A/N: I've got a little problem. The last six episodes of the second season were supposed to be set in 2022 (which is why ten years after Hyberion is 2032, reflected in the title of season 3). But I have been saying it's 2019. However, if we use the date given in another episode for Lucas's birthday (12-23-02) then that makes him 19 years old in second season (he'd turn 20 in Dec of 2022!) and they always said he was 17 in season 2. So we have a bit of an enigma. Someone on the show didn't add things up right when they built the seaQuest II (probably because Jonathan Brandis didn't age enough between 1st and 2nd season and the storylines just worked better to keep him a minor). So now I'm wondering how to use the right dates and the right ages for the characters when the people who wrote the show weren't as good at math as Lucas is. I'm not going to go back and change the dates in the old chapters I've already posted, but I WILL use the correct date of 2022 from here on out. The only way to fudge on this and not make Lucas too old is to change his birthday to 12-23-04, thus making him presently 17 and turning 18 on 12-23-22. If you think changing Lucas's birthdate is heretical, I'd advise you not to read this chapter, because I aim to set heresy on its ear.

Chapter 38

Silence engulfed the room. No one so much as blinked for several seconds while Nathan stared at Major Allen. The TGA official swallowed hard. "Please," he added.

Still, no one moved. Nathan felt his people watching him for a cue. There was a part of him that savored little moments like these when their loyalty to him was so palpable, so absolute. The king himself (assuming the Brits still had one) could walk in and ask them all to step out, but he could feel it in his bones that his crew wouldn't move for anyone but him. However, Nathan also knew that the key to retaining loyalty like that was never to take it for granted or waste it on anything frivolous. He locked eyes with Ford and nodded his assent, then he adopted his best PR voice. "Gentlemen and doctor, if you'd kindly excuse us?"

Everyone nodded and stood immediately, except for Dr. Smith, who reached for her wheelchair. O'Neill moved in to help her without being asked. Major Allen breathed a sigh of relief. "I trust you can all find your way back to the docks. We'll get you all better quarters before nightfall."

"But no one will be required to leave the skyQuest or the MR-3," Nathan added with a hint of insistence.

"Of course. Your crew's accommodations will be completely at your discretion, Captain."

"I'm sorry to sound ungrateful, Major, but some of us have been imprisoned until quite recently and therefore have an acute appreciation for being allowed choices. As far as I'm concerned, only Dr. Smith may override any of the crew's personal preferences concerning accepting base accommodations. I trust she would only do so for their health." Nathan met Wendy's gaze and she nodded. He looked around at the rest. "We'll all talk later."

They nodded and moved away from the table. Lucas hung back a second, but he didn't speak. The captain caught his hand before he got away, grasping it like he'd seen the teen grasp hands with his peers, so it didn't look uncool. He squeezed very briefly before releasing it, but the look on Lucas's face confirmed the gesture was encouraging. The teen flashed a quick smile and dashed off to catch up with Brody and Ortiz, who had waited for him at the door.

Major Allen walked to the door and locked it. Although it spurred a sudden increase of his heart rate, the captain understood that it was locked from the inside and the realization moderated the racing thumps in his chest. "Well, Major, you have my undivided attention."

Allen retook his seat, choosing a chair closer to the captain, but not so close that they couldn't have good eye contact. He wiped his brow and laced his fingers together, trying to hide the fact that his hands were shaking. "Captain, I could lose my job for what I'm about to tell you. Hell, I could jeopardize my very existence if what I propose actually works. I wasn't going to say anything when I thought it was just you and twenty-three crew with a sailboat and a shuttle. But now that I know we have to transport over a hundred people and the seaQuest herself, this becomes a lot more relevant and infinitely more important." There was a nervous waver in his voice that hadn't been present before.

Nathan listened, watching the man intently. He gave him a reassuring nod at appropriate moments so that his nervousness didn't become too overwhelming.

"Temporal agents take oaths never to use time travel to change history, even for the better. We had an agent once who tried to kill Adolf Hitler while he was a child. The agent's sniper rifle inexplicably blew up in his face, killing him instead. There are several other examples, but they're in our recent history, after your time. Just take my word for it that time-tampering is dangerous and almost always backfires."

Nathan nodded again.

