Leanna O’Regan sat on the rear bench inside the helicopter cabin, with both of her arms held on each side by young men in light grey uniforms.  She had an alarmed look on her face, seeing through the opened side door of the aircraft the churning white waves of the ocean around them and the huge column of steam rising from the center of the massive battleship.  They could feel the rattling vibration come from deep withing the ship, making the helicopter bounce on the landing pad it was resting on.  Leanna wanted to see more of what was going on outside, craning her neck to follow the twisting column of billowing water vapour, but some of her long black hair fell over her eyes.  She tried to move the tousled hair out of the way with her hand, but couldn’t reach up as the officers beside her tightened their grip with their arms linked into hers.  She looked down helplessly at her bare legs and bare feet, seeing that she had long since kicked off her running shoes.  She tried to flip her hair out her eyes by tossing her head, but it would just fall back over her eyes.
 
“C’mon guys!” she said in frustration, trying to loosen her arms.  She glared from between strands of her hair at the pale, blonde man beside her, and added, “Lucky!  Let go!”
 
Lucretius turned his head to look at her, saying, “You’re safer here with us.  The QuadriStar is in the Starburst configuration, and things are about to get really bumpy.”  He looked out towards the horizon, and turned even paler on seeing it drop and rotate.  He let go of Leanna’s arm and lurched towards the side door, leaning over to dry-heave onto the landing pad below, coughing and spitting.
 
Leanna took the opportunity to pull back her hair with her freed hand, and gave a sharp tug of her other arm to free it as well from the other officer.  “James!  What is going on?  It looks like the QuadriStar is rotating on the ocean surface.  And what’s with all the steam and waves?”
 
James didn’t try to take Leanna’s arm back, and instead stood up to survey the column of steam, following it up into the clear blue sky.  He could see that it was coalescing into a large grey cloud and was starting to block out the midday sun.  He looked down to see that Lucky was still buckled over, breathing heavily with a line of saliva running down his chin.  James twitched his nose a bit, and left Lucky to go to the cockpit to talk with the pilot.  He found the pilot trying to wipe up the vomit that Lucky had left there earlier, grimacing as he worked.
 
“Do we have a set of binoculars up hear I can use?” James asked, trying to breath through his mouth.
 
“No,” the pilot answered, “but can you get your buddy to come finish cleaning up his mess here?  It’s making me want to puke myself!”
 
James left the cockpit and saw that Lucky had gotten up and was sprawled on the bench beside Leanna, looking up at the cabin ceiling.  Leanna was trying to edge away from him, and stood up as James approached them.
 
“What is going on?  It looks like the QuadriStar is spinning around and shooting steam into the sky?” she asked him as he brushed past her to open cabinet doors around the cabin, looking for the binoculars.
 
“To be honest, I don’t really know, other than there are turbines underwater that are causing the ship to spin, and those vent towers contain air turbines, shooting super-heated steam generated by the battlestation’s nuclear reactor.  My guess is that the water around the ship is heated, too,” James answered absent-mindedly, focused on finding the binoculars.
 
“You shouldn’t really be telling her that, James,” Lucky said weakly, closing his eyes as the rumbling from the ship underneath them intensified, “That’s classified infor-“
 
“The pilot wants you to help him clean up your sick in the cockpit,” James interrupted him, and dropped down on his knees to look under the bench.  He saw the large tool chest stowed underneath, and started to pull it out.
 
“Now what’s happening?” Leanna, aksed sharply, pointing at the column of shooting steam.  Instead of white billowing clouds that twisting around each other into the darkening cloud above them, the steam from the raised vents turned a bright orange colour.  The orange drifted with the super-heated water vapor upwards into the cloud above the QuadriStar.
 
“I-, I don’t know,” James said, forgetting the tool chest to look at the bright orange clouds rise up to the sky, “Maybe a tracer of some kind?  This is only a drill, after all.  At least I think it’s a drill.”
 
“Hey, are you going to help me clean up here, or what?” the pilot called back to Lucky, who got up and swayed slightly as headed into the cockpit. 
 
The vibrations coming from the battleship were now lessening, and the orange-tinted steam was not billowing as thick anymore from the vent towers.  “Hey, Leanna, could you see if there is a pair of binoculars in that tool chest?  I want to get a closer look at that cloud the QuadriStar has created above us,” James said as he jumped down to the landing pad and walked over to the edge of the landing pad to look down the side of the hull to the ocean below.
 
Leanna sighed as she pulled on the tool chest, and was surprised by how heavy it was.  She was about to call Lucky over for help, but saw it was far enough out from under the bench that she could open it slightly and peer in.  What she saw from the opening made her gasp and she closed the lid quickly, looking over to the cockpit to see that Lucky had his back turned to her, and looking outside to see that James was still at the edge of the landing pad looking at the ocean below.  “It can’t be!” she said under her breath, and opened the case slightly to reach in and pull out a handful of gold coins, “The gold of Paraiso en la Tierra!  What’s it doing here?”  She hurriedly threw the coins back into the tool chest and pushed it back under the bench, just as James jumped back into the helicopter cabin.
 
“Did you find any binoculars?” James asked, noting that Leanna stood up quickly and sat almost protectively on the bench over the chest.
 
“Nope, just wrenches and other tools.  What did you see?” she asked non-chalantly, “Was there any of that orange stuff in the water, too?”
 
James sat down beside her, looking at her sideways, “Yeah, there was.  I’m pretty sure it’s a tracer chemical used to track water and air currents… and I’m thinking rainfall as well, judging by how it’s accumulating in that cloud above us.  I’m not sure why I’m telling you all this.  I’ve sworn allegiance to the QuadriStar project, and I’m not sure what you are, other than a trouble-maker.”  James reached over to grab her arm again, but Leanna pulled away.
 
“Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere,” Leanna said, involuntarily tapping her bare heel on the treasure chest she discovered underneath the bench they were sitting on.  “Besides, I’m seeing the QuadriSar in action now and I see it’s true purpose as a weapon of war,” she said angrily, pointing at the orange-tinted cloud and waves, “It will rain death on the SEA war shores and frontlines!”
 
*** This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. ***