As snow gently fell alongside mortar shells, Aren Tobak stared out his window, watching the snow fall against the orange glow of the fire from the shells. He smiled; amidst all of the chaos, he had found something beautiful. It wasn't that Inverness itself was unattractive, just that he hated to see it torn apart by this war. Turning off his beloved Louis Armstrong, he rose slowly to his feet. His steely blue eyes surveyed the war room carefully. These were his men, his proteges, his responsibility.<br/><br/>As he looked over them, his mind sent him back to that fateful battle a month ago, when a slight tactical error coupled with a suit malfunction had cost him Balix, one of his best heavy arms pilots.<br/><br/>He'd been poring over applications for weeks, before settling on Jalith, a veteran who was coming to their team from CT brigades. She was good, but he wanted Balix back, not some new heavy gunner. He laughed as he remembered the slight limp she walked with; an old war wound. But no, now was not the time for reminiscing; Satchmo's music had caused him to go soft for a moment. Turning to face his team, he smiled broadly. "Excellent work on our last mission guys; just a few quick words about it, and then I'll tell you about our next mission. First off, Max, please, for the love of God, no more adlibbing! You almost got us all killed, but good work in spite of that. You saved our butts, even though you got our butts in trouble."<br/><br/>He smiled at Max; he was his oldest friend in the corps, if something happened to him, Aren would have resigned on the spot. He brushed his sandy blonde hair away from his face and continued, turning to the young woman sitting in the chair next to his empty one. "Leona, that was exemplary work today; I'm proud of you. For a light mech like yours to do the kind of melee damage you did saving Max, well, I didn't think it was possible." His second in command, she was strikingly pretty, he thought, but he knew she was not one to be trifled with.<br/><br/>"Shizen, Mhegan, excellent work out there. Finding that dust storm for cover was stroke of genius Shizen, and we couldn't have done this without your drones locating the enemy fortifications Mhegan." The two newest members of his team, Aren found them to be somewhat intriguing. He didn't know much about them, and was looking forward to the chance to talk to them about life in the Shadows.<br/><br/>"And of course, there's Kiera, who's sharing the MVP with Leona, for finding the generator and disabling it. Those Daeners didn't know what hit 'em. Great work team. I haven't gotten our latest mission from centcom yet, but be advised that our new heavy pilot Jalith Naryen, will be arriving soon. If you see her, have her report directly to the hangar to be briefed." With that, he took his seat. "Are there any questions?"