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SeaQuest
His Honor, Mister Mayor Lucas
Chapter 1; Ship out of bounds
The problem begins
(SeaQuest – season 1 opening them)
Tuesday, 18 February 2020; 20:24pm
Townhouse of William and Janet Noyce
New Cape Quest, Florida, USA
Admiral 3-stars William Allard Boyd Noyce slammed the door to his house with a furious anger that was just a second away from lashing out indiscriminately at anything in his vicinity. Thankfully his wife Janet had gone out of town to see her ailing sister at her retirement home in Alabama. He had the whole three storey townhouse to himself to mess up and then leisurely clean before she came back.
Bloody fucking NATHAN stupid ass-wipe HALE-the-all-mighty-hero BRIDGER! Why had he thought of keeping friends with that moronic drunken wastrel of a beach bum was beyond him at the moment. His wife and kids kept telling him to dump the waste of space and be done with him. He should have listened to them and done it! Oh, how he rued not doing it when Bridger retired!
Now, however, the foolish redneck idjiot of a coon-spawn had gone and done it! He put the president of the U-S-A on his back! And for what? Just how hard was it to take care of a peaceful, stable, cooperative teenager without somebody from social services holding his hand all day? Had the confounded fool gotten sunburn to the brain during his stay on that piece of shit island of his? Aaaaarrrrggghhh! - Crash! - There went the hallway mirror that he always disliked so much. He knew how bad his days were, he didn't need to see it when he came home at night after some 12 to 16 hours of working himself to death!
William punted his briefcase to the side with an angry kick and practically ripped off the officer's cap, jacket and necktie he wore, dropping them dejectedly in the wicker basket his poor wife had put beside the half-circle console table that was under the now defunct mirror. The little table and its drawers was for her to leave keys, grocery lists and memos of who to visit if she decided to ignore her arthritis and walk around the neighborhood on a sunny weekend morning. The basket was from her rapidly understanding some of the moods her husband suffered from ever since he was promoted to captain and moved from US Naval Intelligence over to a permanent land-based posting as advisor to the White House on ship design and technological comparison with both their enemies and allies.
There were days when Bill came in and, once the door was closed at his back, he would ask himself why anybody thought it weird that so many countries and cultures wanted to burn down the USA and salt the ground after they were done.
He had learned why after just two months shuttling between the Pentagon and the White House. By the third month, his routine included the Capitol and the many multiple contractors with assorted sojourns in hotels and motels around DC to liaise and make pretty with the high-flying industrialists that populate the landscape around the entire military-industrial complex of America. There was so many useless leeches, lampreys and disease spreading mosquitoes haunting the halls of Washington DC that it was a miracle of Jesus's own Virgin Mother that the country was still in any way, shape or form functional. And then he got promoted to admiral and had to add NCQ to his many destinations in his travels along the path of decay, depravity and devolution.
The only thing worse than a lawyer was a lawyer converted to lobbyism! He had seen enough of the briefcase toting parasites in the last twenty years to have the arguments for their extermination down by heart. People had no idea of what the real threat to America actually was.
Forget Russia, China, the Montagnard Federation, the Pan-African Federation or the infantile mewlings of a post-Brexit Europe that was floundering in its own morass. Even Micronesia was a farce compared to the homeland situation right now! It was bad enough now that if anybody pissed the wrong way or showed the wrong piece of skin to the wrong person, all of the blasted Department of Defense would shut down over the lawsuit and then the other parts of the legislative would try to stop funding the DoD in a blatant attempt to force their own religious views in lieu of a solution to the problem. Even if they were wrong, the solution was illegal or the whole process destroyed morality, efficiency and stability amongst the ranks! No! They had money and an invisible sky-daddy that put his hand on their shoulder to compel them to obey; that was enough for them! Lets just buy a politician or a judge and be done!
And now this clusterfuck turned into fubar right on his watch and he had been completely blindsided by it until they dropped the IED on his lap and wished him good luck. Cow-fuckers the lot of them!
Bill walked to the living room and took a bottle of fruit juice from the wet bar before sitting in his favorite sofa besides the dark, cold fireplace. At this time of the day, and with Florida's weather, he wasn't lighting up the old wood burning hearth. But it was his favorite place to sit, relax, decompress and let simmer the problems of his office and position.
Passing a hand over his weary face, Noyce thought about what the President and his cabinet had concocted to palliate to a growing problem that could, and honestly would, degenerate into a full blown crisis if it weren't lanced, cleansed and sterilized like the infected puss-filled boil on the ass that it was.
In the first month of operating at sea after the incident with Madeleine Stark and her stolen sub, the SeaQuest had encountered several weird and challenging events but come through them almost unscathed. All good there, even if most of the official reports were so botched it was a disgrace.
Then the problems in the ship started being reported from outside the usual channels for such situations. The internal social and political situation aboard was deteriorating at rapid pace due to a four-way war of laws, procedures and flat out bigotry.
Side 1; The captain and select officers. Bridger had gone 'Maverick of the seas' almost from the get-go and left little place for the intellect or aptitude of others in the command chain, which command structure he ignored at all times except when ordering people to file reports that he never checked or corrected. But it was becoming clear that in the daily routines of administering and managing the ship, he did what he damn well pleased and didn't give a flying rat's tail for any opposed opinions, even when said opinions were quoting the law books verbatim. Among the people following Bridger were the Ex-O Ford and their old friend Manilow Crocker with some assorted junior officers and enlisted men. No civilians wanted anything to do with the man anymore despite his scientific genius.
Side 2; Career crewmen and staffers who wanted to manage the ship's activity by the established military Laws and procedures of the USA, NATO and UEO as they are written, not as Bridger's swollen cock feels like on that particular hour. They were fed up of being led by the man's ball's instincts rather than logical, formal regulations and governance. These people were led by the Chief Engineer who was also Second Officer, Lt-commander Katherine Hitchcock. She had managed to gather and organize about half of the enlisted men and commissioned officers, including most of the bridge crew, to her side with her stability and affability. The civilian scientists and contractors aboard were liable to follow her only a quarter of the time, though, just because she was career military.
Side 3; Doctor Kristen Westphalen, the Chief of Sciences, touted her own horn and claimed quite falsely that she also controlled the whole Medical Department when in fact they were independent from Sciences and legally headed by the Israeli Navy's medic Joseph Levine. They did not have to beg private companies for financing per each project like Sciences did as they were a necessity for the ship to function and their budget was assured by the government. Still, she claimed to have managed to gather some two dozen followers from the senior scientists, junior assistants and contractors. That of course meant their financiers could be counted behind her position and so threatened to derail projects if the people did what she asked and stopped working or paying until she was in a dominant position. The woman was not reliable, not stable and had an abrasive temper to make his ears ache even though they were near Australia right now. He still had a bad headache from the last time he talked to her a week ago! Damn! How did the people aboard live with her?
