Airship Eagle

The End of the Coast Guard

It was the end for us all, and we knew it back then, even before the Airshipmen nearly beat Paully to death. We had all seen their fleet of airships breaking through the clouds over the ocean. I still remember vividly how that felt, standing on the deck of the Steadfast. I saw it in the eyes of the others as well. America was becoming the domain of the ships of the air; we seamen were fading along with the past.

I couldn't have stopped my crew even if I'd known what they were going to do when later they used the cutter's deck guns to destroy the Airshipmen's fancy estates along the pier. It was all over after that. Zeppelin Hall had gotten its way. The Airship Coastal Patrol used the attack as the means to take over our rescue and interdiction missions. My career in the Coast Guard ended that day. After Station Galveston was shut down, the Airshipmen took over Coast Guard Command, assimilating it into their Office of Aeronautics, one of many departments in their bureaucratic boondoggle. It was only a matter of time, we knew, before they'd close down the rest. 

My father had been so proud when I enlisted, but I was without a career after that attack, at the same time having to watch our freedom slipping through our fingers like beach sand. And what about Paully? I felt responsible for his condition; I had been the one Victor Van Horn was obsessed with, and everyone close to me paid the price. Paully would have to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair, and I felt compelled to take care of him. But he was too proud for that, so what could I do? He spent many years alone on that farm in Ghent, hiding in fear from the Aftersoul, which had relentlessly stalked him. 

No one could have seen what that creature really was. No one could have imagined then what we would have to endure after that ...