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Steven was out cold, so Fred to the initiative. He stood up and walked over towards Dilshod, then after he moved himself in between Emma and the annoying Russian. Standing at a height of 6'1” and weighing in at 210lbs, Fred kept his chin up, looked forward, and simply glared down at the man, giving the impression of a man who had been in his fair share of fist fights and come out on top. When wearing the right expression, the Irishman's cropped red hair and intense brown eyes made him look quite intimidating.
“What? I don't get a greeting, eh?” Fred said as he held an unblinking stare and throwing in some blatantly obvious sarcasm. “For a man who portrays himself as a gentleman, you are surprisingly rude. So why don't you take your little, infected, Soviet arse, march off into a corner, and stop getting closer than you should to we healthy folk.”

Emma just kind of backed away sheepishly from the whole situation, afraid of the amount of anger being thrown about. It wasn't that Emma couldn't hold her own in a fight, it's that she didn't want to lose her temper like everyone else seemed to be doing. When Arcadia grabbed Fred and started dragging him towards the exit, the young Miss Thompson followed the duo out of the door, hoping to avoid any further problems.

******

As the Duo of Lieutennants arrived at the table containing the three spooks and a small dinosaur, Kai stopped, holding a hand out to keep Hendlow from doing something rash, as he seemed he might be prone to do at the moment; he was after all, lacking coffee and cigarettes, and just a mite ticked off that one of his squadmates was following around an Alian AND the two officers. Or at least, that's what Kai thought. "Hello Sehene,.. Cibo and..." Kai read the man's nameplate "Wrightman. How are you?" and then he turned and bowed to the creature "And you. Looks like Mortego was able to save you after all. Do you speak Terran? I am Lieutennant Nakamura, it was my squad who first encountered you on Perrennia."

Sehene nodded a polite 'no' to Captain Wightman; awfully chipper, this one, she mused to herself, still feeling awkward. Such characters. She did not want to be rude, but honestly she didn't want anything. He seemed pushy in a very subtle way.

She smiled softly at 'Killy'; he seemed so happy at something so simple.

She grinned at Kai as he came up, and nodded to him, then looking at Killy as he introduced himself; ahh, she had not heard his full name before.

Garrett pushed Kai's arm aside. He wasn't going to do anything, although admittedly he was still riled up about Jack's existence in limbo. He was able to bring it under control, however. He met the alien's gaze and introduced himself bluntly, "Lieutenant Hendlow," before turning his eyes to Sehene. His gaze visibly lightened as he sat down beside her. "Looking glum, privvy. What's got your panties in a knot, eh?" Perhaps he could do some good here and get his mind off everything else.

Yeah, it was official: Arcadia didn't like Fred. She exhaled a great sigh when the finally exited the quarantine room, and was more than happy to let go of the Irishman. He was turning out to be one of those arrogant pricks that liked to flaunt his s**t all the time. There are SIMPLER ways to solve problems than just flashing your BIG GUNS and talking like you just watched a ******** high school drama flick. "Yes, so fun with you big burly men and your need to throw your testosterone all over each other." The venom was thick, and the sardonic tone was heavy. Green Three simply couldn't wait to be away from Fred. "I'm going to get some coffee. Fred, please don't join me. I'd rather not watch you try to beat the vending machine into submission with your superior machismo." And then she was turning away from the pair, headed for the cafeteria at a brisk walk.

So far, no one had tried to shoot him in the back yet, though, it was most likely a matter of when, not if. Even he could not deny the...similarities. Yotruyan leaned off to his side a little, and towards the Terran female who was drinking something out of a brown glass bottle. Was white a color indicating poor health amongst them? She did not act like it was. He whispered in her ear, "What are panties?"

****

Beer sprayed over Marcus' face as Cibo did a spit-take. She coughed and gagged on her drink as she struggled to keep it out of her windpipe. After more coughing, some cleaning up, and giving a mean look, she leaned over to the damned thing to tell it quietly, "Woman's undergarments. Do you understand that?" she hissed at him. 'What was this thing, stupid?! Why me? Why meeee?!' she thought in despair.
"This sounds uncomfor...bweekkgyuu!" it bird chirped. It's head suddenly raised up, as though struck in the gray matter by an epiphany. "I get it now." he spoke. This 'Killy' followed that with a small chirp, as though to emphasize that he understood. Cibo kept staring at it with much loathing.
"Ehh?! Do you?" she half snarled, voice deeper. He kept whispering,
"Yes, I believe so. By referring to...I will stop now." Cibo's glare could have sliced a Dragoon in half at that point, and miraculously, Yotruyan survived, as all survivors did.

