Alex was bored. Bored, bored, bored. He almost found that in itself funny - here he was, an air pirate, in the middle of a raid, with bullets and enemy aircraft streaking across the sky in every direction, and he was bored.
Not that this raid had been nearly as exciting as he had hoped – the escort was all but finished by the time they arrived, and the small band that had tried to take the shipment tucked their tails and ran once the CT's started barreling in, hardly even stopping to return fire. Yeah, this raid had definitely been lacking in the excitement department.
He turned his fighter south, leading his wing of fighters back to the Iron Vulture, as per their orders. Even the Cap'n knew they didn't need as many fighters out as they had now. As his formation entered a patch of clouds, he began mentally going through the list of repairs that he'd need to work on.
Dang. Back to another afternoon tinkering around with damaged engines, he grumbled. Oh, Ratchet and a few others were fine mechanics - if it even resembled something that *might* once have flown, they could usually fix it. But Alex was the only one with an education in engineering, so he got the problems the others balked at. And he was still working on figuring out some of the Lightning's gadgetry. Interesting work - but, as the pilots' mantra went, he'd rather be flying.
Their cloud cover began to dissipate into the equivalent of a light fog. Far ahead, the Iron Vulture was just becoming visible among the clouds that concealed her, dropping her altitude slightly to receive the returning fighters. Alex let the others pull ahead of him, mostly because he was curious as to whether the captain had kept the captured trimotor. Given the relative ease of the raid, Alex guessed the plane had been taken as a sort of consolation prize.
Casting a glance behind him to look for the trimotor, he thought he glimpsed movement in his peripheral vision, off to his left. He turned his attention in that direction, catching sight through the mist of one of the single-winged fighters from the raid.
Alex did a double-take. The fighter couldn't be much more than thirty feet off his port wing, its pilot oblivious to the danger they were in! As the thought struck him, however, the pilot looked to their right – directly at him! The feline's mouth dropped open, her features frozen in shock as her fur stood on end for the briefest of seconds before she recovered, peeling out to the left and putting her plane into a dive.
-Finally, some action!- Alex thought, givving his fighter full throttle and following his new prey in a similar dive.
"Come on, kitty-cat, what's your rush? Stay and play," he called playfully, closing the distance between the fighters.
"No thanks, 'fraid I'll have to pass on this one," a southern – and definitely female - voice drawled back, "I'm already late for an appointment!"
Pulling sharply out of her dive, she rolled her aircraft until its cockpit was facing away from him and headed straight for the Vulture. Does she realize what she just did? he wondered, following her toward the well-armed airship.
Moments before flying straight into the open beak, the monoplane rolled and ducked under the Vulture, leaving him to dodge the rounds fired at her. Breaking off and flying around the ship, he dove in behind her again as she came out from beneath the Vulture.
Or at least he thought he did. Banking around, he saw she'd broken away halfway down the length of the Vulture, and was heading for another low pocket of clouds. By now other pirates had also caught sight of her and were also in pursuit. Following their lead, he dove after them into the low clouds –
-- and was saved from becoming a fireball only by the death of one of the fighters ahead of him as it collided with an unseen cliff. These particular clouds hung as low as they did because they concealed one of the ocean's many mountainous islands, he realized, pulling up above the clouds. No way was he gonna risk his skin flying through there just to down a single, retreating fighter. As he watched, several more fiery explosions burst in the clouds, followed shortly by reappearance of the surviving fighters that had lead the chase into the clouds. As they headed back home, Alex watched for the monoplane fighter, but saw no evidence of her. Too bad…
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-Jeez, that was close! I'd forgotten the Vulture'd be coming up from the south!- Dixie gasped, skimming the wavetops and dodging the low outcroppings of rock. She'd frozen when she'd seen the fighter right off her wing, its pilot looking right at her. And she'd been lucky about those rocks – she hadn't realized the island was there until she'd nearly flown into it.
Staying as low as she dared, she followed the shadows of the clouds westward, away from the pirates. Evidently, they'd lost enough planes in the rocks to assume she hadn't made it out, either. Fine by me, she thought, craning her neck to check the damage to her plane. She'd glanced the side of that first rock, and knew her left pontoon was banged up pretty bad, but was more worried about her left tailfin, which wasn't responding to the controls.
