Blade winced on his gear, stretching out the tightness in his struts that had formed while his eyes were boring into the massive incident map sprawled messily across the floor of his hangar. He looked up and out one of his windows. The sky was already starting to redden, a marked contrast to the last time he had seen daylight. That late, already? No wonder he saw double if he looked out farther than about twice his own length. The worsening light wasn't helping, especially not for trying to read the tiny print and red bullets all over the map. His clock told him it had been at least four hours since the last time he had left his hangar, or even looked at another soul on his base. He snorted to himself. They were all adults; much as he sometimes felt the contrary, they could handle themselves without his constant piercing supervision. Which was good, because he was still up to his hub in the paperwork from the Coil Springs Fire. He had set it aside for the couple days they had taken off to attend Dusty's Corn Festival (admittedly, Blade hadn't been quite as reluctant to leave the park to attend, once the immediate crisis was over; it had been… a very long time since he'd seen his old trainer, and Mayday seemed genuinely happy to see him), and it felt like that stack hadn't diminished in the slightest in the following couple weeks. The last reports were still trickling in from smaller departments who had contributed personnel for the fight, which meant that Blade could eventually compile the remaining records from his base before sending it off to the state for audit. At least he hadn't been IC for this incident, on the account of being either unconscious or in crippling agony when it was established. County fire had the brunt of the work, and a few of their crews were still in the field here and there, tending to the mop-up. Himself and Champ duly excluded, he hadn't received any other reports of notable injuries or accidents. All his own made it in once piece and relatively high spirits, which was all he could really ever ask for.
And then his innards made him aware that he should probably head out to inquire about something to eat. He was all set to ignore it, but an attempt to focus back on the landscape of files merely made his eyes swim and stare blankly into space. Okay, if not for food, he should at least break for coffee. Being able to say that he had ingested something in the last few hours had the added benefit of keeping Maru off his back.
Sighing, and carefully nosing several hefty stacks of reports out of the way (and these were just from his people, sheesh), he nudged open his hangar door. While the fire had done a number on the park and Blade's downtime, its wake had left the rest of the base remarkably relaxed. The smokejumpers took their turns with visiting crews minding the firebreaks for rekindles, but the ashen forests and meadows left nothing for lightning to ignite, and the lack of campers meant that there were no runaway fire pits to give them a little hell. Mudslides were going to be a serious issue when they got rain in the fall, but even long daytime hours spent shoring roads and breaks still had the entire jump team back home before nightfall. They were enjoying their evenings on base. Cabbie's duties were justifiably light, since if the smokejumpers didn't have to leave base, neither did he, and command logistics no longer needed an extra shuttle for supplies. Windlifter split his time between overseeing the jump team while they were out, and silently helping Blade sift through the paperwork (or, sometimes, just being a patient ear for Blade to pitch a frustrated rant into). Dipper probably had it the easiest; with no flames, she didn't have any drops to make, and hadn't left the base for a couple days.
Well, unless her… distraction led her elsewhere. Dusty had been let off the leash long enough to head back out their way; according to Mayday, just sitting at nice, quiet Propwash Junction made him wiggly and fidgety and borderline irritable when he knew there was hard work being done out at PPA.
That, and that was the fire that had laid him up. Blade did understand getting right side up again with a burning desire to finish what he started (morbid pun entirely unintended). If he wanted to work, Blade wouldn't tell him no.
Dipper, though, clearly thought he had returned for other, less professional reasons. She was about one foul away from getting a nice dose of "come to my office so we can talk about something called harassment." Blade had never had to give such an admonishment to any crewmember in his life, and he really didn't feel like doing it any time soon; he could only hope that Dipper was taking each of his cold, prickly glares to heart.
Speaking of, she and Dusty were currently nose-first in the smokejumper huddle at the cliff end of the taxiway. Since the smokejumper huddle did not often include aircraft, both because aircraft found dirt ramps simultaneously a chore and a bore, and because all but the larger aircraft were unwilling to risk damaging their comparatively thin skins on solid, compact earthmovers, both air tankers' presence meant that the ideas being pitched were either entirely benign or of horrific mischief. There was little in-between that Blade could fathom. Not far from the brewing shenanigans, Cabbie was in his hangar, doors flung open to let the cooling evening air in. This soothed Blade's twitching precognition somewhat. The smokejumpers wouldn't dare risk hatching a plan within range of the Fairchild's deceptively good hearing. Unless, of course, the massive lug was in on it, but Blade didn't even want to consider what would come of that. He could feel the rhythmic thud at his back as Windlifter hoisted logs. Since the Skycrane did the bulk of his workouts in the early morning, catching him on his lift at this hour was generally a sign of either stress or boredom. Blade was leaning strongly towards the latter.
He could smell coffee even before clearing the tower, which meant that someone else foresaw several more hours of work ahead of them. Considering the lack of noise from the maintenance bay, Blade figured that Maru was eyes-deep in one project or another, with breaks only to replenish his steady supply of caffeine.
Sure enough, the purple tug was at the counter when Blade arrived, idly tapping his empty mug as he watched the machine percolate, staring off into space and whistling no tune in particular. Maru stopped long enough to shoot Blade a lightweight smirk.
"Well, look who's still alive. Haven't lobotomized yourself with a pen yet trying to push through all that mess on your floor?"
"Nope. It's bad, but it ain't worth death." Blade gave the coffee maker the briefest inspection. Maru must have just gotten started; the pot had barely anything in it. "And I have a desk."
"Yeah, but if your hangar looks anything like it did after the Rail Ridge Fire, all that stuff has spilled over onto your floor, where it is likely going to stay until it is filed by the proper authorities."
Blade would concede this one; Maru knew him too well anyways, and he wanted to save his energy for a verbal joust that was worth the effort.
"I like having the space to see everything."
"Says the air boss." Maru snorted, and prodded the coffee pot like it would make it do its job faster. "Something about old habits and their difficulty to kill."
"At least mine are constructive."
Maru fixed him with a look somewhere between amusement and irritation.
"Was that supposed to be a dig at something?"
