The New World

[Augustus Longeye]

"What's wrong?" Julius yelled over.

[The Corsair]

Yuri had a large cluster of small stones embedded in his leg, obviously from a skid or something of the like. They were bleeding quite a lot, but not enough to be threatening to his life.
"He has a few rocks in his leg, I think he wants you to remove them." he called out to Julius.
Where's Gebbert? he suddenly thought. He had left the Osprey and Gebbert earlier and hadn't seen them in the air.
"What's happened to the Osprey?" he called out.
He was answered by of the men from the Hammer.
"Here getting repaired." came the call.
He handed the controls to Rosie and leaped over to the Hammer where he went to find Gebbert's ship. When he did find it, he entered to find Gebbert lying on the floor by his workbench.
"Gebbert! Good god what happened?!"

[Augustus Longeye]

Julius nodded to Falko and leapt over to Yuri. He checked where the stones were in the leg, and then slowly, very slowly, moved them back along their paths. He left a small amount of residue here and there to patch a vein or hold some muscle in place. After about five minutes the wound was ready to be cleaned up.
"There you go..." he murmured.

[thefrozenwulf]

"gods, that's a relief. thank you, Julius."

[Blindwalker]

"Reginald, sir, we have no idea why those things attacked us. We were asked to defend and protect ourselves from the threat and to aid others." Hugo said.
"You'll be fine from the poison or drugs, or whatever they were, in a few minutes," said the medic."In the mean time, you need to get a bit of rest."
"Well, the angel things are gone, and I hope they don't come back for more. Carlson, check on the others wounds and treat them."

[SteamFreak]

"Rest? If I rest then who do you expect to fly this contraption? I built the system myself, nobody can fly the Crow but me." Reginald protests as he pours another whiskey

[Blindwalker]

"We are not entirely sure if you can fly the Crow, while drinking whiskey. I'll give you some codeine to treat the pain." The medic searched through his medic kit and found a syringe. He took out a small bottle of the painkiller and sucked some in the syringe. He held it up, checking if it was a decent amount.

[The Corsair]

He'd spent the time with the unconscious Gebbert. From we he could gather, the man was stable, just out cold.
The stop in Memphis was only a few minutes long. After a quick refueling and restocking of ammunition they set off again.
New York.

[SteamFreak]

"Get that away from me...I hate needles. And besides that, I can fly the Crow better blind drunk than any of your men could pilot her sober!" Reginald seemed almost offended that any one other than he operate his craft

[lazarusofartemis]

A wave of relief crashed over Kat. They had won the battle! She whooped in joy and danced aorund the battlefield crazily. After her insane victory dance, she ran back to the Crow and she didn't even feel tired anymore.
"Thank you," she whispered as she looked into the sky.
We'll meet again, Kat. Don't forget me!

[Mark Peiterson]

Mark and his squad for the most part had been keeping out of the way of the crew, secretly he was relieved to be heading to new York firstly he preferred the atmosphere there and secondly, though he wouldn't admit it he was worried about his mother and father, having moved tones york a couple of years ago. Seeing the stranger who saved them on deck he freed himself from his dull conversation about the battle with some of the other troopers and walked over to him.
"hey there, just wanting to say thanks for saving us back there, names Mark, Peiterson and how the hell did you get that lighting to come out of your hands?"
Mark was never one to be subtle

[The Corsair]

He took the time away from Gebbert to talk with the soldier. Gebbert would be fine.

"If I'm honest sir, I don't know. And I have to say it's good to have you and your competent group on this side of the fight."
He was only half-interested in the conversation really. He was happy to leave Rosie with the Falcon but he worried about her nevertheless, plus Gebbert's condition, though stable, was worrying. Hopefully he'd get an answer or two when Gebbert came around.

[YetAnotherMatt]

Gebbert had been having an eventful unconsciousness. Ideas moved around in his head, complex circuitry, dense arrangements of cogs, formed devices whose purposes he could not fathom. There had been a noise, like someone shouting underwater, but that had given up after a minute or two. Now it just seemed that, whatever was happening, it was only the images of otherworldly machinery, advanced gadgetry, and his alarm clock.

"Wait a minute." He thought, and it came out as speech, but it sounded hollow, as if it was a little speaker in his head. He realised the comparison was appropriate when he remembered that he hadn't opened his mouth. He was confused now. Why was his alarm clock hanging in a vision of exotic technology?

