Burning Skies Saloon

[Skyraider]

*A buzz can be heard from the radio, but there is only a handful of people who know what frequency Zill uses. Of course, a familiar voice is then heard over the radio, its Sky*

"Ho' boy, looks like you got yourself into some trouble there Zill! On your mark I can dive on these swabies and put them out of their misery!"

*The grunting of an engine is heard right when he finished*

"Ack, I hate sandstorms! This plane can barely keep aloft by itself with two engines!"

[RearAdmiralZill]

-Then it was fixed again-

Zill swung his long side to the enemy and ordered the guns loaded, despite the sand. They were still a ways out and only managing close mercury shots. He heard Sky on the airwaves and responded.
"Damn if you don't have good timing. Let us open up and that can be your signal to start a run. Just don't get yourself killed. As for you Lauren, don't raise anchor and tell your boyfriend to get firing."

Zill helped load the mercury with charged rounds and fired the first round himself to start the battle off proper. Jun was keeping everything alive, and the rest fired a first volley, missing in the dense sand.

[Skyraider]

*Sky sees where the shots lead, and spots a raider Junker out of formation, trying to get a broadside. Sky proceeds to fly straight over the top and begins to go into a deep dive. He taunts as the dive siren activates.*

"Death from above!"

*37mm bullets rain down on the raider ship, destroying the starboard engine and disabling the two weapons on that side. As Sky flies under the airship, its port side opens up with a Gatling and flak. Flak explodes all around Sky's plane but not close enough to even put a dent into the engine.*

"He's disabled, going around for another dive attack!"

[Yiski]

--M'Naghten Returns--

Lauren ignored Zill's 'boyfriend' comment. Instead of keeping anchor, she quickly raised one of the two and let the strong winds turn the ship to where the right mercury was bearing. Lauren quickly drops the raised anchor again, giving the ship some stability.

Yiski watches Skyraider do dive runs as Lauren swings the ship around to bear the mercury rifles. Yiski was expecting the lumberjacks to be facing, but the winds had picked up to a point where bearing the forward to the raiders would cause his ship to drift into the sandstorm. Lauren calls over to Yiski.

"I can't bear the ship anymore than this! You'll have to make the most out of it!"

Yiski rushes to the side mercury and loads two tungsten rounds. Yiski calls over to all on-board before firing.

"I need four of you on the turnin' engines! Those engines need to be buffed five minutes ago! Everyone else, make sure we stay afloat!"

As soon as Yiski finished barking orders, he fired the first shot at the fast approaching squids. The wind causes the shot to veer hard left. Yiski quickly calibrates the mercury's scope and fires another shot. This time it hits, but only manages to graze the engine.

"It's a start at least."

Meanwhile, BrdLine, Roland, and two other crew engineers started buffing the engines in order to give Lauren more maneuvering to get the front guns bearing.

Yiski loads another two rounds into the rifle, adjusts a bit more, and fires. The first rounds managed to hit one of the approaching squid's main engine. The squid was only 500 meters away when the shot landed. The squid started veering and barely missed the ship. While it could have avoided the sandstorm it was now approaching by putting all power in reverse, the dead main made the difference and the squid was soon swallowed by the sandstorm.

"Not how I expected to kill the squid, but I'll take what I can get."

[RearAdmiralZill]

-Then it was fixed again-

Lumberjack shots rained on the junkers, a few hits here and there kept them busy on damaged balloons. The remaining charging squid seemed to have too much speed, and was headed right into Zill's ship. He sprinted to the helm and cursed under his breath. He released his anchors and popped hydrogen. The squid ran straight under and into the storm. Zill quickly dropped the anchors again, only losing 300m between him and the storm.
"Get my engines up! Paradox, get the lead out of your ass!

PapaP yelled a curse as he ran to the back engines. Shink did what he could on the lumberjack keeping the junkers occupied. Zill let the boat in throttle and jumped on the gun again, loading tungsten rounds. He held his breath and fired. It grazed his target's hull. He let fly his second shot, piercing the hull and igniting the ammo reserves. That with a lumberjack shot sent it flaming to the ground. Jun'ko squealed with excitement.
"You got em!"

"Aint out of the sand yet."

[Skyraider]

As Sky turned to pick on the lone Junker, he switches to HE Incendiary ammo, and aims directly at its powder magazine. Once he was at the tip of the dive he carefully aimed his shots and fired. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. The dive was complete and he pulled away from the Junker. At first, nothing happened. Then a fire broke out around where the ammo is stored. Then a deafening explosion rips the Junker into two pieces, which then collapse apart. Sky responds.

