After my chat with the chief mechanic, it was time for the pre-flight briefing. Entering the room, I sat down with Bucky, Mikey and Eddie, the last of which still seemed to be dealing with the consequences of last night. Or, as Bucky put it:

"You look like shit, Ed."

"I feel like shit. Here's hoping we get a milk run so I can go back to sleep soon."

Soon enough the briefing officer took his place at the podium, all of us saluting before slumping back into our seats.

"Gentlemen, before we begin today's briefing, our squadron commander would like to say a few words. Major?"

The squadron commander then got up and walked up to the stage. The first thing I noticed was that he appeared to have red fur! That, together with yellow eyes, was certainly unusual for a rabbit. His walk was calm, and his smile relaxed. We all stood up (again) to salute him, before sitting back down.

"Alright, everybody, I'd like to start this off by giving a proper welcome to our newest recruits: Lieutenants Lucas Appleby, James Barkley and George Lapin. Gents, welcome to the 17th, the best damn squadron in the entire Army Air Force. Now, with that out of the way, onto business:"

"Today's mission is of utmost importance: It marks the beginning of Operation "Wild Times", during which we'll be working along with the boys on the ground. Our role will be the continued bombing of Axis airfields near the frontlines. However, we will focus on destroying aircraft and machine guns emplacements only. After each run, ground forces will move to capture said bases. Assuming we do our jobs right, they should have no trouble doing that. Said airfields will then be used as bases for light bombers, so that the ZAAF can provide air support for any mission within a moment's notice. Some of these will also be used as fighter bases, so we might be getting fighter cover in the future."

"I will be leading the flight today and we'll be using all of our available aircrews to make sure that we don't leave anything on the ground that can shoot at our boys. Some crews will be mixed up for this mission, seeing as not all of our aircraft are currently operational, so be sure to check the flightboard on your way out. Now, Major Richards, you may continue your briefing."

And with that, he left the stage and sat back down. The rabbit at the back of the room turned out the lights and turned on the projector. A photograph of an airfield became visible on the screen. The briefing officer began:

"Now, as Major Morris has explained, we will be bombing out frontline airfields for the following weeks. As such, you won't be over enemy territory for too long, so there should be no fighter opposition. Nevertheless, be prepared for light to moderate flak. Remember to wear your helmets and your flak jackets. I don't wanna hear any bullshit about them being 'too heavy' or 'itchy', you can either wear the jacket or you can get shot up, it's your choice. Your main target should be parked aircraft, anti-aircraft guns and ammo dumps. DO NOT hit the fuel stores. We can use that fuel and I don't think I need to remind any of you just how expensive that stuff is."

He signaled the rabbit in the back to turn the lights back on and the projector off, before pointing at the oh-so-familiar map of Bunny Burrow and the surrounding areas, again with the red line of string showing us our route, and a dotted line marking the frontlines.

"Given the improved performance during the last mission, you'll again be flying at 20,000 ft, following a heading of 0-5-8 until you reach the IP here." He pointed to a small pin that marked a turn in the red line of string. "You'll then turn to heading 0-4-5 and start your bomb run. You'll drop your bombs here, approximately 15 minutes later. After confirming that the drop was indeed accurate, you'll fly 3-1-5 for about 10 minutes to get some distance from the target, then you will turn to a heading of 2-2-7 back home. In total, the entire mission should take 2 hours and 40 minutes. Takeoff will be at 0800, so we expect you to drop your bombs at 0915, and you should be back here at 1040. There's light cloud cover over the mountains, but none over the target as far as intel goes. Are there any questions?"

No one spoke up.

"None? Great. Now, I do have to bring your attention to a few policy changes. First off, due to concerns over depressurization, at least one crew member will be required to wear an oxygen mask at all times in each compartment. You are also not, I repeat, not to dive if depressurization occurs, but instead to maintain altitude so as to keep fuel consumption down. I don't care if any of you are cold, I don't care if anyone's hurt. There's enough oxygen in those tanks to keep all of you alive and well for hours. There were also changes to your radio callsigns, due to complaints from crews and tower controllers alike. As such, your callsign will now be whatever word is assigned to that letter on the tail of your plane by the 1941 phonetic alphabet followed by the last 3 digits of your serial number, so be sure to alert your radio operators. It's now time to synchronize your watches. It'll be 6:28 in about 40 seconds."

The watches the ZAAF gave us had a pretty nifty synchronization feature. Basically, you could stop your watch, set it to the desired time, then unpause it. As such, we all set our watches to 6:28 and waited for the callout from the briefing officer to unpause them.

