[75—USCG Helios]

The Lieutenant let me stay on until April first, by which time my Troop had graduated anyway.  She explained that Central Casting, as she called the Orders & Assignments Office, didn't care so much about when orders were carried out, as long as it eventually happened.  We weren't the Army, after all.

We spent the last week setting up the camp just so, so that the next Troop, probably 423, could come in, spend one night here, and move it all to another location. 

By that time, I was happy to climb aboard the US Coast Guard Cutter Helios, the airship permanently on loan to the Peace Corps.

It was a fifteen hundred mile flight to Guatemala, with one stop about halfway in Jamaica.  Each leg was twelve-and-a-half-hours long.

Chibani was coming with me, and Jared, and all three of the Spiner sisters.  There were a few others from the Troop, but none from my squad.  I saw Christy Forbes while I was boarding.

I could tell it was gonna be a fun ride.

***

A twelve-and-a-half hour flight is too long by at least eleven hours.  It was a good thing we didn't have to stay in our seats the whole time, or I'd have gone mad.

They started us out in the rear gallery, which is very much like an airliner, with rows of uncomfy seats, but with my favorite detractor on board, I decided to stay out of harm's way. 

Helios was enormous, many times larger than the Mickey Mouse.  The gondolas weren't particularly large, but envelope was at least two-hundred-and-fifty feet long and probably fifty in girth.  The Ophiuchus was the only thing I'd ever seen bigger, personal and up-close. 

It was disconcerting, looking at our shadow as the ground slowly receded; my mind couldn't handle something that large hanging over my head.  The people shrunk to ant-sized, standing around their Match-box bus and ambulance, and still our shadow covered the whole scene.

I decided to leave the gallery and go exploring.

Aft, there were two cabins, and a ladder going up to the gas bags, and down to the hold.  Beyond that, there was a small dining room in the back, with an arched rear wall with floor to ceiling windows.  White cloths and formal-ware set the tables, but it was all abandoned right now.

I went forward, into the fore gallery.  It was much wider up here, with an aisle about eight feet wide with a six-by-ten cargo elevator in the floor and rows of seats, like in the after gallery.

Forward that, there was a bulkhead and a short hallway.  There were unisex heads on either side and a galley and sick bay.  There was another ladder, going both directions, and a door behind it, that lead to the cockpit.

I went down the ladder and found myself in an identical hallway, except that there was only one door, leading forward to the gun room.

That sounded intriguing.

I knocked.

"Come," a metallic twangy voice said, "if you dare."

I tried the handle and found it unlocked.

Inside there was a cramped room, not irregular, but shaped like a pentagon with two curving walls that met at the prow of the ship.  Both of those walls were crammed with equipment, arranged on two levels.  It was all very complicated looking.

"Watch your step," a little man said.  He looked like someone out of Wonderland.  He was short, even shorter than me, but stocky too.  I wouldn't quite call him a dwarf, but he was shrunken along the 'tall' axis.

He wore a damp summer dress uniform, which is white, shorts and short-sleeved, but his cap looked entirely too big.  I looked him over.

He was a Lieutenant, and had been for more than two years, and some sort of engineer.  He had a badge with an airship on it, and two quite impressive rows of medals. 

His name was Vanderbilt, and he was maybe thirty-two, and Caucasian, with broad cheeks and pale skin with freckles.  His hair was brown and limp and, like his uniform, had surrendered its structure to the unbearable humidity.

The floor was lower in here; I climbed down a little metal ladder to get to it.

"Can I help you," he asked.

"I'm Dani..."I offered my hand but he stood there, oblivious of it.  "Third Class Heywood."

"Can I help you," he repeated, but turned back to his bank of screens and dials, and creepy glowing eyeballs.

"Why does the sign say gunroom?"

"Now there's a question."

"Yes," I assured him.  "Yes, it was."

I waited for a few seconds.

"But you didn't answer it."

"Gimme a sec," he said and flipped a few switches with his left hand while keying a microphone with his right.  "Transferring ballast...done."

He turned back to me.

"This used to be the gunroom."

"Why would a paratroop ship have a gunroom."

"More tradition than anything else.  But it did house a turret gun.  Under the steps."

I looked behind me and could see that the stairs formed a hatch to a dark space beneath.

"Not there anymore; they took the whole turret, but it'd be a great place to put a telescope."

"Why," I asked him.  "It would point away from the sky."

"For looking out below.  And keeping an eye on the other guy."  He reached out and patted a spar to which his bench was anchored.  "She used to be a warship, once.  Just like the original."

