Kostya handed the completed papers to Alicia, giving her an affirmative nod and the best smile he could manage before returning to his old seat in the waiting room. He had nowhere else to go right now; the next supply ship arrived in twelve hours or so, and he was dependent on it for transportation back home.
He worked his jaw and slowly clicked it shut, satisfied that it wasnt broken. Compared to what could have happened he was in great shape; a massive bruise still graced the side of his face where it had smacked onto the metal flooring of the ship, half of his tongue was one massive scab, and his ribs felt as if they were just shy of fracturing after being stepped on by that metallic beast. The medics had applied a fast-acting clotting solution in his mouth and had given him a shot of painkiller, then sent him on his way.
Alive. Breathing.
Hed made it so far. Granted he hadnt made the whole journey but this was a good first step; it counted for something, to him at least.
He smiled a little to himself and picked up a copy of Workers Weekly Magazine, immediately flipping to the front-page advertised article about applying Marxism to piloting. The segment about "class-based ship markings" was especially intriguing.
"Worker's Weekly Magazine: Applying Marxism to Starfighter Piloting, pg. 37 Wrote:"Awards, kill marks, and other such designs applied to starfighter hulls tend to denote a rank or skill of a pilot along with a given individuality. Quick assumptions in the heat of combat could draw conclusions such as, "That pilot is the most dangerous, avoid him," or, "That pilot is the most dangerous, we must remove him first".
While the Coalition employs our own elite squadrons who are given all due credit, we tend to refrain from guilding our ships with such things, but perhaps they could be useful? Researchers at the Fighter Weapons and Tactics School aboard Zhukovsky Station have recently devised a scheme by which fighters are intentionally marked up in order to draw on the strings of Capitalist pilots. Essentially, using first impressions of appearance, the enemy would make assumptions and act accordingly, either trying to avoid or eliminate a given pilot. That pilot would then serve as either bait to lure the enemy pilots into a slaughterhouse, or be allowed to roam free, scaring and dispersing enemy ships, thereby weakening their level of mutual support."
