Conversations On The Fortune’s Fist: Eleven

Luisa Kamajeck cursed the twenty years of riding out grav-fluxes on unforgiving cargo-hold deckplates as she bent her aching knees to peer into the cupboard in the officer's mess. No fancy new joints for Ishukone's cargo-jockeys, she thought sourly.Not worth the expense. Not a 'hazardous job'. No matter that a snapped safety cable at full thrust can take off an arm as easy as any plasma charge.

It was an old complaint, worn thin and familiar with repetition, one that she'd kept on the inside of her teeth for forty years and would for forty more  if the spirits give me that long.

It seemed unlikely.  Still, there was a time I gave up on seeing twenty-five. Days on the Sapphire Star towards the end that I didn't think I'd see the next morning, let alone the next birthday. Luisa found the bottle she was looking for, hooked it out along with a glass to go with it, and straightened, barely suppressing a groan. Never can tell, Lulu, what's around the corner. Never can tell.

Spirits know I never saw  this job coming.

The mess door opened, the lack of a knock telling Luisa, if not who it was, then at least that it was one of the other three people with business here, this time of night.  

"'lo," Michael Mitcheson said, letting the door hiss shut behind him.  

Luisa grunted an acknowledgement and poured herself exactly one finger of vodka.  Invelen's gift, podder largess, better than I've ever had or will again.

Mitch grinned. "I see you missed me, then."

"Yeah, but one of these days my aim will get better," Luisa told him, recapping the bottle as Mitch pulled a chair out from the table. "Hope you came back ready to work, Chief. Didn't put your back out or anything."  

"Well, I had the best medical care," Mitch said, straight-faced.  

Luisa snorted. "Is that what you decadent Gallentes call a double-enten-whatsit?"

He let the smile show then. "Possibly."

"Well, cut it out," Luisa told him. "Don't think you'll be getting any extra leeway around here because you're a married man, Michael Mitcheson."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Mitch assured her. "Although, thanks for the new quarters."

"Don't thank me," Luisa said. "Pilot's idea."  

Mitch rocked back on his chair, balancing it on two legs. "Pilot's idea, your work orders, right?"  

"Maybe," Luisa admitted. She glanced at him, sipped the fine Pator vodka. "So you happy with how your little plan worked out?"

" My plan?" he asked. 

She shrugged. "Wasn't Nerila's, was it? Doesn't take eyes like Fisk's to see the only way you'd get a ring on  her finger is with a gun to her head. Metaphorically speaking." Luisa sipped her vodka again. "What are you going to do? If your wife finds out she's not the only one on this boat who knows how to deal from the bottom of the deck?"

Mitch shrugged. "Tell her the truth." He let the chair settle square on all four legs again and grinned at Luisa. "That it was your idea."  

She gave him her best and blankest noncommittal stare, the one that usually saw her walk away with the pot  in any game that doesn't have Fisk and Nerila in it. "Can't have senior officers flouting regs, can I?" Luisa heard more of an edge to her voice than she'd meant as the words came out and couldn't think of a way to soften it, waited to see if Mitch'd take offence. 

No. He kept grinning. "Oh, so that was why, was it?"

"Well, and I'm a soppy romantic at heart, of course," Luisa said, dry as vacuum. "Like the rest of us from the State. Let nothing come in the way of true love, all that stuff? Very Caldari, you know." 

"Oh, sure." Mitch reached out to open the cold storage without getting out of his chair. "Fortune, we're not short of left-overs, are we?" He tugged out a plate of pastries and set it on the table. "But, you know, I wondered. Why  that way. At the party. You could have just reported us, would've worked out the same."

"Yeah, I could've." Luisa selected a pastry and peeled off a flake of crisp sugared dough.

"So why? Why the scene?"  

"Knew she wouldn't let it go," Luisa said. "That girl ... she  is a romantic. Wasn't going to see the mean old XO sacking two crew for falling in love, was she?"

He studied her. "Pilot calling you on something in front of the whole crew, wouldn't have thought ..."

Luisa looked at him levelly. "It's  her boat, Mitch. Not mine." 

"Well, I  knew that."

