The New World

[thefrozenwulf]

"we need to contact falko fist, kat. you know that we don't have many people here, and if this turns into a fight, we're done for. i think that we should probably wait until we get some reinforcements down here."

[lazarusofartemis]

She didn't like the sound of anyone rejecting her idea.
"We need to hurry," she said. "If you all don't want to go, then I will myself." Kat shoved the letter into Yuri's hands. "My explanation. See you soon."
She grabbed her coat and tied her hair up with the brown ribbon. She ran out the ship as fast as she could. No one could stop her- from getting the information or maybe even seeing John for the last time.
The air was chillingly cold outside, even colder than the last few nights. She had a bad feeling about it.
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Ekaterina finally got to the antiques store. Her throat was dry and her lungs heaved, but she didn't care.
"John?" she croaked.
"Sh," someone whispered. "They might catch us."
John stepped out from the dark alley. He was illuminated by the lamp above them. His hair was messy, but it shone in the light. She couldn't help but smile.
He pulled her into a hug.
"You need to get away," he said.
"I know," Kat mumbled into his trench coat.
He let her go and pulled out a thick, brown paper wrapped parcel from beneath his coat.
"Take it," he said. "I've made overviews of my father's discoveries over the years. I believe that all your answers could be in here."
She took the parcel carefully from him. "Thank you."
John reached behind her and pulled off the ribbon. "That isn't the way you are to use it," he said with a smile. He wrapped it tentative around her head and tied it in a headband. John brushed a tendril off her face.
"John, how do you even know that your father isn't good?" she asked quietly.
He smiled tiredly. "My mother is Romany. She does not know that, but her blood gave me abilities."
"So you're a bit like us? With powers?"
"You could say that. All of you are special, but some people are greedy for these gifts and will do anything for it."
Kat felt her heart flutter and before she knew it, they were leaning in towards each other...
"You traitor!"
They both turned to see George standing there with a bunch of mean looking thugs.
"F-father..." John stammered.
"Do not call me that!" George boomed. "How dare you? You tried to help them leave?"
Kat looked at George, then at John's pleading eyes.
"Go," he whispered.
"But you-"
"Just go!" he urged.
Kat kissed him on the cheek as fast as she could, then ran. She ran as fast as she could, like she had never ran before.
The thugs went after her. She panicked. Her heart was beating faster and faster. Until it hit her. She stared at the thugs and sent pain towards them. They all screamed and stopped in their tracks. Kat turned back around and kept running.
She got back to the ship and dropped to the ground.
"Please!" she yelled "We have to leave now! We need to find Falko and Julius and the others!"

[The Corsair]

They were in the air as fast as they could be. They sped towards New York, hoping the others would follow captain Skarssen's recommendation that they return to New York.

As they flew, knowing they'd find a fight upon arrival, the 5th Commodore's words echoed in his head. 'This was just a test, kid.'

[Augustus Longeye]

Julius overheard the messaging, and when someone shouted about there being a fleet on the way to New York he saw Falko rush off, his ship speeding into the skies before Julius could even get onto his own. "It's lucky I'm liking this ship, the amount of flying I've done..." he muttered to himself.
"What was that sir?" Barum asked, and Julius sighed.
"Never mind Barum, let's get this ship into the sky! We're off to New York!" and the man nodded and set to it.

[Man of Steam]

Alex ran to Kat, and lifting her up, brought her to the Raptor. He placed her down on her bed, and ran to the deck.
"Time to go everyone!" He called out to the pilots in the hanger. He went to the pilot room, where after making sure everything was set, powered up the ship.

[The Corsair]

They drifted into the sky docks as evening closed in. Every pilot was madly prepping their ship for battle or fleeing while they still could.

Once he had landed he was straight onto the deck.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, a moment of your attention please." he boomed across the dock. He'd been thinking of what to say for half the journey. They needed to be a combined force.
He cleared his throat as most turned to face him...

