The adventures of the young engineer and Prinz Eugen Volume 2.

Adventure No.8 "Freedoms" Chapter 1

The engineer had curled up on the rear bleacher close to the door. He tried to find some sleep but the roar of the engines kept him awake. They sounded far different from the engines he was used to. Their fast beats had nothing in common with diesel or oil fired engines. The rocking of the vessel he had gotten used to by now. But the freezing cold got to him despite his insulated jumpsuit. He turned on the small bleacher and looked into the room. His accelerated and short breaths ensured that he felt light headed and even the turn on his other side caused nausea to the engineer. "Looks like things ain't suiting you navy boy." One of the gunners laughed. "Can't blame ya though. Long trips at such heights without an oxygen mask or training are quite the ordeal." He added. "Don't worry boy. It's just a couple more hours until we land." The gunner assured the engineer. The latter nodded meekly before looking further down the compartment. The cruiser was still looking out the glass covered window. She was practically glued to it for most of their transition towards the Eagle Union. For almost three days now the two had been flying over the Pacific. The Sakura Empire had provided them with a flight on one of their long distance flying boats. They flew the first two skips from Kure to the Island of Ogasawara. There they refueled and made their way to Guam. On the Eagle Union territory the two were left in the care of the naval aviation force that set the two into one of their large four engined planes that flew them from Guam to Wake Island. There they were transitioned to another long range patrol aircraft that had made their trip over the center of the Pacific Ocean towards Honolulu in Hawaii within a couple of hours. From there they made their last flight in another armed transport that flew straight to San Diego. The engineer and Prinz Eugen had never flown before and both were quite excited at the prospect of doing so. They were informed that flights over the fast Pacific were safer than travel by ship due to the large spaces and lack of a concentrated and permanent Siren activity. The peaceful ocean proved to be calmer than the Atlantic in that regard. But the young engineer had little to enjoy about the flights. After their second stop he realized that despite wearing a pressured and insulated pilot's suit, he suffered the symptoms of altitude sickness as well as flight sickness. The result was that he had spent the last 30 odd hours with nausea, disorientation and a short breath. The point that most flights they were in were military machines adapted to defend themselves against Siren air attacks meant that they had little to no pressurized cabins. Unlike Prinz Eugen, who had apparently no issue with little oxygen or the height, the young engineer had to rely on an oxygen enhancer to not pass out since there were no further oxygen masks for anyone but the crew on such short notice. All the young engineer could think off, whas that he would have rather spent weeks on a fast Pilot again rather than one more minute in an aircraft.

The cruisers and the young engineers' eyes met. Her expressions gave nothing away, but the way she looked back at the engineer told him that she was seemingly worried. He weakly waved her concern off with one hand while tugging his other arm under his head to rest more easily.

He woke up out of his delirium through the feeling of slight turbulence as the aircraft started its descent. "Seems like you got a bit of rest there boy. In the next fifteen minutes we will be on the ground again and you can go off." The gunner informed him. Slowly coming into an upright position, the engineer found a safety belt and strapped himself in for the coming landing. Prinz Eugen sat on the other bench along the other side of the fuselage. "The navigator told me a doctor will be waiting for you at our landing to take you in." She informed him. To the engineer's relief he felt that he could already breathe a bit better. The more the aircraft descended the less sick he felt. The rushing of blood in his head calmed down, his short breath normalized slowly with every couple thousand feet they descended and the nausea lessened a bit. With relief and an amount of uneasiness he watched how the sea appeared below the aircraft as they descended below the clouds and how it came ever closer. He thought they would land in the sea as the aircraft extended its landing breaks just meters over the water surface. And then there was suddenly the dry yellow ground of sand and desert that filled out the ground below the aircraft. Tarmac and landing lights appeared in the view of the window and the aircraft touched down and applied its landing flaps and breaks. After the aluminum and metal machine had slowed down to a brisk walking speed the engineer let out a relieved sigh, only now realizing as well that he had tightly gripped onto his safety belt. "Lady and Gentlemen, we just arrived at Naval Air Station North Island, San Diego. We hope you liked your flight with Bombardment group Pearl Harbor." The pilot chuckled over the coms everyone wore in their flight caps. The engineer unstrapped himself and tried to catch his breath and collect his senses to leave the aircraft the second it stopped moving and the door next to him was opened.
He only needed to wait a couple more minutes. The second the side door in the rear fuselage next to the engineer's seat was opened he rose up from his seat on the bench and headed out of the airplane right after the gunner. That he stumbled more than walked did not bother him, all he wanted to do was to get out of the machine. Only after he let go of the rails of the short staircase did he realize he was unfit to walk on his own.
He was brought up from the tarmac he just planted his face in by the gunner. "Hey there buddy, I know you are happy to be on the ground of the country of the free, but there is no need to kiss it." The gunner joked. The engineer grimaced but did not bother to come up with an answer to the joke.

"Is everything alright with you?" Prinz Eugen asked after she had exited the aircraft as well. The engineer swung his head towards her. "I feel like I was in a washing machine for the last day and a half. What do you think?" He asked annoyed and with a short breath in return. Despite the miserable condition the engineer was in, he still had his sarcasm, which made the cruiser smile. "I see, it can't be that bad then." She muesd while walking towards a high ranking officer to introduce herself. The engineer meanwhile was turned over by the gunner to the care of two Eagle Union soldiers with red cross armbands on their upper arms. "So, you are the navy guy that dared to cross the Pacific in a flying tin box without proper oxygen supply?" One of them asked. "Don't worry, the doc will have you up and running in no time." The other assured the engineer while the two brought the engineer into an ambulance that had come up on the airstrip.