I do not own The Last Ship.

Part 2: Chapter 2

20 October 2014

Chandler was sitting at his desk looking at the pictures of his family. He'd taken to wearing the bracelet that Ashley had given him rather than keeping it in his breast pocket. It made him feel closer to them. He hadn't been able to reach them when he had tried, after they came off Emcon. He'd tried all their cellphone numbers, and even his dad's, but nothing. "Widespread telecommunications failures" seemed to be the excuse of the day.

But Darien and his Dad had managed to get him an MPEG message to say that they had gone to Dad's cabin. He'd drunk up the sight of her and the kids and he still played the message to himself every night. He felt bad because most of the crew hadn't been able to get in touch with their families and loved ones. And of the few that had, there'd been a lot of bad news. Mike Slattery had lost his son, although his girls were all right, living with their Mom in a safe zone at Deer Park. He'd tried to give Mike some time off, but he'd asked to keep on working. Said it was better that way. Tom understood. Better to be contributing than stuck feeling sorry for yourself in your cabin.

They'd successfully refuelled and re-provisioned in France and were now making for Puerto Rico at flank speed. Analysis of Rachel Scott's journals had come up trumps. Given the fact that labs were going down regularly she'd taken the time the night before she'd been kidnapped to analyse what she would do if she had to manufacture a vaccine on board Nathan James. She had concluded that she'd need to get some primates from somewhere and remembered a science park at Puerto Rico that she'd visited.

While he could kiss her for including that analysis, he was a bit less pleased with her about other parts of her journals. It had only been after he'd already ordered the journals to be passed out to Mike, Garnett and Barker as co-readers that he'd realised she'd made some personal comments about members of the crew in there. And he was number one target on her list. In her first entry after they left Norfolk she had referred to him as "pretty dishy" but worried that he might be a "Mark One Military Neanderthal". While they hadn't had a lot to do with one another up until their clash in the corridor, after that she'd come back to her initial thoughts and confirmed that in her eyes although he was "pleasing on the eyes" he probably was an "arrogant Neanderthal". Mike had loved that. It was the only time he'd seen a smile on his face in those first few days after he found out about his kids, so Tom had just taken the teasing, vowing to get his own back at the appropriate time.

Apart from her read on him, she'd put in quick reads on other members of the crew which, surprisingly, he thought were dead on. She had described Mike as "very loyal and totally straight", Lieutenant Green as "thoroughly professional but bored shitless with babysitting", Garnett as "reserved but very caring" and "a bit like an elder sister to her people" and Foster as "someone who listens but doesn't say much, but will be one to watch". Given that she worked 18-20 hours a day while she was with them, and only saw his officers for minutes at a time in the wardroom, the fact that she'd built up such a good read on those around her said a lot for her analytical abilities and for her empathy as well.

And it was clear that she was a lot more empathic and caring than he had given her credit for. Reading the journals, it was clear that every lab going off the air, every colleague dying, was like a personal stake through her heart. And she'd seen the writing on the wall. She knew there was a good chance that she'd be the one that had to develop this vaccine. She'd lived with that knowledge for a long time. He hadn't known, but it had been her who had gone to Egypt right at the start of this outbreak, so she'd been living with knowledge of the virus for many, many months.

He hadn't bothered to read her file when she came on board, but he had once they'd set course for France. He hadn't realised she was so pre-eminent in her field. Medical Director of CDC was a senior position. She'd worked at the WHO and she had four degrees for God's sake. She was somebody who was a leader in her field. Who recognised the responsibilities of leadership. He determined to make more of an effort to get to know her when they managed to rescue her. He didn't even countenance that they wouldn't be able to rescue her. Because the consequences of failure were just too high.

He hoped she wouldn't be too damaged by her ordeal, because they would need her. The news coming from Washington was bad. Every day more parts of the system were going black. They had temporarily lost contact with the White House situation room twice and yesterday they had reported another outbreak in the complex. Nathan James' crew might be on their own sooner than they thought.

At least Washington had come through with some information on the Russians. Unfortunately, it wasn't good news, however. The Russians had a Kirov class battlecruiser, the Vyerni. His crew were majorly outgunned, even though Vyerni had been laid up for a long time so she wouldn't have current weapons and electronics systems. They were also out-manned. The Russian ship should have a complement of about 700. Nathan James had just over 200. If they were going to board the Russian ship, they'd have to do it in secret; they wouldn't be able to survive a frontal assault.