"I don't know, you tell me." Blade kept his face neutral. Let Maru take that as he wanted to. Fortunately, the tug seemed more inclined to keep the mood light than loose the mighty bitter and well-battled alternative.
"One of these days, I am going to spike your drink with something amazing."
Amazingly horrible, more like. Blade would almost feel safer drinking paint thinner.
"I would really rather you didn't."
"Oof, am I having difficulty caring about that. You haven't had a real drink in years."
"Not since that incident that we will never speak of again, for reasons." "That incident" being an evening spent being young, stupid, and not really worrying about having a signed will in place. Almost thirty years ago, when neither had developed any set borderline destructive coping mechanisms, just two rookies discovering a stash of something they should have had the wherewithal to leave right alone. Oh, they had paid for that dearly. With more cleaning, if either could believe it. "Besides, someone's gotta save you from yourself."
"Well, that clearly can't be me, because I'm too busy saving you." Maru flicked his eyes to Blade's flank before giving him a pointed stare. Blade met it evenly, for all the good it did him, and Maru only gave ground to fetch the Agusta a cup for coffee.
"I feel fine, Maru."
"I bet, as fine as you'll let yourself feel without going back to work." Maru topped Blade off first, before throwing the rest into his own cup.
"I'm still not sure if you're doubting your ability or my constitution." Blade took a slow sip off the edge. Say what you want about Maru's coffee, but if you needed a hard shot of caffeine to the brain, there was none better. He swore he could feel his tongue tingle.
"Neither, because I'm not an idiot. I only doubt your ability to rest."
"Pot. Kettle. Black."
"Yeah, but it feels easier to address in someone else."
"Here here. I'll drink to that."
"Really?"
"Coffee."
"You bore me sometimes."
Patch was idly typing at her keyboard when her radio crackled. It was over her specific tower frequency, not the broader base channels, which caused only the slightest quirk of her brow as she keyed her mic. Incoming off-base aircraft? Possibly. Lodge tower? Possible too.
"Air Attack Tower."
That voice sounded so familiar, like smelling the inside of your house after a long trip, but she didn't dare jump to conclusions yet. Her core clenched a bit in… apprehension?
"Go ahead for Tower."
"VX238, about twenty miles south-by-southwest, wondering if there's a clear helipad available for me."
Damn, that sure explained the subconscious apprehension. Patch's eyes widened, and she had to set down her tea, just to make sure she didn't spill it in the wave of memories that surged forth. She didn't bother to hide her grin.
"There is, but I don't think that the lack of one would have deterred you in the slightest."
"No, it would not have, but I figured it pays to be polite."
Yeah, and the smelting pools had icebergs. Well, there was a first time for everything, she supposed.
"Really?"
"Sometimes, yes. Occasionally. Maybe. Only for a few people."
She made sure she wasn't keying her mic when she laughed. Like she didn't believe the old bird didn't still had razor edges on his everything.
"Shall I call you out, or let it be a surprise?"
"I was going to let it be a surprise, but I find that fear is so much sweeter when allowed to stew in anticipation for even a short time."
Wow. Still an evil old cuss, too.
"Retirement hasn't changed you at all."
"I'll change when I'm dead."
And somehow, that made Patch incredibly happy.
"Copy that. Welcome home, sir."
"Thank you. It feels great already."
Patch printed her report, scrambled for her things, and keyed the base PA. She wanted to be outside to watch when this evening's entertainment decided to land.
The occupants of the main hangar had just settled into an easy few moments of silence and coffee, when Patch queued the speakers.
"Attention all firefighters, we have an unscheduled arrival headed for the helipads, please keep clear. Be advised: VX238 is coming home to roost."
Something deep inside of Blade bubbled up and into his rotor shaft, clenching in his hub and pulling his rotors towards his tail. He took a deep breath, and relaxed them back out again. Holy hell, what was that about? His mind clamored for a name to attach to the call number, and in turn tack a name to whatever had just washed out of his subconscious. No luck, he was fresh out of ideas. VX, though? Huh, no one on or around the base had used a 'v' in their call sign since—
Oh, for the love of Chrysler.
He could feel the slackness in his face that he was pretty sure was genuine surprise, especially if it was at all similar to the expression currently overtaking Maru. The tug was a shade more vocal about it.
"She has got to be slagging kidding."
"Patch may be Windlifter's greatest conspirator, but she tends to keep the tomfoolery away from her tower. I think she is dead serious." Blade left his coffee in the hangar and poked his prow out of the door. Maru joined him, mug clutched in his tines. If he listened, Blade could hear it; the low, reverberating sound of rotors rumbled in through the trees, bouncing off the rock face behind the base. Tandems were always loud, but whether on purpose or by fluke of birth, this particular set of blades had always been especially raucous. From where he sat, he could see Cabbie rouse from inside his hangar, head poking out of the wide threshold. Even at this distance, Cabbie met his gaze with a widening smirk that was so carnivorous that he resisted shifting on his gear. Not fair; the old carrier shouldn't be allowed to enjoy this. Blade glanced towards the tower, in time to catch Patch before she made her way out. She grinned, and keyed the PA again.
"Emergency procedures are in full effect, boss. King Vortex is back."
"King Vortex?"
Dusty had no idea what to make of the activity on the other end of the base proper, nor the looks exchanged between the smokejumpers. Cabbie had his head out of his hangar, gaze pinned to Blade even clear across the base, and sporting a smile that Dusty really hadn't ever fathomed being associated with him. It was enough that the jumpers took notice, to a wide variety of reactions.
Dipper leaned in towards him, causing his wingtip to connect with her flank. Oh, he did wish she weren't so close all the time…
"That sounds like the former chief, Gustav Vortex. He was in charge here before Blade, but I've never heard him referred to as 'king' before."
"That's because he wasn't so much a king as a fiery tyrant." Dynamite had squeezed out of the huddle of her teammates, shooting a wry look at where Blade and Maru conversed with each other while watching the sky. "At least, that's what I gathered by piecing together what I've been able to weasel out of any of the old men. And he was indeed in charge of the base before promoting Blade, and he made sure everyone knew it."