"When a breach has been caused by someone else, such as Beauregard, our job is to minimize the damage so that history can resume its natural course. But what is natural? I know this is going to sound ludicrous, Captain, but there's just no other way to break this. The last date you remembered before becoming trapped in Beauregard's Mobius Hole is just one week before seaQuest was stolen from this planet by aliens."

A few years ago, any mention of aliens would have brought laughter, but Nathan knew better now. He'd uncovered a ship deep in the ocean that had been there for millennia and his good friend, Scott Keller, had left Earth with another alien who'd been living here in disguise. What really caught his attention wasn't aliens, but that other word. His concern melted into a deep-seated resentment. He managed to train his voice into something other than a growl, but it wasn't far off. "Stolen, Major?"

"Yes, Captain. Stolen. A big, fat mothership sucks you right out of the ocean and uses your ship as a pawn in their civil war, light years away. The seaQuest is missing from a very critical period of our history, ten years, to be exact. Your absence damages this planet in ways you can't possibly imagine. In 2032, the ship shows up in a cornfield, miles from any ocean, and about a third of the crew reappear in various parts of the world, with no memory of what happened, and not having aged a day in those ten years. The other two-thirds are never seen again."

Nathan's jaw dropped. He was stunned, furious, and heartsick all at once. He desperately wanted details, but he wasn't sure he could get his mouth to ask the right questions. He didn't speak for several long seconds and the Major held his tongue while the bombshell sunk in. The captain drew a deep breath. "If they… uh, we don't remember anything, then how do you know what really happened?"

"We've sent temporal agents back and pieced things together by observation and interview."

"Why are you telling me now?"

Major Allen leaned in closer. "Because, Captain, I don't believe aliens had any right to mess with Earth's history. Beauregard stole your ship and tortured her crew. We treat that as a crime. We don't think it's wrong to undo the damage by healing your wounds and taking you and your ship back where you came from. Now, some of my colleagues would disagree, but I don't see how some distant planet where seaQuest obviously doesn't belong is any different than the Black Sea in 1504. Both were abductions perpetrated by selfish beings for their own twisted purposes, and neither played fair."

Nathan's voice was calmer now. "You want to change history."

Major Allen stood and started pacing. "I'd like to think of it as fixing history. I'm not supposed to tell you what conditions are like here in 2165, but I'm going to anyway. I hope it will help you see why this is important."

The captain nodded and shifted his chair so he could watch the major pace without craning his neck.

"In 2026, the UEO lifted the ban on colonial deregulation and thousands of new colonies sprung up overnight, but without the proper infrastructure to govern or protect those colonies. By the time seaQuest returned, the UEO was just barely alive. The seaQuest put up a good fight, but it was too little, too late. The seaQuest was destroyed and the UEO was dissolved in 2039."

He paused only long enough to catch his breath, and then plunged in again. "The Macronesian Alliance bought up all the industry and banking in California. The state was desperate for cash after the massive earthquake sunk a good deal of their expensive real estate. The Macronesians quietly pushed the state to secede from the U.S. It was touted as very bohemian and very berkley. Populace had no idea they'd been manipulated by outside forces. After all, they were on land and no one had guessed the Macronesians cared about the continents. Alaska and Hawaii weren't far behind California. When the United States lost so much Pacific coastline and so many of their naval bases, they pulled out of the Pacific completely. With no UEO and no American Navy, it was very easy for the Macronesians to take over the entire Pacific. Most of the colonies there now are nothing more than slave-labor camps.

"The Republics of California and Hawaii aren't much better off, but when the poor, duped souls tried to re-enter the United States, they were given the cold shoulder. The Sovereign Nation of Alaska didn't even try to re-enter, but they're in a better economic condition to repel the Macronesians than the Californians and Hawaiians. I can't say we were very sympathetic to their plight on this side of the pond. We couldn't afford for the Americans to send any of their forces back to the Pacific. The Royal Navy and the American Navy along with a smattering of various European forces are still fighting to keep the Atlantic free. You saw how bad off we are. We had to re-commission any old sub we could keep from leaking, including some diesels. Someone in Parliament even suggested putting the HMS Victory back in action, that's how dire the situation is."

