Part 5

Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me
Anyone else but me, anyone else but me
No! No! No!
Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me
Till I come marchin' home
-- Lew Brown, Charles Tobias, and Sam H. Stept, 1942

When Dick walked up to the squadron's ready room, he found HD waiting for him as he had requested.

"I told 'em to wait for you in there," HD said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. "They've been pretty quiet since we got 'em separated."

"Does the CAG know about this yet?"

"Nope. That's one reason I hustled them out of the gym. I don't think any of the other guys who were there will say anything."

"I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Dick sighed. "Okay, now I need you to fetch Lt. Young."

"Figgered you'd want to see her, too, so I had Murph track her down. She should be here shortly."

Dick clapped HD on the shoulder. "Thanks, man! When she gets here, knock, and don't let her in until I say so."

HD nodded. Dick opened the door to the ready room, walked through, and then closed it behind him. His expression was severe enough that the two waiting pilots snapped to attention even though Dick wasn't normally one to insist on the formalities. He stalked toward them, unconsciously using the tricks he had developed as Nightwing to seem even more threatening.

"Let me see if I understand things properly," he stated coldly. "Lt. Cardones, you discovered that your girlfriend, Lt. Young, has been screwing Lt. Webster."

Lieutenant JG Rafael Cardones, a 23-year-old rangy Hispanic, flinched at Dick's harsh tone.

"Lt. Webster, you discovered that Lt. Young never broke things off with Lt. Cardones and was still screwing him."

Lieutenant Samuel Houston Webster was 29 years old, of medium height, with brown hair and hazel eyes. He didn't quite flinch, but his eyes flickered briefly over to Cardones and then back to a point somewhere over Dick's left shoulder.

"Now for some unfathomable reason, the two of you got mad enough to start throwing punches at each other over this." He paused and looked at each man. Neither would meet his eyes. He continued, asking sardonically, "Does that about sum things up?"

"Yes, sir," said Cardones.

"Yessir," echoed Webster.

"I'm glad we're all in agreement. Now perhaps one of you can tell me why I had to be pulled away from an important assignment because two of my pilots were fighting each other over a girl who obviously doesn't care very much for either one of you."

Dick mentally snickered over the nearly identical expressions of protest that appeared on each pilot's face. Before he could continue his lecture, though, he heard a knock on the ready room door.

"All right, we'll continue this in a minute. I want you two to conceal yourselves behind those lockers." When they didn't move, he frowned at them. "I'm not in the mood to repeat myself, gentlemen. Move it!"

Once they were safely out of sight, he yelled, "Come in!"

Lt. JG Paula Young walked in and closed the door; for once, Dick didn't insist that she open it again. She sauntered up to Dick and stood at attention just a little closer to him than was proper.

"You wanted to see me, Richard?" she said in what she must have imagined was a sexy voice.

Lt. Young was an attractive woman -- tall and willowy with almost natural curves to go with her almost natural blonde hair. She was almost as attractive as she thought she was. She had also been trying to get into Lt. Grayson's bed from the first time she saw him. She didn't care that he was married; she didn't care that he didn't seem to be interested. Other people just weren't real to her, somehow. She was a darn good pilot, though, so Dick just made sure to avoid compromising situations, and he kept an eye on her relationships with the other pilots.

"Yes, I did, Lieutenant," he replied formally. He stepped away from her to lean a hip against one of the tables in the room. "In case you haven't heard yet, Zorro and Bowie just got into a fist fight."

"Really, sir? How ... impulsive of them."

"Yes. The witnesses said they were fighting over you."

"I can't imagine why they would do that, sir."

"Neither can I, Lieutenant." He knew it was petty, but he rather enjoyed seeing her face flush at his mocking tone. "Nevertheless, I think we both know why they were fighting."

Young said nothing.

"Perhaps I should refresh your memory, Lieutenant. Two weeks ago, you and I had an interesting conversation. Do you remember?"

"Yes, sir," she said reluctantly.

"And do you remember what I told you?"

She just stared straight ahead.

"Maybe this will sound familiar: I told you to resolve your relationships with Zorro and Bowie, one way or another; otherwise, if anything happened that might cause a problem within the division, you were history. Now do you remember?"

Young still said nothing.

"I didn't hear you, Lieutenant."

"Yes, sir," she said sullenly.

"Good, I'm glad we understand each other. I'll be sure to let you know later this evening what your new assignment will be."

"No way!" she said, angrily.

"I'm afraid I must not have heard you correctly, Lieutenant."

"I won't go!"

"You don't have a choice."

Young became enraged. Her anger made her reckless. "It would be a shame if you were accused of attempted rape, wouldn't it, Lieutenant," she snarled. She was disconcerted to see that her threat had no effect. Instead of giving in, or even gettng angry, her intended victim started laughing!

"You have got to be kidding me!"

"I'm not joking! It'll be just your word against mine! I belong in this division -- you have no right to make me leave!"

Dick stopped laughing and turned serious again. "There is no place in my division for a pilot who completely disregards the effect her actions have on the pilots around her. There is no place in my division for a pilot who deceives her fellow pilots, and there is certainly no place for a pilot who tries to use extortion to get what she wants."

His tone became mocking again. "I also don't want pilots who pay no attention to their surroundings. Didn't it occur to you to wonder why I didn't ask you to keep the hatch open as I usually do? You know it's supposed to be open if a man and a woman are in a room alone. Of course, alone is the operative word." He turned his head to call to the men in hiding, "Cardones, Webster -- front and center."

