It was really quite an amazing setup. Seadeck had been transformed into drydock for the entire fleet of Stingers. They were half-dismantled, strewn across the deck in organized chaos. The chassis of four of them hung from the ceiling, suspended over the moonpool by chains. The remaining three lay upside-down on the deck itself.
seaQuest was the only boat in the U.E.O. that supported the Stinger design. The standard U.E.O. mini-subfighter design was derived from the Tucker prototype. His blockier ship had been adopted as the official one-man sub, but Bridger had arranged that the seaQuest would continue to use Stinger. Nobody was sure how the Captain had managed to get around the red tape involved in that arrangement. One popular rumor said that a bet with Admiral Noyce had clinched the deal. Bridger merely said that piloting the flagship had its perks. Whatever the reason, the Stingers stayed.
With their sleek body work removed, the small fighters were no less impressive. The mechanism of the propelling “tail” was especially intricate. It seemed that such a slender, frail-looking collection of parts could never power a vessel to go over 100 miles per hour. And yet that is exactly what it did.
But hard use had taken its toll, and the fleet needed complete maintenance badly. Bridger had nearly exploded when Lts. Henderson and Brody had approached him with the idea. “Seadeck is the center of seaQuest’s science facilities, and I will not turn our labs into a grease pit!”
But eventually the Captain had to admit that there was nowhere else with enough space and ventilation to permit the work. Docking bay was not equipped to handle the nonstandard craft, and repairing them one-at-a-time would be a waste of valuable time and manpower. He reluctantly reserved the area for five days of intensive repair to the Stingers.
Lonnie had volunteered to lead the project. It was a great opportunity to refresh her knowledge of small craft. She loved her job as helmsman on board seaQuest, but working with massive, slow submarines had made her fight-and-run skills rusty. Brody had proudly run circles around her when they took some Stingers out on drill the previous week.
Henderson lay in a most unladylike position beneath one of the ships. Tightening a loose bolt, she wondered idly what the rest of the crew said about her when they saw her sprawled on the deck, half-covered with grease and oil from the worn gears. “On second thought, I guess I don’t want to know what they’re saying,” Lonnie mumbled wryly to herself. “Not that it hasn’t been said before!” She chuckled, not for the first time, about the prudish narrow-mindedness of her crewmates.
After rolling out from underneath the ship, she stood to take a good look at it. Not bad.
The hatch whooshed open behind her--which was fairly strange, considering that anyone in their right mind would avoid this cluttered room if at all possible. Lonnie turned and saw Captain Bridger entering the room. She snapped to attention.
A little amused at the nervousness of her response, Bridger gently said, “At ease, Lieutenant.” He looked around the lab-turned-garage. “Are you still on target to finish this project by noon tomorrow?”
“Yes, Sir. I just finished with the last one.” She gestured toward the vessel. “It was in pretty good shape, Sir, even though the records showed that it’s the oldest one.”
A strange, haunted smile touched Bridger’s lips. “Yes, Lucas has taken pretty good care of that prototype.”
“‘Gazelle.’ What a funny name for it, Sir. I mean, the rest are called ‘El Tigre’ and ‘Lightning Strike’ and other . . . well tougher names.” What a strange expression on Bridger’s face--he looked like he was caught between a laugh, and . . . something else.
She realized that she was babbling, and drew her tired thoughts together. “Anyway, the Bravo team is going to put all these together tomorrow morning and return them to docking bay.”
“Who’s on your Bravo team, Henderson?”
Ouch! “Sorry Sir, didn’t mean to keep you out of the loop. Anderson, Naruta, Singh, and Piccolo.”
“Very good. Dr. Smith assures me that Tony will be ready for duty by tomorrow, so you’ll have your full team.”
What a relief! “Thanks for the warning, Sir.”
The Captain turned and took a step toward the door, when Lonnie’s voice made him stop.
“Um, speaking of Dr. Smith, Sir, has she had any luck finding Lucas?”
He couldn’t face her. “No . . . she says that Marshall warped his thoughts so that she can’t ‘recognize’ his aura.” His words took on the deadened tone of a man with too little sleep and too much worry. “Can you imagine that? He just stirred through Lucas’ thoughts like you’d rummage through a sock drawer, throwing things left and right ‘til you found the thing you were looking for. All that just for synthium. Synthium--damned disaster that they ever started the Blue Moon project in the first place. Nothing good has ever come of it.” Sighing, he realized that he’d said more than he’d meant to. He left Seadeck without another word, leaving Lonnie to deal with his comments as she would.
