October 4th, 2019, 0300 Hours

Anchorhead Bay, Usea

Around the back of one of the hangars being used by the LRSSG, Count approached the back door and opened it. He was looking for someone who could usually be found in the hangar. Count entered. The bright white lights on the roof revealed the five aircraft inside the hangar; three F-15C Eagles, a modified F-15E Strike Eagle and the squad's most recent addition, an F-22A Raptor. At the Raptor was a squad leader; Captain Eric Kovac, or as the Eruseans called him, Three Strikes. Trigger heard someone open the door and looked at the offender.

'You're up early, Count.' He mused, standing on the top of the Raptor. Count shifted uncomfortably in his boots.

'Coming from you.' Count retorted at Trigger's habit of not sleeping enough. The latter shook his head and chuckled.

'Funny. Anyhow, what are you doing here?' Trigger asked. Count again shifted uncomfortably as he walked towards the Raptor so Trigger could hear him better.

'Uh…' He hesitated to speak for a moment. Trigger rolled his eyes.

'Is this about Huxian?' Trigger guessed. Count winced.

'How did you know that?' He asked defensively. Trigger laughed, dropped his tools and jumped down to the ground. Trigger was quite agile.

'You can hide things from the others, but you can't hide things from me. You like her.' Trigger outright accused Count. The latter stared Trigger in the eyes.

'Yeah.' He answered. Trigger chuckled again and moved towards the back door, motioning for Count to follow. The two left the hangar, where Trigger started walking towards the carpark near the front of the civilian airport.

'Where are we going?' Count asked. He wasn't sure what Trigger was doing.

'To a clothes shop.' Trigger answered. Count splayed his arms in exclamation.

'Why are we going to a clothes shop?' Count was now confused.

'Step one of dating. Be presentable. You're not going far with an aircrew's one-piece.' Trigger replied. They approached the carpark. Trigger pulled out keys from one of his pockets and pressed a button. The lights on a silver ute flashed and the doors unlocked. Strider Squadron's leader opened the driver's side door and got in. Count walked around and got in on the other side.

'Whose car is this?' Count had many questions.

'Some random guy that I found dead in the lobby.' Trigger answered morbidly, starting the engine and taxiing out of the parking lot. This got the pair onto the road, where Trigger turned and drove towards the city. They drove in silence for a few minutes before either of the pair said something.

'You talk to her more than I do. What does Huxian like?' Trigger asked Count, his eyes on the road.

'Well, she reads a lot.' Count noted. 'What else? Documentaries, sweets.'

'Oh, I know some places to find those.' Trigger took a turn off the main road that led into the city.

'Have you been to Anchorhead before?' Count was somewhat skeptical of Trigger's geographical knowledge.

'No, I just saw some places when we had to go rescue the conversative guy.' They reached the outside areas of the city. Because the place was in the middle of a warzone, the streets were almost entirely abandoned. All the better for them. Compared to when the LRSSG had been operating over the city, most of the destruction they had made had been either repaired or removed. Trigger navigated the car through the downtown area, eventually making it to the port river. Trigger parked the car at a curb, across from a shopping centre.

'We're Oseans in the middle of an Erusean mall. Are you sure this is a good idea?' Count didn't fancy the idea of being mauled by an angry Erusean mob.

'The war isn't very popular with Erusean civilians. We should be fine.' Trigger reassured the skeptical Count. The two got out of the car and crossed the road. As they did, a car came down the road, lights off and started beeping at the two. Trigger and Count got to the other side of the road and stopped for the offending car. The car pulled over, and a man got out of the car. The two recognised the man instantly. Commander Alex Williams, an LRSSG officer and leader of Razgriz Squadron who went by the callsign Blaze. He was dressed in civilian clothes.

'What are you two doing?' Alex asked. He didn't sound angry; quite the opposite. He sounded curious.

'Uh-' Trigger was coming up with an excuse.

'I asked Trigger for dating advice, and here we are.' Count told the truth. Alex stopped in his tracks, frowned and then started laughing. Trigger and Count exchanged glances before looking at the ace veteran.

'Okay,' Alex took a breath to regain his composure. 'That's not the stupidest reasoning I've heard of.'

'Let's go in. It's late as is.' Trigger motioned for the two pilots to follow him. The trio entered the mall. It was empty at this time of day, but everything appeared to be still open. Being similar to a mall that one would find in Osea, it didn't take long for them to find a clothes shop. Trigger pointed to it and walked in, followed by the other two. No-one was there to greet them.

'Hmm. Maybe the city is abandoned.' Count remarked. Alex shook his head as Trigger and Count started exploring for clothes.

'Count, what sort of style do you go for?' Trigger asked so he had a more specific profile to work with.

'My style? Plain clothes I guess. Jeans, t-shirts with no logos and stuff like that.' Count answered. Trigger nodded and went over to the portion of the store that had plain button-up shirts and t-shirts. Alex navigated to the other side of the store where there were jeans.

'Black or blue?' Alex asked.

'Black.' Count answered. Nodding to himself, Alex picked up what he guessed was the right size of black baggy jeans and went over to the counter. There was no shop-keeper there. Trigger gathered a couple of shirts and handed them over to count. Alex followed and gave Count the jeans.

'Try these on, make sure they fit.' Trigger told him. Count nodded and went over to a changeroom with the clothes. Trigger and Alex waited in the lobby. After a minute and some swearing, Count came out of the changeroom with the new clothes on. Save for his long, somewhat maintained hair, he looked fresh and organised.

'Looking good.' Alex liked the look.

'Concur.' So did Trigger.

'Shall we leave, then?' Count asked. Alex was hesitant to leave without paying for the clothes, but in his defence there was no-one to hand the money over to. The trio left the store and headed deeper into the mall. The area was completely abandoned. When they approached a non-functioning escalator, Trigger saw a bookstore out of the corner of his eye.

'I wonder if anything good is in here.' Trigger pointed the store out. The trio walked in. Count saw something that he liked almost instantly. An astronomy section, which included some documentary DVDs. Count picked a selection of them up. Alex raised his eyebrows upon noticing the content of the stuff Count was picking up.

'Whoever you're going for, her and Kei have something in common.' Alex joked. Nagase, Alex's former wingwoman, had an avid thirst for knowledge of space and space things.

'Hu-' Trigger was going to spoil the surprise.

'Hush!' Count cut him off before Trigger could finish the sentence. The latter chuckled and walked around the store while waiting for Count to make decisions on what to grab. After some deliberation, Count made a decision and indicated that he was set.

'About time. Is that all you guys came for?' Alex asked.

'That is all.' Trigger answered.

'Let's head back to base.' Alex said, leading the trio out of the store and back towards the street they had entered from. Trigger and Count mounted up in Trigger's borrowed ute while Alex got back into the car he had found. Together, the two vehicles left the area and headed back for the airport. Halfway back to the airport, Count asked Trigger a question.

'So how are you and Avril going?'

'All things considered, pretty good. We haven't done much.' Trigger answered shamelessly. It was no secret that he and Avril were in a relationship.

'Figured as much. Speaking of which, who's this Kei lady that the commander was talking about?'

'I think Kei was Blaze's wingman back in the day. I dunno, he only talked about it once.' Trigger answered. He didn't really know. Count didn't say anything about it.