[b][color=ffbb11]HAZEL TAMIRNYEV[/color]  —  [color=ffbb11]CALLSIGN TUSK[/color][/b][hr]The cockpit hatch shut with a [i]ker-clunk[/i], and there was a soft hiss as air was siphoned from the chamber. The outside sounds; the blaring klaxons, the shouting and bustle of the fighter bay, all faded away. All that remained was the vibration of the Thunderbolt's engines, and the occasional crackle of the radio. It was like a spacewalk in that way. She found it comforting. That, and knowing she wouldn't be forced through a hole the size of a credit if a stray shot breached the cockpit.

Hazel sat strapped into the seat in the cockpit’s center, illuminated by the glow of consoles. Having just finished the last few stages of her checklists, she glanced towards the small holo-projection of Saint Gagarin fixed to the dashboard and muttered a few words in pidgin—inaudible in the vacuum—but spacers are creatures fond of ritual.

Asura’s voice crackled over her headset partway through the prayer. Hazel didn’t respond until she was done. “[color=ffbb11]Understood, seventy-three.[/color]”. Out of the side of the cockpit she could see the magpult spooling up, and could nearly imagine the deafening whir of it. Hazel leaned forwards in her seat (the little that her harness would allow) in anticipation of what was to come.

And they were off! The robotic pilot cackled gleefully as she was launched, plastered against her seat like a fly on a windshield. With the perfusion fluid supplying her brain sealed into a closed system, she was at no risk of G-LOC. There was little to do but enjoy the ride, that which she intended to do. Hazel waited a few moments, allowing the gravity to subside before upping the throttle of the forward thrust, and nosing slightly downwards, falling into the rear of the formation alongside Hatchet.