Black Feathers (Broomhandle45&Agnores)

B

Broomhandle45

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March 5th, 2608. Side 6, 28th Bunch, Westlind .
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One thing about humans that Nydia always appreciated was their versatility, when she was a little girl? People couldn't do this, they couldn't walk around the streets, laughing and talking. It was even more impressive in Side 6, where the debris from Side 2 was a constant threat and domestic issues were at it's height. She remembered never seeing anyone after the 'sun' went down, she barely remembered seeing people during the day either. Aside from the occasional pair of Federation soldiers decked out in combat gear, it was like the war was never around in the first place.

Nydia Valsan, squad leader of the mobile suit team stationed on the Black Feather was sitting shotgun to her LT, Jerod Freimuth with their third, Ensign Jennifer "R" Arstotska settled in the back-seat. They were driving through the busy town in Westlind, heading for the opposite end of the colony.

"Really makes you feel like we're doing something good, doesn't it?" Jerod said idly, bringing Nydia's attention back to the present with a faint smile. She had been assigned to the Peacekeepers...a month ago? Two? She honestly couldn't remember, and she was somewhat glad she couldn't.

"I suppose it does," she murmured. "It's certainly not Mars..." Mars was all business, and some dirty pleasure. People there had the two years spent scouring the planet of the Outsiders still fresh in their head, but these people? They only knew that Side 2 was gone, they knew why...but they didn't see the result, and she secretly hoped that it stayed that way.

Here, at least...she didn't see the disdainful looks in the civilians faces about the military. They knew what could happen if they weren't around, and that alone made her feel more relaxed as she huddled into her bomber jacket. They had lost their fourth a few weeks ago, he wasn't a bad guy...but he didn't understand the reality of the problems they were dealing with, and that was that. The problem was that everyone needed experienced people, and as the war dragged on those were becoming something of a premium. She had gotten countless offers, incentives and everything in-between to stay in the Space Force, but she couldn't. She had seen what happened to people who just kept flying sortie after sortie and she wanted nothing of it, she needed something slower...something that didn't make her want to drink every night and pilot hungover to be easier to deal with. No, she needed a feeling that she was a human being and not a killing machine. And seeing people being people, smiling and laughing despite how the past...twenty five years or so had been for the Earth Sphere? It certainly made her feel like one.
 
Jennifer Arstotska sat in the back seat, spread out like she owned the vehicle. She wore an expression of general distaste; her clothes were barely regulation, having been modified to show off as much tattoo as feasibly possible while still "showing that she was a member of a respectable and well-known organization such as the Peacekeepers."

She sat up, leaning between the two front seats as she reached forward and flipped on the radio, turning the volume to sufficiently drown out any possibility of any further conversation about how "awesome it was here" or how "this isn't like Mars at all." It was a nice place, sure, but the people here were just as dingy and shitty as people anywhere else, and no amount of Peacekeeper presence would change that.

R's general disregard for Peacekeeper regulations and her knack for talking shit about how they do things would give a person the thought that she didn't like the Peacekeepers or her job...but that was far from the truth. An exterrorist, R had been caught and was on a one way track to execution; had it not been for the higher ups in the Peacekeepers noting her skills, she wouldn't have ever seen the inside of a suit again. But now she was flying again, and there was significantly less instances of having to avoid the law.

Still, years of hard criminal activity had conditioned R to ignore most rules and regulations. She was constantly getting cited for disorderly conduct that, non-regulation this; however, her marks on missions remained quite high. She showed a strong ability to work with a team, and even stronger ability to function on her own when separated from her squad. Despite whatever her records suggested, R held both the Peacekeepers and her current squad-mates in high esteem.

But that still didn't mean she wanted to hear their bullshit.
 
Jerod grinned a little nervously at that, and Nydia let out a long sigh as she flicked her finger along the knob to simply cut off the music. That was R...the wonderful addition to her team, inside a mobile suit? Fantastic, outside of it? Nydia considered alcoholism a healthier method of coping. If anyone spelled 'bitch' in the prettiest, most artful 'fuck you' writing that there could possibly be...it'd be Jennifer.

