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 company 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.

“An hour until orientation.” 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.

“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.”

“Coffee please. Black’s fine.” The young man shifted in his thick jacket; even in the temperature controlled areas of Smith’s Rest, he still couldn’t find any real warmth. He was used to heat after all; spending years working in the southeast and southwest. He’d braved dust storms, hurricanes, beasts and raiders, but he worried that it would be the cold that would eventually do him in.

“Not used to the cold?” The proprietor of the public house inquired, handing him a steaming metal mug.

“Can’t say I am,” the man muttered, sipping at the mug before recoiling from the heat. “Damn that’s hot! Good though,” he added, attempting another sip.

“You’re not one of those new pilots that have been hired, are you?” The man suddenly seemed a little worried at the young man’s demeanor and attitude.

“Well I’m here for orientation and interview,” he added after another sip. “But it’s not uncommon for pilots to get cut from a job due to lack of information and knowledge. Sometimes you have to build a reputation in an ar-”

“We know about mercs.” The proprietor snapped. “We don’t need mercs. We need pilots.”

The man brought the mug upwards, swallowing the boiling liquid with one gulp, before convulsing slightly due to the heat. He placed the mug on the counter and handed his credit chit over. “That’s good news then, because I am a pilot.”

He stood up, smirking at the man, before stepping outside. It was oddly silent until the sudden howl of the man’s voice sounded through the metal door. “FUCK THAT WAS HOT!”

Alan Fouren stood looking out a thick glass window into what seemed like endless roving snowfields. His mouth still burned, but he felt he’d made his intent clear; at least until he failed to stick the landing with that last attempt to appear tough. He wasn’t here to be a flashy merc, but he wasn't here to be a sniveling yes man either. He’d cut his teeth over the years and had come highly recommended, even though he’d asked his contacts to downplay his achievements. It wasn’t humility he was after, it was insurance.

“Goddamn it,” he muttered under his breath, feeling another chill set him on. Was this psychosomatic? Just the sight of ice making him colder than he actually was? He pulled the neck of his jacket tight, and turned from the window, continuing down the hallway. It was almost time to head to the base for this mysterious orientation. It was going to be a short tram ride to the operations base, and he was supposed to meet some suit there. It was all too formal for what he was used to; back in the day it was simple.

---

Alan walked into the smoky office in Cutter’s Split, somewhere a few hundred klicks north of Vegas. It was a dry climate, rocky with some vegetation here and there. There was a large expanse of nature north of Cutter’s Split, a giant deciduous forest full of all sorts of violent flora and fauna ready for travelers to get too comfortable surrounded by what little greenery was left. He’d done some work there before, but he knew this was different.

“Got some news for ya, kid,” Old Deek, the main contact for any job north of Vegas, had called Alan in as soon as he’d arrived. If Deek called you, you checked in quick: especially if it dealt with a lucrative contract.

“What kind of news? More work out towards the rainy coast?”

“Nah, nothin about fuckin with Red Star or Volkov shit. This is about that little issue you asked me to look into.”

Alan’s face hardened and he placed both palms flat on Deek’s messy desk, pushing credit chits and papers aside. “Did you find it?”

“Just a rumor. Out in Alaska. I got you an in, too. Old Denver soldier, some folks in my network knew him: he’s apparently calling for pilots up there.”

“Scrapper job?”

“Nope. They want full-time pilots.”

“What the hell do they have up there to call for that kind of call?”

“No idea. But the guy’s the real deal. No idea why he went all the way out to Alaska from Denver, but don’t try and fuck with him. He’s a trained killer. Company boy for DV.”

“I ever kill any of his friends?”

“Naw.”

“Alright. Get my info out there then. Keep it subdued; don’t put any fancy bullshit about me in there either. I’m just a pilot, that’s all.” It was time to head north.

---

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Alan’s datapad brought him back to reality, and he looked at the time.

He started down the hallway, and towards the tram. He’d arrive just on time, and find a place towards the back of the group, keep his head down and get through it. Graham worried him though. Alan was a scrapper, a waster and a dependable worker. But he wasn’t a soldier. But then again, this wasn’t a City either. He’d have to see exactly what was coming up. He’d improvise if he needed to. He was a survivor, after all.

For the first time in a long time, Percy Moore was having a quiet, but still pleasant, moment with the little human being he held dearest to him. He was sat down on the bed of their shared room, brushing Ana's hair for her while she colored in a coloring book Zach sent with them. There's really not a lot of fun kid stuff on the base, but Percy would rather her be bored with him than at risk with Zach - not after how badly he'd failed Ana and Percy the day of the attack that nearly stole his daughter away.

