Kensington and Dane stood side by side behind their commander in an at attention stance while he gave his speech, their eyes forward most of the time if not looking over the new faces before them. The group of rookies were a diverse bunch, and Maxwell could see the fresh drive to fight in them, but he still wondered if they would be the same after this mission takes course. The concept bugged the senior airman, and it almost made him block out everything outside again before he heard his name and his orders.

"Maxwell, Jacquo an' Abraeven - you three take care of makin' sure our personal gear is squared away inta the barracks correctly, an' that we're all set up with the right facilities. We're goin' ashore fer a spell, an' I don't want us to be havin' to scrabble around findin' out where everythin' is, or makin' sure our unit ain't on the right records. Also, while yer at it, make sure our personal firearms are all checked in properly offa the ships' armoury and inta the bases' one." Those were the orders given to the two and the two responded with their nods and their 'yes sir's' like usual. Everything else was for someone else, and that meant the grind time was in the horizon.

Once they were dispersed the pair of pilots went to meet the red panda, each of them still carrying their personal equipment. "Guess this is one way for us to get better introduced to one another ma'am." The wolf pointed out, his white ears flicking a few times while he shifted the vest in his hands before continuing. "A shame we didn't get one of the rookies to get to know, right boss?" Boss seemed to be something he addressed to everyone, but who could blame him? It was a word that not many people would find offensive to any degree, despite it's lack of professionalism that came with the tone. The conversation wasn't a long one though for one of the other new members came up with his equipment, already dropping the burden on the group before they could even drop their own gear. Dane went to collect rucksack before it could be set down though, a slight chuckle escaping him.

"Ya know being a fine lady can stir up trouble with the young ones where I was from." The airman pointed out, carefully holding the bag and setting it in a different spot. He was going to add some reassurance though, but the man was gone before he could even say anything else. That left the three alone once again to their duties, and around then Kensington turned to Jacquo, a more confident smile on his face.

"We're ready when you are ma'am."

Claudia listened to the Colonel's briefing stoically, fighting off the creeping feeling that she didn't exactly belong here. She'd been in elite units before, when she was still a proud soldier of the Heer way back when, but she had never come across a unit quite like the one Colonel Blade talked about. Broad roles and unconventional tactics were par for the course, but the way he had looked at each of them in turn and explained that they were there for their skills struck her as odd. In Wulfram, every soldier was a link in the chain. You fought together or you would die alone. Even in the special units, it was all about the team and your roles in it, and mavericks were simply not allowed. To hear Blade talk about her and the other recruits like that, it sounded like the Rough Riders welcomed with open arms the same mavericks that the Heer would have thrown out. It was a welcome change of pace, to be fair, but she still had the sinking feeling that she was out of place in this kind of unit. Flashing a salute as Blade finished his briefing and gave the orders, Claudia figured that she would just have to soldier on and see where things went from here.

“A’right uberfrauline, Aihara, you heard the colonel," Ross, the "cowboy", called out. "Let’s go show the munitions grubs what fun they’ll be missing, showing off our big muscles and how fire and control exercises can be used to master the art of shuffling around cans of tuna.”

"...uberfrauline?" Claudia said quietly to herself as she followed after the badger. Well, at least it was better than her old nickname back at the Heer, she figured. Removing her own rucksack and rifle, she set them neatly in the pile after Ross deposited his own gear, perking up her ears when the Badger asked the others to take care of his guitar. She didn't know that she could have brought an instrument with her, and she had started learning to play guitar herself before deciding to join the LDF. Regretting her over-formality yet again, she came up to Maxwell, Jacquo, and Abraeven in her usual dignified manner.

"I'm sure you guys know where everything goes," she told them in what she hoped was a casual tone. "Just be careful with the G308, the safety tends to jam if you aren't careful, and I'd rather not charge into battle with a fragile club instead of a rifle, ja?" Turning on her heel, she double-timed after the cowboy to find Major Brownden. Looking up at the Landcruiser that based the 101st, it took every ounce of willpower she had to not just stop and stare at the thing, mouth agape. Standing there, dwarfed by its sheer size, it seemed impossible for such a magnificent piece of engineering to exist, and yet here it was.

"Hey, uberfrauline," the cowboy called out, shocking her out of her stunned amazement. "Did Wulram ever build anything like this, or at least as irresponsibly large and expensive? This can's just begging to be kicked by an airstrike or arty barrage."