Side 4; Lucas Wolenczak, 16 year old multi-genial super-prodigy, entrepreneur and technical wonder child of the SeaQuest. He had managed during his brief 3 month stay aboard the ship to make friends with almost every person he spoke to or worked with on any type of job. His scientific and technical credentials were solid and spotless. His attitude towards his tasks, functions, positions and societal ranking on the ship were excellent and deserved commendation as soon as they talked. Bill had asked him for an end-of-month report to be given verbally at each month of the tour. Noyce wanted to have a personal feel of the ship's internal ecology, society and interpersonal activities every month to stay ahead of whatever problems could arise. The goal was obviously to avoid another Stark-type scenario where the captain went quite literally ballistic on the neighbors.
Lucas had been the best choice of the thirty candidates to use as a permanent informant hidden under the nose of whomever they would eventually choose as captain of the vessel. He was so young as to not have any romantic or familial attachments in place, nor foreseeable in the next few years. He was impeccably mannered, stable, amenable to working under stress and still got along quite splendidly with many types of personalities. The best was that Lucas was not the type of guy to put his balls on the table and challenge everybody like a rutting elk. Unlike Bridger, Ford and Westphalen; stupid jerks!
Lucas had made fast solid friendships with every person you would call 'blue collar' on board by assisting them in their tasks at least once. Then, he simply worked with most of the bridge crew every day and helped them with the little problems that were not just computers or the aqua-tubes. Most of the junior and senior officers admitted in their reports that they actually used his thoughts and arguments when making decisions, even over Hitchcock. Not that surprising when the woman herself admitted that more than three quarters of the time the kid had the truthful and accurate view of events and people.
The ship's command structure, society and legal apparatus had fragmented in four parts like an overripe fruit in just four bloody weeks in the drink and he just knew that Bridger would blame either the kid or the doctor.
In Westphalen's case he was right and that was going to get rectified soon.
As for Lucas taking the blame and then having him forcibly subjected to 'specialized, more manly disciplines' from the captain and some specific crewmen Bridger wanted to select just for that task...
Well that wasn't going to happen while HE was in charge of the UEO fleet! No sir! He knew Nathan had fucked the pooch again just like on his last ship, before his retirement when Robert died, and he wasn't going to let him get away with it this time!
And now the blasted White House had put its nose it the mess! Aaaaarrrrggghhh! - Crash! -The fruit juice plastic bottle had flown in the air and toppled an ugly piece of fake-china vase that he had hated as soon as his wife put it on the window sill. Was the woman colorblind or something? Who was it that thinks that shade of shit-brown was an attractive thing to put in the front window of a house? In the living room of all places? He loved Janet dearly but sometimes, he was beginning to think her mind was going the way of their parents and she was due to move into an assisted living facility. Pity he didn't have that excuse for himself. And retirement! What would he do with himself if he quit?
No! Better face the politicians and their cockamamie schemes than face years sitting on the porch with a beer in hand and nothing productive to do with his life and knowledge.
Still... The President... The man was either a genius or a fruitcake well past his expiration date. Even the Joint-Chiefs-of-Staff who were usually whorishly enslaved to the man's folly had been balking at the idea he just dropped on them. William would very much like to know just how the man gets his information from inside the blasted boat when his own informants had all the miseries of humanity trying to just send a bloody SMS or TEXT message out of the hull.
Massaging his head with both hands, Bill wondered what kind of world tomorrow would bring as even now the letters and official decrees were being printed and sealed over at Pennsylvania Avenue, being prepared for physical transport over to the SeaQuest. And they expected him to play messenger boy and deliver them in person so he could supervise the application,of the new Law and Procedures in person. It also conveniently made certain that an admiral and high-brass stooge was aboard to deflate Bridger's ever sizable ego before it burst and detonated the ship with itself.
And what a blow-out it would be! He could predict a childish tantrum of truly epic proportions. Like writing a viking-style saga about it, epic! They would name it 'The lamentable complaint of a failed officer, his miserable excuses to justify his collapsed command and his self-destructed reputation'!
Snort! Bill started laughing out loud like a wild board that just found truffle after a long winter. Yes, good old Nathan Bridger was gonna eat his own pride, bravado and ego-driven swill with a shovel if Noyce had anything to say about it! Now in a better mood, if not by much, Noyce started planning the logistics of moving himself, the Head of UEO Fleet Assets from one end of America to the other end before skipping the second pond all the way to the SQ near Tonga trench where they were loitering, still looking at that bizarre proto-leviathan thingie they had found. Honestly, God! A ship shaped like a blasted quid got itself a girlfriend shaped like a crap-assing giant jellyfish! Who were they kidding when they thought a simple solution would solve the problems on that barge?
Aaaaarrrrggghhh! - Crash! - The cute little terracotta cat figurines went sailing across the room and out the window to crash on the driveway pavement in front of the house. Bill was feeling a mite better now. He could probably set his travel itinerary and call his yeoman to have that ready for the early bird flight on the morning.
Now! Let's see what my delectable wife left in the fridge when she went on the road. Leftovers would be easier to handle than calling for some delivery service. And he just didn't feel like eating anything chinese. He'd had that six times in the last two weeks, it was enough. "Wonder if she ate all the meat balls from yesterday?" he asked aloud to the empty house as he went foraging around his own home like it was uncharted enemy territory.
The problem revealed
(SeaQuest – season 1 opening them)
Wednesday, 19 February 2020; 07:38am
UEO Navy diplomatic hypersonic plane #004 'No Man's Land'
Above Texas airspace, USA
"Yes Lieutenant, I want to speak to the captain in person, on the Bridge, on open line. Now! And make certain that the full senior bridge crew are present along with the chiefs of security, sciences, medicine and Lucas Wolenczak as he serves as both CME and CCA in an officially recognized capacity! So don't feed me Bridger's lines about him being just a child or too young to be present! I placed the teen in those jobs myself, I bloody well will speak to him on the bridge's main monitor when I feel like it! Execute! I will call back at exactly 08:00 sharp on my clock so be prepared or you'll get an Article 32 hearing for general court martial on disobeying direct orders from the very Head of Fleet Assets! Or did you get convinced along the way that the fucking 'Maverick of the seas' outranks me and has a higher office?"
Closing the comm line in the junior officer's very reluctant and uncertain face, Noyce was internally steaming about that. On any other ship, the comms crew would never have tried to pull this kind of shit in his face, and on public, non-cyphered frequencies to boot! And he was aboard one of the UEO's brand new hyper-jets, going at mach 6, which of course means that everything said and done inside the plane or on its communicators was recorded and sent to the backup servers in NCQ as it happened.
What the hell was happening aboard that scow that the crew forgot basics like that? And how could a JUNIOR lieutenant have lost his marbles enough to think the admiral didn't outrank and command the captain anymore? There was going to be some bloodletting on that skiff when Bill got his boots on the deck plates, yes sirree, I guarantee!
