[b]March 13th, 2014 Malta International Airport[/b] [b][color=00a651]Fuka Nakano[/color][/b] After that fucking shitshow, Fuka was glad to be back on solid ground. Getting back had been easy, with Lampedusa basically blown to bits the remaining idiots on the ground hadn't dared to tempt her into a strafing run. They had been well-supplied, but gear didn't equal training or skill. That said, skill didn't count for much if your gear kept catastrophically failing on you. Half of the birds had been taken out of action without a shot fired, and then two more dropped from the sky. Two injured and one dead in one operation against scruffy pirates? Awful. It wasn't her problem for the time being. She was alive and Rook was not, whether it was because she was the better pilot or the luckier didn't matter. After landing and changing clothes Fuka had made her way to Msida, her worn-out boots stomping down the pristine hallways. From what she heard Kat was the most battered between her and Heartbreak, so it was Kat that got the well-wishes. [color=00a651]"I heard you beat a hole in the instrument panel with your head. Glad you did more damage to it than it did you."[/color] She had never crashed before, and she was happy to leave that experience to other people. [b][color=6ecff6]Ximena Huang[/color][/b] Once upon a time, Ximena had thought herself fearless. She was smart and quick on her feet, capable of running circles around people in the field or the boardroom. Closing million dollar deals? Easy. Meeting with a double agent inside some guarded compound? Light work. Fear had been something other people felt, a victim's mindset she simply refused to entertain. But then she got older, more experienced, had more close calls. Time had stripped back her shielding like layers of paint, giving her a glimpse at the tender flesh below. Ximena was afraid of a lot of things, actually. She feared death, of course, but getting old terrified her. The thought of being caught and tortured by enemies abroad or back home made her stomach twist itself into knots, almost as much as knowing she had made her parents' lives much harder when she fled. Thinking about Zuhal filled her with an all-consuming anxiety, a mix of nervous rage from being betrayed and the abject horror of knowing that she had abandoned the one person she had felt safe with. These fears weren't new. They were just the most recent manifestations of things she had tried to ignore. Ximena had been afraid for the past decade, if not more. It's what made her such a good spy and a fantastic pilot. That said, she didn't actually enjoy the feeling. It drained her, made doing anything more than the motions an impossible task. Mitigation was best found in bottles and bedrooms of strangers, but those weren't always accessible. When Ximena couldn't medicate her way out of her issues, she turned to rituals, habits made meaningful by sheer repetition. Whenever she touched down at a new base, she took a shower and read the personnel files, and when possible, she did both at once. She slid on her shower shoes and dropped her work tablet in a plastic bag that used to hold toiletries and took up position directly under the head, the splash of water against tile droning in her ear. Reading about her coworkers signaled that it was time to mask up, like a five-minutes-till-opening-call backstage. By the time she had committed faces and names to memory she was already smiling crookedly, amused at the colorful cast she was with. ---------------------------------------- Someone had beaten her to the bedroom. The Singaporan, Yuna, was already unpacked and out of her flight suit, Ximena looking her over from behind her ever-present sunglasses. [color=6ecff6]"Hey Calico."[/color] she greeted casually, fishing in her pockets for a lighter. [color=6ecff6]"You trying to hit the town?"[/color] The faster she got started drinking the better. [center][b]Hours Later[/b][/center] [b][color=00a651]Fuka Nakano[/color][/b] Fuka had more experience in ground combat than most on the team, what with being a Ranger and all, but that didn't mean she liked doing it. Any situation that required a pilot pulling a longarm from the armory was a bad one. There was a reason Shattered had a separate security force, and if it was stretched so thin that the air jockeys had to play Rambo then they were already on the backfoot. Peacenik didn't enjoy being surrounded by POGs with guns, quite frankly. She didn't relish trusting her life to someone who might never have been shot at. Dogfighting and house-clearing weren't in the same ballpark; they weren't the same fucking game. But there was nothing to be done. Someone had sabotaged their planes and they had to be cleared out. Listening to Heartbreak gave her flashbacks. Unscrupulous criminal elements with heavy weapons and too much cash, locals overwhelmed and reaching out for assistance, bribed support staff making her life harder, it was Mexico all over again. Maybe she'd lose the other arm. [color=00a651]"Boss, this whole thing reeks. If they got to our ground crew they could be paying off anyone. I think we should assume our security is compromised until we can prove otherwise."[/color] Wunderkind opened his mouth, earning him a glare. Fuka looked over the kid and saw his red face and white knuckles, not exactly the cool head one wanted walking into a firefight. Again she mentally cursed POGs and POGkind, those necessary evils that she appreciated but wanted far away when shit hit the fan. [color=00a651]"Put it this way:"[/color] she said cooly, hoisting her M110 over her shoulder. [color=00a651]"Handle anyone who's a threat. You go farther than that, I'll handle you."[/color] There was nothing more to say, nor the time to say it. Gunfire broke out and instincts kicked in just like over Lampedusa, Fuka dropping into low cover and taking aim at the building. She saw a torso draped in an ammo vest, a mouth opened to shout a warning-a burst of red dust as she put one through his forehead. Her second target was dashing for cover, spraying wildly with her Uzi as she did so. Fuka fired twice, one shot going wide but the other striking home. Two down. She wasn't going to lay down suppressive fire or chop it up in close quarters with her marksman's rifle. Fuka stayed back, letting others draw heat as she picked off targets of opportunity. [b][color=6ecff6]Ximena Huang[/color][/b] Impressively, this was probably the worst introduction to a flight team Ximena ever had. Sabotuers in the mechanic bays? A crew of them? What, did Westerners not do background checks? At least her new pals were amusing. There was the preteen with the angry eyes and the look of someone who bought guns to brandish in bars (Brightspark, a name that was either sarcastic or stuck through bribery) and his big angry babysitter (Peacenik, rather fitting for a kill-crazy Yankee), both of which seemed fun to pester in their own ways. [color=6ecff6]"Oh don't fault the boy for wanting to play with his food a little."[/color] she snickered. [color=6ecff6]"A killer like him, we should be grateful he's taking it out on the enemy.[/color] She lagged behind somewhat, in part because she was lugging an LMG and belts of ammo, but once the shooting started Jefe got right to work She slid into cover alongside Calico, bullets bouncing off the shipping containers as she took a moment to steel herself The kitty-cat had the right idea but the wrong weapon, Ximena setting up the bipod and letting the SAW rip Immediately the tempo of the fight changed, the cobbled-together small arms drowned out by the chatter of proper machine gun fire. [color=6ecff6][i]Good thing I didn't put the suppressor on.[/i][/color] She paused to let the barrel cool, shouting as she did so. [color=6ecff6]"Make it easy and surrender while you can! We got enough ammo out here to cut the walls down!"[/color] [@Finetales] [@Letter Bee] [@Rhona W]