[wavehawk]

Not final. It feels like I'm chopping a tree with a blunt axe here.

Spoiler:

Burkhart had not been in the Hangar two minutes before her new guide met her halfway at the door. Crew Boss Jeong Min-jae seemed to be the opposite of Wilkes, warmly shaking her hand as he met her. The informality surprised Elle at first, until Min-jae advised that he was not a military man.

"They don't pay me enough." The Crew Boss chortled. "Not everyone here works for the UN or US Military brass. Feel free to be casual."

"Colonel Wilkes doesn't seem to be the casual sort."

"Don't take it personally. Wilkes is just a butt-clenched bastard." Min-jae gestured for Elle to follow him. "He doesn't care what we do as long as Phantom Works gets him the results he wants."

"Phantom Works?"

"That's us. We used to be McDaell-Doglam's advanced prototyping division. When Boening bought out the company, they kept us. Nowadays, we do testing for the UN forces on request." He pointed to a plate on the wall, which had the same bandit mascot as the one Elle saw earlier. "The founding members worked on the original F-4 Phantom, so the name and logo stuck."

"You worked on the F-4?"

"Me? Nah. But I worked on the F-18E and the YF-23 projects." A slur of distaste was heard when Min-jae mentioned the YF-23. "Head office is in St. Louis, Missouri. We're an international branch--the modelling, simulation and actual flight test work is done by us."

"Combat tests." Elle muttered, too faint for anyone else to hear. The United States was not close to any hot-spots. Most of the Asian continent was still under enemy control and thus too chaotic. And hell would freeze over before Japan allows Americans to perform live-fire tests on their home soil. Thus, the newly-liberated western Europe was the ideal testing ground.

Testing. For what?

"So, how're you finding the place so far?"

Elle was still uneasy. The other ground crew and other staff continued to give her cold stares as she followed Min-jae around.

"I don't exactly feel welcome."

"Give 'em some time. Nobody gets sent here that doesn't already belong here." The pair paused to let a weapons carrier drive through. "Besides, aren't the Germans supposed to be real hard-arses to work for?"

"Far from it." Burkhart couldn't help but chuckle, some of her previous tension easing. She had been on exchange duties with the German Bundeswehr's 66th Armored division as a SAR/UCAV pilot, assigned to Jasta-44 'Zerberus'. "The ones I've met are all crazy, lovable dorks."

Min-jae raised an eyebrow but said nothing as he led on, finally stopping at the hangar's far end.

The frames of three F-15E Strike Eagles loomed above Elle. Two were slowly being eased out of their service berths, the scream of wheels on metal grinding as mobile platforms crawled forward to meet them. Burkhart noted the remaining Strike Eagle was the same machine from this morning, based on it's gray and burnt-red camouflage scheme. A closer look at its waist armor showed a serial number of 78-0468, meaning that F-15E was the 468th TSF using an Eagle frame. 1978 was the year the machine's construction started.

Icon-1 is a first-generation Eagle? Burkhart realized that the machine's airframe was older than she was. The F-15 had only begun trials in 1978, and the current F-15E Strike Eagle variant was not developed until the early 1990's.

Elle then looked at the other two machines. Icon-2 had a serial number of 80–0055 and Icon-3's number was 81-0063. That meant none of the three TSFs were Strike Eagles at the time of their construction, and she asked the Crew Boss about this.

"Icon Flight were originally first-production F-15A Eagles," Min-jae replied. "They were three of five F-15As converted to the E-type for evaluation purposes during the Strike Eagle project."

"And they've been used as TSF testbeds ever since?"

"Pretty much. Three very used Strike Eagles." The gruff Min-jae shrugged mirthlessly. "I guess we should be glad we weren't given F-5s. That would have been just damn insulting."

Elle didn't yet feel comfortable enough to ask about the dead pilot, so she inspected the machines instead. All had the same black pod and extra antenna mount was found on all three TSFs. The silhouette of each was heftier than a normal Strike Eagle due to small but noticeable shoulder-mounted thrusters. Likewise, the legs appeared much thicker--Elle guessed this was to accomodate additional or larger fuel tanks for the shoulder thrusters and the larger-than-normal waist-mounted jump engines.

That's a lot of thrust these machines are playing with, Elle conceded. It was then she noticed differences between the three machines themselves. Though all three were based on the same F-15E frame, they were clearly distinct.

The furthermost unit was Icon-3. It had a pair of head antennae, one on each side. Burkhart realized the design as similar to Japanese TSF designs, much like a Samurai's helmet. There was also a noticable bump on the upper-right side of the TSF's head just above the black pod, and Elle could see an open porthole facing front. A gun port?

Middle unit Icon-2 had a much larger head antenna than the other two units, and Elle could see it was adjustable. The TSF itself also had platelike protrusions on its forearms--she guessed them to be sensor pods.

Icon-1 stood unchanged from the encounter this morning. Like Icon-2, there were protrusions on its forearms. These were much larger, and Elle could not help but think of Soviet-designed TSFs. Burkhart theorized they were for additional ammunition or weapons.

"Min-jae. What is it exactly we're testing here?"

"Plenty."