Looking out from our hanger all I could see was the downpour of rain that had followed us back the day before, the storm wasn't as severe but still had plenty of rain to drown the base in. with a sigh I sat back down in my cockpit and got back to work at resyncing my helmets HUD to the HUD on the F-4 since the Scrap Queen had to replace most of the electronics and several gauges including all the HUD elements, so I found myself getting everything back to my preferred setting as me and Brownie was on alert. Once we had landed yesterday everyone but us was thrown in solitary for disobeying orders, and since there was a small chance that the Erusians were going to come after the base over the recon team and we were the only pilots we got the express treatment and we woke up to a repaired Phantom.
"So Trigger do you actually think they're going to attack?" Brownie asked, leaning her head past the back of my seat to look at me.
"Probably not but Mckinseys trying to look good for the regulars."
"How does having only one fighter on stand-by make him look good?"
"Hell if I know but he sure was sucking up big time to the recon squadron's flight lead, the poor guy looked like he would rather be back in the valley than that debrief room." I replied watching as the HUD in my helmet finally synced to the plane and I gave an audible groan as I saw the company that made the new HUD systems pop-up.
"What's your problem?" Brownie asked as she plopped back down into her seat to most likely finish what I had just done with her helmet.
"Ah, the new HUD systems are all Gründer Industries products."
"Hell this thing barely flies straight and now we have this glitchy ass Grunder stuff."
"How are they even still in business wasn't it Gründer shipping containers that the first UAV attacks were launched from?"
"Yeah but according to intel briefs when we were at Fort Grays Erusea just had a large stockpile of containers they converted."
"I'm sure that's what happend but anyway, how goes the work on your radar screen?"
"I don't want to talk about it."
"Still can't translate it?, I think I saw a translation book in the rec room."
"Oh no I got it, it's just with how they jury rigged it to adapt to our systems is making every adjustment take fifty extra steps."
"What bird did they even pull that screen out of."
"That wrecked MiG-31 over by the auxiliary control tower."
Getting up out of my seat and making to climb to the ground, I said. "Damn well good luck with that. I'm going to do another walk around and list some minor stuff they can fix next time they come through."
Before Brownie could say anything a voice came in from the hanger door. "If you don't mind I can help." turning to look I saw a man with darker skin and black hair wearing a regular flight suit.
"Ah no I don't mind but I could ask who are you?" I asked as I stepped off the ladder and made my way to the new arrival.
"My bad, I heard about a few of the rules so you can call me Wiseman. I was Cyclopes 1 yesterday, and if I'm right you're Trigger and Brownie Spare 15 right?"
"Yeah im Trigger it's nice to meet you.
"Pleasures all mine, and I also want to thank you for yesterday you helped save a lot of lives." He said, reaching out his hand for a hand shake.
Grabbing his hand and giving a shake I replied "It's no problem, just wish we could have saved more."
"You can't always save 'em all but just remember you saved six others, but anyways I offered to help you out."
"Yeah well if you see any major issues tell us and we'll mark it on the repair sheet."
"Repair sheet?" Wiseman asked, looking confused.
"Yeah we got a sheet in the ground crew's hanger where we put maintenance requests and hope yours isn't too far down on the sheet since it's first come first served."
"What, that doesn't seem to be a very safe way to do that."
"Welcome to the 444th, as long as there's one plane to send up the commander, don't care."
Before he could say anything else, a man that looked to be in his forties, he had a patch similar to Wiseman's so I assumed he was part of his flight. "Sorry to interrupt but we just got orders from HQ we need to get this info back to base ASAP."
With a small sigh Wiseman said "Well so much for a day of rest like we planned in the briefing, go get the rest and get the birds ready i'll be there in a few." saluting the man left and left us with just Wiseman again. "I guess that means I won't be helping you two with this afterall, but I do have a parting gift." he said, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a couple of envelopes and handing them to me.
Grabbing the and looking at them I saw it was at least seven letters addressed to either me or Brownie. "Holyshit where did you get these? I haven't got any mail since we got here."
"Well your commander seemed to have gotten behind on delivering these to you so I gladly offered to deliver them, after all even prisoners are allowed letters."
Reaching out to give him one more handshake. "I can't tell you how much this means, but stay safe out there Wiseman I won't be there to save the day next time."
Taking my hand he replied with a short chuckle. " If you say so but you two stay safe I'd like to meet up for beers sometime after the war."
As he released my hand I heard Brownie say "I'll hold you to that."
"I'm sure you will." was all he said as he turned and left the hanger leaving it just me and Brownie again.
Looking at the letters in my hand I noticed five of them were Brownies and two were mine. As I was sorting them Brownie had made her way down and was now standing beside me. Turning to her I gave her the letters that belonged to her and made my way to our makeshift seats, which were just a couple of crates we swiped from the parts yard. Taking a few minutes to read my letters I let out a small sigh as I leaned back against the crate.
Noticing I had already read mine, Brownie asked me "So who's the letters from, what did they say?"
Rolling my eyes I replied "Well your nosey as all ways but this one is from my old flight lead." showing the letter to her. "He somehow found out how bad our "Trial" was and said he was going to do his best to help, so maybe his help was why we were kept together in the end?" I said with a helpless shrug.
"Maybe but you need to tell me about your old Flight leader one of these days, but that can wait, Whose the other one from?"
"My sister actually." I answered with a small smile. "She says she's doing good and is upset. I haven't sent any updates yet, I guess the news didn't say who killed Harling."
"Did she say anything else?"
"Yeah she got pulled from the reserve fleet and got reassigned to the Landing ship Puffin as the head radar technician."
"I guess you're proud and worried, yeah."
"You know me too well, I'm glad she's doing well for herself but still she's going to be on the front now."
"Ah she's got that Wood blood in her y'all are remarkably hard to kill so i figure she'll be fine."
"I know you're right but still someone's gotta worry I know our parents wont, they could care less since we didn't follow them into business."
"I feel that all my letters are from my parents practically demanding I somehow retire early and work for them, I clearly can't take care of myself and need their support."
"All of them?" I ask.
"Every single letter."
" You know what to hell with em let them waste their lives away in the boardrooms once this wars over and we get out of here we'll just have to show them we don't need their jobs to be successful."
"What start an air delivery service and make a fortune?"
"Yeah and we'll save the world while we're at it."
"Brownie and Trigger savors of the world." Brownie says barely keeping a straight face.
Giving in and laughing I say " yeah right but I might keep that delivery service idea in my back pocket,"
Rolling her eyes at me she says looking at her watch she pawned off a guard "It's dinner time lets head back to the mess and get some food not like the regulars are needing protection any more."
Looking out the door of the hanger I can see the remaining six F-15cs take off and make their way back home."Yeah let's go."