Luisa shrugged. "Now  she does." She contemplated the pastry and peeled another flake. 
"Not going to be here forever, Mitch. There'll be day Pilot's got to say no to her XO and mean it and there'll be more at stake than, excuse me for saying, the over-heated nether regions of couple of Gallente fools." She shrugged again. "Better she practice when it doesn't matter than fail when it does. I've seen that, I know where it goes." Goes real bad. Real fast.

She shivered at the memory, looked up to meet Mitch's gaze and could tell she hadn't entirely managed to hide it.  Don't ask,her stare said, best XO tool she had, that stare, flat and cold and promising a short,cold walk to anyone who crossed her. Don't ask. Don't presume I'm going to indulge you further than our interests run in common. Don't push your luck. 

Don't think for a second we're friends.  

For one long moment she thought Mitch was going to ignore the warning, and then the door opened and he closed his mouth on whatever he had been going to say.  

"Hope you brought  folding money this time," Nerila said, pulling a deck of cards from her pocket as she slid into a chair. 

"You feeling lucky, then, I guess?" Luisa asked.  

"One way of putting it," Nerila said. She cut the cards one-handed and began to shuffle as Fisk followed her in. "Gonna share that, Luisa? Or you getting stingy or something in your old age?"

"Or something," Luisa said, sliding the bottle down as Fisk fetched two more glasses and took his seat.  

"Yeah," Mitch said, watching Nerila's hands as she fanned the cards and gathered them up again. " Or something is right."

One Woman Jack Madison Should Have Married, But Didn’t

97

"Move-move-move," Jack yelled through back through the door of the 'pit. The 'lifter shuddered with the impact of boots as the medics hauled the injured over the lip of the hatch with brutal speed.  

A red-headed woman with the winged patch of a pilot stitched to her sleeve and the callsign 'Firetail' on her nametag followed them, pushed past to the 'pit.  

"What took you so long, Pruzza?" she asked with a grin, swinging herself into the empty co-pilot's seat beside him.

"Stopped for a bit of sight-seeing," he said drily, glancing out the window at the marines now retreating toward the 'lifter, falling back in pairs, laying down suppressing fire as they did. " Garghikor River's very pretty this time of year, you know, with the defoliants and all."

She laughed, harder than the joke was worth. "Drop your second seat out the window as you banked for a better look?"

"Must have," Jack said.  Running for the hanger with control yelling co-ordinates over the com, "Firetail's down, she's down, taking fire ... Milko's on his way, Prudence, hold on the runway, hold, hold!"

Fly this bird single-handed on my  worst day. 'cestors take me if I'm going to hang around for Milko to get his fly zipped.

"Gonna owe you a drink later," Firetail -  Gina - said.

"Big enough to swim in, love," Jack told her. "Maybe it's time you learnt that full-throttle isn't the only way to fly."

Gina laughed again, a full-throated chuckle that Jack could have found distracting if it hadn't been punctuated by the low thump of artillery fire coming closer as the enemy gunners found their range. "I'm plenty sweet on the stick when I want to be," she said.

"Not what your call-sign tells me," he said.  Come on, boys and girls. Twice as many of you as this old crate is rated to lift. Gonna be wallowing around over the top of the trees for too long as it is. Hurry it up, now.

"Oh, that," Gina said, leaning around on her seat to look back into the cabin. "Nothing to do with flying. Clear, let's go, go!"

He pulled hard on the stick, gunned the engines, the old 'lifter too simple for her systems to succumb to jamming, answering to brute force and subtle manipulation in equal parts.  Come on, sweetheart, help your Uncle Prue out here, up, up, up ... good girl. "How'd you get it, then?"

"Buy  me a drink and I'll show you," Gina said, still looking back into the cabin as they gained a few feet of altitude, engines straining with the load. 

"Show me?"  Come on, now, good girl, up, over the trees, not into them, there's a love ...

She turned to face him, eyes dancing, and Jack thought that even with her face half-over grease and dirt and her hair falling into her face, she was just about the prettiest thing he'd ever seen. "Well, Pruzza, carpet matches the  dra-"

Whomph

Can't see can't hear I'm hit I'm dead this is it too early I had things to do I've got a kid for - 

He could feel the 'lifter slewing sideways through the air, vibration through the stick telling him port-side engine was gone, pulled up, up, up, no idea where he was but knowing  down was guns and trees and death and up was open sky. Blinked, cleared a little red from his vision, saw a tilting treeline through his shattered windscreen and spat a curse he couldn't hear.Up, up, up, sweetheart, do it for your Uncle Prue, come on, come on ...

