The New World

[The Corsair]

He was comforting Arch as best as he could while his brain reeled for a way to ask for Kevin's ship. Thankfully, he needed no excuse to bring up the question.
"Listen," Arch began, cutting through an almost-suppressed sob, "I heard about your ship. Nobody likes losing a ship. You can use Kevins for however long you need. I don't want to have to keep seeing it anyway."
He trailed off and sobbed quietly for a few seconds.
"Archibald, thank you. All I have is thanks. I'll be sure to keep it in its present condition."
"Don't worry too much about that. If it gets damaged then that's ok. Kevin would rather have it damaged fighting for a good cause, and this is the best cause any of us could have asked for, than have it sitting idly in some Vancouver hanger."
It was disconcerting seeing Arch, who was always so... so... collected, sobbing away and trying not to bawl his eyes out in front of everyone. Falko realised something terrible then. I'm going to have to see this hundreds of times with this war on... Could he manage that?

He purged all those sorts of things from his mind, though he did it with a growing awareness that he now had a lot of dangerous thoughts that had gone unconsolidated, and found Kevin's ship. He flew it with Gebbert up to the Sky Dock where Rosie boarded. He had hoped to have time alone with Rosie but Gebbert had nothing better to do with his time and clearly didn't realise his slight intrusion. It bothered Falko, but not greatly. Gebbert was good enough company.

Just as he was about to take off, a cry of "MEDIC! DOCTOR!" and a few more panicked words rang out across the ground below the Sky Dock. He wanted to leave, but he had to make sure that whoever was injured was tended to. He let the Harlequin's Wife drift down to the sodden girl holding the even more sodden, though mostly sodden with blood, form of Hugo. He swore lightly and guided the girl to the makeshift triage centre where Hugo was rushed up the priority list. He knew he couldn't wait around to find out whether Hugo made it and soon he heard Rosie call out from Kevin's old ship. He jogged back and sank into one of the comfy leather seats in the ship's Gondola while Rosie lifted the ship into the air.

[Blindwalker]

The sunlight enhaloed the lady's head. Hugo was then passed over to a doctor.
He was told to lay down onto the bed, and try to relax. He couldn't. His muscles were tense, trying to recover from the shock of the wounded body. His vision started to go away and everything he saw darkened. There were doctors rushing around grabbing materials and tools to help save lives. He saw the doctor getting out a syringe already loaded with something.
'I trust... won't... feel... thing...'
Dangit, he thought to himself, I hate needles...

[Augustus Longeye]

Julius was wandering the battle field. There was nothing much he could make out, and nothing that could be salvaged. The problem was that the ships had this the ground quite hard, and then the repeated shelling had dropped more things onto them, pulverizing the majority of structures. It would take months to clear up, that wasn't counting the fixing of this city, or the chance of another attack.
Just to be safe, he reached out with his mind. There was nothing coming from the ships, any aether technology they'd had was gone, but there was another person with powers nearby. He decided to go and see who.
Upon approaching the man, who he quickly made out, turned to him.
"Cenek..." Julius rather awkwardly knowledgeably. "Have you managed to find out anything interesting?"
"I've managed to find something, but I'm not sure if it's interesting or not..." the man look exhausted, and Julius could see flecks of blood on his clothing. He was obviously as exhausted from the fighting gas they all were.
"What did you find? At the moment we've go no leads to go on at all... Falko and Rosie left a while ago, the military are moving out... anything would be a start."
"Welll, the metal they were using in their ships? It's strange, but it's got a very high concentration of Carbon in it. You only get that from certain smithing techniques, and the only people to use that technique, that I know of, are in southern Texas... Is that a good start?"
Julius quietly grew excited. He thought for a moment and then said "We'll go there. Even if they aren't making the ships, they'll either be making parts we can follow or they'll know of other people who use this method and we can find them. It's a small lead, but if we can follow it through we can halt the construction of the ships! Brilliant Cenek!"
The pair of them quickly strode back to camp, where a few of their group were still waiting and resting.
"Right, Cenek has found a possible source for the metal in their ships, me and him are going to follow it through... Barum you're with me again... and we'll also requisition, I suppose, a dozen or so ships to go with us in case we find something. Do any of you want to join us? We'll be leaving in a few hours... Once I find myself a new ship, I can't wait for the Raven to be fixed..."

