if your uncle wasn't there, there'd only be a series of awkward questions to answer, but you'll have time to think on that when the mission is over, if you spend too much time worrying over it now, you'll lose your nerve again.
>You keep yourself occupied by returning towards the system check over your console.
>The B-62 was a mean bastard of a plane, a 10 man crew, fully capable of leveling a city block in short order, and enough guns to even give one of the old AC-130s pause.
>She was a fortress shaped like a broad flying wing, cruising on eight jet engines to carry almost 30 tons of bombs to the target at high altitude.
>Six gunners defended every bomber, and you were assigned to the forward station at the nose, taking threats in front of the plane.
>You had four screens to gawk at, a fixed camera looking dead forwards, and three tied to the less fixed weapons. In the chin of the plane, just behind your station was a remotely controlled turret sporting a quartet of 40mm Bofors auto cannons.
>Slung into the wings at both sides of the nose were a pair of low velocity 120mm cannons, they could only fire along a vertical arc forwards due to being rigged into recoil dampening harnesses, but the heavy flak shells they spat could help shred more evasive targets.
>To round it off, two 8-tube seeker missile racks were embedded into the cheeks of the plane's nose. All 4 weapons were managed from this station. The six other gunnery stations scattered around the aircraft functioned in a comparable manner.
>"What IS that?"

>..!
>Your head snaps towards the window as your heart gives a rising start.
>But looking out the window, there's nothing moving against the usual flow.
>Your head gets the better of you as you realize if she spotted bandits, she would be far more alarmed. The radio would be alive with callout chatter as well.
>Mary stares out towards the left, her attention ensnared by something. You lean over your console in an attempt to replicate her sight line, curious.
>What she's caught sight of remains to be seen, you can't see very well past the column of the bomb sight's optic tunnel.
"What have you caught sight of?"
>You catch sight of her leg shifting out of the corner of your eye.
>"I.. don't know. It's there off our left wing. See the flashing?"
>You can see off the left wing, but you can only see the mountains petering out into rolling, forested hills. Somewhere in the trees, a highway cuts a winding furrow through the green, snaking together clumps of structures, somehow still standing after long months of neglect in the Alaskan cordon.
>EDF ground forces are marching north down there, you can see the occasional silhouette of a tank, the scuttling of infantry, or even the stomping bob of an auger mech in the trees.
>But the flashing she speaks of eludes you.
"Mary, I don't know what you're looking at."
>"Up the highway a fair ways, where it meets another road in what looks like a town. I'm seeing a lot of fire down there."
>You're seeing nothing of the sort. Despite tracing your eyes along the breaks in the trees, you don't see any towns on fire.
"I still don't see it."
>Sure the bomb sight and the hump of the radar equipment ahead of your stations gets in the way, but you can still a fair bit out of the left side.
>She gives a tired huff and you see her start to shift.
>"Scoot over!"
>She puts one of her boots onto the pillar bracketing the side of your console, readying to drop herself into your seat.
>The bombardier's station on the B-62 is always above and to the left of the forward gunner in the nose, so her waist was usually about head level with you when she was at her station.
>You know she probably won't take your personal space as good reason to give up her little chase. Once she's locked in on something, she's determined to see it through.
>To that end you quietly pick yourself up and shuffle over towards the right, freeing up about half of your seat for the fox, and then freeing up a little more so you don't have to be quite so close together.
>She plops into the right side of your chair, making sure her landing isn't too hard by her grabbing hold of whatever ledges happen to be handy before she drops.
>Mary then makes it awkward by scooting over right into you, uncaring of maintaining any distance.
>You can feel the warmth from her as your shoulders and hips rub against eachother, even through the thick fabrics of your flight suit.
"Little close, Mary."
>"Yeah, and?"
>...
>"Here, rotate your gun camera over to the left."
>She points towards the center screen on your console, a camera nestled between two pairings of 40mm auto-cannon barrels.
>It makes sense, you can see more through the remote camera on the chin turret than you can gawking like an idiot out of the window.
>You push left on the controls and the turret whirs deeply behind you as the view steadily pans left. You try to ignore the warm feeling creeping into you.
>"Stop there! You see it now?"
>Her gloved finger points towards a broken mottling of squared shapes on the screen, and you see a yellow sliver fall in among them from above, erupting in a bright flash as it touches the ground.
>Just as soon as the first flash fades, another comes, and another. It looks different from the occasional battle you view from above.
"What is that? Those can't be bombs, we don't even have any wings over there."

>"I'm still not entirely sure, zoom in. I need a cleaner image."
>Thumbing the switch for the turret camera's zoom, the image focuses in on the town. The trees fall away, but you still can't make out that many details.
>"Come on, keep going."
"That's as far as it goes."
>An annoyed grunt leaks out of her as she leans in towards the screen, pressing into your shoulder, almost presenting the swell of her chest directly under your vision.
>Mary always was a more shapely figure, and it was getting hard not to have your eyes wander as she was so close, especially when you can feel her shapely hips up against yours.
>You have to wonder if she's doing it on purpose, or if she's really just that focused on the mystery of this bombardment. The flick of her ear is inconclusive.
>Keeping the conversation going should be a good way to distract yourself.
"Think our guys are in trouble?"
>She shakes her head.
>"No, that lightshow is way too far forward from our beach head, unless the Marauders are giving a recon unit absolute hell, there's no way that fire isn't ours."
>You're far from an expert on ground based tactics, but it occurs to you that maybe they decided to soften up a target before sending in the troops.
"A preemptive bombardment? It looks like artillery."
>"We'd see the guns from up here if that was the case... And look at these shells. They're coming in way too fast and way too bright."
>She fingers through the tuft of fur along her chin, finding what to say.
>"...It's almost like... It's being fired from above."
>There's only one thing that occurs to you that functions as an aerial artillery platform.
"The Thunderbird?"
>One of the three 'Birds of Peace', the Thunderbird and its sisters are North America's penultimate weapons. Flying battleships capable of leveling enough artillery at a target to support an entire army.
>They operated as massive gunships, and provided with regular in-air refueling, could stay aloft for months at a time. Despite their enormous weight and wingspan.
>It could be up there somewhere, at extreme heights where the Marauders can't observe it.
>"No, that doesn't make sense. The Thunderbird was deployed to South America last I heard, it doesn't make sense for it to be this far north... unless it was reassigned like a week ago."
"One of the other peace birds then?"
>"uhhh... The Phoenix was last seen over Panama, and the Cockatrice has been standing guard over Kennedy for some reason. If any of them were redeployed, the word didn't get out. We're supposed to know their rough flight plans if they're in the area."
>She holds the bridge of her snout, blowing out a heated breath.
>"If the Thunderbird IS in the area and we weren't informed, that could cause problems. A wired gunner catches sight of a flying silhouette that large, and they assume Marauder."
>That was true. Depending on where exactly it is, once the squadron ascended above the deck, you could maybe catch sight of the Thunderbird somewhere up there.
>Mary taps her collar for her intercom.
>"Hey Skipper? You see that flashing off our left wing?"
>A voice returns from the headset resting around her neck. A gravelly grunting that was undeniably Folly.
>"What exactly am I looking for?"
>"Tracer fall, about 85 degrees left of current bearing. It's on top of a town that crossroads between two highways, should be near a lake too."
>A few moments pass, you hear a slight tap at your feet as she grows impatient.
>"Is that what I think it is?"
>"We're thinking the same thing here. The briefing didn't include any mention of the Thunderbird, and if we catch sight of it up there, a wigged out gunner may get the wrong idea. Think you could get Devin on the channels to confirm things?"
>Once again he takes a moment to respond.
>"Definitely a good call, we're going up in twenty. I'll get the bat to get everyone on the same page regarding our big friend's unexpected appearance. Nice spot, Duster."

>She takes a quiet satisfaction in the praise, if that grin crawling up her muzzle is anything to go by.
>"Thanks, skipper."
>She fingers off her set, leaning back in and rubbing shoulders with you.
"Well, at least we won't be accidentally popping any shots at one of the peace birds."
>The long drawl of a sigh escapes her smile.
>"Yeah... I should probably get back to my station now, huh?"
-no~-
"N-Yeah. Maybe you should."
>Being this... distracted, was a good way to miss the one bug that would bring down the plane. Not that you were terribly opposed to her staying by you.
>She moves away, clambering back up towards her console. You occupy yourself staring.
>Unfortunately? You failed to engage with your screens. The rolling sashay of her hips as she puts one leg up, and then the other is ensnaring.
>So ensnaring you almost didn't notice the chirping of your headset.
>"Hey! Tiff! Pay attention!"
>Folly didn't even need the set, you can hear him shouting from the cockpit, but you slide the set on anyways for the sake of the captain's precious regulations. You finger at your transmitter tab through the thick collar of your flight suit.
"Uhm... Yes, skipper. What do you need?... sir."
>Shaking your head free of the visual trap, you promptly stare straight out towards the flyover country rolling under your craft. The whole time, trying not to think of what Mary would look like out of those pants.
>...
>And strongly hoping the pressing feeling in your own will take the hint and go away.
>If that got too far ahead, you're somehow certain she'd smell it.
>"You're not doing anything but getting chatty. Land isn't answering his set, probably spacing out with his fucking diary again. We're going above the deck in twenty, go give him a bump on the shoulder and tell him to get his mask ready."
>Moving around doesn't seem like the right course of action for the next minute, there's a strong possibility she'd notice.
>That and Smith is typically right around the middle of the plane.
"Why don't you get Rat to do it? He's closer."
>"Because Smith is working on a pressure drop in one of our hydraulic lines out in the wing, he's the only one that can squeeze in there. And you aren't doing anything other than chatting with Duster."
>You blow an annoyed huff from your jaws. It's unpleasant to deal with Ned for more than a few words, the big wolf is so quiet that it gets awkward fast.
>A secondary annoyance creeps up at you, that maybe Folly was able to make out something of your conversation.
>Something he would probably wave over your head, if he found out that something was between his forward gunner and bombardier.
>Best to just go get the right side gunner to stop his daydreaming so you can see if the captain looks at you any different when you pass by him.
"Roger that, skipper."
>Today was going to be an ordeal.

>You sat back down again at the clustered little alcove of screens that was your station, where you'd probably be for the rest of the flight.
>At least you got to stretch your legs a little before the air in the plane got cold.
>Just like the skipper had guessed, Ned was utterly engrossed in his notebook when you found him. His pen was eagerly scribbling something down before you gave a courtesy knock against the bulkhead, prompting a stifled bark out of the wolf before he clamped his notebook shut.
>He immediately had to ask if you saw anything, which you really didn't just like always. The only words you made out were 'she gently' which could mean anything.
>The big lug seemed to take the hint when you mentioned the formation would be climbing to mission altitude soon, so you left him to button up his jacket and get his oxygen mask prepped.
>After scooting between Folly and Moody, now you were staring at your own mask, checking seals and making sure nothing would be leaking.
>At least the skipper was completely unaware of what it is you were discussing with Mary beyond the usual talk, probably distracted by Lola chattering his ear off about past exploits she seemed to think he would find impressive.
>You had no idea why captain Moody, of all people, could act like such an excitable kid. Contrasting that with the fact that the bird stood head and shoulders over you made it just bizarre, you never expected to meet a bald eagle that was anything but the picture of bearing in the airforce.
>You stared down at the pale glare reflecting in the eyepiece. It always felt like once this mask was on, you weren't just someone doing his job anymore. You felt like a cog in the machine.
>You look over to find Mary brushing off some dust clinging to her own eyepieces, staring intently along the barrel of the respirator, which was extended to accommodate her muzzle.
>She looks over and you lock in on eachother's eyes.
>"*sigh* Guess I'll see ya on the other side then."
>She offers a small smile, calling back towards the reason for this little ritual. You always told her she looked like a different person under that mask.
"Will do. Duster."
>You check over the hose seals one last time, nothing looks out of the ordinary.
>"Jonathon?"
>Mary never really uses the proper form of your name unless it's something serious.
>The look of concern and hesitation spread across her halts your words. Those honey glazed eyes read like she has something caught in her throat, something she's not sure how to say.
>"I...... Let's just uh... hope we touch ground again. aye?"
"Yeah... let's make it happen."
>Her head nods slightly, and she slips the mask over her snout. Just as the bulky respirator barrel slides over her, Mary seems to fade into the background, as Duster takes her place.
>Maybe if fortune smiles, you can still catch site of those yellow eyes through the mask.
>They're still one in the same, but Duster seems to be the side of her you see during missions, the side embodied by that bulky, emotionless mask.
>You slip your own mask over yourself, and prepare for battle, counting your triggers, and double checking all of your ammo.
>Now you're just the forward gunner of the B-62 'United Effort'.
>You lean into your seat, waiting those few minutes before the nose tilts upwards and takes you above the clouds.
>The incline changes, and you feel your heart hanging towards your spine, as the ascent begins.
>"Johnny?"
"Mhm?"
>"Good luck."
>Flying all the way to Anchorage, you might need it, you might all need it.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>The clouds have stopped whirling and shifting up this high, they're more of a generous blanket now, rolling under the edge of the canopy against the crystal blue of the sky above you.
>You lament being more or less rooted to your station now, what view you have is in the wrong direction to see any sign of the Thunderbird.
>It's supposed to be a good omen if you catch sight of its silhouette while on your flight path.
>You listened through the muffs of your headset at the shrill scream of the engines to both of your sides. The whole time you nested your neck down into the fleece collar of the jacket enveloping your upper body in a thick coating of warmth. All to avoid the nipping cold up here.
>The skipper dropped the cabin pressurization to lessen any damage incurred should the bomber be hit, the side effect being the thinner, colder air.
>It's why all of you had to hide your faces in these impersonal masks.
>What few glimpses of the ground you got through gaps in the deck cover were wide swaths of green with no specific or eye catching detail.
>This was the Northwest alright, flyover country.
>The other bombers in the wing had shuffled into their final formation, the defensive bracketing that would hopefully remain unbroken from here to Anchorage and back again.
>Among the mix of wide wings, you spot your escorts: arrowhead flights of darting fighters, cruising alongside the forts like lancets drafting under the wide wings of rays.
>There was nothing for them to attack right now, or they would be darting away to chase anything around your airspace.
>The eyepieces of the mask narrow your vision, the air you breath is humid and bitter, and you don't feel anything but metal and rubber when you run your hand up to your face.
>There's a distance as you feel nothing through this thing, and you must look like any other gunner, with your frame shrouded in the burly flight jacket.
>It's an odd sensation, to feel like your personality is smothered. To feel like any outside observer would only see one of a number, not an individual.
>You may as well be a blank slate manning the guns, a programmable life designed to throw itself against the enemy, heedless of its own desires or ambitions.
>Just like a bug.
>You always have to wonder if this muffling of your human qualities is somehow a trick to make you more disposable.
>You take your time to inhale a great breath, and breath out slow.
>It's not like you're a machine, this war is about survival afterall. Ultimately, your passing would still be mourned.
>It doesn't help that you have nothing to keep you distracted from this tension, and you can't help but get the sense that something is bound to happen.
>You've never been on a mission like this before.
>Leaning back, you decide to occupy yourself by mentally running over your firing and deflection angles, lead times, shell velocities, and generally hoping that you'll never have to pull your chute.
>Even if the Marauders take prisoners, you shudder to imagine what cruelty they may be capable of.
>A cruelty granted by their frozen disregard for the sovereignty of your world, of your people.
>They had no restraint or space borne equivalent to the Geneva conventions. Likewise, the rules of war didn't apply to this unearthly enemy.
>Whatever happens now, you just pray you'll make it home.

<Captain Mary J. Waters>
>Why didn't you tell him?
>Both of you are at the height of danger now, you've read the attrition rates sent in from Europe.
>The crew is never expected to survive a full tour.
>So why did it lump up in your throat?
>Why couldn't you just tell him that it was okay to stop taking it so slowly?
>Something sparked that tinder in you. Sure there were others you felt for, but that smoldering feeling had never gotten this bad.
>And something in you is too scared to tell him.
>Was it because he was human, or did some part of you believe you were going too fast?
>Even despite the threat pushing you to move before it's too late, you're struggling in the final steps.
>Maybe you're paranoid, that if you confess too quickly, he'll say yes just to take advantage. You know your species' reputation.
>Not that your behavior was helping much, it was natural for an eager young vixen to lay it on a little strong. Your instincts had driven you to be more forward with your courting because you couldn't secure your 'territory' against other females.
>Nothing more than a subtle scent marking was what you could get away with, it definitely said someone had an eye on him, but wouldn't be strong enough to turn away anyone determined. Some days you envy species like hyenas and to an extent jackals, they have an easier time of that sort of thing.
>The hyenas are usually forceful enough that the rough handling and rubbing doesn't seem too far out of place, and even if the action is recognized, it's hard to tell a woman of that caliber no. They had a way of getting away with pushing around their men like toys.
>Then there were the jackals, sure they were smaller girls (for anthros) like you, but they always seemed to find a way to be clever about things. It came to a pitch when you met a royal jackal, by far the largest and most distinguished of the jackal subspecies, that had managed to get a heavy marking on a prospective mate without him even taking notice. Subtle and clever.
>You tried to be smart about things yourself, and you weren't one of those shorty Fennec girls. Hell, you were towards the bigger end for a swift fox, but you were still only on par with his size, so no using that to your advantage.
>And as for subtlety, you got skittish whenever an opportunity to stealthily reinforce your mark came up.
>Humans seemed to be known for being reserved about these sorts of connections, always so insistent on waiting to figure things out.
>Just as bad as the jackals.
>But you guess that's just the way he is, you can't blame him for that.
>Just calm down, and try to keep everything in check.
>Nothing good will come of getting frustrated right now.
>"Duster, could you confirm your sight settings again?"
>Of course Devon buzzing your ears for the third damn time about which knobs are turned what way doesn't help.
"They're literally the exact same as when you asked last time, Wight. They've been the same since an hour ago, and they've been the same since we took off. Tell the other bombardiers to stop getting their tails in a knot over us leading the flight for once."
>'United Effort' was selected as one of the lead planes for this mission, a first for the rest of the squadron to go along with the first blood of a long range strategic bombing.
>This meant that you were now one of the most important people to the mission, the lead bombardier of the squadron's lead flight.
>No pressure... right?
>"Don't snap at me, Duster. I'm just trying to do my job here. Calling around to notify everyone here of the Thunderbird was already a pain in the wings."
"Yeah, well I'm just tryin' to do mine too, don't need any of the extra pressure. You know my preferred settings, they don't change. So tell them to stop trying to ride my ass about it because they have to adjust their sights for once."
>Wight has good ears, the norm for pretty much any bat, but you hope this time he actually listens. He sure picks up comments about how fuck-ugly his face is real well.
>Riding your ass was supposed to be Johnny's job... if you landed safely.
>"You sound stressed." You were, lead plane in the formation, first to get shot at. You couldn't shake the feeling that hell would break loose as you got deeper into enemy airspace.
>A feeling that wasn't failing to make the tension draw tight over your neck.
"No shit"
>"Hmmm. I'll tell them to back off on the questions. Keep yourself together, captain."
"Thank you Devon."

>A small relief, for the brief interlude before something else inevitably came up. This mission would be anything but quiet.
>Ahead of you, the other wings shuffled into position, one high on the left, and another just below your altitude on the right.
>Three more wings trailed behind yours, thirty six bombers to each wing. A little over 200 aircraft were up here not counting the small flights of fighters shuffling through the gaps between the bomber wings.
>The clouds below, damp and grey with rain, masked the ground from view.
>Your mind wandered, and you tapped your claws against the side of your sight.
>Until something grabbed your attention.
>Even folded under the mask, your whiskers felt increasingly strange. A static feeling arced between your tips, only growing in intensity as the feeling grew electric.
>Your internal compass was starting to lean off of true north, dragging your balance a hair to the right as the feeling built upon itself.
>Looking around, you couldn't see anything.
>You never had this feeling up in the air before, it was always on the ground...
>When lightning was about to strike.
>The arcing tingle reached a crescendo. You stare wide eyed out of the glass, looking for something.
>An earth-shattering crack and an icy white flash.
>The rumble of thunder bounced around the airframe as the flash settled into the shattering fingers of a bolt of lightning.
>You had heard the rumors before, but now this bolt materialized about 4 seconds ahead of your nose. The whole thing was upside down, branching up from under the clouds rather than from above.
>The Marauders have lightning guns.
>And you can feel them before they hit.
>Planes banked and yawed, widening their spread so as to avoid two craft being hit at the same time, you imagined Wight's lines must be alive with chatter.
>You thumb at your transmitter.
"Skipper! You see that?!"
>"Goddammit Mary. Of course I saw it! Everyone saw it! I got half the formation shouting in my ear over what the hell we're going to do."
>The feeling builds again, your muzzle leads you towards the right as another arc erupts from below.
>It's far ahead of the wing leading your right edge, striking absolutely nothing.
>Somehow, you can feel the air ionizing around the strike zone before the charge actually connects.
"Folly, I think I have a solution. I can feel the bolts before they strike."
>"How?"
"Ma always did say our whiskers worked like a compass, guess I'm picking up the magnetics."
>Static washes over your muzzle again, pulling you strongly towards the left. Another rumble echoes off to the left, somewhere out of your field of view.
>"Duster, that... We can use that. Hold on while I call this in, if I can give these idiots something to stop getting panicky, than we should be able to guide our way through this chop with your nose."
>A mellow sort of rise pushes you upwards, at least you're useful in this mess and not just strapped in waiting for the hand of fate.
>You have to do something else in the meantime, maybe get an opinion from Johnny.
>You look down to find him glued on his screens, and you mentally curse at his lack of a tail. When he's under that mask and you can't see his face, he's almost impossible to read.
"Hey! Johnny, you got something?"
>You really hope he does, you can feel your tail slipping away from your control and swishing anxiously.
>"I, think so..."
"Well? Tell me!"
>"This fire isn't exactly on target, I don't think they can actually see us."
"Meaning?"
>"They don't have a bearing yet. They're just shooting at the sound."

>He seems to have a point, there's been no hits yet or the channels would be buzzing with chatter.
>You've seen no blazing orange fire or smoke, just the forking lightning reaching out blindly in an attempt to touch you.
>Your whiskers twitch again as your sense of north moves, and another bolt erupts very far ahead of any of the planes you can see.
>They really do seem to just be firing blindly at the sound of engines.
"Shouldn't they have some sort of triangulation, or radar?"
>You shudder to think about it, but that weapon could be devastating if it was guided right.
>"If they have some sort of electric eye, it might be keyed in to detect something we don't have."
"Like what?"
>"High technology?... How should I know what they're looking for? I just hope we don't get hit by those fuckin' tesla cannons, I don't think we can handle a direct lighting strike."
>If one of those bolts hit anywhere near either of the bomb bays in the wings, it wouldn't even need to do most of the work. Your own payload cooking off would decimate the plane.
>That's the danger, the enormous surges of electricity can do more than blow a hole in the plane, they can scramble your systems and detonate ammo.
"I really don't think we can either."
>If Johnny was right, at least the chances of being hit were low.
>Your whiskers twitch again, the feeling pulling strong on your right, this one was going to be close. You almost didn't hear the chirp of your headset, the skipper had enacted your plan.
>"Duster, you're on the open channel now."
"Good, because we need to bank left NOW. I can feel a shot coming close on our right in four seconds!"
>Folly immediately acts on your inclination as you feel the plane slide towards the left, shuffling the whole wing.
>The wash of static tugging on the right of your snout reaches that critical point again as your scrambled sense of north tilts.
>The rumble of thunder echoes as a bright flash throws everything into a moment of stark shadow from the right.
>Immediately, the voice of another captain peals over the line. "Holy hell! If we didn't move that would have hit Valkyrie!"
>And another voice. "She's actually doing it."
>As the static faded, you immediately felt a renewal of the sensation, but far weaker, ahead of you and to your left.
>You need the line clear to relay these callouts.
"Cut the chatter! I need dead air right now or you won't hear me. I'm picking up another one, far ahead and to the left, we should be clear."
>As you watched another flash momentarily split the sky ahead of you, it was entirely clear of your wing, just as you predicted.
>Another seemed to pull the wash of static on your muzzle towards its base.
"On our tails, somewhere closer."
>The crash of sound seconds later told you that it wasn't close enough to be a danger, but the next twitch did, something closer on your left, where you mentally counted some of the other bombers in the wings being.
"Left side, danger close! Everyone on the left evade now!"
>You didn't dare move to take watch on the left side, concentrating on feeling more columns of ionizing air forming before the lightning comes again. You can only hope that none of your planes on the leftside are hit as you hear the crash and the following rumble.
>"Woohoo! That almost hit us!"
>The relief buffets you like a sweetly scented spring gale, but you still need to do your job. So you step over them on the channel.
"Keep it clear guys."
>You feel another surge coming directly in front of you, but the sensation is growing in intensity far quicker than your previous fair.
>You're about to be on top of it.
"Throttle down! Throttle down! Slow or it'll be right on top of us!"
>The roar of the engines calms, but the feeling grows enormously intense.
>Your awareness finally snaps to the gnashing feeling in your pulse, this next shot is going to be extremely close.

