Ο seaQuest δεν είναι ο δικÏŒς μου.
A partridge in a pear tree for all you lovely reviewers out there: Kiddo, Mar, ano, kas, hepatica, sara, pari106, TeacherTam, Zoe and liz.
Kiddo: Yeah, Pro Patria Mori was my first fic, honest!
Mar: Nice to see you again! Hope the exams went well. As for O'Neill's past, check Pro Patria Mori chapter 2 for a little more discussion of his past.
Ghosts
Chapter 8
Lucas checked the backpack for the hundredth time. The explosives were all there, as was the brand new palm-top computer that Bridger had requisitioned for him from the UEO. He still hadn't managed to work out all the bugs in the programme, but his Free Nations computer, to which he had made several improvements, had been confiscated after the incident at the uranium mine. He sighed and leaned back. It was going to be a long trip: ten hours. The one-man subfighter could make it in one and a half, easy, but he had to make sure his energy signature was disguised by the ambient energy in the area, so the pace had to be slow. At least the damn thing had an autopilot. Lucas brought up the map of the terrain between the seaQuest and the Fuji Arc that he had programmed into the sub's computer earlier, and set a course to follow the ocean floor as closely as possible. With any luck, his precautions would allow him to slip under the sensors of any PSW patrols he might pass on the way.
Once the course was set and the tiny sub had started moving, he settled back in the pilot's chair. He knew he had to get some sleep: he would be no use on this mission if he was exhausted. At least here he didn't need to worry about O'Neill. The cramped cockpit was not the most comfortable of sleeping quarters, but he'd had much worse. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
He was woken by a beeping noise. He sat up straight and quickly checked the chronometer. He had been asleep for six hours; he was already deep in Pacific South-West territory, and the proximity sensor was going off. Quickly, Lucas shut off all the power and allowed the subfighter to sink gently down into the silt of the ocean floor. He waited. Somewhere up there, above the hundreds of metres of water that pressed down on him, it was night. At the bottom of the ocean, the darkness was complete.
Or was it? In the distance he thought he could make out two pinpricks of light. They grew larger. A sub. Lucas resisted the urge to turn on the power and scan it: stealth was his best defence now. He hunched down in the seat, although he knew that it wouldn't help him go unnoticed. The lights came closer. Closer. It seemed to Lucas as if they were heading right for him. For a moment, the cockpit was illuminated, and he froze, staring into the light, feeling the sweat trickle down his back. Then the lights passed overhead, and he let out the breath he had been holding with a sigh, wiping the sweat off his forehead. He waited. Ten minutes. Twenty. Thirty. There was no more activity. Finally, he turned the power back and resumed his slow progress towards his goal.
He wasn't able to sleep again: his nerves were still jangling. But he felt refreshed from the long, dreamless sleep he had had, and he was ready for action. The long hours passed by, with time seeming to stand still; if it hadn't been for the quiet purr of the sub's engine and the lights of the instrument panel, Lucas wouldn't have been sure he was alive at all. He could see nothing through the thick perspex window at the front of the cockpit. He guided the shuttle using a combination of the sensors and the computer map, until, finally, a great, dark blue mass loomed on the graphic: the ridge. Lucas piloted the sub round into a fold of the mountain and took out his computer. He was close enough to hack into the base's systems. According to intelligence there was a disused entrance not far from where he sat. It would be risky leaving the sub there, but he hoped to be in and out fast enough that no-one would notice it. But first he had to manipulate the base's internal sensor array into thinking that there was no- one there.
Lucas worked for a long while. Sweat stood out on his forehead. It was a difficult job: not only did he have to hack into the sensors, he had to cover his tracks to make sure no-one knew he was there. Each step he took had to be carefully planned and executed.
Finally, though, he found the sensors connected to the entrance and fed a loop of data into them. He backed slowly out of the system, leaving as many doors open as he could, so that he could use them later if necessary. Then he turned his attention to the system controlling the docking port. That was a piece of cake: it seemed that the PSWs felt pretty secure with their camouflaged base deep in their own territory. Never underestimate a computer genius, Lucas thought with a bitter smile.
The docking port cycled open and Lucas piloted the sub fighter carefully inside. Once the doors were shut again, he looked out through the perspex windshield. It was dark. He scanned the area: no-one seemed to be around. Taking a deep breath, he cracked open the cockpit, grabbed his pulse rifle and backpack and scrambled up onto the main floor level about five feet above the sub.
The room was lit only by a faint light coming from an overhead grille. It was large, although in the half-light he couldn't make out exactly how large, and filled with shadows and odd, bulky shapes. Lucas looked carefully around. Piles of crates obscured his view. It was obvious that this room was being used for storage. Well, that was definitely a good start. He made a quick sweep of the room and spotted an unused tarpaulin. He dragged it over to the docking port and covered the sub. Looking down critically at the lumpy, shapeless mass, he sighed. That'll have to do, he thought, hoping his luck didn't run out.
He called up a plan of the building from the base computers, and searched for a while. He found what he was looking for before too long: the ventilation system. Always works, he thought, shaking his head in amused astonishment. If I ever design something like this, I'm going to make the ventilation shafts too small even for a child.
A reasonable sized repair duct led up from the very room he was standing in. Someone up there was on his side. He crossed to the far wall, and managed to find the panel by groping around in the dark. He pulled a screwdriver out of his backpack pocket and had the panel off the wall in a matter of minutes. He stared at the gaping dark hole for a moment. It was half hidden by a shelf full of jars and bottles, but it was still pretty obvious. Oh well, he thought to himself, climbing into the duct and pulling the panel after him so that it leaned against the hole and mostly covered it, can't win 'em all. There was one thing to be grateful for: the duct was tall enough for him to walk half-upright. He didn't have to crawl. Yet.
Once he was a reasonable way into the shaft, he pulled up the plans again. He spent a few minutes calculating the five weakest spots in the structural system. That was where he would put the explosives. There were several large rooms near the centre of the base labelled "labs". He guessed that was where he would find the disk. Quickly, he worked out a route that would take him past four of the weak spots, then on to the labs before hitting the central structural pillar. He figured that he could probably take the building out with only four explosives, so that if he was caught while retrieving the disk, he would at least be able to carry out half of the mission. Better to be safe than sorry though. He shouldered his backpack, shifted his pulse rifle into a more comfortable position, and set off.
Hours later, Lucas was exhausted. The base was bigger than he had thought, and he had been trekking through the ventilation shafts for what felt like miles, sometimes crawling, sometimes half-walking. It was no easy feat to move around quietly when you were wearing military-issue boots and walking on metal. He had had to wait nearly two hours for a couple of technicians to finish what they were doing before he could set up the fourth explosive, and he was getting nervous about timing. It was only a matter of time before someone noticed the sub or the loose panel. But now he had the hardest part of the task in front of him: retrieving the disk.
He was watching the main lab through a ventilation grille, trying to work out what they were doing. He couldn't see very well, but he could see several computers with various disks scattered around. He squinted through the grille, staring at one disk in particular: he couldn't be sure, but it looked like it had a UEO logo.
It was night again, and most of the lab technicians seemed to be off duty, for which he was grateful. There were still one or two wandering round, but both seemed to be out of the room for the moment. Time to take his chances. Thank God this grille was attached to a hatch rather than a screwed-down panel. Well, he thought, here goes nothing.
He opened the hatch, cautiously but quickly, and crossed the room noiselessly. There was the disk on the table: it did have a UEO logo. All my missions should be this easy, Lucas thought gratefully, grabbing the disk and slipping it into his pocket. Then he froze at a cool voice from behind him.
"Turn around with your hands in the air."