[Ella, Aerial Musketeer]

.....she was guide towards the the triage.......the man handed over.....people rushing around her......it was to loud to crowed....... she   swayed and collapsed exhaustion finally taking over

[The Corsair]

-Tommy-

Tommy looked around a cabin filled with the most downtrodden faces he'd ever seen.

Scratch's ship, the Saxon had the most spacious interior because of the modifications he'd made to the rooms in the envelope. He'd knocked down everything and reinforced the steel walls to stop the giant gasbags from crushing the space and the result was a fairly roomy area they often met in for all manner of things; birthday celebrations, games nights, meetings.

Today the space was filled with sorrow, sheer, palpable sorrow. Tommy had been the last beside Kevin's death bed and the other three of his friends had already been in the Saxon for a good hour before he arrived. He had planned his first actions and carried them through smoothly. Without saying a word and without waiting for anyone else to say any he strode forwards, unlatched the seat Kevin normally sat in and carried it out.

He left the airship and found himself once more in the dusty, oppressive air that hung over the rubble at Hudson HQ (which had previously been Rally Point Hudson). The chair was held just on his shoulders as he continued marching over the rubble. The other three had left the ship to see what he was doing, but he wasn't in the mood to turn around and even acknowledge their presence for the moment. Within a few short seconds, which turned into painful minutes in Tommy's grief-stricken mind, he was at the banks of the Hudson. The chair went flying awkwardly through the air for barely a second before it tumbled quite plainly down into the waters of the river. He watched it sink, an event again drawn out into a long-winded affair by his brain, and stared at the spot it had recently been on the surface of the water for a few seconds more.

The other three were watching him. Had Tommy turned around as he walked to the river he would have seen three perplexed faces but now he saw expressions of silent understanding. A large hand was clapped on his shoulder, presumably that of Cliff, and they shuffled back up to the room in the envelope of the Saxon.

Tommy had done his grieving. He didn't want discussions about Kevin or the emptiness of the group or anything like it. He wanted to move on, even if that meant ignoring the heart-wrenchingly obvious, and plan what they were going to do. He found one of the decks of cards they kept around and dealt out four lots of seven cards.
"What game?" asked Cliff, trying to sound like nothing was wrong and doing an almost convincing job of it.
"I don't know. Think of one." He responded.
They other three sat down without asking questions. Tommy and Kevin had been thick as thieves and they all had the sense to just go along with whatever Kevin needed right now.

[Mark Peiterson]

Silence.

Silence was all that Mark wanted. All he heard.

Lowell, Boston, his home, his family, gone. Blown away by the winds of time.
For a moment he just stood there. His body and mind trying to comprehend his loss, and then Grief, Sadness, Sorrow, tears. Mark hadn't cried since he was a boy, but now, he lay their, on the ground, crying, tears rolling down his face.

Silence turned to grief

[The Corsair]

-Nigel-

The USAS Implacable wasn't in too bad a shape considering its recent use as a projectile. With Skarssen dedicating a large portion of the makeshift repair corps to bringing the Implacable up to as close to full working order as possible the estimate was that it would be ready for departure in two hours. Captain Garrow guessed that most of the regrouped men and women would have left by then so he made a point to find out where they were all going so he may find somewhere different to examine. He expected he could add a couple of frigates to his command so he could take some more strength with him. Of course, that would technically place him in duties above his present rank of Captain but Skarssen needed to bend the rules to keep things running.

Discussions had hammered his ears on the Sky Dock as he tried to gain a sense of who was going where. Some were going north, mostly those who had been picked up from Boston. Nigel's parents were long dead so he had no need to return to his home town on Cincinnati out in Ohio. A couple of the Dutch boy's special friends, an Irish bloke among them presently talking, were going to do a search of Virginia and West Virginia but nobody seemed to be discussing anything south of that.

He decided to take his ship and whatever else he could get to go with it down to Raleigh in North Carolina and split them up, assuming he had them, from there to search as much of the Carolinas as they could. Anywhere south of there seemed to be considered too far south.

