SAPR

by Scipio Smith

Boarding Action (New)

Boarding Action

"God's grace, look at that," muttered Fitzjames.

Ironwood frowned slightly as he looked at the image on the viewscreen. The image of one of Vale's two Mistralian-made battleships — the one that Polemarch Yeoh had not intrigued to keep out of Valish hands — hovering directly over the Valish Military Headquarters; the warship was centred directly over the building's courtyard, though it was so large that it protruded out past it on either side to loom over the streets below. Its great guns in their dorsal and ventral turrets were turned outwards on either side, joining the bristling array of broadside-mounted cannons.

It looked a formidable sight, a floating fortress protecting the heart of the Valish military.
Looks could be deceptive, but…

This wasn't something we planned on. The plan — Schnee and Ebi's plan — to storm the headquarters had relied on the fact that the only obstacles to an aerial insertion were the anti-aircraft guns mounted on the towers. Those now seemed an almost quaint concern given the preponderance of firepower just above them.

Which wasn't to say that the Zhenyuan was invulnerable; far from it: it was slow, slower to manoeuvre, and the sheer size of its engine block combined with the placement of its guns meant that its rear was almost a blind spot. His ships might be smaller and less heavily armoured, but he'd still bet on any one of his cruisers in a one-on-one fight. The problem wasn't the ability to defeat the Zhenyuan; it was what would happen afterwards as the immense stricken battleship plunged down onto the headquarters underneath. At best, it would crush the building beneath its bulk, burying the Valish high command under tons of rubble and debris — and while that might seem like a job well done, there would then be no one to order the Valish forces to stand down, not to mention the possibility that there was another way out that the Atlesians weren't aware of — where Ironwood's strike force couldn't get to them. At worst, the ship would explode, either on the ground or in the air, and shower debris not just down on the headquarters beneath but on the city all around it, causing untold levels of devastation. Whole city blocks would be affected, if not destroyed completely.

And it wouldn't get them any closer to their goal of stopping the Valish madness.

All of which meant that a fight with the Zhenyuan was out. The Valish had parked their bus in front of the touchdown line, and there was little the Atlesians could do about it.

"Sir," des Voeux said. "Major Schnee on the line, requesting to speak with you."

"Put her through," Ironwood said. "Schnee."

"Sir, Captain Ebi is patched through from his airship," Schnee said. "We've got bad news."

"I think I'm looking at the bad news now, Major," Ironwood replied. "The Zhenyuan?"

"Yes, sir," Schnee replied.

"I'm afraid a naval engagement is out of the question," Ironwood said. "If we destroyed the ship, we'd also destroy the aboveground portion of the Valish Headquarters and lose access to the targets."

"Understood, sir," Schnee said, her tone of voice impeccable, professional, and utterly inscrutable.

"Ebi, do you think you can evade their fire and land as planned?" Ironwood asked.

"I lead a charmed life, sir, but running a gauntlet of that much firepower might be pushing even my luck," Ebi said. "And I wouldn't give much for Elm and Vine's chances in the other airship. Or Major Schnee, for that matter. Can we not convert the airstrike to take out their guns, the way we intended to take out the tower defences?"

"That's a lot of guns to take out," Schnee observed.

"And if you take out enough of them, then the ship might go down," Ironwood muttered. "Which is the one thing that we don't want." He paused. They couldn't destroy the Zhenyuan, they couldn't proceed with it still there…

Therefore, whatever remains, however difficult, is our course.

"Des Voeux," Ironwood said. "Get Defender Lead on this line."

"Aye aye, sir," des Voeux said.

Defender Wing was the grouping of First Squadron's three Skybolt bomber squadrons: Guardian, Champion, and Warden. Guardian and Champion had been deployed just past Beacon, with Warden held back for now to support Schnee's assault on the Valish headquarters. Major Salm was the wing commander, and Ironwood thought it best to go through him on this rather than going straight to the commander of Warden Squadron.

It took less than five seconds for Salm's gruff voice to shoot into the Valiant's bridge. "Sir. That bombing run is going to be a little more difficult than anticipated."

"The plan has changed, Salm," Ironwood informed him. "Warden Squadron will make a limited attack on the Valish battleship, opening up a breach in the hull, if possible close to the bow and above the centreline. Once a breach has been created, Schnee, your team will board the Zhenyuan, take the bridge, and compel the crew to steer the vessel away from the headquarters, at which point, Warden Squadron will take out the anti-aircraft guns, and Ebi, your unit will assault as planned. You'll have to do without the diversionary attack from outside the building."

"Understood, sir," Ebi said.

"If there's a pilot left in Warden Squadron, sir, it'll get done," said Salm, indicating that he wasn't sure that there would be once they were through with the battleship. Ironwood couldn't blame his hesitation on that front; it was a rough job he'd assigned to them, but it had to be done, and Ironwood didn't want to risk the excess damage that might be caused by tasking a cruiser.

"What if the Valish crew won't be compelled, sir?" asked Schnee.

"Then you'll have to learn how to fly a battleship quickly, Schnee," Ironwood said.

"Yes, sir," Schnee said, her voice continuing to display a near-complete lack of emotion. "Regardless of whether we can use the Valish crew or not, where do you want the ship steered to?"

"Out to sea," Ironwood said. "I'm afraid you may have to hold the bridge against an angry crew if Ebi can't compel the Valish surrender in time; if you think that you're about to lose the ship, cut the engines and ditch it in the water. Any other questions?"

A chorus of negatives rose from Schnee, Ebi, and Salm.

"Then get it done," Ironwood replied. "Good luck, all of you. Ironwood out."

---

"Capturing a battleship, huh?" said Harriet Bree, her voice coming in over the comm from Clover's airship. "You'll be a real hero if you pull this one off, ma'am."

