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a few years, Gunner,” the commander said. “Lieutenant Commander Lloyd Wiebe, by the way.”
    “My training consisted of ‘Here’s how you hook up a harness. Here’s how you run the hoist. Here’s how you hook up a basket. Good luck, hope you survive,’” Olga said, chuckling. She stepped out of the way of the swinging basket and let it touch the ground and ground out before pulling it over and waving the next woman in. “I was a model before the Plague. Long story. Sorry, long story, sir . Still not totally up on that.”
    “I’d wondered about the civilian ship,” the commander said, frowning. “ Is this U.S. Navy?”
    “Sort of,” Olga said. “And yes, sir. Controlling legal authority and all that. But it’s about half civilian and it’s been pick-up ball the whole time. You’ll get the full story later, sir. Right now, next customer . . .”
    * * *
    “Kind of bouncing around, there,” Wiebe said, looking at the slack cable dancing on the ground as they hooked up the first harness lift.
    “You can tell when Sophia’s on the controls,” Olga replied, tugging on the cable above the slack. The slack came out and the survivor’s feet came off the ground relatively smoothly. “Sorry, sir, that would be Ensign Smith. She’s still learning. And Captain Wilkes was a Sea Cobra pilot from the Iwo . We use whoever and whatever we find, sir. Best anyone can do these days.”
    “Well, as long as we’re getting the job done,” Wiebe said.
    “Just a matter of finding the people to get it done,” Olga said, shrugging. “Only a few thousand of us, still. And we just sent a bunch to the Pacific.”
    “What is the mission?” Wiebe asked. “Besides general rescue? Or is that it?”
    “Right now, get Blount Island up and going,” Olga said. “As a support base on the mainland. Then do clearance and rescue ops on this base. We’re really hurting for helo personnel so we’re hoping to find some here. We’re hoping to be able to get this base cleared and under control. We’ll see if that’s possible. After that, up to LantFleet. And you’ll get the story of who LantFleet is and why when you get to the boat, sir. This isn’t the pre-Plague Navy . . .”
    * * *
    The gigantic helicopter was capable of lifting all the survivors on the rooftop. It just took awhile. Finally, the last survivor, Commander Wiebe, was loaded and Olga followed.
    “All the chicks are in the nest,” Yu said over the intercom.
    “Roger,” Captain Wilkes said. “Copilot’s controls. Return to the Boadicea .”
    “Roger,” Sophia said as she wrapped her hands around the cyclic and collective. At a pointed nudge on her shoulder from the direction of the engineer’s seat, she repeated the call. “Copilot’s controls.”
    “Co’s controls,” Wilkes reconfirmed, amusement in his tone.
    Sophia eased forward on the cyclic, bringing the aircraft’s nose down, and simultaneously added collective, which resulted in a powered forward climb. You could, technically, go straight up if you had to do so. But with this amount of weight on board, there was a real possibility of asking more from the aircraft than it was able to give. When power demand exceeded power available, the bird would descend, and that could be catastrophic. That was just one of the reasons why taking off from the Grace Tan could be so nerve-wracking.
    “More survivors, Tang,” Olga commed. “I can see some people up on houses in the base housing area and a few over by the airfield on a building.”
    “Roger, Legs,” Captain Wilkes said. “We’ll get to them later. We’re gonna be here a while.”
    The hop to the liner was short and Sophia slowed as she approached from astern. The Boadicea was swung more or less into the wind. But only more or less. Sophia looked at the flag as a telltale, and decided to approach from port and attempt to align with the pad once she was in a hover.
    She managed to put it down on the platform, but the helo was at an