Burning Skies Saloon

[N-Sunderland]

Sunderland, via radio to Yiski.

"How many casualties on our side so far?"

[Yiski]

--Eastern Wall--

_Yiski
"It's a tactical regrouping if I ever saw one. They still have superior fleet numbers and a lot of infantry transports still operating."

The radio was cackling and Frank readjusted the signal. It was Lauren and Zill.

_Lauren
"What are they planning Zill?"

_Zill
"Either they'll try again later, or waiting for reinforcements."

Yiski jumped in on the conversation.

_Yiski
"I'm goin' with reinforcements." *turning to Frank* "Call out to some western recons and made sure they're not gonna surprise us in the Gauntlet."

Frank nodded and went over to a separate radio.

[Captain Lockheart]

Lockheart was sniping through his mercury at one of the 2 pyras that chased Sunderland, when a flak shot rang off the captain quarters.

Lockheart
"You better not have damaged my Feather bed! Those are expensive!."

Loclheart opens fire with greased rounds with one round already loaded in the muzzle, he fired all 3 shots at a pyra its hull armor flew off the ship in a array of splinters, scrap metal and bolts.

Lockheart
"That looked expensive aswell. Karl fire your flak at that pyra to the north east. Bearing 176."

Karl
"Heres a present from Firnfeld!"

The shot hit and the ship exploded and fell to the ground. Lockheart then received Captain Verra's Transmission.

Lockheart
"Well. its because they are drunk"

Gatling fire started to rake the top deck of the Yeshan Dragon, it caught a mercury gunner off guard and he had a line of bullet holed in his torso. A red pool began to emerge around him as he lay on the floor. Lockheart quickly ducked but a bullet whizzed past and singed his ear.

Lockheart
"You Rotter! I want that Pyra Gone Now!"

Lockheart walks to the radio.

Lockheart
"Release the White Whaler!"

A Pyramidion chute vented from behind Lockhearts Galleon, it then began to lurch, then Sprint forward towards the incoming Pyramidion.

Lockheart
"Edwin, we'll let of a hwacha salvo to help our comrade."

Edwin from the Hwacha
"aye sir, loading burst"

Soon the Top deck Hwacha fired, taking out the pyras front guns and one of its engines. The White Whaler swiftly approached the pyra and let loose its front guns. A harpoon fired off the front of the pyra and it ripped a Armour plate off but still latched on to the ship. The White Whaler went into full reverse and pulled the pyra back towards the Yeshan Dragon both ships fired at it and it immediately fell to pieces.

[Sgt. Spoon]

As the attackers regroup, Spoon checks the encampments around him. Most batteries are still standing but the frontline squids has managed to wreck a few, as well as incapacitating a good deal of guards unfortunately catched in a sudden gatling spray. Guards are running everywhere around him, tending to the vounded and pushing new ammo and shells into the batteries and stationary turrets.

[BdrLineAzn]

--Dawn Break--

As the small five ship formation approaches the Barons fleet from the west, and Zankif and Melin's 12 ships approach from the east, BdrLine notices that it was quiet behind them. He looks to Niko as he notices it as well.

BdrLine
"Why are the flak batteries not firing?"

The two looks behind them to the city and notices that they are extended very far, they look forward again as they realized that they enemy are regrouping. Niko goes over to his cousin to tell he and the other four ships to turn around and leg it back to Anvala, while BdrLine is frantically on his radio calling both his friends.

BdrLine
"Melin, Zankif, get out off that attack run, they are regrouping and we are over extended, good thing they have...."

Suddenly mercury and flak rounds are going around the Yeshan mercenary group as two Baron galleons notices their position and fire upon them.

Niko
"Gang, we need out NOW!!!"

Gang
"I know, hold on tight going full reverse, can't risk our engines. *on radio* Fallen Leaf you know what todo."

Fallen Leaf Captain
"Yes sir, _{quick change out the side merc and bring them top side, we are providing covering fire.}"

--Zankif's Pyramidion Wardog--

On the eastern flank, both Melin and Zankif heard BdrLine's message and Melin and his other squid proceed to pop tar to help cover the other ten ships. As they are retreating back into the clouds, they notice the five other ships on the other side taking hits.

Taking out his spyglass, Zankif looks on helplessly as the five Yeshan ships are taking fire.

Zankif
Damn, just damn. *on his radio* "Melin its me, looks like Bdr is having it rough"

Melin
"I know, I see it as well, but we are way too far from them. Once we slip into the clouds, we need to find a quick route to the city's defenses."

Zankif
"Roger, I'll map a course."

