The Devil you know.

Boss looked at the message in his hands, then up from where he was sat at his desk to the expectant faces of Skit, Hazel, Ruby, Flyboy and Doc.

They all sat facing him in his little office, looking a little worried.

“As you know the rest of the squadron are starting to gather in the briefing room as requested, but I wanted you lot to hear this first. You have been here since the start of this madness, the last of the first so to speak, so I thought it fair. Oh course if I had been able to have this meeting yesterday Snowy would still be here.”

He paused; the message in his hand was shaking almost imperceptibly.

“This arrived this morning. Basically with immediate effect the squadron is stood down and all pilots will return to their homes”

The pause that followed was a lot longer than Boss expected, so he dropped a comment into it.

“We won.”

That broke open the floodgates.

“Bloody hell! I was just getting used to all this.”

“Won! But there were two squadrons of the bastards yesterday!”

“Thank fuck!”

“Yay drinkie time!”

All delivered at once.

“Ok, yes I know. Well I don’t actually know how we did it but we appear to have done it. So you can all go home. You have been here far too long and survived too much for the next bit. There will be a token force of six planes left behind to cover the border until we can be sure the situation is stable, just patrol flights to be sure. Probably this will be disbanded after a year. I am going to ask for volunteers in the main meeting but none of you have to…”

At the word “Volunteer” all the pilots hands had shot up.

“No. You have all done enough. Let the newer guys have a go”

“Oh right” Said Ruby, “So you are not staying on then? You don’t get rid of us that easy”

“Well yes I am but I don’t think I can remember how to do anything else but fly…”

“Then we stay too. Until the very end” said Hazel “right guys?”

“Oh yeppers. Count me in!” said Skit.

“What the nutter said” came from Flyboy.

Doc looked at them all and quietly muttered,

“You are all bloody mad. Passing up an opportunity to go home…..I’d better get an order for sedatives placed right away.”

The control room doors swung open a little two enthusiastically and a small cloud of snow blew into ops, causing Boss to exclaim

“Any of that goes in my coffee and you are all dead”

In the middle of this mini blizzard stood Skit, Ruby and Hazel – all brushing snow off off their flight suits.

“Is it still snowing?” Enquired Boss, and all three rabbits tried to respond before the others.

“Snowball fight! I am WIN!” said skit
“She started it honest!” said Hazel pointing at Ruby
“You so did not win you bastard!” said Ruby slapping at Skit.

“QUIET!”

The three pilots noticed that everyone was in little groups around the various radar monitors, and as one they all looked up at the main display on the wall.

Lots of red dots where coming over the border, each of the three groups of eighteen accompanied by readouts for height and speed.

“Oh shit, those bastards never know when it’s over do they.” Ruby breathed.

“No, because that is up to us to decide.” Said boss.

Boss turned and scooped up his flight helmet and gloves pausing only to hit the scramble alarm.

“They’re heeeere! Lets go!”

“So am I fit?”

Boss placed his cards face up on the table and looked at Doc. It was late and they were sat in his office playing by the light of Docs desk lamp.

“You sod! Shall I just give you my bank account details and be done with it? Another drink?” Doc reached for the Rabbit Punch bottle “Don’t worry, it’s on prescription..”

“Yeah if you must. Anyway, am I fit for duty now?”

“What? Oh yes, yeah you can go get shot at again a lot. Fine by me and the Old Man. What is your hurry anyway?”

“It is that time of year. We have just been skirmishing and dog fighting, no gunship raids have come over the border in months – not since the big one. No bombers trying to flatten the base, just a shit load of quick little battles like they are testing us.”

Boss dealt the cards again.

“You think they are going to try something big soon? At Christmas?”

“They normally do. So I can take back Black section tomorrow and make sure they are ready”

“All the sections are ready. A bit jumpy perhaps, as you said – too many little quick battles. I was thinking of rotating some of the pilots off for some leave and…”

“No, don’t do that. Unless anyone is about to come apart we need them all here ready. Tis the season, and all that bollocks.”

