SeaQuest
This story takes place in season 1, just after the SeaQuest was violently boarded and taken over by Colonel Shraeder and his mercenaries. I will be modifying several elements of that episode to fit with the fic, notably that there were more mercs in the transport, they were more violent and Lucas had been significantly more reactive and aggressive when helping to safeguard the ship and crew. The modifications to the canon of the episode will be minor and showed as flashbacks or during discussion between crew members.
Read the beginning of Chapter 1 for the full disclaimer and notes.
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DURA LEX, SED LEX
The Law may be hard, but it is The Law
THIRD CHAPTER; THE STORM IS HERE
Sunday evening: the ship's council
(SeaQuest – season 1 opening theme)
Sunday 9th of February, 2020; 19:00pm
SeaQuest DVS 6000, UEO flagship; ward room
North of the Australian coastline
Nathan sat in his chair at the head of the table; a cupboard the full width of the room and the flag of the UEO Alliance high on the wall were behind him. The council was almost assembled in full, missing only two people now. The officers sat in their usual order starting at his left hand; Ford, Hitchcock, Crocker, O'Neil and Ortiz. At his right hand would be Westphalen, Levine, Krieg, Lucas and Shan. He honestly would have preferred to keep Lucas closer to himself on normal days and even more now but the teenager was such a fiercely independent person that even asking could cause an explosion. Well, at least mentally it would be explosive. The worse the boy ever really did was to raise his voice for a few minutes during a rant and then promptly apologize for acting unprofessionally. He didn't even swear a quarter of the volume his best adult officers did and still apologized for it. Nathan pursed his lips in thought, wondering yet again about the many mysteries of Lucas Wolenczak and, as if the Universe were teasing him, the boy in question came through the door dragging Benjamin behind him.
The moment the door was sealed and everyone was in place, Nathan began the doldrum routine of going through each and every department, starting from the top with Ford to end with the ship's bosun Marcus Shan for the complementary follow-ups and bridge efficiency stats. Just as Jonathan was finishing a report so thin and dry as to be called a cracker, someone knocked on the door. Shan opened it and a female yeoman came in to place a pair of serving trays on the table along a thermal satchel containing some chilled fruit juice bottles. The woman saluted the captain and left silently. Nathan gestured for everyone to serve themselves.
"All of us have had a hectic day, trying to catch up to our admin, avoid delays in current plans and we still have not finished repairing the damages from Shraeder's little romp amongst our systems. So, if any of you need a little something, don't hesitate. Just don't hand in your homework with crumbs or stains or I'll have to take points off your marks for poor presentation." He joked at them as he grabbed a ham and cheese sandwich made with salted butter and Dijon mustard. The vinegary taste would help wake him up a bit. Half the officers gratefully took something as they had cut their dinners short to be present on time and still have enough of their jobs done to be comfortable with the results. Bridger was glad to see Lucas take a pair of sandwiches and some raw vegetables with cesar dip. The natural fruit juice he chose would do him more good than the large thermal tankard of coffee that he had walked in with. When had he had time to fill up that monster, anyways?
Once everyone that had picked some food had a few bites in them, he signaled to Ford to complete his report or pass Kathy the pole. Jonathan was stone-faced this evening and Nathan could understand the reasons why without even trying. There were small blisters visible on his face and forearms where his clothes didn't reach since he had rolled his shirt sleeves up to his elbows. The discoloration from salves was as easy to detect as the smell of aloe ointment in the air. That could explain why his teenaged worker looked so ill all of a sudden; he had finally seen the commander's condition and started asking himself some serious questions that really should have been asked this very morning.
The Ex-O looked around the table, taking in the calm, relaxed atmosphere amongst the officers and civilians and realized for the first time just how out of place he was in this group. It firmed up his decision and so he took a folio of sheets out of his binder and passed them to his commanding officer right now instead of after the meeting as he had thought of doing.
"With respect to the necessities of the ship, sir, I am submitting my request for honorable discharge from the UEO and the US Navy. I have come to see that after the recent events of the last two years, from the Stark incident onwards, that I was simply hanging on to the Navy out of habit, not because I still wanted to be in the service. Consequently, I have written the appropriate forms and I am submitting them for processing. I would appreciate if this could be done within the next 20 to 30 days so I could move on before we are stuck in the administrative cycle for the tour's first quarter."
There was dead silence around the table, and several were looking at the man without being able to comprehend where this came from. Kathy was pale, glancing from Bridger to Lucas to Ford in rapid cycle. The teenager was looking over O'Neil's head with a glassy eyed expression, not responding to subtle nudges from Shan. Crocker palmed his face, grumbling oaths to himself but nothing truly coherent. Bridger took the folio, leafed through it to get a feel of the reasons behind the decision, although he had about three quarters of it on the nose just by gut instinct. The others were clueless and even Kristen Westphalen was quite taken aback by the suddenness of the decision.
The older officer set the folio aside, on the top of his priority cases pile and then joined his hands on top of the table before himself. "Is there anything else commander?"
His simple question seemed to kill the mood and tell people clearly that this was not the place or time to discuss the new situation. Later, in private or at another full meeting after the shore leave had done them a world of good, but not now.
Following a negative from Ford, Kathy swallowed past the sudden lump in her throat and unraveled her lengthy report with all the many physical damages that the mercenaries had done to a lot of secondary and tertiary systems. At least, they had enough military training to not go around shooting the outer hull or throw grenades into the air recyclers. What they did do however was tear the ship apart to find Lucas and the dozen people that had been supposed to leave with the last MR-class shuttle just before the hull-siphon tests began. As such, they did a lot of superficial destruction like tearing safety grates off vents or ripping pipes to access network cables. They moved some heavy equipment cabinetry in the maintenance bunkers and spilled the contents without a care, thus damaging precious tools and parts. Somehow, they managed to fry the control panel for the refrigeration unit in the galley's pantry thus forcing the crew to eat through a lot of fish and chicken all at once or it would just go to waste. At least, it wasn't the main food bunkers; those would have been hard to recover from. And of course, they had managed to damage the parking silo their shuttle was in when the last three mercs had tried to run for it after seeing the live broadcast of Lucas ripping Shraeder's head off and then putting four shots into Lance Bowman from close enough to be soiled by the blood spatter.
When the Lt-commander was done, it was Crocker who took over with the security status, including the all around popular report on the wait for the NCIS and JAG to get here and process them so they could have those well deserved and much needed five days off ashore. The badges should be there by nightfall this very day and the physicals would be done tomorrow on Monday so that the leaves could all start on the morning the day after that, on Tuesday the 11th.
After the rotund security chief had finished, some routine reports from both comms and sensors were passed over quickly as Shraeder hadn't had the equipment or desire to play around with the WSKRS or the sensors. Small mercies for all of them as the ship could have been blinded without them.
Nathan signaled for a short ten minute break to refill on food and drinks as he actually had a sudden craving for those veggies and dip with another sandwich. While he had been despondent about his teenaged houseguest's choice of dinner item, he wouldn't be telling you what he himself had eaten either. The choice had been made with efficient ease of one-handed consumption in mind, not taste or nutrition as the deciding factor. He had put something in his stomach to avoid having a tension migraine but that wasn't helping him anymore. Each report to date had been very concise but somewhat depleted of the regular business the ship had to wade through on normal weeks. He could well guess that those things had simply not been calculated or put to proper form for presentation and therefore had been absconded from the reports altogether until the meeting of next week, after shore leave.
After the officers were all attentive again, it was doctor Westphalen's turn to report. The pile of folios sat by her left elbow looked intimidating for the rest of the council members. The mature woman spoke in her refined British upper-London accent. She was a mental heavyweight and a medical summit in her own right; nobody would dare say she hadn't earned her place aboard as chief of medical services unless they were crass or ignorant.