>The feeling washes into a maddening buzz that pulls at the corners of your mouth, overwhelming you with that instinctive twitch.
>You nail your eyes shut.
>The sound is deafening.
>Light manages to flare through your lids.
>Everything shakes.
>Everything rattles.
>...
>You open your eyes, and find the plane still intact.
>Clutching at the thunder under your chest, you empty your lungs in relief.
>You made the right call.
"That was close..."
>"Damn Mary, you're amazing!"
>Johnny's voice reaching you feels sweet, even if it's muffled.
>A pride comes to you from being so useful in countering the chop, but you don't know if amazing is really the right word for it.
>Any fox could do the same thing, but his complement brings a soft wave of heat coursing through your ears.
>Could you really say you were different somehow? Was he... seeing something else in you? Something he liked?
>It almost escaped you to toggle off your transmitter.
"A-any fox could have done the same."
>Maybe other vulpines wouldn't have been quite as sharp about detecting the ionization and deciphering the sensation, but unless their whiskers just didn't work, it wouldn't be hard.
>No, the hard part would be dealing with the mounting pressure. The fight not to panic when one wrong callout or mistake in mental judgment of the unreal speed and distance involved could cost your flight a plane, and each plane would take ten men down with it.
>When you were over bug territory, every airman was resigned that going down meant certain death.
>Bugs don't take prisoners, or something even worse. No airman that had bailed out deep in bug territory ever returned.
>It was a terrible thing to think about, but you had managed.
>You had been playing it by ear the whole time, but everyone got through. Even now the odd twitches and magnetic feelings only pulled you back behind your wing.
>Flicking on your transmitter again, you delivered the good news.
"I think we're clear of the AA everyone, I'm not picking up any strong signals."
>Just when you were about to tune out of your earpieces, a voice belted over the tin of the channel's dead air.
>"Captain Patterson, Argent Wing. Looks like we're in the clear, the bolts aren't tracking us any further. Thank you for the assist, United Effort."
>You were out of the AA belt, but it was relatively light, and even then the formation almost got hit more than once.
"Duster, United effort. I wouldn't quite thank me yet, Patterson. That chop wasn't exactly thick, and I doubt I can keep track of more than one shot at a time."
>You couldn't help but think they would overestimate your abilities like that. Johnny must think the world of your right now because you managed to add two and two.
>No pressure, right?
>It's not like one mistake up here could end in all of your deaths...
>The channel remains silent, and you assume everything is truly quiet for the moment. Slipping off your set greets you with a frantic, rhythmic tapping from one of your footpaws.
>You didn't even notice before.
>"You okay Mary?"
>A slight jolt stirs the base of your tail. If he noticed, you're probably telegraphing the nerves even through all of the shrouding bulk of your uniform.
>Your throat feels dry as you swallow in your attempt to offer something more than hot air.
"I'm fine."
>You offer the withering mask of a smile, forgetting that your respirator mask is in the way.
"Really... I'm just a little frayed is all."
>Son of a bitch. He'll pull that naked ape social magic and probably see straight through you. He can read you, but you can't read him.
>It's not fair.

<Johnny>
>Her words say that she's holding together, her fidgeting says otherwise.
>She was never one to take on the whole world by herself, but you have to wonder if she's really so skittish under pressure.
>She shuffles back to sitting straight and fiddling with her sight.
>The agitated flicks of her tail betray her anxiety, especially since you recall the bundle of fur being smaller before the lightning guns started.
>You feel a pull to reach out and help her nerves, but before you can act on it, your set chirps in your ear.
>"Hey, Johnboy! That near miss earlier has a few of our systems on the fritz, an' Talia is bitching about her aim being out of alignment. Rat is already helping Joe with an issue of his, so could you climb on back and help little miss priss before she blows up a storm?"
>A feint drawl with a vernacular colored by an affinity for whiskey meant captain Moody was on your line.
>Much as you would like to stick around and smooth over Mary's bristles, Lola didn't sound particularly patient, and a muffled swear told you Mary's sight was affected by the storm too.
>Cussing at it should at least keep her occupied while you see what the ocelot's problem is.
"Yes ma'am."
>You wheel out of your seat and start clambering back among the ribs and beams of the aircraft.
>Moving around inside the old bucket made you feel like you were scrabbling around between the bones of some entombed giant.
>Unfeeling gunmetal and drab olive certainly gave the place a cold enough feeling. You were starting to get how European crews could refer to the B-62 as a winged coffin.
>Mantling up onto the hump in the deck was always a chore, underneath your footing sat the chin turret, almost entirely self contained at this point.
>From there it was up onto the ladder that took you up into the pilot's compartment. Although the squeeze wasn't particularly narrow, both side of the passageway up were hemmed in by more of the aircraft's structure, onboard space came at a premium.
>Twisting open the hatchway Greeted you with a wall of readouts and dials, and the lenses of a respiration mask.
>Folly was on his back, prodding at terminals on the underside of his console.
"And what might you be doing, sir?"
>"Fixing our damn gimbals, our roll decided to shift 8 degrees left since that near miss."
>A slight flicker glared on his mask's lenses as he pressed his tools into one of the connections.
>"Did that do it?"
>The mass looming over you on the opposite side responded.
>"Haha, yeah. We are no longer listing according to the gimbal."
>"That's that then." The skipper slid himself back to haul himself off the floor as you hauled yourself out of the hatch.
>The eagle on your left gave her usual curt greeting to any crew wandering through the pilot's compartment.
>"Heya Johnny."
"Captain."
>"Oh uhm. When you get back down, tell Duster that she shouldn't stress so much, she did more than fine all things considered."
>You were going to do that anyway.
"Uhh-will do, ma'am."
>"I jus' worry for her sometimes, she's so high strung, and you're the only one she has to talk to down there."
>You gave an affirmative grunt, refusing the urge to crack a joke about 'mother hen'. Especially since the co-pilot had almost a foot over you.
>You have to wonder if they let her fly because being a bird makes it so she isn't stupidly heavy for air travel, despite being built like one of those tanks you occasionally eyeball from up here.
>As you turn for the door at the back of the compartment, you have to gaze out the side windows at the bombers jostling to stay in position along your flank.
>The B-62 Fortress Eagle was a super-sized crossing between the latest in post-unification heavy bombers, the defensive citadel armament of a B-17, and the wide shadow of a flying wing.
>An aircraft that had more in common with an auger mech than it did the swooping fighters dancing around it.

>You couldn't help but listen to Folly and Moody banter as you twisted the door open.
>"So why didn't you rouse Ned to go help out the little kitten?"
>"Because Land is about as good with people as a jumped up bug."
>"And Rat?"
>"Burke insists on driving our dear flight engineer up a wall whenever she sees him."
>"So why Johnny? You're leaving Duster on her own down there, you know how she can get."
>"Mary's an adult, she can take care of herself."
>"Alex. You know she's not adept under pressure."
>"She can still hold herself together."
>"Look, I-"
>The bird was cut short by the door clattering shut, leaving you in the communications section.
>As you twist the door bar shut again, the methodical ticking over your shoulder pauses.
>"Would you mind?"
>Devon Wight, the radioman and navigator, who never ceased complaint about his sensitive hearing.
"Just passing through, sir."
>You didn't like talking to him, partly because being a bat, his face was just hard to look at sometimes.
>"Well try not to make so much noise, I have important work here."
>The other part was that he was not pleasant to be around.
>"And Joe? Do tell Smith to stop running his tape player, the noise is grating."
>He also has a habit of confusing you with the tail gunner.
"It's Johnny."
>"Oh. Is it?"
>You gave a light scoff as you hutched in through the door and shut it behind you.
>The ladder to the dorsal turret dominated the center of this compartment ahead of you, two doors off to either side for the side gunners.
>Off at the end of the compartment, two figures were bent over a gunnery console at the rear of the compartment and arguing back and forth. You couldn't pick up on what they were saying over the noise from the engines.
>If your memory wasn't failing you, Talia was assigned to the right side, which meant she was off to the left.
>Popping through the door, you found the petite wild cat angrily tapping a claw as she stared at her screen, the crosshair majorly out of alignment with where the gun camera was actually facing.
>Taking notice, she bolts upright with a vivid energy.
>"Heyyyyy!-uh."
>She was cut short as you stepped out of the constraining doorway into the glow of compartment lights with a quirked brow.
>Burke was rarely this excited, and you knew who she was probably expecting.
>"*ah-hem* sorry, I thought you were someone else."
"Who? Mark?"
>"...no.... look, just help me fix this stupid thing."
"So what's wrong with it?"
>"I don't know exactly, just that the thing is scrambled to hell and the crosshair isn't where it should be."
>Sure to her word, the screen readout was a complete mess, seems the electrical cast off from the near miss just off your nose leaked in and shorted some of the systems.
"Did you try a reboot?"
>"Of course I did, that only got rid of the worst symptoms."
>...
>This might take a while.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>Talia's problem was more stubborn than you thought, even the basic formatting had cropped up mysterious bugs in the code.
>Although a backup restore had fixed most everything that wasn't being caused by some short or charge in the circuitry, it was still an enormous pain in the ass.
>You also lost a good half hour working through fixing it. You stepped back into the central compartment to find Smith walking away from Joe at the tailgunner station looking exasperated.
>"If we ever get our systems fragged by one of those lightning guns again, just toss me out of the plane."
"I feel ya."
>"You tackling your own station, John?"
"No, I was helping Talia with hers."
>He offers a soft chuckle and a smirk as he mounts the ladder ascending into the dorsal turret.
>"Well, thanks for that. I swear she has nothing better to do than annoy me."
>Wait, did he really have no idea that the ocelot was enamored with him?
>You recall Smith saying he was raised somewhere where there were never any anthros around, so maybe his annoyance is just because he can't pick up on her signals.
>But before you could offer some sort of peacemaking, your headset toned.
>An alert.
>You shared a look with the flight engineer and fellow gunner before splitting off to rush back to your station.
>Slipping your set over your ears, you listened to the all-call inbetween the thudding percussion of your boots on the deck plating.
>"This is AWACS Iron Bird to all craft, we have multiple radar contacts bearing 300 degrees off current heading, all crew to battlestations, all fighters scramble to intercept."
>Hostiles showing up in front of you.
>Are you ready?
>Did your training give you all you needed to survive this?
>To protect your crew?
>To protect Mary?
>You don't know for sure, and there are no second chances in these skies.
>This is what you were afraid of.
>You scrambled down into the nose, finding Mary there with her tail swishing. The way she peered over her shoulder as you stepped towards your console told you all you needed to know.
>She's just as scared as you are.
>"I don't know what's out there yet."
>A flight of fighters swoops out in front of you, you can see them peeling away from the formation to harry whatever AWACS picked up.
>They should report what they find as soon as they get eyes on it.
"You know the drill, they'll go see what we're up against."
>It's always been the way things open out here, radar makes contact, fighters intercept, and any bandits that get within sight of the bomber is hosed with fire.
>Some thorn in your side tells you this is different as you settle in to watching your screens. You're far to deep in enemy airspace now, this time will be different.
>This time something more of a threat will get through the fighter screen.
>AWACS called the threat 60 degree left, so you pan the turret that way and cement your attention to the screen.
>You peer for a long time, scanning over the blanket of wet grey beneath you for any signs.
>Perhaps the enemy is already above the deck, or they're prowling below to come up from directly under you.
>As the clouds spark and rumble, you look for any dark shapes moving through the flashing.
>There's nothing there in those flickers of icy blue, the tension is drawing a wire over your throat.
>Where are they?
 
>The warning tone comes again, and you expect darting shapes to burst out of the clouds in concert with the sound.
>Instead, the voice of one of the pilots rings in your set.
>"Star Hound actual, contact on bogeys in five ticks, they look silver from here."
>Silver...
>Marauder warbirds...
>If they're already out in force, you may have bigger problems than you realize.
>In the air, one of those glimmering silver machines often outclassed your own by a wide margin.
>You remember the stories about the aero-cruisers over Europe, the things those pilots had to do to bring those monsters down in the opening salvos after Firefall.
>The triumph of Titan's Fall, when the first Marauder aero-cruiser was felled over the white cliffs of Dover, and again when another was shot down near Warsaw the next day.
>The fighter's lead speaks again.
>"Star Hound, confirming forty blips in formation. They aren't shooting yet."
>40 enemy aircraft, but hostilities had yet to boil over. No evidence of the wheeling and diving entanglement that was fighter against fighter.
>No flares of orange light of a machine exploding in the air, whether it was one of yours, or one of theirs.
>Flares like they must have seen over Europe.
>All of those biting victories, the wounds a cornered and riled humanity inflicted against a superior force were stories told again and again, because of that precious glimmer of hope they sheltered.
>Hope that the fight could be won, that somehow mankind could prove too much trouble for the enemy to root out, and they would leave.
>But the Marauders learned from those mistakes, and within weeks aero-cruisers didn't fly unescorted in EDF airspace.
>Gripping feverishly at your controls, you have to wonder if one will be there over Anchorage.
>But right now, you're wondering exactly what sort of Marauder machines you're up against.
>"Iron Bird. Confirm lack of enemy fire? We aren't reading any major breaks in formation either, where are their escorts?"
>No escorts? The hell is going on?
>"Star Hound. We aren't seeing any. They're fat silver birds, definately Marauder, but so far all they've done is throttle up to try and run from us. I don't think these are warbirds."
>"Iron Bird. Clarify, Star Hound."
>"Star Hound, roger. The airframes are definitely big enough to be air monitors or heavy bombers, but as far as we can tell, they're unarmed. These are cargo birds. We must have intercepted an air supply convoy."
"The hell would they need with cargo planes?"
>You voice the thought as soon as it comes to you. Your transmitter is off so the only one to hear you is Mary, who offers a bewildered shrug as you look over towards her.
>How deep were you in Marauder airspace that you would happen upon cargo planes?
>Why were they operating without escort?
>And what could be so important that they would be shipping it by air?
>"Iron Bird. Confirming, Star Hound, locking in target data as Marauder logistics craft. Now go tear them up, whatever the Marauders are shipping, we don't want them to get it so easy."
>"Roger that. Star Hound: Fox two."
>Within seconds a flash illuminates the curves and lumps of the cloud cover far ahead of United Effort.
>Zooming in with the gun camera, you can make out the vague swooping shapes of fighters harrying a convoy of wide, sharp looking wings just above the clouds.
>Flashes erupt consistently from the enemy airframes as missiles make impact, and soon enough you see one of the cargo birds erupt into flame as it wheels into the clouds, disappearing
>"Splash one!"
>They're just out of range of your own guns, but you can feel the airframe beneath you surging forward, the entire formation must have been ordered up to combat speed.
>The hum of the engines grows louder and deeper, the laconic roar of a waking beast.
>The voice of the skipper greets your ears as you check over your target alignment one last time.
>"All gunners, enemy air convoy will be in range in about 30 seconds. Let's have some target practice, shall we?"
 
>Now you could see them more clearly. Marauder aircraft were built strangely, as if they were expected to either fly in entirely different atmospheric conditions, or the vacuum of space.
>There was always the thought they were just small spacecraft hastily re-purposed into proper atmospheric craft.
>Their shape would definitely fit that bill, like someone quickly nailed wings onto a cargo container.
>That familiar silhouette grew larger in your sights, two lengthy polygonal cylinders melded together at the center, the outer sides lined with small deltoid wings, adding up to 3 pairs. There were no signs of a 'traditional' tail segment or trailing control surfaces, the rear of the planes body sheltered the glowing vents of 4 engines of unknown power.
>How it flew under stress, you had no idea, but it seemed like the craft really were weighed down with cargo as even your B-62s could capably close on their tails.
>Right about now, you should be in range.
>"Alright gentlemen, targets on set at twelve o'clock low, have at 'em!"
>For so long you could only watch as the Marauders burned away all things good at every corner of the world, now it was time to really cut your teeth.
>Today, you could finally kill one of those monsters through your own action, now that the glimmer of silver was in your crosshairs.
>You depress the trigger, and the airframe resounds around you with a booming din as the wing cannons fire.
>Two fat shells arc ahead of the bomber, and you add in the deep chatter of the Bofors on top of it, the much faster autocannon shells already stitching bright sparks across a transport on the left of a three strong delta formation.
>The shells fall to the sides of the target and erupt in oily black clouds, tiny motes of light dance across the surface of your current target and the side of another transport to the right.
>Two of its engines erupt into flame, and two of the wings on its right side snap away in a spray of fragments. It rolls over and plummets into the clouds, one down.
>The bird on the right is already bleeding a thin trail of smoke. You tilt the stream of fire from the autocannon turret into the cargo bird's flank, and quickly find its silver veneer shattering as the wings spin away.
>It lists, and then with a lurch its left pair of engines detonate, shredding the airframe in a squall of whirling debris as it spirals down into the storm.
>That's two.
>"Man, they're dropping like flies! I thought Marauder birds were supposed to be harder than this."
>Mary makes a good point, knocking the silver scourge out of the air so easily felt... off.
>You remember in your briefings that these things were supposed to be tougher, Marauder machines were protected by a shield screen, but that may not extend to their logistics craft.
>With no shield screen, all that could protect those birds was a thin coating of armor, they had no escorts.
"Maybe they dropped the shield screen for more cargo space."
>"I don't know Jon, we don't know thing one about them aside from what we've gathered staring down their gun barrels... Compared to the stories I've heard, that we've both heard, watching them all disintegrate under fire like this is..."
"...pathetic."
>You complete the thought as you watch the cargo plane ahead of the two you downed break apart at the tail, it's engines whirl away as the craft noses up out of control. All sorts of strange containers and materials scatter out of the breach, even a few points of bright light go with them as the bird slows, and then drops through the deck.
>The fighters pluck at the head of the convoy while fire from your formations chop into the Marauders' tail, the first air to air encounter in enemy airspace and the EDF is winning handily.
>Was it because the enemy just never expected a bomber column with fighter escort to ever get this deep in their territory? Or did they really not have the reason or aircraft available to cover these transports?
>You set the chin turret on another craft as you ponder over the question. You were expecting to meet hell in the skies out here, so where was it?
>More transports explode and fall from the air like so many demented clay pigeons, but a sound cuts across your focus as that same fighter pilot you heard before calls over the line.
>"Uhhh, I just got a lot of blips showing up on my radar... AWACS can you comfirm?"
>"Iron Bird comfirming, hang on.... Star Hound, you got way too many blips headed your way from below."
>"How many?"
>"Too many to count, I think we just made something very angry down there."
>Your heart drops, you shouldn't have gone asking for trouble because it just found you.
>Bugs...
 
>The cargo birds have been withered down to a handful now as more guns pick at them, but you deflect your aim downwards, watching the clouds for the telltale wisping trails an ascending enemy cuts through the deck.
>"Oh shit! BUZZERS!! We must have dropped a wreck on a hive or something! Everyone climb! Back above the deck!!."
>The Marauders' pet bio-weapon was coming in force, and the tension crawls back into that familiar spot atop your spine. Soon the sky would be covered in nightmares.
>Far ahead, fighters scramble upwards away from the clouds as you start seeing darting shapes erupting out of the grey blanket below.
>You can't even begin to get a solid count of the amount of silhouettes breaching the deck.
>The intercom pips in your ear as Talia makes a report.
>"Guys, we got a whole mess of bandits on our right wing."
>Ned chimes in soon after.
>"They're on our left too."
>"Woods here, they're rising towards our tail."
>"THEY'RE FUCKING EVERYWHERE!"
>Flying bugs on all sides, you must have disturbed a hive.
>The tension is ready to snap, you notice the shaking in your hands as you tweak variables on your controls.
>Briefly thinking to check on her, your turn up towards Mary. You can see her fear even through the mask, her wide eyes catch the light through the forward window, and her tail is attempting to tuck itself under her legs.
>The stress is getting to her.
>"Jon... I'm scared..."
>The edge of panic in her voice rips at your chest, she's relying on you now to keep those things away from the plane. You and the other gunners.
>Fear crawls over everything as your hair stands on end, with this many enemies out there you have nowhere to hide.
>Is this how it's going to end? Could you even hope to weather the swarm?
>You have to try, if just to keep her safe.
"I got 'em in my sights, don't be afraid."
>You have to try.
[Battle Tracks: Don Felder - Heavy Metal (Takin' a Ride) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYO6tMvkEck]
>Tracers from all over immediately open streams of fire down towards the ascending swarm, shapes plummet and fall as the thin veneer of their wings are slashed into ribbons, but dozens more take the place of every one that falls.
>The last few cargo birds gliding just over the clouds make a break for it, just as a flak shell detonates under the belly of the center plane.
>You're almost blinded as a golden flare of light rips the clouds open with a sky cracking roar, leaving a turbulent ball of smoke as fiery chunks of debris pirouette in all directions.
>The last of the convoy was just annihilated by its own payload, they were carrying something exceptionally volatile.
>The thunder had sounded in your own chest, and you snap back towards your screens as you watch the smoke shift.
>Briefly, you had stopped everything.
>"What the hell was that?!"
>"The cargo birds just exploded! Dempsy was in that fireball!"
>"They're still coming!"
>Between the thundering pulsing in your ears, you heard the calls, panicked rookies wondering what to do, flight leaders attempting to make headcounts as the smoke plateaued into a dark anvil, rippling as more buzzers erupted from within it.
>Iron Bird stepped over the panic on the airwaves.
>"Calm down! All of you! Focus on protecting the formation, screen those bugs below before they get within gun range of the bombers. Break up the larger swarms and pick them apart."
>"Star Hound, roger!"
>"Ultraviolet, roger!"
>"Barricade, roger!"
>The airframe lurches under you as your view of the world out front tilted up towards the dark blue canvas above.
>The formation was climbing hard to put more distance between it and the swarm.
>Before they vanish beyond the lower lip of the window, you see the fighters rally into high energy swoops against the rising columns of buzzers, splitting them like hairs.
>You turn your attention back towards the gun cameras, and find five bugs separated from the swarm rising in the turret's view.
>One is struck by a sawing cord of tracers, and you open on another, watching as the distant silhouette folds on itself and falls as the 40mm shells strike home.
>The other three veer away, streams of fire chasing two as one rises unchallenged towards the top edge of the screen.
>You elevate the guns to track it, and walk the chattering fire over it in a vertical spread.
>The first few rounds fly into the blue, but the next riddle the bug's main body. It bursts in a wet squall and what's left spins away.
>The scope is clear for now, so you search the curtain of grey for more shapes closing towards you, towards your crew... towards her.
>Faintly, the sounds of battle echo everywhere around you over the engines, the chatter and buzz of guns, the thump of flak, and the waterfall rush of missiles in flight.
>Backdropping everything is the roar of jets, and the buzzing rattle of fluttering wings, a sound that almost drowns out her voice.
>"Jon!..."
>The terror gripping her is palpable.
>"I can feel those lightning guns again!"
>You just found that hell you thought you'd be flying over.
 
