“So I'm supposed to fly you? How the fuck do I do that?"

The confused pilot, in his 20s, sat on a crate, opposite the A-10 to which he had been assigned. This particular plane was notorious for going through pilots faster than any other due to 'unexplained mechanical faults' and risky aerial manoeuvres.

"Y'see this?" It turned to its left slightly, showing the mechanical seams on her back, still looking at him, with that predator's grin on its face. "I can make these split apart. You climb in...and then you can take me for a spin, yeah?"

The pilot scratched at his hairline. "There's nowhere near enough room for anyone in there," he stated flatly, pointing at its fuel tanks.

The A-10's grin quickly switched into an irritated frown, and it leaned forwards, jabbing a finger at the pilot causing him to jump, just a little.

"Don't be a dumbshit, okay? They briefed you properly, right?"

The pilot looked on blankly.

"...Right? Ah, fuck." The A-10 maintained the frown, but leaned back and shrugged.

"I'm hollow. Your arms and legs fit into mine, and you see out of...this." It crossed its legs again, leaning forwards and tapping the opaque cockpit. To the pilot, it looked more like a helmet.

"Neural connections let me know what you want to do. No joysticks. At least not in that cockpit." It gave him a patronising glance.

Only to see a look of great, deep thought on the man's face.

"What's wrong?" It hissed in a sultry, earthy tone, leaning forwards. "Scared?"

"Those aren't fuel tanks at all."

It frowned again, but this time, more in utter confusion than anything else.

"I...what?"

"Those." The pilot poked the pliant synthmetal 'fuel tank'. The A-10 jerked backwards.

"Don't do that! They're...er, volatile!"

The pilot crossed his arms. "They're breasts, aren't they."

"N-no..."

"You're a GIRL plane, aren't you?"

The A-10 went through several facial expressions, from 'confused', to 'incredulous', to 'disbelieving', to 'incredibly angry'.

"NO SHIT. NO...SHIT." The A-10 yelled at him, jumping up and shoving him backwards over the crate. "MOTHERFUCKING SHERLOCK EINSTEIN, ARE YOU? Oh my God, how long did it take for you to figure that out?" it yelled, before walking away, head in its hands, muttering, "I've been paired with an idiot...an idiot..." over and over again, until it found the hangar wall, which it started to gently bang its cockpit against. "Of all the pilots...I've had aces, masters of their craft, and now this dipshi-" It froze as it felt a gentle hand run down its back seam, unsealing it with a hydraulic 'hsss'.

"W-what are you-"

"Shh. No words. Only flying now."

After about fifteen seconds of absolutely nothing happening, the A-10 turned around irritably, to see the pilot staring into its back, with the confused expression on his face again.

"Are you fucking teasing me? I-"

"What's that?"

"What's what?"

The pilot reached inside it, poking the object in question, which caused the A-10 to shudder violently and collapse against the wall. "Th...t-that's the fuel intake, dumbass."

"That doesn't look like a fuel intake."

"JUST G-GET THE FUCK IN."

"Can you tell me how the FUCK that happened?" The general shouted over the table, sending the bespectacled techie another half-foot back out of spittle range.

"Er, it might have been paperwork. Or, um, maybe it w-"

"DON'T GIVE ME MAYBES, CARLYLE."

"R-right you are, Sir, the facts are I don't exactly know why he was assigned to her," the techie continued, nervously fidgeting. "B-but another fact is that no matter how you look at it, it makes sense for him to...er...fill her needs."

"It's an IT, not a SHE. When you start assigning gender to artificial intelligence-even if they decide to assign it to themselves, and force people to give them 'upgrades'-it goes WRONG. Every FUCKING time, haven't you seen the reports?" The general continued yelling, gently watering his desk, the papers on it, and the carpet. "IT is an IT until I say OTHERWISE."

"W-well, putting that aside, he seems to have a higher psych rate with her than any of the previous pilots. I-it could have been something to do with the fact they were all, er, female."

This hit a sore spot with the general-this plane was a killer.

It was no secret, on this particular base-its 'kill tally', unofficial of course, rested at ten. It would seem to go fine at first, a few successful test flights after full integration...then one day it would return to base and ask someone to drag the comatose, engine oil-soaked pilot out of it. They were sometimes bruised, sometimes scans showed neural degeneration and brain damage, other times it couldn't be explained. The last one that was 'offered to the beast', as the engineers called it, was completely purple, it was so covered in bruises. The only reasons the A-10 hadn't been decomissioned were the potential advantage it could give, come wartime, and that they were worried about what it would do should it find out about the plan.

The only reason pilots wanted to even bother with it was one of three things-the firepower it presented, the prestiege one would gain from being the one to tame it, or because they were ordered to, like the first few. The current pilot, however, was a mistake. He was supposed to be a pencil-pusher.

"What's that got to do with it, huh? Rather than spout statistics, how about you FIX the problem?"

The techie cringed again. "I, ah, I'm on it, Sir. You can trust me."

The pilot pointed the beretta handgun at the A-10, which continued giving him an disinterested frown. Due to the noticable lack of lips, it always seemed as if it was grinning or frowning.

"Please, don't make me do this."

"It's what I want. Hurry the fuck up and get over with it."

The pilot moved his aim from its general chest area to its head, calmly and smoothly tightening his finger on the trigger. "Well, okay."

"Wait, n-"

The handgun fired, the 9x19 parabellum round slamming into its head at around 380 metres per second, sending it jerking back and bouncing off the wall of the hangar with a hollow 'clunk'. It staggered and caught itself on the wall as the pilot put the gun's safety back on.

"You STUPID MOTHERFUCKER. HAVE YOU NEVER FIRED A GUN BEFORE? EVER?" Its head flicked back forward, as the gunshot's echo bounced around the hangar. "DON'T FUCKING AIM FOR THE HEAD, AIM FOR CENTRE, OF, MASS. DID YOU WANT TO DAMAGE MY SENSORS YOU DUMB SHIT?"

The pilot opened his mouth before being interrupted again.

"I SAID, AIM FOR HERE. CHEST LEVEL. God." The A-10 snatched the gun out of the pilot's hands and leaned into his face, violently violating his personal space, frowning.

"I just thought..."

"YOU THOUGHT WRONG. WROOOOONG. Not that it matters," the A-10 replied.

Crossing its arms triumphantly, the A-10 announced: "I'm rated virtually immune to small arms fire, and stand a good chance against most rifles, too."

The pilot suddenly leaned forwards, almost touching noses with the A-10, who held its ground.

"A-10, I...I think I dented you."

"You WHAT? I'M G-"

The pilot, surprisingly quickly, grabbed the A-10's nose, rubbing at the little scratch just above its right eye. It was too surprised to do anything other than blink and stammer for a few seconds.

"...W-what are you doing?"

"Yeah, I scratched your paint. Here." The pilot rubbed the scratch with his thumb, looking worried.

"S-stop that." Even though it asked, the A-10 made no move to escape. "It..."

"Do you know your paint number? Shit, I'm going to get into so much trouble for this." The pilot turned its head up to the light, in order to see the damage. The A-10's head whirred softly as the pilot continued checking it for damage.

"You're alright though, right?"

The A-10 didn't answer until the pilot stopped rubbing the scratch.

"Uhn? Oh, uh...yeah, I'm okay..."

The pilot released his hold on the A-10's head, rubbing at his eyes and walking towards and out the door, leaving it whirring and leaning forwards slightly, one hand half-raised, the other limp by its side, a vacant look on its face. "I'm going to have to sneak in and take some. What am I going to put on the form? 'Paint number X, one pot, due to shooting my plane in the forehead with its own gun. Oh yeah, it totally made me do it.' Argh."

When the pilot left the hangar, he was busy trying to think of a cover story-so he did not see the man behind the hangar walk inside, carefully closing the door behind him.

The A-10 looked up when it heard the door closed, still standing, touching the scratch. It took it a couple of seconds to realize that it wasn't the pilot.

“Whohe hell are you?”

Oh, we've met before. You just don't remember it."

A-10's reply of "Wha-" was cut off as the man pressed a button on the remote, causing it to suddenly spasm, holding its head, screaming, for a few seconds before suddenly going limp and unresponsive. The man walks up to the A-10, pulling on latex doctor's gloves before gently tilting its head up and looking into its empty eyes.

He let the head drop and ran a hand down its chassis, tilting the left turbine towards him and peering inside, before moving on to its head. He pried its mouth open, looking inside, before running a tender hand over, then reaching between the legitimately sharp teeth and examining its Avenger cannon, gently running a hand down the top. "One day we will be together, my sweet...and I won't let anyone harm you until then, none of these incompetent pilots and least of all a desk clerk."

He ran his hands down the seam in the back, but it didn't open-a side effect to the 'maintenance' mode his specialized PDA put it in. Originally intended to dull any pain the A-10 would experience if it needed to be repaired after heavy battle damage, it was proven completely useless once it expressed an almost masochistic streak, once claiming that, "I've fucked gravity and made Newton my bitch, pain is fucking nothing." Carlyle was one of the only people who remembered this function.

He gently set the A-10 down near the wall, running a hand over its cockpit-he knew it loved that, even though it wouldn't remember any of this, nor before-and stood up, walking away.

"I'll see to that myself," the techie muttered to himself.

A-10 was woken by happy whistling and the sound of metal being scraped across concrete. The pilot was in the process of hauling a sturdy-looking metal bed through the hangar, to join the lamp, table, chairs, and two litre pot of paint in the corner. The A-10, after about ten minutes of just watching him slowly, laboriously pushing the bed across the hanger, stood up, and walked over. The pilot stopped pushing the bed and stretched his back.

"G'mornin', A-10."

"What the fuck are you doing," A-10 rasped drowsily. "What are you doing in my hangar. Why are you ...what is all this stuff? Why so early?"

The pilot laughed and went back to grating the bed across the floor. "I'm moving in."

A-10 put its hand on the end of the bed, stopping it flat. A-10 was incredibly strong, despite its light frame. "No you're not."

"Why not?"

"Because this is MY space. I like my privacy. You do not get to live in my private space and put your human fat everywhere."

The pilot tilted his head back and forth before attempting to shift the bed again. "Well, I'm going to spend most of my time inside you, once training is over. I don't really see the difference."

A-10 was struck silent for all of two seconds, before it released the bed, causing the pilot to slide forwards at a rapid pace, almost falling on his face.

"W-wait, what are you going to do o-" A-10 was cut off, again, as he slowly reached up to its cheek, and started rubbing the side of its head with a sheet of soft-grain sandpaper. "Ow geez fuck what are you doing a-ah stop fuck."

"Oh, good, you regenerated the dent. Yeah, I want to get a smooth finish. Nothing's uglier than an uneven coat of paint." The pilot held the A-10's head in place as he gently rubbed the flecks of paint away from the 'wound'. The A-10 frowned mightily, but held still and fiddled with one of its turbines.

"Y-you know, one of the engineers should be doing this..."

"I'm your pilot, I should take care of you. Having other people to do things for you isn't an excuse to avoid doing it yourself. Besides, I like painting. I used to paint aeroplane models as a kid. Still do, when I get the chance."

The pilot dipped the brush in the pot, and started to paint on the A-10s face.

"A-ah...are you sure you have the r-right colour? I...I never told you my paint code."

"Nah, I've got it." He held the paint pot's lid up in front of her face. The A-10 held its own hand up beside the lid, turning it over a few times and blinking as it realized that the shades of grey were exactly the same. It jumped a little when he took the hand and placed it back on her lap.

