Thankyou to everyone who's reviewed. You guys are awesome.
I've borrowed some lines from actual episodes here to reflect Ben's state of mind. Don't bother suing me cos I don't own anything. Especially since it's school holidays and the locust plague has been through my home over the last week!
Chapter Eleven
As Katie tried to open her eyes and sit up she couldn't believe the pounding in her head. She sat still and waited to see if it passed but it only lessened slightly. The feeling of disorientation eventually eased and she realised she was sitting on the floor next to the navigation console. Someone had handcuffed one hand to the underside of the console. She tugged on it but it wasn't going anywhere.
Across the room she could see Tim was also coming round and he looked just as dazed as she felt. Whatever it was that had been used to knock them all out it had some nasty side effects. Crocker still hadn't moved and she wondered if he had been hit, or worse. She could see that both of them were handcuffed just as she was. She finally made eye contact with Tim and he nodded at her to indicate he was al lright. He was closer to Crocker and he leaned over to check on him. As he gave him a gentle shake he was rewarded with a low moan. Katie let out a relieved breath before turning her attention back to the captain.
Not far from her she could see Captain Bridger with several men she'd never seen before. Even before she heard the words she knew what was going on. A tall bald man stood behind the captain with a rifle pointed at his back. Even though they had all known this was coming it didn't make it any easier to witness. The only comfort she could draw from it was the knowledge Ben was now somewhere back aboard the seaQuest.
When Jonathan first came and filled her in it had taken all her training to make her bite her tongue. She knew she had no claim on Ben anymore and he could do what he liked but all the same, she wondered, how could he have said yes to this?
When I get my hands on him I'll….
All the old familiar feelings surfaced. Anger and frustration that he could be so reckless. Anxiety at the unknown factor of where he had been and what he had been doing. But then why did she care so much? That thought just made her angrier. There didn't seem to be any way to actually free herself from a man who drove her completely nuts!
What was that old saying? Can't live with them, can't live without them? Well she had tried living with him and that definitely didn't work. As she sat on the floor and observed the exchange going on before her, Katie shivered as the thought briefly crossed her mind of trying to live without him - a world without Ben. She angrily pushed it to the back of her mind and strained to hear what was being said.
"Well the way I see it, Captain, you don't have a whole lot of choice."
Bridger just glared at him but he knew he was only forestalling the inevitable.
"We need your authorisation code to get us out of the dock."
"Don't you think someone will think it strange that the seaQuest is leaving so soon? We're scheduled to be here for three weeks."
Jacobs just smiled at him. "That's where a little inside help comes in handy. You see the seaQuest is actually now scheduled for some propulsion system tests and they can't be done in the dock, now can they?"
As Katie watched, a large blonde man came striding onto the bridge and walked straight up to his leader. Whoever he was he was important enough to draw the man away from his interrogation of the captain. As they spoke quietly off to one side Katie could see his face getting angrier.
"Something's gone wrong." She smiled to herself. "One point to us!"
Bridger could just make out snatches of the conversation but he heard enough. Ben was here and someone called Larkens was dead. Apparently a member of his crew had shot him. The captain wondered who it was but it didn't really matter – someone was still loose and they were armed. He thought he heard Ford's name but couldn't be sure. As he strained to hear the end of the exchange he heard Krieg's name again but couldn't make out anything else. So where was he now if he wasn't still with this guy?
Jacobs waved the other man aside and moved up to the console again. His face showed his frustration.
Jacobs gestured towards the communication console. "Your code … now! Unless of course you think your young lady over there would look better with a hole through her head? Just like your executive officer."
"What?" Bridger stared at him hoping this was just a bluff but the look on his face suggested he was entirely serious. His stomach clenched in a knot.
"I'd say we're even, Captain. Your man took out one of my men. We just settled the score. Now unless you'd like to lose another officer I suggest you hurry up with that code."
Bridger quickly moved up to the console. This man clearly had a sadistic streak and the captain wasn't taking any chances. Hitchcock sagged back against the wall and tried to hold her emotions in check. Jonathan was dead and pretty soon they'd be at sea before anyone knew anything was amiss. This wasn't how it was supposed to go.