"Well that went up! Sadly I am running low on cannon ammo. I ne-"

He was cut short as a flak shot explodes close to the rudders of the plane. The plane begins to spin out of control towards the ground.

"I've been hit, hard!"

"Focus, or this can cost you your life."

Instead of trying to correct the plane, he relaxed and was tossed around his cockpit helplessly, then the plane straightened out. He managed to pull up just in time before hitting a sand dune. He took a deep breath and said.

"I just mowed my lawn, I meant to do that."

[Yiski]

--M'Naghten Returns--

Yiski and the other on the ship see Skyraider barely pull up before crashing. Lauren yelled over the radio.

"I don't think we've met yet, but thanks for the assist and takedown."

Lauren then pulled one anchor up and gave the ship a hard port turn. The now buffed engines and wind started spinning the ship around to have the back facing, then port. When Lauren finally dropped the anchor again, the front lumberjack was finally facing front. The downside to her maneuver was it made the ship much more susceptible to the strong winds and would make shots harder to aim.

"Yiski I hope you can still manage shots while in a hellhole!"

Yiski pulled the cover off the lumberjack and jumped in the seat with lesmok rounds preloaded. The remaining two junkers were roughly 1.5 kilometers out. Seeing three of their ships sink without landing a single shot, the remaining two attempted to turn tail and run. The narrow profile of the retreating junkers just made it more difficult to hit now.

Yiski took a deep breath and exhaled.

"Same wind speed, distance 1.5 kilo and gaining, account for arc, account for muzzle velocity, and..."

Yiski rang out the five shots loaded. The first three shots veered and missed completely, but the last two shot hit the closer of the two junkers. With the earlier shots landed by Shink and Paradox, the junker's balloon gave out. The tattered remains got caught in the winds and immediately slammed the junker into the ground.

Before either ship could get a decent marking on the last junker, it had already left the ships' effective engagement ranges.

Now with one danger down, Lauren had to fight against the wind again. The ship was broadside against the wind which started causing the ship to drift, dragging the two anchors. Lauren quickly adjusted the anchors again to position the ship in a state with minimal drifting.

While the rest of the crew were still keeping the engines running, Yiski went up to the helm and called over to Zill.

"So should we avoid sayin' said line?"

"Flak Yiski. What do you think?"

Yiski doesn't react to the sarcastic comment and turns to Lauren.

"Not bad."

Yiski couldn't tell, but the comment made Lauren heart skip a beat.

[Skyraider]

*Sky barely manages to regain his lost altitude and flies toward M'Naghten Returns. Glad he didn't become part of the ground he responds.*

"Wait, who exactly are you, and what are you doing with Yisk's boat? Choose your next answer carefully."

*Sky flies around the ship in a circle, waiting for an answer.*

[Yiski]

--NARRATOR--

Yiski watches Skyraider circle overhead M'Naghten Returns and head immediately for the helm.

"Sky... before you do anythin' idiotic which could lead to the loss of my ship, let me introduce you to Lauren. Long story short, we were together once and I thought she was dead, but isn't."

"How do I know she isn't forcing you to say that?"

Yiski was pinching the bridge of his nose and said the following calmly.

"By the skies Sky, if you so manage to place a single scratch on my ship, I will somehow get myself in front of your face and strangle you."

Skyraider thought for a moment.

"Alright, I believe you."

"Good. You might want to head back to Parrin and get fixed up. Don't think you'll last much longer in this storm."

A few moments of radio silence before Yiski saw Skyraider break off and head back towards Parrin. As Skyraider was gaining distance...

"Save a spot for me on the cruise ship."

Yiski laguhed.

"Will do."

With Skyraider dealth with Yiski had other concerns. The sandstorm wasn't letting up and the light was fading. If there was one thing all crewmen were taught was this: Never stay in the skies at night during a sandstorm. There were horror stories from crewmen and pilots ranging for all experiences under this topic. An overnight sandstorm keeps the entire crew awake and a tired crew makes mistakes... fatal mistakes.

Yiski and Zill had a choice to make: Risk the storm or fly back to Parrin. While flying back to Parrin would be the most sensible option, the two men did not have the best reputation there, something about wiping out a portion of the town population because it was a haven for raiders.

Yiski calls over to Zill.

"You know we gotta go through right?"

"Flak... I know."

Yiski yells over to the entire crew.

"I need all crews to keep the engines alive! We're forcing our way through! Get the guns covered and brace for sand!"

Zill relayed similar instructions on Then It Was Fixed Again and soon the two ships found themselves in the middle of a raging sandstorm. Even with the additional clothing cover, many crewmen had to duck and cover in whatever shelter could take the brunt of the flesh-rending sandstorm.