Oh, why Percy has a room to himself while the others have to deal with barracks? Simple, actually. During the switch-over from Sophia to Graham, Percy took that moment of confusion amongst the higher-ups to demand that he gets his own room with Ana - again, he didn't trust Zach to not fuck up again, so he figured the best move would be to just move Ana here with him. Obviously he won that small victory - likely because there were far more important matters for them to attend to than to argue with him about room arrangements, not because he was a smooth talker. He didn't care why he won, though, because he won and that's what mattered.

After he'd moved Ana's essentials and made sure she was all set that day, he 'stole' a couch-bed from the empty room down the hall so they could both sleep comfortably - while Percy didn't care about sharing a bed, especially if it was just his child, Ana was beginning to. That's normal, of course, and Percy wasn't offended by it. It was a sign of her growing up, but... Percy stopped mid-brush stroke. God, Ana's eight now. He remembers when she was just an itty bitty baby, still wrapped up in blankets and huffy from crying her little heart out - the lil chubby cheeks, the cute little button nose that absolutely had to be squished, and her hands - god, her hands were so, so very small. Now look at her. His tiny, squishy baby girl was eight now. Where the did the time go?

Oh, wait, he actually knows the answer to that - or, at least, he knows where the last year or so's gone. It's gone swirling down the shitter. It started with when he got that positive compatibility test, and it only got worse from there. The recovery period from the surgery was hell on them both (Ana had to be his little nurse for a good while); the first few missions he, Eli Jackspar, and Madison Cole went on together were.. well, nobody died, but it wasn't a walk in the part - the first mission definitely was not, given how non-cohesive the trio were; then the attack on Smith's Rest happened just this past June - Ana still has nightmares about it.

Setting the brush down at his side, he wraps his arms around Ana in a tight hug, resting his chin on the top of her head. He felt her trying to turn and look at him, but she is sufficiently trapped in his embrace. She giggled a little, flinching in obvious preparation for some kind of silliness to go down.. But then she relaxed again, curiosity prompting her to ask, "You ok?"

Percy didn't reply right away - he needed that second to gather all of his thoughts. He knew that Ana knew all of the things he was about to say, but given the hell she's been through lately, maybe she needs to hear it all over again. Maybe she needs to hear how she's strong, intelligent, resilient, hard-working, persevering. Maybe she needs the extra reassurance that everything's going to be alright now. Maybe she needs to hear him say I love you. Shit, how long has it been since he's just said those words out of the blue to her? He used to do it so much, but then everything went all fucking crazy - he could only say them just before he had to go off and do something that could kill him. "Ana, I-"

"This is Commander Graham."

The both of them just about leapt out of their skin when those words boomed over the intercom.. Well, not literally boomed, but it was loud enough to shatter the relative quiet that was there.

"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."

Percy mouthed a bit of a mocking "Thank you" and grimaced, causing Ana to stick her tongue out with him in solidarity. After about a beat of silence and recognition, they both giggled. Ruffling up Ana's just-brushed hair, Percy stands up, stretching from sitting there cross-legged for so long. He's already gotten bitched out a couple times for not doing what he was told to do - not usually by Graham himself, but by other staff - and he'd rather not continue to get bitched out - or worse, getting bitched out by the Big Guy himself. Yeah, nah. Not today.

"You better go, Dad," Ana says, apparently having the same idea as Percy.

"Yeah yeah, I know," Percy leans down to kiss Ana on the top of her head, "You sit tight, ok? I won't be gone long."

"I love you."

Well, shit. She beat him to the punch. He smiles anyway, though - something about hearing your kid say I love you makes everything feel... right. Just before he shuts the door behind him, he replies to her, "And I love you, ya brat."

It was almost exactly after the door shut behind him that he realized he didn't have any idea what he could do. All Graham said was that he wanted all personnel to look busy before the new pilots got here. But exactly how he was supposed to look busy, he wasn't sure. It wasn't like there was a lot he could do - or, rather, there was plenty he could do, but he'd likely break it and the someone with any actual skill that was hired to fix it would have to both correct his mistake and then fix the original problem. It's happened before, it's likely to happen again. Really, like, he could try to repair the half-dead and flickering lights that he's currently walking under, but if he did it was likely that he'd accidentally snip the wrong wire and whoops, the whole building has no lights! Again, it's happened before, but instead of the lights it was his heater. In the middle of winter. Yeah, that wasn't a fun few days.

