Speech/Intercom"
"Raido"
"Thoughts:
LOCATION-ZAPPLAND
DATE-JULY-07-2019
TIME-1400
PRISONER REC AREA
"Come on you should play, you can't be as bad as Tabloid is."
"Sorry Trigger I'm not falling for that I just saw you wipe the floor with Champ and Count and they both cheat." Brownie said not even looking up from her book she was reading.
"Aw come on Brownie it be just like the old days tricking tourists out of money." I said grinning at Count's face of disbelief at my royal flush I just put down.
"Well I think that's all for me. I need to keep some money." Said with a sigh pushing his hand of junk to the middle of the table.
"Same" came from both Fullband and Tabloid."
"Really guys I just got in the grove."
"Yeah but since this game is over you can teach us how to do that move of yours." Champ said leaning across the table.
"Teach you?"
"Yeah I know we're not in the air to show up properly but you can at least give us a step by step." Fullband said adding his two cents.
"It's not really that complicated, just unexpected, you go into a split-s and once you're in the mid-point of the curve you pull straight up instead of straightening out."
"There's got to be more than that I almost blew the wings off my Mirage trying it over Roja."
"Not really just watch your Gs and know how much your bird can handle, and also practise I got lucky my first time pulling it."
"Well damn now I really wish Mckinsey let us have training flights again."
"Wait you used to have training flights?" Brownie said, finally putting her book down.
"Yeah we would get one every two weeks then they got canceled a week or two before you two showed up."
"Why did they stop them?" I asked
"The previous Spare 15 ate shit on landing one day ended up taking out two other planes that were taxing with him, so Mckinsey said no more training sorties." Fullband said standing up from the table.
"Well shit that sucks but wait is that why Bandog asked about me crashing on my first sortie here?"
"Yeah and he was pissed if I remember right he lost almost a hundred on you." Champ said.
"What can I say I live to piss people off."
"Clearly but come on I know it's a free day we need to check over the Tomcat before we hand it over to maintenance." Brownie said, grabbing some of the money I won and walking to the exit.
"Dude she's got you whipped." Tabloid said, making a whipping motion as I grabbed what was left and made my way to the door.
"Yeah I know but it's not that bad."
"Whatever you say."
As I left the rec room which was really just a sectioned off part of the mess hall and made my way to the hangers. While I knew Brownie just wanted to leave the room she did make a valid point, something was about to happen and I rather be ready. Most of the other prisoners would scoff at the thought of something big was about to go down but it was pretty easy to see, Mckinsey going in the radio room (the bases only way to contact HQ) for hours on end, the normal personal actually doing there jobs for once and finally Mckinsey even allowed the Scrap Queen to order brand new parts. Something was up and it didn't settle right with me at all.
Once I entered mine and Tabloids hanger I went over to the pile of crates we called a desk and grabbed a clipboard and got ready for the long and boring task of trying to satisfy the mechanics by giving the somewhat helpful info on whats wrong this time. "So Brownie any complaints on your end from our last sortie?"
"Yeah IFF and radar where a bit glitchy would pop in and out sometimes, wasn't really too bad till that Tomcat we had trouble with and It completely stopped working till right before you shot them down." She said walking over to our plane and helping me look it over again.
"I'll ask you the same thing they will first, did you turn it off and on again?"
"Actually no it fixed itself but I don't want to take any chances it might mess with yours as well."
"Fair enough, let 's hope it was just a glitch in the display since mine worked fine." I said making notes about it and climbed up the ladder to double check the canopy and upper frame of the plane.
"Uh add new landing gear to the list these are about done for i'm surprised we even landed safely on these things." came Brownie's voice from below.
Not seeing anything more than a few new scratches I climbed back down and went over to the landing gear and I could see the reason she was surprised. The structural part of the landing gear was fine, but the tires looked ready to burst just sitting there. "Damn how long do you think it's been since they were changed?"
"Probably since before they drug this thing out on Fort Gray for us."
"Wouldn't surprise me the IUN-PKFs are as stingy about things like Oseas military is."
"And would you look at that another reason that we need to get rid of the governments." Tabloids voices cut in as I saw him walk in the hanger and over to the desk .
"Oh come on Tabloid just for one day please shut up."
"Man you make it too easy though."
"Ok boys that's enough flirting, what brings you here Tabloid." Brownie said lightly slapping the back of my head.
"That's simple I figured I'd give my bird another look over as well, but I do have a question: what's up with the lines on the back of your helmet Trigger?" He said as he picked my helmet up from the desk and flipped it around.
"Oh for every sortie I make I add a mark kinda like kill tallies but for surviving instead."
"That's a little morbid but to each their own I suppose, so do you include training sorties or patrols?"
Shaking my head I answered "Haven't had either since the war started but I wouldn't put them on there anyway."
"So you have had six combat sorties counting the two here?" He asks and I reply with a nod of my head. "Damn that means you have the most combat experience out of every one, the only one of us to have any experience before coming here was Count and that was just one."
"Shit that explains so much about how ya'll fly no offence or anything but it kinda shows." Brownie says while taking the clipboard and adding another thing to it.
"None taken, we ain't exactly the best pilots around."
"Nah give yourself some credit, you proved the other day you can do pretty good yourself, and it pains me to help his ego but Counts got some skill himself." I said and truly meant it between him keeping up with me at Roca, and Counts actual abilities handling the UAVs things didn't look as bad as they had at first.
"Thanks I guess still got nothing on you though."
"You know what help me and Brownie with this then we'll do your bird and i'll give you some more in detail pointers on that maneuver."
"Really?"
"Yeah it seemed to confuse the UAVs somewhat so I figured I could spread it around, besides your my wingman now I need you to stay alive."
With a chuckle Tabloid said "Fair enough I suppose so let's get to it."
With that sorted out we went back to work with me finally getting to ignore the growing tension that was filling the base for at least a couple of none of us knew was there was fight approaching that we no matter how hard we could try we weren't prepared for, but for the time there was at least a glimmer of hope I had been slowly losing reappear in that moment.