"Thank you for your contribution to the conversation, Ensign." Nydia said dryly, knuckles resting against her cheek as she peered out across the city, and slowly into the steadily increasing wildlife. The spaceport on the other end was situated in the mountains...just like every other space port. Anyone from Earth sometimes commented how 'uniform' everything looked, but they had to save on space and environment. That was why this big, burly jeep was solar powered. You came to rely on the look of the cities, which...fair, they weren't exactly positioned any different from one side to the other, but they all had their own little things that made it different.

"Please let me know if you have anything else that is philosophically enlightening to bring to us."
 
R smiled when Nydia flipped the music off, leaning forward in her seat, reaching to place a hand on Nydia's shoulder, as if R was comforting her. "Sorry, honey, but you ain't my type. Maybe you can get J here to...enlighten you." R chuckled as she sat back in her seat, spreading out again. Nydia, their squad leader, was a cold bitch, and R had to respect that. She could give R the chills, even if R chose never to show that, and knew how to lead a squad right. At least, far better than those quacks in the terrorist cell.

The smile faded from R's face, as was want to do when she was thinking of the mobile suits. She wondered if they would be assigned a fourth anytime soon, and idly wondered who that fourth might be. She hoped it was someone who knew what they were doing, and wasn't such a pussy like the last guy. It would be hard for R to work with the new guy for a while, she knew that; she had to build trust with him, and learn what he was capable of. And if he was capable of nothing? Well, R wasn't above causing an 'accident' to take him out. After all, a squad was only as strong as their weakest member.

"Hey, J," R asked, suddenly, smirking. "We there yet?"
 
"...Not yet," Jerod replied, a tiny bit of annoyance creeping into his voice. "Not that I exactly know why we're going to the other end of the colony, ma'am?"

"New guy," Nydia murmured, watching the trees roll by before rummaging into the dash and plucking out a thin folder with his profile. "Test pilot, spent some time on Mars...did an impressive little feat with an ambush...other than that, he's green as grass. But he prototyped the Jims and the C-Types, too. Guess he's a decent pilot...even got selected for a newtype test. It's the other Captain's orders, we need a forth...and he was chosen." By 'other' Captain, she was referring to the Captain of the Black Feather, Jenne Parker.

"...I uh, I see." Jerod replied faintly. "...Bit of an odd duck, isn't it?" True, Peacekeepers pulled from everywhere...but between the three of them, Jerod would reasonably say they had as much experience as the war has went on, and then some. Nydia shrugged her shoulders faintly, it was out of her hands regardless...his newtype score wasn't impressive, but his test scores were better than expected. She supposed he was at least good at piloting the machines...hopefully that meant he was good at fighting in them, too.
 
R scoffed, shaking her head. "Just what we fuckin' need. A newbie. He'll probably die faster than the other asshole we had." She paused, the scowl on her face deepening. "What do they think we are, N? Fuckin' babysitters? Fuck." Even as she expressed great distaste for the idea of the new guy, R could see the advantages. Someone green didn't have enough experience to have a set way of doing things. They would be easier to integrate into their strategies, and would most likely be more willing to comply with the various commands that would arise in combat situations. It wasn't all bad, she supposed, but that lack of actual experience would be an issue.

"Hey, N," R started after a bit of silence. "You said he did an impressive feat with an ambush? Was he ambushing or getting ambushed? And what did he do, exactly?"
 
Nydia flipped faintly through the thin file, eyes skimming over it.

"Ah, here we are..." she mused. "He was part of an Early Type squad during the early offensive for Mars, they lost their squad leader and he managed to pull them back and counter. Got three kills on his own, confirmed."

"Well, at least he knows how to deal with mobile suits..." Jerod mused. But mobile suits weren't the only thing out there anymore...
 
