A bit of practice writing involving two members of Foxtrot Alpha, Vincent and Renshou, and a band of air pirates. This may or may not be canon, but I needed to practice writing, so here you go.

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The Bermuda Triangle, a formerly well-trafficked patch of ocean with overly exaggerated stories of disappearances of aircraft and ships alike surrounding it. A fair distance off the coast of what used to be Florida, a lone spacecraft floated on its hydrofoil skids in that fabled patch of ocean. The delta-winged craft had seen better days, the freshly painted, fox headed, red and black logo of Foxtrot Alpha starkly contrasting with the worn white paint of the craft.

Inside the cockpit, a tall, muscled, Bengal tiger Fusion watched the skies and cameras, visible hints of impatience showing on his brow. “Dammit, Vincent, we've been here all day. Literally. The sun's setting.” he spoke out into the intercom, an irritated tone to his voice, dark gray and burgundy leather jacket hanging over the control console, muscled frame masked by white fur and a thick ballistic vest.

An exacerbated sigh came back from the speaker. “Patience, Renshou. They're pirates. It's a honeypot trap, and we're the honey. Us sitting here all day lends more credence to us being stranded.” The silver fox Fusion sat in the cockpit of his fighter, decked in heavy, ballistic resistant gear, ready to launch in the time it took for the loading ramp to snap open.

“Yeah, but-”

“Renshou. The Hellcats are the biggest bounty we have the intel to catch right now. We sit around patrolling, we're getting pocket change, at best.”

“You trust the guy, though?”

“I told you, the LAPD still had good people in it. Now just sit tight, I'm sure you can find some den of debauchery to wind down in after this is over.”

“Hey, you act like that's all I over do.”

“Am I wrong?”

Renshou let out a light, amused scoff. “I change things up once in a while, you know. Go on a drive, blast some grunge, find some dives along the way.”

“Dives?”

“The small, local places. What's another term...'hole in the wall'.”

“Ah, yes. That last bit doesn't sound bad.”

“The little places do have the best food. And the worst, but-” Suddenly, Renshou's ears would perk up as he saw distant dots out the window and through the cameras. “Hold that thought, I think we have contacts. Yep. Two out the cockpit, um...two at ten o' clock, two at two o' clock. Can't see what they are yet.” he was audibly relieved, as if glad something was finally happening.

“Six of them? The Hellcats must've bolstered their numbers, never heard stories of any more than four planes.”

“We're in this shit now, nothing to be done about it. Better to ambush them.” Renshou growled lightly, cracking his knuckles.

“All right, intercom silence, they might pick it up if they get too close.”

“Right. Over and out.” Renshou ducked himself down behind the front panels. The cockpit was essentially a one-way mirror, but just in case.

The planes would slowly fly closer as the minutes dragged onwards. The planes were a mix of absolutely ancient jets and prop planes. “You've gotta be kidding me.” Renshou muttered to himself, chuckling a little. Two Tomcats, two Hellcats, a Super Hornet, and a Thunderbolt. By 2071's technology, rather archaic. Knowing common trends, though, they were likely retrofitted for more maneuverability.

The radio crackled to life, a very wound-up voice sounding through the speaker. “All right, wolfship, or whatever ya are, surrender yourself, we're taking everything that's in there.” Nothing but silence. “Hello? We're shooting it up if no one answers!”

Another, somewhat nervous voice would crackle through. “Uh, boss? I don't think anyone's there.”

“Shaddup! I'm not still alive because I'm careless! Bring down the thunder!”

“Yes, boss.” a deeper voice said rather plainly. The Super Hornet's rotary cannon wound up, bullets tearing through the viewscreen, sending rounded shards through the cockpit, metal plating snapping shut where the glass used to be. Common safety feature in many spacecraft. Almost immediately after, an explosion rocked the back of the ship, an air-to-surface missile directly impacting the main engine.

“Ahh, shit. Shit, shit, shit!” Renshou growled out to himself, rather nervously. He wouldn't call himself easily shaken, but 20 millimeter bullets had just flown over him, and no sane amount of body armor was protecting against that. “Vincent's gotta be freaking out right now. Ship's getting hammered.” he muttered to himself, shaking his head. “Ah, who am I kidding? Never seen him lose his mind.”

The radio crackled to life once more. “All right, one more time, bitches, show yourselves!” A pause before he'd sigh. “Okay, fine. Be that way. Hellcats, board 'em, show no mercy!”

“Perfect.” Renshou smirked, stepping down the stairs into crew quarters to hide himself away as the two prop planes above touched down onto the ship's runway area, using their retrofitted thruster systems to make the short landing. He could hear two figures on the outside of the ship climb down onto the canard, ready to breach the door.

“All right, I've got the charges!” an almost giddy voice let out.

