Thanks to K. Presson, Treachery89, Teresa, Tyger Magick, Kiddo, LilLeggs,
Koshichka, Sara, Diena Taylor, Frankie McStein, DavinaGenevieve, Swasthi,
and anyone else who read the previous chapter.
Frankie - If you, or anyone else for that matter, wants to save the story, I have no problem with that.
Please see earlier chapters for disclaimers.
Chapter 12.
"Does anyone here know how to start a fire?" Lucas asked, when no one answered, he continued, "Does anyone have matches? A lighter? A piece of flint? Anything that could start a fire?"
"I've got some matches." Ben volunteered.
"It wouldn't do any good." Tim said. "We don't have any dry kindling - nothing that will burn well. And we won't be able to search for any properly until sun up."
"Does anyone actually know how to light a fire anyway?" Ford said.
"I thought the UEO would train people to do things like that - what to do in an emergency and stuff." Lucas thought out loud.
"We're all submariners, Lucas," Ben pointed out, "they didn't expect us to have emergencies on dry land."
Katie nodded. "We'd best conserve our energy, and see what we can do in the morning."
"It's not that cold anyway." Miguel chipped in, in spite of the fact he was already shivering violently.
Within a few minutes the crew were curled up under the parachutes, trying to find a little warmth under the flimsy fabric.
Lucas lay under his portion of the material, and worked out the mathematical chances of them all surviving when they all had hypothermia. The chances weren't good whichever way he worked the numbers. In the end Lucas picked up his bag and made his way over to Ben and poked the Lieutenant until he woke up.
"Lucas? What's wrong?" Ben mumbled, still half asleep.
"I'm going to start a fire - I need your matches."
"Lucas, we went through this - we can't light a fire unless we have something to burn." Ben said, slowly waking up.
"I've got something that will burn - I just need your matches."
Ben shuffle his way out from under the fabric and found his matches in one of his pockets - since they were in a small metal match box the worse of the water had been kept out and they were still reasonably dry.
"What do you have that we can burn?" Ben whispered, trying not to wake the others.
Lucas didn't answer, but began pushing together a rough circle of stones.
"How do you know how to do that?" Ben asked, quietly.
Lucas shrugged. "I don't know how to do it - I've only ever seen it done on TV - I just hope it gets a fire going before we start dying of hypothermia."
"What are we going to burn?" Ben asked again.
Lucas hesitated and then said "Nothing important - just paper. Go and see if you can find some wood that isn't completely sodden, I'll get the fire started."
When Ben searched around in the undergrowth, Lucas carefully opened his bag. Inside there were his notes for the speech he had been supposed to give - that was only about five of six pages - but behind that was a much, much thinker sheaf of papers. Lucas took it out and stared at the cover page.
Lucas Wolenczak,
Doctorate thesis on the use of ZJJ programming in the development of
artificial intelligence software.
He'd been working on the paper for years, even before his father decided that he needed to be sent to seaQuest on account of his 'behavioural problems'. It had taken a seemingly endless number of late nights and early mornings fitted in around his seaQuest duties and whatever technical favours he had been performing for the rest of the crew. But it was finally finished.
Now Lucas sat and stared at the paper as if he had never seen it before. He thought about the possibilities the paper created. Maybe his father would be proud of him if he got a Phd. Maybe that was what he needed to do to get his father's approval - it had to be, Lucas had run out of other ways to try to please his father. There were so many possibilities. Maybe it would make up for the time he destroyed the chemistry lab, and all the other times he embarrassed his father. Maybe it would make shore leaves bare able and he wouldn't have to worry weather or not his friends on seaQuest would notice that he always wore long sleeves etc. for a couple of weeks after each visit to his father.
It was also possible that his friends, the friends who never thought he had a discipline problem, who never said "spare the rod and spoil the child", and who sometimes made him forget what a failure he was, it was possible his friends would die because he was to busy feeling sorry for himself to do the only thing that might save them.