"So he wasn't on the Wall, then."
"No, he retired in the nineties. I think Patch was the last one on base hired under his command. The rest of us came after." Dynamite cast him a smirk. "Funny you mention the Wall, though. To hear Maru or Blade tell it, that was his idea, and his pet project. The oldest photos on the board are of people lost under his watch."
Well, wasn't that a sobering thought.
"Oh. It's uplifting in a way though, right? If even that kind of guy cares enough about his teammates to memorialize them in his base?"
"Uplifting is not generally a adjective I'd assign to Chief Vortex, but you'll be able to form your own opinions when you meet him. Which you should do at a moderately safe distance. Trust me on this. After a few minutes with Vortex, Blade's cool demeanor will be a balm on the burns."
The omnipresent rumble soon solidified to one identifiable source, coming in high over the trees surrounding the base. A hefty helicopter, sized about halfway between Blade and Windlifter, but the two rotor hubs and highly distinctive frame made him seem bigger. Probably because his length didn't include a tail. He had a red belly and a mostly-white hull, never mind the other markings scattered across his plating.
"He's bigger'n Blade, too." Pinecone peered from under Dipper's wing. "Bigger and scarier? I didn't think it was possible."
"They're exaggerating somewhat." Cabbie made the move from his hangar, meandering slowly towards the helipads on the other side of the airstrip. He canted his head in said direction, and the smokejumpers fell in right behind him. Dusty felt it was prudent to follow suit.
"Easy for you to say, because he likes you." Dynamite huffed, increasing her pace until she was under Cabbie's wing.
"Easy for me to say, because I have also worked with him longer than anybody else here." And there wasn't anyone able to refute that. Dynamite dipped her head in concession. "No matter how much they may whisper about him, he's not the devil incarnate. Not quite, anyways. Sure, he was a harsh, demanding, picky chief who liked things done his way. He doesn't do 'feelings', and his first task for new recruits is to test the thickness of their skin. Not everyone has the fortitude, self-confidence, or stubbornness to survive the process. And he won't apologize for it, either. If you manage to make it to the other side of his conditioning without breaking, then as far as he's concerned you came out better for it." Cabbie dipped a wing, and Dusty could just about hear the wry smirk. "He reminds me of several drill instructors I've had. He would have been a nightmare in the service."
If Dusty were perfectly honest, that description could have been put to Blade, too.
He pulled up as close to Cabbie as he could; big plane took up the entire taxiway with his huge wings, so unless Dusty wanted to roll through the green space he'd have to settle for having a conversation with the warplane's ailerons.
"Is that why you got along so well?"
Cabbie gave a thoughtful hum.
"It was more of a mutual respect kind of thing, I suppose. The fire service is paramilitary, always has been. I respected his rank, and his authority on his base. In return, he gave me my space, and went out of his way to ensure my privacy. When it comes down to business, he doesn't yank your chain. There's no beating around the bush with Gustav; he'll tell it to you frank what he wants. I like that. Do it, and you won't have any problems from him." Cabbie paused his roll, and watched as the Vertol descended over the helipads. Windlifter had disentangled himself from his lift, and was already at the base of the tower.
If Dusty didn't know any better, the somewhat conflicting accounts would leave him moderately confused. But he could attribute it to how Mayday thought about Blade. "That boy's always had a serious bent, but he's nice." Not quite how Dusty would describe the air boss, but from Mayday's point of view, it was right on the money. He should pinch all this salt a little harder, he supposed.
"So he was mean, but not quite as mean as we've so far been led to believe?"
"I wouldn't call it mean. Proud, and opinionated, and blunt, and hot tempered. When combined, it does resemble something just shy of villainy. It's hard to earn his respect. But once you have it, you'll know it. His affection is almost painfully rough, but he always looks after his own." That decidedly sharp smirk edged its way back onto his face. "Which is why we're over here until he lands. Best way to avoid even a friendly lashing is to let him find someone more fun to grief. Fortunately, we still have two of his favorites in attendance."
"Blade and Maru were his favorites?"
"Of sorts, yes." A soft snort, and Cabbie side-eyed all of them. "Here's how this evening is going to go down: old chopper is going to land, he's going to catch sight of Blade and Maru, and he is going to have at them. It is going to be loud and borderline vicious. Blade and Maru aren't pushovers anymore, so you can bet they are going to give as good as they get. It may sound nasty, and it may sound mean spirited, but this is as close to saying 'hello, how've you been, happy to see you' as any of them are able to get with each other." There was a muttered 'oh, the hypocrisy' from somewhere near Cabbie that may have been Drip, and the massive plane duly ignored it. "If the jibe isn't aimed at you, leave it. Trust me; make yourself a suitable target for GT's attention and you will get it. More than you wanted."
"You can't be serious." Pinecone was out by Cabbie's wingtip. "No one's got the chops to really lay into Blade, except Maru, just because, and Cad because he was an idiot. It's basically suicide to challenge both of 'em together."
"Then I suggest you stay out of the line of fire, because it's about to get lively out here." Cabbie's smirk didn't lessen in the slightest. "And if you kids have any popcorn stashed away somewhere, please let me know. I feel a craving coming on."
Of all the things Maru expected to happen today, a visit from his old boss was far enough down the list that it rubbed sides with flying deere farting rainbows and Drip declaring that he was spending the rest of his life as a Sea-Doo. It had been a long time since he had shown his face near the crew. The last had been at Theo's memorial. Most of the younger crewmembers had only met him once (or twice, if you were any of the three elder smokejumpers around long enough to remember Lucas). Pinecone hadn't been around at all, then. Dusty too, now that they could include him in the roster. From where they idled next to Cabbie on the other side of the airstrip, he could hope the old propjob was at least giving them a short heads up. GT was a lot to handle, if you didn't know what to expect.
Hell, he was a lot to handle even if you did know what to expect. The last two meetings with the old Vertol had been rather subdued, due to circumstances. Similar to his careful crafting of the Wall, he held a great deal of respect for the most somber of events held for firefighters, especially if they were one of his own. He kept his lashing tongue firmly to himself, at both events, at least outside of the hilarious eulogy he gave for Lucas.
