ETF Saga Stories Presents:

Knight of the Dragon

Part Two

by:

Brian R. Kupfer

Adam "Mayhem" Mason walks slowly down the line of helicopters and ground vehicles parked in designated spaces in the cavernous hangar complex.

Doug Danko, the leader of the Cavalry and longtime friend of Mayhem’s, told Adam that he had found a "New Toy" for he and Robbie. The way he’d said it, Mason could hear the capitalization in Matrix’s voice.

Gleaming in the light of the overhead florescents, the Cavalry’s workhorses are polished to a sheen, and reflect off the spotless, newly buffed, light gray floors of the complex.

Some of the V/STOL aircraft have strange paint schemes, and occasionally make Adam stop and wander around them, shaking his head in amusement. Two of the group’s AH-64 Apaches are the standard green, but flanking them on either side, the gloss midnight black and Israeli-style desert camo Apaches leave Mayhem wondering about their pilots’ personalities, as, just like in the ETF, the Cavalry pilots choose their own paint schemes and send their requests to the ground crews, who then repaint the vehicles.

Mason especially likes the schemes used on the RAH-66 Commanche and the twin AH-1Z Super Cobras, which are a white tiger and overall identical blue metallic, respectively. Next, of course, is the Cavalry’s newest arrival, the Lynx, which sports a three-tone-blue sea camouflage with, of all things, flames painted from the cockpit and engine cowling back.

At the end of the line of conventional helos sits the tried and true UH-1C Iroquois, which has been in either ETF or Cavalry possession since Operation Valiant Response, when Joe Strano had flown it out of Iran, with the surviving members of that first mission aboard.

Thinking back, Mason shudders slightly. That had certainly not been a fun mission. Back then, the Huey had been olive drab, as most UH-1s had been since Vietnam. Now, however, it is painted in a more whimsical fashion, as some of the 007 fans in the gang had repainted the bird to exactly simulate the Huey used in the Bond film "On Her Majesty’s Secret Service". A Bond fan himself, Adam finds the paint scheme amusing, as well as the 1969 V-8 Aston Martin DBS sitting beside it.

After stopping off to look around the car, including popping the hood, Mason continues on past the two V-22 hybrid tilt-rotor variants, Matrix’s standard night attack schemed AV-8B, and the new AV-35A JSF, which is painted like a Yak-38 Forger.

Though this is the end of the line of aircraft, there are still about 100 yards of hangar left, filled with fire trucks, weapons carts, crash trucks, all in a flat sand colored paint, and many of the personal vehicles of the Cavalry members, as well as Lil’ Abe. At the very end of all these vehicles, a large shape is shrouded under a tarp. The tarp is over seventy feet long, and at least thirteen feet tall, probably nine feet wide, Adam estimates.

This must be Matrix’s find. Mayhem thinks as he pulls up the corner of the tarp to look underneath.

"Oh, hell yes..." He mutters to the large vehicle beneath.

"Hey, you guys seen Mayhem?" Valder asks as he walks into the Cavalry’s entertainment center, a large room with three overstuffed couches, two recliners, a huge flatscreen TV, and a few end tables. Not even looking up at the former ETF commander, Doug Danko waves a hand towards the hangar complex, furiously manipulating the PS2 controller from his recliner. "He’s probably tinkering with that old hulk I found for him....Damn You, Vyper!!" Danko curses as his virtual JSF starts to smoke from a cannon hit.

"You can run.....hehehe" Ryan Wakefield smirks, "but you can never hide."

"Wanna bet?" Doug replies as the virtual AV-35 seems to stop in midair as Danko puts it into a hover, and the brightly-painted F/A-18C roars past overhead. The JSF re-transitions to forward flight, quickly gaining on the fleeing Hornet.

Watching the two play the ETF’s game with a smirk, Aaron comments, "I’ve got winner when I get back," as he wanders back towards the hangar area to find Mason.

Suzanne "Daphne" Wagner slides out the chute onto the main hangar deck, springing forward as soon as her Nike sneakers hit the floor, into a tuck roll, before jogging across the hangar towards the far corner, where the REB-36D sits. Usually, Suzanne likes to go outside for her daily run, however, the three-foot dumping of snow the mountains received last night has made that a near-impossibility.