Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread III

Part 121, Chapter 2030
Chapter Two Thousand Thirty



22nd November 1970

Berlin-Brandenburg International

“You remember how to signal if you want me to stop maneuvers?” Ben asked as he taxied the Black Knight towards the runway. “And don’t be afraid to use those bags we gave you.”

“Yeah” Zella replied. She and Yuri had worked with the crew to fit a few cameras into the cockpit. It was something that made Ben doubt that she fully understood what this involved.

The Crew Chief had been less than thrilled by the prospect of Ben taking Zella on this flight. Threatening to go home for the day if Zella got sick and spewed all over the cockpit, leaving Ben to clean up the mess himself. He had tried to warn Zella against this course of action, apparently though, she still had a lot of friends among the Luftwaffe High Command who had fond memories of her father. It seemed like at the OKL, whatever Marcella Markgräfin von Holz wanted, she tended to get.

Ben blamed Spark, who had earned that nickname after a hydraulic failure on his Pfeil had resulted in a wheels-up landing a few years earlier sent him skidding down the runway at Tegel, for this. He had put the idea into Zella’s head that she needed to have the experience of being in the cockpit to get the feel of what it was like.

Parking on the threshold, Ben looked at Zella in one of the mirrors as he tightened the oxygen mask around his face and lowered the visor. He had made sure that she was squared away back there as best he could, but he had the nagging feeling that Kiki would be furious if she knew what was about to happen.

“Ready?” Ben asked.

“Get on with it, Benjamin” Zella replied.

As was the practice, this started with the sort of take-off they would do if Berlin were under attack and there was a scramble. The Orkan launched down the runway from a standing start reaching takeoff speed in seconds at full throttle and reheat. As the plane launched itself into the sky, the only time Ben had experienced harder acceleration had involved being launched into orbit. Leveling off at six-thousand meters, Ben could tell that Zella was far from chastened.

“That was fucking awesome!” Zella exclaimed, “You made it sound like…”

Zella was cut off by Ben suddenly rolling the Orkan hard into a turn. She had no idea that this was just the beginning.



Rio Gallegos, Argentina

The sun hadn’t come up yet, but Kiki was sitting in Mess Hall working on the day’s paperwork while drinking sludge coffee. It had been another difficult night with her first having a dream set in some weird version of the Eighteenth Century watching as Ben and Freddy were dualist intent on killing one another. Kiki had retained her medical knowledge and had understood exactly what those old fashioned black-powder pistols could do to the human body. As she had begged them to stop, she had been roundly ignored. After she had woken from that one, it had taken her a considerable amount of time to get back to sleep. The next dream had been worse though she couldn’t remember any of the details. Just the lingering feeling that she had become a stranger to herself.

“Frau Oberfeldarzt” Kiki heard a voice say.

“How can I help you Herr Schmitz?” Kiki asked.

“You can’t, not at this moment” Schmitz replied as he took an orange from the basket at the end of the counter. “I think you are the one who needs help though.”

“The cheese stands alone” Kiki replied, as if that said everything.

Schmitz was something of a legend in the Medical Service. Having started out as an Enlisted Army Medic in the Soviet War and serving in every conflict since. He was credited with personally saving thousands of lives and had a reputation of being absolutely fearless. He had a wound badge in gold to go along with his other medals to prove that he had not always gotten out of every situation unscathed. As a Stabsfeldwebel-Lieutenant, which had roughly the authority of a Hauptmann, Schmitz was one of a handful of Warrant Officers in the Medical Service and he was presently managing the day-to-day operations of the non-hospital portion of the Regiment. Kiki seldom saw him because he preferred to work on the overnight shift.

“That is what comes of being the one charged with enforcing the rules” Schmitz said, “And as I am sure you are aware, being the XO is not a popularity contest.”

“I get that” Kiki replied.

“Look on the bright side Ma’am” Schmitz said, “You aren’t having to field complaints about that Argentine Surgeon they stuck us with, that one is a regular Lothario.”

“I’m surprised by that” Kiki replied, “If any of the Nurses had a problem then the individual responsible would be dealt with, harshly. They all know I take these matters seriously.”

“It’s not the problem” Schmitz said as he peeled the orange, “The Doctors and Corpsmen are finding it hard to compete with this guy.”

Kiki felt the stirrings of what she hoped would not be another migraine. The last thing she needed was drama among the Staff. “Anything else I need to be aware of?” She asked fearing the answer.

“The Marine who was brought in yesterday evening is symptomatic for hepatitis” Schmitz said, “We are waiting for the lab to get back, but I’ve seen this a million times.”

