January 19, 2007.
Keesler Air Force Base.
Gulf Coast, Mississippi.
0900
I sighed as I grabbed my tray and sat next to my older twin brother by 15 minutes, Nicholas 'Nick' McLane, as I bobbed my head to my music blasting through my headphones. I opened my good eye to see Nick snapping his fingers in my face with a sigh as I pulled out my earbuds. "Hey bro, did you hear about the new jets we got in today?" I asked him with a grin as he pulled up the stats on the jets and grinned as he showed me the older specs for the F-22 Raptor. He gave a low whistle as I smirked at him. "I can get us into see them." I said to him with a grin and showed him my clearance pass to get into the hanger
We got up and I helped Nick throw away his food as we then walked to the hanger that held the new birds. We were stopped at the door and the guy glared lightly down at us as I showed him my badge. " I don't give a fuck if you're the Dalai Lama, kid. You aren't-" the guard was cut off as one of my coworkers ran up to us. "Alex, thank God you're here..." the chick, Emily, said to us as she yanked me over to the new planes and I looked at the beautiful machines in awe and slight fear.
I saw Nick walk up and stretch out a hand to touch the F-22 on my left, but he recoiled in slight fear at the mass of metal and killing power. I turned to Emily as I asked her. "Em, what's wrong with the jets that you need me so bad?" Emily Fowler is a woman in her late twenties, with chocolate brown hair tied in a messy ponytail with light amber colored eyes that can suck you in if you let them. She stands at a short 5"2', with a scar under her mouth on the left corner from a small shard of metal that caught her when we were working on an old F-16 last year.
I looked down at myself and sighed. I stood at a height of 5"6', with dark brown hair cut in a high and tight hair style. I had a swimmers build made for speed in lieu of power. I had three marks on my body from the heart monitors, a dead right eye, and a left deaf ear. "Both of the POS's are sluggish, and we barely made it to the base." I turned to see a pilot swagger up to us as I glared at the man. "Well Matthew, if you didn't run them 'til they were running on nothing but fumes, you wouldn't have that problem." I hissed out as my glare got harder. I then saw another pilot by the name of Joel Olsteen swagger in as he and Matthew fist bumped with matching grins. I walked over to the right F-22 and crouched as I saw what looked like a mix of break and hydraulic fluid. I turned to look at Matthew and Joel calmly as I asked. "How long have they been sluggish like this?" "They started acting sluggish on the flight up here." was his respectful reply. He might have be an asshole, but even he knew that if mechanics like me weren't working on the planes and aircraft daily, then they would fail and stop working in a truly life and death situation.
I climbed into the cockpit of the jet and started to get deep into my thoughts as I saw Nick climb into the other jet's cockpit to run some diagnostics to make sure the plane was running at top efficiency. What I wouldn't give to get you into the air... I thought with a sigh of longing as I then climbed out of the cockpit and saw Nick with his laptop in his lap checking the plane's systems. Nick was always better at the tech side of my work while I was more inclined to get my hands dirty with labor. Not to say that Nick would shy way from the work, but when you have cerebral Palsy labor work is time consuming.
About two hours later, I was washing my hands of the grease and oil from my work and turned off the hot water as I then walked back into the hanger. As I was walking in I saw Chief Master Sargent Robert Epps walk in ahead of me with two boxes of Domino's pizza and a two liter of Barq's Root beer. He set both on the table that Nick and I use in our down time to play poker to pass the time until another plane comes in. You'd be surprised at how slow it can get on some days. Like today for example. "Sarg., what Brings you here? shouldn't you be across the pond?" I asked Nick and I's mentor with slight confusion.
"Alien life signals in this unit. They're faint but confirmed. You boys wouldn't happen to know anything?" He asked with a calm expression. Nick shook his head. "Aliens? You need to lay off the Brandy." Nick said with a smile. I looked over as I frowned and saw both planes shudder and I walked over to check if anything was loose or if they would suddenly explode. I placed my hand on the fuselage of the right F-22 and felt it tremor under my palm. I jerked my hand back as I felt a small jolt crawl up my arm and I frowned deeper as I walked back to Epps and Nick deep in thought.