Winter snorted. "You're the one who's going to capture the Valish command staff and nip a new war in the bud."

"Yeah, but who cares about that?" asked Harriet. "Nobody remembers people who capture command posts, or even generals. They remember the general got captured, but not by who. But capturing a ship that size? With a handful of men? Now, that'll live forever."

"That'll do, Harriet," Clover said, affably but firmly all the same. "You think you can pull it off, ma'am?"

To hear Clover calling her ma'am felt strange, and not just because they were of the same actual rank — Winter's brevet had yet to turn into anything more substantial — but also because, of the two of them, Winter had expected him to make major first. Yes, she was in the privileged position of being close to General Ironwood, but Clover was the leader of the elite strike team, Clover was the man who could stand next to an exploding bomb and not get singed, Clover was the Vytal champion, Clover was the second coming of General Colton.

Clover was the man who made you feel inferior just by being in his presence.

So yes, it was very strange to hear him call her 'ma'am.' Now, she just had to prove herself worthy of it.

Worthy of her rank … and of her tarnished name.

Schnee pride did not sit so easily upon Winter as it did on Weiss. The august dignity of their family name was a bolero which suited her younger sister well, while on Winter's shoulders, it sat somewhat uneasily. Part of that was the mere fact of her being a soldier in the Atlesian military, a fact which was sufficient to render her an outcast as far as her father was concerned. Her decision to attend Atlas had prompted a blazing row between her and her father which had ended with Winter leaving home with a single suitcase and tears streaming down on her face; she'd stayed at a hotel, and then, after her father cut her off, General Ironwood had been good enough to let her start her stay at the academy early.

She still had the Schnee name, but having been stripped of the Schnee money, had the Schnee inheritance taken away from her and being denied any sort of backing from the Schnee patriarch, she had not had the opportunity or the will to conduct herself as 'a Schnee,' a superior being separate from the common run of mortal men. Those few toadies who had thought to cosy up to her on the basis of her name — 'Please, take my seat, Miss Schnee.' 'May I help you with anything, Miss Schnee?' — had soon learned there was no profit in it and left her alone, for which Winter was very thankful. She was a Schnee in name only.

Yet it was still her name. Her name, passed down to her from her illustrious grandfather, who might not have approved of her being a soldier — Mother had said that he would not, had claimed that Nicholas had seen too well what too much soldiering had done to his own father to wish it on his descendants, before she stalked out of the room to drown her sorrows — but would surely have respected that it was her decision to make for herself, not her father's. Her grandfather who, at the very least, would, she hoped, have respected her wish to do something for Atlas.

It was still her name, and her name was … not what it had once been.

The scandal had not touched Winter as it might have; one of the advantages of the fact that nobody really considered you a real Schnee was that the mud currently staining the Schnee name did not stick to her as it did to her father or, unfortunately, to Weiss. Nobody whispered about her in the mess, nobody accused her of collusion or complicity, she was … she was not a Schnee; she was an officer who just happened to be called Schnee as though it were a wholly unremarkable name, and to hold her to account for the actions of the Schnee family would seem as absurd as branding everyone with the same name as a serial killer as accomplices in the crime.

That advantage might mean that she could not restore the Schnee name for the same reason that its fall could not damage her: nobody would make the connection. Perhaps Harriet was right, and Winter would be acclaimed for her action tonight in taking the battleship, and none of it would resound to the credit of the Schnee name because the Schnee name did not belong to her in any part; she was not connected with it in the public mind. Perhaps Weiss, alone, could restore the Schnee name to its former glory, because Weiss was the only one capable of such who was still considered a Schnee. Perhaps what Winter did tonight would burnish up only her own personal glory and the glory of the Atlesian military.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps, after tonight, people might remember that she was not just named Schnee but a Schnee and think a little better of the name in consequence.

It was not something that Winter gave much thought to, as a rule, it was not one of her dearly cherished ambitions, but with her grandfather's name having sunk as it had, if she could lift it, then … perhaps it would make the old man smile, the way he used to smile when she was young.

And if not, at least she could tell herself that she'd done something important.

"If I don't do this," she said, "then we don't stop the Valish, and a war breaks out. So, yes, I'll get it done. Failure isn't an option. Major Salm, once your Skybolts have opened up a breach in the hull, I'll move in. I'll try and signal you once we've taken the Zhenyuan, but communications might not be possible; start your run on the towers once you see the ship begin to move away. Then Captain Ebi and his team can start their attack."

"Understood, Major Schnee," Salm replied. "Preparing to attack now."

---

The Atlesian AB-10 Skybolt was a simple design; Thunderlane had always thought that if you were to give a kid a pile of junk and ask them to build you an airship, then you would get something a lot like a Skybolt: a cardboard tube or plastic bottle for the body, straight, flat wings made of card or plastic or anything flat or rectangular, and two more cardboard tubes on either side of the fuselage — stuck on the wings, with the wings projecting out past them, but a kid would probably stick them underneath the wings because it was easier — for the engines. A kid might even draw snarling fangs or razor tusks — or fangs and tusks — on the nose, the way that Skybolts had them painted on. It was the kind of airship that his own little brother, Rumble, would have come up with. Legend had it that was how the Skybolt had been designed, by the young son of a harassed naval architect. Thunderlane didn't know if it was true or not, but he'd like to believe it.

About the only thing about the Skybolt that a kid wouldn't have come up with — and they would have come up with the massive gun slung underneath the nose, for sure, and the missiles underneath the wings — was the fact that the Skybolt was a two-seater. In this particular airship — Warden Seven — Thunderlane was the pilot, sitting up front, facing forwards, while Cloudchaser was his gunner, sitting in a turret just behind the cockpit, manning the twin twenty-millimetre autocannons to protect their tail.

