Everyone made it down safely.

The ground was littered with burning debris, lit by flames from above as well.

Not to far away, the hulk of the Raptor Jane had downed smoked. Suddenly, they could hear a loud and methodical banging coming from inside what was probably the passenger bay. At least one of the automatons inside had survived and was trying to batter its way out, but the hatch was probably jammed shut.

The transformation of Shay into "Simon" was complete, and it seemed uncanny! She looked just like him, and those who hadn't seen Rowan do this before were amazed, although there wasn't a lot of time to admire her handiwork.

In reply to The Marshall (msg # 1):

Jason nodded in satisfaction at Rowan's spell.

"Nice! Now let's get the Hell out of here. You guys head north and circle back, we'll head south and draw them off. Good luck!"

A small noise quietly expressed itself from Peter's throat as the automatons shredded his technical with their weapons. He took a step towards them but stopped himself. He seemed to deflate a bit then as he turned to the ropes and began the climb down after some of his compatriots.

Once on the ground, he stared up at the airship for a long silent moment.

The Huckster-now-Simon looked at Peter and clapped him lightly on the shoulder, "There will be time to revenge, and there will be time to rebuild. Don't waste either opportunity."

(S)he then turned to leave as quickly as possible.

Sky Raider 1 hung above them, a dark shadow against the dark cloudy night.

The 3 remaining Raptors were hovering, still shooting at the airship. Their miniguns sounded like buzzing chainsaws.

Consulting his map and using his backup palmcorder to display it, Fred determined they were close to a prewar Interstate, about a half-mile from I-84. It was far enough from any colony (settlement) that it was unlikely to be cleared. That was the natural direction to proceed. When they got there, they found a wrecked US Army transport hovertruck, there was a farm in the distance and a large stream passed under the Interstate in a culver large enough to hide them.

Smoker takes a look at the hovertruck to see if there is any possibility of getting it moving.

Peter stared up at the battle for a long moment still. "How did they find us? First the town we stopped at and now this. I thought this ship was supposed to be stealthy and specifically designed for use against the Combine. Do we have a traitor among us?"

He did, however, follow along as people started moving out.