"Well, now. I have assembled the preliminary results for the emergency care that was dispensed to all crew and staff during the last four days in relation to colonel Shraeder's most deleterious incursion into our affairs. We were rather quite lucky to not have suffered any direct fatalities on our side of the trenches during the event as there were several stunts with the maglev maintenance tunnel and the ventilation ducts that should not be repeated, if certain persons value their continued good health." Kristen spoke in slow words, her tone made more menacing by the deliberate intonations and choice of expressions. She was most displeased by the number of hair-raising stunts the people had gone through to finally expel the mercenaries and would much rather such things not happen again under her tenure. It was bad enough being an accomplice in creating a child-soldier; she would not participate in further barbarity if she could make them avoid it at all.
"We still have several enlisted crewmen in the infirmary convalescence ward recovering from small mishaps encountered during the rather rushed repairs throughout the ship. A few of the mercenaries left improvised booby traps behind them when they felt their cause was lost and those have actually claimed three very grave injuries: 1 civilian contractor and 2 officers. All were caught separately and all happened in the science offices around sea-deck. These will recover in two to four months of hospitalization which I recommend be done off ship to speed the recovery process. There was only one fatality to deplore. Shraeder's men placed a diminutive bomb in one of main engineering's control consoles and it exploded when the enlisted man in charge of verifying the panel opened it to check the electronics inside. He was actually killed by shrapnel shredding his entire neck and lower face, especially both carotids. He bled out in less than 60 seconds but it was not the bomb's explosion itself that was fatal. The last batch of tests we are processing is for Lucas to rule out blood contamination. Since he was in close proximity to several foreign people when they died rather spectacularly gory ends, he was consequently spattered quite liberally by the fluids disbursed from their corpses. We need to ascertain that none of them had blood-borne pathogens to transmit via hepatic contact. We should know tomorrow by noon at the latest if the cultures indicate any precursor signals to that effect. My conclusion is that barring a few clear cases, everyone should recover within the week and be physically fine right after the shore leave we are forced to take."
A few people around the table winced at the woman's rather impolitic manner of saying out loud that Lucas had basically torn to shreds five living men with hard-contact weaponry during the invasion. And nobody would forget the scene captured by the cameras in the walk-in pantry next to the galley of the main mess hall. Some things aught not be done with tableware, especially not near foodstuffs. And that was separately from the dozen he had gassed to death in varied rooms using improvised indirect methods. The doctor's words though, brought home the reality that Lucas was still paying the price of his survival and was not out of the woods. There were biological risks still to be accounted and then the psychological impacts on the poor kid's mind were not even analyzed yet.
Captain Bridger pursed his lips to keep from saying something rather testy at the blatantly challenging report the doctor had made public. She disagreed with having the teenager aboard for a host of reasons, many of which Nathan would have agreed with if it hadn't been the kid's choice to come. Lucas was here by a free choice of his own; he was not press-ganged like Kristen believed. And he had not been threatened to be aboard nor told to become a soldier or he would be punished until he did. Nathan sympathized with many of her positions but unfortunately, some of her opinions were just that and not backed by facts. It would all come to a brutal head when the GAO people arrived and started speaking with Lawrence's lawyers in a week.
The reports following Westphalen's were far less controversial; Levine simply reported delays in almost 90% of current projects and specified which three had been derailed by their scientists being injured to the point of long term hospitalization.
Krieg mentioned the damaged pantry freezer and the lost food, damages to several parts cabinets and one bunker in the ship's bowels that had gotten the attention of the mercs. It was the locker holding the alcohol that crewmen were allocated for personal consumption. In a rather controversial departure from standard US Navy regs, the UEO had adopted a more European attitude towards alcoholic drinks and allowed beer and wine to be served in all its facilities and ships along the lunch and dinner meals. It was strictly controlled and drunkenness policies with a minimum drinking age of 18 years old were applied without fail to everyone, regardless of rank or importance.
Unfortunately, this often led to a certain group of hardcore ageist troublemakers, barely 18 years old themselves, trying to goad Lucas into a fit of rage by drinking at his face in public at each chance they could find. What it really accomplished was to make them look like the childish idiots they were, not the powerful 'of age to drink' adults they bragged about being. The most damning thing for them was that Lucas had one of the cleanest lifestyles on board and was not interested in alcohol or drugs, if you disregarded his worrying caffeine intake or his teenaged sweet tooth for chocolate. But were those really so bad?
Shan exposed his report next, the contents rather light and easily understood. The bridge was at 70% efficiency due to many electrical and cybernetic troubles still not solved thus forcing the back-up command consoles in main engineering to take up the relay. Unfortunately, it was the very same consoles which had been trapped with a bomb thus M-E could only take up around 30% of the job-load and command functions it should have. Instead of acting as a full emergency bridge, they acted as a bent crutch to someone needing a wheelchair. It wasn't Shan's fault, nor Hitchcock's, just the luck of the draw from Shraeder's servants being ridiculously imbecilic in their actions against the ship's vital systems.
Lucas was the last to deposit his report to the council. He had kept the entire paper printout in is work satchel beside his chair and waited for his turn. He hummed a bit before garnering his courage and pulled up his bag to take out the folio and hand it to the captain. The pile of paper was astounding for somebody who had been short on time, spent half a day asleep and had no subordinates to help him with any preparatory work product. The massive three inch thick plate of paper actually scared Bridger into wondering if he had enough time before the end of the tour to read all of that, let alone understand any of the contents.
"Well, heu, sir, that's the part of the report that's ready for the council's attention. I wasn't able to finish everything as you well know that I was named into several jobs all at once and haven't had the time or resources to do a complete, functional take-over of each department assigned to me yet. The lack of manpower as also not helped. The fact that nobody had in fact held the postings at all before me meant that I was basically doing the start-up sequence that all other departments had undergone at the drydock two months ago while I got saddled with that procedure on top of bringing the entire organization up to functionality. Not up to codes, heu, no that's not gonna happen any time soon if I'm alone to do it all, but functionality could be maintained to some degree. If I don't get shot, poisoned or bombed out again. Maybe. I honestly hope we don't have another conniption in the servers or it's gonna be hell to get anything done in any sector around sea-deck for the foreseeable future."
The poor young man was babbling rather badly at this point from the stresses of all he had to do and yet it wasn't getting done, no matter how much he tried and worked. Bridger knew it would have to be adjusted but unless they got extra crewmen, Lucas was it and they would have to accept his best performance as it was, without blaming him for the limited results as it was not his decision to limit money, resources and manpower to those areas. Making a gesture at the paper pile, the captain encouraged the teen to verbalize the report for everybody, otherwise no one would bother to read it, even the sections about their own departments.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, the boy visibly switched mental gears and ordered his thoughts to be concise and palatable for the people in the room. He was hyper-aware of Ford's rampant dislike and Westphalen was just waiting for a slip to declare him medically unfit to serve so she could punt him back to America and jail him in a hospice for mentally unstable youths of some sort.
"All right, the report is split in four main sections. First, the cybernetic status of the entire ship with breakdown per physical sector and management departments. Second, the Mammal engineering status. Third the specific maintenance, R & D and manufacturing reports for the Cybernetic & Computational Analysis Department. Finally, fourth is the status of the scientific research and development projects that I was supposed to have going around sea-deck if I had the office and permanent work station that I am supposed to have set aside for me and that my family is paying a sizeable rent for."
