"Speech/Intercom"

"Raido"

"Thoughts:

LOCATION-ZAPPLAND

DATE-JULY-31-2019

TIME-1000

OPERATION-?

"So are you sure you don't know what Brownies planning? She hasn't let me in our hangar in the past three days."

"Sorry man, she just gave us all fifty bucks and said to keep you out till she said so."

"Wow what a great friend you are, Tabloid."

"Hey fifty bucks is fifty bucks, now come let's go see Count I think he's ready to talk about our last sortie."

"Damn High Roller, Champ, and almost Full Band, and that's not even counting all the others that don't even make it past their first sortie.''I said as we made our way down the significantly emptier halls toward Counts hanger.

"Yeah but you feel that in the air to don't ya, something bigs about to happen and when it does a whole lot of change is gonna go down."

"Yeah but at what cost, cause I'm not sure how much longer I can keep flying that death trap."

"Hey come on now Trigger that's no way to be you should see yourself out there sometimes you're like a wizard or something."

"More like a lighting rod of hate, but there's only so much my skills can cover for how old and outdated that F-14 is and, get this after that fight in the storm clouds when I got hit one of the gauges for my rpms blew so you know how they fixed it?"

"The Scrap Queen probably replaced it right?"

"Yeah but with a gauge from an MiG-21 and its labeled in Yuktobaniain, so i'm terrified to look any deeper into the other work that's been done."

"Ok I guess I can see where you're coming from but you're always so calm about everything I mean it took an extreme situation for you to even snap at Count so what's wrong man?" Tabloid asked, stopping and putting his hand on my shoulder.

"I guess learning about our ejection seats put some things into perspective for me, I mean im not just flying for myself out there, if I fuck up Browine pays for it too."

"You know you shouldn't worry too much, Brownie trusts you enough to follow you anywhere."

"That's what I'm afraid of Tabloid. I can barely lead myself muchless others."

"I think you'd do better than you think Trigger, now come on let's go see Count."

The rest of the walk was spent in silence as I flowed Tabloid. Once we got there we entered and even with the slight funk I was in I found it in me to be slightly jealous of the couches, tv, and even a mini fridge. The only thing about it though was it all had a fine layer of dust.

"So where did Count get all this stuff?" Tabloid asked as he looked around as well.

"I shared a hanger with High Roller since I got here. It's mostly his winnings from bets." came Counts' voice from under his plane.

"Oh so that's why you took it so hard when he died." Tabloid said, sounding more somber.

"Yeah well it doesn't change anything being sad about it now, you said you'd figured something out from our last sortie Trigger?"

"Yup before Brownie kicked me out of the hanger we got to thinking about it and I don't think it was Bandogs fault."

"Care to explain before we both get thrown in solitary for fighting." Count said as he started to tense up.

"Take a breath there man I don't know what the technical terms she use was, but Brownie dug up the IFF change that flipped Fullbands came from a satellite and not an AWACS,"

Turning to look at me Tabloid asked looking slightly disturbed."She has access to that kind of info just from her WSO systems?"

"Nah she and Fullband have built up some favors from the guards and she used them to get access to the IFF logs and the AWACS logs."

"It's possible that they could have tampered with the logs though."

"That's what I thought as well. Count they could have changed the AWACS logs yeah, but the IFF logs are all done automatically by the system and only a general has access to change them."

"Holy shit thats fucking scary man either someone its messing with Oseas's systems or there just trying to kill us off." Tabloid said as sat down looking spooked.

"I hate to say it but if they wanted to kill us there's easier ways to do it."

"Yeah Count that's what me and Brownie settled on as well but I just wanted to let you know it wasnt Bandog that did it and it wasn't your fault either."

"Yeah I get you, but he's still on my shit list for the ejection seat thing."

"Oh trust me he better hope I don't run into him alone." I said along with Tabloid giving a small sound of approval.

"Well boys let's say we leave the sappy, serious talk behind and go play a round of cards in the mess before lunch?'

"Oh you are on Count, what about you Trigger?" Tabloid asked as he got up and made his way to the door.

"Hell yeah I'm in my pockets are feeling a little light."

"I'll have you know I won the poker tournament my town held every year."

"Count you used that one last week."

"Oh….well i'm still going to kick some ass today."

"Whatever you say Count."

It had been at the end of lunch when the Scrap Queen walked over to our table and said Brownie wanted me to come down to the hanger. To be truthful I was a mixture of excited to see what she had been up to and terrified cause damn could she be scary with a lot of free time. Once I got to the hanger I was meet with the sight of a newly painted F-14 which seemed to shine, even the sin lines on the tail looked good.

"You're gonna catch flies with your mouth open like that." Brownie said looking smug from where she was sitting by the table we keep in the back.

"Holy shit how you manage this the canopy even looks freshly buffed."

"As much as I'd like to take credit for it, most of the work was the Scrap Queens."

"Still she looks snazzy don't she?"

"Who even uses snazzy any more, and also happy birthday." She said while tossing an envelope at me.

"Damn I forgot all about it thanks." I said as I opened the letter and noticed who it was from. "Is this from my sister?"

"Yep was supposed to get to you at Fort Grays but we know how that turned out."

"Yeah now I feel terrible with the war picking up and me not answering Kelly must be worried sick."

"Probably but there's no helping it now, but what did she say?" Brownie asked as I read over the letter.

"Mostly just seeing how i'm doing, she says hi and oh."

"What is it?"

"They moved the Puffin from the reserve fleet to the 7th fleet."

"Oh I'm sorry."

"Well like you said not much we can do about it here, but remind me later to write her back so she at least knows i'm still kicking." I said as I sat down and leaned on her.

Smirkinging she said "now that that's out of the way we can get down to the second part of your birthday gift."

"Second part?"

"Yes sir cause some guards might accidentally forget to do their hanger checks tonight."

"Well then it'd be a shame not to take advantage of such an oversight.

I'm sorry about the delay on this chapter. My old computer died taking all my saved files with it, but hopefully I can get back to semi regular updates.