Bay reached for his fourth piece of toast, shamefully grinning at the judgemental glare he received from the serving lady.

"How can you eat so much? I feel sick with nerves," Toby complained with a whine.

Bay glanced up, Toby was looking a little green to say the least.

"How can you be nervous man?” Bay babbled through a spray of burnt crumbs. “I am so freaking excited, oh my god seriously, I mean in less than an hour we will be operating the MD-SAADARS! Do you have any idea what I had to do to be given this gig?"

"Get kicked off every other squadron?" Sydney Jones, the third systems operator, asked airily.

"Not-the-point-Jones,” Bay huffed indignantly. “Seriously, this is like the most futuristic machine in the sky right now - living multi adaptable aerofoils. No pitch rods. The blades increase their angle to make you take off by distorting themselves variably allowing for optimum angle of attack for all scenarios, giving you super efficiency in the hover and at high-speed. It has two rotors spinning in opposite directions, one on top of the other, but very close. No tail- rotor, nothing at the back, no thrusters either..."

"Yes thank you Bay, we've both read the brief." Sydney snorted and started to tie her raven black hair back in a pony tail.

"I've seen it..." Toby wailed miserably, looking up at them.

"What? You've seen it already? How?" Bay exclaimed, outraged.

"Shhh!" Sydney scolded Bay dragging his sleeve back down from where he had jumped up, knocking over his seat. Bay looked around, quite a few people in the refectory were staring, right, black ops, right, secrecy.

"I was asked by Major Jenkins to go into the warehouse yesterday to help set up some boxes, maintaining the whole charade of 'listening station' in case anyone gets by the guards. I caught sight of one of the choppers then," Toby replied, completely devoid of any enthusiasm.

"Which one? Which one?" Bay was buzzing uncontrollably in his seat. It was like Christmas had come early and Santa had brought him a forty-million dollar flying machine in his stocking.

"Ibis I think," Toby squinted

"Oh my god! That's my baby!" Bay exclaimed (squealed) in a manly (electrocuted Pokémon) fashion.

"Yeah, it looks weird" Toby continued

"It...it looks 'weird'?” Bay frowned. “Seriously, four years at Stanford and thirteen months of flight training and that's the description you're going to go with?"

Sydney rolled her eyes at both of them.

"Well, it’s all flat and angular, looks like someone vacuumed the air out of it," Toby shrugged.

"Of course there are no curves!" Sydney exclaimed, "Curved surfaces bounce radar beams off in every direction. In fact the MD-SAADARS is built to absorb 98% of all radio transmissions."

"Yeah!" exclaimed Bay, "I heard it has the radar signature equivalent of a small KitKat wrapper, and even then it doesn't look like a man-made signal!"

Toby sighed, "You see Bay, this is why the cool kids won't sit with us."

"Speak for yourself," snapped Sydney, picking up her empty tray and sidling out of the hall.

Bay looked around, he had kind of hoped that teams would sit together that morning, give themselves a chance to get to know each other.

But no, the systems operators and winch-men were sat at different tables and the pilots were very firmly ensconced as far away as possible by the coffee machine.

"How are Top Gun looking?" Toby smiled at Bay as he turned round to check out the pilots' table.

Toby quickly turned back when one of them glared at him, the one with the serial-killer eyebrows, Luca something? Bay seemed to remember it might have been Luca Jeong.

The guy looked mixed Korean American and had been unfairly blessed with a jaw line that could probably rival the sharp edges of the chopper blades. Luca Jeong also looked however, like he had not been blessed with a sense of humour. Muted grey eyes were piercing into the souls of anyone who seemed to stray too close to the handsome pilot’s radar.

Bay sighed, "I'm thinking of calling the dark one Maverick, the douche-guy Iceman and the blonde girl Goose."

"Goose...not sure she really suits that," Toby frowned.

"Well she's worth a gander," Bay replied with a wink.

Bay grinned satisfied as Toby exploded into laughter. He looked up again, all three of the pilots were now staring at him. Bay gulped nervously, did a trademark Pereira wave and then concentrated hard on his toast. Luca’s eyes had seemed like volcanic ash boring into him even from across the cafeteria.

After breakfast, they did prep, which took approximately five years, well it felt like it did. Then they suited up. The suits, in Bay’s humble opinion, were incredible.

They could monitor heart rate and temperature, brain patterns, metabolism and allowed them to go to altitude and achieve a dream-like state during airborne loitering (Having to hang around up there, waiting for orders or to grow old), by way of intravenous drips of special drugs, which the team had affectionately named 'Nectar'.

Plus, they make Bay look like an extra from Star Wars: A New Hope, but that was a secondary concern, of course.

The pilots sauntered into the warehouse last, obviously wanting to make a grand entrance, and nope, the suits were certainly not too hard on the eyes either.

Bay did a double take as he noticed his pilot, Luca Jeong, cross his arms over his chest as he came to a standstill, muscles straining against the taut fabric. Bay quickly glanced away, everyone knew you didn’t crush on pilots, that was simply a rookie error.

"Okay so nobody refers to this as a 'hangar' around the Base, is that understood?" Jenkins started speaking, a loud nasal voice that came from behind Bay, making him jump.

Bay caught Luca giving him a hard, unimpressed look.

"It is for all intents and purposes a warehouse, okay? We don't want to arouse suspicion. Otherwise this will turn from 'black ops' into a 'shades of gray ops' and I'm sure as hell not up for kinky spanking anyone!"

Dead silence. Bay swallowed nervously and let out a laugh two minutes too late. Jenkins glared at him.

"The aircraft are out back now, go do your walk rounds then power up," the major instructed. 

Bay was so exited he couldn't breathe properly. They walked across the hangar, big, empty and echoing.

The doors winched open, and there they were, three beautiful specimens poised on the hard ground, waiting to be bathed in admiration. Sharp, jutting angles, thin bodies, superlight frames, minimal weapons, small sponsens, shades of mid to dark grey for night-ops only.

Bay strode (skipped) purposefully over to the one he realised was Ibis and took a peek inside. It was heavily tinted, almost blacked out. The instrument display was one piece of wrap around glass, the display was fluid, meaning the pilot could see whatever he needed, wherever he needed it. Perfection.

"Don't get any drool on the instruments Pereira," Sydney called out to him laughing, Bay looked over, but she too was wearing a look of adoration as she glanced in the cockpit of Tegu.

"Told you it looked weird," Toby muttered, walking past him.

"Heathen!" Bay snapped back, running his hand reverently along the door and sighing. He jerked it back suddenly when he realised he had run his caressing fingers over the top of someone else's hand.

Luca Jeong was holding the door handle with an expression like he had just swallowed a sour lime.

"Er...sorry!" Bay exclaimed merrily as Luca pointedly ignored him, opened the door and chucked a clipboard onto the pilot's seat. Bay brought his hand back to his side but his fingers twitched with the dry warmth Luca’s hand had given off.

"Ground checks," Luca said gruffly, still not looking at Bay, then shut the door with a slam.

"Right,” Bay nodded nervously. “Yes, ground checks, I was just admiring your cock...well our cockpit."

Luca gave Bay the kind of look reserved for people who show up at your door trying to sell you a religion.