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The symptoms started slowly. At first, it was the deep tickle of a cough deep in his throat that Maru couldn’t shake whenever he started his engine. Then there was the lack of energy that was so bad that he couldn’t help but wonder if he was getting bad spark. If there had been another mechanic on staff, Maru would have pulled him aside to have them take a peek under the hood. Unfortunately, the tug had been working solo for three years now, and there was no way, outside of an actual emergency at least, that he would trust one of the smokejumpers with his engines. (It wasn’t that he didn’t love the ground pounders, he had just seen the product of too many of their first-aid attempts).
So, Maru waited, powering through his symptoms and hoping that whatever compound in his engine that was threatening to fail would hold out until the end of the fire season when the mechanic could head into town and get it fixed without worrying that not being on base could lead to someone’s death. In the meantime, he drank a ridiculous amount of coffee and tried to get more sleep. But no matter how hard he tried to hide his symptoms, he couldn’t hide the dark circles that were forming under his eyes. Most of the members around the base were polite enough not to mention anything, assuming that their mechanic was staying up at night to work on a side project, but that didn’t stop them from giving him looks of concern.
“Are you okay?” Blade finally pulled him aside and asked in a rare, quiet afternoon on base.
“Just due for a filter change.” Maru lied with practiced grace. It was true that a badly clogged filter could explain many of his symptoms, but it wouldn’t have lead to the flecks of metal that had started to show up in his oil two weeks ago.
“I am sure that one of the smokejumpers would be willing to help you swap them out.”
“Oh, I am sure they would,” Maru scoffed, “but you would trust one of those gravel munches in your engine.” The helitanker shifted uncomfortably under the mechanic’s gaze for a few long moments. “That is what I thought. Blade, listen, I’ve got everything under control here. Why don’t you go study for your IC test or go bug the Chief or something.”
“If you’re sure…” The helicopter was giving him a look that screamed that he was about ready to start hovering.
“I’m sure.” Maru gave a wave of his tine. “Now, shoo, I have things to get done, and you are blocking all of my good light.”
Maru stayed near his work bench and pretended to work until he was sure that his long-time friend had parked himself inside one of the base hangers. Then, when the coast was clear, the tug headed into his spare equipment bay. Closing the door to his sanctuary, Maru leaned into the wall, trying to calm the exhausted tremors that were wracking his frame.
The mechanic actually managed to hide the majority of symptoms for over a month and a half. Gradually Maru was able to come up with strategies to combat the energy-sapping exhaustion, as well as find the right balance of lubricants to take the edge off of the worst of the constant, frame-deep ache. As long as there wasn’t a major emergency, the tug was pretty sure that he was going to be able to meter his engine power enough to make it to the end of the season.
Of course, that was the moment that everything decided to hit the fan.
“Cabbie, I need you to give me an update.” Maru practically shouted over the cargo plane’s private radio as he tried to pull every part he thought he might need to deal with the situation. “All I caught was that one of the jumpers had a partial shoot failure.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t have much more information for you at the moment.” Cabbie practically bit out. “From the chatter, it seems like one of the jumpers may have gotten their parachute caught. The Chief is trying to get Zipper on the horn while the tankers are laying down retardant to give the jumpers some breathing room…and that explains a lot.”
“What explains a lot!?” Maru was doing his best not to full-out scream into the radio. “Cabbie, don’t you dare leave me hanging like that.”
“Hold your horsepower. I am still listening to the report.” Cabbie then paused for what felt like a short eternity. “Okay, here is what we got. Zipper chute caught a tree on the way down and he landed hard. Full extent of the injuries are not yet known but we do know that he is unconscious and that something in his drive train is royally screwed up because the other gravel munchers can’t budge him. They are currently trying to create a clearing so Windlifter can make an emergency airlift.”
“Roger that, do we have an ETA on extraction?” Maru asked as he shoved a tine full of tools on the workspace and went to grab the Skycrane’s equipment.
“Nope, but I can tell you that Windlifter has been pulled off the fire and is heading back to base to suit up. I say again, Windlifter is inbound. Make sure that you have the harness ready for him.”
All things considered, the smokejumper’s team leader was in pretty decent shape. Yes, Zipper had one slag of a concussion and had completely snapped one of his axles in half, but Maru was able to get him patched enough to serve his concussion watch under the watchful eye of fellow jumpers. This allowed Maru to finally call it a night.
Stifling a yawn, he rolled into his private quarters in the mechanic’s bay. Stretching, he tried to put his tine on why he was feeling so bad. He settled onto his sleeping mat, hoping a few hours of sleep might lessen his symptoms. Then the coughing began, and he realized that he had put off being repaired for far too long. His timing belt had snapped, and he was losing all power. It was only a matter of time before all of his systems would start shutting down. He needed to get help, and he needed to do it now.
…Unfortunately, Maru didn’t even make it off his sleeping mat before passing out…
No one said anything when Maru didn’t come to breakfast. They knew that he had pulled a late night making emergency repairs on Zipper. But when the mechanic also failed to check up on his patient and to show up to lunch, the Chief sent Blade to go check up on the missing tug…then all slag broke loose.
