PROLOG:
When Time Has No Meaning

Saturday, June 3rd, 2010
Somewhere in the North Atlantic

It was dark, cold, wet, and he hated it. More than when Lt. Cmdr Marilyn Stark had taken over command when their captain had been killed. More than when she had yelled, "Brace for impact!"

That was all he remembered. Right now he was mildly confused. He remembered running to help the others to get a firm hold, and he remembered even pushing Stark into the other compartment while she ordered him to get to the launch. But by then the blast doors had cycled closed. It was too late for him. For a few minutes he heard her banging on the opposite side of the door, and then silence.

And the dark cold.

He didn't really know how long he had been there. He still had air. But no lights and no warmth. Sometimes he was surprised he was alive. But he was. He grinned.

It had to be that famous Bridger stubbornness.

Mid-Fall, 2018
seaQuest DSV

Captain Nathan Bridger stared down Captain Marilyn Stark, even though he couldn't actually see her. He actually was looking at the display of the Delta IV that she commanded. Right now his feelings didn't matter, nor hers. Somehow he could almost sense regret coming from her that it had come to this. He knew his duty, and he suspected she did too. "Fire!" he ordered.

The one torpedo that they had manage to arm, and aim thanks to Darwin, sped on its way. The other sub never suspected until it was too late. In detachment he could not truly feel he watched the Delta IV break up and go down.

He took one breath and released it with the rest of the past that threatened to consume him. Stark, when he knew her before, was an enigma while he knew that she was cold and brilliant. Correction. Had been. He had killed her.

The one person who had seen his son moments before he was killed.

Mid-Summer, 2025
Okinawa, Japan

The middle aged man leaned back in his chair enjoying his newly bought freedom. He was a slender man, but not as slender as a few of the men he saw here. Moreover he was taller than most of the Japanese at a fairly normal height. Dark brown hair that he had tried to trim down to a decent length, but had given up and just tidied was tied in a mid-length pony tail. He had a neatened beard on his face of the same colour and dark eyes. He might have mixed in with the Japanese if he was not so obviously Caucasian. Anyone that would have known his former life and his parents would have said he was the splitting image of his father when he was the same age, and he would have agreed. When he first looked into a mirror in years that had been his first thought as well. The Japanese here didn't shy from him as he was a welcoming sort. If anything they pitied the man. Slavery was a nasty thing, and he had the whip scars to prove it.

The bar he sat in was typically Okinawan. It was made with what was available and lent an air of a time from long ago. The man breathed this in as if air to his senses. The wooden floor boards that creaked softly below his feet, the thatched roof of palm fronds, and bamboo walls were balm to his troubled spirit. His sake in front of him had grown cold. He found it too similar to tequila, a drink he never had acquired a taste for, but was too polite to say he didn't like what he was drinking. His parents had raised him better. So he let them think that his contemplations were the source of his not drinking what was offered. In truth, part of it was.

He was finally free to go home.

To what was left, anyway.

His former life was dead and gone. Even his father was dead as far as anyone knew. Disappeared without a trace scarcely two years ago. He snorted. No, there had to be a trace. No one truly disappeared. They were temporarily misplaced, enslaved even, but not ever gone without a trace.

When he had finally worked his way to freedom the man formally known as Robert Bridger had tried to contact his family. The old phone number was, naturally, out of service. In its place was this 'vid-link'. Then he had called trying to find out what the old number had been replaced with and found out that the world still used phone numbers, they just had more digits. The number he had would have been logically changed from 1-705-565-3219 to 001-070-5565-3219. So he called that. And got some French lady who had taken over that number just after it had become free again.

The free again part meant a changed phone number. He called the phone company his Dad had dealt with, gave all the past security passwords (he knew his father that well), and the lady on the phone had cheerfully told him that his father had cancelled his services, resumed them again, and then after his... presumed death... the services had been cut off again.

