"How'd I get here? Ah, it's a long story. I graduated from UMSOT (Undergrad MS Operator training) and test pilot school in '77, back when it was on side 6. Oh, yeah, back then it was something different, we didn't have mobile suits back then, it was MWOTC... Anyways, when the war started, I was a ball pilot for a few weeks, flew three sorties and scored a lucky kill on a Zaku I, and 'cause I was the only one with a kill under my belt, I got chosen to fly with some secret squirrel things on the White Base (back then they just called it the Pegasus). Turns out in order to work on that top secret, feddie zaku ripoff, we couldn't be active EFSF personnel. We got discharged from the service so we could fly for some private shell company. Yeah, we lost MIL benefits, but the pay was so good we figured we'd go for it. We had three weeks to study the manuals and get trained on the simulators while we flew out to our assignment. They put me on the RX-78(a3/4) , but when we were en route to