Boss sat stripped to the waist on the edge of his bed in the med centre, supporting himself upright by holding on the edge with both hands.

Sitting on a chair in front of him, Doc was busy with a needle and some sterile medical suture.

“Hold still! This is only the first one you have burst. Nice display up there though…”

“shutit.”

“No really, they were all impressed – almost vertical take off and spin like a drill bit all the way up to three thousand feet, that must have hurt the old ribs a bit..”

“shutit”

“And the g-force in some of those turns! Extreme combat levels I’d say with the pressure suit squeezing, stitches giving, hold still – this may sting.”

“sssshutit”

“And the way they all punched the air when you did that thing were you make the plane stand up on its tail…the Cobra? Way cool…” He started on the next freshly opened wound “they loved it”

“shutit”

“And the grand finaleeeee, your piece of resistance”

“shutit”

“That thing where you spin the plane nose over tail in horizontal flight, one of the chaps told me the SU37 is the only plane you can do that with and you’re the only one mad enough on this base to do it. And ya did. They went NUTS”

Boss looked at Doc.

“Yeah I know – shutit. Right you idiot. Breath in as deep as you can and hold it please”

Boss did.

“GRNNK!”

“Yes, that is all the breaks in your ribs, which had knitted fairly well till the pressure suit did its work on them, popping back together…sliding and grinding back into place. I am sure it must be unpleasant. Almost as unpleasant as watching hours of care and attention get pissed away in a frivolous display to prove something to some new pilots and boost morale. You can breath out now. You totally infuriating stubborn idiot rabbit”

“Shhhhut it”

“Yes, you can have painkillers now. And I am grounding you for three weeks, ops room duties only, advise and guide and stay sat down.”

“But Doc..”

“Shut it!”

Doc leaned against the door frame of the pilots locker room and tried to look unconcerned.

"Boss, this may not be the brightest idea in the history of aviation. You still have stitches in that may not hold up to this and some of those ribs are not healed properly. It will hurt a tad. And the plates and screws in your arm and leg may be put under a bit of stress, and cause some....discomfort. The bones they are holding together are also, just to add some spice, not fully knitted and therefore........you are not listening so I will shut up"

He continued to watch Boss pull on the flight suit over the pressure suit without even wincing (much) and stoop (almost without swaying) to lace up his boots.

"Boss, why are you doing this?"

"You heard about that shit two weeks ago, in the bar? Flyboy - he should be rock solid but he lost it and Skit had to knock him on his arse. People are coming apart. These damn new kids have not even bloody seen me! They think I'm just a story the old hands tell them to make them try harder. Well, I am not dead and it's about time I introduced myself"

Doc sighed, "But like this? I should re check your head for trauma.."

Skit sat slumped forward on the chair in Flyboys room, one hand wrapped around a glass of rabbit punch, the other playing absent minded with the crescent shaped hole in his ear, the way he did when thinking.

Flyboy lay unconscious on the bed, dried blood on the fur of his nose.

Skit sat up. “You know Mr Skit, for a professional fighter pilot, you do drink rather too much” and downed his drink in one. He flopped back in the chair and belched.

“Bollocks to that” he added.

He closed his eyes and tried not to think. What the hell was going on with the pilots on this base? “We are all coming apart apparently” he said to himself. Too many missions, too many monkey bastards – no matter how many of them they seemed to shoot down. It never seemed to end. Thank god Boss was conscious now and getting stronger by the day, but he was not back to flying yet. Maybe then it would be like it was; when they all felt strong and believed that they might win.

Morale was a bit low, and Flyboys little show in the bar tonight didn’t help.

Waving his hands around too much, Flyboy paced up and down “Oh yeah, you new boys and girls are doing fine, fine good work, but what for? You try being here for as long as we have and you will notice things. Or notice what you don’t notice.

He glugged his drink.

“Us fine bunch of bonny rabbits, flying high tech fighters against those Monkey bastards, and they never stop coming, we think they have stopped and we have killed enough but back they come. Bastards, but you know what? Anyone of you remember what you did before this? Or what your parents looked like?”