Robert had thanked her and hung up. Using the Internex he called up information on his mother. Surely she would still be...

And then was double shocked when he learned that she had died seven years after his own disappearance in late 2017. Oh Dad, he breathed. It's a wonder you made it with your sanity intact...

As for Robert Bridger, with no family to contact he was effectively done. Leaning back in his chair as the bartender looked at him with pitying eyes, having caught the conversation, his cold sake was replaced with fresher sake. Robert took a sip and recognized that it had also been switched with a better vintage. This one definitely more to his liking. If only he had someone else to call... He thought of his friends from the academy. Hey wait a minute, he sat up. There is someone else!

He nearly slapped his forehead in complete silliness as he called the information up on Benjamin Kreig.

Ben leaned back at his desk as he continued to work at the programming glitch. For the dozenth time he found himself wishing Lucas was there. That kid would have had his supply tracking program up and running by now. He leaned back, missing the probably dead young man, balancing his chair on the two back legs and sipping his coffee when the vid-link began to ring.

He fell forward on all four chair legs and hit the audio only pick up. "Kreig here," he said.

"Ben, I was rather hoping it would be you and not Katie," Krieg spewed out his mouthful of coffee at the voice he was not supposed to be hearing. "What the hell, Benny?"

"Bobby?" he choked when he could finally breathe through the coffee inhaled. "Man, is that really you?"

"Doh," came the sardonic reply. "Yeah, it is. Can we at least see each other, seeing as this seems to be the biggest thing since the cell phone!"

Ben hit the video control and gazed at wonder at the image of his best friend. The friend he thought dead... "Holy shit," breathed Krieg. "It is you... Man, you look like your Dad."

Robert Bridger screwed up his face in an expression that eerily reminded Krieg of his father Nathan, and of Robert at the same time. God, he looked like his father... "So what's up?" asked Ben, forcing lightheartedness. "Where have you been hiding yourself?"

"Really really long story," answered Robert. "Listen, can you spare me transportation to where you are? I would come to you except..."

"In a jiffy, man!" responded Krieg, then he thought for a second. "Just where the Hell are you?"

The reunion at the airport in New York City was short. Ben and Robert walked to Ben's car where Ben asked, "You look like Hell. I think you should tell me that story."

Robert took a breath. "When Marilyn left me," he shook his head. She didn't have much choice seeing as he had been the one to push her through the blast doors seconds before they had closed. "Anyway, I was trapped behind those doors. I waited for a time. Then the enemy found me. I was taken prisoner. But the bastards never reported that they took prisoners."

"There was more than just you?" asked Krieg quietly.

"Yeah, there was," he answered. "I survived, solely because I was the least injured. I think a few other may have too, but we were split up and... sold into slavery to the highest bidder. They didn't care who we were. We were just commodities with no names."

Krieg stopped as he reached for the handle of the car door. "Jesus, Bobby..."

Krieg unlocked the car and they climbed in. Robert went silent and stayed that way the entire trip. Neither said anything until they had reached Krieg's apartment. "I'm not putting you out or anything, am I?" he asked.

Snorting in derision, Ben answered, "No. After all you've been through I think you deserve a break."

Ben led him into the apartment, and Robert looked around. He gave a laugh that relieved Ben, "Not putting you out? You could house ten people in here!"

Which was very true. When Krieg had left the seaQuest and the UEO, he had put his skills to commercial, but legal, use. As a result he was very well off. His apartment had three large bedrooms, but one was clearly re-done to be a home office. The other was a guest bedroom. "Mi casa es tu casa," said Krieg. "I have a feeling you need a place secure to get your stuff in order. Feel free to use my office and my home as your new base of ops."

"Thanks man," Robert said as he wandered around.

Eventually, as Ben knew, his eyes settled on the crew photograph of the seaQuest. Quietly Robert asked, "You served under my Dad. What was he like?"