Luckily, they had a good chance of finding the Russians. They had been able to track the Russians' sat phone transmissions and those confirmed that the Russians were heading, as they were, towards Puerto Rico. Hopefully they would be able to intercept them and find a way to get on board and rescue the Doctor.

Danny was struggling, if truth be told. As one of life's winners he had pretty much no experience with being one of life's losers. He couldn't even dump Kara successfully. She had told him that she understood that he needed some space but if he thought she was going to leave him alone with no support after what he'd gone through, he was nuts. He loved that woman. He just wished he could tell her.

He was working himself hard with the training, hoping it would make him tired enough to sleep. But he still saw the ghosts of his team in his head every night.

The worst one was Dr Scott. He'd not had too much time for the Doctor when he'd been working with her. He'd imagined she was some sort of egg-head academic who was so far removed from the real world she probably thought pasta grew on trees. To hear that she had been working to save him and his family and his crew and everybody he held dear and he couldn't be assed to give her the time of day, hurt. He'd lost count of the number of times he woke up from a nightmare of her mutilated body with a Russian taunting him "I found something you didn't care about…"

And through it all Kara had been his rock. They didn't have sex any more, they didn't kiss very much either. They hugged. Kara was a brilliant hugger. And he needed it. Needed the reassurance that he wasn't a disaster. That he could be a SEAL again. That he could contribute. But while the chasing days went on and on, he couldn't get back on the bike. He needed some action to demonstrate that he could still contribute. Please God they'd catch the Russians. Soon.

24 October 2014

"Captain, engines are back on line." Mike looked just about as depressed as he felt. They'd been so close. So damn close.

"OK, thanks Mike," he replied, "we've lost them, and we can't chase them again until we refuel and re-arm, so I think we need to head to Guantanamo Bay. There's a remote refuelling station there and food warehouses so we can re-provision. Can you get that sorted and I'll head down to the Med Bay to show my face?"

"Sure Tom," his XO replied, heading off.

Well, that sure wrapped up a brilliant week. They'd lost contact with Washington and this time he reckoned it was final. They'd made contact with the Vyerni but she'd seen them before he'd been able to get his boats away and they'd traded long-range blows. He had to be careful when he fired on the Russians but they had no such concerns and they'd blanketed his ship with missiles. His people had managed to take them all out but two had been destroyed so close aboard that shrapnel had blown a hole in the side of the ship and cut the control runs to the starboard shaft. It had taken six hours to do a patch and by that time they'd lost contact with the Vyerni and, to add insult to injury, the Russian ship had stopped transmitting sat phone signals; they'd obviously figured out what had led Nathan James to them.

What was he going to do now? How would they reacquire the Vyerni? He sighed. First things first. They had to refuel and re-arm, he supposed. They'd blown a lot of fuel crossing the Atlantic at flank speed. He could worry about what to do next after they finished at Gitmo.

25 October 2014

"We're all "in" Captain," Tex Nolan told him, "we'll help you find your little lady and we'll help train your boarding parties. It's the least we can do after you got us off that rock."

Finally, some good news. Tex was the de facto leader of the three remaining contractors who had released the high value Al Qaeda prisoners on Gitmo. There had originally been seven but the Al Qaeda men hadn't wanted to let bygones be bygones after they'd been let free and decided to murder all the other prison guards. And they'd tried to kill the Nathan James' crew as well.

But his people had taken care of the remaining Assbags, as Tex's friend Ethan called them, and Tex, Ethan and a former Navy SEAL called Mike had all agreed to join his crew. And aside from one slightly dented Chief Engineer, they'd managed to get out of Cuba without any additional casualties and with a fully re-fuelled and re-provisioned ship. And they'd picked up some handy weapons and electronics systems as well.

"Thanks. I'm grateful that you're willing to help out," he told Tex, "now we just have to find them."

"Did you have any thoughts on that Captain?" asked the older man.

Tom paused. Showing doubt wasn't really his style, but he was a bit stumped as to what to do. "I think we just have to try and monitor radio channels for sightings and see if we can set up some remote monitoring along the coast," he replied, "I just hope they'll stay around. I'm sure Dr Scott brought them to Puerto Rico hoping to find us. I can only hope that she'll try it again."

