I do not own any of the characters in this story, I am making no profit in writing the story, and no breach of copyright is intended. Thank you to every one who reviewed the first two chapters. While I have checked for errors, there may be some I missed. Try to remember no one is perfect all the time.

Chapter Three.

"I have to talk to Katie." Said Ben.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" asked Lucas, "I mean, she must think she has a reason for not telling you."

"You may find it easier in the long run if you don't try to understand how women think, Lucas." Quipped Miguel.

"Do you think she wants the baby?" asked Ford.

"What do you mean?"

"I, Uh, mean, Katie is very focused on her career..." the Commander hedged.

"She'll keep the baby." Krieg stated. When he noticed the other men's questioning looks he added. "I am married to Katie, and I do know my wife pretty well."

"Which is why you got a divorce." Tim observed. Ben gave him an uncomprehending look and then jumped out of his chair.

"We got a divorce!" he made for the door, only to find Ford blocking it. "Excuse me, Commander, but I have to talk to Katie. I have to propose!"

"Krieg, sit down, you need to think first." Ford said. While he and Krieg didn't always get on well, the Commander had no wish to see Katie embarrassed by a fool running on to the bridge and proposing to her in his pyjamas.

"We have to get married or we can't have a baby." Krieg said simply.

"Ben, as a scientist, please believe me when I tell you, the baby will be born weather you are married or not." Said Lucas, turning his friend around to face him. "And you will still be the baby's father no matter what"

"Yes, but only technically."

"No, Ben, biologically."

"We still have to get married." Ben replied firmly.

"Good luck convincing Katie of that."

"I convinced her before, didn't I?" Ben replied to Tim.

"Yes, but Katie knows you better now, she's older, and wiser." Miguel said, with a hint of laughter in his voice.

"When do you think she'll leave?" asked Shan.

"Why would she leave?" Lucas wondered aloud.

"Lucas, women do not have babies on UEO submarines. It's no place for a baby. In a few months Katie will have to take a leave of absence.

Lucas sat down and just stared at him. He couldn't understand why it had never occurred to him that Katie would have to leave the Sea Quest. All he could think of was that his new family, the family he had always longed for was going to be split up. He had to find a way to stop it.

"When?" Tim looked a Lucas and tried to figure out why the teenager had turned so pale.

"In a little over two months."

"But my baby is going to be three months old by then! what if we have to go into combat before then? What if something happens to my baby?"

"Ben, the chances are-"

"The chances, Crocker, are too high. We have to thing of a way to keep my baby safe."

"Commander Ford to the Bridge, Commander Ford to the Bridge."

Came an unidentified voice from the speakers, which were used to contact the crew all over the ship.

"On my way," the Commander said into his pal, before turning to the rest of the men.

"Nobody, is to speak of this to anyone else, understand, Commander Hitchcock is not going to be happy with us knowing, let alone the whole boat."

"What about the Captain?" asked Crocker.

"No one is to be told until we talk about this again. No one. Not even the Captain."

Lucas felt every one looking at him, he hated the way they seemed to think that they had to explain everything to him twice, as if he were a child. If he gave his word on something he would keep it, no matter what.

"If anyone has any ideas about anything helpful we can do, we can meet up again tomorrow and discuss them then. OK?"

Everyone nodded, and, after they had removed Ben's handcuffs left the security office.

***** ***** *****

A few minutes later Commander Jonathan Ford sat in the command chair of the bridge, and wondered what he had gotten him-self into.

It wasn't even his problem, he reminded himself. Ben should be sorting this out on his own. But, Krieg was obviously incapable of any kind of rational thought, so guess who it will left to be sensible, and sort everything out.

This would never happen on a real military sub. It was all the fault of the science crew. Ford knew it was not a brand of logic that would stand up to scrutiny, but it made him feel better so he let it slide, just this once.

