Sky King II: Reborn

Chapter IV

Seeing the countryside plains again brought back memories of Kuu's childhood, daydreaming in the backyard of her house next to the apple trees. Her mother would always come out to check on her before lunch, sometimes even bringing it outside to hear her daughter talk about how much she wanted to float above the clouds and fly over the whole world. Nobody had ever done that yet, considering the world was too big for any single plane to make it around once without stopping to refuel.

The rusted flat bed truck was cramped in the front seat and would have been anyway without Harold driving, the vehicle being provided to him by some of the rebel forces in concealment. On the wooden bed was a bunch of stacked grey cases filled with various living supplies, including food, water, clothes, bathing soaps, and plenty more. Kuu had counted ten boxes when they were being loaded, which seemed excessive given how big they were, but she also didn't know how long they were going to be out for this training trip. Taking into consideration how many supplies there were, probably quite a while.

The truck was approaching a checkpoint, a small cube like building on the side of the road with a vertically lifting red and white striped barrier, three Hellot soldiers dressed in green fatigues with rifles over their shoulders standing guard. Kuu took a deep breath, anxiety building quickly in her chest as they came to a stop in front of it. One of the soldiers walked up to the drivers side, Kuu noticing a bit of the man's blond hair under his helmet, an odd occurrence in the Prince's army. When the barrier immediately lifted, Kuu realized the checkpoint soldiers were all apart of the growing rebel force, the truck driving into the entrance of a large forest. It was serene and beautiful, several animals bounding away from the dirt path as the vehicle drove through.

Some thirty minutes of driving through the forest later, they came upon a giant opening, an abandoned airfield ahead of them. There was only one strip of sandy road for aircraft to take off from and the hangar was quite small, the steel doors closed tightly shit. To the left of it was a two story control building, the top floor surrounded by glass panes to easily overlook the whole field and forest. A place like this felt so open and like it would be easily found, even if it was pretty deep in the trees. Anybody flying over would be able to see the truck parked outside of the buildings and assume someone was living there, though it seemed like the rebels had it pretty locked down. She just wasn't sure if they had control of the airspace too.

"This used to be a Syncaire airfield where we would train new pilots before sending them to our main one in Karris City," Harold explained while they exited the truck, the old man walking with his black cane in hand, "there's a small area behind the hangar there where we would teach them how to shoot,"

"Where did everyone sleep?" Kuu asked, looking at the small building as they walked up to it. There was no way they fit a bunch of guys into this one place. It was possible they slept in the hangar, but it was only big enough to house one plane. That still wasn't a decent amount of space.

"I'll show you once we're settled," he replied, digging into his pants pocket for a key to unlock the front metallic blue door, "go to the truck bed and lower the back end, there's a latch on the right side,"

Following his instruction, the young woman slightly pulled her black dress up further while she walked, not wanting to get it sandy or dirty. Locating the latch the old man mentioned, she carefully let the wide piece of metal fall to where it was completely horizontal, climbing onto the wooden bed and between the boxes. Trying and failing to lift one, she awaited Harold's return for assistance.

"What?" He asked when reemerging from the building, looking up at her from the ground.

"Too heavy," Kuu patted the box she had tried to lift, the old man shaking his head.