"You're leaving again, sis? It's only been a few days." 
A whole mob of tiny voices echoed the boy's dismay. Every eye present followed the mass of her plate carrier as she threw it onto the ground, a great [i]whompf[/i] and a cloud of dust being the best shake clean the device was going to get. Her coat followed, blazing orange and covered in the devices of her trade. At least, what you could walk out the door and onto the next job with. First aid kid, compass, multitool, a generous assortment of glowsticks, the simple things that saved people. Farida Marchand knelt beside the heap, gingerly going from pouch to pouch, tapping, unzipping, unbuckling and reseting every single one of them. While they whined and fussed she ran down the list in her head. The email had used a few words but one of them had been examination. There wasn't much that she could bring but however she could, she would arrive prepared. Her tomahawk, its skeletal head buried in the polymer of a drop sheath, fell in. At worst, that itself was part of the test. At best, she was saving her comrades-to-be some time. 
The sun was beginning to rise, the orange glow of the horizon casting long shadows from the gaggle, nine in all, watching her pack in the driveway. She turned her eyes on them. Her family, some of them by blood, most just adopted along. Her elders had already said their goodbyes, made peace with the fact that she wanted to do this all over again. Ears shivering in the unpleasant morning, tails taut with anxiety. She zipped the duffel closed on her kit. Truth was, she'd known since before she'd came back. The email had come during the process of her withdrawal from Penguin. Her five years were up, and looking back she had more pride than regrets. Round two.

"Sure am. Sorry..." Farida breathed out.
"Sargon again?" She shook her head. "Kazdale?" Another cut in. "All she's gonna say is 'a penguin never tells.'"
"Not for Penguin, not today." Mule stood up, heaving the duffle into the bed of the truck beside her and next to the backpack full of travel goods. "Still don't know, though." She grinned, and a few groaned. "They say it's like a big, flying castle and they go all around the world helping the people who need it, need it way more than us. So I'll be doing that for a little while. Might even be able to send more stuff back than the job before, yeah?"

But that thought wasn't worth anything. Maybe while she'd been off globetrotting they'd grown out of the idea that a corporate mercenary could do anything good for the world. That was worth something: a cold, gnawing nervousness. "Now run back inside before you catch cold. I'm not getting in trouble because you didn't think a goodbye dinner was enough!" They watched as she yanked open the door on her old ride. Poor thing, it'd been a fun week tooling around after five years playing the minor leagues. Now it was going to get left sitting at an airport until someone could come and get it again. The engine shivered until it could burn, the ancient device lurching forward before she spiked it into reverse. One wave to the family, a jerky turn, and she was a dust cloud rising into the distance. She'd have a long drive to think about that lie.

[hr]

One rumble had bled into another. Jet engines, spooling for takeoff. She'd been passed some cans and a mask. There was a little tingle of excitement to that. Most of Penguin's clients might have preferred to see the world from the soundproofed cabin of a fancy aircraft, but this was how they got around, what they trained in: Cold steel, mesh seats, and a few tons of barely strapped in machinery (usually the helicopter the client demanded folded up and tied down) or supplies ready to scare you lifeless when the turbulence hit and it listed like it was coming down. She pulled them on over her cap, ears adjusting to the filtered sound. The face of a microphone caught her eye as she slipped on the mask, a hand traveling up her cable to find the PTT and instead finding nothing. Civilian, so it wasn't going to break any time soon. Backpack in her lap, duffel at her feet, and a fist clenched around the handle on both of them, Mule became a statue as they climbed up into the sky. She helped herself not to stare at the other candidates, head cast towards the metal floor as she slipped into waiting.

A voice came through the intercom. And clear, too. Mule's head shot up, eyes panning for the speaker and hooking onto the helpfully raised hand as she introduced herself. Mule had been about to give it a go herself until she saw the big guy that had been sleeping peacefully, and with enviable technique at that, tear his mask off. Her eyes widened as she thought she was watching their first malfunction take place but there didn't seem to be anything wrong with his tube as he reconnected. Another raised hand, another introduction, crisis delayed. The second group member to profess a medical affinity. She smiled under her mask, there were few mercenaries crazy enough not to enjoy the direct proximity of medics. The rest of these guys could be the craziest Black Steel body pilers money could buy or a bunch of choir girls, they had doctors, and that meant they had a safety net to learn this whole teamwork thing. Spirits high, she raised her hand next.

"Codename Mule, reporting. I did security and surveillance details for Penguin for five years, most of that under night-vision. Shield bearer when it got hot. I don't mind if you're infected or not, we're a team and I've got your back. Same goes for all of you, you can count on me. Over." Mule's hands came down, both the one that had been signaling and the one that had been habitually thumbing her oxygen tube. Oh, right.