Lucas chewed at his lower lip in angry anxiety. "As I do not have those, most of the projects planned are not, in fact, under way and will not be as they are now out of schedule and past their reporting dates already. They couldn't be put back on schedule anyways as I have no resources to work with; no free time left to allocate those projects; and no assistants to watch the projects and manage the equipments for me when I am working at all the other things that were piled on me as very urgently important priorities."
The teen made a constipated face: "This means of course that the multiple contracts between me, my father, the UEO Navy and the US Navy are in severe multilateral breach - on the ship's part - and will thus draw penalties and compensations as stipulated in the articles of the contracts. I have four different jobs under my name as things are, and not a single soul aboard that helps me with them unless the boat is about to sink if results in one of them are not forthcoming immediately as the captain asks for said results. Otherwise, I am ignored and shunted to the side as a burdensome deadweight that is in the way of everybody else."
Pushing out an angry exhale through the nose, the boy finished the preliminaries of his report. "The report's statistics show clearly what I could not even try to hide unless I thought the UEO admirals are all blind from birth. And given that my contracts for R & D also implicate several big-name civilian companies, the investigations into what happened to their money when the results paid for do not materialize will not be hidden or passed aside as just bad luck. People are already asking questions to which I can't give any honest answers, or even dishonest ones that could look realistic. There's a storm coming. People aground are angry, they are mad with rage and they are coming to see for themselves what happened that the entire system collapsed in on itself like this. And I can't help you with any of it anymore."
Bridger was about to ask Lucas for the particulars of just what the bloody hell happened for all this mess to explode like that when the bridge called on the ward room's intercom. – Beep! – "Sir! The shuttle carrying the NCIS medics and criminalistics team as well as the JAG lawyers is approaching off our port side. They request docking procedures. Over."
Nathan palmed his face slowly and miserably. This night just wasn't going to get any better.
Sunday evening: Thoughtful interlude
(Leon Lieffijn - Choices)
Sunday 9th of February, 2020; 21:00pm
SeaQuest DVS 6000, UEO flagship; Captain's cabin
North of the Australian coastline
Nathan Bridger was not happy, no he was not. There was no way in all the levels of Hell Everburning that this was not somehow his fault, and by extension the entire ship's council along with him. Lucas had been overburdened from the very start before they even left drydock. It started four months ago or so, when he first came aboard, 2 months before Nathan was present to act as a buffer between the kid and the more intolerant elements aboard. Some people didn't want to believe anything about Lucas being present by his own choice.
There was a group of hardcore bigots, possibly religious nutcases or pedophiles it wasn't clear, that insisted in peddling the rumor that he was a discipline problem, a dangerous rebellious delinquent, and had been obliged by his father to choose between the navy or a private christian juvenile jail. They said that he had chosen the ship to avoid the many richly deserved whippings of his bare ass he had earned and it was the crew's duty to inflict those beatings as often and as harshly as possible before he turned 18 and could sue his father to get off the boat and away from his 'righteous correctors'.
Since Lucas had actually defended himself a against such people to the point of sending a few to the hospital and forcing two to quit outright rather than explain their grave maiming injuries to a board of inquiry, Nathan could tell the first two months aboard had been hellish for the teen. Many of these bastards thought themselves fine upstanding citizens simply because they waved around a book of 2,000 year old lies and peasants' anecdotes. In fact, they were just exploitative lazy bums who wanted Lucas to do their jobs for them. They thought that as great and mighty exalted adults they should be sleeping or playing when Lucas was hard at work doing their tasks. On top of that, he should then hand over the paycheck to them as they believed that minors had no right to have any money independent of adult authority anyways. They had tried to enslave Lucas and attempted to beat him into silence as well. The captain had not heard anything from those events but there should have been investigations and reports. Even when he asked aboard ship or at the UEO executive building, nothing was coming back and he had to talk with Bill about those circumstances as it smelled like a massive cover up in progress.
Well, the NCIS and GAO would be going through his boat with a lice comb and report EVERYTHING to his attention. Several people would find themselves heading for an article 32 hearing and a general court martial afterwards. Charges of hazing, harassment, defamation, criminal libel, assault, threats with weapons as well as dereliction of duty, abandoning post during work shift, logging false hours, attempt to hijack the pay of another worker, damages to classified projects and equipments and many, many others would be coming down the pipes at those pieces of filth. And Bridger couldn't find more deserving people to whom it could happen. They earned it in full by disgracing the uniform, themselves and threatening the welfare and emotional surety of the most amiable, amenable worker on board.
The old mariner tapped an impatient finger on the paper version of the teenager's report, all 400 pages of it. Without the many annexes and supplemental research folios, that is. Those added about another 1,000 pages easily. Nathan rubbed his forehead, wondering honestly if he would ever get to read the thing passed the first chapter. Probably not. An errant thought went around his mind and he wondered if he could get the kid to make him an audio-book version to listen to when in the shower or eating.
(Nightcall - Stuck In Dreams)
Raising his eyes from his desk, he looked at the forlorn, despondant blond haired kid situated yet again on his couch. He sat with his legs elongated, sock-feet propped up on the coffee table again with his laptop workstation held on his thighs, typing away at his usual blinding speed. After the abrupt disbanding of the council and retreating to the silence of the cabin, Lucas had asked Nathan when and where had Ford gotten treatment for his burns. The captain didn't think anybody had helped him and said so. He didn't know if the commander had asked anybody but he doubted it since Jonathan had been at odds with many in the crew from the first moment Bridger had been aboard. And with the incident which led to the burns, well the older officer was pretty sure Ford felt he wouldn't get any help anyways so never asked.
This led to a very sulky, moody teenager who buried himself into his cybernetic world and Nathan didn't fault him as the mood swing wasn't about wanting something outside of his age's rights or childish. Not that Lucas ever did those things anyways. It's just that as teen angst went, this particular bout was actually justified, not self-centered or immature. Which just made Nathan feel even more like a crud for not insisting this morning, when he saw Ford for the copies of the films and email about McFarlane's actual orders and influence on events.
The older man looked at the clock mounted on the desk, an old style analog with springs that needed coiled every 48 hours but was more reliable than most digital systems aboard. The 21:07pm meant that in about an hour he had a video meeting with Billy about a certain general's end-of-career and possible removal from humanity. Given the rather sensitive nature of the conversation, he preferred to have it in his cabin with all systems closed and locked for the night. The problem of course was how to make his non-paying tenant leave without creating an emotional mess to clean up later on.
The situation resolved itself when Lucas spoke up in Russian (where did he learn that anyways?) and started another ship-wide reaction across all systems. After about 5 minutes of typing almost lazily down to just 70 words a minute instead of the 200+ he normally did, the teen sat up straighter and looked at Bridger directly in his eyes with unreadable emotions flittering in his own. What now?
(Audiomachine - A New Age)
Nathan raised his coffee mug to his lips slowly, watching the teenager as he went through the closing routine for his unholy portable workstation (NOT a laptop captain! T's not a toy!) securing the contents from illicit access. Bridger always got chills down his spine when he thought of what exactly the pale skinned child had built into that infernal torture device.
The thing was an industrial-grade jointed frame based on a 21-inch wide touch screen with a solid keyboard, two little colored trackballs, with dual game controllers & dual folding joysticks integrated around the extra-large central touchpad. It had a hard-wired electronic pen and an inert stylus that both slotted into slim compartments in the top rim of the monitor. It had actual fingerprint, facial and voiceprint recognition systems and software's integrated discretely into the high quality 10mm wide 25,000 mega pixel camera fix-mounted above the screen. The machine would open its trove of malice only for Lucas and no one else in the world. The finger, face and voice scans were hardwired into the circuit board via the BIOS, Clock, FLASH-type solid-state data storage stacks and all network access control chipsets. Any activity on or around the machine initiated a scan to validate the person's right to use the system. It was the most secure portable console on board and the contents was well out of reach of anybody but Lucas himself.
