Chapter 8
Danny and his team were in the secondary Helo bay pulling their snow mobiles and gear out prepping as of 0500 tomorrow they would be hitting the ice and escorting Dr Scott and her colleague Dr Tophet out to one of the many sites they'd selected to study Arctic Turns on. Some locations were on the coast line and other locations were further inland. With weather permitting Danny hoped they didn't get stuck inland with any freak snow storms or severe temperature drops.
But they had the gear prepped in case they got stuck. The Helo was acting as support for them but also to drop targets for the Nathan James and it's weapons testing scenarios.
"So you've been running a lot more than usual." Bercham commented breaking the blissful silence they had all been enjoying. Well, Danny had been enjoying it as it gave him time to think about Kara and everything he'd learned about her. He was starting to think that Kara was out of his league, she was brains and beauty who was well guarded emotionally. But sometimes he saw the creaks in her walls.
"Keeping in shape, something you should think about when you're inhaling all those twinkies while watching Bold and Beautiful." Danny replied evenly as Bercham was one of those assholes with a high metabolism. So he could eat whatever he wanted and not worry about it slowing him down.
"Maybe but then I'd have to sacrifice my stories and I just can't let go of Brooke yet. She's a kindred spirit." Bercham replied mockingly as he checked over his Kevlar vest making sure it had everything he needed.
"Kindred spirit in that she marries anyone she's not related to. Yeah, you got so much in common." Smith commented drily.
"I can't help it, I'm a romantic. But at least I don't have to listen to the LT beat his own drum over his unrequited love every night like Frankie." He said making a lewd hand gesture at his crotch.
"Actually, I don't have to as he's saving himself for marria- I mean Norfolk." Frankie teased, Danny threw a glove at his head as he really didn't appreciate his bunk mate's defence.
"You know I was reading the missus' cosmo while on the can the other day and it says to be in a successful relationship. You need to first be in a healthy relationship with your body and who you are. Cause if you don't love yourself, then how can you expect others to love you." Smith added, Danny gave the man a dark look as he was supposed to be the adult.
"What better expression of love for oneself than self love." Bercham said, Smith gave a nod agreeing with him before breaking into a laugh.
"Ok guys, enough. Can we be a little more respectful about it all now as I'm pretty serious about this and I don't need help in screwing it up." Danny told them, he didn't mind the odd teasing but someone was going to overhear them and he knew if it got back to the Captain or the XO it wouldn't just be his ass in the sling. Given how he knew Kara worked her ass off to get to where she was, and he also knew the Navy had paid for her education. Well he wanted to protect her, and her future if nothing came from him trying to be with her.
"Really? It's serious after one run in the Gym?" Bercham asked with a smile, Danny wore a serious expression and gave a nod so they all knew he wasn't kidding around.
"I like her a lot and I don't want to screw up her rep with guy talk making the rounds. Got it?" he asked them.
"Copy that, no more stalking or talking about her fine ass." Bercham said, the others nodded and Danny for some reason felt that Smith was actually proud of him.
"Don't even look sideways at it." Danny ordered Bercham, Bercham held his hands up in mock surrender.
"Ok, I'll look at it straight on." Bercham assured him, Danny knew when he was being baited so left Bercham's comment right alone.
Kara widen her eyes trying to keep awake as she was into the 18th hour of being awake looking at her console. She really wished she could actually say 'No, thank you. I need sleep." to TAO Barker when he asked her to extend her shift.
Apparently Wright was turning into a waste of space as he was down with seasickness still after 10 days at sea. How he even managed to stay in the Navy with such weak sea legs was beyond her. At least until she heard he was from a Navy family. So it was just expected for him to serve in the Navy. It probably helped his Daddy was an Admiral and pulled all the strings to get Wright his position. Just showed that hard work didn't always pay off.
But still, they hadn't hit any storms and it had been fairly smooth sailing the whole journey. She smothered a yawn and hoped the person who would relieve her would show up soon. But she knew she still had another 4 hours as her relief wasn't the least motivated Ensign Philips. She was one of those people who once they excelled at something just plateaued out by choice choosing the comfort of one role and being content to move forward when someone wanted her to. Something Kara didn't understand as she had a thirst for knowledge and learning new things.
"Here." Mason said as he placed a cup of coffee on the console in front of her.
"Oh, thank you." Kara murmured as she picked up the cup and took a huge gulp.
"Whoa, that's scolding hot." Mason said but it was too late. Her eyes watered and her mouth burned but she was committed to getting the caffeine hit and swallowed the hot liquid feeling it burn a path through her esophagus.
"Don't care." Kara said as she took another sip but smaller this time and even though her mouth and throat were in agony. She needed the caffeine and the pain definitely woke her up. She gave a sigh as she sat back in her chair and looked around CIC. TAO Barker was off shift and the acting TAO was looking the other way. So she took a moment to relax as there nothing on her screen and hadn't been since she sat down hours before. Weapons testing wasn't going to commence for another 48 hours.
"So, I know this is totally out of line but I heard a rumour." Mason said to her in a low voice.
"What?" Kara asked, nausea rolling through her which was not from the coffee rolling her stomach but the fear that Mason was going to tell her that people were suspecting her of fraternising. It didn't seem fair given she hadn't done anything except talk to Danny, and ok, she had a lot of indecent thoughts about the man. But thinking of hot dirty sex was not against the regs, it was when one acted them out in reality or vocalising the thoughts that it became an issue. She was already mentally cataloguing what could be misconstrued as fraternising when Mason answered.
"That you transferred off the Nathan James to continue your studies for the rest of the year. But you're still here." he said, Kara felt herself relax as she didn't care people knowing about a transfer mix up. It happened all the time. The way he spoke made it sound like maybe she was rejected by the college.
"Mix up with paperwork." Kara replied offhandedly, feeling a lot calmer than she did two seconds ago.
"You're not the only who got jacked around. I heard six other crew members who was supposed to be transferred to shore duty ended up back here and three others including Ensign Wright and your new room mate weren't even supposed to be on the Nathan James. They got last minute orders to report to the ship. Arctic testing for a new weapons system? All we've had are a few software updates, yet here we are. Doesn't it all seem a bit off?" Mason asked in a low voice. The man sounded like a conspiracy nut the way he was talking.
But even Kara had to admit there was some truth to what he was saying. There was no such thing as an emergency weapons testing. Yet here they all were, they all got the 48 hours notice less than a week into their R&R to report back to the Nathan James. But Kara hadn't thought too deeply about it, she just followed orders and kept her head down did the job. But even so she could understand why Mason wanted to bring it up.
"We're the most technologically advanced Arleigh Burke class destroyer in the fleet. I'm sure the people at the top were just anxious to make sure everything works no matter the environment, so they could start rolling more off the production line. Money is time and all that, the military is still a business in it's own right." Kara told him, which was true. The Nathan James had been gutted last year and had been retrofitted with state of the art weapons technology and everything else in America's arms race to be the best Navy in the world.
"I guess so." Mason said not entirely convinced.
"But hey, if it turns out there is a big conspiracy going on. I'll let you in on it." Kara joked, before she turned her attention back to her station.