"I don't want you getting paint over your camo pattern, it'll ruin it." He continued lightly applying the paint to her face as the A-10 became more quiet and even more fidgety.

After a few minutes of painting, the pilot's tongue sticking out of his mouth in silent concentration, the A-10 suddenly grabbed the paintbrush, tossing it across the hangar and forcing the pilot down onto his bed with an "urk". The A-10 pressed down on the pilot, one hand on his shoulder and the other roughly attempting to un-zip his button up shirt.

"Uh...what are you trying to do?"

A-10 jerked downwards, eye-to-eye-shaped-sensor-array with the pilot. "You're...ah...my pilot, dumbass. I've decided that you're a keeper, you know? We should get to...know each other a little more intimately, right?" The A-10 grined at him, with a feral, manic grin plastered across its nosecone.

"Absolutely not."

The A-10 jerked to a halt.

"WHAT."

"We've got to let that dry first, or it'll smudge all over your nice ABU."

"OH MY GOD, SCREW THE PAINT. THAT CAN COME LATER." The A-10 grew frustrated with the complex mechanics of the button, preferring to just tear the shirt off him in a display of strength. "YOU COME SOONER."

The pilot seemed to approach it in a vaguely logical manner, which was commendable considering that there was a highly advanced weapon of mass destruction with very large breasts pressing into his chest and currently attempting to sunder his pants in the same manner as his poor shirt.

"I'm your pilot, though. Shouldn't I take the lead?"

A-10 was stunned, momentarily freezing up-enough time for the pilot to roll it over, himself on top now. The bed let out a tortured noise as its poor, aged frame took another hit. He climbed off the bed, tracing one finger up the A-10's neck and across her cockpit, before sprinting for the hangar door.

"OH NO YOU FUCKING DO NOT GET BACK HERE," the A-10 commented, leaping up and engaging its turbines, rocketing towards the man's back, as he closed the hangar's door. "Oh," it commented, before doing almost a backflip in midair, engaging its turbines on full speed, bringing itself to a stop directly in front of the visibly worried man. The momentary silence revealed a dripping noise, which the pilot noticed as an oil leak, in between the two main turbines.

"You'd best lock that, pilot. I don't want to be disturbed." It grabbed him and forced him against the wall, pulling down his pants.

The pilot sighed and pointed to its face. "The paint's already smudged..."

"Oh, shut up about the paint," the A-10 replied, pulling his pants down and pulling him into an embrace, warm fleshy arms wrapped around its back while its cool arms wrapped around his neck and pulled his lips to meet hers.

The pilot tasted a metallic, clean tang with a hint of gunpowder as he hoised the A-10 into his arms and carried it back to the bed. The A-10 closed its own eyes and tasted the strange combination of chemicals that humans used as intake lubricant. It decided that it was not unpleasant.

It disengaged from the kiss, smiling-not coyly grinning for once, warmly smiling-at the pilot. "I'd...do you have anything to plug that leak?"

It was the pilot's turn to grin. "You talk too much."

He ran his hands up the back of its neck, pushing himself into the machine's auxilliary exhaust. The A-10 moaned, eyes closed, its turbines intermittently clacking against their housings. "A-ah...it's...it's deeper, pilot."

The pilot stroked his hand over her eye, slowly adjusting the 'plug' back out, then thrusting it in with a wet 'shlock'. The A-10's landing wheels whirred in surprise, before it engaged the emergency brakes. "A-ah! It's...it's getting bigger?" The A-10 opened its eyes in surprise, desperately clutching the pilot to it. "HARDER. NOW."

The pilot complied, thrusting harder...then teasingly pulling it back out, slowly. "I...have to get it aligned...haah."

"FFFFFFFFFFFFFUCKING TEAAAAAAAASE," the A-10 hoarsely shouted as he jammed it back in, the synth-metal tubing spasming, almost pulling on his plug. He complied, pushing it in and out in an almost hydraulic fashion as the A-10 moaned and writhed.

"Hng...I'm going to...come," the pilot stated, matter of factly. The A-10's eyes were wide and glazed over in ecstacy, her mouth open, panting.

"I...ah....ahhha...I'm going to..."

Both came at the same time, the pilot grunting and holding the A-10 close. The A-10 tilted its head back, gasped, and said "BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT," filling the air with around three hundred depeleted uranium shells in the space of four seconds, punching a new skylight into the hangar. The loud climax echoed around the hangar slowly fading, until the only sounds left are of the gasping pilot and the A-10, going, "Oh God. Oh God I'm so sorry I didn't think I mean I've never-"

The A-10 slowly came to the realization that the pilot was in some sort of post-maintenance stupor, spreadeagle acrost its chest, head firmly planted in between its auxilliary fuel containers. It looked up and out the new skylight, momentarily admiring its shot placement, then the cloudy night sky beyond. No doubt someone had heard the 'release', but the door was locked, and people knew better than to intrude on the A-10's privacy. It lay there on the bed and placed a hand on the back of the pilot's head, sighing contendedly. What made this one different to all the others? How could he be so forceful while treating it as if it was merely a tool to be taken care of, treating it with more care than most human husbands treated wives? The A-10 licked its 'lips', the flexible gatling cannon clinking quietly off the points. It could get used to this, it thought, as it drifted off to sleep.

The two soldiers, currently stationed outside the general's quarters, were bored. The general was renowned for being somewhat paranoid. The ever-increasing threat of war hang over everyone's heads, and no-one more so than he; trained in the best military academy the country had, yet never actually seeing live warfare himself.

"Got any smokes?" The first guard-a young-looking man with messy blonde hair and glasses asked.

The second, a much taller man with a bushy red beard and hair, replied: "Yeah, but the Big G'll get pissed if we smoke outside his quarters."

"Oh, yeah, you're right." Both stood in silence for the next few minutes awkwardly watching the night sky and nothing much in particular, before he spoke up again.

"Did you hear what that A-10 did?"

"Everyone did, son, that thing's got a bloody Avenger cannon."

The other one looked around, checking for eavesdroppers, before edging closer to the second bearded man.

"Yeah, but...those were LIVE ROUNDS, not just blanks. It was LOADED on the base."

"So?"

"So, that's against regulations. I bet the general's going to rip it a new one."

"HA! Big G standing up to that thing? Don't you know he has an entire division, personally funded may I add, devoted entirely to keeping those planes under watch?"

The younger blinked.

"At least HALF of them are supposed to be keeping an eye on that A-10." Redbeard scoffed. "Military intelligence my ass."

"You don't mean Carlyle and that other guy, do you? That...that's hardly a division, that's just two guys. Come on, man."

Redbeard hugged and puffed for a few moments before pointing at the younger man. "Look, you asked a question, and I gave you the answer."

"Sure you did, Mr. Tinfoil Hat," the younger crowed.

Yeah, they were pretty bored.

The requisitions depot attendant was having the time of his life, though.

"Okay so...just...explain that to me again."

The pilot, dressed in an oil-stained bedsheet toga, sighed. "I need a new uniform. And a replacement for my bed."

"No, no, go over the 'why' bit. I want to hear it one more time." The depot attendant had his elbows on the small window's desk, chin propped up on his hands, with a look of childlike innocence and attention on his face.

"Damn it, I wrote it on the form."

"Please?"

"Fine," the pilot sighed, adjusting the toga's shoulder. "Okay, so, after I brought my desk into the hangar, the zucchini basket-"

The no doubt enthralling story was interrupted by another man reaching past the pilot, handing the requisitions officer a form. "I'd, er, like to get some paint. Black and white."

The techie and the pilot had never actually met face to face, so the latter did not recognize the former. The techie, however, had read all the reports available on the pilot.

The depot attendant read the form, kicking his beaten up swivel chair away from the desk and down one corridor, before reaching out, snagging the corner of one shelf, and re-directing him down another. "Paint...paint..."

The clattering chair came to a halt. "Hey, there's none left. It's gone. Daaaamn, who'd steal two whole pots of paint?"

"Yes, who?" The techie pushed his corrective glasses up his nose, causing the light to momentarily reflect off them.

The pilot put on his best poker-face, which was actually quite good, as he enjoyed playing poker.

"I-I'm pretty sure that theft could mean reassignment, demotion, pay cuts..." the techie continued.

"Oh, come off it, Carlyle," the depot attendant said, scooting past the window on his chair again. "Nobody gives two fucks about paint. Maybe not even one."

The techie grumbled to himself, quietly, as the depot attendant slid past again, tossing a bundle of clothes and, after another pass, some aviators at the pilot. "Thanks. I'll bring you something next time I come in, okay?"

"Ha! Sure thing, my man. Enjoy the rest of your night," the depot attendant replied, as the pilot walked out, like a stately Roman senator, if their robes were stained with slightly sweet-smelling oil.

The techie frowned and stayed in the depot tent for a few more moments, before grinding his teeth together and heading for the general's cabin.

If that incompetent depot attendant wouldn't do anything about it, then he would have to sort it all out personally.

The A-10 sat in the middle of the hangar on a small stool, frowning, as the pilot (now properly clothed) scrubbed its back with strong cleaning fluid.

"When was the last time you were cleaned, A-10?"

The A-10 was silent for a few seconds before mumbling out a dissatisfied, grumpy answer.

"What?"

"About ghrngrmngo."

The pilot leaned around the plane and looked it in its eye.

"About a month ago, okay?"

The pilot rubbed the cloth over its lower 'back', carefully wiping down its turbines. "Wow. Your manual said that you should get cleaned way more often."

The A-10 whipped around, suddenly nose-to-nose with its pilot. "I don't make a habit of rolling around in grime, dumbass." It turned around again, crossing its arms and unconsciously leaning into the pilot's gentle scrubbing. "Well, it's true. I just don't seem to get as dirty as other planes," it stated, in a slightly superior fashion.

The pilot, by way of reply, simply lifted out one of its legs in front of it, placed it on his knee to keep it straight, and re-applied more cleaning solution to the cloth.

"B-be careful with my landing wheels."

The pilot slowly ran the cloth down its 'leg', inch by inch, cleaning the reverse side of the knee joint and working his way slowly around to the front. "So, when do I get to take you for a ride?"

"You alre-oh. Uh..." The A-10 shook itself out of its bliss semi-coma and frowned at him. "The hell happened to 'oh, a pilot's gotta take the lead', huh?"

The pilot laughed and set the leg down carefully, wiping up the inside and frowning at the oil stains on the rag. "I'll need a new cloth. You're so dirty."

The A-10 launched forward, almost tipping the stool over in an attempt to get into the pilot's face. "WHADDAYA MEAN BY THAT, JERKOFF?"

The pilot just grinned before reversing the cloth and wiping it across its underbelly, eliciting a strained whirr from the plane. Remarkably, the A-10 managed to bend almost double to keep staring at the man's face-synthmetal was extremely flexible.

After a few more seconds of the A-10 staring and the pilot remaining innocent, the A-10 realized that he was joking. Joking? The A-10 lurched back upright and crossed its arms. Every other pilot had tried to 'prove' themselves. Either by showing off, shoving awards in its face, or trying to physically dominate it. All methods failed, mostly due to the A-10 lacking the fucks to give. But this man...he didn't try to prove anything. His manner-acting as if he owned it already-something about it made the A-10 go on the defensive far more than it ever had before. It was unsettling the plane. Unfortunately, before any more thought could be given on the issue, the pilot screwed the cloth into its auxilliary pressure release vent.

