Chapter 11 - Avalon

Onboard the F-4J Phantom, Jet found himself regretting a few of his own words. Particularly the phrase ''a safe pair of hands'', when he applied it to his RIO, Sierra… as it was at least partially thanks to him that they were now wandering around the mountains aimlessly, with very little by way of working avionics.

Admittedly, he wasn't entirely blameless for that situation either – it had been his choice to gun run a rocket battery that had then blasted them with shrapnel, after all – but he'd be damned if he let Sierra know that he felt that way!

"So, where the hell are we?" He asked, frustrated at the current situation.

"You want the reassuring answer, or the realistic one?" His RIO asked him.

"Realistic."

"Good, because there wasn't a reassuring one. We're way off course and drifting somewhere. I've managed to get some basic systems back online, so we're following a series of NDBs, and the radio's… not, not working anymore."

"So, we're heading for an airbase?"

"Maybe, that NDB's almost like a blinker. Keeps turning on and off."

"Alright, I'll try and call for help. Maybe someone's still about…" He wasn't holding out much hope on that one, they had passed so far off course that anyone who followed them would soon be hopelessly lost and out of fuel themselves. "Solitaire Lead to any allied aircraft, how copy?"

"Twilight Four, I can hear you." A new voice came over the radio, taking both him and Sierra aback slightly. "Are you alright? You've been trailing fluid since Rutherford…"

"Err, not really. We're running low on fuel, electronics are patchy, and we're thoroughly lost. Fuel state is nowhere near enough to get us Canaveral, but we're heading for a series of beacons we've found…"

"Oh…" A sense of realisation was present in the girl's voice. "I've, umm, been following you. I thought you knew where you were going."

"We didn't even know we were off course till ten minutes ago. Too busy trying to troubleshoot our avionics." He admitted. "Twilight, what's your fuel state?"

"Hold on, I'm checking." The frequency went quiet for a few seconds, no doubt as she tried to work out her remaining flight time. "Same as yours. Nowhere near enough to reach Canaveral, but I still have thirty minutes left."

"I have a lock on the first NDB – Jet, turn to one-eight-zero, and descend to nine thousand." Sierra announced from the back seat, having gotten the intercom working again.

"Descend?!" Both he and Twilight spoke in unison. "We're over the mountains, mate. At least two of those peaks are way above 9000!"

"I'm telling you what information I'm getting from them. First one is at 180, and 9000. Thirty nautical miles." Sierra defended.

"Solitaire Lead, I'll continue to follow you." Twilight told him, in what he assumed was an attempt to reassure him. With a moment for thought, he pushed the Phantom into a shallow diving turn to the south. At 30 NM, he didn't need to angle the nose any steeper than two or three degrees, and he could pull the throttles back to flight idle. Gravity would do the rest of the work for them, he reminded himself as the Phantom dropped into the mists rising above the peaks.

"Still on course?" He asked.

"Bang on the money, cap." Sierra agreed. "Hey, boss? If we make it out of this… I'm going to throttle you; you know that right?"

"If we make it out of this, there's going to be a queue of people waiting to do that, you know." He joked back, although he wasn't entirely sure he was joking. Kureha was probably going to give him the bollocking of a lifetime, and he was sure Sierra wouldn't be exempt from that either. An angry Kureha was a bad idea; a worried Kureha was nothing short of terrifying, he'd found out a while back, and Zeliska, whilst very much cool and composed most of the time, certainly had an overprotective side that would no doubt be shown when they got back.

"Twilight, Solitaire. Are you still with us?"

"With you, sir. Two miles behind you." Both he and Sierra exchanged a glance at being called ''sir'' suddenly. Had she mistaken him for a captain? Did she think he was her superior officer, or did she just forget to call him sir before?

"Jet. NDB's coming up in about a minute."

"Got it. Next one?"

"Err…" He paused, tapping the compass. "Got it! 225, descend to six thousand. Beacon is at eighteen nautical miles."

"Okay, descending. Twilight, you got that?"

