[center][h3]LTJG ROY KILMER, CALLSIGN [color=ff4136]"COMMIE"[/color][/h3][/center] [hr] [color=ff4136]<>[/color] The smooth hiss and chunk of the clamps locking his ride to the plate were, by contrast, a welcome bit of haptic feedback for the lax, loose American— confirmation that Boeing's new toy would survive reentry with [i]all[/i] of its operational capacity intact, as opposed to Roy Kilmer's idea of "enough operational capacity for me to make it work". Bad news about their [i]production models[/i] had earned intrepid folks shallow graves over the centuries, for Christ's sake. Commie was a daredevil behind the controls, a label he was always too honest to really downplay or shy away from, but he too had his limits. They tended to start popping up once you hit "two bullets to the back of the head and dumped in an unmarked grave on Ganymede" territory. With ample time to kill on the order of two minutes, he rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck, and clicked himself into the idle chatter that was special operations comm lines before things really got hot. [color=ff4136]<>[/color] he quipped, the Shrike offering a a shrug of its MAS scale shoulders as though it were just the man in a suit. [color=ff4136]<>[/color] He fell silent, letting the rest of the team imagine the wry leer on his face while Vulture carted out his old pre-drop standbys. The man with the horn was the boss, of course, but even he had nerves when the operation reached scales like this— it was the little traditions that kept you anchored. The senior members of the unit all knew that well enough— and had their own ways of joining in. Roy was hardly any different. The familiar pattern of preflight checks danced out from his fingers and onto the controls, running through ailerons, verniers, retros, sensor suites, while he rejoined the fray as a liquid mercury echo to Sagan's bellowing tones. [color=ff4136]<