The A-10 lurched backwards, taken off guard, kicking the stool out from underneath it and clunking onto the floor. The pilot didn't seem to notice, just moving the stool out of the way and keeping on cleaning while the A-10 scrabbled for his wrists, emitting worless cries of protest and arousal.

The pilot fended off the frantic A-10's arms with one hand, with his best 'disinterested' face on.

It was quite a good disinterested face; he enjoyed playing poker, after all.

"So dirty. I might have leave you here and go get some stronger cleaning fluid..."

"Auwgffuhnnhhffffffuuuaaaarghnnnngh," the A-10 replied, twisting around on the cement floor.

The pilot levered the A-10's legs apart with his knees and bent down to examine the slit. While theoretically used to prevent ruptures due to overpressurized oil-or leakages from another part of the system entering the oil reserviour and overflowing it-he could see that it had been modified, somewhat.

"Oh, this doesn't look like a pressure release vent at all..."

"YOU KNOW THIS. YOU KNEW THIS. DID YOU SERIOUSLFFFFFNNNNNNNAGH," the A-10 replied in protest, managing to shove the pilot's knee from between its own and thus clenching down on the cleaning rag. The pilot just grinned and worked it deeper, other hand on its stomach. The pilot tenderly wiped down the vent's walls, ignoring its cries of protest, the soft cloth eventually turning them into cries of encouragement, the plane grasping his free hand.

"Aaaaaungyou'vedonethisbefooooooorehaveyousonofabiiiitch," the A-10 said, still writhing and frowning and panting, mouth slightly open, staring at him with fiery eyes.

The pilot then found the vent nozzle itself.

"NAUGHFUCK."

"Shhh. I clean now." The pilot ran the soft cloth around the nozzle, elicitng another cry from the plane, before slowly, teasingly, withdrawing the cloth. He didn't get far before the A-10 roughly forced it back in.

"NO STOPPING. NO. BAD PILOT."

"I have to put more fluid on the cloth or I'll just be wiping grime into your chassis, A-10. Let my hand go."

It was said in such a matter of fact, forceful manner that the A-10, surprised, did so. "GRIME? I'M NHGAAAAAARGH."

The A-10 was cut off by the pilot quickly inserting the cloth again, turning it around and around inside the vent, two fingers working it into the groove, around the walls, around the nozzle. It didn't take long for the A-10 to lose control, throw its head back, and "HKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKTGH," barrel rapidly spinning, spooled up to at least eighty revs per second, but thankfully not firing any shells this time. Agonizingly, the pilot only wiped deeper, faster, and harder, until the quivering plane went limp.

"There, now that any more discharges won't dirty it up any more, I can move on to your main chassis."

"I'm....I'm going to...ah...kill you. D-don't stop."

The pilot poured some of the cleaning solution over the A-10's chest and stomach, the clear fluid running off it and onto the floor. It gasped from the sudden sensation, then moaned and fell to muttering in satisfaction as the pilot slowly and tenderly cleaned its stomache and auxilliary fuel tanks. The care with which he moved the cloth around the curvy mounds made the A-10 even more floppy, the repeditive stroaking eventually making the A-10 fall into a half-asleep relaxed coma. The A-10's pilot smiled, and lifted the limp plane up, walking over to and depositing it in its 'sleeping corner', a carefully stacked pile of wooden crates. He resolved to borrow, beg, or steal a bed for her at some point in the future, even though he knew it didn't care what it slept on. He then stood up, stretched his back, and carefully placed the cloth over the plane's eye sensors before heading over to his own military cot in an attempt to catch some sleep that night.

The next morning's sunrise also brought the pilot an unpleasant suprise. He sat on the end of his bed, reading the notice. At the top read, 'TRANSFER NOTICE'. The rest was predictable legal jargon, basically saying that he was getting ejected the fuck out and sent to some Australian hole in the ground base. The pilot thought it strange-being transferred out this quickly usually happened to people that had some special skill that was needed elsewhere. Engineers, specialists...but not pilots, you could get them from anywhere. He rubbed his hand through his hair and decided that there was definitely something up, something wrong with this. He could always tell when a document was strange, wrong, off. Incorrect.

He stood up, casting a glance over to the dozing A-10, on its back, mouth open, frowning even in sleep. One of its hands was draped over its chest, the other barely touching the floor. He didn't intend to worry it with his problems, as he was capable of solving them entirely by himself.

He left the hangar, and walked towards the general's-the one who issued the order-building. He was out of sight when the technician walked into the hanger.

Carlyle closed the hangar's door, and angrily mashed the controller's 'maintenance' function, instantly sending the A-10 under, it merely spasming once, not even giving it a chance to scream.

The first thing he saw was the clean, reflective sheen of the A-10's synthmetal 'skin'. Carlyle was enraged-the only one that was permitted to clean her was HIMSELF. No other knew her like he did, and no other knew how to clean her properly. He hurried over and commenced his 'routine checkup'.

Of course, it was more of a 'feel-up' than anything else. Although he would not admit it to anyone, he was deeply in love with this aeroplane. Sadly, he was never able to be a pilot-poor eyesight and a crippling fear of heights kept him groundbound, removing any chance for him to fly her. So, he had been subtly altering the general's requests-only female pilots had been routed to this base and this plane. He also knew of this one plane's almost unique psychosis: it felt that it had a strong connection to the human female gender.

Carlyle's plot was intended to work thus: The lack of male companionship would force it to actively seek it out. Sadly, it struck up a friendly, working relationship with the first pilot it was assigned. He had to take...measures. The same measures-'technical faults' he arranged during his 'maintenance' visits-had killed all the others he had assigned her.

He tenderly stroked her cockpit, before rushing out of the hangar. He needed to see that autistic 'pilot' get chewed out by the general himself.

The A-10 didn't know about the techie's visits. The maintenance failsafe erased all memory shortly before and during its activation period, after all.

It didn't erase the memories of killing. Death. Their smiles, their scents, their screams, the feel of carrying a corpse-or a dying woman-inside it all the way back to base and being forced to put on a tough face to avoid being decomissioned. PTSD in planes was extremely uncommon, but should they be diagnosed with it, it was sent to the wreckers.

The first died from suffocation. Air intakes weren't working. She screamed until her air ran out, then just made hoarse choking noises before finally passing out. They couldn't release her seals in time to save her. It wasn't the A-10's fault, of course, just the acting engineer's. He was fired.

The second died due to a 'weapons system malfunction'. That was legal jargon for 'hot Avenger casings were released inside the hull, rather than through the ejection port'. Mercifully, that one passed out from shock. The A-10 still remembered the smell of the burning flesh. The next engineer was fired as well, and a specialist brought on-site.

The third died on impact. The A-10 could survive a crash relatively easily, but it was always recommended that the pilot evacuate. Both turbines failing due to fuel line faults, causing the A-10 to hit the ground at about 100 km/h? That proved fatal. The blood and bone fragments took several days to fully clean out of its interior, and the pilot had screamed the entire way down.

It was after that she was labled a 'killer'. Murdering pilots for fun. It had to maintain that tough exterior for so long it became second nature to it; imposing, dangerous, seductive, predatory. Callous. Nothing was further from its mind than 'male companionship', at least not until this pilot showed up. Right now, temporarily, nothing was in its mind. Carlyle had made sure of that.

The A-10's pilot opened the door to the general's office, closing it behind him and taking the offered seat.

"Right, right, you're the pilot? One who's being transferred, Mr...?"

The pilot dropped the transfer notice on the desk.

"About that transferral, sir." The pilot looked directly into the general's eyes, carefully stating, "I implore you to reconsider. The cost it will take for me to go from here to..." The pilot glanced at the notice. "Alice Springs is quite high, for one. I don't think it's worth it."

"Do you think YOU know how to do MY job better than I do, pilot?" The general growled.

The pilot was unmoved. "Of course not, sir, but I would like an explanation as to why I'm being transferred so soon after reaching this base."

The general squinted at the pilot in surprise before regaining his composure. "You're a pilot, pilot. YOU go where I TELL you to go, 'sthat clear? Or do I have to discipline you for insubordination too?"

The pilot didn't exactly know what to say. He'd never experienced anyone so desperately unreasonable in his entire career, so he fell silent. The general leant back in his chair in triumph, and decided to rub it in.

"I'd have thought you'd enjoy the chance to escape from the killer, pilot."

"I'm sorry, sir, what?"

The general squinted again. "You know, the A-10. Murdering pilots for entertainment? Creative little thing, too. Third degree burns, depressurization, suffocation, blunt force, slowly bleeding to death. Only reason we keep it around is because eventually it'll prove useful."

The pilot's poker face shattered.

"What? Why?"

"HA! Ask it yourself if you're in a hurry to die."

"I think I will, sir. Permission to leave?"

"Granted. Get the fuck out of my office."

The pilot shakily stood and made his way out of the office, clutching the transfer notice in one hand. He didn't see the techie standing next to the door with a triumphant smirk on his face.

The A-10 awoke to the sound of the hangar door shutting, lazily rolling over and landing on its feet. The first thing it noticed was the look on its pilot's face-for the first time, he looked distressed. For some reason, this scared it.

It crossd its arms and frowned at him. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Nothing," he said, but the A-10 didn't believe him. He dropped some paperwork on his bed and stuck his hand in his pockets, evidently thinking about something.

The A-10 frowned harder and stared at the man. "Bullshit."

He looked up from the ground, into its face. "Why did you kill all those pilots?"

The A-10 blinked in surprise.

"You didn't know...?"

"Not until this morning."

The A-10 looked at him with a mixture of astonishment and confusion, walking over to the man, staring at him before roughly shoving him onto the cot, causing it to make a creaky protest. "You want to know WHY?"

The pilot seemed unmoved. "Yeah."

The A-10 planted a foot on his chest, causing the bed to creak some more. It stared at him with wild eyes, a predatory grin stretched across its nosecone.

"BECAUSE I ENJOYED IT, YOU FUCK," The A-10 yelled into his face.

"The sounds their bones made when they shattered, the struggles when they start drowning in my fuel, the last wheeze before they suffocate! It's MUSIC," it hissed into his face.

The pilot looked back, brow wrinkled, before calmly stating, "Bullshit."

The A-10 shoved its foot down, leading to the second bed fatality that week, the wood snapping and the pilot's back impacting the hard cement floor. He let out an 'ufh', but then re-crossed his arms across his chest (and the A-10's foot).

"THAT'S ALL YOU GOTTA SAY, HUH? DO I NEED TO SHOW YOU, DUMBASS? WANNA DIE?"

"A bit of advice, never play poker."

"...what?" The A-10 went from 'ferocious' to 'yougottabefuckin'kiddingme' in the blink of an eye.

"There's a reason behind everything. And what would it be behind killing pilots? Enjoyment? Bullshit," he repeated, staring the A-10 directly in the eye.

"If you didn't want to be flown, you would have left already. Not like anyone or anything here could stop you. Why would you stay on this base, and still think that whoever's in charge would keep sending in sacrifices?"

"BECAUSE I'M WORTH IT, DON'T YOU KNOW?" The A-10 shifted its weight forwards. "MANEUVERABILITY! SKILL. FIREPOWER," it yelled, opening its mouth and showing the pilot the Avenger pointed at his head.

"You're shooting blanks." The pilot said, again, confidently. "When I was cleaning you, remember? Yeah."

The A-10 frowned again, caught out.

