After some more light reading, Kradis laid back with his hands behind his head, and looked up at the ceiling, thinking to himself about the day. He didn't like being stuck in a ship without being able to see the sky, but at least it was cool from the air conditioning. Such a necessary thing for someone with cold blood like Kradis. He huffed in amusement to himself, at the double meaning of this fact. Would this team hate him almost as much as the last one, or would they be scared once they found out who he was? Perhaps they might even respect him a little, or admire him? Kradis chuckled quietly to himself, amused at the last possibility, and the irony of such an idea.

Kradis didn't care either way. If they could do their job, he would work with them as comrades, as long as they kept their weapons all pointing in generally the same direction. Occurrences like that were not unknown to Kradis, where others he trusted pulled a gun on him when things looked bad. Being an ex-Northern Empire soldier is generally unheard of in Landren, as far as Kradis knew, and so when the shit hits the fan, he started to look more and more like a sleeper agent, especially to greenhorns. Often, he wouldn't even grace them with a response of any kind, and get them real pissed off. Kradis got a kick from that, sometimes he'd even crack a smile you could see if you weren't blinking, or he wasn't hidden by many tonnes of hulking robotic death machine. Best way to prove loyalty is not with words, but actions.

A loud wolf whistle pierced his ears like a laser beam, and he heard muffled talking from the main group. Most of them seemed like they were new to this business. Now, Kradis didn't hate younger officers: In fact, they were an asset necessary to any military. And Kradis wasn't arrogant enough to forget the fact he had to start somewhere once, like all the others, as well. He smirked to himself, and wondered about why he actually was annoyed by them. Perhaps it was the simple fact he himself missed his younger days. That was when Colonel Blade ordered them to gather at his position, and, a sigh escaping Kradis' lips of fond memories, he got up, and joined the others for whatever the Colonel had in store for them.

Oliver followed his fellow pilots through the ship into the crew quarters. As they walked around the red panda had all sorts of instructions that happened to enter one ear and exit at the other. A night of heavy drinking and hardly any sleep sure helped destroying any attempt at focusing and storing information in his brain this morning. Luckily for the young tiger they soon arrived at their destination, the GEAR pilots crew quarters. The crew quarters where divided into a common area with a small kitchenette and comfy chairs to relax and small chambers for the pilots. Every GEAR pilot had his own private chamber which was a luxury that you did not have during basic training on the base. As Oliver entered the room he noticed immediately that it was small. On his left side was the bunk for sleeping. The bunk was not much more then an elevated bed with various storage compartments under it for clothing and equipment. On the far end of the room under the porthole was a small desk and on the right side of the room the wash and toilet area could be found.

Oliver placed his bag on the bunk and started to unpack it, putting his cloths and uniform in the lower drawers of the bunk while putting his side arm, holster and 4 magazines of ammo for his pistol in the top right drawer. The tiger never liked to carry his side arm around all day. Most of the time it was just excess baggage anyway so he finds it a waste of energy to carry it around when not needed. As he continued to unpack he came across his most prized personal item, his infroteck Mark IV PADD. A top of the line PADD produced in the south and vastly superior to the PADD's issued by the Landren's defense force. It possessed more processing power, faster memory and better battery life but is more fragile than the standard PADD used by the military. That is why Oliver carries it in a nice red casing. But the most priced feature of the PADD is that Oliver can calibrate its antenna for a large frequency range of radio signals. It offers very good connectivity to The Net. As the tiger was about to connect his PADD to the internet network of the ship the voice of his CO echoed through the hallway.

Apparently it was time for an inspection of some sort. Oliver sure didn't hope that the colonel would go through his stuff cause the bottle of prime northern Vodka on the bottom of his bag would sure raise an eyebrow or two. Oliver soon left his room to join his comrades in common quarters to form a proper square. It was the tiger's lucky to find himself next to the Jackal who made a remark about new blood and not getting killed on entering the ship. For a moment he tried to remember the Jackal's name, Kradis Topha. Oliver was sure he heard that name somewhere before. Some of the soldiers he went to the pub with once said something about a kradis who was a soldier of the Northern Empire before defecting to Landren. Some tongue's even spoke of him being a spy. As Oliver lined up next to the Jackal he whispered to him. "You're the Kradis Topha who defected the Northern Empire, right?"