***** ***** *****
Shan and Crocker sat in the room that had been made available for them to rest in before the search for the missing crew started at first light.
Shan opened one of the bags to take out one of the hand held radios they would be using during the search. But rather than the two radios, that is, his and Crocker's, which he had expected to find, there were several more in the bag.
"Chief? Did you pack this bag?" Shan asked.
Crocker glanced up. "Yes, why?" He asked stretching his neck and trying to work out the kinks that the recent stress had lodged there.
"There's eight radio's in here." Shan said, his confusion apparent.
"I know." Crocker said helpfully.
"Why?" Shan prompted.
"Why not?" Crocker hedged.
"Chief?" Shan said, exasperated.
"It's nothing you need to worry about, Shan. It's something of a tradition, and it's between the Captain and me. With any luck we won't need them. So let's just leave those radios be, Ok?"
Shan nodded, the Chief was an infamous source of knowledge when it came to obscure traditions and strange sailors rituals. Shan was more than half sure that his friend made up some of the more colourful stories, but had too much respect for Crocker to say so out loud.
"What ever you say, Chief."
***** ***** *****
"Lucas?" Ben asked as he approached his friend carrying the driest pieces of dead wood he could find.
Lucas guiltily tore off the cover page of his thesis and scrupled it up. "This should burn pretty well." He said.
Carefully the two friends put a match to the page. The notes for the lecture followed quickly and then with only a tiny hesitation, Lucas began to feed the first pages of his last hope with his father into the flames.
"Do you always carry this much paper with you?" Ben asked, as the silence between them grew oppressive.
"Sometimes." Lucas hedged.
Ben gently took one of the pages from Lucas. He stared at it for a moment and then turned it upside down to see if it made any more sense that way. Even in the circumstances, Lucas couldn't help but crack a smile.
"It's part of a new programming language I've been working on."
"Oh," Ben said. "I hope you have another copy of this somewhere." He added with a smile.
"Of course." Lucas replied, although his smile was a little bit more strained. In fact Lucas had made several back up copies of his thesis. On to disc, mini-disc and even on to something called a floppy disc that Bridger had told him used to be used a lot when he was younger. And of course there was a copy on his laptop. Unfortunately they were all in the bags that were still in the plane which had crashed somewhere into the forest, and therefore probably in even worse condition than the dwindling copy he held in his hands.
Ben brought Lucas back from his wandering thoughts, "Lucas?" When Lucas looked up Ben continued. "Earlier on we were talking about how you knew so much about medicine..."
Lucas nodded warily.
Subtlety was not one of Ben's strong suits so he opted for a direct approach. "Did you're father ever hit you?" he said simply, as if it was the kind of question anyone would ask over a quite meal or a glass of wine in the evening,
Lucas didn't answer straight away, and Ben was beginning to wonder if the teenager was simply going to ignore the question. When Lucas said something that Ben didn't expect - "Of course."
There was silence for a few seconds. "Your father abused you?" Ben asked trying to make sure they were on the same page of the conversation.
"No," Lucas corrected his friend. "He disciplined me."
Ben's mouth opened and closed, as he tried to fit the word "discipline" into a child knowing how to splint broken legs and dress wounds.
"And you learned how to give first aid...?" Ben asked, trailing off, not able to shape the words to finish the question.
"Of course, it's not as if we could go to the doctor. They wouldn't understand; they'd have got the wrong idea."
"The wrong idea?" Ben whispered.
"They wouldn't have understood that it was my fault my father needed to discipline me. Because they've never tried to raise a child with an IQ which goes straight off the scale, so they'd poke their nose into our business and make matters worse."
"You think what you're father did, was all your fault?" Ben asked, trying to keep his anger at Lucas's father under control.
"I know it was my fault." Lucas replied, still staring into the fire rather than at Ben.
"How?" Ben asked, sure he would not like the answer.
"Because my father told me so." Lucas stated calmly, as if the answer should have been obvious.
***** ***** *****
To Be Continued...
