As the Captain began the briefing, Mei remained where she had been before, leaning against the wall. She listened carefully as the Captain shared what they knew thus far about the two groups that they had encountered. She was careful to commit the names to memory and to pair them with the fighters in her memory from the earlier battle. She listened curiously as he discussed the fighters, explaining  that no simulations they had run thus far had replicated its performance, discussing the neural link they<span style="font-style: italic">supposed</span>the Akula had with its pilot.<br/><br/>She found herself itching to get her hands on a suit like that, and also to talk to the mind behind it--even if he had technically killed many of her comrades--but she knew that it wasn’t in the cards right now, so she pushed it down for now. She would save her excitement for later and focus on the task at hand. As of now, they had no comparable fighters, which led to the suggestion that if they encountered these fighters again, they should run. There was only one craft now that stood a chance, and that was the<span style="font-style: italic">Siegfried</span>.<br/><br/>He moved on to the mercenary group that called themselves the Starwolves, providing the information they had on them, noting that they had a reputation for turning on their employers if they were ordered to kill innocents, that they had their own warships, and that as of now, they had no clue who their employer was. From there, he discussed the other faction, the Dawntreaders. Then came the statement about what they hoped for, and the offer to answer any questions.<br/><br/>Mei waited a moment, glancing around the room to see if anyone else had any questions, before sighing to herself and lazily raising a hand in the air. “I have a few,” she hated volunteering to ask questions, but it seemed that no one else planned to do so right then, and she wasn’t one to leave things to chance, or to hope that someone else would do something she could easily do herself. Even if it was a drag, it was better than leaving with questions.<br/><br/>“<span style="font-style: italic">Will</span>anyone be flying a<span style="font-style: italic">Siegfried</span>?” she asked what seemed to be the obvious question. If it was the only Valkyrie they had that might stand a chance, it seemed only natural to wonder if it would be making an appearance. She paused only briefly before tacking on another question. “And do we have a plan for how we are going to handle this? I don’t know about you, but I’m not really big on hoping for the best. Or really hope in general. You know what they say: hope breeds eternal misery,” she added with a rather cynical smile.<br/><br/>It was a very cynical view, she knew. For many, they clung to hope, and it was all that kept them going. But for her, that saying had always rung true. If she relied on hope, she always ended up let down, burned, and miserable. She preferred action and a concrete plan to simply hoping. She recognized that there may some plan in motion that they were not discussing, so she wanted to believe or trust that this was the case, even if they didn’t outright say it. Still, she wasn’t the best at blind trust, either. And she needed to know that there was a plan, even if she wasn’t necessarily privy to the details.<br/><br/>She had more questions that she wanted answers to, like what they were doing to find answers to the questions they still had, what they were doing to prepare in case they were attacked by these fighters, if they were working to try to find and make improvements to their Valkyries so that they might at least last more than half a second against these guys, and many more. She also wanted to ask what they planned to do with the squads who had escaped, but had lost members, but she wondered if that would be insensitive to ask right then. At any rate, she thought it best to allow him to answer the questions she had already asked before bombarding him with more.