Mister Johnston looked at the lurching Vampire for a moment, then shrugged. "I must admit Miss Lamarr, when I had the chance twenty years ago, I probably should have shot him, instead of his wingman. Guess his little row of medals went to his head."<br/><br/>He frowned, offering the young tycoon his handkerchief to cover her nose and mouth, until the worst of the Vampire's smoke-bleching antics were dealth with, either via a bullet, Heinz actually not arsing about, or some other means, which soon appeared as a young deckhand walked past, spologizing to Miss Lamarr and Mister Johnston, as he picked up a three-foot long wrench. Casually jogging over to the Vampire, ignoring the buffeting of the plane's twin airscrews, the deckhand shrugged and tossed the wrench into the path of the right engine's propeller, at just the right angle to jam the body of the wrench against the engine casing.<br/><br/>The results were impressively chaotic; the sudden impact and stop of the propeller hub sheared the entire propeller off of the engine, shattered the crankshaft, blew out all eight cylinders, and, most-importantly, stalled the entire plane outright, as the port engine suddenly flooded and choked itself.<br/><br/>Pausing, and looking at the scene, Mister Johnston looked at Miss Lamarr. "I suggest dropping his plane like a bad habit, madam, and giving that deckhand a raise. And, I daresay it would be a very good idea for everyone to have a nice, stiff drink."<br/><br/><strong>~~Outside the <em>Blue Ridge</em>~~</strong><br/><br/>the Quartet of guns mounted in the nose of Dixie's Bloodhawk thundered in sequence, the lighter Fiftys reaching out to pound a series of neat holes through the underside of the Defender's Right wing and belly, just ahead of where the pilot sat, and chopping into delicate internal components. The larger, slower-firing Sixties, however did the real damage, the heavy cannon shells roaring out to stitch a row of gaping wounds into the Defender's underbelly, chunks of metal and various internal parts dropping free from the dozen holes as the Defender staggered in mid-air, acting more like an Old punch-drunk boxer that had suddenly taken one too many to the head.<br/><br/>The damaged Defender's wingman, instead of turning and attacking the Bloodhawk as it flashed past, rose to meet the Avenger that was roaring down to meet it, all eight of the larger plane's guns peppering the Defender with a shower of lead, the smaller sextet of thirty calibre guns sanding armour plate from all over the Defender, though the pair of heavier guns the Avenger carried also made their intentions clear, both volleys of shells slashing into, and through the smaller plane's left wing, forcibly detaching the wing from the rest of the plane, scoring the first kill of the action.<br/><br/>Aime's Devastator and Maxwell's battered Raven had also chosen their target of opportunity, the incoming aerial torpedo that was still cruising towards the Blue Ridge, as one of the two Defenders that had launched the dangerous weapon turned away from the sudden Melee, clearly bugging out to try to save his own skin.<br/><br/>Finally, from the Ridge itself, the familiar rounded-nose profile of the Vampire appeared, being dropped from the airship with smoke belching from both engines.