Chapter Text
The trucks were due before sunrise.
Yang knew that because the adjutant had told her twice the evening before, once sober and once drunk. Replacement pilots. Spare parts. Ammo. Mechanics, even, if Command had finally remembered that airplanes did not repair themselves.
The aerodrome sat quiet beneath the last hour of night, just slowly being pierced by fingers of dawn. Frost silvered the canvas wings lined along the field. Somewhere out in the dark, beyond the wire distant artillery rumbled like soft thunder.
Yang pushed aside the door to the operations shack with her shoulder.
The C.O.'s room reeked of cigarettes, booze, and wet wool.
Qrow was asleep at the desk.
Not properly asleep. Folded into himself more than resting, one arm hanging loose beside the desk, jacket off and his once-white officer's shirt half-open An ashtray overflowed beside his elbow. The bottle near his hand was mostly empty.
Yang stood there for a moment.
Then she crossed the room and pulled the cigarette from between his fingers before it could burn down to the filter.
“Hey,” she said quietly.
Qrow grunted.
“Hey.”
"Reinforcements are due today."
"Mm."
"You're supposed to welcome them."
He opened one eye. "War's still on, then?"
"Seems like it."
"Too bad."
An engine sputtered and backfired near the hangars, followed by the put-put-put-BUZZ of a rotary engine spooling up. The dark forms of mechanics moved between the hunched shapes of Bullheads. The airfield was waking.
Qrow pushed himself upright slowly, rubbing at his face.
“What time is it?”
“Too early.”
“Helpful.”
“You want helpful, stop sleeping in chairs.”
“I wasn’t sleeping.”
"You were drooling all over the 4th Division's sector."
"Secret strategy."
Yang snorted despite herself and tossed his colonel's coat at him. He caught it against his chest, just barely.
For a few seconds neither of them spoke.
Then Qrow asked, quieter this time, “How many replacements?”
"A dozen, if we're lucky."
"Rookies? Signal kids?"
"Have we ever been so blessed?" Their last intake had averaged 50 hours jockeying Bullheads. It took at least twice that to churn out a half-decent combat pilot. Transferees who'd been able to do more than a touch-and-go were rare.
"Think Command had them pack their coffins, too, save us the trouble?"
Yang shrugged.
The silence after that lingered longer than it should have.
Outside dawn had begun to soften the horizon into dull gray.
Qrow stood and reached automatically for the bottle.
Yang took it first.
“No.”
“I’m not flying today."
"You reek."
"It's our squadron's courage on the line."
Her nose wrinkled. "You're the squadron commander."
"Exactly."
She set the bottle just out of reach. Qrow looked at it mournfully for a second, then sighed.
“Mail still hasn’t come through?” Qrow asked as he patted down his pockets, searching for his cigarettes.
Yang folded her arms against the cold creeping through the shack walls. "Last guy HQ sent got cut to ribbons by a Manta. Maybe they'll grow their balls back by spring."
“So we still don’t know who’s coming.”
“Nope.”
He finally found the cigarette pack in his coat pocket, tapped one loose, then paused before lighting it.
“Probably Signal kids,” he muttered. "Younger and younger."
Yang looked toward the window.
The eastern sky had begun turning the color of old steel.
“Yeah,” she said softly.
The trucks came through the south gate in a wash of exhaust and frozen mud.
There were only six of them.
Yang stood beside the operations shack with her hands buried in the pockets of her coat as the guards waved the convoy through. Around the aerodrome, the field was properly awake now. Mechanics crossed between hangars carrying toolboxes and ammo crates.
Qrow stepped out beside her, shrugging into his officer's coat one-handed. He had managed to shave too, though not especially well. He was the scruffiest lieutenant-colonel in the Flying Corps.
"You look like shit."
"I'm ruggedly handsome."
"You look hungover."
"That too."
The trucks rolled to a stop just short of the flightline. Tailgates dropped, and the replacements began clambering out.
