[i]"Peezdets!"[/i] He exclaimed the frustrated and anxious man running around the cramp corridors of the damned carrier that seemed to be more of a maze. 

Every door, every room, every stair and everyone looked exactly the same, giving him the eerie feeling of running in circles in an endless limbo. He became to worried to actually stop and ask anyone for a bit of direction, not to mention he would utterly detest the moment one of the jackasses would make fun of his accent. He couldn't exactly remember how he trailed off from the rest of the group since he was following it loosely from behind. He pondered that they must have taken a sharp turn, but even then, he still would have noticed them going left or right. Panic started to take over his wits, thinking of the really bad first impression he would make for being absent for lunch, he could already hear them joking about how the Rusky and his Russian drawer of a plane lag behind due to "flawless" Russian engineering; the only thing that would really piss him off about the joke would be people calling him Russian. Pride suddenly shrunk to a pea in his chest and decided he should really ask for a hint that would lead him towards the mess hall, so he took a deep breath before he asked the first crewman he met in the next corridor which he had to carefully access in order not to bump his forehead in one of the pipes hanging above.

"Yo. Where the fucking mess hall at?" The whole sentence sounded off and amusing as it was spoken in a completely alien accent, the crewman at first thought that Dmitry was just some grunt impersonating someone. After the short moment of confusion passed away, the crewman grinned to the pilot and chortled, throwing his hands in his pockets.

"Well, okay, you're hungry and you're in the wrong part of the ship, man. You're one of the pilots from the island, right? C'mon, boss might be looking for you."

Dmitry was really surprised that the man didn't try to poke at him further about his accent, but instead, showed him that way towards his destination; it did worry him even more that someone was searching for him, most likely it was Scott. On the to wherever they had to reach, the man did try to start a conversation to make time pass, but the pilot did not feel like talking, which for some reason, helped keeping the crewman amused of this interesting figure. Dmitry couldn't tell if the man took him seriously and realized that he was a newcomer on the carrier or if he genuinely believed he was another member playing lost and stupid. The way to the meeting didn't seem much different to the other halls and rooms he passed through in his desperate quest to socialize and kill his hunger after a rough day in the air. After minutes of walking, Dmitry could see that these parts of the ship were much more active and populated with all sorts of people and soon enough, they reached the promised land.

"Thanksyou." He said in a monotonous voice, which seemed to pull out another chortle from the crewman moments before his face dropped, his back straightened and turned his body into a rigid plank, his right arm angled to salute someone behind Dmitry.

[i]Kurva blyat[/i] was all that he managed to think before he pivoted 180[sup]o[/sup] and mimicked the crewman's gesture, only to meet with a high-ranking officer that was not Scott. Dmitry's eyes wandered around the man's uniform to try to determine his rank and once he found out it was a general he was saluting, the pilot made sure he was standing extra-straight, to the point that he could feel his hair brush against the ceiling of the hall. He couldn't tell if the man even noticed the two as he just barely let his eyes take a short glance at their faces, but Dmitry noticed the plainness of his face, a certain plainness that almost seemed dangerous; the only feature that made him stand out was his missing eye he had no shame to show. Out of curiosity, he peeked inside the room, where indeed, was the entire squad, quickly recognizing their faces from before. Moments before the general would start the briefing, Dmitry quickly made his way inside and crammed himself somewhere in the back of the room where he still had space. He knew the general noticed the dumb clown this pilot was, but for some reason, he decided against scolding him for his insolence. The pilot sat tight and listened carefully, trying to absorb every bit of info in so he could form a large picture of the situation. The briefing was short and concise, he had a clear objective in his mind and he was ready to go into action again as soon as they were needed... though he didn't expect to be up again in two hours. He wasn't sure what to do in order to kill off the extra time, other than lunch.

The general headed off to tend to other most likely important matters, while Colonel Valentine did a quick recap of the mission. With that occasion, he wanted to make sure he would make his intentions clear to everyone in the room by pointing out what he expected of the team. Everyone then buggered off with their own business, the pilot barely making any real contact with anyone, but to him, it wasn't really a problem; he could do well without social contact for a long while, the only thing that worried him was that his lateness would make people doubt his usefulness and capabilities as a pilot. From the mass of pilots making their way out of the room, he picked the one he was most familiar to, Marciano, whose attention he caught with a friendly pat on the right shoulder. He knew the man was callsign Charnel, recognizing his voice from the comms.

"Charnel, I believe I owe a drink, da? I can't get you drunk now with the mission in two hours, but when we're done with that too, I make sure we drink until we won't need planes to fly, oke?"

He left the man with the thought of getting slammed after the mission and as Stalin went off to find the mess hall to get some food down, he saw a very peculiar figure for some reason he missed during the initial meeting on the flight deck; if his vision served him right, he could swear he saw a woman with cat-like ears retreating somewhere. He wanted to blame his imagination or blame it on some weird opportunistic optical illusion, but his memory could only accept the fact that one of the pilots had cat ears. Could it be Kat? That would be very appropriate, thought Dmitry. He did find the mess hall (not without help, of course) where he forced down some plastic-looking sandwiches and found some papers to read through and check some of the latest news in the world... from three years ago. Realizing he was reading whack, Dmitry felt compelled to rip one of the pages off and fold it into a paper plane in a design very specific to him: slim in the wings with a very sharp profile, the plane would build speed as it would descend from its short flight, but steady flight. He didn't have the courage to launch it while he was in the mess hall, but he kept the plane with him so he could play with it a little while later.

He honestly had no clue how he managed to waste two hours and do nothing other than wander around the ship without stopping to recollect and piece together today's events, but at least he started to work out a pattern of how the ship's lower decks interconnected. He found his Su prepped for take off, the only thing it missed was himself, so he made haste; just as he reached his jet, he saw the blast deflector rise to redirect the energy output from the Tomcat's twin engines. As Knight One shot for the skies, Dmitry spat out on the flight deck and drew another imaginary cross over his forehead, belly and his two shoulders; he hopped into his seat and strapped himself tightly and tested his fit by stretching his back and legs while his jet was carried over for takeoff. He lowered the canopy over his head and sealed it shut, then flicked his wrist and fingers around the endless buttons and switches in front of him in a reflex motion; with that, the monitors and displays came to life almost in tandem with the high-pitched whirl of the twin turbojet engines behind him.

"Stormcloud Tower, Stalin, ready on flight deck."

Once he was given the go, he lowered the flaps and increased thrust, approaching the lip of the carrier at a growing speed and once he was sure he would be clear off the flight deck, he slowly pulled the stick back to tilt his nose up slightly and successfully take off after a relatively short run. He built up a bit of speed before he would veer around and fall in formation with Knight One to avoid stalling the damned jet, but he managed to reach Heartbreak from behind and match his speed. He took a quick glance over his shoulder over to the carrier, a slim smile appeared as he now had a chance to take a proper look at the beauty of the carrier.

"Knight One, Stalin reporting in, ready to make some trouble."