Lucas followed Ford down the corridors towards the captain's quarters. He tried not to think about how he had been doing the exact same thing not long ago but then he was following Ben. And now he had no idea where Ben was. Suddenly the commander stopped dead in front of him.
"We're moving."
Lucas looked at the floor but he couldn't tell.
"What? Are you sure?"
Ford just nodded. "Trust me, we're moving. They must have the captain on the bridge. Come on, we need to hurry."
As Ford set off again Lucas fell in behind him. His mind was buzzing with the thought that these people had succeeded in getting control of the seaQuest. It renewed his resolve to stop them getting to his program.
As much as he tried not to, his mind kept going back to the image of blood down the side of the moonpool. He knew that it could only be Ben's. Of the five people around that room when the grenade exploded, Ben was the only one unaccounted for. Ford had sent Ortiz off to the nearest junction in the aquatubes to see if Ben had shown up there. Lucas desperately wanted to be going that way too but he knew he still had a job to do.
It had seemed such a great idea at the time. A remote access program for places where people couldn't directly connect with their system. Places like the deepest ocean trenches where even the seaQuest couldn't reach the bottom. Countless probes had disappeared into the abyss over the years as they reached the limit of their programming connections. Many more had flown off into the depths of space, never to be seen or heard from again. They simply stopped transmitting; not because they had gone too far but because they weren't getting any more instructions on what to do.
His fascination with exploring the unknown combined with his drive to push the boundaries had led Lucas in a whole new direction. Borrowing from his own nanite research he had designed a "smart" program that could learn and grow but it could also lie dormant until activated by the programmer or on a predetermined timetable. Theoretically it could be embedded into any system, absorbing the data, adapting to the environment and then coming on line when needed. Artificial intelligence was one area of technology where scientists had still only scratched the surface and Lucas' program was revolutionary in its thinking.
In his enthusiasm he hadn't really taken into account what it could do in the wrong hands. With the right codes it could be used to remotely access restricted areas and rewrite computer codes without anyone even knowing it was being done. Until it was too late. The perfect sabotage tool. With the seaQuest they wouldn't even be challenged as they came into range as it would all seem legitimate. Lucas knew these people could effectively hack into anything and disable ships, destroy defences, even collapse world markets overnight. They could hold the UEO to ransom. And that's exactly what they were trying to do now.
Before Lucas realised it they had arrived at the door to the captain's quarters. Ford led the way inside and quickly shut the door behind them.
"How exactly are you planning on getting into Bridger's safe? And you better not tell me you know the combination!" Ford shook a finger in mock accusation. The truth was he wouldn't have been surprised if Lucas said he did.
"Actually, I don't need to get into the safe." Ford stood watch near the door as Lucas headed for the captain's bookshelf.
"Wouldn't it be in the safe since it's so important?"
Lucas smiled before answering. "Isn't that the first place you'd look?"
Ford looked sideways at him while keeping an eye on the door. "Uh, I guess so."
"Which is exactly why it isn't there," Lucas grinned as he searched through the book spines.
"Well wherever it is will you hurry up and get it so we can get out of here."
Lucas pulled a worn dark green book from the shelf and flipped it open. He ran his fingernail down the edge of the back cover and eased apart the thin sheets of paper. Underneath it lay eight small data disks. He sucked in his breath as he contemplated what he was about to do. So much hard work had gone into creating it and now he was about to destroy it all.
As he pulled each one out he snapped it between his fingers. When all eight lay in pieces in his hand he walked over to the captain's desk. He dropped the pieces on the desk and turned back towards the bunk. He knew that Bridger kept things of sentimental value on the small shelf above it and somewhere up there would be his great grandfather's hand carved pipe and flint box. He felt along the shelf with his fingers and accidentally dislodged a book that was tucked up behind everything.
He reached down to pick it up off the bunk. A white envelope was sticking out from the front cover so he pushed it back in and laid the book back up on the shelf.
While he was waiting, Ford pulled out his PAL and tried to contact Ortiz. This would test whether Katie had had enough time to get her comm system in place. He nodded as Miguel's voice came back to him but he frowned at the report.
