Author's Note: some elements have been changed from canonical tradition. For example, Lucas Wolenczak graduated from Stanford with an M.S. in Artificial Intelligence, as well as a subject concentration in physics/mathematics. Why? Don't ask . . . you don't want to know the convoluted logic behind that idea! :) Some dates may appear suspiciously outside canon.
*NOTE ON SCIENTIFIC (DIS)REALITY *: Unfortunately, I'm not Steven Hawking when it comes to the sciences. There may be some content in this section (particularly surrounding the creation of a certain renegade vortex) that are absurdly nonrealistic. I'd encourage a dose of "suspension of disbelief." grin!>
This is a "pre-seaQuest" story.
Copyright 1999 by SheriAnn
Entanglements with the Enemy
Part Three
Nathan was sitting motionlessly, still in shock from Lucas's words, still yearning to say something, anything, to the boy, when he felt the first of six explosions rocket through the ship: The Big Bang, as Lucas had called it. He smelled smoke filling the air, a heavy metallic odor drifting through the ventilation systems. The shock waves ripping through the boat were enough to make the metal moan. He heard the ship's belly creak with each new blast. One way or another, this ship wasn't reaching Dominia. If Lucas had to sink the beast, Nathan suddenly realized that the boy would do it. Lucas not only would know how to do it, but he also would be able to push the button. The teen had more backbone in him than five or six Commander Fords . . . which said quite a bit.
He looked up as Alicia Noyce stormed into the holding cell, her red hair falling loosely into her eyes. She glared at Nathan. "All right, captain. You've made your fine little show. You've burned holes in several decks, and you've put quite the damper on our trip home. However, this won't stop us. You might as well tell me where your little saboteur is hanging out. That way, I might be able to keep my people from killing him at first glance."
Nathan winced at this, but held his tongue. If Lucas needed time, he'd buy him time. "I believe he's somewhere around the kitchens. He was getting hungry last I spoke to him."
She snorted. "You haven't spoken to him, captain! My men have been outside the entire time."
Nathan shrugged. "Then why are you asking me where he is? Do you think I'm telepathic or something?" Mockingly, he closed his eyes, assuming the lotus position as he hummed softly. Still humming, he then peeked his eyes open. "Ummm . . . looks like I was wrong. Instead of hitting the kitchens, he went instead to the gardens. He always loved jasmine and smoke together. He's a gardener, you know."
"Quit this nonsense, sir," she said with a sigh, glaring at him. She studied his impassive face. "What's his name? Where would he likely go?"
At this, Nathan snorted. "You expect me to give you that type of information? And what, do you think I've lost my marbles?"
"Nelson!" she shouted, annoyed. The assistant peeked in, not even glancing at their hostages. "Run another parameter through the database. I'm betting this saboteur has a scientific background, possibly in chemistry. See what you can find."
Nelson nodded, then left without word.
Noyce again glared at Nathan. "You know, captain, that if this ship sinks, you and your crew sink with it. We won't be rescuing you." She watched as he silently shrugged, as if this news was the least concerning bit of information he'd received in years. Noyce sighed, spreading her hands out in frustration. "If you tell us who and what he is, we'll be able to find him--without anyone being hurt. If you don't, with a ship as armed to the teeth and technologically superior as this, we could all be blown to smithereens because your crewman hit the wrong button."
She paused, studying his face--and then his eyes. His face might very well be calm, as it was now, but in her experience, his eyes always gave him away. Distinctly, she remembered her surprise birthday party when she'd turned seven; Nathan had been "assigned" the duty of keeping her occupied while the festivities were arranged. He'd done a good job, too--she hadn't even been aware that anything was up until she'd seen his eyes: wrinkled mischievously at the corners, laughing, sparkling at what lay ahead. And now, the same was true: his face was calm, but his eyes gave him away. They were frightened, pained . . . almost haunted. Whoever was missing, Captain Bridger was very close to him.
Slowly, she said, "Captain, if you care anything about your crew--for the officers beside you or for the officer missing--you'll help us find him before anything else disastrous occurs. Your life may depend on this. Your officers' lives may depend on this. You're responsible for their lives. Think carefully on it."
With that, she turned on her heel and moved towards the hatch, but not before she heard the captain say slowly from behind her, "All of our lives will depend on what happens, Ms. Noyce. But the one ultimately responsible isn't me, but you. My officers know their duties, Noyce--all of them."
