Avice took a seat in one of the back corners of the room as Richard began the mission briefing. She couldn’t help but notice how it all felt so similar to her as she pulled out a notepad and pen. Wait for a superior officer. Listen to him give objectives and not enough information. Get shot at. Hopefully return in one piece. The major differences thus far, as much as Avice could discern, was that unlike in the army she had to provide her own equipment and the objectives of a given mission could obviously be considered quite different. A few years ago the mission would have just been to destroy the shipment, not capture it.

She found that fact to be a point of interest as she wrote it down on her pad. Their employer clearly wasn’t trying to simply deny their enemy the cargo, meaning it was something of great importance. Not that that really mattered to her now so long as the cargo didn’t turn out to be radioactive material or something.

Something she found of greater interest was how one of the other pilots had to ask for the specifics of what to expect in terms of what kind of resistance they were likely to encounter. Granted the army rarely had an accurate number, but at least they gave their soldiers a solid guess upfront. Clearly it was something to keep in mind for future missions.

The briefing was coming to an end when one of the pilot’s, a man sitting in the middle of the room, opened his mouth to give a rant about how he was better suited in combat support than actual combat. What was the man’s name? Harvard? Henry? Harold! Yes, Harold. Harold did have a good point. Why place a soldier at point when he was trained for support? Even so their superiors didn’t find it amusing; Lang gave him a fairly thorough dressing down, after which Harold proceeded to put his foot into his mouth, again. Apparently the man just had to have the last word. Avice doubted that attitude would last long.

Avice let out a long sigh as she rose from her seat and headed to the door, muttering “Well this is going to be fun” under her breath. All things considered she felt like she was about to step into a minefield. She was going into battle with a group of soldiers, if she could call them such, that could be anything from actual veterans to officer workers with delusions of grandeur. How could she count on them to watch her six? She couldn’t and since she couldn’t she would have to watch her own six. The awkward part about that was that’d mean she’d be too busy watching her own ass to cover anyone else’s. Of course none of that would matter if someone accidently shot their objective and the objective turned out to be high yield explosives or something. Yep. This mission was going to be fun in the most sarcastic way possible.

Well there certainly wasn’t much she could do about it, she concluded as she made her way to the hanger. Best thing she could do was play with the hand she was dealt. Perhaps she’d be pleasantly surprised and learn that she was the least skilled among the recruits. As she and the other pilots reached the hanger and older pilot emerged from his own FRAME and greeted them. She turned to him and began to offer him a salute only to awkwardly shift it into a wave halfway through. This was not the army and although she was still expected to salute her superior officers that did not mean she had to salute more senior pilots. 

Avice felt the edges of her mouth curl upwards as one of the other pilots let out a noise of surprise before asking him how is nap was. What was her name? Maia. There was something about both Maia and older man that felt different. They both were clearly no strangers to conflict; the way they held themselves felt familiar to Avice. If nothing else they were clearly better than her feared office worker with delusions of grandeur.

“I hope it was good” Avice added after Maia inquired about the man’s nap, “because you missed the briefing sir. Need a summary of what you missed out on?”