It is a frosty morning at Honshu's Shirakawa space port. The provincial facility is an unusual target for interstellar visitors, but for this reason all the more attractive for our protagonist.
A CTE-19000 Roc class light bomber drifts towards free pad, blowing up the light snow cover into a flurry of white haze. Things are still simple around here, with a port officer directing the vessel towards the exact intended position by hand signal, even though the ship computer's automation eventually syncs with the the dock's navigational programming and fine-tunes the landing.
With a hiss, the cockpit breaks open and a woman of slim build, with dark, unkempt hair, and darting green eyes, clambers out, clearly without enough time to have unfastened her harness before landing, and jumps onto the platform. After a quick nod to the docking personnel, she takes out her comm pad.
This had better be nearby, Elise thought to herself as she glanced over the comm. To follow Sora Kobayashi, her current employer, across Sirius had been entertaining, but he had promised her both drinks and a satisfactory gift.
"Alright, where is my little package." she muttered to herself quietly, scrolling across his messages.
Shirakawa, Planet Honshu, Kusari
7:49 AM local time, August 24th, 825 AS
Soon after the tan spaceframe of the Eagle had touched down on the landing pad, the distinctive sonic boom of Edge World engines roared in the skies above. After a few moments, the distinctive needle-like shape of a Falchion pierced the local cloud cover and slowly made its way down to a pad adjacent to the waiting civilian fighter. Its hull bore the marks of countless fights, and the distinctive symbol of the Orion Corps, a man holding a spear superimposed over a constellation, was plain for all to see. The
rolling hills of verdant farmland behind the vessel made for a truly picturesque scene.
After the engines had ceased humming and vibrating, the cockpit slid open with a hydraulic hiss. As a ladder deployed from the side, the pilot emerged and began to climb down. His flight suit appeared rather faded from years of use and bore a rather motley assortment of patches and colors. It was clear that the man had flown for many a banner in his time. A slow removal of his helmet revealed the face of Sora Kobayashi, Lancer-Marshal of the Orion Corps Free Company, former Aktivist of the Fruhlingswache and former head of the Taieheiyo Consortium.
He visually scanned the area for a moment before spotting Elise, his right-hand woman, and waving at her as he walked over. When the two were in speaking distance, he gave a light bow out of courtesy.
"Forgiveness, please. I should not have kept you waiting for so long. I must unfortunately ask that you wait a bit longer for our third squadmate to land."