Raisa calmed down after hearing the assurance of her superior. Grinning abashedly and letting herself catch her breath, she noticed another man next to her, who she hadn't seen before. "Good morning miss." he said. Noticing his friendly, comfortable smile, she blushed (as much as a fox can do so..) and hastily stood upright.

"I'm sorry sir, I didn't greet you!" She immediately suspected the worst and threw an apology at him as she made a straight salute. "I'll accept whatever complaint you might have of my behavior, SIR!" Raisa continued to remain in her salute, her eyes closed, until, warily opening her eyes, she looked at the man. It was only now that she remarked that he hadn't been smiling at her expense, but as a friendly gesture. Turning even redder, now comparable to the color of the interior of a watermelon, she snapped out of the salute and uttered a quiet greeting and question. "...good morning... who might you be..?"

As she awaited her response, she fidgeted slightly, tugging on a part of her uniform. There goes first impressions. For good. Murdered. Burned. Not coming back. She silently chastised herself in her head for her previous actions as she made a bothered expression.

A loud bellow of authority put an abrupt end to mike leisure.

"101ST! FALL IN!"

Lurching up from his seat, the spinning base slid from under mike, dumping him unceremoniously to the ground.
"Mother-" mike grunted as he partialy succeded in turning the spill into a passable roll.

Gathering himself, he jogged into formation, checking his alignment and spacing before coming to attention.

Kensington blinked upon hearing the fox's response, his tail doing a skip off the floor when she shot him a salute. He was about to say something but was cut off by her corrections, allowing both himself and her get into a more comfortable stance between eachother. The wolf observed how embarrassed and nervous the fox was and grinned slightly in response to her greeting.

"Senior airman Kensington Maxwell ma'am. I reckon any rank gap we have between eachother requires a salute." The pilot said, tucking his folder under his arm and holding out a now free hand to her, still speaking in his rural accent. "Put 'er there! Don't worry about a thing ma'am, alright?" By the time they broke the suspected handshake moment the pilot took the folder from the crevice between his arm and body and started towards the quarter master, motioning the newly met comrade to follow. "I won't lie I was like a farmhand after a saturday night drunkfest... Was pretty slow 'n gettin' here."

After reluctantly shaking the wolf's hand, she began to follow him at his gesture. Still somewhat bothered by the preceding events, she sighed and continued after him. "I won't lie, I was like a farmhand after a saturday night drunkfest... was pretty slow 'n gettin' here." This reassured her somewhat.

"I see. I guess you could say something along those lines happened to me..." She said, eluding the subject of why exactly she was late. Falling asleep inside of a GEAR wasn't a detail that was considered neither very professional nor very lady-like, so it wasn't really something that needed sharing. "I'm going to go find my quarters. Meet you back up here in a bit?" Raisa offered, going off to retrieve her bags from the grunt she had left them with before the incident with her GEAR. However, it seemed that she wouldn't have time to do so.

"101st! Fall in!" Silver's voice erupted over the general sounds of the land-cruiser.

"Well, I guess I should go find out what that's about..." The Corsac Fox muttered as she made an about-face and headed back to where she had come from, returning to Kensington. "That applies for you too, I suppose. Shall I follow you?"

Kensington was in the middle of handing his assault rifle, vest, and handgun over as he listened to Raisa, nodding to each keyword to let her know he was listening. "Right-o Ma'am. L'mme know if ya need anythin'... I think I got some soda pop in the bag or somethin' along them lines." The wolf turned to the bright fox and gave her a high spirited, playful salute before she went off, leaving him to head towards the dormitories after syncing his device to the ship. It was when he started walking again he heard a command over the sound system.

"101st! Fall in!" Upon hearing the orders the wolf looked over towards the source of the voice then glanced over at the returning fox, giving her another 'follow me' gesture before the pilot began heading towards where he suspected the rally to be.

"Guess we goin' to the CO." The young airman said, clearing his throat so he could talk in a more military appropriate tone when he grouped up with the others, still holding his folder and still carrying his significantly lighter bag. "Are we at attention yet?" The question wasn't designated to anyone specifically but from the conversations going around it was safe to assume they were at ease for the time being. It gave him time to take in this first impression and compare it to the more strict divisions he had worked with. He somewhat prayed that this more relax environment would be more frequent in this division.

