Holiday
Admiral Biscuit
Holiday was just putting her plate in the sink when there was a knock on her hotel door. She looked up at the clock in surprise—it was already six AM. She hadn’t been paying any attention.
“Coming,” she called out, then looked back down at her plate. She should wash it, but it would be rude to keep Alijandra waiting outside.
She flipped the security latch out of the way, then opened the door. “Come in,” she said. “I’m almost ready.”
Back home, she would have been ready.
Back home, she didn’t have to wear all her flight gear; back home she could air-dry her fur rather than have to wait for it to dry before putting on her flight suit.
“I’m sorry,” she said as Ali stepped into the hotel room. “I took a longer shower than I should have ‘cause my muscles were sore.”
“Are you okay?” Ali crouched down to bring herself closer to Holiday’s height. “You don’t have to fly if you’re not up to it.”
That was true. This was an experimental program, and both she and Consumers Energy were figuring out what she could and could not do.
But it was her job and she wouldn’t feel right calling off just because she was a little sore. It took time to get used to all her equipment, that was all.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Go ahead and have a cup of coffee if you want while I get dressed.”
•••
She sat down on the floor and pulled her harness on over her head. There were a few flight instruments strapped to her back: a radio and an ADS-B transmitter, a red beacon and a white tail light. There was also a large lithium battery which could run all her flight equipment for a full day.
On her belly, there were two cameras pointed down: an infrared camera and a normal one. There was also a second red beacon, and a pair of navigation lights mounted to her shoulder straps on little flexible rods, much like a slug’s eyestalks.
She’d painted over the inboard faces of those lights with some black paint, since they were very distracting when she was flying.
The entire harness was a bright safety yellow, and it also had retro reflective stripes on it. They clashed horribly with her pale green coat.
Holiday snapped the buckle across her breast shut and got back on all four hooves, then flapped her wings to make sure they were clear of her harness.
Satisfied that it was, she shifted and twisted around, just to be certain everything was secure, and then she tested all the navigation lights and turned on the radio to ensure it was working. She’d have to do that again before she took flight, but doing it now would save a wasted trip if it turned out something was broken.
It took a moment before she heard somebody broadcasting on the channel, a pilot departing from the nearby Three Rivers airport for a dawn patrol flight.
“All set,” she announced.
Ali set down her half-finished coffee, then reconsidered and picked the cup back up, finishing it in one swallow.
•••
The Super 8 shared a parking lot with a Holiday Inn—the Holiday Inn was probably nicer, but it didn’t offer a discount just because it shared a name with her.
“You need anything from Meijer?”
Holiday shook her head.
It had taken them a half hour to pack and check out and get to the truck, an unfortunately late start but there was nothing that could be done about it now.
Ali opened the passenger side door of the Consumers truck for Holiday, then closed it once she was inside. A moment later, she slid into the driver’s seat and keyed on the truck; after the large infotainment screen bragged about the truck being Ford tough, it started playing ‘80s music. Ali didn’t like ‘80s music, but she tolerated it when Holiday was in the truck. Ali got to listen to whatever she wanted most of the day.
They headed south out of town on 131; thirty minutes later they pulled to a stop outside the White Pigeon Compressor Station. Ali opened the gate and pulled up next to the main building. She let Holiday out and then went into the building, while Holiday trotted around on the grass, warming herself up.
A few minutes later, Ali emerged with a map and set it on the tailgate of the truck, then whistled to get Holiday’s attention.
Holiday flew back to the truck and landed in the bed, then looked down at the map.
“We’re here,” Ali pointed on the map. “Where do you want to meet for your first break?”
The roads are a mile apart; the pipeline runs diagonal so not as many roads as I expect. Holiday counted off on the map and then tapped a road with her hoof. It was paved, which meant it would be wider and nicer, although there might be more traffic. She tapped at a different location. “No, here.”
“Okay, got it.” Ali traced her finger on the map, then paused. “That’s, like, just a couple miles short of a valve farm. If you wanted to land there instead, I could open the gate and you could land in the lot.”