With a shiver of remembrance, Percy simply picked a direction to walk and... walked. If he walked with purpose, he'd look pretty busy, wouldn't he? Actually, what does a walk with purpose even look like? Walking quickly? Shoulders back, up straight? Making sure every step has that distinct contact with the floor? Honestly, don't all walks usually have some purpose behind them? Whether it's just to getting from point A to point B, or to get out of the house, or to clear your head after an argument - who just walks for absolutely no reason? There's always at least a small purpose to it. Who just decides that they're going to walk and.. that's it? Well, wait. That's sort of what he's doing right now, isn't it? Walking with no purpose. He's walking just to walk, in some hopes that purpose walks into him, and not the other way around. All he did was choose a direction and decide let's go this way. Why, he didn't know.. But now that he's thought about it, what even is this way?

You'd think after basically living in the base a while he'd have learned where everything was, but all he was sure of was where the barracks are, where the mess hall is, where the hangar is, and (more recently) where his and Ana's room is. If someone asked him where a bathroom was right that moment, he'd have no fucking ide- Oh, wait, he just passed one, actually. Cool, now he knows. Or he'll forget as soon as he's turned this corner after reading the sign above the arch reading 𝙷𝙰𝙽𝙶𝙰𝚁. Maybe he could find something to do in there.. and hopefully not break anything.

Alan chuckled to himself reading the heady and verbose language on his datapad. He’d struggled to read Kerouac for years now, but at least he was finally making some headway. He remembered finding this particular holo-novel somewhere odd in the Southwest. Not all cities and settlements shared the same data, and some holo-novels (and even rarer, actual books) had been lost over the hundreds of years and the new corporate wars that were going on.

How many actual novels had he compiled now? Three hundred? Four hundred? His datapad’s memory was vast, and when he had the credits he tended to purchase as many novels as he could. He’d been teased for a long time about it; wasting money on a holo-novel when he could spend a few more credits on a vid. He’d spent many nights on the road with caravans trying to drown out the sound of adult holo-vids while he devoured chapter after chapter of Tennyson or Hemmingway. There was just something about the words and the image he could create in his own head that made holo-novels so enticing. He went back to the next passage and-

The eruption of music caused him to jolt up in his seat on the tram, and suddenly his senses kicked back into overdrive. The smell of dank piss, other bodies pushing against him, and now the jolt of music caused him to quickly shut off the holo-novel and take in his environment. And then came another racket: a female voice; with an accent, he just couldn’t place. She’s a foreigner, with an accent like that. And that kind of slang. Which means she’s got to be a pilot. But why the hell is someone from out of the states here? His attention switched to the murmuring twins, with their accents. Foreign pilots. What the hell kind of outfit was this Commander Graham putting together up here?

As the tobacco began to permeate throughout the tram, he grimaced but did not cough or lobby a complaint; he’d spent so many years in smokey and dingy places the smell of tobacco was a calming sensation in a way. He couldn’t stand the damn smell, but he’d been forced to get used to it, much like many things in his life. He tried to think about his situation in Alaska now, and what he could make of it. First off was the place: Smith’s Rest was independent. None of the big corporations had made a play for the area, and the main issue seemed raiders and the standard animal problems. Usually, that would call for your local NC pilots; settlement pilots driving scraped together NCs, helping protect the place. But here were pilots from all over, and the smoking woman had some years on her.

A veteran. Vets cost money. But beyond the pilots here was the commander himself: a DV vet who had made a name for himself in the past. Alan had talked to a few contacts in the Vegas area and had been a corporate boy until 3 years ago. It surprised Alan that he’d never crossed paths with the man, but the divide was a large area and he was personally happy he’d never met anyone that had climbed the corporate military ladder. But here he was, about to have to meet him.

It was the idea that a military commander leading a settlement’s barracks that unsettled Alan. He was used to the communal nature of so many settlements; everyone pitches in for the greater good. Military meant hierarchy, orders, training and never disobeying orders, regardless of how sick they made you. That last part worried him; he wasn’t a raider or a slaver. He wasn’t afraid of killing raiders for cash, but he wasn’t prepared to get involved in some kind of war.

And who else on the tram could be a pilot? He scanned the tram, squinting his eyes at some of the passengers. Too old. Too frail. No neural connector-oh no. The bright red shock of red pouring from a cap and the petite frame was indistinguishable; hell, he could probably pick her silhouette out in a crowd if it came to it. How long had it been since he'd walked out on her after that last mission outside Denver? He bit his lip and anguished over it all. She wasn't looking his way, but he had no idea if she hadn't noticed him or if she was giving him the cold shoulder. After all, she had the worst damn attitude of anyone he'd ever met.

The jolt of the tram brought him back from his thoughts, and he knew what was about to happen: It was about time to meet the new employer.

The voice of Matthew Alvarez could barely be heard over the sound of screeching metal and hot steam as the tram finally had arrived at New Anchorage’s operational base.