>Just like last time, a forking spark erupts from the clouds far ahead of you. The air rumbles in response.
>There's nothing you can do there, that's something only Mary's whiskers can pick up.
"Work your magic again Duster, I'll keep them off us."
>As you snap back to your screens, you hear a pained rattling from far off to the right of the airframe. A moment later a buzzer screams by your nose with that damnable noise.
>The noise that gives you a mental picture of some hellish fusion between a propeller fighter and a dragonfly.
>Mary jumps in her seat, you pan the turret forwards to intercept as the creature straightens out its flight path. No doubt it's looking to loop back around and make another strafing run.
>You can't let him do that.
>The bofors chatter as tracers rip into the bug's body, and you watch as chunks of chitin and viscera spray with abandon into the open air before a particularly large splash of gore bursts from the buzzer's 'head'.
>It briefly convulses, erratically shifting its course, before stalling and plummeting from your view. Dead.
>The buzzer was a strange creature, a long, tapering teardrop of a body with two lumpy 'shoulders' at the leading half that sheltered its nerve center and many eyes.
>Sprouting from the shoulders were two curtain like wings, spread out to surf the air by bony, clawing fingers. The whole nightmare seemed to be thrust forward by a cluster of six smaller, specialized wings at the base of the tail that rattled the air like a sort of organic prop.
>They were deceptively fast, and although they couldn't hope to keep up with a jet fighter in speed, their guarantee to attack in large, swarming numbers made them dangerous.
>The front of the creature was rounded off into three dome like structures for aerodynamics, the middle 'head' dominated by many beady eyes facing in all directions, while the shoulders were filled with many front facing hollows. The tube like structures shot flurries of razor barbed chitin spines, the creature's means of attack.
>Finally, the tapered tip of the tail was divided into two smaller wings that acted like a rudder and elevator depending on which way it was twisted.
>Yet more evidence of the sort of devious monsters that those things hiding in their silver machines are.
>Were the buzzers once some peaceful gliding creature they twisted and defiled in a lab to make into a mindless tool of war? Or perhaps they were simply 'built' from the ground up by trial and error in some screaming, bloodsoaked parody of the scientific method.
>Talia's voice chirps in your ear.
>"Anyone see where that bastard went? He moved out of my arc, almost hit the engines."
>She must be referring to the one you just shredded.
"Just popped that one's dome."
>"Thank you, Johnny!"
>Buzzers were all over now, and you had to sort through the mess of darting shapes, tracers, and smoke to pick out which members of the swarm were presenting an immediate threat.
>The mad things flew straight between bomber wings where the defensive crossfire was thickest, hurried to attack despite fighters doggedly nipping at their tails.
>Despite bodies being blown into pieces and plummeting out of the sky en masse, the swarm drives on. All of them consumed by a single directive: kill at any cost
>Why should they care about casualties? It was the bug's way to make enough bodies that the staggering losses they regularly sustained didn't really matter to the bottom line.
>No thought, no feeling, no reason. Just animals driven to attack by an unfeeling overmind.
>A clump of them break from the chaos around you and start for your arc of fire.
"Buzzers. Twelve o'clock."
>There must be almost twenty on a head on approach, suicidal, but dangerous to you.
>The boom of the flak arcs into their mass, and they disperse as the shells explode, but a few get caught out.
>Their wings shear into ribbons, ripping away the lift keeping them away from the ground and five or so bodies plummet into the storm.
>The floor under you lazily rolls to the right, shortly afterwards, another bolt erupts from the cloud somewhere close.
>If Mary is guiding the formation again, you can't hear her over the rumble of thunder and cannon.
>The pack of Buzzers seems to continue its dispersal, moving in various directions, some break left, others break right, and what's left veer back towards their direct approach.
"Talia, Ned, you got some headed your way."
>"Roger!"
>"Okay." You swear Land is so damn quiet even the intercom radio can barely understand him.
>The thunder is everywhere, especially within your ribs, if even one of those bastards get through, they could punch a hole through the canopy.
>Both of you are in danger.
>-strike them down-
>You listen to the impulse threading through your veins, another shot of flak, chased by the Bofors. A few more buzzers wheel into oblivion as the turret shreds another bug, but a few are still left, and the big guns have to reload.
>You don't have much time before they take their shots.
>Thinking fast, you call up the third option at your disposal, seeker missiles.
>The launchers hold 16, and they're staggeringly slow to reload once expended, but they're a great backup for times like these.
>Holding the trigger, the screen registers radar lock on for six targets, and you let go, a great rush sounds over your head as the small, highly maneuverable seekers thrust from their tubes.
>Five obliterate their targets in wet squalls of fire and viscera, but the last buzzer flicks its tail at just the right time to evade the strike, the trail of the missile streaking off behind it.
>He's gotten above you, and you can't elevate the turret enough to get a shot.
>You can only watch as the bug flips in the air and bends itself upward, wheeling downwards.
>Your hope briefly surges as a flurry of tracers rip through one of its wings.
>And then sink through a pit in your chest you never felt before, as sharp barbs erupt from the hollows on its shoulders.

>Even through the set, you hear sharp, peaking shrieks as metal tears, and a loud crashing sound from in front of you as you watch barbs pierce into the skin of the airframe.
>The wounded buzzer bounces off the front window, leaving splatters and streaks of that dark purplish ichor native to the bugs.
>Despite the damages, the window seems to be holding. Cracks feather out from the lower corner where the bug collided with the bomber.
>You can feel the smallest chill as the frozen air from outside leaks in through the fresh holes.
>One breeze in particular seems to be blowing straight on your forehead.
>Looking up, just above your station, the needlepoint of a buzzer barb hangs out of the wall.
>If it had gone through, it would have speared you in the head.
>If they didn't make these birds so tough...
>...
>"Duster, Johnny, you guys okay down there?"
>The captain's voice rouses you from your stupor, but you can't tear your eyes from the barb less than a foot from you.
>Visions flash in your head of that same point dangling off the floor dripping with your blood.
"Uhhh... Yeah."
>"We're okay down here skipper, the nose seems to be holding together... Even though we just ran over a bug."
>"We seem to have hit a bit of a clearing, not many buz-ers to our front but we h-ve a lot of them on our tail. Get you-selves sorted out, I ---- your whiskers on --is -ne Mary."
>Just a few inches further...
>If that buzzer was traveling just a little faster...
>If the main body had hit instead of the tail...
>-we'd be gone-
>A deep chill from within freezes your blood, and you shiver to at least try to warm it away.
>Your breath, already strained through the respirator, grips dryly at the inside of your throat.
>You had never come this close.
>"Jo----?"
>"-r- --- --a-?"
>Your heartbeat is deafening.
>"J-----?!"
>Something grips your shoulder, light and color flood back into the world, and you suck down the hot air in your mask.
>You find yourself turned around, and staring straight over the long black barrel of a respirator into a pair of amber eyes.
"...Mary?"
>"Hey! Yo-'re o--y Johnny! You'r- okay!"
>A plea in her voice pulls at you.
>"Come back t- me! We're okay!"
>Her gentle shaking of your shoulders returns sensation to you.
>Blinking hard a few times, you stare back up at her.
>"There you are. Had me worried, you just kinda locked up there."
>You were at a loss for words right now, and your gaze wanders back towards the intruding point torn through the airframe.
>The possibilities of it refuse to stop swimming through your mind, like the sword of Damocles hung over your head.
>'What if the rope holding it up snapped?' whispered some reaping chill.
>Before the world can close in again, you find your head jerked back her way, and a warm feeling crosses over your back and pulls you forwards into her.
>"I know what you're thinking but it didn't happen, okay? It didn't happen and it won't happen."
>She bleeds a securing warmth through all the layers of fabric, anthros have a higher internal body temperature, but there's something else there. Something that lifts you.
>You can feel her chest pressing against your shoulder, very shyly attempting to pull in your arm.
>Even under all the protection and the mask, it's still her under there.
>"We can make it home if we just try, right? So come on Johnny, try with me. We can get through this if we just do it together... right?"
>You hug her gently on the small of her back, she briefly tenses before tightening her hold on you.
>Some gentle murmur of satisfaction coasts out of her throat, and for a little while, you've forgotten about the chaos unfolding far behind you.
>A cold weight presses gently against your neck. Although muffled by your collar, you can still feel her show of affection.
>"More of that is waiting for you, if we land. So get back on those guns, okay?"
>She's giving you something else to focus on, a rope out of your freezing panic.
"Only if you keep us out of that lightning."
>"I'll try."
>"These planes are built tough. So we can make it,right?"
"Yeah"
>You really wish you could believe that more firmly.

<Mary>
>You can't ignore that racing drum bashing in your ears.
>You had managed to keep him from snapping, but... you were barely holding together yourself.
>Before, the usual mission was fairly simple. A single flight of 5-20 taking at most a short jaunt into enemy airspace and dropping payload on a confirmed concentration of enemies on the ground.
>You'd maybe encounter a few packs of buzzers at most, a low-flying swarm of hoverdrones if you were unlucky, but never an entire superswarm of these damn things.
>You had thought that all the extra bombers and the heavy fighter escort would set you more at ease, but you should have seen it for what it was: A necessity born from the incredible danger.
>The attrition rates...
>You had tried to distract yourself, ignore them, but now that figure came flying back to you.
>Twenty five missions in a tour, and an increasingly small chance of survival with each one.
>Would the previous sorties of yours and Johnny's count? Would they let you leave when your tour was over, or at least transfer into the backlines?
>Even if it meant never flying again, your frayed nerves burn with the instinct to be done with this sort of thing forever, to find a way of escape and leave it behind.
>And you wanted, no, *needed* to take him with you.
>...And you have to tell him.
>There's no time anymore, but you can't distract him right now. He's protecting you, and you both need him to be focused.
>You can't do anything yourself right now, your job comes when the target is in sight.
>As for the lightning guns, the storm below has only been intensifying, and the sense from it is starting to dull your instinct.
>With the bolts only growing in frequency, you can't keep track of them all.
>You let Folly know as much, the same trick that saved you back over BC wouldn't work as well here.
>According to Devon, the formation was near the border between British Columbia, the Yukon Territory, and Alaska.
>Wouldn't be too much farther to the big prize at Anchorage, but if the storm was this intense here, over Anchorage you're not sure your whiskers would even pull anywhere but down.
>Or if you would even be able to get a visual confirmation on the target down the bomb sight.
>Still, you have something to look forward to. Finally clearing things away, once you land.
>...
>-*If* you land.-
>And now you have to swallow that peeping whine that almost burst out of your lips.

<Johnny>
>If Mary's nerves are up, she did a good job of hiding it for your sake.
>That's all anyone can do, put on a brave face and hide away that terror.
>Between the hammerblow tempo of your heart, through the smothering quiet enforced by your set, you can hear the sky rumble around you.
>You don't see every flash, but you certainly hear them.
>Two seconds, five, one and a half, they fired in a frenzy. The time between each bolt was chaotic.
>The plane lurched under you without any real sense of direction, and you noticed the wings ahead of you were doing the same, scattering and shifting at random.
>All of it must be overwhelming Mary, and now most of you have to rely on luck.
>But luck is a fickle creature, and you have to cheat at her game in order to win.
>You just hope that the game wasn't rigged from the start. Wouldn't that be a kick in the head?
>"You awake over there?"
"I think."
>"Could always dust ya across the face again if yer not sure."
>WERE you awake?
>That intrusive vision isn't going to leave your memory, not anytime soon, but you have to keep yourself lashed into the now.
>What catches your eye are a few gaps in the wings ahead of you. You didn't even notice the clipped wings.
>The barb was a stroke of luck, but if you didn't pay attention, you and the rest of the United Effort would be one of those blanks in the formation. That was a certainty
>Certainty is concrete, certainty you can deal with.
>That feeling anchors your feet onto the deck.
"I'm ready for them."
>"Good, they're coming from 6 o'clock high..."
>They could sweep ahead into your arc at just about any time, the perfect time to catch their tails or their top profile as they turn after passing the United Effort.
>Just stabilize yourself, you can do this.
>You remember what that pitch was when they assembled the crew, 'the recipe for either the best crew, or the oddest, maybe both'.
>If Mary, Moody, Land, and Wight aren't odd, you don't know what they are, but you had made a sort of tenuous understanding with most of them.
>Even if Ned was too damn quiet, Devon was dismissive and a chore to look at, and Moody, while a good pilot often didn't consider her own unusual size; they all watched your back. So now you watch theirs.
>It's what a good gunner does.
>Finally returning to the gun cameras, you watch for any signs of hostile movement between the flickers in the clouds.
>The storm below is only getting worse, and bolts erupt upwards in greater and greater volleys.
>A flash comes from somewhere behind with a cracking rumble. The plane rattles under you, and the whole formation shifts as you watch another bomber close on your right shift ahead of United Effort.
>The name below the cockpit window is just barely legible.
>Under a black streak of ash, behind the torn open forward canopy: 'Moonlight Delight'.
>The bird looks positively ragged, her forward canopy is gone, taken by some sort of explosion, one flak gun hangs limply from its mounting as the other has long since fallen away.
>The autocannon turret above the cockpit is a burnt out shell, an internal ammo explosion having put it out of commission.
>Holes and ragged barbs wreath the wings like some destructive garland, and two of her left side engines trail thin beads of smoke and oil.
>One of the ailerons on the left is also pinned upwards by the snapped shaft of a buzzer barb lodged within the mechanism.
>Two scouring streaks are cut into the body, one just shy of the left bomb bay, and another has carved a rough slice out of the right tail plane. Evidently that crew had more close calls than you did.
>You can't help but linger your gaze on the hole in the front, where were your counterparts on that plane?
>The slightest hint of crimson on the shattered glass has that chill breathing over your spine again.
>You can't make out anything more than that faint gleam of red, and as the sky flashes again, you see something beyond it. A boiling mass of dark shapes
>While you've been pouring on the throttle to outrun the swarm behind you, another has appeared to intercept.

"Skipper..."
>"What is it?"
"Another swarm, 2 o'clock."
>"Shit!... Okay. We've been hauling ass to open the gap with the one behind us but the last thing we want to do is run right into the thick of another one, we're down quite a few planes already."
>You can hear the slight quiver in Folly's voice, the terror of these unfriendly skies is even getting to him, despite how thoroughly he presents the image of an unflappable commander.
>The pause over the intercom runs rampant, and you're left with the question.
>How many?
>Before you can place a figure on that question, his voice returns, a little surer of itself now.
>"Alright, we're down an engine but we're gonna run. Devon, get on the horn and start knocking heads. We're gonna pitch left and ditch down to just above the clouds for more speed. We'll lose that new swarm over the coast."
>Within a few minutes, the call from AWACS came out, the whole formation, or at least what was left of it, was to shift its course to sweep over the Alaskan coastline. Fighters were to disengage from harrying the swarm behind and pull ahead of the bombers to screen any rouge bogeys, or God forbid, a third swarm.
>The plane rolls left under you and your slant off the deck is pushed back inwards as the world started spinning off to the right.
>You watch as Moonlight Delight wobbles, but follows as best it can. As the wide bird slouches on its turn, you see the problem, a scorched hole punched clean through the right wing. A large hollow melting point is haloed by branching scorchmarks.
>She took a direct hit from a lightning gun.
>The wounded bird strays further and further away as you track it with the turret camera. Her wounded state can't strain itself into this tight of a turn, lest she tear her own wings off.
>A voice to your left bites at your ears, it's Mary's, and it's thick with dread.
>Two words is all it takes to have that pit open up again.
>"Oh no..."
>A flash.
>More than just thunder.
>The flare of autumn light is almost blinding.
>You brace.
>The world in front of you shatters.
>Cold crashes into you with all the fury of the ocean, and you feel the sting of biting fish along your arms.
>Heat follows, unbearable heat.
>Everything's dark.
>Your ears are ringing.
>United Effort shudders beneath you.
>The bird blew itself apart.
>Her bombs cooked off in their bays.
>Lit by the wintery fingers of an electric fuse.
>Creeping your eyes open, you see it through the ink.
>The burning husk, twisting itself into pieces as it falls through the air.
>The wounded bird is gone.
>A few meters in the wrong direction, and it would have been you.
>The ink shifts and pulls with the wall of ice rushing through the breach, the darkness is smoke.
>You're bleeding.
>Burning shards are riveted into your arms and collar, stained that same crimson you saw on that now burning wreck.
>The pain returns, flicking through your arms with a sharp, probing tongue.
>You can't even hear the air spasming out of your lungs, but you feel it through some dull film attempting to smother the sensation.
>Another bomber brewing up that close, it was luck that you weren't dead.
>Once of your console screens sparks and pops, a shard of glass having split the screen open.
>More must have riddled the back, the other screens flicker in and out at random.
>How bad was the damage elsewhere?
>...
>MARY!!!

>You find her slouched in her seat, clutching at her arm with a pained grimace.
>A small spattering of crimson drips from her elbow onto the deck, some of those shards managed to get through her flight suit.
>Now you're acutely aware of that distant ringing coming to your ears, that approaches with a painful intensity.
>Like the whine of an electric motor, it's only getting louder, more piercing, you want to clutch at your head to make it stop.
-she needs us-
>Those wounds could be worse than they look.
>You haul yourself upwards, trying to ignore the burning sensation raking along your arms.
>The world is silent beyond the ringing, but you can tell. She's holding in her cries.
>A hand on her shoulder, she jumps. Now you find your eyes locked, her's slick with tears.
>There's a plea shining there. One you must answer.
-the medkit-
>She shudders as you help her up, and guide her back towards safety at the rear of the compartment. You shield her with your back the whole time.
>The rushing cold batters into you, even through the heavy warmth of the flight suit, you can feel your core heat slowly leeching out into the wind.
>You're too high, if the bugs didn't kill you, the frozen air and wind shear will.
>A red cross, what she needs, what both of you need. You lift the white box from its bracket and nudge her forward again, you have to get her where it's warm.
-up-
>But her arms...
>You stand at the base of the ladder, wondering how. Nothing immediate comes to you, even as you examine her again.
>She's staring back, and her shoulders tighten, she takes hold of the rungs, and starts climbing.
>Fighting through the pain, she manages to inch upwards. You're right behind her, expecting a fall. You will catch her.
>The hatch above flies open, and for a brief second, your heart stops.
>A hook-billed shadow stares down from above you, before reaching down, seizing Mary, and hauling her up through the hatch.
>Not a few seconds later, and Moody's grip is on your shoulders, as you feel her lift you out of the cold, into the cockpit.
>The ringing seems a distant annoyance now compared to the fact your legs have ceased working.
>Most everything doesn't want to move, but you feel a sort of soft miasma settling over everything that dulls your agitations.
>The floor here feels pleasant for some reason.
>You don't remember being this tired just a second ago.
>You're on your side, things seem safe enough for the moment, maybe it wouldn't hurt.
>Just a few minutes...
>Maybe the skipper won't mind...
>...
>The floor falls away from you as you're rather violently hauled upwards to sit against the wall.
>Soon enough you see the reason why, out of your side is hanging an extra piece that isn't supposed to be there.
>A twisted, smoking fragment of aluminum, half buried in your vest. You didn't even know it was there.
>Your head is pushed upwards to stare right at Moody's hook-billed mask. She stares at you, as if waiting for something.
>...
>She shakes you lightly, and again pauses, but you can't imagine what she could possibly be waiting for.
>Her head shakes, and she reacher for her neck, throwing the clasps open and lifting her mask away.
>Now she locks eyes, her mouth moves, but you hear nothing.
>Despite how slowly she speaks, you can't understand, the rigid hinging of her beak gives you little insight into what she might actually be saying, there are no lips to read.
>Again her mouth moves, but you can't understand.
>Bewildered, she looks towards Folly, who, while busy at the controls, near constantly checks back on the three of you.
>Your best guess is that they must be asking if you can hear them.
>She asks again, and by the pacing you think your suspicions are correct. You can just make out "-an you ---- me?"
>No evidence of her voice raises above the buzzing, and a worry as silent as the world comes to you, have you gone deaf? were your eardrums blown out by that?
>you finally offer a response by shaking your head no, Moody visibly sighs, and dons her mask again.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

<Mary>
>It had been around ten (twenty?) minutes.
>Minutes hissing in pain as Devon pulled shattered glass out of your arms.
>Smith also came barreling in and out of the radio compartment/makeshift triage covered in a growing layer of small cuts and grease. Every time Wight offered to give the flight sergeant a once over, he replied that he was too busy fixing the plane.
>Your hearing was also pretty badly hit by the explosion, but you were lucky. Anthros are issued better hearing protection because of how sensitive their hearing is, and yours kept any real permanent damage from occurring.
>Johnny got it worse by far, he caught more than glass and tinnitus. Wight said he'd be lucky if his hearing wasn't permanently damaged, 62,000 pounds of munitions going off that close was no joke.
>He also got a metal fragment lodged in his gut, his vest and flight suit managed to sheild him just enough that it hadn't cut any major blood vessels or ruptured a vital organ, but it was damn close.
>Seems every encounter you have up here is a narrow scrape with the reaper. Maybe you should start a ritual every time he passes so close.
>Drink yourself stupid or something, kill your liver early so you can ditch ever flying in this aluminum coffin again.
>If it meant never having to see Johnny trying to hold himself still on a gurney while a radioman with only 'cursory' training in medicine lifted a jagged hunk of a dead plane out of his middle, you'd take it.
>Signing on with the aircorp... and for 'excitement'
>What the hell were you thinking?
>You just don't know anymore, what you do know is that you want to just drop those damn bombs and go home.
>Folly and Moody at least had good news, the dive to the deck had given the formation enough momentum to outrun both of the buzzer swarms, the bugs were persistent though, and would likely continue the chase for a fair while.
>Persistence, always persistence with those damn things. You watched that buzzer shot to pieces above the nose steer itself into United Effort as it was dying, and there were more than enough horror stories of bugs missing limbs and large chunks of their bodies continuing to charge in a deathly frenzy.
>Ever the equalist, Devon had to provide news as grim as his face looked. The formation had lost 58 aircraft, dozens more had been damaged, and as always was the case with any plane going down over bug territory, all hands were to be assumed lost.
>After that, he had left the two of you alone for the time being, helping Smith with repairs for once.
>Johnny sits at your side, panting and looking exhausted. The flood of adrenaline through his system managed to jog the both of you to safety out of the razor-barbed, ice-cold hole in the plane that once was your compartment.
>Now, you weren't even sure if he could stand on his own, it must have taken a lot out of him.
>All of this; the close calls, the pounding under your breast, the worry on your mind that you won't safely touch ground again, prompts you to reach out to him, while you still can.
"You feelin' alright?"
>"Like hell."
>His voice is a tired croak.
>Poor guy...
>You lean in close, moving your right in behind to support his back, and your left glides in to rest protectively over the fresh scar below his ribs.
>resting your muzzle on his shoulder, you do your best to reassure him, to reassure yourself by proxy.
>You malt a touch of honey into your words, to give him something else to think of.
"I can help you feel better."
>"What are YOU feeling right now?"
>What is that supposed to mean?
"hmmm?"
>He looks at the opposite wall, face hardened in thought.
>"I mean your whiskers..."
>That hadn't been on your mind for the past while, the storm below was so intense that the pulling wash over your muzzle was just oriented downwards now. It was a disorienting feeling, and you had elected to ignore it to better focus on your other priorities.
>In the rare moments that the lightning branched upwards, the feeling was just a whisper compared to the intensity of when you first encountered them.
"The storm's throwing me off, my whiskers say North is below me and it doesn't move much anymore... It's just going to get worse when we're over Anchorage."
>"Why say that?"
"I think Anchorage might be the eye of the storm."
>"And where the Marauders are the thickest..."
"Bring the mood down why don't ya?"
>"I'm just not sure that we can-..."
"We didn't come all this way for nothing, Folly and Moody are good pilots, and we still have plenty of guns."
>Some distant resolve showed itself to you. You had flown through the thick of a swarm with naught but scratches, little wounds that will fade with time. So far, fortune was in your favor, and everyone was doing everything they can to keep the scale tilted.
>He's not normally this fatalistic, you want your old Johnny back, the one you found so charming during those early mornings.
>The one that asked how your mother was holding up.
>That first morning was a fluke, but you had woken yourself early in the days following, at first out of curiosity, later out of enjoyment.
>You wrap your arms around him, and pull the two of you into eachother, your nose pressing into the side of his neck as you feel the tension slowly uncoil.
>"Mary..."
>There's some longing in his eyes. You taste his scent and the signals are reading him to you. You should have done this sooner, both of you want this.
>It would be good for him to have something else to strive towards, and a thanks from you for pulling you out when the lashing pain was so bad you hadn't even snapped out of your daze.

