[b]Stockholm, Sweden[/b]

Though the sun sat triumphantly in a clear sky overlooking the warm and vibrant day Birgit once again found himself in the Riksdag’s uninteresting and distasteful offices meeting with the conservative party’s equally unappealing leadership. With a sigh Birgit gave a glance out the window on the side of the room at the green trees and multicolored flowing plants in the outside square, unfortunately this just pushed the point of how remarkable a day it was outside and made the experience of sitting there worse yet. Looking forward to the conservatives again as if he were paying attention Birgit blindly drew random and haphazard lines on his notepad, a relief from the grinding and scathing voices presented to him. Though he was not a man who ignored others Birgit had grown all too tired of these meetings which had been a constant plague throughout his presidency. Flanked by two members of his cabinet Birgit was once again facing the two most powerful members of the once mighty Conservative party. Birgit tuned into the conversation and placed his pen down. However it quickly seemed apparent that this was a mistake as the topic had not changed in forty minutes, though it never had before so this was not remarkable.

The older man sitting at the helm of a grand oak desk placed with back to an empty wall in the drab office was Albert Cen; the elected leader of the Conservative party. An older man Cen had a signature green tie and a striped suit like some mafia goon of a bygone era. Why he dressed like this was left up to question, still regardless of dress the man the behind it was dangerous. Birgit tuned in just as the old man got to his point, “-as you can see gentlemen if you continue to refuse our amendments, once again my party will be forced to fight you on this bill.”

Birgit finally opened his mouth after overturning his notepad to avoid the embarrassment of not having listened to the entire meeting; he began with a sigh and followed with, “Albert, do you ever tire of this nonsense? You drag me over to the Riksdag every single month on whatever day is most inconvenient just to tell me you will once again oppose a bill we are putting forward unless we add some nonsense about communists. You simply can’t stop any of our bills Albert, if you forgot we had a majority in the Riksdag last I checked.” Birgit, who was simply done by this point stood up and straightened his tie before continuing, “While I know this isn’t going to end any time soon I am obliged to suggest that you should learn to work with us Albert, there is no point in leaving this nation’s government divided for reasons as petty as yours.” 

Albert stood up some noticeable time after Birgit, being a man of advanced age the wrinkles in his face told why he took longer. Albert responded in his dusty voice, “If only you could see the failure in this effort to reinforce the public sector without any limits Brigit. You know one of these days we might look up and mistake you for a communist yourself. Should you continue to ignore us there will eventually be repercussions… You know one day I might find out how you and your henchmen won a majority election for both the presidency and the Riksdag after trailing in polls for months.” The old man put on a distrusting face and outstretched his hand.

Birgit smiled despite his desire to smack the old fool and shook it firmly; Cen was surprisingly strong for his age shook back with equal strength. Birgit spoke up in a vaguely sarcastic tone, “Well, thank you for this Mister Cen.” Before turning and walking out with his entourage. Birgit waited until he heard the click of the door behind him before moving closer to his finance secretary, a middle aged man of mild manners, and saying in an uneasy voice, “You think they have anything this time Damian?”

Damian responded a calm voice, “Of course not, it has been two years Birgit if they had anything they would have brought it forward by now. It’s just blind threats on their own paranoia, though you should not have treated him like that, no matter how tired you are of this. Regardless you should worry less Birgit, the people love you and the country isn’t at war, more than can’t be said for much of Europe.”

Birgit shook his head and looked ahead, the secretary of the foreign affairs whom had gotten ahead of them gestured to him and Damian as they had been clearly lagging behind. Birgit hurried his pace; he couldn’t wait to get out of this poorly decorated and decrepit building that was stuffed with people of similar qualities.

[b]Malmen Airbase, Next Day[/b]

The morning breeze greeted General Dirk Egon as he stepped out of the stuffy armoured car that had driven him to the airfield. The sun had just crested the horizon and the day had begun. The General took in the morning for a moment before walking forward towards a small delegation on the tarmac. The man immediately leading the delegation shook the Generals hand and led him on a walk down the tarmac to the tower and hangars in the distance. He began, “It’s a pleasure to see you here sir! I admit I wasn’t sure if you were coming, last time a general visited we nearly killed him. Though sir I do have to say that we warned him that the plane was… Unstable.”

The General gave a hearty chuckle and took the white gloves he was wearing off before placing them in a chest pocket on his light blue uniform that contrasted with the man’s dark grey beard. He began in a jovial tone, “No worries Dolf I heard about the incident and honestly it’s more of a joke on old Gen. Mance than your base. I am not worried about your prototypes dropping out of the sky; though do tell me if these rumors that your new prototype completed all the initial trials are true!”

Dolf exhaled in a breath of relief before responding in a more enthusiastic tone, “We intended to publish the results tomorrow but yes sir they are absolutely true. We think we finally solved the issues in the initial prototypes. If you want we can give you a demonstration sir, the new prototype will be going out soon and if nothing else it is certainly nice looking.”

The General looked more at attention on the mention of a demonstration. He immediately responded, “You could? You know came here just to oversee operations for the day but if it’s no intrusion I would be delighted.”

Dolf smiled at the news and in perhaps a rather grand fashion stood tall and spoke to the General, “Would you move a bit sir?” The General did as he was told and Dolf pulled out a flare gun from his coat, aiming the device to the sky he fired a bright red flare that was bleached tad dull by the newfound sunlight. From some distance at the hangers a similar flare was sent up in response and a few pops followed by a roar could be heard in the distance. 

Dolf handed the General a pair of binoculars he had also stowed in his coat and gestured for him to watch as a bright white aircraft with blue and yellow stripes taxied out onto the runway. The plane, a propeller driven monoplane with a sleek but buff look and wings that were cut straight at the ends with two pronounced cannons on their mid sections was certainly a sight to behold. The general looking down toward the plane commented, “You certainly built a nice looking plane Dolf, so how have these successful test flights gone?” 

As the plane accelerated down the runway and got closer the roaring intensified and Dolf had to raise his voice a bit to say, “Excellent sir! The pilots report great high altitude performance and impressive dive performance, we haven’t done much maneuverability testing but so far the pilots say that it’s more sluggish than a biplane but more agile than those half rate midget planes we bought in the forties!”

The General momentarily took the binoculars off his face as the plane zoomed past him and Dolf and pulled up into the sky. He asked, “As for weapons what did you come up with?” Before once again looking into the binoculars Dolf provided as the plane shrunk into a dot.

Dolf responded, now at a normal volume, “Well we put one 20mm on each wing and two 12.7 mm’s on the nose. Of course we haven’t dialled in the weapons yet so we can’t say what they can do in tandem.”
The Plane vanished from view and the General asked, “So where is it off to?”

Dolf responded simply, “Some turning and roll tests a dozen or so kilometers out, it will be back by noon. Until then shall we get around to our original business? R&D is just a short walk to the hangers now.”
The general nodded and lowered the binoculars, still gazing in the direction the plane left in spoke, “It certainly is a beauty isn’t it? Anyhow back to business you’re quite right there Dolf.”