“You idiot. Check if it's locked first.” a more gruff, irritated voice replied, pulling the latch and opening the door from the outside, sunlight pouring into the quarters area, which used to be a passenger area, as they cycled the airlock. “See?”

“Oh, come on, you're no fun.” The two feline Fusions, one colored orange and white, the other just colored black, carefully climbed inside, both pointing modernized AK-74s into the hallway, the both of them watching each other's backs as they slowly made their way towards the bridge.

“The bridge sealed off.” the black tabby muttered out.

“That's automatic, though, isn't it?” his partner replied.

“Yes, but keep an eye out. This ship may not be as disabled as we think.”

“Shoulda just breached, if there's anyone here, scare the shit outta- Glk!” the orange and white feline gasped and writhed as he was suddenly caught in a headlock, gun yanked from his hands and pointed at the black tabby, who had whipped around to face him, Renshou grinning a bit as he pulled this off.

“All right, drop the gun, ya pussy.” he growled out.

“Oh, haha, you're real hilarious.” The black feline let out with a rather hostile tone, gun still pointed at Renshou, despite his partner held hostage in front of him.

“Drop it. Preferably before your friend suffocates.” Renshou snarled, the orange feline held by him whining and squirming, fruitlessly pushing at his arm, nervous about both his position and the gun still pointed at him.

“Over my dead- Ack!” the black tabby yelped as Renshou tossed his hostage at him, the feline letting off a rather inaccurate shot as his friend impacted against him, striking Renshou's midsection, right into his body armor. Renshou charged in, taking advantage of the feline being flatfooted to grab his gun, swinging him through the room by it until he lost his grip, slamming against the front of the cockpit, tumbling over the control panels.

Renshou zip-tied the arms and legs of the orange and white feline, moving to the black feline and pinning him with his foot before he could get up and recover from the impact, soon zip-tying him, as well. “I'd rather have a live bounty head than a dead body to bring back.” he snickered.

“Fuck you.” the black feline hissed back at him.

“Psh, I bet you offer that to all your captors.”

“Oh, piss off.”

“Nah.” Renshou lifted one of them in each arm, carrying them down to the criminal holding cells, placing each of them down into a separate cell. Old passenger cabins with the doors refitted to hold more aggressive live cargo. “Now, hopefully, your friends will join us down here. Given how antsy your boss is, I do have to wonder.” he shrugged a little, walking off. He figured he had to be ready for an attack once the rest realized their boarding party was captured.

The radio jumped to life soon enough. “Lynx Leader to Hellcats, status report!” a pause went by. “Hellcats, respond, tell me you're getting somewhere with the ship.” Another pause. “Shit.” the voice became very audibly angry. “Whoever's in there, give yourself up now, or we're pummeling your craft! You'll pay for my Hellcats!”

Another voice crackled to life on the radio, calm and collected. “Relax, your crew is fine. Aren't they?” Vincent's voice, finally breaking radio silence.

Renshou grabbed the radio receiver. “Yep, they're both alive and well, not a bullet in 'em.”

“See, nothing to be angry about. Now, just stand down, and nothing has to get ugly.” Vincent spoke out, voice still calm as could be, despite everything.

The lynx growled out in response. “Grr, you expect us to all just give up, huh? You wish, we have the upper hand. Let 'em go, or people are gonna be chalking up another disappearance to the Bermuda Triangle!” his voice snarled out.

“You really don't want to try that.” Vincent replied, voice becoming a bit colder.

“Don't you tell me what to do. You're not getting any say until you release my crew.”

“If you surrender, I'll let all the rest of them go, how about that?”

“Hah, not a chance. Bring down the thunder!” he yelled out.

“Oh no, you don't.” Vincent replied, the ramp to the runway opening up as Vincent's ship shot up into the air, over the runway and the parked Hellcats on top of it. A small, fighter version of the larger carrier craft it came out of, bristling with missiles and twin gimballed rotary guns. “You're hopelessly outclassed, power down and surrender while you still can.”

“Ohh, you think you're hot shit, don't ya? Forget the thunder, big guy, send out the lightning!”

“Yes, boss.”

Vincent's craft zipped around, ready to start pummeling the Thunderbolt with shots. Just as the shot lined up, his fighter dropped out of the sky, a buzzing alarm klaxon in front of him as the computer systems went out.

“Ah, hell!” Vincent fumbled for a brief moment, the bottom thrusters firing and main jets cranking up as he manually pulled his craft out of the air! “Note to self, get better EPM for the guidance systems.”

“Keh heh heh, let's see how you fare without your fancy equipment, flyboy. Tear him to shreds!” the lynx yelled out as the jet craft started to form up behind Vincent, missiles launching towards him as the alarm klaxons screamed at him again. At least the base-level detection systems still worked. He'd whip the ship around, still flying forward and up, spraying bullets as flares came off of the ship. Not the most elegant move, but the mix of bullets and missiles now flying everywhere seemed to break up their organization, at least for a moment.