“Those are gravelly,” Holiday protested. She’d flown over plenty of them before. “I guess I could land outside it, there’s grass outside it.”
“You don’t have to,” Ali said. “I just thought it might be a good option, since you’ll be so close.”
“No, it is a good idea. Safer than landing next to a road, anyway. Let me get ready to go.” Holiday turned on her flight gear and checked to make sure that all her navigation lights were working. Meanwhile, Ali walked around to the cab of the truck and looked in at the iPad mounted to the dash.
“Your ADS-B is transmitting,” she said.
“Camera check.”
At close range, the cameras could transmit to a monitor in the truck. That was strapped in the bed.
“Yeah, you’re good.” Both cameras showed the bed of the pickup, out of focus as this close a range.
“Altimeter’s good.” Holiday looked at the contour lines on the map to verify. She didn’t really need it for the altitudes she’d be flying at, but she prided herself on staying in a tight range, which made it easier for the Consumer’s employees who would analyze the footage she was about to take. “GPS mapper?” She pushed a button on her chest, and a moment later a little flag popped up on the iPad.
“Check.”
“All systems go. Let me get my clearance.” She lifted the radio. “Pegasus 255 to tower requesting low-level clearance for pipeline inspection.”
“Tower to pegasus 255, permission granted. Keep it below five hundred feet, please.”
“Pegasus 255, confirm.” She stretched her wings and glided out the back of the pickup truck, checked both ways for traffic, then started pumping her wings to gain altitude.
She followed the compressor station’s access road as she climbed, her eyes scanning for the pipeline route.
Holiday was pretty good at estimating her altitude. When she thought she was at two hundred feet, she checked her altimeter. 203. Close enough.
She banked back around, then lined herself up with the pipeline’s route. Some places it was easy to spot; a wide, clear swath through the trees. Other places, it wasn’t: farmers were allowed to put fields over it if they wanted to, so she had to guess where it crossed a field.
The pipeline didn’t meander like a river did, so if she drew a straight line to the next gap in trees, she was probably on the right track. Anything she missed would get picked up later, when they did spot coverage. Still, that was no excuse to be lazy; the whole point of her job was that she could cover everything from the air, and they’d only have to do spot coverage of trouble areas.
If she wasn’t sure about the route, there were signs. Some of them were meant to be visible from the air, while others were meant to warn people on the ground that there was a pipeline below their feet. She’d gotten good at spotting the latter, although they were generally only put alongside roads and trails.
As she lined up on the pipeline and turned northeast, she wagged her wings. Ali waved at her, then climbed back in the truck.
•••
All she really was expected to do was fly along the route of the pipeline and let the cameras do the work. There were people who would look at all the footage and see if there were any problems. She knew from discussion that they’d considered mounting a gas detector to her, but decided that was too cumbersome.
She didn’t think she needed one. She could smell natural gas with her own nose. It was a farty, sulphury smell.
Some pilots, she knew, got flight hours by doing utility patrols. Pipelines or wires, they’d get paid to fly hours and hours which they could record in their logbooks. She didn’t know how many hours of flight a pilot needed, but she did know that there were different things you were allowed to do depending on how many hours you had.
In her case, it didn’t really matter. She was only allowed to pilot herself, and the thousands and thousands of flight hours she had under her wings didn’t give her any special benefits here on Earth.
•••
She alternated between looking ahead and looking at the ground below her. If there was a fault in the pipeline, she might spot it before the digital film of her flight were reviewed. She could also push her marker button to indicate problems she saw, and those would be reviewed by the inspectors first.
If there was a major problem, she’d call it in with her cell phone.
The terrain below her alternated between working fields and pastures, to woodlots and wetlands.
•••
In theory, she was low enough that she didn’t have to worry about airplanes, since they weren’t allowed to fly so low except near an airport. She did have to worry about ground obstacles, mostly in the form of power lines. Right after Burg Road, the pipeline took a slight northerly bend and then crossed under a high-tension power line.
