Author's Notes:   Here be Chapter Three.  Anybody still reading this thing?  Eh, what do I care? ::shrugs philosophically::  I still haven't figured out why I'm writing this blasted thing.  Please note that this is still a work in progress, and edits are ongoing. Chapters One and Two were updated with revised versions at the posting of this chapter.

Yet Again, Still Untitled

By Moonbeam

Lt. Ben Krieg backed the shuttle out of the seaQuest, swung her around and immediately spotted the two dolphins he'd been instructed to follow. 

"MR-4 is clear of seaQuest, sir.  I can see Darwin and his friend now.  We're ready to go whenever they are."

"Affirmative, MR-4."  The Captain nodded to Lucas, who immediately triggered the vocorder's transmission outside the boat. "All right, old friend," Bridger said to the waiting dolphins, "lead on.  The shuttle will follow."

Darwin swam a circle in acknowledgement, then he and Einstein took off toward the north-northeast.  Lt. Krieg manoeuvred the shuttle behind them and kept pace with the swiftly moving dolphins.  "So, what are we looking for again, sir?"

Standing on the bridge watching the shuttle through the WSKRs, Bridger smiled indulgently.  "An orca," he declared straight-faced.  Only the gleam in his eyes gave away his amusement.

Ben Krieg's double-take was classic.  "You want me to rescue a whale?"

At his station monitoring the rescue party's progress, Lucas leaned back in his seat and smirked.  "Why not?" he quipped.  "We just  rescued a dolphin."

Nathan swatted the teenager upside the head.  "Lieutenant, you're going to rescue somebody named 'Jesse'.  Darwin's new friend, Einstein, said he was with a killer whale and a sea lion.  So that's what you're looking for," he clarified.

"A killer whale and a sea lion," Krieg marvelled, shaking his head.  "What is this world coming to, when mortal enemies travel together?"

"Lieutenant," the Captain admonished, though his lips were twitching.  "This is a serious Search & Rescue mission. And the seaQuest has a reputation to maintain.  It doesn't matter what species is in need.  The seaQuest doesn't discriminate."

"Yes, sir.  But a whale?  Where are we going to put it?" Ben wondered, shaking his head in bemusement.

"Don't worry, Lieutenant.  I've already got a team taking care of that very issue.  You just find Einstein's lost 'pod' and bring them back here."

"Yes, sir," Lt. Krieg said, becoming serious.  "Looks like we're coming up on them now.  I'm picking up a fairly large signal on the sonar.  Must be the whale.  I don't see any sign of anyone or anything else though."

Bridger raised an eyebrow.  Lt. Miguel Ortiz swivelled in his chair to offer a possible explanation.  "The whale might be overshadowing the other signatures, Captain.  Especially if they're very close together."

The two dolphins the shuttle was following suddenly broke for the surface and raced off the final distance.  Krieg carried on course until he was almost under the motionless sonar blip and then brought the shuttle up right beside the patiently waiting killer whale.  His jaw dropped in shock at what he saw.

"Uh, Miguel?" he said when he recovered his tongue.  "How's being practically piled on top of each other for 'close together'?  Darwin and his buddy just popped up next to the killer whale, and there's somebody with a sea lion sitting on its back. Right up there against its dorsal fin! Man," he remarked in disbelief, "and I thought I'd seen everything."

"Why sound so surprised?" Lucas cut in.  "Einstein said they were part of his pod, that they were family. And you know as well as I do that dolphins never lie."

"Not unless they're told to, at least," Nathan added, casting a significant look at the boy.  Lucas ducked his head in abashment, but his grin grew.  The Captain was still holding a grudge over the prank the teenager had pulled on his guardian the previous month, wherein he'd had to enlist Darwin's cooperation to pull it off.  The playful dolphin had been all too happy to repeat the lie as his podmate had instructed him to.  When he came out of the moonpool's storage locker covered in green slime, however, Nathan hadn't been pleased with either them.  Lucas had been grounded for over a week after that one, and poor Darwin had been confined to the boat for just as long.  Darwin hadn't understood what he'd done wrong, which had gotten Lucas into more trouble for 'using' the dolphin, but the resident boy genius had felt the brief entertainment value was well worth the punishment.  Even when he was forbidden from the Internex and his keyboards' were locked up on him.

"Yeah, well . . ." Ben continued.  "Maybe you should have been the one to come on this rescue mission, Lucas."

"Why's that?" Lucas asked gamely.

"Because it looks like Einstein's friend 'Jesse' is a kid your age.  Heck, I think that boy's even scrawnier than you are!"