"225, six thousand, eighteen miles." Twilight recited, and he spared a second to crane his neck round to look for her aircraft. Behind them, at their eight o'clock, was a burgundy Hawker Hunter, with turquoise markings, which he assumed was her. The Hunter was a favourite aircraft of his, having seen a number of the aircraft doing displays during his time back home; including one he'd chose to make a model of, an F.58A known as "Miss Demeanour", which carried a brilliant yellow, orange, red and midnight blue colour scheme that had set it apart from all other Hunters he'd seen. It had been a shame that it had been repainted in camouflage, he thought sadly, before his head returned to the task at hand – not dying in a fireball on the side of a mountain.

"Approaching the NDB, Jet." Sierra said, before peering around him, eyes wide in surprise. "Holy- you see that, right?!"

"Yeah…" He looked over what he assumed was the runway. There were two things he'd immediately noticed about it: the first, was that it was massive – easily able to land a heavy bomber on it, let alone their fighters…

The second was perhaps even more important, and perhaps even more obvious… it was built into the side of a mountain, the runway held up on a complicated structure of scaffolding and struts that somehow protruded from the face of the mountain.

"Well, at least we know it's an Ace Combat game now, eh?"

"I don't believe it…" Twilight seemed even more surprised than they were, and he couldn't blame her. Supervillain style mountain bases weren't exactly commonplace in the real world, nor were they in Strangereal, he supposed. "Umm, sir? Is that where we're landing?"

"Looks like it." He answered, secretly thankful for the carrier landing practice he'd had so far. Whilst the runway was far from short, it was however a far smaller target than a usual airfield, and most airfields didn't have the danger of plunging thousands of feet to your certain demise if you lined up incorrectly.

"Jet, we're running on fumes now. Minutes left, if that." Sierra reminded him, and he snapped back to reality again.

"Got it. Twilight, mind if we take the lead? We're pretty much on fumes here…"

"Go ahead Sir." She replied, his eye twitching slightly. He'd have to get her name when they were on the ground… and tell her to stop calling him "Sir''! Sir was his father, not him!

"Okay, Solitaire, we're going in." There was a saying he'd remembered, about all pilots having one landing they had to make, and that it needed to be perfect else the consequences didn't bear thinking about.

In today's case, those consequences would be, and in order: slamming into a mountain, slamming into what appeared to be a reinforced door at around 70 or 80 knots, or plummeting into the valley below the mountain, all of which had one outcome – exploding violently, scattering him hundreds of metres in every direction.

Needless to say, he wasn't particularly hoping to test his zero-zero ejector seat today in escaping that outcome.

"Flaps." He called, as he extended the flaps through to 15 degrees, then to 30 degrees.

"Flaps positive. On the glidepath." Sierra confirmed. "Gear?"

"Gear down.'' He stated with a momentary pause. "Three green."

"Throttle?"

"Reduced to flight idle."

"Ready?"

"Not in a million years." He answered before thinking about it. "Still, who wants to live forever, eh?"

"I dunno, I'd like to at least see my 18th birthday, cap! Approaching the runway…"

For the briefest of moments, Jet expected to hear a sickening crunch as the landing gear collapsed under a far too fast approach speed, but no, the gear held up, and as fast as he could manage, the anti-lock braking was active and the brake chute bloomed from the back of the aircraft, pulling the eighteen-ton grey and purple rhinoceros that they called a Phantom to a halt, a distance from the door.

"Michael… you are absolutely insane, you know?" Sierra laughed, and for once, he couldn't help but laugh along.

"No kidding, I don't think I've ever been quite so anxious…" Despite knowing that everything was safe, and that they were on relatively solid ground, he couldn't help but pat himself down to check he still had every part of him. It was almost as instinctive as breathing, he found.

"Umm, sir? Can I ask a favour? I, umm, I've never landed on a runway like this…"

"Twilight, we're clearing the runway. Sierra will guide you in." The American jumped out the back seat of the Phantom, onto the wing and dropped off it, whilst he began to move the aircraft as close to the side as he could; to give Twilight the most landing space possible.