Brody threw a hard, quick punch to the bridge of the nose, and followed up with a solid kick to the ribs. If the practice dummy had been a real opponent, it would have been incapacitated an hour ago, when Jim had first begun this “practice session.” He was calling it a practice session, but it was more like a therapy session. Not exactly “blowing off steam”--more like focussing aggression. While the muscles of his body moved through the familiar rhythms of hand-to-hand combat, his mind was forced to concentrate on the task at hand. This focussing brought order to the half-formed angry ghosts that had been cluttering up his attempts at concentration this week.
The last kick hadn’t had as much power as he’d have liked, so Brody started a series of whirl-kicks: Swing from the right hip, give it extra power from the knee, connect with the ball of the foot. Spin fast! But “spot” the gaze--if he turned his head as slow as his body, he’d be reeling with dizziness in no time. Continue the spin, with the left leg extended straight out. Slam! He kept on going with that pattern for a while, then switched directions.
This sort of release was exactly what he needed. This week had been just crazy. Just absolutely nuts. First of all, they were hauling all those chemical warheads as cargo. Then Clay Marshall had come aboard against Brody’s recommendation. When the situation deteriorated, Brody and his security troops were ready to take over and neutralize the threat. But leave it to Bridger to say, “Oh, no, they can’t handle him--Ford and I will handle it.” Brody’s whirl-kicks came a little faster.
In terms of fleet strategy, crew morale, and overall oceanographic skills, Nathan Bridger was the finest captain that Brody had ever worked with by far. But he had a disturbing tendency to do whatever he wanted to--especially in the middle of a crisis. That ability to listen to his gut is what kept Bridger and seaQuest on the cutting edge, and popular in the public eye. But that grandstanding, let-me-handle-it stunt that Bridger had pulled backfired completely. A missile had been detonated, cargo bay 15 had been totaled, two crew members were kidnapped, and both had been injured.
Everything would turn out all right in the end, once they found Lucas, anyway. The kid had only gone missing a couple of days ago, and he couldn’t be moving that fast. They’d find him in 24 hours or sooner, 99.9% guaranteed. But still, 99.9% wasn’t perfect, and Brody was as nervous as anyone else. Infuriated, too.
Ford and Brody had spent a week working out a crisis plan to be deployed while the missiles were on board. And the terrorist crisis plans had been in place for years. Poof! One word from Bridger, and everyone was improvising. As captain, it was his prerogative to change the plan at any time. Still, Brody was shocked that the commander, a by-the-book man, hadn’t emphasized order over panic. Maybe that’s why Ford was overreacting now; maybe that explained all the extra training shifts he’d assigned, the super-strict military attitude he was pushing. Yes, things were beginning to make a little sense.
Every member of the crew had been dealing with the stress of Marshall’s terrorist attempt in a personal way. Ford had thrown himself into his work; Piccolo had been especially irritating; Lonnie had made herself a listening ear for her crewmates. Darwin had been out hunting most of the time, though some of that might have been related to the temporary near-trashing of seadeck. Tim had been seen moping about, and the current rumor indicated that he might start one of his awful paintings.
Bridger had approved shore leave for Ortiz--he was probably frequenting Floridian beach clubs with excessively loud bands. Jim had to crack a smile at that thought. Miguel could tell the difference between porpoise calls and dolphin chatter, just by listening to the output from the WSKRs. But on his off-time, he listened to the most deafening, ear-numbing music that Jim had ever heard.
Bridger was holding up well, but seemed understandably distracted. It was the not-knowing that got to him, Brody suspected. The captain kept an eye on all activities on board, in a way that kept him informed, but didn’t interfere with his competent crew. He prided himself on being in the know. The idea that his protege was lost somewhere in the four miles of seaQuest’s ductwork must be driving Bridger crazy. Not to mention the liability of having a civilian minor on board at all! Considering that the captain’s son Robert was still MIA after all these years, this similar ordeal must be a nightmare. Jim swallowed, and tried not to blame the captain for what had happened. The poor man already probably felt guilty enough.