"Nein, but they sure tried to," Claudia responded with an amused smirk as they strode up to the Major. "Given five years, maybe we make something half this size for twice as much, it goes five feet and gets stuck in the mud. So ist das leben."

Her eyes were scanning the entirety of the bay, trying to identify each and every face that seemed familiar. Nothing. Seeing that everyone was getting involved with unpacking and moving crates around, she also moved in to help with whatever she could; it would be better if she did something, rather than just standing eerily still in the middle of the hangar. It would help push back the mounting self-degrading emotions. Some time passed, she couldn't tell for how long she's been pushing, pulling and hauling stuff around, but at last, the colonel assembled several small groups and gave them all tasks. She tugged at her own clothes, making sure they would all neat and tidy even after doing a bit of grunt work, but otherwise, she seemed mostly absent-minded. It took her a second to realize that the fox was looking straight at her. She didn't catch exactly what he wanted from her, but her intuition told her he wanted to talk to the BGen, Benjamin Harper. She blinked twice and nodded her head deeply before she gestured the colonel to follow her.

"Sir." She muttered.

Keep it together. She scolded herself as she turned her body to face the doors leading to the main corps.

She kept her mouth shut for the majority of the trip, all she did was to walk down the familiar corridors among other racing officers that interrupted everything they were doing to salute the colonel and the major as the passed by. The arrival of the "black sheep" stirred the hive quite a bit, mostly in the logistics and administration department, as they were tasked to handle resources, refitting, refueling and upgrading the GEARs. As for the rest, they were split in two categories: those who actually couldn't care less and others that thought the arrival of the Parvan's Claw is a bad omen. As for Major Archer, she wasn't interested in opinions and logistical nightmares, all she cared about was to fulfill her new duties properly.

Her mind was empty, as she vehemently pushed back flashing images of a certain figure, as she would nearly gasp every time she would glance over some random individual and see his face instead. It was as if her brain wanted for him to just pop out of nowhere, to have some sort of closure. She was too busy focusing on her psychological nuisance to try to converse with the red fox; while she was sort-of glad to see this one bloke alive and well and still one eye short, she couldn't find the strength to smile and properly welcome the officer back home. They had free passage for the most part of their walk, but the last corridor leading to the map room had a blast door that required a special sort of permission to gain access; Patricia stopped in front of the blast door and turned left, where there was a paper towel dispenser and a sort of device with no buttons visible, indicating that it most likely had a touchscreen of some sort. She pulled one towel and proceeded to wipe the tip of her nose, which she then planted against the touch screen; the device came to life and photographed the tiny imprints, crevices and buds, which then searched its database to look for a match. Soon enough, the device beeped and the door's hydraulics hissed as the thick block of metal slid up into the ceiling, revealing an eerily white corridor with a black stripe running down on the floor straight to another blast door in front; just as they entered, a couple of guards popped from left and right to do a final check on the two officers before they would admit them. Patricia sighed after the whole ordeal was done and wiped her nose again with the other side of the towel before she threw it in a rubbish bin discreetly placed on the left side of the corridor, a bin just as white as the corridor that made it nigh-on invisible. The final door that lead to the map room was also rigged with a nose-print scanner and a paper towel dispenser just next to the device. Finally, the feline turned her head to face the colonel.

"Like what they've done with the place? With the recent development of - certain situations - they've upped the security on the compound; back when you were young" she purred with a fiendish smirk, "this facility wouldn't receive top priority tasks so often."

"But ever since we've sniffed North and South activity dangerously close to our borders, Antaria Flats suddenly became an important outpost. You know what that means? That means your timing is quite spot-on, Silver. You'll be given some high-end upgrades and then they'll send you off to do some mid-to-high priority task with your new equipment. And I'm your super-secret supervisor, as if you'd be thoroughly surprised by that." She scoffed, rolling her large eyes.

"Brigadier General Harper's been awfully proud about our upgrade, not to mention that he found a vicarious side to him. Our work is his success and that's the way it is. Other than that, he's still the same slow deer you know."

"All those aside, though, it's good to see you're in one piece, sir. Well, I mean the 80% that's still left of you." She smiled, for once in a long time, as her eyes rolled off his face and behind him, almost seeing someone one inch taller and with a brownish fur coloration. To her dismay, no one was there.

"Shall we? I'm pretty sure he saw us coming through the cams. Yeah, we've got cameras almost everywhere now."