"Giga-lizard in sight, ready to make contact." Koch called into her radio from the plane as it soared above the infinite white of the Artican ice-fields. Colt listened carefully from the communications tower of the small military airstrip.
"Roger that." The technician responded. The Arctican General leading up the operation nodded. "You have a go when target zone is clear."
"Copy that, moving in." Koch replied. She and the group began to fly over the beast, dropping bombs as they passed over. The bombs fell and struck the beast at about the same time, creating an explosion that could be seen from the control tower.
"Is it dead?" One of the other pilots asked. He was answered by a blast of fire shooting up towards them. "Whoa!" He swerved his plane to avoid it.
"One more, guys!" Koch said over the radio. They circled around and dropped a couple more each on the beast, creating a bigger explosion. It fired at them a few times as the bombs hit, and finally one more blast passed them as the beast fell dead.
"We did it!" One the pilots cheered.
"Mission accomplished; good work. Come on back." The technician said with a smile.
As the planes each returned and settled down, Colt went out with the General to greet them. "Looked like fun out there. Wish I'd been allowed." He said, walking over to Koch as she got out.
"It took three bombs each from all ten of our planes." The Arctican General said. "At least it's finally dead, after so many months."
Koch saluted. "A job well done, sir. The men should be proud."
"After all the carnage it did before it turned up in an isolated location, we were more than happy to do it." One of the other pilots said, saluting as well.
"Took the best bombs we got too." A third said to a fourth one over his shoulder. His friend nodded.
"Men, I'd like to buy you all a drink." The General said. There was a great "Huzzah!" and most of them went to what passed for a bar on the base. Koch broke away from the group and joined Colt.
"Come on." She said. "We need to get you back to base. The professor'll wanna give you a physical after all the excitement."
"Oh, good. I was worried I'd have to go along." Colt nodded. "I really don't like how those places smell."
"Bars?" Koch asked with just a hint of a laugh. "They smell like –"
"They smell like Jaivan's breath, when his breath doesn't smell like jerk and women's perfume." Colt said flatly.
Koch looked confused. "What, is he drinking whole bottles of it? And…what is jerk supposed smell like?"
"It smells like Jaivan." Colt huffed.
"Huh…." Koch thought aloud. "Last I checked his breath tasted like spearmint toothpaste. He must have some interesting mouthwash."
"Not REALLY." Colt looked at her. "But, all he does on his off-time is go to bars and hit on women! And he's a jerk 24/7."
"Isn't that how he's always been?" She asked.
"Exactly!" Colt declared. "And it smells horrible when he's yelling in your face!"
"Pfft." Koch held back a giggle. "It's nice to hear he hasn't changed. Anyway, I was going to say that bars smell like clinics."
"….Why?" Colt stared blankly at her.
"You know; medical sanitizers." She explained, surprised he didn't get it. "I guess they don't really use booze for that in the cities, huh?"
Colt shook his head. "…Nope. Anyways, I'm pretty sure jerk is contagious, 'cause Luger is getting it, too! He LET him crush my legs, y'know? And made little Wesson watch!"
"Now that IS different." She said as they climbed onto the snowmobile. "Last I saw, Luger was kind of – I guess almost scared of violence." Colt climbed on with her and held on as she started the engine. "Though he was about Raf's age when I last saw him…" She looked over her shoulder at Colt. "I guess it must've been right after you were made."
"Oh, right. You don't really know Wesson and Nils, then. And Springfield was only one year old then." Colt nodded. "Oh, you should meet the kids. They're such a riot." He grinned. "Nils is always trying to kill Wesson, and Wesson is always starting fights with Nils. It's awesome."
"We should send Raf over there." She said thoughtfully as they put their helmets on and started to speed away. "Maybe he wouldn't be so bored if we had some more kids."
After that, conversation became difficult over the roar of the engine, so they kept mostly to themselves for the 3 hour ride back to the research compound. They pulled into the gate, pulled their helmets off and shook their hair loose. Colt noticed that Koch still seemed to be in thought while she pushed the vehicle into its storage space.
"What's up?" He asked as he watched her push it. "You look like you're thinking pretty deeply."
She made sure it was secure in place and sighed. "Just thinking that I'm seeing all the action, but really I'm the one missing all the fun."
"Aww. Well, maybe you can ask to be transferred over to Adlehyde sometime while Jaivan is sent here. Guardians know we need a break from him."
She laughed as she turned to him, but shook her head. "No, they need my skills here. Not his." She let out a final sigh and headed for the door. "I'm hungry. Go see Tiggs; I'll see you at dinner."
He nodded, waving. "Alright, see you." He turned and walked off to the lab.
After some standard pleasantries, Tiggs had him lying down again on the bed with his shirt off. She ran him through the scanner and gave the images a scrutinizing look-over.
"You know what?" She asked rhetorically. "I think…you're all better."
"Really?" Colt asked excitedly as he sat up. The bed was still partially in the machine.
"Lie back down." She pushed his head back to the mat. "Yeah, it looks like your bones, muscles, joints – it's all repaired." She smiled at him as the bed finished sliding out. "Despite your best efforts. I'm clearing you for active duty."
"Yes!" He cheered. "I don't have to stay inside anymore!" He climbed off the bed and reached for his shirt. "Hey, Professor Tiggs? Did you know that Koch hasn't met Wesson and Nils yet? I thought it was a major shame, y'know? I think she'd like them! And Raf could certainly use the company of kids his own age." He pulled his shirt on, his last sentence muffled a bit by the fabric.
