#broken ace

Full name: Olivia Kate Mariner Age: 24 (as of May 1943) Date of birth: 22 March 1919 Hometown: Oakland, California, United States Occupation: Fighter pilot (1940–1943); B-17 bomber pilot Affiliation: No. 71 Eagle Squadron, RAF (1940–1942); 353rd Fighter Squadron, 354th Fighter Group, USAAF Ninth Air Force (1942–1943); 100th Bomb Group Rank: 1st Lieutenant Service number: 0-410609 Aircraft: Hawker Hurricane Mk.XIIb; Curtiss P-40 Warhawk; P-51 Mustang; B-17 Flying Fortress Personality: ESTP 8w7 Premise: Mariner is the best pilot in the entire United States Army Air Force. At least that’s what she might tell you, and in a P-51 that may very well have been true. But she’s in a B-17 now, having been bumped out of her previous fighter squadron for reckless flying despite being a gifted hotshot and the fourth and youngest leading ace in the 354th credited with 14 aerial victories, and it turns out that piloting a heavy bomber requires an entirely different skill set than piloting a single-engine high-speed fighter. And that is precisely the lesson that her squadron leader expects her to learn before he’s willing to accept her back into his unit again: if she wants to keep her aviator badge, she needs to learn that it’s not all about her. Exiled from the A-team and finding herself as a foreigner on the 100th’s shores, Mariner – still an operational pilot, at least – is hot-blooded in her determination to prove that she can fly a B-17 in her sleep. Except the B-17 presents a few formidable challenges of its own, one of which being the fact that she must now navigate flying with a bomber crew. And if her tumultuous childhood taught her anything before she walked out on her family for good, it’s that she can’t rely on anyone else to get the job done but herself. Something she’ll have to unlearn if she hopes to become the pilot she’s dedicated everything she is to becoming. She’s here for a good time, not a long one. She’s let go of that illusion a long time ago. But deep down, Mariner is lost without the validation that comes with being a prodigy, and she’s willing to do anything to get it back.