From his discerning, the search perimeter now lay from Cleveland in a fairly straight line down to the Virginias and, with his addition, the Carolinas, with more eastern states like Maine being searched only if the cities leading toward it were destroyed or showed signs of attack.



-Cliff-

In the envelope room of the Saxon the four of them played cards in reserved silence, the only things said being in relation to the game. Cliff's mind had been slowly ticking, as it always was, and their next move seemed fairly obvious to him. He would wait before voicing it of course. Perhaps his patience and his ability to say nothing for long periods of time until it was necessary and polite was what caused them to listen so intently and take his words so seriously. It was useful when the group needed to hear the advice he gave them but it was unfortunate when he tried to make a joke as it often took a few awkward seconds for them to realise that what he had just said was not to be taken seriously and by then the opportunity for proper laughter had passed.
So he waited to tell them that they had a duty to tell Kevin's family of what had happened. They didn't know exactly who his family members were but the Halstat family, of which Kevin was the oldest, were among the most wealthy in Vancouver and finding them would be easier than finding a lightning bolt in a storm. The four of them would, eventually, head for Vancouver.

[Thebeastyness]

His craft landed with a thud. The doors blew open and a hiss of steam came rushing out. He looked out into the Sun and saw that he was on an airship only this airship was huge and was completely black like a shadow on New York City.

[Blindwalker]

CRRRK
OW! Hugo thought unconsciously. He couldn't see anything. All he saw, well, his mind saw, was white. Plain white. "Oh crap, am I dead?"
His slowly regained his sight, everything started taking shades of grey and dull colors. He tried to sit up, but he felt his ribs bend slightly and he groaned from the pain. Instead, he laid back down on the bed, and turned his head towards his savior, who was resting on a chair nearby. He smiled, then turned his head back to the ceiling. He took out his lucky charm, his favorite book, out of his pocket then started to read it.

[Ella, Aerial Musketeer]

she was dreaming
"daddy....daddy is that you? no daddy dont leave please daddy" suddenly he disappeared "daddy? dad? pa? DADDY please no" she ended with a sob "daddy i love you please come back" she whispered
she awoke with a jolt "DADDY" she cried, she gasped and fell off the chair some kind sole had sat her on with a thump it was only then that she became aware of the man in the bed it was him: the man she had saved.

[The Corsair]

The Harlequin's Wife was to have its name kept the three of them decided. It was tempting to name it after another bird of prey but they thought it would be rude to do so without the permission of Kevin's friends. For now, they were stuck with the flamboyantly absurd name emblazoned on the side of the airship's iron gondola.
Rosie was presently outside, suspended from the ship's envelope by a series of ropes that must have normally been used for on-the-go damage inspection. She was covering the bright red letters with a more conservative grey colour to hide the ship's name. They had no idea whether Kevin had any enemies and didn't want to run into any of them. They also didn't want the ship being too noticeable or being tracked on its way back to New York.

Falko had slept for the first couple of hours after getting the ship into the air. Rosie had checked every so often that it was still on course but otherwise the ship had largely been set in a direction and left to fly. He now walked down the tight metal stairs that led to an alcove in the middle of the main cabin. The ship was laid out surprisingly differently to his own despite the two being of a similar size. This one had 4 very small bedrooms in the envelope, it had only 1 chemical toilet at the rear of the cabin (with small walls for privacy, of course), the stairs were in the middle of the ship rather than the aft and there was a small lounge and a small dining room either side of the gondola.