"Really?" Tiggs said in astonishment while writing something down on a print out. "I could've sworn… No, I guess not." She handed the clipboard to Colt and pointed to a section at the bottom. "Sign here. I'd like to let Koch take a leave. Goodness knows she's earned it, but we just haven't found a time when we can spare her. When she's not on the front line she's over here training Raf."
"What am I signing?" He took the pen and looked it over.
"Just your release papers." She said before continuing on. "I guess Raf is starting to get old enough. Maybe we ought to put him with some other instructors, or at least have her take him out on the front."
"Is he ready for the front?" Colt asked with surprise. "He doesn't even have his own ARM yet!"
"I know." Tiggs brushed her hair thoughtfully. "But he's well into the age most of you started, almost 7 years old. I'm sure we could scrounge up a weapon for him."
Colt nodded. "He seemed to take to my rifle well enough."
"Well, I doubt you're volunteering it." She joked as she took the signed document from Colt and placed it in an 'out' rack. "But you're right. He's flexible."
He nodded. "So, when do I head back to Adlehyde, then? Or do I stay here?"
"Since you're here, I'll go ahead and see if General Wilkes needs an extra hand. The reports from Adlehyde have been pretty quiet lately. I hear Jaivan is getting stir-crazy."
Colt scowled. "So send him on some horrid mission that he won't come back from for a long time. Spare us his presence."
Tiggs laughed. "Well, we'd reassign him to the frozen wasteland here, but he'd have to live with Raf. And you know how he is with kids."
"Oh," Colt said dejectedly. "That's why he's not here."
"That is the entire reason." Tiggs put some last bottles of cleaners and such on a shelf and pulled her gloves off. "Well, let's eat."
He nodded, smiling. "Alright! Koch said she'd join us for dinner today, which is pretty awesome. Usually she's too busy to."
"She should learn to eat while working, like me!" Tiggs said as they headed for the mess hall.
Inside, they found Koch and Raf at the dinner line, waiting to get food. Colt smiled and walked over to join her. "Hey, Koch! Guess what? I'm cleared for duty!"
"Congratulations." She smiled as the server plopped potato mush onto her plate. Raf reached up and did likewise.
"Professor says that she's gonna find out if I'm needed here, since things are so quiet back home." Colt said, holding up his plate for the same mush. "I see it's potato mush again. Canned, right?"
Koch shrugged. Colt looked to the server for answers, but only received a healthy helping of obviously canned beans.
"Yup." Colt rolled his eyes.
"Well, what do you expect." Tiggs held out her plate. "With all the renewed demon activity it's harder to come by fresh produce. Mm, is that macaroni?" A yellow, lumpy paste had been plopped on each of their plates.
"Oh boy, macaroni and squeeeege. My favorite." Colt smirked.
"You want mine?" Raf held up his plate to Colt.
The adults all stared in disbelief. "Someone teach this kid sarcasm." Colt said to the two women.
"What's that?" Koch asked in mock-obliviousness.
They all went to the table to consume their various fortified pastes and concentrated fruit drinks. Tiggs sat across the table from the other three and next to another researcher who had asked her to look over a folder. After some small talk with the researcher she went back to her food.
"So, Raf. Do you think you're ready to go on some real missions?"
"Eh?" Raf looked up in surprise.
"Well, Colt and I got talking and I realized that you're just about the age he was when he started joining in on some serious missions. We were thinking of maybe getting you an ARM of your own to use and sending you out with one of them when they get called in."
"Oh!" Raf said. "Um, okay."
"How about that, kid. You're finally getting out of here." Koch patted him on the back. "You ready for some serious combat?"
Raf nodded, though he looked like he might actually have mixed feelings about it.
"So, with that in mind, is there a certain type of gun you like?" Tiggs asked. "Maybe we could budget something custom made."
Raf shrugged. "Naw, anything is fine. Anything we've got."
Tiggs dropped her head. "Uh, can't you be a little more excited about this? You're finally going into the field, a real soldier."
"Yeah. About time." Raf said coolly while propping his head up on one fist.
"Kid, you gotta be happier than this." Colt frowned. "If you act all moody, they won't want you on the battlefield at all." He rubbed Raf's head. "Besides, while I got my first ARM at four years old, I didn't see my first battle until I was six or seven - and even that was heavily supervised."
Raf made a half-hearted attempt at a wide grin and shrugged again. "Okay."
"Don't worry about it, professor." Koch ensured. "He'll perk up once he's out in the field. Right, kid?" She gave a friendly pop on the back of his head, followed by an 'Oof!' and Raf running his gut into the table. All the same, he seemed relatively unaffected by it.
Colt chuckled.
A uniformed man marched in and approached their table. "H-03: Koch and H:06: Colt, you have orders to report to Fort Westfield's Northern Conference Hall at 0800 hours tomorrow." He said, standing by their table.
"Uhh…okay." Colt blinked and nodded.
"Good. Don't be late." He saluted and marched out.
"Well, that was sudden." Tiggs said, slowly turning back to them.
"I'll go pack." Koch got up from her seat, taking the tray her. "We'll have to drive through the night to get there in time." She dumped the remaining scraps and returned the dishes before heading for the door. "Make sure you've got everything, Colt. We might not be back."
"Must be urgent." Colt said as he did the same and followed her out.