It was one of the events that sealed his opinion of the Vertol, for what Maru assumed would be the rest of his adult life. He might be rougher than amorous relations with a rockslide, but even when Maru knew the chief was mad as hell at him for one thing or another, he was never left to fend for himself. An earlier incident, where Maru was cleaning the aprons around the main complex for getting sloppy with his work, when some firefighters from a neighboring base deigned to give the young tug a little flack. Maru had kept his mouth shut, didn't want to appear rude to the mutual aid who were helping pull their afts out of the fire, but Vortex had no such problems. Watching a pair of Firehawks run for their lives from a snarling Chinook made the rest of his day go by easier. Similarly, when Blade was completely honest with his desire to disappear into obscurity, GT became very good about cutting off and diverting prodding questions about the oddly familiar Agusta stationed on his base. He may have never said it, but if it mirrored the tiny flicker in Maru's own soul, then Blade fully appreciated the effort.
Maru took another burning swig of coffee. What was that taste in his mouth? Respect? Put that back in the shadows of his psyche, where he could nurse it in secret. He didn't want to get all softy-feely now; GT could smell holes in armor from a thousand feet, and he had some inborn, carnivorous instinct to put teeth in them.
Without a funeral to act as a muzzle, Maru was expecting tonight to become Armageddon's Circus. They didn't even know why the old man was here, just poof! Drops out of the sky, with only Patch to herald his arrival. Cabbie was grinning like crazy, Patch not quite as crazy, and who even knew what was going on inside Windlifter's head. He heard Blade sigh next to him, whether out of resignation or steeling himself for the coming storm was not for him to guess. Not that there was any time to guess.
Maru stuffed a sigh of his own and took a hard swig of coffee. Too bad it was just coffee.
"Well, this is happening, whether we're ready or not."
"Yeah, let's make sure we greet him before he eats anyone." Blade shifted slightly on his gear. "You think if I tell him that I have an incident's worth of paperwork all over my floor, he'll let us off easy?"
"Not on your life."
"Yeah, you're probably right." There was a brief pause as they watched the tandem set his tires on the deck. If Maru hadn't known what to look for, he'd have missed the slight quirk to the corner of Blade's mouth. "If he saw the mess, he'd probably make us clean it up."
"Do not even joke about that." He almost hadn't made it through that month of Extreme Probation with Blade. If GT had been trying to break his will, that had very nearly done it.
"Hey, I was there too. If anyone has the right to joke about it, it's me."
"You're not allowed to have fun with this." Never mind Cabbie, who seemed to sense their impending doom, and faced it with all the amusement of someone who knew he was going to come out of it unscathed.
"Neither are you."
"I'm not. At least, not yet, and not with coffee."
"You're terrible on purpose."
"Better than being a bore."
They were not being quiet. Even if they were, with his engines slowly winding down and his enviably good ears, they had attracted GT's attention like black on tar. It burned like tar, too; even well into his retirement, and almost twenty years since the old tandem had left his base in Blade's care, and his eyes still bore holes right through him. But then again, he did that to everyone.
Maru hid a curse behind his coffee mug as he watched that distinctive, sharp-edge smirk cut its way across GT's face. The coffee mug may also have conveniently hidden a much smaller mirror to it.
"Oh, by Chrysler. You kids haven't shut up yet?"
Right out the gate, and it was already a race. Maru was determined that if the old tyrant was going to run him under, then he was at least going to do some damage to that undercarriage on the way down.
"Hey now, don't you have a throne in hell to lounge on, old man?"
Blade snorted, which did a pretty good job of covering up that raspy snicker.
"He probably got tired of devouring the souls of the damned while listening to the lamentations of his subjects."
If anything, Gustav's wide smirk got more wicked.
"It ain't a bad life, really. But I did hear that a small bit of hell reared up to take a couple bites out of you all."
Blade gave a tired grunt of acknowledgement. It was not alone amongst the loose huddle around the helipad.
"You know, then?"
"I know from whatever tripe gets broadcast on the news, and from what Jammer told me on my way in. Never mind the ashes I flew over." His wide smirk fell off, and he leveled a piercing look at Blade "I heard you ate it pretty good."
An understatement. It was hard to know what Jammer had told him, GT had been his acquaintance since he was new at the park, and the tandem was being surprisingly unabrasive about his injury. Maru wondered if the knowledge of how close Blade had come to death was enough to tame his vocabulary a bit.
Blade canted his head slightly in affirmation.
"Yeah, it was an experience. I don't care to repeat it."
"I hope not. Chopper rotisserie isn't any fun to fix," Maru muttered from around his cup.
"I'll try to keep that in mind the next time my choices are reduced to 'death' and 'possible death'."
"Just try not to turn your insides into slag next time."
"Trust me; no one wants my innards intact more than me."
GT's wide smirk took on the faintest glimmer of something Maru didn't feel like putting a name to, because it would make him happier than he would ever care to admit.
"You kids haven't changed a bit."
More than forty years later, and this guy's approval still made Maru borderline giddy. Dammit, if the universe had any mercy, it would give him a nice, dark hole to hide in and hiss angrily from.
"Neither have you."
Blade gave a resigned sniff.
"It's all the souls he eats, I'm telling you."
Bless Blade for the save in conversation. That was already far closer to anything mushy than Maru felt like being to the old tandem. Good thing he always had being a recalcitrant slagger to fall back on.
"And I hate to tell you, chief, but we didn't get any younger when you left. The mantle of 'kids' has been passed on down the chain."
GT spared just the briefest glance over at the smokejumpers and Dipper (and Dusty, and heck if his gaze didn't linger long enough to let Maru know that the helo knew exactly who he was), before raking back over Maru.
"You can pass it on when I'm no longer around to remember when you were a pair of upstarts swabbing my base."
"Hurry up and get senile then, you old bastard."
Blade snorted to cover up another snicker. He almost failed, that time.