There was a mechanic among the new intake, and four general maintainers. Six boys for base security, and a smallish man in glasses who introduced himself as the relief wireless operator. At least Oobleck could get some sleep.
The pilots came last, bundled in their cloaks with the crest of Signal Academy emblazoned on their backs. Yang watched Qrow's expression hardened as he caught sight of the familiar symbol. He'd been wrong. Way younger. Way, way younger.
The last passenger jumped down from the truck with considerably more enthusiasm than dignity, boots slipping slightly against the frozen mud.
Small, with a dark red cloak, and a bag slung over one shoulder.
She straightened immediately, pushing windblown hair from her eyes beneath the hood, and turned toward the airfield with undisguised excitement.
For half a second, Yang didn’t recognize her.
Then—
“Oh, no,” she breathed.
Beside her, Qrow went completely still.
Ruby Rose spotted them instantly.
Her face lit up.
Pure joy.
She broke into a run before the truck had fully cleared behind her, weaving around a fuel cart with her bag bouncing against her side.
“Yang!”
The sound carried brightly across the frozen field.
Several mechanics looked up automatically.
Ruby reached them breathless and grinning, cheeks red from the cold and the run.
Yang barely had time to brace before Ruby threw her arms around her.
For one sharp second, Yang could only hold her there.
"Sorry we took so long," Ruby said against her chest. "The roads were awful—we got stopped outside Marton for almost six hours because some truck broke down, then they said there were infiltrators and—and—”
She stopped suddenly, finally noticing Yang wasn’t saying anything.
The grin faltered a little.
Then Ruby looked past her.
“...Uncle Qrow?”
Qrow still hadn’t moved.
Ruby’s expression softened immediately into something smaller and warmer.
She stepped forward.
For the first time all morning, he looked completely sober.
“...Ruby?...what're you...doing...here?"
The excitement on her face dimmed slightly.
Behind them, another truck engine rumbled impatiently. Someone shouted for cargo manifests.
“You got my letters, right?” she asked. “I asked for this posting months ago.”
"Months?"
A Bullhead farther down the line shrieked to life in a burst of blue-white Dust exhaust.
A silence hung over them.
“I made it,” she said.
The wind moved loose strands of hair across Yang’s face. Somewhere farther down the line, ground crew were shouting at each other over the rising growl of an engine test. The whole aerodrome smelled faintly of wet canvas and fuel.
Qrow sucked in a breath and sighed. “You should’ve stayed in Sig—”
He stopped.
Ruby blinked.
“...never mind.”
Yang shot him a look.
“What he means,” she said quickly, “is that we didn't know you were coming.”
“I did warn you.” Ruby frowned. “I sent letters.”
“The mail hasn’t come through in almost two weeks,” Yang muttered.
“Oh.”
Ruby’s excitement dimmed a fraction. Only a fraction.
Then she brightened again with visible effort.
“Well,” she said, adjusting the strap of her flight bag, “surprise?”
Yang laughed once through her nose despite herself. Qrow looked like he was going to be sick.
Before anyone could say anything else, someone shouted across the field: "Colonel! Colonel Branwen, sir!"
Yang closed her eyes briefly. Duty called.
Qrow turned toward the voice automatically. “What?”
“Operations wants your approval on the flight plans!”
“Xiao-Long'll take care of it."
The runner waved acknowledgment and disappeared between two hangars.
Yang hesitated. Ruby could practically see the war pulling her away by the sleeve.
“I’ll come find you after briefing,” Yang said, already halfway turning. “Don’t unpack until somebody tells you where you’re sleeping.”
“Okay.”
"Now, don't let this ol' coot do anything stupid."
"Hey!"
Yang ignored him. She stepped forward suddenly and tugged Ruby into another quick embrace, tighter this time.
Then she was gone. Ruby watched them cut through the sea of people, mechanics and pilots stepping aside automatically as she walked past.
It felt weird, watching all these people move for Yang. Normally people would have done so because they were afraid or awed, but...
“Well, you're definitely related to them.”
