To Ash, it was strange that Akerson Air Force Base was not located in the Akerson Hill area, but nevertheless, it was a place where they could refuel and rest for an hour. Akerson Air Force Base was located a ten minute drive west of a major city in the middle of a farmland region. The skies were clear and the sun was getting low as Wardog Squadron came to a halt towards a cluster of unoccupied hangars. Ash left her helmet in the cockpit as she powered down and dismounted.
"You know the drill." Ash was drowsy. "Piss, eat, drink, be back by 1650."
"I'm going to the PX." Wolf declared. "Anyone else coming?"
"If you're going there, can you get me a Red Bull?" Ash asked.
"Sure." Wolf replied. The ex-sailor, Pops, Chopper and Kitagawa went to visit the base's local supermarket. Grimm and Nagase went to the nearest restrooms. Ash found a bench near their aircraft, laid down and watched as maintenance and armament men attended to their Mudhens and Viper. General hull maintenance checks were conducted, fuel hoses were connected to the aircraft to top up their tanks and all of their weapons were being taken off. A fair call, Ash figured, since the base was far enough inland not to be the first targetable threat combined with the fact that they were moving to the opposite side of the country.
Ten minutes later, Wolf, Pops, Chopper and Kitagawa returned.
"Think fast!" Wolf called out to Ash. He chucked a Red Bull can at her. Ash caught it with a thud.
"Thanks." Ash popped the can open. Down the hatch. Not long after the quadrio returned, Grimm returned, and a few minutes after Grimm returned, Nagase returned. Her hair was slick with water. "Where have you been?"
"Shower block." Nagase replied casually, sitting down and putting her back up against a wall while they waited for the maintenance crew to sort out their birds.
Ash laid down and listened to the others converse while they waited. Once they had been disarmed and loaded to the gills with fuel, Wardog Squadron was travelling at twenty thousand feet east-north-east. Flying with a full internal fuel load and three fuel tanks, Wardog Squadron could stretch their legs all the way to the eastern end of the country. Heierlark was a boring four-hour flight away.
Ash regretted not bringing her phone with her, the only form of in-flight entertainment she had was watching the changing landscape. The ground below slowly transitioned from endless farmland to normal grassland to forests to a giant mountain range that split the west half of Osea from the east half. Immediately towards the north-east side of the mountain range, under Wardog Squadron's direction of travel, was a city. Ash gawked at it for a few minutes before again being relegated to looking out at the wildlands for the next couple of hours. The wildlands slowly turned from grass plains and forests to sparse tundra, to tundra, to frozen tundra, and then finally what was the equivalent of a frozen wasteland.
The very north-east corner of the country, territories that used to belong to the neighbouring Principality of Belka, suffered from cool summers and freezing winters. Whenever there weren't torrential blizzards or bone-chilling deep freezes, the terrain was always muddy. Rather appropriately, Heierlark Air Force Base, the region's largest air base, was the home of the OADF's Advanced Flight School. As the saying went, suffering builds character.
Ash had graduated from Heierlark in 2008, but she was immediately taken back to her days as a Second Lieutenant when the wind chill punched her in the face the moment the canopy lifted.
"Wutthefuck?" Kitagawa painfully muttered. The winters in Sotoa were nowhere near as cold as the autumns in Northern Osea. Already on the verge of freezing to death by the time she hit the ground, Ash led the men and women under her command into the heated interior of Heierlark's infrastructure.
"Ahh…" Pops stayed in the freezing wind for a moment. "Trautes heim."
Once they had checked in with the base's administration, Wardog's purpose at Heierlark simultaneously became clear and muddy. Their purpose there was two-fold. Their first purpose was to bring three fighter squadrons to Sand Island - something that Ash thought was dumb but didn't bring up to save face. Their second purpose was as a publicity stunt. Apparently an article dubbed The Four Wings of Sand Island, written by their new war correspondent Genette, had been a major hit around the country. The news had reached the opposite end of the country faster than Wardog.
The Four Wings of Sand Island. The Heroes of Saint Hewlett. The men and women at the tip of the spear. Down in the gigantic accommodation block, Chopper, Kitagawa, Grimm and Wolf were having a blast of a time talking about their experiences with the dozens of pilots, weapon systems officers and electronic warfare support officers who had all gathered around to hear from the men and women who for a time had been at the forefront of the enemy offensive.