Lucas rolled his eyes at the supply officer's heckling.  "Thanks a lot, Ben."

"Gentlemen," Bridger interjected mildly.  "If we may proceed with the mission?"

"Yes, sir," Lt. Krieg replied, instantly contrite.  "Ensigns Cogswell and Dusek are retrieving the boy now."

~*~*~*~*~*~

Skimming along with the shuttle right behind them, the water being pushed forward by its passage easing their way, Darwin exchanged a glance with Einstein and grinned.  Even in the midst of a serious mission, the two young males could appreciate a little fun.  And riding bow waves was always fun.

"So tell me again how you wound up with a killer whale and a sea lion for a pod," Darwin prompted, as he took his cue from the calf beside him and subtly altered his course.  The shuttle followed obediently.

"Willy and Jesse found me sick and hungry, lost in the ocean.  They brought me home with them, and Jesse's human friends helped me get well again.  But I still didn't know anything about living in the wild, so Willy offered to teach me. He's taught me to how find and catch fish, about the dangers of the ocean, even how to flirt with females," Einstein added with a wink.  "He was supposed to be teaching me how to fight sharks this weekend when Jesse and Lucille decided to go sightseeing.  I was glad to go with them."

"Wanted to skip out on your shark-fighting lesson, huh? My mother would've bitten my fluke if I'd tried something like that! Uh, actually . . ," Darwin paused, whistling guiltily, "she did.  But now that you mention it," he continued quickly, changing the topic off his own embarrassing calfhood exploits.  "I'm surprised you don't have a shark as a member of your little motley group."

"Actually," Einstein laughed self-consciously, "we sort of do.  His name is Slash -- he's a tiger shark.  Jesse saved him from poachers and then he returned the favor by saving Lucille from a mako."

"A mako went after a sea lion?" Darwin asked, confused.  Makos might have been fierce fighters, but they weren't all that big or quick. A sea lion shouldn't have been at risk.

"She was injured," Einstein explained, "couldn't swim away or defend herself.  Slash charged the mako and drove him off, then stayed to protect Lucille until Jesse came by with a boat to pick her up.  Lucille even said 'thank you'.  I think she might of, you know, liked Slash after that," he confided with a chuckle.

Darwin whistled in amazement.  "And I thought I lived an exciting life."

Then they were approaching the site of the wreckage and conversation between them ceased as Einstein bolted ahead.  "Willy!" he called, leaping excitedly into the air.  "I found help!"

The huge killer whale startled awake, as did his passengers.  Lucille screeched in fright and fell backwards into the water, jolting Jesse. They barely had time to recover before the seaQuest launch surfaced nearby, sending the sea lion scrambling.  She ducked around the orca and hid behind him, climbing his back again to peak out through the safety of Willy's drooping dorsal fin.

Darwin popped up a little ways off to watch the reunion and observe his new friend's most unusual pod.  He hovered in the water close to the shuttle, thinking they made a good pair.  His own family was every bit as strange.

"Einstein! Where have you been?! We've been worried sick!" the human boy perched the killer whale exclaimed.  And Darwin amended his previous thought as he understood every word without benefit from the vocorder. There were some major differences. Like that while they could both talk to humans, he needed a computer to translate for him.  Einstein was lucky enough to know a Truth-Talker, one of those rare individuals born with the innate ability to understand the common animal language.  Jesse could talk to any animal, any time he pleased.

Truth-Talkers were revered by the animal kingdom.  The unusual ability some humans had to communicate with the other species sharing the planet was considered a special gift.  It was said to be bestowed by the Great Spirits only to those of the purest of souls.  Darwin had only ever heard of them as myths, legends passed on from the elders of each generation. The story of the Truth-Talkers was a favorite among the young of any species, but few really believed them to be anything more than the fanciful tales of their ancestors.

Darwin had never considered he'd one day be fortunate enough to meet one.  Yet here one was, and in need of his pod's help. Darwin didn't know how to react to this calfhood fantasy become reality.  He looked to his new friend for guidance.

"I'm sorry, Jesse.  I got caught in a net and almost drowned! Darwin," Einstein was explaining, "saved me.  But as soon as I got better, we brought his pod back to help.  Look, they're humans too!"

But Jesse didn't answer, because the launch hatch was opening and a man was crawling out.  The crewman called out to the boy, speaking the human tongue that none of the animals could understand.  Everyone, even the great predator Einstein called Teacher, waited for the small boy's reaction.

"It's okay!" the boy yelled back, patting the orca on its head.  "I'm not hurt that bad, I'll come to you."

