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copyright is intended. I am making no money in the writing of this story.
Thank you to everyone who reviewed the first three chapters.
Chapter 4.
"What you mean? How do you know? Are you sure?" Every time Nathan Bridger opened his mouth to answer one of the questions that Kristen Westphalen fired at him, he was cut off by yet another question.
After a while he gave up trying to get a word in and just stood there waiting for her to finish.
"Well, are you going to answer me or not?"
If he hadn't been so terrified then Nathan would have smiled. Dr. Westphalen in full inquision mode was quite a sight to behold.
Nathan tried to calm down, and explain him self rationally, as he paced around the lab, he said, "I just went in to check on Lucas-"
"Has he been eating?" Kristin interrupted.
"Yes, and when I was there-"
"Has he sl-"
"Yes, he was sleeping when I left," Nathan said, guessing at the next question. He decided it was probably not the best time to tell the doctor that it was probably the first time the teen had slept in days.
"And, when I was there" and so he continued to explain everything that was said, and what he had seen on the monitor.
"Well Nathan," said Kristen dryly, "It's suspicious, but not exactly conclusive. Maybe he was telling the truth."
"I know he was telling the truth, Kristin, he's a terrible liar, but he is very good at bending the truth so far, you end up assuming something that is completely false. I mean, if you ask him if he has eaten, he'll say yes, it's not until you've asked another twenty odd questions, that you realise he means he ate a chocolate biscuit two days ago."
"He does have a talent for avoiding subjects he doesn't want to talk about. You go and try to talk to him about not hacking in to UEO databases, and you leave half an hour later, having heard all about his latest work with Darwin and the vo-corder. By the time you realise what happened, it's too late."
"So what are we going to do, Kristen?"
"You have to talk to him about it." She stated emphatically.
"Me, but your a doctor, surely it would be better for you to talk to him about it?" Bridger asked hopefully.
"Your the Captain, he is part of your crew."
"He's part of the science personal, you're in charge of all the scientists."
"Your like a father to him."
"No more than you are like a mother to him."
"You're a man, not that your acting like one at the moment," Kristin observed dryly.
"That's not fair! That's-"
"Look, all you need to do is go and have a quiet chat with him, if I try to talk to him about this, I'll just embarrass him." She now said, appealing to his better nature.
"You fight dirty," The Captain complained.
Kristen just smiled, and went back to working on her slides, not that she had high hopes for her ability to concentrate now.
***** ***** *****
"Right, gentlemen, what ideas have was come up with so far?" asked Ford.
Lucas, Ben, Tim, Miguel, William Shan, and Manilow Crocker all sat at the makeshift table in one of seaQuests storerooms. Ben was supposed to be in charge of the meeting, but he still had a slightly glazed look on his face.
"There are quite a few practical thing we could do, to make things a bit safer for Commander Hitchcock and the baby," began Miguel. "We could make sure she's likely to be out of any action, put her in the safest part of the boat, switch her to the safest shift, things like that."
"Right, I'll make sure she switches to afternoons, but Katie is not going to be happy."
"How do you know which shift is the safest?" asked Tim.
"What difference does it make to the Commander which shift she is on? It's not as if there's day or night here anyway." Queried Miguel at the same time.
"I know," answered Ford, "because I keep up to date with all the statistics which have any effect on this boat." And because I spent over an hour looking up the information this afternoon, when I came off my double shift, he added in his head, but he refrained from saying so out loud, it wouldn't do for them all to think that he was going soft. "Katie doesn't like working afternoons, because she thinks the shift gets the short end of the straw when it comes to the food in the mess" said Ben in answer to Miguel's question.
"On the subject on food..." said Lucas, when he had woken up after the Captain had made him get some rest, Lucas had almost laughed out loud, now that his brain wasn't addled but lack of sleep he realised that there was no reliable to turn a baby into a genius. However, the searches he had carried out, a turned up a lot of information, and it seemed a pity to waste all of it.
Lucas looked around the room, waiting to get every one's attention before he continued to tell them all some of the information he had found out.