It dawned on him that the setting was a lot like Falko's description of the Aether. This worried him slightly, considering that that place was filled with hostile creatures, if the previous battle was anything to go on. This realisation made the concept of his alarm clock being there positively ludicrous. He involuntarily looked around. He realised that for one, he wasn't in the Aether. The small couch in what seemed like a blank white room gave that away.

He sat on the couch. What had seemed like the Aether was simply on one wall and flat, as was confirmed by walking up to it and trying to stick his hand through it. He realised that this was an annoyingly odd thing to do. The point of this whole exercise still eluded him.

He looked from one image to the next, but they still had nothing in common. "Or do they?" Gebbert suddenly realised what the images were trying to show him, and started studying them intently.

---

It was an hour out of Memphis when Gebbert slowly regained consciousness, the seeds of an idea still burning inside him.

[The Corsair]

Before Mark could say more, Gebbert regained consciousness. He seemed in control and busily bumbling around his workbench so Falko excused himself and jumped back aboard the Falcon

---

They flew for several more hours and through the night. As the sun rose, New York stood a few hundred metres away from them, only this time it was swarming with private airships of all sorts. He moved in to the sky docks to find out what was going on.

[Augustus Longeye]

Julius had slept for a few hours on the voyage, but had been very stiff and found manipulating anything difficult. The spirit... Thing had left his body after the fight, and with it there had been a great wave of exhaustion. He had not, however, regained his sight. He was still blind and his eyes, or so he was told, were white. However he didn't have the great sense of energy he had gained, but he could still see the earth and it's movements. It was a disorientating feeling, feeling the ship but nothing beyond it. Upon arriving at New York he gladly jumped from the ship and landed, sighing in contentment at being able to feel the ground again.
Falko began to walk off to find someone, and Julius felt a great deal of people wearing a lot of metal. He suspected them to be fairly rich, therefore know what was going on, and directed Falko towards them.

[Mark Peiterson]

As the smoke cleared around them they saw the city, it was fine, infact better than ever, all the buildings gleamed in the sunlight. Mark started to lead a patrol out, officially to recon the area and find inttell but it was more so to find his parents. They huried through the buildings and through back alleys and eventually they found the house, inside was deathly quiet.
"to quiet." he said
Then the hunters fell apon the hunted

[The Corsair]

Mark had gone in a different direction. He guessed they'd regroup later seeing as mark hadn't spoken to the rest of them.
From what he could discern, other pilots were talking about strange fleets they'd seen that were bizarrely armed. None of the pilots had been in any engagements with the fleets and had only witnessed such battles from a distance.

He wandered into a small drinking establishment away from the main docks. A few aviators were talking about an engagement up in Vancouver. These men, it seemed had been involved in an engagement, though only against about 10 ships. He guessed that they were the 10 that had fled from San Francisco. He waited for an opening in the conversation.

[Mark Peiterson]

Mark cut left with his curras, slicing the foul being in half, then shotinto the air with his pistol killing another diving from the balcony. More dived from above. A man fell down, knocked down by these new enemies, Mark instinctively grabed the thing off him and pulled the curras up to it's neck.
"Get the hell out of here or I'll slice his neck out."
The fighting stopped. A loud shrill call echoed out and they fell back, he reluctantly released his hold and the thing ran off. He at last had time to examine the enemies. They wore black robes with what he thought to be beaked masks. And on there hands there where metal claws.then he says the mouth moth, he was alive .
"You and you tie him up, bring him to base. Keep alert , this city isnt all it seems. The dead stay behind."

[Man of Steam]

Alex sailed the ship in to New York. It was nice to be back, he thought, though he hoped no one would connect the ship to the stolen police one. He saw an open landing spot and settled down, taking a look at the other ships. He saw everything from private aircrafts, to huge merchant ships, to even a few military ones, which had battle scars on them.
Checking that all the systems were set, and making sure he had everything he needed, he got off the ship.
He wandered around the ships for a while, talking to the assembled pilots. From what he heard, there had been a few small scale engagements, but nothing big. Another interesting bit of information he picked up concerned the angels, or lack of them. Apparently, his group was the only one that had seen them.

