I never could get used to preflight.

It’s not just the electrodes, the catheter, or the defibrillator built into the flight-suit. It’s not the intravenous tap, the stimulant megadoses, or even the neurospike that makes it such a hateful thing.

It’s the G-force cushioning.

Have you ever been rescued from drowning?

Ever had internal bleeding?

Ever had frostbite?

If you’ve ever experienced all three at once, you know what I’m talking about.

If not, imagine you’re choking, and feel a creeping coldness spread through your body. Not just through your veins, but through internal spaces you didn’t even know you had.

Now imagine that happens suddenly, traumatically, every day. And you’ve got a rectal thermometer up your arse to make things worse.

That’s sort of what it feels like to have your lungs and body cavities filled with hyperoxygenated fluid so that you can survive 35-G maneuvers in a tungsten deathtrap bolted to a fusion candle.

It’s a job, though. And I get to blow the crap out of alien invaders.