Jan had silently followed along with the tour. The base seemed to be quite an adequate accommodation. To his dismay however, it seemed the other pilots were quite a close knit group. He just wanted to make sure they tolerated his presence. After all, he would depend on them out in the field.


It was when he came upon the hangar that he had an idea for a conversation piece. All of them were NC pilots, and it was likely easy to get them gushing about their NCs. It seemed of the group, only Verona was currently anywhere nearby, apparently running a full system diagnostic. He walked up to the foot of the machine, noting the rather large amount of launchers attached to it. “A preference for rockets I see!” He shouted up to the cockpit. “Can't blame you, firing and forgetting has a certain charm to it. I myself prefer to get up close and personal.”



He looked over to his own NC. Goldenspur had seen quite a lot of combat in its life. He quite remembered the day when it was basically a bunch of metal scrap held together by stubbornness and duct tape. It had come quite a long way since then. The hussar wings gleamed in the white light of the hangar. “Read about some ancient warriors named winged hussars in a history book once. Scary people, routed entire armies with their daring charges.” The decals had cost him a fortune, but it quite helped to have a touch of glamour to one's rig as a mercenary. It quite helped to make a positive first impression on potential employers. “Decided to take after them purely on a whim... It worked out seeing as I'm still standing here.”

All this looking around the hangar made him notice one more thing... there was an NC here that didn't belong to anyone he knew of right now. And it was being piloted by someone he hadn't yet been introduced to at all.