Chapter 6: The Flying Carrier

Three nights later, Aero and Sakura went back to the ACIPD to learn that Vaxtus' forces had secured another piece of the diamond and were waiting for him in their flying carrier.

"We'll take it down." Aero said.
"Good." the chief replied.

"The carrier is about 25 miles from Atmo City. Should be easy to fly to." Sakura said.
"Yup, we could reach it easily." said Aero. With that they took off.

A little while later they saw the carrier. It was a long, black flying fortress with 2 small control towers on the top, thruster engines in the rear, and four engines on the sides keeping it afloat. There were goons everywhere on it.

"We'll have to use stealth" Sakura said. Aero nodded.

Aero hid behind a place where a guard was approaching. The goon was alone. When he reached Aero's hiding spot, Aero popped out and beat him up, knocking him out. Sakura, realizing something, told Aero "I'll disable the goons on the outside. You go in and search for the diamond shard." Aero disguised himself as one of the goons and went inside the carrier.

The carrier was extremely advanced. Aero walked through multiple decks containing control rooms, medical bays, research facilities, and prison cells. Upon getting deeper into the carrier, the signal from the diamond shard got stronger. But upon seeing the next corridor, Aero saw several lasers. To get past them, Aero found a device that controlled them and disengaged it. The lasers turned off and Aero proceeded. Finally, he made it to the diamond room. True to the signal, there was a cyan gem shard there. Using caution, Aero went up to the pedestal and took the shard.

Aero was just leaving when an alarm went off. They must have found out that he took the gem because Aero never noticed security cameras. Suddenly, several goons appeared.

"What's going on?" they asked.

Trying to sound like them, Aero replied "Um, there is a slight malfunction in the security system. I was proceeding to check on it."

But the goons weren't buying it or Aero's disguise. Thinking quickly, Aero used his missiles to dispose of them.

Upon reaching the main deck, Aero found that Sakura disabled all the goons on the top of the carrier's deck.

"Sakura, we have to leave now. Let's use our homing missiles on the carrier's vertical lift engines to bring it down and get out of here."

"Ok, Aero."

Taking off, they flew around the carrier and targeted the four vertical lift engines with their homing missiles greatly damaging them. The carrier, now damaged, plummeted towards Velbus' surface.

"That was close." Aero said. "At least we have another shard of the diamond."