<Johnny>
>Some undertone of her voice betrays desire, it's just the two of you right now, and she's taking full advantage.
>All those worries you had about what your folks would think, that you may be taking things too fast were so small now.
>Compared to the oppressive chill hanging over all of you, your quips were so insignificant.
>She was magnetic to you, drew you in and welcomed you, you have to accept that now.
>No more lying to yourself. You feel for her greatly, to the point where you were ready to throw yourself down just so she could get out alive. And everything whispers that she feels the same.
"Mary, I want you to know tha-."
>"shhhhh."
>The cold spot of her nose glides away from your neck, before being replaced by a warmer, wetter sensation gently tracing upwards towards your ear.
>Then she plants her lips just below, sucking gently, before her lips part and her warm breath coasts over your ear.
>She knows.
>Just barely, teeth graze your lobe with a gentle nip, before she whispers into your ear, something for you, and you alone.
>"When we touch ground again, I'm gonna ride you into the sunset."
>That jogged something, and you can feel the creep of a warm feeling winding its way around you.
>The flush of heat clings to your cheeks, are you really ready for the sort of thing?
>At this point, what reasons are there not to?
>You can't think of any.
>Then a clack echoes from behind you, Mary tenses and pushes away as you jump in your seat.
>You're sure you hear some small fragment of some sort of alarm call when she jumped.
>Stamping through the door is Mark, somehow covered in even more of that black, clinging grease than when you saw him last.
>"Well don't you two look comfy."
>You realize with a bit of a sinking dread that Mary still has her hand on your back. She realizes it to, and coyly withdraws it.
"mhm..."
>"mmm."
>Your vixen doesn't sound that sure of herself anymore, damn buzz kill.
>"If you two are cozy enough to snuggle up together than you could be doing something useful, the skipper needs to decide where he's gonna put you two anyhow."
>The invitation was obvious, all hands on deck, even if your station was exposed to the open air and too damaged to work now.
>Both of you get up and follow the mechanic into the cockpit, just in time to catch Folly and Moody staring at something dead ahead.
>You can't really see past Smith, but he slows down and his shoulders sink a little, his gaze transfixed outwards in the same direction.
>"What the hell is that?"
>A grim curiosity has you clamoring to find out, what have they seen? A third swarm? Another set of silver wings? Some foreboding shape carved out of the clouds?
>As you push your way past smith and scan the horizon, split in two between the dark of the storm and the deep ocean of sky, a single shape divides the middle in a long, reaching omen.
>Reaching out of the swirling torrent of flickering clouds, defying the sky itself as it reaches towards the heavens, and surrounded by the glimmers of rising specks of silver schooling around it like foil-shaped fish: a tower.
>A massive silver spire, breaching out of the eye of the storm, like it was always meant to be there.
>It must be miles high, and absolutely monolithic in scope. How long had they been building this? They've only held Anchorage for two years, but here it is. An argent blade splitting the clouds.
>Icy blue sparks crackle and cast off from the long spire, pure energy forking into the open air.
>Is it a weapon? a doomsday device? some massive fortification?
>Whatever it is, that must be the real reason you were sent out here, why you had to fight through miles of enemy airspace to get here, what that convoy must have been destined for.
>AWACS came over the channel again.
>"All hands, battle stations!" You didn't need to be told why, or what the target was this time.
>Your objective: the silver mountain.

>The closer you looked, the worse it got. Those miles of Silver hid things, dangerous things.
>It seemed the whole extent of the tower was fortified and weaponized, shards opened up to flower out of the main bulk, forming platforms for what are definitely anti-air turrets.
>You can't even begin to count how many lightning guns must be there, and not just them either, you can already spy the vivid arctic glare of plasma cannons warming up to fire.
>Those slivers swarming out from the clouds bring more dread up with them, Marauder flyers, and lots of them.
>Three of them in particular stand out as far larger than their compatriots. Aero Cruisers, the terror of the skies. At least until humanity attempted building some of their own.
>Just a shame none of them are here.
>Finally, what sinks your hopes the most must be either a showpiece made specifically to intimidate, some dangerous crucible of the tower's defenses, some device of observation, or a nightmarish combo of all three.
>At the zenith of the tower's armored core, the seamless plate molds itself to grasp around a massive cylinder facing along the same axis as your approach. The face is dominated by a titanic black disk of a structure, in the center of which is a massive electric eye.
>It burns with a dim, almost hateful red glow, and you feel a chill as the soulless fire passes its gaze onto the formation, the iris narrowing in as it studies you.
>It flashes across your mind, some dim recounting of an old folktale Joe told you, courtesy of his grandparents.
>The tale of the giant Balor, and his hateful eye that gazed destruction as the seven seals over it were broken.
>Balor was slain by his own progeny, but the tale goes that his eye never closed and it burned a hole through the land itself.
>Please for the love of God, don't let that thing be a laser.
>You can't deal with a laser that big.
>However unsettling its staring is, it seems like it doesn't serve a purpose beyond freaking you the fuck out, small comforts.
>Everything else about that tower will not be found wanting in their efforts to kill you however.
-we were sent here to die-
>It made sense, a first time intrusion this deep into enemy airspace? A mission of importance in the strategic bombing of Anchorage?
>This is a raid, a high risk attack made to accomplish one objective, and then scatter to the wind, or die.
>It didn't matter as long as the objective was accomplished, but how the hell could you even begin to figure out how to crack open that silver mountain?
>They never told you, just as they never told anyone of what this mission really was.
>The thought occurs to you to just ram volleys of cruise missiles through the eye, but you doubt the weakpoint in the armor would be so massively obvious, or if that would do any real damage to the spire's core structure.
>You can't help the question, the odds stack higher and higher with everything you're seeing.
"The hell are we gonna do Captain?"
>"...Drop our bombs, throttle out, and run. There's no way we can destroy that thing, not without the Thunderbird, and even then..."
>Smith seemed to perk up at that.
>"Cap, I hate to say it but I think you're wrong, look below the eye."
>You follow the direction of his gloved finger, to find a bright flare of blue. It's hard to see past, but it dies down soon enough, revealing a thin, angular hollow spewing a cloud of strange cobalt particles and static energy.
>The vent shutters closed soon after, but the point Smith makes seems clear, put a cruise missile in that and you could hit something important.
>The issue is United Effort isn't carrying guided missiles, just bombs.
>"No way we're hitting that with a carpet bombing, flying that close isn't an option either."
>Moody speaks up in turn. "We can't see under the storm, but they could have support infrastructure down there, something this big must take a lot of energy, if we land our bombs close enough to the tower base, we could damage something important. I would hope."
>You hear Mary piping up from the back. "We can't run, not on our own, we'll get picked apart."
"But we can't get close either..."
>The tension edges into your thoughts, but there's nowhere to run.
>Nowhere to run...
 
>"The hell are we gonna do, man?"
>"This was a suicide job the whole time, we shoulda just ditched."
>"If that thing out there keeps doing what it's doing, the invasion to Anchorage could go bust! What then?! We're all fucked then, that's what!"
>The rest of the crew's composure was fracturing, they were just as worried as you were, and suddenly that backing security of camaraderie falls away.
>You're left reeling and frightened in it's absence, and the growing panic seizes you.
>Mary wouldn't be holding onto that thin sliver of hope so intently if it was a dead end, there had to be an out.
"We can still get out of this, we just need a way out! Cap, we have a way out, right?!"
>"There is no *out* kid, Don't you get it? This is a suicide gig, the EDF fucked us!"
>You can't even tell who's speaking through the haze of confusion and anger, but you can't find reason to say otherwise.
>"Calm down, all of you! Command needs every last man, they wouldn't just throw away manpower."
>You realize this new voice is shouting from over your shoulder, and you turn to find a face that prompts both a spark of hope, and a familiar sense of revilement.
>Although you're still not sure if you prefer the radioman with his mask on or off, his stern expression betrays his objective in bringing order to this little outburst.
>And what he's saying makes a counterpoint for your anxious mind to grab hold of. Every man counts, you remember the recruiting pamphlets mailed through your hometown espoused on how the EDF always took steps to minimize casualties.
>You aren't sure you believe that completely, but it's a thin ray of hope, like the one Mary has been clinging too.
>"Not unless the objective is so 'important' that it's worth another Kolev's Breach. What have you been telling them?!"
>Another figure steps out of your crowd, the agitator is... Joseph?
>A voice cuts in from behind him, it's Moody.
>"Those men knew what they were getting into, and they were all volunteers."
>You know the event they're referring to: when the Marauders crashed some piece of their ship in the Balkans as a landing craft. After weeks of desperate fighting, the defense was ready to break, but a force of 500 men ran a high yield nuclear device into the heart of the lander to annihilate it before it was too late.
>Entirely a volunteer action, one they took knowing it was likely to fail, and there was no way they would escape the blast if they even survived the charge.
>Woods whips around, the agitation clearly boiling over by his clenched fist.
>"Know what else they had in common? Most of them were anthros."
>Mary bristles in turn, and her voice from your side is surprisingly accusatory.
>"The hell is that supposed to mean?!"
>"Ohhh- you know what it means. I don't know why your precious doctor wasted everyone's time making anything but dogs, because it's clear to me what he bred into you in your tubes to make you such 'perfect' soldiers!"
>By now, he's grabbed the attention of every anthro in the room, even the usually passive Ned tenses like a spring.
>Joe is practically frothing at the mouth, his broken nerves sending him over the edge, and about to send the cohesion of the whole crew over the edge by extension. You eye him in panic, pleading for him to shut his trap before he does something he'll regret.
>But it's too late, the man's lips peel open with a froth of spit.
>"BLIND LOYALTY!"
>A wave of snarls is heard around the cockpit, you see Land lunge for Woods before Smith checks his pounce with a bar over his throat.
>Thinking quickly, you nail your hands to the sides of the door frame to keep Mary and Wight behind you.
>The last thing you need is your crewmates killing eachother, but you realize as Smith struggles to hold the larger wolf in check, nobody can stop Moody. That hook-billed mask looks menacing as she rises behind Joe, before stopping cold with shock as a shot rings out.
>The noise gives pause to your heart as well.
>Who was hit? who fired? You scan Joe, but can't find an entry wound, and then panic comes to you.
>Was it you?
>Was it her?!
>"ALL OF YOU STOP!!!"
>The skipper's bellow cuts over everything and draws your attention, his sidearm is out of its holster, and pointed towards the ceiling, smoking.
 
>"...Your enemy is out there, not here. Joe, get the hell back to your station, we'll talk on this later"
>"Smith, you run and patch up everything you can, we'll need to squeeze out every ounce of speed we can from this bucket with the plan AWACS just burned in my ear."
>"Johnny, take over the top turret, you know how right?"
"...yes. sir."
>"Mary, stay in here where I can keep an eye on you."
>"Sir, I-" the voice isn't hers, but Woods'. The captain swiftly cuts him off.
>"Your station airman, NOW! And if any of you make a move for him you will have hell to pay. I am NOT having my crew at each other's throats when the enemy is only minutes away."
>The fury in the air is thick enough to cut your teeth on, and the silence beyond the drone of the engines reinforces it.
>If anyone challenges the commander at this moment, you can't honestly say if he'll use his sidearm or not.
>Everyone else recognizes it too.
>The fox uncoils slightly from her attempt at pushing past your arm, Folly dropping the hammer being enough of a shock to make her see sense.
>Her grimace softens, and although she still offers a smoldering glare in Joe's direction, she lets him pass out towards the tail when he flees from the cockpit.
>You feel Wight shunting in a deep breath, but the bat otherwise does nothing. Moody sulks back down into her chair, Talia bristles, and Ned offers a low growl at the retreating airman.
>"Uh, guys, what the hell is going on up there?"
>The voice peaking in your comm is the tenth member of your crew, The belly gunner cooped up in that ball hanging under the plane.
>"Nothing you need to worry about right now Richards."
>"Yes sir."
>Ned and Talia shuffle out back towards their stations as Wight withdraws from your back into his roost in the radio compartment.
>Moody stares intently out of the window, and Mary trudges in to sit at one of the spare instrument panels. She still wears a faint sense of fury yet to flake off her like so much loose fur.
>What little you can see of her eyes right now looks grim, you can understand the shift in mood.
>The whole crew is stressed beyond their limits, to the point that one of them losing their cool and making the wrong opinion known at the wrong time had all of them ready to break.
>Even Moody, doting, gentle Lola, looked about ready to strangle the tailgunner from behind.
>Joe always had a problem with keeping his mouth shut when he ought to, but you never figured it would go this far.
>In the physical, two of your engines were out, the front guns were useless because the control system was shredded, and any use of the bomber sight would require going back down there to brave the wind and cold, with the risk of finding out it didn't even work.
>A quarter of your formation was lost just to buzzers, and now the cream of the enemy airforces is in your view, and you in theirs.
>Who else would be defending that glaring monolith?
>Between a rock and a hard place over the heart of a storm...
>...
>You'd have to repair more than the plane when you landed.
-if you land-
>...
>"Johnny!"
>Folly's angry bark pulls you back, and you realize you're supposed to be taking over the top turret while Smith works on fixing the plane enough that it stands slightly more of a miniscule chance at outrunning Marauder fighters.
>"Turret!"
"yes sir."
 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
>The hard steel of the seat rattles against your back, the rubber cushioning around the eye-piece sight is worn and chafing an irritating crosshatch across your eye from the pressure of pushing against it.
>You were strapped down into the dorsal command turret, and additional screens off to the side were in control of a pair of quad 40mm turrets, one in front and another behind.
>You were trained how to handle and control this position, all gunners knew the details of all the gun stations around the plane, you just weren't used to the station you were sitting at spinning under its own power.
>At max magnification through the eye piece, you can sight the incoming Marauder formation. Three of the forked hull aero-cruisers backing what must be nearly a hundred X shaped fighter craft, outnumbering your own fighter complement and covered further by the tower's AA, yet to open fire as it was likely out of range right now.
>Somewhere behind you, were two swarms of Buzzers, thousands strong and still chasing after the formation.
>Above you is the deep blue of an empty sky, near the limit of your operational ceiling.
>Below rages the angry, boiling clouds of the storm, mixing around anchorage as if stirred into action by the very presence of that silver obelisk.
>And then there was the turmoil within...
>Your intercom was quiet.
>Joe had to open his mouth at the wrong damn time
>And everyone else was too afflicted with frayed nerves to see any sense that it was just the spitting anxiety of a man under duress, and should at least be cut an ounce of leniency.
>You held them back... did they take that as siding with him?
>Would she hold it against you just for trying to keep some echo of peace?
>Too many questions, not nearly enough answers.
>The most pressing overall was the question of survival.
>The hell was that plan of Iron Bird's that the captain mentioned? Was it just some ruse to get your focus off of the crew back towards the fight?
>You're considering attempting to raise Mary on the intercom when the set peaks briefly from the skipper's voice.
>"All of you better be listening, sound off!"
>So much for that.
"Tiff, taking over for Rat."
>"Duster... You know where I am." Mary sounds bitter and her voice a sour growl that drops your heart a little.
>That cheerful ball of energy you talked with earlier in the day seemed so distant now.
>"Smith, I'm somewhere between, hnnng! Somewhere between the right bomb bay and the forward wing spar. Engine number three does not sound healthy.... now where is that fuel line?"
>"Wight." the radioman reports flatly.
>"Burke, left side." Talia has returned to her stoic professionalism, but even then there's a trace of a bitter air under her breath.
>"Land, right side." The wolf growls, with his quiet and solitary nature, you can imagine he's slow to let go of his anger.
>"Woods... tail." You can already feel chords of regret and anxiety at play in his voice. He recognizes his mistake, probably wishes he could take it back.
>But you have to doubt if anyone else would let him forget.
>Although you didn't spend every waking moment with him, you had a certainty that Joe wasn't a bad sort, just not particularly social, so he stumbled into mistakes other would avoid.
>The silence over the comm played at your nerves, and sank your heart into a grim sludge.
>Nobody was talking, and your so called merry band seemed broken.
>You would go down in flames on this suicidal raid, but you would take as many of these alien bastards down with you.
>"Richards... You alright up there guys? who died? hehehe...he....." The belly gunner's laughter was weak and unsure, they were all alone down there, isolated from the rest of the crew. A feeling you didn't envy, because it was clinging to you now.
>There wasn't a voice on the comm reassuring you things would be alright, that someone else would cover your blind spots. There was no chattering ball of fur a few feet away to make you feel welcome and at ease.
>There was just the cerulean glow of the screens and those many points of green status lights to keep you company in this dark bell above the plane.
 
>Peering back through the eye piece and zooming out, you find yourself puzzled at the formation shifting out of the old echelons into three distinct brackets, even United Effort subtly drops in altitude below you.
>This must be the plan... but why split the formation into three? Safety in numbers counts now more than ever.
>"Alright, all of you listen because we only have the time to run over this once."
>He could say it again if those few extra seconds could be spared, those silver wings were getting closer and closer, it would be soon that those fighters would be close enough to start shooting.
>Your own fighters pull ahead to delay them as you listen to the captain relay whatever miracle Iron Bird whispered in everyone's ears to keep the formation from breaking apart into a rout.
>"This IS a raid..." If you were a cynic, there would be no doubt in your expectation of Woods to jump on the chance to gloat about how his suspicions were correct, but there was nothing.
>"Our target was Anchorage from the beginning, in order to confirm the existence of the tower, and-"
>"Confirm it's existence? How can you miss that thing?" The voice was Mary's, spitting with disbelief.
>"The initial recon reports were... inconclusive. At least that's what the major told me. Now that we are here and we know it's there, the second part of our mission comes into play..."
>No one asked the obvious question, better preferring the rebellious silence.
>"At all costs, we have to destroy or at least damage the tower. To that end six of the bombers in our formation are carrying low-yield nuclear weapons."
>The silence over the comm is more than just rebellious now, it's shocked, as you can feel the grip over your heart tighten a few hairs.
>Nukes, half a dozen birds were carrying nukes and none of you were the wiser. Nukes destined for your own, fallen, city.
>This was really the only way. ICBMs were useless, the Marauders would see them coming and burn them from the sky before they were armed.
>Command rolled back a generation to delivering the warheads by bomber, but even that had its issues. The Marauders had some sort of sensor that sniffed out the radiological signature of the more potent bombs, and the planes carrying the warheads were always the first to be shot down.
>Only low-yield bombs went undetected by these sensors, that's why the six nuke carriers weren't shot down instantly by the lightning guns.
>The only way to use the most potent bombs was to use them on the ground, like Kolev's breach.
>Joe was right, except now the five hundred were three thousand.
>How many?
>How many more times would this happen? How many more raids? How many more downed planes and dead crew?
>The captain's voice cut back across your consciousness, dangling the possibility of an answer.
>"Here's the plan, intel paints auxillary structures around the base of the tower... down in the ruined city as good spots to drop our payloads, 'look for the cobalt flares', whatever that means. We're splitting into three attack groups, two nuke carriers in each group, and then we're diving down... below the deck."
>Moody's voice cuts across now, the co-pilot squawking her objections.
>"Down into the storm?! Are they insane!!? The windshear alone down there is going to make flying this tub-"
>The bird doesn't get a chance to finish, as Folly reasserts control with his own observation.
>"It's either that or face the teeth of the Marauders up here, if we go low we can force the Marauders into our initiative and get below the deflection of most of the AA."
>You watch the two clumps of fighters close in towards eachother like two flocks of screeching corvids as you listen.
>Already you can see one of the silver X-fighters pulse a thin lance of light that saws through the wing of one of your fighters, its shield screen absorbs two retaliatory missiles in turn, but a third sets its center mass ablaze.
>Other fighters loop and swoop after releasing missiles to make it that much harder for the Marauders to draw a bead on them with those deadly incisor beams.
>You never really learned what the common nickname for them was, but you remembered that those beams could melt through thin aircraft aluminum near instantly.
>The captain makes a point about braving the storm rather than enemy fire.
>"The nukes are on a timer, once they drop, we have a few minutes to get the hell out. The formation will split in three different escapes to help raise the chances of someone getting out."
>"Wing one will flee North over the mountains. Wing two will follow the coast out to Russia. Wing three will throttle out south, over the sea."
 
>There's the distant risk that he's lying, or being lied too, but you don't have anything better, and no idea who else you could trust.
>Mary's growing increasingly away from you, some quiet roadblock squats on your connection, unbroken by her and untraversable by you.
>Yes, the violent storm swirling below is intimidating. The winds will threaten to toss the plane about, slick sheets of rain and darkness will make visibility a problem, and there's always the possibility of a rogue lightning strike below the clouds. But you don't care anymore.
>Whether the bombs are on a delay like Folly said or all of you are going to be vaporised as soon as they touch the ground, you can't find it in yourself to care anymore.
>The good days are over.
>The crew's quiet tolerance of eachother is shattered.
>And Mary is probably down there stewing in anger and quietly rethinking everything about you.
>You almost bought it twice today, a third time is inevitable, so the only thing keeping your hands on the controls is that distant sense that maybe the odds will somehow let you out of this hell if you just buckle in and hold out.
>The airframe drops beneath you as the plan inclines into a sharp dive.
>It's time.
>The slate grey blanket rises up to meet you as you watch the other planes angle downwards in concert.
>The storm flickers, as if rumbling out a welcome.
>Everything around you darkens into wet monochrome as the clouds swallow the plane, you lose sight of the others through the thick dusk, only catching shadows from a flash.
>The airframe rattles under you, as if frightened by the sudden absence of its siblings.
>It bucks left, the turbulence already tossing it on the ocean of air.
>A red lance sweeps overhead, a deadly searchlight hoping to grasp one of the vanished craft, but to your relief it finds nothing. Maybe they really can't pick you up reliably beyond visual contact.
>Another flash, and your heart stops as an X silhouette dominates your view, with a wall of air bucking you in your seat, the silver blade flashes narrowly overhead.
>The mad bastards are diving into the storm with you.
>The thought crosses your mind to wheel the turret around and fire, but you can't see anything and the bandit is gone. You could hit a friendly if you just fire blindly.
>More flashes pierce the dusk, and you see another or perhaps the same one banking in orbit around you, as more lightning lights the curtains of cloud, you trace the ghost of the interceptor and feel the trigger.
>Wait for the flash, he could have changed course.
>Wait.
>Wait...
>There!
>Cast in void by the arcing light of a nearby strike, you have his upper profile.
>You fire, the turret's main gun barking as it spools up.
>The first of the 65mm tracers flies wide, the second strikes the shield screen, the third and fourth crash in as the rotary cannon whirs into life.
>Tracers from elsewhere down the sheild screen with a flicker, and you stitch more shells through the interceptors wing spars.
>It's left set of wings snaps off and it wheels upward, carried by the storm as it erupts in flame.
>A deep bass drum sounds as it explodes, and the autumn stain around the clouds reveals more, more interceptors, dozens more.
>At that same instant, gunners from the large winged shadows sporadically open fire in all directions, streams of golden fish dart through the grey abyss, and red sabers flash in response.
>As a bomber's right engine cluster erupts into flame from a hit, you realize that even down here in the storm you're far from safe, and the battle is already rising to action around you.
>You can't confirm your targets, so all you can do is wait and pray.
 