***** ***** *****
"Hello, Commander." Commander Katie Hitchcock was walking along the corridor to breakfast, when Miguel Ortiz met her.
"Hi, Miguel," she greeted him warmly. After some well-deserved rest Katie felt on top of the world, she felt that she could handle anything people decided to throw at her, that nothing could spoil her mood.
"Fancy some company for breakfast?"
"Sure,"
As they made their way into the mess hall, Katie wrinkled her nose, "What's that smell?"
"I'm not sure, Commander," Replied Miguel, blinking his eyes to try to stop them watering.
They looked around at the practically empty mess hall; it was usually thronged with people at this time of day. They both took a plate containing the only thing the mess seemed to be serving. All the other food seemed to have disappeared. There wasn't even any coffee of tea on offer, so they both had to stick with apple juice.
"Do you have any idea what this is?" Katie asked Crocker as they joined him at a table.
"Re-hydrated sushi, with a mixture of boiled cheese and rice." Said the Chief of security, endeavouring to look at least vaguely happy about the fact, "Try it, it's not as bad as you may think." No, he thought, it's worse. Why did I let them convince me that this was a good idea?
Katie watched both men dig into their meals with all appearance of enjoyment, tentatively she tasted hers. It was truly foul. She put her hand over her mouth and forced herself to swallow.
"Why are they serving this..." she tried to find a suitable word and failed "this for breakfast?"
"I think I heard the kitchen staff saying it was some sort of new initiative, we're the proto-type, to see if it is going to work for all UEO ships." Answered Crocker.
"Do the crew get a vote?"
"I doubt it." Miguel said.
***** ***** *****
After managing to force down at least a little of her breakfast, and filling up on apple juice Katie made her way to work on the Gazelle, she was determined not to call it a Stinger, what a stupid name for something that was so fast but so graceful, Gazelle suited it much better.
As she walked into the engineering room, which had been set aside to house the Gazelle, Lieutenant Commander Hitchcock froze. She slowly reached out her hand and activated her pal, and contacted the bridge.
"Lieutenant, can you give me a location on the Gazelle, please." Her voice was very calm and very precise, an obvious warning to everyone her that she was beginning to lose patience.
"Excuse me Commander?" Queried the voice on the other end of the line.
"He mini-sub I'm building, Lieutenant, I want to know where it is." Her voice was taking on a decidedly cold tone.
"Lucas Wolenczak moved the Stinger to Bay 317, Commander."
"Thank you, Lieutenant, I think you will find that it's called a Gazelle." She snapped into her pal, before deactivating it.
Katie forced her self to take several deep breaths before going to have a long talk with a certain teenager.
***** ***** *****
"Lucas, are you sure it was a good idea to move the Stinger down here?" O'Neill asked.
"You heard what the Commander said, this is the safest place on the boat." Said Lucas crawling out from under the craft, which was suspended a few feet above the deck.
"We need to keep Katie here as much as possible, the easiest was to do that was to move the Stinger."
"She's not going to be happy." Tim observed. "Especially if she's tried breakfast."
"According to Dr. Washington, it's the best thing she can eat in her condition." Dr. Washington had been one of Lucas's tutors at Stanford, but had now moved away form artificial intelligence, to study what factors affect human intelligence. Lucas had had a long talk with him on the subject. It was Dr. Washington who had suggested the food plan, which they were trying to get Katie to follow without her knowledge.
"Lucas have you tasted that stuff."
"I haven't gotten around to it..." he hedged.
"Have you eaten anything?"
"Yes, Tim, I have."
"When?"
"I am capable of feeding myself on a regular basis, Tim" said Lucas exasperatedly "Have you got every thing set up ready?" he added, changing the subject adeptly.
"I've only got one more room to do. When she gets here make-sure she stays away from her quarters."
"No problem, I'm sure she'll have enough to say, that should take a while."
"LUCAS! What were you thinking? Were you thinking? What possible reason could you have for moving the Gazelle down here? Do you realise you made me look like a complete fool?" said Katie swinging the door to bay 317 open. "O'Neill, what are you doing here?"
