Goddess of the Sea (Goddess Summoning #1)(12)

Well, CC smiled to herself, civilian jobs didn't typically require their employees to travel periodically into war zones. Her smile tightened. She was good at her job, and she was well trained. And she believed in what she was doing. She didn't think of it as being a hero or particularly patriotic; she had simply chosen a career that gave her the opportunity to serve her country in a very visible way. And, she admitted to herself, she liked the adventure of the air force. There were always new people to meet and new places to go. CC thrived on change—she'd had enough stagnation in the first eighteen years of her small town life to last for the next fifty-eight.

She breathed deeply, trying to quiet her nerves. Actually, she realized that she was feeling more than the normal amount of her preflight jitters. Right now she'd rather face several members of the Taliban than a long airplane flight. Weird, she told herself, noting again the sick feeling in her stomach. Maybe she was having some kind of premonition of danger? Could she be ultranervous because her sixth sense was trying to tell her something?

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.