Blinked again as the trees disappeared beneath him, felt the starboard engine  thump and miss a stroke, held his breath and felt it pick up again. Indicators showing fuel hemorrhaging somewhere, red lights blinking all over the board. Up was safe and he pulled back on the stick, nursing the limping engine with a delicate tap-and-touch on the pedals that gave the lie to his second wife's complaint that he was the world's worst dancer. Up, sweetheart, up, up ....

It was the wind whistling through the shattered windscreen that made him realise his hearing had returned.  But that's all I can hear...

"All right back there?" he shouted.

Silence.

"You blokes all right back there?" He glanced away from the blue sky in front of him to turn and look back into the cabin and saw -

Jerked his gaze back to the instrument panel.  Gonna be in trouble in about five minutes when the fuel's gone, he thought.Think about what you're gonna do then, Jack. Think about that. Don't think about - 

He swallowed hard, took one hand off the yoke, and pushed what was left of Gina 'Firetail' Gerraci out of his lap.

Five Women Jack Madison Shouldn’t Have Married, But Did

One: The Childhood Sweetheart. (84)

"If the army accepts your application," Tirria said, propping herself up on one elbow, "We'll have to get married."

Jack laughed, looked up at her and saw she was serious. " Married?"

"I looked it up," she said. "Spouses get housing, relocation allowances when you get posted to ... to  wherever. Gotta be married, though."

"Bit of a big step, eh?" Jack said. "I mean, don't you think ... we should wait a bit? I don't think it's even legal until I'm eighteen."

Tirria settled back down beside him, mop of auburn curls tickling his jaw. "Yeah," she said, tracing a circle on his chest with one fingernail. "But do you really want us to be spending all those long months apart?"

"Well, no," Jack said.

"If we don't get married, we will be." Her hand drifted lower. "And I'd  miss you, Jack."

He caught his breath. "And if we're married, the army will bring you with me?"

Tirria nodded.

"Right," Jack said. He stretched, snagged an empty tinnie from the bedside table and snapped the ringpull from the top. "Tirria Arbias, will you do me the honour of becoming Mrs Tirria Madison?"

She held out her hand to let him slip the flimsy scrap of tin over her ring finger. "Why Jack, I thought you'd never ask."



Two: The Ballroom Dancer. (88)

"So how'd you get that nick-name?" Jeppie asked, leaning back against the bar.

"Prudence is my middle name, love," Jack said. "Jack Prudence Madison. Pleased to meetcha."

"Oh, yeah?" she said, sounding unconvinced. "Prudent, are yah? Gotta tell you, Pruzza, 'prudent' ain't even my dictionary." She grinned. "Everything from 'probably' to 'prune' went the night I couldn't find any other paper to get the fire going."

Jack took a long swallow of his beer, watched the way her throat moved as she did the same. "What fire?"

"Long story," Jeppie said. She glanced around at the crowd, then turned back to him, playing with a lock of ginger hair behind her ear. "Hey, you want to get out of here? There's a place down the row with a real sprung floor, live band."

She's decided I'm the best on offer, Jack thought, amused. For a slow night in small town.

"Can't dance," he said.

"I'll teach you," Jeppie offered. "And you can teach me about prudence.  All about prudence."

He grinned. "Sounds a fair deal."

Jeppie tucked her hand in the crook of his arm and tugged him towards the door. "You and me, Pruzza," she said. "I reckon we'll make quite the team."

Three: The One With The Ex (92)

"Hey, careful there!" Jack stooped to snag the toddler before he could run past him and into the traffic. "Where do you think you're going, little man?"

"Oh, thank you!"  

The woman's voice was flustered, but when Jack looked up he met the gaze of a tall, slim strawberry blonde who looked like she'd keep her cool on the hottest day of the blazing end of summer.  Like a tall glass of iced milk, he thought, swinging the toddler up and depositing him back in his mother's arms.

"No worries, love," he said genially, taking the opportunity to look for a wedding ring on her hand. "Got a few myself. They move pretty bloody fast at that age."

She laughed. "A 'few'?"

