The mess room wasn’t exactly a Spartan affair nor was it glamorous, at least by military standards, but it was fairly new construction after the Expeditionary had “landed” on Avalon. Lonnie and his back-seater, a young Chinaman named, Xi sat in a back corner watching the comings and goings of the morning. Neither one ate. Lonnie calmly sipped a mug of hot tea while Xi drank full black coffee. They had flown in the night before and neither had been in much spirit for adventure after ferrying the plane across, or rather [i]through [/i]the portal.  It had all felt rather unnatural to Lonnie and he was glad for once to put the wheels down. 

“How do you drink that awful tosh?” Lonnie said flatly. He leaned back in his chair and scanned the room, mostly observing the more fit female denizens from just under the brim of his cap. He caught of whiff of the drink from Xi’s mug and curled his nose.

“Usually from a cup” Xi replied not looking up as he scanned over a few pages of documents. “Sometimes from a shoe… with Bailey’s.” He took another long sip.

Lonnie snorted and gave a slight smirk. “Well, Bailey’s or not, if that rot wrecks your gut upstairs I’m not pulling over… Tally-ho.”

Xi turned in his seat momentarily to view a group of young women entering the mess wearing what appeared to be civilian contract staff uniforms. 

“Don’t stare lad.”

“Shut up.”

Xi’s wristwatch beeped once and he glanced down at the time. “Briefing’s on in ten.” He yawned and turned back.

“Don’t want to be tardy for our new Western warmasters do we?” Lonnie said already getting up. He gave a smug grin and a gentle nod to the group that had just entered. One waved back while the others giggled. 

-------

The two took up a similar position in the briefing room watching the others file in. They were the first to arrive. Xi checked his watch again. “CO’s late.”

“Well I’m glad you’re on top of things this morning.” Lonnie said.

“Like you were in the mess just now?”

“Quite the reverse, I intend to be on the top of that situation later this evening.”

When the CO arrived in a disheveled hurry the two of them looked on unfazed. When he announced [i]his[/i] nickname they both glanced back at each other. Since these were the names by which the man apparently wanted to be called Lonnie automatically began mentally cycling through “new” names that would be more suitable: [i]Kincaide-Gatorade[/i], [i]Major LFB-Late for Briefing[/i], he made a few mental entries to memory and congratulated himself on his quick wit satisfied to wait for whatever other gems could be yet revealed.

He took a few notes when the map went up. They had flown in during the night and he had no familiarity with the area. He jotted down a few of major landmarks, roads, rivers and their relation to the airfield. He looked over at Xi’s pad where he was comparing the planned route to the projected weather, particularly the high altitude winds where the MiG liked to make its trade. There was apparently a form of the jet stream on Avalon as well and Xi would set them up handsomely to lull about during the CAP and get the most out of their fuel tanks. 

Xi’s hand went up at the call for questions, “Callsigns for the mission?”