Minutes felt like hours as Lauren and Zill flew blind. The engineers on both struggled to keep the engines running. Over the screaming and whistling winds, one could almost hear BdrLine screaming at how much damage the engines were taking.... almost.

Over the course of an hour, the two ships managed to find themselves on the other side of the sandstorm. With some additional luck absent earlier, they found Nalm within sight. Yiski called down to determine whether there were any injuries from flying through. Fortunately, a handful of crewmen had small bleeding cuts and the worst had a open gash on his leg. Zill had similar reports on his end.

Another thirty minutes and the group find themselves finally docked at Nalm. Given their large numbers, they disembarked the ships and held up in a nearby inn. The injured crewmen got treatment and turned in for much needed and well-deserved sleep. Eventually, the others would turn in as well... except for Yiski.

Something was bothering him, but he didn't know what.

"Sure, the sandstorm was one thing, but the engagement seemed too convenient. Skies, I hope I'm overreacting."

Yiski didn't notice Lauren standing next to him while in deep thought. When Lauren tapped his shoulder, Yiski flinched a bit and turned to face her.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. Silver coin for your thoughts?"

Yiski shrugged. He couldn't tell whether this was another of her attempts. Feeling tired himself, he starts walking away from Lauren.

"Will you ever forgive me?"

"It depends on whether you can forgive yourself."

Yiski headed upstairs leaving Lauren on her own. She turns and looks up to the night sky with a tear in her eye.

I can't.

--NARRATOR END--

--END OF DAY 97--

[Yiski]

--START OF DAY 98--

--NARRATOR--

The crew of both M'Naghten Returns and Then It Was Fixed Again didn't get much sleep. Before sunrise, the crews were working on clearing all the sand which accumulated on the ships with the main priority being the engines. By the time the ships were okay to depart, roughly 300 lbs. of sand was removed from M'Naghten Returns and almost 800 lbs. from Then It Was Fixed Again.

Yiski and Zill weren't all too happy. The sandstorm and battle had costed them too much time. Assuming clear skies and smooth sailing, the group would arrive at Yannock by late Thursday. Zill had a solution: lots and lots of moonshine. While Yiski and Lauren didn't mind the plan, they weren't the ones who were going to be keeping the engines functional.

The ships depart and begin moving double time with the moonshine. While the majority of the crews on both ships maintain the engines, Roland and Ny-Lee are exempt from any maintenance because one, they're getting married tomorrow, and two, Yiski would probably throw someone off the ship if they were to assist because they're getting tomorrow.

The engaged couple sit at the front of the ship. Ny-Lee is embracing Roland from the side and has her head resting against this chest and Roland has his right arm draped over her.

"I can't believe we're getting married tomorrow."

"I does seem like everything has moved quickly, but I am glad because I do not think I could wait any longer."

Ny-Lee blushes at the statement. Roland smiles and gives her a kiss on the forehead.

From the helm, Lauren sees the young couple and wonders about her own future romance.

--NARRATOR END--

[Coldcurse]

(i assume the saloon is closed and everyone went flying, if not then you can remove this post)

--salloon--
Being away for a long time Captain Coldcurse returns to the salloon.
he stands infront of the entrance of the salloon as he grabs the doorknob.
he finds out it has been closed but doesnt leave.
Captain Coldcurse moves a bit back and kicks against the door with his iron leg.
the door swings open as Captain Coldcurse walks inside the salloon.
he looks around and sees nobody.

Captain Coldcurse: "where in the wailing name is everyone?"

Captain Coldcurse sees something shiny leaning against the bar, he walks towards the object and picks it up.
its an old wooden guitar with metal strings, Captain Coldcurse blows the dust of the guitar and grabs an old bottle of moonshine.
he takes a seat and starts to tune the guitar, after he tuned the strings he starts to play a bit.
Captain Coldcurse stops playing the guitar and looks around again.

Captain Coldcurse: "i guess there is enough room to sleep here now, i think dont dont mind me taking care of this place"

Captain Coldcurse takes another sip of the moonshine and starts to play the guitar again.

[Captain Lockheart]

--Anvala--

Lockheart and Cecelia took the Commodore Beckett back to Anvala. Ludvig the first mate had to fly it most of the journey as Lockheart and Cecelia were completely inebriated, but lockheart had to take the helm after Ludvig left to head back to Firnfeld where he was stationed. Back at Anvala Lockheart left the ship with Cecelia on his arm, as he made some last checks on the ship and its next cargo to deliver. Before getting back on board to get changed into some more "Town Friendly clothes". He left the ship wearing the attire of the nobles along with a customary top hat. he began to stroll towards the burning skies saloon, before Cecelia swung him round to face him.