Jens snapped around from the window and saluted the officer. A middle-aged red fox in a colonel's uniform, sporting various scars and an eyepatch, Jens' CO presented an intimidating picture.
As the junior member of a team, Jens took his place at the left end of the line, and waited for everyone to slot into place. He was a little nervous, this being the first time meeting his leader, and wasn't sure how to react. Would this person be as hard-voiced and demanding as his color-sergeant, or welcoming and forgiving, like his squad officer? Perhaps something entirely different, or somewhere in between. The boy also wondered what his teammates would be like. They all looked older than he was, so it would be hard for Jens to initiate any conversations. He hoped they wouldn't be cruel.

Myrina had peeked into each room amidst the banter, eyeing the accommodations. They weren't anything spectacular, by any stretch of the imagination, but the notion of personal living space was a boon; it was more forgiving than the militia barracks had been. Once she was confident she found the unclaimed space with the least rigid bedding, she tossed her belongings inside. Her clothing was arranged by drawer; undergarments and socks at the top, shirts in the second, legwear and heavier articles at the bottom. All this was neatly folded and categorized by weight and color, although as Myrina became more accustomed to life on the Claw, she predicted she wouldn't be nearly as orderly as this again.

She was in the middle of laying out her chest harness and other gear when Colonel Blade's "101st! Fall in!" shot through the living quarters, and she poked her head through the door, watching the rest of the pilots gather outside. She'd have to finish getting settled later. Myrina dropped her things and joined them, finding a place to stand among her new peers.

Adrian sat on his bed with his head in his hands. He had only been a week out of his old squad, wandering loose during his transfer. He had no clue what to expect, other than, “Ain’t the same as the ol’ Long Patrol.” The Roughriders, as he had been told they were called, were about as far from the Long Patrol as they could get. They were dogs, cats…other things, just about everything Adrian had at one point fought or maybe eaten during his final year in Treminia.

“Let’s just look at this like another stage of rehab,” Adrian said to himself. “It’s not as if this wouldn’t happen eventually…I may as well embrace it.” He push himself from his seat on the bed and dug a hand under his scarf. The bright red length of cloth had served its purpose outdoors, keeping the sand from slipping down his shirt, but inside the cruiser, it did little more than needlessly warm his neck. Even so, the feeling of padding about his neck lent him a small comfort he wasn’t keen to abandon.

“Hundred-first! Fall in!” The call for attention was sudden, piercing through the door to Adrian’s bunk, clear as day. His ears flattened out and his head instinctively turned to the invisible source. It had yet to occur to Adrian that, no longer in the company of his sensitive, long-eared brethren, shouting would be much more common and that he, himself, would have to do more than gently whisper in normal conversation. He’d grown suspicious when the port workers and security asked him to, “Speak up,” but the new captain’s—Blade’s?—shout confirmed his thoughts.

Having delayed long enough, Adrian hurried through the door and into formation.

Standing a little ways away from the edge of the loading bay was a tall lioness, seemingly colored in sepia tones with her tan BDUs and sandy fur. The sun reflected her orange hair brightly, and it fluttered in the slight breeze that picked up sand and blew in in swirling clouds around Malayke's feet, the grains repelled by her short pelt. A brown duffle bag was slung over her shoulder, bulging with sundry supplies and personal effects. Being new to the LDF, this was her first deployment with them, so she had no quarters here on base. She had come from the temporary resident's hospice, and was now viewing the landship's docking area though slit eyes. The hulking machine hovered elegantly above the ground majestically, moving ever so slightly on its cables, lurking in the air with reigning superiority. In her time, Malayke had seen several landcruisers such as this, though never from such an intimate angle - no, she normally seen them as targets for infiltration. She stood there for a few moments, recalling previous encounters like this one, but after a moment her distracted gaze swept toward the ground, eyes clouded as she slowly made her way closer to the ship and its bay.

The bay was agog with technicians and mechanics dressed in the greasy garbs of their trades, and speaking loudly to each other over the roar of engines and the various sounds that went along with their duties. The lioness made it through a security checkpoint without difficulty, and a smile came to her face as she though of how contrapuntal that was to her previous experiences. She looked to the Claw through curious eyes, watching the mesmerizing sight of the cruiser floating above the ground. She adjusted her clothes as she walked through sparse crowds and toward the loading dock, seeing many extended ramps and lumbering beast of burden machines craning large palettes and vehicles into the cruiser. Her tail swayed gently, plume dragging across the ground and flicking up, only to pendulum down again. She looked at her watch, and with a slight sigh of agitation, quickened her steps toward the Claw's other docks, looking for a grizzled red fox with an eyepatch.