GT rolled his eyes at the two of them, before firmly redirecting his gaze to Patch. She returned his attention with a smile and a smart nod. She didn't have the same flinch-worthy memories of GT that he and Blade did. While a side effect of being stuck in the tower meant a slight disconnect from the other happenings around the base, it also meant that she had been sheltered from the worst of GT's acidic moods. Not that she hadn't caught her own share of hell, but she was mostly subjected to the Flash and Evaporate variety of the Vertol's ire. Patch's world was all airwaves, weather history, and barometric readings, simultaneously spread across several monitors and maps at once. Not GT's forte, and he didn't interfere once she proved herself entirely capable. He could read weather reports and predict fire activity as well as any other firefighter, but Maru highly suspected that he read Patch's daily reports as thoroughly as Blade did, and was entirely satisfied with having someone on base to file concise, accessible logs every night.
"Hey, lady. You're looking pretty alright."
Patch gave a casual shrug.
"I am. This is still the best post around."
"Even without me?"
"I find ways to manage."
GT snorted, and canted his head towards Blade and Maru.
"You keeping these lunkheads in line?"
She cocked a brow, and shot a quick look over at both CO and CMO.
"With all due respect, sir, I don't know how I'm supposed to keep Blade and Maru in line with anything."
"Psh, they ain't nearly as fierce as you think they are. Don't let them grief you."
"They don't really give me any grief, since they tend to run out of that on each other."
"Ha! Atta girl."
Seriously, GT had always been softer on her than with anyone else. Not just him; maybe it was because Patch was the one on base that was the closest to carrying a "civilian" label, but she was also the only one to call Theodore "Teddy" and get away with it.
GT continued down the line, and he and Windlifter had a quiet battle of gazes. Maru remembered when they had acquired the Skycrane. Never mind being such a burly sucker, but he was borderline silent even with the Vertol's characteristic "welcome" to the newbs. Windlifter had never batted an eye at a single thing, to the chief's express surprise. And joy. Hell if he didn't lord that over ever recruit he took in since.
"Windlifter."
"GT."
"…you psychic yet?"
"No."
"Damn."
And he moved on. Maru used to be jealous at how easily the Sikorsky could shrug through GT's paint-stripping attention, and how it did exactly what it was intended to do: make Windlifter so boring to wrassle that the chief moved on to other, thinner-skinned targets.
His next target, though, was not so thin-skinned, and was still sporting a smirk that wiser people wouldn't stand in front of. Justly, the smokejumpers were under the Fairchild's wings, which served to shield them from both participants. Smart kids.
GT's toothy grin returned full force.
"Hey there, you old crustbucket."
"Welcome back, flying rustbag."
"Not dead yet?"
"You first, please. I still have a job to do."
GT huffed, but the grin continued unabated.
"I almost can't believe you're still out here."
Cabbie gave an idle quarter-turn of his propellers.
"Eh. Kids still need to get to work, and I've tried resting. Got bored about a month in."
"You would. Don't break a wing getting the little mudrunners out there, though."
"They ain't as bad as they look."
Blackout gave a half sputter.
"Oh, really, now? You always tell us we're getting too heavy."
Cabbie gave a noncommittal grunt.
"I lied. I'm just slowly getting older."
GT turned his sharp smirk to Blackout who, to his credit, just barely flinched under the scrutiny.
"Don't worry; this guy's still got enough fire left in him to handle anything you've got. Try him, sometime."
The Fairchild hissed softly, and gave the jumpers nearest to him the stink eye.
"Don't, unless you want me to teach you how to swim in the lake."
Gustav snickered, and Dynamite gave a dramatic roll of her eyes.
"I told you he actually likes you."
A barking laugh from the old tandem.
"And what's not to like? I appreciate anyone who can follow my orders, work long hours, and then still have energy to kick my aft in the evening."
That caused shifting glances between the jumpers, and a few looked at Cabbie with what could have been a skewed sense of awe.
"You kicked his aft?" Pinecone half whispered out of the side of her mouth.
"No, I did not." Cabbie's grin had fallen to something far more neutral, like he could feel the slag storm coming. So could Maru, especially if he was right about what would fall out of GT's mouth next. Good; if Blade and Maru had to sit through Gustav throwing their past history around, then Cabbie could sift through some of his old dirt too.
GT pinned Pinecone with a grin dangerous enough to get her to squeak.
"He did whup my cousin, though."
"YOU BEAT UP HIS COUSIN!?" Avalanche stared at the Fairchild who was now slightly puffed up in indignation.
"No." Cabbie growled.
"Yes." Was GT's amused retort.
"I remember that." Maru took another sip of his coffee. Damn, cold coffee was slagging terrible. Blade shifted idly on his gear.
"I remember you telling me about it."
GT shot the red chopper a smirk before returning his attention to the few smokejumpers that looked like they were about to ask a lot of very pointed questions. Namely Drip, who didn't seem to have the good sense to not be right in front of GT. This put his back to Cabbie, and Maru didn't think there was a bunker in existence that could protect the kid if his questioning ran aground from that position. Cabbie looked like he was going to head that whole conversation off at the pass, but GT wasn't going to let him have it.
"Long story short, my cousin was an entitled piece of scrap, may he rest in peace—"
"Or burn in hell." Try as he might, Maru couldn't resist. His failure, he'd own it.
"Shut up, punk. Anyhow, he neither took to the armed forces or got a job doing any real good, as did everyone else in the family, and instead made ridiculous amounts of money shuttling an oil tycoon around the country. It made him even more of a douche than he already was. So he flies out to visit me one day, because his boss was attending a conference at the lodge, and he clearly had no one else to bother. He spends all damn day here. It would have been an hour at most, but hell if he didn't think that Tracey was the finest thing he'd seen in the last six hours. I told him to go be a slag sucker to someone else's crew, but hell if he could hear anything that wasn't Tracey promising to rock his world. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together knew she was going to use actual rocks, and it would probably kill him. She would have done the tandem gene pool a favor. So here he is, being a scummy creep and Tracey is about to peel his face with her rotors, swear to Chrysler, and Cabbie rolls past and says—hell, what did you say to him?"