She simply opened the hatch and shut it behind her, not looking back at the captain. For a moment, Noyce stared silently, desolately, at the metal hallway; the captain's words, for whatever reason, bothered her. But she knew, she knew she was doing the right thing. She was stabilizing world power. She was bringing hope to a world held in tyranny. She was illuminating, for the benefit of the entire world, the wrong thinking behind the too-powerful UEO. Finally, she was disillusioning the many deceived followers of the UEO's plans to the reality, the blistering, painful reality of truth: that the UEO was a fraud and a tyrant and that they, though unwittingly and with best intentions, had helped feed that fraud. And then she'd take the disillusioned officers and legislators and workers of the UEO, the genuinely exploited victims of the UEO's tyranny, and forge them into officers and legislators and workers of the Non-Allied Powers. This was the day she looked forward to, the day for which she even now struggled against someone she loved.
Suddenly, she snapped back to the world around her and looked at Nelson. The man was still diligently searching the databases. As of yet, no officers of the seaQuest even began to match her brief glimpse of their saboteur, especially not with engineering or scientific experience.
She frowned. If Bridger was close to this person, where could she find such information? Did the seaQuest keep a personal contact list or any such thing?
And then it hit her. She smiled, abruptly standing behind Nelson and staring at his screen. Her grin widened as Nelson looked up at her questioningly. "Do we have ship logs on file?"
Confused, Nelson shook his head. "For the Ulysses? No, they haven't really even . . ."
She snorted, lightly roughing the side of his head. "No, you idiot . . . the logs for the seaQuest. Do we have them?"
After a few seconds of typing, Nelson simply nodded.
Alicia practically grinned ear to ear as she pointed at one file on the screen. "That one, Nelson. I want that file opened." Yes! She'd find out who they were dealing with, Captain Bridger's help or not. That way, she could both protect her own crew and keep that same crew from hurting someone Bridger cared for. That seemed the best solution. As the file opened, she was glad to see it was indexed by date. They'd start at the latest entry and work backwards. "There--start there. Look for any names repeated several times. We're looking for personal contacts, personal comments . . . not official ship business. I think Bridger's very close to whoever's sabotaging our boat; his name should crop up several times in Bridger's personal logs."
Quickly seeing her logic, Nelson nodded, setting to work immediately.
Feeling they were on the right track, Alicia exhaled loudly.
Well, that was one problem well on its way to solving.
Now all she needed to worry about was the boat's propulsion. Damn, if her people didn't know how to sabotage a ship's engines all too well . . .
She found it cruelly ironic that her crew couldn't start the Ulysses' cursed engines. This was cruelly ironic for one simple reason: her beloved Non-Allied Powers had sabotaged the very same engines only a week ago. The sabotage, of course, had been done so that she could commandeer the boat. Wondering how this could've happened to her, Noyce fumed inwardly as she paced behind Nelson. For the irony of it all--the damned irony of it all was that one could not easily commandeer a boat when the engines wouldn't come on-line as described in the instructions! This was certainly the last time she'd place her faith in an instruction manual written by saboteurs!
Sighing, she marched off to find out what, precisely, could be done to start the engines--if anything.
*****
Concealed in darkness, Lucas watched the guards yawn between cups of steaming coffee. Alluringly, the scent of roasted coffee beans drifted to Lucas's nostrils; the smell was tempting. With his eyes heavily drooping down, he could easily quaff two or three cups in several large gulps. Especially since he'd been squished into an instrument panel for three hours, his legs cramped, his head pounding. Just five to ten minutes: that was all he needed. Just a wee bit of time to sneak behind these men into the science and oceanography lab behind them. He just hoped such an opportunity arrived soon; he was getting extremely, dangerously sleepy.
He frowned, watching as one of the guards poured yet another cup of tempting coffee from a thermos nearby, then listened--suddenly alert--as several new voices appeared on the scene. His eyebrows perked, his mind interested, as a male voice loudly declared, "God, that woman'll be the death of me!"
Lucas heard mumbling assent to this comment; several nervous laughs drifted back towards him and resounded in his tiny, uncomfortable hole-in-the-wall (quite literally). Lucas winced as the loud sounds reverberated against his eardrums, grating at his nerves. No wonder he had such a lousy headache.
The man continued: "Red-Head came prancing into my side of the ship, asking for this, asking for that. Did I get the engines going, did I get the computer on-line, did I do her whim before breathing? I merely mentioned, between answers, that her questions were somewhat off-course. She was sticking her nose into my business."
The man paused, swaggering around the room. Now quite awake, Lucas saw that the guards' attention remained riveted to this loud, prattling man; the man himself seemed completely caught up in his own words. Cautiously, Lucas began sliding the instrument panel to the floor, lifting several of the hanging wires as he stuck one foot out of the passage.
The voice boomed towards him. "Imagine Red-Head, sticking her nose into my work! So I tell her, 'Ms. Noyce, you've got your work, and I got mine. Let's just keep it that way.' And do you know what the little devil tells me? Hmmm? Try at a guess . . ."