Sirens sounded, and a male voice boomed across the bay, signalling the incipient departure from the dock. Malayke silently cursed herself for getting lost in her reminiscences, quickening her pace to a trot as she merged with the crowds still streaming inside the cruiser. She made it to the appointed dock where she was supposedly going to meet her new CO, but got there only in time to see the departure of two of her, unbeknownst to her at this time, new comrades disappear into the throng of workers scurrying around the bay floor. She was reassured, however, as she made it deeper into the complex and spied Stalker amidst the towering mechs, a few techs beneath him carefully moving crates marked with skulls to display the danger of their contents. She hurried past, however, looking frantically around for someone who looked important. She didn't have any luck until meeting with a man dressed formally in badlands BDUs, who, after she quickly synced her PADD with the ship’s ‘Net, showed her how to get where she needed to be.

After a rushed show of gratitude, Malayke jogged onward, duffle bag bumping against her back as she rushed through narrow channels and steep stairs across the landcruiser, and scowled at the memories that came back with scorn. Running through the halls of a cruiser were not fond recollections, especially when it made her look back in response to heard pursuit, phantasms of her visions playing tricks on her senses. She forced herself to walk calmly as the desire to run threatened to overwhelm her, taking the space of the next few corridors to regain her breath and relax her features. When she came to the entrance of the 101st Tactical’s barracks, she had an easy going countenance with a hint of a smile.

Just as her paw pushed the door inward, a rough voice called “Hundred-first, fall in!” As the room came into view, she saw the fox she was scheduled to meet with earlier, and others exiting from curtains on the far walls and forming into a proper unit. She hesitated for only a moment, before falling into the group and saluting her new commander, her melodious voice speaking rhythmically as she addressed him, “Private Malayke Jutrell reporting, sir.”

Logan followed Irry and the rest of the group. The narrow hallways made him somewhat claustrophobic, but thankfully he was able to deal with it until they got to the personal quarters. He walked into one of the rooms, put his stuff on the ground, and sat on the bunk. He didn't want to interact with the others. Once they go out in those GEARs, any one of them could get blown up, so he didn't really see the point.

His thoughts were interupted by loud whistle that came from outside. He opened the door, and peeked out to see what it was. Turns out, it was just one of the squad members screwing around. Nothing major. He went back into his room, returning to the place where he was sitting. He could feel the ship start to move, and a few moments later, he heard Colonel Blade's voice. "101ST! FALL IN!"

He stood up, and walked out of the room to join Colonel Blade. Whatever he was about to tell them, he hoped it was something important.

As the others gathered around the Colonel, Kradis noted that he had by his side the tiger from before. Well, he wasn't scared to take parade stance, so that is something... Maybe he's got a chance after all. Taking note of the others around him, a respectful huff could be heard from him. Quite a sizable squad. Definitely something more than standard border patrols going on, that's for sure. It'll be interesting to see how they handle some real combat, Kradis thought to himself, amused. In all likely-hood, whatever the real mission was might have something to do with what Blade was about to announce.

He then noticed a faint whisper come from the tiger, which caught his attention: "You're the Kradis Topha who defected the Northern Empire, right?" Kradis' hand twitched at the mention of the Empire, but he managed to continue his air of aloofness, looked out the corner of his eye at the tiger, and tipping his head back menacingly, whispered back. "Well, seems word has gotten around faster than I'd expected. Trust me boy, that's one file you don't want to dig up. Unless you're a murderer like me... Then we might actually get along." He faced the front and cracked a smirk, ignoring his response. He enjoyed nothing less than the quivering boots of nervous recruits.

