[h3] A few days earlier[/h3]

The Flats were rather quiet that morning, a sort of silence that would send creepy crawlies up one's fur should they stare too long at the glistening horizon until the complete absence of background noise would drive them insane. Patricia couldn't explain to herself why there seemed to be very little activity, save for the usual vehicles rolling around the base, blocks of trainees jogging their hearts out and a patrol strolling around with enough enthusiasm to yawn and fall asleep while walking. Although she had been busy with personally babysitting a bunch of pilots just enough to distract her from boredom, she couldn't help but notice weird feelings creeping her out from the moment she woke up that morning. She allowed extra long breaks that day so that she could regain her wits after loosing her patience quicker than ever, but the main reason for her patience burning up so quick was different; so different that she couldn't put her finger on it. It couldn't be that she was going more and more eager for the Parvan's Claw to make its approach for the base, there was still roughly a week left before they would pack their stuff and head towards the Antaria Flats. She and her superior, colonel Harper, were some of the few people who knew of the landcruiser's trajectory and somewhat secret reinforcements supply; it seemed that the 101[sup]st[/sup] had lost quite a number of GEAR pilots during a skirmish and needed some better troops to replace the lost ones.

The thoughts of seeing him warmed her and gave her some more strength to pull through the day, chalking off the number of days left until the rendezvous with the cruiser in her head. Seeing a personal message in her inbox made her smirk as her slim finger tapped the touchscreen of the PADD, but that smirk quickly faded as she examined the eerie content of the message.

[i]1993142  00010  131  00  142  00  551  00  155  00  144  00  412  00  555  00  108  00  178[/i]

She couldn't find any logical pattern within the message in her initial attempts, suspecting that he had encrypted the message somehow using some sort of algorithm unbeknownst to her; but since he did send that message in the first place, she realised that he would expect her to crack it before his arrival. As soon as she placed the PADD beside her so she could stand up and stretch, she fell on the floor in the very next instance, waking up to a burning sensation on the right side of her face and a sharp pain cutting her right leg in the thigh; she groaned as she tried to recover from the fall and as soon as she tried to put some weight on her hurting leg, she realised that it went completely numb: she couldn't feel her own weight, she couldn't feel the pants, the floor beneath, warmth, it almost felt as though the leg wasn't there. Lucky her, there was no one around to see her stumble and fall, then clumsily pull herself back up on her seat, waiting for a while to recover. The weird sensation that followed her through that day had been replaced with emptiness, which was slowly replaced with dread. It all came to her without really knowing why, which worried her deeply.

[h3]Present Day[/h3]

Her eyes were closely following the landcruiser's treads as it made its approach to dock at the base, having a rather good view over the approaching vessel from her own separate bunk. The gargantuan piece of machinery looked as tired and rusty as her whole musculature after so many days of training the recruits, every fibre in her body tense and giving off that satisfying ache of a good workout. Maybe back in the days, that thing had some decency in its design and integrity, but it looked like an old fart of an ugly car to her right now. She did not want to start worrying about the whole technological incompatibilities between the newer GEAR models and the docks inside that wheeled hangar, but she could imagine the kind of mess the poor technicians had to clean up and sort out. The cruiser inched closer and closer, to the point she could already see the nuts and bolts holding the hull together and once the main hangar door seemed to crack open, Patricia woke up from her semi-dormant state and stood up from her desk, rearranging the fur on her face where she had rested her head against her fist. She did not want to see the inside of the machine, but there was no choice.

She sighed deeply, then, proceeded to tie her long, flowing onyx hair into a stylish, but military acceptable bun she hid under a carefully placed officer's navy beret with a distinctive spade-shaped patch depicting a dagger punching through a skull crossed by two lightning flashes. She grabbed her thick PADD and a magnetic pen before she stormed down flights after flights of stairs until she reached the ground floor, then she rushed over to the ramp heading out to make contact with the Claw with long strides. As she approached, she spotted a few of the recruits she supervised for that last week eager to to occupy their own spots on the ride to hell; Patricia blew an ear-piercing whistle with the help of her thumb and index fingers.

"Ten-HUT! Ya'll better make a good impression in front of colonel Blade or I'll send your sorry arses back to The Grinder and have ya'll become fucken chefs. Col. Blade's one of us, so you'd better stop looking like miserable mongrels and show him a new generation of Spec Op agents looks like. A'ight, game face on, kids, let's move!" Her voice betrayed her young age, but her tone was still serious enough not to make her look like an overgrown child; she knew she didn't look quite the part, but she preferred to let her actions and reputation speak about her instead of looks alone.

Her head shot back towards the bay, dread gnawed again at her throat as she could already see the inside walls of the old hunk of metal, thinking that he must have walked along those walls and up those catwalks. She swallowed down a painful knot as she could finally see the bay wide open, GEAR docks mostly empty and only a handful of crewmen running around; up front stood the colonel himself, an aged, sly fox that had experience etched all over his face, accompanied by a younger red panda officer that still looked as stunning as the last time Patricia saw her. The feline looked to her right, then to her left, before she finally walked over the connecting ramps to salute the colonel and his assistant, making sure to look as sharp and confident in her moves as ever. She had to rehearse her introduction a few times in her mind, but she felt that she wouldn't stumble on her words yet.

"Colonel Blade. XO Jacquo. It is good to see you both arrive safely, considering what you have been through. Our facility's prepared to give your tin box a makeover and add no less than six new pilots, including me, to replace the lost ones." She said, nodding her head only slightly. Her eyes kept darting left and right, waiting for something to happen, waiting for a miracle.

"They've made it through The Grinder pretty well and I personally vouch for their talent and capabilities; sure, they're a handful of misfits: the youngest is 22 years old, Vega's his name. Comes from a military family, so he can't be half-bad. We've got a pilot from the Xiguang Principality... Hongli Lang; different culture, aye, but they speak GEAR language pretty well. We've got another born in old Wulfram before the collapse, Claudia Hildebrand. A charming lady. I'm pretty sure one of the pilots is also connected to a PMC, namely Zodiac Arms, but as far as I can tell she's no trouble to us; yes, Sergios' her name. Lastly, we've a cowboy, Nordegg, but he's behaving. For now." She put the PADD away at her back and lifted her gaze at the fox, her expression finally visible.

"And I presume that I may skip the courtesies, colonel. I haven't changed my name, nor do I plan to soon."

[i]Not anymore.[/i]