Tex nodded, "Sounds about right. She sounds like an impressive lady. Hope she's still in one piece."

"Amen to that," he replied. Unsaid was that if the Russian captain thought that Dr Scott had betrayed their position, he might take it out on her. He hoped she would be OK.

12 November 2014

"Captain to Comms! Captain to Comms!" the announcement blared over the loudspeaker in the gym. It was 22.00 and he'd stopped in here to do some running. He needed a way to get rid of some of his nervous energy. He'd only done 5km and he needed to do much more than that to keep in shape and keep himself tired enough to sleep. They'd not had a lot of luck in finding the Vyerni over the past 14 days and it was weighing heavily on the crew and on him.

What the Hell could this be? He jumped off the treadmill, gathered his towel and ran for the exit.

When he arrived in the Comms center, Mason was practically jumping out of his skin in nervous excitement. Mike was already in the room waiting for him.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Sir," Mason said, facing him, "I think we've got something. This morning I picked up a strange static at 10.05. I was doing other things and I didn't really register it and then I heard it again this evening at 20.05 and then it came again at 21.05. I recorded it and analysed it and I think its old Morse code. It's Dot Dash Dot, Dot Dot Dot." Mason concluded, looking hopeful.

"Sorry Mason, I don't know my Morse. Dot Dot Dot is "S" isn't it?"

"Yes sir, and Dot Dash Dot is "R" sir." The kid said, almost jumping on the spot.

"Oh my God." It couldn't be.

"It spells "RS". I think it's a signal sir."

"Or it could be a trap," observed Mike, playing Devil's advocate like a good XO should.

"And it's repeated on the hour at five minutes past?" he queried.

"Yes sir."

"Can you triangulate it?" he asked.

"It's difficult sir because he's moving. From what I can see here, I think he may be coming towards us."

"Coming towards us?" he queried.

"Well, the east coast sir," he clarified.

"OK," he told Mason, making a decision, "get with Gator and I want you two to start plotting a track on this guy and see if we can't get an idea for where he's heading."

"Aye aye sir!" the kid was pleased with himself, and so he should be.

"And Mason," he told him, "Great job. Really good work." The kid broke into a huge smile, and he returned it, turning to Mike, "XO, you're with me. I think we need to make some plans."

17 November 2014

"Have you got anything?" he asked Mason.

"No sir," replied the kid, and he knew the poor kid just wanted to tell him that as soon as he'd got anything he'd report it, but being the Captain had its prerogatives and one of those was that he could ask for updates when he damn well felt like it.

It was 02.00 and they'd dropped Green and his teams off at 04.00 yesterday morning under cover of darkness. They'd put people in the water all the way up the coast so that they could lay their own tracking device on the Vyerni. It was obvious from the regularity of the communication that they had a friend on board the Russian ship but they couldn't take the chance that the friend might be discovered and they'd be in the dark again. On top of that, only getting a signal once per hour would be limiting if they were plotting an attack. Hence it had been decided that they'd put their own transmitter on the ship which they could interrogate whenever they wanted.

The close proximity to the US coast had made the Russian commander wary for the past two days. Obviously not wanting to be ambushed again, they had been using their surface and air search radars. So Tom couldn't take the Nathan James into range and they certainly couldn't use boats to get close enough to board. Green had mentioned a method SEALs had used in the past which involved boarding a ship from the sea. He had reluctantly approved it. Only four of them had enough training or were powerful enough swimmers to do it, so it wouldn't work as a boarding tactic but if they could track the Vyerni they could board it at a later time when they weren't so skittish and weren't using their radars.

I wonder what they're doing here? A Russian helo had gone inland according to his spotters and now seemed to be on its way back. Maybe they wanted to sunbathe by the lake, he mused.

"Sir!" called Mason, "We've got it. The tracking device is enabled."

"Brilliant," he allowed himself a small smile. Once the Russians moved off, they could pick up Green's people and the next time they saw the Russian ship they should be leaving with Rachel Scott. Maybe things were finally looking up.

AN I'm assuming that they've arrived at Guantanamo Bay a day or two earlier than they did in canon. This means that Tex's best friend is still alive and the other contractor as well.