It was always fun to listen to them tell war stories. In many ways it reminded him of his father--the better parts, at least, where he wasn't drunk or slapping him around or trying to bulk him up.

...maybe it just reminded him of his father.

Either way, it was a hell of a lot more entertaining coming from friends and comrades than a father figure. The after-the-fact bitching and humor was always easy to fall into, an old routine between the two brawlers of the group, so different but so in sync. He laughed along with the jokes and chuckled, but in some ways he wondered if he wouldn't always be at least a little bit of an outsider to it all. Coming through the labs wasn't exactly like coming in through the proper channels. When he'd first started it had been more pronounced, the pissing contest more awkward and more obvious. It would have been hard if he hadn't shown them what a real flyboy could do when he'd first jockeyed...or cared what they thought.

It was all about the ride. Everything else was just gravy.

Tom was about to open his mouth to chime in when the ship suddenly lurched, sending him down to one knee hard on the metal grating of the floor. With his teeth grit, he swore mildly as the sensation flooded his knee only to be replaced with the yell to brace and the violent lurch of the ship. Only barely did he manage to get a hand on one of the ship's railings and only barely did he manage to keep his footing, but he pulled his way through it and was off for the Mosquito before Trapp was done talking. [i]Close defense for the bombers...[/i] the Mosquito was a long range unit, not suited to the task. It didn't occur to him to disobey, or to counter the order, because his lips were already pulling into a quiet smile, his heart already to pump with that delicious adrenaline. Outnumbered, caught unawares, launching under emergency conditions with a new leader, a new pilot...

Oh yeah. This was gonna be [i]good.[/i]

He hooked his way up to the Mosquito's cockpit with a practiced hop to the rung at the top of the knee, another pull-push across the machine to the hip joint and an easy swing from there up into the seating configuration. As the dark sealed him in and his fingers deftly pulled his machine tight around him, the lighting came on and the sturdy metal walls disappeared in a twisting display of HUDs just as Wes complained about the bomb on his back.

"Don't you worry your pretty little head, Alice, we'll get Cinderella to the ball." He drawled, already starting to feel the rush as he flexed his fingers and settled them into molded controls--a more modern unit, the Mosquito used a pair of rail-mounted glove controls for fine engine and power manipulation rather than the usual two-joystick set-up you found in most MAS units, and if it made it a bitch to get the hang of once you were there you could run circles around anything on the market. He was awful happy he'd gone through the optimization suite before all this started, it would have been a hell to get it all up and running otherwise, but after sounding off and getting the techno-bullshit out of the way he had a gun in hand and the engine revving by the time it was his turn to chime in.

"Party time, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Wizard's up and running."