She was above the wires—that was why she considered two hundred feet to be her minimum altitude—but close enough she could hear them humming like a thundercloud full of lightning, and her fur tingled as she passed overhead. Her airplane radio gave a staticy complaint, then quieted back down as she flew on.
After she crossed Mintdale Road, a small flock of sparrows flew up and harried her, mistaking her for a raptor. There wasn’t much she could do about that except for fly on; once she was out of their territory, they flew back off, satisfied at their work.
She occasionally spotted the Consumer’s truck—Ali drove approximately along her route, ready to give ground support if needed.
•••
The pipeline was easiest to follow when it ran through trees; there was a wide swath cut through them. The roots could cause a problem for the pipeline, plus it was hard to inspect it from the air if it was covered in trees. Every now and then, tractors with big mowers on them would patrol the route to trim everything down.
It made a good walking path for some; she occasionally saw people out on the clear path. She’d even seen a person riding on horseback and had to suppress the urge to whinny at the horse.
Sometimes it was hard to tell if something she spotted on the ground was a trouble spot or not. She slowed down as she spotted a thin area in a cornfield, directly over the pipeline route. Were the plants doing poorly because there was a small leak flooding their roots with natural gas? Or was it just a bad spot of soil? Back home, earth ponies would take steps to remediate the soil or plant something else there, but humans preferred monoculture since it was easier for them to plan, cultivate, and harvest with their big machines.
She sniffed at the air. She couldn’t smell any natural gas. Just the same, she pushed the button on the strap of her flight harness, marking the location for speedy review.
•••
Sometimes it was easy to tell if something she spotted on the ground was a trouble spot. On the north side of Featherstone road, the pipeline ran through some woods and someone had decided that the clearing was a perfect spot to build a barn.
Buildings weren’t allowed on the pipeline, so she flagged the coordinates as she flew over, wondering who would have to move it.
There was another pipeline off to the east that Consumers was upgrading, and she’d flown that route a couple of times back when she was first getting started. It was easier to follow since the hole it lived in was fresh; sometimes she could still see the tracks of the big hole-digging machines in the ground.
Her trainer had told her that they’d had to tear down a house that was too close to the pipeline, and said that it was best to nip these problems in the bud. Crops and gardens were fine, buildings and other industrial activity were not.
•••
Ali was parked right by the entrance of the little pipe farm. Holiday overflew it before starting to descend—her cameras got the best view from two hundred feet, and she wanted to be sure she diligently covered everything.
She circled over a field on the other side of the road, dropping altitude until she was under the power lines, then checked for traffic before crossing the road.
Ali had parked on the shoulder rather than enter the lot, right at the corner of the fence where the grass was the thickest. She touched down behind the truck and lifted her airplane radio. “Pegasus 255 to Tower, I am on the ground now. Will resume flying in approximately half an hour.”
“Tower to Pegasus 255, roger.”
Holiday turned off her equipment pack: there was no sense in using the battery when she was on the ground.
Ali had bought her lunch from a convenience store along the way: a small bag of salty potato chips and a Hostess cherry empanada. Those were a good supplement to the roadside grasses that she nibbled on.
Ali didn’t nibble on grasses; she’d bought a bag of Doritos and a roller-grill hot dog.
They didn’t talk business until the two of them were done eating. Holiday mentioned the illicit pole barn and the barren spot in the cornfield, then Ali briefed her on a weather update. Pop-up thunderstorms were possible, but unlikely.
If she was flying higher, she’d have a better idea what the weather would be. Two hundred feet was basically the same as being on the ground; she couldn’t get a proper sense of the weather from such a low altitude.
Eating and a mid-day debrief didn’t take all that long, and the two of them spent the rest of their lunch break gossiping. Holiday wanted to take off her flight vest, but then she’d have to put it back on again. It was already wet with sweat, and it would be more unpleasant if it had some time to cool off, or if her fur had time to dry off.