With only a single engine powered up, and even then, only at 15% power, the Phantom inched over to one of the overrun gutters, leaving most of the runway open for her to use. "Twilight, Sierra. Runway's as clear as it'll get."

With the Phantom now out of the way as best as he could get it, he made himself scarce – just in case. He'd rather not have a Hunter land on his head, and whilst Sierra was navigating her in, having a second person there would just get confusing… he'd hate for her to replicate the opening scene of Airplane! with a Hawker Hunter after all.

From his new position, he watched as the Hunter made its approach. Despite the mist making for an unpleasant approach, she was doing well – the plane was stabilised early into the approach, and she'd made sure to keep an eye on her speed too. He wouldn't say she was a natural at carrier approaches, but she was certainly better than he'd been on his first one!

Seconds passed by, and the Hunter contacted the runway at a relatively safe speed, its braking parachute deploying behind the jet and slowing the considerably lighter aircraft a fair bit faster than their Phantom had decelerated on the ground, eventually coming to a halt in just over three quarters of the distance they'd covered on landing.

Without thinking, and despite the successful landing, it was clear that both he and Sierra had the same thought, which was to rush over to the Hunter, and check that Twilight was safe. It was their fault she was even here, after all, and they both knew that…

As they got there, the girl who stepped out of the cockpit was not exactly what he was expecting. She was easily a foot shorter than he was, with straight black hair, whilst her eyes were a beautiful emerald colour. She was also barely standing up as she got out of the plane, something that he was slightly too caught up in looking at her to notice…

"Sorry, spaced out there. Are you okay, err…"

"Koharu, and yeah, I'm fine… just a bit, umm…"

"Join the club, if we sleep tonight with the adrenaline, it'll be a miracle!" Sierra joked, before realising something. "Though, uhh… where even are we?"

"No idea" He answered. Wherever they were, he wasn't entirely sure that landing was the end of their problems; the storm they'd passed through was rapidly approaching, and there was a reinforced door in the way of anything resembling cover. A reinforced door that was now creaking, and rising…

"Err… did any of us press anything?" Sierra asked, an eyebrow raised at the door as it now rose on its runners. "Maybe it's pressure sensitive?"

"Why would you build a door like that that can be triggered by only three people?"

"You got a better theory then?"

"Just one – there's people here." He replied, spotting a pair of silhouettes as the door passed above waist height. Whoever was here, they must've been stood close to the door, he reckoned. A few more seconds passed, and he got a better glimpse at the people stood there – an older man, probably in his mid-forties, and a woman, probably in her late thirties, both stood there… with rifles pointed at them.

"Hey cap, I think you were right. There are people here…" Sierra added unhelpfully.

"State your name, rank and intentions." The woman ordered; her rifle trained on him. The rifle in question was probably an FAL, a Belgian made battle rifle chambered in 7.62x51mm NATO and used by almost everyone and their mothers at some point, if his memory served him correctly.

"Err, Jet, Flight Lieutenant, and not dying." He replied.

"You're Osean." The man stated, having shot a glance at the two planes behind them. It wasn't a difficult conclusion to draw, he realised. Both planes were adorned in Osean roundels, and their Phantom had, in rather large letters "THE NAVY" on it. "Come in, else you'll freeze out there."

As they walked inside, the first thing he noticed was just how large the base was – no doubt built to handle intercontinental bombers at some point, as the roof of the base was even taller than the gargantuan B-36 Peacemaker, he reckoned. The roof was quite badly dilapidated, with beams showing signs of rust around the rivets, whilst the runway/hangar seemed enormous. Assuming this was intended to be used as a runway too, which, given the lack of any form of equipment on it and the yellow lines running down it, seemed likely, then there was no doubt the runway to well over ten thousand feet in length…

"Umm, thank you… who are you?" Koharu asked, clearly still shook up from being held at gunpoint. Out of all of them, she was probably the least likely to have had such an event happen before – Sierra having a father in the Marines, whilst he had… an unconventional childhood, both of which had led to a surprising (and in some way, worrying) ease around firearms.

"Commander Bercouli Heirlentz, but you can call me Bercouli… miss?"