After Graham had asked him about reconfirmation about the time, Matthew had decided to prepare for the greeting as it was a great deal of his job as operations administrator to do so. Truth be told, while he preferred Graham’s direction compared to how Sophia handled things there wasn’t much of a difference in terms of adding new pilots to the roster. He had done it when Stein Kalfox was incorporated and here he was doing it with the new recruits that came in for their application. Then again, half-a-dozen pilots would take tasking more thoughts than one or two. But he had tasked mundane non-NC pilots in greater amount, so he figured this wouldn’t result in much difficulty. He stood there with datapad in hand as he adjusted the glasses on the brim of his nose.

As he awaited the doors to open and the New Anchorage passengers to exit, he waved one of the depot coordinators over. His tone was flat and quiet, but somehow through all of the racket he was audible. “Ms. Pryde.”

“Yes, operations administrator?”

“I want the transport units working fast and efficiently. Each NC should be in the NC hangar before Graham steps foot in there. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I’m on it.”

If there was one thing Sophia abandoning New Anchorage did, it was increase the efficiency of the NC program. One of the central reasons he was quite favorable towards Graham’s organizational overhaul was that Graham brought a much needed structure with him; a structure that had been lacking in previous years. Though, there were many differences of opinion about Graham as soon as he showed up and started “barking” even though Matthew disagreed that the barking was unwarranted. He thought back to the complaints he had heard in the last month or so with some of his peers likening Graham as a “despot” and “corporate wolverine”. Matthew had been more than happy to give the former head of NC analysis his official dismissal. Infantile emotions had no business of existing when there was a job to do. But New Anchorage recovered from it and was all the better for it. Good riddance.

Ending his thought, he nodded as his hands waved her off, “Good. Go.”

Matthew flipped through the datapad with a pen as he looked over the dossiers he had compiled, though he did so briefly. While he remembered the information in his memory it was still was helpful to look it over. He was good with information and knowledge… less so with faces. He just hoped Raschke and Graham knew what they were doing.

As the doors to the tram opened up he cleared his voice.

His hand flipped to her dossier on his datapad as he looked to the individuals that took initiative in their posture and form, but Matthew Alvarez wasn’t from a military background so it didn’t invoke much for him personally. There were a lot of interesting individuals even discarding their appearance of a disorganized motley crew of lost discarded toys. But in a lot of ways they were to become Graham’s toys now, assuming they agreed to his terms, though the reality was that they were already familiar with the contract New Anchorage gave them and they signed eagerly. He wondered if anyone of them had read it in greater detail when most of them were so ridiculously desperate. But desperation led to many things such Graham’s operation. But they could always resign from their position if they wished. He wondered which ones would actually stay on for more than a week given his overview of what Graham had planned for them.

Not all of them were NC pilots though. Graham and Raschke had sent out contracts for people in financial, military, logistic, and maintenance fields as well as asked for people by name. When Graham arrived Matthew was to direct the non-pilots to their designations and familiarize them with their accommodations and responsibilities. He stopped to think what could’ve been taking Graham so long? But before he could pursue the thought for much longer a voice cut from behind him.

Graham’s.

“Alvarez.”

Matthew turned his head and there he was, as expected. Graham must’ve done a routine check to see if everything was in order before meeting with the recruits.

“Bring me up to speed.”

“No absences as far as I can tell. But they seem to be as heterogeneous as described by our reports; their dossiers are up-to-date excluding information we could not acquire that was deemed confidential. There shouldn't be any issues going forward.” Matthew stated as he pointed to the two aforementioned pilots as if making a note of them before handing over the datapad to Graham.

He nodded as he looked to the group.

“Non-pilot staff will go with Alvarez. Welcome to Alaska."

You want to get yourself killed quick, walk into a job without any information. Those words stuck with Alan when the tram slowed to a crawl at the station. He stuck to the middle of the pack, letting the excited young pilots hop out and kiss all the ass they wanted. He had a reputation for being pleasant but he was not a saluting, ass-kissing, step in line kind of person. He was used to those kinds of pilots trying to work their way up to some kind of corporate position. Going from indies to corporate wasn’t unheard of, but it wasn’t exactly common either. It had been somewhere in his fifth year piloting that he got a letter of recommendation from one of the job contacts in Denver, offering him an interview with the brass at one of the Northern Bases.

Alan had declined.

Now here he was in the middle of the frozen north, having already signed the preliminary documents, to do what exactly? Play soldier for, who? This man? He’d seen a picture of Graham-not a great quality one-but enough that he knew exactly who the man was, standing in his stoic pose as he greeted the new pilots. Alan was busy eyeing up the others coming in and where they fell in with him; there were the foreigner pilots: twins and the woman with the thick accent.