"Another thing. Why would you wait so long to murder some pilot? Always on a flight, after they've gone through basic training, gotten to know you..." The pilot pointed at its face. "You've had plenty of opportunity to kill me. You don't seem like you'd want to kill me either. You don't, do you, A-10?"

The A-10 didn't seem to be able to pick between a frown or a confident grin, shakily saying, "H-ha! That's...that's just so that the end's even...more sweet! You'd never see it...ha, coming! Ha ha!"

"Oh, I hadn't thought of that," the pilot mused, almost to himself.

The A-10 picked the same 'thefuck' expression from earlier, then slowly adopted a furious one, grabbing the pilot by the shoulders and removing the foot, hoisting him up on his feet and shaking him back and forth angrily. "YOU'RE A COUPLE OF SWITCHES SHORT OF A COCKPIT, AREN'T YOU? I'M GOING TO SNAP YOUR GODDAMN NECK LIKE A TW-"

In the midst of the being shaken, the pilot responded, "Wait, do that again."

The A-10 stopped. "What. What is it n-"

The pilot simply reached out and turned its head to the side, looking at the paint.

"You don't leave fingerprints, do you?"

"THE FUCK DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING?"

"There are fingerprints on your cockpit."

The A-10 dropped the pilot and made that tentative hand-waving thing that people do when they want to touch something, but know they aren't allowed to.

"W-what. Bullshit, you're just-"

The pilot gave it a stony stare, the sheer seriousness in it shocking the A-10 into silence. How could he maintain composure through this? How?

The pilot walked over to his side desk, dusting himself off and retrieving his shaving mirror. He held it up to the A-10, which snatched it and held it up.

"Where? Where?" The A-10 frantically waved the mirror around its head until the pilot caught its wrist and held it in place.

"Have you been seeing other pilots?"

The A-10 slowly looked over to the pilot, who failed to keep a tiny impish grin off his own face. "What? It was a j-"

"NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR JOKING. AT ALL. SOMEONE'S TOUCHED ME AND I DON'T KNOW WHO IT IS. DID YOU? ARE YOU JUST-WHEN I WAS ASLEEP?"

"No. Do you think I'd want to clean you again so soon or something?"

The A-10 tossed that one around for a couple of seconds before saying, "N-no..."

The pilot looked at the A-10 looking back at him, worried. "Calm down for now." The pilot started picking through his ex-bed.

It took him about thirty seconds to notice the short, hiccup-y sobbing noises coming from behind him, and when he turned, saw the A-10 clutching the mirror to its chest, standing there, still with a frown on its face, leaking fluid out of its sensors. It didn't seem nearlt as intimidating or dangerous as it was a minute ago.

"How can you just sit there and not care?"

The plane took a shaky step forwards.

"You didn't even hic know that I killed people and then you did and you didn't even mind."

The pilot frowned, then his expression softened, pulling the plane into a hug. The plane broke down sobbing, clutching onto the little mirror.

"I trust you, A-10. You're my plane, if I can't trust you, then I can't expect you to trust me."

"But WHY," the plane sobbed. "You said, that, there's a hic reason behind everything!"

"'Because I want to' is a good enough reason. Don't you think?"

After another thirty seconds of the sleek synthmetal aeroplane clutching onto the mirror, it dropped that too, breaking it, in order to wrap its pliant synthmetal arms around the pilot. He enjoyed the cool synthmetal, and the plane enjoyed the pilot's warmth, quietly sobbing into the man's shoulder.

"I...hate you, you know that?"

The pilot didn't reply, perhaps mourning the loss of his mirror as well.

"I don't...even know what is happening anymore. You and, and now this, and..."

"Shh, no tears, only hugs now."

The techie bustled past the pilot's barracks room. He'd heard that the pilot was busy elsewhere on the base, so he had a clear ten minute window in the hangar. That stupid bastard had gotten chewed out good and proper by the general, the fact that he'd said that some of the men on base had caught him referring to the A-10 as 'her'. He'd...creatively edited the pilot's interaction reports, just in case something like this-being forced to act before he'd had the chance to create a mechanical fault-happened. It was a manufactured red light; always, just before the fatal flight, someone would have heard the pilot referring to it as 'her'. Naturally, it was some sort of psychosis.

Carlyle pushed open the barrack's main doors and strode out as if he owned the place.

Earlier, inside the hangar...

"No. NO. You aren't backing out again."

"I...don't think I'll fit."

"I'LL MAKE YOU FIT, GOD. HURRY UP."

The A-10 pulled the pilot's shirt off over his head and tossed it over its shoulders.

The pilot pulled off his boxers and shrugged at the A-10, which span around and crossed its arms irritably.

"Hurry up."

"Are you sure you w-" The A-10 looked over its shoulder, frowning, but seeming slightly fragile, or hurt, somehow.

"Please...don't...don't even."

"I'm sorry." The pilot ran a hand down the seam in its back, the synthmetal hissing and peeling apart. The interior of the A-10 was much like the exterior, made of pliable synthmetal. It was entirely hollow. The pilot gingerly stepped forward, placing his right leg into the A-10's right leg. It was a tight fit, and the cool metal somehow seemed clingy as he placed his foot inside the A-10's, heel slightly raised due to the landing wheel's section.

"You're tight. I thought you said that you'd done this before?"

"You know I can snap your leg like a twig right now?"

The pilot laughed and held onto its shoulders for leverage, slipping his other leg in carefully. "Uh, what about the int-hurk," he commented, as the A-10 tipped forwards slightly, ensuring that the aforementioned fuel intake connection was secure. Both the A-10 and pilot had to take a second to catch their breath.

"A-arms now," the A-10 said shakily.

The pilot twisted around until his right arm was lined up with the A-10's interior, slowly sliding it down the length of its outstretched arm. The A-10 made a muffled grunty-whiny-moany sound when his fingers slid into the interiors of hers. His left arm slid into hers teasingly slowly.

"D-don't be a fucking tease, nggh," the A-10 commented. "N...now the h-head."

"I already put that in, though."

In response, the A-10 reached back and roughly shoved the pilot's head into the slit down the back of its own, the seal closing with a hiss.

The A-10 and pilot stood there for a few seconds, the A-10 blinking and twitching as the neural connections attached themselves.

:How do you feel:fine what is this:neural connections:ican'tfeelanything:slow down, give it time:

The exchange took about two hundredths of a second, before the A-10 took control and sat them down. "Didn't you go through neutral networking training?"

:no:

"Really? REALLY?"

The A-10 rubbed its-their?-face. "Okay. Slow down, right now, you're operating at the speed of thought. That's why pilots are valuable, in case you didn't know." The A-10 muttered. "Dumbass. You're supposed to be who I consult with before doing...something. You're supposed to be telling me what to do, really..." The A-10 trailed off as it watched its right arm twitch around spasmodically. "Stop that." It stopped.

"So...ugh, I guess 'cause you know exactly fuck-all, just relax, okay? I'll take the lead. For now."

:okay:

The A-10 quietly hugged itself, sitting on the crates. It didn't even start to begin to think that the pilot wouldn't actually...know how to fly it. Inconceivable, but...the A-10 didn't mind. Some pilots had their own style of flying, having learned in different planes. It had this pilot all to itself.

:i can hear what you're thinking:

Fuck.

However, any more thought was cut off as the neural interfaces suddenly fired, the protective disconnection measures disconnecting the pilot from the man suite. The A-10 pitched forward and rolled onto its back, making a strangled choking noise before going dormant.

:a-10:

No reply.

:a-10 are you alright:

No reply.

:say something:

Again, there was no reply.

The pilot attempted to move, but the A-10 was locked up, the synthmetal dead weight.

Carlyle pocketed the control and ran his gloved hands down the A-10's torso. He knew that he was taking a risk visiting it so often, especially with the new pilot, but he wanted to make sure that the imbecile didn't damage it. After all, him even being posted here was a mistake, but not one that the air force could readily own up to-the initial transfer was pretty under the table and in no way legal.

He wistfully pushed the A-10's mouth open and frowned at the A-10's cannon. Unloaded? Planes always had to be combat-ready, even on base, in training. No exceptions. This was just another thing he could add to the inevitable post-dismissal report, he thought, and smirked, moving on to the turbines and axilliary pressure release vent.

This time, the pilot saw it all, through the A-10's eyes.

The A-10 rolled over and stretched, waking up from its mid-day doze. Something seemed different, but it didn't pay it any m-

:a-10:

The plane literally jumped a few metres into the air, turbines whirring in panic mode. "AAAAAAH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

:calm down:

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-"

:COOL YOUR SHIT:

The imperious mental command made the A-10 drop out of the air, landing and grabbing at its chest.

"GET OUT OF ME! GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT-"

:calm the fuck down okay and I will explain:

The A-10, visibly shaking, grabbed at different limbs and then its head, realizing that the pilot was somehow inside it. While it was sleeping? No, no, there's no way it wouldn't have woken up-

:i can hear what you're thinking:

Fuck.

The A-10 continued shaking, clutching its stomach, panic-thoughts whizzing through its head, before suddenly seizing up and twitching. The A-10 realized that its systems were slowly being taken over by its pilot, and continued panicking when it realized it couldn't wrest them back. The A-10-and-pilot took several shaky, slow steps towards the bed before clanking down on to its knees.

"Okay, since you can't calm down, just listen," said the A-10, except it wasn't the A-10's will to speak the words. Ironically, this made it panic even more.

"I can read your thoughts, can you read mine?"

The A-10 suddenly regained control and, as a result, almost did a complete backflip, staggering over and landing on its ass.

"D-don't...d-do..stop...please...d-" "Just do it!"

Once again, the command-even if it came from its own mouth, unwillingly-shocked it out of the panic. It focused.

And then it saw, through the pilot's eyes. It saw it all.

The A-10 pulled itself together, sitting cross-legged in the wreckage of bed and mirror, and held a quiet conference with itself.

:I'm going to kill him:don't:why not:read the paper in the bed:what:

The A-10 picked up the piece of paper out of the mess of wood and cloth and read, unconsciously holding its stomach.

The dissatisfied frown convulsed into a grimace of pure anger. "OOOOOOH FUCK NO. NO. NO NO NO. THEY ARE NOT TAK-aghk," the A-10 said, as it once again lost control over its vocal systems.

:it's fishy:NO SHIT:calm the fuck down before I make you calm the fuck down again, a-10:

The A-10 calmed the fuck down.

:you don't remember anything:no only what you showed me:

There was a long pause as the pilot/plane thought about it, one or the other making the A-10 stand up and walk over to the table, and start to write on the back of the transferral notice.

:are you thinking what i'm thinking:that's a really fucking stupid question:okay just checking:oh god, shut up:

The techie bustled around the general's building, humming happily. Everything was sorted, the error would soon be cleaned up, along with the loose end.

"AS FAR AS I CAN TELL, YOU'VE LET ME FUCKING PICK BEFORE. WHAT'S CHANGED, HUH?"

The techie winced. Wait. That was the A-10. In the general's office? He quickly changed direction and commenced eavesdropping.

"It's not your choice who goes where, machine."

"Certainly my choice who gets to FUCKING FLY ME." The A-10 slammed its hands down on the desk, leaning forwards.

"YOU WANT ME TO FLY? YOU LET ME PICK."

"TOLD YOU ONCE, NOT GOING TO AGAIN. ARE YOU QUESTIONING MY ORDERS, PLANE?"

