Alternative Reality: 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. Some dates may appear suspiciously outside canon. In addition, because of the Non-Allied Powers (situated in a place called "Dominia," another element outside the seaQuest canon), this work can be seen as an Alternative Universe piece.
Sequel: "Entangled Alliances" is a sequel to--yeah, you guessed correctly--"Entanglements with the Enemy." Let me know what you think of the new title (it used to be "More Entanglements with the Enemy"! I'd love to hear them!
Rating:PG-13, rated as such because of some adult themes and language.
Summary: Lucas plays boom-boom once again with his vortex. The only real question is . . .who is his enemy? :-)
Copyright 1999 by SheriAnn
Entangled Alliances
Part One
Insanity, Thy Name is Lucas
Buzz.
"Wha--?" Lucas mumbled, face planted firmly within his pillows. Tiredly, he moved his arm once, then again, before finally allowing it to just crash to his side on the floor.
Buzzzzz.
"Uhhh . . ." Lucas moaned. Groggily, he slid one eye open. After a second's silent contemplation, Lucas simply pulled his pillow over his head and decided to ignore whatever was making the noise.
He was drifting back into his favorite dream, a skiing trip mysteriously populated by seven bikini-wearing snow bunnies, when he heard it again: Buzzzzzzz.
With a low growl, he slammed his hand down on the offending device—his much-abused alarm clock—then sighed. Well, he supposed there wasn't any use trying to slip back into his dream right now. Besides, if he were late today, Westphalen would have a conniption fit. He'd been late for the past three days; Westphalen wasn't planning on letting him break his all-time record of five days late straight in a row.
8:45 a.m. That gave him about fifteen minutes to hustle down to the mess, grab a carton of juice, and, ignoring the amused glances shot his way by his friends, scramble right on over to the lab. That way, at least, he wouldn't earn the express displeasure of hearing them chortle over his impending doom: Dr. Kristin Westphalen, upset, as usual, because he was barely on time.
As he swung his feet out of bed, Lucas stared at his room. Ah, just great. He'd certainly outdone himself this time. Mess--chaos running rampant through his tiny cubicle of a room--met his eyes from every angle. Books, notes, pens, paper, somewhat clean clothing, boxes, wires, keyboards, a black desk lamp, dirty clothes, computer parts of every shape and size, dirty silverware, tattered paper napkins, and a half-eaten orange and its resultant peelings scattered across his floor in wild disarray. However, the only things distinctly missing from the picture were his shoes.
Sourly, Lucas wondered where on earth he was supposed to find his shoes in all this mess. It wasn't like he could just go traipsing down the seaQuest's halls barefoot. Yeah, Dr. Westphalen would really appreciate that. No doubt about it.
Of course, it might be just saving Lucas all the trouble of getting his shoes soaked for the twentieth time in two days. In fact, maybe it was a good idea, after all. At least, without his shoes, when his vortex finally decided to blow up all over the science lab, as it inevitably would, he wouldn't have to stomp back to his quarters in squeaking shoes.
Yeah, not a bad idea. He just didn't think Dr. Westphalen would buy it.
Groaning, Lucas fell back against his unkempt bed, staring up at the ceiling as he thought over the past few days. He'd done nothing but work: reading one treatise on gravity and vortices and anti-matter after another, consulting one book after another, scratching one note after another—and usually throwing all of the above into a useless heap at the end of the day, aggravation teeming through his exhausted mind. Several times he'd wondered if hanging upside down and staring at his diagrams for the vortex might help him understand it better; hell, he'd even tried it.
That hadn't helped, though. The only thing he'd earned out of that was The Bridger Look: in Bridger had waltzed (out of nowhere, as usual, somehow knowing Lucas was having a bad day) . . . and then he'd just stood there staring at Lucas, his eyebrows nearly rising smack through the ceiling, his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the hatch, until Lucas had finally realized he was being stared at. Yep, it had been The Look. No doubt about it: The Look that threatened a long string of unanswerable and/or embarrassing questions.
With a sigh, Lucas grudgingly forced his body back up. 8:54. Great. Just dandy. Westphalen was probably preparing her "Why are you late, young man" speech even now, much like a dragon waiting in its lair for its unsuspecting victim.
