Mermaids to the Rescue !

  Gizella sat at the door of the Coast Guard rescue helicopter, and surveyed the scene below. The fishing vessel Santurce rolled sluggishly from side to side in the heavy swells, and its rigging meant each crewman would have to jump into the water and make it well clear before they could helped into the basket and be lifted to safety. Gizella felt some nervousness, but was cautiously confident as well. This was her first mission as a rescue swimmer, yet possibly no one was better prepared to tackle the task at hand than she was. She turned to face Yuki, her teammate, and signaled 'are you ready?' The noise of the overhead rotors made  normal conversation impossible while the door was open. When Yuki responded 'yes', Gizella motioned to the pilot that they ready to go. The pilot reduced altitude until they were barely fifteen feet above the water, then both rescue swimmers went in.



  Gizella Mears and her brothers Dan and Brian had grown up in the mountains and semi-desert of southwest Colorado, but they had all been equally fascinated by the sea from an early age. Both brothers had joined the Coast Guard after high school, and following multiple enlistments and duty at various stations, had returned to live near the coast of North Carolina, where both their wives had grown up. Gizella too enjoyed the shore, but she loved the mountains even more, working on a ranch and leading horsepacking trips into those mountains. She was a popular group leader and many of her guests were repeat customers. She also liked to treat her guests to 'something special' at the end of each trip. After coming in off the trail, unloading the horses and releasing them into their paddock, and putting all the trail camping gear away, everyone would be told to meet her at the ranch's heated outdoor pool 'in an hour'. When they got there, the newbies never failed to be surprised to discover Gizella was now a mermaid instead of a cowgirl, complete with a shells-top to go with her swim-tail. Without fail many photos would then be taken of her, both while she was lying on the pool deck, and when she was swimming in the pool!

  Dude ranchers were not the only ones who got to see Gizella perform as a mermaid. She would occasionally be hired to appear at birthday or graduation parties, New Year's Eve celebrations, and so forth. She even did a photo shoot in Monument Valley with some Navajo families who wanted to send unique holiday cards to family members who were on overseas deployment with the Marines.

  It was her mermaid hobby that would eventually help seal Gizella's fate. When she flew to Orlando, Florida to visit some friends who were living or vacationing in the area, she brought along her latest 'swim-tail'. Needless to say, as soon as she and her friends arrived at one of the Orlando water parks, with Gizella wearing her tail, she was the local center of attention. Several families even asked if they could take photographs of her with their children, both in and out of the water; she was pleasantly surprised by the tips some of those families had left for her.

  'I could enjoy more of this' she thought to herself with some bemusement.



  The moment, when it came, passed totally unnoticed by Gizella and her friends. She had gone to the Kubla Con that Saturday as a mermaid in a borrowed wheelchair, accompanied by her two 'mertenders'. After taking in the incredibly varied sights within the Xanadu Center, and posing for her share of photos, they had gone to the pool so she could swim for a while (and pose for more photos!) before calling it a day. When she later tried to take off her tail however, she was surprised not only to find herself unable to locate the zipper, but her legs themselves now felt odd as well.

  Before she and her friends could ponder what that meant, or how to help her get her tail off, they were overtaken by the chaos that had erupted for what seemed like no reason at all. They tried to flee to Gizella's car in the parking lot but were forced to seek refuge in a storeroom, not until well after dark did they venture back out again - into a world that looked much as it had before, yet was totally transformed as well. It didn't take them long to realize that anyone who had been wearing a costume now WAS their costume. Quite a few people - not all of them Vulcans or Romulans - sported pointed ears that were now very real. Many transformations were far more extreme; Gizella and her friends recalled seeing a pair of centaurs, a blue kangaroo (Woody the Cowboy lassoed it as they watched), and something resembling an R2D2 with Mickey Mouse ears. Only later would they learn Eric Winters had accidentally cast a magic spell over the entire convention after putting on an American Indian raven mask, and was himself turned into a raven. Others had undergone changes that were mental rather than physical, some who were so transformed clearly no longer remembered who they previously had been. Something - Gizella couldn't decide if it was a Wookie or a Bigfoot - carried her back to the pool, where a Vulcan male whom she did not recognize, and a Doctor Leonard McCoy (who she did) scanned her in turn and told her she had indeed become a mermaid...for real!

  Despite the initial shock, Gizella soon decided being a real mermaid wasn't all that bad; already she had seen far worse. She quickly began discovering she could now do things she never could have done before; the ability to breathe underwater proved particularly intriguing. Nor was it long before she became good friends with other Mers, especially a pair of mermaids named Diane and Yuki, and a mervulcan (was is that? Gizella first thought, she learned soon enough) named Harry. Within a week, the foursome had decided to make their next home together. Less than a week after that, on Thanksgiving Day itself, they moved into a waterfront home near Beaufort, North Carolina. A few days more, and they became a quintet of Mers when one of their early friends from Xanadu, Sara, came with her family to visit and was invited by the others to move in with them. Like other Xanadu mers, she had tried to return to her old life, without success. It didn't take long after she had plunged in for her first-ever swim in salt water for everyone to realize this was where Sara now truely belonged.

  Any early doubts the 'Mers of Beaufort' had how they might earn a living soon began to dissapate. Gizella's brothers were a great help to their new neighbors; Dan and Brian had driven up with their neighbors-to-be, and alerted the commander of the local Coast Guard station to their coming arrival. That cultivating of local connections quickly paid off for Diane, Gizella, Harry, and Yuki, and Sara after her own arrival. Within the first two weeks they had gone on three missions for the Coast Guard, garnering low-key accolades and opening some eyes to the amazing abilities and potential of Mers. Just days after their third mission, Louis Davies, who was in charge of the local Coast Guard station, had called them with a message that quickly got their attention, and made them think.