Kiki’s day had hardly started, and it was already going bad.
 
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"It was at this moment Zella knew she Fucked up"
I've had to quote this post for two reasons.
1) I can only like it once.
2) It represents perfection with regards to timing, brevity and reference.
My hat, were I wearing one, would be off to you right now.
 
“The Marine who was brought in yesterday evening is symptomatic for hepatitis” Schmitz said, “We are waiting for the lab to get back, but I’ve seen this a million times.”
Why do I get the feeling this isn't just Hepititis...
And will she discover the transmission vectors in time to prevent a major outbreak?
 
The reason the crew chief was upset about Ben giving Zella a ride with the potential for a massive clean up afterwards is because the plane belongs to him and he just lets Ben fly it, at least that how it works in the US military.
 
I've had to quote this post for two reasons.
1) I can only like it once.
2) It represents perfection with regards to timing, brevity and reference.
My hat, were I wearing one, would be off to you right now.
Thanks! Well it was between that post or finding a small video of the plane bit in space cowboys, where the lad comes out after being in a biplane very much worse for wear
 
The reason the crew chief was upset about Ben giving Zella a ride with the potential for a massive clean up afterwards is because the plane belongs to him and he just lets Ben fly it, at least that how it works in the US military.

I think all ground crews are like that.
For good reasons. They spend hours taking care of the aircraft, making sure all the widgets, gizmos and thingamajigs all work the way they're supposed to. And then the fly-boys show up, take their baby from their tender care and do God knows what with her. And then the fly boys come back and the cycle starts again. Ships engineers are the same, the captain gets to stand on the bridge looking pretty, while the engineer just hopes they won't break their ship.
 
What plane is the Focke-Wulf FD121 based on?
The Dassault Mirage F1 is probably closest.

Mirage-F1-Draken.jpg
 
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Part 121, Chapter 2031
Chapter Two Thousand Thirty-One



27th November 1970

Mitte, Berlin

Zella had never been so humiliated in her life.

The video recording of her ride aboard Ben’s jet fighter was being broadcast on all the ARD affiliates as part of the Friday Evening Newscast. Sitting on the couch in her parent’s house, she listened as they laughed at the expressions on Zella’s face, the part they could see anyway, as Ben had thrown the airplane into a violent series of maneuvers. Then it caught the part where she ripped the oxygen mask off her face and threw up into one of the paper bags that had been provided to her for exactly that purpose. That was when Ben had leveled off and had spoken to her briefly, asking how she was doing in the flight so far. He had waited until she had gotten a sip of water and had secured the oxygen mask back over her mouth and nose before he had punched the throttle. What happened next… That was where it got really bad.

“They really do fly those airplanes low, don’t they” Zella’s father observed as one of the cameras aboard the plane captured sheep on the hill above as they had streaked through the valley. She remembered that part well, it was forever burned into her memory. Clutching the armrests, petrified as the landscape rushed by in a blur. There had been another plane flying in close formation and she had been too terrified to notice. It had been from the rear seat of that other plane that one of the regular Weapons Systems Operators had recorded some great external shots. The final insult came when Zella had climbed out of the cockpit and walked from the flight line to the hangers. There had been dozens of Pilots and WSOs waiting for her. The off-color jokes they had made…

“It looks like you earned a bit of respect with that crowd” Emil said as Zella wished she could fall through the couch and the floor below into oblivion.

Mercifully, the program went back to the interviews and additional footage that Zella had recorded with Yuri over the prior two weeks. The whole story had been a lot of fun, right up until she had found herself in over her head. Heaving her guts out aboard an airplane had been one of the worst moments of her career and that was saying something.

“Did you earn one of those nicknames?” Walter asked from the armchair, “Perhaps Ralph or Chuck.”

“Don’t be rude to your sister, Val” Maria said, “She went to great lengths to get that story.”

Zella was a bit annoyed by that. “Whatever became of cover the story, don’t make yourself a part of it?” She asked.

“Marcella, I can see how that doesn’t always work with your preferred medium” Maria said, “You took it and found a way to make it work for you, mostly getting good results.”

“Unless I manage to make myself the butt of someone’s joke” Zella muttered.

“That is always a risk you take” Emil said, “It’s not like you convinced a high-ranking Officer, my Executive Officer, that there was a chance that he could get a roll in the hay if he helped you get past security.”

“Emil!” Maria exclaimed.

“That also happened to be the same night I met your mother” Emil said.