He eyed some of those walking with the other man, Alvarez. Desk jockeys and people probably at a higher pay-grade than his; but one particular character piqued Alan’s interest. He’d seen the man’s face before; somewhere in some news article on the net. He turned to see another figure to join the pilots, and that gave him the biggest shock of all: an older woman, grandmotherly in her stature. The fact that he could eye her neural connector on her neck scared him. Was she some old codger who got tested? Or was she a vet? He didn’t know which idea messed with him more.

---

---

"It’s a job down south, near Lonestar. Just a simple caravan job. But it’s in a town called Serath. Don’t know if you’ve heard of it before.”

"It’s the retirement community for pilots, right?”

That’s what he’d thought. A place for old vets to settle down and relax in their twilight years. Folks had murmured about it before, but he’d never thought to travel there himself. Maybe he’d see what a possible future for him would be.

When he got there, he saw what it really was. Men too feeble-minded to walk. The smell of piss permeating the rooms. It wasn’t a retirement home, it was more of a hospital for the insane. Not everyone’s like this, he remembered someone, an aide or a nurse telling him, but the effects of Polaris Shift still aren’t too understood. The fact that any of them live into their 40s is a miracle. The oldest guy there looked like he was an elder. But how old was he? 50? Being a pilot did not promise an easy life. No, being a pilot meant you threw your future away.

---

---

How would this old woman fare next to the others? How did she look so healthy? These were all questions haunting Alan as he did his best to keep his composure from the cold. Alan looked around the group of pilots, surprised at the number that had gathered. “Gee-zus,” he muttered to himself, visible air escaping his mouth, “are we startin’ a goddamn army?”

By the time Percy arrived in the NC Hangar, he was slightly winded and had to stop at the large doorway - if he had just walked straight to the hangar it wouldn't have been so bad, but he kept getting turned around. Stupid shitty scarcely legible signage. Maybe if he'd grabbed his reading glasses it wouldn't have been as awful, but he didn't. He could go and get them and come right back, but it'd be a pain in the ass now that he's here, so whatever. He'll live.

After an explosive exhalation of breath (which, really, wasn't all that loud given the size of the room and the volume of the activity inside) he steps over the threshold dividing the halls from the hangar, and continues to take steps inside until he's standing in front of, but a ways away from, the trio of NCs. From down here, they're imposingly large - even Madison's, which is technically the smallest, is huge. To either side of the Mad-Cat is the Blur, the sleek, stark white, sword-wielding mecha belonging to Eli; and the Papa Mike, the muddled brown-and-green eyesore with not a lot going for it. Fitting for someone that was called the weakest link. It's not even super specialized like the other two, with a rifle, a piddly little missile launcher, and a laser sword. With that said, he's looking up at the mechs and Percy observes that has the range that Madi and Eli just don't - sure, they can go in swords slashing and claws tearing, but without him hanging back with the rifle and taking potshots with the missiles, they'd be easy targets. One well-placed hit on them and they'd be dead, if not very badly hurt. Hell, that exact thing almost happened to Madison during the attack back in June. Thankfully the damage was only to the machine, and not to her. They're both way too young to get snuffed out, but Madison especially.

Percy can still remember what he thought when Madison (and Eli, too, really) explained that she signed up for the NC Program. Are you fucking insane? You have your whole life ahead of you, and you want to do this? But what he'd actually said was.. Well, nothing. He just nodded to let her know she was heard, and he said nothing. Maybe he should have said something. Like he was one to really talk, though - when he was 19, he was on the ass-backwards schedule of staying up all night and sleeping all day doing basically fuck-all other than getting drunk. But that's better than signing yourself up for death the rest of your life, isn't it..?

"Percy?"

Percy is snapped from his inner thoughts, turning his head and immediately going from shock to confusion- "Zach?"

"The one and only," Zach says with that shit-eating little smirk he gets when he thinks he's being cute. He gives Percy a good slap on the back before giving him a quick side-hug - his usual greeting when they're not at each other's throats. "I didn't expect to see you today, bud."

"I could say the same thing to you, bud." Percy winces slightly as he realizes how hostile that sounds - but since when did they start calling each other "bud?" Where did that even come from? He stumbles over his words in some attempt to redeem himself, "I-I mean, were you-? Did Graham-? Well, I'm- I'm here 'cause.. Well, I'm a pilot, I have to be, but I was told to-" he accentuates this next part with air-quotes, "look busy."

Zach rolls his eyes, but he's still grinning a little as he speaks, "I'm pretty sure he said for personnel to look busy, not pilots."

"Well.. Yeah, but he said all personnel, and.. I am a personnel. Right?" And, on the subject of being personnel, Percy winds it back around to the question at hand- "I know that you're not, Zach. So... Why are you here?"