As for Jim, he found that the working and stressing of his body brought him peace. He finished the practice with a long set of stretches. Breathing hard, he let himself remember how to be still. His blond hair was dark with sweat, and he was glad that he’d brought an extra uniform to the gym. He’d hate to be seen like this in the corridors, even if it was only for the minute it took to run to his quarters and back. After his taut muscles had relaxed, he stripped his soaked sleeveless shirt, and threw it in the laundry chute.
He walked to the rear of the gym, toward the locker/shower area. He set his chrono in his locker, noting the time as he unstrapped it from his wrist. Since it was after 2200 hours, there should be plenty of hot water--that was his secret. While all the earlybirds whined about the fresh-water rationing at peak hours, he never worried about it at all. In fact, he noticed contentedly, he had the place all to himself.
His body was as tired as his brain, so he just stood numbly in the shower stall and let the hot water pound down on him. He didn’t think of how sore he would be in the morning, or how early he had to get up, or how many tasks remained undone. He didn’t even think of that cute redhead he’d met on the last shore leave, or the boat that he was saving all his pay for. Instead he just enjoyed the peace of the moment, for once.
Until the fire-alert klaxons went off.
What the hell was that all about?! They rang deafeningly throughout the boat, and echoed even louder off the locker room’s tile and steel. In less than a minute, Brody had dressed in the clean uniform. He bounded for the corridor. As suddenly as they had started, the alarms stopped, leaving a fog of silence in their wake.
To his left, he heard shouts, so Jim walked over to investigate. At a distance, he saw a red-faced Tim O’Neill addressing Dagwood.
“What did you do!” Actually, red didn’t begin to describe the color of Tim’s face. Jim stifled a chuckle--Lt. O’Neill looked like he might explode.
“I...Dagwood...I did what you told me to do.” Dagwood was nervous, but beginning to react to Tim’s hostility.
“Look, Dag,” Tim took on a patronizing tone, “I did not tell you to hit the fire alarm. I told you to call--”
“You did!” Dagwood stopped looking at the floor, and made full eye contact with the dark-haired officer. “You said to hit the button, the red button!” He jabbed a finger toward the comms panel on the wall.
“Don’t touch that! I said no such thing!”
Brody was caught off-guard; they were acting like children! He could understand that Dagwood might have trouble, but Tim was acting like a cranky kid who had his nap interrupted. Actually, thinking about the time and the unexpected alarm, that’s probably what had happened. Tim was an early-to-bed, early-to-rise type.
Brody approached them, being sure not to hurry. If he acted like this was urgent (which it wasn’t; it was petty), then it would only escalate things. “Hey, guys, cool it.” He leaned against the door frame, almost between the pair. “Tim, what did you tell him?
“He said he wanted to make a call,” Tim began, “right, Dagwood?”
“Mmm-hmm.” The GELF nodded vigorously.
“Since I’m obviously not on duty . . .” Tim indicated his “pajamas,” a set of oversize military-issue boxers and a hastily-thrown-on T-shirt.
Brody cracked a smile, “I sure hope not, Tim.”
O’Neill calmed down at that and seemed to take this whole situation with better humor. “Well, I told him how to work the panel to get in touch with the comms officer on duty--Lt. Ranville. I just said to . . .”
“To what?” Tim had that how-could-I-be-so-stupid look on his face.
“To the button on the right. Not ‘red,’ Dagwood, ‘right.’”
Realizing that he really had made a mistake, Dagwood hunched his shoulders a little. “Mmm, Dagwood thought you meant red.” Wrapping his arms around his own stomach, he looked at both officers. “Sorry, sorry. Sorry.”
“No, Dag. I’m sorry; I was in a hurry and should’ve given you better directions,” said Tim.
With everything now under control, Brody took Dagwood back to the gym, and gave him a quick lesson on left and right. “Don’t forget to practice that, every day, so you don’t forget.”
“Every day. Thank you, Bro-dy.” Dagwood pronounced Jim’s last name almost like two separate words.
“No problem. Let’s call it a day, though.” Jim started out the door toward his quarters. It didn’t occur to him until the next morning that he’d never found out who Dagwood had intended to call.