NOTE: This is derived from the "Swept Away" RP continuity which started in 2007 and has continued in various forms and spinoffs ever since, first on the old Hillbilly Hell forum and presently in Wingnut City. I'm sure it's not the first or only "Humans in the Carsverse" thing that ever came up. So what?
Disclaimer: I don't own nuttin' here with the exception of my own OC's. All things canon in the Cars/Planes 'verse are the property of Disney/Pixar.
We are each described as "a set of parts flying in loose formation, looking for a place to crash."
We are, collectively and individually, open provocations to the laws of physics, and the elements, and once in a while, they get their own back on us, in ways that are (more often than not) spectacular and fatal.
We cannot afford the luxuries of denial, or lack of knowledge.
We aren't valued for our talents in music, but our blades still sing "the song of our people."
We are... helicopters
The cruise ship reported engine trouble at 1830 hours, started taking on water two hours after that, and by morning had developed a 15-degree list to port while adrift in 30-foot seas off the California coast. Coast guard vessels and helicopters were dispatched, but the helos would get there first, surveying the scene and reporting back on the general conditions and the state of the ship and passengers. Then, once the rescue vessels arrived, they would do the hard work of evacuating passengers and all but the most essential crew members to lighten the ship's load and start getting her into a condition safe enough to be taken in tow back to the mainland.
There were two helicopters in the thick of the rescue efforts in the blustery grey gloom of that morning - each an HH-65 Dolphin, each female, and working hard to transfer passengers - mostly cars and the odd pitty - to the cutters and several civilian vessels who were also rendering assistance. At a distance, the two 'copter women looked alike, of the same model and identical in their service livery, but prolonged observation would reveal subtle differences.
One had a delicate, dish-faced profile with a long muzzle, the other was slightly roman-nosed with sharper features. One had eyes the color of seafoam that darkened to teal at the edge of the iris, the other had eyes the shade of copper, hinting at a "champagne" pigment dilution gene modifying her natural color, hidden by the paint. The HH-65 with the seafoam eyes looked to be lighter and thinner than her workmate by some six hundred pounds, to a point that made some suspect she was anorexic, or at least borderlining that way. How could one so skinny do a full day's work? More than one vehicle in her sling looked up anxiously as she throttled up and prepared to lift. How can she support my weight? Yet, she shouldered the load, and many more to come, until another team of helos came to relieve them.
Over the radio, they were directed to land on the heliport of the largest cutter, Capt. Neil Charters by name. Capt. Charters was in command of the whole operation, knew both of the young women, liked their work ethic and was sure that they would go far in the ranks if they played their cards right. He wasn't about to send them back to their posting at the Los Angeles station without getting some rest and a meal first. The two helos now stood on his flight deck, heads down and slightly shaky, while pitty NCO's looked them over, checked their frames and engines, rubbed them down with shammy pads and brought warm, oil-rich linseed mash for them to eat. Applecane pulp and cinnamon had been added to this pottage, to pick up appetites that might otherwise be depressed by sheer exhaustion. The pitties brought extras, supplements and some meds to the thinner one, and with some persuasion, managed to get them down her throat before she finally settled down on a mat to join her teamate in sleep.
This rescue operation had been but the latest in what had turned out to be a very hard season for the "Coasties" of California. Scarcely three days before, they had been dispatched on a search for a missing boat - that, unfortunately, hadn't ended well for the one in question. Before that, they had to lift a suddenly-ill camper off of a remote island and up until then had responded to many more calls, in between ongoing training exercises and sundry errand runs. The coming month promised more of the same, but the two helo women were now mercifully dead to the world under their fitted waterproof blankets as the cutter finally turned and headed for home, once the cruise ship could be left to the tugs.
As Capt. Charters neared shore, the scent blowing off the coast spoke of sage, pines and flowers. The two helos on his flight deck stirred, and then their eyes opened. The copper-eyed one, Lt-Cmdr. Bree LeVasseur, raised her head off the mat and sniffed. That was about as much as she felt she could stir; every other part of her was stiff and sore. She heard a groan from beside her, and looked over to see the seafoam-green eyes of Lt. Juno Desmarais, who had been in the same cadet division when they had been at the Academy, but almost always one rank behind since graduation. "Juno? Are you feeling as nearly-dead as I am?"
"I'm feeling almost "undead", but without the cool factor of looking like a zombie." Juno snarked back.
"Too bad we couldn't do that last Halloween." Bree shifted on her mat - and winced. "You were still posted in Chicago, I was taking RMT's out to a small yacht who thought small craft warnings are for sissies. Dan was some ticked off, he spent half the night flying to some trawler only to find that their EPIRB had been triggered accidentally and they had no idea until Dan was hovering overhead and looking really, really annoyed."