Nathan glanced at the portrait of Admiral Nelson, wondering what he might think to hear a statement like that.

Major Allen took a deep breath and composed himself a little. "Sorry. I didn't mean to whine about our present problems. All the oceans in the world might have been taken over by the Macronesians by now if it weren't for the Chaodai. The Macronesians and the Chaodai spent a lot of their energy and resources fighting each other over the last hundred years, which actually was good for us. The Chaodai own the Indian Ocean and much of the South Atlantic. They didn't enslave the colonies they took over. They just slaughtered everyone who didn't have the right racial or political background. The only thing they've been good for is keeping the Macronesians in check. The only free waters left in the world now are in the North Atlantic, the Arctic, and the Mediterranean. But I don't see how we can hold out much longer, especially considering the plague that's coming."

At this, Nathan gasped. He no longer felt like he needed that ace up his sleeve, but he was still shocked to discover it wasn't the secret he thought it was.

Major Allen stopped in his tracks and gave the captain a long stare. "Of course you knew, because of your contact with CentSys historical records. We know about your other experience with a Mobius Hole." He waved it off as irrelevant. "Well, I'd be lying if I didn't tell you that the Temporal Guardians didn't know the plague was coming or that part of my motive for trying to fix all this isn't selfish. I admit it. Everyone who knows is terrified. You think it's easy knowing that a plague is set to hit in twenty years and that no one will be able to stop it? However, I do know one thing you don't. Only a handful of temporal agents and molecular biologists know this, and I doubt it will ever make it into the official records because the victors always write the history. The plague isn't organic. It's a biological warfare virus, genetically engineered by the Chaodai."

"But what does all this have to do with the seaQuest?"

"Everything. Almost every historian in the world is convinced that neither the Macronesian Alliance nor the Chaodai could ever have gotten as far as they did without the devastating vacuum left by the disappearance of the seaQuest back in 2022. If seaQuest had been there, it could have nipped this crazy underwater imperialism in the bud. Quickly. Easily. Efficiently. But more importantly, I believe the dynamic people who make up your crew would have all contributed immensely in those lost years. Jonathan Ford's family has the economic background to have seen how stupid it was to lift that ban. If someone of Commander Ford's reputation had spoken out in 2026 against that monumentally stupid move, maybe the idiots would have listened. The UEO might have built more than one seaQuest-class sub if you had been there, prodding them and lobbying for it. If Wolenczak, Ortiz, and Daniels had been able to crack the whale language, who knows what the whales might have told us. Eighty percent of the species that are alive and thriving in your time are now extinct."

Nathan sighed and shook his head. This was an awfully bitter pill to swallow.

Major Allen set his hand on Nathan's shoulder. "I know this is a lot to take in. I don't need an answer now. It will take a few days to get Dr. Smith back on her feet and a little longer to perform plastic surgery and wipe memories. You can take all the time you need, either just to rest or to deliberate. If you choose, we can arrange it so you won't remember this conversation ever happened. But before I leave you to think about this, I have a recording you need to see."

The captain didn't feel psychologically strong enough to gaze on thousands of whale carcasses or look at more newsreels of plague-struck masses suffering without hope. But he always gathered information before he made a decision, and a decision of this magnitude demanded he accept every bit of data they offered. Numbly, Nathan nodded.

"You remember I told you that we sent temporal agents back in time to witness events for themselves and to interview those who were involved?"

"Yes."

"I was one of the lucky ones. Most of the agents we sent to monitor seaQuest right before the alien abduction never made it back alive. None who boarded the sub have lived to tell about it. But I have talked to some of the surviving crew in their later years, one particularly, after he found a way to retrieve the memories that the aliens suppressed. He implored me to share this with you if I ever got the chance. Frankly, I didn't think I'd ever get that chance, but this man is very persuasive when he wants to be, so I gave him my word and recorded his message."

Nathan swallowed and closed his eyes. "Who is it?"

"It's you."

His eyes flew open. "Me?"

"Yes you, Nathan."

The captain didn't intend to give him a disparaging look, but he must have reacted strangely to the use of his familiar name because the major felt it necessary to explain. "I spent a month on Bridger's Island in 2042, trying to gain your trust. You finally agreed to answer a few questions. But the nature of my questions inevitably led to who I was and why I asked and, like I said, you're pretty persuasive."