A tall blond in a pilot's overalls approached across the grass with a clipboard tucked under one arm and gloves shoved into his coat pocket. Older than Ruby by a few years, maybe, though the front had a way of making age difficult to judge.
His easy smile seemed unusual for his grim, brisk comrades.
Ruby straightened automatically. “Flying Officer Ruby Rose, sir.”
“Don’t call me sir. Makes me feel ancient.”
She dropped the salute. "Right, sir. Sorry—oh—"
He hid a smile badly. "It's cool. Just go on and fall in so I can get you all sorted out."
"Right, sir—"
"Arc. Senior lieutenant. But only in front of the maintainers. In the mess you can call me Jaune."
"Right, Jaune—sir—"
"Arc," Qrow cut in. "Can you take over this mess for me?"
"Sure. But you still gotta address them, remember?"
"Do I have to?"
"Rules say you do."
"Right, back in line, kiddo," he said.
Qrow raised his hand as if to ruffle her hair, but then pulled back, reconsidering it.
Ruby beat a hasty retreat into the knot of new arrivals. They were already looking at her oddly. Just great. As if she hadn't been nervous before.
Jaune cleared his throat. "Attention!"
Boots scraped and heels clicked together in the dewy grass.
Qrow stepped forward. "My name's Branwen. I command here. Do your jobs, and listen to your superiors, and we'll get along fine. No fighting, period. Save that grab-ass shit for the enemy. And stay behind the wire—"
A runner appeared at the edge of the field shouting for the squadron commander.
Qrow swore under his breath.
"Look, don't be assholes, and you'll be okay." He called over his shoulder. "Mister Mulberry?"
"Sir?"
"Take charge."
"Aye, sir!"
Qrow waved the formation off impatiently.
"Right, you lot! by departments," Mulberry roared. "Artificers, Tent 4! Security, report to Lt. Greene..."
Behind her, somebody shouted: "Where's my bloody fuel carts?"
When Ruby looked behind her, her fellow pilots had gone. She shambled forward, unsure.
Qrow looked at her.
For a brief second, something almost apologetic crossed his face.
Qrow rubbed his face. “Arc. Can you square her away for me?”
The request came too quickly. Ruby felt something small and unpleasant shift in her chest before she could name why.
"Sure."
Qrow turned to her. “I’ll find you later, kid.”
And then he was moving too, long strides carrying him toward the operations shack without waiting for a response.
Ruby stood alone beside the truck convoy, flight bag hanging from one shoulder.
Jaune put a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, you eat yet?”
Ruby blinked. “What?”
“Mess tent. You eat?”
“Oh. Uh. Sort of?”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It was army coffee and half a sandwich. On the road.”
“So no.”
"Well..."
"Our mess is better than most." He smiled again. "You'll like it."
They crossed the field together.
The mess hall was one of the few, true structures. Whitewashed, timber-framed. It looked cozy enough from the outside.
Jaune pushed the door open with his shoulder.
It smelled like coffee, cigarettes, damp wool, and engine oil. It was warm, almost homey.
Flight charts hung crookedly along the walls beneath pinup sketches and old newspaper clippings. The tattered remains of an Atlesian Manta's tail assembly was mounted on the far wall, its staff-and-gear roundel shot full of holes. A gridded chalkboard was suspended above the bar. Ruby could barely make out the headers—PILOT, SECTION, KILLS.
A card game occupied one table near the stove while somebody in the corner cleaned a revolver beside three empty mugs. A portly man in mechanic's overalls with a big, bushy moustache tucked heartily into a sandwich. Flying coats hung from hooks wherever there was space to hang them. The entire room buzzed with a constant low murmur.
Nobody snapped to attention when Jaune walked in.
One pilot looked up briefly from a newspaper.
“Replacement?”
“Unfortunately,” Jaune said.
A few eyes shifted. Ruby suddenly became aware of how clean her boots were.
Jaune hooked a thumb toward the back wall. “Find an empty chair before somebody steals it permanently.”