"Oh, I'm just playing handyman for like.. A week, at most." Zach replies, "Said they needed some more hands on deck for a bit. Might as well - I've got nothin' better to do since you took Ana."

Percy nods a little bit. Zach's always been way better with the whole engineering thing than he ever was. With that said, Percy didn't really have any goals coming into this hangar, but perhaps a goal has found him, like he'd quietly hoped for. Just as Zach went to give a little wave and turn around, Percy asks, "Alright, well.. Is there anything I could do to help?"

Zach keeps walking, forcing Percy to lightly jog to catch up before then falling into pace. Zach then answers with his own question, "Do you think you can avoid starting an electrical fire?"

"...Probably?"

---

What were the odds?

The plucky, red-haired teenager pressed her tongue against her uppermost canine, thinking over the situation she found herself in. A bunch of would-be pilots, some she recognized, and the “boss” or one of them, she guessed, was meeting them on head-first. Of all the things she had experienced her lifetime as a pilot, this one made the list as the strangest. But Ryn wasn’t a corporate hire. She barely recognized executives and commanders due to the fact that throughout her time as a pilot she mostly had generally found employment in the midwestern territories or in the deep end of the divide. Most of the jobs she took were in the more chaotic, independent north; the stretch of land between what was once called Iowa and Saskatchewan.

She had once told a friend that she preferred working far and away from corporate oversight. It was “easier” she had said, though the truth of the matter was she didn’t understand it.

Yet here she was. Her first real “corporate” assignment, or well, tryout. The message on her holotool several weeks ago had mentioned there would be secondary interviews and trials going forward, though there was no real information on what they were looking for in New Anchorage. Just load your NC on a train to Alaska, do the trials, make the grade. In her mind she had little doubt that she could handle it. But Kathryn Dradht was not a girl who was lacking in confidence.

“So. What’s the deal with this place?”

The comment was blunt, lacking respect or manners, but as far as Ryn could figure it was a question that was on everybody’s minds.

The dark-haired commander remained silent for a moment as he considered the question.

“New Anchorage?”

As he explained his answer the other man began to escort the non-pilots out of the depot, leaving him with the Ryn and the rest of the prospective pilots. Ryn wasn’t really a master of reading people but she could tell that her new maybe-boss had a lot on his mind that he wasn’t exactly disclosing.

“To strip it down into the basics? It’s a coalition of settlements that want to push back against key threats surrounding the region. I suppose it’s not very different from places like Blackstone Harbor or Dead Springs. A place that has survived on the skin of its teeth and only one or two NC pilots for the last few decades. I intend to take a proactive approach in making New Anchorage safe and secure.”

As he clipped the datapad that was in his hands to his utility belt, he moved his hands behind his back and continued speaking.

But Ryn's attention wasn't on his posture, but more of the fact that he decided to mention Blackstone Harbor. She wasn't sure why he went out of the way to compare Blackstone and this new place in Alaska, but it wasn't going to make her feel like she was finding a new home. This was a job. Nothing could replace what she had in Blackstone. She raised a brow as he began to lead the group outside and toward the base itself.

“But, no. This isn’t an army. Don’t expect me to be training you all to be soldiers, only capable pilots who follow orders and live up to expectations, and the only expectation I've been asked to test you for is if you can fly, shoot, and protect a handful of settlements. Any other questions?”

Percy huffed out a sigh of exasperation as he dug through his friend's toolbox, both looking for a voltage tester and trying to organize the tools inside as he spoke, "Zach, come on-"

Zach, currently in the ceiling, glared down at him from above. "Percy, I'm gonna say it one more time before I kick you in the teeth. Don't. Touch. Anything else."

"You know I didn't mean to zap you-"

"Yeah, but you did, and you almost started a fucking fire. You promised you wouldn't do that."

"No, I did not," Percy insists, "I said I probably wouldn't start one. There is a difference-"

"Oh my God, I'm going to kick you-" Zach grumbles, taking another few moments to peer down at Percy - apparently he's gotta make sure that Percy sees the disappointment in his eyes, "I swear, Pierce. I'm gonna do it, I'm just gonna fuckin' punt you in the-" After another curse in Percy's general direction and an explosive exhausted exhale, Zach apparently gives up on being irritated. Good, Percy huffs as he sees Zach's hand descend, doing a bit of a "come hither" gesture, "Voltage tester, jackass?"