It was now mid-morning and Falko climbed out on to the strut of the left hand engine pod where Rosie was close at work. Gebbert wasn't bothering the two of them for now and the two finally got a chance to talk again.
"You don't need a rest?" He asked his suspended girlfriend.
"I only flew the ship and used my powers briefly in the battle, I'm fine."
"Ok. Had breakfast?"
The slightly frivolous conversation was refreshing in some ways but it seemed to be getting on both of their nerves.
"You've heard the name they've given us haven't you?" Rosie said, altering the conversation's course. He could hear the disguised hurt in her voice.
"Specials. To them, we're Specials." She continued, not waiting for an answer.
"We have no choice but to ignore it. If it helps we can start calling them normals, turn the insult back on them." He responded in an attempt to console her. It was, of course, a terrible idea to insult their allies back as it would only spiral out of control until a rift was created between them and the military and privateers they fought alongside. Still, the notion of having a counter-nickname seemed to help Rosie. She was still hurt, that much was apparent from her expression, but she looked as though she understood that it wasn't that bad and that they'd get over it. It was moments like these, when his familiarity with Rosie seemed so developed, that he remembered it had only been a month, possibly less, since they first met aboard the ship they used to run away. In the time since arriving they had ignored that which they came here for. He remembered that first dinner with Rosie aboard the ship, talking all about how America was the land of opportunity. Rosie wanted to be a teacher, He was going to work with Cenek in the engineering business. Now he was... he wasn't really sure what he was. He was a pilot, but not a trader or a privateer. He was a soldier but not a man of the military. He held a rank, yes, but he didn't think of himself as Lieutenant Commander Falko. He was, as far as he was concerned, the boyfriend of Rosalia Elisabeth Kaylock.

He stayed in his reminiscent and contemplative mood while he breakfasted, helping himself to the breads and spreads and things Kevin had kept his ship stocked with. He had decided that when the war was over he would propose to Rosie and buy a house and start a business with Cenek. He hadn't decided what he would do when he arrived in Nashville. As he put away his breakfast things he realised he would have to address exactly that fairly soon. His guess was that they would be in Nashville by the next morning. He found Gebbert and spoke with him.
"Nashville..." he opened awkwardly, "Any suggestions as to how we should find this Forsythe fellow there?"
He needed new ideas after their search for the Alchemist in Massachusetts had failed so miserably. One of the Russian girls had found something to do with the aether but they had been forced to leave before she could follow up on it as far as he was aware.
He waited for Gebbert's response.

[Blindwalker]

Hugo heard a cry from the person who had saved him. He turned his head towards her, "Are you ok there? Bad dreams I'm guessin?"

[Ella, Aerial Musketeer]

the man spoke "Are you ok there? Bad dreams I'm guessin?" Ela looked up timidly "yes" she looked away "terrors" she took a deep breath "there is something i never did ask you what is your name and who are you" she spotted her wings under the bed and puled them out she then fished around in her pockets and puled out a handy tool "you um dont mind if i tinker do you?"

[Blindwalker]

Hugo looked at the strange pair of mechanical wings that the girl took out beneath her chair, and when she asked if she could fix it up, he gestured.
"Go ahead. I'm Hugo Machus, Senior Officer of the US Army. What's the matter? By the way, thank you for saving my life.

[The Corsair]

-Nigel-

He hadn't exactly got what he had hoped for, and he was a little upset from it.
He still had more than nothing though and he guessed he could still mount a decent enough search of the Carolinas. The USAS Implacable lifted off from the repair bay in the Sky Docks at 10:00 with the frigate USAS Juggler and the experimental corvette USAS Caroline, a ship that had been under testing by New York's Dirigible Air Force (Daft, they called it for fun) and had of course now come under the command of Henry Skarssen. What exactly the ship did was known only to a few people and even Garrow, who now had the ship under his command, did not know the full extent of its abilities. What he did know was that it had a weapon defined as an Experimental Remote Magnetism Mechanism. Skarssen said there had been talk of the device being the brainchild of Nikola Tesla who had been given a contact with the military in its experimental weapons department.

The Caroline looked very much unlike a normal corvette. Instead of the rather standard external armoured envelope used on the military's smaller ships it had the same dual internal Zeppelin design as the Dreadnought class, but the Zeppelins were considerably more relatively slender than those on the Dreadnoughts. Nigel's best guess was that this was to accommodate for a very large weapon.

The ships headed south as swiftly as possible and reached the city of Dover in Delaware, which they had been asked to do a flyover of, by 12:30. The city was abandoned but not entirely destroyed. The citizens had obviously seen the attack coming and fled. Whether or not they had returned was unknown to Nigel. He radioed this information to Hudson HQ before dropping out of the range of  the crude radio aboard the Juggler, the one on the Implacable having been destroyed in the Battle over New York. The machinery, they told him, was too complicated to fix in the short amount of time possible as the radio specialists were mainly working on repairing the communications centre aboard the Hammer.

