Perks

Being a pilot had its perks.

And not living in barracks is definitely one of them, Jack Madison thought.

No more spending money he didn't have on cheap motel rooms with badly-sprung mattresses, or sneaking into the motor pool with a blanket in the search for a little privacy.

Owning your own ship, there's something to be said for it. 


Of course, the 'captain's quarters' on the Lucky Dip weren't exactly up to the standards of the Cluster's finest hotels, either.

But then, ships have things hotels don't, Jack thought as he let Sella tow him by the hand through the corridors.

And the girl does like her engines.


Sella pushed open the engine room door, hauled Jack inside and kicked it closed behind them. "Get 'em off, soldier," she said, dragging her own shirt off over her head. "I hae ta get back to work before fourteen hundred, those hobbies will nae strip and recondition themsel's, will they?"

Jack grinned, following suit. "Sometimes, love, I'm not sure we're even speaking the same language."

"Oh, are ye no, then?" Sella hoisted herself up onto the top of the warp-core housing and patted the place beside her. "Sure about that, are ye? Or nay?"

"Sure about one thing, love," Jack said, joining her.

Sella pushed him down onto his back. "Aye, an wha's tha, then?"

He grinned. "Sure I don't much care."

"Tha's wha I like in a pilot, soldier," Sella said, leaning over him until her red hair brushed his face. "A good grasp on essentials."

"Like this?"

She laughed, gasped, laughed again. "Tha's a start, soldier. Tha's definitely a start."

Yes, Jack thought, being a pilot certainly has its perks.

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.