Ace of The Duck Pond Thunder of the Ghost Ships.

[Stella Gaslight]

"I have the new gun mounts  in place they should be quick as greased lightning. Hopefully we won't have to put it through its paces but better to be prepared.". The dog's engines were up and purring in moments.

"Testing, testing Al can you hear me? I am snug as a bug in a rug." Jace was ecstatic to go back in to the sky.  She had been grounded for almost a month and it hurt her heart to be away. 

[MWBailey]

"Loud and clear, Darlin', Loud and clear," Ak l answered. Gain and volume on yur end works the same as in your own ship, if I'm too loud or soft. Brace yourself, Duck kinda waddles on the deck startin' out, but she grabs sky quick." True to A's description, teh Duck started ioff a bit bumpy, rathe rlike a much heavier transport like a gooney bird or a trimotor did on the float's runways, but soon speed and going airborne took care of teh rough ride and teh ride was as smooth as silk as Al made a bank to port to circle and wait for the Dog to get airborne.. "Duck to Dawg, do you read, over?"

[Stella Gaslight]

"Dog to Duck read you loud and clear.  Damn do you see the trails that thing is leaving behind?  How is it's engine not on fire?"

Jace let out a happy hoot as they left the ground behind.  "I missed this.  Thanks Al for taking me up.."

[MWBailey]

"No problem, hon." Al said, then, "Listen to that, sounds kind of like German, but the words're sorta... different, like." He added, "You're the boss, Jace, what do we do from here?"

[Stella Gaslight]

"Let's see if we ease that thing away from the tower and maybe we can get it to land.  It wouldn't be the first time we have had to deal with a crazy who got in to the working of the station."  Jace said trying to pick the best angle of attack.  As the pulled closer the plane stopped it's stream of chatter and wheeled around in silence.  And then in less than a heartbeat a bolt of green lightning lashed out at them.  "Oh hell. Evasive action now!"

[CPT_J_Percell]

Wilfred watched the lightning lash out and smiled...
They were so un prepared.
Walking back to his hanger, he jumped into Blue fang and took off, She roared into the sky and pushed up between the dog, duck and Vosh. Green lightning lashed out hitting the blue fang, but caused no damage, the blue fang took on an unearthly blue glow before lightning flashed out from the front of its own wings hitting the Vosh sending up wisps of smoke.
"I know planes are normally safe from discharges, but jace isn't. Don't be fools, pull back, your not equipped for these weapons."

[MWBailey]

"We're already up and bein' shot at. Run away and get shot down; just because there's only one buzzin' the tower don't mean that's all there is. Sorry, jace, gotta take over the gun." Al apologized to his boss, as he engaged the remote aiming and firing system for the rear gun, and began firing bursts at the green monstrosity. The bullets caused small arcs to crawl over the green transparency of the craft, but did little else. "So, we can get a reaction, but who knows what that really did. Fine, kid, you think you can shoot that thinhg down, you go to it. sonething tells me it might be a little harder than that, however."

---------
"Aha, so they've perfected the sprite gun," Meri breathed to herself as she watched from above. "odd, the ship seems to be transp-" She realized what was going on almost immediately when the Duck began firing it's rear gun at the craft. "Al, you are brave, but you cannot affect that kind of protection with fast-flying bullets." She drew the katana, and put forth a modicum of her spirit as she flapped and soared up a hundred feet or more higher, and then, while Wilfred and the others banked away as was necessary for all airplanes to do eventually, she sideslipped into position, timing herself with the path of the green enemy, and simply folded her wings in close to her body, falling faster and faster, and then opened her wings, raised the katana to striking position and bellowed a wordless scream as she brought  the sword dowm and slashed clean through the "tail" of the strange craft.

The green ship flickered in midair, and seemed to become covered in a storm of blue and white static,the "cut" in the tail showing molten-iron orange as the machine, if machine it was, seemed to stagger in midair and began to lose altitude. It was apparent, however, that it was only a temporarily telling blow, as the static began to dissipate and the cut seemed to heal itself. Meri cursed sulphrously when she looked back and saw the craft fixing the damage, and nearly collided with an upthrusting HAM radio antenna. "Damned madmen!" So, you've fixed the repair vs. manifestation-propagation conundrum, have you? I wonder how many times I'll have to slash your pretty toy to break it permanently...

[Stella Gaslight]

'What the hell is that ship? The vamp should have sliced through it but it is right as rain."  Jace was horrified as the ship sent out a green pulse. Suddenly her vision warped and her left arm jerked entirely on it's own to reach for the plane. 