Juno snorted at the mention of the HH-60 Jayhawk who served at the Los Angeles air station with them. "I've seen his "annoyed" face, I really don't wanna see him angry for real." She finally hauled herself up, groaning, as one of the NCO's rolled up with tines full of fuel cans and a few other things. "Good morning, ladies." he nodded politely, "We should be in LA by 0700 and you can fly back from there." He set a prepared can before each. "Still a bit sore?"
"Yeah." Bree gritted her teeth as she rose and flexed. She caught the scent of liniment in the pitty's other supplies. The relief would be welcome, but it would be slightly embarrassing to touch down at the air station reeking of peppermint-laced camphor. "But we still have to be ready to do it all again tonight." She shrugged resignedly, and winced again before dropping her head to consume her fuel ration. While she and Juno were doing that, the CPO pulled off the blankets, poured some liniment onto shammy pads and began to work on them, flexing landing gear joints and working the stuff into their airframes. He did one last check of engines and rotors and then stood back. "Contact the flight deck officer when ready."
But, even before that, a message came Bree's way, directly from Capt. Charters by radio. "LeVasseur, your station commander wants to see you and Desmarais as soon as you land. Flight deck's ready to see you off."
"Roger." Bree answered with a sigh. What did the good Commander Brightwire want now? She turned to Juno. "Well, that FNG who's now in charge of us just put the kibosh on stopping at Rivera's on the way back. The double-thick shakes are gonna have to wait."
"Bulls***" muttered Juno.
"Yeah, I agree." Bree made a face, but added in more hushed tones, "But try not to show him the new words you learned from the humans at Ash Mountain. It'll just confuse him, and we already know THAT doesn't take much."
Juno's eyes darted about momentarily, checking that the crew were out of earshot before she spoke. "If we're still reeking when we see him, too bad."
Lt. - Cmdr Dan Crosby, having heard the HH-65 blades doppler in, sighed with a certain thinly-veiled wistfulness as he watched Juno waiting her turn above the heliport where Bree was touching down. Hitting on anyone within the same chain of command was, to put it mildly, strongly discouraged, but just in case they ever landed in separate commands... well, a man could dream, couldn't he? Might as well lay the groundwork now...
The air station wasn't known for its landscaping, but there were California roses growing wild just beyond the fence that marked the station's boundaries; the Jayhawk slipped around the barrier (another act very much frowned upon) and rubbed his cheeks against the shrub, augmenting the scent of healthy male late-twentysomething helicopter with a light floral scent. Among 'copter-kind, it was the male sex who instinctively adorned themselves with attractive smells, much to the distress of airport landscapers and any owners of aromatic plants, who had to guard their shrubbery from the inadvertantly destructive behavior of rotorcraft men seeking female favor.
Once on the ground, the HH-65 pair moved off to report to the station commander, whilst muttering a few things about desk jockeys, perfumed princes REMFs, pogues and their sundry conceits. The Jayhawk carefully positioned himself just so, not too close as the women rolled by, but not too far that the lovely Juno, the slender she of the dish face and eyes of light sea-green, couldn't catch the augmentations to his scent. They neared, and passed... and then Dan reeled as the Great Wave of Liniment stung his nose, and he despaired that Juno would be completely unable to appreciate the subtleties of his rose-enhanced self with her own olfactories too full of strong unguents.
Finally, he managed to spit out some words. "That bad a night, huh?"
"It was." Juno stifled a yawn as she kept pace with Bree. Had she looked back, she would have seen the Jayhawk slinking back to his hangar in a most depressed state.
"Dan's still sweet on you." Bree smirked as they passed into the station's administrative section.
"Now Bree, you already know I don't date boys." "Boys", by Juno's definition, were apparently defined as "males below the age of thirty-five." "Even if he wasn't in the chain of command."
"Sure you do," Bree teased. "Rich Brazilian fiftyish playBOYs."
"Hey, Angelo was a blast while he was here." Juno grinned. "It was worth it getting all Day-Kote'd up to hit the clubs with him. Sure that stuff flakes and itches after a few hours, but it was nice not to have half the joint giving me the stinkeye because they blame the Coast Guard for interfering with their "recreational pharmaceutical" shipments. I couldn't care less if they get stoned off their tires anyway."