<Mary>
>The fight is slowly kicking off around you as the Marauder interceptors were mad enough to dive blind into the storm after you, and here you are, sitting in the cockpit jumper seat, fuming at your so called 'crewmate' and feeling useless.
>You're a bombardier, you only have a vague idea of how to handle the defensive guns scattered around the plane.
>You can hear the various chatters and rattling of automatic cannons and machine guns echoing around the hull in short bursts as targets fade in and out of the storm.
>And you can't do a damn thing to help.
>You can't fix anything like Rat, or even fit in as tight a hole as he does.
>Your flight training is... rudimentary, just to hold the plane still while you drop the payload.
>Wight has everything covered on communications, and the storm has your head swimming so you don't have the slightest idea where Marauder lightning guns may be coming from as they're blended in with the natural strikes flickering everywhere around you.
>Something about that damn silver eyesore is pulling you in its direction as well. How much power is running through that thing if it's prompting such a reaction from your whiskers?
>What the hell could its purpose be? Why would a spire that high be needed?
>Do you even stand a chance at getting home?
>More questions you don't know the answers to, producing a maddening pinch high on your scalp, and you scratch at it loosely, cradling the sore spot and trying to watch your breath.
>Damn this storm. Damn the Marauders. Damn Folly for accepting this suicidal raid on everyone's behalf. Damn Woods for thinking you're some mindless android and insulting the man that helped create all of the good people watching his miserable back.
>...
>Damn yourself for being without a purpose here.
>As much as you can feel that boiling deep in your core, you can't bring yourself to raise a fuss over it anymore, you don't see the point.
>All you can do is watch the storm, and hope everyone makes it out the other side.
>You noticed Moody sat rock still, only turning her head to stay vigilant for any silhouettes out of the haze.
>Usually the mother hen is more clucky, something in her shoulders seemed closed up, stiff. Was she feeling lost and confused like you?
>....betrayed even?
>You thumb your collar, finding Lola's frequency on the intercom. Tuning in there's none of the usual smalltalk between the bird and the skipper.
>You mumble out the words gently, loud enough for the mic tab against your throat to pick up, but not loud enough for the skipper to have the faintest idea you were speaking.
"He didn't tell you either, did he?"
>She stays rigid, like she's hanging in some solitary tree up on the slopes of one of these mountains, waiting.
>"No... He didn't.... I thought he trusted me."
"I thought he trusted all of us..."
>The accusation lazes out, you can't care to hold it in now that the reaper seems so close to the gates.
>You were helping run nukes on a suicide gig. This was something you at least deserved to know if death seemed so certain.
>So if you could somehow tell your mother one thing after you went, it was that you at least died for a good cause, knowing what you were doing and why.
>Moody's voice has lost all of its usual cheer, and for the first time you can remember, it's not that hard to sit still.
>You still had a little further to go, to drop on whatever was there under the clouds, what you should dive into any second.
>Another silver shape rattles the plane as it passes close overhead, flying on blind luck not to hit anyone, maybe they can afford to take such risks.
>Maybe those interceptors with their strange screaming engines were remote control, or entirely automated.
>You look deep into the grey haze out of the forward window, Moody's head tracking the bandit as well with that strange stuttering tilt birds do, and for a split second you see it again as the sky flashes ahead of you. Your heart jumps into your throat.
>He's circled back around and is making a head on pass.
>Two square vents hugging the main body flare with a red glow, and he's far too close to miss.
"Down!"
>You throw yourself onto the deck, knocking your chin with a painful thump, and you hear a terrible racket from ahead. Screaming, hissing sounds blend together, and a burning smell assaults your nose even through the respirator.
>The wild shriek of the interceptors engines rocket by beneath you, peaking up and down like the craft is caught in a flailing spin before fading away.
>Unpinning your ears from your head, you don't need the set to hear Lola, you're sure the heart stopping shriek could be heard even over the engines.
>"ALEX!!!"
 
<Johnny>
>"Guns! Guns! Guns! Get the bastard!"
>The fighter pilots were calling out bandits everywhere around you, but you were separated from the radioplay over your set by the curtains of the storm.
>Briefly you make out a feint yellow pulsing chasing after an unseen foe from your right, but it could be anyone shooting at anything.
>"Damn! Slippery bastard, Where did he go?! Anyone see him?"
>Just then radar pipped an unknown on your right, and you pan the turret to try and track whatever just showed up behind the plane.
>A shadow darts over you before you can get a bearing, screaming over top, almost glancing off the roof of your turret.
>These mad bastard interceptors are flying like absolute lunatics, uncaring of a collision.
"Woah! Just got buzzed, six to twelve! Anyone got him?"
>Beck responds over the intercom, eager to take up the slack left by the other three gunners and their moody silence as Smith crawls around the plane attempting to fix things.
>"I got him! I got him!.... Wait, shit! I don't got him! I can't track him through this shit."
"Where'd he go?!"
>You keep the gun pointed off the nose to try and pick out which dark spot in the moving curtain was the shrieker. You want to be ready if he comes around, because all they need is one good pass with those lasers.
>Remembering your sub-turrets, you set the front bofors quad to peer ahead as well, to hit the interceptor with everything that can get a bearing on it if and when it shows itself again.
>It's been a constant thorn in your side, burning your eyes and pounding your chest; with the low visibility, you'll have mere seconds to react at best.
>"Come on ya goon, where are ya? Where are ya?"
>...
>The gun sight betrays nothing so far, and you curse.
>Did he go around?
>Is he going to try a different angle?
>You feel the gnashing beat under your flak vest attempting to flip itself in some painful throbbing motion.
>WHERE?!
>"Wait.... There he is!"
>The clouds ripple and a silver knife slides out into the open, poised directly at the nose.
"What are you waiting for, written permission? Shoot him! Shoot him!"
>Jamming the triggers down, the forward quad gun and the rotary on the command turret open up, stitching tracers into the flickering shield screen even as a set of tracers from just below join the fray.
>Your heart drops as the interceptors guns warm into a glow as the shield screen flashes away.
>A wing shears off, and one of the engine cowlings catches fire as the shrieker pitches into a violent spin, but not before it fires a brief burst of lancing red.
>"Splashed 'em, he's going down!"
>But did it hit anything?
-or anyone?-
>The thought brings a chill that fingers through even the thick warmth of your flight suit.
>A chill that hardens into ice as you hear another shriek from below.
>"ALEX!!!"
>Moody's voice is piercing, the eagle half of her acting up on the high note, but the shock present has terror seizing your throat. Who did you fail?
>Without even thinking, you thumb up Mary and ask.
"Who's hit?"
>"...the skipper. He's got shrapnel, and burns... oh God this is bad."
 
<Mary>
>The eagle was once again rigid, but even you could read the tension in her form, she was ready to soar out of her seat and rush to the skipper's side.
>He chokes on his own breath, rattling some pained croaking as he thrashes against the deck, holding the blackened mess that was his left arm.
>His skin is cauterized and cracked, flash burned with what must be third or even fourth degree burns, red hot shrapnel of all shapes and sizes pepper his upper left, fragments propelled by the vaporizing armor from the laser hit. It was obvious he was in bad shape.
>Lola displayed her pleading want to abandon her post and help, but with the skipper out, she had to take over.
"Lola!"
>She snaps to after a second.
>"Wha-"
"Fly the plane!"
>Shaking her head, she returns to looking out the cockpit window, seizing the controls and fighting to keep the plane stable against its want to pitch into a narrow dive.
>"But I-"
"I got him, just fly!"
"Devon! Help me with him!"
>The door to the radio compartment clatters open, and the bat pauses, making a wide-eyed flicking between you and the skipper, Moody, and something over your shoulder.
>You don't have time for this, none of you have time for this.
"Come on!"
>Where this renewed surge of will is coming from, you don't know and don't question it. Folly's only hope is the stash of medicine and stretcher in the radio compartment to get him towards something resembling a stable condition.
>Snapping away from his fish lipped mumblings, the radioman leans down and helps you hoist up the captain, taking care of his legs while you hold his back off the ground.
>Every step seems to jog Alex in the lungs, his breath jumping and quivering with even the tiniest upset, but if his nerves are that alive you have to wonder where the-
>"grrRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-EEEAH-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHhhhh!!!!...."
>There it is. As painful as his bellowing sounds, it's a good sign. His breathing doesn't seem compromised and he isn't unresponsive.
>This raised a new problem, in his fits of pain he wanted to curl in on himself, not only would this tear the brittle cauterized skin over his wounds, it threatened to slip him from your carry.
>Leaning down a bit, you try to smooth your voice into something resembling authority, even as your heart goes wild.
"Hey, skipper, listen to me, I know it hurts right now but you gotta stay still. Stay still, can ya do that for me soldier?"
>The words reach him, and he stills slightly as you pass into the radio compartment and position him by the waiting medical stretcher against the wall.
"Ready? One,two,three."
>You deposit the wounded man onto the stretcher, and as Devon gets to work examining him, you find a moment to look behind you out of the open door.
>The sight awaiting you gives you pause.
>One the left side of the cockpit, just around where Folly sat, is a pair of scouring slashes burned into the plane, even still it glows and hisses softly, fingers of light from outside leak through the frothing slag.
>And looking back at the skipper, Devon has cut away his under uniform to treat him, and you can see that cracked, ashen looking burn creeps along the entirety of his left arm, onto his shoulder, and swallowing almost a quarter of his torso, winding around his back and front to form a pallet of blackened flesh.
>Wight administers an injection, presumably to help the pain, and you watch the charred flesh crack and split as Folly breaths, showing a red, wet tenderness underneath.
>As the captain's screams renew themselves, a dread creeps into you.
>That was a near miss....
>You shudder to think what a more proper hit looks like.
"Johnny..."
 
<Johnny>
>All you can do is listen and wait. The captain was hit, badly, judging by those screams.
>Beck echoes your own thoughts over the comm.
>"I'm sorry cap... I'm sorry, I shoulda been faster to shoot. Just one second sooner..."
>Only you and the belly gunner had the bead on that shrieker while he was making his run. Maybe you should have blind fired ahead of you into the storm, just to try and deal some damage, even if you risked hitting a friendly through the wet miasma.
>Your pilot could be dying, even now the crew was still quiet, and all around you prowled silver sharks, waiting to frenzy as soon as you exited the clouds.
>The airframe rattles under you like a frightened grouse, the movement works a burning into your side. You bite the urge to pick, the stitches are still fresh.
>Keep your hands on the controls, protect the bomber, get home alive.
>If nothing else, at least do that.
>Shapes chase eachother in the grey sea, briefly flickered into being by the ghostly crackling of lightning.
>A hatchet chases a ray, An arrow dives after a hatchet, A flare of autumn, and the oily, pollutant blood of the kill fades as an arrow flurries back into the mists.
>Radar confusedly pings contacts in every direction, unsure of what's there but unseen, and what's just an echo. Four at twelve, three at nine, one at five.
>Eye the chaos, eye the screens, maybe you can find them.
>If you find them, you can kill them.
>If you kill them, you can survive.
>If you survive, you can go home.
>If you survive...
>You must survive.
>The flame licking at your side is potent, you invite it in to warm in your belly and seize on the sensation, the strength.
>You *must* survive.
>The bird quivers around you, the wind battering its bruised wings as the wet veil around you pales, filling with the light of a cold, unseen sun.
>Radar reaches again even as the bomber threatens to rattle its rivets out of place, two at two, five at eight... one at five.
>You creep the gun that way.
>The clouds grow bright enough that you can make out a haze, some dark blotch following you down as the radar said.
>They won't get a pass on you again without a fight.
>You are going home.
>Bucking under you, United Effort quakes against the cold she's plunging into, frost edges at the corners of the sight, you keep your focus on the specter shadowing your crew.
>Rattling turns to quaking, the airframe lurches sickly as she careens out of the storm into what waits below.
>The very world around you bleaches white, motes and flurries rush around you and the plane tosses itself about on an ocean of turbulence. You can't even get a fix on the silver dart that plunges out of the clouds behind you in a wet flurry.
>Your tail fares worse, losing its bearing entirely and tumbling into a dive, it flails, engines screaming like a dying hare before the outstretched finger of some weathered giant smacks it out of the sky in a splitting fireball.
>The bomber still quakes, and as you watch more broad shapes fall out of the tremulous sea over head, you realize the frozen nightmare you just plunged headlong into.
>"Holy hell... is this all that's left?"
>Pale mist swallows everything in smothering obscurance, the broken, leaning heads of towers reach from below like the skeletal leavings of dead titans, strange, pulsing growths leaching through and woven around them. Almost seeking to drag them into the infinite abyss of deathly void below.
>The blue fingers of a lightning strike reaches into the abyss, agitating a great movement of some immeasurable mass that plunges down further.
>A trick of the snow, or perhaps leviathans really do live down there, among this frozen hell on earth.
>Nothing is left of Anchorage, the home of hundreds of thousands of souls is no more.
>All that is left is this alien torment in bloom from its rotting corpse, and you have only brushed its grasping tendrils. The real phantasm waiting further down.
 
>It stirs you, the thought that this could be the Marauders' plan for Earth in her entirety.
>No haughty rebuilding or grand industrial landscape, just their pets scrabbling around in humanity's bones underneath their obscene monuments.
"They just.. left it to rot."
>The great works, the history, all of it left to dust.
>They didn't care, they only cared for their miserable, bloodsoaked ambitions.
>A simple need to glut themselves off the land that you broke your backs toiling over. So they can move on and do it all over again.
>They didn't even display the rational response or ideologue self deception of some dignified empire, they were a virus.
>A simpering germ hiding inside a silver box, in turn hiding behind a legion of braindead monsters.
>These things pretend like they're your betters, and it just agitates that thrashing feeling scattering around your heart.
>"Don't think I even wanna see what's on the ground.. Let's just bomb it to hell and get out of here."
>The sound of Mary's voice presses in the needles, but before your heartache can speak the radar screen pinging excitedly catches your attention. The sound of radio chatter accompanies, broken either by the storm or your equipment taking damage.
>"Barricade act--l, Break-ng -ff, we took --.-.a--.#t-..-"
>It looks like the tower's defenders are coming down.
>"Yeaaah.. Might be a problem with that. Watch our six guys."
>Your plucky co-pilot sounds like she's just barely holding together.
>Drab darts flee out of the clouds, harried by flocks of silver buzzards spitting torrents of red.
>The crew is far from cohesive, the plane has already taken a beating, but if you have anything to say about it, you're all getting the hell out of here.
>It won't be easy, and life hasn't dealt you a fair hand, but you'll flip the goddamn table if you have to.
>Even if only for her, you have to try.
[Battle Tracks: Motörhead - Turn You Round Again https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yD0mZH7oNIU]
>Darting shapes plunge out of the clouds in droves, stricken birds weaving ribbons of smoke through silver shoals.
>Your fighters are outnumbered and outmatched, a formation missing their fifth dives out behind United Effort. Divots and slashes carved out of their airframes, many of them leaking vapors and one even missing a rudder entirely.
>Pursuing closely is a pack of Screamers, red sabers harrying the ragged fighter wing as they roll and dip to evade.
>A nearby Fort opens up on the pursuers, rivers of tracers interspersed with the black shards of flak.
>Seizing the moment, the Tomcats divide into pairs and sweep off, pressured from the fire their pursuers divide in twain as well, floundering to keep pace.
>Two friendlies roar overhead, and you already have your gun turned towards the quartet of square-bodied hellions closing on your tail.
"On our six!"
>"I see 'em!" Joe barks.
>A pair of thudding booms erupting from the tail of the plane signals the start of your engagement.
>A duet of flak rounds burst around them, shield screens warming with the effort of repelling the shrapnel, and thinking better of bunching up the Screamers scatter.
>You track a pair forking off over your right wing, already jamming the trigger to get radar lock for your turret's seeker array.
"I got right high."
>Flashing diamonds settle into a solid green on the two, and you let loose the barrage.
>"Leave clean up to me."
>The seeker pod on your left rushes, about a dozen compact missiles bending six and six after their quarry. The higher one pulls out of his bank and you chase him, the rotary cannon rumbling into life as fat tracers rip behind his tail.
>Drifting your lead further rewards you with the glow of an already stressed shield screen just as the flight of seekers crashes into his wing. It's too much and the alien breaks apart, wings shearing off as the main body combusts into fireworks.
>Panning down, its partner is trailing smoke, the seekers shredding its engine vents.
>"Got third."
>It flips over and wheels down, a pair of rounds clipping into its back and turning the threat into a plunging comet that screams into the mist.
"Splash two."
>Remembering your other arms, the rear bofors tracks a third hanging about the tail, weaving and dodging as Joe lobs cannon shells at it.
>You tap a key to approve its firing solutions as the semi-automated turret begins chattering off.
>Before you can swing your own gun around a shell from the tail's quad cannon array crashes through the hostile's wing-spar, the anchored pair tied to it breaking off like a leaf before a quick follow up punches straight through the glowing red sensor on the Screamer's nose.
>The result is an immediate, calamitous fireball that washes the rear of the plane in a fiery glow.
>"Ho!"
>You have to take a moment to shield your eyes as the fireball cools off into an inky cloud, reminding you distinctly of the massive detonation that transport cooked off earlier in the day.
>Whatever they use as aviation fuel must be volatile.
 
>The radar chirps in alarm, a contact is right on top of you!
>Frantically panning through your screens meets you with more of the indistinct chaos erupting around you.
>Where is he, where?!
>It's then you realize they're above you, and tilt the control stick back to raise your guns to meet them.
>Your heart jumps into your throat as you see two glaring red lights readying to fire.
>There's no time.
>But two streaks slam into him with a blue flash, and a sawcord tears into the fuselage.
>The Screamer pops, and a broad dart loops back overhead of you. Your hitched breath dragged away with it.
>Crazy fuckin' fighter jockeys, bless 'em.
>United Effort rattles under you again, bringing your gun back down you see another Screamer being chased off by cords of tracers stretching from the turrets clustered around the right wing.
>The survivor decides better of it and powers away, the shape of your savior thrusts off to give chase, looking down to your radar doesn't help pick out any additional threats.
>"Think we're clear for the moment."
>That's not to say your radar is clean of hostiles, but the roiling storm overhead is scrambling any and all radar returns. Pips flicker in and out of existence or gain identical siblings ranging up to the dozens. Some can't even seem to decide on a position, bouncing everywhere between pings.
>Anything could come out of that storm at any moment, forcing you to pan visually for signs as radar was useless to try and predict incoming before they were already below the deck.
>Another flurry of activity meets your scanning as a distant plume signals an entire squadron of interceptors diving in.
>Fortune favors them as they already gain bearing on another bomber.
>Ruby beams flash and buzz, and the friendly erupts into flames, stranded out away from close backup and helpless before such numbers.
>She sways in the air, immolated wing dipping as an anchor and dragging the stricken bird down into the mist.
>A muted flare is all that signals her demise.
>The pack of marauders disperses towards other targets, but already some of them turn to bear on United Effort.
"Scratch that Moody, more incoming from eight o clock."
>You're about to gather a bearing when the radar chirps again.
>Already you know, another one is diving out of the storm right on top of you.
>The gun can't even move in time, and a wide eloping blur of a shape flashes over your sight, narrowly avoiding a collision with the tail.
>"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!"
>'That' was not a Screamer, it almost gave a shrill roaring sound as it flashed by.
"New bogey, new bogey."
>Your unknown loops back up from its dive, and you recognize the silhouette gliding under the storm with a block in your throat.
>Joe voices your concern first.
>"Holy shit! It's a Dreadhunter."
>The Buzzer's older, angrier brother.
>An armor plated organic jet fighter, complete with seeking missile organisms loaded with potent acids.
>There were very few things you absolutely did not want on your tail and this was one of them.
>Even now more shapes plunged out of the clouds, unfurling their wings shortly after exiting.
>An entire flock of the monsters, shit.
"Keep it away from the plane! Force it away!"
>Before you can even fully compute your instinct, the rotary cannon is already spooled and barking, flinging wide harrying shots towards the approaching monster, forcing it to manuever.
>"Dreads! w- -#t dr-ads! -*--%$ -r# the fight-rs?!"
>He twists wide, banking his wings into a tight corkscrew, your response is a flurry of seekers, and siccing the autocannons to act as distraction.
>The hunter flicks its tail and dives, chased by puffs of flak from Joe, but even with every gun the Fort has that can fire in that direction joining in, the hawkish creature is not dissuaded.
>As long as you can keep him away, keep his attention from noting a Tomcat getting a bead...
>Vulcans open up, spraying in lawless gouts, but the Dreadhunter snakes side to side in a forceful tempo, pushing itself closer and closer.
>Each ballistic thrust is dodged or a mere glance off its armored hide, you can't even see the eyes recessed into those deep rocky pits but you know it's watching every angle. Simply waiting for the right moment to loose a missile creature from one of those sickly green hollows carved into its shoulders.
>The twin trails of vapor left from its 'engines' deepen as the creature rapaciously devours the distance between it and the bomber.
>C'mon Maverick, where the fuck are you?
 