"Coming up in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… and sync. You are now dismissed, gentlemen."

After briefing was done, we walked toward the flightline, finding the rest of the crew waiting by the left main gear. Marty, sitting atop the inner tire, was the first one to see us, a smile quickly forming on his face.

"Ayyyyyy! If it isn't Lieutenant Howley!" He said, the cigar in his mouth making the words a bit harder to make out

"Lieutenant what?" I asked, as I moved closer and began the visual inspection of the plane.

"Howley. I figured it was more fitting, since we've never really heard you bark."

"So what's that have to do with… Oh, Howl-ey, har har… How do you even know about that anyway? I remember you passing out on the table way before that."

"Charlie told me."

"Why would you do that?" I asked Charlie, who seemed to freeze in his tracks about halfway through climbing into the plane.

"Was I not supposed to?" He asked with a very confused look on his face. "It's a normal thing for foxes, isn't it? Oh shit, it isn't?"

"Well uh… It's a little... Forget about it, let's just go."

"Whatever you say, Mister Howley." Marty said, sliding off the landing gear with a shiteating grin.

Bucky began briefing the rest of the crew as Mikey and I climbed aboard. I let Andy know about the callsign change and it didn't take him too long to go through the phonetic alphabet and find ours:

"Ah, okay, that was a good one. You really had me for a second there."

"Come again?" I asked, crouching through the small doorway at the back of the cockpit.

"Come on, you can stop the act now. This whole callsign thing, it's a joke, right?"

"No, the squadron commander was pretty clear. Why, what's ours?"

Andy was still smiling in a way that just said 'come on, I get the joke, can you be serious now?'. He was pretty disappointed when all he got were confused stares from me and Mikey.

"This...this is real then? Talk about coincidences. Tower, this is Fox-407 doing a radio check, over."

"Fox-407, this is tower, we read you loud and clear, over."

As Andy finished the radio checks, Mikey climbed into the cockpit behind me.

"So, you want the left seat or the right?" I asked.

"I'll take the right, I'd rather handle the engines. If that's okay with you, that is, sir." He answered, not taking a single second to breathe, nose still twitching rapidly, still reeking of fear.

"Alright, if you say so."

As I buckled in, I could hear a jeep pulling up. A familiar doe waved towards me, moving to stand up at the back of the jeep, now parked in front of engine number 2.

"Excuse me, Lieutenant?" She had to shout for me to even hear anything over the sounds of the other planes starting their engines. "Do you mind if I take your picture? For the folks back home, that is! I figured we should have a picture of the first fox flyer at work!"

Maybe it was that quick, almost bashful correction, or the fact that she couldn't stop blushing, or maybe just that little smile she had on her face. Whatever it was, I couldn't help but find something about her completely adorable. My smile was inevitable as I gave her a quick thumbs up for the photo. After taking the picture, she climbed back down into the driver's seat.

"Thanks, Lieutenant! See you after your mission!" She shouted as she drove off.

And with that, I turned my attention back to the cockpit, only to find Mikey staring at me in complete confusion. The plane fell silent for a while. I could see Eddie and Andy exchanging glances in the radio room. Someone had to bring an end to the awkward silence, and for once that someone was me. I cleared my throat before starting down the checklist. That seemed to snap Mikey back into work mode, as he began reporting the status of every item I called out. As we finished all the pre-start checks, the moment of truth came. Mikey held the starter for engine number 3 and shoved the mixture lever into position as soon as it fired. The engine picked up speed, right before stopping again. Eddie's voice came on the intercom:

"Darn, she's not starting, guess we're not going then. And I was so excited too… Oh well, see you guys at the pub." Eddie said, unbuckling his seatbelt and starting to move towards the exit hatch.

"I'm not giving up on her just yet. Mikey, give her another shot."

The engine slowly turned through a little over 3 rotations before roaring to life.

"Well whoopty-fucking-doo!" Eddie 'celebrated', with a look of defeat on his face as he climbed back into his seat.

Mikey and I started the rest of the engines with no issues and started taxiing behind the rest of the planes. We were 6th in line for take off. As we finished the last turn, passing just in front of the control tower, the officer on the balcony held up a flare gun and fired it skyward. As the bright red light started to fall back down, the first plane began its takeoff roll, quickly followed by the second and third. When the fifth began moving as well, I gave Mikey a quick nod.

"Here we go, boys!" I said, slowly pushing the throttles to full power as Mikey did the same with the turbos.