But the boy's friends had different ideas.  The whale's voice rumbled deeply as he spoke, and Darwin had to resist the urge to flee.  Killer whales and dolphins didn't usually hang around each other.  They weren't mortal enemies like the orca and sea lion were, but they weren't exactly civil cousins either.  Einstein's pod truly was unique.

"Wait a minute, Jesse," the orca said.  "Just what do these humans want, first of all?"

Despite being far enough away that the seaQuest crew could not hear unless he raised his voice, Jesse leaned over to whisper to the animals.  Darwin drifted close enough to listen without realising it.

"They want to take me back to their ship, I guess," the boy explained.  "He asked if he needed to come get me or if I could come to him."

"You're not going anywhere without me!" the female sea lion, the 'Lucille' Einstein spoke of with both fondness and exasperation, declared with surprising ferocity.  Darwin hadn't pegged her as the protective type based on everything the calf had told him, but it was obvious she was concerned about the boy's safety among strangers.  Then again, perhaps that was to be expected -- the boy was a Truth-Talker after all.  Any animal worth their spirit would feel protective of him.

"It will be alright," Darwin added, wanting to reassure them.  "No harm will come to you, Truth-Talker, or to any of you.  These humans are my pod, you can trust them.  They only want to help."

"Yeah, I got that impression too," the Truth-Talker agreed, looking at Darwin assessingly.  "I'm sure we'll all want to have a long chat later on," he said, "but for now I'd just like to get warmed, dried, and fed. What I'm concerned about is you guys. I can go with them in that mini-sub thing, and maybe Lucille too.  But what about Willy? Einstein? Or you, Darwin?"

"Their big underwater boat has special tunnels that Darwin uses to swim about in.  I'm sure they've got room for me and Willy, too. Won't they, Darwin?" Einstein cast a plaintive gaze at the older dolphin.

Darwin clicked reassuringly.  "Of course they will. seaQuest is a good boat, and it's very big.  My swimtubes are too small for your orca friend, but I'm sure Bridger has thought of some place to put him.  So you will all be coming with us?" he asked the group, but watched the Truth-Talker for the response.

"Guess so," Jesse sighed.  "Alright, come on Lucille.  Let's go get onboard.  You guys will stick close?"

"Count on it, Jesse," Willy confirmed and the Truth-Talker relaxed.  Darwin cocked his head in wonder.  The small human apparently drew great security from the fiercesome predatory whale.  Darwin would have to revise his opinions of all of them before this experience was over, he was beginning to see.

Then the boy called over to the rescue crew, and he and sea lion jumped into the water to swim the short distance over.  Ensign Cogswell helped the boy in, mindful of his injured leg (especially under the eye of a watchful killer whale), then he and Lt. Krieg fought to manhandle the persistent sea lion in as well.  Darwin almost laughed at the spectacle they made.  For every grunt of effort the humans made, the not-so-lightweight sea lion would berate them with indignant barks in her own language.  Darwin was almost glad he couldn't understand her.

"She's a feisty one," he commented admiringly when the sea lion nearly bit the ensign for trying to push her head first down the hatch.  They all heard the Truth-Talker yell at her to shut up and get down there already, then heard her distinctive yelp when Ben all of a sudden heaved her over and in.

The orca sighed.  "That she is, but we're used to her."

Then the shuttle was ready and they were underway.  The shuttle submerged to return to seaQuest and two dolphins and a killer whale set off at a leisurely pace behind them.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"So young man, what are you doing out more than 100 miles away from the nearest shore?" Nathan asked, unconsciously using his 'dad' voice.  It was a tone he hadn't thought he'd ever use again after Robert's death; one which he'd locked away in the darkest part of his heart along with all his memories of his lost family.  He'd all but forgotten about it until he'd found himself calling upon that special tone designed to kick recalcitrant teenagers into obedience when he'd gotten a wet-behind-the-ears boy genius for a Chief Computer Analyst.  He found himself using it again with the bedraggled teenager his dolphin crewmember had insisted they rescue.  The one with the sea lion that refused to let the boy out of her sight, following her charge even into the medbay to Dr. Westphalen's extreme consternation.

Bridger wasn't sure he'd ever seen a more unlikely assortment.

Luckily, the 'dad' voice worked as it was supposed to.  The boy cringed guiltily and hurried to defend himself.  "My mentor is doing research on orcas at an underwater institute near here.  I usually help him out, since Willy listens to me, but they didn't need us today.  So I borrowed a skimmer craft to go exploring, and we were just fine.  The only trouble happened after we were caught in the squall and a wave destroyed the boat," he finished defensively.

