Before Scott could continue, the door to the briefing room swung open, and Aurélie strode briskly in. Unlike last time, she was dressed more casually - which, for her, meant flats; another impeccably tailored uniform, just that it was service uniform instead of dress; her hair done up in a tight high ponytail instead of braided. 

"[i]Quand on parle du loup, on voit sa queue[/i]," she said with a dazzling smile. "When you speak of the wolf, you see its tail." 

She set a tablet and folder on the table, taking the seat next to Scott. "But we have business now, n'est-ce pas? Cobalt Haze is down yet another pilot, and it is a miracle that we did not lose more. I see we have some replacements - " a curt nod to Yuna and Ximena " - but this means that we must reconfigure the squadron organisation."

Like a Monte Carlo croupier showing a hand, she fanned out a set of aerial photographs, fresh from the printer. The results of Cobalt Recon's work.

"We have partly neutralised the landing party at Lampedusa for the time being. Fuka did some good work there, they will take some time to get sorted out, and she eliminated a good part of their sealift assets. So we do not need to worry about them for some time. But Linosa still has an abundance of heavy lift helicopters covered by copious and skilled AD, as we have seen. They might try for an air assault so we could try to destroy them on the ground, but it will be tricky."

She shrugged, a whole-body movement. 

"Or we could keep an eye on them, wait for them to make the attempt, and then interdict it in the air. That requires more surveillance and the timing is tricky, but then we would not have to worry about SEAD."

Aurélie's eyes met Scott's - blue as the waters of the Aegean, and grave. 

"Your call, [i]mon capitaine[/i]."