Blondie- A Jake 'Hangman' Seresin fanfiction

Chapter 14

"Ughh, I hate aircraft carriers," Lainey groaned, stowing her bags in the bottom bunk closest to her.

"Why do you work for the navy?" Phoenix pointed out.

"Okay, I don't hate aircraft carriers. I'm quite fond of aircraft carriers. I hate the bunks on aircraft carriers."

"Just because you'd rather share with Coyote..." Phoenix grinned, adding when Lainey made noises of protest, "C'mon, everyone knows you banged when you got home from the Hard Deck last night. You practically did it right there in the corner of the bar."

"Alright, so I did fuck him, and it was great," Lainey announced dramatically. "Come on, Georgie, we promised we'd meet everyone in the ready room in ten minutes."

"You guys go ahead without me, I have something I have to do first," Georgie insisted.

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"Where's Georgie?" Jake asked.

Lainey shrugged. "She said she had something she had to do."

"Who wants dealing in?" Payback asked, shuffling a deck of cards.

Ten minutes later, Georgie came barrelling into the room, slightly out of breath. "Bob!" she called.

Bob looked up, a worried expression on his face, fidgeting with his cards.

"I went to check which maintenance crew we were assigned, only it took me ages because one of the ladders was blocked so I had to go all the way around and then I ran into dad and I got distracted but anyway-" she gasped- "Danny is here."

"He is?"

"Yeah, come on!" she marched over, grabbed his hand, and pulled him out of his seat and out of the door.

She came back, alone, two minutes later, a big smile on her face.

"Are you going to tell us what this is about now?" Phoenix demanded.

"Oh, yeah, of course, sorry." She sat down in the seat Bob had vacated, took a deep breath, and began.

"So Danny Ortiz was on the maintenance crew for the Screaming Eagles, right? And he was going out with this civilian bloke called Alex, only they hated each other, they were always having massive screaming rows and stuff, but Danny always refused to break up with Alex. And him and Bob both had massive crushes on each other but Danny and Alex didn't break up until the day before Bob left to come back to Top Gun. Anyway, when I left them, they were hugging and stuff, so I'm hopeful that Danny has finally come to his senses and realised what a catch Bob is."

"You just can't help yourself, can you?" Phoenix said in disbelief. "Everywhere you go. Remember that time you set Merlin and Harvard up on that date and it went horribly?"

"I'm not making it up!" Georgie insisted. "You should have seen them together. Danny used to call Bob handsome and he'd go so red. We'd run into him in the morning and he'd be like, 'Hey, Blondie. Hey, handsome'. Took Bob five minutes longer to go through pre-flight."

"I can't imagine Bob getting flustered over a cute guy," Fanboy laughed.

"I hope he's not gonna go to pieces if we fly that mission tomorrow," Phoenix worried.

"He won't go to pieces," Georgie assured her. "All it means is that Danny will pay extra attention to your jet."

"Well, in that case, I have no complaints."

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"Now, it's time for Captain Mitchell to pick the pilots who will fly the mission," Admiral Haines announced. "Captain?"

They stood in orderly rows, facing the front. A few of those around her looked nervous, but Georgie felt pretty calm- she knew that there was no way she would be selected for the mission, not after crashing so recently- and she didn't think that Jake had performed well enough in the practice exercise to be selected either. He was better suited to a more action-packed task than taking photographs from several thousand feet in the air.

"Payback and Fanboy. Phoenix and Bob. And the mission leader: Mars. Rooster will be in reserve."

The pilots broke formation, congratulating those who had been selected. Georgie went over to talk to Phoenix and Lainey. "You guys know what you've got to do, right?" she asked.

"Of course," Lainey replied. "Gatekeep, gaslight, girlboss, right Nat?"

"Those cameras aren't gonna know what's hit 'em," Phoenix agreed.

"Alright, go show those boys how it's done," Georgie smiled, fistbumping them both.

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Back in the ready room, listening to the mission on the radio, Georgie was slightly more on edge than she had been, knowing her two best friends were in enemy airspace.

"It's going to be fine," Jake assured both her and Coyote. "Trust me. It's going to be so routine it'll be boring."

"Approaching target site now," Lainey announced. "Bob, Fanboy, have those cameras ready."

"We're still clear on radar, Mars," Phoenix reported.

"Alright, we're clear to start taking those photographs. Let's get this done and get outta here, this place is giving me the creeps."

"It appears to be abandoned entirely," Payback explained for the benefit of the commanders on the bridge.

"I just got something on radar," Lainey said suddenly, after they had circled for several minutes. "Are you done with those pictures?"

"All done," Bob reported, and Fanboy said the same.

"Alright, reverse course. Let's get back to the carrier and hope they haven't noticed us."

"Radar blips are confirmed to be enemy aircraft, heading 345 mark 7," a voice reported from the bridge.

"They're not heading toward us," Lainey deduced, "But let's stay on the safe side. Increase speed to 350 knots."

"Increasing speed," Phoenix reported.

"Increasing speed," Payback echoed.