"I, um, was, um, just leaving." Tim answered ducking through the door quickly.
***** ***** *****
Ben Krieg sat in his quarters staring at the monitor of his vid-phone. He was talking one of the UEO supply officer's up world.
"I need all the food dispatched and delivered direct to seaQuest a.s.a.p." he said completing his order.
"Most of this food isn't generally issued to submarines, are you sure this is autherised?"
"Of course I am," said Krieg confidently. "We are part of a trail programme set up by Admiral Trent."
"Well, no-ones told me anything about it." Came the stubborn reply.
"Tell me about it, no-one told me anything about it either, when does the brass ever tell us supply officers anything, don't they realise that with out us, they would be all be starving." Replied Krieg in just the right tone, to convince the other man that it was a simple case of supply officers against the brass.
"OK, I'll check it out and see what I can do."
"Thank, I really appreciate it."
Ben watched the officer type into his computer and mentally crossed his fingers for good luck. I wasn't that Ben didn't trust Lucas, he knew that the teen hadn't had any trouble hacking into the UEO files and creating the order for the new food programme.
Lucas had not been impressed when Admiral Trent had refused to supply the components for Lucas to fix the vo-corder because he didn't believe that either the dolphin or the teenager should be on the boat. It was no coincidence that he happened to pick the same Admiral. If it all backfired, it was the Admiral who was going to be answering the uncomfortable questions.
However, Ben also knew that it's often the best-laid plans that go so very, very wrong.
To be continued...
***** ***** *****
That's all for now, please REVIEW. Any feedback is welcome. Chapter 5 should be up quite soon. There should be a bit more about the Lucas / Juliana pregnancy next time.
Oh, by the way, I don't know which way this story is going to go yet, but I think I should mention, that if anyone feels a strange inclination to think I know anything much about medicine, or the technical aspects of submarines, they should try to ignore it. And I strongly advice any one who's pregnant, not to follow the diet etc which Katie Hitchcock find's herself forced to endure :-)
Chapter 4.
"What you mean? How do you know? Are you sure?" Every time Nathan Bridger opened his mouth to answer one of the questions that Kristen Westphalen fired at him, he was cut off by yet another question.
After a while he gave up trying to get a word in and just stood there waiting for her to finish.
"Well, are you going to answer me or not?"
If he hadn't been so terrified then Nathan would have smiled. Dr. Westphalen in full inquision mode was quite a sight to behold.
Nathan tried to calm down, and explain him self rationally, as he paced around the lab, he said, "I just went in to check on Lucas-"
"Has he been eating?" Kristin interrupted.
"Yes, and when I was there-"
"Has he sl-"
"Yes, he was sleeping when I left," Nathan said, guessing at the next question. He decided it was probably not the best time to tell the doctor that it was probably the first time the teen had slept in days.
"And, when I was there" and so he continued to explain everything that was said, and what he had seen on the monitor.
"Well Nathan," said Kristen dryly, "It's suspicious, but not exactly conclusive. Maybe he was telling the truth."
"I know he was telling the truth, Kristin, he's a terrible liar, but he is very good at bending the truth so far, you end up assuming something that is completely false. I mean, if you ask him if he has eaten, he'll say yes, it's not until you've asked another twenty odd questions, that you realise he means he ate a chocolate biscuit two days ago."
"He does have a talent for avoiding subjects he doesn't want to talk about. You go and try to talk to him about not hacking in to UEO databases, and you leave half an hour later, having heard all about his latest work with Darwin and the vo-corder. By the time you realise what happened, it's too late."
"So what are we going to do, Kristen?"
"You have to talk to him about it." She stated emphatically.
"Me, but your a doctor, surely it would be better for you to talk to him about it?" Bridger asked hopefully.
"Your the Captain, he is part of your crew."
"He's part of the science personal, you're in charge of all the scientists."
"Your like a father to him."
"No more than you are like a mother to him."