Bree considered a response about the waste and folly of putting paint over paint, especially a temporary cosmetic coating notorious for itching and triggering allergies, but they were already at the double doors of the hangar-sized building that served as the station's conference room. No doubt Brightwire would keep them waiting, as he always did. Officious little runt. Never spent a day at sea, just kissing sterns, tails and bumpers, in whatever order they present themselves. Wants to be an admiral when he grows up. Chrysler, that'll be the day.
True to form, the helos spent fifteen minutes cooling their treads in the conference hall before "His Nibs" deigned to show himself. Cmdr. Brightwire was one of the upper-class bureaucrat/technocrat stamp of the pitty race, looking at the women over his newly-acquired computerized specs as he entered the hall. "Lt-Commander LeVasseur, Lt. Desmarais, good morning." he intoned as he took his place on the opposite side of the low table. "I hope you rested well after last night. Captain Charters has relayed his commendations for you both. That will bode well for your permanent records."
"Thank you, Commander." Bree smiled blandly, presenting a facade that was like unto polished marble - pleasant to see, but opaque. That was one subtlety she had learned well from her mother.
Juno's response was accentuated by a slight cocking of the head, as if to obscure the corner of her mouth that couldn't quite shed its smirk. Her eyes, though lowered, flashed small specks of deviltry in the beams from the skylights. If Juno had been born in a family, rather than out of a seedcore in a factory matrix, she might have had attentive parents to impart more of the social niceties to her. If she was almost always one rank behind her old classmate, her rough edges came in for a good share of the blame.
Brightwire steepled his immaculate, nickel-plated tines. "Now, the reason I've called you both in today is that we in the Coast Guard are currently undertaking a greater outreach towards local and regional search-and-rescue services, not only in the U.S., but in the rest of the world," he peered over his glasses one more time. "And networking will be an essential aspect of that plan..." Juno cocked her head further and made an effort to straighten her mouth. Oh Brightie, the 90's called. They want their buzzwords back! " "...as well as a practical demonstration and sharing of skills and capabilities. Admiral Seafort himself has requested a short list of candidates from which delegates will ultimately be selected for an international SAR conference to be held at Piston Peak National Park. Only our best will do for this task, and I am proud to say that I have recommended the two of you for inclusion on that list." He smiled with the satisfaction of an officer on the command track who'd just gotten some warm fuzzies from the higher-ups. "I know you'll have questions. Documents will be forwarded to you both at the conclusion of this meeting."
"Thank you, sir." Bree maintained her Wall of Pleasant Opacity, saying as little as would satisfy Brightwire that he was being listened to. It was by no means a sure thing, but she and Juno were already considering the implications of a inland trip, miles away from their regular post. Bree was no stranger to it, dividing her leave time between her family in Texas and a fiancee in Colorado. Before that, she'd spent a couple of years on arctic sea patrols. Juno herself had been posted on the Great Lakes until the last winter. L.A. was something of a "candy" posting, and considered one of the pipelines to bigger things. But by the same token, it was also closer to the admirals, with the ever-present possibility of attracting their complete and undivided attention for reasons that could be good or bad.
"Do you have any questions?" Brightwire asked, though it was only rote formality with him.
"I think you've given us all the information we need, commander." Bree, reading Juno, spoke up for both of them. Juno was prudent enough, but why tempt her flippant side to show itself? "In the event that we are chosen, you can be sure that conference will see nothing but the best of us." And reflect well on a certain commander, of course. She felt a yawn coming up, and stifled it carefully.
"I'm sure that will be the case." Brightwire nodded. "You won't be on standby again until 1800 tonight, but I'll wrap this up anyway. Good day, ladies." Juno was on the fine line between looking her superior in the eye and keeping her lip from twitching too visibly. Yeah, whatever, you've got honchos to schmooze and butts to kiss and names to drop. We understand. WE UNDERSTAND. The two helos backed off decorously, back through the doors. After they were safely back in the operative section of the air station, Juno finally let loose with a derisive snort, "I wonder what that man does for fun after a full day of, you know, sucking up to brass and dusting off his I Love Me wall?"
"I think you just said it." Bree finally let out that yawn. "He must be a real joy at family reunions." Conceited bastard, her father would have called him. Guy LeVasseur, a veteran of the French Army and alpine rescue, had little tolerance for perfumed princes. Of course his mouth had played a large part in the Eurocopter agency's home office encouraging his move to America, and a semi-arranged marriage to the daughter of the head of the American branch of the Dauphin line. Perhaps they were all hoping that the resulting offspring would have their sire's physical prowess and drive and their dam's more mellow temperament. Just as well HE wasn't here right now.
"Well," Juno curled her lip, "I don't wanna think any more about old kiss-ass today. If we hurry, we can beat the lunch rush at Rivera's. I know there's a shake with my name on it."