Now he just had to work out how to keep Krieg sane... well, as sane as anyone could expect from Krieg... and how to keep Katie safe until she decided to tell everyone. He knew that she must have a good reason for not telling anyone yet, and he intended to see that no one else found out, some one had to make sure her privacy was not forgotten.

***** ***** *****

Lucas sat in front of the computer screen and watched the numbers flash across it. When he had returned to his room, he had started up the programme he was working on with out thinking. He always found it comforting. When he was programming he was in complete control. The computer did what he told it to, and didn't throw up the same problems as people always seamed to.

He wished that he could programme people some times. Why did this have to happen now? He was happy on Sea Quest, but if Katie left, then Ben would want to leave as well. If Ben left Lucas didn't know what he would do. Ben was the big brother that he had always wanted.

If Ben left, who was going to get him into trouble with their next get rich quick scheme? Everyone else expected him to act like an adult, but Ben didn't. Ben acted like a little kid, and that made Lucas feel that he could do the same.

Lucas thought about it all for a while, getting himself more and more depressed, until he decided that this wasn't a problem to get emotional about; it was a problem to get logical about, to get scientific about.

"OK," he said to himself while switching on yet another computer and starting to type rapidly.

"First I need to decide what out come I want, and then try to find a way to bring it about." He mumbled to himself. "Good Lucas, now you're being logical. What I want is every one to stay on board the boat. Fine, that was the easy part, now how to I get that to happen." He thought for a moment, before starting to both type and mutter again.

"What's stopping them from staying...? Well the UEO to start with, they're hardly going to want a kid on a sub... they made enough of a fuss about me and I was 15... they only let me on because I'm a genius..." He stopped suddenly.

"That's it, we have to turn the baby into a genius!" Lucas jumped up from his seat, but then his face fell. "How do you turn a kid into a genius...? I think it's time to do a bit of research..."

Lucas typed away quite sure that he had found a way to keep his family in tact. All he had to do was convince the UEO that Krieg Jr. was going to be so smart they couldn't risk losing him. It was a long shot, but he had to take it, he had to know that he had tried everything; that he hadn't dismissed anything that would work.

"I wonder what the chances are, of finding a site called 'How to make a genius in ten east steps'" he said to himself. "Probably not great." He added with a smile, knowing that if the information he wanted existed on any computer with an uplink to the net he would find it without too much trouble.

***** ***** *****

Several hours later Captain Nathan Hale Bridger was walking along the corridors to Mammal Engineering. Ever since the last time Lucas had got really into the project he had been working on, Bridger had made sure that the crewmen on duty in the mess hall kept half an eye on weather or not the teen was eating.

The last three shifts now reported that no one had seen Lucas, and the two shifts before that only remembered the teen grabbing a couple of high sugar snacks and coffee. If he hadn't been in meetings on the vid-phone for the last few days, trying to keep the science budget from free falling, he would have checked earlier, but the fact was he hadn't been to the mess in quite a while himself.

So, the Captain decided that he had better make a trip down to their resident computer genius and make sure he ate something and slept for a few hours at least, before Dr. Westphalen found out. He did not wont to be there if she found out that Lucas had fallen back into his old working habits. He knew that Kristin worried about Lucas almost as he did, and she wasn't slow to vocalise her complaints.

He balanced the tray full of food carefully in one hand, and knocked smartly on the door. He waited for about half a minute before, deciding that either Lucas was so engrossed in what he was doing that he didn't even realise that he was ignoring the knock on his door, in which case he would probably need to be dragged forcibly away from the screen. Or, Lucas may have had finally succumb to exhaustion, in which case Nathan could tuck him up into bed, and leave the tray.

Nathan opened the door, as he expected Lucas was staring intently at the screen. The teen didn't hear him when he came in, or when he shut the door behind him, or when he cleared space to put the tray down on a chair. Lucas did, however, notice when the Captain leaned over his shoulder and started to read from the screen.

Lucas jumped a good eighteen inches into the air almost slamming the top of his head into Bridger's chin, his eyes wide with surprise above the dark circles that were now developing.