The entire case was charcoal grey; no decals, imagery or any sign whatsoever of whom it belonged to. It was perfectly anonymous and looked a bit old, like from five or seven years ago. The circuits inside and the software however had all been custom designed, crafted and assembled by Lucas himself less than five months ago without any external help or supervision. He hadn't needed any anyways and his product was better than what the CIA or Navy would have supplied if Nathan asked formally.
It was a nightmare with an extension cord and an isotopic battery supplied by NASA that he honestly didn't understand fully and was glad for that small mercy. Nathan was accounted a scientific genius in his own right, although he himself thought the term 'visionary' was much more honest and accurate. Real genius wore denim and a checkered flannel shirt right ten feet in front of him. And with the stuff held in that portable station, Lucas could prove his genius very helpfully or truly nastily, depending on how you treated him.
(Two Steps From Hell – Never Back Down)
Nathan would not touch that laptop without permission ever again. He tried, once, in the first week he was aboard, just after coming back from hunting Madeleine Stark. He wasn't used to things, to people around him all day, and had lost many of the habits needed to relate with others while isolated on his island. One of the things he forgot but re-learned again real fast was that all people, including children and teenagers, have fundamental rights as human beings and going around with a chip on his shoulder did not make him immune from the Law or having to give respect where it was due. He had an argument with Lucas. More like one-sided bitching on his part. The kid was just the convenient lighting rod in reach for his distemper to lash out at.
The teen was trying desperately to explain politely that what Nathan asked could not be done by the boy because he didn't have the tools, the access level for the data or the secure space to work on such sensitive classified materials. Bridger got miffed at being refused and remembered anonymous comments in the back of his mind about the boy being a discipline problem that needed to be dealt with strongly. So, he let himself go to a rant and tried to flash his age, adult power, military badge and station as captain to scare the kid into obedience despite the impossibility of the situation.
THAT had been a capital mistake if any ever was. Because of false information, lack of sleep, his mismanaged temper and a complete incomprehension of the situation, Nathan had gotten angry and tried to scare Lucas into immediate subservient compliance. It backfired completely and poisoned their relationship to this day. He could still see some of the dregs of that fight in their conversations or how Lucas responded to his presence in stressful situations.
(Audiomachine - When It All Falls Down)
The old mariner had acted as if he was talking to his son Robert, an average, defenseless ordinary kid, in his room at home; not a highly qualified civilian worker aboard a warship. He had walked around the teen's glorified pipe locker of a cabin and moved things, replaced others differently, made comments about the mess and then pushed stuff to the floor to make the mess he had accused the kid of having. He was acting like a dumb cock-driven jock strutting around the schoolyard. The teenager had stayed silent and still as a statue but his eyes spoke clearly of his contempt and challenge against the older man; the big mighty adult in charge as Nathan thought he was at that time.
Enraged at the lack of fear or any reaction in fact, he told Lucas he was giving him a good long grounding of no computer, games, media or even phone calls for a week. Bridger even barred him from accessing the ship's systems, saying contemptuously that since the child was so limited in his usefulness when asked a simple job, then he didn't need all that access and thus it was revoked by the authority of HIM, the powerful, authoritative adult. Lucas actually smirked evilly at him and crossed his arms over his chest, every inch of his light wiry frame screaming a challenge at Bridger.
Incensed, the older man tried to lift up the laptop to seize it from the teen. He wanted to impose on him the shame and humiliation of forcing him to beg to retrieve what was known publicly to be his private property, not the UEO's. He would take it anyways, despite being private property, and put the device in his cabin until he saw fit to hand it back, if ever. In his frame of mind at that moment, Nathan thought it was far too complicated and expensive a device for an underaged child to have as his own. Also, he planned to sift through the machine for porn, immoral contents and games rated above his age. Then he would call Lucas to the bridge to ream him out in public and impose further punishments for those delinquencies. The kid would learn the vital, crucial importance of obedience towards all adults in society before the month was out, Nathan swore it to himself.
Bridger had been having a full-on paternalistic, adultist, mental melt-down and he was venting his spleen on the poor kid who had honestly been trying to explain the situation for real. When he moved the laptop, the securities activated to check who was moving the station around. Upon detecting the hands and face of an unauthorized person, the device defended itself with full force. Yes, it DEFENDED itself with FORCE. The machine's frame weighs 10 pounds for a reason; the large monitor and several physically and digitally separated FLASH data stacks amount for a lot. The electric inverters, capacitors and super-conductive polymer-alloy case are not light either. And yes, Lucas had in fact just copied the look of the case. He had manufactured it himself at Stanford as part of his master's degree when he was tested for the design and crafting part of the courses.
(Epic Score - Liberators)
The laptop ignited like a contact Taser, sending out 50,000 volts of current at 25 watts in a nimbus of 2 inches all around and didn't let up as it was plugged in the wall by the cord. After ten agonizing seconds, it let out a cloud of fluoro-marker gas that colored Nathan in a bright glow-in-the-dark pastel blue that would take ten days to finally wash off his skin, hair and nails. Even his teeth had glowed blue for six days! Then the machine started emitting a loud brain-rattling whiny sound like an air-raid siren whilst going through an emergency secured shut-down. When it was apparently off, it zapped Nathan for another ten seconds then began dialing the PAL-network to call security for help. The message it sent the MP's was heard through the device's loudspeaker clearly: "a secured classified Lvl-14 device is being stolen and vandalized, emergency action required" followed by the sound of other dial-ups happening on regular cell-phone and satellite phone as well. Because, of course, the kid had integrated the PAL, cellular, satellite and CB systems inside the case and connected everything together on top of the Wi-Fi, Blue Tooth, walkie-talkie chipset and three types of network cable connectors plus the infra-red lens.
Nathan was screwed out of any credibility he had for some time to come. It had been a catastrophe of epic proportions that haunted Nathan to this day whenever he spoke to members of the US Presidential cabinet or high executives at the UEO. The blasted machine had spat out its emergency message to some two hundred security, police and military agencies across the UEO alliance membership. That meant that several dozen controllers and surveillance monitors had immediately accessed the security cameras installed by Lucas in his cabin to see what had happened to trigger the laptop's defensive call-out.
Let's just say that a certain captain was the one making apologies and repenting quite publicly on the bridge in front of witnesses. The order came from the White House and the US president had insisted in staying live on the main monitor while Bridger made a fool of himself by replaying the video of the entire event before making his apologies to the angry, frustrated teenager. The weeks after that had not been pleasant for the old officer as every time he asked Lucas for something he was told to write a formal work ticket or even worse, that since he didn't have his proper cabin, office and work station then he wasn't obliged to work or give the Navy anything until the famous CONTRACT was finally followed in full. Lucas then had the gall to tell him to his face that as a soldier, he should learn to obey properly the rules in place before he thought to give orders that made no sense.
Their relationship had been damaged badly since. Bridger thought it was a miracle that the poor kid was mentally wired the way he was. The mistake with that dumb joke about the Chief of Mammal Engineering posting had actually turned Lucas around from rabid, semi-depressed daily mood swings to having a job with the access and authority needed to get things done right. That simple fact that he could again work and be accounted as useful had done miracles for the stability and mental health of the child. He literally thrived on being useful to his community.
