P.C. Cast: Goddess of the Sea

Her stomach growled, startling her, then making her smile. No, it was more likely that her upset stomach had been caused by the fact that she had been in too much of a hurry to eat breakfast. She'd have to try and get something to eat on the plane. She laughed out loud. Now there was something really terrifying—airline food…

CC reminded herself of that while her stomach continued to roll nervously as she made her way across America. The layover in Baltimore was brief, and she had to scramble to catch her shuttle to the military charter, which was actually a huge commercial 747 stuffed with military personnel of varying ranks. CC stuck her face in a book and tried desperately to ignore the fact that they were hurling forward at an obscene rate of speed entirely too far above the earth.

The captain of the flight announced via the intercom that they would be landing at the air base in Italy in twenty minutes. He informed them proudly that the weather was a beautiful seventy-five degrees, with clear skies and a local time of almost 10:00 a.m., even though CC's internal clock insisted it was almost 2:00 a.m. instead. She ran her fingers through her tousled hair and rubbed her sand-filled eyes, wishing desperately that she could have relaxed enough to sleep during the long flight.

Just one more leg of this trip, she told herself. CC took the file that held her orders and her itinerary out of her carry-on. Yes, she'd remembered correctly. She had a little over an hour and a half layover in Italy. Unfortunately, it was not enough time to see any of the country, but it would give her time to grab something to eat and to change from the civilian clothes she had been traveling in, to the desert cammo fatigues that were the accepted uniform for the last leg of her trip on the C-130.

The thought of the military cargo plane made her shudder and almost forget that the plane she was on was landing, the second most dangerous time in a flight—takeoff being the most dangerous time. CC had flown in a C-130 twice before; both times had been extremely uncomfortable. C-130s were huge cargo transport vehicles with bigger-than-human sized propellers, no real passenger seats and rough, loud rides. That's why they were called C-130s. The C stood for cargo, which is what they were built to carry, not passengers.

CC thought that it would probably be a futile quest to try and find a nice bottle of chilled champagne at 10:00 a.m. anywhere on the air base within walking distance of the flight line, but she decided that as soon as she changed clothes she would make the attempt. Food could wait. Champagne should be a travel necessity.

"Sarg! Wake up, we're boarding now." A rotund master sergeant shook her shoulder.

CC looked blearily around and tried to remember where she was.

"Let's go—everyone else is already on board and we're closin' up the tail." The master sergeant continued. "Should be airborne in no time."

Reality caught up with CC, and she scrambled to follow the master sergeant out of the passenger waiting area and onto the flight line proper. She rubbed her fingers through her hair and struggled to wake up. She couldn't believe she'd fallen into such a deep sleep. Her mouth tasted stale and her mind was fuzzy, but she quickly pieced together the past hour and a half. She had changed out of her jeans and sweater into her desert fatigues, then she'd gone in search of libations. No, she hadn't found any champagne, just a semihot roast beef sandwich and a semicold beer. She guessed she should have never had that beer—it certainly hadn't agreed with her like champagne did.

And then all thoughts of food and drink scattered out of her head as she approached the C-130. The enormous plane crouched on the runway like a mutated insect. It was painted the typical military green, which did nothing to dispel its buglike appearance. Its opened tail end was facing her, and she could glimpse enough of the inside of the thing to see that it was crammed full of huge, plastic-draped pallets of cargo. CC mentally shook her head in disgust. It looked like some horrible bug that was getting ready to poop. The metallic sound of hydraulics being engaged clicked on, and CC watched the tail section begin to close.

The master sergeant motioned at her to catch up with him. "Don't worry about the butt end being closed. You can board through the door in the front."

He pointed to a tall, narrow open area in front of and below the left wing. Stairs were pulled down from somewhere within the plane, and it was just a few short steps up into the aircraft. CC walked a wide circle around the silent, evil-looking set of propellers that were on that side of the plane, all the while sending them nervous glances.

The master sergeant noticed her discomfort and laughed. "Hell, they can't hurt you when they're not turned on."

"But they are getting ready to be turned on, aren't they?" she responded.

"Right you are, Sarg. So you better get aboard." He took her elbow to steady her on the steps. "Watch your head," he added.

"Ouch!" Too late, CC thought, grabbing her forehead where she had smacked it into a ledge of low-hanging equipment that protruded from the ceiling just inside the entrance.

Rubbing her head, she turned to the right and stepped up into the cargo/passenger area of the plane. Her eyes were watering with pain, and she could already feel a knot swelling under her fingers. She sincerely wished she was better at cussing; this was certainly the proper time to let loose with several choice words.

"Well, that's a darn stupid place to put a—" CC stopped and blushed furiously.

Six male faces were turned in her direction. They belonged to men clad in traditional sand-colored desert-issue flight suits. Each man wore the same distinctive patches and wings that clearly identified him as an F-16 Viper pilot.

"Hey, Sleeping Beauty," called out one of the pilots, a young lieutenant with a face that looked like it should have been on the cover of an air force recruiting poster. "Nice of you to wake up and join us."

CC felt her blush deepen. She was exhausted. Her face was greasy. She had sleep-head hair, and she was wearing desert cammos that on the best of days made her look about twelve years old. Needless to say, that moment was far from the best of days. Her eyes were bloodshot and her breath had to smell like the bottom of a birdcage. And she had just walked into a whole group of handsome fighter pilots after smacking herself on the head like an idiot right in front of them. Not to mention she was inside of a plane that was getting ready to take off.

She was probably in hell.

"Ignore him Sergeant…" said a colonel with just enough gray in his thick hair to make him look dignified. He hesitated as he read her nametag. "… Sergeant Canady. He's just pissed because he doesn't look as cute as you do when he sleeps."

"Yeah," a lanky-looking captain added. "He drools."

That got a laugh from the group, and CC hurried into the cargo bay, settling into the first seat that was available. She stowed her carry-on under her feet and busied herself with securely fastening her seat belt, which was the same red color as her fold-down seat and the meshed webbing that served as a backrest. CC wondered, as she did each time she flew in a C-130, why the seats and webbing were all bright red, when everything else about the plane was either military green or metallic gray. It made her feel vaguely uncomfortable, as did the open view of aircraft equipment and pipes and wires and such. At least civilian airplanes had all the "stuff covered by smooth, white walls. Here the guts of the plane were showing.

Lashed to the floor at intervals of about six feet were the pallets of cargo CC had caught sight of from outside the plane. They filled the body of the cargo bay. Hesitantly, CC let her eyes travel to the other occupied seats, and she breathed a sigh of relief when she realized that she could only see three of the six pilots. The cargo blocked her view of the others. CC sighed. As usual the plane was outfitted with little thought to human comfort. Hers appeared to be the last available seat—the rest were either folded up or already occupied. A young captain was seated a little way to her right. He was listening to a CD through headphones, and he had his head propped comfortably back on a pillow, but nodded a brief hello to her. Across from her and about three folded seats to the left she could see the colonel, who was obviously the pilots' ranking officer. He was deep in a discussion with someone sitting to his right, but CC couldn't see him because a stack of plastic-covered equipment blocked her view.