Ash, Nagase and Pops let the extroverted members of their squadron handle the barrage of questions. Nagase was buried behind a chemistry book she had borrowed from the base library, Ash was watching her guys making complete fools of themselves, and Pops was nowhere to be seen. There was only so much listening to Chopper that Ash could handle in one day. She silently left the living room, opened the door to the room she and Kitagawa were sharing for their short stay and flopped onto the bed. With the ducted heating running at a pleasant twenty two degrees, Ash pulled the covers over herself and slipped into the black.
It was getting late into the evening, many pilots listening to Wardog's war stories had to rise early for classes or training and the core Wardog group were fatigued from their six-hour trip across the country. While the other three retreated to their assigned quarters, Grimm chose to get something to eat from the dining facility.
"A butter bar in the middle of O-2s and O-3s, eh?" A young feminine voice rang out from behind Grimm as he was leaving the lounge. Grimm turned around to face the voice. He was expecting some hawkish fuckface of a major. What he found was a thin dark-haired woman of middling height. Not quite as thin as Nagase, but close to it. She had the gold bars indicative of a Second Lieutenant on her lapel.
"Someone's gotta be the fourth wheel." Grimm remarked. The lieutenant grinned and approached Grimm.
"Archer, is it?" She offered a hand. "Lieutenant Macer."
"Ahhh, Grimm's fine." Grimm returned the handshake. Macer had a surprisingly strong grip.
"Grimm it is then." Macer released her grip. "Fresh out of Heierlark and straight into the fire."
"Fighting the good fight." Grimm replied. "What about you, how far down the pipeline are you?"
"Finished." Macer stated. "I'm getting posted to a Viper squadron tomorrow."
"No kidding? I'm a Viper pilot as well."
Macer tilted her head. "I thought you people flew Eagle?"
"They do." Grimm vaguely pointed in the direction of the dorms. "I got reassigned to them after mine got wiped by a group of Felons."
"Oh, that's fucking rough." Macer sympathised with Grimm. She felt bad for steering the conversation in that direction.
"It is what it is." Grimm deflected the thought. "We acknowledge the risk every time we launch. It's part of the job."
"True that." Macer attempted to stew the conversation to a more friendly topic. "Wanna go to the DFAC? I'm fucking starving."
Grimm shrugged. "Lead the way."
The other Wardog Second Lieutenant found her way to the room she was sharing with Ash. The lights were on inside, but as per usual Ash was knocked the fuck out. Kitagawa watched Ash sleep for a few seconds. She smiled a tad before moving into her own bed, throwing the covers over herself. Kitagawa undid the clasp of her bra, pulled it out from under her shirt and threw it in a random direction. She packed in and tried to get to sleep.
"Mmm?" Kitagawa heard a sound from Ash's bed. She spun over. Her bra had landed on Ash. Kitagawa laughed.
"Did not mean for that to go there." Kitagawa pleaded. Ash rolled onto her back and looked forward. Kitagawa's bra was lying over her stomach.
"I acknowledge that you pad your chest." Ash threw the bra back at its owner. "I don't need a reminder."
"I pad my-" Kitagawa sounded offended. She laid on her back. Ash could hear rustling under the covers. Kitagawa threw the cover down to her waist, faced Ash and lifted her shirt up to her shoulders. Ash's eyes locked on her wizzo. She locked up. A rainbow was playing somewhere in her mind. "I mean, shit, I look good, but I don't look that good."
Ash snapped out of her trance, about as red as a tomato. "You win this round."
"You're damn right." Kitagawa had a shit-eating grin on her face. She put her shirt back on and laid down. Ash did the same. She put her back to Kitagawa out of a sense of embarrassment, at least to herself. Kitagawa could have been completely naked and she wouldn't have cared in the slightest. Ash buried the side of her face in the covers.
"Get some sleep while you can." Ash suggested.
"Trying.." Kitagawa retorted.
"Ah, sorry." Ash nervously chucked. "Night, Sam."
"Good night, Blaze."