Some of the newer pilots where staring very hard into their drinks now. Some of the old hands where looking nervously at each other and back to Flyboy.

“All I remember about mine is that they called me Peter! What a fucking daft name for a rabbit!”

Skit got up and slowly moved up behind the wildly swaying form of flyboy.

“Ah but the bestest news is this, you heard that rumour? We are maybe not just fighting those monkeys, oh no…some say that a couple of months ago one of the bodies from a crashed monkey fighter was a fucking Rabbit! Ha!”

This made some eyes visibly widen in the bar. Skit had to do something,

“And wait till you have that weird dream about the big hill and the moon and a big castle thing, then..”

Skit spun Flyboy round, “Sorry mate” and decked him with one quick hard punch.

Skit looked at Flyboy lying on his bed. “You utter twat,” he snorted.

But the thing was, Skit didn’t remember anything before life on the base….and he had had that dream.

Hazel sat down in the half-light of the darkened ward and braced herself.

“I am not going to cry even a little this time,” She told herself. “And don’t babble!” she added silently.

“Hi Boss, me again” she said to the still figure in the bed in front of her.

“God I’mjustsotired andthetrainingandall thatyou knowhowitgoes hahah”

“Don’t babble I think we said eh? And that laugh was so false it hurt” she thought. She tried again.

“The new pilots are actually learning fast. All sections up to full numbers, new planes all sorted. It’s difficult though, Ruby is up now with half of black section doing fake intercepts, you’d better get a move on – I think she is getting too comfortable and we can’t have you out of a job”

Her eyes felt wet.

“Monkies have been quiet really. They mooch about over the border, never in big numbers, no jamming AWACS to stop us going after them, but you know the rules. Funny really”

She breathed in and held it. “Don’t, just don’t be stupid. Keep your mouth shut Hazel”

Out loud she said -

“Boss, please – this is just, I can’t.” she shook her head.

“Anyway. Gold section is fine and dandy now. God I am such a hard bitch to those poor newbies. Have to be really, I know what it’s like. Help them but stay as detached as possible. Don’t’ want to get too close for some odd reason. Well you know, this is a job right?”

Her head dropped again. Nearly three weeks, too many all nighters here at this damn bed. And he is still out cold.

She gasped out loud and her head snapped up as she felt a hand on hers. Boss was looking directly at her. She opened her mouth to speak but he got there first.

“Get ready Hazel, they’re coming”

“What do you..”

But the rest of her sentence was lost as the station alert/scramble signals blared into strident life.

Doc had an unofficial system for categorizing the patients he had to deal with on the base. It ran from Category 1 patients to Category 3. It served no purpose other than to amuse him and give him something to think about while working, took his mind off the blood and the pain.

Category 1 patients where easy to deal with and where his most frequent “clients” – minor cuts, bruises and sprains sustained normally on base due to “recreation”, some category 1’s had holes and cuts – nothing life threatening – after a mission went a bit messy.

Category 2’s were more work and more equipment intensive. Bad wounds, the survivors of bad landings, bailouts in combat or severe “battle damage” sustained after a “hard day at the office”, requiring lots of meds and often, emergency surgery. Category 2’s often had a long recovery period, if they were lucky to actually survive to have one. You needed a store of professional detachment to deal with them, especially as you did tend to get a bit too close to the pilots on a small base.

Category 3’s were possibly the easiest to deal with. In one way at least, if not in others. These took even more professional detachment for Doc. Basically it was a job of taking bits of metal out of bits of meat. Separating the remains of a plane from the remains of a rabbit. A rabbit you may have had lunch with two days ago. Then the remains would be prepared for burial. If there were enough.

Doc shook his head and sat forward out of his slumped position behind his desk. He looked out of the window of his internal office and into the main ward. Only one bed was occupied, filled with a category 2 patient. A friend. Still in a coma but getting stronger, just not waking, as if they were waiting for something. Not even responding to the shifts of young pilots that would come and sit and talk, and in one instance, chatter merrily while fighting back tears.

Doc sat back and sighed,

“Come on Boss, let’s see some action. Wake up dammit”.

