Sylvia nodded. "The airport is mostly intact, except for some parts of the terminal. The terminal is currently serving as a refugee camp for the survivors. You are welcome to stay," she said. "We have some weapons, food, medical supplies and fuel from air supply drops that we diverted from Chong's army while we were under his occupation."
"Thank you," Deimos said.
He and the rest of the Pelvanida Group headed to the terminal. Along the way, they found several armed guards patrolling the grounds.
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Major Lockie and Lt. Martin were in the Surf Point Airport and resting.
"I'm going to take flight," Major Lockie said, nuzzling his girlfriend.
He got clearance from the control tower, revved his engines and took to the skies.
He plotted a course to Cobia Bay.
Lt. Martin said nothing as she got clearance, revved her engines and took flight. She too was headed for Cobia Bay.
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Some of the ground crew were hosing down the blood on Captain Fairchild after the incident with the saboteurs.
Luckily, his meal of metal had helped repair most of the damage and the metal repair paste concocted by Haresh helped a lot.
"All right, I'm ready for flight!" he ordered.
A new magazine for his 30 mm gatling autocannon was loaded into him. A chaff dispenser and flare dispenser were attached to his spare underbelly pylons (the 3rd one had an electronic countermeasure system that he had already attached before he arrived at Ft. Inglorious).
"So what is your weapons load out?" the crew chief asked.
Captain Fairchild screwed up his eyes in thought. "Give me two Sidewinder air-to-air missiles and four Maverick air-to-ground missiles and two rocket pods - one WP and one '17 pounder' rocket."
The ground crew quickly assembled and fetched the aforementioned munitions. Thanks to Captain Fairchild's manipulator claws, they had managed to fully load all the weapons in under ten minutes.
"Fort Inglorious Ground Control, this is Captain Fairchild, requesting permission to take off," he said into his built in radio. He revved up his engines; there was no worry of his engines ingesting debris or worse, a member of his ground crew because they were mounted very high up on his fuselage.