Mino was not the type of man to be particularly tuned into the feelings of those around him, but he could tell that a little hope had returned to the fleet. Just as well, the arrival of the RDF and the resulting Sentinel victory given Mino a small amount of optimism—enough to belay his normally salty attitude for the past two weeks since. He could confidently tell himself that the peace wasn’t a delaying of his race’s extinction, but the beginning of the end for his enemies. He might not necessarily [i]see[/i] said ending, but he had survived to see the Invid suffer a loss, which was very satisfying in and of itself.

Topping things off, Mino had somehow managed to the distinction of being place on a welcoming committee for the leader of all the humans that had been appearing around The Sentinel. He had been told that his long record of survival was to blame, but there were definitely other, more, “sociable,” looking pilots with the same sort of distinction. Then again, those pilots might have finally kicked the proverbial bucket. So he stood, hands on hips, casually waiting for the guest of honor. When the expected shuttle made its way into the bay, Mino glanced at his comrades and found a half smile stubbornly stuck on his face. Something about the group amused him. He only found out what it was when the last member of his new(ish) squad, a vulfen, came running in and settled into the line, almost as if nothing had happened. The smile persisted all through what greetings the human commander received, up until it was cut off by the ship’s intercom. 

The offending occurrence turned Mino’s smile into a frown. To him, the ship’s alarms had lost their initial edge. While the change in lighting and sudden volume had at one point startled him, he had grown used to it. Instead, the fear that the alarm had originally inspired, slowly transformed into feelings of dread, as each battle stretched his lucky streak thinner and thinner. The more he flew, Mino knew, the lesser his chances of ever seeing Selachia again. He groaned and muttered a few curses, before hustling off to where his SV-VII had been parked.

When he reached transforming war machine, he latched onto the ladder that was propped against its side and released a breath he hardly noticed he had been holding. His fighter was the double-edged sword of his life and dreams. [i]Let’s get it overwith,[/i] he thought as he climbed into the cockpit. One of the crew handed him his helmet and helped him through his system checks.