Disclaimer- just go to chapter one if you really want to know!

Personal Note- Thanks to Zev! To KL- sorry for bugging the hell out
of you! Jules, little devil of a nephew. Jess and Dag- just talking
is great ya know! And Matt, I just love your name so much!

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Meaning of Life

By the untalented JOxER

Chapter 12.

The scene began to change and Lucas found himself on the Bridge of the
seaQuest. There was a lot of commotion and the crew were all working
fast.

Jesse moved himself out of the way and let the scene unfold.

"Katie!" Lucas heard the yell and turned toward it. His friend, Lt.
Krieg, was hovering over the VR probe station. Smoke engulfed the
station as other crewmembers tried to put out a small fire.

*An explosion* Lucas thought, making his way to the console. He
gasped at the sight of Lt. Cmd. Hitchcock; she had computer parts
embedded in her face. Lucas tried to help, but it was no use, he was
only the watcher. Ben knelt down next to Katie and felt for a
pulse. Tears streamed down his cheek when he didn't feel one. Katie
was dead.

"Med team to the bridge, hurry!" Lt. Tim O'Neil command.

"What the hell happened!" Commander Ford asked, as he made his way to
the station. As he saw the condition Katie was in, he struggled to
stay calm for the sake of his crew. Ben was removing the pieces of
the VR probe devices from her hand and face.

"Katie was piloting the VR when she noticed that it wasn't responding
the way it should. She was making some adjustments to the computer
when sparks started to fly from her station. Katie screamed, and I
tried to help... it happened so fast, sir... I'm sorry," Sensor
Chief Miguel Ortiz lowered his head as he explained what happened.

"There was nothing you could have done, Ortiz," Ford comforted, placing
a soothing hand on Oritz' shoulder. *Something was wrong with the
program, it had to be the computer.* Ford thought.

"O'Neil, get Martinez down here, now!" Commander Ford ordered.

As the med team arrived to remove Katie's body, Ben wouldn't let anyone
move her. With renewed tears, he clung tightly to her. Lucas tried to
comfort Ben, but his hands went right through him. The teen started to
cry, but bite back on it as he spotted Dr. Westphalen's shocked
expression as she tried to disentangle Katie from Ben. It was no use.
Dr. Westphalen quickly pulled out a sedative and injected Krieg. Just
as the team removed both Ben and Katie from the bridge, the code red
alert went off. The ruckus startled the med. team, but they
carried on with their task.

"What is going on!" Commander Ford asked O'Neil.

"I don't know, sir, it just went off," Tim responded.

The code red sent everyone to their stations, and seconds later a
half-dressed man came running in.

"What's going on, sir?" The man asked Ford as he sat down at his
station. He forgot to wait for a response as his glance fell onto the
VR probe station. "What the..," the man began, starting to rise from
his station. Commander Ford was immediately at his side, holding him
back. There were more important things to do.

"There is something very wrong with the system, Martinez. Katie's
station exploded and it killed her. Now, the code red alerts have
sounded."

"I'm on it!" Martinez said. Slipping on his glasses, he began examine
the system's drives.

Lucas moved over to Martinez and tried to pick up anything he could
find. He had to settle for watching the screen. When Martinez entered
the system's mainframe, the doors from the bridge began to close.
Almost instantly, calls streamed into the bridge. Miguel tried to open
the doors with the emergency release switch, but the doors wouldn't
budge.

O'Neil tried to inform the callers that they were having difficulties
and told them to stay calm.

"What's wrong, O'Neil?" Commander Ford asked.

"There seems to be problems everywhere, sir. Every door on the ship
has locked itself and won't budge."

"Martinez, anything yet?"

"I am working on it!" Martinez answered, without bothering to look up
at the commander. "Holy Shit!"

"What's wrong?"

"Commander, the whole system... it's shutting down, sir!"

"What do you..." Commander Ford began to ask, just as the power went
off and the emergency power kicked it.

"The system is infected with a virus, sir. I don't know how, but this
virus... genius," Martinez explained, whispering the last word.

"Can you locate it?"

"I'm trying, sir. I'm running a quick pass but nothing is coming up!"

"That's because it's in the software!" Lucas shouted to Martinez. "It
won't find it..." Lucas went to the keyboard to run his own scan.
Again, he realized that he couldn't do anything and quickly turned to
Jesse. "Why isn't he searching the system manually! He could have seen
it! Why!"

"Martinez doesn't have your experience or your knowledge of the
computer system. You practically grew up with the system," Jesse
responded to his worry friend.

"Commander, the WSKRS aren't responding!" Ortiz reported, as he tried
to get the blasted things to work.

"Martinez!"

"I think I've got it. There's a suspicious file here and.." Martinez
didn't notice the blinking subfolder on the side.

Lucas began to panic as he noticed it. "Don't open the folder, it's a
fake. It'll open the other one and.." But it was too late, no one
could hear him yelling, and Martinez opened the file.

"Commander, you better take a look at this" Commander Ford went over to
Martinez' station and saw what Martinez had opened. It was a note-

~So, you found this message, you stupid fool! You just released the
second part to the virus I had installed. Remember, you idiots, I
didn't build the seaQuest, but it's my program that makes her run!!
MINE! No one makes a fool of me. Ah, pathetic souls, now that you
have finished this, my virus is unstoppable! You have one minute to
make your peace with God!!! L.Wolenczak~

"Damn!" Martinez scanned for the virus. It was true, it was spreading
like wildfire. He'd never seen anything like it. It was all so
impressive, yet so deadly. "Sir, it's affecting everything. The
countdown is running within the whole system, sir."