Cabbie shifted minutely, clearly weighing his stubborn denial that this event ever happened with relenting in the face of cold hard facts, and hence feeding the sordid details to jump team for use in possible future torment. He gave an airy chuff, and relaxed slightly into his gear.
"I told him not to waste his breath, as he'd need it to blow up his real date."
There were a wide variety of muffled snickers to outright laughter. Maru himself was squarely the latter, while Dusty tried valiantly to hide his grin for the sake of being polite. GT's smile could have cut diamonds.
"And you all can imagine what he had to think of that. Now, I've heard the argument for the 'money is power' thing, but if you have less sense then the Maker gave a dead tree, all your money makes a terrible shield when you pick a fight with a plane several times your size. Which he did. Luckily for him, Cabbie was man enough to teach him why he shouldn't do that."
"Holy hell." Blade had Cabbie fixed with a smirk. He got a deadpan, unamused stare in return, a remarkable about-face of expressions from just a few minutes ago. Something something instant karma, Maru was sure.
"That was the most interesting thing to happen all week." They had been talking about that for months. Slag, it was hard to drink coffee and laugh at the same time.
GT cackled.
"No kidding. If you were assigned to FOD after that, you were picking pieces of the aftermath out of the green space for days."
Cabbie sighed, resigned to having his dirtiest laundry aired in front of everyone.
"I was tired, she was tired, you might have actually killed him, and I couldn't stand his awful voice outside my hangar anymore. I'm not particularly proud of how that went down."
"I am. It was hilarious. Could you hear Theo laughing so hard he cried?"
"No, I couldn't, kind of how I couldn't hear reason, either. You took your damned sweet time breaking us up."
Blade uttered an indignant snort.
"And yet he couldn't wait to jump down Maru and I's throats when we had our… disagreement."
GT turned enough to rake over Blade and Maru out of the corner of his eye. The expression on his face could have been either mild irritation or dark amusement.
"I held—hold—you both to a much higher standard than my errant, useless family member, who has never contributed anything to dignified society. One of you was chosen and trained by an old rig that I hold in very high esteem, because he's been doing this job for longer than anyone sitting on this tarmac right now, and the other one was handpicked to be groomed for the future title of CMO. You both had potential. I expected you to live up to it."
Well that was… different. Maru couldn't tell if they'd just been admonished or praised. Probably both; Gustav liked to give the carrot and the stick at the same time, if he were able.
Cabbie shifted his weight enough to draw attention.
"And I still got punished for mine, Blade."
"You did?"
GT rumbled in surprise.
"You did? When? What did I make you do?"
"You made me write the incident report for it."
"Oh, I remember now. You had to do it twice, because the first time you were still stricken with the anger-shakes, and I couldn't read your damned writing, so I made you fill it out all over again the next morning."
Dynamite was still side-eyeing Cabbie.
"Still can't believe you beat somebody up. I've never seen you go past acute irritation."
"And, if I have my say, you never will."
"Don't get dull on me now, Cabbie." Maru had always wondered if wearing that smirk for such a long time ever hurt GT's face.
"Your dull is what I call being reasonable. Which I don't always have time for anyways, since I've been shackled with five insane young bruisers whom are both quiet-impaired and have ground my payload to gravel years ago."
"Five bruisers?" And GT fixed Dynamite with an appraising stare that, under any other circumstances, would have been to the immense and immediate life safety of the person making it. As it stood, there was some uncomfortable shifting amongst the smokejumpers as a unit, and they gave their squad captain a collection of worried looks. It was hardly the first time her small size and light build had come under fire on a team that had traditionally been held only by earthmovers, and where the next lightest person weighed in at three tons. Cabbie regarded GT with a neutral stare, but it was probably no accident that he was still allowing the smokejumpers to take shelter under his wings.
To her credit, Dynamite met his gaze as firmly as she dared, easy smirk in place.
"My size concentrates my awesomeness into more easily manageable portions. If I were any larger, it would overwhelm the unworthy."
There was a moment of silence as GT blinked, and Maru watched as his face split into one of those massive, razor-edged smiles that showed all his teeth, and he laughed, long and hard. It was a surprising enough reaction that Windlifter quirked a brow.
And then GT gave her the rare, much-coveted Nod of Approval.
"And that's why you got Smoker's job."
You could now add Dynamite to the list of people who impressed GT without having to get raked over the coals first. Lucky girl.
GT turned all the way back around to face Blade and Maru again, previous conversation immediately dismissed.
"On the topic of jobs, what the hell did you brats let happen to my park?"
Blade snuffed a sigh as he rolled slowly towards the med bay. The smokejumpers had split a while ago for evening chores (the only one of note was that Blackout had pulled dinner duty, which was likely to be as eventful as usual), and Cabbie was back over under his canopy netting, idly doing who knew what. Blade and Windlifter had just spent almost an hour pouring over the incident map with GT. It had been… dare he say, fun? Fun-ish, if anyone asked. There has been a loud "oh fuck!" once the tandem had seen the incident notes sprawled all over Blade's space, shortly followed by Maru's gasping peals of laughter that could be heard from one end of the airstrip to the other. Blade was going to bury the tug in the reports and leave him there.
GT's attempt to figure out how fire containment had been allowed to disintegrate so badly had led to a surprisingly therapeutic rant from Blade about how the park super had been giving them the shaft for the last several years. The Vertol hissed Blade told him that they were still in the process of trying to recover eighty percent of their budget back from the twisting nether, and Blade could only speculate how it would have been handled if GT had still held the reins when Cad transferred in. Would it have been any different? Spinner still would have had rank over fire services, and GT could only yell and snap so much before someone got bureaucratic with him. The same had happened to Blade; he could only protest so much before Cad stopped listening and just signed the orders anyways.
Of course, with GT, there was always the slight possibility of murder.
Actually, it was probably a good thing that GT had retired when he did, because his explosive temper plus Avalanche's violent dislike of Cad Spinner would have possibly led to some truly horrific things. Cad was enough to make sane people crazy; he could make crazy people hysterical.