[The Corsair]

"As I'm sure most of you know, a large fleet of unknown command is headed for this city. I regret to inform you all that they fully intend on taking this city by force. We have fought these ships before and are the only people to survive and I can tell you that they far outclass any ship known to science. They will out-gun all your ships, no matter what modifications you have made.
But I must also inform you that this is no cause to surrender. When we faced these ships over San Francisco we won and saved that city from the fate experienced by Seattle and many other western cities."
Everyone was paying attention now.
"We have been trying to find the source of these ships."
He made a point not to mention the angels. He wanted to rally these people, not cause hysteria.
"And we have had little success but what I can tell you is that they are a serious threat to this nation and undoubtedly want it for themselves. Let us take this opportunity to deny them at least this little slice of this nation. Here, in this city, we have to dig in and fight the best fight we can so that we can attack them as they have attacked this country. We may not be able to hit back for days, weeks or months but if we don't fight here and now then we never will get to hit back."
The crowd was considerably worked up by now and he was surprised at his own ability to have such an effect on them.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, I ask that every pilot here and then some fly and fight with me so that these United States have a fighting chance in this coming war!"
The crowd gave a hearty cheer and suddenly an informal organisational structure appeared in the docks. Captains were talking and planning and coordinating and coming to him to create a full battle plan. He asked Captain Skarssen to take his place as de facto planner as he had no real faith in his own tactical abilities.
The New York military, who had noticed the commotion on the sky docks, soon joined the effort.
He hoped the others would arrive soon. They had half a day at best.

[Blindwalker]

A beggar grabbed at one of the soldiers' legs. He noticed the thin beggar, and kicked his hand away.
"Please, sir, can you spare a penny?" he asked, with big pleading eyes. The soldier went through a small pouch, and picked out a few dimes and dropped them in the man's hand. "Thank you sir, thank you sir, thank you sir!" he said, bowing his head with tears coming out of his eyes.
The squad saw their gunship fly overhead. The ship flew down, and hovered 10 meter's off the ground, and dropped some ladders. "Get in!" bellowed a the person who threw the ladders, "We finally got something to shoot at!"
Hugo and his squad ascended the ladders quickly, and heard the news about the ships appearing on the horizon.
"Meh," said Hugo with a shrug, "They don't look that tough." He readied his new Thompson Prototype. He really hoped this one didn't jam.

[YetAnotherMatt]

The Hammer turned for New York, moving to flank speed, with the small crowd of ships of group 2 around it. Gebbert had been overseeing the distribution of aether pistols to some of the ships troops, and a set of a half dozen communication devices were stored in his pockets, to be given to Falko for distribution once New York was reached. The Raptor's magnetic cannon was still untested, but a half dozen of the aetheric shells were aboard for that purpose, being to unstable for use in conventional cannons. The Hammer was at full battle readiness, troops conducting last minute drills as they headed towards New York.

--- --- ---
"All systems worked perfectly, no fatigue to any systems."

"Brilliant. We just need to find another scout and then we will be able to complete this shakedown test."

"Sir. Intercepting communications via aetherwave, US military encryption."

"What do they say?"

"Unidentified fleet inbound on New York city. Projected about 17 hours out."

"We may have to abort testing. Set course for New York. If we push HERMES to maximum, we can make it in 24.
We may be late to this party, but I'll be dammed if we're a no-show."

"Very well sir. Course set. Anything else?"

"Contact Howes, Protocol 2 encryption. Give him a sit-rep and an open invite to crash this party."

[The Corsair]

-Cliff-

The hours passed steadily. He could read the apprehension on the faces of his 4 friends and even the others they now travelled with. Every hour marched regularly by for Cliff. He checked systems, fuelled up, loaded ammunition. He even found a pair of urchins willing to be deckhands. Nobody took the urchins on, it was the sky's greatest tragedy he thought.
Once upon a time someone had been brave enough to take some scruffy kid who couldn't remember his name under his wing. After a reckless dive off a rocky outcrop to save his master's ship, the urchin had been nicknamed Cliff. By the time he was 18 he was a human tank, far from the weedy street urchin he was at the age of 10.
Cliff always gave street kids a chance. Sometimes they were the keenest learners.

The other group's ships floated toward the sky dock as the last few hours before the battle passed by. They'd made it in time, thankfully.

[lazarusofartemis]

"Wait!" someone yelled.
They ran into the hanger. It was a man in his 40's. "I am Captain Robert Mcdonald of the Implacable. I have just recieved a message that there has been something going on at New York. We need to get there immediately."

[Augustus Longeye]

Julius followed Falko, he wasn't sure that they would win this one and he had very little idea what he would do against airships, but he wasn't going to just leave them all to it. He may not be the most useful, but he would do what he could and hopefully it would help.
"You know it's not too late to get out of this." he told Barum.
"Oh yes it is sir! If I get out now I'll break both my legs!" He shouted back cheerfully.
Julius shook his head in mock exasperation and turned his face towards the sun.