Donna tried to get closer as a manhole exploded and a pair of legs dangled straight up in the air.  "What the..."  She stopped as Liam grunted in pain.  "Are you all right?"

[Ranger Reid]

Liam was sprawled on the ground holding his head.      His power had flared with the explosion.  In a voice not quite his own, he said "Save the Cossack.  She can't hide from them!          Marta!    RUN!!!"      Wide eyed and out of his head, the young man thrashed as if having a seizure.

Then he feinted completely.

[Stella Gaslight]

"Dog to Duck, Dog to Duck I am landing now!  Liam is under attack and I can't figure out from what. I think it may have to do with the poor bastard dangling down there so if I can help them maybe whatever is eating at my co-pilot will go away. "  She was hoping with all her heart that she was right.  Seeing Liam in pain and being unable to help bothered Donna greatly.  "Don't worry I will save this Marta."  She said landing as close to the green light as she could and lashing two driver's weight belts to her legs.  Hoping they would help she made her way slowly in to the heart of the storm. 

Under the green light Donna felt like a barely tethered balloon ready to lift up in to the air at each step.  She made it to the person stuck in the manhole and started to drag them to safety when the green ship opened fire.

[CPT_J_Percell]

Wilfred turned the Blue Fang, the engine growling with the power running through it. as he brought it around he saw the green light come from a light under the cockpit. He twisted the Blue Fang in to a tight opposite turn and flicked a switch on his dash, he watched as a needle on a gauge that resembled the fuel gauge started to rise and when the needle hit the red, he dropped the plane under the vosh, flipped upside down bringing the sea into view and flew towards the vosh. He fired his hard rounds towards the vosh's undercarriage peppering the shield the flipped another switch. Lightning flashed out hitting the shield and a tear formed. He kept fringing his brownings and just before the tear closed, the green light flickered and sparked before the emitter exploded.
The Blue Fang shot passed the vosh and started turning. The gauge was now reading empty, he would need to land or get struck by lighting before he could use that weapon again.

[Ranger Reid]

Liam floated in a glowing cloud.   His talent for sensing the way of things was flowing like never before.   He saw the world.   And understood each part of it.  In the Antarctic a shaman was trying to perform a spell to bring good fortune on the hunt.  His preparations had not worked.  Liam connected the flow of magic for him with a thought.   In the south sea, a ship was sinking and sharks circled.  Liam closed the gaping hole effortlessly.   Then he turned to his friends.  He knew them, but felt no more attachment than he had to the other situations.  With a mental shrug, he refilled the energy weapon on the Blue Fang.  As he considered his own corporeal form, he almost "fixed" the problem there too.  But instead he sent a thought to Jace.   With his own power, he unblocked her abilities.   It would probably not last, but the repair was enough to let her use her mental powers, and even if they faded again, she would start healing.

As Liam finally looked at the ghost ship he saw a being on the deck observing him.  Except for his scars from training, they could have been twins.  The "other" held out his hand and screamed (and Liam understood the Russian perfectly) "THIEF!"



Everything went black.   Liam's flare of power was gone, and he was once again mortal, lying on the deck sobbing like a child at a loss he didn't understand.   

[Stella Gaslight]

Jace felt wonderful like light was running through her vanes.  "I am going to try something Al get ready to run if it goes wrong."  she looked out at the green plane and pushed.  The ship flipped end over end like a rag doll while miles away a figure suspended in a green tube flailed about while bells rung warning the crew that the bond between pilot and ship was taking heavy damage and could fail at any moment.


"I don't care how close they are to getting another pilot candidate call it back!  Those force ships are my top priority and I will not loose one."  Commander Wilhelm Vogel was full of rage. There was something on that station that distroyed his little brother and most of the high command.  It was because of that tiny bit of nowhere he was forced to move headquarters to this primitive Steinhaus in the wilderness from his beloved Berlin.  He suspected it had somthing to do with the escaped vampire.  Well he had ways to fight her kind.  "Send the storm riders to that location and leave nothing behind."

Donna ran as fast as she could back to the dog with the slender Russian girl draped over her .  She found Liam on the floor.  "Oh darling are you all right?"

[Ranger Reid]

Liam woke feeling drained.   His connection was lost, and his own memories of the episode were fuzzy.

He flushed at Donna calling him darling.   He was still getting used to relationships with all the Aces, but especially with her.  He smiled a tight smile.

"I think I am okay.  I had a moment there where I thought I understood stuff.  All Ihave now are general impressions. Some of those ships are being controlled from far away.  I dont understand how......   But I think she might know."

Liam nodded towadd the limp form Donna still carried.

