Kate and the rest of the team on the rigs got to the ships in apparent danger. As they got closer they saw smoke coming from one of the ships. As the ship's engine had failed this wasn't exactly surprising. Kate was still on edge over everything though. After Starlight, she couldn't let her guard down on anything.
"Ma'am?" Buffer asked as the rig stopped up against one of the ships. The other rig stopped at the other ship to see what was going on there.
"What? Oh sorry Buff. Let's go aboard." Kate shook her head back to reality.
Kate up the rigging first with Buffer following soon behind. The rest of the team followed. As soon as they all got on the ship, they were met with an somewhat empty ship. There weren't many people around and they seemed like they were the only ones there.
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Bomber and Spider were still waiting on the bridge. They hadn't had anything from the teams going to the ships and were expecting something soon. Bomber hoped they would get something as Spider was annoying her so much.
"Hey Bomber. Watch this!" Spider said.
Bomber sighed heavily. Spider was always getting her attention in very annoying and stupid ways. Bomber didn't even turn around, she just sat there and waited until Spider moved onto something else.
"Bomber." Spider said, waiting for her to do something.
"Leave me alone Spider!" Bomber nearly snapped.
"What's up with you?" Spider exclaimed.
"You are. Stop talking to me."
"What else are we going to do?" Spider shrugged his shoulders.
"Just wait for something from the other ships."
"Fine be like that then."
"X to Bomber." The radio finally said.
Bomber scrambled to grab the radio. Spider didn't even try to get it and left Bomber to get it instead. Bomber looked back at him but didn't get anything in return.
"Bomber here." Bomber answered.
"We're aboard, we're going to check on the bridge."
"Yes Ma'am."
"You and Spider getting along?"
"As well as can be."
"Good. We'll be back soon. Charge is going to fix the engines and let them go."
The radio crackled loudly in Bomber's ears. She nearly dropped the radio as this happened. Spider looked at her confused as to why she reacted like this.
"You alright Bomber?" He asked concerned.
"Yeah. I'm fine." Bomber shook it off.
Bomber picked up the radio again but nothing came through. Either Kate had ended the call early or something else had happened. She looked back at Spider again.
"What's that look for?" Spider chuckled.
"I think someone's blocking our coms." Bomber answered quietly.
"What?!" Spider smirked.
"The radio isn't letting me talk to the rig team. There must be something blocking it." Bomber said pressing buttons to try and get the radio working again.
"Don't touch those!"
"Why not?!"
"Because we don't know what they do."
"Well do you have a better idea?"
"No."
"Well then, let's try them." Bomber said, still pressing buttons.
Spider sighed as he joined Bomber pressing buttons. Maybe Bomber was right, if their coms were down there must be some way of getting them back online again. Plus the rig team might need them again if something happened that needed their help.
However, the coms still didn't work after pressing literally everything on the bridge. The two youngest sailors looked at each other for some form of hope.
"Something going on up here?" A voice came from behind them.
Spider turned around slowly and gave a sigh of relief when he saw who it was. Jim was standing behind them with his arms crossed.
"Our coms are down." Spider replied.
"That's not good." Jim said, walking towards the control panel where Bomber was standing.
"Yeah they crackled and then went offline." Bomber said, stepping away.
"That's weird." Jim said, taking a step back.
"Why?" Bomber asked hopeful for some answer.
"That's exactly what happened when we responded to the starlight."
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Maxine was finishing her work for the day. After a long day she really needed some sleep. She closed up her final file and picked up her bag off of the floor. She then headed towards the door to her office. She tutted and picked up a file she left on her desk.
She then made her way to Marshal's office as he had left a file for her to complete. She walked in as Marshal wasn't there and placed down the file ready for Marshal to come back. She found another file sitting there with papers hanging out of it. She looked around and then picked it up to have a closer look.
"Mission Scorpio." She whispered under her breath.
She had never heard of this mission and being second in control she would have thought that she would know about this. Her breathing sped up a little as she continued to look through the mission log. Photos of boats from the navy came up again and again. Some had crosses on them and some didn't.
"What is going on?" Maxine asked herself.
A crash from behind her made her jump. She put the file into her bag and left the office ready to go home. She would look over this tomorrow when she had more strength to look through it.
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The rig team had made their way to the bridge. This time they saw more people and what seemed like a normal crew. They all seemed happy to see the Hammersley crew and let them walk around freely.
"What problems do you have exactly?" Kate asked the XO of the ship.
"Our engine just cut out. Our engineers looked at it but we needed someone to help us out with it." The X answered.
"Did you have problems when you left port?" Buffer probed them further.
"Not to our knowledge but we obviously didn't look close enough." The X shrugged.
"Right." Buffer nodded in agreement even though deep down he was still a little bit suspicious.
The X returned to the rest of their crew after all the questions he had been asked. Kate could sense Buffer didn't believe everything the X had just said.
"You think there's something else behind this?" Kate asked Buffer quietly.
"Maybe. This and the starlight happening, it's too much of a coincidence." Buffer shook his head softly.
"Maybe but maybe it is just engine failure." Kate shrugged as she walked back to the rig.
Buffer watched after Kate with some of the other members of the team joined her. Buffer looked back at the bridge where the X had gone. He needed to speak to Bomber and Spider.
He picked up his radio but all he got back was a crackle. He tapped his radio again to make sure it was working properly. Still nothing worked and he got more suspicious of what was going on.
"Ma'am?" He shouted down to Kate.
"What is it Buff?" Kate shouted back.
"Is your radio working?"
Kate tried her radio but her's didn't work either. The rest of the rig crew tried theirs to no success. None of their radios were working! The team started nervously whispering and spreading rumors about what could have happened. Kate walked back up to Buffer to chat.
"Why aren't the radios working?" Kate asked Buffer hoping he had an answer.
"I don't know but something is going on." Buffer replied.
"We need to get back to the Hammersley and work it out."
"Yeah." Buffer agreed.
He signalled to the rest of the team to get into the rig again and head back to Hammersley. The team followed his direction and got into the rig without a second thought. Kate and Buffer got into the boat last as the rig pulled away from the boat.
"They don't have any reason to block our coms so why is it happening?" Buffer asked as they made their way back.
"It might just be a mechanical failure." Kate answered.
"Funny how they have an engine failure and we have a radio failure in the same area though." Buffer suggested.
"Don't speculate Buffer." Kate rolled her eyes at this statement.
Buffer saw this but didn't make any gesture back. As she was the CO now he couldn't respond as he usually could when she was just the X. they could have banter when she was the X but now it was different, he just hoped that Mike would come back soon.
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Maxine couldn't sleep so she went back down her stairs to see what else was in the files. She picked it up from her bag and sat down on her sofa with it on her coffee table.
As she looked further through the file, there were pictures of crew members as well as the ship pictures. This file was getting weirder and weirder! Then she came across something that really scared her.
"Oh f…."
