A while after the pilots had entered the FRAME bay and gotten themselves situated, Cecilia emerged from the bowels of the landcruiser. Over her black BDUs, she wore her FRAME harness, cradling her helmet in her arm. Immediately, she snuck her way to Bernard's Handou and gave the chassis a few hard thumps with her knuckles. 

[i]Clang, clang clang![/i] 

"Rise and shine, gramps!" she shouted up to the cockpit. Unlike her interaction with Harold earlier, there was little menace in her voice. In fact, her tone was almost playful. 

"Really, Bernard - you're setting a bad example for the newbies," Cecilia hissed. Asides from Richard, Bernard was one of the few Panthers that had the luxury of being spared the sharp end of Cecilia's stick. Part of it was his seniority; Cecilia disciplining a man who was over twice her age seemed a bit silly. However, Cecilia knew the things the old man had been through. He'd seen the worst of the war with the totalitarian Emarran government, even seen the rise of the FRAME as a machine of war when he was a humble infantryman. No, Cecilia certainly respected the veteran, despite his unpredictability... and habit of missing critical briefings.

Cecilia threw a small notepad up to the cockpit, which she'd prepared just after the briefing. It told the old vet everything he'd need to know about the operation. "No sleeping on this one, Bernie." She turned away to head back to her own FRAME, meeting the gazes of several other Panthers and newcomers, who'd been taken aback both by Bernard's napping, and Cecilia's exchange.

"What're you looking at?" she barked. "Suit up! We leave in ten!"

-----

The control panels of Cecilia's FRAME glowed as they sprang to life, bathing her in a green haze. She punched the keypad in front of her, and diagnostics scuttled around the main panel before the cameras adjusted and captured the FRAME bay on-screen. With her helmet on, Cecilia's HUD was superimposed against the camera's images. A quick runthrough affirmed her checklist was in order, and tinkering with the control yokes told her her controls and weapons were functioning properly. 

"This is Lang," she said over the radio. "Make any last-minute adjustments to your machines. The mission objectives have been uploaded into your FRAMEs, if you happen to forget what we're doing out there." She said that last bit in a snarky voice, clearly intended for a select few. "Newbies - I want you to find a Panther and stick close to them. Nobody does anything stupid."

The umbilical cables keeping Cecilia's Handou in place detached from the machine with a hiss, and she maneuvered the FRAME from her dock toward the bay's exit ramp. 

"Everyone, report in!"