***** ***** *****
That's it for now, hope people are still enjoying. Next chapter will be up as soon as I get a chance to write it. If you have any comments please review - any and all feed back helps :o)
Frankie - If you, or anyone else for that matter, wants to save the story, I have no problem with that.
Please see earlier chapters for disclaimers.
Chapter 12.
"Does anyone here know how to start a fire?" Lucas asked, when no one answered, he continued, "Does anyone have matches? A lighter? A piece of flint? Anything that could start a fire?"
"I've got some matches." Ben volunteered.
"It wouldn't do any good." Tim said. "We don't have any dry kindling - nothing that will burn well. And we won't be able to search for any properly until sun up."
"Does anyone actually know how to light a fire anyway?" Ford said.
"I thought the UEO would train people to do things like that - what to do in an emergency and stuff." Lucas thought out loud.
"We're all submariners, Lucas," Ben pointed out, "they didn't expect us to have emergencies on dry land."
Katie nodded. "We'd best conserve our energy, and see what we can do in the morning."
"It's not that cold anyway." Miguel chipped in, in spite of the fact he was already shivering violently.
Within a few minutes the crew were curled up under the parachutes, trying to find a little warmth under the flimsy fabric.
Lucas lay under his portion of the material, and worked out the mathematical chances of them all surviving when they all had hypothermia. The chances weren't good whichever way he worked the numbers. In the end Lucas picked up his bag and made his way over to Ben and poked the Lieutenant until he woke up.
"Lucas? What's wrong?" Ben mumbled, still half asleep.
"I'm going to start a fire - I need your matches."
"Lucas, we went through this - we can't light a fire unless we have something to burn." Ben said, slowly waking up.
"I've got something that will burn - I just need your matches."
Ben shuffle his way out from under the fabric and found his matches in one of his pockets - since they were in a small metal match box the worse of the water had been kept out and they were still reasonably dry.
"What do you have that we can burn?" Ben whispered, trying not to wake the others.
Lucas didn't answer, but began pushing together a rough circle of stones.
"How do you know how to do that?" Ben asked, quietly.
Lucas shrugged. "I don't know how to do it - I've only ever seen it done on TV - I just hope it gets a fire going before we start dying of hypothermia."
"What are we going to burn?" Ben asked again.
Lucas hesitated and then said "Nothing important - just paper. Go and see if you can find some wood that isn't completely sodden, I'll get the fire started."
When Ben searched around in the undergrowth, Lucas carefully opened his bag. Inside there were his notes for the speech he had been supposed to give - that was only about five of six pages - but behind that was a much, much thinker sheaf of papers. Lucas took it out and stared at the cover page.
Lucas Wolenczak,
Doctorate thesis on the use of ZJJ programming in the development of
artificial intelligence software.
He'd been working on the paper for years, even before his father decided that he needed to be sent to seaQuest on account of his 'behavioural problems'. It had taken a seemingly endless number of late nights and early mornings fitted in around his seaQuest duties and whatever technical favours he had been performing for the rest of the crew. But it was finally finished.
Now Lucas sat and stared at the paper as if he had never seen it before. He thought about the possibilities the paper created. Maybe his father would be proud of him if he got a Phd. Maybe that was what he needed to do to get his father's approval - it had to be, Lucas had run out of other ways to try to please his father. There were so many possibilities. Maybe it would make up for the time he destroyed the chemistry lab, and all the other times he embarrassed his father. Maybe it would make shore leaves bare able and he wouldn't have to worry weather or not his friends on seaQuest would notice that he always wore long sleeves etc. for a couple of weeks after each visit to his father.
It was also possible that his friends, the friends who never thought he had a discipline problem, who never said "spare the rod and spoil the child", and who sometimes made him forget what a failure he was, it was possible his friends would die because he was to busy feeling sorry for himself to do the only thing that might save them.
***** ***** *****
Shan and Crocker sat in the room that had been made available for them to rest in before the search for the missing crew started at first light.