Maru’s brain wasn’t fully engaging, so he was having a hard time tracking what everyone was say. That said, he had help to organize enough medivac lifts to know what was going on…and he felt completely sick about it.
Wakefulness returned to Maru slowly. There was an unfamiliar mat beneath his tires and the discomfort from his engine was gone, for a few long moments the mechanic assumed that he had simply drifted from one dream to another. When he finally dredged up enough energy to open up his eyes, he realized he was in a white room with kitschy paintings on the wall. There was only one place that he knew that had such tacky tastes in décor…which meant that he was sitting in one of the two recovery rooms at small Piston Peak clinic. With that realization, Maru couldn’t stifle a groan. The Superintendent was going to kill him for taking up a space that was supposed to be reserved for park visitors.
Unfortunately, the sound caused Maru’s situation to go from bad to worse because it alerted the other vehicle in the room to the fact that the mechanic was awake. With frightening speed, Maru was being stared down by a pissed-looking Rockwell Commander.
“Are you trying to be the first ground pounder to get yourself put on my wall?” The Chief’s voice was low and all Maru could do was swallow hard in response. “Because from my perspective, it sure seemed like you were trying.”
“I wasn’t…”
“Then what were you trying to do?” The aircraft pushed, clearly unwilling to drop this line of discussion. “You couldn’t what; take an evening off to get your engine checked out? It would be one thing if this snuck up on you, but from what the clinic staff told me, you must have been dealing with misfires for at least two months. You knew that you were not fit for duty, and you put every single person on base in danger because of that.”
“I got my job done.” The mechanic tried to quietly defend himself.
“And what would have happened if your timing belt had snapped while you were in the middle of making an emergency repair?”
“It didn’t.”
“But it could have. If it would have happened just three or four hours earlier there is a very real possibility that we could have lost Zipper.”
“But it didn’t.” Frustrated, Maru finally looked the Chief straight in the eyes. “Listen, I know that I made a mistake, but I was the only mechanic on base and an honestly thought I could make it to the end of the season…and I don’t know what else you want me to say…”
“Telling me you will not do that again would be a good start.” The Commander said after a short pause. “We have enough cowboys on our team who try to play martyr on a regular basis that we can’t afford to medic play that game too.”
“I am sorry…”
“Good.” The Commander said, not leaving any more room for discussion. “When you are cleared to come back to base I expect that you do your upmost to prove that I can still trust you to get your job done, because if you ever pull a stunt like that again, I promise you that I will send you aft packing faster than you can count to 10. Am I understood?”
“Yes, sir.” Maru replied and the plane did a slight dip of his wings in response as he headed out of the recovery room door. The aircraft was soon replaced by a concerned looking orderly.
“You okay?” She asked as she glanced over the tug’s readings.
“Just peachy.” Maru spat back.
“If you say so.” The orderly shrugged as she started the first of a laundry list of tests.
When Maru was finally discharged the following day, he kind of assuming that he was going to make the hike up to the base, but the clinic staff directed him towards the air strip. Sitting on the apron among the tourists and corporate jets was a familiar pair of tails.
“You get all checked out?” Cabbie asked, and when Maru nodded, he popped open his back hatch.
The ride back to base was a relatively quiet one…or at least as quite as a journey between the thunder of two massive piston engines could be. Cabbie spoke the bare minimum with the tower that the takeoff procedures require. Once they were in the air neither Maru or the plane spoke for a good ten minutes. Finally, the tug got fed up with stewing in his own silence.
“Aren’t you going to chew me out?” The mechanic muttered bitterly.
“Wouldn’t that be a bit like the pot calling the kettle black?”
Maru actually chuckled at that. “True, true, but that didn’t stop the Chief from doing that yesterday.”
“Well, that is his job, and you had everyone pretty worried.” The plane’s words helped to put the previous day’s lecture into context. The mechanic was so used to spending all of his time worrying about everyone else, he kind of had a hard time processing the fact worry might go two ways.
“Sorry about that...” He mumbled.
“Don’t worry about it.” Cabbie said, and Maru could feel a slight rocking motion as the plane shrugged its wings.
“But I was such a fracking idiot!”
“Every member of the crew has something equally stupid at some point in the career. As long as you learn from it and don’t repeat it, no one will hold it against you.” Cabbie spoke softly at first, then Maru could swear that big plane broke into a grin. “They’ll take great pleasure in razz your aft about it, but don’t have to worry about everyone second guessing you.”
“In this case, I really think that I deserve whatever they dish out.”
“Glad you realize that. Now the real question is, do you feel ready to face everyone?”
“I think…yeah, I think I am.” Maru admitted thoughtfully.
“Good to hear, because I think everyone on base is wondering why I keep circling base.” The humor was clear in the old warplanes voice, as he clearly adjusted his tack for landing. As they came in for landing Maru relaxed, a bit. Regardless of any mistakes he may make Piston Peak Air Attack Base was clearly his home and there was no reason to run from it…though he was grateful for Cabbie to make sure that he returned on his own terms.
“Thanks for that.” Maru gave the inside of the cargo bay a soft pat. “But I think I am done avoiding things for a little while.”