The A-10's demeanour swapped from 'anger' to 'confident' in a heartbeat. "Tell me, where am I in your chain of command?"

The general's countenance became a rosy shade of reddish-orange-yellow, like a tomato, just before it is ripe enough to eat.

"I'm NOT. YOU just get to assign people to me. And YOU do not get to boss ME around." The A-10 straightened up, crossing its arms. "And YOUR assignments are just...choices." The A-10 shrugged, palms up, and suddenly seemed in control of the entire situation. "And if you transfer someone OUT who has already been assigned to a plane, I can CHOOSE to keep them."

"That takes me right the fuck out of your base, takes that pilot out of your chain of command."

Fuck, thought the general.

FUCK NO, thought the techie.

Neither quite knew how the plane knew the technicalities of this particular branch of the army that well. It has certainly never expressed interest in them, ever, content to go through pilots like a fat man through cheetos.

"Give it some fucking thought next time before you throw around dumbshit orders," the A-10 commented, before turning and shoving open the door, stalking back to the hangar.

This time, it saw the techie and took notice-not that anyone could tell.

The general, however, was now fully ripened. He waited until it was out of the building before walking over to the door, gently shutting it, and walking carefully back to his desk, taking a seat.

"MOTHERFUCKING SHIT ON A STICK. SON OF A WHORE. I'LL HAVE THAT SMARTASS' FUCKING BALLS FOR THIS," the general stated, continuing on a tirade of incredibly creative profanities that several people in adjoining rooms thought good enough to write down, so that they could remember them for later.

Meanwhile, the techie was frozen. His world had just crumbled around him. He didn't think anyone else would know about that loophole. He'd kept it to himself so that when he inevitably won the plane's attention they could elope.

But this fucker. This son of a whore shit stick was trying to steal HIS plane. He had to be rid of the man personally, now. And make it look like an accident. Or...maybe something better...

At around 2 a.m. that night, Carlyle quietly opened the hangar door. He'd prepared meticulously for this; gloves, making sure that maintenance is nowhere near here tonight, even down to potential evidence (pocket lint, hair, and clothing threads, for example) being left behind. The sliver of outside light from the door disappeared, and the techie waited by the entrance for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

He slowly became able to pick out shapes in the darkness. Bed, table, stool...the A-10's stack of crates, the A-10, and the pilot, asleep in bed. Good.

He hit the button on the remote and the A-10 silently spasmed and fell still.

Quietly, like a bespectacled shadow, he slid across the room to the A-10's pile of crates. He knew it kept a gun-a Beretta-around. He searched through the stacks quietly, eventually finding it hidden under one with a few magazines and ammo boxes. He picked one out, loaded the gun, and looked over at the bed.

It was ingeniously simple, actually. The A-10 had moved on from murdering pilots in flight and would now seem to have random spates of violence. Ballistics tests-and fingerprint tests-would confirm the bullets belong to the A-10's handgun, and the lack of fingerprints would point to the A-10 being the shooter. Nobody would expect him-a systems technician-of being the murderer, and if they did, he'd like to see them prove it.

He stalked over to the bed, and then noticed the note on the bedside table.

It looked like the pilot's handwriting, just some stuff about the chain of command and military law, it seemed. So this is how the jet knew? The techie gritted his teeth. That retard couldn't tie his own shoelaces, let alone out-lawyer him. Well, he wouldn't get a second chance, he'd make sure of that.

Nothing happened. Oh, right, the safety. He turned that off and tried again, pressing the pistol to the man's head, the pistol firing with a reverberating BANG, the pistol's fired bullet going through his head, bed, and cracking into the concrete, showering his arm with the cantaloupe's vital fluids and tender, delicious flesh.

Wait.

"Woo! That was a fuckin' rush, you know that?"

Carlyle froze, before whipping around and aiming the gun at the voice. The A-10? Impossible!

"I bet you're thinkin' 'oh fuck, how come that A-10's still conscious', right?" It grinned, entirely without humor.

"I'm not the only one in here."

Fuck, the techie thought, still training the gun on its head.

"'Course he'll have a real fuckin' big headache, come tomorrow. I sent that pulse into his own brain." It stood up and started walking towards him. "He doesn't need to see what I'm going to do to you."

The techie fired, the round pinging off the A-10's shoulder ineffectually. It grinned wider, feral, angry, satisfied, launching into a run.

The techie kept firing, backing up. Three rounds out of the entire magazine hit, the rest going through the hangar's far wall as he tripped over the bed, dropping the handgun before grabbing for the remote.

The A-10 chose this time to grab his throat, and slam him into the fruit-man in the bed-rather, through, and into the cold, hard floor with a sickening crunch. The A-10 detected that his left arm was probably shattered at four places, minimum.

The techie, dazed, continued fumbling, before the A-10 reached into his pocket and took the remote out.

"This your favourite toy, shitbag? Too much of a pussy to try anything face to face, eh?" For some reason, the A-10's conversational tone was even more terrifying than its angry, loud one.

The techie was in no condition to talk as the A-10 tossed the remote over its shoulder, calmly taking hold of the man's broken arm and slamming a foot down on it, causing the techie to cry out in pain as it was broken in ANOTHER place.

"How many times?" The A-10 took its foot off the man's arm.

The techie just groaned in reply, in more pain than he'd ever experienced in his entire life.

"HOW FUCKING MANY," the A-10 asked, hauling him upright by his collar. "HUH? YOU SICK PIECE OF SHIT. I'M NOT JUST A FUCKING MACHINE. I THINK I'M FUCKING SMARTER THAN YOU ARE, WHAT'S THAT MAKE YOU? A TOASTER?"

The techie's subconscious decided that no, no, angry planes were still scarier than calm but mad ones.

"HOW MANY PEOPLE DID YOU MAKE ME KILL? ALL OF THEM?" The A-10's eyes were wild, other arm reared back, ready to plant in his face.

"auhrngmpltchu," the techie said desperately.

"SPEAK THE FUCK UP OR I'LL BREAK YOUR FUCKING HEAD."

"IT WAS...WAS TO PROTECT YOU," the techie yelled through the pain. Adrenaline was kick in now, he could think straight...ish again.

"PROTECT ME!?" The A-10 shrieked into his face, ascending to the next level of angry, pegging him into the floor again and grabbing his head in its hands. "WHAT IN THE FUCKING SEVEN SEAS MADE YOU THINK I NEEDED PROTECTING? HOW DID KILLIN PEOPLE, PROTECT, ME? HUH?"

The techie swore upon impact as the broken arm flailed around, limp. "NOBODY could take care of you like...gah, I could! I-" He was cut off as the A-10 planted a fist into the hangar's floor beside his head, it burying several inches deep into the concrete.

"Oh. Ha! That makes it TOTALLY OKAY! IT'S NOT LIKE YOU'VE MADE MY LIFE, HELL, OR ANYTHING. You're fucking scum," it hissed, raising the fist again.

"You have failed. Your life has been worth nothing. In fact, it's worse. Less than nothing. You owe existence a debt, you little shit. And I'm going to be happy to collect it," the A-10 stated, eyes wide and crazy, nosecone cracked open in an insane grin. "NOTHING OF VALUE WILL BE LOST!"

It cracked its fist open into more of a claw, ready to slam into the man's face, brought it down-and then it froze, an inch away from the crying man's face. The A-10 looked at it, and tried to shift it again. It didn't work.

:no:

"NO! NO! I WANT TO HAVE MY VENGANCE! HE NEEDS TO DIE, I WON'T LET YOU STOP ME!" the A-10 screamed, seemingly to itself.

:do you want to be a killer and prove them right:

The A-10 froze and looked at the crying man under her. "I-"

:i mean, this will scare them anyway:oh my GOD what THE H:he's our ticket out of here:how:proof testimony evidence:

The A-10 gasped and clutched at its chest, backing away from the man lying in a pool of his own blood and urine, before it froze up again as the pilot took control, almost having to force the A-10 to pick him up and drag him out of the hangar, pausing to crush the remote under its feet.

:doesn't deserve it, anyway:deserves more:you catch on quick:

After seeing to some...business, the A-10 and its pilot found themselves sitting in the pilot's room. Like hell either of them was going back to the hangar-there were bad memories there, now, not to mention blood, urine bone fragments, etc..

The A-10 was lying on its side in the bed, looking at itself in one of the shaving mirror's larger shards.

"...thank you," the A-10 said, quietly.

"For what?" the A-10's pilot replied.

The only reason the A-10 was using this slow method of communication was that the pilot had complained about headaches coming from the neural connections. Using the A-10's own voice instead of his own mind eased it a little.

"I don't know. Everything?" It grinned ruefully. "I'd still...well, I'd still be killing people if it wasn't for you." The grin stretched wider, a little of the predatory bent leaking in. "I think I should repay you. Whaddayathink, eh?"

The A-10's hand wandered down its front.

"What, er, what are you doing?"

"Neural connection works both ways, idiot."

The A-10's finger rubbed across its auxilliary pressure release vent, causing the pilot and A-10 to gasp in unison.

The pilot tried to wrest control back, but found himself held immobile. "Ah haaa, I have to get you back for that 'cleaning' bullshit you pulled," the A-10 stated, coy.

The pilot's mental protests were silenced as the A-10 dropped the mirror shard, other hand slowly making its way down as well, slipping across the soft metal.

"And you aren't going anywhere."

The pilot decided that he was okay with this.

The A-10's first hand worked its way into the vent, fingers pushing at its walls, while the seconds ran over its right turbine.

The pilot convulsed, or tried to-this was an appendage he didn't even have. There was no human analogy for the turbine. Legs, maybe? But the A-10 had those. And why were they so sensitive?

"Moron, I can read your thoughts."

The pilot again decided that he was okay with this.

The hand toying with its vent was slowly, teasingly removed, strings of lubricant running from it to the A-10's fingertips. The second hand reached inside the turbine, lightly flicking the shaft's tip. The A-10 twitched and moaned, other hand grabbing and massaging its left auxiliary fuel tank, eliciting more husky moaning as both felt the metal fingertips playing over the pliant, sensitive section of metal.

The A-10's face was locked into an expression of frowny bliss, eyes lidded and lacking focus, panting.

"W...ah, I...I can feel...ngh...you feeling it too, s-stop that, you jerk."

The pilot was in no position to reply.

The turbine's hand slipped further in, turning the fan slowly, making the A-10 whine and pant. Its other hand jerked away from its fuel tank and into the other one, turning it, too. The stimulation was too much for the A-10, making it jerk over onto its stomach and grind its auxiliary vent into the bedsheets, still spooling up and moaning. "I...ngh, can't...we can't in here...aegh. Everyone will hear."

"I DON'T GIVE A FUCK," the A-10 hissed in reply, both hands diving into its vent again, furiously pumping in and out, grabbing and twisting the nozzle hard enough to make it yelp every few seconds, in addition to the husky moans.

It jammed its hands in one last time and held them both there, fingers twitching and spasming. Its back arched, mouth tossed back, and it whimpered one more time. "I'm...I-'m g...hn-BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT," the A-10 roared, around six hundred shells tearing through the bed and into the floor as the A-10 and pilot decided, as one, that it indeed had no fucks left to give and slumped onto what remained of the bed, mouth open, flexible cannon lolling out the side of its mouth along with a substantial amount of fire retardant foam, panting, extremely satisfied.

"O...oh God, is it like that...every time for you, A-10?"

"When you...ah...haven't seen a man for that long you...ah... you get good at it, y'know?"