Silver stood still a moment, as the group formed themselves into a decent line. Everyone stood at attention well, and he walked down the line, looking at each face as he passed. The group were a very mixed bunch indeed; mostly young, but still varied in age. All manner of species and appearances, both genders well represented.
"At ease," he said after a moment, and waited until they'd relaxed a little before continuing.
"You've all been transferred to this unit; many of you will have no idea why. I'm sure some of you may have been uprooted from somewhere you were comfortable. Others, not so much. I apologize if that's the case; as it's my fault. I was charged with creating a new unit, and I requested some of you after reviewing your files. I won't say which now, as that's not important."
He eyed their faces for reactions as he stopped in front of them, to better address the crowd, and gauge their reactions.
"The LDF has never been an especially conventional force, but there are particular ways it does things. However, our challenge, both as the 101st, and as part of the Parvan's Claw as a wider group, is to construct an 'unconventional warfare' group. We are to explore tactics, ideas and concepts to engage the enemies of Landren, and to support our allies and the Landren people, both in warfare and any other tasks, and also to investigate and act upon any other, hm... 'Unusual Incidents or Information' that may be uncovered during our missions."
He looked over them carefully, his ears flicking back and forth, and head tilted on one side. How would they react to this? He was expecting plenty of questions, and rightly so.
Moving on, he continued speaking - he'd give them as many answers as he could, and then see what their reactions were.
"I've seen all of yer files. I picked some of ya out, others were sent to me. I ain't gonna say which is which - and y'all ain't ever gonna know. It don't matter anyhow. Yer here now. There are people out there who want us to fail, who wanna be justified in thinking this is a stupid idea, and none of y'all will ever amount to anything".
He eyed the faces in the group.
"Y'all might be thinking, ya know better'n me, or better'n that. That you're the shit, y'all are mean mothers?"
A grin crept onto his muzzle. "Damn, show me it's true then. Do what I tell y'all to, and show me that, an' teach those around ya to be just as good, if you're that kick-ass".
His expression became firm again, as he continued. "An' if yer not, if yer a consumate pro, if yer quiet and controlled, an' y'all know yer stuff. Or if yer quiet, and unsure - then that's fine too; all's we got ta work with each other. Y'all got picked up cos ya know how and what yer doing. Because y'all have got something I want in this group. An' that'll make it work in time. It won't be easy, an' it won't take five minutes - but sometime, it'll happen. We ain't all people who're gonna fit together. There's gonna be arguments an' times yer all gonna hate me or each other. But y'all will find out ya can work together, and we're gonna stick a big middle finger up at those people who said we ain't gonna come to anything - or we'll die tryin'."
He nodded and leaned back, folding his arms, tapping one foot.
"Get the rest of yer gear stowed, and familiarise yerselves wi' the common area. All the layout's on yer PADDs, mess hall, facilities and all that crap. Take an hour to look around. I'll be sittin' in the common area fer questions. After that - we start preppin' fer our first exercise. Fall out, 'riders"

Ashers frowned and placed her hands on her hips disappointedly as Oliver seemed to miss her "expertly" executed prank, apparently very much absorbed in what he was doing. Permitting herself only a moments dismay though Ashers moved onto getting herself a bunk before the one she wanted was snatched up. She paced quickly over to her chosen quarters, one situated near to the kichenette, and emptied the contents of her bag onto the bed retaining only her PADD for now. She could tidy the mess later she figured.

Once back out of what were now her quarters Ashers began to snoop around the common area and the kitchenette, trying to get a feel for the place (and the menu). She spent a moment in awe once again of the landcruiser before returning to her search. Ashers didn't get long however before her investigations were interrupted by the sound of Silvers voice bellowing the instruction to fall in in a tone that suggested a hundred laps of the mobile landcruiser to anyone who failed to comply. Needless to say Ashers fell in immediately despite her frustration.

Ashers initial frustration at having been pulled away from what she was doing by Silver died down pretty fast as he began to speak. It quickly became clear that, despite the parade ground voice, Silver was a pretty humble fox and open with the information the team wanted and needed to know. As he described the design of the 101st Ashers came to like the sound of her new deployment more and more. At the very least it sounded as though they wouldn't be stuck on border patrol as Ashers had feared would happen. Once again Silver almost had Ashers laughing as he began to speak about the unit members viewing themselves as better than him and she quickly added "eccentric" to her growing list of descriptors for the fox. The moment they were asked to fall out she strode over to the fox and saluted before standing herself at ease before him, back straight but tail swishing side to side in a curious, carefree manner. Ashers took a scent of the air and focused her ears forwards before asking he question.

"You seemed to emphasise unusual incidents or information when you were speaking. Is there some kind of information we are expecting to encounter outside the norm?" She asked bluntly.