Jammed, she hoped. Jammed flippers, as the horizontal fins were affectionately called, could be fixed. As long as she didn't need to do much maneuvering before then…
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Sal frowned at the sky. She and the Albatross had landed half an hour ago, and should have been the last to show, given the Albatross' slow speed. But they hadn't been last. One of her friends was still out there.
"Anything?" she asked Ears, who was perched atop the Albatross with a portable antenna and a few gadgets.
"Uh-uh," the rabbit shook her head, "No radio signals, nothing on radar."
"Give her time, Sal. She's probably coming in under the radar," Meg said consolingly, "That's what we did," she reminded their leader.
Sal glanced up at the sky again, unconvinced. We've lost so many already, she thought to herself, sighing. What kind of leader was she, anyway? She'd lost twenty fighters over the last two months alone, and didn't think she could bear losing Dixie – aside from the fact that Dixie was an excellent "decoy" plane in raids, she was also a dear friend. Of the seven pirates Sal's band had been whittled down to, she had grown up with everyone but Patch and Ears, whom Hazel had met during her brief stint as a flight instructor. All seven were now close friends. And friends are few and far between in the life on an air pirate. Sal didn't want to lose any of them.
"Maybe she's just takin' the scenic route," Patch volunteered, attempting to lighten the mood.
"Even if she did, Dixie's not one to take hour-long detours," Sal worried, "Maybe I should go back out and look for her."
"Hey, relax, Cap, I'm sure she--" Scat began.
"DON'T call me that!" Sal snapped, whirling angrily and sending a molten glare Scattercat's way, "The term, 'captain,' implies that I have a certain amount of authority! That I give orders, and those orders are obeyed!" she leaped from her fighter to Scat's, her anger causing the tan feline to back out of the cockpit and scurry back towards the tail. "As in, I say attack this shipment, my pirates attack that shipment, not the one I specifically forbid them!"
"But, Sal!" Scat backed up, raising her hands in a halting motion, "We got a couple dozen bars, Karnage hardly chased us at all,--"
"I don't care if we got the whole friggin' shipment!" Sal snarled, baring her teeth, "If we've lost Dixie!"
"Dixie knows what she's doing! She'll be fine!"
"Her death is on your head if she's not!" Sal reminded her, "She's your wingman!"
"But…" Scat began, finally faltering. The small band had been through a lot together. Each fighter had a specific role in attacks, according to their unique talents, and each trusted their wingman with their lives. To lead your wingman into a situation where you both were killed, that was bad enough, but to go off on a whim and get your wingman killed was to betray their trust in you. It gave Scat something to think about…
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Scat fell silent, torn between her belief that she had been right in seizing the shipment and the harsh reality that one of their members had failed to return. During this pause in the argument, Ears' sensitive ears twitched at a faint sound that had been masked by the yelling. She removed her headphones, turning her head in the direction of the sound. The whine of an engine…
The rabbit's diverted attention did not go unnoticed. Hazel leaned out of the Albatross' cockpit and squinted at the horizon, pricking her ears this way and that in an effort to pinpoint the faint sound. Meg followed the direction of their gaze, grabbing a pair of battered field glasses. Bringing them to her eyes, she scanned the horizon, searching…
Still glowering, growling, struggling to keep her anger in check, Sal hardly noticed the activity around her until Meg stood and pointed. "Incoming!" the cat called triumphantly.
Sal looked past Scattercat and welcomed the sight she was greeted with: the last Tigercat fighter, skimming the surface and doing small wing-waves to the group. Dixie. Sal breathed a sigh of relief, glad her pilots were all alive and well.
Scat breathed a sigh of relief as well, both for her returning wingman and her visibly-relaxed leader. Running a hand through her hair, she cast a sidelong glance at the incoming fighter and smiled. The incoming plane had to be Dixie. She was the only pilot Scat knew that would wing-wave that close to the water.
****************************
Dixie landed with a splash, a rough and bumpy landing that should have been smooth and easy in the calm waters, alerting her friends to the damage her fighter had sustained. She taxied to a halt among a group of cheering friends and a visibly relieved Scat. Oh, Sal looked relieved, too, but there was something in the way Scat shakily got down from the tail of her plane that made Dixie wonder if she'd just stopped a keelhauling.