"A tavern??, i was expecting something a bit more high class.."

Lockheart winced a little at the thought of not getting to see some friendly faces, which had left anvala anyway.

Lockheart: " Well... where did you have in mind?, i mean im not too sure myself what there is to do here. So i guess we can make a day of it.."

*Lockheart and Cecelia spent the rest of the day strolling around Anvala taking in what the city, that seemed to fascinate Cecelia so much. They eventually Stopped and had a meal at a restaurant before heading back to the Commodore Beckett for the night.*

[Coldcurse]

Captain Coldcurse smiles and puts the guitar on the floor as he grabs a flare gun and a flint lock pistol out of his longcoat.
he walks outside and looks at the sky, there are no clouds to be seen.

captain coldcurse: "i guess im gonna need someone to keep this salloon up. I hope your still around lockheart, dont dissapoint me."

Captain Coldcurse aims high with his flare gun and shoots, a light blue light shines in the sky.
captain coldcurse then aims with his flint lock pistol at the flare and shoots again, the flare is hit by the bullet and creates a loud explosion  that can be heard by everyone in anvala.
as the remainings of the flare fall down on the ground captain coldcurse throws the flare gun away and walks back inside.
as he sits down he picks up the guitar again and starts playing a bit more music, not much later he decides to search a room with a bed and call it a day.
yet before he sleeps he smiles and softly says.

Captain Coldcurse: "I dont think you know, but I need you more then ever..."

captain coldcurse closes his eyes and sleeps.

[Yiski]

--2 Hours from Yunin--

Over the grumbling of the engineers, the two ships were making great time. At their current rate, the ships should reach Yannock in the late-afternoon. While it the group would be arriving a few hours later than intended, it was still better than showing up either late Thursday evening, or worse, the morning of the wedding.

Yiski spent the few hours after leaving Nalm below deck, when he did come up, he saw the soon-to-be newlyweds embracing each other on the starboard. Yiski approaches the two.

"So where do you two plannin' to go on your honeymoon?"

Roland and Ny-Lee turned around to face Yiski. Ny-Lee was thinking, but Roland responded.

"We plan on travelling to Cathedral and stay there for two weeks."

"Oh... why Cathedral?"

"Well, Cathedral is much larger than Anvala, it also houses a variety of cultures from each faction. I also believe there is a festival being hosted during our stay."

While Roland was explaining, Ny-Lee's face lit up with more excitement and squeezed Roland harder. Roland laughed, but it was stifled by her near-death hug.

"Darling, I... know you are... excited, but.... ... ... breathing... is nice..."

Ny-Lee immediately loosened her grip, but keep her hug. She was blushing again and buried her head into Roland's chest.

"Mhmmf..."

Yiski chuckled and Roland gave a sigh.

"Honey, I did not catch that."

Ny-Lee tilted her head up looking at Roland.

"I'm sorry."

Roland gave her a kiss on the lips. The two stared into each other, lost in their own world. This was Yiski's cue to leave them and head to the helm to check on Zill.

"Crimson to Admiral. How are things on your end?"

"Admiral here. Aside from Shink and Paradox driving me to the brink to insanity, we're making okay time."

Before Yiski could respond, he heard Jun'ko's voice coming over the radio.

"Aw... and what about me? Don't tell me you've forgotten about me?"

"Jun. You know I can't forget you even if my mind is filled with tar."

Over the radio, Yiski started hearing Zill and Jun'ko getting sappy. While Yiski found it hilarious he would ever see Zill act this way, he gave a hard cough which caught Zill's attention.

"Sorry about that Yiski. Well, we'll be at Yannock soon enough. Keep an eye on the skies Yiski."

"I know. Crimson out."

Lauren chuckles and Yiski turns to her with a flattened expression.

"Oh lighten up Yiski, it's just funny there are all these couples around us."

"Still trying... you were always a stubborn one."

Lauren let out a small sigh and her expression becomes melancholy. Yiski lets out a sigh as well and starts heading back down into the hull.

[BdrLineAzn]

--M'Naghten Returns--

Down at the turning engines, BdrLine mumbles to himself as he and the other engineerers work on the engines.

"Out of all aspects of planning these engines, I forgot about sand and how it will affect them. I mean come on, we live by a desert. How could I forget that, at least I know how to modify them when we get back."

As BdrLine goes on his ramble, the othe crewmen looks at him with some faces. He feels them and looks towards them.

"What? Don't look at me like I'm crazy, cause that is why I have why I have my nickname. I'm just thinking of how to improve theses, just go about fixing the again, it's sputtering."

And like he said, the starboard engine start to smoke and sputter which lead to the engineerers to react.