>The monster pitches into a dizzying roll to your right, dodging another flak burst and taking it out of that weapon's field of fire.
>With a flourish it surges forward again, and the edges of your vision burn as you realize...
>It's too late.
>An eruption from the creature's shoulder, and it wheels away, leaving a small blur to shriek towards you on a toxiferous trail.
>Fire is too slow to intercept, the kamikaze rockets into the engine nacelle on the left wing, and detonates with a wet boom and a putrid green flare.
>"WE'RE HIT!!"
>United Effort quakes like a frightened animal, the rattling of the airframe rising under the noise and chaos. Her frame bucking as plates warble.
>She scuttles, shifting under you as turbulence skids the plane off course, you look over to see the engine cluster on your left wing embroiled in bright flame as crowded wisps of feint green smoke rise off of simmering spots of the bomber's skin.
>The damned stuff is trying to eat through your wing.
>Mary's frayed voice crackles over the intercom, "Fire in engines one, two, and five!"
>"We're losing airspeed and hydraulics!" The eagle cries.
>This is bad.
>Already your back is prodded and sore from the motion, United Effort lists and slides as she founders. The airframe echoing the pained moan of stressed metal.
>"Extinguishers aren't putting it out!"
>The old bird is wounded badly this time, you pray for her to hold together.
>It's then that you remember your other two visitors, where are they? The gunsight shows empty air behind you.
>Rising through your chest and coiling into your head, the drums pound behind your ears.
>"--ddammit! W-'re b--ng Picked apart up h-*-#!"
>You pan, checking high and low along the arc you last saw them. The radar screen flickers and warbles maddeningly, still recovering from the shock of the hit.
>Cmon' where are they?
>Where the hell are they?
>The Dreadhunter was bad enough, but where...
>Beck cuts in.
>"Nine o clock low!"
>Ice is awash over your core, there's nothing you can do up here.
>"Ned! Help me out, they're too close!!"
>Cannon percussion and the buzzing of automatics fills the dead air between the bomber's pained groans and squeaks.
>"Shit! SHIT!! BRACE!!"
>That odd frothing, shrieking sound fills the space below you. A hazing heat grips your legs before you're buffeted by the deathly chill of another breach in the compartment.
>"Where the hel-* -- M^)*-- -ng?! We're getting cut to pieces!"
>United Effort lurches as a pair of opponents dart up just behind her good wing.
>"Fuck, there goes our ventral gun!"
>One is trailing smoke as you pan up the cannons and fire, clipping the aggressor's tail off and watching it whirl away.
>The other plunges back up into the storm.
>Your dreadful foresight already sees more of them dipping out of the storm, harrying in falcon strikes and picking your faltering bird apart.
>You can't stay here.
>"I-on %*--d, All bombers, descend to angels half."
>Five hundred feet...
>Even opening the gap between the formation and the storm, you would risk clipping the fucking skyscrapers.
>And even though they're on a timer, a handful of planes are still dropping honest to god nukes.
>Your grip around the control stick is white knuckled.
 
<Mary>
>The old bird trembles under you like a frightened animal.
>The damage board doesn't look good, the lights marked around the wireframe of the left wing glare an accusatory red.
>Already you had taken scrapes and dings from the previous fights, maybe even the storm bent a few things out of shape as the green points were peppered with yellow and amber.
>You can swear there's not a single compartment that isn't breached by *something*.
>The flaring engine fire on the left wing still blares, three of your turbines were slagged from that missile hit, and you were about to lose the last one on that side.
>What the hell can you even do.
>"Mark! Get the hell in there and clamp the fuel lines to one, two, and five!"
>Your attention is recalled from watching the abstraction of your plane disintegrating from green to red by Moody shakily crowing orders.
>"Everyone else, hang on! I gotta try something."
>What is she-
>"Mary. Get up here." She motions towards Folly's empty seat.
>You do not know how to fly this boat in anything but a straight line.
"But I-"
>"J-Just help me keep her together!"
>Something about the jittering edge of panic nestled just under her tone stirred you to obey, even as United Effort bucks up in an attempt to lurch you off your feet.
>Working your way in, you're thrown into the seat as the plane drifts towards the side again, the turbulence near the storm catching her wounds.
>You would strap in, if half of the harness wasn't burnt to cinders, just a lap belt will have to do.
>"Alright, we're going to have to pitch her into a fast dive to get that fire out."
"Are you kidding me?! We're not even over two angels!"
>"IT'S EITHER THAT OR THE WHOLE PLANE BREWS UP WHEN IT HITS THE FUEL!!"
>The other bombers around start drawing tighter and pitching down in response to what you guess was an order from AWACS, the sender was garbled but the orders were clear.
>Descend to five hundred feet in order to open the gap from the storm blinding everyone's radar, then you'd have a chance of intercepting any further Dreadhunters diving on you from the clouds.
>What little altitude you had left is precious, and now you had to chew through it to save your hide from the chemically enraged fire burning down your wing.
>You cautiously set your paws on the yolk.
>Seems like your choices are between a quick death and a slow one.
>A choice taken out of your hands as the stick inches forward with Lola pitching the plane towards its fateful plunge.
>The words catch and scrabble in her throat before she can cough them out.
>"Down we go..."
>A tremble clings to her voice, one that jumps into your chest as you see the view above the ragged nose turn towards the leering, twisted spires left as gravemarkers of the old city.
"Shhiiiiiit..."
>Something chilled touches your palm, and you flick your view down to see your questing hand has gripped one of the throttles paired off to either side of the master thrust control.
>Moody seems to take notice, and shakily recalls procedure.
>"Right,uh. Cut throttle to one, two, and five."
"What about six?"
>You try not to stare ahead as United Effort lurches over, the rest of the more gently descending formation vanishing off the top of the windscreen.
>"I-I-iieh.. Leave it on."
>The pop of the intercom engaging almost fuses your spine from the manic shock racing along it.
>"Got the fuel clamped, we're good to go."
>Moody engages her best impression of a high strung sculpture.
>"Thank you Mark..."
>You push each of the three throttles down, in turn the nose aligns worryingly with the more eccentrically tilted spires.
>Gravity reaches up to welcome you now that lift isn't fighting it, and pulls you in towards the whirling snow.
>The bird gives a terrified rattling that hides your own shaking.
>For the first time you can recall in the skull gripping panic, you pray that you won't end as another crater in the street.
 
>The pressure building against your palms blends the line between your flesh and your gloves as you strangle the yoke in some subconscious attempt to solve the problem by throttling the control surfaces into submission.
>Your heart hangs forward in sickening sensation, steel and structure starts rattling worryingly. The outstretched hangnails of the ruined city reach up to rake you from the sky, angered by your defiance of the storm's oppressing will.
>Keeping your eye on the pulsing red lights warning of the engine fires is hard when your muzzle washes that static feeling towards your throat and terror seizes your view forward into the white fog that at any moment could erupt into ruined streets and writhing monsters.
>You need to bring yourself to look back, but you can't tear away.
>There is nothing here for you, no reason to linger.
>You must escape.
>You must quell the fires.
>You must steel yourself.
>...
>Hold on...
>Just hold on...
>Just hold...
>..!
>"THEY'RE OUT!"
>Eyes darting to the board, you confirm the sensors are showing the blaze has guttered out.
>"Up! Up!!"
>You didn't need to be told that one, you just hope it somehow helps accomplish your continued defiance of death.
>Lunging forward you lock your arms against the yoke and heave backwards as Lola drags her stick back with her, but it feels like levering the wrong end of a stack of concrete.
>The stick attempts to wrestle itself away from your paws as the bomber carefully noses upwards, but that ground is incoming fast.
>You need more than careful right now.
>But it feels like somewhere your control systems got damaged which is why it was taking all of your might just to keep the yoke from tilting any further forward.
>Now was not the time for your bird to be stubborn.
>Heart raising more out of a very real panic that you'll end as a crater in the road, you throw the whole of your body back in desperation to move the tilt just a few more degrees upwards.
"Nnnngah! Come on you tubby bitch, Pull up!"
>"RAAAAAAA!!"
>With a warrior cry from the eagle, you look over to find her planting her feet against the footwell of her control console and throwing herself backwards with an iron grip seized on the stick, which then rockets into your lap as the bomber's stubborn weight is shunted off.
>The rattling from the airframe becomes outright quaking. United Efforts moans with fatigue, the view lurching upwards until it passes level, but the secure sense of forward momentum leaves your whole world as it twists into a plummeting sensation.
>Inertia's dragging her down.
>Lola reacts immediately, even as her legs quiver with the effort of keeping the yoke locked back.
>"Throttle! Throttle!!"
>You grip the master throttle, fighting a desperate impulse to bite it, and jam the thing forward.
>United effort shrieks with the rushing return of power, and your trajectory curves forward as that unfeelable sensation of ground races upwards.
>Rakes shuffle along the inside of your skull, compelling you to empty your lungs behind a heart that just feels like empty space.
>Your jaw is locked open as far as it can against your muzzle trap as divoted blocks surge up both flanks of the window. The fort roars so loudly it scares itself as an unseen hand gives that last, light push on the underbelly.
>"Jesus Chriiiiiisst!!"
>It burns in your ears, burns in your head, as the bomber settles forwards...
>And starts lifting off.
>Racing windows either side drop away as United Effort squirrels up from the street it had neatly, impossibly, slotted into for what felt like meters shy of tearing her belly open.
 
>You become aware of a pulsing agitant behind your ribs and a sound like a grate being attacked with a push broom as the window tilts into the grey boil of a storm you never expected to be so giddy to see again.
>Soon you realize the sensation, and noise, is your spasmed hyperventilating and you fight to set the tempo of your lungs back to something workable.
>All the hysterical strength in your limbs leaves at once, they feel cold and shriveled in their absence as you let Lola fly just so you can slump over and lay a hand over your breast to meter your internal panic.
>"Holy shit.. Holy shit, you guys almost scraped me off on the pavement there.."
>Beck's choked voice leaks through the intercom, more bewildered than anything. As if her once imminent death was just that half forgotten annoyance earlier in the day you recount to friends, like a rude cashier.
>Your seizing heart pulls home sharply, all you want is to curl up and bury yourself into someone that will hold you.
>"You okay there?"
>Lola must think you look like a stricken feral, lying there just trying to regain enough composure to operate your own limbs.
"J-j-juh.. Just need a minute. to. catch my breath."
>Your chest quakes under your paw. You're hard stricken to fight the urge to take in everything your instincts demand in their panic.
>Somewhere above you the battle still rages but you continually drift back to below, and what nearly just happened.
>"Uh-heh! You'd think *two* near death experiences are enough for a day?"
>Lola clucks nervously. An anxious force pushing words out of her purely for the comfort of speech.
>You groan, sinking your chest in time with the exhaustion trying to drag you down.
>Two back to back adrenaline surges were taking their toll on your constitution.
"Please, God, don't make it a third..."
>A prayer as much as a complaint.
>You eye the bird as you steadily coax some life back under your ribs. As always the mask makes it impossible to read her expression clearly, but the overwrought tension in her shoulders is unmistakable.
>There isn't even opportunity for an internal debate over her thoughts, as she spills them immediately.
>"Heh-hah-ha. I-i-uh I-eh-heh I can't-"
>Her collar jitters with rapid breaths, she starts and leans back in the direction of the nav compartment, towards Folly.
>Your beleaguered heart pulls down further, the big chicken really does have a thing for him.
-he might not survive-
>You call her attention, for everyone's sake. She just needs to do what comes naturally, and just fly.
"Hey! Eyes front."
>That slight bark of command snaps to her embedded training, and while still stressed, she returns her attention towards flight.
>The only thing she can do to help Folly right now is to keep on the stick.
>For solidarity, you swallow a great breath to steady yourself and grasp the yoke again.
>You hope dearly that you *can* fly out of this.
>...
>Johnny... Ned... Folly... Talia, all of them are counting on you and moody.
>With a frightened quiver, the fort rises back towards formation, and you shuffle in among unfamiliar wings as Moody chatters to find your place in the formation. You've fallen well behind your squadron, wherever they are in this mess.
>Looming out of the whirling snow you see points of fairy light latched to a monolithic shadow.
>The tower is right there, you'll be on it in a few minutes.
>Moment of truth.
>Don't fuck up.
-no pressure-
 
<Johnny>
>You mentally fight to keep your heart from tearing its way out of your chest.
>Bugs you can at least shoot at, you had to hang on for dear life as the whole plane dropped out from under you.
>Never in your life did you think you'd be flying street-level in an octuple engine turbojet bomber.
>Some people talk about the madness of the war like they're Aristotle, but even they wouldn't expect that.
>They would shrug and pretend they did, or excuse you recounting of as hysterics.
>You took the opportunity of the relatively calm climb back into formation to stop hovering off the seat in terror and reload the missile pod.
>Thankfully not the bugs nor Marauders followed you down as they seemed certain you would crash.
>Their mistake. At least you had precious breathing room now.
>It's about now that you think to check up on things.
>You key your intercom.
"How's the skipper doing?"
>Wight responds in moments.
>"He is sedated, and he is still breathing. That is all I can say for the moment."
>Moody clicks in almost immediately.
>"I-is he going to make it?.."
>The bat takes, longer to respond this time, hinting at something more emotional. You've never known Devon to be anything but unflappable.
>"...With proper treatment. I believe so."
>'Believe'
>That was a word the navigator rarely used, it was always certainties or affirmatives.
-we're in deep-
>You can only imagine at what he might be holding back.
>The very self-same panic you feel stirring around your chest right now.
>You sink against the cracked leather of the seat, and resume your usual duties of scanning for hostiles.
>If anyone takes an interest in you while you're hauling your way up out of that mess and distinctly separated from the formation you're in trouble.
>Panning your view up, you find that the enemy seems to be regrouping. Scattered harassment still dogs the wings time to time, but the bulk of hostiles look like they're pulling away to mass for what that sinking feeling in your gut tells you is an all-out attack.
>"...Mark, you doing okay?"
>Talia's worried chirp drifts over the intercom, followed by the crackle of Smith's set.
>"Was sure the wing would drop out from under me for a minute but I'm dandy otherwise."
>"That's uh... that's good."
>...
>Woods follows on.
>"I'm fine, if anyone was wondering."
>Next is what you're pretty sure was a grunt from Ned, and Beck you already know since she was screaming her heart out over the intercom a minute ago.
>It would be obvious if anything happened to Lola while she was at her post which just left...
"Mary?.."
>...
>"I'll live."
>Your heart twists.
 
>The garbling crackle of what you're sure now is your damaged radio worms into your set.
>"Al- *T%nts, Co(tacts hi-- $Ix *!&--! -ck."
>It *seemed* like a callout for six o'clock high.
>A suspicion that's confirmed as you watch other guns in the formation swivel onto the bearing.
>Finally the pod off on the side of the turret gives the ratcheting clunk that confirms its reloaded and ready to fire.
>...Just in time you guess.
>The storm itself heaves and bloats with floods of shapes dropping away from it in wet splashes.
>Screamers, Buzzers, Dread Hunters, and the flash of lightning reveals the heavy, pronged shadow of an aero-cruiser lumbering downwards.
>This cursed, frozen air about the storm is theirs.
>This is no place for you.
>No place for her.
>You have to get home.
>A river of tracers founders upwards as you depress the trigger to add on to it.
>Here we go again.
>Bodies whirl and split, collapsing into a rain of debris and gore, but still they push onwards. A wave of numbers crashing down against the ironclad defense of your formation, deperately trying to hold out for a few minutes more for the ordinance to be delivered.
>The bugs would never run out of bodies, your ammunition was a different matter.
>The status panel on your screen shows your cannon rounds are down to less than a quarter, and you had just spent the one reload for the missile pod.
>As the black specked mass encroached closer and closer in its dive, you realized you'd likely have to use every one of them.
"Hang in there guys."
>Your reinforcement was as much for yourself as the others who couldn't hear you without the comm flipped on.
>All you want is to land safely.
>And trust that Mary won't turn in on herself.
>You kept your bursts conservative as the swarm crept in, your fire lost in the hail of tracers crossing over eachother, shooting at odd specks that caught only a single pair of eyes.
>Anxiety demanded you spit your reserves into the cloud.
>You would surely hit something, it coos.
>But what of the closer threats later on? the hunters after your life.
>Wouldn't matter if the swarm simply overwhelmed everything.
>The only friendly tags on the radar screen sit in lockstep with your own plane, no fast movers.
>Come on Maverick, don't let us down a second time.
>The radio babbles something, but at this point the thing's fried so you can't even catch fragments. Bets were on the transmitter being dead as well.
>Deaf, mute, and you pray to God not blind anytime soon.
>Flak guns across the formation open up as the boiling cloud starts getting dangerously close, already you spot what looks like another Dreadhunter straightening out on your tail.
>You chase him with the cannon in an effort to at least discourage the attack or clip a hole in his wing, but again the creature just weaves through your fire.
>It's now that the dramatic bastards choose to show themselves.
 
>Your pursuer is gone in a wet burst as a streak blows out their core, soon the whole sky in your sight is alight with detonations and the fires of stricken Marauders.
>Tracers saw open a surgical hole which is exploited by plunging jets, firing off further missiles as they force their way through.
>It happens again and again up the cloud as the fighters rivet the mass with rapier strikes.
>The leading edge of the swarm, isolated and in disarray is picked apart by the crushing weight of defensive fire.
>The fighters dog onwards, daring the enemy to chase them over the carpet of your guns.
>But even bugs aren't quite that stupid, they pull out of the attack and start receding towards the clouds. There they'll press the overwhelming presence of the descending aero-cruiser to their advantage.
>The fighters bought you a little more time. Your salvation lies in how slow the Marauder ships are.
>Maybe those beasts flew the stars with rapt speed, but down here they're lethargic from expending so much effort to stay aloft.
>You empty that taut pressure in your lungs and let the gun cool off.
>You were just about ready to blow the entire missile pod as well.
>"Approaching target."
>Mary clicks over the intercom, the plane shudders from a deep pop in its belly, soon followed by the grinding of hydraulics.
>The bomb bay doors are opening.
>You recall the rough plan the captain gave you before being taken out of action.
>Drop the payload
>Throttle up
>Get the hell out
>What wing were you even with again?
>Where were you going?
>The radio is shot, you can't talk or listen to anyone outside this plane.
>And you were down three engines, a likely fuel leak on top of all that.
>The options being chosen for you rear up in view.
>Over the mountains, even deeper into Marauder airspace to then double back, maybe you'd get lucky... maybe..
>Over the sea, if you could reach the pacific fleet crawling up the British Columbian coast you'd be safe. If.
>Out to Russia, to stay at some frozen airstrip in Siberia, if you didn't get clipped over the Bering Strait.
>None of them were certain.
>"Minute thirty to target."
>This was the most dangerous moment in the raid.
>The final run at the target. No time for course corrections. No time for evasive manuevers.
>You can't just spray bombs all over the place and expect good effect on target.
>Those flare stacks, reactors, vents, whatever the hell they were... hit them hard enough and it could hurt the mountain.
>You can't conceive of some surefire way to destroy something that large, but you can at least bruise it.
>The storm rumbles again, the great shadow is closer, black insects swarming about it as a living shield.
>You can't do anything but wonder if the cruiser will break through the clouds first, or if the bombs will drop beforehand.
>Finger hovering over the trigger, you wait and wait for the first mass of silver to part the storm.
>At that point you have to give it everything you have left.
>Perhaps with the rest of the formation firing in tandem, the shields might crack long enough to bloody its nose. Make it think twice about coming down here.
>You can only hope.
 
<Mary>
"Fifty seconds."
>You could only guess at it, your bombsight was a broken wreck you'd get frostbite and a concussion just trying to get to.
>Thoughts had danced between your ears of asking Johnny to be the strength behind you again, to walk you there so you could be a big damned hero.
>The hell were you thinking?
>There were others to take the point of the formation, to tell everyone else when was the right time to drop.
>Not that you could even talk to them if you did manage to get down there. Devon came out of the comms compartment in a fuss and grabbed the extinguisher.
>Your radio had finally given up the ghost from some unseen hit it took in the back.
>Now you were eyeballing the drop from the cockpit, your paw settled on the master release handle.
>You couldn't quite stop shaking the sense that you were grasping something more important than just the trigger to some loaded bomb racks.
>A turning feeling under your breast skittered and lunged at its cage, anxiously worming out the thought that all power you held in this situation would drop away with the explosives.
>After that, it was all out of your hands.
>You would just be along for the ride.
>Your fate nested in the laps of Moody and the gunners.
>...
>How does Devin put up with this?
>You spy the lead wing flushing away her payload, the train behind her releasing in a wave that rushed in your direction.
"Twenty seconds."
>Your attention was entirely on the target, you pray the Bugs don't bounce you now.
>Moody seems to take the anxious suggestion more literally, you can hear her muttering.
>"Hail Mary, full of grace. Hail Mary, full of grace. Hail Mary-"
>Focus.
>Breath.
>It's almost here.
"Ten seconds."
>You measure the invisible point hanging in the air against your speed, the wave of bombs cascading neatly downwards onto one of those blue glowing things at the base of this impossibly large tower.
>Ignore the warped, bulbous images in the melted glass to your left.
>Ignore the tracers. Ignore the shapes pursuing one another.
>Ignore the whimpering prayer.
>Feel the right moment.
>Grip the handle.
>Watch the plane in front.
>A shadow just starting to drop.
>.
"Release!"
>You wrench the master release upwards, and that familiar deep clatter falls away to both sides, taking with it the weight the fort held.
>Your hand remains locked around the bar.
>That was it.
>There was your affect on this.
>Now you're a passenger.
>You peel your fingers away from the device, and remember to breath.
"Moody, get us the hell out of here."
>The bird shakes herself, and pushes the throttle open.
 
>Within moments the last of the wing had dropped, and you could only imagine the carnage unfolding below as you listen to the roaring cascade of explosions.
>Somewhere just behind that mess, a pair of low yield nukes are burying their noses deep into the still smoldering ground and prepping to give the inhabitants of the city below a very bad day in a few minutes.
>Minutes in which the rest of you needed to get out of the way.
>The usual sense of satisfaction was absent, you were too used to watching it all through the bombsight right now.
>You had lost too many people...
>Settling in and trying to tend to the hollow space growing between your ribs, the minutes melt by as you attempt to help steady Moody's flying.
>The wing pulls out northward, the plane rattling as the formation climbs back through the storm to rise over the mountains.
>Pursuit is light for the moment as after being rebuffed, the combined airfleet of bugs and Marauders regrouped around a descending Aero-cruiser which you managed to slip out from under just in the nick of time.
>Your would-be pursuers seemed unsure of how to proceed, namely who exactly to chase.
>Maybe the Marauders weren't certain of if you really were splitting up, or if this was just a diversionary tactic to draw them into a trap.
>Either way you have the time you need to throttle away from the city.
>A quarter of the way up into the storm clouds, engines shrieking as they try to keep pace with the healthier birds at the front, the clouds around you are suddenly flooded into a sickly, pale yellow.
>There went the A-bombs.
>You hope those bastards choked on them.
>Back into that familiar, deep blue.
>At least there you can see what's trying to drop on top of you.
>You don't hear anything out of United Effort's guns, so you assume your ascent through the storm has gone unchallenged.
>Seems so as light and color bleed through the wet miasma surrounding you just as the forward wings start vanishing into that pleasantly warm haze.
>The airframe shudders a touch as unfiltered sunlight greets your pupils again. Now you just have to hope the bird can hold out long enough to get you home.
>Maybe you should talk.. just in case.
>As you hover your finger over the intercom it crackles, briefly sparking a warm hope before the sound of Woods' voice gutters that.
>"Goddamn... That son of a bitch is still standing."
>...
>Something in the pit of your stomach drops.
>No, it.. it can't..
>You dropped half a dozen tactical nukes right on top of its foundation.
>It couldn't possibly.
>You refuse to believe this.. fucking bullshit.
>There's no way.
"Stop fucking around woods, that gigantic eyesore is coming down."
>That speciest asshat is just pulling your chain, thinking he's funny.
>With all the weight on top of it, there's no possible way a structure that size could withstand a point blank nuclear detonation, multiple detonations in fact.
>Sure the Marauders must have impressive material science in that structure to even build it that massive and tall in the first place but nothing survives a fucking nuke.
>It would be under enormous pressure just holding itself up, any moment all that framework is going to fall apart and it will sink like a kaiju scale souffle.
>There's none of that hand waving, contrived, magical super science at work here like those dumb giant monster movies.
>It's then you hear Johnny's voice, which spikes that disbelieving mote of doubt through your feet.
>"Mary... it's not even listing."
>That black, curdled little stone evolves into sucking despair as it plummets out the bottom of your being.
>Your hands shake.
>You can't fight off the desperate tears that well in your eyes.
>A whimpering sob escapes you, you're simply thankful that the intercom isn't open so the only one that could stare is Moody.
>The image on one of the monitor screens entraps your eye.
>The silver mountain, still leering out of the eye of the storm, you hadn't even scratched the monster.
 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
<Johnny>
>The formation had taken a wide sweep Northeast to double back roughly along your incoming heading while dodging the worst of the swarms.
>Your confidence wasn't uplifted by this.
>Ever steadily, United Effort had fallen behind in the column, those three shot engines and all the fresh holes and scorching weren't doing the old girl any favors.
>Like a horse with a sprained ankle she was running ragged just keeping pace with the rest of the herd.
>Mark had done his best but there's only so much that can be done in flight, his job wasn't so much repair as keeping the thing from disintegrating.
>Removing the thousands of pounds of munitions hanging in the bays had helped on that front, according to him.
>All the while you could just stare backwards in that soft hope you weren't seeing something under the storm.
>Maybe you did hit something important down there, maybe the nukes obliterated some vital support system, but that goddamned tower stood unshaken.
>What the hell did they make that thing out of?
>Maybe it was some fallen chunk off that massive ship of theirs.
>The thing was beat to shit but it was still intended for interstellar travel.
>Only logical to assume it would naturally be tough... but even against nukes?
>The power of a split atomic reaction was supposed to destroy absolutely anything, I am become death and all that jazz.
>You're going to drive yourself nuts thinking like this, best just to keep a lookout.
>United Effort had strayed into the tail of the formation, she was vulnerable.
>It looked like the damages would keep you from easily maintaining pace with the rest of the formation.
>If they had to leave you behind, you would understand.
>Needs of the many, after all.
>Around you had settled other wounded bombers. Breaches, ragged holes, melted slashes and acid scoring, what a sorry lot.
>But those shapes you spy off in the distance off your tail...
>Those narrow, swooping... shit.
>"Swarm at our front!"
-we had a good run-
>Closing in from both sides, probably Buzzers up front with Dreadhunters on your tail.
>The bomber would be lucky if she could limp away from another hit.
>Luck is not something to bet on.
"We got what looks like hunters creeping on our tail."
>"Goddamnit!"
>Mary shunts in with a plan.
>"Let the other planes worry about what's in front, keep our trails from getting off a good shot or we're all fucking dead."
>Her voice sounded, off. But it's not something you can afford to dwell on right now.
>You check over your munitions again, desperately low. As if it could be anything else.
>Not much to keep another dread from blowing your wings off.
>The others are probably much the same.
>A band of silhouettes in your scope steadily glide closer as other birds in the tail of the formation shuffle nervously in position.
>Bisons beset by the wolves, they'll go for the weakest, the harried, the wounded, and the slow.
>Attempting to meter your heart does little for that anxious quibble that edges towards screaming.
>Soon you realize the hardened, segmented shapes of Dreadhunters racing in. One good hit could be all it takes.
>Here they come again.
 
