"Ah do net get me started on the lady time. Sometimes I wish I had an early night, but then again... would not want to disappoint the ladies no?"

 Again the Aussie chuckled,..Ok  I'm askin'  you Blokes out there, since i'm the new guy?.... Does he mean he disappoints  by showing up?..or Not showing up?.. I'm a wee bit fuzzy on that!

  As he  went over his  screens  for the 1ooth Time, listening to chatter from his flight as they waited to see if they would launch,  Shadow Asked  Q

 ..Hey?  Q.. we got all the Pilots  in the ready room?  I mean.. there isn't  any bloody  bggies out there.. but  ya never know? Mabbe yry an'  'ave them in their suits?

"Looking at the pilots here, I can tell you we have already suited up mon Lieutenant. Let us hope we do not need to launch, no?"

    Yeah? well  Yuri just told me  an' Kelly to launch...  Wild  Bill and Swede  will launch in an hour, and we'll come back... Between  you and  Yuri? set up  pairs to come out  every hour  so  stretch thier legs.. unless Yuri or the CAptain  'ave  new orders?....

 ..This way we'll all get some flight  time out 'ere..

Touching down, Timochev is out of his Hellcat the moment the engines die, immediately heading to the tail and starting to remove the panneling. Soon Kong-We Lu and two other engineers join him.
"I want her fixed asap," he yells over the noise of the idling engines of Dragon three and four.

[From the Barracks]

Mariko stepped into the Flight Ops area of the hangar but stayed out of the way of the work crews who were buzzing around the fighters. She had an idea of what the Commander looked like so she kept an eye out for him. She waited for him to head her direction before coming to attention.

"Sir, Lt. Koizumi reporting as ordered."

"Who?" Timochev stated bluntly as he paced by Mariko, his attention on the jets parked on the jumpspots. "Ordered by whom?"
He made his way to the soda machine along the wall, grabbing himself a 115 year old coke.
"Forgive me, but nobody informed me of another addition to the flightlist. You never trained with us either, so I am going to assume you are a late addition to this mission. Not a problem as it is, but seeing as we are currently on hold to scramble, I have little time to get you acqainted with the rest." He downed the soda entirely in just a few swigs, tossing the empty can in a bin close by.
"I suggest for now you go to ops, look for the Frenchman Quatorze. Tell him he should get you up to speed as soon as possible."

"Ordered by the Captain, sir. I spoke to him after awakening. I'm qualified on the J-15 and the Hellcat with excellent ratings in both." She followed the Commander.

"Very good, sir. I'll look for him and give him your instructions." She snapped to attention again.

"Good, he's likely in prep at the moment. They scrambled us, no idea why, but i'm betting we will find out soon enough," Timochev gave a half salute as he returned to his fighter.
"We will talk more when things calm down miss Koizumi!"

"I look forward to it, sir!" She turned smartly on a heel and headed over to the prep area, again remembered from her tour of the ship and studying maps whilst waiting in her quarters though there was one slight problem...she had no idea what Quatorze looked like.

She stopped one of the enlisted running by. "Excuse me but can you direct me to a gentleman by the name of Quatorze?"

"He's the pirate looking guy, over in flight opps!" the ensign shouts out as he runs by, dragging a toolcart behind him.

Barracks--->

Hanger 2

Another short ride in the transit finds two armored and armed soldiers, Sgt Appigan and Cpl Schepenaers.

Appigan waves then moves to the hanger staff.

"Sgt Appigan reporting as ordered by Major Ascott".

He takes out his handheld to show the email from the Major.

"I know I'm early. We want to do our own flight checks on the bird. Just got out of cryo myself. It would be good for me to go over the controls the flight procedures. Anyone hungry?"

He takes out the last apple from Vanderbeek, having eaten the other two.

A young Argentinian engineer points over at the first Rhino shuttle in the line.
"Best take that one," he shouts over the noise of the idling Hellcat fighter engines one bay down. "It's been out this morning, she had a shakedown already."