At first Ben didn't know how to answer. It was a loaded question. He sat down in one of his ottoman recliners. "Well, he was the same, and different than how you ever described him," began Ben as he related what he remembered of his cruise with seaQuest.

September, 2027
Pearl

The two captains squared off and neither looked like they were going to budge. Admiral Katherine Hitchcock watched the argument turn into a staring contest. To tell the truth, even though she knew both, one professionally and the other both professionally and personally, she wasn't sure which one would back down.

Frankly, she was disgusted with the both of them. Whenever they were in the same room they would squabble over the littlest thing...

"Gentlemen, surely you can both see the validity of each others points..."

"It's a boat," repeated Captain Robert Bridger.

"A boat is a vessel that can be carried on another. It can't, therefore, it's a ship," maintained Captain Oliver Hudson.

Katie's head sunk until it was in both hands. What the Hell is with men, anyway, she wondered. What is their genes that tell them they must compete over everything? A shrill whistle cut through the new arguing match that ensued over that. They both stared at Hitchcock. "Now that I have your attention, I can tell you, when we find the seaQuest, which of you two will command her, and who will back the other up in one of the two subs of your new battle group..." she took a breath and quelled Bridger, God, this could be confusing later... with a glance and continued. "Captain Robert Bridger, the seaQuest DSV will be yours. Captain Hudson, the Viscount is yours."

"What about my old command?" asked Bridger.

With that she smiled, "Your old X-O will be given her captains bars."

He nodded, satisfied, and then pointed to Hudson, "So why did he not get the seaQuest?"

"My question as well..." Hudson seemed to be puzzled. He was sure he had been getting it.

McGath chose that moment to enter the room. He surveyed the now crisply saluting Hitchcock and Hudson, and the... well, even in that Robert Bridger reminded McGath of his father. One of the very reasons he had been awarded the seaQuest, should they ever find her. "At ease," he said, and noticed again that Bridger took the least amount of time to fall into a relaxed pose. The other two still looked like they had iron rods up their spines. "As for the reason... As you know, Alexander Bourne is the new president of the Macronesian Alliance."

"Yeah, but what does that have to do with me?" asked Bridger.

"Our sources tell us that he is afraid of seaQuest," started McGath. "Or more specifically, he's afraid of Bridger."

"I'm not my father."

"No, you're not," agreed McGath, and then he smiled and turned to Hitchcock. "You had the honour of serving under Nathan Bridger, right?"

"Yes sir."

He gestured at Robert, "How much is Robert like his father Nathan?"

She snorted in surprise, seeing instantly where he was going, "Honestly, sometimes... except for their difference in age of course... I can't tell the two apart. Robert Bridger is that much like his father, sir."

He turned to Oliver, "You knew Captain Nathan Bridger too, albeit in passing, your opinion."

Hudson grinned, "I would have to agree with the Admiral. Except that if you turn around real quick sometimes they look like each other too."

Robert looked at everyone and said, "Why do I get a feeling I don't have much choice in the matter... But I won't take seaQuest for political reasons. You have to actually prove to me that I'm a better man for the job than Captain Hudson. I will not take her if I am only getting this command due to my father's influence."

Hudson spoke up before McGath could say anything stupid, or political. Which usually amounted to the same thing. "Well, Captain. Listen to what you just said. A lesser man would not have cared and taken the flagship anyway."

"Your experience, military and non-military speaks for itself. So does your excellence," said Hitchcock. "Looking at your military background is almost like reading your fathers." She began to read from two open folders. "He had eight commendations, you have now have eight commendations. He had a degree in marine geology and geophysics, while you were studying marine biology, with geology as a minor. You never had the chance to finish because you disappeared then. I could go on."

Robert shook his head and McGath said, "So, will you take the seaQuest?"

"Yeah, but only if Hudson and the Viscount are my back up."

Yeah, I decided to re-post it all. I noticed that the formatting was all screwed up and so I went back and fixed it. Not to mention all the small typos that needed fixed ;)