Almost instantly, the girl stood stock still and gave a full salute. "Second Lieutenant Koharu Honda, sir." Followed quickly by both boys giving similar gestures…

"At ease, all of you." The Commander rolled his eyes. "I'm not even your commander, anyway."

"So, where are we anyway… uhh, sir?" Sierra asked.

"Welcome to Avalon. The most secure base in Osea… and where none should've ever stepped foot." Bercouli seemed far too pleased with himself at that fact, Jet thought. "I suppose you want to know why we're here too?"

"If you don't mind, yeah."

"Would kind of help."

"You might want to sit down for this, it's a long story…" The commander almost grinned.

/-/

Bercouli was something else, Koharu had decided. The man oversaw the entire Rectan Air Forces, and despite being considerably older than any of them - Sierra even joking that adding their ages together might just come near to his age, before a withering glance from his flight leader soon shut him up – he soon demonstrated his skill in a war game he'd set up for them.

Between herself, Jet and Sierra, none would've lasted more than thirty seconds, before being confirmed downed. That had been a sobering reminder of just how far they had to go to be on the man's level, though not one she hadn't been acutely aware of.

Her fight with Alice before Operatic Society had told her that much, and during the combat over Rechlin, she'd had several near misses where her head wasn't quite in the fight as much as it should have been.

On the other members of the Rectan forces, she had mixed opinions. Fanatio, Bercouli's number two, was equally as dangerous, though considerably more headstrong than her commander, and whilst the war games against her had been far from successful, two of the trio had managed to put up a far better showing – she lasted 45 seconds, whilst Jet managed to last approximately two minutes. Sierra had been the outlier, lasting only a measly 15 seconds, before a radar guided missile would've hit him head on. Jet had had quite a laugh at his friend's expense, making a joke about it not being the first time he'd only lasted seconds against a woman.

Was it crude? Yes.

Did she find it quite amusing? Also yes.

Then came to the younger members of the RLAAF – Sorteliena and Eydis, plus two mercenaries; LLENN and "Pitohui", the latter refusing to give her name and claiming that she could call her Pito. Sorteliena and Eydis were both around their ages, and whilst she was relatively confident (at least, outside of ACES anyway), both girls gave her pause for thought in the looks department.

Both girls were not what you'd expect from a hardened combat veteran (though she supposed she could talk on that one, given she looked to be the furthest person from the frontlines, and yet had fought the Belkan Air Force numerous times…) – Sorteliena was very much the type of girl she'd have expected to see at school, topping the rankings for her results, whilst Eydis was… well, it was hard to explain.

Jet had suggested it was "big sister energy", the type of overprotective that came from having siblings that you'd had to look after at some point for longer than a few hours.

The contrast between the two was quite something; Sorteliena was prim, proper and kept her head about her at all times, whilst Eydis was upbeat, jovial… and had absolutely no sense of boundaries whatsoever, as Jet had found out when she decided to peer over his shoulders whilst he was examining the Phantom to see what needed replacing immediately, and what could be put further down the repair list.

The poor guy had gone bright red when he turned round and ended up nearly kissing her by mistake…

Whilst he was busy being mortified (and teased by Sierra for it), she and Sorteliena had gone over her aircraft to check for battle damage and make some hasty patch ups. Remarkably, the Hunter had survived without any major damage, only minor cosmetic damage and a single 23mm hole that taken a chunk off her cartridge ejector port and rendered the number one cannon out of use for the time being.

Eventually though, the Phantom was patched up to cover over the myriad of 12.7mm and 23mm holes in its underside, and they were taken to the other side of the hangar to check out the aircraft that the girls flew…

"Blimey, they did give you guys museum pieces, didn't they?" Jet asked as they looked over the aircraft that Liena and Eydis showed them.

Small, straight winged aircraft that had once been in polished metal, but now looked far more war-weary, as small dents and scuffs littered the airframes. On each wingtip was a large drop tank, painted with whatever colours the girls had chosen; Liena's painted purple, whilst Eydis' were in grey and black. The nose of each aircraft was equally as decorated, both having the respective colours applied.