Ruby hesitated just inside the doorway, taking everything in at once.
Near the stove, a pilot with one sleeve rolled to the elbow was asleep upright in his chair with his head tipped back against the wall. Somebody else had balanced a pencil across his upper lip.
Nobody appeared concerned.
A burst of laughter rose from the card table.
"You cheating bastard,” someone accused.
“I’m winning. That’s different.”
“That is literally the definition of cheating.”
Ruby smiled before she could help it.
Maybe it wasn't so bad—
"Oi."
The voice came from near the stove.
A broad-shouldered pilot lounged sideways in his chair with a deck of cards spread between thick fingers. Brown hair slicked back. Uniform coat hanging open, the shirt beneath untucked.
He looked her over once.
Then once more.
"Shit. They sending schoolgirls up now?”
A few chuckles moved through the room.
Ruby felt heat climb briefly into her face anyway.
“I’m qualified,” she said.
"That's exactly what worries me."
One of the other pilots grinned over the rim of his coffee mug. “How old are you, anyway?”
"Sev—eighteen. Eighteen. And a half." The lie felt bitter on her tongue.
Cardin leaned back dramatically. “Brothers help us.”
More laughter.
Ruby forced herself to grin too, though it came slightly tighter than she intended.
Jaune coughed. "Watch it, Cardin. She's already twice your mental age."
That earned a louder laugh from the room.
Cardin flipped him off without looking away from Ruby.
"So, you jockey Bullheads, right?"
"Y-yeah. S-sixty hours."
"How much trigger time you got?"
"We've...I've done some training sorties..."
“Mm.” Cardin grunted. “So zero.”
Ruby opened her mouth.
Closed it again.
No sound.
“No shame in it,” another pilot called from the bar. “First week here everybody thinks they're some hotshot ace. Second week they stop talking.”
"—if they're lucky," interjected another.
"—if they're lucky, yeah, that's right..."
"Well, Mercer didn't."
"Mercer got shot."
"Yeah...well. Yeah."
“Third week they start praying before takeoff,” someone added abruptly.
“That’s because Burnie flies like a lunatic.”
“I fly with instinct.”
“You landed in a river.”
“It was tactical decision!”
"Oh, piss off..."
The room dissolved briefly into overlapping arguments.
Ruby laughed despite herself.
The noise refilled the room quickly and easily.
Then the door opened again behind her.
Cold air swept through the mess.
A woman stepped inside carrying a crate against one hip, wearing a dark woolen coat against the cold. White armband stitched around one sleeve with the medical corps insignia faded almost pink from washing. She was young, pretty, with black hair tied back loosely beneath a wool cap, and ears—
Cat's ears.
Faunus.
The room shifted subtly around her.
"Belladonna," somebody greeted.
“You’re late,” Cardin said.
The woman didn’t even glance at him. “You’re alive. Miracles can happen.”
A few pilots snorted into their drinks.
She crossed the room with practiced familiarity, setting the crate onto a cluttered side table.
"Don't forget, no strays in the house after dark."
This time nobody laughed.
Ruby felt something shift inside the room.
Jaune looked up from what he was fixing up behind the bar. “Knock it off, Cardin.”
Cardin rolled his eyes. “What? I’m joking.”
“Yeah,” one of the older pilots muttered. “Stick to your day job.”
The faunus woman continued unpacking supplies as though none of it had happened.
Cardin muttered something under his breath and went back to his cards.
The tension dispersed quickly after that, folding itself back into the ordinary noise of the room.
The faunus woman reached for a chipped enamel kettle near the stove, paused, then glanced toward Ruby.
“You’re new.”
Ruby straightened instinctively. “Uh. Yeah.” Then, as if remembering her manners, her hand thrust out towards the her. "R-Ruby Rose. Flying Officer."
"Ruby," the woman—Belladonna—seemed to roll the word on her tongue, as if savoring it. "Ruby Rose."
She finally held took her hand.
"I'm Blake Belladonna."
