[center][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/630508873102655513/735007391581732914/kon1.png[/img]
[img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/630508873102655513/732382304319832175/konstantin.png[/img][/center]
[hr]

[color=f26522][i]"Kitezh,"[/i][/color] Konstantin breathed in a murmur, allowing the name to roll over his tongue like a new, alien taste as he stood at attention. Before him was displayed the image of their new "home". Or perhaps their new "target". It depended on mentality, maybe, but it did not change that the colony module was now their forward operating base in the stringent terms of official military designation. If that dusty rock of brown, splotched by greens and blues by the lifegiving dye of liquid water, was to be treated as official combat Area of Operations, then he as a soldier would reflect the part.

There would be no higher security measure taken than this first drop into the gravity well, atmosphere, and most importantly, [i]biosphere[/i]. Extant lifeforms had long been confirmed, that he now knew, and it was a fleetingly rare moment in history when people like them— those thinking themselves explorers, pioneers, trailblazers, made truly [i]peaceful[/i] contact with anything native to that unknown land. Readiness was a sword on the hip, even if you came in peace.

Upon their dismissal, the pilot wasted no time reporting to the hangar. That it was ordered of him by their CO was one thing, but simultaneously... he'd slept for 15 years. Even if his mind barely knew the time had passed, and his body had not felt the ravages of a decade and a half upon it, both felt a distinct yearning for the controls. The recycled air of a cockpit. The power of an Oberth Reactor, thrumming through the frame of the walking fortress beneath him. He suspected it to be the same for his fellows, all assembled at their Orbitals in a conga line of the various stages of pre-launch checks.

The Bedwyr was not hard to spot, even amongst its kin. Konstantin's personal chariot, a colossus of iron, stood tall and proud amongst its fellows, cutting an almost knightly silhouette where other designs leaned more towards the utilitarian, or to the feral, or even to the fey. The wings, folded behind and flat below the shoulders of the great machine, almost suggested the form of a surcoat. A quartet of guns protruded outward from the otherwise human bodyplan, a pair above and a pair beneath where arm met torso. A yellowed visor impassively regarded its pilot from high above, as though gazing upon an old friend from between the massive barrels of its shoulder turrets, so routinely polished as to gleam in the white cast by florescence high overhead. [i]Took our time, didn't we?[/i] It seemed to say, matter-of-fact as he was.

In truth, his OF-2D had been very clearly the subject of spirited upkeep in its entirety— even his trademark coat of paint looked touched up for the occasion. Striking reds upon a subtly blued white, ascending past the realm of mere trimming or pinstripes when the eye inevitably found itself drawn towards that left arm, awash with the hues of blood. Not for nothing, either.

[color=f26522]"Looks like you kept him in good shape for me."[/color] he called from below, clambering up the ladder to the boarding catwalk as the head of the attached tech team hailed him with a wave. A veritable tree stump of a man, Konstantin couldn't help but note that a few more wrinkles had graced the ridges of his eyes, even if the [i]GR[/i] pin on his lapel was nice and shiny. He had already been pushing 50 when they'd last met.

[color=00aeef]"Had a hell of a time with it too, considering your proclivity for coming back with three limbs. After reading your record, I nearly decided to just ditch the damn thing entirely."[/color] He made a show of grumbling as he pulled up the master schematic on his PDA, blue light reflecting off of the nametag: Harling Schroeder. While not strictly military personnel, his presence on the repair crew was all but essential. To begin with, the representative had been involved with OF-2 project since its inception in Germany, and likely had a greater working knowledge of the errant specifics of the platform than any other greasemonkey you'd find—

[color=f26522]"Ah, it was only twice. The red is for good luck."[/color]

[color=00aeef]"If you say so. Either way, we've got her running hot as she's ever been now that Jim worked out a bit of a balancing issue. Just to be sure, give your wings another pass once you step inside. The aileron right here wasn't responding in time, wiring issue. Other than that, we just need to get you acquainted with [i]Merlon[/i]."[/color]

—And he had also brought with him a skunkworks project the Dam's software division had cooked up. Gesturing to the helmet that rested within the crook of the pilot's elbow and then to the open cockpit nestled within the Bedwyr's chest. Konstantin had already noticed the differences in design to his usual headgear, most notably the input jack for what he had to assume was the systems integration process between suit and frame.

[color=00aeef]"You'll find the wire over the left shoulder. Think the opposite of a seatbelt."[/color]

Of course he would— the fiber-optic cable that dangled behind his seat was impossible for him to miss. Even if he wasn't familiar enough with this machine that it felt like slipping on an old glove, his eyes still [i]worked[/i].

Wisely, Konstantin did not share the sentiment, instead slipping the sleek plastics and composites over his skull as he nestled himself in. Getting snippy with the guy in charge of maintaining your machine was like shitting on your waiter— just asking to get spit in your beer. Considering that he was currently in the middle of plugging something into what was very close to his own brain, he was not to keen on finding out how the metaphor might translate to information to and from a seventy-foot war machine. The doors closed before him as he tugged on his harness, satisfied with its snugness. For a brief moment, he was alone in a dark box.

Then, with the flick of a switch he hadn't needed to see for ages, the world came into crystal focus once more, the yellow eye of the one-armed knight flaring to life in the hangar as a low hum sprouted from deep within the Orbital's iron breast. Ambient audio, the muted sounds of orbitals and crew alike within the hangar, piped into his ears to back the current silence on official radio frequencies— one shattered after a moment by a bell-like chime, and the flashing image of a sword stabbed into an anvil superimposing itself upon his video feed.

[center][b]AVALON DAM
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT INDUSTRY

STARTING...

LOADING PLUG-INS...

INITIALIZING...

DATA FOUND...

VERIFYING UPLINK...

SYSTEM ONLINE[/b][/center]

[color=f26522][i]Oh.[/i][/color]

He took a brief moment to appreciate just [i]how many[/i] objects of interest in his field of view had been designated, complete with shorthand IFF descriptors. [color=8493ca]FRND. FRND.[/color] [color=fff79a]NTRL.[/color] [color=8493ca]FRND.[/color] [color=fff79a]NTRL.[/color] [color=fff79a]NTRL.[/color] [color=fff79a]NTRL.[/color]

[i][color=f26522]That's new.[/color][/i]

A gleam in his eye, he began to jaunt his way through the practiced routine of finalizing pre-flight checks, brimming with an intense curiosity and excitement, a child that couldn't [i]wait[/i] to play with this new toy. In so many ways, this promised to be perhaps the most eye-opening sortie he'd ever experienced.