That next moment, the door opened as an Akkadian Navy-dressed officer walked into the room after being escorted in by Singapore CCC officials. She got up to see who it was, not realizing how much the bright hallway hurt to stare into.

“Sorry, guess I should’ve knocked,” the soft-spoken man said with a smile as he allowed her time to adjust. “I also realize I may have arrived a whole day sooner than planned, but I think you could forgive me for that one.”

Danielle’s squinted eyes suddenly felt relief by what she smiled back. “Gabriel fucking Silva. Look at you, Sly! And Knight never told me you were upgraded to commanding officer!” she spoke with excitement as she walked up for a hug. In the light, the man could be seen to have mixed ethnic backgrounds and appeared to be in his thirties. His slim yet athletic build towered over Danielle’s shorter stature as well.

“I guess it’s been too long, hasn’t it?” Gabriel added, returning the light embrace. “So, is this the mess you got yourself into here at Hexa? I hope I’m not too late for anything.”

“Oh, no, no! I was actually just asking that myself. Here, take a seat! I’d imagine you had quite the trip getting here on such short notice.” She motioned him towards an empty seat next to hers. She, too, took her seat, letting out another stress-laden sigh. “Sly, listen, I know this all will bring up bad memories, but-”

“-Saff already filled me in, don’t worry.”

“Wait, Knight didn’t reach out to you? He was the one who told me he might be able to get in touch with you.”

“No, ma’am, Saff called me right before I pulled strings for the rush flight. She told me everything. Even got to talk a bit to Strife for a moment about the mess. So, why bring up old Suha- and why are you calling him Knight?”

Danielle picked up on the sour note that came at the tail end of his response, electing not to reach any further. “Never mind all of that. Just wanted to make sure you knew the whole situation.” She then directed his attention toward the screen. “I assume you read my notes on the way here. This is the mess, part two. Antares Mk.2 installed after last absolute second clearance. Four kids bombing the first part of the crash course, and who knows how much of it is to do with this new operating system. I know it has to be me for the most part, but this was never my thing back in the day, you know? Just because I know how to do something, yeah, it wasn’t going to be something I could ever translate to them at all.”

Gabriel took a moment to observe the simulation course underway, taking in a few mental notes before looking back to Danielle with a smirk and a chuckle. “Yeah. You still talk too much. That was probably error number one.”

“I do not,” she shot back. “You think this is stuff you can put in one sentence? This is the-”

“-You are attempting to prep them for the Flex four, Danielle, I get it. You must be taking this approach like you had our old drill sergeants do us back then… way back when everyone called you Rook.” He continued despite the sour reaction Danielle had to her old call sign. “With times and systems changing, you know crash drills don’t work now, it never worked back then, and that’s what a number of us tried so hard to fix. Let me get you off on a good footing.”

“You aren’t taking my job, are you?” she said with an uneasy chuckle.

“Shit, no,” he laughed back. “I got a few days unless I need to call in a special favor, but don’t forget I am a guest here. And judging by the fact you all wanted me here especially because Suha’s little girl Sam is involved, I highly doubt Vrey even knows about this.”

Danielle had been moving so quickly since her last episode with rule violations she had forgotten how thin the ice was for her. Shit, Sly, that’s not what I want to hear, but damn it I need your help.

“Let me get you off on a good footing and you can see exactly what to do after that. Your initial ideas were great. Execution is what I was fearing would be lacking, so we’ll fix that. Call your pilots in so I can give them a proper introduction.”

“Mid-run?”

“Yes, we need to start from square one, and that’s showing what the end product is, first.” He then nudged her hand that had just reached up to hit the call button on her headset, causing her to pause. “And second, you really need to quit calling everyone younger than you ‘kids’.” He saw she was about to retort before he cut that off as well with a smile. “I know, I know. Sorry, go ahead.”

▽　▽　▽

An exhausted set of pilots were now seated in front of the same screens where Danielle was stationed, this time in the absence of other Infinity staff. Each of them adjusted their ear pieces and caught sight of the activating monitors hooked up to one of their simulator pods.