She could fire forwards if necessary, but the tail was the real danger and the real reason for having a gunner in the first place.

"Okay, Wardens, form up, line abreast, two ranks by pairs," Major Salm's voice galloped into Thunderlane's ears through his helmet. "We are going to attack that Valish battleship."

"Did he just say 'battleship'?" Cloudchaser asked, turning around in her turret so that she could look momentarily forwards. "As in that battleship?"

"It's not like the sky is full of battleships," Thunderlane replied as he nosed their Skybolt forwards into line. As one of the lead airships, he was in the front rank, with Warden Eight — pilot was Flitter, gunner was her twin brother Flutter — tucking in behind his starboard wing.

The sky wasn't full of battleships, but in the direction in which they formed up — with Major Salm in his distinctive white Skybolt hovering in front of them — there was one very big battleship right there, in the sky, floating over what they'd been told was their original objective, the Valish HQ.

Because the Valish had decided to start something. Tonight of all nights — not that it wouldn't have been ridiculous any other night, picking a fight with Atlas as though Atlas hadn't been here all year to help them out, as if this was going to be anything but a one-sided beatdown — when they ought to have been celebrating, when they ought to have been having a good time, when Thunderlane and Cloudchaser ought to be down in that cosy hole in the wall place they'd found in Shepherd's Bush — gotta love these Valish place names — with the ice-cold beer and the handmade curry, commiserating over Atlas' defeat. Tonight, when they had been lucky enough to win the squadron draw to get liberty, the Valish had decided to start something.

That they'd decided to pick a fight with anyone was bad enough; that they'd decided to pick it with Atlas was even worse.

Don't we have enough enemies outside the walls?

Apparently not for the Valish; they just want to fight everyone.

Well, if that was what they wanted, then Atlas was … going to be kinda restrained about it all, actually; instead of just bombing everything they could reach, they were going to go after the generals who had decided to cause all this trouble for everyone else and leave the regular folks alone. Except the Valish generals must have seen that coming, hence the battleship hovering over their headquarters.

Even at this distance, Thunderlane could see why this might make it hard for the Skyrays to land with the assault team.

That ship had a lot of guns.

“Sir,” said Warden Lead, “I’m not sure we have the firepower to take that thing, even if we hit it with a full volley—”

“We’re not trying to take it out, Lead,” Salm informed her. “Our objective is to punch a single hole in that monster’s hull through which a team of Specialists will board and take the ship.”

“Board it?” Thunderlane asked. “You mean … like pirates?”

“Yaaar!” Flitter cried.

A ripple of laughter ran through the squadron, all of it emerging into Thunderlane’s ears.

“Honestly, Seven? Yes, it is a little like pirates,” Salm replied. “Or old-fashioned navy men, if that makes it seem more serious to you. The bottom line is, we can’t destroy the ship where it is because that will destroy the target beneath, which we don’t want, so we need to capture it and move it out of the way.” He paused for a second. “So that’s our job, to make a door for the Specialists. If you can, aim for the upper half, closer to the bow than the stern, but anything is better than nothing at all; the important thing is to breach its armour. Is that clear?”

“Yes sir!” the pilots chorused.

“I won’t pretend that this will be a cakewalk,” Salm said. “You can all see how many guns that ship has. It can put out heavy fire. But that fire will not be accurate, those guns are old and slow, and the fire control probably isn’t anything to write home about. So remember your training, don’t fly straight and level in the combat area, and pay attention to where their shells are bursting.”

Salm’s Skybolt inched forwards, toward the battleship and away from Warden Squadron.

“If we do this,” he said, “today will be a strange blip in history that no one can explain. If we fail, then tonight could be the start of a war between Vale and Atlas. Warden Squadron, in line by pairs, half speed, advance!”

“In line, half speed?” Cloudchaser said. “What is this, a cavalry charge or something?”

“I’m sure we’re going to speed up when we get closer to the target,” Thunderlane replied as he throttled the Skybolt to half speed. It wasn’t fast — even full speed on a Skybolt wasn’t the fastest; it was an airship built for power and survivability, not speed or agility — but it was enough to get them moving.

Warden Squadron advanced in a perfect line that would have made the flight sergeant instructor back in Atlas weep with pride, every airship keeping perfectly aligned with the airship on its wing, each airship keeping in formation with the one behind or ahead.

Thunderlane switched over to the wing-pair channel. “Hey, Flitter, Flutter, how do you feel about this?”

“Well, we’re in the toughest airship in the Atlesian fleet, so I like our chances,” Flitter replied. “I mean, they say you can lose both wings and one engine in one of these and still fly back to Atlas, right?”

“I heard it was two wings and both engines,” Flutter chimed in.

“Two wings and an engine on fire,” said Cloudchaser.

“Sounds like we don’t even need to bother trying to evade,” Thunderlane said. “We can take a couple of hits from those guns, no big deal.”

“Well, let’s not put the survivability of the Skybolt to the test unless we have to, huh?” asked Cloudchaser. “I mean you might as well try not to get hit.”

There was a moment of silence between the four of them. The battleship grew closer, but it didn’t fire. Either they were still out of range, or like Major Salm had said, the targeting was garbage and they were holding their fire until the Skybolts got a little closer.

Thunderlane looked at the target. Up top, near the bow, ideally. There were no obvious weak spots that he could see. It looked pretty heavily armoured all over. It was probably like the Skybolt: not fast, not nimble, built to survive, not to move.

So parking it above somewhere important was kind of ideal.

Still, it was old.

Mind, the Skybolt was no spring chicken either — it had been in service for about twenty, thirty years — it was just that nothing better had ever come along to replace it. Now, sure, Skydart pilots gave you all kinds of crap about flying a museum piece and how your airship should be relegated to giving joy rides at the county fair with all the other old relics, but screw them; this thing was still around because nothing better had come along yet.