Zella and Walter had heard the story about how their parents had met, with Maria following a story onto an Airfield where Emil had commanded the Security Force. They had just never heard this new detail before.



Rural Santa Cruz Province

It was either leave Rio Gallegos or else end up on murder charges. There was no middle ground this time. Oberstarzt Havelka had reacted to news that a confirmed case of Hepatitis A had turned up in the Marine Barracks in predictable fashion. In the crowded Military Barracks in and around Rio Gallegos, any communicable disease spread like wildfire. So, first had come the draconian measures carried out on the Marine Infantry as they had been quarantined. Something that was incredibly difficult to do. Then as the week had worn on, the Staff in the 34th Medical Services Regiment had been next. Once again Kiki had found herself having to enforce unpopular edicts as isolating suspected cases and testing of the personnel.

At no time had Kiki been around any one of the suspected cases, but she had been informed by Havelka that she would need to submit a blood sample to be tested. Unfortunately, Kiki knew full well that the testing wouldn’t stop there. Too many people in the Regiment saw whatever issues she had as a form of entertainment and this was a chance that she did not figure they would be able to help themselves from letting it pass. So, she had left a vial containing her blood on his desk five minutes before she left for Estancia la Lolita. The lab results would be several days old by the time she got back and by then the Staff would have gotten over whatever fun they had been having in the meantime. Kiki would hear the results and not be inclined to shoot someone immediately afterwards.

Looking out of the Iltis she was riding in at the rolling hills that eventually rose into the Andes, Kiki considered the mission ahead. Continuing the work that she had been doing in the small villages and sheep stations. Father Lehmann had stayed behind this time. He had said that there were matters in Rio Gallegos that needed to be dealt with, but he had assured her that Doctor Guevara was very capable of taking his place.

The four men from Kiki’s security detail rounded out their party, though she didn’t think that there would be any problems on this mission. She had been very welcome wherever she had gone in Patagonia with people understanding that she really was there to help.
 
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PNWKing

Banned
"Ernesto", who is a bit of a libertine and dabbled in radical politics. Hmmm, who could this be? One question: Did he still lose his virginity on a kitchen table ITTL?
 
Zella had never been so humiliated in her life.

The video recording of her ride aboard Ben’s jet fighter was being broadcast on all the ARD affiliates as part of the Friday Evening Newscast. Sitting on the couch in her parent’s house, she listened as they laughed at the expressions on Zella’s face, the part they could see anyway, as Ben had thrown the airplane into a violent series of maneuvers. Then it caught the part where she ripped the oxygen mask off her face and threw up into one of the paper bags that had been provided to her for exactly that purpose. That was when Ben had leveled off and had spoken to her briefly, asking how she was doing in the flight so far. He had waited until she had gotten a sip of water and had secured the oxygen mask back over her mouth and nose before he had punched the throttle. What happened next… That was where it got really bad.
Poor Zella, but Ben had warned her. Speaking of, I think Ben finally got to enjoy a well served and extremely cold dish of revenge.
“Did you earn one of those nicknames?” Walter asked from the armchair, “Perhaps Ralph or Chuck.”
With the differences in the global cultural makeup, would Ralph or Chuck be used outside the US to refer to such incidents?
Don’t be rude to your sister, Val” Maria said, “She went to great lengths to get that story.”

Zella was a bit annoyed by that. “Whatever became of cover the story, don’t make yourself a part of it?” She asked.

“Marcella, I can see how that doesn’t always work with your preferred medium” Maria said, “You took it and found a way to make it work for you, mostly getting good results.”
Finally. I was wondering when Maria would a) realise that that TV journalism tends to put the reporter into the story, despite their best efforts, and b) actually admit that to Zella.
“That is always a risk you take” Emil said, “It’s not like you convinced a high-ranking Officer, my Executive Officer, that there was a chance that he could get a roll in the hay if he helped you get past security.”

“Emil!” Maria exclaimed.

“That also happened to be the same night I met your mother” Emil said.

Zella and Walter had heard the story about how their parents had met, with Maria following a story onto an Airfield where Emil had commanded the Security Force. They had just never heard this new detail before.
Walter might be the best one to bring up the hypocrisy that Maria has, on occasion, exhibited towards Zella re: their respective careers.
The four men from Kiki’s security detail rounded out their party, though she didn’t think that there would be any problems on this mission. She had been very welcome wherever she had gone in Patagonia with people understanding that she really was there to help.
Oh shit.

For some reason, I'm getting the impression that the Demon Murphy might be making an appearance in Patagonia.
 
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