"You're a man, not that your acting like one at the moment," Kristin observed dryly.
"That's not fair! That's-"
"Look, all you need to do is go and have a quiet chat with him, if I try to talk to him about this, I'll just embarrass him." She now said, appealing to his better nature.
"You fight dirty," The Captain complained.
Kristen just smiled, and went back to working on her slides, not that she had high hopes for her ability to concentrate now.
***** ***** *****
"Right, gentlemen, what ideas have was come up with so far?" asked Ford.
Lucas, Ben, Tim, Miguel, William Shan, and Manilow Crocker all sat at the makeshift table in one of seaQuests storerooms. Ben was supposed to be in charge of the meeting, but he still had a slightly glazed look on his face.
"There are quite a few practical thing we could do, to make things a bit safer for Commander Hitchcock and the baby," began Miguel. "We could make sure she's likely to be out of any action, put her in the safest part of the boat, switch her to the safest shift, things like that."
"Right, I'll make sure she switches to afternoons, but Katie is not going to be happy."
"How do you know which shift is the safest?" asked Tim.
"What difference does it make to the Commander which shift she is on? It's not as if there's day or night here anyway." Queried Miguel at the same time.
"I know," answered Ford, "because I keep up to date with all the statistics which have any effect on this boat." And because I spent over an hour looking up the information this afternoon, when I came off my double shift, he added in his head, but he refrained from saying so out loud, it wouldn't do for them all to think that he was going soft. "Katie doesn't like working afternoons, because she thinks the shift gets the short end of the straw when it comes to the food in the mess" said Ben in answer to Miguel's question.
"On the subject on food..." said Lucas, when he had woken up after the Captain had made him get some rest, Lucas had almost laughed out loud, now that his brain wasn't addled but lack of sleep he realised that there was no reliable to turn a baby into a genius. However, the searches he had carried out, a turned up a lot of information, and it seemed a pity to waste all of it.
Lucas looked around the room, waiting to get every one's attention before he continued to tell them all some of the information he had found out.
***** ***** *****
"Hello, Commander." Commander Katie Hitchcock was walking along the corridor to breakfast, when Miguel Ortiz met her.
"Hi, Miguel," she greeted him warmly. After some well-deserved rest Katie felt on top of the world, she felt that she could handle anything people decided to throw at her, that nothing could spoil her mood.
"Fancy some company for breakfast?"
"Sure,"
As they made their way into the mess hall, Katie wrinkled her nose, "What's that smell?"
"I'm not sure, Commander," Replied Miguel, blinking his eyes to try to stop them watering.
They looked around at the practically empty mess hall; it was usually thronged with people at this time of day. They both took a plate containing the only thing the mess seemed to be serving. All the other food seemed to have disappeared. There wasn't even any coffee of tea on offer, so they both had to stick with apple juice.
"Do you have any idea what this is?" Katie asked Crocker as they joined him at a table.
"Re-hydrated sushi, with a mixture of boiled cheese and rice." Said the Chief of security, endeavouring to look at least vaguely happy about the fact, "Try it, it's not as bad as you may think." No, he thought, it's worse. Why did I let them convince me that this was a good idea?
Katie watched both men dig into their meals with all appearance of enjoyment, tentatively she tasted hers. It was truly foul. She put her hand over her mouth and forced herself to swallow.
"Why are they serving this..." she tried to find a suitable word and failed "this for breakfast?"
"I think I heard the kitchen staff saying it was some sort of new initiative, we're the proto-type, to see if it is going to work for all UEO ships." Answered Crocker.
"Do the crew get a vote?"
"I doubt it." Miguel said.
***** ***** *****
After managing to force down at least a little of her breakfast, and filling up on apple juice Katie made her way to work on the Gazelle, she was determined not to call it a Stinger, what a stupid name for something that was so fast but so graceful, Gazelle suited it much better.
As she walked into the engineering room, which had been set aside to house the Gazelle, Lieutenant Commander Hitchcock froze. She slowly reached out her hand and activated her pal, and contacted the bridge.