“Damn, he's crazy! Geez, extra share of the plunder for whoever takes him out.” the lynx cackled a bit.

One of the Tomcats was already circling into position. “Already on it, boss!” a high, raspy voice spoke from the radio, bullets starting to impact Vincent's wings as he thrust backwards and dove down, trying to avoid this, seeing a cable fly by his field of view as he did so. “What the-? Aah-!” the pilot barely had time to scream before the TOW missile impacted under the cockpit, sending the flaming wreck plummeting to the ground.

“What in the hell!?” the lynx's voice shot through the radio, extraordinarily pissed off.

“Hahah, always wanted to use one of these.” Renshou laughed, running back from the deck of the ship, noticing the A-10 circling around to meet him. “Ah, fuck!” he dived back in through the loading ramp, TOW launcher tumbling down the ramp along with him as 30mm depleted uranium rounds went over his head, and into the top cover of the takeoff ramp.

Vincent shook his head a little bit. Still, one less plane was going to even this out a bit. “Thanks, Renshou.”

Renshou panted a bit over the other end. “Christ, the things I do sometimes.”

Vincent's Striker flew through the air, though now with a much reduced amount of grace, firing off a couple of missiles at the leader's Super Hornet. “I hope these systems still work...” he muttered to himself, the missiles not starting off the most graceful, but eventually honing towards their mark.

The Super Hornet would pull through the air, letting out flares behind it. “Haha, that's cute.” the lynx snarked over the radio.

Vincent would let loose the rotary guns as the lynx pulled up, striking some bullets in the lower half of the plane, main engines letting off fuel and flames. “Gaaah!” the Super Hornet would whip around as it fell, letting off a barrage of missiles before the lynx ejected from his plane, Vincent letting off more flares, streaking close to the water for a moment before pulling back up, releasing a couple of missiles at the remaining Tomcat.

“Nononono, where is it-? Ah!” the canopy flew off the Tomcat before the pilot flew out, the missiles demolishing the craft. Whether he meant to eject or not in the panic, Vincent didn't much care. Another live bounty, it would seem.

Suddenly, another stream of bullets behind him, striking through his main engine and tearing up a wing before he managed to tumble down underneath his pursuer. “Nngh, dammit all.” Vincent groaned, barely leveling out. His craft shook and swayed as it attempted to glide forward with a chunk of the right wing missing, the A-10 circling around for another pass.

“Goodbye, hotshot.” the deep voice crackled over the radio, before an explosion rocked over the transmission. “Agh, what!?”

One of the Hellcats flew over the A-10, the Thunderbolt's engines flaming as Renshou's voice crackled over the radio. “Think this makes us even, 'big guy'.”

“You son of a bitch.” the voice snarled as the Thunderbolt splashed down into the water. Vincent would slowly circle the damaged, smoking Striker back on thrusters, managing to land himself on deck with a heavy thud, Renshou slowly managing to do the same with the Hellcat, thudding against the landing deck, cutting off the thrusters a little quick.

“I thought you didn't fly.” Vincent shot to Renshou dryly.

“Well, you know, figured I should probably make an exception this time.” Renshou smirked as he climbed out of the cockpit, loudspeaker in hand. “I think our terms of surrender will now seem much more reasonable. Climb aboard, or wait to be picked up by the Coast Guard, if you're lucky. Your choice.”

Vincent pulled a modified TAR-21 off of his back as he climbed out. “You realize they may still be armed, right?” he turned to point the bullpup at a chubby, very light brown house cat Fusion climbing up onto the ship, he raising up an arm.

“A-ah, hey! Don't shoot, don't shoot!” he whined as Vincent dragged him onto the deck and zip-tied him, pulling out his PDA...which he realized was fried in what he assumed was an EMP attack, the one that had knocked out his ship's guidance. “Ah, hell...” he tossed it down on the deck in annoyance. “It was getting outdated, anyways. Renshou?”

“Yes?” he looked to Vincent, stolen AK-74 in his hands.

“Where did you-? Never mind, if you think you can handle them, I've gotta make a call.”

“Sure thing, Vincent. Should be two more, the lynx and the 'big guy'. They get rowdy, I can take 'em.”

“If you're sure.” Vincent stepped down through the loading ramp, cycling the airlock through the mostly empty armory, then through to the bridge, looking over the layer of shattered safety glass across the panels. “This is gonna be a pain to fix.” he muttered, making his way to the comms devices through the dim light, patching through a satellite call.

“At least this is shielded. JNPF, this is bounty hunter Silvertail of Foxtrot Alpha, come in.”

“This is the Japanese National Police Force, please state your emergency.”