With a shake of the head, Lucas realized that image wasn't going to help get him anywhere. He could just picture it now: Westphalen confronting him about his tardiness, and him just . . . well, mentally picturing the fiery doctor literally breathing fire out her mouth . . . and, with his luck, the image would start him laughing uncontrollably, which would quickly deteriorate into Westphalen banishing him from the lab (or, even worse, forcing him to chart specimen samples). He shivered. Yeah, that was definitely a bad image this early in the morning.
Grumbling, Lucas eyed his room: he needed clothing, marginally presentable, preferably with as few stains as possible. After a second's perusal, Lucas hopped over several books and bundles of wire, finally stooping to dig out a pair of jeans from a pile of miscellaneous junk. With a few more seconds' worth of searching, he also found a relatively clean shirt on the back of his chair. He then stood wondering where, in all this mess, his sneakers could be.
Hmmm . . . maybe there was something in being somewhat cleanly and orderly, after all. He knew Bridger could find his shoes in a second or two. However, he quickly dismissed the idea of cleanliness when he spotted the sole of one sneaker sticking up from his pile of physics and chemistry texts. He snorted. He knew there was an order to all his chaos . . . he just had to find it.
Now where could its partner be? Lucas wondered as he dubiously eyed his room. Well, at least he could say with a good degree of certainty that it was somewhere on this boat. As long as Krieg hadn't decided the shoes had to go and burned them, that is. His eye then fell on the sneaker, and he laughed softly. His teddy bear was wearing it. Who would have guessed?
As he quickly dressed, Lucas realized that he was missing socks. Just great. Finding a sock in this mess would be like looking for a specific speck of sand in a galaxy of stars: impossible. But he suddenly remembered using a pair of socks to hold a few wires together. That'd fill the bill. They were somewhat hole-infested, as if a rat had been busy snacking on them for some time, but they did the job.
Okay, so he was ready to face Dr. Westphalen. That was good, because by the clock's hands, it looked to be 9:11. He was late.
*****
Five hours later found Lucas hunched over a set of diagrams, his brow furrowed in intense concentration. His day had gone pretty much as expected. Westphalen had given him her Standard Lecture on timeliness. He'd then gone to work on his vortex. However, unfortunately, his vortex seemed quite temperamental lately. He'd already been soaked once today when the vortex had, as usual, spun out of control and whipped water across the lab instead of into a tunnel capable of increasing a shuttle's speed.
For a second, he wondered if it were possibly Monday. But it wasn't. It was actually Wednesday, so . . . no, he couldn't just blame it on the day.
With a last glance at his equations, Lucas hastily redrew a portion of his diagrams; well, perhaps if he tried moving one of the lasers over by a centimeter, it might help. At this point, Lucas would take anything: anything that didn't involve a bath of cold water smack in the middle of the science lab. He'd planned to present some positive results to Captain Bridger before the end of the week, and he sure didn't plan on breaking that deadline. He would come up with something. It just took time, not to mention lots of patience.
Sighing, Lucas trudged over to his computer, then entered the data. He watched as the lasers slowly began to charge, their heat generating a fine mist that clung to the skin. Several drops of water dripped to the floor. Lucas watched them, noting inwardly that there weren't as many drops as normal. Hmmm. That could be good news; of course, it could also be bad news, but he preferred to think optimistically about it.
A soft alarm sounded in his program. Quickly, Lucas glanced over at the screen, relaxing as he saw the routine DANGER message flashing at him. Because he had the lasers powered down to their lowest settings, he didn't need to worry about the danger sign. It wasn't as if he were whipping up a level nine vortex, after all.
The computer clicked silent momentarily, and Lucas smiled. Here was the test. He stared at his watch, nerves tickling within his stomach. Softly, Lucas began counting down the seconds remaining until official vortex formation: "Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . ."
Silence.
Slowly, the funnel formed, drawing water from the moonpool into its center. More water joined the process, whirling into a larger, more powerful vortex. Lucas held his breath. It was almost at its crucial stage: when the vortex would run out of new water to feed itself. It would then either remain stable, as he hoped it would . . . or it would fall all over the floor in a sudden rush of laser-heated, boiling water.
Almost . . . almost . . . one second more . . .
The vortex continued spinning. Lucas watched, heart pounding so hard he feared everyone on seaQuest could hear it. Oh, Lord . . . just a second more. It was holding. It had run out of water completely.
