"Alright," Lieutenant Colonel Camarda took the podium. "CIF-77, CIF-28, let's talk details."

He gestured to the screen, an old copy of TacScape booting in the background. Version 1.3.1. The software was easily eight years old by now, but it worked. Usually.

/ERROR/: CANNOT CONNECT TO TACSCAPE™ LICENSING SERVER, the software announced. RETRYING…

Now, it seemed, was an unusual time.

The cycle continued indefinitely, and Camarda pounded the podium with a fist. "God damn thing hasn't worked since Solana went on a jamming spree." Nicole shifted uneasily in her chair. Oops, she thought to herself. My bad. To be fair, I didn't know we were the bad guys when I helped the Feds take Solana.

"Well, I guess that gets us to our next topic. Solana's the whole damn reason I called you here today. As you may or may not have noticed, satellite recon isn't exactly possible when you can't connect to any satellites. We've picked up intel regarding something worrying in an area near the Yellowstone Exclusion Zone from a group of mercenaries who were sent in to clear the place out, and… well, we have more questions than answers." Camarda walked over to the corner of the room to grab his backup plan, a projector. "Major, would you give me a hand? This overhead's ancient."

BASH and JC lugged the overhead projector into place and fiddled with it until blurry pictures of large amounts of construction equipment came into view, and the traces of what looked like a runway rose out of the rock like a streak of ink against a red-brown page.

"We have no idea why, but the Feds appear to be building a small airbase about a mile west of the, well, now ruined, cordium extraction plant." The Lieutenant Colonel shuffled another picture into place on the overhead, a translucent map of the general area annotated in dry-erase marker. "These pictures are outdated. A few days old. And they seemed pretty much done with the facility as it was… There's only one thing we know for sure, and that's because we got one clear picture out of the whole thing." A cargo container sat along the edge of the runway, painted in the stark white and black logo of Icarus Armories.

"Icarus?" Dagger raised an eyebrow, speaking out of turn. "Aren't they the Feds' crazy weapons dev people?"

"Please, Lieutenant Ashido, there will be time for questions after I'm done talking." JC glared, well, daggers.

"If Icarus Armories has anything to do with this airstrip, we have to shut it down," the base CO continued. "That's where you all come in. This is a search and destroy mission. First, document what you can regarding the facility. Then, blow it to hell and back. CIF-28, Cygnus Squadron? You'll be kitting your Tomcats for air-to-ground. If there's one thing we have a lot of here, it's bombs." He shifted his weight around, nervously. "CIF-77. Polaris. You'll be tasked to cover Cygnus against any air threats that may arise. Questions?"

Jackal raised a hand. "Sir, is it safe to be dropping that much ordinance next to that much cordium?"

"Well, Captain Hyder," the CO answered. "It's not right on top of it. As far as we can tell from radio chatter the mercs overheard, the cordium extraction facility followed their safety procedures and doused that region of the Exclusion Zone with enough neutralizing reagent to calm things down a little. I don't think we have to worry about lighting the place off." The officer chuckled. "I wouldn't play with fire like that. Next?"

Zip raised a hand.

"Yes, Captain MacTavish?"

"Are there any rules of engagement regarding any remaining Federation-occupied cordium extraction equipment the mercs might have missed?"

"Yes, Captain. Remember that at the end of the day, that's our cordium there. We'll need it once this war is over."

"Any more questions?" The CO scanned the room. None of the CIF-28 pilots seemed confused. "Alright then. CIF-77, I've heard about your new member. Don't have any blue-on-blue incidents up there, okay?" He stared at Burn. "That wasn't just directed at her."

"Yes, sir." Scott grimaced, annoyed.

"Alright. Dismissed. Good hunting, CIF!"

The pilots filed out into the ready rooms, grabbed their kit, and scrambled to their planes. It was time to take to the skies once again, and she wouldn't spend one more unnecessary second with her feet on solid ground.