They ships continued to follow the coast down toward Norfolk where they would change bearing and head for Raleigh.

[thefrozenwulf]

the party had split up, and Yuri had decided to visit his uncle in Oregon. he needed some advice.

[Ella, Aerial Musketeer]

"im Ela Fairknott me and my dad...o daddy w..we..." she sighed "im sorry it all happened so quickly. We own a shop that sells airship parts,gadgets and anything you can think that you will need to complete your travels" she looked up "well considering all this" she gestured around "we used to.... my dad died in an explosion soon before i found you in the water" a small explosion was heard and smoke emitted from the wings and they popped open "haha oops must remember not to do that" and she twisted her hand and the tool so that they no longer were touching that peace of clockwork, her hand hitting a steam valve in the process "son of a .....sorry and thats ok for saving your life we all need help sometimes"

[Mark Peiterson]

Finally, mark hauled himself up out of his sorrow, partially at least. And headed for the military camp and lodgings at the end of town. Eyes still brimming with water. Head still clouded with sorrow. He would head to Boston, rescue all he could , then return to New York. Somehow inside he was clinging to the hope that his parents survived.

Hope.

That was all he had.

He arrived at the compound, and made. His way through the camp until he saw some of the Boston Contingent, heading towards the main hall. He walked forward to meet them. They where celebrating victory the way mark would've liked,with a couple of pints. From over the row he could hear songs, jeers and the occasional "... And we shot the bastards down!"

Mark found his way to a table of officers. He slumped down onto the chair.
" So Pieterson?  When will we be back in Boston?"
" It's gone."
"Whats gone?"
"Boston, it's gone, I say we head there, rescue all we can, and then head back to new york."
"right"

By then there was no noise. The men had finally heard about the city. Only silence.

[Augustus Longeye]

Julius sighed as he walked away from the now diminished group. Everybody else had their ways to go, so it looked like the group were splitting up for now. He and Barum managed to, with a little persuasion, get a "fleet" of twelve fully manned airships and a larger Deadnought-class airship, the USAS Aurora, that was to lead the squad, captained by a man called Emmett Jackson, and lead by Julius and Cenek (the two of them technically being the highest raking officers aboard). They'd managed to salvage most of the Raven, and it was residing in the makeshift "dock" inside the Aurora and was being repaired.
Julius was currently stating at the prow of the Aurora, looking out across the city. It wasn't unsalvageable, but it was unlikely it would every be fully rebuilt. The level of destruction, even though they'd saved much, was unimaginable. He could quite easily understand how Boston could be literally 'gone' if this is what the enemy could do when being resisted.
He sighed and wandered the length of the Aurora to Captain Jackson, who was waiting for the order to depart.
"Well Captain, I'd say we're as ready as can be, no? Is everyone set to depart?"
"Aye sir, the crew on the Aurora are ready to go and the rest of the ships have all been instructed to fly in a close formation. We can depart on your orders."
"Thank you Captain. In which case, set course for Texas with all due haste, and we'll see what we can find."
Captain Jackson nodded, saluted, and began handing out orders. His first mate quickly took these orders and, without much ceremony, walked the length of the ship bellowing them at the top of his voice.
Julius turned to watch as New York spun into view, and then began to get gradually smaller as they moved off. He stood there for a moment, regretting how much had been done and that he hadn't been able to do more, before saluting the city and walking off. He wondered if he'd ever see it again. Probably not, but even if he did would it look any better? Where would he go when this was over? Assuming he survived, what would he do after all this?
He quickly tracked down Barum and the two began making plans for when they arrived. As they did, Barum raised a good point. "Sir, if you don't mind me saying so, we're going to have to teach you how to fire a rifle... News of your little mishap has been the root of many a good laugh among the men, so it might be useful to make sure it doesn't happen again?"
"A good point... very well the, get me one of the cursed things and we'll see what we can do about that."
 