"Original?"

"Yes, this is the third Coast Guard Cutter with the name Helios.  She was launched in 1956, but she probably doesn't look like any airship you've seen, am I right?"

"Yes, now that you mention it, but I couldn't say why."

"Good eye, there.  She started life as the Argentine Air Force's Gallo, but was sold into scrap in 1966, mostly because of budget cuts. 

"But she wasn't destroyed.  Instead, some cartel refit her for smuggling operations.  You'd be surprised how few people notice something this big.

"She was taken a prize in 1968, in US airspace.  She was sold at the blocks, and the Coast Guard bought her."

The floor shifted again, but he rolled with it.  I had to grab onto the hatch to keep my footing.

"But she's different; her beauty was her downfall.  See, the Army, Air Force, and Navy all standardized their designs even before the Great War, so anything built in the US after 1925 or so doesn't fit into the supply net developed to support military dirigibles and consequently fleet operations. 

"So, they loaned her to us, since we only occasionally use her and the impact on the supply chain in negligible.  Staying in the Latin world, it won't be a problem to find fuel and spares."

I tried to imagine the size of an illegal operation needing a platoon carrier, but failed.  What could they possibly use it for?

"So what do you do in here?"

"Keep an eye on all the vital signs.  I'm the Flight Engineer.  All this is my domain." 

And all the psychoses too? 

"All the cabin crew are Coast Guard, but the rest of us are Peace Corps.  I'm also the senior PC officer present."

A red light began to flash and then another.  He turned, just as the airship banked and spilled himself ass-over-teakettle into the starboard hull.

Did he just roll uphill?

Against all reason, he was up from his boneless fall and had already started making adjustments to a miniature TV tube displaying a waveform.  He pushed a round black button with his other hand and then flipped some of a row of toggle switches that ended in a big blade switch. 

His concentration was still on the scope; his right hand seemed to have a mind of its own.

"Maybe I should be going," I said, opening the door.

"No don't," he said, and pulled the switch.  There was a flash and an audible pop.

The lights went out, first in the gunroom, and then the hall and cargo hold.  A dark hatchway above, and groans from the other passengers told me something was amiss up there too.

"Sorry," he said and I heard him fumbling around.  "I get so few visitors down here; I'll have this on in a jiffy."

I heard someone coming down the gangway and saw a light.

"Ga-a-ang whye."

A youngish woman in her twenties slid down the ladder and came through the door.  She was wearing dungarees and a headlamp.  I couldn't see her nametag.

"Ah Polly," the Lieutenant said to her.  "My savior.  Shine your light on Circuit Breaker Panel B."

"Now which one is that?"

She had the drawl and slow-paced 'I ain't in no hurry' speech from the Gulf Coast, but not so far west as New Orleans, nor so far east as Pensacola.

She kinda himmed-and-hawed, with her hands in her pockets like she was square-dancing by herself.  Finally, she focused her head-lamp—possibly the only bright thing ever to radiate from her head—to the spot were Ltn. Vanderbilt had been pointing at, gesturing to, and was now giving her colorful verbal instructions about how to find.

"Good," he said and gave her a thumbs up.  "Now keep it there."

He took a tool from his impressive Bat-belt and quickly had the panel off. 

Our friend Polly may have the loose gate required to walk about on an airship, but she couldn't hold her light steady worth a damn.

"Gimme that," I said, snatching it from her head. 

I fiddled with the focus, shining a light on an interesting fact:  Polly's last name was Killdare, as attested to by a nametag over the pocket on her left ass cheek.

Dungareees are designed to fit only accidentally, but she had gotten that fit only with tailoring.  Hers had probably been taken in across the hips, giving a snug cut that suggested at a posterior that most men, and no few women, would find irresistible.

I held the lamp like a flashlight and kept it on Ltn. Vanderbilt's work.   He banged around for a bit and began changing out some part, cursing under his breath the entire time.

Another person appeared at the door with a big metal flashlight.

"How long till you get the lights fixed," A man's voice asked.

"It will be done when it's done, which is about three more minutes, plus an additional two every time you interrupt me."

"What'm I s'posed to tell the Cap'n?"

"Tell him five minutes," Vanderbilt said, his voice the very model of irritation. 

"By the time you get back," he added under his breath, "I'll be two minutes done." 

In a louder voice, he said "now off you go."

The man worked his way slowly up the ladder and the Lieutenant went back to work.  Within the minute he flipped the switch again and the lights came back on.

[CONTINUED]