The morning came and Mark Johanson got up and got dressed.  They would be heading into Tel Aviv today to help the local resistance take out a local Mothership, via an experimental supersonic craft that used a sensor-jamming device to hide from the alien sensors.  Unfortunately it was a prototype, which delegated them to being the one team that flew into dangerous situations under the enemy's nose.

After getting showered and suiting up, he grabbed his gear and headed towards the hanger.  The base was built into the side of one of the Alps mountains, so they wouldn't be far from their target when they left.  When he got to the hanger he noticed that Hatsuki was already there.  "Hatsuki-san" he said. "How long have you been here?"

"About three hours," she said.  "I wanted to be on hand in case they moved up our schedule."  She had a habit of showing up early for missions, due to her early trainer's habit of waking her up several hours before the mission and sending her out without all of her gear.  She had even taken the room closest to the hanger so she could get there even sooner.  It was one of the many habits that she had, but, as it was merely annoying, not dangerous, he had didn't bother to challenge her on it.

"So," Mark said, "While we wait on the others, want to work on your mental armor?"

"Very well," she said, her face hardening due to her concentration, "try and enter."  Mark touched the side of her head, as physical contact helped him focus on one mind, and dove at her mind.  He instantly hit a wall that felt like it was made of rubber.  While most telepaths would tell you to create a solid wall with your thoughts, he found that the rubber wall tended to resist quick attacks the best, which is what the aliens tended to do when finding human resistance.  For sustained attacks, though, they could harden the wall to resist it better.  He searched for holes and weak points, but every time he found one she reinforced it before he could make his way through. They would continue this until he made it through or another team member got here.