  Might they be interested in working for the Coast Guard, training and leading the first 'go' teams of Mers? Already it was becoming clear there were many jobs Mers could do better than even the best human divers. Might they also be willing to help recruit other Mers to help form such teams?

  Gizella, Sara, and Yuki, and later Diane and Harry, when Louis called them at the motel where they were spending the night while on a trip back to Orlando, all had the same answer, one Louis and his superiors were all hoping to hear.

  Yes!



  The weather front, when it pushed offshore from the coast near Cape Hatteras and began to intensify before dawn on Tuesday, December 12th, didn't really catch anyone by surprise. A potential storm had been forecast days earlier, giving late-season pleasure boaters plenty of time to head back into port and tie up. For commercial fishermen and others who made their living at sea stormy weather was all in a day's work; they kept an ear cocked to the radio and an eye on the sky, and continued doing what they had been doing, but ready to respond to whatever the weather gods might throw their way.

  While the storm itself surprised no one, the speed with which it intensified did, and the Coast Guard soon had it's hands full with distress calls. It was a study in contrasts: while ships and mariners were fighting for survival off the coast of the Tarheel state and the Delmarva peninsula, early snowbirds in Florida were enjoying clear skies and moderate surf.

  When Captain Jesus Rivera of the Santurce broadcast his own Mayday call, it threatened to fill the Coast Guard's cup of woe to overflowing; all available assets were already engaged on other missions. It was the sort of situation every rescuer dreaded: someone urgently needed help, and they were powerless to respond. Fortunately, Louis had some aces in the hole he could now bring into play. A rescue chopper was sitting on the tarmac at the Beaufort airport, having landed there the previous evening while returning to it's base from overhaul. Only the pilot and copilot were then with the bird, but Louis knew where he could get the personnel to fill out an ad-hoc crew. One of his old friends and former colleagues, Dan Mears, had flown on many rescue missions as a Coastguardsman; he would operate the rescue basket. As for rescue swimmers, what better time than now to give mermaids a try?



  Captain Rivera couldn't believe who he had just seen jump out of the Coast Guard helicopter and into the sea. Mermaids?! As rescue swimmers?! After what seemed like only a few moments, a head belonging to one of them popped up a few yards from his boat and gave the prearranged hand signal for the crewmen to jump into the water, one at a time, to be helped to the rescue basket. The captain could not believe his eyes, 'surely to God, no one could swim that fast!' he thought. He was so astounded he almost dropped his two-way radio, before recovering and ordering his crew to begin abandoning ship when ready.

  Immediately after splashing in, Gizella and Yuki surfaced to get oriented, then Gizella dove back under to swim toward the Santurce. They had earlier decided that Gizella would help each crewman swim out to the basket, then swim back to the fishing boat to assist the next fisherman who went over the side. For her part, Yuki would help each man into the basket and make sure he was securely fastened in, before signalling to Dan that all was in readiness. Thanks to her brothers, Gizella knew how to handle a struggling, thrashing victim in the water, so she took on what promissed to be the more challenging part of their mission.

  When the first survival-suit-clad crewman jumped overboard, Gizella swam up to him, took him by the arm and helped him put on a snorkel, then shouted to him over the noise of wind and waves 'hold on tight, don't worry about swimming, I'll do the swimming for both of us'. As soon as Arturo told her he was ready, Gizella flicked her tail into a turn, then began making the strong and steady tail strokes she needed to power their way out to where Yuki and the rescue basket were waiting. Both mermaids helped Arturo into the basket, then Gizella headed back to fetch the next crewman, snorkel in hand. It made no difference to the mermaids whether they breathed air or water, but for 'normal' humans it was of course a very different story - in these rough seas a snorkel might even be vital to their survival.

  By the time Gizella had swum out with the second rescuee, Arturo was aboard the helicopter and the now-empty basket had been lowered back down to await it's next passenger. That rescue, and that of the third crewman, went smoothly. It was after the fourth fisherman had gone over the side that Louis's idea of employing Mers as rescue swimmers truely paid off for the first time. Gizella had just taken Juan, the ship's cook in tow when the largest swell she had yet bucked seized hold of them and shoved them back toward the Santurce; she was forced to summon all the power her tail could muster to keep Juan and herself from being slammed against the hull. Had that happened, they would surely have been seriously injured...or worse.

  Dan had just started lowering the basket again when the wave had rolled in, he couldn't believe his eyes at first when he saw his sister successfully keep her latest charge out of further danger. 'NO ONE with legs and flippers could have done that! I can't imagine how strong their tails must be, and I've been living next to a whole bunch of them for weeks now!'

  Despite the slowly worsening conditions, the rest of the rescue mission went off with no further major difficulties. After the captain was brought aboard to rejoin his five shipmates, Yuki and Gizella were hoisted up as well and were immediately thanked by Dan and the men they had just snatched from the angry sea; the pilot and copilot then took turns looking back from the cockpit and giving the thumbs-up as well.



  Several ambulances were on hand when the helicopter touched down at the Beaufort airport. After stripping off their survival suits, the Santurce's crewmen were whisked away to the hospital, after being kept overnight for observation all were released the following day. EMTs checked over Gizella and Yuki, and were astonished to find no sign of hypothermia at all, despite their prolonged exposure to what was (for a 'normal' human) freezing water, with no survival suits of their own.

  'How did you do it?' they were asked.

  'We can do it because we are Mers' Gizella and Yuki told the EMTs 'It's the way we are now. We can't walk, but there are also things we can do now that we couldn't do before...'

  No one who had seen Gizella and Yuki in action that Tuesday, or had worked with them and their friends, would ever doubt the unique abilities of Mers again!