Delta Patrol, 40,000 feet
Sky Ocean, New Frontier
0955
"Do you have to play that harmonica all the time?" First Lieutenant Alto Saotome asked a question with barely contained hostility aimed at one of his wingmen.
"Does it bother you?" Brera Sterne answered on the screen coldly as he lowered the harmonica from his lips.
"Not as much as your fighter riding my ass the whole damn patrol!" Alto growled as he looked over his shoulder past the body of his own VF-25F Messiah at the damnable visage of Brera's blood red VF-27 Lucifer. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were keeping a shot lined up on me just waiting for an excuse."
"Are you certain you know better?" Alto didn't need to see the comms window to see Brera's deadly serious poker face. It did not dissuade Alto's angry growl.
Luca's considerably lighter voice chimed in before Alto could respond with words. His green VF-25R hung a much more reasonable distance away off Alto's left wing. "Ahh, come on you two. We've flown dozens of patrols together and all the two of you do is bicker. They'd be a lot more pleasant if you both got along."
Alto replied, "They'd be a lot more pleasant if Brera would stop dogging my heels like a lovesick pu-!" The crack of a sonic boom cut off Alto's sentence. Alto did not see what it was, but he felt the shock wave knock his Valkyrie around. "What the f- Who the hell was that?" Alto shouted in irritation as he straightened and leveled his flight.
The cyborg answered promptly, "Someone flying under the Virgin-One callsign."
Alto sighed and thumbed open the general communications channel. "Skull-Four to Macross Quarter. Some jackass flying under Virgin-One just buzzed my flight."
Lam's voice answered, "Sorry about that, Skull-Four, we'll let her know to stop doing that."
"Just give me a name, I'll chew the newbie out later."
"Are you sure you want to do that, Skull-Four?" Lam's voice suddenly gained a mild tone of mischief.
"Should I not be?" Alto asked.
"Aside from the fact that you are never sure of anything..."
"Shut up, Brera!"
Lam gave a small giggle, "Let's just say that you're... intimately familiar with the pilot."
This time it was Luca's turn to giggle. Alto just glanced at all his comms windows in turn with momentary confusion, "Huh? What do you-" Realization hit Alto like a stone, "Oh no..."
"Mmhm!" Lam squeeked, "It's your eeeex!"
"Alto!" Sheryl's voice suddenly cut into the audio, followed swiftly by the woman herself in her own holographic window, all decked out in a pilot suit and helmet sitting in an EX-Gear in the unmistakable cockpit of a VF-25. He hated to admit it, but she cut a sexy figure even in a flight suit. "There you are, I was trying to find your channel."
"Hai, well you found it. Already gotten lost in your own interface?" Alto answered aloofly, keeping his gaze firmly fixed on the sky.
"I'm figuring it out!" Sheryl replied defensively. "It's different from those Nightmares we'd get at Mihoshi."
"So instead of giving you your own Nightmare they give you a Messiah. Great."
"Jealous, Alto?" Sheryl asked with that damnable smile of hers.
"Why would I be jealous? I'm flying the exact same plane as you are."
"Mine's newer!" Sheryl chirped with that equally damnable pride.
"And you're flying it like a maniac!" Alto said with a raising voice, taking his opening, "Just what the hell were you thinking, buzzing me like that?"
Sheryl rolled her eyes and frowned, "Just thought I'd say hello. You don't have to get so uptight about it, I thought you could handle it. You didn't stall out in my jet wash, did you?"
Alto's brow twitched. The woman never failed to push his buttons, and she knew all of them, "Like hell I stalled out!"
"Saotome! Nome! Get this conversation the hell off of general comms!" Ozma's voice barreled in.
"Oh, is this the general comms channel? I thought it was Alto's," Sheryl winced with a blush.
"Now, Nome!" Ozma shouted again.
"Eugh, do they have to stop arguing?" A different voice and Alto glanced back at Sheryl's video as a figure stirred behind her and peered over Sheryl's shoulder. It was Catherine Glass. "She finally started flying straight and level while they were at it. My stomach is almost back to where it should be..."
Ozma was quick to add, "Nome, fly Cathy back to the ship. Lieutenant Hoa will make sure you get immediate landing clearance."
Cathy smiled gently while Sheryl sighed, "Thanks, Ozma."
"Serves you right..." Alto said off-handedly to Sheryl. His only reply was a glare from her before the connection was cut. Then Luca's voice sighed heavily across the channel. "What?" Alto asked flatly of him.
"You always have to take things just that one step further, don't you, senpai?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Luca frowned, "I'm just saying that it's no wonder the two of you broke up." And with that, Luca's own face disappeared from the screen. Alto sighed himself long and hard as he relaxed into the seat of his EX-Gear. When he looked up again he noticed Brera's comm channel had been left open, and the cyborg's cold eyes were watching him intently, his hands were steepled in silent, motionless contemplation as if the man seriously considered putting Alto out of his misery right then and there. Alto frowned back for a solid beat, then turned Brera's screen off himself.
He leaned back again with another sigh, and in the silence and privacy of his cockpit, he let himself smile a bit, "She got her wings..."
