[center][h3]LTJG ROY KILMER, CALLSIGN [color=ff4136]"COMMIE"[/color][/h3][/center]
[hr]
[code]"General Quarters, General Quarters. All hands to battle stations. I repeat: General Quarters. General Quarters..."[/code]

[center][b]BOEING PHANTOM WORKS
[sub]RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT[/sub]

STARTING SHRIKE MAINFRAME...

PILOT PROFILE CONFIRMED: LTJG ROY KILMER (WHITELISTED)

LOADING PLUG-INS...

INITIALIZING...

DATA FOUND...

VERIFYING UPLINK...

SYSTEM ONLINE[/b][/center]

Elsewhere in the hangar bay, live video feed that had once been projected onto the hangar bay doors had been abandoned in the tumult that came with the call to arms overhead. Playoff season back on Earth. It had made for a fitting background noise to the "sports bar" atmosphere von Brandt's poker games always took, and a welcome distraction after his first three hands claimed their first victim— the man exiled from the table the very same whose beloved bomber jacket and aviators rested atop the abandoned phone, muffling the video feed as much as the commotion of the scrambling pilots and ground crew alike had drowned out the audio.

The owner in question of all that abandoned property rolled his neck, a snug fit within the cockpit of the 7th squadron's "Christmas gift" from Boeing. It was a good thing that he'd really broken the new bird in with their training exercises the preceding couple months— while he was a damn good pilot, getting used to the space and peripherals he had to work with was paramount. Even he made no bones about how little he cared for the idea of leaving the boat for a furball before he knew how movement felt, let alone maneuvering. Even as one hand slicked back straight blonde hair to pull down the helmet of his flight suit, the other danced along the controls, calibrating, flipping circuit breakers, rotating his control surfaces while the comms uplink took that extra second it always did to reconcile the training data his testbed was collecting in the background with the 5th fleet's encrypted channels.

[code]> Reactor: Online_
> Life Support: Online_ 
> Flight Response Systems: Online_
> Weapon Systems: Online_[/code]

His ground team and he had done a good bit of work on the verniers this go around— he was excited to see how well he could handle a wider thrust correction cone. He had half a mind for shelving the analytics while he was at it, if only to spare him those extra seconds it demanded on startup before he was ready to launch— but even then, four years serving under Commander Kodos had instilled a pretty accurate shot clock in his noggin for cockpit warmup. By his count, 54 seconds since the announcement had come over the P.A. Kind of slow, given how close he had been already. He opened comms—

[color=pink]"Hah! Fuck you Hex!"[/color]

[color=blueviolet][b]"DAMMIT!"[/b][/color]

And immediate feed spilled into his helmet, filling his ears with a surround-sound experience of the two squadmates he'd spotted scrambling into the hangar while his optics had roared to life, casting the mechanics of his ground crew and their finishing touches in a brassy orange glow. For their part, they were as used to the bickering as the pilot some 27 feet up, and took no pause before waving him the all clear. Among their number was the unmistakable all-white of their recent addition to the ranks from Boeing, a package deal with the new ride that had a heart attack any time he learned what exactly went on in here after-hours. Roy had long stopped telling him fro that reason. The man raised a hand to his ear—

[color=7ea7d8]<<[/color]Kilmer, I swear to God Above, if you're leering at me like that because you're getting [i]ideas[/i]—[color=7ea7d8]>>[/color]

[code]> All Calibrations Complete
> All Systems Nominal
> Standby for Launch[/code]

With an electronic snap, the radio feed switched to ATC as the sleek MAS's head moved along, eyeing its heavier peers. response was good across the board, and time was short— their sudden shift in vector would only have the Coalies caught with their pants down for so long. His hands took a mere fraction of a second to rest on the controls, feeling the power of the reactor at his heart flowing through the wiring, through the hull itself. This was the moment he always made sure to share with his chariot— just them, and whatever god or demon of war smiled upon the battlefield they would wade into that day. A shared prayer for good hunting, good fortune, and good understanding between them. [color=ff4136][i]Look alive, sweetheart. This one's for real.[/i][/color]

<<[color=ff4136]Tower, 101-5. Systems green, Commie ready for launch.[/color]>>

As pilots went, he was fittingly old-school over the radio— clear-voiced, frosty as it came, smooth and swaggeringly calm even as the doors opened up to reveal the bedlam awaiting them. A cultural holdover anyone from aerospace could recognize, going as far back as radio and aircraft themselves. Any military pilot you could name made a point of sounding as crisp and professional as a man or woman could once the mic was hot. As he flicked over to the 101st's channel, he smirked to himself as he caught the tail end of the Commander's speech. Poor old boy had to have been sweating the new kid getting thrown straight into [i]this[/i] mess— to say nothing of how much faith Rabbit and Hex must have inspired. It was a good thing they'd each gotten their pounds of flesh early, really.

Of course, there was an elephant in the room a hair under six feet tall and with his own track record for stacking up maintenance hours that was probably being spoken to that he was ignoring, but... 

Y'know. 

One problem to worry about at a time. 

He opened transmission, finally presented with the lull he'd been waiting on.

<<[color=ff4136]Commie, up and ready. Sorry to worry you, Boss, I figured I'd just let everyone get it out of their systems while I ran preflight.[/color]>>