"Captain, I didn't hear you come in!"

"That's because you were to absorbed in-" As Bridger started to focus on the words displayed in the screen, Lucas hurriedly reached out and switched the screen blank.

"Lucas," said Bridger looking exasperated, "what have I told you about hacking into confidential files. And who's files are they this time?" he asked reaching for the switch on the monitor to flick it back on.

"Captain, I wasn't hacking!"

"Then what were you doing, that means you need to switch the screen off when I come into the room?" Asked Bridger, holding his hand just above the switch.

"I... I was doing some research." Lucas, thinking quickly, tried to come up with an answer that wasn't a lie, and wasn't betraying anyone's confidence.

"For Dr. Westphalen?" Bridger asked with a perfect poker face. It was very rare that Lucas didn't have a smart Alec reply for every question, and the Captain couldn't help enjoying having the upper hand for a while.

"No... Not for Dr. Westphalen... I was helping out a friend... I often help out doing research for the guys at Node 3, and people I studied with..." It's not really a lie, Lucas told himself, I do help them with research, and it's not my fault if the Captain chooses to misinterpret a random statement as something else. I'm not actually lying.

"So this is for Wolf man?" Bridger still hadn't moved his hand and Lucas seamed transfixed by it.

Lucas shook his head.

"Biff Pickering?"

Again Lucas shook his head.

"Microft?"

Once more Lucas shook his head, never once taking his eyes off the Captains hand.

"Juliana?"

Lucas blushed; he always did when some one mentioned her name. Fortunately the Captain took this to mean the research was for her and he let his hand drop. It was not until he exhaled that Lucas realised that he had been holding his breath.

"Well, no matter who it's for," Captain Bridger smiled as Lucas blushed again, "You need to eat and then you need to sleep." As he spoke he started to move some of the things off Lucas's bed and, after he failed to find space anywhere else, onto the floor.

"You do know that you are disrupting a very delicate filing system?" Lucas queried.

Bridger raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. It was true that Lucas could find anything in a matter of moments, but no one else had ever found out how the system, if indeed there was one, worked.

"Are you going to tuck me in too?" came the next sarcastic question, Lucas was not happy that the Captain had almost found out what he had been working on, and decided to show his displeasure the only way he new how, by pushing every one away.

"Yes, as soon as your a good little boy and finish your supper, that's exactly what I intend to do." Bridger said calmly.

"Captain! There's no need-"

"Eat, now. Before I fetch Dr. Westphalen."

"That's a dirty trick." Said Lucas reaching out and grabbing a sandwich off the plate.

"True, but very effective none the less."

Twenty minutes later Lucas was fast asleep under the watchful eye of Captain Bridger, who had taken up residence in one of the chairs in order to make sure the teen didn't simply pretend to sleep, so that he could get up and start work again when Bridger left. The Captain had been caught out like that before, and intended to learn from his mistake.

When he was completely sure Lucas was settled for a few hours at least, Bridger leaned over to brush the hair off Lucas's forehead and said "Goodnight kiddo, sweet dreams." He picked up the now empty food tray and made to leave. When he got to the door, he hesitated, before retracing his steps and quietly flicking the switch on the monitor.

"THE DO'S AND DON'T OF PREGNANCY. 100 ways to improve the quality of you babies life before their birth."

Captain Bridger looked at the screen and back at the teenager, and come to the most logical conclusion he could think of.

***** ***** *****

Dr. Kristin Westphalen, Chief Medical Officer, and head of the scientific sections of Sea Quest looked down the microscope at the samples her team had collected that morning. Suddenly the door behind her flew open.

"Nathan Hale Bridger! What on earth do you think you are doing? You almost scared me half to death!"

"Kristen, you better sit down. Do you remember Juliana? Good, because I think she's going to have Lucas's baby!"

***** ***** *****

That's all for now. Please review; constructive comments; both good and bad are welcome. Chapter four should be up in the not too distant future.