Steady, steady . . . he whispered to the vortex, fingers crossed. Just a second more . . .
But just as the thought escaped, scalding water splashed across the floor. Lucas jumped away, hopping from foot to foot, as the waster soaked through his sneakers. Steam floated across half the science lab, water trickling quietly into the intake valves recently set into the lab's floors. Damn. Annoyed, Lucas refused to look at any of the glances directed his way. Damn, damn, damn!
And he'd been so close . . . he'd almost had it.
But almost just didn't count when it came to this stupid project of his. Lucas wondered why he'd invented it in the first place. No one else in the scientific community seemed to want to tackle vortex engineering with a hundred-foot pole.
Of course, that was probably one very good reason why he'd decided he just had to pursue it.
Insanity, Thy Name is Lucas, he thought drearily, pulling out the ever-handy mop. Yeah, it was "ever-handy" because he forever needed it to clean up his vortex spills.
Grumbling softly, Lucas started to mop his mess for the hundredth time in one week . . . or, at least, what felt like it. He just couldn't imagine what had gone wrong. He'd run and re-run and re-re-run the calculations. He'd had Bridger, Westphalen, and Katie look over his diagrams. He'd even had Bridger check his math. For the life of him, Lucas just couldn't see where he could have gone wrong. It seemed so simple when placed on paper, but trying to get the practical result was more like getting his teeth pulled than working on the vocorder had even approximated. He kicked his foot against a chair. Perhaps he should just dump the project and return to the vocorder. At least he'd gotten that project to work without blowing any major holes through a ship's sides, even if those holes had been on purpose. As he thought this, Lucas slapped the mop against the floor, angrily shaking his head. The last thing he wanted to do was blow some holes into the seaQuest. He'd had to do it on the Ulysses, but he couldn't do it here. He couldn't be stupid enough to do it here.
Usually, Lucas knew he was anything but stupid. Right now, though, he was feeling well below imbecile level. He'd only been working on this project for, what? A year? And he still didn't have anything to show for it but a rickety boat docked in New Cape Quest harbor, its sides leaking and its walls crumbling within, because he'd released a level nine renegade vortex against its hijackers. He sometimes wondered if, had it been necessary to save their lives, he could have produced a stable vortex. Currently, he doubted it.
"Lucas?" A voice muttered at his side. Lucas looked up, startled. It was Captain Bridger. He tried to replace the almost fierce frown on his face with a shaky smile, but Bridger wasn't fooled. Lucas knew the Captain too well to suspect he'd fooled him—or, more to the point, the Captain knew Lucas too well to be fooled. Bridger looked him over, then pulled the mop right out his hands and led him to a chair. After a second, Bridger sat down beside him. "Having a rough day?"
Lucas simply looked at him, wishing Bridger would just . . . go away. He respected the Captain—in fact, he respected him more than anyone he'd ever met—but that was just the problem. He didn't want the Captain to see what a screw up he'd made.
Bridger glanced at the wet floor, then at the tired teenager-physicist-computer scientist beside him. He sighed. "Looks like you've been at it for awhile, Lucas. I'd say it's time for a break, anyway."
Lucas's foot tapped up-and-down, up-and-down. Bridger was tempted to glue that foot to the floor as the teen started chewing at his fingernails.
"C'mon, Lucas. Give yourself a break. You've been at this all week . . ." Bridger could have shot himself in the foot for that one the second it slipped past his mouth. He felt Lucas bristle, then watched as the young man glared at him.
"I know I've been at it all week. That's just the problem!" Annoyed, Lucas stood up. He started to pace. Bridger felt like he was watching an ongoing tennis match as Lucas darted back-and-forth across the lab. Lucas looked at him. "Why is it I can blow up the Ulysses with no problem, but when I want to get this stupid thing to do the simplest thing . . . just form for three seconds without smashing apart, just three lousy seconds . . . I can't do it! Captain, I can't do it!"
Bridger watched for a moment longer as Lucas marched across the floor. After a second, he sighed. "Look, Lucas, this is ridiculous . . ."
"You're telling me. It is ridiculous. Like some huge moron, I can't even . . ."
"No, that's not what I meant, and you know it," Bridger quickly interrupted. Lucas was about the furthest thing from huge moron, a fact he usually was more than happy to share with anyone willing to listen; that the boy was calling himself such a thing was, without doubt, a bad sign. Bridger figured the "bad sign," though, was going to get much worse when he told Lucas why he was really in the science lab in the first place. "Just take a second to think about this, Lucas. Here, look at me."