"Two," he said, then corrected himself. "Three. Four, if you count the one I found out was the other bloke's."

"And do you?" She shifted her son to one hip and shaded her eyes with her free hand, looking up at him. "Count that one?"

Jack shrugged. "She's gonna grow into a beaut sheila one day. May as well take all the credit I can, eh?" He held out his hand. "Jack," he said.

She hesitated, and then lowered her hand, squinting against the glaring sun. "Machai," she said, putting her long, cool fingers into his. "Machai Tennigal."

"Mrs Machai Tennigal?" Jack asked, holding her hand just a little too long.

Machai shook her head, her sleek bob flaring slightly with the movement. "Miss," she said. "Now."

"Buy you a milkshake, Miss Machai Tennigal?" he asked.

"Buy  him a milkshake," she said with a gesture to her son. "Buy me a beer."

Jack laughed. "I think you might be my kind of sheila, Machia," he said.

She gave him a sly sidewise smile as she stepped past him toward the pub. "You know, Jack," she said. "I think maybe I might be."



Four: The Marine (98)

"I could kill you with one hand," Arlinna said, tucking a lock of hair dyed blood-red behind her ear. "Does that turn you on?"

"Not especially, love," Jack admitted. "It's more the rest of the package."

She laughed and leaned forward, bringing the  rest of the package within reach of his eager hands. "You know, Pruzza, if we got married, we could do this every night."

"Sign me up," he said hoarsely.



Five: The One With The Tattoos and the Headlights.(101)

Jack rolled over, winced, and swallowed hard.  'cestors, how much did I have to drink ... last ... night?

Cautiously, he opened his eyes.  Looks like my room, he thought. That's a good start. It's not a gutter. Well done, Pruzza.

"Hey, honey," a voice from the other side of the bed said.

He rolled over and stared at the redhead smiling at him. "G'day love. You would be?"

She raised her hand and displayed the gold band on her ring finger. "Mrs Jack Madison," she said.

Conversations on the Fortune's Smile: Ten

Nerila shuffled the cards. "Ladies high, deuces wild, bent and skip straights." She grinned. "Everybody got that?"

"Shall we just give you our money now?" Luisa asked dryly, pouring herself a little more vodka.  

"If you like," Nerila said, beginning to deal. "Certainly save time."

"N-n-n ..." Fisk said. He flushed as the other three looked at him, waiting, and found a word that didn't lock between mind and mouth. " Earn it."

Mitch picked up his cards. "Think you can make Nerila  work for a winning hand?" he said. "You really are brain-damaged, Fisk."

Fisk caught Nerila's quick shift in her chair and Mitch winced.  

"M-m-m ... could be," Fisk said, studying his cards.  Three, five, seven acorns. "Still t-t-take your m-m-m ... cash."

"Oh, you want a side bet?" Mitch said. "How much?"

"Mitch," Luisa said, a warning note in her voice.

"Pilot pays well, Luisa, but not so well I can afford to pass up the chance to take candy from a baby," Mitch said. "Fisk wasn't so good at cards before he put his hand up for the experimental brain-dice-'n'-slice." He studied Fisk. "Two bits a point?"

Fisk nodded.  

"Your funeral," Nerila said, flipped a card over in front of Luisa and then fumbled the next. "I mean - "

Fisk took a breath, and made himself smile. " Had that," he said. "D-d-didn't we?"

There was a pause, and then Nerila spluttered with laughter. " Hells, Fisk," she said, dealing him the nine of acorns, and turning the jack of bells over in front of Mitch. She flipped up the ace of leaves in front of herself and tapped the cards together in her hand. "Ladies and gentlemen and Michael Mitcheson, place your bets."

"Fold," Luisa said.  

Fisk pushed a marker into the centre of the table, followed it with another.  

"The CTO raises," Nerila said.  

"See that," Mitch said, matching the action to the words.  

"And me," Nerila said. She turned the ace of acorns over in front of Fisk, the Jack of acorns in front of Mitch, and dealt herself the queen of leaves. "Possible flush for the CTO, pair or more in the engineer's greasy hands and the doc might just have a royal-high flush."

Fisk pushed another two markers into the centre of the table.  

"Idiot," Mitch said, matching him.  

"Man's got a right to lose money," Nerila said, adding her own bet.  