(SeaQuest – season 1 opening them)
Wednesday, 19 February 2020; 08:00am
UEO Navy diplomatic hypersonic plane #004 'No Man's Land'
Above Pacific ocean, heading South / South-West towards Australia.
The wide monitor above the backrest of the sofa activated and showed bill the wide-angle view of the SeaQuest's bridge from the four helm chairs in front all the way to the back wall and the walkway over the aqua-tube. At the bottom of his screen, several smaller cameo-type windows appeared and closed-in to show the torso and faces of pre-selected persons. The interesting little program to do that came from Lucas and was well designed and well used during large-group conferences like this. It made looking at the whole group while seeing the minute expressions of the more important people at the same time easier instead of needing to replay the recording of the conference later.
In the wide angle view, Nathan Bridger stood in the center before his command chair. He was dressed in the usual dark blue jumpsuit that was the daily uniform aboard most US & UEO subs these days. His Ex-O was standing at his own station with Hitchcock right next to him, also her assigned station.
The others were placed in very revealing fashion.
Lucas was standing right in front of the communications and sensors consoles, leaning rightwards on them in fact while his right arm was bent across his abdomen which he seemed to be massaging for some reason.
The looks on the faces of Ortiz and O'Neil were murderous as they glared at Ford's back.
Chief Crocker and Lieutenant Shan were standing near Lucas in a way that could be described as either protective or controlling, depending on the facts which were sorely missing. He would tend towards protective though, as Doctor Levine was next to them, behind Lucas to whom he was speaking softly while leaning forward to address the surly-faced teenager while the two sailors seemed to listen intently and agree with the doctor.
Doctor Westphalen stood alone on the captain left side, just in front of the curved Aqua-Tube structure and the guest benches that surround its outer glass walls. She was very clearly isolated from everybody else; probably by her own volition if one read the glares she shot around at everybody.
"First of all, belay your yapping until I give you leave to speak! There is one person who's opinion counts in all this and it's ME! So shut your lying foul-spewing traps Right-Fucking-Now!" Bill glared at the people on the screen and looked at each individual face in detail, memorizing for later conversations. "Lucas! What happened to you? Why are you injured?" he barked out at the teen.
Swallowing past the lump in his throat and now holding his belly with both arms, the teen seemed more angry than hurt, which was a good thing or Bill might have had the pilot do a bombing run against the boat.
"I got into an argument with captain Bridger late last night about some work that I had ordered done in the course of my duties as CME & CCA; the crewman I gave the work ticket to blew me off and never obeyed his orders. When I came to Bridger stating that I wanted to initiate the process against the man with a verbal warning in front of the captain and another crewman as witness, Bridger started barking at me like a dog that I didn't have the right to give orders to anybody, not even in my own departments."
The young man swallowed past his dry throat again. "The captain said to my face that I was just a simpering child, a minor under legal age and so he was cancelling my ranks, positions, security clearance and personal shipboard privileges on that account. He commanded that I still do the jobs themselves though, since he couldn't find anybody decent to do them right. He warned me that he was cutting right away all of my salaries, performance bonuses and expense accounts down to absolute zero since he believes that a child should not have money independent of adult control. His control to be precise. He even told me that he would petition some court, somewhere to seize my personal bank account and my small company that makes the gaseous holo-monitors so I wouldn't think of just leaving them in a lurch and going back to Stanford, independently of his will."
Lucas shifted his weight on his feet and moved his arms to rub his abdomen a bit before continuing. "That's when the shit hit the fan and sprayed the whole boat. I got so pissed off at Bridger that I lost all my means of self-control and started screaming obscenities and threats at him. Loud enough to be heard all over several sections and compartments since the conference room door wasn't closed. That's when Ford came in with his ego in one hand and his balls in the other. He grabbed me by the throat, pushed me back against the big main table and sucker-punched me in the gut a dozen times at full force before Bridger decided to even say a word to make him stop. The defective geriatric rat bastard just stood in the background with a grin while I got pummeled by his attack dog and laughed at my face when it was done. He had the gall to say that 'You wanted to be treated like an adult; that's an adult punishment for hard-headed fools who disobey the Authority of the ship's CO.' And he just laughed his head off like a loon while I limped and stumbled my way to see Levine in the infirmary."
Bill Noyce was fuming like a volcano preparing an eruption. "Doctor Levine! What is the physical status of Lucas as we speak?" He asked in a tone of voice that told everybody hearing it that Ford had very badly overstepped his bounds and would pay dearly, with Bridger next to him along the way.
Joseph Levine was on loan from the Israeli Defense Force, a trained field medic and traumatologist who was also a pediatrician as the army base clinic where he worked for 20 years treated the families of the soldiers as well as the men themselves. He was an ideal candidate for the chief of medicine position and Noyce had personally placed him there, no matter what bitchings Westphalen was oinking that day.
"Shalom, Admiral Noyce; my respects." the doctor began with a small bow of the neck. "Lucas has been very lucky to escape injuries to his stomach. It came close that the inner lining could have detached from the structure and caused permanent damage, possibly fatality if not surgically repaired in the three to five hours following the event. As it is, I was still obliged to take the full battery of scans and had to effectuate an inspection by pellet-camera to ascertain the full extent of damages done. He has severe bruising all around the abdominal sector, there is contusing of the stomach, the smaller intestine and the greater intestine and some muscular cramps in the diaphragm caused by swelling around and on the diaphragm itself. Also, two of his floating ribs on the left side have been cracked and he needs his torso bound for several weeks until they heal properly. The alternative for a shorter recovery is of course surgery to instal metal pins and synthetic calcium aggregate. I have sent the reports on this to you last night. Did you not get them?"
Bill was quite interested to see that Ford, Bridger and Westphalen were all seemingly indisposed, not by the injury report, but by the fact the report had disappeared and Noyce was now aware of that additional malversation. The volcano erupted.
"Nathan Hale Bridger! You miserable, ill-aborted spawn of an ill-cleaned test-tube! What the fuck is wrong with you! First you try do demote and fire somebody that I, your superior, put in place and then you want to go into his life and steal and extort from him! And then you no only get him injured bad enough to need several surgeries to recover, you actually have the gall to stop the reports or the calls for help to heal his health! That's it, you wankering mule's end! You're under arrest! The charges will be filed when I get there in another hour! In the meanwhile, I will ask the Australians to send ships and men to take over the Quest and bring her to port! Under escort and with Aussie crew at the helm! Hitchcock! Seize and detain Bridger, Ford and Crocker! Now! And before I forget; here is the dead-man switch linked to the fuel cells, missile rockets and torpedoes in your holds. If I stop sending the clearance code for more than 30 seconds, the ship will ignite all its fuel and munitions all at once and self destruct that way. So my pretties, you had better do as told and tow the line or you won't live to reach court martial, because you won't see the shore ever in your lives! Execute!"
Closing the window with anger and contempt, the admiral turned to his right to speak with the marine colonel and navy commander who sat there, listening to the entire conversation with great attention and interest.