Their target, on the other hand, was just old because it was old, because the Valish wanted to buy something from the Mistralians, and so, the Mistralians had dragged whatever old garbage they had out of the mothballs and sold it to the Valish.

At least, that was how Thunderlane understood it; that was how the scuttlebutt indicated it had gone down.

There was no comparison between his airship and that battleship, as Warden Squadron were about to make very clear.

There weren’t many guns on top, he noticed; yes, there were the big turrets — but those guns would have the hardest time aiming at a small airship like a Skybolt — but beneath the big gun turrets, on the side, there was a line running across the flank where there were no guns, before the broadside battery started further down. That was his target. That was where he was going to put his missile.

A shot erupted from the Zhenyuan, from a gun amidships, flying through the night air to burst just off Major Salm’s white Skybolt.

There was a moment of pause.

Then the side of the Zhenyuan was consumed with fire.

“Wardens, break by pairs!” Salm ordered. “All airships to maximum speed, attack at will!”

“Stay on me, Flitter,” Thunderlane muttered as he throttled up to top speed, his Skybolt surging forward through the sky. “Cloudchaser, Flutter, see if you can hit some of these shells before they hit us.”

“Small targets, but I’ll give it a try,” Cloudchaser muttered, and her autocannons cast a shadow over Thunderlane as she turned her turret to face front.

The Zhenyuan wasn’t firing every single gun it had at once; rather, it was staggering its fire, cycling it, so that despite what might be the ponderous reload times of some of those guns, especially the big ones, there were always some guns firing, always some shells being pumped out at the approaching Skybolts.

The night air was as bright as day from the bursting of the shells in air, explosions everywhere, winking in and out. The muzzles of the autocannons flared as Cloudchaser fired in controlled bursts; Thunderlane couldn’t tell if she was hitting anything.

“Three is down! Repeat, Three is down!”

“Six is hit!”

“I’m okay, I can keep going.”

Thunderlane gripped the stick with both hands, diving downwards as the shells burst above. Yeah, they were supposed to be aiming for a point above, but that was where the fire seemed thickest.

He dived, rolling a little as he dived, the nose of his Skybolt pointing towards the streets of Vale below.

The streets that were rising to meet them at speed.

“Thunderlane, what are you doing?” Cloudchaser asked.

“Thunderlane, you need to pull up,” Flitter told him.

“Seven, what are you doing?” Salm demanded.

“I’ve got an idea, sir, trust me,” Thunderlane said.

The streets of Vale, the tall skyscrapers of glass and steel, they were all coming up towards him, and coming up fast too for all that the Skybolt was not a fast airship; if it had been, he would have hit the deck by now. The streets were rising, but the shells weren’t falling; the Valish weren’t shooting at him, either because they weren’t so mad as to fire on their own city or because he was too low for their guns to target or simply because the rest of Warden Squadron was keeping them too busy, but they weren’t shooting at him. The shell bursts were all up above, where the rest of the squadron was dancing through the air, trying to penetrate an increasingly dense hedge of fire.

“We lost Twelve!”

“Major, that fire is too thick; it’s intercepting our missiles.”

Thunderlane pulled up, yanking the stick back hard. The Skybolt jerked, bucking in the air like a wild horse as it rose, shakingly for a second, then more smoothly as it soared upwards like an arrow.

An arrow aimed straight at the Zhenyuan.

Thunderlane was pointing his Skybolt straight towards the bottom of the battleship. Their guns still weren’t shooting at him; he was certain it was because he was in their blindspot.

If he’d wanted to, he could have blown a hole right in the bottom of the hull, but he had something else in mind.

“Flitter, you might want to break off for this.”

“Are you kidding? I’m not bailing on you now,” Flitter said. “I want to see how this ends, even if it ends with you going splat.”

Thunderlane laughed. “Okay then, hold on.”

He pushed the stick forwards, moments before he would have slammed into the hull of the Zhenyuan. Instead, he buzzed it, the top of Cloudchaser’s turret almost scraping the hull as he passed between the immense gun turrets.

The anti-air guns on the headquarters towers began to fire. Thunderlane saw the shots coming, tracer rounds lighting up the night; he heard — he felt — the shots striking home, slamming into the fuselage. He put his trust in the famed survivability of the Skybolt because there was really nothing else for it right now; stuck to the bottom of the battleship like he was, it wasn’t as though he had any chance to evade.

He pulled up, rising on the far side of the Zhenyuan, the starboard side, the side where there were no guns firing and the crew didn’t have time or attention to aim and fire at him as he rose past their turrets and casemates and over the big Valish battleship.

Thunderlane rolled in the air, turning his nose down once more.

He took aim, the reticle on his HUD fixed on the Zhenyuan.

“Warden Seven, missiles away,” he muttered as he tapped the control on the side of the stick twice.

Two missiles streaked down from beneath his wings, descending on the Zhenyuan from above to explode on the hull beneath the great gun turrets.

Thunderlane pulled up. “Flitter, Eight, can you confirm damage?”

There was a pause. “Damage confirmed!” Flitter cried. “Confirm hull is breached, hull is breached!” She whooped. “Way to go, Thunderlane!”

“All Wardens, fall back!” Salm commanded. “Congratulations, Seven. Now let the Specialists take it from here.”

---

Winter put a hand on the back of the pilot’s chair as she leaned forwards; her face was almost level with the pilot’s own. “We have an entry point,” she said. “Take us in.”

“Aye aye, ma’am,” the pilot said. She paused for a second before she added, “You might want to hold onto something; this could get a little rough.”

Winter nodded and stepped back, retreating out of the cockpit and into the main compartment of the Skyray.

“Warden Squadron has opened up a door for us,” she informed her team. “Now it’s up to us to walk through it — and deal with whatever we find on the other side.”