Again lifting the curtain of wires out of his way as he slid his other foot out of the passage, Lucas wiggled completely out of the instrument panel, shoving wires and fuses back into the crevice with little thought but to get them out of his way. He then silently slid the panel back into place, holding his breath as the metal clinked into place with a soft ping.
He looked up. After a moment, he breathed once more. No, no one had heard him. Thank God.
"The minx doesn't know who's who on this boat. I tell you, watch and see, and she'll be trying for your jobs, too." Lucas grinned at this last statement: it sounded like the "Red-Head" and Doctor Westphalen had a lot in common. He'd known Kristin to lecture Captain Bridger on anything from eating habits to whale watching. As the boisterous man launched into more slander of the dubious red-headed minx, Lucas launched himself into the science and oceanography lab. Silently, he waited beside the door for any sounds of pursuit. None.
Merrily thanking his stars that a garrulous, over-talkative loud-mouth existed on every ship and in every crew, Lucas pulled his computer off his shoulder harness and set to work. If he guessed right, he'd have exactly five minutes to set up his little project and exactly five minutes to get the hell away from it.
That should leave him with plenty of time.
If he'd run his calculations correctly, that is.
Numbers flew into the computer, codes enacted the core vortex program he'd been working on for the past year or so, and--Lucas did this with a nervous sigh--one single button was pressed to begin the countdown. So much for step one.
He set the computer aside, now preparing for step two. The fun part.
Well, he had at least guessed right on this: the Ulysses was equipped with just about every type of scientific instrument one could imagine . . . and several he couldn't quite imagine. He focused, however, on the lasers: the big, multi-dimensional, multi-use lasers so loved by big industry and the military alike. He also focused on the room's large, shimmering moonpool: one similar, in fact, to the moonpool on the seaQuest. Existing apart, the lasers and the moonpool had little use for him. But put together . . .
Well, put together, they could create quite the blast.
Glancing periodically at his watch--he still had about three minutes--Lucas started sprawling out one laser disc after another around the moonpool. One here, one there, one over there . . . all pointed towards the exact center of the pool. He powered up each laser, linking them to his computer through the jerry-rigged adapter he'd fashioned while waiting in the instrument panel. Nothing like an instrument panel to cannibalize for spare parts.
That took care of step two. And now on to three.
Now working quickly, Lucas turned several of the lasers upside down and backwards, creating a strange, warped flow of energy particles as he ran opposing fields of laser energy through them. A dull, humming hiss murmured through the science lab; Lucas sincerely hoped the guards were still busy with their gossip. Beads of water slipped from the moonpool's flickering sides to the floor; sheets of water vaporized into fine mist in the center of the pool. The humming intensified.
Okay, time for stage four: the not-so-graceful exit.
With one last glance at his watch--great, twenty seconds to spare--Lucas pulled an instrument panel loose from the wall and tumbled inside, computer still open and flashing with one clear word: WARNING.
No kidding, Lucas thought wryly. He didn't need the computer to tell him that his butt was about to be fried if he didn't get the hell out of here.
Lucas bit into his lower lip, then did it: he punched in the final numbers sequence, the sequence that would start those lasers firing into one another, through the water, off the walls, and back into the water to create his latest pet project.
Well, it'd almost create his latest pet project--or a version of it, at least. Lucas quickly yanked the adapter from his computer as the system at last went off-line. With a curse, Lucas saw the lasers come fully alive, waking from their hibernating hum into--well, Lucas best described it as a passion of fire. Whatever it was, he was glad when the instrument panel was safely slammed shut behind him, his computer, and the dark passage cutting through the ship's innards.
As he urgently crawled away from the science lab, scurrying like a rat from a tomcat, Lucas could hear it, all right. The shouts spoke volumes for what was happening in that science lab. This was only the beginning of what his opponents would see, too.
In about three minutes, the system would complete its initial numbers rotation. Then it would switch into its full, frightening capacity.
It would create a level nine vortex smack in the middle of the ship.
Lucas caught himself as he thought this, then silently amended, A level nine renegade vortex smack in the middle of the ship.
For Lucas had, as of yet, failed to create the object of his latest project: a stable vortex environment capable of safely transporting ships at about five times their current speed. He had, however, succeeded (and often quite dramatically, to his ultimate chagrin) in creating an unstable, highly powerful, very destructive vortex several times. This was what he labeled the "renegade" vortex: an instrument of unknown dimensions. This was the very "renegade" vortex that the navy was so interested in exploring for weapons research.
Of course, up until now, he'd only initiated level four renegade vortexes.
Those level four renegade vortexes had blown holes through glass and broken several of the navy's "destruction proof" test sensors.
Frankly, he had no idea what a level nine vortex would do to the Ulysses. But he also knew that, given his calculations, it wouldn't be pretty.
However, "pretty" wasn't what he was aiming for right now.