Nathan's eyebrows had shot up in surprise when he heard the boy was from McNamara, the only underwater research institute in the nearby vicinity, but they dropped again at the last.  "You went out in a small boat, alone, with a tropical storm due in the area?"

Jesse crossed his arms and glared balefully at the disapproving parental tone.  Sitting on the exam bed, scraggly brown hair still dripping wetly around his ears, wrapped in a blanket while a nurse cleaned his leg wound, the boy looked more like a sulking five year old than a supposedly-competent teenager.  Actually, Nathan realised with concealed amusement, he looked a lot like Lucas did when caught doing something he knew was wrong. 

"I didn't know there was a storm coming," Jesse said absently, his attention diverted to watching the nurse carefully elbow a curious whiskered snout out of her field of vision.  "And I wasn't alone.  Willy, Lucille and Einstein were with me."  He tossed the watching sea lion a small fish from the bucket beside him. She swallowed the food in one gulp and went back to peering quizzically at the nurse's actions on her human friend.

Nathan smiled and shook his head as he watched.  Kristin had almost had a coronary when the boy had asked for something to feed the sea lion, ranting endlessly about germs and contamination of her sterile medbay.  She hadn't been any happier when the boy pointed out the place was already dirtied by the presence of the sea lion herself -- but it would have taken tranquilizers to remove the loyal mammal against her will, and not even Kristin was willing to do that. 

"An orca, a sea lion, and a dolphin don't generally make suitable sailing partners.  What if you'd been hurt worse? What if Darwin hadn't found Einstein and brought us to you?"  Bridger returned to the conversation at hand.

The boy rolled his eyes in typical teenaged exasperation.  "I would've been fine, I was fine.  They're my friends, they took care of me. And Einstein did bring you, which no human could have done," Jesse added, the unspoken 'so there' ringing in the air. 

Nathan shook his head, giving up on that argument for the moment.  "You shouldn't have been out there at all.  There's been a tropical storm warning in this area for days now.  Surely your parents objected?"

"My parents are at home in California and Randolph knows I can take care of myself," the boy glared again, then winced when the nurse give him a shot.  The hovering sea lion barked threateningly at the perceived threat, startling the nurse. But the boy merely waved his hand in reassurance, and the sea lion settled right back down.

"It's just an antibiotic," the nurse said in explanation.  Surprisingly, the salt water of the ocean seemed to have kept his long narrow gash relatively clean, so the risk of infection was unlikely.  The shot was only a precautionary measure.

"Randolph is your mentor at the Institute?" the Captain continued his gentle interrogation after the nurse was finished.

"Yeah, we do research on the killer whale population.  Willy's family, J-pod, were passing through the area.  Randolph and I are the experts on them," Jesse said proudly.

Bridger nodded obligingly, feeling a pang of sorrow for his own resident youth.  Whereas this boy displayed the normal teenage reaction of boastful pride, Lucas was always diffident to a fault about his accomplishments.  Some times Nathan wanted nothing more than to take Lucas into his arms and hug the stuffing out of him until the teen realised he was loved and appreciated.  Other times he wanted nothing more than to beat the crap out of whoever (and he had a pretty good idea whom it was) instilled that lack of self-esteem. 

"How are Willy and Einstein?" Jesse suddenly asked, hopping down from the bed and breaking Nathan's distraction.

Nathan smiled, reaching out to lend the limping boy a hand.  "They're fine.  We flooded one of our secondary launch bays part way and put the orca in there.  It's on C-deck, same as the moonpool which is where Darwin can usually be found. Darwin also has a swimtube that leads right into it, so the dolphins can still visit him."

After the boy changed into some dry clothes donated by Lucas, the pair headed out the door and Bridger lead them down toward the moonpool.  "The seaQuest was already on its way to McNamara Institute when we were diverted to rescue you, son, so we'll be able to return you safely without going any further out of our way.  We should be there in just a few hours.  Will your sea lion friend be staying with you, or should I have Ensign Graves set her up by the moonpool?"

"Nah, she'll probably stay with me the whole time," Jesse answered distractedly, all his concentration focused on hopping down the corridor in the slightly too-long jeans.  The sea lion in question followed doggedly in their wake, garnering a few odd looks from passing crewman on the way.  "Hey, wait a minute! How'd you know I was from McNamara?"

"Lucky guess," Nathan said, ruffling the boy's damp hair.  "It's the only underwater facility in this part of the ocean, so unless you drifted way off course, it's where you had to be from."