The A-10's hand wandered down to its vent again.

"Oh, no. N...agh, no, not again..."

"Ah...bite me."

The pilot woke first. Today was the day he took the A-10 out for a spin. There were live-fire training exercises due for today (planned ones, anyway...) and he didn't intend to make the A-10 miss a chance to enjoy itself.

The pilot was temporarily sharing the A-10's crate pile, supplemented with a fresh futon. His room was under repairs, but the hangar was easier to clean, so he slept there, with the plane.

The A-10, however, was still out to it, face-down in the futon and snoring quietly.

The pilot didn't want to wake it up yet, so carefully extracted himself and started pulling on clothes, looking around the expansive hangar and wondering just what they expected the A-10 to do with all this space.

He was interrupted by a cold metal hand gently closing around his wrist and then spinning him around roughly, to face the frowning A-10, about an inch away from his face.

"IS IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOU TO DO ANYTHING QUIETLY? You woke me the fuck up." The A-10 grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him closer.

"G'morning, A-10!" the pilot said brightly.

"Come off it," the plane scoffed, letting go and sighing.

"Flight training, today. I get to take you out for a real spin."

The A-10 crossed its arms and leaned in, overbearing as usual, and the pilot stood there, oblivious, as usual.

"I bet you're so stupid you don't even know how to take off."

"I was hoping you'd give me some pointers."

The A-10 blinked, then squinted at his blank, expressionless face.

"You're bullshitting, aren't you?"

The pilot shook his head curiously.

"Oh Browning, please tell me you're just fucking with me."

"Nope."

The plane's jaw dropped.

"Well, I read the flight training introduction-"

The A-10 grabbed his singlet, puling the singlet it off over his head and its shoulders in one smooth movement.

"I am NOT going to get embarrassed by your incompetent ass. Get in."

"I need breakfast first."

The A-10 rubbed its nosecone with its hands in exasperation.

"Whatever. Hurry up."

The pilot slid past the A-10, grabbing his clothes and bolting to the mess.

The A-10 watched him dash off, before noticing something had fallen out of his pile of clothes. Aviator sunglasses?

The pilot slid back into the hangar, one sandwich in mouth, other in hand, being dual-wielded with the thermos. The plane was busy pacing around inside, and looked up as he entered.

"WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG? Ugh, you're going to have to learn so much if you want to do anything properly," the A-10 berated him as he chugged coffee.

"Ignition sequences, optimal ranges...ugh, how to use the nav system..."

"Can't you handle all that? I mean, they're your systems."

The plane wheeled around on him and pointed.

"You're even dumber than you look! What if something happens to me, huh? EM interference, more than my shielding can handle. Disconnects, some kind of fault. You have to be able to fly me if I can't!" The A-10 eyed the now empty thermos and walked past, grabbing it.

"I guess," the pilot replied, around a mouthful of sandwich. "But it's not like we're going to see combat for a while, right? Still have lots of training to go through."

"Oh, yeah, didn't you know? They don't care about how good you are. All about me, bitch." The A-10 returned from the crates, the thermos magnetically attached to its hip, opposite the beretta.

"They assume pilots have, oh, what was it now, 'A BASE LEVEL OF COMPETENCY' and let the plane roll with it. Dumbass, you're making my job hard."

The pilot shoved the rest of the sandwich and stood, wiping his hands on his pants.

"What, too hard?"

The A-10 rounded on him, striding up to him and poking him in the chest. "I have gone through an opening half the size of that-" It pointed at the hangar's door, just a regular sized door. "At two hundred fifty kilometers per hour. I can handle your incompetence just fucking fine."

The pilot responded by turning it around, and running a hand down the seam in its back, which opened with the familiar hiss.

"If you crash me, I'm going to-hurk," the A-10 commented, as the pilot climbed in, as if the A-10 was just another shirt or something, making it stagger. Nothing like the sensual, slow manner of the first time, and almost falling over.

"THE FUCK DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING BACK THERE," the A-10 growled, as it sealed up and walked to the door.

:you said you were in a rush:

"Be CAREFUL, fuck," the A-10 grumbled, before slamming the hangar door behind it and taking them to where it knew the training area was.

The training area was supposed to be a mostly cleared forest, about a kilometer North of the base. They walked, mostly because the A-10 wanted its pilot to get used to how it moved, and the difference in flexibility. The A-10, on its own, was far more bendy than the pilot-synthmetal's flexibility would put a gymnast to shame.

The training area was NOT a mostly cleared forest; most of it was littered with destroyed trees, a couple of the concrete targets spread over far larger area than they were ever intended to.

The A-10 strutted out into the field, lacing its fingers together behind its head.

"What can I say, superior firepower."

"Or just really fuckin' bad aim," the pilot responded, in a fairly good imitation of the A-10,made considerably easier due to using its own voice.

"Shut up. I can put ninety percent of my shots within a ten metre wide circle. From one thousand three hundred metres away. I'd like to see your pasty ass do that."

The A-10's pilot laughed, one metallic sounding chuckle echoing out of the A-10 before it clamped right down on that. It didn't want its image to be ruined. Even though there was probably nobody within a kilometer of the place.

"So, you know how to get me going then, smartass?"

"Yep," the pilot replied, immediately.

The A-10 frowned, mouth slightly open, before replying.

"I'm sorry, what the fuck? You said you'd never flown an A-10 before. How do you know my startup sequence?"

The A-10 seemingly replied to itself again. Anyone watching the exchange, not knowing what was happening, would have been very confused.

"Yeah, I got a hold of your manual, I've been your pilot for a few days now. I should remember how."

The A-10 was now officially worried.

"You best not mess it up. I don't want to go in for repairs before my first fucking flight with you."

The pilot concentrated. A lack of physical switches meant that they all had to be activated mentally. Either easier or harder, depending on what you learned on.

The A-10 powered down, sighed, and leaned against one of the more intact blocks of concrete.

Battery power and inverter activated.

The A-10 gasped, before catching itself and returning to a semi-stoic, semi-shaky frown. Well, it WOULD make sense, his only experienc-

The mental signal light test button was lightly, tenderly caressed.

The A-10 frowned harder. It wasn't going to let this get to it. Not before its first flight. No no no.

Then the pilot started its main engine, sending the A-10 sliding down the wall.

It tried to say, "That's not how engines!", but it came out as more of a, "hmgarguhhh," both hands clasped over its auxiliary vent.

The world seemed to spin around it, causing it to grab on to the pylon with both hands as the ground alignment system started figuring itself out.

Then he started the turbines whining.

"Ahgahfhk," the A-10 eloquently stated, grabbing on to the concrete with both hands, world righting itself.

The pilot continued through the startup plan-surprisingly accurate, for someone who had never flown a plane in his life.

The A-10, however, was a wreck. Breathing heavily, gripping the concrete hard enough to form a few hairline cracks in it, leaking slightly from its auxiliary vent. It realized that he wasn't following true startup protocol. How could he? Half the pilots it knew took shortcuts, let it handle some of the boring s-

Wait.

WAIT.

"I DIDN'T MEAN 'TURN ME ON' LIKE THAAAT," the A-10 hollered.

The pilot was obviously concentrating too much to hear it.

The A-10 kept panting, on its hands and knees now, as its turbines spooled up. It knew the next step was arming its weaponry-

The turbines stopped spooling, returning to idle.

"No. NO. NO NO. NO! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" the A-10 shrieked. It was far too close to its release to let him stop now.

"Forgot...nh...something," the pilot replied.

"Forgot WHAT?" The A-10 was panting, being held back. "YOU DID EVER...NNNNNNNTHING FINE WHY DID YOU STOP," the A-10 cried plaintively. It sat in place, panting heavily and getting more and more frustrated, for about ten seconds, waiting for the answer.

:just kidding:

Its weapons systems went online, armed.

"FAUGH-BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT," the A-10 wasn't joking when it said it had superior firepower-the shells ripping through the concrete it was slumped against, then into, and through the treeline on the other end of the field.

The A-10 clunked its cockpit into what remained of the concrete, breathing heavily.

"I...I hate you, you know that?"

"So, we fly now?" the pilot brightly replied.

"Oh piss off," the A-10 moaned.

Both decided that they needed a quick break before actually trying to get airborne, the A-10 sitting on the block of concrete and unscrewing the thermos.

"I thought you didn't drink anything."

"And I don't," the A-10 grumpily replied, sliding off the block and heading to open ground, tossing the white paint out in a messy circle.

The pilot was dismayed.

"They'll...they'll want that back. Come on, the reqs depot is already on my ass for breaking every bed I've slept in."

"They can deal with it," the A-10 grumbled, tossing the thermos out of the way.

"OKAY. Here's what we're gonna do," the A-10 said. "We're gonna take off nice and steady, up to about two thousand feet. Come in low from the west, and fuck this circle up."

"O-kay..."

"Oh, did I mean 'we'? I meant 'you'. Enjoy." The A-10 grinned.

"Oh, does that mean I have to do that startup sequence a-"

"NO! I, uh, no, I'll take care of that," the A-10 mumbled, setting its everything going in about half a second. "Never get into the air if you keep fucking it up," it added under its breath.

The pilot was faced with a new conundrum: getting airborne. Turbines, aerodynamics, wind speeds, altitude...

The pilot sprinted towards the treeline, using the A-10's natural speed before kicking in the turbines, almost sending him stumbling.

The A-10 realized that this practice session may or may not make them miss out on the real session, especially if the pilot crashed really really badly.

It then realized that it had nowhere near enough room to take off.

"Whoa! WHOA! HEY! STOP! TREES! TREES!"

The pilot ignored the A-10, jumping into the air, and opening the throttle all the way, giving the A-10 the necessary boost to clear the treeline.

Almost.

The plane's entire lower torso crashed through the top of the trees, before rising above the treeline. Some of the paint on its legs were scratched off, but the pilot continued the semi-suicidal takeoff maneuver, flying close above the trees before flattening out instinctively and gaining some altitude.

"Well, that went w-"

"WHAT THE FUCK. THE FUCK WAS THAT. MY LEGS! THE PAINT! AAAARGH," the A-10 lamented angrily. "I'M NOT GOING TO HAVE TIME TO REPAINT THAT BEFORE LIVE-FIRE."

"Sorry," the pilot replied, still obviously concentrating on keeping the two in the air, as the plane wobbled from side to side worryingly.

Slowly the two gained altitude, and the pilot confidence, leveling them out.

"Okay, two thousand feet..."

"You know you're going at about a hundred fifty knots, right?" The A-10 asked.

"Should I be going faster?"

"Oh, just a little, about TWICE THAT SPEED. I THOUGHT YOU SAID YOU READ THE MANUAL WE'RE ABOUT THIRTY AWAY FROM STALLING OUT, DIPSHIT," the A-10 replied.

"Oh," the pilot said, immediately opening the throttle again and rocketing the two forwards and around in a wide arc, back towards the clearing.

The A-10 was kind of impressed, just a little. For someone with no official flight time nor training, apparently, he had a remarkable sense of balance in the air (barring the takeoff). Had a sense of intuition about pitch and yaw...

The clearing was in sight.

The A-10 snapped out of its reverie. "OI! Weapons free, let's see how good a shot you are."

The A-10 realized its mistake shortly after speaking-he'd never fired a gun before that time in the hangar, he probably didn't even have the ability to mentally fire it, let alone fire its Aveng-

Wait. Oh no.