Bridger waited silently, arms crossing his chest, until Lucas finally looked at him. The boy's angry frown was painful to see. "Think for a moment, kiddo: is there anyone else doing the same work you're doing?"
Lucas frowned, his eyebrows drawing together. "Yeah. Stanford, Harvard, Baylor, MIT . . ."
"Um-huh," Bridger nodded. It was the exact answer he'd been expecting. "And of those several prestigious institutions, how many of them have created a working vortex?"
Lucas paused for a moment before softly replying, "None of them."
"Um-huh. How many of them have drafted diagrams for a vortex?"
"None of them. MIT is close, though."
"Ah." Bridger was silent a moment. "How many of them have designed and used a renegade vortex?"
Lucas scowled at Bridger, looking down at the floor. "None. But none of them have almost blown a ship to the high heavens, either."
"Humph." Bridger nodded, walking over near the moonpool and picking up a loose laser housing. He looked back at Lucas, shrugging. "Yeah, Lucas, but how many of them have purposefully almost blown a ship to the high heavens?"
Lucas ducked his head, once more staring at the floor.
Bridger sighed, shaking his head. "Look, Lucas, your renegade vortex saved our lives. I, personally, am very grateful for that."
Lucas inhaled quickly, muttering something Bridger couldn't hear before he grumpily resumed his stare at the floor.
Well, Bridger supposed it was time for a new strategy. Nathan placed the laser housing on a cluttered desk (Lucas's, he knew, simply by the clutter). "Lucas, whether or not you want to accept it, you saved the lives of several of our crew. Without that vortex, we'd probably be dead. I doubt we could have stopped NAP from taking us and the Ulysses to Dominia." For a second, Bridger ran a hand over his chin. He smiled slightly as he saw Lucas looking about ready to hide under the nearest bunk. The kid never could accept a compliment, it seemed.
At last, Bridger dropped the bombshell, hoping it would quickly take Lucas's mind off his self-proclaimed incompetence: "And . . . there are a few people who want to thank you for that service."
Wide blue eyes instantly flew up towards his face. Bridger smiled somewhat mischievously. "I'm glad I finally managed to get your full attention," he teased lightly. Seeing Kristin Westphalen hovering behind Lucas, Nathan waved her over. She knew what he was about to say, but she'd want to be near when Nathan told Lucas the extremely interesting news he'd just received.
"You, my boy, will be the honored and highly spoiled guest of the Pentagon in . . ." Nathan glanced at his watch, smiling slightly at the wide-eyed expression on Lucas's face ". . . ah . . . well, according to my watch, that would be in approximately ten hours."
As Lucas simply stared at him, clearly perplexed with this news, Nathan grinned over at Kristin. She smiled back, then looked at her somewhat-tardy scientist. Nathan clapped Lucas on the back, beginning to direct his feet towards the door. "And we'll be going with you."
The trio marched down the hall towards Lucas's quarters, planning to swing in and (hopefully) find enough clean clothes to quickly pack and be on their way.
Lucas looked up as they reached his quarters, his frown once more appearing. "But . . . what do they want? Why do they want us?"
"Oh . . . just a chat session, from what I gather. And maybe an award or two." Bridger grinned mischievously at the panic-stricken look on Lucas's face, then ushered the young man into his quarters. His smile slipped into a groan as he saw the mess sprawling around him, and he watched with increasing amazement as the teen wove a quick path through the crazy piles of stuff covering the floor, his feet not even disturbing a speck of dust. "Do you ever clean this place?"
Lucas looked at Bridger, suddenly forgetting to scowl as he slipped into his customary sarcasm. He shook his head. "No. Why would I want to do that?" He shuddered dramatically. "I'd never be able to find anything again."
Bridger and Westphalen rolled their eyes in unison, both giving Lucas The Look before he turned away from them. The grin was still on his face as he prepared to pack for his mandatory "thank you so much, Mr. Wolenczak" trip to the Pentagon.
He just hoped it was a quick trip. If nothing else, he supposed he could always annoy those Big Brass authority figures so much that they practically shoved him out the door themselves.
Hmmm . . . not a bad plan, actually.