Sam peered over at Sebastian occasionally, still concerned for his condition but still relieved that he was holding up. Come to think of it, she thought to herself, remembering how different things were when it was just the two of them prior to their arrival. He’s been awfully quiet even before the spill. I hope he’s alright with everything.

“Director Norris,” he spoke up, surprising the others. “Is that a new instructor?”

“Yes, Navarre, in a sense,” Danielle answered with a weak smile. “He will be assisting us for a few days to help get things started more quickly.”

“Shh, look,” Kerry spoke up as she noticed the monitor changing locations several times until it loaded up a location southeast of Dhaka City that was on a building overlooking a crowded sea of older apartment buildings. “I think he’s starting.”

“Hey, that’s where our holding house was in Narayanganj,” Andre said with a gulp, flashing back to the nightmare that ripped them away from their station, barely with their lives intact.

“This is Former Eden-Casares Union Pilot Gabriel Silva,” the voice spoke to them in a stern voice from the simulator pod.

The name immediately set off a bell in Sam’s head, remembering how that name had been tossed around several times back in her middle school days. Silva? No, that can’t be him… is it?

He then continued: “What I am about to show you is the capability of Antares, even despite the many key features that have been disabled for your safety. Watch carefully and take notes. Switching to in-eye camera.”

Clustered flashes of red and three clouds of yellow popped up on the screen next to Gabriel’s in-eye camera feed, showing the incoming LTAC units honing in on him. Two were groups of five, and the other a group of eight. But before any of the four pilots could study the screen any further, their eyes quickly darted back to the camera feed as a dizzying blitz of focus changes and quick changes in movements had them reeling, struggling to make sense of what they saw.

Sam could only make out that the Ap50 was airborne one second, attracting fire, then angling downward at an uncomfortable angle through an alley. Within less than a few seconds, the eye-camera had darted between zipping over a few targets and back to the alley behind him, somehow firing six shots in between each flash of the camera angle. The Ap50 then swung directions, facing the other way as it rocketed back upwards, but was still hard to follow as Gabriel’s eyes never stayed in one place for more than a split second. By this point in time, no one was able to follow. The echoing sounds of the hybrid rifle rang out four more times, being the only event that they could comprehend by this point. Just trying to keep focus on the camera itself was disorienting enough to nauseate. This has to be that Silva guy dad flew with. Why the hell is he here?

“Ten down, popping in behind the last group,” he continued calmly, finding a quiet corner to stop and gather his bearings for a few moments. Even during this time, the eye-camera feed never settled down, constantly snapping back and forth between the sky, in front of him, and to the left, all views out of the alley from where he stood. He then took off again, advancing to his left while turning himself back to face where he left, now thrusting himself upwards into the sky, firing the final shots which Sam counted to be a total of ten. He then gently set himself on top of where he started, letting out a breath that only hinted slight exhaustion at best. “Sorry about that, the last target was a bit slippery from that angle.”

“Forty-two seconds, Sly,” Danielle spoke as she had this whole time been watching a statistics monitor and not any of the action.

“This dude is not human,” Kerry spoke up, noting the others were in the same boat, mouths agape.

“Correction,” he replied as she shut her mouth, embarrassed that she had been heard. “Human here, sorry, but human with an unhealthy amount of experience with this OS. If I knew this region better like your boss there, who may have scored this in under thirty seconds unrestricted, you’d see different. Now, let me hear the observations before I break this all down for you.”

Holy shit was all the four could muster in thought before Sam broke the silence. “Mr., um, Silva, you placed twenty shots. What did you hit with the two you missed?” She immediately felt the pressure of everyone looking back at her as if she may have insinuated something she didn’t intend. “I ask that as I realize there is so much for us to look out for with the ROE and our hybridized rifles, sir… I would like… to know what you did in the event you couldn’t take the ideal shot, sir.”

Unlike the others, however, Sebastian was feeling excited as he thought to himself: [About time! I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what this machine was supposed to look like when it does its job! This is good shit, please continue.]

“Great question,” he said with a pause in thought. “You know, I will jot that down as I go over the recording frame by frame in a minute. But for now, let’s get this studied like we only had a day to do this because it might be all I have!”

-Begin Dhaka Arc-