Schepenaers nods, making a quick round of the craft, looking for any obvious defects. Then he manually rotates the eight barrels of the main dorsal goalkeeper, checking if they turn smoothly. Satisfied, he then opens up the back ramp.

Appigan nods, "Thanks."

He was glad to be assigned an already flown craft. The news of mutiny made him nervous about sabotage just about everywhere. He smiles hiding the thought that most of the problems wouldn't be sabotage just gear that was stored over a century ago.

"A century."

He stops walking. In all his "deal with the immediate" only now was it dawning on him how much they had overslept. Squeezing his eyes he gets back to "deal with the immediate".

"Alright. Just because it flew earlier doesn't mean it was checked by us. Run software diagnostics and look under the hood. We should also check her emergency stores. Check the bloody expiration dates too."

Walking around the craft he runs his hand along the control surfaces checking them for give. He'd follow up by entering the cockpit and running the onboard diagnostics.

"A century overdue."
This message was last edited by the player at 19:47, Sat 28 Oct 2017.

"Thats a simple one, the entire craft hasn't been serviced in a century Apple," Will replied through the comms. "Although I must admit there's hardly any dust anywhere."

Diagnostics show the craft in good condition. There's some faulty sensors here and there, a rusty wing flap only needed in an atmosphere, and one of the landing wheels needs a whole lot more air, but otherwise Appigan notices no problems.

"I checked the hatches and the ramp, they are all okay. Securing lines are fine too, someone oiled them recently. Two of the vacu-suits are short on air, and I'm kind of worried about these shells for the goalkeeper. Once we get back i'm reloading all the belts by hand just to make sure. All in all I think she's good to go. What shall we name her?"

Out the cockpit window Geoffry saw Schepenaers waving at him, holding a bucket of white paint and a brush. So far major Ascott wasn't anywhere to be seen.

Appigan hummed as the diagnostics came up.

"I agree on her flight status. That is, serviceable though needs improvement. I wonder if we even have enough unthawed for a proper ground crew. You weren't planning any hot dates lately were you?"

Appigan takes a breath when asked for a name.

"Name? Actually the name I've been thinking of is for you. Need a short simple callsign for comms. I was thinking Sheppard. There was also 'Wild Bill' but that was an American and you sounded South Americain. Some of them didn't like the USA very much.

As for the ship? I don't know. I'm Canadian. Maybe Bucky Beaver or Rocky the Flying Squirrel. Ah, I wouldn't want to disgrace Rocky. Let's go with Bucky Beaver"

Appigan walks through the cargo area of the shuttle on his way to come down the ramp.

"Chances are we'll be checking out the other ship. We need to sort out those spacesuits. We might even be bringing some folks back. Lets get some more suits. You and I at least should have full EVA packs stored on board. I'd like an air top up in our landing wheel. That's just not healthy."

He looks around the hanger. At full crew there would be a dozen or more people just in the hanger alone. Today it was far from that.

"How about a three course turkey dinner too."

He laughs.

"Are you flying this shuttle?"

An asian woman, short, covered in grease, comes up to Appigan, another engineer and a toolbox in her wake.
"Bridge say we send shuttles. One and Five. Rest in need of desperate love."

The technician with her deploys the tool cart, then systematically checks the shuttle's exterior.
Meanwhile 'Sheppard' is chalking a name on the side of Rhino One.

Appigan notices that further up in the line-up, Dropship 4 is missing.

"Yes ma'am" says Appigan, "Call sign Apple, shuttle pilot and combat medic. My gunner there is Sheppard. I hope you're our ground crew. Everyone's short handed I know. Hell I was in cyro until today. We're already pitching in. We just ran diagnostics so you can download those direct."

He gestures forward in the craft to the flight computers.

"My top hot point is a flat landing gear. Needs air and might have a reason for a slow leak. Otherwise a rusty areo flight shouldn't be needed today. Sensors here and there unsurprisingly need adjustment or replacement. Expecting we'll be going over to the other ship I need a bunch of EVA gear and general suits. Maybe a cutting torch, prybar and jaws of life in case we get tasked to do search and rescue. I can go haul those over while you work up the boat. Sound good?"