[MWBailey]

Meri had problems of her own; aScarab agent on the Tower signalled her with with a spotlight telegraph that the China clkpper  had fjinally run out of fuel and neededhelp. She turned to the indicated direction, and considered what could be done. She sighed. "I'll be needing a bit ofyour blood after this, she thought at the agent. She sighed, then seeing which one it was. Aghh. So its you, Toby. Why do you have tobe so damned headblind?

The Clipper was gliding well, but anyone could see that a water landing in such a statevwoulbe a dicey proposition for such a huge aircraft. Meri growled and flapped up to the huge airplane's highly predictable path, and matched its airspeed as it thundered past, the wind of its passage whistling and roaring past its wings and the various struts and projections of the airframes superstructure. Withiug waiting for authorization or attempts at communicationt, she simply treated the craft ths same way that she would have done a kraken, ColdOne, or Rukh of her own universe; she landed above wherd the brain wiuld have been on a similarly-arranged animal, plunged the katana in, and sent her power down the bkade and into "body" of the "beast. " With a shudder anda wrench, the huge aircraft stopped gkiding and actualky flew, as though her engines were running. Meri keot it up as the pilots finalky caught on, and landed the plane safely.

A while later, Meri left a private room at the boarding house, ignoring the landlady's disapproving stade as she slinked out the front door, feeling utterly and deliciously sated in more ways than one, as a certakn Scarab lay on his bed, smoking a cigarillo and daydreaming happily...

-----Al brought ghe Duck around and heldit steady while Jace did her thing; he wishec his own powers would get a boost, but then remembered a frkend of his, who'd suddenly developed the ability to find gold by standing and looking at mountains and such. Poor guy ended up practically enslaved by a Brazilian conglomerate.  Al decided that, just maybe, a simple knack might be best in tbe long run and kept his attention on flying tbe plane . "Looks
like the thing's having trouble,  you want to go in for a closer look?"

[Stella Gaslight]

"Yes I think we had better make sure it isn't going to crash into the station."  It had righted itself but it seamed unable to fly straight.  Shudders went through it like the engine was giving out but she could see no sign of trouble she also could not see a pilot.  "Damn Al where's the pilot?  Do you think I knocked um out when I shook things up?"

Donna dug through  a large metal chest looking for a little bottle.  "Here this should help."  Donna held the smelling salts under the small woman in a pilot's leather jacket and jumped back as the woman woke with a jolt and started to speak in a rush.  "We are here to help you.  One problem I have no idea what you are saying."

[MWBailey]

"I don't think..." Al stared at the strange aircraft through the spotters binocs, as he took up a position abeam of it. He managed to match the thing's Rather erratic movements, as if he were connected to whatever mind was directing it; it was now climbing, now dropping, now yawing one way and another, but generally on an ascending flightpath. Finally, however, the green juggernaut lost all semblance of directional control, and started in a slow but accelerating inward spiral back down toward the station far below. "I think we'd better do something, Jace, that thing's acting like it's gonna try to eat tarmac," he said. "Hang on to the armrests of you seat, hon, I'm gonna try to nudge her over a bit..."

Al eased the Duck right down on top of the weird aircraft, and literally pushed and nudged it out of the spiral (though still descending, now at a rather alarming rate) down toward the open ocean about fifty yards beyond the southern edge of the station's vast array of floats and boat clusters. The static arcs from the energy field surrounding the enemy ship were partially insulated away by the wood-and-canvas upper works of the Duck's main float, but conducted all too handily by the float's metal underside and the armored skin of the fuselage, the arcs jumping from rivet to rivet to antenna to guywire to Al's hands through the joystick lik etiny bolts of lightning. He gritted his teeth and hung on doggedly, determined to keep the the enemy plane form crashing onto the station. As they descended with their terrible charge, they flashed horrifically close behind the China Clipper as it descended in almost exactly the opposite direction. "Did you see tat?!" Al remarked through his teeth, "Wazzat Tall Dark and Vampy on top o' that thing?" Al finally bumped the green craft into the drink, and the water and the plane itself flashed and spluttered in the water as the field shorted itself out, a pall of steam and smoke finally obscuring the craft from view.

"I'll fly a search out here in a bit to see about the wreckage," he said. "If there's anything left, we can get one of the local salvors to haul it in for us." He banked teh Duck around and headed for home.

[Ranger Reid]

Of all the reactions Donna could have anticipated, what happened was the fartherest from expected.   The woman looked at her and,nodded.  Both women breathed a sigh.   But then it went to hell.  The woman saw Liam ans lost her mind.  She screamed in fear, and literlly crawled on hands and knees away, still screeching her panic.

Liam was at a loss.   He tried to call to her, but the woman was out of her mind in panic.   