The jet started to panic, and was just about to start screaming expletives in preparation for the inevitable 300 knot crash before it realized that the pilot was laughing. Giggling, in fact.

"Yeah, I think you should show me how it's done, A-10."

"Oh my God I hate you," the jet sighed in relief, dipping slightly in a dive and zeroing in on the target, opening its mouth, and letting out two (CONTROLLED) bursts of "BRRRRRRRRRRRRRT" into the target.

"That's how it's DONE!" the A-10 crowed in exultation, swooping low across the field and skimming the treetops on the other side. "YEAH. Hey, you see if I hit?"

There was no response from the pilot other than a couple of shuddering gasps.

The jet grinned. "Neural feedback's a bitch, eh?"

MEANWHILE, IN ARUJISTAN. 2250 HOURS.

The full moon, filtering through the sparse cloud cover, illuminated the rolling green valleys below it-and the target.

A slow-moving convoy of six ammunition trucks, four BMPs, and a couple of troop trucks rumbled through the valley, heedless of the watcher above.

Far above the cloud cover, the AC-130U, callsign 'Spooks', lowered the 105mm Howitzer from its fire control system. "Command, this is S-1, we've got eyes on the convoy."

The AC-130U was a sleek plane, with defined muscles. Two wings extended from its upper back, rotating slightly to keep it moving and stable. At its waist hung several different, large weapons. An educated viewer would be able to pick out a 25mm GAU-12/U Equalizer Gatling cannon and a 40mm L/60 Bofors. Its nosecone, unlike the more common 'eye' sensors, had the advanced AN/APQ-180 radar suite, slaved to the advanced targeting systems.

"Roger that. Give 'em hell, Spooks," command replied.

Spooks clipped the howitzer onto its left arm, and activated thermals.

"Look at 'em. No idea the sky's going to drop on them," its pilot drawled.

"Hmm. Gatling or Bofors...Gatling or Bofors..." The AC-130U muttered, indecisive.

"Gatling, haven't used that one in a while," the pilot offered.

"Fine." The plane clipped the cannon onto

The howitzer boomed, sending the projectile rocketing towards the unfortunate lead BMP.

The A-10 and pilot arrived at flight training, not much worse for wear, and even a little earlier than intended due to the A-10 demonstrating that, in addition to unrivaled firepower, it could also go really really fast.

'Flight training' was a slightly misleading name for the activity.

The idea behind the thing was to give the planes on base official exercise. Not that it really needed to be enforced, it was still a good idea-planes left to sit for too long tended to develop mechanical faults, or even worse, rust.

Compared to the A-10's 'private' field, this one was very professional, with a few sandbag emplacements, structures, even a bombed out truck at the far end. It was intended for more than one plane, but since the base only had one, it was theoretically overkill. In practice, not so much.

Not that the A-10 minded. It was in the process of being loaded up by the field's only attendant, which had previously admitted he didn't mind the extra work due to the 'show'.

Today's loadout was six AGM-65 Maverick rockets, with the explosives removed.

"Okay, you...ah...know what rockets are, right?"

"Ayup," the attendant replied.

"Not you," the A-10 replied irritably.

"Yeah," the A-10 then replied, again.

The attendant decided that his job was to put fake explosives on the hardpoints and not wonder about the sanity of jets capable of killing someone by hitting them with the aforementioned fake explosives.

"These are just dummies. They won't let me have real ones," it grumbled.

"So it's just...launching practice?"

"You have to aim, too, asshole. The guidance won't take care of everything.”

The A-10 frowned again and continued keeping its composure like a champ. It was hard not letting anything slip, with the attendant's rough hands rubbing up and down its wings, smoothly sliding the Mavericks in and clicking them home...

"Alright, all done," the attendant said, dropping back into his camp chair with an 'oof' and stroking his beard. "Don't get me wrong, I'd love to get you some of the real shit, but...regs, what'cha gonna do."

The A-10 breathed out shakily, stating, "It's fine," before taking the run up and launching into the air.

MEANWHILE, AT THE BASE

The general-currently fending off 'disciplinary action' and trying to keep his prestige and credibility all at once-had stamped the documents without thinking. It was too late to go refuse them now, even if he had a better reason than 'I changed my mind'. As such, he was just praying they didn't know what had recently happened. It was a bit hard to get the blood out of the carpet, but he was pretty sure that if they visited here, they wouldn't pick anything up. Yeah.

He was in luck-one had completely bypassed the base, instead heading for the firing range, and the other didn't seem to care.

MEANWHILE, AT THE FIRING RANGE

The A-10 dived towards one of the houses, second Maverick whizzing after the first and crashing through the plyboard structure just below the second's hole.

The pilot breathed out. "It's...ah...harder than it looks."

"No shit? REALLY?" The A-10 whizzed low across the ground, before shooting upwards at about 45 degrees, gaining altitude and circling. "Aim a little higher. If we were any further out you'd have wasted a rocket like an idiot."

"Right." The pilot maneuvered the A-10 up and over, rolling until it wasn't upside-down anymore, and immediately firing off two more rockets.

The A-10 was in no way prepared for the other two being released so soon, especially at the tip of such a rapid ascent.

"NGH. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

"Try...ing something out," the pilot replied, catching his breath.

The two rockets shot far past the house, embedding themselves into the earth.

"THE FUCK WAS THAT? YOU WERE TWO FOR TWO, NOW LOOK WHAT YOU DID."

The A-10 then realized what he meant by 'trying something out'.

"Oh, you dick. Okay, let's m-"

Beep.

The A-10 immediately jerked control away from the pilot as the long-range radar picked something up, entering a rapid climb. A few seconds after, the blip disappeared.

"Bearing two seventy, low altitude. Nothing big, didn't have IFF activated. What do y-" The pilot was cut off as the irate A-10 continued raging.

"The hell was that? FUCK. If there's anything on the field I can't do shit." The A-10 halted the dive, dropping back downwards and circling to the 'runway'. "Get one day to fuck around out here and I bet it's some fuckoff in an ultralight thinking he's all badass and 'operator' and shit coasting around a military base."

The A-10 slowed and touched down on the runway, standing on the landing wheels with arms crossed, frowning mightily. It was taken off-guard when the pilot decided to use the landing wheels as impromptu roller blades, but decided it was too pissed off to do anything about it.

"I swear. I wish I could go fuck 'em up but I bet they'd have a fucking field day with me." It coasted towards the little bunker, detaching the last two rockets itself.

Then the A-10 noticed two things. First, there were voices coming from inside the bunker, and more than one, too. The second was that it was going a bit too fast to stop, and ended up clanking off the side of the bunker.

Nothing got damaged other than the A-10's ego. The voices ceased when the impact and spooling down turbines were heard, and the A-10 peeked inside.

"DAD?"

The pilot was about to say something, but the A-10 clamped down on him hard enough to give him a migraine.

:NO.:

The A-10's parents, it seemed, had come to visit.

The P-51 Mustang probably looked just as good as he did the day he entered service, having almost a bodybuilder's physique and still sporting the same propeller mustache. Unfortunately, it was just as loud.

"HOW'S MY LITTLE GAL?"

"Da-aaad," the A-10 hissed, frown going from angry to 'WORRY', looking at the attendant barely holding back laughter. "Can we go somewhere private? Not here?"

The Mustang replied with a hug, which the A-10 returned awkwardly. "Look can I get cleaned up, I was just-"

"O'COURSE, SWEETIE. MOM'S BACK AT TH-"

"MOM?" The A-10 coughed and rubbed its throat. "I, great! I'll meet you back at my hangar...then?" The A-10 hopefully asked.

"RIGHT YOU ARE, PIGLET. I THINK SHE'S CLEANING IT UP, YOU KNOW HOW SHE GETS." The mustang clapped the A-10 on the back, eliciting an 'oof' from the jet.

"THINK SHE WANTS TO MEET YOUR PILOT TOO," the Mustang added thougtfully. "HE AROUND?"

The A-10 commenced pushing the Mustang out of the bunker. "Yeah, um, later, dad," the A-10 sighed as the mustang laughed and walked out, waving over its shoulder.

It rounded on the attendant. "NOT A FUCKING WORD. NONE."

The A-10 walked, as opposed to flying back to the base, mostly so that it could collect its thoughts.

"I could have embarrassed you so badly, huh?"

"S-shut up," the A-10 griped back.

"I mean, just one little signal light test..."

"Don't even FUCKING joke about it. Oh Browning my hangar is a mess."

"They might even find a few extra bone shards!"

"You wanna fucking walk home naked, eh? I'll eject your ass,"

"Could be worse. He could have figured out that I was in you. I mean-"

"Don't even FUCKING THINK ABOUT THAT. Uhg, they'll put you through the wringer too. You ain't gettin' out of this one, pilot," it said, fatalistically.

The pilot had noticed a great change in its demeanor since it realized its parents were around. Going from superior and domineering to a jittery nervous wreck wasn't something he could adjust to, at least not this quickly.

The A-10 opened the hangar door nervously. “Mom? Dad?”

The A-10's mom was a stark contrast to the A-10-rather than being lean, with defined muscles, it could be described as 'plump', perhaps 'well-rounded' or 'smooth'. The pilot guessed that a different company had designed the A-10, as he couldn't see the family resemblance, except for the (substantially larger) auxiliary fuel tanks on the fuselage.

“Mom!” The A-10 ran over and gave the P-47 Thunderbolt a hug, nearly bowling it off its feet.

“Ah, there's our little black sheep,” the P-47 said.

The pilot realized just where the A-10 got its attitude.

“I DIDN'T GET A HUG,” the Mustang complained, almost to itself.

“Mom, Dad, this is my pilot, uh...” The A-10 looked over to where the pilot was watching with perhaps one of his best poker faces to date.

“It's nice to meet you both,” he said, extending a hand to the Mustang. They shook hands while the A-10 and the mother talked.

The Thunderbolt held the A-10 at arm's length “So HE'S your pilot? Isn't he handsome!”

The A-10 gave her a legitimately embarrassed frown“Mo-oom, he's right there!”

“Well, it's true,” the Thunderbolt added, winking at the pilot, who nervously returned the wave.

The Mustang burst into laughter and leaned over, whispering to the pilot. Which was more like a 'quiet yell'.

“What's say we leave the girls to girl things and go take a walk?”

“Yeah. Um. Good idea.”

The Mustang threw an arm around the pilot's shoulders and walked him outside.

Outside was calm and balmy, low cloud cover coasting in from the west.

“SO, YOU'RE HER LATEST PILOT?” the Mustang bellowed, striding down the runway.

The pilot was slowly getting used to the volume. “Yeah. She handles pretty well.”

“I REMEMBER MY FIRST PILOT,” the Mustang said, stroking its propeller. “FRIENDLY ENOUGH GUY, RAMMED A 109 WHEN HE RAN OUT OF AMMO.”

Apparently in full-on war story mode, the Mustang continued, making vague hand movements in the air in front of it.

“'COURSE, NOT BEFORE HE KNOCKED THAT SAUCY LITTLE NUMBER OUT OF THE SKY. BOTH OF US CRASHED, 'COURSE I DIDN'T KNOW A LICK OF GERMAN AND SHE DIDN'T KNOW ANY ENGLISH.” It nudged the pilot with an elbow. “ HAD TO WALK, SHE RAN OUT OF FUEL. LANGUAGE BARRIER DIDN'T STOP US 'EQUALIZING FUEL LEVELS' IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.” the Mustang said/shouted.