Shan opened one of the bags to take out one of the hand held radios they would be using during the search. But rather than the two radios, that is, his and Crocker's, which he had expected to find, there were several more in the bag.
"Chief? Did you pack this bag?" Shan asked.
Crocker glanced up. "Yes, why?" He asked stretching his neck and trying to work out the kinks that the recent stress had lodged there.
"There's eight radio's in here." Shan said, his confusion apparent.
"I know." Crocker said helpfully.
"Why?" Shan prompted.
"Why not?" Crocker hedged.
"Chief?" Shan said, exasperated.
"It's nothing you need to worry about, Shan. It's something of a tradition, and it's between the Captain and me. With any luck we won't need them. So let's just leave those radios be, Ok?"
Shan nodded, the Chief was an infamous source of knowledge when it came to obscure traditions and strange sailors rituals. Shan was more than half sure that his friend made up some of the more colourful stories, but had too much respect for Crocker to say so out loud.
"What ever you say, Chief."
***** ***** *****
"Lucas?" Ben asked as he approached his friend carrying the driest pieces of dead wood he could find.
Lucas guiltily tore off the cover page of his thesis and scrupled it up. "This should burn pretty well." He said.
Carefully the two friends put a match to the page. The notes for the lecture followed quickly and then with only a tiny hesitation, Lucas began to feed the first pages of his last hope with his father into the flames.
"Do you always carry this much paper with you?" Ben asked, as the silence between them grew oppressive.
"Sometimes." Lucas hedged.
Ben gently took one of the pages from Lucas. He stared at it for a moment and then turned it upside down to see if it made any more sense that way. Even in the circumstances, Lucas couldn't help but crack a smile.
"It's part of a new programming language I've been working on."
"Oh," Ben said. "I hope you have another copy of this somewhere." He added with a smile.
"Of course." Lucas replied, although his smile was a little bit more strained. In fact Lucas had made several back up copies of his thesis. On to disc, mini-disc and even on to something called a floppy disc that Bridger had told him used to be used a lot when he was younger. And of course there was a copy on his laptop. Unfortunately they were all in the bags that were still in the plane which had crashed somewhere into the forest, and therefore probably in even worse condition than the dwindling copy he held in his hands.
Ben brought Lucas back from his wandering thoughts, "Lucas?" When Lucas looked up Ben continued. "Earlier on we were talking about how you knew so much about medicine..."
Lucas nodded warily.
Subtlety was not one of Ben's strong suits so he opted for a direct approach. "Did you're father ever hit you?" he said simply, as if it was the kind of question anyone would ask over a quite meal or a glass of wine in the evening,
Lucas didn't answer straight away, and Ben was beginning to wonder if the teenager was simply going to ignore the question. When Lucas said something that Ben didn't expect - "Of course."
There was silence for a few seconds. "Your father abused you?" Ben asked trying to make sure they were on the same page of the conversation.
"No," Lucas corrected his friend. "He disciplined me."
Ben's mouth opened and closed, as he tried to fit the word "discipline" into a child knowing how to splint broken legs and dress wounds.
"And you learned how to give first aid...?" Ben asked, trailing off, not able to shape the words to finish the question.
"Of course, it's not as if we could go to the doctor. They wouldn't understand; they'd have got the wrong idea."
"The wrong idea?" Ben whispered.
"They wouldn't have understood that it was my fault my father needed to discipline me. Because they've never tried to raise a child with an IQ which goes straight off the scale, so they'd poke their nose into our business and make matters worse."
"You think what you're father did, was all your fault?" Ben asked, trying to keep his anger at Lucas's father under control.
"I know it was my fault." Lucas replied, still staring into the fire rather than at Ben.
"How?" Ben asked, sure he would not like the answer.
"Because my father told me so." Lucas stated calmly, as if the answer should have been obvious.
***** ***** *****
To Be Continued...
***** ***** *****
That's it for now, hope people are still enjoying. Next chapter will be up as soon as I get a chance to write it. If you have any comments please review - any and all feed back helps :o)