"And they sent you up against the Belkans, in those?" Sierra thought aloud in horror. "Christ, even the MIG-17s we fought would be a danger against those Shooting Stars, let alone -19s or -21s!"

"That is why we are still here today."

"Yeah, we were the best of what was left." Eydis said that statement in a joking manner, but it was clear she wasn't joking about it. If they were "what was left", then Koharu didn't want to imagine how many friends or colleagues they'd lost in that fight…

"We were what was left." Liena pointed out. "As were the planes. A few others got through on transport planes, but these were the last fighters we had."

The group fell silent as they processed that. They'd been relatively lucky, in that few people had really been lost over their area. These girls, they'd not been sent into a life of dull CAPs and the occasional ground attack mission, but rather all-out war, at risk of constant annihilation should the Belkans take them even marginally more seriously… and yet, both remained relatively upbeat.

"Sorry to lighten the mood, but your boss wants to see you. All of you." That was another reason Koharu had found for her discomfort around "Pito", her ability to treat every situation as a joke, no matter how serious it was. Even Sierra, who she soon came to realise was a serial womaniser, and a man with an answer for everything, at least knew when to read the room and turn it off. Pito, on the other hand, did not – she would've said she couldn't, but the woman had enough of an understanding of social settings to act reasonably… she just chose not to, however – and often drew fire from everyone for it…

/-/

Later that evening, they'd settled into the bunks they'd been provided, about two minutes from the boiler room, and twenty-five minutes from the rec room. Still, at least they were warm, he supposed.

Bored, but warm.

That boredom went some way to explaining why the crew of Solitaire were in bed at only 9pm, an experience he found a little bit like being a school kid who'd been told to go to bed early, though after the day they'd had, he wondered whether there was any point in that, given the adrenaline rush he was still enduring…

"So, cap, what do you think of our new allies?" Sierra didn't even look over from his bunk as he asked the question, and he paused for a second.

"How'd you mean?"

"You get any weird vibes from those two merc chicks?" He thought about it a little bit harder. "Almost like they're taking some sick glee in fighting. Maybe that's just me though."

"The smaller one, err, LLENN, wasn't it? Nah, I think she's… alright, maybe. The other one, "Pito", she gives me the creeps just looking at her. Feels like I'm looking at… I dunno, a serial killer maybe."

"Yeah, somethin's not right about her. Still hot though." Jet felt like pressing the pillow over his RIOs face and counting to 100 sometimes. Life or death, it didn't matter – he could always rely on him to be thinking with his other head if women were involved. "And before you pipe up, don't worry, I know the rule about crazy. Besides, I like all my body attached, thanks."

"The others seem alright though."

"Of course you'd say that, you nearly snogged one of them earlier…" Sierra laughed, whilst he went red again, wishing he could crawl inside his own skin at the incident.

"That was an accident!" He defended loudly.

"Yeah, I know." Sierra shrugged it off. "Still, she wasn't the one giving you the side eye. Even if she did nearly give you the side tongue." He glared towards him, before what he'd said set in… side eye?

"Wait, what?"

"Yeah, that Koharu girl. Honestly, I'd say go for it – what've you got to lose?" Sierra shrugged as he sat up in bed. "I know about you and Kureha anyway; I know what happened on the first night."

He winced, thinking back to that night. That had been a lapse in judgement on both their parts, and both knew it – though neither wanted to admit that perhaps their feelings hadn't been quite as deep as they might have imagined.

"If you want my thoughts on it, you and her, you work as friends and hell, each other's wingmen, but romantically? That's going to be a whole new mess, you know?"

Jet sighed as he lay back against his pillow. For once, Sierra had a point – their actions on the first night certainly hadn't helped matters, but the fact that both had feelings for each other was hardly a secret. Anyone with only the slightest of people reading skills could see that there was some kind of attraction there, but that was the problem…

What kind?

"Anyway, cap, I'm going to get some sleep. Don't go dreaming of her now, will ya?" He joked as he fell quiet.

