The Wilted Rose

Chapter 72: Do Or Die

Atlas Military Flagship

5:07 PM

58 Minutes to the Fall

Red Hood Pov

The sun was starting to set. I figured we only had another half hour of daylight before the sky darkened completely. Looking around as discretely as I could, I noted that there were several other people on the Bullhead. Most of them were armed and in full combat uniform. Neo and I were in officers fatigues so I don't think the lower enlisted will fuck with us. The problem is that we were lieutenants, real low down the food chain. If we ran into anyone who out ranked us, we might be in for a bad time. 

Neo looked just as nervous, almost visibly so. I tried to nudge her to get her attention to me and not the several soldiers who would sooner shoot us than arrest us. It worked and she looked over at me. I tried to look as confident as possible so that I could convey not to be nervous. If anyone caught on to that, we were once again in for a bad time. Now that we were here, I realized just how crazy this was. One slip up and we're through.... Suddenly I'm not so confident in this plan. 

I looked out of the window and saw the ship. It was massive and imposing, almost gaudily so. All I could think about is how many people with guns are on that ship, and how many of them would just love the chance to boast that they were the ones to take me out. I looked back forward and focused. We needed to look the part if we wanted to pull the ruse off. 

It took a few minutes to get there. The whole time I was struggling to keep composure for the sake of helping Neo keep it. If I started to panic, then she would surely follow. I decided that I was going to text Qrow about what I thought was going to happen, just as a fall back plan. If we fail, hopefully he can stop it. The Bullhead landed in the docking bay of the ship and the doors opened. Neo and I waited for everyone else to get off before us. I put my scroll away and stood up with Neo beside me. 

Red Hood: You good?

Neo nodded. 

Red Hood: Alright. Lets go. 

We stepped off of the Bullhead and to our surprise, the security was pretty lax. Like they didn't think that anyone would be stupid enough to sneak on. There was security everywhere but they were standing post more than anything. I started to walk through the landing bay hoping to get somewhere with a little less security. They may not be actively stopping people but I didn't want to chance it.

I kept my head down when walking by Knights. I didn't want to find out if Neos' semblance worked on machines too. The corridor was much larger than I thought it would be. I figured it would be small and cramped to make more room for accommodations, cargo, and firepower. This has to be more of a command center than a attack vessel. Makes sense since it's Ironwoods flagship in his fleet. 

We walked through the halls, careful not to do anything suspicious. If I really had to guess, the cellblocks were going to be in the deepest part of the ship, the question was where exactly. I seriously doubt that we would find a map of the place. That means that we were going to have to do this the old fashioned way and just search the ship. I took out my scroll and saw the time. I just hoped that we could get this done before our deadline....

Ruby Pov

5:20 PM

45 Minutes to the Fall

I was on colosseum grounds, wandering aimlessly. I didn't know what exactly I should be looking for but I figured that it would be best to be moving around and watching what all is happening. There was a staggering amount of Knights on the colosseum after last night. People didn't look all that safe having them around since everyone knew that these things had real bullets in there and not rubber or electric rounds.