***
The food in the mess was over-salted and tasted heavily of boiled onion. Ruby ate it anyway. It was her first hot meal in almost a day.
By the time Jaune finally pushed his own plate away the crowd had thinned. Pilots had come and gone, then not at all. "Flying," Jaune had said, punctuated by engines roaring overhead. An orderly came through and carried off the used plates and cutlery. A local boy came by and tossed another log into the stove for a lien. Someone had left their pipe still smoldering on a tray. The game of cards had broken up, but Cardin still sulked in the corner.
The door banged open. A runner with mud-spattered puttees. "Cardinal section? Lieutenant Winchester?" The barman pointed. The man jogged up to Cardin, saluted. "Cardinal section is to sortie, sir."
Cardin looked past him, took a heavy swig from the bottle in his hands. "Piss off."
"From the colonel, sir."
He slurred his words. "Piss off, that's an order. And bugger the colonel."
The runner seemed unimpressed. "Very good, sir." He saluted and was off.
Jaune stood, collecting their plates.
“C’mon,” he said to Ruby. “Before somebody steals your bunk.”
The girl stared at Cardin open-mouthed. "He's refusing—"
"He'll try."
"Try?"
Jaune picked up her bag. "Let's go." He pushed open the back door, and Ruby followed him back out into the cold and damp.
The door swung wide, flapping back and forth as it closed, but it was enough for Ruby to hear the front door banging open again. Heavy footfalls, then the crack of skin striking skin.
"You bitch!" she heard Cardin roar, but Jaune was already pulling her by the arm.
"Look!" He pointed to the grassy expanse that hosted the flightline. The morning fog had finally burned off, revealing the rolling green field and the neat lines of Bullheads parked nearly wingtip to wingtip, mechanics, armorers and pilots weaving in and amongst the maze of canvas, wood and wire.
It was a grand sight, seeing all those planes together being prepped for action. The ones at Signal, quaint things with silver bodies and their stubby wings painted yellow couldn't hold a candle to these. These were the real deal.
The Bullhead had many nicknames, not all of them fond, but to Ruby they were things of beauty. Nevermind the Flying Barrel or the Warthog, they were good, trusty machines and twice as majestic. So what if it was front-heavy and drifted right? It was up in the air on a fifty-meter roll and could turn on a dime.
In the hands of a good pilot, it was a dream.
Ruby was practically drooling, craning her head for a better view as they walked. "Could we?"
"Later," Jaune chuckled. "Let's get you squared away first. Besides, I heard they're still painting up the newbies' wings."
They crossed between long rows of billet huts behind the flight line. They were squat, but cozy things, with plank walls and a corrugated tin roof. Improvised chimneys were cut through the roofing for stovepipes and crudely insulated.
A fighter roared by, somewhere close. Ruby glanced up instinctively, but saw nothing.
“You’ll get used to that,” Jaune said.
“I know.”
“You say that now.”
Ruby's hut was near the very end of the dispersal field. The wooden door groaned and gave way to a mighty push. "The hinges, see?" Jaune explained. Warm air drifted out from the stove burning at the end of the narrow hallway. "We sleep six to a hut usually, and two to a room." He pointed to the second door on the right. "That one’s yours. No roommate, either, so you lucked out."
Ruby smiled.
The room inside was narrow, crude wooden beds pushed up against the walls, Flight coats hung from hooks hammered into support beams. Somebody had pinned newspaper clippings above one bed beside a hand-drawn sketch of a fighter aircraft diving through clouds.
"That's curious," Jaune mumbled, but Ruby didn't hear. She stepped carefully around a pair of worn moccasins and dropped her bag on the closest mattress.
"It's cozy," she said brightly.
"It'll keep you warm," said Jaune, but he sounded distracted. Ruby heard shuffling behind her, saw frantic movement in the corner of her eye.
"What're you—"
Then she noticed the photographs, half-hidden behind an old pin-up calendar, tacked on side-by-side. A formal portrait of a blond man, no older than herself, in a Beacon Academy uniform. A group portrait, all stiff and formal in Beacon black and blue. Four men, huddled and smiling in front of a Bullhead—and Cardin?
