The hilt wedged between his fingers, James Benson spun the combat knife as he sat back, completely relaxed, within the King Raven's troop bay.  Though the air vehicle that was officially designated as KR-Five-Six-Two could hold twelve Gears, that fact that it only held about half that number left plenty of room to be used.  James was putting that extra room to good use.  With his back leaning against the side of the chopper, James's legs were splayed out before him in true lazy-man fashion.  At about a foot away from his face the sharpened, eight-inch blade of his knife spun in front of him as his gloved fingers twirled it.<br/><br/>A small shake that reverberated throughout the chopper caused James to falter, however, and before he could try to prevent the inevitable the combat knife had slipped through his fingers and, after bouncing off his armored legs with a metallic<i>clang</i>, it clattered to the floor.<br/><br/>"Shiiiiit," James cursed.  Leaning down, the Gear scooped up the knife and, after giving it one last spin, he slid it into the sheath at his chest.<br/><br/>Knives hardly found their place on the battlefield nowadays ever since the first human had started cooking up fully-automatic rifles and bombs that outclassed such a small weapon in every way, shape, and form.  But as a scout, James had uses for the silence that it offered instead of the ear-hurting rev of a chainsaw.  True, your standard Drone was made of a bit more tougher stuff then a human - thus requiring the integration of chainsaws to the standard Lancer in the first place -, but eight inches of steel in the neck could easily fell such a monster of the Horde just like any man in the COG when you put enough strength behind it.  And as James had proven before, he had the strength to ram a blade as far as it needed to go to kill a Locust despite not being as big and buff as some of your other Gears.<br/><br/>Speaking of which, a good portion of the Gears that James found himself with were certainly not as big and buff as any male Gear.  While he receded back to his position of laziness, trying to think of what to do next, James took a glance around the interior of the King Raven.  One...two...three.  Usually it'd be hard enough to even see one female figure wearing the armor of a Gear nonetheless to find yourself working with three of them.  Well, one of them was their pilot but James wasn't biased; women were women and that was plenty fine by him.  Still, the fact that he was actually going to be working with these fine specimens of human femininity reminded him of the recent losses that the COG had suffered.<br/><br/>Hence their current mission to find badly-needed supplies.<br/><br/>Despite it being a while since he had experienced the more intimate company of a woman and he was certainly running through a couple fantasies concerning present company, they were temporarily stopped when James thought of the mission and its importance to not only the COG but to him.  A hand briefly drifted to his chest plate where, beneath it, was a laminated photo that was as much with him as his COG tags.  The photo had six faces, all of them belonging to happy people from a happier time.  Today, only three of those faces were still alive and while James had no intentions of dying, it was the other two faces that he was concerned for and was doing everything he could to make sure they didn't join the ranks of the dead.  Emily had always been an ill girl due to the blasted and polluted lands of Sera since E-Day and the evacuation and relocation probably wasn't helping her.  If the intel was true, that there would be plenty of supplies and weapons that could not only feed his little sister and their mother but allow him and his fellow Gears to protect them, he was going to do all he could to see this mission become a success.<br/><br/>Having thought to take the photo out and examine it as he had done multiple times to remind him what he fought for, James instead let his hand drop to the Lancer at his side and bring it to his lap.  He didn't know the people in this new squad and he certainly didn't want them to get any first impressions that might label him as a pussy; especially the women.  So instead the Gear decided to slide one finger back and forth along the blade of the bayonet attached beneath the barrel of his Lancer.  This wasn't one of the modern models with their fancy holographic sights and noisy chainsaws but one of the older models that possessed a long, sharp blade like his combat knife for a bayonet like back in the Pendulum Wars.  Hell, this rifle was probably used during that previous war.  Still, to James that was just clear-cut evidence to the reliability of durability of fine craftsmanship of the COG armorers.<br/><br/>"Are we there yet?" James questioned as he continued to play with his outdated Lancer, starting to seem quite giddy at the thought of getting this mission started as his feet audibly tapped against the floor of the chopper. "Don't want to be cooped up in here forever."<br/><br/>James never liked flying in King Ravens much; too big and loud and easy to spot what with this hunk of barely-held together metal flying around in the air and all.  And that just meant it was too easy of a target for James.  Being a scout that relied on speed and stealth and good, solid ground beneath his feet, he couldn't wait until he had his feet back on the soil.<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>