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Trisha was halfway through her late-afternoon run in the helo hangar of the Peleliu. The aft half of the ship and a stretch up the side of the main deck were open areas for parking and maintaining helicopters. The hangar space was empty, since all of SOAR’s craft fit on the ship’s flight deck thirty feet above. This saved time because rotors didn’t have to be folded back for storage.
Briefing for tonight’s mission wasn’t for an hour yet, which would leave her plenty of time for a shower and breakfast. For now, she worked the roughly half-kilometer running loop.
Up top, heat waves still shimmered off the flight deck in the late-afternoon light. A person could get heatstroke standing on the steel surface, assuming their shoes didn’t melt first. Here inside the body of the ship, the cove
