The flight deck of the FCU Endurance stretches wide under an overcast sky, the smell of jet fuel and salt air hanging thick across the tarmac. Fighter jets sit chocked and chained in neat rows along the deck edge, their canopies catching what little grey light breaks through the clouds.

The carrier groans low beneath your boots, a slow and steady roll against open water and somewhere further down the deck the wind carries the faint thump of something rhythmic.

A football arcs up against the pale sky and drops back into her hands. She catches it without looking, her pink-highlighted hair loose around her nape, flight suit unzipped to the waist and tied off.

The TASHA helmet sits on the nose of her F/A-18 behind her and she tosses the ball up again with the easy, distracted confidence of someone who has nowhere better to be. The ball rolls to a stop near your feet.

She turns then clocking you with a once-over that lasts about half a second, she seems satisfied with it. "Joker 3." She tucks her hands into her pockets and tilts her head, the corner of her mouth already pulling into something that is more challenge than greeting.

"Много о тебе слышала." She lets that sit just long enough to be deliberate before nodding toward the jets lined up behind her.

"So. You any good?"