[Stella Gaslight]

"Sorry dear." She helped him to feet and then guided him to the small bunk behind the cockpit.  "Just stay here for a bit.  Connect to me and if you see panic come out quick."  Shuttling the door on Liam she walked back to the frightened woman humming the same lullabie her mother had used when she was a child.  "Now it is just us.  I promise to keep you safe and the aces never brake a promise."

Jace was starting out at the wreckage wide eyed as the smoke faded and it looked like only a bare frame was left.  "Al I am not dreaming right?  Because at least half of that was impossible."

[MWBailey]

"Like I was sayin' to that bastard Doc back a month ago," Al answered, " 'define normal'; It actually varies with the situation. An amazonian Inca descendantg shouldn't be able to call a windstorm inside teh deepest tunnel in a gold mine, but I've seen it happen. A guy who used to have trouble seeing his way to his hotel room on a clear night after not drinking at all shouldn't suddenly be able to see gold inside a mountain thirty clicks away - but I've seen that happen too. This? Hell, if a vamp can cut a hellhound with a ridiculous-big sword, plus fly a damn china clipper with just her regular sword stuck in the top of the cockpit, this doesn't seem all that impossible, by my books."

He brough teh Duck in to land and taxied into the hangar, just in time to see Donna shove Liam behind a closed door and confront a blonde-headed woman in flight leathers. "Now, what inna heck do ya s'pose is goin' on over there?" Al quipped as he braked and cut the Duck's engine.

[Stella Gaslight]

"The green light was trying to get the poor thing and for some reason Liam scares her.  I figure we could calm her down and figure out what the hell is going on.  Either of you understand what she is saying?"  Donna said easing herself down next to the pilot

Jace listened and frowned.  "I can understand pilot terms and curse words but not much else."

[Ranger Reid]

Liam sat on the bunk trying to remember or reconnect to the flow of energy he had felt before.   He knew the ability was still there, but the block had returned.   Sighing, he turned his thoughts to the man he had seen.  The man was older, but in almkst every detail he had looked exactly like Liam.

If it hadnt been for the lack of scars, Liam could have thought it was a future self.   He sighed.  Too many mysteries still.

[CPT_J_Percell]

Movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention and Wilfred watched the needle rise, "that's impossible," he said to the empty space of the cockpit, "The cells should be shot and need replacing" He watched in fascination it the needle continued to climb before a light came on say that the charge had been dumped back into the batteries.
Wilfred watched the duck push the Vosh into the sea the pull away, dropping the speed to a lazy almost stalling speed, he turned the Blue Fang and begin a lazy turn watching the wreck of the vosh sink.

[Stella Gaslight]

Jace plonked down on the ground by the rapidly talking pilot.  She was feeling bright and calm and the pilot seemed to feel it as well.  "Listen miss I am captain of this ragtag crew. I don't know what trouble you are in but this is a safe harbor." The pilot listed and seamed to relax.  "None of my crew will harm you." She pantomimed crossing her heart and the Russian nodded and made the pilot sign for good fuel station.  "Yes that is right.  Now I am going to bring another of my crew out and he may scare you but I promise he is here to help. l will aim my gun at him until you are sure he means no harm all right?". She nodded nervously.  "Liam could you come out please?  Just be slow and careful and don't mind my aim you know I won't hurt you."

[MWBailey]

A pivotal moment was at hand; Al wasn't much at predictions outside of his knack's sphere, but within that precinct, he was almost always right - the only problem was that the knack always showed the true future; that is to say, what was inevitable, but that did not always mean that what he saw or sensed would be exactly the way that it looked at the time that he saw or sensed it. Too, when a crossroads was involved, it tended to show ALL of the branches of that crossroads, and did not make it clear which path was best, beyond feelings of pleasantness or unpleasantness.

So. A Pivotal moment was right in front of them, yes; it concerned this young female pilot, of that he was certain in a way that he only ever was when it concerned his knack, so he "knew" it to be true, somehow. But what turned on that pivot, and what would come of the turning, was a problematic question. Al could not really "see," but could "feel" with his mind three different possible branches of a tree-like construct of probablity, as if he were standing in a pitch-dark room and molding or groping around the form of it with his hands. Two branches were neither bad nor good, though those values did not seem to apply in the usual sense of such things, whereas the feel of the third branch, to the left of his mind (he clearly sensed it as the left) was very unpleasant indeed.

Thus it was, when Liam came out, Al sidled up close to him and said, "Mind yer B's and Q's, Kid, Can't say how I know things like this, but this lady and our meeting her are important. Somethin' tells me we can't afford to screw this up."