"As you can see, gentlemen, the SeaQuest is on a course for perdition if we don't intervene pronto. I want solutions, people! Not more problems! Contact your respective outfits and coordinate a takedown of that boat R-F-N!"
The venerable old admiral stood and walked to the wet bar to prepare himself a coffee. An espresso sounded good right now and he would need all the energy he could get when he faced off against Bridger's idiocy in person.
The problem exposed to the light of day
(SeaQuest – season 1 opening them)
Wednesday, 19 February 2020; 10:17am
US Navy aircraft carrier 'G.H.W. Bush'; admiralty deck
Australia, northern coast, 250km off Darwin City
"Atten'hut! Head of Fleet Assets on deck! Admiral on deck!" the watch officer shouted as William Noyce entered the tight, glass fronted compartment at the top of the carrier's control tower. He was in even worse a mood than before leaving the plane.
"What do you mean, the damned ship won't heave-to and be boarded as ordered? Do they know WHO they are talking to, the nitwits? The order came from Fleet Control! What the fuck is Bridger thinking this time? Hail them! And get someone or something on the damned visual!"
Bill sat himself in the chair reserved for visiting VIP's of his standing and glared malevolently at the admiral in charge of the carrier group, daring him to go mushy in the head the same way that Nathan had done. Having both a strong professional conscience and survival instincts after living through three skirmishes against Micronesia, the man backed off and easily gestured for Noyce to take center-stage.
'Finally', Bill thought, 'an officer that knows his job and does it'. He was still ruminating what happened when the large monitor above the massive panoramic gallery-window came to life and showed the bridge of SeaQuest. It was far more sparsely populated than before and there seemed to be damages to some equipments.
Lieutenant O'Neil came forward, holding a hand to the left side of his head from where a filet of blood was slowly seeping down to stain his uniform collar and shoulder. "Ahem, heu... We aren't having a good day right now, I think... Could you stop sitting on the hand brakes and send help please? We need people and we need a lot more medics aboard fast if we don't want to lose more people than we already did. Please sir, we're all loyal, law abiding people here. Those left anyways... Bridger took off with Ford and about three dozen crew, staff and officers in a pair of hijacked MR shuttles about an hour and a half ago, right after the blow-out from you calling for their arrest. Most of the civilian crew and contractors stayed and helped to defend us against Bridger's partisans, but it got ugly fast."
Timothy sat himself gingerly in the captain's chair and continued after a grimace of pain, still holding his head. "We had running firefights in the corridors for a while. When we saw they wanted out, we opened and closed some blast doors to make a strictly confined passage to the launch bay in the hopes of containing them there until your troops could come and arrest them. Bridger and some of his rebel techs jacked the parking silos then took control of MR 1 and 2. After that, they managed to open the outer hull doors to get out of the ship unchallenged. We lost them because the sensor console on the bridge is out of order and we think they also did something to reprogram the sensors themselves to ignore or not recognize their specific IFF and signatures."
Bill had a bad feeling in his gut about that. "Where is Lucas? Why did he not stop them?"
O'Neil shook his head gingerly, obviously disoriented by his injury and blood loss. "He got hit bad, sir. Right after you shut the comm, Ford barreled through Crocker and Shan to bodyslam him into the consoles and pummel him about the face, head and chest. I think I heard at least one or two ribs snap during his assault. When the guys tried to pull him off, he kicked out and caught Lucas in the belly with his foot. The kid went down like a sack of potatoes and started spitting out vomit and blood almost immediately. That gave Bridger the opening he wanted to pull out his small drop-piece from his ankle holster and shoot out the sensor console. Then he switched mags and told us that we would get our chance to save Lucas if we let them get around to gather their people and supplies. We let them out but as they went, Bridger decided to settle some accounts; he shot Hitchcock, Crocker and Shan in the guts to make sure we had something more pressing to do than run after his group of fugitives."
Tim gratefully took a medical compress and some pills handed to him by a corpsman along with a bottle of medicated fruit juice specifically mixed to give a boost of electrolytes, vitamins, proteins, calcium and pro-active organisms to increase the immune response. He placed the compress to his head where it stuck on its own and then slowly washed down the pills with the juice. The codeine boosted acetaminophen should hold him up until he could be taken to sickbay for a thorough consult.
"as it stands admiral, we have Me as senior officer to hold conn whilst Migs, I mean Lt Ortiz, is down in the launch bay trying to figure out what they jacked or damaged to get out. We have been decapitated and are slowly bleeding out. Oh, and that gribitch Westphalen is still aboard; even Bridger's rebels didn't want anything to do with her so they left her behind in the launch bay hub after knocking her out. Was long in the coming that was. I ordered her put in the brig since she had actually been willing to go off ship with Bridger. She said so out loud on at least three times that I'm aware of. That's about it. Oh, by the way... The sensors outside are offline and the WSKRS aren't responding either. When you get here, you'll have to call and tell us what to do as we are blinder than me without my glasses." the poor man tried to joke to lighten up the situation just a bit.
Noyce nodded his head to the commander and colonel who had accompanied him to the carrier's control deck and answered verbally: "Hang on tight, we're coming in with rescue and medics."
The problem is at hand
(SeaQuest – season 1 opening them)
Wednesday, 19 February 2020; 11:30am
UEO Flagship SeaQuest DVS 6000; launch bay control hub
Australia, northern coast, 150km off Darwin City
Miguel Ortiz honestly wanted to cry like a baby when he saw the head of the first marine come up the access ladder from the shuttle parked below. He almost hugged the jarhead when the guy held him at arms length and started spitting out orders and questions at the same time. Shaking his head, still trying to get rid of the images of so many friends on the ground bleeding out, the young cuban gestured to the guy to slow down and give him a minute to orient himself so he could think clearly.
"Sorry man, I'm still shellshocked by what happened on the bridge a couple of hours ago. We techies finally figured what Bridger did to get out and it's worrisome. He had some backdoor codes hardwired into the very circuitboards that control the ship's main functions. That's why even Lucas's anti-hacker protections weren't able to stop him: the physical parts of the computer could not differentiate his codes from the clock, BIOS and firmware installed. He basically pulled the same trick as Stark. Again."
The man rubbed the side of his nose as he looked at the armored, geared-up marine who was listening calmly, now that he was receiving the intel he wanted. Ortiz continued: "Now, those circuits were the oldest in the CPU stacks and server modules. Lucas had already replaced almost 80% of the native parts post-Stark just to avoid this shit. It seems that Bridger kept a few of the originals stashed in his cabin and simply swapped the new Lucas-made boards for the old corrupted parts. And voila; skeleton key to move around and leave the ship at will. Unfortunately, we can't remove all those things because they control very vital systems and they have to be custom built on specs. Which Lucas has done a tremendous job of getting designed and sent to the workshops but he is pretty much alone aboard who can do this type of thing. That, and Bridger kept piling any other crap he could on him to keep him occupied and out of his hair."
