Speech/Intercom"
"Raido"
"Thoughts:
LOCATION-ON APPROACH TO ZAPPLAND
DATE-JULY-22-2019
TIME-1400
OPERATION-THREE OF A KIND
"Spare 15 your clear for landing, once your on the ground taxi to your hanger debrief is in an hour."
"Spare 15 copies making final now." I replied to the tower wincing as the engines started to sputter again before going back to normal.
"Damn that sand really fucked with engines didn't it?" I heard Brownie say from the back.
Staying quiet till we were on the ground and taxing toward the hanger I finally answered "yeah can't imagine the other planes are doing too well either." Once we were in the hangar I opened the canopy and did a quick look over the plane as I got out."looks like we flew through sandpaper."
"Well we kinda did." Brownie said after climbing out and putting something on the desk we had finally found to replace our stack of crates.
"Wait, is that your book I thought I threw it away, and you take it with us?"
"Yeah I'm not the one flying, and what's your problem with it?"
"It's 60 Shades of Red Brownie, it's nothing but smut."
"It's good though."
Sighing and pinching the bridge of my nose I put my helmet on the desk and said."whatever I dont care anymore let's get to the debrief and sit down."
"What's the matter? The big bad Trigger embarrassed?" she said, slightly laughing.
"No no just releasing where some of your ideas came from."I said walking out of the hangar hearing her shout at me to wait up. The walk to the briefing room was relatively uneventful, just more prodding and teasing from Brownie who was in a really good mood for some was once everyone started to trickle in that It got to the usual levels of after mission excitement.
"Holy hell did you guys see some of those oil tankers explode it was amazing." one of the other spares said.
"Yeah but did you see some of those tanker trucks? A few of them blew up real good." Fullband said while a few others added their agreement.
'That may be true but what my man Trigger did was pretty sweet, he took down a UAV by wing tipping it." Tabloid added while drawing the room's attention to me.
"Sweet? It scared the living shit out of me Tabloid I wasn't trying to wingtip it I was just trying to roll out of a lock and I hit it as it came out of the sandstorm." I replied still remembering hearing the bang when I hit it and thinking we had got hit.
"Still that was pretty cool."
"Yeah till The Scrap Queen see the dent it made and all the sand we got in our planes." I added enjoying the slowly dawning horror on some of the pilots faces.
"Oh god don't remind me I have to share a cell with her." Brownie says groaning and slumping in her seat.
After about thirty minutes Mckinsey finally comes in for the debrief. The highlight of it is that we only lost two planes, and one pilot since one crashed on landing but was injured enough to be shipped off back to Osea for treatment then to a normal prison, for the most part the debrief was his normal threats of solitary and his insistence that he was a genius for finding a use for convicts. Once the debrief was over he sent us back to the hangars to start work on our planes. On our way back Brownie split off to go swipe some food for us while we work so it was just me and Tabloid in the hanger at the moment looking at the rough shape my bird was in.
"Wow that's a pretty impressive dent how bad did she handle after that?" Tabloid asks me, staring at the dent in my left wing.
"It wasn't too bad till the engines started acting up from the sand."
"I bet and good thing your bird doesn't have stealth coating or it would be ruined."
Looking at the state of the paint I had to agree you could see bear metal in spots and even my emblem i'd grown fond of was starting to fade with scratches everywhere. "Yeah hopefully The Scrap Queen can do something about it."
"Well,I heard she'll have to move fast. Our next mission is gonna be soon."
"Oh thats bloody great what do you figure it'll be an all out attack on the space elevator."
"Please don't give him any Ideas."
Sitting down on some crates we decided there's nothing we can do till The Scrap Queen shows up so we wait for Brownie to bring whatever she could find and wait. When Brownie finally came back with some sandwiches that were probably a day old we started to eat and talk with Tabloid asking more about where we came from.
"So I heard from Fullband you too knew each other before the war."
"Yeah me and the dumbass here grew up together."
"Yup we lived in Bana for most of our lives my parents were owners of quite a few hotels, and got pissed when they heard me and my sister joined the military." I said smirking at the memory of their faces when I told them I was shipping off for flight school.
"Like Triggers parents mine owned some well off tourist traps and they met and started working together, you know stay at our hotels get so much off at whatever place you were going."
"So I assume you too got stuck as playmates or something whenever they had business meetings together."
"Nope we met because we were trying to hustle the same tourst out of money and she didn't like it when I got the money."
"Who taught you to play poker now that i'm thinking about it?" Tabloid asked, probably remembering the games i've played here.
"His sister taught him and me, kinda her middle finger at our parents for being all uptight stereotypical rich people."
"Yeah then she joined the Osean navy as a radar operator, and I got it in my head that flying sounds pretty cool so I joined."
"That sounds like something you would do, so how did you join Brownie?"
"Well when Trigger left for training it got boring and lonely at home so I said fuck it and enlisted a couple months later." Brownie said.
"Did you ever hear what ship your sister ended up serving on Trigger?" Tabloid asked.
"Yeah she sent me a letter back when I was at Cranston she's on a landing ship called the Puffin in one of Oseas reserve fleats so she should be relatively safe."
"You sound like you're worried for her."
"Yeah some people might not get along with their siblings but she practically raised me and Brownie since our parents didn't care past their image, which thinking on now were probably disowned now." I said hearing Brownie chuckle darkly and pull out some cups and the whiskey we keep hidden.
As she poured some in the cups and passed them to us she said "Well they can keep their family names my family's right here criminals or not I trust everyone here to watch my back even Count."
Nodding I added to it "Yeah as much of an ass he and the others can be they come through we we really need it." Raising my glass I said "To Family."
"To Family" was the reply from Tabloid and Brownie as we knocked our cups together and started an early night of drinking and stories.