THE ADVENTURES OF REX THE WONDER ENGINEER:

REX HAS A BAD DAY

Rex is asleep, drooling, snoring, dreaming about women, nitro-burning engines, etc., when some asshole slams the cockpit door. He awakes with a start, falls forward and bashes his lumpy head against the pneumatic panel. "Fuck!" He screams, "Ahhh! Goddammit!! What the fuck is wrong with you bastards! Can't a man get a few minutes of sleep? Shit!" Someone is leaning on the FE seat, rocking it back and forth, pissing him off even more. "Hey, dipshit! get the fuck away from my Goddamn seat!" He turns around, and it's Capt Bank, the third copilot, who has woken up from his little nap, and is ready to get in the seat; thats if the second copilot, Capt Frag, will get the fuck out. But Rex doesn't give a shit about this. There's 5 pilots on this fucked up channel cargo mission, one IP, one AC, and three fucking D level copilots. There's so many fucking boom operators that Rex didn't bother counting. He even has a flunky; a new engineer just mission ready last week, some homo C-5 puke, a slobbering dolt who is itching to get in the cockpit and do the panel. This is the first time in years that Rex has had another engineer along. They're augmented. Rex hates augmented shit. But anyway, back to the situation in the front end.....

Rex watches sullenly as the two numb-nuts copilots swap seats. The AC, Capt Beano, gives them an irritated glance as he tries to concentrate on his crossword puzzle. "Hey, will one of you guys go wake up the IP, I'm getting a little sleepy, and it's his turn to ride this seat..." Rex breaks in rudely. "Oh, yea, you fucking knob warriors are breaking my heart. Please stop. We've only been in the Goddamn sky for 90 minutes. Jesus Christ! You fuckers make all this noise, wake up the only mother fucker that does any work around here, shit-fire....what a bunch of bullshit. Hurry up and do your swapping crap so's I can get some rest."

While Rex continues to bitch about everything, the seat swaps are completed with much grunting, groaning, shifting of headsets, and much bumping and rocking of Rex's seat, which only gets him more fired up. Then SSgt Richie Fred, his helper boy, C-5 turd, manages to push through the crush of pilots and speak to Rex: "Hey, sir....do you need a break? I'm all rested and ready to go back here." Rex looks at the poor boy and sadly shakes his head. "Piss off, jizz-breath. I'll let you know. Get out." He rudely shoves Ritchie back into the cabin where he falls to the deck and Joe the Boomer accidently steps on one of his giant ears. Rex smiles as he hears the boy wailing.

Things start to settle down now, Rex has barked at the pilots again for forgetting to make their position reports, ops normal in the Pacific sky...........
The new on-duty copilot, Capt Bank, is looking through his new shiny logbook, that his wife got him for Christmas, and is tallying up his hours. Rex hands him his giant number calculator in case he has a problem. Capt Bank is pretty happy about the last thirty days.
"Wow" he blurts, "I got 27 hours last month. After this trip I should break 200 in the jet!"
Rex hates the term jet. "Hey, sky king, it's not a jet. It's a fucking airplane. Look Jet up in your dictionary, dumb-ass, it won't say Big Green Tanker. But thats really good, your hours I mean, Gee Sir, you might make AC before you make Major!"

The Copilot looks over at the IP, Capt Needles. The IP is reading Rex's new Hustler and is ignoring both of them. Good, Rex thinks, maybe this fucking copilot will pipe down so I can get some sleep. But it is not to be....
"Hey engineer", says the young dial tweaker, "How about you go over some systems with me? Say maybe the electrical system. I need to learn as much as I can on this trip."
Rex scratches his balls and sighs. Shit. This is going to be a long trip. "Okay, sir, I'll give you the pilot briefing on every system during the rest of the trip. Lets start with the electrical system. Ready?"
Capt Bank nods. "Affirmative. Go", trying to sound like a real jet jockey. Rex begins:
Alright. There's these things called generators on the engines. They make juice. The juice goes through a bunch of wires and makes your seat go up and down and back and forth. Next. Fuel. Theres a whole bunch of pipes and shit that have fuel in them. They take the gas from the tanks to the motors. The motors go bang and the airplane goes real fast. When you turn your little knob clockwise, the fuel goes in faster....." "OK, OK, stop, boys!" The IP has broken in, "We've missed another position report." Which is exactly what Rex had anticipated.
As the coplilot begins flailing, Rex unbelts and stands up. "I'm going to the back to give birth to a C-5 Engineer." He notices suddenly that there is no Boom Operator in the cockpit. Good fucking thing, he figures, the bastards are probably sleeping off the booze from Honolulu. Shitbags.