"I'm still looking for it, asshole." Percy retorted as he started to get more frustrated with the mess that was Zach's toolbox. There's zero sense of good organization - like, the tools are only broadly sorted by the type of tool. Screwdrivers are with screwdrivers, wrenches are with wrenches, et cetera; but even then it's still all chucked in willy-nilly. How does Zach work like this? How is he, let alone anyone he's working with, supposed to find anything in this chaos of a toolbox-?! "Oh, here it is." He went to give it to Zach, but just as his hand went to reach the rest of the way, Percy pulled it back to examine it further - for whatever dumb reason, he always mixes up stud finders and voltage testers. "Wait, I think I'm wr-"

Percy could almost hear Zach's eyes roll out of his head with how done he sounded, "What color is it?"

"Orange?" Percy says turns it over and around in his hands, looking for any and all identifying marks on the thing as he continues, "Sort of looks like a datatool, kinda? There's a red and a blue wire sticking out of the bottom-?"

"Yup, that's it." Percy finally hands the voltage tester to Zach - but instead of a thank you, he gets a little snide remark. "Stud finders don't have wires, y'know."

"I-" Percy scoffed, trying to look offended that Zach thinks he's that stupid - even if he is, in fact, that stupid. Even then, like- how did Zach know? "I know that-!"

"Then why is that whenever I ask you for one, you give me the other? You do it a lot."

It doesn't really matter what Percy says now, because anything he tries to say will just make it worse. But if you were to just glance over the two, could you really tell the difference that fast? Really? Honestly, probably. Definitely. Absolutely, 100%, you could. For one, a stud finder doesn't usually have any numbers on the front face, and the voltage tester very obviously has wires coming out of it; on top of that, the stud finder is significantly smaller due to the lack of all electrical crap a voltage tester needs to... y'know, test voltage? It's pretty easy to pick the two apart.

With all those thoughts in his head, Percy's face burned in embarrassment as he replied with maybe a twinge more hostility than he'd meant to imply, "Shut the fuck up, Zach - or I'll start another fire."

"Uh, no you won't."

Percy grins a little bit, "Yeah, fine, but I could - and I can do it better than I can help with this, obviously. I mean, really? If I really wanted to, there isn't much you can do to stop me."

"I could remind you that our daughter is in the building, though? I don't think she'd be a fan of being set on fire."

Percy's tongue clicks against the roof of his mouth, letting another beat of quiet pass before he replies, "You got me there, Zach. Y'got me there." Of course Percy wasn't really going to set the place on fire - not intentionally, anyway. Obviously. That would be stupid- no, it'd be beyond stupid. They're just fucking with each other. That's how they usually spoke to each other, too - constantly nagging and vaguely hostile but not really intending to actually hurt the other person. Maybe they did in the past, but they've come to at the very least tolerate each other's presence, for Ana's sake.

"Hey, catch-" Zach tosses the hunk of plastic down to Percy, who catches it with the grace and poise of an epileptic walrus - he would have been more graceful if he'd gotten a little more warning, I swear. Seriously though, Zach is such a brute sometimes. It's good, in some circumstances, but.. jeez, man. "I think we're done here."

"Oh, finally," Percy says as he puts the voltage tester back, folding the toolbox into itself to become more easily picked up. He stands up as he continues, "I was getting sick of this shit."

Zach scoffs as he climbs down the ladder, "I'm the one doing all the work." When he hits the floor, he starts to walk, wordlessly prompting Percy to follow.

"Yeah, but I'm the go-fer - the dumbest job in the world."

"How befitting, then, that it goes to you," Zach says, socking him in the shoulder playfully, "the dumbest man in the world."

Ouch.

"Ha-ha." Percy smiles back at him, but... No, really, that hurt. It usually wouldn't - it's Zach saying it, afterall - but with all the batshit stuff going on around him and everyone here asking what, exactly, he's thinking and why he's doing the things he's doing - like, why did he bring Ana here instead of leaving her with Zach? What the hell did he sign up for this for if he loves Ana like he says he does? Is he not aware of the risk? And who does he think he is, signing up for this with no previous military experience? Did he not know what the hell an NC was until he signed up or something? All that shit and more, just... buzzing around in his head lately, so yeah, being called the dumbest fuck on Earth stings, cause that's kind of how he feels right now. He knows that's not how Zach meant it, but- Ah, fuck, there he goes again. Brooding. Moping. Being stupid.

"Oh, uh- how's Ana, by the way?" Zach asks, pulling Percy from his own train of thought, "Is she, like, y'know, good? Bad? Is she adjusting well to the move? And she absolutely, for sure, has Bunny, right? Cause I keep checking over her room to make sure he wasn't left behind, and I couldn't find him, and I know she loves that thing to death-"

Percy laughs, more genuinely this time - he forgets that sometimes Zach can be just as smothering dad to Ana as he is, if not somehow worse. Plus, hey, a change of subject! That was very much needed. He wonders, briefly, if Zach is reading his mind or something. It feels that way. "Yeah," Percy replies, "she's alright, and she has Bonbon."