>A rogue seems intent on diving in first only to immediately wave off as the first tracers reach towards it.
>Other stragglers seem to do the same, testing the waters. A couple are picked off for trying.
>You wait for the first to breach that unseen threshold in a genuine attack.
>You don't have the ammo for speculative shots.
>The engines warm towards an all out sprint under you. You were down three but maybe if Moody poured out the WEP you could keep out of reach of the enemy just long enough that you could make an escape.
>*Hoping* for the best is all you have right now.
>The bird shudders under you as she lurches forward, picking up speed when the telltale gouts of exhaust trail her wings.
>Others in the formation kick on the afterburners as well, but you watch in anticipative horror as a heavily battered bomber on your left erupts into flame as one of her engines blows out from the sudden stress. Something that could easily happen to you.
>The inflamed craft drifts backwards, listing downwards as a number of Dreadhunters lean out to take her.
>You don't like the shaking your own bird is committing right now.
"Please hold together, you tub."
>Just a few more hours, and then you were beyond all possibility of pursuit. You would be home, where the warm things dwell.
>As long as it's you and these pin-eyed devils in this cold sky, you have to count every second.
>"Hitting the front swarm in fifty seconds!"
>The relative pace of the incoming hunters slowed, but still they crept closer, pushing themselves into the chase.
>You have to outlast.
>You have to outlive.
>Both in doubt as United Effort sounds a worrying pop somewhere in her belly.
>"Thirty seconds!"
>The bugs in front will naturally pick out targets further ahead, and those that pass over you will only be a threat for a few seconds.
>You finger the trigger, watching the distance to your pursuers close.
>Two kilometers...
>Eighteen-hundred meters...
>"Ten seconds!"
>Fifteen-hundred meters...
>"Five seconds!"
>Fourteen-hundred sixty meters...
>"Contact!"
>The air behind you is filled with a cacophony of guns and droning, splattered shapes rush over and careen behind like a canopy picked up by the hand of a storm.
>Ignore them, they'll pass. You need to save the ammo.
>One wheels just over your roof, erratically trying to correct itself as if fighting the heave of the ocean.
>And off to your right a painful series of tearing knocks stitch their way over the wing.
>Despite a momentary, sickening twist of your throat, you don't feel the plane listing under you. It must be survivable.
>"Jesus Christ!"
>Twelve-hundred meters...
>"Mark?"
>The consternation means he's alive.
>"I'm alright- ju- fu- those barbs were damned close!"
>"Okay, I-uh."
>"Moody, just fly! I'll worry about this bucket fixing to shake itself to pieces!"
>One kilometer...
>Nine hundred fifty meters...
>Nine hundred meters.
 
>The deep thoom of the tail cannons barking flak joins a barrage of black wads that spread their deadly thorns inside the mass of hunters.
>You release the trigger, radar lock had found its preferred targets, all of them.
>The pod to your left gives an almighty roar as it looses every seeker in the tubes.
>A great flock of fiery wisps streak out towards the hunters, and they die.
>They die in droves, wings collapsing, bodies bursting and plummeting, others wringed out of their gore and vitality by the twisting crush of an explosive wave.
>Yet...
>They still come onwards.
>A mad will possesses them to plunge their fatal strength into your ranks.
>Vengeance, malice, sadism, instinct, it does not matter. They still come onwards.
>You spool the cannon, barking rounds recklessly into the liquid mass of winged terrors.
>More wheel and shriek as tracers bite and tear through weight of fire their armor cannot hold against.
>Seven hundred thirty meters, Fire tears through bladed wings like the threshing of fields, but martyr's mania refuses to smolder.
>They still come onwards.
>Six hundred seventy meters, They crash onwards like a wave, putrid green motes eject and whirl before crashing into stricken birds and consuming them in acidic fire.
>The entire formation focuses an unreal amount of fire behind them, sawing into the fanatic mass as the butcher's knives, but the thinning herd surges onwards, burning anything in range. They still come onwards.
>Five hundred eighty meters, the streaking rocket creatures reach towards you, and are scythed down in poisonous bursts by sharp stabs of interdicting fire.
>The deep thunder climbing in your skull, overpowering all as the bloodied orchestral clashing drowns away. The second-ticking pain nested in your ribs tells you it will not be enough.
>Five hundred.
>You haven't let go of the trigger.
>A shell smashes into the pitted faceplate of a scarred, draconic fiend.
>The chitin tears away to dark wet shreds coiled around soulless spots.
>But the creature is enveloped with deadly purpose.
>They still come onwards.
>A hollow sparks off that smoky green trail, and the cancerously bloated, betentacled thing that shrieks outwards snakes its way through any saving radiance of steel shot and led.
>Death awaits in these yawning skies.
>Here it is.
>Your intercom crackles in expletive panic, as the missile bug crashes directly into the tail.
>The bomber swerves drunkenly, pitching downwards as the lift gutters out from under her.
>"I've lost all tail control!"
>All the coiled strength in your arms flees, and you slump away from the trigger. It's not like you had any ammo, the counter blinks accusingly at you with a crimson 9.
>This is it.
>You've had it, United Effort is going down.
>You're a dead man.
>Trailing smoke, you plummet out of the formation as the ailerons bite upwards in the struggle to correct your doomed course.
>The airframe quakes in terror before the whole thing suddenly bucks. Thrown back against your seat, you hear a shrieking, wrenching sound below.
>"Ga-ahhhhhgghhh!! Son of a bitch!!"
>That sounded like-
>"Marky?!!"
>More pops and thuds follow from somewhere about the left wing.
>"Goddamn frame buckled.. It got my leg!"
 
>Talia's stressed gibbering continues over the intercom.
>"I-I-I-I-I'm coming t-."
>"NO! Stay at your post, Ned's pulling me out."
>You don't have any ammo left up here anyway, you shuffle out of the gunner seat and kick open the hatch in the floor just behind you.
>Creeping downwards, your recollection snaps back to the missile thing that hit the tail, and brace yourself against what might be left of Woods.
>As your boots hit the floor, your eyes trace back along the deck to see your tail gunner sprawled against the deck but not a frothing, reddened slag of acid burns.
>Your broken bomber skids again, wheeling to the left. You hurl your weight inwards of the spin to just barely avoid being thrown against the bulkhead. Woods awkwardly braces himself between the deck and the siding.
>He looks towards you as your boots squawk for traction.
>"Hey man."
>The greeting is casual, as if followed by a reference to the weather or the neighbors, and not a wild eyed acknowledgement that all of you are very rapidly approaching the end of your lives.
>Behind you, Moody and Duster indistinctly jabber at eachother. The eagle says something about losing all thrust on the left, but that's all you catch while you shuffle into the sideway towards Smith and Land.
>You keep shuffling past the now vacant gunnery station and through a bulkhead into the left bomb bay.
>On the other side, low to the ringed walkway through an access duct, Smith lunges and curses as a warped clamping between two beams has seized his leg.
>The big, normally stoic wolf worriedly pulls at the smaller man's shoulders yet only succeeds at intensifying Mark's swearing.
>"It's not working, the beam's got me good. If you pull any harder you're going to break my foot off."
>"I have to try something!"
>Mark turns his haggard gaze to you.
>"Johnny, the hell are ya-. Nevermind, just get me out of here. I don't want to get turned in ground beef patte' when we hit the ground."
>"...It might not matte-"
>"Shaddup, you lovesick lump!"
>Ned's ears flatten.
>"I.. showed you my poems becau-."
>The plane groans agonizingly around you before the quick, ear stabbing shriek of metal fills the bay.
>Your back is tossed into the handrail as Land ducks, nailing his paws to either side of him.
>"GneaaAAAAAAAH GODDAMNIT!"
>You groan as you right yourself and a quick lean notes the beams pinning Mark's lower leg have shifted.
>"Look, you can ask that dober-bitch to sit on your face, after you GET ME OUTTA HERE!!"
>You have to do something.
"Enough! Land. Get in there and try to pull those beams apart, I'll pull him out."
>"Thank you!"
>The big wolf squeezes into the ductway, gingerly attempting to shunt himself far enough in he can get a good leverage on the beams.
>"Nnng! Watch it."
>Practically almost laying down on his front, he worms in a little further.
>"Okay, think I got it."
>You grab Mark's shoulders as he locks arms with you for leverage.
"Alright, start lifting."
>Ned grunts and tenses, the metal in the duct groaning and popping as the big wolf attempts to manhandle the beams away from Mark's leg.
>You toe the lip of the duct and dig in your heels, hauling yourself backwards to try and budge Smith enough that his leg can get free.
 
>It's an agonizing couple of minutes, but after a heroic effort by Ned, the beams pop and give just enough that Mark manages to shake his leg away. You haul him out of the duct and bring him upright.
>"Thanks kid, I-huuuaagh!.."
>Mark twists in pain as weight settles on his left leg.
>"That's broken, definitely broken."
"Ned, get him to Wight, he's not going to be able to walk in that state."
>The wolf nods, and you guide them back out into the main fuselage, where Woods is still trying to catch his breath.
>"Hey guys, the hell happened to him?"
>Mark hangs off the lupine's shoulder and now you realize his foot is twisted at a disturbingly unnatural angle.
>"Airframe buckled and just about crushed my leg. I see you survived -uh... oh, SHIT! THE AMMO!!"
>You and the tail gunner respond about in unison.
>"The what?"
"What?!"
>Mark budges forward before remembering his injury.
>"That's pyrocaustic acid! If there's still cannon shells in the hoppers it's going to touch off as soon as that stuff eats through the casings! Tell me you hit the emergency ammo dump!"
>Woods cocks his head back like a nervous bird, and even through the flight gear you can read the dreadful realization as his shoulders hike.
>"Shhhiit! I knew I was forgetting something! Goddammit!"
>You step forward but the tailgunner nails a hand to your chest.
>"I'll cover it!, it's my fuckup."
>He stares at you, managing to convey a smile through the respirator.
>"Gotta make up for pissing off your girlfriend somehow, right?"
>Before you can formulate a response he takes off back towards his post, what's left of it.
>Your attention is grabbed by another body emerging from the other sideway.
>Mark cracks off first.
>"Talia, I thought I told you to-"
>"-Stay at my post? Well I'm out of ammo so not much good that would do.... Besides I-. was worried."
>The plane rattles violently under you again. You've felt your descent shallow but it still doesn't feel good.
>"You can worry after we hit the ground. Land, get me to the damn gurney already."
>The wolf helps him hobble along, but pauses before the door at the sound of Woods' voice.
>"Rat! Where's the switch again?!"
>"The red pullbar under the left panel by the extinguisher!"
>With a clatter, Joe pries the maintenance panel open and wrenches the pullbar down.
>A deep clunk reverberates from the tail of the plane, and a pair of deep pings signal the ammo hoppers being ejected away from the plane.
>The whole bird moans in a tinge of fatigue that has anxiety zipping along your back.
>"That doesn't sound, good."
"Woods, you better get out of there."
>"RRRrrg, shit! This crap is eating through my gl-"
>The plane wails like some stricken giant, the floor beneath your boots warbles and shakes.
>The deep guttural complaints of fatiguing metal turn to shrieks and tears of failure.
>Joe lunges towards you and Talia.
>But as you watch, the realization settles in dread clarity.
-too late-
 
>Weakened from the scourging of acid and a frame battered from enemy fire, heavy turbulence, and a mid-air collision, the fuselage finally gives way.
>The deck falls away underneath Woods, and the sudden movement of air does the rest, reaching in whirling fingers to bend and drag out more.
>The man scrambles for life, but falters forward, snatching at the ledge of this new breach for some sort of safety.
>Jagged metal flakes and crumbles under his grip, shedding pieces as the movement of the plane drags him back.
>Tumbling back, he has about a second before his head is violently snapped forward from the edge of a deckplate meeting it.
>All resistance seems to leave him after that, and his body plummets away as the gunnery station itself buckles and drops, opening the view to Woods spinning helplessly away into the yawning sky.
>There is no chute.
>"NOOOOOOOOO-AOOO!!!"
>Talia shrieks in shock, as your sight wanders for just that second, you come back to completely lose sight of him.
>Woods is gone.
>You can't stay here.
>The cat quivers, but you push her along towards the front of the plane as you feel icy tendrils of the wind tugging at your gear.
>If that hole in the back opens up further you risk the both of you being sucked out too.
>"GOD!! WHERE ARE WE!!!?"
>Flinging the door open, you rush her through as you hear the frame rumbling around you.
>Tugging on the handle finds stiff resistance as the wind reaches in, intent on keeping it open. A pair of clawed hands wrap over yours and heave backwards to slowly shunt it closed.
>You wrench down the lock bar as soon as it seats in its frame.
>Aside you is the bat, the question already brewing.
>"Where's?-"
"Gone"
>You ring hollowly.
>Gazing around grants you just how sorry your lot looks. While Devin looks implacable as ever, glancing across while his towering ears make no betraying twitch or tilt; the rest are beaten and frayed.
>Captain Folly lies limply on the gurney against the right wall, his curdled expression betraying his pain even after being sedated and the offending mass of burns wrapped in as much gauze as Wight could probably get his hands on. At least he's not awake to see all of this.
>Smith perches on the table, his shoulders drawn tight from frustrated inaction. His leg hangs loosely, sandwiched by a lashed together splint. His time is done, and being forced to let things lie in others hands is infuriating.
>Land leans in the doorway forward, speckled with assorted bandages and patches. With his size his wounds seem superficial, but a great weight sinks his spirit as his snout wordlessly returns to lulling at the floor.
>And the ocelot.. She slumps in the corner behind you, burying her face into both gloves.
>You shuffle forward into the cockpit, taking a spare seat at a disused instrument panel behind Mary.
>A quivering under your chest lurches your hand forward towards her shoulder, but you think better of it.
>The only chance you have now lies with them.
>Leering out the window, you find your descent has shallowed significantly. Hope briefly sparks in your breast but as you tune in on the chatter between your pilots it flickers out.
>"Throttle's barely responding."
>"This altimeter is still going down!"
>"I know, I know, but we can't get power without risking a flatspin, we have zero tail control, the frame has about had it, our gear is shot, and I got leaks all over the board. We've bled all the fuel we need to get home."
>"So you're saying...."
>"A controlled crash is the best we can hope for.... We have to glide her in on her belly and hope the controls don't fight us too much."
>...
>"If they do?"
>"We'll cartwheel ass over end, the plane will disintegrate.. annnd we'll probably get crushed in the wreckage."
 
<Mary>
"Lovely.."
>"We can't get the airspeed to reach altitude again, and if we tried then we'd just throw ourselves out of control."
>So this is it, she's done. The bird you made so many flights in, so many little victories, fell to pieces at the big hurdle.
>You didn't even know how far back you had gotten, your radio was scrap, and in all the excitement it never occurred to you to look for familiar terrain or landmarks.
>One thing was for sure though, you were over bug territory.
>There would be no rescue brigade awaiting your wounded landing.
>There would be no search parties this far away from the lines.
>There would be no help for you and yours.
>Just your crew being hunted.
>You glance back towards the wounded rabble occupying the comm room. Your gut curdles.
>Folly is almost certain to die out there, exposed and with little to no medicine. Mark's busted leg would also be slowing you down, something that wouldn't have time and rest to heal if the bugs caught your trail.
>If he wasn't picked off, he may never walk right again.
>The others looked defeated, destitute.
>Could they even summon the will to fight?
>Ned was always a giant teddy bear, and Talia...
>You worry for Talia, she's flighty and sentimental. If Smith bought it, she'd slip under in turn.
>You can't even guess at what Johnny is thinking, probably that you're a precocious bitch.
>And Woods was bound to blunder into something stupid. If the anthro half of the crew didn't kill him for his remarks first.
>Turning back, you curl in on yourself, fighting the urge to burrow yourself into a neat hole.
>Far as you can see, there are only two options.
"What do we do?"
>"Iiiiye don't know."
"I mean do we ride this out, or do we bail?"
>"Oh, uh.. I'm not sure she's remotely stable enough for all of use to bail.."
>Someone would have to stay behind the keep the plane steady. And at least one of your crew is in no shape at all to go anywhere.
>Parachutes drift. And since Moody refuses to take charge..
"We can't get separated down there. Our best chance is as a group."
>The bird seems to accept that, and peers back.
>"Wait, where's Woods and Beck?"
>The sound of Johnny's voice from right behind you briefly puffs your tail.
>"Woods got blown out... didn't see a chute open."
>So that's what that racket behind you was.
>The bird hesitantly hits the intercom.
>"Beck? Still with us?"
>...
>"Yeah, but my hydraulics are shot, the turret is not retracting up."
>She's trapped in there.
>Something that could be fixed... after a safe landing.
>"Uh.. we're-hm.. uh. We hav-mm.."
>Big hen doesn't have the heart to tell her.
"We're going to have to make a crash landing. I'm sorry."
>The empty line crackles venomously.
>"With the way we were pitching around I... Shit... It's really happening, huh?"
>Inhale, find your center.
"We don't have any options here Beck. Either you get caught under us. Or you take your chances with the chute. Your emergency hatch should still be working."
>"But... we're... we're over bug territory, we all know what that means!"
>It was exactly why you wanted to keep everyone together, the same reason that prodded your throat with clamming tar. A crash drew bugs to the area like chum in the water, and from there the creatures were merciless in tracking and killing anything that wasn't them.
>It was rare that an aircrew managed to evade pursuit long enough to see rescue, why fighter pilots did their hard-bitten damnedest to glide even the most beat up pair of wings at least until they were in friendly airspace before resorting to bailing out.
>Because being down there, *alone*, was terrifying.
 
>There was still a slim possibility, and you didn't want to deal with the guilt of crushing Beck inside her turret on landing.
>Verdant hills spread out far in front of you, the altimeter winds down and down as the last wisps of clouds settle over you.
>You would have to find a good clearing to crash down within minutes.
>She wouldn't be terribly far away.
>"Please, maybe you can try an-"
"A slim chance is better than none at all."
>The faint reflections in the window betray the others passing eachother looks.You silently balk at what just came out of your mouth.
>So callous, so full of venom... but it was the truth.
"Once you touch down, you find the crash site. Then you disappear into the woods, we'll leave you some supplies in case you can't find us."
>The belly gunner's end of the line remains silent.
"You get me, soldier?"
>...
>"Yeah.. I get you... I get you."
"Good luck out there."
-she'll need it-
>That's that dealt with.
>A hollow, ringing thud sounds from the belly as Beck blows the emergency escape on her turret, the floor plate of the whole thing being thrown clear to allow the occupant to jump.
>You spy a lonely white parachute soon after in one of the rear cameras.
>You lean forward to take the yoke again, even as your gut blanches.
>That sickened feeling bubbles up your throat, coaxing out the urge to rationalize to yourself what you just did.
"I had to do it, she at least has a chance this way."
>Moody simply hangs her beak low, and you don't dare look back.
>Better if you keep your focus forward, looking for that right strip of open ground.
>If you had to ballpark a guess, you were somewhere in the Yukon or the far north of British Columbia. Of course that doesn't help the matter of every hill you look at being covered in goddamn trees.
>You're far from replete with time to spare.
>The altimeter continues lazily descending and you can almost hear the engines wheezing out the last of what they're willing to put up with.
>United Effort softly shudders beneath you as you lazily bank left, the old girl just wants to lay down and die, the question is how to keep her from taking you all down with her.
>You and Moody keep drifting until you find a thin break running through the trees.
"There, on the left, see that?"
>Following it along, it opens into a dilapidated field, tended by a lonely farmhouse.
>A few rogue rises in the terrain, but otherwise looks acceptably flat.
"Moody, that field, think it's good?"
>The bird grunts, good a response as any, and you bank United Effort on her final course.
 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
>You stare ahead at the field, a warm tawny square in the middle of a carpet of green points.
>It was your only chance, the single catcher's mit open to you.
>Lola hasn't so much as twitched for minutes now, razor focused out of the window while autonomously pawing at the controls.
>"Alright, final approach. Shut down the engines, we're gliding her in."
>Gently, you kill the master throttle, the soft, wounded mewl of the remaining engines fading off, leaving just the rattling and ratcheting of the airframe battering itself against the air.
>Slowly, you bring your hand back on the yoke, a tight, wadding, rock of sensation pinned against your collar. Supported by gossamer thread, if you let it fall you fear all control over this will snap.
>The yoke doesn't insist on fighting you, it just lazily lolls about as your airspeed drops off. The creeping drift towards the field grows agonizingly slower.
>"Nose up about five degrees, keep air under the wings."
>Despite the slow, deliberate pace of everything your heart refuses to pace itself. It's driven on by that very real worry that if something goes wrong now, there's no correcting it in time.
>You let moody guide the flight, as a bombardier your flight training was rudimentary. The stick just barely shifts into you as the view of the field sinks away a hair.
>Someone in the back breathes impatiently.
>"You know i-."
>"None of you say a GODDAMN word until I put this thing down!!"
>The bird's snap is unexpected, but at the moment you can understand.
>"-It's not rising in the view." They finish dejectedly.
>"Because if it was we'd be falling short of it. Duster, where's our altitude?"
>You glance quickly at the altimeter, now ticking down in a less expedient manner.
"Uhh, seven-fifty."
>"Good, good. Keep it steady."
>At this lazy speed you feel more like you're riding a softly deflating cushion before it starts nudging off from the straightaway.
>"Trim right, we're picking up some cross winds. And the rest of you strap in, this is not going to be a soft landing."
>The plane keeps listing off.
>"Trim!"
>Does she mean rudder? You consider feathering the pedals just ahead of your feet.
"I-erm."
>She reaches across to the center console, spinning a roller dial towards her.
>"Nevermind."
>So that's what that does... God, you're just getting in the way here.
"Still want my help?"
>"Mary, I know they only taught you the basics, but I need someone to help wrestle her into control and better you than someone entirely untrained."
>That makes sense to you.
>You can't pull your attention away from in front of you for sense of that overwhelming worry a rogue bug is going to dive on you while you're attempting this.
>The radar has shown nothing getting near you.
>In fact the last contacts, enemy or friendly seemed to vanish minutes after you fell out of formation and went plummeting through the cloudbank.
>Either the bugs assumed your ticket was punched, or perhaps your lack of radio contact with the others had something to do with it.
>Whatever the case, now you have to feather the controls just right to put thousands of pounds of bomber down in an abandoned wheat field.
>Without the whole thing somersaulting or flying apart.
>It's then that a thought raises about what you're landing on, exactly.
"What about the um.."
>"The what?"
>What the hell were those wrinkles farmers raked into their fields?
"The, uh. The things! The bump things in the field."
>Moody flashes you a look that conveys even through the rebreather.
"The fuckin' rows in the ground!"
>The bird pauses for a second, before her head jolts like a light came on.
>"Ohhh! Furloughs."
>That must be the word you were fumbling for
"Yes, those. Couldn't those upset the plane when we.."
>"We're not using our gear for obvious reasons and we're also a hell of a lot heavier than a Cessna, don't worry about it. We'll probably just plow straight through all that old, dry soil."
>"Besides, we're too low to shoot for another spot even if we wanted to."
>Glancing back at the altimeter, it reads out a number that by Moody's words carries a solid sense of finality; 500 ft.
 