"Stop for tea on your way here?" Sal teased, hands on her hips and mock-scolding, smiling from atop the nose of Scat's fighter. –Sal? Teasing?- Yeah, her arrival had really taken a load off Sal's mind. Sal only joked when she was worried or masking her relief, and she never teased.
"Sorry," she flashed a smile at the group, playing along, "Should I have picked up some crumpets for y'all, too?"
****************************
Above in the Iron Vulture, the mood was not quite as light-hearted. Pirates went about their duties cautiously, carefully avoiding the corner of the main hangar Khan's cargo plane now occupied. And those that needed to work on or around the transport avoided calling attention to themselves, for their captain stood in front of his newest acquisition, scowling and flicking his tail, annoyed but not quite angry.
Don Karnage studied the captured trimotor. The plane wasn't all that damaged, considering she'd been attacked by two separate groups of pirates. The captain's lip curled into a silent growl. He did not like to think of those…thieves…as pirates. He looked at the plane again. Her first attackers evidently used smaller-caliber ammunition than his pirates did - the plane was heavily scratched and dented, especially on the roof, but the only rounds that had pierced the metal shielding were of the larger caliber his pirates carried. Only the central engine and windshield had been destroyed by the smaller rounds.
The crew had already abandoned the trimotor by the time they boarded her, and the small band that had reached her first had taken about twenty bars. Not exactly a lot, he reminded himself, but enough to bother him. He hadn't counted more than five fighters, but they had been brazen enough to steal what was rightfully his to pillage. *And* they had all eluded his fighters.
Well, perhaps not all of them. Alex fought one close to the Vulture – close enough that even pirates inside the airship had seen the battered monoplane – and was almost certain she'd perished in the rocky islands below that also claimed three of his men. The young leopard was intelligent and observant – rare traits in his crew – as well as a capable flier. However, he was also rather new to the group, and had not bothered to count the explosions he had seen. The pilot could still have escaped.
Too bad for them that they had. He, Don Karnage, would now need to find them, and teach them that one doesn't mess with the Prince of Pirates. That, plus he wanted that gold.
****************************
Sal's mood improved dramatically with Dixie's return. Her pirates were her responsibility, and she'd lost enough of them already. The close-knit group of seven was all that was left of a band of thirty-five. Life was hard and short on the high seas.
"What's the Vulture's current heading?" she asked Ears, who quickly consulted her radar screens.
"Heading 43 degrees North-northeast," she replied, "and they're southeast of us right now."
"Good. Take a nap, everybody. We'll give them a couple of hours to put some real distance between us, then we'll head southwest for some food & fuel."
Her six pirates grinned. They knew what lay to the west. And they wouldn't mind a catnap – they hadn't gotten much sleep last night, flying down from the north to be close enough to seize their intended cargo that afternoon.
Each settled into the cockpit of their fighters, making themselves comfortable as best they could in seats designed for battle, not lounging. Everyone but Ears, who, feeling somewhat self-conscious about napping earlier and missing Karnage's fighters until they were practically on top of her friends during their raid, was determined not to let them down now. She concentrated on her screens, tracking not only the Iron Vulture but all the other aircraft in range as well.
It was because of this that she noticed the rescue craft flying out to where, presumably, Khan's pilots were waiting in their life rafts.
-Probably sent by the guy we were supposedd to go after. Boy, I bet he's counting himself extremely lucky.- The overloaded seaplane had just begun weaving and dodging off course when Sal and the others had left to join Scat and Dixie - the pilot had known there were pirates off his wing. She'd lost track of which plane was his, however, and hadn't seen where he'd gone. Too bad – they might still have tried going after him.
After about an hour, the Iron Vulture changed course to a more easterly heading, puzzling Ears. –Why are they going east? There aren't any flights anywhere near there today….-
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"Hey, Alex!" a voice called as someone rapped the side of the aircraft he was working one. Sliding out from under the nose of the plane, the leopard cast an annoyed glance at his visitors. A fox, a ferret, and a large bulldog stood before him.
"Heard our single-winged friends out there are women," the fox continued, grinning.