The marine tapped a small black plastic rectangle clipped to the front of his flak vest and asked "Have you got that, Sir?" to then be answered by the voice of Noyce coming from the small speaker on the side of the body-cam "Yes; continue to advance and secure the ship and crew. The two shuttles with medics and supplies are inbound and should be there in less than 10 minutes. Over."
Putting a reassuring hand on Miguel's shoulder, the marine applied a gentle pressure to signify he should move and wasn't surprised in the least when the sailor followed the silent physical cue without any protest or argument. It was apparent the guy was coming down from a long bout of running on adrenaline and was due to crash soon. In short order, Ortiz and the corporal who was escorting him saw pass by about six dozen marines in armor with rifles in hands. Overflowing from their belt pouches and clips were sets of cuffs, tie-wraps, chains and what looked like magic markers but in a weird orange color with a biological warning label. Ortiz turned a worried face towards his escort but the 27 year old just patted his shoulder and said "Lots of gear and precautions just in case somebody panics or has a bad reaction. All the rifles are pulse emitters pre-locked to low stun only, our pistols are tranquilizer darts and the orange epipen look-alike is actually a single-dose spray can with a gaseous equivalent to a mix of Prozac, Ritalin and Valium all together. We've come here to help you guys, not stomp on you."
Miguel leaned back against the bulkhead and let himself slide down to the deck, now totally spent and no longer able to hold on. Once sitting, he folded his legs until he could lay his chin on his knees and wrapped his arms around his legs, locking himself into a defensive posture as his mind started replaying the scene from the bridge over and over again. His own Commanding Officers, the man who designed and built the ship, turned traitor on them and shot at them. Kathy. Manny. Marcus. Lucas. And how many more?
As Miguel began to silently cry, letting fall tears he didn't even feel, he was never aware of the small bit of gas that was spritzed in his face or the fact the he loosened his muscles and canted sideways until he was laying on his side on the deck. The marine helped him lie down and elongate his legs, placed his arms on his chest in the proper position for transport and signaled the first rescuers to come inside SeaQuest to triage Ortiz and put him in the system so they could order a physical and psych eval ASAP. The corporal understood that the sailor was burned out and sympathized with him. He had done a couple of tours in the Arabic Peninsula and been under fire for years before being sent to the Bush Carrier Group but he had never faced the depravity of his own people turning weapons against him. He honestly didn't know how he would react to being victimized by such crime so he gave the downed man his respect and best wishes. He would need both soon.
Standing up and out of the rescuers' way, corporal Maynard moved along to the control console that managed the launch hub and asked his own SeaBee engineer what they had found.
"It's pretty much like your sleeping sailor said, sir." The technician explained while holding up a circuitboard to show. "You can see here they have dates and makers' marks and the more recent board also has this on it: A micro controller with a pressure switch that get pushed inside the device when the panel is inserted in its housing in the CPU rack mount. This is what their Chief Computer Analyst, Lucas Wolenczak, invented to make certain nobody switched his custom designed and built parts for cheap stuff. These would fetch about 15,000$ on the black market for each panel. The fact that the guy manually verified, tested and signed each panel prior to welding his little device and then putting it in the CPU racks himself says a lot about how seriously he took his job and his work ethics. I want to shake the guy's hand when he wakes up. This is the standard for keeping secure stuff secure!"
Corporal Maynard nodded but had bad news. "The guy has been in surgery for almost three hours already. We have no idea if he'll live or what shape he'll be in. Don't know if he'll remember himself even. I pray he does since he's the one who warned admiralty about Bridger's folly but Nature and God don't listen to jarheads. We just hav'ta make do."
Getting a salute from the marine engineer, the corporal went further to talk to a pair of other SeaBees who were near the outer hull, installing a set of boxes and wires. One of the soldiers took out a hot glue applicator and began glueing the bundled wires to the wall and door frames around the launch hub.
"How's the mobile command post coming along?" Maynard asked politely to his guys as they worked. Neither turned to him, the job more pressing than manners, but answered with shrugs and hand gestures to signify it was a standard install. No troubles in view. "Okay, keep at it guys. The CPU's are fried out or unreliable because native parts have viruses in them so we need to take them offline ASAP. As soon as the wire-antennae and the replacement comms hub are online, I want you to tell the other guys to start yanking out everything that looks or feels computerized. Clear?" Getting nods and thumbs ups from the pair, he walked away to his next pit stop.
"Corporal, sir!"
A much younger marine saluted as he approached. Maynard wanted to wince and hide in shame. The guy in front of him was barely 19 years old. What did they think in Washington, when they hired guys so young to be in the corps? He carefully put in the back of his mind that he had signed up at 18 years old flat before even having his high school diploma in hand. Those memories never helped him deal with stuff anymore.
"Yeah, Jacobi, what is it?" the older soldier asked, tempering his tone. Despite the Hollywood movies and 'jarhead' jokes, marines do not in fact spend their time barking at each other, not unless under fire and they had to shout louder than ambient noise.
Private Darren Jacobi stood at ease and pointed at the well hatch to silo 4 "Admiral Noyce inbound in 5 minutes through hatch 4, sir!"
Giving an understanding nod and a sign to move out of reach, Maynard passed Jacobi and went to stand by the access well hatch to receive the Boss of All Bosses, the Head of Fleet Assets. And the blasted floating coffin wasn't even fully secured yet! Did the brass really think them being present would make things happen faster or more securely? Hell no! Bah, what a crap day this was!
Noyce climbed out of the access ladder with an agility that was well above what one would expect from a rotund, elderly admiral of his exalted station. Maybe being fueled by anger, rage and contempt for the bilge rats involved could explain his sudden vigor.
The problem is contained, mostly
(SeaQuest – season 1 opening them)
Wednesday, 19 February 2020; 11:50am
UEO Flagship SeaQuest DVS 6000; launch bay & bridge
Australia, northern coast, 150km off Darwin City
William Noyce was in a flamboyant rage as he climbed out of the access well from the parking silo. The carrier group had called when he was halfway through his transit to the Quest with the sort of news that made him want to reinstate the sorts of public punishments and executions the US Navy had banned a hundred years ago.
Nathan Bridger and his rebels had defected to god-forsaken Russia!
About 70 minutes ago, a russian floatplane from the Russian Navy had been on its way up north from visiting the russian base in Antarctica and given it was an old propellor plane, it needed a lot of aviation fuel to make the journey with the full load it carried. Well, that meant they did a first stop in southern Australia in Victoria City, then in the northern part of the pseudo-continental country in Darwin City and were over the ocean when they spotted a pair of MR shuttles idling on the surface, trying to signal them. The pilot landed his craft, thinking he was rescuing drifting UEO personnel and such an act of international cooperation would bolster the Mother Land's reputation worldwide. Instead, Bridger and Ford asked for asylum and offered up classified secrets as payment to be taken as far away from Noyce and the G.H. carrier group as fast as the floatplane could make it happen.