R had to admit, she was impressed. A test pilot getting three confirmed kills from an ambush situation was nothing to scoff at. "Any other combat experience?" she asked. After all, that could all be beginner's luck. It did attest to potential to being a great pilot, but that didn't mean he was there yet. And until he got to that point, he would be a liability.

And Jerod was right. The new guy would know how to deal with mobile suits, but what about everything else? Had the new guy even seen what else was out there? R didn't really want to lose another fourth, but their old fourth had been experienced and still died where this guy had little to no experience. The hopes weren't high on him.
 
"Not particularly," Nydia replied. "Couldn't hurt to have someone a little less...you know..."

"Crazy?" Jerod replied dryly.

"Normal," she said in return. Normal was the best word, R was a former pirate...Jerod and Nydia hadn't really been anywhere near normalcy since Mars and beyond. Someone who looked more like a local wouldn't harm their chances at seemingly blending in. As it stood? They didn't have a lot of success in that field.

"Let's not discredit the guy because he's not an experienced pilot, he's certainly at least a good one." Which, anymore was better than nothing. The options weren't exactly expanding these days.
 
Alvin sat idly in the seat at the port, waiting for god-knows-who to show up and claim he was the fourth in their squad. He was in the waiting area, his arms crossed, a worried expression on his face. He wasn't a soldier, not truly; he was a test pilot, assigned now to be a soldier in an outfit he personally knew little about. His stuff had been shuttled ahead to the barracks; though there wasn't much at all, just small, personal effects, Alvin was worried they might not arrive at the barracks at all. Some of the items he carried could be considered very valuable. He knew, however, that when he did meet his new squad-mates, there wasn't likely to be a quick a trip to the barracks involved. There would be a lot of getting to know his co-workers, learning more about the Peacekeepers while simultaneously trying to hide his own relative ignorance of the organization.

The man was nervous, and it was obvious. He wasn't sure he was truly qualified to be a part of the Peacekeepers, Newtype or not, and he had to figure the only reason there was a spot for him to take on this particular squad wasn't something as quaint as a honorable discharge. He quickly decided to change the directions of this thought, deciding to focus on the memories of his relatives when they had heard the news.



R shook her head. "The guy who died on us was good too." Her eyes focused on Nydia, glaring a whole into them. "Good don't cut it in this world, N." R knew there really wasn't anything that could be done or said. There wasn't a whole lot of volunteers out there, and the most of those who were recruited were fairly green. Alvin wasn't really the exception to the rule here, but that did nothing to ease R's misgivings. To her, her squad was everything; a weak link weakened the squad. She wasn't against the new guy joining the Peacekeepers...just joining her squad, and turning them all into giant robot nannies.
 
"Too bad," Nydia replied dryly as Jerod grinned nervously at that reply. Quite frankly, Nydia and R were both right...it wasn't good to have inexperience on a team that had it, but they didn't have a lot of choices. But she was going to be stubborn about it like she always was, not that Nydia was expecting anything less...she had gotten a headache and a half with her, but at least it was a reliable headache.

"It's either this or we're not flying at all, Jen." Nydia clarified as Jerod flashed the spaceport guard their ID and sped right through. "And if you start acting like a bitch for no reason, you and I are going to have some worse problems. We clear, Ensign?"
 
The idea of not being able to fly anymore was enough to placate R, but then Nydia had to go and use the one thing R truly hated about the Peacekeepers: rank. True or not, there was no doubt in R's mind that she could kick Nydia's ass up one side the colony and down the other, but Nydia had rank. It was a useless word that meant Nydia had more say and could get her way, whether it was deserved or not. The pirates had it right, R had always maintained; if your CO gave a stupid order, or tried to assert her authority where it didn't belong, you put a boot to her face and make her beg for mercy. These weren't the pirates, and R preferred the ability to fly over being removed from her mobile suit and possibly much worse just for putting Nydia in her place. She gave a sigh, crossed her arms, and glared at Nydia. Rank had its place, especially on the battlefield and during a mission, but right here, right now...R hated Nydia for it.

"Fuck you too, Captain"
 
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