"Which one…" He muttered against his pillow.

/-/

As he intended to follow his friend into the land of nod, he came across a slight complication – no matter how much he closed his eyes, counted sheep, etc, he simply couldn't sleep. Adrenaline was already a hell of a boost, but after everything that he'd learned today; the story of the Belkan legions, the tales that Bercouli had told them, and no doubt how much the man had lost in that conflict, hell even meeting everyone else… he was way too awake to sleep.

Even at 2am.

He really hated insomnia sometimes.

Deciding that maybe some fresh air would do the trick, he went for a walk. Avalon was massive, he knew that much, and what was visible to them was only part of it. Bercouli had detailed its purpose to them, in that it was a nuclear dispersal base. Should the Belkans, or god forbid, the Yuktobanians, ever get bright ideas of a nuclear strike on Osea (and a bright idea it would be, when the nuclear flash went off…), the base at Avalon was intended to house a flight of twelve intercontinental bombers – probably B-35 and B-36s, given that the timespan the Commander had hinted at was around 1950, just after the last Osean-Belkan War – all armed and ready to launch a retaliatory strike.

A one-way mission too, by all accounts.

That had forced a grim realisation into his head – Avalon should never have been found, because it was never meant to be found. They had gotten ridiculously lucky in finding it, and even more lucky in landing at it safely.

The NDBs were purely for aircraft to follow outbound, to avoid a collision course with a mountain whilst carrying a Mk17 hydrogen bomb, which, whilst not necessarily the end of the world… would certainly be a bad time for anyone nearby…

"Can't sleep?"

"Well, I can't now. I've just put the thought of nuclear implosion in my mind." He joked, as the raven-haired girl sat down beside him on the runway. He wasn't sure how safe sitting down on the side of a runway was, let alone when said runway had a four-thousand-foot drop into oblivion below it, but the high winds and low temperatures were certainly bracing, if nothing else.

"You reckon anyone will find us?"

"Considering where we are, I'm not all that hopeful." He admitted, before leaning back. "Still, at least we have food and shelter, which is better than the alternative."

"What was the alternative?" She asked.

"We slammed face first into a mountain and were scattered to the wind."

"I guess so, then." He wasn't sure that was particularly reassuring to her, given the fact she was now looking down below them… "Umm, thank you for helping us at Rechlin."

"Oh, no problem there. Just doing our job, right?"

"Yeah, I think. Jet, can I ask you something?"

He tried his best not to let Sierra's teasing from earlier get to him, not least because she looked extremely beautiful against the moonlit sky, her emerald eyes glistening against the dark night sky, and… he really wasn't doing a good job here! "Sure." He quickly answered.

"Have you… ever had…" She stuttered, and he did his best not to think of the obvious ending to that sentence, and keep a clear mind… "A mission that went wrong?"

Oh, thank God that was what she was asking! "Yeah, we had a CAP mission the other day, provide cover for a CSAR helicopter after a Belkan interceptor shot down an airlifter. Started off fine, but we got bounced by a pair of MIG-21s. Managed to down both, but not before the helo was hit and crashed. Never found out if anyone survived."

"Oh, I had something similar… maybe. There was an airliner that got ambushed by MIGs, it made it back to our territory, but it was too badly damaged. I watched as it crashed near our base, and I couldn't do anything!" He saw tears come to her eyes, no doubt as she recalled the event. "All I could do was watch as it broke apart!"

"Koharu, think of missions like a game of cards. Some days, you'll have the best hand you can get, and on those days, everything will go right, and you'll feel ten foot tall when you land." He remembered one of the things he'd read in his dad's journal when he'd gone looking for them as a child. "But there will be days when you have a losing hand, and no matter how much effort you put in, the outcome won't be a win."

"I don't quite get it?" She wiped tears away.

"You can't control what hand you get all the time. Sometimes, you'll be dealt a bad hand, and I don't want to say you just have to get over it, but what happened there… you said it yourself; you couldn't have done anything more to help. Think how close they got, and ask yourself, what would've been the outcome if you weren't there?"

