Chapter Sixty One

0720 Local Time
USS Patrick Henry

Mac woke up the next morning to the sound of the ship engines. She never understood why her flyboy loved carrier life so much, there wasn't much to do, no mall, no phone calls, not much of the life that she was used to. She was getting ready to drop down from the top bunk when the door swung open.

"Colonel Mackenzie!" Deek exclaimed coming into her room.

"Deek, get out, I haven't put on my uniform yet, I will meet you in an hour. Dismissed." She screeched at him.

Harm popped his head out from the head. He was brushing his teeth and foam was coming out of his mouth. "I swear I am going to deck that guy one day."

"Thank God you were in the head when he decided to burst in here. Can you imagine the nerve of him! Are you using my toothbrush?"

"Can you imagine what would have happened if he actually caught us in bed together?" Harm said with a smile. "I have missed you so much, and not because we are great in bed, I just miss waking up early and watching you sleep, and yes, I am using your toothbrush."

He helped her down off the top bunk and kissed her. "Commander Rabb report to the bridge immediately." He heard being announced over the loud speaker.

"Gotta cut this short." He kissed Mac again on the forehead and ran out of the room.

Mac jumped in the shower and thought about her night with Harm. She realized that every word he spoke was true, she loved lying in his arms. With other men, she never wanted to be touched, but with him, she couldn't stand to be near him and not touch him.

She pulled on her skirt cursing the fact that she hadn't had time to get more of her uniform pants cleaned before she went on this trip and headed towards Ensign Kromer's room and locker. She pulled out several items and placed them in a cardboard box. Nothing seemed to jump out at her as out of the ordinary. She grabbed some breakfast which included a box of cereal and a banana and made her way to the JAG office onboard.

"Good morning Colonel." Lt. Downs greeted. Lt. Downs was a nice looking guy who reminded her a little bit of Bud.

"Good morning Lieutenant."

"Is there anything I can help you out with this morning."

"Nothing right now, do you have a CD that I can use though to save a copy of my report on?"

"Actually we are all out at the moment. There are some in the cardboard box though that you brought."

"Thanks Lieutenant."

Mac reached down and popped one of the CD rewrites into the computer, normally she wouldn't have but she would reimburse the ensign later. She hit save on the computer then all of the sudden her computer started acting haywire. "Lieutenant, can you tell me what is going on?"

"Must have been a bad disc ma'am."

Mac didn't think much of it, and when she took out the disc, the problem with her computer stopped and she just decided to email it to the Admiral.

"Are you alright Colonel?" Downs asked when he heard her sigh.

"I had to recommend to the Admiral that I needed more time and wasn't certain about the case and would get back to him at a later time, but I had to draft a preliminary report. Unless you can give me an alibi for Ensign Kromer, then I don't know what you can do to help me."

"You know, Ensign Kromer is such a nice girl. The moment I met her I knew that she was the type of girl I wanted to bring home to meet Mama."

"Infatuated Lieutenant?"

"Yes ma'am," he said, then he stammered, "No ma'am, but you know the type of girl. She is the type of girl that is intelligent, she went to college when she was sixteen, and when her parents didn't have the money, she qualified for a ROTC scholarship. I let her sit with me a lunch, that way she always has someone to sit with, being the new kid and all. You know, the type of girl that a guy like me would be proud to bring home to Mama."

"That is really nice of you."

"You know, Commander Rabb and Commander Graves taught us all on the ship to be nicer to everyone. Commander Rabb has really helped morale, and every so often he comes down to help us out," the lieutenant started prattling on. Mac just smiled at him.

"I have worked with the Commander for years, and Commander Graves is my cousin. They have a way of bringing out the best in people. What do you like most about Ensign Kromer?" Mac asked getting to know her client better.

"She is smart, funny, and she makes friends with everyone. In fact she got a package from one of her friends from home the other day. Not that I'm stalkin her, she was the only one the other day to get a care package, everyone else got letters."

"What was in the package?"

"I don't know, you have to ask her."

"Thank you Lieutenant. You helped me out a lot today." She quickly got up and left the office and headed down into the brig.