There were clothes kicked carelessly under the bed. A scarf. Leather gloves. Trousers turned inside-out. On the nightstand a worn paperback sat face-down, marking where the reader had left off. A sock hung out one drawer.
Ruby turned slightly.
“Oh,” she said. “Someone’s still—”
Jaune stopped moving.
He looked guilty as sin. In his hands he'd hastily gathered up some clothes and bundled them in the sheet he'd pulled from the other mattress. His eyes met hers, unsure, then darted toward the half-open footlocker beneath the bed.
“Hell,” he muttered quietly. He tossed the bundle into the hallway. "Sorry. I thought they’d cleared this one already," Quickly now, he crossed the room and crouched beside the bunk, pressing the locker shut. "I should’ve checked first."
Ruby remained standing beside the bed, unsure whether to help.
Jaune picked up the scarf next. That, too, joined the growing pile in the hallway.
"Were they..." Ruby whispered softly.
"Bronzewing and Lark. They were okay." He reached behind her and tore the photographs from the wall. He regarded the calendar. "You should probably change the month. Then again..." That too, went.
Jaune bundled the growing pile of what had been the previous occupants' belongings into a pillow case. He kicked lightly on the foot-locker.
“I’ll get somebody to move this,” he said. “You can unpack after.”
Ruby nodded.
Jaune shifted the bundle awkwardly in his arms. “You still wanna see the flight line?”
Ruby looked once more at the half-cleared bunk.
Then toward the sound of aircraft beyond the hut walls.
“…Yeah,” she said quietly.
Jaune nodded.
"Cool. C'mon, then."
The flight line spread beyond the huts in long muddy rows broken by maintenance tents and fuel trucks. Fighters sat beneath canvas covers while ground crews moved around them.
Engines were an ever-present drone, the telltale sputtering and tearing buzz of the Bullhead's 9-cylinder rotary. Aircraft warming for patrols. Mechanics testing repaired engines. Somewhere farther off, somebody running a machine too hard and probably getting shouted at for it.
Ruby loved all of it immediately.
Here it all was, raw and real. No gleaming, regulation finish. The academy posters always showed aircraft polished bright beneath clear skies, noses pointed proudly toward the horizon.
These were working machines.
Canvas stitched where rounds had punched through wings. Engine cowlings replaced in mismatched metal. Fresh paint layered over older paint in uneven patches.
One fighter near the nearest hangar had its entire tail assembly stripped open like exposed bone.
Ruby slowed automatically.
“Careful,” Jaune warned. “You stop moving out here and somebody’ll hand you a wrench.”
“She’s beautiful,” Ruby murmured.
Jaune followed her gaze toward the aircraft.
A Bullhead rested low on its landing gear beside a fuel truck, red squadron markings dulled beneath oil stains and exhaust smoke. One wing bore fresh patchwork around the leading edge where canvas had recently been replaced, and its engine cowling had been removed.
"Manta got the drop on it, day before yesterday," Jaune explained. "It got chewed up, but the pilot was able to nurse it back home."
Ruby stepped closer instinctively.
"No touching," came a voice from below. A mechanic on a garage creeper wheeled out from under the wing.
“I wasn’t going to.”
"You were thinking about it."
"I was...appreciating it."
That drew a chuckle.
Ruby circled slowly around the aircraft, eyes tracing every detail greedily.
The machine guns mounted above the engine housing. The stitched repairs along the wing root. The holes in the rear fuselage yet to be patched up.
Real combat damage. Not diagrams or boring academy lectures.
Real.
“Signal teach you engine work?” Jaune asked.
“A little.”
“A little meaning?”
Ruby crouched slightly beside the exposed engine. It was cool to the touch, two days cold. It still smelt of that odd, oily-sweet cocktail that kept it running. A little too strongly. She leaned in closer, squinting. It was grimy, but one of the cylinders seemed wetter than the rest. A finger to its base came off wet. She sniffed. Winced.