"Lieutenant, can you give me a location on the Gazelle, please." Her voice was very calm and very precise, an obvious warning to everyone her that she was beginning to lose patience.
"Excuse me Commander?" Queried the voice on the other end of the line.
"He mini-sub I'm building, Lieutenant, I want to know where it is." Her voice was taking on a decidedly cold tone.
"Lucas Wolenczak moved the Stinger to Bay 317, Commander."
"Thank you, Lieutenant, I think you will find that it's called a Gazelle." She snapped into her pal, before deactivating it.
Katie forced her self to take several deep breaths before going to have a long talk with a certain teenager.
***** ***** *****
"Lucas, are you sure it was a good idea to move the Stinger down here?" O'Neill asked.
"You heard what the Commander said, this is the safest place on the boat." Said Lucas crawling out from under the craft, which was suspended a few feet above the deck.
"We need to keep Katie here as much as possible, the easiest was to do that was to move the Stinger."
"She's not going to be happy." Tim observed. "Especially if she's tried breakfast."
"According to Dr. Washington, it's the best thing she can eat in her condition." Dr. Washington had been one of Lucas's tutors at Stanford, but had now moved away form artificial intelligence, to study what factors affect human intelligence. Lucas had had a long talk with him on the subject. It was Dr. Washington who had suggested the food plan, which they were trying to get Katie to follow without her knowledge.
"Lucas have you tasted that stuff."
"I haven't gotten around to it..." he hedged.
"Have you eaten anything?"
"Yes, Tim, I have."
"When?"
"I am capable of feeding myself on a regular basis, Tim" said Lucas exasperatedly "Have you got every thing set up ready?" he added, changing the subject adeptly.
"I've only got one more room to do. When she gets here make-sure she stays away from her quarters."
"No problem, I'm sure she'll have enough to say, that should take a while."
"LUCAS! What were you thinking? Were you thinking? What possible reason could you have for moving the Gazelle down here? Do you realise you made me look like a complete fool?" said Katie swinging the door to bay 317 open. "O'Neill, what are you doing here?"
"I, um, was, um, just leaving." Tim answered ducking through the door quickly.
***** ***** *****
Ben Krieg sat in his quarters staring at the monitor of his vid-phone. He was talking one of the UEO supply officer's up world.
"I need all the food dispatched and delivered direct to seaQuest a.s.a.p." he said completing his order.
"Most of this food isn't generally issued to submarines, are you sure this is autherised?"
"Of course I am," said Krieg confidently. "We are part of a trail programme set up by Admiral Trent."
"Well, no-ones told me anything about it." Came the stubborn reply.
"Tell me about it, no-one told me anything about it either, when does the brass ever tell us supply officers anything, don't they realise that with out us, they would be all be starving." Replied Krieg in just the right tone, to convince the other man that it was a simple case of supply officers against the brass.
"OK, I'll check it out and see what I can do."
"Thank, I really appreciate it."
Ben watched the officer type into his computer and mentally crossed his fingers for good luck. I wasn't that Ben didn't trust Lucas, he knew that the teen hadn't had any trouble hacking into the UEO files and creating the order for the new food programme.
Lucas had not been impressed when Admiral Trent had refused to supply the components for Lucas to fix the vo-corder because he didn't believe that either the dolphin or the teenager should be on the boat. It was no coincidence that he happened to pick the same Admiral. If it all backfired, it was the Admiral who was going to be answering the uncomfortable questions.
However, Ben also knew that it's often the best-laid plans that go so very, very wrong.
To be continued...
***** ***** *****
That's all for now, please REVIEW. Any feedback is welcome. Chapter 5 should be up quite soon. There should be a bit more about the Lucas / Juliana pregnancy next time.
Oh, by the way, I don't know which way this story is going to go yet, but I think I should mention, that if anyone feels a strange inclination to think I know anything much about medicine, or the technical aspects of submarines, they should try to ignore it. And I strongly advice any one who's pregnant, not to follow the diet etc which Katie Hitchcock find's herself forced to endure :-)