And Bridger, by threatening to take away his primary work tool had mercilessly attacked that and done damage to him. Any other kid would have sulked and found a way around the grounding by using a public terminal or hiding in one of the unused staterooms, out of the way and out of reach from the angry adult. Lucas instead had actually charged him formally with trying to steal and vandalize his PRIVATE PROPERTY. Not only did he not act dishonestly, he was not grounded and he was not restricted. It was instead Nathan who was fined by the JAG and had to pay Lucas 400$ in punitive damages for attacking the kid's integrity, dignity and making threats to him in the privacy of his HOME. Then they charged him some 3,000$ in court fees and administrative fees on top. Bastards!
And that was another kick in the teeth of any captain. Because of the civilians aboard, they now had to take account that the concepts of 'public space', 'work space' and 'home space' were in full force. Even with his sailors, Nathan now had to walk carefully if he wanted to use the old 'surprise cabin inspection' trick to harass and force a sailor into compliance before he pulled out the formal warnings and written reprimands. He could now get charged with harassment, invasion of domicile and others just like a police officer in a municipality if he didn't follow the right procedures when applying corrective measures to his crewmen, officers and civilian contractors. And since Lucas was a civilian contractor, the Law applied in full, no exception to be given or recognized. Period.
Dura Lex, Sed Lex; the Law is the Law and there are NO exceptions just because it's him who's bitching about stuff. In fact, the JAG told him quite clearly that these laws were made because people like him exist and have to be dragged back into line with the expectations of society every day. SO no, he would not get exempted of those laws made specifically to cover the type of case at hand. Period. And he got another negative note put in his file for having asked the illegal exemption, too!
Well, Nathan had re-learned about Laws, Rules, By-Laws, Protocols and Procedures the hard way. And as he sat now, waiting to see what Lucas had found out to make him pack up, he wondered again at just how far their relation had evolved. From going at each other's throats to barely civil coworkers to sharing a cabin to offering him the key to said cabin. The old mariner hoped that the kid would eventually forgive him his initial misstep and move on, abandon the blasted fear he always had when he was around Bridger.
(Audiomachine - Ashes of Time)
The teen packed up all of his affairs, the little he had, into his work satchel and put on his shoes before moving to stand before the captain's desk. The flint-blue eyes were a bit weary but not frightful; a good sign and Nathan hoped it stayed that way for some time to come.
"Excuse me sir. I will be leaving for the night. I am aware that you have an extended conference with admiral Noyce coming and since there is no way to foresee when it will end, I have taken an arrangement to use a friend's couch for the night. I will see you tomorrow morning for the meeting with the NCIS agents. Good night sir."
The boy was turning towards the door to leave when Nathan sighed out loud and asked "Who are you bunking with tonight? If we finish not too late, I could call you and you could come back here, be at ease in your own little hill of blankets like last night."
The teen's face was unreadable. It was a skill (capacity?) that he had acquired at an early age. That damned blank-faced look, those dead shuttered eyes that revealed no light or life inside. When he affected that presentation he looked like the human equivalent to the old abandoned mansions you saw in 'B' series films. Gloriously beautiful in a decrepit, haunted way and then when you went inside you saw anew the horrors that time and people had forgotten. And Lucas had a lot hidden inside. A lot.
"Thank you for your offer, sir. I think I can manage on my own. I have for a long time now and I will again. All I really need is a flat surface and a bed sheet. I can even use my satchel as a pillow, I've done it before and it's not that bad if it's placed right. But, for your information, and since you asked politely, I have an appointment with commander Hitchcock. We do believe it will run us far into the night so she offered her sofa as my crash pad for tonight. I do hope that she proves acceptable as a bunkmate, sir. I would hate to mention to her your lack of faith in her abilities at corralling a single meager boy."
Nathan pursed his lips and glared at the kid through half-lidded eyes, trying to figure out his actual mood. He seemed equal parts defiant, flippant and playful. Conclusion; he was being a brat! Well, in a playful, gentle way. He wasn't spoiled, selfish or mean spirited; just very talented at getting on the nerves of a certain aging sailor with a bad back and fluctuating patience.
"Fine then, Kiddo. Have a good night. I will see you at breakfast tomorrow morning."
Answering the officer with a quirk of the lips that could be loosely interpreted as an attempt at a small shy smile, Lucas walked out of the cabin, locking the door behind him as he left. Bridger passed a weary hand over the lower part of his face, rubbing his stubbly chin and wondering if the kid was reacting to the offer of the key or the events with Ford. Damn the brat! Nathan would need to use an oil derrick with a diamond drill-bit to dig deep enough to reach the information inside of where the young man had hidden it away. And there were no promises of recovering anything despite all the efforts. There were dragons in his poor late wife's favorite fantasy novels that hadn't guarded their treasures the way Lucas kept his emotions and memories under wraps. Oh well, later…
Sunday evening: Fighting against idiocy
(Marcus Warner - If I Should Return)
Sunday 9th of February, 2020; 21:50pm
SeaQuest DVS 6000, UEO flagship; Near commander Hitchcock's cabin
North of the Australian coastline
Lucas made it peacefully towards Kathy's cabin after a few mandatory pit stops including the mess hall for supplies of the edible kind. Mostly some solid snacks like sandwiches, a few individual cakes and this very good complete pecan pie fresh from the oven and still hot. The mess at the council meeting called for comfort food to match the serious follow-up they would have and he knew just how to ask the cooks in the galley for a few little things on the side of the regular scheduled bakes. They would be well fed tonight!
Lucas envied the young woman's apartment like 95% of the ship did. She had the same setup as all 'regular' senior officers aboard, besides the captain, in the form of a medium-sized one-and-a-half room suite. Meaning she had that incredibly rare commodity aboard navy ships: a bathroom. It was quite ordinary, comprised of a small shower stall, a cabinet-inset sink with the usual mirror covered cabinet suspended above and a toilet. What wasn't so ordinary was what it meant: privacy and easy reach. Both were incredibly useful when pulling all-nighters on tough projects or after a long workout in the gym that had you wanting to cool down alone. There was so much gossiping that went on in the public showering halls the rest of the crew had to use that washing in peace was impossible even if you were angrily screaming at everybody else to shut up. Lucas should know; he had tried!
Kathy was kind like a sister, allowing him to crash at her place like that. Most of the other guys didn't have a bathroom in their room; they went to the public showering halls and the public toilets like the rest. Lucas always thought it was a bit stingy from the navy to limit the privilege of an en-suite to so few people when so many of their ships were so big. Then again, the ships were sizeable but badly designed with little place left for the people once the engines, sensors and weapons had been placed in the hull. Only civilian cruise ships really planned for the passengers first and the machines later. And even then, that was done by having such a stiff separation between the machinery levels and the population levels, something a military ship couldn't afford to do.
(Thomas Bergersen - Empire of Angels)
Still, the teenager was grateful for the friendly offer the commander had made to him, otherwise he might have just gone and slept in one of the MR shuttles like he had done a few times in the first two months when the stupid barely-adult jocks tried to haze him and Ford said nothing about it. Once inside the shuttle with the hatches locked and his customized portable sensors connected to the MR's onboard systems, he was unassailable unless they wanted to cut through with a plasma torch or blast in with an RPG launcher.
The MR shuttles had a luxurious necessity for such small boats: full wet bath with running hot water for showering when you returned from a deep water dive. In such occasions, the divers needed to wash off the salt or contaminants and get back some body-heat real quick hence the available hot water. It was also what made those shuttles such a wonderful place to hide in, along with other little things like their good comms array independent from the ship's central systems and therefore easy to use un-watched.
The MR's benches were another defining feature. They were set against the outer walls lengthwise and were nicely plush. The position allowed Lucas to strech his lanky frame full length without having his feet hanging in the air. They were also comfy to lean against with that tall full-length backrest like the couch in the captain's cabin. Lucas had always preferred sleeping on his side since he had been hospitalized a few years ago and had been forced to sleep on the right side for a couple of days to keep the weight off his left-side ribs and shoulder.