[Man of Steam]

Alex piloted the airship to the skydock in New York. He had needed to pull ahead of the Hammer, but he saw that it was just minutes behind him. He had seen that preparation were underway for something, but he didn't know what. Alex left the engines on, and stepped down to the deck, intent on finding out what was going on. Seeing a familiar face, he called out
"Falko, what's going on?"

[The Corsair]

"It's good to see you again Alex." he meant it. It seemed like years ago they had shared a cabin on that ship...
"they're combining forces and planning a defense. A fleet, like the one in San Francisco, only larger, is inbound and we're digging in to defend. Those of us with powers will front the attack. Could you pass that on to the others? I need to sort out what the Vancouver men are doing..."
He didn't want to cut the conversation short really, he wanted to delay and not have to face the reality that a potentially devastating attack was incoming.

[Augustus Longeye]

Julius landed and immediately surveyed the city. It wasn't a very good place to defend, no structure to it and no military order... just the usual chaos of a city.
He had a few thoughts and made a model of the city out of earth then began prodding bits around here and there. He thought, with enough work, he might be able to set up some cover for large numbers of civilians, but it wouldn't last forever... he estimated, little more than a guess, that it would hold for an hour under direct fire. He rushed off to Captain Skarssen to tell him about it, and quickly got permission to build them. He snorted as he ran off, it seemed odd that he needed permission at all... he had never been a military man and never understood it, but now was hardly the time to point it out and he got to work.

[The Corsair]

The Vancouver men had modified their ships to be able to fly higher. They also had their own system of signals for communication so he guessed they'd be best suited to coming in from above to cut into the middle of the enemy. He instructed them to talk with Captain Skarssen to see how the tactic could sync with the wider battle plan.

With that done, he sauntered into a pub for a quick shot of Dutch courage before flying to what he guessed would be his death. As he downed the searingly soothing liquid that voice found it's way to his mind.
I'm here to help.

[lazarusofartemis]

Kat felt the ship land. They were back in New York...again. The parcel still lay by her side. She grabbed it, and walked out to the rest of her crew. She got there in time to hear Falko explain what had been happening.
"Men, I have some information here," Kat told them.
She tore open the parcel. The colour of the wrapping reminded her of John's hair again. She felt her heart fall, but kept on going. Kat sifted through the papers for one that seemed fairly easy and interesting to read.
"Here," she said. "Introduction to Aether and Subspecies."
"This is a collection of my findings on the fifth element which exists on this Earth. It is the substance which fills everything else. Aether is undefinitive, and mysterious.
Experiments have proved that humans in exposure to large and pure amounts of aether may begin to change. A conspiracy which confuses me is the rumour that humans may gain abilities. These I am not sure of.
A summary of my Subspecies research explains that aether itself is another world between our dimension. Existing in these dimensions are races of creatures. I have not yet found out what these are. All which I know for now is that these creatures have the ability to move between dimensions, but only when they are summoned. No records of these creatures being summoned, or sighted on earth, have yet existed."

[Man of Steam]

"Hmm, interesting" Alex said. "These creatures the article talks about could be the angels, I had noticed that their auras were practically glowing with power. Anyway, we need to look into this, but not now. An enemy fleet is coming, and if we don't defend ourselves, New York will be destroyed. Can you pass that knowledge on, I need to prep the Raptor." Alex knew he sounded rushed, and he felt bad for not thinking more about Kat's knowledge, but right now he knew that incoming fleet was more important.

[YetAnotherMatt]

As the Hammer pulled into the New York Sky-dock, the preparations seemed immense. Every bay was filled with ships loading for battle. Gebbert rushed to find Falko.

"Falko. I have some communications devices for you. I've got one, you should have one, and some of the others would be good to keep in contact with. Your decision who gets them though."

Gebbert dropped a half-dozen of the devices in front of the younger man.

"Do we have someone co-ordinating this with the US Military and New York's ground defences? I need to talk to them."

[The Corsair]

"Captain Skarssen is coordinating everything. I'll distribute these to the group.." he hurried off to do so as Gebbert moved away to find the captain.