Flying on Earth wasn’t as easy as flying back home; everything behaved differently and she burned through energy too quickly for her liking. It was easy to blame the equipment pack, but it wasn’t all that heavy. Awkward, yes, although she had to admit it was decently well-balanced and didn’t get in her way.
•••
After another test of her equipment and clearance from the control tower, Holiday took flight again, circling to the southwest until she got up to altitude and then following the pipeline’s route through fields and woodlots.
Sometimes there were ponds and lakes right near the pipeline; it dodged around them but it would cross under streams and rivers. She wasn’t sure how they built it under water; did they build a cofferdam to re-route the water, or did they dig a tunnel and put the pipe in it?
She’d reached the point where she could almost sleep-fly and had to remind herself to pay attention to her job. Focus on where the pipeline ran, look on the ground for any problems. Keep her altitude steady. She covered a yawn and then started singing, then gazed around at the small corner of Michigan spread out around her, fields and trees and antennas and water towers poking above. Cars and trucks zooming along the roads, animals in pastures below sometimes looking up at her and trying to figure out what she was. She had a hawky enough profile that some ground birds would hide when they saw her.
No hawk had such bright plumage, though. Especially not the vest.
•••
She flew over another pipeline access point, this time in the middle of a field. Half of the gravel was disturbed, as if they’d been digging in it. Nobody had told her if this pipeline had been worked on recently, so she triggered her GPS to let them know. If it was something Consumers had done, the workers who reviewed her film would know about it; if not, they’d investigate.
A couple miles further on, she crossed an interstate, crowded with cars and trucks rushing along. It was hard to keep her focus on the ground when there were so many moving vehicles blurring by, not to mention the updraft from their heat and the built-up heat in the road. She’d had to learn about wake turbulence caused by airplanes as part of her Earth-pilot acclimatization course, but they hadn’t thought to warn her about highway updrafts.
Another high-tension power line paralleled the highway, and her radio gave off its usual squawk of protest as she passed.
Holiday had never imagined having to wear so much equipment. She’d assumed she’d just use her eyes to follow along with the pipeline, and it had never occurred to her that she’d have to know how to fly like an airplane in order to be allowed to fly at all—even if when it came to her job, she flew where airplanes couldn’t.
Nor had she imagined how tiring flying on Earth would be. She’d been warned; part of the process included an interview with a pegasus who was familiar with Earth, and he’d told her to expect it, and the equipment, and the human desire to stick more and more of it on her if she didn’t protest.
She let herself be pushed up on a small thermal—the people who watched the video feed would just have to deal with that—and then dropped back down once she was out of it. This was more interesting than making clouds in the cloud factory, although it was sometimes lonely. Still, when she wasn’t working, there were so many things to explore, and that made it all worthwhile.
•••
Alongside 27 1/2 Mile Road, she found another cluster of sheds across the pipeline right-of-way. They looked like the kind of sheds that could be moved on special trailers: she’d seen little lots that carried sheds like these.
If I wasn’t flying recon right now, she thought, and then looked at her watch. Besides giving her altitude and compass heading—and a route to the nearest airport if she asked—it also gave her the time.
She and Ali had decided on their evening meeting point already, and she had plenty of time to get there. It wouldn't hurt to dive down and get a closer look, then she could be back on her way again. It might save them the time of sending out a truck to look at the sheds.
Holiday circled over the cornfield on the east side of the road in a descending bank. As she approached the road, she looked left and right for traffic, then banked along to follow the traffic flow, angling her body so the cameras on her belly could see the sheds.
Sure enough, at the end of the row of sheds was a ‘for sale’ sign and a phone number.
She cut between a gap in the trees on the west side of the road and started climbing back to altitude, flying further west until she was back over the pipeline. As she crossed the sheds, she marked them with the GPS button just in case, and then she continued on to the northeast.
•••
Holiday generally kept up a steady flying pace; however, she’d slow down if she saw something of interest, or if she thought a section warranted further inspection.