"At least one of them is. Was. Whatever. Friends of yours, Rox?" he asked, grinning as her smile abruptly changed to a low growl. Roxanne, the only female Karnage had ever permitted to join his pirates, was predictable like that - she didn't like people implying things they knew weren't so. She had a good reason for it, too - that sort of thing was what had caused her fellow spooks to put a price on her head. But Alex didn't care. He figured they didn't teach 'em much more at Langley than they did at Annapolis. At any rate, the Navy didn't think too highly of them, and Alex still retained some of the Navy's views. Let the others call him suicidal, he liked ticking off the ex-assassin. Besides, he had nothing to lose.
"Oh, good, friends," Dumptruck began, "I like friends."
"They're NOT my friends!"
"Well, that's good, 'cause the Cap'n's not very happy with 'em," Mad Dog said.
"Yeah, well, that's their problem, not mine. I just wanna figure out who they are," Roxy replied. "D'ja get the make of their fighters, Alex?"
"I'd guess P-50 Tigercats, but don't quote me on that," he replied, sliding back under the plane he'd been working on, "They're older fighters, at any rate, and they're using smaller ammo than we are."
"Cap's lookin' for them, you know that?" she asked.
"Figured he would. Too bad, they looked like they were pretty good pilots…"
"You sure they were women?"
"Rox, why does it matter?" he peeked out from the belly of the plane. She shrugged.
"Just curious….besides, it'd be nice to have some newcomers, especially if they're good pilots…" she trailed off, shrugging again.
Alex grinned wickedly. "You know who they are!"
"I do not!"
"Do too!"
"Do NOT!"
"C'mon, I see one female pilot and you're convinced they're all women. I guess at their fighters and you don't even counter with a single similar-looking alternative. That's not like you, Rox. You know something."
"Well..." She hesitated, then shrugged again. "About a year ago a squadron of Tigercats was hijacked by a group of predominantly-female thieves. The planes were never recovered, and I never really heard much else about it, since it was around the time somebody decided I should 'retire' from the intelligence biz....I don't even remember who they were lead by...a Celine, Saline, something like that..."
" 'Saline' is the term for saltwater, Rox."
"I know that!"
"Hey, d'ya think we should tell the Cap'n?" Mad Dog asked.
"Nah, might not be them. 'Sides, it wouldn't help us find them any," Roxy shook her head.
"Ah, dat's okay, I t'ink he heard us anyway," Dumptruck said, looking across the hangar. Still standing in front of the trimotor, ears cocked in their direction, their captain gazed at the damaged airplane for a few more seconds. Then, casting a sly glance and the hint of a smile in their direction, he turned and headed for the Vulture's bridge.
"Oops," Roxy winced.
Alex chuckled, enjoying the look of chagrin on the vixen's face. "You'd think you'd've learned he does that by now!"
"Shut UP, Navy!"
****************************
Sal woke and stretched after a relaxing two-and-a-half hour nap.
"How're the skies looking?" she called up to Ears, who had evidently been up and studying the radar for a while. Wonderful thing, that radar. She decided that capturing the military surveillance plane carrying much of the equipment the Albatross now sported had been a good idea -- even though it had been a difficult raid.
"Vulture's changed course twice. She turned east about an hour and a half ago, and south an hour after that," Ears frowned, "She's circling, cap."
"Looking for us, I'd bet." Ears nodded. "All right, then it's probably about time we left," Sal said, calling to the others, "Everybody up & at 'em! Let's go get some grub!"
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"I'm tellin' ya, Louie, there were two of 'em on my left, and one on my right," the bear continued, "And I was too overloaded to shake 'em. They had me. But then they just...left," he finished.
"So maybe Karnage wasn't in the mood to play, cuz," the orange orangutan replied, wiping down the bar, "Or maybe those fighters mistook you for Khan's shipment for a while. Karnage did hit Khan's plane, you know that?"
"Sure I know that, I was the one who radioed it in. But even Karny's pirates can tell the difference between my baby and Khan's trimotors."
"Besides," added his navigator, "I don't think they were Karnage's pirates. These were single-winged fighters. Karnage doesn't have any of those..."
"Well then, once again your reputation has preceded you, Baloo. They bugged out as soon as they realized who they were up against," Louie laughed, dumping an armload of fruit onto the counter and heading for the blender, "Besides, since when do you worry when pirates don't attack you?"
"Guess I'd just like it to make sense, is all."
"Uh, yeah. And since when does anything air pirates do make sense, cuz?"