Silver had found a chair to sit in. Expertly position equally between the door to the main passageway through the Landcruiser, near the door to the Kitchenette from the common area, and to his own office and suite; the fox sat comfortably in a sprawl. Ashers walked his way, and his tail wagged a little in greeting before he sat up to answer her question.
"Price, right?" he said with a nod, before replying. "Well, Price - Officially speakin' there's been a few unusual incidents. A squad of GEARs went missin' for almost a week, and then turned up again, fifty miles from where they oughta be, an' the crew has no memory of the intevenin' time. Plus the L/OS modules had no record of the period either. A couple of similar things have happened too; rumours of GEARs with no pilots or repeating the same phrases over the radio. Radio or Laser-comm messages from no defined sources. Things that've happened more'n once that someone wants lookin' into. Stuff that ain't necessarily dangerous, but could be if it keeps happenin'. Jus' tryin' ta find out who's doing this stuff an' why, mainly".
He looked at the white-furred vixens' face to gauge her reaction to the info - it sounded like the stuff of the darker corners of the 'nets conspiracy theory hangouts, but he'd been given the brief to investigate, so someone thought it was serious. Selling it to the unit though, may prove harder. Not that he could blame them.

Oliver wasn't completely surprised by Kradis his response. Lots of rumors and stories where told on the base about the Northern Empire and some where even more wild and disturbing then others. Regardless of what was true, a lot of messed up shit has happened in the north. Oliver guessed Kradis was at some point part of it too. The Jackal's past was none of Oliver's business but still it intrigued him. The North was one hell of a dangerous and messed up place after all. The tiger could not help but to wonder how it is to live there. Oliver looked to the side and responded. "As long as you put enough booze in a man he will talk about the things he's supposed to keep secret. News travels remarkably fast that way. I can't really say that I'm a murderer yet. I've only shot at target dummies so far. We'll have to see what happens in the field. For everything is a first time after all."

Oliver wanted to continue talking but at that time Colonel Blade started his speech. Oliver listened to the Red Fox as he spoke. For once he decided that there might be something interesting coming from a CO. After all, the setup of this unit was rather uncommon. Especially the part about being selected or for or sent to the unit grabbed Oliver's attention. For a moment he wondered if Blade had selected him based on his file. He hardly deemed that possible considering what was in there. Things like lack of discipline and lack of respect for officers could not be considered selling points not to mention his subpar grades on shooting exercises. Not everything was drama in his file. He did do decent on the computer science course without much effort and had some good grades on wireless communications and security. Also his GEAR piloting skills were very decent for a fresh recruit. None the less the Tiger did not expect to be assigned to a combat unit because of his substandard performance during combat exercises. He considered the option that his father might have pulled some strings forcing him upon this unit. That man had probably also read his file and thought that Oliver would not last very long in a real combat situation. What better way there is to redeem the black sheep of the family by letting him die for king and country. None the less, Oliver was happy that he was assigned to a combat unit. The young Tiger is addicted to danger and action after all.

The tiger could not care less about what top branch of the LDF would think about him or their stupid political games. Only dicks like his father where up there and they could all go and fuck themselves as far as Oliver was concerned. The only thing that really mattered was his own unit and the people who were in it. Considering the unit was made up from interesting characters and some attractive females the young Tiger was sure he would enjoy his time on the Parvans Claw.

As Colonel Blade finished his speech Oliver heard the young female artic wolf ask some questions about the unusual incidents and information Silverwind had spoken about in his speech. As he overheard the colonels reaction Oliver could not help to butt in on the conversation. "All wireless communication has a source. It should not be too difficult to determine from where it is transmitted. Especially when it comes to laser-optic signals. I can calibrate the optical sensors on my GEAR to measure light in the spectrum that is invisible to our eyes. That way I can determine the angle of the laser. Since free-space optical communication always has to travel in a straight unobstructed path we know along which line we have to search for the source. There are also methods of locating the source of radio transmissions. With a bit of preparation I think I should be able to provide accurate enough estimates of the locations in such a case." Oliver paused for a second. A lot of technical nerd talk just left his mouth and probably needed some time to sink in. The young tiger turned towards Asher and smiled. "Sorry for ignoring you earlier, I guess I wasn't fully awake yet when entering the Parvan's Claw. I'm Oliver Stone. Nice to meet ya"

Ashers raised an eyebrow at the tales Silver told, simultaneously intrigued and skeptical. The stories were at that perplexing point at which they were highly improbable but there was just enough feasibility to them that they couldn't be disregarded entirely. Ashers had just opened her mouth to make some wisecrack about ghost stories when she interrupted by the orange furred tiger she had attempted to prank earlier. His sudden interjection had left her open mouthed and the complex content he churned out after simply made her lower jaw drop further as she tried to figure out what to say back.

