[i]"Thanks, everyone. You're right; I am Knight One, otherwise known as Heartbreak, or Captain Valentine. This here's Razorblade, or Lieutenant Commander Carter. I'm your CO in the Black Knights; welcome t' the show. That was some mighty fine flyin' I saw up there, especially accountin' for the hasty scramble an' all too."[/i]
 
An urge had befallen on Rodriguez to comment on the fact that he had not engaged into actual dogfight aside from tailing a running bandit and the majority of his flight time was purely devoted the patrol of Thunder Island for several hours. But he had resisted this social desire in favor to maintain silent professional stance as he listened Captain Valentine’s loose briefing to organize everyone on the ground. He maintained his stance with his hands grasped together behind his back as he continued to listen to Heartbreak all while at the same time resisting another urge to look at one of the pilots in the group whom has a pair a feline-like ears sprouting out of her head; he could not tell by the brief glances if they were real or not.

[i]"Maintenance'll take care of yer planes fer now. We got a briefing scheduled with General Thomas - Thunderbolt One - but I ain't aware of the time and location other than 'on the ship', so I'd suggest y'all fall out to the mess hall, get some chow and relax a little. I'll come join you shortly when I get the scoop on the meetin' location, and we'll get a... 'informal meet' in too, so we can actually get to know who the heck each other are. ..Hate ta say it, but I'm as thrown inta this as you are. I did have notes and slides an' all that crap... but they're not much use right now under three feet of water, or burnt to a crisp. Anyhow - Razorblade'll show ya the way. If you'll excuse me, I gotta go rescue our Japanese pilot from bein' thrown overboard".[/i]

Rodriguez eyed his new CO as the man went off to the hanger to calm an already developing case with one of his eventual squadron mates. He admitted hearing about a female pilot stirring up a storm with the maintenance staff on her plane; he also has to admit that he wasn’t the one sorting things out either, especially getting into the kind of verbal brawl that can lead to a throwing of a punch or a wrench. The latter was something he was afraid of more and the folks at maintenance had plenty of them.

After Valentine had left the scene, he and the other pilots followed St. Helen to the carrier’s mess hall. Rodriguez had lived on carriers for quite some time before during the previous war. He surmised that he had operated on at least two carriers before operation control became an airfield as Allies pushed inland after securing several beachheads. But this carrier however seemed different; it was massive and was truly the physical manifestation of a floating city. The facts rang in confirmation as the group navigated their way through the many hallways and descending ladders into the metal depths of the metal colossus until that arrived at the mess hall which apparently was as roomy as a five star restaurant. Seemed rather clean like one too, especially with the chaos still ensuing outside the ship was still in a state of combat readiness.
There was a surprising variety of food displayed neatly for everyone to get a piece of though Rodriguez unfortunately had his fill much earlier in the early hours and thus grabbed a few items; a couple a bagels with a few tiny containers of cream cheese and two cups of caffeine enriched coffee. Heavens knows that he desperately needed the joe considering how long he was in the air for and what had disturbingly went down earlier. Sad really that had his patrol gone smoothly without an orbital strike to speak of; he was guaranteed several hours of sleep before resuming operational duties.
 
[i]"So, hell of a first day as a squadron, right...."[/i]

“Hell of a first day indeed, ma’am.” replied Rodriguez as he took his seat and sip of his coffee at the same time while the rest of his new squadron came in, assuming their own place at the table and replying in kind to Razorblade.

For a few minutes, St. Helen, seemingly with nothing officially productive to do had begun talking to assembled squadron about she and Heartbreak how they came to know each other during their initial time with Thunderbolt Black and how they got paired into the same aircraft. She then went into detail about her time during the war along with her partner’s individual roles. Rodriguez could compare his service in the same manner as he had operated in similar missions throughout the conflict. Going with what they worked through, he was sure he would get along with this pair just fine.

[i]"Hello, campers. Good news, our briefing isn't for an hour, so that gives us a short while to get our heads together. The briefing is in the main briefing room on deck 5. Gives us a chance to sign our flight gear over and change out of it, and we can get a brief introduction to each other, and I can let you know a little about me, too. Then I guess it'll be time for the bigwigs' address to us all. Finish up your chow, and we'll get on it."[/i] 

Rodriguez watched as his CO got his own grub and placed himself at that table as well.

[i]"Hell of a day, but at least we got breakfast. Glad you're all in one piece too. Some of those landings were mighty impressive."[/i]

“Carriers have been like a second home to me for awhile. Glad to know I can still land on one.” Rodriguez commented before how downed another sip of coffee. “Though I must admit that this boat here is a lot bigger than I anticipated; I’m personally a little bit more used to the with the flat-tops used in the war.”