CHAPTER 15 - ORANGE TEAM

Flight 101 took all of Punky’s energy and time. The class of 28 students was divided into seven flight crews. Each flight crew rotated the positions of Pilot, Mission Commander, Chief Engineer, and Coal Shoveler. After a training flight was completed you could always tell what position each student had held. Coal shovelers were almost entirely black and sometimes the only white you could see on them was the whites of their eyes. The Pilot was always pumped and bouncing around like someone who had consumed a quart of jumpy juice with two jolts of zing. The Chief Engineer was always wet from the boilers and usually greasy. The better the Chief Engineer did the job the wetter and greasier the student was. The Mission Commander, who was responsible for completing the overall objective of the flight lesson and for keeping an eye on the big picture was usually shattered, a jumble of nerves, and frequently needed a change of underwear.

Pilots were notoriously focused people as were engineers. Chaos, madness, or death could be standing next to them, but their duties required unwavering focus on dials, gauges, horizon line, rate of descent, and stuff like that. The coal shoveler was up in the windowless engineering section and frankly was oblivious to everything except feeding the ever hungry maw of the boilers.

The poor Mission Commander saw everything. Like the trees that almost took off an engine nacelle, or the replica of the Eifel tower they missed by a few meters, sometimes the mountain looming up suddenly from the cloud cover. Keeping a crew from getting hopelessly lost was a another responsibility as well as ensuring that they returned home with a smidgen of fuel left and in time for dinner.

Six student instructors from the fourth year at the Academy of Balloons assisted Punky as flight instructors. The student instructors were sharp and knew their stuff and without them the program could not work. Punky took the worst performing team as her own in order to give that team as much attention and support as possible.

Punky had completed six hours of flight with the Orange Team in Old T12 ‘Poofer” by late afternoon. The Orange Team was a mismatched group and most of their problems arose from personality issues, communications problems, and simple distrust of one another.

That day the pilot had been Paxford Lint, a very tall young man who stuttered and frequently washed his hands. In the pilots seat he could not get to the wash basin so he had cleverly brought two packages of handi wipes. Shows initiative, thought Punky. Paxford was a sweet kid thought Punky. Paxford just needed to relax and enjoy flight.

Washrox, who in violation of some basic rule had no first name, was also nice but troubled. Something bad had happened in her past and she would not talk about it. Under pressure, like when pipes began to dangerously leak on both engines simultaneously she would freeze unable to decide which one to fix first. Since the engines were constantly leaking she was often frozen in indecision. She had been assigned to engineering on this flight. Punky knew of several techniques for resolving this issue and she had a plan already formulated to help Washrox.

Fraley Farnsworth came from a blue blood family and had all the advantages of a blue blood childhood including attending the exclusive Choke preparatory academy. Usually graduation from one of the ‘Seven Brothers’ academies was an automatic disqualification for the Academy of Balloons. But the Superintendent was trying to cast a broad net and respond to new social pressures within Second Life. Fraley was arrogant, insulting, full of herself, and felt that she deserved to fly even if she was so lazy as to completely ignore her studies and assignments. On this day she had been coal shoveler. They had almost broken the speed record for slow progress and although they had arrived back at the Aerodrome in time for dinner, they arrived with a record amount of fuel remaining in the bunkers. Punky had observed that Fraley had slept leaning on her shovel for most of the flight. Sleeping standing up was not easy and Punky knew that only blue bloods were really good at it.

The last student, who was Mission Commander on this flight was Normal Bellini. Normal was anything but normal. In addition she was a Goth vampire but belonged to the reformed wing of the Goths. The Academy of Ballons was outreaching to minorities and to the oppressed majority as well, and Normal had entered the program under ‘special considerations.’ What those considerations were Punky was unsure, but she did notice that Normal always wore sunscreen when about in the daylight. SPF 2000 the tube said that had fallen from her rucksack on the day they first met in the hanger.

Good kids all, thought Punky, who was still practically a kid herself.

The flight had been uneventful and Punky had refrained from little sabotage tricks to test their readiness. Too early for that she thought. So Punky had not fiddled with the compass, or loosened some steam pipes, and had even made sure that the coal loaders balanced the weight of the fuel. That would all come later.

Old T12, the ‘Poofer’ was as familiar to Punky as old undies. Poofer had been old when Punky as a student had been assigned to a team which spent hundreds and hundreds of hours in her cocoon like surroundings. Poofer even had her own unique smell, which was hard to describe, but which was something like cumin and carrots.