****

Marcus was infuriated. No one was paying attention to him. But at the same time, he knew he couldn't draw the light back to him without making himself look like an a** or something. And not the load bearing animal type either. He wiped the beer and spittle off his face and spoke sarcastically, "Ah. Refreshing. Thanks."
"You're very welcome." Cibo replied with a matter of fact tone. She gave him a large Cheshire grin.
"Yes, more refreshing than Tom's Mushrooms. Very much so." Cibo's victorious expression darkened.
"Oh? Better than clear honey?" Marcus' expression darkened ever so slightly.

****

With his plate finished, Yotruyan shifted once to the left, and then to the right, as their expressions got meaner, in that order. Finally, he slowly sunk under the table and out of sight of the two Intelligence Officers, only to re-emerge besides Sehene and this 'Garret'. "How fare you two?" he whispered? Meanwhile, Cibo and Marcus continued with their vague conversation, before both noticed he was gone.
"Get back over here." they both spoke. Shoulders slumped, he complied.

“If you say so,” Fred called after Arcadia, chuckling slightly. After a few moments of watching her leave, he turned to Emma. “Well, considering that I can't go get coffee without pushing a good number of her buttons, I suppose I will head down and get me a good ol' Irish coffee. And since you are to young for that stuff, why don't you tag along with Arcadia for the time being?” he said with a smile that looked more paternal than flirtatious. “Catch ya later, lassie.”
With that Fred made his way through the halls to the cafe for a drink.
One walking sequence later, Fred reached his destination and entered the cafe, quickly making his way to the bar without stopping to look around at the crowd. Taking a seat at the counter he leaned on the polished wood.
“What can I get you, Sir?” the aging M1 server bot asked in its monotonous, computerized voice.
“A pint o' lager, if you please,” Fred said in an equally flat tone. He wasn't fond of the robot, he much preferred having a human to have drunken conversations with.
“Please say again, Sir. I could not understand that.”
“I said a pint o' lager, you dumb machine.”
“Please say again, Sir. I could not understand that.”
“For Christ's sake, you're worse than a kriffing telemarketer! Give me a damn mug of beer!”
“Coming right up, Sir.” the machine said, completely oblivious.
“They should scrap you and get one of those newer models.”
“Here is your mug, Sir.”
“Hope you rust, Moe.” Fred said as he took the mug and began nursing it. As he was turning to go find a table, he finally took a good look at the surrounding crowd and saw one oddity in particular. “St. Peter's nut sack!” he said, almost spilling his beer. That is different, he thought to himself.
Then he resolved to walk over and get a better look at the alien.
“They must've changed the menu at the Academy. You cadets are getting taller every year,” Fred said to the Ottyo when he got close. In the next few instances he further inspected the situation. Obviously it wasn't dangerous, after all it was sitting in a cafe at a table with other soldiers. At the table were a few faces he recognized. This, thing, must not be all that bad then, he thought to himself.

Garrett nodded in acknowledgment and gave a small wave. "Good luck, and don't die. Don't know what the 215 would do without you." He was serious, or as serious as this demolitions expert would ever get.

In the cafeteria, Arcadia fetched herself a nearly scalding mug of coffee and sat down nearest to the vendor of her gourmet beverage. Being alone now was actually sounding like a good idea. She needed to calm down after that little outburst with Fred and... what was his name? Dil-something. Green Two had attempted to insult his supposedly Russian descent. What a pair of stuck-up pricks. It was no wonder they didn't get along: their goals were the same, but their methods were polar opposites. No better way to pit to men against each other than to give them a common interest with separate means and/or ideologies of obtaining it. "Hmph." Langdon just sat at a table in relative solitude and nursed her coffee mug.

As if to prove the nurse's point, his PDA buzzed as soon as the apathetic man exited the quarantine. "Hm." Ten minutes later and Dilshod was out the door, hustling down the halls toward the hangar to meet up with the rest of Red Squadron Bravo. After the merging with the Hymn's roster, the name had been slightly altered to accommodate both groups. The Asian Reds had requested the name be switched to Crimson Squadron. Crimson Scimitar Squadron sounded much better than any other variant of red. Sure enough, a second alert arrived, issued to Crimson Scimitar Squadron. Beautiful.

In the hangar, the others were waiting on him. Siberia was sitting on the front glass of his fighter, smirking. "Glad to see you made it, Ruze."

Pilot Ivlivanevya offered a small wave as he climbed into the cockpit of his ship. The conversation continued over the comms. "So, what took you?"

"Lizard flu. Thank the Great Ones for medical technologies. Took ten minutes to fix, and earned me a date."

There was a short chuckle, a signature sound uttered by Germany. "Well damn you, Dilshod. Always with you. Always."

Ruze just smirked to himself. "Thanks, Deutsch, I appreciate the compliment."

"I don't," was his friendly retort. "What the hell is it?"

"His mojo," Red Poland chimed in. "His sexy, sexy mojo gets all dem ladies."

They all shared a short laugh while running through their flight checks.