“Not an emergency, so much. We have the Hellcats and about...four planes for salvage, disabled to various degrees, plus various metal scrap. Our own AtmosTech Starpath and Striker are rather disabled, too, so if we could get a pickup, that would be great.”

“All right. We'll see about getting a Navy ship over there. Might take a bit if you need something that will pick up a Starpath.”

“That's fine. It's rather important to our operation.”

“According to this...you're off in the Bermuda Triangle? That's gonna be at least a couple of days, depending on patrol routes. You're sure you're fine out there?”

“Well, if not, we've got a couple of working Hellcats from them. We can get out if we really need to. If anything else comes up, we'll let you know.”

“No kidding. How'd they tool around out there so long in that kind of equipment?”

“You can search the planes, but I believe the A-10 has some sort of EMP device in it. The ATLAS in my craft was disabled.”

“I see. That would explain a lot. Anything else?”

“That's everything. I should have a full report and video footage by the time you get here.”

“See you in a while, Silvertail.”

“Thanks.”

“Over and out.” the communication stopped, Vincent looking around the darkened cockpit. The basic lighting still worked, and there was battery for that for long enough. “Oh dear, please tell me the refrigeration still works.” he stepped back to the cargo area, seeing the still functioning kitchen equipment. “Oh, good...wait...” he looked into the fridge, seeing nothing but alcohol, soda, and snack food. His ears lowered, a very dour look cementing on his face. “We didn't stock up on food yet.” he let out a long, heavy sigh and shook his head, grabbing some equipment, cans, and bottles, heading up to the upper deck, setting it all down and using the intercom on the outside of the door. “Hey, Renshou?”

A brief pause before a reply came in. “Yeah?”

“I'm guessing you're done bringing everyone in?”

“Yeah, the lynx is a feisty one, but they're all searched and secured.”

“Well, could you come up to the upper deck, then?”

“Uh...okay, sure.” Renshou seemed a little puzzled, but after a few minutes, he'd be walking up the ramp to the upper deck, seeing Vincent near the edge of the runway, sitting in a camp chair. “Er, what're you doing?”

Vincent quickly tossed a fishing pole his way, as he was already letting a lure bob in the water. “If you want something more than snack food and booze, grab a drink and get fishing.”

Renshou caught the pole, giving it a rather bemused look. “Aha, what...how long are we out here?”

“Couple of days, at least.”

“What about the prisoners?”

“Well, I hope they like snack food and water, hmm? Maybe fish, if they're lucky. They're all cats, big or not, they like fish, right?” Vincent merely shrugged at his own joke.

“Hah, now, Vincent, that's stereotyping. That's like me assuming you like rabbit.” Renshou chuckled a little.

“I did have it a few times, actually wasn't bad.”

“Huh, really? Post-Fusion, or...?”

“Nah, this was a long time ago. My mother liked it, so...yeah.” Vincent lied back, clicking on a satellite radio with some slow jazz playing through the tinny speakers.

“Ah, boy. Am I going to be listening to this the whole time?”

“Your music would scare away the fish.” Vincent cracked dryly.

“Please.”

“Oh, don't you worry, I'll give you your turns.”

“Heh, thanks.” Renshou settled himself into the lawn chair, setting a gummy worm through the hook. “Does this even work as bait?”

Vincent shrugged. “I tried it a couple times as a joke with my dad. Seemed to work.”

“Heh...never did get to go fishing much. Learned some basics before a deal with a guy who was really into it, so I didn't look like a complete idiot, but...that's about it.”

“Well, you're gonna get the next little while to practice, huh?”

“Guess so. Hope this pays better than the last guy.”

“Hey, that was your fault.”

“I didn't know he had a bounty on his head.” Renshou shrugged.

“I'm honestly surprised you're still alive.”

“Yeah, what are the odds both of us survived the apocalypse of the West?”

“I meant before that, but-”

“Hey!”

Vincent smirked a little bit, Renshou just laughing some in response. “Kinda forgot you can be funny when you want to.” he reached down, opening up a can of beer as Vincent poured himself a rum and root beer mix. Renshou would let out a chuckle before speaking up again. “Hey, silver lining, least it's some downtime, and we're getting paid after. Closest we're gonna get to paid vacation.”

Vincent scoffed quietly in response. “I suppose...most people don't have to endure bullets and explosions for a vacation, though.”

“I dunno if you noticed, Vincent. We're not most people.”

“Hah. Got that much right.”

“Cheers.” Renshou smirked as the sound of glass and metal lightly impacting echoed over the deck, Vincent lightly sipping his mix, Renshou chugging half the can. Silence fell as they both sat there, sky growing dark, the gentle sound of waves splashing and tinny, smooth jazz were the main sounds to float through the gentle winds, the briny smell of the sea an undertone to the smells of candy, chips, and alcohol. Not the most glamorous vacation, but with a job like bounty hunting, you take what you can get.