What Punky had not known, was that two years before her first flight on the Poofer, there had been an accident and a fifty five gallon drum of cumin carrot soup had been spilled in the gondola during a humanitarian flight to the Sim of Pondicherry. They had tried to wash it out but the smell had stuck.

The Poofer was on its last legs and at the end of this year she was going to the breakers. She was safe, but her design was very old and obsolete. Poofer was simply too expensive to maintain. Punky felt Poofer was a good training blimp because her infrastructure was constantly failing. The constant stream of emergencies and crisis made the crew work as one and learn to improvise in their collective terror, and fear of flaming death from the 80,000 cubic feet of hydrogen hanging just a few feet above their heads.

They were approaching the aerodrome at a slow rate of about four knots into still air from about 200 meters altitude. The yellow windsock hung limply below them. Paxford had used the last of the handi wipes and was anxious to get on the ground, but he was managing his phobia well, and the descent was almost textbook perfect. Fraley had stopped shoveling an hour ago, but that was fine. Landing with too much steam pressure was always a bad idea. Just enough steam pressure to recover from a bad approach and then try again was about all that was desired at this point in the flight plan.

Normal was huddled over the navigation station and was busily writing the flight report. Normal looked up at Punky and then at Washrox who was wiping her hands on a wet towel. Washrox was preparing the landing line and was fumbling in a locker looking for the grappling hook. Normal had forgotten something thought Punky.

Punky returned her attention to the approach and to their soft landing. The sun was setting in the west and it would be dark in a few moments. A night landing with a green crew could be tricky and Punky was glad they were almost down and docked. On the tarmac below Punky could see the six training hangars and on the port side in the distance the four larger hangers which housed five Blimps of the Line for the Blue Ocean Navy.

Punky was considering dinner when a bright flash filled the starboard windows of the gondola. The brilliant light was coming from the one of the hangars where the Blimps of the Line were housed. The Poofer shuddered and pitched hard to starboard. Paxford did a decent job of righting the ship as Punky shielded her eyes and strained to see what was happening. Then a second brilliant flash was followed by another violent buffeting of the Poofer.

Punky dashed to the empty co-pilots seat and yelled ‘Everyone above, I need steam and I need it now, now now.’ Paxford got up and ran to the ladder and was gone in a flash. Washrox did not move. Punky was struggling to keep the ship under control when a third and fourth explosion punctuated the night. Finally Washrox moved.

Punky spun the UP&DOWN wheel viciously and the ship began to rise. Punky reached for the red ballast dump handle and pulled hard. The Poofer dropped 1200 pounds of sand onto the tarmac and the waiting landing crew below. The Poofer rose swiftly and just in time. For immediately below the Poofer the training blimp hangers began to blow. It was like a line of fireworks set off by a malignant child. The Aerodrome field was ablaze and the Poofer rose higher and faster among climbing flames and flying debris.

Punky knew if she didn’t get some more altitude fast they would all be toast- burnt incinerated toast. The ship buffeted first to port and then to starboard. The nose pitched up at a dangerous angle as hanger number 4 blew. Above Punky could hear swearing and the sound of someone thrown hard against a bulkhead. “More steam,” shouted Punky as she pulled into a climb. The engines roared so loudly that Punky doubted that the Orange Team could hear her. But the steam pressure suddenly rose and the scream of the engines increased in volume. The light below them flickered at they reached 1000 meters and pulled wide of the landing area. Punky banked the Poofer, throttled back the engines and began a slow turn around the field giving the dying fires a wide berth.

The devastation was complete. The entire fleet stationed at the Academy of Balloons was gone. It was no accident Punky knew. The blimp hangers were too widely spaced to allow a single fire to destroy the fleet. No this was deliberate. There were undoubtedly casualties below. The fires had been to hot, too large, and too fast to allow anyone to escape.

Washrox and Paxford came sliding down the ladder and paused at a portside window. Normal followed a few moments later. They stood transfixed by the flaming aerodrome below. Punky could hear Fraley furiously shoveling above in the engineering section.

Washrox said the word first. “Sabotage,” Washrox said. “Sabotage.”

“Who could have done this?” asked Paxford.

“Loopy Loo,” whispered Punky between clenched teeth. “Loopy Loo.”