Blade could feel his ampullae prickle off Gustav's field, while Windlifter's fell away as he angled his nose towards the main hangar. Blade could hear Maru muttering in the shop, which solidified into some very inventive cursing as Blade poked his prow inside. GT was not far behind.
"What's broken this time?"
Maru looked up, and set a large box aside with a grunt.
"Nothing, surprisingly. Just doing inventory. Between you and Dusty, so close together, I need a restock of several different materials. I used enough parts on the two of you to build Patch a second tower."
"I'm sure."
"You're allowed to be sarcastic when you see the amount of hoses I went through to keep you from bleeding to death, never mind him."
GT idly regarded both of them as he looked around the garage.
"How in the hell did you guys end up with a racing superstar on your roster anyhow?"
Blade couldn't quite kill a smirk. It did seem to be a recurring thing on this base, didn't it? He wondered, in the hopefully distant future when he decided that he'd finally done enough to atone for his lack of action, who the base would hire next from the limelight. He quirked a brow at GT.
"The same way you got shackled with me."
A snort.
"Someone from your past sent him your way, huh?"
"If by 'someone from my past', you mean Mayday, then yes. He did."
GT blinked.
"Seriously?" Blade just nodded. "Damn, I have no idea what kind of life that old rig is leading, but if he keeps sending famous people out to work the line, you'll never get rid of the paparazzi."
Maru looked over from where he was placing boxes back on the shelves.
"I'm actually surprised we haven't found any of them skulking in the trees yet."
"The jumpers spend time out there. I'm sure they're a deterrent." Blade was thankful for that, at least. He was sure that the last thing the paparazzi wanted to see was a crew of brawny twenty-thirty somethings who were less than inclined to let them any further onto the base without express permission from a superior. His brain supplied him with a scenario where someone tried to maneuver around Dynamite and Avalanche, and it made him want to smile. Yeah right, good luck.
"I'm sure if Dipper caught wind, she'd be a bigger deterrent." Maru leveled a look at Blade. "You are watching her, right?"
"Like a damned hawk. Champ's too nice to say anything about it, but he shouldn't have to for her to get off his back. It's not a conversation I want to have, but I may just have to bite the bullet and save us all some aggravation." Blade gave an amused snort. "Unless this old bastard wants to come out of retirement for fifteen minutes to do us all a favor."
To Blade's surprise, the old chopper didn't take the bait. In fact, it was acutely silent beside him.
"GT?"
Gustav wasn't even looking in Blade's direction. He had is eyes pinned to the Wall, meandering slowly over the names and faces there. Theodor and Lucas. Marvin. Humphrey. Two lost on his watch, two on Blade's. Blade bit his cheek. Three, if you counted Nick. The signed, framed photo in the corner of the Wall didn't go unnoticed by the old tandem. It wasn't his first time seeing it; Blade had put it there upon his promotion, and GT had caught a glimpse when he came back for Lucas' memorial. He hadn't said anything then. Blade had never told him, really, what happened, but that had been contemporary news back then; he'd never had to. Acerbic old crankshaft had been able to figure it out the painful in and outs all on his own, and never gave Blade any particular guff about it. For which the Agusta was exceedingly grateful.
After a short while, the Vertol let out an airy sound that both Blade and Maru might have pegged as a sigh if they didn't know whom it came out of.
"At twenty percent of operating funds, chained to a newbie, and bulkheaded by an incompetent little slagger of a super." More silence as GT rolled his tongue around in his mouth. "Anything lost on the line?"
"Other than the damage myself and Champ, nothing. Well, maybe the kid's innocence, too."
Somewhere behind him, Maru cackled.
"That is a terrible choice of words, Blade."
"And you need to sweep that gutter mind of yours again." Please, for his sanity.
Still nothing but a soft grunt from Gustav.
"This could have been the biggest public safety disaster to happen inside a national park. Almost was. Given the circumstances, it's a miracle you didn't lose any civilians."
"We almost did. Fortunately, Blade and the kid pulled a save right out of their afts at the last minute. The crew got the entry road uncorked, and the jumpers and the lodge engine were able to get everybody through that damned tiny gate with no real injuries."
That was just enough to pull at Gustav's attention, and he looked back at Maru.
"There's an engine at the lodge, now?"
"Yeah. Cad's one good decision was to hire Pulaski. Thank the universe he just bought him off of county fire instead of hiring some fresh upstart greenhorn with no real experience, or everyone in the park would have been boned."
Gustav gave a soft hum, and went back to eyeing the Wall.
Blade traded glances with Maru. They did come out of that all right, all things considered. Conditions may have had two tires down the scrapper, but it could have ended far worse, for more people than just Blade and Dusty. A perfect storm of both exceedingly bad luck, drought conditions, and incredible incompetence, and then they somehow still managed to salvage the day.
Not "somehow." They knew how; Dusty aside, they'd been training for a situation like this for years, decades for at least half of the base. Their fortune was the end result of hard work, solid conditioning, and pure stubbornness. And they could do it all over again tomorrow, if they had to. Please, sweet Maker, no, but they could. For not the first time in the last couple weeks, Blade found himself fortunate that he had ended up with solid, dependable crewmates that could bust their afts on a campaign fire for days on end, get twenty-four hours rest, and then go do it all again. Sure, some of the younger ones had habits that made him feel older faster, but things started moving and shaking when they were able to harness that boundless energy towards something constructive. He had discovered, years ago, that their competence gave him incredible peace of mind; it allowed him turn his attention to more pressing matters, knowing that everyone else was squarely in control on their own business. It let him put his constant, driving controlling tendencies to bed. Ish.
If he were ever inclined to utterly ruin his dry spell, it would be to heartily drink to that.
There was another snort from GT, laced with mild amusement.
"You kids did a good job."
It took Blade a moment to sift the words from his own internal dialogue and process them properly.
All he came up with was huh?
The old tandem turned from the Wall, letting Blade and Maru take his stare together.
"Far less than ideal circumstances, and you still managed to get the job done. No-one is dead, not even yourselves, and your crew is still pretty lively. Yeah, the park got toasted to hell, but all things considered…" he shrugged his rotors, "pretty on point."