[The Corsair]

-Scratch-

He enjoyed having the envelope of the Saxon designated the meeting place of him and his friends, it made him feel useful and wanted, something he'd rarely enjoyed as a child. He was a real runt-of-the-litter type. Even at the age of 23 he appeared meek and insubstantial. It meant he was often overlooked as a possible private airman by anyone hiring.

The subject of where to go had, of course, eventually come up among the men as they played cards. The only real choice was to head to Vancouver and inform the Halstats that their son was dead. Most of them were shaking out of sheer grief when the subject was discussed but they had got through it like men should and had got their ships refuelled and repaired where necessary.

Now, as the ships lifted into the air and Scratch saw the massive amount of damage New York had sustained, a single rogue thought broke its way into his head.
What if Vancouver is like this too?
It made no sense for Vancouver to have been attacked, he rationalised to himself. Word had only been received of cities in the East being attacked. Even when San Francisco and Seattle were hit, Vancouver stayed untouched. It would be fine, he told himself.

By nightfall the four of them had only made it as far as Chicago due to unfavourable winds. They all landed down in the Chicago Sky Docks and stayed in their own ships, the inns at Chicago's Sky Docks not being very nice looking facilities. They had to hope for a change in the wind or it was going to be a long journey and none of them wanted to have to deal with the burden of the news for 3 whole days while they travelled.

[Mark Peiterson]

The rescue mission was underway. 15 of the Boston ships, plus 5 from Lowell and around 10 aid ships bearing medical officers and supplies. They where around 60 miles from Boston. The plan was simple, get everyone they could onboard and evacuate them back to New York. Hopefully.

"In the distance sir!"shouted a soldier.
Marks head twisted to see the he destruction, a great fireball raged. Smoke filled the air.
"Full speed!" he shouted. " We need to get there fast!" with a hint of desperation.
Help was almost there.

[Blindwalker]

Hugo nodded, then waved for a doctor.
"Yes, what is it?" she asked.
"How long until I get out of here?" Hugo questioned. He could finally talk without gasping for breath.
The doctor looked at the triage tag at the end of the bed and came to a conclusion that "You'll won't be going anywhere for at least another week. You have 2 broken bones in your leg, you need to let them recover. And your ribs."
Hugo let out a sigh. "Thanks."
"No problem." she smiled, and walked to other patients who needed help.
Ok, might as well talk to Ela while he was here.
He turned to her. "How long you planning to stay here? And what are you going to do after?"

[Miss Alva]

It had been about four or five hours since the initial attack, Alva had estimated, and judging by the blankness of the horizon, no one was coming. Not yet anyways. There was still plenty of time, but the Lakota woman was not waiting for help to arrive, she was already digging through rubble, helping whoever she could find. With her small following of people, they salvaged what they could of their precious city. It was hard going, but she was working on it. Even Edward had tried to help, picking up scraps of paper in his beak and handing them to his lovely mother figure. It was sentimental, sure, but Alva was concerned with what little weaponry and supplies she could find in the dirt and broken buildings. They all asked the tiny woman questions she did not know how to answer, how they were supposed to go on with families missing and loved ones trapped. "I don't know" was her only answer.

After scavenging a jacket to help protect her from falling debris and the like, Alva let out a sigh, and watched the horizon.

But it was the hint of a ship that caught her eye, and the parrot wielding short woman let out a cry. Help was on the horizon, and hopefully they were not a party seeking to exterminate what was left of the Eastern Seaboard.

[Ella, Aerial Musketeer]

"I dont know part of me wants to stay here and help rebuild and part of me wants to go and be free"
she looked down to her wings "i just dont know, i do know one thing tho" she gestured to his leg "your going to need help with that after you get out of here your strength will still be weak so i guess im staying with you for the time being as i have nothing to do......if thats ok with you?"

[Blindwalker]

"Hmm, I suppose so. Well, America is a free country, so you do what ever you wanna do, alright?" he grinned. "If you are gonna stay here, your going to be here for quite a while."
He turned his head so he was looking outside. "Or, if you want to go, you can go. There's not much you can do here apart from watching people recover or helping out some of the doctors."