The russians were already celebrating, damn them! Their floatplane had rerouted towards the region of Singapore where the ruskies had many allies and once at an embassy, Bridger would be untouchable until the CIA could get a sniper to track him down in his new hole and say 'dasvidaniya' with Uncle Sam's best wishes!
Noyce was already expecting the President of the USA to call and bark like a well fucked bitch about it all and then promptly do nothing as the man's term in office was coming to a close and every indicator available showed he wouldn't get in if he presented himself for a second tour. The Oval Office was well shot of him and Noyce anticipated an even drearier future for the country's security and stability as the possible replacements were all beknaved curs and cowards of the lowest orders.
Answering corporal Maynard's salute briefly, he turned towards the nearest staircase and decided to walk to the bridge so he could blow off steam and be civil with the watch officer when he got there. At the present rate, he would either beach the ship in Darwin City and let her rot or he would die of catastrophic heart congestion. In all honesty, he didn't know which he preferred anymore, so he put it behind him and trotted to the command center. It was a good thing he was in a mood to exercise; Bridger had sabotaged the maglev. The flashing red lights above the door frames could only mean the horizontal lift was out of order and would stay like that until Lucas was healthy enough to pull the circuits and change them. Again.
Bill walked at a brisk pace, his thoughts wandering to sickbay and the people lying there, still breathing but in uncertain conditions. Hitchcock and Shan would eventually make complete physical recoveries but now had two weeks of mandatory medical leave scheduled and they would be forced to take it. Then there would be psych evals for PTSD treatments, if necessary.
Crocker could have lived but he would have been a much lesser man if he did. The bullet, despite its small caliber, had drilled straight through his bowels and lodged into the joint of the spine with the pelvic bone thus severing all nerve signal beneath the higher thighs. He would have been paralyzed from both legs and never walked again. On top of things, Nathan's drop-gun had been poorly maintained and the bullets were tainted with grime and verdigris. While Kathy an Marcus would be fine with some antibiotics and rest, Manilow had caught an infection, the first signs were there already. He had infarcted twice on the operating table to date. The blood-toxicity panel showed something had begun to attack his white cells and his kidneys were losing capacity. The report he had received on his military-issued encrypted phone said they expected Gator to succumb before nightfall unless they found a miracle.
Bill was realistic enough to admit that between the injury, the man's age and lessening health over the last decade, there wasn't much chance that Manny would even want to fight. His wife left him years ago, his two kids were in their thirties, married but estranged from him. Decades of alcohol, some soft drugs when he was fighting depression and far too many tumbles in seedy bars had left him with nothing to come back to if he did live. He didn't even keep an apartment since he had lived aboard Navy vessels full time or crashed in base accommodations over the last 16 years. No; without attachments, people wanting him in their lives and no money or wealth to support him, it was foreseeable that Crocker would not make any efforts to survive.
Then there was Lucas to consider. The damages to his diaphragm had worsened and necessitated an emergency surgical intervention. They had also used wired cameras to inspect the inside of the stomach and found lesions that bled but by what good fortune the kid had, the lining had not detached from the stomach's structure so he was spared that. He had received the equivalent of three cerebral commotions due to Fords relentless pounding and there had been breakage in some ribs. His left clavicle had been dislocated but that was actually the least of all his worries and had already been fixed.
There was damage to his left eye from a fist in the face during the initial bull-rush; they still didn't know how bad or if it could be fixed since the priority had been keeping his stomach and head from falling apart. Eyes and ears would be dealt with sometime this afternoon by the team of specialists coming in from the G.H. specifically for Lucas.
There were four dead bodies lying on slabs, in the SeaQuest morgue. That's half the drawers filled up in one event. Two sailors, one civilian scientist and a civilian contractor's rep who were all at the wrong place in the wrong time. They were shot by Nathan Bridger as the wounds and ammo found inside the bodies matched those of Hitchcock, Shan and Crocker. Nathan had really devolved into a blood-rage during his escape. Well, he wasn't finished running, not by a long shot! All the EUO allies would emit arrest warrants and the CIA would shoot to kill on sight. Good riddance to bad rubbish and it couldn't happen fast enough!
Arriving at the bridge clamshell doors next to maglev station #1, the admiral was pleased to see a pair of armored marines standing guard on either side of the valve. He had ordered this new setup for now. Two guards outside and two inside on each door. Hopefully, this would stabilize the situation enough on the bridge and around it to re-establish control and order on the whole ship from the head downwards.
"Admiral, sir! Nothing abnormal or violent to report, sir!" the soldier on the left side spoke up as Bill saluted them lazily. William respected his men but his night had been short and hard, his morning even worse. He wanted to sleep another four to six hours to be top-shape but he had to wait until at least 14:00pm before it was safe enough and he had enough medics handling the critical people so he could lie down with his mind at peace. Nodding towards the doors, he ordered "Well, open up and let me inside. I don't have all day to make pretty and listen to my own voice like some Washingtonian wannabe."
The soldiers chortled in good humor despite the situation. Noyce was nicknamed William 'Billy Boy the Farmer' Noyce because he came from an Alabama farming community and had no patience for the idiots and ass-kissers who flocked around power and its wielders like moths. These folks did nothing of their own and contributed nothing to society except smack-talk some hype for their chosen 'leader'. Bill would have no part of these useless twits, in his job or his personal life and pretty much every rank and file enlisted or commissioned under him knew that.
After his badge, fingerprints and retinas had been scanned and confirmed, he was treated to the welcome sight of two marines standing behind the massive opening doors, pulse rifles raised and aimed at the aperture. Smiling in satisfaction that his orders were finally being followed properly on this boat, Bill walked into the ship's command hub and was pleased to realize that a team of SeaBees had already placed a portable communications server and a free-wave relay antennae in the form of a wire that circled the entire bridge's outer wall at eye level. "Nicely done people!" The older man exclaimed in high voice to be heard by everyone. "Keep it up and by dinner tomorrow it will all be ship-shape again! Carry on!"
Eyeballing Lt O'Neil still sitting in the command chair, Noyce remarked to himself that the man wore it well, without the egotistic presence that Bridger and Ford exuded even at rest. This man had just made the Short List to get posted as the Second Officer; Kathy was due for a bump to Ex-O after her medical leave was done. He would ask Lucas his opinion, but by the written reports and personal letters he had exchanged with the teen, O'Neil was exactly what he seemed and was the man he wanted to back up Katherine when she took up the mantle of First Officer under the new 'administration' to be set in place.
Sparing a thought a the new system, Bill wondered if the President was a visionary to have planned the changes in management and command structure with such timing. Bah! It was just the blasted ship's bad luck at work.
"Lieutenant O'Neil! I see you are holding the fort for us! Well done, man; well done! Now why don't you do as the medic is indicating and go to the infirmary for a checkup, you need it as much as the others." The admiral said with a frank, appreciative smile.
