Feng's fighter was probably the first to fill up, as it was starting to run on fumes at the rendezvous; nobody wanted to chance trying to fill-up after bingo-fuel. Her plane had originally been designed as a point-defense fighter, and as such had a marginal fuel-fraction. But once refueled (and thankfully probe & drogue had been international standard), she could breathe much easier knowing she had fuel to spare if anything became messy over the airfield. Watchman's calm introduction further set her at-ease.
It was only after their leader graciously finished refueling that Watchman reported that the spaceport's situation wasn't looking too good, and the tropical-storm precluded the option of delivering some timely explosive-ordnance upon known avenues of attack. Short Round had to be content staring up the tailpipe of a Russian interceptor as she leaned back in her cockpit and pouted for most of the trip.
Her misgivings on their chances of success aside, Kei tightened her formation in hopes that any radar-return from their flight would simply look like fewer larger planes, and stayed alert for any visual observers on the coast broadcasting their whereabouts to the rebels.
"Let's practice an overhead recovery; with things going as they are, I don't want us overflying the jungle too often if we don't have to. And who knows - we might need combat recoveries before this is over. Taxi straight to the shelters as soon as your wheels touch ground too. I think we should get the aircraft under cover quick, those clouds don't look good".
Short Round waggled her rudder in acknowledgement, causing her plane to do a tiny dutch-roll. This close in and radio chatter was being kept to a minimum. Her plane being the lightest, and having fully-fueled, she opted to land last. This nearly seemed a mistake as it started to rain just as she approached the hangar-aprons. Rather than force the ground crew to turn her plane, she picked-up a bit of momentum and cut it a bit close to the hangars before cutting her engine and applying a hard brake to one side, away from the hangars and swinging the hot fuming stovepipe towards the hangar. This would have been a safety-violation had she made a powered taxi, and even with the engine shut-down it likely caused a few curled lips to see the plane turn in the opposite direction that the ground-crew expected.
From there, she just sat in her plane and watched the rain wash over her canopy as the technicians pushed her bird into the hangar; hopping out just in time to see a soaked aircrewman start handing-out raingear as she slung her submachine-gun before donning the camouflaged rain-poncho and braving the torrential rain into the awaiting minibus, letting the muzzle of her gun protrude slightly from beneath the lower-hem of her new rain-gear as it jiggled reassuringly at her side.
Their destination as it turned-out, was nothing less than a commandeered 4-star hotel. Pretty nice, aside from the chaotic planning-committees constantly rushing from one conference-room to another, and the heavy influx of muddy grunts desperate to pass-on and receive information. When Scott
ordered her to relax, she did her best effort to simply lean against a wall and try to look as though standing-around a hotel-lobby in a soaking-wet sheet of plastic didn't bother her in the slightest as the briefing came with news of target-locations and the constant reminder that right now they couldn't do anything. Aside from that, she barely bothered to follow along with their wild speculations and rumors of high performance fighter-jets prowling to the north.
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