Kermes whooped. “Go Team Warlock! We ride again!”

The corner of Winter’s lip turned upwards in a smile. When General Ironwood had given her the choice of a Specialist team for what had, at that point, been envisaged as a diversionary attack on the outside of the Valish HQ, there had only been one team that she wanted: Aurelius Cornwall, Lavender Danceflower, and Kermes Mules. They had been her team when she had been at Atlas Academy: Team WALK, pronounced ‘Warlock.’

Aurelius Cornwall had a prosthetic leg — he always had, even when he’d been a first-year student, even when they had met up during Initiation — unlike many with a prosthetic, he hadn’t lost the leg anywhere; he’d just been born without. He was a pretty average-looking young man, handsome in an unremarkable way — much like Weiss’ partner, Flash Sentry — with dark hair cut short in a martial style, a firm jaw, high cheekbones. He wore a red jacket instead of the more usual Atlesian white, with gold facings, although he did have a white waistcoat on beneath and white crossbelts across his chest. His trousers were a tin grey, and there was more gold lining his high boots. He wore a sword — an infantry sabre, with a slender blade — at his hip, and across his knees rested a semi-automatic rifle with a fixed bayonet.

Lavender Danceflower was a tall young woman, almost as tall as Winter herself, with bright yellow hair dyed blue and pink at the tips which hung above her shoulders. She wore a green dress underneath a white jacket, with a skirt that didn’t quite reach her knees, and more blue and pink dancing around the hem in a pattern that looked like both leaves and hearts at the same time. Her stockings, which covered her legs up to and beyond the hem of the skirt, were as yellow as her hair, and her boots were a yellow-brown colour that put Winter in mind of wax. She had a staff, with a large yellow lightning dust crystal set at its tip and various pouches on the brown belt that clinched her waist.

Kermes Mules had been Winter’s partner; when they’d been at the Academy together, she had frequently complained of her poverty, but she seemed to be doing well enough at least to have replaced her shoes. She’d owned a truly tatty pair of red boots that had been falling apart by their fourth year at Atlas, but Kermes would not get rid of them; she’d said that she couldn’t get rid of them. But they were gone now, replaced by a brand new pair of bright red boots, so new that there was still a shine on the leather and not a scuff or crumple to be seen. She wore no jacket, only a white blouse which — like the string of white pearls around her neck, another sign of her greater prosperity if they were real — contrasted with the darkness of her complexion, and left her arms bare down to the white bandages wound around her hand and wrists up towards the elbow. Kermes preferred to fight with fists and feet than with weapons — so those boots probably wouldn’t be staying so immaculate for very long — but she did have a pair of revolvers shoved into the black belt at her waist.

“Yes, Kermes, we ride again,” Winter said. “Or should that be 'dance again'?”

Kermes laughed. “Well, we’re certainly gonna get on down on that Valish ship, right? And maybe when we’re done, Lav can get on the piano like in the old days, and Aurelius can refuse to dance, just like in the old days.”

“It was more fun watching you two dance,” Aurelius said.

“I can’t decide whether that sounds sad or creepy,” said Lavender. “But I tell you what, if we make it through this mission, I’ll play the piano for you all night and the next day.”

“You don’t think we’re going to make it?” asked Kermes, sounding disappointed.

“It’s the four of us against an entire battleship,” Lavender pointed out. “It’s … a little nuts, right?”

“So was me finding out I had a rich aunt who’d left me all her money,” Kermes said. “But that happened.”

Lavender’s eyebrows rose. “I don’t think that’s in quite the same league.”

“Maybe not, but we’re going to do it all the same,” Winter declared. “General Ironwood is counting on us. Counting on me. General Ironwood is counting me, and I am counting on all of you to help me not let him down.”

Kermes grinned. “Well, when you put it like that, Winnie, how can we fail? We wouldn’t want to let you down in front of the General, would we? Although I think we should get some medals for our gallantry when all this is over.”

“That will depend on what my report has to say about your gallantry,” Winter replied.

Kermes and Aurelius were sitting on one side of the Skyray, Lavender alone on the other. Winter sat down next to Lavender and strapped herself into the bench on which they sat. And just as well, too, because the airship began to move violently, erratically, jerking from side to side, diving and then pulling up again, as outside the ship, they could hear the explosions from the shells bursting around them.

“I apologise that this isn’t the mission you were selected for,” Winter said, raising her voice to be heard over the shellfire without shouting. “But this is of vital importance, much moreso than a diversionary assault would have been. We need to get this ship out of the way before Clover’s team can move in.”

She and Lavender both flinched as a shell fragment tore through the side of the Skyray just beside, ripping through the door and flying through the intervening space to fly out of the other door as well — Kermes and Aurelius flinched too when that happened.

Moments later, the whole Skyray jerked, and red warning klaxons began to sound in the cockpit.

“We took a hit to one engine,” the pilot called to them. “But don’t worry, I’ll land you there in one piece.”

“Understood,” Winter said. “This is why we need to move that ship. The good news is that we don’t have to clear the whole ship of Valish sailors; we only need to secure the bridge and fly the ship from there.”

“Do we know where to find the bridge?” asked Aurelius.

“The Zhenyuan has a very traditional design,” Winter informed him. “The bridge is at the top of the ship, close to the bow. That’s why Warden Squadron was instructed to focus their efforts there, to give us the least amount of distance to our objective.”

“What kind of opposition can we expect?” asked Aurelius.

“Unknown,” Winter answered. “We don’t know how well the Valish have manned the ship—”

“Those aren’t robots manning all those guns, right?” Kermes said. “I mean, a ship that old, the guns must be manual; they aren’t firing those weapons from the bridge.”