"There's no sign of him here, Commander."
"All right, meet us back at the moonpool. We'll see if Darwin's around." He didn't know how else they were going to find Ben but he'd worry about that when he had to.
"On my way, Sir. I'll be … hold on …" His voice was cut off by the sound of gunfire.
"Ortiz? … Miguel?" He looked anxiously at the PAL waiting for Ortiz to respond again. "C'mon Miguel, answer me."
Lucas had heard the exchange and refused to make eye contact with Ford. Instead he continued to run his hand along the shelf until he felt the small metal flint box. He knew it was an antique but he figured Bridger wouldn't mind him using it.
"Hurry it up, Lucas. We need to get out of here."
"Coming, I just need to make sure this is totally beyond salvage." He had arranged a pile of screwed up paper on a small tray and was trying to get the flint striker to work. It was harder than it looked but eventually he got enough of a spark to ignite the paper. As it flared up he fed the small pieces of disk into it. They sizzled and melted into a lump on the bottom of the tray. Lucas stared at it for a moment and then nodded.
"OK, now we just need to get my research."
"And where might that be hiding?" Ford asked impatiently.
Lucas didn't answer immediately. Instead he walked around the desk, bent down behind it and began to pull at the cover of the air vent. It didn't take long to work the cover off and he squeezed in to the small space. It was a tight fit but he crawled around the bend and the duct opened out a little further in. As he crawled along he heard a voice behind him. He was just about to answer when he realised it wasn't Ford.
Was Miguel back already? Lucas began to back up when he heard Commander Ford's angry voice. He froze where he was and listened for what was being said. Someone else was in the room but it obviously wasn't Miguel. He sat silently for several minutes before realising the voices had stopped.
"Excuse me, Gilligan to Skipper, but are you planning on staying out here any longer than we are?"
"Listen, knock it off, Krieg, you're a lieutenant in the UEO navy and I need you to act like one. Look, anything's possible, we prepare for anything."
Ben sat in the life raft and shook his head in amusement at his commanding officer. Sometimes he wondered just what Ford had been like as a child. Probably had his toybox sorted by colour, size and amount of use left! Just the level of organisation you needed when stuck in the path of a hurricane. Speaking of which, the rain was getting heavier.
Darwin splashed water over the edge of the moonpool, knowing that Krieg was on the other side. Ben finally opened his eyes. He shook his head to try to clear the disorientation. One minute he was afloat in a life raft watching an approaching storm and the next he was sitting in soggy clothes, slumped against the moonpool.
"Ben hurt?"
The computerised voice didn't belong in a hurricane and finally Ben realised Darwin was speaking to him. He tried to answer but the voice that came out seemed like it belonged to someone else, disconnected somehow.
"Ah yeah Darwin … I've been in better shape." He smiled slightly at the understatement. He thought back to when they were stuck in the life raft and he was trying to stay positive for Lucas' sake.
" This is who I am. "Glass half full" - that kinda thing."
Lucas just stared at him. "Glass half full of what, Ben? How can you just sit here and make jokes when a hurricane is about to kill us?"
"But it didn't, did it?"
"It didn't what?"
"Nothin' Darwin. Just talking to myself."
"That's the first sign of madness you know."
"C'mon Krieg, get a grip." He reached down and pulled back his shirt to check the bandage underneath.
"Maybe that wasn't such a great idea Doctor Krieg!"
As he looked at the blood soaked towel he knew he wasn't going to get very far. Whatever he did next would probably be the last thing he'd get to do in this operation.
"So I better make it count."
He sat for a few minutes trying to work out the best move and finally decided he really only had one choice. If all else failed he'd promised Lucas he would hit the self destruct. That just meant he had to get to Engineering. Only one deck down.
"I can manage that."
He slowly pulled himself up the side of the pool and tried to steady himself. He groaned in pain but forced himself to stand upright. Darwin edged closer.
"Darwin, the captain might need you on the bridge."
"Where will you be?"
"I'm going to the batcave."
"What is a batcave?"
"A secret place. Lucas' secret place."