CH 40
On Wednesday morning MacGyver and Buffer were doing their normal jobs when boxes were being loaded onto the ship. MacGyver was checking the food boxes per usual. Then she went to see Swain and helped him with the item checklist. Baxter, Nav and Buffer were on the wharf as a staff car pulled up. They saw Steve and a Lieutenant get out of the car. The driver got the lieutenant's his seabag then followed Steve to where Baxter and the others were standing. They all saluted each other.
"Lieutenant Commander Baxter, Lieutenant Caetano, Petty Officer Tomaszewski, this is Lieutenant Wood your temporary XO for this patrol," they all shook hands.
" Hi, Nikki Caetano, I'm called Nav."
"Peter Tomaszewski, called Buffer, Sir."
"Everyone calls me Woody."
"Woody, welcome aboard," Baxter said.
"Thank you, Sir, I heard I'll be working with a great crew."
"Yes, you are, Sir, one of the Navy's finest," Buffer said with a grin.
"Shall we?" Baxter said. Everyone saluted and Steve watched them walk on board.
MacGyver showed up from behind the RHiBS.
"MacGyver, this is Lieutenant Wood, Woody."
"Sir" they saluted and shook hands.
"Unusual name, MacGyver."
" 'Cause I'm an unusual person, Sir." turning to Baxter, "We're not sailing yet, Sir." then she passes him the clipboard.
"Excuse me Petty Officer, you can not tell the Captain of a patrol boat when he can and can not set sail," Woody said.
"Since you're new here…. Sir, I'm going to give you a piece of advice, when I say we are not leaving, I do it with a reason and that reason is in his hand. And before you say something you might regret later, Sir, I'm a chef and medic. And I double, sometimes triple check to make sure we've got everything on board from coffee, to toilet paper to medical supplies. If anything on the list is not on board, I let the Captain know so he can find out where the stuff is that is needed on board. You have responsibilities, and so have I and mine is to make sure we've got plenty of food and medical supplies for any emergency that arises. I can tell from your medals you haven't been overseas, Sir."
"No, I haven't."
"Well, I have. I was in a war zone as a medic. I learned to always carry extra supplies because you never know how much you are going to use. I would rather have plenty on board than not enough, understand? Sir."
"Sir, are you going to just let her talk to me like that?" Baxter looked up from looking at the list.
"She is right, Woody, we need these items. You can learn a lot from her. Nav can you get RO to find out where the highlighted items are."
"Yes Sir, what's missing?"
"Medical supplies," MacGyver said.
"Ok, I'll get on it, Sir." Nav left to find RO.
"Now if you'll excuse me, Sir, Buffer, I've got a menu to sort out for the next three weeks," and headed to the galley.
"I don't understand how you can let her talk to you like that. I won't be spoken to like that from her or anyone else, Sir."
"With all due respect, Sir, MacGyver is a valuable crew member and she is one person you can trust to always watch your back," Buffer said. "Excuse me, Sirs," then turned around and walked away.
"Buffer's right, Woody, she is one person you don't want to get on the wrong side with" They walk towards the hatch together.
"How old is she?"
"Twenty four and she's got more commendations than you and I have together times five plus."
"Are you serious, Sir"
"I've read her record, for starters two Stars of Courage, the first one she got in her gap year."
"She must be some hero," Woody remarked.
"She is... with this crew"
Fifteen minutes later, Hammersley left port for a three week-patrol. As acting XO, Lieutenant Woody has the senior sailors cabin to himself. That night while MacGyver was on duty watch with RO, Woody went snooping in her cabin and using a torch was looking to find out what was so special about MacGyver. He looked through her drawers and things looking for any clues as to why she was so important. MacGyver was talking with RO when her computer sent off an intruder alarm. Going over to the computer she accesses her security system.
"What was that noise?" RO asked.
"My security alarm for my cabin, it lets me know that someone is in there that shouldn't be." She saw a flashlight on her security camera, she turned to night vision.
"What the hell?! RO call the Captain and Swain to my cabin now!" As she angrily heads for her cabin.
"Why? What's up?"
"Woody is snooping around in my underwear drawer!"
"Well that's disgusting," he made the call while MacGyver called Nav.
Then she called Nav to cover her watch, "Nav, sorry for waking you but can you come to the bridge now? I'll explain, come in your robe, thanks."
"Nav's on her way up" then she picks up her laptop, "RO you've got the ship." She angrily leaves the bridge and heads to her cabin meeting Swain and the captain waiting for her outside of her door.
"What's going on?" Swain asked. MacGyver shows them what's on the laptop.
"He is in there now. Swain when I turn on the lights press F two."
"Ok."
She passed him her laptop and then went to her door and turned the handle slowly. Then she quickly pushed open the door and turned the lights on.
"You better have a good reason for why you're snooping in my cabin, Lieutenant!"
He jumped and spun around to see MacGyver and Baxter there in the doorway.
"I wanted to know just what is so important about you that you get away with the things that you do."
"So you decided to go through all my personal belongings?"
" I wanted to know, I thought that maybe there would be a clue in here."
She opened a cupboard and pulled out her uniform and hung it up on the hook that's on the wall.
"This is all you need to know Lieutenant."
He then stepped forward seeing all the medals she had received. He was stunned.
"No way!"
"Ask the Captain here for a look at my profile, Sir, then you will be shocked." She put her uniform back in the cupboard.
"Now get out of my cabin and I'm going to make a report to the Captain and Commander Marshall about this."
He walks out of her cabin and she turns the light off closing her door.
