[b][color=00a651]Fuka Nakano[/color][/b]

Well, she had touched down successfully. Another sortie survived, one day closer to retirement. As much as she enjoyed it, Fuka knew she couldn't fly forever. She would age out or get injured, crash one too many times or simply fail some test the pill-pushers forced her to take. She already refused to go to sick call; it was a trick she picked up in the Rangers and it had served her well. But sooner or later she was going to be slapped with a fat 4F on the basis of age if nothing else. Or, she could die twenty thousand feet in the air and be scattered across the horizon.

Neither option suited Fuka, both were inevitable on a long enough time scale. All she could do until then was go into every fight swinging with her all.

The Black Bunny touched down behind Scott's Harrier and was swarmed by techs almost before the engines were off. Fuka slid out of the cockpit with purpose, rejecting water in favor of the hard caramel stashed in her pocket. Naturally, she stood alongside the ranking officer in preparation for his briefing, scuffing the tarmac with the toe of her foot. 

[color=6ecff6][b]Ximena Huang[/b][/color]

Ximena sat for a moment in the cockpit, canopy slung open so she could feel the cool night breeze. It soothed her rattled nerves, settled her from Absolutely Wired to Merely Buzzed. Combat was better than drugs, drink, sex, any and all vices people turned to when they needed to feel invincible, they were pale imitations of the high that came from betting one's life against another. She had thrown herself into the fray with bared fangs and a beating heart, tossed down an open challenge and found all comers lacking. 
 
Ximena wasn't blasphemous enough to say that she was like God, oh no. She was more like the Destroyer sent to punish Egypt, or the sulfur and fire that rained upon Sodom. Coming down as she had on the HAWKs had been gratifying, the ability to wave her hand and make structures vanish in the blink of an eye had very much gone to her head. She was scared during dogfights, obviously, downright terrified even. But Jefe was [i]always [/i] terrified, always watching her back. It was only when she got sent out on a sortie that she got to inflict some of that paranoia on others, to master her cowardice by sending her foes scattering. 
    
To think that she had thought spy work to be the height of excitement! 

[i]"Oh my god, you're bleeding!"[/i]

The voice belonged to a reedy little tech barely out of college, the runt having taken it upon himself to do an instrument check with her still in the cockpit. Ximena looked at him with vague disdain, confused by his blathering until a gust chilled the wetness pooling on her cheeks

Right. 

[color=6ecff6]"So it seems."[/color] she acknowledged, gently swatting away the rag he offered fumbingly. [color=6ecff6]"But no matter."[/color] 

[i]"We need a medic! MED-"[/i]

[color=6ecff6]"Shhh."[/color]

The words died in his throat as she pressed a finger to his lips, shushing him with the same patronizing kindness with which one would treat a nervous puppy. 

[color=6ecff6]"No need for all that."[/color]

She grinned as she slid off a glove, carefully scooping up the leaking crimson with the same finger that had shut the tech up moments ago. Lazily, languidly, practically lasciviously, she licked it clean, very much enjoying the mixed disgust and confusion in his expression as he decided to get back to work. Ximena chuckled as she finally hoisted herself to the ground, setting off to join the briefing.

[color=6ecff6]"Good man."[/color]