Timothy gave the admiral a gimlet eye and responded in slow, careful words to avoid compounding his already agonizing migraine. "Thank you sir, but the people who have the skills or dignity to hold this chair are all on their backs; in sick bay or in the morgue. I'm what's left and I will not abandon post in front of adversity while my dependents are under the knife or sedated into a coma to keep from worsening the damages. Unless you have a replacement to present to me with their resume and references, SeaQuest will run under warfare protocols until the bridge crew is complete again."
Noyce's eyebrows were steadily climbing up his forehead as he heard the simply worded, even toned reply. Seeing movement from the side of his eye, he gestured impatiently at the four marines to resume their vigil on the rear gangway. O'Neil's gaze never faltered, never weakened and he ignored the marines as if they were not present on his bridge. 'Yes' Bill thought 'HIS bridge, indeed.'
"Are you daring to presume, young man, to tell me who will and who will not sit in that chair? Are you going daft like Bridger? Or perhaps Stark? Well, come on! What are you about, man? Speak out your thoughts, we're all listening!" Bill exclaimed as loudly and caustically as he could. In truth he was intrigued; O'Neil's answer would see him get a promotion or end up in the parking lane. He was a betting man though, and Lucas's opinions on people were right 95% of the time.
"What I am thinking sir, is that this ship has already had too many rutting bulls governed by their balls sit in this chair and rule over us like we were their fiefdom rather than the servants of the Planet's populations. What I know for a fact is that unless the person you present to us as captain passes muster, then they will stay in my brig until I can offload them into somebody else's backyard. SeaQuest has been disgraced, dishonored, maligned and reviled enough. The crew, both military and civilian, have suffered, agonized and payed out in blood and pieces of their dignity for the treason, sedition and felony of the fools who sat in this chair for the last four years. Enough! WE will choose the next captain and that person will manage and govern by the Law and by our terms or they will swing from the ship's elevation rudder in warning to all those who would come to hijack us and turn us into a trophy for their vanity or their rise to a power they don't deserve. Have I made myself clear, sir?" the young officer sat backwards in the command chair, pressing a hand to his head injury and signaling for the SeaQuest's corpsman to come at his side. He then gestured the man that he was ready for the second, more elaborate round of pain medication for his worsened migraine.
Noyce glared mightily at O'Neil, watching like a hawk as the medic took out a syringe, filled it with a drug and injected about 1/8 in the head injury location before jabbing O'Neil's arm and injecting the rest for long term relief. Timothy never wavered, looked away or faltered in his war of glares with Noyce. The old admiral was pleased. For the first time in a full week, he could say that he was truly well pleased with what he saw in this man and this crew.
"Very well, O'Neil. Have it your way. I have US Marines colonel Lyra Dirnova on stand-by, in the launch bay. She came on my shuttle in case we had to do a full take over of the ship. I will give you 30 minutes to go through her service jacket and vet her." Bill took a USB drive from his jacket pocket and held it out to O'Neil who redirected him to the ensign at the comms console. "Okay then, I will be touring Nathan's old cabin to see what the NCIS boys have turned up in the short minutes they've had. Call me with your illuminated decision, lieutenant. Carry on!"
As soon as the older officer had passed the clamshell doors, O'Neil stood unsteadily from his chair and walked to the comms operator and spoke in low tones so only he would hear. "Hey, Morneau; helluva morning to date, hein? Well, about the drive Noyce gave you. Use the following access code, put it through the apps that i'm indicating here, here and those four there. Then I want you to send the reports to the tablet so I can read them. And ensign, process everything on that drive. Is that clear? I want every scrap of data on that USB chip input, scanned and decoded inside of ten minutes flat. Execute!"
Tim walked back to the center seat with the tablet held close to his chest by one hand, the other he used to hold on to furniture as he moved to steady himself against the disorientation and vertigo's he was suffering. Damn that bastard Ford for hitting him in the head like that! And to think he hit Lucas like that three times in a row inside of 15 seconds! What a sub-human animal!
Tim sat back and closed his eyes in relief, the darkness helping immensely to lessen the pain in his head and eyes. He was no fool and knew full well he had a bad concussion but he could not rest yet. And he had just read the report about Miguel being carted off to med-bay insensate because he had started breaking down from the stress and guilt of the betrayals they had all suffered. Migs was feeling terribly guilty about not being able to save Lucas or stave off the worst of the assault. Add to that already crappy situation that it was his console that Bridger shot out before leaving and the poor sailor felt like a complete failure at every duty he had sworn to do. Bridger, Ford and their gang of wastrels had a lot to answer for.
BEEP! - the tablet sounded softly to warn him his reports were in. Opening his eyes carefully to not make himself nauseous, the young officer activated the display and began trawling through the entire trove of data, not just the USMC colonel that Noyce thought he could foist on them like yesterday's leftover lasagna. Hum! Interesting. Very, truly interesting indeed. "Comms, get admiral Noyce on the monitor. We have a winner in our little lottery."
The problem is patched, for now
(SeaQuest – season 1 opening them)
Wednesday, 19 February 2020; 12:02pm (noon)
UEO Flagship SeaQuest DVS 6000; captain's cabin
Australia, northern coast, 150km off Darwin City
Admiral Noyce was not happy with what he saw. The NCIS crew had barely begun going through the cabin's furniture and filing cabinets that they had already found two smoking guns in the papers and documents strewn about rather carelessly by the ex-occupant. It seemed that Nathan had been quite unbothered by the basics of housekeeping in the few weeks he had occupied the captaincy. Everything was piled haphazardly, cluttered on flat surfaces and jammed in nooks like the spaces in the couch between the frame and cushions. That was an old habit he had, that Carol Bridger had harped her husband about all the time. During the conception phase of the ship, Nathan used to sit at home in the living room with pieces of paper stuck in every hole he could reach from his seat at the large professional drawing table he had placed there. He had set himself in a public area of the house to stay accessible to his wife and only child, even when he worked long 14 and 18 hour days. He had been the same during the build. His office at the shipyard had been a nightmare to navigate if you didn't know the man's ordering (shelving) system. Bill had joked several times that he would report his old friend to the NCQ social services as a hoarder to get him some help.
Maybe he should have carried out that thought. Maybe he could have avoided this if he had been more present and tried to help more after Robert and Carol left them. Nathan had slowly drifted into depression, alcohol and isolation after Robert's death. He had truly sunk to the depths after Carol's passing during that God-awful typhoon-spawned tropical storm that ravaged their island for three solid days. They had no radio, cellphone or emails; the seas were impassible and nobody could hear the pleas for help, if there had been any. And that had been the true tragedy of Carol's death; Nathan had been passed out from drunkenness in the basement workshop where he was milling some metal for their small boat's engine. Carol had gone out alone to batten the storm shutters and lock down the garden shed and boat shed. As she walked back to the house, debris set flying by the EF-3 winds struck her head and she passed out on the kitchen floor as she tried to take aspirin for the pain and apply a compress to her bleeding injury. Nathan found her, bled to death on the floor, alone and forgotten, almost 11 hours later when he woke up from his alcoholic black-out. She still had the 8 inch piece of broken tree branch stuck in her injury, through the skull bone and into the brain where it had nicked veins and insured her slow but inexorable death.