“A good thing, they’re too far away to get in our way,” Lavender said. “But just because the guns are being manned doesn’t mean they have a lot of ship security. That they managed to find enough sailors for the guns doesn’t mean that they found enough marines to secure it as well. I don’t expect heavy opposition.”

“You should always expect heavy opposition,” Aurelius said. “That way—”

“You’re never disappointed,” chorused Lavender, Kermes — and Winter, too.

“It’s like I’ve never been away,” Winter murmured.

“You know it, Winnie!” Kermes cried. “And hey, if the Valish blow us out of the sky or overwhelm us with sheer numbers, I want you guys to know I’m glad that we get to do this together, as a team.” She smiled. “I’ve missed this.”

Nobody replied to that, but Lavender smiled, and Winter … well, it did feel a lot like being back at school again. In a good way.

“Ten seconds out from the objective!” called the pilot. “You’d better be prepared for a quick exit.”

Winter reached with one hand for the buckle on her restraint but didn’t unclasp it, not yet. She began to count: one, two, three — the airship was still shaking, still bucking in the air, dancing through the fire aimed towards it — four, five, now, Winter unfastened herself and stood up.

The rest of her team did likewise.

They all reached for the safety straps that hung from the ceiling.

Winter conjured a quartet of black glyphs beneath their feet to keep them from slipping and sliding across the airship, slamming into the walls.

The Skyray turned sharply, then stopped moving. The door on the right-hand side of the airship opened, letting in a lot of smoke from the burning engine outside, but revealing through the smoke the hole that Warden Seven had blown in the hull of the Zhenyuan.

It was a large tear, almost as large as the Skyray, a jagged rent in the green armour plating, a window torn open to show the wooden interior of the warship within.

There was a distance between the two airships, but nothing of any concern to them.

“Let’s go!” Winter shouted, her glyphs dissolving as she was the first to leap across the chasm of empty air that separated them. She landed heavily upon the wood floor with a thump, then scrambled out of the way of the others. Kermes was the first to follow, her new red boots squeaking a little on the floor, then Aurelius landed with a heavy thud, then Lavender last of all, landing so lightly that she seemed to make no sound at all.

Winter drew her sabre from her waist, and then, from the hilt of the sabre, she drew her dagger, holding it in her off hand. Kermes drew both pistols, Aurelius held his rifle to his shoulder, and Lavender gripped her staff in both hands.

Their Skyray began to turn, presenting its back to them as it flew away. The airship was illuminated by the fires of the shells bursting around it as it headed back the way it had come, towards the safety of—

The Skyray burst into flame as a direct hit from the Valish ship tore the fragile hull apart. It was only burning fragments that fell down to the city below.

“Damn,” Kermes muttered. “They got us in, and then they … damn it!”

“They did what they had to do,” Aurelius said. “They gave us a chance.”

“I know,” Kermes said. “But still…”

“Let’s move,” Winter said, gesturing with her sabre towards the bow of the ship. “The bridge should be in this direction.”

“They know about the Skyray,” Lavender said. “They probably know we’re here.”

“Then let’s not give them time to come to us,” Winter declared.

She led the way, her black boots squeaking softly on the wooden floor — wooden floor! On an airship! — as she walked down corridors that, aside from being made of wood, were as bare and austere as anything on an Atlesian cruiser. But an Atlesian cruiser would have been brighter, with overhead lights reflected off the pristine white surfaces of the walls and floor, whereas this corridor was oppressive and dark, with only fire dust crystals set in sconces on the walls to offer any illumination at all. The shadows were heavy and seemed to surround them as they moved.

The corridors were tight, and the walls were flat and offered no cover whatsoever. They might almost have been designed to catch intruders in a confined space where they could be gunned down.

And it might have worked for the squad of Valish troops who appeared at the end of the corridor, had they been facing enemies other than huntsmen, and Atlesian Specialists at that.

The Valish troops — they might be Royal Marines, but Winter couldn’t say for sure — were first visible by their shadows, but the men and women themselves appeared almost immediately after, some kneeling, others standing, all of them bending around the corners on either side to send a flurry of fire from their rifles hurling down the corridor.

Winter twirled her dagger and her sword in front of her, deflecting some of the bullets, feeling others strike her and rip pieces off her aura.

“Summon cover!” Winter shouted as she dropped to one knee, jamming the tip of her sabre into the wooden floor.

She could hear Aurelius and Kermes both firing over her head as Winter conjured a blue white glyph around her planted sword.

She summoned a murder of tiny nevermores, larval grimm, each one no larger than a pigeon: dangerous alone to an untrained civilian; in a group, capable of tearing aura to shreds if they weren’t interrupted. She had killed these particular nevermores in Initiation, when she and Kermes had stumbled into their nest. They were not her strongest summon, but against many enemies like this —even if some of their enemies were down already, taken out by well-placed shots — they were invaluable.

The murder of nevermores swirled around her for a moment, swarming her, just as they had done when she first blundered into them, except that they didn’t attack. They were saving that for her enemies.

Winter drew her sword from out of the floor and brandished it at the Valish soldiers.

The little nevermores flew towards them, spectral white wings beating violently.

For a moment, they consumed the corridor mouth; Winter couldn’t see anything but the white of the nevermores that she had summoned.

Then they split into two groups, and the shooting stopped, and the screaming began.

The team advanced rapidly, emerging out of the corridor to find all the Valish troops dead; those that hadn’t been shot looked as though they had pecked to death by a hundred angry beaks or torn up by small but razor-sharp talons.

Winter’s summoned nevermores hovered over them, some of the spectres dropping down to harass the bodies.

“I’d forgotten how vicious they were,” Kermes observed.

Winter let the summoned creatures fade into nothingness; with no more immediate enemies, there was no point in letting the summoning consume more of her aura than necessary. She looked left and right, wondering which path to take. She decided to go right, although she would admit that she had no grounds for it beyond a vague instinct.