As she approached Beaver Creek, she slowed down and watched closely as she flew over the watercourse, alert for any rainbow sheen in the water, or bubbles coming up from the bottom. Observing none, she flew on.
As the afternoon wore on, she noticed rainclouds building behind her, and then felt the wind start to pick up. It was blowing more or less towards her tail, which would make flying easier. However, if there were any leaks from the pipeline, it would disperse the gas and she might not smell it.
•••
She landed for the day on Benton Road. Flying over the southern end of Jackson had slowed her down since it was more difficult to follow the pipeline with buildings around it and a wide variety of lawns or even a golf course.
She’d also had to slow down over the golf course to check for errant balls. Golfers looked along the green but maybe not up to see if there was a pegasus flying by.
As she had previously, Holiday flew all the way over the road at altitude, and only started descending when she was on the other side. Her circle brought her over Moon Lake Road, then M50, and then she dropped down the remaining distance.
Ali had parked too close to M50, so she had to glide past the truck before touching down.
She radioed in to let the airplane directors know that she was done for the night, then shut off her gear.
•••
Dinner was provided by the Burger King drive-through. Ali didn’t want to eat in the truck and Holiday didn’t like the smells inside Burger King, so they compromised and after they got their food, they parked in the lot of a closed dance hall. Holiday sat in the back of the truck and ate her food, while Ali used the folded-down tailgate as a picnic table.
•••
The pop-up showers arrived as they were turning into the hotel parking lot. They’d been seeing the distant flashes for half an hour, and even with the truck’s windows closed, Holiday could feel the pressure and temperature change inside the cab as the storm rolled in.
“Might be a busy night for our linemen,” Ali remarked, as the storm front rolled over them, whipping the trees into a frenzy. They both watched as a small torn-off branch blew across the parking lot.
Ali grabbed her rain slicker; Holiday didn’t have one. That was okay; she didn’t mind the rain at all. It was nice.
“I can go in and get an umbrella,” Ali offered. She knew the pegasus would decline.
“I’m fine.”
“Let me take your harness, though.” Ali picked it up, then opened her door. “Come out this side, that way I don’t have to walk around. Give me about a half hour, and I’ll have the data downloaded.
“Alright.” Holiday carefully walked across the seat. The center console was a hard surface, but the seat was soft and squishy. It was comfortable to sit on but not a good surface to walk on, especially since the cab was so cramped she couldn't extend her wings for balance.
Ali held the door for her so that it wouldn't smash her in the muzzle, and then once she was clear, closed and locked the truck, then started dashing towards the hotel building.
Holiday stretched her wings and let the cold rain splash down on her back; she felt her fur prickle before lightning struck nearby.
She wasn’t supposed to fly without her flight equipment and without telling the airplane directors that she was, but decided that there would be no harm in enjoying the weather so long as she stayed at a low level.
Her wings should have been sore from the day’s flying, but the storm invigorated her. She couldn't fly into it, unfortunately, but she could enjoy it from treetop level, circling over the parking lot, wavering in the occasional gusts of wind.
It was a full hour before she landed, shaking herself off once she was under the overhang.
The sliding door opened to admit her, and she walked past the front desk and down the hallway to the fire stairs. Ali liked the elevator but she didn’t. It was too cramped.
She apologized for spending so long out in the storm, but Ali didn’t mind. She’d changed out of her work uniform and into lounging pants and a t-shirt.
Ali draped Holiday’s harness over her back, and the pegasus walked down the hallway to her room, tapping her hotel card against the door sensor. They’d found that taping it to her hoof made it easy to access, although it did leave a sticky residue and sometimes she lost it when she was flying.
So far, none of the hotels had gotten mad when she needed an extra card, although it was wasteful to keep losing them.
She pushed the door open and yawned as it swung shut behind her. It had been a long day, and tomorrow she wanted to be up and ready to go before Ali arrived at her hotel room door.
Author's Note
click HERE for story notes!