>"Final approach, putting down our flaps."
>The deep whine of hydraulics precedes a slouching pull rearwards as the airbrakes bite into the wind to slow you down.
>But soon that pull starts getting squirrely.
>The yoke jitters as you feel the plane gliding more strongly towards the left.
>Putting your weight in you pull the stick back towards the right.
>"There's that crosswind again. Don't over correct, just keep us steady..."
>You aren't certain exactly how one could over correct in a glide, but you ease off your efforts to shunt the stick to the right and let the eagle shoulder the burden again.
>You keep gazing out at the field, steadily starting to close in as you nervously eye the surrounding trees.
>The whole thing is eerily quiet as the wounded giant of your plane settles towards the ground.
>"Altitude?"
"Three hundred."
>"Okay, if all's good we should be right on target."
"And what happens if we're not?"
>"Don't worry about that."
>You can't help but worry about that.
>In an effort to distract yourself you try and scope out the area you're touching down in, for all of the 'good' that might do in alleviating your worries over what could be skulking around down there.
>That farmhouse watching the field squats in the corner near what looks like a loose dirt road that hugs the treeline. Grain silos flaked apart by rust stand as simplistic imitations of the forest surrounding everything, and a decrepit barn sags to one side as the square slot in the loft gazes over the field.
>If ever there was a place to put a machinegun nest, or whatever the Marauder equivalent is.
>Maybe there'd be something there worth taking with you. You very much doubt it as it seems this place has been abandoned even before Firefall, but a quick few minutes to check for cans or a hunting rifle couldn't hurt.
>Your landing would be diagonal into the field so you would practically be parked aside of the place once you came to a halt.
>Of course landing near any side of the field would put you dangerously close to the treeline. You hope dearly those movements you spy in the low shadows is just the wind and your mind putting shapes into the darkness that aren't there.
>It's getting very close now, you glance again at the altimeter; 100.
>Sitting up a bit straighter, you tense as you imagine the forth coming impact with the ground climbing closer, closer, CLOSER.
>The plane bumps and scrapes, warbling as unseen claws rake its belly.
>"Just the trees, just the trees. We're good, we're good."
>Your heart spasms and hammers, throwing itself around for an escape, urging you to move despite your mind fusing your spine stiff to stay here, where it's safe.
>Soon even the roof of the barn climbs up to your level. Moody tenses like a stone.
>"BRACE!!"
>Nailing your eyes shut, you bar your arms across your chest and grit your teeth, praying that-
WHUMP
>You're thrown down into your seat before momentum briefly bounces back up, carrying you far enough to snag against your harness.
>The charred remnants of the strap that's supposed to hold your left shoulder in place flail freely, tilting you before another smash has you careening back down. A deep, pulsing pain grips the back of your skull.
>The deluge of noise only seems to intensify the fingers of ice branching inside your head as you cry out, but it's lost in the confusion as the earth under you rumbles and grinds as the plane's broken body shrieks and screams.
>You find yourself shaken like a fussy child as the roar of tearing metal claws at the floor under you.
>An impulse rails you towards the right the same moment a great tumbling crash attempts to deafen you from the left.
>The metal gives a long, grinding shriek before your forward momentum abruptly halts.
>Tinnitus rings its jilting minor key buzzing in your ears while you struggle to keep your eyes flapped open.
>In your gaze dance visions of double fog while some abusive, liquid sensation swirls about behind your forehead.
>Your chest rumbles, you clutch at your scalp, but nothing is heard over the ringing.
>Thinking on what to do next just shocks the slurry swimming in your skull, it hurts.
>?
>What?
>"?
>The hell is...
>--^---&*---?"
>What the fuck is.-?
>"M--- --- --- ---- --?"
>You can't-
>Something cold smothers your temples as you find the swaying clouds darting downwards and light flooding your awareness.
>"Duster?!"
>Vision darkens, focuses on a shape, familiar, warm. You like this shape.
>It's a pale visage looking down on you.
>"Mary!"
"Hng-h, fuh uh. Wha?"
>When did he get here?
>You blink a couple times, trying to clear as someone thankfully turns down the brightness out of the window.
"Johnny?"
 
>"Hey, hey look at me. You're okay, we're on the ground now."
>A fuzzy thing floats back to you. Something that needs doing.
>You try to wrestle that stubborn tongue into cooperating.
"Iiiii-lew owe you a kiss."
>"I. I think she must of hit her head."
>"Bound to happen-NNnn. I might have dislocated my shoulder."
-whiner-
>"Let's get this off you."
>That sensation moves down to your neck, you gecker and paw at it to get it to go away but you're too weak.
>There's a sharp clack, and another, and then some muggy feeling crawls up around your head and slides around your muzzle, pushing your ears down as it, seems to leave?
>Fresh.
>Fresh air!
>You jostle your head and open your eyes again to find yourself staring at the half ruined instrument panel on the right of your seat.
>Your head still smarts.
"Urrrrgh. fuck me."
>Hands grasp at your scalp, you whine in protest as the touch pours pressure on that tender chill trying to eat your brain from behind.
>They comb and shuffle through your fur, gently brushing around the area plaguing your nerves.
>"You aren't bleeding, I think with some time you'll be okay."
>There better not be brain damage.
"You call that hell ride a landing?"
>The bird sounds again from behind you.
>"Better than being dead."
>You inject a touch of levity.
"Semantics."
>Johnny releases you and you shift around to make sure nothing's broken or out of place while you look around, half to take in the state of things and half to scope out your surroundings in paranoia.
>The plane, while intact from the inside at least looks an absolute wreck, the windsheilds fray with spiderweb cracks and you spy a lot of missing dials and rivets that must have been thrown loose by the impact.
>You were lucky the windows hadn't shattered and showered you in glass shards... again.
>The door back to the radio compartment lazily hangs lopsided in its frame, and you start nothing that the body of the plane seems twisted by a good few degrees.
>As for the outside, you scan across the close treelines in view and out into the field, nothing out there seems to take interest in your wreck. You breath a great sigh of relief as you realize you'll at least have some time before bugs come snooping around.
>You don't know how they choose to congregate but at least they aren't here growing on the trees.
>An odd scent starts tingling your nose, smells overwhelmingly of kerosene
>You trace it out behind you towards the left wing, and peering out the window your worry grows deep.
>A great fissure torn into the root of the wing has spilled a great pool of fuel that soaks through the field, crawling towards the engines. The bottom pair of jets have been torn free, lying somewhere behind you. It's a massive fuel leak and you don't much like the look of this.
>And you're right in the middle of not only a forest, but an abandoned field layered in long dead, bone dry grain stalks.
"Shit!"
>"What's wrong"
"We got a bad fuel leak on the left, and I'm really not sure that we *don't* have something capable of sparking it off."
 
<Johnny>
>Images of fire dance in your head, this whole field would come alight if the fuel ignited.
>That and spread through the forest as well. You aren't certain if that would further attract bugs or perhaps ward them away as the wild fire rages.
>You just need to gather what you can.
>"Alright, pick up the wounded and let's move. I'm not sure how much time we have."
>Shuffling into the radio compartment you help Devin hoist up Folly's stretcher as the others pick the place clean of what few medical supplies the bat hasn't already used.
>Amazingly, the captain still lolls limply. None of that woke him.
"How is he still out?"
>The bat scratches at his neck.
>"I may have hit him with the heaviest dosage that seemed safe. I did not want him in any sort of pain and my assumption was we would be landing... anywhere but *here*."
>You nod at the simple altruism, well aware of the grim reality settling in that the captain would likely die down here.
>The door out of the plane is tricky as it's leaned about three feet off the ground but you manage as the others help Smith hobble out.
>The open air graces you with thoughts of warm days and relaxation, but gazing back the way you came chases them away.
>Tips of trees snapped like driftwood, their arboreal limbs scattered about the field or hanging limply from their stumps, and clods of loose earth scattered about to either side of a deep channel the body of the plane carved straight through the field. Ragged shards of metal loom out of the earth.
>And the plane... United Effort was dead.
>Her silver body torn on one side, her left wing flat and broken at the corner of the field. A shattered pair of turbines lay gutted behind her. And her underside had been smashed and torn.
>Soon what was left of her would burn.
>And then there was you, the weary, wounded rabble left after it.
>You think about her again as you step over the irrigation ditch to set down on the road.
>Everyone had been frayed by this and she had been pushed so far. Did she still hold any warmth for you after it all?
>Her bleary offer had you hoping, but those had made a habit of being dashed today.
>There were so many more important things to consider. Where were you going to get more food from, what would you have to defend yourself, any way at all to signal the army, do you save medical supplies not treating the obvious lost cause in captain Folly?
>But you keep wandering back to if Mary is pushing you away.
>If that subtle wedge of hesitation between you had been struck in by the stress and adversarial hours riding over hell's teeth.
>Woods was gone, and all notion of his offence being some great sin fell away with him. Your heart sinks as you wonder in macabre musings if the man was at least knocked unconscious or perhaps killed instantly by the blow to his neck before he was blown out.
>Grim visions toil over him flailing helplessly in the open sky, pawing for any kind of impossible salvation as death moved in with all of gravity's inescapable bearing.
>Fatal magnetism hunches your shoulders low and presses on your lungs, you can't be thinking like that, not now.
>Talia stumbles onto the road, sliding to her knees while she tears away her mask.
>She stares at the ground like a broken marionette.
>Mary meanwhile, checks around the farmhouse with Ned. You guess that keeping herself busy with the quick hunt for supplies is a good idea.
>That overgrown lawn looks about as dry as the field and the old home and barn would surely be immolated too.
>It's not even a few minutes before she comes back out again, hands empty and looking defeated.
>She trudges up to the rest of you.
>"It's picked clean. Nothing's left in there."
"Nothing at all?"
>She shakes her snout.
>"We're going to have to forage for anything in the woods. Berries, edible greens, anything we can spare the ammo on."
>Ned softly whines behind her.
>"We're shooting critters?"
>"Ned, we're out here alone and with precious little in rations, we have to hunt *something* and meat will keep our strength up. Besides you love venison!"
>"But I've never..." The wolf stares at his boots pensively.
>Mary just paws the bridge of her snout.
>"Christ. At least tell me you guys got good marks in survival training?"
>Some of the crew nod, others shake their head.
 
>She runs hands alongside her muzzle, focusing herself.
>"Okay, uh. Inventory! Inventory.. We got barely any medical supplies, emergency rations, and.. How much ammo do we have?"
>You remember your sidearm, thinking back on how you didn't load any extra clips before takeoff. You figured, why would you need them?
>Others seem to share similar realizations.
"Just what's in the clip."
>"Dammit! There's no way we're going anywhere with that, if any bugs show we're screwed. Okay..."
>She paces, snapping her fingers.
>"Okay, okay. Arms locker! The emergency arms locker every plane keeps stocked."
>You forgot about that damn thing.
>"We should-"
>Her nose begins twitching and her wide-eyed gaze rockets off towards the plane. You trace her sight and can just barely make out the wispings of white smoke coiling on the other side of the wreck.
>She's started burning.
>"Johnny go! Against the wall behind the dorsal turret!"
>The urgency in Mary's voice prods you to stand against your better judgement, you shoot a worried look her way but she ushers you on.
>"We need those guns, get the locker out before the plane goes up!"
>So you go sprinting across the field, hoping to beat the rapidly spreading flames to the fuselage.
>The smell of gas and fire stings as you get closer.
>Hopping up through the open door, you tramp forward to find that obscure grey longbox set into the floor.
>A sudden flare of heat radiates from the left wall as you see the licks of flame beginning to dance out of the window.
>That fuel soaked into the ground and is spreading fast.
>You lean down and tug on the handle, trying to jerk the locker along with you but it refuses to go.
>A simple latch with a fat padlock lolling off it anchors the thing to the deck, you don't recall being given a key so you judiciously apply your boot.
>Heaving the crate to the side and stomping on that persistent little bastard results in a little more leeway each time, before with a final few kicks, the hinge flies apart.
>In the window you watch the fire climbing the wing, scorching at the bird's aluminum skin and choking the air with smoke.
>Dragging backwards, you heave the locker out of the door and you jump down shortly after.
>Already the fire steers around the great mound the nose of the plane carved out and races along each length of parched grass laid into the ground.
"Shit."
>No time for pleasantries, you drag the box behind you, clattering and jumping as you run for fear of the whole field going up in a flash.
>You bound over the irrigation ditch onto the road. Mary swipes her brow in relief as the rest shuffle to the far side of the road while the fire hungrily ravages the acreage.
>"Thank you, now uh."
>She prompts the both of you to move further into the road along with the others where you sit down and crack open the locker.
>"What do we have?"
>You take count, staring venomously at the few empty slots.
"Three carbines, about a hundred rounds for each. Annnd something like a hundred twenty handgun rounds."
>The vixen holds her face.
>"Better than a handful of pistols but that still isn't much."
>At the very least you won't have to worry as much about rogue bug encounters and have a little ammo for hunting.
>Not as many to split it between either..
 
>The fire begins engulfing the wreck, what little fuel is left inside the broken machine touching off to fuel its pyre.
>Whatever was left inside is beyond reach now, you debate with yourself on if hauling out the weapons was the wiser choice.
>"So that's it then, it's all gone."
>Moody sulks at the almost mummified form of the captain, his still slumber seeming much less serene now.
>Glancing at Devon, and seeing just how sparse what remains of his supplies is, the reaper's scythe returns, hovering inevitably over Folly.
>"What do we do now?"
>Ned prods but the eagle remains silent.
>Mary clacks a mag into one of the carbines and slings it over her shoulder while passing another to the bat and the last to you.
>You take your share of the ammo while Mary assumes command.
>"We head east into the wilds, it's our best option."
>You can't really say otherwise as to what might work best, the ground based species were never your wheelhouse.
>Foolishly, you thought you'd never have to contend with them, or brave their territory.
>What hell have you thrown yourself into?
>The fox moves into you.
>"Can we step aside for a moment?"
>Mary steps up and guides you further down the road away from the others where she casts a plainly worried look back in Lola's direction.
>"I don't think she's fit for command anymore."
"That's.. obvious."
>She looks down, ears wilting.
>"He's going to die out here.. There's nothing we can do for him. It's going to be hard on her but if anyone can pull through, it's her."
>Her honeyed eyes beam at you.
>"She's always been strong. But..."
>Pain fosters in her expression, something catches in her throat.
>You open your arms to her, and she pushes into you, resting her muzzle against your chest. Her shoulders close together while you bring yourself around her, cradling her head.
>She shakily breathes into you, fighting to hold back something powerful and morose.
>A warmth fades into you from her, even as your shoulders catch some of the hot draft from what's left of the bomber.
>That battered old steed you shared so much of your time together in.
>Neither of you say anything, now is not a moment for words. She just needs you to be there, to keep her together.
>Her shoulders slowly uncoil under your touch while you stroke her mane.
>Briefly turning your attention to the group, you find Talia with a lingering wetness in her eyes attempting to keep Moody engaged.
>What they're speaking of you can't guess at, but right now the poor kit in your arms just needs a moment to vent.
>You guess this means she's not going to hold anything against you, prompting a cool wash of relief over you.
>Leaning in, you feather her head with a soft kiss, she burrows into your arms a little further.
>"..I love you, you stupid bastard."
"I know."
>She shunts in breath steadying herself as she hesitantly pulls away from you and glides off to the others.
>With a calmer lilt to her voice she ushers the others towards moving on.
>"All right, get your stuff together. We are going into the trees and we're going to march until sundown, and then we'll keep going for at least a few hours before finding rest. We have to get as much distance from the crash site as we can, the bugs are going to be drawn here by the smoke."
>Moody glances up and sours.
 
>"We'd make more time on the roads."
>"We'd also be in the open, Lola. We need to keep to the woods, stay clear of the roads and especially any towns."
>The bird hauls herself upwards.
>"But it'd be easier to carry our wounded!"
>An ugly silence settles over the group, backed only by the crackling rush of the field burning behind you all.
>The others share wounded looks, all of them backlighting the same thing but nobody wants to be so brash, so cruel as to tell her off.
>"The roads would be easier, we can find a chance, right?"
>Eyes full of fool's hope, she looks to Devon. The bat empties his lungs and shakes his head.
>"I made an examination after our landing, his breathing is excessively shallow and I can barely read his pulse.. He had a chance *if* he was immediately evacuated to a proper hospital upon our return to base, but now that chance is gone."
>Tears well at her eyes, and she looms over Wight.
>"Don't you say it... Don't you say it."
>For his part, the chiropteran doesn't flinch.
>"At least he will pass comfortably."
>The eagle grimaces as tears stream freely from her eyes.
>"You cold, clit-nosed bastard! How could you say that?!!"
>She advances but Mary barks out.
>"It's the best way!!... We don't have the supplies, or shelter to care for him. The only thing we can do is make it painless."
>"You're thinking-!"
>"Yes! Because it's humane."
>"The hell it is, Duster! You're talking about putting down a man, our crewmate, our FRIEND. MY CAPTAIN!! Like he's just a sick animal!"
>The vixen stomps her boot against the dirt.
>"And what would you do?!! Drag him around behind us, putting all of us in danger while we have to slow down to tend him? Push him further and further, using up all of our supplies just to drag it out a day or two?! FORCE him to writhe in AGONY in his last hours!! That's sick!!! There is no saving him out here."
>"You expect me to take that while you play favorites?!" She levels an accusing talon in your direction.
>"We and Devon all have the highest marks at the range, I'm just being practical!"
>Moody shrieks, cutting into your ears.
>"You know what, you Devious little V-"
>"-STOP IT!! STOP FIGHTING!! WE'RE ALREADY IN DEEP ENOUGH SHIT THANKS TO- to..."
>Much to your surprise it was Talia bellowing at the top of her lungs. The cat collapses back down, a fountain dribbling from her snout as she snorts and huffs.
>"-Whatever goddamn nuke happy asshole sits at his desk while we get pulled to shreds in the wilderness. *snrf* You-*snf*-you just... What the hell is-... Neah! Euh,Hugh! Bea-hh. *snrf* Yhh-YH! We-. We're a-ghh.. Eeeeuuuuun-! We're all g-g-going to die out here!!"
>The little ocelot curls into a lump, bawling like a child as everything crashes through her worn out constitution.
>With the initiative curtailed from under her, all the fight seems to flee Moody, the tears returning as she stares down at the dead man to be.
>"I'm sorry, but it really is what's best. We can't haul him miles upon miles in any direction and expect him to pull through. At least this way he just... went to sleep and never woke up."
>Talia wails as Mark lowers himself to her, she lunges into him, trembling as she pours out hideous bewailments.
>Devon grimly packs everything into his pockets and awaits the rest of you to get your anguished feelings out.
>Despite however deeply this all pulls towards the hollows in your legs, you recognize the need to move on too. It wouldn't be long before they came looking.
 
>Away in the great distances deep behind the trees, something unholy croons into the open sky
*AhHhHgrgrrg-IehoooooooooOOOoo!!!*
>The cat's tail shoots between her legs as she scrambles under Smith, shaking like a kitten.
>"Wu-wuh-what the hell was t-that?"
>Mary restlessly scans the forest past the wreck, ears sweeping the West where the warbled howl came from.
>"They're coming. We have to go."
>Shakily, Talia lets herself be picked up and the lot of you shift towards an open channel into the forest, promising a long trek towards escape in the east.
>You stand watch while the others gather everything and ready to set off.
>Moody is left standing alone over the captain's gurney.
>"We can't even bury him..."
>The vixen steps close, a paw laying on the bird's shoulder.
>"There's no time."
>They share a look, the eagle haunts you with the hollowness growing behind her eyes.
>Mary's hand drifts near the holster anchored on her hip.
>"No!"
>Her hand is seized in a talon, Moody's tormented gaze asking a baleful request.
>The fox drifts her paw to Moody's holster, raising the silver of a lethal body and cupping it into Lola's hands.
>Dry, reddened eyes stare desperately back at her, one last whispered question on if it really had to be this way.
>Mary's own miserable gaze answers it for her as she peers down.
>"Say your goodbyes, big hen. We have to go."
>She leaves her there, standing with the pistol hanging in her questioning grip.
>A look only confirms what comes next.
>"Let's go..."
>She leads the way into the verdant green of this untouched wilderness, it's beauty muted by absentia.
>Your miserable little convoy folds in after her, Devon trailing the rear while you help the fox lead the way.
>Deeper and deeper into the shadows you wind, trailing through the wilting old pines and odd brambles of sleeping deciduous species.
>The sun begins to slink away behind slate clouds, and nothing scatters about the shrubs and speckled grasses to affirm you are not alone with the monsters.
>You cast one last look back, just to be sure that you're never going to see Beck again.
>What grains of peace are left are crushed by the blasting report of a pistol.
>Ears lower, shoulders hike, your heart drops. Talia grimaces and chokes in a sob.
>Mary trudges on, a bit more slowly.
>The forest carries the echo, an unfeeling whisper that nothing moves here anymore.
>Nothing *lives* here anymore.
>The shade does not harbor life from this world, not life from this strange, contentious little garden you call home.
>Instead nightmares feast on its graves, puppets born in hollow cages stalk the living through its cover. It can do nothing, or summon the will to even care.
>You travel on for a few more steps, and the air cracks.
>A second shot snaps across the silence...
>Talia shudders, her wailing begins anew as she stops, pouring her wounded soul into her hands.
>Mary ushers her onwards, hooking her arm under hers.
>"Come on, we have to go..."
>...
>"...We have to go."
>You dared into their skies and lost.
>Now you must go.
 
{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxr8Ef1PLZU}
 
[---------------------------------------------------------------Fin-------------------------------------------------------------------]