Appigan clearly wasn't afraid to get his hands greasy. He also respected that specific professions are better at certain tasks. He was a pilot. Sure he could do minor work but he's not a hanger tech.

The absence of Dropship 4 was barely noticed by Appigan. So many reasons why it would be away or even still in storage.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:38, Sun 29 Oct 2017.

"I not work your boat. I chief engineer. Just here to check up on who flies what. Your engineer one of shuttle engineers, not fighters." Kong-We replied, somewhat irritated. She seemed to have little patience with pilots, especially those that were not part of her combat fighter detachment.
"Your engineer Alfonso. He over there." She points at the young technician meticulously working the exterior of the Rhino. The man looked up briefly, sending a half salute Appigans way.

Hellcat 21, one of the back-up ships meant as a spare in case one of the original combat ready 20 broke down, was quickly enrolled into service by the engineer assigned to Mariko.
As she ran her pre-flight checks Yamamoto assisted her, as much to see how she did, as to make sure she was ready as soon as possible.
"Commander Timochev will assign you to a wing if we need to get out there. So far its only Dragon Flight running patrols, for another half hour at least, and we will have to wait if they send out any shuttles any time soon. hangar 2 is getting pretty busy, so I assume they will."


Doing her checks Mariko notices some oil stains near the kerosine feeds to engine two. Most likely one of the tubes has decayed with age and is leaking. Nothing too important though as in space the Hellcats run on their fusion engines, but something that does need looking after if they need to fly in an atmosphere.

In reply to Tech Sergeant Kong-we Lu (msg # 130):

Facing with a smile to the Tech Sergeant he gives a nod.

"Sorry."

His Canadian accent clearly spoken. The announcement plays of the new restaurant.

"I just unthawed and was ordered to flight duty. Haven't even cracked open my personal locker.  Perhaps you could give me a run down on who is who over dinner at the new eatery?"

“I need to put a repair order in for this leak to the number two engine. Otherwise outside checks are good.” She climbs into the cockpit and pulls out the maintenance report and turns her pad on, bringing up the check sheet. She hits a few switches and brings the bird up on batteries and starts a full diagnostic.

At Apple's suggestion of dinner Kong-We's face turns to shock, then disgust, and then into a laugh.
"Not a chance marine," she mocks as she moves over to the next shuttle.

Sheppard cannot avoid a chuckle of his own as he shoots APpigan a knowing wink.
"Women eh? God's best invention, right after the twin linked gatling." His roaring laughter fills the hangar bay.
"Heads up," he then states, shaking his head in the direction of the turbolifts.

Followed by a detachment of marines, Major Tom Ascott enters bay 2, fully geared up and packed for battle. His marines, twenty in total, are much the same. Full body armour, helmets, rebreathers, locked and loaded SA-80Xs. In a quick march they approach the shuttles.
As the marines halt Ascott steps up the load ramp and on to the cockpit.
"Are you Appigan?" he inquires.

***

Mariko's Hellcat starts up smoothly, despite having been dormant for over a century. All the dials and gages read normal, the engines purring like a big cat before a hunt.
The entire vessel vibrates with anticipation, eagerness to get out into the vast expanse and play.
Over the comms she can hear the discussions held by Dragon flight. They are working to check every inch of the CS-3 wreckage, reporting everything they see.

To Mariko's left another Hellcat takes its place on the launch pad. Its the number 13.
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:00, Wed 01 Nov 2017.

Appigan nods his head with a smile enjoying the moment of banter.



"Well what she will remember is the very first time I ever saw her I had the courage to ask her out. Puts me ahead of you doesn't it?"

Appigan laughs, far from taking himself seriously. Men learned a long time ago to count the 'yes' answers and not fret over the multitude of 'no'.



"Sir. Yes sir. Sgt Appigan. Callsign Apple. Sheppard, the techs and I have been prepping the Bucky Beaver. Is our mission going to be search or recovery from the Vasco?"
This message was last edited by the player at 20:39, Wed 01 Nov 2017.