Boss opened his eyes and looked down, four feet below him a patch of grass and roots spun left to right. He looked up and saw the parachute silk snagged in the branches the tree he was hanging from.

“Oh. Cool. Hanging from a tree in my ‘chute, what a cliché”

He looked down again and twisted the harness lock on his chest. It was slick with blood and hard to get a grip on. It clicked and he smacked it with the palm of his hand, dropped out of the webbing and down to the forest floor.

Pain shot through him as the ends of broken ribs and other snaps grated against each other as he collapsed into a ball on his side.

“Fuck! Stop, box it away – stay conscious, stay awake!” he thought through red waves of agony.

The roaring in his ear eased a little as he strained to hear the noise that had woken him from his dangling dreams. An auto engine, coming close – through blurred eyes he sought to get some fix on the source. He could make out the tree line fifty feet away to the west and coming across the grass towards this was a jeep, silhouetted against the low sun.

Boss had no idea how far he may of drifted, the engagement was close to the border and he had to deploy his chute early, could be on either side. God it hurt. “Get up. Need to move” he growled at himself.

Figures had jumped out of the jeep and were coming towards him. He could hear voices shouting. He fumbled for his pistol with numb hands. Nothing seemed to be working, it took both hands to pull the gun out of its holster and it felt like it weighed more than he did.

Boss rolled onto his knees and tried to get upright, focusing on the approaching figures, he held the gun in shaking hands in front of him and tried to see what they were, Monkeys or Rabbits.

“No fucking Monkey is coming near me!”

The gun waved left and right, its weight sending fresh waves of pain stabbing into Boss from all angles.

“No, Monkey, bastard is…”

Boss fell face down onto the ground and lay still.

The two figures from the jeep stood over Boss, one of them dug a radio out of its jacket.

“Control, we got him. Send a medivac chopper now! He looks bad.”

Boss looked at the drink in his hand. The glass was a heavy crystal tumbler, an inch of amber liquid swirling in it. He looked down at the front of his flight suit. There was a lot of blood on it. Hmmm. Not good probably. For some reason that didn’t seem important right now. The drink did.

Boss raised the glass to his nose and sniffed – nothing surprisingly, so cautiously he took a sip.

“Oh my god!”

It tasted of, well – everything! Of summer and fruit and meat and hops and sea air and chocolate and sunlight and snow and earth and wind and….everything ever. And it tasted so good!

He looked up. He was in a bar. He had a slightly uneasy feeling he recognised it but he had never seen it from this angle. It was also very quiet.

The other customers seemed to be rabbits like himself, all wearing flight suits, sitting at tables but for some reason, or by some trick of coincidence they all had their backs to him as they sat and chatted soundlessly.

The walls of this bar were covered in pictures of aircraft and smiling people, small parts of planes and various squadron insignias. Directly opposite where boss sat was a door.

This did not look like your average bar door, it was big and made of dark oak. Its surface was studded with big metal nail heads and there appeared to be no handle on this side of it. Which worried Boss somewhat. Where was he?

He got up and walked through the tables and up to the door. He pushed but it felt solidly locked. What the hell is going on? He took another drink and turned round.

From this angle, from just inside the door, he recognised the bar for what it was – the place where he came in his nightmares night after night, to watch his fellow pilots burn and scream and feel helpless. They all sat now looking at him from the tables expectantly.

One of the pilots got up and walked up to Boss, smiling as he did so.

“Your not actually supposed to be here boss, not yet”

Boss frowned. “Your, Tyco right? From Gold section – we lost you last month…”

“Never mind that, time for you to go” And saying this Tyco took bosses drink from him and reached over his shoulder to push the door open

“But it’s locked…”

Boss felt wind on his back and saw his shadow cast across the bar, and felt Tyco gently pushing him back over the threshold

“No it’s not. You just don’t know how to work it yet. Don’t come back soon Boss OK? You’re not finished yet. They need you”

Boss stepped backwards and felt the step under his foot and suddenly everything went white and he was falling fast, dropping through bright white clouds in the company of falling lumps of burning metal.