The muffled sound of several planes landing outside drifted in through the bamboo walls of Louie's Place, followed by sounds of a scuffle. The bar's cheery demeanor faded as footsteps approached the entrance, its patrons turning towards the door as it flew open.
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"Hey, hello, hiya, how 'ya doin'?" A female voice called cheerfully, as a kit fox in a battered flight suit strode in, giving them all a friendly wave. Several cats followed her in, making a beeline for the restrooms. The fox looked about her, admiring the décor. "Nice place," she mused. One by one, the cats returned. The pilots nearby abandoned their table as a tan cat seated herself and several others perched on its edge. The fox strode up to the bar.
Louie had dealt with pirates before, of course, and knew that losing his temper wasn't generally a good idea – it only made the pirates lose theirs. "Get outta my place," he growled through clenched teeth.
"Certainly," the fox smiled, flicking her tail and coming up beside Kit and Baloo to lean across the bar, "right after we get seven dinners to go."
*Man, I hate air pirates. So damned cocky,* Louie thought. He looked her in the eye, "Perhaps I wasn't clear. Get outta my place or I'll have ya escorted out," he growled, thumbing over his shoulder.
Sal pricked her ears and raised her head to look over his shoulder. At the other end of the bar, the two buff gorillas that served as Louie's bouncers got to their feet. In one fluid movement, she turned, hopped onto the counter and took a seat, leaning back and grabbing Louie by the Hawaiian lais he always wore.
"And maybe I wasn't being clear," she said sweetly, "we'd like seven dinners, now, or my friends will use your bouncers as scratching posts before we torch the place."
Behind her, Scat chose that moment to stretch, reaching far across her table with her fingers splayed, claws extended. The huge yawn accompanying this action did a wonderful job of displaying her sharp teeth, and the claw-marks carved into the table spoke well enough of her strength. The others followed her lead. Dixie, perched on the end of the table, picked at her claws with a small dagger. Leaning against a post on the stairwell, Patch batted one of the native masks hanging above her head, and Meg inspected the blade of her narrow katana sword.
The fox smiled at him.
True, he'd seen more threatening displays - Karnage liked to break a few tables, for example - but, what the heck, all these guys were demanding was food. He sighed and called back to the kitchen for seven dinners.
The fox released him and snatched up a mango from the fruit on the counter. "Now, that's more like it!" she beamed, biting into the tropical fruit.
The cook came out with a tray-full of food, then stopped and looked at the bar, perplexed. The fox waved at him and smiled. "Over here!" she called, then turned to the cats and motioned to two of them, the Siamese and the cream-colored one. The two took two meals each, then left. The other two each took a plate and dug in.
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Other than the sound of muttered curses coming from the other patrons, and the occasional snide remark Baloo directed at the fox, the bar was silent. All attention was focused on the pirates up front, and no one paid any attention to the drunk muttering in his sleep in a secluded area of the bar. If they had, they might have noticed two things: one, he wasn't asleep, and two, he wasn't drunk.
More importantly, however, he wasn't muttering to himself. Concealed in his hat was a set of radio headphones; in his hand, hidden by his baggy sleeve, was the radio mike. Every so often, he'd open an eye to get an update on the situation, then close it again and radio in his observations.
"There's three of them here, Cap'n," he said into the mike, "and two others that left with two meals apiece. Probably seven or so in all."
***************************
Don Karnage grinned. He always had a spy at Louie's Place. It was one of the easiest ways to learn of upcoming shipments, military missions, etc. Things pilots were careful enough to keep talk of them off the airwaves, but often spoke of freely at the bar. He had learned many interesting things from those spies - the Lightning's maiden flight, for example - but he had not expected to learn that the fliers he was searching for were presently dining there. That made things much easier - the Vulture had already been heading west, and was now quite close to the bar.
Seven pilots? he wondered about that number - he'd only counted five planes around Khan's trimotor. He also wondered about that estupid Baloo's story, which his spy had also recounted. If the band had been using that fat bear's plane to hide their presence, why had Baloo only counted three? Where were the other two they had seen in the raid? And was this band the one Roxy had been talking about? He remembered hearing of them from another spy earlier in the year - they were reportedly brave and skillful pilots - but the Usland navy had supposedly wiped them out a few months ago, after they had downed one of the navy's new radar planes.