Turning right, and then taking the next right as the corridor turned, brought her team to an elevator shaft, a gaping black hole that led only downwards — the ceiling of the shaft was visible, with no option to go upwards.

The bridge was at the top and the bow, but did that mean the very top of the ship or might it be down just a little?

“This … we’ll go back the way we came,” Winter said. “If the left turning leads to another shaft like this, then the bridge must be down; if not, we’ll keep going until we can’t go any further, and only then can we be sure the bridge wasn’t on this level.”

Kermes nodded. Neither Lavender nor Aurelius said anything about her having gone the wrong way; they didn’t hold it against her that her instinct had been wrong this once.

Schematics would have been good, but the layout of a pair of Mistralian museum pieces had not been something that had interested Atlesian intelligence, for obvious reasons.

They were lucky to have a vague idea of where the bridge was.

They retraced their steps, passing over the dead bodies of the Valish troops, taking the path that led to the left, rounding a corner, and another. They kept moving quickly, their footsteps echoing on the dark wood.

Winter stopped as she heard footsteps approaching. Metal footsteps, by the sound of it, and moving quickly too, a swift pitter-patter of clattering feet drawing closer to their position.

“Get ready,” she hissed, dropping to her knees to give Kermes and Aurelius the opportunity to fire over her. She didn’t start to summon anything, but she held her sword ready to summon, if need be.

The metallic footsteps drew closer. A metallic … metallic dog seemed like the best word for it, although there wasn’t much that was doglike about it beyond the fact that it was a little small and walked on four legs. But it had no head, just a black oblong body and those little stubby legs, and some loose exposed wires connecting them.

There was a hissing sound from somewhere, and Winter flinched as something hit her. It was armed? Where? She couldn’t see a weapon.

But something hit her again as more of the robots rounded the corner, advancing more slowly now down the corridor, a mass like hunting hounds, like the hounds that Mother sometimes took out with her when she wasn’t so concerned with whether she brought her trophy back alive or not.

Kermes and Aurelius both opened fire, but the robots seemed to be made of sturdy stuff, and their bullets simply ricocheted off the black bodies without appearing to do any visible damage.

The robots kept advancing.

“Let me!” Lavender declared as she leapt over Winter’s head, her staff twirling in her hands before she slammed it, butt down, into the wooden floor.

Lightning burst out from the crystal at the tip of the staff, striking the walls, flaying the floor, hitting the robots as they advanced. Yellow lightning struck each and every one of them, leaping from robot to robot, returning for a second strike, cascading back and forth up the swarm of robots that had stopped advancing and only jerked, and shuddered, and then collapsed onto the ground in a gently twitching heap.

The lightning ceased as Lavender spun her staff in one hand. “Gets them every time.”

“Awesome work,” Kermes said. “But since when do the Valish use robots?”

“Maybe they’re MARS robots and came with the ship?” suggested Aurelius.

“They don’t have MARS written on them,” Lavender observed, kneeling down to get a better look at one. “Although there is this gold star here.”

“It doesn’t matter where they came from,” Winter declared. “They’ve been dealt with, that’s all. Let’s keep going.”

She took the fact that they were meeting additional layers of security as a sign that they were moving in the right direction, and her suspicions — her optimism — were confirmed as the corridor straightened out, all corners disappearing and presenting a straight shot towards a sealed door. Unlike the floor or the walls, this door was made of metal, presumably because even the Mistralians realised that a wooden door wasn’t very secure.

There wasn’t any obvious handle or button or way to open the door, but there was a guard standing before it: a single woman, tall and muscular, with high cheekbones and sunken cheeks, wearing a black tanktop and camouflage trousers, with martial boots upon her feet. Her hair was black and shaved on the back and sides, leaving only a thick but modest Mohawk on top of her head, like a strip of grass left untouched by the mower that had cut everything else.

Her arms were toned and corded with muscle, and she had a chainsaw in one hand.

In the other, she had a baton that glowed red; it was probably loaded with fire dust.

“Four of you, huh?” she purred. “My, isn’t this gonna be fun?”

“One of you?” Kermes asked. “You’re no Valish soldier; you’re a huntress.”

She flashed her teeth. They were pearly white. “Guilty as charged, honey.”

“So what are you doing joining in with this crap?” Kermes demanded. “Isn’t this just Valish military insanity?”

“This isn’t about any kind of insanity,” the huntress declared. “This is about Vale, and it’s about you and how you keep taking from us and taking from us and grinding our faces into the mud with your—”

“I’m sorry I asked now,” Kermes muttered. “Yeah, yeah, I’m sure you’re very upset, but can we skip all the blah blah blah and get to the part where I kick your ass?” She looked at Winter. “With your permission, Major.”

Winter gestured to their huntress opponent. “Be my guest.”

The huntress scowled. She revved her chainsaw. “There’s no way you’re getting past me in one piece.”

“Hey, we may look young and beautiful, but we’re not some team of students the General picked out for our potential,” Kermes said. She started to dance on the balls of her feet, her red boots moving almost as if they were independent of the rest of her, tapping on the wooden floor as Kermes darted from side to side, fists raised. “We’re officers, so don’t get cocky.”

“Ooh, officers,” the huntress said. “I suppose you’re those Atlesian Specialists they make so much fuss about. Well, I’ve wanted to try my luck against one of—”

Kermes moved before she could finish. Her feet were a blur, Kermes feet were always a blur; it wasn’t just that she was fast, it was that her feet seemed to take three steps where one would do and do it faster than most people would with only a single step. The squeaking of her boots was gone, replaced by a tapping sound like tap dancing, like a chorus of tap dancers as Kermes closed the distance to her opponent.

Her feet were a blur, but they became visible as she landed a roundhouse kick into the side of the Valish huntress.

