Duty, 10: A Night at the Hangars
16 May 2022Meowers
Oh, godsdammit, slept through all day and woke up in the middle of local night. However... Ah. No worries. Local day cycle was just about 12 hours. And I guess other pilots did the same after a pretty long run. There was no reason in trying to explore the town at night, so I went to the ships, they were stationed on the surface, in the heavily armoured hangars. Standard Anti-Xeno set, Chieftains, Challengers, Crusaders, Kraits for anti-Interceptor combat and larger Anacondas and T-10's for anti-Scout, and also classic transport ships and reconnaissance Eagles. About sixty ships in total.
Ships have seen better times, however. All of them had signs of wear and tear, scratched old paintwork with patches here and there, armour panels were welded quite crudely, small breaches were filled by a quick-fix thermoplastic composite, all that stuff. Like they were repairing ships using those salvaged or used parts. However, every ship that wasn't damaged in combat looked spaceworthy, armed and refuelled. These folks were maintaining a combat readiness of sorts...
Hah, Marshmallow was looking like a stranger here, the only Fer-de-Lance around. At least the internal modules were standardised and our transports had spare armour panels onboard, so I guess I won't run out of them... Too fast. Yeah, some of their ships had signs of recent damage and were under repairs, so I decided to take a closer look... Hmmm... Seems like that place was attacked not too long ago, or they faced some Thargoid resistance during the patrol. So... Those bastards are somewhat active here. Maybe I might find out any connections with the recent activity spike...
Anyway, I should hang around here and count their ships, intact and damaged, how many ships of each type they have, what kind of loadouts they're using, all that stuff, to make sure their storages and supply lines are working properly and they won't run out of spare parts in case of greenish shit hits the fan. Let's be a smart tech. Or pretend to be one. Maybe they have someone who does that better than me. At least they had those neat little electric cars in each hangar so I'm not going to waste whole night walking from one to another.
I was inspecting one of the damaged Chieftains, it had one thruster removed and its wing was twisted and barely hanging on what's left of the armature, with a metal pipe put under it to keep the thing on its place. Didn't look like a Thargoid cannon damage, more like a collision... So, I heard a female voice saying 'hello', and, you know, mentally prepared myself for quite an awkward situation. Like, what am I doing here, in the middle of the night, trying to spy away the secrets of a banged up Chieftain or snatch a bucket of nuts and bolts.
Nope, she was a pilot, a commander of one of the local wings, according to her stripes, who came literally to look at the new face and say hello. Her name was Nagata Mion. Hm. Quite an interesting combination. It's Japanese as far as I know, so surname goes first... But Mion wasn't looking Japanese at all, it's pretty simple since people with Japanese roots don't have such a dark skin, as far as I know again. Ah. Maybe she will say it one day, who knows.
Turned out Mion was a kind of local tech adviser, she knew what to do with all those heavily modified parts and was able to help the repair crews in case of any complications. And also she asked about that 'white Fer-de-Lance with a funny name', saying that she wants to take a closer look later and chat with the pilot. Oh. I gave away the truth instantly by asking why she sees it funny and she was, like, 'wow'. Hah.
So, then we talked a bit about this place, she wanted to know what I think... Well. The bed in my room was awesome, and the pillow is the only thing I've inspected properly. It was awesome too. Anyway, I enquired her about what this town actually is, a town or a military installation. Reply was... Somehow predictable. Both. Twenty thousand inhabitants lived here 'for various reasons'. Decided not to ask about what kind of reasons could drive people to live on the very border, in the place that can be attacked by Thargoids at any time. Also, she told me about the Fed military base on the other island, like, three thousand kilometres away to the north, and Feds knew about the connection between this place and AXDF, so, they had no interest in visiting that... Base? Town? Whatever.
Before she went to do almost the same thing that I was doing, walking around looking at stuff, Mion told me I can feel at home and stroll around the town as much as I want, AXDF pilots were quite welcome here. Oh. Nice. I've got myself another home that looks like a military base.
Anyway. I had no chance to count sheep, drifting away almost instantly, but now I can count ships. One Chieftain, two Chieftains, three Chieftains...
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Nagata Mion