"Well?" Jaune leaned in.
"They're...not usually this thin. Or messy. I think. At least, I think I..."
"Maybe overflow from when we last tested it?" Supplied the mechanic from under the wing.
"Could be," Jaune said, rubbing his chin. "Lemme..." He blotted some on his finger and rubbed it together with his thumb. He sniffed. Tasted. Winced. "Punch, you'll wanna see this."
The mechanic looked up again, scrambled to his feet.
Ruby pointed carefully. “There. Around that cylinder.”
The mechanic stared for a second. Then he touched. "Fuck." He slid farther beneath the engine with his lamp.
Jaune blinked once.
“Huh. Well..."
Ruby straightened with visible satisfaction.
They left Punch to his work and continued farther along the line.
The deeper they moved into the dispersal area, the stranger the aircraft became.
Different squadron markings. Different colors.
It was an indulgence that Command permitted the Flying Corps' aces, letting them paint it up to their fancy so long as they got five kills or more. Every machine felt individualized. Personalized.
Ruby realized suddenly that she could probably tell which aircraft belonged to which pilots almost immediately. A riot of reds, greens and golds, of diamond patterns and sharks' mouths and fireballs, unified only by the green, crossed twin-axes of Vale.
Ahead, a group of mechanics scattered hurriedly as an engine burst awake in a violent roar of blue-white Dust exhaust.
Ruby turned instinctively toward the sound, but it was a different fighter that caught her gaze.
Yang’s fighter sat near the far end of the field.
She recognized it immediately. She'd seen it before, but only in photographs.
They did it no justice.
It was unmistakably, so aggressively Yang. Fuselage and wings a deep gold, trimmed with jet-black. In jaunty, wavy cursive, its name: Bumblebee.
The Bullhead looked like it was itching to start a fight.
A mechanic stood balanced on the wing tightening something near the canopy while another fed ammunition belts into the gun housing.
Ruby smiled before she could help it.
She stepped closer, running her hand across its side. The fabric was drum-tight, textured where the dope felt uneven. Bumblebee seemed to carry more repair patches than almost anything else on the field. Near the cockpit ladder, somebody had painted tally marks over the olive-drab body.
Victory marks.
A dozen, at least. Maybe more.
Jaune whistled. "Fifteen victories, at last count. More than anyone in the squadron."
Ruby made to step up onto the stirrup hanging off the fuselage side, but paused mid-motion. She looked back at Jaune.
"Go on," He smiled. He nodded to the mechanics. "I'll allow it."
For a moment Ruby could picture Yang here clearly, climbing into the cockpit, cigarette clenched between teeth, goggles hanging loose around her neck, face streaked with castor oil and sweat but smiling and triumphant.
Not like the officer who'd met her this morning.
Her sister.
Her Yang.
***
Ruby unpacked slowly that afternoon.
Not because she had much to unpack. Because every time she stopped moving, the silence of the billet seemed to settle around her differently.
She folded her spare uniform beneath the bunk carefully, hung her coat on the wall-peg, and tried not to look too much at the space where the photographs had been.
Bronzewing and Lark.
The room had been picked clean by the time she'd returned. Only her bag on the mattress. Fresh linens, fluffed pillows cool to the touch. Not a trace of the previous occupants, except for the thumb-tacks that had kept the photos on the wall. Ruby was glad for it. She didn't think she could sleep where someone else had lad, someone now...gone. The thought made her skin crawl.
Jaune had said they were okay. She could only hope their ghosts were, too.
By dusk Ruby finally gave up pretending she was going to organize anything properly and wandered back out onto the field instead.
Nobody stopped her.
That surprised her a little too.
At Signal, instructors always seemed to know where cadets were at every moment. Here, people simply assumed you would reappear eventually unless proven otherwise.
Ruby walked slowly along the edge of the dispersal line with her hands shoved into her pockets, watching mechanics wrestle canvas covers across aircraft noses before the night brought fresh sheets of rain down onto the airfield and ruined the fabric. A pilot she didn't know loudly argued with his crew chief about ammunition.