"On a low-high flush?" Mitch said as Fisk bet again. "Man, don't know know enough to quit while you're behind?"

"N-n-n.." Fisk said, watching Mitch and Nerila add their bets. "N-n-n ... st-st- strongest suit."

Luisa sipped her vodka. "Obviously."  

Mitch matched Fisk's raise. "Anything further from Ami?"  

"I'd have said," Luisa said.

"You don't always." Nerila tossed her own chips into the pile.  

"Some things are operational," Luisa said, watching as Fisk raised again. " Someone's got to pay attention to procedures on this boat."

Mitch kept his gaze on his markers as he matched Fisk's raise. "You got nothing in that hand, soldier boy, to beat a pair of jacks."

Fisk shrugged. "G-g-g ... s'pose m-m-m ... luck's r-r-un out."

Mitch snorted. "Only  now you realise that?"

"Slow.  Learner." 

Nerila studied her hole cards and then bet again. "Let's see your cards, Fisk."

Stronger than he used to be, Fisk's fingers closed a little too hard on the cards and he opened his hand reflexively before the pasteboard crumbled, scattering the ace, three, five, seven and nine of acorns across the table.

Mitch shook his head, turned up three fours and reached for the pot. "Full house beats a flush."

Fisk reached, faster than he'd meant to, faster than he'd been  able to, a week ago, and covered Mitch's hand with his own. "C-c-can't count." he said. "N-n-n ... g-g-g ... bad f-f-for engineer."

Nerila grinned. "He's right, Mitch. Man's holding a skip straight flush. The money's his."

Mitch paused, then swore.  

"P-p-p ..  and side-b-b-bet," Fisk pointed out. "P-p-p .. hand it over."

Mitch swore again, and then smiled. "Guess I was wrong about how scrambled your brain was, eh, soldier boy?"

"G-g-g ...  suppose so," Fisk said, raking the chips toward him.

Nerila reached across the table to gather up the cards. "Guess you were wrong about running out of luck, too," she said.  

She glanced at Luisa, and Fisk caught her give the XO a tiny nod, looked at Luisa and saw a faint smile twitch the corners of her mouth.  

"C-c-could have  asked." he said. 

Luisa leaned forward. "Could have asked what?"  

"D-d-don't n-n-n ... have to  rig g-g-g ... cards." Fisk watched Nerila's long fingers turn and ruffle the cards, able to see now the flick and turn she used to disguise breaking out an ace, the deft, almost imperceptible movement as she palmed a queen. "T-t-test. C-c-c-could have j-j-just asked." He pointed at Nerila's hands. "Th-think you m-m-m ... lost one."

Nerila went still. "You saw that?"

Fisk nodded.

"Well," Nerila said, dropping the hidden cards back into the pack and starting to shuffle again. "Guess those optional extras Captain Vikarion gave you really do work as advertised."

Fisk tapped his chest, smiling. "N-n-n .. a'  improved."

"Matter of opinion," Mitch said. "No offense, solider boy."

"N-n-n ...  wasn't m-m-m .. of a talker," Fisk said. "Even b-b-before."

Mitch snorted. "Well,  that's true," he said. 

"Thought about how you're going to give orders to your marines when you can't get a sentence out?" Luisa asked.  

Fisk raised his hand, extended two fingers, tapped them on his forearm and jerked his thumb to the door.  

" Mime?" Mitch said incredulously. "You're going to give orders in mime?"

"C-c-c-combat.  Code." Fisk said. 

"And over coms?" Luisa asked.  

Fisk concentrated, and Luisa's com buzzed. She raised an eyebrow, and flicked the switch.  

"Squad two, left," Fisk's voice said from the device. "Squad one, with me. Watch your fire and - "

Luisa flicked it off. "So, straight from your brain to their ears?"

Fisk nodded, tapped his head. "Inside. C-c-com."

Luisa looked at Nerila, who nodded. "All right," the XO said. "You're cleared for return to duty.  Provided you pass the physical."

"Th-th-thank," Fisk said.  

"Don't make me sorry," Luisa warned, her gaze level.  

"N-n-n ..." Fisk shook his head. "Won't. Will d-d-o  better. N-n-n .. future." He tapped his chest again. "N-n-n ... a' improved."

"Yeah," Mitch said. "New and improved."