--Dawn Break--

All engines on the five ships are on full reverse with kerosene on, on the Dawn Break the crew are working on the ships armor as the mercury shots are piercing it. Still on his radio, BdrLine puts in a new frequency and is linked to the Anvalan comms.

BdrLine
"Yiski, Zill, anyone! We are taking heavy fire, the majority of the Barons are targeting us, *boom* _{Flak, hows the armor}"

Crewman
"_{Still holding}"

BdrLine
"We need some assistance or cover, don't know how much...."

A mercury shot came and hit the mast of the galleon near the helm, knocking the three up there off their feet. While slightly dazed, Niko, Gang, and BdrLine gets up and sees if anyone was hurt. Out in front of him, BdrLine notices that his radio is now busted.

BdrLine
"There goes my comm."

Niko
"Be glad we still have my cousin's, come on, we need to help. The Dawn may not take another it like that."

BdrLine and Niko rushes down the stairs and are now helping the ships engineers trying to keep the ship alive.

[Plasmarobo]

--The Pointy End--
Plasma watches the retreating ships through his spyglass. The sudden muzzle flashes lick out from the Baronies fleet.

At the ships run the plea echos over the radio.
_{Captain Verra}
"Flak, we're going to give them a bit of cover. Ready those weapons!"

The Pointy End surges in front of the rest of the Point Wing, leaving the two other ships behind.
As soon as it reaches weapons range the Mercuries thunder with terrifying vengence, shells arcing far and long into the Baronies weapon batteries. 

Plasma turns to one of the gunners.
_Plasma
"The improvements to these weapons are amazing. Remind me to thank the commander if we make it out of this!"

As the Dawn Break approaches, the Captain shouts at them over the radio.
_{Captain Verra to Dawn Break}
"What were you fools doing!? You could have all gotten slaughtered! Keep your radio's tuned to Anvalan military frequencies!"

She throws the engines into reverse, still giving fire, retreating in time with the Dawn Break and altering course to rejoin the rest of the Point Wing.

[Sgt. Spoon]

_{"Yiski, Zill, anyone! We are taking heavy fire, the majority of the Barons are targeting us, *boom* Flak, hows the armor"
*boom* "We are taking heavy fire, the majority of the Barons are targeting us, *boom*}

What?
Spoon turns around to just to see a radio in front of him.
Was that BrdLine?
He runs up to the radio and grabs it.
"BrdLine is that you?"

Radio:
*.... ... static*

Spoon:
Damn it

Picking up a spyglass he searches the sky, and after a while he spots the five ships under heavy fire. "Shit"
Looking around him he sees a un-attended lumberjack still standing not too far away. He drags himself over too it and loads a shell. He locks his view on the chasers, raises the altitude and squeezes the trigger. The round flies with great height, but the distance is just too far and it lands in the sand only two thirds of the wanted length.

It's just too far away dammit!

Displeased he looks around him, eyeing the boxes of ammo and shells scattered on the ground. His eyes then falls on a couple of the blue-smoke canisters.

Well they're much lighter... It might be worth a shot

He grabs a couple, loads them in the gun and sets his aim again. As he fires the rounds flies even higher this time, leaving a thin line of blue smoke after them. Sadly even this isn't far enough to to reach the pursuers. But as the canisters starts to drop they come closer and closer to the escaping ships. Suddenly they fell right on one of them, exploding and leaving a big cloud of blue smoke right on-top of the escaping ships. The ship vavers, but manages to keep itself in the air as they push through the covering smoke.

[Gryphos]

--The Wyvern--

The Wyrm stood on the lower deck watching over his gunners with a keen eye as they fire on the retreating ships.

Wyrm
"Keep firing men, we've got them in the bag."

But then the blue smoke erupted from the ships, obscuring them from vision and causing the Wyvern's gunners to aim roughly in the direction of the ships, often missing.

Wyrm
"Well I'll be damned, I guess we'll have to move closer.

Gallafell
"NO!"

Lord Gallafell appeared behind the Wyrm grasped his shoulder. Brushing Gallafell's hand away, the Wyrm glared at him with a stare that could melt metal.

Wyrm
"Ok."

He said rather softly, before going back to watching the gunners. Gallafell didn't exactly know what to think, so he trodded off back to the upper deck.

[N-Sunderland]

The moment Sunderland understood what was going on, he engaged moonshine and charged forwards. With every passing moment, the ships were taking more and more damage. By the time he got there, Bdrline's hull armour was down, and the Galleon's flak gunner wasn't going to miss. Plasma was providing support, but it wouldn't be enough.