But that was a set of memories better left buried in the graveyard where he put them, like his hope for a decent relationship with his parents, an easy end to his adolescence years or a nice progressive transition into adulthood before problems and work ground him down. No, Lucas had a lot of dead things haunting him in the back of his mind and he had to once again stop walking to close his eyes and take a second to kill them off and bury them in shameful silence, back in their unmarked subliminal graves. All those evil, nasty things that hurt but couldn't be changed anymore.
(Really Slow Motion - Optocell)
Reopening his eyes, Lucas was confronted with a sight he could have done without; a trio of young cock-shakers swaggering their way towards him with their hands a lot nearer their belt buckles, and the crotch of their jeans, than was polite or acceptable when walking in public. These monkeys were part of the hormone-powered fools that kept trying to incite a reaction of jealousy or childish envy from him when they made a spectacle of drinking their allotment of beer or going to a bar during shore leave. They were mindless tools but thought they should command the boat just because they were over 18 years old. They wanted something, anything, to hold over the intelligent, important, young scientist that threatened their manhood so much that it hurt just to think about how cock-blocked they were by his mental strength and lack of fear at their supposedly 'big and mighty adultness'.
These bastards were the last of the group of criminals that had tried to convince Lucas that they had the right to administer 'corporeal christian disciplinings' upon him to make certain he lived a 'godly boyhood' of the 'True-American' kind just because they were past 18 and he wasn't. Many of their other friends had wound up in the hospital and two had even been mutilated for life and forced out of the service all together before they got the message that Lucas didn't believe their lies. Still, these three last lackwits didn't get the info. He was in shouting distance of Kathy's cabin, in the middle of senior officer country, and they were trying to gang up on him openly! What a bunch of retards!
That was the fatidic moment one of them pulled a serrated 18 inch long, garishly ornate and convoluted blade. What people had taken to call a 'zombie knife' or more commonly a 'sci-fi dagger' given that it looked like the blades Klingons, dark elves and others in sci-fi series characters used in honor duels and apocalypse survival scenarios. These had become collectibles in the geek communities but a lot of young thugs wanted them for the look and size because, "Hey, the chicks they say size matters, you know…" The other two pulled smaller but just as nasty hunting knives in the nine to twelve inch lengths, the big but cheap kind bought at Wal-Mart or Cabela's over the internet. The kind juvenile street gang thugs like because they're big like they want people to think what's in their pants is 'that big'. Stupid bunch of juvenile, immature, defective losers!
Lucas put down his armload of food and work satchel, leaning the lot against the bulkhead next to the door for commander Ford's cabin while never looking away from the slowly coming attackers. The man was absent, in the gym probably at this hour, as it was his habit since as far back as Lucas could remember about the man. Still, it gave him the time to discretely palm some safeties in both hands from the cuffs of his flannel shirt before standing up fully to face his attackers who had been coming in very slowly to savor their prey's fear. Or so they planned and wished. Their oh-so-manly swagger, walking in a zigzag that mixed the three boys randomly, was obviously designed to confuse Lucas and intimidate him, make him believe it was more than the three jocks in front of him. Their supposedly impressive stances, shoulders thrown back and pelvis thrust forward repeatedly as they advanced were no doubt intended to impress upon him their great big mighty manhood and just how much more adult than him they thought they were.
It amused Lucas to no end. It was like watching the mating dance of a poor besotted parakeet about to rub itself on a colored tennis ball, as though it had wooed the female of the species into accepting the male for a relationship. Poor confounded fools! After Shraeder and his minions, you'd think these bozos had understood that Lucas could and would kill to insure his safety aboard ship or anywhere else in life. Yet here they were, parading and emitting throaty chanted gutturalities. They acted just like the ancient Zulus in Africa did when preparing to ritually rape other men they had defeated in battle but not killed as they judged them too weak and shameful for an honorable warrior's death. And by the way they looked at him, moved, presented their knifes and crotches, that was their goal. They wanted him to mentally break so they could overtake him and hijack him to a locked room to beat, rape and kill him at their leisure.
It wouldn't happen in this life or the next. And they made a fatal mistake: Lucas abhorred sexual crimes and very forcefully supported the death penalty for kidnapping, torture, rape and murder. Since they planned all of the above, they had sealed their fates.
Lucas moved both hands far more quickly than he usually showed he was capable of doing; one towards the PAL in his flannel shirt's pocket and the other to a device hidden inside his thick ornate belt buckle. He triggered the emergency communications & localization functions of both devices before either attacker could realize what he had done. His hands then came back in place in front of his hips, each openly holding a metallic device shaped like a small marker-pen thus taking attention away from his real actions.
"Whaddaya know boyos! We've gots us here 'n albino coon tryin' to run away! Ah ah ah!" exclaimed Jimmiz Dunfries in his affected deep South-Texas accent. He was actually a sordid piece of white trash from the Arkansas sector of the Ozarks but he liked making others believe he was of pure south descendancy. The defective bastard's parents and grand-parents on both sides had all done more time inside of jail cells than out. The ugly boy had creamy white skin that looked pasty and pock-marked, rust-red hair shorn to be just stubble on his scalp and watery shifty brown eyes that never looked the person he spoke to since he was a coward who feared everybody. Except for Lucas, of course. The reject from a mis-cleaned test tube had put it in his mind that the teen was smaller, leaner, lighter and physically weaker than him so he was easy prey that begged to be victimized for his own glory and pleasures. He was accompanied as always by the other two fuckshits that hailed from the Ozarks like he did and had about the same family history.
Bobby 'boobers' Bobson had a weak-white discolored skin from a childhood disease that cured weird due to the many narcotics and alcohol in his system at the time. He sported rust-red hair too and blue yes that were actually the only strongly colored, well defined feature about his mule's back-end ugly mug. He was called 'boobers' for his constant attention towards female breasts and never-ending stream of lewd displaced jokes about said breasts. In his eight months aboard he had already been reprimanded over a dozen times for lewdness and lascivious behaviors but somebody in DC kept saving him from a full court martial or dishonorable discharge. He was clearly the patsy and paid minion of somebody with money and power who wanted the little retard aboard. For what hadn't become clear yet.
The third lackey was actually called Jocks Wood Hardcock; yes his parents were that drunk and that stoned out when they named him in the prison infirmary where his mother had him. They were half-siblings from the same father by different mothers and sixteen years old when they had him. They told the guards about their incest like this; "It never did no harm to Nana and Momma to marry them brot'as, t'won't hurt us nuttin neither." That explained so damn much… He was the prototypical skinhead wannabe, born into the militias and Sovereign Citizens movement too just like his daddy. He had six-foot two-inch of height, 210 pounds of muscle backed by about 30 pounds of fatty flab, washed-out white skin like he was born in a vat of bleach and cobalt-blue eyes that looked not quite sane or stable when you gazed straight into them. Which would never happen as he constantly scanned around for threats that only his overactive imagination could see.
Lucas's upper lip curled upwards in a sneer of contempt as he evaluated the trio of armed enemies arrayed against him. This was going to be so easy it would be embarrassing to claim it as a victory. More like gassing rats in a sewer pipe, really. Amused at the circumstance, Lucas realized that the clean-up would be handled by NCIS and JAG since they were finally aboard.
The teen pushed a small button on each metallic device he held and threw them at the attackers at shoulder height in an under-handed lob like a softball pitch. The three young thugs didn't think besides moving asides to let the projectiles through without being hit. It didn't matter as the attack was wide-area. The small pressurized canisters let out a fluorescent orange gas that filled the full width and height of the corridor on about 12 feet of length.