"Corporal, open up, I need to talk to Ensign Kromer." The Corporal opened up the doors and led her to where Ensign Kromer was.

Upon seeing Mac enter Justine Kromer snapped to attention. "At ease," she said a second later. "This just a quick question, who did you receive a care package from the other day?"

"A friend of mine from the ROTC unit back in Illinois, Officer Candidate Nasser."

"What was in it?"

"Well, JJ sent me an angel, a card, a pack of cards, a tin of cookies, and some computer CDs."

"Why did he send you computer CDs?"

"Well we were running out here, and I had asked my friends back home that if they could spare some to send them out. I needed them to burn some music on it, or to do everyday things, sometimes when we run out, I use my own just to get the job done quicker."

"Sounds like you have some pretty good friends. Thing is, I think that one of your friends sent you a disc loaded with the virus that brought down the Tomcat." Mac could see the look of betrayal that swept across her face.

"Why would they do that? I mean, we are all Officers for this country! Why would they try to sabotage a program that would help out our fighting men and women? It doesn't make any sense ma'am."

"I know Ensign. I need your help. I have a feeling that they laced all of the programs instead of just one, not knowing which one that you would use."

"It makes sense ma'am. We didn't have a problem with the test Tomcat that received the program from the disc from here onboard, but the ones that were used using the other discs were infected. But wouldn't the diagnostics test ran before pick it up?"

"Ensign, who runs the diagnostics?"

"I don't know."

"Okay Ensign." Mac figured that the person running the diagnostics had to have been helping out the person on land and was using Ensign Kromer as a scapegoat. Why couldn't she have an easier case?

1100 Local Time
Patrick Henry

Mac found Deek who was standing out interviewing the maintenance crews. "Commander Smalls, I need to speak to you."

"What do you need Colonel?"

She pulled him aside. "Ensign Kromer didn't design the virus, the disc already had the virus on it, and there is someone working on this ship using her as the scapegoat."

"How do you know that she didn't put the virus on the disc and is duping you?

"Because I am running diagnostics all of the discs that Ensign Kromer has received from a care package, and all of the discs have the same virus on them, even the package of discs that was unopened."

"Well how did it escape being detected on the diagnostics?"

"It had to be the person running the diagnostics."

"How are you going to prove it?"

"I have a plan, but I have to get it okayed by the Captain." Mac said not feeling to sure about this plan.

1300 Local Time

Harm strutted down from the cockpit, and helped Emily down. Mac and Emily still looked so much alike, but acted nothing alike.

"That was good flying up there Hammer."

"Thanks Kanga."

Harm looked up and found Mac waiting for him on vultures row. She saw them and smiled, and Harm and Emily made their way up to the row.

"Hey Emily, guess who I talked to?" Mac said to her as they approached her.

"No clue."

"Aunt Mabel and Uncle Charlie."

"Mom and Dad called? Why?"

"Seems that they won a vacation to Bermuda for two weeks and wanted to know if you could arrange child care for Brennen."

"I can't do that, I'll have to put in for emergency leave."

"Well, I already offered to take Brennen. After all, he is my cousin, and we only live thirty minutes apart."

"Mac, you have a teenager and a baby at home. I think a three year old is going to add to the stress."

"Don't worry. I have plenty of help, seems that my fiancé arranged to have someone stop in every five minutes. It is settled, if you can't take leave then I am taking him."

"Thanks Mac. Mom and Dad haven't had a vacation in awhile."

"It really is no problem Em. Besides, what I am getting ready to ask you to do will pale in comparison to babysitting."

Mac told them the plan, and they readily agreed. The plan was a simple one, it was to catch the diagnostic crew in action by staging a test run of the new software again. They would then see who let the virus through the next time the pilots had an op to run. Captain Ingles was all for this plan and anxious to get his ship back to tip top shape.

AN – You guys rock, I wasn't going to take a break from my midterm, but here you go – thanks for all of the reviews, keep it up and the chapters will get out faster (at least as fast as I can crank them out with real life right now)