The huntress gasped and swung her fire dust baton. Kermes ducked, letting the baton pass over her before she danced behind the huntress and kicked her again, knocking her forwards. She followed up with a series of punches all into her back, continuously forcing the huntress to stagger onwards.

The huntress managed to turn, to swing her chainsaw, but it was a ponderous swing, and Kermes retreated quickly from it, let it pass, and then counterattacked. She threw punches at the huntress’ stomach, then darted around her to land two kicks, one to the ribs, one to the hip.

Another kick cut her legs out from under her and dumped her down on the wooden floor. Her chainsaw fell from her hands. Kermes picked it up before she could recover it, and a manic light entered her eyes as she brought the growling weapon down upon its former owner.

The huntress squirmed and wriggled on the floor — Kermes planted one red boot upon her hand — before her aura broke, a grey ripple running up and down her body.

Kermes kicked the huntress in the head, snapping it sideways and leaving her lying motionless on the deck. She dusted off her hands.

“I’d say your luck wasn’t very good,” she observed.

Lavender groaned.

“Come on, she asked for that one,” Kermes insisted.

“Good work,” Winter said. “Still got it, I see.”

“You know it,” Kermes said. “I can try and punch through this door for you, if you like? Think the bridge is on the other side?”

“I’m certain of it,” Winter said. “But I have another idea for that. Aurelius, when the door is broken, I want you to take point, take out any guards on the bridge itself. Make sure you have a full magazine.”

Aurelius nodded, and reloaded his rifle, slamming a fresh mag into place and chambering a round.

He raised the rifle to his shoulder, although there was nothing to take aim at.

Winter herself brandished her dagger at the sealed door. It was hard to see, but there was a little light blue hardlight dust in the pommel; although not nearly as obvious or as large an amount as Weiss carried in her sword, nevertheless, it was enough for the large laser glyph that she conjured up behind her.

A single glyph, firing a single concentrated beam that blew a hole clean through the armoured door.

Aurelius was moving before the beam had even faded, leaping through the breach and landing nimbly on the other side. His rifle barked again and again as he switched from target to target, turning his attention from one side of the room to the other.

By the time that Winter and the others followed him in, six bodies of soldiers or marines with rifles lay on the ground, and Aurelius was training his rifle on everyone who remained.

The bridge was a semicircle, with no viewscreens but a large window looking out on the night sky and the city beyond. The semicircle was ringed with consoles, at which Valish sailors in light green stood, although they were all looking in shock at Aurelius, and then at his comrades. No one was sitting down except the captain, a middle-aged man with a white beard, who sat in the centre of the room.

Another man, younger but also bearded, stood beside him. Winter guessed he was the second in command.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Winter said. “My name is Major Winter Schnee of the Atlesian forces, and this ship is ours.”

“It is not!” the captain declared, rising from his seat. “This is a ship of the Valish Royal Navy, and we will never—”

He stopped, because Kermes had just shot him.

She kept her pistol out, running it around the bridge. “Does anybody else feel like being a hero? Does anyone else want to get up on their hind legs and make a speech?”

“Kermes,” Winter murmured disapprovingly.

“I’m sorry, Win, but we don’t have time for this crap,” Kermes spat. “Listen up, folks, my friend here comes from a good family, and she excelled in all her classes, even etiquette. But I’m not from a good family, and I flunked etiquette class, so I’m going to give it to you straight: either you steer this ship where we tell you, or you can join your captain and your guards; speaking of which, kick those rifles this way out of temptation, all of them, come on. Now!”

The crew kicked the rifles across the wooden floor in their direction.

The presumable first officer tugged on his tunic. “What … what is your heading, Major Schnee?”

Comments

[Kiue Jin]

All Winter needs now is a big, fancy hat and she's on her way to being an Admiral.

[AngelicTitan]

Winter now has her own ship! Even though it’s a piece of crap, old as hell, and having wood flooring. She’s climbing up the world!
Now that’s a good chapter as we explore more and more different types of action as the Battle of Vale progresses, and we approach new challenges. That was a cinematic fight, with the way that the old ship fired upon the smaller ones in waves and how the infiltration came to occur. I hope we see more of Winter later on, she’s always a delight.

[Mastermind4892]

With this, the rogue military is without its only two cruisers. If we’re lucky, we’ll still be able to use this ship against the inevitable Grimm horde… and the dragon. We’ll need all the firepower we can get.

In the meantime, outstanding work, Winter! You deserve your moment in the spotlight! Tonight, you efficiently and effectively played a vital role in stopping this madness as well as a war. You’ve done well to make your name your own tonight. You’ll be given medals for this as a proper hero, and your father will hate you for it. Hehe, I’m sure that’s a good bonus for you.

[Stet709]

Nicely done, Winter! Having those airships under Atlesian control will make Sunset's eventual infiltration even easier.
... Even if the Ace Ops are planning their own infiltration, it seems.

That does make me wonder if Sunset and Councillor Emerald will cross paths with the Ace Ops (and Colonel Skybeak) or if Sunset will use the Ace Ops' direct infiltration as a distraction for her more covert one. If they do meet up, I hope the Ace Ops don't dismiss Sunset just because 'she's just a kid'. Maybe Ironwood will vouch for her saying "Professor Ozpin trusts her, and I trust Professor Ozpin." Plus, there's the point that Sunset's got in and out the base successfully already.

[Snowdrifter]

Avast!
Cleave to Rhe Code, me hearties.
A fine hat and one ship, she be Captain.
Now, a second ship and a truly great hat, she be a Commodore.

🥧 🐀

[Thisguyhere]

“You mean … like pirates?”

“Yaaar!” Flitter cried.

i.postimg.cc/MpqyJVgy/YAR.png

[RanmaChaos]

A fantastic chapter