To yellow 14: Not nearly bad enough.

To armadas: Given everything that's coming toward Paris, you may get your wish…

Replies to Reviews of "American Heroes Unite" chapter 16:

To yellow 14: With 3 beasts heading their way, they're definitely going to be "calling the banners." And now that will include the United Heroez!

"Hi, Father!" Hoda called, stepping into the maintenance hangar at the New Atlantis Spaceport and finding four people working inside. Two humans – one of whom had the Sorcerers' Guild emblem on her shirt – stood beside a stack of tan heat shielding panels next to a space-plane with the outer shell on half its left wing removed. The girl paused what she was doing, glanced up, and nodded to Hoda, who waved back without stopping. Instead, she walked past them and headed across the open room to where the other two figures, a human and a Shunjar, huddled over a holoprojector just outside the offices and lab against the far wall.

Her father looked up and smiled on seeing her. "Good afternoon, daughter!" he greeted her, beckoning her over. "Come and see our progress!"

Hoda laughed. "I have already seen some of it, you know," she replied, stopping next to the table to examine the plan projected over the table, which appeared to be for a new space-plane with a larger carrying capacity. Her team had practiced rapid-deployment tactics last month, using the space-plane to drop into the middle of the Australian Outback after taking the portal into the upper atmosphere. "You know, I felt quite a bit of drag on our plane during reentry."

Cissy stroked her chin, humming thoughtfully. "Phantom commented on that, too," she mused. "Do you have any ideas, Kassim?"

Hoda's father furrowed his brows, looking intently across the hangar at the space-plane's nosecone. "I remember having a similar problem with one of our excursion craft on my first tour," he began, pondering his words. "The wings were not aligned properly for atmospheric flight. I recall that those craft were far less aerodynamically balanced than these, however."

Cissy nodded. "The original design wasn't made with atmospheric conditions in mind – it was mostly just designed for space – but that didn't fit our mission parameters. Max altered the wings and balance to improve the aerodynamics." She frowned. "We tested the miniature in a wind tunnel, but the wind tunnel test couldn't really tell us how it would behave while passing through the atmosphere."

He hummed pensively, scratching his chin. "For our purposes, that was only of secondary concern, so we didn't worry too much about it," he told her. "In this case, however, we should probably give it some more thought, given that the space-planes are intended to pass through the atmosphere on a regular basis."

"At least now we know how it behaves on reentry," added Hoda, nodding.

"A complete redesign could be expensive," Cissy warned.

Hoda chuckled wryly. "It would be worse if a space-plane crashed," she pointed out.

Cissy shuddered. "That would be terrible."

"We can keep that in mind for the next 'generation.' But changing the design may not be the only solution," Hoda's father noted. "If we change the fuel mixture, we could increase the velocity, which may reduce the shimmy."

Cissy raised an eyebrow dubiously. "How much faster are we talking?"

He shrugged one shoulder. "Forty percent?"

Cissy's eyes widened. "That fast? What would that do to the craft? The handling?"

"Physically, I think the craft as it is designed could easily handle the added strain," he replied. "The onboard computer would require recalibration to handle the speed, but it's possible."

"Let's work up a simulation," Cissy decided.

Hoda's father nodded. "That would be a good idea," he agreed. He glanced up at Hoda. "Do you remember your classes?"

She frowned. "Not quite well enough to help you figure out the proper fuel mixture," she answered, shaking her head. "I'll see if Allira needs help while you do that." She nodded to the broken down space-plane for emphasis.

"Very well," her father replied with a shrug. "Hopefully this will only take a few minutes, and then we can leave for dinner." With a glance back at Hoda, he and Cissy headed into the lab while Hoda jogged over to the space-plane.

The tech crouching on the top of the wing turned off her welding torch, pulled up her welding mask, and glanced down at Hoda as she approached. "Arvo," Allira greeted her, nodding.

"How are you?" Hoda asked, taking the torch she passed down to her and setting it on the ground beside the fuel can.

Allira shrugged and jumped from the space-plane, throwing her hands out and hovering just above the ground before dropping to land. "Just another day in paradise, right?"

Hoda smiled warmly, baring her teeth. After everything she had been through since arriving on Earth, she could easily agree that New Atlantis was a paradise. She had made friends on Earth – Aisha, Chloe, Bri, and Sabrina were just the closest ones she had made outside of the island – but now the girls from therapy weren't her only friends. Since coming to live here, she had made a dozen friends – some of them, like Allira, had become close friends. When she had first arrived, she had felt completely out of place; people had stopped to stare all the time. But now she was perfectly at home: everyone welcomed her. "Got that right," she finally agreed.

Allira gestured to the stack of heat shielding panels. "Mind giving me a hand with this?"

"Can't do it all yourself?" Hoda teased. She grabbed the topmost panel, flipped it around, and held it up where Allira directed her.

Allira rolled her eyes and gestured to a bucket of bolts. A dozen lifted out and shot upward, aligning with the holes in the panel and spinning into place. "There's a difference between a swarm of bolts and a four-meter-square of metal," she told Hoda.

"Are you saying you can't lift one of this?" Hoda retorted as the bolts tightened into place.

"I can; I just can't manipulate the bolts at the same time."

Hoda chuckled while Allira grabbed a wrench and started checking the tightness of the bolts. "You tried it, didn't you?"

Allira grimaced. "I might have…" She let out a breath. Hoda turned away while Allira welded the bolts down. "Your dad wasn't too thrilled when he found one of the bolts I missed!"

Hoda hummed, grabbing two more panels. "Sounds like the time I left my Ginder bricks lying around growing up: father almost locked me in my room for a week after that."

"Huh." Allira cocked her head in surprise. "I just thought your feet were more… tough?"

"They are." Hoda nodded. The bolts screwed into place on the first panel, and she grabbed the second on the pile and held it up next to the first as another set of bolts flew out of the box. "We can still feel things with them, though. And sometimes it can really hurt."

"Good to know." Allira was silent for a few minutes tightening and securing the bolts. Finally she put her welding torch away and leaned against the body of the space-plane. "So how is it?" she asked. Hoda cocked her head. "Being on an Intervention Team, I mean?" Allira clarified.

"So much fun!" Hoda folded her arms, her mouth splitting into a toothy grin. "It's like when I was with the Shunjar Navy, but I feel like I'm doing more here than I was back then. With the Navy I was just an… ensign? I think that's the equivalent rank. I was so new that I was still the one doing a lot of the work that no one else wanted to do. Learning on the job still. But here I'm actually going out and doing things."

"That's nice."

Hoda examined Allira closely. "Do you wish you had volunteered?"

Allira frowned. "Sometimes," she admitted. "My grandmother was on an Intervention Team for a year – my great-grandmother was a miraculous user. I don't know… I'm glad I decided to come to work here, but there isn't that much excitement just working on planes."

Hoda gave her a sympathetic smile. "Every role is important," she pointed out. "We wouldn't be able to get around half as quickly without your space-planes."

Allira giggled. "Bloody oath." She looked up at the clock and stretched. "Time to leave for the day," she announced. "Up for a swim?"

Hoda glanced across the hangar at the office, where her father and Cissy were still hunched over a computer. "Sounds good!"