I feel the g-forces pressing me into my seat as I stop. I turn off my ers, and am unclipped from the cable. “Yes third again.” The sound echo’s in the small cockpit. To move up in the fighter pilot world, you have to be able to hit the third cable, over and over and over again. In the dark, against the sun glare, in the wind and rain. I’m pretty good but I haven’t beaten Taeyang’s record yet. 154 perfect landings and half of those in -awful conditions in the dark. Apparently ‘It’s more fun to land on something you can’t see.’

I unhook my canopy, as my plane is now safely resting in its bay. I release my straight blonde hair from the constricting helmet and shake my head to depressurize my ears. The roaring red dragon on the side represents my call sign ‘G. Dragon’. Hearing the sounds of roaring jet engines as I climb down the side of my plane, I turn to see Free-Fall pull a perfect 3^rd cable landing. He powers down next to my plane, flips his canopy and throws his arms in the air, “87, I’m catching you G.D.”

“Yeah right Free, still got a ways to go.” I nod at the mechanic coming to check my plane.

“She due in for a service soon?” I already know but I ask anyway. It’s always a good idea to befriend your ground crew, they are the ones that are gonna make sure your plane is ready to go and in tip-top condition.

“End of this month, but we’ll be in port so you’ll be on shore leave.” The mechanic is the one that regularly checks my plane; I think his name is Jonghyun.

“That’s good, won’t have to worry about…”

My voice is drowned out by the roaring of yet another jet coming into land, it’s one of the Wolf-pack- Sabre’s squadron, fighter and air support Thunderbolt II’s.

I salute the mechanic and he responds with a nod. Free-Fall and I grab our gear and head to the island. As we walk across the tarmac, having to pause several times to let aircrafts pass, get shot off the catapult and catch the cables. As we finally make it to the island and quiet, Angel, another member of my squadron, bounds up the stairs. Her normally plaited hair is around her face, showing she’s definitely in a hurry.

“G, Free. We have a problem.” Her normally happy tone is gone and it’s been replaced by one of hesitation, question and something I can’t quite place. “The squad’s downstairs, we’re just waiting on you two and Night Hawk. Where is he?”

She follows us to the gear room, where we hang up our helmets and strip off sweaty flight gear. Dara turns away as Daesung and I strip to our boxers, then turns back after we’ve grabbed towels and are in showers that cover our bottom halves.

“And to think they didn’t want mixed squadrons because of privacy and harassment issues.” We all laugh; it’s an ongoing joke in our squadron where we have both female and male pilots. When the squadron was originally put together we were told again and again if there was any hint of harassment or ‘under covers’ activity the unit would be disbanded and the involved parties honourably discharged.

We finish our showers and chuck on clean clothes, then bolt to the ‘command room’. It’s fighter pilots only and where we plan missions, go through tactics and, some night’s chill and watch movies.

We arrive at the same time as Night-Hawk, our flight commander. His actual name is Taeyang and he holds the record, on this carrier, for most 3^rd cable night landings.

He heads to the front of the room and nods at us to take our seats. We do as he dims the lights and hits the remote to turn on our projector.

“So, Wings, we have good news and we have bad news. Good news is, dnt dnt da, we are getting a rookie. Bad news is, we are unfortunately getting a rookie.” Taeyang flashes up a picture of a guy with black short spiked hair, brown eyes and a look that tries to say ‘come and get me ladies’ and fails.

“Nawe, he’s adorable. I just want to pinch his liddle cheeks.” This statement could come from no-one but the mothering influence of our group, Bom- call sign Wild Cat.

“Wild Cat, I hadn’t finished.” Taeyang gives an exasperated sigh. “Right so, his name is Lee Seungri, he’s a newbie at the carrier game but apparently has ‘the right stuff’, according to the top brass.” Taeyang makes inverted commas with his fingers.

The only Top Brass willing to assign a rookie to a our squad without any warning is Kim Kibum, better known by his call sign ‘Key’. I can’t see this going down well. I seem to have a perchance for flaunting authority and Key seems to have made it his number one priority to beat me at my own game. He knows by giving us a rookie we have to play nice for the amount of time it takes for him to learn the ropes. Especially in a mixed squad like this. If he so much as looks at our girls the wrong way, this newbie in for a beat down. But not from us boys, oh no, Angel can hold her own against most men twice her size and Wild Cat might look like a softy but her call sign shows her true nature when she’s riled.