Then the three different screams of agony began in earnest.
Their great powerful ADULT attack had been broken in less than 40 seconds by a CHILD. The teenager stood still as he watched the product of his intellect hard at work. "Incompetent monkey-descended inbred buffoons, the lot of them! Weren't there any abortions or birth control pills in the towns where they were spawned? It's no wonder I approve of eugenics, you know…" he told the empty air of the corridor.
Sighing deeply in frustration that his calm evening with Kathy was now seeping through the metal grates of the deck plates, Lucas touched his PAL while orienting the camera on the device to capture the last moments of his aggressors. He signaled Crocker that he had a mess in the senior officer's quarters to pick up for processing. As the inhuman screams of misery cut off abruptly in chocking deathly gasps, the young man snorted and told the security chief "Better bring your largest shop-vac if you take too much time to get here. The fools are gonna liquefy kinda fast at the temperature in the boat. Lucas out."
The teen locked eyes with Kathy Hitchcock whose face had just become visible in the porthole of her door and he used sign language to tell her to stay inside safely. The gaseous anti-organic acid would take another five minutes to reach its saturation point, becoming inactive five minutes after that.
And if Crocker's team took more than half an hour to come, 97% of the organics would have been dissolved to liquid and then sublimated to gas so only the solids like clothes and a few bone fragments would need removal by hand. Easier clean-up for the janitors like that. Lucas smiled in satisfaction that his multi-effects 'kill-sterilize-remove contaminants' warfare gas was functional. He was certain admiral Noyce and Section 7 would like its efficiency too. Eliminating traitors, defectors and terrorists without leaving a damning trail would become a much more easily applicable solution in the future.
Sunday evening: Billy Boy the Pig Farmer
(Audiomachine - The Origin of Species)
Sunday 9th of February, 2020; 22:00pm
SeaQuest DVS 6000, UEO flagship; Captain's cabin
North of the Australian coastline
Nathan stood at the private service counter of his cabin, placed against the outer hull just under the view port. He was fixing himself another mug of strong coffee and a small plate of cookies to munch on during the call when the cabin's intercom beeped.
"Captain, sir! Admiral Noyce on secured holo-web channel #3 as scheduled. Should we patch it through?"
Bridger walked passed the couches towards Lucas's most emblematic creation to date, the gaseous medium holographic display; the second most powerful computer aboard after that damnable portable gizmo the kid was married to. The 62 year old man pushed a button on the console to light up the display and let it accept the call automatically. As soon as the bust of his old academy friend was visible he pushed another button to signal the bridge that all seemed right and they could leave them be.
Bill opened the festivities with a shit-eating grin and a fast one under the belt. "Well Nathan, you seem in a lot better mood than the last few times we spoke. It's good that you're not so blue anymore…"
Bridger gave his best buddy alive a smile with all teeth and replied gamely "Same to you Will. I would have thought that all the paperwork from our last little shindig would have buried you so deep we'd never hear from you again. I was about to send out a search team with avalanche dogs but I'm glad you dug your way out all right… Being rescued by bureaucrats though, I would die of shame if I were in your shoes…"
The two old acquaintances gazed at each other with both friendship and a challenge in their eyes. They were old school navy and needed to see for themselves the strength, stability and mindset of the other periodically to reassure themselves that all was right. Too many of their age group had already died from war, accidents, disease and suicide. And those were the lucky ones who died still knowing who they were and what they stood for. The unlucky ones were in hospices, unawares and sometimes completely insensate due to Alzheimer's, Parkinson's complications and other neuro-degenerative illnesses. Better to die with your eyes open, fighting for what you knew true and fair.
Having seen the other person's metal was still solid and sharp, the old pals spent a few minutes in basic politeness and platitudes. Nathan bitched plentily about his bad back whilst William griped about the onset of full arthritis in both legs which at his girth and weight was never a good thing. Both men dreaded the day their doctors would tell them they needed a wheelchair to move around even in their own dwelling. At that time, it would be enough; each had his exit planned already.
After a few sips of coffee and bites of snacks, both got down to the businesses at hand.
"In prelude to the hard stuff, Bill, the NCIS and JAG people got here about an hour ago and I had Krieg billet them all in one cluster of staterooms to keep them in view. The GAO people should be here in another week; they scheduled their trip to arrive as we get back from shore leave. By that time, Lawrence Wolenczak's lawyers should be here as well. Any heads up about those guys? I have never had to deal with them but by the face Lucas made when he spoke of them, they won't be pleasant."
Bill twirled his cup slowly as if divining deeper truths in the brown depths of his cappuccino. "The lead man is an old crud, older than you and me by a dozen years, who thinks the entirety of America exists to satisfy his venal pleasures and kowtow to his magnificence. I can't imagine that somebody with the kid's temperament would have gone along well with that geriatric bastard."
"Oh, joy! Another useless rich waste of skin to deal with! Is that the only type that Lawrence has in his entourage? The ditzy, suck-up, vacuum-headed type? Couldn't he choose somebody with a solid character and even temper? He works for the UEO on the most major project currently under construction! The organization's collective reputation is on the line here! He could make an effort to choose a lawyer based on more than name and money!"
Bill snorted derisively and responded nastily "You got the only level headed, decent bloke the family has left alive, Nate. And I envy your having him at hand like that. If you want to switch with mine, I can send Lawrence over any day you want. Just don't be surprised if I never switch them again. Losers weepers, my friend, and if you lose Lucas, you don't get him back! I keep him to myself, capisce?"
Nathan grunted an undetermined sound from his throat that could be an assent, a challenge or a request for time to think about it. Any ways, they had plenty to talk about during their conversation.
"Did you manage to look into McFarlane's situation and his little shitpit up north? The whole setup doesn't look above board to me. And the recordings about his orders to Jonathan Ford? Was anything in that legally binding? Can we maneuver on anything against him?"
Noyce sipped his sugary coffee and pursed his lips in disgust at the too sweet thing. Unfortunately, it was the only type of coffee he could drink along with his new arthritis pills or the drink and medicine combined to make a taste like skunk oil in his mouth that made him sick enough to retch.
Looking up at his old friend, Billy made a vague gesture with his left hand. "The orders he signed to Ford were original and authentic but illegal in all points. He acted outside his jurisdiction, outside his command chain and most definitely outside of any rights to regulate access to the boat's secure rooms as that is normally the prerogative of the captain, under advisement of the admiralty. Just for the fact that he sent an un-cleared officer to enter the S.C.I.F. thus allowing access to Level-11 and above informations in an unsanctioned manner to a person not read-into the programs, he was losing his posting, his rank and getting a dishonorable discharge that would take away his pension too. And that's just the beginning before the court martial got its grips into him."
Nathan was now smiling like a shark contemplating a large tuna. With many, many teeth. "Oh? Tell me more, old pal… What could have happened that was so bad he loses more than his commission and pension at his age?"
Noyce's smirk was neither kind nor pleasant. "Weeelll, he might have made enemies in the NSA and CIA when he did what he did. Because of his little faux-pas with Ford, several agencies have begun to track the man's contacts with their own internal employees and external contractors, just to be sure. And what do you know? In less than ten hours of digging through their files they have already found several hundred cases of malversations, peddling of power and influence, use of agents for his own corrupt goals and profits, etc… As we speak, the good general McFarlane is in the capable hands of the President's Secret Service in a secured undisclosed location and will remain there for the near future as everybody is sifting through their files and cases to find out how far and deep the bastard's reach went. There are, as we speak, real fears that some of the criminal acts he did could have jeopardized US security and our country's position with NATO and the UEO. There are rumors coming out from France and Britain that he might have been instrumental in the corruption going on inside the UN before it fell. Seeing how he acted around the UEO executive building in NCQ, I do believe he hasn't stopped his criminalities; he just switched his branding and renewed his clientele."