She fell quiet, no doubt considering what he'd said.

He'd learned that, in air combat, it was pilot versus pilot and skill mattered above all else – after all, he'd seen stories where pilots flying far inferior craft had slain far superior craft; the girls were excellent examples of that, with their P-80s and facing down MIGs.

Problem was, with missions like she'd described, pilot skill wasn't a factor. It was a race against time, and time was far more persistent, and far more willing to bend the rules than you were. If you had a sports car, then time had a Eurofighter instead.

"I can see why you're in charge." She smiled through teary eyes, and he pulled out a handkerchief from his upper pocket.

"I never asked to be." Now it was his turn to stare into the abyss below them. "I just knew that if I didn't step up, then no one would." He thought back to the battle of Rechlin, to dealing with those tanks… and felt a cold chill run through him.

Perhaps that chill was just wind rushing through the fabric of his shirt, but it was enough of a reminder of what he'd done back there. Maybe it was Itsuki's plan, but he'd been the one to agree with it, and that made him culpable in his eyes…

There must have been, what, forty, maybe fifty, tanks and vehicles in that formation, all left to sink and drown in the frozen waters of the lake below. What did that make him then, the Grim Reaper, bringing death in the form of Mk82 bombs, rather than a scythe?

"Jet?" She asked, watching him whilst he was off in his own world. "Can we, umm, go inside and talk instead? I'm starting to get icicles in places…"

"Yeah, it is quite cold out here!" And wasn't that an understatement, he thought! It couldn't have been above freezing out there he thought, and so sitting out here in a short-sleeved shirt, or in Koharu's case, a vest, was probably a fair way of the way to getting a Darwin Award…

/-/

After going inside, it had been a more pleasant environment to talk - a strange way to view an actual hangar, and all the dirt and grime that entailed, she would admit – and she wasn't all that sure when they'd finally fallen asleep, but what she did know was how they'd woken up.

With her head in his lap, as he leant against the wall.

Everyone's reactions had been honestly kind of strange. Most of them had offered them both words of… well, not necessarily wisdom, but advice, except the one person she'd expected to be most vocal about it…

Sierra, unusually, hadn't said anything, only offering the faintest of smirks towards his pilot, and strangely giving her a thumbs up at one point. That was another thing she'd have to decipher at some point, but not right now.

"Ah good, you're all here. We can begin then – we have an ally on their way to join us. They made a getaway from a Belkan base a few hours ago, but they took some hits on the way out, so we're going to need to help them in."

"We?"

"Yes, we. Whilst you three are here, we could do with the help to keep our numbers up. Not saying you must, of course, but I'm sure the girls would appreciate the help…"

She looked to Jet and Sierra, both of whom looked at each other, their expressions somewhere between apprehensive and confused. She'd already made her mind up, even if they hadn't; Liena and Eydis had risked their lives far more than she had, and she had always been taught to make yourself useful when stopping in someone else's home, after all.

Granted, she was sure her mom hadn't expected that to include flying combat missions for an unrecognised nation's definitely unrecognised air force, probably against the law and certainly against regulations, but it was the thought that counted.

"Anything to help, sir."

"What the hell, I'm in. What kind of gent would I be to leave such fine ladies in trouble?" She looked over and watched Jet's eye twitch.

"Guess I'm in too. Who's going up then?"

"I'll be taking you with me, kid." Bercouli told Jet, who looked a little surprised at that. "Your RIO seems pretty confident in you, and everyone else doesn't seem to hate you, which is a good start in my books."

"Thanks, sir."

"Oh, and one more thing, all three of you?" Bercouli asked them, as they turned to walk away.

"Yes, sir?"

"Stop calling me sir!" To the side, she was sure she saw Fanatio suppress a smirk at them. Perhaps this wasn't quite home, and she'd be glad to get back to the rest of the 23rd, but after last night, she certainly wasn't going to complain about Avalon.

Not yet, anyway. There was still time, she supposed...

{Author's Comments}

Well, I'm making up for the two chapters in a month, by missing September. Think of this as the September chapter, just a bit late.