The Duck Pharaoh slipped between them with moments to spare.

Sunderland to Bdrline

"Get the hell out of here. I'll soak up their fire while you run off."

The incoming merc fire wasn't enough to even phase an engineer like Sunderland. He dropped his piloting tools, ran to the hull, and held it together in a way that shouldn't be physically permissible. He worked away for ten minutes, long enough to let his allied ships escape. Sunderland then jumped back on the helm, rising up to avoid fire.

Then a merc shot hit, wiping out part of the rigging. The weight on the upper half of the ship became imbalanced, and the iron spike lurched forwards, blocking off the gatling guns and pitching the ship.

"Well, flak."

One of the Galleons was already approaching for a hwacha barrage, while the other held back to provide long-range support. With the tilt and lack of guns his ship had, Sunderland had no chance of taking that Galleon on normally, and even he couldn't withstand that much fire.

Sunderland's Gunner

"May I suggest retreating, Lieutenant?"

Sunderland

"Turning on enemy target!"

Gunner

"You can't be flaking serious! You're going to get us all killed."

Sunderland spun the Duck Pharaoh around and kicked in moonshine. He couldn't get a proper angle with the way he was facing... But the Galleon was still about 200 metres lower than he was.

"Ramming speed"

Gunner

"..."

Sunderland went straight forwards, hit top speed...

And chute vented.

He might as well have been going down a ramp at Mach 1.

He hit the Galleon, and in the ensuing half-second it went from perfect condition to a pile of scrap.

The Duck Pharaoh fell to the ground, and crash landed just out of the enemy's sight.

[Yiski]

--Eastern Wall--

Yiski hears BdrLine's plea over the radio. Yiski pulls out his scope and spots BdrLine heavily overextended. Yiski then witnessed Sunderland's attempt. While the galleon didn't have a firing position, there were three pyramidions still following BdrLine.

_Yiski
"Flak! Get me a range on those ships!"

_Frank
"They're five, six out. Too far for mercuries."

_Yiski
"Not using those." *turning to a loading crew* "Load lesmok in my lumberjack!"

Frank gives an astonished look.

_Frank
"I know you're a Striker, but even that range is almost impossible."

Yiski ignored Frank sat down in the lumberjack. Yiski grabbed another sight from a nearby lumberjack because traditional lumberjack sights only measured out to three kilometers. Yiski would need to aim for twice the distance. Yiski managed to fasten the sight on top of the other and aimed for six kilometers.

Yiski fired two shots. The first sailed over Dawn Break and it's pursuers. The second shot almost hit Dawn Break.

_Frank
"Yiski, I'm sorry, but I don't think you'll be able to save them. They overextended."

Again ignoring Frank, Yiski fired the remaining three more shots. The third clipped the pursuing pyramidion's engine and the fourth missed. The fifth landed on target.

_Yiski
"Reload!"

With a fresh clip of lesmok, Yiski had the pursuing pyramidion locked in. Yiski unleashed a quick five-shot barrage. All five shots landed and within seconds the pursuing pyramidion crashed. The remaining pursuing ships reversed, but kept firing on Dawn Break.

_Yiski
"Frank relay to Lauren to give BdrLine tar cover."

Frank changed frequencies and Kyllo blitzed to Dawn Break for a much needed tar cloud retreat. Lauren radioed to Dawn Break.

_Lauren
"BdrLine! You still alive?"

Back at the wall, Yiski gets to the radio to see whether anyone one the Duck Pharaoh survived.

_Yiski
"Sund! You had better not die on me! You still owe me a door and a lock!"

[N-Sunderland]

Sunderland, lying unconscious near the helm of the heavily damaged Duck Pharaoh, awoke at the sound of his radio.

"Unnghhh... I'm still here, but my back is aching pretty bad, and my legs are barely in fit condition to make me walk. My crew's in a similar state. Medical help would be much appreciated."

Sunderland then looked around him, studying his landing area.

"Scratch that. Hold the meds. I just realized that I'm in the enemy's blind spot. Give me two hours to get this thing into working condition, and I can pick off some ships from behind."

[Plasmarobo]

--The Pointy End--
Plasma stares at the downed Galleon. And then watches the Mortar rounds slam into the Pyramidion as the Pointy End pulls back further.
He pushes a gunner off one of the Mercuries.

We're close, this should be an easy shot!

He takes aim carefully at the retreating ship. Time seems to slow as the shot explodes from the barrel. The Burning Lochnagar powder tears the gun apart, throwing Plasma back. The burning shot blazes through the sky, consuming the air, and warping it. It slides easily through the deck and armor of a perusing Goldish, coming to rest in the fuel tank.