[The Corsair]

He followed the conversation as he ordered a pint. Finally an opportunity to join and find out what these men knew occurred. One of them mentioned that he thought the small group must've broken off from a larger group as it had seemingly no central command.
"It did break off. We hit the main fleet." He interjected.
"Where abouts?"
"San Francisco. We were the only surviving combatants. The civilians are okay though. I'm Falko by the way." he responded
One of the men gestured to an empty chair at their table and Falko took a seat.
"So where are you fine men from?" he asked
"Vancouver." said one of the five men.
"Did you find out anything about the ships you faced?"
"They had weapons the likes of which we could swear aren't scientifically possible." the man responded.
Falko thought for a moment. These men clearly had experience if the five of them could take down 10 of those vessels.
"Gentlemen, we need a sizable force if we want to combat this threat. Would you be interested in joining such a freelance force?"
"I'd have to meet the members of said force before I committed to anything." Responded the man who had been speaking with Falko and was seemingly the leader.
"If you'd come back outside with me I'd gladly show you." he said, having finished the last dregs of his pint.
"Let's move then gentlemen. I'm Archibald. Arch. This is Kevin, Scratch, Cliff and Tommy." each of them gave a small nod or wave as their names were mentioned.
The group moved out onto the docks.

[Mark Peiterson]

It was at that point that the captive was brought it.
he had come to his senses and was strugling and shouting so much that he was gagged.
when they finally got back to base he finally shoves the thing down to the floor. it screeched and it was at that point he woke up from the dream.
"sarge" said a voice, "sir weve landed in New York, I asked the capt'n you got leave to see ya parents."
it was all a dream and he just then realised that the buildings where not from Ney York. He could renember where they came from but they where familair.Well what else can you do but wait untill you renember, he thought pulling on his best boots, lets go see how the others are.

[Blindwalker]

Hugo's squad had returned back to the USAS Hammer, having the odd drink and having a chew on their tough jerky.
"Ok, so how are wounds coming along?" asked Hugo.
"They're mending up well, but there were a few broken bones which could take a while to heal." reported the medic.
"Good. Who are those group of people that just joined?"
"They are a group of freelances that have recently joined our group." Carlson fishes out a tin bottle of a strong-smelling alcohol from his pocket, and takes a swig. "Well, not in our squad, but they're just here to do whatever they do, sir."
Hugo took out a small biscuit and bit it, chewing thoughtfully. "We need more airships, and more troops. We gotta move and ask the people down in New York, they gotta have some."

[YetAnotherMatt]

Gebbert was running low on pieces. He wasn't sure how, but he suddenly knew how to construct devices that could manipulate aether, if only on a very basic level. A few things sat on his desk now, a pistol similar to the one the angels had wielded, a long range communications prototype, even a cannon shell with an aether payload. But these devices all needed power. Gebbert couldn't draw on any aetheric power himself, and frankly didn't want to know what the grey material was, or how it accessed the aether.

That was what the last device was for. The brass cylinder that had knocked him out had undergone an interesting transformation. The circuitry and grey matter had been replaced by a dense metal coil, and the connecting wires now ended in clips. A small gauge on the base of the cylinder read 0%.

Now all he needed was to test everything. He slipped the pistol into his shirt pocket and, picking up the cylinder, went in search of Falko.

[The Corsair]

He walked over to the bays that their ships were in.
"I met these gentlemen in a pub over that way. They seem to have taken down the ships that fled San Francisco so I figured they'd be of use to us."
He introduced them to the others.

---

Rosie had simply flown when needed and otherwise slept or sat around. Whatever had talked to her had only done so briefly and not spoken since.

She was a little thankful that they had made it back to New York. It was also nice to finally arrive somewhere and not be in one fight or another within 10 minutes. She had enjoyed having the ship to just her and Falko, they could spend unfettered time with each other, which they hadn't really had a chance to do since meeting on the ship.

She began to reminisce about the time on the ship, before any of this craziness had happened. Falko may have been snooping around the crew quarters but it hand't been the hectic fight for survival it had been upon arrival. It was then she realised they had only been in America for just over a week. It felt like years ago she had run away from home...

Falko's return to the ships brought her out of the daydream. He had 5 aviators in tow, obviously he'd already found new people to join what was fast becoming a freelance army. She decided not to introduce herself just yet and instead retreated to one of the cabins in the envelope of the Falcon.

[YetAnotherMatt]

Gebbert heard Falko's voice outside on the dock. He stepped outside, to see the privateers that Falko had acquired.

"Falko. If you don't mind, I need to discuss something with you.
 I believe I may have found the first step to overcoming our opponents technological advantage."