"Cool," Jesse nodded.  "It'll be good to get back and change into some of my own clothes. I'm not the flannel-wearing type, you know? Not that I don't appreciate what you got me, 'cause I'm real grateful to be dry," he added hurriedly, casting the older man a look between his eyelashes to see if he'd offended him.  "Speaking of which though, where'd you get the duds to fit a kid on this boat?" The seaQuest was obviously a military vessel; not the expected place to find supplies suited to a skinny sixteen year-old.  And yet the clothing they had given him, while a bit long in the leg, otherwise fit his lanky frame perfectly.

His escort chuckled.  "They belong to our Chief Computer Analyst, whom you'll meet shortly.  I expect you and Lucas will get along quite well. The two of you seem to have a lot in common."

"Yeah, whatever. I'd like to check on Willy and Einstein before finding a meal and bed of my own, if you don't mind, sir.  It's been something of a hectic day."

The Captain smiled.  "I understand.  Lucas is probably with the animals right now.  I have to be getting back to the bridge, but I'll leave you in his capable hands. He'll show you to the mess, then find you somewhere to bunk down for a few hours."

"As long as your guy doesn't mind," Jesse said as they rounded a final curve and the moonpool came into view.  Jesse grinned as he saw Einstein and the other dolphin bobbing in the water side by side.  "Thanks, man."

"I'm sure it'll be no problem," the Captain assured.  He looked around for Lucas while Jesse went to greet the dolphins.

"Hey guys!" Jesse called, waving a arm as he limped over to the large half-moon shaped tank.  Both dolphins immediately swam over and issued a series of excited clicks in greeting.

"If you press the button on the square yellow thing to the right, you can talk to them," a raspy voice said from behind him.  Jesse spun to see a boy not much older than himself, dressed in ripped jeans and worn flannel similar to what Jesse himself was now clad in.  The other boy was watching him with a deliberately blank cast to his fair-haired face. 

Jesse's back immediately went up.  "Talk to them?" he stared right back.

The other boy nodded, moving closer.  "It's an interspecies translation device. The program converts dolphin clicks and whistles into English words and vice-versa.  I call it the vocorder."

Jesse watched him manipulate the yellow hand-held machine.  Both dolphins were eerily silent, peering at the teenagers with matching deep black eyes.   "Who built it?"

"I did," the other boy said, lifting his chin in challenge.

Jesse grit his teeth.  "And who are you?"

"Lucas Wolenczak, seaQuest's Chief Computer Analyst.  Who the hell are you?"

"Jesse Greenwood, orca researcher, currently stationed at the McNamara Institute."

"Don't you mean 'orca trainer'?" Lucas contested.  "I saw your killer whale's drooping dorsal fin. They only get those in captivity."

"Yeah, which is where I rescued him from," Jesse sniped back.

The two teenagers glared at each other, body language aggressive, each unwilling to break eye contact before the other.  In their matching jeans and flannel shirts, longish untamed hair, and thin gangly frames -- though Lucas was an inch or two taller than Jesse and made good use of it to look down his nose at the shorter boy -- they looked like weird mirror images of each other.  It was the interrogative chittering of the dolphins that finally broke their stalemate, as Jesse turned to calm a nervous Einstein.  "It's okay, buddy," he murmured, reaching out to stroke the calf along its melon.

"Jesse, Lucas, friends?" Einstein asked carefully, and Jesse started as the dolphin's natural voice was echoed moments later by a mechanical one.  The effect was a bit disorienting, like holding a conversation with someone from opposite ends of a cave.

The really odd part was that Einstein was speaking in dolphin, not the common animal language Jesse innately understood. If it weren't for the other boy's device, Jesse would only have heard Einstein's squealing chatter.

"What the . . . ?"

Lucas snorted.  "That's the dolphins speaking through the vocorder," he explained, then likewise turned to pet Darwin.  "What do you mean, guys?"

Again the disorienting resonance as the vocorder kicked in.  "Jesse - Einstein pod. Lucas - Darwin pod.  Einstein - Darwin friends. Jesse - Lucas friends?"

The logic was simple enough to understand. Einstein wanted the two teenagers, both important members of a dolphin's family group, to get along.  And whatever instinctive antagonism the two boys felt for one another was upsetting the young dolphin.  For the animals' sake, they'd have to be nice to each other.

Eyes locking above the dolphins' heads, Jesse and Lucas grimaced in tandem.

~*~*~*~*~*~

To Be Continued . . .

Author's Notes:  God, I hope this story isn't cursed or something. Two of the actors playing my main characters are now dead.  You all likely know about Jonathon Brandis's untimely demise on November 12, but did you know Keiko the Orca died of pneumonia on December 12? Coincidence? You be the judge.