"Oh, he's Bonbon now?"

"Yep - has been for a little bit, actually."

"Oh," Zach says, a little softer. Sadder? Maybe? Before Percy can really ruminate on that one, Zach continues "I swear, she changes that plush's name crazy often. First it was Baba, then it was Baby, then it was Bernie, Basil, Bot, then it was Bastion, after that it's Brownie and Bunny, now it's Bonbon? God-"

"At least there's a battern- Uh-" Percy snorts - god, so many B's. It's bucking him up, now. "A pattern to how she names him."

Zach struggled to contain his little snicker, "Did you do that on purpose? God, you did, didn't you?"

"No, I didn't. Honest. Come on, my sense of humor isn't that bad, Zach! Really?"

"Really. It is."

"Pft, whatever," Percy playfully shoves at Zach's arm. He and Ana cringe and laugh together when he cracks his jokes, that's all that matters to him - whether anyone else finds it funny is a bonus! "But anyway, yeah. Yeah, Ana's good, has everything she needs to not go nuts-o in here."

Zach lets out a little sigh and a shrug, "Alright, if you insist."

...And again, something about the way Zach said that makes Percy wonder. Maybe it was his tone - that half-defeated sounding voice - maybe it was his expression - a slight grimace, but.. It made him think. Like, he already knew that Zach was against the idea of Ana coming to live on-base with him, but after the shitshow that happened in June? Well, you already know how he feels about that, and if you don't, here's a summary - Tough shit. You fucked up. Surely Zach was aware of that - Percy pitched a fit over it a couple times, afterall. She could've been whisked away never to be seen again, or straight up fucking died. Yeah, he's not taking the risk. Not again.

"Yeah, well," Percy sort of shrugs, "I do."

“Much like the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountains, there isn’t a lot to show out here. Settlements like Smith’s Rest have had to rely on what pilots they could scrap together and the generosity of strangers for as long as Alaskans have been surviving out here.”

As Graham led the group out of the transit station and into the snow he began explaining the situation as briefly as he could with the information he had.

“The Alaskan fauna have been growing in number as of the last few six or seven decades and the amount of capable pilots operating Alaska have minimized to unoptimal numbers. That’s without considering the scum who profit off murdering, stealing, or robbing people. Settlement defense is at an all-time low and that’s not even accounting for anti-corporate fearmongering. There is a lot going on underneath the snow and trees out here.”

Graham figured it was a fair enough answer, though another voice from the assortment of potential pilots arose faster than he expected. A follow-up question at that, as well.

“معذرت ميخوام. But I have a question regarding these threats. What would you consider an unacceptable action during an operation or on base? What lengths are you willing to go to achieve New Anchorage’s goals and your own? My previous employer was pretty ruthless and ordered us to do some unfavorable measures. I would like not to have that happen again.”

Graham thought about this question often because it had been one that came up with valiant cries of morality that many people had shot at him in the past; cries he had rejected entirely. The first part of the woman’s question was one that was often directed about how far was morally or ethically acceptable with things such as slavery, raiding, genocide, and so forth being accompanied with the conversation. While Graham viewed all of those things as bad he didn’t think so for the same reasons as his peers. It brought him back to a talk he had with the second member of the trinity back when he was still just a simple NC pilot... it had been after the Elysian War.

“That is a very large question.” He stated as he stepped outside to the white fuzz of a “mild” snowstorm before turning his head. “This obviously goes beyond simple insubordination and circumnavigation of authority or regulations.”


“If what you are asking is if I am going to turn this unit into a bunch of rapists, slavers, raiders, and thieves then the answer is most definitely not. However, let me make something abundantly clear to all of you. I don’t believe in children’s fantasies of ‘good’ and ‘evil’. I believe in the absolute principle of order. A concept that promotes excellence, professionalism, integrity, organization, and heart. I will tell you that I will do everything in my power that I can to make New Anchorage efficient with no empathy for fantasies of my officers. There is no place for it in my organization. None.”

He took a light breath, the cold air leaving his lips.

“If it requires me to be “unfair” than I will do it. If that scares you… then resign right here and now, and take your tail between your legs and get the hell off my base. I refuse to have pilots who get a little queasy around decision and shake when the cards are drawn.”

His brows narrowed as his turned head looked over the group in their entirety. If his response struck a nerve, then that was the intended reaction. He wanted to see what their expressions looked like with such a response. Despite his exaggerated sternness in the moment there was still no lie. He did not want people who second guessed themselves or New Anchorage. That was how people died for no good reason.

“So what of it? Are any of you rabble not worth your spit? Are any of you unable? Tell me now.”

The woman raised a brow but did not fire an immediate reply back, though her discomfort with his response was obvious.