When Rex steps back into the cabin, he sees what is entertaining the Booms. A young mother is suckling her infant while Joe and his boys leer at the poor girl. Joe is drooling.
The bunks are full, as usual, and Ritchie Fred is looking at his flight manual, even though he came from C-5s, so he's not acually reading it, probably just looking at the pictures. Rex notices that he's looking in the landing gear section. Figures. Geek.
Rex completes his mission in the lavatory, walks out fanning the stench into the cabin with dramatic gestures, goes over to SSgt Fred and slaps him on the forehead. "Okay, weiner, you got it. There's too much bullshitting up there for me. Get your ass up there and don't fuck anything up. If something goes wrong, call me. Don't let the pilots touch anything. Watch'em like a hawk." I'm going to the bunk. Hey Joe! Quit yer staring and get me a Goddamn pillow and a blanket." "Fuck you, flight mechanic, get yer own", yells Joe, so that all the passengers can hear, "Anyway, the bunks are full, dip-shit."
Rex stomps back to his favorite bunk, reaches in, and pinches copilot number one, 1Lt Skippy Whitcomb, in the ass with his deployed Leatherman tool. "AAAHHHH!!" screams the wounded flyboy, and begins kicking and flailing around like a pissed off ape. "Get your sorry ass out of my bunk, El Tee. You been sleeping like a fucking wheel chock for 2 hours, so get the fuck UP!" Rex reaches into the bunk and grabs the boy by the neck and drags him out onto the floor. "Where's your oxygen mask, college boy? Hey, Joe! Numb-nuts back here ain't following the rules again. Shit. This fucking bunk stinks. What the hell have you been doing in here, son? Fuck. I'll have to let it air out now." The dishevelled and tearful officer slinks forward to the lavatory as Rex heads back to the ARO for a smoke. The giant airplane continues sailing through the sky towards Japan at Mach .87.

Meanwhile, Ritchie Fred, former professional C-5 Scanner, is experimenting with the fuel panel. He figures out that he can balance main tank fuel by using the crossfeeds; of course he forgets that #2 engine needs positive fuel pressure at all times. Even Rex has never fucked this up. Rex is stubbing out his cigarette when number two engine quits. The sudden trim change at the high speed, catches even the auto-pilot off guard; there is a pronounced pitch-up, then down as the IP panics and pushes the wheel; the auto-pilot disconnects and Rex's wild ride has begun.
As Rex floats up from the floor, he is astonished to see all of the crew's baggage, including 5 sets of golf club, rising from 13L, where they were dumped, but not tied down. One second later, Rex is pinned to the ceiling, along with the entire contents of the pallet; looking down, he sees the crew chief box top has opened and all kinds of dangerous shit is rising to the ceiling to join the little party. Rex knows he is fucked. This happened to him in the Tube once, and he damn-near got his head stove in by a case of wine.

When the pull comes, Rex curls up into a ball and closes his eyes. It's not a real bad pull, but 2 Gs is enough, and Rex, the bags, the golf clubs, three cases of Busch beer, and the Goddamn vacuum cleaner, and all of the other shit that came loose hits the floor in less than a second. Rex lands right on top of the ARO door, which has slammed shut, and crashes right fucking through, down the ladder,landing on the ARO floor, while crew bags and all kinds of other shit pile up on top of him.
When the violent oscillation finally stop, Rex is beaten to shit. He also has murder in his eyes. He painfully begins crawling towards the front of the cabin, until he notices that he's carrying a load in his shorts.
NEXT: REX GETS EVEN