"What are you trying to tell me."

"In a few minutes sir, the life support, the electricity,...everything
will be shut off, including the emergency power. Its..." Martinez
looked at the screen again. "Sir, if this happens, we'll sink and... in
a couple of minutes... without life support, sir... we'll all die."

"C deck, try the launch doors. The emergency pods, anything!"

"Sir, nothing is responding...what's going on!"

50 seconds....

"O'Neil, can we send out a distress call?"

"I been trying, sir. No. Can't even get stupid Morse Code out!"
O'Neil responded, losing his temper. "Sorry, sir."

40 seconds....

"Ortiz, what about the WSKRS, can they help..."

"I'm locked out, sir." Miguel answered back, as he whispered something
in Spanish.

30 seconds...

Losing all hope, Commander Ford had one last thing to do. "O'Neil,
open all channels, I want everyone to hear this." With a firm nod from
O'Neil, Ford took a deep breath and began his speech.

"This is Commander Ford. I know all of you have questions about what's
happening. I'm sorry to report that the someone had tampered with the
computer system and soon life support, and everything else on the boat,
will shut down. Emergency power cut off at the same time. I'm even
more sorry to report that there is nothing I can do to stop it from
happening. I'm very honored to have had command of a great and brave
crew. I couldn't have asked for more. We have 10 seconds before
everything shuts off. I am, once again, very sorry. I tried my best."

The whole bridge was silence. O'Neil took off his head set and turned
to face the Commander. He hollered 'salute' and saluted. Everyone
followed his lead. Commander Ford saluted back before sitting back
down at the helm. Lucas also saluted the commander, before falling to
his knees. He couldn't believe it. His father had killed the people
he considered family. He turned to Jessie, thinking that he didn't
want to see this. He wanted out of this nightmare.

3....2....1... and everything went dark. The scene began to change
again. Lucas wiped the tears from his eyes and found himself facing
the monument again. Jesse had heard him and taken him out of there.

"What... what happened after..." Lucas asked, between soft sobs.

"The UEO tried for hours to get in contact with the seaQuest, and after
several hours with out word, they began to search for it. It was too
late, the whole crew... everyone was dead. Martinez did the best he
could, but it was just no use. Every door, every opening to the
seaQuest was completely sealed tight."

Lucas turned away from what he was hearing and reread the list of
names. He reread them until he'd memorized the order of all the names,
and that was when he spotted something strange. At first, Lucas
thought it was weird, but then.... there was something wrong....

"Jesse!" Lucas yelled, as the problem final clicked.

"Yeah?" Knowing what was coming next, though he wished he could have
delayed the question.

"Where is Captain Bridger's name?" He remembered that he hadn't seen
the captain on the bridge, or even near-by. "And Darwin."

"Well.... the captain... Darwin.." Jesse began to say, as he played
with his feet.

"Jesse.. please tell me.."

"Well, you see.... the captain... well. How to put this....
he...um..."

"Damn it, Jesse!"

"FINE!" Jesse yelled back, and made the scene change from Arlington
Cemetery to a deserted island. Lucas turned to find Jesse, but didn't
see the kid anywhere. He felt bad that he yelled at him
and searched the island.

"Jesse!" Lucas called out, but the boy didn't appear. He walked toward
the beach and saw some wreckage on the coast line. As Lucas neared the
wreckage, it began to take a clearer shape. Fear filled the teen as he
realized that the form wasn't part of any ship or boat. It was a
dolphin. It was breathing and injured. Lucas ran to the dolphin and
knelt down to help it.

"NO! It can't..." Lucas exclaimed, as he examined the injured animal.
He took note of the markings and his fear turned into reality... it was
Darwin. Lucas touched the dolphin's skin, only to be shocked when he
actually felt the rubbery skin. Darwin flinched just a little bit, but
seemed to know that the person was not going to hurt him. Lucas
examined the dolphin's injuries. He'd been cut up by something sharp
and deep; too straight to be from a propeller and... Lucas realized
that the wounds weren't accidental. They'd come from a sharp knife.
'Fishermen!' Lucas thought, becoming furious.

"JESSE!!! Please, help me!" Lucas screamed for help, but there was no
one on the island and Jesse still refused to show himself. Lucas went
around to the dolphin's tail and tried to pull it back to the water.
Lucas knew he'd have to be Hercules to move a beached dolphin, but he
couldn't just sit there and watch Darwin die.

"Jesse!!!" Again, Lucas pleaded, and Jesse, wiping his tear-laden eyes,
finally appeared. Lucas gave a sigh of relief. "Please, help me,
Jesse, he... his weight is going to crush his organs... please, help
him!" Lucas begged, as he pulled on the tail again.

"It's no use, Lucas. You were never born, remember. He should mean
nothing to you. And you don't mean anything to him."

"So he dies because of me! Because some crazy fisherman decided to cut
him up! Why didn't he stay with the seaQuest," Lucas ranted, giving up
on the dolphin. It was no use, he hadn't moved an inch.

"He left seaQuest when Captain Bridger...left..." Jesse explained,
hesitantly.

"But... but why!"

"Captain Bridger had no reason to stay, Lucas. Don't you understand
that the reason he decided to stay was you. You gave him a reason to
live, Lucas. You healed his heart, even if you can't see it. The
captain became depressed after the few first weeks and decided to
leave the boat... right before... Anyway, Darwin left with Bridger, but
then Darwin was on his own..."

"Wait, the captain loved Darwin, he would never leave him!"

"There was a good reason for leaving Darwin, Lucas. You see... the
captain is very much alive and well... "

"Please, Jesse, just tell me."

"He's in an asylum."

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