"We're friends?"

"I wouldn't presume to know your feelings, but I am trusting you with the very future of this planet. I hope you don't think I'd throw that kind of faith around lightly."

"All right. Let's see it."

"I should warn you, you're quite a bit older than you are now. I recorded this ten years after you came back from the alien world." The major pushed buttons on his wrist-mounted PDA and pulled a tiny retractable cord out. He plugged the jack into a terminal on the conference table. One of the portraits on the wall slid aside to reveal a vid-screen. "This file isn't part of the official TGA archives. I've kept it in my personal possession. It is meant for you and anyone you want to see it afterwards, but then I delete it. If I'm caught with this, I could go to prison for the rest of my life."

Nathan nodded. 2042 was only twenty years away. Subtracting ten years to fit this bizarre story, he should only appear 69. Yet the face that appeared on the screen didn't look 69, or even 79. It wasn't that Nathan couldn't accept himself aging, it was just so different, so... shocking. He'd had wrinkles for a while now, but they were clearly lines of character, borne of days spent in the Caribbean sun and years of laughing with Carol. The man who sat before him had deep lines of sorrow etched in his face and sunken eyes that had lost all sparkle and vitality. Even when he'd forsaken the rest of the world to live alone on his island, he'd never looked like that. Indeed, for a second, Nathan decided this had to be a hoax. The renegade Marauder sub persona had been a better copy of him than this sorry piece of cinematography.

"Nathan, don't let this be you," the old man on the screen said. Something about his tone and his manner of speaking started to chip away at the present Nathan's doubt. "Look, I know you don't want to listen to a long sob story and Edward promised me he'll take care of the general history if he ever gets the opportunity to talk to you. But there are some things I need to say. You're going to receive a distress call from the Scott-man. He will say things only Scott could know, but the aliens from Hyberion have already taken over his mind. I know it will go against every loyal bone in your body, but it isn't Scott. You've got to ignore it. Do you hear me, pal? Ignore Scott Keller. He's your best friend, but you can't help him, and even if you could, the price is too high."

The old man on the screen coughed and took a drink of water. "Edward has explained to me how risky it might be to try to fix this, but you have to try…" The old man shook his finger at the screen, revealing a bony, arthritis-twisted hand. "Ignoring Scott might not be enough. The seaQuest is fast, but she can't outrun a spaceship and she can't hide from their levitation beam. I'm going to tell you what I did so you don't make the same mistakes. You'll need to write things down and put the letter somewhere it will be safe for ten years in case that damned Hyberion mothership snatches seaQuest out of the ocean despite our best efforts to avoid it. You'll still lose Wendy and Miguel, but it won't be your fault if you don't listen to that apparition of Scott."

The captain shifted uncomfortably in his chair. They might have done a bad job on the exterior package, but that sure as heck sounded like him. His heart sank to hear that Wendy and Miguel would be among the two-thirds lost. If he decided this was true, he knew he could never sacrifice them for Scott, no matter what their friendship meant to him. Scott would understand. The Commander Keller he knew would feel the same way if their places were reversed.

"All right, I've told you what to avoid, but I haven't told you why. You have to make better choices than I did. You are the designer of the seaQuest. She's your boat, not Oliver Hudson's and not even Jonathan Ford's. You belong in command and don't let anyone tell you different. When you look like this," the old man pointed to himself, "then you can hand her over to one of them, if you want, but not before that. And for God's sake, man, don't fall for the Macronesians' ploy like I did!"

From somewhere off-camera, Major Allen's voice spoke softly. "I'm not going to explain that. He'd never believe me."

The old man sighed and nodded his disheveled head. His hair was white and thinning badly, and it looked like he never saw a barber, but cut it himself when a strand got in his way. "I gave up everything because someone handed me a sweet little boy of six and told me he was my grandson." His eyes misted up and his voice wavered. "I can't tell you not to love the boy. I hope to God he's never created in that damned genetic lab of theirs, but if he is, he will need your love. I'm not telling you to reject him, just don't believe all the lies they feed you." He paused and took a deep breath.

