The world-famous English breakfast tea didn't impress Farid that much; he still thought that a cup of tea back in his home country was a lot better. He knew, however, that he would need to accustom himself to those stuffs for the foreseeable future since his deployment was for fighting a war front and not for a joint exercise. He still finished his breakfast, and after that he took a look at the runway. It was quite unbelievable that they were recruited from various countries to replace squadrons of Typhoons and Tornadoes. Noting that most of the pilots in the newly-formed Excalibur Squadron flew legacy aircraft, he thought that the UNF must have been running short of aircrafts. Will we manage to survive up there?, he thought.
The presence of numerous people from numerous nationalities inside the mess hall helped Farid a little bit to lessen the effects of the British winter, which was just beginning. He was walking around the hall to prevent the cold from catching up with him. With temperatures averaging 5 degrees Celcius going to be in the place all winter long, and for a man whose city's temperature hardly ever drops below 15 degrees Celcius he will need some time to adapt with the climate.
A short while later, an air-raid siren rang loud, which was definitely not a drill in a war situation like this. Farid ran to the flight operations building and put on his full pilot gear as soon as possible. He then rushed to his aircraft, an upgraded F-20 Tigershark widely marketed to the Third World as a "4.25th generation fighter", a term he didn't want to be fooled by. He inspected his plane, and put extra attention on the loadout because the missiles made it to the plane before he did. Noting that the weapons loaded were all air-to-air, with no drop tanks, he concluded that the mission was preventing the rise of the old British saying that the bomber will always get through.
Once he finished the inspection, Farid got inside the cockpit, which would be one of the few places to find warmth throughout the winter. He then started the engines of the aircraft, waiting for takeoff clearance.