And explodes.

The tank ruptures from the bottom out, vomiting fire onto the balloon of the other Goldfish below it. The engines of the gutted ship struggle for a moment, then grind slowly to a halt as their life drains into the sky.
The deluge of fuel doesn't quite overwhelm the second Goldfish, but the crew struggles to put out the creeping flames.

[Yiski]

--Eastern Wall--

_Yiski
"Scratch that Sund. It's starting to get dark and I'm not going to waste ammunition firin' blindly into it. Also, we can't risk losin' any more ships than we have. Get fixed and get back."

When the transmission was over, a couple of Elites approached Yiski.

_Yiski
"I'm gonna guess the Council's not happy with me."

_Elite
"We have orders for your arrest."

_Yiski
"Really? In the middle of a bloody invasion? If you want me, you better be ready to use force."

As the Elite reached for Yiski, Althea grabbed the Elite's arm and stared at him.

_Elite
"Stand down Corporal. We would prefer not to have to arrest you as well for incompetence and insubordination. Now, Commander if you'd..."

The Elite stopped talking when he and his group found themselves surrounded by Defenders with their rifles and pistols trained on them. Frank and Yiski also had their weapons out.

_Yiski
"Let's do this. You go back and tell the Council to fuck off. If and when we survive this, then you can come back and we can have this pleasant talk again. Until then, how about you let me try to keep us all alive?"

The Elite swung his arm to release Althea's grip and he and his group left. Althea and Frank then turned to Yiski.

_Althea
"Commander. I hope you realize the implications of your actions."

_Frank
"I'm with her. I hope you know what you're doing."

_Yiski
"No worries. I do. Now let's turn our focus to what's important like stayin' alive for the night."

*Over the fleet radio*

_Yiski
"Striker Commander. All ships need to fall back and regroup. Night is comin' fast and any forward assault will not have any fire support."

[N-Sunderland]

"Got it Yiski. I'll get back as soon as I can get the Duck Pharaoh working again."

[BdrLineAzn]

--Dawn Break--

All of the crew on the five ships are running about making repairs and dodging rounds that fly over their heads. On the Dawn Break, Gang hears Captain Verra.

Gang
"Well we had an opportunity to cause confusion as my group was coming in rfom the west and another from the east, but what we didn't see was their ships going out off the batteries ranges. But thanks for the assist... The Flak is that?"

From his helm, he notices a blue smoke coming off of his junker on the right side, the ship staggers for a bit until it regained control.

Gang
"Sparrow you guys alright, and where in the Gods names did that smoke come from?"

Sparrow Captain
"The men and I are fine, it startled us for a bit, but i think it came form one of the Anvalan batteries, it didn't came from the front."

Out on the Dawn's deck, BdrLine sees the smoke and calls up to Gang.

BdrLine
"Did you see that?"

Gang
"Yeah, apparently someone on the wall shot it over here."

BdrLine
"At least we got some cover."

Gang looks up and sees that the blue smoke cloud did help them as the shots from the enemy guns start to miss a little. He gives a small sigh of relief until bursting out of the cluds are three Baron pyramidions and a galleon. As the galleon turns its broadside, the three pyras continue to rush them. Over the radio, Gang hears a new voice telling for them to get out. From the corner of his eyes, he sees a pyramidion with a huge ram coming at the galleon taking it down with her.

Out on deck, the crew hears the crash and sees both ships fall to the ground below. BdrLine then sees the distinctive ram he saw earlier and notices that it was Sunderland's ship. While he did help save their asses, BdrLine wonders whether or not he and his crew survives.

Gang notices that they are almost back over the batteries, but still has three pyramidions on him and his other ships and are still far out. He calls down.

Gang
"This may be the end, load weapons and prepare, I'm turning to face."

As he was about to stop and turn the ship, lumberjack rounds fly overhead and exploding around their and the enemy's ships. A few times, their balloons almost pop due to friendly fire, eventually the gunner has found his mark and pop two of the three pyras balloons and are hurdling down to the ground. Gang then sees a squid rushing in the front of them as it pop tar and surround the retreating vessels. Another voice comes on the radio and is asking about BdrLine.

Gang
"Bdr come up here, a miss is asking about you."

He hears Gang calling, and after checking the hull goes up the stairs and to the radio.

BdrLine
"Lauren is that you? Nevermind, thanks for the help, we would have been goners if it wasn't for you guys. And I assume that was Yiski on the lumber? Give him our thanks."

The five ships then limp back over the city and lands behind the wall as the crew wanted to check the damage dealt to them.