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[color=black][b]PROLOGUE[/b][/color]

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[indent][indent][indent]Michael Graham was never good at interviewing. 

Back in Denver-Vegas, he had risen to the role of a prominent battlefield commander through experience and luck. He wasn’t someone they sent out to interview prospective pilots and see if they were a good fit for the company. But he supposed that was a lot of the problem. He wasn’t at a [i]company[/i] anymore.

New Anchorage was a loose confederacy, not a budding corporation. Given their placement in the middle of nowhere in frozen Alaska, nobody important was concerned about the influence they had been mounting for the last few years. Hell, had it not been for a set of specific circumstances Graham wasn’t sure he would’ve offered his help to New Anchorage. Circumstances that had him regretting every minute of the detail for the greater part of thirty days. Raschke, the principal leader of the community, had tasked Graham with getting the NC Program up to “industry standard”. A standard that Graham had neither the clout nor resources to live up to. 

The black-haired Denver native wasn’t sure how he was going to structure New Anchorage into something resembling order when all he had was his experience as a soldier in Denver-Vegas and a enough of foresight to know that independents would flock to New Anchorage out of the need to find work that was a little more secure than going from paycheck-to-paycheck with all odds stacked against them. Graham supposed that was why he not only ended up with a list of pilots interested not only from the American wastes but also overseas. What kind of life in Australia and Europe had led three people to Alaska of all places? How much blemishes did they have on their record? Had he not done some digging already he would have assumed they were raiders trying to legitimize themselves; to run away from their torrid pasts.

Though, that assumption was partly true. 

The assortment of pilots had done questionable things, lived through terrible circumstances, and survived by the skin of their teeth in situations that had the odds stacked against them. Every single one of them had lost their families. One of them was a fourteen year old girl who had been piloting since she was nine-years-old.

He wasn’t sure what the consensus would be among the old guard about hiring someone like that, but New Anchorage needed pilots and she seemed eager to contribute to the settlement. He couldn’t imagine what her motivations could have been, but Raschke had told him to take whoever jumped at the opportunity as long as they had never participated in the slave trade. At the very least, not a single one of the recruits had done so. As he continued to make note of such things he looked over to the glass of liquor that was next to him. There was a consideration before he shook his head, deciding that it was not the time for it. There was a long day ahead.

His eyes moved back to the hue of his computer screen.

There was a lot to unpack. Raschke had approved of the pilots coming on for a trial run; to see if there was any latent chemistry issues between the original pilots under his predecessor and these news ones. Graham assumed there would be issues, undoubtedly, but if he could bring some sense of order he hoped he could manage them. He didn’t expect to turn them into the finest soldiers by the standards of a corporate board of directors. There was no way in hell he could take a bunch of wasters and greenhorns and turn them into what he was, or more accurately, what he used to be. 

[color=556B2F]“An hour until orientation.”[/color] He muttered, noting the time.

Leaning back in his chair, Graham took a light breath. New Anchorage was a mess, but at least it was far better than when he arrived. He wanted to give no false appearance of the operation being a casualty of complacency. There would be no rookie mistakes if he could help it. With the new pilots arriving he needed to be prepared and while he wasn’t seeking to impress a bunch of edged-out mercenaries and over-eager idealistic kids he did want things to fall into cohesion. A military operation like this needed to be a well-oiled machine. And considering he was getting the cogs, he believed he had everything else to get them started.

When they arrived he would treat it like any other operation with new recruits. Familiarize them with the base, key military officers, and give them one final chance to see if they agree to his terms. While he wasn’t exactly running a corporate military organization he did still need to instill mandatory routines to get things into shape. After all that was finished he could see about getting in contact with his sources from the last fifteen plus years of his life to see what kind of contracts they could deal with. He didn’t need to get in-between the ruling corporations right now and as long as the contracts didn’t interfere with corporate policies or make New Anchorage quick enemies he could work with anybody. 

He pushed back up from his chair as he routed his codec to the base’s speakers as he had done when he had decided on announcements.

[color=556B2F]“This is Commander Graham. I know many of you are still adjusting to the change in military administration, but the new pilots will be arriving within the hour and I need things to be in order. I want all personnel to look busy by that point. I will be reassigning the NC squadron sometime following the acquisition of these new pilots. Thank you.”[/color]









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