Nathan had cried himself to sleep on the floor with and arm around her body and a bottle of rum in the other. He experienced another drunkenness black-out and woke up when a neighbor from the other island saw the damages from the storm on the house and came into the building to ask if they were alright. It was that elderly neighbor who called the coast guard and got Nathan into a hospital where Carol's body was autopsied and they concluded to a simple accidental death.
Nathan believed hard as steel that he had murdered her by his sheer negligence and indignity.
Bill's wife, kids and grand-kids were of the same opinion, actually. Bill himself had seen enough of his good friends break and erode away to nothing under the relentless assaults of PTSD that he wasn't about to let his oldest living academy buddy go out into the fog of forgetfulness alone. If only he had been more actively involved in the last seven years since Robert was gone...
"Admiral, sir. I have bad news, sir. We found some papers sir, and we think we have Bridger's motive for how he was acting during the few weeks he was aboard." The lead NCIS agent told him as hes handed a stack of loose papers which had been tagged and numbered with fluorescent yellow Post-It labels. "Basically, captain Bridger has believed for the last seven years that his son's posting aboard the older Ticonderoga-class cruiser CG-70 USS Lake Erie was not accidental. He dug up orders, posting affectations and private emails between the SecNav of the time and the Chief-of-staff for the Navy that indicate they knew Robert was his son and they wanted a way to punish the father by sidelining the son to an inglorious posting somewhere he wouldn't have any chance to make a name for himself or use daddy's name to get by. The placed him in an aging old can in the bottom of the South Pacific where they thought nothing would happen, unless the ship's many mechanical problems got worse than they already were." The agent paused to gather his thoughts while Bill rifled through the chaotically classed sheets.
"Some of these Nathan would not have had access to until recently since they would have been subject to classification and OpSec protocols against use outside the Services. How did he get them? No, don't bother; I know: Lucas. He must have concocted some bullshit to feed the kid about a job he was doing for me and Lucas would have bored like a worm to get the juicy stuff, no matter where they hid it. I'll confirm with him when he wakes up enough to talk. What else?" Bill commented.
The field agent swallowed and answered, cursing his unlucky star for being the one to tell the admiral how much passed the deep end his old friend had gone. "We found in some of these pages damning evidence that the SecNav and CoS for Navy knew the Lake Erie had engine and life support troubles that should have been cause for a stay in drydock to fix them. They were also aware, along with the assistant secretary of the Navy and the chief quartermaster that she had begun experiencing instabilities in her mainframe processors and also the AEGIS and SPY-1 arrays were fritzing on-and-off for a few days just before they signed the orders that affected Robert Bridger to her. They knew all this when they assigned her to go patrol the Micronesia border and pacify the skirmish instead of routing her to Pearl Harbor for the four months of drydock work the techs had prescribed to fix her problems and keep her active until her scheduled scrapping date in 2018. They really fucked the bitch on this, sir. There is material proof that these people had a grudge against Nathan Hale Bridger and his SeaQuest Project but could not touch him so they went after his son instead. There is clear proof in the emails that when the ship didn't have the fatal conniption they hoped for and Robert didn't die from injuries of the accident they hoped would happen, they made a clear and conscious choice to endanger the entire ship and crew complement to achieve their goal. They are murders and traitors, sir. And with proof finally in hand, well sir, Bridger self-radicalized."
Bill Noyce was taken aback by the depths of depravity he saw in his hands. Those emails were a blasphemy against the very concept of Public Service and Armed Service in all of human culture and history. When a governing body is ready to send hundreds of servicemen to the meat grinder just to eliminate one person for the pettiness of political vengeance, then that government has lost all legality, legitimacy or morality and the only recourse left is insurrection.
"Sir, That sheet here is the proof that Bridger tried to get the US President to see what had been done to his family by these people. The Stamps and dates show clearly that both the email versions and the solid papers reached the Oval Office and were acknowledged. This here is the current President's signature in pen ink, manually applied. And his response is nothing but insulting, sir. He basically told Bridger that it was all ancient history and didn't want to get involved in a clan vendetta just on the last year of his only mandate in the Oval Office. He says the captain should wait another year for the elections to pass and take it all up with the new president in January 2021. From then on, we can easily see what happened. Bridger's mind fractured, he turned a possible mess into a destructive obsession and then when you came in with new Law and Protocols to follow, he snapped. My guess is that he had been simmering on his rage for two weeks since that is when he got the US President's email response to his inquiries for justice against the conspirators."
Bill Noyce was feeling light headed as he contemplated the fullness of the mess on his table. And he understood how and why his old friend had gone bonkers and jumped the fence to the other guys. That a country asked for sacrifice was acceptable when the goals were truly noble and useful to the cause. What they did here however, was throw some 450 men to the trash just to hurt someone who had already been on the path to retirement and a teaching post at a low-key community technical college in Florida, near his island home. What kind of shite was this? What kind of people did this?
"Bridge to admiral Noyce; Lieutenant O'Neil for you, sir."
"Put him on the viewer on the wall. I want to hear what he came up with. It oughta be good."
As the image came up, Noyce could see that O'Neil was sitting a bit straighter and a bit firmer. A good sign the man was ready to fight for what he believed would be best for the ship. That was something Bill wanted to see and hear as it would tell him if the SeaQuest, as a concept, could be salvaged.
"Admiral Noyce, sir. After due consideration of the options presented to me, I would nominate Canada Coast Guard captain Eugene Darby as new commanding officer for the SeaQuest. He is already a ranking captain, has much naval expertise and comes from the sort of 'help first – shoot maybe' kind of formation and philosophy that we need on a ship with the crew and mission mandate that the UEO flagship carries. Colonel Dirnova would however make an exceptional replacement for Crocker and we would gladly welcome her with open arms. The two other names I see here, Lt James Brody and Lt Eleanor Henderson, I also want. I have open slots in the security and communications rotations that need filling ASAP and if they are aboard the Bush Group's ship's, then I want them now. The other ones in here, those four reprobates crewman 3rd Anthony Piccolo, crewman 3rd Edward Williams, yeoman Myrna Themis and ensign Lisbeth Ohnohura. Keep them on ice until I can get Lucas digging into them. Two master divers, a cybernetics engineer and a servers & networking technician who worked with neuronal mainframes at MIT. Yes, I can use those, or Lucas would know how to utilize them, if only to delegate the jobs from his two departments so he could concentrate more on technical development and scientific projects he had to backbench because Bridger was dumping too much on him."
Noyce had a wide smile as he said "Well chosen, Lieutenant. I will have colonel Dirnova relieve you and have the others here inside an hour. Including our four loose cannons. Noyce out."