Bridger laughed out loud. He couldn't help himself. After a few minutes of hilarity, he calmed down enough to comment "You do realize Bill, that everybody who goes against Lucas in some way loses everything in less than a day? If we look at every enemy he faced since coming aboard four months ago, not a single one survived hostile contact against him. McFarlane is already imprisoned on enough charges to warrant sending him to GITMO for the rest of his life and the investigation isn't even official yet! Ha!"
Nathan sobered up quickly though. "If people did their jobs right, bastards like him and his stupid followers couldn't take over the military or government branches and destroy the lives and careers of decent folk! It's about time somebody woke up and cleaned the place out! God knows the Pentagon could use a good washing out, and the DoD too!"
Billy nodded once and responded "Yeah, I agree with you. It's just my methods are viewed as 'too harsh' against the decent, faithful followers of the one true faith of the pure America. If you get the underlying message…? I have known about crap and crimes in the services for decades, Nate, since my first day in boot camp. I saw black marketing, contraband, smuggling booze, knives, porn and other stuff. Then, when I joined Naval Intel, I thought we were gonna clean out the criminals, or at least the traitors who sell our secrets abroad. No. It's not what USNI does. We only watch and report, the Oval Office decides who does what and we rarely get told what happened to our informations or the people on our watch-lists."
Scratching his almost bald head, Noyce continued his explanation. "What I found in USNI files is that McFarlane was watched by several agencies for over thirty years already, practically since the first whiff of abnormality was detected. And the Man has been deep in shit since even before he enlisted. His record before the age of 18 is sealed but I got a peek. He should never have been allowed in the door, let alone be promoted into the officers. But the multiple wars against communists in Asia and then the fights where we helped the Arabs against Russia… You know how those epochs were. We lacked men with enough experience and willpower to get the dirty jobs done. McFarlane was kept and promoted because he stayed in the service, survived the wars and he had contacts at home and abroad, money and dirt on everybody in a thousand miles of his office. We just couldn't get rid of the encysted worm until he hit the wrong target and caused a chain reaction in the people above my pay-grade."
The captain almost chocked on his mouthful of coffee when he heard that. "How the hell could this bastard have allies so high that it takes the Oval Office and the Secretariat of the UEO to get his head on the block? He can't have dirt on everybody that high in the command ladders could he?"
Bill made a pensive little sound as he exhaled and shrugged despondently. "You have no idea of what kinds of people gravitate around the higher echelons of the US government, the NATO directorate or the UEO Alliance executive cabinet. Trust me, Nathan, there's enough shit in there to keep all of my pigs happy, deep in the muck and well fed for long after I'm gone to the earth myself."
Bridger was pressing his lips into a thin tight line to keep from swearing out loud the stream of invectives he wanted to scream at the monitor. Reaming out Bill wouldn't help the situation. Considering the general was now a dead end, he changed subjects. Not that it would end any better.
"Have you seen the copy of Lucas's report that I sent you? I'm sure you haven't read it, but have you at least glanced at it? We have a bloody mess on our hands, Bill. And we were just told this evening about several large, very rich and powerful, civilian companies being involved in it. Lucas has several research projects that were paid for by those companies that were never even started because he was denied the office and materials to work on them. This is a time-bomb Bill and it's gonna blow up any minute now! Why the Hell was I never told about this before?"
Bill leaned backwards in his chair and hummed thoughtfully about that one. "The responsibility for that fiasco is spread around on all three levels; the ship, the US Navy and the UEO exec. The people at the top knew about the contract and the external partners involved, just like the US Navy brass did. However, some people like the generals McFarlane, Franklin, Thomas and McGrath, the admirals Sinclair, Labrie, Desalt and old he-whore Rennech along with several other captains and commanders all worked together to blockade things."
Noyce took a bite of some buttered crusty bread to offset the taste of his combined coffee and meds thus allowing Nathan to chew a little something as well. "The result was that all the requests Lucas made to have his proper cabin and office before leaving to hunt Stark were ignored or stamped 'out of bounds for position' even though that was a clear lie to anybody who read the file and the contract in it. All his demands for material and equipments to activate his research projects were denied systematically without even reading them. It was at the point that even priority orders for parts to repair the ship had to be fought for as the base-born curs tried to block those too and put the blame on Lucas for the dysfunctions in the ordering system."
Noyce frowned angrily at the next bit: "It got to the point where the kid started hacking into the UEO servers to push his parts orders through to get the materials and equipments on time to affect the repairs to keep you afloat and alive. When they realized this, they tried to have him arrested and jailed in a private christian juvenile jail without even bothering with an investigation or tribunal of any sorts. And THAT is when some people's alarm bells began ringing. If the kid was so criminally defunct, and they could prove it so easily, why not make an example of him? Or at least start the legal process and then negotiate with his family to get some money out of Lawrence to keep things quiet? That's the usual way to fill up some holes in the state's budget every year; you hit on the rich dummies who commit crimes and haggle with them to set them free in exchange for a mound of cash and electoral support. Why were these officers and DoD bureaucrats not playing the game?"
Seeing his friend was quite attentive, William continued his speech. "That's the point of the internal investigation we are at right now in the UEO exec and US Navy quartermaster's staff. The questions and check-ups have just begun a few days ago after Shraeder invaded you as the orders for that experiment were never validated properly and weren't legal. The papers general Thomas sent over to force you to conduct the hull-siphon tests in those conditions were never approved by the admiralty, the joint-chiefs-of-staff or the Oval Office. I mean, for Christ's sake! They used an active service nuclear sub with active ICBM's and mark 10 atomic torpedoes aboard to try and see if they could sink and then purge the ship like it was a bath toy! While the nukes were aboard! And then the retarded idiot orders you to let in a shuttle full of unknowns while you are essentially running with less than a drydock skeleton crew! I can tell you that the meeting with the POTUS about that ended Thomas's career then and there. He's suspended pending the results of the investigation but even if he should be cleared enough to avoid anything above a written reprimand and an unpaid suspension, the President told him he wanted his resignation as soon as the Secret Service, NCIS, JAG, GAO, FBI and NSA gave their reports. That man will not survive the fallout from this; he has Leavenworth in his future."
Before Nathan could give an opinion about it all, the intercom of his cabin as well as his PAL beeped out the aggressive tonality that meant there was an emergency somewhere aboard his ship. "Captain to the senior officers' sector! Repeat! Captain to the senior officers' sector! Lucas murdered people! We have three dead and chemical contamination of the corridor! Repeat! Captain wanted in the senior officers' sector! Now for fucking Christ's sakes! Can't somebody be found to control the bat-shit crazy little psycho before he kills all of us?!"
William Noyce gave a nasty, merciless smile at his old friend of forty years. "You'd better go see what the kids are up to behind your back. You never know these days. They might even think they can manage the boat without you."
Bridger's answer was to slam an angry hand on the console to shut off the channel and thus wipe off the grinning loon's countenance from his field of vision.
Walking to his desk to pick up his many little things he filled his pockets with, Nathan had the nasty feeling that his night was going to be as eventful as the last while being less restful to boot.
Jogging out of his cabin, he remembered the presence of the NCIS and JAG contingents just as he almost plowed into one of the civilian agents. Oh, yeah! They had some of those now and they would want to be involved in the mess. Well okay, Nathan thought as he guided the small aggregation of humans behind him towards the conflict zone. They could handle the investigation and the clean-up afterwards too; less to do for him and his crew like that.