When the two pilots came out from behind the lockers, all of the color drained from Young's face, and she had a stricken, almost embarrassed expression as she faced her lovers. For their parts, Cardones had a stony, closed look on his face, while Webster was clearly angry.

Dick continued his talk, "Lieutenant Young, I think we can all agree that you don't want to be in my division anymore." He paused and his voice took on a grimmer cast, "I won't bring charges against you, but I can assure you that your future flight leader will be informed about your little extortion attempt here. And you can also be assured that I will be very interested in any future sexual harassment or rape charges you ever bring against anyone else." He let that sink in for a few moments. "As I said earlier, I will let you know later this evening what your new assignment will be. In fact, I think it would be best if you waited in your quarters."

When she still made no move to leave the room, he said pointedly, "Dismissed, Lieutenant."

She jerked to attention and walked rather dazedly out of the room. Once the door was closed again, Dick turned back to the other pilots.

"Now, gentlemen. Where were we? Oh yes, we were discussing why either of you felt it necessary to fight over someone like that."

"H..how did you know -- I mean about the both of us and that she'd actually try blackmail to stay?" Webster asked, still in shock over the revelations he had heard today.

"Bowie, she's been trying to ambush me since she joined the division, so I certainly didn't believe that she'd found 'true love' with either one of you. Under the circumstances, it wasn't hard to figure out that she had neglected the little niceties like informing Zorro that his ... services were no longer required. When I confronted her about it, she basically said that she was holding Zorro in reserve in case things didn't work out with you." Dick gave the unfortunate Cardones a small smile of sympathy. "I wanted the two of you here when I confronted her so that you would hear just what kind of person she is, and you would be my witnesses in case she tried anything."

"She didn't fool you for a minute, did she, Lieutenant?" asked the chagrinned Cardones.

"No, she didn't. And if either of you had been thinking with your brains instead of what's between your legs, she wouldn't have fooled you either!" Dick's expression became stern again. "Now back to the matter of the fight. While I'm not going to kick either of you out like I did Young, I also can't leave this situation unresolved. The two of you are wingmen, for Pete's sake! You have to be able to count on each other ... to trust each other."

Dick held their gazes with his own as he spoke, "I want the two of you to talk things over tonight. If you honestly think you can no longer fly together, I'll flip a coin and assign one of you somewhere else. I really don't want to do that, though -- you're good pilots, and I'd hate to lose either of you. I believe the two of you can work this out, especially now that you know what Young is really like."

Dick let them stare at each other for a few moments while he walked over to the handset on the wall. He then asked to be connected to Lt. Commander Theisman in Environmental Systems and smiled as he saw identical expressions of dread on the two men in front of him.

"Commander Theisman? This is Lt. Grayson, Division 1. ... Yessir. ... The CAG showed me your recent memo about needing volunteers for scrubbing. Is that still the case? ... Yes sir, I have two volunteers who would be more than willing to help you out: Lt. JG Cardones and Lt. Webster. ... Well sir, I'm afraid they can only spare, say, two hours a day for the next four days. ... Yes sir, they'll be right down. ... No, thank you, sir."

"Filter scrubbing, Lieutenant?" Webster confirmed plaintively. Most routine maintenance work on the Texas was carried out by machines, but humans were still needed for some tasks. Cleaning out the tanks and filters used by the environmental system to recycle the water used aboard the ship was one of those things. A prevailing theory held that the Navy refused to mechanize these tasks in order to have them available to assign as punishment detail.

"It's gotta be done, Bowie, you know that," Dick replied cheerfully. "Just think of it as one of those bonding exercises -- you know, working together through adversity, etc. Although, if you'd prefer, I could turn this whole matter over to the CAG ..." He smiled again as identical expressions of fear swept over the two men. "I didn't think so. Now, I told Commander Theisman you'd be right down, so you better get going." As the two men started to leave, Dick remembered one more thing, "Oh, I would recommend that you take a change of clothes with you so you can shower down there. Believe me, you don't want to bring that smell into your quarters."

They turned to him with pitiful looks on their faces, but he just smiled and shooed them out the door.

~~~~~~~~~~

By the time Dick took care of all of the details arising from the fist fight, it was practically time for dinner, so he told Vic to meet him at the officers' mess. Toni had recovered as well, so the three of them found a table in the back of the room where they could converse fairly privately. Dick sat down with a heavy sigh and stared at his food dispiritedly.

"Rough duty?" Vic asked sympathetically. He had filled Toni in on Dick's problems on their way to meet him.

Dick shrugged and began poking at his food with his fork. "I guess it wasn't all that bad. I mean, I'd been expecting trouble for a couple of weeks -- I'd already made arrangements with Jake Mallory over in Division 2 to trade pilots. He has an ensign who's a good pilot but lazy; he felt by moving her to One, she'd be pushed into being a better pilot. I wasn't all that fond of the idea, but it made a good excuse for a trade without having to mention the fight."

"So why the long face?" asked Toni.

"I just ... feel I should've handled it better. Maybe there was some way I could have resolved it without the fight or the transfer. I think I finally convinced Young that I wasn't transferring her just because she was a woman." He snorted in bleak laughter. "I told her that I didn't really care that she was screwing two guys. If she had turned it into a ménage à trois, I would've raised my eyebrows a bit but figured it was none of my business. It became my business when she started playing them off against each other."

He shook his head in resignation and began to do more than poke at his food. "Well, enough about my personnel problems! Have you made any progress with the probe?"

A hint of a smile lurked about Vic's face as he said, "I guess you could call it that. I think I've developed the key that will let any ship get past that blockade." The smile became a full-fledged laugh at the identical dumbfounded expressions on Dick's and Toni's faces.

** End Part 5 **