"Ummm... Err.. Apology accepted I guess. Name's Ashers. Ashers Price." Ashers raised a bandaged fist for a casual fist bump by way of greeting before continuing with what she had been going to say before.

"Not gunna lie when I say that sounds like a load of hashed up ghost stories. You've caught my interest though and at the end of the day I'm not gunna complain about a day chasing after ghosts if it could've been a day getting shot at." Ashers finished with a smirk and her tail flicking side to side happily. She was having fun already.

Shona had rushed to join the unit as they stood at attention. The colonel's ensuing speech was both reassuring and worrying. A new unit experimenting with new, unconventional tactics - and she had been chosen to join it? She had a growing suspicion that she was one of the ones who'd been sent to him, rather than one of his own picks. She could so easily picture it - send the embarrassing rookie to the unit you want to see fail. Kill two birds with one stone. Shona's ears drooped slightly at the thought.

Surely the Colonel wouldn't have accepted anyone he thought would be a liability, though, right? She had to believe that was the case - and she would have to work her ass off to make sure her placement here wasn't something he regretted.

Once the unit fell out, Shona had started towards the Colonel, noticing that the wolf from before - Ashers, she noted - had the same idea. She stood to one side, listening quietly as Silver explained his earlier words. We're investigating ghost GEARs? She thought to herself, a little dubiously. That was the sort of spooky story that spread around an R&D unit like wildfire, and she'd heard a few versions of it herself. They were really good stories, combining the tendency of pilots to anthropomorphise their units with the idea that it might be technically possible, albeit extremely improbable. Ashers expressed her doubts in a much blunter fashion than Shona would have had the guts to, and the bat turned her eyes to see the colonel's reaction.

She smiled a little as another member of the unit, a fox, chipped in. He sounded like a man after her own heart. "I'm pretty sure the cruiser's sensor suite would be enough to home in on any weird transmissions by itself." She said, stepping a little closer. "Maybe with a few GEARs or planes with sensor packs to triangulate, for the wireless messages. Oh, um, Shona Bell." She added belatedly.

Silver nodded in agreement with comments and replies of his new pilots, spreading his arms palms up. "Hey, well exactly. I ain't sayin' that there's anythin' to it, an' usin' methods like y'all suggest is exactly what we're gonna be doin' to investigate. But that's only a part of what we're out here for - there's attacks on convoys and small settlements or individual homes and ranches to investigate too. I don't reckon we're gonna be lackin' fer jobs ta do out there. There's groups ta track down and put a stop to, and ta find out where they're gettin' their GEARs and other equipment from too. 'fore all that tho, we gotta get our tactics and routine as a unit pinned down, since none of us have ever worked together before. That'll be the main part of our ops on the journey to the Badlands area we'll be operatin' in... provided nothin' untoward happens first, of course. Anyway - keep askin' questions. I like that in my people, curiosity and makin' sure y'all know what's goin' on is good and it shows intelligence. Great stuff, an' great talkin' with y'all so far. An' nice ta meet ya too".
The fox stood from the chair and took a look around the room, making a small circuit to check in on how everyone was doing in squaring their gear away, and getting ready. He glanced into each of the small rooms and nodded a 'hi' or announced himself with a short greeting or introduction to each of the new squad members, before grabbing a glass of water in the kitchenette.

A short while later, the hour was up, and Blade checked his PADD. Captain Garrett had co-ordinated with him on the deployment and operation of the Roughriders, and the Parvan's Claw had taken a course and speed to take her away from the settlements in the immediate area, and from farmland and other well-travelled or managed land, and into open countryside toward the Badlands, giving the unit a chance to mount up and deploy. The Landship had made good speed, and was only a short time and distance away from the point where Blade wanted to mobilise the squadron.
"Okay, everyone," he called loudly across the room. "Look alive - get your GEAR harnesses on and yer pilot suits. Suit up for a briefing in ten minutes. Time for your first exercise!"
The one-eyed fox made his way into his own room and quickly donned his pilot suit and headed down to the operations shop to sign out his pilots' harness and helmet, before making his way to the squadrons' briefing room. He stood to one side of the wall screen, at the front of the room with its' rows of chairs, and waited for his unit to arrive.