"They told me he was Robert's son and he had Carol's eyes and Robert's nose, so I wanted to believe them. They told me his mother left him at an embassy because she was too ill to care for him. Come on! What kind of mother would leave a three-day old infant and never try to find out what became of him? What father would allow it? The truth is, the Macronesians used cloning technology to create him. They used DNA from Robert's hair which they found in one of his old ballcaps from his Academy days. He'd given it to a casual girlfriend that the Macronesians paid handsomely to donate the maternal DNA. That way, if I ever tracked her down, she might be able to fool me into believing she was the mother. Robert wasn't alive to father a child, but the Macronesians knew if I had reason to believe he was, I'd abandon seaQuest to go look for him. I loved Robert. I know you loved him too. But he's dead, Nathan. They will find his dogtags and his remains in the North Atlantic. Edward knows where they are now. Go lay some flowers or something. But damn it, don't let the whole planet go to hell because of your wishful dreams."

The old man took another drink from his glass and inhaled deeply. "They had to clone Robert to a point where they could get a gamete and they had to do it fast. They took a lot of shortcuts and they didn't care how it would affect poor Michael. Everything was accelerated with radiation and experimental drugs, but it was all done before he was born or shortly thereafter. Little Michael didn't know. All of this caught up to him when he reached puberty. At age twelve, his DNA broke down and he just…" The old man paused to turn his head. Major Allen handed him a tissue and the old man took it and dabbed at his eyes.

"Michael never had a chance. He had DNA from me and Carol and Robert, and I loved him like a grandson, but he was a decoy. A planted fake designed to draw me away from seaQuest, and I fell for it, hook, line, and sinker." The old man made a fist and pounded it on a table. More tears fell, but he didn't attempt to hide them. "And if it wasn't bad enough that I left my command to chase after the ghost of Robert, I abandoned the one good thing in my life that was real. I abandoned Lucas." The tears fell faster now, one over the other, but the old man ignored them in favor of getting through what he needed to say. "Both his parents were killed while we were on Hyberion. When we got back, he had no family and no home. I turned my back on him because I wanted to concentrate on raising Michael and finding Robert. I didn't want any part of this new war in this new time. Lucas was forced to join the Navy just to have a place to live and then I had the gall to ridicule him for it! We fought over some petty matters and I was an ass. A capital 'A', selfish ass. He ended up forgiving me after Michael died, not because I deserved it, because I most certainly didn't. He turned out to be a better man than I ever was, despite the lousy way I treated him."

The old man swabbed at his eyes with the tissue, probably because he had so filled his eyes with tears that he couldn't see. "Listen to me, Nathan Hale Bridger. Don't make the same mistakes I did. With the exception of Benjamin Krieg, every officer I ever commanded or taught at the Academy is now dead. Lucas is dead. The seaQuest is gone and the oceans have been infested with the worst that humanity has to offer. You have got to fix this or die trying."

The screen faded to black and a timestamp came up, showing 23 December 2042.

Lucas's birthday.

A/N: Okay, folks. Here's the deal. Captain Nathan Bridger has a choice to make. As I see it, there are three ways the story can go from here:

1) Nathan decides Edward Allen is lying with his sole purpose being to avert the plague. He can't believe he'd ever act like that to Lucas. He tells them that he feels it's unethical to try to change history and has his memory wiped. This totally preserves canon and the third season remains unchanged.

2) Nathan believes it and agrees to try to change history, but despite all his efforts, the aliens still take seaQuest and even though he leaves himself a letter, it gets destroyed or lost before he can take any of his own warnings to heart. This would be logical in light of the fact that Allen told him that attempts to change history usually backfire. This also preserves the canon of season 3.

3) Nathan believes it, tries to change history, and is successful. The alien abduction is NOT natural history, it's more like the "Biff Tannen kills Dad, marries Mom and we live in a casino penthouse" nightmare from Back to the Future 2. Starting with Splashdown and continuing through the third season-all of that is a skewed, broken timeline that had to be fixed. That was why, against all odds, the seaQuest and her crew ended up lost in time and talking to the one man (Major Allen) who figured this out and is willing to risk everything to try to fix it.

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So which ending do YOU want to see? This is the time to let your voice be heard. What will it be? 1, 2, or 3?