He shook himself out of this little reverie. What did it matter. What he wanted to know was, who lead them? Who must he, the fabulous Don Karnage, single out? He asked his spy.
"The fox," came the reply, "She lead them in, dealt with the ape. Only one that's not a cat, she is. But I can't see their planes from here, dunno which one's hers."
The spy fell silent then, running out of things of importance to report. But he neglected to toggle off the mike, and the sounds from the bar continued to filter over the airwaves.
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"So, what, didja have a sudden change of heart, or realize I was just carrying art?" Baloo chided the fox. He was trying to make it sound like he didn't really care, like he was just trying to tick her off, but he really was kind of curious. Some of those paintings had been rather valuable.
She just shrugged. "Naw, a couple of my pilots decided there was cargo nearby they'd rather go after," she said, giving the tan cat a hard glare. The cat avoided her eyes.
"Oh, really?" Baloo continued. Louie had said Karnage got Khan's shipment, not these guys - they must have come away empty-handed. He decided to rub that in a little. "Because some of that stuff was really pricey. Worth more than most people's monthly salaries, even."
"I know," she growled, glaring at him now. "Flight 47, call sign 'Sea Duck,' piloted by Baloo, along with navigator Kit Cloudkicker, inbound for Higher For Hire, Cape Suzette, from Hounsland," she rattled off their flight data.
Baloo realized his mouth was hanging open. Pirates weren't supposed to be smart! They were supposed to be sneaky enough to find out when and what you were shipping, and, if they were really sneaky, if you were flying with an escort. This one knew a lot more than that, though.
Kit was impressed. She'd really done her homework on them.
"You know, coming from Hounsland, most of that art was already stolen. From Freedonia, or from members of the Poodle Resistance," she added.
"Ah, now what do you care about a thing like that? You were gonna steal it anyway," Baloo countered.
"So?" Sal smiled. She talked to bar patrons whenever she happened upon one bold enough to stand up to her. It was a good way to ease the tension her pirates created, and thus created opportunities to learn about different pilots and planes: their strengths and their weaknesses. It also let her overhear - or have one of her pilots eavesdrop on -renewed conversations, or bits of data concerning shipments or the like, that slipped out as the pilots began to forget that the pleasant, friendly aviator they were speaking to was an air pirate.
Evidently something of that nature dawned on Baloo, and his eyes narrowed. "Y'know, you're awfully nice for a pirate," he said suspiciously.
"Ha!" she laughed, "I'm every bit as vicious as the rest of them," she said lightheartedly, "I'll slice you to ribbons if I have to, if you're all that stands between me and what I want. But you don't have any cargo right now - well, nothing I want, anyway. So I can be civil."
"Storming my place, stealing my food, and scaring my guests is civil?" Louie interrupted.
Sal shrugged. "Relatively speaking. You're not bleeding from a gunshot or stab wound and your place isn't smoldering, is it?"
"I'm surprised to see you guys operating so close to the Iron Vulture," Kit interjected, drawing her attention away from Louie, "Karnage doesn't like company, you know," the young ex-pirate added.
"I know," she replied, taking another bite of her mango, "We were safe as long as we didn't attract his attention," she added, glaring again at the tan cat, who hunched her shoulders a bit and studied the tabletop. The verb's tense wasn't lost on Kit.
"Exactly what type of fighters are you flying, anyway?" Kit asked, curious. The planes they had seen earlier were rather dented and in need of a new coat of paint - their current paintjobs were badly scratched, and patches of bare metal, some of it beginning to rust, could be seen. Their need for repair, he supposed, made them look older than they really were, but he still had trouble placing their make and model.
She opened her mouth to answer, but stopped, turning a bit and pricking her ears up at a faint buzzing sound.
Kit heard it as well, and gave her a sly, slightly wicked grin. "Sounds like a couple of CT's" he said.
"I know! Sh*t!" She slapped the countertop, grabbing a few more pieces of fruit as she jumped off and motioned to her pirates. "Time to go!" she yelled, darting to the door, "Ciao!" she called back to the bar's patrons, waving.
As she reached the entrance, a stream of bullets ripped through the thatched roof. Dropping the cavalier friendliness, she turned and bolted out, followed by the other two pirates. The roar of engines was now much louder, and the sound of splashing water outside told of several hasty take-offs.
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