Blade blinked to clear the slackness in his face. A quick look confirmed that Maru's cognitive functions had gotten hung up as well, and it took a while before he managed to loosen his tongue back to its usual limber sarcasm.
"Well, that was the last thing I expected to hear today." Well mostly. He still looked like he was scrambling to find an appropriately cynical response. Blade didn't blame him. "I can die happy now."
To even more surprise, Gustav didn't fall on Maru's momentary lapse of guarded acerbity like arctic cats on prey.
"Yeah. I probably never made it very clear years ago."
"Are… are you apologizing?"
"Hell no. I don't have many regrets in my life; not how I chose to live, not how I ran my base, not how I trained either one of you," a pointed look between both chopper and tug, "and not to whom I passed the torch when my time was up."
Blade had suspected. The older he got, the more he could rationalize everything the old Vertol had run him through. Oh, when he was young and hot under the plating and had something to prove to himself, it seemed overly ruthless. Especially after the uneasy first few weeks knowing Maru had violently boiled over, it seemed like the old chief was always on his aft for something unnecessary. Eventually he had accepted that, on some level, the hefty chopper wanted them to succeed, or he would have dumped them both on the curb and forgotten about them. But he kept them around, let them build their careers, and the only price to pay was the constant, blazing scrutiny that came with proving their worth. Still, it felt surprisingly nice to actually hear it, all these years later.
"Finally admitting that you like us, hm?"
"Dammit, Blade, if I didn't like either of you, I wouldn't have wasted my time on you." A tiny version of his usual smirk. "I figured you knew."
"Yeah, I think we did. The price of your command style, we figured." Blade matched his toothy smirk with one of his own. "I gotta say I like my style better, though."
"Of course you do. Everyone likes their way better. Whatever works for you."
"What happened to 'it's my way or it's the wrong way'?"
"You were a low level scrub, and I was chief. The chief's way is always the right way. Then it was mine. Now, it's yours."
"GT admitted that Blade is right. I am going to remember this day forever." Maru made a feint towards his calendar.
"Such cheek."
"I am still pretty cheeky, yes."
Blade's grin tempered a bit as he rolled Gustav's words around in his head. The praise felt… somewhat unwarranted. Like just another fire season, but with a few more bad rolls of the dice.
"It doesn't feel like we did anything particularly extraordinary. Sure, conditions could have been better, but every fire department has their hang-ups somewhere. We're fortunate that our budget issues haven't cut into our staffing. I'm pretty sure we would all still be doing this job for free if we had to. We just had to put our adult tires and get to it." An old phrase that GT had favored, and Blade had taken to heart—and Maru practically lived by—sprang immediately to mind. "'Improvise, adapt, and overcome.'"
"'Improvise, adapt, and overcome.'" GT gave a slow nod. "Glad to see you remember some of the slag I told you."
Blade snickered. He didn't bother to stuff this one.
"We remember everything. We plan to spill it all when we have to give your eulogy."
There was a rumbling snarl that carried a lot less heat than it usually did.
"The hell you will be speaking at my funeral. I'll see to that."
"You'll be dead. Good luck keeping us out."
Maru grinned fit to injure his own face. There had been a lot of that this evening.
"Here, we'll even help you plan your memorial. It'll be fun! We can talk over dinner, if you feel like staying."
"And wait for you to poison me? How stupid do you think I am?" He may have said the words, but the Vertol backed out of the garage and turned his prow slowly towards the main hangar. Oh, this should be good.
"You stir poison into your soft, old man porridge every day. Besides, at your age, we'll have better luck just being patient." Maru was practically rubbing his tines together.
"You can patiently sit while I tell your crew what terrible scamps you were back in the day." This was the problem with threatening GT; he had dirt on everyone from Patch's hiring on back, truckfulls of it, and a memory like a steel trap.
"Let's see if you're able to do more than curse while eating." Maru made a slight detour in his roll to dig his forks into a cabinet. Blade had a right good idea what he was after.
"I do both on a regular basis."
No kidding.
"Yeah, but not from around Blackout's cooking." Maru shot Blade a look, tines still buried in stuff. "He is still on shift for dinner tonight, yeah?"
"That's where he is right now."
GT gave a distasteful wince.
"That bad, huh?"
"Oh, it's good, but he seasons like the apocalypse is coming."
Blade grunted in affirmation. Never had he had food that was both good and almost painful to eat. Poor Avalanche had just about died; messed that kid's systems up for days. They had convinced Blackout to turn the dial down, just a bit, for everyone's health. Only Dynamite had been able to handle the stuff without any kind of complaint. And, of course, no one ever knew what the hell Windlifter thought.
"The first time I started my engines with his culinary 'expertise' running through my lines, swear to Chrysler, flames came out of my exhaust." Blade had almost actually checked to make sure he wasn't on fire.
GT's lip curled back into his characteristic lopsided Challenge Accepted grin.
"Sounds good. Can't be hotter than the food in hell."
Blade shrugged.
"I suppose, but don't be disappointed when we cannot garnish your portion with distilled virgin souls."
"You are never going to come off that, aren't you?"
"Not in the foreseeable future, nope."
"Tch, stubborn punk. Hey Windlifter! Get out here and tell your chief that I don't eat souls. And don't turn this into one of your damned semantic arguments where you substitute 'eat' for 'absorption,' or whatever."
Blade snorted as he followed lazily along. Maru came up beside him, clutching something that Blade would always deny was the Polaroid camera.
It was a good idea, though.
Tonight was going to be an excellent night to document some long-coming vengeance.
AN:
Wow, it has been a long time, hasn't it? This chapter has been in the works for... a very long time, and I cannot even fully explain to you how recalcitrant Chief Vortex was being throughout the whole thing. It was hard to balance his tendency to absolutely take over with giving uptime to the people who needed it. Ah well.
Typos, I know they're in here.
Words!
"Improvise, adapt, and overcome." My Lt in the academy has this as his favorite phrase. I figured it was appropriate. :3