Once all the ships had a device each he went back to the Falcon and got it in the air as the sun set. He hovered it about 100 metres in font of the sky dock to wait for the enemy and be a defensive spearhead. The Raptor, Raven and Iron Crow formed up around him.

The military waited below to come up behind the enemy, the Vancouver men were temporarily landed on top of the sky dock to attack from above and the rest of the merchants and privateers and other airmen and women waited in the dock for the call to fly.

[YetAnotherMatt]

Gebbert was out of breath when he ran onto the Hammer's bridge
"Captain Skarssen?"

"Yes, Mr. Freidhelm?"

"Do you have access to the New York communications equipment?"

"Yes... why?"

"I need to use the relays to actively scan the skies and route that information to the bridge here, and this prototype we were testing."

"We need these communications to co-ordinate the defence."

"I only need the city to city communication relays."

"Very well. I'll give the order."

New York sent one final update, then vanished from the long-range communications grid.

---

It took half an hour to get everything working. While the method for gathering the information was very complicated, the method for displaying it was very simple. A light shone from above onto a table, around which Gebbert and several junior officers were clustered. The light projected images of many wire ovals with coloured glass in them, onto the table. The size of the reflected Aether signal determined the size height of the oval, and thus the size of the projected coloured circle. There was a centre circle for the Hammer projected onto an Ordnance Survey map of New York State, that two Lieutenants were trying to fold to show the city.  Some of the junior officers started to change the coloured glass around to match the ships they represented: Blue for US Military, Green for Private, Mercenary and other ships in the fleet, and on the edge, about two hours out, Red Circles for the incoming fleet.

Gebbert pressed a switch on the device in his ear, and spoke into its receiver.

"Falko. We have area command established on the Hammer. Enemy fleet is inbound and two hours out, bearing 246. They'll know we know they are here now, but the advantage is still ours. Captain Skarssen is in our communications loop, so co-ordinate a battle plan with him."

"Certainly, Mr. Hoogenboome" came from the earpiece as Captain Skarssen affirmed his presence.

"We will have a approximate count on their fleet size in 5 minutes."

[Mark Peiterson]

Over the barren countryside the last lights of the afternoon gloomed away. Many dark shapes cruised across the sky. Two frigates followed on hidden by the clouds.
"Captain when will we be able to see them , we need numbers now!" Came the husky voice over the intercom.
"Patience please we will se them when the clouds pass."
"you better find them soon."
Just afterthe voice crackelled out into static the last wisps of the cloud passed. Beyond them lay a sea of black as far as theeye can see
"may god help us all".

[The Corsair]

He heard Mark's voice in the communicator. The enemy was upon them.
He signalled for the other ships to take off. He and the 3 other ships flew ahead. He waited for Gebbert to give the rough count.

[YetAnotherMatt]

"Tighten the scan resolution between 250 and 270."

"Tightening."

Gebbert smiled as the Junior officers operated the scan. He had developed the theory, but it had originally been designed to work with the Hammer's sensors. With those not fully working, using the New York communication relay was a less than perfect substitute. The operators had adjusted to the difficulties well.

Dozens of armatures rattled out of slots above them, all of them coloured red. "Falko. Preliminary count shows upwards of 200 vessels inbound, now bearing 257. Time to engagement range is 30 minutes."

"Captain, begin deployment into formation."

[Blindwalker]

"Men, we finally got something good and proper to do." Hugo stood in front of the huge squad of soldiers, of many ranks. "We have a threat to the United States, and we gotta go and blow them outta the sky! Alright, this is what we know about the oncoming threat: There are lots of enemy airships. And I mean there is about, at an approximate of... sorry, we don't have an approximate because there are so many."
The squad shifted around nervously, and said a few murmurs to each other.
"Now now, don't you men worry." His words raised some of the dipped heads. "Now, since there are so many, it will be impossible, unless, of course, you're a bad shot, to miss."
They all got the idea, and they had a sudden gain of morale.
"Let's sort you people into groups..." He pointed to the people with Remington rifles with scopes in 2 group, the men with fully automatic guns in 3 groups, one in command of the ammunition, and another other with minor explosives. The specialists in artillery and anything of the sort handled the major explosives such as large grenades, with an attachment squad of riflemen. Others that were left out were separated evenly amongst the groups. In total, there were 7 squads and about 21 people in each of them.
"Good... now everyone go to their assigned gunship. We are within 40 minutes of coming in range to attack. Be prepared, because your ship, may get hit."