She spotted Yang only once, far across the field coming out of the operations hut. Just the briefest glimpse of her golden hair, wild under an officer's cap, and bundled up in a heavy overcoat.
Ruby almost waved before realizing Yang had not seen her.
Then a Bullhead touched down and rolled along the flightline. Yang and a couple others jogged out to meet it. The pilot was gesturing wildly even as he scrambled out of his cockpit, engine sputtering and dying.
Ruby returned to the billet hut after dark with numb fingers and the unpleasant realization that she still had no idea when she was expected to report for anything tomorrow.
A pilot she vaguely recognized from the mess hall sat on one of the easy chairs in the cramped living-room, cleaning his sidearm. His head was completely shaved except for a narrow strip that ran front-to-back down the middle, its platinum strands tinged with faintest light green.
He glanced up once as Ruby entered.
“You’re Branwen’s kid, right?”
“Niece.”
“Mm.”
"You're—"
"Thrush."
"Thrush." Ruby repeated. It came out flat.
"Second door on the right?"
"Yeah."
He methodically disassembled the pistol on his lap.
“You flying tomorrow?” she asked.
“Probably.”
That seemed to be the extent of his interest in the subject.
Ruby retreated quietly while Thrush wiped the revolver's parts down with solvent. In her quarters she undressed, turned out the lights and climbed under the blankets.
She didn't know how long she stared up at the ceiling.
The billet creaked constantly in the wind.
Somewhere nearby someone laughed too loudly outside before being shushed immediately afterward. Aircraft engines coughed intermittently through the dark beyond the huts. A crew chief's roar carried across the aerodrome as he bit the head off one of his maintainers.
Ruby rolled onto her side and pulled the blanket tighter around herself. C'mon. Sleep. Sleeeeeep. She didn't know what lay in store tomorrow, but it was better to get a full night in than risk sleeping in.
She put the pillow over her face. Then beneath it, flipping over. She ended up on her back again, face to ceiling.
Then somebody screamed.
Ruby jerked upright instantly.
The sound rattled the walls, raw and terrified, tearing straight through the night before breaking apart into confused yelling.
Something crashed heavily into wood.
“GET OFF—”
Another crash.
“No—no—no—"
Ruby was already out of bed and halfway out the door before she realized nobody else had stirred.
"SKY! SKY!"
Down the hall, the front door almost rattled off its hinges. Ruby stood frozen in the dark, heart hammering painfully against her ribs.
"Aw, fuck..." Someone muttered behind the door across the hall. "Fuckin..."
Outside, voices rose briefly. Not alarmed. Annoyed.
"Up yah get, sir! There's a good...aww he's...shit man."
"I'll get Thrush," said the second voice.
Her neighbor's door banged open. Thrush stumbled out, fully dressed except for his boots.
“What the hell was that?” she whispered.
"Cardin." His voice was thick with exhaustion. He looked her up and down, saw her clutch her bare arms and shiver. "Go back to sleep. I'll handle it."
Ruby did not sleep much after that. Couldn't.
Every sound outside the billet snapped her awake again.
Voices outside the hut. Voices in the hall. The creak of the floorboards as something heavy stumbled through. Once, somewhere before dawn, she heard someone laughing hard enough to start coughing afterward. Then eventually the aerodrome itself began waking around her.
Ruby was half-dressed when somebody hammered sharply against the hut door.
“Rose!”
Yang’s voice. Ruby blinked hard, suddenly wide awake.
The door opened before she could answer.
Yang stood in the doorway in a heavy sheepskin coat, a scarf wound around her neck. Goggles were pushed up into her matted, blonde hair, streaked with castor oil.
“Gear up,” Yang said. “You’re flying with me.”
Ruby stared.
“What?”
“You wanted a frontline posting.” Yang tossed a pair of goggles towards her. It hit her square in the chest. “Congratulations. Frontline training starts now.”