"Can I even put into words how awesome that was?"

"I'm sure you'll give it a go."

Bay was sat on Toby's desk staring out at the bright sky willing it to get dark, they had another night-run at 2400 hours.

"Hey Angelos - how was being winch-man for the Bobcats?" Bay called up to the top bunk where an arm was hanging out lazily.

"The pilot's cool, the systems operator's a nerd,” came back a drawling voice.

"Hey!" Toby cried, "I'm your systems operator!"

Bay guffawed and slid off the desk, he was way too pumped up to sit still. "So Lily Hart’s good huh?"

"She flies well yeah. High maintenance and demanding but what pilot isn't?" Angelos replied lazily.

Bay and Toby nodded in agreement, pilots - the prima donnas of every squadron.

"I swear I thought Brent Brown might have a hissy fit if the new flight helmets messed up his hair," Angelos said snarkily, earning him another round of laughter.

"Brent's from your old squadron right?" Bay asked, "How come you weren't put in a team with him then?"

"That's why I wasn't put in a team with him," Angelos replied with a scoff.

Fair enough.

"I think I'm going to be sick again," Toby blurted out, staggering towards the bathroom.

Jesus, he hadn't even been piloting the damn thing. Then again, even Luca had looked a little pasty when they stepped out onto the tarmac after landing.

Being plugged into a 250 knot speed airborne matrix will do that to a guy. Luca had kept it together up there though, not that Bay had expected anything less, but the man could handle an aircraft cleanly and had seemed in complete control at all times.

Luca hadn't even balked when Bay had tried to explain the onboard self destruct device that existed for if they were compromised.

(thermo-nuclear low-yield weapon to erase the technology efficiently and completely whilst keeping radiation levels to a minimum)

***

Finally, nightfall arrived. This was when they would be flying from now on, if everything went smoothly that night. Strictly night-operations, non-combat purposes - hence the limited weapons.

Bay had sort of hoped for a few more rocket launchers, but as Sydney witheringly informed him over dinner, their missions would be strictly for experimental prototype testing and if they saw any action, it would most likely be covert rescue ops.

"So no Bada-boom?"

"No Leeloo, no Bada-boom."

Bay liked Sydney, she got his references.

Bay started walking across camp to the back of the warehouse. It was a standard American military base in that it was huge, housed multiple aircraft and was therefore relatively easy to run a top secret helicopter ops from and pass it off as another listening station.

Sure there would be rumours, but if everybody did their jobs right, things should go smoothly. Everyone knew they were running black ops, they just didn't know about the choppers, so no eyebrows were raised too much at the heavy guard presence surrounding the warehouse.

Oh yeah...guards...crap...I.D.

"We have to see your Team Pass or you can't be allowed through," A tall and bored looking guard was saying, he had a long jagged scar down his face, looked like a real GI Joe.

"No, but really - I was here this morning, don't you remember me? I'm Bay Pereira!"

The guard gave Bay an 'are you for real?' look, "I wasn't on duty this morning."

"Ah. But...my I.D. is in my room and that's the other side of the Base! If I go back for it I'll be super late and Major Jenkins will shit a brick, like a fully formed terracotta brick!"

The guard did not look impressed.

"Look, I'm sorry but if you don't have your I.D..."

"Yeah, okay Gandalf, I get it, I shall not pass." Bay muttered and kicked at the dirt. If he was not stood by the aircraft at exactly 2400 hours, Jenkins would use Sydney as systems operator for Ibis instead and Bay wouldn’t get to go up...at night...when it was coolest.

"Fine," Bay grumbled dejectedly and turned around to go, staring at the floor when he smacked headfirst into something incredibly solid. Bay looked up in surprise and saw the shadowed face of Luca Jeong glaring down at him.

"Oh hey Luca!" Bay grinned sheepishly.

"Bay. Where are you going?" Luca asked roughly.

"Oh...I er, forgot my I.D, so I'm going back," Bay shrugged with a guilty expression. This wasn’t the kind of impression he wanted to be making to his new captain. He had a feeling that Luca was a stickler for efficiency and competency.

Luca blinked and looked off to the side as if he couldn't quite comprehend this level of stupidity.

"You won't make it in time," Luca stated.

"Yeah...I know, guess you'll have to take Sydney instead," Bay glanced down dejectedly at the floor, he had been looking forward to this all day and now he had even embarrassed himself in front of Luca.

Luca let out a huff of air and grabbed Bay's sleeve, pulling him towards to the guard and causing Bay to almost yelp out in surprise.

"He's with you?" The guard squinted at Luca.

"Yeah, sorry Sanders, he's part of my team, I'll approve him inside," Bay gave a sharp nod.

"Yeah, yeah whatever, just make sure he's got his I.D. next time," the guard grumbled before moving to one side and giving Bay a scathing look as they passed through the barrier.

"Oh my god, thank you!" Bay exclaimed to Luca, "I really didn't want to miss the night flight!"

He though he could see that faint upward curve to Luca's lips again, but perhaps he was imagining it.