Swain passes her, her laptop, "Thanks Swain, Sir, I'll make sure you get a copy of the recording of what happened tonight."
"Alright, Lieutenant, my cabin now. Swain, I would like for you to be there also"
"Yes, Sir," Swain said.
MacGyver returns to the bridge to resume her watch.
"Thanks for being here, Nav."
"RO told me what happened."
"The Captain's dealing with the Lieutenant now, he's not impressed with the Lieutenant right now."
"Neither would I be," Nav said as she walked to the steps calling out ...
"MacGyver has the ship."
"On the bridge, MacGyver has the ship," she said.
During the next three weeks, the crew informed the Captain and MacGyver that Woody is still asking the crew questions about MacGyver.
The day before Hammersley was due to return to Cairns, the phone rang and MacGyver answered.
"Hammersley Petty Officer McGinnis speaking."
"MacGyver, it's Commander Flynn, I read your's, Swain's, and the Captain's reports about the incident with Lieutenant Wood."
"Commander Flynn, welcome back."
"Thanks, MacGyver your report..."
"Ah yes, that, can you check him out for me, Sir? I mean dig deep."
Everyone on the bridge turned and looked at her.
"MacGyver," he said in a worried tone.
"He has been asking the crew questions about me, which is concerning."
"What sort of questions?"
"Mainly, personal, Sir."
"Ok, I'll check him out for you, how is he with the crew?"
"He's hard on them. He expects them to listen to him including on boardings, I had as you say, throat-ripping debates with him about it."
"You do know that he outranks you, you've got to remember that."
"Well then, Sir, send him back to ADFA or Watson Bay since he's not following protocols when it comes to boardings."
"How bad?"
"Seven," Mike knew that seven is high and is a worry, a ten on MacGyver's scale would be alarming especially if the XO doesn't follow protocols and more than one crew member is wounded from the boarding.
"Ok send me your reports about the boardings."
"I will sir, the crew is looking forward to having Lieutenant Kate… Flynn back on board, Nav's going through girl chocolate withdrawals"
"I am not," Nav said from the radar, making everyone laugh.
"You heard her, Sir."
"Yes I did, come to NAVCOM when you return to Cairns tomorrow."
"I will, Sir and the crew's looking forward to seeing you and the X tomorrow night at the pub."
"I bet they are, fair winds," then they hung up.
She picked up another phone and pressed two numbers "RO, MacGyver… yes, I know you're busy, that pen drive I gave you… yes... Commander Flynn wants to read them… thanks, RO." Then she hung up the phone
"Everything ok, MacGyver?" Buffer asked.
"Commander Flynn wants to see me when we return tomorrow."
"Is he and the X going to be at the pub tomorrow?" Charge asked.
"He didn't say, we'll just have to wait and see."
The next day when Hammersley docked, MacGyver left to see Mike about her reports. When she walks into the bullpen she smiles when she sees him in Steve's office. She went over and stood in the doorway.
"MacGyver, come in," Mike said.
"Thanks, Sir. You look relaxed and very tan."
"Thanks, please sit down."
"When you say that alarm bells go off," she said as she sat down.
"We checked out Lieutenant Wood and dug deep."
"You found something."
"Yes, his brother went to Victoria University and attended the same classes as Gina Johnson did."
"This is alarming, but he doesn't know who I am?"
"That's right."
"Let's see what happens. Are you calling him in?"
"Yes, we are," Steve said.
"He's here, Sir" They lookout to see the Lieutenant walk through the bullpen and over to Steve's office.
"Lieutenant, we want to know why you are so interested in Petty Officer Mcginnis."
"She reminds me of someone I met years ago."
"So why didn't you ask me instead of going through my personal belongings," MacGyver said to him.
"When I spoke to my brother about you, he didn't believe me until I sent him a photo of you. He said he remembers you or someone who looks like you."
"And why's that?" Steve asked.
"Gina Johnson, she was in the same class as my brother."
"What year?"
"Ninety-five, ninety-six."
"Lieutenant I'm only twenty-six years old. That would make me thirteen or fourteen years old back then."
He thought about that for a minute. "Yeah, but my brother said she was young."
"Or looked young. There was a Chinese woman who looked like she's her thirties when in fact she was seventy-two years old. And another woman, she is in her early fifties but she looks thirty years younger. This Gina might look young but she could be older, there was that actor in the seventies…. Gary Coleman, he was acting like a nine, ten-year-old but he was in his mid-twenties. There were reports of that sort of thing around the world especially mistaken identity like with Lieutenant Kate Flynn. Someone had mistaken her for another woman who looks like her," MacGyver said.
"Your right, MacGyver, I'm sorry."
"So what did you find out about me, Lieutenant?"
"Well, you've got good taste in underwear," he said with a smirk.
"Thank my partner for that."
"Jim?" Mike said.
"Yeah, last year when we were in Sydney for his brother's wedding, before the accident, he got them for me as one of my Christmas gifts." she said.
"I saw a photo of you and a man in an Army uniform, is that Jim?" Woody asked.
"Captain Jim Roth, yes. That photo was from Commander Flynn's wedding last month."
"Oh."
"Any other questions Lieutenant?" MacGyver asked him.
"You're a private person, You don't have very many photos or books so it's hard to know what you're like."
"Your right about me being a private person and I like it to keep it that way, thank you."
Mike and Steve spoke to the Lieutenant about what amounted to breaking and entering in a Sailors private quarters without cause. There would be a mark on his record. When they all finished talking they left Steve's office. MacGyver smiled when she saw who was walking in and over to them.