The pilot didn't exactly know what to say, so he said nothing.

“SO HOW LONG YOU BEEN FLYING?”

The pilot thought back to the 'wringer' comment and decided that yeah, it was pretty accurate. For some reason he felt a little easier around the Mustang than the P-47. “About four days now, I think.”

“HA HA, GOOD ONE.”

“It's, er, the truth. I got assigned here out of the blue, really.”

The plane looked over to the pilot, who was jogging slightly to keep up with its stride. “OH, GUESS THAT EXPLAINS IT, THEN.”

The pilot cast it a querying glance.

“WELL, LOOKS LIKE YOU MESSED UP THE TAKE-OFF FOR ONE. AH, DON'T LOOK LIKE THAT, EVERY ROOKIE DOES IT AT LEAST ONCE. DON'T REALIZE WHAT KIND OF POWER SHE'S GOT,” it said. “BIT OF ADVICE-DON'T HURT HER.”

The pilot nervously laughed. He could see where that other part of the A-10's attitude came from... “Oh, no, I wouldn't think of it.”

“NO, NO, I'M DEAD SERIOUS. IF YOU DO I'LL BREAK YOUR LEGS.”

[DATA REDACTED] AIRFIELD, 1400 HOURS.

The black-painted Rockwell B1-b lay on the maintenance table, prow down, right wing buzzing as it attempted to fold it down like the other, already folded. The maintenance chick sighed and rapped on the wing.

The red-headed repairwoman sighed, and replied in her broad Scot brogue. “Again? I's tha' same wing. I'll have tae replace the whole thing a' this rate.”

The B1-b gulped nervously, looking at the red-headed repairwoman. “B-but I don't...can't you fix it? You fixed it before, right?”

“But than' I' broke again! Fine, I'll try one more time, but if y'break it again, you're gonna be oot of tha' air for a while.”

The B1-b sat up on the table, turning around so that the redhead could have easier access to the actuator paneling, other wing still folded.

“Well le's see noo...” The maintenance chick unscrewed the panel carefully, eliciting an uncomfortable wiggle from the plane.

“You're th' only ticklish one on the whole base, y'knoo that?”

“I-I can't help it, Ann,” the B1-b replied shakily.

Ann snorted and replied, “Well you'll have tae put up with it,” as she lifted the panel off, fiddling around inside the servo.

“Nnnnnn,” the B-1b replied.

“Me ma told me a great way tae put oop with tickin' anyway,” Ann continued, examining the fidgeting plane's wing. “Y' have tae see it as one o' two things. It's either 'oh noo, et tickles' or y'see it as a massage or somthin' pleasurable-like.”

“I-I don't think that-ah,” the plane replied, other wing frantically zipping up and down.

“Well hold still for a liil' while longer.”

The maintenance woman fiddled with the actuator, checking the pivot bearing, gently moving the wing up and down while the B1-b clenched its legs together, hands and arms gripping the sides of the table in an effort to stay still. She picked up a bottle, gently oiling the wing's hinges and rubbing the excess off with a soft cloth.

“Well, Ah'm stumped. Are y'sure you can't move tha' wing? Ah can't see anything wrong with tha actuator or th' bearin'.”

The B-1b took a shaky breath before trying to move the wing, this time succeeding, it giving off a smooth whine instead of a buzz. “Th-thank you.”

Ann squinted and cocked her head at the B-1b, crossing her arms. “Y'knoo it's strange. So far ye've had landing gear malfunctions, radar errors, several different egine faults, an all o' them seemed tae fix themselves.”

The B-1b froze. “I-I d-don't mean, uh, didn't want to, I mean-” Some of its stored MK-82s tumbled out of its bomb bays, rolling off the table and onto the floor.

“Ah mean, if ye wanted to spend some more time together, y'oonly needed to say so.”

The B-1b clasped its hands together over its chest, one final inert 82 falling to the floor with a clunk.

BACK AT THE HANGAR, 2150 HOURS.

“So those were your parents?”

The A-10 frowned nervously and crossed its arms, sitting cross-legged opposite the pilot on the new bed, saying nothing, but obviously embarrassed.

“I like them, they're nice. I had a girlfriend once,” the pilot continued obliviously, missing the suddenly-interested A-10's glance. “Her parents were weird. I think they thought I was a stalker or something,” the pilot commented, laughing.

“What was she like?”

The pilot raised an eyebrow. “Um...well, nice, I guess. Kinda insensitive.”

Both sat in silence for a few more seconds, the pilot obviously thinking and the plane drumming up the courage to say something else.

“Wasn't the P-51 made by North American? And the P-47 by...Republic? I don't see the family resemblance.”

The A-10 frowned and leaned forward. “I never knew my real father. And Republic was bought by Fairchild in '65.” The A-10 twiddled its fingers, losing a bit of steam. “The year after, Mom officially got retired.”

The pilot watched the A-10 take a little breath and sigh. “I don't know what that means. I mean, shouldn't it be n-”

“NO, no, you retard, it's not 'nice'. I mean, you're just as likely to be bought by some obese ultralight kiddie. And flown once a year, tops.” The A-10 frowned at the pilot. “How'd you like it if your whatever just went 'oh, look, this body's getting a little old, best trade up to the next version'. Fuck.”

The pilot fell backwards on the bed. “I guess. Hey, I didn't get to talk to your, er, mom much.”

“Thank Browning,” the A-10 grumbled.

“Hm?”

“Yoooou don't know what she's like, do you? Oh ho ho,” the A-10 crowed, leaning over the pilot, feral grin back again. “I didn't think you would, you're too dull. Ten more seconds, she would've asked you to take her for a spin.”

“Wow, really? Fly an antique? That w-”

The A-10 unceremoniously flipped him off the bed. “MY MOM IS NOT AN ANTIQUE.”

The pilot landed with an 'oof', and just started to rise again as there was a knock on the hangar door. He stood and walked over, while the A-10 watched from the bed, worried. Pleasedon'tletitbemompleasedon'tletitbemonpleasedon'tletitbemom...

The pilot opened the door and was handed something, having a conversation with the person outside.

The A-10 was worried. It couldn't be anything good, it was too late in the day for that. Disciplinary action for scraping its paintwork? The A-10 looked down, where the (already-smudged) paint was drying. It didn't put the Mustang past that, it knew that its dad was fiercely overprotective. Maybe it was that maneuver the pilot pulled with the Mavericks? No, that was on the range. Did they want him to pay for the damage done to all the beds and his room? The A-10 didn't know how much pilots made, but it couldn't have been much.

The door closing interrupted its fretting, the A-10 jerking back to the real world and looking at the pilot, who was looking at the letter in his hand with an unreadable expression.

“W-what is it?”

The pilot held up a hand, shushing the A-10, which waited a whole two seconds before saying, “Let me see,” and climbing off the bed.

The pilot continued reading, still holding the hand out.

“Let me see it.” The A-10 stood in front of him, on tip-toes, worriedly trying to catch a look at the page, before advancing to tugging on the top of it.

“Hold on a sec, A-10.”

“But-”

“Shh, let me r-”

“GIVE ME THE MOTHERFUCKING PAPER,” it yelled, tugging it out of the pilot's hands. He let go at the last second, so the overexertion of force sent the A-10 staggering back a few centimeters, frowning at him angrily, before holding the paper up and reading it for itself.

It was a transferal notice. Not just for the pilot this time, but for both he and the A-10.

They were entering active service.

“YES,” the A-10 roared, bouncing up and down on the spot, clanking against the cement. “FFFFFFFFFFFUCKYES. I AM GOING TO RUIN REAL SHIT, NOW. HA HA! ALL THE SHIT.”

The pilot just watched, amused. The A-10 was probably going to be awake all night thinking about it, now.

“Active duty,” the A-10 hissed, turbines whirring. It abruptly swung around and grabbed the pilot by the shoulders, shaking him back and forth.

“Actiiiiiive duuuty! I get off this dusty-arse base! And you're coming with me!” The A-10 realized what it said and lost a little bit of momentum again. “I mean, er, a pilot's coming with me, I'm not just getting one assigned...yeah.”

“Whatever you say, A-10.”

The A-10 and pilot were in the air very early, the pilot glad for the A-10's internal climate control. The A-10 was still buzzing with excitement about the post. It was about half way into the journey when the pilot remembered the question he had meant to ask the night before.

“Have you ever re-fueled in midair before?”

“That's a fucking stupid question. Have you? My pilot's supposed to take care of that shit, not me.” The A-10 replied, cruising along at a blistering 700 km/h.

“Well, what if something happens to me? Shouldn't you know how?”

“Just admit you can't figure it out,” the A-10 replied, rolling in the air to fly on its back. “When were we supposed to meet up with it?”

The pilot and A-10 flew in silence for a few more minutes, before the A-10 said, “Oi, contact 350, 5,000 feet.”

The exchange was serendipitously interrupted by the radio system crackling into life. “This is KC-135 Stratotanker to who I presume is an A-10?.” The Stratotanker had a cheery baritone voice, with vague British inflection.

“A-10 to Stratotanker, you're correct,” the pilot replied. The pilot was surprised when the A-10 wrenched control away from him and started equalizing altitudes.

“Lining up...now...”

“I thought you said I had to figure out how,” the pilot mused.

“You'd fuck it up somehow,” the A-10 rejoined. “...wait, is it getting...?” The A-10 frowned. “Stratotanker, slow up. The fuck are you, speeding up?”

“You're going slowly!” the Stratotanker replied. “I'm at cruising speed. I'll slow down as much as I can, YOU speed up.”

The A-10 grumbled, speeding up. “Self-entitled jerk.”

The distance between the Stratotanker and A-10 lessened, the Stratotanker eventually coming within visual range. It was a large plane, of masculine build, not especially muscular, but with sturdy-looking bulk and two powerful engines on each wing.

“Are we going to get this done today, or...?” the Stratotanker inquired.

The A-10, going near maximum speed, pushed itself faster. “I AM TRYING. SLOW THE FUCK UP IF YOU WANT TO GET THIS OVER WITH.”

“What do you think I'm bloody well doing?” the Stratotanker eloquently replied, slowing up even more. “At this rate I'll stall.”

The A-10 and Stratotanker, the former visibly straining and the latter sporadically wobbling and speeding up, and slowing down, eventually got within 50m.

“DROP THE CONNECTY THING,” the A-10 shouted over the radio.

“Fine! FINE! It doesn't hurt to be polite, you know, Ps and Qs...” the Stratotanker mumbled, as the refueling boom slid out of its housing, extending down past its legs and landing wheels.

The A-10 engaged maximum overdrive, kicking its legs In an effort to gain an extra few precious km/h, boom tantalizingly out of reach...before a coordinated push from the A-10 and the Stratotanker slowing down brought it in reach. The A-10 grabbed on to it with both hands and hauled itself forwards in the air, causing the Stratotanker considerable understandable distress.

“BLIMEY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING BE CAREFUL, ARGH,” it responded, wobbling in the air and desperately trying to see what on Earth the A-10 was doing without capsizing. The A-10, for its part, mouth open in preparation (anticipation?) slowly advanced on the boom...before the Stratotanker suddenly slowed, ramming it home.

The A-10 responded by biting down on it.

“AH-AH OKAY, WATCH THE TEETH,” it said, clearly stressed.

The A-10 mumbled, “Amffgnubl,” around the thick boom, trying to connect it to the refueling aperture in its mouth, still hanging on with both